October 13, 2017 • 42 mins
In episode 5, Jack & Miles are joined by comedian Laci Mosley to discuss Asheville airport bomb, Russia messing with the US for years, Toyota's ad campaigns for different races, Matt Damon's comments on Weinstein, & more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello the Internet, and welcome to the Daily Zeitgeist for Friday,
October thirteenth, two thousand seventeen. Happy death Day, you guys. Uh.
I think that's the name of the movie that's coming
out today. Uh, spooky day. Uh. And my name's Jack O'Brien,
(00:20):
and I am happy to be joined as always by
my co host, Mr Miles Gray. Yes, I'm also named
Jack O'Brien, Jack O'Brian. Fun that up. Wait to start
this one, all right, And and we're thrilled to be
joined in our third seat by Lacey Moseley. Hey, um,
(00:41):
would you do your own? Do my own? I need
it every time. Let him know, Lazy, what's the weirdest
thing in your search history from the past week. The
weirdest thing in my search history from the past week
is rapper Dark Butts. Okay, and we don't want any
(01:03):
context from that. We're just gonna go right into your
overrated underrated Okay google rapper dark Butts and maybe you'll
understand me. Um, underrated I have Okay, this makes me
feel so bad to even say this, but I feel
like the cash me outside girl as a rapper bad
baby is underrated. Underrated. Yeah, I'm sorry. She's got some
(01:30):
fire songs. They're hitting like. I literally made everyone on
my team come out to that on here all night.
We play that on here all night. I'm not gonna lie.
I did use that in Instagram caption recently. But yo,
she's fucking problematic. I mean as fun. But you know
who is it these days? Wow? Hope you explain who
(01:54):
the cash me outside girl is? White audience, I do
not know her name in of life, it's Daniel Daniel, right, Daniel.
She appeared on Dr Phil where she got into a
very heated discussion with him over her lascivious activities as
a youth and told him that she needed to cash
(02:15):
him out. She could cash him outside. How about that? Yeah?
The audience members could cant her her outside, cash me outside?
How about that? Yes? Basically meaning come outside and we
can fight each other. Doctor Fell was like, now what
is she saying? Yeah, like the and my audiences hose
(02:38):
But yeah, and then she got signed to Atlantic, signed
a three sixty deal with Atlantic. Uh same, you know who?
They have a new model, which is to cash in
on like social media celebrities and turn them give them
music careers. But you know what I will say, maybe
she's underrated, but I am surprised that I thought it
would just be a total disaster. And the fact that
(03:01):
even the things are kind of even like reminiscent of
an actually good song. They sound pretty good, like some
of them aren't that bad. And you can tell her
mom dresses her in those music videos because they're like,
you're if you're gonna do this, you're gonna wear a
hood at sweater zipped all the way up and jeans.
I don't want to any thought he outfits. I mean,
at least they're trying. She's young as he and I
(03:22):
heard that she's also very extra, which like you know,
like a Mariah Carey fashion like um, one of the
firms that I've gone into, she was there and she
was getting carried around by a like a security guard.
What do you mean one of the firms or like
a social media firm. I was like in like doing
some work with them. I can't say who, but she
was also in the office and they were carrying her
(03:44):
like a baby around the office. That's amazing. It was
so I was so spectacle. Yes, give me. My dream
has always been to like being a professional sports league
get injured and then get carried out like a baby
by like your teammate. Wait and when you say, like literally,
like what was her demeanor? Like, She's like that's right, yeah,
(04:07):
like this is this is her bag? Like she was
acting like it was not bizarre that she was being
carried around this office place. It was fantastic right around
on my bodyguards back like Prince and m the club. Yeah.
Um Blackish. I feel like it's hella underrated. Um, it
is fantastic and it's really getting better on television. Um
fill that Cosby void. Oh that's a weird phrase. Just
(04:32):
you know that you can watch that and step um
Selena Gomez's best friend gave her a kidney And I
feel like this did not get enough press. Really I
did it. I mean I'm surprised I knew about it
before you because she's like what happened me? And I
was just like damn. It really made me think, like
(04:53):
are my best friends drinking enough water? Your friends like,
oh no, no, no, I would not do. We have
the same blood type. I'm gonna get my friends together
because I will be famous enough that I'm like, look, y'all,
who trying to tell me that Liver Alright, what's overrated?
Overrated is um uh TV reboots. I am so tired
(05:17):
of Hollywood just being so desperate not to become a
diverse place that they're just going to resurrect any old
television show from whenever, like Fuller House and Grace, which
actually killed in the ratings when it debuted Will and Grace,
it had like a three. I watched Fuller House, so
you know it don't come from my Fuller No thanks,
no thanks. It's so it's so bad. It's amazing. Play
(05:40):
have amazing scripts out here. I just like it's sucking
lazy to be digging up the grays with these old shows.
Like that's true. It is like all all these shows
are from a time when diversity was considered like having one,
but it still is. I love how people have masqueraded
like TV is just like black as funk and Latino
as hell and like Asians, because is like a couple
(06:00):
of Fuller House is diverse because Jimmy Gibbler has short
hair and and and she has a half Latin child.
Oh nice. So but even though the father that child
is mad problematic anyway. But that's a whole other I
mean what's gonna do? So it is from UH just
(06:21):
wanted to fill people in on it. So apparently this
day loses the American economy as much as nine hundred
million dollars every time it rolls around because people stay
home or don't go on vacations or this is one
of those statistics that first of all, it says as
much as in front of it, so you know, who knows, uh,
(06:44):
and as little as one dollar but who knows. But
it's also one of those things that UM like weig boards,
for instance, go back to I think, you know, maybe
fifty years ago when UH board game Company invented Quiji boards.
They're not like an ancient UH thing. And Friday thirteenth
(07:07):
similarly only goes back to nineteen o seven to a
novel uh where and it was like a financial thriller
UH that basically like told the story of a guy,
a businessman who plots to crash the stock market. And
that was like the first mention in history of Friday.
There's supposedly like all these myths about it going back
(07:31):
to the thirteenth century and UH when like a bunch
of knights Templar were arrested and tortured and nope goes
back to the early twentieth century to a financial thriller.
One of these things that I do believe in is
full moons. I do think like I've talked to too
many people who like work in institutions and uh, you know,
(07:52):
have worked in mental hospitals where they were just like, No,
it is definitely true that every full moon, like people
just go bunkers. Um mm hmm. They use that word
bunkers who work in mentally a scientific term, fucking bunkers.
All right, Miles, So our first story is sort of
(08:15):
a uh, it's not really defining the zeitgeist type thing,
and but away it demonstrates. Right, So let's see last
Friday on October six, a week ago, this man Michael
Stes went to like the Asheville Regional Airport and like
just around like like before one am. Dressed in all black.
(08:37):
He had a bag with him. They show him walk
in the airport with a bag, and then suddenly in
the footage he leaves the airport without a bag. So
cut to the alarms go off. People are being like
there's a suspicious package. They look inside low and behold,
there is an I E. Ed in there like he's
made a homemade bomb out of ammonia nitrate and with
like some shrapnel, uh and a timer for the bomb.
(08:57):
They go off like in the morning essentially. So this
man basically left a bomb at an airport. Uh. And
you know, guess guess what the coverage was like on
that first Well, Miles, I'd imagine it was all over
the news and just NonStop twenty four coverage on CNN
and Fox News. Fox loves terrorist attacks. They probably covered
(09:22):
it like round the class. No, no, no, barely any coverage. Oh,
but I left out of very important detail. Uh, the
suspect was actually white and a man, even though they
are our most dangerous type of person statistically in America.
They didn't cover it. Oh look at you, Jack with
the woke statistics. I like that, Thank you, thank you. Yes,
there was a white man, uh, a possible terrorist, although
(09:44):
Trump would never say that leaving a bomb at an airport.
And yeah, this was like a very underreported incident. I
mean it took it took other news outlets days for
like actual legitimate coverage for this to come out. Fox
News did report about it, but that was just when
it was a person of interest sought after device found
at airport kind of situation. But then once the suspect
(10:07):
was identified as this man, Michael Estes, there was not
even a hint of coverage on that website. So Fox
covered it like when it was just an anonymous bomb,
and then when they identified like okay, and this is
who we're looking for, they stopped covering it. Basically like
it was almost like, oh, there's a bomb the airport.
He would go, here we go, maybe it'll turn up
traditional terrorists. And then when it was like, oh, reveal
(10:30):
it's a white man, is like, I don't know about that,
And so it's sort of you know, god us thinking
obviously there we see a bias, especially in like on
conservative media about these things like that. But also, uh,
there was a there was a story about a black
man who made a threat to quote do another Vegas
because he felt cheated by a mobile app developer. Uh,
(10:52):
and that story blew up and what jack you you
you looked in it sort of like, yeah, I just
did a search of the guy's name who threatened to
do another Vegas. Uh at I'm gonna do another Vegas
at you uh to this mobile phone company. I think
he was in New York, the mobile phone company was
in uh Or, the app developer was in Colorado. And
(11:16):
when you search his name in quotes his full name, UH,
you get seventy thousand results. When you search Michael Estes
his name, you get thirty five thousand, So twice as
many results for a guy who threatened to do another
Vegas to a mobile phone company, but a white man
who leaves a legitimate bombing airport half that. So yeah,
(11:37):
so again it fits into this thing, you know, if
if it's not, if it doesn't fit the narrative Trump's
trying to push, which is, you know, Muslims are terrorists
and that's why we need to have a travel band
that's gonna get air. But if it doesn't, then you know,
like hill gloss over. Like for like, even when there
was that London bridge attack, he jumped on that to
just be like, you know, there's why we need like
tighter immigration control. And even the Philippines there was a
(11:59):
Casie shooting. He labeled that terrorism when it wasn't so.
And then when we look at people, are white people
actually being perpetrators of some kind of terrorism? Uh, you know,
things glossed over pretty quickly. Did you see that? Well
you probably already talked about the second protest that they
had where everyone looked like way more attractive. Yeah, yeah,
we talking about Edgar. Yeah, where Richard Spencer put on
(12:20):
his knife. You look trying to look like a boy
or a white supremacy movement. But it's interesting to me
because I always thought that white people had the privilege
of not being a monolith, and that you know, everyone
is a lone person and we all get lumped together
as minorities. Like if somebody shoots up one thing, we're like, god, damn,
well now we all shot it up. Like I remember
(12:40):
hoping that the DC snipers weren't black because I was like,
come on, don't do this, you know. Yeah, Chris Rock
had a bit like that in the early night, Like
if I read about like a serial killer, He's like,
I'm praying in the article it's not black because I
don't want to have to go into work tomorrow, and like, hey,
so did you know Jerome Literally, next thing I know,
the airport security gets a lot more real gut fingers.
So other narrative that seemingly that you know again that
(13:03):
Trump loves to push is the one that he is owning,
isis bombing the ship out of him there they have
nowhere to go, and he's you know, he's he's gonna
do away with Islamic terrorism once and for all, um
and also the America first thing, like we don't need
to be meddling in other people's business if it doesn't
have any consequence to the U S. Okay. So cut
to uh Niger on October four, Uh, there were there
(13:24):
was a group of U S troops who were working
in conjunction with some Nigerian soldiers uh in Niger, and
they were ambushed and four Green Berets were killed. Two
more soldiers were injured. Uh. And again this was like
a pretty significant event. There were lots of US soldiers lives,
which clearly you know has been has been touted as
one of the most important things, especially with the NFL protests,
(13:46):
that you know, our soldiers are very important to sacrifice
they give. There were no tweets about this from the
White House, no mention that these soldiers had lost their lives,
not even from Trump. He hasn't said a thing. There
hasn't been a statement out of the White House. And
again because it almost kind of looks like very early
similar to the sort of the same stakes as Benghazi,
where you have U S soldiers who are put at risk.
(14:08):
Apparently the military forces in Niger have asked for additional
resources because it is a very difficult place to operate
from a military standpoint, and they weren't getting that support,
and there was a lot of speculation that that may
have led to the greater loss of life life in
this instance. But yeah, again, you know, uh that this
happened on Wednesday of last week. You didn't hear anything
(14:30):
from Trump. He was too busy sending Mike Pence to
go do his you know, paid protests at the at
the Colts game. Uh you know Trump who who loved
the protest. Yeah, uh, then you have Trump couldn't be bothered.
He didn't even go to Dover Air Force Base to
to greet the coffins of these soldiers who came home,
you know, because you know, instead he want to play
golf with Lindsay Graham. So normally Obama had been dragged
(14:54):
for this kind of stuff. Hillary Clinton was dragged for
for the ship that's going on Benghazi and the lack
of outrage on the red I think just goes the
show that Benghazi has never about embassy security. Uh, and
just similar to the same thing of like how Javonka's
private email use it was never about that. It's all
just sort of whatever fits the narrative and scores political points. So,
you know, we'll see if Trump says anything about this.
(15:16):
It doesn't seem like he will because it doesn't fit
his I'm doing a great job. I'm owning the terrorists.
I'm you know, putt in America first. The troops are great.
It uh, it doesn't take any of those boxes. So yeah,
all right, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll
be right back. And we're back. So we wanted to
(15:41):
talk about the tech industry and sort of how it operates,
how it ties into um, you know, some of the
news stories you're seeing recently about Russia, because I guess
these companies are more powerful than I realized. Definitely more
powerful than the Hillary Clinton campaign realized. Because Facebook went
(16:03):
to both campaigns and was like, hey, we can help
you with targeted advertising, and the Trump campaign took him
up on that, and the Clinton campaign was like, nah,
we're good, uh, and that that was a pretty fateful decision.
The Trump campaign still credits Facebook with being like a
(16:24):
huge influencing factor and does not want that endorsement other thing,
but so as it relates to us as consumers. Um, Basically,
if you're not paying for something on the internet, then
you are the product. Um. Like back when it started
A O l uh and things like that made you pay.
(16:48):
There was like a service fee. I remember my mom
would she would pull that over my head if I
was on A O well too long, right, It was
like are you paying the A O L bill? And
then all of a sudden, these great benevolent companies like
Facebook and Google came along and we're like, hey, use
our products for free, guys. Um. The reason they're able
(17:10):
to do that is because they use all the in
depth information that they have on you to allow different
advertisers and different products to target you. In a way.
It actually eliminates the need for ad agencies in a
sense too, because they can deal with the company directly
(17:32):
rather than asking an ad agency like, hey, what's the
best way to talk to young millennials blah blah blah
who are affluent. Now they can like, you know, Coca
Cola can just be like yo, Google, I'm trying to
talk to these like an eighteen year old with a
million dollars, like, how do I do that? Uh? Their
companies and like a just vast infrastructure of tech companies
that are connecting data from one platform to the other.
So you have this giant network of information sort of
(17:57):
spider webbing all over the place that kind of forms
your profile on the web. And it's also a way
other types of companies are getting into it. It's a
way telecom UH companies are basically cashing in with they
have us declining subscriber base, but they're able to cash
in using data. Uh. The world's largest phone operators are
(18:22):
doing the same thing, like a T and T and Verizon.
They're basically tapping into the data that showers from us
at the time we're mobile surfing or texting or making
phone calls. So like basically, since most people don't have
landlines anymore, which is like a huge part of their
business and now just sort of buying their internet service,
(18:45):
they're like, Okay, let's turn that into a secondary product,
Like now we can sell all the data that we've
gathered from your brow Well cool. Yeah. Car companies are
also doing it, uh, just based on the fact that
they know where you are at all times. Yeah, you
might notice that every time you install any app on
(19:07):
your phone, uh, that they ask if they can use
your location. And obviously there some apps where that makes sense,
like Yelp when you're searching for various things around you,
but there are some that it doesn't make any sense.
And that's because they, you know, want access to that sweet,
(19:27):
sweet data. And with that, let's go to an ad
and right. But it's it's invisible. It's invisible marketing that
we're we're not really even that aware of. But um,
like with Facebook likes, uh, people like marketers and Facebook
in particular, can automatically and accurately predict a bunch of
(19:50):
really personal things about you, like sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious
and political views, personality, traits, intelligence, happiness, your use of
addictive substances, whether your parents are still together, your age,
when gender, off of just off of like the pages
(20:12):
that you like or like posts that you like, or
they just they build a profile. It's like, oh, well,
this guy likes j Dillah, like Hillary Clinton blah blah blah,
and then are they're building a profile like but it's
not the stuff necessarily that you're voluntarily like giving over,
like saying, okay, this is my profile. They're not just
working with that. They like if you like that Facebook
page or whatever based on those And even when you're
(20:34):
not on Facebook, if you go to a page that
has a Facebook like like button on it, that information
is going back to Facebook. Facebook knows fucking everything about you. Um,
it's really advanced too. I remember when I used to
see ads at first, and it would be like, Oh,
(20:55):
I was talking about something I wanted to buy, and
then that ad would pop up for what I wanted
to buy on this side. But now I feel like
it's getting just even more specific. It's like, are you
looking for like a thirty two year old black man
with a beard that'll text you back like, oh my god?
And I am, and I click on it and what
do I get? Quick? And quick? Quick? Books? Got me?
(21:18):
Got meick? He's only in books. Um. There was actually
a woman who was a sex worker who I think
pro Publica did a profile of because these anonymous clients
that she had like no online interaction with, no interaction
with other than her professional interactions with them started suddenly
(21:38):
popping off as like people you may know, uh, and
she was like what the funk man? Yeah, so there's
this huge depersonalized system that's emerged and kind of treats
bits of us and like, our information, our personality is
like little commodities, and our data is way more valuable
(22:01):
than just you know, the few dollars a month, right,
because it's basically the greatest focus group data you could
ever have. It's like you get all of your consumer
information from that, and yeah, we don't realize like that's
pretty much that's all in like the terms of use
of anything. When you're like agree to do it, it's
like and it's in there. Whenever people talk about that,
(22:22):
they're like, yeah, I just click the user agreement and
like whatever, I don't read it. And it's almost like
we're being self reproachful, like oh, like we're lazy, but
it's not her fault. The Amazon Kindle's terms of use
took nine hours to read. Somebody, right, took nine hours,
So they're specifically designed for you not to be able
(22:45):
to read them. Right. Um, So I know the same
thing happens to a lot of people when uh, you
can just search someone's name and you'll be on like
one of those like white pages websites where you can
find like old addresses and things like that, and people
like how did they get that? A lot of those
websites are getting them from places like Google and things,
because yeah, that that's that's another way your information is
(23:06):
just just out there, not even like you're consuming habits,
but just your personal information that they're even packaging and selling.
So I want to move on to Russia because, uh,
we know that Russia has been using Facebook to advertise.
They've been using all the different platforms that they can
uh to advertise to different people, to you know, promote
(23:29):
the behaviors they want promoted and suppress the behaviors they
don't want. I think there's specific instances of them suppressing
African American voter turnout, and you know, Facebook has copped
to that now. Although Mark Zuckerberg at first was like,
the idea that when we would have any effect on
(23:51):
people's behavior is ridiculous. Now continue to pay me billions
of dollars for advertising. So I want to just give
a brief story of how Russia fox with us. This
is Russia has been working with us and more than
I think most people realize. For a long time. An
(24:13):
example that I didn't realize was the Kennedy assassination and
conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination. I visited Dealy Plaza,
which is where the Kennedy assassination happened with my dad
when I was a kid, and uh, you know, they're
all these you know, booths and like little museum set
(24:35):
up around there, and you know, they have the conspiracy
theories there. And like one of the things I saw
was a note supposedly from the CIA to Lee Harvey Oswald,
like a week before the JFK assassination. Um. I was like, well,
that that doesn't look good for sak So I was
(24:58):
just like showing that there was interaction between the Magic Bully, right. Um,
that note was actually forged by the KGB. And even
even before the first book on the Kennedy assassination came out,
even before the Warm report came out, a KGB subsidized
(25:21):
publishing house released books such as Oswald Colin Assassin or
Fall Guy. Um. Yeah, and you know there was a
guy from the CIA who was working with KGB. Uh
and he was publishing a newsletter that included claims that
the CIA was behind the assassination. Uh. Yeah, they distributed
(25:44):
that forged letter between Oswald and the CIA that I
then saw twenty years later, and that like put the
seed in my mind, Like huh right, so that's Kremlin
from the sixties, right, And resumably they also built the
android we know as Oliver Stone. So other deep joke,
(26:10):
not familiar with a Stone or JFK movie? Wait in
that movie? Was he is that? Are they pushing that
myth in that movie? Uh? Well, they just like push
every myth in that movie, like something happened here, So
and we can get into what actually happened in the
JFK assassination another day. Uh, hot takes on that was
(26:31):
this secret service agent accidentally fired the But we'll get
to that another time. Uh. The KGB also distributed racist
pamphlets against quote black mongrels and falsely attributed them to
the Jewish Defense League. Uh. They sent letters to black
(26:52):
organizations with bogus details about how the Jewish Defense League
was like being by went against black people. Um. And
then in three there was a thing called Operation Infection
where uh the KGB planted a story uh supposedly and
(27:13):
they printed this in an Indian journal like a journal
UH in India, but it like started this rumor that
the AIDS virus was genetically engineered by the US government,
but that's still around now. Yeah, and Kane and the
(27:33):
Kanye Sell heard him say, do we have don't get
a job to day? Can I at least get a
raise in a minimum wage? And I know the government?
So that was a three KGB operation that comes down
to us. Like, so Kanye got got by the KGB.
(27:55):
Two we all did. Yeah, we still heard that. And
like whether you heard it and thought it was absurd,
you heard it and it's in your mind. Well, it's
interesting too about the thing with with during the civil
rights movement too, because the KGB, Like that's another rumor
is that they tried to de legitimize MLK by trying
to get people to say that he was taking government
(28:16):
money to to do this and de legitimize him. But
that's interesting because he was attacked by the FBI and
the KGB. So that's that's a two fer from that's
relevant history to then bring you up to the present
day where so putin former KGB agent UH is trying
to influence the American people and influence the American election
(28:42):
and he has access to this giant universe of information
that we give these companies access to, and yeah, I
don't know, it's not even like it's not the least
bit surprising to me that he was able to kind
of in fluence things and get and get things done. Yeah,
because I mean, again, these algorithms have become so sophisticated
(29:06):
that you can just plug and play all kinds of
things and just just instantly disseminate that information to like
a specific group, and knowing that you're getting the most
effective message to the audience that is the most receptive
to it, like even picking up on individual words like now,
people use the congratulations to try to boost their posts
(29:26):
because if you write congratulations in the comments under a
Facebook post, it automatically boost it for longer than the
other post because Facebook assumes it's like an announcement that
you want to see. So if you write, yeah, if
you write get on Facebook and write congratulations in a comment,
and it will turn orange and then it'll pose. So
it's like, hey, I'm doing my nineties DJ said at
(29:46):
the congratulations and you're like, man, I don't want to
see this ship. Thank you. Yeah. If you do that,
and people are using that to try to disseminate information
about registering for the Affordable Care Act. Since the government
slash so much of the funding for advertisements for that,
well that activists to help people get to enroll, we're
having to gain Facebook two by using congratulations hack, congratulations
(30:09):
you're fucked, get unfucked. Um. But yeah, so, I mean
a lot of the times this is being used by advertising.
There's a a piece in the New York Times today
about how Toyota just released like four different types of ads,
like racially targeted ads for the Toyota I forget which
(30:31):
card is the camera? The one of the black and
Asian ones both spoke to me. The Asian one what
portrayed a very bizarre father daughter relationship in which I
guess he showed affection by looking at her in the
rear view mirror. Okay, And the marketing team behind it,
(30:51):
I think was quoted in the piece being like, yes,
we know that Asian fathers do not show affection, so
we were trying to like break down some doors. But anyways,
it's like these are things that advertisers have been working
on and you know, using for years, and they're going
to continue to use and brag about using and the
(31:14):
connecting of that enormous apparatus and like crazy amount of
value that that brings to advertisers. Connecting that to government
influences is pretty it's going to be pretty powerful and
it could be pretty terrifying. Well yeah, it's I mean,
it's something that's used to market. Like you know, marketing
(31:37):
is all about catching people at the right time, at
the right place, in the right mental state to make them,
you know, buy your thing that can be used for
such dark, evil shit. And even like on YouTube, I know,
like with ads too, they can like almost target emotions
as well. So it's like, oh, like you want to
you want to put your YouTube video up when someone's
feeling good or happy or excited or like thrilled about
(31:58):
a video like these are these are group of videos
that for that someone who is like maybe uh maybe
not feeling good about the way they look or maybe
feeling sad. They even have ways to begin targeting emotions too,
in front of the videos or after the videos you're watching.
So and these are just age old tactics that have
I have a marketing degree, and I have a marketing degree. Guys,
(32:19):
um little known fact, no, but that's always been something
that we would study in school. Is basically like, um,
if you are up at a certain hour, like late night,
television is targeted to people who seem to be uh,
they drink heavier, they tend to be depressed, they tend
to also be overweight, so you'll see like those commercials
target those specific aspects of that personality. So all it
is is now those at those same marketing strategies are
(32:42):
bleeding over into social media. The problem is that social
media has bled so deeply into our personal lives that
it's not like television or we turn it on and off.
It's like everywhere every minute. So that just makes it
that much more invasive. Yeah, it's increasingly important to think
about your attention as a fine resource. And I mean
(33:02):
we're giving away something that has you know, actual tangible value.
Uh you know value in our lives obviously, but uh,
you know value to these companies and uh then it's
being sold to hostile foreign powers. When Facebook acts like
(33:23):
it's crazy that anybody would think that they've had an
influence on the election, Like, realize how much of your
attention is being spent on Facebook? Is being like and
for free at least that stores when they give you
those little value cards, like you get like an incentive,
like a discount when you swipe it, and they get
(33:44):
information about your purchases. But Facebook, no, well, and it
just shows you just to show you how entrenched people, like,
how Facebook is so important to people's lives. People were
calling nine one one when Facebook went down the other day. Right,
will I will say that Facebook does also like there's
a reason people, uh you know, are all flocking to Facebook.
(34:04):
It also provides a service to people. Absolutely, No, absolutely,
But I think that's where that fine line is, where
like it allows us to connect to each other, and
it is a way to communicate outside of the traditional
ways of using phones and things like that. But yeah,
it's it's a it's a very sharp, double edged sword,
and I think we have to head to a break. Obviously,
there are a bunch of big questions like how do
(34:26):
you police this big of assistant. Uh, you know, should
the government get involved? Will they end up breaking up
these giant companies? Uh that like they did the monopolies
in the early twentieth century. Um, those are all interesting
questions that will dive into at a later date. But
(34:48):
for right, now let's hear a couple words from our
sponsors and we're back, all right, you guys. So briefly
yesterday we mentioned, uh the stunning lack of empathy required
(35:13):
uh for you to uh claim that you only feel
sorry for sexual abuse victims because you have a daughter. Uh.
And two of the people who have used this gambit
are writing partners and scared to admit it soulmates. Uh
(35:33):
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have both have both used it. Uh.
Matt Damon's was really weird. Actually he said, Look, even
before I was famous, I didn't abide this kind of behavior,
which is so strange. Like so like is he saying that,
like most not famous people are fine with sexual assault,
(35:56):
and but he wasn't. I think he's saying that before
it was so easy to get away with sexual assault,
he wasn't even attempting it back in the days when
he was annoying me let alone, when now he's famous
and he could probably just silence people. Even before I
was a star, I didn't like rape. But now, as
a father of four daughters, kind of sexual predation that
(36:19):
keeps me up at night. Um. So, so he's saying
that before he was famous. He was that he didn't
so to say that, wait, once you become famous, then
you gotta get with the game and be like it's okay,
it doesn't. Very confused. It raises more questions even before us. Anyways,
(36:41):
Lazy you pointed out that Matt Damon has kind of
been problematic for a while, Oh for sure, And that's
why I wasn't surprised when these comments came out. And
as I'm sure many people who are woke to Matt
Damon being dead because he's not sleep he's dead. Um.
He made some very problem at it comments when he
was doing Project green Light with HBO where he was
(37:03):
literally shutting down a black woman while she was trying
to talk to and to basically make the statement that
diversity only matters in front of the camera, and where
she was concerned that a person of color should be
directing a movie where a woman of color would have
been a prostitute and beat up by a white man
as a pimp. Just trying to make sure that the
narrative didn't get problematic. He was saying that it did
not matter who the director was, insinuating the director should
(37:26):
be white because that doesn't matter. It should be based
off merit or which is another problematic thing that racists
like to throw in there, like when they talk about
it from inaction and things like that, or even like
casting women's like, well we would cast women, but you're
not going to be funnier, so you better right, Yeah,
so it's just he's not. He gets real exasperated and ship. Yeah,
(37:49):
the whole scene is super cringey. You should YouTube bad anybody.
Just do Matt damon green Light Project green Light diversity,
because it all of a sudden, all the other like
I guess what are they technically the judges of the show,
who are also the other producers, they all like lock
arms and they're like, well no, no, no no, no, no, no,
hey hey hey where no ignorance ship going on here? Now,
we're just saying, you know, the best director should get
(38:13):
the part, we can get the job. Lazy, You're you're
pointing out earlier that insecure like because it's actually made
by black people and with black people in front of
the camera, that like it created all all these like
new ideas that like hadn't been made before. Because yeah, absolutely,
(38:35):
I mean in terms of filmmaking too, I think people
forget that diversity and racial inclusion spans so deep to
the point where Kodak for a very long period of
time up until probably recent years, did not have stock
um light photo like light swatches for people of color.
So basically like there UM when you're filming things that
(38:57):
would be like swatches like go bos or things that
go over the camera that changed the lighting to the lighting,
and they'll have those with an example of like a
white person of every shade so that you could see
what that white person would look like, but there were
no black people. So the Mic actually did an article
about how the lighting on Insecure is revolutionary because before
that UM most program was programming wasn't catering to dark
(39:19):
skin UM when they were lighting it at all. UM
so that black people never kind of look right in
anything because they adjust to white people. What's funny that
my dad, who was a photographer, he would always say
like whenever you know, so he shot a lot of
like like black artist, comedians, actors for for magazines and
things like that, and he was always critical when he
would see photography of black people because there are a
(39:41):
lot many white photographers just did not know how to
light for a black subject in front of the camera.
That's crazy, and that's interesting to know that might that's
almost maybe innately built out of Kodak not even like
creating these sort of products to help people understand like, Okay,
what do you do in the subject in front of
your camera has a skin tone that would absorb more
like than it would reflect light, and how you actually
(40:03):
adjust for this? So and I do want to just
correct myself before we move too far. Shirley cards is
what kodaks Uh the frame that I was talking about,
what they referenced to use for lighting. They're called Shirley
carts because someone who's into film will know that and
drag me. Surely you can't be cards. Uh good good
airplane reference? Thank you? Um, and I think that's all
(40:27):
the time we have. You got lazy. Thank you so
much for joining us. This was so fun. Where can
people find you? Follow you? Oh, you can follow me
at Diva Lacey on Instagram it's Lacy with an eye,
um just an I know e r y And then
you can also see me on Harold Light if you're
in l A. I'm at the UCD theater every week.
What's your Harold group? Leroy also with yeah our first
(40:52):
guests and our last guest of this season one. Where
we're this is that finale of season one will be
the Act with season two on Monday. Uh. We we
only take off a weekend for two seasons. Yeah, so
season two coming Monday. Um, Miles, where can people find you?
You can find me at Big five Sporting Goods um
(41:14):
taking back a faulty sleeping bag, trying to get my
money back, and you can follow me at Jack Underscore
O'Brien on Twitter. You can follow the Daily Zeitgeist at
Daily Zeitgeist on Twitter at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram.
We are working on bringing those footnotes to you folks.
(41:36):
We will get those going hopefully next week and season
two season two. Uh. And that'll do it for Week
one of the Daily Zeitgeist over and out. Well, what's
your uh? Sign off line? Miles? I got a new
one Late trix. Nice sp
Hello the Internet, and welcome to the Daily Zeitgeist for Friday,
October thirteenth, two thousand seventeen. Happy death Day, you guys. Uh.
I think that's the name of the movie that's coming
out today. Uh, spooky day. Uh. And my name's Jack O'Brien,
(00:20):
and I am happy to be joined as always by
my co host, Mr Miles Gray. Yes, I'm also named
Jack O'Brien, Jack O'Brian. Fun that up. Wait to start
this one, all right, And and we're thrilled to be
joined in our third seat by Lacey Moseley. Hey, um,
(00:41):
would you do your own? Do my own? I need
it every time. Let him know, Lazy, what's the weirdest
thing in your search history from the past week. The
weirdest thing in my search history from the past week
is rapper Dark Butts. Okay, and we don't want any
(01:03):
context from that. We're just gonna go right into your
overrated underrated Okay google rapper dark Butts and maybe you'll
understand me. Um, underrated I have Okay, this makes me
feel so bad to even say this, but I feel
like the cash me outside girl as a rapper bad
baby is underrated. Underrated. Yeah, I'm sorry. She's got some
(01:30):
fire songs. They're hitting like. I literally made everyone on
my team come out to that on here all night.
We play that on here all night. I'm not gonna lie.
I did use that in Instagram caption recently. But yo,
she's fucking problematic. I mean as fun. But you know
who is it these days? Wow? Hope you explain who
(01:54):
the cash me outside girl is? White audience, I do
not know her name in of life, it's Daniel Daniel, right, Daniel.
She appeared on Dr Phil where she got into a
very heated discussion with him over her lascivious activities as
a youth and told him that she needed to cash
(02:15):
him out. She could cash him outside. How about that? Yeah?
The audience members could cant her her outside, cash me outside?
How about that? Yes? Basically meaning come outside and we
can fight each other. Doctor Fell was like, now what
is she saying? Yeah, like the and my audiences hose
(02:38):
But yeah, and then she got signed to Atlantic, signed
a three sixty deal with Atlantic. Uh same, you know who?
They have a new model, which is to cash in
on like social media celebrities and turn them give them
music careers. But you know what I will say, maybe
she's underrated, but I am surprised that I thought it
would just be a total disaster. And the fact that
(03:01):
even the things are kind of even like reminiscent of
an actually good song. They sound pretty good, like some
of them aren't that bad. And you can tell her
mom dresses her in those music videos because they're like,
you're if you're gonna do this, you're gonna wear a
hood at sweater zipped all the way up and jeans.
I don't want to any thought he outfits. I mean,
at least they're trying. She's young as he and I
(03:22):
heard that she's also very extra, which like you know,
like a Mariah Carey fashion like um, one of the
firms that I've gone into, she was there and she
was getting carried around by a like a security guard.
What do you mean one of the firms or like
a social media firm. I was like in like doing
some work with them. I can't say who, but she
was also in the office and they were carrying her
(03:44):
like a baby around the office. That's amazing. It was
so I was so spectacle. Yes, give me. My dream
has always been to like being a professional sports league
get injured and then get carried out like a baby
by like your teammate. Wait and when you say, like literally,
like what was her demeanor? Like, She's like that's right, yeah,
(04:07):
like this is this is her bag? Like she was
acting like it was not bizarre that she was being
carried around this office place. It was fantastic right around
on my bodyguards back like Prince and m the club. Yeah.
Um Blackish. I feel like it's hella underrated. Um, it
is fantastic and it's really getting better on television. Um
fill that Cosby void. Oh that's a weird phrase. Just
(04:32):
you know that you can watch that and step um
Selena Gomez's best friend gave her a kidney And I
feel like this did not get enough press. Really I
did it. I mean I'm surprised I knew about it
before you because she's like what happened me? And I
was just like damn. It really made me think, like
(04:53):
are my best friends drinking enough water? Your friends like,
oh no, no, no, I would not do. We have
the same blood type. I'm gonna get my friends together
because I will be famous enough that I'm like, look, y'all,
who trying to tell me that Liver Alright, what's overrated?
Overrated is um uh TV reboots. I am so tired
(05:17):
of Hollywood just being so desperate not to become a
diverse place that they're just going to resurrect any old
television show from whenever, like Fuller House and Grace, which
actually killed in the ratings when it debuted Will and Grace,
it had like a three. I watched Fuller House, so
you know it don't come from my Fuller No thanks,
no thanks. It's so it's so bad. It's amazing. Play
(05:40):
have amazing scripts out here. I just like it's sucking
lazy to be digging up the grays with these old shows.
Like that's true. It is like all all these shows
are from a time when diversity was considered like having one,
but it still is. I love how people have masqueraded
like TV is just like black as funk and Latino
as hell and like Asians, because is like a couple
(06:00):
of Fuller House is diverse because Jimmy Gibbler has short
hair and and and she has a half Latin child.
Oh nice. So but even though the father that child
is mad problematic anyway. But that's a whole other I
mean what's gonna do? So it is from UH just
(06:21):
wanted to fill people in on it. So apparently this
day loses the American economy as much as nine hundred
million dollars every time it rolls around because people stay
home or don't go on vacations or this is one
of those statistics that first of all, it says as
much as in front of it, so you know, who knows, uh,
(06:44):
and as little as one dollar but who knows. But
it's also one of those things that UM like weig boards,
for instance, go back to I think, you know, maybe
fifty years ago when UH board game Company invented Quiji boards.
They're not like an ancient UH thing. And Friday thirteenth
(07:07):
similarly only goes back to nineteen o seven to a
novel uh where and it was like a financial thriller
UH that basically like told the story of a guy,
a businessman who plots to crash the stock market. And
that was like the first mention in history of Friday.
There's supposedly like all these myths about it going back
(07:31):
to the thirteenth century and UH when like a bunch
of knights Templar were arrested and tortured and nope goes
back to the early twentieth century to a financial thriller.
One of these things that I do believe in is
full moons. I do think like I've talked to too
many people who like work in institutions and uh, you know,
(07:52):
have worked in mental hospitals where they were just like, No,
it is definitely true that every full moon, like people
just go bunkers. Um mm hmm. They use that word
bunkers who work in mentally a scientific term, fucking bunkers.
All right, Miles, So our first story is sort of
(08:15):
a uh, it's not really defining the zeitgeist type thing,
and but away it demonstrates. Right, So let's see last
Friday on October six, a week ago, this man Michael
Stes went to like the Asheville Regional Airport and like
just around like like before one am. Dressed in all black.
(08:37):
He had a bag with him. They show him walk
in the airport with a bag, and then suddenly in
the footage he leaves the airport without a bag. So
cut to the alarms go off. People are being like
there's a suspicious package. They look inside low and behold,
there is an I E. Ed in there like he's
made a homemade bomb out of ammonia nitrate and with
like some shrapnel, uh and a timer for the bomb.
(08:57):
They go off like in the morning essentially. So this
man basically left a bomb at an airport. Uh. And
you know, guess guess what the coverage was like on
that first Well, Miles, I'd imagine it was all over
the news and just NonStop twenty four coverage on CNN
and Fox News. Fox loves terrorist attacks. They probably covered
(09:22):
it like round the class. No, no, no, barely any coverage. Oh,
but I left out of very important detail. Uh, the
suspect was actually white and a man, even though they
are our most dangerous type of person statistically in America.
They didn't cover it. Oh look at you, Jack with
the woke statistics. I like that, Thank you, thank you. Yes,
there was a white man, uh, a possible terrorist, although
(09:44):
Trump would never say that leaving a bomb at an airport.
And yeah, this was like a very underreported incident. I
mean it took it took other news outlets days for
like actual legitimate coverage for this to come out. Fox
News did report about it, but that was just when
it was a person of interest sought after device found
at airport kind of situation. But then once the suspect
(10:07):
was identified as this man, Michael Estes, there was not
even a hint of coverage on that website. So Fox
covered it like when it was just an anonymous bomb,
and then when they identified like okay, and this is
who we're looking for, they stopped covering it. Basically like
it was almost like, oh, there's a bomb the airport.
He would go, here we go, maybe it'll turn up
traditional terrorists. And then when it was like, oh, reveal
(10:30):
it's a white man, is like, I don't know about that,
And so it's sort of you know, god us thinking
obviously there we see a bias, especially in like on
conservative media about these things like that. But also, uh,
there was a there was a story about a black
man who made a threat to quote do another Vegas
because he felt cheated by a mobile app developer. Uh,
(10:52):
and that story blew up and what jack you you
you looked in it sort of like, yeah, I just
did a search of the guy's name who threatened to
do another Vegas. Uh at I'm gonna do another Vegas
at you uh to this mobile phone company. I think
he was in New York, the mobile phone company was
in uh Or, the app developer was in Colorado. And
(11:16):
when you search his name in quotes his full name, UH,
you get seventy thousand results. When you search Michael Estes
his name, you get thirty five thousand, So twice as
many results for a guy who threatened to do another
Vegas to a mobile phone company, but a white man
who leaves a legitimate bombing airport half that. So yeah,
(11:37):
so again it fits into this thing, you know, if
if it's not, if it doesn't fit the narrative Trump's
trying to push, which is, you know, Muslims are terrorists
and that's why we need to have a travel band
that's gonna get air. But if it doesn't, then you know,
like hill gloss over. Like for like, even when there
was that London bridge attack, he jumped on that to
just be like, you know, there's why we need like
tighter immigration control. And even the Philippines there was a
(11:59):
Casie shooting. He labeled that terrorism when it wasn't so.
And then when we look at people, are white people
actually being perpetrators of some kind of terrorism? Uh, you know,
things glossed over pretty quickly. Did you see that? Well
you probably already talked about the second protest that they
had where everyone looked like way more attractive. Yeah, yeah,
we talking about Edgar. Yeah, where Richard Spencer put on
(12:20):
his knife. You look trying to look like a boy
or a white supremacy movement. But it's interesting to me
because I always thought that white people had the privilege
of not being a monolith, and that you know, everyone
is a lone person and we all get lumped together
as minorities. Like if somebody shoots up one thing, we're like, god, damn,
well now we all shot it up. Like I remember
(12:40):
hoping that the DC snipers weren't black because I was like,
come on, don't do this, you know. Yeah, Chris Rock
had a bit like that in the early night, Like
if I read about like a serial killer, He's like,
I'm praying in the article it's not black because I
don't want to have to go into work tomorrow, and like, hey,
so did you know Jerome Literally, next thing I know,
the airport security gets a lot more real gut fingers.
So other narrative that seemingly that you know again that
(13:03):
Trump loves to push is the one that he is owning,
isis bombing the ship out of him there they have
nowhere to go, and he's you know, he's he's gonna
do away with Islamic terrorism once and for all, um
and also the America first thing, like we don't need
to be meddling in other people's business if it doesn't
have any consequence to the U S. Okay. So cut
to uh Niger on October four, Uh, there were there
(13:24):
was a group of U S troops who were working
in conjunction with some Nigerian soldiers uh in Niger, and
they were ambushed and four Green Berets were killed. Two
more soldiers were injured. Uh. And again this was like
a pretty significant event. There were lots of US soldiers lives,
which clearly you know has been has been touted as
one of the most important things, especially with the NFL protests,
(13:46):
that you know, our soldiers are very important to sacrifice
they give. There were no tweets about this from the
White House, no mention that these soldiers had lost their lives,
not even from Trump. He hasn't said a thing. There
hasn't been a statement out of the White House. And
again because it almost kind of looks like very early
similar to the sort of the same stakes as Benghazi,
where you have U S soldiers who are put at risk.
(14:08):
Apparently the military forces in Niger have asked for additional
resources because it is a very difficult place to operate
from a military standpoint, and they weren't getting that support,
and there was a lot of speculation that that may
have led to the greater loss of life life in
this instance. But yeah, again, you know, uh that this
happened on Wednesday of last week. You didn't hear anything
(14:30):
from Trump. He was too busy sending Mike Pence to
go do his you know, paid protests at the at
the Colts game. Uh you know Trump who who loved
the protest. Yeah, uh, then you have Trump couldn't be bothered.
He didn't even go to Dover Air Force Base to
to greet the coffins of these soldiers who came home,
you know, because you know, instead he want to play
golf with Lindsay Graham. So normally Obama had been dragged
(14:54):
for this kind of stuff. Hillary Clinton was dragged for
for the ship that's going on Benghazi and the lack
of outrage on the red I think just goes the
show that Benghazi has never about embassy security. Uh, and
just similar to the same thing of like how Javonka's
private email use it was never about that. It's all
just sort of whatever fits the narrative and scores political points. So,
you know, we'll see if Trump says anything about this.
(15:16):
It doesn't seem like he will because it doesn't fit
his I'm doing a great job. I'm owning the terrorists.
I'm you know, putt in America first. The troops are great.
It uh, it doesn't take any of those boxes. So yeah,
all right, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll
be right back. And we're back. So we wanted to
(15:41):
talk about the tech industry and sort of how it operates,
how it ties into um, you know, some of the
news stories you're seeing recently about Russia, because I guess
these companies are more powerful than I realized. Definitely more
powerful than the Hillary Clinton campaign realized. Because Facebook went
(16:03):
to both campaigns and was like, hey, we can help
you with targeted advertising, and the Trump campaign took him
up on that, and the Clinton campaign was like, nah,
we're good, uh, and that that was a pretty fateful decision.
The Trump campaign still credits Facebook with being like a
(16:24):
huge influencing factor and does not want that endorsement other thing,
but so as it relates to us as consumers. Um, Basically,
if you're not paying for something on the internet, then
you are the product. Um. Like back when it started
A O l uh and things like that made you pay.
(16:48):
There was like a service fee. I remember my mom
would she would pull that over my head if I
was on A O well too long, right, It was
like are you paying the A O L bill? And
then all of a sudden, these great benevolent companies like
Facebook and Google came along and we're like, hey, use
our products for free, guys. Um. The reason they're able
(17:10):
to do that is because they use all the in
depth information that they have on you to allow different
advertisers and different products to target you. In a way.
It actually eliminates the need for ad agencies in a
sense too, because they can deal with the company directly
(17:32):
rather than asking an ad agency like, hey, what's the
best way to talk to young millennials blah blah blah
who are affluent. Now they can like, you know, Coca
Cola can just be like yo, Google, I'm trying to
talk to these like an eighteen year old with a
million dollars, like, how do I do that? Uh? Their
companies and like a just vast infrastructure of tech companies
that are connecting data from one platform to the other.
So you have this giant network of information sort of
(17:57):
spider webbing all over the place that kind of forms
your profile on the web. And it's also a way
other types of companies are getting into it. It's a
way telecom UH companies are basically cashing in with they
have us declining subscriber base, but they're able to cash
in using data. Uh. The world's largest phone operators are
(18:22):
doing the same thing, like a T and T and Verizon.
They're basically tapping into the data that showers from us
at the time we're mobile surfing or texting or making
phone calls. So like basically, since most people don't have
landlines anymore, which is like a huge part of their
business and now just sort of buying their internet service,
(18:45):
they're like, Okay, let's turn that into a secondary product,
Like now we can sell all the data that we've
gathered from your brow Well cool. Yeah. Car companies are
also doing it, uh, just based on the fact that
they know where you are at all times. Yeah, you
might notice that every time you install any app on
(19:07):
your phone, uh, that they ask if they can use
your location. And obviously there some apps where that makes sense,
like Yelp when you're searching for various things around you,
but there are some that it doesn't make any sense.
And that's because they, you know, want access to that sweet,
(19:27):
sweet data. And with that, let's go to an ad
and right. But it's it's invisible. It's invisible marketing that
we're we're not really even that aware of. But um,
like with Facebook likes, uh, people like marketers and Facebook
in particular, can automatically and accurately predict a bunch of
(19:50):
really personal things about you, like sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious
and political views, personality, traits, intelligence, happiness, your use of
addictive substances, whether your parents are still together, your age,
when gender, off of just off of like the pages
(20:12):
that you like or like posts that you like, or
they just they build a profile. It's like, oh, well,
this guy likes j Dillah, like Hillary Clinton blah blah blah,
and then are they're building a profile like but it's
not the stuff necessarily that you're voluntarily like giving over,
like saying, okay, this is my profile. They're not just
working with that. They like if you like that Facebook
page or whatever based on those And even when you're
(20:34):
not on Facebook, if you go to a page that
has a Facebook like like button on it, that information
is going back to Facebook. Facebook knows fucking everything about you. Um,
it's really advanced too. I remember when I used to
see ads at first, and it would be like, Oh,
(20:55):
I was talking about something I wanted to buy, and
then that ad would pop up for what I wanted
to buy on this side. But now I feel like
it's getting just even more specific. It's like, are you
looking for like a thirty two year old black man
with a beard that'll text you back like, oh my god?
And I am, and I click on it and what
do I get? Quick? And quick? Quick? Books? Got me?
(21:18):
Got meick? He's only in books. Um. There was actually
a woman who was a sex worker who I think
pro Publica did a profile of because these anonymous clients
that she had like no online interaction with, no interaction
with other than her professional interactions with them started suddenly
(21:38):
popping off as like people you may know, uh, and
she was like what the funk man? Yeah, so there's
this huge depersonalized system that's emerged and kind of treats
bits of us and like, our information, our personality is
like little commodities, and our data is way more valuable
(22:01):
than just you know, the few dollars a month, right,
because it's basically the greatest focus group data you could
ever have. It's like you get all of your consumer
information from that, and yeah, we don't realize like that's
pretty much that's all in like the terms of use
of anything. When you're like agree to do it, it's
like and it's in there. Whenever people talk about that,
(22:22):
they're like, yeah, I just click the user agreement and
like whatever, I don't read it. And it's almost like
we're being self reproachful, like oh, like we're lazy, but
it's not her fault. The Amazon Kindle's terms of use
took nine hours to read. Somebody, right, took nine hours,
So they're specifically designed for you not to be able
(22:45):
to read them. Right. Um, So I know the same
thing happens to a lot of people when uh, you
can just search someone's name and you'll be on like
one of those like white pages websites where you can
find like old addresses and things like that, and people
like how did they get that? A lot of those
websites are getting them from places like Google and things,
because yeah, that that's that's another way your information is
(23:06):
just just out there, not even like you're consuming habits,
but just your personal information that they're even packaging and selling.
So I want to move on to Russia because, uh,
we know that Russia has been using Facebook to advertise.
They've been using all the different platforms that they can
uh to advertise to different people, to you know, promote
(23:29):
the behaviors they want promoted and suppress the behaviors they
don't want. I think there's specific instances of them suppressing
African American voter turnout, and you know, Facebook has copped
to that now. Although Mark Zuckerberg at first was like,
the idea that when we would have any effect on
(23:51):
people's behavior is ridiculous. Now continue to pay me billions
of dollars for advertising. So I want to just give
a brief story of how Russia fox with us. This
is Russia has been working with us and more than
I think most people realize. For a long time. An
(24:13):
example that I didn't realize was the Kennedy assassination and
conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination. I visited Dealy Plaza,
which is where the Kennedy assassination happened with my dad
when I was a kid, and uh, you know, they're
all these you know, booths and like little museum set
(24:35):
up around there, and you know, they have the conspiracy
theories there. And like one of the things I saw
was a note supposedly from the CIA to Lee Harvey Oswald,
like a week before the JFK assassination. Um. I was like, well,
that that doesn't look good for sak So I was
(24:58):
just like showing that there was interaction between the Magic Bully, right. Um,
that note was actually forged by the KGB. And even
even before the first book on the Kennedy assassination came out,
even before the Warm report came out, a KGB subsidized
(25:21):
publishing house released books such as Oswald Colin Assassin or
Fall Guy. Um. Yeah, and you know there was a
guy from the CIA who was working with KGB. Uh
and he was publishing a newsletter that included claims that
the CIA was behind the assassination. Uh. Yeah, they distributed
(25:44):
that forged letter between Oswald and the CIA that I
then saw twenty years later, and that like put the
seed in my mind, Like huh right, so that's Kremlin
from the sixties, right, And resumably they also built the
android we know as Oliver Stone. So other deep joke,
(26:10):
not familiar with a Stone or JFK movie? Wait in
that movie? Was he is that? Are they pushing that
myth in that movie? Uh? Well, they just like push
every myth in that movie, like something happened here, So
and we can get into what actually happened in the
JFK assassination another day. Uh, hot takes on that was
(26:31):
this secret service agent accidentally fired the But we'll get
to that another time. Uh. The KGB also distributed racist
pamphlets against quote black mongrels and falsely attributed them to
the Jewish Defense League. Uh. They sent letters to black
(26:52):
organizations with bogus details about how the Jewish Defense League
was like being by went against black people. Um. And
then in three there was a thing called Operation Infection
where uh the KGB planted a story uh supposedly and
(27:13):
they printed this in an Indian journal like a journal
UH in India, but it like started this rumor that
the AIDS virus was genetically engineered by the US government,
but that's still around now. Yeah, and Kane and the
(27:33):
Kanye Sell heard him say, do we have don't get
a job to day? Can I at least get a
raise in a minimum wage? And I know the government?
So that was a three KGB operation that comes down
to us. Like, so Kanye got got by the KGB.
(27:55):
Two we all did. Yeah, we still heard that. And
like whether you heard it and thought it was absurd,
you heard it and it's in your mind. Well, it's
interesting too about the thing with with during the civil
rights movement too, because the KGB, Like that's another rumor
is that they tried to de legitimize MLK by trying
to get people to say that he was taking government
(28:16):
money to to do this and de legitimize him. But
that's interesting because he was attacked by the FBI and
the KGB. So that's that's a two fer from that's
relevant history to then bring you up to the present
day where so putin former KGB agent UH is trying
to influence the American people and influence the American election
(28:42):
and he has access to this giant universe of information
that we give these companies access to, and yeah, I
don't know, it's not even like it's not the least
bit surprising to me that he was able to kind
of in fluence things and get and get things done. Yeah,
because I mean, again, these algorithms have become so sophisticated
(29:06):
that you can just plug and play all kinds of
things and just just instantly disseminate that information to like
a specific group, and knowing that you're getting the most
effective message to the audience that is the most receptive
to it, like even picking up on individual words like now,
people use the congratulations to try to boost their posts
(29:26):
because if you write congratulations in the comments under a
Facebook post, it automatically boost it for longer than the
other post because Facebook assumes it's like an announcement that
you want to see. So if you write, yeah, if
you write get on Facebook and write congratulations in a comment,
and it will turn orange and then it'll pose. So
it's like, hey, I'm doing my nineties DJ said at
(29:46):
the congratulations and you're like, man, I don't want to
see this ship. Thank you. Yeah. If you do that,
and people are using that to try to disseminate information
about registering for the Affordable Care Act. Since the government
slash so much of the funding for advertisements for that,
well that activists to help people get to enroll, we're
having to gain Facebook two by using congratulations hack, congratulations
(30:09):
you're fucked, get unfucked. Um. But yeah, so, I mean
a lot of the times this is being used by advertising.
There's a a piece in the New York Times today
about how Toyota just released like four different types of ads,
like racially targeted ads for the Toyota I forget which
(30:31):
card is the camera? The one of the black and
Asian ones both spoke to me. The Asian one what
portrayed a very bizarre father daughter relationship in which I
guess he showed affection by looking at her in the
rear view mirror. Okay, And the marketing team behind it,
(30:51):
I think was quoted in the piece being like, yes,
we know that Asian fathers do not show affection, so
we were trying to like break down some doors. But anyways,
it's like these are things that advertisers have been working
on and you know, using for years, and they're going
to continue to use and brag about using and the
(31:14):
connecting of that enormous apparatus and like crazy amount of
value that that brings to advertisers. Connecting that to government
influences is pretty it's going to be pretty powerful and
it could be pretty terrifying. Well yeah, it's I mean,
it's something that's used to market. Like you know, marketing
(31:37):
is all about catching people at the right time, at
the right place, in the right mental state to make them,
you know, buy your thing that can be used for
such dark, evil shit. And even like on YouTube, I know,
like with ads too, they can like almost target emotions
as well. So it's like, oh, like you want to
you want to put your YouTube video up when someone's
feeling good or happy or excited or like thrilled about
(31:58):
a video like these are these are group of videos
that for that someone who is like maybe uh maybe
not feeling good about the way they look or maybe
feeling sad. They even have ways to begin targeting emotions too,
in front of the videos or after the videos you're watching.
So and these are just age old tactics that have
I have a marketing degree, and I have a marketing degree. Guys,
(32:19):
um little known fact, no, but that's always been something
that we would study in school. Is basically like, um,
if you are up at a certain hour, like late night,
television is targeted to people who seem to be uh,
they drink heavier, they tend to be depressed, they tend
to also be overweight, so you'll see like those commercials
target those specific aspects of that personality. So all it
is is now those at those same marketing strategies are
(32:42):
bleeding over into social media. The problem is that social
media has bled so deeply into our personal lives that
it's not like television or we turn it on and off.
It's like everywhere every minute. So that just makes it
that much more invasive. Yeah, it's increasingly important to think
about your attention as a fine resource. And I mean
(33:02):
we're giving away something that has you know, actual tangible value.
Uh you know value in our lives obviously, but uh,
you know value to these companies and uh then it's
being sold to hostile foreign powers. When Facebook acts like
(33:23):
it's crazy that anybody would think that they've had an
influence on the election, Like, realize how much of your
attention is being spent on Facebook? Is being like and
for free at least that stores when they give you
those little value cards, like you get like an incentive,
like a discount when you swipe it, and they get
(33:44):
information about your purchases. But Facebook, no, well, and it
just shows you just to show you how entrenched people, like,
how Facebook is so important to people's lives. People were
calling nine one one when Facebook went down the other day. Right,
will I will say that Facebook does also like there's
a reason people, uh you know, are all flocking to Facebook.
(34:04):
It also provides a service to people. Absolutely, No, absolutely,
But I think that's where that fine line is, where
like it allows us to connect to each other, and
it is a way to communicate outside of the traditional
ways of using phones and things like that. But yeah,
it's it's a it's a very sharp, double edged sword,
and I think we have to head to a break. Obviously,
there are a bunch of big questions like how do
(34:26):
you police this big of assistant. Uh, you know, should
the government get involved? Will they end up breaking up
these giant companies? Uh that like they did the monopolies
in the early twentieth century. Um, those are all interesting
questions that will dive into at a later date. But
(34:48):
for right, now let's hear a couple words from our
sponsors and we're back, all right, you guys. So briefly
yesterday we mentioned, uh the stunning lack of empathy required
(35:13):
uh for you to uh claim that you only feel
sorry for sexual abuse victims because you have a daughter. Uh.
And two of the people who have used this gambit
are writing partners and scared to admit it soulmates. Uh
(35:33):
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have both have both used it. Uh.
Matt Damon's was really weird. Actually he said, Look, even
before I was famous, I didn't abide this kind of behavior,
which is so strange. Like so like is he saying that,
like most not famous people are fine with sexual assault,
(35:56):
and but he wasn't. I think he's saying that before
it was so easy to get away with sexual assault,
he wasn't even attempting it back in the days when
he was annoying me let alone, when now he's famous
and he could probably just silence people. Even before I
was a star, I didn't like rape. But now, as
a father of four daughters, kind of sexual predation that
(36:19):
keeps me up at night. Um. So, so he's saying
that before he was famous. He was that he didn't
so to say that, wait, once you become famous, then
you gotta get with the game and be like it's okay,
it doesn't. Very confused. It raises more questions even before us. Anyways,
(36:41):
Lazy you pointed out that Matt Damon has kind of
been problematic for a while, Oh for sure, And that's
why I wasn't surprised when these comments came out. And
as I'm sure many people who are woke to Matt
Damon being dead because he's not sleep he's dead. Um.
He made some very problem at it comments when he
was doing Project green Light with HBO where he was
(37:03):
literally shutting down a black woman while she was trying
to talk to and to basically make the statement that
diversity only matters in front of the camera, and where
she was concerned that a person of color should be
directing a movie where a woman of color would have
been a prostitute and beat up by a white man
as a pimp. Just trying to make sure that the
narrative didn't get problematic. He was saying that it did
not matter who the director was, insinuating the director should
(37:26):
be white because that doesn't matter. It should be based
off merit or which is another problematic thing that racists
like to throw in there, like when they talk about
it from inaction and things like that, or even like
casting women's like, well we would cast women, but you're
not going to be funnier, so you better right, Yeah,
so it's just he's not. He gets real exasperated and ship. Yeah,
(37:49):
the whole scene is super cringey. You should YouTube bad anybody.
Just do Matt damon green Light Project green Light diversity,
because it all of a sudden, all the other like
I guess what are they technically the judges of the show,
who are also the other producers, they all like lock
arms and they're like, well no, no, no no, no, no, no,
hey hey hey where no ignorance ship going on here? Now,
we're just saying, you know, the best director should get
(38:13):
the part, we can get the job. Lazy, You're you're
pointing out earlier that insecure like because it's actually made
by black people and with black people in front of
the camera, that like it created all all these like
new ideas that like hadn't been made before. Because yeah, absolutely,
(38:35):
I mean in terms of filmmaking too, I think people
forget that diversity and racial inclusion spans so deep to
the point where Kodak for a very long period of
time up until probably recent years, did not have stock
um light photo like light swatches for people of color.
So basically like there UM when you're filming things that
(38:57):
would be like swatches like go bos or things that
go over the camera that changed the lighting to the lighting,
and they'll have those with an example of like a
white person of every shade so that you could see
what that white person would look like, but there were
no black people. So the Mic actually did an article
about how the lighting on Insecure is revolutionary because before
that UM most program was programming wasn't catering to dark
(39:19):
skin UM when they were lighting it at all. UM
so that black people never kind of look right in
anything because they adjust to white people. What's funny that
my dad, who was a photographer, he would always say
like whenever you know, so he shot a lot of
like like black artist, comedians, actors for for magazines and
things like that, and he was always critical when he
would see photography of black people because there are a
(39:41):
lot many white photographers just did not know how to
light for a black subject in front of the camera.
That's crazy, and that's interesting to know that might that's
almost maybe innately built out of Kodak not even like
creating these sort of products to help people understand like, Okay,
what do you do in the subject in front of
your camera has a skin tone that would absorb more
like than it would reflect light, and how you actually
(40:03):
adjust for this? So and I do want to just
correct myself before we move too far. Shirley cards is
what kodaks Uh the frame that I was talking about,
what they referenced to use for lighting. They're called Shirley
carts because someone who's into film will know that and
drag me. Surely you can't be cards. Uh good good
airplane reference? Thank you? Um, and I think that's all
(40:27):
the time we have. You got lazy. Thank you so
much for joining us. This was so fun. Where can
people find you? Follow you? Oh, you can follow me
at Diva Lacey on Instagram it's Lacy with an eye,
um just an I know e r y And then
you can also see me on Harold Light if you're
in l A. I'm at the UCD theater every week.
What's your Harold group? Leroy also with yeah our first
(40:52):
guests and our last guest of this season one. Where
we're this is that finale of season one will be
the Act with season two on Monday. Uh. We we
only take off a weekend for two seasons. Yeah, so
season two coming Monday. Um, Miles, where can people find you?
You can find me at Big five Sporting Goods um
(41:14):
taking back a faulty sleeping bag, trying to get my
money back, and you can follow me at Jack Underscore
O'Brien on Twitter. You can follow the Daily Zeitgeist at
Daily Zeitgeist on Twitter at the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram.
We are working on bringing those footnotes to you folks.
(41:36):
We will get those going hopefully next week and season
two season two. Uh. And that'll do it for Week
one of the Daily Zeitgeist over and out. Well, what's
your uh? Sign off line? Miles? I got a new
one Late trix. Nice sp
The Daily Zeitgeist News
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Jack O'Brien
Miles Gray
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