Sad Boyz - Terrible Mom Advice (w/ Lauren Shippen)

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Upgrade your everyday. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to https://Quince.com/sadboyz. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. Taking care of your health just got easier – start here with Zocdoc: https://zocdoc.com/SADBOYZ #sponsored Find Lauren: https://instagram.com/laurenshippen Check out 150+ bonus episodes at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/sadboyz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ✨find us everywhere✨⁠⁠ https://linktr.ee/sadboyzpod⁠⁠  🎬 CREW 🎬 Hosted by Jarvis Johnson and Jordan Adika Produced & Edited by Jacob Skoda Produced by Anastasia Vigo Thumbnail design by @yungmcskrt Outro music by @prod.typhoon & @ysoblank 00:00:00 Welcome, Lauren Shippen! 00:01:56 Time And Growth 00:09:12 Entertainment Industry & Creativity 00:17:56 Sponsored By: Quince 00:20:12 The Second Screen Effect 00:29:23 Phantom Pulse 00:32:28 Sponsored By: ZocDoc 00:33:57 Ebay Sued For Stalking and Harrassing Newsletter Writers 00:49:08 Gary Vee Has Lost It 01:18:01 "Don't Let Your Kids Be Weird" 01:43:24 Sad Boyz Nightz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. I'm Jordan. And today we have a very special guest. I'm so excited because longtime fans of Sad Boys will know this person, but we actually haven't seen them in like five years. Yeah. It is one of our favorite people.

She's a writer. She's a beautiful producer of audio dramas. I always say a star stage and screen. I just love saying that phrase. Sure, why not. Lauren Schiffin, Lauren Schiffin everybody. Hello.

Oh, the crowd goes wild. I'm good. I'm good. It's been eight years since I was last on this show, which is kind of crazy. Yeah, I like went and looked back. I remember because we were recorded at your place.

Yes. And on the couch. Yep. And I remember talking about AO3. Yep. I think they remember that. Just statistically, that would make sense. Yeah.

I remember you and I were wearing the same outfit. Yeah. And we have a, I have a photo. Oh, my God. Because that's still both of your contact photo. Yes. In my phone.

Oh, my gosh. So Lauren, um, Lauren is a long time friend of ours in Jordan and Lauren used to work together on audio drama stuff. Yeah. And, uh, foundational. Yeah. You were like, a founder of a typical artist right here. We were one of the, you were one of the first people that I met in L.A.

just through Jordan. Because before we even moved down here, I think because you moved first. You were a load bearing friend. You were a load bearing friend. essential pillar in place. Because I met both of you in San Francisco. Yes. PatriotCon.

Oh, I was like Patriot or PodCon because remember all those cons? Yeah. But it was PatriotCon. Yeah. I do remember those cons with some fondness. And then a little bit of the iconic con experience of like, the fuck am I doing? Yeah.

Yep. Very much. I'm just kind of like, do you guys have, you have, you don't have coffee? Okay. What a weird. We talk about this. like a lot just almost not really even recognizing that version of ourselves especially trans like transitioning out of the tech industry yeah and kind of what the tech industry has become really

since we left it's really uh it's very interesting I've been having this weird like like because we knew you were coming on the show and we were talking about it a little bit and I got locked in my head about like at some point in the last 10 years time stopped matter and can Absolutely. True. And I'd say about about a decade is as long as about two years now. Like if I haven't seen someone for two years. You might have been a decade ago or something like that. Like we last saw each other at a friend's wedding.

But you could have told me that was seven years ago. Yeah. And I could have gone like, yes. You also could have told me it was last summer. Right. I'm sure. Yeah. I think the Zoomers who listen to this podcast and,

And soon to be the, what are we going to call that Gen Alpha? The Umers? The Amers? The them lot. But I think that like a thing about aging is that due to the relativistic nature of time, when you live a year as like a 10 year old, that's 10% of your life. And then when you live a year as a 100 year old, that's 1% of your life. And so over time, each passing day represents a smaller fraction of your life.

and things start to, it starts to shrink time. And so then years go by and you're like, what happened? What do you mean it's been eight years since you've been on the show? So I, a really like crazy experience that I had in regards to that is I'm here in L.A. working on this production for my next audio drama and one of the lead actors when we were doing callbacks, you know, it was like video callback. And I'm like, you know, thanks so much for taking the time. All this sort of the spiel that you give to actors when you do callbacks with them.

And she was like, no, this is really exciting for me because like I was listening to the Bright Sessions, my first show, when I was like 14. Yeah. And I'm like, oh my God. And now like she's in my show. And that just like that like expanded that compression of time in such a way in that moment that I was like, oh God. Very nice compliment, but don't say the age. It's nice. It's nice to hear. But it does create like an existential like look in the mirror. When someone sends me a DM that's like, hey, just finished my PhD. I started listening to you when I was in diapers. Exactly. Exactly.

Was a 20-year-old diaper user by NHS? Ever since I was in high school, is it teachers? It's crazy. But have you been? Good, you know? Yeah, I moved up to Seattle five years ago, and that's been great. Like, it's been nice to... Seattle's nice.

Yeah, Seattle's beautiful. And, like, I'm from New York originally. I missed seasons. Boom. There's nice... There's nice nature in Seattle. There's nice... There's Mount Rainier.

There's easy transit to... I mean, it's like less, I feel like when I've gone to Seattle, which in my early days was due to the tech industry. Yeah. Obviously, you know, you got Amazon Microsoft out there. And of course, Podcombe. And Pax. You got Pax West. Yeah.

Pax West. Yeah. What's so funny is back in my day, there wasn't Pax East. I went to the first Pax East in 2010. And so it used to just be Paxe. Pax East was the original. Pax East started in 2010 in Boston. East Coast Bias.

And then. So true. So true. The they they they they had to start. It used to just be Pax and Pax East and then they got the one in Texas and now they have Pax Aoss and they have Pax Unplugged. It's like become a whole like industry. Look what they took from us. It reminds me of like I was talking to Nicole Beyer about I guess because you'll find out I was on her podcast.

It'll come out in like a month. But um she was like I was in I want to say Indiana at the same time this thing called Jinn Khan was happening and I was like oh my gosh. Gen Con. Yeah, Jen Con is like one of the oldest conventions. Yeah. Because it's like, it's a general convention.

And it comes from a time when like, you just needed to get a big enough group together that cared about anything nerdy or interesting to make it an event. And it also, to me, is famous for being the place that Magic the Gathering product was made first available for purchase in large quantities in 1993. Wow.

I mean, in your case, you're like, I think probably. Out of Seattle, Wizard of the Coast, hey? You're the reigning, like, a cleric of fandom in my mind. Yes, you are. You've had adjacent to that for longer than I've known.

I think I learned the term from you. I have, like, A.O3 is a thing in my... If anyone ever makes an A.O.3 reference, or if I make an A.O.3 reference, I think of being on your couch. Oh, that makes me really, really like that. A gastral project, moustache flies off, tattoos disappear. Time travel. I mean, I take that, I take that honorific very seriously.

Like I being sort of like an ambassador for fandom is something I love doing. And actually like I did that so hard that yeah, my current show, Phantom Pulse, the one I'm here for is one of our executive producers is Tumblr. Oh, that's awesome. Like Tumblr like gave us money. It was it's like a, you know, you had those crazy college years where it was like, whoa, I was acting wild. Yeah. I was like figuring myself out. I define myself.

Yeah. And I think you're back. Game of Thrones. They aren't. owned by Yahoo anymore. No, they're owned by automatic. And I don't even know what that is.

They own like WordPress and like a bunch of like other kind of yeah, like logging platforms and stuff. But no, I mean, I've been on Tumblr for 17 years. And I've like not left. And it's been it's been really fun to like kind of see the arc and of how it's changed and like basically since Twitter sort of imploded a bunch of people

have come from there. And so now there's like young new generation on Tumblr and it's like thriving again. excited about that. Yeah, it's great. I'm, like, um,

one of the, like, last people on the Titanic for Twitter. And it's mostly, because it's mostly, one of the musicians. Um, because,

um, it's, it's mostly for like live action sport or like, like, like sports stuff as it's happening. Sure. Yeah. Or,

um, or, I have like these Twitter lists of my like, little niche interest communities. And that is like, while I'm still getting stuff out of those. I don't really post. And I do a lot of muting.

I do a lot of muting. I do a lot of hiding of specific words. Because Twitter does this thing where if you look at a tweet about any topic, your entire feed becomes that thing. Yeah, if you linger for a millisecond. If you linger for a second. You must be into beheading. Yeah.

It's like until you want to see the worst seniors in the world. You want to see catfurture? My friend sent me like a cute video about a cat dancing. So next up in the algorithm is, oh, Singaporean car crashes. Okay. Well, also I think, I mean, being people who are like talking about the internet and internet culture, like, you do kind of have to know what's going on because it's still ground zero for like certain things. It is, it is.

But it's interesting because for as much as I talk about TikTok content or we talk about TikTok stuff here, I'm a tourist on TikTok still. I don't like if I'm left to my own devices, I'm not scrolling TikTok. I'm reading the replies of some sort of rage bait post on Twitter and going to people's profiles and seeing if they're a bot or not or if they're just like a really mean person. Like there's something about that for me that I... You're doing archaeology. Yeah.

I'm like Jane Goodall for... You're exactly like Jean Goodall. Lauren... Living among them. Yeah, you are... To this day, I think one of the most prolific writers. You were like Alexander Hamilton. How do you write?

Like you're running out of it. time person. Thank you. And and we have expressed on this show that we're worried about you. You're burning the candle at both ends. How does she do it? And you're still doing it. You're still killing it. You're LeBron James. Like, you know, like how are they still operating at this level? How are you doing? How is how is life? How is your mental? Can you survive? Are you going to turn to dust from writing too much? Potentially. Yeah. So like this year, like 2026 is kind of my last year. like throw everything at the wall and see what I can make work. Right. Because you're kind of space. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not coming back.

Okay. I mean, look, I wouldn't either. But the state of things. They are sending me to Mars. Yeah, okay. I get it. Because I'm the most qualified person to be doing that. It's a pretty quiet. Good period of right. I mean, that's like I am an introvert. You know, that doesn't sound like a bad time. Yeah. Honestly, yeah. But no, I mean, I, you know, anybody who's watching this, I'm sure you guys also feel this like the entertainment industry at large over the last couple of years has had a hard time. Oh, absolutely. And, and, you know, when we started atypical, it was sort of like the golden age of podcasting and money coming into podcasting. And we were able to like ride that way for a little while. And that's since kind of left.

And like, I also write books and publishing is really weird at the moment or has been really for like the last decade. And so I got to the end of last year and I was like, oh, like my runway is so short. Like I'm working on these various projects and I've got these originals. But like it's so hard to make anything work sustainably. Like what you were saying before we were recording about, like, you know, like just being sort of stable and sustainable and that sort of being like the ultimate goal. Like I really feel that and that's like where I'm trying to get to.

And so this year I was just like, all right, I'm going to try everything. I'm gonna like really burn the candle down to its and then if that doesn't work, I'm just gonna like get a normal job for a little bit. And we'll see, you know, how that goes. And I think that's very relatable to people like, yeah, because it's a thing and it's also not like, a sentence of you can never revisit.

It's just that like it's like when you see an actor who is on a show and then someone like post, this person was on the Cosby show and now they're like at a grocery store. And it's like, okay, but like. They were at the grocery store during the Cosby Show. So like you. And that impacts you how. Like people are like, we're all trying to like figure this out.

Well, and what's been amazing is I've been like part of this has just been being really like honest on Instagram about. this and sort of like being like, okay, here's what I'm doing. I'm going to tell you what works. I'm going to tell you what doesn't. I'm going to tell you how I'm spending my time. And the amount of messages that I've gotten from colleagues over the past six months of just being like, oh my God, thank you so much for like saying this stuff out loud. Like friends who like have written on really successful TV shows, friends who have had sold out book tours and things like that and who are just also like kind of thinking, can I actually do this long term? We have a lot

friends in like comedy and stuff. And it's like actors, writers who've written on extremely successful shows are like, so how does that YouTube thing work? You know? And it's like, and I'm, for me, half the time I'm nerding out even talking to these people because I am such a, you know, fan of their work. And it just speaks to, it's a little frustrating of the time that we're in, especially with like creative works when it comes to like AI and how that's kind of being forced everywhere and and the you know the higher-ups want to uh they want all of the output with as little of the investment as possible they want to maximize um and have no interest in like a lot of these things are just investment vehicles for them rather than like passion yeah um and very

kind of short-sightedly compromising the quality of something they would be making and might actually i just watched a video this morning from uh totally not mark put out a a video with a lot of anonymous but very credible stories and accusations from the Australian animation team that just put out the new Avatar, Legend of Ang movie. Yeah. It's called Legend of Ang, the movie, right? I think so. Came out decently. I think people like it.

Yeah. I haven't seen it yet. Good things. I watch grown-up stuff. And I play with Warhammer. No, I mean, I'll get around two watching it. I did expect there'd be some pushback to it because it's a property that means a lot to so many people. Right.

And apparently there was a lot of pushback on the script and rewrites and the like. But then there's just the most cliche, unsurprising story of a bunch of the roles that were being paid at a reasonable price, got outsourced overseas. And then those, specifically a story of the Korean animation studio that they were farming a bunch of work out to found out about. found out about the salaries that the Australian teams were making which were relatively meagre normal animation salaries and were like borderline going on strike

is like what the hell we make one fifth of them I mean it's a good for them yeah exactly you need those people only everybody above that is sometimes helpful but optional I think you do need the guy with the ink people actually do the thing really big I've ever seen those videos of like

someone who is like doing it's like maybe it's like a some sort of factory line or something but the people doing it have such precise technical skills things yeah and i'm like and i'm and i'm like that is the money maker like that's the thing that like there's no such thing that's unskilled labor right exactly there's no and it's like and the skill is so high and it's just like not it's um like unrecognized genius it sometimes feels like and i see that with animation like like the people who are doing the, especially like hand drawn or back in the day like the frame by frame stuff, it's like how are these people able to do this? It's like you look at a storyboard and then you're able to like tween like these frames and like a perfect on model

way like without any kind of technical assistance. Like it's such an impressive skill. And then for that to be the thing that's not like interesting or impressive. And, And it's like, well, if we can just, you know, even shows like South Park, it's like, oh, okay, well, we figured out we could do this animation and flash for like really cheap. And it's like, that's fine because it's like a vessel for like the writing and stuff like that. But then for like these artistic shows, it's like you find out an episode of, I used to listen to family guy audio commentaries when I was in like middle school. Because I was always a nerd about, you know, how the sausage is made.

And I remember them saying it took like a year for an episode of Family Guy to get made. And I was like, what? Yeah. I remember hearing that on The Simpsons and I'm like, but you just, you do the, turn the computer on. Right? Don't you just type in, make me homeer? Well, and I think that that's how a lot of like executives and like sort of the stakeholders, the people with money view this stuff. It's sort of like, well, yeah, I mean, like, but I could just drop in and write a script. I could drop in and read a movie. I could drop in and direct this, whatever. Just draw it. Just draw it. Just draw it. I could draw something right now. We could just have AI do this. And it's like, yeah, but it'll look

It's revealing that those people are like so deeply uncreative and unable to like when you finally, when they finally illustrated the idea that's in their head, you realize that they, it was nothing. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. We've all been in our case, or in my case at least secondhand, but in your case, firsthand, receiving notes on something you've been working on with genuine passion and you, you know has like actual like spiritual. value and will resonate with people

at least to some degree and like you know it's exactly the thing you wanted to write and you've shown it to other people in respect and they like what you have and then the feedback you get is just like so do you need this cat can we change all the characters? Yeah. Can we like blow something up real quick? Would that be cool? We make it so

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And it's like... The like Emily and Paris effect, where it's like not a... It's not a indictment on Emily and Paris in specific, but like in investor calls and things with Netflix, they spoke about how they wanted more things like... Emily and Paris where it was like cheap to produce and it was like second screen content and stuff. And it's really just like inconceivable to a lot of these people as to why you wouldn't do that. Right.

Like, well, no, but like, because then they can be consuming more stuff. And it's very, I think it's if you try to make the, the closest argument you can maybe maybe make. If you're like a great orator and you can, you know, you're Chris Nolan, lots of scarves type and you're able to like leverage a little bit of your. prestige and be like, hey, people will like it less and then there'll be less word of mouth and there'll be less ticket sales. And you can kind of like backwards engineer a reason that art should be good. Yeah. For these baby eating ghouls.

But you can't really do that if you are a independent director working on one episode of a thousand episode a year, animation. and you're like, because people won't like it. Because people don't like it and then they'll like you less and they'll watch it less and people hate the Avatar live action show because they made it bad. I don't have to tell you.

And also just trying to tell people like, art actually just has value in of itself. Like that's an impossible argument to make. What do you mean? Like that doesn't, my earnings call is not going to respect that sentiment. It's like they're investing in real estate and we're saying like,

you actually need to remove two of the walls. They're like, what? But it will be worse. Actually, it's 50% cheaper. The analytics show us it's 50% cheaper to remove half the walls. Yeah. And the tenant. If we kill the tenant, actually, there's very little damage.

Hang on, write that down. I think, like, food can be a good metaphor because it's like, we need to eat to live. But, like, we also all enjoy food that tastes good. Yes. And, like, nobody, like, nobody argues against, like, food tasting good. Like, that's something we can all agree upon, even if it's not good for you, you know, food often tastes good. And it's like, I think it's the same thing with art, right?

Where it's, we need art to live. Like, I think that in the same way we need a socialization to live, like, you know, things that human beings have been doing forever. Right. And like, it's better when it tastes good. As the CEO of Soylent, I disagree. But did that company still exist? I don't think so. They sell huge buckets of powder now, which is, I think, more respectable than the individual drinks because the bucket of powder implies you a livestock.

Exactly. She's nice and clear and says like, hello, meat. You need to keep eating warm bodies. I have known some people in my life who are like, I don't enjoy food or eating. I've met those people as well. I just want nutrients. And it's like, that's fine. That's fine for.

That's what Soylent is for. Right. And there's a community of you and you guys can talk about how much you don't like food. Whatever. But there is, I'm sure there's a very fun subreddit about. Oh my God. Like the, food free. What was it?

Yeah. Dog free subreddit. Food like taste. Taste free. Taste free. There's a, in the vein of the food analogy as well, I do feel like part of the thing that makes discarding creativity possible in the mind of some of these people is that you also treat the audience like cattle and that they, well, they won't have the media literacy. They don't know what they want. But you don't need to know how to cook to know what you like eating.

Yes, that's such a good point. You will go to like, obsession had an explosion in popularity. and it wasn't because a bunch of people watched the 19 hour is Bear a Good Guy video. It's because people saw the movie and went like, I liked watching that. Yeah. And he's, ooh, spooky.

I'm going to tell my friend not like, and here's a list why. It reminds me a little bit of like something like the original Halloween or like Blair Witch Project where it's like these projects that were, they were working on shoestring budgets because those were the constraints. And then they happened to find like kind of,

have outsized success from that, but then it becomes, oh, someone found a 10,000 percent multiple on their investment. How do we repeat that? Yes. And it's like, we just make the same thing over and over. Right. And it's like the thing that was interesting was the creatives and the constraints, not the form factor of like.

Yeah, the presentation. The presentation. It's like, you like Blair Witch, so like the camera should be bad. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, and then oftentimes, too, like those, those creators are immediately given a, blank check and no notes. And it's then then their next thing isn't very good. And it's like,

and I'm, you know, like, I want creators to get paid. But I do think that there is like a, you know, there's like a fence that we need to put up around how to make something. Like, budgets have balloon to such a degree where it's like, if you just sort of have like unlimited money and unlimited freedom when it comes to like your, how much feedback your collaborators are giving you and things like that. Nobody's ever telling you no or nobody's ever being like, that's kind of a stupid idea. Don't do that. Or like, this movie is too long or whatever. then like you stop making good things. Yeah.

What was the budget of the He-Man movie, Jacob? Would you mind checking that? It is outrageously. Well, that's the thing. I mean, this is all been, this has all been discussed, but it's like movies, they've talked, people have talked about how there are no like mid-budget films now. It's like everything is. $170, $200 million.

Everything is either $200 million. And then it needs to make a billion to break even because of all the advertising spend and stuff. Well, that's the thing because they never include the marketing. budget and the listed budgets and that's always like at least 40 million dollars on top of it. I never want to attribute like well this is like regardless of the quality of the movie, I'm a person in the world so I haven't seen the human movie, but along with everyone else. But I don't want to make that like the rubric of was it good or not as you know by the fact they made 30 million.

Even getting something made though. That is like yeah. And things don't get made with no one that cares about it. And there are talented people involved in every production. Oh my God, yeah. Yeah. But it is, the blame I feel is more on the executive level, many such cases, where the complaint I would make is, uh, hey, I don't think you should have put this movie in theaters.

That just wasn't viable. It's not that there are not fans of that property. Who is the audience of this movie? I could have told you that. Because like I, he man was on reruns when I was a kid. and this movie doesn't seem like it's for people like my age. It's like, okay, well, movies like this movie, they're supposed to be pure nostalgia or built inside a universe that I'm bouncing to

on a streaming platform and then it has that like Netflix white text, Holland Copeland C-Bad or whatever. Or it's supposed to be, I don't know, maybe if it's animated and it's produced by a recognizable studio in a recognizable style, like an illumination style, then it's a, I'll take my kids. and I remember this property. Yeah.

But this is a you, dad by himself. I could have go and see this movie with Jared Lennel? Oh, God, that's right, because he's Skeletor, isn't he? I got a lot of enjoyment out of the trailer of this,

which I saw the trailer and I didn't know that this was a movie. And so I got the experience of being like, is this a He-Man movie? And then I was like sitting next to somebody and then I was like, they're going to say, I have the power. And then that's how it ends.

And I'm like, yes. And then that's better than seeing the movie for me. I got enough out of that. Well, I assume that they're trying to capture what happened with Iron Man, right? Which is that it's like, okay, we took a property that like, some people are passionate about but that most people like alive have not really heard of. Right. And like, but I think the important thing with that was like, okay, we're taking, you know,

an actor who was once beloved and has kind of had a fall from grace and needs a redemption arc. And we're going to let the director and writer just sort of do what. Like, it was kind of that nothing to lose type thing. And it was like there's almost this allegorical thing with like how Tony Stark's character is portrayed with Robert Dynie Jr. There's a meta commentary. I think that one of the things here is this like it's like a bottom up versus a top down approach. Yes. What we what we're seeing here is like people in a boardroom saying, okay, we need five 200 million bucks movies.

And it's like you're starting from because I don't think all these movies need exactly. Exactly $200 million to be made. Bobby, Bobby, it was little piece of plastic. And I think, I think people went to go see it because it was little pieces of plastic. So,

so, so Bobby for the boys, maybe? I'm gonna Google other pieces of plastic and then, uh, license 100 different movies in hopes that one of them hits like Barbie did. And like, what was the budget of obsession? Probably like,

30 million. Yeah. It's like, so yeah, you can make 10 movies. I think it was sub one million before marketing. Oh, really? Yeah, I believe so.

Oh my God. I do think it had a lot of marketing. I have the budget. There's a budget tape on a door at one point, and I think that was for the most of the cash. Anyway, well, before we get into some of our like current events, goofs and gaffs type stuff, normally we do this at the end, but in case, Lauren, you wanted to talk about, is it Phantom Pulse? Is there anything you can say about the new project that you're working on? Yeah.

So yeah, it's an audio drama, and it is about a 90s rock band that can banish ghosts with their music. And so the first season, they're touring around and playing gigs, but then also like fighting ghosts. And it's sort of about these five people. And, you know, it's about America and grief and all of the stuff, queer found family. And we also wrote a whole album that's going to be coming out of this ball. Yeah, yeah. Evan and I wrote a whole album, a 90s rock album. That's awesome.

That's awesome. And so, yeah, it's like 16 episodes, 10 song album. The album will be coming out this time, time. fall the show will come out sometime next year um and yeah it's it's we have an amazing cast erika ishi who i think you guys know is in it yeah uh they're the best um bring in snow our co-founder of a typical um is in it and so a decade ago alum of the sabboys podcast yeah true yeah he was like on one of the first of the second video ever i believe during a podcon room yeah that's right because it's like it's in a hotel room it's truly it's every all of these men's

memories are the Nick Fury walking in. The post credits. Even Erica Ishi and I, we are both mutual friends with Ifi and Emily. And when they got engaged, it was the first time we met, it was a New Year's engagement this past New Year's. It was the first time we met in person, but we have so many mutual friends that it was kind of like, hey, okay, we're, we, I've heard so much about you. I've heard so much about you, you know, like, uh, and they're like awesome.

And like a, yeah, a crazy another like decade time thing. Erica and I know each other because we ran a web series about D&D 10 years. That's wild. And so we were, you know, like filming that back in 2015, 2016. Yeah. Well, Tom Holland's allowed to, Tom Holland's 49 years old and he's allowed to play an 11-year-old. I think we should be allowed to just start saying we're 22 again. Yeah, I like that.

What are you going to do? What are you going to do it? Robert Pattinson's doing it, so I'll do it. I'm so excited for Robert Pattinson's silly voice movie this year, prime time. Oh, I don't know. It's about Chris Hansen, like, to catch a predator stuff. playing Chris Hansen and he's doing a punch in front of a mirror and he's doing such a little voice. He's doing it.

He's like the king. I think it's a really like a good impression. Some people, there's always and this is I know because I read these replies. People are like, it sounds nothing like it. This is horrible. This guy sucks. He should be taken up back and shot or whatever. He's bad man?

But I actually, I think it's like very chilling. Like because he when he puts on a funny voice, you know, Mickey 17. I'm like, okay, funny. That's a funny, funny voice. Chris Hansen was like, oh, this is like. This is... Like, it's eerie. Yeah, yeah.

And then also the subject matter is very, like, dark, but it also is about immoral actions that were taken during the production of the show. And it's another instance of where you care more about the production than finding justice for victims and stuff. This episode of Sadd Boys is sponsored by Zodok. Have you ever put off making an appointment due to phone anxiety or endless phone tag only to finally call and find out the next opening is months away? Yes.

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Let's talk about this eBay scandal. So, here's the story, all about how. How's your life? I think it got flipped turned upside down because I... Take a minute. There were some people who,

Jacob, is this right? They criticized eBay. Yeah, so there is this older couple that has basically a newsletter about e-commerce and they were talking about eBay in a way that apparently eBay officials didn't like and then who cares you pay employees what did eBay police yeah no but they made their own hands and they reacted

really poorly well yeah it's like random like I don't know if it's like rank and file eBay employees yeah but it was like random eBay employees it's like if someone had a mean tweet about the new pageman redesign and then we went to their house. You know what I mean? We wrote the Pinkerton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's like, because I think they, like, there was this a harassment settlement. John Boston at the end of Red Tend.

Walking out of the house. Yeah. eBay is a wild, wild place. I, um, I'm a frequenter of eBay because I love to buy random shit. I love eBay. Uh, I've recently been on the hunt for this, um, old issue of a, uh, Thomas the Tank Engine universe book. It's the green one.

Henry. Henry something. In a 1950s printing, they like use the N-word and like the worst way. And I want to find the printing because I've seen like a photo of it and I need it. You should just be able to be like I you have to send this to me for free. I have. Now here's.

This is reparations. I do own one or two copies of the. this book because I was in hopes of it being the proper one. And then I had a lead and it was a very, very old like 1950s copy of a Thomas the Tank Engine book, British by the way. And the seller was like, oh, the description is wrong. It's actually this other book. Do you still want it? And I'm like, I can't explain to you why the answer is no. It depends. Let's just give me a refund. I'm trying to think of like the person that owns a Thomas Tengen engine book from the 50s with the N-word in it, who is then listing that on eBay. With whole knowledge of the fact that that's in the book.

I essentially have the answer to that. And it was at one point my mom because she used to do a lot of vintage resell stuff. We would go to like a car boot sale. I have a lovely vintage purse that she gave me still. That's her style. She was very lutable. She was like, she did not go in a PVP zone, dude. She would drop so much loose.

She had you badgered all the rings pop out. Yeah, oh my God. She would often, yeah, give a lot. She was a little goblin. If you get her, she drops like a set of cocktail stirers or something. But she would do a lot of resales on stuff. We'd go to a car boot sale and somebody selling a lamp for pounds and then you buy it. And then she uses whatever kind of visual calculus brain chip she had in the back of our brain to go.

This is an art decode design from and then resell it for proportional price. Just a one one woman antiques road show. And there is a lot of buying in bulk where you'll get old advertising booklets and stuff like that where up to and including a pear's soap used to me. A soap brand that is an image of a little black boy being dipped in the bath with the soap so good he comes out white. That's a pretty good soap. That's crazy. That shit is powerful. Maybe a big bunch.

Vintage from 1997. He just pulls about as a skeleton. Oh my God. Yeah. It's like it's just live. Hydrochloric acid. Do you hate your baby? Yeah.

This morning, eBay has agreed to pay nearly $56 million to a Massachusetts couple. Do you think that like in the future people will think that we talked like this? Oh. You know, because like, broadcaster voice. Like how we, we think everyone sounded like Humphrey Bogot now.

Right, yeah. Or the one where it's like you have the mic and, okay, so today we're doing a day in the light of me. I make candles and I saw them on Etsy for $9,000. In 2020,

everyone was very soft-spoken and lived in a beige house. Don't think that we did ASMR to each other in person. The good news is they had a peculiar. We believe it's, they were hoping to generate rain for the harvest

by tapping a small, rounded object and saying, is I attached a hard drive with episodes of Sadboys onto Hayley's Comet. Earth is destroyed instantly. Yeah, we'll be able to send a drone there in the year 3000 and get those episodes. They'll be like, not worth visiting. Let's skip that one.

This bloody pig Halloween mask was just one of the items that Ina and David Steiner received at their home, along with the funeral wreath and live cockroaches and spiders. By the way, let old people run newsletters. Come on. This is such a lost art. Oh, yeah.

The fact that there's a couple that's been operating an e-commerce newsletter since 1999, that's rare that it's still, like, that's supposed to be lost media at this point. This is a YouTube real called like, this man in Pennsylvania makes shoes the old way. It's like a probably like pulling a big lever and stuff. And like, oh, he's so cute.

GoFundMe makes a million dollars. This is giving them so much more traffic, by the way, than like not sending bugs to their house. Also, if you're standing for a corporation enough that you're like harassing the critics, like, what are you doing? Who's standing for eBay? And also, talking to rebrands,

giant black sign outside their building with the eBay text on the center. Looks like the monolith from 2001. They just showed it a second ago. Right outside the building. Terrifying. Oh, weird. Oh, yeah.

It looks like a floating graphic. I think I thought it was a floating graphic. Is this in Menlo Park? It must be. I'm like, I feel like I've, I feel like I've ridden my Google bike when I was interning there past this. It's in San Jose. San Jose. Okay, that tracks.

I lived in San Jose when I interned at Google. Home of the Winchester Mystery House. One of my favorite haunted places in America. I've been there. It's great, right? It's the only haunted house I've been to. I think, oh, no, I've been taught. there are a haunted places, but yeah, it's a good one.

It's a good tour. Of course you've been out of the haunted places. That did not need clarification. Sorry, can stay out on. If not, your Christmas present is a ticket. It's like, you'd that is so you. Okay, so do we know who the harassers are? Have they been unmasked?

Yeah, who are the perpetrators of this very weird crime? It's a group of 10 eBay employees. What? That's so crazy. Do they just? Dead of life? I guess. What are their rules?

Because they better be like, It better be like John eBay and family. Yeah, they better have like so much stock. Yeah. You know. Unless it's like the bug department. They don't sell bucks. It's actually just the unsold haunted dolls on eBay.

It's gifts. That are doing this. But they're like, they're evil so they don't. It's like they're like a little henchmen in A Nightmare Before Christmas. Yes. We got you bugs and blood. It's a huge misunderstanding. I wanted Christmas ornaments.

I get you bombs. I feel like bugs shouldn't be allowed to be sold on eBay. I could not, right? You can buy like, you know, like pinned one, taxidermy. Like, sure. You can buy live feeder insects for like crickets for like lizards and stuff. As long as they comply with wildlife and live animal shipping regulations. And no, they're not.

No, they're not. I just don't believe that every single eBay seller that's selling bugs is going to go through or even be checked. This reminds me of when that lady was selling pink sauce. on on TikTok shop or whatever and then didn't properly like package it. It was like berry product. So it was like, well, it was like fancy mayo or something like that. Oh, okay, I got you.

But the- Vimal marketing style. It was a viral thing and then she was selling it and then it had like some sort of egg product in it and it wasn't properly shipped and then could like have like, give you botulism. Oh, Jesus. And it's like pouring it into a shoe box.

I might be wrong. I might be misremembering, but I think some people would, like, get their package open it, and it, like, when they open the bottle, it would, like, explode. Oh, yeah. Because it was just, like, so...

Like, fermented or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure there was, like, ranch in it. So there was, like, dairy product. Right. Okay, I'm going to read you the roles of the people involved. Thank you. Assassin, mercenary.

Yeah, because I don't need... I'm not, like, I... And tomm, sir. Um, um, I don't want, like, I don't want to harass them, but I do want to make fun of their job time. So the people... You will get cockroaches and spiders. Right.

That's what I'm saying. The people involved in the... who were part of the lawsuit that were accused for sending these people terrible things and stalking them were David Winig, the CEO. What? Actually, being the CEO is like so embarrassing because this is a... small like little editorial. Yeah. You've run eBay. eBay.

Do we have any stats on like how many readers this newsletter had beforehand? Like before all of this came out? Well now? It's now millions. I wish. Man, that's so silly. Steve Weiner, the chief communications officer who texted several people, take her down. We are going to crush this lady and I want to see ashes.

Oh, excuse me? From his warlock tower? I want to see Ashes. That's like what you said if you want to go to jail. This guy is horrible, but I have to admit I want to see Ashes is a hard. James Baugh, Senior Director of Safety and Security. Oh, I bet. David Harville, Director of Global Resiliency.

What? I will defend us from every old lady. The director of global resiliency was the one who was charged with installing a GPS tracker on their car. What the fuck? They were stalking these people? They were stalking them. Brian Gilbert. No, not.

No, no. Senior manager of special operations for global security. Special ops. Swat. Yeah, it's like the CIA of eBay. Chris Kyle. Jack Bauer. Yeah, no, literally.

And then Stephanie Stockwell. manager of Global Intelligence Center. I'm sorry, her name is Stockwell? Yeah, Stephanie Stockwell. Interesting. And wrote a fake person of interest report to feed a police false suspect list. It's easier them away from eBay. There's an eBay.

There's an eBay whistleblower named John SharePrice. And he says everything's fine. So it literally was John eBay. No, it was. It was John eBay. eBay's like, I think it's, you know, it's not run by its original founders, I don't think anymore. But to have such thin skin in a like mini billion dollar like market cap company. Even see it?

Yeah. How did you even find it? You got a Google alert? On eBay. Yeah. Every day you get thousands of emails from Google. It just kind of makes me wonder like, this is not surely not the first critical article written about eBay in the last 10 years.

I've certainly heard lots of things critical of eBay over the years because I, you know, I'm in like little collector spaces and stuff. And there's a lot to complain. Like I have a friend who like runs a business that includes eBay as a large part of it. And I've heard all kinds of horrible shit about eBay. And none of them got shipped like a pipe bomb or a bolt of lightning. He was sent a little grimlin. He's still trying to get rid of that lives inside of his car.

Oh my God. Just insane. They would think Halloween mask is a pretty funny one because that's just like spooky. Yeah. I think. They saw an episode of Black Mirror. Doing a bit of skimming here. The reason that the sort of like executive suite was felt threatened is because in the

newsletter, they've had friction with these people since 2009. So it's an old blood feud. This is like a trick. Drake versus Kendrick. Yeah. They're like, they're like. They openly criticize eBay's, like, board and are advocating for, like, new people to step in. So they had it coming.

So it's like their job's right. So they were asking for it. Is you comfortable? But that's very normal, I feel. I think that, like, because I, look, I don't even know what their takes are and I might disagree with them. But if their whole, I saw on their, like, byline or the line under their, like, wordmark was, like, about empowering sellers. And so if it's like eBay sellers have plenty of access to grind against eBay because of fees. And eBay takes to like a big percentage.

And there's like the way they handle like refunds and they. I'm sure there's like a big surface area of like issues to have. Also, you're just allowed to criticize a company. Like I unless, unless this old couple was like doxing the CEO and like slandering him specifically. Why won't they send us a Halloween mask and bugs? Yeah. I'm sick of eBay. Her name is Lauren Shoeba.

I want to see ashes. Red dot. I do. I mean, it's just a cigarette. Yeah, it's just like a cigarette. There is like unsurprised, like, in a way, like unsurprising crossover from what we're talking about before this, which is thin skinnedness of executive roles. Yeah. Because they're so used to everything being easy and for them.

But as soon as, as soon as you literally just levy like, hey, you maybe aren't doing exactly what you, I'm being set on fire. There was a website called shit. senders.com. And I don't know if it worked, but it was like a website where you could order like various types of animal feces to send to someone's doorstep. That has to be illegal. I think it's like a biohazard standpoint. I think it is illegal. But the thing was that it was like the early 2000s. And we didn't have laws back then. The internet was just like whatever. You walk into a saloon. Things with a different bad day. I am going to connect this to another story that Jordan, you'll want to hear this. So speaking of eBay and speaking of, um,

finding vintage goods and reselling and blah, blah, blah. I want to talk about Gary V. Oh, brilliant. So for those who don't know, Gary Vee is like, I guess he's a marketing guy, but he's like most known for like posting a lot of content, having a lot of podcasts, and talking about investments. I think he owned a wine coming in the past. And, uh, you familiar with Gary Vee?

No, I'm not all my gosh. You would love him. You're a big fan of drop shipping. Oh, yeah. What's funny is, yeah, one of his things is like, you've got to, you've got to. You've got to send like 100 DMs a day. Yeah. You love to get so much noise and you need shell companies on shell companies on shell companies.

It's funny because I used to listen to his podcast when I was like in my early 20s because I was in my like rise and grind era. Yeah. It feels like very, I'm sure, intuitive as a young, maybe like feeling disenfranchised kind of dude where you're like, well, I don't, not sure what I'm doing or where I'm at. I'll become a business guy. How do I become a business guy? I'll look up a business guy. I can pay $2,000 for his course. Oh, God.

Okay, yeah. So one of those, one of those days. But he's like, I think he's the king of those people because I don't, he made all his money from like this advertising company that he owned. And he was just a, he wasn't like a grifter in the traditional sense of like by my course or whatever. It was more like he had this like multi-million dollar advertising company or something. And but then he just loved content and loved like the internet space, I guess.

and then also just those type of people just get into everything like investment related and so he's like friendly with like Logan Paul and all those people of the world. Just all the best people. All the best people. What's frustrating is that like I I like collect like various things like Pokemon card and stuff

and so I've like these people are like in the periphery sometimes. Yeah. And I'm and I'm aware of like all of them. But Gary Vee, so one thing he did was like he talks a lot about like, or at least you used to, one of his content things was like going to garage sales and like finding like a beanie baby and like selling it on eBay and stuff. And it's like, you can make so much money doing this. And you can cuddle them in the meantime.

Oh, and you know what? The only message, well, the thing is I used to think that his messages were not like harmful. It was more just the packaging because he would often talk about things like, oh, you know, if you think it's too late. His biggest thing that he's still like repost a hundred times a week or whatever is like, if you think you're too old to start like you're not. you've got so much time. And I'm like, okay, that's generally fine.

And it's just like, I think he comes from a place of capitalist brandedness, like chronic capitalism disease. Yeah. Rather than like sheer evil. Like, I like, that's lawful evil. That's my personal belief. I think it's like, it's like, it's like extreme capitalism disorder. Yeah.

And, and so he's devout. He's defying his own schick. He's not. Very sincere. Because I've, so I don't know if I've revealed this in the past, but I've gotten various DMs from Gary V. And these DMs are always, I don't know how I got my, I don't know. It turns into an advertisement for Gary Vee.

Yeah. So if you use code charges. And he's always selling something. And so his new thing is he has, and it's been around for years, by the way, it's not actually new. He has this thing called V friends, which is essentially, uh, imagine if. something like, remember NFTs. Okay, just remember them again.

And that's kind of this idea. It's like really shittily drawn characters that are named like intuitive iguana and shit like that or gentle giant. Hell yeah. And the art, the art looks like clip art like or like something that would be an NFT. Where do I put my credit card in five? Right, no, 100%. Oh, wait.

That's what we're going to charge you 100% of your credit limit. Brandtion. Amy bowl anchovy? They don't have a single one that starts with X? Yeah Ambitious Angel Yeah Wow

Arbitranging Admiral It's really good That's really good That's one where he was in his bag Yeah He filled himself So That was like the fifth idea

So they've So he's managed Through his Extreme networking skills Has managed to like Do deals with like tops and stuff Like real like card manufacturers And so there's

There's like, I think there's cards for the V friends. There's various like-comic products. Yeah, it's, oh yeah, look, top chrome V-friends. Wow. And it's a lot of designs that if you, like, see them at a distance, if your grandma's looking for the Spider-Man, my grandson, what did the Spider-Man? And it's like, no, that's suspicious spider. Yeah, they have comic books.

Like, he's tried to like, it's like he, okay, if you create, let's say, hello kitty. and it's like a big deal. Then you go, okay, let's merchandise this. Let's do every possible vertical because Hello Kitty is extremely popular character. Imagine if you did all of that without popular characters. Right. It's like what this is. And it just feels like it feels like it feels like it leans into this like collectibles hype cycle

that we've been in for the past couple of years. We had this big boom around the pandemic and then another big boom is happening recently. People are like punching each other at Costco for Pokemon. cards and they're like pulling children out of line to like steal their spot and stuff. And so all of this setup is to say that there is this Gary Vee clip that's been going around that has become a vocal stem for me. Oh, I'm excited. Let's ask about the three characters that you think are kind of the most left on right now.

Tenacious termite, creative crab, and happy hermit crab. Though the gentle giant's about to go through a massive glow up and so you're a gentle giant collector. Gentle Giant's getting a massive, massive, massive glow. Massive glove. Gentle Giant's getting a massive. Intuitive iguana is going to have its day. It is funny seeing somebody like, again, it's like missing one of the corner pieces in the puzzle where like they don't know what fandom is.

Yeah. Or like can't imagine why it would exist independent of like, well, why would you collect something? Yeah. Would you, what affection? I don't know what that is. It's like, it's collecting something without the connection to it. it if that makes sense. Like what is?

Collecting is the is the act. And I guess that there is that like people collect stamps or coins. Yes. But I think that there's a passion usually with like the history and even even things with like people who collect old like bills and things like that. Locations. Yeah. But there is also this like like I'm a Pokemon fan and like I can note a tourist in the

Pokemon like people who collect Pokemon like I collect Pokemon but I also play the game. I'm like super engaged with the community, right? I was on a Pokemon collab video today with with some VGC, Pokemon VGC YouTubers. And it's like, but you can also tell the people who it's like, they only know who Charzart is and they just think of it as a place to park their money. Right. And there's also like Saudi oil money. Like there's a lot of people going to Dubai to sell like $800,000 cards. Jesus. I know. It's crazy. Anytime I think of Dubai now considering how many things have now been placed, how many brick and mortar neon hat stores or whatever have been installed,

like Mr. Beast Burger's Own. It's sounding more and more like the Vegas strip. I'm just working and being inundated by a guy. I'm going to let you know how it is. I'm doing a comedy show there. Me, Bill, Louis. With all of the best comedians. All my favorite guys.

Yeah. Me and Shane are going to hit that up? I only use their first names because I'm so on the scene. I remember you being very kind of judicious about merchandising stuff. Like, yeah. We would talk about that, like, I think healthily. Yeah, I mean, like, for me, I think like when it comes to the merch stuff for, for my stories, it's more of just sort of like, I don't know how to market it.

Because like I, so within fandom, there's sort of two big buckets of, of fandom participation, right? Outside of just like engaging with the thing itself, there's a curative fandom and transformative fandom and curative fandom is curation right it's collecting things it's updating the wiki it's sort of knowing everything about the world to the text the existing like canon text and then transformative fandom is like fan art fanfic you know like engaging with discussions about what you think about the characters et cetera et cetera and that's always been kind of my sphere and that's not to say that i don't like own merch of like the the fandoms that i'm in but i think i think like the sort of curative side of

fandom is something that I still don't like totally intuitively understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I never really know how to like give like my fans like what they want in that regard because I'm just, you know, because it's like for me, I'm like, I want like maybe a t-shirt and like a print. But like everything beyond that, I don't really know. Like it's just not my. You only want the connective tissue that comes from that, which is a hundred percent of

what's missing for none of that. Because like as someone who engages in that like a curative part of. fandom in some of the like fandums that I'm a part of and has also like sold merch and stuff. I have no interest in creating that type of relationship with the media that because I'm not creating the type of media that lends itself to that. Sure. And I think that you could kind of commodify or kind of like characterify yourself and and maybe some people do that.

It's like not my thing. And so I can understand like being like. all of the things that I have, like, and people have seen me do this. It's like, if it's like a thing, like any of these, like things I can tell a story about, you know what I mean? Like, um,

the infinite noise here, this is written by like a big fat loser. I think through that earlier today. It's not for me. No, but, but yeah, so it's like,

the trilogy. There's some stuff that like, what the trilogy? I wrote three books. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

you wrote three books. You talked about burning the candle on both. I remember specifically writing when you're writing in front of noise and your bones were shaking. The first thing is the artist.

There was, the coolest thing ever was we had a group chat. We had a group chat that's like thanked in the beginning of there's an acknowledgement. Yeah, the boys. I was very happy about that. I just realized

the cover of our Patreon episodes, the RSS feed, is a polloid from your place. Yeah. No way. Address. Your name. Oh, it is.

It's so true. That's so sad. Oh, that's awesome. It's just your face. They're like, who is this? They're finally getting an explanation. Oh my God, it finally makes sense. But yeah, it's like, I think that just like the, for me, a lot of the stuff is like,

it's anchored in my youth and things that like, like worlds that I became very invested in when I was young. And I don't know that I could build that relationship with anything moving forward. You know what I mean? That's interesting. that sort of relationship. Like, because I don't, like, I, like, I, like, love Expedition 33. I, like, have the SkiA plushy.

I got the, like, vinals for the soundtrack. Like, Lori and Testart is a genius. Like, the, but that's, like, where it ends. Yeah. You know? And I'm not, because that's, like, I got to get to work. You know what I mean? Yeah.

But I, I, on the flip side, I enjoy learning more about the history of, of the things that, I guess the way I engage a lot is with history and like, um, context and additional like, like I would watch a documentary about the creation of Expedition 33. Yep. You know what I mean? Totally. Yeah. And, and, um, there's, I think a mystique to things that you, when you have that neural

plasticity of being a little younger and you get like, things embed themselves as like the foundation of it. It's like I'm, no matter how long I live here, I'm never going to have a full American accent, right? Like it's just like it would be work. It would be time spent curating. No matter how many like languages someone learns their strongest is always going to be the one that they got when they, their brain was at their squishiest. But like, I can't think of anything that I'm like obsessed, obsessed with that I was not pretty obsessed with at like 60.

Yeah. But maybe early 20s still. Yeah. But then after that it's like the soft nostalgia buff pushes it a little up. Yeah. I get like a little extra help for like game shows that were only in the UK between 6.30 a.m. and 7 a. Yeah.

On a Wednesday. They're like, you guys remember Raven? That's, no. I think I think I do still get obsessed with things in the same way that I did as a young person. That's cool. Yeah.

Yeah. And I feel like very fortunate to sort of be able to like tap into that space. But like I don't get to choose it. I don't get to like sort of be like. It finds you. Yeah, exactly. I don't get to be like, oh, I really like this thing and I want to engage with it more.

It's like, I'll just like watch something or read something or play something. And then it'll be like, oh, and this is my life now for the next six to 24 weeks. Okay, well, I do have a very. In fairness, I do do that. It's just the way that I engage with that, I guess, is like it's more in the, like, for example, I've been on a freaking bender playing Pokemon VGC because it was like, it's like a competitive Pokemon battling stuff. And a creator friend of mine ran a tournament that was like an invitational. And we were all matched with like professional players in this thing because it's like got an esport element. And it's like one of the things that will be happening at the Pokemon.

championships. And so, and I got like super into it. And I've been going so deep and I've like built study materials for myself and I've like all this stuff. And it's like because I don't know why. It's like it's very engaging and it's connecting me deeper to something that I care about. And I also has all these other elements of stuff I love. I like have played strategy games my whole life. I've like done, you know, like competitions and various things my whole life and that like type of thing. And then also I've engaged with the community. of people who play this for a living in like the types of conversations and the there's also the it comes it's very similar to like sports where it's like I also am interested in the storylines

of yeah of players and their journeys and like kind of watching that type of thing unfold like with like smash brothers it's like I don't really play competitive smash brothers melee or ultimate at all but I watched like supernova this weekend and um I was like oh my god this is so hype or like last week there was a tournament a major tournament where Lod, a player who had been competing for 20 years and he's a doctor. He's like a hand surgeon now.

Oh, good question. Yeah, I know. No, that's literally, I think that's why. He, he, it was him in the finals versus this kid rap monster. He's like a 19-year-old kid who plays Luigi and who's like this new upcoming thing. He's younger than the game. You know, like that. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. He's been listening to the bar sessions since he was married. Yeah, yeah. And then

And then Lod won, like, he was like the first, like he won this tournament. It's like the first major he's ever won in his career. And it's like 20 years into his like competing career. And I'm like, wow, that's so, that's so interesting. That's so cool. Wow. And then also Luigi is a character that everyone thought was bad for the entirety of the thing. And then there was like small communities trying to make it work.

And then someone kind of broke through. And suddenly it changes the whole narrative on like what people thought about this 20 year old game. And I think that's like super interesting. That's so cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, I think, you know, I just realized like it's, I think the last time I was like obsessive, obsessed, obsessed with something new was when, uh, when we were working together and seeing the way that Evan, musicman spectacular, Evan Chambers, um, look him up, find his address, you know, everyone over to his house. Yeah, I'm by the shoulders. Kissing the cheek.

I'll do that. I'll do that. Cause in the cheek. Yeah. Um, seeing him produce music and do stuff like that got me. into it. Yeah. And then similarly, I think anything I've been enthusiastic, enthusiastic about is always

kind of a recursive thing. Yeah. Like, which I guess is fandom in many cases, especially the transformative fandom, but like getting locked in on a new game. And then all of a sudden, like, I was enjoying Final Fantasy 7 remake. And then a lot of us were playing it at the same time. That was the best. my enthusiasm skipped to attend.

And then we went to the Square Enix Cafe like last week or whatever. You got a very gray curry. I got a, it was based on, it was based on the metal slime from Dragon Quest. It was supposed to be gray. Yes, it's thematically gray, but it is interesting.

They chose that specific. There are various colors, like for example, orange that they could have used to represent a slime from Dragon Quest, which would maybe line up more with a curry, but I digress. I guess every other Katoo curry is that. Yeah, that's the orange one.

Yeah, and then what was different was making gray. So I had to close my eyes so that it didn't make me think I was eating metal. Anyway, but V Friends is like, if there's like an iceberg of fandom, V friends is like the tip of the iceberg poking above the water and then that's it. And then Gary Vee's like, buy my iceberg tips. You know what I mean? There's nothing beneath the surface. You'll have tips of ice until the end of time. And everyone will remember that it didn't go much deeper than that.

Yeah. What was it? Gentle Giants can I have a glow up? Yeah, I sent Jacob some screenshots. Gentle Giants are gonna have a massive glow up. It's like, why? Intuitive iguana will have his day. He'll have his day.

He's just like, why? Do you know what I mean? I don't know. That's what I mean. Because it has to. So yeah. What does it glow up mean for gentle giant? It's that he looks like shit.

He looks like absolute garbage. It looks like when... The glove is getting good art. Yeah. Seriously. It looks like Homer on the Tracy Olbin show before they got it right. Yeah. So I did go to like last sold on eBay, which is like where you can see actual sales.

Oh, interesting. Because there's a big thing on eBay. This is like a pro tip if you are not, haven't really used eBay, is that you'll search for something and someone will have like a buy it now price of something that's like $50. Yeah. And then you're like, oh, that's more expensive than I thought. But if you look at last sold and then you see that it's actually $20, you could like offer someone like $20 and they might accept your offer because really they were just trying to

sell something quickly they were trying to watermark the idea of the price at a higher thing or give the perception that their thing is more valuable than it is because everybody's gentle giants because if no one if if no one if there's no sales data the price is whatever i say it is right anyway gentle giant is selling for two dollars so uh get in now well yeah Yeah, because once these guys glow up. Once he's got his glove. Now, who got this one for $20? See, that's the thing where I'm like, this is just,

someone's going to get a rude awakening in like a year where, like how NFTs all went to zero. Yeah. I don't. I'm sorry. I can mainly these like full circle connective things. They feel like it keeps coming up. But like how it must be so confusing when you're a bloodless, ghoulish executive. to keep seeing the consensus from just normal people that the thing that you're proposing makes no fucking says and has no appeal.

Yeah. Going, yeah, right, you don't even have a boat. And then launching the thing, it being widely mocked and not successful again and again and again. How often does this have to happen until someone like, well, what's wrong? Is it that I'm not listening or is it the people? Did you see the end of Oak Street that knew like you and McGregor and have my movie? No. It's about like their, their neighborhood moves and then there are dinosaurs.

Like it's kind of like an adventure thing. Interesting. How did this is? Well, so, and there's a dog in the movie, I guess. And so Warner Brothers, I'm pretty sure it's Warner Brothers, decided to do a, like, AI dog podcast promo. That's what that's for. And the comments are brutal. We should pull that up because I've seen just images of that. And it's like, and then I watched the thing and I was like, this is just.

bad. Like, even without it being AI, this is just like, it's not funny. The voices are bad. Like, and guaranteed they're going to like continue to do it. Even though they're, they're going to cost them nothing in the comments. It's nuts. Yeah. And also like, what a weird promo for like, I guess there's a dog in the movie, but like, you're like, no one has a connection to the dog. Right. Like your movie's about dinosaur. Yeah. Yeah. It's like Jurassic Park. Yeah. Make it Obi-Wan. Yeah. Um, you loved Buzz Lightyear. And now he has a podcast. And it's like, I don't, like, really engage with him for his ideas. Yeah, exactly.

I like to, the film, story story, I kind of get him. The dog doesn't talk in the movie, presumably. Yeah. Hang on. The poster for this movie with dinosaurs. There's a little dinosaur in the background. There's a big dinosaur on the front saying this movie has me in it. Yeah, I really, I really don't.

Oh, we have to listen to this to sound. But you weren't just there for the ear scratches. You did some serious action work, too, right? Oh, yeah. running, jumping, dodging dinosaurs and when things get really bad I come back to help distract. Running, no intonation, whatever.

Running, jumping dinosaurs. There are air voices that are better than this. Yeah. There's just normal voices. Is he a blue healer? Oh yeah, I think so. To shout out to that kind of dog, though. And it's just like, it's just that creepy,

uncanny thing. Yeah. I did unfortunately catch Ollie watching this podcast the other day. Oh my God. And Ollie's been saying some really, He's not right, that's why we don't give him a mic.

Yeah, he's saying some misogynist stuff lately. Yeah, he's been saying a lot about how, like, women shouldn't be able to vote because they can't do jujitsu. He's been saying a lot about how much to be British people. He's like, somebody get these dinosaurs? These brontos out of here. But yeah, like, Morton Brothers is not going to learn anything from this.

Like, to your point. Like, they're just going to be like, oh, well, okay, so the AI just needs to not be dogs. It needs to be in halfway, actually. They should be bigger? Like, should we do this with dinosaurs then? Have you seen, and this is maybe not something we need to talk about, but how people are doing conspiracy theories about Ann Hathaway's pregnancy because of her shoes, she was pictured on like a red carpet and people who have never talked to a woman in their lives are like, that doesn't look like a proper pregnant belly. That's right.

This is such a thing with like pregnant women. Literally what are you like when you're pregnant, it's big perfectly circle. Yep. It goes from totally flat to just big perfect circle. People are like they're sharing. They're showing diagrams that may as well be taken from like WikiHow. And it's like, I'm noticing this doesn't line up with the, uh, just the emoji of the pregnant woman.

With that, I'm always curious as to like, what is the, like, what is the thing behind this that you want to, like, like, what is Anne Hathaway trying to do by pretending to be pregnant? Well, I think, and this is unfortunate, I think that if I'm putting my thinking cap on, it's connected to how everyone wants to believe that everyone in Hollywood is in something. sort of grand conspiracy. Yes. Sure. And so, and so, and so, in, so instead of thinking about how Ian Hathaway has really strong core and abs, and if someone has a really strong core, maybe the way that they're, their pregnant belly looks is like slightly different.

Yeah. Very tall. And it's also, but also not all pregnancies are the same. And there's like tons of variants in all of this. So the baby comes out different. And that's, and interesting. Are you sure? And instead of that, instead it's like, no, Anne Hathaway is faking her pregnancy because the

the underground Hollywood elites are trying to do something. They're trying to make us like Ann Hathelma. Adrenachrome. Yeah. Go somewhere. Like, and you're just like, I don't know what this is. I don't know. It's something's happening that's interesting for me to post about.

Well, I also think that the people just like hate thinking about women's bodies if they, if it's not like in a sexual way, you know. You're right. It is so, I feel like if there is a default thing to like just instinctively rail against, it is something about a woman presenting herself in any way, anywhere. And like, hmm, the Met Gala, Zendaya wearing all white. He's trying to become a white person. But to do white genocide also?

I don't know what I believe, but I know I don't like it. I don't like that a woman is doing something that I don't approve of. Too many of the girlfriends in Spider-Man are black. And it's making me angry. And I was just say, in reality, it's like a. But oh, someone did a weird color grade job after the photographer released the photo. It's like not the real photo. But imagine if it happened.

Oh, no. But see, I- That's such a thing too. And people do say that. They do say, well, no, but you can imagine it. Yeah. And I'm like, I can imagine a lot of things. Well, with AI images now, too.

It's like, well, but this could be real. And it's speaking to a real feeling or speaking to like a, you know, and it's like, but it's not real. And here's an image of a dog with wings. And it's speaking to a real feeling of how cool it would be if a doghead wings. That'd be pretty rad, right? I can't argue with that. I was just going to say, I have a little aside. I was talking to Jordan about this last night,

but there was an experiment in 2025 where, and the only way this relates is pregnant women, where. Do tell. They conducted, this comes from the National Library of Medicine. They didn't experiment where a female researcher pretended to be pregnant and got on the Milan metro system. and over 138 rides,

they counted how many people would offer them, offer her their seat. And it was about like 37% of people. But then they did, that was the control group. They did an experimental one where that same researcher rode the metro a bunch, but also a man in a full Batman costume would get on the metro at the same time. And the amount of people that offered her their seat jumped to 67. percent.

Wait, what? What did that prove? How did they get to? I feel like there's got to be a stage between any, like a normal observer and Batman. Yeah. How did they come up with that experiment? Because Batman was there at more people were like. Right.

There's a guy just dresses Jesus Christ. Yeah. That's a Batman that I'm a good person. Yeah. I mean, if Batman's here, I got to make sure he doesn't beat me up. Also, I mean, dude fell off. I thought Bruce Wayne had a lot of money. Yeah.

He was running the Batmobile in the shop. But that also implies that. people are like, this is the real bad man. Oh my God. He's going to beat me up if I don't. He's going to beat me up. Just like the joke I would not give up. That is so bizarre. I wonder if it's like a second guessing thing. It's like you didn't give it a second thought that you didn't get up for your seat even though there was like a placard behind you that says like please offer your seat to like a pregnant lady or someone who's old or who needs help or just be a fucking citizen. Well, I wonder if it is just tied to like being more aware of your surroundings.

Because if normal people are getting on the bus, I'm not. I'm looking at my phone. not doing anything. But if Batman gets on, I'm like, oh, wow. There's a woman is pregnant. Yeah, there's plausible deniability, too, because it's like, you see someone in your peripheral vision and you're like, well, if I don't look at them, they don't exist. I don't notice that they need to sit down. You're looking at a guy to pull Batman.

And then you look at Batman and you're like, they got me. They got me with Batman. Yeah, you throw in a cape and a cow. Yeah, and I've fortunately seen the pregnant woman. Wouldn't it feel so good to be one of those like skeptics on the Gotham news, like early Batman? Yeah. And they're like, what do you think of this Batman? They're keeping a cow vigilante.

We can't have these guys. We got good police officers that can do the job. And then you also get someone else gets to be the one that's like, he's the only hero. He saved my lollipop for Mr. Freeze or whatever. He said, I love him. That's going to feel so good. Yeah.

This is an aside. Do you guys see the new Spider-Man? Not yet. No spoilers. Okay, yeah, no spoilers. She wouldn't get it. It's good. Boys only.

Boys only. The last thing we wanted to talk about was, is it someone is saying that, you should avoid your child being bullied by making them be normal. Kind of. So, as with many things that we talk about, it starts with the TikTok. Of the white woman. It's like the Star Wars crawl at the beginning.

Ohio, a long time account. A white woman in a kitchen. Oh, man. It's a nice kitchen. Yeah. Yeah, the white woman in white kitchen is the equivalent of, 19 year old holding the thing to their mouth in yellow bathroom. I was saying, or Andrew Tate next to Bugatti.

Either way, they're all sleep paralysis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. Nightmare blood. Parents do not let your child be weird. Now, I made a post about this a while back, and it's funny. I've seen a lot of people who have taken it since then and then put their own spin on it. But let me be very clear on what that means.

Before she explains what she means, let's guess. what it means to be weird. Look at the iteration. Don't let your child be weird. Don't let them like things or express feelings. Or like, I'm like, I don't know what weird means to her, but it's giving someone who is popular in high school. You know what I mean?

Don't let them deserve to be bullied. No five nights of Freddy's. I'm trying to think. I feel like you were screwed. No, no color in their hair. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, my gosh.

No, no, wooden creature style, non-binary. No non-binary. No non-binary. No loss in their rooms. No vans, no converse. I might be outdated on this. My instinct just immediately always goes to like, gender performance failure as a default.

Like, don't let your boys cry and don't let you, but I feel like... Yeah, don't let your, your boy should always wear blue and your girl should always wear pink. Yeah, girls have to have long hair, boys have to have short hair. I feel like that's now, like, it's still operational. Like, it's still very present and expected, whatever,

like an enforced in a lot of places, but I think it's chic to not say that anymore. I think it's chic to say like boys can cry or whatever. Feel like it's going to be in that realm. Yeah. There's going to be some gender normativity. Do you think be, don't, don't let them not go to the party? Do you identify with being a weird kid in school? Yeah, I was bullied relentlessly.

Yeah. And that you deserve. And that was good? Oh, 100% is bad. Yeah, yeah. Because my parents loved me. And so they, which is crazy. So they like let me be weird.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. They, I guess they didn't have TikTok back then. No. Yeah. What's funny is I feel like when I was in school, weird was a very tangible topic. Like I could list off the things. Yeah.

But now in retrospect, I'm kind of looking at it like, like through the like warped lens and going like, well, it's just vibes. Yeah. Because weird is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. I think, I do think that the gender normativity is really a huge part of it. And I also think it's just sort of like, like, when you're a kid, it's just sort of like, it's so based on appearance and the way that you dress and like, like, I was bullied for being chubby. You know, it's like that was kind of the main thing. Yeah.

Oh, I had that. Yeah. So it's just like, it's just like, yeah, failing to perform like being a perfect human specimen. Yeah, because it's like, it's like in whatever way that means. It's like if you imagine the just like thinking about like evolutionary psychology, like being in the out group is bad. like and so I think that like children who have no empathy like but have this like maybe I'm just making this up but like but like have a normal human drive to to connect and be in community it's very easy to other people it's a shortcut it's a shortcut to just like you're not you don't

belong I'm not part of something so I'm going to make someone so much less part of something that by default let butt of something. Yeah, yeah. And then I secure my position in something. Yeah. Which is like, you know, very intuitive and I don't even really begrudge like kids for their first order thinking. Kids, no way.

But like there's, there's, the issue is when, I don't know, a parental figure maybe encourages it. Or a teacher. I'm like, interesting. So this person's a teacher too. Oh, she is. My sister. Your teacher's not being weird.

Was a teacher. And she said, stopping weird or I'll stuff you in the locker. And it works. And it works. It works. It taught every level. Lots of kids with varying exceptionalities and have seen it in the classroom.

I do like the term various exceptionalities. Yeah. That's an interesting frame. That's a euphemism for something. Yeah, it's a euphism for something. And I don't really know what. Let me tell you what you need to avoid. Yes, your child should be unique.

Yes, they should have their own style. Yes, they don't need to be exactly like everyone else. However, if your child has habits and tendencies that are causing them to be ostracized in school, they do not have peer relationships, it has gone too far. If they don't have peer relationships, so it's like if they don't have friends at all, if they're not popular. Well, because it's like... What are the habits and tendencies?

If they're getting bullied for things that they like, it's their fault, not. the other kids. That is actually, it is kind of interesting seeing someone like try and reverse engineer social dynamics from base principles. Yeah. She's like, well, I was popular or like, and actually something I do want to throw out is I'm not really, I'm not a big fan of the like, the phrenology stuff of like, well, there's the popular kids. And then the prep. And it's like, it's, you know, it's social groups and conditioning. And a lot of the time, the first friend you have is like maybe a direction that you drift towards and then all of a sudden you're one of the emo kids, not because like that was in your birth chart, but just, you know, that's where you ended up.

Yeah. And all the time, like, popular kid is ascribed to kind of just like passive, friendly enough kids that just aren't like exceptionally made fun of or like other than some other way. Or have status. Yeah. Like, they might just be rich. Yeah. And I'm just like, hey, nothing but love.

Similarly to like, I know someone. someone that grew up wealthy I don't want to intuitively be like I am like this person but if they you know play racquetball with a baby like do something evil I think you're bad What's evil about playing right

What if the baby's good at racquetball? Oh Sorry something we Either cut or get around Is I said biggest butt ever As in there's a big butt coming And I don't want them to think I'm about A child with a big cat

I think because it coincides with her saying, however, I think it's probably high. I think that was clear. I think a big butt is my various exceptionality. So the other thing about what she's saying is she's describing someone with no community. And I feel like even weird, even being a weird kid, I had friends who were weird like me. I mean, at times where I didn't have friends, it was never really, it wasn't my, or was it a discreet one. monkeinesses or whatever, she said, exceptionalities.

Various exceptionalities. It was like more to do with my activities, like my hobbies at the time being a very isolationist and like I was, I was a weird kid, but then I got, I don't know, there was one, I just remember one particular time when I was like maybe like 14, I, I, or 13 maybe, I was super lonely and I just didn't know how to make friends because I had friends, but then I left the high school that I was at, secondary school. And I couldn't figure out how, and I think this is a common adult thing as well, how to like reintroduce that thing that kind of just you don't really plan when you're a kid. And I think then I happened to get into some more sociable hobbies and joined like some social club stuff and ended up with friends.

But I didn't do anything manually. And I didn't do you have any environment. Like I did have a couple years in middle school where like I genuinely didn't have any, like I would eat lunch alone and everything. But I went to a really small school. There were 100 kids in my class. And so it's like sort of falling from one social group before you find another one. You're just kind of like, you're just kind of free floating.

Yeah. Because there just like aren't a lot of other kids free floating. Right. And so like, but then yeah, eventually I like started doing choir and theater. And then it's just like you sort of default hang out with those kids. Right. And yeah. And it's just like, um, introverted.

Yeah. It's just like saying, if you, hmm, like if you have anything, like, finding like-minded people is like always the advice that we give for people who are like in college or trying to figure stuff out there. But like when you're that young, it's really just kind of like, easier than done. Who's around? Yeah. It's like so. My first friends were the kids on my street. Does she mean shy?

Yeah. Okay, let's let her continue. Let's see. Let's see. Let's hear her out. Yeah, let's hear her. She's right. So far.

with her exceptionality. It's a very white kitchen. And a very white woman. It literally looks like she's in like the culinary section of heaven. It looks like, okay, it looks like we're in the process of painting and we have it colored in the rest of the room yet. Or we're in like the take on movies. She's kind of jacked though. Shout out.

Probably is rocket ball. And let them be however they want to be and send them out. because what you're doing is your s has gone too far. Like an Evangelion. As the parent, you need to parent them. Your job is not to just love them and let them be however they want to need. Hold on, lady. Your job is still up.

Your job is not. I feel like I know what she's trying to say, but saying your job is not to love them. You just cannot say. Like a only. Simply only, you got to say something. Yeah. I look we I've been doing this show for years

and I'll be quite frank with you not always easy saying something cogent off the cuff but if I was talking about parenting my kid this is a video by Gendo Ikari your job is not to love them you must put them in the Ava

and you must save Tokyo 3 from the ages she'd be pushing up her glasses on a balcony I just don't I get I do see what's happening right is like it's intuitive but it's almost Like she doesn't have like the, um, the dialect for the thing she's talking about. Yeah. The, the, the, the verbiage isn't there.

Like to someone else like minded, this is clear. No. Yeah. No. But it's a dog whistle isn't fair because that's like implying sneakiness. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, um, you know, it's almost like slang.

She's saying like, don't be weird. And then in the back of your brain like, oh, yeah, I remember those things. I think about like so much of how we view the world through our own lens. And I kind of feel like we're like, like, witnessing someone projecting their like fun house mirror picture of the world onto us yeah you know what i mean like don't be like josh i also yeah i was gonna say do you think she has like a professional uh management style one-on-one with her kid and he's like hey timmy you're fucking weird and you need to cut that shit out is my job is not to love you what did i do what's like weird about oh my god

you are you have so you have various eccentricities oh my traits or what was it called yeah various Exceptionalities. Exceptionalities. That's very quality review. Yeah. Unfortunately, Blue Shield can't provide you insurance. You have pre-existing exceptionalities. Yeah, you have various exceptionsalities that prevent us from.

Your bill is going to be $9 billion. Yeah, it's like a fancy way of saying like gout. Or it's something that would be said in a scientific paper. Yeah. We've observed in group B there were various exceptions. Yeah, it's like a, or like a CW TV show where they're doing science, but not in a specific way. We've detected various anomalies and acceptalities. Exceptionalities is just a name of a CW show from.

Oh, yeah. The exceptionalities. Oh, yeah, why are there's like four kids that they're exceptionals? Yeah. And everyone else is gray. They're the only ones in color. Posters, uh, four kids, silhouette, like blue background.

They're walking into the mist. Yeah. There's a stag like, and it's like, what's that, you know? It's the animorph. So it's what I'm talking about. Is you're sending them out to ridicule and scorn and no positive peer relationships. Evil Anya Taylor Joy is right.

Oh, wow. Oh, my God. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I see it. You need to lovingly guide them and instruct them from a place of love so that they can go out and make positive relationships. Imagine if you didn't know the context of this video

and I told you it was someone talking about Jesus. Yeah, you're right. You know what I mean? Have you seen those YouTubers? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like, and I, you have to be guided. You talk about missionaries.

Yeah, okay, wait. I guess she said you're sending them out for scorn and ridicule. Yeah, and you have to guide them and instruct them, but instruct them to do what? I'm going to need an example. Dormant. I will say, we're only like two-thirds of the way through this video, and she, the rest of this video, she is very vague. She just sorts of repeats some of her points. And so people were upset about her saying.

these things. Because she said she was going to be very clear and then wasn't. Yeah. And then people who also stitched this video and were claiming that this sounds like it's sort of like targeting neurodivergent kids, kids who have like differences that they can't control. Read the room skills have to be fostered early for success later. What they're talking about is like intuition socially.

Yeah. But like you can foster it to an extent, but you. if the exceptionality is like something that like ASD or something. Right, exactly. It's not something. You can just be like, go to sports more. Also, yeah,

it's just talking about like socializing your kids. Like, yeah, you should socialize your kids. Like you should like bring them to activities and have them hang out with other kids. Talk to them. Yeah. It kind of feels a little bit like survivorship bias. And I'm actually bundling myself in there because it's kind of ostracized and outsiders I felt as a kid.

I'd say when I was around like 15 or 16. I super popular I felt like funny yeah I was not like I was annoying and so not like popular in like a mainstream space but I was like I said it was all love in the world to 15 years

I was like I didn't have any like profound connections with anyone because I had that veneer you know but like yeah yeah there's huge white veneers but I had those gorgeous teeth yeah incredible I had that grill but then like I just from there I think the loneliest aspect kind of reduced

and then I went to college and then work. Yeah. That is, I don't look at that and go like, well, just be friendlier

and get along with people. It was dice roll, pure luck on my part. So the thing I would probably say to my kid is like, I don't know, let's try, let's do some double-blind studies.

Yeah, we've got to figure something now. Let's not just be like, can you please stop being annoying? But it's not like a rubric. Like you failed actually. It wouldn't be like, grow up in glosses.

Could we? Now, I, uh, I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and I want to go to her page and kind of get her general vibe before we look at the stitches.

Okay, they're all at the same time. They were all filmed in the same way. This is a, this is like a CCTV model. Butch. A fit mom, Carlin. Faith Fit family.

Okay. And when I say that tells me all I need to know. Yeah, so she's fat-phobic. Yeah. Because her name is Fit Mom Carolyn. Yeah. I've never seen Carolyn with no... Yeah, it's Carlin.

Yeah, it's George Carlin. She made a follow-up. I do feel validated because now that she says faith is like a part of it, I'm like, okay, she is speaking in that tone. Right, yeah. So after she got called out for being vague... Oh my God, she did a video in her car.

It was important. There was no time. Yeah. Neurodivergent and weird behaviors. Let's just open this up and discuss it because sometimes a lot of people will say people that are qualifying as weird behaviors, that's just neurodivergent. I totally can see that, right? I made a whole career in helping kids with neurodivergence to feel more successful and to be more successful. My older daughter is. So I'm intimately appointed with it and the tendencies that can happen.

And sometimes those behaviors can be off-footed in society. I get that someone with neurodivergence, if you're not familiar with that term, just think like ADHD, autism, things like that. If you're not familiar with neurodivergent, think of various neurodivergent. Think of various exceptionalities. You know, weird, you know. What is she mean by tendencies? No, literally. And she's like those tendencies and like habits. Yeah.

I'm got a habit of being a little socially overwhelmed. Yeah. Like whatever. That's so big. Like dopamine receptors don't work right right, but it's just a bad habit. But it's just a tendency I have. It's like smoking when I'm drunk. Yeah, I have this tendency where my brain doesn't produce enough neurotransmitters.

I'm just in that mood. They can have some tendencies that other people can perceive as weird. I have seen many times that parents will incorrectly just kind of go with, my child is special. I'm just going to let them be and let them be special. But the problem is, they still need to have positive interactions with their peers. And they still need to be able to interact in society at large. Those things aren't mutually.

Are you talking about your kid being an asshole? Yeah. Or are they cyclops from the X-Men? Like my kid is very special. I think it must feel very, very patronizing to neurodivergent, let's say, like teenagers who feel like they get bundled in like, lepers where it is like a like, well, providing we use the proper PPE that they can come to the hangout or something.

Right. Yeah. It's like, well. I don't want to catch the ADHD. Yeah. It might spread. You know, like I. She, it's that classic. Oh, she's so close. Yeah. So you're almost right. You're saying like, oh, the leg broke. We should fix the leg. Cut off the leg. Yeah. You've got to love them, but you need to keep them in line. Because if they're too weird, it's going to be a problem. Pop them in the dungeon. Because it's like...

It's kind of exactly what she's saying. Yeah. She's like, it's okay that they're different, but you need to make sure that they're not too different so they can feel normal. It's okay that they're different, but it cannot be seen. Right, exactly. Maybe it's like, is what we want her to say, like, if you identify that your child engages with the world differently than the other kids,

work with them to understand like a healthy way to engage in the world for them? Maybe something a bit more prescriptive like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's just because different people have different needs. Yeah. Well, I'm like, yeah, if your kid is having a really hard time, like, you should work with them to find like coping mechanisms and strategies to help them navigate the world because

the world isn't always tolerant and accepting. Right, right, right. That's like that is like a reality of things. Yeah. But like, I think you can do that in a way that still allows your kid to be themselves and just sort of explaining like, hey, you seem like, I, I mean, I think the first time I was on an episode, we talked about social anxiety, right? And like, I have really bad social anxiety.

and like I had to come up with my own like coping mechanisms for that. And like, that's what it is, right? Yeah, that's what it is. Don't be weird. And like, you know, I think that there's a careful balance between like that being a part of who I am and driven in part by being ostracized as a kid and also like understanding like the world is not always going to accommodate that. And so like I have to figure out how to accommodate that for myself.

But I think you can find a way to do that with your kid that doesn't like be like, don't be neurodivergent or don't be weird. I think it's a little like your kids getting bullied. and then your, your parent is like siding with the bully. Like in defense, um, you were kind of being a nerd. Yeah. Like, it's kind of the, um, same nonsense of like herd immunity. Or it's like you could just maybe work with your kid, maybe get vaccinated my help.

Or no, I'll just let them get sick over and over again until. And get everybody else sick. Yeah. What's the problem? They don't, you don't want to be weird. It's again, it's like, it's like weird as an abstraction. because yeah she's it's like a derogatory term yes it's totally optional meaningless yeah yeah but but i feel like it has meaning to whomever she's speaking to right because is that like war shack test

yeah yeah it's like oh oh when i hear that i i know exactly what you're talking my yeah i think it is uh one of the issues here is that she's being so vague and so it's like whatever that means to you is what she's talking about and so it's like political her phrasing is very like diplomacy. And like if you're big on TikTok, you should understand that like people in the internet are not necessarily going to take everything in good faith. Yeah, yeah. They're already going to read in whatever they want to what you say online.

And so if you give them so much vague room to just like put words in your mouth, of course they're going to get mad at you. It is funny to be like, people are misconstruing my words. So let me make this abundantly clear. There are things that might possibly cause problems. It's like, huh? She's like, let me make this perfectly clear and then just plays the previous one on her phone.

This again. All right. Let's let her finish this and then we can get out of here. She is right. So some of these behaviors that you do still want to work with your child on, with curbing would be things like nose picking. That is when, now all kids can exist these. But sometimes.

Hold on 50 guesses. I would never have been going to go like that. So, well, also, I was thinking, I think of like a 10 year old. Yeah, I was thinking like a four year old or five year old. Also, why are we pretending? If you use a tissue, you still nose pick it. Well, yeah, the truth of the matter is,

everyone picks their nose. And if they don't pick their nose, they're lying. But if you pick your nose in class, in front of everybody, be very deft about it. So that no one can see. A really good method is to go, like, like scream like really loud.

So everybody's like, oh my God, they must a bug must have gone. Yeah. We've got to get in there. Oh, no, another bug got it four or five times a day. Got to deal with these bugs in school. So unlucky. We should never criticize eBay.

They're actually, I will give some credence to like, if there's one thing that you can tangibly work on or advise on it, is like physical behaviors. Because they're literal and you can, especially if, like, social cues and social intuition stuff is something that your kid struggles with. or it just like it does not have access to it in a way that that would be like practical. Then the nice clear just binary solution of well this not here and not there and not whatever, but like you also have to guide them as to why. Because a kid can just be like, because I'll go to jail. Well, because physical things could even be like if you have like hyperactivity, ADHD, like maybe you're like a kid who's bouncing off the walls or something.

and you don't, it's not as simple as like, don't do that. Right. You know what I mean? It's like about having coping strategies, finding outlets and things. And actually identifying like what is going on. So it's not as simple as like, hey now, you know. Don't bob your knee in class. Yeah, exactly.

Don't. Yeah. Kids that are neurodivergent tend to have more of a tendency of it. So nose picking can be extremely off putting. And I have seen this a lot even up into middle school students. I didn't. This is like a new. new thing about people with neurative brains pick their nose way more than normal kids.

Also, tend to have tendencies. Tend to have tendencies. I'm so tired of people, you know, fucking stuff, you know. Sorry, I'm tending to my nose right now. She's like a very, very, very well-informed alien who's almost got it right. Yeah, exactly. I don't feel like she's malicious, but I do feel like she is unaware. of some of the bias,

the very strong biases in worldview like communicated by her, like language and like the tone of authority and all these things, you know, like, it can give condescending. I don't think she's trying to be condescending, but I think you can give that when you're like, I'm going to lay out how this is.

This is how you have to do it. It's just like the inability to think outside your own experience. Exactly. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Which is, it would be a bespoke process. I'm certainly not saying any of this with some advice. Yeah. I am.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's about specialalities. Well, to speak outside of my own experience, Lauren, I hope you had a wonderful experience here today. I did. If you like it, what do you think of us? Say something nice. The podcast is great.

You guys, no. I get it. No, I did it. No, I had such a great time. It's wonderful to see you. And it is just really nice to see. Yeah, no, it's great. It's very, it's very, it's always.

It's always fun to modify a friendship. So I'm glad you could do that with us here today. Is there anything, I know we talked about Phantom Pulse, but is there anything you want to let people know about, like, where to find you? Yeah, I mean, just I'm at Lauren Chippen and at a typical artist on like most platforms. If you're on Tumblr, come follow me on Tumblr because I love spending time there. And it's great. If you're not on Tumblr, let's get people on Tumblr. Yeah.

If you're not on Tumblr, why are you listening to sad boys? Are you kidding? The cross section of those audiences is a phone. How did you get here? There's got to be a huge cross. Oh, enormous. Yeah. Venn diagrams a big circle.

But no, yeah, this has just been so delightful. Yeah, it's such a great time. So good to catch up. We're super excited for you. Excited to see what you get up to you next. Thank you. Likewise. Jordan and myself,

as well as Jacob and Peeps, who's over there as well, are going to be rocking. Rocking at home is a phrase I just made up on Sad Boys nights. Where we're going to be goofing and gaffing and laughing and taffin. If you want to taff with us. If you want to get taffin, head on over to patreon.com slash sadboys,

where you can drop $5 of your discretionary entertainment spending if you're so pleased to get like over 100 episodes of Stabways nights. So much taffing. I mean, the tap. There's so much taffing. And we end every episode of Sabboys

with a particular phrase. We love you. And we're sorry. Boom. Goochie girl. How you doing? How you're moving on? Moving all.

How she's delicate that future girl? Future girl. Yeah, we're on now. Take my money, go away, oh you want it. Go too rich for me.