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Speaker 1: Also Media Joy.

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Speaker 2: Sixteen sixteen.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take

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Speaker 3: a look back at the Internet's main characters, talk to

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Speaker 3: them about how their moment affected them and what that

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Speaker 3: says about us and the Internet. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus,

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Speaker 3: and this week we are bravely concluding our series on

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Speaker 3: sentient brands that occasionally get to horny on social media

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Speaker 3: Play the Horn. But before we head into the final

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Speaker 3: installment of this series, I feel the need to slow

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Speaker 3: us down for a moment because I'll be honest, I

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Speaker 3: am maybe it's obvious susceptible to the enjoyment that comes

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Speaker 3: with kind of revisiting this branded goofy moment on social media,

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Speaker 3: one that we'll discover continues into today at the Teetherer

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Speaker 3: for Thursday, to the point where I am kind of

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Speaker 3: worried I haven't been critical enough of this movement, and

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Speaker 3: that's motivated quite a bit from the fact that the

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Speaker 3: guests on this series are funny, kind, normal people who

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Speaker 3: I genuinely like and who I want to like me

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Speaker 3: many such cases. So I'll repeat that what I'm about

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Speaker 3: to say isn't a criticism of the guests, but it

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Speaker 3: is just a little scary that brands were successfully becoming

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Speaker 3: our friends on the Internet for a while there, right,

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Speaker 3: I mean, and I know that there are so many

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Speaker 3: bigger fish to fry at the moment, But I was

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Speaker 3: scrolling the other day, as I've made it my job

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Speaker 3: to do so it isn't sad, and I came across

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Speaker 3: this old subway takes video with the wonderful comic Yudoy Travis.

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Speaker 4: And so what's your take?

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Speaker 5: A society went down a very dark path by making

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Speaker 5: commercials funny.

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Speaker 4: One hundred percent of great funny commercials downfall civilizations.

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Speaker 6: Absolutely, And why.

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Speaker 5: So because we've blurred the lines between what's rayl and

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Speaker 5: what's not. Because as we look at social media, everybody's

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Speaker 5: now primed to make them palatable to advertisers. So they're

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Speaker 5: now fabricating a reality.

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Speaker 4: That's why, like Oscar Meyer Wieners is like tweeting out ebombings.

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Speaker 5: Literally, like all these brands are talking to each other

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Speaker 5: to what is going on.

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Speaker 4: Would you prefer for commercials to be boring? Yeah, like

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Speaker 4: informative like an infomercal. Absolutely, just like here's an Accura,

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Speaker 4: you can drive it. Yes, you don't appreciate the entertain

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Speaker 4: at all.

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Speaker 5: I would like to buy things based on what they do.

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Speaker 3: And yeah, he's completely right, it is weird. And while

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Speaker 3: this video came out in late twenty twenty three, and

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Speaker 3: you'll find that Twitter today is a total wasteland for

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Speaker 3: virtually anything. Now, the sentient brand movement continues and is

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Speaker 3: alive well and still has some of the smartest and

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Speaker 3: funniest people in the world behind them. And this has

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Speaker 3: always been true. The best joke writer I've ever met

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Speaker 3: got his start writing copy at Groupon because you've got

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Speaker 3: to live. I mean, this podcast probably just served you

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Speaker 3: one million ads to join the police and overdose on

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Speaker 3: diet pills because that's how I have to pay my rent.

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Speaker 3: It's a mess, and the fact that these jobs, as

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Speaker 3: our guest Amy Brown pointed out last week, can pay

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Speaker 3: not great, but certainly better than a public school teacher

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Speaker 3: is patently ridiculous. I just hope that these same funny

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Speaker 3: people will be given opportunities they deserve to express that

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Speaker 3: creative voice as themselves and actually get paid for it,

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Speaker 3: because no matter how many times I laugh at the

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Speaker 3: weirdness of a brand today, there is no brand that

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Speaker 3: deserves that, and there are thousands of really cool creative

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Speaker 3: people that do so. Shout out to Yadoy for screwing

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Speaker 3: my head back on correctly, and follow him at the

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Speaker 3: links in the description He's great. Okay again, if you

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Speaker 3: haven't heard the first two parts of this series, I

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Speaker 3: recommend you go back and do so, because this week

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Speaker 3: we are reaching the climax of sentient brands bringing us

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Speaker 3: into the present day. So we left off with Amy

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Speaker 3: Brown and the ever escalating Wendy's Twitter feud culture of

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Speaker 3: about twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen, the peak example of

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Speaker 3: Internet marketing harnessing the anger and pettiness that was inherent

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Speaker 3: to the platform, and it certainly didn't hurt that this

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Speaker 3: also happened at the peak of clickbait culture. But as

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Speaker 3: with any tack on social media, people are only dazzled

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Speaker 3: with something for so long, and soon enough the brands

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Speaker 3: needed to find a new way to keep their audience entertained.

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Speaker 3: And so, dear listener, a road diverged in a wood.

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Speaker 3: Stay with me here, everybody, and lo and behold, there

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Speaker 3: are but two paths to take nihilism and horny. I know,

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Speaker 3: I know why not both. Well, we'll get there because

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Speaker 3: there are social media managers who straddle these things, but

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Speaker 3: our guests this week reached the height of their profession

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Speaker 3: by choosing one of these divergent paths hard and in

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Speaker 3: this episode we are exploring path one nihilism. This path

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Speaker 3: takes advertising any product, any old product, and shocks its listeners,

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Speaker 3: not only by making the product behave sentiently, but being

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Speaker 3: aware of the futility of advertising in general. So as

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Speaker 3: we've discussed where most brands have spent at least half

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Speaker 3: a decade by the late twenty tens, building out their editorial,

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Speaker 3: jokey voice and engaging ironically with their followers. These accounts,

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Speaker 3: the woke brand accounts or the nihilist brand accounts, depending

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Speaker 3: on what think piece you're reading, got engagement by acknowledging

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Speaker 3: how pointless and awful it felt to court engagement online.

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Speaker 3: The two most successful versions of these accounts were moon

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Speaker 3: Pies the Marshmallow snack Cake. Look around the world's different.

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Speaker 6: Now people are overworked.

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Speaker 5: Over committed, tired, But the moon is still the moon

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Speaker 5: still around.

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Speaker 6: Still FELDO with Marshmallow.

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Speaker 3: So here is Moonpie quote tweeting a Hostess Snacks tweet

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Speaker 3: from twenty seventeen where Hostess Snacks is bragging that Golden

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Speaker 3: Cupcakes is the official snackcake of the Eclipse.

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Speaker 2: Moonpie quote tweets Hostess Snacks and writes loll okay, I

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Speaker 2: don't know.

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Speaker 3: The Moonpie account was run by social media manager Patrick Wells,

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Speaker 3: and the other successful nihilist Twitter account was the Stakum account,

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Speaker 3: as run by our guest today Nathan Allapach. And like

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Speaker 3: any advertising venture, the name of the game was finding

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Speaker 3: the specific lane your product fell into while still playing

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Speaker 3: the game everyone else was. For example, Moonpie was just

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Speaker 3: as sarcastic as other accounts, but their specialty was friendship,

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Speaker 3: specifically courting friendship with pop Tarts.

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Speaker 2: Are pop Tarts my friend?

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Speaker 3: Meanwhile, pop Tarts was more into a kind of horny

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Speaker 3: bully vibe. This is what they captioned, an image of

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Speaker 3: a poptart being used as garnish for a cocktail.

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Speaker 2: Calm down, it's a virgin like you.

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Speaker 3: And I want to reiterate that. Nathan Alibach, who ran

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Speaker 3: the stake of account, has also basically written the history

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Speaker 3: of brand Twitter in two pieces in Vulture twenty nineteen's

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Speaker 3: How Brand Twitter Grew Up and twenty twenty two's when

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Speaker 3: brands got horny linked in the description and as you

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Speaker 3: can imagine, as Amy Brown led us in on last Week,

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Speaker 3: it behooved a lot of these twenty somethings social media

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Speaker 3: managers of this time to be friendly with one another

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Speaker 3: in order to strategize these kinds of interactions. And while

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Speaker 3: no one ever really got harsher with competing brands than

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Speaker 3: the Wendy's account, the late twenty tens kind of began

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Speaker 3: this bizarre pattern of social media managers of different brands

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Speaker 3: basically having their products form parisocial attachments to each other.

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Speaker 3: No accounting for it. But speaking of Nathan Alibach, he

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Speaker 3: started at Stakhm in twenty seventeen, and, much like Amy

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Speaker 3: Brown and Serenity Disco, was in his mid twenties and

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Speaker 3: it couldn't have been a better time. According to his

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Speaker 3: twenty nineteen piece in Vulture, this was a moment where

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Speaker 3: brand memes hadn't quite gone mainstream before.

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Speaker 2: From that piece, users talked about brands like they were celebrities,

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Speaker 2: admired their cleverness, embraced their absurdity, and even wanted to

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Speaker 2: get roasted for fun. The impact of communities like our

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Speaker 2: fellow kids dwindled because brands were in on the joke

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Speaker 2: and intentionally trying to get featured. It was like a

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Speaker 2: badge of honor. Some brands, like flex Seal were even welcomed.

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Speaker 2: Many of the top posts went from this brand posted

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Speaker 2: cringe to this brand actually gets it.

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Speaker 3: And going into twenty eighteen, things would continue to get

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Speaker 3: more experimental. Anyone remember when I hop became I hob.

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Speaker 5: I hop as always pancake pancakes, but now where burger

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Speaker 5: and burgers.

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Speaker 2: Whoo with Burger's made with all natural black angus be

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Speaker 2: our seven new ultimate state burgers are so burger and good.

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Speaker 2: We're even changing our name to I hob Combos starting

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Speaker 2: at six ninety nine with unlimited fries and a drink

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Speaker 2: I how Burgers Burger's Burgers, Fries, fries.

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Speaker 3: Fries presented without comment. But yeah, this was that time.

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Speaker 3: It's the tail end of BuzzFeed, clickbait aggregate and the

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Speaker 3: peak of Instagram accounts like the malevolent Fuck Jerry. See

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Speaker 3: our Disaster Girl episode for more on them. But these

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Speaker 3: screenshot driven and gage strategies which could be a pain

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Speaker 3: in the ass for the uncredited joke writer. While Fuck

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Speaker 3: Jerry made money off of their work. But this was

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Speaker 3: a boon for brands whose only aim was visibility by

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Speaker 3: any means, and as things got weirder, social media had

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Speaker 3: to up the stakes see where I'm going with this

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Speaker 3: in order to stand out on Twitter. I think my

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Speaker 3: least favorite example of this that makes my stomach kurdle

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Speaker 3: to this day is when like local aquariums and petting

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Speaker 3: zoos were posting pictures of like big animals sexualizing them.

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Speaker 3: Do you remember this? This is a tweet from the

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Speaker 3: Monterey Bay Aquarium from late twenty eighteen, posting a picture

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Speaker 3: of a large otterer. Good luck with this one.

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Speaker 2: Grant Abby is a thick girl. What an absolute unit

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Speaker 2: she chunk. Look at the size of this lady. Oh lord,

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Speaker 2: she coming another internetism.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no no. But the

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Speaker 3: Steakum account was a prime target for a weirdo rebrand

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Speaker 3: of this ilk because Steakham Yeah, they were kind of

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Speaker 3: a gross looking steak strip from Pennsylvania that you put

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Speaker 3: in your freezer. They've been around for a long time,

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Speaker 3: but there wasn't much to say about them.

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Speaker 7: Got a minute, then you've got time for a hot

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Speaker 7: steak sandwich. Keep Steakhum frozen. Til you're ready to eat,

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Speaker 7: then stick them in the frying pan. Sixty seconds later,

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Speaker 7: take them off the heat and fix them up. Any Way,

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Speaker 7: you can try steak them on a roll with cheese

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Speaker 7: top it. Any Way, you please steak them sandwich steaks.

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Speaker 7: They're one hundred percent pure beef and nothing else.

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Speaker 3: Now. I've written a lot analyzing why we view food

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Speaker 3: defined by class, and I've written a lot about highly

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Speaker 3: processed meat, arguing for its merits. But steakhum is actually

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Speaker 3: quite gross looking. I would never buy it. I don't

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Speaker 3: want it. When a meet can't even photograph appetizingly, what

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Speaker 3: are we doing? But even Stakham's website seems to understand

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Speaker 3: what value having this weird internet persona in the twenty

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Speaker 3: tens added to their brand, because to this day, it

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Speaker 3: is literally half of their about page on stakom dot com.

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Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, it developed a viral persona on Twitter

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Speaker 2: that's been described as ironic, existential meta and has earned

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Speaker 2: media everywhere from The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Vox,

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Speaker 2: Washington Post, Associated Press, and beyond. This persona has since

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Speaker 2: expanded to Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube and seeks to embody

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Speaker 2: Stakehem's company values as a legacy brand in a strange

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Speaker 2: new world.

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Speaker 3: Keep that last sentence in mind, the fact that an

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Speaker 3: ironic Twitter presence represents Stakham's company values. We'll come back

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Speaker 3: to that. But when it came to Stakham's Twitter presence,

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Speaker 3: unlike brands like Denny's or Wendy's that already had some

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Speaker 3: existing voice, there was just kind of nothing there. Well,

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Speaker 3: there was something there, but I'm going to let Nathan

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Speaker 3: Alabach tell you that story in detail in the interview,

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Speaker 3: because the very logged in at the time that Nathan

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Speaker 3: took over that account in twenty seventeen would have only

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Speaker 3: interacted with the Stakehum account in order to cyberbully it.

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Speaker 3: Stacam did have a previous social media manager, but they

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Speaker 3: appeared to be thin skinned, defensive, and weirdly into Iinrand,

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Speaker 3: never a good combination, and all of which made them

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Speaker 3: perfect fodder for being cyberbullied by Weirdwitter. We can't Weird

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Speaker 3: Twitter is a short series all its own. Suffice it

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Speaker 3: to say, weird Twitter was a loosely organized grew group

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Speaker 3: of Twitter joke writers and comedians, some of whom use

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Speaker 3: their real names. Others who didn't or tweeted in character

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Speaker 3: think Drill Drill was doing it the best. I think

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Speaker 3: we can all agree. But what's important is that most

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Speaker 3: of this community were pretty squarely anti capitalist, and I

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Speaker 3: come to you as a humble fan of weird Twitter.

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Speaker 3: I loved weird Twitter at its peak, and a lot

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Speaker 3: of the people who were a part of it went

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Speaker 3: on to become successful comedy writers or performers. A couple

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Speaker 3: were fucking creeps, but many I consider to be terrific

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Speaker 3: people and friends. So in this house, we respect weird

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Speaker 3: Twitter and their various endeavors, except for those few guys. Anyways,

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Speaker 3: these would be the guys. There are a couple girls,

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Speaker 3: but let's be honest, these would be the guys that

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Speaker 3: would absolutely demolish the original stake of social media account

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Speaker 3: manager and got a kick out of being blocked by

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Speaker 3: a freezer meat brand, even though they were all well

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Speaker 3: aware that behind this account was a to this day

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Speaker 3: unidentified utilitarian weirdo. And this is where Nathan Alibach comes in.

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Speaker 3: While working for his dad's ad firm in Philadelphia, he

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Speaker 3: pursued the Pennsylvania based stakehum account because twist Nathan was

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Speaker 3: a big fan of weird Twitter and seemed to relish

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Speaker 3: the chance to get to interact with these accounts that

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Speaker 3: he's been enjoying for years. While it's unlikely that his

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Speaker 3: favorite joke writers would interact with him a fan, he

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Speaker 3: knew enough Internet lore to be sure that they would

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Speaker 3: interact with Stakehum. I know, but this strategy worked really

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Speaker 3: well at first because Nathan Alibach, in spite of working

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Speaker 3: in advertising, was working this job as a means to

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Speaker 3: an end. This is something we've learned in virtually every

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Speaker 3: interview in this series. So Nathan actually shared the anti

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Speaker 3: capitalist politics of weird Twitter. But the tricky thing is

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Speaker 3: he then made his politics the politics of Stakum, and

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Speaker 3: before he knew it, Stakum was being hailed as the

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Speaker 3: woke brand on Twitter, even if the build to that

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Speaker 3: title was slow because it took a while for Nathan

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Speaker 3: to develop the voice of the account. Here is an

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Speaker 3: early post he made in late twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 2: At some point in your life, you're going to stare

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Speaker 2: deeply into the eyes of another human being and see

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Speaker 2: your entire future unfold. At another point in your life,

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Speaker 2: you're going to stare deeply into a frying pan of

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Speaker 2: Stakum and get grease splattered in your eye light engagement.

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Speaker 3: On this one, the voice isn't quite developed under Nathan's watch.

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Speaker 3: The Stakum account lightly interacts with Moonpie around this time,

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Speaker 3: ostensibly trying to interact with other cool brands in the

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Speaker 3: pursuit of making Stakum a cool brand. But by the

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Speaker 3: fall of twenty eighteen, the table was fully set, the

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Speaker 3: freezer was thawed. I'm going to stop. I hate this.

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Speaker 3: September twenty sixth, twenty eighteen, the stake of Twitter account

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Speaker 3: under Nathan Alibach goes on a pretty impressive anti capitalist rant,

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Speaker 3: and so dear listeners performing this monologue is Grant Crater.

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Speaker 2: Why are so many young people flocking to brands on

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Speaker 2: social media for love, guidance, and attention.

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Speaker 6: I'll tell you why.

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Speaker 2: They're isolated from real communities, working service jobs they hate

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Speaker 2: while barely making ends meet, and are living with unchecked

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Speaker 2: personal mental health problems. They're crushed by student loan debt,

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Speaker 2: disenfranchised by past generations, and are dreading the future of

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Speaker 2: our world every day from mass media, addiction and the

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Speaker 2: struggle tonight just be happy, but to survive this caseaotic

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Speaker 2: time with every problem happening at once under a microscope.

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Speaker 2: They grew up through the dawn of Internet culture and

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Speaker 2: have had mass advertising drilled into their media consumption, and

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Speaker 2: now they're being resold their childhoods by remakes, sequels, spinoffs,

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Speaker 2: and other cheap nostalgia, making them more cynical to growth

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Speaker 2: or authenticity. They often don't have parents to talk to

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Speaker 2: because they say stuff like you don't know how good

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Speaker 2: you have it, and they don't have mentors to talk

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Speaker 2: to because most of them have no concept for growing

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Speaker 2: up in this strange time, which perpetuates the feeling of

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Speaker 2: helplessness loneliness. They have full access to social media and

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Speaker 2: the information Highway, but they feel more alone and insecure

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Speaker 2: than ever. Being behind a screen twenty four to seven

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Speaker 2: has made them numb to everything, anxious and depressed about everything,

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Speaker 2: and vitriolic are closed off toward anyone different from them.

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Speaker 2: Young people today have it the best and the worst.

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Speaker 2: There's so much to process and very few trusted, accessible

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Speaker 2: outlets to process it all through. They go to memes,

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Speaker 2: They go to obscure or absurdist humor. They go to

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Speaker 2: frozen meat companies on Twitter and brand Stakhem.

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Speaker 3: Bless okay, so this got a big media reaction. Stakham

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Speaker 3: is using anti consumerism to get you to buy Snooze.

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Speaker 2: Stakhem's new marketing strategy millennial angst with a side of

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Speaker 2: meat puns.

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Speaker 3: Stakhem's social media person sounds like they might need a hug.

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Speaker 2: Stakum is woke now everything is hell.

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Speaker 3: So, as Nathan speaks to in our interview, this thread

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Speaker 3: got a ton of press, but the reception of the

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Speaker 3: thread was somewhat mixed. Some culture writers enjoyed the post,

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Speaker 3: while others found the approach pretty pernicious. This is from

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Speaker 3: Heather Docray in Mashable. The brand's recent monologue was its

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Speaker 3: most explosive and self aware, yet if only any of

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Speaker 3: it was real. Docray then dives into the marketing precedent

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Speaker 3: for what Nathan is doing here. The idea of anti

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Speaker 3: advertising touching on everything from VW marketing their bug in

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Speaker 3: the nineteen forties to emphasize the car's small size in

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Speaker 3: order to contrast the dick swinging big car ads of

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Speaker 3: the day, will table the Nazi stuff, and all the

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Speaker 3: way up to a Sprite commercial with Lebron James and

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Speaker 3: Liliatti from twenty sixteen, where the big joke is that

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Speaker 3: Lebron knows how advertising works.

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Speaker 6: Let's get one thing straight. I'll never tell you to

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Speaker 6: drink Sprite. Even if I was in a commercial for Sprite,

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Speaker 6: which I am, or you were watching it what you are,

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Speaker 6: I would tell you to drink it, no matter what

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Speaker 6: that q car says. Proh Man say it no.

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Speaker 3: But as you know by this point in listening to

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Speaker 3: this show, all impressions are good impressions for advertisers, and

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Speaker 3: the company that Nathan works for, all Abach Communications, was

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Speaker 3: only benefiting from this. But for what it's worth, Nathan

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Speaker 3: was consistently singled out as the mind behind the stake

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Speaker 3: of account and defended his work to outlets at the time.

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Speaker 3: Here's a quote from him in a piece from Vox

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Speaker 3: in fall twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 2: We're trying to create meaningful content, so we're not just

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Speaker 2: posting nonsense, he explains. There's some substance to it, but

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Speaker 2: at the same time, it's really light hearted and it's

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Speaker 2: centered around the community.

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Speaker 7: That we built.

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Speaker 2: We're not taking sides or having a specific stance on anything.

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Speaker 3: There are a few breakout feathers in the stake of

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Speaker 3: Twitter cap. This twenty eighteen rant was the first, but

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Speaker 3: the account got a second massive wave of attention in

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Speaker 3: the early days of COVID lockdown nearly two years later,

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Speaker 3: when misinformation which I don't know if you remember misinformation

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Speaker 3: ran absolutely rampant. That was now five years ago. I

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Speaker 3: don't want to talk about it, but given the brand

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Speaker 3: voice that Nathan had developed in this account, tackling misinformation

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Speaker 3: was a perfect topic for Stakeom to take on and

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Speaker 3: you really just have to hear it to believe it.

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Speaker 3: April sixth, twenty twenty, once again, rant.

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Speaker 2: Greater friendly reminder. In times of uncertainty and misinformation, anecdotes

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Speaker 2: are not data. Good data is carefully measured and collected

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Speaker 2: information based on a range of subject dependent factors, including

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Speaker 2: but not limited to, controlled variables, meta analysis, and randomization.

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Speaker 2: Outliers attempting to counter global consensus surround this pandemic with

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Speaker 2: amateur reporting or unverified sourcing are not collecting data. Breaking

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Speaker 2: news stories that only relay initial findings of an event

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Speaker 2: are not collecting data. We have to be careful in

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Speaker 2: our media consumption. It can be difficult to know what

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Speaker 2: to believe in a time when institutional trust is diminished

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Speaker 2: and the gatekeepers of information have been dismantled. But it's

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Speaker 2: more crucial now than ever before to follow a range

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Speaker 2: of credentialed sources for both breaking news and data collection.

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Speaker 2: All we currently have are limited and evolving metrics that

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Speaker 2: experts are deciphering and acting upon immediately to the best

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Speaker 2: of their ability. This terrain leaves many openings for opportunists

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Speaker 2: and charismatic manipulators to lead people astray by exploiting what

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Speaker 2: they want to hear. Breaking news and storytelling will always

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Speaker 2: be spun with interpretive bias from different media perspectives, but

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Speaker 2: data is a science that can't be replaced by one

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Speaker 2: off anecdotes. Try to remember this to avoid fear based

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Speaker 2: sensationalism or conspiracy theories taking over your mind. You can

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Speaker 2: maintain independent, critical thinking toward institutions without dipping into fringe

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Speaker 2: conspiracies that get jump started by individual anecdotes being virally

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Speaker 2: spread as data. It's not easy, but it's necessary to

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Speaker 2: keep any semblance of responsible online information flow. We're a

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Speaker 2: frozen meat brand posting ads inevitably made to misdirect people

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Speaker 2: and generate sales, so this is peak irony, But Hey,

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Speaker 2: we live in a society, so please make informed decisions

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Speaker 2: to the best of your ability, and don't let anecdotes

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Speaker 2: dictate your worldview. Okay, stakehem bless?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, stakhem bless was the sign off. And if by

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Speaker 3: this point you're like, wow, Grant is so good at this,

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Speaker 3: I agree. But if after that you're like, but wait,

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Speaker 3: is this Pennsylvania meat brand remotely woke outside of this

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Speaker 3: Twitter account, Well you've come to the right place, because I,

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Speaker 3: Jamie Loftus, am a literal authority on whether meat brands

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Speaker 3: such as this are being run remotely ethically, and the

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Speaker 3: answer is probably not. Back in twenty twelve, food publication

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Speaker 3: grub Street laid out an ongoing federal court battle between

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Speaker 3: Stakhum and a South Philly mom and pop shop called

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Speaker 3: Stakum Up, in which the Stakham founder, Gene Gagliardi, spent

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Speaker 3: six figures on lawyers in a copyright infringement case that

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Speaker 3: he would eventually lose.

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Speaker 2: From that piece, new lawsuit reveals the world's grossest meat

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Speaker 2: is probably Stakhum's. In courtroom proceedings, the composition of the

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00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 2: meat came to light. The Daily News reports that the

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00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 2: stuff is chopped and formed emulsified meat product that is

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Speaker 2: comprised of beef trimmings leftover after an animal is slaughtered

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Speaker 2: and all the primary cuts such as tenderloin, filet, and

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Speaker 2: rabbi are removed. The emulsified meat is pressed into a

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Speaker 2: loaf and sliced, frozen, and packaged. After learning that a

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Speaker 2: federal judge denied Stakam's claims, their inventor, Geene Gagliardi, was

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Speaker 2: quoted as saying he did no justice to the meat

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Speaker 2: world and continue to rant about how the poor quality

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Speaker 2: of meat and cheese steaks drove him to create his

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Speaker 2: own sandwich steak. You couldn't serve it to children because

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Speaker 2: the meat was so tough. You drag it out of

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Speaker 2: the sandwich and choke on it. Gagliardi is quoted as

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Speaker 2: saying this was definitely a safety feature.

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Speaker 3: Apologies to Philadelphians everywhere for the accent work there. He's

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Speaker 3: still working on his Boston accent to talk to my uncles.

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Speaker 3: If nothing else. He did no justice to the meat

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Speaker 3: world is a great sentence, but to be clear.

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Speaker 6: So let me be clear.

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Speaker 3: While the description of what is in Stakhum sounds pretty gross,

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Speaker 3: this is not demonstrably worse than your average grocery store

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Speaker 3: hot dogs production. How do I know that? Maybe read

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Speaker 3: Raw Dog paperback out next month. The difference here is

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Speaker 3: you don't see ballpark franks preaching the gospel of fighting

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Speaker 3: misinformation and soft socialism, and that's for a reason. Their

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Speaker 3: company's values, as Stakum alluded to earlier, do not back

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Speaker 3: that up. So in Stakhem's defense, from what I can tell,

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Speaker 3: the company isn't technically bullshitting by printing the phrase one

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Speaker 3: hundred percent beef on the front of their box for

430
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 3: all these decades, But there are major missing operative words there,

431
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 3: words like buy product or even one hundred percent processed beef.

432
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 3: Buy product, you know, the stuff that's left over when

433
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 3: the expensive cuts of beef are gone, you know, like

434
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 3: a hot dog. Just and because we've covered what I

435
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 3: think is almost a disproportionate number of stories about processed

436
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 3: meat and men from Philadelphia on this show, Gene Gagliardi

437
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 3: certainly fits the bill for a big personality Philly guy

438
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 3: and also has the claim to fame of being the

439
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 3: guy who invented KFC popcorn Chicken. So when I found

440
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 3: myself asking what are the company values of Stakhum. I

441
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 3: had to look into the history of the company, and

442
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 3: here are some polls from a twenty eighteen Mental Floss

443
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 3: article by Jake Rowson about.

444
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 2: That Eugene Gagliardi, patriarch of the Gagliardi meatpacking business, raised

445
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 2: the twenty two ounce frozen log of beef products it

446
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 2: would shortly become known as Stakhum, and sent it careening

447
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 2: into his son's angle. Nobody's ever gonna buy it a shit,

448
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 2: he screamed, storming off. Despite his numerous contributions to food service,

449
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 2: he still feels slided by his father, who passed away

450
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one and apparently never acknowledged his son's success.

451
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 2: I never got a compliment, he says.

452
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 4: Ah.

453
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 3: Yes, Beneath every weird specific business is the story of

454
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 3: fathers and sons. So well, Stakham certainly has working class

455
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 3: Philly roots, It has the production integrity of a hot dog,

456
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 3: and the company has been sold to two huge conglomerates

457
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 3: over the years, both Hines and Quaker Foods. The brand

458
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:37,560
Speaker 3: could not conceivably be described as woke. So if a funny,

459
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 3: creative young person is promoting his personal politics and values

460
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 3: on the brand account of a company that appears to

461
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 3: have no politics whatsoever. What does it all fucking mean

462
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 3: when we come back my conversation with the man behind

463
00:30:55,320 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 3: it all, Nathan Alibach. Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I'm

464
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 3: so burned out on eat the rich, prestige media and

465
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 3: feel completely alone in the world on that front. And

466
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 3: here's my interview with the man who turned washed up

467
00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 3: freezer meat brand Stakum into a national phenomenon. Here's Nathan Alibach.

468
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 8: My name's Nathan Alibach. I'm the current social media lead

469
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 8: at a company called Ramp, which is a fintech company,

470
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 8: but previously most known in the niche internet micro celebrity world.

471
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 8: I suppose for being the social media manager behind the

472
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 8: meat brand Stakum, or the frozen beef sheep brand, as

473
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 8: I once referred to enough Sheep.

474
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 3: I honestly did not know Stakhum existed before you, so

475
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 3: thank you for that.

476
00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 6: It's you're welcome.

477
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like Steakham was this kind of like legacy frozen

478
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 8: meat product from like the nineteen seventies and eighties that

479
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 8: people like the gen X and Boomer generations were very

480
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 8: familiar with.

481
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 6: It's like latchkey kids.

482
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 8: You know. It's like parents, parents were like, you like

483
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 8: leave their kids alone, be like here, make some steak

484
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 8: and it's easy. It takes thirty seconds. It was funny

485
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 8: and strange to kind of like give it a new

486
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 8: life through this Twitter persona where people maybe were familiar

487
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 8: with the name because it's such like a memeable name

488
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 8: like steak. Yeah, it's so ridiculous, but uh yeah, happy

489
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 8: to I guess reintroduce it to the world. I mean,

490
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 8: I grew up in a pretty small suburb just outside

491
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 8: of Philadelphia, and my dad was a small business owner

492
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:44,120
Speaker 8: started an advertising agency around the time that I was born.

493
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 8: Before he did that, like he was like he worked

494
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 8: at like a meat packing facility, Like like looking back,

495
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 8: it was kind of all destined to be. I suppose

496
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 8: like he would work the night shift doing that, and

497
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 8: then you would take classes at u arts to yeah,

498
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 8: for like graphic design and yeah. So I kind of

499
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 8: like grew up in and around like advertising. I remember

500
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 8: a lot of kind of like goofy commercials from the

501
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 8: nineties and the early two thousands. Interesting environment to grow

502
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 8: up in. As I got to be like a teenager,

503
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 8: I never in a million years or of stalled myself

504
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 8: working in advertising. I kind of like rebelled became like

505
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 8: at the times kind of like whatever, aimless anti establishment kid. Yeah,

506
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 8: just like very anti consumers when all that. So, I

507
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 8: was like a songwriter. I grew up in like a

508
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 8: hardcore local music scene. It was weird because like growing up,

509
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 8: like all my friends were in bands, we did a

510
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:36,080
Speaker 8: lot of it was all this kind of like anti

511
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 8: establishment vibe. And then like as I got older and

512
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 8: started to realize like, Okay, I'm probably not going to

513
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 8: make it as a musician, and I was just like

514
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 8: kind of bleeding money working dead end jobs. I decided

515
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 8: to give the family this is a whirl. This has

516
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,760
Speaker 8: been twenty fourteen, So this is like when social media

517
00:33:55,800 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 8: platforms were starting to become more commoditized, with advertising really

518
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:03,640
Speaker 8: like a model for it. So I was just like

519
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 8: lucky enough with the timing to kind of get in

520
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,799
Speaker 8: at the ground level when there was opportunity and there

521
00:34:09,880 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 8: wasn't really rules or like people in place that knew

522
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,520
Speaker 8: what the hell was going on. So a guy who

523
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 8: kind of grew up on the Internet with a background

524
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 8: in like local like music, community building and songwriting. So

525
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:26,800
Speaker 8: I had been using Facebook and YouTube and other platforms

526
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 8: to like promote music. So I had this, like I

527
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 8: guess of the platforms to kind of give myself enough

528
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 8: juice to get it off the ground at the at

529
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 8: the agency. But yeah, I kind of hated it for

530
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 8: the first few years. I didn't really know what I

531
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 8: was doing. And then the Stakem stuff happened in twenty seventeen,

532
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 8: and that like basically by honestly just so much by chance,

533
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 8: like basically gave me a career because at that point,

534
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 8: like it became this viral phenomenon over like the following

535
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 8: years that got my name on a bunch of lists

536
00:34:56,600 --> 00:34:59,319
Speaker 8: and got my name in the mix of other like

537
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,359
Speaker 8: social media marketers and advertising professionals where I don't think

538
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 8: I would in a million years been considered among like

539
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 8: the people I've been considered among just because of this

540
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 8: one account that like kind of blew up early on.

541
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 3: So do you like strike out on your own? Do

542
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 3: you start working at an agency and then strike out

543
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 3: on your own? What does that process like?

544
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 8: Around the time when the Stakeum stuff started happening, like

545
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 8: we were getting a lot of calls obviously from like

546
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 8: different media companies like in the beginning, it was like

547
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 8: ad Week and huff Post, and then the first like

548
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 8: viral story happened in the very like in January of

549
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 8: twenty eighteen. It was this whole like hashtag verify stakeum

550
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 8: like movement quote unquote on Twitter or like we were

551
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 8: trying to get the account verified and just got like

552
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 8: a bunch of hype behind it. In the midst of

553
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 8: all that attention, Yeah, like I started to like network

554
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:51,319
Speaker 8: and figure out like, Okay, you know, I'm at this

555
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 8: small agency. I don't really have a history that I

556
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 8: can like I don't know, like lean back on and

557
00:35:57,280 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 8: be like, oh, yeah, like I had this whole thing

558
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 8: planned out, like I knew exactly what I was doing, right,

559
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 8: try to like reverse engineer parts of that. Like before

560
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 8: the show, you and I were talking a little bit

561
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 8: about some of the articles I wrote for Vulture Magazine,

562
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 8: and like that type of stuff was a big part

563
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 8: of how I started to kind of branch out on

564
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:17,720
Speaker 8: my own a bit with freelance writing and just like okay,

565
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 8: bogging and like just trying to like build a little

566
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 8: bit more of a credibility to myself, like since I

567
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 8: just didn't really have a ton of like accolades or

568
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 8: like value I guess to my resume. So yeah, I

569
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 8: just became like, Okay, I'm a stakeem guy, but I'm

570
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 8: also like the guy who sort of writes about weird

571
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,280
Speaker 8: niche internet history. By the time the stake ofm account

572
00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 8: was going viral and like the end of twenty seventeen

573
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,800
Speaker 8: early twenty eighteen, this brand Twitter stuff had been happening

574
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 8: for years and I was like, for the most part

575
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:47,799
Speaker 8: unaware of like all of it.

576
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 3: So, yeah, when you're building this identity for sake of

577
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 3: how at this point in time did that work?

578
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:54,479
Speaker 6: Yeah?

579
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 8: That not too much structure in the beginning. I mean

580
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 8: it was really so much much chance. Because so I

581
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 8: give you context, Like summer of twenty seventeen is when

582
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 8: I started posting on the account. And the only reason

583
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 8: I was even really given the sort of greenlight and

584
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 8: even like wanted to start doing it was because people

585
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 8: were texting me that I think. It was like right

586
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:21,839
Speaker 8: in the middle of August that Joe Rogan had had

587
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 8: on a guest on his podcast for his one thousandth episodes.

588
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 8: It was like this kind of whatever's moment for the show,

589
00:37:28,560 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 8: and the guest was telling like ridiculous stories about Stakehem.

590
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 8: So like Stakhem prior to this was not active on

591
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 8: Twitter at all, like rewind a hair, because like yeah,

592
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:40,759
Speaker 8: like up until this moment, there was no like there

593
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 8: was no guardrails, there was no precedent. It was just

594
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 8: kind of like the podcast happened. I asked our account executive,

595
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 8: who then asked the marketing manager at stakem, like if

596
00:37:51,560 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 8: we could start basically shit posting on the steakhum account

597
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:56,920
Speaker 8: because there's no activity there. They saw it as like

598
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 8: a no stakes platform because like they weren't advertising. There

599
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:02,320
Speaker 8: really is a super small audience.

600
00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 3: Oh I just understood you were using the other version

601
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 3: of Steaks. It's like, wait, steak not welcome on that platform. Okay, no,

602
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:10,279
Speaker 3: I see what you're saying.

603
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 8: I see you're So it was like, okay, I mean

604
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 8: this should be creating some buzz, like hopefully people will

605
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 8: be talking about the brand here, but again there's no

606
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 8: like monitoring or context for the team, So it was

607
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 8: kind of just like a shot in the dark, like, hey,

608
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 8: we have the log, let's get on the account.

609
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 6: So on getting on the account.

610
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:30,280
Speaker 8: I realized in like the first few days that steakm

611
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,919
Speaker 8: had blocked like well over one hundred and fifty maybe

612
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 8: two hundred or so accounts, and they're all like anonymous

613
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 8: weird Twitter shit posting accounts. I'm like, what happened here?

614
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,879
Speaker 8: So I started like doing some digging and unblocking all

615
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:49,240
Speaker 8: of these people and tweeting at them, being like what's

616
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 8: going on here? And they're all kind of like, oh,

617
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 8: it's steak them, like steak COM's back, and I'm like,

618
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 8: what is happening? Because we had the agency had acquired

619
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,319
Speaker 8: the account in twenty sixteen, and it turned out this

620
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 8: history with the previous Stake of admin on Twitter was

621
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 8: in twenty fourteen. So okay, story short is that whoever

622
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 8: was running this account, it could have been somebody that

623
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 8: worked at Stake and it could have been somebody at

624
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 8: an agency, like I honestly don't know, but it was

625
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 8: just like tweeting really weird, just weird weird stuff through

626
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 8: the account, Like they're tweeting like ironed rand quotes, just

627
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 8: like really bizarre, like like why is this coming from

628
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 8: a brand account? And I guess like weird Twitter as

629
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 8: a community like it does, It's like people started to

630
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:35,799
Speaker 8: notice this and as kind of like an inside joke,

631
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 8: just kind of like making fun of it, and whoever

632
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 8: the admin was didn't take kindly to that. They started

633
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:43,640
Speaker 8: to block people, and as they blocked people, it became

634
00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:45,960
Speaker 8: like a streisand effect where then more people from weird

635
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 8: Twitter like, oh my gosh, if you like, if you

636
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:50,680
Speaker 8: dissstake them or whatever, like they'll block you. It would

637
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:52,840
Speaker 8: be really funny. So everybody started to do this and

638
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,439
Speaker 8: it started to pile on. And there's this one weird

639
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 8: Twitter user, but I'm not sure if he's still active anymore.

640
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 6: Is at Is or was Boner Hitler.

641
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 8: He basically started like a crusade against Steakham, kind of

642
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 8: like leveraging these weird Twitter accounts where he had this

643
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 8: bit saying that his wife left him and like in

644
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 8: the in the heat of like a fight when they

645
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 8: were she was leaving, he like got mad and he

646
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 8: burned his hand on like a pan and threw steak

647
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 8: of at her or something. It was something like this,

648
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 8: Like it was just like a ridiculous bit. When they

649
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 8: blocked him, he became like the sort of ring leader

650
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 8: of this whole thing and really corralled hundreds of these

651
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 8: accounts to try to harass steak them culminated with steakhem

652
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,279
Speaker 8: like they tried to publish a rules thing on their bio,

653
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:43,760
Speaker 8: which again backfirecs like the rules onto like what people

654
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:46,800
Speaker 8: can tweet, and then eventually like the stakem admin just

655
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 8: left the account like abandoned it, stop posting, and the

656
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:53,760
Speaker 8: whole thing died. Without that context from before my time,

657
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,279
Speaker 8: everyone had taken off, because in the beginning, when I

658
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 8: unblocked all these people and started engaging them, they were

659
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 8: the initial groundswell of engagement that then I've seeded conversations

660
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 8: with Stake more broadly, So it became kind of like

661
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 8: weird self fulfilling prophecy where to me again not having

662
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 8: context of like what I was even really doing or

663
00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 8: like what brands were doing. It was all just a

664
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 8: fun gag for me in the beginning. So I was

665
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 8: like interacting with these weird Twitter people who are all

666
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 8: very almost all very anti capitalists or very kind of

667
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 8: like radical as it was like a bit, and like

668
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 8: they liked me personally, like I was able early on

669
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,839
Speaker 8: I kind of like revealed to a few of them

670
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 8: like my personal accounts they kind of like was and

671
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 8: I was trying to be as transparent about the whole

672
00:41:39,680 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 8: thing as I could be even they all ran to

673
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 8: it like I was in all these group chats with

674
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 8: them and like really interesting time. But then as the

675
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 8: account went viral, then after a few months the end

676
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 8: of the year, little by little the community started to

677
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 8: turn on stake them and just be like they felt duped.

678
00:41:58,120 --> 00:41:59,839
Speaker 8: I think because then they felt like, oh, like we

679
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:03,279
Speaker 8: were part of like the reason this corporation now is

680
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 8: getting all this positive press essentially, and there was certainly

681
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,799
Speaker 8: like some pockets of them just didn't really give a shit,

682
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 8: like some of them were like who cares, Like we

683
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 8: knew this all along, like it was a company, like

684
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 8: what did you expect? But people felt like genuinely betrayed

685
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 8: the marketing I guess with it. So it was really

686
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 8: difficult to navigate because I did feel like I developed

687
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 8: relationships with a lot of them, like with my personal account,

688
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 8: so I knew these people and I thought it was

689
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 8: like really fun. But then like kind of like coming

690
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 8: to learn the sort of ideological tensions was interesting, like

691
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 8: over like the following years.

692
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 3: You are lending so much of what makes you cool

693
00:42:42,560 --> 00:42:46,319
Speaker 3: to a brand? Did your feelings on that change over time?

694
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 3: Like how did that? How did you process that.

695
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:50,239
Speaker 8: I feel like I've kind of come full circle on

696
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 8: it a bit, Like in the beginning, I hadn't really

697
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 8: thought about it much at all. Like in the beginning,

698
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 8: like I said, it was all just kind of like

699
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 8: nonsense to me. I did not anticipate it blowing up

700
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 8: the way it did. It was fun like coming up

701
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 8: with dumb stuff and like trying to get people's attention

702
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:06,240
Speaker 8: and kind of like navigating community to community.

703
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 6: I don't know.

704
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 8: My feelings on it definitely evolved because like at the beginning, yeah,

705
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 8: I felt after all of the tension started unravel, I

706
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 8: certainly felt torn, Like I felt bad.

707
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 6: I was like, man, like people feel.

708
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 8: Bad about this, Like I was not my intention to

709
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 8: like manipulate people or whatever. I was trying to like

710
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 8: do my best to play this like stupid and impossible

711
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 8: dance where I'm like posting through a corporate brand account

712
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 8: while also trying to be sincere and like that. I

713
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 8: think that that thread, that like that tension is the

714
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:42,320
Speaker 8: thing that actually made it go megaviral, and it's also

715
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:43,960
Speaker 8: the thing that I was trying to do to like

716
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:46,919
Speaker 8: solve the solve for the tension, And so it didn't

717
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,240
Speaker 8: really solve it basically like made the thing blow.

718
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 2: Up, just amplify it. Yet Yeah, because.

719
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 8: Then people were like, oh my gosh, this brand's like

720
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 8: super self aware and it's like doing cultural commentary and

721
00:43:56,120 --> 00:43:58,280
Speaker 8: also at the same time telling us that it's selling

722
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 8: us a product, Like it became my marketing trope that

723
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 8: hadn't really existed at least in online. Now I'm definitely

724
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:12,280
Speaker 8: a lot more chill about the lines between what marketing

725
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,799
Speaker 8: is and like what sort of personal branding is and

726
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 8: journalism is. Like these are lines that have continued to

727
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 8: blur since those early days of stake. I'm not just

728
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:25,240
Speaker 8: within like my world, but like the world more broad

729
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 8: Like what makes like when does a person stop becoming

730
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 8: a person and they become a brand?

731
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:32,919
Speaker 3: You know, now, in twenty twenty five, it sounds kind

732
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 3: of silly to me to be like, oh, you know,

733
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 3: a smart, thoughtful person feeling betrayed by the stake of

734
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 3: Twitter account. I think that you were at like sort

735
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:46,920
Speaker 3: of the tail end of people not always thinking about

736
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,920
Speaker 3: how yeah, obviously there's a person behind thisactly.

737
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:52,800
Speaker 8: I feel like it was at this kind of weird

738
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 8: precipice of a generational divide, where like when you look

739
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:59,320
Speaker 8: at like say twenty twenty onward, especially like in the

740
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 8: TikTok air with social media and how brands interact with

741
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 8: social media, like zoomers and young millennials like are just

742
00:45:05,719 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 8: so I don't want to say they're not critical of media,

743
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 8: but like they grew up on like these sort of

744
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 8: smart devices and with Internet culture in a way where

745
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:17,440
Speaker 8: like they are more sort of naive and just like

746
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 8: don't really think as much about this stuff the way

747
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,600
Speaker 8: that older millennials and younger Gen X people did. So,

748
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 8: like the way Twitter culture used to be in those

749
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 8: like the like twenty say thirteen to twenty eighteen ish era,

750
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 8: Like it was dominated by people who were millennials and

751
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 8: older who had basically been like online forever, Like people

752
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 8: that were online from like the nineties the early two thousands,

753
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:43,400
Speaker 8: like had grown up through like the forum days, and

754
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 8: like had seen how things had evolved into this new

755
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 8: like advertiser model, which to them like really bastardized, like

756
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 8: what Internet culture used to be. The way Rich Kayanka,

757
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 8: the founder of Something Awful, used to describe this was

758
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:02,400
Speaker 8: like the Internet started to go downhill when people stopped

759
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 8: prioritizing the creation of image macros and started prioritizing memes

760
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 8: because it was like before like memes were really a

761
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 8: thing if you wanted to like stand out and get

762
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 8: laughs online, like you had to create something, like you

763
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 8: had to make your own video, you had to design

764
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 8: your own image, and it became like an original thing.

765
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 8: But then years later maybe became a meme. But at

766
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 8: the time it was like it existed in a time

767
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:29,640
Speaker 8: and place that people latched onto. And then like once

768
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 8: the Internet became accessible to literally everybody, and then you

769
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:35,719
Speaker 8: have like generations growing up just on the Internet. It

770
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 8: memes became like the default because it's the most successible,

771
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 8: low hanging fruit that you can share, and like it's

772
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:44,880
Speaker 8: just it wasn't about, hey, how can I make you know,

773
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 8: the most original, weird piece of art or or like

774
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 8: or media possible. It then just became about like, oh

775
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 8: my gosh, have you seen this thing online? I'm gonna

776
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,520
Speaker 8: share it from Facebook to YouTube to Instagram to whatever.

777
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,359
Speaker 8: So like that piece of it as well, Like when

778
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 8: you look at the way like audiences engage with brands

779
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 8: on TikTok at large, like go to any brand's profile,

780
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 8: any brands common sections, you're not seeing people being like

781
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 8: silence brand. Like the way the algorithms work now, it's

782
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,279
Speaker 8: it's it fire hoses out to people in a way

783
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:18,680
Speaker 8: where back in the day when it was much more

784
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:22,839
Speaker 8: like follower driven, linear driven, these people like these more

785
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 8: like critical sort of like anti brand accounts were able

786
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,359
Speaker 8: to early on when brands would post like latch on

787
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,239
Speaker 8: to something, share it in the group chat and be like, yo,

788
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 8: let's like harass this brand post because this is like trash,

789
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 8: Like we should discourage like this type of content on

790
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 8: the timeline. Like it's it's such an impossible thing to

791
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 8: do now like that, people just don't really try anymore.

792
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,280
Speaker 8: It just feels so futile. I have some battle scars.

793
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,840
Speaker 8: I had some crazy crazy people from the weird Twitter

794
00:47:55,200 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 8: community target maing like come after me over the years,

795
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 8: which you know, I know they're not like like necessarily

796
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 8: representative of the whole group or whatever, but yeah, the

797
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 8: account really went like National National during COVID for like

798
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:13,279
Speaker 8: the commentary on misinformation, like that's what you got like

799
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:16,000
Speaker 8: a Wall Street Journal and Washington Post in a bunch

800
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 8: of places. And during that era, I had just some

801
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 8: crazy crazy people targeting me.

802
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 6: This one account. I'll never forget.

803
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 8: It was somewhat late in the day logged on, I

804
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 8: saw this account had tagged me in a tweet and

805
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 8: it was an anonymous parody account called White Women posting

806
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 8: their ws. There was women posting their ws and then

807
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 8: women posting their l's and they became.

808
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:43,239
Speaker 3: These Oh I guess I don't know white women specifically

809
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 3: buzzy their debuts.

810
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 8: Because this was just like it had no followers, it

811
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 8: was just but it had just made the account and

812
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 8: they tagged me in a tweet and I was like

813
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 8: what is this and like didn't really think anything of it.

814
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:55,200
Speaker 6: It just looked like a ship poster.

815
00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 8: And then the following morning I went to work and

816
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 8: at like tenants am got to call my wife and

817
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 8: she's like, hey, can you like come home? And I

818
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 8: was like, uh, like like sure, like like what do

819
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:08,960
Speaker 8: you what do you need? And she's like, well, the

820
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 8: secret servicer here and like they want to talk to you.

821
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 8: And so I was like what, like will they like

822
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 8: what what what's going on? She's like they won't explain

823
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 8: anything to me, Like you have to come home to

824
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 8: like talk to them. So these guys are at my

825
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 8: doors to agents and I let them in my house.

826
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 8: They're like, do you know why we're here? And I'm like, no,

827
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 8: like what's going on? And they pulled out this iPad

828
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:34,879
Speaker 8: and uh, all in the iPad pulled up this white

829
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 8: women posting their w's Twitter account And in the bio

830
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 8: of this account, it says run by Nathan Albach and

831
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 8: the top tweet on it is I'm gonna kill Joe

832
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:49,240
Speaker 8: Biden or like I'm gonna kill the president like something

833
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,880
Speaker 8: like that, which I triggered something in their nets of like.

834
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:58,360
Speaker 3: Oh, that's what they have the alert on for job guys.

835
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 6: My name the like we saw this. We went up

836
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:03,319
Speaker 6: in the middle of the night and like you need to.

837
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:07,000
Speaker 3: Threat directly threatened the president under your government name.

838
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 8: They're like, and I was just like, this isn't my account,

839
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 8: the like put your names on it the way. I

840
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 8: had to explain so much context. They're like, well, why

841
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 8: would somebody do this? And I was like, look, I

842
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,919
Speaker 8: run this frozen meat brand account and there's people who

843
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 8: hate me online because of it, and they're just like

844
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 8: their eyes are like glazing over, like what is this

845
00:50:24,920 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 8: guy talking about. There's just so many things like that

846
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 8: that would just all because of this meat account that

847
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 8: I would not have anticipated at the time.

848
00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 3: We'll be right back with more Nathan Allabach, Welcome back

849
00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 3: to sixteenth minute. I need to throw away the carpet

850
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 3: in my office because it smells like dog piss, but

851
00:50:57,360 --> 00:50:59,239
Speaker 3: I don't want to throw it away because I can't

852
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 3: find the same car again. And it makes me laugh

853
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:04,439
Speaker 3: because it looks like if you killed Sully from Monsters, Inc.

854
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 3: And turned him into a rug. Anyways, here's the rest

855
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 3: of my interview with Nathan Alibach. When did you sort

856
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,160
Speaker 3: of decide I'm done with this specific account.

857
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 6: I mean I felt it waning right away.

858
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,640
Speaker 8: Honestly, after the first year, after that Millennial throat and viral,

859
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 8: I was like, Okay, I've had enough, just because it

860
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,759
Speaker 8: was so mentally taxing, like with the way people harass me,

861
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 8: I think, and I hate this even say that because

862
00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:30,440
Speaker 8: it's it sounds so like menial, But there really was

863
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 8: like a significant amount of people that came after me

864
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 8: at the time, and I had to grow really thick skin.

865
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:38,719
Speaker 8: It's kind of just like eyed off my back and

866
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 8: like keep working on it, especially because it's just such

867
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:45,440
Speaker 8: a strange thing to like target somebody over. I was like,

868
00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:47,919
Speaker 8: there's so many like things happening in the world, and

869
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:50,760
Speaker 8: there was like this dedicated group of people that really.

870
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:55,279
Speaker 3: Part of your job is to behave like but like

871
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:57,400
Speaker 3: a person, but don't react like a person. Like it

872
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:00,800
Speaker 3: just it feels very that of course that's the mostly taxing.

873
00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:02,880
Speaker 8: Yeah, you learned to take it on the chin in

874
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:05,799
Speaker 8: like ninety plus percent of cases. I think the fact

875
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 8: that my personal name and like brand quote unquote, like

876
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,560
Speaker 8: my Twitter account was so closely attached to this thing,

877
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:15,319
Speaker 8: it just became like more of a target than I

878
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:17,279
Speaker 8: had I had hoped. It was like the double edged short,

879
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 8: you know, because I was getting all of these accolades

880
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 8: and like public attention from the account. It would go viral,

881
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:25,320
Speaker 8: get a ton of followers, get a ton of business,

882
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 8: like people wanting to work with me on stuff. On

883
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 8: the flip side, was just like a constant wave of

884
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:34,919
Speaker 8: people sending me death threats and like just crazy like yeah,

885
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:36,359
Speaker 8: and sending the secret service to my house.

886
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 6: I don't know, like I've been.

887
00:52:37,160 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 8: Doing it for like four years at that point, very

888
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 8: sick of frozen beef sheet puns and uh yeah, like

889
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 8: I ended up we ended up getting off the account.

890
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:49,720
Speaker 6: I think later that year like that.

891
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,279
Speaker 8: That December then was the end of the It was

892
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 8: like a six year or seven year relationship with that

893
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 8: client being the end of it and I moved on

894
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 8: to other things. But yeah, it was definitely a tough

895
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 8: time because it was like to think about the landscape

896
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:04,360
Speaker 8: of brands at that point, like I'd been writing about

897
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:08,280
Speaker 8: like the horny brand trend like yes, you're too prior,

898
00:53:08,600 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 8: and like it was just weird to look at what

899
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,759
Speaker 8: was going viral and like what was becoming popular and

900
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 8: trying to think like in terms of a career, like

901
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:20,319
Speaker 8: how can I be part of this and like do

902
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 8: something that's different and do something that's not just like

903
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 8: circling the drain of it. A lot of this which

904
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:30,240
Speaker 8: like no again, no hate like the individual social media

905
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:33,400
Speaker 8: managers like everything's an attention to economy and I get it,

906
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:35,759
Speaker 8: but it definitely like put into perspective like Okay, I've

907
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:37,520
Speaker 8: been doing this for so many years now, like what

908
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 8: is the next step for someone in my shoes? Like

909
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:43,839
Speaker 8: how can you keep doing a career of being online?

910
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 8: Like you just keep getting crazier. So yeah, I don't know.

911
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 8: That was definitely a turning point, I would say, And

912
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 8: how I think about it.

913
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:51,359
Speaker 6: So how do you.

914
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:54,200
Speaker 3: Move forward from that? How did you sort of keep

915
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:58,600
Speaker 3: things interesting and more balanced for yourself after put in

916
00:53:58,840 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 3: a post stake of world.

917
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,840
Speaker 8: It's just such a I just love this conversation. Thank you,

918
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:08,960
Speaker 8: Jamie hilarious. Yeah, it's a great question. Like I think

919
00:54:08,960 --> 00:54:12,279
Speaker 8: for me, the through line of this whole ordeal or

920
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 8: this whole like whatever like career trajectory has been just

921
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:18,279
Speaker 8: like making sure that I have an identity outside of

922
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 8: this thing. Amy talks about this a lot, just kind

923
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:24,640
Speaker 8: of like making sure that your job isn't your identity

924
00:54:24,640 --> 00:54:25,239
Speaker 8: isn't your work.

925
00:54:25,480 --> 00:54:26,000
Speaker 6: Essentially.

926
00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 8: I struggle with that because, like whatever I do, I

927
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 8: want to put my all into it, Like I want

928
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 8: to be noticed for my work internally, like I want

929
00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:36,440
Speaker 8: to get paid well, Like I want to grow in

930
00:54:36,480 --> 00:54:39,440
Speaker 8: my career. So there's like always a tension there between,

931
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 8: like how much of your life do you want to?

932
00:54:41,320 --> 00:54:43,840
Speaker 8: Like when I started this whole thing back in like

933
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 8: twenty seventeen, it was kind of I mentioned this earlier.

934
00:54:46,200 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 6: It is kind of coming to the.

935
00:54:47,120 --> 00:54:51,040
Speaker 8: Tail end of my like non career as a songwriter

936
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 8: and a musician, Like I was in a bunch of

937
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 8: bands and like I was, I really wanted to do

938
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 8: songwriting to some extent, like what I didn't really have

939
00:54:58,600 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 8: any like this illusionment that I was going to make

940
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:02,800
Speaker 8: like a living full.

941
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 6: Time doing it.

942
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:07,319
Speaker 8: But I always imagined myself doing it at least part

943
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:09,040
Speaker 8: time on the side, and like trying to make it

944
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:11,239
Speaker 8: like a big part of me makes it always had

945
00:55:11,280 --> 00:55:15,240
Speaker 8: been in your entire And as time went on with

946
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:18,719
Speaker 8: the work, like I realized that was just not possible,

947
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 8: because like the way to get really good, especially as

948
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,160
Speaker 8: you work with other companies and organizations, like you have

949
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,600
Speaker 8: to commit so much time to learning how they operate.

950
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:29,839
Speaker 8: You know, when I'm not posting about this, like I

951
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:33,400
Speaker 8: don't have the creative energy to be like doing writing

952
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:36,520
Speaker 8: in my free time now, or like making the talks

953
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 8: in my free time, Like I have done the work

954
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:42,680
Speaker 8: and now I'm tired. So like that's certainly been the

955
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:46,120
Speaker 8: biggest shift I think in the past five or seven years,

956
00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:50,920
Speaker 8: is like I have less and less of that artistic identity.

957
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:53,040
Speaker 8: Like I don't write as much. I journal, but I

958
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:56,319
Speaker 8: don't like publish writing as much anymore. I don't do

959
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,080
Speaker 8: music anymore. Once in a while I'll play like an

960
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 8: open mic with some friends just to kind of like

961
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:03,120
Speaker 8: blow some steam off and get.

962
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 6: Out of the house.

963
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 8: And I have other hobbies like a garden, a landscape,

964
00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:08,919
Speaker 8: like I do a lot, and I got two kids. Now,

965
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:11,759
Speaker 8: not like not like all all is lost by any means,

966
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 8: but certainly like in the context of those past years,

967
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:17,920
Speaker 8: like thinking about trying to kind of like spread your

968
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 8: eggs a bit and not have everything in one basket,

969
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:22,799
Speaker 8: Like that's not a lot more feasible than it does now.

970
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:25,840
Speaker 8: Like now it's like, Okay, getting older, it's harder to

971
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 8: be online all the time. I have to kind of

972
00:56:27,560 --> 00:56:32,920
Speaker 8: like consolidate my energy around singular topics, singular platforms, and

973
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 8: it's just hard to establish those boundaries and like maintain

974
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:39,680
Speaker 8: that sense of self outside of work when your work

975
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 8: is so just like dominant, when your job is to

976
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:46,479
Speaker 8: be online for like eight or even many maybe twelve

977
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:49,759
Speaker 8: or fourteen hours a day, like you really do just

978
00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:52,960
Speaker 8: like commit so much of your sort of like spiritual

979
00:56:53,040 --> 00:56:56,520
Speaker 8: sense of self to the internet, and like it's like

980
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:58,960
Speaker 8: the meme online like people talk about like irony poison,

981
00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:01,399
Speaker 8: like you break your brain, and like it really does

982
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:06,040
Speaker 8: become so difficult to establish boundaries and like to figure

983
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:09,040
Speaker 8: out like how to I don't know, like be like

984
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:12,040
Speaker 8: a healthy person outside of that. That's why, like I've

985
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:14,920
Speaker 8: figured out, like they do. They really do try to

986
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 8: like become like I don't know, like they go to

987
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 8: the gym a lot, or like they become like people

988
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 8: that hike a lot. Like you're always trying to kind

989
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 8: of counterbalance all the insane amount of hours you spend

990
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 8: staring at a phone every every week.

991
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:28,680
Speaker 6: You know, there's like.

992
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 8: These fake jobs like like YouTuber, social media manager, podcasts

993
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:36,600
Speaker 8: or whatever, and like, sure they're nothing like the strain

994
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:39,280
Speaker 8: of like a like a laborist nine to five, but

995
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 8: there is something spiritually demanding about them that I think

996
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:45,920
Speaker 8: most people maybe don't fully understand.

997
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like I look forward to reading someone's thesis

998
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 3: paper on it in like fifteen years.

999
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 8: But a lot of it's, like, you know, it's like

1000
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 8: your privileged to the extent that you know you're to

1001
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:00,920
Speaker 8: do this, like you're put out there, you're building a

1002
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 8: personal brand, like most people don't have those options in

1003
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 8: the first place. It becomes again contextually, it's difficult to

1004
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 8: talk about, but it's interesting. It certainly has its repercussions that,

1005
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 8: like you said, we'll learn about in time.

1006
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 3: So yeah, this is the exact conversation I wanted to

1007
00:58:15,560 --> 00:58:17,200
Speaker 3: have with the STAKM guys. So this works great.

1008
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 8: I remember when I wrote that culture piece. I've been

1009
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:23,040
Speaker 8: chatting with a ton of fellow social media marketers and

1010
00:58:23,120 --> 00:58:25,920
Speaker 8: just online friends about it, and everybody kind of had

1011
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:28,400
Speaker 8: the same response, which is just like, yeah, where do

1012
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 8: we go from here? Like it doesn't really seem to

1013
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 8: be a clear path for brands, Like the areas that

1014
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 8: would you would could be considered taboo for brands, like religion, politics, drugs,

1015
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 8: Like there's some obvious, obvious third rails there, Like you know,

1016
00:58:45,440 --> 00:58:48,160
Speaker 8: the vast majority of brands will never touch religion as

1017
00:58:48,200 --> 00:58:51,480
Speaker 8: like a topic. They'll never touch drugs even when drugs

1018
00:58:51,480 --> 00:58:54,240
Speaker 8: are legalized, Like it's say, say pot or whatever, Like

1019
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 8: it's one of the where Like it's just such high

1020
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 8: risk for a brand that I think it's not worth that. Yeah,

1021
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 8: not worth touching. So like and I also just don't know,

1022
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 8: like from like an ideological standpoint, the politics stuff really

1023
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:11,080
Speaker 8: only resonates when it's safe. Now, you don't you wouldn't

1024
00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:14,400
Speaker 8: see like anytime an issue becomes act like there's actual

1025
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:17,320
Speaker 8: again stakes don't mind my pun. Like, when there's an

1026
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:20,640
Speaker 8: any kind of issue with actual like skin in the game,

1027
00:59:20,680 --> 00:59:23,880
Speaker 8: when there's actually like a polarizing element to it, brands

1028
00:59:23,880 --> 00:59:26,200
Speaker 8: almost never touch it. Like the only brand there's only

1029
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 8: a couple brands really that have stuck to their guns

1030
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 8: with this, Like one is classically Ben and Jerry's, and

1031
00:59:31,600 --> 00:59:33,320
Speaker 8: like those are the ones that, like because they have

1032
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:36,440
Speaker 8: such credibility baked into like their mission and how they

1033
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:38,800
Speaker 8: talk about it, it makes sense that they would stick

1034
00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 8: to their guns. But for the vast majority of brands,

1035
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 8: like anything, anytime something like that hot like a moment

1036
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:47,480
Speaker 8: pops up in the zeitgeist, like it's just an opportunity

1037
00:59:47,520 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 8: and it's I'm not even saying that like fully cynically,

1038
00:59:50,960 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 8: because like there is like the cynical side of it

1039
00:59:53,040 --> 00:59:55,200
Speaker 8: of like, hey, let's make money doing this. But then

1040
00:59:55,200 --> 00:59:58,520
Speaker 8: there's also like the com like the communication side of

1041
00:59:58,560 --> 01:00:01,280
Speaker 8: it of like what are the repercussions if we don't,

1042
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:04,560
Speaker 8: you know, there's kind of like we need to maybe

1043
01:00:04,880 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 8: reevaluate our policy or reevaluate like how we're positioning our

1044
01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 8: team and our company and how we hire people or whatever.

1045
01:00:12,680 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 8: So like it's not all fully cynical, but like the

1046
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:19,200
Speaker 8: way it's presented in like the medium of social media

1047
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:23,520
Speaker 8: content is just very strange from an ideological standpoints.

1048
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 3: Where is there left to go? But there's always somewhere.

1049
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 3: I'm curious what you if you have any predictions of

1050
01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:31,360
Speaker 3: where you see things going next.

1051
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:34,120
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like it's it's kind of weird and in some

1052
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:36,640
Speaker 8: ways sad to say, but like, I think we've treaded

1053
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 8: most of the original ground here, so at this point,

1054
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:42,919
Speaker 8: everything's just getting retreaded. That's been really weird to see

1055
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:45,560
Speaker 8: as somebody especially I can't even imagine for like Amy

1056
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:48,520
Speaker 8: or Serenity, who have been doing this for longer than

1057
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:50,960
Speaker 8: I have. It's like when I think back over the

1058
01:00:50,960 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 8: past like ten or so years of trends, like talk

1059
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 8: about these vulture pieces, like how the different dynamics of

1060
01:00:57,400 --> 01:01:01,240
Speaker 8: content have evolved and devolved over the years. In the

1061
01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 8: past four or five years, I would say, we've just

1062
01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:07,440
Speaker 8: seen repeats of most of what was happening earlier. A

1063
01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:10,080
Speaker 8: lot of the stuff that felt novel ten years ago

1064
01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:12,280
Speaker 8: is starting to feel a novel again. As long as

1065
01:01:12,320 --> 01:01:14,439
Speaker 8: like people feel a genuine connection to you, like how

1066
01:01:14,480 --> 01:01:18,480
Speaker 8: you talk to them verbally and in written form. I

1067
01:01:18,480 --> 01:01:21,520
Speaker 8: think that is always going to be like the thing

1068
01:01:21,960 --> 01:01:25,720
Speaker 8: that people have to like really figure out for themselves

1069
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 8: because people just sniff out in authenticity so quick nowadays.

1070
01:01:31,600 --> 01:01:34,560
Speaker 8: So you either have to go so like personified and

1071
01:01:34,600 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 8: absurd that you're clearly putting on a character, or be

1072
01:01:37,880 --> 01:01:40,080
Speaker 8: like so true to yourself that you can keep it

1073
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:43,640
Speaker 8: up every day, you know what I mean to reach people.

1074
01:01:43,760 --> 01:01:46,080
Speaker 8: So at least that's how I feel like right now,

1075
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:47,960
Speaker 8: I'm like whatever I make, like, I want to be

1076
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:52,400
Speaker 8: able to feel like I can put myself into it comfortably.

1077
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:54,160
Speaker 6: Because if I can't, like it just feels.

1078
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:57,040
Speaker 8: So contrived and like I won't have the energy to

1079
01:01:57,160 --> 01:01:59,200
Speaker 8: keep it up over months or years.

1080
01:01:59,280 --> 01:01:59,520
Speaker 6: You know.

1081
01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 8: Personification like it's it's part of who we are as

1082
01:02:02,880 --> 01:02:06,480
Speaker 8: certain makes the work feel again like there's blurred lines,

1083
01:02:06,560 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 8: makes it feel very sticky for all of us in

1084
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:12,600
Speaker 8: our own ways, I think. But yeah, but it's a

1085
01:02:12,600 --> 01:02:13,960
Speaker 8: cool part of what we get to do. Again, It's

1086
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 8: like it's easy to hate on like again, like I've

1087
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:19,240
Speaker 8: kind of come out of my more like cynical years

1088
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:21,000
Speaker 8: on this, I think, just because it was weighing me

1089
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:25,600
Speaker 8: down so heavily and like not really going anywhere. But

1090
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:27,680
Speaker 8: like when I think about how I used to I

1091
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:29,640
Speaker 8: think about how I used to think about this, it

1092
01:02:29,680 --> 01:02:32,280
Speaker 8: was like I don't know, like this is unhealthy and

1093
01:02:32,320 --> 01:02:34,640
Speaker 8: like I can't keep doing this whatever, Like it's I'm

1094
01:02:34,680 --> 01:02:37,760
Speaker 8: chilling myself for a brand, and like even if some

1095
01:02:37,800 --> 01:02:41,400
Speaker 8: of that is still true, like obviously it's again like

1096
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:44,680
Speaker 8: it's not not very different if I was a songwriter,

1097
01:02:44,880 --> 01:02:48,080
Speaker 8: except I'm doing this for a company versus myself. It's

1098
01:02:48,120 --> 01:02:50,760
Speaker 8: like you have to put on our performance, like you

1099
01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 8: have to put on some kind of facade, whether it's

1100
01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:56,000
Speaker 8: a light facade or a heavy facade, to like really

1101
01:02:56,320 --> 01:02:58,760
Speaker 8: put an image and a message out there for people

1102
01:02:58,800 --> 01:02:59,480
Speaker 8: to resonate with.

1103
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 6: And you know, I think where I'm at now.

1104
01:03:03,080 --> 01:03:05,840
Speaker 8: Like I tried just to be at peace with knowing

1105
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:08,920
Speaker 8: there's like a separation there and let people kind of

1106
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:11,600
Speaker 8: let the chips fall where they are, let people interpret

1107
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:14,880
Speaker 8: it how they will, but not like get too crazy

1108
01:03:14,920 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 8: about it like I did the seven or eight years ago,

1109
01:03:17,920 --> 01:03:20,880
Speaker 8: or it just felt like all consuming and I don't know,

1110
01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 8: like it was just like messing with me mentally, Like

1111
01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 8: it's just not that deep anymore to me. But maybe

1112
01:03:26,240 --> 01:03:27,880
Speaker 8: that's just because I'm getting older and I don't have

1113
01:03:27,960 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 8: time to think too much about it anymore.

1114
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 6: Who knows. For a lot of this, I always.

1115
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:34,760
Speaker 8: Wish I had like clear answers for people, but so

1116
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:36,320
Speaker 8: much of it is just this kind of like weird,

1117
01:03:36,360 --> 01:03:39,240
Speaker 8: hazy world where like from a creative standpoint, if you

1118
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 8: are somebody in marketing and you want to get into

1119
01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 8: this world, like I tell us to young people all

1120
01:03:43,880 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 8: the time, like if you want to be a writer,

1121
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:50,120
Speaker 8: like a copywriter, or like a graphic designer or something

1122
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:53,320
Speaker 8: of that nature, may do a much easier time kind

1123
01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:55,960
Speaker 8: of like separating your work from like your personal life.

1124
01:03:56,200 --> 01:04:00,000
Speaker 8: But yeah, social media management is certainly a harder game

1125
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,040
Speaker 8: for doing that. Like you're just you're always putting a

1126
01:04:03,040 --> 01:04:05,040
Speaker 8: piece of yourself on the Internet, And I think it's

1127
01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:07,640
Speaker 8: good to know going into it like that, that's what

1128
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:09,400
Speaker 8: you have to expect and you have to kind of

1129
01:04:09,440 --> 01:04:12,920
Speaker 8: wrestle with that tension like we're talking about here, like

1130
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:16,680
Speaker 8: figuring out how to compartmentalize and draw boundaries and figure out,

1131
01:04:17,200 --> 01:04:19,800
Speaker 8: you know, where your sense of self is derived from

1132
01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:22,320
Speaker 8: outside of your work, so you don't get too crazy

1133
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:25,240
Speaker 8: as a personified brand, you know.

1134
01:04:26,160 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 3: Thank you so much to Nathan for his time, and

1135
01:04:28,520 --> 01:04:30,640
Speaker 3: you can learn more about his work at the links

1136
01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:34,480
Speaker 3: in the description. So much of this interview really stuck

1137
01:04:34,520 --> 01:04:37,480
Speaker 3: with me in the days after, and I really want

1138
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:40,400
Speaker 3: to again thank Nathan for his good sense of humor

1139
01:04:40,440 --> 01:04:44,080
Speaker 3: and candor about everything. He's obviously a very funny and

1140
01:04:44,120 --> 01:04:47,760
Speaker 3: thoughtful guy, and I totally understand why it hurt that

1141
01:04:47,880 --> 01:04:50,760
Speaker 3: the comedy writers he'd kind of taken over the stakehum

1142
01:04:50,760 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 3: account in order to befriend eventually turned on him. But

1143
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:58,880
Speaker 3: I also understand the other side of that. It's fine

1144
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 3: to be friends with Nate, and it's great when Nathan

1145
01:05:02,160 --> 01:05:05,080
Speaker 3: is doing well at work, But at what point are you,

1146
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:10,600
Speaker 3: as a public facing anti capitalist, just promoting a dangerously

1147
01:05:10,680 --> 01:05:14,600
Speaker 3: sourced meat brand. It's kind of an impossible thing to navigate,

1148
01:05:14,960 --> 01:05:17,240
Speaker 3: and as long as young creatives are still getting pulled

1149
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:20,400
Speaker 3: into advertising, we'll probably never be fully out of it.

1150
01:05:21,200 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 3: Much to consider, and in our grand finale to the

1151
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:28,600
Speaker 3: Sentient Brand series this Thursday, I'm going to bring you

1152
01:05:28,680 --> 01:05:31,600
Speaker 3: right up to the present moment, onto that second road,

1153
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:37,280
Speaker 3: in that thorny divergent wood, the Horny Brand, a look

1154
01:05:37,280 --> 01:05:40,560
Speaker 3: at the social media history that leads us to the murdered, pissoaked,

1155
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:45,000
Speaker 3: Duo Lingo Bird and the brilliant mind behind it. We'll

1156
01:05:45,040 --> 01:05:51,560
Speaker 3: see you then. Sixteenth Minute is a production of Whole

1157
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:55,280
Speaker 3: Zone Media and iHeart Rodous. It is written, posted, and

1158
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:58,920
Speaker 3: produced by me Jamie Rostis. Our executive producers are Sophie

1159
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:02,520
Speaker 3: Lichtermann and Robert Evans. The amazing Ian Johnson is our

1160
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:04,760
Speaker 3: supervising producer and our editor.

1161
01:06:05,320 --> 01:06:06,360
Speaker 2: Our theme song.

1162
01:06:06,320 --> 01:06:10,120
Speaker 3: Is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is from Brant Crater

1163
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:13,440
Speaker 3: and Pet. Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my

1164
01:06:13,560 --> 01:06:16,280
Speaker 3: Kat's flee and Casper and my pet Rockbert, who will

1165
01:06:16,280 --> 01:06:17,880
Speaker 3: outlive us all. Bye.