[upbeat music] Welcome back to Taste Land. I am your co-host, Francis Zehr. And I'm Daisy Alioto. Uh, and by the way, I usually don't say this, but I'm gonna say it now.
If you've been listening to this for 30 episodes or however many we've done and you haven't followed us on your podcast platform of choice, I'm gonna ask you to do so.
Um, Daisy, I wanted to ask you, what are five things that you got done this week? What the heck? If you don't tell me- Skip... within the next 48 seconds, I'm going to fire you as the co-host of this podcast.
Oh, I see what you're doing. This is an Elon situation. Well, I, I can hit you with five right now. I went to my contact lens follow-up. That's one. I read a book by Emily Wells. Two. Um, I [laughs] Clock's ticking.
Ah, ah. [laughs] Oh, I sold out my Notes Night event. Nice. So you're selling out. They had to add more tickets, and we sold those out, too.
Um, and I'm currently, uh, getting organized with all the notes that were submitted by people who coming to the event, so I have to go through- Including myself. Including yourself. You were late.
Um- [laughs] I gotta go to the copy center after this and get them all nicely printed out. You know, I'll admit to, speaking of being late to notes things, um, I, I didn't...
I forgot to buy a ticket, and then I bought one only after you released the ones for the slackers. Um- Okay. Well, that's not good... but I did, I did buy a ticket. I'm just let you know, I bought a ticket. Thank you.
You're welcome. It comes with a copy of the book, so you were gonna do that anyway. [laughs] I was g- was gonna do it. Um, and the fifth thing is, like, I burned a, a frozen pizza.
I didn't even know that I could f- mess up a frozen pizza, but I did that. Yeah, I don't think that's something you should submit on this official record, um,
that d- d- I actually I guess I don't know how, how the five things works. Like if- Did you know that, Francis, did you know that everything has a 50% chance of happening, because it'll either happen or not happen?
That's how the odds work? That's how... That's... Is that like physics? Prove me wrong. Oh, that's so interesting, 'cause I can't prove you wrong.
[laughs] I saw a tweet about how somebody's, like, young son is just, like, totally convinced that this is true, and I started saying it ironically, but I've, like, I've, like, 50% pilled myself. You know what I mean?
[laughs] Like, I, now I'm like, "Actually, that is true." You know the asteroid that was gonna hit, they kept upping it, and then now it's back at zero. Back at zero.
But it's been 50% the whole time, 'cause it's either gonna hit or not. Um- That's so true... there's a 50% chance it'll hit me personally. [laughs] Um, I wanted to talk about Art of the Steal.
Uh, last week, when we were... At the beginning of the episode, we were talking about the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Yeah. And then- Former guest Mike Pepe- Former guest Mike Pepe... chimed in your mentions.
Yeah, was in my mentions telling me to watch Art of the Steal, and I watched it. Um, and it was good. It's... if... It's, like, 100 minutes or so.
If you're interested in, you know, the politics of the art world and, like, big money, so-called charities, whatever, um, I would recommend it. It's, it's, it's fun.
But I guess, like, you know, w- when I went to the Barnes, it's this beautiful building, beautiful experience. I was hyped. I was like, "Wow, this is amazing." Um, and I pro- I guess
I probably wouldn't have seen it if Mr. Barnes' wishes were, were, were hewn to. Mm.
Basically, what happened is, like, over about half a century after he died, these various political forces in Philadelphia conspired to undermine this trust he wrote- Mm...
to, uh, make sure that the art was never moved, never left the building that he had it in. That's, like, five miles in Marion, Philadelphia or Marion, Pennsylvania, like five miles outside of Philadelphia. Um,
I probably would've never seen it. So it's like it's bad that this guy's trust was undermined, and this, th- this thing he had assembled, like, hi- with his amazing taste was stolen from him.
But on the other hand, I was a beneficiary of, of this thievery. Yeah. Uh, this is an issue that comes up a lot. I guess, I don't think we talked about it on the episode with Tatum, but, um,
uh, deaccessioning works- Mm-hmm...
as a way to actually create more parity between large and small institutions, um, especially given that, like, the large institutions have more art than they can actually display- Mm... and are often storing a lot of it.
When works are bequeathed to a museum, oftentimes there's limits on whether they can sell off that work or move that work.
But the ability to sell off that work allows it to, like, A, circulate among smaller museums, so, like- Mm-hmm... regional museums or at the very least, like, lend it out, and then, B,
generate revenue for the museum that can then go into programming or things like, you know, making it free for everyone who's under 25. Yeah.
And so it's, like, a really complicated issue because, you know, a lot of these donations are made with specific things in mind, and people are attached to art being in big collections. Mm-hmm.
But, like, why should one museum have, like, 20 Monets and only be able to display five, and, like, people who live, you know- Well, that... Wait, but that's the thing... in Columbus, Ohio, like- Mm...
I mean, they actually, uh- Is there a nice museum in Columbus, Ohio? Cleveland. Cleveland. Cleveland has a beautiful museum. But- Mm...
you know, Columbus, Ohio, this is just a random example, like, why shouldn't they have a Monet in their local museum as well? Well, uh, see, here's the thing.
With the Barnes one, um, it's almost like the inverse of that, where he didn't want his, th- his art collection to be, like, acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and then not presented in the way- Yeah...
that he had, like, curated it. Um, and, uh, 'cause I think it's, like, he has, like, 108 or something Renoirs, right? And he didn't want them to be split up or sold to multiple museums.
And, and it's all the better for the viewer to go there and go from room to room, and it's like this embarrassment of riches of 108 or however many Renoirs, and you can just look at all them.
Do you know there's people that really hate Renoir? I-There's a Renoir on my Instagram I'm sure there are, but I can't imagine. I don't think I'd ever seen one in person.
You know, it's, it was one of those, like, art history guys [laughs] who I knew about. But I- it blew my mind.
Like, the first room you walk in, there's this amazing portrait of, like, this mother and her two or three kids, and what seems to be, like, a maid or a nanny, and I was just standing in front of it for, like, 10 minutes, like,
kind of scared by, like, how... I don't know.
Like, I, I felt like these figures were moving and, like, staring into my soul, um, which is, I feel like it's, it had been a while since I'd looked at a painting and felt something like that.
Um, there's an Instagram account called Renoir Sucks At Painting. It has 18,000 followers, and- 18,000 viewers... the profile picture is a guy hanging up, uh, holding onto a sign that says, "God hates Renoir."
Okay, I'm looking this up. I have a couple of Renoir. I'm actually staring at one right now. [laughs] Oh, you have a couple Renoirs? Renoir. They're not real. No, so I have a needlepoint- Oh...
of a section of a Renoir literally, like, right off screen, and then I have a, like, a reproduction of a section of The Boating Party that's framed that used to be in my step-grandparents' house- Mm-hmm...
that I haven't hung yet. Um- Okay. Well, wait, I'm looking at this Renoir Sucks At Painting things, thing. I feel like it's a joke. This has gotta be a bit. No, people are really serious about this. That's insane.
No, people... I mean, it's like people think Caravaggio ruined painting. Do you know that? Some- Uh...
a man earnestly told me that one time, and I thought he was just being, like, senile or something, but this is, like, a widely held opinion.
[laughs] You should watch, your next documentary, you should watch the documentary about the heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner. Oh, you, which you were talking about. It was, yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
The Boston accents featured in this documentary are unbelievable. [laughs] Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, it's worth it just for that. Okay. Yeah. I'll watch it. Um- Oh, by the way, guys, we don't have a guest today.
I feel like everyone's just been listening, but, like- Waiting for a guest... when are we gonna introduce the du- the guest? Psych. We were, we won't s- call them out, but we were rug pulled of the guest today.
[laughs] We were, yeah, he had something come up, but we'll- Yeah... we'll talk to him- We'll forgive him... on a future episode. Yeah. It was, it was gonna be a good guest. It will be a good guest in the near future.
Will be a good guest. So yeah, no guest today. [laughs] Um, good idea to call that out, Daisy. Yeah. [laughs] Okay, if you're a longtime listener,
you will have listened to our episode with Dave Hill about his 10,000-word sports betting article in Rolling Stone, which great episode, great article.
Um, on that episode, I told him about my personal sports betting habits, uh, and that I was betting, you know, a dollar here and there on, on parlays- Impossible parlays [laughs]... that I, that I was losing.
And he was like, "You should just, don't bet on, like, the outcome of six games in one parlay. Just bet on each one separately." And so I did become better at sports betting after, after he told me that.
I started, I moved... I'm only betting on soccer, on, on European football, Premier League, Champions League, right?
Um, and I started betting on one game, and it would be like, "This would be the halftime score," or, "Maybe this will be the winner," but more so, "Here's who will have a shot, and here's who will have a shot on target."
Um, and I was almost destitute one day. I had about $5 left. I, I betted, I bet it all on a parlay, [laughs] and it hit for $60. And then I, I had another one. Five, five bucks, hits for 60. I'm up to 180.
I decide, I was like, "Okay, this match, certain outcome." It was like a three, three-part parlay. I bet $100, and I lost. And I'm like, "Fuck. Okay, I gotta, gotta win that back."
And then I had, I still had $50 left, 'cause, you know, I'd built this up from, like, five. Um, and I won it back, and then a couple days later, I [laughs] I had like 200...
Okay, this is getting, this is getting too long, but I had like 200 in there, and I s- I bet it all across four games. Mm-hmm. And I lost it all.
Um, and at that point, I had to quit, because I'd shifted from like, "Okay, this is fun," betting a dollar here or there on the stupid parlay where I'm not gonna win, to where now is I was, like, thinking I knew what I was doing.
And I'm like- Mm... "Okay, I can turn, I can turn this $50-" You got one-shotted by David Hill. I got one-shotted [laughs] by David Hill.
You taught a man to fish, but then you didn't, you didn't need to- And, and, and I fell into the water and drowned. [laughs] You didn't know how, you didn't need to know how to fish.
Um- You shouldn't be fishing to begin with. Yeah. I sto- I stopped sports betting. Um, so I had a great time though for a week where I was winning, but yeah, I had to quit.
Uh, this is a story about, to me, this is not a story about why you should quit sports betting. It's a story about how you should have cashed out when you had 180. But that's not, that's not fun. That's not fun.
That is fun, 'cause then you can go to dinner. Wait, so one thing I wanted, I wanted to bring up, um, getting more into the [laughs] type of topic we usually talk about on this podcast, media literacy.
Um, when I was talking to Alicia Kennedy- It's fun...
for Creative Spotlight, um, the other week, something that came up in the course of our conversation, which I hadn't really thought of before, is this idea that, like,
you know, I mean, obviously plenty to say about media literacy maybe being lower than ever. But what hadn't occurred to me was that maybe a, a certain type of media literacy on the production side is higher than ever.
Mm. So media consumption literacy perhaps lower than ever, but, um, media literacy in terms of, like, producing video, higher than ever.
On the other hand, you know, for example, the rates at which people can write cursive are lower than ever, so you could say that's kind of a media production literacy.
But I had never really thought of me- media liter- media literacy in terms of production like that, only in terms of consumption.
Yeah, it's interesting, 'cause, like, so many young people can edit and, like, jump cut their own TikToks and- Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's like, that's like a big-Difference.
When I, like, sometimes people replying to the Creator Spotlight welcome emails who are, like, o-on, on Instagram, we, we, we run ads on Instagram, so maybe it'll be people who come through there, and they're, like,
asking for advice on how to do Instagram, and I look at their accounts, and it's like, oh, they don't understand that it's not about the content, it's about the form. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that is, that is something...
That's kind of what this, this media literacy of production is, is it's about understanding the form. It's about understanding the ru- It's about understanding platform rules.
So that's what the literacy is, is like what the Instagram alger- algorithm expects and how people consume content on Instagram or, you know, insert any other algorithm-driven platform. But, um, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, these certain conventions arise and, you know, like the convention of, like, showing the makeup by, like, holding your palm out and using- Mm...
your palm as almost, like, a flat blank surface so people can see the packaging better.
Like, that sorts of thing arises organically, and so it's like if you're gonna do a makeup video, you are mimicking the production conventions and even, like, the manner of speaking of other people.
Um, but yeah, the ability to, like, critically assess the content or information contained within that form or conventions, like, that's the thing that's really falling off. Mm-hmm.
Uh, and in fact, the ability to, like, mirror those conventions. Like, you know, like the fake podcasts? Yes, like this one. Yeah. No, this is a real podcast. [laughs] Um, you know, people who are just
filming conversations with their friends, like, in studio- Yeah... and it's not really a podcast. Like, that's the, like- The authority that the microphone in the shot in a vertical video gets.
Well, it's the equivalent of, like, doing a, a broadsheet and passing it out on the street- Mm... and sort of like, um, aura farming the legitimacy of, like, something that looks like a newspaper. Well said.
No, that's stupid. That was spoken like somebody who [laughs] spends so much time online. [laughs] That's spoken like somebody who understands the, the, the, the media literacy of- But speaking of broadsheet-...
online production conventions... broadsheet and media literacy- Mm-hmm... I wanted to bring up something that I read this week in- Bring it up...
Columbia Journalism Review by Alyssa Quart, who actually, um, contributed to Dirt's, uh, collaboration with Lit Hub last year about- Mm-hmm...
this idea of the middle class writer and whether there is such a thing as a middle class writer. Um, but she just wrote an op-ed for CJR called America Needs a Working Class Media.
Um, [lips smack] and Alyssa is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, which is a nonprofit, um, that g- I believe they give journalists grants to work on issues pertaining to, um, economic hardship and the working class.
Mm-hmm. And it was created with Barbara Ehrenreich, who obviously through Nickel and Dimed really, like, was a pioneer in, um, covering issues of the working class and, like, working poor in this very immersive, uh, way.
Um, so in this op-ed, Alyssa's making an argument for reporting on issues like healthcare and real estate that are not... It's not written from, like, the default point of view of capital. Mm-hmm.
So she writes, "Healthcare reporting would be conducted by those who have experienced medical debt, labor reporting that represents workers not as mute sufferers, but as true experts, and housing that is considered from the perspective of the renter, not the landlord or developer."
Um, and she gives a few examples of, like, how working class media could be supported, like things that have come up a lot on this podcast in, like, our conversation with the worker-owned media collectives and, like, conversations that you've had through Creator Spotlight that, like, some of this could be done through collectives, um, grants, philanthropy, the usual suspects.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but she also argues that media unions have a crucial role to play, um, because if they win strong contracts, then they can do a better job protecting working class journalists from getting pushed out of the industry, and those working class journalists are in a better position to report on these issues.
Yeah. Um, but also, like, unions can produce, like, labor unions can produce media. There are unions that have their own, um, you know, publications.
So I thought that was very interesting, especially, like, given the political climate right now where, like,
there's so many people who give their, you know, attribute their political decisions and their votes to the economy and inflation, the price of eggs. Mm-hmm.
Uh, but when these issues are covered in national newspapers, they're not necessarily covered from the perspective of the people who are hurt by inflation the most.
You know, it's, it's told, like, the story is told in terms of, like, a stock price, so- Well, I'm th- So I'm thinking- Yeah...
one thing I'm thinking of here is, um, [lips smack] last summer, I interviewed this woman, Umbreen Ali, who runs this newsletter called Central Desi- Mm-hmm... which is serving the Desi community in- Yeah...
New Jersey, and she spoke about, like, when she, she graduated college right after 9/11- Mm-hmm... and she comes from a Muslim family.
And so, like, going into journalism, she's reporting on these issues, like, about, about Muslims and about, like, people from the Middle East, and she's kind of conflicted in the way that she has to approach them was with this neutrality- Mm-hmm
... um, [lips smack] that just made, made her feel bad, right?
And then part of, like, starting Central Desi is she's like, "I want to, for myself and give the space for other people to cover these issues from our actual personal perspective because these are issues that, like, are about us, that are relevant to us, um-And I've talked to a couple other people like that too, who I think have -- are try- like leaving maybe the traditional media world to start their own things where they can insert their own voice and get rid of this, like,
supposed journalistic neutrality, right? Mm-hmm. And I think that's one of...
For better and for worse, I think that is one of the big effects of the, you know, cr- the creator journalist, is like abandoning this facade of neutrality. I kind of think,
I don't know, like when people talk about, like, the courts being politicized and stuff like that, like as another form of neutrality. To me, it's like, of course they are.
They're-- I've never, I've never lived in a world where I think that any part of the government is truly neutral. Mm-hmm. Um, which g- bringing it back down to journalism, right?
I, I, I feel like, I don't know if it's a generational thing or if it's just, like, me personally. It's not just, not just me, but like if it's, like, a generational trend or whatever.
But I think this kind of, this neutrality
in journalism seems less and less relevant, and I think there's a place for it and, you know, there are things that should be written about with- Well, and you can have quality without neutrality. Yes.
Like, I noticed that Kat- That's, that's an important distinction... last week's guest had a great tweet about how people...
Like, quality is be- gonna become, I mean, this I think is correlated with taste, like quality is gonna become like a new edge, and like- Yeah... there is opportunity for legacy medi- uh, media. Like, people want
gatekeepers. Mm-hmm. Um, they're just not... They don't want gatekeepers as they functioned in the past, which I think, like, has been largely to impose that faux neutrality. Yeah.
Um- It shouldn't be about imposing neutrality. It should be about imposing, like, fact-checking and making sure that like- Standards, yeah...
you're, yeah, you're, that you're saying things that are, like, backed, that can be backed up. But, like, the neutrality aspect is,
w- you know, political climate, everything's so polarized you can't really pretend that anything is truly neutral. Um, did Alicia say anything else interesting about, like, being a media entrepreneur? [laughs] She did.
You should listen to the episode and, and read it. Um, but- I reposted it on LinkedIn. What more do you want from me? You did. Thank you. Thank you, and I appreciate that.
No, one thing that she did say, though, um, that I thought was really... that I could relate to a lot, is like with this kind of solo journalism, with being an entrepreneur- Mm-hmm... um, so I'll read a quote here.
She says, "You lose the whole notion of having a coworker and having to debate, so there's this constant desire for ease and affirmation that comes with it, which is an, an intellectual problem," which I relate to.
And honestly, part of why I wanted to read that quote is that's part of why this podcast exists, is like- Mm-hmm... I was doing Creative Spotlight, and I,
and I didn't have anybody [laughs] shit to, like, talk to as a, as a colleague- Mm-hmm... and, like, talk about these things and, and that's part of, like, how we came together and started this.
Um, and I think that is one of the big flaws with the creator journalism model and why some of the more collective models, like 404 Defector, et cetera, are good because there are people working alongside you on these same things that, um, where, where you have to be accountable to each other.
So I think that's- That's so true, though. Yeah. Like Walden, um, I had some people over for brunch last weekend. Walden came over. Mm-hmm. This was while I was in Brooklyn bunny sitting.
[laughs] And Walden told me after that he actually thought that I was c- that this was a, a thinly disguised focus group- Huh...
um, and was surprised that I did not turn the brunch into a focus group because I've been known for hijacking gatherings- Brunches... um, to crowdsource opinions that I don't have access to- Yeah...
otherwise in being, um, more of a solopreneur. Um, but yeah, uh, I really identify with that. And I also think, like,
yeah, like once you get used to the ease, like, it can make perceived disagreement seem more aggressive. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that that's unfortunate because
I don't wanna ever be in a place where, like, I'm- Surrounded by sycophants? No, where I... Yeah, where I can't, like, I can no longer engage in, like, productive conflict. Yeah.
This is-- I mean, that was another big theme in my, my conversation with Alicia, is that, like, she writes critical, opinionated stuff, and so partially because of that, she doesn't seek out a mass audience because those two things are kind of at odds.
Um, which one, one interesting outcome from that episode is somebody... I, I referred to Twitter as like a twisted echo chamber of its... uh, uh, X as a, as a twisted echo chamber of the Twitter of yesteryear. Mm-hmm.
And I got this kind of long, thoughtful reply from a reader, um, that, that was like, this person was really focusing on that, and like- Mm... "Why did you say that?"
And kind of, like, accusing me of bias in using that word and of alienating part of the audience.
Um, and to me, I, I was really glad to receive that reply 'cause it's, it's nice to receive a thoughtful, like, well-written-out thing. Um, but my point to them too is like,
you know, maybe I- it's quite clear that we probably follow different people on Twitter and that we probably have different personal ideologies. Um, and I, you know, I, I hope that you don't take this as, like, offense.
Like, I do think Twitter is a twisted version of its former self for a few reasons. One, like the, the throttling of links off of the platform. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Two, there's the studied rise in, like, hate speech and engagement with, with hate speech language.
Um, and three, maybe, uh, this is actually the one I said was first, this was, this was kind of the big one for me, is the blue check monetization
play, where that just changes the incentives of posting, where now it's about getting the most views by any means necessary. Um, but yeah, that was... I- in, in them responding to me, I was like, "What's...
I'm going to keep presenting ideas like this," which I, I didn't even think that was me presenting a big idea. I didn't think too much about calling Twitter twisted. Um,
but it was like this is, this is exactly, like, k- the positive friction that I wrote about Alicia... chasing, or not chasing, but like producing with her work that's, that's engaging with these ideas critically.
Yeah, that makes sense to me. Um, this is actually, like chasing mass audience is actually related to something else that I read this week that I wanted to talk to you about. Hm.
I'm not sure how I came across this article. It's in... It's on a site called alts.co, which is about alternative investing. Investments, yeah. Alternative assets, yeah.
And so the piece is called, mm, uh, [laughs] well, it's, it's a piece... Okay, so [laughs] I'm, I'm not trying to be negative. Uh- [laughs]...
it is written in a way that is a little bit more not necessarily how I enjoy writing things. It's not totally essayistic. Mm. Um, there are some interesting quotes
pulled into it, and also, like, you can jump to different bulleted parts of the piece, which I realize this is how a lot of people like to read online when they're, like, consuming- It is... information.
I still find it jarring. But, um- Yeah... it is a, it is a piece- [laughs] article. Okay, yeah. [laughs] Um, it's called The Death of Content Website Investing: How AI and Google Wiped Out an Industry.
Um, so it says, there's a quote, "Content websites were the Wild West of alternative investing.
Savvy entrepreneurs and investors could create very lucrative passive income streams with what were ultimately some pretty simple strategies."
The golden era of this, and I'm gonna tell you the strategies, so the golden era of this was from 2010 to 2020, and again, a quote, "Instead of selling products or services directly, the goal of a content website is to identify profitable keywords, use low-cost labor to churn out articles that rank highly in Google, invest in SEO optimization, get tons of traffic, and monetize it all through ads."
Mm-hmm. So 2010 to 2020, this is the majority of my adulthood- Yeah... up until, uh, basically when I start Dirt. Um, so I definitely lived this era. First of all, I don't respect this at all.
Like, I [laughs] even while this was happening, I had very little respect for it. Yeah. Um, nobody who actually cares about the circulization, cir- circulation of information is sad that this is going away. Mm-hmm.
Um, there are a lot of legitimate sites and brands that- This is SEO arbitrage. Yeah, there were sites and brands that were, like, propped up by these strategies. But, like- Mm...
the fact that, like, low-cost labor is, like, a critical node in this, like- Yeah... they're not saying, like, identifying keywords and hiring, like, journalists- Like, well, I mean, you know... out of fair rate.
It's all connected. Yeah, there were, there, there, there were plenty good outlets that, like, were also leveraging this as a tactic to drive traffic. Yes.
But, like, what we're talking about specifically is ones that were, like, kind of- Right... cynically using really low-cost labor.
Like, I remember one of my first jobs as, like, a, a copywriter when I was using Upwork to, like, build a portfolio was get, like, I, you know, applied to a bunch of things for hours, and then I get an assignment to write a blog post for, for 20 bucks.
Mm-hmm. That's, like, 800 words. And I y- you know, I had to, I produced, I produced a bunch of those, and I'm like, "I don't..." At, at the time, honestly, I didn't, I barely knew what SEO was. So I'm like- Mm...
"Okay, what's the topic? Let me just put, put in words that I think I would be searching for if this- Yeah... was a topic."
Um, but yeah, so I was putting in little effort because the point was just to get 800 words with some of these keywords within it.
My thing is though, like, even at the time when this was, like, a golden, so this golden era of 2010 to 2020 where it's easy passive income, like, even at the time, like, that's not...
I think there's easier ways to make money. Like, I never really understood people- Yeah... that did this. It's like, do anything else. Well, 'cause for some people, no, it was a really easy way to make money. Yeah.
For some people, they're really good at this, and they're really good at understanding this as, like, a video game almost. 100%. I think the problem is when it became a strategy in the mainstream media ecosystem- Mm...
because it created this idea that there were opportunities to, for, like, private equity and investment in media, um, that really, like, didn't exist, or they only existed if, to kind of, like, create perverse incentives for growth.
Yeah. Um, this strategy, if you're, like, a person doing this, like, on the side is great, but as a corporate, uh, investment play, like, is very problematic. Um- Yeah.
Well, 'cause it, it's, it's an oil well that was always gonna dry up. And- Right...
uh, but, but if you, if you have the infrastructure to set up that well and then, you know, leave it abandoned once, once the, [laughs] once the oil dries up, then, then who cares, right? Right.
So there's two things that really put the nail in the coffin of this strategy, other than the fact that it's, like, tasteless. Um, [laughs] how would, how do I really feel?
Um, so zero-click searches, so, like, even before ChatGPT and AI was, like- Mm-hmm... or AI was integrated into Google or ChatGPT existed separately- It was the featured snippets.
Yeah, the featured snippet at the top, so people don't have to click through to get the answer. That was one.
But in 2022, um, when ChatGPT launched, that was really the nail in the coffin, uh, because people don't search the same way.
Um, and that snippet was now integrated into every Google result as Google tries to compete with ChatGPT. Mm-hmm.
Um, so the, the very end, they sort of say, like, they talked to people, they actually talked to Brian Morrissey, um, Richard Paty. Mm. "Okay, what are you guys investing in instead?"
Or, "What would you invest in instead?" Um, and they say- Mm... uh, Richard says he's pivoting to AI agents, digital agencies, and then they mention niche newsletters and online communities. Hmm. Fucking duh.
Like [laughs] yes. Um, I mean, and also, like, niche newsletters and online communities that existed at the same era as this golden age of, um, content site investing, those are still going. Yeah.
Um, or a lot of them are still going if they didn't get, like, uh, go over their front wheels in, like, taking VC.
But, um-It's just funny to hear things framed this way that, like, you and I just, like, intuitively know. Mm-hmm. And we know because it's, like, been part of our experience. Um, but it's...
I thought this was, like, very interesting, uh, another point of view on the zeitgeist that we don't necessarily get. Yeah. Um, because it's really talking about, like, um- The pure numbers...
the loss of the investment value rather than- Yeah... like, the cultural situation. Yeah.
Which is interesting, too, 'cause I feel like, like, looking at what you've, of what you've written here, what you just said, like, AI agents versus niche newsletters, online communities, a- the AI agents are still the labor arbitrage, and that's, that's what you're investing in there.
Mm-hmm. Whereas the niche newsletter is less the labor arbitrage than it is, like, the thing that requires, um, higher touch cultural production, that requires the taste and curation and- Yeah... and the decision making.
Not that- Right. Subscription caps and all that... not that the AI labor isn't decision making based, but, like, that's about people who, again, understand how to use these tools to, um, exploit systems and, like, create
systems of agents. And you don't have to go through Geek- Google to get there, but like- Yeah... you know, as we know, we love our Beehiiv, uh [laughs] ecosystem.
But there are people using Beehiiv to do newsletter investing in the same way people are doing- Mm-hmm. Totally... SEO friendly web page investing. And it's very different. Uh, I don't view newsletters as an investment.
Yeah. I view it as like a vehicle for culture. Um, and I think those, those two strategies can coexist, or two ways of being can coexist. The problem is, like, when- Definitely... they get mixed up together.
When in fact they're entirely different projec- products that just happen to be using the same delivery medium. Exactly. Yeah. Um, but I think that that's something that Beehiiv as a technology company is aware of. Yeah.
Um, with technology you expect people to do it, use it in different ways. Yeah. Um, Substack is positioning itself as more of a social and publishing platform.
Um, when people use it in vastly different ways, then it's complicated because it's not, uh... The platform isn't just a technology, it's a social, like- It's a social network. I th- I mean- Yeah...
to me, Substack is Patreon a- plus social media, um, that happens to have long form posting. Mm-hmm. That's what I think it is.
And it's, it's funny there, 'cause I, I'll go on there to read Substack notes every now and again just to, like, see what the, what the conversation is, and I did that this morning.
Um, and one of the posts at the top of my feed, somebody I don't follow, somebody had reposted it I think, um, talking about how they're so tired of seeing these posts about how to win at Substack, how to grow, how to, how to game the algorithm, whatever, um, and how they, they just wanna see your poetry or your, your voice and whatever.
Um, and this is like, this is the divide I often talk about in Curtis Fall, the, the, the creator to business per- or the creative to business person spectrum in the creator economy at which, the center of which is, um, the creator or the entrepreneur, and I make...
I treat those two as synonymous in this case. Yeah. Um, and again, it's like in any...
This is true of any platform, I would say, is, like, it starts maybe with people who are coming at it from the creative perspective, and here is a medium for creative expression, and then very quickly people who understand, who, who are more the systems minds and the business minds come in and start gaming it.
And then people, people who are kind of just on there to make stuff and share it, they get kind of caught up in it. Um, and
ultimately the people who understand, like, the, the gamification side of it, who understand the systems, who understand how to exploit the systems end up dominating the platforms. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think, like...
Well, this is sort of, like, comes back to what we were talking about with Tata, where, like, can artists and entrepreneurs learn from each other? Like- Yeah...
I believe that in cultural spaces, growth hackers should have to prove their value. Mm-hmm. But in most social media spaces right now, growth hackers are seen as, like,
already having demonstrated their value by nature of their ability to grow large audiences. Yeah. And it's the burden of proof is put on people who are producing cultural capital- Exactly...
to justify their presence, and I just... That's why Twitter is twisted [laughs] like, 'cause it used to be the opposite. Yeah.
Um, but you wrote something down about, um, Julia Alexander's Island and Emperor, I, Emperor's model of creators and talent. Yeah. And, like, does that... Is that something that, like, relates here? Yes.
So I love her newsletter, Posting Nexus. Um, I highly recommend it. Uh, but this is a, this is a model, I think she came up with it, that she's been... She, she br- she brought it up in today's newsletter.
She's brought it up in a few. There was one that was fully about it a few days ago. But this is about, like, this is about the relationship between, like, traditional media and the creator economy, I would say. Mm.
Where, like, in, in Island... So Islands and Empires. In Island is the talent, is the, the, the star journalist. Let's say you're Oliver Darcy who left CNN last summer to launch his newsletter status on Beehiiv, right?
Or you're Taylor Lorenz, you're Ken Klippenstein, all these people, um, where they kind of come to some level of, of power, let's say, of content capital, of cultural capital within an institution, within a media company.
Um, but then they gain enough audience mass that they're able to go independent and make even more money than they could at the company.
So that's then this person who become, who chooses to go be an island because they don't need the support of the empire. Um, and I, I'm not gonna be able to sum up everything she says in, in these articles.
But one of her points is that, like, that's a minority. That's like the 1% of creators, right? Mm-hmm. Whereas...
Or of, of journalists, whatever, of media producers, of-Of actors, of any type of, any type of media producer.
Um, the rest are gonna stay within the empire because they, they know they're not gonna be able to go out and make a full living.
Um, and she's kind of like, the way she ends this, today's newsletter is, like, making an argument that the middle class of, of creators, of creatives, like, is being formed.
She doesn't propose that she knows exactly what it is yet, but, like, within this, between the islands and the empires, like, there, something is, is forming. Mm. Um, but that also
the islands and the empires will always exist.
The traditional companies aren't going anywhere, nor are the islands, and it's more of, like, an exchange between the two, and people even, like, going back from the island to the empire.
And she, she's framing the, um, the empire as being... could be a media company, could be a platform.
Like, she uses the example of Carla Lalli Music, the former Bon Appétit star who, you know, was a writer for them and then a big part of their, their video program.
Then when that all fell apart like five years ago, she left, and then she had a great post on Substack a few days ago or like a week or two ago talking about how for the past few years she's been trying to make it on YouTube, and she was spending so much money.
She was, like, spending $14,000 a month on YouTube and generally losing most of that. She would make, like, 8,000 back per month, um, and how it just wasn't sustainable.
And now the argument there is that, like, she tried the island thing, and now maybe she's going back into maybe trying the Substack game as- Mm... as part of that platform empire. Um,
I'll st- I'll stop there, but I recommend reading Julia Alexander's posts in Nexus. It's, it's a great newsletter. I...
Well, one last thing that I was hoping to talk about is, um, Magdalene Taylor is somebody who I think has done a pretty good job carving out her niche. Mm. And she also moves between freelancing for institutions like GQ
and publishing stuff on her own Substack, so I think she's, like, a pretty good example of this.
Um, she wrote a piece called The Future Childless Cat Guys, um, and she identifies, like, two demographics that make up the widest proportion of single people.
So there's women over the age of 65 who have been historically, like, considered, like, the childless cat ladies. Mm-hmm. And they're sort of like a political- Your, your sp- your so-called spinsters. Yeah.
They're, like, a little bit of a political Babadook- [laughs]... in that regard. And then 39% of, um... Let's see. Okay. Yeah, 39% of women over the age of 65 are single, and she also qualifies this.
Like, some of them could be widowed, et cetera. And then men under 29, 63% of men under 29 are single, which is up from 50% in 2019. Um, and so she's- That's huge... saying that, like, this icon of childless solitude,
uh, may no longer be a woman, and in a few decades it could become these young men. And I think the dynamic that she identifies is really interesting because the childless cat lady was always sort of, like...
has been made fun of by, like, people- Yeah... like JD Vance.
But she was sort of like a symbol of liberation because the expectation is that women will marry, so by opting out and being childless and independent through your life, you're sort of like,
uh, you're sort of, like, opting out of social expectations. But for these young men, there's this stigma because there's, like, there's a failure to adhere to social expectations. Mm.
And there's also a sense that, like, about this demographic that actually they don't want to be in this single group. I think that that's...
It could be a bit of an oversimplification because I'm sure there's plenty of women who would have liked to be married that didn't get married, who form their own communities and eventually find empowerment in their situation.
But the problem with these young men is that they're, they're not very good at that yet. Yeah. Men, these single young men are not great at forming communities and supporting each other. They're not in knitting circles.
They're not bringing food to each other when they're sick. Plus, I mean, even historically it's always been that, like, men, once they get to, like, 30, their...
How many friends they have drop and how many time, how much time they're spending socially drops dramatically. Right. And there's a sense that, like, that,
you know, with childless cat ladies, it's like for them it sort of just happened. Mm. For these men it's gonna just sort of happen, that they... A lot of them will stay single.
So she says, "The childless cat men will become such as a matter of ease. They are not defying expectations but existing exactly according to the structural isolation an anomie society is bending toward." Hmm. So
I guess... And, like... The thing I think that makes it difficult to talk about male loneliness is, um,
women are expected to change to make society healthier, but when male loneliness is talked about, it's talked about, well, how can society change so that these, like, men are no longer lonely, not how these men can change.
Yeah. Um, and what I like about... Like, this is a thread that runs through, like, everything Magdalene writes about conflicts between the genders, that it's actually the truth is, like, in the middle, right? Mm-hmm. Um,
but what she's saying here is, like, this is an inevitability. Like, this cohort is going to exist, so rather, rather... Like, whether they become, um,
you know, politically engaged, you know, a new form of community, a new source of sort of, like, civic duty and- Yeah... part of the social fabric, which theoretically they could.
It's like, wow, more time to volunteer, more time to coach soccer, you know? More time to, like, go out and hike the Appalachian Trail. Or more time to play Fortnite or, like, get radicalized on Twitter.
Right, or more time to play Fortnite, get radicalized, be angry at women. Yeah. Um, you know, engage in the incel movement. So-Yeah, I think- This is, wait, this is something interesting. Yeah. Um, uh, too much...
I, I don't know enough about the recent German elections, uh, on Sunday to say so much about them, but another thing I saw is the, so the AFD, which is the far-right party there- Yeah...
and then Die Linke, the left, the, the far-left party there- Mm-hmm... um, both saw rises, uh, this election as opposed to the last election. And the, it was a more dramatic in pure numbers rise for the AFD. Mm-hmm.
Uh, but it was a higher percentage rise for Die Linke. Um- Mm... and specifically, too, these were split among gender lines.
So there's like, I'm looking at this graphic of the, for, especially for young men and women from 18 to 29 years old, um, their turnout for each party spl- split by gender as opposed to the average. And for women,
insanely, like, big swing to the left, and it's- Mm-hmm... like it's, it's at, like, about three times more, uh, of a swing to the left for women than the swing to the right for men.
Um, and this is in Tomás Puyo's newsletter, Uncharted Territory. He kind of made this argument, this is why I thought of it, um, that basically this radicali- [laughs]
as he puts it, um, radicalization in general isn't good. Radicalization of one gender is even worse. Can't be good for either men or women. Politics might become gendered.
The dating market will suffer tremendously, more incels, both men and women, women dropping from the market altogether, later marriages, few- fewer children, more IVF, and some people will take advantage of this market imbalance with trad wives or men posing as more progressive than they actually are.
But what, you know, those are his predictions here, whatever.
Um, but, like, I thought it was fascinating that, uh, not necessarily surprising to me, but that there was this huge swing to the left for young German women and a significant but less huge swing to the right for young German men.
That's so interesting. Um, I, I would be interested to see, or have you seen, like, a breakdown of gender for the government workers that are losing their jobs? No.
'Cause I think that that would be really interesting to see. I mean- I'm sure we'll see that it- once the dust has settled in, like, six months.
Well, in thinking about, like, these young men and, like, finding a sense of purpose outside of family, I'm like, I can't help but think I was, like, on the, you know, Metro North coming along the river. As you do.
Like, you know, I engage with, like, public infrastructure in this way
so intimately, but not just, like, on the subway, but also the way that it fits into the landscape of upstate, the Hudson Valley, the fact that these- Mm-hmm... trails had to be cleared and kept clear. Like,
we need, we need a federal jobs program for the working class to- I agree... protect American infrastructure and, like, it's all of these, like, cuts to the white collar TC jobs are, like, largely performative. Mm-hmm.
When, like, people, and I think that, like, the tide is turning. People are realizing, like, I,
at the end of the day, like, we do not draw as much satisfaction from seeing our enemy vanquished than we do getting something for ourselves. Yeah.
Maybe in the short term there is this, like, bump of, like, the, the emotional resonance of, like, spite. Mm-hmm. But if it's not followed by, like, something for me, what's the point? Yeah.
Um, and I think- It just, it just makes you feel worse. It makes you feel worse, and I think that there should be good, meaningful jobs for men and women- Mm-hmm...
working for the US government, like, making sure bridges aren't collapsing and- I agree... um, you know- I think that, well, should be, like-... expanding our railroads...
instead of, like, there just being the government option of, like, go into the military when you're 18 and, you know, get scholarships through that.
I, I used to joke that, like, everybody, instead of that, everybody should have to, like, work at a restaurant and, like, go through the service industry or whatever.
But more seriously, it's like there should be these programs, too, like clearing trails in national parks or, you know, building, building, maintaining roads, whatever it is. Like, [sighs]
but then we'd be a socialist country. People are gonna get out, knocked out of the white collar workforce as well. There is, like- That's true. Mm-hmm...
there are people who are downloadly mobile, uh- I mean, this is the AI panic, right? Yeah, exactly. No, I- Do you... Okay, wait, here... I, I don't know if this is just, like, me, my, like, um,
Cath- the generations of Catholic cultural heritage, uh, or, or if it's, like, growing up on a farm watching my parents work every day or what, but, like, I think that there is inherent good in working and in labor, and, like, I like to work.
I like to stay busy. I'm thinking of the book I'm reading. I'm reading another John Giorno. Uh, this one's called, like, On The Road or something like that. Mm-hmm.
Um, and this, this main character is, like, he's, he, he's a, he's a drifter, but he always likes to be working. He likes to be staying busy.
And then the other character, the artist, is this, like, cheating gambling guy who's always getting beaten up for cheating people and stuff, but the main character is, like, he, he likes to be busy.
He likes to be moving around, and I relate to that so much. Like, I, I like to be working. When I'm not working, I'm depressed. You know?
A lo- long way of saying, [laughs] besides my, my own personal, uh, hang-ups or neurosis here is, like, I think that it is purely good to work, and that is one of my worries about, like, whatever AI panic and loss of labor through AI is, like, then where does that drive people?
Does it drive people to, uh, just more content creation as labor and, like, laboring for these platforms? Does it just drive people to low-cost gig economy labor, like working delivering packages for Amazon?
I don't know, but, like, I think that I agree that, like, a better
diversion of whatever labor disruption is gonna happen through AI is to this, like, more, like, tactile social labor of, like, clearing roads or clearing trails, whatever- I also don't think every-...
potential to a society... infrastructure supporting job has to be, like, physically taxing. No.
Like, some people are gonna want a job that engages their whole body, but, like-I just think if we give somebody- Well, it could be like teaching or, uh, eh, you know, maintaining an, a library archive. I don't know.
Uh, these, these cultural jobs too, but I think- It's better than working in a call center, and those- Yeah... jobs aren't gonna exist. Yeah. That's true. I guess more so I'm just,
um, saying that we should have more, [laughs] more and more government jobs. Well, everyone's mad. You know, I see that like coal jobs were shut down. Yeah. Um, there weren't a lot of coal jobs
still existing during the Obama administration, but the remaining ones were shut down relatively quickly and phased out, and that was the sort of like learn to code moment. Um,
you know, for a while, that was also like the solution to journalism jobs- Mm-hmm... and academic jobs. I mean, like, it's not like learn to code or learn a trade. It's like, it's like everything. [laughs] Yeah. Right?
It's like this... It's like the solution is sort of like not what the skill is, but where the skill could be applied.
Um, and I think, like, that's the problem with the way that, like, Americans think of everything as, like, a personal responsibility or problem that, like- Mm-hmm...
that the responsibility and the solution is seen in, like, learning the skill and not expanding the surface area to practice that skill. This is... Wait.
This is reminding me of this word I learned in this long read about the removal of the dams on the Klamath River in California, um, which, uh, if anyone listening isn't familiar with this, it's, uh, the, the biggest undamming project in, I think, in American history.
It's a few dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and in California, historic, um, uh, like salmon runs, et cetera, important to Native culture there. So great long read in Hakai magazine. I read about this...
I read this in a few months ago, but this word solastalgia, the distress of seeing familiar landscapes turn unfamiliar, and it's used here in relation to these people living on these reservoirs and lakes formed by the dams, um, some 100 years ago or so and how it's like this, this few dozen people or a few hundred people, whatever it is, that live on the shores of these, of these reservoirs.
And then after they undammed it, now their landscape is drastically changed, and that landscape in the first place was formed by this human intervention, um, that, you know, blocked the rivers.
But it's still traumatic for them to see it unformed, and the author was using it in terms of, like, y- you know, coal mining communities in Virginia too- Mm...
how, like, there's this trauma even though it's attached to this thing that, like, is maybe not bad for... is not good for the environment in the first place, um, and how that's a thing that, like,
as a society, we have to address.
Like, oh, yeah, e- here's another term they have, eco-grief, the despair of losing what you care for in the natural world, even if what you now mourn is itself the outcome of a past assault on the original landscape.
Um, and I think there's... I, I, um, [laughs] maybe we've been podcasting for too long today, and I'm having trouble connecting it, but I think there's, uh, something that can be applied, too, to this kind of,
uh, these other types of labor we're talking about. No, totally. And I wanted to give an example of, like, how federal jobs programs have supported artists in the past that's not just, like, "Okay, everyone hit the rig."
Mm-hmm. [laughs] Um, I came across this by accident when I was going through some of the public domain imagery that sometimes we, like, pull into dirt. Mm.
I'll, I'll find these interesting drawings or sketches of, like, fruit or something and be like, "Well, where is this from?" And usually it leads back somewhere interesting.
So, um, the Index of American Design, have you heard of this before? It's new to me. Okay.
So conceived as an effort to identify and preserve a national ancestral aesthetic, the Index of American Design comprises 18,257 watercolor renderings of American folk and decorative art objects from the colonial period through 1900.
It was commissioned as the Federal Art Project work relief program during the Depression, and it was executed between 1935 and 1942 by 400 artists.
Um, so and they were documenting wood carvings, textiles, whirligigs, weather vanes, objects from 34 states and six regions of the US, so West Coast, Rocky Mountains, New England, all over. Yeah.
Um, and then the index became a source of inspiration for artists and sought to sustain a distinctly American visual lineage, especially with regard to the generation of new industrial American design.
So what's so interesting about this for me is, like, how fundamentally patriotic it is. Mm-hmm. That, like, here we have an example of, like, a works program that most people today who are kind of, like,
anti sort of this FDR style of big government would say- Yeah... is, like, c- totally socialist. But what they were being put to work to do was actually to, like,
try to catalog and come upon- Create this canon of America... like, a distinctly American- Mm-hmm... style of artwork, which is like I can't think of anything more patriotic than that.
And especially in, like, this era, like you said, of, like, eco-grief- Mm...
um, there are so many people who could be put to work just documenting what it's like to live in America right now, how the landscape is changing through changes in the climate and development.
Um, and all of that becomes really important in having a unified history. If we don't have a unified history, then this political division persists. Now, that's a conservativism I can get behind. [laughs] Look, we all...
There's, like, an overlap, you know? Yeah. Like, you know, if you wanna have, like, one of those, like, Roman bust anon Twitter accounts where they're like, "Oh, we just don't...
They don't build buildings like this anymore," well, pay people to do it. To do it, yeah. To have beautiful banks, to have beautiful city halls.
Um, most of those buildings are, like, the most beautiful buildings in, like, any given town, and it's just... It's not an accident, [laughs] you know? You know, I think that's a great place to end this week's episode.
Absolutely. Pay people to build beautiful things. Ah, love that. All right, talk to you next week. Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening.
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