285. Pan Pan Pan!

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, get ruthless with Twitterrific.

I missed the Skype noise.

MerlinHello.

AlexWhoa, what was that little chuckle chuckle for?

MerlinOh, in this instance, it's that I wonder if there should be a third application or service that I need to open and have ready because I don't know how you're going to contact me. Also, I don't think you've ever had the same sky panel twice, but that's neither here nor there.

AlexI haven't, but that's not my fault. Of course it's your fault. I have years of documentation. It's my problem, but it was not my fault. And most things are. But from now on, I propose that we just assume it's always Skype for this podcast. It's just always Skype because, wow, I really missed that sound. And wow.

MerlinThe worst is Clean Feet, which, of course, Dan has me on now. So I have to go and I have to go fire up some fifth party browser title, some fifth party browser based on Chrome and make sure it doesn't have any security. and the good Dan has had the consideration to create a, like in the same way that you've made a Zoom link that's always.

AlexThat works about 25% of the time? Yeah, that was great.

MerlinNo, it works. It works fine for one person. But as with so many things of communication, the other person doesn't know they're communicating. But you, anyway, so but Clean Feet, I go to this link and I open it up and there's silence, but Dan's sitting there. I open a browser tab. I open a browser tab and I go, hello?

He goes, hi. And it's so, no. But I mean, it's a little bit like Senior Wences or something. It's like opening a box and there's a puppet in there talking to you.

AlexHello. Yeah, no, no. I know that people love, I mean, you know what people are a fan of? Hearing about behind the scenes podcast stuff. What is clean feed? I just need everyone to understand what clean feed is. Alex, you brought it up.

MerlinYou brought all of this up. I don't want to talk about that. Why are we going to talk about that? What are you doing? Why would we talk about that?

AlexBecause it's expensive and dumb. I don't know. You're expensive and dumb. Yeah. No arguments.

MerlinWait, let's see. So like when you're pretending, trying to get the gender affiliations right on this. So it's okay to say, welcome to man's modern usage. It's okay to say you're a fancy duchess if it's an analogy for being fancy. But if I'm referring to you as a person, do I have to call you a fancy duke, a fancy dukelet? what are your uh yeah one of these days i still am going to say my pronouns are i me my

it's gonna be so funny it's so funny because if you think about it it's really funny it is i was

Alexjust my pronouns are i mean my because that's all i care about yeah yeah exactly my i was just talking to a friend of the joe show jay miller and i was like i was just like pronouns pronouns

Merlinare dumb so jay miller that was off social media but but now he's back no that's james

AlexNo, that's James T. Green, who made a very healthy life choice to leave Twitter for two years.

MerlinDiscovered his business founder because he's not on the hell site.

AlexNo, no, no. Hi, everybody.

MerlinStay safe.

AlexOh, man. One of my first podcasts was with him. It was called Refresh. And it was all about tech.

MerlinHow long until you abandoned that one? How long was that?

AlexIt was like two years. And also, I was 24. I have not abandoned a podcast in a long time.

MerlinDid you do 104 episodes in two years? Just that curiosity? How many did you do?

AlexOkay. All right. All right. Now, listen.

MerlinI think I'm turning into Maria Bamford's sister.

AlexListen, Merlin, I just... Did you meet him at my petfiner.co.uk?

MerlinMm-hmm.

AlexDid you ever collect those videos of people reciting that Shakespeare speech that I definitely memorized?

MerlinGiven that you won't be able to look it up because you don't remember what it is, sure.

AlexNo, I truly don't remember. I think it was one of the kings. All right. Yeah, one of the kings.

MerlinI know what it is. Alex, sometimes I see, I think they're called tracers, like when you're shooting, I don't know if it's artillery, but when you're shooting bullets and it's at night, bullets, sorry, casings, cartridges.

AlexYeah.

MerlinOkay. All right. But like every seventh or so, munition is just a light that shows you where the things are going.

Speaker AHmm.

MerlinDo you understand? So like if you're shooting at something from far away, unless just for the sake of argument, just call it a, let's say a remote firearm. If you're shooting a remote firearm.

AlexAs opposed to.

MerlinIt goes pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, light. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, light. And that's why when you're watching CNN, they say, stay safe. You can see. Listen, I know if you need to get away and go somewhere safe. Oh, thanks. Thank you. Thank you, person. Thank you, person back in Atlanta. Okay, I'll stay safe. Thank you. Oh, God, don't forget to tell me to stay safe. Otherwise, I won't stay safe.

AlexWhy don't you just move? Why don't you just move? Just move.

MerlinI don't understand. Why do the poor blacks stay in the poor black neighborhood?

AlexI just, I don't know.

MerlinWhy don't they just move? They must like it.

AlexYeah.

MerlinSo pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, light. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, light. And that way you can't see where your bullets are going, but you can't see where your lights are going. and that way you say oh i need to adjust my uh uh uh uh my my my uh where i'm shooting oh that's challenge challenge challenge firearms yeah in terms of no well kind of but like did the um what is called signal is it radio signal language signal terms

but like when you're talking over a radio especially when you're doing stuff here like artillery, you have to be careful what words you use because words mean things. We should start, I think we talked about, I know I've talked about this with Roderick a dozen times. Maybe I've talked about this with you. It would be handy if we started having disambiguity in how we speak.

AlexYou just said pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, and then find about disambiguity.

MerlinBecause if you say repeat, I think repeat means fire at the last location you fired. Not as in tell me what you just said i think you're supposed to say and that's why some people weirdos like me sometimes say say again say again is what you say if you didn't hear what they said this also gets us into

Alexstuff like so not like pardon or my favorite what oh would you like to operation as max would say

Merlinwould you like to operationalize that maybe in the in the military or maybe like make a study say like you know for example like when people say uh you know you say things like okay like when And when Ripley hears Tom Skerritt say, open the doors, let us in, he's going to die. And Ripley clarifies, I heard you, but I'm not going to do that.

Right? And if you've ever talked to a geek, especially the ones that have a little bit of trouble on the communication spectrum, they'll say things like, correct. It's not that I agree with you. It's not that I think you're right. it's that you just stated a fact that is accurate as far as i know yeah and so like this is where you get into stuff like over you say over as a way to say i'm done talking so you can talk now on a walkie-talkie like functionality and when like and what are some other ones oh like roger

but you don't need to say roger wilco because roger is implied with wilco which is will comply i heard what you said and i will comply oh oh did you know that did you know that alex

Alexno i'm like ripley i i don't know what i'm doing and i clearly messed up the 2016 election thanks ripley uh i'm not really not really done yet if you could if you could not change the

Merlintopic to something literally everyone else is talking about okay but reject the default over

Alexreject the default over i was making an alien joke not an abortion joke there's there oh oh

MerlinThat's really interesting, Alex. What's the lock screen on your phone? What's the lock screen on your phone?

AlexWhat do you mean, what's the lock screen on my phone?

MerlinOh, that's because the lock screen on my phone is Ellen Ripley!

AlexOh, is it? That's kind of hot. Okay.

MerlinOh, God, it's a painting somebody made as fan art, and I'm going to send it to you right now. But here's the point I'm trying to make, Alex. First of all, I want to interrogate what you're saying, because I think we could really have a new vernacular alongside the new alignment. We could have a new vernacular. Oh, God. Is that a pussy you sent me?

AlexNo.

MerlinWhat is that? All I can see is the thumbnail. Is that a Georgia O'Keeffe phone? What is that?

AlexTap. It's a screenshot.

MerlinThat's her married name, Georgia O'Keeffe phone. Her work has been commended as being highly vaginal.

AlexIt is a lavender version of an old, I believe it was a panther wallpaper, as in from Mac OSX.

MerlinOh, I see. not of a titular cat. I get it.

AlexNo, no. Oh, I miss the cat. Big cats. I'm sorry. I was interrupting you.

MerlinCheck this out. If you zoom in a little bit, I feel bad when I use people's stuff, but I'm not using it for money, but zoom in a little bit. I ran this through Pixelmator whenever I did this six months ago when I was having one of my periodic alien moments.

Sending to Alex Cox Click. But if you zoom in a little bit, you'll see that there's brush strokes. Look at that. That's when she's in her underpants in the suit. Hotest scene in the movie. Do you remember when she's in those cool underpants?

AlexOh, do I remember? I love an A cup.

MerlinI love a B cup. Anything above that, you're just spilling seed. Here's the thing. It hurts your back. And this is why you don't, this is why you don't, like, if you're me, and this is why we should run the armies, you know? You say to somebody, oh, could you repeat that? Well, guess what? Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. light. They're going to fire again.

Repeat. It means shoot the artillery. It means your forward scout is sending back a signal to shoot at that spot. Again, good job. Stay safe. And what I hear you saying is that maybe we start introducing and as Max would say, operationalizing some of our own ticks to, well, maybe it's re-ambiguity instead of disambiguity. Like, what if you go to Wikipedia and you land on a re-ambiguation page? You know,

AlexMaybe we should start the show before you walk.

MerlinTobias Funky says, I blew myself. And then you reambiguate that.

AlexWords are hard. Words are difficult. Okay. What if it's a horny word? It's a wordy wrapping hood. Words mean things.

MerlinWe do sound like the 1981 Tom Tom Club song, Wordy Wrapping Hood. We'll listen to it together in the after show, which you can listen to by going to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com.

AlexOh, yes.

MerlinSo you know that one song that was used in the Mariah Carey Sweet Sweet Fantasy Baby in Free Guy? You know that?

AlexStill haven't seen it, but sure.

MerlinBut do you know the song?

AlexNo.

MerlinDo you know that song, Genius of Love?

AlexNo.

MerlinYeah, you do.

AlexI mean, maybe.

MerlinIt's featured in that Mariah Carey Sweet Sweet Fantasy song that's featured in the movie Free Guy. Mariah Carey did a song called Fantasy, Sweet Fantasy. I'm Small. She did a song in the 90s and includes a sample from the song Genius of Love by Tom Tom Clough. Genius of Love involves Tina Weymouth and I want to say, I believe, Chris France, the drummer from Talking Heads. And then, so it's the rhythm section from Talking Heads plus two of Tina Weymouth's sisters plus people like my beloved Adrienne Ballou.

AlexHold on, hold on. Genius of Love, 1981. Okay, okay.

MerlinYep, yep, yep.

AlexDo you know that song? I apologize. I am, no, no. It goes like this. I was born in 1990. Oh, okay.

MerlinElena Bernstein, Elena Bernstein says, you're not obligated to appreciate any music that was written in your lifetime.

AlexThat's actually a pretty good quote. Shit.

MerlinI think you just, you're the exception that proves the rule. You've reambiguated this. And, oh, so let's go look. I think it's called signal signal. It's probably in my history. Signal.

It's not in my history. Signal chain order. Oh, that's a good link. I forgot about that. Signal. I'm going to say signal. Repeat. Fire. Wilco. Let's try that. Signal.

Do you know what I'm talking about? No. The way people talk on a walkie-talkie in like a 70s TV show?

AlexProcedure word.

MerlinProcedure word.

AlexProcedure word. Oh. So, like, yes. I know Roger over. I don't know Wilco. I know N as in Mansi, M as in Mansi, according to Sterling Archer.

MerlinI used to know this from military school. Alpha Bravo, Charlie Delta Echo, Foxtrot, Golf Hotel, India, Juno, maybe? Let's see. Kilo, Lima. I'm doing this off the dome, by the way. Kilo, Lima. What's M?

AlexMansi.

MerlinMansi.

AlexIt's an Archer reference.

MerlinI can't say that. My name is Merlin Mann. M as in Mansi. A as in Mansi. N as in Mansi. N as in Mansi. You pew pew pew pew pew light over I do sometimes yell that I probably yelled that at you I yell it at my family all the time

Speaker AI go I say something like um what oh I forgot Natasha Lyonne was in Orange is the New Black

Alexoh boy

Merlinwhy should you ever

Alexand here

Speaker AI go Natasha Lone

Merlinshe's in that cheerleader movie Alex likes

Speaker Anow I like it she was in Orange is the New Black

Merlinand I say over which means listen to me okay all after oh these are so good these are procedure words let's see radio check correction are you on the page for this on the internet science site

Alexno I'm not I was googling signal something and now I'm looking at guitar pedals accidentally. Okay, procedure, words.

MerlinWilco means I understand and will comply. It is used on receipt of an order. Roger and Wilco used together are redundant since Wilco includes the acknowledgement element of Roger.

AlexOh, like ATM machine. Dang.

MerlinOh, shrimp scampi, military intelligence. Say again. I have not understood your message. Please say again. Usually word, this is so good. Oh my God, there's words inside of words. It's a wordy wrapping hood. Say again is usually used with, here's, you ready for a new word?

AlexYes.

MerlinPro word. Pro word. Usually used with pro words all after or all before.

AlexOh, a procedure. Oh, procedure word. Pro word, yeah.

MerlinI was always to buy my own pro word.

AlexYeah. Potato, pro word. Oh, sure boy.

MerlinAnd potato.

AlexThis is genuinely very interesting. Oh, this is a good Wikipedia page.

MerlinThere's words that I use a lot. It's wordy wrapping hood, right? There's a lot of words that I use a lot, and it's because they are, if you like, instrumental for me. They are very important to me, right? I think it's important. If you mean difficult, don't say hard. It sounds like you're talking about a boner. Like, of course, you know all this shit about me. Who fucking cares? But I think disambiguation is important. they used to say when I was when I was a boy they used to say you only have one uh one chance to make a first impression and I think if you only have one chance to communicate you know like

people who like puzzles and games enjoy shit like this but it's like oh like only have one chance I have to leave a message and I can only use eight letters and that kind of thing I think like that like when I'm and it makes me weird because when I communicate with people and I know it's over some kind of like, whether it's email or an unstable connection of some kind or it's where there's a language disconnect. And as I like to say, hey, his English is better than my Mandarin, right? We listen through a translator. We don't speak through a translator. These are all important things. Don't argue with me. They're all true.

AlexI'm not arguing.

MerlinI'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the Chinese guy over here. We got no soup. We got the Jewish guy. Not me. Not me. You know? So much of Roderick on the Line comes from like three episodes of Mr. Show.

AlexI mean, I've accepted now that you've got internalized game phobia because, wow. No, I'm not scared of games. I just hate games. Oh, well, so, okay.

MerlinSo maybe, is this a challenge? Just write it down somewhere.

AlexI'm writing it down somewhere. I did, I did. Pro words. Oh, I didn't. Pro words.

MerlinIsn't it weird that, this is so obscure. When I hear the phrase pro word, this is gross. I shouldn't say this. First thing that comes to mind is the phrase pro-Anna, which I learned in probably the live journal days.

AlexI don't know. What is it? Hold on. Pro-

MerlinThere used to be fora.

AlexProgressive Anna.

MerlinI'm turning into Kent from Veep. Did you know that there used to be- You know what? Actually, I don't want to talk about this. You have stuff you want to get mad about. Let's see. Over, out, do you read? Roger Wilco. Say again. Wait, over, wait, out. Read back. I read back. Correction. Radio check. Mayday. Oh, yeah. Mayday is a good one. You know, it's a great one. Oh, God, you need this, Alex. Let's say I'm going to give you one more and then we're going to close this thread and play jazz.

OK, so you've heard Mayday.

AlexYes. Yes. And so the official definition. Sorry. Go ahead. Isn't isn't it like an emergency? Like, yes, that's that's that's for practical purposes.

MerlinThat is correct. Mayday is used internationally as the official SOS or distress call for voice.

AlexOh, okay. So that's why it's different from SOS. That's really good.

MerlinWell, how about this? Well, here's a couple more. Can I give you a couple more and then we'll play some jazz?

AlexPlease.

MerlinLet's say you need to say something like, I, my vessel, or a person aboard my vessel requires assistance but is not in distress.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinDo you know what you say?

AlexGo on.

MerlinAgain, I want you to interpolate a hyphen between this repeated word. Are you ready? Mm-hmm. Are you really ready? Because you're going to be saying this. This is you all. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay, someone needs assistance, but it's not in distress.

Speaker APan Pan!

MerlinOh, there's a main article on Pan Pan. They disambiguate it. I'm going to send you Pan Pan. That's a good one. Where are you? You're over here on the other screen. God, I love universal control.

AlexOh, man. Oh, talk about being hard.

MerlinDid you look at my Ripley? Isn't that a cool Ripley?

AlexYes. Oh, God, I'm zooming in on her.

MerlinYeah, she's so cute. Here's another one. Oh, this sounds like Cartman. let's say for example that you have to say i have important meteorological navigational or safety information to pass on doesn't that happen all the time where you have like an unsafe line an insecure line a line a line that wasn't loved as a child and you need to speak um with with matthew

Alexno what doesn't happen you know what you say security

MerlinS-E-C-U-R-I-T-E.

Speaker ASecurity.

MerlinSecurity.

Speaker ARespect my security. Respect my security.

MerlinOh, C-Lance May Day. C-Lance is an approximation rendition of the French word silence. C-Lance. You had French, right?

AlexNo. Spanish. Racist. Wow.

MerlinOh, sorry. I think that would be silencio. Right? Silencio. Or if you want someone to be quiet, you say callate.

Alex12 years of Spanish. Nothing.

MerlinVamos a pasar lista.

AlexNo, none.

MerlinSi no es finito. Oh, this is such a good page. Close down. Correct. Correction. Exempt. Figures. Flash. Message. Relay. These are my favorite kind of pages on the Internet Science site. I love pages like this. I just go deep and deep and deep in these. I love these. I love that there are people who took the time to put all this together. Now, that's when you could go, all right, you're some lonely guy. You're some like, you know, four-leaf Tayback who's like sitting around with nothing better to do, pretending you got hooks for hands and say, sit around and type this shit all day. That's fine. But I also love the pages that are just, you know, and people have covered this for over a decade.

And I think really I might have a podcast about this. But I love not just automated categorization pages, but I love it when somebody has collected a bunch of the same kind of thing on Wikipedia. Doesn't it make you happy when you land on that? Maybe you've had an edible and you're chilling.

AlexOh, wait. Give me an example. You lost me at the automated collection of something.

MerlinLet's try best Wikipedia lists.

Alexalso the wikipedia app uh i believe it's first party i don't know what first to third parties oh i i finally cracked that by the way oh really but but the uh first party wikipedia app pretty

Merlingood oh really i that that's one of the way who is it was a grouper or whomever he probably got it from somebody else that's how he rolls but um but but but i think that no no i i'm you know i'm friends with him he's a bad person his wife's the worst person but oh god she's the worst

Alexthe funniest and worst person.

MerlinShe's so goddamn funny.

AlexWhenever she likes one of my tweets, I'm like, oh no, oh no. Now I'm in for it. Yeah, well, it's a reminder that sometimes people read these things and I just delete the account.

MerlinThis is going to be real, as you like to say, ironical. Okay. Because I needed a word. God, Robert Self. Mr. Self, that was his name. I don't know what his pronouns are. He was my eighth grade English teacher, and I loved him so much.

AlexWait, really? Wait, wait. Forcing the jokes out, Robert.

MerlinHis last name was Self with two E's.

AlexOh, okay. I apologize. Sorry for interrupting.

MerlinYeah, it was Self plus another E, which almost makes him a rapper, I think. But, you know, he said something to me that I still think about really often because I like words. You know, and words are stupid. Words contradict us. They're bad things, but they fascinate me. And Mr. Self said he defined, I'll never forget this, probably the fall of 1982. He, or something. And he, it was after Warty Rapping Hood. It was after Genius of Love. Beep, beep, beep. But he said, do you know what a paradox is?

And he says, a paradox is a statement that contradicts itself or seems to contradict itself. So a paradox.

AlexIs that true?

MerlinI don't know, but a paradox can be a paradox.

AlexOh, did you take an animal?

MerlinAnd then I found myself obsessing over a kind of thing. And because I was a lonely boy in Florida and didn't have anything like the internet, I didn't have CompuServe. It was the 80s. And the phrase I used for this or the word was meta. I would call it a meta. When you say something like, I'd give my left arm to be ambidextrous.

AlexYeah.

MerlinWhen you say something, I guess it's a little bit like the Cretan paradox or something like that. but something that contradicts itself. But I used to collect those in a list, and I was actually thinking, I wonder if there's one of those on here. I wonder if there's like a Wikipedia list of recursive things. I just sent you a link to the Wikipedia page called List of Lists of Lists.

AlexOh, God, fuck, this is so good.

MerlinPew, pew, pew, pew, pew, light. It's a list of lists of lists. How awesome. This is the kind of thing that I'm talking about. And I mean, certainly given the incredible sophistication of the wiki, what's it called, wikimedia, you know, the way that this shit works, if you haven't looked at it lately, is crazy. There's so much stuff where they've gotten better and say what you will about the editorial stuff and the culture of Wikipedia.

AlexBut I'd like the rest of the healthy wikis out there. Keep in your pants.

MerlinBut unlike other stuff, you don't want to have to change every page if something's wrong. I mean, it's like coding in the sense of like, if you can turn this into a library or an extension or whatever, if you can make this something reusable, make this into a template, that's you. We do that all the time. We do that. And so, but then there are some kinds of things that are manual. And I want to find more manual lists. There's a list of deities, a list of deities by cultural sphere, list of general hospital characters.

AlexOh, wait, do you mean like style manuals or manuals for objects or both?

MerlinWell, I mean, I haven't, I used to use, what is the name of the software? Is it called Wikimedia? I think it is. No, Wikicommons, Wikipore, Wikipore, what's it called? The goddamn Media Wiki. Media Wiki? It used to be called Media Wiki, right?

AlexNo. Sure, sure, sure. Wikimedia, yeah, Wikimedia.

MerlinNo, Commons is where you go and you find, like, I don't know, like, Hi, I'm John. I take pictures of ball gags. And, like, here's my 35 pictures of ball gags. and you're like, what?

Speaker AWow, okay, good.

MerlinI'm glad you found an outlet. I hope it wasn't too late. But the point is, you can make a list of things. Daddy's rule of thumb used to be keep everything on your local, small, personal wiki on one page until you had a reason to have more. But don't just make stubs. Your wiki is so close to death. On the day that you have more stubs than pages, you're fucked. Because no one cares now. You will never use that, let alone the person at reception.

So anyway, there's stuff you can do manually, right? In the same way that you could do like a bunch of asterisks, new lines, make a list. But the point is, no, we're going to key off of, I think one of the oldies was category, right?

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinBut that automates. And the beauty of a wiki software of most any kind from back in the day back to like C2 and back to all the classic old school wikis. or I think the original was called was it called Wiki Wiki Wiki? Was that the first one?

AlexAgain, born in 1990. No idea. No. Okay. I didn't know what wikis were until Wikipedia. And when in grade school doing book reports our teachers would be like... For somebody who's in their 30s

Merlinthere's a lot of stuff you seem pretty proud to not know.

AlexNo, I I guess I'm not a digital digital.

MerlinDigital. We were talking about my bike. But here's the thing. But I think that what that enables you to do is like you're thinking at when you're a Wikipedia, when you're a whale, you have to think at such large scale that you don't want to have to repeat work. You don't want errors to endure. So like it seems to me I'm not even really a designer, let alone a developer. But it seems to me that you want to account for all the kinds of things that you can anticipate people wanting to do at a large scale.

and I bet that includes stuff like being able to lock a whole kind of wikipedia page because of a current event yep so anyway I like this kind of stuff but the ones that I'm talking about here are the old school old-fashioned homemade kinds of pages where people have put stuff together which type of page I think are increasingly a fairly endangered species for the reasons I've stated, they don't want to have pages that are just a bunch of clear text or, sorry,

what's the word I'm looking for? Plain text. To the extent possible, we want the plain text to only exist as writing. And then the organizational layer, to the extent possible, we want to run through some kind of automation planning templates. Does that make sense?

AlexYes. So many people have left, but I know I am here for this, as you say.

MerlinWhat am I going to do? Oh, let me make it more interesting for you. No, I love... Wikipedia colon unusual articles. That's a classic.

AlexUnusual articles is good. Yes. There are a bunch of Instagram meme accounts of depths of Wikipedia. And honestly, it's real good. It's supposed to be like, ha-ha, funny. And then I spend hours on it.

MerlinThat's before you even get into the talk pages. The talk pages are so goddamn funny. I mean, on the one hand, it's cool that it's transparent. You know, as with iMessages or whatever we're calling it this week, I think it's inexcusable that you can't – well, I think it's a bummer you can't fix a typo on a sent message. But I think it's inexcusable that you can't permanently delete a message. Because, like, I can't even tell you how often, especially if it's a device I haven't been on in a couple days,

I open up messages and there's something sitting there that I forgot to send that I may not now want to send. It's just it's too easy to send a message.

AlexYeah, no. And it's too easy to send a voice memo versus using a voice text to speech.

MerlinOh, God, that little blip.

AlexOh, yeah. And sometimes I get messages from people.

MerlinThey should fire the entire part of the building that allows that to exist.

AlexDo you ever get like, yep, I will be there soon, comma, sorry about that exclamation point?

MerlinI'm on the other end, which is especially, this needs to go on the list. What is that time of day sometime after my ADD is melting me down? It's four o'clock and everybody starts contacting me. That time of day when everybody starts contacting me around four to six p.m., I'm the one doing that. I do that because all I'm trying to do is ride my goddamn scooter and put my phone back in my pocket and I either hear the Siri bloop or I hear the you just recorded a message. Do you want to send it bloop? No, no. Why would you put that button right next to it? Why is that button there?

AlexTo be mean to you when you're on your scooter. Do you ever use it? Do you ever use it on purpose? On purpose? Yes. Actually, a lot. It's fun. Just to be able to say, oh, I miss you. Let's hear each other's voice that kind of thing i oh god that sounds so gay and yes that that

Merlinthe answer to the that is human emotions are quite untidy pan pan now for our show for our style guide for our pro words you haven't even looked at the style guide you you take you take a dull knife to the notional style guide every single week and it still makes me insane do you know you added you added the name of the challenge i had tidily said TK this week because all I want to do is get the goddamn document updated and you broke the style guide even in your typing this morning.

AlexWait, what did I?

MerlinDid you notice I fixed the title case on it?

AlexDid? Oh, oh, wait. Listen, I am happy to have this be the way. Yeah. Yep. I see. I see. I see.

MerlinNo part of this sounds like an apology and an admission of guilt.

AlexI am. I do not. I am accepting that it is my problem. It is not my fault. With the adjustment of the... Can't two things be true?

MerlinCan't everything be your problem and your fault?

AlexTrue, true.

MerlinI'm going to get you a nice Catholic shirt.

AlexHa ha!

Merlinthe um the um the um so anyway that's that we got pro words we've got my bike we've got um oh god ellen ripley i love her in that movie i i love alien too much not possible not possible Oh, my God. It really is. It's funny because for the longest time, I always felt like my low-key favorite movie in some ways was Blade Runner.

Another Ripley Scott. Ridley Scott. Oh, I never realized that before. Ripley and Ridley. Yeah. But that's Dan O'Bannon. That's not on Ripley Scott.

AlexNo.

MerlinDan O'Bannon was the boy on that. Did you ever see Jodorowsky's Dune? Dune?

AlexNo. No. Nope. Still Dune. Is that the one with Garfield? I don't think so. No.

MerlinYou're thinking of the one with Heathcliff, I think. Oh, you're talking about the fear being the mind Monday, the lasagna?

AlexThe fear of...

MerlinDo you understand that every minute of every day, if I'm awake enough to deal with people, this is what my brain is like. And I squelch it and I squeeze it into a tiny little kind of like a little carbon tube to like turn it into like a little Play-Doh worm of understandableness. But this is what my brain is like all the time.

AlexI assume so. And it's pretty much like it's I have to say it's quite impressive.

MerlinIt's like Robin Williams is trapped in me and is like just begging to get out. It's like, God, this is the worst version of you.

Alextry cutting the cocaine in half you know what i'm saying i had breakfast last night so i'm a little out of it no that's good did syracuse the shit on my favorite television show of all time perhaps severance again did for an hour and a half you went after buffy wait nope that's matt's favorite show i which one are you i can't tell you guys apart. Matthew, okay, he is the hot skinny one. Security!

MerlinOh, so all I want to say, and then I'm going to stop talking, is that I think in the vernacular of our show, our style guide that you butcher with the dull knife constantly is that I think for us to be in the style of the show and your incantations and chants, I think our version of that needs to be pan, pan, pan.

AlexPan, pan. Also pan, pan

Merlinsounds too much like Little Caesars. I'm pan, pan,

Alexoh, you're right. Oh, no. Don't ruin it. Don't ruin it for me. No. Pan Pan.

MerlinBecause remember he's that little cartoon guy. You say pizza pizza. Remember that?

AlexYeah. I was born in 1990. Not really. Oh, wait. Yes, I did. Pizza pizza. Pizza pizza.

MerlinAnd then you go Pan Pan. So ours is Pan Pan Pan. Pan cubed. Pan cubed. Pan cubed. You and Matthew are the same person. What were you talking about?

AlexNo, we're not. Wait, which Matthew? I have so many Matthews in my life. I have a primary.

MerlinThere used to be a funny bit. I've always enjoyed Dave Barry in terms of like, you know, homespun American like legitimately funny humor. I think he is kind of Mark Twainy in that way. I've always liked Dave Barry. He said something. He used to say something in his column when I would read his column. And he just used to say the funniest thing because he had two dogs. And he would refer to them. I think he referred to them as his main dog. And I still use this phrase. He had his main dog and his emergency backup dog.

And I always thought that was so clever. Oh, that's my main dog. Oh, that one? That's my... That's like Letterman. You know, Letterman in the early days, you see that picture of a German shepherd over his shoulder? Because he had two dogs. He had two German shepherds in it, and he loved them very much. Their names were Bob and Stan. How cute is that?

AlexOh, yeah. Why do I know that and not...

MerlinAnd not Leonard Bernstein.

AlexYeah.

MerlinLeonard Bernstein did some of his most creative work when he was suppressing his homosexual tendencies.

AlexI mean, haven't we all?

MerlinDoes you remember when John Mulaney's dad tells him that? I'm not sure what his dad's trying to tell him.

AlexWait, wait. Is this? Oh, we should. There's a bit.

MerlinHe always does a bit about his father.

AlexYes, yes.

MerlinYeah, his dad seems. Hello. I'm Chip Mulaney. I'm your father. My father's so goddamn weird. I hope I get to meet him someday.

AlexI can't wait to hear you quoting Mulaney bits from his newest set because I have not seen it because I did not want to go to the United States.

MerlinWhat's interesting about that was, so we went to see him, god damn, last Friday.

AlexI'm very, very jealous.

MerlinWe went somewhere this first show that started at 7 o'clock outside. Anyways, but he did, unsurprisingly, the tour is called From Scratch.

AlexI get it. Yep, yep.

MerlinBut stuff, if you saw his latest time on SNL, he did some of that stuff. But obviously, unsurprisingly, he's expanding it. But like the whole thing about arriving at his intervention is so funny.

AlexOh my God. Yes. He did that bit.

MerlinAnd the bit about like six friends are in the room and six of his friends are on Zoom.

AlexOh God.

MerlinAnd if you're saying to yourself, well, if you cared that much, why didn't you just come here instead of being on Zoom? Don't worry. I brought this up several times. You can't unhear Peter Porker in some John Mulaney bits. He's got such a Peter Porker to some of his bits.

AlexIf, perhaps, not when, not when, if someone were to organize an intervention for you, what do you think it would be? Do you think someone, well, actually, do you think someone would? And do you have an idea of what it would be for?

MerlinOh, no, please, please, please pursue this. This is such a good question. Because, well, like I said some neurotic the other day about like in D&D, you have this thing called alignment. Like, I think people should tell you your alignment. I don't think you should get to declare your alignment.

Speaker AOh, of course.

MerlinLike, imagine how life would be if you were assigned a major by people who knew you better than yourself, rather than you guessing a major. Like, or you go, oh, I can't. I'm trying to decide between political science and psychology. Oh, you can't decide which kind of crazy you are.

Because that's the two kinds of crazy. There's boy crazy and girl crazy. Boy crazy, you get into poli sci. Girl crazy, you get into psychology.

AlexOh, no. That's very.

MerlinYou should be assigned, like in Soviet Russia.

AlexMajor assigns you. All right. On the chaos spectrum, where?

MerlinDo you plan? Do you plan an intervention? Do you? What if you request? Is it like a wedding? Okay, let's look at the spectrum, pardon my saying. You look at something like if you're like an old traditional idea of a bride. There's many traditional things in weddings. Traditionally. I'm not saying these are good, bad, indifferent. But when I was growing up, there's certain things that were just held to be true, except when they weren't, which is like the bride is the CEO or president, I'm not sure which, of the wedding, like plans things, decides, will the cake have butter in it?

What are the centerpieces going to be? Normally, traditionally, shut up. The bride's family, in particular, traditionally, the father pays for the wedding, except when they didn't. But the bride, you get to pick the music. You get to mostly, for a point, up to a point, decide who's not allowed to come, all that stuff. Should an intervention be more like a wedding? Now, childbirth, a lot of people have started treating childbirth like it's a wedding, like it's something you can plan and mostly control, which is hilarious.

AlexRight?

MerlinBut should your intervention, can we, first principles, Clarice, if you want an intervention, could you pick somebody to plan it for you? What's your conception of an intervention? Before we get into what we'd like in our intervention and how we'd like it to go, give me your sense of in your community, what's an intervention going to be like? Should it be like a surprise party?

AlexHappy birthday, baby! That kind of thing? The queers, the gamers, the apples. I don't know. You know what? I'm a little bit sad.

MerlinWhat kind of intervention do you want, Alex?

AlexI don't know because no one has ever thrown an intervention.

MerlinIs it possible you just didn't realize how many interventions you've had? Because you're that bad?

AlexI've kind of thought about that, just like I wonder if I, for a while, I really was like, am I just hallucinating my friends? I'm suddenly a little bit happy. Capgras.

MerlinCapgras delusion. It's a thing. Yeah. I'm sure it is. Do you know it's real? Do you know that's real? Capgras delusion? Do you know about that?

AlexIt's the one that's distinguished from schizophrenia, right?

MerlinI have a really good thread with my kid from like a year ago where it was so, I mean, I try not to be helpful with my kid. Who cares? But my kid was interested in some of these phenomena, these unusual sort of edge case. I watched a thing last night on Australian 60 Minutes about people who have something happen, like a surgery or an injury, and then they start speaking, continue to speak English. These are all Australian people. But they start speaking in another language's accent.

AlexHave you heard about this? Did you know that's a thing?

MerlinI'd never heard of it.

AlexAnd it's a thing. Yeah.

MerlinSome people think it's not a thing, but it sounds like it's a thing.

AlexWell, I mean, some people just think it's fake, right?

MerlinRight, right. Well, why would this girl – what was it? Somebody had like a fairly – I feel like I want to say they had like a – oh, oh, oh, oh. Okay. I think one of the women – the woman who was sort of the hook for this, the main like, you know, open the story about this woman. This is a woman of apparently Asian descent, it looked like to me, Pacific Islander, who was in Australia. and I think she had her tonsils taken out and then she started speaking in an Irish accent.

AlexJust tonsils? Oh, God, no.

MerlinI know. I know we're all a heartbeat away from sounding like Madonna in the 90s.

AlexOh, God. What if after top surgery?

MerlinHello, hello, hello. All right, me tonsils out, didn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it, me tonsils out?

AlexI'm so afraid of now coming out of top surgery with a racist accent. God. Oh, God. I'm so, oh, God. oh i did a i did a sexism last time i i did a racism i i think because i saw api well i i guess so i saw like um api and so and i did not oh a asian is it a api or don't they disambiguate that oh sorry please go ahead i'm sorry on i i don't know but on tiktok um it's api and i was like

Merlinwhy are i mean like as in well don't say that we already have a that's that's ambiguous don't do

Alexthat why that's why i was very confused yes because i i believe uh i gosh see but i mean

Merlinlike that's why that's why it was it who's the guy it was mendeleev who's the guy that came up with binomial nomenclature like there's a reason we have we have kingdoms and volumes and stuff like that because it's not that useful to go thing had legs what do you mean thing had like Is it a table? I mean, a bell is a cup until it's struck. But like just label. What are we talking about here? Give me the kingdom. Give me the species, the phylum, the subgenius. Give me all of those.

Have you ever heard of, how about Fregoli? Do you know Fregoli?

AlexFregoli delusion? No, Fregoli delusion.

MerlinFregoli delusion is a rare disorder in which a person holds a delusional belief. Wow. Some flex. That different people are in fact a single person who changes appearance or is in disguise.

AlexOh, wait.

MerlinI've worried for years that I have all of these.

AlexOh.

MerlinWhen I was a child, and I said this on Fives probably 10 years ago, one of my, what was the phrase I used? Compulsions. I was slightly compulsive as a kid. I would count patterns of four, and I wanted to stop.

Oh, that's interesting. I should explore that. Huh. I think I'm turning into Richard Splett. One of them was counting patterns of four. Or another one was fear of closing a cat in a door. And another one was that when I would see somebody, like, let's say, for example, this happened to us at John Mulaney. Some people who are right in front of us in line, this is not complicated. You know, we had the cheapest seats in the place sitting up on this, you know, precipice, basically on this hill. And the people who are right in front of us, this really fun, like, you know, queer trio of people.

They're very, very fun and very cute. And they sat right in front of us. they'd been right in front of us in line. Now, when I was a kid, you ever go to Disney World or you go to the mall, you see somebody more than once?

AlexOh, yes. Oh, I hate it.

MerlinI used to compulsively, I couldn't stop myself from wondering if God had run out of extras.

AlexOh, you were like ahead of simulation theory. Okay. I was born in 1966.

MerlinI'm not obligated to understand any of what you're talking about. Let alone to know the work of Leonard Bernstein.

Alexso did you genuinely believe that like okay i didn't not i mean to use that phrase that's

Merlinbecome annoying now i did not believe it like i didn't love you ever have a thought you didn't

Alexlove thinking oh yeah i don't yes you mean right now you know am i a murderer am i a raper the john juve the horseback militia i'm i was afraid of if i could i had the capacity to be a murderer for like a decade.

MerlinWell, hearing I'm doing a bit here, which is Maria Bamford. And I think maybe that should be a challenge if it hasn't been to watch her Burton Blossy Christmas special. Merlin.

AlexMerlin.

MerlinMerlin. And I had one more that I'm having trouble finding. Kotar. Oh, Kotar Delusion. So everybody knows Capgras Delusion. That's the famous one, right?

AlexSure. Yes. And Kotar is?

MerlinWell, it's one of those things like in my life journal days, it's something everybody Capgras Syndrome. It's one everybody used to talk about. A delusional misidentification syndrome. Again, ableist. Maybe it's a choice. Is a delusional misidentification syndrome characterized by a false belief that an identical duplicate has replaced someone significant to you?

AlexYes. There were many Law & Order episodes about this. Oh, no kidding. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. It was very upsetting. We're like a mom suddenly won't recognize their kid. It's, oh, gosh.

MerlinCan I give you the one you really don't want to know?

AlexYeah. Yes, please.

MerlinCotard delusion. We don't say cotard anymore, but cotard delusion.

AlexOh! Oh! Oh, no! Oh, no!

MerlinPlease read it, Alex. If this is really you, Alex, please read it over.

AlexOh, no. Cotard delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome or cotard syndrome, is a rare mental disorder in which the affected person holds the delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs.

MerlinOh, good morning. How are you? Not great. I think I might have lost my blood.

AlexYeah, just this kidney's gone. Gone. Well, is this similar to the like I have had friends who were not well and genuinely believe that like an organ was stolen? Is that a thing or stolen?

MerlinYeah, no, I believe that. Well, listen, I used to do if it's not obvious by this point, guys, get a clue. I did drugs in college and I sometimes I won't. It was regrets a strong word, but I sometimes definitely wonder because should I have done that? because especially LSD.

AlexOh, wait, you think you got some in your spine still? Like a Steve Jobs thing?

MerlinWell, I didn't do, there are people at New College. I can't get into this. It's too long a story, but it's a fascinating story. The guy who now leads a program at Harvard on the therapeutic use of MDMA, it went to New College, and his name's Rick Doblin. He's a really interesting guy. And in pre-85, when it was still legal, He was very much the ecstasy guru. And that's how I got my ecstasy. And like, but he and some, he has like his girlfriend,

this really sweet girl, Athena. She would do ecstasy at least once a week. And eventually they all got enrolled in a program, I think by the late 80s to like check their spinal fluid.

AlexOh, fuck.

MerlinYeah, because it wasn't great. But I do wonder that because like, if you're ever wondering what it's like, and I tried to say this to my kid. I think perhaps while we were watching like maybe episode two of Severance, I was like, this is a little bit what it's like to do certain kinds of drugs. But very specifically, this is what it feels like. And I said this on Twitter later because it's true. The liminal 20 minutes where you're not quite sure if you're tripping it.

AlexYeah.

MerlinThat's what a lot of Severance felt like to me, where it wasn't full on crazy town banana pants. But you're definitely like doubting, like, am I getting this right? Like, I feel a little confused. I don't think I'm like full on, you know, balls out tripping right now. But like my apprehensions and cognition are definitely a little distorted. Why do I say that? A, I probably shouldn't have done that. Whatever. But B, like if you ever wonder how could somebody be so screwed up that they have one of these delusions or syndromes, that's part and parcel of doing drugs in a lot of ways.

AlexYeah.

MerlinOr things like we talked about. I do apologize. I don't mean this to be unkind or ableist if it is, but phantom limb syndrome, I don't have a better name for it. When I said that to Syracuse, do you have phantom limb syndrome now that you don't have that same career? Not job necessarily, but you don't have the officemic office job you had. And he totally had it in that sense of I learned about this on MASH, like so many things. It's where I learned about thoracic surgery. It's where I learned about helicopters. I learned it all from MASH, from watching you MASH. But you feel like you might feel pain or you might feel –

Well, first of all, you just feel like you've got an arm there. But apparently a very difficult kind of pain to treat is the pain, the intense pain that you feel in a limb that's no longer there. Because that's how your brain works.

AlexYeah. It's fucking weird.

MerlinSo like when you look at these things and go like, whoa, that's pretty, well, whack-a-doodle-doo. What's going on with you? You think you're dead? It's like, oh, dude, have you ever heard like the album Revolver? She said, I know what it's like to be dead. I know what it means to be sad. A lot of those songs are about being on drugs and thinking weird things. You know what I'm saying, Alex? I know because you were born in 1990. You're not obligated to know about things like drugs.

AlexThe one time I was supposedly given acid, I don't think it was acid because I did not feel different at all. But I am now terrified of acid and LSD.

MerlinOh, no. Oh, no.

AlexWhat do you mean, oh, no?

Merlinoh no like it was do you remember what you just said will you say it again i somebody gave you

Alexacid and you don't think it was acid because you didn't feel like supposedly well because i was

Merlinat that point that's like that's like me that's like me taking like a bunch of um what's the dick pill uh everybody takes um blue chew yeah blue chew let's say oh you know the thing is i took seven blue chews and i can't tell because i'm always so rock hard anyway it's like you're so diverse that even on acid you don't feel like you're on acid

Alexat 21 people can attest I was not in a great place in terms of mania and depression

Merlinyou hadn't been assigned your major yet

Alexno no yet did you ever get your major no no do you mean by I'm going to double major because

Merlinof my gender queerness, I'm going to double major in political science and

Alexpsychology. No, no, no. It was cinema, arts, and sciences and gay. The origin of love.

MerlinOne major in psych and the other poli-sci. It was the origin of crazy. So two challenges to write down, because there's always two challenges with me. Challenge number one.

So you're familiar, for example, with Cotard's delusion, Cotard delusion, pardon me. You're familiar with man's assumption. Challenge here is going to be Cox's syndrome, Cox's delusion, man's delusion. If there were a, maybe we should restrict it to quote unquote delusional. If there were a delusional syndrome that had your name on it, what would it be? Challenge.

AlexOh God.

MerlinDon't you think that'd be kind of fun?

AlexYeah. Yeah, well, it would be fun for us. I would love to know what people would diagnose you with.

MerlinChallenge number two, and we still haven't finished this conversation, which I think we should finish, but plan your intervention.

AlexI'm putting it down.

MerlinEverybody's always like, oh, get a will. You're going to die. It's like, I'm never going to die. Don't worry about that. Oh, God, please don't play this at the funeral. It's so embarrassing, so unseemly. Here's a supercut, like, with Yakety Sax, the Benny Hill music of all the times Merlin talked about dying.

Little cops running around fast chasing girls in bikinis. But then the other one, yeah, like, once we figure out what, well, we can leave for another week. We got a lot to talk about already. But, like, you know, get off the dome. If you were planning an intervention, and don't make this too personal because it's just a bit. but like if you were planning an intervention what are you going to get an intervention about do you think and like would you serve like light refreshments would there maybe be somebody there playing a cello

Alexor would it be

Merlinsomebody with devil sticks like what's your

Alexintervention oh so I am throwing one not for myself or I'm just throwing one

MerlinAlex I'm thinking of it like a wedding like a bride in the 70s or a bride in the 60s let's just if we could just please sit with the fact I'm done trying to discuss, not to you, I'm saying this to the audience, stop correcting me, this is how

Speaker Alife used to be. There was a

Merlinway that things were, and then there's the wrong way. And the way that it worked was that somebody went and married somebody with money, they might have even, yes, they would get a dowry. That was a thing. They would basically sell the daughter.

And, but then you get a role in planning your wedding. If you're, and don't be cute about it, I don't want a bunch of gender shit in here unless that's what you want to do. Alex, what I want to know is, are you going to throw yourself a really good intervention? What's it for? Who's there? Have you picked a venue? Did you even put a deposit down on your intervention yet?

AlexOh, I mean, what if you need an intervention about planning interventions? Because that's kind of what I'm leaning for you right now.

Speaker APan, pan, pan, security! Security!

MerlinWe've covered so much great stuff here. This is great stuff.

AlexMake your inner... Make an intervention. Alex, three words.

MerlinAlex, three words. Plan your intervention.

AlexI've got that one. Style guide. No, look at... You're not in the dock. You're in the sheath. There's plan your intervention.

MerlinI'm looking at this handsome Jules Cotard.

AlexHe is handsome. He's got like middle-aged Stalin vibes.

MerlinThe neurologist Jules Kotar described, quote, the delirium of negation. I bet that sounds really good in French. Pan, pan. That would be bread bread. Would that be bread bread?

AlexBread bread. Oh.

MerlinDoesn't pan bread?

AlexI think so. I think so. Yeah, bread bread.

MerlinBread bread. You love bread.

AlexI got to.

MerlinEmergency. Mayday. bread bread need more bread sauce on the side please

AlexI think we have time for a challenge we've done this for an hour an hour

MerlinI got my bike I got my bike last Thursday

Alexoh after show I don't know

Merlinwell we're already going to listen to Tom Tom Club do we have time for bike too oh yeah let's do it let's talk about the

Alexchallenge oh I'm sorry

Merlincan I also really I'm so sorry I know I'm being silly today but I'm having fun don't yuck on my Can I do one weird follow-up thing on last week's challenge?

AlexYes, please.

MerlinLast week's challenge, which I loved because it was mine and I'm good, is to find yourself saying thank you to no one in particular. So, you know, include once that challenge. Go back and listen for what all that meant. Here's what I wanted to say. you may remember that the example I kept using because it's as trivial as it is is as close to the spirit of this as I could think of which is plugging in a USB-A and it's a joke I mean the famous Catholic John Dickerson has made this joke it seems like you should get it right about 50% of the time

it's either going in the right way or it's not or it's going in a completely separate way that's a very small like if you're trying to put it in sideways that's on you but you know what it's not like a USB-C where either one will work fine in terms of putting it in. But USB-A, are you with me on this? It either goes in this way or it goes in that way.

AlexYeah. There are some cases. It's a top or a bottom.

MerlinOkay. There's some that I use so often and get so wrong often enough that I've decided somewhat arbitrarily on. You know, there's the side that's pretty flat on the actual, like, rectangle part, the top and the bottom. There's a side that's pretty plain, the side that's got business on it. Yes. Like a little bit of squiggly stuff. But I'll use a metallic Sharpie to mark a side of that. You know what I mean? I'm just like, I can't think about this anymore. So the point of that, the challenge there was, and why I use that dumb example that I love,

is that this may have been one of the first times I realized I was doing this odd ritual of saying thank you to no one in particular, is I plug in a USB. I wouldn't even pause. I just plug it in, and it went in the first time. I beat the odds, or at least matched the odds, and I'd say, thank you. Right? and that was the genesis of that challenge. Now, here's the funny thing, and this is why I mentioned this in the document. The whole reason I cloned the document was to just capture this quickly, is that I'm getting cocky. I'm so fucking grateful.

I'm just walking into the storm. I'll just start plugging shit in, and if it doesn't, here's the part, Alex. Stick with this long enough to see if you get this too, where you're like, ah, fuck it. Didn't work the first time. I'll just do it again. But if you act, it's weird. It's almost like magical thinking. Not really. That's very different. But it's like if you just go into a situation, and let's say for the sake of argument, there's not an inherently dangerous downside to it not going perfectly.

Act like it's going to work out fine. Act like you've already gotten beaten the 50% odds. And it made me a little more confident. Are you getting that at all yet?

AlexI don't know.

Merlinthat was my impression we both liked this right and I think people liked it it was good America needed to hear about the thank you challenge as dumb as it sounds it's such

Alexit's not dumb though it's a source

Merlinit's a spontaneous generation you're saying you're getting cocky

Alexbut it's a good challenge

Merlinyou generate warmth when you do this you will generate warmth and that's so rare did you have anything you wanted Anything follow up from you on, are you still doing it? Are you still saying thank you?

AlexYeah, it's kind of become a... It's a practice. Again, prayer, like prayer is...

MerlinYeah, it's prayerful.

AlexThe phrase we used to use, you adopt this prayerfully. Yes, yes. It's like I literally find myself doing it every day now.

MerlinIt's a secular prayer.

AlexIt has become full on habit, I think.

MerlinBut I mean, like, am I fucking crazy or doesn't it make you feel kind of good?

AlexIt absolutely makes you feel good.

MerlinIt never doesn't make me feel good.

AlexEven, you know, very famous robot CGP Grey is like, wow, just acknowledging gratitude really helps. Wait, wait, wait.

MerlinWhen and where did he say this?

AlexMultiple times on, like, Cortex. Did you be great? He said that? Yes. And even in his little journal video. Yeah, yeah. It is frustratingly effective.

MerlinI thought he just did videos of driving goats.

AlexWait, wait, wait. Driving goats?

MerlinI'm doing a funny thing.

AlexI don't know your bit.

MerlinI'm conflating two different things. He did a long video about traveling. Didn't he also do one about goat simulating or something?

AlexNo, no, no, no, no. Gratitude.

MerlinNow, the question becomes to me, and then we'll get on to our very good challenge this week, is that are we in danger I've heard this said about music and I don't know if it's true or if I think it's true but I do have a superstition about certain albums at this point where I say to myself, oh boy this is dark I don't know how many more times I'll listen to this album in my life. I really doubt it's 10,000 times and I really hope it's more than one but should I limit how often I listen to this to keep it special? I tend to only listen

to R.E.M.'s Reckoning when I'm in a hotel room and want comfort like i want to keep that special like are we in danger of crushing the bunny if we say thank you too much be honest that's i i don't think so i mean or at least trivialize do you trivialize it when we get too cute about it uh well that's the thing is what

Alexdoes you mean in this context you you have it's obvious what you know what i'm talking about if i

Merlindo it too much then i'm just doing a bit i've already talked about it publicly i've crushed the bunny that way. But like a prayer, I mean, a prayer, I think sometimes we slight the idea of the heathen or the lapsed, the heretic, not the heretic, but the apostate, I guess, the prodigal they title, who drifts from the flock. But then at a moment, and what they said, there's no atheists in foxholes. You find yourself in a situation where you find yourself praying to a God you may

not even believe in because that's where you are. That, I mean, and of course, that's usually, at least in like a Warner Brothers cartoon, that's the point where you'd swear to never do anything wrong again. You throw the bottle over the bridge, like whatever it is. Like, but to keep it, that is a special kind of prayer because, boy, you must be in a tough place if you're praying to a God you don't believe in. So, but I guess what I'm saying is, ironically enough, this also goes back to apologies and the chicken problem.

Because one of the tertiary goals of trying to tackle the chicken problem for me is I only want to apologize. This sounds conceited. I don't mean it that way. I want to stop apologizing as a way to seem nice. I want to stop apologizing as a way to seem compliant or congenial. And I want to just start, I want to only apologize when I'm tempted to say when I did something wrong. But that's not, it's not that. It's not that I do stuff wrong all the time.

I want to only apologize when I'm like very sort of reverently, honestly, balefully, humbly saying, look, friend, I fucked up and I know I fucked up. Right. Like the full Dan Harmon apology.

AlexYes.

MerlinThat's the kind of apology I want to stop saying. Oh, you know, somebody says, hey, look out. And I go, I'm sorry. I'm like, no, I'm not sorry. You're an asshole. Like, I'm going to stop saying, or like, I think I told you this story. You know how much I love liquor boxes for moving? One of the times my mom and I, this is a family canonical story, so you can disprove this in a second. But we were fixing to move my grandmother from, my grandfather died. This is June of 79.

And we're fixing to move my grandmother back to Ohio to live with us where she used to live. and we went to the liquor store to get some boxes. And mom walked up to some kind of an employee there and goes, I'm trying to remember exactly what in the story. I think she said, I think she opened by saying, I'm sorry. Like, I'm sorry, do you have any liquor boxes? And in the canonical story, the person says to my mother, are you from Ohio? because i people from ohio are the only people i've ever met who would whose first sentence to

Alexa stranger with a request would be i'm sorry very very i think is that a midwestern thing yeah but definitely like ohio and michigan i i i selfishly i think this has been good for me

MerlinI can't promise that it's going to be equally buoyant for everybody out there. But it's been so good for me that I don't want to fuck it up. So I worry. I want to keep my powder dry a little bit. Okay.

AlexWhen you feel like it's not being in the air.

MerlinOh, it's like Thomas Jefferson says. Thomas Jefferson.

AlexWhat? I just said, go on, go on. Never mind.

MerlinBut like the whole basis of Creative Commons is based on something that he said that's really smart. and I won't say it as well as he did because he used the word taper instead of candle and he had a whole thing but like my candle is not diminished when I light someone else's candle like that should be a concept that runs your entire fucking life whether or not you like Thomas Jefferson like the idea that I can light somebody else's candle without my candle going out is an incredibly valuable. Are you really thinking

Alexabout that Alex? Yes but I know many people who don't believe that and I truly believe that. I'm wondering

Merlinof gratitude is like a flame where like is it do i just make a bigger fire or do i risk because you know here's the thing about a fire what they don't tell you it's a fire you what do you got you got you got air you got fuel you got heat you have to have all three like you can you learn this when you watch somebody on survivor who can't figure out how to start a fire it's usually because they got too much fuel like or like they're you know when they're doing the challenge at the end and they got to burn the string it's like they don't understand like the delicacy of those three elements together, if you don't have a way, and this is a real dad thing, but when you're building a fire,

don't just put a bunch of logs in a pile because there needs to be air getting through there.

AlexWell, yes, but I don't know. I think you're getting too caught up in the weeds. Well, because I think you'll understand. Sally Hemmings and Howings. you'll you'll start to like feel high i think because you've thought about this so much and because you've practiced it so much you'll start to feel like oh i am i really thankful for this

Merlinyeah and if we argue it by analogy can you be too kind i mean can you be too like decent like does that ruin the effect if you're nice too often if you're kind too often no they get your paper out

Alexthere right and and even if you start to feel that way it's like oh i'm not actually thankful for this like how matt and i continue to try to we're really bad at this but we're like okay we're not going to say i'm sorry to one another when we're just like saying like we say that sucks instead of like oh man someone cut me off and i'm like oh i'm sorry wait i love just for what it's

Merlinworth i love stuff like that like the thing with kids where when i was growing up and a kid fell down and had that moment where they're trying to decide whether they're okay or not and they look at the parent and like when i was a kid coming up like when a kid fell down you usually say something like oh no and then like i think today a lot of people say you're funny or something or like a way to like telegraph that there is not like i'll i'll help you however you need help but oh god we did such a good rectus last night i'll tell you about it privately but we did a

really good reactives last night. It involved a lot of talking about parent things. And like the thing I just found myself saying over and over is how often I need to get myself out of the fucking way, whether that's my desire to help, whether that's my desire to generate good taste, whether that's my desire. The one that I kept finding myself coming back to is like, you know, how many times in your life has somebody greatly improved your life by demanding that you'd be scared of something or that they, by demanding that you you're being scared of something wrong or incompletely. It's such a fucking dad thing to like, to like basically control other people

and to, to basically you get this bookmark for your rage that the child has to carry around in every volume, which is like, you are inadequately afraid of the things I've decided you should be afraid about. Like ask yourself, how many times has that been redoundingly helpful to you in your life? Where you look back after 20, 30 years and you go, oh yeah, I'm really glad that person made me feel weird about cars or the mall or woods or whatever it is.

AlexStranger danger.

MerlinStranger danger. Speed smart. He looked like he was the conductor on a locomotive, run on glitter. J.J. Bittenbinder. He was a man most acquainted with death. You can look at a kid and know the price of their coffin.

AlexI don't know this reference. Oh, my God. Why are you not? I was born in 1990. What is this?

MerlinI'm sorry to have to break up my very heartfelt bit here just to get this out of the way. Have you not seen John Mulaney's stand-up specials?

AlexYes, I have.

MerlinBut I don't know who J.J. Bittenbinder is?

AlexNo. Wait, is that the guy who was his bully? No.

MerlinOh, fuck. Okay, never mind. Just write that down. Your punishment is that you have to talk about this and listen to TomTom Club. um and so but i mean like okay like you know it's it's just such a dad thing it's such a male thing it's such a i i don't maybe this is my new thank yous i don't like using this word too much because i think it's become almost a punchline but something so basically patriarchal and what a week to be thinking about patriarchal things it's so basically patriarchal to feel that you are in a position to know with certainty sorry that you are in a position to tell other people that they're

being scared wrong. And it's such a horrible, horrible thing, but we do it because it makes us feel powerful. You know, it's that same kind of viral shittiness of like, my dad used to beat the shit out of me and I turned out fine. And like I said to Syracuse, if you think your dad, or like, if you think anybody in your family performed corporal punishment on you and you turned out fine you're not fine i can't imagine because basically all they've done is give you the bug

yeah they've given they've passed on the virality of violence and we're really just talking about violence we're talking about emotional violence honestly when you're telling people what to be scared of all the time that's a form of emotional violence you know what was my point what was i

Alextalking about yeah you were doing a john mulaney bit and then talking about emotional violence which it's very awkward. What's new, pussica? I'm being scared the wrong way. I'm being upset about something the wrong way. I am reacting to something the wrong way. Yeah, and we

Merlinend up trying to control people with that stuff. Anyway, thank you. Yeah.

I think we can do this pretty quick because I almost, at least for me, but so the challenge this week was I've been, okay. So, so the challenge this week was to use a get ruthless. I think it was called get ruthless with Twitter, Twitterific. And the idea was to my suggestion anyway, was to use the iOS and Mac app Twitterific, which is a wonderful app and, and utilize their, the filtering. And how would you describe it?

it before we get to muffles. Basically, Twitterific makes it really pretty easy to control the stuff that you do and don't see on Twitter, both via specific content and quite significantly by very easily with like one line you paste in. You might never see. It looks like you turned off quote tweets too, right?

AlexYep. I was ruthless. Yeah.

MerlinYou could turn off quote tweets. You could turn off retweets. But the language for this is so simple but powerful. You could just, like, the first way I experimented with this is, like, because I still look at Max's terrible 2019 Twitter list because it's got some pretty good people on it that I don't necessarily want on my list. I don't look at it as often as my list. But there's so many people I just can't look at on there. Like, just people where I eventually would have to block them because it's the only way to not see them places. There are people who I don't personally despise,

but like whatever their bid is like i don't want to do their bid all the time and like but i do appreciate the other stuff there and i often have to go and like build a whole apartment building full of the all but one person that i like and that's what twitter if it lets you do so you can turn off certain kinds of content you can you know like on the way on twitter you can mute so you could say mute south by southwest for 30 days or whatever and it kind of works importantly it

Alexdoes not work anywhere but your main timeline timeline right everything good about twitter has are not been stolen but like sherlocked by i think third party apps or just organic well if we're

Merlinbeing honest they're actually invented by those because the word tweet oh yeah the the at the

Alexthat was invented by twitterific yeah was yeah yeah twitterific specifically like yeah like the

MerlinThe whole idea of retweets. Everybody's talked about this, but it's true. Retweets, at responses, quick tweets. These are all things that emerged. I think it was actually, maybe Syracuse was talking, for whoever was talking about this on a podcast recently, but it's all true. Like all the best stuff and worst in some ways about Twitter came organically out of the people who used it a lot and figured out what it should be for. It wasn't Twitter who decided that. They're terrible about that. Oh, you know how it came up. It came up in the context of the putative new owner. but then we get to muffles and muffles are so fucking cool so mute's like the worst and mute

to me is my like my electric scooter it's the worst of all worlds whereas my e-bike is the best of all worlds um mute is the worst of all worlds because if you're a little bit cut off from stuff but it doesn't really really work but muffles are incredible because first a muffle just quickly because this becomes important a muffle is something where you're saying like i just I don't want to see this particular kind of thing. A great example here is how John uses these extensively to avoid spoilers

Alexfor things. And he's come up with some

Merlinpretty canny ways to use it. But a muffle is interesting because you'll still see the existence of a tweet in your timeline.

AlexOh boy, will you?

MerlinWell, this is it. My entire, everything I have to say is about that. Everything I have to say is about how fucking educational this was for me. And this is why I said to you yesterday, it's like getting a phone that can't receive almost no phone calls. Like that would be the best phone for me. The reason I want a phone is for like five calls ever. It's the five calls you meet in heaven.

My Tuesday's with phone call. Pam, pam. But then Muffle shows up and like you say like, okay again, like you say like don't, anything that's got Star Wars, like today is the funny Star Wars day. So you might want to say like, you know, just don't show me that stuff and Muffle it for a while, you see a little horizontal line and whatever sort of title, there's a very clever naming mechanism for this. So whatever you named or the person you got the muffle from, name that filter, you'll see. And it'll say jrandom twitter user

May the 4th. So it'll show you why you're not seeing it, but you can click on it if you want to see it.

AlexYep, yep. I was convinced that, well, I mean, first, the way that the whole muffle thing became very useful was because I turned off quote tweets and retweets. And then suddenly...

MerlinTurning off retweets was so fucking good.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinDoesn't it make the whole thing so much better?

AlexIt does, but then I...

MerlinTo not see, just to be clear here, let me just, again, throw Twitter under the theoretical bus here, which is this. Yeah, you can mute stuff. Yeah, you can like, oh, guess what? Turn off retweets. Okay, there's this person I like to follow. There's this person I like to read. Let's put it that way. Let's stop worrying about whether you follow somebody. There's so many people on political Twitter that have no idea how much I adore their work because it's not – I don't follow them, but I read everything they do, but it's via a list. That's Twitter's fault, not mine. Following somebody means I want you to be able to DM me. That's what it means. Okay? Like that's really different from I like reading your stuff.

James Gunn, ever wants to DM me, that's fine. Michael Chernis, get on it. Alex, pump the brakes.

AlexNo.

MerlinBut you're no Chernis.

AlexNo. No.

MerlinBut so in that instance, here's the problem. So maybe you like there's somebody who's stuff you enjoy keeping up with or reading. Notice I'm not saying following. But guess what? If you don't want to see their retweets, the only way you can shut off retweets is if it's on your main timeline and it's somebody that you follow. You have to follow someone in order to turn off their retweets, which is fucking mental. That's a very inverted idea about how that model should work.

AlexBut not according to Twitter, though. Like, I continue to think that it is not just only a different website.

MerlinBut Twitter thinks it's about, like, online handjobs and making each other feel good about your relationship. It's like, fuck that.

AlexI don't need a relationship with text. Yeah, that is what Twitter has become. I used to think. I know.

MerlinI'm not being silly, Alex. I understand why that is. I'm saying that's dumb. And I appreciate an app that rethinks that entire model.

Alexit's hard for me though to invest a lot into something like twitterific and tweetbot that i still really like but twitterific is amazing at keeping um your timeline the spot in uh across

Merlinso this app is on all your devices and if you're if you're the kind of person let's say you're having a day like i assume you were having yesterday we're refreshing refreshing refreshing and you might have multiple devices, you're running around, and those will stay synced. And if they're not synced at the moment, you'll see a little purple bookmark to say, here's the last place you looked at this on any of your devices. And then, of course, you can click at the top or do whatever to catch all that up. But once again, getting the benefit of things like TweetDeck without the douchebaggery of using something like TweetDeck,

that's really valuable. So on my iPad, you get to pick your own tabs, which, of course, you should be able to do. So you get, so I've got like, you know, home. I think I've got home. I don't even remember. I never look at this stuff. But the ones I look at are over here on the right. And that's where I've got a couple political lists. And if I haven't looked at it for five days, like, yeah, it'll say like this, there's this many messages. Do you want to go and catch up to the top? This is what gives life to people like Syracuse who want to read every tweet, like, you know, in a certain amount of time. But it's pretty powerful.

But you found it educational to do muffles.

AlexOh, yeah.

MerlinBecause you learn what you really want versus what you think you want. The fact that you can muffle something. Oh, sorry, one final thing I meant to say. That sucks that you have to follow on Twitter Prime. You have to follow someone to not see retweets from that person. And I'm not saying you hate that person. But if you know this person is incredibly interesting except for the bullshit they retweet when they get all pussy hat on Saturday mornings or whatever it is. I just don't want to see that. That's fine. But that's not what I'm here for. you know and i'm not trying to say don't be political but i am just saying like i got i go

other places for that kind of thing i i anyway i don't sound like a weirdo but so it's just so easy to say like with a couple words at twitter user retweets like i don't want to see that just that you can even say did you get this alex that you can go in and say like maybe there's somebody on political twitter here's a perfect example somebody on max's political 2019 political twitter list And as somebody whose original tweets I like, but they also have a habit of retweeting a certain person. And maybe I don't particularly like the writing of that person or I don't like their bit.

You can go in and it's so easy without having any knowledge of programming to say, you know, given person on Twitter I like, A, don't show me retweets that that person makes of Twitter user B.

AlexDid you know that? Yes. Yes.

MerlinAnd it's really easy to do. You don't even have to, like, I don't think you have to leave the timeline. Isn't it, like, super easy to just go, blip, muffle this, muffle this? And it'll prompt you. It'll say, okay, you just hit this to muffle. Do you want, which one of these do you want? It's such a clever thing on iOS in particular, given the constraints of iOS. It goes, like, do you want to, like, muffle this person? Do you want to muffle a word? Do you want to muffle retweets from this person? All the way down to do you want to muffle retweets by this person of this person? It sounds incredibly Byzantine, but like you get so much control over making this, perhaps importantly, the way you think you want it.

And you can do it so fast and easy.

AlexThe fast and easy part is what was so appealing. I don't know if this has always been built in.

MerlinAnd then it isn't more than a day before I think we both realized like 80 percent of this timeline is muffled.

AlexOh, absolutely.

MerlinAnd that's not even including that somebody went off on a thread about something. But that combination of these kinds of tweets and this content of tweets. And then you can always say, well, wow, that's crazy. Do I really just not want to do this anymore? Or do I need to tweak this? But in my case, like I said last week in a way that may not have made sense at the time, if I had a feature request at this point, it's not to remove that horizontal line, but to basically make it just large enough to be a clickable target,

because frequently my entire screen is muffled. And that tells me something important, Alex.

AlexWell, Sunday night, I was vaguely aware that the Met Gala was happening because, I don't know, I truly don't remember. Oh, because I did see someone tweet about it and have a nice picture of some hot person.

MerlinWasn't there a thing of like, it's Gilded Age, so people were like kind of having fun with the like, oh, instead of being like a rich white person, I'm going to be a costumed black person from the Gilded Age. Wasn't that part of the fun?

AlexI, oh, I don't know. I was just looking at the hot pictures of Janelle Monae. And suddenly it's like my whole screen is muffled. And I'm like, oh, someone must have gotten.

MerlinAnd that's because you muffled Met Gala.

AlexI know. No, I muffled and I turned off all retweets and all quote tweets. And but but I was able to see them and I'm like or rather like see the I see the screenshot. What does it say? Oh, there's a little like X and then I'm sold. Sad quotes. Meg Ellison retweet. Simone retweets. retweets and right right right right i was like someone must have been shot at the met gal right

like immediately i'm like something has happened and well because because retweets and quote tweets

Merlinare like the way to weaponize the shitty angry bitter culture of twitter twitter has just become a bitterness machine that's what it is and like it isn't maybe it isn't until you take some time away or do something like what alex and i have done here that you realize like wow this is so people are people have taken time out of their day to come here and deliberately be very caustic

Alexyeah they've made time for this well what's worse is i don't know if it's do you think they know that they are making time for this other well i guess so like i think they can't imagine anything

Merlinelse and it's considered funny to say oh on this health site and blah blah it's like no all of you people i it's so funny i've been watching so much veep that like the characters from veep have now just started appearing as avatars for an entire type of person like who was i talking to maybe to dan or to roderick but you know there's certain kinds of people that just are jonah like like oh you know what it was it was roderick and talking about like well actually general did you know that blah blah blah like jonah is such a fucking fantastic character he's so stupid

But he's so dumb and he thinks he's so sexy and like just he's so well done. He's got to be up there with like like he's a succession level character. And but I just see Jonah all the time. And that whole like hectoring you're doing it wrong. But actually I'm so stupid. I don't even know what I'm talking about person. But, you know, when I think about what we're describing here, I always think of Amy. Like Amy's always slightly like her shoulders are a little bit hunched up and she always has her phone in her right hand.

AlexOh, fuck. Yeah.

MerlinIt's so hard at Mike's wedding. She can't put her phone down. And Dan has brought an extra phone. And she's brought an extra phone. She hid in her underwear. Amy is because of her job. But she got that job because of how she is. And how she is is she cannot get off her fucking phone. And when I see people complain about how Twitter is and then keep showing back up. And I think about somebody who I enjoy. Like, say, a Southpaw. We're like, okay, Southpaw is really smart and apparently a very learned lawyer. But in the same way that I don't know how Bob Wachter finds time to tweet that much about COVID, I don't know how Southpaw finds that much time to go about something involving a law.

AlexYou know, I mean, I know that how they find time. They do that instead of.

MerlinI mean, like, I'm not here to say I'm not doing just be clear. I'm not doing I'm being mean, but I'm not being mean in the way you think. I'm not being mean in the old school way of, oh, you have time to be on Twitter, but you didn't respond to my email. I'm not saying that. But I am saying, like, it's a little bit disingenuous.

AlexOh, yeah. No, I know what you mean. Yeah.

MerlinYeah. Like, anyway, but I was so educated. Let me find you one. I just did one. I'll send it to you. This is on Max's 2019 list. I don't need to send it to you because you know what it looks like.

AlexOh, I'm looking at it right now.

MerlinI've got somewhere where it'll just be, like, you know. Yeah, exactly. Where it'll be just David Roth. You know? Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew. light, David Roth. Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.

Let me ask you this. And it's difficult to talk about this without getting into a million other things, but as you've successfully completed this challenge, congratulations. Here's your merit badge. Does this change anything about how you think how you do? Does it change anything next week for you about how you deal with whatever? I'm not trying to say, are you going to use Twitter-rific? Or like, oh yeah, I know you hate Twitter, but you're on Twitter. Hellsight. But, like, does anything change because of this for you?

AlexNot really because I was already leaning. Or I should say it confirmed a lot of my feelings about how Twitter just – how Twitter makes me feel.

MerlinWhat's actually – what is actually there?

AlexRight. And I –

MerlinLike, we used to have this – we had this really cool thing for Legos. This is such a clever thing. And so, you know what, like, a little yellow – one of the little character heads looks like of a Lego character? Yeah, it's got a little, it's got a nubbin on the top and a nubbin on the bottom. And then it's basically shaped like a barrel and it has a face on it. Okay, so forgive me if I'm over explaining this, but this gets to what I'm trying to say here. And we had this really cool container. Unfortunately, we have way more Lego than could ever fit in this one container. But it's so clever. If you open up the top, take the nubbin off the top, you see there's, it's almost like prospecting, like a screen.

There's a very broad, fuck, it's for sorting your Legos. You dump a bunch of Lego into the top level of this and you shake it around. The large Lego stay at the top because they can't pass through this, say, one-inch hole grid. The next level down is a slightly tighter screen and further until at the very bottom you're all the way down to the kinds of one-nipple nubbins that the dads step on in the middle of the night. So, right, you shake this or kind of chugga-chugga-chugga side to side like you would a salad you're trying to dress.

and then that sorts all the Legos mostly by size. Like in this instance, it's, I guess in some ways, turning off retweets is like that top level where it's going to catch every Duplo and every big block. The next level down could be stuff like quote tweets or it could be certain kinds of content, maybe even people. But by the time you get down to the bottom, there's actually not that many Legos that fit through by the time you're done, which makes a person ask themselves, wow. On the one hand, yay. Thanks for reflecting my preferences. But then it's also like, ooh, ooh, the slugging percentage of this experience is not wholesome right now.

Alexyeah i i've been on twitter a lot less and i feel as if i said no no i know i it sounds like i say that all the time but i should say okay okay well i guess it's kind of like tiktok for me i've got my tiktok time and i know it's you look at it twice a week you look

Merlinat it once a week for two hours just to see what's there and you hate it i know that's But you keep doing it.

AlexThe problem is I will hate it, but then I'll find something I really, really like. And I'm wondering, okay, I guess that two hours was maybe worth it. Like almost like homework. Because for a lot of journalists, it is unfortunately their job. But I'm afraid of getting brain worms because I see it.

MerlinTwitter brain, man.

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinDo you remember Max's friend, the lawyer that he brought on the show? That guy got Twitter brain.

AlexOh, yeah. He definitely got Twitter brain. He was very nice. Yes, yes. He's not as nice as he seems.

MerlinBut he got Twitter brain because he became a guy who people wanted to talk to during the impeachment stuff. And then he became a commentator and then he got Twitter brain. He's far from the worst. I mean, again, QED. A lot of the worst are like these fucking like like John was talking like Roderick rather rather was talking about these like military people who may be good at certain kinds of providing information. But maybe they're not as great at the commentary. But then the thing is the mask slips and they end up getting beef with people on Twitter that everybody else sees.

And what do we know about arguing on the Internet, Alex? What do we know about that?

AlexI mean, it ends up great. And there's always a clear winner. Both parties come out looking great.

MerlinI like it better when you quote me, but don't argue on the internet because no one will remember who won the argument. They'll just remember that you're both the sort of person who argues on the internet. That's what people were. When you yell at people on Twitter, some people I know, when you yell at people on Twitter, they don't see you being a warrior for justice. They see you being a bully and they see you being unkind and they see you basically taking a shit on me. Twitter brain.

AlexStop. Stop. I never want to see Jesse's single tweets Jesse's single? Jesse's single? Is that the guy?

MerlinNo, Jesse Smollett is the guy. Jesse. Jesse Smollett.

AlexOh, you're talking about that guy you keep talking about? I don't keep... He is just a trash heap.

MerlinDon't throw me in the briar patch.

AlexHe's a trash heap. But now there are people who...

MerlinThankfully, Rex Chapman is there to lift us all up.

AlexThe...

Show notes

Transcript

285. Pan Pan Pan!

Show notes

Transcript

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