Navigating the Future: The Neptune App and Its Vision

Episode Transcript
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(01:32):
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March 1st and 2nd WilmingtonConvention center in Wilmington,
North Carolina is the secondCoastal Comic Con.
Check out coastalcomicon.comfor tickets and details.
Vendors, artists, voiceoverartists, including TV and movie actors.
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(04:02):
Robrock.
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All right, I look forward tobothering Sam Witwer again and Matthew
Water.
I want to see if Ross Marquontravels around with that mallet,
that spiky mallet thing thathe has for that he, that he had to
wear during.

(04:22):
The Walking Dead or he's likea red skull.
Yeah, red skull from In Game.
You know, that's, it's allvery exciting.
All right, our guests thisweek, our CEO Ashley Darling and
CTO Chris Jones of the Neptune app.
Welcome.
Ashley and Chris, welcome.
Hi.
Thank you for being here with us.
We're very excited.
I was, I, I took a chance andsent a message to Ashley while she

(04:47):
was doing one of her lives.
I think you were putting onmakeup, and I was like, there's no,
there's no way she's going tosee this.
So.
But she did.
And I, I, I stood out somehowenough to, to be seen.
Because I honestly, I don'tknow how you put on makeup while
you're responding to people onlives because the, the comments that
come flying past, like, I didnot put us on TikTok tonight because

(05:10):
of the comments that comethrough are so incredibly distracting.
So Ashley and Chris, just to,just to give a little bit of a description,
if you don't know, I don'tknow how, but basically, the Neptune
app is an emerging socialmedia platform designed to prioritize
and you all correct me if I'm wrong.
Designed to prioritizecreators and their content, it aims

(05:32):
to offer a community firstapproach with features like customizable
content feeds and ghostmetrics, which allow users to focus
on their art without thedistraction of traditional engagement
metrics.
Does that sound right?
Yeah, that sounds right.
Thank you very much, chatgpt.
I pulled all of that from there.
So great.
I feel famous.

(05:52):
Like, ChatGPT knows who we are.
Gemini, you're letting me down.
So, Ash, I want to, I want tostart with you.
How did, how did this go fromidea to reality?
Like, what was the sparkmoment that you were like, this is
what we have to do?
I mean, it's funny that youbring up watching me do my makeup
on a live stream.

(06:13):
That's what I've done foryears and years.
I've been a content creatorfor almost 20 years.
I don't look like it?
Yes, thank you.
But I've been a contentcreator for a long time, and I was
always on the cutting edge ofdoing as many things as I could on
social media, right?
Like I lied about my collegeeducation so I could get on Facebook.
I was one of the first usersto utilize the live feature.

(06:35):
When it came out on Facebook,I was all over Instagram because
I had iOS and I got todownload it first.
And so I've always been sortof out there doing content creation.
I did influencing for severalyears, did brand deals and developed
quite a large followingbetween 2018 and 2021, when I decided
to step away from that careerand I pivoted to consulting, as so

(06:58):
many do.
And so I was consulting withpersonalities in and around Hollywood
who were looking to developtheir personal brands online.
And so when I took that long,extended break from social media
and kind of came back to it ina consulting realm, I found a very
different landscape from whenI left.
And what I was seeing, a lotof chatter going around was that,

(07:19):
you know, creators in thebipoc, queer and disabled communities
were having their content suppressed.
Their stuff wasn't gettingseen as much.
They didn't feel like they hadcreative freedom to talk about the
things that were affecting them.
A lot of people withdisabilities actually get their videos
taken down when they go totalk about some of the things that
they struggle with becausethese moderation platforms decide

(07:42):
that it's upsetting, right?
They.
They kind of err on the sideof, oh, people don't want to hear
about your struggles, we'regoing to take that down.
And so that's reallyincredibly invalidating for so many
creat.
And so, as any entrepreneur,you know, I was, there has to be
a better way.
So it was either I go toTikTok or Meta, work my way up the
ranks, you know, fight fromwithin, bust the glass ceilings,

(08:04):
or I could create my own damn thing.
And so I decided to do thelatter because I didn't have enough
corporate experience to getthat high in TikTok and Instagram.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm just going to put this out there.
So I literally had this ideafor this social media platform where
creators could feel reallytruly expressed, where their profile

(08:25):
was truly an expression of whothey are.
And the Ghost metrics was justa way of moving that number that
everybody kind of just makes asnap judgment about when they go
to someone's profile.
And it's just a psychologicalthing, like, we're not assholes about
it.
Like that's just the way ourbrain works.
Like, we go to someone'sprofile and we're like, oh, they
have 50,000 followers.
Oh, they must be worth a follow.

(08:46):
And we kind of assign morevalue to them.
So.
So by taking that metric andmoving it further down the page or
allowing the creator to removeit completely, there would be a lack
of bias there.
And people could go and justbe judged based on how they wanted
to show up on social media,their content, their profile theme,
you know, their profile banner pictures.
And so I had this, like, ideain my head, and I was like, I'm just

(09:08):
gonna put this on threadsbecause, you know, what else are
you gonna do with a giant ideayou have no idea what to do with?
I'm not a tech person.
I'm not a Silicon Valley girl.
Chris had to teach me how tosay Silicone Valley properly.
Cause I was saying it sil.
And he was like, no, girl.
Like, you have to say it's silicon.
And I was like, okay.
So now I can say it properly.
Okay, this is how much.
This is how far removed fromtech I am.

(09:29):
Silicone, I know.
Silicon, not so much.
So I literally put this out onthreads, and I was like, guys, I
have this idea for an app.
Do I know any developers?
And I had, you know, thetypical creepy old guys reach out
to me and be like, yeah, totally.
What do you want to trade for honey?
And I was like, no, no, thank you.
No, no.

(09:50):
But then I had Chris, andChris was like, I'm intrigued.
Do you want to talk about this?
And I was like, here's my idea.
And, like, walls of text, justback and forth, me and Chris, and
we were like, this sounds cool.
Yeah.
And we hopped on a zoom call,and that was that.
We were like, this is.

(10:10):
We were so aligned with ourvision and what we wanted this to
be and why we needed this to exist.
And the rest is, you know,history in the very short term, because,
you know, we're only a yearout from this.
Like, we started this lastMay, right?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
So, well, so, Chris, what isyour background?
How was it that when youresponded to Ashley and said, yeah,

(10:35):
I'm interested in this, like,where were you coming from at that
point?
Yeah.
So, you know, I've been intech for about 10 years now.
At 33 years old.
I had worked in retail for 10,15 years, and I was a punk rocker.
I had been in punk rock bands,I had been on tour, and I was very

(10:55):
much still am into thealternative scene and, you know,
heavy music.
And you know, for me, joiningtech was a culture shock, right?
A big corporate enterprisetype situation versus what I had
known in my retail life, youknow, so I have a background of a
non traditional student, youknow, being a little bit older than

(11:17):
everybody when I, when I firstjoined my companies, but very quickly
working in the trenches andworking in tech.
We have these side projectsthat we work on.
And it became a dream of mineto have an app that I could deploy
to the store, something that Icould show for my efforts besides
my paycheck and a cool side project.

(11:38):
I initially started working ona side project on iOS, building a
TikTok clone of all things.
And it got to the point whereI thought, this just doesn't really
fit, like, who I am as acreative person and an idealistic
person.
And if I got to work withsomebody who was just the right person

(11:59):
who had that vision, I feellike it'd be like a yin yang.
Right?
Our forces could combine.
And just as all this was goingthrough my head, I came across one
Ashley Darling on Threads withA plus next door.
I hadn't, I hadn't friendedher at all.
And she, she asked, you know,I wish I had a developer.
And of course, we see that alot as developers.

(12:21):
You just, you get it in yourinbox, you see people asking.
And I kind of dug into herbackground a little bit and I said,
okay, this is like a person Icould be friends with, like outside
of my professional life.
This is somebody I would havebeen friends with in my teens and
twenties for sure.
So I reached out and weassembled the team.

(12:41):
This quote unquote side hustlebecame a lot more serious from my
perspective.
We had to be a delivery team,as boring as that sounds.
We had to have a Sprint, wehad to have a JIRA board, we needed
a product manager, we needed aUX person, and everything came together.
Yeah.
Well, welcome to our side hustle.

(13:03):
This is because as aprofession, Zach is a benefits administrator
for Goodyear.
I am a all that's wrong.
Oh, so Zach does stuff in benefits.
I am a quality assurancesoftware engineer for an insurance

(13:23):
software company.
So you know that, that, that'swhat we do to pay the bills.
What is your technical job, Zach?
I'm sorry.
I am a benefits operationsspecialist for Michelin.
What?
Did I say Goodyear?
Yeah, you said admin too.
I do not administer benefits.
I am said expert.
I, I am figuring out plans.

(13:44):
You know what also sucks isbeing the oldest person on a, on
a, on a, on a platform,because there's no way anyone here
is as.
As old as me.
And, you know, at my age, yourmemory starts to go, I'm going to
see 64 this year.
I'm the nerdiest one, because when.
When I actually was talkingabout pronouncing silicon, right,

(14:05):
I was like, yes, it is thesecond most abundant element in the.
In the universe, and we needit, needs its respect.
Love it.
Carbon only gets so much.
So give.
Silicon is deep.
So, okay, so.
So you guys meet Ashley.
You tell him.
You tell Chris what yourvision is.
Chris, I assume at that pointyou say, okay, this is.

(14:27):
These.
These are what I can.
I can bring to this.
Let's.
Let's decide it.
It's not an instantaneous thing.
I mean, you.
You can do it on the side andstart working on getting things set
up.
You can set up an API and youcan start setting up an app and,
and getting demodemonstrations of it and things like
that.
But, like, how.
There's got to be moneyinvolved, right?

(14:47):
There's money involved at this point.
Do you all have, like,investors that, that are.
That are helping to take careof getting this released?
So I think one of the reallyastonishing things about us is that
we are fully bootstrapped tothis point.
It is incredible how muchprogress you can make on something
like this for free or very,very little.

(15:11):
Our team has been covering theincidental costs here and there of
everything from Adobe CreativeSuite to the AWS costs to Zoom.
You know, we've.
We've kind of been coveringthat up till now, and we're currently
in a fundraising round.

(15:31):
So if you or anyone knows ofangel investors, we would love to
talk to them.
I think it's challenging forus going into this, you know, fundraising
because we're so veryprotective over our why.
Over why we started this project.
And we've received such anincredible amount of early traction

(15:52):
that quite honestly, isunprecedented for any other social
media platform out there atthe stage that we're at.
And so we've definitely had interest.
The problem so far is thatsome of this interest is really only
seeing the dollar signs.
They're seeing this as a buildit, churn it, burn it, walk away,
collect your millions, andmove on to the next one.

(16:12):
And while that's a very validway to do business, that's just not
the way that we're approachingit here at Neptune.
And so we're being incrediblychoosy about who we're working with.
And the other thing about alot of VCs is, is they want that,
like, Buy in.
Literally.
So they're saying, we, we'regiving you a big chunk of change.
We have an agenda here.

(16:33):
We want to make sure you'repromoting these types of creators.
We want to make sure that youare, you know, selling this narrative.
We want to make sure, youknow, nobody's talking about XYZ
on your platform.
That's also been a challengebecause as a team, that's very rooted
in punk rock.
We don't like to be told whatto say and what to do.
And neither do the otherpeople that are signed up for our

(16:55):
platform.
That's a huge draw for ouruser base.
So out of respect to them, outof us wanting to be able to sleep
at night with our integrityintact, we're moving forward as best
as we can, bootstrapped untilwe have those investors in place
who are absolutely alignedwith our mission.
It feels so much like the plotof Silicon Valley, right?

(17:16):
Does I assume everyone haswatched Silicon Valley on hbo.
That.
That's what, that, that's whatthat sounds like.
Because I just, I rememberthe, the first few seasons of them
going into meetings with theseventure capitalists to try and sell
them and that.
So I mean, you've, you've gonethrough that.
That's been your.
As long as you're not tryingto calculate how long is going to

(17:37):
take to jerk off 800 guys toget your proposal.
No, we haven't done that yet.
That's not been a calculation.
Never say never.
But so far.
All data parents have been insome sticky predicaments where that
calculation has come to fruition.
I've worked for, I've workedfor several software companies that
know.

(17:59):
So Chris, you're also.
It has you listed as the cloud architect.
So server space that I assumethat on basically this beginning
process, you all are having totake care of the cost of that right
now too.

(18:21):
Yeah, correct.
So with AWS cloud, there'sseveral clouds.
There's gcp, there's Azure.
Most of these clouds, they arefree to build on.
You can create an account, youcan use the free tier.
You know, the part of theirmarketing five years ago was the
democratization of cloud andyou know, we can build without having

(18:44):
to pay until we get volume.
Right.
So, you know, the issue thereis then the skill set.
And I wouldn't be surprised ifmore teams like ours pop up where,
you know, just, I want to sayregular people from around the country,
where we work from home, youknow, we can get together and start
a business very similar tostarting a small business together.

(19:05):
I'M actually kind of surprisedthere hasn't been more success stories,
you know, among teams thathave gotten together and attempted
to build in the cloud justbecause, because of the cost.
I mean, our cost was underfive bucks almost every month leading
up until December.
And the only reason it wenthigher is because our domain got
hit so much during our, youknow, during our rise there.

(19:25):
But, you know, you do have tohave some expertise, you know, as
far as your developers, youknow, building out and having, you
know, I would say thedevelopers are the most expensive
parts of any of these projects.
The vast majority of what wesee out there, as far as small teams
are people without developerstrying to raise money for like an
external consultancy orsomething to build their stuff.

(19:46):
Right.
And so, you know, I think thatwe are fortunate that we have a team
of developers that arededicated, you know, towards this.
And that idealism, you heard,you know, earlier, that's something
that we all, we all sharethat, that energizes us to go forward.
Neptune, just based purely on,on all of the, the feedback that
I see in Discord.

(20:08):
And also, by the way, you'vegot some amazing moderators and administrators
on Discord who are, yeah, we do.
The friendliest people.
Yeah, I, I, they, the, I'llsee, I'll see six of them just get
on, on chat and a voice andvideo chat and I jumped, say hey

(20:28):
to them and absolutely some ofthe most friendly people I think
I've ever met.
And no reason to be nice tome, they don't know who I am.
But just how many, how manybeta users do you all have currently
testing the app for you.
Chris?
I don't know the final head count.

(20:49):
There'S probably like 30 in there.
Okay.
Right now.
Yeah, they've made 250 videosat last check.
Yeah, so they're in thereright now.
The app looks very simplistic.
It very much resembles TikTokat this moment.
What we're testing are thescaling, we're testing volume, what's

(21:11):
coming into our servers.
So the front of the app, Idon't want to say the front of the
app is trivial, but we werepresented with a situation in December
where we knew we were going tohave users on day one.
And that kind of changes ourcalculus for how we want to release
with beta and mp.
Initially, you build an app,you try to call for every single

(21:33):
user, every single mom, dad,cousin, Jim the neighbor.
And when we got all thisattention, all of these email signups
and beta user signups, we hadto make sure our Cloud services were
locked down, you know, whetherit's scaling or security.
So when our users are goingin, right now we're more or less

(21:54):
testing, okay, when theyupload a video, how many services
did they use?
Is there anything hanging?
Are there any queues that are left?
Right.
All that fun stuff.
And that's primarily whatwe're testing right now.
There are actually featuresbuilt in the app that I've commented
out, if you know what thatmeans, like our comment section itself.
And it will come to life oneday for our beta users.

(22:15):
And I've been pushing updatesto them daily.
And so that's very excitingbecause they re log in and say, what's
this new thing?
Nice.
So it's very exciting.
And just to speak selfishly asa developer, there is no more joy
in designing a system oranything and then building it in
a few days, getting itquickly, QA tested, and immediately

(22:38):
thousands of people areinvolved in it.
Right?
Yeah.
And this happened with ourusername reservation System, which
had 150,000 users five daysafter I built it.
And that's.
As a software developer, Ifeel like I'm living the dream.
That ultimately, I think waswhat I was trying to get to was because

(22:59):
you may only have around 30 orso beta users currently testing the
app, but there are hundreds ofthousands of people that have signed
up that want in.
Right.
That's.
Have you.
So.
So just aside from, you know,Zach and myself, like, have we seen,
like, any interest from any ofthe other social media platforms

(23:22):
that have wanted topotentially make their appearance?
Make their appearance?
As in, like, come on to ourplatform or to have.
To have their user have.
Have at Meta or at Facebook?
Oh, no, no.
I'm sure at some point, but Ithink for right now, we're still.

(23:47):
While we're a major contenderfor, like, the new upstarts, and
our name certainly has beenmentioned in rooms with TikTok as
the replacement, rightalongside Blue sky and Rednote and
all of that.
I think we're still smallenough to kind of fly under the radar
of Meta right now, but I willsay we definitely do have some plants
from other social mediaplatforms in our Discord server.

(24:10):
Oh, okay, interesting.
So it's always fun to find the imposter.
Yeah.
If Zuckerberg were to say ourname, that would do us a whole lot
of good.
Say it, Zuck.
Say it.
Just say it.
Well, that brings me.
You mentioned.
Where did the name come from?

(24:30):
Where's Neptune?
Where was the.
What was the thought behind that?
So when I first pitched thisto Chris, the name was actually Gallery
because I wanted everybody'sprofile to feel like their own personal
gallery where they could showoff their stuff.
But we found out that therewas already a social.
Like, it wasn't like social,but it was like a video and photo
sharing platform called Gallery.

(24:51):
So we had to nix that.
So we went to the nextiteration, which was Mosaic, which
was fun and cool, but again,it wasn't the right vibes.
Then we went to Mood Board,which is actually where we got our
icon, Moody.
That's when he showed up,right along that timeline of evolution.
And so we had him, and weliked Mood Board.
But again, we ran into thisissue of there was a photo sharing

(25:14):
platform called Mood Board.
And I was like, it's.
It's.
So I.
I just don't want to haveissues down the road.
And so we scrapped Mood Board.
And it took us a few weeksfrom that point to really iterate
on a new name.
And I was an absolute, like,menace to anyone in my vicinity at
the time because I'm lookingat the patterns of previous social

(25:35):
media platforms, right?
You've got Snapchat,Instagram, Facebook, TikTok.
So I'm like, it's got to betwo syllables.
So I'm in here trying tocreate nonsense words.
Flim, flam, wick, whack om, genius.
Like, all of these.
Like, it was obnoxious.
Like, my poor fiance was like,maybe let's talk about something
else.

(25:56):
And I was like, somethingelse, else book.
Like, it was.
It was nuts.
I lived and breathed this fortwo weeks.
And.
And so I finally was like, literally.
And so I was like, well, let'slook at the themes.
And so I was like, okay, so wehave, you know, X, which everyone
still kind of knows asTwitter, which is like the little
bird and, like, super cute.

(26:17):
Whatever.
X is just like, whatever.
And then there's Facebook,which was, like, too old to really
have any sort of theme.
And then TikTok has the musicnotes, Snapchat has the ghost.
Like, there was.
There's little themes.
And I'm like, okay, no one'sdone a space or an underwater theme.
I was like, the closest spacetheme we have is Reddit, who's got
the little.
The little alien guy?

(26:39):
But no one's really kind ofthemed it out.
And so I thought, okay, so,like, what are.
What are some.
So I asked, like, chatgpt,what are some related words to space
and sea?
Like, what's the crossover here?
And I got a lot of different answers.
But then Neptune came Up.
And I was like, okay, Neptune.
That's cool, that's cool.
And it didn't sink in right away.
And then I was like, wait a minute.

(26:59):
That's two syllablesimmediately in the yes pile.
So then I kind of like let itroll around for a few days and I
brought it to the team and Iwas like, what about Neptune?
What do you guys think about this?
And they were like, yeah, no,like we vibe with it and it happens
to be my favorite planet.
Anyway, it's like the samecolor as our little octopus, Moody,
still blue themed.

(27:20):
And I like Neptune because itjust always has this air of mystery
about it as a planet.
It feels undiscovered andreally just intriguing.
And that's kind of how I seeour creators.
And then of course, it kind ofties in with the nautical theme as
well as a God of the sea.
So that's how we settled uponNeptune and it was available.

(27:43):
That was the other big problemwe were running into is we couldn't
find any of this stuff on like Instagram.
Nothing was available.
And so the Neptune app wasavailable on literally, you know,
URL, TikTok, Instagram, all.
All of it.
The Neptune app was available.
So we're like, well, that's it.
Well, I'll give you this herein that story.

(28:03):
I'll give you this pro bono.
Deep and far out.
Love it.
I love it.
I was, I was just scared Zachwas going to suggest Uranus.
And no, I like Neptune.
It's on the wrong axis and everything.
It stands out from all theother planets.
It does.
That's very true.

(28:24):
It's true.
So, Chris, I know with a lotof the platforms, they struggle when
they explode in popularity.
How is Neptune preparing toscale for what is definitely going
to wind up being just anonslaught of user registration once
it's available publicly?

(28:44):
That's a very open endedquestion, Barrett.
Sure, of course.
Because there's a technicalanswer to that, there's a feature
answer, and there's businessthat we have to take into consideration.
We have costs behind all ofour cloud services.
And like Ashley said, theideal is that we own Neptune as much

(29:05):
as possible.
And how do we bootstrap to getto scale?
Right.
I think the clear answer ismonetization as early as possible.
From our perspective, creatorswant to monetize.
Creators are looking at aplatform with a lot of interest in
it.
So I think we could attractsome creators that would, you know,

(29:26):
play along with that, youknow, but as a tech guy, what excites
me are the CDNs.
The availability zones.
You know, how much data is auser going to use when they log into
the app?
How many requests are theygoing to make back?
How much volume of videos arethey going to watch?
How does that hit our file store?

(29:47):
How does that hit our database?
And take all of it and divideby number of users.
Right.
And we'll have our answersthroughout beta testing.
I'm really excited to see howlarge the numbers can get.
To be fair, I'm kind of a nerdfor these things.
I think there's going to bemore data than we know what to do
with, which is a good, good,good, good place to be.

(30:09):
Yeah, one of the, one of the.
Well, and I'll just say, Ithink one of the things that you
all benefit from is the, the,the, the, the deluming cloud of,
of what the federalgovernment's trying to do as far
as what TikTok is either goingto be or either not going to be.
So having, having availabilityof an application that, that on paper

(30:33):
right now is, is.
Is going to be built in a waythat's going to benefit the users
more than just, you know,pushing content to people that they
may not necessarily want.
Me, I, you know, a lot of myposts that I put on TikTok or YouTube
and things like that aresatirical looks at politics and specifically

(30:54):
the administration now.
So I will, I will make jokesand things that make you think, and
then ultimately, I don'tnecessarily want that content coming
back at me.
So to have the availability ofsome sort of.
Because nobody in my mind,nobody's as funny as me, Zach is,
Is limited in his comiccomedic ability.
But, sorry, my mom says I'm hilarious.

(31:16):
So does my life.
But, you know, but so, like,when I see that same sort of content
coming back at me, that's thefirst thing I do is I flip the app,
I move on to something else.
But I'm encouraged by what,you know, the ability to not potentially
see the same thing over andover and explore some of what else

(31:40):
is available.
I think my experience with.
So I did log into rednote.
I mean, rednote becamesomething my wife pointed me at and,
And I jumped on there.
And I have really enjoyed alot of.
Donald.
Yes, Barrett did log on to RedNote.
Yeah, he knew.
He asked me this morning.

(32:00):
But, you know, but Red Note isone that I've enjoyed learning new
things about culturaldifferences between us and China
and preconceived notions aboutwhat goes on in China and how people
live their daily lives.
If, you know, I went to schoolin the 80s and 90s and even, you

(32:21):
know, looking back on what wewere taught in our public school
system made me think thatChina wasn't a great place.
But the people don't seem, youknow, they don't seem oppressed like
I think that I was taught tothink they were.
But you do still think you candig a hole straight down to China?
I can't dig a hole at all.
I have to hire people for that.

(32:42):
What are you talking about?
But so I, I guess, you know,when it, when it comes to, when it
comes to what it is that youall are doing, it sounds like that's,
that's one of the focuses.
It's not to just pigeonholesomebody into, you know, but to give
them the availability to seeand recognize, you know, learn new

(33:03):
stuff.
I think that's, I think that'sa really, really cool, really cool
thing that's going to be goingon there.
Ashley, our show sort ofthrives on questioning the status
quo.
So what's, what's one of the,what's one of the main mainstream
social media features thatNeptune is going to refuse to implement?

(33:26):
Is there anything that you allhave recognized that you just don't
want to do?
Oh, gosh, there's a couple things.
I think the first one is likeAI powered fact checking.
Okay.
I think that's been a reallyhot topic lately, just with everything

(33:47):
going on with meta and whatnot.
I think for us, AI, AI poweredfact checking presents several issues.
The fact that we are so veryclear about our support and backing
of bipoc, queer and disabled folks.
Those are often the folkswhose history gets written over whose,
whose facts get checkedbecause they don't match the AI model

(34:12):
that was trained by a bunch ofwhite people.
And I think that's, that'sbeen something that a lot of people
have said, well, you're goingto have fact checking.
Now granted, we will allowpeople to report misinformation because
certainly we don't want peoplespreading harmful misinformation.
That's going to be veryclearly spelled out in our guidelines.
But we're not implementing AIfact checking.

(34:33):
So I think that's probably thefirst one.
The next one, which I don'tknow if you guys are even really
familiar with this side ofsocial media, is live stream agencies.
So live stream agencies reallyhave kind of, I guess we could say,
risen to power in the lastcouple years as livestream, particularly

(34:54):
on TikTok, has gotten moremainstream and you know, more people
are live streaming andessentially it's these agencies that
pay their creators to go liveknowing their creators will get gifts.
But each creator has a quotafor how many hours a day they have
to be live.
And oftentimes these agenciestend to be very exploitive.

(35:15):
I've definitely seen someevidence that some of them can be
fronts for human trafficking.
And it just digs us into ahole that I don't want to be a part
of.
So we're not going to becollaborating with agencies.
I know TikTok has carved out areally specific piece of their back
end to enable these agenciesto do what they do.

(35:37):
That's not something we'regoing to be doing.
Yeah.
And from our perspective onour podcast, so we don't really meet
the criteria of what an agency wants.
We did our podcast, did joinan agency, only because it gave us
the ability to go live quickerwithout the number of followers.

(36:00):
But we don't get a lot ofgifts because we got a rose one time.
We were like, yeah, yeah.
So I think we have $0.03banked in our, in our, our.
Tick tock.
But, and I think it's mostlybecause a lot of, a lot of the stuff
that we get, people are notgoing to gift us when we give our
opinions on politics and such.

(36:21):
But, but that, that totally,that does totally make sense.
As far as, like, I, I had noidea that that that was some of the
stuff that was going on withagencies as far as, like, I, I.
And, and now that I think onit, some of the content that I scroll
past it is, it's almost likeit's the QVC home shopping network.

(36:45):
And it's not, it's notnecessarily people just wanting to
have conversations or talkabout things all the time.
It's somebody sellingsomething or it's, it's somebody
just dancing.
I guess auto insurance onesget me now where like, they'll lead
you on for like a minute.
And you're just like, whoa,he's gonna buy this guy AirPods and

(37:07):
he's gonna take him like, whyis this person fall?
And then they're like, let meshow you one more thing.
After I gave you $5,000 inthese for your AirPod Max.
Yep.
They're like, yeah, if you gotonto this app and we can get you
the best car insurance.
You're like, jesus, I justwatched this whole thing for.
That was a waste of my time.
Do you know, I had no ideathat was an auto insurance commercial.

(37:28):
I didn't either.
No.
They make you wait till theend before they do their big, like,
reveal.
And then you're like, yeah, Ijust wasted minutes of my life watching
this.
And now, yeah, thankfully Igot off that side of TikTok pretty
quickly.
But like, that was, that's just.
That was wild, I think.
Okay, so I thought of one morething that's like, people have been

(37:50):
really excited that we're notparticipating in the status quo here
is we do not allow parentmanaged accounts for children on
the platform.
This is social media for grownups.
We're 17 plus.
And so one of the biggestquestions that we got asked, well,
what about can I post family content?
Can I post content with mykids in it and all of that.
And like, we do have a spacecarved out for family content.

(38:12):
We understand that that's,that's a way that a lot of families
connect.
They get education that maybethey weren't able to get from their
own parents on how to raisekids or take care of babies and things
like that.
The representation isimportant, but we're going to take
a very firm stance on notallowing content that's just featuring
children.
And there will be no parentmanaged accounts allowed on Neptune.

(38:34):
So that's been a really bigflag planted that a lot of people
are very in support of.
Um, because I think that justgives a lot of people the ick.
And to be fair to all of theseparent managed accounts, you know,
there's still places for themelsewhere on social media, so it
just won't be on Neptune.
Yeah, I think that's great.

(38:56):
I think when I first joinedTikTok, most of my comments were
from like, kids.
Like, that's funny.
I'm like, what the hell?
Like, what are children like?
Even when you be in bed?
This is a school night.
What is this like?
Yeah, no, I think that's fantastic.
These are the same kids thatused to just slaughter me in Call
of Duty.

(39:16):
Just.
I feel like that's a certainty still.
I know, I know.
Privacy is, is one of the bigthings that a lot of people talk
about.
Like with Tick Tock, thisnational security threat that they
think China poses.
Is there going to be anythingthat you all.
I guess, is there, is thereany attention to how privacy is going

(39:39):
to be handled with the Neptune app?
Chris, do you want to takethis one?
Yeah.
I can speak on a technical level.
One of my hard fast rules isthat all the data remains in house.
So if we have a virtual cloud,a vpc, it stays behind us.
So any integrations we wouldperform with a third party, we would

(40:02):
prefer that they deploy insideof us where we have complete ownership
of it.
You know, looking, looking atlike Cambridge Analytica with what,
what happened with Facebook.
You know, Cambridge Analyticawere one of dozens of companies that
did business with Facebook,you know, doing data analysis, and
Facebook would gladly handover the data analysis or the access
to it.

(40:23):
The issue there is you don'tknow everybody working at Cambridge
Analytica.
You don't know anybody workingat these companies.
And we know our securityposture, we, we know our policies,
and I'd much rather considersolutions that are internal to us,
rather than working with athird party facing company that wants
to suck our data out through ahose, do whatever they want.

(40:43):
And our data, I think of it,my email's in there too.
What do I want to have happento my email?
What do I want to have happento my data?
So treating it that way, itfeels very personal.
And everything you type intoyour messages, everything you post,
these companies own it, theycan see it, they can go in the database,

(41:04):
there you are.
And they're choosing who toexpose that information to.
So I've been very mindfulabout that.
Yeah, yeah.
And so that, I guess peopleunderstand if it sounded technical.
What Chris is talking about ishow in some apps that you use, you
potentially click on somethingthat then goes to another app or

(41:27):
it automatically shifts datato another app that would potentially
automatically fill in like aform or something for you to sign
up for something, that sort ofthing, APIs and such.
And the only reason I knowthat is because I work for a software
company where we have to.
Where we are now testing a newAPI for, which is going to be a complete

(41:50):
waste of time.
Sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
I do have a hard line and itfeels like the right thing and it
doesn't feel terribly difficult.
It doesn't.
I don't feel like I'mencumbering upon a third party that
want to work with us.
So it just feels like theright thing to do.
It's something I would hopeany company that I'm working with
would, would also think oftheir, their users that way.

(42:13):
Yeah.
What are some of the.
What are some of the glitchesand the growing pains that you all
have experienced just from,from start to now?
Beta testing?
Like what, what, what, what has.
For.
We'll go with Chris first.
What.
What is something that hasmade you throw your fists on the
desk.

(42:34):
Users reserving more than one handle?
Oh, come on.
He took mine.
It hasn't even launched yet.
Okay, exactly.
Yes, keep talking.
No, we have a feature.
We had a feature which maycome back where users can go over

(42:56):
to our website and they canplace an email in whoever they are,
and they can place in three handles.
And then those handles getreserved in our system.
You know, the system checks.
If a handle is alreadyreserved, it rejects you.
Right, Fair enough.
We had hundreds of thousandsof people do this in a very short
period of time.
And it's led us to understandhow do we construct an account?

(43:20):
What is the concept of an account?
And how can you have three handles?
And if you block somebody whohas three handles, do you block that
one handle or do you block allthe handles they own?
Do you block all futurehandles they're ever going to make?
And so we have to think ofthese things.
If you block somebody, theyappear in your block list.
Right.
You can unblock them.
Do you see all three of theirother handles or the other two?

(43:41):
Right.
And then if they remove thathandle, are there handles they have
in space somewhere that you'veblocked that you're never going to
get back again?
I don't know.
There's a lot to, like, think about.
And to be fair, to be fair, itdrew a ton of traffic to our site
and it brought a lot ofattention to us.
People were posting usinggreen screen filters.
They were posting on social media.

(44:01):
Look at my handle.
I got.
And those videos were going viral.
So I will concede that it wasa good idea from the marketing business
standpoint, but technically,it was a little bit of a nightmare.
Yeah, yeah, I can imagine.
We all know how it is to fightover a gamertag.
I don't.

(44:21):
That's one of those.
That's one of those weird things.
Like, you know, my handle isjust my name.
And, And.
But having.
I worked in radio andtelevision for years before I even
had to go get a real job.
And so, like, you know, when Iwas on the radio, I had.
I had a nickname, buteverybody knew me by my name.

(44:45):
So to.
To have a handle that.
That's different from just my name.
It.
To me, that feels odd.
Like if.
If I want to.
If I want to be recognized foranything, I'd prefer it not to be,
you know, Tippity Top Man 14.
Did you go.
Did you reserve DJ Fuzzy Nuts?
I did not deserve.

(45:06):
See, and I don't think Ideserve that.
I, you know, so Zach's cousin,no, Zach's uncle, was on the show
because he has a band in NorthCarolina, and they asked him to come
up with a nickname for me, andhe called me DJ Fuzzy Nuts.
You know, it was one night, he did.
The man's name is even Better.
It's your mama's new boyfriend.

(45:27):
Oh, that's not bad.
I mean, that's.
That's fine.
Ashley, what's.
What.
What if.
If Chris didn't already takeyour answer.
What.
What's.
What's something that has madeyou just completely aggravated and
throw your throat.
Throw your hands in the air.
Oh, my gosh.
Well, what day of the week?
No, I.

(45:47):
So as the CEO, right, my jobis like the.
The very wise crow that, like,flies over the whole thing.
So, like, there's things indifferent departments where I'm just
like, ah.
Like, it freaks me out overthese things.
I think one of the biggest,though, was kind of what Chris said
in terms of people reservingtheir user handles.

(46:08):
And from my perspective, itwas a fantastic marketing technique.
Absolutely great.
We, like Chris said we got aton of traction.
The problem was that a lot ofthese users don't know how to spell
things or they were like,screwing around and they're like,
yeah, hi.
They would send an email tosupport and they'd say, I accidentally

(46:31):
reserved the username Fart.
Can I change it?
Because I don't actually want that.
I was just testing to see ifit worked.
Are you kidding me?
I reserved my sister's username.
How do I undo that?
Are you joking me?
I accidentally put dot corninstead of dot com.
Okay, let's spell check thingsnext time.
Like what?
People are typing with their elbows.

(46:51):
That was what made me want toslam my head on the desk.
Because while this was a greatsuccess, like, we also had thousands
of emails in our supportgoing, I need you to change the spelling
on this.
That was not great success.
That was annoying.
And ultimately it was justtaking our dev team away from doing
what they had to do to get usto beta because they were spending

(47:14):
so much time going into thedatabase changing Fart to whatever
this other person wanted.
And it's like, come on.
So that.
That was probably one of.
The biggest.
One of the biggest thingsthere was that.
And then I think for me, justthe frustration of trying to articulate

(47:35):
why we're here and constantlyseeing so much misinformation and
just so much slander goingaround the Internet space.
And we've made it a really bigpoint never to badmouth our quote,
unquote competition.
We really don't see ourselvesin competition with anyone because
we're solving a differentproblem in a different way than really

(47:56):
anyone else in the space.
So we kind of just stay in ourlane, keep our head down and work.
We do have a lot of otherSocial media platforms, a lot of
the other upstart ones justlike us who are coming onto the scene
and saying all these Neptunepeople and have you heard.
And da, da, da.
Like, that's.
That's fine.
But can you do.
Can't you do your marketingwithout having to tear somebody else
down?

(48:16):
And so that, to me, isfrustrating because that, to me,
shows a lack of creativity inyour marketing department.
Like, you can't think ofanything else good to say about yourself
that you have to go tear otherpeople down.
You know, we've been callednepo babies.
People are convinced we'reworking with Zuckerberg.
They're convinced we're allsecretly Chinese.
They're convinced that, youknow, we're all maga.

(48:39):
They're convinced that, youknow, we're.
I mean, you name it.
There's a rumor out there,like, I've been slut shamed.
I've been slandered.
I've had just complete liestold about me on the Internet.
Like, and that's the price youpay for, you know, being visible
and being in the public space.
They're trying to do somethingdifferent than.
Than.

(48:59):
Than what's been done beforeis people are going to hate on you
because they don't know whatelse to say about it.
It hasn't worked yet.
They haven't seen the results yet.
So they're just going togravitate towards skepticism and
negativity.
So that's been something thatI've had to navigate, the team's
had to navigate, and.
But ultimately, like I said,we stay in our lane.
We put our head down, and we.
We go to work every day.

(49:20):
Do you feel like your.
Your.
Your time earlier as a.
As an influencer prepared youa little bit better for that potential
negativity?
Yeah, definitely.
I think I didn't experience itto the level that we're experiencing
it now, but I definitely wentthrough that back when I was an influencer.

(49:43):
I got really big on TikTok,and it was.
It was awesome.
It was a really fun ride.
And I had built my entireplatform based off of this, like,
original character I had comeup with for mafia TikTok.
And it was really fun, and myaudience and I had, you know, a great
time playing around with that.
And I went through somepersonal stuff.
I wound up getting a divorce,and they just leveled me.

(50:08):
I had smear campaigns going on.
I had, you know, and it didn'tmatter what the reason was.
It didn't matter who I was,didn't matter what I was doing.
It was it gives peoplesomething to talk about.
And ultimately, that was oneof the reasons I walked away from
that career as an influencerwas because I was like, I.
I don't want this pressure.
I don't want to be this.
I don't want to do this.
And so I buckled, and I walked away.

(50:29):
And I regret that.
You know, like, I thinkeverything's a lesson learned.
I carry very few regrets withme, but walking away and deleting
that platform is a big one for me.
But I think, you know, like,one of those little video game characters,
like, I go through and Icollect all the things, you know,
and I, I have all the toolsnow in my arsenal to, like, come

(50:49):
at this final boss of, like,launching Neptune and having this
onslaught of people who arelike, are you really sure?
Like, this seems irrelevant.
Like, you know, why.
Why do you.
Why does it matter that you'rea woman?
Why does it matter that you're queer?
Why does it matter that you'redoing this?
Like, nobody needs this.
Nobody wants this.
I mean, like, all day, it'sjust chatter, but it allows me to,
like, tune most of that outand just continue moving forward.

(51:14):
And there are times, like, I'mliterally just a girl.
There are times when itreally, truly hurts my feelings.
And I've had a moment on teamcalls where Chris has, you know,
done like, hey, let's do amental health check in.
Where's everybody at?
You know, and I'll turn mycamera off, and they'll be like,
ashley, are you crying?
And I'm just like, no.
And like, I am.
So I come back on camera, andthey're like, what's the matter?

(51:36):
Like, people are so mean.
We're just trying to dosomething nice.
And, you know, it's like, Ihave my girl moments, and then we
get back to it, you know,like, it just.
This is.
This is life.
This is.
It's going to be this way indefinitely.
And so it's all a growth process.
And so learning to lean into,understanding that it's.
The chatter is going to be there.
Regardless of who you are,regardless of how you show up, you

(51:59):
can't be liked by everyone,nor should you try to be.
So, like, put your head down,go to work, do the right thing, and
stay secure in that.
That's.
I, I, I think that's amazingthat it.
It seems like you have areally great team.
How many.
How many people are on theNeptune team currently?
Oh, my goodness.
We keep growing.
I feel like every week we'reonboarding something new is it nine

(52:21):
now.
I think it's nine at this point.
Yeah.
Because I come from anenvironment where as far as like,
and Chris probably recognizessome of this, but when you work for
a software company, one of thethings that you're constantly struggling
with as a lead or a manager,I'm constantly having to keep the

(52:46):
borders, having to make sureto maintain roles and responsibilities
to keep others, other groups,other departments from coming in
and trying to take advantageof the experience that somebody on
my team has or, or pullingthem out to do something else and
having to set up boundariesthat are constantly just someone's

(53:07):
always trying to rip themdown, but also just come into the
defense of my team because,you know, we do quality assurance
software testing, and ifsomething gets missed, it's, it's
not necessarily because we, wemissed, we missed something.
It's because somebody in thebusiness side of it didn't write

(53:28):
the requirements the way theyneeded to be written in order to
make sure that, that therewasn't a gap for that sort of thing.
But, but I, I think, I thinkwhat you guys are doing is really
cool.
I really look forward to beingable to, to log on one day and start
creating content for, forpeople to see because I think that
we're, I think we're worthbeing seen.

(53:51):
And I think the Neptune appis, is one that we're excited about,
you know, being in at thebeginning process.
So it's also about postingvideos and stuff.
And I'm still in shock abouthow, how many followers he's gotten
us so far.
And he's like, man, you shoulddo, you should get on there and just
make a quick video.
And I'm like, dude, I have no,I, I don't even, I love making funny

(54:15):
videos.
I'm one of those ones whowould do like, the repeat mouth stuff
that was fun.
Or react to Super Trooperswith a pickle that was fun.
Before all this, my videos gotlike tens of views and, and now I,
I, I actually withdraw alittle bit because I'm a little more
careful of what I say becausepeople cling to things.

(54:37):
And it's one thing to get intoa little argument online.
It's another when there's likethese 20 people say something about
you.
These 20 people say something,you know, and there's this group
of people that have gelledaround us that I'm starting to adore,
though.
And I do think that part isimportant as well, is that, yeah,
there's this kind of cast ofcharacters that are kind of, they

(54:58):
pop up regularly in thecomments or wherever, and they're
like, you guys suck.
You know, but.
But then there's these peoplewe've actually met that, you know,
like the Neptune news guy, right?
He makes these videos.
Paul Bradley, he makes these videos.
He's just.
He.
He understands our enthusiasm,and he's just.
It's awesome what he does.
And.
And there's, like, randomcomedians that make really funny

(55:20):
videos.
There's, you know, there'seven some, like, anime.
I don't know what they're doing.
I'm not in that space.
But I see their videos, like,promoting Moody, like, on adventures,
you know, we have.
In the Discord, there's aselfie section.
There's thousands andthousands of people that are posting
selfies of who we're going tobe, who we are.
And on Neptune, there's.

(55:41):
We have an artwork competition.
There's artwork of Moody,where it looks like some of them
are, like, in crayon, and someof them are really, really, like,
exquisite pieces.
And just.
And yeah, so it's like, whenyou have a community, you're going
to have this kind of, youknow, this gelling of all these different.
Different people.

(56:03):
And where I was going withthis, I was going with this in that
Ashley has been here before.
So when I was younger, I wasin a punk band.
We played to dozens of people,and we would go to the mall and pass
out flyers.
Come to the show.
Come to the show.
Come to the show.
Right?
You do this for weeks leadingup to the show, and your flyer was,
like, weekly world news, like,cutouts with, like, the cereal box.
Right?

(56:23):
And, like, the serial killerwords, right?
Come to the show.
Five bucks, right?
And so I just.
I think of those.
Those days, like, promoting my band.
And I do feel like being inthis group here does feel like a
band.
You know, we spent six monthsbuilding this out, and.
And with that expectation ofhaving a fight for people, right?
And then we have videos thatgo viral in December.

(56:44):
I.
I call it my.
Our Pearl harbor day.
And we have this Pearl harbor day.
And suddenly I have 99 plus notifications.
Literally, like, I refresh,and there's 99 more.
Refresh, and there's 99 more.
I'm like, what is happening?
And Ashley has been a verygood help with how I can handle that,
you know, going live and just,you know, not responding to people

(57:05):
that are saying ridiculous things.
However, if it gets soridiculous, we will definitely respond
to it.
Yeah, we've gotten spicy onsome of our live streams before.
Just, like, there's somepeople That'll push your buttons
long enough that you're justlike, you know what?
Yeah, true socials that way.
Get out of here.

(57:25):
Yeah, mine is, mine is alittle girl named I, I assume it's
a girl named Lily who shows upon, on when I go live on like a Saturday
morning just to talk aboutpolitics or whatever, try and convince
people just be nice to each other.
There's.
It doesn't cost you anythingto just suck it up and, and be friendly.
Don't.
I have this one person thatshows up every time and I refuse

(57:47):
to block whoever thatindividual is because part of its
entertainment, and that's oneof the things that I live by is everything
between birth and death isjust entertainment.
As long as it's not negativelyimpacting somebody, knowingly trying
to harm someone, it's just entertainment.
But if it is negativelyimpacting somebody, then I'll fucking

(58:10):
stand right up and step infront of them.
Because I disenfranchisedcommunities, especially after President
Trump was elected.
That was one of the thingsthat I got more messages and contacts
from people like that I knowlocally here in Columbia, South Carolina,
purely just out of fear of, ofwhat's going to happen now that being

(58:35):
trans, they, they now theydon't feel like human beings anymore
because they, they've beencompletely marginalized outside of,
of society by the one personin the country who gets to be our
leader.
So you know, that's, I, Ithink and, and Zach can probably

(58:55):
acknowledge the same thingthat that's one of the things that
we will always do is, is, isdefend the people that, that need
to be defended.
So yeah, you don't have to getit but you, you definitely don't
have a right to be a dickabout it.
Yeah, yeah.
Stretch of the imagination.
So we'll always stand up forthose people who are like bear said,
disenfranchised.

(59:15):
Not on the what people callnormal side of things.
Whatever.
You're not them.
They're not.
You get a voice.
I'm the fucking least normalperson I've ever known in my entire
life.
So, you know, top that, I feel.
That, yeah, it's so this, Iwould just say that this era right

(59:36):
now, what, what a time to be acreative, an artist, a punk rocker
with something to say,especially politically.
You know, unfortunately wehave to learn lessons as a society
and you know, committing actssuch as Donald Trump or, you know,
those are things that we mayhave to go through together.

(59:57):
And you know, and I just, Ithink of how, how many artists arise
out of Moments like this.
How many.
How many activists do.
And, yeah, you know, if yousee something you don't like, I mean,
say something.
You know, normalizing thisstuff just gives it more power.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, Chris, Ashley, we reallyappreciate you coming on the show

(01:00:19):
with us.
We look forward to the Neptuneapp being launched.
But before you go, I do havesome questions because we have a
segment on our program we callseven Questions.
Okay.
So you have to go through withthese whether you like it or not.
So we'll ask them one throughseven, and you both just each take

(01:00:40):
a turn answering what youwould do.
Take a turn.
Okay, so first.
First question.
What was the last thing you googled?
Or being door ask Jeeves,whichever you do.
Oh, I googled how to fix mymouse because it was doing an automatic

(01:01:00):
horizontal scroll on any,like, webpage or application that
allowed a horizontal scroll.
I couldn't figure out how tofix it.
I had to uninstall the driverand reinstall it.
And I figured, yeah, so Igoogled that.
Who is still developing webpages that have horizontal scrolling
on it, like Google Sheets.
I was in Google Sheets, to be fair.
Okay, that makes more sense.

(01:01:21):
I just imagine some collegekids first time with HTML and having
to go all the way to the left.
Right.
All right, Chris, what was thelast thing you googled?
I'm going to sound reallycool, but I was googling Hellcat
records.
Okay, there you go.
Nice.
I was having a day.
All right, second question.

(01:01:42):
If you could have onesuperpower, what would it be?
I've always said that my.
I think the superpower that Iwould like to have would be, like,
mind reading.
I'm generally actually prettygood at reading people, but I like
to be sure.
It causes me a lot of anxiety sometimes.

(01:02:04):
Like, I'm.
I'm autistic and adhd.
So, like, reading people isvery important to me, and it's hard
for me to do sometimes.
So I think mind reading wouldprobably be the one.
See, and I'm.
I'm unfortunately one of thosepeople that.
So I've never been tested asautistic, adhd, anything like that.
But I am.
I am one of those people thatrecognizes people I make.

(01:02:24):
I have.
I'm a highly acute toobservations about behavior.
So I can.
I can.
I can almost tell whatsomebody is either thinking or what
their action is going to bepurely based on what I've observed,
which ultimately then mysuperpower is I can make those people
cry very quickly.

(01:02:44):
So, Chris, what's your superpower?
I don't know.
If I can follow that.
You can be like me.
I just want to fly.
So this is my.
Okay.
This is my superpower.
Okay?
Don't judge me for it.
However, I would love theability to sleep on command and stay
asleep.
I feel like any.

(01:03:06):
Any kind of personal sufferingI go through in life is exacerbated
by being tired that day.
Chris, where.
Where do you live in the States?
I live in Connecticut.
Connecticut.
Okay, so chloroform and pot,both of those.
It's going to.
It's going to.
It's going to.
It's legal here.
Problem solved.

(01:03:27):
Look, Zachary is not a doctor, though.
He plays him on a podcast.
Zach.
Zach can tell you.
Zach can tell you.
I have.
I had a doctor that used tolive across the street from me, and
I asked him several times, isthere any way you can get a hold
of chloroform?
I just.
Just a little.
Just.
I just want to try it on me.
I want to see what happens.
Do I wake up with a little.
Police van parked outside hishouse for six months?

(01:03:50):
All right, next questionnumber three.
If your life were a movie,what would the title be?
Oh, God, that's a good one.
Oh, my gosh.

(01:04:11):
I don't know, because I feellike now I'm trying to look at my
life through the lens of,like, different people.
Right.
Okay, well, all right, so I'lldo this.
Chris, you're a musician.
Zach's musician.
Ashley, you're.
You.
You're an influencer.
If you.
I'm a musician.
That's fine.
Okay.
Musician too.
Fantastic.

(01:04:31):
Let's say if.
If you had a movie made aboutyou, what would the opening song
track to the title be like?
As the movie's opening, what would.
What would the song be?
Okay, so hear me out, becausethis is gonna take a second to explain.
So there's this artist and hisname is J2, and he takes, like, random
songs and he, like, remixesand redoes them to sound like movie

(01:04:56):
epic trailers.
So he does this version of IWill Survive, like, you know, the
disco hit Glory Gainer.
I Will Survive.
He does this, like, movietrailer style version of I Will Survive.
Gives me chills every time.
So it will.
It would be that one.
I'm gonna have to look that up.
I've heard.
I think I've heard of him and J2.
Look him up.
Yeah.
Like, if you need to hypeyourself up before going somewhere

(01:05:19):
and be like, yeah, you roll upto the function, you're like, I'm
the.
You listen to J2 first.
You're like, I'm ready.
Power pose.
Let's go.
It's good stuff.
Chris, what's your openingsong title?
You know, I think it would beMachine Head by Bush or maybe Smells
like Teen Spirit.
Sure.
Okay.
Zach, what would your, whatwould your.

(01:05:39):
I've never asked Zach this question.
Oh, God.
It'd probably be Mothers ofMen by Co Eden Cambria.
Okay, all right.
That's good.
Mine would be Underground byBen Folds Five.
I don't know why that would,but that would be.
That's what I wanted to open up.
I was really close to sayingApt by Rose.

(01:06:02):
My daughter listens to it allthe time.
It's in my brain.
His four year old daughterlistens to it all the time.
All right, question number four.
If you could eat one food forthe rest of your life, what would
it be?
Tiramisu.
Okay.
It's easy.
Salad with tomatoes, red winevinegar, oil and mozzarella cheese.
Well, that sounds delicious.

(01:06:23):
Salad for dinner now?
Every day.
Every day you have that every day.
Every day.
I eat a salad every single day.
Yeah.
I love that for you, Chris.
You know?
Yeah.
Good and good for you, Chris.
I I Cola needs the roughie.
We're gonna have to, we'regonna stay him.
I, I feel like I need Chris asmy, my, my weight loss mentor now
to just to.

(01:06:44):
If I, if I email him like,hey, I'm thinking about having a
Jamaican pastry.
Beef pastry with.
No salad is a lazy meal.
It's a lazy meal.
You throw it all in a bowl andyou just go and eat it.
It is.
All right, question number five.
What is your least favoritecandy and why.

(01:07:06):
Tootsie Rolls?
I just.
They look like little turdsand they don't taste good.
No.
I think that right there with you.
That is almost literally whatZach has quoted about Tootsie Rolls
before the most worthless candy.
You understand?
I don't know who chooses first.
I've never met someone whosefavorite candy is Tootsie Rolls.
You're.

(01:07:26):
You're, you're just going tochew on it for a while.
You're not going to be happythat you're in it.
Once you start, you're unhappywhen you unwrap it.
You know it's not.
You get to the bowl and that'sthe only thing in there.
You're like, oh, no, I'm good.
You're like, I wasn't hungryfor candy.
Nope.
What do you think?
I lost three teeth chewing on this.
It's fantastic.
Yes.
Crowns.

(01:07:47):
They pop right off.
Yep.
Yeah.
Oh, a junior Mints.
They taste like toothpaste.
Like I'm eating God's toothpaste.
That's fair enough.
It feels wrong to me.
That's fair.
My son comes home from worklike his, his, his.
He works at Little Caesars.
His.
The store that he works at isdirectly next to a grocery store.

(01:08:08):
He'll come home with a box ofThin Mints.
It's not open.
It's just sitting on the counter.
It's like, whose Thin Mintsare these?
He'll claim them, but I neversee anybody eat them.
So, you know, I will eat all.
The mint flavored things.
I ate toothpaste as a childreligiously and graduated to Thin
Mints and Junior Mints.

(01:08:28):
All right, you can have myJunior Mints.
Mint chocolate chip ice creamis my favorite.
I'm a minty girl.
It's fine.
No shame.
I picture you saying no oneever eats them, but the box is gone
and you just wake up withchocolate on your mouth.
You're like, where did they go?
That's my teeth.
Yeah.
My Mr.
Hyde is apparently a reallybig fan of Thin Mints.

(01:08:54):
All right, excuse me.
Question number six.
What is one strange or unusualtalent that you have that no one
knows?
I can, I can turn my tongueinto like a three leaf clover.
Okay.
All right.
I think we've had one otherguest bring that up as their talent.

(01:09:14):
I think we have.
We've had one other guest.
Yeah.
I can tie a cherry stem into aknot with my tongue.
Nice.
I used to be able to do that.
You give me, you give me andmy, my dementiated mouth enough time.
I'll, I'll get that done.
I'm really good at this.
I'm really good at this, bythe way.
Look.
Okay, there you go, Chris.

(01:09:35):
Put your thumb back together.
I'm that guy at the, at the,at the kids for the, for the elementary
school.
I'm like, hey, kid, pullingthe quarter.
Out of someone's ear.
Don't spend this all in oneplace, kiddo.
If I tried to.
If I tried to tie like acherry stem with my tongue, I would
just be like in the corner ofa room looking like sling blade.

(01:09:56):
Like.
Yeah.
You're like.
I can blow air out of one ofmy eye sockets.
You want to hear it?
Here, listen.
Yeah.
Oh, that's coming.
Yeah, it's coming out.
It's.

(01:10:17):
I've seen it in person.
It's not.
Somebody asked me.
Somebody asked me, how'd youfind out you could do that?
I sneezed and ultimately.
Oh, my gosh.
My eyeballs fell out.
He's like a pug.
He's just like a pug.
He's like, hold on, guys.
I gotta.

(01:10:39):
Fantastic.
I was like, you ever shot milkout of it?
He's like, no.
This is as far as I go.
Yeah.
Spaghetti noodle.
I used to watch David Letterman.
He had stupid human pet tricks.
And that was one of the thingsthat somebody came on there and did
is they.
They.
They squirted milk out oftheir eye socket.
And.
And I was.
And when I figured out I coulddo the air thing, I was like, there

(01:11:00):
is no way I'm ever going tocross that line.
Listen, I won't even try aneti pot.
I'll be stuffed up before.
I will suffer.
I will suffer.
Absolutely not.
I love a good sinus cleansing.
It's.
It's.
It.
It.
It.
You know, you want to drownuntil you're ready to not drown.
See, and that's another thingI think.

(01:11:20):
I think that my unusual talent.
I think I could bewaterboarded without any.
Without any issue.
I'd never.
Patreon goal.
Let's go.
Patreon goal.
Zach gets to waterboard.
Barrett thinks he could take it.
His children will be the ones waterboarding.
Go ahead.
Get the carafe.
Yes.
All right, last question.

(01:11:40):
If you could have dinner withany three people, dead or alive,
who would it be?
I would love to have dinnerwith my founding team, with Chris
and Annie and Nick.
We actually haven't met inperson yet, and it's one of those
things.
We've been through so muchtogether over the last almost year
now, and it started off justmeetings once a week to kind of update

(01:12:03):
each other on progress anddream and strategize, and now we're
on zoom with each other almostevery single day.
And so I was.
I would love to have dinnerwith them in person.
We all have compared heightsnow, and so we're all prepared.
Those who are shorter areprepared to see those who are.

(01:12:23):
You guys got the taller onestoday on your podcast.
So the shorter ones have been.
They're prepared.
So then that way, when thegiants show up to the table, they're
not afraid.
We don't want to scare thelittle ones.
Yeah, there's no.
You dress up like Gandalf andthe Ranger, and they have to dress
up, like, with hobbits, like,when you first.
Meet, and you're just like,there's no.
I will 100 go as.

(01:12:43):
As Aragorn.
I.
I literally.
Lord of the Rings is myabsolute favorite.
Ashley, how tall are you?
I'M five, nine, five, nine.
Okay, that's, that's.
But I'm usually.
I'm usually in heels, so I'musually about six, six foot.
Okay, nice.
All right, Chris, I'm assumingyou're somewhere in the six foot,
six, two.
Good night.

(01:13:05):
Yeah, I'm, I'm.
I'm six foot.
Five eleven.
Six foot.
If I wear shoes, my wife isflat footed.
Five eleven.
So we're.
We're like, it's awesome.
Usually the.
I'm gonna tell.
Even she still has to reachstuff for me because I have just
short arms.
I'm like, can you get thetoilet paper from the very top shelf
where you put it?
Because you're rude.
Yeah, I'm gonna.
I have to.
I always have to go back to myRon White joke.

(01:13:26):
I'm about 6 foot, 1.
Depending on which conveniencestore I'm walking out.
I know that.
What a throwback.
Chris, I don't know how you'regoing to top it, but who.
Who would you like to have ameal with?
A meal with probablyinteresting people I'd like to talk
to.
I would.
I would probably authors ofbooks that I love.

(01:13:49):
Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie.
Throw in a nonfiction.
Mary Roach.
Yeah, she's.
I think if I were to pick anauthor, I think Bill Bryson would
be a good author to sit down.
Yeah.
Yep.
A meal with.

(01:14:10):
I would have liked to sit withChristopher Hitchens.
That would have been a cool one.
Outside of like, keep yourMuslim ideas to yourself, but I like
everything else.
Douglas Adams would have beena good one.
I enjoyed a meal with Douglas Adams.
That would have been cool.
Well, actually, one day.
One day, one of our guestswill say, you and me.
It will happen.
Yeah.
Oh, is that.
Is that what you're doing?
You're digging.

(01:14:31):
Both of our mothers on andthey still will be like anybody else
but you two.
Not.
Certainly not Zach, if that'swhat you're leading into.
No, no, no, no, no.
Maybe Barrett if I'mdesperate, but never Zach if.
In.
In.
In our parents defense,though, they have eaten around us
before.
And you know me, 40 years of experience.

(01:14:53):
Zach, you're like, I just feel like.
Probably Zach's mom's tired ofcutting his steak for him.
Like, I think he.
She just needs a break.
Cutting it.
She started chewing it for me.
Yeah.
Like a little bird.
Mom of the year.
That's mom of the year.
Please get her something nicethis year.
Zach, on that.
On that bombshell.
On that bombshell, I thinkwe're gonna wrap it up.

(01:15:14):
I want to thank Chris Jones,CTO and architect cloud for the Neptune
app as well.
Ashley, CEO of the Neptune app.
Very excited for what you guysare doing and and very much look
forward to getting the log onand, and actually start posting content
to it so that, you know, ifwe, if we make you guys a little
money, that's that, that's our goal.

(01:15:35):
That's what we'd like to do.
Awesome.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
That's going to do it.
For episode number 242 linksto all of our past episodes, podcast,
platform, merchandise, socialmedia and all available at our website
theallaboutnothing.com and ifyou think our financial model of
giving away free content andentertainment is silly and you're
in the giving mood, why notbecome an official nothinger and
support the show?
Members get early access tothis episode as well as exclusive

(01:15:57):
content.
Visit theallaboutnothing.comand click on the support link near
the top of the page.
You can subscribe monthly tovarying level of membership tiers
or click on the Tips link andgive us a one time donation.
If you'd like to join theconversation, you can call and leave
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803-672-0533.
You can email the showtheallaboutnothing.com or you can
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The the links are allavailable on our website.

(01:16:18):
Thank you very much for listening.
You all stay safe, be kind and.
Please keep your hands to yourself.
The All About Nothing podcastis a product of Big Media and produced
and engineered by me, Barrett Gruber.
Thanks to Cake for our intro music.
Sick of you.
You can follow Everything Cakethe band@cakemusic.com thanks to
Muff, the producer for ourOutro music.
You can follow Muff onInstagram ufftheproducer.

(01:16:38):
I am Barrett Gruber.
You can follow me acrosssocial media by visiting Linktree
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Want to support the show?
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(01:17:02):
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(01:17:22):
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