Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Getting Got

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

The guys discuss the subtleties of Goon (2011) as well as the going-ons of social media platforms your aunts and uncles may find themselves on, and the grim subtleties of getting Got.If you want bonus content every other Friday, you won’t get-got, and it only costs $5 at www.patreon.com/quickquestion

I've got a quick quick question for you alright I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick quick question for you alright The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we can talk tonight So what's your favorite? Who did you get? Who do I be? Who do I remember? What's the last word? Who do we know if I wasn't out to play it all? Who's it going to be? Oh forget it! Sore and booey Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here

I think you'll have a great time here. So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, senior writer for Last Week Tonight with Don Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents and Fall Guy Daniel O'Brien. Join us always by my co-host and Sorin, let's get into it. We're in the thick of fantasy football season.

The fans want to know what are your Sorin, Shorin bets. Give us the lock of the week, Sorin. What should our players do with their teams? The Sor locks? No, that can't be it. The Soren Shoren things. Yeah, and I was trying to make it usable and in doing so it went the other direction. Because my name doesn't, it's not a great name to abbreviate. Like Sore, there are very few people in my life who call me sore and sore is not a fun name to say.

Okay, so here are my locks for the week. Call these my locks for the week. Gotta play Mike Evans this week. He's coming off of what could be an injury. No one really knows he's had some days off, but he could go a full week without being out there because he's a wide receiver's wide receiver. Up next, we've've got Malik neighbors we don't know what's going on with him it looks like he's out this week so you're gonna have to come up with another wide receiver for him. Do not go to the other Giants that's your first mistake. Get the fuck out of there get away from the Giants. You got to go to hmm I don't know Green Bay I don't I don't know. Green Bay? I don't know. You gotta go to borrow a phrase. Take a hike, Giants! Listen, Soren, I hung out with my dad on Sunday,

and I haven't watched football since the Super Bowl, and that was the only game that I saw last season. I'm not a football watcher, we've talked about it on this show. I don't even follow it'm not a football watcher. We've talked about on this show. I don't even like follow it anymore as a non viewer. I used to even like read how everyone was doing and I don't even do that. I'm very not involved in football at all. My dad knows this, but he was still on Sunday. He was like, let me ask you this, my fantasy team, I got Jalen Hurts and I was like, dad, I don't know anything. I don't know who's where or what anyone's doing.

And he's like, well, just, just, just hear me out. Jalen Hurts. I've also got Sam Darnold. And I said, without hesitation and with full confidence, play Sam Darnold. And then I checked in with him the next day and Sam Darnold did have more fantasy points in his team than Jalen Hurts. And immediately, even though I know how I got here, which was to say blindly, I was still like, am I great at this? Am I? Do I? I mean,

could it be possible that I know my shit? Ask anyone objectively. Over the past five years, Sam Darnold is not the right choice. I know. For whatever reason though, he and Baker Mayfield. Oh, well, he and Baker Mayfield are having like a huge resurgence this year. Two quarterbacks that started their careers and everyone went bust. They've bust. They're no good. These guys aren't good.

They were great in college. They couldn't figure it out in the NFL. It's a different speed. And now these guys are on teams that are like supportive of them, I guess, or like have a system that helps them figure out like what to do. And suddenly these guys are, they seem like pretty good quarterbacks. They weren't on the, they're not in the Jets or the Browns anymore. And all of a sudden they're like usable serviceable quarterbacks. I always wonder about the aspects of playing for certain teams that have nothing to do with the competitive spirit of trying to actually win.

I think about this with football and basketball and also the same way that I think about our industry. And I'm going to include actors in our industry as well where you'll think that as just like a viewer of movies and TV you might think that an actor wants to be in a hit movie or the best movie or like they want to be on a path to getting Academy Awards or Emmy Awards or whatever the thing is but when you talk to actors and you live in the industry a little bit more, you understand so many of the factors of like, why did this person pick this movie?

And it's like, oh, it's because it filmed in London and I wanted to take my family to London. Or it's like, oh, I really, everyone was telling me, you got to get on a Mike White project. And like the getting cast in the White Lotus is the hottest ticket in town because it's supposed to be like a very fun set in a beautiful location and you're shooting in paradise with a bunch of other like very cool character actors who are happy to be there. It's decisions that aren't financial and they're not necessarily career.

They're just like the human level decisions and like as writers we hear about what writer's room seems fun even if it's not like the greatest show in the world. There are some things where it seems like oh when Donald Lover assembled Atlanta they were offered office space on the lot but he, no, can we just rent a house somewhere in LA instead and do all the writing from there? And it's like, that's the kind of gig to get. You find these reasons to pursue jobs that have nothing to do with how it will advance your career. You just think the way any human being would in terms of like, this seems like an enjoyable time. This is where I would like to call my office for the next X amount of months.

And I wonder if how similar that is with athletes in so far as athletes have any control over where they go. And I know often it's not, but like I do wonder if there are players out there who watch other players and was like, man, if I was one of Sam Darnold's targets, that would be a really good connection. Like you see someone that you think even if you don't think the team would do well, but just like this would be a good, like culture fit or stylistic fit, or, or the players who are just like, boy, it sure would be great if my team was in Miami instead of Minnesota. It would be so much more fun on every day of the week

that is not Sunday. It does. I mean, it happens all the time. You know it happens in basketball because that was the whole reason LeBron James went down to Miami. It was like, he was not sold just on the team and the franchise.

He was sold on living in Miami for the next five or six years. And that's what Dwayne Wade's like big push was, was like, hey, you could, this place is awesome. You're going to love it here. And he was like, yeah, I guess that sounds better than Cleveland. Okay. Miami's awesome. The people who live there, they don't seem to like basketball or care about it at all, but that doesn't matter. It's okay. In fact, it's helpful. You'd walk down the street and no one knows who you are. Right. There are people in... You're in Cleveland right now. There are people who, like, if you leave, they're going to kill themselves. Their entire life is based

around your success. In Miami, they got other stuff going on. They can't be bothered with your thing. There's a lot to do. Just play, quietly. They're trying to figure out the top on their convertible. That's on their mind. Yeah. They don't have those in Cleveland yet. So in football, it definitely happens. Right now, Devonte Adams, who you know famously was on Green Bay, he was somebody who was like a world-class receiver, maybe the best receiver in the NFL.

I think he's like a number one pick in fantasy for a couple of years. And then he moved to the Raiders for a bunch of money and he hates the Raiders. He wants nothing to do with the Raiders anymore and so he's really really trying to get to New York to go play for the Jets because he was like, you know what, the connection with a quarterback is the most important thing to me and I think there's no better quarterback for me than Aaron Rodgers. Sure. So he's really trying hard to push that. And then other players, it has nothing to do with the game itself.

Like John Elway, when he first was drafted into the league, he was drafted by the Indian App... I don't know, there were Baltimore courts, Colts at the time, I think. He's drafted by the Colts and he said, I'm not playing for the Colts. And the Colts were like, ah, too bad. We drafted you. And he's like, well, then I won't play football. I'll go play baseball for the Kansas City Royals. And everyone was like, well, hold on, hold on. Because the Royals also drafted him. So he could have gone and played baseball. And we're like, that was his big, that was his threat was

I'm not going to play for the Colts. I'm gonna play baseball if I had to play for the Colts. And finally the Colts were like, all right, well then we will trade you to somebody else. And he ended up playing for the Broncos. I remember a similar, a similar move when Eli Manning was drafted by the San Diego Chargers. Yes. And he was like,

and his counter was not play baseball. It was like, well, I'm just going to go pout. I'm going to sit somewhere and mope until my dad picks me up. Yeah, we go sit on the curb with my shoulder pad next to me. Yeah. So I think that happens all the time. And I think that there are just cultural fits that are better. The same way, I I mean you talk about it in our Industry one thing that I don't think a lot of people realize is that you could write the best if you're not part of the industry Yet you could write an amazing half-hour comedy or like an hour-long drama

That's almost half But not even quite half of why you will get hired on a show like the most important thing is whether you are a room fit. And that means like they wanna meet you, they wanna talk to you, they wanna see what you're gonna be like in the room because somebody who could be the best writer but is a poison in the room

is like gonna bring the whole show down. And so they're way worse than somebody who is kind of a mediocre writer, but really great in the room and like making everybody else's stories better. So it's not a, it's like so little, so much of it is how am I going to get along with these people? And I think that that's like where Baker Mayfield right now is he's thriving in Tampa Bay because

the team loves him. Everybody's like, he's allowed to like be showy, he's allowed in Tampa Bay because the team loves him. Everybody's like, he's allowed to like be showy. He's allowed to be fun. And everyone really likes that. And I think they're also coming off of the Tom Brady era where Tom Brady was like so structured and everything. And it wasn't fun. And so now there's like some back and forth

between those two on like what it takes to lead a team. It's all very silly. It's surprising that under Brady it wasn't fun because he's such a funny guy. Really? No one in the league who's funnier. I mean some of his pranks, incredible. Some will come to me, I'm sure of it. When he was threatening to pivot to stand-up comedy, which was a sincere thing that he was going to try. There was like no clearer example

of like rich, handsome, powerful guy who has just been juiced up by all of his buddies, all of the sycophants that are paid to be around him telling him he's so funny. And he's like, I'm the funniest guy in my locker rooms. Like, yes, that's right. Because you are feared by your teammates. Because you can have them fired if they don't laugh at your jokes. Yeah. Just very clear, like, everyone around me thinks I'm funny, so surely I can just get up on stage and... I don't think I've ever told a joke, but like, people laugh when I talk,

so I'll just start doing what I normally do and, and do whatever passes for comedy in a professional football locker room, which me, Daniel, I'm not even gonna do as like an act out on this podcast. Cause I don't want to get fired straight to hell. I've seen hard knocks. I know how many of those guys think that they are comedians. I know how many of them think that they're super funny and

man, it's that's a That's a farfall for them. Like they're not they don't realize how hoisted up They are by the people around them and how what a sympathetic audience they have around them Even if they're not like on the team like what what counts as funny in the locker room is. Oh man, it's brutal Yeah, even if you're dying with your locker room jokes, you always know in the back of my mind, it's like, well, how do I close this? How do I say this?

Ah, I know, I'm gonna use a wildly outdated homophobic slur on the kicker, and then that always brings the crowd to heel, they love that. And in the locker room, it does work. Yeah, like, yeah, it's a bunch of Al Bundy quotes in the locker room, it's like, it's a bunch of Al Bundy quotes in the locker room. It's like, I'm killing with this Al Bundy stuff. And you don't need to put any sort of spin of it on your own. It can be a thing they heard a thousand times, but Austin Powers is just working still in that,

in that showers. But anyway, that's football. Good. I'm glad we talked about football. We got it all the way. Yeah. Boy, Sauron, you're in a real tight spot today because we started decorating for fall. And so there's a whole trough of pumpkins and gorge for me to distract myself with during this podcast. I'm curious.

I don't think that those things are genuinely distracting to you. I think that they're helping you focus. Oh, really? Yes, I think that's certainly possible. The things that you fiddle with, that's your brain being like, I need to occupy this one portion of me so that I can think critically with this other portion of my brain. The same way we're like, again, football players

or somebody, we've heard that it's like important for somebody at the free throw line in the NBA to sing a song to themselves while they're about to take their shot. Because if you have to occupy that one part of your brain that wants to be in charge and has no business being in charge and just let the muscle memory do it.

Good, good, good, good, Daniel. Cat toy in here. So when your best ideas are going to come to you for writing, your best ideas and the most cohesive thoughts you have are the ones where you are otherwise engaged, where you're like driving or you're in the shower or you're doing something that's like practice memory. So that part of your brain, it's like, I have to do this stuff, but this is really kind of autopilot stuff. You're engaging just that one specific part.

So the rest of your brain is free to be like, okay, that fucking guy is gone. Let's like get, let's figure some things out. I agree and disagree with you. I mean, I agree for, for writing in that the two things that are most helpful for me for writing are reading and running because they create similar conditions. They force you to be, they force your brain to be active and passive at the same time. You need to be like active when you're reading because you're like inventing what you're reading and you're creating it in your imagination, but also passive because you're just getting

hit with words and it locks your brain into a very specific intersection of those two places. And running is very similar where like, you're just, it's meditative, you're moving constantly, but you don't need to think about how you're moving, you're sort of going and you're not distracted by anything. And your brain meanwhile meanwhile is becoming way more active because it's A, it's left alone. There's no other distractions around it. And B, your brain kind of wants to think about anything other than running as as like self defense at that point. And it's the same as reading where you're like merging those two worlds to live in this magical but tapable writing space, the writing brain.

The part where I disagree is that I don't think what we're doing here on the podcast is anything. I don't think it's like when I'm in the writer's room, back when we had a writer's room, I'm famously shuffling cards constantly. I'm doing, I'm fidgeting with things and you're right, they do help me. This is not, I'm not fiddling with this gourd and then making good podcasts. You're here the whole time. You know, it's going to come out. Your thoughts out in a cohesive way. Like even that's part of it. Even that's like crystallizing what you believe

or like the things that you're thinking. I need, I have scissors here and like every time that I really need to think I subconsciously just like reach for them and I'm just like cutting my fingers off. I can't help it and I think we're the same in that regard. I think that you need something to touch. And my children, my children are great examples of this because my son, right now I'm doing multiplication tables with him and if you remember that, that's a lot of memorization. It's a lot of just like committing stuff to your brain.

And if I make him just sit there and do it, can't do it, cannot do it. He will do this. I'll say five times three and he'll go, oh, oh, five times three, five times three. And he'll start like stalling but the stalling is what's occupying his brain now. And he can't actually. Dad, let me just say great question. Thank you for the opportunity. And first of all, let me just say right off right off the bat, this is a great space.

He understands the idea of searching for an ansel at buying time, and searching for an ansel at buying time, but he doesn't know that he's in the buying time. That's all he's thinking about. And the buying time is not helping. It's only making him think of stuff. But anyway, if I let him lie on the back of the couch like a cat or something and touch the blinds a bunch or crinkle paper, he can do it. He can absolutely do it.

Ooh, that's interesting. I don't have anything to add to it. I think that's really interesting. When you started this story and you're talking about fidgeting with scissors for your writing brain and you said, my kids are a good example for this. I really thought this was going to be a story that had you like puzzling over an episode of American Dad that you needed to break. You couldn't quite crack and so you're juggling your two children as a distraction.

Your fidget spinning with your daughter spinning on your finger like a pizza pie. Colleen look, look, look what I'm doing. So this painting that's behind me, that's a surrealist painting. From what I understand, it's when you're like stuck, when you're writing and you're stuck with it, you don't know where to go next. You're like what's How it's really gonna come together. I've heard that you can look at something like this like a painting that is not Representative of reality Just stare at it for a while and

Then go back to writing and it helps you because you're looking at something that's not supposed to make sense and You're looking at something that's that has that's toying with the ideas of reality. Dolly's would be like a great example of this. This is, this one's by, I think his name is Yves Tanguy. I think I can maybe only pronounce that wrong, but then you go back to your work and apparently it's like, you're just coming at it from a different angle. All of a sudden, it resets your brain from whatever track it's on. It gets it out of that track and is like, now let's attack it from this side.

And sometimes that makes all the difference. It does. And like it's, it's, it almost might sound like I'm, I'm coming. I'm, I'm going to come out pro on the side of procrastination versus working. And I'm not I do think they are both essential parts of the same puzzle solving where I'm writing a script for last week tonight right now and I am doing my due diligence of like staring at my word problem and trying to write jokes for it and and puzzling it over and over and over again and like coming up with something that that reads like a coherent joke to me

and has all the the bits and pieces of what I want to say with a joke. And I'm like, great, I wrote for 20 minutes. That means I can have a reward of watching something dumb on YouTube or like walking around my apartment to get water or to to fix a snack. And it's in that the mindless part of that process where my brain kicks in and it's just like, no, no, no, this is the way to word that joke. And then I go back, I go right back and like, fix the joke that I needed to not look at jokes in order to figure out how to crack it.

That's what I mean. That's me going to bed. If I'm, if I'm writing up until bedtime, if I'm like working on an episode and then I go to lie in bed, I will get out of bed six times because just the act of going out and lying in bed, it all like falls into place right there and you're like, oh, oh, there it is. I see now. I see. Okay. I shouldn't. I just need to leave being in front of a computer, which is also like a really dangerous precedent for yourself because you sit in front of a computer, writing is fucking hard, you start and you're like, I need something else. And so you just allow yourself these leniencies in your life where you will not write the entire day because you're like, no, it wasn't really important that I went and got this

particular sandwich and stuff like that. It's like, no, it wasn't. It wasn't, you didn't need to watch Robocop. You didn't need any of these things. But yeah. Like you didn't need any of these things, but. Right. You don't totally realize what the thing you need is when you're doing like the trial and error of writing. When I was younger and I was like thoroughly convinced that a helpful thing for me to do would be was to write in a bar because the noise was very like focusing on my brain.

And when I wanted a distraction, there's plenty of distractions in a crowded bar to like look around and do stuff. I've gotten older and it's like, no, you can recreate all of that without like spending money and sitting at a bar with a computer. You lunatic. But you don't know it. You know, like when you're younger and you when all you have as proof of a system working is pages being written and it's like, well, pages were written this day that I wrote from a bar and they

weren't written this other day when I sat at home in a silent house in front of my computer for 10 hours. And that's the so maybe the secret is bar. It's like, well, just try a few other things first and we'll see what system you're trying to recreate in your process. Yes. Yeah. So I will occasionally also, reading does help me, but reading is a thing that where

if it's a bad book, it's not helping. Like I'm not like organizing my own thoughts better because I'm reading a bad book. If I'm reading a book and it's somebody who's doing unique things like George Saunders or something that I haven't seen before, I can very easily, like, fall into that tone really quick. Like, not necessarily, like, aping the style or anything, but you're just, the absurdity of it, if you'd say it's supposed to be absurd. Or watched Goon last night and while I was watching Goon I was like having tons of ideas while I was watching Goon is that movie, Jay Barashel I can hate it. The hockey movie with Sean Williams Scott and Jay Barashel and Alison Pill. It's such a good movie.

It's great, yeah. You just watched it or you watched it again? No, I watched it again. I watched it again every once in a while and I was watching Goon again and I was like and you just fall into, not even the style, I don't even know what to call it. You're just like, in the same way that you can practice somebody else's, the way somebody else writes, you can fall into that for individual people after watching their work as you're watching it. So you're essentially telling the story yourself a little

bit. Like you're like, and I like doing that with movies in general, where I watch movies over the course of like a week also because I have children, but I will watch like some of it and then that night I'm just, I will sit there and just think about how I want it to end. Like, well what do I want? Where do I want the story to go? So Goon is great in that it's like, it's full of jokes and jokes that you've never seen before. There's a scene where he goes to talk to his coach and his coach has just drawn a wolf. It's not really addressed the entire scene.

The coach is super nice. He's like, I want to put you up in another league. I think your talents are wasted here. And then at the end, Sean William Scott is like, is that a wolf? He's like, yeah, you want it? He's like, yeah, what's his name? And the coach goes, Lobo. It's like, it's such a weird, not necessary thing. And I fucking love it. And I was like, yeah, every, I should be putting way more of that shit in my stuff. Yeah. Ah, maybe I should watch that movie again.

It's everybody in it. Is everybody in it too? As like the veteran goon? And he's wonderful. Everybody in it. There are no weak points. Every, um, um, what's his name with Eugene Levy's in it, which I had forgotten. Yeah. Um, but everybody in it is pitch perfect. in it, which I had forgotten. Yeah. But everybody in it is pitch perfect. It's a rare example of what could dangerously be like an actor vanity project because it was written by Jay Biershell as well and he is in it playing the kind of character that he doesn't get cast as often. He's like, if I remember like kind of like like a dirt bag. Yeah, 100% it. Scuzzy kind of character that he doesn't get cast as often. He's like, if I remember like kind of like like

dirt bag, yeah, 100% scuzzy kind of character. And it's, I think very often, actors will think like no one is writing the right thing for me. Ah, I know I can write the thing for me. And it becomes this vanity project where that's how you get Ben Affleck in the town where his character fucks every beautiful woman in the movie, has a scene where he's shirtlessly doing pull-ups, and then gets away with the robbery at the end. That's like, this is this is the kind of part that I think I, Ben Affleck, should play. But so you see how it could be a vanity project, but with Baruchel is the rare example where it's like, no this is like a pretty intuitive actor

who knows he's got a speed that directors won't necessarily see in him unless he writes it for himself and like shows off that side of him. And it's done to great effect. And he doesn't make himself the lead. It's just like, this is a thing I could do that that I don't, I don't jump off the page seeming like I could do it. But check me I don't jump off the page seeming like I could do it but check me out here it is it's good. In fact Sean William Scott usually plays that role like that's the role that is for Sean William Scott and

Sean William Scott is also playing against casting in this where he is he's not the right choice for this movie you wouldn't think just like generally hearing like oh it's a hockey it like, it's a hockey movie and this guy's an enforcer. You'd be like, well then don't, he's like a real dummy and, but the kindest person in the world. He's real dumb but like very, very sweet. And kind. Yeah. And sincere. And you're like, well then don't catch showing Scott, but he's perfect in it. And everybody is, the tone is not something you can be like, oh, it's this type of movie. It's this, this is like what we're going for. And so the cast just walks in and they're like, oh, I get it. I get the tone. Like, let's start making it. There's no precedent for this movie. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm overselling it. Like,

there's no precedent for this type of movie. It's a very weird, it has a weird tempo. It has like a weird sense of humor to it that I don't see anywhere else. But these guys all had to know what they were making. They had to get in there and be like, oh, I get it. Okay, let's just do it. Let's make it. And they're hitting it perfectly. And it's really impressive to me. I really like that movie. Yeah. Are there, I remember liking it a whole lot when it came out. It's just been so long. And since this is our movie review podcast and since it's 2009, let's get into it. Refresh my memory though, are there the stakes of the movie? Is there a team? Do they have the team have a chance of doing something really great? I don't believe Stanley Cup is in play, but like is there a minor victory

that they're really hoping to achieve in it? Yes, they are they are a losing team. This is not even this like below right below NHL. They're losing team in Farm League essentially would be the equivalent and they want to try to make the playoffs and the last game of the season is the last episode I mean is the end of the movie in which they do so you don't even know like how they do beyond that but they're gonna make playoffs and perfect it's it's really really well made and like the female there's a love interest in it and that could very easily be I mean that's it's so ancillary to the rest of

the movie. The rest of the movie is just hockey. And then there's this love interest story that we kind of follow a little bit. Very easily those those types of stories can be like, get that, get that fucking out of here. This is Ted Lasso's divorce. I'm like, I don't want that. I don't, that's not what I'm interested in. Show me the soccer. But that's not the case here. Like she's so wonderful and compelling too. She's not somebody like she's not in any other movies. She's I, you will maybe know her name. I do not. But is that her name? She's on the entire run of Newsroom. Okay, well keep in mind that I'm, as far as I've gotten in movies, I've gotten to when Goon was made.

And then as I continue to see new movies, I might see her. I don't know that Newsroom is out yet in your universe. Not out yet. Still time. And anyway, she's the archetype that she is, is wonderful. It's like, she's a piece of shit. She's a piece of shit, but she's really trying not to be. And it's wonderful. Yeah. Anyway, talking about movies with a pal. Yeah, I love movies. I love Goon. Go watch Goon. I want to start the show, Daniel, because I do have a question. Okay, yeah. Great. Quick question. Have you ever been, let's just start with this. Have you ever been duped by an AI image that you know of? Not that I know of, no.

Not by an AI image. No, I've not been duped. I also, sorry, you an addendum to that. Nope, just really thinking about the question. Just super engaged, you're right. Distracting myself helped. I am locked into the podcast. You have not been on Facebook in a while. I know that much. If you were to go on Facebook today, you would see almost exclusively AI images and people getting tricked by AI images.

And there's like a real recipe to it that Cracked used to deal with like fake news stories where it you have like the smell test essentially which is lets you know immediately oh no these are this has all the ingredients of something that's fake and ai is doing that now and everyone your aunts your uncles like everyone you know who spends just a tiny bit of time online but not a lot they're all getting fucking had every single day. And they're sharing these images and it sucks. It sucks so bad. It will make you hate where we are as a society. But the real recipe of the AI that like gets at all of them

is it has to be heartwarming. It has to be something in a third world country generally. They're really good about like a kid making a statue of an eagle out of Coca-Cola bottles. That will do great. Like this kid with nothing made art out of trash. And anyway, all the people who are over 60 in this country are like, faith and humanity

restored. Like, they did it. To what end though? Quibono? That's what I'm up, so yeah, that's what I'm asking. Re-manipulation? So this is happening all over the place. It's happening a lot.

I don't yet see how this is useful. I don't understand, other than maybe the accounts are getting a bunch of followers with ambitions that they will then do advertising or something. But there are people creating these things, they're getting shared massively, but I don't know what the end game is at all. I can't figure it out. I remember there was a particular breed of commenters, article commenters, when we were at crack.com and there are like obvious trolls that you can ignore. There are people who like a thing, there are people who don't like a thing, and people just like trying to get as much attention as possible.

But there was another kind that I came across every once in a while. I'll use a specific example where I, it was an article where, or a column of mine where I referenced a pasta dish that my mom makes and in the reality of the column the author me was angry that uh his mom wouldn't give him the secret ingredient to this pasta dish it was like a throwaway joke for for this thing like like i'm on the phone with my mom and getting angry and she refuses to give me the recipe. And someone commented with either my mom's name or just the handle, DOB's mom, with an answer that if you didn't know the truth, seems like the truth. It was someone saying the secret ingredient is basil for let's let's let's let's say it's basil honey. Love you mom. And there's no joke in there. And there's no if the if the point of the the comment and I should get say right up front. It was also not my mom and I know that because that's not the ingredient. So there's it's not my mom. There's no joke in there. If the intention of the

commenter was to lead me astray, they wouldn't have the result wouldn't have been notable. It's not like the actual recipe called for basil and they said the secret ingredient was cinnamon or some motor oil or something like that. It's not a very clear prank. It was just someone who, as far as I can tell, wanted to convincingly adopt the persona of someone's mom giving him a nice recipe tip in the comments. And again, I was like, at the time and now still thinking like, what is the who who benefits? What do you because you're not you'll never get a response from me, unless you're very patient and you wait 15 years. And now here I am talking about it, I caught you. You're not gonna get a response from me, you're not going to get really any engagement from the

other commenters, because that's not the kind of comment game that others can like pick up and and run with the way comment sections sometimes do. It's just at the the at its peak reach could briefly confuse me and that's it that's where your quote unquote prank stops. Otherwise, I don't understand what your intention is. And that's like one specific example. But I, but there have been plenty of others of people who have been in comments who have, who will claim in comments that they dated you, Sorin in high school or college, and they will not use that space to do anything salacious that I'd be like, I dated Sorin and in high school or college. And they will not use that space to do anything salacious.

They're not going to be like, I dated Sorin and here's what his dick looks like, or anything like that. They're not going to do anything embarrassing. They've just been like people who have used the comment section to make pretty boring middle of the road, believably average lies and I don't that sounds like what also could be going on with AI that this is just someone who was like trying to get the response yeah the attention but like not so much attention that people are fighting or anything just like just doing their best to ape a normal response to get a normal reaction? I don't know.

It is definitely. Any of that resonate? Yeah, I know what you're saying. And I do feel the impulse as well, that those people, what those people are doing or what they're aiming for. I remember when Trump first became president, we were like interested in, I can't remember, it was you and I, we were trying to like figure out how we could just like set in motion. Like what happened with JD Vans and the couch fucking thing? We really wanted to set in motion this notion, this idea that Trump can't jump in the air,

that he can't jump up at all, that he's incapable of jumping. Because what I really wanted to have happen was that somehow that would reach him. That would seem like a challenge to that type of personality. And eventually he would, at a campaign, would jump, would like jump in the air. And like what if that was satisfying? That was a part that we wanted for sure. The same way with like the water drink. I always, the water drinking thing that I think set it off

was like that he didn't know how to drink out of a bottle. And then he did it on stage and everyone cheered. And I was like, this is fucking insane. I want, I want in. What can I challenge him to? What an opportunity. And so I really wanted to start from where he didn't know how to jump.

Yeah. In retrospect, so fitting because it is my, how I, how I rate people in my life, like how good they are at jumping. Yeah. Um, I don't know if this is more about him or me, but the, anyway, I, it didn't, it didn't ever pan out. We didn't ever come up with a way to do it, but I think that's born from the same impulse of like, I don't know where this is going yet. Maybe I can just spark an interaction and then see where I want to go after that. And I guess maybe that's what they're doing with the AI is like they are saying, I know that people will believe this. I know that it will make people

happy to think it's real. Maybe that's enough for now and then I'll figure out later what to do. Maybe that's enough for now and then I'll figure out later what to do. I don't know. Anyway, you, like me, I'm sure, you see AI images and immediately you know. You don't have to count fingers. You don't have to do any of that shit. Yeah. You look at a picture and you're like, that's AI. That's not real. And it's staggering to me how many people don't. They just have no idea. Yeah. Yeah. That's a real, it's a real bummer.

And I don't know, uh, if the future is going to be that AI gets better and starts fooling more people. Or if the people behind AI are just like, we don't really, demonstrably, we don't need to get better. We're already doing the thing quite cheaply and it's successfully doing the thing that we want it to do. So we can just like, if the future is going to be either smarter, more effective AI or just more of this like very obvious cartoon bullshit that some of us can see through and some of us can't, I don't know what our future is. Neither option seems great. Oh, I should also mention that the other things that you will find on Facebook right now that are coming from like these big, I don't call them websites, but like these big accounts are facts about movies or facts about sports that are also clearly written by AI.

These like long paragraph long posts with maybe a picture. And as you read it, you're like, oh, I mean, it's night and day. Like it's night, you can tell that this was not written by a human. Even though it all makes sense, they're giving you something that's cohesive and real. And like there's giving you a fact from behind the scenes in a movie. But in reading it, your judgment is so clear. You can be like yeah I know this is AI this is clearly AI and then there are people fighting with it and stuff and you're like no no no no like no one's seeing this you're just shouting into a void like nothing is happening here

yeah um but do you find with writing as well that you can tell? as well that you can tell? I feel like I don't come across enough AI writing for things. Oh, go read some Sports Illustrated articles right now. Yeah, I'm, you know what, I bet there would be. I'm sure as I'm like tooling around between AV Club, not Vulture, I think Vulture's still pretty secure, but like like I wouldn't put it past Variety, Hollywood, Deadline, any of these online magazines that I look to for industry news.

It would not be a huge scandal if we found out that Variety was using AI to write their bullshit coverage for the last hundred years. Yeah. This is the podcast where I've come knives out for variety.com. Apparently I've got it in for Sports Illustrated. I didn't realize how I felt about it. I think that was one of the first ones where I was reading the middle of an article being like, wait a fucking second, this is a human didn't do this and I was angry that a human didn't do this. And I was angry that a human didn't do it. But I will say that even though I can't get,

I won't be fooled by pictures. I won't be fooled by writing generally, I don't think. I get fooled constantly by deep fakes. I would, I don't think I would be fooled by deep fakes. I think like a much easier way to fool me that doesn't require AI at all is a screenshot of a phot Harris in like a red jacket with the symbol of the communists on her sleeve and someone saying, isn't it crazy that she dressed this way? And I'd be like, that's obviously fake. If you show that picture embedded in a tweet where it seems like Elon Musk is saying, isn't

it crazy that she dressed this way? I will believe that. I think that is something that he actually did say. But like, I will be on Reddit and we'll get fed like a grainy screenshot that looks like a tweet that a famous person made. And I'll be like, holy shit, I can't believe Charlie XCX said that thing, but I believe it because I see a screenshot of it of a tweet, which is like a much less sophisticated way to fool me, but it's so much more effective than having the robots try to create a convincing looking human being. Yeah, I guess that's true. When I say defigs, I guess that's not really doesn't qualify as AI, because a lot of that is not. A lot of that is somebody is specifically behind that at the wheel in the same way where it's like someone has an intention. But like their press conferences for football players

and coaches, there's a bunch of those deepfakes right now. And every single time I will start watching a press conference, press conference, and they are really good at making sure that the first 30 seconds feels very real. And then this person will just start saying stuff that everyone already believes about the team, but nobody is saying. And I'm like, holy shit. Josh Allen is really digging into the bills right now. Pretty early in the season to burn it all down.

And then I realized that I've been had. But I guess, yeah, maybe that doesn't really qualify as AI. AI in general, people make a big deal about it. People are very concerned about it or they think it's the future. I don't think it's either. Sorry, we just went on strike about it for like 148 days last year. And in reading AI, you're like, the studio is the problem. The studios don't know that this shit sucks yet.

Like writers know this shit sucks and that it's not any good and they might have even tried it out. We in the room tried to make an American Dad episode just like looking at it through AI to be like, well, let's see what it can do. And it was like the worst, most confusing horse shit gobbledygook you've ever seen. And it's like, yeah, it can't do it. It doesn't know how to do it. It doesn't know how to write like Rembrandt Brown. Like you're not going to read an article buff from it and be like, oh, I was convinced that this was a real comedic like person today with a hot take. That shit's not happening yet. It can give you information.

It can tell you how to boil an egg, but it cannot replace writers. Yeah. I mean, I do think the grim future information, it can tell you how to boil an egg, but it cannot replace writers. Yeah. I mean, I do think the grim future is that it can, and this is a large part of what we went on strike for last year is seeking for protections on this because we like to march around and say that we know the difference, I'm paraphrasing you, and the studios don't realize it yet. The exec studios don't realize it yet. They, they, the execs don't realize it. I think that the cynical belief is that they do. And the, the reason that we need to go on strike is because we won't be able to

convince them, uh, that it's about, they shouldn't use AI because it's quality, because they, they know that and they don't care Like if the execs don't care and they make a thing that's written by AI and it's bad And the audience still goes to see it like the argument to the heads of Let's see. What's a studio that I can name that is not either of our owners Sony

Sony yeah, the heads at Sony you can go to them and say like as not either of our owners. How about Sony? Sony, yeah. The heads at Sony, you can go to them and say like, content will be worse if it's AI across the board. They could just say like, yeah, you know, people have been saying that content has been worse for decades now and like, we don't really give a shit. Yeah. But it's, we're okay. In fact, we're okay with it being bad, especially if it's cheaper

Yeah, yeah as long as it's cheaper, it doesn't really matter Yeah, that's part of a big part of negotiations when I have to renegotiate for my show my Nick my contract and You're what is your leverage as a writer be like, yeah, if you don't want to pay me like the show is gonna be worse and There would you're not taking into consideration is that they are pay me, the show's going to be worse. And they're... You're not taking into consideration, is that they are willing to let the show be ten times worse than not having you on it anymore. Like, they're willing to do it, and it does not matter to them.

It's so naive for a writer to negotiate with their bosses this way, or for writers to negotiate with their studios this way, where it's like, what I bring to the table is quality and sure, you can kick me to the curb and replace me with what? Cheaper people who do this worse? Yes, exactly. Do you know where the cheaper people who do it worse are? In fact, if you could find non-people to do it worse, that's even better. We would like to cut out people entirely. Well, you're going to lose your audience. Sir, you'll never reach the heights of what I was there. It's like, yeah, no, the show is printing

money now, so it's fine. Get out of here. Yeah. Well, you're gonna lose your audience then. Yeah, we would also like to do that. We'd like to not have people on the other end too. If there's a way that we could just print money, we will do that. And if that means that we make this show that is an institution, if we make it worse for 16 years, and then we all cash out and the world is ruined after that point, it doesn't matter. Every studio at the same time watched the producers and was like, oh, that's, we could just like, we found out we can make more money by, by making a bunch of shit. Let's just do that. Let's all do that. My God.

Yeah, pretty demoralizing. Remember the golden age of television? What a colossal waste of money. What did it get us? Right. Fans? Oh, I hate them. So I, when I worked at a content farm

that also happened to own cracked, I worked for websites that weren't cracked for a while. And that was always the big fight. And I was young and naive and didn't understand where I would work for a website that I genuinely at the time thought I cared about. And I was like, and I wanted the content to be good. And everyone around me without explicitly saying it was like, why?

Why do you want the content to be good? And I'm like, because that's how you build a fan base and that's how you get people coming to your homepage instead of going to Google and searching for something. They're interested in finding something that they don't already know and they didn't know what they were searching for until they saw what you put up. And that wasn't the... At every single turn, they were like, you're fucking crazy. Don't we... That's not what we're doing here. That's not this job. And I didn't understand it. And so I get reprimanded constantly for what I thought was integrity at the time. And I was like, why are you all punishing

me for wanting good stuff? And they're like, because we don't want good stuff. No, we're building. I right after the crack layoffs, I and there are multiple villains in this story, and I think I'm one of them, but I consulted at a different sort of pop culture comedy adjacent website for a month. And I'm a villain because consulting is a bullshit nothing job where I bill whatever hours I want. And I sent my quote and I gave my real like quote as a as a

What my day rate as a writer was at the time and I was like and if you extrapolated for a whole month That means for a month of work. You should give me this much money It was a big chunk of money that I asked for and they gave it to me because that's what consulting is It's lucrative and fun and stupid But they're also the villains because I was doing this job. Like I wasn't just gonna build time for zero work. I was still like going through the archives of this website and making their articles better.

Like not attaching my byline to it, but like going through and fixing things. And I would have weekly reports with their staff explaining what I did and like why things are better now and like what an editorial vision looks like. And just, and you know, I was, I was going in and explaining things and teaching people and everyone that was there was so on board and so happy. And looking at the quality of however many articles I touched in this month's span, looking at the quality of these several hundred articles improved over this month.

And then at the end of it, the big boss who was never in those meetings but was on the phone with me every once in a while, did not want to renew my contract for another month because he was like, he would check in and be like, so what did you do today? And I was like, well, I went through a whole bunch of articles and some were a waste of time because I couldn't fix them. And some I did fix and they're better. Now I was like, what do you mean fixed and better? And I was like, well, they're just, it's like an improvement in quality. You brought me over here because you liked what I was doing. well, they're just it's like an improvement in quality. You brought me over here because you liked what I was doing. You don't destroy the piano to find the song, buddy.

I'm doing the thing that I'm good at, the thing that made Cracked worth $40 million. I'm now doing it for you in this other way. And not realizing at the time that like, the boss has his agenda, which he didn't like the work that I was doing it cracked. That's not what he thought he was paying for. He thought he was paying for whatever magic potion I have that makes the numbers for his website reach the peaks that the numbers have cracked works like I'm not paying for quality. I'm paying for numbers.

If it happens that quality improves as a result of that pursuit, great. In this one month trial period, it didn't. So like, what am I paying you for? Quality. Ah, I see. Good. I was trying to find a reason to fire you. Quality. That's it. I'm paying for a non-specific immeasurable thing. Great. It's off the books now. We don't need to worry about that anymore. Yeah. Yeah. We were kids, man.

What a grim. Well, let's end it on that note. This has been Quick Question with Sorin and Daniel. We actually adhered to our own podcast rules this time. We asked a question. I'm really proud of us. Yeah. If you want to follow us on X still, you can only do that by following Quick Question.

If you want to follow us on Blue Sky, you can follow Daniel and I individually because that's where we are now. You can also watch this podcast on YouTube or you can watch it on Apple Podcast. We also have a Patreon that you can subscribe to and you get some bonus content. You get little looser episodes where we let our hair down a little bit more. And those are available only through our Patreon. And then we, if you like our theme song, that's by Mee-Rex. Their music's available wherever you listen to music, maybe even where you listen to this podcast, or you can listen to full albums at merex.bandcamp.com. We are produced, engineered, edited, held together in general by our our captain of podcasting, Gabe Harder. And I think that's it. I think I got through all the things. I have to briefly offer a correction. I am temporarily back on Twitter because I have a rare live appearance and I wanted to promote it on X.

Oh no, sorry. I thought you wanted to promote it here. I'll do it on Twitter. Nah! Alright, well then fuck that. So Dan's for a brief time. Catch Dan doing a commercial for himself on Twitter. Nah. All right, well then fuck that. So Dan's for a brief time. Catch Dan doing a commercial for himself on Twitter. Bye. Bye. I've got a quick quick question for you, all right. I want to hear your thoughts, want to know what's on your mind.

I've got a quick quick question for you, all right. The answer's not important, I'm just by the week and talk tonight. So what's your favorite? Who did you get? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick?

Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Who do I pick? Quick question for you alright? The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we can talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? Who do I be?

I don't remember What did I do? Word and order God do we know Oh forget it I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it

I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here