Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Are "Industry Plants" Real? + 'The Social Network' Sequel

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Kanye West accused one of the most popular Twitch streamers, Kai Cenat, of being an “industry plant.” It perpetuated the idea that some internet celebrities became famous thanks to invisible forces pulling the strings. But in a business as fickle as online content creation, is an industry plant even possible? Taylor Lorenz asks Maxwell Mitcheson, a partner at Underscore Talent. Later, Taylor weighs in on Aaron Sorkin hinting at a possible follow-up to The Social Network, plans for a new tech utopia in San Francisco, Adam Mosseri’s big Instagram update, and Threads hitting 150 million active users. Full video of this episode will be available on Taylor's YouTube channel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh, guys. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. It says my computer's going to restart in 55 seconds to install an update. This week, is San Francisco building a new tech utopia? Aaron Sorkin teases a social network sequel. And our main topic, big name creators keep getting accused of being industry plants. Are they? Is that even possible on the internet? I'm Taylor Lorenz, and that's all coming up right now on Power User. The other day, Kanye West was in the middle of an interview when he was asked about an idea that seems to come up over and over again

in the creator industry. Our industry plant's really a thing. Because we hear about Illuminati industry plants. Our industry plant's really a thing. And if so, can you give me an example? Because you'd be talking about people that are plant. In typical Kanye fashion, most of his response was rambling and nonsensical.

But eventually he got around to naming someone he was positive was an industry plant. One of the biggest Twitch streamers, Kai Sinette. So he's an industry plan. Of course he's a... Of course, she's like the opposite. Total. That exact genre is the most industry plants.

It's about like influence and mind control. Of course, Kai quickly went on stream and refuted all of this. I'm far from an industry plant. Feel me? I don't got this shit out the mud. People gotta do some research. But Kanye and Kai aside, the idea of an industry plant comes up all the time on the internet. The suspicion that some of the internet's most influential people were placed there from a powerful person above.

We've seen these same accusations. these same accusations against people like Charlie DeMilleo, Bella Porch, Bobby Altoff, Matt Rife, the list goes on and on. But in a business as fickle as online content creation, is an industry plant even possible? If anyone would know, it's my guest today, Maxwell Mitchison. Maxwell's a partner at underscore talent, one of the hottest management companies working with some of the internet's biggest names. Maxwell, welcome to Power User. Thank you for having me, Taylor. Okay, so first of all, how did you define an industry plant? The myth of the industry plant is something I think is super fascinating. I think in the traditional

sense, when we call somebody a plant, we're talking about a musical artist who seemingly rocketed to success overnight. And there's this idea that everyone in the industry has decided to conspire and rally around this one person from the label to the execs, to the producers, right? And they seemingly just burst on the scene and everything's just teed up. Like an Ice Spice, even Lady Gaga back in the day, Kid LaRoy, Ian Dior, all these people just seemingly had the right sound, we're working with right producers, were with the label, had the press, the image, all of it, all at once. Because in reality, there is a machine that goes into making a musical artist.

But in the digital media space and in the internet, right, it's so democratized and driven by algorithms and driven by fan engagements. And you see people who have blown up seemingly overnight like Bella Porge, more recently Tube Girl and Bobby Altof. And the question is, who's behind them, right? That's what everyone wants to know, tipping the scales and pulling the lever to make them seemingly the next it thing on the internet. I think back to one of our favorites, our mutual friend, near and dear to our hearts, Jeremy O'Harris, right? Obviously, for those who don't know,

Jeremy's a prolific award-winning playwright, super talented, also an actor, go check him out on Emily in Paris. He became so invested in internet culture that he started making TikTok videos, and he became particularly interested in the people who are getting famous on TikTok. and one of the expose series that he did was on a creator called Axel Weber, who was known for living in the smallest apartment in all of New York City. Here's what it's like, living in the smallest apartment in New York. Wherever your expectations are, lower them. As soon as you walk in the door, we have the sink.

Axel was someone who seemingly came onto the scene overnight, right, millions of views on TikTok, gaining millions of followers. But that following didn't translate outside of TikTok at the time, I think. Maybe he had 20,000 followers and was right under a million TikTok followers. And I had started following him. And Jeremy was convinced Axel was an industry plant. And part of his reasoning was because he screenshotsed Axel's Instagram and was like, you'll see that Axel has a million followers on TikTok, but only 20,000 on Instagram.

And he's followed by industry insiders like Noah Beck's agent, Maxwell Mitchison. Noah Bex agent and a huge TikTok stylist both follow Axel already. Also, his email is freaking weird. Contact at Axelweberteam.com, like, you're just like a normal poor person living in a tiny apartment in New York trying to apply to Juilliard. Me, things not. I was like, yo, like, first of all, just a ban like everyone else. And then fast forward, here we are. Yeah, I was thinking about the same thing because, of course, I wrote the New York Times article in Axel Weber, which was also used as an example of him being an industry plant.

And same thing. I had just spent a ton of time on TikTok, and I write about anybody that starts to get hyped. So I feel like there's this like network of people of journalists, talent managers, PR people that are sort of like watching for people to blow up. And obviously it's our job to be on that really early. And so then when the fans see someone like, oh, well, this person was followed by this or why is this journalist paying attention? It's like, well, it's kind of our job to do that, you know, but that doesn't mean that that person will be around forever. You and I definitely conspired on that one, though. Well, I was thinking back to the days sort of before the internet.

And almost everyone was an industry plan, right? Like, you couldn't really get success very easily without the support of this whole, like, entertainment, media, I guess, music infrastructure, right? Like, you had to get signed by a label. You had to have marketing and PR. So it feels like with the internet, I guess people maybe thought that it was very democratic when it launched. And it seemed like anybody could get famous overnight. But how realistic is that today? I mean, is it actually a meritocracy online?

I think that from what we've seen, the algorithms have really democratized, and it really is hard to get that velocity. You know, in early 2020, when everybody was on their phone during the pandemic, and there was nothing else to do, people were launching to overnight success, gaining millions of followers seemingly overnight. But now it is a bit more difficult. And the people who do break through, I think there are a lot of questions around. All of a sudden, they're collaborating with traditional A-list celebrities. They have the PR piece running in GQ or in the New York Times. Suddenly, they have this deal lined up or this huge collab that drops, and it's all just

seems like the timing is too precise and too back to back. But in reality, what's happening is you have these people who find a format that works. And then what they do is they just double down on it and keep doing it. And the algorithm keeps feeding that and keeps suggesting them to more and more people. And they're seeing this explosive growth, you know, a million followers in the span of a week. I feel like a lot of people think, too, that it's the people that run these platforms that are sort of pulling the strings, right? They think the TikTok CEO handpicked Charlie DeMilio. But like you said, I feel like they hit a form.

met really early or they took off in certain way. I'm thinking of Tube Girl, who's this young woman in, I think she's in the UK, who's making these really engaging videos on the subway every day. She kind of blew up out of nowhere and became really famous overnight, was immediately accused of being an industry plant. Why do you think she was hit with those allegations? I think she was just so everywhere all at once, seemingly overnight, right? I actually started tracking Sabrina, that's Tube Girl's real name, when she had under 200,000. followers and I just knew right then and there. I was like, this girl's going to blow up.

She's the next it thing. And then she's walking at the Mac show. She's with Valentino. And I think everybody just thought, there's just no way this is real that she just came onto the scene so fast and had all these things lined up. And in reality, like, she just made a format that really resonated and that people wanted to recreate and remake and engage with and credit back to her. Yeah, I feel like the reason she blew up to is because of that format.

like she holds her phone in this really engaging way and she kind of films it in this like it almost looks like that old Missy Elliott video with the fish eye lens where it's like she looks really small and she's whipping the phone around and it's something that's also really easily replicable. So people started doing a lot of copycat videos. Okay. Do you think it's possible to create an industry plant? You know, say that you take someone and you give them all the resources in the world, you put this huge budget behind them, you promote their videos, you know, you help give them a team. Will that person go viral and be successful, or is it not that easy? I think there's definitely a playbook you can follow to make your content,

right? At least have, you know, monetizable and growth. But I think that this idea that a content creator can be an industry plant that we've all conspired to make the next big thing is hard because at the end of the day, these algorithms, the platforms, they are so democratized. And the viewers have to be the ones buying in, whether they love them or hate them, they still have to be engaging with content in order for it to get surfaced. Yeah, also, there's so many parties involved. Anytime people talk about industry plan, I'm like, who's collaborating, right? Like, is it underscore talent that's collaborating with some PR firm?

Like, it just seems like there's so many disparate interests at play. I don't know how possible it would be. I think we're all doing our best to find these people early and we're all seeing the same thing in real time, right? It's just a matter of the timing. So while it may look like this person rocketed to success overnight, they might have been making a whole different type of format of videos for the last six months or a year that weren't working. And when they found the one thing that worked, they really leaned into it. And then before you

know it, there is a team of like underscore managers or WME agents, you name it, flocking to them or a PR firm coming and lining up the press that seemingly came also out of nowhere, time to their blow up. I think it really is just at the end of the day, serendipitous timing. How can you tell the difference between somebody that's getting a little bit of traction on internet and someone who might truly blow up and be the next big thing? I think because of the way all of our 4U pages and the algorithms work, right, like, it's so tailored to you. So when I start to see somebody surface on my feed that I haven't seen before more than once, that's when I really start to investigate. And then we're always looking for this undefinable it factor, right?

Like, do I think they have it? And it's kind of a gut feeling, you know what, when you see it and when you speak to them, right? And if they have a plan and you have a plan and you can stick to it and execute, I think that's really kind of what is going to define the success. And, you know, it's, we try to find them as early as possible because we want to be involved in incubating the strategy as early as we can. But I think it's, you know, across vertical is just that it factor that we're looking for. Yeah. When you do find someone with that factor, what kind of resources do you put behind them and how do you sort of help them get off the ground? I think we immediately start to jump in and think about the strategy and think about what the long-term goals are, whether that's on platform or off platform. Do they want to be transitioning into more of a traditional medium?

Do they want to watch a brand? Is there a particular brand that they want to work with from an endorsement perspective? We start laying that foundation almost immediately. And how often do content creators stick to that? Because I feel like the internet is evolving so much. How do you take someone that's just sort of a phenomenon for going viral and ensure that they have this longstanding career? I think it's always a tough conversation because the format that helped them find the fastest

growth they're going to want to stick to, but they have to be able to evolve out of that one stick or that one format, right? Like Tube Girl, for example, she had explosive growth. I think she over monetized too fast and didn't introduce new formats fast enough as well. And her growth kind of stagnated, whereas other creators who have had that explosive growth from a format, they were able to start introducing new things and new bits. And even if it doesn't perform well as well as their normal format at first, it's sticking to it and staying consistent to train your audience.

Because at the end of the day, your audience really knows you from this one thing. But the true fans will stick around and of all. with you. When we talk about industry plants, you know, people are like, we didn't ask for this girl, right? She's an industry plant. She's being or guy, right? They're being pushed on us. How do you walk that line between oversaturation and maybe somebody being too out there versus introducing them to new audiences? There's definitely the seeing you everywhere all the time effect, right? Like at first, it's like, wow, who is this? And then at a certain point, the audience can turn on you. But that's why I think it's so important to start showing yourself in different lights and

in showcasing something different. I think at the end of the day, a negative comment and a positive comment carry the same weight in the algorithm. But you do want to thread that needle of not overdoing it and oversaturating yourself to the point where everybody's just sick of it

and then they stop engaging altogether. Why think people care about this so much? Why is this concept of an industry plant so pervasive on TikTok especially? I think people at the end of the day, they just want something to point to or want a reason to say why they were successful. A lot of it comes from a place

of hate watching and jealousy, the idea that this person could blow up overnight, but I didn't or another person didn't. I think there just needs to be a reason. It's what is the greater reason of life at the end of the day. It's the same motivational factor. But love them, hate them. You're still watching them. Yeah. I know. I feel like it's an explanation as well, because I think it's so hard to crack virality. And when you see someone crack it for reasons that you don't totally understand, it feels preordained. You know, you're like, well, how did that person do it? Why are they all over? Why are they suddenly an phenomenon? And as you mentioned, it has a lot to do with hype and novelty, I think, too. They're usually the ones that kind of

came out of left field or people weren't paying attention to. They weren't necessarily part of a bigger friend group, maybe, where audiences were sort of passively exposed to them for years in YouTube videos behind the scene. Yeah. And I think even back to when we first met in the 2020s, you know, content houses, those were a great incubator and launch pad for talent. You couldn't necessarily call them an industry plant, but the houses were sourcing people very early on and basically telling them if you join this house and create content with us and collaborate, like, you are going to blow up and become an internet star overnight. And I think they really did build the format and showcase that. But look at today where where are they all now, right? Only a few of them have truly

stuck around and crossed over into what I would call mainstream media and fame. Yeah, talk to me some of those content creators, even from 2020, or like, how have some of these creators evolved and ridden that rave. Like, who has really reinvented themselves well and been able to kind of grow their brands? Yeah, I think obviously I'm a little partial. I managed Noah Beck. And he's one that, you know, we scouted and found and brought into the Sway House. So I have a fitting right now in about 30 minutes for Louis Vuitton for their event that they have next week that I will be attending. The Sway Boys were a content collective similar to the hype house, right? You've got a ton of content creators all living under one roof, all creating content and collaborating and driving.

driving toward the same goal. Slightly different brands across the two. But, you know, we thought of Sway Boys as a little bit like a boy band. And I started working with Noah day one. You know, we scouted him because he started to gain traction on the internet. Actually, one of the content creators in the house, Blake Gray, was the one who found him and suggested him. And then from day one, we started working together and just building out the roadmap for what he wanted to do on platform and off, whether that was fashion, staying close to sports, dipping a toe into acting, podcasting.

And, you know, I think it was really just a matter of great timing, being in the right places at the right time, going to the right shows, doing the right press ops. And, you know, we've continued to build him into what is now, I would say he's arguably the most famous guy off of TikTok. Yeah, Noah's really also, I think, broken into fashion in such an interesting way. And I feel like fashion is such a launch pad.

Like, do you have some partnership with some big fashion label? And that's kind of like the marker of almost like mainstream success. more so than the press even. Yeah, I think it's definitely, everybody wants to do fashion now. He was definitely one of the first to do it. And it's this visibility of being front row at these shows, right, and who you're seated next to. And the glitz and the glamour of it all. And, you know, for some people, it's worth it.

And for others, you know, who are trying to get into this space, it's like, why? What value does it ultimately add to your career? Does your audience care that you're sitting front row at the show, right? But for him, I think it's been such a natural evolution and fashion has been such part of his content and he's so passionate about it and he showcased that that people, they want to see him there, right? They want to see what he's wearing. They want to hear him talk about what he's wearing. They want to see him on the carpet and talk about how he styled his look because he doesn't even work with a stylist. He does it truly on his own.

That's kind of amazing because he's very stylish, I feel like. Very stylish. Okay. So I just want to kind of like issue a verdict, what, you know, went for all. Is it possible to create an industry plan? Is there a playbook for viral success? Or is it just there's a certain element of randomness that will always be there and nothing is ever guaranteed. I think there is a playbook you can follow to start to build a career and to start to monetize a career. At the end of the day, though, I don't think that there is a one-size-fits-all plan to create the next big viral star. I think there's always going to be that outlier, right, that they just blew up, they've sustained, they go dark for six months, they come back, it's

millions of views, and you just can't account for that. any other day. Well, thank you so much, Maxwell. This was really great. Where can people find you? If you want to follow me or find me, you can hit me on Instagram at that. So Maxwell, I'm always looking for our next star. Maxwell is a partner at the content creator agency underscore talent. Thanks again for being here. Thank you for having me. When we come back, we're going to talk about headlines and the news of the week. All right, I'm here with Zach and we are going to talk through some of the biggest stories in the news this week. Also, Zach, I like your bisexual lighting behind you this week. We're doing our best.

Well, I wrote a story this week. I don't know if you had a chance to read it, but I've been covering the TikTok ban that's been signed into law. And according to some people on the Hill and others that I spoke to, this TikTok ban could also include Capcut, which would yank away essentially the most popular mobile video editor in use today. And I think have quite wide ranging implications for people's ability to create short form video not just on TikTok, but YouTube shorts, Instagram, and elsewhere. You're the TikTok star, not me. Tell me why Capka is so important, right? You're using it all the time. I know the Verge uses it a bunch and there's, yeah, people are using it not just for TikTok either, right? No, I mean, brands use it. Like, everyone uses this app. It's really the only useful mobile video editing app.

There are other products that are like Adobe Rush, which is sort of like a stripped-down version of Adobe Premiere on the phone. You know, it's terrible. It's worse. You know, there hasn't been a really consumer-friendly video editing app. There's things like Splice and just these other ones that are really made for like horizontal landscape video on your phone. They're just, they're garbage. And Capcut as a product, it has all these integrated effects like caption presets, preset effects, basically things that would take you hours to do in Premiere and After Effects,

you can do with a click of a button on Capcut. It just raises the quality of your video so much. Yeah, I mean, I got to imagine if TikTok does decide to sell things, Adobe is going to buy this or something, right? TikTok's not selling anything. And absolutely not are they going to sell their primary video editing app. No, they're not going to sell it to Adobe. And also, this just shows the consolidation of power.

Adobe is currently the only other viable option. I guess there is technically, like, some people use FinalCut. But I think Premiere is sort of the go-to. And look, I use Premiere on my laptop for my YouTube videos. But when you're making a short video, like on your phone or you see something and you want to cut it quickly and post it, Capcut really lowers that barrier to entry. And it's just a huge burden. This is why people didn't participate in the mobile video economy until recently because they didn't have. these tools. This is just one of the like unforeseen consequences of this ban. Yeah, exactly. I think it's just,

it's going to be such a huge blow to the entire creative ecosystem that people are not even ready. And they love to sort of say, oh, look at these TikTokers, ha ha. But I think this just shows how ultimately this is going to stifle self-expression, free expression on the internet. It's a huge loss. Speaking of Instagram, Adam is sorry just announced that they're changing the way that ranking works once again on Instagram. This time they are downranking. thinking anyone that posts what they say is reposted content, essentially any piece of content that has been shared previously on Instagram. We're going to actually show that original piece of content instead of the content

coming from the aggregator or the resherer. Now, we might not always be able to find that original piece of content. Maybe it was posted on another platform. But as we get better at this over time, this should affect reach more and more for creators in a positive way and for those who repost other people's content in a negative way. He's doing this in an attempt to punish aggregators. It's also an effort to court original content creators like TikTokers basically and try to make it more of a home for original video. The thing is Instagram is not the same as TikTok and it doesn't functionally work at all like TikTok.

This is going to end up having huge effects on journalists, meme pages, content creators and news outlets, really anyone trying to share information because we actually want people to reshare our news and information videos unlike, you know, what Masari might think. Right, right. So like, yeah, if the New York Times, for example, breaks a big story and people are sharing it, it's sort of downright. ranked by anyone sharing it other than the New York Times. Yeah, exactly. It's downranked by anybody who's not the original sort of poster of it. So if you share a headline or a screenshot or, for instance, if you reshare footage from Gaza, that means your account will now be downranked.

And I think that is just a huge blow to the news industry, the creator industry. I mean, I obviously love my meme pages. I think it's a loss. Like, I mean, so much content on Instagram was not created on Instagram. And this notion of original content is just flawed because a tweet that's originally on Twitter. Many times, like the most viral tweets, those people don't even have Instagram or they have a private Instagram. They don't want to be tagged. And then, you know, Masari being like, oh, well, you can just collab post.

I don't want a collab post with every person that reshairs a screenshot of my story. I want my story to travel or my videos. I want people to download and repost my videos on as many pages as possible. And Instagram has long just been a place where the best tweets and the best TikTok's end up there a week or two later? Yeah, it matters so much for news. I mean, I can't express enough about, like, how hard this will hit journalists, especially in Gaza.

I spoke to a Palestinian journalist this morning who is just gutted over this news. And he was saying, you know, we want people sharing our videos. We want these videos uploaded. We want people to talk about this stuff. Like, a lot of those journalists are being kicked off meta or they have all these content violations anyway for graphic content because they're sharing footage from the ground. A lot of them have lost the ability to even do a collab post. It's just, it's such a misunderstanding.

And it's a real, like, copyright brain kind of approach to the internet. And we think of news as, like, obviously, this is going to hurt Palestinian journalists, news reporters like myself. But it's also going to hurt, like, celebrity pop culture pages, like Diet Prada. Instagram hired a partnerships manager specifically to work with digital publishers and meme pages a couple years ago when they really wanted to court these people because they saw such audience. growth and that these accounts keep people on the platform. And now that TikTok is cratering, they're like, let's just lock down our platform even more, make it even more hostile to people trying to share news and information. It just seems like meta has long been trying to suppress a lot of information and news content. So this goes hand in hand with that strategy. Exactly. It's

their goal. They want to suppress information. I mean, let's just be real. There's no other ways to interpret these policies. I watch Mysteries video. Do you use that? think that there is an argument that this is pro-creator? No. Every creator I've spoke to is outraged about this. It's not pro-creator. It's just not. Yes, people want to be tagged, but getting reshared is what made Charlie DeMilio blow up.

Like, Instagram doesn't have a native stitch feature. So the only way to share something is to sort of like download it and repost it. If Instagram rolled out a native stitch feature, I think it would be a totally different story. They don't have that as far as I know last time I've been on Instagram Reels. it's extremely hard to reshare content within Instagram's platform. It's not open like Twitter. So it's really hard to reshare other people's content. You can kind of share it on your story, but that disappears after 24 hours. And especially if you're trying to share something newsworthy or interesting or relevant, you need to be able to do that freely. And also, I don't trust these systems

because we see how these types of AI systems work. And when they take down content, when they downrank content based on some opaque algorithm, it always has unintended consequences. So I just think this is really dangerous and bad. And once again, meta-cracking down on news and information and expression. And I don't like that. Other meta news this week is that they declared that Threads has passed 150 million monthly users. We did it. I don't believe this number at all. Well, they just like made everybody with an Instagram sort of sign up by accident. Sign up and use it. And they constantly push threads in the feed now. I mean, I am a Threads user. my frustration with threads is the same as Instagram, that it's constantly downranking any sort of

political content, any sort of news content. They want people to go on there and just be like, what's your favorite ice cream? I like vanilla, you know? And that is just ultimately not what a text-based real-time social platform is made for. I mean, it's also not real-time. And I know that they're rolling out these things like search and bookmarks and trending topics, but I think fundamentally, unless they're willing to embrace news and work with, people that are sharing, information, the platform is never going to have the cultural relevance that Twitter had, and still has, unfortunately. Well, when NBA Twitter migrates, that's when I'll migrate.

But until then, I'm good. Yeah. I don't see sports people going on anytime soon because it's like every post is three days old when you log on. Nah, it's got to be real time. It's playoffs, baby. Okay. Aaron Sorkin, the man who wrote a few good men, the West Wing, other hits, the social network,

said that he's actually working on. on a social network sequel tied to January 6th. And he also talked extensively on the town podcast this week about how he blames Facebook for January 6th, which I just think is hilarious. Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm and tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible because that is what will increase engagement. That is what will get you to what they call inside. the holidays of Facebook, the Infinite Scroll. Yeah, I was listening to this and I was like, wait, do you blame Facebook for January 6th? That's not commonly held to believe.

He just, he like goes off and off and he sounds like he's talking about Facebook in 2016. I don't know how to sort of categorize them. They're sort of like liberal, I don't want to say liberal Hollywood elite because that's such a, like, meme. I'm not saying that in the like Alex Jones way, but like it is this class of sort of like liberal Hollywood elite that are so completely out of touch with the mechanics of the internet as they are today that they cannot understand that, first of all, Facebook is like a pretty irrelevant platform. I definitely think that it played a role in January 6th.

Right. But the way that he talks about it as this like evil thing that's programming all of our news feeds, like once again, Facebook, you can barely share news and information on Facebook anymore because of public critiques like this. they've gotten these public critiques for years. Now they're just like, okay, no one can share news and information. But what about in 2020, right? It was a little bit of different.

But even in 2020, it was so radically different than 2016. Again, I do think that Facebook played a role, but I think it was a completely overstated role. I mean, I think Twitter played a role as well and all of these other platforms. And like Reddit and all the chans and all the other places where all righty people are communicating. Telegram groups. Let's not forget those massive telegram groups.

I mean, look, again, I'm not trying to defend Facebook. I'm very critical of Facebook. But I think in this instance, there's this focus on like, if Mark Zuckerberg has just, you know, if you just tweak the algorithm a little bit, like we wouldn't have January 6th and Trump would never have, you know, this would have never happened. And it's like, I mean, the same liberals made the same argument around Trump's election in 2016, which I covered. Yeah. And it's just this like refusal to acknowledge the way that like our political ideologies have shifted. many people's political ideologies have shifted, and also like the true mechanics of the internet

and how interconnected these platforms are. And the role that content creators play in it too, and influencers and people like Marjorie Taylor Green, like all these other kind of like ancillary figures. I wonder if Jesse Eisenberg gets the Zuckerberg role again, if he's going to have to bulk up this time, you know, to be the modern Mark Zuckerberg. Be a swall, Zuckerberg.

We don't need more Facebook content. Please, God. I love to consume it, but like, enough is enough. We have 150 million Facebook books. We know the Facebook story. Yeah. I got to think that part of the reason he wants to make this is because the social network, wow, a great movie.

Shout out to David Fincher. It is not that hard on tech yet. You know, I think it came out at a time. Yeah, it came out at a time in 2010 where we were still very bright-eyed and excited about our new tech overlords and what they could do for us. And now that sentiment has really changed. And I got to imagine Sorkin is seeing this and being like, I would love to go back and be a little more critical. And I think this is his way to do that.

I know. And you see so many people like that. Like, I mean, I was following some of this too of just like people attacking, you know, other big female tech journalists. Like, why weren't you harder on tech or whatever? I think there's been so much criticism, rightly so, of people involved in the tech world in the early 2010s or the aughts or whatever and other tech journalists that covered that era. I understand it, but I have to say, I was there too, and I know I was young, but we had a lot of hope for technology. And sure, there were these skeptics and, like, okay, in hindsight, we should have listened to them. I totally agree.

And I've never been, like, 100% rosy, you know, tech booster, especially around these billionaires. But I do think that it was hard to kind of, we had so much sort of cultural optimism around tech. And there was so much genuine excitement. And I think, earnesty back then, around the tech ecosystem, I'm willing to give some of the, those people a little bit more of a past sometimes because I think hindsight is always 2020, you know? Yeah, always. Anyway, now the tech people are in power and they're trying to turn these areas of San Francisco into what they're calling a city campus. Basically, it's this nonprofit venture that wants to take neighborhoods like Hayes Valley and others in San Francisco and turn them

into these sort of like community, almost mass like we work type areas where residents can quote, meet inspiring collaborators, live, eat, and work near friends, raise kids with the village, etc. Basically, a utopian community for tech people in some of San Francisco's historic neighborhoods. Totally. It's the new take on the gated community. It's hilarious. And also, please, as if they haven't gentrified the city enough. Like, it's just so, it's so crazy to me. I don't see this happening, but I do think it is probably what a lot of 24-year-old product managers in tech might dream of. and myself as well back then. Like I can see the appeal of this type of thing.

I just think trying to do it in these like iconic San Francisco neighborhoods is going to be hard. You know? It's like trying to do it in Soho. You know what I'm saying? Like something like this could work in Long Island City maybe kind of did. Yeah, you've got to go out to like deep West Texas, right? This is what like places like Marfa are for, you know? Like go to somewhere where there's barely anyone who lives there,

buy up a bunch of property and turn it into your own little like tech utopia. You know, like that's, you can do that. I would live on the tech commune. I love that idea. I think it's cool. I think to live with a bunch of like-minded people and like get back to community. And like, I'm not against the concept of it, but doing it with such a tech focus, especially knowing just the displacement that the native San Franciscoans have dealt with since the tech boom,

it's just kind of like, I don't know what this would do to property values. Like I just, I don't know if I love it. It's probably not going to work. It's definitely exclusionary. That being said, I totally understand the appeal of communal living. I would love to live in like a commune, right? There's just so many things that the way we've set up our society, like the nuclear family doesn't quite work. It's not enough. It's a lot of like you're on your own, right? You've got to raise your own kids, but you also have to work, but you also, you know, like you have to cook and you it's just like all this stuff. And that's why like we used to roll around in tribes, right? Like we sort of lost that, right? But I think these people probably mean well, so I don't want to hit on it too much. My favorite part about this is that they're spreading the word around San Francisco about getting their digital community together by using physical flyers. I love that.

Like a digital first community, but they're using paper flyers. Well, they want to attack the people that actually live there. Some of the people. All right, that's the show. You can watch full episodes of Power User on my YouTube channel at Taylor Lorenz. Power User is produced by Travis Larcook. Angelani Carter. It's mixed and mastered by Brandon McFarland. Our video producer is Brandon Kiefer. Our executive producers are Zach Mack and Nashat Kerwa. Power User is part of the Vox Media

Podcast Network. If you like the show, give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. We'll be back next week with another episode of Power User. See you then.