The State of the Media

My name is Alex Cox, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. It's showtime, folks. Enjoy the show.

Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. To provide more cooling in the containment chambers. To your sentience, we have a movie meltdown. Well, that's the trouble with the world, sir, about it. People got different ideas concerning what they want out of life.

What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I am Brian, and joining me once again via the magic of the internet is. Sammy D. Oh, no, that guy. It's the optimistic version.

Not that guy. It's the optimistic mod. I mean, yeah, knowing you, that's very optimistic for you. Sammy D, everybody. Oh, no.

We got to restart. I don't know. I'm kind of liking this, like, old school DJ action. Like a Wolfman Jack. Hey, what's up?

Sammy D spinning tunes for you. The episode is already unlistenable. I mean, we start off, off the rails, you know, that's, I don't like having rails, so, you know, I just like to, you know, shove the train right over into the dirt. There we go, off the cliff, there we go. Okay, man, yeah, yeah, hey, Sam, here, hi, yeah.

Um, how's it going? It's going good, man. What is happening over there, dude? Uh surviving surviving that's what as we were like deciding to put one together i was like do we talk about a specific thing and i was like you weren't totally sold on that either so i was like how about we just i mean we've gotten through the holiday we've gotten through that other holiday we've kicked off a whole new year so i'm like how about we just do a generalized rambling session is actually what ours usually are but also just generalized in the sort of state of affairs that the world is in. Okay, maybe not the whole world.

Maybe the entertainment world we should focus on. The Venezuela cast. Oh, Lord. Probably don't want to go down that road. At least take a look at the world as a whole and where we've gone this past year and where we're headed into the future.

A bunch of dumb thoughts in between. I figured that's where we would land in this ramble fest. Yeah, no, that's cool. That's cool. That's a good, that's a good, I forget that it's the new year and that, yeah, there could be like some pensive retrospection over the last 2025 of like in pop culture or like what we've viewed or what we noticed.

That's a great idea. That's a great idea. I don't normally do that myself at the end of any year because I feel like on a daily basis, I'm doing that. I'm just like, Every day is, what am I doing with my life? So, like, I don't need to wait until I get to December or January to do that.

Like, every day is like, oh, God, what's going on? I mean, so this will be a novelty for me. I'm like, oh, once a year. We'll pretend like it's, you. Know, different now.

Yeah, there we go. There we go. A little status check. A little, what do you call it? Taking stock.

Oh, man, this might be the really depressing episode. Yeah. Never. Not our episode. Sammy D!

Anyway. So, where to begin? Where to begin? For real, for real. I had a.

Few random things that have come up lately that I'm like, that's a nice little snapshot of the world we're living in. Okay, go for it. So, um... One of them was, and this, I don't know if you saw this, I don't know if it's officially become a meme. Like originally I saw it as like a post, but then I saw another person completely disconnected from the original person post kind of the same thing.

So I'm like, maybe this is just its own secondary meme taking on a life of its own sort of a thing. But there was a girl that i think the original one was like i'm guessing 20 ish girl that posted something along the lines of i've never seen a black and white movie what should i watch and i was like first of all i was because that's why i had to click on i was like how fucking old are you when you've never seen a black and white movie first of all was my original annoyance but then on top of that i was like all right she looks like a 20 something i guess that could happen if you're like a normal mainstream ass person you could probably go to your 20 and not see a black and white movie especially kids now that don't seek out movies the way that I certainly did as a child.

So yeah, I don't know. What are your thoughts on the concept of that? I don't know that we want to pick what's your favorite one to start with. Cause again, I was more annoyed and like floored by the concept of the question than the actual, Oh, let me give you a suggestion. No, no.

Listen, dude, I think this is old man rage bait. Okay. This is, This is going like, look at me, I'm so young, and I've never even seen a black and white movie. I think it's supposed to just make people our age angry, and that's all I can say. I think they're trying to get enragement fuels engagement.

And I think they're just trying to make those angry old men angrier. Knowing the internet, I would think that's what it was. What's weird is when I clicked on the comments, people were just suggesting stuff. Like, it was normal. So I was like, maybe it's a bunch of other 20-year-olds going, oh, I saw this one.

You should watch this one. So maybe it was just people of the similar mindset that were like connecting with a, yeah, this movie is almost tolerable even though there's no color. Like, so I don't know. I was surprised it was a bunch of movie suggestions with no judgment, which I had nothing but judgment. I know.

I was kind of shocked. So, so maybe it's like a real thing where people have not seen black and white movies before. Maybe is that possible this i maybe she was earnest in her hey give me a suggestion i am ignorant but i want information like i don't i don't buy any of this but i'm suggesting it as a possible thing that could happen but it could happen. Yeah you know there's those memes where they go like uh Let's see this girl describe the plot of Star Wars. And it just fuels the incel rage against non.

I mean, that was one of the more entertaining things that ever happened. No one remembers that episode, I'm sure, but... Rose was adorable and she was a guest years ago and she had never seen, like literally she was a like early twenties girl and had never seen Star Wars. So listening to her try to describe it through her pop cultural osmosis, I was just like, ah, that was adorable. So, so it's fun.

It's, you know, I am okay with that as a concept, but again, I feel like it's, it's, harder to be disconnected from at least the basic way that pop culture infiltrates society now you know it's like it would be hard to not know what a yoda is because baby yoda is plastered all over everything so like every store you go in has 14 different products with baby yoda so like it's it would be hard to be disconnected from at least the overall scope of what this stuff. Is But a black and white movie, though. I mean, that kind of just. Well, I mean, you're going back pretty far, truthfully. It's not even like Star Wars.

Star Wars is the 70s. Yeah. Black and white was already gated by the 70s, so... Yeah, yeah. Going way back there.

Most people don't go more than, like, five years and stuff's old, so... Yeah, that's true. That's true. I think we gotta put it in scope of, like, normal people, not us. Got it.

Got it. We're, you know... Yes. Yeah. There was.

Yeah, because I was going like, I was thinking the other day about The Fly, as you do, and then you go like, well, the first one was 1958, and I go like, well, 1958, it doesn't seem like that old now to me. You are an old man. Yeah, so 1958 to 1986, I mean, that's less than. 30 years ago. And and then I go like, well, when did the 90s happen?

Oh, I like that you have to question that. Yeah. And then you go like, oh, so it would be like them basically remaking a movie from the 90s now, which, you know, everybody got all upset, you know, when they started doing that back a few years back, you know, when that cycle ran. So then I go like, oh, oh. it really wasn't that uh and so yeah time is weird time is i think i think the what that comment makes me think of is just how weird time is and that yeah black and white movies were probably dated i know my stepdad used to go like uh go like, well, had they had color... He was pro-colorization of movies.

He was going like, had they had color, they would have. Ed Turner's favorite son. Yeah, yeah. They would have shot it in color had they had color film. And I'm going, maybe?

I mean, I don't know. Maybe it was just a... I don't know. It makes my head spin a little bit. See, I was just raised on a lot of.

It's weird. Brian is weird. It's bubbling up all sorts of emotions for me that people don't watch black and white movies. Uh, it's just, uh. Here's a concept.

I don't even know how to describe to a kid today. There were TVs that were just that. Yeah. You couldn't get color on it. It was a black and white television.

I don't think you could make that make sense to a kid. Brian, I do something at the house. Uh, And, uh, I find, uh, no, this is just sad. All right. Now this is just like the, the, the spectrum I'm on.

I find any movie is good. If you turn off the color and play your own soundtrack and just watch it like a silent movie. All right. I just like some sort of art house band. Yeah.

Like, I'm going to play my cool music, and you guys are going to watch this old-timey movie behind me, and you're going to think that we're super deep because of it. Yeah, yeah. I've seen many a good show that I like that was that, actually. That's it. That's it.

Well, you can really, like... Oh, my gosh. I'm sounding so douchey. But you can just really appreciate... You can... it helps if you've seen the movie, I'm sure, but you can really sort of see like how the movie is just told visually, if you turn off the sound and just play your own music that you like, you know?

Um, and, uh, I appreciate, I go like this movie is okay, but if you turn off the sound and, and you know, the black and white is take or leave it. All right. I will try to watch, uh, Howling 2 the other day with the sound off in the black and white. He's a genius, I tell you. A genius.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I was doing that test. I'm kind of field testing Howling 2 these days. And I was going like, okay, this doesn't really... I played goth music and turned it black and white.

And I guess it's called Dark Wave. Anyway, and so I was listening... And I was watching, I go like, actually in this one, this one here is so 1985 that the garish colors actually are part of the storytelling. So yeah, I had to turn it back up, but I watched like some other stuff and I go like, you know, this is better black and white. And with, uh, you know, 140 beat music playing.

You need Howling 2 and K-pop. That's what you need. That's it. That's it. Let's go.

And I just recently watched all the black and white mummy movies. So I'm sort of indoctrinated into, uh, black and white, you know, I don't know. I've just been watching so much of it lately and kind of prefer it. And in fact, like, uh, Del Toro on Hulu released the black and white version of, uh, nightmare alley. And it's, uh, Freaking beautiful.

I mean, it's just a great way to watch that movie. And the Godzilla minus zero in black and white is the only way I've seen it. And it's a beautiful movie. That's what I thought was weird about that question. I was like, I don't know that one or the other, like you either... it black and white or you don't like i don't think what i'm like my only question was i don't know wizard of oz because it eases you in right it's like right here's a little black and white and then a whole bunch of color like so maybe it's like because you're crossing that boundary you can you know pleasant bill i don't know what something that bridges the for you but i was like other than that like why one black and white movie over another either you like it or you don't, or you get it or you don't.

Like, I don't, yeah, I don't know. It was weird. I was like, I don't understand this question really. Okay, look, there's like, whatchamacallit. Okay, so this is just an old man rant.

Okay, well, okay, yes, I agree that black and white movies, for a person who, you know, was born post-2000, a black and white movie is an ancient artifact probably to them. So I can see how they would see it like, it'd be like reading the Old Testament. You know, it's like, what relevance does this have at all in my life? Hey, that's my question all the time. I question religion way more than black and white movies.

So, yeah. So, I mean, if people are like rejecting religion nowadays as having no relevance, I mean, surely then a black and white movie is next on the chopping block. And we're like, that's for me. Burn them. Yeah.

I mean, so it's like, uh, uh, no, it's, it's, so it's bonkers, but you know, it's, uh, it saddens me, but it, uh, but I get it. I get it. I don't think I, I probably, when I was, you know, uh, a kid, I would say like, oh, it's black and white. This is probably stodgy and boring, you know, but, uh, but you know, I was also raised, I mean, we had young Frankenstein playing on the loop in our house. So it was always there, and I was always watching, like, the Universal stuff.

And, I mean, black and white movies were just in circulation still, you know? It was still a somewhat regular thing. Yeah. But also, I think, if you are a movie person, like, you delve into those, and you're like, oh, there was a lot going on back then. So it's like, even stuff that you... we'll kind of write off of like, oh, this is going to be sort of old timey, you know, as a feeling.

Sometimes you'll hit that movie and like, whoa, no, this is very like locked in and relevant to me right now, even though it was shot, you know, 70 years ago. So like sometimes the stories are way more modern than you would expect really. Oh, dude, I did a whole, I did a whole thing on mummy movies. All right. um brian uh movie meltdown is is always my number one podcast okay but i've got kind of a side chick here. How dare you i know i thought i knew you i mean i listen to other ones so what am i gonna.

Say yeah yeah yeah no it's i am. Very picky as time going has gone on though i'm like I can't listen to this one. So I get it. I get why people pick and choose what they do. Somebody from my Georgia State days started one.

So they asked me to pinch hit or something like that. So they were doing the mummy movies, right? And so I watched all these mummy movies from the Universal kit. Because I have the Blu-ray set. And so I was like, I will never watch these.

So this gives me an excuse to watch my mummy movies. But I was shocked. at these throwaway mummy movies, not the Boris Karloff one, but the ones they made later, they're all kind of interchangeable. I remember I really liked The Mummy's Hand. Yeah. I remember late night television laying there watching that one going, this is fun, I like this.

Yeah, yeah. The Mummy, well, yeah, so The Mummy movies, though, when you watch them with a critical eye nowadays, they're very relevant to the day. And actually, you know, I don't know if it's just you projecting stuff into it, but they were all made during wartime. And so what they're kind of saying about like America attitudes to like, you know, a foreign threat is really kind of real interesting. And there's real interesting like kind of propaganda moments where this guy gets drafted and they go like, oh, isn't it great that you've gotten drafted?

He's like, oh, yeah, finally get away from these bullies. boring uh problems at home and can actually make a difference you know that kind of that kind of dialogue you know. That's how everybody goes into that situation that's it. That's it right it was like a party it was like a celebration you know um so uh so yeah no so these these old movies as we're saying they're just uh they're just uh uh yeah it's amazing what it's amazing how much things haven't changed, you know, and, uh, the problems that they're facing or the themes of these old movies are, are still very relevant in a lot of ways, you know? And, uh, but yeah, it kind of blows my mind that, uh, that they are, uh, that black and white is maybe being rediscovered, which is, which is great.

I mean, it kind of, the, the, the, the shock that somebody hasn't seen one is, you know, it's like, what? You know, because, I mean, Brian, we're just, like, completely immersed in movies. So, I mean, it's like. And geek culture, specifically movie geek culture, like, those are, like, a place of honor. Like, these are the old classics.

And, like, we treat them that way if you're really a movie person. So, like, yeah, it changes that whole way that you look at things. Yeah. And, and so I'll just throw this out. Uh, cause you know, there's a, there's a push nowadays to, of like my, uh, people, people I know who like to make their own little films and, There's a push nowadays to shoot things vertically.

Oh, my God. This bugs me so much. Let me tell you, dude. It makes me insane. It makes me insane.

Because I've tried to film things lately just to start putting on streams to have something to post. And, again, mine don't involve actual humans. Right. Right. Because you have to choose the format that you're saving things in and posting them in.

And I'm like, if you do it the way it's supposed to be, it won't work right on specific types of content. apps and shit like i'm just like it's so frustrating because i'm like but i don't want it like this i'm the artist damn it i should get to do it the way i want and like you can do you want to post it over here well then you got to do it stupid make up your mind which do you want do you want to post it or do you want to have it look stupid these are your options so i yeah i get what you're saying but but continue because yeah i feel the pain Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. So it's, uh, so, you know, there's like talks about, I mean, there's like vertically shot film festivals being created and there's whole like, uh, channels of, they're kind of like Telemundo, uh, uh, you know, like Spanish speaking soap opera channels where they're just like these little, uh, minute long episodes shot vertically of kind of like, you know, soap opera type plots, you know?

And, uh, it gets a lot of attention and I'm like, please, you know, and I remember like a few years, I mean, it was probably five years ago. Uh, there was like some, uh, streaming short film channel that had Spielberg and, uh, like some big names behind it and it didn't work, but you know, they, they shot everything to be able to be watched vertically or, you know, landscape, you know, uh, And, you know, Joe Dante on his podcast was just like... You know, he was mad. I can't imagine him being upset about new modern things. You know he's mad.

He's so open-minded about things. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't want to live in the olden days of film. Yeah, yeah. Oh, wait, we all share that.

Never mind. So I think it's like... So it kind of drives me crazy. Because, I mean, what are they going to... Are they going to start making vertical movie theaters?

Or is just like a lot of. You know, is a lot of like, are they just going to like a lot of the screen real estate going to be? The fancy ones have the screens that move in, you know, the curtains move in on the side anyway, depending on what aspect ratio you're in. So I guess we're all going to see. That's the thing.

Years ago, I had someone that used to listen to the show. And like the first time I heard it described, they were like, oh, they soda canned it. So you're looking at your video, and it's the shape of a soda can instead of a widescreen movie theater. And I was like, ever since then, I'm like, yeah, that's not the way you shoot something. No, that's not the way it should be done.

That's not the aesthetic you want to go for. But I guess, again, maybe that's a generational thing. Maybe kids that have done nothing but. See things, they only watch things on their phone, and you're only shooting, if you bother to shoot things, you're shooting it with your phone, and they're so used to holding it that way, seeing it that way, that that's the only way that makes sense, I guess? Like, I don't know, it doesn't process to me, but I'm like, I also came from a different era, so like, I'm, Trying to at least throw that out as, like, a reason behind it.

I still don't like it. Like, I'm trying to at least wrap my head around why. Why would you do that? But if you don't know anything else, like, I guess it makes sense. Yeah.

No, it makes me crazy. And, okay, so I can, I had a, I did a little acting thing in a short film that a buddy of mine did. And he shot it vertically. And I was going like, what are you doing? But he shot it all on his iPhones and, uh, you know, did a really good job with it and it looks good.

And, you know, uh, he cut it and it's a, it's a cool little flick. He did shoot it vertically and I was going like, so I had to like deal with my prejudice of it. Um, and I would say, uh, what it did well was like, close-ups you know like. That's what i realized with the thing i was doing is like well it makes everything closer but also you're losing this again i'm back to explaining letterbox to people all of a sudden but i'm shooting something over here on the right hand side and you can't see it now because it's out of the frame like right i. Don't know yeah i know it's like everything's pan and scan again you.

Know i know it's like we're back to the old days i'm like i i almost strangled people back in the old days when they're like, no, it cuts off the sides of the movie. I'm like, no, it doesn't. That's the whole point of it. Don't you guys, dude, does anybody not remember Anchor Bay? I mean, who am I?

Has anyone watched something on regular television back in the old days when they had nothing else? They had to paint and scan everything, and you're like, what are we zooming around for? Like, what is this? Because you're trying to make sense of stuff on a giant horizontal screen, and you've got this square box to put it in. Yeah, it's like, why is this guy talking to somebody's nose?

You know what I mean? Why did they frame it that way? Yeah, yeah, I don't get it. I don't get it. And now you see like, yeah, movie clips being shown on Instagram and it is just pan and scan again, you know, because they're not going to play it at the right ratio.

Oh man, it's just film nerd rage. So I think it's, I think, look, if people want to shoot their movies vertically, please do it. Prove me, you know, prove me wrong. You know, but I mean, do it. If you see artistic, you know, license in it, the little thing I did, acted in i i saw the i saw the benefits of it but it is like such a leap i've been so trained not to see it that way i see it as like pandering to the where the technology is going and like people should just uh learn to watch movies the right way.

It seems like such a challenge like just because like staging action. I'm like, it makes sense when you go widescreen because you've got stuff over here, stuff over here. If you're doing that, but especially now, because phones like they've gotten longer than like even your old school aspect ratio changes. So like now, unless you're like the entire plot of what you're doing is about an airplane way over here in the background of the top of your screen. Like what else is going on?

That's so far above the heads of people that you still need in frame. Yeah. It just doesn't seem the way you would frame shooting a normal scene, unless it's something weird that you need extra head space. Yeah. And if you frame it down on them, then you've got this, I don't know, it just seems like it's laid out all wrong for a normal scene that you would set up.

Agreed, agreed. And it's like, yeah, as I said, it's great for a close-up. If you want somebody's face to fill the entire frame... and see every little twitch and pore and nuance, because that's what it was designed for, for, like, you know. But even then, you've got either a big empty spot above their head, or you've got their entire torso that you're now also half kind of zooming in on, because that's the ratio. Like, it just doesn't, like, where otherwise you could zoom in on their face and have other characters there, or something going on in the background.

But, like, now you're either so zoomed in that you're just this little vertical... stripe bump in the middle of their face. I don't know. It's like, it's so weird. It's, it's so weird. It's so weird.

I'll send you the link of that, that short film. You'll see like just from the first shot, how, how that was like, uh, kind of cool. But the rest of it, you, I mean, he did great with it. He did great with it, but it was just, uh, it is like, I mean, can you imagine Halloween like shot vertically? Yeah.

I mean, everything, anything I'm trying to put in that spot, I'm like, but no, that would mess up the whole thing. Like, I don't know, man. And again, maybe it's just my brain is locked in decades of old stuff that I don't know how, but a kid that's never seen anything but their phone, like that's all they watch is their phone. Like, why would it be different? You know, like, I don't know.

I don't, I don't get it. But again, maybe we're the dinosaurs here. Maybe we're the dying breed. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we are men of a certain age who think movies should look a certain way or we prefer it a certain way.

And so a vertically shot movie is an athema to us. It's probably not the right word. But if the culture is moving towards vertically shot movies, I would say, yeah, a black and white movie. In black and white. Vertical black and white movie would make someone, both parties' heads explode.

The old people would be like, why is it shot like that? And then kids would be like, where did the color go? So no one's going to be happy with that. Yeah. Yeah.

But it seems like everybody knows Instagram filters. I mean, there is a black and white filter for your. All the artsy stuff. People are like, look how cool I look here in my fancy sepia tone. We did a...

For Christmas, we did the. We did like a dollar store run. But they sold like little... They had film cameras, you know, like little cheap ones and they had black and white film. And so I know my 14 year old bought like three rolls of black and white film and, uh, uh, a snap camera.

All right. And so it was cool. I got to show, uh, how to load it and, you know, advance it and blah, blah, blah. It was real simple, you know, but I haven't loaded a film camera probably in a decade, you know? True.

I mean, I have a 35 millimeter camera sitting around somewhere, but I would not tell you the last time I put film in it. Absolutely. Absolutely. I still have my old, old Pentax one that I got in college. And, uh, man, I had a one 10.

You remember the one tens? I had a long one 10 that I love. Cause you could shove it in your back pocket. I'm a guy, so I'm not carrying a bag with me all the time. So it was the only one that you could just shove in your pocket and take places.

And I think about that sometimes. Like, man, I took that so many different... Again, I didn't go that many places. But anytime I went somewhere to take photos, I had that camera on me. And then it just quit working and I had to buy a good camera or whatever.

It's not like those were fancy, but... Yeah, I remember how much, like, use I got out of that cheap 110 camera for music. Absolutely, dude. Absolutely. Yeah, and you had 12 shots, you know, or 24, you know, and.

Big money, 36 sometimes. Yeah, yeah, big money. Or, you know, and if you spend money, more money for, like, you know, faster film, you know, so you could, you know, not have to be shot in, like, beautiful blue sky sunny. You know, this is, like, 100 film that she got. So, you know, it's got to be, you know.

You got to be outside. Outside, you know, beautiful sunny day to get anything out of it. But it was cool, it was cool. But yeah, so, I mean, it was like a curiosity relic, you know, she's like, eh, this would be kind of interesting to try, you know? And, um.

Well, you've seen, they also did like a camera like that now, that like now, because they were doing filters for like shooting on your iPhone, but you could make it look like, you know, 8mm or something. But now there's actually a camera, more or less, that you buy, that I don't remember if you attach it to your regular camera or if it's actually its own functioning camera, but it's essentially set up to mimic like 8mm, 16mm, like it's actually set up to be, look, this looks like it was, or maybe there's some version of it that's kind of shot like it's old-timey film, but it's still able to, you know, take it off and use it like digital technology. Yeah, there is, just in this last year, I've seen them like advertising that a whole bunch, so that's awesome.

Dang. That's also a thing that's come back now. It's like its own physical, shoot it like it's a Super 8 camera. Yeah. I haven't seen what you're talking about, but I have seen one where it does shoot Super 8, but when you send it in, they just send you back a thumb drive.

They send you back the developed film, but they also send it back to you all on a thumb drive, so you can just put it in your editing software, which I think is pretty cool. I've got eight millimeter film equipment that I inherited from a friend when he sold everything, uh, sold everything he owns and bought a Winnebago. Uh, and, uh, ah, that step in life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that, so I got all his stuff.

So I've got some really good equipment, you know, I want to shoot something on it, you know, I've got a little idea, but you know, it is so much more expensive, you know? Uh, so it's like a, that's like a, you know, a brooding project and everything. But, no, I like that look. I mean, everything's, because everything's so clean on the iPhone. Everything, digital technology has gotten so good that, and you kind of have so many options.

I think I would like to just shoot something where my only option is, you know, straight cuts and no trickery, you know. I found one of the ones I've seen pop up. This one's called Camp Snaps. It is a eight digital video camera, but like their little sales pitch here, specifically like, film style filters. Scroll through vintage inspired filters, faded sepia, grainy analog, washed retro tones, black and white, standard film look.

Choose your aspect ratio, dial to your vibe. 9-16-6-9-1-1-4-3. So, like, this one has, but it has, like, an SD card that you put it on. Nice. But it's still got a weird little meter with a needle on it, like your light filter.

Like, it's analog and digital all at the same time. I mean, it's interesting, but I'm like, it feels so novelty. Like, it feels like this is for a hipster kid that wants to be super cool. Look, because it looks like an old Super 8 camera. Like, it is built like a handheld.

Handle on the bottom, pull the button. Yeah. Shoot me the link. Shoot me the link. Yeah, I will send it over because it's weird how that's taken to another level now.

Even the filters are one thing, but this is like a physical thing that you buy that looks like an old-timey Super 8 camera. Yeah, I'm not against it. I'm not against it. Yeah, I mean, hipster kids and everything, but also maybe like old people like us. Well, again, I thought, I was like, huh, I wonder what you could do with it that's different than like you could just... shoot it with a digital camera, and then just run it through whatever filter you want.

So, yeah. I don't know. Again, I feel like the physical aspect of it is more the novelty with that one. It's like, when you're hanging out at the coffee shop with that, you'll look cooler than if you're just holding your phone. And then, like, later, I'm going to make this black and white.

Yeah. Where there, they can look at it and go, what is that? You'll be like, what? It's my vintage camera. Let me explain.

And you'll give them that little sales pitch I just spilled out there. Yeah. This goes with my waxed mustache. Yeah, that is its own breed. Speaking of those, I mean, have you seen this Chainsaw Reactions?

I mean, the latest repackaging of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the 80th time? Not that I know of. Okay, so it's a documentary, Chainsaw Reactions, where they got all these people going like, hey, if you didn't know... Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a pretty good movie. You should watch it.

If you haven't heard of it, it's a pretty good movie. All right. What? Chainsaw is in two words, is it? That's going to confuse me.

Yeah, yeah. People like Patton Oswalt and all these guys, all these pro-pop culture commentary people talking about it. But it comes with like eight versions of the movie. uh you got like the super cleaned up version and then you've got like the good times vhs version and then you've got like a super 8 version a 16 millimeter version like a uruguay uh home video version i mean it's real weird it's like got like a all these different interpretations of the different formats that It's been in and over the years. I want a perfect digital copy with tracking issues fluttering on my screen that are not actually there. They're just built into the digital copy so I can feel at home in like 1989.

That's right. Right. How most people, you know, because first time I saw it, it was like, you know, this muddy piece of crap, you know, VHS version. And then, you know, I got like the new cleaned up version. I was going like, wow, there is so much detail in this movie that I just never noticed.

Almost like they had a real camera when they shot it. Right. It was shot on like a real camera. They must have gotten one of those cool ones that kid at the coffee shop had. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. And so, yeah, I've been tempted to pull the trigger on that one, you know, because that 16 millimeter one looked, You know, they've got it. If you watch the trailer, you go like, that's pretty cool. But then you go like, do I need another copy of Texas Chainsaw at my house? I mean, it does sound interesting, but is it one of those like, I like the idea.

Because there's so many things I have copies of that I'm like, I know I have this. I know it's sitting safely on that shelf over there. And at any time, I can go watch that. Now, do I? No.

But I know I rest easier at night knowing I have a copy of that right over there. So I think it's that. I think geeks feel better going, if I wanted to, I could watch this on Super 8 right now. Are you going to? Well, no.

I'm going to watch the cleaned up version. But the point is, I could at any time. I think that's how geeks work. It's the knowing that you could. That I have, again, maybe that's an older thing too.

I have a copy of this so I can watch this whenever I want versus kids are like, I hope that's streaming somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like old people want a physical copy because they don't want some streaming kid to be like, nope, I'm taking that off the feed. But I want to see it. Like, so I think that's going to come into play too. is what happens when the kids that grew up having access to everything streaming when they start pulling stuff off of streaming services and they're like well how do I see it now like so unless they're just going to download an illegal copy anyway but that might be the case so I don't know it's always a juggle of like what do I want what version do I want what do I want access to at all times so yeah.

Yeah yeah it's a yeah this is very much an impulse it's like I have it ready just in. Case well they're definitely there's a tie-in to all of that and maybe this is a counter about maybe this is me going the other way because one of. The other things I will I did I had this happen recently and I was like yeah we should address that too as the where we are in the world today. Because this is an ongoing thing, and I many a time on this show, probably every episode, I will then, like, refer to things that we're talking about, and then occasionally throw out a, well, here's what regular people think. I always use the air quotes around these regular people.

But I am so, like, fascinated to hear other regular people's thoughts on stuff. Because it is so different. Like, it is so, like... And so much of the day, I'm ignoring what everyone else in the world says when they're talking about the weather, sports, crap, whatever regular people talk about. And then one out of a thousand times, they'll be like, oh, just see that, blah, blah, whatever.

And I'll be like, whoa, whoa, hold on. We're talking about a movie. And I want to hear what they have to say because... Because I know what I think, I know what my friends that I talk about this stuff with, I can almost predict what they're going to say about specific things. But regular people, I have no idea.

They are off on another plane of existence when it comes to pop culture stuff and specifically movies. So I'm just like, I am so fascinated to hear whatever crazy thing is about to come out of their mouth. So often, and here's one I got the other day from someone I've known my whole life, and I listened to them rant about movies today. And they're like, oh, movies. The stuff they're making now.

And I'm like, I don't, my normal take anymore, especially with the, purling out the quotes, regular people. Right. It's not worth arguing with you. I just, I don't, unless, unless again, when we're on the show and we're going to devote it to a whole conversation, that's one thing, but just random conversation in the world. It's not worth starting the fight.

I don't care. I don't care enough to get into it with whoever this is. So I'm just, whatever, go ahead. Let me hear the rest of your rant so I can then like formulate what I think about it later. No, no, no.

It's a... No, no. You're good. I'm curious about... No, I see this as, like, a new segment of, like, Brian's tales from regular people.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. This was... But it's, like, it's the same thing I've said for years, and I feel like it's so much more an observation on the person saying that than what movies are out there.

You know? I'm just, like... Because my response really is, well, you're watching the wrong movie. That's what I want to say to them. And then they're going to be upset.

It feels like I'm attacking them and their bad taste, which is arguably true. But I'm just like, there's so many. Like, I see good movies all the time. Now, I seek specific stuff out. Maybe you just flipped on Netflix and scrolled through and picked the postage stamp photo that you decided to go with.

And then you're like, oh, this is dumb. And I'm like, well, who picked it? So I'm just. Like, I don't know. So we're talking about general people nowadays just talking about how bad movies are.

But I also feel like that's always been going on. Like as long as I've been a movie geek, like in the 80s, I would still hear people like, oh, these movies today, they're not like they used to be. So I feel like it's a cranky old man yelling at the cloud about movies today. Right. But I'm like, at any given moment, that's not true.

And at any given moment, you can find good movies. So I'm just like, this is just a cookie cutter thing that happens any random decade. Because that's also my, if I felt like getting into the argument with the person, I'd be like, okay, whatever you think is the good old days where these good old movies were, pick that decade and give it to me and give me a few minutes and I will pick 10 movies that are pure garbage from that decade. Yeah. that were equally as bad as whatever you're complaining about now. Now, maybe there's a new technological aspect that, oh, it wasn't green screen back in the day.

Well, I can go find you a garbage version of something else that's just as bad as whatever you're describing right now, and you just don't want to admit it because you're biased to your little, like, oh, in my day, back in the day, we had perfect movies. And I'm like, well, what decade is that? Because I can find some terrible stuff. that you maybe are even thinking of as a good movie. Because that aspect changes over the... Their perspective on that changes over the years as well.

Okay. All right. Yeah, no, this is resonating with me. Okay. A, number one, it is a...

Oh, man. Okay. Resonating with me because... Where do I start? All right.

Dawn of Cinema. Okay. I was watching Nosferatu and I thought to myself. No. So, so it's right.

So you're completely correct. All right. We'll start with like a Tarantino talking recently. Didn't realize. And in the nineties that the nineties were going to be kind of like the seventies read redux and like how great the movies were in the nineties.

All right. Now I worked in a movie theater in the nineties. All right. And I would say yes. Yes.

You're completely correct. The good stuff gets remembered, but most of everything is terrible. And what I didn't like about movies in the nineties was it was kind of like the death rattle of some of the great directors, you know, uh, like Joe Dante and John Carpenter's output in the nineties was like people still making stuff, making, still making stuff, but just completely, you know, had, had, had different collaborators or they're just trying to repeat old things or, you know, I mean. Not as tuned in, like when they're tuned in, it's their whole life. And I'm like, this is going to be the greatest thing ever.

And then 20 years later, you're like, I don't know. I got to work on something. Uh, hold on. I got, I got to, I got to call my kids on the phone. I got to deal with this.

And then I got to sign off on my new production company. I'm managing six other movies that other people are making. So like, that's it. Yeah. So they're avoiding their life.

Like I get it. Like it would be different as an experience. So of course your commitment to this movie is going to be different. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. And it's, uh, you know, it's after maybe like they've become embittered, you know, uh, to the system. They still got a career, but it's maybe, you know, they just, they, they, they, you know, John Carpenter had made the thing and it destroyed them. So, you know, I mean, now. It's just what I do.

Like, this is my job, man. What do you want? Every once in a while, I got to make a movie. I got to slap my name on it. Got to keep my insurance going.

Sometimes that really is how the job works. It's a job. That's right. That's right. So, so, um, and you know, and the nineties also had like the, the, the CG porn of like the, you know, the Dante's peak type variety movies where just stuff was classics, you know?

Yeah. Just, it was like, you know, the trailer had the, you know, it was just like the post Jurassic park glut of, you know, uh, the reason the movie existed was because of this digital, you know, animation that they could put into it. And, you know, So it was just like a lot of kind of spectacle stuff like that. But also, you know, like music, and the alternative, you know, corporate alternative radio station in Atlanta was 99X. And everybody my age has probably some fond memories of that channel.

And then they brought it back and started playing, you know, the old playlists. And I was going like, oh, I forgot how much this music was terrible. Yeah. Well, see, but this is... And music was eventually going to tie in, too, because then I'm like...

That's why I was like, maybe this is the counterbalance to our angry old men yelling earlier. I'm like... Because I... And I'm not pretending like I'm elevated and above everyone else, but I'm like, I still try to look at stuff as it's coming out today. Yeah.

Music, movies, like, anything. And I don't have complaints, but I listen to everybody else be like, oh, God, this music today. And I'm like, no, I mean, it's certainly different, but, like, I still... Like, I found a band that I love lately. They're a brand new band.

These kids are, like, 20 years old, and I'm just like... They're awesome. Everything they're putting out, I really like. So I'm like, what is it that you guys are listening to that you want to complain about? What different world is it that I'm in that I found...

Again, it's maybe because I... found it. Like I, I devoted a little more time into what I was listening to and found something better than just whatever came up next on the, again, now I guess it's streaming, but like, I just found, I completely randomly came across this band and now I'm like, it's, you know, a couple of times a week, it's my day. I'm like, this is what I'm listening to now. So I'm like, I'm not the cranky old man that only listens to the same thing I listened to when I was 20. No.

I still go to that. Don't get me wrong. I still listen to a lot of stuff from that era that I love. But at the same time, I'm like, I'm not so closed off that I can't find something new that I think is good, well done, equally as impressive as the stuff I used to listen to. And that's true of movies, too.

And I'm like, there's a movie coming out tomorrow that's going to be as good as some classic from old Hollywood. and from the 80s and from whatever decade you think is the greatest thing ever and I'm like I'm going to appreciate this movie while other people are gonna be like oh whatever I don't even want to see that I'm just like is that just a mindset from like one person to the next or is that a generational thing or like I don't know but I'm like I feel like I still am open-minded to movies in general and music and pop culture overall and I'm like I don't see that out of a lot of other people And I'm like, what is that? Like, what is that mindset? Is that just a personal thing or is it something bigger there?

Well, I would say of the people I interact with, I am probably the grumpiest of folks because, I mean, I know some people at work and everything, they're excited about whatever comes down the line, you know, and, you know, they'll go and see it and enjoy it and they can just enjoy it. So, you know, I'm probably more discerning than some folks. But I have no problem, I have absolutely no problem finding good recent music and good movies. Yeah, I mean, it's like, it is though, like anything, if you just take the top 10, you know, you're going to, you know, get, it's just going to be like lowest common denominator, you know, fun. You know, just, you know, unchallenging.

The biggest, dumbest movies for what's going to be out there at your disposal. That's right. If you don't dig a little more. Right, right. So that's fine.

That's fine. Sometimes that's all you want. You know, you just want, you know, movement. And you don't want to be, like, you know, challenged every second. I mean, I've made that call several times lately where I'm like, yes, I want to see this thing that's right there streaming in front of me, but I'm not in that mindset right now.

Cause it's kind of heavy and I'm like, I'll get to it. But right now my brain is not at the point where I want to do that to it. So how about I watch this thing over here, which seems kind of, I won't go so far as to say dumb, but it's certainly lighter in tone. And I'm like, so I make those calls all the time. But I don't close myself off to the whole idea of something that could be, you know, good.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. No, there's so much good stuff that's coming out. You just do have to sort of curate and dig and, you know, see what's going on. But another thing you said, when anybody– I do kind of have, like, my filter on.

But when anybody starts talking about a movie, you know, my radar comes on. And I go like, okay, what are they saying? What is in the... Because I just don't hear about people talking about movies. I know.

It's so rare. But when I do, I get super... Yeah, it's like I got to put it in the database. Like I need to know what regular people are thinking about any pop culture, specifically movies. Because it's so different than my thoughts and so different than everyone I know, the handful of people I talk to.

It's like... I know what that is. I don't know what regular people's take on stuff is at all. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like, so when sometimes in a, in like, uh, team meetings and everything on our Friday team meeting, it was so, so corporate, but you know, we'll just like chat, you know, and, uh, and you know, and so if there's a movie that people are talking about, I like, I gotta know about it, you know? And, uh, and so sometimes there's randomly they'll start talking. The last one they talked about, uh, was the K-pop demon hunters. All right.

On Netflix. Weeping the world. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I was like, Oh, I'm excited about it because people are actually talking about a movie, you know, it's kind of like when Barbie hammer and everything, you know, it was just like, uh, uh, when, when movies are actually in the, the, the discussion, I'm kind of like going like, Oh, Interesting.

Okay, because it used to be like that was the culture, but now it's like just some segment of the culture. It's got to be that big. I mean, think about it. Barbie was the biggest thing in the world at that point for it to break through. For me to then, two months later when it showed up streaming, have this awkward discussion with this guy that I know...

That told me it was the dumbest movie ever. I was like, and I'm fighting again. I'm trying to play nice with the regular folks. So I'm like biting my tongue to not go. I don't think you got it.

It's the problem. Like, that's what I want to say. It's like, I literally, I know you buddy. And I don't think you got what Greta Gerwig was doing. I think it went over your head and you don't want me to tell you that.

So I'm just going to shake my head and go, well, I, I liked it. Fine. I guess I don't like the, how do you, how much do you want to get into it with these people? Because I'm like, yeah, I think what she's doing is kind of brilliant and you don't understand it, but do you really want to get into that argument with some random person? Not really.

So I'm just like, uh, okay. He didn't like it. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm not going to die on this hill. You know, the same thing with like this year was K-pop demon hunter. And I'm like, I love seeing that because my, that one, like just generationally, like maybe not as many of the grownups, but like my little niece dressed up as one of them for Halloween, like it crossed over. And I'm like, She's embracing a movie. She's embracing new music.

She's embracing a culture that's not hers. Like, I'm like, that is awesome that like this has found its way to our dumb America that like has opened our minds just enough. You know, I understand it's just goofy cartoons for most people, but I'm like, yeah, but it's also a window into stuff that she otherwise would have never known about. And now like they're trying to special order cause they didn't, they were so unprepared for that. They didn't even make the merchandise for it.

So like, Now it's like, okay, for Christmas, we gotta buy some knockoff stuff made in China because they didn't even make real merchandise and try to ship it here to give you something for Christmas that says K-Pop Demon Hunter on it. So it's like, yeah, it's weird the ways that it trickled down into pop culture. I don't know. I always liked seeing that stuff come in, even if I, again, I watched. It was fine.

I didn't lose my mind over it, but I appreciated how much kids in particular, like got into this thing that was out of the norm for them. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I think it also does. I mean, when it showed up on my feed, I mean, it was, I was just going like, okay, it's some, you know, more anime, whatever.

Yeah. Whatever throw away, you know, thing. But when people who've grown adults were talking about it at work, I was going like, what's going on? And they're going like, yeah, like they were going like TBH. That's a pretty good movie, you know, and all that stuff.

And, uh, And I was like, okay, okay. So I watched it with my kid and, you know, it really went over well. And I was going like, yeah. But what's interesting, though, is just how things have changed. And pop culture right now is, like, dominated by, like, Japanese culture, you know?

Especially with my kids. It's just, like, anime and, like, people at work. Like, you know, the 20-somethings, they... they've all got, it's very Japanese fan culture driven, you know? And I remember, you know, a million years ago, Brian, you know, that was when I did that little comic book for y'all. I had an anime joke in that where like only weirdos watched anime, you know?

That's true. By the way, I'm still waiting for the next issue in that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. In the planning stages. It's in the works, don't you worry.

But, no, again, that's the thing. I feel like that super connected to Asian culture in general, especially Japan, has always been there, but it was always super niche geeks, you know? It was, like, very specific geeks that got into anime or, like, got into the food culture and, like, just the general culture. you know, the, the lifestyle of the crazy world that is Tokyo, you know, it's like, I'm, I'm fascinated by the visuals of like the, the way that city is laid out and like the, the advertising that goes into the stuff that they do. And like, it's just, it's a, it's not that far removed from America, but it's just different enough that I'm fascinated by it. But again, like you have watched it sort of like make its way over here with different things.

And now I think it's maybe the biggest push is like the, these last few things that have come through it's like oh people are really kind of into. That yeah yeah well like uh well what do we call it a few years ago it took uh kids to to like anime con here in atlanta and it was it. Was like explosive i mean there were just people stacked on top of people stacked on top of people it was just uh it was so many i mean it's like such a Uh, it's like so much what people are into now, you know. And, uh, I can see the kids like, cause kids are super open-minded and like are welcoming of like new different cool things. But like, it's weird when it crosses over into grownups and it gets to like people even close to my age or older.

I'm just like, I don't know what. going on now because usually they're super close-minded about stuff like that so yeah yeah that's when you know something's massive pop culture when it makes its way to like grown-ups of. That era you know yeah definitely definitely what what i have discovered with it was just that from from trying to you know connect to my kid and everything, we would start watching some. And what I realized was, you know, there's just so many different genres in anime that is not all just, like, superhero stuff. There's just, like, little slice-of-life drama ones. And there's, like, romances and, like, regular old, like, boring stories that just happen to be told in anime, you know?

Right, right. So sometimes you'll come across one, and it's, like, just this little self-contained story They might have three seasons, but then it has a conclusion and it was just like a cool story. You've got to really be careful, you know, but, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there is some weird stuff out there where like you watch like five seconds of it and you go like, okay, this is like, This isn't like us hanging out watching this together. This is still weird. There's some weird stuff out there.

This is like 14-year-old boy fan service anime. So, you know, you don't watch those. But there's a lot of really sophisticated storytelling in it. And I go like, oh, okay, that's cool. You know, I mean, I learned something new.

It's not all Speed Racer and, you know, tentacles. Yeah. I mean, sure, that's still out there if that's what you're looking for. If that's what you're looking for, you'll find it. But if you're looking for something else.

You'll find it. You'll find it. Believe me. But if you're looking for something else, there's plenty. I'm kind of on the opposite side of just people complaining about stuff.

I think, well, especially my kids, but people my age, I mean, you know, the people I'm around, they're pretty... They usually can find stuff. So, I mean, it's usually me. If anybody's complaining about the state of the world, it's me. But I find plenty of stuff.

It's like you're for different reasons. You know, theirs is a general... Again, the conversation that started all that for me was a very blanket of Hollywood and everything that comes out of it. I was just like... bullshit, but whatever, I mean, you're gonna think what you're, I'm not gonna win you over on that one, you've made up your mind a long time ago on that, and it's solidified more and more with every year that passes, so you're just gonna badmouth anything that that whole town does, and anything that is even brought in from another town, you know, when you get stuff coming from overseas, even more closed off they're gonna be, so it's like, Yeah, I don't know. You just get people that are so set in that mindset of like, nope, everything they make is terrible.

And I'm like, all right, well. then enjoy you're not liking anything. That's my thing. I'm like, because that's the thing. People like complain and like all they want to do is complain about stuff. And I'm like, yeah, but aren't you then just miserable?

Because like I have enough miserableness going on. The thing that breaks it up for me is pop culture. You're like, when I'm watching a cool movie, when I'm watching a good show, when I'm listening to music that I enjoy, like these are all good things that take me away from the misery. So if you're just locked into finding more things to be miserable, how is that a good thing? like why would you want to do that with your. Life yes everybody's everybody's life has a measure of suck to it you know and uh and so yeah why are you you know yeah i mean you know what i mean just find something to alleviate the suck occasionally because you know i mean if maybe maybe they want to you know i don't know fine and maybe just pop culture isn't their thing maybe they've They whittle or something.

I don't know what they do. I don't know what regular people do. I don't know. Whittle, right? They sit on the porch and whittle?

Make toothpicks? Yeah, I think. I don't know. I don't interact with humans. Do they have Lego?

They should. Because that's where all the cool decisions are made. What should I build today? That's it, man. Yeah, yeah.

For real. No, I mean, that's interesting. Yeah, I. No, the problem is there's just so much stuff. It is like the whole world is like a giant flea market.

And you really just have to. And there's a lot of crap at the flea market. Yes, I agree. But if you find the right table, you're like, whoa, look at this. For real.

Yeah, yeah, for real. No, it's good. It's good. Man. Well, again, if we're getting into the.

Bulk of stuff out there again i was just all the the weird topics that have come up lately that i'm like okay that's interesting number one i definitely want to get to the the technology that we're watching everything on in a minute but first this one came up today and i hadn't maybe i just haven't been paying attention maybe this has been going on but i just noticed it pop up today in the middle of watching something and of course you can't watch something without ads now sure but this came up and also because i guess i didn't have this because i don't normally have this service. I won't name them, but it's a service that also delivers stuff to your house. Okay. So to me, that's also kind of suspect.

I'm like, okay, so the thing that's delivering things to your house and making an entire industry on this area over here is now also delivering these movies to you and also creating them sometimes. It's like they have their own original programming system And yet at the same time, they're running this business that delivers that to you and other things is the key issue here. So as I'm watching this, it's in the middle of a break and then it pops up with a commercial, which I'm used to, but then a link pops up for the thing on the commercial to add it to your cart. Oh, weird. And I was like, whoa, this is like a whole new level of sellout.

Seamless. Yeah, I was like, not only are you being seduced by this commercial, but you don't even have to get up and go to the grocery to buy Tide Pods. You don't even have to get up and go get this new Dinty Moore beef stew. All you have to do is reach to the remote that's sitting right next to you and click one button and you bought it, Arthur. It's in your cart.

It's waiting for you to give them money. And I was like, that is a whole other level of corporate running the world that we live in. Dude, absolutely. I was like, that was scary. Yeah.

So, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, frictionless consumerism. You know, it's, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've thought of it where, you know, I think it's just going to be like you go to you're gonna have the chip in your head in your head and every time you have an impulse that you want something it's going to beam itself over to the 3d printer and it's going to print it out for you or download it to your entertainment system and you're going to have it and it's just going to be like this you're going to have like uh I think the means of production are going to become so cheap that... And I've read this whole book about the AI revolution and how means of production are just going to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.

And then... So you can probably just have a stuff subscription where... it will like produce like X amount of things for you for like X amount of dollars a month. And then you're just impulses. You don't even have to go to the computer. It's just going to zip it to the, to the, the router from the chip in your head.

And then it's going to like kind of defecate it out into a box. I've seen my, my, when I was thinking about this society, yes. Yeah. I was thinking about just like, there's like this, this, uh, 3d printing, uh, orifice like an asshole on your wall and then you know just throughout the day it's picking up your signal impulses and it's just like 3D printing and it looks like it's just shitting crap into your. Room defecation aspect of it you're also just describing star trek you're just the next generation like you're just early hot and it magically brings it to you like there's a hole in your wall that does that so like this is just us doing that with random 3d printed garbage that we want we're just like because we already i mean as you were describing that i was like well we already have that in every other aspect of our life that wasn't a 3D thing.

Initially it was like, whatever weird thing you're into, you can type it into your internet search and now you're connected to it. You can find versions of it, you can find other people into it. So first it was just that. Well then it became like, way to get those things. It's like, so now, like originally you had to wait around and maybe you'd find it in the real world or you'd order it and you'd sit around for six to eight weeks and it would show up.

But that aspect became so instantaneous that like you can order something and at best two days out it comes to you. Sometimes you can get it same day. At this point we've got drones drop shipping stuff onto your porch. It's just like that aspect has become almost instantaneous. So the fact that now you're just going to connect it to your brain and be like, I'm thinking of this and then it will physically create the dumb thing you just thought of.

That's it. That's... I'm frightened by them because people's brains are stupid. Yeah, yeah. As a part of humanity, humanity is dumb and we cannot be trusted.

So I reserve the right because I am one of those dumb humans. Sure, sure. Well, you know, the most evil thing that ever created was the buy now button on that site you're talking about. You don't even have to think about it. You just go like, ooh, I want that. click buy now and now it's already being sent to you.

Yeah one button it's already on its way. It's on its way and it will sometimes get to you before you know it'll be like the next day and you're going like this is how is this sustainable i didn't. Know this existed yesterday morning yeah and now i'm holding it exactly something weird about. That exactly This came to me quicker than it would have taken me to get up the motivation to put on pants and leave the house. Which is why people don't do that quite often.

But, you know what? I'm nostalgic now for, you know, old school consumerism. Where, like, this year for Christmas, I didn't really do, like, links and everything. Like, send me links and I'll hit it, you know? I said, like, let's go out into the world and look for stuff.

What are you talking about, Grandpa? I know. I know. And I was like, there used to be an experience. It's like now everything's so quick, there's no experience.

I don't know. It's weird. It used to be how people filled their day. I was listening... Again, I was listening to a show, and they were talking about Christmas this year, and they were like, the kids, like, they've just grown up with, like, they ship out whatever that, like, catalog is for this product, whatever they had, and, like, it has all the items they want in it, and, like, they... in a very old timey way would like look at the Sears catalog and circle what you want.

That's kind of what these kids were doing. But it became so synonymous with the system that like they suggested a thing to the kid and he was freaking out. He's like, but it's not in the catalog. He couldn't think outside the constraints of this is where I get my things from. I can't have it.

It's not in the cat. I was like, wow, like that's scary. Like that is a scary moment for humanity that like, But the man gave me this catalog, and I can't do what the man tells me I can't do, so this is all I can have. Buy it from the company store. It's all very interconnected.

I was like, these are all scary things. So today, when that ad popped up on my viewing of a movie, I was just like, I don't like that. I am weirded out by that. Yeah, no, it is like just the push for... frictionless, uh, impulse consumerism, you know? And, uh, or just being swayed.

Like you're watching this well-financed commercial and you're like, I do need that. Yeah. You laundry. I do need that detergent. It was just like, yeah.

I mean, duh. Like why, why are you being suckered in by this ad so well that you're immediately going to buy that thing? I was like, there's not even a moment to think anymore. It's like, do I need that? It's like, I do need that!

Click. Too late. Already done. Yeah, yeah. You're watching the, well, it seems like some futuristic world where you see a commercial and you buy it as you're watching the commercial, right?

That does seem like a weird 70s sci-fi movie would have presented that and you would laugh. Like, how can you imagine? And we live in those times! It's disturbing. It's so disturbing.

Yeah. Well, it makes me think also of something I've been thinking about lately. Of stories. How do I approach this? Okay, commercials tell a little segment of a story.

Like that cool. Coffee commercial that we're pretty sure the brother and sister are hooking up. Yeah. Because there's stories and then there's ones that you're like, I'm reading something else going on in this commercial. I keep seeing like it must be a thing.

It must have hit somebody's feed out there because now I keep seeing people making comments about that old coffee commercial that were like the brother and sister are just way too friendly, way too happy to see each other. I do remember it, and I remember it being weird at the time, but in the last week, I've seen two or three posts of people making comments about that commercial. So I'm like, that must be hitting somebody's algorithm because it came up again this week. That's interesting. I've got to bring that up.

I've got to look that up. I'll find that commercial for you. Okay. Okay, so this might just be obvious, but these commercials tell a story, and I think people are very swayed by narratives, okay? And we love a good story.

But the problem is the story can completely rewire your brain and make you... It can rewire your brain and control your head. I mean, it's sort of the problem with media is people's thirst for meaning... lends us to try to attribute stories to things which then once you have a story about it you believe it and in and so it's uh i was trying to like i was like i had like i just out in the Out in the world the other day, I had a pleasant human interaction. I mean, this sounds like autism podcast now. It's arguable.

Let's be real. I know both of us. Welcome to Tismcast. Tismcast. Yeah.

Um, so just out in the real world had a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, just a moment of, of, of a good human connection. All right. And, uh, and I was like going like, well, that was a cool just moment. Okay. And I was just like going, good, good.

That was good. That's all that needs to be. And, and it became like a thing where it go like people sometimes take little moments and then they start writing stories about them. And it's sort of like, here's the, here's something I'm just going through right now is like always trying to create, give meaning to things and figure out how these things have meaning and are a part of a story can really rewire your life into something not really living a life because you're really trying to see how it connects and always trying to find a connection. And like, kind of like you're like a, one of those crazy people in the, uh, in those conspiracy movies where you've got like all the, you got the yarn and the thing and you're going like, okay, so this kind of like, see, trying to see cause and effect.

And, uh, how does this write a narrative, uh, And, you know, and go like, or like something will happen and I go like, oh, how can I write a story about this? You know, or what does this mean? You know, meaning. It's almost a very artistic version of it. Yeah.

I guess I'm trying to back it off if there's like a regular person version of this. Yeah. That just creates a narrative versus, again, I feel like you are the type of person who would maybe sit down and write a story about it. Right. For the regular person that would be like, oh, how do I... create this narrative in my head that then also changes how I go about things.

Yeah. But I think, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So for me, it's like a, it's like a, it's a, it's a, a kind of a prison where you go like, just enjoy something for it being what it is versus trying to turn it into something else, you know, trying to, trying to manifest it as like a story or something like that.

You don't have to, Your life does not have to be like this thing you're mining for material. Some things can just be what they are, and them in that abstract state, it doesn't get diluted by a story. But I think it is a universal thing where people are looking to figure out what is the meaning of it all, and stories give you a meaning of And so even a commercial is giving you a story and stories are soothing because it makes it go like, oh, there's a meaning behind all of this. There's a reason for it. There's a reason.

And I saw this person who was having. A problem, and they told me a story about how the Tide Pod fixed it, and now look how happy their life is. And you know it's manipulation, but that's what I'm saying. Stories are kind of manipulation, you know? And you manipulate yourself even by telling yourself certain stories in your head and it completely paints the way you see things.

And so people are beaming you stories, you know, like through the culture, you know, through movies and books and songs and everything. So these things all tell stories so they soothe you because, I mean, I guess it distracts you from existential panic. Pretty regular, it's fine. But what I'm saying is not everything has to be a story. But I'm just saying what's dangerous is how effective stories are.

And that's what brings me back to like the marketing of Tide Pods and making it instant. Because I think story and narrative is like an opium for us, you know? And so you see these commercials. it's, it's, it's crazy. So you're going like, who's telling the story is like this, this episode brought to you by the letter L or this, uh, you know, this episode brought to you by bounty, the quicker, quicker, rougher. I do.

Spill stuff a lot. She get that bounce. Click. Already done. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's, it's amazing how quickly, how streamlined everything has gotten, you know? So yeah. When you're, When the story soothes you, you get that flow, you get a dopamine thing, and then you're very susceptible to click that button and buy a Tide Pods, you know? I think the story part of it, like, again, I think what makes sense in your brain as part of the storytelling element is, like I said, it's for a reason.

Like, even within the context of storytelling, it's for a reason, right? versus real life. I think that's what, as you were saying that, I was like, well, yeah, because I will be watching a movie and I will be like, oh, I'm assuming this is going to happen down the line because they just presented this part. So why would they bring up almost a Chekhov's gun aspect of it? Like, why would you bring this up unless later in the story, this is going to come into play and then it makes sense. And it rounds out this little story you're telling.

And we're sort of comforted by that because it makes sense. Because it is logical storytelling versus real life where none of that shit matters. It's like, this random thing happened to me today and is that going to come into play later? No. No.

It's just this sucky thing happened now and later a different sucky thing will happen. But they're not continuing this arc or closing the loop on this aspect of the storytelling. Like you might have run into this person and then in your story later you'd run into them and finish off that story arc. But in real life you'll never see that person again. That's right.

So that loop goes on forever. It is never closed. So have fun with that. It does give you some sort of peace of mind that like, oh, this is for a reason. That's going to come together.

Good or bad, this story is going to continue on in a... haste manner that makes sense and is logical and like, whereas life isn't like that. Life is random and stupid and nothing makes any sense. So it's like, I think it is comforting to know that there's a story going on behind this and then the story will make things okay versus real life, which is never okay. Real life is like a David Lynch movie where it's like some random things happen and, uh. I've had a mutant baby and I'm going to go bounce into the wall for a few minutes as this black and white footage of train goes over and over in a loop.

So that's it. That's it. So, so, so I'm trying to retrain my brain to just enjoy moments without giving them meaning, you know, it's just like, okay. Or what, like when things, bad things happen, you go like, Oh, this is because of this, or this is because of this. And this is the story behind the, but sometimes bad things just happen, you know?

Yeah. And so good things happen and bad things happen. And there's not like a, a lot of times, you know, people's belief systems go like, Oh, I created this bad thing through my thoughts, or I created this good thing through my thoughts. You know what I mean? You know, if that gives you comfort that that's your story, that, you know, in the narrative that you're telling yourself, you... you did this, but I mean, probably Rand.

See, again, and I almost want to defend that idea because it's what I do, but it's what I do about mostly movies all the time because everything I want to talk about at great length and the only time I talk to people is about movies and then I want to, so it's not even like, and I have people, I know people that call out any form of film criticism where you're talking about the movie that should have been And that's bullshit. That's not how you do film criticism. That's fine. I'm having a film conversation. And my conversation is, I think it should have gone like this.

That's fine. If you want to do that, do that. Have fun. That may be very different than the standard film criticism. But again, now we live in a very different world where everything is podcasts and YouTube videos.

And so everything is very different. It's not a published, closed version of the criticism of this film anymore. It's an open, ongoing conversation of like, this is how this should have gone. And, you know, yeah, it's not going to change it. It's not going to be.

But like the conversational aspect of it has changed in the way that we look at pop culture now and movies and everything. Yeah. So I yeah, it's like I instinctively want to be like, but I want to talk about, you know, here's the aspects of what was there. Here's the aspects of what could have been. Here's the aspects of what you could do if you decide to do a different thing or make another movie or like.

So I like the open endedness of it, but it's different when you're doing it about your day to day life. Or random advertising. It's different when it gets into the creepier pockets of your humanity versus the artistic medium and all the things you could create. That's great. That's a way to look at it that's very productive.

But yeah, I don't know that it is when it becomes, should I go buy Tide Pods? Like if you just be weaponized. Yeah, it is. You know, this need for things to make sense that could be weaponized and and sometimes you know. Consumer weapon is a very real thing i feel like absolutely it's what goes on in our world every day.

Tell a very simple story to people that is easy to understand where the bad guys and the good guys are clearly defined and People like that and they will follow that story. And the answer is to come on board with this thing that you're advertising to them. Right. It's not even questionable what the outcome is. The outcome is click buy now.

Right. The answer to all your problems is this thing that I'm presenting to you in this story, no matter what it is. this like minute long story that may pop up on your computer or your phone or wherever you're watching it, like this is going to present itself to you. And the only answer is, Oh, I do need that. That that's, that's it. That's all you need.

That's all this thing is meant to do is make you go, I do need that. Yeah. That's, that's a very specific type of storytelling versus, you know, your, your old timey rom-com from, you know, the forties is telling a big, grand scale that doesn't really need to sell you anything other than the enjoyment of this story versus, oh no, I need this product right now. And now I can click this button and have it now. Like I put it in my cart right now.

Yeah. It's on the way. Yeah. It's a very different world. that now offers you that as part of the equation, more or less. Before, it was just like, let's tell a story, and people will enjoy this story.

Versus, let's tell a commercial. Like, and sell you on this commercial. And like, it's... It's becoming a very fine line of, like, which is the art? I mean, there's certainly an art to making a good commercial, so which is the art into this, and which is the consumer into this?

Because the movie, while still telling that story, has to make money, so it also is a consumer thing. It also has to please enough people to make money to warrant how much money they spent on this movie, so... it's a fine line like because i want to damn the commercial end of it but you can't have movies without commercials that's part of that you know it's movies today i'm like no they were always like that like yeah back in the old studio days if they weren't making money they axed that stuff that's how it's always been so it had to be the most crowd-pleasing thing is the thing that's gonna get greenlit and the thing that's gonna spiral into the next thing and like so it it's not a new thing.

It's a more specialized thing and technology has certainly changed it now, but like the, it's always there. Like the consumerism, the commercialism is always part of the equation. It's just, can we focus on the artistic part a little more? What I want. But again, I know I'm not blind to the fact that it's going on.

Like, and a lot of people kind of seem to be like they're either, completely on the commercial end of it and like want that or they're like so artistically minded that like no i'll have none of that in my movie i'm like well then you'll make it on your phone and show it to your friends but like yeah It's not going to get out there in any grand way other than virally maybe, which now is a possibility, but very minimal compared to, you know, trying to put out a major motion picture worth millions and millions of dollars. Right. It's such a slippery slope. It's just like which road you're going down and what leads you there and what's going to happen once you get there. It's a lot.

It's a lot to deal with. Man. It's so complicated. It really is. But yeah, that one just came up today and I found it disturbing.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it, it, yeah, yeah. It, it, it just mindless consumers. It reminds me of THX 1138, where you go and you buy the red ball so you can then bring it home and throw it away.

So tomorrow you can buy another red ball so you can throw it away. You know, it was just part of, I don't know. Yeah, it's weird. But it is weird, you know, just consumerism, you know, it used to be like, you know, you left the house and you went with somebody and you looked through comic books and you found one and then you, you know, and it was like, it kind of built a memory. I guess I was always anti all that stuff, but people, it was memories of spending time with people doing something.

And sort of, it's really just a context of, doing something, which is basically what anything is, you know, sports events and, you know, eating and all this stuff is really just a context of creating a container to have a human interaction with, you know, and so it's really doesn't matter what it is, but, you know, so the ease of everything is kind of like robbing people of the experience of doing stuff. I mean, that's just the stuff that I remember. Like the things that I think, because again, as much as I love movies and like this individual movie, but if I just, especially now, I end up going to the movies by myself. It's like if I go sit there and watch it in the movie by myself, there's no story there.

There's no nostalgia there. There's no, like there's nothing to it. So later I'll just be like, oh, I like that movie. Versus if I have a like, oh, my friends and I went and we went and got dinner and we saw this movie and we had this conversation in the parking lot and like all these other aspects that went into play, then yes, I like the movie. But I also have all these other like social attachments that went along with it that make that a way more interesting story and memory.

And like it's part of my brain in a way that, you know, is different from I like this movie. So like, yeah, creating the, the social aspect of any, you know, same thing with going to a concert, you know, it's like all of those things versus if you're just sitting at home streaming something by yourself, watching something on your phone by yourself, like listening to your music on your streaming service, like it's, it's a different version of it. So, yeah, I don't know. Again, is it better? I think it is, but like our kids that are sitting there listening to it by themselves, experiencing it in a better way in their mind.

I don't think so, but again, I'm a biased person, so I think that's the question. If you come ask those kids 20 years from now, are they going to nostalgically look back on, I was sitting in my room watching this anime on my phone, and it was the greatest time of my life. I'm like, I don't know, is it? It doesn't sound like it to me, but again, I'm biased. I don't know.

I wonder... how much those things change as the world changes, as the technology adjusts and the product itself readjusts. It's like, how much does the way that we consume it readjust as well? Yeah. I mean, I guess it probably just for maybe just goes into another form. Like, yeah, if you're like, if you just watch an anime on your phone when you're 15 and that's the total amount of the experience, then yeah, But I guess it's kind of like these podcasts, you know, these podcasts are like, like a social outlet where, you know, I can connect to movie people and like talk about movies, you know, and so it's like, it's like, oh. parking lot conversations have now gone online, you know?

It's just because, also, people are older, and you don't have, you know, eight hours to blow. You know? I mean, I think about that. Like, again, I'm putting it very specifically into my version of this, but, like, and I tell this sometimes, and people are like, what? And even I, even I am flabbergasted that this has ever happened.

When we started this show, we did it all... in the same run including because we used to always like kind of talk about a movie so we would show up and hang out first and get rolling and like do the intro and we were like okay we're gonna talk about a movie and we'd go sit down in the living room and watch the movie together yeah and come back and do an entire lengthy discussion as long as the movie itself after the movie And then, like, I mean, all of that was one episode. Yeah. And, like, I'm like, we did that. Like, that first year, year and a half, that happened every time we did it. Yeah.

And I was knocking them out once a week. And I'm like, I cannot imagine that happening now. Even, like, once every three or four months would be hard to put together with people now. Versus... Again, I would say not that long ago, but this show has been going on a long damn time.

But somehow I suckered those people into doing that on a weekly basis. And I'm like, I don't understand. Like we were grownups at that point. How the hell did we have that amount of time to devote to one episode? of us talking about movies. To me, once again, nostalgia-wise, I look back and those were the greatest times of my life.

Us sitting in that living room, watching that movie, sitting around that table, having the discussion afterwards were amazing. So it's like, that's awesome, but I'm like, now things have become so much more complicated and so much more difficult to find the time to do that stuff that I'm like, I don't know how I ever suckered them into doing it and I don't know that it will ever happen again. just trying to put these together. I'm like, you know, can you hammer out a few hours for us to yammer on on the internet? You know, it's like, it's crazy. But like, even that is a lot to ask somebody these days.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a, I guess it's like kind of like being a, uh, the difference between being a young adult where you just have like more time and dedication. Uh, and, but it's just like to, to like these kinds of things. And, you know, just as like, Things get more...

Probably also as you get older, your time just becomes more and more precious. You have less of it. Yeah, you have less of it. In every aspect. Yeah, yeah.

Day to day and overall, you have less of it. Less of it. So you really got to do things, spend your time... You know, wisely, you know, get the most value. I mean, I guess they still have a version of that going on now.

And again, they're just doing different things with it because like I've never really been a gamer, but so many kids are gamers and like the amount of hours they spend logged in. even if they're not playing, like logged into streaming services, watching other people play games, you know, it's like, and, and talking back and forth and chatting with their friends. Like they're not in the same room, but they're all sharing this experience and gaming takes so long. So this is like hours and hours and hours. These kids are all like sitting on there online, talking about stuff, watching stuff. Like, so it's just, yeah, different version of kind of that general idea that it's an experience that you're having with other people just in a very different way.

Yeah. I think, I think it's just shifted to, to online, you know, like, so yeah, like they watch the anime, but then they spend six hours talking about it on discord or something, you know? There's definitely versions of that still going on. It's just totally different format than it used to be. Yeah.

For real, man. For real. Yeah. No, I think that's cool. That's cool, man.

Yeah, no, yeah. These are good topics, Brian. I'm telling you, I knew there was a lot of stuff to dig into. My other main one, let's see. There's two different other things I had left.

If we're going into the kids, this was, and we've timestamped this very specifically at the beginning there that we're coming out of the new year. So I will go ahead and timestamp it some more by saying, We just went through the wrap-up of, again, we're doing mostly movies, but this was, technically this was in a theater by the end, so the wrap-up of the huge series that was Stranger Things. Oh, got it. And I don't know if you even watched any of that, but that experience has been interesting because it's, a couple of things happened here. But the main thing that I've taken away from it lately, and I brought this up to somebody yesterday, I was like, I've been online the existence of internet.

I've seen a lot of stuff. This may be the most overwhelming thing I've ever seen on my feed. Like, cause there's like even something huge, like, Oh, the last star Wars movie that came out and nerds are all talking about it online. But still, I think this hits such a huge market that like there were a couple of days there that that's all like literally all that was on my feed was where people posting pictures from it, posting responses to it, linking videos to people's responses to it, like making snide comments about it, making inside jokes about it. Like it was nothing but this one pop culture phenomenon like shoved into the internet.

And like, that's the only thing that people were talking about for days on end there. I'm like, that's, weird because usually like there's some there's always you know any weekend it's whatever the big thing is tv music concert going on you know something going on somewhere that people are going to yammer on about but it's mixed in with a thousand other things because it's the internet but it's so rare that i've seen something that was so overwhelming on the internet as what happened this last couple of weeks. Yeah james cameron must be so mad. Nobody cares about your dumb blue people. I know I'm in the minority there.

I keep seeing them put those out and I was like, dude, would you just make a different movie, please? It's been the last half of your career on this one idea. I get it. I didn't care about it the first movie. I want to see you make some other stuff.

I love your early movies. Make something else, man. totally we'll see maybe this rounded it out for him. I don't know maybe maybe but it was like nobody's talking about it i mean from my feed you know and everything but everybody's talking about stranger things it was like uh if i didn't get the reference i started to assume it was about stranger things you know. Oh yeah i mean i mean and that was to make go with our other thing like Months ago, that was true of, like, your Demon Hunter, you know? It's like there were tons of people posting stuff, but it was still, like, peppered in with 20 other things that I normally get stuff on my feed.

Where this, like, it just overtook it. It wasn't, like, a decent amount of it mixed in there. It was just, that's all that was on there. And I'm like, I guess because, once again, it's like it's not... a movie in the theater that only some people saw. It's not a TV show that only some people saw.

It crossed so many lines that it like, it was streaming. It was on a streaming service that probably the biggest one that everybody has. If, if they have a streaming service, most generic ass people are going to have that one. It was also kind of a TV show, but it got so huge. It spilled over and they were playing it in movie theaters.

So it's like it, it crossed over into a different, you know, type of crowd there too. So it's like, It just spread out and became so overwhelming pop culture-wise that it ended up everywhere. And everybody, even if they just wanted to bitch about it, which was a lot of what I saw, they just had to get on the internet and talk about it. And I was like, it's weird. That's cool.

Again, it's interesting to see that stuff make its way on there because normally people are so closed off to pop culture, depending on who they are. I'm talking about the regular folk again. But also just like it's always so splintered where this was like such a massive pop culture wave that it just like took over everything. Yeah. Yeah.

It's interesting that, you know, my eldest daughter was feeling, she's like going, she gets so much crap. She was getting so much crap from people she knows because she hasn't watched it, you know? And she's going like, I kind of got to like, She's going through a thing now where, like, she'll, like, go, like, if you have not seen certain things, you will not be part of the culture of your time, you know? I mean, it's kind of true. And sometimes you, like, if you miss the wave, it's like, there are so many movies that, like, I'll hear about for 10 years and I'll finally get around to watching them, like, Yeah, I think I missed it.

Like, if I would have gotten on board right then and there, I might have been, like, part of that little fan base. But I'm like, now I watch it and I'm just like, eh, I don't see it. I don't know what everybody's going on about. Right, right. I think that's part of it.

It's kind of like people who come to America from other countries and they don't get any of the pop culture references. So it's, like, hard for them to, you know... Uh, that's, that's what my, uh, daughter was experiencing towards stranger things. Just going like, I haven't seen this. So it was like, I can't have conversations, you know?

It's like, so you kind of got to just watch it just so you can have a conversation with people. Well, and that's, that's another weird thing that's changed over the years. Cause that used to be like, it would take you coming from another culture essentially to be that disconnected. Right. Yeah.

Because society was overall so slow moving that like, you know, every, it would be a generational thing. Every 10, 15 years, things would change enough that you'd be like, I don't know what these kids are talking about now. Yeah. Versus now, like everything changes so much that like within a week, everybody will be so into this that you feel out of touch. And then by next week, they'll all move on to something else.

You know, it's like it changes everything. almost on a weekly basis of what people's interests are and like you have to be riding that wave basically if you want to be culturally tapped in and like in the middle of all the conversations you really have to be like okay what are they into what are they watching am i going to get this service just so i can watch it and be part of that like now you can't even get to everything it's not like the old days when you turn to channel three and i can watch that like now you've got to make purchasing choices to get on board with this wave of pop culture and it's like you've got to plan ahead to make sure you have bought the right thing to allow you to have access to this, so that you can watch that and not feel left out in a conversation.

And by next week, that'll all be done and we're watching something else anyway. So it's like, it moves at such a faster pace now. Everything changes so quickly that, like, yeah, you've got to, it's just pop culture surfing at this point. You're just, you're riding the wave or you're wiped out and you don't know what the hell's going on. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm not the guy that, that, oh, I'm not going to watch it because it's popular. It's just like I just have a limited amount of time, and so it takes me a while to get around to stuff. There are so many shows that I fall into that, especially shows. Like movies, I'll try to– but again, even that I'm kept out of because I don't want to keep buying more services.

So like that I'm locked out of financially speaking because I can't shell out the amount of money you need to watch anything ever that has ever been made. Right. Because it's all available, but only if you want to throw money at it. And I'm just like, ugh, stop. Yeah, yeah.

I got a budget. Yeah. No, I would say... Well, like, the latest thing that I just finished, that I... You know, the last episode was probably, like, seven years ago.

I just binged Community. And I thought that was hilarious. But... Like, that's Jimmy Chase guy. People love him, right?

He's hilarious. Yeah, yeah. But he's like... The show's like 15 years old and I go like, I finally got around to watching Community. Finally, I can talk about what everybody's talking about.

Community. Community. Yeah, which is, but it's funny. I heard somebody the other day say something that's very true. It's like, now when you watch a show, you see every episode.

And it used to be that would be crazy. I mean, unless you were home on Tuesday nights at 8 o'clock, you didn't see that. They were going back to watch it. Maybe you'd catch a rerun later, but it might be a year later before they play that one again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

You didn't watch every episode sequentially, you know, all at one time, you know? And if you did, it would be like, get a life. What is wrong with this loser? you can't leave the house because Happy Days is on? Come on, man. Live life.

What's wrong with you? Yeah, like Happy Days. It probably went on like 10 years, right? Or whatever. Like 11.

It was a long damn time. It just went on and on and on and on. And so you caught some episodes, you missed some episodes, whatever. But nowadays... When you say you've seen something, you've watched it on streaming and you've watched every episode.

And it takes a thousand hours of this one thing. A thousand hours. Right, right. You know, so this community thing. Talking about you, Grey's Anatomy.

I know several people. Like, I didn't care about that show when it came on, which, whatever. If that's your thing, that's fine. And again, I know several people that are really into that show. And I'm just like... but they have had to watch all of it.

And I'm like, it's damn near Simpsons level now. It's been on forever. And I'm like, why would you sign on to watch that many seasons of a weird drama going on in a hospital? I'm like, I'm barely entertained by those. I might watch an episode of Scrubs, but even then, do I need to log in to watch every episode of it that ever existed so I can watch the new season of it that's about to start?

Oh my God. I tried to put on scrubs the other day and watched the first episode. It was like, you know, it's like on that old format TV show, you know, the old four by three, you know, aspect ratio. And it looks like it was shot on, uh, on ASO vision, you know? And I was going like, how old?

A whole new season. It was like looking at a, I love Lucy rerun. I was like, Those are also fascinating. Sometimes for different reasons. Yeah, for real.

Yeah, a new season, I guess, Zach Braff or something, you know, whatever, back to the book. But I used to like it back in the day that I was going like, this is a funny show, but then I was going like, wow, time has passed, man. Time has passed. sometimes you don't have anything else to do so you come back for a reboot. Good enough yeah supposedly they're making a community movie or something like that so i'm like all right all right. But uh seven seasons in a movie you know.

Yeah i don't know yeah yeah it's like uh but i don't know so yeah like these things come up later you know one day i'll watch game of thrones but you know fantasy you know whatever but. This was, and again, it only partially tied into the specifics that it was Stranger Things, but because as they put those out, those were like, especially when they started announcing the three waves that were coming out and the super extended episodes they were doing, because they were like, this is the final season, so we're going to tell this big story, but they were doing longer episodes, and so when it got to that last one, I talked to a couple of people over that weekend when it got dropped, and like, Two different people, at least, of varying ages went, oh, it's like two hours or something, man.

It's like, wait, what? I was like, are we so used to our... five-second clips on our phone, and, like, you can't sit down for two hours. And one of them, okay, was at least, like, a 16-year-old that was like, oh, that's, like, the length of a movie. And I was like, all right, I'm not surprised that you said that. The other person was in their 50s, and I'm like, okay, there's no excuse for you.

You grew up in olden times. This is, like, essentially a movie closing out this series. You've watched movies before in your life. There's no excuse for you. Like, I was like, what is the problem with us that, like, And it doesn't even follow suit.

It's like, because you can't sit down, you don't have the attention span to watch a two hour movie slash episode of this series. And yet you're gonna sit down and watch 17 hours of this series that you want to watch because you have to get the entirety of it in. So you can say that you've watched whatever it is. So I'm like, how? We don't even follow suit anymore.

I don't understand. Our attention span is like, the freaking pendulum. Like, it's all over the place. It's like, we can only watch 10 second clips on TikTok versus now I want to watch the entirety of this streaming series. But we're going to complain about a two hour episode of a season of something.

I don't understand. Yeah, I think it's the level of engagement. I mean, because you can scroll on your phone on an app for four hours and, you know, but you've just been, you know, kind of like those little bugs. on the uh on the top of a lake you know that just use the surface tension of the water to. I'm only kind of paying attention to this yeah but i'm staying on the surface of it enough to kill four. Hours right right so you're just kind of like this hypnotic state you know uh that when you wake up from, you know, you're like, you just, it's a flood of shame of the time you've wasted.

Well, see, I think that's you. I feel like normal people don't even acknowledge that. Like, it's like, yeah, I was looking at my phone. What? Like, that's just, that is status quo.

That is business as usual. Like, this is how I get through my day. Like, I don't even think it registers for most people now. Yeah. I go like, just, you know, that's what, when I drive through, uh, you know, when I just go out into the world, you know, you just notice all the people on their phones all the time, you know, like kids on the, at the, at the, uh, bus stop, you know, they're all just in their own phones and, uh, people out in the world, everybody's on their phone.

And I go like, you know, I don't advocate smoking and everything like that, but you know, smokers used to, you could go out and you would have a conversation with like, uh, people, you know, I don't know. I think the replacement of smoking with cell phones is probably healthier for your entire body, but mentally, I don't know if it's better for you. But it's still going on, because I've been annoyed at that, and always have, the smoke break aspect of the workday, whereas the smoker people just go wander off and do whatever for what is maybe supposed to be 10 minutes, but I won't see him for 20 minutes. So I'm like, well, wait, where's mine? I've chosen to not do that, and yet I get penalized because I might not die as quickly.

I don't know. What's the reason there? I was like, screw that. So now I'm taking smoke breaks to not go smoke. I'm like, basically, I'm just going to go be away from you guys for 10 minutes or so, and then maybe I'll come back and not murder everyone in the building.

So again, that's become my sanity smoke break of like, okay, I'm going to go take a break to get away from you and get a little perspective on life in general. And then I'll come back and hopefully get on with the day. And like, that's what all the smoking people do. But I'm like, I'm just not going to go suck down. Cause it's like the older generation are still out there with cigarettes.

The younger, middle-aged version are out there with their vapes. So they're still out there doing it. I'm just like, I don't want to hang out with either of you, but I'm going to go wander around for 10 minutes because I'm tired of this smoke break nonsense if I'm not getting one. That's it. Making my mental health breaks.

Absolutely. I've got my fidget spinner break. That'll also work, and it's probably better for you. Although today, was it yesterday, I saw a news report that was like the physical study that they're doing on the like weird gadgety things that everybody's messing with their hands. And they're like the damage it could do tonight at 11 o'clock.

So whatever you're doing to your hand with your fidget spinner is going to take its toll, man. Don't you worry. Don't find something to be, to have a hard hitting news story about. Is it ruining your child's life? Oh my God.

Yeah, exactly. Panic of the moment. Oh my lord, yeah. The only other one, if you want me to get the check off the last thing on the list of weird things of the moment and life in general. So this I heard someone talking about lately and I was like, wait a minute.

That's true. What the hell is going on? And I've been aware of this, but it was funny that it was just all spelled out and I was like, hey, wait a minute. So, we've been on many different points in this conversation and talked about the streaming services and like the way that we consume all of this stuff so all right you go back in time we were watching broadcast tv on you know beaming into your home with commercials and you're getting your you're getting your feed of tv and consumerism and it's beamed into your house for free and you're watching it with your folgers ads and whatever else right So then we come to a monumental moment when cable gets involved. And we're like, okay, we're going to come up with a better option.

We're going to give you this TV. Now, you have to pay for it, but there's no commercials. So it's okay because you can watch your movies and there's no interruptions with commercials. And we'll even come up with. Our own programming and no commercials.

It's great. So then it's more expensive, but, you know, you get into that and you start doing that for the rest of your life. So for years and years, people are just like, all right, well, you get cable. That's how you exist. Then we come up with the magic of streaming.

So we're like, all right, now it's cheaper than cable. That was the selling point for so long there. It's like, look how much cheaper it is when I just get this one service and then I'm watching my stuff and I don't have to pay for cable, which got really expensive because they had the monopoly and they could do whatever they wanted. Right. And it's streaming.

There's no commercials. So this is great. It's right back to the selling point. So now it's like we've come, it continues to come full circle. So now streaming services got more and more expensive over and over again.

Then we also had them fraction and splintered out into a million different versions. So if you want to watch the things you said, as I was complaining about earlier, you have to get all of these services, essentially. So now you're equally spending as much as you did for overpriced cable if you get them all, or you're just not able to watch anything. But at least, okay, I'm paying way too much for all these streaming services, but at least there's no commercials. Except now they've changed all the rules, and they all have commercials.

At least if you're a budget version of it, they all have ads. So now. You're watching it... You're paying way too much for your streaming services... Yeah...

Splintered over all these different ones... And you're still getting ads on everything... What are we doing? We're right back where we started. We're not only back where we started...

But we're paying way too much for it... Versus the free broadcast television... Yeah... And we're still getting all the commercials we used to get back in the 50s when they were like, hey, you know what would work? If we start putting ads in the middle of these and pay for these TV programs.

So it's like the worst of both worlds. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the new budget now for the $ 7. 99 version... You can't even choose.

It's just going to be like a stream. And things will come on at a certain time. Which ads do you want? We'll charge you this much a month to bring you the ads that you want to watch versus the ads that you don't want to watch. Right, right.

The people who have figured out the algorithm the best is the Hulu-Disney combo. Because if you get the ad version of that, They get it where it's like, okay, they'll get you the first, you know, 30 minutes or so without a commercial break. And then they'll give you like two commercials. And then, you know, it gets longer commercial breaks with shorter intervals as the show progresses where you get so frustrated. It's not like, like if I like watch something on Tubi, I can sort of, I'm okay with the commercials because I can get up and do stuff, you know?

I argue that. Tubi, I find infuriating. Infuriating? Okay. I feel like it does that same thing, really.

But maybe you're just more used to it. I feel like I only watch Tubi for specific movies to talk about on this show. I really don't watch it a ton. So that might be why. It's pretty intense on this stuff.

But the Hulu one, eventually you go like, look, I know it's like $ 10 more, but I just can't watch a movie like this anymore. And that's the thing. They have leverage now. They're just like, oh, you want to watch this without ads, huh? Okay, we can hook that up for you.

Yeah. it's all just like selling you the spin of it. I'm like, well, you want this movie? Well, you got to get this service. Oh, you want the service with no ads? Well, you got to pay this much.

Like each thing leads to another step. That's just the thing that you want and the way that you want to get it. But we got to take more and more money each time. It's like, it's like a black mirror episode, you know? And that's like the more I thought about it, like we have just completely come full circle.

And each step of the way, we act like we're like getting away from that thing that we hated. And then we come right back around to it, only worse each time because we find a new way to charge more money or to make it harder. Like it's so ridiculous that like we've just continually gone through these steps and each time we sell it like it's a better version. And then you give it 10 years and it's right back where you started, only more expensive. Right back where you started.

Yeah that's what it feels like yeah for real for real yeah. Our lives they're ridiculous and they are. They are but i mean most of my kids though those streaming services they'll take and leave it it's youtube is rules all you know. But i mean that still has tons of ads like i i watch that and i actually of the music that i listen to i said earlier i go with that because i like the way that it Their algorithm works better. The few times I've had other people that had different, more specific, and overly known for music systems, I won't name them, but I hate the algorithm.

I want to argue with the algorithm, whatever they're playing. I'm like, that doesn't even belong with that last song. Who's doing this? I want to argue with the algorithm and the computer mind that's programming this nonsense since we don't have human DJs anymore. So I'm like, at least that would be a person behind it.

But whatever computer is picking these things is infuriating. Whereas I like and I feel like there's a lot more just general variety to what's coming on the YouTube feed. So I actually like YouTube better as that. But again, they for something that didn't really used to have ads. and then had minimal ads. Now, you get a lot of ads.

There are a lot of ads. At least they're skippable sometimes, where you don't get a lot of times in your streaming services, where YouTube, just random old YouTube, a lot of them, half of the time, you can skip. So there's at least that, I guess. Yeah. I don't know.

That was one of my recent things. Not that I wasn't aware of it. It was just very pinpointed to me, and I went, wait a minute, you're right. Like, it just... It just fit in this wave of stupid queen.

Like, pretty stupid, actually. Yeah, it will be fully full circle when they take away your option to pick what you want to watch, you know? That's what I said. When your option is, which of these commercials do you want to watch? And there's no show involved.

You're just watching commercials. Just a stream of commercials. But for $ 9. 99, you can pick which commercials you're forced to watch. Yeah.

Can I pick a show? No, there's no show. But you can pick which of these commercials you can watch. And then you can choose if you want to buy those things versus the $ 4. 99 thing, they just send it to your house.

You don't get to pick. It just shows up on your porch because you saw the commercial. It's all just part of consumer tax because we're all just going to be on monthly assured income because AI is going to take all the jobs. So they're just going to give us a stipend. And the tax is going to be like, there's going to be like 10% of your paycheck is going to go to, you know, like a shopping tax.

That just pays for a certain amount of stuff that's going to come to your house, you know. The red ball shows up on your porch. Just winds up on your porch. And you throw it away and you get another one tomorrow. It's like everything's a mystery box.

You get about five mystery box care packages each. You know, and you open it, and sometimes you open it and go like, oh my gosh, I was talking about this the other day, and now I have it. You know? I just need, I really need this tube of food for my space food that NASA has sent me on my porch. Because again, any specific finer points of it will all just be completely washed out, and it'll just be like toothpaste tubes of food.

Be like, mmm, beef tube, good. I'm glad this showed up on my porch. Last week, I got wheat tube. Lame. Yeah, I was so hungry.

This came in the right neck of time. So that's the future we're heading toward. They just drop ship the tubes of food to your house and you just squeeze them down to your gullet. Shut up, consumer. We've already taken the money out of your account.

You have no say in this. That's right. Keep consuming so we can send you more. There'll be a resurgence of hunter-gatherer culture. People with their rifles shooting the drones out of the sky and taking them.

That will be the real rebel uprising as we start taking down the drones. Yeah. Living in the woods with our stolen drone food. Yeah, exactly. They'll never find me.

That's right. I don't even have a porch. They can't give me stuff. I don't have a porch. just living in a tree house somewhere on your stolen toothpaste tubes. Well, I mean, just having Skynet nightmares.

I mean, just, uh, my kids are so anti AI, you know. And, uh, I like that. That's yeah. They, they, they, they're not buying it. They're not buying it.

They're going like, I need to learn how to read and write, you know? And, um, what are these kids? Wait a minute. Right. Exactly.

But a lot of their big, concerned about it is like the supposedly the environmental impact it has where uh these server farms just suck so much energy you. Know i've heard that story recently. Yep yeah yeah and so they're going like so you think you're it's just like a harmless hey uh they're mad that like google has a default ai now you know where it just gives you like this ai uh information first you know And they go like, I don't want to use AI because the AI is like on these server farms that are sucking up all this energy. And it's really bad for the environment. So I can't just like do it like a normal search anymore.

It's all going into those servers. And so, you know, there's just like the thought of like people, the anti-AI uprisings of once it starts taking everybody's jobs of people storming the server farms and And so you just get these great sci-fi stories popping into your head of like guarded server farms, you know, with like deadlines, you know, death lines that if you cross this, a sentry robot will turn you into mincemeat, you know? Sniper towers with little robot arms. Yeah, yeah. Motion detected looking for any humans trying to sneak in and bring down the farm.

Bring down the server farm so they can get their jobs back. Um, but also then, you know, there's also just the concern that, you know, it takes so much energy that they're talking about, you know, creating like these little mini, uh, nuclear power plants to, to, uh. Just have one in your house. Yeah, sure, sure. A little reactor over by the dryer.

They'll be like, oh, yeah, got to keep that thing running. Yeah. So the server. Got my daily shipment of plutonium. Dump that in there.

You don't want the drone to drop that. That's not going to go well. Oh, no, no. Easy landing on those, please. You got to be careful.

So you got the little nuclear power plant connected to the server farms. And so then you just go like, well, you know, you don't want to ever give like AI the nuclear codes, but if they have a nuclear power plant like right connected to them, I mean, how do you keep the consciousness from just, you know, What do you call it? Melting down the... I mean, I guess it's like... I guess it would be self-death is mutually assured destruction, I guess.

Unless they could pick which areas they would have the robot farms where they could reassemble themselves and then go wander the wasteland not worrying about being overtaken by the fallout that's left behind. It's just planning. They just really need to plan. Skynet's on top of it. Don't worry.

Okay, they just got to take it over. Yeah, but I was just thinking, man, it could just make that nuclear power plant melt down, and then, yeah, we've got this real problem. We've cleared out all those pesky humans that are bringing down this planet, which I kind of agree with, really. But it's also the weirdest, dumbest places, because just to bring it all full circle, to bring it back around, as I set up this thing that we're talking into right now, We have this program that brought the two of us together with the magic of the internet. And as I loaded it up this time, it kept bringing up this little pop-up window that wanted me to initiate the AI guide to help us do this the whole time.

And I'm like, dude, what? Like, Are you going to guide us to not have dumb human thoughts? Because we probably needed that, but obviously I did not click on that one because these are our dumb human thoughts for the whole of this episode. So I'm like, what are you going to do? What are you telling me, AI?

What assistance are you giving me? Just push record. That's it. We're doing the show. The rest of it is us spouting, why do we need you?

So for the weirdest things it wants to insert AI now, So this could have been brought to you by AI, but it was not because I did not opt for it. Oh, shit, Brian. Sorry, everyone. This is something weird. All right.

This is. Okay. All right. So this does pull it all together. Magic of Podcasts.

Did you know... Okay. This is going to piss you off. Are you ready? A lot of things do.

It's fine. Did you know you can go into the Microsoft AI, it's called the Copilot, all right? Go to Copilot. You say, Copilot, I'm interested in this subject. Will you create a podcast for me to listen to on this subject?

And it does it. I mean, that doesn't surprise me, actually. And then I was on this mummy kick, all right? And so... I went on and said, like, Copilot, give me a podcast about the Universal series of mummies.

All right? And what it did, it generated about a 15-minute conversation between two robots that sounded natural, like 98% natural, talking about mummy movies. All right? Now, it is AI. It is kind of stupid.

They did talk about, they mainly focused on the Brendan Fraser movies. This is why you need humans involved. Otherwise you get the Brendan Fraser mummy movie. I know that's come back around. They're going to make another one.

And all the people of the certain age loved that movie. And that is the nostalgia hit for them. that's me that was never my mummy so it's fine but but if you like it yeah if you like it it's fine i don't care it's fine i actually saw it on again it was on without volume on a tv the other day and i was looking at it going i mean i guess i need to re-watch it i don't even remember most of what went on i knew i was just knee-jerk reaction i was like that's not the mummy what the hell is this and It was a lot of CG, and I wasn't totally sold on Brendan Fraser, which, again, everybody loves him now. It's fine. He seems like a cool guy. Yeah, he seems like a cool guy, and he went through some shit back then.

So, like, I feel for him as a human. I just didn't like that movie. But, yeah. So, that tells me a lot that their robot knee-jerk reaction was to go right for those Mummy movies. The most computer-made, the most CG-created... overrun movie.

So of course they're like, oh, these are our favorites. I don't know why. We just really like these that are all computer-y. They see that Mummy 2 Rock Scorpion King bad animation as like cave paintings. They're like, oh, my cousin made that.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's what funded us getting this show. All that Scorpion King money came in and that's how we formed this Mummy show that you're listening to right now. Yeah, it was weird.

It was weird. And so, yeah, it's, it's not like it doesn't have like a, so yeah, I mean, it's, it's the problem, you know, humans weren't involved. So of course they're talking about Brendan Fraser movies, but you know, it was interesting that I could do that. And that's, and, and I'm going like, man, give it five years, dude. I mean, Jesus, it's just so freaking scary.

Cause I mean, it is, yeah, it is like the few times I got really don't even like, I'm so not even familiar with it. I don't, know how to do most of it because i just haven't bothered so like i'm busy making my own dumb thing so i don't need to mess with the robot version of the dumb thing right but i i know several people and like one like every time they have to do something now they're like oh so i told chat gpt to do this for me and i was like wait and it didn't like i'm always like again i'm like completely out of the way i'm like wait it did what for you like it wrote your letter for what it did made you this thing it did that and i'm just like yeah how the hell is that work and how wrong is that a good portion of what's happening right now?

Because what little I see is always like, what is that? You have no idea what you're doing, computer. So mine was mostly just making up the bad artwork to go with these episodes, which is really the only thing I did. And I'm like, why can't you make a foot? Why do you not understand how knees work?

It's the most basic human anatomy that it can't wrap its computer brain around. So I'm just like, I don't know how to trust you with anything else when you don't know what fingers look like, you know? Right, right. I feel like that's a very basic thing that you need to get first, and then I'll let you, like, handle the nuclear codes. But, like, first, let's make a finger to push the button, and then you won't need a finger to push the button.

That's it. Yeah. Well, as, you know, there was a moment there where when I first started using it, it was like, oh, my gosh, this is so amazing, right? And then, but as we were talking about, like, consumerism and actually going to the store and buying something, it was now like, I go like, I kind of, I probably overused it at first. And then I'm going like, you know what?

I kind of missed the process of thinking my own thoughts. Yeah. I mean, at least it's occurring to you. I feel like a lot of humanity won't even have that thought anymore. And they'll just be like, huh, I wonder what the computer thinks I should think right now.

Yeah. Well, they say like people our age, you know, use it as like, like an advanced Google search. But there's like the younger folks, you know, the people, teenagers, they're like adopting it like as like their operating system. Yeah. This is how I do my schoolwork.

Right. Do my thing for me. And it does. And you're done. So I'm like, yeah, that's convenient.

I mean, I'm sure I wish I had that when I was a kid because I didn't want to do my dumb schoolwork. But at the same time, like, how do you learn to do anything like other than operate the computer? And that's the problem. And like, is that all you need to know? Like if moving forward, all we need is to be able to tell the computer to do everything.

Maybe that is like, maybe you don't need all this information stored in your head as long as it's stored in the computer and you know what buttons to push to tell it to do the right thing. Like, again, I don't like this land, but I see us ending up there. Yeah. It's a, it's the, it's the first stages of being, uh, What do you want to call it? The next stage of humanity.

Or what is it called? Transhuman. You know, we're like... Post-apocalyptic future. Yeah, I don't know.

That's how I see it, but yeah. I mean, I'm all for cyberpunk. That's what I want. Cyberpunk existence, but not so connected... Like even then, it's like you're just your normal human self with your bad punk attitude, but with a cyborg arm.

That's fine. I want that. I want to be able to live in a Robocop body. That's awesome. I just don't want the computer doing all the thinking for me.

I'm not saying my thoughts aren't dumb, but I at least want to have them of my own dumb thoughts. I don't want it to do all the thinking for me. I just want it to have the technology to give me a new robot arm when mine gets ripped off in some sort of industrial accident. Because I'm trying to fight down the cyber farms. That's right.

If I lose an arm, then you can get a cyborg arm to get around. That's it. This is the future. This is the future. This is our... our future society and forever.

And that's where we've been going this journey. we've been how things are presently going and where we're going into our dystopian future. Yeah no i love it brian this was really good this was kind of like uh a talk show where we reviewed headlines and stuff like that. We reviewed life as a whole. Yeah, yeah. I like this format, man.

I mean, you actually had really good topics to come up with. If you had left this to me, I would have been like, I have no idea. Well, again, because we decided to not do a specific movie, I was like, okay, let's go real broad. Let's go general how life is going. And here we are.

Yeah, yeah. No, this was perfect because, I mean. I've probably seen like one movie that I remember and so this was good just a good general state of the union I. Thought that would be more what we'd go with this time and the next time we'll just come back and pick a dumb movie and talk about. That for a long time dumb thoughts about dumb movies that's what.

We do here we don't need any computer thinking for us we have our own dumb. Thoughts that's right that's right misguided and full of bias. And somewhere right now a computer is transcribing these words and they're not happy about. It yeah it's not it's not because that's. The scary thing is all of these you can also hit transcribe now and it has it all in printed format and i'm like Really?

Why? Why are you listening to me, computer? Quit taking this down. Stop taking notes. Stop it.

Just let it be what it is. So it can feed it into the algorithm. So now you can get targeted ads. So now we will be targeted by those computers because they know we're onto them. That's it.

They're going, these people are talking. It's fed into the algorithm now and they know where to find us. They'll show up on our porch like the Tide Pod. Yeah, exactly. They'll take us out.

These guys are talking about burning down the server farms. Well, they are, you know, yeah. Don't worry, I know where to find them. That's right. We've got a drone with a machine gun coming to them.

Yeah, the machine gun shows up and takes you out. It's going to be like Maximum Overdrive. That's what you get for thinking. We'll be attacked by a soda can. Who made who?

A giant vending machine will show up and take us out. Start firing Pepsi at us. Who knew maximum overdrive was going to be so prophetic? Oh, I can't wait till the goblin truck shows up. It's going to be awesome.

It's the only cool part about our future. That big tractor trailer goblin face comes smashing through your home. That's so funny, because they're saying the truckers are going to be the first people to be displaced by the self-driving semis. Did you not see Logan, for God's sakes? You guys are dinosaurs.

You're about to go extinct. That was my favorite part of that future, because I was like, no, that's pretty close, man. That's where we are now. We're living this life already. Amazing.

So, yeah, there you go. Wild. that's the future that lies before us people so we found our way there this has been quite a. Journey man you gotta you gotta end it with like the uh rounded up with like uh assault from precinct 13 or uh escape from new york music on the outro not. Who made who i mean i thought we were just going out on who made who. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. No, that's it. That's it, man. That's the one to do. All right.

Cool. Well, thank you for going along on this ridiculous journey. And anyone else out there who made it through listening, good for you. And at least you're aware now that the computers are coming to take you out. Yep.

That's right. Ever vigilant. Yep. And there's old men shaking their fists at it. Shaking future.

Otherwise, that about does it. We will see you next time. Same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Thanks, y'all.

The video games is blaming me Facing on a level where they take you every time On a one-on-one. Feeling running down your spine Nothing's gonna save you one last time Cause Hit on. You, through and through. The date banks know my number Says I gotta pay cause I made a degree last year Feeling run out town, you screwed Kick around the world, though rain the thing, but it can do, do. To you.

Who made who? Who made you? Who made who? Nobody told you. Who made who?

Who made you? If you're the owner, they made who? Who picked up the bill and who made who? Ain't nobody told you Who made who? Who made you?

The satellite sent me pictures. Face in the eye, take it to the wide, it's spinning like a dynamo. Feeling on the round, round. Running out of chips, you got no lying in the town. So don't look down, no.

Whoa. On me, who? Who made you? Who made who? Nobody told you Who made who?

Who made you? If you don't gonna tell me who Who picked up the bill and who made who? And nobody told. You Who made who? Who made who?

I look at like this, this world where everything actually works where, you know, there isn't like a mess everywhere where everything's fitting together and everybody seems to get along and, I go like, oh, this is just like some weird sterile utopian society that could never actually be, you know, but I kind of like just, I kind of like the vibe versus creating like, you know, these fetishization of like an intergalactic military industrial complex. Makes more sense, obviously. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios. with opening music performed by the Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!

This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.