Episode 114

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Published on:

20th Dec 2024

The End of Artifice

Podcasting challenges late nite, lying in media, shopping as content, super consumers and Alex rediscovers America at Disney.

Transcript
Alex Schleifer:

What's wrong with you, Troy?

Troy Young:

I'm feeling a lot of sympathy coming from you.

Troy Young:

Sympathetic energy.

Alex Schleifer:

No, I'm just,

Troy Young:

basically have the, well, I have the worst, uh, cold that you've never experienced before.

Troy Young:

It's the worst cold that's ever existed on, in New York City.

Alex Schleifer:

It's the worst man called ever.

Brian Morrissey:

It

Brian Morrissey:

all comes back to the oyster.

Brian Morrissey:

It comes back to the oyster at the end of the day.

Brian Morrissey:

I'm never eating oysters again in my life.

Troy Young:

It's not oysters, dude.

Alex Schleifer:

Well, we should maybe tell the audience you guys threw a super spreader event.

Brian Morrissey:

Not, not from what I know.

Brian Morrissey:

Not from, not, I've, I've done some check ins.

Troy Young:

It's media influenza.

Brian Morrissey:

I, um, I

Brian Morrissey:

one of the things that, stuck out, I think, to a few of us, this week was this really interesting press tour that Timothy Chalamet is going on for his, I guess the drops on Christmas.

Brian Morrissey:

It's good to see movies dropping on Christmas again.

Brian Morrissey:

his, new, Bob Dylan biopic, Complete Unknown.

Brian Morrissey:

we talked a little bit about him going on college game day being like, Weirdly, very astute with his picks.

Brian Morrissey:

He's shown up at University of Minnesota, marching bands.

Brian Morrissey:

He's, he's gone on all kinds of different podcasts.

Brian Morrissey:

He was on Theo Vaughn this week.

Brian Morrissey:

and he sat down for like a 90 minute conversation.

Brian Morrissey:

I, I gotta admit, I only saw the clips of them, of the conversation, which were shared quite widely.

Brian Morrissey:

but, It's an interesting contrast, because to me, it's like there's there are elements that he is adapting from the The sort of manosphere playbook that that Trump ran, but I think it's yet another proof point that so much has changed with the traditional role of mainstream media.

Brian Morrissey:

It used to be the go to for these kind of press junkets, which you got was like Harrison Ford giving, you know, these kind of grumpy sort of interviews to to late night hosts with these can stories.

Brian Morrissey:

And this is very different.

Brian Morrissey:

I think Chalamet is a different type of character.

Brian Morrissey:

but, you know, he's, I think you got to show your sort of like real self in, in these kind of, you know, the, the press tours now and the alternative media route seems better, you know what I mean?

Brian Morrissey:

Like, the New York Times was doing follow up.

Brian Morrissey:

This is not the first time they're doing follow up stories on fear of on podcasts.

Brian Morrissey:

Because they discussed, the Mitchell Lama artist housing Timothee Chalamet lived in, in New York City, during the podcast.

Brian Morrissey:

And so the New York Times then was, was reporting out afterwards.

Brian Morrissey:

you know, it seems kind of significant in a degree.

Brian Morrissey:

Troy?

Troy Young:

I mean, I think it is really significant, if not just a moment to contrast the before and after.

Troy Young:

And in my mind, the only way you, you can see, the broadcast product, largely news talk shows, et cetera, is the sort of compressive force that broadcast puts on a piece of content, where.

Troy Young:

It needs to be, you know, kind of homogenized, I suppose and, shortened and, you know, a couple of gags and packaged up and sent down the wire like, you know, I'll never forget Alex calling it baby food or he didn't call it baby food.

Brian Morrissey:

Baby News.

Troy Young:

So I I'll call this baby food and.

Troy Young:

You know, I, I, I thought that I watched the whole thing.

Troy Young:

I think Theo Von is a real interesting character because he's, he's got this kind of Oshock Southern thing and

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, it's kind of disarming.

Troy Young:

yeah, and he's not afraid to lay out his insecurities and routinely cries on the podcast.

Troy Young:

And, you know, doesn't care if he doesn't know something he'll admit it.

Troy Young:

It's just refreshing.

Troy Young:

It's like a, A dude that you would meet at a college, you know, bar.

Troy Young:

And, and then Timothy Chalamet presents nothing like he looks.

Troy Young:

Like, he, he's kind of like a, you know, he, first of all, he looks like he's 18.

Troy Young:

And he's like a dude.

Troy Young:

He's, you know, very lovable.

Troy Young:

And, you know, he's, you can see him kind of wrestling with His overwhelming celebrity, in this and, you know, it's sort of like he digs it, but he's, you know, he doesn't want to be that guy and he knows that, that this, you know, the kind of undercurrent of authenticity is really what matters now.

Troy Young:

So he, you can see him playing with those 2 sort of countervailing forces and what, what turns out the, the format just great because.

Troy Young:

You get to see the fidgety people, you know, talking about real stuff, the conversations fearing all over the place.

Troy Young:

They routinely bring up supporting information.

Troy Young:

Next, you know, in the YouTube podcast, whether it's, you know, a link or a clip or a picture of a friend of Chalamet's that played soccer at UNC or something like that.

Troy Young:

So it's a, I think it's a really, really fun format.

Troy Young:

And I guess for me, it was just, A moment to like, it's not just podcasts, right?

Troy Young:

It's podcasts turn into video replacing late night TV.

Troy Young:

And it's, so it's much bigger than podcasts.

Troy Young:

It's much more connected to the deterioration of that old kind of media industrial economy.

Troy Young:

And I think it's significant for that, for that reason, that, and Brian, Bob Dylan's the goat.

Troy Young:

And one of the reasons that, You know, shallow me was so, you know, charged about doing this is because he, you know, felt he fell in love with Dylan and doing this and it took a long time to make and he put a lot of energy and is really proud of it.

Troy Young:

but it sent me on a little, you know, deep dive on, on Bob Dylan, including to what year was it?

Troy Young:

2003.

Troy Young:

Interview with Bill Bradley, on, on 60 minutes.

Troy Young:

And then before the, at a of a, a interview like Bob Dylan is surrounded by journalists.

Troy Young:

Seemingly, everybody's smoking cigarettes in 1963, San Francisco, and he's, he's responding to the press, the press with just this complete kind of lackadaisical, you know, I don't give a fuck, you know, presentation, which felt really rock and roll and also, I think really appeals to.

Troy Young:

A lot of young people who don't want to get caught up in the kind of artifice that is, you know, they, they want to live in a way that's truer than what media would suggest you have to.

Troy Young:

So that's why I liked it.

Troy Young:

I'm really sick by the way.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah,

Alex Schleifer:

No, I, we, we, we, we heard that,

Brian Morrissey:

This is, this is like the Michael Jordan flu game.

Alex Schleifer:

yeah, I mean, I think a Bob Dylan biopic is getting oversized attention because of all this.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, I mean, I like Bob Dylan too ish.

Alex Schleifer:

I wish he could sing.

Alex Schleifer:

but, I think, I think what you have here is like in, in Shalameh is like a kid that grew up entirely It became famous entirely at a very young age and on the internet, you know, when he was very young, he had like 50 year old women, like proclaiming their desire to bang him, you know, which is kind of weird.

Alex Schleifer:

and I think it shows that these kids are, you know, Kind of resilient growing up in that space.

Alex Schleifer:

And what he's doing now is very smart.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I mean, he's doing podcasts, but he's also doing everything.

Alex Schleifer:

He's also coming up with like different outfits that are totally memable.

Alex Schleifer:

he's just everywhere.

Alex Schleifer:

He's just, you know, rushing the zone.

Alex Schleifer:

And he's, he's affecting kind of what I'm calling like the hyper algorithm, which is like, you're there, you've got 90 minutes of content on Theo Vaughn.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, that all the other, the real old media things are just going to cut and clip this and repost it.

Alex Schleifer:

It's like really efficient to, to do that.

Alex Schleifer:

And as this comes up everywhere, it feeds the algorithm and it shows up everywhere.

Alex Schleifer:

And I think, that's what these new campaigns are about.

Alex Schleifer:

And honestly, like.

Alex Schleifer:

My guess is that it's way less work.

Troy Young:

a great point and a really nice way of framing it.

Troy Young:

It's

Brian Morrissey:

I was thinking, it is so dependent on the person, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Like, can you imagine if they tried to run this playbook with like, what's his name, Jeremy Strong, like from, Succession.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, it'd be totally different, because I think a lot of actors particularly, they're not that interesting.

Brian Morrissey:

I

Alex Schleifer:

Well, that's the thing, right?

Alex Schleifer:

And they, and they, and there's, oh, there's always this disconnect between the person that they are on screen and the person that they are.

Alex Schleifer:

but, but, you know, honestly, I, I probably think that like, you know, sitting down for a few of on episode takes you less time and effort than getting ready and make, make up and going through the questions and sitting with producers for like three minutes on Colbert, you know, and,

Alex Schleifer:

You see people that are like kind of stilted and uncomfortable there.

Alex Schleifer:

That sounds really good when they're just having a conversation because the, the, you know, there's less, less pressure on that.

Alex Schleifer:

But yeah, but what, what they're feeding is that kind of hyper algorithm of everything it's going to be on YouTube.

Alex Schleifer:

It's going to be on Tik TOK.

Alex Schleifer:

It's going to be on Vogue.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, it's on, you know, it's going to be everywhere because you're flooding the zone with things that are creating content and.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, the traditional media kind of started giving all of that away when they started making tweets news items.

Alex Schleifer:

Because like, you don't go to them first because you know that they're going to have to cover something, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Maybe you'll go for the photo shoot or something like that if you want something

Brian Morrissey:

Well, I mean, that is, I mean, that's over, like, because, I mean, Elon Musk and, Vivek Ramaswamy are, like, tanking, a massive spending bill on X, right?

Brian Morrissey:

So, I mean, they have no choice but to be reporting out the tweets.

Brian Morrissey:

I

Alex Schleifer:

yeah, I, I, but I think, I think the ecosystem feeds itself, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Like, like he's still doing professional photo shoots and press junkets where he'll be like in line at the premiere, right?

Alex Schleifer:

And those things are coming up on Tik Tok.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

And then he does the Theo Von and that stuff comes out in, in Vogue.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

And what he's doing, he's, he's just like the media ecosystem that is just feeding it to each other.

Alex Schleifer:

It's becoming like maybe a healthy ecosystem.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

There seems to be some sort of fauna and flora that's developing here.

Alex Schleifer:

but you're seeing in this person that's been entirely kind of conditioned by the internet.

Alex Schleifer:

He knows exactly what he's doing.

Alex Schleifer:

He's charismatic.

Alex Schleifer:

he comes across.

Alex Schleifer:

Smart and honest and like, Oh, he's actually one of us, even though he's somebody that, you know, many people find, incredibly like, unapproachably good looking.

Alex Schleifer:

And I think that's, that's refreshing.

Alex Schleifer:

And it's a new type of, of, of celebrity, which I think, we're going to see more and more, but, but, you know, I think the interesting thing to me is how broad they're going

Alex Schleifer:

with this and how

Troy Young:

the, the, the question Alex is, what do you still need from legacy media?

Troy Young:

Like the role that the magazine used to play in that, celebrity pass by on a talk show was, and it was always kind of depicted.

Troy Young:

I think the reason that magazines were sort of small businesses, but.

Troy Young:

You know, famous brands and, and you would, you would be, you would be Timothy Chalamet and you would show up on, on Leno and you would hold up the magazine that you were on the cover of and the magazine fulfilled an important role in capturing and defining a moment and making that thing that's still right, it's, it's, it's kind of etched in now and.

Troy Young:

You know, I think it was really valuable.

Troy Young:

I'm not sure that we need even to do that anymore.

Troy Young:

I mean, I think influencers, we've talked about this before, Brian Goldberg will always say from Bustle that influencers love going by and being on the cover digital or print covers of his, You know, his publications because, they, they like all the, you know, pomp of, of a professional photo shoot and, and being framed for that moment on a cover

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, I

Troy Young:

then the, then exchange for that, they'll come to the party in Miami, And, so, you know, what role does, does Colbert play in this thing and role, I'm sure there's magazine covers.

Troy Young:

What role does it play?

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, it's definitely downgraded, right?

Alex Schleifer:

The object.

Alex Schleifer:

The magazine cover used to be the moment, but now I think the moment is very distributed.

Alex Schleifer:

It's very part of this like hyper algorithm as I'm calling it, where you kind of have a sense that now people are talking about Timothee Chalamet and young people are giving a shit about Bob Dylan.

Alex Schleifer:

That's like a win, right?

Alex Schleifer:

For everyone.

Alex Schleifer:

and, and I think before this.

Alex Schleifer:

I, you know, what is it a year ago?

Alex Schleifer:

Pedro Pascal did a very similar thing, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Like he was kind of everywhere and he was very memable because people started notice.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, like he's kind of acting adorable and self conscious and he was dropping these outfits, but, there were still like the artifice of the photo shoot or the premier and stuff like people still want to see that there's still value in it.

Alex Schleifer:

It's just downgrade.

Alex Schleifer:

It's just like an ingredient.

Alex Schleifer:

This part of the media thing.

Alex Schleifer:

So I think these things will still happen.

Alex Schleifer:

and I don't think you're going to have just superstar, just being on Theo Vaughn being kind of like, you know, especially if glamour is part of that brand and I think, I think, you know, super stars are, but you kind of like unapproachable Angelina Jolie or Jeremy strong, kind of like.

Alex Schleifer:

Superstar press tour is, is over as it stood.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

And I don't think they want to do that because imagine how much value he's getting out of that one Theo Vaughn interview.

Alex Schleifer:

Usually these guys have to sit for 16 hours in a room talking to like press outlets, that's going to put them in front of 5, 000 people, you know?

Alex Schleifer:

So there's still going to be like the, big drop, like.

Alex Schleifer:

Appearing on SNL, like, you know, when, when McGee appeared on SNL, it felt like he was dropping it.

Alex Schleifer:

He felt like he had arrived, but that didn't really bring him that many new fans.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, he was, he was already popular by the time he got that.

Alex Schleifer:

That was just like a glamorous thing to do.

Alex Schleifer:

And, you know, if you're an artist, that's nice to put on your mantle, it's like an award.

Alex Schleifer:

But yeah, Shalom is smart and he's charismatic.

Alex Schleifer:

Like that's what they're going to look for.

Alex Schleifer:

And I wonder if, you know, you're looking for the next artist is like, how can that person like sit in a room and chit chat with a bunch of other people?

Alex Schleifer:

that being said, the whole podcast thing is still like super male dominated.

Alex Schleifer:

I wonder how that changes over time, you know, sure,

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, that'll be interesting.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, there's Caller Daddy and other examples, but,

Alex Schleifer:

sure.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, it's not, it's never like a hundred percent, but it does feel like,

Brian Morrissey:

sure.

Brian Morrissey:

No, I get it.

Alex Schleifer:

up by these very male dominated, like, man of sphere type podcasts.

Brian Morrissey:

Maybe we can become part of the Manosphere.

Brian Morrissey:

That'd be awesome.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, we're part of it if, whether we like it or not, you know,

Troy Young:

Speak for yourself, Alex.

Alex Schleifer:

just need more grifts.

Brian Morrissey:

this might be a little bit too, too niche, but it's, it's after my heart.

Brian Morrissey:

the Aussie media CEO, Carlos Watson got sentenced to nearly a decade in prison this week for conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.

Brian Morrissey:

know, Aussie to me was an extreme case of that eras.

Brian Morrissey:

playing sort of fast and loose and sort of fake it till you make it approach.

Brian Morrissey:

do you know Ozzy Alex at all?

Brian Morrissey:

Probably don't.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, I was trying to follow, the thread and I thought you were talking about Ozzy Osbourne for a good Few minutes and was like, what?

Brian Morrissey:

This is exactly the

Brian Morrissey:

point.

Brian Morrissey:

This is exactly the thing.

Brian Morrissey:

It's like you could, you know, they stood up this, it was backed by Goldman Sachs and Google's, VC arm, I believe.

Brian Morrissey:

And it, it raised a lot of money.

Brian Morrissey:

Okay.

Brian Morrissey:

And it clearly to me, like, you knew it had no, Real audience, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Like it was like I never see this stuff anywhere and there were some brands I always felt like could get away with that if they were focused on particular niches that I, I might not like, you know, be near, but this was when I was like, okay, they cover politics, they cover news.

Brian Morrissey:

And I'm like, I surely somehow I would, and then organically come across it.

Brian Morrissey:

And then you go to the, like, YouTube videos and like, it's clearly any views or, or, you know.

Brian Morrissey:

He's suspicious and, and that is kind of par for the course.

Brian Morrissey:

I think what, what happened was this got taken to, to an extreme, in trying to raise money.

Brian Morrissey:

and, Carlos, at least according to the courts, ended up stepping over that line and now he's going to jail.

Brian Morrissey:

so talk about the scale

Alex Schleifer:

and the website is still, is still full of just his face everywhere

Brian Morrissey:

Well, so he's turned, it's kind of interesting in a weird way.

Brian Morrissey:

he's, he's really dedicated to, you know, His innocence, I guess he's become a freedom fighter of

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, one would be, yeah,

Brian Morrissey:

and yeah, no, I would be dedicated to it, but he's, he came up with a documentary.

Brian Morrissey:

That's like a 90 minute long documentary about like, Basically this conspiracy that to put him away in which he like details how the judge might have like investments tied to this is before sentencing.

Brian Morrissey:

Never a good idea.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't know.

Brian Morrissey:

I've never been sentenced, but I would not put out the sort of documentary like saying that the judge is crooked before that judge is sentencing me that

Alex Schleifer:

no.

Alex Schleifer:

That's the right way to motivate a judge.

Alex Schleifer:

But it's kind of, it's, it's kind of, it is kind of the path, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Like somebody.

Alex Schleifer:

Somebody gets to a certain place in their career, then they get accused of something, like embezzlement or usually, you know, something even more nefarious.

Alex Schleifer:

And then they, they, they make a documentary trying to prove their innocence.

Alex Schleifer:

And, you know, three years later, they're full on right wing selling, vitamins on YouTube.

Alex Schleifer:

But if he's going to jail, he might not get that, that option.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, well, he got to make his documentary.

Brian Morrissey:

He got his, his, his take on it.

Brian Morrissey:

He besmirched the name of, names of Jonah Paretti and Ben Smith and his, and his documentary.

Brian Morrissey:

That's Chelsea Paretti's brother.

Alex Schleifer:

Oh yeah, I remember now.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, now I remember him as the guy who, said, no to Disney offering him 650 million for BuzzFeed.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

That in re in retrospect.

Alex Schleifer:

That's the problem when you think you're a tech company and you think like, You know, all the stories about saying no early are going to pay off.

Alex Schleifer:

If you're a media company, just say yes.

Alex Schleifer:

Anything, any, just somebody comes with a check.

Alex Schleifer:

Just say yes.

Alex Schleifer:

Any money at this stage.

Alex Schleifer:

It's just gonna,

Alex Schleifer:

it's just gonna get, it's just gonna get less.

Troy Young:

entirely fair, Alex.

Troy Young:

The, the,

Alex Schleifer:

I'm just poking the bear here.

Alex Schleifer:

I know my audience.

Troy Young:

the reason this story is interesting is because Medias is full of liars and the entire industry, in fact, even pre digital, which was the lying era, I can remember lots of times when people would talk about the kind of audience research that you would field as a established media company or print magazine.

Troy Young:

And it was all, you know, soft, generously.

Troy Young:

And you would, you know, twist the results, find the conjunctions where you had the most pet lovers that used wireless headphones in the world.

Troy Young:

And so you would find all these ridiculous things that distinguish you.

Troy Young:

And then the digital era.

Troy Young:

Where it was part like you driven by absurd, you know, reach and page view and uniques numbers.

Troy Young:

And much of it was on validatable.

Troy Young:

People were just throwing that stuff out.

Troy Young:

Like they were, you know, like, like it's like performance art, you know, how many uniques you got?

Troy Young:

Uh, we have a hundred million uniques.

Troy Young:

Wait, you mean half of the country reads your product every month or something or every week?

Troy Young:

So there was, it was, it was rampant.

Troy Young:

And

Troy Young:

what is.

Alex Schleifer:

to fake, right?

Alex Schleifer:

But it's hard to fake this on the

Troy Young:

There isn't a person in digital media that hasn't lied about the reach of their pro,

Brian Morrissey:

My favorite of that was the, the traffic.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

Traffic assignment scheme.

Brian Morrissey:

there's this, there's this, I'll just explain it to Alex, there's, there's this thing comscore that, you know, that, that supposedly it, it, it's okay, it says how many people visited a website and then it's used by media buyers, to figure out plans.

Brian Morrissey:

And so you want to, you always want to get your comscore number higher.

Brian Morrissey:

so if people are not coming to your website, it's like bit of a problem.

Brian Morrissey:

But you could get some other website, like a bored panda or something who doesn't really, who needs, who needs money and is not like obsessed with that to assign their traffic to you.

Brian Morrissey:

And.

Brian Morrissey:

It would not, it would look like your traffic.

Brian Morrissey:

Okay, like you could dig down and find out that is really bored pandas traffic.

Brian Morrissey:

And this was how this was how vice, basically appeared to be so big.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, they were claiming in 2018 that they had an audience of 288 million people.

Brian Morrissey:

Britain Co.

Brian Morrissey:

claimed at one point to have an audience of 175 million people.

Brian Morrissey:

They were counting, they were counting

Alex Schleifer:

Well, I mean, a lot of people want to know how to make Christmas decoration out of

Brian Morrissey:

any content on Pinterest or something.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

I, the problem with that is when that shows up, I mean, sure it's, it's, at worst fraudulent at best, you know, a little cheeky, but it's pathetic.

Alex Schleifer:

But I think it's also like strategically destructive because if your data isn't correct, right.

Alex Schleifer:

Your entire staff like thinks it's working, like doesn't understand what's working and what's not.

Alex Schleifer:

You know what I mean?

Alex Schleifer:

It's just like, it's such a fool's game.

Alex Schleifer:

It's such a, I mean, at least be a, be a crook that like leads your company to success.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

But this is, you're just telling the people that work for you wrong things so that they don't know what's working and what's not.

Alex Schleifer:

And which accelerates your demise.

Troy Young:

what happened here?

Troy Young:

He was on a call with Goldman and was pretending he was the YouTube.

Troy Young:

Wasn't there some

Brian Morrissey:

Rao, his like co founder was the impersonator.

Alex Schleifer:

YouTube exec or

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, to say that no, no, no, because Goldman Sachs is like, I think this is bullshit.

Brian Morrissey:

And it's like, yeah, pretty obviously bullshit.

Brian Morrissey:

And it's transparently bullshit, like the whole thing was obviously nonsense.

Alex Schleifer:

I got to respect people that are like such like grifters.

Alex Schleifer:

They just go for it.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, just like the raw just like waking up in the morning and saying I'm going to full on

Troy Young:

But the, the whole thing, the bigger picture is the whole thing was out of whack because CPMs were relatively speaking low.

Troy Young:

engagement was fake and, people needed to, you know, you know, trade in all of these sort of high carb impressions that they were generating and the whole thing was like a false economy, right?

Troy Young:

Like it was cheap impressions that were, you know, cheap for a reason built on fake analytics.

Troy Young:

And, you know, that era's over now.

Troy Young:

It's like, shame on you, media buyers, for, not, not you, Brian, shame on,

Brian Morrissey:

You seem to be looking at me.

Troy Young:

well, for buying into it, and

Alex Schleifer:

Oh, you know who you are, you know who you are.

Alex Schleifer:

You're listening right now.

Alex Schleifer:

Troy is

Brian Morrissey:

year old media

Troy Young:

this is what happens when you sell 2 CPMs, And, and think that that's, that that's actually what it costs to create something of quality.

Troy Young:

This is unrealistic.

Troy Young:

Anyhow,

Alex Schleifer:

All right.

Alex Schleifer:

Well,

Brian Morrissey:

All right.

Brian Morrissey:

Let's move on to the next topic.

Brian Morrissey:

let's talk about shopping content, right?

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, we are, I think one of the sort of stories of, of this year was Google's war on, the SEO glue factories out there.

Brian Morrissey:

Google basically said they don't like those business models.

Brian Morrissey:

And it's sort of obvious path that a lot of publishers have to go on.

Brian Morrissey:

Seems like we've talked about it a lot on the show about getting as close as possible to the transaction.

Brian Morrissey:

and we are in the holiday season.

Brian Morrissey:

So this is gift guy time.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, this, this was always a lucrative.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, hopefully it'll be as lucrative as it has been in years past.

Brian Morrissey:

but Troy, what in your, in your, estimation.

Brian Morrissey:

First of all, what makes a good gift guide?

Brian Morrissey:

And then what, what is the future for, for shopping content?

Brian Morrissey:

It's a little broad, but

Troy Young:

you know, I mean, affiliate had great promise, right?

Troy Young:

It's the most native of all ad formats.

Troy Young:

The idea of recommending products in the front of a book is an age old practice in publishing.

Troy Young:

The idea of doing it with trust and.

Troy Young:

Authority of your brand and people buy it after that.

Troy Young:

Like that's, that's the real thing.

Troy Young:

And then it got connected to the transaction and the distribution, mechanism of Google.

Troy Young:

So you would create a lot more cause that would give you more distribution from Google and you would make more money.

Troy Young:

And it was like for publishers, it was like, Oh my God, finally, finally, something that I actually don't have to go like.

Troy Young:

Sell and put fake numbers on in the market.

Troy Young:

So people will pay me for it.

Troy Young:

If I generate revenue, it was glorious.

Troy Young:

And I still think it matters.

Troy Young:

But for me, so many of the shopping guides are just generic crap that feel like, you know, something I could, you know, find on the front page of Amazon.

Troy Young:

I personally like, and I don't seek out shopping guide content, but I like shopping guides where, like, an editor, a writer, like, find really kind of, you know, personal, interesting, weirdo, can only get them at a store in the East Village, kind of like, you know, stuff that, you know, speak, that feels, you know, really cherishable.

Troy Young:

I don't know, like, Yeah,

Alex Schleifer:

a huge market.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, that's pretty niche

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, Troy's little bric a brac store is not going to keep your media's EB.

Troy Young:

but I don't I don't really need a

Brian Morrissey:

I, I hope they're

Troy Young:

like

Troy Young:

Sony Sony wireless headphones in it.

Troy Young:

That's not a

Troy Young:

gift to me,

Alex Schleifer:

I get it.

Alex Schleifer:

I, I think that path is kind of a dead end, because as behaviors shift more and more from search into, you know, chat interfaces, which is happening.

Alex Schleifer:

It's, it's undeniable at this stage.

Alex Schleifer:

People are getting much more into behaviors about fine tuning their shopping guide.

Alex Schleifer:

First of all, describing the person, or describing the type of categories.

Alex Schleifer:

Some categories are really hard, to, to recommend for.

Alex Schleifer:

Like I was, I was talking about furniture, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Because they're so contextual.

Alex Schleifer:

so you can't say this is the best chair.

Alex Schleifer:

And so there's, there's a lot of categories there.

Alex Schleifer:

And

Alex Schleifer:

I think

Troy Young:

That's not a that's not a gift guide.

Troy Young:

It's

Alex Schleifer:

Hang on.

Alex Schleifer:

I think people are, are, are individualized and unique, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Like, so if you want to buy something for a musician that plays a certain type of instruments and likes wooden instruments, that there is a product out there, but the thing, the main, the main thing is that the entire, this entire part of the industry is entirely based on the fact that the link is attributable to the source.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

And when you have something that says, well, here's what Vogue recommends in watches or whatever the hell you're looking for, that attributable source is going away.

Alex Schleifer:

It's non defensible.

Troy Young:

Nobody nobody needs to be recommended to buy a whoop.

Troy Young:

Okay.

Troy Young:

I'm talking about I don't

Brian Morrissey:

Wait, I didn't, I wanted Alex to explain what do, what do you mean?

Brian Morrissey:

It's non attributable to the

Alex Schleifer:

Well, it's like right now you go to the site, the site has links, you go on Black Friday and say these are the top Black Friday deals for video gamers or sports fans, right?

Alex Schleifer:

And you go there and you click the link, that link has a code that tells Amazon or whatever, That, you know, you get a cut from that, from that deal.

Alex Schleifer:

when, but that way of experiencing these types of guides is, already feels really arcane because it's very broad.

Alex Schleifer:

It's very scattershot.

Alex Schleifer:

While asking a thing like a chatbot, for example, say, Hey, I'm looking for a present for my wife.

Alex Schleifer:

She likes these types of things.

Alex Schleifer:

She's size this.

Alex Schleifer:

And, here's where we live, right?

Alex Schleifer:

There are so many variables that can add that thing can go through these shopping guys and, and, Twitter and Reddit and

Troy Young:

That feels

Alex Schleifer:

And, oh, oh, I, I don't care what you feel about it.

Brian Morrissey:

Is That serendipity?

Brian Morrissey:

Is that what

Brian Morrissey:

serendipity

Alex Schleifer:

Troy, Troy, you think you just want to, you know, like your, your, your friend, who's an artist told you to go to the store in Brooklyn.

Alex Schleifer:

It's only open on Thursdays.

Alex Schleifer:

And you have to ask this old lady to give you the special ashtray that was used by like that shit.

Alex Schleifer:

Like it's fine.

Alex Schleifer:

It's great.

Alex Schleifer:

Love that.

Alex Schleifer:

99 percent

Alex Schleifer:

of the people just want to know, like, wait, which video games should I buy for my kid?

Alex Schleifer:

Because I don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Alex Schleifer:

Like,

Alex Schleifer:

whatever I'm saying, it's just like the, this, this, this If, if this is a huge source of revenue and you can see them, they're all leaning on it.

Alex Schleifer:

That stuff is going to go away so quickly because the idea of an attributable link to a product is going away.

Alex Schleifer:

Not only that, imagine I want to say, Hey, and you know what?

Alex Schleifer:

I don't want to buy it on Amazon.

Alex Schleifer:

Find me a thing that is for this person.

Alex Schleifer:

And I don't want to buy it on Amazon.

Alex Schleifer:

Like tell me that that is not a better experience than Googling stuff.

Alex Schleifer:

And then getting onto a site that has a bunch of links.

Alex Schleifer:

And I don't even like that stuff is all gone.

Alex Schleifer:

You can see it.

Alex Schleifer:

You can see it

Troy Young:

I mean, you're, you're, you're beating up on the weak kid in the schoolyard.

Troy Young:

I, I

Alex Schleifer:

No, I'm telling like, I'm telling like, Hey, we kid like bulk up because that's not working.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't

Troy Young:

all, all right.

Troy Young:

All right.

Troy Young:

I get it.

Troy Young:

Alex,

Troy Young:

I, I think that makes sense.

Troy Young:

We, we started the conversation about gift guides that I cherish about why I like the green tomato scented fuckity fuck candle, and, and that you can't find anywhere.

Troy Young:

And.

Troy Young:

And I appreciate that kind of recommendation.

Troy Young:

And that's the human side of it that I like.

Troy Young:

I get it.

Troy Young:

If you want your gamer kid to get a game, you can type it into the machine.

Troy Young:

Perfect.

Alex Schleifer:

No.

Alex Schleifer:

You know what you can do?

Alex Schleifer:

You can, you can ask a query to something like chat GPT saying I'm looking for a gift here, some variable.

Alex Schleifer:

And please don't find me stuff from, you know.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, go deep in the internet, find stuff that is like less, less well throttled path.

Alex Schleifer:

And, you know, you might find something there that you might, you might not know where to find other way.

Alex Schleifer:

Whatever the case, I mean, I stand by it.

Alex Schleifer:

I know you can make your gift guide from your friend or whatever, your best product at the end of the day.

Alex Schleifer:

But like, if you're a media company and you're relying on commerce, I don't see where this is going.

Troy Young:

Hey,

Alex Schleifer:

this is painful.

Troy Young:

The truth is a, I agree.

Troy Young:

And one of the, my point to close, it would be once commercial intent moves.

Troy Young:

Into the chat space, like really moves in there as opposed to it.

Troy Young:

Just being a querying front end forever.

Troy Young:

Green content.

Troy Young:

that's when the dam breaks

Alex Schleifer:

It's over.

Troy Young:

and the dam being search it, where, when commercial intent manifests, like in real ways at scale in, in the search box.

Troy Young:

It's it's serious.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, and I think it's, I think we're like, this is like happening over the next 24 months

Troy Young:

Yes.

Alex Schleifer:

and, and, and, and the downstream effect is going to be, is going to be huge.

Alex Schleifer:

so, you know, with that, like, I think, we're still going to see gift guides, but it's just because people enjoy doing them.

Troy Young:

There you go.

Brian Morrissey:

Okay, it's becoming a hobby.

Alex Schleifer:

sources like I think, you know, American's Test Kitchen that really focuses on certain things and they have a very kind of broad spectrum, media strategy, you know, they're kind of everywhere.

Alex Schleifer:

They've got a subscription service.

Alex Schleifer:

I think that still works.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I think you still go there and you trust and they've got a mix of characters

Brian Morrissey:

there's gift guides and there's recommend, but there's like every day, like to me, wire cutter is fine for like every day.

Brian Morrissey:

Like

Brian Morrissey:

I need,

Alex Schleifer:

fine?

Brian Morrissey:

want to buy an alarm

Troy Young:

They have zero taste.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't need taste.

Brian Morrissey:

I didn't need an alarm clock.

Alex Schleifer:

It goes, can you imagine day out?

Alex Schleifer:

They recommended a speaker that costs 450.

Alex Schleifer:

You have to at least

Brian Morrissey:

And I don't want to have to ring the bell

Brian Morrissey:

of

Troy Young:

no.

Troy Young:

You don't want an alarm clock that's tasteful.

Troy Young:

But besides, why do you even

Brian Morrissey:

I don't

Troy Young:

clock?

Troy Young:

Get one of

Brian Morrissey:

Because I don't want to have my phone in, in the

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

Now

Troy Young:

those beautiful little bronze ones.

Troy Young:

Those are nice.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm looking for a brown one, actually.

Brian Morrissey:

You know, just the, just the phone in the room is like, it's stress inducing.

Brian Morrissey:

Like you should never put your phone on the table also.

Brian Morrissey:

Don't put the phone on the table, keep it in your pocket.

Troy Young:

Okay.

Troy Young:

Alright, should we move to the next topic there, Mr.

Troy Young:

Moderator?

Brian Morrissey:

right.

Brian Morrissey:

Next gen super consumers.

Brian Morrissey:

I wasn't clear on this one.

Brian Morrissey:

Alex, you said, kids are watching a lot of packaging content.

Alex Schleifer:

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

So, so,

Troy Young:

Take it away, Alex.

Troy Young:

And don't start, why do you, I don't know why you had to get all testy with me and, like, Troy's a whiny baby or something.

Troy Young:

I edited that out, by the way.

Alex Schleifer:

he dead.

Troy Young:

Well, I don't know

Troy Young:

why, yes.

Alex Schleifer:

he asked me for my opinion.

Alex Schleifer:

Cause you were sick and you were being a whiny baby about like, like wanting me

Brian Morrissey:

were very active.

Brian Morrissey:

You, you like lost it in the, in the thread this week.

Brian Morrissey:

I

Alex Schleifer:

So, so for our audience, what happens with Troy is that there's long hours of silence where you've asked Troy something he doesn't respond.

Alex Schleifer:

And then Troy decides to work on something and then starts yelling at everyone that we should all pay attention now because he's focusing on this and he's done with whatever else

Troy Young:

It's great insight, Alex.

Troy Young:

It's not true.

Troy Young:

It's fake news, but

Alex Schleifer:

reading about the fact that, you know, brands like Sephora are being, are being swarm by, by like, you know, girls that, you know, like, like 10, 11, 12 years old for, not makeup, which is, you know, makeup can be fun and, I get that kids want to try to stuff out, but actually skincare routines.

Alex Schleifer:

And they don't need it because, you know, at 11 years old, your skin is pretty much the best it'll ever be.

Alex Schleifer:

But, it turns out that, a lot of these kids, are watching influencers.

Alex Schleifer:

And a lot of this influencer content is, this is my morning routine, and this is what I do.

Alex Schleifer:

And, and so they're asking their parents, and the parents are oftentimes obliging, which is to me to buy them like really expensive Korean, you know, that sea salt, you know, facial creams and all of that stuff.

Alex Schleifer:

and the brands are responding, you know, by, by actually tagging some, you know, of their products to be, you know, tween, you know, like great for tweens or whatever, but it got me thinking.

Alex Schleifer:

The fact that like these kids have grown up on a very commercialized type of content.

Alex Schleifer:

you know, some kids really grew up on watching unboxing videos.

Alex Schleifer:

Of kids, kids unboxing toys.

Brian Morrissey:

they're like a YouTube generation.

Alex Schleifer:

yes.

Alex Schleifer:

And, and so much of this kind of, influencer sphere is really kind of integrating the product marketing into their content, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Whether it's like, you know, kind of like Mr.

Alex Schleifer:

Beast having a snackable stuff or, you know, drinks or branded content, all these kinds of, and they're, they're putting these kind of brand partnerships into their content as, and they're not separating that at all.

Alex Schleifer:

And, and if you look at Mr.

Alex Schleifer:

Beast and, you know, the, the, the, the Logan and Jake Paul's of the world, they are, you know, grown men that are really targeting young kids.

Alex Schleifer:

And really marketing to young kids.

Alex Schleifer:

And I was wondering, like, first of all, what does this go?

Alex Schleifer:

And also like, Do the rules that apply on, on, on broadcast TV around advertising to children, not apply on YouTube.

Alex Schleifer:

Like this feels like a massive, massive weakness for YouTube.

Brian Morrissey:

yeah, YouTube has always had, their biggest weakness has been with COPPA and, all kinds of children's issues.

Brian Morrissey:

the closest they've come, I mean, they've never gotten really fully, hit on it, but that is their biggest, their biggest

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I mean, the most popular videos this year were, were Mr.

Alex Schleifer:

Beast, right?

Alex Schleifer:

The second most popular was Cristiano Ronaldo with Mr.

Alex Schleifer:

Beast and everyone.

Alex Schleifer:

I think Mr.

Alex Schleifer:

Beast is a grifter at the highest scale.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I think he's, he's,

Brian Morrissey:

he's heading for a downfall.

Brian Morrissey:

You can see this coming.

Alex Schleifer:

but, but he's also like too big to fail at this stage, he's an economy, you know, and I don't, it doesn't look like YouTube is either tweaking the algorithm.

Alex Schleifer:

Or, you know, or does it's strange because it feels like when it comes to children, the legislation doesn't seem to move very fast, but, we're seeing what kind of rampant consumerist content is doing to accelerate kids.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, potential body issues, but also just like the fact that they think they have to use like face cream.

Alex Schleifer:

So they don't get wrinkles at 11 years old.

Alex Schleifer:

It's, it's, it's, it's happening.

Alex Schleifer:

And it's, I think it's consequential.

Brian Morrissey:

So all the grief that YouTube got and then Instagram got, YouTube will get it because YouTube is, somehow it was like, obviously it was always there, it was massive, right?

Brian Morrissey:

But if you look at, there's this chart, that shows the most popular social network among kids, and it's just, It's so far YouTube versus, not social network platform, versus all the others, TikTok, all of them, obviously Facebook just cratered.

Brian Morrissey:

and yeah, that's gonna be, where the battle is.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, if you were, we're, you know, we're, we often talk about kind of the power of brand here.

Alex Schleifer:

This new generation is very much has very strong brand affinities.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, and if you look at like the content that's being built into Roblox and things like that, it's a lot of, you know, kids building things around their favorite brands of products and you'd be surprised.

Alex Schleifer:

And so that's just like, it was an interesting topic to me.

Alex Schleifer:

And if you want to read up about it, it's wild to see kids queuing at a Sephora to buy some 40 face cream.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, it's just, it's just a weird

Troy Young:

seems to me there's something even broader that would mirror the discussion we had on the Timothee Chalamet thing, which is that marketing takes the same form of kind of informality and authenticity.

Troy Young:

And it's, it's just all around us now.

Troy Young:

It's like you're soaking in it.

Troy Young:

It's less.

Troy Young:

And I think we saw this in 24 with, The change of the sort of tech keynote structure where it became more like conversational and you could make mistakes and, you know, we're bringing you into meet the product managers at open AI or this week.

Troy Young:

We're going into Jensen Wang's kitchen, CEO of NVIDIA.

Troy Young:

And he'll do a little gag like he's pulling the chips out of his oven.

Troy Young:

but he'll show you how he's pulling this new, what's it called Alex?

Troy Young:

This new, it's kind of cool actually.

Troy Young:

The Jetson Orinano from the oven.

Alex Schleifer:

I had the little computers.

Troy Young:

Yeah, which is a 249 brain for making basically AI robots.

Troy Young:

and it just becomes another video on YouTube.

Troy Young:

And it's fun, and the CEO would want you to his house, and they probably made it in an hour.

Alex Schleifer:

It's so, it's so strange, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Because I think, you know, there's like the, the, the, the baby news comment when you, when you watch kind of network news, it also happens.

Alex Schleifer:

I also get this feeling when I watched advertising and the ones that are very striking to me specifically is very like very specific car advertising.

Alex Schleifer:

You watch a brand like BMW and it's somebody driving and it says no compromises, explore the beautiful.

Alex Schleifer:

And you're like, what the fuck are you

Brian Morrissey:

The winding road?

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

Winding road and just some guy with a, you know, four o'clock shadow and his hot wife or whatever the fuck.

Alex Schleifer:

and then you're like, I don't care about this product at all.

Alex Schleifer:

And then Doug Demure shows up in his shorts and is just like going around and saying, like pressing all the buttons and showing us the quirks and features and all of a sudden his car becomes a product that you may want.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, like, I think we're, you know, And I have to be careful here because it's not that it's always the truth, but there is like fakeness.

Alex Schleifer:

We have a, we have a good radar for fakeness.

Alex Schleifer:

And it used to, we used to think that we used to have nothing to compare it to.

Alex Schleifer:

But now that there's at least an expression of, of unedited, just raw expression of things.

Alex Schleifer:

the fake stuff is, It's disappearing.

Alex Schleifer:

Like it was just like becoming so much less powerful

Brian Morrissey:

It's like artificiality to some degree, right?

Brian Morrissey:

And

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, it's,

Brian Morrissey:

was, it was interesting.

Brian Morrissey:

The early, there was this moment where user generated advertising was like a thing, like in early 2010s, I think, and It all sucked to me, but the reason it sucked was because when people were told that they were going to make ads, they made ads as they imagined ads to be.

Brian Morrissey:

So they just made poor, but I'm like, you're not good at making these ads.

Brian Morrissey:

no, no,

Brian Morrissey:

no, you're supposed to.

Alex Schleifer:

ads, you know, like, Oh, no, you know, like some guy doing

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, they would just sort of pattern match that and I do think you're right that, you know, over time, you know, there's been.

Brian Morrissey:

This shift that like, no, you're not going to try to like mimic what the quote unquote professional, you know, ad makers would do.

Alex Schleifer:

And I think they got much better at figuring out the incentives, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Like it's, it's, if you tell a podcaster that they're going to make 10 bucks every time somebody gets their AG one, you know, Nitro greens subscription or whatever, then you've got incentives and that person who's good at making content is going to figure out how to make content for your product, you know, just let them cook, completely adjacent to this, but there's a, apparently there's a proliferation of content on Instagram, which is not, marketed as ads.

Alex Schleifer:

And there are podcast clips of people going, Oh yeah, I use that product and it's great.

Alex Schleifer:

And those are entirely actors in studios that are

Alex Schleifer:

just, they have said podcast set up and they're just like shilling, you know, they never record a podcast.

Alex Schleifer:

It's not a real podcast.

Alex Schleifer:

The genius genius

Brian Morrissey:

some some gaming system is is sending me, ads showing RFK Jr using their gaming system like nonstop on X.

Brian Morrissey:

It's a really wild place.

Brian Morrissey:

I know you're not coming back.

Brian Morrissey:

Alex, but it's

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I got to tell you like

Brian Morrissey:

it's pretty insane.

Alex Schleifer:

just to, give you, you know,

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, in a kind of good way, like I really, I know you're going to hate to hear this.

Brian Morrissey:

I think he's going to do it.

Brian Morrissey:

I think he's going to make X into, something.

Brian Morrissey:

And

Alex Schleifer:

but I don't, I

Brian Morrissey:

to be very different.

Brian Morrissey:

Well,

Alex Schleifer:

Let me just give you some, some raw data, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Because this is very interesting.

Alex Schleifer:

I have, and it's an algorithm thing.

Alex Schleifer:

I have 7, 600 followers on X, right?

Alex Schleifer:

and I have, 2, 400 followers on threads and essentially the same post, a very similar post, got, over 750 likes and 72 comments and 32 retweets.

Alex Schleifer:

Okay, it's pretty good.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm happy with that.

Alex Schleifer:

and on X.

Alex Schleifer:

It got one, like, it's baffling,

Brian Morrissey:

it's that is the, I mean, you're just, it's TikTok.

Brian Morrissey:

Your followers don't matter.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't think that much on, on,

Alex Schleifer:

right.

Alex Schleifer:

But I mean, I've been on X like for, I've been on X since like 2007.

Alex Schleifer:

Like I don't under, and I have posted regularly in the past.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't,

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, I don't post.

Brian Morrissey:

I rarely post on X anymore.

Brian Morrissey:

There's

Alex Schleifer:

But I mean, I think, okay, but I think without, the content, I mean, I'm hearing this from a lot of content creators, I'm back on posting because I need to create an audience because I need to feed the algorithm.

Alex Schleifer:

I need to Timothy Shalami this.

Alex Schleifer:

and you know, I can't wear leather pants at a Vogue photo shoot yet.

Brian Morrissey:

You can do

Brian Morrissey:

whatever you want.

Alex Schleifer:

I can do whatever I want.

Alex Schleifer:

That's true, man.

Alex Schleifer:

I

Alex Schleifer:

like that.

Alex Schleifer:

for,

Troy Young:

you might make content on X that does better than it does on Instagram.

Alex Schleifer:

it has never happened.

Troy Young:

not very

Alex Schleifer:

never, I mean, it's not very scientific.

Troy Young:

It's a different system.

Troy Young:

It's a different system, man.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm hearing of a lot of content.

Alex Schleifer:

Creators on x that said that they're not getting any traction for the stuff that they're doing and it's not worth the effort

Troy Young:

Every time I head over to threads, I feel like it's icky.

Alex Schleifer:

I know yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know maybe see I'm not saying threads is fine.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't like facebook.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't like I'm actually just giving some raw numbers here.

Alex Schleifer:

It's not like, Oh, you know, X is I get half the likes.

Alex Schleifer:

It's just one compared to 750 and it's either like a massively different audience, although my audience is pretty similar on, on both, or there's something going on with that algorithm that, that is really prioritizing types of content that like,

Troy Young:

Probably.

Alex Schleifer:

it's, it's hard, you

Brian Morrissey:

don't know what signals have picked up that I was really into anything relating to Ireland and migrants, but I get an unbelievable amount of content about that.

Alex Schleifer:

Irish migrants.

Brian Morrissey:

no, about migrants in Ireland.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't know.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, there's a lot of stuff on X that is like, kind of nuts.

Brian Morrissey:

A lot of fights videos get sent to me.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't know.

Troy Young:

Alex, you went to Disneyland or Disney World?

Alex Schleifer:

Land.

Troy Young:

You went to Florida?

Brian Morrissey:

No, Land is

Alex Schleifer:

World.

Troy Young:

Oh,

Alex Schleifer:

is in L.

Alex Schleifer:

A.

Alex Schleifer:

It's, easy to remember.

Alex Schleifer:

World has the ORL numbers in it, which is Orlando, and land has L.

Alex Schleifer:

A.

Alex Schleifer:

in it, which is LA.

Troy Young:

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Troy Young:

how was that?

Troy Young:

Do

Alex Schleifer:

Oh, we love it.

Alex Schleifer:

you know, you feel that they are kind of jam packing it, to a point where it's becoming somewhat untenable.

Alex Schleifer:

but if you can manage it, you can, you can manage it.

Troy Young:

you guys dress up?

Troy Young:

Do you dress up?

Troy Young:

Do you like go and

Alex Schleifer:

No, but I got to tell you like the Disney adult population and the amount of just people.

Alex Schleifer:

Pure adults that are there without kids that are fully decked out in Disney stuff.

Alex Schleifer:

is incredible.

Alex Schleifer:

and it's, somewhat disconcerting.

Alex Schleifer:

But that's kind of, that's the people you need.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, people who have no kids, have a job and are so into buying your plastic shit that they will spend 30 on a sippy cup.

Alex Schleifer:

it's great.

Alex Schleifer:

It's a little, it makes me a little uncomfortable at times, but,

Brian Morrissey:

there any documentaries on Disney adults?

Brian Morrissey:

I would

Alex Schleifer:

I'm sure, I'm sure.

Troy Young:

did you go to Ri Well, why did you go there?

Alex Schleifer:

I took my, son and my niece and nephew, and it was very fun.

Alex Schleifer:

it, you know, there's, there's lions and stuff like that, but that Star Wars, I mean, some of the stuff that they do is so good.

Alex Schleifer:

The marvels and the Star Wars land is just, you know, so immersive, so well done.

Alex Schleifer:

And, and especially the newer rides are so smart about how they shuffle you in and, and get you to experience that.

Alex Schleifer:

they have an app, which surprisingly doesn't crash with, you know, 50, 000 people kind of using the network at the same time, which is incredible in its own right.

Alex Schleifer:

but what I, what I, what I did notice there is just, first of all, like phones are everywhere.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

And, and the amount of kids just and immediately getting a phone or a tablet in their hand is, That stuff's not gonna end well, because we're making addicts like at a very young age.

Alex Schleifer:

but also being, waiting in line and watching people's behavior, you know, a lot of people watch social media and I always found it crazy that people listen to podcasts at 2x and I know some people do.

Alex Schleifer:

Do that with this one.

Alex Schleifer:

I, you know, it just breaks my brain if I do that.

Alex Schleifer:

or three and a half X, it

Troy Young:

I would just like to ask them, just don't listen.

Troy Young:

If you're gonna listen to it at 2, please find another podcast.

Alex Schleifer:

you just, you just told that to somebody really fast and they hardly paid attention.

Alex Schleifer:

but if you see,

Brian Morrissey:

But that is, that is a, that is a young person.

Brian Morrissey:

That is a sign of the brain chemistry.

Brian Morrissey:

Just changing.

Brian Morrissey:

cause that's something true.

Brian Morrissey:

Like I'm like, I think we all grew up analog and, I can't even imagine.

Brian Morrissey:

Like I've tried it before.

Brian Morrissey:

I'm like, no, this is nuts to me.

Alex Schleifer:

yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

And, and the thing that I was actually surprised by is how people use their feeds, so people on Instagram or Tik TOK and the way they swipe through that stuff.

Alex Schleifer:

And swipe between apps and then swipe back and then go to Instagram and swipe back and then go back to TikTok and swipe, swipe, swipe.

Alex Schleifer:

And I don't know, it's, it feels like it's, you know, like, like a hundred movements a minute, like that are happening.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't even understand how they are consuming recalling or, I mean, they're not, but like, it feels like when you watching somebody do that, it feels like, You know, seeing somebody on the production line that knows how to slice up chicken really well.

Alex Schleifer:

And they're just, just going through the motions.

Alex Schleifer:

and I don't even understand how you create content for a generation that consumes and like that.

Alex Schleifer:

And I would, you know, I would not bring it up if it was one or two people, but it's pretty much everyone I saw waiting in line use their phones much faster than I did.

Alex Schleifer:

and, and, you know, if you, if you haven't noticed that behavior before, I recommend just like paying attention and seeing that because that's a.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, that's I didn't see anybody read anything.

Alex Schleifer:

That's for sure.

Alex Schleifer:

except a lot of people have their phones muted and read the subtitles.

Alex Schleifer:

Apparently.

Alex Schleifer:

and, and they probably go through like 200 pieces of content, you know, waiting in line.

Alex Schleifer:

It's, it's just, it's just wacky.

Alex Schleifer:

so that's what you guys have to deal with.

Alex Schleifer:

So when Troy sends me a New York Times article that I have to read and listen to, and it's got all this thing about this tapes that they found in the seventies, even I'm like, I cut this.

Alex Schleifer:

Does, I cannot look at that.

Alex Schleifer:

That's too

Troy Young:

know, that's funny that you brought that up because I guess I'll remove that from this week's good product content

Alex Schleifer:

I'm not saying it's a bad product.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm saying I have

Alex Schleifer:

brain worms as well.

Alex Schleifer:

Like I,

Troy Young:

reason I sent you that one was, because there's no words.

Troy Young:

You basically get like a paragraph every swipe.

Alex Schleifer:

there's a lot of words.

Troy Young:

very few.

Brian Morrissey:

Those

Alex Schleifer:

Can you can actually try it?

Alex Schleifer:

Just why don't you set it up?

Alex Schleifer:

Because we're like, people don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

It's a multimedia package

Alex Schleifer:

on New York Times.

Troy Young:

Yeah, it's

Brian Morrissey:

do you like those?

Brian Morrissey:

Like,

Troy Young:

I do, I do like them actually, you

Brian Morrissey:

I didn't think I felt like there's one of those things.

Brian Morrissey:

Nobody actually likes, but they pretend they like, because they think it's good

Alex Schleifer:

I

Troy Young:

I

Troy Young:

thought, I mean, it's gotta be, the content's gotta be good.

Troy Young:

This was a good story, it was about, Fire Island's a cool place, and it was about this influential gay couple in, in, I don't know, what was it, 50s, 60s, that had created, you know, there were a big part of this scene in Fire Island and then live through the scourge of AIDS.

Troy Young:

They sold their house.

Troy Young:

The guy was, you know, really big in the electronic music community and had left them like crates and crates of mixed tapes, many of them rare.

Troy Young:

So these new guys moved into the house and they discovered this kind of museum like collection from a time and an era and, celebrated it and it was just a cool story.

Troy Young:

I

Alex Schleifer:

was done in a way that was kind of interactive.

Alex Schleifer:

And you swiped and you could read and you could hear the music in the background.

Alex Schleifer:

And conceptually, I get all that.

Alex Schleifer:

But the whole time I was like, You know what I wish?

Alex Schleifer:

I wish this was just a YouTube video with somebody with the boxes, putting them in a tape player and listening to them and responding to it.

Alex Schleifer:

I, I, I don't know what modality I need to be in to, be reading and listening to stuff and swiping my phone or being in front of a computer.

Brian Morrissey:

always asked too much,

Troy Young:

actually.

Troy Young:

I love that point.

Troy Young:

We did that stuff because we wanted to find The new feature form right on on an HTML page So we tried to combine images and interactivity and words in a way that felt real and it kind of skidded out But I like this story is why it's from 22

Alex Schleifer:

But I, how much do you think it costs to produce that?

Troy Young:

tons

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

And how much do you think they would have spent if they just got like some charismatic person to open boxes in front of YouTube,

Brian Morrissey:

It's the scourge of Snowfall.

Brian Morrissey:

Do you remember Snowfall?

Alex Schleifer:

Oh, we remember Snuffle.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, we, like Troy and I worked on this stuff because we really hoped it would work, but like, I think honestly, like It's hard to put yourself in a place where you can experience content that is very different.

Alex Schleifer:

I think you, you either need to put yourself in a different space and like you go to a museum and you kind of like guided through it.

Alex Schleifer:

But on your day to day, like, am I reading?

Alex Schleifer:

Am I watching?

Alex Schleifer:

Am I listening?

Alex Schleifer:

What am I doing?

Alex Schleifer:

That type of That type of stuff is hard to make.

Alex Schleifer:

Like modality is important.

Alex Schleifer:

and you know, if, if you're trying to kind of grab people's attention when they're kind of waiting in line or in the toilet or bored at work or whatever, which is where a lot of media consumption happens, there's only a very few formats that really kind of fit that, you know,

Brian Morrissey:

I should say, for those who do not, for some reason know, but Snowfall is a multimedia feature that the New York Times did in 2012 that ignited all sorts of, predictions that this was the future of interactive storytelling.

Brian Morrissey:

didn't turn out to be the future.

Alex Schleifer:

it's still around and it's, it's still, quite beautiful.

Alex Schleifer:

I looked at Snowfall so much.

Alex Schleifer:

So much like trying, you know, when I, when we were building the sites and it was just very well built, I have to admit, I never read snowfall and I still don't know what

Brian Morrissey:

You don't know what happened at Avalanche

Brian Morrissey:

Creek?

Alex Schleifer:

no idea.

Alex Schleifer:

No idea.

Alex Schleifer:

I just like, I just know that, you know, they had a static, video that like the content scrolled over and that was pretty,

Brian Morrissey:

Tunnel Creek.

Brian Morrissey:

It was the avalanche at Tunnel Creek.

Alex Schleifer:

yeah.

Troy Young:

Well what it made me think about is Ethan Mollick wrote a Kind of, you know, be careful what you say about AI, because when you just look at what's happened in 24, it's mind bending and remarkable and uses this one example.

Troy Young:

Ethan Mollick researcher where in Chicago or someone, he writes a substack, He's like, there was this research paper that basically said that those black knives and forks, those plastic knives and forks are toxic because they have too high, of inclusion of, you know, recycled, toxic, recycled plastic.

Troy Young:

And everybody started to freak out about it.

Troy Young:

And then It turns out that in the peer reviewed paper, the paper past peer review, there was an error in the math, like one extra zero and everybody missed it.

Troy Young:

And so he uploaded it on his phone, the PDF to the latest model on opening eyes, the latest model and said, is there a problem with this paper?

Troy Young:

And in two seconds it said, yes, there's an error in the, in the math, in the math.

Troy Young:

And I just thought, he's like, he made the point that, you know.

Troy Young:

Stuff in the world gets so complicated that sometimes, you know, you have to be an expert to understand what the machines are saying to you.

Troy Young:

But, you know, and in this case, Just how remarkable it was.

Troy Young:

He could type in one sentence on his phone, upload a research paper into chat GPT and get a result like that.

Troy Young:

And I, I think it's remarkable.

Troy Young:

And then he went on to show the new, the quality of the clips on the new Google Video model.

Troy Young:

and I, I'm kind of, you know, I find most of those things are just toys, but, VO

Troy Young:

two, VO two is pretty, pretty crazy.

Troy Young:

Alex.

Alex Schleifer:

Oh, it's, it's incredible.

Alex Schleifer:

I can generate up to eight minutes at 4k.

Alex Schleifer:

It's not, it's not fully available to the product now

Troy Young:

But like the permanence of objects and the way that they respond, and like, it's pretty crazy.

Alex Schleifer:

we don't, we don't know how this going to be used, which is why I always find it strange, just like the, I get it.

Alex Schleifer:

I get it.

Alex Schleifer:

That, Media creators.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm not calling, I'm going to call it the media because it's everywhere.

Alex Schleifer:

It's across YouTube and podcasts.

Alex Schleifer:

There is a lot of, AI skepticism, and I think the AI skepticism is bigger, with people who create content because they feel the most targeted and I understand why.

Alex Schleifer:

So if you feel like your job is about to disappear, the first thing you're going to go is like this stuff is shit.

Alex Schleifer:

And I love Neelay Patel and I listen to The Verge.

Alex Schleifer:

Cast all the time, but I feel that they, they dismiss all of these products as like vaporware.

Alex Schleifer:

Sometimes the stuff like that is, it's not productive because I don't know what's going to be big, but I think that there is a, an element of paranoia that everyone should, should pick up on.

Alex Schleifer:

It's like, you know, if you're walking through the forest, we're, we're programmed to be, You know, to, to be a little bit on edge and freak out.

Alex Schleifer:

Every time we hear something rustling in the, in the, in the branches, because we don't know if a tiger is going to eat us in this case.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, I'm not saying that all of these things are going to pan out, but if you don't have, if you're, if you're going through this thing, well, They will never be able to do this, or they will never be able to do what

Alex Schleifer:

I do.

Brian Morrissey:

if you're talking in the

Brian Morrissey:

future, it's easy to argue about the future because like, nobody knows, honestly.

Alex Schleifer:

what, wait, okay.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm talking about the future.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm talking

Alex Schleifer:

about in two weeks.

Alex Schleifer:

Brian, I'm talking about, I'm talking about in two weeks,

Brian Morrissey:

okay, if we're talking about the present, I think it's fairly, it's okay if someone, for instance, like writing is probably something I know the best.

Brian Morrissey:

And like these engines suck at writing.

Brian Morrissey:

Like I got some writing back, someone, I was like, did you do this through AI?

Brian Morrissey:

Because it reads like AI.

Brian Morrissey:

And that was

Alex Schleifer:

right.

Alex Schleifer:

But they, they suck at, they suck at writing, but they can create an outline for you in,

Brian Morrissey:

I get that, but I'm saying, like, maybe I'm misunderstanding the, because I can understand criticizing the output of the current reality right now, because a lot of the stuff is still, it could, it will, it's going so fast, blah, blah, blah, everything changes.

Brian Morrissey:

And.

Brian Morrissey:

A lot of what is being produced is incredibly mediocre.

Brian Morrissey:

It is very good with finding errors in research papers and all the summarization and whatnot.

Brian Morrissey:

But when it comes to creation, it doesn't seem to be creating very compelling stuff.

Troy Young:

I think the use case for me is much more about the interface to information, Brian.

Troy Young:

The video one is different, and how people will use that creatively, I think is gonna, we'll see, and it'll take a long time, and, You know, process of a paragraph versus hunting through multiple ad laden articles, there's no comparison in utility.

Troy Young:

No

Brian Morrissey:

Oh yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

and I think that we also like the trajectory of this seeing just we're using raw tools right now.

Alex Schleifer:

we're not really using the next generation of tools that are going to be built on top of that, you know, specifically made for writing specifically make for a statistic expression.

Alex Schleifer:

Also.

Alex Schleifer:

Yes.

Alex Schleifer:

What Troy is saying is right.

Alex Schleifer:

Like how we consume content changes.

Alex Schleifer:

So how you write it will.

Alex Schleifer:

Undeniably need to change.

Alex Schleifer:

All I'm saying is that this is moving so fast.

Alex Schleifer:

Please remember where we were two years ago when we started doing this podcast.

Alex Schleifer:

This is moving so fast that this denialism of That there's something incredibly profound happening to, to the industry that we love, I mean, for me, like media games, movies, but also to the way people experience content and knowledge on the internet it's really profound.

Alex Schleifer:

And I, I think it was on the verge guys where somebody said like, you know, nothing still beats the 10 links when I'm writing a story, like I go on Google and I need to really read the sites.

Alex Schleifer:

Yes.

Alex Schleifer:

But nobody else does that.

Alex Schleifer:

Nobody else wants to do that.

Alex Schleifer:

People just want an answer to how you, what temperature the chicken needs to be when

Brian Morrissey:

Oh yeah, I

Alex Schleifer:

it,

Alex Schleifer:

like,

Brian Morrissey:

Sounds like nothing beats the feel of the newspaper in the morning.

Alex Schleifer:

yeah, exactly.

Alex Schleifer:

Like now people are never, and you know, and it's going to happen so fast.

Alex Schleifer:

and it's also going to come at us from vectors.

Alex Schleifer:

We don't really understand because I don't know what it means.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, yes, if you look at the raw output of these things, there's a lot of not very compelling stuff.

Alex Schleifer:

And, but it's always getting better.

Alex Schleifer:

And at some point, somebody is going to learn how to use it because it's going to become the tool to make stuff.

Brian Morrissey:

Have you been on LinkedIn lately?

Alex Schleifer:

Oh, sure.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I mean, I mean, there's going

Brian Morrissey:

AI is not making it better.

Alex Schleifer:

I

Brian Morrissey:

of the things that I

Alex Schleifer:

but I don't think it's, here's the thing, I don't even know if it's making it better, even if it's making it worse, you cannot dismiss it.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, even if

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, I wouldn't dismiss

Alex Schleifer:

is,

Alex Schleifer:

SEO is dead, product guides are dead, You got

Brian Morrissey:

what's alive?

Alex Schleifer:

Stock photography, stock photography and stock video is that's, that's over.

Brian Morrissey:

Stock photography should be dead.

Brian Morrissey:

Let's be real.

Brian Morrissey:

Like talk about

Alex Schleifer:

but, but

Alex Schleifer:

you're, you're talking about, you're talking about stock photography.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, the downstream effects of stock photography, here's the truth.

Troy Young:

Keep going on the dead thing.

Troy Young:

What

Alex Schleifer:

a lot

Alex Schleifer:

of.

Alex Schleifer:

Wait, wait, but a lot of professional photographers make, make recurring revenue of the B roll stuff that they put on stock photography site.

Alex Schleifer:

They could not make a living by purely doing their photo shoots.

Alex Schleifer:

If that, if that goes away, it's a big problem.

Alex Schleifer:

The only thing that will slow this down is a major copyright.

Alex Schleifer:

Lawsuit, because I, you know, I believe and many people believe this is all built on stolen content.

Alex Schleifer:

So, you know, that could be something that that kind of can can sustain creatives for a long time.

Alex Schleifer:

But otherwise, I think it's going to have to be a new world with new jobs.

Alex Schleifer:

I think there's, There's going to be value to be extracted from it and, and creativity is always going to be valued, but yeah, I mean, I think the search page with a bunch of links is dead.

Alex Schleifer:

dead.

Troy Young:

I like this, the Alex dead list.

Troy Young:

That could be a reoccurring feature.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

Anything else spring to mind?

Troy Young:

Well, on the dead list?

Brian Morrissey:

Well, I want to get into good product, but I've got some, some,

Troy Young:

Reader mail.

Troy Young:

So,

Brian Morrissey:

mail feedback.

Alex Schleifer:

let's go to read ML.

Brian Morrissey:

Okay.

Brian Morrissey:

Cause it's about good product.

Brian Morrissey:

Well, one was, was talking about Alex, but we'll, we'll skip that.

Alex Schleifer:

What?

Alex Schleifer:

I want to hear that.

Alex Schleifer:

I

Troy Young:

on, stop it.

Troy Young:

Don't.

Troy Young:

It's so annoying.

Alex Schleifer:

please tell me, tell me about me.

Alex Schleifer:

The audience wants to know.

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, it was this one.

Brian Morrissey:

It's it's this.

Brian Morrissey:

This is this is just tighter.

Brian Morrissey:

good product.

Brian Morrissey:

As I listen, as I listen to that at the end of the show each week, it's been reminding me more and more that the best things in life aren't things.

Brian Morrissey:

The best things are real experiences like a good hike.

Brian Morrissey:

Walk or simply time outdoors and time with friends.

Brian Morrissey:

Time on the internet separates everyone from people, nature, and the best things in life.

Brian Morrissey:

How many people really need the best shoes, sound system, juicer, bicycle, or whatever.

Brian Morrissey:

Almost all products are good enough these days to satisfy most people most of the time.

Brian Morrissey:

and then, The listener signed off.

Brian Morrissey:

The best thing in life is the off button.

Brian Morrissey:

but that is an endorsement, Troy, of your very expansive take on good product.

Troy Young:

Thank you.

Alex Schleifer:

Okay, that's why you want to do it.

Alex Schleifer:

That's why you wanted to hear that one over mine.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, well, the other one was about Funkin

Alex Schleifer:

also, guys, let's not call a good product there.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, here's the thing I enjoyed this morning, a hot shower and a cold foggy day.

Brian Morrissey:

dead.

Troy Young:

it's nice.

Troy Young:

I wish I had that.

Troy Young:

Sounds great actually.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, you look like you need one.

Troy Young:

yeah.

Troy Young:

I certainly not gonna bring that New York Times article out about the mixtapes from Fire Island.

Troy Young:

That's dead.

Troy Young:

That's dead.

Troy Young:

I,

Alex Schleifer:

know, I appreciate this stuff,

Alex Schleifer:

Troy.

Alex Schleifer:

And it's from a conceptually.

Brian Morrissey:

The web page is dead.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know if the webpage is dead, actually.

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, really?

Brian Morrissey:

The webpage is not yet dead?

Troy Young:

my good product of the week is, I just think about things that, that I enjoyed and I enjoyed the War Room immensely.

Troy Young:

I would highly, I would encourage, it's sort of a canonical documentary.

Troy Young:

You should watch it.

Troy Young:

It's cool.

Troy Young:

It shows you, by the way, that the kind of violence in politics is not a modern phenomenon.

Troy Young:

It's rough and tumble and it has been for a long time and both sides.

Troy Young:

Complained about the media endlessly.

Troy Young:

Carvel used to fight with the media like mad.

Troy Young:

And to watch Clinton navigate, um, all the troubles that he had at the beginning of that campaign felt very Trumpian.

Troy Young:

So,

Brian Morrissey:

I remember that, that 60 Minutes interview he did the allegations, I guess, first

Troy Young:

what was the name of that woman that then admitted publicly that she had been encouraged to speak by the Republicans?

Troy Young:

What was

Troy Young:

her name again?

Troy Young:

Um,

Troy Young:

but have also that we had a nice contribution this week by an anonymous banker, and that will show up in the newsletter.

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, nice.

Troy Young:

he talks about what's in store for deal making next year how we're going to see more structure to protect downside in deals like we did with the money line deal that happened last week where payouts only achieved if the stock hits a certain price.

Troy Young:

but there's a lot more activity in the market now, so I thought I would find a sort of enterprising young banker to write it up for us, and we'll keep that person anonymous for now, because then maybe they can bring better stuff to the table.

Brian Morrissey:

They can come and we can disguise their appearance and their voice.

Troy Young:

Yeah, with, why would we do that?

Troy Young:

Just like with some,

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, yeah, we can do that.

Alex Schleifer:

We have the technology.

Troy Young:

okay.

Troy Young:

do you guys have anything to add to good product?

Brian Morrissey:

No,

Alex Schleifer:

mean, I think it's perfectly great.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I think Disneyland is a good product.

Alex Schleifer:

being

Alex Schleifer:

strained.

Brian Morrissey:

had a very strange Disneyland experience.

Brian Morrissey:

I, I went like, it was when my sister got married.

Brian Morrissey:

my mom got like a, there's a lot of kids in my family.

Brian Morrissey:

So, Elon Musk would love my family.

Brian Morrissey:

And, there, there, I don't know, there's a group of like 20, of us.

Brian Morrissey:

I, I went to the park too.

Brian Morrissey:

And, I guess we had a couple extra tickets.

Brian Morrissey:

And.

Brian Morrissey:

You know, we're from Philly.

Brian Morrissey:

So my mom was scalping and she's like, I was like, mom, you shouldn't do that.

Brian Morrissey:

And she's, she was selling the ticket.

Brian Morrissey:

She got picked up by an undercover cop, a Disney cop.

Alex Schleifer:

No, they don't

Alex Schleifer:

fuck around.

Alex Schleifer:

I was telling my, I was telling my

Brian Morrissey:

They didn't cuff her

Alex Schleifer:

like, you know, there's, there, it, you know, it's people waiting in line and, and, you know, kids being kids and stuff, but you never see a kerfuffle, you never see kind of a, you know, a scuffle at, at Disneyland.

Alex Schleifer:

And I'm sure they must have all these, like, secret agents that

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, they have

Alex Schleifer:

you up and,

Brian Morrissey:

Like literally

Brian Morrissey:

I was like, I was like, mom, take the loss.

Brian Morrissey:

And she was like, does anyone need tickets?

Brian Morrissey:

And all of a sudden this person was like.

Alex Schleifer:

Damn.

Alex Schleifer:

Your mom's hardcore.

Alex Schleifer:

I like

Troy Young:

Alex, you know, you can, you can pay a couple of grand and get taken to the front of the line and through the back, all that stuff.

Troy Young:

That's what I did.

Troy Young:

The one

Brian Morrissey:

What did it, what did it cost per person?

Brian Morrissey:

I wonder.

Brian Morrissey:

What?

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, yeah, that's the, that's, that's the VIP.

Alex Schleifer:

You can get the VIP stuff and it's like I don't know, a couple of grand per hour or something like that.

Alex Schleifer:

But if you're a bigger group, it can make, it can be worth it.

Alex Schleifer:

But look, you know, we took, kids over a weekend.

Alex Schleifer:

We stayed at one of the Disneyland hotels, the new Pixar hotel.

Alex Schleifer:

And with flights and tickets and the express lane passes and the food and the stuff, it's like eight grand.

Alex Schleifer:

It's a lot of money.

Troy Young:

I did remember a good

Brian Morrissey:

Wait, total or per person?

Alex Schleifer:

No total.

Alex Schleifer:

I

Brian Morrissey:

Okay.

Alex Schleifer:

mean we were flying from california So it wasn't you know a long flight, but you know, it adds up, you know for families.

Alex Schleifer:

It's really expensive So a lot of people like wait in line and some of these lines were two hours long, you know So I don't know how many rides you do

Brian Morrissey:

when I went to Disneyland, or Disney World, we drove from Philadelphia in, in a Country Squire station wagon.

Brian Morrissey:

Seven.

Brian Morrissey:

Two parents, five kids.

Alex Schleifer:

nice.

Brian Morrissey:

That, that was vacation.

Troy Young:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm sure

Alex Schleifer:

you i'm sure the parents had a good time

Troy Young:

that's why Jim, I did that too, except that my dad smoked the whole wagon.

Troy Young:

and, and by the way, I laid in the back of the station wagon without a seatbelt

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah,

Troy Young:

you know, behind,

Alex Schleifer:

uh, man, those good old days.

Alex Schleifer:

just being able to lie on the

Brian Morrissey:

It's for the government guy.

Troy Young:

no, this is why Gen X is the great generation, you know, we, uh, we don't take a lot for granted.

Troy Young:

the one other little mention on good product that came to mind is, I like buying fragrances for people at Christmas, and I, and I bring with that the arrogance of Picking what I think they should smell like, which isn't super good.

Troy Young:

And Dries van Noten has this really nice idea where you buy a 70 sampler kit.

Troy Young:

And by the way, Dries van Noten makes beautiful fragrances in incredible packaging, really beautiful packaging, and you get 10 small vials for 70 bucks.

Troy Young:

You give that to the person.

Troy Young:

And then they pick what they like and they put the code on it.

Troy Young:

And then as soon as they transact, you pay an extra 250 bucks or something, and they get the large bottle of fragrance.

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, that's smart.

Troy Young:

So it's a nice way to sort of sell a sampler plus the whole product.

Troy Young:

And if someone doesn't redeem, you know, you're only on the hook for

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

And it protects the downside of the gift giver.

Brian Morrissey:

Just like, I mean, that's like shot in the dark.

Brian Morrissey:

Be honest with you.

Brian Morrissey:

Isn't it?

Brian Morrissey:

I'm not a, I'm not a cologne guy,

Alex Schleifer:

Is that, is that women's cologne?

Troy Young:

it doesn't matter anymore.

Troy Young:

Alex, we're all one.

Troy Young:

No,

Brian Morrissey:

Lamar Jackson just, he was just talking about how he, he wears, probably gonna be the MVP of the NFL.

Brian Morrissey:

Saquon Barkley doesn't get it as he should.

Brian Morrissey:

but he

Brian Morrissey:

talks about how he wears women's perfume.

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, Josh could, that's true, but I think it's gonna be Lamar.

Brian Morrissey:

Um,

Alex Schleifer:

Well, that's fascinating.

Troy:

That's it for this episode of people versus algorithms where each week we uncover patterns shaping media culture and technology.

Troy:

Big thanks as always to our producer, Vanja Arsenov.

Troy:

She always makes us a little clearer and more understandable and we appreciate her very, very much.

Troy:

If you're enjoying these conversations, we'd love for you to leave us a review.

Troy:

It helps us get the word out and keeps our community growing.

Troy:

Remember, you can find People vs.

Troy:

Algorithms on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and now on YouTube.

Troy:

Thanks for listening and we'll see you again next week.

Brian Morrissey:

Are we doing one more episode before the end of the year or no?

Troy Young:

We will, at which point we'll wish people a happy holiday.

Brian Morrissey:

Okay.

Brian Morrissey:

All right.

Brian Morrissey:

See you guys.

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About the Podcast

People vs Algorithms
A podcast for curious media minds.
Uncovering patterns of change in media, culture, and technology, each week media veterans Brian Morrissey, Alex Schleifer and Troy Young break down stuff that matters.
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