Hello Internet - H.I. #132: Artisan Water

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

Brady and Grey discuss: Berlin hotdrops, China feedback, fizzy water revisited, annual Instagram Island, yet more straw materials, art corner, the completely appalling and totally unacceptable Peloton bike commercial, and YouTube Rewind 2019. Sponsors: Ting: a smarter, less expensive and more human approach to cell phone service - get $25 off your phone bill at hi.ting.com Hover: the best way to buy and manage domain names - go to hover.com/hi and get 10% off your first purchase from Hover Backblaze: unlimited, cloud backup for Macs and PCs for just $6/month - get a fully-featured 15 day free trial at backblaze.com/hellointernet Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes: Discuss this episode on the reddit Berlin photo hotdrop Notre-Dame redesign that won't happen Aarke Brady on Instagram Island Banana art Turner Prize renders itself valueless Peloton Bike Commercial YouTube Rewind 2018 YouTube Rewind 2019 PewDiePie's wedding

Grey, some of the greatest hot drop moments in history have occurred on a recent trip I took to Berlin. That's a bold claim, Brady. The first one was right next to the, what's it called? What's the big parliament building they're called? The Reich something? Reichstag? Yeah, the Reichstag. That's it, isn't it? I don't know. It just

feels like the right word. I have not been to Berlin. I cannot help you with this. I tell you what, the Reichstag, by the way, it has a really impressive renovation that I think you'd like. They've built this, it's like still the old building, but they've built this ultra modern dome on the top of it. It's really cool. But anyway, that's by the by so i did a hot drop right near near the building just i sort of hid them in like a bus stop sign or something you know left enough clues to make them easy to find so you know the race was on and various tims came out from parts of berlin and raced to it and obviously the first two got the hot stoppers one of them posted you know a picture to say i got it the other one didn't was mysterious but then subsequent tims arrived and missed out

as is the way with heart drops yeah it's the whimsy of it so one of the ladies who missed out was sort of lightheartedly lamenting her misfortune. And I was feeling sorry for her. I was almost at the point where I was thinking I might go and do like a second contrived hot drop just for her. But I wasn't quite sure what to do. Anyway, later that night, she tweeted again. And it turns out the mysterious person who got the hot drop, who didn't announce who they were, was in fact this girl's boyfriend.

And he gave it to her that night on like date night. What a happy ending for a hot drop story. Yeah. That's really sweet. I'll tell you, this one's even better though. So, the next day we were wandering the streets. I was with my wife who loves photo booths. You won't be surprised to hear.

I am not surprised to hear that at all. And so we found this one. And Berlin's got all these cool photo booths, like sort of out on the street. They're a bit more gritty and urban. And there was this one that we saw. So she went in and did some pictures because she loves doing that. And it turns out there was a bit of a twist to this photo booth.

I think it's some kind of art installation or public program. And what happens is when you get your pictures taken, the pictures that pop out for you, like, you know, out the little slot, aren't the pictures of you. They're the pictures of the previous person who had their pictures taken in the booth and your pictures are left for the next people. So it's kind of this like, you know, lucky dip, whimsical thing where you get to see the pictures of the previous visitor.

But anyway, that's by the by. What happened was I sort of thought this would be a good place to do a hot drop, you know, leave a hot stoppers in a photo booth. And then while I was in there, my wife suggested, I can't believe I didn't think of it, said, well, why don't you take pictures of yourself with the hot stoppers and then tweet it and leave them in the booth? And the next person who comes to get them will not just get a hot stopper, they'll get a picture of you with the hot stopper. Now, that's a good idea. That is a good idea.

But I thought there's no way in the world that the Tims are going to get there quick enough because someone else will come along and use the photo booth and the next person who uses it will get the pictures of me. They won't get the hot stoppers. The hot stoppers I'll hide. But the pictures, there's a time limit on this, but it was a good idea. So I set it up and explained it and tweeted it.

And sure enough, within minutes, a Tim got there, got a hot stopper and did the photo thing and got the pictures of me with the hot stopper. I'll send you a picture. And then he posted a picture of himself with the hot stopper, with the pictures of, anyway, you get the idea. Did you stick around to observe? No. Okay. You know, if you do a hot stop drop, you don't want to be in the area after you make it public where it is, obviously.

But that does feel like one time you might want to be inconspicuously nearby to see if a rando is the person who gets the photos of you, or if it's a Tim who gets the photos of you. Yeah, I was really surprised it was a Tim. Hang on, I'm going to find the picture for you. Hang on. Not bad, eh? That's not bad. That's not bad. That's a good bonus reward for someone who's hunting hot stoppers. But obviously, I'm assuming he put coins in to get the picture of me, but I don't know if he

posed for pictures for the next Tim. I was hoping there was going to be this chain of each Tim getting pictures of the Tims before, but it didn't seem to work out that way. That would have been too awesome. You mentioned this redesign. It just reminded me of something which I don't think I ever asked you on the show, but I'm curious your thoughts on this. This is from a while ago, but it was that big fire that happened at Notre Dame. Yes. Did you ever see the proposed redesign for what might happen with Notre Dame? I did not.

Okay. So take a look at the link that I've just sent you. I'm looking now. So for the listeners, it's a proposed redesign for Notre Dame, which is instead of returning the roof to its wooden original, to replace it with glass. What do you think of this redesign, Brady? Well, the first thing that came to my mind is would the glass allow loads and loads more light into the cathedral? Because I mean, one of the things that really strikes you when you visited the cathedral before the fire was that it always felt really kind of dark and dank

and having like a glass roof would change that quite considerably. But it looks like this glass roof is more like an atrium on top with a floor that you can walk on. And therefore, I'm imagining that floor would block a lot of the light from getting down into the cathedral. So, I'm imagining the inside the cathedral experience wouldn't change tremendously. Yeah. I've never been inside the cathedral, but I would say from these pictures, it looks like what you're saying is the case that however dark and gloomy it was before on the inside of the cathedral, that would not change because yeah, it is, it is a, like a level on top of the cathedral for people to walk. And so thus it has a solid floor. I'm going to surprise

you here, Gray. I like it. What do you like about it? I don't know. Obviously, I'm a real traditionalist, but maybe partly influenced by my visit to the Reichstag, but also just... I like buildings having stories and being built on and changing, especially these old churches. And when you go to an old church or a cathedral i do like reading about them and finding out oh this wing here was built in 1600 and then there was a huge fire and they built this in 1720 and this part here was built in and like they're always this like muddle of disasters and stories and rebuilds and new architects and like this

could be just another one. And in 200 or 300 years, when there's this greenhouse on the roof, everyone will talk about, oh, yeah, that's when there was this huge fire at Notre Dame in, was it this year or 2018? I can't even remember. It was the very beginning of this year is when it happened. So this will be part of its story. That kind of works for me.

And I think it looks all right. I mean, the iconic, iconic view of Notre Dame is the front when you're front onto it, looking at full in the face with the two big towers. And I feel like- You can't even see the roof from that angle. Yeah. I feel like that view won't be changed tremendously or diminished. And when you're around the other aspects of it, looking at these computer renderings, it still looks like Notre Dame. It still has the look and like all the same aspects you used to have when you go there. So it's still instantly

recognisable despite the glass roof. It looks like a nice space to walk around in among the trees up there. It works for me for some reason. Tell me what you think. Well, I'm curious because if anybody was going to be curmudgeonly about it, it would be you. And so like you're in favor of it. And I think it's interesting because I've actually shown this to a lot of people and I've sort of read a bunch of articles around the time when it was originally proposed. And I don't think I can find anybody who is against this. Everybody who sees it sort of has some version of this. Like, you know what? What a great opportunity to add something that's beautiful and new to the top of the cathedral.

It adds this additional entire space for people to enjoy it. And I'm with you as well in which I think it brings up these very funny ideas of, like you say, we think of historical buildings as though they exist in one period of time. But Notre Dame was started in the 1100s, I believe. And I think it was finished like a couple hundred years later, but was also heavily modified in the 1700s and the 1800s again. And there is this funny thing in the modern world of like, oh, all of history will be frozen exactly as it is now until the end of time. I love the redesign as well. I really think it is a total shame if they don't do something like this. I've never come across something that seems to be so universally well-regarded. But as far as I can

tell, the city of Paris is going to stick with reconstructing it the way that it previously was. And I feel like it's a huge opportunity missed to not go with this redesign. I think it's just fantastic. It looks very Parisian though. There are lots of buildings in Paris that, you know, have glass roofs and there's, you know, the famous glass pyramid at the Louvre and things like that. And another thing I like about this proposal is, I mean, having it full of trees and plants is a bit right on and, you know, environmental maybe. But one thing I do like about the glass roof and area is you get up a lot closer to all those statues and gargoyles and intricate things up on the top.

And when I thought of Notre Dame, like that old roof, I mean, I can't even remember what it looked like. When I think Notre Dame, there are five or six things I instantly think of and none of them are the wooden roof. Yeah. You think of the hunchback somewhere up on that roof and this viewing platform allows you to see the details of that roof. Yeah. You think of the hunchback somewhere up on that roof, and this viewing platform allows you to see the details of that roof. I think it's just great.

And like I said, I haven't come across anybody who doesn't like it or thinks it's a bad idea. I think it's going to be a real shame if Paris just holds history still and rebuilds the roof exactly as it was. Well, if you're a Parisian, Tim, leave a comment in the Reddit because we want to hear what Parisians think about it because it is your city. So tell us why you don't like it. I think feedback will be 100% positive. That's my expectation. This episode is brought to you in part by Ting. Go to hi.ting.com to get $25 off your mobile phone bill. Ting is a different kind of cell phone company.

There's no contracts or anything, and at the end of the month, you're just billed for the talk, text, and data that you actually used. With Ting, there are no strings attached, you're not tied to them, and you can use any phone you want and still have an affordable bill. If you're like most people, you're around Wi-Fi all the time, so why do you need to pay for a set monthly data plan? With Ting, you just pay for what you use, but when you are out and about,

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and thanks to Ting for helping people save money on their mobile phone bills. While we're speaking of hot stoppers, can I just make a sort of public service announcement? Because I am still occasionally sending out signed dinosaurs attack cards from when we had our little signing session in the pub to random Patreon supporters. Every few weeks, I'll just go and grab a postal address and send one unannounced. And very, very rarely, I hear back about what happened to them. Like, I always think I'm going to see like a tweet or a Reddit post or someone's going to email saying, hey, I got the dino card. That's cool. And it it doesn't happen very much and i don't know whether or not they're not getting to people or people aren't and i don't know if you've received one because i am sending them right

so if you've received one get in touch like you don't even have to say thank you you can just say brain you're an idiot stop sending me junk but just let me know they're actually getting to the other end because i don't know and i know, you know, whether these things are just like being lost in postal services or thrown away by some parent or partner who thinks it's trash or what's going on, but they are going out there. Have you got one? That's really sweet, Brady. That's really sweet i can see that you you just want the acknowledgement i just just oh you just want to know that it's it's getting where it's gonna go yeah and i can see especially you might want to bring this up because i know that you and i are going to see

each other in person relatively soon oh yeah and that is an excellent time for the both of us to sign some more dino cards to build up the stock of dual signatures on both of them. And I think we should personalize them more because I like it when we make little jokes on them and stuff, but they're my favorite ones. So, yeah, we'll make sure we do that. I've got a whole box of them here. So, yeah, let's sign another whole stack and send them out to random Patreon supporters. Yeah. And if you get them, just send Brady a little thumbs up. Let him know that you that you got the cards you don't even have to say thumbs up you don't have to like it i'm not looking for love i'm loved enough it's all right i just want to know that like i'm not

doing something wrong right okay send brady a neutral face emoji just a picture just a picture of you with the card that day's newspaper that's proof right okay that day's newspaper, that's proof. Right, okay, that day's newspaper as well. Good, of course. In, I think it was the previous episode, I talked about going to China and using these hot pots, which I said were full of oil, and you dumped all the food in the oil and then took it out and ate it.

I'm now led to believe by many, many, many people that it's not oil. It's like a broth. I feel like mentioning it here on the podcast is the only possible way I could stop people telling me that it's not oil and it's a broth. I don't blame you for wanting to mention this because I too feel like I got caught in the Twitter crossfire of this. We're like, why is everybody telling me that it's made of broth? It's not made of oil. Oh, right. Sometimes you say something and people really want to clarify.

This is one of those cases. Yeah. And you never, I mean, I must say a thousand wrong things per episode, but this one people just like couldn't live with. Like people were even saying it was driving me crazy. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to create a Reddit account just to tell you, you know, it's like, all right, sorry. Someone told me it was oil and I didn't like check.

Yeah, this 100% is one of these strange things of the internet. You never know what it is that's going to set people off. You make something, you put it out in the internet, and how are people going to react? You've no idea. Your ability to predict is very low. And I will back up your perception that there seemed to be not just a lot of feedback, but an unusual amount of intensity. That your incorrect description of the ingredient was just infuriating.

Maybe this was like some kind of the Chinese apparatus was at work here. You know, we can't be saying wrong things about hot pots. I don't know. It was almost like if you had told a story about ice cream and you had described that ice cream is made of flour, right? And people would just like, they couldn't deal with this error, like being uncorrected. It's very strange, very strange level of feedback. Anyway. Maybe it was a bunch of bots. I stand corrected. Maybe. Maybe the one I was using was oil. Who knows?

China knows, Brady. China knows. One or two people were very conspiratorial about my phone going missing as well. Because obviously I left my phone on the bus and everyone was like, yeah, this is like, you know, there's mischief at hand here. But I really did just leave it on the bus because I was chatting to someone as I got off the bus. I wouldn't use that phone, but you know, you can do whatever you want, Brady. We've talked a bit about fizzy water.

I made a recent purchase. Okay. And it's wonderful. Did you get one of these water carbonator things? Yep. Oh my God. I love it. I love it. Okay. And it's wonderful. Did you get one of these water carbonator things? Yep. Oh my God. I love it. I love it.

Okay. What did you get? It is basically what a lot of people would call a soda stream, where you just like pull the lever and the cylinder of carbon dioxide gets injected into your water. But I bought like the posh pro version. Okay. It's beautiful to look at. It's so sturdy.

It's so satisfying to use. It comes with these great bottles with nice metal caps and things. And I fizz up my water. I put it in the fridge. I bring it to my desk. It's wonderful to drink. Like it's, I swear it's better than fizzy water from the shops. What is this thing called, Brady?

Arc. Arc? With a double A. A-A-R-C. Oh, I can't believe you're promoting them on the show. Well, look, no, here, I just, I need to know, I want to look and I want to see what it is. Grey. I cannot believe you haven't got one.

It's the first thing I think I've bought in my life besides Apple products that I've thought, I think, great, we'd want one of these. Well, look, again, this is not a joke, but literally running up against the limits of how much fizzy water the local grocery store will deliver to our house before refusing to accept the order. Like we need some solution for water consumption. I cannot believe you haven't got one of these. Okay. How much of a faff are we talking about, Brady? Because this is the thing that I'm worried about, right?

I enjoy the process. It's like, it's nice. You feel like, it's like pulling the lever on like a slot machine. It's got like a nice satisfying pull and there's bubbles happening and yet like sounds and things but it's easy it is and bugger it is better for the environment not going through all those plastic bottles but that's not why i did it but that's a nice bonus and you choose your level of fizziness like i've learned that four pools on the lever four or five is just my sweet spot of fizziness you could do one pool if you don't like too much fizz you can really fizz

it up like oh i'll show it to you when you come and visit yeah okay i need i need to see this in person but like so i've stayed away from these sorts of things despite everyone i know suggesting like oh you need to get your own your own home carbonation delivery system. Because it's just like with coffee, where I have been very intentional about, I don't want to get fussy about the coffee. I feel like that is a road you don't want to start going down. It's not like that. I don't think I'm here making like artisan water. It's pretty simple.

I mean, I know I said you can have different strengths and that, but like. Yeah, but see, this is exactly. It's not like that really though. It is just like cold, fizzy water. I don't know, man. You're brand new to this. So I don't know how much I can trust. Is Brady going to be making

artisanal water six months from now. You know me, if anything, it's going to go the other way. Okay. Probably by the time you get here in a couple of days, I will have forgotten I own it. That's the far more likely scenario. Okay. That's true. I can also see that. But it looks wonderful. I love the way it works. I'm convinced you're going to end up with one. If not because of you, but because of your partner in crime. Right, yes. Yeah, that does seem very possible. That could be one of the reasons. I'll give you a full rundown. Okay, yeah, I want a full rundown. The water delivery is becoming a problem.

And even I look at the enormous number of plastic bottles that are being sent through the grey households like some kind of industrial process. And I think, this seems really bad. So that is on my mind as well. But okay, I want a demonstration of this. Check it out. And this seems easier than installing a whole bar system in my house. I'll give you like one of those, you know, infomercial rundowns or like those people at the supermarket who show you how the device works.

Right, okay. I appreciate that. I also have fizzy water feedback, which is last time I mentioned how I wasn't sure if reddit had just put it into my head about the water tasting different or not this whole thing about carbonic acid in the water does it give it a taste or does it not and my impression was oh people are lunatics if they think the water tastes different it's just the bubbles and then reddit's like no no it definitely tastes different and i thought this had just been an idea that was put in my head. But so someone suggested that if you want to try to taste how the water tastes different, you have to let it go flat to let the bubbles be removed. And then you can taste what the water tastes like. And so I tried this out and it's like, yes, I can taste that the water

tastes different if you let it go flat. Is that the carbonic acid? Is that not the carbonic acid? I guess it is. So I'm revising my opinion here and saying that you are not crazy if you think that sparkly water has a different taste than just water with bubbles, that there is something different here. So I'm making like a retraction based on my let it go flat and then drink it observation. You like ran an experiment. Did you have like a control and all that sort of stuff going? I didn't have a control going. No, I didn didn't do it that much it was it was more just like okay i'm gonna let this water go really flat i'm gonna drink it and yes it does taste different and i could see why people would reject this flat fizzy water tastes terrible though did you keep it cold or was it yeah i kept it cold i just had it in the

refrigerator like i let it go flat in the refrigerator okay yeah let's be reasonable here brady well speaking of bottles i have some updates as well because i've been back from what's becoming an annual trip to instagram island in the moldaves instagram island yes and you remember last time i told you about this problem i have with Instagram Island, which is these hidden bottles. Oh God, that's right. So each day somewhere on this tropical Island, some quantity of bottles are hidden and guests on the Island can find them. And inside will be like a piece of parchment telling you what prize you've won. You won some prize prize and on previous visits my wife and i have never found one right and it had become this kind of like itch or aggravation and i i argued in a previous episode of hello internet that it actually detracts from the holiday because we become quite competitive

about it and everywhere we cycle or walk we're always just like keeping half an eye out in the bushes and the sand and that thinking, is there a bottle somewhere? Have I told you my theory about why you and your wife go to Instagram Island? I don't know if I've actually shared this with you. I don't know what it is. But I think you're both people who like work. You in particular, Brady, you're competitive. And I always have this feeling that you need to force yourself into relaxation.

And the only possible way to do it is to fly like eight time zones over to this remote island where there's nothing at all. Like you have to remove everything from your environment that's remotely work-like in any way in order to actually relax. And this bottle thing just, I feel like, really doubles down my impression that if there's anything in the environment at all, which can be perceived remotely as competitive, you and your wife may perhaps latch onto this as a thing that you need to do. And so that is why it spoils your trip to going to the island. I don't know. That's an interesting theory. When we go on holiday, we are not joiners. We're not very interactive with other people. On this most recent trip, we did something we've never done before. And we went, they had a quiz night one night and we said, oh, let's go to the quiz night.

And it was just like, I think it was like four or five couples just sitting around on nice lounges having cocktails and doing a quiz. It was fine. But, you know, the competitive side of me did kick in. Yeah, I'm not surprised. And worst of all, one of the whole sections was on flags. Oh, no. Yeah. Which I thought I'd nail, but I really disgraced myself on flags.

Because, like, when we saw flags was one of the topics, my wife was like, oh, we're going to nail I really disgraced myself on flags. Because when we saw flags was one of the topics, my wife was like, oh, we're going to nail that one. You'd love flags. And I thought that too. It turns out my memorization of world flags from when I was 14 years old hasn't stuck as well as I thought. Right. And now you just look like a disappointment as your wife asks, don't you do this professionally? Don't you manufacture flags for a living? Yeah. Haven't you offered your services as a flag consultant to governments around the world? Didn't you send a flag into space?

Yeah. We came second in the quiz. We convinced the people that won were cheating. Don't go to the pub quiz. That's what you need to try to do. Anyway, coming back to the bottle, the hidden bottles. So, each time we go, we're learning a bit more about them. And like, you know, we were complaining to the staff saying, this is, you know, we've never found one. And they're like, oh, you gotta try. So, anyway, one morning, my wife was at yoga. She gets up

really early and goes to yoga. And yoga instructor told her oh you just missed it there was a bottle here a while ago i even saw the person putting it down and it was over you know over there in that bush so this like this really triggered her because now she had new information she had information about at least one of the possible places bottles is sometimes put right which was completely new to us we'd never even known where one is put right i can see what's happening already you're basically gamers locating the spawn spots for drops it's a bit like that you're going to be camping out at the spawn spots anytime soon and now we also had confirmation of at least a time that maybe this happened so a couple of mornings later my wife got up really

early and got on her bike and was riding around the island and was in this area and saw like one of the staff with his golf buggy in the vicinity of this bush. So, she was telling me she sort of stopped and pretended she wasn't watching him and pretended she was adjusting a shoelace. But he'd seen her. So, he went off to another area pretending that he was like rearranging cushions and things like that on some Instagram sofa in the sand. But my wife wasn't convinced by that. And as soon as the guy left on his buggy, she straight away went to where he was and went straight to this bush that we knew was one of the spawning spots. And dug deep, deep into it and found the bottle and got a bottle.

She actually was kicking herself. What she wished she'd done was jumped on her bike and followed this guy around the island to all the different spawning spots and got all the bottles. But that's not what she did. And she returned to the room triumphantly and we got a bottle, two free pizzas. Okay. Do you feel better about now having gotten a bottle? Can you let it go? I had let it go. I had made a conscious decision not to search. She was the one who got into it. It was funny because when she found it, I said, I'll have to mention this on Hello Internet because I've talked about the bottles before. And she was outraged at the idea of me telling the story. She was convinced I'd get it

wrong. I think she thinks I'm going to take the credit for it. Well, for the record, Brady has taken no credit. No credit. I was asleep. Did get the big inflatable swan again. This time it wasn't a pink flamingo. It was a big golden bird. This is the photo that I got from you from Instagram Island, which is you with this golden bird, which seemed like quite an upgrade from the pink flamingo. Did you manage to hold on to it this time? Yes, but I had a different mishap.

Okay. So this time what happened was they give you bikes to hold on to it this time yes but i had a different mishap okay so so this time what happened was they give you bikes to ride around the island and you also stay on these like villas on stilts above the water that have like jetties that like you know boardwalks that connect them above the water and i put my bike next to the door of the villa to go inside and i don't know have a sleep probably. And I put it on its kickstand and I thought I'd put it in a good place. And as I went into the villa, I heard some noise behind me and then an almighty splash.

And my bike like fell into the ocean. My like, you know, mountain bike bicycle. So I had to like do quite a heroic go into the water and save it. Is this heroic like the time you swam from one place to 10 feet to where the other one is? It was even less heroic than that. Okay. It wasn't like I jumped in to save it from drowning. I thought, oh, this is going to look quite funny.

So I had time to set up a little gorilla pod with a camera and film myself saving it from the water. What's that? What are you sighing at? Do you want to see a picture of the bike in the water? Please show me a picture of the bike in the water. What's that? What are you sighing at? Do you want to see a picture of the bike in the water? Please show me a picture of the bike in the water. Here's me looking down at my bike in the water. Okay. Yeah. So I wasn't going to ask, but this is sort of what I imagined, which is that in the Maldives, at least under those villas where you're staying, the water is not super deep. No, it's usually like waist deep at the most. The reason I was laughing before is I was thinking of this bike submerged in the water,

which is not good for all of its mechanical parts, but it just makes me smile to think of Brady taking the extra time to make sure he gets the GoPro footage of him rescuing the bike. What is the important thing here? Not the bike. It's the footage of the rescue of the bike. That's what matters. It's another Instagram moment on Instagram Island. Everything's an Instagram moment. You keep saying Instagram Island so much and it feels to me like, how is this not a TV show already? How has Instagram, the company, not decided to just have a reality TV show called Instagram Island, right? Like surely they

get the, you know, round up some Kardashians or something. That's what this place is. They're always flying in like influencers for free holidays to take pictures and do crazy things with drones and stuff like that. I'm convinced we're the only people that pay to go there. My wife thinks I'm crazy because I think everyone there's an influencer, like a professional influencer. Like I'm always like, I bet you they're an Instagrammer who's been flown here, but they're probably just normal people like us who just take lots of photos. Right. Or they are all influencers and you're the only ones funding the running of the actual island. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. But seriously, Instagram Island, it feels like it's a thing that Instagram should do as a TV show. Yeah. Like that sounds like a real reality TV show that could happen. Instagram, I give you that idea for a mere half a percent of the royalties. You could take that and run with it. So since we started whinging about plastic straws, everyone keeps saying to me, have you tried a pasta straw yet? Have you had one made of pasta? And I haven't yet.

But while I was on Instagram Island, I had lots of cocktails with what I thought were pasta straws. And I later learned were made from rice flour. Rice flour. Yeah. But they felt like pasta. So anyway, I had a bunch of drinks with it. So it was my first proper experience with some of these alternative straws.

And not as bad as paper, definitely. Okay. But I still have issues with them going a bit flaccid mid-drink. Okay. When you say rice flour straw, if I didn't know better, I would assume that this was a pasta straw. Is that what you're saying? That's what I thought it was.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like a big long piece of pasta. I still have problems with the end where I sip starting to disintegrate before I get to the end of the drink sometimes, but better than paper. Yeah. Since we've mentioned this as well, by far and away, one of the most controversial topics ever discussed on the show is paper straws. Forget politics. Plastic straws. Oh gosh.

Yeah. I honestly think we could have a political discussion that would get less ferocious feedback than the plastic straw discussion Also, the number of times you get the feedback of like, hey, have you tried not using a straw, right? It's like, there's this thing on the internet where you can start to see conversations, I think if it is like, crystallize into the same thing every time and the plastic straw one is one of these things right where people start making the joke about like oh paper straws you upgrade to a plastic straw but the really genius thing to do is to not have a straw and then someone comes in with a reply of like hey some people need straws in order to be able to drink. And it's like, you can see the way this goes and it just repeats itself a million times

across the entire internet. If you drink McDonald's thick shakes without a straw, please send me a video of you doing it because I'm curious to see what you do. Yeah, yeah. At that point you just need a spoon, you don't need a straw. I feel like I have heard every possible suggestion for materials for straws that could possibly be used. I will say for the record, I have not tried it, but the one that strikes me as the most promising possible idea is bamboo straws. It hasn't got that fast slickness though.

I don't know what I'm talking about. Am I talking about Reynolds numbers and stuff like that? I don't know. But that fast flow that you get with plastic the only thing i think that could be comparable to that is metal like a metal straw i imagine would be quite pleasant to drink out of but it's got this whole like cleaning issue associated with it that's unacceptable to me but right i need that fast flow that slickness. Bamboo, I imagine not having that. Okay, so you're worried that there's too much internal friction with the bamboo straw? Yeah, yeah. Huh.

It never really crossed my mind that the rapidity with which you want to have the drink into your mouth is another feature. It's not my greed. It's not like, oh, I have to get the stuff in me because I really want it. It's just a nice feeling the way it moves. Like the speed that a drink moves through a plastic straw to me is the right speed. And metal matches that. And all these other ones I've tried so far, these like more organic materials like paper, rice flour, it turns out, some other wacky ones I've tried.

There's just this feeling that it's not, it hasn't got that slickness that I want. There is no way that that doesn't sound a little bit like you're trying to optimize for throughput. I swear it's not that. There are people who like fast cars. It doesn't mean they want to get where they're going faster. They just like fast cars. I believe you, right? Some people like fast cars. Some people like fast draws. I totally believe you. I like fast draws, man. It's like a guy who likes Ferraris. Yes. I like a fast draw, man. You know, I drink fast, die young. It's Hover, people. You know we love Hover. This is the go-to place for all your domain

registration and managing needs. I register my domains with Hover. This is the go-to place for all your domain registration and managing needs. I register my domains with Hover. I know Gray does too, because, well, they're just great to use. If you don't have any domains registered, there's a good chance you should for your business, for your creative endeavors, maybe just for your own online identity. Maybe you've got an idea in the back of your head for the future, like that hot pot review website you've been thinking of starting, you know, next year. Actually, you know, now I think about it, I totally missed a trick by not doing a hot drop at that hot pot place. Anyway, that's by the by. To check out Hover and get a very handy 10% off your first purchase, go to hover.com slash hi. Just go check out the site, people.

It's really great. Another thing you could do, actually, is buy a domain for someone else as a gift, like buy them a name or something you think they'll appreciate. They could use it for their own website, or for the time being, they could easily just divert it to their social media or something like that. So you could buy them like their name or a nickname, but have it automatically divert to their Twitter page. That's really easy to do. So, you know, say your best mate's nickname is BozoChops. You could get

BozoChops.com and behind his back, divert it to his Twitter or his Instagram or something, and then tell him on his birthday or Christmas day or something, hey, look, look what I've got you. Here's the domain. The address again, Hover.com slash HI. That's 10% off. They'll know you came from here. Don't leave it too late. The best new names are being snapped up every day. And Hover is the place to get your names. So, Gray, I've got so many artwork stories I want to talk to you about. I think we're going to have artwork corner.

Art corner? Is that what we're going to call it? I don't know what we're going to call it. Artwork, huh? I don't know what we're going to call it. Artwork, huh? I'm very dubious, Brady. The first one, I don't know if you saw this story about this piece of artwork that is a banana, like sticky taped to a wall. No, I missed that one. Okay. So, I'll try and summarize it. I may get a few things wrong. I may confuse oil and broth, but the essence of the story is some quite famous artist came up with a piece of artwork over some period of time where he wanted

to depict a banana and in the end the piece of artwork he made was a banana an actual like you know real banana stuck to a wall with a piece of silver like gaff tape right and this was like an amazing piece of artwork that sold for like 120 000 and it was so successful i think he made two or three more of them and sold them as well and i didn't know about this the reason this came to my attention in the first place was some other artist decided he was for his art he was going to go to a gallery and without permission took the banana off the wall and ate it that was his performance art it was called the hungry artist or something eating this hundred and twenty thousand dollar piece of art just like took it there off the wall, took it with the tape, peeled it and ate it on the spot. And so, this story, this occurrence brought to light a few other things about the

original piece of artwork. Because it turns out, obviously, if you've got a fresh banana and you stick it to a wall, within a few days, it's going to rot away, isn't it? So, what happens is the person who bought this artwork and anyone else who buys it basically gets a certificate to say they've bought it like a certificate of authenticity and that permits them to replace the banana every few days so it's always fresh so and that's how you own the artwork you own the idea it's actually the certificate that gives you all the value and it's just a banana that's changing every few days stuck to a wall with a piece of tape that presumably also but but you paid the 120 000 so you've got a certificate that says you you've got the actual

you know this is the artwork jesus christ i'm trying to let you tell the story but like every sentence you're saying is so crazy right like i'm, I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, we have discussed art before. Yeah. And I think there is this way in which, like, I have tried to defend what sometimes seem like irrational markets around art. Like, you know, I have no interest in art or art history, really. I have interest in the sort of the meta thing around it. What's going on with crazy art markets? Why is some art valued? Why some art isn't? I actually just listened to a really interesting show, which was all about that supposed Da Vinci painting that we talked

about last time. Oh, yeah. I'm fascinated by that story. Yeah. And I'm much more in the camp of it's not a real Da Vinci. But anyway, so like, I can defend the meta structure around what seems like irrational or dumb behavior and weave a tale about how it's not as irrational as it first seems but my brain is exploding here at every sentence you're saying because this whole thing is like a parody of how stupid art can be. Like that's what everything you're saying sounds like. It's genius.

This article from The Guardian, the artist that made the original piece, like the banana on the wall, there's this paragraph explaining it. Right. Like it may seem too ludicrous to even parody, but all parties are making a good show of taking the matter seriously. In its pre-masticated form, Catalan, who's the artist, claimed that he worked on comedian, that's what the piece of artwork is called, the banana on the wall,

it's called comedian. He worked on comedian for a year before deciding on exactly how to let the banana manifest itself. In earlier conceptions, it was made of resin before the sculptor realised, quote, the banana is supposed to be a banana. The gallerist, where it was, it was in a Miami gallery, the gallery person explained that the angle of the tape and the shape of the fruit were carefully considered.

Again, that whole paragraph, it reads like those, like I know there's websites that you can go, which will just auto-generate your philosophy paper for you, right? Where it's just like garbage words that sound like they're deep and like sentences that just don't make it. Like that reads like a total parody journal and they publish it like morons, right? That's what this feels like. Like, surely this is someone who's not an artist playing a joke on the art world and is like hilariously giggling to himself in private when nobody's looking, right? That has to be what this is. I do have some respect for the second artist who thought, my God, that's a $120,000 banana. I'm going to go and eat it. It's like the funniest

piece of vandalism ever. It's not like he went up with a machete and cut it or like he just went and ate the artwork because that's what you're supposed to do with bananas. You're supposed to eat them. So like, of course you'd go up and take it off the wall and eat it. So I think the last time we discussed modern art was that like Banksy stunt that happened, that famous image of his of the girl with the balloon that sold at auction. And he had a shredder in the frame so that it started to shred that image as soon as it had been sold. And my opinion was a little bit like, what a dick he's being for doing that. Like a thing has been purchased. I don't view the shredding of it as art. It's like, I thought, oh, that's kind of a dick move, man. Like don't shred this thing. But this banana one is like, this whole thing is so stupid. It's impossible for me to care that somebody came along and ate the banana off the wall there's a video of him eating it on

that web page if you click on that like you know you can watch the video of him just taking it and eating it and like everyone's just milling around and i like his suspicious look he had a real like is anybody looking at me kind of look. A plus work, dude. Just eat the banana. It's totally ridiculous, this whole thing. Oh, he's holding it up like, cheers, I'm going to eat this banana. I don't know. Do you disagree with me, Brady?

Do you think this is serious business? Or do you feel like this really is some, I don't know, like, perfect encapsulation of the worst things that everybody ever think about the modern art world? Yeah. I mean, what can I say? You know, sometimes art tickles me. Sometimes it doesn't. I like a clever idea. I liked the shredder because I thought it was clever. I like the sort of stuff that you sit around like after a couple of drinks and you're at the pub with your mates and talking about some stupid piece of art and someone says, imagine going up and like eating the banana. Imagine selling some painting and there's a shredder in the frame, like that kind of stuff that you just, like, I like those ideas. I like a good idea.

But good ideas are also kind of cheap. There is another part of me that respects someone who like can do an oil painting that looks just like a human because I could never do that. Right. I go to an art gallery and I think, oh my God, I couldn't make my hands do that, but I could have a stupid idea and eat a banana. So what's more valuable, a good idea or like technical skill? I don't know. One I envy, but doesn't necessarily move me. The other one I think is easy, but moves me emotionally more sometimes.

Yeah. I don't know. As you're talking, I keep looking at this image of this banana taped to the wall and I just can't. Do you know what I like about that in the Guardian article? It's a banana taped to a white wall with a piece of tape, right? And the picture's got like a credit, like for the photographer. Photographed by Raina White. Well done on that photo. I'm not saying you shouldn't have the credit on there. There's just something funny about having the credit for taking, like there's this ridiculous, simple, stupid thing. And then someone's taken a photo of it and that's their art. Right. Photographs that are-on photographs of paintings cannot be copyrighted like this is like

you don't own a photograph that's a straight-on photograph of the mona lisa yeah copyright does not transfer in that way and that's that's a little bit what this banana photo looks like with the credit it's like okay great you know someone had to take the picture i guess but yeah i i agree with you it's like a strange reproduction of the thing do you want some more crazy art stuff i don't i don't know there's been plenty of it going around okay so the turner prize which is a famous art prize in the uk was awarded this year what is the turner prize for i've never heard of this no i don't know. It's just art. Whatever.

It's one of the most famous art prizes. Not famous enough. And there were four finalists for whatever their pieces of artwork were. I don't even know what they all were. And I think all of them may have had some quite political or social conscience aspect to them, the artworks, whatever they were. It's not particularly relevant. But anyway, the four shortlisted artists, the four finalists, they were then going to pick a winner and there was going to be a big prize ceremony in London.

The four finalists wrote to the judges and said, we don't think you should pick a winner and we should all be the winner. And then the artist said, what a great idea. So then at the ceremony, they opened the envelope and there was this collective statement about how at a time where there's already so much that divides and isolates people in communities, we shouldn't be picking a winner and the prize should be shared. And this 40,000 pound prize was shared between them. And everyone stood and cheered and thought it was magnificent. I would not stand and cheer. I would boo. That's ridiculous.

Thank you. Thank you. I was outraged. This is totally absurd. Attendees stood and cheered as Vogue magazine editor Edward Ennifel opened the envelope and was surprised to find a statement about all four artists rather than the name of just one. Here's something quite extraordinary, he said. At a time of political division in Britain and conflict in much of the world, the artists wanted to use the occasion of the Turner Prize to make a strong statement of community and solidarity

and have formed themselves into a collective. Can I just say, first of all, I don't entirely believe them. I just think they didn't want to lose. Like, this is totally a game theory thing immediately. Because now they can all claim their Turner Prize winners. Right. That is one of the things that's going on there. It's just like being a Nobel Prize winning physicist.

Guess what? Being able to say that you're a Nobel Prize winning physicist is way more value than the actual money that the Nobel Prize gives you. Right. It's hugely valuable. And so I agree with you. This is like a game theory move of we all want to be able to say that we're Turner Prize winners. But what really bugs me about that is it's like it's like a tragedy of the commons situation. It's like, okay, congratulations, you're all Turner Prize winners now, but you are shredding the very value of the thing that you want to claim by doing this. You're diluting it by having a like, oh, we're all winners this time. Yeah. There's two other things, Gray.

Yeah. One is, what about all the people that didn't make the final four? Like the people that were on the long list or the, I don't know how you enter the Turner Prize, presumably you enter it. Like what about all those people? Why don't they get a cut of the 40,000 pounds and the right to call themselves a Turner Prize winner? They've already done something exclusive and divisive

by allowing themselves to be in the final four. And also, if giving prizes is divisive and not compatible with, you know, all sitting around and hugging each other, then what's the Turner Prize going to do next year? Are they going to cancel the prize now? These sentences that sound good but make no sense at all the moment you think about them. That's what this is. Oh, prizes are divisive.

So we're going to have everybody is the winner. Okay. Are you going to have a prize next year? Are you going to continue this divisive tradition of selecting someone who wins the prize? I will concede that apparently, as I said, all four bits of art were in some ways about social and political issues, but like lots of art is. That is just as dumb as if some year there's like, you know, the Academy Award for Best Actress has four nominees and they all happen to be in movies that are making some kind of social

statement. And then they go, well, we're giving out the best actress award to all four. Like, guess what? You've just made a mockery of the award. You've been played by your sympathies for, oh, we don't want to exclude a thing that's good. So, yeah, this is like a room full of cowards who didn't call out this blatant play for four people to be Turner Prize winners. You also get arty people saying this is brilliant because they're subverting what the prize is about. And that's a really arty thing to do. No, no, no, no.

I reject that as hard as all of the people who are like, the Last Jedi is genius because it's all about failure. And it's like this meta, like, no, this is just like an ideological skirt to cover just, you know, what's actually occurring. No, I completely disagree with that. Someone wrote in The Independent, the Turner Prize has put itself out of business by allowing the artist to award the prize to themselves. Four nominees asked to share this year's prize, but robbing the judges and the public of the

opportunity to scrutinize and compare their work hurts the artist too. Yeah, this is super dumb. I love the art world. Where would Hello Internet be without artists? Who is the one who does like the person of the year? Is it Time? Time does person of the year, right? But like the year, I still remember it.

That year where they're like, who's person of the year? It's you, right? It's like like guess what time person of the year ever since that moment is a total laughingstock in the joke right because everyone always references that and it's like that's what you did to yourself yeah i'm a former winner of time person of the year yeah perhaps brady next year you and i too can be winners of the turner prize right like it's just you know it's like i think it's divisive that hello internet wasn't a co-winner of the turner prize this year yeah i i agree with you right like can they turn us down now they don't want to be divisive

no it's it's absurd and like the time one is is like the platonic ideal of how expanding a thing just totally destroys its value. And everybody just laughs at Time Magazine ever since then. Like, oh, who's person of the year? All of us, right? Just redundant winners. I bet when they sat around the board table, too, when they came up with that idea at Time, they thought they were bloody geniuses.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure they did. And I'm sure the Turner Prize people were all patting themselves on the back for like, what a great move it'll be to have four winners this year. No, it won't be. No, it won't be. I knew nothing about the Turner Prize, except now I know to dev going to say to him, oh, I did too. Right? Like, yeah, this is so... What's the point of competition? I don't understand. Imagine if like at this year's Super Bowl, the two football teams walked out and said, look, the way of politics is in America, and it's so partisan, rather than us going out and fighting over a football game now and only one city getting the trophy how about we just not play the super bowl and like both get a trophy to take home yeah like that's not what anybody's here for i tell you what everyone's been getting infuriated about at the moment uh-huh this new ad for the Peloton exercise bike. I know you hadn't seen it until

earlier before the show, and I sent you a link. So you kind of watched it. You watched it kind of as a clean slate, but you obviously had some inkling that there was a bit of buzz around it because I had made you watch it. Okay. So this is 100% the opposite situation of my Turner Prize fury. So before the show, Brady says, hey, have you seen this ad going around, making the rounds? And I said, no, I haven't heard of this. And you sent it to me with the comment of, be sure to watch it a couple of times in all of its glory or something like that yeah and so i load up this ad and i'm sort of expecting something like that very first amazon ad for the echo that they've tried to delete from the internet where like the echo was following people around their house

really weird and creepy yeah like i was like oh i can't wait to see what this thing is yeah so i watched this ad and i got to the end and because i'm coming at this from a clean slate i genuinely had no ability to understand what is the thing in this ad that i'm missing yeah so like i didn't look at anything i specifically thought i'm just gonna leave it i need you to explain to me why is this ad apparently driving people crazy? Because to me, it seems like lady gets Peloton bike and likes it the end. That's how the ad seems to me. So I'll quickly explain the ad for people who haven't seen it.

Okay. The ad starts with a woman being given a Peloton exercise bike, presumably at Christmas or something like that, at the start of the year. Yeah, it seems like it's Christmas. Yeah. She's very pleased with it or she's surprised by it. And then throughout the 30-second ad, she's kind of like selfie vlogging herself using the bike.

Like the first few selfie videos she's making is, oh, this is really hard work and I have to get up early. I've done five days in a row. And like she's getting, it's becoming more and more part of her life. And everything's done through this kind of selfie format of us watching her make selfies. And then the ad kind of, it's kind of done in this meta way where her filming it then becomes the ad. And then the ad concludes with her sitting on the sofa with her partner or husband who gave her the bike. And he's watching the video compilation that she's made.

And this is her way of thanking him for the bike, saying, thank you for this. It's changed my life. And she's watching him watch the video on their big screen TV that she's made through the year. And he's like smiling and they have like a tender moment. And she's really grateful for the Peloton bike that she received. And life is wonderful. Is that a fair summary? Yeah, I feel like that's a fair summary.

Even in your summary, like I'm listening really hard for like, how is Brady framing this stuff? And I think I'm like you. If I'd watched this ad, I think it would have just gone completely by me as just another ad, right? But this ad caused the Peloton share price to drop considerably because of all the negative feedback that happened. And I'll tell you what I think the complaints have been. Okay. The biggest one seems to be a man giving his wife an exercise bike as a gift. Like, here, I'm giving you this so you will be more healthy and in better shape or something like that. That complaint is one of the big ones.

Literally last year, and she probably hasn't listened yet so you know keep it quiet but probably for this year again i will get my wife kettlebells because she does kettlebell exercises and you know last year she had gotten too strong for her previous set so i got her an upgraded kettlebell set and this year again she's been complaining a little bit that her the weights that i got her last year are now not heavy enough and so i'm probably going to get her another kettlebell set i can go a step further than that gray okay because my wife for the last year has become absolutely obsessed with spin classes absolutely loves peloton bikes and wants one. And in fact,

her birthday in the middle of the year, when I gave her her gift, she said, oh, I thought maybe you were going to get me a Peloton bike. So like, she really wants me to give her a Peloton bike. And in fact, I probably would be giving her one for Christmas, except we've got some Christmas present ban in place. Well, I will also say the only reason I know what a Peloton bike is, is because my wife has discussed how interesting they are. Right? So it's like for anybody who is in the same position that I was, where like you're hearing the phrase Peloton bike and you don't have any idea what it is.

It's a home exercise bike that has a little screen on it. And they do like joint biking exercises across the internet and the world. So you don't feel like you're sitting on your bike alone. You feel like you're biking together with the group who are doing exercises. Like that's the idea of it. But the only reason I know it exists is because my wife has discussed it as like, oh, that sounds really interesting, this thing. So I guess like maybe this is partly why this whole part of the ad doesn't strike me in any way. It's like, oh,

I've repeatedly bought my wife exercise equipment that she is super happy about. And this is a commercial where a lady is happy to get an exercise bike. So I just sort of presume that she wanted it. Another complaint that I read was the fact that she's like, at the start of the ad, this woman is a very slim and looks like she's a very physically fit, quite attractive woman. And she does like a year of hardcore Peloton and she kind of looks the same at the end. And I think a lot of people are saying, you know, this is not a very realistic thing. You know, this is like, oh wait, isn't that more realistic? Yeah. That a fit person would use a Peloton bike and an unfit would. Yeah. Like a person who's already fit would want exercise equipment.

Yes. And that also after a year of exercising, most people are not going to look radically different. Yeah. Am I wrong about like? No, no, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. I think most of the people who want Peloton bikes are people who have probably used them before, who do spin classes and are probably in pretty good shape and aren't like huge,

big fatty boom baddies. Or not even like, what I think that I think is interesting is like this year for a variety of reasons that don't really matter. Like I have been the best I have ever been at exercising regularly, like just doing some weightlifting stuff. Like I've been really, really good about doing this on a regular basis. But if you look at me now versus looking at me about six months ago, I don't look that different, but you know what? I feel better. And like, that's part of the purpose of what exercise is supposed to do. I feel stronger and I think that I'm in better shape, but I don't look wildly different. Because

in order to look wildly different, that's a whole other level of this sort of thing. Let me drift towards some of the complaints that I think are more valid. I don't think there are reasons to drop the share price of the share price to right to sink the company but these are i think they're fairer complaints there was a tweet i've been trying to find it hank green uh did a really good tweet that i thought was interesting i don't know if i completely agreed with it but i thought it was quite insightful i can't find it but it was words to the effect of something that he seemed to not like about the ad was how this woman kind of took so much validation from the bike telling her you're doing so well like at some point in the ad i think you know someone says hey boston 36 or whatever her username

is you're on the bike and she like has this like joyous moment and he made some comment about that which was quite well written you know as he has got quite a way with words hasn't he about how she didn't feel validated until this like piece of machinery in her lounge room told her she was doing well i don't agree with that because again at least from what i've heard about it and from people talking about it that's the whole selling point of it you're doing this with other people and there's a trainer who's live who can make reference to you and what you're doing so that you feel like you're in a group like i don't know i not only do i not only do i agree with you i replied to his tweet along those lines because I have been on like exercise things like this. And that moment when like the live instructor, wherever they are in some studio in the United States, says your name is like really quite a fun moment. Like it's quite good. commercial perspective, you're putting together an ad and you try to think, okay, what are the

unique selling points of this product? That's the whole thing. That someone can call out your username. That's the product. That's the whole selling point of this thing. Let's get to what I don't like about it. And this is actually more just like, you know, curmudgeonly Brady, I guess. I don't like how she's so obsessed with filming everything all the time she's always filming herself it's all about the selfies and the videos and she's living her life so much through her phone that the way she thanks her husband who presumably lives in the house and has seen her use this thing every day for the last year the way she thanks him is like through her phone. And then she sits on the sofa and shows him phone videos and looks at him while the video her says thank you to him. Instead of her saying

thank you to him, it's just this magnificent encapsulation of how human behavior has been so taken over by selfie culture and video culture and Instagram culture, that we can't even have a tender moment with someone and say, thank you. We have to put a video we've made for the last 365 days on a big screen TV. And it's from that giant black rectangle that we look down and say, thank you to our husband, who we're sitting next to and who we talk to every day. Okay. So I could kind of see that as a valid complaint if it was a commercial for phones. But that's even worse because it shows how even when we're making commercials that aren't for phones, these things and this way of living and communicating has so taken over our life.

It's how we advertise bikes as well. Right. But is that Peloton's fault? I don't think that's human's fault. No, that's why I said I don't think Peloton's share price should be going down. The ad infuriates me because it's a crystallization of, you know, this is an ad about a health product. Right. And now it's just people making selfie videos on their phones and living this kind of life. So this is the way I took it. Now, of course, I'm watching this ad much more closely than I would watch a normal ad because you've sent me a link and you're saying, look at this. Whereas again, if I just saw it on TV, I would give it no moments thought whatsoever. It's sort of goofy in the way that lots of TV commercials are, but it wouldn't stand out. It's well made,

but it's super cheesy. It is well made. I've seen plenty of insurance companies have cheesy ads about how valuable life is, but also make sure to buy our insurance. You know, like it doesn't, it just doesn't stand out in the world of commercials. I just searched Peloton ad and people also ask what is wrong with the Peloton ad? Okay, good. Yeah, because I really do feel like I'm in some kind of upside down crazy land of, you know, look, when YouTube Rewind becomes the most disliked video in the world

i can understand yeah right but it's like you know you tell me oh this peloton bike commercial is the thing that's driving everyone crazy and i have a much harder time but everyone thinks it's a black mirror episode a lot of people bring up black mirror when they watch this ad okay so here's here's all i think this is which i like is a normal advertising thing. The ad is implying that maybe she's an influencer a little bit, right? I just sort of think of it like, oh, she's doing Snapchats. She wants to get fit for Instagram Island. And she's doing videos for herself. And I know at the end, they show the husband watching videos of her on the bike, but that's very fast. And I just sort of assume, oh, she's talking to her Snapchat followers or

whatever. These are her daily TikToks of exercising. And I think that's kind of on purpose. As far as I can tell, a huge portion of the business on Instagram is about like a fit lifestyle. So it doesn't seem crazy that if you're an exercise company, that's something you would want to tie your product into. Like, oh, look, here's a person who's talking to their audience maybe about the exercise product that they're using like that's just so normal it doesn't even really strike me i mean i read this tweet that said i don't want to be the peloton ad guy because that's what everyone is now but the newest commercial about the vlogging 116pound woman's year-long fitness journey to become a 112-pound woman and who says, I didn't realize how much this would change me is just ridiculous. And I have to say, I think all the people who are complaining about that don't realize that people who are like really fit and healthy, and I'm not claiming to be one of them, but I know people who are, work bloody hard to stay looking that way. And for a sort of quite slim, attractive woman to get a Peloton bike, absolutely cane it for a year and look pretty much the same at the end of the

year. But to have worked hard and to have had a fulfilling experience doing it is completely normal. That's completely how it works. Yeah. And also like there's a presumption in this that it's a weight loss product. Yeah. And like, I've got bad news for you. If you want to lose weight by cycling, that's possible, but you're picking a harder path than other paths to weight loss. So I just feel like I'm in such a strange position of like defending this company

that I don't care at all about or barely know. But it's just, I think the reason I'm feeling strongly like this is it's this weird, it goes all the way back to the like, so you've been publicly shamed conversations ages ago. Everyone's piling in, yeah. What you're describing sounds to me like a huge pile on that has happened over what is just like,

just a frankly innocuous thing that nobody would really pay any attention to. If there wasn't this way in which it could snowball up and become a trending. Because a few famous people start talking about it. I mean, I only watched it because of the snowball, right? I wouldn't have even have ever seen this ad if it wasn't for all that. And then, so I watched it with critical eyes. And as I said, my criticism of it is this kind of culture of people filming themselves all the time, filming every minute of their day.

But that's just like a personal bugbear. And I can't change that. That's just the way the world is. And the people making this Peloton ad have reflected that and have tapped into that because they know that's what beautiful people who ride Peloton bikes do. So that's my complaint about it, but I don't think they're like bad people for doing it. It just reminded me of something I don't like much about society. This whole thing about a man giving a woman a bike because he wants her to lose weight. Like if that's why he did it, I would probably think that was bad, but I clearly don't think

that's why he did it. And as I said, you know, I would give my wife a Peloton bike. He has no dialogue in the commercial at all. Like he's, he is a prop in the commercial as much as the bike is. He's just, he's just there, right? He doesn't do anything. Again, I can see that complaint, but it's, it's a little bit like, you know, my frustration that I just accept in life is now like the frequency with which if you go out to dinner, you have to accept that just part of the process is everybody needs a moment to photograph their food before the food can be consumed yeah which i never don't find incredibly strange but i've also just learned to deal with it like okay i'll just wait a minute until everyone is done photographing their food and then we can yeah

like this is basically replaced let's all give thanks for the food before we eat it is like let's all photograph our food and and take a moment let's send a let's all give thanks for the food before we eat it. It's like, let's all photograph our food and take a moment. Let's send a picture of it to God and thank him that way. Yeah. In the same way that if people want to say grace before a meal, like, okay, cool. Just wait for a moment and then we eat. And now photographs are that thing too. But so if that showed up in a commercial, like if there was a food product and someone was taking photographs

of their food in the commercial, it just seemed totally normal. Like, yes, that's what people do now. It's just, this is just part of society. And I'm the weirdo now for not doing this. This episode of Hello Internet is brought to you in part by Backblaze. Backblaze is the unlimited cloud backup service for Mac and PCs for just $5 a month. That is a ridiculously good deal with no gimmicks or add-ons. $5 a month, backup all of your documents, your music, your photos, your videos, your drawings, your projects, everything. And with your data backed up to Backblaze, you can restore your files anywhere or directly download them on the web. More than a few times over the years, Backblaze has totally saved my butt when I've lost an important file just through my own not paying attention to the

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Backblaze.com slash hellointernet. Thanks to them for supporting the show, and thanks to them for protecting all of my data speaking of videos i've sent you the youtube rewind and you've just watched it last year youtube made history by their rewind their annual summary of what's up on youtube being the most disliked video on the entire platform. And also speaking of pylons, everybody having a fantastic pylon about how out of touch YouTube is. Yeah. Unlike the Peloton ad,

I would say totally deserved last year for YouTube of their terrible, terrible video. So I would say a lot of YouTubers were waiting with bated breath to see what is YouTube going to do this year for their rewind? I would say perhaps waiting with anticipatory fingers hovered above the thumbs down button. What is YouTube going to do? And the answer to what they've done is they have taken the safest route possible, which is to basically just make a list video. Yeah.

It feels a bit like watching a spreadsheet. That is my exact and only note. YouTube rewind dash spreadsheet. That's what I wrote down. That was my exact same feeling too. Oh, sorry, man. I stole your gag. No, but it's like, it just shows what this is.

It's still really heavily disliked, isn't it? 2.9 million likes to 7.4 million dislikes. I will weigh in and say, I think that is unfair. I don't think that the video deserves that many dislikes. I think that is a side effect of the anticipatory disliking that people were just really geared up for of like, what is YouTube going to do? And I'm going to dislike it no matter what they've done. If anything, it's just so bland that I found myself having a really hard time even making it through the video. Yeah, I just stopped a minute before the end so we could record this because it was too boring. It's like, it's a ride. It reminds me how out of touch I am with YouTube, like this thing that I claim is my job.

And like, I look at that and think, what am I? What do you mean by that? It's like if I'd spent all my life saying I was a football player and then I went and watched a TV show of professional footballers and they were walking around carrying bowls of jelly and like flying planes or something. And it's like, oh, hang on, maybe I'm not a football player. That's not what I think I do. Like I watch that and I think, oh, wow. Oh, I see what you're saying.

You're saying that you don't see the work that you do represented in YouTube Rewind. That's what you mean by that. Kind of, kind of. And I'm not saying I'm better or worse than them. I'm just thinking like today, I was talking to someone who was doing some work in the house. And she said to me, what do you do? What's your job? And I said, oh, I'm at YouTube videos. And she went, oh, cool. And that was like where the conversation ended, because it was just, you know, what my job was came up. That was no more than that. And she went, oh, that was like where the conversation ended because it was just you know what my job was came up that was no more than that and she went oh cool nice and then she got on with what she was doing and i now realize that that's what she saw in her head what i just watched

in the rewind video as usual my experience in watching this kind of thing whenever there's a summary is that i am just aware of how enormous the youtube world is. So this year in 2019, they basically just run through lists of a few things. Like what were the most viewed videos on the channel? Yeah. What were the most liked videos on the channel? They were the five most watched beauty videos and they'd flash through 10 seconds of the five most watched beauty videos, you know?

Yes. Also fast, you get no content from anything. Yeah. I would say that that is a thing I don't like about it. Yeah. I think they're trying to do two things. They're playing the, like, how many of these do you recognize game? But they're also trying a little bit to play the nobody yell at us game.

We're going to try to include lots of different people from totally different categories all across YouTube. Yeah. Which, you know, fine, whatever. It kind of lacked any substance, didn't it? Like, for example, they said, oh, here's the most watched video on one of the categories and it was this Mr. Beast video. And I was like, I don't know what the video was about. I don't know what any of those top 10 videos were about.

Like, I've come out the other side of it with not one extra bit of information in my brain yeah that's what it feels like like five minutes went by and i wasn't entertained i wasn't informed i wasn't offended yeah which is which i guess is what they wanted but like it felt like a complete and utter waste of my time but at least it didn't make me angry like one last year did for the amount that you gained you might as well have been watching five minutes of just a white screen yeah there's just nothing nothing gained nothing lost yeah nothing to possibly be offended at yeah which yes i agree is almost certainly what their goal was yeah i think everything about this this video is designed to make sure that nobody can possibly say anything bad and

yeah they edit it really quick because i think they want to be able to pick a bunch of top creators yeah to just have them featured yeah super fast yeah so like even someone like me thinks oh at least my mate cares because i've got a mention like you know yeah and then and everyone's happy because they got like their baby got kissed yeah i think it's extremely interesting that they have pewdiepie just in there very quickly it's like oh pewdiepie got married and his video was that was like the second most liked video on the platform whereas in past years he's been totally persona non grata in the youtube rewinds but it's, in the context of a list, it does make it feel very much like a spreadsheet, right? That like,

YouTube is passing no judgment on PewDiePie's wedding. They even say that. They say that at the start, we stuffed up last year. So this one's all on you. Here's what you've been liking. So this is on you. If it's crap, well, that's on you. Exactly. Here's a list of things with numbers that are associated with them what i keep thinking of is i don't remember if it was the one of the first or one maybe the second youtube rewind where the girl who sang the friday song that that song that went really viral because it was something rebecca black yeah rebecca i think that's her name yeah yeah she was like the host they were doing the thing, which was here's the 10 most popular videos or something.

But they had her like hosting it and going through what the videos are. And I mean, it's not an amazing video, but it's like a fun idea. Pick someone who was super viral and give them a moment to be this person and like run down the other popular stuff. And you learn something about those videos. Yeah. Tell me this, Gray. If YouTube had taken you aside

and made you some offer you couldn't refuse, said, Gray, we want you to executive produce YouTube Rewind and please like make it good, make it something that you're proud to have your name on as executive producer at the end. And you agreed to do it, which I know you wouldn't, but they made you some offer that made you agree to do it. Where would you have even started?

What would you have done? Well, you never want to agree with that because it's just a lose-lose position, right? And this is where I do have sympathy for YouTube. There's nothing they could have done this year. This was probably their best move. What is the least offensive thing that we can do? Don't have a narrator. Don't have anything.

Just list objective facts about numbers and be done with it. is the least offensive thing that we can do don't have a narrator don't have anything just list objective facts about numbers and be done with it so so like i don't know when it came out i had seen a bit of buzz and stuff on twitter about it and all i knew before watching it a few minutes ago was i had been told they just showed clips of the most popular videos on youtube i actually naively thought that's what i was going to get like 30 seconds of the 10 most watched videos of the year so i could kind of like a digest like one of those two-page newspapers where you find out what the news is around the world without having to read a whole paper yeah but i didn't get that that's not what i got i got like just like whoa just

blasted by me i don't know anything about those videos. I would have preferred 30 seconds to at least have got that. But bubblegum attention spans, I guess, don't suit that. I think that argument about people's attention spans is overblown. I think that the fast editing is because they just want to be able to reference a lot of people as a kind of shield of like, oh, yes, we had Kurtz's app. We had an enormous education creator in there. Great. We have a bunch of beauty vloggers in there. Great. We have a bunch of beauty vloggers in there. Great. You know, we have a bunch of like all of these different categories. Like they can just cover as many as possible, which again, is fine as a shield.

I agree with you. I think you're right. That was definitely an aim. But I also think attention span is a problem with these videos because I would happily watch 30 seconds of a Kurtz Gazette video, but I'm not going to want to watch 30 seconds of a beauty vlog. Actually, that's not true. I do spend too much time watching beauty vlogs sometimes, but that's a rabbit hole I don't want to talk about.

You've got to look good, Brady. I assure you it's not for personal reasons. I have a few friends that do it, and sometimes, because I know the people personally, I'll watch it, and then I'll be, I'll be like, oh my God, I just watched 25 minutes of a beauty vlog. Yeah. Look, we've all seen beauty vlogs and we all have the same thought, which is I'm in the wrong business. Whenever you see someone do one of those things, it's like, this is unbelievable how popular these are. Like to answer your question though, is to totally get around any of the constraints that youtube actually has and so

like yeah yeah if i was making something and they're like oh here's an enormous pile of money and you also have total editorial control and also try to make people happy in any kind of artistic field like there's things that are popular and then there are things that creators in that field care about so like i think i would i would want to try to go through the various things that had happened this year which are of interest to creators in the like creator community do you think creators is the audience of this video no i, I totally don't. But this is what I'm saying. Like, do I have editorial control

and you're trying to get something that gets thumbs up? This is what I would do. But that's not what YouTube is actually doing. Like, I think one of the reasons this looks like a spreadsheet is because it's a commercial to advertisers of look at these incredible numbers. Like like don't you want to be associated with these incredible numbers and these diverse people and these like yeah and all these things you can have yeah it's why the clips are also so short because like don't care what the content being

consumed is right just associate whatever you want with that thing yeah And so that's why I think like YouTube is probably hit all the check marks that they need to hit for this kind of thing. Don't make people angry, but also have a kind of commercial to advertisers, which is why I think it feels very corporate. No one's doing the narration. There's no personality to it whatsoever.

It's just enormous numbers that you can be associated with. But yeah, so there is like this whole other world, which is what I would say is the, I would say the independent and independent adjacent creators of people who are not associated with gigantic multimedia companies who are making videos for YouTube, which is where the whole thing sort of started with independent creators. And there's always a lot of activity in that world. And there are big deal things that happen within that world that are not necessarily of broad interest. But if I was going to put together

a YouTube Rewind, I would try to sit down and think about like, okay, what are the things that happened in the world of people who are vaguely individuals or independent or like just those kinds of content creators and what happened? And so I do think the PewDiePie's wedding is a perfect thing to pick for that. Like that's, that's a big deal, interesting thing that happened. And for longtime followers of YouTube, YouTube has been around long enough that you can see people grow up, like go from become teenagers to getting married, you know, like this is a thing that's, that you could pick out. So that's just like the first thing that pops into my head.

But then you have to make editorial decisions and that's the poison chalice, isn't it? You do totally have to make editorial decisions. And I agree, like, like that is where, you know, again, if I had some budget and editorial control, like, I don't know what's going on in the beauty world. And I would, that's where I would try to reach out to people. He's like, hey, what are the big deal things that you care about that have happened here? But isn't that what YouTube has done? But they've used the numbers to make the decisions rather than making judgment calls. They've just used the raw numbers. What were the videos and the things happening in the beauty vlogger world that people cared

about? Well, let's just use the numbers. These are the top five. Of course. But this is why I'm answering the question of what would I do? I would exercise editorial control to a particular subset that I don't want to say is like responsible for the growth of YouTube, but like are the kinds of people that the site at least started with.

But why do you, why do you want to make the video for them? Because that's what the video that I would want to make. You're asking me, what would I do with Rewind? That's what I would do with Rewind. And I'm ignoring all of the constraints that YouTube has. Because I would feel very alienated by that video, I think. Now, why? Because I wouldn't know any of the people or any of the things going on. But it would feel very inside baseball because it feels like it would be all about all these personalities and people who I didn't grow up with and who I don't know.

And therefore, you know, maybe you'd stumble over one I knew. But, you know, like I didn't know PewDiePiepie got married this year this is the whole thing with youtube being functionally infinite i forget what the number is but i want to say last time i looked it up there's there's at this point there are now several thousand channels that have more than a million subscribers i don't remember what exactly the number is but but maybe it's 5,000, maybe it's 4,000, something along those lines. This is now getting into this world of just infinite content in many ways. And to exercise any kind of editorial decision is immediately going to have to exclude huge numbers of people. When I was watching this YouTube Rewind, I was trying to see how many people do I even recognize the name, you know, and they go through a lot of people in this video.

And I think I recognize, I was going to say like eight, you know, not more than 10 of the creators that are mentioned in these lists. Yeah. Because it's just because the world is so enormous. Yep. So what then would your take be on this problem? You have infinite budget and editorial control. You're going to make YouTube rewind. What would you focus on?

I would be a really bad person to do this, like because I am so out of touch with youtube besides my little tiny nook like i think you're an order you are orders of magnitude more in touch and you're not super in touch i think both of those sentences are very fair i think the thing that i have liked i haven't liked about it but i think the thing that has made it unique and the one bit of power that youtube has been able to bring to it has been getting all these people in the same room they've always done it badly but seeing people from all these different like it's like this avengers assemble thing where you know all these different people who are coming together in one place has always

been the novelty of it it It has been what's amazing. Oh, wow, there's that person who I like and there's that other person who I've heard of and they're sitting like on the same chair. They're in the same shot. That has been like the reason to watch it. Oh, that's interesting. But they've always executed it so poorly. So, I think if I had infinite budget, I would get all these famous

people together to make one thing. Because I think that's like, people like that. That's one of the things audiences do like, isn't it? That's why they like collaborations too sometimes. Oh my God, I can't believe those two people made a video together. That's brilliant. And the YouTube rewind- Yeah, people love a crossover for sure. And the YouTube rewind has always been that ultimate crossover so i do think that has got merit and power but i don't know how i'd make it good or cool because smarter better filmmakers than me have tried year after year and seem to muck it up all the time because they haven't got a story to tell you know because it has to be this mashup because it's underlying premise is everything that happened on YouTube this year.

There's no story there. There's no narrative. It's a million narratives. You are right that there's something interesting about getting all the people together visually, that this has the possibility of being interesting. Whereas this video could be any person in the world with iMovie on their Mac could have put this together. And the budget for this could have been one intern. One unpaid intern.

Here's a spreadsheet. Put it together. Here's some music. And don't have any of the clips be more than three seconds long. They made a few little bespoke links and joining clips, didn't they? I'd seem to notice, but not much. If they did they did i didn't even know it just went by too fast but so yeah it doesn't have any of the getting people together and i think you're right there is something interesting about that but even you with theoretical infinite budget and no editorial control don't know what you could actually do with getting people together like

it's it's a very hard problem yeah so yeah i don't know the only move that was available to them was this and my expectation is that this is what youtube rewind is from here on out and basically starting from next year no one ever discusses it. They just need to give every big YouTuber a little selfie camera, and we all need to make little Peloton videos for our partners at the end of the year. Perfect. What could go wrong?