328. Ominous Oreo

This is Do by Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Alex Cox and Merlin Mann. This week's challenge, Curate Nebula. Hello, hello Hello? Hello. Checka checka. That sounds like a adorable train. Hmm. I don't know why. It you think you can. You think you can. Check, check, check, check. I'm wrong a lot. So quiet. Where's my mixed mice? Oh, it's so dark in here. Uh oh jeez. Okay, I'll just put up with it. Hi, hi, hi. No, no, it's probably me. I just don't like touching the knobs. I I I agree. Mmm, that's a lie. I'm afraid of touching the knobs. I love touching the knobs. Huh. Jim told me I have to be careful about uh headphone bleed. Yeah Do you get it from you get you get that from me? Yeah. I thought it was just my laugh, but the other day I was just talking and I was like, oh, that's my boys.

I don't do anything I it's not that I never do anything with the different like raw tracks. It's just that I always d I the way I spend over ninety percent of my time with these tracks is um you know, in D script with both tracks. So I don't and it it does a lot of the fixing for me, so I don't hear that. So thank you for the note and I will work on that. Maybe I should try one of these uh one of these other costly Daws that I've gotten over time. That do that doesn't have dip switches. You like touching a dip switch? I I I've never had a a dip switch. I've I've only ever had Daws. It short really is like something from the seventies or eighties. It looks so cool though. Every time I am in a every time as if I go to studios often anymore, but y you know, you just see the the meters like but the the God this is so boring.

I'm talking about the dip switches. I'm talking about the like the The two the like twenty something like probably twenty different or sixteen different zero or one settings. Um yeah, yeah. The like seeing someone record and then watching the engineer change those little guys and with l the the the little tools, y you know, do you have tools or you just use your your hands? Um I mean I th uh uh uh mo mostly just use hands, but I mean like I say, I mean like the last time that I tried that I set My really, really fascinating content. Um I I got Steven on the horn and was like, here's a picture of my dip switches. Which ones should I change? Because Steven knows everything. Steven does know everything.

It's a little upsetting. Ste Steven and Syracusa are my are my go-tos for so many questions. Y I I feel like you need to keep your powder dry, as you would say. Because one day I do. You do? You do? All right. Alright. Is that I can't believe I have to defend myself on this. No, no, I was just wondering if you're not I get confused so easily. Oh no, that's my bit. That's my bit. No. R remember when I asked uh who I I believe I said between the three of us, uh you, Max and me, between us who would be George, Elaine, or Jerry? And both of you laughed quite loudly. And I was like, all right, who would be Michael, who would be Sonny? Wait, well what was I'm sorry, I'm just moving fast. No. an un unfortunate mishap where she didn't have a sponge, I would be the result of that.

Which would be possible based on when the show aired, huh? But uh then I asked and this is a very millennial game, I I I know. I asked, okay, which of us is Sonny and Michael and and Fredo. And then I think that was the end of the episode. I'm sorry for breaking your heart. I'm sorry. If you don't know who the Fredo in the room is, it's probably you. Yeah. You know what people say. Boy, this is really quiet. I wish I could turn this up. Am I the only quiet one? You're the quietest one. All of my hosts have vastly different volumes with me not changing anything. And I know from looking at the uh at the um wave that I am very quiet compared to almost everybody. I've tried to make it louder. Oh, so dip switches.

So anyway, maybe I'll try the Scarlet again. I I do think there's something beneficial. This goes back to an old point from Back to Work a million years ago. Something Dan and I, I think, really agree on is Whenever possible, in a fault intolerant environment, or if it's something that honestly just matters a lot to you, anything you can put onto very reliable hardware. instead of almost any kind of software is better in the long run, at least in my experience. Fault intolerant. I like that. I I I like that. Thank you. Fault intolerant I i is it really wait, is it really I don't know wait? Anyway, I I could be wrong. No, just means like, you know, with Chernobyl, you know, uh too many lights.

You can't tell what actually broke and then there's the lying. But with this, uh you know, the the USB pre-two that I always end up going back to because I'm a coward. Alex, I can't even talk about this. It's so embarrassing. I have so many microphones. I have s I I have I have all the microphones. I have I have like at least three currently have at least three different latest generations of a given DAW. I think it's called a DAW, whatever it's called, the thing you plug into to make sound go on your computer. And I always end up coming back to this one, but what what's happening, Alex? No, that's just that's just not it's it's okay. It's okay. I uh that's a good thing. Uh a DAW is a digi digital audio workstation.

That's what it stands for? Yes, that that is the the digi part. Whereas The I I actually don't know what the technical term is because there's many different ways for an XLR interface to go into a computer. So sw switchy dippy s switchy. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Fascinating. I can't believe we give this away for free. I know, right? So what does DAW stand for? Digital audio workstation. Like Pro Tools. Audio and so oh I see it's an acronym. Yes, it's where it's where you work. It's the station where you work. It's very clever. Oh, I see. The best aw is the one that you have with you. I'll try the focus right, the f the the scarlet one again. It's just you know, it's just all there's so much business.

You know, and with this anyway business, business, business. Yeah, yeah. Um we'll work that out. I I'm in a good mood. I'm just I'm I'm I think I'm uh I got the wrong velocity for you right now and I need I need to bring it up. I I I I also I I ran out of iced tea. Bags? Oh no. So I can't make iced tea. So I got a coffee, like a monster. Oh, oh. You probably have an actual monster. I have monsters inside, outside, all around. Ooh, that reminds me something something I want to recommend to you. Yes, please. Do you like documentaries that make you mad? Well no, that's probably that's probably objection your honor compound question. You know what? Fuck it. I'm turning this up. I can't hear fucking anything I'm literally turning myself up more and more.

You're not allowed to take an angry position on that because I did not ask you to do that. I'm not angry. I'm not angry. I'm enthusiastic. Tacitly. But other than that, no, no. Okay, then it's not a pr Isn't it okay? It it has a pre- I don't care, Alex. Whatever this thing is called, it has dip switches, and I'm scared to touch it. And you're sitting here, you know, going like, Oh, let's go buy some different deck chairs for the Titanic and make sure we call them the right thing. Who fucking cares? Who fucking cares? This is my life. This is my this is my entire life. This is my in this is this is my entire home life. I'm not done. I'm not done. Shut your okay. This all comes down. This is exactly the same thing.

I get with my fucking family all the time. You're not listening to what I'm saying or why I'm saying it. You're you're just you're interpreting it like like some kind of a command line interface. Mm. Mm. Yeah. Right? Yes, yes. And you know, I I would say something like, Wow, isn't it crazy we used to collect CDs and now we don't have CDs? Well actually C D stands for change directory, beep boop. So so is it like null? Can I say that right? I probably didn't pronounce it right. No Bell. No Bell. Sorry, Stephen and John. No, no Bell. I'm so angry right now. No Bill Cherry. We had a huge Oh wait, I want the angry documentary. Oh. I just don't think you've earned it. I okay. All right. Well I'll try to I'll tr I'll try to earn it.

No, um it's uh I'd heard it was good. You know, I have this practice of uh what they in the system they call pattern in practice. of uh I hear about something and then I'll add it to my to my list and then I forget why I added it to the list or where I heard about it and it pops up. And then sometimes it'll be like some, you know, 100 tomatoes movie that everybody likes. And then other times it'll be some wack-a-doo like 24 tomatoes movie. And I'll be like, ooh, that could be I wonder why I added that. I don't remember. I don't know where I saw this. It's probably on letterboxed, which is where I see most things that I And I add to my list and for what it's worth speaking briefly in code there's a there's a neat thing you can do uh with certain DAR-based services to say watch my letterboxed watch list and add those to the pile.

So I have one of those for I think. I was just gonna ask. Wait, so does it add the tomato a along with it? Can can you get the tomatoes inside of the dar? And then also inside of the plaques, or depending on uh you there's different ways you can choose different if you want to see tomatoes or you want to see those those rascals over at Metacritic. Um But you get those. But anyhow, uh I must have I mu maybe I saw this on Letter. Any point is, okay, it's called I Got a Monster. I got a monster. And I thought of it because I said the word monster earlier And because I have a very little way in my brain functions, I have like I have like chat GPT minus two in my brain. It's a very simple setup. But um And it's this as I do vaguely remember this story and I remember hearing some specific details of this story, but I did not get fully into this.

You know how sometimes, you know I mean I like law and order as much as anybody as a as a thing. But uh you know how cops can sometimes be the worst. Oh, I hadn't heard that, but I'll This is about the it's called uh uh uh something some kind of a task force. inside the Baltimore Police Department. And these guys, these guys were stinkers, Alex. They were real stinkers. And I'll let you I'll let you enjoy the range on your own terms. Wait, let me wait, give me a try. Did you say A cast? A ca a cast. All all cops are stinkers. Oh sure. It was almost a joke. It was almost a joke. A sign stinker at birth. Get it, uh, and boy it'll make you mad. Um you know, power is just really there to mostly to be abused.

It's really frustrating. And yet, and yet I'm not made of stone. I said to my wife the other day, who who who likes to just correct me on everything, I said, I said, you know, I said, you know I said, you know, I I'm I've become pretty I don't know. I think Twitter over the years has ruined me. Certainly people have ruined me. And uh, but you know what? I thought the Ted Lasso visit at the White House was sweet. I thought it was sweet. I think it was well done. Having having uh Trent Krim, the independent, there. Did you also notice that in the back of the room, like not participating, but there in the back in suits, you had um Danny Rojas and uh Jamie Tart. I like to believe all of these people are nice and aren't sex pests.

I hope not anyway. I also hope Nate gets a rehabilitation arc. My my kid is so fucking mad at Nate right now. Poor Nate. Nate, I mean he says he laid it out. He laid it out at the end of the last season. He's he's like There was that wonderful so are you caught up? No, no, no. I didn't see last night's but are are you caught up? Are you starting the next season? Oh okay. No, no. Well Nate has a bit of a heel turn. Mm-hmm. I I've heard I've heard about Nate's troubles. But you know, I I like it. I mean, I think in terms of the show, which is already pretty light on Baddies. I think th it's a very honest, legitimate villainization of somebody, the classic sort of like bad guy arc of like, you know, everybody's got their reasons.

He's basically a Jonathan Colton villain, you know? Where you're like, Oh, I understand why you keep women on your mountain with wolves. Holy shit. Holy shit. That's a good oh thank you. No, Jonathan's done a good job with that. I mean my favorite Jonathan Colton song, the one that grabbed me, of course, was Code Monkey, but my favorite Jonathan Colton song and uh a a song that I ha own a shirt about is called Crusher Mountain. Which is such a beautiful and funny song. And you know, welcome is you you know the song, right? Yes, but well no I guess. It starts out it goes welcome to my secret lair on Skull Crusher Mountain And it's basically this guy, sort sort of like, you know, the the guy who who who kills uh the eyes of his crush with robots.

You know. In this one it's about he's he's basically brought a woman to his mountain lair. And uh he doesn't understand why she doesn't like him. I made this I made this half monkey, half pony monster to please you. Um I put out all this wicker just for you. Maybe maybe I use too many monkeys, he says. Um I love that kind of thing. Yeah, which is my yeah, it's it's very um this is this is a topic that my friend John Circuse and I talk about a lot 'cause we're both big fans. Of course he was a fan before me or Jason Snell. They're still arguing about probably somewhere. Of course. But um yeah, that that's a wonderful song. But um the uh shop vac also is a banger Oh gosh, I'm I'm adding these albums to Apple Music.

I'll be down with the shop vac. But it's loud, so I probably won't hear you because it's loud with the shop back on. Do you ever think about the Jonathan Colton Empire? Mm-mm. I mean, I like him a lot. I don't give a uh uh over over overthinking to it. I just think he's he's just he's so gifted. I mean he's such a good singer. He's such a good s I mean if you played in bands and r and you're you're a fan, like I am, and you've written songs, you can before you even knew that he liked seventies, like he that he liked Dan Vogelberg or Rick Springfield, you can hear it's not doesn't sound like one of those songs, but you hear the d the DNA of the great seventies and eighties pop and you know singer songwriters and what he does, which I really love.

I I mean I uh agree, which is I think why he g got the huge fan base of uh older nerds and he understood the environment better than almost anybody at the time. Right. But I I think about the Penny Arcade guys too, and just the m m uh the the not even the monolith, the like stonehenge of entertainment they built almost as like an oopsie poopsie and th I I really like say this and think about it wi without judgment, uh, 'cause I know they were like shithels at various points in their lives 'cause Oh, shocker. Some people are shitty when they're twenty-five. Yeah. Only those two. Only those two. Um nobody else was a piece of shit when people didn't have a way of telling the world about it. No one had a very kind conversation with him and now he's really, really great.

Anyway, I I just wonder you cut out a little bit. Not even building an empire, just holding up your fandom, I get well, even then it's almost like holding up your community and then the fandom and community build something up around it and then you have this giant machine kind of like a Jonathan Colton. Yeah, yeah. And I I think about it. But about, you know, the former president. And, you know, where people were gloming on to his effort and because they knew that he was an ascendant power, you know, in GOP politics. And I I don't know the exact phrase. I'll try and track it down. But um they say like if you something like if you decide something like if you along the lines of if you when you decide to ride a tiger, there's never a good time to get off.

Yeah. Oh shit. Fuck. Oh shut fu shot. However that was actually better said by somebody at some point, I do think about that a lot, whether that's Donald Trump or whether that's somebody who Tried to be really inclusive and then became very vulnerable to people who can often be bullies about monitoring your inclusion. In my opinion. Yeah. It's hard to Yeah, you have to just you have to stop thinking about 80% of your audience to make sure you always uniformly please the the loudest mean person. Yeah, yeah, that's how you get um I I don't know. I've l listening to that uh uh J JK Rowling podcast The The Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling, hosted by um Megan Phelps Roper, the former Westboro Baptist Church member.

And it's exhausting because it's very like a millionaire versus the trans is and but th that premise is still there of like Oh, what if this was just a d a podcaster or some guy who made a video game? And then I'm not sure what I'm saying. Too much. Someone who wasn't a a billionaire. Yes. And I I don't know, I f I find it fascinating because s uh like like contra points t talks about this and it's not cancellation, it's it's more of The shunning and the shaming and the amount of power that could be um uh n not consolidate it, but but the amount of power that could be distributed uh yeah amongst and in a a good way. The m ri ring about the I don't think there is a rising tide. for lack of better word, like an avatar of a point of view and that attracts people?

Uh r y yes. Um, but you c could go the the Opposite w way. Like uh when I when I said uh contra points, I she got she's been cancelled for like six things, but then the enter internet realized that That was stupid. Um she said actually my favorite thing, um, which is in how in like uh wokespace is when everybody shares their pronouns, but everyone is like clearly a woman and they're just doing it for her. And then everyone got mad. But and and uh contrapoints is a very powerful woman in a lot of spaces and vilifying a lot of people with that amount of power just really drags folks down. And maybe it's because I've been off Twitter. A bit, but I don't know. I think about that too. And it it it makes me sad.

I just want people to be happy, Merlin. Yeah, there's a character we talked about offline a fair amount over the years. who even more I joke about John Sir Kuse is flying monkeys because people are so gay bones for John and oh I agree with John because I'm smart too. But um talk about flying monkeys. Like there are flying monkeys that can have been and will be called out by certain people who present themselves to be I don't know, uh champions for social justice, and I'm not saying that ironically, but that the thing is like the problem with fire is it fire can't care about what it burns. And like to think that you can control a fire is maybe a little bit ambitious. And sometimes, you know, something that starts out as being I mean, this has been covered in like, you know, sixty years of films about politicians and cults and all kinds of different people who like might have had the best ideas in mind and at some point or come from a come from a background where they have every reason in the world to be miffed about how people like themselves are treated.

But fire doesn't care what it burns. And if you bring fire to the conversation or in this case like to the structure, like don't be surprised if it burns your fucking house down. And like, you know, it's it's a bummer. It really is a bummer. And in in the end, I don't know how much the flying monkey people will have affected social change in a positive good faith direction so much as made the case for how intolerance can be weaponized with bad faith on I'm not even gonna say it on the side by any person. You know? It's not just TV ministers. It's not just club leaders. It's not, you know what I mean? Like When my grandma was like giving all that money to the 700 Club because they were about to go out of business, like she was doing that because she loved Jesus.

Yeah. And and love Paul and Jan, you know, but or or Jim and Tammy or, you know, whomever. So I don't know. I mean I I honestly I'm not I I hate to it's Uh the this the other problem, I feel like, is that there's this fra again, another phrase that I I can't quote exactly, but I heard a long time ago is that You know, people just because you're a great revolutionary doesn't mean you're going to be a great political leader. And in fact, th there are certain w Western hemisphere. countries of Western hemisphere continents over the last fifty, sixty years where we've seen how like you may be great at running the revolution, which makes you weirdly good at running a corrupt government, because one does not always equate with the other.

I hate all these bureaucrats. And it's like, well well, yeah, or like they're dropping you out of helicopters in, you know, Argentina. But um That's that's something I think about. Final thing, um, I think I'm getting the link for this and I can send this to you. And I don't want to be involved in the discourse. keep me out of the discourse. I thought this was a good piece. Uh good piece, well written piece, funny piece, thought-provoking piece about something that like, you know, kind of feels like we've all, you know, heard enough of. You know, cancel culture. And it has a piece called uh from Armoxen. substack. com called The Case for Shunning. And it was during uh Did you see it? Mm-hmm. Wasn't it well written?

Yeah. I don't know the the doesn't the little the little I I like that the person wrote this like they weren't worried about who was gonna be mad on any side. That's I think the best part of the writing. Which is usually the most thought-provoking stuff to me. Yes. The thing that seems to make Scott Adams skeptical is credible evidence. Whenever credible evidence exists, he's skeptical of it. Where it's absent, he's a believer. It's a sort of upside-down worldview, unless you realize that it reflects exactly the sort of rhetorical conditions that would be necessary for the creator of a crudely drawn comic strip to be accepted as an arbiter of tru of reality. Put this in the show notes. He just wants people to be safe.

Yeah, he identified as black for a while. Oh no, that was the greatest c greatest tweet of all time a few weeks ago. He said this is the third job I've lost. It was something I you can find it. It was uh uh uh uh it was very good. Uh we got it installed Twitter. Opening. Um so so the Dilbert guy I still can't hear you. Dilbert guy um says, um, oh you know, this the now the third job that I've lost Because of I think he said I might have even said specifically because of racism. But but he said and this is like why I I self-identified as an in some as an African American at one point or something. He's not even doing the helicopter joke. I think he's I think he was trying to ask like he was actually doing a, hey you guys, just so you know I used to be black too.

Ah and then you read old interviews with him. You read old interviews back with him, you know, when he was just an unlikely sensation. I love Dilbert. I mean, I think Again, Syracusa got a bunch of Dilbert books. I love Dilbert. I thought it was very, very funny. And you read old interviews with him, and he's he's self-effacing, and he's like very like, oh, I have so much to learn. I'm trying to learn about these things like just in in life and like I have a lot to learn fast and seem very not vulnerable, but at least open and like I don't know, man. That phrase brain worms gets overused, but at a certain point you just throw up your hands and you're like, what brain worms? What is affecting all of these people?

What has made everybody so goddamn broken? I mean I I wonder about i him because he seems so unwell uh along with being Twitter brained. But I I mean I I don't know. The uh uh Uh like this is like when when do you go from unhinged to d dangerous? I guess is also what I find fascinating, because I don't know if the Dilbert guy is necessarily a a danger to society and it gets a bit fr th frustrating when He I mean uh not frustrating. I mean he's fascinating. It's really fun to watch his live streams and just watch him g go off. Oh yep, the idea of the biggest thing. It brings me no joy. Schottenfreude is really overrated. Uh that's Shadow Freud is like the shallowest consolation that that that you can bring for yourself, I feel like.

It's also one of the few things that a lot of folks can Have the power to feel. Yes, that is that is a good good way of the thing. I I totally understand that part of it. It's just I don't know. I mean, there's also just this thread of like how it seems fairly incontrovertible that all other things being equal, we tend to get more conservative as we get older. You know, that's I th well, I think it was Winston Churchill. But God, what is wrong with me this week? I'm Mr. Quotes this week. Winston Churchill supposedly he's credited with saying actually Winston Churchill. No, it was not Will Rogers. It was not Abraham Lincoln. It was not Mark Twain. He said something along the lines of anybody who's not Um a liberal by the by the time he's twenty is hard har hard hearted.

Wait, well I've got to get this right. If you're not a liberal by a certain age, you're hard-hearted. And if you're not a conservative by the time you're forty, you're hard-headed or something like that. Just that the natural the path of that is you do tend to become more conservative for any number of reasons. that will become relatively obvious if you're being honest as you get older, which is you you're you imprinted on memories of something that happened a long time ago. You imprint it upon mores. and acceptable standards of things and just expectations, right? Just what you expected. Whether or not that's sane or moral or just, that like you just thought like this is the way. People should talk to me.

Especially black people. Especially women. This is the way all of these people should talk to me Because the way that they talk to me has become very disrespectful and does not reflect the way that things are in title case, right? And like it's it's a bummer when you hear just the nouns changed in that by somebody who has a battalion of flying monkeys. Which is like ye this is this is the way you have to talk now. This is the way you have to pretend to talk now. And whatever, whatever, whatever I truly don't under I I understand that, but maybe I'm not old enough yet, but I think it's a very good thing. Because you can take it right back to my my family room where like I I feel like I'm I I finally will break out sometimes and say, look, I'm just telling you this anecdote not to pass on information, but because I love you and I think having sh things that we share about the world and our lives are a way to bond.

So I don't need a fact check on whether I spelled somebody's name right. Right. And so but like the problem but that goes for for the body politic where like We seem like we're having an argument about this one kind of thing, but we're actually without realizing it maybe sometimes having an argument that's like two levels deeper about much more fundamental things behind the language or behind the confirmation biases of like what we see in life and it's like and just everybody's just so fucking mad because nobody else will agree to talk the way they want. And you go, well, yeah, I don't talk that way because that's not how I feel or think. Well we'll get your mind right. Subtlety is love. The reason I brought up the revolution thing earlier though is that In the same way that sometimes revolutionaries don't make the best leaders.

I don't want to say politicians, but you know, leaders. Um, you know, in a in a similar way I I sometimes the best game designers don't make the best bosses. Like we fall into roles because that is just what what happens. I I think this Yeah, but we also like being right. Or like feeling that we're right. And it becomes it seems like it becomes intolerable to people. I mean, look at look at like this week. We're still fucking talking about Donald Trump. And it's like we're we I hate to say we fall into his trap, but I mean he's succeeding on one level. Somebody pointed out maybe in the very, very good uh New York Times New York Times piece from somebody in Mali a couple days ago about, you know, wha what things are like now at Mar-Lago and like what's going on with with Trump, how he He r did you read how he rides around in in a golf cart in DJ's parties with his Spotify playlists?

I've I I've been not just uh I've been Merlin-brained. I just typed Molly Haberman. Good lord. Uh Alex, you know what I in that piece, you know what I learned um a couple days ago? The former president um plays thirty-six holes of golf per day. I don't know if that's a whole lot or just a little bit. I think a whole lot. I think I've only played golf a couple times. I've been around golf a little bit, not a huge fan, but I think a standard round of golf is usually eighteen holes. You can usually I guess I'll give in the course you can play nine sometimes and then there's like a little, you know. Off-road. But no, he plays. Oh okay, yes, that tracks. Oh huh. Do you think that's by design or okay, no, so uh whole by holes Yeah, uh that's not like par.

Like he doesn't Okay, okay. Uh, this means like you start here on the T, you hit the ball. He uh thirty s Sex. And then it's Garrett's birthday, so you have to let him play through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's obscure. It's my birthday. It's my birthday. Garrett, with so many T's. Get it, tease. So anyway, um yeah, yeah. And uh but we'll stalk we'll still we'll still still talk about that showed. You know, and you know, and then again another thread that runs through through all of this stuff. It's something, you know, that just I can't stop talking about, which is you will never change fast enough to please a stranger. Like, you know, he will never be prosecuted enough or he will never be, we got himed enough for any of us to ever be happy.

And yet there's still, I don't know if it's hope or wish casting that you're like, Oh, I really you know I w I want him to be in like one of those like joke courtrooms, you know? Like you know, like where like Nuremberg or Russia, where he's actually in a little box and has to wear a striped uniform and like All that kind of pussy hat fantasy stuff that the people have. Absolutely. And you said No, no, you don't understand. I want to be handcuffed. I want to be handcuffed. I want people I want people to see me handcuffed. It w off offline the other day, I I think I texted to you and like I haven't really been following the the Trump discourse, but But the idea of what the logistics must be. Like what what do you even do?

Which is I I I mean, uh maybe uh It's not it's not actually I mean, I underst okay, so there's there's a l the piece of this that makes it ex very vexing and concerning. to all of us. You have to click that to see what it is. It's two things. Um I just sent you something. Um y you I mean I think the the thing that people are uh people are talking about is like, oh God, is this going to be January 6th all over again? You know, um kind of thing. Right. Yeah. And so there's the concerns in DC and New York, the headlines have been chok a block about like all the preparations and It's a m it's amazing to me that all these cities that hate bikes so fucking much own all of these bike racks that they can deploy as barriers.

It's so fucking weird to me. Um but anyway, and all the Ron DeSantis, he he's like he might as well. He's killing it right now. That guy's he's doing great right now, honestly. He really is. Whoa. Did you see his interview didn't see his interview with uh with the English guy? Uh no, but I okay, this is ooh, he's playing rope-dope with Trump. He's Trump's gonna look like such a fucking idiot. I don't know, man. Like it No, no, I understand. I hope that I will be remembered as the person who said originally Ron DeSantis has the approximate charisma of a bag of wet laundry. Yep, that's interesting. And he understands what he perceives as his base. He understands it, but but he can't d do it based on everything Uh that I mean just to get the nomination?

He no, he he just can't interact with people in a normal way. And I mean I'm not sure. But the thing is that the images on TV are not gonna be of him sitting in a corner avoiding donors or eating pudding with his fingers. That's not gonna be on you know, that's not gonna be the images that get out there. What's gonna be out there is stuff like today where Piers Morgan goes, What do you think of him calling you Meatball Ron and Ron De Sanctimonious and he goes, I like I you know, actually I don't mind it. His response was perfect. He goes, Ron De Sanctimonious, I don't even know how to spell that. It's kind of funny. It's got a lot of vowels. Call me whatever you want, as long as you also call me a winner.

Perfectly. I mean, yeah, yeah. I I I don't know. I'm s I'm s well, maybe it's because I am I'm a d very afraid of the the man because mm the word fascist is is uh thrown around. Like I don't think Trump is a fascist and I think he's like an authoritarian. He very much wants to be the big boy. But uh Ron DeSantis He's the number one candy boy. Yes, he's Trump isn't gonna gonna share an any of the the MMs. But like that's that's what w we kind of all did in twenty sixteen of like look at the decorum that oh like he's So well spoken. And uh when uh DeSanta said the the thing of like, I wouldn't know what it's like to pay off a stripper And then basically on Truth Social, uh Trump called him gay.

And like that was like it was that's what made the rounds, I think, for mo people. Right. But because of because of his his disordered thinking, of course, it was very he put it in a very confusing way. But yeah, he basically said Ron DeSantis was a teacher, maybe he fucked a boy. Yes. So I mean it like Tr Trump says that F word in the funniest way. Like maybe maybe a man He didn't s yeah, right. The way he did it was like it's so c I I I don't know. I had a good joke. I had a good tweet. Nobody's on Twitter anymore. May I read this uh may I read your tweet? Which one? Uh you you sort of asked for a prayer? Um no no no. The you had a tweet that's two images. One is a headline from The Guardian.

Trump wants to be handcuffed for court appearance in Stormy Daniels case, sources say. And the sources say is amazing. And then a frame from It's Always Sunny in uh Philadelphia where Dennis is holding all all of his tools that he needs his his tools. He's got his his tape his he likes to bind and be bound. Yes, and and he's saying it's it's just fetish. It's fetish it. I like to bind. I like to bind and be bound. And it's just Yeah, yeah, the truth. You know what though I did this week I also like well uh don't cut this out, but you know, we should probably should cut it out like two different things this week. Two pussy hat J things this week that did make me fucking laugh. One is that Stormy Daniels has apparently on t Twitter started referring to him by the nickname Tiny.

Which is so fucking funny to me. It is. I mean it's kind of funny. I mean the dumbest pussy hat joke of the week, but still made me laugh. I was like the problem is his tiny hands will slip out of the handcuffs. This is by um um Ron Philipowski who said uh Trump called into quote pastors for Trump tonight. Uh, this is on March twentieth. Trump called into pastors for Trump tonight for a national prayer on the eve of his possible indictment when the host asked him to name a specific prayer that he would like to request. He suddenly had technical difficulties with this phone. And you can hear the audio of that. So of course, I think it might have gone a little something like this. What's the one with the slutty witch?

The one with that weird cocaine girl in the 70s. She was hot at the time, but later very unfair to me. Sick and corrupt. Nearly died from drugs like a dog. Yeah, that's the prayer Rihanna. A solid seven mini shawls people were saying. And this is why he's going to get the nomination. Because uh he is more fun. He is Yeah, look and I we gotta talk about something else. I gotta I gotta check in with you on AI. I have a lot of questions about this crazy last couple weeks. Um but also um it's the Uh i i mean obviously, you know, he's he'll he'll do fine. I'm sure Mr. Trump is is gonna be fine. But like, not to be all Roland Barth about this, but like Like, let's say we're saying like, okay, the topic tonight is going to be wrestling.

And you're like, ooh, wrestling. What are we going to talk about? Is it like the way like Two brothers like to horse around and like one person hears wrestling and thinks of like the Iron Chic and Ric Flair. Somebody else might hear it and think about Team Foxcatcher. Somebody else thinks about, you know, Max Fisher. uh being a a substitute wrestler in the 110 pound. But like the thing is that I can tell you factually, all of those do involve something that is called wrestling. But those are really, really different things. And the the the my hot take on this is it it I it it becomes a little frustrating at a certain point. It's not like the Democrats are any bargain, but it is funny that like we're even saying that there's This is this is a a classic problem behind the both sides is um is the the the dyad that is implied of Democrats versus Republicans.

Right versus left, liberal versus conservative, progressive versus regressive, or like however you think about it. And instead it's really more like Max Fisher versus the Iron Chic. But you said you liked wrestling. Well, you know, the thing is, one of them is using a folding chair and throwing sand in the youngster's eyes. But the other one is has you know clocked a few hours in a Piper Cub, so Really they're both about wrestling if you think about it. Uh-huh. Hmm. Hmm. Alright, what what about hmm mmm? They're they're very unfair. Very nasty. Very nasty. Nasty woman. See my my take was I I the thing is I I I wanna almost retract this 'cause like but thing is as soon as I read it immediately I thought, oh The nickname, and everybody's like, okay, everybody's like, so so if you haven't heard, bless your heart.

But uh supposedly Ron DeSantis in in a piece that, like so many pieces, talks about how awkward he is around people in person. I think he's not a very outgoing sort of like a social guy. He's definitely not the sort of retail press the flesh politician that even like a local candidate for mayor. G whoever came up with that term just needs t I I I it's not that I i uh wish it will upon them. But at least uh I ha I mean it has a meaning. It's just me it means like the meat the meat and potatoes, shoe leather, get out there, meet people. Retail politics I think means regardless of what your policy aims are, like do you have the ability to go out and be warm and engaging and have that Bill Clinton thing where people I know, but it just sounds Okay, sorry.

Moist. Okay, so so yes, he's press he's pressing the flesh. See I I if it were at first I thought a name that came immediately to mind. Um straight out of uh the wonderful mad love uh comic with Harley Quinn. Um Puddin. I thought just Pudding would be a sweet name for for for Ron DeSantis. Put in Ron. Put and Ron is funny, but it doesn't. He's still nowhere near like Lil Marco. Lil Marco. No, no. Yeah. Or sleepy, was it Sleepy Sleepy Jeb? Was that the one for no Sleepy, I mean he's Sleepy Joe? I think Jeb was even. Low energy. Low energy. But you know, little Marco, I mean it's stupid as fuck. But because he thinks like a thirteen year old boy He also, you know, like they say in the Old Testament, you know, it used to be I I acted as a boy, I I I I thought as a boy, I insulted as a boy, and then then I put boyish things aside.

Very nasty. Did you ever I probably have asked this, I apologize, but did you ever watch the Celebrity Apprentice? No, I mean I I I'm aware of The Apprentice. It's probably been on my TV, but it was never something I watched. And when I heard how many seasons it was on, I was amazed. If you'd asked me to guess how many seasons of that show there were, and I know when we're talking about seasons, like in the case of Survivor, that's two quote unquote seasons per annum, which is a little confusing. But like when I first I figured, oh, there's probably like Two to maybe five seasons of the apprentice. And wasn't it like over ten? Yeah. And uh the like Cornerstone, like the the big deal was the celebrity of apprentice.

Oh, and that's where you get like what you get like a Snoop Dogg or a Oh yeah Me there was Meatloaf, uh there was uh Gary uh uh the uh the oh fuck, I forget. Uh uh like all of these uh B to C level celebrities and It it it it had like the same vibe of these people just can't be normal and Trump couldn't be normal around them. But his but his but his the way he acts makes sense on that edited TV show. Yes, it's so In retrospect you watch it and go, Oh my god, this guy's such a fucking idiot. He's just an empty suit, an empty fat suit. If if anyone has copies of The Apprentice, I am trying so hard to r rewatch that. Like the actual TV show? I'll get it for you. Yeah, you can't find it anywhere.

I mean you can well you could, but it no no no, it was NBC. Yeah. Which is why we changed uh hold on. Uh yeah, it was Mark Burnett. Um Um what do I know? Because he's he did he do Shark Tank too? Yes. Yes. All the great he he did. And that's yeah, oh and that's ABC. Ooh, he's got on his Ooh, Martinets and all the put in. Ooh, ooh god. Oh god, imagine. But you can understand how people have to be able to do it. would watch that show and go, well, yeah, I mean I watched it every week with my gr like my grandma. We just wild. I just told you my um the other two humans in the household went to visit family. I think I told you that story last week and I shouldn't say this, but like you ever go visit relatives and they've always got the TV on and the TV's really loud and no one's really watching it.

Mm-hmm. Yep. So they do that with like HGTV or The Voice, I think it's called. One of those competition singing shows. over whatever happens on the voice. Oh, oh, yeah. Or Flip Those Twins or whatever show you watch on HTTV. You ever watch Flip Those Twins? That's a great show. Flip those twins. That's a joke, because the property brothers are so freaking out. Alright, there we go. Okay. That sounds like a bit. I don't know. I don't know, Alex. This is not a part of my life. And you know why? For exactly the reason you would expect. Because I am a stuck up snob who does not watch bullshit like that. And the idea of having that on, just playing. When I do that, it's with the fucking Night Manager.

Like slow-paced thrillers are my boner medicine. I finished watching re-watching the Night Manager, which is astonishingly good. And jumped straight into um I th well, first I did Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, the full series with Alec Guinness. I love slow paced thriller stuff. That'll be on quietly while I while I, you know, work on my computer. But like The kind of people who have reality TV on just playing all the time really loud, that show really works. And I don't think it's exceedingly difficult to follow. I mean that's that's by di design. But what do we know about all of these things that we're talking about? What's what's the f and for like you can watch this with Felix's account. Like, okay, do you follow Felix?

Uh the uh b Chapeau Felix? Geterbin? Yeah. What um so like what is his what's the thing that he watches every night? I I've been off Twitter. It's a Law in Order SVU. He's constantly talking about Law and Order SVU. He's constantly talking about Olivia. And like he's he's just it's so funny. And whether or not it's a bit, I don't care. It's so goddamn funny. But um That like it's comfort food. Mm-hmm. Like when we're in a hotel room, like I there's so many things I don't control in my life, even if it's just like a a trip to the, you know, East Bay or whatever. There's so much stuff I don't control in my life. I put on the TV and I watch the office. Or I watch like if there's a you know, usually on like Comedy Central, I guess, there's just like a bunch of like 12 episodes of The Office in a row, and I'm like, fuck yeah, put that on.

Or Law and Order, any of those. It's comfort viewing. What does that mean? Well, comfort food, comfort viewing. These are things that are familiar to us. And in the case of those narratives, we know those characters. We know the rhythm. Fucking we talked about this, what, two weeks ago with Survivor? Draw for spots on my go. Come on in, guys. Want to know what you're playing for? Like there's all these things that become part of your like, it's very comforting. Or like on podcasts when, you know, when Griffin Newman says humble brag, I'll always laugh. So my wife and I were out to dinner, humble brag. Like that's always that's always funny to me, right? And that's that is a form of comfort food.

Bits are comfort food. They they they can be. But it's like you you live inside of that world of this man in his theoretical boardroom with his fucking helicopter and like You know, I I can understand how people got attached to him. I I am not attached to him. I just want to clarify. I mean though I uh uh I uh you're not I don't think you're attached to him now. I think I mean I will be though. It's like bait. It's subtleties. The bait. Bait worked. Bit worked. Oh, the bait worked. Bait bait worked. Um I I now that I am okay oh god so uh I uh once again I will mention that I am off Twitter for uh Lent and but I just You are? I just Oh yeah, did I not mention this? I well. I don't even read it.

I have a private text channel with Casey now where we just talk about what the fuck you're talking about. The apprentice. The apprentice. Do you want to start with season one? No, no, the uh celebrity apprentice is is what you want. It's called celebrity apprentice. Yes. But um iPad expert on Twitter, aka by your logic, aka Felix Biederman, um quote tweets um a a tru a truth fr which is what Donald uh Trump service um sorry. True truth he Donald Trump did a truth social public. Okay, okay. Uh there is a lot of people. Uh true. Yes. And uh, one hat, one hat and only one hat, please. I just had my annual physical. I am in the best shape of my life. I am not suicidal. If anything happens to me, avenge me!

You know why the thing is, you know why they're after him? Because he's protecting you. Honest to God, I think this is a Jeffrey Epstein reference. I don't say porn star. I think that like MILF, it's a very inflated term. Somebody who had sex in movies. You don't pay off person who had sex in movies for having sex with you and spanking you with a magazine with your face on it. Like who's Amongst Us has not? Owen, it's my feeling. Uh oh, absolutely. He that guy that guy's I ye he's not he's when I see um O Somebody like uh poor uh uh what's his name? Uh Sue. Um Andrew Andrew Andrew Goldman, Andrew Gold, not the guy who wro who sang Lonely Boy. You know the guy, the guy who always begins his sentence with Sue.

You know, the guy used to be There's many, many guys like that. His zoom calls are never in the same place in his house twice. This guy has like a mansion. Andrew, on her. But but to be on fucking MSNBC in that like headshot clusterfuck rat king of like th four people. You got the pretty black lady with good makeup and a ring light. You got the you got uh Andrew Gold, you know, sitting in in in his house Oh oh oh you know oh Claire McCaskill will be with us for the rest of the hour. Just really grinding my gears the whole fucking time. And then there's Michael Cohen, who's who's there in studio. He just came over from not testifying. Definitely not. Definitely not testifying. Well no, they they they did they did not need him.

And the way that he speaks, you know, he does that thing. You know, like that gangsters do. Everyone learned from Arnold Arnold Rothstein in the nineteen teens and twenties, you need to dress classy and talk fancy if you're gonna be a mobster. Also, I think he really likes saying Allen Weisselberg. Oh god. I think that's one of his special words. I I They're gonna they're gonna regret it is my is I'm gonna I'm putting my marker down, my big bold statement. My brave stance is that eventually at some point there's going to be a disappearing of Michael Cohen's participation in uh MSNBC. I mean, we call it Why they keep putting him on it's six years What are you doing? Because they didn't learn from tr Trump and because you're talking about it n now and like then.

I no, I uh well just just because I believe it said something about Okay. Well it must work because you're talking about it. It's a good point. It's a really good point. No, it might it must be it really says something about the state of the society. As long as they spell your name right. You know what? They could be giving airtime to J uh to George um Santos and I just uh Soros Santos uh Miguel I don't know what he's calling himself, and I just uh I want more of him. I want more Matt Gates. Let's shake it up. Yeah, what were happening with Matt Gates? Are we gonna bring that back? That's the problem. He you he did the smart thing. He then mowed his tax guy to Venmo his stripper. R remember? And so the that's how he got a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.

Oh no, because he did and he did the thing like, oh, this is money for education. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right. And the tax collector who had yeah yeah. He's like, I'm just doing crypto and Venmoing girls. That's it. That's it. I get it. I get it I don't see a separate celebrity apprentice. I see regular apprentice. I think they just might have merged them. Okay, what I'm gonna do though is I'm gonna say inequality. and I'm gonna say only first season and we'll see what we get and I'll take it from there. It's Oh also I can send you um um uh a screener. Oh that's gonna be my new term. I'll send you a screener screener of that I've got I've got a monster. movie. Oh thank uh thank you. I uh you click on the links I send you.

I send you and John Roderick and occasionally John Circusa links all the time and I don't know if people click them. I don't monitor those thing I I I do and I I also click every I also I I bet I crash Casey's plex a lot and I sometimes accidentally go into your plex too and I walk oh no oh no Well especially T Work. You'll be fine with that one. That one's at the office and like its its own thing. I think the other thing is. Like Peppa Pig goes away, Bluey disappears. Oh god, what if I've disrupted Pokemon? Oh no. I I I did not I could never Hack Casey. Do you know he has a white Synology? Okay, let's save AI. For I I I uh in my rec just real quick in passing. Hello. Um Hello Hello in my recos I've been getting this one guy, uh my YouTube recos, this one guy who uh uh so far every video of his I've seen.

Um has a title. It's of course he's he's his mouth is open and he's a gog and in the thumbnail. And it's this is the craziest week that's ever happened in AI. It every day is the craziest week that's ever happened in AI. The last two weeks have been crazy. And I've watched a couple of these videos and gone, that's right, that happened. And then there's that thing. And then there's the mid-journey. And there's the all the there's a Google one we're all making fun of, and all these different ones. So if you if you don't mind, um, hey, and listen, everybody, please um Please become a supporter of this show so that Alex doesn't have to leave the house. You can go to giveusyourfucking money. com and uh support our program and it helps us a lot because we need money.

And we like money. And if you like us, then you should give us money. Especially if you like my cat. And when we and and I'm gonna talk about AI with Alex, which is really definitely worth a dollar twenty five to listen to. And okay, uh honest to God, the past few weeks have made me realize I'm not that much of a dumb bitch when it comes to AI because I always thought I was such a dumb bitch. You are a bitch. And well yeah, no, I'm pretty dumb. You were signed bitch at birth. And I am a bitch. But But I am not a dumb bitch about AI because Don't get over your skis there, Einstein. Well I fucking know, like I like, oh LL LLM, oh my god. I'm like haven't you read Superintelligence by like You're talking about a language learning model?

Like a llama? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I tried to oh they took llama offline. I can't I can't get llama. That shit is lit. What about Meerkat? I love the names. Oh, you know the there's an Android version of that called Ominous Oreo. It's a big improvement over in in Curious Incantation. That was a fucked up Android, that one. And you can take the crop off of photos with it because they got the llama in your in your photos. But that even goes to Windows 10. But scene mine, my windows goes to eleven. No, no. Challenge this Oh hello. This Hello. We're on different full see, we're on different velocities, but it's not that we we are on the same we haven't maintained our own. We're both wrestling.

Oh boy. This oh wow. The this week challenge was to curate nebula which is a subscription what would you say it is a paid subscription service for videos that are primarily educational. A bunch of people with enough of a following on YouTube, it appears, got together in some kind of a collective and created something called Nebula. Where I it's such an interesting idea, which is like, hey, you know, um I'm Adam Neely or Maggie May Fisher, Patrick H. William Williams, you can tell who I watch on this stuff. I'm philosophy tube. And like I've been doing this on YouTube and YouTube's kind of a bummer sometimes and they you demonetize us for weird things. And we want to be able to make money, but also be able to do more ambitious things where we don't have to worry about the algorithm.

Even though these are the same videos they put up on YouTube most of the time with the same fucking thumbnails. Oh, there's one guy I'm gonna drag hard this week, so be ready. Um yeah, oh I'm gonna drag I'm gonna drag a thumb. I'm gonna drag it. And so they create this thing called Nebula. And I don't understand it. I think the initially some of the thing the way it was presented, well, I learned about it through Adam Neely. And like I I mean everybody says you know it's uh or like Wendover Productions will say I uh with other creators, co-created, nebula. Now it's kind of my lockpicking lawyer voice, but that's also kind of the way Wendover talks. And like we created this together and it's this beautiful collective and I don't know how much it costs, but problem was also it was like pitched as like Hey, join this and you also get a year of Skill Share and maybe like something else.

I signed up for it. I continue to be signed up for it. I never watch Skillshare. I do sometimes watch Nebula. But I think the idea, I mean, the I the the mostly good faith idea was, you know, YouTube, if you guys like our stuff. And you can help support it. Like we're gonna split up what we make from Nebula. That lets us make features. It lets us keep doing at the basic level, it lets us keep doing what we're doing, but it's not YouTube. uh you know, um subject to the vicissitudes of and what YouTube does with stuff and that Nebula, you know, right? Is that isn't that kind of the idea? And so a lot of people who are have done real good You know, mostly good videos on YouTube got together and did that.

Right. And I don't really understand. necessarily the criteria or I I think it's like changed h hands a a couple times, but it but it's also almost like I wanna know who's vetting some of these. The i it feels kind of like there's some sweaty some sweaty in the news channels. Yeah, there's a god, it's so much stock video. I mean I've had it. I've had it with the stock video, Alex. It has to end. Windover. It's gotta end. feels to me um like s uh setup for uh uh educational assay uh youtube where um a lot of it is amazing And uh some of it is junk, but Isn't that kind of like the the problem, I mean, and this is not a joke. Isn't that kind of what's going on with Substack though? My understanding of Substack were my opinion on Substack is that it's mostly a bunch of um nominally liberal moderate fail sons who don't like having editors.

And yeah, there's a bunch of great stuff on Substack. Like there is really great stuff on there. It's just that everybody grins and whistles past the graveyard about how we're basically, you know, keeping Mataglacius in opinions. Yeah, it's I'm glad this money's going to Glenn Greenwald. That feels good. Yeah, yeah. It's uh I but but like Mm with uh l like with at a time when Tumblr blogs were the the top thing or when um w what's another good example? When medium was a big thing. I'm not sure. For good or for ill, they make an assumption about it. And with a lot of people, if you know who the writer i is, you are are the you are are either like, okay, this could be an interesting uh uh an interesting essay or some centrist crap.

And for a while m Medium was like, okay, that this is the place where uh VCs go to talk about building a treehouse because They, you know, see like amazing tech stuff though. Still to this day when I Google stuff about something related to something in tech that's not evolving crazy quickly, I'll see the best stuff. on on medium. But yeah, but like it's part of that effort of saying like, hey, is there any way that we can I'm not gonna avoid that word I don't like, but a way that people can make money off of their their videos or their writing or their whatever. And there's been limited m amounts of success with those different kinds of things. Outside of like YouTube and Patreon. And what is incredibly frustrating is a Substack handles podcasts.

way, way better than Patreon does. And it yeah, yeah, it's I I I don't know. I don't mean to like sound fake shocked about that, but like that's a bummer. It costs this much to do. And like if there's stuff happening that is improving the back end, the middle end, the front end of Patreon, I do not see it. It just seems like it's in maintenance mode. It's uh I I don't know what they are doing with all of the money. They uh Is it going to the Pompousse guy? Is he still there? Patreon. Yeah. But I mean, what's she looking at? Oh god. Why is she only doing that? She's doing that Susannah Hoff thing where she seems to be looking off stage. Is she waiting for is she waiting for Joni Mitchell and Neil Young to join her?

What is she doing? What a few. Sorry, that's my impression of Meo Yang in the last walls. Except for the no cocaine. No cocaine. Substant. What okay, what what I like about Nebula is there are a lot of uh people on here that I like I couldn't afford to support all of their Patreons, but w like I you know, you can't necessarily pay for all of these various app subscriptions on SetApp, but this is kind of uh you know, the the big pool w way uh It it's like how y YouTube used to work, or at least that's what um what's his name? Dave Whiskis like pitched it as at one at one point. Like There is a pool of money and it goes b to to based on how many views you have, but it's not uh it's not algorithm based and uh You know, they they choose what to feature, so uh w whatever.

Was Whiskers involved? Like I so funny, I knew Dave in another life when I did a different an older podcast. And he's is am I am I remembering correctly that's that's what Dave Whiskis we see in Patrick H. Willems' videos. That's Dave Whiskis, right? So yeah. Yeah, I I and I worked with him a little bit when I was doing the thing with Jim Dalrymple. So is he looking big wheel now? He is I mean I believe he is the he yep. I uh he has a podcast as well. Oh, oh, uh they also have podcasts on uh nebula which the devil you say. Yeah. Do you have to listen to it in an app? Um no. Actually I don't know. I think they're all most of the I'm on that here let me see. Because how would you get a how would you get a feed?

I don't think you do. That's That's what I'm looking at. I don't think any of these podcasts actually are behind a paywall. Oh wait, nope, yep, there is an RSS feed up in the corner. Yep. Oh no. That's uh that's nice. Uh upset about. Oh. I I wanna go. Look how shock he always is. Isn't he always shocked? And I feel bad because I feel like in my head I associate I I I think maybe through Twit or something, isn't he kind of associated with Georgia Dow? I have I I have no idea. I I really I like I like Georgia a lot, especially as a person, but like they both do have a gape mouth videos about things. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a therapist rewatches Season six of Game of Thrones. It's like mm, do ya? Um I'm I mean the more I use.

So I don't want to be mean, I don't want what's his name, Legal Eagle? I don't want to drag I hate to drag Legal Eagle But like he does every time I see his face I get angry. R Roll Rolljurr. Uh Rollder Rural Jr. Rural Jr. Lurry Kevin Grisham. Good God. Uh all right. watched uh did you watch a bunch on Neb Nebula? I mean Nebula is oh gosh, this is actually interesting to me and probably no one else. It would be interesting to me to like I don't have a way on Apple T V of clocking that I'm aware of anyway, of clocking like how much time I spend in the different apps. But, you know, i I feel like this is somewhat adjacent to what they end up talking about on downstream a lot. You know, the like is this do you do you how often do you open this app up to check in on what's new?

How often do you open you know what I mean? Like The if you know one problem with Netflix being out of the series too is like it really is a different part of that experience for me. Right. And I don't I mean and then I op end up opening Netflix and I feel like kind of a sucker. 'Cause it's like it's the same a hundred and eighteen murder shows. Um but but you know, but like, you know, with Disney, like, I don't know, man. Every time I open Disney now, I'm always like, Yeah, I've I've seen all this. Like I don't need an inside special on how you made your inside special. about about the making of the Haunted Mansion video. Like w which is cute. Like I love stuff like the Star Wars uh vehicle fly throughs and all that stuff.

I I I think it's brilliant for Disney to put up a whole bunch of stuff, but it doesn't feel like particularly fresh. HBO, Max, far and away probably. like the most stuff that has really stuck to my brain in the last five years. But like it's interesting 'cause like I I it w Wade, in terms of original is like I think uh you suddenly got me thinking about something you didn't ask which is like what's my all I pay for so much stuff There's stuff I as I've as I've not joked, but seriously like I subscribe to Nightflight, which you will not recognize. But it was a USA series in the eighties, um, and I guess the nineties too, and it was like weird, weird videos, music videos. I subscribe to Mubi, Criterion Channel, Nebula, Hulu, Fubo.

so many things. But I don't come anywhere near You should get an award. My goodness. Yeah. Well, I mean, but then the amount that I open them is nowhere near commensurate. I don't ever even think about like, oh, what's my Julia Alexander could make up a good acronym for this. Like an Ibadah uh type thing. But like my my my my cost per minute enjoyed, like I mean I just I love paying for Criterion. I just fucking love Criterion. I love the app, I love the stuff, I love the trailers, I love the the very like we care about the stuff we're putting here feeling of this big company. with that channel. Like it's great. And sometimes I will sit down and watch an Ozu film. And then sometimes I'll just watch the teaser trailer for the Afrocentrism series or whatever.

But you know, the the truth is I open Nebula once or twice a week. And there are some people that I really like there more than you do. Yeah. How heavily do you utilize stuff like library watch later, things like that? Oh a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. Which actually it is a little bit, understandably, a little bit of a fire hose because it I mean i it's still Pound for pound, a new entrant. Like, we need to make sure we've got stuff in front of you where you'll see like what is here. Yet sure we want you to be able to find the things that you know you want to watch. Like, cause I think it's fair to assume or infer that Well, it's the let me just be a dumb guy. This is probably not the app you pay for, download, and then open for the first time, never having watched any of these people on YouTube.

Like to just dumb guy from right. So like you're not gonna go in here and go, oh wow, look at all these videos I can watch for for free now that I paid for them. You're you're there because you liked this person from another thing and heard about this. Or you got it with free with Skillshare. Like I I think that was smart for them to like that is. It's a little bit of brand dilution though, in some ways though, where like I don't know. Anyway, but the the point is like it you came into this knowing I bet if if you're like me anyway, and I hope you're not, but if you did pay for this, you you fire it up and you go, first thing I do, okay, I'm gonna subscribe to Adam Neely. Who's really not making a lot of videos lately.

Um, and then I discover other people. And I'll get to this, I guess, if we talk about it. That's where I discover Maggie Mayfish and Philosophy Tube. And oh yeah, I know Patrick Willems. I like I love him on Blank Check. I'll watch his videos, which I generally don't listen to this Patrick. I usually skip the first third because I don't need the narrative. Um You know, things like that. And so but then we also need to let you know that like, what are some other ones? You can see why banks fail by Johnny Harris. Ukraine strikes Crimea question mark? You can see that from TLDR Daily. When wishes come true by extra mythology, I think that woman who has somehow made an entire career out of videos about stage fighting, I think she's on here.

Oh, I don't know who that is. It's a whole nor did I see that. This is one of those specific Jawa blog situations. Like she's got a niche. And like I'm so glad that it exists. I I don't need to watch all of them, but I'm really glad that it exists. Oh, my friend David Friedman, who I can actually I mean we're not dear friends, but uh he just started one. Ironic Sands, he just started a a a a thing there. But yeah, so you put all that in front of you, but like when I go in I tend to open it up and then I tend to go to I'm not on my Apple TV obviously, I go to guest library. You see videos you've added, creators you follow. I guess we'll we get to the stuff that we like on here. Probably. We both, I assume, almond buttered because unlike YouTube, there's really no way to curate anything other than to follow Yeah, you you said curate.

I I if I said that I shouldn't have. I don't think we're curating. I think we're saying give us your take on nebula and the role that it finds in your life. Well, uh here's what I realized. You can't curate the United States. No, no, no. Well well that that's the thing. I like this is why blank check won't cover asterisk until you can get it in the United States. I've been listening to them in a while. I miss those boys. Well you know what's great is if you listen to the the um Special features. Um, you know, Maria's on more now, who I think is hilarious. She has a great laugh. She's very funny Maria Bar doesn't matter what her name is. But she's like the social media person and I think she's like a producer kind of person.

Mm-hmm. And um they're doing they're covering their March Madness bracket right now. Oh, oh. Like going but just like going through, like discussing the the competition. But I'm I'm sorry, please continue on talking too much. much. The no no no no no. No no I I I think that Nebula is a perfect place to create a playlist because you know not everyone subscribes to Spotify or Apple M who other than me subscribes to Apple Music. But it because, like you said, If you don't know these creators, you probably aren't going to this service. Merlin's unified field theory of these things, as I've said, I think Even or especially with podcasts, I feel like you need to listen to uh generally at least three episodes of a show before uh well, I'm just quoting myself.

Um, you need you generally need to listen to three episodes of a podcast before you'll know whether it could be something you love. It doesn't mean you'll love it. Doesn't mean you'll turn it away, but like listen to one episode of a podcast, in unless it's the that Breakfast Boys episode about Taco Bell, because that's one of the greatest episodes of all time. But what are they called? The the brunch boys? What are they called? Oh pfft I there's something with boys. What are they called? The no no I think the I think they're boy. I I don't know. Everything's a boy Buoy. B O I don't cereal. I disagree though. This is Nebula I think is built to have videos that stand on their own because th most of these people do longer form essays.

Like philosophy uh too, like um people play games and s stuff like that. So I mean the if you have to w watch S oh God, like if if you need to watch four uh people play games videos to decide whether or not it's for you and I mm I don't know. I mm I don't know. What what's an example? No. Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. The uh the most of the videos on Nebula, they don't necessarily highlight I'm I'm not trying to say that they don't have a personality, but they put their uh when I when I say content, I mean the content of what they're presenting, not their content. Like they put a story or their point of view or subject before their brand. Does that m make sense? Like Adam Neely will have a topic that he is covering, not being Adam Neely.

Like I think after the Glen Adam Neely show, you'll be like, I get it. Yeah, I feel like that's that's actually a really good point that's germane for a lot of things. Where I mean, I don't know, this has probably always been this way. You've always had things like columnists or radio hosts or whatever where like it's I don't know. I I don't know how to phrase this. Like it's I'm here for the content, but I'm mainly here for what this person has to say about it You know what I mean? Like I I just like I want to know what John Syracusa thinks about this new OS ten or Mac OS now. But you know what I mean? Like it's yeah, I'm interested in that, but I'm especially interested in this person's angle.

I think somebody probably Like Ben Thompson is probably like that. Like I'd love to know Ben Thompson's take on this because that's stuff that interests me and I think he's very, you know, articulate about that stuff. I know what you're saying though. It's like there's not a lot of d to sound a little bit naive, I guess, there's not a lot to be gained from being a pretty gen unless you're doing a Shovel blog YouTube channel, there's not a lot to be gained from people not remembering your name. You wanted like Patrick H. Williams, like he's like, I really like his stuff a lot, but he he's really m brand forward. Or movies with Mikey, which I also love. And to quote John Syracuse, I don't agree with Mikey Newman.

I don't agree with Mikey on everything he says, but that's not the point. The point is I love his stuff. style. I love his enthusiasm. I even like his bits. Did you know? It's so fun. Yeah, I I like him a lot. I had dinner with him. He's um uh so like in that case like it is it's but it's it's about both You know, whereas maybe like, you know, there are some wendover, I think arguably is more generic is way too strong a word. But like as as No, I know what you mean. It's uh uh it it's good. He's relatively new, I think. Like I I don't know. You know what it is? It's always like it's it's If there's only ever one thing that quietly bugs you about something, this is also part of the problem with oh I never thought that person was funny.

If there's one per one thing that quietly bugs you about a person or like that's overlookable because of other reasons or whatever. It doesn't tend to be. It's when it accumulates and it's just like because of the way people make videos and market videos, largely because of YouTube. I'm not saying this is all true for all nebula or even all n all YouTube, but because of that, like Jesus Christ, it's all wrapping in no presence. It needs to be this certain length. It's gotta have the dumb fucking thumbnail. And you gotta have a a f a new cute way to say the same shit about hitting the bell because of the algorithm, all that stuff, and it just And at a certain point you're like, I just feel I feel used.

I feel dirty watching these things. There's a there's a podcast I like a lot where I accidentally was listening to the non-paid version of it, a daily podcast you and I both like. And it's a daily podcast that's a I like a lot. Have I said that enough? It's like a twenty minute podcast every day. And I listen to And it's a and they talk about very much our shit, or at least Well part part of the thing. But like you um but if you if you want that but not that Um but like I listened to an episode from yesterday and it's uh sorry, this is turning into a slightly different rant, but like this is one reason I'm just a little bit like I've had it with the quote unquote professionalization of podcasts.

Whether that's, you know, dynamic ad inserts, all that kind of stuff. But like Planet Money, which I've always enjoyed, has become virtually unlistenable to me. Freakonomics virtually unlistenable to me. Because and I'm not even like this particular guy, but you start up, you got the cute like boom, boom, you get your little like bass sound, or in the case of the podcast, I'm talking about like weird, uh upsetting xylophone music. And it's like, okay, well, it starts out and you got the blah blah, the short blah blah at the beginning about here's this and a teaser, and then you cut to an ad or two ads. This is on a 20 minute podcast. You cut back. You're gonna talk a little bit with somebody.

Sometimes it feels like they got the third person from what they wanted to be here, and this person doesn't actually sound all that smart, but it's really relevant and we gotta get it out. What I'm saying is I listened to an ad, uh a episode of What Next that felt like it was approximately one third. not actual stuff. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? You're thinking about is this a video like is this a thing I could love? Or something like, you know, again, like uh I I'm not proud of saying this, but I really like dumb fucking Disney videos. And so somebody like Defunct Land, I think, does a fantastic job. And has good branding and has like, but a minimum of all that stuff and still like puts a ton of care into like what that guy's what he's doing.

You know what I mean? And like sometimes it's it's very it's ineffable. It's not a specific thing you can point to, but if you are around something that feels like partly garbage long enough, you start to go, Oh, I see. You think I'm a fucking idiot. Or you just don't care. You know what I mean? And like there's just with the professionalization of all of this stuff and the industrial scale of all of this stuff has led to Bad habits, what I would consider bad habits, or dark patterns being passed on from creator to creator, platform to platform, topic to topic. to where it just my f this is a f a phrase my friend Tony Bellante said when we were in college and I still uh use this phrase all the time.

It's all rapping and no presence. And sometimes I really feel like I just opened a box of wrapping paper. I I I was going to uh push uh push back because I don't think it's the professionalization. I can't say that word either, but it is the industrialization of podcast. Because people have uh never pushed back on your pushing back. That's how you can tell I'm your friend. Why no no no I I but you have done. Notice that I didn't say seriousness. I didn't say seriousness I didn't say care. I didn't say effort. I didn't say any of those words. It is professionalization. It's a way of Yes. But I mean making money off of the case. No, not at all. No, no, no. There's a bunch of people making zero fucking money out there.

They've been cutting muscle since before they learned how to edit a video. They've been ready to put their dick into the machinery From moment zero, and they're out there, they're out there shuffling around trying to collect nickels off the subway platform with complete fucking horseshit. You know, it's like it's why I always think when when people say things like, Oh my god, I love this service, I wish I could pay for it. And it's like I agree, I agree. If I th but here's the problem. That implies that paying for something not only means that it's worth paying for, but that you're having an impact on the long how long lived that thing will be, which is absolutely an assumption. That's out I mean like the thing is professionalization, what I'm trying to say is like you go out, you fake it till you make it.

You put on your dad's suit and you fill your briefcase with crackers and you fucking show up with a bunch of fucking stock footage. And it's like, I if I watch two of those that's got a bunch of doot doot music in it that you got from some goddamn library, I un so And here's you, here's you. Oh, it's capitalism, it's the system. I know. I happen to be in more part of the same hypocrisy, senator. I'm aware of that. But it's okay for you to hate what I do, but you're not allowed to accuse me of dumb bullshit. Because I spend so much of my time deliberately not doing dumb bullshit because I care about you. You pieces of shit I Do you understand how much stock footage we could be using right now?

Who's a plane landing? You're the woman laughing while she's gonna be asking. Okay, okay. But that's why I don't underst I don't uh This is why I do g what people would consider the odd jobs like d Tour Dash in gig economy things because every Every audio job, every production job, wherever I go, every freelance, it it you need to do everyone wants that bullshit. I because of the industrialization of it. Because it's because yes. It is what is expected to be. You will be cutting people off. You will be running stop signs. You will be very nearly killing beautiful children because the black BMW is who you've become. And there are people who Tri like the this this started on YouTube, but they will imply that something is an ad when it's not.

Because if you don't have ads, then you aren't serious. Yeah, yeah. At one point I I offered to put up I at one point I said to my advertising people at 43 folders, like, hey What's with all these like weird Microsoft ads? And and as I've said before, they said, well, you know, you already give a million free ads a month to Apple. Yeah. It's about getting like w what don't you understand about what an ad is for? An ad is to get you to do something you're not doing. Unless it's a brand ad about like drink coke kind of stuff. Generally you're trying to encourage somebody to do something that they're not doing right now. You know, and I was like, well, should I run some free Apple ads? And like, no, that's that's not cool.

You can't do that. You know. But that's you know, be the avarice you want to see in the world. Well, and what upsets me most is not even like when when YouTube people do those It makes it sound like they're two people. Two people. It's like you're talking about the hill people. Nobody likes the hill people. As independent as one can be when they are, you know, d using the the Google's algorithm and service. But when it is Gimlet, when it is a Slate, when it is iHeartRadio or Wonder or whatever, the people who I love that you know all of these. Wha well but uh what do you think? I I I know Wondery's fucking amazing Didn Wondery do that one podcast where they try to solve a mystery about a crime?

Was that them? The uh I think they're gonna be a good one. Yeah, I think they did Wondery. I'm getting a lot of help right now from anyway It's shit. It's it's so much of it is shit. And there are so many talented people there. It is, yes. Yes, that is exactly like I thought you were b doing a bit about Wondery because that is what Wondery is. And they they are Yeah, this is like the thing I keep threatening to do where I walk up to somebody shooting video somewhere and I go, hey, don't you have a channel on is it Instagram or YouTube? And they go, oh yeah, yeah, I'm big on Instagram. Oh my God, did you do that one where you went to a restaurant one time? I keep wanting to try this to see how many times I can get away with knowing absolutely nothing about what someone does by just guessing based on the extreme amount of democratic horseshit that has been spread over our landscape.

Every kind of one I am I am so happy that you don't I've heard of it. I just I couldn't tell you what a wondery show is. It's uh where's what what is the sporkful? Where is that? Is that part of a split? Sorry. Sorry, Dan Pashman's Sporkful. Oh, I'm a podcast. Where is it? It's definitely somewhere. Okay. Uh but but that's well, I I think about shows too. Um that are produced by things like uh do you d have you heard of Pineapple Studio? It is. You've mentioned it and I feel like I've heard oh God, I feel like there's one that I've listened to and I should know that name. Tell me. It uh k honestly, well here's the thing. I have forgotten those names because they put out so much shit that uh that buries the the good stuff that it it makes.

It's they That that is another thing that uh I used to keep I oh god. I used to stay subscribed to a podcast RSS feed because why why not? Like, you know, sometimes someone will drop uh will drop an episode. But now all of these companies like Stitcher and Wondery, they they do this for fucking care. Nobody there loves what they're doing. And that's why and when when you uh ask why uh w why not I understand you're being careful in the way you're wording this, so you can skip this. Don't worry. I'll let it go. The people who care get to be corrupted by anything. That's the thing. That's the thing. Gimlet's favorite thing to do is to hire someone as a contractor. and then give them a full-time position for one year and then lay the and uh it's like oh there's benefits you can join the union yeah and then you get laid off And then they will be able to do that.

Hey everybody, thanks for coming in. Is everybody here? It looks like Jerry Jerry's coming in uh remotely. We just want to go over a couple quick things here. Um we're across this right now. Well we know how it plays. Um our favorite thing right now, um can you mute? I'm I'm hearing typing on your end. Sorry, I have to take this. Wait, really? No, I was doing I was doing a callback to a thing on the people like I miss that guy. Uh I I preferred your wallet material, but you know, I'm not sure. No, that's the joke though. The joke the joke is and as my friend John Sarkisa would say well this is the problem is like pretty soon you're gonna think he talked into your show that was Maxwell Smart on the TV show Get Smart There's 47 of them.

Oh shit, I got did I tell you got another one? So last week was transparent, right? Last week was I figured out the transparent is because it's a trans person who's a parent. Did I tell you last week I figured out they're called the Beths because the singer's name is Elizabeth? Oh wait. Wait, is there more than one one? Oh no, this is a whole thing I've been capturing for a year. For someday on Recdis, we're gonna do a whole show that's just things we should have figured out a long time ago. Mm-hmm. But is it I I knew that one of the band namers band well I knew there was an Elizabeth, but is there more than one Elizabeth? Okay. See see it would have been cute if there was two. That'd be cute.

They were originally called the wondery. It is why I'm never gonna have a job again. No Did you venture into the classes area? No, I mean I I I've Not this week I didn't, no. I mean I've I've clicked around a fair amount. I mean here's here's my f super fast take on this. If there are people on Nebula who you enjoy from YouTube, there's a pretty good chance you should at least give this a try. All I would say is that it's the the the beauty of Nebula, the stuff on Nebula is gonna be once you've discovered what's there. Started sampling things, decided what's for you and not for you, and then you've added stuff to your whatever watch list library, whatever it's called. My problem is that like probably almost everybody, I end up starting out on what I'll just call the Nebula homepage, which It it does not give you it's tr it's so sweaty to get you to watch all these different things that you could lose a Maggie Mayfish or a philosophy tube and the lights.

But like it's gonna be about spending some time looking at stuff, seeing what you like, seeing what's new, and then going like, oh David Friedman is here. Like I love Ironic Sands. Maybe I'll start you know, it's gonna be like i you land on you have this landing page that's Hmm, not overwhelming, but not very welcoming. It is a lot of like like a a gate-mouthed lawyer. And why is Donald Trump being booked into a county jail in that thumbnail? And they what the sheriff went and got him for like a parking violation? Well is he in a county jail? And he's going and this guy's going, eh? By the way, this will be the thumbnail because I'm fucking mad at this guy now Um but you're gonna then go spend your time in the library part and then start working out.

You start out at this high level view of here's all the shit on nebula. Let's try a few things, see what we think, right? You've you've got people you're following, and then I would say after you've you know, s save yourself the overwhelmed feeling of that dumb fucking homepage with the gapy lawyer and then spend time in your library and then work out in concentric circles. and discover that lawyer. Hi. Hi, I'm KP lawyer. Bad credit? No credit? Hi. Hi. Do you have a structured settlement or annuity? Hi. Do you have an unused life insurance policy? Hello? Why is my mouth open? I can't close it, and that's none of your business. Also, I'm a lawyer Who might be a chicken? Talk about a deep cut. I'm a fancy lawyer.

I'm a fancy corporate lawyer who might be a chicken. That might be the funniest thing I ever said. But so there's that. That's what I would say. And then I actually do. Oh, we're not done? Oh. Well, I do have another no, I have another topic too. Oh, oh, all right. Wait, can can I say one one thing about Nebula? God damn it, jump in, please jump in. No, no, I I just the reason that it feel uh like I I feel like I'm saying a lot of negative things about Nebula, but that's because they're anything but well yeah, but it's not anything we can help. It's it's because there are so many uh there there are so many people on here that I've already like and I I love their stuff and I love that they're able to, you know, do things like Abigail Thorn who's able to make enough money that she can't do.

Yeah, yeah. Like she had a fucking uh play on West End. Yes. And like that's I l I love that. Um but this Fault this is what I call the college humor slash dropout TV problem, which a lot okay, I a lot of people will pr understand this. I I I promise. They put uh uh It's you Dropout TV is um d it's similar to I don't know what that is, Alex. Can you tell me what that is? It's it's similar to Nebula, like a uh but if It it's like Dungeons and Dragons comedy stuff. Like popular folks who used to work at College Humor. They decided we are going to just put all of our stuff. Oh, is Coloche is that like the two guys that were in the videos? The people used to be in the office next to Tumblr? You know what I'm talking about, right?

The two guys who had the desk next to each other. You know what I'm talking about? No, no. I think they're the single most popular thing that was ever on college humor, but now I gotta look it up. Well that that college humor changed hands many times and the the Th then the founders, like the original founders, it was kind of a pinboard situation. They just bought it out and they created Drop out TV and they're like, We don't want to compete on YouTube with all of this crap all all of this stuff. Jake and Amir. The uh maybe were they on the I mean college humor was like this. Jake and Amir. They were huge. And Amir. I uh uh these guys look familiar. Eleven seasons So it started out as it started out as college humor, then they became uh what was it called dropout TV?

The uh yes, but I don't see yes, okay. So and and that's the thing. It is like this um sort of cohort of creators. It's not d just Dungeons and Dragons, but that's service. This is from the Internet Science site. Service that includes uncensored and original video series animations and other forms of media including comics and fictionalized chat conversations. So it's like it's like dorky nerd stuff. Yes, and they were able to um in use the college humor uh humor platform, like how Nebula used the popularity of the YouTube educational essayist type people. And uh b both are very uh popular. But But if you are not already a fan, it r runs into the problem, like you said, you're bombarded with this UI.

But what's worse is it feels like and it it it feels this way with a lot of independent streaming services. Oh god, like when CISO briefly existed. They're trying to mix the case. Isn't that where isn't that where Letterkenny was? originally? Originally Letter Kenny was on YouTube as shorts. Back when it was just Letter Kenny problems. I f it was CIS no CISO's the brothers, right? CISO was the brothers. Okay, that's what I'm thinking of probably. And the th they're trying to be like, look, we're YouTube but but better. So they've got the huge uh like hero image, uh not hero, um the the like big thumbnails on the top that you scroll through and then the scrolling doesn't w work. They're all Apple TV apps.

And it's just a little bit of a-the people who redid nine to five Mac. They stand whatever. Kind of. Yeah, I I love RSS readers. Um, but I uh want more things like Nebula. Uh I we need to talk I don't know. We need a target. We need a target. Oh God. And I love him very much. He's a reader. Big book person. Loves books. This is what John Waters said. If you c go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck 'em. Um John Waters or Mark Twain. I don't I don't remember. Uh but yeah. I'm glad that Nebula exists and I hope that whatever they do, they Like I I don't know. I hope uh that they're able to like make more money off of the videos they have on this versus what they have on YouTube because it's very clear, like There at least uh stuff that I watch, it there would literally be like, this is where the YouTube ad goes and there would that would be a like a f a frame in one of the the videos because it's just it can't be sus This actually does lead directly into the thing I want to ask you about in a second.

But yeah, I can't be sustainable. I mean, it's got to be, I mean I don't think I I I would not I would not be surprised at all to to say there's probably somebody in this who is all in on nebula. YouTube might be an afterthought and a way to tick tickle people's interest in subscribing to Nebula. But here's the thing. On YouTube you're gonna be paid based on what you do. Whether it's fair or not, I don't have an opinion on that or but like the truth is, like, if you get more viewers, you get more money. I I assume there's something kind of like that with Nebula, but why would you stop doing YouTube? If you're doing Nebula, why leave any money on the table? Which then if if we accept that those both seem like plausible real things that happen, well then pretty soon you go, well, yeah, mainly I'm still just making stuff for YouTube that I also put on Nebula.

Right. And that is Dropout avoided that problem by pretty much only having trailers or um like like Uh most of their series would be unwatchable if you only did YouTube. It's basically they throw up the videos like here here's the ad. Yeah, and and there are Nebula uh originals and uh Anita does uh Anita Sarkeesian does uh one of those. Um it's called Remember When And it's it it's a little bit um like the sort of like original you're wrong about type type of thing. And if if they're able to create sorry, uh it it she talks about emails. God, that's insane. That was one of the weird that was such a weird day. I wish I had more agency over the people in the world. It's not my day to watch. But uh I get excited when I and I haven't watched this yet because I s was trying to fucking find new new things on uh the the nebula originals, but Lindsay Ellis has new stuff.

She's the one I want to talk about. I was like, holy shit, yes, yes. So anyway, give it Give it give it a try if you can pay $3 or $30. No, actually give it to our Patreon first. But then go go give money to Lindsay Ellis. Tell me about Lindsay Ellis. I I'd love Lyle. Well the th something we talked about, um one of the things we talked about with sp Spotify and podcasts. That I don't know m I don't know if I know every fact of this exactly right and in the right order and without any kind of spin on it, but The caution one of the cautionary tales, apart from everything involved in Gimlet, was um what was the um Friends Video Game podcast? Uh that we always talk about the besties. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where they went all in on Spotify. They lost their feed. They lost their everything. Spot and then Spotify, at least in the store, the telling I heard was, hey you guys, thanks. Bye. We're gonna keep all this, you guys go. Polygon's cool about at least letting you keep Monster Factory or something, right? Or in the case of like I don't know, like BDC. Well before Vox, uh Vox before Vox, what's that mean? Uh va Vox always uh uh m mmm polygon and uh like uh vi vice and all of those, it's much more locked down and if you create anything there, it's very there you know, there's a lot of things. Yes. Well that's because there must be at least PD because like isn't wasn't Justin like technically like a co-founder of it?

Yep. Mm-hmm. Okay. Anyways, um but like In sight of all of that and the frustration, I felt bad for those guys because I thought that was a it's I'm not that into video games and I'm less into that crew of people than I used to be for my own personal reasons. But I um I always enjoyed that show and I thought it was well done. And then it was a bummer when I heard that like you can't you can't even get it on Spotify anymore. Right. And that there was a whole, you know, whatever. But like the part of that conversation that I find interesting, despite this not being something I've obsessed over in ten years, is like, well, how do you how do you get to have a popular podcast? Well The number one way to have a popular podcast is to be a popular person.

So like if Michelle Obama does a podcast, I have a feeling a few people will probably listen to it. You know, if if the if the I was just talking to a guy this morning about the trees that fell down in in the park because of this wind damage, if that guy starts a podcast, it might be a little more of a slog than it was for Michelle Obama. You can buy ads, you can do things, you can do drop drops, whatever it is, there's all different ways. But like this this is just a fact of life that not everybody will grow at the same pace or at all in some cases. So you kind of I don't know, my the way I would put it, as some kind of like fake John Sayles, denim wearing like not John Sayles, but fake fake version of that is like well you you do the work and you show up and you do the thing because that does sound like something I would say and just keep doing it and like keep trying to not suck and Even if you can't respect the people who listen to your stuff, at least try not to actively come to hate them in your decision making.

I would like to think I'm a little more m m good than that, but whatever. Um, how do you grow in terms of YouTube? Well, one problem with YouTube, it's the algorithm, it's the capitalism, and Oh, if you gonna watch you're gonna watch this and hit that bell famine blah blah blah and so on and so forth and like so here's the thing you came to nebula probably because you liked at least one of these people on YouTube and that's good Okay. I several remarks I have made in this episode will I will now clarify into the following remark is like I don't know if I th I know there are special things, I know there are movies, I know there's good stuff, I know everybody's trying hard. I have yet to find something yet on mostly on Nebula that is really vastly different and better than what I would be seeing right now on YouTube.

There is not a single person on Nebula, honestly, where if I canceled Nebula tomorrow, I I wouldn't miss it. And that's not I don't mean that disparagingly, because there is great stuff there. But here's the point I'm trying to do. There'd be very little to miss. Okay, so there's this video from Lindsay Ellis, who I think I have always known mostly from the Thanks I Hate It meme. But I don't know, I guess she She's canceled or something. I don't know, whatever. But the thing is, like, she did this one video, and yes, of course, everybody gets mad about this. She did a fucking amazing video on Tropic Thunder. She fucking rules. She's amazing. Well, okay, but here's the thing. Tropic Thunder is one of my favorite movies.

I'm not even gonna have a conversation with you about whether it's problematic because go watch it three more times and tell me if it's problematic, you fucking idiot. It's like saying that. You're missing the point of the movie. The existence of quote-unquote black face does not make something racist. Jenna Maloney in blackface is one of the most instructive things a white person will see this decade. And it's a goddamn shame you're not gonna see it because we've just I get it. I get it. It's hurtful. Don't be hurtful, but we're not being hurtful. If anything, the whole point of the movie, as everybody, especially Robert Downey Jr. said, is I'm making fun of actors. I'm making fun of myself.

I'm making fun of somebody who would have a surgical procedure to quote unquote become black because he's such a method actor. And you go, oh my God, what a fucking idiot. And you're like, yeah, what a fucking idiot. That's the point, right? So she did this amazing video on Tropic Thunder. I watched it, I went on Nebula. I went back, I watched it, I watched it again Like and and and listen, I I I understand. I don't know if she took it down for some but like I wanted more than almost anything in that day to share that with people and go like This is, you know, hey, I I understand I un I don't agree with you, but I understand why you don't see this movie the same way I do. That's okay. Like this is America, man.

That's why you gotta let's not boogie. Let's not boogie um play play craps because that's America, man. Um but like here's the thing. Let's say you did really put your back into it and make a lot of original stuff, or in this case of like with um Gosh, I'm already spacing on her name. Um, Philosophy Tube. Abigail Thorne. Right. So I don't know if staging a play filming it in like crazy good looking 4K, like really good looking. Like that's a lot of work. Now question. Did she make that quote unquote for Nebula? Or was it something that she was gonna do anyway? And like I would like to have been in the room. I would like to be a fly on the wall for the discussion of does this go up on Vimeo for money Like for example, Dave I I always say it wrong, Dave and TJ?

TJ and Dave? The the the two Chicago improv guys. Where I like bought their movie, their documentary, and their whole series from Vimeo Because I am so it's think about middle diction Schwartz in difficult mode. Like they middle diction Schwartz basically, from what I can tell, mostly got their bit from these two guys. And they are much more pure about it. It's much more like closer to Del Close, like this isn't supposed to be all funny. We're not going for big laughs. We're just like intensely and uncomfortably, awkwardly in every moment of this, and you're here with it. Two chairs, two guys. That's the show, right? I bought that. I don't want to say it's a spiritual experience, but I don't know how to it it's very difficult.

Where you're like watching stu watching uh Philippe, what's his name, walk between the towers, and you're like, why did you do that? That's so crazy. Except they do it over and over. And you're like every time and that that moment though when they both walk out and everything you see here tonight is improvised, da-da-da-da. Bla blackout lights come up and it's two men standing on stage and neither one of them has any idea. They didn't get suggestions from the audience. They didn't like say, well, I need a kind of pizza and, you know, the the name of a cop or whatever. No. They just go out there and they just look at each other and then something happens. You hope. And it's you're on the edge of your seat with like what is gonna happen.

It's so thrilling. Anyway, I Instabought that on Vimeo. So one channel, yeah, Vimeo has a way where you can go. I've bought several things. I bought the um Uh conspiracy theory. Uh Kirby Puckett or whatever his name is. I bought this is not a con Kirby Ferguson. Uh yeah. I buy all his stuff on Vimeo. So like that's a channel, right? I guess. I don't know, maybe this channel is to sell stuff through YouTube. But like the the eight million pound gorilla node. Which is like if you want to have your videos seen And you haven't put it on YouTube yet, you've probably got a very specific, good, bad, or otherwise, but very specific reason for not putting it on YouTube. Because why wouldn't you put it on YouTube?

It's nuts. It's like if people said it's like if somebody said to you, Hey, guess what? You get to advertise, you get free billboard advertising inside of any media market in the United States. And before the sentence is out of someone's mouth, You go New York Times Times Square. Or you go LA Sunset Boulevard. Or whatever, right? You don't you don't go like, oh geez, I can't decide w which Native American reservation in Montana I want to put this up at. What the fuck? You put it if you if it cost you exactly the same no matter what, which is free, wouldn't you how would you not put it in the place where everything is? But here's the thing. So if somebody really wants to lean into this and they're as excited about Nebula as they as their ejaculatory remarks about it seem to indicate.

I mean, did maybe that play end up there because it didn't end up somewhere else? I mean, did she I don't care, but I am interested. Did she stage and film that play for Nebula? Because my gut is She staged and filmed that play beautifully and the nebula's where it is. Because I if there was a way to make more money and get more exposure From any other means? Some combination of exposure and money? Right? This goes back to what I was saying about the besties. Like, if your podcast, once you go on Spotify, Spotify is where your podcast goes to, if not to die, to at least retire. You're not gonna see growth. Spotify, I imagine, likes to sell it as. You know, oh yeah, you're gonna get growth here.

But here's the thing. If it's a Spotify only podcast, you just you're now getting a slice of a much smaller pie and basically making it difficult. if there is any chance for growth for what you're doing, you know, because growth matters. Growth matters in the sense of like if you care and you want to make money and you want to spread the word and eventually get a TV show or whatever. Like you need people to find it. If you go, if you get an if you get a middling popular podcast put it on Spotify and only Spotify. Give me five success stories that have come out of that. Because that's why I say it's where your podcast goes to retire or potentially die. So I I I'm not trying to I don't mean to be a dick about this.

I I'm I like this, I pay for it, it's great, but as long as like, you know, we're talking about the business aspect of this. I think you would have a problem doing something as good as Lindsay Ellis' video on Tropic Thunder that I haven't tried to share it yet. Maybe I should try to see if I can share it, but I don't think I can share it because it's for Nebula subscribers. So like how do you now that you've achieved enough success to be part of this cool kids lunch table or at least not the student council lunch table over at Nebula. Like how do you how do you grow after that? And maybe it doesn't matter to grow. I mean it's not certainly as you know Alex is f very low on my list of priorities is like grow, grow.

Like I said to Roderick the other day, first I have to l agree that you're allowed to like it. Growth mindset. Growth mindset. Oh Growth Mindset. That's good. It's better than crit. But Growth Mindset is not terrible. But um, anyways, that's the thing though, is like I don't understand how this I don't know if I want to say scales up or grows or something else, but like, you know, you can you can you put these videos somewhere? Have you tried? Yeah. But what happens? The video I'm talking about. Oh you know what? Let's do this. Let's let's let's just grab this. I'm gonna copy that. I'm clicking, I'm opening Firefox where I am not logged in. I'm pasting and let's see what it says. Oh god, I hope I'm wrong about this.

Okay, sign in, sign up. There it is. It says sign up now or keep looking around. I'm gonna say keep looking around. Can I play this? You must be signed in to watch videos. Yep. So I loved that video. I'm I'm I'm almost certainly in the lowest quintile of influential people who enjoy Lindsay Ellis videos, and yet I might be able to share this with three people who become super fans this month. Okay, you are picking a very specific she took that off YouTube because Yeah. Like I totally understand what you're saying, but she did not realize. I see what you're saying. You're saying like yeah, yeah, that's true. It's accurate in terms of facts, but she's had this wider problem of like people people wanting to like throw our thing, right?

It's like how I only say faggot on our Epra show. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's try another one. Let's try another one. I'll go to Alt Shift X. Alt-ShiftX, which I learned about another one I follow on YouTube, they do lots of stuff, but I got into AltShift X because they do the best Game of Thrones videos. And deep dives on the books. Yeah. And the movies and hot D. And so like if I go to Hot D S1E10 explained, I'm copying. I'm clicking. I'm going back to this. And let's see if this will helpfully save my reputation. The first one is on us. Interesting. Enjoy this video and then sign up or sign in. Well, that's cool. But Uh but you know, what is virality? Well, pfft. Virality is something gets out there and to to use a a term that used to mean something, it tips, which is like maybe that's five people who see it and they share that and then ten people see it.

And then that eventually at a certain point becomes logarithmic. And so many people are sharing that. Virality is when you learned about something from somebody else who learned about something from somebody else. Well, the virality stops at the point where you can't share it anymore. And it becomes basically uh oh we don't say crippleware anymore. Nagware or all those different names we used to use for various kinds of shareware. Mm-hmm. Like it just becomes a way of going. Like, you know, it's like almost like those signs you'd see in the sixties that are like, if you lived here, you'd be home now. Where it's like, oh, you could be enjoying this discussion of Game of Thrones, but you learned about it casually from somebody else.

And now you have to give us money to watch it. How do you grow with that? I mean, there are people who don't want t to grow. They get a s Steady paycheck to from like just like must grow on. I don't think these people are above it. They started a company. The no no uh no no no but I I'm talking uh about the um like n nebula excl exclusives or or whatever. And uh the amount of Uh I uh the amount of well I mean you can't watch survivor. I think I was making I was making a joke. Who says that? What's the one with Will Farrell? What's the Will Farrell one? It's not college humor, but uh the one with the uh the the landlord. What's that thing he created that's all Will Farrell videos? Uh uh. Um Exclusive.

Baby neighbor or baby landlord. Uh I I don't know. Maybe it was on uh uh the do you s I mean I I I think this is Like w some people don't want to or or need to gr grow. Like funny or dies and then funny. Funny or die. Um oh man, this video is way older than I thought it was. Wow. She's probably dead now. Wow. The oh no, no. Yeah, and the fucked up part is they buried her in that dress. She was much too tall to be wearing that dress in her in her in her coffin. And they put that beer bottle in with her. And the reason I know that exclusive, I think it's mostly from between two ferns, of which I've watched many Not everybody wants to grow. Not everybody wants to make more money and make their business wider.

Some people have reached a level. So this is less of nebula becomes less of a thing about I think it's sustainability. Okay. I think that I mean from what time. Or fucking god damn it, what's the stupid fucking show called? Downstream. Uh uh Yeah, Downstream. They should have a show called Downgrade. I may have to go into the Slack right now. until Mike and Stevens something very important to me to create a new show with a round logo called Downgrade. Gonna make it. I'm gonna hit Frank Towel up. I'm gonna offer him two hundred dollars to make me a logo for whatever it is I want it to be called. I want it to be is there a downgrade? I don't even know. Well, okay, here's here's here's a question.

Then then why isn't uh why isn't due by Friday on on YouTube YouTube because that is one of the biggest actually but I I'm happy to I'm happy to address that. I well, okay, so I asked the suits about this at one point. I said, hey, you know, people like CGP Gray put all the podcasts that he's on, like go also go on YouTube. Who else does this? I think the flop house does it now. Stuff like that. And I one point I I said to probably Stephen, maybe Mike. I was like, hey, do you think we should put I might be hallucinating this, but I feel like I had this conversation. I remember pretty clearly. I was like, hey, do you what do you think? Should we be putting, for example, should we be putting rectifs in other places?

I understand there's a POV that says that's going to cannibalize downloads at the TLD. But it also seems like, you know, I see s and the reason specifically I said like, you know, your buddy Gray does this. And I feel like if memory serves, what they said was, mm, it might not be worth the effort. It's just it was CGP Gray, dummy. He got big first where? Mm-hmm. YouTube. Right. So it makes absolute sense that a guy with that many, I don't know, people interested in what he does would would put it there and be part or like the McElroys. I mean If Travis takes a dump, somebody posts it, you know? No. Yeah. Well, I I mean one more dumps coming. Keep going. It's what? It it it it was very fl flattering.

Like I I didn't even think of um of like putting a two to it girl on on YouTube until the the baby queers were like, Oh, I couldn't find it. I'm like, oh just Uh the b uh baby queers who asked uh What what is the term I'm sorry, just really quickly, what did what does the term baby queer mean? Uh a young uh g elevated person. A younger person who wanted to listen to Two Eddie Girl and was not a it's not a special thing. Uh it's the people that I grew up. Some of us some of the younger people who I've got to do a daughter I was there are more and more people who only listen to quote podcasts on YouTube, which Understandable, because that's also, you know, because the music thing and all of that, even before YouTube got really weird about the whole like go listen to this in the music thing, like I I I've I'd heard for some years now that that's how youths Find music.

You just go to and I see it all the time. You go to some I'm trying to find a specific video for a specific squeeze song, and it's like, oh, here's every song from Sweets from a Stranger. And it's like Interesting, like how that stuff stays up. But I guess that gets credited and AM makes or whatever AM is now makes money off of that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's similar to the TikTok. Oh I love that you have baby queers. Are there people are there young people who enjoy your show? Yeah, that's the primary. Oh my god. It it really does. Yeah, yeah. I don't mean to make you lovable. Anyway. I think it's interesting that you picked Lin Lindsay Ellis specifically not picked. I talk about a weird coincidence though.

The Like the one video out of like probably thousands on here Is the worst example I could have possibly picked for this. It's completely coincidentally. I was like, why isn't this on YouTube? And Alex is like, oh yeah. No reason it's not on YouTube. So fucking good. Not just that, but a lot of her videos aren't on YouTube because she she hasn't been canceled. She has been harassed for like an entire decade. She is given talks on how harassed she ha has been and now she just writes writes books. But y you tell me. Sh she was like on old school YouTube of like doing like little skids like sketches and And p men who hated her for being more successful literally sc would have s had screenshots for decades.

Yeah, it's well, yeah. So so but Uh let's say it's a little bit more than a little bit. No, I've seen it. Then it's like, okay, turn off your comments on YouTube. But then it the algorithm does not push push it up if you don't have algorithms on it. So like it l I I assume. If you lock your door, how will the door to door salesman get in? Exactly. It's a very good question. Once again, though, I think we may be operating from slightly different Max Fisher versus Iron sheet kind of problems here. Remember to watch reels. Oh, why do you throw sand in my eyes? Oh god Fucking or f no, what are the shorts. That's what YouTube calls them. Oh, I hit the X on that yesterday. Oh fuck. There's so much stuff I've subscribed to.

Well I I don't look at subscriptions as much as I probably should I wish I could customize the UI, or I wish I could customize, if you like, the menu for YouTube's Apple TV app. Because pretty much everything I want to see is honestly recommendations. or watch later or history. So like sometimes like you know I like recommendations like unfortunately on Apple TV my recommendations are uniquely shitty and I don't know why. But And so I spent a lot of time going, I'm not interested in this channel. Um and I don't know. Sorry, wait. My recommendations are different. Apple TG, I get the stupidest shit for fucking weeks until I exit. Yeah, and I'm talking about like, you know, I'm on the betas. And I'm a quitter.

Like I love quitting apps on Apple TV because sometimes that's the way that you make your Apple TV work. Um a side note, if you think that's not accurate, you're not using your Apple TV. Um if you actually use it. Oh, why is the audio still playing? I don't know. It's we probably shouldn't quit the app though because that you who uses up more memory. Oh, thanks Macworld. Meet meep. Um super helpful. Thank you. Oh, now there's two audio streams going and I can't stop that. Is it Is it a runaway process? No, it's Apple TV. Oh it drives me crazy though. Let me pull it up right now. If I go to my subs And I go to library. I'm clicking, I go to subscriptions. And oh my god, all the shit from like always sunny, wired, breaking bad, better call sol channel, they're all in that dumb fucking.

uh portrait phone format. Yeah. YouTube Sean's. Okay. Alright. That's because people watch it on their phone? Uh that's because YouTube want to I uh I think the majority, but that's not because people w like watching it like that. That is because uh g uh YouTube wanted to shorts to be TikTok and so now you get penalized if you don't put up shorts, just like if you don't put up reels. Good, that'll show 'em. That'll bring them around. Yeah, yeah. That's C C n Yeah, you know a a lot of the in the people in the French New Wave. Uh suffer from that. No, don't you remember? And Godard was like, uh, Zootalures, I've got to make this look good on a phone. Francois Trivault, Fra Toufro, why don't you make your phone?

First one move like they're on a phone. And then in French he says, I can't hear you. Alan Z. raw transcript