0:18

Hey, and welcome to What Future. I

0:21

am your host, Joshua Zapolski, and

0:23

today on the show, we've got very important

0:26

things to talk about. We've got very present,

0:30

recent, shocking,

0:33

upsetting, thrilling things to discuss,

0:36

and of course talking

0:39

about what's going

0:41

on with Elon Muskin, Mark

0:43

Zuckerberg and social media online.

0:48

Yeah, there's a lot happening. There's a lot going on

0:50

out there. There's a whole new landscape,

0:53

and I wanted to get the world's

0:55

foremost expert into

0:57

the show to talk about it. So

1:00

we dialed up our friend Casey

1:02

Newton, who is an absolute genius and

1:05

scoop machine, you might say, when

1:08

it comes to social media and frankly

1:10

lots of other things, and I

1:12

just needed to talk to him. I had to get him

1:14

here and figure out what the hell

1:17

was going on. So

1:19

let's get into it. Casey,

1:38

thank you for coming back on the podcast.

1:40

It's my sincere pleasure. Thank you for having

1:42

me, josh I love that. Just be generous

1:44

as always.

1:45

Yeah, okay, anyhow, really quickly, we're going

1:47

to talk about what we need to talk about, which is

1:50

threads. Yeah, but

1:52

before that, I was telling Jenna a story and I felt I need to finish

1:54

it, and you should hear it too, because you deserve

1:57

it. I went to a ear nose and threads specialist

1:59

today and long

2:01

and long the shirt, I got a probe into that

2:03

they put up my nose that went into

2:06

like my throat. She's like, this will feel

2:08

a little uncomfortable, and I was like, please take that out of

2:10

my nose.

2:10

Please take that out of my nose, Please take it out of my nose.

2:13

It was supremely uncomfortable,

2:15

and she was just like jerking

2:17

it around in there, like snaking it around. Fucking

2:20

anyhow, just that was the experience I had before the

2:22

podcast. So I want you to know I'm in a pretty fragile state

2:25

right now.

2:26

That sounds terrible.

2:27

What's what's the what's the prognosis for you have

2:29

a deviated septum? No shit, Sherlock, I

2:32

have a huge nose with a bump in it. So she

2:34

I was like, She's like, well, you do have a little bit of a deviated

2:36

septim. I'm like, really, I didn't know that by

2:38

looking at my face. It's like, you didn't need to

2:40

go all the way into my mouth with the probe

2:43

to know that. I have a deviated She's like, anyhow,

2:45

whatever, this the the prognosis

2:47

is, I need to probably get some

2:50

stuff done to my nose to make it more

2:52

beautiful and more less Jewish.

2:54

No rhinoplastic, rhino

2:57

plastic.

2:57

She's like, we can like clear, we can make it more clear

2:59

in which is basically what I want because I can't

3:01

really like breathe through it. So anyhow,

3:04

so I'm excited about getting some elective

3:06

surgery. Maybe, I guess because they're like, you

3:08

don't need to, but you'll be more comfortable.

3:10

Yeah, that sounds great.

3:11

Speaking of things going up your nose, Elon

3:16

Musk recently tweeted that he

3:20

sorry, did he and Mark say? He actually

3:22

tweeted that he and Mark Zuckerberg

3:24

should have an actual penis measuring

3:26

contest?

3:27

Is this correct? Yeah, that's right,

3:29

that's where we're at. I'm

3:32

sure he was sober when he.

3:33

When he hits Yeah, that gome famously

3:36

sober Elon, famously sober and normal

3:38

person, Elon Musk. Okay, let's back up.

3:40

Let's start at the beginning. Yeah, the year

3:42

is nineteen eighty five and Microsoft

3:45

is just introduced as

3:48

DAWs. No, sorry,

3:51

I'm sorry, I'm like also got like no sleep last night,

3:53

so I'm going to really rare I'm going a rare place.

3:55

Because of your nose or because of something else. Oh,

3:57

I don't know.

3:58

Just everyone's just life, just the press years

4:00

of life, this life.

4:01

Yeah, all those loose things in.

4:02

Your house because yeah, and also

4:04

my air conditioner is not working in here, so it's very hot,

4:07

disagreed when it rains the poors.

4:10

It's been pouring here actually in New York. So

4:12

so well.

4:13

There you go.

4:14

For the listener who listens to the show but doesn't

4:16

know what's going on on social media, which has got

4:18

to be like one weird guy who

4:20

accidentally subscribed to this. But can

4:22

you just set up a little bit about what has just happened

4:24

in the world of social media, just like in terms

4:26

of I'll just say Facebook

4:28

has launched a new product called Threads.

4:31

Can you just talk a little bit about life? Yeah, what

4:33

threads is and where it came from.

4:35

Yeah, Threads is a Twitter clone

4:38

that was created to destroy

4:40

Twitter.

4:41

No, not a clone. They're like, it's not a clone. It just

4:43

looks it works exactly the same.

4:44

Yeah, they've said it's not a clone. It is

4:46

a clone, And within

4:49

three days that had one hundred million users,

4:51

and so you.

4:52

Know, real quickly, sorry, real quickly,

4:54

what are the active users of Twitter?

4:56

Number wise? So it's

4:59

very hard to say because the I lost so many users this

5:01

the year and they don't report numbers publicly anymore.

5:03

But let's assume it's between two and three

5:05

hundred million. Okay, so in

5:08

five days?

5:09

Is it Threads, which is a Twitter clone that Facebook

5:11

has introduced, has a third

5:13

of the audience of Twitter,

5:16

which has been in business for like seventeen years

5:18

or something.

5:19

Yeah, that's right, all right, now, now we should say

5:21

this number is the one hundred million

5:23

for Threads is like essentially the number of people

5:25

who've created an account and downloaded the app.

5:28

The Twitter number is sort of active

5:30

users, so it remains to be seen about hundred

5:32

million how many of them are still using it

5:35

in thirty days. But I think odds are good

5:37

that this thing is going to be legit.

5:38

Right, So so Mark

5:40

Zuckerberg and who is the head

5:42

of Instagram, Adam Mussiri.

5:44

Odam A Siri?

5:45

Yeap, Yeah, they're like Twitter

5:48

is being run awfully by

5:50

Elon Musk, and we

5:53

could just maybe turn

5:56

on a Twitter cloned and

5:58

then like extinguish Twitter.

6:00

Is that the idea? Do you think for threads?

6:03

Yeah? Basically? So, Look, you know, it

6:06

did not take long after Elon Musk took over

6:08

Twitter in October of last

6:10

year to realize that he was tanking it right.

6:12

Every single decision he made was worse than the one

6:14

that came before it. And so by December, the folks

6:16

inside Facebook are saying, should

6:18

we maybe just take another run at this? Because

6:21

of course they had tried over the years a lot of different

6:23

things to compete with Twitter, none of them had really taken

6:25

off. But because Elon Musk was alienating

6:28

so many at Twitter users, all of a sudden it looked

6:30

like there might be this real opportunity. So they

6:32

got to work in it in December, and we finally saw

6:34

the fruits of their labor this month.

6:37

Yeah, which is like pretty much like Twitter, Yeah,

6:39

except the people who are popular on there

6:41

are people who are historically popular

6:44

for not talking and like

6:46

looking like something or doing something

6:48

that you look at because like

6:50

it basically pourted Instagram. It's like it's

6:53

connected to I think it's worth saying, yeah,

6:55

And this is a brilliant strategy on their part. If

6:58

there was anything in the Facebook universe.

7:00

It felt like it was like, you know, if you've

7:02

got Twitter on your home screen right next to it,

7:04

there's gonna be a thing you're bouncing over to. Probably

7:07

it's Instagram, right, which is a far more popular,

7:10

far more used social network. I mean, it's

7:12

got like a billion users,

7:14

more over a billion, over a billionisers,

7:16

but it's obviously a photo and now video

7:19

sharing app primarily. I have

7:21

already patted myself on the back on Threads. I will

7:23

pat myself on the back oh my podcast.

7:25

I wrote for a thing of The New Yorker about how

7:27

Twitter sucked. Actually it's amazing because I went and

7:29

reread it and it's like everything that sucked about

7:32

Twitter in twenty sixteen under Jack Dorsey.

7:34

It's the same stuff that sucks under Elon Musk,

7:36

but it's like way super duper magnified.

7:38

It's like, yeah, you know, it's like harassment

7:41

and like bad moderation and confusing policies

7:43

and a product that doesn't really work that well. It's

7:45

like exactly the same shit. And in that

7:47

piece, I was like, you know, if Instagram wanted

7:49

to like probably immediately kill Twitter, they could just make

7:52

a text based version of Instagram or whatever,

7:54

and it's like literally what they were like, Hey, we have

7:56

a cool social network that everybody's staring at all

7:58

the time.

7:59

So yes, that's just I think because look at

8:01

the threads product today. If they have rolled it out

8:03

in twenty nineteen, you and I would be rolling

8:05

our eyes out of the back of our heads. You would have said, this

8:07

is the least. We would say, They're not even trying

8:10

this thing?

8:10

Is it?

8:11

One? I owte a different than Twitter? It

8:13

is dead on arrival? Correct? What changed?

8:15

Is Twitter tanks so hard

8:18

that a bear bones copy of it run

8:20

By like a sort of more competence

8:22

organization, just instantly rocketed

8:24

into superstartup, right it is? I

8:26

mean there are some differences. We should say.

8:29

It does not yet present a chronological

8:32

feed, which is the business for Twitter

8:34

for most users.

8:35

I think, not for most, but

8:37

for for a lot of die hard users.

8:40

It is important to see a reverse cod.

8:41

Feed for the most important ones, for the ten

8:43

percent of people who create ninety percent of the content on

8:45

Twitter, the chronological feed is somewhat

8:47

important. True, But they say Facebook

8:50

says it's coming Mata or whatever they're called

8:52

these days, and also Mark Zuckerberg

8:54

posts on it, which is a thing that

8:56

he's not. He only has done one post in like

8:58

eleven years or something on twit, and it was the

9:01

Spider Man pointing at each other meme,

9:04

which is like kind of I mean,

9:06

poking the bowl or whatever. Whatever

9:08

that's saying, is like, if you don't want to make someone

9:10

think that you've copied their product, I would, personally,

9:13

if I copy someone's product, I would not post on their

9:15

product with a thing that's like a copy

9:17

of a thing pointing to the thing that is

9:20

the real thing.

9:21

I mean, that's, you know, right, one man's

9:23

opinion. I mean, look, I think the meme was

9:25

funny, but also they are odd thread saying

9:27

we're not trying to closee Twitter, and then you use the Spider

9:29

Man meme that means, oh, look, these two things are the same,

9:31

so you kind of got to pick one. Yes, exactly, No, That's

9:34

what I'm saying.

9:34

It's like if there is ever a court case, which there

9:36

won't be, because like, honestly, you can't really make an

9:38

argument that Twitter does anything particularly

9:41

special at this point, Like it's a feed

9:43

of words, which is basically every blog

9:45

in the world. Like, if you really want to get down to it.

9:48

It's they're small blogs. It's

9:50

a micro blog, which is exactly what it would have been

9:52

known as like ten years ago, and

9:55

like that's not really you can't really trademark that

9:57

shit at this point, you know.

9:58

No. Also, do you know how many patents

10:00

on Facebook has around social networks and feeds

10:02

and stuff? Like they both the ones they filed

10:05

on the ones they've bought, like they're going to win that fight

10:07

if it comes to court, which, as you point out, it's not.

10:09

They're like, oh, do you want us to have the conversation

10:12

about who has more patents on

10:14

like words on a screen or whatever

10:16

the fuck it is? Yeah, So Twitter's just so fucking

10:18

bad and gross and depressing and full of like

10:21

Nazis and like Elon Musk

10:23

fanboys and whatever. Like I hardly

10:25

ever look at it. I was messing around the Blue Sky

10:27

when it came out when I got I mean you were. I

10:29

think I might have bullied you about using Blue Sky

10:31

or something. Matt masted on the it was what I

10:33

bullied you about using one of the wanna

10:36

be social networks.

10:37

I think it is masted On. Look, I've been I've

10:39

been using all of them. It's very important to me that

10:41

something to replace Twitter, because Twitter is not just

10:43

a source of enjoyment for me, it's like part of how I run

10:45

my business is by like posting things in public

10:47

to try to get people to click on them and maybe pay the money.

10:50

So I was going to be flogging

10:52

all of these things, right, and you

10:54

know Blue sky had its moment, but it just

10:56

didn't move, you know, the sort of recurring theme of

10:58

all these things. They just didn't move fast enough. And

11:00

then you know, along comes Meta.

11:02

Yeah, I mean blue skuy has like one hundred and fift thousand

11:04

users, a hundred fifty thousand or something like that. It's

11:06

massed on has millions, but it's like it's just a it's

11:08

not like a centrally managed thing. It just feels like,

11:10

you don't know what the hell. It's very hard to get started

11:13

un masted on, Like just in terms of usability,

11:15

right, I think like what Threads has

11:17

done, besides having a built

11:19

in social media ready audience, like

11:21

the audience was sitting there. It's

11:23

like you already are communicating probably every day

11:25

with people on their other platform in that

11:28

fashion. So it's just fewer pictures

11:30

and more talking, you know, yeah, like

11:32

I don't want to like put the cart before the horse. I

11:34

know everybody's like, oh, Twitter's gonna rally or whatever,

11:36

but like I don't feel.

11:39

No, wait, everybody is saying, like I feel.

11:41

Like people I have seen people say, oh,

11:44

it's the early days, you know, Well that's

11:46

true. You know it's going to even out. People be less

11:48

excited because this happens has happened with all that other stuff

11:50

we were just talking about, Like people are like, oh my god, like Blue

11:52

Sky, there's the fucking articles in the New York Times about it. There's

11:54

like fifty thousand people signed up for it, Like

11:57

you know, it's like then it died down and everybody's

11:59

like, Okay, well to Twitter, I guess. But this

12:01

is like I feel like a

12:04

lot of the people that I want to follow

12:06

and know and care about listening to

12:08

on social media are already there. Yes,

12:11

it's harder to find them at this point, but they're there.

12:14

And it's like, yeah, it's not run

12:16

by Elon Musk. Which this is the weirdest

12:18

thing of all of this is like somehow

12:21

Mark Zuckerberg has become like

12:25

he looks good in this scenario, which

12:27

is unheard of. For him unheard of.

12:29

Basically, Yeah, there's been a real

12:31

sort of reversal perception. And

12:34

I think it just speaks to the fact that for

12:36

all of the crap that people gave Twitter

12:39

over the years, much of it justified. People

12:41

really did love the

12:44

role that it played, right, They wanted something to

12:46

play that role. Now when it started to go

12:49

walkie, they missed it. And then Zuckerberg

12:51

comes along and says I can do it. And the fact

12:53

that he happens to be in this hugely entertaining personal

12:56

feed with Musk just makes it all the better. Yeah,

12:58

there's something that you haven't brought up, Josh, that

13:00

I think is super important, which is the rate

13:02

limiting fiasco, because it actually explains

13:04

a lot I think about how we got here.

13:06

Oh.

13:06

Yes, I'll be honest with you.

13:07

Yeah, I have been fairly tuned out

13:09

from the rate limiting fiasco because, as I said,

13:12

I have kind of abandon Twitter. Yeah, I mean

13:14

I've caught a little bit of a bit I think for also for a lot

13:16

of people listening, like it's fairly it's a fairly

13:18

complicated little story.

13:20

Can you give us the narrative? Well, you know,

13:22

the gist is that for

13:25

a bunch of reasons. They

13:27

decided that they were going to restrict people

13:30

from viewing more than six

13:32

hundred tweets in a day unless you payd elon

13:34

Musk money. You can only look at six

13:36

hundred tweets in a day, right, And that might

13:38

sound like a lot, but you know, if you're spending

13:41

fifteen or twenty minutes browsing, which I don't think is a

13:43

crazy amount of time to be browsing a socia, just

13:45

brows while you're talking. I'll see if I can hit Okay, I

13:48

want to see what happens. Yeah, just see if you can hit the limit.

13:50

Go ahead, Yeah, see if you can hit the limit. And

13:52

you know, you dip in and replies, you look at

13:54

some profiles, all of a sudden, you've hit your six hundred

13:57

limits. So you know, even in its decaying

14:01

state, I would still have Twitter open on

14:03

my desktop and just glance over it occasionally to see

14:05

if there was some piece of breaking news or whatever. When

14:07

the rate limiting thing happened, roughly

14:10

a week from the time that we're recording this ago, it

14:13

just stopped scrolling. New tweets stopped loading.

14:15

You just got a message that said you've exceeded your rate

14:17

limit, so it became literally worthless

14:19

in the sense you couldn't even see anything that was happening there.

14:21

So you know, earlier we were talking about how news

14:23

junkies want that chronological feet because they want to

14:25

know what's happening. Right the second Twitter actually

14:27

stopped serving that purpose. So that was

14:30

the moment that Meta saw and

14:32

when they saw that, they said, we're going to accelerate

14:35

the launch of threads by a week because

14:38

we know that this is our time to strike. So they

14:40

actually did something really savvy, which is they seized

14:42

on the absurd opportunity that Elon Muskin created

14:44

for them.

14:44

Right, Yeah, I mean, I'm just first off, I'm

14:47

scrolling Twitter, and I honestly

14:49

I'm impressed that people continue to post on here.

14:51

I have to say, like, I understand there's in it's

14:53

disgusting, like like I have posted a physic

14:55

It's like watching people smoke. That's how I feel about

14:57

it.

14:58

Actually, I did not post the last episode

15:00

of the show I've at like on Twitter, I

15:03

will probably post this, but then I'm

15:05

kind of like maybe, but like i'd probably get better

15:07

engagement on threads where I have, like I

15:09

don't know, seven thousand followers or something

15:11

like not nearly as many, but like they're actually interacting

15:14

with me and seeing my content.

15:16

I'm just dying to get to this rate limit.

15:29

Do you think he did the rate limiting because like

15:31

he's not paying his like server bills and

15:34

like they don't have enough capacity.

15:38

I mean, they have been radically reducing their

15:40

investment in just kind of the basic infrastructure

15:43

that you need to run the site. So they went from I

15:45

believe it was three data centers down to two. They

15:47

may be trying to go to one, you know, a

15:49

platform or my newsletter, we published a story of

15:51

a month or so ago that they hadn't been paying their Google

15:53

Cloud Dell. That has now been resolved.

15:56

But yes, I mean I do think that there

15:58

is a chance that that is the case, and we're

16:01

we're actually still reporting that story out, so you know, if

16:03

you're a platform subscriber, hopefully you'll learn more about

16:05

that soon.

16:05

Oh well, I'm very I'm very interested to

16:07

learn more about all the stupid things that

16:09

are happy at Twitter. I mean, is there is

16:12

there what's the latest, like what's

16:14

the latest piece of reporting you've done on this? Like the what's

16:16

the or I don't know if you can talk about something you're working

16:18

on now, but I'm curious, like, yeah,

16:21

yeah, I don't know if you're talking anybody inside of Twitter,

16:23

Like what if there's been a reaction there, I

16:25

feel like you probably might be.

16:27

What I can say is just that chaos continues

16:30

to rain. You know,

16:32

they have this new CEO, Linda Yakarino,

16:35

who sort of made a big show of

16:37

saying, Hey, I'm here to make this website, say

16:39

for brands, and we're going to get this advertising

16:42

engine spun up again. And then it was like

16:44

a week later that the rate limiting thing happened,

16:46

and so all of a sudden, you know, if you're an advertiser,

16:49

like you, your reachs ben dramatically reduced.

16:51

Right, You're like, oh, so you stop

16:53

showing stuff after six hundred views

16:56

of content? Like that's actually on

16:58

that note, that's the

17:00

kind of like worst website

17:02

in the world doesn't do that. You know, it might break,

17:05

I guess if it gets over capacity, but exactly,

17:08

you know, I mean like that basically would kill ad

17:10

viewability for a lot of people, right, I mean

17:13

absolutely yeah. I

17:15

actually kind of didn't contemplate how insane the

17:17

rate limiting thing is it's like it's

17:20

so bizarro. It's just such a crazy,

17:23

weird move. I mean, at this point it kind

17:25

of feels like, and I don't know if you have any insight

17:27

on this or thoughts, but like, is Elilmo was

17:29

just trying to do it in like does he just want

17:31

to do value it so much that he can like get

17:33

some kind of like right off, like some tax

17:35

right off for it.

17:37

So there's this There is this pretty good theory. There's

17:40

a reporter, William Cohen at Puck who's

17:42

written pretty persuasively about this that it

17:45

does seem like, whether intentionally

17:48

or not, that Twitter is cruising for a bankruptcy

17:51

in part because it is simply not paying a lot of its debts.

17:53

Right, So at a certain point a handful

17:55

of its creditors can come together and say, this guy isn't

17:58

paying our debts, and we can essentially force

18:00

them into an involuntary bankruptcy, right, which

18:02

sounds bad for Elon Musk. However, if

18:04

it happens, the debt that he took

18:06

on to a choir Twitter could possibly be

18:09

reduced by something like thirteen billion dollars.

18:11

Right, So, if Elon tanks it, he might

18:13

wind up, you know, saving himself a cool

18:15

thirteen billion.

18:16

Okay, maybe this is a naive question to ask,

18:19

but wouldn't a some

18:21

kind of the governing body that handles bankruptcies

18:24

be able to look at his behavior and say, well,

18:26

you didn't actually try to run the

18:28

company properly, like you basically decided

18:31

to bankrupt it. I mean, can you because like you know what I

18:33

mean, Like it seems like there'd be a law against people going

18:36

like I ran my business bad on purpose, so I could

18:38

bankrupt it and get out of a tax bill or whatever, get

18:40

out of my debt, paying my debt. Like people would

18:42

do that all the time, I would imagine, Right.

18:45

I mean, you're you're right,

18:47

And yet I feel like, unfortunately, we live in

18:49

a society where there are almost no consequences for billionaires.

18:52

I don't know, it's it's

18:54

concerning, as Elon mus would say.

18:56

Right, and do you think the threads

18:58

unfinished at that point, like when they decided to launch

19:00

it, Like, do you think it was like, hey, we have an opportunity, he's

19:03

really blown it. We have a product that's like good

19:06

enough. Ye, do you feel like it's an unfinished

19:08

product?

19:08

Right? Now, yeah, I think they want to spend another week

19:10

polishing it, and there was probably

19:12

some stuff that might have gotten added to the product.

19:14

But now they're just spending all their time trying to keep the

19:17

site afloat because they did not expect to have one hundred

19:19

million dollars I'm sorry, one hundred million users in

19:21

three days. You don't think they did, no, but it

19:23

was it was basically ready, you

19:26

know. I just think it would have come out, you know, maybe a week.

19:28

Later, right, Like, because you can't it's very

19:30

hard to find peoplele on. It's very hard to follow people. It

19:32

keeps it really wants me to follow Demi Levado

19:35

like more than anything, do it.

19:39

I'll tell you.

19:39

One of the things about Threads that has been fascinating has

19:41

exposed how much like vapidity

19:44

there is amongst people who post on Instagram.

19:47

Like, the stuff I'm seeing on Threads is some of the

19:50

all time worst posting that I've

19:52

ever seen in like in my life.

19:54

Yeah, I've seen many varieties

19:56

of bad posts, but the one that sticks with me is

19:58

I keep seeing these accounts that have of like

20:01

that include the word betch in their name, like

20:03

Bitch with E, which was like something that like

20:05

millennial women would say in the early two thousands,

20:08

and I guess you know, they created these Instagram

20:10

accounts. It's like dumb betch and

20:12

they post this like you know, relatable

20:15

like jokes like and for women,

20:17

and that's fine on Instagram, but you put it

20:19

on something like Twitter, and you just could not

20:21

ridge harder.

20:22

No, no, no, no, no, it's it's it's there's a kind of avalanche

20:24

of crazy shit that I'm seeing. First off, on

20:27

day one it was especially chaotic because I hadn't

20:29

really followed them. It definitely is like picking up on who

20:31

I'm following and then like giving me more of that

20:33

stuff. But on day one it was just like, hey,

20:36

we turned on all the stuff for you, like

20:38

just check out what's coming out from all

20:40

over threads. And it was like, you

20:42

know, one thing was like Gary Vee doing some

20:45

inspirational stuff about hustling, hustle

20:47

culture, and then it was like a fucking f

20:50

one thing.

20:51

You know, it's like what's your who's your favorite f

20:53

one racer?

20:54

And then and then it's like accounts

20:56

like you're like fuck Jerry and like the

20:58

Betch the Betch accounts that are like trying

21:01

to do their mean thing. They're trying, like

21:03

and it's so it's like the most desperate

21:05

shit because they like showed up and they're like, oh

21:07

shit, I only have like forty thousand followers,

21:09

and on Instagram, I have like forty million followers,

21:12

and they're like the shit. Like

21:14

hype Beasts, hype Piece is the one that gets under my skin

21:16

the most. To be honest with you, hype Piast, which

21:18

is a just if you don't if you're listening, you don't

21:20

know. HiPE Piece is a brand that covers

21:23

streetwear. It's on the cutting edge of fashion

21:25

culture. It is like probably

21:28

actually in the last like ten or you know, fifteen

21:30

years, one of the most important

21:32

like blogs that exists because they kind of captured

21:34

this moment in streetwear that happened that kind of when it

21:37

took over the fashion industry. And

21:40

they are posting shit and I don't even know if the people

21:42

at hype beests know that they're posting this. They're

21:44

posting shit on threads like what

21:47

did you have for breakfast?

21:48

Yes?

21:49

Do you pour the milk in first or

21:51

the or the cereal first? And I'm like, I'm

21:54

like, this is not only is it not aligned

21:57

with your shit at all, Like just absolutely

21:59

out of alignment with what you do. But it is like

22:01

the worst, dumbest, lamest, most

22:03

boring posting I've ever seen.

22:05

Yeah, here's what's going on. There

22:07

is a there's a land rush going

22:10

on. There's a gold rush. There's a gold rush on a land that

22:12

because people know that if you can get fast early

22:14

on a site like this, you'll have that big follower account

22:16

forever. And so you have these people that are

22:19

just going hogwild, you know, like the Nike account

22:21

yesterday I saw this was just like sort

22:23

of served up to me. I do not follow Ikey, and it just

22:25

posted a drop your favorite shoe. And

22:28

this is like nobody, like, who's

22:30

gonna just read like, you know, five hundred

22:33

replies about favorite shoes.

22:34

But they're fucking people are replying like

22:37

like the uh, look at the hype

22:39

beest thing, the hype beast thing. God,

22:41

look at the hype I want to look at that. I want to look at the replies

22:43

to this. I screenshot in one and then I reposted the other

22:45

because I didn't want to I didn't want to amplify them anymore.

22:48

Yeah, mourning, how do you like your eggs

22:51

eight hundred and thirteen this was yesterday, eight

22:53

hundred thirty replies, twelve hundred and fifty one likes.

22:56

Someone fucking hit like on that no

22:58

on morning Thread or cerial First or milk

23:01

First, eleven hundred and eighty four replies,

23:04

fifteen hundred and forty five likes. And you

23:06

know what, the Highbe's account six hundred and eleven thousand

23:08

followers, they're crushing. They're doing very well

23:10

for themselves right now.

23:12

But if you look at the ratios back, because they do have

23:14

all those followers, and yet three hours ago they

23:16

posted quote not even eleven am here

23:19

in NYC and I'm already thinking about lunch

23:21

lmao.

23:22

Yeah, and that's only got eight hundred likes. So you

23:24

know, I'll tell you one thing, and this is true of all of these new

23:26

social networks. It has made me re evaluate

23:29

my existence on the Internet. Like I'm

23:31

kind of like, you know, like we spent I think you're

23:33

probably the same way. You spent probably most of your time

23:35

building your following on the Twitter.

23:37

Yeah, because that's where the journalists talk like, that's where

23:39

you post your story, that's where the action was, right,

23:42

Like for a long time, like if you had a great

23:44

scoop or if you wanted to talk to like

23:47

other people in the media who you wanted to see your story

23:49

or just people who were media junkies.

23:51

Twitter's the place, right, that's just like where they go.

23:53

Yeah, and now it's like again,

23:56

the engagement's actually way better on almost all

23:58

of these other social networks. But I'm

24:00

like, I'm like, do I even

24:02

want to? And you know, maybe I'm speaking from

24:04

a very rare position, like you know, I probably

24:07

don't need to necessarily have a huge social media

24:09

following, though my producers at the show would definitely

24:12

say otherwise.

24:13

And when do you say you're speaking from a special position

24:16

do you mean as someone with a.

24:16

Dev I mean it's someone who has been probed

24:19

today and has a deviate to abdom

24:23

you know, it's funny when but after the probe and I was

24:25

like, I think, like that helped a little bit, Like

24:27

maybe I should just be probing. Maybe that's what I

24:29

need in my life. No,

24:32

Like I'm like at a point I think in my career

24:34

and with what I do, like I

24:36

I think I can just do what I do and not have to

24:38

worry too much about like whether somebody saw

24:40

like my story.

24:42

Yeah, you're you're above you

24:45

know you don't need these unwashed me.

24:46

I'm in the smoky, the leather chair

24:49

filled smoke smoke filled rooms

24:51

where the I'm in the room where it happens currently.

24:54

So yeah, yeah, Peter TiAl doesn't post,

24:56

and either does Dosh Dapolski. Okay, guys, they made

24:58

it.

24:58

Yeah that's right, we don't. And when we meet for

25:00

when we meet for our special club

25:02

of very important people, for.

25:04

Your infusions of twink blood. Yeah,

25:06

it's so great not posting, isn't it. God,

25:09

I'd love to.

25:10

I would love to spend even a little bit of time with Peter

25:12

Teal would be so fucking weird.

25:15

He loves talking to I don't think he'd do it.

25:18

I don't think you'd do it.

25:19

But hey, Jenna, can you put on the list after

25:22

our FK Junior and uh Liver

25:24

the liver Man? Is that with the guy the guy we were

25:26

talking about last week? Can you have

25:29

add Peter Teal to the podcast

25:31

bookiet list? Thank you anyhow?

25:34

Yeah, So it's kind of like it's interesting, but like, I don't

25:36

know how many followers do you have on threads?

25:38

And this is not.

25:38

I'm not trying to I'm not trying to do a dick measuring competition

25:41

like on Moscow.

25:43

Yeah, well, well let me

25:45

just whip this out, John, Yeah, it out.

25:47

I've got a twenty six thousand. That's

25:49

pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.

25:51

But I'm kind of like, do I want to put and this is

25:53

I think an interesting question for a lot of people actually,

25:56

And I feel like Twitter and

25:58

tell me a few senses or feeling at all. The

26:00

Twitter has accelerated this feeling of

26:03

insane fatigue, social media fatigue,

26:05

and like this idea of like do I

26:07

need to be looking at this shit? And do I want to be looking

26:10

at this shit? And like is it healthy or is

26:12

it doing anything for me? My feeling has been

26:14

like over the last couple of years, but

26:16

especially since Elon took over Twitter, I'm

26:19

like, I think I just don't I can just not

26:22

look at it and it's okay, Like I'm

26:24

okay, Well.

26:25

I think you're getting at something real. Which

26:28

is that a lot of the appeal of social

26:30

networks, particularly new social networks,

26:32

it is they are a place where people can

26:35

build status and clout. You can't establish

26:37

yourself, you can gain a reputation for something.

26:40

Maybe that even turns to money for you if you associate

26:42

it with some sort of business. Right. And

26:44

then there are other people and let's we could, for example,

26:47

just call them like people in their forties who

26:49

have already achieved their status and their clout

26:52

and so they don't need to race it age us.

26:54

But they feel bad because they know that it

26:56

is actually cool to participate in new

26:58

social networks. So they just feel the spiritual

27:01

exhaustion of not needing to participate,

27:03

but realize that not participating indicates

27:06

that they've given up on their lives.

27:07

You think it's an age thing, that's interesting. I

27:09

think it's more like a amount of

27:11

time I've been blanched in social media.

27:13

I feel like I've been I feel like, you know, you you put

27:15

the they put someone put the spinach in.

27:17

You know it.

27:17

It's a big full Yeah, it's a huge

27:20

amount of spinach, and then it's just been in the water for

27:22

a pretty long time and now there's just one little tiny

27:25

speck of spinach in there. That's how I've my

27:27

feeling is about social media in general.

27:30

And I don't I don't know if it's my age. Obviously,

27:32

I've been doing it a long time. But I

27:34

also think it's like social

27:36

media doesn't feel like it's getting better and more interesting.

27:38

It feels like it's getting less good and less interesting.

27:41

I mean, it's it's as good or it's as interesting

27:44

as it ever was. I think it just sort of

27:46

depends on you know, where are you

27:48

in your life? What role is this play? Huh

27:51

see?

27:51

I disagree with

27:53

that because I think there's this general fatigue with

27:55

like the amount of stuff that people

27:57

have been getting in there, like in their diet generally.

28:00

Douch, No, you're insane. You're insane,

28:02

Josh. One hundred million people didn't just download

28:04

this app in three days because of their social media fatigue

28:07

about account love the slop that's

28:09

coming out. Okay, but you know that's a that's

28:11

a qualified audience. Okay.

28:13

Do you know what I'm saying, Like, you're not. It's not one

28:15

hundred million new it's not one hundred million new people.

28:17

It's a hundred million people from Instagram. Okay,

28:20

it's not they're not brand new. They didn't they didn't

28:22

happen by Do you know what I'm saying.

28:24

Is that your standard that in order for me to prove

28:26

that there is no social media fatigue a hundred

28:28

million people who've never tried social media before

28:30

in twenty twenty three after year.

28:32

I'm just saying like, and

28:34

I'm not trying to agree with Elon Musk or anything

28:37

here, by the way, I'm saying that,

28:40

but.

28:40

You interesting ideas about western You have

28:42

a big He's.

28:44

Got some interesting ideas. He's

28:46

got some very interesting ideas, as do his

28:48

followers. I'm saying that

28:50

if you have an audience of one billion

28:52

people, which is what I'm trying to do, You're like, hey,

28:54

guys, do you want to try this new thing we're doing, and

28:57

a hundred million people do try it, I'm

28:59

not at impressed as if you

29:01

are, like, here's a new thing

29:04

that you have to sign up for. I think

29:06

there is a difference. I mean, I'm just saying I believe there's

29:08

a difference. And I think that if you looked

29:10

at the weight of new sign ups to threads

29:12

versus people who came over from Instagram

29:14

imported their account, it's probably like ninety nine

29:17

percent people from Instagram.

29:18

I mean sure, But also like Meta launches

29:21

new apps all the time and no one ever

29:23

uses them. I mean this is the first hint

29:25

that they have had in years.

29:27

No, it's true, But there again, I'm

29:30

the agree I think they've done a masterful move

29:32

here, and I agree that I don't think

29:34

that like everybody's like fuck social media. And

29:37

I'm not saying that the one hundred million number isn't significant

29:39

because it is super significant. It's insane.

29:42

I do think there is it is a perfect

29:45

storm. I do think that a lot

29:47

of the people who are on Twitter feel like it is

29:49

degraded in quality. Plus,

29:53

it's very easy if you already are on another

29:55

social network to get onto Threads. Like there's

29:58

no waiting list, there's no fucking sign up for a weird It's

30:00

literally like, hey, do you want to check this out? And like you hit a button

30:02

and then you're on Threads. It literally imports

30:05

your bio and your photo and everything, right, So it's

30:07

like very plug and play in that sense. So I think

30:10

it's the test of time is what I'm sort of more

30:12

talking about with Threads, like will it become

30:14

a thriving, enjoyable

30:17

social media experience, Like I think we can all

30:19

argue for the most part that Instagram has has

30:22

found a way to become for the

30:24

most part, an enjoyable social media experience, even

30:26

in the face of all this bullshit. TikTok clearly

30:29

an enjoyable social media experience, even in

30:31

the face of all this bullshit, there's not a lot Snapchat,

30:33

I guess still has an audience. Twitter

30:36

is fucking now. Twitter's on its way out one way or

30:38

another. I think it's not going to

30:40

come back. I don't think it comes back. But does Threads

30:42

become does it actually become like a new Twitter?

30:46

Well, you know, I've written in

30:48

the past about this idea of like

30:50

pop up social networks, which are kind of like pop up

30:52

restaurants in your neighborhood, where basically they're

30:54

serving the same ingredients you've had at

30:56

other places, but because it's new and it's

30:59

shiny, the food flock there and they rave

31:01

about it on Yelp, and for like ten minutes,

31:03

it seems like the biggest deal in the world. But then

31:06

eventually everyone goes back to the restaurants

31:08

that they used to hear at, and that was a case of

31:10

like and l and mastedon.

31:13

Yes, exactly, you know. So, But here's

31:15

the thing, Like, I don't think Threads is the crow

31:17

neut because it already

31:19

has this critical mass of

31:21

users who actually wanted to succeed.

31:24

Right Like when peeter Elo came along, we

31:26

already had working social networks. There wasn't this

31:28

hunger for a replacement for any of them,

31:30

and so they kind of faded away. Twitter

31:33

is in a literal dust spiral. You can only

31:35

look at it like fifteen minutes a

31:37

day before it explodes. Who knows

31:39

that the Apple will even load when you tap it on your

31:41

phone. So we are just in a different

31:44

world than we were in when those other networks

31:46

launch. It's it's always risky to make

31:48

a bet about what's going to happen to a social network on day

31:51

four, But like, is there a chance that

31:53

this thing has the juice? Yes, there is a chance.

32:07

For the first time ever, I want something that Facebook

32:09

is doing to succeed, Like I'm actually liked.

32:11

No, man, let's do it

32:14

because it's it is God,

32:17

I almost said tweeted again, what are we saying threaded?

32:19

Is that what we're saying threatened?

32:23

I don't think that works. That doesn't fit.

32:25

I posted.

32:28

I don't think that's good. I don't think that's what Masari

32:31

wants. I don't think he likes that I think he's going to remove

32:34

that. That's gonna be an instant removal. I

32:37

threaded or posted a where the fuck I did. I

32:39

was like, this is a real the enemy of my enemy

32:41

is my friend situation, And I

32:43

really do feel strongly. It's like such

32:46

a strange sensation to be like, I

32:49

want this to work pretty badly,

32:51

Like I like Twitter when it was good, Like there were

32:53

parts of Twitter actually before the Nazis

32:55

really went. I mean, they were always kind of going

32:58

wild on Twitter, but they there was a period

33:00

like you know, during the Trump era, at

33:03

the beginning of Trump, it really got fucking bad

33:05

on Twitter, like it was unfun. And I would say,

33:07

since then, it's been pretty unfun. Yeah, but

33:10

before that, it was like a lot of fun, Like you could

33:12

have a lot of fun on Twitter, and there's still pockets of

33:14

it, Like I definitely want a place where like people

33:16

are gonna make stupid, weird Internet jokes, Like

33:19

I would say, the thing I miss most about looking

33:21

at Twitter is people making fucking

33:23

weird like drill shit. That's just you

33:26

honestly can't make the joke in any other

33:28

way. It's just that particular forum, you

33:30

know. Yeah, so I wanted to

33:32

win, but like, also I hate myself because

33:34

I know it means Mark Zuckerberg is gets more

33:36

of my data and more of my time.

33:39

To me. This is like a there's like a two

33:41

part equation. Okay, Like the first part of the

33:43

equation is Twitter needs to die, like

33:45

it just needs to completely disappear

33:48

from like polite society. And

33:51

that's step one. Step two is we

33:54

will bring all of the criticism and all of the scrutiny

33:56

to threads that we had previously been bringing into

33:58

threads on all the other social net works. Like I truly

34:01

believe there will be time. I also think

34:03

that MATTA has learned a lot of lessons from its previous

34:05

five or six years of disasters, and so

34:07

hopefully they'll be able to mitigate some of those problems.

34:10

But like it's a let's just

34:12

get the order of operations straight. Job one is to

34:14

kill Twitter, right, yes, and

34:16

I think pretty good jobs so far, amazing

34:19

job. But like obviously from an

34:21

audience size, and I was gonna say, Zuckerberg

34:23

posted this thing about how they haven't even done

34:25

any like promotions yet, which I think is an interesting

34:28

It's kind of like he's saying, like, you know, we

34:31

need one hundred million just by turning it on.

34:34

What would happen if we actually told other

34:36

people about it, Like, you know, I think that's what happened.

34:38

Yeah, what would happen if we tried? Yeah,

34:40

so what will happen? I think if they can get to the

34:42

if they can get the rest of the Twitter people. But

34:45

can you have a Twitter competitor or killer

34:48

without the Nazis? I guess that's the ultimate

34:50

question.

34:52

Yeah, I mean, you know, Instagram's

34:54

community guidelines are actually much more restrictive

34:57

than Twitter. So you know,

35:00

as you've probably been wondering why you're not able to post

35:02

whole on thought and the reason

35:04

keeps getting keeps getting bounced, keeps getting flagged.

35:06

Yeah yeah, well the reason is, you know, you

35:09

can't post nudity on Instagram and so you can't post

35:11

it on threads. So I mean, look, they

35:13

make decisions I disagree with. They gave Rfki

35:15

Junior his account back just because he ran for president.

35:18

So I'm sure there's gonna be problematic

35:20

actors on there, but you

35:23

know, it's it's gonna be much better, I think, than

35:25

it was on Twitter.

35:27

So it's funny because I on on Blue

35:29

Sky, I posted something about like we were there's

35:31

some conversation going on about moderation, right, and

35:33

it was like the Blue Sky people have been very

35:35

like, weirdly cagy. They're good, I mean, they want to moderate

35:38

the bad shit out of there, but they've been kind of cagy

35:40

and careful about how they talk about it. And I'm like, I

35:42

was like, I don't understand. Like Instagram,

35:45

which people fucking love, is

35:47

like one of the craziest moderation situations

35:50

I've ever experienced. Like you can literally like get

35:52

your shit taken off of Instagram

35:54

for like saying like putting the word dead in a post

35:56

or something like it is. I mean I don't even

35:59

mean in text, I mean like in an image, like if

36:01

the word People like are crossing out words like

36:03

in their posts because they don't want to get like dinged

36:06

and have their shit pulled down.

36:07

And yet weirdly, it's

36:10

a very enjoyable experience. Like I look

36:12

at.

36:12

Instagram all the time, and I know, like, well, home, I

36:14

can't see nud to you or how come I you know, can't hear

36:16

people talking about like killing people or whatever.

36:19

I'm like, Wow, this sucks my two favorite things

36:21

nudity and murder threats.

36:23

You know.

36:24

Of course I don't follow a lot of political accounts on there.

36:26

I fall some meme accounts, but like, yeah, it's fucking enjoyable,

36:29

and it's like, maybe discourse

36:31

doesn't have to be like this free speech shit is

36:33

overrated basically.

36:35

Right, Well, that's basically

36:37

what they've said is, you know, because all the journalists are sort

36:39

of like, yay, a place to post our links and

36:41

do journalism. And Adamisaria did this

36:43

sort of widely uh discussed

36:46

post where he said, we know there's gonna be journalism

36:48

on here, but we're doing nothing to encourage it. We

36:50

do not want to be like the throbbing heartbeat

36:53

of the daily news cycle. And honestly,

36:55

I think that that is mostly just marketing, right, because

36:57

they have no control over what people are posting, and people

37:00

want to share news there. People are going to share news

37:02

there, right. But I do think it speaks

37:04

to the fact that they like

37:06

the fact that news has become a much smaller

37:09

part of their products over time, and they hope

37:11

that continues.

37:12

You know. I mean, I think what he was saying in

37:15

some way was more like a signal to like the

37:18

market than than anything else. It's like,

37:20

yeah, I don't, I don't see. Maybe I'm

37:22

wrong, Maybe they do this already. I don't know how much

37:24

Meta is suppressing like news content or

37:27

I don't know, are they down are they? Do you think

37:29

they would go so far as to downrank journalists

37:31

or to like suppress news

37:34

links that are being widely shared?

37:36

Yeah, I mean so. One thing that they will

37:38

absolutely just have to decide is what

37:41

kind of weight are they going to give

37:43

to links as they are shared? Right, some some

37:46

networks are sort of treat those as neutral,

37:48

and other networks say like no, like we want you to

37:50

stay on the site, and so if it includes a link, we're

37:52

going to show it less. So that is

37:54

something that they could do. You know, it may be that

37:56

this winds up not being a great place to share news.

38:00

But you know, again us the

38:02

news, because I'm so far zero

38:05

on that. I've been this whole NonStop

38:07

pole posted just getting rejected. But yeah,

38:12

I'm talking about the news, you

38:14

know. But again, if I think

38:17

that even though they say they don't want

38:19

it to replace Twitter's function as kind

38:21

of the like the newsroom of the world,

38:23

I think if it became the newsroom of the world. They

38:25

would find a way to get excited about it, because at

38:28

the end of the day, they want what everyone else wants,

38:30

which is status and money, And if they can get

38:32

status and money from being the world's newsroom, they

38:34

will be the world's newsroom. Right.

38:36

Well, I mean, I think it seems to be trending,

38:39

at least in the direction that it has

38:41

the same basic functionality as Twitter.

38:43

If you are a person who does news, like you

38:45

can go on here and like post

38:47

a news link and it doesn't like as far as I

38:49

know, it's not like knocking them down a peg or

38:52

something, and it seems like they're just links, right.

38:54

I hear that there are like right wing people

38:56

on it. I have not seen any

38:58

really. I went to ban or sorry

39:00

not banned, to block some people who I did not definitely

39:03

not want to see who are on it, like George

39:05

Santos for instance, who I just I don't need

39:08

to hear anything from him whatsoever.

39:09

Oh, really, you don't like a gay

39:12

elected officials, Josh? I Uh,

39:15

what I hate most is his

39:17

gayness.

39:18

No.

39:18

I I love

39:20

that he's gay. I hate everything else.

39:22

I'm a big, big on his a big fan of his being

39:25

gay just not a fan of all the other stuff.

39:27

He was simply just gay, that would be great,

39:30

But he's so much more complex

39:32

than that. And I think that's true of many in the community.

39:35

Honestly, when you when you think about that, it's

39:38

it's a divers and complex community of people

39:40

who are you know, some people are gay, some

39:42

people are gay, and a bunch of other stuff like

39:45

George Santos. No,

39:47

but like but yeah, but like is it do you get a sense

39:50

that like the truth social folks or the

39:52

Twitter people are like flying over

39:54

to like occupy their space or are

39:56

they like, hey, soon we can have all of Twitter,

39:59

which they don't realize how it will actually be.

40:01

Oh, I mean, well, the best was that

40:03

some of Elon's minions, like the people

40:06

who were falling all over themselves

40:08

to suck up to Elon when he took over Twitter. There

40:11

was kind of this question of how long will

40:13

they be able to resist joining

40:15

threads because it's clear that that's where the action is going

40:17

to be. Yeah, and number one on that list was Jason Kalakano.

40:20

Yeah, advisor to Elon, and Jason

40:22

didn't even make it forty eight hours

40:24

before he joined Threads to you know, take

40:27

some patcha yeah.

40:28

So to make fun of Zuckerberg, but like

40:31

you're here, You're here, you showed up.

40:33

Yeah yeah, yeah. So it's like even the people

40:35

that are like Elon is, you know, he's mister business

40:37

genius and he's gonna prove you all wrong. Even

40:40

those people are ready to abandon ship. You know.

40:42

I'm loving I mean, I am loving that shit.

40:44

I have to say from a from a crow eating

40:46

perspective, it is a very very

40:48

delicious meal to witness. All right,

40:51

so we really quickly, we gotta we do have

40:53

to wrap up. Although I am enjoying, I gotta

40:55

say, Casey, it is. It is so fun to talk

40:57

to you. It is just like you just a

40:59

giggle f I love talking to you.

41:01

It's a good it is. Give me a.

41:03

Prediction, lay it out. Where do you see this all

41:05

headed? Give me give me the year ahead

41:07

for Threads and Twitter.

41:09

So I predict that

41:12

at this time next year, Threads

41:14

will be the biggest text based social network,

41:17

and I think it will have largely supplanted

41:19

the role that Twitter plays in the news ecosystem

41:21

today. So that is my actual approsse.

41:23

Okay, you stand, you'll stand by you feeling good,

41:25

you feeling good about that, you can stand by that prediction.

41:27

I think it just all the ingredients

41:29

are in place and all of the right people

41:32

want it to app. It would be one thing if only Meta wanted

41:34

this, Like what Meta wants actually matters

41:36

the least. What matters is that the user

41:38

base want the fact that like you a person,

41:40

you know, you've been very critical of Facebook. I've

41:42

been very critical of Facebook. I talked to other reporters.

41:45

They're all saying the same thing, which is, thank god

41:47

this thing is here. Yeah, those

41:49

people who are who are the most likely

41:51

to have said screw this whole thing, are all

41:54

in. I think it wins.

41:56

It is very deranged. It is a little bit

41:58

of a so so, okay, where is Twitter In

42:01

a year from now.

42:02

Twitter is going

42:04

to be like, here's

42:08

the thing. The app will still exist. I

42:10

think I'm

42:14

not sure that I would confidently predict this,

42:16

but I think there's a very good chance that

42:18

it is bankrupt. And I think that a year from

42:20

now Elon Musk is seriously exploring

42:23

how to unwind his ownership of the app.

42:26

Yeah, I mean that checks out for sure.

42:28

Yeah, I mean this all sounds right.

42:31

To me, I have very little to disagree with. I

42:33

feel like I don't know, I would

42:35

be more sad. I guess, like, here's the thing. A

42:37

part of me is just like realizes that recognizes

42:40

that if we want to use a social media

42:42

platform of some type, it's not I

42:44

mean, I understand the whole like fetaverse and the

42:47

masset On thing, and that's cool. Like if

42:49

they can make it work, well I'm totally into

42:51

it and I'll keep

42:53

posting there or whatever. But like I

42:56

think we all acknowledge like whether it's Jack

42:58

Dorsey or Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg,

43:01

like one of these people that we probably

43:03

wouldn't love to hang out with in person,

43:05

wouldn't make you know, wouldn't make a best

43:08

friend, and have nefarious,

43:10

kind of shitty reasons for doing the business they do, are

43:12

going to run the social network, whatever one

43:15

it is, it's going to be some person

43:17

like that. So I feel like, you know, I'm kind of like,

43:19

yeah, do I care if in this case,

43:22

like I clearly don't care in the case of Instagram, Do

43:26

I care in this case if like it's owned

43:28

by Mark Zuckerberg versus Ela Muskin, Like,

43:30

but we.

43:31

Haven't even talked about the fact that it's decentralized,

43:33

which is the actual answer that, well, like, you're

43:35

going to be able to set up your own server and you're going

43:37

to be able to have your posts appear on threads

43:39

even though Meta doesn't operate

43:42

it.

43:42

They say that. They say that, and I think

43:44

there's a common belief that they are doing that partially

43:47

because if they basically make it

43:49

a part of the fetiverse, right is what would

43:51

happen. They can basically

43:53

get away with doing whatever moderation

43:55

they want. They say, Hey, no, you can the post here,

43:58

you can set up your own server and your own rules and bob blah

44:00

blah, and then they don't have to worry about being the

44:02

arbiters of free speech or whatever on their

44:05

own rock. Which is a good answer to that problem, by

44:07

the way, it's a great answer, and it's it's the one

44:09

we're all looking for.

44:10

I think.

44:12

I also feel like, I don't know, it's a little bit

44:14

like if nobody

44:16

cares that much about the moderation, which I feel

44:18

like it's possible, like maybe nobody really at

44:20

this point will care that much. People care, like you

44:22

don't hear the right wing people being like Instagram suppressing

44:25

my I mean, Donald Trump Junior, I think did ye.

44:27

But I read about content moderation

44:29

all the time. This is such a perfect all time case study

44:32

because people are leaving Twitter because it did

44:34

not have content moderation. Like the failure

44:36

of content moderation on Twitter created the opportunity

44:38

for threads. You got one hundred million US.

44:41

I mean, yeah, the idea that whatever,

44:44

well, first off, I mean, it wasn't a free speech utopia.

44:46

It was the speech that Elon Musk

44:48

likes best, which is like weird,

44:51

weirdly anti semitic and racist

44:54

and like really.

44:55

Bad transphobic a lot of things.

44:57

Yeah, yeah, super transphobic, like just fucking

45:00

weird bad, Like you could just not say shit, you

45:02

know, if you're if I were the richest man in the world,

45:05

if I if which I think he is now currently,

45:08

I would simply not post my

45:10

personal feelings about things on the Internet.

45:12

I would just keep them to myself because I could

45:14

just change those things. I could just literally buy the

45:16

thing and get rid of it if I didn't like it. This

45:21

is what we all think, but all the billionaires

45:24

do wind up posting.

45:25

I think it's one of the only ways they can feel like Jos

45:27

supposed to become a certain reson.

45:29

You saw the what do you drink for a

45:31

hangover? Or what do you eat after a hangover?

45:33

Asking for a friend or whatever. I'm sorry,

45:35

dude, I'm you gotta get another fucking

45:38

hobby. Like you do not need to be on social

45:40

media. You're Jeff Bezos, like buy

45:43

a country, like I don't know, like find something

45:45

fun to do this chrassty

45:48

you know what?

45:48

You know how that one episode of House of the

45:50

Dragon, the like princesses like put on disguises

45:53

and go mingle with the comedy folk like that, That's

45:55

what Jeff Bezos was also kind of the plot of a lad

45:57

and I now realize and it was also famous

46:00

the plot of Aladdin. Yeah, I hope that the creators

46:02

of House of Dragon answer for that anymore youth.

46:04

Yes, seriously, they need to be brought to justice,

46:08

you think.

46:08

Sorry, just to be clear, you think they

46:11

like it because they get to mingle with the commoners.

46:14

Is that what you're saying? They want to feel somethdate,

46:16

what's your a certain level of rich? You cannot feel

46:18

anything anymore. There are no comps.

46:20

You could do whatever you want. There are no consequence to

46:22

pay to feel something. They can get someone to make them

46:24

feel. So I

46:26

don't know, Man, that's interesting.

46:28

No, they want that little hit. It's it's the adrenaline

46:31

rush them. I'm gonna go step out of the public square and maybe

46:33

they're gonna throw egsit me, but maybe they'll think I'm really yes.

46:35

So man, it'd be so cool if they had something

46:37

interesting to say. Imaginef they stepped

46:39

out of the public square and said cool shit. Like

46:42

it's kind of hard to imagine, right, Like

46:44

like what like, man, the Ramones were

46:47

great in nineteen seventy eight.

46:48

Yeah, I don't know.

46:49

I don't know because I guess I'm not them, but I would definitely

46:52

say something like other than the

46:55

trans people shouldn't exist or whatever the thing

46:57

they came up with, like or

47:00

should I drink? What should I eat after a hang for

47:02

a hangover? Like I'm sorry, Like it's got to

47:04

be some other thing to say. Yeah,

47:07

anyhow, all right, I think we got to wrap up here. I think we've

47:09

devolved into I don't know, I don't know what we've

47:11

devolved into.

47:12

Casey.

47:13

As always, this has been absolutely

47:15

delightful, so fun and educational.

47:18

Yeah, and uh, you know, I got

47:20

a lot of information, but it was presented in a way

47:22

that was digestible and enjoyable. And I think

47:24

like, that's one of your talents. You

47:26

can just put you put it out there. But people are

47:29

like, that's great.

47:29

I get it. I understand it. Casey made it. Casey

47:31

made me understand I love it. I love what I

47:34

do. It's you're the best. You'll have to come back.

47:36

Again in a year. Now, you're gonna come back soon

47:38

to the in a year, but for sure we should mark

47:40

this date down. We're going to do

47:42

it, revisit this in one year, and we can get

47:44

to see how close you were on your predictions, which I

47:47

think will be ah, really exciting. I

47:49

love it. Let's find out, all right, And then

47:51

in the meantime, follow a Casey

47:54

on threads. He's at Crumbler.

47:57

Crumbler isn't Crumbler. It's

47:59

not great, It's not great. I really

48:01

should have just gotten my full name.

48:02

Is it Sea Rumbler? Is that it's Crumbler.

48:05

It's Sea Rumbler. Yeah, I wanted to use

48:07

their name. That Ryan was Tumblr, which was very hot

48:09

in twenty ten when Instagram launched so

48:12

and you can also follow me. I'm just Joshua Zapolski

48:15

because I just decided at one point I was gonna use

48:17

my full giant, horrible name every

48:19

on every social network, which

48:21

was ultimately genius Day. But no,

48:24

no, it is what it is.

48:25

And anyway, check us out on threads. We're dropping some sick

48:27

posts on there, both of us. I mean, just incredible

48:30

content.

48:30

Yeah, tell us which way you

48:32

put put the milk in here?

48:33

Yeah, we're like, I just dropped a big bod.

48:36

It's is a hot dog of sandwich. It's getting

48:38

a lot of get a lot of heat

48:40

right now.

48:41

It got a lot of I think. Fuck.

48:42

Jerry actually just stole it and posted

48:44

it on their thread, so it's

48:47

it's really heating up out there.

48:52

Oh, thank you so much. This is

48:54

super fun. You got to come back and do it again. Yeah, I have

48:56

you anytime.

49:03

Well, I think we've learned

49:05

a lot here. I think we've learned a lot on the show. I

49:07

think what we now know is that if

49:09

Casey and I podcasts together, we will

49:11

giggle like little children

49:14

for most of it. And I'm assuming

49:16

annoying the listener tremendously, but

49:19

also I think we've solved the riddle of social

49:21

media, and that's a you know, that's

49:23

huge for us. I think we have

49:26

personally made some great strides in helping

49:28

humanity move towards it's the next stage of

49:30

evolution, where we will all become

49:33

glowing orbs of pure thought and communicate

49:36

by telepathy, or we'll

49:38

just all be using threads, you know, which is almost

49:41

the same thing.

49:43

Well, that is our show for this week.

49:45

We will be back next week with more what future,

49:47

and as always, I wish you and your family the

49:50

very best.