Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - QQ ep 33 - The One About Cracked

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

In this episode Soren and Daniel revisit old pitches they made that never quite got made, and talk about our old pals from Cracked.  And as always, a big thanks to Skillshare. Get 2 months of unlimited access at Skillshare.com/qq.

Hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the advice podcast where two best friends and TV writers separated by 3,000 miles get together to ask each other questions in a virtuous effort to make money off podcasts. I am your host, author, it's not TV writer, fisherman, ordained minister in the Universal Life Church, Daniel O'Brien, and this is what I sound like. And I'm joined by my co-host, Soren Bowie. Soren, what do you sound like? Kind of like this. Oh.

Occasionally, I get pretty excited and I do a little of this. And then other times, I'm just, I'm a little bored. And I get real low. You get bored during this podcast? Yeah, I mean, occasionally. But that's, not usually. I mean, if I get bored, I just start talking. And that's sort of how I live my life.

Yeah. Right. Because you assume if you're bored, then everyone else is bored and someone's got to entertain them. Somebody isn't pulling their weight and now I need to speak. This podcast is brought to you by Skillshare. Thanks to Skillshare for supporting Quick Question. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for listeners. Get two months of Skillshare of premium membership for free at skillshare.com slash QQ. As stated, this is quick question and we are Soren and Daniel and you, our loyal listeners, prefer to be called quick foley, aka Dan kind, aka booed love. Now, Soren, is that a reference that you get?

Did you say Quick Foley? Yeah. Is that Nick Fury? No. Nope. So there's a New York Times bestselling author slash professional wrestler. His name is Mick Foley. And he sometimes wrestled as Cactus Jack and Dude Love and Mankind, and then sometimes also just as Mick Foley.

Okay. And so that's why quick – the first portmanteau was Quick Question with Mick Foley, so Quick Foley, and then Dankind was Mankind with Daniel, and then Boo'd Love was Dude Love plus Booey. That's great. And I did nothing with Cactus Jack. I mean, that could have been one we saved for when we have to do like a crossover episode with Zeitgeist. But, you know, you got to use the ones you've got. I guess. You burn them as you get them.

Again, it's not me. This is what our audience prefers to be called. That's true. It's the will of the wisp. I'm thinking maybe my supporters maybe want to be called boosters. Does that sound right? To me? No.

Yeah. Like football boosters, you know? Boosters? What do you mean football boosters? Well, they're the people who support the team. In high school, boosters would buy ads in the playbills for our school plays. Yes.

Yeah, people who sort of like lucratively support local high school football. Oh, they did it for sports too? Yeah. That's less exciting. They don't need that. Did you never watch the show friday night lights it's a big on boosters oh that's right fucking what's his nuts what's uh the car salesman yeah yeah okay yeah um so yeah can you hear dogs screaming in the background again as usual a little yeah

but i think it's it's usable you know by i should warn you that at some point maybe in this podcast or the next you will hear my child come home oh that's fun where is he he went out to dinner oh that's fun got a date um that, let's get into the show. We are so thankful that we're supported on Patreon by our patrons, one of whom, Jamie B., has submitted a question for us to answer. As everyone knows, every month we answer one question from one of our patrons, and Bacon's not here to tell me if that's true or not. So we're just going to go with it. and bacon's not here to tell me if that's true or not so we're just going to go with it and his question was has there ever been an idea or pitch that wasn't used in your shows or videos that you stand by to this day hmm that's a really yes yes it's a tough question to answer because uh

it's like hey did you ever pitch a thing that you thought was funny and no one agreed? And I was like, yeah, thousands. But I have a thing that I stand by and believe in that never connects. I've done short and long versions of it in stand-up and conversation, and it never reaches anyone. And the core of it is remember when we used to make names like that. Like I would be telling a story like, oh, in high school, I went on a date with a girl named Sarah McCarthy.

Remember when we used to make names like that? And then I would just continue the story. And at the heart of the joke is something I'm obsessed with, which is the names of people from childhood. Anytime anyone tells me a story from their childhood using a kid's full name, it's always like,

I was playing wall ball with Billy Jenkins. And I'm like, ah, yes, little Billy Jenkins back when people were named things like that. And I never meant it as a commentary on like, oh, everyone today is named like Khaleesi or Brooklyn or whatever. It's not about modern trend names. That's like a tired, hacky idea. There's something about hearing someone telling a story that's like it was me and joe jennings and darren d costanzi and i think oh yeah and then they just stopped making darren d costanzi's after that like both names were discontinued and it's an idea i'm certain is true but i can never get anyone on board with where are the gary littels of of yesteryear i was worried this wouldn't even be relevant to you because all of your childhood friends have absurd names and you yourself are named Soren. That's true.

Yeah, there's – I do have some – I mean, of course, you remember the names of every single kid who was in your second grade class for whatever reason. Like that information will never leave you. It's part of your hard drive. But names like Larry Domingo and like i i will know these kids jason norris like these people will stick in my mind forever and when other people tell stories and they say a name you're absolutely right it immediately it fits i'm like yeah that's a real name yeah there's no way that's a fake name and a name that we don't make anymore yeah that does it does feel that way yes like i had a teacher mrsahill, and then we stopped making Mrs. Cahill's forever.

She could only exist in a very specific period of time in the early 90s and then no more. That's even more bizarre because it's a last name. Surely there are more Cahills along the way. No, that was it. Yeah, I think maybe it was in a mike sacks book but he talks about how there are there was somebody who's doing an interview and they said when i read scripts from people i want to read the thing that only you think is funny oh that's um uh they request that in the conan o'brien packet it was like it's like pitch monologue jokes pitch uh a sketch pitch something that has like a a segment that has been done on the show before.

But you're going to like pitch a version of that and also submit your favorite thing that no one else thinks is funny. That's such a good idea for somebody to do. If you're looking for a writer to be like, I want to see the weirdest that you get. I want to see the thing that only you think is funny because you'll see that if you're i mean if you know comedy or you know writing you can see the kernel of it in there and you can see the potential of it even if it's not necessarily an idea that you jive with yeah and it also is a really great way to root out people who are who think they're edgelords and are going to write something about absolutely we're all being too sensitive these days. Right. Speaking of that, do you know what I'm about to talk about?

I do, but do it anyway. Okay. Here's the rope infect. So keep in mind that this is like 2008. We actually made this. It got to the point where we it's an animated uh i wanted to do a whole series we did a one-off sketch it's fully animated and at the last second i pulled the plug because i was like this has gotten too racist oh it sounds so awful even

saying it all right literally does okay so i wanted to make a joke about i wanted to throw out like a goofy fake title for what it would be but yeah the real premise is is racist enough so i'm just gonna let you go okay so it's a it was a series i wanted to do called dead ghost fighters club and the premise was that uh um christopher Morton Stanley and Andrew Jackson, the ghosts of all of these people were part of- Who Stanley is, if you don't mind. Oh, Henry Morton Stanley. I learned about him from you.

Yeah. He was, I mean, Heart of Darkness is based around somebody like him. He's somebody who's part of the ivory trade in Africa. And yeah, I think it was in Africa. And he was heavily involved in the oppression of locals in the same way that Andrew Jackson is famous for and the same way Christopher Columbus is famous for. Right. I could connect a few dots when you're like, this is about Andrew Jackson and Christopher Columbus and this other guy. And I was like, I bet that other guy is not great.

And so they are ghosts, but they're also part of a Ghost Fighters club. So they're like the Ghostbusters. People call them when they have a problem, but they only solve poltergeist ghost problems because they're even in the afterlife. They hate indigenous people so much that those are the people they're focusing on. And in my mind, I was like, oh, that's funny. And then in writing it out, I was like, ooh, this is a tough line to walk. And as I did it, other people had ideas they jumped in with and it started to get like the, it no longer became a joke on those three being awful. It became a joke. Every single joke was predicated on saying something else about trail of tears and things like that and i watched at the end i was

like i this can't live in the world we have to kill it um that said i think i think the original premise of those three as ghost hunters as as ghosts, was a funny idea. And I guess I'm saying I'm standing by that. I mean, you are standing by it. Like that was the, you can't walk it back now. That was the premise of this question. What do you still believe in, Sorin? I just, there were elements of it that I really liked and writing them was very fun.

Writing a bunch of guys who are also reckless because they're already dead. They don't care. It never goes right. The audience is not rooting for them. No, of course not. Things go wrong for them constantly. It's like Andrew Jackson is showing up to the fight taking off his backpack and being like, a good thing

I brought my secret weapon. Reaching into his backpack and only coming out with now his backpack and being like a good thing i brought my secret weapon reaching into his backpack and only coming out with now his his hands and fists yeah like that kind of stuff was so much fun to write it's good stuff and it's it was uh man what's the right word i want to say funny but i also don't want to get canceled but it is funny that their their motivation for ridding the world of ghosts was still like rooted in racism and not a genuine desire to get rid of ghosts. Like in the treatments that you put together, I don't think we met a white ghost, but no, we never did. There's a lot of room for comedy if they ever did, because that's a real question for Andrew Jackson. Yeah, whether they'd actually do it or not, whether they'd help out in the situation. Yeah. It was, it was, I don't know. It was really fun to write the first time around. And then I, and then it just continued to evolve as projects do where you kind of get lost in the trees a little bit. It's hard to look at, it's hard to see the entire picture. And then I watched it at the end and I was like, this can't live. I think we have to not ever do this. And then I watched it at the end and I was like, this can't live.

I think we have to not ever do this. I suppose just so you're not alone there under the bus that similarly, I feel the same way about time traveling pedophiles. Oh my God, time traveling pedophiles. That I've always wanted to do about three guys who learned the secret of time travel and all they want to do is go back in time and have sex with famous historical figures when they're young, when they're illegally young, specifically. Yes, but not like hinges. Not even like Helen of Troy at peak Helen of Troy. It was like, no, no, no, we don't want that. We want to go back to like 13-year-old Helen of Troy. And they go back in time for whatever their mission is, which is always to have sex with a child.

time for whatever their mission is which is always to have sex with a child and then realize when they get back there that something else has happened that would upset the time space continuum and before they can have sex with the person they want to have sex with they have to undo this thing that was done so they can preserve the timeline and they do that and then they run out of time and then they run out of time. And then they run out of time. And it's like, oh, fuck, I was supposed to have sex with Anne Frank tonight, but I can't because I spent all that time doing this other thing. And that's why we have penicillin today. All right, I guess we'll try again tomorrow.

Like it was never the goal was not to root for them to achieve what they wanted. root for them to achieve what they wanted and uh like because it's not fun or interesting to me to make a show about successful pedophiles um but it was funny to make an audience vaguely root for pedophiles in this other direction no i i mean i've always still think it's funny but i'm never gonna pitch it to anyone else like pet because i have to i that's like my wheel i'm never gonna pitch it to anyone else like because i have to i have to start with like i'm not behind pedophilia it's it's terrifying and tragic and i understand that but it's vaguely funny if the person that you happen to be rooting for in this case is a is a pedophile like you you need this pedophile to be the one who stops hitler right i mean these shows are pedophile go which is a terrible sentence to utter

these shows are built around the same i mean like the same button it scratches the same itch which is terrible people doing the right thing for the wrong reasons yeah which is always it's always very very funny to me like it's i always love it um and uh and so when as soon as i land on something like that my first instinct is always like yo we're making it we're doing it and of course we can't make a show called traveling pedophiles right in the writing of it when it's when you like you want to write a character who is sad because even though he saved the day he he didn't get to sexually assault a minor. It's like, no, I don't think I should be doing this. I don't think I should put this out into the world.

I don't want anyone sympathizing with this guy. Right. As soon as you like start to get into the nitty gritty of writing the dialogue and somebody has to say something about wanting to have sex with a kid, you immediately are like, I don't know how to write this. There's no way to make this yeah okay and like even if i did know how to write it i wouldn't do it like even if i woke up one day and was like i figured out the way to do this in like a balanced sensitive way i still think like do we really need someone to crack that code do we need someone to figure out this particular puzzle no yeah time i mean certainly not now it's times have changed an awful lot since we began comedy also we've grown up quite a bit since we started comedy um i think more so

the latter we just became more aware of the world than we used to be. Right. But yeah, those shows aren't going to work. But thank God we never did them, huh? Yeah. That's very, very good. Thank you, Jamie B., for the question and for being a supporter. You can all support us on Patreon by, I guess, Googling Quick Question Soren and Daniel Patreon, probably. I mean, sure.

You could do it that way. Or I could just tell you that it's Patreon slash quick question. Where's the dot com? Sorry. Jesus. I had one of those sicknesses recently where I got a fever and everything, and I thought for sure this was the end. I was lying in a bed.

The bed was drenched in sweat. I thought this is the end for me. I can hear my breath wheezing and I'm so hot that I feel like I'm going to explode. And then I took my temperature 100 degrees. Nothing. Barely a fever at all. It's not nothing. Yeah. But that's, I mean, people get up to 104 and they're fine. Their brains aren't cooking to like 105. And I thought for sure I was doing permanent damage to myself. And it turns out I'm

just a baby. Wow. All right. Before we go any further with the podcast, we do want to thank our sponsor, Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning community where millions come together to take the next step in their creative journey with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more. I took a music theory Skillshare class and I took an introduction to sign language Skillshare class. I found them both very helpful. Most recently, I've been trying to learn close up card hand magic, like magic card tricks. Are you really? Yeah, because I even before I had six nieces and nephews, I've always like had very strong, fun uncle energy. And I feel like I need to steer into that and just like finally learn some some magic. And the class that I'm taking, which is taught by a person named Daniel Platt. It's not only very helpful teaching me

tricks that I will one day master, but he's like an incredibly relaxing speaker. It's just like a very enjoyable class to take even if you don't want to learn magic and you just want to hear someone talk. This is the video for you. It's Daniel Platt teaching you magic.

But you don't just have to learn about magic, although why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't it be great if we all knew a little magic? Skillshare is an online community that offers membership with meaning. There's so much to explore, real projects to create, and the support of fellow creative, Skillshare empowers you to accomplish real growth. They offer classes designed for real life so you can move your creative journey forward without putting life on hold. You can learn and grow with short classes that fit your busy routine, which is great for me because I have a wild routine that I don't always know exactly what my schedule is going to be. So the fact that I can pull up a video teaching me card magic tricks at seven in the morning or 11 at night or somewhere in between is really helpful for me.

And it's insane that the same service that is teaching me magic and sign language and music theory is so insanely affordable, especially compared to pricey like in-person classes and workshops. An annual subscription is less than $10 a month. Can you believe that, Soren? I'm gasping, sorry. Skillshare is a proud sponsor of Quick Question. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com slash QQ

and get two free months of premium membership. That's two whole months of unlimited access to thousands of classes for free. Get started and join today by heading to Skillshare.com slash QQ. That's Skillshare.com slash QQ. Once more, that's Skillshare.com slash QQ. Hey, Soren, quick question. Yeah, go ahead. Should we talk about Crack.com for a little bit?

I don't think that there would be a better time than to talk about it right now. It's so, uh, crack.com is a show that Soren, a website that Soren and I used to, to write for, for many years. Um, and they've gone through a lot of changes. Most recently, uh, there was the sudden and unceremonious firing of Robert Brockway, an editor who had been there for well over 10 years that both of us had worked with for a very long time and is one of the most skilled writers and editors I've ever met or worked with in my entire life. And shortly thereafter, this comes at the the tail end of like three years of layoffs and firings of very talented people as the industry shifted and then shortly thereafter rockway's unceremonious exit uh longtime editor jason pargin who who writes as david wong stepped down uh willingly on purpose and has moved on to a life of uh correct me if I'm wrong crime fighting

crime causing well I guess it depends on your moral code okay either one of those is fair I think in and I say this knowing that there are still hard working and talented people who

work at Cracked and are doing good work there and want to do good work and want nothing but the best for the site. I do still think it's fair to say that it is the end of an era, which doesn't necessarily mean that things will be worse, just that things will be different. I can't think of a better time to say that we are in a new chapter of Cracked now than saying it after Robert and Jason leaving. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, of course. Because the way that I see it, I came into Cracked, it was already a bus going 60 miles an hour. It was great. I didn't have to do really any work to get it going.

It was already going and all I had to do was keep it moving. Yeah, that's the theme of speed. The bus is going 60 miles an hour and it's great. And things are happy. Everyone's really excited. There are some people who definitely had to get the ball rolling off the bat. And that was not an easy task because it's like building the voice and everything of the site and the structure of how to get a pipeline of writers coming through. And those people were Jack and you and Jason. And I would put Brockway in there as well.

Brockway is responsible, quietly responsible for some of the very best articles on crack that his name is not on. Absolutely. Articles that were, they came in through the workshop, people pitched them. They were bad ideas. And Robert said, yeah, but what, this would be a really good idea. So they gave that back to the writer. The writer wrote it and then it came back in and Robert said, okay. And then deleted everything and then rewrote it as the article that he wanted. And it would do 10 million views in a month. And his name is not on the byline for wanted. And it would do 10 million views in a month. And his name is not on the byline for that. His name will never be there.

People got jobs based on those articles because their names were on the bylines at other places. They went to college institutions, they went to institutions of higher learning to talk about superheroes or whatever their area of expertise is. You can't tell what I'm doing, air quotes. And it was really Brockway the whole time. Brockway was the one who saved all of those articles and made the site. He's the one that brought a lot of eyeballs to crack.

Yes, correct. So with losing him and losing Jason, I would say that's the end of an the, that's the last vestige of this original crew that helped build this site. And it's going to be something else entirely now. I mean, it has been something else entirely for a little while now, but there were still, you still had Jason and, and Brockway there, which felt like, oh, well, they'll keep it going. They'll keep it all going. And now that they're gone, it's like, well, I don't know what this site is anymore. They'll keep it all going. And now that they're gone, it's like, well, I don't know what this site is anymore.

It does very much feel like a pivot to something else that will employ a lot of people and be successful, which is nice. I'm very excited that the brand will continue and people will still be able to make money and have jobs and have a living on the Internet working for a comedy website. But it's not, it just doesn't feel like the thing that it was before anymore. And I struggle a lot to like square how I feel about that, I guess, because Cracked is not alone in this. Funny or Die was losing employees by the hundreds for the last couple of years.

College Humor just lost over 100 employees, I think like five months ago. Onion lost tons of employees over the last five years. ClickHole was sold to Cards Against Humanity. It's just like the online comedy landscape has changed so much over the last 15 years that I feel like I want to talk about it, but I don't even know what I want to say really, because like, I'm so thankful that, that you and I got to live through this very strange 10 year comedy boom, where you were paid enough money that you could live to write comedy and learn as a 20 something how to make sketch comedy and how to make movies and videos and get acquire a bunch of skills in a safe place with a lot of cushioning around you. So you could eventually work somewhere else, transition to somewhere else. work somewhere else, transition to, to, to somewhere else. And whether that's writing books or TVs or movies or whatever, um, you get to, to learn while doing, while being paid,

because it's, it's, I think comedy is a job where it's impossible to not learn while being paid in some way or being financially successful in another category. And while I'm so thankful that we got to live through that period, I don't, I'm, I'm annoyed that I don't get to be mad at anyone because we're not owed that. We were lucky that, that this happened for us. And I want that for kids in the future. I want that for, for next year's 20 and 21 and 22 year olds. I want them to have the, the, the warm environment that we had at Cracked where it was like, here's a bunch of money, uh, figure it out. You know, there are no adults, just go and figure it out and learn while doing. Uh, I, I want that for them and I just don't know where they're going to find it. Yeah. I have a, I have a lot of, I was rambling. I'm emotional

about this. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I was trying to figure out my own thoughts on it while you're talking too. And naturally, I don't listen to you and I just think about what I'm going to say next. Thank you very much. Yeah, no, it's a new haircut. And I do, it's hard to talk about because I do, I'll start to get mad a little bit when I do. And you're right that there's not one single person to be mad at. A lot of people have their narrative in their head of like how it happened that not just cracked, but that all these comedy websites basically stopped being able to monetize in any capacity or in a way that could support a staff. And it felt like it all happened kind of at once. It was just this weird cascade. And I don't think that every, like some people will tell you, no, it was Facebook. Facebook is the problem where some people will be like, no, it's people using ad blocker. No, it was the advertisers themselves who ruined it with like weird amalgamous branded content that you couldn't actually tell if it was branded or not. And a lot of that's boring and a lot of that's wrong. And I think that there were a lot of reasons why it happened. And because of that, there isn't one person that I can just be like,

you ruined everything. You ruined it all. And I want that really badly because you're absolutely right. We were so lucky. We were so lucky to have an opportunity like that, where we were allowed to kind of, the warden wasn't looking, we were allowed to do what we wanted. And we, even with our, our weekly columns, which I know that you and I stressed out about every single week, Sean, baby Brockway, like those people, they, like they worked on those so, so hard every week. And it was an incredible source of stress because it was a weekly column. You wanted it to be good. It had your name at the top.

And you want it to be really, really good content. And so you would freak out and freak out all week about it while doing the rest of your job. It was never pleasant writing a column. It has never been an enjoyable experience. And I'm so glad though that I had the opportunity because it forced you to write every single week it forced you to write something that you thought was good enough to publish every single week and it made me set

if you wanted to go back through all of our writings you could go from the beginning to the end and you could see the transition of people who don't know how to write become people who do and don't know structure and don't even know jokes necessarily start to figure that stuff out, uh, just through practice and where, and people paid us to do it. And I don't, I don't see that

ever happening again. Right. I have, I have some, the optimist in me has faith that the kids will figure out their own path and probably already have because when we were doing cracked crack didn't exist before that uh like there wasn't a pipeline for people just out of college to to write comedy fail at writing comedy get better at writing comedy and also receive health care that just wasn't a thing that existed So the fact that I don't know what the new thing is doesn't mean that it won't happen. It just means that I don't know what it is. Uh, I, and I, I guess I'm, I'm having faith that someone else knows someone else knows where, where weird, funny 22 year olds can go to, to learn how to make jokes. Yeah. It's going to be something like Tik TOK or like a thing I don't understand.

Yeah. I'm sure of it. It's, but it's, it won't be the same because you can't do the sketch in that capacity. You can't, you can't there. I'm sure there are people who want to do sketch comedy now in their lives. And it was such an easy trip. You saw that when you were young and kids in the hall or Mr.

Show or Saturday night live. And you're like, yes, that's a cool format. I want to do that. And then we got to do that. And it's much harder now when you're just sort of inventing a format. Right. And I think some folks are, I think the front-facing iPhone videos that are two and a half minutes long that are going up on Twitter that are very lo-fi and incredibly funny. I think that's a good source for comedians of the future and

writer performers of the future. It's a thing that I, showing my age, absolutely know I would have hated if I was still employed at a site that was designed to create comedy videos. Uh, but I still laugh at what all the, those, those folks are doing. Like they're doing legit good comedy skits in two and a half minutes with just their iPhone and Twitter's limitations. Maybe as a show, like, um, I think you should leave continues to have success. People will remember that they do like, uh, that sort of strange, weird comedy where people are trying brand new things and they'll be like, Oh, we do, we have an appetite for this. And then then they'll actually go seek it out on the internet, which is like the way it happened

the first time was people were actually going and seeking it out. And then they'll actually go seek it out on the internet, which is like the way it happened the first time was people were actually going and seeking it out. And then it was kind of served up on a plate through social media accounts. And then people stopped seeking it out. And then all these companies lost a bunch of money. But yeah, that's I actually do have a, a quick question for you about crack.

Oh, good. Yeah. Dan, quick question. Shoot. Okay. is there anything that you did it correct uh it's been a while now let's see well you you quit in remind me when you quit that's that's honestly very rude. Okay. So we left Cracked about-

December 4th, 2017. D-Day. Yeah. So we left Cracked a few years ago. And certainly the cultural landscape has changed. Is there anything that you remember at Cracked doing that you now regret? Oh, certainly. So many things. I think in the way that like anyone regrets things that they do when they're 21 and 22 years old, I have regrets. I just did it on a very public platform because I was tasked with writing articles about what I thought about the world at 21 and 22. So I regret a lot of the opinions that I had as I'm writing a column. I was like, here's what I've learned as a 21-year-old. I was like, no, you're a fucking idiot. now that I've crossed the finish line here's what I can offer as advice

but the broadly speaking a thing that I regret was in the very early times of writing columns at Cracked and trying to figure out what my what I could bring to the table like a personality that I could lead with

I out the gate tried to pull off like a that I could lead with. I, out the gate, tried to pull off like a hyper-masculine, belligerent agent of chaos, really. Because I'm 21 or 22 when I'm writing these columns and I think, what's going to make a big splash?

What's going to get me a lot of attention? And what is a voice that the site is lacking right now? Because the site was very much catering to comedy fans, but also like thoughtful, optimistic, intellectual folks. And I was like, let me introduce an element of like frat culture, frat culture with with nerd sensibilities let me throw that kind of nonsense in there where it was like this is this is a guy who likes spider-man but is also like passed out drunk in the middle of the day at a uh fucking arby's or whatever which was things that i was not doing but it just was interesting to me to to be this thing because i thought it would stand out from the crowd of like, you know, I'm writing alongside historians and scientists. So I'm like, I gotta do something. So like, what if this is a guy who, what if the character of

DOB was this deranged belligerent person? Let me try to do that. And, uh, you know, not to toot my own horn, it worked. I did get a bunch of fans from doing that. But like, I, it's based on a foundation that I don't believe in. And there's a very clear, immediate shift in my writing persona when I got just a little bit older and was like, oh, it's actually, it's, it's a character who gets drunk all the time and doesn't acknowledge the children that he definitely fathered and is doing drugs at work is not funny. It's not interesting. And I don't like the fans that I've gotten who support that person as a hero. There's a shift from that to me being, Hey, I'm going to be honest now. Like I'm awkward and I don't like getting massages and I don't like getting

my teeth checked at the dentist. I don't like getting haircuts because I don't want anyone touching me or being near me. Like those are the two phases of my time writing at Cracked was this very bizarre Uber male character and this much closer to my heart nervous guy with anxiety disorders character. Yeah. And I would like the first part of that completely stripped from history.

All the My Brief Time As? Yeah, there's My Brief time as where i inserted myself in in famous pieces of pop culture as a a horrible sexist sometimes racist character because i thought it would be funny to do that because i was fucking stupid and that i there's a period where I tried to to pick a very public fight with Miley Cyrus and like I can half defend it because the joke was always on the person writing it it was the joke was always on me as a person who thought Miley Cyrus would think of us as equals because she was such a superstar but but as much as i can intellectually defend it you know i'm still reading words that were written by me where i'm screaming at a 16 year old

and like calling out for fights with her and i was like oh that's not good i don't i don't like that yeah yeah mine's not too far afield from that i think we were all kind of doing the same thing. As much as we all thought we were doing something different, we weren't really. Like my, my greatest regret at crack was that I was contributing to like a damaging and unachievable ideal of what masculinity is not in terms of what it's so hard because your name is on it, but that's not who any of us were. on it, but that's not who any of us were. Like it spent my character in after hours, for instance, or my character that I would write as for my column was somebody who, it was a, it was a very damaging idea of masculinity and, and one that's completely unachievable, but it's, it's, it felt real. I think from the outside, it was like you and your everyday life never feel... It's like a human Instagram, basically. You don't feel like you measure up generally. I think nobody does. Nobody feels like they do. And after a while, you start to realize, you catch on that everyone's mask is slipping, that nobody actually feels that way. I mean, that nobody actually thinks

that they've got it exactly right. And I thought how funny it would be to have a character who just did. He was Ferris Bueller, basically, and everything worked out. And he had no context for suffering. The idea of wishing for something was completely foreign to him because he had everything. And that was a really fun role to play but it also it was i think that when we'd meet people at conventions and stuff they'd be like trying to figure out where i separate from the character and i could tell that some people like i just make people feel bad about themselves and i really regret that yeah um because you don't want to see that you don't want to see that there is somebody who's getting

it right and it's easy because that the person doesn't exist but when you feel like that it might then you're like okay i'm this it's much further of a distance for me to swim to the normal side than i thought right it's it's it's a very strange situation where you're writing a thing, assuming that everyone is on the same page that you're on. You're assuming that they know that the joke is on you or that the idea of this character who thinks he has everything figured out is funny. they identify with the character, which is terrifying, or they think the character is really you and it makes them feel worse about themselves, which is tragic. Then it's like, oh, well then nevermind. Then scrape everything. Your intention was not to embolden shitheads or upset sensitive folks.

And when you see either of those things happening, it's very sad. It's really awful. I guess that's just like maybe also maybe the curse of satire. You see a lot of people who agree with the sentiment in the satire, which is the sentiment that you're obviously making fun of if you're doing satire. And you feel like suddenly they see you as a teammate and you're like, oh no, no. Oh, what have I done? Like I shouldn't, I shouldn't be doing anything. This is, this is a bad idea. And yeah, we were all unreliable narrators. We were all people who shouldn't be trusted. And that was the point. Yeah. And, uh, and when, when I, we found, when I found out that people didn't necessarily get that or that they were trying to emulate who you were within your persona it was like

it felt really dirty yeah yeah years years of of writing about being a an asshole and then reading comments of people who were like yeah fuck yeah this is me too i won't be like oh no never mind i wasn't writing this for you like the only way that i can write something right now that is like funny and resonant is because i stayed inside reading and writing my whole life i'm like clearly not this person because i chose this other path yeah there's either i have another thing that i regret it cracked which is way more pedantic and probably a little bit more light-hearted okay uh and that that's that in the way that we would write articles about things you never noticed in movies or basically holding up a college essay and tracing it over any piece of pop culture and being like, look, it applies here. I hate that culture has done the same thing and has approached every piece of media

with a analytical eye of a professor uh-huh i i really hate that yeah i i i agree with that i think we we we started we didn't start it but it. Yeah, we certainly contributed to it. And you're applying a college literary close reading approach to Ferris Bueller or whatever. And you're trying to find something new with it and then write an article about that. And now I'll see a Reddit post that is like, look at the characters from The Breakfast Club. The uptight person is wearing this very proper outfit. And the slacker is wearing this thing where like her hair is messy like they're they're acting like they're noticing something that was just like no that's the point that's the point like they did it on purpose you you didn't notice like a wacky thing that you only could have noticed by applying

close reading or anything you're like, you're literally just describing the subtext of a thing, which I don't want to think is part of our legacy, but it might be. I think, yeah, I think we're partially responsible for that. I think that there are people who saw After Hours or read the articles on Cracked and when they were like, ah, yes, that does seem like a fun game to play i want to play it too and then did it but did it in a way that was really much more mean-spirited whereas i think i was always sort of striving towards like if you find something in in a piece of pop culture that seems weird and out of place in a movie or whatever it is instead of just being like aha look at that hole look at look it's wrong right there you take it a step further and be like

okay well let's assume that that weird thing is intentional. How does it make the piece better? And like, it's not an easy thing to do. It's very complicated. But I think a lot of people stop at just the, look at that weird thing. Look at all these plot holes. Isn't it amazing?

Look at these plot holes. Look at the plot holes in this. Right. There's been such a confusion over plot holes where sometimes it's just like, no, this character didn't remember that thing because it works for the plot. It's not a mistake. Yeah. We should close out our crack stuff.

Yeah. This has been a nice ball washing session, Dan. Yeah. I wonder if anyone will actually listen to this. Best of luck to the people who are still at Cracked, who are still working hard. Cyriac Lamar and Alex Schmidt and Logan Trent. Uh, and Soren, do you know other names that I don't know? I know there, there are a ton of freelance writers who are good. Isaac Cabe. Isaac and Adam weirs.

Best of luck to all them. Thank you audience for supporting us for our time at cracked because the ending was not great. It wasn't a perfect dismount, but I'm still very thankful that I got 10 years to learn how to do what I'm doing today and make so many great friends. Right. We talked a little bit about like being 22 and talking about having already crossed the finish line and being like, this is what I learned in my life. We do the same shit right now.

We do the same shit on the podcast. It has the feeling of a victory lap. And in two years, I'm going to be working a chainsaw in Colorado. Yeah. And you're going to be back in Jersey. Yeah. And two years from now, when I'm back in Jersey, you know, fingers crossed, manager at the TGI Fridays on Route 35 will still be doing this podcast. Yeah.

Well, we're not going to stop doing it just because now now both of us work at a red robin yeah you still want our advice right everybody let me tell you how to make how to make ranch in bulk what you're going to need is a cauldron first um it would also be irresponsible to not shout out the people who have left cracked under good and not good circumstances who are still working right now. You can support folks at Gamefully Unemployed. It's Tom Ryman, David Bell, and others. And that's it. Folks at Small Beans.

That's Tom and David. Show up there every once in a while. Also, Michael Swaim, Abe Epperson, Adam Ganser, Katie Stoll, Bridget Greenberg. You can also support Unpopular Opinion.

That's Adam Todd Brown's network. 1900HotDog is the recently launched Patreon website from Robert Brockway and Sean Baby. And... The Daily Zeitgeistist that's jack o'brien and he's got a whole a whole network as well that's got katie golden has a creature show oh that's right and creature feature and of course worst year ever worst year ever which is robert evans katie stole cody johnston and robert evans has uh behind the bastards have you done that yet Worst year ever, which is Robert Evans, Katie Stoll, Cody Johnston, and Robert Evans has Behind the Bastards. Have you done that yet?

No. Has he not asked you to do that? No. Oh, man. Hey, Gabe, can you strike that? We don't want to support Jack or Robert Evans anymore because he hasn't reached out to Soren. Thank you. A little hurtful.

I'm not going to reach out to him. I'd feel silly. No, you shouldn't. He should absolutely. I've done his show fucking three times. It's insane that not going to reach out to him. I'd feel silly. No, you shouldn't. He should absolutely. I've done his show fucking three times. It's insane that he hasn't reached out to you. That's crazy. You don't even live here.

No. Why does he not? And I'm like for the bastards. He had me talk about Jeffrey Epstein for three episodes and I'm like, eh. Not a bad guy. I'll listen. Go ahead and try and change my mind. All right. But I think it's time to get out of here. I need to track down all the social

accounts. But before I do that, oh, just like a public service announcement. The last few months have obviously been dominated by news of the coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19, a deadly viral disease that is spreading all over the world. There are a lot of things that we can do in terms of protecting ourselves and the more vulnerable people around us. And it starts with washing your hands often and going to the CDC's website as they will be regularly updating their coverage of the coronavirus with new information and tips. Get a flu shot. Avoid touching your face. Don't hoard masks. Also, you'll need to exercise some level of common sense and judgment,

as there's a lot of dangerous misinformation being spread around the internet and certain news channels. This also might not be one of those cases where one authoritative adult is just going to tell you what to do or how scared to be, as comforting as that thought might be. You may have to be your own adult, thoughtful, focused, cautious, and responsible. It's scary, but you can do it. My question for Soren, which incidentally is unrelated,

is how much money did you make last year? Fuck, man. I was like cooking up some coronavirus shit, thinking I can weasel out of this dan's gonna try and make me look like a racist i can get out of this uh clock's ticking so uh um i i made okay so i made some money at the job that I do and

it's fuck Dan I mean it's gotta be real or funny I know I know that's the problem I okay uh okay i i'll tell you this i paid in taxes enough to buy a modest compact car sounds great ask him for more details on Twitter at Soren underscore LTD,

or you can ask me questions at DLB underscore INC. Uh, you can email the show at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com or find us on Twitter at twitter.com slash QQ underscore Soren and Dan. Uh, you can find and hire our amazing engineer, producer, editor,

Gabe at Gabe harder.com. We also have a Patreon, which Soren, hit him again. It's Patreon slash QQ. Nope, that's not right. Patreon slash QuickQuestion.com, I think. One day we'll get this right. We'll look it up for next time. Do you have anything else to say while we're riding out no bye okay bye