WEBVTT - Monologue: How Better Offline Saved Me 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:06.480 A Zone Media, Hello and welcome to this week's Better 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:17.400 Offline monologue. I'm your host ed ZiT Tron. I could not, 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.279 for the life of me work out what I wanted 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:20.960 to talk about for this week's monologue. I am a 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.160 little burned out, and Robert and Sophia telling me I 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:26.200 should take a break sometime, and I will at some 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:31.000 point everyone, I promise. But I was seeing and thinking 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:33.160 last night about what I was going to do today, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:34.839 and I ended up sketching out some thoughts and I 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.560 realized that this show genuinely helped me turn my life around. 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.960 A little dramatic, but Better Offline really truly helped me 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.560 leave a very dark place I was in April twenty 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.480 twenty four. I would argue it on some degree saved 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.080 my life, and I will tell you how today. It's 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.680 a monologue. You already had a great interview with Karen Haile. 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:57.680 This week. I'm going to give you a little schmaltz, 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.720 a little bit of who I really am. And I 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.679 worry this is ferociously self involved or pretentious, but at 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.560 least from the heart. Right. So back when I started 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:09.639 the show in early twenty twenty four, I was really 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.720 lost as a person, but also as someone who would 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.000 call themselves a creative. I'd agreed to do the show 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.319 and knew I was capable of pushing out content, but 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.600 my personal life had become, let's just say, very bad. 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.480 I was in a bad situation. I was overweight, I 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:27.360 was unhappy. Therapy was kind of grinding at me. It 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:29.480 didn't feel like it was changing anything because I was 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.440 kind of in a depressive state where I didn't want 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.200 to talk to anyone, which is why I wouldn't talk 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.279 to my friends at all. And I had this fucking 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.679 podcast I had to do that. I loved the idea 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:43.040 of but I like confidence. I liked the pison vinegar 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:45.840 you know me for today. And one day, as I 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.000 struggled to work out what the fuck I was doing 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:49.880 that week, I sat down to write the script for 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:52.880 an episode about Shean, which is a Chinese clothing giant 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.760 that grew its brand entirely online. And it was coming 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:58.960 up on my birthday, Averri twenty fifth, and it's a 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.320 day I really enjoyed. So I was pushing myself to 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.720 do something, anything to get this episode off my plate 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:05.880 and move on to planning the day, which is a 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.600 few weeks out that would end up being dog shit 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.040 like it always was, and I was bored. I didn't 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.120 care about Shin. I didn't care what I was doing. 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.160 I didn't think you would either. And I sat there 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.200 thinking about whether or not I could realistically do better 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.840 offline anymore, or my newsletter or really end of this crap, 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:24.320 and what can I say? My birthday kind of sucks 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:26.600 and it always kind of led me to a weird slump, 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:28.960 but I was in one that day anyway. I was 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.080 really not in a great place, and if I'm honest, 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.600 I was kind of spiraling. So I closed this Google 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.680 doc and I sat teary eyed, staring at the ceiling. 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:38.840 Babou my cat was on top of me kind of. 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:41.400 I was sat at this table, and he shoved himself 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:43.919 kind of on top of my knees, which he does 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.280 when he knows I'm hurting, which is lovely. And I 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.480 sat there thinking about things, and I was drafting in 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.840 my head something about not doing the newsletter anymore, and 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:54.720 wondering how the fuck I was going to do forty 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.760 or so more episodes. I was really quite worried, and 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.960 this was really largely due to my personal I'm three 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.760 minutes into this and I've just rambled about myself. But 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:06.960 you know what, that's what the monologues for. And I 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:08.600 looked at the time and I realized I'd only written 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.919 eight hundred words in two hours, and I felt very 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.720 bad about myself. I thought, I don't care about Shiin, 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.400 and so I went to look at Google to see 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.079 if I could find something, anything about the tech industry 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.000 that would be more interesting right about and I saw 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.280 immediately something that pissed me off. A cycled tech gate 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.240 that had ripped off a story from another site, and 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:30.680 they'd entirely ripped it off. They copypasted the entire thing, 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:32.920 if not automate the entire thing. I was irate, not 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.240 just because I was looking for something and this was 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.560 making my life harder, but because Google was making money 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.280 off of this. And in that moment, I realized that 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.960 I needed to find out who did this. I need 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:46.680 to find the rap fuck that made this happen. I 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.000 remember the name i'd kind of touched upon in the 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.560 previous newsletter that i'd only just drafted, Propagar Ragavan, and 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.080 I realized I've said propagar Ragavan over a hundred times 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:57.640 on this show, but I really didn't know who he 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.560 was at the time, so I sat My eyes were red, puffy, 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.839 and felt just like doom in every fiber of my being, 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:05.920 wondering how I tell Robert and Sophie that I needed 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.480 a break. Weeks into the show, and I immediately discovered 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.920 the story of the biggest shithead I've run into in tech, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.400 the man that destroyed Google Search. I discovered a man 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.960 that has done unfathomable damage to the Internet, and I 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.080 kind of got a template for how bastards have ripped 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.000 a part of the tech industry in search of growth. 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.080 It was and it remains, the moment that the growth 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.160 of all costs rot economy actually made sense to me. Now, 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:30.919 as you probably realized, they take a lot of my 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:32.880 newsletter work and put it into the podcast, But The 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.040 Man that destroyed Google Search was the first time I've 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.560 ever taken a script and made it into a newsletter. 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:41.159 And this fundamentally changed how I write, because up until 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.880 literally that episode, my spoken voice and my written voice 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:48.239 were different. I wrote in a probably a more ballsy 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.679 way than I talk. I was deeply unconfident with my voice. 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:53.800 You can probably hear it in the first few episodes 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:59.880 as well, you could tell, and this episode was very cathartic, 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:02.000 and it was also the first moment I'd really felt 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.479 proud of anything I'd worked on, which is an insane 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.200 statement given the amount I've written and produced before. Then. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.880 I realized in this moment, too, that I'd been treating 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.880 myself without much dignity or respect, and that things in 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.320 my life had to change. The man that destroyed Google 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.560 Search was my first real breakthrough piece and made me 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.400 rethink how he looked at the world, in part because 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:23.720 it showed me the scale at which one man's selfishness 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.880 can reach such havoc. Maybe it's a little much to 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.560 put this much meaning on a fucking podcast episode, but 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:31.360 these monologues are where I get to have my fun 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:33.640 and be a little much something that I used to 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.720 hate about myself, but at the very least have turned 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.839 into a good career. Nevertheless, this breakthrough also pushed me 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:42.680 to many other breakthroughs in my life and allowed me 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:44.960 to fully emerge from Michelle I'd been in since birth. 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.599 Had I not chased down Probagar Ragavan, I have no 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.080 idea how I'd complete the first season of Better Offline, 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.320 let alone reach the third tram On right now, and 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.360 the fact I won on award from this is completely insane. 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.840 I don't even know how to express how happy it 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:01.760 makes me, and I have a weird thing with being 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.680 excited or being happy. You're really gonna you're learning a 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.600 lot about me today, possibly too much. But look, I've 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.240 never felt understood by the world, and when I've looked 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.039 upon the world through my own eyes, I've struggled to 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.680 understand it myself. But in the last year of my work, 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:19.000 I've found myself. I've found myself doing this show. My voice, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.640 my personality, my vigor, my anger, my fury, my love, 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.960 my passion, all through trying to understand what the fuck 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:28.040 is going on with the computer. It all sounds ridiculous 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:29.680 when I say it out loud, but I think you'll 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.960 like it. And my lack of confidence, even if as 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.440 I say this now, it's because I've never been good 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.279 at appearances. I've never been good at fitting in, And 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:41.640 it took until twenty twenty four for me to truly 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.000 speak with confidence, and took me until like twenty twenty 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.000 five for me to even like how I looked or 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.480 who I was as a person. I've never been good 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.000 at pretending. I've never been able to fit into the 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.520 little corporate management squares you're meant to Other than my 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.719 ability to be pleasant and conciliatory, I can't deal with 0:06:57.760 --> 0:06:59.840 someone lying to me, which includes, but isn't limited to 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.520 people that bullshit me because they've decided that I'm stupid. 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.640 I've never felt peer pressure because I've never felt popular, cool, 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.640 or important, nor do I feel smart. I do this 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.280 show because I have to, as doing it has brought 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.440 me some degree of salvation at times when I felt 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.720 truly lost, brought me closer to people that I love 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.320 and respect, and allowed me to process the complex emotions 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:22.720 I experienced reading about and understanding this stuff, and really 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.680 understanding my childhood, which was largely based growing up online. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.600 I ain't have friends, I didn't really have things to 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:31.200 do other than being online, and it made me who 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:36.040 I am, but also made me kind of reflect on 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.600 things each year as I saw the Internet begin to crumble. 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:41.040 But I really love doing this show and I have 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:42.880 no idea if this monologue is going to be something 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.200 you care for, but I want you to know why 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:46.960 I'm doing it. I want you to know who I 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.520 am and what I am because this show has allowed 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:51.240 me to express myself in a way that I've never 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:53.520 allowed myself to and as a result, has allowed me 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:55.040 to become who I am and took me off a 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.840 path that was equal parts dark and hopeless. Now I 0:07:57.840 --> 0:07:59.960 get to do a podcast where I call tech CEO, scum, 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.320 pigs and shit heads, living the dream, and I am, 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.880 albeit depressingly recently, extremely happy in my life because of 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:08.240 the work I get to do and the people it's 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:10.240 led me to, and to the friendships I already have 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.080 that have deepened as a result. And hearing from all 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.000 of you is wonderful too. I'm so lucky to be 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:17.760 able to do this, but also that so many of 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.520 you reach out with kind words, with funny things that 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.800 you've found, or just stories that pissed you off too. 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.720 It's genuinely magical. Whatever the size of this community is 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:29.240 really grateful for it. I'm grateful that I get to 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.240 do this, and I'm great grateful that I get to 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.800 do these like five to ten minute long monologues where 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.200 I just share how I feel at random. So yeah, 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.640 that's been this week's monologue. Next week, we have a 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:41.760 really fun interview with Giant bomb coming up as well. 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.559 Just just did that. The show fucking rocks. Thank you 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:45.080 for listening.