[upbeat music] Oh, welcome back to Tasteland. I am your co-host, Francis Zehr. And I'm Daisy Aliotta. And Daisy, we are not speaking to anybody today. No guest. No, we are not. Just us two.
Mm-hmm. It's been a while. Like old times. Like old times. Real heads who have been listening for 66, 67 episodes, I think this is episode 68, will remember we didn't even have a guest for the first three, four episodes.
No, guests weren't invented yet. Guests weren't invented yet, yeah. [laughs] We were, we were the first podcast, and also the first podcast to ever have a guest on, actually. It's crazy.
Um, anyways, so the- It's gonna be a whole section of the Wikipedia. [laughs] On, on podcasts or on Tasteland? Controversies, the invention of podcast guests. Mm-hmm. Um, so I watched a movie last week- Viral tweets...
about the invention of the internet, uh, that I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about it when, when we had Adam on, because I had just seen it the night before, uh, but I did not get the chance to.
It's called Lawnmower Man, 1992. Hmm. Uh, Pierce Brosnan stars as a kind of mad scientist who works for the government. Um, it's, it's ki- it's one of those movies that I'm sure...
Like, I think when I looked it up on, like whether it was Letterboxd or Rotten Tomatoes or whatever, it had like a fa- 2.5 out of five rating. And it's not like, you know...
It's one of those movies where they, they use like 3D animations and visual effects and it looks like an arcade game. Like, it's like so bad, but it's kind of... It's about the invention of the internet in that they...
I'm gonna spoil it a little bit. There's this guy, the Lawnmower Man, he is an idiot, a moron. Um, and Pierce Brosnan makes him smart by injecting him with
stuff and putting him in virtual reality where he, where he gets smart really quick bec- by, by, by virtue of virtual reality. Um, so it's kind of like a movie about how the internet makes us smart, but
maybe too smart. [laughs] Um, and, a- and the, the Lawnmower Man... I won't actually... No, I don't wanna spoil it too much, but, uh, I, I would recommend it in that it, it like... It's not like...
It's a rich text, you know what I mean? It's a rich text. That does sound interesting. I would like to watch it, um, because I love a rich text.
[laughs] Uh, it sort of dovetails with a book that my husband has been reading about Timothy McVeigh that's like... It's conspiracy theories, but it's not like the... There's no conspiracy that's like, he didn't do it.
He definitely did it. It's more like how influenced was he by other actors, potentially government actors. And, um, so I've been hearing a lot about that.
Like, we were running early this morning, got to the train early, and I was like, "Well, don't get out of the car. It's cold. Sit in the car."
And then I was like, "Since we're here, I guess you can just tell me as ma- many Timothy McVeigh facts as you want." And he was like, "Really, Daisy?" [laughs] And I was like, "Really?" Christmas came early this year.
Um, Christmas came early. I found out last night that Ben has been calling McNally Jackson Mac Jack's. Mac Jack's. Which infuriated me, because it's really catchy, and I'm gonna do that now.
Um, so I was thinking maybe for Christmas I can get him a custom, like version that looks exactly like the McNally Jackson tote, except where it says Mac Jack's on it. You could...
There's, there's like a, there's like a tune there that I've... that's instantly coming to me. It's like, "Take me out to the bookstore. [laughs] Uh, buy me some House Garden Mac Jack's." There we go. Oh, God.
Yeah, that's really catchy. Oh, that's what, that's what I'll be singing, um, when I go caroling this year- [laughs]...
in, in parks We saw Frankenstein, and I haven't been able to get out of my head, first of all, the fact that Frankenstein was Jacob Elordi is distracting. I don't think it works. I don't think it works.
I, I think Elordi of, of these new guy- You got what? Harris Dickinson, uh, uh, Jacob Elordi, and Aus- Austin Butler. Mm-hmm. Um, Elordi, if we're doing a marry, fuck, kill, you're killing Elordi. You're killing Elordi.
Wait, there's the other guy, too, who was in the Sydney Sweeney film and the Assassin film. What? What's his name? Well, if we have... We... Let's look it up. Um, so wait, was that Sydney Sweeney Assassin movie?
I put him in the same cohort. No, he was in the Sydney Sweeney rom-com. Oh, no. No. You're talking about, um, the guy with the face? Yeah, you don't think he's part of the same cohort? He's too old.
No, he's not young enough. Yeah, he's too old. Okay, fine. You're talking about Glen Powell, right? Yeah, Glen Powell's too old. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. He, no, not he. Fine. Look, okay, wait, wait, wait.
Well, he got famous around the same time. Okay, yeah. Glen Powell age. Okay, Glen Powell 37. Okay, he's younger than I thought. Oh, that's- Jacob Elordi- No, he's older than I thought... 28. Uh, Harris Dickinson 29. Mm.
And Austin Butler, uh, 34. So Butler kind of falls right between them. Yeah, Butler's, yeah. But, but I think he's still, he's- Works in that case... he's valid, um, as movie trio.
Well, here's the other thing with Frankenstein. So he was supposed to be, like he was like a patchwork of skin, right? Yeah.
But he really looked like, um, the way that the makeup is in Somebody, the Somebody That I Used to Know music video. Mm, yeah. Like, I looked it up after, and I was like, also got distracted.
How do you say that band's name? Gotye? Gotye? Yeah, I th- I think... I don't know. Goat-yeah is how I've always said it. Goat-yeah? Yeah. Okay, so like s- well, you also were pronouncing [laughs] Pony as Pooony.
I don't, I don't give a shit, you know? [laughs] All right. We, we live in our own little worlds, and, uh, don't puncture mine. Don't puncture mine. Okay. Um, I won't. So that was distracting. Then after...
Like, I liked it. After, um, you know, my husband maybe took a gummy, um- Mm... and, you know, as we're drifting off to sleep he's likeW- I have an issue with this movie. And I was like, "Well, this'll be good."
He's like- Only one? Well, it turns out he had a couple. Okay. Yeah. He was like- It's to be expected... "It's weird that we never saw his hog." [laughs] And I was like, "Well, he has one." And he was like, "Does he?"
And I was like, "Yeah. Like, he has all the body parts. They just didn't show us his hog. They probably should have." And then he was like, "Does he poop?" And I was like- [laughs]... "Yeah, Frankenstein poops."
This is like... But the, the... Okay, come on. [laughs] This is, this is such like ig- this is such edible brain. Like, does he poop? [laughs] It's a movie.
We're, we don't, we don't go to the movies to see characters go to the toilet. [laughs] Right? I think he just wanted like a little bit of a- [laughs]...
a hint that he has- He wanted some- something, a hint of the profane... a human digestion system. Yeah, mm-hmm, because, because isn't the whole point that he's just as human as any of us? Right.
I mean, I wouldn't call it a plot hole that we don't really have answers on this stuff. Mm-hmm. A plot hog. Um, I do think it is, it is implied that he could procreate or have sex. Yeah. So, like, he has to have a hog.
I just... Anyway, whoever wants to write Frankenstein's Hog as, like, a spinoff- [laughs] You're welcome. Hog of Frankenstein. [laughs] Hog of Frankenstein, exactly. [laughs] I've seen...
I've been to the movies a couple times recently and seen the trailer for the new, I think it's just called The Bride, the Maggie Gyllenhaal. Is it Gyllenhaal or Gyllenhaal?
Uh- 'Cause now you've got me second-guessing myself. Well, we live- It's Gyllenhaal... in our own world. Don't be sure. Okay, God damn it.
Uh, anyways, the Maggie Gyllenhaal-directed Bride of Frankenstein movie with- Mm... Christopher Nolan. No, Ch- Christopher, [laughs] not Nolan. What's- Reeves?... Christian Bale, Christian Bale. Oh, oh, okay.
And, and also brother of, of, of Maggie, um, Jake Gyllenhaal. Mm. Um, it looks really bad. I don't know. But the Frankenstein looks more Frankenstein-y than the Belardi Frankenstein. Yeah.
I just kept thinking, "That's Jacob Belardi. Why is he doing all this?" Yeah, yeah, which is the problem with Jacob Belardi, I think.
Whereas when I've seen an Austin Butler movie, he can, he, he can become the character, like, like in Elvis, right? I... Elvis is a, a movie I'll probably never watch again. It's too long. It's bloated.
But, but, you know, it's, it's trying to do something. And, and I, I believe that he's Austin Butler. Or in, in Dune 2 when Butler...
when he's playing one of the, um, Feyd-Rautha, I think is the name of his character, and he's so bald. You know, he becomes the character. Uh, Jacob Belardi, like when I think of him now, I think of...
What was that awful Emerald Fennell movie? Saltburn, one of the worst movies I've seen in the last- Well, she's making another awful movie-... in my life... get pumped. Um, yeah.
Although, it seems like the soundtrack's gonna be great. I guess this all... I mean, her soundtracks end up becoming influential. She's just a really bad music video director. That's so true. Wow.
Did somebody write that already? Uh, maybe. I don't know. All you, baby. [clears throat] Maybe. Yeah. Like, because that song, um- The-... from Saltburn, it's like- << No, no, the dance floor.
You better not kill the groove >> Yeah. << DJ >> Yeah. That was, like, in Ben's Spotify Wrapped [laughs] the year that came out. Yeah. Oh, no. It was catchy.
Um, and so, like, all these Charli XCX remixes are, are gonna, like, give us, like, Brat 3. Yeah. Um, so I will... I'll probably watch it just 'cause, like- Th- Yeah.
Harris Dickinson, though, I've only seen him in one movie, um, to my knowledge, which was Babygirl, the one with Nicole Kidman. Did you see that? Oh, yeah. No. It's a- I remember him trying to get me to see it.
It's not good. And by the time I was gonna watch it, I was like, everyone spoiled it. It's not good. Um, similar thing with that Dakota Johnson movie, like- Materialists. Yeah, like- Yeah...
somebody spoiled the leg length. Oh, never mind. [laughs] The, the, the le- the, the leg... What? What about a leg? Nothing. I'm not gonna spoil it for our listeners.
Sp- Okay, speaking of spoilers, um, one thing that I think we both saw, and we'll have to tread carefully around this, but I think we both saw over the weekend was Purabus.
Well, that's fine 'cause that's, that's been out for long enough. For [laughs] four days. The first two episodes have been out for long enough. [laughs] Um, yeah, I ended up writing something about it. I know.
I, I, I, I, it was... I read it. It was, it was, it was enjoyable. Did you think it was accurate? [laughs] I did, yeah. I didn't... I hadn't... Th- what you wrote about had not occurred to me at all. Mm.
But I was, you know, I, having watched this, the first two episodes of this show, I was hungry for something to read about it other than, like, the pre, you know, the, the, the, the, the, like, first couple episodes reviews by all the people who'd, who are desperately trying to avoid spoilers.
Um- Yeah... yeah, I... It, it's hard for me to talk about it w- without going into the spoilers. Well, I can talk about my part. I don't think my part really necessarily spoils anything. No, still.
Also, this isn't a show that's like... It's giving kind of explanations as you go along. Yeah. It's not like... There's not really a mystery at the core of the show. It's more like, what's gonna happen?
How is she gonna navigate this? Yeah. But- How is she gonna solve this? I never watched Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul, but I did read a lot of interesting criticism of the shows.
And going into Purabus, uh, if I had just read a, a synopsis of the show, I would've been like, "I don't... That doesn't sound good." But I was seeing enough people that I respect be like- Yeah...
"No, it's really good," so I was like, "I will watch it." Um, so the fir- the episodes have been releasing on Fridays. So anyone who got a screener to review, they have to tread carefully. Not me.
They've seen seven of the nine. I don't have a screener. I've only seen two episodes. But, you know, going into it, like with the advertising, it's all yellow. And the, and the- And I-...
the premise, for anybody who hasn't heard of it at all, like, the, it's just one sen- it's like the most miserable woman on earth has to save humanity from happiness. Mm-hmm.
I'm pretty sure that's, like, almost verbatim the line. Right. Like, I read that, and I was like, "That sounds like shit."
[laughs] But then at once I realized, like, what it w- like, more info, more nuance, which was, like, she didn't start off the most miserable [laughs] woman on earth. Like, she just, like, becomes that comparatively.
No, she just starts off ungrateful. Unhappy. Mm. She's already unhappy, but everyone else gets excessively happy. Um, so-Anyway, like I was looking at the advertising for the show, and it's all really, it's all yellow.
Mm-hmm. Um, there's one ad that has a Petri dish that has a smiley face sort of like carved into it. It's all yellow.
There's another one that's like all yellow background, and she's just kinda like screaming in frustration. Mm-hmm. Um, so I was like, all right, [laughs] file that away. I guess yellow is gonna be important here.
Um, so going into the show, I was already like looking out for any sort of symbolism around that. Um, and then like indeed, as like a lot of the early action and setup is happening, she's wearing like a yellow jacket.
Um, and that sort of seems to be like a symbol of her- That show really fell off. Anyways... Oh, yeah. [laughs] You know, it's, it... The yellow is sort of like, it kind of marks her as like an outlier. Yeah. Um,
so but like leading up to it in her normal life when we see her n- her life pre this change in humanity, there's like a lot of purple, which is like opposite of yellow on the color wheel.
Which is like, which is like the first three minutes of the show. Yeah. And then, then we move on. [laughs] But it, they, but they lay it on like pretty thick. Yeah. Right? Like it's this... She's a romantasy author.
Purple is a color associated with her books. Mm-hmm. The title of some of her books, she's signing stuff in purple Sharpie. She kind of hates her fans. She [laughs] really hates her fans. Yeah. So,
um, also like having read criticism of Breaking Bad, I know that like there's a lot of yellow for the guys that are like cooking meth. It's kind of- Yeah...
that color in the show is associated with, um, the people who are involved in the drug trade. So like, uh, I know that this is like not Vince Gilligan's first rodeo in doing color symbolism.
So I just wrote a blog post that was kind of, sort of my thesis of like what, what is this color gonna mean? Um, you know, how is it already functioning? And I had fun with it. So
I'm really excited to keep watching the show. I kind of... I'm, I'm interested in your take on this, Francis. I go back and forth between wanting shows to be released all at once and this sort of slow rollout.
Like- Mm-hmm... I think we all miss appointment television, obviously, but appointment television really doesn't line up with the way people consume information anymore, and I know that's like a chicken and egg thing.
But, um, I think what's hardest for me is going back and forth between keeping up with series- Yeah... that roll out w- all at once or are weekly. Um,
'cause I feel like I would rather adapt myself [laughs] to one or the other. Yeah. But I'm curious what you think. I like, I like a weekly. I like a weekly. I mean, this, this show, um,
you know, we'll watch Saturday Night Live sometimes. We'll, I'll, uh, Slow Horses. I really enjoyed that show recently, um, that's weekly. I think I've not caught up on it. I- It's... No, I, I, I...
You know, 'cause if, if it, if it comes out all at once, what that means is there's gonna be like some hungover Sunday where I'm like
watching five hours of TV while looking at my phone and not really paying attention to the show. And it's just like that just contributes to this like kind of sad state of affairs.
Um, so I prefer when it's, it comes out less because then it, it does demand my attention more, um, because it's like, well, if, if it's just this one episode, then I'm gonna pay attention to it, whereas if I'm gonna be watching
three, four episodes at once, I know my attention is going to, you know, recede into my phone a bit. Fair enough. I think like that all makes sense to me, and I think you're probably right. I think
for me, though, when I have like a Sunday where I'm gonna do that, it's like this is my time to watch TV, but next week I might not have time to watch TV. Yeah. True. So
if I can watch [laughs] all this in one sitting, this might be my only chance to like meet, you know, have my ability to pay attention, and freedom
actually line up with the release of the show versus like if the show comes out in like a busy period for me, it's just not getting watched, and then I hear about it too much- Yeah... and never really wanna go back.
And then you read about color theory in the show, but you never actually watch the show. Exactly. Um, I have something I want to read an excerpt of.
I'm not gonna read a lot of it because I, we just don't need to, and I... Let's be clear, I did not read this full article. It's, it's very long.
We're talking about a Domus- a Thomas Friedman piece in The New York Times opinion section. Um, Welcome to Our New Era: What Do We Call It? was the title. That drew me in.
I was like, "Okay, well, what's he gonna call it?" Right? Um, so I'm gonna read a bit of... I'm gonna skim through a few paragraphs and just read a couple bits. So he says, you know, uh, "I was born in the Cold War era.
Most of my career as a columnist was in the post-Cold War," uh, ba, ba, ba, ba. "My initial thought was that we should call this new epoch the post-post-Cold War, but that made no sense.
Climate scientists call our current epoch the Anthropocene. Technologists call it the Information Age, or now the Artificial Information Age," so on and so on.
Um, none of these labels capture the full fusion taking place between accelerating climate change and rapid transformations in tech, biology, cognition, connectivity, et cetera, et cetera. Um,
as a foreign affairs columnist, I now have to track the impact interactions of not only superpowers, but also super intelligent machines, et cetera, et cetera.
I was musing about this one day with Craig Mundie, the former head of research and strategy at Microsoft.
I told him that in nearly every domain I was writing about lately, the old binary left-right systems were giving way to multiple interconnected ones, and in the process, shattering the coherence of both the Cold War and post-Cold War paradigms.
At one point, Mundie said to me, "I know what you should call this new era, the Polyscene," um, which to me was a bit ridiculous. Uh, but- Yeah, can't be doing all that...
you can't be doing all that, but I'll read the last little bit here where, where he makes his argumentIt was a, it was a neologism, a word he just made up on the spot and not in the dictionary.
Admittedly wonky, it is [chuckles] derived from the Greek poly, meaning many.
But it immediately struck me as the right name for this new epoch where, thanks to smartphones, computers, and ubiquitous connectivity, every person and every machine increasingly has a voice to be heard and a lever to impact one another and the planet at a previously unimaginable speed and scale.
So welcome to the Polyscene. It's been an interesting ride getting here, which is what I said, uh, when I got out of the Uber at the McKibbin Lofts. Um [clears throat], yeah. That was worth the payoff. Yeah. It was...
Thank you for [laughs] bringing me. I-- This actually... I did have an idea for, like, a little bit of an abstract essay that sort of touches on this, like, a year ago, which counts for nothing- Uh-huh...
because I didn't write it.
But, like, I was actually thinking about the way that it lines up with literature and tropes where it's like you had a period, I would say, like, kind of the new sincerity period was kind of about the individual. Mm.
And then you have certain plots that are about two people, so, like, a romance plot involves two people. Then you have the affair plot, which is always triangulated, so it's an outsider.
Doesn't necessarily have to be an affair, but, like, stories that really hinge on there being, like, a, a triangulation between three parties. Mm-hmm.
And then there's sort of, like, a weird gesture towards, like, a swingers plot or even, like, the 10-year affair where there's four people and two couples.
But what I think it is, I think literature's always a little bit behind, like, what it's picking up on, the fact that, like, stories about the individual [lips smack]
um, become stories about couples, become stories about threesomes and foursomes is, like, uh, kind of like this acknowledgement that, like, actually, like, our lives are, like, a lot more multi-nodal. Mm-hmm.
Um, which is, you know, there's, there's no shape, there's no shape to that. It's very hard to create entertainment, whether it's a TV show or a movie or a book that isn't, like, one, two, three, four.
It kind of tops out at four, right?
So if you have multiple elements, too many characters, too many inputs, you end up with either, like, an incoherent, quote, "like, internet novel" that, like, attempts to reflect modern life but doesn't really, or something that really reverts back to all of these classic plots, which is, like,
fairy tale archetypes, the hero, the villain. Um, I think what he's talking about in a non-literary way is, like, Cold War, hero and villain central. Yeah.
People who made stuff during the Cold War, whether it was Rocky or, um, you know, even sing- singers, you know, 'cause s- like, the music industry goes back and forth between favoring big bands and- Mm...
favoring individuals. Yeah. Like, America right now, not a lot of bands. But as we also know from The New York Times opinion section, America isn't cool anymore. You know what's cool? K-pop.
You know how many people are in a K-pop band? So fucking many.
[laughs] Like, there's, there's this, uh, inability to capture the sheer amount of inputs that go into the way people are making decisions about their lives, their relationships, the number of people we interact with on a daily basis.
Just simply could not be captured in a book, um, unless you were doing, like, a Lord of the Rings style [laughs] map at the beginning and it's just for, like, everyone's, like, situationship and their boss's boss's boss.
So the way that we understand ourselves and our culture is, like, too simplistic to actually reflect, um, what's going on in culture right now, and I think that makes people really uneasy and uncomfortable. Yeah.
[lips smack] Well, I mean, also though- But we'll have to figure out how to do it. Do peop- do people, like, want from,
from art, from literature, from film, whatever, do they want, like, a reflection of, like, the, of the Polyscene of now, right? Like, or do they want more that simple story as an escape from it, right?
Like, if you're already in 15 group chats am- across your work and personal lives, right, like, do you want to read about something that, like, is also immersed in so many things, or do you want that, like, simplicity of a hero-villain plot?
Well, I mean, I think it kind of goes back to something we were talking about with Adam about how do you, like, respect the reader and how do you separate out the publishing industry from the humanities?
I think the publishing industry, the job of the publishing industry is to deliver enough books that people want to read because they make them feel good, to subsidize the books that are important to publish because of the talent involved that don't necessarily make people feel good.
Um, the job of the humanities, though, is to tell the truth, and I think a part of telling the truth is to reflect the world as it is, not as we want it to be.
Um, you know, I was sitting here, I'm like, I'm kind of talking through this in real time.
I think a book that did a really good job with this and was responded to by readers and by typical markers of prestige was Rejection by Tony Talamonti. Oh, yeah.
Um- I have not read it, but I have seen its cover a million times. It does a really good job being multi-nodal. I don't wanna say Polyscene. I just think it's- [laughs] No, it's, it's, it's deridicious...
it can't, it can't be what we're calling it. It's deridicious. Um, but it also... Like, there's something about literature and the soul of literature
that is missing from it, and I don't think he necessarily set out to write a timeless story. So it's like- Mm... it's not necessarily a problem. But-You don't really care about the characters- Yeah... that much.
And I think one thing... I was talking with, um, [lips smack] a friend who is designing a course on the internet novel to teach, I believe, at Wesleyan, and we talked about information age.
She was gonna put information age in her syllabus, and then we were like, "What was the first internet novel?" And, like, my first thought was Infinite Jest. Mm. That's just, like, what popped into my head.
Um, [lips smack] but, you know, even back then, like, trying to capture what he was picking up on, on where society was going, like, it made the book borderline unreadable. Mm-hmm. It's big. It's unwieldy.
You have footnotes. You have sidebars, almost like hyperlinks that let you double-click into different areas. And, like, it's been a while since Infinite Jest was written and published.
We don't really have better ways to do that, at least not in a print book. Mm-hmm. Um, [lips smack]
and I think, like, this conversation and th- that op-ed is a sign that, like, we don't really even agree on whether we should be doing that. Yeah.
I'm also now, as we talk about this, connecting it back to Pluribus- [laughs]... uh, which is like, which is also about this, right? It's, like, about, like, the desire to, of, like, individualism versus,
like, a, a flattening, right? Like, the difficulty and friction of life as it is versus the poten- like, versus, like, what if life's problems were solved- Totally... in a way of reducing it, right? Yeah.
And like, that, it's... And I think- Vince Gilligan is the screenwriter, right? Yeah, and maybe director as well. Um, yeah. He makes prestige television.
Like, Breaking Bad was considered, like, to be up there with The Sopranos and Mad Men- Mm... in terms of prestige television, which usually follows these, these tropes, this hero's journey. Yeah.
And Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, I say it in my color theory piece, just throwing in a little bit of, like, overall analysis, is like that's about individually, individuality run amok. Yeah.
That's about a character whose, like, needs sur- for survival, like, they don't stop at surviving. Like, they, they need to survive. They figure out a way to survive, but then that becomes their default mode.
And, like, the ego and the individual and selfishness and Machiavellianism reigns supreme. Um, and then Pluribus is kind of like I salute him for taking on something so different.
It's really at the opposite end of the spectrum because, um, it's a show about, like, what happens if everything was, like, too good. Yeah. Yeah. And there was no ego.
And you neutralized people's survival mechanism and just left one person, um, left one person in the position of defending why we should have pain and suffering and selfishness. Mm-hmm.
Um, I'm, I'm thinking of another thing I read this morning in The Cut about... It was, like, four women on how sports gambling upended their relationships. Um- Oh, wow. It- Were any of them the gamblers themselves?
[laughs] No, no. But it was really dark. It was very dark. It was like, uh... It was women of...
Like, one woman was 23 and, like, talking about her, like, finance guy with, with, from, like, a really rich background boyfriend and how he has so... Like, she sh- he, he showed her his, um, DraftKings account.
He'd gambled $300,000 to date, 'cause it will show you- Mm-hmm... like, how much you've gambled, how much you've won. Um, and that one was a little bit more like looking to the future.
Like, uh, you know, "I told him to quit, and then we were watching a game, and, like, he showed me," and he was like... I saw that he was on and got, he got upset. And I was like, "Oh, he is addicted."
But then another one was way darker, and it was about, like, this...
I think this woman was like 43 or 45, and it was like she married her husband in like 2005, and then already he was addicted to gambling, even before the apps. And they...
This gets to the point where, like, he gets, like- Mm... like, the FBI breaks down their door, and he's, like, so addicted.
And now he's like, um, you know, he's served time in prison, and now he's, like, a peer therapist or... I forget the precise term- Mm... for, like, other people trying to deal with their gambling addictions. Um,
but then I'm also thinking of, and this is, you know, if you are listening to this and you haven't seen the last season of Industry, maybe skip ahead 30 seconds right now, hit that button twice. Oh, my God, Rishi.
But precisely. Yeah. Which that was like, that, that was, that was so intense and so shocking and, like... 'Cause you really kind of think that, oh, maybe he's gonna get out of it.
Um- I was actually just messaging with Mickey this morning. Mm-hmm. About his, his I was asking for his comment- Season... on a story that I'm working on with Nishant- Mm-hmm... about prediction markets.
So it wasn't really about the show. Okay. But I did see, like, some, spoiler, like, black hat Tao Stern hats online. [laughs] Oh, interesting. Um, I really want one. Mm-hmm.
But yeah, Rishi's storyline, God, that was so stressful. Yeah. Uh- Uncut gems. Uncut gems. That kind of uncut gem style bottle episode. I didn't mean to cut you off, but I did wanna know, like- No, no, no, I, I was...
I'd finished what I was saying... did GLP-1s come up at all? 'Cause, like, there's a- In that gambling piece?
Yeah, 'cause, like, isn't, like, there sort of, like, some early research to indicate that they might help with addiction? Mm. The, uh... No. I, I didn't read the entire piece.
I read, like, half of it, and then I was, it was like I was trying to...
I was looking for articles to talk about today, to be, to break the fourth wall a little bit, and I was like, "Well, I think I've gotten enough from this one." [laughs] Um, but, uh- Yeah... no.
Uh, more, more in a maybe more dark bent though, uh, the, the woman whose husband ended up, like, you know, the FBI breaks down the door and such, she brought up how at one point she was, like, dealing with really intense Crohn's disease, and she was, like, down to 89 pounds, and, like, her husband then was, like, her caretaker.
And, like, you know, she had been handling financial stuff for a long time, but then he was like, "Oh, let me take that burden because you're so sick and suffering." And then, like, now he's controlling the finances.
Um, all very dark. All very dark. Uh- Yeah. That's so dark. Yeah. Um, less dark, let's talk about Bryan Johnson's mushroom tripIs it less? Okay, good... also, so
this is something, do you, did you see anything about this? So everyone's like said he took a five milligram quote hero dose. Well, well, he, he said he took that Now people are saying he took half of that.
Yeah, people are saying that. Okay, somebody's saying he took 2.5. Uh-huh. Yeah, I, I feel like, I don't know, maybe he's just like so in control of his mind and body- He didn't seem that high... in content.
He didn't seem, yeah, he didn't seem high in his post. He didn't, he didn't seem high to me, like- Yeah, yeah...
I don't know I mean, okay, like we only saw it filtered through like five posts from his, his, his co-founder of his Don't Die company, whatever that is. Um- Right. Who is that? I looked, I looked her up.
She's, yeah, she's the co-founder of Don't Die/The Blueprint. Um, so yeah. Is that his girlfriend though? Do you think that's his girlfriend? Uh, maybe. I don't know. There's...
Okay, look, well this is, this is more the conversation around the post. I saw it, I was like, "Brian's little girlfriend." That's cute. But when he... Okay, you know, I see him eating this, eating this, um,
this salad in his fourth update, and he's like, I don't know, however many, a few hours in. Uh, I, okay- Who would ever crave a salad on mushrooms? I- I'm sorry.
No, I, I think more so maybe it's fruit you want, um, at the end. But you don't really wanna eat for a long time.
But an- anyways, anyways, the, the point is, I think what's interesting about all of this is like I've co- I've come around, you know, for a while I was like, "God, this guy's so annoying," like, I hate his shtick.
And to be- I don't, I don't follow him on Twitter, right? But his posts come up, as they, they just do. Um- Yeah...
but I've come around on like him, it being more interesting of like him being this like this kind of performance artist- Body hacker... of like...
Yeah, body hacker, of like this like this, this, this certain type of tech bro, right?
Like it almost seems like he's this character from that, that show Silicon Valley, um, from, you know, however many years ago that was now. It seems like- He kind of does look like...
he's like a character that escaped from that show... the head VC guy. Yeah, he does. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think he's committed.
I think he has deeply held conviction, which is more than we can say for a lot of people in the technology community. Yeah.
The thing that actually made me believe that maybe this guy really did do a significant amount of mushrooms was [laughs] when he came back online and was like, "You guys are all assholes." Yeah.
"But I feel joined in one consciousness with you." And I was like, wow, that does really feel like a, a sentiment at the heart of, um- [laughs] Wait, wait, let me, let me read-... of the brand...
so the, the post, I have it up here. The post was, "Also, much love to all of you. It weirdly feels like my consciousness is deeply intertwined with yours. Feels like family. You're assholes and terrible. You're also...
Nah, just mostly assholes and terrible. Still love you all anyways." So he tweeted that Sunday night. That's why I feel off mushrooms.
But, but, but then, um, yesterday, so about 24 hours later, he quote tweets that original tweet saying, "Some are misunderstanding this post. It's affectionate teasing.
The insult acts as a trust signal, as you'd never actually say this to a stranger. Evidence shows teasing among friends correlates with higher social bonding, trust, and emotional intelligence.
It's real sincerity," which does sound like something you'd say a day after you took [laughs] five grams of mushrooms. I don't know. Give him some more. We gotta, we gotta- Yeah. Well, he's gonna do it...
repeat the experiment. Apparently, he's gonna do it every month for three months. Great. Yeah. I'm just like if he... I, I just feel like if he does do that, he's going to eventually log off.
If I did mushrooms that regularly, I would log off. You would hope. You would hope. I hope, I really hope. Mm-hmm. Like, I would.
Um, but I wanna talk about something else that went down over the weekend on tech Twitter- Uh-oh... which is Marc Andreessen tried to quote dunk the Pope.
[laughs] Um, and so Marc Andreessen being sort of like an untouchable, he did not used to be untouchable. I think that there's been a little bit of historical revisionism. Like, people used to make fun of him. Mm-hmm.
Like, his head is shaped like an egg. We know this. I mean, there's that amazing New Yorker photo. Oh my God. Yeah. I just... He wasn't really untouchable until he started getting more involved in politics. Mm-hmm. Um,
but he has been sort of untouchable, like, and kind of like on a streak for the past at least five years and, um, but yeah, it was like something cracked. It was like the Pope- Not that egg...
who was always really, like, he was always really interested in AI, right? Mm-hmm.
Like, when he was first, first became the Pope, people were talking about the fact that he was interested in making statements about technology and had opinions about it.
And so he does this like very nice Pope-y tweet about how people who are making AI and making cutting-edge technology, um, should think about the ethics and what's good for humanity. Great, we can all agree with that.
No, nah, we can't, because Marc Andreessen, um, latched onto the screenshot of that GQ Sydney Sweeney interview- Baby interview...
like a baby duck, um, and quote tweeted it with a photo of, uh- L- Let me read the, let me read the, the quote, the tweet that he, um- Okay, yeah... that Andreessen was quote tweeting. So this is from November 10th.
Uh, Popelio XIV says, "Technological development has brought, and continues to bring, significant benefits to humanity.
In order to ensure true progress, it is imperative that human dignity and the common good remain resolute priorities for all, both individuals and public entities.
We must never forget the ontological dignity that belongs to the person as such simply because he or she exists and is willed, created, and loved by God." Um, and then he references where that's from.
So he's just saying like, "Yeah, tech, tech is great, but like prioritize human dignity, not like-" Yeah..."tech for tech's sake."
So yeah, Marc Andreessen responds with a meme, a latent meme that also kind of implies consternation, I guess.
But it was like something cracked, and like people who would not normally speak out against him, some of the more like bigger shit posters in like teapot or teapot adjacent, like who-I think are willing to get a little rowdier where like Okay, you've explained what Tea Pot is before, and I s- I still don't under- it's, it's like I still don't understand what it is.
It's like a, it's like a weird, like- I'm gonna explain it poorly... so Twitter brain part of tech Twitter. There's a pool of tech Twitter that is like, they're more like politically ambivalent contrarians- Mm...
who are equally interested in memeing as well as, like, philosophy, rationalism, some of these areas of study. Um,
they simultaneously take themselves very seriously and don't take themselves very seriously. Um, and I would say, like, a lot of them don't really have, like, traditional social lives or skills.
But they're not, like, necessarily nerds per se. Um, if they are nerds, their special interest seems to be, like, emerging philosophies. Mm-hmm. And especially philosophy applied to technology. Does that make sense?
Yeah. It's a grab bag. And I also will say, like, there were periods of time where it was a lot more cohesive. I think a lot of that cohesiveness has sort of disbanded.
Um, I saw an interesting tweet about this that I should have bookmarked and I'll send to you, but somebody sort of hypothesized, like, a lot of these people got absorbed into one side or the other. Mm.
So they either got absorbed into having, like, regular FAANG tech- So much for the poly scene. [lip smack] Right, exactly.
They got absorbed into having, like, regular FAANG tech jobs or went to work at Anthropic, or they, like, fell further down the rabbit hole and now are kind of, like, weird outcasts that have, like, gone too far right into certain stuff, like,
like- Like quote tweeting the Pope... race stuff that- Oh... really, or, like, immigration, like, replacement theory stuff that was really never part of the original scene. Mm-hmm. Groyperism. Um, or issues...
Yeah, exactly. Groyperism. So, um, yeah, so then, like, people are, like, seeing other people dunk on Marc Andreessen are kinda like, "We're allowed to do this now?" And it's like, well, yeah, 'cause, like, he went...
It's like there was one... It's like if there was one fish bigger than you- Mm... and you go after the bigger fish. It's like, what are you thinking, man? You don't go after the Pope, that's for sure.
It's like the Pope might be the only emo- movable object in Marc Andreessen's way, but I think, like, he kinda overestimated, like, what people will look to him for expertise.
It's like, okay, people will allow Marc Andreessen to refactor himself as a political theorist. They're not gonna allow him to refactor himself as a spiritual guy.
Especially at a time when, like, you know, there's been all these think pieces and stuff about how religion is transcendent in Silicon Valley. We, we had Reggie on- Right...
um, a few months ago, and we talked about this with him. Yeah. Reggie's s... I mean, this was, like, Reggie's Super Bowl. Yeah. [laughs] Um, [laughs] Yeah.
'Cause his whole thing is like- Let me, let me find some of his, his tweets... that tech and spirituality and religion are on a collision course.
So anyway, Marc, I guess, like deletes the tweet, but people are like, "Ooh, vibe shift." It's one of those things where it's like- Yeah...
you know, coming on the backdrop of this, like, government shutdown, which is now kind of winding down, the weird sort of inflection point where, like, people seem to be turning against Trump on a symbolic basis, where it's like knocking down the eastern wing was actually, like, their breaking point and not- Yeah...
anything else. Plus, like, Mamdani's election. It was one of those things where, like, a lot of stuff happens at the same time, and people are, like, chomping at the bit to say vibe shift. Mm. Um, often overstated.
The- But- I saw some tweet, I saw some tweet the other day where somebody was arguing something. It was like, "Vibe shifts are vibe shifts." It's like... Anyways. [laughs] Vibe shifts are vibe shifts? Yeah.
It was just really pissy, yeah. It's a little bit of a circular definition. I do understand. [laughs] Sorry. I also think, like- Shouldn't have read it... yeah, certain, certain stuff where it's like, um,
you know, these are sort of some of the major elections, um, and statements that are kind of the first big political events to happen post-ceasefire. Mm.
Where for so long there was a lot of tribalism directed in Silicon Valley and elsewhere into where, how you felt about what was going on in Gaza. Yeah. And it's like that's not...
You know, post-ceasefire, obviously it's, there's still tremendous issues and inequalities happening and violence and- Fire not having ceased.
Yeah, like it's not, it's, like, not a real ceasefire, but I think people who were benefiting from that tribalism and sort of like had enshrined themselves in an untouchable viewpoint. Mm.
Like, that was already cracking. Mm-hmm.
Um, and now they can't really fall back on that, and so they're trying to kind of reenter this domestic political discourse, but, like, that's also changed because now we're- Mm... far, far enough into the Trump, um,
you know, Trump too- So what, what you're saying is like-... where it's like this isn't Biden's economy anymore. Yeah. This, you're saying that- Yeah...
there was this, there was this binary that was, like, useful for people to, to create this tribalism and, like, feel that they were on one side or another, and with that removed, it's like a c- a couple years of, like, of tribalism then dissipating.
And it's like, oh, well, where am I standing now when the, when the tide, you know, comes out? Right. They did that after October 7th.
They did it all throughout the election where it's like, obviously it's super easy to deflect by being tribal. It's a, it's a binary outcome- Yeah... event.
It's now it's like we're not really living in, like, a binary outcome, two sides period of- Now we're living in the poly scene. [laughs] Shit. I should have seen that coming.
Like, of, like, this, this moment is very, um, multi- multivariable. Yeah. Um, where it's like the economy is neither good nor bad. It's good or bad depending on where you sit in the economy, what industry you're in.
Yeah. Um- Whether or not you are one of the 50 or so percent of Americans with a 401[k].We're in like a weird in-between area of tariff policy. Um, so people are like, [laughs]
you know, everyone's like, "Everyone get more woke now." It's like, "Everyone get more nuanced now." Like, I feel like the slow ramp back up into woke two or dark woke or whatever- Mm-hmm...
you wanna call it is sort of like this pathway of nuance. Mm-hmm. Where it's the internet, it's never gonna be nuanced, but people who have sort of gone on autopilot being like tribal- Mm...
are starting to like trip over rocks in the stream. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Well, if, if woke 1.0 was characterized by like a, like identity politics for identity politics sake, maybe woke 2.0 is more of like a, a class-based politics, right?
Like, if, if Zoran's victory is, is something that is representative of, of a woke 2.0, like I think that's, that's why, right? He was able to build this like kind of like- I think people will take-...
somewhat class-based coalition... like remember like Occupy was... Like
identity politics were sort of used to dispel a lot of the energy that Occupy had brought about, and Occupy was sort of a failure or considered a failure at the time because there wasn't enough of like a singular agenda.
Yeah. So it's like there's a lesson from what happened with Occupy.
There's a lesson from what happened with identity politics, and now we have those two lessons, and we have an economy that's starting to repeat a lot of the patterns that led us to that point before.
So like what are people going to double down on? I think they're gonna realize the message has to be super clear. Yeah. Can't be all sorts of stuff. It can't be identity based. And so
I think the sides right now are, are sort of like affordability versus abundance. Yeah. Where like abundance is like the vision of,
um, a better economy for everyone that doesn't, that still sort of plays ball with like neoliberalism- Yeah... in a lot of ways. And affordability is the like angrier, rowdier, ruder younger sister- Yeah...
that like takes that Bernie bro and DSA energy and puts it into advocating like relentlessly and with more singular focus than Occupy for stuff like universal healthcare. Yeah.
Well, s- I mean, this makes me think of one of the earliest- Mm... lessons I learned like doing copywriting work, which is like write the outcome, right? You sell the outcome- Mm...
not the thing that like gets you the outcome. And like the, uh, uh, the politics of affordability is selling the outcome, whereas I think abundance is like I still... It's illegible, right?
Like abundance is not something that you can really sell on that mass scale because it's not outcomes based.
It's like, "Oh, here's the thing, and here, here are the policies we enact to do this," whereas like Zoran's affordability politics was like so much more like very simple, like, "Here's the outcome," and, "Oh yeah, how are we gonna get that?"
Like, "Here's... Very simple. We're gonna freeze the rent," et cetera, right? Um, but yeah, I think, I think that, that outcome based message, yeah.
Well, and so to go back to what we were talking about with Casey Lewis about like young people recognizing the power of marketing, everything is marketing now.
It's like which has better marketing, abundance or affordability? In a lot of ways, abundance has better marketing for people who already have power and money. Yes.
So like, but affordability has better marketing with- For people who don't... people who don't. Um, and I think that's a really interesting... It is, it is about marketing, right? Like- Yeah...
the Mamdani campaign was very well-marketed, but it's not enough to just say everything is marketing. You have to really talk about like who is it marketing to? Yeah.
Um, and the default right now is to just market to that like really small sliver at the top of the population that's doing well and whose spending is like dragging the median up, basically. Um, but I did [laughs]...
We did... So last episode, we didn't know if Mamdani was gonna win. He did. Mm. The next thing- Can't believe that was only a week ago... I can't either. [laughs] There are weeks that feel like lifetimes.
Um, I went into my email to look at some of our old- Mm... like emails, um, from college, and I found a thread that I had not found before. [laughs] I don't know why.
Like, I think it's because it was between- It was, it was better, it was better to save the clout surfing of this until, until after the victory Okay, first of all, this was, it was not my intention- [laughs]...
to clout surf. I thought, what I thought was this is an interesting slice of life about- Yeah... how things change, not everybody look at me, I emailed with Zoran at one point. Yeah.
So it's also not a thread that I initiated. So I had like, when I had looked back on old emails in the past and was sort of reminiscing during the campaign, I was always looking up his college email. Yeah.
But this time his Gmail came up, and I was like- Yeah... "Zoran emailed me from his Gmail?" And what had happened was in 2017 he emailed me, and he said, "I saw, I see you're still writing. You're a writer now.
I know you don't really write about music, but like I have this single on SoundCloud. Like, how would you suggest I get it out there?" Yeah. Basically.
And I was like, I sent him back a lot, a lot of advice, including like, "You should tweet at Lin-Manuel Miranda," which I wanna be- Yeah. [laughs]... very clear, that was good advice in 2017.
You were saying, and you were saying, "Look, this, this is not an endorsement." You were saying, "This is not an endorsement of Lin-Manuel [laughs] Miranda." Like that was- "This is just reading the, reading the feed."
Yeah, but like in 2017 that was good advice. Yeah. No, it was Like it wasn't... Right now that would be interpreted as like- I mean, we were only two years into the Hamilton life cycle...
passive-aggressive, but like Hamilton was hot shit. Like we still- Yeah... liked Hamilton. We weren't bored of it yet. Mm-hmm. So anyway, like [clicks tongue]
and then I also like asked a couple friends, probably Zach Schoenfeld being one of them-We should have him on the pod soon. He introduced me to my husband [laughs] Oh. So he's a very influential figure in my life.
Zach wrote that Kaput Destroyer piece for the September issue that you were- Mm-hmm... also in. Yeah. I remember I asked Zach, and I don't know who else I asked, "What are good music blogs?"
And then I sent him back a list, "These are the places you should pitch: Consequence of Sound, Stereogum, Passion of the Weiss." And, and Stereogum then tweeted their own version of this, right?
They, they tweeted the photo... the, the pi- the, um, the screenshot of him having emailed them pitching his song, which I don't think they- Right... responded to. This happened on March 27th, 2017.
He responded, "I'm gonna follow up on all of those now." Yeah. And, and then I didn't respond to that, 'cause it was like, the thread was over, right? Yeah, yeah. So- Ser- purpose served...
[laughs] Stereogum has a screenshot from March 27th or 28th, 2017. So he took your advice. Well, it's, it's the same da- like, week. Yeah. It's the same- Yeah... two-day time period.
But anyway, the reason I tweeted about it, obviously redacted the email addresses. J- Jeff Weiss didn't, so, like- Ugh. Oh...
I, I feel really bad that I'm kind of inadvertently responsible for Zoran's Gmail getting doxxed. But, um, I said... I emailed him back the day after the election on the same thread. Yeah.
And I said, "Just circling back. How did your rap career go?" [laughs] "Just kidding, habibi." Which is what we called each other in Arabic class. Yeah. We said habibi and habibati- You're not... Yeah, mm-hmm...
because it's my friend in Arabic. You're not being, you're not being too cute. Right. Like, um, you know, we're all so proud of you, basically. Yeah.
And so I redacted our emails, and I sent the screenshot, and I was like, "Sometimes you have the opportunity to do the funnest thing ever," not intending to clout surf, but intending to be like, "Isn't it so interesting that in eight years, somebody who i- is emailing their old classmate for advice about getting their single out there could become- Yeah...
mayor of New York?" Like, anyway, that went gangbusters. I'm afraid to check on it. It went mega viral. Yeah.
I, I have my notifications turned off, c- so my best friend Alison will usually, like, pet sit my viral tweets. Me too, but that's just because, that's just because I don't get any [laughs] notifications.
But then, like, Jeff Weiss, who does Passion of the Weiss- Uh-huh, yeah... and, um, is actually working on something for Dirt right now, so he too does that. Fantastic music writer, one of my favorite music writers.
Yeah, he's amazing. Um, and, like- The work he did on Drake was incredible... Stereogum and some of the other music blogs on that list- Mm...
went back into their, like, open tip box and found the old emails from Zoran from that period about the outreach about that song and tweeted them out, and then they got called clout chasers, 'cause they're like- Mm...
oh, everyone, everyone was like, "Oh, they only like you when you're famous." And I was like, I would like to be excluded from this narrative, because I actually
responded, gave him advice, and took his aspirations very seriously at the time, and I am extremely proud to have even interacted with him in- To have been a small part of his story...
the ways that we did, and have known each other in the time that we did. But, um, yeah. Uh, Zoran, if you're listening, I'm really sorry that your Gmail got doxxed, but I did redact it in my screenshot. It wasn't you.
And, um, Stereogum actually made some more big announcements this week, 'cause they switched over to Lead- They did?...
which is the content management system that Defector uses, and I think we talked about that a, a little bit before when we had, um, we were on the panel with Jasper, or we did the live pod.
Yeah, a y- a year ago today, I think, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Or something like that, basically. Again, symbol of how things change. So- Yeah... anyway, that was a fun slice of life. Mm. Um...
Um, one, one other thing I wanted to bring up, uh, a little less pure. Did you see... So friend of the pod Ariel Rubin texted me last week.
It was just a picture of The Rizzler, but, like, um, in- He loves The Rizzler pod. He loves The Rizzler. Well, he, yeah, he, The Rizzler, The Rizzler won him a Webby.
Um, but, uh, it's a picture of The Rizzler in, like, the Oppenheimer outfit, like, at the end of Oppenheimer when he's like, he's been talking to Einstein. He's, like, regretting.
[laughs] Um, and- In, like, that fuck-ass hat? Yeah, precisely. [laughs] Uh, but then he, uh, he, he wouldn't send me the link. He was like, he was like, "Do you have a second to hop on this meeting?"
And hop on the meeting, he shows me this video that came out today. Um, I think he's... We'll see. I, they might finally get sued. I don't know. There's a logic for yourself. Why, by Christopher Nolan?
No, no, no, it's, it's more than that. Um- Okay, okay, I'll watch it... it's basically... I, I shouldn't say anything. We, we should end the episode here. Don't spoil it. Don't spoil it. All right.
This has been Tasteland. Well, [laughs] I was gonna do like an Eric Adams. Anything could happen in Tasteland. Um- Anything could happen in Tasteland.
Tasteland, it's- From becoming mayor of New York Front to becoming The Rizzler to- New York is kind of the Tasteland of America... dunk, dunk tweeting the Pope to being dunked on by the Pope.
Mm-hmm, to drinking Duncan with the Pope. To buying a book at Mac Jack's to Frankenstein. Well, you know, this is just to bring it home. When Ben was like, "Does Frankenstein poop and where?"
[laughs] I was thinking about that phrase. You know that phrase where it's like people- Everybody poops... da, da, da, and so does the Pope shit in the woods? Oh, yeah. Is that not something?
I've, I, I, I've heard does, does a bear shit in the woods. Didn't somebody make it about the Pope? Popes certainly have. Does the Pope shit in the woods? I mean, it's on Wiktionary. It has to be true.
[laughs] So guys, does Frankenstein shit in the woods?
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