Speaker 1: Kubbooms.
Speaker 2: If you thought four hours a day, twelve hundred minutes
Speaker 2: a week was enough, think again. He's the last remnants
Speaker 2: of the old Republic, a sol fashion of fairness. He
Speaker 2: treats crackheads in the ghetto cutter the same as the
Speaker 2: rich pill poppers in the penthouse.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: The Clearinghouse of Hot takes break free for something special.
Speaker 2: The Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now.
Speaker 1: In the air everywhere, The Fifth Hour with me Ben Maler,
Speaker 1: Hello and Danny g Radio. A Happy Friday to year,
Speaker 1: the twelfth day of September. As we are one game
Speaker 1: in two week number two, week number two of the
Speaker 1: NFL season of the Packers and the Commanders last night,
Speaker 1: and now you have a full weekend of the Fifth Hour,
Speaker 1: and we kick it off right now on this edition
Speaker 1: the Friday Special, after a very long overnight show, The
Speaker 1: Friday Special. We've got bugs, Bunny Truman, and possibly some
Speaker 1: other things. But we're gonna begin with this. So, as
Speaker 1: you know, the Fifth Hour a tribute to the Overnight Show.
Speaker 1: Let me talk about whatever pops up in the head
Speaker 1: that I have on top of my body here. So
Speaker 1: the text arrived the other day. It was during the
Speaker 1: radio show and the text said are you on the radio?
Speaker 1: Which I thought was odd because I was literally doing
Speaker 1: the show. It was like midway through the show and
Speaker 1: the text came in, are you on the radio? And
Speaker 1: so I wrote back, yes, I'm on the radio, and
Speaker 1: then silence, and minutes later, the call screening board in
Speaker 1: my computer lit up. Now, they keep the studio usually
Speaker 1: pretty dark, except when we're recording the YouTube videos, so
Speaker 1: the callboard lights up. Now. I had a bunch of
Speaker 1: other calls and then I see the name and it
Speaker 1: starts flashing on my left hand side. I see the name,
Speaker 1: and there's the city the callers from. It's from Chicago.
Speaker 1: Callers from Chicago, and not just any caller. This is
Speaker 1: not just your run of the mill radio caller. If
Speaker 1: you missed it. This week we had the glorious return
Speaker 1: of Doc Mike. Doc Mike popped up out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: He is back, well, he was back for one day.
Speaker 1: He called the show the other night. Now his first
Speaker 1: call and much. I actually got some email from people
Speaker 1: who have listened to the show for a very brief
Speaker 1: amount of time and they're like, tell me more about
Speaker 1: this guy, Doc Mike, and so rather than right back
Speaker 1: to people, because I'm very bad about that. If you've
Speaker 1: emailed me, I probably haven't written back. Bad job by me.
Speaker 1: I'm a schmuck. So I said, rather than right back
Speaker 1: to these people, I will use my platform, the pie
Speaker 1: pulpit here on the fifth hour, and I will reminisce
Speaker 1: about the caller known as Doc Mike. So Doc did
Speaker 1: return to the show. He called for the first time
Speaker 1: in probably five six months, maybe longer than that. It
Speaker 1: seemed like it had been years. Seemed like it had
Speaker 1: been years. I'm going to decapitate a goat, let's do it.
Speaker 1: It felt like, Hey, I was running into an old friend.
Speaker 1: You everyone into somebody at the grocery store or something
Speaker 1: like that. He sah, look at that. I didn't know
Speaker 1: you were still around. Yeah, I didn't know you were
Speaker 1: around either. And it's like the old friend, the one
Speaker 1: who always has a story, that really good storyteller, And
Speaker 1: in this case, this is our friend that's got stories
Speaker 1: that are half brilliant, half insane, and completely unforgettable, completely unforgettable.
Speaker 1: That is Doc Mike in a nutshell. He's not just
Speaker 1: a radio caller, he's a headline. He's also a Hasmad
Speaker 1: alert as you're gonna learn if you've don't know that story.
Speaker 1: And he's the reason, one of the reasons that sports
Speaker 1: radio is never just about the sports. Now, we learned
Speaker 1: during the pandemic years ago, that's not really about the sports.
Speaker 1: It's not We had the most listeners we've ever had
Speaker 1: to Fox Sports Radio when there were no baseball games,
Speaker 1: there was no NBA playoff games, there was no sports.
Speaker 1: We had more people listening in the middle of the
Speaker 1: pandemic than we've ever had since or before. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was insane. So many of you have been with
Speaker 1: me on this audio journey out into the twilight Zone,
Speaker 1: and so some of you know these stories. But for
Speaker 1: those that are new, and we love that there are
Speaker 1: new people that find the show because they end up
Speaker 1: working the dreaded overnight shift. All I say it's the
Speaker 1: dreaded day shift. For them, they say it's the dreaded
Speaker 1: overnight shift. So you know the Goadhead story. I think
Speaker 1: everyone does. I mentioned it briefly the other day. He
Speaker 1: left one at Wrigley Field. He's actually done this a
Speaker 1: couple of times. Doc Mike, the Mayor of Chicago. One
Speaker 1: of the great stories as long as I'm around, I'll
Speaker 1: remember this, and when I died, that'll be it. But
Speaker 1: the Mayor of Chicago, Rama Manuel, at the time, the
Speaker 1: cub head, our goathead knocked was dropped off. They knocked
Speaker 1: on the cub's offices, dropped off this goathead, right, So
Speaker 1: the story was and the cub game got rained out
Speaker 1: that day, so there was no story, and so the
Speaker 1: media latched on to the goatthead. The mayor of Chicago
Speaker 1: at the time, Ram Emmanuel, comes out and says that
Speaker 1: all police resources would be used to find out whoever
Speaker 1: did it. They wanted to get to the bottom of it.
Speaker 1: They didn't treat it like some prank. They were very upset.
Speaker 1: So think about that a goat heead in a box
Speaker 1: created the same level of urgency for the city of
Speaker 1: Chicago as a citywide manhunt. How ridiculous is that? And
Speaker 1: my favorite part of that story is that Doc Mike
Speaker 1: was kind enough to call me up as he was
Speaker 1: arriving at Iconic Wrigley Field, Chicago, and he had his
Speaker 1: phone and he was doing play by play. He saw Ben,
Speaker 1: I got the goathhead. I'm going to go here. He's
Speaker 1: describing where he's dropping the goat head off. He's doing
Speaker 1: play by play as this is going on. So juxtapose
Speaker 1: that I'm playing back this message because I was sleeping
Speaker 1: when he sent it. It was early in the morning
Speaker 1: in Chicago. Cubs were playing a day game. I think
Speaker 1: they're playing at Giants. So I'm hearing this, and then
Speaker 1: I'm seeing on the internet. I'm seeing the Mayor of
Speaker 1: Chicago say, hey, we got to find who did this.
Speaker 1: And it was the funniest thing. I still chuckle about it.
Speaker 1: And then there's the time that Doc Mike decided that
Speaker 1: I needed a goat head and he mailed me a
Speaker 1: goat actually mail a couple, and there was a problem
Speaker 1: with one of them send it to the Fox Sports
Speaker 1: radio studios. Now one famously leaked blood through the packaging,
Speaker 1: and this created a very tent situation in the mail room.
Speaker 1: They didn't know what's in the box. They had no
Speaker 1: idea what was in the box, so this became a
Speaker 1: hazmat situation. I get yelled at. People are screaming at
Speaker 1: me and management. Management's changed. They were screaming, what are
Speaker 1: you doing. You can't be having this, Senor. I didn't
Speaker 1: tell them to send it. You can't be having this
Speaker 1: stuff center. I'm not in control of the United States
Speaker 1: Postal Service. I cannot stop someone from sending something to me.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't have people send this stuff here. I understand,
Speaker 1: but I didn't tell the person to send it. They
Speaker 1: chose to send it. You can't send it here. I
Speaker 1: know that, but I told you I someone can mail
Speaker 1: me something all they want. It's not illegal to mail
Speaker 1: something unless it's a hazard. Anyway, we went back and forth,
Speaker 1: and as a result, I was banned embargoed to everyone
Speaker 1: say I could not receive mail. I believe it was
Speaker 1: like six months. They would not not receive any mail.
Speaker 1: He just returned all mail that was sent to me
Speaker 1: as an active protest. Now Doc mailed, as we say,
Speaker 1: several goattheads in that whole thing. Miranda Marino was my producer.
Speaker 1: She got a GoAhead, which she didn't want at the time.
Speaker 1: Another fun factoried about Doc Mike. Every presidential election since
Speaker 1: twenty zero four, so we are over twenty years. Doc
Speaker 1: Mike has run for president one of these fringe parties
Speaker 1: that gets no votes. So Doc Mike has run for
Speaker 1: president and he's always been kind enough to include me
Speaker 1: as his vice presidential candidate. You see, there's no caucus.
Speaker 1: When Doc Mike decides to run for president, he just
Speaker 1: does it. Unfortunately, we never picked up any votes. That's
Speaker 1: not true. We did get some votes people would send me.
Speaker 1: It was like twenty oh eight. I vaguely remember people
Speaker 1: sending me photos they were in the ballot box and
Speaker 1: they wrote they wrote in Mike and Ben Maller in
Speaker 1: the Battle of Box. I thought, well, that's both wonderful
Speaker 1: and horrific at the same time. So then there was
Speaker 1: the Cansa City story. Doc big fan of the show,
Speaker 1: drove down from Chicago to Kansas City. Not that bad
Speaker 1: a drive, but still a decent trip. And he shows
Speaker 1: up to the Malar Meet and greet and he sets
Speaker 1: up his own table. Now this is a Malar branded
Speaker 1: meet and greet, this is not a Doc Mike meet
Speaker 1: and greet. So he shows up there, He's got a
Speaker 1: table in the back. He puts a stack of T
Speaker 1: shirts out with his face on it, and then he
Speaker 1: starts signing autographs and giving medical advice to people that
Speaker 1: were there to eat chicken fingers. And it's like, bugs, Bunny,
Speaker 1: what's up?
Speaker 2: Doc?
Speaker 1: It's like Doc Mike made himself the headliner at someone
Speaker 1: else's party. Who does that, Doc Mike, That's who does that.
Speaker 1: Doc Mike's the one that does that. Now, later outside
Speaker 1: the the event had ended. I was preparing to leave.
Speaker 1: The event had come to a close, and I'm not
Speaker 1: familiar with Kansas City. I don't know where the good
Speaker 1: part in the bad part are. I can kind of
Speaker 1: tell when you drive around. This looks better. This is
Speaker 1: probably the good part. That doesn't look so good. That
Speaker 1: must be the hard scrabble streets, but you don't really know.
Speaker 1: And the restaurant, which was not the landing, It was
Speaker 1: the restaurant before the landing, which is we're not going
Speaker 1: to give them a plug because they don't have the
Speaker 1: food anymore, the ben Maler chicken fingers. So go out.
Speaker 1: It was nighttime and it was another nice, warm Kansas
Speaker 1: City night, one hundred degrees with seven hundred degree humidity,
Speaker 1: seven hundred percent whatever humidity. So I go out the
Speaker 1: dark street at night, getting ready to leave, and Doc says, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to show you something. Okay, So I am
Speaker 1: with my wife, my then girlfriend, she is with me,
Speaker 1: and Dox says, give me a sack. He then goes
Speaker 1: into his glove box, and in the glove box he
Speaker 1: grabs something I didn't know what. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: it was. He then walks back out again the street
Speaker 1: starked as a little bit of a street lamp kind
Speaker 1: of gleaning on the face of Doc Mike. And then
Speaker 1: he opened his right eye a little bit and it
Speaker 1: had this like sparkle, and he puts his other hand
Speaker 1: in the air and he's got a screwdriver. He's holding
Speaker 1: up a screwdriver. And in that moment, I thought, this
Speaker 1: is it. I'm going to be murdered by my most
Speaker 1: dedicated listener. But no, it turns out that Doc Mike
Speaker 1: just wanted to give me the license plate literally off
Speaker 1: of his car, literally off of his car, a souvenir
Speaker 1: Doc Mike license plate, and he did. He just took
Speaker 1: it off the car and said, here you go. And
Speaker 1: he had some trouble futzing around trying to get the
Speaker 1: license plate off the car, and then he autographed he
Speaker 1: signed it. I still have it, believe it or not.
Speaker 1: I still have that item. There's a couple of license
Speaker 1: plates I have. I have the one from Doc Mike,
Speaker 1: and there was a gentleman from Florida who I've been
Speaker 1: asked not to name because he's a lifetime member of
Speaker 1: the country club in Florida. And this guy, big fan
Speaker 1: of the Ben Maler Show, used to listen all the time.
Speaker 1: I haven't heard from much anymore anymore because it's hard
Speaker 1: to contact people when you're in prison. Costs a lot
Speaker 1: of money to send those letters. Anyway, back then, it
Speaker 1: did anyone. I don't know it's like now. So he
Speaker 1: was deputized. That's probably not the right word. But his
Speaker 1: job in prison was to make license plates, and so
Speaker 1: he made a Florida license plate with my name on it. Now,
Speaker 1: that part is one thing. The next part is you're
Speaker 1: not allowed to do that. How do you get it
Speaker 1: out of the prison. I still don't know how he
Speaker 1: got it out of the prison, but I did receive
Speaker 1: it in the mail. So I have a Doc Mike
Speaker 1: license plate and a my name license plate. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: It's a Florida plate and it's as amateur radio on it,
Speaker 1: which is really a tribute to my dad as well
Speaker 1: as Big Ham radio operator. So you don't forget stuff
Speaker 1: like this. You just don't back to the Doc Mike
Speaker 1: angle to it. So let's flash way back, way way
Speaker 1: back during the pandemic. So Doc Mike somehow became the
Speaker 1: producer of the Ben mathershw No, we really don't have
Speaker 1: a producer on the overnight show. He's going to produced
Speaker 1: the show and do the show and all that. So
Speaker 1: Doc Mike somehow became the producer. Now, this is another
Speaker 1: one of those stories. I'm not sure how it all
Speaker 1: went down. It was a bit of a foggy situation.
Speaker 1: One minute, I'm on the radio talking about Tom Brady
Speaker 1: and the whole situation with Brady, and at that time,
Speaker 1: he was leaving the Patriots, He's going to go to
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay, and there was all these stories about Tom Brady.
Speaker 1: And the next thing, I've got Doc Mike lining up guests. Now,
Speaker 1: not athletes, not coaches. Doc Mike ended up lining up doctors,
Speaker 1: like real or at least those that believe they're real.
Speaker 1: Uh So he put these people on and during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: we didn't really have many rules. We just had to
Speaker 1: fill the airtime. And the bosses were like, listen, there's
Speaker 1: no sports going on. We hired you to do sports.
Speaker 1: Just talk about whatever you want to talk about. So
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, Doc's going to book a guest.
Speaker 1: No one else's booking guests for me. I don't have
Speaker 1: a producer, so let's let's do it. And so he
Speaker 1: puts these doctors on to do urine therapy on national radio.
Speaker 1: Urine therapy. One even got so worked up and do
Speaker 1: a tizzy that they cursed on the air. Now I
Speaker 1: should have been furious. I should have been very upset.
Speaker 1: That's a very bad thing to do. You're not supposed
Speaker 1: to curse on the air. Instead, I laughed, because when
Speaker 1: you let Doc Mike drive the bus, when you put
Speaker 1: him in the driver's seat and you let him drive
Speaker 1: the bus, you do not complain. Do not complain when
Speaker 1: it crashes. Don't do that. You just and you hope
Speaker 1: the fire isn't too big when the bus crashes, because
Speaker 1: you know it's going to crash. And then there was
Speaker 1: the wedding. Now some of you attended this, if you
Speaker 1: went to the Mallard meet and greet in the Great
Speaker 1: State of Minnesota, a fake wedding at the Iconic Mermaid
Speaker 1: where Hollering James was there and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: big stars there from the Great State of Minnesota. They
Speaker 1: were all hanging out and also other states around there.
Speaker 1: So Doc Mike and Regina, also known as spin Cycle Regina,
Speaker 1: they had a wedding. It wasn't real, of course, but
Speaker 1: it was, if you'll excuse me, the most real fake
Speaker 1: thing I've ever been a part of, Doc Mike saying
Speaker 1: I do in front of radio listeners. I was dragged
Speaker 1: into that. It was funny, it was bizarre, and it
Speaker 1: really was perfect in many ways for that of it.
Speaker 1: It was perfect for that event. You could tell part
Speaker 1: of Doc Mike believed that he was actually getting married,
Speaker 1: even if it was all theater. He played along, good acting.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing about Doc Mike, and I'll sum
Speaker 1: it up like this, he shouldn't matter. Doc Mike should
Speaker 1: not matter in the context of a talk radio show.
Speaker 1: He's just one guy calling in to the overnight a
Speaker 1: sports talk radio show. And yet some of the funniest,
Speaker 1: most memorable, most bizarre things in the history of the
Speaker 1: show have happened because of Doc Mike. He's chaos, he's theater.
Speaker 1: He's the best and worst of what makes sports radio
Speaker 1: so addictive and the passion of sports radio. So yes,
Speaker 1: Doc Mike, he has called the show again, and yes,
Speaker 1: it was wonderful to hear from him, because Doc Mike
Speaker 1: is a reminder, at least for me and maybe for you.
Speaker 1: But he's a reminder to me. Doc Mike is that
Speaker 1: it's kind of why we do what we do in
Speaker 1: the first place. And it's not just about the sports.
Speaker 1: It's about the people around the sports, the goat heads,
Speaker 1: the screw drivers, the fake weddings that never happen. So
Speaker 1: Doc Mike is back, and I say, at least for
Speaker 1: the Ben Mallor Show, and I would say for a larger,
Speaker 1: larger group of sports radio that means the world's just
Speaker 1: a little more interesting again, at least when he chooses
Speaker 1: to call in, he say he's going to call in
Speaker 1: more often. We'll see if that actually happens. I have
Speaker 1: my doubts, but he said he's gonna call in more often,
Speaker 1: so we'll see. Now, I did want to rant about
Speaker 1: something else, and there's a need to filibuster for me.
Speaker 1: For me now, I mentioned this in the previous episode
Speaker 1: of the radio show. I would like to now mention
Speaker 1: it again. I want to expand on what has become
Speaker 1: a pet peeve of mine. And there are people in
Speaker 1: this world that collect baseball cards. There are some people
Speaker 1: that collect snaps stamps, there's some people that collect Disney stuff.
Speaker 1: Whatever your jam is, I don't know what you collect.
Speaker 1: It's not my business unless you want to make it
Speaker 1: my business. So what we're all collecting though, and we're
Speaker 1: not realizing it, Well, I'm realizing it. I've had the
Speaker 1: point of epiphanation where having an epiphany. But we're all,
Speaker 1: all of us are collecting illusions. The greatest hustle of
Speaker 1: the modern age is not Bernie made Off, It's not Enron,
Speaker 1: it's not the Larry David endorsed crypto that went under. No,
Speaker 1: it's the curated, digitalized, algorithm driven social media mirage that
Speaker 1: we are living in a fund zone at the count
Speaker 1: of all, a fun zone of mirrors, and it rubs
Speaker 1: me the wrong way it does. And so the inside
Speaker 1: skinning on this, a lot of us know it's a
Speaker 1: really slick trick, and yet we still clap like seals
Speaker 1: at a show when the magician pulls the rabbit out
Speaker 1: of that. Social media is the wile wild West. There
Speaker 1: is no sheriff, just tumbleweeds, tumbleweeds of bots, rolling, rolling,
Speaker 1: rolling across the digital wasteland that is your feet whatever
Speaker 1: your algorithm happens to be. However, here's the con. The
Speaker 1: con is there are major companies, billion dollar, multi billion
Speaker 1: dollar companies who I believe are run by really smart people,
Speaker 1: really really smart people who are very sharp in business
Speaker 1: and know exactly what they're doing. And yet these really
Speaker 1: really smart people, the top one percent of one percent,
Speaker 1: those people are falling for it. They get dragged in.
Speaker 1: Look at these numbers. Millions of followers, billions of views,
Speaker 1: except spoiler alert, spoiler alert, the followers are fake. The
Speaker 1: views are inflated, the downloads bought in bulk like you
Speaker 1: would buy tubs of mayonnaise at Costco or discount toothpaste.
Speaker 1: Now we're told that that artist is blowing up, this
Speaker 1: influencer is a star, and this show is a smash
Speaker 1: hit except when, and it always happens, when the curtain lifts.
Speaker 1: The tickets aren't selling, the arenas are mostly empty, the
Speaker 1: ratings look like they're a minor league team on a
Speaker 1: Tuesday in Toledo. It is a Potempkin village, is what
Speaker 1: it is. It's a facade built out of bots, fake likes,
Speaker 1: and the illusion of relevance. And it turns out that
Speaker 1: a lot of these people that have been going around
Speaker 1: trying to sell music or sell their takes on certain
Speaker 1: shows that the fans with just an algorithm in Uzbekistan
Speaker 1: some clicking refresh and there's some new followers and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And you see, the matrix is a rigged game.
Speaker 1: It is a rigged game. Red pill, blue pill, guess
Speaker 1: what same destination destination fraud, capital f fraud. And now
Speaker 1: entering the chat, half man lizard person Adam Silver, who's
Speaker 1: supposed to be supposed to be the grown up in
Speaker 1: the room, supposed to be the grown up in the room.
Speaker 1: He gets on his soapbox this week. Now, I mentioned
Speaker 1: this on the radio show, but I would like to
Speaker 1: expand on this because it really ties into what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about. And this is my train of thought, and
Speaker 1: I'm the conductor true on my own train of thought.
Speaker 1: So I've just explained to you how I think this
Speaker 1: great hustle is going on. And it's a Potempkin village.
Speaker 1: It's all just an illusion, and it's like a movie set.
Speaker 1: It's like being over at the Universal Lot and they've
Speaker 1: got the downtown New York scene and that whole deal.
Speaker 1: It's like that. So Adam Silver, who's supposed to be
Speaker 1: one of those grown ups in the room. Adam Silver,
Speaker 1: he gets on his soapbox or his spaceship is flying
Speaker 1: saucer the other day and he says the NBA is
Speaker 1: a highlight sport. He said it. He was asked about
Speaker 1: people not wanting to money for the various streaming services,
Speaker 1: and Adam Silber, without missing the beat, says, well, listen,
Speaker 1: just watch the highlights. Don't bother watching the games. Just
Speaker 1: snack on twelve second dunks and three point shots that
Speaker 1: are about eight seconds on TikTok, and you're good, which
Speaker 1: is the equivalent if if you were the CEO of
Speaker 1: Ruth Chris Steakhouse said, I know you can't afford our steak.
Speaker 1: You can't afford our delicious mashed potatoes or the mac
Speaker 1: and cheese. You can't afford anything because you're poor. So
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do for you is you don't need
Speaker 1: the steak, you don't need the mashed potatoes, you do
Speaker 1: not need the mac and cheese. Just lick the plate.
Speaker 1: That's all you need, right, you don't need the steak.
Speaker 1: Just lick the plate. That's what it's all about. So
Speaker 1: the NBA business model. The NBA makes the lion's share
Speaker 1: of their money off television when no one's watching television anymore.
Speaker 1: That may, it may not be true, but television is
Speaker 1: what pays the bills, the real money. Social media, for
Speaker 1: all of the glitter and all the metrics and all that,
Speaker 1: is a cotton candy economy. It's sweet, fluffy and evaporates
Speaker 1: the second it touches your tongue e. And the other
Speaker 1: thing about is, once you've seen how the trick is done,
Speaker 1: and this is with all magic, but this is a
Speaker 1: bit of a magic trick. Once you've seen how the
Speaker 1: trick is done, you no longer say abercadabor, hocus pocus.
Speaker 1: You learn how the magician slides the box, how the
Speaker 1: saw never actually touches the lady who's getting cut in half.
Speaker 1: You see all that. You notice the bots, You notice
Speaker 1: the inflated viral accounts that you've never heard of. You
Speaker 1: notice the emperor has no clothes, just a lot of retreats,
Speaker 1: and it's like, what's up with that? Now? Back in
Speaker 1: the old days, you're an old head. Back in the
Speaker 1: old days, we called this what it is. We called
Speaker 1: it fraud. We called it fraud. Now, a synonym for
Speaker 1: fraud is engagement. So we've dressed up the con with
Speaker 1: a fancier language, slapped a blue check mark on it,
Speaker 1: and said there you go, sold it as is its progress.
Speaker 1: Now everyone is making money on this outside of one
Speaker 1: group of people. And it's one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: this has gone unchecked. That the creators buy followers and views,
Speaker 1: they inflate their value. It's not real. The people selling
Speaker 1: advertising on the creators' platforms, the social networks all they're
Speaker 1: all gung ho on that, right. So you got the
Speaker 1: influencer who's buying followers, So the people that sell followers
Speaker 1: are making money, they're growing their audience. Then you have
Speaker 1: the other social media companies who are benefiting because the
Speaker 1: perception is that you have a lot of followers, more
Speaker 1: people who are real will actually follow you in so
Speaker 1: they're making money on that. The only people who are
Speaker 1: getting panted and this exercise are the hair brained advertisers
Speaker 1: who don't realize they're being hustled, scam bamboozled, hoodwinked and
Speaker 1: led astray all of those things. Then all realize it
Speaker 1: and so yes, this is a I don't think it's
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna use work conspiracy anymore. I just think it's
Speaker 1: a straight con. The house always wins. The magician doesn't
Speaker 1: saw the lady in half, the bots don't care about
Speaker 1: your product, and the NBA doesn't want you to watch
Speaker 1: the game. It just wants you to double tap a
Speaker 1: dunk and make sure you give it a like. That's
Speaker 1: all they want. It's an old movie, which is a
Speaker 1: great movie, and they should remake it called The Truman Show.
Speaker 1: Now maybe that's before your time, But The Truman Show.
Speaker 1: The crowd is fake, The applause a canned. The illusion
Speaker 1: is about as airtight as you can get until until
Speaker 1: someone sails their boat into the edge of the set
Speaker 1: and finds an exit door. Then it becomes a problem.
Speaker 1: So it's smoke, it's mirrors, and it's a magic trick
Speaker 1: that we all agree, not me anymore, but we all
Speaker 1: agree to pretend is real. And every once in a
Speaker 1: while there'll be a team that will have an influencer
Speaker 1: throw out the first pitch at a baseball game, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty funny. Most of the time, nobody knows who
Speaker 1: these people are. It's kind of like YouTube. During that
Speaker 1: Chiefs Chargers game, they mixed in some YouTube influencers who
Speaker 1: have a big following on YouTube, and the millions of
Speaker 1: people who are watching the NFL game had no idea
Speaker 1: who these people are because they're really not that famous.
Speaker 1: It's like being famous in a silo. Well, you're really
Speaker 1: well known in the silo. Outside the silo, nobody really
Speaker 1: knows your that's the problem. And that's the problem. The
Speaker 1: silo is not nearly as big as you think the
Speaker 1: silo is. That's the other problem. So it's the modern
Speaker 1: world's greatest hustle and the mark is us. It's you
Speaker 1: and me. We'll get out on that. We will have
Speaker 1: a new podcast on Saturday, that would be tomorrow and
Speaker 1: then again on Sunday, NFL Sunday. Don't forget to watch
Speaker 1: Benny Versus the Penny Benny versus the Penny on YouTube,
Speaker 1: Benny Vspenny, that's Benny Vspenny on YouTube. Check that out.
Speaker 1: As we have a brand new slate of games up today,
Speaker 1: just went up last night. You can watch all the
Speaker 1: picks on the key primetime games, including the game in
Speaker 1: Kansas City, Philadelphia and KC and all the way through
Speaker 1: the double header action on Monday night. Got you covered
Speaker 1: on all of it, and we'll catch you next time.
Speaker 1: Have a great Friday. Danny g should join me tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We'll catch you then. Got a murder.
Speaker 2: I gotta go.