Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - Reality is that which, when you stop laughing at it, doesn't go away (false alarm Elon Musk 4202023 remix)

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

One of the episodes in my False Alarm! Series from 2018 imagined a future where Elon Musk stepped up to help with the News. That Algorithmic Oligarchic joke is no longer funny. On 4.20.2023 Elon Musk followed through on his threat and brought Twitter to heel. From 2018: A handful of tech barons now own the news but only one can rule the fake news. A chat with the comedy team behind the CBC’sThis is That satirical news show turns into breaking news about Elon Musk.

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Episodes every other week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. A couple of years ago, I produced a min series for the podcast called False Alarm. It was about disinformation, propaganda, and the difficulties that I was having with making a podcast in which the line between fact and fiction was blurry. One solution that I came up with was to split my podcasting practice in two. In other words, I'm now writing fiction stories like Convolution, a 10-episode miniseries I wrote for Audible back in 2020, which stars Ray Sehorne.

If you haven't found that one, definitely check it out. And I will be doing more like that soon. But I'm also doing nonfiction stories, mostly here on The Theory of Everything. And this summer, I will be releasing the most ambitious nonfiction story that I've ever done. It's an eight-hour miniseries called Not All Propaganda is Art. It's a cultural Cold War story. And it follows the lives of three writers during the latter half of the 1950s, which is the height of when government agencies like the CIA were using writers and artists to fight their

battle of ideas. Like you, I now content myself to get my fix of a blurry fact and fiction mix from real life. Lately, though, I found myself thinking a lot about one of the fact fiction episodes I made for False Alarm about Elon Musk. Over the past 10 years, Twitter has evolved into a media source that is just not autocratic friendly. It's too easy to shame and mock and tweak our government, corporate, and criminal overlords. So I wasn't actually surprised when Elon Musk decided to take one for the team and outright buy it and dismantle it.

And make no mistake, the 420 removal of the blue check system really is the end. Now, I never even bothered to get one, so I'm not speaking from the perspective of someone who feels like they've lost something that was important to my self-esteem or self-worth, but I promise you, we really did lose something. The blue checks did matter. Most journalists had one, especially the ones who were good at using Twitter when it mattered most, like on January 6th. That was an incredible moment of real-time information sharing and crowdsourcing. I still think about that guy with the zip ties in his back pocket and how he was identified and arrested

thanks to users on Twitter. The loss of the blue checks and the algorithmic boost that Musk has built in for the users he wants to amplify ensures that on the next January 6th, no one will know who is credible and who is not. One of my favorite things about Twitter was the jokes. I never really was a big poster, but I was a big lurker. And while I loved seeing updates about important stories, I really loved the jokes. The jokes about Elon Musk have been especially great these past few months. But like I said, the fun times are over. When I first started this series, False Alarm,

one of the things I knew I had to figure out was how to continue using both fact and fiction on my show. Because let's face it, right now, a podcast in which you have to work hard to figure out what is real and what is fake is definitely not the thing people are rushing out to get their hands on. Well, a Canadian friend reached out to me and told me I should check out this radio show that airs on the CBC, Canada's public radio, called This Is That. This show, my friend told me, is doing really interesting and provocative things with the real, the fake, comedy, and satire. So, I gave it a listen. Nova Scotia was a province with a problem.

Its prison system was overcrowded and running out of room. But instead of building new prisons, the government found a solution by literally thinking outside the box. Last year, a new pilot program was launched that removed inmates from teeming prisons and rehoused them in some of the province's unused condo units. And while it's saving the government millions of dollars, some condo owners are not pleased. Joining me on the line to discuss this pilot project is Nova Scotia's Department of Justice spokesperson, Laurie McDermott. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. It's an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity. Thank you.

Okay, so just to be clear, then, the province actually purchased these empty condominiums? Right, that's right. Some are purchased and some are rent. You know, some are actually just through Airbnb. What security precautions are you taking? We're not giving them the fob. The fob. The fob.

So that means, you know, if they go out of the building, first of all, they've got to get past the concierge. That's not going to be easy. And then second of all, if they actually do make it out of the building, past the concierge, they can't get back in because they don't have a fob. So then they've... They're stuck outside. They've escaped.

And they can't come back in. And you've got to think, a lot of these guys, they're in some pretty nice condos. Okay, ridiculous stories that sound real simply because they're on the CBC? That's pretty amazing. Plus, these guys have been doing their show since 2010. That's totally amazing. As I listened to this first episode, I felt a thrill of new discovery.

I knew right away that this show would soon be part of my weekly listening routine. But then I heard this. Now trust us, Canada. This is news you actually can believe. After eight seasons of This Is That, we've decided this is our last season. Thank you, Canada. I am always just one second too late. But still, I was curious to learn more.

Were these guys giving up? Did the CBC pull the plug? Or have these comedy geniuses figured out a new angle? Do they have plans to take satire to the next level? I had to know. So I got the whole This Is That crew in the studio for a chat to learn more about this thing they'd built and why they were shutting it all down.

My name is Pat Kelly, and I'm one of the co-hosts of This Is That. I am Peter Oldring, and I am the other co-host component of This Is That. I am Peter Oldring, and I am the other co-host component to This Is That. And I am Chris Kelly, the producer of This Is That. Alright, well, let's go back to the beginning. Let's hear something. Let's hear a clip

from your very first season, which is 2010. This is an interview with the director of a Calgary aquarium, who is sad to be announcing that everything is closing down. Why don't you guys set it up? Sure. I mean, this was literally one of the very first ones that we ever did. We were still in this mindset of really being true to the mimicry, to this conceit that we never wink. And so there's not a lot of jokes in the setup of it. And we were just driving towards this punchline. Yeah, let's give it a listen.

You can't simply release these animals back to the ocean because, you know, they've lost that natural instinct. It's also not easy to just simply shuffle them off to another aquarium. The shock of that type of change can often be too much for an animal to bear. So then what is the plan? Well, this Saturday, what we're doing is we're inviting families to come down to the aquarium and we're basically having a big grill out. You can come into the aquarium, point at any of the fish in any of the tanks that you want, and we'll simply grill it up on an open pit barbecue. Well, I want to thank you for joining us here today, Mr. Dryden, and I'm sorry

that an aquarium didn't work in Calgary and all the best with the closure of it this Saturday. Well, thank you very much. And we'd like to remind families to, you know, get there early on Saturday. It starts at 11 o'clock and it may be one of the only chances you'll have in your life to enjoy grilled manatee or sea otter. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much. So from my understanding, this is a pretty seminal moment in the this is that history. Tell me why. The reason it's significant is it's like what totally paradigm shifted us from when we created the pilot

and even some of the first episodes. We had no lens on like satire. No, I mean, I just don't know even what we're satirizing in that story. In that, I mean, I think, is it pancake breakfasts in Calgary? Outdoor dining? The CBC thing was like, so we could kind of do sketch comedy.

And then we got all these calls and we were like, oh, wait, like this is. Are we in trouble? This is calls from listeners. Yeah, this was like completely the eye opening story that made us realize, you know, the power of what this show could do. We received a lot of feedback in regards to a story we did about the Calgary Aquarium shutting its doors. We'll play that interview in a minute, but first, here's what you had to say. The story about the Calgary Aquarium shutting down,

what they're doing with the animals is they're going to eat them. I think this is absolutely outrageous and disgusting. And very disgusting. Disgust. I don't know how people are getting away with this. They're going to grill up the fish and the sea otters? I've never heard of anything quite so barbaric. They have said they're going to have a grill out?

I think it's very disturbing. I don't know, it just sounds really, really, I don't know, not mean, but just weird. I just feel absolutely outraged. What's going on here? I'm sure there's people out there that feel the same way. I just, this is shocking to me. And I just hope it's a joke. We get asked this all the time. Are those calls real? And people are absolutely floored to find out that they are. And let me just scratch that from my list of questions. Yeah, there you go. Nine years later, the calls reacting to these stories on our show are absolutely real.

And that's a thing that we've never really stoked that fire on purpose. And it really was after it had aired that we realized, oh, people, they don't sort of see this as a very funny juxtaposition of character and tone. They think this is true. I kind of feel like it added validity to the blurred lines of whether it was real or not. Because those calls are so authentic. Like, they're just like, because they are. Like, they're real.

And so everything else in the show is fake. And so because they're real, it makes people question whether everything else is real yeah and i think it also acted as kind of like the defining marker for those who are in the club and those who aren't yeah because the people that are fans of the show they always say that's their favorite part too is to hear those people react so it sort of acts as this uh oh you get it you don't and this doesn't mean a diminishing number of calls over time. I mean, the people in the know can't be the ones who keep calling. No.

You know, radio is a passive thing, so you're always floating in and out of it. And yeah, maybe diehard fans know when our show is on, but we're just like the one satirical show in a 24-hour clock of programming. Even for people who know the show our tone is so similar to the other programming and i think it's only after nine years that people are finally going like that's so crazy oh wait really oh oh it must be this is that so you're saying there's like a guy in a car in winnipeg 2010 he hears this and he calls in he's mad and then he's saying in 2013, he calls in again,

forgetting that like, oh yeah. Yes, definitely. That happens. I do not doubt that. I have family who say to me, you tricked me again. And it's like my voice. So there's every good reason to believe that someone could have unknowingly called our show several times over the past nine seasons,

angry at many things, never knowing that it's a joke. Well, let's jump ahead to 2016. We're going to play something from an interview you did with a guy who's getting complaints over some condos that he built. Condos missing bathrooms. The people who have purchased these condos are upset to discover that their condominium did not come equipped with a bathroom. However, from where I stand, and this needs to be heard loud and clear, we are not liable for this mistake. And I'll tell you why, Peter. The show suite that we had at the sales center did not include a bathroom. So theoretically, what happens here is we had customers lining up to buy a condominium in this project, knowing full well that there wasn't a bathroom and they

went ahead with the purchase anyway. So all I'm trying to do is keep up with what the market is dictating. And what the market is telling me is build more buildings as quickly as you can. If there happens to be some mistakes made along the way, you know, always look on the bright side of life. We actually have one customer in this building who is not suing me. And you know why? He doesn't want a bathroom. He's actually found a way to make the kitchen work for him. This one is pretty significant in the story of This Is That. Tell me about why. It went crazy viral.

Viral in a way that we just never really experienced before. On an iPhone, when you swipe right, there's like a news widget. And it was at the top of that in North America. It got like 2 million views in 24 hours. It just flooded the CBC. You know, anything that had gone kind of viral, it had gone harmless viral, if that makes sense. This one was different in the sense that it was around the start of Trump and fake news and this sort of attack on which news outlets are legitimate. And because it was so prominent on the iPhone interface as just saying CBC,

for the first time in eight years, the people at the news division of CBC were like, we can't have this. Yeah, if the whole argument about fake news and the whole media landscape around that time, like shifting and changing really part and parcel with Trump, I really feel like if that was not a thing, it would have floated along just as the show has. Somehow to be saying in, you know, 2016, 17, 18, that we're telling stories that people

can't tell whether it's true or not. And we're not, we're not sort of holding their hand through that. It's like that has a different connotation now in a very, very real and sad way. Yeah. For me, it's, you know, as I also mix, you know, fake and the real on my own show. And I've almost felt that my listeners just don't want that anymore. There's so much of that, that this is just more of the stuff that's driving them crazy. Yes. Yeah, which has been reflective of, I mean, arguably, the bathroomless condo is a pretty goofy premise. But I would say in the last like couple years we've

definitely leaned more on uh you know lighter kind of goofier ideas that we would maybe in the early days of the show shied away from because we would have had this filter which we did that was oh it's too sketch that that premise is too sketch comedy but now in the last couple years we've just sort of said you know let's just do them yeah i used to think in a similar way like if i just made things ludicrous then it would be obvious to the listener that they you know they can't take this at face value and they should you know do a little more investigation um but as you've learned uh that is not enough people People still believe. They still think it's all real.

But tell me what happened when the bosses and the news division from the CBC got involved. What did they make you change? Well, we had to put a disclaimer on all the things that, not on the show, on the radio, but anything that kind of went out on the internet. All of our blog posts had to have the disclaimer that it was satire. For a brief period of time. And then until they had kind of like a bit more of an elegant fix, which was it would be labeled as coming from CBC, this is that. So CBC's, you know, thought at the time, and I think it's still true is like, well, it's

like, this is a show called this is that. And you should know that this Is That is a comedy show. And if it's your first time here, well, guess what? It's a comedy show and it does this kind of satirical stuff. As we've been making new projects moving forward, we have been letting people know up front, hey, this is comedy. Because it's like when you do that nowadays, especially since 2016, it's just like, okay, God, thanks. It's like one less thing I have to worry about to fact check or whatever.

It's like you can just enjoy the ride of the comedy as opposed to this weird, like the tension of it all. It makes the experience more enjoyable. There's a real audience out there that's looking for a comedy that doesn't hit you over the head that this is a zany comedy show.

And I think that's something that we've kind of decided to take with us into other projects that we're not trying to fool people with or have people take it as truth. We're trying to say this is a comedy show and this is how we deliver our comedy. So as I said at the beginning of the show,

you guys have just announced your retirement. I feel like, you know, once again, I've discovered something great too late. But what kind of response have you guys gotten from your listeners? It's actually been pretty awesome. I mean, you know, lots of folks have kind of sent us nice messages, you know,

just kind of saying we've really enjoyed the show. Like, that's been pretty cool. Well, Pete, I didn't tell you know, lots of folks have kind of sent us nice messages, you know, just kind of saying we've really enjoyed the show. Like, that's been pretty cool. Well, Pete, I didn't tell you this, is that I got a phone call for the last week's show. And, you know, when we announced that it's over. And she was, like, super mad about the prison condos. Oh, yeah. And, like, clearly very serious about it. And then at the end of the call is like gosh I'm so sad

that your show is ending oh my god it's one of my favorite shows on the CBC it's one of the only places

that reports very unusual pieces of news that we need to know that's right oh man can you guys tell me what you're gonna do next

well I can we talk about it who are you asking Chris I'm asking you Pete yeah definitely let me just text him to see if I what I don't understand what you Well, can we talk about it? Who are you asking, Chris? I'm asking you, Pete. Yeah, definitely. Let me just text him to see if I... I don't understand what you're...

Yeah, he's good. He's good. He's good? Let's do it. Before we had gotten to planning our final season, we were approached by Elon Musk with an offer to do some work for him. Oh, wow.

So I know that a couple of years ago, Elon tried to buy the onion and when he couldn't, he decided to just, you know, start hiring onion writers to do his own thing. Is this the project you're joining? No, this is... That fell through. That's done.

Yeah, they tried to unionize. You don't... Wait, wait, let's back up. How did this happen? Canada's not a very big place, and it's pretty common to kind of three degrees of separation. We all kind of know each other. So my cousin knows the singer Grimes, because she's Canadian.

She's a friend of the show. In the first couple of seasons, Grimes would reach out to us all the time. She fell for one of the early stories, she said. Which one was it? The bike ride on the 401. She actually wanted to do the theme song, too. Chris, do you have the rough track?

We, yeah, actually, you know what? I do have the original demo. Great. I want to hear that right now. Yeah. It was just kind of angular. Angular, it was also just, it's not the energy. You hear this song, and then the last thing you want to do immediately after is laugh,

because you're just in this tone of, you're a bit more self-reflective, I think. We did mention it to the people at CBC, and none of them knew who she was. Okay, so you're saying that after Elon Musk's Onion Project fell apart, Grimes, his girlfriend,

hooks him up with you guys. Yes. She hooked us all up on a group message on Signal on the do you use signal well no i don't use it but you know yes i know what signal is right well you should do it but that's that's actually how we met e unbelievable and now you guys are like working with him for real in person yes we were flown down there there to one of his houses in Bel Air. It was in Bel Air.

Yeah. Yeah. That was, well, I mean, it's an infamous weekend. Yeah. It was a bit of an infamous weekend. It was the, it was the weekend where Azalea Banks was there. No, no. You're saying that the reason Azalea Banks was complaining on Instagram about wandering

around the Musk mansion alone was because Elon and Grimes were like jamming with you guys. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

We were ignored too. I mean, we were just sitting there with, with her. Yeah. Um, cause they were fighting. Cause like Grimes and Musk.

Yeah. But it was like one of those weird ones where it's kind of like, you know, we're, we're just there while they're fighting, kind of twiddling our thumbs. uh, know so azalea was pretty i mean she was pissed uh really pissed oh my god she called elon a trash ass beta male pig and grimes a dirty sneaker in red out of the woods paps beer something partly our fault what do you? Because we were kind of, well, when they were gone and we were kind of like,

we were just kind of riffing. She was mad. We were kind of stoking it. And we were like, oh, that's funny. She said something funny. Wait, wait, wait. Were you just like helping her with her Instagram stories? Well, we were just riffing.

I mean, sitting around having limoncello's and she was fired up. And we were just kind of joking with each other. You know what I mean? The dirty sneaker inbred thing, that was ours. I mean, that came from an improv we were doing. Yes. Because Pete's shoes had fallen into the pool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was us. But then she kind of embellished on it. And in comedy, you would say that she was working blue. Wow, wow, wow. If you guys were jamming together, like were you recording this for like the pilot since you didn't have Elon around to work with? No, I mean, we didn't record it because we don't just do audio anymore. I mean, we're doing all kinds of things with social media, Instagram, Twitter. Yeah. LinkedIn, because that's like what we're doing for him is everything. So it

can be radio, video. Yeah. You know, written stuff that's either for the internet or not. He just texted, don't talk about the VR stuff. But that's so fun. It's so good. What can you tell me about what you're doing

for him? You know, the thing that was really like when he started to do a deep dive on our show, the thing that he responded to the most was again, like you, we talked about earlier is these calls and he very much was attracted to this idea of like, some people just don't get it. Yeah.

And he was like, that's what I want to do with all of my stuff. Yeah. And that it's like, is, is, is to do with all of my stuff. Yeah. Is sort of present this idea to the world. Like, if you don't get it, it's your fault. Yeah, it's your fault. And it's okay because this is satire. So it's just a joke.

It's just a joke. He wanted to sort of frame most of his communications sort of moving forward like either you get it or you don't and it's a joke and if you don't then – Which for a creative individual, you don't want to have any filters on what you are putting out. But that's also as a businessman, that can be obviously dangerous. But when you put everything out in the ambiguity of satire, it's a bit of a safety net. But I don't want to look at it that way. I don't think he looks at it that way. Well, it is, though.

He does. Because if you think about it, the SEC just filed a lawsuit, interestingly, the same day that you guys announced your retirement. I mean, I don't know if this is planned, but he's basically, they sued him for this whole business about what was the stock tweet, and his defense was it was a joke. Yeah, they didn't get it.

They didn't get it. It's a good joke. It was hilarious. Like anybody that's in weed culture, right? Well, and also that's the beauty of social media, which we've started to learn now that we've kind of drifted away from doing the radio show primarily is, you know, when you get on social media, kind of that sarcasm

and sort of mimicry is easier to do with something like Twitter. Yeah. It takes away this idea of like winking with, you know, a deadpan tone. You can just literally type something and then later say jk wow and this is something you guys really got down from doing your show for eight years but come on you gotta tell me something you guys are gonna do together one of the big components of this is that for all the years was a lot of the music stuff that we did. And I think because of whatever was going on

with him and Grimes, he was like, I want to put out a song that is better than hers. Like to get her back? No, kind of to just be sort of like... I'm Elon Musk. Yeah, you can do... I can do the Grimes thing too or whatever.

It's like, I can also do music. Now, why don't you see if you can get people into outer space? Yeah, exactly. So you made this thing together. Can I hear it? Can we hear some of it? Oh my God, yes. He wanted to drop it here. He knew we were doing this.

That's what he was hoping. He wants people to hear him sing, hear his music. Yeah. Music is science for your ears. On the moon, in the booth, at the lab, on the mic. Hyperloop, Tesla car, spinning discs at the bar. SpaceX launch, Elon Musk, looping tracks as I bust. Smoking spliffs like a boss, AI skills, what's the cost? Ha, Musk has done it again, created a new sound. Grimes is cool, but she's lost. On 420, I sent a DM to Chris Kelly,

one of the This Is That guys, to tell him that I was re-upping this episode. And he told me that the crew is actually going to reboot This Is That this summer. So, look out for that. The Theory of Everything is a proud founding member of Radiotopia, home to some of the world's best podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm. Radiotopia.

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