Offline with Jon Favreau - Millennials v. Gen Z, Twitter v. Threads, Social Media Trends for 2024: Jon & Max Answer Your Questions

Episode Date: December 17, 2023

With 2024 fast approaching, Jon and Max sit down to answer listener-submitted questions. Does the show have a millennial bias? What’s the guys’ screen time 6 months after the Offline Challenge? Will Max stage a coup when Jon goes on paternity leave? Plus favorite social media trends, favorite films and favorite co-hosts of 2023. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

What's a social media trend that you'd like to see fall by the wayside in 2024? And is there a social media trend you'd be interested in trying out in 2024? I think in 2024, I might try out medical misinformation. I think that could be fun. I'm just going to follow Alex Berenson the whole time. Listen, it appears to be incredibly lucrative. I like that. I'd like to get a new car, maybe.

I'm going to start doing TikTok dances. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's going to be my favorite. I feel like that's an old trend at this point, actually. Just saying it like that. I'd like to get a new car, maybe. I'm going to start doing TikTok dances. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's going to be my favorite. I feel like that's an old trend at this point, actually. Just saying it like that. Just saying the way I said it, it's an old trend.

Yeah. I take back everything I said about millennial biases. They're real and they're terrible. Welcome to Offline. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Max Fisher. Hey, Max. What a pleasure to be back with you.

It's been a minute. I know. It has been a while. You were in South America? I was down South America way. That's right. At a conference talking about, wouldn't you know it, social media, the internet, which is a major concern in Brazil, especially because their internet is unfortunately just like ours, which they absolutely hate. They don't have a better one?

No, it's the same one, yeah. That's annoying. Well, this is our mailbag episode, our annual mailbag episode. Very exciting. We got some fantastic questions. Really good questions. We got them from Twitter. We got them from threads.

We got them from Instagram. We got them from- Did we really get a threads question uh i know i asked on threads i don't know if any ended up in here and then never checked to see if you got it and most importantly we got them from all of our friends of the pod on discord which are great a lot of great questions they're really thoughtful um and i know you were talking about social media in uh in brazil so we will start with this question from friends of the Pod subscriber Christian K. It's for you. Christian says, the Friend of the Pod Discord book club read Chaos Machine earlier this year. Thank you, guys.

Obviously, there have been some changes in social media since the book was published. Understated. What is something that you would like to add or clarify about the book or places we should look for more information? So this was something I have been thinking about a lot the last week or two, because, you know, like we were saying, I was like just talking about the book. So people were asking me all these questions about things that are happening now. And you're kind of really feeling that like year and a half since it came out. And of course, it's all TikTok. Is that like, that's the really big thing, because it was barely out, you know, two or three years ago, barely existed. And now is so overtaken our discourse. And it was a real like the more things change, the more they stay the same kind of discussion because it is so different from the other platforms and so transformative. And we talked about that with like Israel Gaza discourse. It also operates on fundamentally the same principles and it's the same algorithmic bullshit kind of all over again it does feel like it is um twitter facebook everything just like on speed times a trillion yeah yeah it's very similar everything it's it's

those platforms but just magnified in a in a direction towards being more addictive. And the thing that really, I feel like I'm only beginning to wrap my head around and is something that I think we're probably going to be looking at over the next year, is there are so many younger people and not just teens or people in their 20s, but people even just like slightly younger than us who really live on TikTok and get all of their information from it. And I think what that means for those people's worldview, for how they think about things, how they relate to other people is something that we're kind of just beginning to understand. But it feels big. Yeah.

Follow-up question from Christian. How did you get offline while writing Chaos Machine? And then he says, it was an important but emotional read. Yeah. I'm sure it was an important but emotional read yeah i'm sure it was an important but emotional right too so yeah i can't tell you how often people have come up to me and said well i loved your book it was so upsetting and it's like i'm sorry sorry for ruining your i guess that's i guess that was the point it's yeah it's it's a nice to hear no i appreciate the compliment um i mean writing i you have also just written a book so maybe you found the same thing it's a terrible way to get

offline because you're spending a trillion hours sitting at your laptop but like it did also make me think so much about my relationship to social media news and the internet and it's part of why i'm here and part of why yeah'm on podcasts is because I was so, as we all were during the pandemic in 2020, like so much mainlining the news and so distressed by it and so falling down these rabbit holes. And I really found myself spending more and more time listening to podcasts, including yours, and really finding that even when the news was bad and dire and upsetting, it just felt like such a healthier way and such a just nicer way to consume information. And it made me think like,

you know what, I'd like to make a change and be part of that. And write a book. Yeah. My, thank you for saying that I just wrote a book. Sort of. Your name is on a book. I think it turned out really well.

Yeah. We got Lovett's there. Lovett did it too. Tommy. It's nice to have friends. I had a turned out really well. Yeah. We got Lovett's there. Lovett did it too. Tommy. It's nice to have friends. I had a team, which was much, and there's illustrations, which makes it a lot easier.

You didn't have a lot of illustrations in yours. You know, it's like George Bush said, some of the best part about reading is there's nice illustrations. I should have considered that. I should have done some doodling. That is the best part of our book. Claire, also a friend of the pod,

asks, staying with the social media topic, we hear on the one hand the social media topic uh we hear on the one hand that social media is causing all these issues with polarization misinformation attention and then on the other that every type of new media has had some kind of panic around it do you think the reach and speed of social media makes it a unique case or will we stumble through for a few more years and then all figure out how to live with it? So like, I think we will figure out how to live with it. But that also means living with, I think we'll be living with the significant harm that it does to our brains, our relationships and our society. Yes, there was panic around TV.

We still watch TV. But that doesn't mean TV hasn't had a negative effect on everything from, I think, childhood development to politics to journalism. Ezra Klein has a great answer about this that I love to steal, which is that, yes, we did have a big panic, a big moral panic about the emergence of TV and especially TV news in the 80s. And there was like that famous book, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Yeah, great book. And like everybody's so worried about it. And people in Silicon Valley raise that now to be like, there's always a panic about, you know, new forms of media. But the thing is, is everything that was predicted in the panic about TV came true. It went a hundred percent

true. And like, we're now just like, our news is just like, you know, really salacious now. And there's like a lot of gossip in it and things get overhyped because they're going to do well on TV. Politics is treated as a game. Right. People yelling on TV all the time about the news. Yeah. It's like it hasn't been good. Yeah.

TV is not the thing to hold up. And I think what makes social media different, too, is that it gives the illusion of interaction and connection when in fact those interactions are leaving us angrier and more isolated and so i do think that like at least with tv you know it's just uh you're watching right but you think to yourself oh we're connected on social media but you're the opposite of connected i think that's a great point and it's like social media isn't just displacing how we use to consume news and information it's displacing our relationships and how we relate to other people. And it's not always bad. Like I can stay in touch with people on WhatsApp who I couldn't stay in touch with before.

But it is like a big part of its transformative effect that, you know, will we learn to live with it? I think you're right that the harms are kind of here more or less to stay. Although we're going to talk about like regulation and what's happening with that. You know, will we get better at coping with it individually? I mean, I think you and I have. I think there are ways to like learn to have a pee in your life. Yeah. That was me sort of.

We'll get to that question later. Yeah. But I mean, it's, you know, you've made steps. I've made steps. And I would like to think that a lot of people have been kind of thinking more holistically about how they relate to social media. I mean, it doesn't like fix the problem. But does it just like your day to day life gets a little bit more bearable, even if you're still on Instagram and Twitter? Yeah, I do think in the short term, awareness, but what social media is doing to us and how it changes our relationships and how it makes us feel is like i don't think that's everything but it's a big first step which is so ironic because one of the big knocks on social media forever has been that it displaces activism with like awareness you remember like coney 2012 which is like oh if you're aware of who joseph coney is that's like enough to stop war crimes in uganda that there's like the one issue that

you actually really can improve with awareness, I think is social media. You just know what it's doing to you. You understand the effect it has on you. And I think it just makes it easier to live with. Yeah. It's about being intentional. Exactly.

Yeah. So Jared on Discord asks, how would you advise policymakers to sell tech company regulation to the American public? Republicans, hypocritically, tried out the nanny state and government overreach lines when we try to do this. And there should be a way to show simply how this is an extension of us agreeing on a set of rules for a virtual nation

over a physical one. I like that Jared clarified that he thinks Republicans are bad. They are hypocritical. It's crooked media, Jared. It's okay. You're good. They're not always on the level as we have come to see in these last years. I don't know. I think you got to hear both sides. So I kind of think that the American public has been sold on regulating tech companies. I kind of think that work is done. Like polls show overwhelming support for it. I think that Jared is right that the issue of like content moderation has been super polarized. And that's just like probably, that's probably just like a

done deal at this point that like Republicans say, you know, total free speech on the platforms and the Democrats want to moderate harmful speech. But also because content moderation, the phrase is really just like a substitute for like competing political philosophies and arguments right like we talk about content narration we're trying we're talking about like one side doesn't like right the other side's content right right now i think you could make a lot of good arguments that uh some of the things that the uh from the left to the center don't like are, you know, Nazis on the platform. Sure. Yeah. So maybe that's a special case.

But a lot of this is just trying to have political debates through the context of content moderation. Right. Yeah. No, that's right. And it's just about like the proper bounds of political discourse that people are kind of grafting onto the social. But I feel like regulation is actually not focusing too much on content moderation which is great and like the ftc is like really setting them up and knocking them down lately like did you see the the big google antitrust case that they just lost against epic games which we should tell people a little bit about this because it was a good it was was a big one. Okay. So Epic Games, which makes Fortnite, I believe, was challenging Google's control of their, basically their app store.

And also the fact that to use their app store, they require you to also use their payment system. that like every, like I think it was 11 antitrust counts and was guilty on every single one, that Google was illegally using its control of its app store to force people to use its payment system and was also using the app store to force consumers who use the Google app store to like do certain things that limited their options. And so it might be like opening up the Google app store, which is not going to change social media, but is hopefully a harbinger of the many other FTC cases

that are coming down on big tech companies, like finding some success. So I think that Democrats don't have to convince the public, they have to convince the courts. Yes. And I think, right, there's obviously a legal avenue here. There's regulatory steps you can take. I think the challenge is around legislation because legislation requires two functioning political parties. And right now we only have one. Yeah. And so I think that getting, you know, and there have been cases where there's, you know, bipartisan co-sponsors of certain legislation that would regulate the tech industry. But I think it's harder and harder to find. It's getting narrower. It seems like the one thing they will agree on is regulation relating to kids' use of social media.

And the Republicans get to it through, like, kind of a weird, like, soft soft QAnon, like the tech companies are all groomers angle. But, you know, if they end up, whatever works. Yeah, that's right. Listen, you build the coalition from the lawmakers you have. Yeah, That's true. You get some more, some Republicans with libertarian streaks who are interested in privacy issues. But I think, look, in terms of a message, you're right. I totally agree that we've sort of already sold it, but like, cause I do my political hack answer on the message is like, you know, you make sure that billionaire tech oligarchs are accountable to the public. They're the ones on the other side of it. Right. And you know, we want to protect privacy, kids, democracy, right. That Small businesses, startups, right? On some of the monopolistic stuff. Right. Which is yet another piece of evidence

that Elon Musk is a democratic Soros plant because he's really doing their work for them. He did a great job. He's really doing a great job. He looked at what Mark Zuckerberg did and he was like,

come on, I'll show you how to be a fucking villain. Let me take the least consequential social platform and then turn it into a giant banner that says, please regulate us.

Yeah, he did it. Super Sink on Discord. Excuse me, that's Super Skink. Oh. Or Supers Kink. Or Super S Kink. Super S Kink, that's right. Very formal.

I love these names. On Discord, friend of the pod, thanks for the subscription, asks, has there been research on when slash how to actually introduce screen social media ipads etc to children if so what does it find all right here's what i got world health organization and the american academy of pediatrics say no screen time for kids under two less than an hour a day for kids two to five i read that i laughed yeah what kind of numbers

are we running we're running at home we also asked our pediatrician this uh i think like the first charlie's like year appointment he's three now and um and she sort of gave us these numbers and then sort of was like yeah i'm supposed to say that, you know. The reality is, as of 2014, now that's almost 10 years ago, kids under two in the U.S. averaged three hours a day. And kids three to five averaged two and a half hours. Really? Yeah. Wow.

And that's 10 years ago. Yeah. That is wild. So I will say Charlie. Yeah, what's he putting up? What numbers are you? He, when he wakes up, will,

he'll want to sit on my lap and watch a few YouTube videos. What does he like to watch? This is whatever the algorithm gives him. No, uh, I try to type in Joe Rogan. So cars is his favorite movie. And he likes like offshoots of things that happened in cars.

Okay. So I try to do cars educational in the, in the search bar and then i just do like educational three-year-old like i this is what i do and then they pop up and he watches them but i try to limit that to like 20 minutes and then maybe he'll watch like an episode of something all the episodes by the way of kid shows now are like 20 minutes anyway yeah 15 20 minutes he'll do you guys are bluey household bluey daniel tiger yeah but like you know the older he gets the more he's in like traditional

cartoon whatever dino trucks yeah it's like what is that yeah blippy blippy i've never even heard of blippy uh don't you lucky you lucky you uh so he does that maybe in the morning for an episode and then really it's not until night like when he's like waiting after his bath and he's waiting to have dinner maybe he'll watch an episode okay so it's pretty and there are times when to be perfectly honest i wish he would want to watch tv but instead he wants to run around outside play yuck do all that kind of stuff and of course i do it of course i do it um there are some studies on this that like children who have more screen time are more likely to have developmental and

behavioral issues it is hard to determine because it's uh causation correlation stuff here right um but they they have done studies that suggest children learn better from a person who's teaching them face to face than from a person on the screen, even if it's the exact same person doing the exact same thing. I mean, I know what that experiment is referring to. It's distance learning, right? It's that, and it's also just, I think, people leaned on educational programming as a crutch for a while.

And there's still, I think it's better than other programming studies have found, but it's still not a real substitute. Though there are some benefits, and not all of them are educational. There was a study Texas Tech did of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, basically, it's a PBS show. It's just Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood now as a cartoon. Oh, that's right. I did hear about this.

Yeah, and Daniel Tiger is like Mr. Rogers. Kids who watched that show showed greater emotion recognition, empathy, and self-efficacy if those children came from homes where parents consistently talked to their kids about TV viewing. And that is like the final point,

piece of advice that you get from everyone, which is watch, if your kid's going to watch TV, watch it with them. And I found that super helpful because when I'm watching something with him,

now he'll say, oh, did you see that, Daddy? And then I'll with him now he'll say oh did you see that daddy and then i'll say something like well what did you think of that and then we'll talk about that after the show's over and like that so he's not just songed out yeah yeah that is helpful and it's also much more helpful than what i had assumed the advice was going to be which is just like don't i'm going to wave my finger at you being a bad parent and honestly it's just like not feasible yeah right right because like there's a lot of hours in the day. And when you have a kid, it seems like they double or triple.

I'm sure, yeah. Like there's many times on a Saturday, I'm like, oh, it must be noon. And it's 8.30 a.m. Well, at that point, you've been up for six hours, right? Yeah, well, so is he. You know, I would have, that's so fascinating. I would have before the pandemic assumed that like it's not really about screen time. It's mostly about the content. And it does sound like something that we have learned is that it really does make a difference whether you as, you know, a little kid are engaging just with a screen or you're engaging with a person or you're engaging with a screen alongside a person, which makes sense because so much of how our brain forms and works is around social interaction. So you would need to have that.

Yeah. And it was like the other night is like a treat. He was watching some holiday Disney movie and it was like a 20 minute thing. And Emily was like, okay, well you can watch that. And, but then we're not going to read books tonight. And then it's, it's bedtime. Cause it's pretty late. And it's funny just having watched that and but then we're not going to read books tonight and then it's it's bedtime because it's pretty late and it's funny just having watched that and then going to bed without the books he was so much harder to put him to bed because he was like still amped up and he had watched something and he wanted to talk and he wanted to do this and the reading actually helps a lot more than the one time that we did i just i'm shaking my head because that is a piece of advice that would apply so well to my own life i am absolutely terrible right i'm terrible about like well it's time to go to

bed let me browse instagram for 20 minutes or let me like watch the rest of this movie and then when i actually charlie is so much better at this than i am when i actually take the time to be like let's read this new yorker for 20 minutes i sleep so much better. I feel so much better. And I'm not running around the house amped up. And another thing that Charlie always wants to do is read the New Yorker. The features are too long, he's always saying, right? He's saying 5,000 words maximum. Before we go to break, the second ever episode of our new subscriber series, Inside 2024, drops next next Wednesday the 20th. This time, Dan and Alyssa dive into the unique nature of two former presidents running against each other and the challenges of running an incumbent's campaign.

To listen to this episode, make sure you're a part of Crooked's Friends of the Pod community. You can head to crooked.com slash friends to sign up. 2024 is a huge, super high stakes election year. And there's so much to keep track of. Important voting deadlines, volunteer shifts, emergency therapy. And apparently you still have to go work out and stuff. That's why Crooked and Vote Save America created a 2024 planner to help you stay sane and organized next year. It's filled with important dates, much needed motivation and fun stuff to keep you from losing your mind.

To get your planner, head to cricket.com slash store now. John Hall on Twitter asks, what are your current views of the current Twitter alternatives? Should we pull up our Mastodon profiles? How much skeeting are you doing lately? More tooting than skeeting.

Really? I don't know which is which now at this point. What's your toot to skeet ratio? How's that looking? Zero on either. I don't even know which one refers to which anymore. That's what no, I don't either. At this point, i'm staying off of

it because i if look if you're listening to this and you're a one of the people who is pushing blue sky i mean no disrespect but it's very annoying i don't need your extra code that's right i'm glad you have three extra codes i don't care for the other place wow elon musk is going to moderate you for saying blue sky it's passing around that samas dot look if you for saying blue sky. It's passing around that Samizdat. Look, if you're on blue sky or Mastodon, good for you. Good for you. But nothing's happening on those that matter. Yeah. It matters.

You're not missing any relevant news. Discourse is just not. It didn't work. It seems like it's mostly discourse about Twitter. I think so. From what I can tell. But again, I don't know because I haven't been on either of them and I'm not missing anything. Where are you on the Twitter death watch these days?

Okay. So, well, let's talk about threats. on the Twitter death watch these days? Okay. So, well, let's talk about threads. Okay. Let's talk about threads. Okay. Because I have said about threads that I wanted a feed of only people that I follow, which now they have. Okay.

And I said I wanted a web only version, which they have. They finally launched. Yeah. So, got both of those and i'm using it more how often are you on it let me check it a couple times a day okay but i don't okay i like post it's in the routine like if the pod's up or we have a clip up or we're doing a mailbag like i post up there i don't like feel the need i don't feel the need to post on twitter either anymore like i know i have lost the need to post on Twitter either anymore.

I have lost the need to like, I got to say something. It's really stopped being an essential place for discussion or where conversations happen. And it really used to feel like that up until 2019, maybe 2020, I feel like. If I'm not retweeting, I am replying to someone to make a joke, make a point, or I'm quote tweeting something to make some stupid point. And for some reason, threads, because it's just not as busy yet, doesn't feel. Now, this is an addictive thing, right? Like I want it to be more addictive, I guess. But it's like it doesn't feel like the essential place where everything's happening yet. And I hate that Twitter still feels a lot less like that now, like a lot less, but it still feels like it's more so than threats. There were moments during Israel-Gaza when it felt

to me like it was an essential place to be. Twitter. Yeah. Like early on, like it's really, there's like interesting voices there's a lot happening it's very quick moving i felt like i wanted to be there and now the like awfulness of everything on there since like more than cancels that out for sure the negatives really outweigh the positives but i agree that no platform has reproduced that like essential hive of activity and i don't know that they're going to i don don't either. Like, I really, I kind of feel like, I don't know what's going to happen to Twitter as it exists now. But I think that if Twitter dies, I think this format of short form blogging goes with it. Which, fine. I do think, I think it's annoying to have multiple Twitters right now. Like,

I find the fact that like, some people are skeeting and tooting and then threading. I tolerate their, I support their skeets and their dudes me too uh i find it confusing annoying to go back and forth to post on multiple platforms right to post on threads and twitter and i don't know twitter does feel like it's dying a slow death yeah yeah i don't just less engagement there's less it's it's certainly not fun anymore there's not a lot of humor on it. It does feel like every day it becomes... I really thought before Elon Musk bought it, it was already so mean and so negative and mean-spirited. And it really feels like it's gotten so much worse, which I think a lot of that is the algorithm. I really find if I switch back

from the for you tab, it's all algorithm to just my regular feed of people i follow it's like oh this is still a crappy experience but it's way less severe than the algorithmic one and because there's fewer people on it and the people who are left are the diehards like me um what i am noticing too is that like there's arguments that just go on forever ever like for two days now everyone's been yelling about the vibes versus the right we covered on the show a while back yeah but like they're all like yelling about nate silver and he's in and everyone's going back and forth i don't even know what the fuck it's about i couldn't tell you what's about because i'm like is are we moving on yet we're all still talking about this

well i think it's really come to feel like if you lose a fight on twitter if you get dunked on too hard like that'll be it for you. Seriously, like you'll, it's like, that's the feelings you have to keep fighting. Cause it's like, if you get owned too hard, it'd be like, oh, that's that idiot from Twitter who destroyed his reputation by posting the wrong thing about economic sentiment. That's it. Haven't heard from that idiot since. All right. Michael from Toronto has a long one, but a good one. He says, I am a Jewish Canadian living in Toronto. My family history includes Holocaust victims and survivors, victims and survivors of the Russian pogroms, as well as persecution in Argentina. I am a leftist and a progressive, but I have had a hard time with my social media consumption since October 7th. Being online has been a firehose of

information, and as a result, I've decided to try and be less online, specifically Twitter. Being offline has resulted in tremendous guilt, as I feel like I'm abandoning part of my identity by essentially turning off my consumption and knowledge of the suffering of the Palestinian people and diaspora. On the other hand, for every good faith and on-the-level criticism of the suffering of the Palestinian people and diaspora. On the other hand, for every good faith and on the level criticism of the Israeli government, there is an absolute barrage of blatant anti-Semitism that makes me feel incredibly unsafe and had begun to impact my day-to-day ability to function. I'm working from home now. I'm not walking my dog as often. And I even took off jewelry that identified me as a Jew. I might be accused of overreacting or exploitation of victimhood, but I genuinely feel in danger in my day to day. I feel rightly or wrongly incredibly

abandoned by the left. And I'm wondering how can I articulate that feeling in a productive way that may create a space to have this discussion without being accused of dual loyalty or being a conservative. So I think a lot of people, especially people who are very online, feel this way. And like the first thing I would say is that like, Michael, I don't think that you're in danger. Like I understand how it can feel that way. If you're online, it feels like you're swirled by these reports of anti-Semitic incidents. It feels like you're swirled by actual anti-Semitism on the platform. Like that is not representative. Like you are a jewish guy living in canada you're really pretty safe although i do understand the feeling and also this like sense of obligation

that like because something bad is happening i need to be glued to the news is something i've heard from a lot of people and i like really would tell you you don't you're not you're just punishing yourself you're there are good things that you can do and it's a great impulse to have but reading a lot of news that makes you upset even though there's a lot on the internet that kind of implicitly tells you that's your responsibility, it's not. And take some time out for yourself. It's fine. You're just one person. The part of this that I kind of identified with or that resonated with me a little bit was his sense of feeling abandoned by the left. Like there have been moments for me in the last couple of months when I have been like

online and we'll see tweets from like people who I know, not just like random shit posts, like people I know, like referring to October 7th is the Al-Aqsa flood, which is like Hamas's name for it or saying that like people need to understand that resistance comes in many forms and like, who are we to say what's legitimate and not legitimate. And like, to be clear, people on the right have been saying far, far worse things legitimizing violence against Palestinians for years, but I kind of always expected better from the left. And there have been moments when I have felt like, you know, kind of alone in feeling like, well, I, you know, human rights are supposed to be universal, and it's never justifiable to target civilians or innocent

people or to kill people for political agendas, even if you don't like the government of the people on the other side. And international law is supposed to apply to everyone and rights apply to everyone, including the right to national self-determination. But I've tried to remind myself, and if you're feeling like Michael, I would urge you to remind yourself too, that the things that you were seeing online are not representative. And I've like really tried to reset and be like, okay, I did see some tweets from people I know like celebrating October 7th or justifying it or excusing it. And that was

very upsetting to me. But remembering that like, I look at polls, it's really not how the majority of people on the left feel. The majority of people on the left are of course horrified by terrorism and social media can really trick you like that because it promotes the most provocative thing and the most shocking and the most upsetting thing, but not to, not to fall into the trap of thinking that whatever tweets the algorithm pushes in front of you are actually representative because they're not. I totally, that's such a good point. And I totally agree with not feeling guilty about not posting or engaging or following the discourse. Like posting about politics is not the same as participating in politics. Posting about someone else's reporting is not the same as posting your

own reporting, which is what a lot of brave journalists and activists have been doing in Gaza and Israel. So I don't think people should feel guilty taking a break from social media. One thing that might help to think about is, imagine that Gaza happened before social media, and you kept up with the news by watching television or reading the newspaper, and you still felt either unsafe as a Jew or outraged by the actions of the Israeli government or both, what would you do? You might talk to people that you know and trust. You might meet other people who feel the same way as you do, join a protest, call Congress, donate to an organization. What you probably wouldn't do is walk into a big crowd of strangers who

are all yelling about their views on the issue and spreading information about the conflict that you cannot immediately verify as true. But that is what's happening today. And it's not just with Gaza. It is with everything. And I'll just say one more thing on this, because I know a lot of people who follow our shows on social media have a lot of opinions on this issue. On Israel-Palestine? Which is, by the way, entirely understandable. Of course.

Good to have opinions. I think what Hamas did on October 7th was horrific and barbaric. I think what the Israeli government has done in response is also horrific and barbaric at this point. I think the Biden administration has so far failed to get Netanyahu to change course. And I think it's insane to give him more aid until or unless he does. But I say all this because what led me to these conclusions has been good, factual reporting, thoughtful analysis, persuasive arguments from journalists experts activists ben and tommy and you people here people like like podcasts experts in the region and what hasn't persuaded me at all are social media posts and comments right that say uh i'm a genocide supporter or i'm anti-semitic

or someone is so mad about something that they are not going to listen or follow or whatever. It's like, OK, sure, that's your right. Sad to see you go. But like those kinds of comments, which are very common on social media, had zero effect on what I believe. And like if posting makes you feel better doing that anyway, like awesome. But if you are trying to persuade someone to think differently and to change their mind about something, comments like that and post like, it just doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work on me. Maybe it works on some people. It does not work. Well, it's not intended to, right?

It's intended to rally people who agree with you and get that affirmation. And I think even people who, and I have done this. I have been distressed about the news and mad about something. I have too. And posted about it. I can find all my old posts. I'm sure I've done this. And the thing is, is that it never actually made me feel better. It would get like the big dopamine hit from getting retweeted by a lot of people, which is kind of shameful to admit.

Yeah. But I would, whatever was the thing that made me mad in the first place, I would just feel madder because I had put all of this energy just towards ginning up my own feelings and other people's feelings. You're right, it is crazy that we have so many resources for information that we can get, for forums where we can discuss this, for people we can talk to. And the one that we're choosing to go to is this like mosh pit of

misinformation and hate speech that like that's the place i want to go and some people have said to like well there's some people on tiktok who are doing great yes of course of course there's people on every single medium and every social media platform who can be trusted who are doing fantastic work but it is the cacophony of voices and comments and opinions all the time that I don't think is very useful. And I think screaming at people is not very useful either. It's just like, think about when you've been persuaded and have changed your mind in the past.

And to the extent that I get annoyed with it, it's not, I don't care what people call me. I really don't. But I feel sad when I see people doing that to other people, to anyone, because I'm just like, ah, there's such important issues. And we do have to change a lot of minds and we do have to make change and we do have to organize. And like, I just, I hope, my hope is that people learn a more effective way to do it. Yeah. Well, and I've said this before, but it makes me think

a lot about 2014, which was the last big war between Israel and Hamas and Gaza, although it was much smaller than this one. And social media was like just kind of starting to become a big dominant thing, but wasn't yet algorithmic in the way that it is now. And it was an experience that like really broadcast a lot of people, a lot of information to a lot of people. Like you would log on and you would see photos and videos that regular people on the ground had taken in gaza whereas now you just see people screaming at each other because they didn't use the right set of magic words and that's so different it is that is so it's really different like because people look well the images out of out of gaza horrible yeah those images are persuasive right the the comments aren't.

Yeah, yeah. It's just, it's true. And it makes me sad because it makes the thinking about 2014, which I think did have a huge impact on American public opinion towards this conflict. Like social media can exist in a way

that is enlightening for people and that it kind of exists as part of a larger information diet, a larger news diet in a way that really is enriching. And it's like, you know, people who have their phones and are doing TikToks

on the ground in Gaza, like, yes, that exists. It really feels to me like it's getting crowded out by all of the noise. So social media bad, I feel like is what we're coming to. Yeah, just a new take from us.

Another one from Christian. Do you think there's a millennial bias to this show? How do you try and incorporate other generations' perspectives into the conversation? Fuck yeah, there is. Well, I don't know what Christian is talking about because I'm a Zoomer and you're Gen X. No, I'm kidding. You're not a Zoomer, are you?

No, we're like two years apart. I know I'm not Gen X. Yeah, it's hosted by two millennials. And much like Joe Biden, we can't do anything about our age. So there's definitely a bias. I would by two millennials. And much like Joe Biden, we can't do anything about our age. So there's definitely a bias. I would say two things. We try to incorporate Gen Z perspectives by having a staff here at Crooked Media that's mostly Gen Z. I don't talk to them.

You do, but I try not to speak to them. We try to incorporate Gen X's perspectives by talking to Dan. See if Dan is listening to this. And we incorporate Boomer's perspectives by talking to Dan. See if Dan is listening to this. And we incorporate Boomer's perspective by talking to our parents. No, but we've had guests and experts who span all generations and would definitely like more like that and do more like that in 2024. I also do think, though, that for this specific show about living in an extremely online world, it is especially valuable to have a millennial bias or perspective, at least, because we are the generation that grew up using the Internet and then social media, but also remembers life before it.

So we really do straddle sort of the old and the new. That's that's the case I'm making. I love you flattering the millennial ego. It's a good. No, it is. It is a good point. I mean, I,

this might be just like my talk about bias, my bias from like years of working in the news media. Like I kind of feel like there, I'm still an adherent of the old way of thinking about bias and perspective, which is like, yes, of course, as a millennial white guy,

coastal white collar professional, I have a set of biases that I bring to anything that I talk and think about. Largely immutable. That's right. All of them correct. I'm kidding. Please don't yell at me, even though I would deserve it. But I kind of think that the kind of new way of thinking about this is, okay, well, that means that you should bring in other people who have different biases and you'll just have a lot of different biases pile on top of each other. And I do see that. And of course, you should talk to lots of people who are different from yourself. But I kind of think that the first responsibility is to just be aware of your own biases in your own perspective and try to like, rise above it. Interrogate them. Right. Interrogate it and just try to bring people the best information you can and not, not to try to take for granted that, well, I have a perspective, so I should just lean into being biased or lean into having that perspective. Like, of course,

no one is ever going to be perfect at it, but I still think everyone's responsibility if your job is to bring people information is to try to, you know, kind of separate yourself from your bias and perspective as much as you can and that comes in you know even when we're not on mic like talking to a lot of people from different perspectives reading a lot people from different perspectives and trying to incorporate that into our work hopefully no look look i'm very cognizant uh just about every day that we uh don't know how gen Z interacts with the internet. Very aware, very aware, and would like to learn more about it and hear from more people about it who actually are from that generation. I do appreciate that. I know I can sometimes,

when we talk about TikTok especially, can be kind of down on Gen Z media habits. You're always very quick and it's good that you do this to kind of remind me that there are a lot of improvements too there's a lot of you know people who are doing good things on tiktok and that not to be just all negative about tiktok even though i think it is bad well and i just people should know i also think twitter's bad and facebook is that's right yeah the millennial they're all bad so yeah right right right and they're just bad in different ways and i do think with tiktok like you know it's like I said, everything sped up, everything amplified. And that algorithm is just shooting videos at you.

Right. And, you know, you choose who to follow on TikTok, but you don't use it the same as your Twitter feed or your feed. Like, it's just it's a lot coming at you all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I know we all have a preferred platform for our generation, but it is good to, I think people can sometimes get, and this goes for, you know, Twitter millennials and Facebook boomers too. We can all sometimes I think get a little defensive about hearing people from other generations criticize our preferred platforms, but like you said,

they're all bad. Yeah. I don't prefer any. Here's a pair of questions from Garbanzo and Rachel, both on Discord. What's a social media trend that you'd like to see fall by the wayside in 2024? And is there a social media trend you'd be interested in trying out in 2024? I think in 2024,

I might try out medical misinformation. I think that could be fun. Just going to follow Alex Berenson the whole time. Listen, it appears to be incredibly lucrative. I like that. I'd like to get a new car maybe. I'm going to start doing TikTok dances.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's going to be my thing. I feel like that's an old trend at this point actually. Just saying it like that. Just saying the way I said it. It's an old trend. Yeah. No, you know. I take back everything I said about millennial biases. They're real and they're terrible. I want, and this is, and Austin first made me aware of this,

our producer. I want to start using social media like TikTok as a search engine. Oh my God. No, don't do it. I think Emma and Austin are both nodding right now. Because I think it's,

you could get more personalized recommendations from people. So I tried it as an experiment, which I went into fully biased, assuming that it was going, that I was going to hate it. you could get more personalized recommendations from people. So I tried it as an experiment, which I went into fully biased, assuming that I was going to hate it. And wouldn't you know it, I was confirmed in my suspicions.

Maybe I'll hate it. It is like, okay, I understand that the case, I should voice the case for it before I crap all over it. The case for it being that when you search something on TikTok, the results are more authentic because they're recorded by just regular people, which is another like Zoomers sound like Gen X. What's the obsession with authenticity, guys? Everything is fake. Just accept it. And that you'll see a video, like if you're looking for restaurants, you'll see a video of the restaurant. You hear someone

talking about what they ate. You'll see their food. Whereas if you search on Google or if you go to like Eater, the infatuation, you're just getting what some critic tells you to want. But like, I don't know. It's just like every day I feel like there's more sponsored links on Google that you have to wade through before you get to the real shit. The Google experience is getting worse. Yeah, it is. But I still I'm still an old school millennial who trusts established expertise. I want to hear what the restaurant reviewer says.

That's right. It's my most reactionary contrarian opinion. So old. Any social media trend that you'd like to see fall by the wayside? Mine would be social media. My social media trend that I'd like to see fall by the wayside is everyone is a politician who must release a statement on everything. Yeah, I know.

I know. All the people posting their statements on Gaza. All the people posting, here's my statement. At least Gaza is like a big deal in the world. It's true. It's true. Now, if you're not an expert, no one's asking you to do anything on it. Don't have to.

But like every corporation feels like they need to do a statement. Every brand does a statement. People are doing, you go on social media, people are doing statements when someone dies that's famous and they're like, I'll always remember this thing about the, it's like, okay, yeah, if you know the person or that was a real, they were a real hero of yours. Yeah, but there is this like need to treat everyone like they have their own little press office

and that they are releasing a statement on literally everything that happens. Celebrities, athlete, everyone. It's like everyone just, now it's just ordinary people feel like it i really don't understand the impulse because like so many people get themselves into trouble that way like so many actors who i think i'm not putting it all on them because i think they were unjustly like punished for this but a lot of actors the message of this episode is

poor actors well i mean i think there is yeah you know this is like this is a separate thing but it does seem like there is a lot of like actors getting canned by their agents and managers lately for saying things that are not even that extreme or not even that wild on israel gaza but are just kind of like two ticks to the left of the center left position and it's like that's just that's a separate discussion yeah no but but but there is also a thing of like i think a lot of actors were like i have to put out my statement on the al-shifa hospital bombing and then like the reporting on it changed and it's like well of course you got the bombing wrong you don't know anything about this you're not a munitions expert like what what are you doing and there's it's also the immediacy right like

can i take the time to find out what happened in this event before i decide to post something and maybe like learn something about it no no no if you have not posted immediately you could be swept up in the why haven't you posted i see silence isity, but also pass the mic. I am noting my yoga teacher's silence on. Right. And then you have to weigh in on everyone else's statement too. And who had the statement that you're most shocked at?

You're angry. Who did the bad statement? Right. Who did the good statement? No, actually no one. No one gets congratulated on their good statement. It's only the bad statement.

No, no, it's just about. You either pass by unscathed or you did a bad statement. It's just about grandstanding on that. Anyway, that's my trend. Marilyn and Marianne both ask a question we get all the time. A lot of questions from people about this. Can we get screen time updates? Have you both reverted back to your previous habits?

Yes, I have. What kind of numbers are we talking about? The numbers we're working with now are three hours and 50 minutes a day. That's so much better. It's better. It's a lot better. That's a huge improvement. It's a lot better.

You were like six and seven, right? I was. I was. But it's still, it's not great, but it's still, it's better. Where do you want to be? I'd like to be in the twos. Twos are nice. I think the twos are good.

When we were doing the challenge, when I dropped into the twos, I was like, this feels good. This feels manageable. I don't feel like it's bending my brain. I feel like I'm getting time away from it. But I also am not so away from it that I'm like feeling like I'm going to backslide like you know I dieted too hard and now I'm going to totally relapse. What are we working with with you? So

this week I'm at about an hour 20 but last week because I was traveling it popped up to like 3, 3 and a half. I always when I travel I just spend more time. I don't know if I just give myself permission to be like fuck it it doesn't matter if it's just like you're tired because you're out all day so you're just like sitting on the deck chair scrolling twitter for an extra hour but then before that i was at like two and a half to

three so we're pretty close i'm finding that because i'm very this is what offline challenge has really helped is i'm like very intentional now not just about when i use it but when i'm using it a lot when i'm on the phone a lot why like what am i doing and it's always when i'm really busy which is oh interesting so like last couple months work has been crazy right we were traveling a lot of live shows and then when i've been home like i'm either always working or parenting yeah so checking the phone has become like a bit of a crutch like a like a oh i have 10 seconds of me time. Right. So now I'm going to. That's the thing that's ready. Yeah. Like if I'm going to walk upstairs to do something and it's just me, finally, I can like look at my phone. It's like a pacifier. And it is. It's like a pacifier. And oddly enough, when I'm not as busy or even bored, if I know I have like an hour or two hours as a break just to me, I don't look at the phone. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, when we were doing the challenge, I remember that the weeks I was feeling best were the weeks it was easiest to put it down and the weeks where I was

like maybe a little down in the dumps. It was when I'd be spending so much more time with my phone. But I do feel that even weeks now when my numbers are back up, I am so much more conscious about it, so much more intentional about it. And I don't have the same like doom scrolling, making myself upset experience. It's much easier for me to kind of off ramp off of it. So I would continue to really recommend to people like do a few weeks of a serious diet, even if you think it's just going to be a few weeks. And like, you will learn a lot about yourself in that process, I think. And there's like something rewired in my brain now where I do think, oh, this is bad. Right. If I'm like, if I'm scrolling, I'm like, this is bad.

I might still do it. But like that helps to just kind of take it down a notch. Yeah. Omid Ferozi asks on Instagram, do you find that phone addiction causes you to think more in a calendar brain where you're constantly thinking of the next event and obligation god i thought about this before i wish i i find that it does the opposite to me where it's like do you remember when okay now we're really gonna go millennial mode yeah i'm really undermining everything i said about not being biased it's

i'm really fucking that up um do you remember when you first got a cell phone and you would program numbers into it and everyone had the experience of you put the number into the phone for the first time and it blinks out of your brain permanently? Yeah. I feel like that's what happens with digital calendaring, which is obviously not new technology at this point. I'm constantly getting myself into trouble where people will be like, hey, do you want

to get dinner next Thursday? And I'll say, sure, because in my mind, I don't have anything that next Thursday because I do have something, but I put it on the calendar and then immediately forgot about it. So I wish I had calendar brain where I was remembering everything that I had coming up. I check the calendar a lot like I check Twitter. It's just another checking excuse. You love to check.

I think I had, yes yes i have ocd checking behaviors uh see this is this is my problem uh so so don't fight with me uh but i think that this is like predated phones for me because i just think that's like the i'm always thinking about the next thing the next event like i don't think this is just a phone addiction thing it's especially interesting right now though for me because after today we're recording this, what day is it? The 14th, December 14th. I have no more obligations and no more events. You've got one.

Yes. And Christmas is coming soon. But I'm not even thinking about what we're doing for Christmas because we don't know because the baby is due any minute, any day. And it is weird to look ahead two weeks, three weeks, four weeks now. Blank slate. And blank slate and have no idea what's happening. Very unsettling for me. It felt like that to me when I came because of my tendency towards laziness.

I had to like really rigorously map everything out. So I had this huge calendar with like this section of this chapter is due and this is due on this date like something every day and then after i finished it i went back to work and then like the job i was doing at that point is just like will you sit at a desk and wait for an editor to call you and give you an assignment so that's my calendar was just like wide open and it was terrifying but you know what it was also fucking great yeah it's nice not to have a ton of stuff on the horizon although i don't know if you're feeling that since you have yeah something's the one big thing yeah the one big thing's gonna probably keep me busy just in a different way becky on discord has a few good ones about the show is there any subject you guys covered this year that shocked you did you do any follow-ups

to any of them and what are some topics you really want to cover i love that did you do any follow-ups to any of them it's like wow my old editor at the time is really coming through here. Where's the follow? Becky, the answer to that is no. We moved on to the next topic. But Austin probably did. Austin and Emma probably did some follow-up. Yeah. So I have two answers for the shocked. One is that we talked a lot about AI in the Writers Guild contract negotiations with the studios. And it's kind of wild to me. I mean, it makes perfect sense. I see where they drove for it. I see where they did it. But it's kind of wild to me that they have this contract that has all of these

provisions about artificial intelligence. Like the future got here really quickly. Really quickly. And it's just like wild that that's just, and a lot of it is looking forward and it's speculative, but it's wild that we're like already in that world yeah um and the other one was from the offline challenge was you talking about how different it felt to be sitting at home with your thoughts and we had the flip phone we switched from the iphone to the flip phone and like i had a similar experience everyone i ever know who switched from iphone to flip phone had the same experience where at some point you reach some moment in your life and you realize like, I've forgotten how to navigate this basic thing without my smartphone. That just like, people bring it up to me all the time.

Yeah, we on our Pod Save America mailbag, we talked about resolutions and my resolution for next year is a 20 or 30 minute walk every day with no phone wow just no phone okay and what if there's a child care because that was the big yeah i might do it i might like be here at work and then maybe like walk to that starbucks or walk somewhere walk around the office yeah even if it's like even 15 minutes let's well maybe i'll start small but just like having that time where i can just think and don't have my phone i i try to do i mean it's it's easy for me to say this i don't have kids so it's much easier for me to get the time out um i try to do it pretty regularly and i find that when i do it my thoughts are so much clearer i feel better and when i don't do it my thoughts are muddled

even even if it's not something that i've thought about on the walk but it's it's i mean it it's it's wild that we come back to such simple advice as like what's the cure to the horrifying digital dystopia we'll take a 20 minute walk every day but like do some breathing i kind of i kind of think it is i really kind of think it um my My, the subject that shocked me, also AI, but like the first few times we talked about AI on the show, I thought all the hype and fear were overblown, mainly because I thought ChatGPT wasn't all that impressive. We came in when the discourse was really overheated. Yep.

And then when I interviewed Simon Rich, who's a TV writer whose friend had worked at OpenAI and got his hands on a large language model that they ended up writing a book about. Well, the large language model ended up writing the book called I Am Code. And that scared the shit out of me because I do think I was like, oh, now I get what the worry around AI is without diving in even deeper. But I was like, OK, this is, this is going to be a thing. He was very effective at that. Did you have a favorite interview from this year? Oh, good question.

Good question. No. You love all your children equally. Do you guys have a favorite, Austin and Emma? Mine was Bob Waldinger. Bob Waldinger, also my favorite. Okay. have a favorite austin emma mine was bob waldinger bob waldinger also my favorite okay uh lessons from an 84 year study on happiness the longest study on happiness ever he's at harvard the book is amazing makes you feel better about everything and also like just puts into perspective what's

important he's just a lovely man that was one of my favorites too it is amid all of our our negativity about social media and technology and internet it is nice to remember that there are so And that was one of my favorites too. It is amid all of our negativity about social media and technology and internet. It is nice to remember that there are so many ways in which we as a species are just getting like better year on year out at just like leading happy, productive lives. Yeah, it's good. Topics you want to cover in 2024?

TBD. It's going to be a surprise. We've got some good stuff coming up in 2024. You brought this up earlier in this episode, but election in 2024. I don't know if anyone knows that. I don't think that's right. That doesn't sound right.

Where voters are primarily getting their information from in the lead up to 2024, how those mediums and platforms are influencing their decision whether or not to vote and who to vote for if they do vote i am obviously huge topic but i do think like and this is it's not just about misinformation because i think that's become like a catch-all of course right it's been like misused whatever right but really like i i think that there has been a very rapid and fundamental shift in how voters are getting their information about politics and how they're making decisions about it, especially in

younger generations and especially a lot of people who are just giving up altogether and not very connected to politics. And I think that's going to have big, big impact on the election itself. And so I would love to cover that a little bit more. I think that's so right. And I'm really, really seeing the difference or feeling a difference in our backgrounds that like the idea that you would announce a great topic for inquiry in advance so that other people could steal it before you can do it. I would never do that. I don't consider myself a journalist. Well, I have bad news for you then. This is it. This is all it is. This is all it is? Okay. That's not that that bad where's my pulitzer uh it's in the

mail it's coming um becky has a question uh for as she puts it max anista what was your favorite film of 2023 it was very nice of you and becky to conspire to let me talk about movies and what is absolutely not a movie podcast let's do it uh well, I just saw Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things, which is absolutely incredible. I was wondering about that. Really beautiful, really inventive, really fun. Okay. Totally unlike anything you've seen.

If you like the favorite, it's like that, but more so. Really funny performances. And I think my favorite... And Emma Stone in it, right? Oh, she's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I would be so happy if Lily Gladstone wins the Oscar,

but I kind of think emma stone is the best actress of the year but my favorite this year was uh the new miyazaki uh studio ghibli move me the boy and the heron which is just oh an absolutely i've heard you talk about that before but i don't i do not know much about that movie well they they have famously have almost not marketed at all when they released it in in Japan, because Miyazaki is so huge, the only marketing was a single poster. They had no ads, no interviews, and it's been a huge hit. And it opened number one in the U.S., which is kind of amazing.

Wow. When did it open in the U.S.? I think last week. I mean, it's been in L.A. for a little bit, which is why I'm a little fuzzy on the dates. But if you like Miyazaki's movies at all... I haven't seen any of them. Really? Even with Charlie? I'm really surprised to hear that. No, no.

Is he not a big movie guy? I guess he's a little young for it okay i know a lot of people get into miyazaki from like because he has some that are for kids and some that are for adults they'll watch like my neighbor chitoro with their kids and then be like this guy's got some interesting ideas and an interesting visual style and then we'll kind of go up to the adult ones but it's an incredible, visually beautiful movie that has a lot to say about like living with war and living with loss. And it's a lot about the defeat of Japan

and World War II and the legacy of that. And it's great. I loved it. What's your favorite? My favorite movie of the year? Barbie? No. Barbie's a great choice.

Honestly, it was up there. I don't watch a lot of movies anymore. Yeah. Hadn't been in the theater for a while. Saw Barbie in the theater. I did really like that. I've got to see Oppenheimer.

That's like on my list. It's pretty good. It's fun. It's quite long. I'm just thinking of it because I thought of Barbie. What else did I see this year for movies?

I honestly have not watched that many this year. I remember when there was like a rare time when you were going to have the house to yourself and you were like, maybe I'll see a movie. I know. Now I just don't. I don rare time when you were going to have the house to yourself and you were like that's all over i'll see a movie i know now i just don't i don't know

when i'll go to another movie i hope there's good movies in 2034 yeah that's what that's what i'm looking forward to christian asked me what has been an unexpected benefit of bringing max in as a co-host for this series what a nice question it's such a nice question. It's such a nice question. Thank you, Christian. I knew we'd be getting a really smart reporter who is an expert on the subject area that we talk about on this podcast all the time. I didn't realize how much I would learn from you every week. Oh, thanks, man. And also how much fun I'd have hosting the show with you. It's really fun. It's a really, we have a good time here.

That means a lot. Thank you. And it has been so, so nice for you and Austin and Emma to like really invite me into this like wonderful little world you have with this show. I mean, you guys hear from Max and I all the time and we talk about Austin and Emma, but Austin Fisher and Emma Illick-Frank are our two producers and we have a small but mighty team here and offline,

just the four of us we have so much fun yeah we have such great conversations fantastic meetings and these two are some of the best producers i've ever worked with i think it really comes through in the show too that it really has like this like tight-knit family feeling yeah so we have a good time and uh and we're all looking forward to 2024. So everyone have a good holiday season. I don't know when you're listening to this, but whatever. And have a great 2024. Max will be filling in for a little bit.

We're going to get up to some crazy hijinks. I had actually, I will be honest, completely forgotten. And then earlier today, Austin was like, so what guests are you thinking about for January? I was like, oh, that's right. For how long? We don't know. Every once in a while, Emily's like, so how long are you going to stay home?

So it's like, I don't think she wants to be there too long. You're going to be back here. I'll be back. The very first episode I record while you're out, you're going to be skulking around in the back of the studio being like, do you guys need any help with questions? Probably. Do we need anything? Are we good?

That's probably right. And you know it'll be great. But anyway, I'm sure that the show's going to be in great hands and I'm excited to come back at some point in late January and February and we'll have a big year in 2024. We'll see you there. See you there. Offline is a Crooked Media production.

It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher. It's produced by Austin Fisher. Emma Illick-Frank is our associate producer. Andrew Chadwick is our sound editor. Kyle Seglin, Charlotte Landis, and Vasilis Fotopoulos provide audio support to the show. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Michael Martinez, Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, Reid Cherlin, and Andy Taft for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Dilan Villanueva, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.