WEBVTT - Watching the Watchmen with Jason Koebler 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:03.560 A Zone Media. 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:08.680 Hello and welcome to Better Offline, your most punished podcast. 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:23.160 I am your host ed Zeitron today I'm joined by 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.440 one of the single best people in the tech media, 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:30.040 Jason Kebler of four h four Media, regularly requested by listeners. 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.879 But I punish you too, Jason. Thank you so much 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:33.440 for joining me. 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:35.960 Thanks for having me. Wow, I did not know that 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.120 that inflates my ego already always necessary. 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.600 I experienced ego death around episode seven, so I feel 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:48.400 nothing anymore. But we were just talking before this about 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:55.520 Facebook effectively Mark Zuckerberg effectively admitting that aislop was good 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:57.640 for the platform. I think it's good for you to 0:00:57.720 --> 0:00:59.560 just walk me through that story. It's a four oh 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.720 for me story. Won't me through because it's a good 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:02.560 scene setup. 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.600 Yeah, so, as meta does all the time. I still 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:09.120 hate calling the meta, but yeah, at this point I do, 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.399 because they have so much fucking stuff going around that 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.360 it I want to be clear when I'm talking about 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.840 Facebook and when I'm talking about the other stuff. Had 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:22.640 its third quarter investor call on Wednesday, and you know, 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.959 people ask questions of Facebook executives, and I feel like 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.039 it's a real mask off moment. Where they sort of 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.839 have to say, like, here are our plans, here's what 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.040 we think is working, what's not, And very often it's 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.360 like full of pie in the sky nonsense. But in 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:44.560 this case it's like Mark Zuckerberg said straight up that 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.000 the AI slop and spam that has taken over Facebook 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:52.840 but also Instagram and increasingly Threads is the strategy, like 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.200 that is part of the long term goal of the company. 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.400 He talked about adding like a separate AI generated feed, 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.680 which when Facebook has added separate separate feeds, they call 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:06.760 them separate feeds, but they always end up just like 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:07.640 integrating in. 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:10.359 Yeah, being the dominant fit dominant feed, Like you can 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.960 select a chronological feed on the Threads if you solve 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.480 three riddles, click seven buttons. 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:19.920 Yeah, and fix it every three seconds. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.239 Yeah, Yes, it is so. And I still saying to 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.160 you beforehand, I get people saying I'm a cynic a lot, 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:30.560 but then I read stuff like this, and I just 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.359 don't understand how people aren't more cynical because it feels 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.520 like this stuff feels actively dystopian, that Facebook is no 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.760 longer the world's biggest social network but just the world's 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:43.480 shittiest television channel. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.400 Yeah, I think that we get blamed for being like doomers. 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.360 You always have been. Like I've been a journalist for 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.160 twelve thirteen years at this point, and I used to 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:57.440 be back at Motherboard over a vice and now at 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.880 four or four Media, and sometimes I would have to 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:01.840 like look up and just be like, Wow, the last 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.919 ten stories I've written have been incredibly depressing. They've been 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:10.000 like really like horrible harms from technology. They've been you know, 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:12.440 I don't even think they're negative. I think they're realistic 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:16.600 and accurate of like what our future is. But you know, 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.840 our future sucks very often and are are present often 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.440 is bad too, and I think that that is at 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:27.680 the this is because of centralized power in tech and 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:32.200 over the internet. And so I also get called a 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:34.760 cynic all the time, but I feel like I'm actually 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:38.240 quite an optimistic and realistic person and there's lots of 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.760 things that I'm excited about, just none of it is 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.280 coming from big tech, Like none of it at all. 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:46.920 And what kind of things you're excited about, Let's balance 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:47.400 this out. 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:53.560 I'm I'm very excited with like grassroots type new technology, 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.360 like open source technologies. I think that people sort of 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:01.320 like gesture at like the fetever and like this sort 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.920 of decentralized Twitter alternatives, if you will. And I think 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.240 that that's been promised for quite some time, yes, and 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.240 I think that it's taking a really long time to 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.320 sort of come together. But I do think that that 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:19.200 is something that we should be like working toward as 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:23.279 a society where instead of having your audience, if you 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:27.080 are a publisher, like we are, having it all tied 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.800 up in you know, the number of Twitter followers you have, 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.559 or the number of like Google ads you can sell, 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:36.520 like you kind of own your audience. And by that, 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.000 I mean you own the list of people that you 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.400 can kind of like transport that around the Internet. I 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.640 think that's really important. I think that for a while, 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:49.760 I was very excited about community Internet, like nonprofits where 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.480 cities and towns were building their own fiber lines and 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.760 still are and then sort of doing like getting really 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.279 fast internet to the home sort of divorced from Comcast 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:04.360 and your spectrums of the world so on and so forth. 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.640 And there's like a lot of kind of like individual 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:12.880 people building stuff that are very cool, like proofs of concept, 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.320 and the big problem is always like scaling that up 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:21.080 or getting people to stop using Facebook or Twitter or whatever. 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.000 Amazon is a big one. It's like, stop using Amazon, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.520 stop using Prime. It's very hard to get people to 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:33.480 change their behaviors. And yet I feel in some ways 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.839 like we're gonna talk about indie media. But I think 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:43.680 that the journalism industry, despite the sort of disaster disastrous 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:45.520 situation that's been going on in the last few years, 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.240 I think it's in a better spot now than it 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:48.840 was two years ago. 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:54.000 I kind of agree in the sense that I think 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:58.120 there are places where it got worse. In the sense though, 0:05:58.160 --> 0:05:59.680 and this is my own opinion you don't have to 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:01.480 agree with, because it's not going to be a fun 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.320 one to agree with. I think things like Platforma have 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.559 actually been detrimental to the tech industry. I think Casey 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.000 Newton has dressed up Platformer as a kind of independent 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:15.000 outlet where nothing where it's all just like, oh, we're independent, 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.520 we're not bought off by big corporations, then writes two 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:22.160 fucking fan fiction pieces about anthropic I think that is damaging. 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:24.880 I think it's actually just spreading the problem. But even 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.320 when you look at legacy media, the verge, which I have, 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.279 I have tons of criticism for Nil Patel. The Verge 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.200 has actually done some really incredible in depth journalism. They 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:39.080 had that wonderful piece about underground cables, and it feels 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.240 like even at the Journal they have some of the 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.159 best investigative reporters now Mike Isaac's on open Ai, which 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.279 is terrifying for them. I think that we're seeing more 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.280 a lot more investigative stuff than we ever have before. 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.240 I wish it had happened a few years ago, but hell, 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:56.120 I'll take it now. 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.480 Yeah. I mean I think that you know, you can 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:04.880 name a sort of like newsletter writers and independent outlets 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:08.120 that are doing really amazing work, and there's always been 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.480 some of that, but I think that what we're seeing 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:16.520 now is like ten years ago when I got into it, 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.680 there were like five big tech websites, and they were 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.200 all bad, in my opinion, Like they were all doing 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.280 the sort of like, uh, there's a new feature on 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.760 the iPhone, here's the new emojis that dropped, and it 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:28.560 was just like tons and tons and tons of that. 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.600 You'd dump it on Facebook, you'd hope it went viral, 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.160 and you would have people just writing like four or 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.400 five stories a day, and then you had a bunch 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.800 of sort of like I say this as a descriptor 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:44.160 not as like a like you had, like your nd gadgets, 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.320 your vices, your buzzfeeds, the sort of like middle tier 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.760 of digital website where they're not the New York Times. 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:56.480 They're not like this gigantic, gigantic media conglomerate. They're sort 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.640 of like middle sized things, and all of them have 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.200 done great work, but they were all kind of doing 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.720 like the same thing more or less. And I think 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:10.480 that like the VC business model where we're just going 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:16.640 to chase traffic and ad revenue has failed terribly. It's 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.960 like not working, and I think it's going to be 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.920 very hard to be in the middle where you are 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:27.480 like your website with a staff of like fifty. I 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.800 think that it's something where you can have independent, subscriber 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.880 funded publications that are doing increasingly good work because the 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:39.960 infrastructure needed around journalism is not so much anymore. And 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:41.720 then you're going to have your like New York Times 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.640 is and your Washington Posts and you're like, I don't know, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:49.560 c net or something like just gigantic websites that are 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.320 going to be like, you know, middling. I don't like 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.560 have a ton of love for the gigantic players, but 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:57.600 I think that they serve a purpose of some sort. 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.520 There is there is a certain purpose for the your phone. 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.120 Now does this media like people read that stuff for 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:03.600 a reason. 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:06.000 Yeah, I mean I read that stuff as well, and 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.520 I but I do think that like all the stuff 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.040 in the middle has died and is going to keep dying. 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:15.559 But I think that the years where those publications were 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.839 propped up by VC but like weren't making money, weren't 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.080 investing in their newsrooms because they were just trying to 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.720 stave off layoffs. Like I think that was the dark period, 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:30.200 because the vibes were terrible at all of them, because 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.560 there was a hatchet around the corner constantly, like there 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:36.079 were always gonna be mass layoffs or some the sites 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.560 were going to die at any moment because they were 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.920 these like bloated organizations where executives made tons of money, 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.760 the journalists made almost nothing, and like it just wasn't 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.880 a there was no sustainability there. And I think that 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.280 I know that I'm rambling at this point, but I 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.559 think I think that it's possible for like a bunch 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.360 of small newsrooms like ours to thrive a bunch of 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.640 independence reporters to thrive, a bunch of you know, newsletter 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.360 writers to thrive, and then you know you'll have your 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.679 gigantic news organizations that are going to continue to exist. 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.800 And I think that that that leads to probably some 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:19.160 fracturing in the media ecosystem where there's not like the 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.800 same people really like this dream that Jeff Bezos is 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:25.520 pointing out in his recent op ed where it's like 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.840 we're gonna be down the middle and we're gonna be 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.720 everything to everyone. It's like that that's dead. That never works. 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.040 That sharing out before gone, No, it never worked. It 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.959 perhaps worked when there were three television channels, like forty 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.079 years before I was born, but I don't even know 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:43.719 if it worked then. 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:46.600 And I think part of the problem is, sure it's 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:48.959 this sense of doing everything for all things, but it's 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.280 also the need to scale that I don't think has 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:56.240 ever worked. Like I love. I love the idea of 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.360 tech crunch, and there are right as there I really love. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.640 But I think as an organization, TechCrunch is just in 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.520 the situation it's tech crunters disrupt while we're recording this. 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.040 I think the pressure and probably the money that comes 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.840 from Disrupt as event as a kind of venue is 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:18.120 so hard. I think every there's this thing where newsrooms start. 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.240 You've got stories, someone gets a big scoop, it gets 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.240 some traffic, gets some notes, and then they're like, shit, 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.959 what's next, Let's do a conference. And now we're doing 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.040 the conference. We see the conference makes way more money 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.840 than the journalism, So how do we engineer one to 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.000 feed the other? And the actual answer there is to say, 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.160 make them entirely separate. The answer, however, is never the 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.680 one you'd listen to. So you do the thing where 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:43.640 it's like, how do we change the content to appeal 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.560 to more sponsors for the conference, and how do we 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:49.440 make it so that we don't piss off people that 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.680 we want to speak at the conference. I'm not even 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:53.840 saying this is exactly what happened with Disrupt, but you 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:55.920 see it with like the Information and Venturely and all 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.160 these publications where and this really is inside baseball, but 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:04.560 now the podcast is free. It's it's frustrating because you 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.760 could have a really good tech conference if you just 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.120 all agreed to not be cowards. Like I respect Devin 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.280 cold Away from tech Crunch so much because he asked 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.600 the perplexity CEO on stage. 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:20.480 To find that was really good. 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.480 He punted personally. I would have kept asking until he 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.560 hit me. I could take him a reven I'm not 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.120 threatening you come on the show. But it's like it's 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.719 frustrating because there is and this is actually a good 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.719 point as well, and maybe kind of a question. It 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.480 also doesn't feel like there's any solidarity in the tech media. 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.640 There's some it's tenuous, but when it comes down to it, 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:45.920 it doesn't feel like it's there. 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:48.440 I think it's a hard thing to build. 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.280 It's like, I also should say, this is not a 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:54.959 condition created by intention. I don't think people like I 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.040 don't give a shit about others but keep going. 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:59.280 Sorry, no, I mean I think it's really tough. And 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.320 it's like I don't live in New York anymore, but 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.040 I lived in New York for a long time and 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.240 WECE was in Brooklyn, and then like all of the 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.400 other publications were in Manhattan, like more or less. And 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:17.679 this is not Illuminati vibes. It's very much like there 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:19.880 was a generation of journalists who were sort of all 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.240 the same age, all living in the same place, and 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:24.280 all knew each other from Twitter and they were like 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.000 hanging out all the time because that's I don't know, 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.800 that's how people made friends. And it always felt like 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.000 wece was separate literally because we were on the other 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.240 side of the river, and so like the happy hours, 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:37.840 you had to go at like out of your way 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:42.200 to get to them and things like that. And I 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:47.120 just feel like there's people ask me what I read, 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:49.400 Like people ask me, like, what other tech publications do 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:51.800 you read? And it's like, I have a lot of 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.280 respect for a lot of other tech publications, but I 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.640 don't have time to go read all of them all 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:01.080 day every day because there's so much going on on, right, 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.840 And then I'm not like sharing other people's stories that 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:10.120 often for that reason, because I just feel like the 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.000 time has passed where you can like consume all of 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.840 the Internet at once, right, And I feel like that 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:19.320 when you say there's not solidarity, it's like I have 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.000 a lot of respect for other tech journalists and I 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.320 like a lot of their work, but I will sometimes 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:27.800 go weeks where I'm like, I actually feel like I 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.200 haven't read the Internet because I've been heads down in 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.960 my own stuff, and then you look up and it's like, 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.760 oh cool, Like Ed did a really great piece, like 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:37.680 Brian Merchant did a really great piece. There were like 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.040 ten great articles in The Verge, and then it's like, oh, 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.000 should I like go tweet their work now two months 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:47.760 after they published it? Like so, I don't know. I'm 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:49.760 just speaking from my own perspective on that, but I 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:54.000 feel like it's very hard to have like cross publication 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.320 good vibe, not even good vibes, but like it's just hard. 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.720 It's just hard to keep up with everything. I feel. 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.880 Yeah, And I think like one happened a week or 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.920 two ago. And this is not a criticism of anyone specifically, 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:14.160 but Sam Altman he claimed something Kylie Roberson of The 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.040 Verge wrote about the next model coming from Open Ai, 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.280 and he said fake news and she got dog piled 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:23.160 for it. And see a single fucking journalist in her mentions. Now, 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:25.680 this is not about you, Jason, not talking about you. 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.440 I didn't see a single one though, and that really 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.960 turned my stomach. I went after the little bastard. Fuck you, 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.920 Sam Moltman, O, huh, I'll keep right what I fucking 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.400 want about you, But it's it's frustrating. But now that 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:40.640 you said it, it does feel like almost a remote 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.440 work effect, but also the detritus of the New York 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.520 waiting because I remember in like the early twenty tens 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:52.640 how cliquey it was, yeah, and how the how you 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.440 got I'm not, I like not saying othered in perhaps 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.160 that way, but you were kind of in the in 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.160 group or the outgroup, and you kind of still see 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:04.000 it within internet culture reporting. Yeah, like New Yorker guys 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.560 that talk to the same people yeah, all the time. 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:11.000 And it's frustrating because I think four or four has 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.560 proven this. There's so much cool shit you can do 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:17.200 in tech journalism, especially when you talk to more varied 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.520 people than just the six people in front of you. 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.120 Yeah, I mean it really felt. I mean we talk 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.840 about things like Twitter, main character, so on and so forth, 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.600 and it's like that was a real phenomenon where it's like, oh, 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:32.320 here's the one thing that everyone on the Internet is 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.520 talking about right now. And I feel like this is 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.920 a It probably has to do with Elon Musk fucking 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:41.760 up Twitter and like the fracturing of social media. But 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.040 if you like ask me what is happening on the 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.040 Internet today, I could name a bunch of different things 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.520 and you might have a totally different list of things 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.040 that you are seeing, and I think that that is 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.120 a big change. 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:57.960 Yeah, I also think that that's something that leads to 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.720 the failure of internet culture reporting, because if you I 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.280 actually don't think that what there's been articles about this too. 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:05.960 I don't think the main character was actually a social 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:08.560 media I think it was a It is a thing 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:10.600 that happened, But I don't think it tells us anything 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.080 about internet culture, and I think a lot of internet culture. 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:16.880 I think it tells us something about how internet publications 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:21.919 were in because there was like a while where Donald 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.720 Trump's Twitter was being called like the assignment editor for 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:26.840 the front page of the New York Times or whatever 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:28.840 or whatever, and that, I mean, it's true, and Elon 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:31.159 Musk was the same way, and to some extent is 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.840 it's like, oh, Elon Musk tweeted that he's going to 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:36.679 print humans on Mars, and then there would be like 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:40.240 eighty five articles about it. And I think that that 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:47.840 was a function of like publications, not all publications, not 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:52.479 all journalists, and like certainly not all editors. But there 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:55.120 is like a when you're getting into this industry, there's 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.760 a period of time where you were asked or were 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:02.280 for a long time to the news just like hit 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:07.640 five stories a day, whatever it is, and like the 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:09.960 things that you saw going viral on Twitter, that was 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.080 something that you could go and write about and you would, 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.119 you know, either win a Google or Reddit lottery or 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.880 a Twitter lottery and you would get a lot of traffic. 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:22.400 And so almost every publication like had five people doing. 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.960 That, like a kind of an ultra normalization. 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:25.920 Yeah. 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:39.680 Yeah, it sucks because it's I think four or four 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.600 has done. They're just gonna lavish you with praise. Here. 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.320 Four or four had my favorite text story of the 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.400 last year by far, and it was about the Indian 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.399 guys who are just scamming Facebook. And it humanized it 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.239 as well, because I think that there is also a 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.479 degree of xenophobia towards Indian guys online. There definitely is that, like, 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:00.919 and it doesn't help the fact that a lot of 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:07.239 Indian guys ran insane mindset Instagram accounts. But nevertheless, I 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:08.919 loved the way you humanized it because it was like, 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:11.840 here's the actual way that this is happening. This is 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.040 Internet culture. Internet culture is being changed. But the fact 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:19.439 that Facebook is incentivizing matching the like playing slop tetris 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:22.720 where you kind of match the bullshit to the other bullshit, 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.320 so the algorithm puts out and I feel like. 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.920 It's also it's also the thing that I really liked 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:33.120 about that story was that the like Indian tech bro 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:37.879 hustle guys were talking amongst themselves about what they perceived 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:43.000 us internet culture to be, which was like very interesting, 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.680 Like they were sort of talking to each other about like, oh, 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.080 you know what, like Americans and British people fucking love 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.200 their dogs, they love pets, and then they were talking 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.200 about like other things and it's like, yes, like this 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:58.399 is a stereotype. But it was interesting to see what 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:03.840 they thought American internet culture was and then how they 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.720 tried to reverse that engineer that into viral content. 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.360 And I think the problem as well is that Internet 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:14.119 culture is just culture now, and also internet culture is 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:16.400 the nature of the algorithms fucking with us every day. 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:21.439 Is not really anything, it's what the algorithm. So you 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.960 wrote that wonderful piece about Mark Zuckerbog's mask off moment, 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.000 I went back to one of my Facebook pieces I wrote, 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.399 and it was a thing I worried about, which is 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.520 what is viral? I don't mean does viral exist. I 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.040 mean what is actually famous? And the answer is we 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.000 as people no longer decide that, in my opinion, and 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.240 I think that that is also what it goes back 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.320 to the tech media. It goes back to everything we're 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.400 talking about, because it's what's the biggest news of the day. Well, 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:52.320 whatever we think will get a bunch of traffic, what 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.840 gets a bunch of traffic. Whateveryone's writing about what's important, Well, 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.480 it's the thing that will get us traffic. Elon Musk's tweet, 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:00.920 I actually believe that the media contributed to the rise 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.840 of Elon Musk in a way that's actually more egregious 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.000 than Donald Trump. I think that if we did not 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.760 have a tweet every time Elon Musk farted for a decade, 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.320 and it was not recent, it was a decade putting 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:20.160 a site, even the pandering to him, we would not 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:21.840 have him at the scale we did. Like he would 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:23.399 still be insanely rich, but he would not have the 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.120 power he does because he wouldn't be able to create 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.440 news cycles. But on top of that, pointing a side, 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.800 even the criticism, everyone just did the same thing. They 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:34.760 kind of still do, but they really really did like it. 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:36.800 I think that that's one way it's definitely got better 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:40.119 because it used to be every site did exactly the 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:41.880 fucking same thing, just crazy. 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:43.960 Yeah. And you know what, I wrote a lot of 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.480 articles about Elon Musk's tweets, and at the time, I 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:52.040 was like, this guy is really interesting, like that what 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.600 he is doing is very oh yeah, And it took 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.840 a while for me to be like, oh, but he's 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.560 like this is like very bad, very bad situation. But 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.199 I remember, like Ashley Vance, who's a reporter at Bloomberg, 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.440