The Ben and Emil Show - BAES 34: Paypigs is over (real)

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

It was fun while it lasted, but it's time to move on. Paypigs is over, and The Ben and Emil show is born. All at once we are: -changing our name -moving out of Emil's apartment -ditching Patreon and launching our website (www.benandemilshow.com) -- go sign up for a free month of bonus episodes! All our existing bonus episodes are up there for you to enjoy :) -launching merch -launching a new monthly show As for the rest of the episode, we're talking about the Apple Vision Pro: what we think about it, its implications for society and technology. We're also covering the tech execs who testified in front of the senate judiciary committee, and META's blowout quarter. This episode (and every episode) was masterfully edited by Dillon Moore. Check him out at https://www.dillonmoore.co and @ dillonmoore on IG We're on instagram. @ bencahn and @ emilderosa and @ dillonmoore TIMESTAMPS: 00:00-8:30: big news 8:30-11:50: twitter sucks 11:50-26:00: the future of computing 26:00-29:20: China, a douchebag CEO 29:20-46:40: tech execs trotted out, online shopping 46:40-59:32 META earnings, what we use social media for, Ben's social media insecurities Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to episode 34, what will go down in history as a historic episode because it is the final episode of pay pigs. That's right. And the first episode filmed in a divorced dad's apartment. It's always been that. We're on a folding table because the credit card repo guys took the dining room table. There's nothing left in here. It took everything. But we do, also apologies for my, I just got back from China yesterday, so I'm a little jet lagged. But we have some big announcements to make. Huge announcements. They're so big.

And this is not a joke. This isn't a joke. So, yeah, pay pigs, we tricked you a little bit. Pay pigs is over. Yeah, we're not calling it that anymore. Because we're going to change the name. We're changing it to one, two, three, the Ben and a Meal show. It's just going to be easier for everybody.

You know, we've heard all the complaints. We've seen it ourselves. You try to search for us on Instagram, and it warns you that if you proceed, you're going to see nasty stuff or whatever. And they're like, are you sure you really want to search for this podcast? And we heard about all the Reddit stuff where, you know, if you want to get on there and have a fun time with your friends on Reddit, but you're getting ladies asking you to send them money and call your names and stuff like that. So we don't want that happening to anybody. No, we don't. And it's just easier for everybody.

It's the Ben and Emile show. you know what you're getting yeah so we're changing our name also we heard you don't want to wear merch that says pay pigs on it and that's completely a completely reasonable thing to not want to do i think you're a bunch of cissies for that one but speaking of merch we're launching merch well let's not get ahead of ourselves well but that's so so a couple things a new show new show name same show ben and emil show but we're making it easier number two obviously as you can tell we are this is approaching one of the, if not the final time we are recording in... It's the last time.

It's the last time. We're recording here. And we haven't found anywhere permanent yet, but we are looking for different places. So it'll probably be fun for y'all for the next few weeks. We're just going to be hopping around. Maybe we'll find a place that we like and stick around. Yeah, we're going to be trying out different. We're like Cinderella, or...

Cinderella. No, no, the porridge woman, the one who... Oh, the three bears. Yeah, yeah. Goldilies. Goldilocks. We're looking for that just right flavor. So then the other thing is we are waving goodbye to Patreon. This is the most exciting part. And a lot of you guys might be familiar with kind of what we're doing because it's a very similar platform to the way

TMG had it set up with their bonus content and where their stuff lived. We are creating our own website. It's called ben and amel show.com. We even bought ben and amel.com. We even bought Ben and Emile.com in case it's confusing for you. You can use either one. We'll put the links everywhere. We're going to blast it out on socials. You'll be able to click it. Also, if you're worried, oh my God, I'm a Patreon subscriber. Now I have to buy a new thing. Well, we're giving it to everybody free for the first month so you can just join over without any worries. But the reason we're doing it too, we're leveling up. We're not just doing it for no reason. We are very sick and tired of a lot of the, we've never done this before, and so we weren't aware of a lot of the

limitations. We were going to hit with a lot of these platforms. Right now, I don't want to shit all over Patreon, but right now, Patreon does not have a workable video platform, which is crazy. Yeah, we got everybody's complaints. Right. We tried it one time because we wanted to play something that had copyright protections on it, and YouTube would not let us, because, yeah, right now we have to upload bonus things to YouTube and then embed them into Patreon, YouTube still hits us on all the copyright stuff and does not let us play certain things. And then Patreon's video player, when we try to upload straight to it does not work. Apparently sucks, according to many people. So we're doing, we're moving over for those reasons. It's a better experience for everybody out

there. And then also, like I said. Also, there's going to be more of a community aspect here. Like, because we're embedding the YouTube video into the Patreon, It means that we're having a lot of people comment in two different places. People are going to the YouTube video itself and commenting. People are commenting on Patreon. We want it to be more of just the fun thing for our fans. Also, we only had, we were only able to have our one weird pay pigs account that we could reply from. You guys didn't know who it was coming from.

And now we, each of us, including Dylan, will have a little profile on the new platform where we can interact with the audience and stuff. It's just going to be way more fun for everybody. We're very excited to level up with this thing. And also all of our exist. So like we said, you go and sign up, you get the first month for free. So if you're an existing Patreon member, you're totally fine. And if you've been sitting with your thumb up your butt, wondering if you, uh, if it's worth it, well, you can go on there and check it out because we have uploaded all of our bonus episodes from the last 33 weeks up there. So you can go check them out for free. Yeah, bonus episodes plus the Q&A episodes plus all kinds of shit also like we said the one of the big reasons

why we're doing this is it makes it way easier to do merch so if you go on there we're going to be rolling out more shit but for right now you can get some stuff go look check it out they're pretty great we got uh we got two hats for sale we've got a loser consumer hat and a baby girl hat and they're very sick uh i can't wear hats because my head's too big i can and i'm going to be wearing both. Good for you. Also, the biggest, my favorite thing is the new show that we're going to be launching called The Meatball Special.

Oh, God. With our good friend, Phil. Bill Matters. Yeah, another reason to move over to the website from page. So we're still going to, as long as there are still people on Patreon, we're still going to be posting there, but not any of the new, not like Meatball Special. We're not going to be posting it there. You're just going to get what's existing until everybody goat moves.

Everything we previously offered will still be uploaded to Patreon but anything new is going to go on to our new site because it's just a much it's just a much better experience also important to note

it's the same price except you get a month free but but yeah so anything for this new show the meatball special that's going to be a monthly special with me Ben and Phil all that bonus content's

going to live on Ben andamielshow dot com so you're going on head over for that kind of stuff I can't stop nodding my head it's going to be incredible also do me a fucking huge favor and turn on the

notification bell. Hit that notification bell here on YouTube so that you get an actual notification when we post. So that just about wraps it up. Go to Ben and Emile Show. Is it the Beninamil Show?com. Why does he not know the link? You know what I mean? That's a question

we're all wondering. Well, and for today's bonus episode if you go, this will be the first bonus episode that we're posting on there, right? That's a huge thing. Yeah. Like, so right now, today the bonus content is there and if you are a Patreon subscriber and you have not moved over you will be getting a different slightly different bonus video because YouTube doesn't allow us to do the things we want to do and over on our new site Ben's got a freaking song picked

Oh man people love that we're gonna get back to opening the bonus episodes with songs again and uh but if you're a Patreon guy you're not going to be able to Also, I'm going to be talking about my China trip in the bonus. So all the more reason to go sign up. I'm going to do funny accents, everything. Well, on the new site, we can do whatever. Yeah, we can. Last but not least, go check out my Taco Bell taste test video on the YouTube.

And for the audio listener out there, hey, how you doing? I did a taco. We did a, if you liked the Christmas acid video, we did something similar. it's um or at least in the same kind of uh tone vein oh it's great it's called the taco bell taste test video i lost my mind so it's on there all right that's enough you guys get it okay he grab he water there he goes folks well look at him go divorced dad grabbing his water they took everything so the new the new uh apple vision pro is out and i'm already fucking so i'm i i got to rant a little bit here. We didn't, we didn't, we didn't, we didn't get to cover this last week like I wanted to

because I forgot, but what, the Vision Pro? No, no. Well, I'm going to get to that, but Twitter has just become, I mean, it's become unusable in the sense that I see one, it used to be fun when people would make a joke and then everybody would kind of make their own iteration of the joke, right? It would meme on each other and stuff. Like the handshake meme, the one I explained to you, that you didn't really care for. Sure. The Arnold Schwarzenegger one with Carl Weathers? No, no. It's something. Oh, yeah, yeah. The emojis. Yeah, yeah.

Well, now it's just, I don't know if it's because things happen a lot quicker, but now I'll see the same video posted a dozen times from a bunch of different Twitter accounts, and then I'll see it on several different subreddits. So, like, for example, with the Apple Vision Pro, pro, there's some guy, like, crossing the street, wearing one and immediately I'm seeing like people quote retweeting it saying we're so screwed oh my God oh he's just

asking to be robbed just everybody like it just I don't think that's and then on Reddit it's on a dozen different suburb everybody's just click farming one another everybody's just trying it's just it feels like it just feels like

there's nothing fewer and fewer. I think we did that before the Elon must take up yeah but it just it feels like the Elon Musk algorithm is a lot more, is a lot smaller and a lot more condensed to just... Definitely, I would say the, like, diversity of tweets is definitely worse. It's now just, yeah, all I've seen in the last few days is the same three or four takes on the Apple Vision Pro and, like, the same, I saw one where a guy was, I, and just, just also, I can see

a mile, fuck, I can't even speak English. I can see a mile. I can see the punchline a mile away. This guy was talking about like, oh, man, I'm loving my Applevision Pro. Here, let me show you guys what it looks like, and he takes it off. And I'm like, it's going to be some kind of, he either left the porn on or something. And he sets it down and then films it. And it's surrounded by used tissues.

Like, he's been using it to jerk off. And I'm like, okay, awesome. Okay, here come all the same. here come all the same takes and there's guys wearing it while driving their Teslas and stuff like okay awesome here comes the same can't wait to

it takes that's just insane it's just a fuck but they're fake that's the other thing is they're all staged no I'm pretty sure one of them ended with like a guy getting pulled over by the cops and stuff that is probably authentic but I mean they're all being set up it's not like someone's randomly just like whoa that guy's

driving his Tesla with the Apple Vision on no his buddy's next to him I'm going, oh, this is going to go viral. Sure. But it's actually happening. Sure. I just, I'm fucking, I'm on curmudgeon mode, man. I'm just on camaraderie mode.

I'm sick of these fucking people. I just wish... I mean, I think this deserves it. It's a... What? Just the Apple Pro coming out, the Apple Vision Pro coming out, is like a wild... Yeah, I, it's also funny because for anyone who's had the Facebook quest, Dylan and I both have it, none of this is meta quest thank you none of this is new but none of it is new i think it is new

like so did you watch anyone's outside of like the twitter shit did you watch anyone's like actual reviews of it and stuff yeah i i saw kc nice stats which was which i think was great and he also shouts that before i even saw that i saw i don't know how he say his name marquez brownley yeah i saw his um because he just does a very straightforward like here's what the thing is like, shows you exactly how it works. It's very interesting. Casey Nystatt does like him out in the real world

wearing this fucking thing. And it's a bit of a gimmick, and he admits it. He's like, I thought it would be funny walking around New York City with this thing, but it did like,

um, he's like, this is kind of the future of computing. And like he says the Applevision Pro is really bad. It's like not, and this is the worst that it'll ever be. But as they keep going, this thing is going to be so easy to wear

and your computing is going to just be like integrated into your everyday life. Ben is so mad at me. Sure. No, no, no. I'm not mad at you. I just can't. It feels like,

uh, it feels like the, the, the, the things from dystopian sci-fi novels and movies about, this is just further isolating ourselves from one another and it's just, bad and yet companies are like

ooh let's make the bad thing from the and I don't mean to sound like a decel a decelerationist fucking um uh what are the what are those people the Luddite I don't mean to sound like a Luddite but also at the same times there's something that fundamentally bums me out about this because it's just another thing and but that's not to say that

maybe in the future versions it'll it'll truly feel seamless and it'll be but you won't feel shut off Yeah. But that's the thing. I think there's like two distinct camps and like everyone seems to fall into one of them. It's like there are people like Casey Neistadt who, and Marcus Brownlee and tech people who like I think Casey Neistadt said he's like as like a tech kid, this is the this is the thing I've been waiting for and hoping for and we're getting there. And there are people who are very optimistic about this and think it's like so fucking cool. I'm obviously like very skeptical but it seems like pretty much everyone who's used it because there's a lot of people dunking on it they take the

the FaceTime little avatars it makes and they're like it looks pretty goofy but pretty much everyone I've read about using it is like this thing fucking kicks ass yeah that's how I felt with the quest but then there's the other people who are like this is so disturbing

this entire I'm sure you've seen the tweets of the dad wearing the goggles no me send it. Wow, one tweet take that I haven't seen. Yeah, I mean, Jesus Christ, you're complaining though. You don't see all the ones you fucking... Well, while you're pulling that up, I will say that there is a known... There used to be a word, or maybe it was just a phrase for it, but it was called like shelving or something, but I experienced it where you get the quest and you put it on and you

play with it for several hours, if not several days, maybe several weeks, and you're like, this is life-changing, game-changing, this is so fucking cool. And then one day you just put it away and you never take it out again. But that's also because, I mean, the big, big difference, iOS. With the quest, I don't have access to my email and my text messages and all. I mean, I'm sure you can set it up. But not only that, they also are like very specifically, they don't want to call it VR or AR, whatever. It's like this mixed reality thing where.

Spatial computing. Yeah, and it's all interacting with your environment. But it's not. It does feel distinctly different than. Yeah. I sent you the tweet. Okay. So for the audio listener, it's a guy.

He's got to... Yeah. I mean, this already feels like, I don't know. It says dad mode. Is anything real, do you? How is this not real? I don't know. Well, I got to read it.

I got to read it. Dad mode. Already found a great application of the Vision Pro watching Avatar, the way of water, while my daughter sleeps on me. I eventually adjusted the angle of the virtual screen so that I could easily recline and rest my head slash neck. This feels like one of the preemate. Memium experiences you'd expect from a $3,500 headset.

I mean, this isn't that's dystopian to me. I think it is. Well, the kid is asleep. It's just the same as sitting there watching a TV, except he's wearing it on his head. But it's not. You're like, you're in this different, I don't know. I was shot, like, even, you know that Bucco Capital guy who always shows up? He's just like a fucking like finance.

Yeah. Meamy guy. It was weird to see him retweeted and be like, this makes me so profoundly sad. These were the most simple yet beautiful moments to me. Not one to push back on technological process, but there's a real part of me that hopes VR slash spatial computing never reaches mainstream adoption. In my humble opinion, we would be a worse society for it.

And there's another guy, I'm not a lot of eight or anything, but seeing shit like this is so, so depressing. Those tiny quiet moments with your kid are so beautiful and just about the closest you can get to another human being. You've got to savor that time, man. It's just like... It's true. And I agree with them, but at the same time,

having your kids sleeping on your chest or with one arm, you could the guy could just as well be on his cell phone or watching TV it's not it's not it's unique to the Apple vision it is in that it's it's it's hands free it's hands free it's just looks fucking immersing you in a way that yes it's got spatial audio it's all this fucking yeah yeah yeah just a way different so one one question I have is and one thing that people have been asking is when AirPods first came out I honestly can't remember at this point but it some people were saying that people made fun of AirPods in exactly the same way. They were saying like, oh, you're going to really walk around with these fucking things

in your ear and look like a total clown. And then now... They were Bluetooth headphones. Yeah. That was... Yeah. I don't think that's... I also agreed.

I'm like, I don't know if that's, if I, I kind of thought that they were silly, only in the sense that like, oh, wow, you've got these things that could just fall out and disappear. I thought they were silly and that they were like very excited. And I was like, I'll just use corded headphones until the price comes down. Yeah, I got some authentic, uh, counterfeit AirPod pros at the, at the counterfeit mall in China, which I'll talk about in the bonus episode. Holy shit, man.

Uh, no longer at patreon.com slash paypigspot. That's true. Yeah, I don't even know what paypigspot is anymore. I mean, this is the Beninamiel show. I don't know what he's talking about. Fucking psycho. But I mean, did you see the guy, uh, he's going to get so pissed when. No, go ahead.

Did I see what? The guy on the subway. Yeah. oh that guy just going like this oh man that's hell man what's happened what's going on but i don't we seem to have like very different experiences with interacting with twitter around the subject because like i don't people aren't going like oh no what's going like the things i've seen about that were like people being like this sucks it's going to completely change the way everyone feels awful and like always connected and all of these things is like it's only going to get

fucking worse and when people are like when it becomes better and smaller and more accessible and all these things it's like you're never going to fucking log off it's like just sit on the fucking subway and do more work because it's it's that fucking easy that's a good point your spreadsheets are right in front of you or and the the flip side to that because you could make that argument about the internet generally that it has made us you're you're always on you're never disconnected you're always expected to be responding to things etc. The flip side of that is obviously

all of the great benefits not only to us as individuals but collectively that the boon we get from the internet there's probably something to be said for this. But what is the boon we get?

We don't know. For this or for the internet? Either. Fucking heaps of entertainment, man. I don't know if that's a boon. Come on. Someone like tweeted like my only real political opinion

is that that I genuinely believe we should turn off the internet and it would solve so many of our problems. That is a good point. And I was like, I think maybe he's right. Yeah. Someone I know, her husband made a clearly fake photo of two like Chinese babies like posing with a live crab. Yeah.

And it won like a Facebook. But the crab does not look real. It looks, and then the kid has like six toes. It got like two million likes, and people are saying, wow, what a great photo all over Facebook. And it's just like, Jesus Christ. But those people will die off because we know who they are. Right, but all of this stuff is like we are not dying off. Knock on shit.

There's no more wood left in here. You're sitting on wood. Yeah, knock on shit. No, you're sitting on wood, pal. There you go. And it feels like we're going to, all this stuff is just going to be. be i don't know are there like i i'm very curious if if we're going to hit a point where people are going to start like opting out yes this is a they already are but just in very small numbers

but like i do think this is a weird turning point for people where it's like uh yeah i don't know if that's the future of computing i don't know if everyone's going to want to be like sure i'll just fucking i'll compute on the toilet i'll log in and be constantly wearing my office and it'll probably eventually in five 10 years be reduced to the size of a contact lens or just regular old glasses so that it'll you won't even yeah i mean i feel like a silly you know remember when i tried the apple watch and i was like this is going to make me less connected i thought getting an apple watch with the fucking cell service on it would be good this way i could leave the house without my phone all it did was i took my phone with me it just made me check my

phone more because I would see fucking notifications as soon as they came in. I still just, it makes me think back to when... And I'm just going to live in your phone. Yeah. Your phone's going to live in your fucking head. I think back to when we had dial-up internet and my friend Patrick got DSL internet. And the way that you connected to the internet back then, you logged on to AOL and it had like eight steps.

It would say step one, like connecting, step two. and you would actually hear this sound. It sounded like a fax machine. It was just these random all these weird sounds. You'd be like, I'm trying to make a fucking call. And it took a good 90 seconds for it to connect.

And then it like had to go in and do all these steps. And that was all I knew at the time was this is how you connect to the internet. But my friend Patrick got it and he goes, no, it's just, it just goes straight on. There's no like connecting steps. And I couldn't understand. that. I was like, I don't understand. You have to connect, though. And he said, no, you don't get it. It's

just always on. It's just always connected. You're just turning on AOL and the connection. It's just ready to go. It's like your annoying improv, friend. They're always on. So, yes, and. Yes, and the same thing can be said about this, where it's like, in as much as I couldn't comprehend that very simple thing that then became just the baseline normal, I think that there's something similar to be said here, where it's like, oh, the next iteration of it is going to be something that we can't fully. It's like a fourth dimension or something. I mean, and I hope it's good. I mean, because obviously we're going, if Apple is doing it, it means that they are fully like,

no, this is, they're the ones who dictate the next big thing. And this is clearly, unless it's another flop, a very rare thing that has not happened for them in ages. Name one thing that's flopped. The Newton. and that was when they were basically, they were introducing the iPad but way too early. Well, let's look it up.

HomePod. Apple Flops. HomePod? Yeah, the HomePod did flop. Yeah, but that's not like a new thing. And they still sell it. Yeah, they were kind of trying to compete with the Alexa and no one wanted it.

Series is not, yeah. Oh, yeah, Siri sucks. Oh, well, so. Oof, the 20th anniversary Mac, but yeah, that's just, Macintosh TV. What's funny is when they first came out with the color IMAX, I thought, that just looks cheap.

That looks like a gimmick. I'll stick with my Sony PC, thank you very much. Oh, a Vio? Did you have a Vio? I had a Vio. Oh, man. Oh, God. I just, oh.

Did they try to make a fucking... Gaming device? Yeah, the Apple Pippin? I wonder if they had to talk to Scotty about that. Scotty Pippin. I guess Apple music, yeah, the Newton. Yeah, yeah. All right, well...

Well, so speaking of Siri, I guess they're Tim Cook in Apple. So Apple, Apple, earnings last week and they had a they had a they were back to growth on the revenue side but they actually had a 13% hit in China and let me tell you now that I'm a full on expert in all things Chinese well I'm so I'm going to be talking a lot about that but like you know I learned a lot in the short time that I was there and also my friend is extremely Chinese and has told me extremely Chinese but

TM what qualifies someone is extremely Chinese he's fucking he speaks fluent Mandarin oh that is extremely Chinese yeah and he lives there he has dual citizenship

extremely Chinese and he's got his family's all Chinese oh that's extremely Chinese but yeah Apple had a 13% decline in China as they are getting more competition from Huawei and I think that a big part of that is

in that China is going through this economic slump right now It's their 2008-2009 There's a lot of Are your parents fighting China? There's a lot of budding nationalism So there was this one dinner I went to It got very emotional for these Chinese people I didn't understand a word of it

Until my friend was translating But they were basically talking about It's our 2008 They were basically saying like I love this country so much. We got to like band together. We got to, you know, work blah, blah, blah, blah. That is not what happened in our 2008.

And I think, oh, not at all. And I think there's a connection between that and like getting gung ho behind China and Chinese made products. And like, you know, America has given us nothing but the cold shoulders. So that's just my own guess. That makes sense. But even all of our products are Chinese made. Huh?

Yeah. No, that's true. But they're not Chinese companies. Yeah, yeah. but um and everybody has a Huawei phone like by default they're very cool I've never seen one they're very cool they're like made of ceramic they're super because they look like an android phone okay but um then most people have what the operating system is it's their own it's like a china operating they don't have Android it's like their own unique thing that makes sense and then

a lot of people have their Huawei phone and then their iPhone why for getting on to like fucking, I don't know, I don't remember Western internet to have their VPN. Oh shit. Yeah. So I think a lot of people that frequent other countries also have their iPhone, but yeah. So not only that, but Tim Cook, Tim Apple said that they're going to have an AI announcement later this year. So maybe that means Siri

can finally answer a question instead of fucking saying, I found this for you on the internet. Fucking bitch. Yeah. It's like throwing a, playing fetched with a dog and you throw a tennis ball and it comes back with a bone. Hey, Siri, what does this mean? I found this on the internet for blah, blah, blah. The whole point of me asking you is for you to tell me,

not for me to go pick up my phone. You Googled it for me and couldn't even fucking read it. Cocksucker, stupid fuck. Speaking of announcements, did you see the PayPal CEO with his, we're going to, we have an announcement that's going to shock the world. What was it?

Let me pull it up. up here. So, like, a couple weeks ago... Also, let us know in the comments, how you feel about the... Yeah, let us know. Let us know which camp you're in. So, if you're going to opt out. On January 25th, the CEO of PayPal said, we will shock the world.

Oh, sorry, a few days before that. And then on January 5th, 25th, the thing that shocked the world, that they released a couple AI tools and the possibility to earn... The fuck to earn money on transactions? PayPal. I don't know. And then five days later, they fired 9% of their employees. So they certainly shocked the world.

What a fucking douchebag CEO. Okay. And then... That's what I don't get. Like, we've talked about this before. There's obviously clear examples where integrating AI can be very helpful. Oh, yeah. I just cannot stand the CEOs being like, just tell them we're integrating AI.

There, I can't, I think I had one. with either a credit card company or an airline where I did exactly when I needed to get done exclusively with the robot and it actually worked well. It was like, what are you trying to do? And I said, change a flight. Okay. Are you calling about this flight? And I'm like, yes.

Would you like to change the time or the date? And I was like, the time. Okay, these times are available. Okay. And then I did it. And it was like, is that all? And I'm like, yeah, it felt good. You know what they probably won't let you do is...

I felt bad for the robot. Is cancel. I tried to cancel the... I tried to use a chat bot to cancel the internet here. And they were like, we do not allow that. I had to call because they want to give you the sales pitch. I called Verizon and I got my... I negotiated...

That's the thing about these companies, man. What's the thing? You can call them and you can say, hey, I don't want to pay that anymore. There's competition out there. I'm going to switch to Ryan Reynolds as mobile. mobile and then they'll go oh god please don't i swear to god please i have a family and you say well fucking bargain with me bitch and then you bargain with them and then you win they gave you a lower price they gave me a lower price what are you paying per month i talked to verizon down to like

i think seventy five dollars a month from like 105 damn you were paying a fucking lot yeah i know that's the other fucked up thing is i think every year they just like raise it on you like rent they're just like oh yeah hey well we sent your notice I don't pay that much how much do you pay but do you have the nice do you have unlimited data?

Yeah fuck you how much do you pay and I get like free talking text in Canada and Mexico oh cool it is cool yeah I mean I'm never going to Canada

or Mexico we very well might go to Toronto oh yeah for sure but then I have the $10 unlimited data per month travel plan this shit's fucking boring let's talk about the texties CEOs. They got trotted out and spanked.

It's not even fucking, I don't, it's, I thought it was going to, you thought what? Twitter, like, lit up, like, Mark Zuckerberg, forced to apologize or whatever. And none of these people, if anyone looked stupid, the fucking senators looked so fucking stupid. Well, for those who don't know, it's this, uh, the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yeah, in the room, probably where the two gay guys had sex. Probably. Because that's where they had sex. Some tech CEOs were sitting right where some gay guys had sex.

Fuck yeah. We love that. We do love that. If that's not what America's about, I don't know what is. Right? That is exactly what America is about. Yeah. The freedom to have sex on the Senate floor.

Yeah, but then they just, the worst thing that happens is they just get fucking fired like anybody would. That's equality, baby. Yeah. we did it so I look over it till then he's kind of a so the Senate

Judiciary Committee oh I have in my notes here in a barrenthes gay sex oh good he hit that note the senators grilled the the executives from meta X Discord TikTok Snapchat

you know who notably absent the discord no Elon Musk YouTube Oh YouTube because that's the thing. They want to haul in all these people who teens are using their platforms and, you know, I just looked over at you

and I, his fucking belt is always unbuckled. Oh, I thought you were going to talk about my nipples being always hard, because that is true. But YouTube is, you know, like far and away the platform that the most teens use, even above TikTok, but they were not there. That is interesting. Well, so they're questioning these,

executives about their neglecting to protect children from exploitation and the ones who got it worse were Mark Zuckerberg and the CEO of TikTok who they still insist as like a Chinese spy even though he's born in Singapore lives in Singapore. It's really funny. Who was it? Tom Cotton? I don't know. I fucking hate that guy. Over and over again. Like, have you ever worked for the CCP? He's just like, No. No. I'm Singaporean. How can I trust you?

You lived in Beijing for the last five years. Have you, like, situated with them? Yeah. And he, like, tries to, we could probably play the clip. He tries to, like, weirdly get him, and he asks him about, uh, he asked him about the fucking... Fight dance? No, Tiananmen Square. Oh.

And he's like, what happened at Tiananmen Square? And he's like, a massacre? Okay. That's, the whole thing was like the most embarrassing. Yeah. But that's, so TikTok or Twitter was like, you know, Mark Zuckerberg is forced to apologize to the families of, of people who had teens who killed themselves or whatever. And, uh.

Well, not only that, but who have been exploited. Yeah. So I think it was Josh Hawley. Yeah. And he's like, they're here right now. Here's the clip. And I got to say, Mark Zuckerberg's looking fucking hot. also like very confident remember oh yeah just a few years ago aOC was trying to uh ask him

questions and he was like well congressperson that's what that's what man him working out it really does really get in the gym it's not going to just help your body but your your whole shit's going to be more so here it is he's apologizing to families over social media harms they're here you're on national television would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed by your show him the pictures would you like to apologize for what you've done to these good people I you can't hear me he's not speaking into the bank is it nice so sorry that I'm sorry for everything you've gone through it's terrible no one should go through what you've gone through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invested so

much and are going to continue doing these streaking efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the types of things that your family has to pass us up. He just doesn't even seem that phased by it though. He's like, go ahead, apologize. He's like, okay. He just turns around

he's like, we're sorry. So the senators are pushing for this thing called the Kids Online Safety Act, making it and the Stop C-S-A-M act. I don't know what that stands for. Nobody knows. Making it easier for victims to sue, and that second act is going to make it easier for victims to sue these tech

companies. But it is interesting, real fast, it is interesting, meta's being sued by dozens of states for failing to protect children from the addictive nature of the apps, and in a separate suit in New Mexico for promoting underage accounts to predators. First of all, how do they know, if

they know who these predators are, fucking don't let them use the websites. Well, that's, it's all, Ted Cruz was asking you about all this stuff and he was like, because basically what happens, it's kind of like when you search for pay pigs pod, you get a thing and it says you're about to look at something naughty, pornographic that might have to do with trafficking, anything like that. And you'll have two options, get resources or see anyway. And Ted Cruz was like, now why the hell would you have the option to see anyway?

And Mark Zuckerberg said, because sometimes we're wrong. Damn. Which they are wrong in our case. Yeah. We are not. Great example. Offering those kind of things. But we also don't want to be lumped in with that.

Well, and also, yeah, if you're a predator, maybe you're putting in your information that you're a fucking 17-year-old girl. And it's going to show you what a 17-year-old girl wants to look at, whatever that is, fashion shit and other young people. Yeah, you know how 17-year-old girls like fashion. well what do they like fashion shit yeah exactly thank you so this one of your guys favorite fashion shit we don't really know that much deep pop it's all deep pop and fucking

comment below with your favorite fashion shit yeah yeah me I'm all about these plain white t-shirts you know me so part of this kids online safety act is that these platforms would they must provide minors or their parents with safeguards

like settings that restrict access to their personal data, which is huge. Obviously, like, so you can't sell their personal data or use it to, I don't know, show them shit

because that lends itself to their next thing. They would also have to disclose specific information, including details regarding the use of personalized recommendations and targeted ads. It would also give tools to parents to supervise their use of the platforms,

something I think we can all get behind. They would refrain from age-restricted ads like tobacco and alcohol. And they would also have to put out annual reports on risks of harm to minors from using the platforms. And the company, so these, I don't know about you, but I look at that and I'm like, yeah, that all makes sense. That seems good to me. From what I've understood about it, the people are a bit annoyed with this whole thing because it seems like another easy grab for, like, censorship. The whole TikTok thing, it's all this drama about the CCP and them collecting data and all this shit. I don't think they're actually worried about protecting children.

I don't even think they're going to do anything. That's what was so weird about watching it. They were asking the CEOs to commit to supporting this. And it's like, you guys are the politicians. fucking regulated or don't? What is this? That's a good point. Like, Mr. Zuckerberg, will you commit to supporting it?

It's like, do you support a bitch? Yeah. Last I checked, he's not in charge. We're making the laws, man. Fucking. Maybe he means, like, will you commit to at least doing something without us having to force your hand to do so? In which case, the answer is a resounding no.

No, well, that's not what he would say, though. Because they are all coming down there and being like, we're investing tons of, tons of money into this, tons of, we're putting more employees on this. Like, Linda Yakarino was talking about that story. She was yak her Reno, all the way down on that fucking Senate floor.

It's like that guy yaked that other guy's Reno. But they all say, you know, oh, we're building out teams. Yeah. We're moderating, but they're not moderating anything. They're like building these AI programs so they don't have to have any responsibility around this because it would be absolutely impossible to

have people comb through all this and make sure it's safe for people. And that's the... Did you see the Amazon thing where they're basically trying to decide whether or not Amazon will be reclassified as a distributor or a marketplace? Because right now they're like a marketplace. And that's... They're obviously different.

Yeah, but they're obviously different social media from social media companies, but it's all the same thing where like there's this section 230 where social media companies don't have to be responsible for the things that are published on its site. And it's like a very similar thing where Amazon has become labeled as a marketplace rather than a distributor, which would come along with much more regulations. Because they'd be responsible for every single product that goes out. Obviously there have been a lot of issues with stuff coming off Amazon. The Wall Street Journal did a whole thing like in 2019 and 2020.

They said like the Consumer Safety Agency began investigating Amazon. 2019 after a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal chronicled how Amazon's marketplace side of its retail operations headsellers distributing dangerous and mislabeled products such as children's toys, lacking proper choking hazard warnings, motorcycle helmets that failed safety test in children's toys that contain lead levels exceeding federal limits. Hell yeah. In 2021, the commission sued Amazon for distributing unsafe products from sellers on its website, which handles logistics to third-party sellers.

They cited three specific products in that suit children's pajamas that failed flammability tests, a carbon monoxide detector that failed to detect carbon monoxide hair dryers without the required shock protectors in the plug. And so they just found individuals were reselling items they found in the trash on Amazon and delivering them through its fulfillment by Amazon business, which stores and ships products from many third-party sellers. I mean, that's very funny. But so all of these things, these big companies basically get to like skate by and be like,

no, what are you talking about? We're just running this platform where everyone gets to log on and use. and we have no responsibility for that. So you guys can just... I mean, dude, I was joking about it last week, but trying to use Facebook Marketplace just to sell some furniture. It's like the most...

I'm like, I'm gonna... Hi, is this item still available? Hi, wondering if item is still available. It's a wonder I haven't gotten a... I will actually offer you twice as much. Do you accept... It's so tempting. Yeah.

And it's clearly just like, ah, this is a scam, but what is it? like, I'll pay you today. Yeah, I'll pay you right now. I'll pay you right. I'll pay you now. I pay you twice as much now. But, yeah, my entire, I'm sure I've had my identity stolen just trying to sell a

fucking couch. What is you Venmo? I send you right now. Yeah. Give you a code. Tell me what the code is. But that's the thing. They do no fucking, there's no vetting process.

There's no nothing. They're just like, sure, log on and fucking. Yeah. Start scamming. Start scamming. Good luck out there. Yeah, that's what. See, we're so, we're a couple of old heads, a couple of old internet heads,

where we're used to the, the landscape of scams and scam artists and everything being, I remember applying to a job in like 2006 off Craigslist or something like that, where someone looking for a driver. Just like, I'm a wealthy diplomat and I'm going to be in town and I need a driver to drive my wife around for a couple days. I'll pay you like $1,000 a day. And I thought, I know how to drive. And I get to fuck his wife? I'm a fucking great driver, and I get to fuck this diplomat's wife?

Hell yeah. And so I reach out, I reach out and they're like, okay, actually, we're going to send you $1,200 a day. How does that sound? We'll pay you in advance. That's way better. I'm like, buddy, sure. Okay, what's your address? We'll send a fucking mail or a money order right now.

And they sent me like $5,000. And I'm like, okay, hmm, thank God I was a smart kid because I went to my dad and I was like, Hey, some internet person just sent me $5,000 for a driving job. I haven't even done yet. And he goes, that's a scam. Rip it up. I was like, okay. I got one of those letters.

Cool. Yeah. So there is so, and which is all the more surprising to me when I see that like things like the TikTok shop and buying things off of Instagram site unseen still works like for, and it works better than ever for people. What are you looking at? I was pulling up your. Can you relax?

Like, I'm trying to fucking add. What are you looking at? I thought you were. like someone offering your fucking couch what what is this well so that was the uh i i do think i lost some guy who was who was who was real because i was fighting so many scams but as soon as someone says cash app i'm like nah so he said let me see if i can get a van only way to transport in the rain i can pay by cash app and i said i don't have cash app has to be venmo zel or cash and he said address and i'm like okay if people are like serious about it i'll give the address but i don't

So I said, I can give you a nearby address until you're confirmed buying it. Don't want to give my address out to a bunch of people. And so I gave him a nearby address of a business. And he said, tell you what, you deliver it. You don't have to, if you deliver it, you don't have to worry about giving your address. I'll pay you when you show up and the unit is on the sidewalk. And I was like, eh, he's pissed. I'll just find someone else.

So I said, I said, all good. I've got another buyer. Thanks. And he just said, you don't have, you don't have shit. You're dumbass playing around. He said that to you? you don't know shit you're a dumb ass playing around oh that rocks sorry i did want you to buy but i didn't know what you should write it back

and say like hey man this is really funny i am really sorry i thought you were a scammer you know as soon as i see cash app i got to hand it to you it's a really funny thing for you to have said you're dumb ass it's just scam city out there oh it's scam fucking central it's terrible well you know who's not uh who's who's not getting scammed as meta in their fucking shareholders. They just, it's incredible. Just a year ago, Jim

Kramer was crying on TV because they had a bad earnings report. And he was saying, I don't know what to tell you people. I feel terrible. I recommended this stock. And it's, it's cratering. I've lost all trust in the management and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's fucking quintupled

since then. They just had a blowout earnings. Their biggest, they posted the biggest single day market cap gain in stock market history. And right at their 20th anniversary, right? Yeah. Their company, the company grew by $205 billion because of what the stock did. $205 billion in a single day. And they announced a 50 cent dividend going forward. So every quarter, however many shares you've got, cut that in half and then you get that

as a cash dividend, which means Mark Zucker corn. Let's spend one more time for us? So if you have 1,000 shares, you get 50 cents per share. So 500 bucks. Or if you have fucking 350 million shares like Mark Zuckerhorn, he's getting fucking $700 million per year. Yeah, man. So these fucking kids, they're all not safe on the internet.

You just make a law where you can't join social media until you're 18. That solves everything. I don't think I had Facebook until I was. 18. I didn't have Facebook until I was like 22 or 23. I didn't even, man, I remember being a ludite about Instagram. And I was like, ugh. I didn't get Instagram until, yeah, way later.

I don't want to do this. God damn it. I was like, I don't want to fucking see more pictures. Who fucking gives a shit? But then I saw, I was on the freeway driving home from work and I was in traffic next to a bus, a school bus. But it said cool bus on the side. And you were like, that needs to be on there.

I was like, this is fucking, that's funny. Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll take a picture of this that says cool bus. But it was intentional. It wasn't like a couple of the letters had been scraped off. It was in like a cool font and everything. Oh, that is worth it. And I took a picture of it.

And then I was like, oh, I can make it look like old-timey. So I made it look old-timey. But that's the thing. Like that's what I'm talking about before. Like I think this is going to happen more and more with like the opting out. But it's a shitty. I tried to get off Instagram. I was off of it for...

Dylan was off of it for a while. Yeah. I was off for two years. And it's like it feels good because you're not experiencing this bad thing you hate, but it also is isolating when social lives, like, do revolve around it. Like, we have friends in common who will just, when it's their birthday or whatever, they'll just post a thing to close friends and be like, here's where the party is. Like, just come.

Yeah. Well, now you get a party, now you get a partyful invite. It's that website, partyful. I don't think I get those. Oh, man, fucking loser over here. No, I get them all the time. You get a text message. Oh, I did just go.

I did just. And it's like, oh, RSVP to the thing and then it shows you a website. Right. So you don't have to do the whole fucking, I don't know, Instagram thing. But yeah, I feel the same way. Sometimes if I... So it's pick your poison. Be a lonely-ass fucking loser without an Instagram or or feel sick all the time.

I'm from social media. Comparing and despairing. Oh, that's my big thing. Also, the worst thing, it's just anybody. The worst thing was a few years ago when I- Like 17-year-old fashion stuff, girls? Yeah, I wish I was now. God damn.

Doing fashion shit. If I were a 17-year-old girl, I would probably be on like suicide watch. Because I just feel... Like nothing to do with social media. Just because your boyfriend just left. If they had Instagram when I was in high school, and I think they might have. No, they didn't.

But the worst thing we had was MySpace. And I just, I honestly don't know how the state of my mental health was already in the shitter because of MySpace. Really? Oh, yeah. I never had one. Oh, lucky you. All it took, and this is what I was just going to say about. I don't know what people were doing on there, though.

I remember they would make their page look weird and they would put music on it. Yeah. But like, you couldn't bully. people, could you? It's not that. Of course you could. You can bully anyone any way. But it wasn't like... You can bully someone by mail. You could write a letter and call him a piece of shit. True. Say, if I were there, man, I'd fucking punch you in the head. But, uh, no, the thing that I experienced back then is still something that I'll experience every so often on Instagram where and it's probably just me and I'll be the first to say it's, it's a reflection of my own

insecurities of either I'm not, I'll see someone and be like a guy that I've never seen before and I'm like, oh, he makes you feel inadequate? Yes, this guy's so cool. Oh, man, he's doing so much cool shit. Is he a famous guy or is it? I don't know. Whatever you. He could be quasi-famous or famous in a mysterious way where I'm like, what does this guy do?

How does he have money? Oh, he's like, he or, oh, the worst is when he, he looks like me, but like the better version of me. You found that guy? Oh, yeah, I've seen so many of that guy. You know, it's the worst is my DMs are full of those. They're like, this looks like a hot you. Oh, God, fuck.

But I can't tell you how many times, especially if I'm high and I'm just like feeling bad about myself and looking at some guy. And I'm like, he's like effortlessly funny and cool. And he's got like, oh, look at his fucking girlfriend is hot or whatever. I need to see this guy. He's got such a great looking circle of friends who all like are fucking cool and shit. This guy's got a perfect. Oh, this guy's fucking perfect. He's doing funny videos.

He's posting Not he's not even doing funny videos He's just being effortless You could just tell he's funny You can tell he didn't even think He's just like Yeah I'll fucking put this up there Like ah

Of course he didn't think about He's not even thinking before He's not thinking twice man He's not overthinking it Which is in itself He's not getting high going I shouldn't have posted that He's not getting high looking at my shit

Going damn this guy's fucking awesome He's not even checking my shit He's got bigger fish to fry He's got other shit going on I wish we had an example I wish I did too man I really wish, oh, man, he's like a fucking, I don't know what he's doing. He's like a, somehow he produced this movie or something.

He's friends with that guy? How? Oh, he's at this fucking cool party? Dude, get off his pay. Yeah, I know. I can't. I can't stop comparing. We got to block this guy.

But you know what feels nice? I'm probably that guy for some guy out there. Maybe. That's honestly a good boy. But also, if I am that guy to you, fucking don't worry, dude. I'm miserable. It's not that, but just... But that is the thing.

It could always be worse. And you, you, there's always someone that you could compare yourself to and be like, I wish I was doing that. That's why I don't say no to, well, I say no to a lot of things. But like, I had the chance to go to China. I'm like, all right, you know what? Fuck it. I'll go.

I could get some pictures and I could post them to Instagram and some guys might look at my thing. Some guys are going to go, wow. Dude, he go to China? How? How's he going to China? He's got a girlfriend. He's got friends. He goes to China.

Who's he know in China? Who is this guy? How does he know that Chinese guy? That guy looks extremely Chinese. I know him from a stock trading room I was in. Okay? That's how. I'll tell you all my secrets.

No, don't tell them. No, I'll reveal it all. I want them to sit at home. I know. How does he do this? You want to know? I'll tell you. In fact, that's what I should put in every fucking caption is like,

here's what I was thinking. Here's what I was thinking here. This will make me look cool. But that's the thing. That'll work. Man. It is actually so funny because I was just... But then if you do that and it's too much, it's like, oh, you're trying too hard to be cool.

You're trying too hard to be on the... I was just with a friend and they were... Him and his wife were on vacation before I had seen them. And I was like, dude, how was it? It looked so sick, blah, blah, blah. And he was like... You said blah, blah? Yeah.

And he was like, we actually left early. And I was like, why? It fucking... And he was like, he was... miserable we we stayed too long we got sick blah blah I was like

dude from the pictures it looked like you guys were having the best time yeah I know and I even said to my wife why are you don't do that we're having a bad time

yeah what else are we going to do yeah well you could post it and be like actually contrary to how beautiful these pictures are when I haven't a very good time and we came home early

it's just very funny yeah yeah I can't let this I can't let this trip go to waste you know what what's funny to me is that We all kind of collectively, occasionally talk about how we only put our best foot forward on social media and we only present the best coolest parts of ourselves and that that feels kind of disingenuous and fake, right? But then the flip side of that is if you post yourself having like a mental health episode, it's like, what are you doing?

Cringe. You, cringe. Don't do that. What do you do? We don't like it when you do that. We don't like that. it's like oh come on yeah right any cries for help bad we don't like or not even a cry for well yeah if it's a if it's an overt cry for help it's like okay i don't know i don't think i've ever done that

i think about like i have i've tweeted some shit where someone who texted me was like are you okay and i'm like i should delete that tweet oh years ago i've never done that but i've also i think when i'm posting like i posted some stuff from the trip this summer it's like stuff from Majorca, having the time of my life. Uh-huh. Us in London? Time of my life. Yeah, yeah.

Just, if I didn't feel, I wouldn't be like, I'm going to make it look like I'm having a sweet-ass time. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the time I'm just trying to post, hey, I took a picture of this or like, here's, here's a picture of me at this place. Here's more fashion stuff, girls. There's more fashion shit for you 17-year-olds. Enjoy it. Check out my D-pop.

What's the guy's version again, Deluxe or something? Grailed, grailed. Grailed is for boys. Deep pop is for girls. Yeah, God. Fuck it up. Fashion is just so exhausting to me. I'm just,

I can't. I mean, I know that I could do better, but at the same time, I'm like, why? For who? I just want to be comfortable. I'm like kind of the same where I don't care that much about it,

but like I'm getting to the point where as an adult I'm finding everyday life is fine, but I'm finding there are certain events that I have to go to where I know, ooh, I need to like, I need to get some better. Yeah. Because anytime they're like, don't wear jeans, I'm like, what do you want me to do then? What are you talking about? Oh, you mean, so you want me to wear shorts? And I'm like, I'm trying to figure it out.

Yeah. It's happened like multiple times in the past few months and I'm just like, fuck. and then there's like khakis and you're like I just look like a Tucker Carlson at a golf tournament Yeah or like a frat guy

That's not the vibe Yeah I feel fine about Any casual stuff But outside of Oh Just if I can't wear jeans I'm toast

Yeah Speaking of toast I think this episode is just about cook Am I right? Well folks Join us in the very first bonus episode on the new website Yes we're very excited

And also, you know, it's going to be on Patreon, too. But don't sign it. If you're subscribing to our Patreon, don't. Because that's what's kind of frustrating is there's going to be people who are signing up for the first time. But it's fine. Even if you do, you'll get a free month on the new thing anyway. And it's the same fucking price.

Yeah. Same everything. But it's such a better experience. Don't go to the Patreon. If you're on the Patreon, come switch over. It's fucking so easy to sign up. Yeah. But we're going to be talking about a lot of China shit.

I'm going to be talking about China. And then... And Ben's... We're going to do the very first episode... Very first... The very first episode starting off with a song. Oh, yeah. Wow.

Ooh, I think I know exactly what song to do. Okay. So anyway, thanks everybody. We will see you in there. We'll see you in the bonus. dot com if that's too confusing just type ben and amel.com it'll come up we'll be posting it everywhere we love you goodbye thank you