February 27, 2025 • 46 mins
Welcome to another exciting episode of the Spun Today podcast, where creativity knows no bounds. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and in today's episode, we're diving into the artistic brilliance of Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl halftime performance. We'll explore how Kendrick stayed true to his unique storytelling approach, weaving a narrative of America, oppression, and redemption during one of the biggest stages in the world. We'll also delve into the layered symbolism and thought-provoking artistry that has sparked intense conversation and admiration.
But that's not all! I’ll be highlighting some standout commercials from the Super Bowl and shedding light on the new reality competition, Beast Games, by YouTube's sensation Mr. Beast, which offers one of the largest cash prizes in television history. Plus, get ready for a mind-bending scientific breakthrough in quantum teleportation that could reshape our understanding of computing as we know it.
So whether it's writing, creativity, entertainment, or cutting-edge science, join us for this thrilling journey as we discuss, dissect, and indulge in the unlimited scope of artistic expression. And don't forget, your support helps fuel the passion behind this podcast. Now, let's dive into Episode 280 of the Spun Today podcast—stay tuned for an episode that promises to inspire and enlighten!
The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope. Give it a whirl.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I appreciate from an artistic perspective how he
stayed true to himself. You know, he's the quintessential artists
artist. He felt he had something to say and he had an opportunity to do
it on one of the biggest stages ever, which is the super
bowl halftime show. And he didn't want to take that moment and
be something that he's not and create, you know, this
(00:22):
grandiose production. Maybe some
folks were expecting just based on the history
of what we've seen with super bowl halftime
shows, but instead he wanted to tell a
story, a story of America from his perspective, A story
of oppression, a story of redemption. And sprinkled throughout
(00:44):
a non stop relentless F you to
Drake. And he stuck to his guns and it did. So
(01:10):
what's up folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast,
the only podcast that is anchored in writing but unlimited in scope.
I'm your host Tony Ortiz and I appreciate you listening. This is
episode 280, the very first episode after
the very first hiatus, the first
hiatus ever of the Spawn Today podcast where I took off for the
(01:32):
prior episode release date and also didn't
re release an older episode. Kind of left you guys hanging, but hopefully
I wasn't missed much. Definitely welcome back. I definitely missed you
folks. And in this brand spanking new episode
of the pod, I am going to speak about
Kendrick Lamar's super bowl halftime performance as
(01:54):
well as a few of my favorite commercial takeaways from the Super
Bowl. I'm gonna tell you guys a bit about Beast Games,
which is the brand new reality competition series
by none other than Mr. Beast. And I'm gonna tell you guys a bit
about a mind bending scientific
breakthrough in quantum teleportation.
(02:16):
My brain hurts just thinking about that. I'm going to try
to be thinking about that. Stick around for all that good stuff.
But first, before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you guys
about a couple of different ways you can help support this podcast if you so
choose. First and foremost, super excited to tell you guys
about some brand new redesigned merch that I have
(02:39):
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to set up my brand new shop which you guys can check out by
going to spontane.com and clicking on
the shop link up in the header
menu and it'll take you to my fourth Wall shop
page. And here you're gonna find a brand new redesigned
(03:00):
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to like a moleskin notebook. For my fellow writers out there. We have
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(03:23):
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that and then we'll jump right into the episode.
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(03:45):
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(04:06):
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(04:29):
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(04:49):
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Kendrick Lamar's Super bowl halftime performance
(05:11):
set the Internet ablaze with folks on both sides
of either loving it or hating it. And they say that
creatively and artistically you're not living up to your
potential if you are not dividing the room because you're
either being too commercial or one sided or
just putting out trash. But when you're able to express yourself
(05:32):
artistically and give folks something to
talk about as Kendrick clearly did, then you're doing something
right. So from that perspective, let's give Kendrick
Lamar definitely a round of applause
there. First off, I want to shout out the interview, the
pre super bowl performance interview
(05:54):
that Kendrick did with Ebro, which was cool to see because
Kendrick just, you know, normally doesn't do interviews. They're few and
far between. But it also helped set the stage
and expectations for folks anticipating
what his performance is going to be like. You know, Kendrick coming off of
musically his biggest year ever, he had a lot
(06:17):
more eyes on him than than usual. And during that interview
he spoke a lot about storytelling and how he
crafts his music similar to how a writer
would put together the, the theme and the story of a novel. He
layers it layers his music in a similar way. And he said
that for the super bowl halftime show it was going to be no different.
(06:38):
He wanted to tell a story and he definitely delivered on
that. I appreciate from an artistic perspective
how he stayed true to himself. You know, he's the quintessential
artists artist. He felt he had something to say and he had an
opportunity to do it on one of the biggest stages ever, which
is the super bowl halftime show. And he didn't want to take
(07:01):
that moment and be something that he's not and create, you
know, this grandiose production that maybe
some folks were expecting just based on the history
of what we've seen with super bowl halftime
shows. But instead he wanted to tell a
story. A story of America from his perspective. A story
(07:23):
of oppression, a story of redemption. And sprinkled throughout
a non stop, relentless F you to
Drake. And he stuck to his guns and it did so.
Speaking of storytelling and symbolism, starting off with Samuel L.
Jackson playing the role of Uncle Sam, America's
Uncle Sam. And representing throughout his performance how
(07:45):
America attempts to dictate how
black and brown people should act and behave. He
brought with him on stage all black performers throughout the
beautifully choreographed show. And
everyone was dressed in either red, white or blue, symbolizing
the. A few different things because again,
(08:06):
Kendrick's artistic expression is, you know,
chock full of Easter eggs and very thoughtful and deliberate.
A lot of double entendres, triples the way the red, white and blue
symbolizes. You can see it from the viewpoint of
the gangs in LA where he's from red and blue
bloods and Crips and the white representing the neutrals. Also
(08:29):
representing, if you want to look at it through a political lens,
which ties into the, you know, Samuel L. Jackson Uncle Sam
vantage point of red and blue Republicans and
Democrats into a much lesser extent, the. The white could represent
the more you know, fringe, other parties sprinkled
throughout the American political system. And then the obvious red,
(08:51):
white and blue representation of the American flag and being
depicted as, or by rather all the
black performers is symbolic of the
American flag and America itself being
built off the backs of black
slaves. And Kendrick would stand in the
(09:13):
center of, when they did that American flag formation
in the center of it, showing a clear
divide through the middle, through the center of the. Of the
flag, which again represents the political or
gang related or societal divisions that
we've become accustomed to. And Kendrick being in the,
(09:34):
in the middle is symbolic of him being the unifier or attempting to
try to unify, to mend. Which gave me kind of Bob
Marley vibes. When Bob Marley famously
had, after being shot, had that concert in Jamaica
where there was like a lot of political violence happening between two rival
parties and he brought the heads of both of those parties on stage
(09:56):
and like joined their hands together. It reminded me of that type of moment. Now,
the whole thing also had a video game aesthetic to it,
had like a video game motif. The stage itself
was designed in the shape of a video game controller,
which begs the question, what game is being played? Does it tie
into the fact that we're all watching a football game? Is he speaking to the
(10:18):
rap game and he's the one controlling it? Is it the
American game, a game of the American system
playing the minorities within the system, or
vice versa? Are the minorities standing up to and bucking
the system? Are they able to. And the obvious, again
sprinkled throughout. Just looking at, through the lens of the rap
(10:40):
game itself, him playing and controlling and beating
out Drake within their recent rap beef. Now,
Kendrick Lamar's work is always known, how I mentioned
before, as having a bunch of layers to it, very
deliberate thought out layers that his
fans love to dissect and go through and maybe even
(11:02):
draw conclusions that aren't really there, but they make them
there. You know, as they say with, with stories,
for example, one or any type of art.
But just speaking from the perspective of a writing perspective,
when you put something out there into the world, it's no longer yours.
It's. There's a collaboration going on between
(11:25):
the writer who created something and the person who
is taking it in and making their own connections based on their
biases and life experiences and how they're
interfacing with that piece of art that was put out there.
So in that sense, a lot of his fans, you know, make connections to things
that, you know, maybe weren't even his intent. But are there consciously or
(11:47):
subconsciously. And all that type of stuff is like super fun for
me to get into a little bit in shows.
For example, like the podcast, like the Dissect podcast
is great for this type of thing. Rap genius breaks down
lyrics specific to the super bowl performance
itself. Jessica Clemens of New Rockstars has a great breakdown.
(12:08):
Knox Hill and many others also have really cool
breakdowns where I drew upon for a few of these things that
resonated with me. So first and foremost, the
he was wearing this leather jacket that said Gloria on it
and Gloria is what he calls his pen. Just
like a shout out to his weapon of choice,
(12:30):
which is reinforcing his writing. Writing as a
weapon. He had this lowercase, a
chain chain on which I
didn't make in real time, like the connection to
during the performance, which in hindsight is like how could I not?
But that chain has a double meaning, which
(12:52):
folks argue that it doesn't, but how could it not?
First and foremost, it is part of a logo
for PG Lang. PG Lang is an acronym for
Program Language, which is an American
independent, multidisciplinary creative communications company
headquartered in Los Angeles, founded by Kendrick Lamar and Dave
(13:14):
Free. That's their company. The lowercase A is
part of the logo of PJ PG
language. Granted, it is also
the musical notation of an A
minor, which is arguably one of the most popular lines
of the most popular song of the year,
(13:36):
Not Like Us. And I'm sure it was not lost
on Kendrick Lamar that this chain, which he
has never worn before in public at least, would come across
in both ways. Another cool thing that happens during
his performance is that Serena Williams comes out and starts
Crip walking and she is also part of his song
(13:59):
Not Like Us, the now infamous Drake. This
because Drake and Serena dated a few years back
and had a bit of a falling out. He's said negative things about her and
or her current husband. And
in Kendrick's song Not Like Us, he says something
to the effect of you better not talk on Serena. Serena, who is
(14:21):
also famously from from la from Compton as Kendrick
Lamar is. And then so he has all these like
foreshadowing of, you know, you know, throughout his performance
of playing Not Like Us. And then the biggest
tease before actually getting to it is when
he says that he wants to play their favorite song, meaning,
(14:43):
you know, the crowd's favorite song, but they asked to be careful because, you know,
they like to sue, meaning Drake and the lawsuit that he
has currently going on. And he transitions into the
Luther song from the GX album, which he has with Sza, which
is like a cool change of pace and a dope performance by her.
And there was a lot of conversation leading up to the super bowl performance of
(15:05):
is he gonna play this song? Is he not gonna play it? Should he play
it? Should he not? You know, how are you gonna play a song during your
super bowl that's essentially a diss song. Calling
someone a pedophile. And also, you know, you shouldn't give that person so,
you know, so. So much light, so much bandwidth, so on and so
forth. And regardless of where you fit in that
(15:27):
conversation, I love how unapologetically
he segues into it. Speaking to
how you can't fake influence, which to me
is also a subliminal dig at Drake,
highlighting the difference between being popular and being
actually influential. And then just drops into
(15:49):
the song with the entire crowd singing
along. Especially when he goes quiet and allows the
crowd to fill in the. And it's probably a minor,
which was great. And another really
dope moment within that is when Mustard comes out, his
producer during the Mustard.
(16:15):
And you just see, like, them too. And it. It's a cool, like, you know,
like two boys together that have the, you
know, biggest hit song of the year in the biggest show of
the year in the middle of the super bowl. Just them two. And like, him
giving Mustard his shine on such a big stage was really, really cool to
see and two more little Easter eggs to get into.
(16:37):
Is that according to Jessica
Clemens of the New Rockstars, the. The way that the. The
buttons light up in the controller like before the performance
actually begins. If you see like, the controller buttons start lighting up and like
blinking in and out. That that is actually a cheat code to a
video game of Jurassic Park Lost World.
(16:59):
To be able to start off the game with 59
lives. And the tie in here is that this is the 59th
Super Bowl. Coincidence? Probably not. And if
true, that's just bonkers how much thought and
layers Kendrick puts into. Into his work. Then the last. More of
the conspiracy theory side of things that I'll point
(17:22):
to in terms of Easter eggs within. Within this performance, which is the cool
thing about Kendrick Lamar stuff, right? Because even, you know, weeks
and months and years from now, people are still going to be breaking down his.
His. This performance along with his other music, as
they still do from like, you know, previous albums and
music videos and like, finding cool, new nuanced things, which
(17:44):
is just a testament to. To his artistry. But
according to the Jumpers podcast, they speak about the
placement of the X of the controller
on the actual football field itself. Because taking a step
back, there's an artist by the name of
XXXTentacion who was
killed. And he had a back and forth, like, smaller beef
(18:08):
with Drake back in the day. Something to do, I believe, with like
a sampling or like a style that Triple X was saying,
you know, like Drake off him or didn't give him credit for something
along those lines. And Das Young tweeted
once, if I die, it was Champagne Poppy who did it, which is
Drake's like name on like IG or Twitter or
(18:30):
whatever. And then he winds up dying for real. But
you know, his, he. I never really followed his, his music
much, but I know he had a very cult life following. And his fans
like took that and ran with it and there was all this speculation, did Drake
really have them killed or not? So on and so forth.
Which I'm not saying any of that is true or not true. I
(18:52):
have absolutely no idea. I would, if I was speculating, I would think
not being that, you know, such like a, a public
thing or such a hyped theory that, you
know, authorities would have looked into it and, you know, if there were
some validity behind it, Drake probably would have been arrested or,
or something like that. But regardless of
(19:14):
the validity of it, the fact that if true,
what the Jumpers podcast, what guys
point out, just adds to the whole diabolical
nature of Kendrick Lamar with the Drake beef.
So they said the X represents, you know,
10, the number 10 in Roman numerals. And the
(19:36):
X of the controller stage
was on the 30 yard line. So if 10 is
for X, an X on the 30 yard line would
be XXX high, obviously triple
extentacion. And the dancers, if
you notice throughout the entire performance had this two tone
(19:59):
hairstyle, which is how
XXXION always rocked his hair. Like one color to the
left, one color to the right. And Kendrick just playing with that idea.
If that again, intentional, which again go, you know,
ties back to my. One of my first points, which is, you know,
sometimes fans reach and make connections that
(20:19):
weren't intended to be there, but are there. But if they were
intentional, then how sick and thoughtful is that?
And then Kendrick just wraps it up with the.
The lights in the crowd in the stands saying game
over, signifying again with multiple
different meanings depending on which way you want to look at that. The game over
(20:42):
between the rap battle between him and Drake, like, I clearly won, game's
over, or the game is over between the system
and. And oppressing the minorities, that game is over. You know, we're rising
up the system, but that was definitely a dope performance,
in my opinion. So shout out once again to
Kendrick Lamar for a great Super Bowl.
(21:04):
True to his artistic self performance. And just
a quick aside on a few commercials that I enjoyed throughout the Super
Bowl. You know, the super bowl is known for these very expensive
commercial spots that a lot of companies debut commercials
for. The first one, which I really enjoyed was the Cancer We're Gonna
Knock youk Out commercial. You know, I had. My. My mom had breast cancer.
(21:26):
My wife had a very aggressive breast cancer, which I
did a podcast with her on last year. So I
enjoyed seeing that type of commercial and that type of,
like, dedication and drive and just, like, empowering
statement. I think that's definitely important to see and to
strive for. It was a cool alien Doritos
(21:48):
commercial with, like, this UFO that was. Was trying to beam up the
bag of Doritos from a guy in his room, and he's, like,
fighting, fighting with the beam to keep
the Doritos bag. There was a funny commercial with George
Costanza from Seinfeld where he's playing, like, all the
characters in a restaurant. And it's a mayonnaise
(22:10):
commercial. And two more that I jotted down that I really liked was
there was a commercial for Instacart, the
delivery service, where it had, like, all the mascots
from, like, all the different grocery items like Kool Aid
and the Green Giant, then just a bunch of
different, like, mascots of all these products. And
(22:33):
you're like, what the hell is this commercial for? And it's. And they're all, like,
rushing to somewhere, and it's like, all of them coming together to
being delivered by Instacart. That was a dope commercial. And then last but
certainly not least, commercial about wings
with Matthew McConaughey in it. And you're thinking it's like a. A chicken
wings commercial the entire time, but it's actually an Uber Eats
(22:54):
commercial. And why I liked it most is that it
has a cameo in it by my guy, Sean Evans
from Hot Ones, which is a great YouTube
interview show. He's an amazing interviewer, Sean Evans. So
if you guys don't watch Hot Ones, you should. And I would
recommend watching, like, some celebrity or musician or
(23:17):
comedian or someone that you like, and then watching their Hot
Ones interview with Sean Evans so you can get an idea of what a great
interviewer he is. And that, folks, was my little recap and review of
the super bowl shout out to the Eagles, who won the Super Bowl. Fly
Eagles fly until my jets come back and win
it all next year. Probably not, but yeah. Let me know what you
(23:39):
guys thought of Kendrick's performance. What commercials did you guys like?
And let's keep that convo going.
Mr. Beast, who is the largest
YouTuber on the planet, makes tons of
really elaborate, perfectly manicured YouTube videos
with large cash prizes just off the top of my
(24:02):
head randomly. And I'm going to be conflating videos
probably, but you know, X number of people stand
within the circle. The last person to leave gets
$100,000. Or you know, pull over and
buy this house for sale for $1 and it's an
actual house and they're in there and literally
(24:23):
sign over the deed for a dollar. I gravitate a lot
more towards the philanthropic arm
which does things like that. I've mentioned
them featured here on the podcast in the past, like a hundred water wells in
villages throughout Africa or cataract surgery for a thousand
people that couldn't afford it. Prosthetic legs, so on and so
(24:46):
forth. Mr. Beast actually made the
spun today goats doing goat shit list recently if you want to check that
out. And fairly recently created Beast Games.
Beast Games is a 2024 reality competition
television series created by Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr.
Beast, Tyler Conklin, Sean Klitzner
(25:08):
and Mac Hopkins. Hosted by Mr. Beast
himself. Beast Games follows 1, 000
contestants which is the largest cast for a reality
show as they compete for a five million dollar
prize, which spoiler alert, eventually got bumped
up to a $10 million prize which was incidentally
(25:29):
the largest single cash prize in reality television
history. It was partially inspired by the Netflix show Squid
Game which by the way he did a
real life version of squid game costing
$456,000. Like recreated a
set and played out like whatever happens in Squid Game in
(25:51):
real life minus like the killing part. And honestly I'm usually
not into like reality tv, you know, like game show
type of things, but I am a supporter of Mr. Beast. I like his stuff
and more so like what he seems to like stand for and, and
back up with his actions. Like he has this like self
righteousness to him that, that I gravitate towards. So I decided
(26:12):
to, to give this show a shot when he was promoting it and it
was so good. There's 10 episodes available on
Amazon prime and he actually was recently
on with Stephen from the Diary of CEO,
which is a great episode and I'll link to it in the episode notes for
you guys to check out and said that he lost
(26:34):
like tens of Millions of dollars on the first season. But the goal was to
be able to make the first season as big as possible,
to pave the way for like future seasons. But the show itself
broke so many records, like I mentioned before, the largest cash prize
ever, the most contestants ever. I think it was
like it broke like 50 different Guinness World
(26:55):
Records, most cameras ever, so on and so
forth. And I'm just going to break down just to give you guys an idea
of a few of the different competitions and what to
expect with when you watch the show. So it starts off with a thousand
people on a thousand
platforms in like rows of, I
(27:16):
don't even know how many, but probably like 20 rows
of 50 or something like that. Whatever
equals to a thousand. Can't do math right now. And each
platform has its own camera. You know, people are
speaking into it and you get to know some of their like personalities.
And the first challenge is that one person per
(27:39):
row has to eliminate themselves, meaning take themselves out of
the competition. And if they do so, if they sacrifice themselves, their
entire row is saved and gets to go on to the next round. So
each of these people signed up for a chance to go at
this five million dollar prize. So obviously they don't want to eliminate
themselves. But the final three rows that
(28:01):
don't have someone sacrifice themselves, the entire rows get
eliminated all in one shot. Then after that round,
there's another round where he starts bribing people. And he says, all right,
now the rows become columns. So going instead of front,
front to back or top to bottom, going left to right. Now
that's your, that's your row, that's your column. And
(28:24):
people are going to be given the opportunity to take a bribe. And then
if they take the bribe, they get, they take the, they keep the money for
themselves, but their entire row gets eliminated. So it's not
a sacrifice, it's like the other way around. And everybody's, you know,
like coercing each other not to take the bribe, you know, and first
it's a ten thousand dollar bribe. Then it goes up to twenty thousand and
(28:45):
fifty thousand and eighty and a hundred thousand. And it just keeps going up and
up and up. And you just see a whole bunch of people that were like
steadfast at first, like start to crack and break and be like, oh, I'm taking
the 30, I'm taking this to that. And just eliminating their entire
row. Then there's more like game focused
challenges. So they all go to this like tower and
(29:06):
they have to, these balls fall from the sky and they have to
catch it without letting it touch the ground. They touch the ground. If
it, you know, slips and touch the ground, their entire team is eliminated. Like, like
that type of thing. They have trivia style games
just with like random questions. And in each of these
games and challenges, you know, people get eliminated,
(29:28):
right? There is a sick
challenge where they make all the
contestants that are left select a leader to represent
their group. And there's four different leaders elected. And,
you know, the people have to like, make a case for themselves. You know, I'll
be the leader. But they don't know what they're gonna be up against, what, you
know, what they're gonna lead, what the challenge is gonna be. So four people go
(29:51):
up to the podium and then they are presented with a
bribe and Mr. Beast tells them, you guys get a guaranteed spot into
the top. You know, x contestants for going up
against getting the $5 million. If you take
this bribe, you get to keep the money, you get a guaranteed spot, and you
eliminate your entire team. Like, that type of thing. And that prize
(30:14):
literally went up to $1 million. So it was telling four
people, take a million dollars right now and eliminate your entire
team. And mind you, these are four leaders that were
selected by the people to represent them, but they didn't know why. So now they're
like, oh, then there's like races, like potato sack races.
There's. There was an interesting challenge where groups of three were
(30:35):
put in to these isolated cubes and
only two people could come out to move
forward. And that third person had to agree to pretty much
sacrifice themselves so they can come up with
who that person is that's going to sacrifice themselves any which way that
they wanted. So either flipping coins, you know, asking for a deck of
(30:57):
cards and, you know, playing a game, or just like
convincing each other. And then ultimately, like the
top, I want to say like 400 or 300 people wind up going to
Beast island where they all have, like, housing and like
bunk up together. And the rest of the games happen there.
One of the games is a game of hide and seek
(31:19):
with a group of Navy SEALs. So they're
like, the contestants are taken to this
private island off of Beast games off of, off
of East Island. And given the option,
and I think I'm conflating a couple things here, but all part of the show,
given the option to either take a guaranteed spot in the
(31:42):
top 50, like the final 50 that will compete for the $5 million,
or stay on this private island for a
chance to compete for the private island which is worth $1.8
million and only one person to win it. And if
they win it, they could also still continue to compete for the
5 million. But if they lose, they're out of everything. So then you see
(32:04):
the, you know, people taking like the guaranteed spot in the
top 50 and they go to like an all expenses paid
luxury vacation while the other ones compete in this island.
And one of those competitions there was the hide and go
seek with the Navy Seals. That was a dope one. That's one that I
feel I would have definitely taken, you know, like my top
(32:27):
10 odds, you know, 1 out of 10 odds or 12, whatever it
was that wound up staying on the island to go for the,
the, the island. 1.8 million island. That was a pretty sick one.
They had to do this like relay race with like pulling as a
group, pulling a monster truck
500ft, like across the finish line before the other, other
(32:49):
team. There's like a ton of games of chance, tons of
bribes, like, sprinkled throughout the whole thing. And there's like strategy
and manipulation that takes place amongst the, the
contestants. They have like that, like their version of the
psychological trolley car problem, which is
essentially, you know, a train is coming on one track,
(33:12):
it's going to kill three people, but on the other track, if you flip
it, it'll only kill one person. But you have to, you know, press the
button to, to flip it. Like that type of scenario, there's
games of negotiation where they have to negotiate amongst themselves to like vote for each
other or vote each other out. It was so engaging. Each and every
episode ends on the super cliffhanger. You know, true to like Mr.
(33:34):
Beast form, you know, he, he applies all that, like razor
sharp editing and zooming in and zooming out
and angles of camera angles that he popularized, you know, with
his YouTube videos. When they get up to the
five million dollar prize, it's six people, if I'm not mistaken.
Five or six people. And right before
(33:56):
he gives them the option of any one of them could flip a coin and
if they call the coin correctly, he's gonna double it to 10 million. That's why
I went from 5 million to 10 million. And if they call it
incorrectly, then that person is out and
the prize remains 5 mil. So a person makes it to the final five
or six, one of them actually decided to flip the coin and
(34:19):
called it correctly. So the prize money goes up, went up
to 10 million for everyone to continue to compete against or compete for.
It was pretty sick. And in the end,
the the what was pretty cool. And
I don't know how much of it has to do with like the screen time
that the contestants wound up getting because obviously
(34:41):
if you keep making it round, round to round to round, you're
by default, you're on screen more often than others that get
eliminated. Right. But I don't know how much has to do with
how much screen time they were having or how
their like, personalities came through on the show or how
much that had to do with editing rather. But like
(35:03):
the two people that I wanted to see at the end were the people that
were at the end, which was Tawana and Jeff.
And I would have been happy with either one of them, like winning.
Like they had these like altruistic ideas of what to do with the money. Tawana
wanted to invest in homeless shelters for,
for, for kids because she grew up homeless.
(35:24):
And Jeff wants to dedicate the money to
a rare disease that his son, one of his sons has,
which is like a seven year old, but he has because of, I forget what
it's called, but a condition where his
brain, his son's brain develops at a much
slower rate and has the brain
(35:46):
of, from a development perspective of like a one or two year
old. And that's what he was like doing the games for.
You know, they give all those like touching like backstories and stuff like that to
get you like really invested in, in like the characters of the show. And
ultimately he's the one that won, which was pretty cool to see.
But yeah, it was a dope series that I
(36:07):
recommend. It's called Beast Games available on Amazon
Prime. I'm definitely looking forward to how they tap
and how. Not even how they top, but just what they do. With a
second season of Beast Games, it'd be very, very interesting to see if they keep
it at that same clip, that same
bar of all these records that they blew out of the water,
(36:30):
basically. Beast Games streaming now on Amazon
Prime.
Quantum Teleportation. So I'm going to preface this by saying I know
absolutely zero of what I'm going to regurgitate to
you guys. I know nothing about how this works. I just find it fascinating and
interesting, like something's going on that folks
(36:53):
way smarter than me will be able to interpret and digest and
understand. And the folks involved obviously do, but
just interesting enough that I just wanted to share and put it out there
because to me, honestly, I can't delineate the difference between this and
like Bluetooth, you know, like, so it has to
do with quantum entangled Particles, which
(37:14):
are particles that are entangled,
meaning that what happens to one affects the
other. Regardless of how far apart they are. They could be on these
two particles could be entangled in this quantum
realm. One could be in Dr. And the other one could be in Japan. But
you do something to one and it affects the other. They're entangled. They're like
(37:35):
connected somehow. And in. In a milestone that.
And I'm quoting from an article here, which I'll link to in the episode notes,
in a milestone that brings quantum computing tangibly
closer to large scale practical use. Because
quantum computing is something that's going to just like exponentially
grow the computing power of, you know, current modern computers that
(37:57):
we have and use now. In a milestone that brings quantum computing tangibly
closer to large scale practical use, scientists at Oxford
University's Department of Physics have demonstrated the first
instance of distributed quantum computing.
Using a photonic network interface, they successfully linked
two separate quantum processors to form a
(38:19):
single fully connected quantum computer, paving the
way to tackling computational challenges previously out of reach.
The results have been published in Nature, which is a
scientific journal which I'll link to in the episode notes. And
that's what they're calling quantum teleportation. So these two
quantum computers, separate
(38:40):
locations, fully connected with each other and working
together through this process. Now,
scientific applications of this once and if you know, scalable and
successful. You're talking things,
according to an article that I read, like hacking becoming
impossible because things are just so encrypted
(39:02):
and you can sign, you can sync scientific experiments around the
world, long distance space communication. This is like some
sick next level. I don't understand it, but
believe it's some intense next level type of thing
going on here. Let me know what you guys think. I just found it interesting,
wanted to share. Quantum teleportate. You mix that in with
(39:23):
AI and the developments going on there and
we are headed towards a very strange and
different world. Buckle up boys and
girls. And that
was episode 280 of the Sponsored podcast. Thank each and every one
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(46:03):
I love you, Aiden. I love you, Daddy.
I love you, Grayson. I love you Daddy.
I appreciate from an artistic perspective how he
stayed true to himself. You know, he's the quintessential artists
artist. He felt he had something to say and he had an opportunity to do
it on one of the biggest stages ever, which is the super
bowl halftime show. And he didn't want to take that moment and
be something that he's not and create, you know, this
(00:22):
grandiose production. Maybe some
folks were expecting just based on the history
of what we've seen with super bowl halftime
shows, but instead he wanted to tell a
story, a story of America from his perspective, A story
of oppression, a story of redemption. And sprinkled throughout
(00:44):
a non stop relentless F you to
Drake. And he stuck to his guns and it did. So
(01:10):
what's up folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast,
the only podcast that is anchored in writing but unlimited in scope.
I'm your host Tony Ortiz and I appreciate you listening. This is
episode 280, the very first episode after
the very first hiatus, the first
hiatus ever of the Spawn Today podcast where I took off for the
(01:32):
prior episode release date and also didn't
re release an older episode. Kind of left you guys hanging, but hopefully
I wasn't missed much. Definitely welcome back. I definitely missed you
folks. And in this brand spanking new episode
of the pod, I am going to speak about
Kendrick Lamar's super bowl halftime performance as
(01:54):
well as a few of my favorite commercial takeaways from the Super
Bowl. I'm gonna tell you guys a bit about Beast Games,
which is the brand new reality competition series
by none other than Mr. Beast. And I'm gonna tell you guys a bit
about a mind bending scientific
breakthrough in quantum teleportation.
(02:16):
My brain hurts just thinking about that. I'm going to try
to be thinking about that. Stick around for all that good stuff.
But first, before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you guys
about a couple of different ways you can help support this podcast if you so
choose. First and foremost, super excited to tell you guys
about some brand new redesigned merch that I have
(02:39):
available. Recently partnered up with Fourth Wall
to set up my brand new shop which you guys can check out by
going to spontane.com and clicking on
the shop link up in the header
menu and it'll take you to my fourth Wall shop
page. And here you're gonna find a brand new redesigned
(03:00):
spontaneous coffee mug in a bunch of different
colors. Super excited about the official spontane
notebook that also comes in a bunch of different colors. It's very similar
to like a moleskin notebook. For my fellow writers out there. We have
embroidered hoodies, very high quality, good stuff,
and T shirts and tank tops for you guys to check out. Support the
(03:23):
pod Again, go to spun today.com and click
on the Shop link up in the header menu and hit
me up and let me know what you guys think. Also, if you'd like to
support the Spun Today podcast, here is another way you can do just
that and then we'll jump right into the episode.
Another way you can help support the. Spun Today podcast and also
(03:45):
upgrade that stale wardrobe of yours is by going to
spuntaday.com support and clicking on
the banner for Stitch Fix. Once you do, you'll enjoy a
$25 discount to your first purchase. And the way Stitch Fix works
is pretty cool. I use it and have never been disappointed. You'll set up a
profile, you'll put in all the sizes for your clothes as well
(04:06):
as all the different brands and types of clothes that you like to wear.
It's really simple and intuitive to set up. They'll show you pictures and pretty much
give you a thumbs up or thumbs down option on if you would wear something
or not. And you get to select all the brands that you already are
used to wearing. With this information, there are thousands of
passionate trend setting stylists will curate a
(04:29):
Stitch Fix box for you. They'll send you five items that you. Get to
preview before they mail it. To you and you'll get to select based on the
image if you like it or not. If not, they replace it with something else
and if so, they'll mail it. To you absolutely for free. You can try
everything on and you have a few days to send everything back or
keep the stuff that you want to keep. Then you can use that $25 credit
(04:49):
that I mentioned towards your purchase of those items. Again to
freshen up your wardrobe and also support the Sponsor Day podcast, go
to sponsor Day.com support and click
on my affiliate link banner for Stitch Fix and enjoy your
$25 credit.
Kendrick Lamar's Super bowl halftime performance
(05:11):
set the Internet ablaze with folks on both sides
of either loving it or hating it. And they say that
creatively and artistically you're not living up to your
potential if you are not dividing the room because you're
either being too commercial or one sided or
just putting out trash. But when you're able to express yourself
(05:32):
artistically and give folks something to
talk about as Kendrick clearly did, then you're doing something
right. So from that perspective, let's give Kendrick
Lamar definitely a round of applause
there. First off, I want to shout out the interview, the
pre super bowl performance interview
(05:54):
that Kendrick did with Ebro, which was cool to see because
Kendrick just, you know, normally doesn't do interviews. They're few and
far between. But it also helped set the stage
and expectations for folks anticipating
what his performance is going to be like. You know, Kendrick coming off of
musically his biggest year ever, he had a lot
(06:17):
more eyes on him than than usual. And during that interview
he spoke a lot about storytelling and how he
crafts his music similar to how a writer
would put together the, the theme and the story of a novel. He
layers it layers his music in a similar way. And he said
that for the super bowl halftime show it was going to be no different.
(06:38):
He wanted to tell a story and he definitely delivered on
that. I appreciate from an artistic perspective
how he stayed true to himself. You know, he's the quintessential
artists artist. He felt he had something to say and he had an
opportunity to do it on one of the biggest stages ever, which
is the super bowl halftime show. And he didn't want to take
(07:01):
that moment and be something that he's not and create, you
know, this grandiose production that maybe
some folks were expecting just based on the history
of what we've seen with super bowl halftime
shows. But instead he wanted to tell a
story. A story of America from his perspective. A story
(07:23):
of oppression, a story of redemption. And sprinkled throughout
a non stop, relentless F you to
Drake. And he stuck to his guns and it did so.
Speaking of storytelling and symbolism, starting off with Samuel L.
Jackson playing the role of Uncle Sam, America's
Uncle Sam. And representing throughout his performance how
(07:45):
America attempts to dictate how
black and brown people should act and behave. He
brought with him on stage all black performers throughout the
beautifully choreographed show. And
everyone was dressed in either red, white or blue, symbolizing
the. A few different things because again,
(08:06):
Kendrick's artistic expression is, you know,
chock full of Easter eggs and very thoughtful and deliberate.
A lot of double entendres, triples the way the red, white and blue
symbolizes. You can see it from the viewpoint of
the gangs in LA where he's from red and blue
bloods and Crips and the white representing the neutrals. Also
(08:29):
representing, if you want to look at it through a political lens,
which ties into the, you know, Samuel L. Jackson Uncle Sam
vantage point of red and blue Republicans and
Democrats into a much lesser extent, the. The white could represent
the more you know, fringe, other parties sprinkled
throughout the American political system. And then the obvious red,
(08:51):
white and blue representation of the American flag and being
depicted as, or by rather all the
black performers is symbolic of the
American flag and America itself being
built off the backs of black
slaves. And Kendrick would stand in the
(09:13):
center of, when they did that American flag formation
in the center of it, showing a clear
divide through the middle, through the center of the. Of the
flag, which again represents the political or
gang related or societal divisions that
we've become accustomed to. And Kendrick being in the,
(09:34):
in the middle is symbolic of him being the unifier or attempting to
try to unify, to mend. Which gave me kind of Bob
Marley vibes. When Bob Marley famously
had, after being shot, had that concert in Jamaica
where there was like a lot of political violence happening between two rival
parties and he brought the heads of both of those parties on stage
(09:56):
and like joined their hands together. It reminded me of that type of moment. Now,
the whole thing also had a video game aesthetic to it,
had like a video game motif. The stage itself
was designed in the shape of a video game controller,
which begs the question, what game is being played? Does it tie
into the fact that we're all watching a football game? Is he speaking to the
(10:18):
rap game and he's the one controlling it? Is it the
American game, a game of the American system
playing the minorities within the system, or
vice versa? Are the minorities standing up to and bucking
the system? Are they able to. And the obvious, again
sprinkled throughout. Just looking at, through the lens of the rap
(10:40):
game itself, him playing and controlling and beating
out Drake within their recent rap beef. Now,
Kendrick Lamar's work is always known, how I mentioned
before, as having a bunch of layers to it, very
deliberate thought out layers that his
fans love to dissect and go through and maybe even
(11:02):
draw conclusions that aren't really there, but they make them
there. You know, as they say with, with stories,
for example, one or any type of art.
But just speaking from the perspective of a writing perspective,
when you put something out there into the world, it's no longer yours.
It's. There's a collaboration going on between
(11:25):
the writer who created something and the person who
is taking it in and making their own connections based on their
biases and life experiences and how they're
interfacing with that piece of art that was put out there.
So in that sense, a lot of his fans, you know, make connections to things
that, you know, maybe weren't even his intent. But are there consciously or
(11:47):
subconsciously. And all that type of stuff is like super fun for
me to get into a little bit in shows.
For example, like the podcast, like the Dissect podcast
is great for this type of thing. Rap genius breaks down
lyrics specific to the super bowl performance
itself. Jessica Clemens of New Rockstars has a great breakdown.
(12:08):
Knox Hill and many others also have really cool
breakdowns where I drew upon for a few of these things that
resonated with me. So first and foremost, the
he was wearing this leather jacket that said Gloria on it
and Gloria is what he calls his pen. Just
like a shout out to his weapon of choice,
(12:30):
which is reinforcing his writing. Writing as a
weapon. He had this lowercase, a
chain chain on which I
didn't make in real time, like the connection to
during the performance, which in hindsight is like how could I not?
But that chain has a double meaning, which
(12:52):
folks argue that it doesn't, but how could it not?
First and foremost, it is part of a logo
for PG Lang. PG Lang is an acronym for
Program Language, which is an American
independent, multidisciplinary creative communications company
headquartered in Los Angeles, founded by Kendrick Lamar and Dave
(13:14):
Free. That's their company. The lowercase A is
part of the logo of PJ PG
language. Granted, it is also
the musical notation of an A
minor, which is arguably one of the most popular lines
of the most popular song of the year,
(13:36):
Not Like Us. And I'm sure it was not lost
on Kendrick Lamar that this chain, which he
has never worn before in public at least, would come across
in both ways. Another cool thing that happens during
his performance is that Serena Williams comes out and starts
Crip walking and she is also part of his song
(13:59):
Not Like Us, the now infamous Drake. This
because Drake and Serena dated a few years back
and had a bit of a falling out. He's said negative things about her and
or her current husband. And
in Kendrick's song Not Like Us, he says something
to the effect of you better not talk on Serena. Serena, who is
(14:21):
also famously from from la from Compton as Kendrick
Lamar is. And then so he has all these like
foreshadowing of, you know, you know, throughout his performance
of playing Not Like Us. And then the biggest
tease before actually getting to it is when
he says that he wants to play their favorite song, meaning,
(14:43):
you know, the crowd's favorite song, but they asked to be careful because, you know,
they like to sue, meaning Drake and the lawsuit that he
has currently going on. And he transitions into the
Luther song from the GX album, which he has with Sza, which
is like a cool change of pace and a dope performance by her.
And there was a lot of conversation leading up to the super bowl performance of
(15:05):
is he gonna play this song? Is he not gonna play it? Should he play
it? Should he not? You know, how are you gonna play a song during your
super bowl that's essentially a diss song. Calling
someone a pedophile. And also, you know, you shouldn't give that person so,
you know, so. So much light, so much bandwidth, so on and so
forth. And regardless of where you fit in that
(15:27):
conversation, I love how unapologetically
he segues into it. Speaking to
how you can't fake influence, which to me
is also a subliminal dig at Drake,
highlighting the difference between being popular and being
actually influential. And then just drops into
(15:49):
the song with the entire crowd singing
along. Especially when he goes quiet and allows the
crowd to fill in the. And it's probably a minor,
which was great. And another really
dope moment within that is when Mustard comes out, his
producer during the Mustard.
(16:15):
And you just see, like, them too. And it. It's a cool, like, you know,
like two boys together that have the, you
know, biggest hit song of the year in the biggest show of
the year in the middle of the super bowl. Just them two. And like, him
giving Mustard his shine on such a big stage was really, really cool to
see and two more little Easter eggs to get into.
(16:37):
Is that according to Jessica
Clemens of the New Rockstars, the. The way that the. The
buttons light up in the controller like before the performance
actually begins. If you see like, the controller buttons start lighting up and like
blinking in and out. That that is actually a cheat code to a
video game of Jurassic Park Lost World.
(16:59):
To be able to start off the game with 59
lives. And the tie in here is that this is the 59th
Super Bowl. Coincidence? Probably not. And if
true, that's just bonkers how much thought and
layers Kendrick puts into. Into his work. Then the last. More of
the conspiracy theory side of things that I'll point
(17:22):
to in terms of Easter eggs within. Within this performance, which is the cool
thing about Kendrick Lamar stuff, right? Because even, you know, weeks
and months and years from now, people are still going to be breaking down his.
His. This performance along with his other music, as
they still do from like, you know, previous albums and
music videos and like, finding cool, new nuanced things, which
(17:44):
is just a testament to. To his artistry. But
according to the Jumpers podcast, they speak about the
placement of the X of the controller
on the actual football field itself. Because taking a step
back, there's an artist by the name of
XXXTentacion who was
killed. And he had a back and forth, like, smaller beef
(18:08):
with Drake back in the day. Something to do, I believe, with like
a sampling or like a style that Triple X was saying,
you know, like Drake off him or didn't give him credit for something
along those lines. And Das Young tweeted
once, if I die, it was Champagne Poppy who did it, which is
Drake's like name on like IG or Twitter or
(18:30):
whatever. And then he winds up dying for real. But
you know, his, he. I never really followed his, his music
much, but I know he had a very cult life following. And his fans
like took that and ran with it and there was all this speculation, did Drake
really have them killed or not? So on and so forth.
Which I'm not saying any of that is true or not true. I
(18:52):
have absolutely no idea. I would, if I was speculating, I would think
not being that, you know, such like a, a public
thing or such a hyped theory that, you
know, authorities would have looked into it and, you know, if there were
some validity behind it, Drake probably would have been arrested or,
or something like that. But regardless of
(19:14):
the validity of it, the fact that if true,
what the Jumpers podcast, what guys
point out, just adds to the whole diabolical
nature of Kendrick Lamar with the Drake beef.
So they said the X represents, you know,
10, the number 10 in Roman numerals. And the
(19:36):
X of the controller stage
was on the 30 yard line. So if 10 is
for X, an X on the 30 yard line would
be XXX high, obviously triple
extentacion. And the dancers, if
you notice throughout the entire performance had this two tone
(19:59):
hairstyle, which is how
XXXION always rocked his hair. Like one color to the
left, one color to the right. And Kendrick just playing with that idea.
If that again, intentional, which again go, you know,
ties back to my. One of my first points, which is, you know,
sometimes fans reach and make connections that
(20:19):
weren't intended to be there, but are there. But if they were
intentional, then how sick and thoughtful is that?
And then Kendrick just wraps it up with the.
The lights in the crowd in the stands saying game
over, signifying again with multiple
different meanings depending on which way you want to look at that. The game over
(20:42):
between the rap battle between him and Drake, like, I clearly won, game's
over, or the game is over between the system
and. And oppressing the minorities, that game is over. You know, we're rising
up the system, but that was definitely a dope performance,
in my opinion. So shout out once again to
Kendrick Lamar for a great Super Bowl.
(21:04):
True to his artistic self performance. And just
a quick aside on a few commercials that I enjoyed throughout the Super
Bowl. You know, the super bowl is known for these very expensive
commercial spots that a lot of companies debut commercials
for. The first one, which I really enjoyed was the Cancer We're Gonna
Knock youk Out commercial. You know, I had. My. My mom had breast cancer.
(21:26):
My wife had a very aggressive breast cancer, which I
did a podcast with her on last year. So I
enjoyed seeing that type of commercial and that type of,
like, dedication and drive and just, like, empowering
statement. I think that's definitely important to see and to
strive for. It was a cool alien Doritos
(21:48):
commercial with, like, this UFO that was. Was trying to beam up the
bag of Doritos from a guy in his room, and he's, like,
fighting, fighting with the beam to keep
the Doritos bag. There was a funny commercial with George
Costanza from Seinfeld where he's playing, like, all the
characters in a restaurant. And it's a mayonnaise
(22:10):
commercial. And two more that I jotted down that I really liked was
there was a commercial for Instacart, the
delivery service, where it had, like, all the mascots
from, like, all the different grocery items like Kool Aid
and the Green Giant, then just a bunch of
different, like, mascots of all these products. And
(22:33):
you're like, what the hell is this commercial for? And it's. And they're all, like,
rushing to somewhere, and it's like, all of them coming together to
being delivered by Instacart. That was a dope commercial. And then last but
certainly not least, commercial about wings
with Matthew McConaughey in it. And you're thinking it's like a. A chicken
wings commercial the entire time, but it's actually an Uber Eats
(22:54):
commercial. And why I liked it most is that it
has a cameo in it by my guy, Sean Evans
from Hot Ones, which is a great YouTube
interview show. He's an amazing interviewer, Sean Evans. So
if you guys don't watch Hot Ones, you should. And I would
recommend watching, like, some celebrity or musician or
(23:17):
comedian or someone that you like, and then watching their Hot
Ones interview with Sean Evans so you can get an idea of what a great
interviewer he is. And that, folks, was my little recap and review of
the super bowl shout out to the Eagles, who won the Super Bowl. Fly
Eagles fly until my jets come back and win
it all next year. Probably not, but yeah. Let me know what you
(23:39):
guys thought of Kendrick's performance. What commercials did you guys like?
And let's keep that convo going.
Mr. Beast, who is the largest
YouTuber on the planet, makes tons of
really elaborate, perfectly manicured YouTube videos
with large cash prizes just off the top of my
(24:02):
head randomly. And I'm going to be conflating videos
probably, but you know, X number of people stand
within the circle. The last person to leave gets
$100,000. Or you know, pull over and
buy this house for sale for $1 and it's an
actual house and they're in there and literally
(24:23):
sign over the deed for a dollar. I gravitate a lot
more towards the philanthropic arm
which does things like that. I've mentioned
them featured here on the podcast in the past, like a hundred water wells in
villages throughout Africa or cataract surgery for a thousand
people that couldn't afford it. Prosthetic legs, so on and so
(24:46):
forth. Mr. Beast actually made the
spun today goats doing goat shit list recently if you want to check that
out. And fairly recently created Beast Games.
Beast Games is a 2024 reality competition
television series created by Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr.
Beast, Tyler Conklin, Sean Klitzner
(25:08):
and Mac Hopkins. Hosted by Mr. Beast
himself. Beast Games follows 1, 000
contestants which is the largest cast for a reality
show as they compete for a five million dollar
prize, which spoiler alert, eventually got bumped
up to a $10 million prize which was incidentally
(25:29):
the largest single cash prize in reality television
history. It was partially inspired by the Netflix show Squid
Game which by the way he did a
real life version of squid game costing
$456,000. Like recreated a
set and played out like whatever happens in Squid Game in
(25:51):
real life minus like the killing part. And honestly I'm usually
not into like reality tv, you know, like game show
type of things, but I am a supporter of Mr. Beast. I like his stuff
and more so like what he seems to like stand for and, and
back up with his actions. Like he has this like self
righteousness to him that, that I gravitate towards. So I decided
(26:12):
to, to give this show a shot when he was promoting it and it
was so good. There's 10 episodes available on
Amazon prime and he actually was recently
on with Stephen from the Diary of CEO,
which is a great episode and I'll link to it in the episode notes for
you guys to check out and said that he lost
(26:34):
like tens of Millions of dollars on the first season. But the goal was to
be able to make the first season as big as possible,
to pave the way for like future seasons. But the show itself
broke so many records, like I mentioned before, the largest cash prize
ever, the most contestants ever. I think it was
like it broke like 50 different Guinness World
(26:55):
Records, most cameras ever, so on and so
forth. And I'm just going to break down just to give you guys an idea
of a few of the different competitions and what to
expect with when you watch the show. So it starts off with a thousand
people on a thousand
platforms in like rows of, I
(27:16):
don't even know how many, but probably like 20 rows
of 50 or something like that. Whatever
equals to a thousand. Can't do math right now. And each
platform has its own camera. You know, people are
speaking into it and you get to know some of their like personalities.
And the first challenge is that one person per
(27:39):
row has to eliminate themselves, meaning take themselves out of
the competition. And if they do so, if they sacrifice themselves, their
entire row is saved and gets to go on to the next round. So
each of these people signed up for a chance to go at
this five million dollar prize. So obviously they don't want to eliminate
themselves. But the final three rows that
(28:01):
don't have someone sacrifice themselves, the entire rows get
eliminated all in one shot. Then after that round,
there's another round where he starts bribing people. And he says, all right,
now the rows become columns. So going instead of front,
front to back or top to bottom, going left to right. Now
that's your, that's your row, that's your column. And
(28:24):
people are going to be given the opportunity to take a bribe. And then
if they take the bribe, they get, they take the, they keep the money for
themselves, but their entire row gets eliminated. So it's not
a sacrifice, it's like the other way around. And everybody's, you know,
like coercing each other not to take the bribe, you know, and first
it's a ten thousand dollar bribe. Then it goes up to twenty thousand and
(28:45):
fifty thousand and eighty and a hundred thousand. And it just keeps going up and
up and up. And you just see a whole bunch of people that were like
steadfast at first, like start to crack and break and be like, oh, I'm taking
the 30, I'm taking this to that. And just eliminating their entire
row. Then there's more like game focused
challenges. So they all go to this like tower and
(29:06):
they have to, these balls fall from the sky and they have to
catch it without letting it touch the ground. They touch the ground. If
it, you know, slips and touch the ground, their entire team is eliminated. Like, like
that type of thing. They have trivia style games
just with like random questions. And in each of these
games and challenges, you know, people get eliminated,
(29:28):
right? There is a sick
challenge where they make all the
contestants that are left select a leader to represent
their group. And there's four different leaders elected. And,
you know, the people have to like, make a case for themselves. You know, I'll
be the leader. But they don't know what they're gonna be up against, what, you
know, what they're gonna lead, what the challenge is gonna be. So four people go
(29:51):
up to the podium and then they are presented with a
bribe and Mr. Beast tells them, you guys get a guaranteed spot into
the top. You know, x contestants for going up
against getting the $5 million. If you take
this bribe, you get to keep the money, you get a guaranteed spot, and you
eliminate your entire team. Like, that type of thing. And that prize
(30:14):
literally went up to $1 million. So it was telling four
people, take a million dollars right now and eliminate your entire
team. And mind you, these are four leaders that were
selected by the people to represent them, but they didn't know why. So now they're
like, oh, then there's like races, like potato sack races.
There's. There was an interesting challenge where groups of three were
(30:35):
put in to these isolated cubes and
only two people could come out to move
forward. And that third person had to agree to pretty much
sacrifice themselves so they can come up with
who that person is that's going to sacrifice themselves any which way that
they wanted. So either flipping coins, you know, asking for a deck of
(30:57):
cards and, you know, playing a game, or just like
convincing each other. And then ultimately, like the
top, I want to say like 400 or 300 people wind up going to
Beast island where they all have, like, housing and like
bunk up together. And the rest of the games happen there.
One of the games is a game of hide and seek
(31:19):
with a group of Navy SEALs. So they're
like, the contestants are taken to this
private island off of Beast games off of, off
of East Island. And given the option,
and I think I'm conflating a couple things here, but all part of the show,
given the option to either take a guaranteed spot in the
(31:42):
top 50, like the final 50 that will compete for the $5 million,
or stay on this private island for a
chance to compete for the private island which is worth $1.8
million and only one person to win it. And if
they win it, they could also still continue to compete for the
5 million. But if they lose, they're out of everything. So then you see
(32:04):
the, you know, people taking like the guaranteed spot in the
top 50 and they go to like an all expenses paid
luxury vacation while the other ones compete in this island.
And one of those competitions there was the hide and go
seek with the Navy Seals. That was a dope one. That's one that I
feel I would have definitely taken, you know, like my top
(32:27):
10 odds, you know, 1 out of 10 odds or 12, whatever it
was that wound up staying on the island to go for the,
the, the island. 1.8 million island. That was a pretty sick one.
They had to do this like relay race with like pulling as a
group, pulling a monster truck
500ft, like across the finish line before the other, other
(32:49):
team. There's like a ton of games of chance, tons of
bribes, like, sprinkled throughout the whole thing. And there's like strategy
and manipulation that takes place amongst the, the
contestants. They have like that, like their version of the
psychological trolley car problem, which is
essentially, you know, a train is coming on one track,
(33:12):
it's going to kill three people, but on the other track, if you flip
it, it'll only kill one person. But you have to, you know, press the
button to, to flip it. Like that type of scenario, there's
games of negotiation where they have to negotiate amongst themselves to like vote for each
other or vote each other out. It was so engaging. Each and every
episode ends on the super cliffhanger. You know, true to like Mr.
(33:34):
Beast form, you know, he, he applies all that, like razor
sharp editing and zooming in and zooming out
and angles of camera angles that he popularized, you know, with
his YouTube videos. When they get up to the
five million dollar prize, it's six people, if I'm not mistaken.
Five or six people. And right before
(33:56):
he gives them the option of any one of them could flip a coin and
if they call the coin correctly, he's gonna double it to 10 million. That's why
I went from 5 million to 10 million. And if they call it
incorrectly, then that person is out and
the prize remains 5 mil. So a person makes it to the final five
or six, one of them actually decided to flip the coin and
(34:19):
called it correctly. So the prize money goes up, went up
to 10 million for everyone to continue to compete against or compete for.
It was pretty sick. And in the end,
the the what was pretty cool. And
I don't know how much of it has to do with like the screen time
that the contestants wound up getting because obviously
(34:41):
if you keep making it round, round to round to round, you're
by default, you're on screen more often than others that get
eliminated. Right. But I don't know how much has to do with
how much screen time they were having or how
their like, personalities came through on the show or how
much that had to do with editing rather. But like
(35:03):
the two people that I wanted to see at the end were the people that
were at the end, which was Tawana and Jeff.
And I would have been happy with either one of them, like winning.
Like they had these like altruistic ideas of what to do with the money. Tawana
wanted to invest in homeless shelters for,
for, for kids because she grew up homeless.
(35:24):
And Jeff wants to dedicate the money to
a rare disease that his son, one of his sons has,
which is like a seven year old, but he has because of, I forget what
it's called, but a condition where his
brain, his son's brain develops at a much
slower rate and has the brain
(35:46):
of, from a development perspective of like a one or two year
old. And that's what he was like doing the games for.
You know, they give all those like touching like backstories and stuff like that to
get you like really invested in, in like the characters of the show. And
ultimately he's the one that won, which was pretty cool to see.
But yeah, it was a dope series that I
(36:07):
recommend. It's called Beast Games available on Amazon
Prime. I'm definitely looking forward to how they tap
and how. Not even how they top, but just what they do. With a
second season of Beast Games, it'd be very, very interesting to see if they keep
it at that same clip, that same
bar of all these records that they blew out of the water,
(36:30):
basically. Beast Games streaming now on Amazon
Prime.
Quantum Teleportation. So I'm going to preface this by saying I know
absolutely zero of what I'm going to regurgitate to
you guys. I know nothing about how this works. I just find it fascinating and
interesting, like something's going on that folks
(36:53):
way smarter than me will be able to interpret and digest and
understand. And the folks involved obviously do, but
just interesting enough that I just wanted to share and put it out there
because to me, honestly, I can't delineate the difference between this and
like Bluetooth, you know, like, so it has to
do with quantum entangled Particles, which
(37:14):
are particles that are entangled,
meaning that what happens to one affects the
other. Regardless of how far apart they are. They could be on these
two particles could be entangled in this quantum
realm. One could be in Dr. And the other one could be in Japan. But
you do something to one and it affects the other. They're entangled. They're like
(37:35):
connected somehow. And in. In a milestone that.
And I'm quoting from an article here, which I'll link to in the episode notes,
in a milestone that brings quantum computing tangibly
closer to large scale practical use. Because
quantum computing is something that's going to just like exponentially
grow the computing power of, you know, current modern computers that
(37:57):
we have and use now. In a milestone that brings quantum computing tangibly
closer to large scale practical use, scientists at Oxford
University's Department of Physics have demonstrated the first
instance of distributed quantum computing.
Using a photonic network interface, they successfully linked
two separate quantum processors to form a
(38:19):
single fully connected quantum computer, paving the
way to tackling computational challenges previously out of reach.
The results have been published in Nature, which is a
scientific journal which I'll link to in the episode notes. And
that's what they're calling quantum teleportation. So these two
quantum computers, separate
(38:40):
locations, fully connected with each other and working
together through this process. Now,
scientific applications of this once and if you know, scalable and
successful. You're talking things,
according to an article that I read, like hacking becoming
impossible because things are just so encrypted
(39:02):
and you can sign, you can sync scientific experiments around the
world, long distance space communication. This is like some
sick next level. I don't understand it, but
believe it's some intense next level type of thing
going on here. Let me know what you guys think. I just found it interesting,
wanted to share. Quantum teleportate. You mix that in with
(39:23):
AI and the developments going on there and
we are headed towards a very strange and
different world. Buckle up boys and
girls. And that
was episode 280 of the Sponsored podcast. Thank each and every one
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I love you, Aiden. I love you, Daddy.
I love you, Grayson. I love you Daddy.
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