Radio Better Offline: Mia Sato & Dave Lee

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Also media, locally hated, globally loathed, chosen by God and
perfected by science. I'm ed Zeitron and this is Better
Offline Today. I'm joined by an incredible duo. We've got

(00:25):
Mia Sarto of The Verge and Dave Lee of Bloomberg.
Thank you both for joining me in the studio.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
So before we go any further, of course, please subscribe
to the News let the premium one as well. Please
help me, and for a limited time you can buy
a Better Offline challenge coin. A bunch of other staff
links in the episode notes. But you two, I'm so
excited to have you here because you were two of
my favorite opinion columnists as well, but also a feature
like you. I've known your work for many years, so
I'm very very excited to have you here. Mia, I

(00:53):
wanted to start with a simple question, though, what is
a labo bou. You've shown me this creature, this you
are finding like little evil thing, and everyone wants one,
and I don't done this. Every time I try and
look it up and it makes me upset.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
This could be the first time a la boobo has
stepped foot in the iHeartRadio offices.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I think we record in the same room as.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Right, something shifted. Oh okay, so Labooboo probably has been
in the last culture recent area.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, I would assume.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah. La Boo Boos are little plush dolls. They have
kind of like a hard plastic human like mean face,
but then are wearing like a bunny suit. They come
in all different colors, and I think the most important
thing to know about Laboo Boos is it is just gambling.
It's just gambling for kids and kind of adults now elaborate.
So they come in blind boxes, which is like they

(01:42):
are all in like a little plaster or a paper cartan,
and you have like a one in six chance of
getting a certain you know these colors, and then there's
one rare one that's like a one in seventy two chance,
and it says it right on the box like it
is just straightforward betting.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Who makes me.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
They are sold by this company called PopMart, and they're
based on like a cartoon I think, like a broader
umbrella called The Monsters. So Labooboo is one character in
The Monsters.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
And the others did not take off. I'm not the.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Same way, but I think there are some fans for
the other characters, the labooo or no, it's real, it's
real because of the seventy two no no, obviously not.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
So is there a secondary la boo boo market.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, this is where it gets interesting, and this is
why I think leabuo boos are funnier and kind of
stupider than they appear on the surface, because from my
observations and from talking to friends who are like good
at flipping things, there is no really no resale value
for opened laboo boos. So if I wanted to sell
this pink laboo boo, it would go for maybe like

(02:48):
forty bucks fifty bucks, and they retail for like twenty
seven ninety nine, not including shipping and tax, and.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Not a huge margin. No, you can even sell exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
The ones that do go for some money are the
rare ones, which is like you know, their special colors
and unopened boxes, because again it's about gambling. It is
about the chance that you might have a rare one.
They're also out on Popmart's app, which we can talk about, like,
I think it is like the funniest thing ever to
do to parents of young children and to teens.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
I mean, I feel like this was my life of
Pokemon cards.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
It's exactly the same.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Game trumps right right.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
And there is some like off like downstream La Booo
culture where people will dress in this essay. I will,
but people will like dress up their boo boos. They'll
like get accessories. There's a crazy kind of like off
brand black market for like La Boo boo related things

(03:53):
like lafu fooss are the fake laboo boos. I also
own a La fu Fu that I bought at the
Statue of Liberty as God intended. But yeah, the labubos
are interesting because it's not about the doll. It's about
how you acquire it, and it's about the odds, the
odds that you're taking.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Really, there's nothing more to it. Yeah, I feel like
two years ago this would have got This would have
had like an NFT element to it, right.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
I don't say that, don't speak that into.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Exibits, but I think it's wholesome that it's just it's
just the thing, yeah, nothing else.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, it's just like collector culture.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
It's also like very nihilistic.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's it's pretty nihilistic. There's no ip related to it
that people are familiar with. There's no film like La
Boo Boo movie that people are obsessed with, like you know,
Paw Patrol, like kids see.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Pop want stuff, and like ten years ago this would
have already remember with Angry Birds. Yeah, Grovio is like
we're gonna do a TV show, We're gonna do a.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Movie, or like Grumpy Cat. I just wrote about grumpy cats,
so there's a grumpy there's a whole aspect.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
But this will come.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm waiting for. Also, it
does seem there is a Laboo Boo fan connect collection
on Magic Eden. It's zero point zero four Soul. If
you buy one of these, they should put you on
a list. It's fascinating because I've done everything I can
to avoid this, and I've mostly seen like cities by
a Diana Classic Instagram account. I've seen Leboobuo pop up

(05:16):
on there and being like no one will save you.
It's like that kind of brain rot style thing where
it's like a cute s you've always been like, no
one will save you, the world will collapse. It's just
La Boobos, Yes, but it is. I thought that'd be more.
I thought there would be more to it, but it
just see, it's just gam it's just gambling. We've found
a way to give children gambling.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, and this isn't the first one either, Like their
blind boxes are definitely a thing, like Sunny Angels were
the last blind box thing that was kind of a craze.
They're little cherub like dolls, probably like two or three
inches tall, and they're all naked, and I think that's
why adults felt weird about owning them. But labuobos are
not naked, so people feel comfortable putting out them on
their like expensive handbags.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
So that's what is it that has enabled this? Though?
Is it like very ta is Like this is a
very TikTok driven movement.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's definitely on TikTok. I think. Also a big reason
they're so kind of like zeitgeisty or buzzy is because
they're impossible to buy. They're sold out all the time.
I went through the steps of trying to buy a
Laboo Boo on the PopMart app, and it was, hell,
why don't you woke.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Me through that? I'd love to actually like, how do
you actually allegedly buybies?

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Okay, well, I didn't realize that you have to play
like a mini game basically like Boo Boo. This is
what people don't understand is like I have been through
the trenches to buy the stupid doll. You have to
so on the PopMart app, they're always sold out, right,
and they have like drops at certain times, and the company,
i think wanted to sort of recreate the experience of
going to a store and seeing an empty shelf where

(06:47):
you're like looking for the doll or looking for the product.
So when they drop, there are like digital shelves or
or like boxes where individual labo like six boxes of
Labuo boos will be place like digital ones, right, and
you can watch them sell out and you just scroll
through the boxes to find a la Boo boo for sale,
and most of the time they're all like grade out,

(07:09):
so that's something like it's in someone else's cart, and
then they'll get released, like someone will abandon it or whatever,
and then you can you have to like spam click
the box. It's crazy, and then you can shake it
and it will give you hints about like what it's not,
what doll it's not. I'm sorry, I feel like I'm
speaking in tongues.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
No no, no, this is I'm following you. It's just horrifying.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
It's really hard. And the other thing, I mean, PopMart
is they're sick. They're so sick and brilliant because they
also get thousands of people watching their TikTok lives for
hours waiting for them to drop laboo boos in TikTok shop,
And that is engagement. That's it's just like straightforward engagement
for me, you know what I mean, it's it's pretty insane.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
So when does this jump into being? I mean, there's
no other ip around it. Yeah, but I think of
like Minecraft, that kind of stuff. I mean, very sort
of different product. But eventually they went, let's Microsoft bought it,
and then they made a movie and all that stuff,
and there was the commercialization was massive after it's very organic.
Is there a point do you think where that just
suddenly people go, all the kids are crazy about these things.

(08:12):
We can't just let this go by?

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Maybe, like maybe, But also it feels so straightforwardly consumeristic
that like I could see it just dying down in like.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Two months recession indicators they stopped selling these out.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah. Well, honestly, I feel like people are being obsessed
with buying la booboos instead of like groceries or whatever
is a recession indicator, like these are cheap three, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Like, I also feel like China just leads the world
in this kind of yeah, like nineties style evil consumerism,
Like this is some shit you would see in a
mid nineties film about evil tech CEOs, Like we've created
a devil dull like China.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
I mean, I still, I mean, I feel like when
I used to buy football stickers as a kid.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, but this is so they were blind.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
I didn't know whether there was a good players in
there or bad players. Different scale and different level of
a session from what you're describing there. But isn't there
just this part of a young person's brain that says,
I want to collect these, My friends are going to
collect these. It's fun, right, I mean, I don't see
it's combsolutely different.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
Oh it's not like you're totally right in that. It's
kind of clicking into that. You had a bit of
that with the n f T S and you've had
right at the beginning, especially and with top Shots as well,
which was the NFTs for basketball games that they then
expanded and then failed. It was exactly the same thing.
It was the kind of top trumps or not top
trumps at football stickers. The difference is that they've built
like an economic layer to it to like torture the

(09:34):
people trying to buy them the disappearing boxes.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
That is.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Manipulative.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, it's really interesting. It also feels very much like
what a lot of shopping is these days is like
a you know, a stand in for a hobby collecting.
Like I feel like the Boo Boos and Stanley Cups
are like the same thing. Do you all know what
Stanley cup? I'm sorry, sorry no, but that means your

(10:01):
your brain is good the test, like your brain is
not fried. That is like the women who collect like
dozens of Stanley Cup colors and there's no reason to
have them, but like that is their form of you
know that it's a hobby.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, and I just want to read something from the
Wikipedia page for La Booboo. The Federation Council of Russia
proposed banning the sale for the Boo Boos. The reason
was their frightening appearance and potential hunt children's mental health
in Russia. A Katsena alta Beva, Deputy Chair for the
Committee and Science Education, Culture, state that the figures caused
children to feel fear. I just want to say that that,

(10:34):
like that was just a very funny sentence. Yeah, yeah,
Russia's massive ethics cause there it's just I think it.
You've really mentioned something though, with like collectibles that reminds
me of entities as well, where it's I collect comic
artwork and I original compic. I fucking delight in it.
I've filled my walls. I won't be getting anymore, but

(10:55):
like it has meaning and those I know like sports
Memorbile that they collect stuff because oh it's a meaningful
game whatever, or the player. With this, it's like like
n FT's it's that with all of the culture removed.
It's just strip mind to the core of you want
what everyone else wants, You want it now, how will
you get it? Only us? And the fact that there's

(11:16):
not another thing that Pop Mart has done like this
is so strange though, Yeah, like they're not. It's almost
like they're being a little bit cautious with it. They
don't want to overfill and push their luck a bit,
which is fascinating. And also the reason I mentioned this
China is American e commerce companies do not have that
killer instinct I feel like in China they'll fucking roll
our asses with making this cut of stuff. They made

(11:37):
an evil looking doll with no ip that they're just
like we own this by.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
It, and now people are obsessed, like how did it
take off?

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Was it? They're like, one, is it just something that appeared?

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
The weirdest thing is that, from what I understand, one
of the Black Pink girls we're seen, she was seen
with a labubu.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
And that's Korean pop.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yes, k pop group, one of the probably one of
the biggest.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
Happens yeah the world I'm Sane video.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
I can't remember if it was Jenny or Lisa, but
I think maybe Lisa from Black Pink had a la
boo boo and it like it had been kind of
percolating already, but that really like blew it up in
a crazy way. But Yeah, my prediction is like this
will be not a thing anymore when it's they're easy
to acquire because again, my theory is that it's really
just about the process of acquisition, and I guess it's

(12:24):
purchasing rather than like the actual thing. And I think
also a lot of other especially like American toymakers, are
desperate right, like what is their laboo boo?

Speaker 1 (12:35):
What is I don't know, and the things it's it's
they're trying they're going to solve it by going, well,
we'll just make a better one. It's like, No, the
actual thing you need to do is engage your killer
instinct and call Fangil or one of those companies they
Fangile has more in common I think than any like
Mattel as far as creating a product like Labuobo. It's
just this thing of scaring people saying, oh, if you

(12:55):
don't get in on now this, now you'll miss it.
Just to think with the NFTs things with Crypto and
now they've brought it for children, which is great. I think.
I think it's good. It's also I think the natural
endpoint of this bullshit fandom culture we've been in the
last ten to fifteen years maybe where it's just like it's.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
Just why, I think you're underestimated the degree to we
see these things just cycle around.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Oh again, I don't disagree on that it is a
cyclical thing, but I think it's also just like, why
do we have this because everyone has this? Why do
we do this because everyone does this? Accelerated by things
like TikTok and TikTok Live in particular.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yah, the urgency is interesting. Yeah, and I think the
if there's one thing, even if the toys go away,
that mechanism an enduring thing. But it'd be interesting to
see if an American brand does try that fully here,
because it's kind of similar to do you ever remember
used to use like booking dot com and I would say,
three people book this room in the last twenty minutes,

(13:51):
you better get it otherwise you're not going to do it.
And we we sort of we that was, you know,
got a lot of scrutiny, has been an unfair way
to force people to buy things in a hurry, and
I suspect would see the same.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Oh yeah, it's like the natural growth of e commerce
and all the ways you can kind of push a customer.
You see it with like every single Instagram drop chip thing.
If you click then it's like sixty two people are
buying this right now. Yeah, you need to buy this
special code looking at it. Yeah, and if you don't,
they're going to sell out. This is the pans that
sold out. There are so many pans that sell out
on Instagram. But leading into another thing, actually both of

(14:26):
you have kind of covered as well. It feels like
this is almost humanity trying to move with the algorithm
to fit what people would be going after a growth
of as you put Dave, that the fact that, yeah,
we are trend seekers, we will want to kind of
fit in. But it leads to this thing of this
got popular because it got it got popular and it
hit the algorithmic side. You were mentioning before we came

(14:46):
in here here that there is an almost an seo
level to posting on TikTok.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Now, yeah, for sure, I mean, you know, I think
it goes back to do you remember like two years
ago everyone was freaking out that people were using TikTok
like a search engine, which no, was like, so quaint
I think I think like a Google exact mentioned it
at some event.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
Right, well, they mentioned it. This is one of my
favorite parts. So during their antitrust here right right where
we say lost, eventually they are that Google is a
monopoly because kids are turned to TikTok to search, and
it was just it was and Google had this slide.
They were briefing journalists with than others that had all
the sort of supposed competitors, and it was just things

(15:26):
that they weren't competitive, and TikTok was one of them.
And there was this idea and because here's the thing.
If someone might go on TikTok and say, oh, good
restaurant New York and get like a couple of videos
or whatever. But the idea that there was like a
utility that's replacing like for like was very very helpful
to me. But it was at a point sort of
picked up by all these kind of trends arenown to
be like, oh, Google's in trouble because people are searching

(15:46):
on TikTok. Not really, you know, it's it's that'd be
like saying I'm searching on television. You know, it's there's
not this not the same thing.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, absolutely not. And it's obviously like it was deployed
very strategically by Google, you know, like bringing out very
specific statistics or whatever. But the I think the point
stands that like the same thing I've written about sort
of the degradation of Google Search as a window into
the web. And part of that is because people spam

(16:18):
the web with horrible things, like things that kind of
suck and are not useful because they're trying to appease
an algorithm, and I think that same thing is happening
on TikTok. It happens on Instagram, and a lot of
it is user like comes from the user. We have
to be honest that like people make shitty content.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
It's not just the tech companies who like make the
systems bad. But there also is like sort of the
guiding hand of TikTok where it will give creators ideas
for types of content to make. These are what people are.
These are the terms that people are searching for. What
if you made a video about trending restaurants in your
neighborhood or la boo boo, right, And part of it

(16:58):
is like people want to want ideas for what to
make yours. TikTok is a very punishing algorithm, at least
in my experience, Like if you stop posting, it's really
hard to regain views.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
I wasn't sure. Yeah, I've actually always been So there's
a momentum.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
All there's a momentum for sure, for sure, And this
is something creators have talked a lot about. But you
need ideas for what to post and if TikTok is saying,
a bunch of people are searching for this one specific
restaurant in New York, why wouldn't you make a video
about it? Right, It's like sort of it's it's almost
like a it's backing into SEO, where you kind of

(17:33):
instead of searching for, you know, terms related to what
you make, you take the terms that the platform is
giving you or telling you, suggesting you make content based
off of Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
It's it's the kind of incentive driven web at this point,
because I think that with the thing with SEO especially
is there were there were people always made shit content,
but there were also people who genuinely like, here are
ten things I really like in New York. I mean
one of my one of the saddest, like a brand
that's still around, as like Zagat that used to be

(18:03):
or Time Out especially.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
I mean there's so many Sports Illustrated, you know, they're
just these places that were making good content their business
how didn't work? And one of my grievances with Google
at the moment strongly is that what they're selling now
is the solution to the web they created, Yes, saying
we've got all these disgusting websites out there. You go
on a local news website, my god, it's it's your

(18:25):
phone is like one hundred exactly, and there's pop ups everywhere,
and you get and Google's saying, oh, the web's bad.
We're gonna we're gonna summarize that as an aoverview. Isn't
that great? And so well, the web's bad because the
design had to be you know, the way we made
content had to change in order to appease the platform.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
And that's the thing. You did a great piece actually
about there reaping the rewards of it's unfairy advantage and
also kind of like selling you swill and being like, yeah,
we'll find the dogs, will find the diamond in the
turds that we created, and I think quite the turn afraid, yeah,
why they give me a microphone. But it's so sad

(19:05):
as well, because there is an innocence to it. It's like, yeah,
if you know people are looking for New York stuff,
and you know New York, of course you'd say that
time out reason that brought up as well as it
used to be that you pick up time out and
be like, oh, well, these people think they're cool. Like
it was a big degree of that, and I think
TikTok is leaned into that as well, with content creators
like that, because I have seen tiktoks of stuff in
New York. I've moved to America in two thousand, and

(19:26):
they have spent many, many hours in New York. There's
shit I'm surprised by. It's cool, and then you get
the people who are doing it chop shop style, and
it's unfortunate but kind of inevitable that you'd see this
on social networks. What's confusing to me is why TikTok
feels like the first one to really give it the
actual try, because Instagram is sort of half asked it.
Twitter's never really like people try and appear for algorithms,

(19:49):
but it didn't feel like the companies were as serious
about it as say maybe a Google or indeed TikTok.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, I think I mean Instagram at least the search
has always sucked. Yeah, and it doesn't. I don't know
that it makes sense to optimize that same way that said,
Instagram also does have like creator tools where it will
be like this is how you should edit a video
or this is how you should make content.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Right.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
YouTube does this so it's it's not that I just
think that search on TikTok is something so different. I
did something recently where I was I searched for something
on TikTok and there was like a little pop up
that the app gave me that was like, if you're
not finding an answer that's satisfactory, why don't you ask
people to make content based off of it? Or something?

(20:36):
It was crazy, you know, it was so many levels
of optimization that I was like, this is really an experience.
It doesn't exist on other platforms on it's such a bid.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
It's such a by design thing with TikTok search, because
one thing is really I find really aggravating as someone
who you know isn't as clued up on the online
culture as evidently you guys both.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Are like, well nobody has laboo boo.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
I'll often see on TikTok some reference or something and
I'll go, what are they talking about? What is that about?
And TikTok doesn't allow you just to link to another video, right,
and so what it forces you to do is there'll
be the search suggestion, there'll be people doing searches, there'll
be people that know that people are looking for searchers,
so they will reference something else that will send you
somewhere else in entirely. And it's just the net effect

(21:23):
of that is, instead of going to the video that
explain the thing that I'm confused about, I end up
watching maybe five others with ads in between every second
or third one, and I still don't really know. I mean,
although some of the things I think if I did
see the explanation, I still wouldn't understand it. But just
trying to get there in the first place is really
really tricky.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
It's when you get to the point of like, why
are they creating search tools on their platforms? Is it
so that you can find the thing you need or
so that they can fine like they can kind of
get you halfway.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
I don't think.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
It's I'm just be clear. I'm not front loaded this
and suggesting the evil and everything everything everything they do.
But the tweaks they make kind of are one of
the funny things mere you put you actually put in
the article about dupes though, that excellent. I'll leave and
call of these in their notes.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Don't worry.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
You don't have to email me. Uh was you if
you look for Apple dupes on Instagram? You get this
thing saying protect your favorite brands. The sale of promotion
of counterfeit goods is not allowed on Instagram. So funny,
But if you just type in dupes, it goes summarizing.
If you're looking for alternative alternatives to high end products,
dubes are are the way to go. A dupe is
a product that replicates the quality, indoor appearance, a price.
They're alternative. So funny, and then you get a bunch

(22:40):
of videos that are selling jupes. Sometimes it feels like
they don't really care that much. They just they just
kind of like mailing it in.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Ye tiktokt for jubes. I fine. I wrote a column
months ago now, but it was I saw one video
and there's this guy and he hadn't even got out
of bed, right, and he said, oh, Apple's selling these
pod maxes for three hundred bucks, but these ones are
only twenty And he was holding his hands you can't
see on the public, holding his hand in the air,
and he didn't have a product in his hand. He
just had a screenshot of the Apple the official Apple

(23:11):
AirPod Maxes, and it was just sort of floating around
with his hand. And then what he was selling on
TikTok shop was you know, a twenty bucks knockoff that
was terrible, and I wrote about basically how the TikTok
shop is. I think it's kind of insulting to TikTok users.
They've really shoved it in. They put it in the middle,
so it looks terrible, looks terrible. The products are just awful.
Some of the marketing people do is so trashy. It's

(23:35):
like got all this like sexual in the endo in
it and all this kind of stuff, and TikTok were
just like, well, no, we're happy with it basically, and
they actually tried to deep force a big correction on
a column that had nothing wrong with it other than
the fact it was calling out that it was a
terrible place.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
I think that TikTok should lean more into the excellent
Chinese business owners, though. I don't know if you've seen
any of these insane ones where it'll be like we're
selling giant houses, you can't step, no permit needed. There
was one where it's like for people sent its like
one says I'm racist, one says I'm ablest, and one
goes I'm stepan. If you need to buy high quality

(24:09):
cables with your logo on it, and I love those
because they're funny. They're funny, but they're also just like, yeah,
we're trying to do the algorithm, but fuck you by
K and at the end that just like, we have
a bunch of cables with you that's respectable, that's that's commerce.
We should support that, not this weird QVC. It almost
feels like we're trending towards what every music video in

(24:29):
the nineties was making, like this very kind of like
greasy consumerism. Though I will add this isn't me suggesting
anyone specifically has decided to be evil. This is just
what happens when incentives for people. I think when you
get like the slop shop in TikTok.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
I think the incentives of all the major networks have
been so interesting and sort of shaping. I mean, you
were talking earlier about Twitter. They never really push people
in much of a direction in terms of what to
sort of be talking about. But one thing they did
reward constantly the algorithm was anger. Yes, and Facebook got
into that problem with you know when they you know,
for a long the longest time they thought any engagement
is good engagement until they realized it was you ain't

(25:06):
and uncles like having to go at each other over
politics or whatever. That's when they realized that was bad.
And I'm still not convinced they do realize how bad
that is. Twitter was all about anger I did for
a short while, and this was years ago I think now,
But like TikTok did seem to sort of push people
towards doing stuff right, which I thought was quite healthy,
Like well, the things that did well were you know,

(25:27):
friends getting together and dancing. It was being out and about,
it was being funny. But the stuff that worked was actually.

Speaker 1 (25:33):
Quite entertaining, like Vine almost, but yeah, just like.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Vine in terms of just the sort of the humor
that traveled. I think that what's happened, though, is they've
turned the screw of the monetization and the amount of
sponsored stuff and also like the and I never quite
know what drives it, right, because it is it that
some people come up with a format for a format
for a video that works and then TikTok goes, oh,
that's good, We'll get others to do it. What do

(25:58):
you think sort of TikTok is trying to nurture it
itself first, I mean, I guess it's a bit of
buu im.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Actually, yeah, it's chicken and egg because I had this
theory about year ago, maybe actually twenty twenty three, where
it's like, at some point, how much of content is
just going to be geared towards what they think the
algorithm wants, and because the algorithm with good reason, they
don't want to just publish exactly what would work, because
then people would only do that. And I think that
there's just this weird battle between I think any content

(26:23):
creat I think all of us, like there's a certain
degree of what's going to do well. And personally, as
everyone knows from this show, I've just done what I
want since the beginning, regardless of what people said. But
there is a pool of like what will do well?
What do people want? And what is a person in
this case? And so you've just got this people probably
I reckon for the most part, people are making honest content.

(26:46):
I think it's it's impossible to quantify it.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
Yeah, it's impossible to quantify. And also I don't think
it's that like it makes a lot of sense when
you think of the Internet or these platforms as a workplace,
which for a lot of these people. It is for me.
It is in some way the Verge employs me and
pays my bills. But part of my work, part of
my how my work travels is based on my ability
to ride algorithmic waves when needed. Right, And it's the

(27:12):
same way that like, you still see journalists on threads.
I don't really post on threads very much, but you
see journalists on threads post screenshots of their articles, and
then in the replies they'll post the link because they
think that they're going to get downloaded. Right, you're down
downrinked for putting a link in there.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Insane.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
And that's the same way that like, you know, twit twit.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Like that as well.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Now yeah, yeah, and I mean Elon Musk has just
come out straightforwardly and said, like, you know, it's I
can't remember the term he used, but yeah, he's acknowledged that.
But you know, the same practices sort of carry over
to video platforms. Right, you need to start a video
in a certain way if you want it to get traction.
There are different ways, well, there are different ways to
do it. Some some stuff that goes really does really

(27:51):
well is like you know, selfie style camp, selfie style
video and it starts okay, story time. I'm sure you've
seen this, Oh where you put it?

Speaker 3 (28:03):
The millennials get it ready right and have it hello everyone?

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Right?

Speaker 3 (28:07):
Yes, the gen Z sake is the.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Is like, so, yes, that's well, that's a perfect example
of like people the shake is this thing where people
were I guess surmising that if you put your camera down,
like you start recording, and you put your camera down
in a way that feels like you were just caught
something in the moment. Yeah, and you were just recording
jumping into record a video like that is effective for people,
or it makes it feel organic, or it makes it

(28:30):
feel relatable like whatever. But yeah, everyone does some like
some level of optimizing.

Speaker 3 (28:35):
I think the dark side of this is that trying
to predict what works is turning people completely loopy. Yeah right,
Like so I saw and I won't say who is
might have my assessment on how this person feels might
be wrong. But I saw a singer who made a
short video maybe thirty seconds, where she had like one
verse of a song and she's like, oh guys, you

(28:56):
like this and it was wonderful and it got like,
you know, over a million views. I was going, I'll
record this recorded because and so she did, right, She
sort of took time off the platform, made like an
EP and put the songs out there, came back on
TikTok to make the content about the song being ready,
and it got next to nothing engagement, and you can
just see, at least my impression was that you could
see her kind of going why why, Like, I've done

(29:17):
the song, I've done the actual work of releasing a song,
and the algorithm for some reason, maybe it seems less organic,
or maybe people just didn't like the song. Maybe I'm
ugly now, maybe like all this, and people go, what
is it that's preventing it? And I think that's where
it's kind of troubling to me.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
I I agree, and I think that it's really hard
sometimes to see the difference between the algorithm and the
reader or the viewer, right because it's like what did
you like? Did people actually like it? As well as
the question there. There was also a YouTube video that
went up a couple months ago where someone was investigating
why lots of videos have a person holding the tiny

(29:51):
microphone the level of a microphone, and it really I.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Do that, no, but that's a Bloomberg TikTok account. I'd
do the whole micro thing and people take the make
out it's weird.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
Apparently algorithm likes it. Certain think that Dan over a
morning brew as well. Does he holds like a full
scale like old news microft. I think people need to
go back to that.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
I love the subway takes guy has it on like
a little yah yeah level.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
I think that that's lovely as well. But it's like
I hadn't really thought about how it drives people insane,
but it does. Even early days of the newsletters, it
takes Matt Weinberger, friend of the show, be.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Like, is this ship the people like?

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Just keep writing, just to ignore, just keep writing. It
will grow naturally. But we've been conditioned for this thing
where we're constantly even me and I try and pretend
I don't get affected by stuff for this, but it's like,
you see something do well or don't do well. Your
natural inclination is why what can I do to it?
Am I wrong? Am I? Somehow? And it's interesting how
so much this comes back to the platform incentives.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Right, and the human inside you assumes people don't like it, right,
that's your initial reaction to it, I'd say, I always
find your boss Nileli. He's always talking about how the
verse just just has to be true to what it's
doing and not sort of bow to any of the
platforms as they go. And I think that's always been
a very good lesson because I think too many media

(31:09):
outlets we sit here and go, oh, Okay, this is
the thing that's working on TikTok. We're gonna sit down
and in a certain way, we're going to do it
in a certain tone. And I've had previous employers where
they're like, oh, just trying to do it off the cuff,
and I'm like, well, when you work for them, I
stress a previous employee, I would argue with my editors
and saying authentic for us was to not do that.

(31:29):
And it's a very sort of hello fellow kids thing
that happened. Serious places tried to be all like hey,
you know, like in the same way that when a
politician like Chuck Schumer tries to do some TikTok joke,
it's like it's not real, it doesn't and it's embarrassing
and it's patronizing to the people. So yeah, also off.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, can you just do something off the calf. Oh
you would like me to fake spontaneity, Absolutely, I'll get
But it's it gets back to the credit to Neili Hear.
The term Google zero, I think is really interesting because
this idea that and as you wrote about recently Day
that Google is basically possibly taking away the traffic from
everyone or dictating who gets traffic now in a very
direct way. They're not one they control because it's a

(32:08):
large language model, or at least controlling, it's indirect, and
I think it's it's almost like a final mut like
Boxer in animal Farm being marched to the glue factory,
the final way you've outlived your usefulness. And I feel
like the media and I, by the way, I say
this with a great deal of sympathy. Yeah, you're going
to chase, which would get you clicks for your click
driven business. But I think you've seen where at the

(32:32):
end or the beginning of a dark kind of like
semi dark era where we're seeing the cost of orienting
journalism around trends and clicks so aggressively, and we're kind
of now little boomers and everything. We're seeing the natural
result of orienting things around trend chasing because It's like,
here's a thing that has no real resell value that
owning it is just symbolic. Do you care about the show? Now?

(32:54):
Why are you making these news stories? Well, it's because
people are going to be looking for them. Why are
you covering the same thing as everyone else? Because everyone's
looking And there's a fair argument for that. If there
is a big funding round or a big news story,
of course everyone's going to cover it. And it's like
the functionality of journalism. And I think this Google AI
thing is it's scary, man. I think like Neela got

(33:16):
there early. I'll give him this.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
The other one thing I'll say about the Google zero
this idea that you know, the traffic will go down
until it hits nothing.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
I don't think it will hit nothing.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, I think for some people it has basically hit nothing. However,
I will say that like and I posted this on
Blue Sky, but this has just been the mo for
Google and with search for years before AI overviews. The
idea that Google is self dealing, right, that it creates
products that then replace the things that other people were

(33:46):
doing in search. That is old news. And it's funny
that you know people are kind of that the AI
overview of it all is what kind of finally makes
people realize it. When I worked at the Markup, we
and the story by some great former colleagues that like,
measured the percentage of the first page of Google results

(34:09):
on a phone screen, how much of that space was
taken up by Google products itself, and it was like
forty one percent. And that killed websites like celebrity net worth,
you know what I mean, or like travel companies because
Google had flights shopping, right, like all of these services
that other sites were providing, Google just made its own

(34:30):
version and they were like, we're gonna put this at
the top. That's what That's what's happening with AI, which
is the.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
Same thing with in those cases in Europe they regulated
against it, right, So when when these companies come and say, oh,
Europe's being so overbearing, or that's what they're talking about, right,
they're talking about the fact that Google Shopping can't dominate
the top twenty percent of a search page when you
search for you know, iPad or whatever you know. So
that's what was they were so aggrieved by. And I
mean even but now with all the I mean, I

(34:56):
was on my my brother on myself and the vantage
it was I was scrolling for.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Days and now they're doing the entirely AI generated whole page.
Did you see this? Yeah, I forget what it's called.
I would have to look it up, but they announced
it last Friday, Thursday or Friday. And basically it's separate
from AI mode. You search for something and it creates
honestly exactly what web pages look like websites and it

(35:22):
is you know, it'll have a section if you search
I think the example they gave was like solo traveling
in Japan, and the top part will be like reddit
and reddit and YouTube posts, so like communities or forums.
Then there will be a whole different section of the serp,
the search engine result page that is, yes, that is
web guide, web Guide, web Guide, and then it'll be

(35:43):
sort of like you know, top places to go and
it will pull stuff in from Expedia or not Expedia,
trip Advisor, things like that. It's it basically sub sections
the SERP to look like an SEO generated or like
an SEO driven article. It's it's really crazy.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
It's the snake that is, who needs websites?

Speaker 3 (36:02):
No, But it's all over, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (36:03):
But that's the thing, it's the net. It's ironic as
well because the origins of Google were based on this
idea that there was too much original content for you
to find it alone, and it was kind of noble.
And also within the original paper they were like, yeah,
if ads ever get involved with this, it's fucked. Man.
Were they right? But it's this sense of they've never
had much gratitude towards the web, and you made me

(36:23):
actually think of something went with traffic dropping away. This
is also if you read like Search Engine Journal and
like these are great publications, by the way, you want
to see some real like journalists as journalists, people that
read SEO and talk to SEO people, or day Jesus
Christ rusty over there. But there were so many situations
where traffic has just disappeared from it from a concept

(36:43):
and they just Google went no, not today. The idea
that they're building pages like this is fascinating as well,
because it's like, wow, we don't need you anymore, Yes,
you fucking do, dick. What how is it going to
generate the page? What's it going to be based on?
And they're they're thought, I imagine, I'm guessing is likely. Oh,
people won't notice. I think people will. I think they will.

(37:06):
I think people will see AI results in, which is
why the traffic's dropping and go okay. That answers my question.
But I think an entire fake page people are going
to be like, okay, and maybe they'll click them, but
they're not going to stick around on them. They're not
going to read much. It's not going to be particularly enjoyable.
But maybe I'm wrong, and I hope I am not wrong,
because if this is an idea of something replacing the

(37:26):
web that is Google like, that's more Google zero than
anything I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Grotesque it It's just part of a pattern of reducing
any need to go off that yeah, to get And
one of the most egregious examples of it isn't even AI.
And every time I say it, it annoys me more
and more so. One of the things that some publications
have been quite successful, app bloombo is one of them.
New York Times famous is games, right word or connections

(37:51):
or whatever, a little thing that would make people subscribe
to the app, open the app every day, maybe catch
a bit of news while they're there, right and now
LinkedIn doing minigames, And I'm like, what can you explain
this LinkedIn games?

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Because I got the pop up for the Apple News
thing and I think I posted it on Instagram and
I don't know what this ship is just it's but
one of these LinkedIn games please walk.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
I mean they're just little word games. I mean, there's nothing.
They're just trying to sort of do you know. I've
not played the LinkedIn once, but the Apple ones just
mini crossword that kind of stuff. The thing with the
LinkedIn is I find quite funny is it will tell
you how many of your colleagues have that, and it's like, oh,
three hundred of your colleagues a Bloomberg have done the
mini cross That's that's really a useful information.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
I imagine the crossword answer for every single day on
LinkedIn is just like hustle, rise, grind or.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
That would be quite fun, though, Yeah, that would make
me sort of go for it.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
That would require too much like charm and thought.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
But LinkedIn, if you're listening, I can write your games.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Also, they added vertical video to LinkedIn evil and I
think that if you post one of those, someone should
come visit your house. They're like, no, I'm thinking more
like the FB. It's like, what what you got on
the laptop? Let me let me check that hard drive
real quick. But it's it's so funny as well, because
all this is just coming down to please click our website.

(39:09):
Please don't leave our website. Our website is the most important.
It almost feels just desperate, like it feels the TikTok generally.
And I don't say this with any I. TikTok upsets
me when I use it. I need the at the
page to end. This is just a weird thing in
my brain. I'm like, no, infinite makes me. I don't
want to look at this forever.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Have you ever reached the clip that says, hey, you've
been scrolling for a while.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
No, see, I feel like I'm to anyone who's.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Ever seen this, I've hit it. Yeah, okay, it's not
the most depressing. It's so bad, doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah. At that point, I'm like, god, damn, I need
to go.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
You know what about like a click? If you've been
scrolling and it must be like an hour and a half,
maybe I get really anxious it will please you know
you've been doing this a long time.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
I need to hit the end. If I if I
get the sense that there's no end. I'm like, I
can't look at it like what I require time to end? Please.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
But that sort of limitless space is why we get
derivative content, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Like that that's kind of because people want more.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
People want more, and also it just if there's space,
someone will fill it. Yeah, And that was kind of
what I was trying to get at in my dupe story,
which is like the same thing that happens on an
infinite scroll feed on recommendation based social media platforms is
happening to like our physical goods simply because there is
Amazon space. There are Amazon pages to fill, and you
need ideas the same way that a content creator needs

(40:27):
ideas to post every single day. Like when it is
so algorithmic and recommendations based and taste space, it's just
like just throw whatever, and I have space there.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
And I hate to defend the platforms at all. I
think the thing you said earlier about people did make
shit content before actually really did resonate because it's there's
also a degree here of yeah, there's a bunch of
derivative content, but there's also consumer demand and yeah, as
human beings, we want to see more of a thing
we're interested in. I do think part of the unhealthy
parts of the Internet is we can feel just about anything,

(40:57):
perhaps not for the best, but it's and there's a
goodness to it, as well as many alternative communities that
have found good things online and then others. But it's
interesting because it's fulfilling the need of needing an infinite scroll,
which is a need that they created on the platforms themselves.
And I also found that story interesting because you didn't
really have sympathy with any Like it felt like you

(41:19):
were empathetic for everyone, but not sympathetic to anyone. It
was like you recognize why people did these things, and
why people want jeups of expensive things is probably because
the thing's too expensive. But then you had the skirt
worn by the by Taylor Swift. Yeah, I like Scott.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah. I really like stories where you read it and
your allegiance changes. I think that's like one of my
favorite things to write. And when I when I can
figure out ways to put it into that format, I
really enjoy it. But yeah, I mean like I don't
really love the debate going into like who's right and
who's wrong, because it's just like not that helpful and

(41:58):
not that interesting. That feels more like, you know, just
gossip or something. But I like this idea that like
everyone is a little bit being taken in advantage of,
and everyone also sucks a bit here.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
And I also think that there is a certain degree
of human beings take advantage of other human beings too.
They rip offs the I'm the person, I'm the La
Booboo whisperer. It's a great quote there, like I'm the
person that can help you find the thing. There are
all of these channels about how you can gambling, tips
about how you can buy and resell stuff. There are

(42:43):
ethically dubious things that pop up on the Internet, but
there's also hunger for it, those people taking advantage just
as much as the incentives of the platform take advantage people.
I think the platforms are generally more evil because they
have more capacity for harm, but that doesn't mean that
these small time people would not do evil things even
give and that scale.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
I sort of the platforms. The difference between how the
platform behaves and how what people describe as what the
legacy gatekeepers from you know, yesteryear, is that they don't
they don't have any sort of standards of what's good right, right,
So if you're you know, you know, you're running a
children's television company Nickelodeon, Children's, BBC, whatever, you're not commissioning

(43:22):
a show like Mister Beast or whatever, because you just
something makes you going, oh, is this really what we want? Here?
Is like, do we want to make it that everyone's
obsessed with money and they're willing to sort of do
these crazy stunts, embarrass themselves or whatever. And you make
those decisions despite knowing that people would lap it up,

(43:42):
people would go crazy. And I think you could say
the same thing about sexualized content. You can say say
the same things about about gambling. I think, yeah, you
could do a great show about people gambling on sports whole.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
We have one of back during the Super Bowl, and
many listeners did not like that he talked about sports.
But it gets back to the same incentives, Like you're saying, though,
it's people take advantage of people.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
But I think there used to be this idea that
the major companies, when they're even down to say sixty
minutes right on CBS, they would say, right, is this
genuinely important? And do we need to do? And I
think when the platforms don't apply those same standards. What
it means is is that the people with just completely
nonsense theories and opinions just get on that same surface

(44:21):
where any TV producer worth their salt of tool would go, Okay, well,
we're not going to put this guy on because what
is qualifications? Don't you know? We don't know if he's
talking gibberish or not. So there's been problems with that
in terms of who gets on. But like, I think
it's I think it's better maybe in some respect.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
No, and I think that, But you're also touching on something,
which is these platforms have, despite what they're doing right now,
have always acted as if they're never going to be
the arbiters of what is used as content. It's just
like we're helping you find stuff. But it's very clear
that they're they want to be the producer or at
least mimic being a producer as well. And it's very
interesting all because everything we're discussing is just incentives. It's

(45:00):
incentives and how people are drawn by it. Because you
mentioned nutters like people like no, I mention utters. No,
I mean just like people of dubious intent intent and
content people like Curtis Jarvin or Eliza Yudkowski or these
less wrong freaks they were ten years ago, they would
have never had them. I would say, they would have

(45:22):
likely not got a New York Times whatever. But I
think what that is is actually a mashing between everything
we're talking about, which is ten years ago there wasn't
perhaps the poll of SEO. There wasn't the pool of
tons of online content suggesting that we need to talk
to this guy and humor him seriously. There was tons
of purporting saying these people were evil. But now I
genuinely think some of these things or some might get clicks,

(45:42):
or they'll see the interviews that these people get five
hundred thousand views, So they're drawn by all these new
incentives versus having an actual quality bar. I do think
it is funny, though, that these companies to this day
are still pretending that they have no responsibility for the
content they have no they have no quality standards they
need to maintain, and indeed they will tweak them to

(46:03):
whatever level. I'm not even saying that anything has changed.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
I mean there's been changes in the sense that they
I think, well, I struggled to give Facebook too much
credit on this, but you know, they definitely have made
tweaks around just having you know, a regular family member
talk on Facebook and that being driven to. But what
they've what they've kind of pivoted to. And maybe they've

(46:28):
done it not out of any sort of obligation to
improve the problem, but because they realize now that content
made by people you don't know, that's sort of made
in a certain way, you're going to look at that
for longer anyway, So they don't care.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
There's more of it. Yeah, there are more people that
you don't have them do.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
And which is a really interesting mean I find now
and the only time I get any utility from the
Facebook app is when it says here's what you're doing
ten years ago, And I'll take a screenshot of that,
send it to whoever it was there, and go, look,
can you believe that was ten years ago? And that's
going to start running out soon. I think I'm going
to run out of those sort of you know, membe
because the people don't post it. But that time when
it used to be a platform and where you'd have
like a party and the next day there'd be you know,

(47:02):
undred photos of people tagged it. I mean that feels
like a completely different way.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
It was so nice as well, like when I got created.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
That's the thing.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Like as angry as I am at these platforms, it's
broken heart of romantic because when I got on Facebook,
it was genuinely magical. Like you said, you go to
a party, someone like ten ship webcam photos would be
up there you see, yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
And you.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Or just like you'd see someone that you talk to
for a minute and you were friends. I had tons
of friends at Penn State, for example, and there was
something like nice about that. And I guess that that
was just before they realized how much money they could make,
or before they went to public and.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
They realized too that you know, humans have an endless
appetite for slop, not even AI slap. It's just like
if you give them a scrollly feed, they will just
keep going until we hit the danger zone.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
Which does Facebook have a danger zone?

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Up? I don't think so, I don't think, just like
don't look at the stame.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, it's and I think it's the shift away from
their claimed utility towards the real one that they want,
which is they all want to be entertainment networks. Because
this concept of we ran out of stuff. That is it.
It's like you go on Facebook, you check Facebook and
you go, oh, this, this and this. Okay, I'm done
because my utility here is social networks on Google. It

(48:17):
like I go and look for something. People might do
idle idle looking, but they're like generally with a target.
Now you've TikTok was I think created within the realm
of people want to see stuff like it was. It
never tried to sell itself as a place where you
meet your friends, a place where we interact with others. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
In fact, it was distinctly this is a place where
you are not by people, you know, you know what
I mean. You're posting things to to an assumed audience
that does not include your parents network. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
Yeah, And TikTok doesn't compare to the other networks. TikTok
doesn't really encourage you to post right when you when
you when you, If you do one video, then it
will say oh do this, this, this, this is this.
But it's quite content for people just to consume if
that's what they're But it's an entertainment. It's not like
a huge sort of you know, nudge in the app
to say, oh, get.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Posting yeah, and I think we're even with Google, and
it's like, what is Google anymore? Is it? Are they
trying to not making it a search? Is it going?
Is a place where Google serve? I mean it always
was a place where Google served you ads, but now
it's you were in the Google zone. And I have
to wonder, if I say this with some optimism, whether
someone might go, ah, what if we made a search

(49:27):
engine that helped you find things that could be a
billion two billion and your revenue business, you know it's
not one hundred billion. But we also don't need to
do antitrust shit every year. I'm being even saying these
words out loud. I'm like, no, that's not going to happen.
Arab insom.

Speaker 3 (49:43):
I mean, people are trying to make different I mean,
Duck Duck goes kind of in that pain. But people
just don't use them. That's the problem.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
And that's the thing. It's like, do they not use
them or it's just not as many as Google use them.
I'm not even saying you're wrong, it's just when you
say people, you mean most people, and yeah, most people
use Google. Most people stop the start their Internet journey
on Google.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
I mean The thing that ties a lot of these
platforms as problems together is the point in which they
go public. It all just goes nutso right because you
have I mean, Facebook is the classic example of this.
It just then it just became massive growth every single
quarter and that sort of and I think, I mean,
this is such a sort of basic observation. I guess,

(50:25):
but you know, I think if you applied that model
to say the badega on your street, right, Okay, every
year you need to grow by ten percent, imagine what
that business is going to go mad? Isn't It's going
to be selling porn and it's gonna be selling drug
just just to just to get the margins up right,
And you're thinking, we're holding that.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
No, this is this is the rot economy. This is
the growth. It's everything everything driven around growth. It's the
moment that growth must be perpetual. Because in twenty seventeen
there was an internal Facebook thing. I've brought it out
last last year. Big up to Jeff Orwitz Broken Code,
great book where there's a whole thing where Zuckerberg he
did twelve percent perpetual growth when you I'm just really

(51:03):
sat and thought about this that is an insane fucking
thing to put on a social network. I must have
more friends, I must connect with more. And it's now
when you look at everything, that is the incentive everything.
It's not really about do we buy toys, do we
search things? How do we keep people here or get
the credit card? Which is I mean the age old
capitalism thing.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
The problem was with Facebook is that people didn't have
enough friends. Yes, exactly rut did constantly is that you've
run out of stuff, and so then it became, ok, well,
how do we make them when they're looking at this
site look on it for longer. And that's when we
started to get alder mad. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (51:36):
It was profitable before they took it public. I've read
stories which suggests that Mark Zuckerberg didn't want to take
it public, and I'm like fifty to fifty on whether
he did, because there's enough evidence that suggests that he
was quite happy with it being a fifty billion dollar
public a private company. And then I think he realized,
oh wait, I control this whole thing. I can never
be fired. But it's like trying to give a soul

(51:58):
to there's great.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
I mean, Jack Dorsey is probably the famous one. There right,
he's and he's should never have been a public company,
and he's right if only been of fine business. But
people the vcs need their payday, right, that's the whole
ecosystem could have.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
That's what I always wonder whether we don't have more
interesting bench capital models with like revenue shares or like
like something that is more interesting than if I give
you a bunch of money, this might you might sell
this in the future. It's it's sad, but it's you
know what, I want to ask a good question. Are
there any parts of the Internet you enjoy right now?
I truly want to know.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
You should have prepped me with this one before.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
It's interesting having the gap.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Like I'm sort of gravitating towards old style blogs, like weblogs.
Do you ever see and I think, I don't know
how plants. I think it's cock Oh yeah, cocky. And
it's just it's just a blog. There's maybe three or
four entries a day, and he's been doing it and he's.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Got twenty years for a long long time.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Yeah, And it's just a beautiful design and the stuff
is just interesting stuff. It's kind of reminds you of
the days when you just have a few.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
Weblogs that you'd rate since real traffic as well.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Yeah, I actually it does, but it doesn't mean you
couldn't launch that side today and gain populator. I think
you have this sort of legacy of people that have
always visited that. I actually, although I'm a new reader,
so maybe I don't know, but.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
I kind of I agree with ninety eight percent of it.
Other than I think you could do something like this,
it's just that starting a new thing fucking sucks. Like that.
I went, and I have some personal experience with this
in I went and looked back where I was five
years ago, three hundred subscribers, sixty views on my first piece.
But you have to have the ability to do a
bunch of shit until it makes money. And I had

(53:42):
a main job, had a PR firm, and I think
just making money in creating anything is so difficult. But
I love I Actually I had not thought of it
in a while. But it's just a place where someone
thoughtful has said you should check this out. Kind of
mimics I don't know, friendships or iconoclasts, like the idea
of someone who.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
Yeah, and there's a as well, Yeah, I just kind
of know you're going to get it's going to be
sort of mildly nerdy, but not too much so. And
that's what you get when you go there. And I
think it's Yeah, So when people get nostalgic for the web,
I think it's that kind of discovery that they're thinking about.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Yeah, and it's it is the thing that I think
a lot of listeners miss as well. It's like, we're
not we don't just hate arbitrarily, We're not just angry.
It's just there's something taken away. Like we mentioned Facebook,
the quality. He also used to be Google. He used
to just be able to dick around on Google and
find some bizarre stuff. I remember back in college. I
lost this two thousand and six, I want to say.

(54:33):
I was in my Dustin Panganis college room mate. We
randomly typed in you know, you're right by Nirvana into
YouTube and there was just this I think it's like,
I don't even remember it had view. It was this
grainy video of this like young Asian guy seeing this
like really kind of like slightly out of chewn version
of somebody. It was so interesting in grim like he
seemed very sad. I can never find it again. But

(54:56):
that was the kind of internet I kind of missed,
like just these arbitrary moments. So you find these weird things.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
You can't find that clip on YouTube, But would you
be interested in two hours of Joe Rogan?

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Yeah, five hours because it will help.

Speaker 3 (55:08):
You find that. Yeah, and then if you watch that,
then maybe Charlie Kirk and then you're.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
In the well you've learned three times of racism. You
get legs from how you are on computer, on website.
I won't do that for too long. That's why the
episodes are so long. It's ten minutes per question. So
what are you enjoying? Like?

Speaker 3 (55:30):
What?

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Man? I feel like there are a few content creators
that I really like and really tune into. There's a
woman who makes like sort of YouTube video essays that
are very well researched. Her name is Mina Le and
she does sort of like fashion and consumerism and culture
and art and stuff. And I think she is really

(55:52):
fun and just like, clearly I saw this thing the
other day that someone was like, if you can't write
a normal essay, you should not try to do video essays,
and she can do It's clear she can do both,
and I'm like, thank you so much, you know what
I mean. So I really like her. There's another person
that I follow on TikTok and other platforms named Ryan Finn,

(56:16):
and she is also really great, also kind of writes
about like kind of like a She talks about fashion
and clothing and culture in a really like heady kind
of It's the type of content that people who don't
read would see it and be like, it's really not
that deep, but it is, you know, and I appreciate
that someone takes things seriously like that. There are also

(56:38):
like corners of the Internet, even on platforms like TikTok
or Instagram, that I just like find the nerds and
they still are just plugging away and doing whatever they want,
and their posts get like fifty views and they're fine
with it, and like that's I think where it's special
where I don't like it when I follow a creator
and suddenly everything is sponkn or I follow a creator

(57:00):
and clearly they're just sort of like jumping on trends.
I also like websites where there's still like new content
being posted, but you can clearly find the markings of
like two thousand and six, Like I'm a big knitter
and ravelry is the was the place to find knitting
patterns in like the early to mid two thousands, and

(57:22):
sometimes I'll find photos clearly from that era and it's
like really delightful, you know what I mean, Like they
were posting to a different Internet. They were thinking of
the web as a completely different.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Space before the algorithms.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
I imagine, before the algorithms. And ravelry also like it
has some algorithmic stuff, but like a lot of it
is sort of pure. I think they're like forums, you
know what I mean, people post on.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
But this is why one of my favorites is baseball perspectives.
I know you're a Dodger fan.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
Right, Dodgers they suck right now, everyone's really everyone.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
That's a dead But baseball perspectus I think has looked
the same way since it was made, and it's just
like really specific, nutty stuff. But I think you can
even see it in sports. You've got people like Chad
Mariama over at Dodgers Digest. I think it is you've
got these like really specific and you know that they're
probably doing okay, but they're not like millions of views
every month or anything. But you've got this kind of
niche strength and my hopium I snort aggressively, is that

(58:16):
these will never stop being made because they're still being
made now. There's never been a more bleak time to
make niche specific content and keep making it. But people
keep doing it. I mean Carl Brown from Internet at Bugs,
he like does the most straightforward thing and just talks
and it's great and he has a growing audience. But
you can he does very specific developer Folcus stuff with
a very straightforward explanation, lovely fella and it's nice seeing

(58:40):
those and it's what gives me a bit of hope
because if those people, if you never find any of
that stuff anymore, if everything is just mainstream, I think
that's terrifying. But even look at gamers Nexus, Big Hot,
Steve Burke over the Legend Heart run Box as well,
you've got millions of subscribers. There is there is hunger
for this stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
There's hunger for like passionate people story turning out. Even
I mean, I was always a big fan of British
guy Tom Scott. I feel like you might have and
he's done that for years and years, made YouTube video
and he did he did like twenty minutes on the
design of the British plug for like an outlet and
how it's got this video and it makes the case
that is, you know, one of the finest things that

(59:19):
Britain's ever come with, because you know, you can't electrocute
yourself by putting it in all sort of stuff. And
I remember what you're thinking. I've just watched fifteen minutes
about the history of the plug and I but he was.
He's just such a sort of arresting, interesting guy. Bona
fide nerd, but a great presenter. One of the things
I take from the sort of substack era, if you like,

(59:39):
is like I imagine, and I'm not going to make
you get into numbs, but imagine the Verge with its
paywalk now has a lot of people saying, oh, why
are you pay warning? And I find it really interesting
that when big publications put up a paywall, everyone gets
a little bit mad, right they say that, you know,
and like, whenever I post a link the Bloomberg's was like, oh,
it's pay And yet when one person launches a substack

(01:00:01):
and says, right, this is ten bucks a month, Oh
my god, they kind of go great, good for you,
definitely get behind you. And I think what that's showing
us is one is a kind of you know, middle
finger to the mainstream media. Fine, But then the second
thing maybe is that I think people have respect for
depth and niche and real Well, yeah, because I think

(01:00:21):
I think they want to sort of they love the
idea that someone gives up and gives up, you know,
a steady thing goes into a substat I mean, I
think of Paul Krugman, who left The New York Times.
I remember thinking, I remember thinking, Okay, Paul, you're being
a cranky old man just because the editors don't want
you to do that. But now his substack is brilliant.
He goes to such length.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Please get him in touch with me.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
But it's great, and I think I'm much more inclined
to chuck you know, when when when The New Times
wants to upgrade my subscription, I'd rather send that to
Paul on his own. Get the entirety of this, because.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
You're incentivizing this individual voice and you know, the person
kind of parasocially.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
And the way that I think bigger publications kind of
lean intoight is to have these sort of nations version
following right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Yeah, oh yeah, everyone should follow me on the Verge
so you can follow me and all the topics I
write about. But I'm glad you said that, Dave, because
I think that is it shows a thing that mass media,
big media companies have failed to do, which is explain
what we're actually doing day to day. And I that's
why I am active on TikTok, you know what I mean.
I talk to people who will never probably read my

(01:01:27):
story and probably will never subscribe to the Verge. Truthfully,
some do, thank you so much, but a lot of
them will just watch my videos and that is a
way for me to explain to them what it takes
for me to write a story. This is how I
talk to people. This is like I think people don't
realize that, like when I'm writing stories, I'm actually sometimes
going in person to interview the person, you know what
I mean. Like it's and I don't blame them really

(01:01:48):
for not knowing, because media has done a really bad
job of explaining it historically. And I hope that you know,
folks who read my work know that, Like I'm I'm
a I'm one person and I write these stories and
obviously there's copy editors and editors and photo editors and
you know like dev folks who make my stories come

(01:02:09):
to life, but like we are just people making shit
that we like and we think is worth your time.
And every media company should be showing that off you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Made a really you made a post quite like maybe
it was last year forgive me where it was saying
we're kind of journalists are seeding ground to content creators
who are reusing their stuff. And I think it comes
down to a failure of not saying anything specifically about
any given out there. But I failed to failure to
realize that people want people. They want to read people.
They and I think that large broadsheets tend to fail. Actually,

(01:02:40):
I will give big props to the ft for doing this,
that they let their freak flags fly, Bryce Elder the
Legend and like Alphaville as well, because people want to
read people. And I think that what should be table
stakes now is that every outlet should get everyone a
good microphone, get everyone a good camera media, train them

(01:03:00):
up a bit so that they can sound good and
represent the work of the publication in a personal way
that makes people more willing to understand. There's a paywall,
which is a reasonable thing, whether however you feel about
the Verge or any other outlet. Yeah, money, the things
cost money to do. Money money so expensive.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
It's really fucking expensive to write six thousand word features.
That's like months of my time, many many people's you know,
work and resources. And I think also, like if we
don't fill that, and I know a lot of people
disagreed with me when I said, like we're seeding ground,
and people didn't like it for a lot of valid reasons.
But if we are not there, something will fill the space.

(01:03:39):
I was basically just sick of seeing my stories super
you know, behind someone's head.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
And you made this point very clearly. It's what you said,
like if someone taking my stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Someone taking my stuff, Yeah, exactly, it's someone taking my stuff.
It's they're misrepresenting it, getting basic facts wrong. And like
I have thirty minutes in my day, I will just
make the fucking video, you know what I mean? Like,
I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
They should get it. There should be the space for
they should have, Like I whole radio gives me a
studio at least, because it's like, oh, imagine what want
to do it in studio? Thing? What make for good content?
It's just when you have resources, share them. Are you
going to say something.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Well, I think part of all of this as well
is showing the process is the most It travels almost
more than the story, right, and it breathes a ton
of trust. I mean, I'm always surprised you can be,
you know, in in rooms of people who are, you know,
incredibly success and they're still they'll ask the most like
rudimentary questions about the journalistic process, like oh, who tells

(01:04:31):
you what to write? And I'm like, God, my job
would be much easier if someone did tell me what
to write. It being the other way around, things like
do you people let people read things? I think it's
going into the process is really really useful. And I
always there was I was a dinner thing once and
this one guy made this point I thought, was I've
always thought of when they're talking about this is if
you said to somebody, when was journalism in America the

(01:04:52):
most trusted? Right they can my assumption most people would
say water Gate, Ye, the thing? And he said no,
it wasn't Watergate that made and trusted. It was a
very good film about Watergate that made journalism and trusted,
because all that film was was just them trying to
get this stuff in the paper and them going through
hell to make it happen. And if you want a

(01:05:13):
more modern example, that the book she said by the
New York Times reporters that did the Jeffrey Epstein. Sorry, no,
Harvey Weinstein, I get, but their book they knew what
Harvey Weinstein had done within about ten pages of the
first chapter, right it was getting the rest of the

(01:05:33):
book was getting in the newspaper. And I just think
that is the more of that process that journalists share
off the cuff constantly is super powerful. That's what Twitter
used to be very good. There's a big shift in
newsrooms among bosses that went hold on a second, the
official account is getting no engagement, but when this random
person on one of our UK desks starts tweeting about it,

(01:05:54):
that gets loads of pickup. Why is that? It's because
people respect hearing the process more than the end result
the events.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
They want to also know. And I know that this
is difficult for different Like your opinion stuff is fucking fantastic.
By the way, at Bloomberg, It's really like Bloomberg has
actually been very impressive in how they've grown out the
opinion stuff. So this is not a detraction of that I,
at least in my writing, have found that people really
like to know why you care. And I think that
explaining that even on here talking about your work, it's

(01:06:22):
like hearing it just a little bit about the things
that draw you into the story. I think it's so powerful.
It's also people love it. I mean after c yes,
I know, I see like Victorious Song and Das Sheerlyn Lowe,
both of them get the loveliest comments and people, I
just found your work for the show. It's lovely. And
it's also I feel like most readers like to know
and appreciate. It's not like most people are like, oh,

(01:06:44):
these fucking idiots just ti when they actually know what
goes into it. I feel that there's more goodness in
people around this than they know. And now you've made
that comment about watergain and be thinking about it all
fucking days.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
It's such a good point.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
So I'm going to wrap it there. It's been so
one of for having you both me and what can
people find you?

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
I'm on Blue Sky, TikTok, Instagram, and the Verge dot com,
where again you can follow me, Dave.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
I'm one of all those places except these dot com
I'm Blueberg dot com slash Opinion, but Insta.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
And I must recommend both of their work. Both of
you are to my favorite right, no, like, I'm actually
so excited I got this one of my favorite episodes recorded.
I'm just gonna be honest. I am ed Zeitron. You
can find me on the podcast The Better Offline. You
go Better offline dot com, click newsletter, click all this stuff,
get the challenge coin if you want, but really, just
I'm so grateful to have all of you, love you all,

(01:07:36):
Thank you for listening, and then you can hear it
say thank you for listening again. I'm going to get
an email. I'm going to ignore it. I'll respond thank
you for listening, but thank you for listening. Thank you
for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of
the Better Offline theme song is Metasowski. You can check

(01:07:58):
out more of his music and audio project at Mattasowski
dot com m A T T O S O W
s ki dot com. You can email me at easy
at Better offline dot com, or visit Better Offline dot
com to find more podcast links and of course, my newsletter.
I also really recommend you go to chat dot Where's
youreaed dot at to visit the discord and go to

(01:08:19):
our slash Better Offline to check out our reddit. Thank
you so much for listening.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Host

Ed Zitron

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