221. UNLOCKED: Two Point Very Fast - After Show
2021Show notes
We figured you guys could use some extra fun this week, so here's this week's patron-only After Show. We like how it turned out.
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Edited by Quinn Rose
Engineered by Cameron Bopp
Transcript
Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakesMerlinAfter Show!
AlexYay! After Show! After Show! High Energy Merlin!
MerlinLots going on today.
AlexOh, oh, is, ew, I have an app in online.
MerlinGood, okay. Enjoy it. Enjoy it while you can. Everything's good. Closing that Closing that We're bumping right up against Rioting right now Well last night
AlexI was I said I wouldn't do it But I watched You know footage Of Proud Boys fighting with the cops And I'm like yeah this is what hey hey everybody this is this is what violent protesting looks like i don't know why you don't believe footage from the the past but okay here it is now like according according
Merlinto some people there's no way that those are trump supporters it could be antifa yeah and as dave weiglis says well how about we arrest them and find out that's good uh hello that's okay it's gonna be a big day huge day all right what are we going
Alexthere there was a thought too where i'm like i was genuinely like relieved that blue lives matter guy does not live in my building because he is the kind i i mean oh i i don't know one of those
Merlinguys who might put on his hockey pads and you know get his uh carry his sled out you know as
Alexa shield get a yellow polo and yeah the whole boy oh anyway did you get a did you get a did you get a chip did i get a chip oh no okay so might just be a local thing in here is where i i messed up. I got myself a large Diet Coke, so it is a plastic thingy and not a paper thingy. You know, just I'll take a picture of it. But, but.
MerlinMaybe I could just Google this. McDonald's.
AlexOh, I don't like this. I do not like this at all.
MerlinMcDonald's Arfid cups. Oh, October 25th. McDonald's and Starbucks are planning to adopt RFID technology.
AlexOh, boy. I just did... Oh, boy. There's a QR code on my cup and it keeps... No, I don't want it to go to the place.
MerlinOh, my God. Oh, my God. God, I hate Reddit.
AlexWhat?
MerlinAccording to Reddit, which is never wrong, McDonald's drink has an arfed tag on bottom of cup soda fountain uses it to keep track of refills and won't dispense soda to untagged cups and bottles huh they're locking you out we're back when i was a kid you know you ever encounter a pay toilet in your life oh not until i'd been to europe but oh really yeah
Alexoh that seems very un-european huh right i bet they don't do that in dutch huh where is it is this a florida thing uh was what was what pay toilets
Merlinoh no no no but like oh i mean it used to be especially in airports when i was a kid you go in the the i guess the urinals were free that's like in the only fans preview i guess and then if you wanted to drop a deuce if you wanted to if you wanted to do a yard sale or do a paint job, you had to put in, I want to say it was probably like a nickel.
And I have a feeling I know why. It's a very behavioral economics kind of thing where like, you know, I mean like as certain people have been saying for years, if spam cost anything at all to send, people would stop. It just wouldn't pay off. The fact that it's free or nearly or functionally free to send spam is what makes it profitable. Because you really, if one person responds, you make all your money back. But for example, I've been in, I don't like this, but I've been in hotels, especially like your less costly hotels,
where you have to pay a nickel to use the ice machine.
AlexI have seen that, yes.
MerlinOr for example, have you ever been to a grocery store where you have to put, it's really wild, you have to put a quarter into a slot on the cart and then you get the quarter back when you put it back.
AlexYes, yes.
MerlinI mean, why do you think they do that?
AlexWell, to stop homeless folks from taking them was always the narrative.
MerlinLike the toilets.
AlexOh, wait. Oh, yeah. So you can't shoot up in the bathroom.
MerlinYou can't sleep in the ice machine. Yeah. Exactly. No, I take your point. I take your point. Yes. I think in an urban area where you put a quarter in a grocery cart, it's pretty definitely a way to deter the loss of a $400 piece of hardware. Regardless of who takes it, that's a lot of money for them to lose. I get that. But in each of these instances, I think what you're doing, you know, I feel like I've heard the tragedy of the commons has kind of gone the way of the boiling frog. Like, it doesn't mean what you think it means.
But I think the idea here is when you put a small price on something, it tends to become less abused. Certainly it also excludes people who don't have a quarter or a nickel or whatever. But I think that's probably the idea. With the ice machine, I bet that's so kids don't have ice fights in the hallway. Somebody slips on ice and you get sued. I bet that's, I don't know if I agree or if it's true, but I mean, I bet you.
AlexSounds like fun.
MerlinWell, that's the logic though, right?
AlexYeah.
MerlinIf there's ever anything you don't understand about a person, ask yourself what they might be scared of. If you don't understand what a business did, ask yourself what they're scared about being sued about.
AlexYeah, that's, it's my winter of why, but that theme's a different show. But I have the same qualms and, not qualm, I don't even, reservations slash anxiety about things like Patreon and Substack and stuff that I use. Hi, everybody. Thank you for subscribing. seriously um because especially as i was growing up people like you who are vulnerable for a living
there was no gatekeeping um and i can't stop a blogger yeah can't do it can't do it can't get no but uh can't unring that bell damn oh almost almost everything i enjoy now um from independent creators is behind a paywall and some of it is what are you talking about after after show um
Merlinwould you i could is a is a possible reframe of that that you find yourself paying small amounts of money for things you enjoy but i mean election profit makers doesn't cost anything
Alexunless you choose to tithe oh true true true true but that show um i think Starley um my my another intellectual crush um made it sort of clear like yeah this this is our patreon is what gives uh this this legs and and not just because of um monetary value but because people see the amount of members and it's like ah yes that that is a good thing and that
becomes a uh like even shows that are on bigger networks that becomes a possible ad revenue because they know that you have built-in listeners and it a lot of it um like honestly like um newsletters especially now um because the people are don't want to be constantly harassed i mean it's just like nah i don't don't really want that right now and i i
get it but then there is the gross thing of yeah that that number of how many people have done the one dollar for your kickstarter um makes it more popular i don't know i don't know that's that's why it is not a qualm and an anxiety, I guess.
MerlinI mean, I think there's still a lot of grenades rolling around. First of all, there's a lot of reasons why somebody might choose to do something. God, I don't even know where to begin. I mean, for one thing, okay, let's take away the Matt Iglesias and the Andrew Sullivan's and all of them for a minute and all the people who just can't stand people telling them this could be better written. Let's take that away for a minute. But maybe you get like a Walt Hickey or you get a, you know, one of those folks or many of the people who started like a sub stack as a way to subsidize what it is that they do.
Well, how do we get to that? Well, first of all, you know, I congratulate and celebrate and think good thoughts for anybody who would rather do something independently than for somebody else for a lot of reasons and not simply money. I mean, you can't buy my care. Like that's not for sale. Like if, if there's a thing that I really want to do and you're trying to fuck it up for nickels, I'm later. Right. So, I mean, I, I, that part, like I, I get that and, and that makes sense. And, but then alongside that, yeah, it is really complicated when you're used to being able to get a lot of stuff for, for free or nearly free. Like you've paid for your internet and now you want the stuff.
and at a time when we have all become accustomed to getting what we want a lot quicker than we used to. There's a lot of, there's just so many different angles to this. But at the risk of, I don't know, sounding like a little bit of a dick, like the problem is that there's a lot of, there are economies that have been undone over time and there are also false economies that have been undone. Like how weird was it for us normies to learn that the way we got newspapers for a quarter
and the way that we got websites with all of the news from that paper for free was classified ads. And when classified ads went away, as the single, like we were talking in the main episode about profit per square inch, you think about the profit per square inch of those little tiny dumb ads in those back sections that you never look at until you need to, until you need a roommate, until you need to sell your lawnmower. It's my understanding that, yeah,
big display ads that people like Mr. Trump bought, like, yeah, that makes money, but the earners are classified ads. And when stuff like Craigslist came along, that went away. Well, that was the beginning, not the beginning of a continuation in some ways. I mean, how do you afford having three local papers in a town in Iowa when the money's not there to support it? I'm just trying to like state a reality. I'm not saying that's good, bad or indifferent, but that is a reality. Flash forward a bunch of years, maybe more years than we would have even guessed if we
were being honest. And like, you're dropping people from your paper. You're dropping people from your website. You know, I don't, I don't know why BDG left a polygon. He must have done, there must have been, I imagine it was, you know, it seems like it was somewhat like it was amicable, but he probably also wants to do his own thing. And I can understand why. Like if I were Simone or if I were any number of people, I would be like, wait a minute, I don't need these ding-a-lings to, I mean, you know what I mean? It's nice to get that support from a big platform and getting the help that you need, but there
are other options for doing those kinds of things. And then let's just add another wrinkle to it. Like I would not plan, if you came into podcasting this month, I would not plan to retire based on the advertising that you can get for an 8,000 download podcast. And let me just tell you, bud, 8,000 is a fuckton more than most of the podcasts on iTunes get. You talk about a long tail.
Alex1,000 is a fuckton.
MerlinOh, I mean, that's the crazy part, which is not to say, I mean, all the podcasts that you and I both know probably have more downloads than that. I don't care. But my point is somebody does care. And that's an advertiser, advertisers who increasingly are exercising, in my opinion, much more control for much less money. There's more overhead to dealing with that. I guess what I'm trying to say is shit's complicated right now. And I laud anybody who's trying to find a way to make a living doing what they do.
And was it the joker who says, you know, if you're good at what you do, always get paid for it? I don't agree with that, but what enables, for example, there's people like me who are like, I could not have gotten, quote unquote, gotten into doing podcasts unless there were other sources of revenue. You Look Nice Today has never had an ad on it. We don't have ads now. I, quote unquote, lose money on that because I pay for the fireside account and all that stuff, right? But there's got to be, there's got to be.
AlexYeah, you're paying for this fireside account. Let me tell, I want to put it there.
MerlinIt wasn't performative, Alex. You have a hard out.
AlexOh, I've heard of her.
MerlinAnyway, I'm sorry. I have really complicated thoughts about that. Because here's what I'm avoiding. Here's the strange concentric dance that I'm doing. I understand people saying it sucks that this stuff is going to cost. And it's like, it does suck. But people need to find ways to... And I think really, I mean, independent media people, I hate the word content, But people who make stuff mostly on their own, I think are generally speaking, except the ones who are assholes, are generally some of the most generous about doing everything they can to make that available to people.
Which brings me back to the original non-point I was not making, which is, well, you know, whether that's the besties or whether that's whatever. Well, was it such a bargain to get to be on Spotify? Like, was that really, did they ever care anything about what it is that you do? maybe maybe you got maybe maybe one reason you got picked to be on spotify and this sounds like but i really don't mean it that way it's it's just i i love i couldn't love anything more than i love spotify for music and i it's difficult for me to be more frustrated than the way i'm frustrated
about spotify and podcasts which is a strange position to be in but you know if uh if you can't make it work uh you need to find a way to a different way to make it work and one of my problems all along. How do I thread this needle? There are people who make podcasts who really love podcasts. And there are people who make podcasts because they kind of fell backwards into that as part of their job, often as a radio person, often as a writer. But they didn't start
as people who wanted to make a podcast because they love podcasts. Not that that's good or bad, but it also then makes it sometimes a little complicated to talk to those people about things related to business if you're somebody who makes a podcast but doesn't listen to that many podcasts you can very very well come along say hey let's make this thing 100% patreon like if you make this you got to pay for it you can't download my stuff like my other media you can't download my books and music for free why would i let you download my podcast for free it's like well it really is different and like the problem is when you when you take the thing that i mean
your podcast will not become, unless you are Gwyneth Paltrow or similar, your podcast will not become listened to and well-known unless you've previously had other things that show you're kind of good at podcasting. Do you know what I mean? And then when you put that whole thing or a lot of that thing, if you make it impossible to follow your show without, you know, participating in a paywall, don't expect a ton of growth. And you know, don't even expect to retain people, let alone grow. How could you grow? You know, there are these people out there who,
I guess, have enough wuffy and think enough of themselves that everything they do, like you got across my palm, which is fine. And if that works, that's great. Everybody has to do what they do. But like with podcasts in particular, I would not put your candle under a bushel basket. You're
Alexgoing to really fuck yourself up good. I like the ones where you prepare.
MerlinWhat? I'm not being a dick. You have a hard out. Why are you making fun of me?
AlexNo, I'm not. Okay, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Because I...
MerlinI just think people will cut off their nose to spite their face sometimes. And it's like, you know, those of us who have been in the retail independent trenches for a while know that, like, you kind of have to always be thinking about whatever the next thing is. Yes, from a money standpoint, but also from just a survival standpoint. point like at a time when I was not making a lot from ads on 43 folders and I really wanted to do it as something close to my job I'm always so embarrassed to call anything I do my job because
it's you know I'm really lucky to get to do that but I tried some really squirrely stuff as I've documented on the website I mean I sold links at one point and it was and the way that those links got sold and like really was really gross they would do css to like hide you know oh weird oh Yeah, but I didn't even, I controlled the decision to agree to that, but I did not control the decision for what ran there. Right, right. And even though that at one point was one of the biggest ways I could make money with the site, I was like, no, let's sunset this.
I think that's not a good idea. Even with Amazon affiliate links. I mean, the rule of thumb for me became, after I certainly made enough money from it to be high and mighty about it, don't ever post a link to an Amazon affiliate thing. if would you put let's ask yourself this question would i post this same link if i didn't make any money from it and if you have to hesitate for even a second to ask yourself you know should i do well now you know now you're part of the problem if you're if you're putting up a bunch of links because they earn you money but again i guess i guess that works for wire cutter but but i don't
know i mean but that wire cutter is a site about that stuff if i'm writing about you know self self productivity, creativity, becoming the person that you would like to be. It's a little skeezy for me to have, you know, 35 surprising ways to buy a holster for your pen.
It's fucking gross. And like you should look askance at me for not understanding that that that is at odds with the message of what I'm trying to say.
AlexAnd the, I mean, I do not, I literally actually, oh God, I'm trying to think of right now my of any of my millennial friends who do not have two jobs or a side hustle. And I'm doing a well, I guess technically you could call it a money losing project because some friends of mine were just going to like I'm very against calling it a podcast because I think that podcasts are available not necessarily for free, but via RSS.
and it's like what if we just put these five things behind a paywall what would happen and it's also a thing of okay at one point when you're I genuinely love Twitch and streaming at this point I love what it has become I do not I mean it's like YouTube some of it is insufferable
MerlinI get like twice weekly updates I got a big update yesterday on how Tommy and Tubbo or whoever those guys are that she loves. And they have this fake thing where they like fight, they fake fight, and then they get back together. It's like a little, it's like a little, like not a soap opera exactly, but it's not for me, but I'm really glad that you like that. And is that something where you, do you find yourself paying for some of those things?
AlexYes, but it is all free. You buy some.
MerlinYeah, I see.
AlexYou get subscriptions and some of them do have ads and it's a little bit kind of like YouTube bread, but it's kind of unclear what that is because, you know, there's like Twitch affiliate and Twitch partner and, you know. And I am wondering also at this point if it's just that I miss producing live things. And when I say, quote, producing, the stuff I like, the live stuff.
MerlinYou're the line producer, though. You're the one who makes it go.
AlexWell, exactly. But my stuff, I'm like, hey, me and 50 people, we are going to play Pokemon. And it's fun. It is like, it's fun.
But the other thing, I put a lot of stuff online that I, oh, God, I hate being coy. I just put a lot of writing online that I don't publicize because I don't. And the people who find that, I really respect their feedback. And the fact that they give me the time and attention for that feedback is really, I mean, more than flattering, incredibly generous. And I mean, people are like, why are unions a trend now?
It's like, well, because so many of us are losing jobs, because, I mean, I'll be real, this show, I've got, like, I talk a lot about how, you know, bipolar, my brain's a little broken, and luckily health insurance covers that, but it doesn't cover a lot of what would be called queer healthcare costs.
MerlinBody things.
AlexBody things.
MerlinExcuse me. We are farmers and we don't cover your body. And, you know,
Alexit's really hard to have slash get a kid.
MerlinYou can't just Postmates one of those. You can't. Open the bag, took out a couple fries.
AlexI mean, oh wow, even foster care really doesn't and well any anyway there there's there money constantly causes me anxiety and the
Merlinlife of the one would like to have or to become the person that one um feels the one is or the person whom one is like it that's a lot less costly for some people than others and that's
Alexwhy i say i i love money because it is like a little bit of xanax every time and i uh I, again, don't want to be the woke oracle, but growing up, it's I never expected to be a middle class person. Like, no way. And like, no way in hell. Like, I'm not a rich person.
MerlinYou mean sort of culturally or financially?
AlexFinancially. Because, well, I mean, I guess both because, you know, the gay and the whatever. but just like watching i i mean i graduated high school in 2009 and even even then you know my friends a couple years older than me could could not get jobs um you know grad school was i i assumed that i was going to go to grad school right after college that that was the plan because
they're um well they're ended up being something else and and sure i worked my fucking ass off but but I've gotten much, I just also got real fucking lucky. And yeah, it's the timing and luck involved in my generation. I feel like we saw it kind of going off a cliff and we didn't know how to stop it.
And we still, by we, I mean, millennials, I guess people who are trying desperately to get a job with health health care, let alone a job to start a family with, like, oh, let alone to buy a house or a car. No, I like just just to pay for rent and groceries. Like I got I just got best food delivered for for eight dollars. That would be fucking insane for me. is just before we started the show, honestly.
That would be wild to just be able to just get fast food. Like, that's insane. Like, I think about that all the time. And maybe it is a Catholic guilt thing. Maybe it is just the people I'm friends with thing and seeing how they are just less lucky. and I don't know. I have no point. Thanks for subscribing, everybody.
I don't want to do a guilt trip.
MerlinI don't have it open in front of me and unfortunately it's easier for me to log into the Dubai Friday Patreon than my own. I have to go to a different browser for that.
AlexRight? It's so, they promised.
MerlinWell, and you don't want to get it mad because then it sends you a code and the code expires. Anyway, long story short, I would look this up and tell you, I'm just going to do this off the dome. by and large, mostly redacted. But I want to say I probably support around 10 Patreons. And so here's an interesting thing. And I think you know my thoughts on this already, as we've had many offline discussions that sort of circle around the thing that I'm about to say. But not everybody can do this.
But I think when you're deciding how you want to interact with people who are interested in your work, you have to make certain upfront decisions. But also really you need to make ongoing decisions to kind of check yourself before you wreck yourself. So when BDG posted his eating Pokemon video and announced that he was going off to do his own thing, I immediately signed up for $10 a month. And my kid and I were talking about it. because we are both Jorts enthusiasts as well.
Only now I'm formally a Jorts enthusiast. And I said, I gotta tell you, man, to my kid, I think he did something here that's so smart. It seems so counterintuitive probably to a lot of people, but I think he did something so smart, which is like day and date, he starts doing his own thing. He says, hey, look, I'm gonna be doing my own thing. So if you like what I do, you can go to Patreon and support me, whatever, $1, $5, $10, whatever it is. and I was, I can't, I can't tell you how happy I was. There was some talk of like treats, as we like to say,
but basically what you were saying is, hey, if you like what I do, help me be able to do it. Like there might be stuff, but really I said to her, like, I think this is so smart because you're, first of all, you're doing a really smart ding-a-ling filter, like in the same way that Syracuse and made that app front and center, put it on the app store and then charged more than you should for it because he didn't have to deal with people who were going to be ding-a-lings. And I have to say, like, if I were to, like, do something like this, and who knows, I mean, this might be a thing I do for myself at some point.
I don't know. I would very much go straight out of the box with, you know, what do you get for this, as Syracuse says? You get nothing. Yeah, you get the opportunity to help me be able to make a thing that you like. And so I think this is going to sound so weird, but you have to decide, like, are you an artist or are you a store? I think you have to be so careful about implying that you're a store, which is, and again, I think you can probably know the reference I'm making here,
to conversations that we have had about, you know what's important? Show up on time and do the best show that you can every week. And kind of importantly, but like not to be missed, is whether or not the most recent show was good, you keep trying to do the best show. You show up on time every week. You do the best you can every week. And then you know what you do next? You do it again. You just keep showing up and doing the best you can. But when you, and even if you are doing the best you can,
and even if you have a staff, I don't want to work for a store. I don't want to have to deal with people who feel like they're mad that the VAT tax on their shirt was too high. the kind of folks you just were kind enough to deal with no no but you see what i'm saying though like i think bdg did that and you know if there's stuff that's fine you know actually if i could just pay a little more and never get another email from anybody on patreon that would be great oh my god right holy shit because i could and i but like you know for example people ask us that i'm like
i'm so sorry i know here's the filter i would never deliberately emailed anybody from patreon but here's what I'm saying though so BDG is one example, other examples there's a writer that I like a lot who I get $10 a month to on Patreon and he's never given me anything except the writing that I love, which is exactly perfect. There's another guy, there's a guy I really like, there's a couple people I support on YouTube that actually don't post that much stuff I'm not getting a very good deal out of it but surprise, I'm not here for a good deal
I'm honored that I have the opportunity to give you a really kind of glancingly small amount of money each month that I hope is helpful for when you do post a video or when you do make a podcast or whatever. And I think in the case of like EPM, like they, and I support them, but I think their thing is, yeah, but a lot of what they're giving you, which I think is cool, is they're just giving you more of what they already do. Which some people, again, now if you're a store, if you treat yourself like a store and you say-
AlexI mean, the sticker was really cool. It made me giggle. No, I know, I know.
MerlinNo, but I mean like, but like, you know, You can't refill your cup because you don't have the chip, you know, that kind of thing. No, like if you have podcasts and make more podcasts or if you have like a funny poster somebody sent or whatever, I love all of that stuff. I'm a weirdo. And because I'm a weirdo in how I consume, it makes me a weirdo in how I produce and how I vend. Which is like I am very allergic to so much of the make-believe bullshit that we are supposed to think is totally normal. we're not allowed to notice, let alone talk about.
You just, there's all kinds of stuff in my life right now where I'm just, I've kind of had a snootful of all the ways in which I'm getting notes on the person that I've never wanted to be. And in that instance, like, yeah, I do the thing. If you don't like the thing, dude, it's totally fine. You don't even, don't, please don't give me a reason why you left. I don't, if it was money, don't tell, please don't tell me. If you hate the show, don't tell me. If you like the show, but can't afford it, please don't tell me. It doesn't matter. Just go, it's okay. It's really super okay. And I appreciate those kinds of notes,
but they can also be a burden. Like the burden of having to, like, I'm sorry, no, no, sorry, not sorry. This is gonna, that's part of my thing this year is I don't say that so much. But like, that's frustrating to me because like, you're not, nobody's thinking at scale. Everybody, it's, again, it's like Postmates, Apple delivery all over again. This whole, all of these systems are made to run like a top as long as everything goes flawlessly and everybody's happy. The moment it doesn't go flawlessly and people aren't happy, you have a giant shit show on your hands. And guess what? Guess what? You're not going to make any more anything.
You're not going to make your stuff anymore because now you have to go to the store and make sure that everybody outside who's mad because they got dented ham can be made happy and whole. And it's like, no, like, no, thank you. I would never want to get successful enough that I have to do stuff like that. I like the informality of like, you do a thing and I like it. And again, this is not about me. What I'm telling you here is like, I spend a fair amount every month on Patreon. Doesn't matter. You don't need to know that. But you know what? I don't want another single thing from any of those people except the satisfaction of
knowing that they get to make a thing that makes me happy and makes other people happy. I don't give to charities to feel good about myself. I give to charities because I want a bald kid to be well. And in this case, I'm giving because I believe in what you do. And me carrying a little bit of that load might help somebody else get to enjoy it too. And that's how you have a good world. People making good stuff. other people supporting it and then like hopefully you know finding a way for the rising tide to raise other boats but i don't want to be a store you really are an honorary lesbian
well no you've never seen such a bunch of phonies in your whole life my friend merlin also known as holden confield that that is such a phonies no but that that is
Alexthe same everything that you have said is constantly echoed and practiced in queer communities with folks creating things it used to be more about that oh what is that the in terms of care um no uh in terms of monetary support because um the there there's no uh i i don't like that this is how it is but uh there is no social safety net and some people have popular art
some days and some days uh their youtube channel gets taken down because they talked about something that they talked about coming out to their parents and youtube was like nope and then oh yeah and
Merlinaren't they aren't there words now oh yeah there's there's the words you're not allowed to use right You can't say like incel and stuff like that, right?
AlexOh, yeah, you can't. Well, there are a number of- On Twitch, I mean, sorry. Oh, that, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is another thing too.
MerlinWell, did you see the woman? Did you see the woman who got her Twitch pulled because she was out of the room and her child walked in?
AlexYep, and-
MerlinHoly shit, talk about losing the plot.
AlexAnd that happens constantly every day. And there is like kind of this weird thing with some people who are like, oh, I've been shadow banned. And it's a little bit exaggerated, I think.
MerlinBut what I heard, I don't know if this is true. You tell me what I heard happen was. And this one blows my mind because you talk about some fucking bullshit with against women. Is this a woman who's like a relatively popular streamer or a very popular streamer who has a kid? Guess what? Like everybody, she's stuck at home. Right. And she left the room for a minute. her kid came in and talked to people on the camera a little kid of like four and apparently posposably twitch has a rule that nobody under 13 anybody under 13 on a twitch stream has to have an adult there correct am i correct so far yep and so then she got her account i don't know
the temporary or permanently pulled because of that infraction let me ask you this how often does that happen with a dude because i bet i bet he's got a wife or a girlfriend or a mom who's watching the kid while he does this very important streaming work i bet that is a women what that is
Alexan issue that affects women a lot more than men yes i mean the uh and i i say that the whole uh shadow banning thing is overblown but that's exactly why it can be overblown because that that story became very public and then a lot of men jump on the story of up i've been shadow banned i can't play call of duty but when they're you know um there there were were a lot of people
making money from vine which sounds like this sounds wild but there are uh even more people making money from youtube now obviously and you know that there are small creators where it is their um second job but they need that second job and they help a lot of people they it is their free stuff that the a community of folks depend on and it helps them feel less alone and i think
that is really really i don't think that's important i know how important that is
Merlinabsolutely when it's it's such an unseemly thing to ask for help with and i i mean obviously i am
Alexmore focused and engaged with queer people, but I'm also more focused and engaged with the Pokemon Go community. But it does happen in every community where, like the trans joke is, we all at some point have $20 and we just pass that $20 around.
MerlinThat's good. Well, think about what happened in San Francisco in the 80s. I mean, a very mature network of people helping other people. you know, in that community. We got to bounce soon. Did you want to talk about the books and loneliness or do you want to talk about the challenge? You have to go soon.
AlexOh, no, I have like 20 or 30 minutes. I gave him a hard, I'm like no earlier than 2 p.m.
MerlinNo, no, no, it's okay. Also, I'm tired. And just so you know, shit's kind of bad right now in Washington. Shit's like real bad right now in Washington. Oh, God.
AlexYeah.
MerlinAnd so I kind of would like to follow that because I'm broken inside. People are broken into the Capitol building, broke glass. They're disturbing fire extinguishers.
AlexFucking shit.
MerlinAnd senators are saying they should be prepared to get under their chairs.
AlexOh, my God.
MerlinAnd as Eric Geller just said, if this were a BLM protest, every single one of these people would have been shot.
AlexEverybody would be dead.
MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah. There would be no fun with fire extinguishers. The biggest massacre. Every single BLM argument about white privilege and double standards in law enforcement is being validated in real time right now as the world watches. Eric Geller.
AlexThat's, I mean, that's why last night, I tried really hard not to go out a lot this summer because of, you know, COVID, but so, so violent. And then watching the footage last night of cops being either bitch slapped or straight up being choked.
MerlinOh, by Proud Boys.
AlexBy the MAGA and Proud Boys.
MerlinBut being in Kenosha, you can grab a guy by his shirt and shoot him in front of his kids. Shoot him in the back. In the fucking back in front of his kids while you're hanging on to his T-shirt.
AlexAnd this hearing, what's this fuck? I think it was either the police chief or the attorney general of the state.
MerlinOh, God, yes. Like, you weren't there. It's like, oh, I mean, we weren't. I was also in the case that there was no abuse of power. But believe me, we're taking this very seriously. Your call is important to us, blacks. Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do this is 14 minutes ago Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our constitution giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones USA demands the truth capital
has literally been breached people did not go through security we have no idea who these people are and what they might have on their bodies frightening to watch Oh boy
AlexOkay so Challenge Let me go to the spreadsheet
MerlinOh yeah I added one Let's go out to the lobby Get ourselves a challenge
AlexWhen we were going out Someone sent me the Mitch McConnell Like him being like yeah no let's get this shit done When Mitch Fucking McConnell
MerlinIt's gotta be a life model decoy There's no way that's my turtle boy
AlexRight? It was... I was like, I guess this is good.
MerlinOh, good, good, good. You got some Todd challenges. Oh, yeah.
AlexI know that Greenlights by Matt McConaughey.
MerlinAll right, all right, all right. We just did a book challenge, but we should read the Matthew McConaughey book, Greenlights.
AlexAll right.
MerlinFirst chapter. Not this week, not this week.
AlexAll right, all right. What you got for this week?
MerlinSleep 2.0 Remix.
Alexboys in the house oh i just need better better sleep and uh just i think everybody's sleep
Merlinyou have two challenges okay line 397 line 398 397 sleep 2.0 colon remix 398 caffeine power i'm sensing a theme
Alexdo a website
Merlindo a website ooh that's fun take it however you want I could finally do something with Jekyll
Alexooh do a website
Merlinadapt your lights fucking ridiculous fucking embarrassing hope you like blue
Alexso bad you've had it a lot this is awesome i uh i was in a state last night uh and uh but but what what fits your fancy
Merlinwhat fits my fancy um let's see something secret challenge okay oh no that uh that that was the
Alexidea of uh you you starting to say something clever on on podcasts and see if people also
Merlinstarted saying it and how quickly oh i like that i'd buy that for a dollar yeah frame something with different oh frame something with different words i wonder what i meant by that i think the idea there was like um you know me and words uh the idea is like change the way you feel about something by speaking and enumerating it differently with your words.
Speed of reading, watching, and listening, Todd. Create a forbidden wish list. What does that mean? Tell me again. I bolded it, so I must have liked it.
AlexI think that was inspired by the hot topic list that was sent to us because there are things in my not not expensive or costly things but uh things that when i both when i was younger i very much wanted and was forbidden to have oh it's a little bit related to the find your childhood toy one um from a million years ago right but but also things now that like i think about
things that I'm like, oh, that's a thing that I want and I technically could have but I shouldn't or I won't. And when you start to think about it, it becomes, I don't know. It gets weird real fast.
MerlinSure. I mean, because there's all these little corridors in your brain that have been locked for years and when you open them, you can't be sure. It might be Jason the Sweet Alien Boy.
AlexHe's just a boy. That's where I keep my secret. What are the, what are the, oh, we just read a book, but I want to do another comics challenge at some point. Because I have jumped back in hard with the boys.
MerlinHave you?
AlexAnd started reading Transmetropolitan. Well, I had totally forgotten.
MerlinYou're kidding. You're reading Transmetropolitan. Yeah. That's the artist. That's the artist who did the boys.
AlexYeah, yeah, yeah.
MerlinOh, I didn't know if you knew.
AlexYeah. Well, I started reading it. I'm like, this, this looks familiar.
MerlinI love Transmetropolitan. God, I'm trying to push comics my kid is ready for at her, including that one, including Why the Last Man.
AlexYes, yes, yes, yes. Good. Sorry.
MerlinI love it so much. And I thought Transmetropolitan might be a pretty good sell because she loves the boys. But that's one of those kind of, like Watchmen, I love every, that's one of those where you really want to like, linger over every frame. There's so much going on. Like, you know, often words, like headlines, whatever. There's so much happening in Transmetropolitan. Did you ever read Why the Last Man?
AlexOh, yeah. I adore it.
MerlinThat's the Saga guy.
AlexI would love it if she got... I also love Saga, but I hope that she likes Why the Last Man.
MerlinYeah. Well, I was like, hey, there's only one dude in this world. You'd love this.
Alexquick pick a challenge quick I know
MerlinI've got MSNBC on
Alexon mute
Merlinand oh my god tear gas used in capital rotunda so it's pretty much at least kind of as bad as we'd all feared for now as of 11 45 a.m. Pacific time yikes let's see we can do a comic one one thing we could do see I don't know though it's hard to talk about and we should decide now but I really want to go
um comic book adjust your EDC for a winter pandemic
Alexwait say it or text it you're on a computer
Merlinno what
AlexI assume text what Oh, I don't know. The thing where you're like, I don't know if I want to do it.
MerlinOh, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I mean, no, decide. We need to decide. I don't feel like deciding because I want to go be stressed out and watch TV. Oh, right, yes. We could do, let's see, EDC for a winter pandemic.
Virtual concert, keep something alive. Let's see. Look at the stars. Oh, use only the Siri ball for a week. Oh, you know, we've done things with shortcuts before, right? We've done that. Okay. Let's see. Find a new self-soothing mechanism.
Emma was back in Sims yesterday. She was playing it again and hasn't played it for a while. And she texted me during the day and she's like, I'm in the Day Trader Vader house.
And I was like, great, have a burger. and uh but then when i got home like her character which is like an african-american woman with his big afro she came and said oh no i said she looks terrible and it said uncomfortable by her she's like he's like she's like yeah she's got food poisoning but she should be better soon um make your unscented candle
Alexaren't you already using the the cerebellum a lot more yeah yeah yeah i mean you can loosely
Merlininterpret this it's an interesting i'm trying to see i always keep going back to like is it interesting to talk about is the is the thing and i know it shouldn't matter but like something like a comic book yeah you know it's hard to like make that interesting i think for somebody who it's one of the weaker parts of the show i think at least for me is like the whole like this TV show was really good. This podcast was really bad. Comics are awesome. You know, it's like, well, it's hard to talk about, you know. Max was right, I think, about one thing. Well, he's right about several things.
But one thing he was right about, I think, is the experiential things, which, you know, understandably used to be easier to do.
AlexYeah.
MerlinBut things that can convert, things that will translate well to audio, I think, tend to be good. Draw a horse leaving a hospital. That's funny, Kevin. Oh, I can't draw a horse. Horses are hard. horses hands and heads
Alexoh my gosh
Merlinwait do we do covers yeah we did that right covers of a favorite song we did that a couple weeks ago right
Alexyes I will make a pitch for recording your dreams because I think that in general
MerlinI love that
AlexI don't know I feel like people, and I don't feel like, I have heard that people are worried about participating in the challenges and don't want to talk about it. I won't get mad at you. It's okay. It's fun. Yeah. I want to hear about your dreams. Don't tell Merlin.
MerlinAre you talking to our audience? You're speaking to our audience. Oh, we're still recording. Okay.
AlexHey, Merlin, don't listen.
MerlinHey, Marlon
Alexaudience I want to hear about your literal sleepy dreams because wow, pandemic
MerlinLast night that I dreamed that we lived in a suburban like a tract home and I had been very excited about having the whole yard turned into pavement and as soon as it was done and dry, people started parking on it and I regretted my decision
Thank you.