WEBVTT - Internet Folklore and Misinformation 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.320 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.360 --> 0:00:17.400 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:21.080 iHeart Radio and I love all things tech, and today 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.520 we're going to cover an interesting topic. There was a 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:29.120 suggestion from Shaye Lee. And you might remember Shay in 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:35.600 her alter ego as al Amona, who sabotaged my episode 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:41.040 about how matches work, and now she's back. Hi, Shay Hi, 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.839 I heard Alimona ran off with the quister. Yeah, that's 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:49.080 the union made in. They're just gonna burn it all 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:53.200 to the ground, burn it all down. So to give 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.960 some background on what this episode is all about, Shaye 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:57.840 reached out to me and asked if I had ever 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:02.120 done an episode about a specific piece of internet folklore 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.120 called aratus, and we're going to get to that. We 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.000 communicate in stories and your traditional folklore. These are the 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.160 tales that are passed around. Typically they're not even written 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.560 down there, their oral traditions. It's told around the campfire. 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.240 And now the campfires turned into creepy pasta, yes, which 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.959 we will talk about. So you know that that also 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.959 developed into things that we call urban legends. Urban leges 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:29.520 is just another type of folklore. But it was a 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.960 subset of folklore that kind of grew into as we 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.200 started to see the industrial revolution. We saw people move 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:39.160 to the cities. You know, it became less of an 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.720 agrarian world, and a lot lots of the uh, A 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:44.720 lot of regions in the around the world became more 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:51.320 urban and less agrarian, and a different set of folklore 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.680 tales started to arise. A lot of them are like 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:59.720 tales of warning. Yeah, you say, like don't trust strangers tales. Yes, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:01.880 a lot of morality tales too, Yeah, a lot of 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:04.360 them are like, see what happens if you do this 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.520 thing that breaks our social morays? You will suffer like 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:10.000 these people did. Yeah, see what happens when you take 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:15.040 candy and or apples from strange women in the woods, right, right, 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.639 Except now it's like when you're going trick or treating, 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.320 if you don't check all the candy, you're going to 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.720 end up with razor blades and poison. Right. Yeah, I've 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.520 never found a razor blade in any of my candy. Yeah, 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:27.919 no one in my twenty seven years of trick or treating, 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.280 no one ever did until people started worrying about it, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:35.920 and then people would yeah or like or like it 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.359 would be Oh I discovered this, and it turned out 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:40.799 that they had planted their own discovery that kind of thing, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:46.720 kind of like the the murders. Yes. Yes, So one 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:49.080 of the things I wanted to to kind of allude 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.040 to to kind of set the stage for the stuff 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.280 we're gonna talk about today, which is the more internet 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.120 based stuff. I'm just going to give an example of 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.440 one of my favorite urban legends of all time. It's 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.200 a It's one that's been told a billion different times. 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.600 It's been written in lots of different anthologies. Shay, you'll 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.200 appreciate this. When I was in uh elementary school and 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.960 middle school, the books I checked out the most in 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:17.320 my school library, we're all about urban legends, ghosts, and 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.320 other types of paranormal, supernatural kind of stuff. We have 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:23.280 that in common because I did the exact same thing. 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:28.680 I stopped believing in it. So that's where our path divulge, No, 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:33.480 so diverted, I should say. So. The story I want 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.520 to tell is the Vanishing Hitchhecker story. Classic story. So 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.480 the basic version of the story goes, a guy's driving 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.560 down a road, a dark country road at night. The 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.200 rain is coming down really hard, it's hard to see, 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.600 and as he's driving down the road, he sees a 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.840 young woman walking along the side the road, and so, 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:59.000 not wanting her to get totally frozen out in the 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.320 pouring rain, he pulls over and offers her a ride, 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.119 and she gets in the back seat of his car, 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.720 and out of a sense of a concern for her, 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:12.720 he gives her his jacket to wrap around herself, and 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.680 then she gives him an address, and so he starts 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.719 to drive, and otherwise she doesn't really communicate with him. 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:20.880 He gets to the address. When he gets there, he 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.240 looks in the back seat and the girl's gone, and 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.880 he never heard the car door open or anything. He 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.120 doesn't know what happened, and his jacket is gone as well. 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.719 There's just a like a the seats wet from where 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.640 she had been because of the pouring rain, but otherwise 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.480 there's no indication. So he goes to the house where 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:40.800 he had the address and knocks on the door to 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.320 find out what the heck is going on. Woman answers 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.800 the door. Typically it's a woman in this in this legend, 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.919 he explains what has happened. The woman goes pale and says, 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.320 no one by that description lives here. But there was 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.599 a young woman whose family lived here before us, but 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:02.520 she died years ago and she's buried at such and 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:07.080 such cemetery. So he goes to the cemetery, and when 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.240 he comes up on the grave of the young woman, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:16.120 there's his jacket resting on her gravestone vanishing. Hi. Oh, 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:21.160 and it's considerate to leave his jacket behind. Yeah, Otherwise 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.560 she's up with teen angel and looking at rings and 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.080 jackets that are just an accumulation of wealth that they've 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.040 had over the years. I remember that movie vaguely. Well, 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.640 I was talking about the song, but there's a whole 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:36.240 genre of music that's dedicated to teenagers dying. So that's 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.120 an example of an urban legend. It's one that's been told. Like, 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.440 there's lots of variations. Well, the Internet has its own 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:44.880 versions of this, and we're also going to talk about 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:50.359 in this episode how the Internet reinforces the communication of 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:54.120 these stories and reinforces people's belief in it, largely through 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.400 the behavior of those who are sharing the stories and 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:04.040 also the way the platform themselves work. So you mentioned 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:09.279 creepy pasta. Let's explain what creepy pasta is, and I 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:13.080 guess first we have to explain what copy pasta is, 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.479 because creepy pasta is a subset of copy pasta. Before 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:19.760 I learned it from you, I actually didn't know that 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.520 creepy pasta was a subset of copy pasta. I just 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:24.800 thought it was its own thing, just the name of 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:29.000 a forum, because no one ever talks about copy pasta anymore. 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.680 But the it's it's a sort of a portmanteau of 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.920 copy paste, right, and it's the fact that a lot 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:38.760 of people to share stories. What they would do is 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.040 they would find something on the Internet that was interesting, 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.800 maybe in a message board or whatever, copy it and 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.560 then paste into some other message board or whatever, and 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.880 that's yeah. Usually there was no attribution, like I often 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.640 expelled for that if I tried that. Well, they weren't 0:06:56.640 --> 0:06:59.240 necessarily they weren't necessarily trying to pass it off as 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:02.799 their own work, but rather like I saw this crazy 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.920 story or this funny joke or whatever it might be. 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.200 But sometimes when you're doing that copy and basing, well 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.640 one you might lose the attribution, so you don't know 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.960 who originated the thing and to sometimes you lose the context, 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:20.720 like is this a joke? Is it a piece of fiction? 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.280 Is it supposed to be an account of something that 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:29.760 actually happened. Creepy pasta is a subset where it's specifically 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:34.640 about spooky, creepy paranormal typically kind of stuff, but not 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:40.520 necessarily paranormal, but often paranormal, or like the unnamed serial 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.520 killers of Yeah, like the hook that's hanging on the 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.400 card door, that kind of just the killer. Do you 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:49.680 know who Jeff Jeff the Killer. I do not know 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:52.000 who Jeff the Killer is. Jeff the Killer is weird 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.480 because it's in his name. Yeah, you would think, well, 0:07:54.600 --> 0:08:00.760 Jeff the Killer is a Baker obviously, listen, sorry, listen, 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:06.160 my dad was Jeff the Killer Jeff Baker. And um, 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.000 kind of a boogeyman type story, very like how he 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.880 comes into your room if you don't share this, or 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.440 if you share it a number of times or YadA yadya, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:20.160 and um that for me, the story isn't what's important. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:21.960 I'm sure you've seen pictures of him when you're just 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.000 scrolling through Facebook. Have you seen like the picture it's 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:27.640 like a big white creepy face that it's been so 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:30.960 edited that there's like no nose and just a big 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.520 creepy smile and huge eyes, and it usually has like 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.160 a caption that says, go to sleep under it, or 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.800 I probably have. Yeah, I've seen a lot on the internet. 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.880 I don't remember most of it. But um, so, Jeff 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.560 the Killer. There's many incarnations of Jeff the Killer. There's 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.080 you know, the creepy guy that comes into your bedroom 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.640 and kills you and all that. Oh yeah, you know, 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:57.400 he's so inconvenient and inconsiderate, but um they're because of 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:00.800 creepy Pasta and just all the threads abut Jeff the Killer. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.360 There were Jeff the Killer fan girls that would draw 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:09.520 a little like a little romantic, you know, heart images 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.880 of him as as Yeah, as if that's like they're 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.400 they're brad Pitt that this is this is messed up. 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.160 So we wanted to talk a little bit about a 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.960 couple of examples of creepypasta. This is just the beginning 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.439 of this episode. Two each each section we're going to 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.880 talk about a different kind of subset of Internet folklore. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.720 But creepy Pasta is one that is pretty easy to reference, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:40.080 and uh, one example of it although it didn't necessarily 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.960 start as creepy pasta itself, because creepy pasta tends to 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.760 be in the form of some sort of story. Um. 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.319 A lot of early types of creepypasta fell into one 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.760 of two categories. It was a story about something that 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.360 supposedly happened to someone, and it could it could be 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:58.640 presented as fiction. You didn't have to present it as 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.600 if it were real, but it's it's given in that 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.679 sort of tale, or it was you know, lost episodes 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.640 of certain types of shows or movies or things that 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:13.840 that uh no longer are shown, but they do exist 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:17.360 and there's something creepy about what happened, Like it's that 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:21.760 one really dark episode of Gilligan's Island. There are versions 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.400 of of it. Now that that particular style of creepy 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.079 pasta fell out of favor fairly quickly, Like it was 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.960 kind of like a creepy version of fan fiction. But 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:36.120 one of the most prominent examples is slender Man, which 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.599 didn't start off, as I said, as creepy pasta. It 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.280 started off as kind of an exercise. Uh. There was 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:48.200 the Something Awful forums forum board on the Internet, so 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.560 people would get together and have conversations about different topics, 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.679 and this was particularly in a thread that was titled 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:59.360 create Paranormal Images. So it's just people trying to use 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:04.160 photoshop to create images that were unsettling or had some 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:09.600 sort of alien or paranormal aspect to them, Like the 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.920 idea like make something that if you were to look 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.200 at people would go like, ooh, that's what is that? 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:19.160 That's creepy. Yeah. So this guy named Eric Knudson created 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:24.640 a a picture of an elongated, like an unnaturally tall, 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:30.679 unnaturally thin figure with an odd like obscured face, and 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.960 it became known as the slender Man. He also included 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.480 a little bit of flavor text to kind of give 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:43.559 some very shifty background on this character and attaching him 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:48.160 to the fictional fire. And then the Internet took that 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:53.360 boy Haldy. Yeah. So there were all these different people 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:59.400 who contributed to flushing out the mythology behind slender Man. 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.800 So the legend of Slenderman grew online, right, and it's 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:08.319 on all these different communities and people within that thread 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.240 had already predicted that some of the images that were 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.679 being made were likely going to end up on websites 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.760 about the paranormal, but they would be submitted as if 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:24.800 they were genuine examples of evidence, as opposed to somebody 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:29.319 specifically crafted this and in fact that did happen, including 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.000 with slender Man. And so that's where we started seeing 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:39.720 more discussions about it, including people who are sure that 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.600 they had heard of this character before and in fact, 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.720 that was one of the points you wanted to make, right. Yeah, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.199 I worked with a girl a couple of years ago, 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.520 about five years ago. She swore up and down that 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:57.360 she and a bunch of internet friends contributed to, uh, 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.080 the creation of slenderman um. Not I don't. She didn't 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.360 mention anything about the photoshop. But the way, if I 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.280 can remember it correctly, the way she presented it to 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.600 me was that she and a couple of friends were 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:15.440 just chatting over the Internet and somebody on the thread 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:18.559 or the forum said, hey, let's make a legend and 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.360 or let's make a let's let's make an urban legend. 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:27.520 And they probably already had their you know, base material 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:32.880 with the pictures and the other flavor text and stuff. 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:35.800 But she swears up and down that she contributed to 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:40.360 the creation of slenderman um. Red Letter Media believes that 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.800 they contributed to the creation of Slenderman. There's a video 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.040 called very appropriately did red Letter Media in Vince Slenderman 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.000 Um three guesses about what that video is, and it 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:55.240 was mostly done tongue in cheet. Yeah, but they their 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.720 criteria is that they made a short film that had 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.160 a character that was bald and war suit. Yeah, and 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:06.280 and he was ominous, so that makes him Slenderman. But 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:11.160 by that, by that criteria than like the Gentleman and 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.960 from Buffy are Slenderman from the episode Hush and the 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:21.080 silence from Yeah, he's Slenderman, and you know, ominous bald 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.520 guys your Slenderman? Dude, are you? Are you Slenderman? I'm 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.680 only I'm only ominous when I'm walking to work. When 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:33.240 I'm walking away from work, I'm whistling and I'm jaunty. Yeah. No, 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:35.960 that's a good point. And like when we were sort 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.880 of brainstorming this episode, one thing she said that really 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.960 stuck with me is like everybody made slender Man, Like 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:44.000 every Yeah, it was like one of those stories where 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.680 you're just like the Internet's baby. We all made him. 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.400 But but his actual creation date is something that we 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:55.240 can trace back to that photoshop thread, which we even 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:57.720 know when that was originally posted, which was June eight, 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.960 two thousand nine. It is so rare when you can 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:05.880 actually trace a legend back to its point of origin. Now, granted, 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:10.400 it grew much larger than that thread, and in fact 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:16.720 it even factors into a real world crime. And um, 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:19.920 this is what I'm sure anyone who's followed the story 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:23.840 of Slenderman knows about. There were a group of young 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.080 girls in Wisconsin and two They were all friends, and 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.760 two of the friends lured the third one out to 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.760 a remote location and then stabbed her. Uh. She fortunately 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:40.360 was survived the the attack and made a full recovery. Uh. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:46.960 And the two attackers were committed to mental health institutions 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.680 for at least you know a while you said that 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.680 one of them is is currently coming up for parole soon. 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:55.840 I I didn't actually read the article on it. While 0:15:55.840 --> 0:16:00.840 I was scrolling through the social media interwebs one day, 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.200 I saw an article. I didn't read the article, but 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.640 I saw the headline said, Um, one of them was 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.200 up for parole, and apparently the family of the victim 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.080 is not very happy about that. Understandably, so understandable. It 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:18.320 is certainly one of those stories where you feel awful 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:23.360 for everybody. You feel terrible for people who have lost 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.320 enough connection with reality to not be able to tell 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:30.760 the difference between a fantasy and what is actually real. 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.680 But then when you're a kid, that's that's a tough 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.720 distinction to make. Honestly, these days, as an adult, it 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.960 could be a pretty tough distinction to make. There's a 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.400 lot of misinformation out there, and the whole thing with 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.520 internet folklore is that the problem with it is that 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.800 so much of it seems real. It's presented as it's 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.920 completely sincere and real. Yeah, I mean, I would like 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:57.160 to think that I don't believe in a tall child 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.880 snatching bald guy, but I mean at late at night, 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:05.000 you see something like this and your imagination starts to 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.000 fill in gaps and then you know, you start to 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.440 you start to believe things that are not necessarily true 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.080 might be true. Yeah, we wanted to chat a little 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.000 bit about also a couple of other examples of creepy 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.480 pasta really quickly. And this next one was one that 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.679 surprised me because you also mentioned candle Cove, which I 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:28.480 had not heard of before you mentioned it. I hadn't 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.880 heard of anything about candle Cove until maybe a year 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.080 and a half ago. Um, I was just I was 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.840 at my mom's house one day visiting and she and 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.159 my stepdad were really into the show and it was 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.320 candle and it's the show I think it was on 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:49.280 SI Fi. There was there. It's their Channel zero series. Yeah, 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.520 that's what tripped me up. But yeah, it was a 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.080 show called Candle Cove and they were really into it, 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:59.439 and she was explaining to me, you know, the the premise, 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:03.120 the pres sounded familiar, so I don't know if I had, 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.680 you know, encountered the encounter the original, but I looked 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.240 it up because honestly, the reason I was looking it 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.200 up is that I recognized one of the actors from 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:12.879 Parks and rec and I wanted to figure out what 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.040 his name was. And as I was looking it up, 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.440 all the information about how Candle Cove started off as 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:21.959 I don't think it was on Creepy Pasta, but it was. 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:26.160 It was definitely a Creepy Pasta style story. Yes it was. 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:28.159 It was written by a guy named Chris Straub. And 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:33.040 what's funny is I've talked to Chris Straub personally years ago. 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.680 So Chris Straub is also a web comic list and 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.280 I wrote for how Stuff Works dot com. I wrote 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:43.120 the article how web Comics Work, and he was one 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.520 of my sources, and I did a full interview with him, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:48.560 chatted with him for about probably an hour while I 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:52.880 was researching this work. And uh, it's so interesting because 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.119 again I had no idea until we started researching this 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:00.280 episode that he had contributed this piece of internet lore. 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.960 So the original work is presented as a series of posts, 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.639 again on a message board, so it seemingly a lot 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:11.440 of contributors. Yes, but but it's it's the work of 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.560 fiction of one person, but presented in the way as 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:19.080 if it's a thread, a conversational thread between multiple people 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:24.400 who all remember this children's show that no one else 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:29.920 seems to realize existed. And it starts off pretty innocently, like, Hey, 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.159 does anyone else here happen to remember this show? I 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.439 remember watching it as a kid, but I don't. I 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.199 can't find anything about it, and so I'm wondering, like 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.919 I just imagine it, and other people say, oh no, 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:43.879 I remember that show too, and again this is all 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.680 part of the fiction. Yeah. I think like the big 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.120 twist is not only as the show super creepy, as 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.159 people remember more and more about it, it starts to 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.240 appear more and more sinister. But one of the details 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.960 released is that, uh, the person who star the thread 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.480 chatted with his mother about what had happened, and his 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.040 mother said, oh, you would always say that you went 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.480 to want to watch a show called candle Cove, but 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.440 you just changed the channel to static and sat there 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:16.399 and stared at it for thirty minutes. Yeah. So again, 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.480 very very kind of creepy premise. But that has taken 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.520 a life of its own, where not only is it 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.800 a television series on sci fi where they take elements 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.439 of that and they wrap other narrative around it, um, 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.199 but on top of that, like I even debate on 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:34.840 using on including this because I thought, well, clearly this 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.879 is the work of fiction. People know it's work of fiction. No, 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:41.080 there are YouTube interviews are in YouTube videos I should 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.880 say titled is was Candle Cove a real TV show? 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:46.600 And I thought, well, if you have to make a 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.120 video about it, then there are people wondering about it. Yeah, 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:55.440 because there's there's videos of like original Candle Cove episodes 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.280 which I'm pretty sure are just lifted from the show 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.760 or base or there might be some like fan made 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.400 things because there were fan fictions written about candle Cove. Yeah, 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:08.160 now a lot of these actually would get a lot 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.359 of fan fiction added to it. And Uh, the other 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.959 thing that this reminds me of is something called the 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:19.199 Mandola effect. Um. Actually that's technically the Mandela effect, but 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:21.480 I've heard it pronounced the wrong way. But it's named 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.040 after Nelson Mandela. So have you heard of this effect. 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:26.240 I've heard of the effect. I don't actually know why. 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:31.600 It's called the Mandela effect. So Nelson Mandela was imprisoned 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.879 for many, many years, and the Mandela effect refers to 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:40.320 this belief that people had that they had heard newscasters 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.960 in the nineteen eighties announced that Nelson Mandela had passed 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:48.639 away while in prison, but that never happened. But people 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:53.400 swear they remember seeing those newscasts, but it never happened. 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.280 There are other examples of this. Uh. The two that 0:21:56.320 --> 0:22:00.359 people tend to site pretty frequently are the Bernstein Bears, 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.879 where it's it's spelled stain at the end. That's the 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.040 correct spelling, but everyone thinks it's steen s T E 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.119 I n instead of s T A I n um, 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.119 and they swear like no I have a book and 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.000 it's spelled the other way. It's the barn steam Bears, 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.160 the barn Stain Bears, and the other one is Uh. 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:21.399 Everyone's convinced that the comedian Sindbad was in a movie 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.520 in which he played a genie named Shazam. Apparently he 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.360 was in like a weird promo where he was a genie, 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.919 but it wasn't there. There was no movie because there 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:36.760 was no Yeah, but those are all like Internet legends 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:41.160 that ended up sort of get growing, and this man 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:47.320 Mandela effect or Mandela effect had this added benefit of 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:52.200 people hearing something and then convincing themselves that they too 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:56.439 had experienced it, which is kind of interesting. Now we 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.480 actually have tons more we could talk about, like their 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.520 other LM monts, not just creepy pasta. There's stuff like 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.960 inspirational stories that are referred to as glurge, where I've 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:09.160 never heard refer to it as that it's you had 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:11.200 to be on snopes dot com back in the day 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.520 on those message boards, but glurge refers to stories that 0:23:15.280 --> 0:23:19.080 are meant to tap into those sort of sappy emotions 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:21.600 that we have. Uh. They also tend to be kind 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:26.920 of dark under the surface, but it's it's the inspirational 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:31.280 story counterpart to creepy pasta, except it's often passed as 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:35.480 it really happened, and it turns out it's never anything verifiable. 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:38.880 But rather than go on all arounte about that, we're 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:40.480 gonna take a quick break and when we come back, 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:51.959 we're gonna talk about some conspiracy theories. Now, we started 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:55.800 off this episode talking about works of fiction that aren't 0:23:55.800 --> 0:24:00.600 necessarily intended to be taken seriously, but sometimes take a 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:02.960 life of their own outside of their point of origin, 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:06.040 and then they are taken seriously. There are other times 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:10.720 where there's just a joke or a hoax that people 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:15.320 end up taking as a sincere message. And the first 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:17.520 one I wanted to mention is is one of the 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:21.520 earliest examples of an Internet hoax. It actually dates to December, 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:25.959 when very few people even knew what the Internet was, 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:33.120 and it all involves the company Microsoft supposedly acquiring the 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:39.800 Catholic Church. Huh, you're a Catholic, so so do you 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:42.240 own shares in Microsoft? Is that how it works? I 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:45.760 mean I have a Mac, so I don't. I don't 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:49.400 know that's true. It's right in front of it. Yeah, 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:53.680 I if if my mom's secretly owned shares and Microsoft, 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:57.639 then you know she's got some splain in too, do Yeah. 0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:01.360 So had you heard of this before? I actually never 0:25:01.440 --> 0:25:04.479 have maybe, And I went to Catholic school for so 0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:07.040 many years in my life, I'm surprised I never heard 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:12.159 this four. How old were you in ninety four? I 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:15.960 was two, okay, maybe that's why you didn't hear about it, okay, 0:25:16.280 --> 0:25:20.960 whereas I was older than that. So this was a joke, 0:25:21.400 --> 0:25:24.160 and it was clearly a joke. It was a press release, 0:25:24.640 --> 0:25:26.840 supposed press release, but it was, you know, a joke 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:29.720 in the form of a press release supposedly from the 0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:34.160 Associated Press, which is you know, it's a legitimate organization. Uh. 0:25:34.320 --> 0:25:39.760 It even had a byline by Hank Vorhez was supposedly 0:25:39.800 --> 0:25:42.800 the name of the person who who wrote up this 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:47.800 press release in your relation to Jason, not Vorhees. Uh so, 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:50.439 uh yeah. And I even wrote, just imagine what Clippy 0:25:50.480 --> 0:25:53.359 would be like. So you're trying to transubstantiate, would you 0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:57.960 like some help? Um? So? Yeah. The the hoax, the 0:25:58.000 --> 0:26:01.000 press release hoax even included a host in quote from 0:26:01.000 --> 0:26:05.040 Bill Gates, who was referring to religion as a growth market. 0:26:05.720 --> 0:26:09.600 Obviously that was part of the joke. And I said 0:26:09.640 --> 0:26:14.000 that Microsoft would get exclusive electronic publication rights to the Bible, 0:26:14.320 --> 0:26:16.720 so they would be able to only one version of it, 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:19.240 not the King James, and that would be the yeah, 0:26:19.359 --> 0:26:22.200 be it would be whatever is the most Catholic version. Yeah, 0:26:23.440 --> 0:26:26.439 the longer version, the Catholic version of anything. Is the 0:26:26.480 --> 0:26:28.600 longer version ever been to a Catholic wedding. Yes, I 0:26:28.640 --> 0:26:31.600 had still going on. I know I had to sneak out. 0:26:32.040 --> 0:26:35.800 That was seven years ago. But yeah, this, like I said, 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:38.440 it was pretty clear it was a joke. And yet 0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:43.119 there are people who either they got mad because they 0:26:43.119 --> 0:26:46.600 thought that Microsoft had been perpetuating this joke and they 0:26:46.680 --> 0:26:50.159 said this is in poor taste and Microsoft got flooded 0:26:50.640 --> 0:26:54.800 with complaints, or there were a few people who thought 0:26:54.880 --> 0:26:57.800 it was a genuine press release and they were horrified 0:26:57.840 --> 0:27:00.520 about it, and they were reaching out the Microsoft express 0:27:00.600 --> 0:27:05.240 their horror and concern. It got so bad that Microsoft 0:27:05.359 --> 0:27:12.720 actually formally denounced the joke on December six, released its 0:27:12.760 --> 0:27:16.720 own press release to say, no, we had nothing to 0:27:16.760 --> 0:27:19.560 do with this announcement. We definitely did not buy the 0:27:19.600 --> 0:27:24.040 Catholic Church. We know, we don't know who it was 0:27:24.160 --> 0:27:27.080 that created this, We have no connection to it. We 0:27:27.160 --> 0:27:30.760 are sorry that you're upset, which was weird that they 0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:33.760 were apologizing for something that they literally had no control over. 0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:36.560 I mean, this wouldn't be the only time that Microsoft 0:27:36.640 --> 0:27:40.520 would get connected to Internet legends and hoaxes. There's there 0:27:40.520 --> 0:27:43.160 were also ones that said if you forward this email, 0:27:43.440 --> 0:27:47.000 then Bill Gates is going to give you like dollars, 0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:49.919 which was never true. Oh those chain letters, I remember 0:27:49.920 --> 0:27:53.720 those email chain letters quite well. Yeah, thankfully those have 0:27:53.920 --> 0:27:57.320 kind of died down. But you sometimes will see the 0:27:57.359 --> 0:28:00.520 equivalent on Facebook where it will be like usually Facebook, 0:28:00.520 --> 0:28:03.920 it's share this, but don't share it copy and pasted. 0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:08.080 And by the way, cut that message. Don't share this 0:28:08.240 --> 0:28:11.720 copy and pasted. That's pretty much a dead giveaway that 0:28:11.840 --> 0:28:14.159 what what you're being asked to do is to perpetuate 0:28:14.160 --> 0:28:18.560 a hoax, because the justification usually get is we don't 0:28:18.560 --> 0:28:22.359 want the people who are most vulnerable to be targeted, 0:28:22.600 --> 0:28:26.800 so therefore, copy and paste it or Facebook's algorithms will 0:28:27.080 --> 0:28:30.359 not promote this if you share it. That's not true. 0:28:30.760 --> 0:28:32.800 The reason they don't want you to share it is 0:28:32.840 --> 0:28:36.080 because if you share it rather than copy and pasted Yeah, 0:28:36.200 --> 0:28:37.920 you can trace it back to the point of origin. 0:28:38.760 --> 0:28:42.360 So sounds but the Microsoft Catholic Church stuff sounds a 0:28:42.360 --> 0:28:46.160 little Jonathan swift E. Yeah, it was a it was 0:28:46.720 --> 0:28:52.400 a pretty odd thing to see become, you know, a 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:54.800 hoax level. Again, I don't think it was intended as 0:28:54.840 --> 0:28:57.719 a hoax. Like to me, this sounds like an onion 0:28:57.880 --> 0:29:03.000 article and someone mistaken believing that a satirical article is 0:29:03.200 --> 0:29:07.360 a real thing, like a modest proposal type of stuff. Yeah, 0:29:07.480 --> 0:29:10.320 And when you when you see people taking something that 0:29:10.440 --> 0:29:16.160 was meant as satire, sincerely, that's not scary. It is scary, 0:29:16.200 --> 0:29:18.920 although sometimes it's you could also argue some people are 0:29:18.920 --> 0:29:22.640 just really bad at satire, and sometimes things that people 0:29:22.720 --> 0:29:26.440 claim our satire just are lies. S satirical, it's just 0:29:26.480 --> 0:29:30.480 a lie. And uh, you know, perpetuating a lie and 0:29:30.520 --> 0:29:33.400 then telling people, oh no it's satire. That's not to 0:29:33.440 --> 0:29:36.160 get out of jail free card. My joke didn't land. 0:29:36.160 --> 0:29:38.720 Oh don't worry, it was just satire. Yeah, no, it wasn't. 0:29:38.760 --> 0:29:41.640 It was a bad joke, right right, or or there's no, 0:29:41.720 --> 0:29:45.360 there was no joke structure there. You were just telling falsehoods. 0:29:45.760 --> 0:29:47.680 Then you got mad when you got called out on it. 0:29:48.640 --> 0:29:51.280 So that is a very early example. And then the 0:29:51.320 --> 0:29:55.720 next one is sort of the genesis for this whole episode, 0:29:55.840 --> 0:30:00.360 the eratus story E R R A t A S. 0:30:00.600 --> 0:30:03.520 Although sometimes it's just with one R R A T 0:30:03.760 --> 0:30:05.959 A S. I'm glad that you've established that we were 0:30:05.960 --> 0:30:10.120 saying erratas not not not erotic, or I was saying 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:15.840 like aratus. Well, it's a rata. Errata is already plural, 0:30:16.000 --> 0:30:18.680 so it's already it's already got a problem with it. Yeah, 0:30:18.760 --> 0:30:23.120 because it's it's pluralized, uh in an Anglican way. But 0:30:23.400 --> 0:30:26.960 arrata would already be the plural and it means like errors. Right. 0:30:27.240 --> 0:30:30.040 You typically would say, like you would publish a rata 0:30:30.160 --> 0:30:33.640 to say these are things that we're included in the 0:30:33.640 --> 0:30:38.320 previous published work which there are wrong. Yeah, might be 0:30:38.360 --> 0:30:41.560 a typo, might be that there was a misplaced decimal 0:30:41.640 --> 0:30:45.120 and a figure or something. So the misspelling of erratas 0:30:45.280 --> 0:30:49.280 is in itself of errata to be in a ratum, right, 0:30:49.320 --> 0:30:55.440 it wouldn't be. It's errataception. Okay, So this is a 0:30:55.480 --> 0:30:58.680 weird one. It's a very odd story. It's actually kind 0:30:58.680 --> 0:31:02.840 of hard to explain because it gets wrapped up in 0:31:02.920 --> 0:31:08.360 about two or three different kind of weird things. Uh. Supposedly, 0:31:08.600 --> 0:31:14.000 aratus itself refers to some kind of computer algorithm. Yeah, 0:31:14.160 --> 0:31:18.720 that's used by HR or used by companies to remove 0:31:19.040 --> 0:31:23.160 material they don't want on the Internet. Like think of 0:31:23.240 --> 0:31:27.680 it as it's supposedly an algorithm that can seek and 0:31:27.760 --> 0:31:33.320 destroy content and remove it from the Internet automatically. Typically 0:31:34.280 --> 0:31:38.280 described as a way of removing stuff that's infringing on copyright, 0:31:38.400 --> 0:31:43.280 so like a takedown. So let's say that you, I 0:31:43.320 --> 0:31:47.480 don't know, you upload the entire film Berry Gordy's the 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:51.280 Last Dragon to YouTube, and you just haven't hosted on 0:31:51.320 --> 0:31:54.840 your own account because it's the greatest movie ever made, 0:31:54.880 --> 0:31:56.720 and I will brook no discussion upon the matter, and 0:31:56.760 --> 0:32:03.200 then this ratus computer algorithm would could be could be 0:32:03.240 --> 0:32:05.840 sent to take that down. There's no need for that. 0:32:06.000 --> 0:32:10.480 YouTube has a very effective, some would say over effective 0:32:11.080 --> 0:32:14.959 means of taking down stuff that gets copyright strikes on it, 0:32:15.440 --> 0:32:18.160 either demonetizing it or taking it down entirely, there's no 0:32:18.280 --> 0:32:21.040 need for an algorithm. But the other component to this 0:32:21.600 --> 0:32:25.560 is that supposedly the algorithm could find and remove references 0:32:25.600 --> 0:32:31.000 to itself. Yeah, like if you what it's when I 0:32:31.040 --> 0:32:34.440 was researching, it seemed like it was saying that if you, 0:32:35.240 --> 0:32:39.640 if anybody even typed in erratas into like a search engine, 0:32:39.720 --> 0:32:44.120 it could somehow not really damage your computer, but it 0:32:44.160 --> 0:32:47.200 could like track you just by looking it up or 0:32:47.240 --> 0:32:50.160 something like like Like a lot of stories went were 0:32:50.240 --> 0:32:54.320 about how someone was supposedly working for a company and 0:32:54.480 --> 0:32:59.960 came across some mention of eratus box labeled yeah, or 0:33:00.240 --> 0:33:03.520 like a division that had the name Eratus, and then 0:33:03.560 --> 0:33:08.280 they would do an internal search on their uh intra net, 0:33:08.600 --> 0:33:12.880 right the company's intranet, not the Internet necessarily, and that 0:33:13.280 --> 0:33:18.200 this would suddenly raise an alarm among the big wigs 0:33:18.240 --> 0:33:22.160 and that person would be dismissed, fired from their job, 0:33:22.280 --> 0:33:25.840 or they would be discouraged in no uncertain terms to 0:33:26.200 --> 0:33:28.680 leave all that alone. And so it was just this 0:33:28.760 --> 0:33:32.760 idea that it was a forbidden search term to the 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:36.960 point where people were perpetuating stories that you shouldn't even 0:33:37.120 --> 0:33:39.920 search for it online because it could come back to 0:33:40.000 --> 0:33:46.080 haunt you. Don't even think think. Meanwhile, seemingly not connected 0:33:46.120 --> 0:33:50.640 to this at all, there was a YouTube account created 0:33:50.680 --> 0:33:56.480 called Chronos for Life that appeared to be mostly dedicated 0:33:56.560 --> 0:34:01.920 to a very odd video talking about the Jurassic Park film. 0:34:02.000 --> 0:34:04.880 It was like a fan video of Jurassic Park. And 0:34:05.880 --> 0:34:08.520 have you watched these videos? I didn't watch the video. 0:34:08.560 --> 0:34:11.920 I watched clips of the like snippets of the videos themselves. 0:34:12.000 --> 0:34:14.560 So a lot of the videos have like white text 0:34:14.760 --> 0:34:18.359 on top of there's there's no that's illegible. Yeah, there's no, 0:34:18.520 --> 0:34:22.719 there's no like voice over. It's like the narrator is 0:34:22.760 --> 0:34:26.680 communicating via text, but it's white text over light background. 0:34:26.760 --> 0:34:29.000 So it makes it. And sometimes it's only up for 0:34:29.600 --> 0:34:32.560 a short number of frames, and it's and the video 0:34:32.600 --> 0:34:36.080 itself along with the text is so poor quality no 0:34:36.120 --> 0:34:38.680 matter how you watch it that it's hard to read, 0:34:38.719 --> 0:34:40.880 no matter what. Right, So you get you get the 0:34:40.920 --> 0:34:44.640 sense that the person who made this uh is either 0:34:44.920 --> 0:34:48.880 doing some very interesting but strange performance art, or maybe 0:34:48.960 --> 0:34:53.680 they're not. They're not. Well, that's another possibility, because it 0:34:53.719 --> 0:34:58.319 comes across very disjointed, illogical, difficult to follow, things that 0:34:58.360 --> 0:35:02.800 would typically be unsettling. Yeah, it was kind of conspiratorial, 0:35:02.880 --> 0:35:05.160 but you didn't really know what the conspiracy was, right, 0:35:05.200 --> 0:35:08.239 And then there would be a video that was in 0:35:08.280 --> 0:35:12.040 that same vein, but not about Jurassic Park rather about 0:35:12.400 --> 0:35:18.479 how uh this eratus thing was a dark conspiracy and 0:35:18.640 --> 0:35:21.600 I think that it was even Uh the person was 0:35:21.640 --> 0:35:25.600 worried about their mother being under surveillance. Yeah, because the 0:35:25.640 --> 0:35:28.239 mom was the one originally uploading all the Jurassic Park 0:35:28.400 --> 0:35:32.640 videos because or something. And then yeah, that that her 0:35:32.840 --> 0:35:37.520 her own mental acuity was deteriorating as a result of this, 0:35:37.640 --> 0:35:41.839 and yeah, I guess, very very strange. And then uh, 0:35:42.480 --> 0:35:46.160 people found that if they turned on captions for these videos, 0:35:46.960 --> 0:35:48.880 because you couldn't really make anything out in the videos, 0:35:48.880 --> 0:35:51.640 but you turn on captions, you would get these captions 0:35:51.680 --> 0:35:56.480 that would not appear otherwise. That left clues, and if 0:35:56.520 --> 0:36:00.640 you followed the clues, you would eventually find your self 0:36:00.880 --> 0:36:04.360 looking at the band camp page for a band called 0:36:04.600 --> 0:36:08.440 KFC Murder Chicks. Are we going to get sued? No, 0:36:10.239 --> 0:36:12.759 but that's what the band was called. I'm yeah, are 0:36:12.800 --> 0:36:15.399 they going to get sued? But probably not at this point. 0:36:15.400 --> 0:36:17.320 It sounds to be like that band has been defunct 0:36:17.400 --> 0:36:23.200 for a long time. So what this eventually appeared to 0:36:23.280 --> 0:36:29.279 be was a case of a person working on a 0:36:29.400 --> 0:36:33.279 music project which largely was based around taking snippets of 0:36:33.320 --> 0:36:37.040 audio from videos and putting it together into really weird 0:36:37.680 --> 0:36:41.520 uh composition. Yeah. The purpose of the band was to 0:36:41.640 --> 0:36:46.160 create a type of music called Internet sounds. Yeah deep Internet, Yeah, 0:36:46.239 --> 0:36:48.600 the deep Internet Sounds, and it was supposed to be 0:36:48.719 --> 0:36:53.319 some sort of weird, distorted background noise. It made me 0:36:53.400 --> 0:36:59.440 think of like a perhaps less focused approach to to 0:37:00.000 --> 0:37:03.520 forrmants as a Negative Land does, and that's a band 0:37:03.560 --> 0:37:08.840 that does a lot of compositions by taking pieces audio 0:37:08.920 --> 0:37:13.719 snippets from different sources and putting them together into very 0:37:13.800 --> 0:37:19.680 interesting uh audio like interesting albums. Actually, in fact, I 0:37:19.719 --> 0:37:22.919 had UH, one of the founding members of Negative Land 0:37:23.080 --> 0:37:24.960 on for a couple of episodes and we talked about 0:37:24.960 --> 0:37:28.480 that work so similar to that, and in fact that 0:37:28.719 --> 0:37:34.160 the person who had UH created these would later say, yeah, 0:37:34.200 --> 0:37:36.400 this was just sort of my attempt to kind of 0:37:36.719 --> 0:37:42.800 make something um, but I didn't really have a fully 0:37:42.840 --> 0:37:44.959 fleshed out plan on how that was going to work. 0:37:46.239 --> 0:37:49.040 But on the Internet people were following it and filling 0:37:49.040 --> 0:37:52.040 in the gaps and making it more than what it 0:37:52.239 --> 0:37:55.759 was and treating it like, oh, there really is this 0:37:55.880 --> 0:37:58.920 conspiracy out there. And one of the crazy things about 0:37:58.920 --> 0:38:03.359 conspiracy theory is that if you come out and tell 0:38:03.440 --> 0:38:07.080 someone no, that was all manufactured, it's not actually a 0:38:07.120 --> 0:38:11.960 conspiracy that ends up being parcy. Yeah, it's a cover up, right, Like, 0:38:12.080 --> 0:38:15.160 so there's no way to disprove a conspiracy to someone 0:38:15.160 --> 0:38:20.840 who's desperately going to follow that conspiracy theory. They they 0:38:20.880 --> 0:38:23.920 they are invested in believing in it, and so any 0:38:24.320 --> 0:38:29.760 counter evidence you give was manufactured to discredit the conspiracy, 0:38:29.800 --> 0:38:33.160 but it doesn't disprove it. That kind of thing. So 0:38:33.480 --> 0:38:35.719 this is another one of those cases where again I 0:38:35.719 --> 0:38:37.840 I had never even heard of this until you asked 0:38:37.840 --> 0:38:40.319 me about it. I honestly, at the beginning of this week, 0:38:40.360 --> 0:38:45.040 I was just very sick and going through just the interwebs, 0:38:45.080 --> 0:38:49.399 and I came across the video about eratas conspiracy, and 0:38:49.440 --> 0:38:52.359 I was like, that sounds like something he has talked 0:38:52.360 --> 0:38:54.279 about at some point. I don't know. There are so 0:38:54.320 --> 0:38:57.560 many episodes that I'm not sure. I mean, it may 0:38:57.640 --> 0:39:00.000 turn out that there that I have covered this very 0:39:00.360 --> 0:39:03.120 same story. Yeah, and I wouldn't remember this was all 0:39:03.120 --> 0:39:06.480 a conspiracy in and of itself. Well, I think it's 0:39:06.480 --> 0:39:08.520 fascinating and we have a little bit more to talk 0:39:08.560 --> 0:39:13.560 about as far as misinformation goes, where Like in this case, 0:39:13.600 --> 0:39:16.960 I would say that the eradas thing kind of falls 0:39:16.960 --> 0:39:20.640 into the land of the alternate reality game genre. So 0:39:20.719 --> 0:39:26.520 alternate reality games are where you mix reality and the 0:39:26.640 --> 0:39:31.040 fictional world within a game, and um, there are a 0:39:31.080 --> 0:39:37.080 lot of examples. They typically are marketing tools. So for example, AI, 0:39:37.239 --> 0:39:41.760 the movie AI, the Spielberg Kubrick film AI had an 0:39:41.800 --> 0:39:44.279 alternate reality game associated with it that a lot of 0:39:44.320 --> 0:39:48.120 people referred to as The Beast, and it was a 0:39:48.160 --> 0:39:52.080 story that played out mostly online, but included some stuff 0:39:52.120 --> 0:39:55.040 where people could interact not just online, but they could 0:39:55.080 --> 0:39:57.719 get faxes and phone calls and stuff. So it was 0:39:57.800 --> 0:40:02.200 like the fictional world of the game would reach across 0:40:02.440 --> 0:40:06.880 the barrier between reality and fiction and interact with you 0:40:06.960 --> 0:40:10.960 in ways in the real world that typically games don't. 0:40:11.680 --> 0:40:15.760 So it became kind of a role playing game almost, um. 0:40:15.840 --> 0:40:19.680 And I think that that's one version that can end 0:40:19.760 --> 0:40:24.120 up being misconstrued as being reality as opposed to now 0:40:24.160 --> 0:40:26.160 this is a marketing thing, or it's it's meant to 0:40:26.200 --> 0:40:28.719 be a game. When we come back, we're gonna talk 0:40:28.760 --> 0:40:35.400 about examples of misinformation that we're created specifically to perpetuate 0:40:35.640 --> 0:40:39.840 an agenda, not to create some sort of fiction or 0:40:39.880 --> 0:40:42.480 a game. We'll do that after we come back from 0:40:42.520 --> 0:40:53.000 this quick break. All right, we're getting into the home stretch, 0:40:53.000 --> 0:40:55.160 and this is some of the darkest stuff we have 0:40:55.239 --> 0:41:00.239 to talk about. So there are communities out on the 0:41:00.239 --> 0:41:04.399 Internet that so discord and they may do it for 0:41:04.520 --> 0:41:08.120 multiple reasons. They might just want to you know, it 0:41:08.160 --> 0:41:12.000 might be like what Christopher Nolan would say, some people 0:41:12.080 --> 0:41:15.560 just want to watch the world burn. Um. In some cases, 0:41:15.640 --> 0:41:21.319 it's to push a particular agenda that they really believe in, 0:41:21.520 --> 0:41:25.080 or to discredit an agenda that they do not like. 0:41:25.800 --> 0:41:30.759 And um, and all's fair in these communities, and in fact, 0:41:30.840 --> 0:41:34.760 you have multiple people with different motivators, all working towards 0:41:34.760 --> 0:41:38.240 the same goal. Some people may earnestly want to bring 0:41:38.360 --> 0:41:41.840 down something. Some people may just think it's funny to 0:41:42.680 --> 0:41:46.000 see commotion come out of their work, you know. Some 0:41:46.000 --> 0:41:49.520 people just want to get a rise out of people. Um. 0:41:49.560 --> 0:41:52.279 But the communities that we typically see this in the 0:41:52.320 --> 0:41:56.239 most are places like four chan and eight chan, where 0:41:56.280 --> 0:42:01.200 we get groups of people who find each other, they 0:42:01.200 --> 0:42:06.640 have some sort of commonality between them, and they know 0:42:06.760 --> 0:42:10.319 how to gamify systems. They know how people think, and 0:42:10.320 --> 0:42:14.200 they know how systems work, and using those two things together, 0:42:14.640 --> 0:42:20.879 they can perpetuate misinformation and lies and push forward their 0:42:20.880 --> 0:42:24.120 own agenda. And we've seen that several times over the 0:42:24.200 --> 0:42:28.719 last few years. In particular, so one entity or one 0:42:28.800 --> 0:42:32.759 group would be q and on. Really that's originally an 0:42:32.880 --> 0:42:37.000 entity UH, a person who was posting with the handle 0:42:37.640 --> 0:42:43.560 q um so q and on being anonymous that has 0:42:43.640 --> 0:42:52.560 posted numerous things that were very conspiracy oriented directed at 0:42:53.360 --> 0:42:59.280 particular groups or people, for example Hillary Clinton UM and 0:43:00.080 --> 0:43:02.440 it ends up being something a narrative that ends up 0:43:02.480 --> 0:43:05.680 being picked up by other people and then presented as 0:43:05.760 --> 0:43:09.120 truth that then gets reinforced again and again to the 0:43:09.120 --> 0:43:12.680 point where you start seeing some of those things that 0:43:12.719 --> 0:43:18.080 have never shown to have any actual truth to them 0:43:18.280 --> 0:43:24.680 being presented by UH by media outlets as truth, usually 0:43:25.120 --> 0:43:28.000 right wing media outlets. You don't tend to see that 0:43:28.880 --> 0:43:32.920 beyond that group, but it has become a real issue. 0:43:33.800 --> 0:43:37.520 And one example of that has been known as pizza Gate. 0:43:38.480 --> 0:43:41.680 And pizza Gate is a pretty a truly terrible story 0:43:42.200 --> 0:43:45.680 UH and it's it's one that alleges that there was 0:43:45.719 --> 0:43:51.600 this particular pizza parlor where secretly there was a pedophilia 0:43:51.719 --> 0:43:55.799 ring running through this this pizza parlor, Like that was 0:43:55.880 --> 0:44:00.879 like the nexus for this pedophilia ring, uh, and that 0:44:01.160 --> 0:44:05.960 this establishment also had a connection to the Clintons, And 0:44:07.120 --> 0:44:10.520 there were a lot of different people posting on a 0:44:10.960 --> 0:44:14.560 lot of different platforms that we're trying to substantiate these 0:44:14.600 --> 0:44:19.239 claims that again under investigation, there was no evidence to 0:44:19.280 --> 0:44:22.560 support any of it, but that wasn't what was important. 0:44:22.600 --> 0:44:28.080 What was important was that ground swell of people making 0:44:28.120 --> 0:44:32.560 these allegations and then immediately responding to any criticism by saying, 0:44:32.560 --> 0:44:36.080 you're trying to cover this up and that is unacceptable. 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:40.719 Their children and they're they're welfare that's at stake and 0:44:40.840 --> 0:44:44.040 how dare you? And I mean, that's a very powerful 0:44:44.480 --> 0:44:49.400 emotional lever to pull. So it was really effective, at 0:44:49.480 --> 0:44:54.960 least in certain circles. Yes. And also it's one of 0:44:55.000 --> 0:45:02.239 those arguments where you are confirming so one's bias that's 0:45:02.280 --> 0:45:05.160 directed towards a certain group. Right. So that's one of 0:45:05.160 --> 0:45:07.840 the reasons why we really wanted to talk about this topic. 0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:10.360 Two is the idea that why do these things get 0:45:10.560 --> 0:45:13.000 spread so fast and why do they get adopted so quickly? 0:45:13.280 --> 0:45:16.480 And it's a couple of different things. Uh. One of 0:45:16.520 --> 0:45:19.520 the big things is just the way human behavior tends 0:45:19.560 --> 0:45:22.880 to work. So say, if you come up to me 0:45:22.920 --> 0:45:25.640 and you tell me something that that seems to confirm 0:45:25.680 --> 0:45:28.600 a bias I already have, I am more inclined to 0:45:28.640 --> 0:45:32.880 believe you right, because you seem to be telling me 0:45:33.000 --> 0:45:37.640 something that that reinforces a belief I already possess. So 0:45:38.880 --> 0:45:43.680 if I believe I have a sweet, sweet style despite 0:45:43.680 --> 0:45:46.960 all evidence to the contrary, and you come up and 0:45:46.960 --> 0:45:50.600 you say, Wow, you're really got that outfits really well 0:45:50.640 --> 0:45:54.880 put together, you really are looking great today, I can 0:45:54.960 --> 0:45:57.120 sit there and think like, oh, yeah, I knew I 0:45:57.200 --> 0:46:00.000 have a sweet, sweet style, and sheha is just reinforce 0:46:00.200 --> 0:46:05.480 that belief. So while any objective viewer might look at 0:46:05.480 --> 0:46:08.200 me and think this guy doesn't even know how to 0:46:08.239 --> 0:46:11.680 match his socks, I'm walking down the straight thinking I 0:46:11.719 --> 0:46:16.799 got sweet sweet style. Yes, But in that case that 0:46:16.920 --> 0:46:20.160 was that's harmless, right. But if I have, let's say 0:46:20.160 --> 0:46:24.120 a different belief. Let's say that I believe that um 0:46:24.200 --> 0:46:28.040 an organization like the Red Cross. Let's say I have 0:46:28.080 --> 0:46:30.440 a belief that the Red Cross is actually doing something 0:46:30.440 --> 0:46:35.480 really nefarious. And then you were to come to me 0:46:35.880 --> 0:46:42.239 and say, I just heard that over in South Carolina 0:46:42.320 --> 0:46:45.680 the Red Cross has quarantined this entire community, and they 0:46:45.719 --> 0:46:48.160 won't tell anyone why. And it's like it doesn't even 0:46:48.200 --> 0:46:50.360 have to make any sense, right, It doesn't have to 0:46:50.360 --> 0:46:52.000 have It doesn't have to make any sense you have 0:46:52.040 --> 0:46:54.200 to have you don't have to have any corroborating evidence. 0:46:54.920 --> 0:46:58.640 If it plays into a belief I already have, I 0:46:58.680 --> 0:47:02.080 am more inclined to believe you, So that's part of it. 0:47:02.400 --> 0:47:05.359 If it plays on a fear I have, I'm more 0:47:05.360 --> 0:47:08.279 inclined to believe you because if I'm already afraid of 0:47:08.320 --> 0:47:11.480 something and you tell me there's that that fear is 0:47:12.680 --> 0:47:16.759 is rational or is you know, legitimate because of some 0:47:16.840 --> 0:47:21.040 other reason, I'm more inclined to believe you. On top 0:47:21.120 --> 0:47:25.960 of that, we have these Internet communities and uh, in 0:47:26.000 --> 0:47:28.160 some cases you might have something like a sub credit 0:47:28.480 --> 0:47:30.440 where you have these people who share some sort of 0:47:30.480 --> 0:47:33.840 common interest or common trait. They will reinforce their beliefs. 0:47:33.840 --> 0:47:37.120 It becomes an echo chamber. But you also have platforms 0:47:37.160 --> 0:47:40.719 like Facebook and Facebook. The way it works is that 0:47:40.800 --> 0:47:44.200 when a post gets a lot of engagement, when people 0:47:44.239 --> 0:47:46.839 are leaving comments, when people are sharing it, when people 0:47:46.880 --> 0:47:49.839 are liking it. You know, when people are applying to 0:47:49.840 --> 0:47:55.439 one another. Facebook sees that activity, and Facebook makes money 0:47:55.480 --> 0:47:58.879 when people are spending time on Facebook. So if they 0:47:58.920 --> 0:48:01.719 see if they being an algorithm, actually it's not even 0:48:01.719 --> 0:48:07.200 a person. If the Facebook algorithm identifies certain posts as 0:48:07.239 --> 0:48:11.680 being really productive from an engagement standpoint, those posts are 0:48:11.760 --> 0:48:15.880 valuable because it means when people see this, they spend 0:48:15.960 --> 0:48:18.680 more time on the platform. When they spend more time 0:48:18.680 --> 0:48:22.040 on the platform, we make more money. So let's promote 0:48:22.760 --> 0:48:26.560 the posts that are getting this kind of crazy engagement. 0:48:27.480 --> 0:48:32.520 And so that's why you see posts that are not 0:48:32.560 --> 0:48:39.719 necessarily sincere or earnest, or accurate or truthful get promoted 0:48:40.120 --> 0:48:41.960 on sites like Facebook. In fact, that's one of the 0:48:42.040 --> 0:48:45.960 big reasons why the United States government has called Facebook 0:48:46.000 --> 0:48:50.560 to task on multiple occasions for perpetuating, you know, quote 0:48:50.640 --> 0:48:54.879 unquote fake news, which I term I hate because it's 0:48:54.960 --> 0:49:00.640 often used to discredit actual news while not being applied 0:49:00.680 --> 0:49:04.440 to what is truly fake news. But that's neither here 0:49:04.480 --> 0:49:11.799 nor there. So it's a tricky situation because as a 0:49:11.800 --> 0:49:16.240 as a human being, it's asking what what I'm asking 0:49:16.280 --> 0:49:19.360 you to do is to engage your critical thinking skills 0:49:19.880 --> 0:49:25.719 even when you're encountering something that seems to be confirming 0:49:25.760 --> 0:49:28.560 your beliefs, like you have to. You have to apply 0:49:28.640 --> 0:49:32.360 critical thinking even in those cases, especially in those cases, 0:49:32.680 --> 0:49:36.560 because that's when your most vulnerable to accepting a lie 0:49:36.600 --> 0:49:39.400 as the truth, When it is telling you something that 0:49:39.480 --> 0:49:42.520 you want to hear, or it's reaffirming something you were 0:49:42.600 --> 0:49:46.320 afraid of. That's when you have to apply those critical 0:49:46.360 --> 0:49:52.080 thinking skills the most. Because the people who are perpetuating 0:49:52.120 --> 0:49:55.960 this stuff, they already they're aware, at least on a 0:49:56.000 --> 0:49:59.399 certain level of human psychology and how these things work 0:49:59.520 --> 0:50:02.160 and how messages can be delivered in a way that 0:50:02.280 --> 0:50:05.839 will get the broadest acceptance. So you have to keep 0:50:05.840 --> 0:50:09.840 that in mind, like they're gamifying the system, and the 0:50:09.840 --> 0:50:11.880 system happens to be the way people think and the 0:50:11.920 --> 0:50:17.960 way these communities operate. To quote my favorite musical ever 0:50:18.719 --> 0:50:21.960 created um ref Madness the Musical. Okay, I just think 0:50:21.960 --> 0:50:24.000 it was gonna be repo the Genetic Opera, But go ahead, 0:50:24.040 --> 0:50:26.200 I mean, I guess we could find a connection there 0:50:26.200 --> 0:50:30.400 as well. But refermat the very last line and refor 0:50:30.440 --> 0:50:33.759 Madness the Musical is when danger's near, exploit their fear. 0:50:33.880 --> 0:50:36.719 The end will justify the means. Yeah, so this is 0:50:36.760 --> 0:50:39.880 not this is not a new idea. I mean, propaganda 0:50:40.040 --> 0:50:43.640 is largely based on this same principle. In fact, you know, 0:50:43.719 --> 0:50:45.279 you could say that a lot of the people who 0:50:45.280 --> 0:50:48.759 are creating this misinformation, they're just following in the same 0:50:48.760 --> 0:50:54.759 footsteps as ad executives and uh and and political operatives 0:50:54.920 --> 0:51:00.680 have for for decades or longer. Um fax has always 0:51:00.719 --> 0:51:03.400 been part of advertisement pretty much. Oh absolutely, no, I 0:51:03.440 --> 0:51:07.200 mean you look back at like someone. The series mad 0:51:07.239 --> 0:51:12.840 Men was based off of actual advertising executives who really 0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:17.680 did find incredibly creative ways to convince people to buy 0:51:17.719 --> 0:51:20.839 stuff that they didn't want or need. And the same 0:51:20.880 --> 0:51:25.839 thing is true now about much more critical stuff like 0:51:26.200 --> 0:51:29.759 who are leaders are or what policies we should adopt, 0:51:30.320 --> 0:51:34.000 or what groups we should you know, pay attention to. 0:51:34.840 --> 0:51:38.640 So it's a it's a you know, while we started 0:51:38.640 --> 0:51:42.719 off kind of talking about folklore, the important thing is 0:51:42.760 --> 0:51:45.600 that we need to be able to separate fiction from truth. 0:51:46.000 --> 0:51:48.920 We can still enjoy fiction. I think stuff like creepy 0:51:48.920 --> 0:51:52.239 pasta has a definitely has a place. It just has 0:51:52.239 --> 0:51:55.359 a place as accepting it as hey, let's get around 0:51:55.400 --> 0:51:58.600 the fire and tell ghost stories. Not come here. You 0:51:58.680 --> 0:52:03.440 need to hear this because it might save your life. Yeah, right, 0:52:04.440 --> 0:52:07.239 that's the difference. We have to be able to differentiate 0:52:07.280 --> 0:52:10.520 those two things. If we don't, we're more likely than 0:52:10.560 --> 0:52:15.680 not to act on incorrect information. So, Jeff, the killer 0:52:15.760 --> 0:52:17.920 is not really in your bedroom. I sure hope not. 0:52:18.440 --> 0:52:22.120 I don't have to clean. I would feel so awkward. 0:52:22.160 --> 0:52:26.080 I'd be like, I'm so sorry for the mess. You've 0:52:26.120 --> 0:52:29.719 been hanging around me too much, apologizing to just kill 0:52:29.800 --> 0:52:34.400 me now because I feel so embarrassed. They'd be like, listen, 0:52:34.480 --> 0:52:37.600 you've maybe he would help you clean it before. I'd say, 0:52:37.640 --> 0:52:42.640 you made your bed, but you clearly haven't. Yeah, well, 0:52:42.680 --> 0:52:46.479 I mean he's just gonna dirty it up anyway. Yeah, 0:52:46.760 --> 0:52:50.880 that's true. Just stabby step stab, which ironically was the 0:52:51.000 --> 0:52:55.440 name of the operation that the two girls who carried 0:52:55.440 --> 0:52:58.240 out the slip. Yeah, they called it stabby step stab. 0:52:58.719 --> 0:53:03.960 That is that's actually nothing. Yeah. I thought I was 0:53:04.000 --> 0:53:06.279 just pulling that out of thin air, but then I remember, nope, 0:53:06.320 --> 0:53:08.520 that's what they called that. So that was a callback, 0:53:08.960 --> 0:53:11.440 not on purpose. That was just my brain sabotaging me. 0:53:13.440 --> 0:53:16.879 Not not creative. I mean, I know that's the lack 0:53:16.920 --> 0:53:18.840 of creativity is not the worst part of the story, 0:53:18.960 --> 0:53:23.640 but problematic part of it. Well, Shaye, thank you for 0:53:23.719 --> 0:53:27.160 your suggestion, Thank you for letting me come on the 0:53:27.360 --> 0:53:30.279 show and annoy you. You didn't didn't annoy me at all. 0:53:30.360 --> 0:53:32.880 It was very helpful, and I am glad to have 0:53:33.080 --> 0:53:37.200 someone to talk with so that it you know, we 0:53:37.239 --> 0:53:39.600 can have that sort of conversation and you can. You know, 0:53:40.239 --> 0:53:42.479 you introduced me to stuff I had not heard about, 0:53:42.520 --> 0:53:45.320 and I find a lot of it fascinating. You introduced 0:53:45.320 --> 0:53:47.440 me to something I didn't know about that was written 0:53:47.480 --> 0:53:52.080 by a guy I do know, which was weird. Yeah, yeah, 0:53:52.120 --> 0:53:54.160 that was odd. Now I watched the show like in 0:53:54.239 --> 0:53:57.160 its entirety. Now, yeah, now, he wrote the original Creepypasta. 0:53:57.200 --> 0:54:00.720 I don't think he was connected to the show, except 0:54:00.800 --> 0:54:02.920 maybe he probably got a credit. Yeah, I probably got 0:54:02.920 --> 0:54:05.360 like a writer's credit or maybe even like a producer's credit. 0:54:05.440 --> 0:54:07.759 I I honestly don't know. And honestly, it's not like 0:54:07.960 --> 0:54:10.680 we're friends or anything. I literally interviewed him for an article. 0:54:10.840 --> 0:54:12.600 So what he's saying is that he wants to be 0:54:12.600 --> 0:54:16.200 your friends. I mean, that's true. It's true. It's true, 0:54:16.280 --> 0:54:20.520 but it's not not relevant. Okay, So if you guys 0:54:20.560 --> 0:54:24.200 have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, or maybe 0:54:24.239 --> 0:54:26.280 there's someone you want me to have on as a guest, 0:54:26.400 --> 0:54:28.920 or maybe you think, why don't you have that shape 0:54:28.920 --> 0:54:31.920 person on again? You need to let me know. You 0:54:31.960 --> 0:54:34.799 can reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter. The 0:54:34.840 --> 0:54:37.680 handle for both of those is text stuff H s 0:54:37.880 --> 0:54:45.480 W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text 0:54:45.480 --> 0:54:48.160 Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. 0:54:48.320 --> 0:54:51.160 For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i 0:54:51.239 --> 0:54:54.480 heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:54:54.520 --> 0:54:55.440 your favorite shows.