The Blindboy Podcast - Stories for Geriatric Millennials

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

I speak about what life was like before the internet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bull a bus you fussy gubnets. Welcome to the Blind By Podcast. If you're a brand new listener maybe go and listen to some earlier podcasts. And if you're a regular listener, if you're a ten foot enda, you know the crack. I don't have a hot take this week. Usually when I don't have a hot take it's because I do have a hot take but it's not ready to come out of the oven yet a hot take is an essay essentially a one hour monologue essay

that has to have a solid argument and a solid conclusion and if I get a little hot take if one arrives into my brain I want to make sure I do it justice so what I'm going to do this week instead is unleash a series of mini hot takes I have lots of little hot takes

that can't merit a full podcast that I like to get out sometimes so I'm going to explore a few of them before I get into that I want to reflect on the past week in Ireland. It's been a very emotional and sad week in Ireland. Just a little heads up actually, for the next few minutes I'm going to be speaking about violence towards women, just in case that's something you're not ready to hear or don't want to listen to. I'll speak about it as responsibly and thoughtfully as I can. So sadly this week in

Ireland a young woman by the name of Aisling Murphy, she was a school teacher, was out jogging by the canal in Tullamore and she was murdered and in Ireland there's been what can only be called a collective grief, a collective moment of grief in the country with quite a lot of vigils and people expressing grief. If you're from Ireland obviously you know this because this is all anyone's been talking about. A lot of my listeners aren't from Ireland so might not be aware. It's also brought into public conversation again. The issue of. Women's safety. If you listen to this podcast a lot.

You know I've spoken about. My privilege while out jogging. I've spoken about this a couple of times on this podcast. That as a man when I'm out. I run frequently. And when I'm out running. frequently and when I'm out running I never really have to think about my safety my physical safety

every so often I might worry about maybe my phone will get robbed and what a terrible inconvenience that would be but that's the extent of it I'm not thinking about my physical safety and sadly this isn't the case for women women have to consistently at all times worry about being approached being harassed being attacked or being

killed and this was really evident this week I mean not only with the public discussion that was going on because of the murder of Aisling Murphy, but the knock-on effects on women's behaviour that I saw with my own eyes this week, which again really made me reflect on the privilege of not having to worry about this stuff. Like, I was in the gym a few times this week and there was twice as many women there as there usually is. Because the horror of what happened up in Tullamore, I guess made a lot of women just go, I never feel safe when I'm out running, but I certainly don't feel safe this week. So I'm just going to go to the gym instead. I'm going to change and restrict my behavior something that I as a man don't have to do another thing I noticed this week now why am

I saying this stuff I'm saying this stuff for men for the men who are listening so that you might relate to my observations and this can result in behavioural change or greater awareness and compassion. So another thing I noticed this week which this one just really got me in the chest this one really knocked the wind out of me. So my regular running route I run on a very popular running route in Limerick by the river where I've been doing it for years and I do it a couple of times a week so I'm very familiar with this route I'm very familiar with the amount of people

that'll be there at certain times of day certain types of people that will be there and one thing I noticed on this route this week that broke my fucking heart the amount of women of about 19, 20 who were out walking with their

dads and it really stopped me in my tracks because it's not something I see a lot of you don't generally see a young woman out walking with her dad but I saw a few of them and I suppose it got me because okay there's the obvious element of the dad's out walking with the daughter to keep

them safe there's that but that's not what it was it was the horror of Ashley Murphy's murder has caused every parent in the country to hold their daughters a little bit closer this week. And that's what I saw when I saw all those dads and daughters out walking. It was two people appreciating the time that they have with each other on this earth and appreciating the love that they have for each other and this was instigated this week because of terror and then I had to do self-reflection around that observation and why that observation was the one that got me in the

chest because effectively it was easier for me to empathize with the the fear of a father a man than it was for me to empathize with the fear that the daughter feels when simply being out walking by herself or jogging because like I said when I'm out running I'm out jogging I'm not thinking about my personal safety and I don't really have to. Put it this way if I said to myself I'm not going to go for a jog this evening because I'm scared of being attacked that would be grounds for me to start using CBT on myself. That would be evidence that my anxiety is returning because it would be an irrational fear the threat of me coming under any harm while i'm out jogging is so small that to change my behavior

to accommodate that fear would be an anxiety response that i need to tackle whereas it's a it's a realistic and reasonable threat assessment for a woman to be wary of going out for a run threat assessment for a woman to be wary of going out for a run so i don't have any hot takes around this i don't want to have any hot takes around it um because it wouldn't be respectful the the media this week unfortunately there's been quite a lot of irresponsible media around ashlyn murphy's death and there's been quite a lot of voyeurism in the media that's been really fucking disappointing and I'd just like to express my condolences

to Ashlyn Murphy's family and her friends and what I can to use my platform here to speak to the men who are listening because men tend not to listen to women. We tend to listen to other men.

Which is number one thing to try and flag with yourself. That's something I've had to flag with myself over the years. Listen to women. When women talk about their experiences and their fears of the threat of violence out in public. Actually listen to women and believe their experiences and if hearing me talking about it is making you go have a little eureka moment then there's a beautiful starting point it shouldn't be i'm just translating shit that women have said i'm translating it into man when women are expressing their fears don't put in and say not all men not all men not

all men means shut the fuck up that's what that means when a man says not all men what he's actually saying is shut the fuck up i haven't listened to anything you've said and I've chosen to hear your fears as a personal attack on me. Please be quiet. So if you're the type of person who says not all men, just get it out of your vocabulary. There's zero compassion, zero empathy in that statement. And from the point of view of a woman who's been conscious of her safety, statement and from the point of view of a woman who's been conscious of her safety it kind of has to be all men because how do you tell which which one is is going to hurt you and which one isn't and if you're a conscientious man who legitimately wants to try and help and

create an environment that feels just a little bit safer, then there's a few little tips that you can do. And again, these tips come from women. I'm just translating it into men. I would have mentioned these tips back in March, around the murder of Sarah Everard over in England. But, so here's the thing. As a man, if you're out walking,

if you're out running, you're out in public, you're utterly harmless, you're thinking about whatever the fuck is going on in your day, you're listening to music, whatever. But we're certainly not thinking about our personal safety because we don't have to. So because of that, we can have a kind of a lack of self-awareness about our presence.

So if you're out and you see a woman keep your distance if I'm jogging right and I and it's a long path and there's a woman ahead of me I flag up myself and I say to myself there's a woman walking ahead now and me running might make her nervous so I'm going to make sure that there's appropriate distance and that I'm not like running up the back of her and my head could be up my arse I could be listening to a song listening to a podcast and I'm running at the back of a woman oblivious while she's nervous and uncomfortable with good reason. So bring that into your awareness. Keep your distance. Making a bit of noise can be good as well. Jingling keys.

I don't mean using your voice. Don't be like shouting at a woman saying, hey, I'm behind you, don't worry. Not that. But like jingling keys, maybe if you're walking, if you're walking down a street and it's you and it's a woman in front of you, maybe use that opportunity to take out your phone and ring your friend. Because the sound of you being on a phone to your friend towards you and it's just ye on the street or if it's late at night cross the road when you cross the road with good distance that's like it alleviates any need for anxiety and it's almost a signal to say that you're aware of the nervousness of the situation and you just cross the road also offer to walk your female friends home

offers if they have to walk to a bus stop anything like that just ask would you like me to walk you to your bus stop is that ok and then this one seems obvious

but I don't think it is to a lot of lads because you see it too much if you're out at night and there's a woman on her own it's after the pub or whatever and you decide I'm going to go over now

and talk to her maybe don't because in your mind you could be thinking sure fuck it this is harmless I'm going over having a chat but from her point of view she doesn't know

are you harmful or not so your best intentions even if you're being sound you're walking over to a situation whereby there's anxiety on that other person's part for good reason so don't do that especially if the woman is a stranger move on with your night get a kebab listen to women's experiences and bring into your self-awareness that 50% of the population are dealing with a fear that you're not dealing with and bring that into your awareness and have empathy around it and then allow that to inform and change your behavior and that message

there was for the lads who want to improve. The ones that I think I can reach. And of course, if you see lads out in public harassing women, acting the absolute bollocks, intervene. And place yourself physically between the woman and that man. So I hope that was in some way helpful. And I don't want to sound like I'm on a judgmental high horse here I grew up with the same system of toxic masculinity I grew up

not having to think about any of this stuff I grew up saying misogynistic things as a way to be accepted by lads as a way to hide my insecurities or feelings of inadequacy. I've been complicit in the system of misogyny,

especially growing up in an all-boys school, from primary school all the way up to fucking secondary school. I'm saying this shit because men listen to other men, and I have a platform and men listen to this podcast. I'm not looking for pats on the back. I'm not looking for pats on the back. And being a good boy who respects women that's not what I fucking want

men listen to other men so if you're a man listening to me and some of this made sense stop listening to me and now start listening to women so I'm going to answer a couple of questions because I keep getting asked questions and I've picked some questions that are related to.

Kind of miniature hot takes that I have. That I can't do full podcasts on. So one question I got was from Julie. Who says blind but I'm in my 30s. And I grew up with no internet and no mobile phones. And I'm starting to forget what it was like. I kind of remember it as being less stressful. Can you talk about it? So yeah this is something I think about frequently. So if you're a geriatric millennial like myself I'm going to take you on a journey of nostalgia

and if you're if you're younger if you're like fucking in your early 20s and you grew up with nothing but the internet then gather around the fire and get ready to listen to an old man tell you about the before times like i'm i'm in my 30s so i'm like the internet has fucking changed everything the internet is a is a industrial revolution size change in human history and I'm at the exact age where I grew up with the internet but I remember when the internet wasn't a thing and when mobile phones weren't a thing. So I remember those two completely separate ways of living and I often find myself weighing up the pros and cons. One thing we definitely lost as soon as the internet came along,

which I think is a bad thing, is what I'd call cultural scarcity. So I remember being a kid. Like it's fucking mad when I think back and I don't know how the fuck we did it but like when I was a child if a song came on the TV or the radio

it could be the best song I've ever heard in my life if I didn't get the name of that song which I probably wouldn't have back then because not every radio presenter said that song was this or if it was on television it was in the middle of that song, which I probably wouldn't have back then, because not every radio presenter said that song was this or if it was on television it was in the middle of a film that was it, the song was

gone, and this would happen all the time, like I remember being, oh it must have been 8 years of age, and I was walking down the road, and this car pulled up at stoplights. And it was a lot of lads inside and they were listening to techno music really loud.

And they must have been waiting at the stoplights for probably I'd say a minute. Because it was enough time for me to listen to the tune that they were playing. And in my little head I was just going, that's the coolest music I've ever heard. That's the catchiest song I've ever heard, so I waited there for a minute and then the car drove off and that was it 8 year old

me heard the best song he'd ever heard and that was it it was gone, there's no internet there's nothing so I couldn't get it out of my fucking head then the thing is as well is that you've heard it once so the song could could end up warping into something different in your own memory so I had to muster up the courage as a child to go into a record shop in Limerick called

Empire Music and I used to walk up to the counter to the lads behind the counter and I'd have to say to them I heard this song coming out of a car, it goes like this and I'd start humming a techno tune and they were like no, I don't know what that is, no no no

can you do it again, and then of course while I'm doing it again, what they're actually doing is bringing everyone else who works in the shop over so they can laugh at the child who's trying to do a techno song with his voice and I used to keep doing it keep doing it until I eventually gave up and then about three years ago I came across the song on YouTube in my fucking 30s. I'd forgotten about it. The song was called Tears Don't Lie by Mark O. Terrible song. Very forgettable.

Kind of bubblegum Eurodance. Worse than Scooter. But like the idea that as I existed at a time that you could hear a song and it could be the best song you've ever heard and then it's gone or same thing with a film like i didn't grow up with a vhs player um and my dad for some reason i don't know how he got this into his head but my dad used to rent televisions he'd never buy a TV. Because someone in a pub in the 70s. Told him that cathode rays explode.

So my dad used to rent the worst TVs. Like no teletext. Nothing. And the TVs used to break frequently. So the person who rented the TV. Used to come out and fix it. But the man who fixed it right. He looked a bit like a gibbon like you know those monkeys with the long arms this TV repairman had these long gibbon like

arms that he'd use to fix the back of the TV and my older brothers then used to refer to him as the trained monkey so whenever the fucking TV would break my brothers would say bring the trained monkey ring up the trained monkey to come and fix the tv but i was a child so i used to think literally that a monkey was going to come and fix the tv and then when the man came to fix the fucking tv i started bawling crying because he wasn't an actual trained monkey and then he ended up finding out that my brothers think he looks like a gibbon and he got offended and didn't fix the TV and walked out of the house with his big long gibbon arms. He always had shit TVs was the point and no VCR. So as I got a bit older, I was like fucking I think 11

I'd be sitting watching TV and if a fucking film came on like this is the mad thing if a film came on before the internet if you didn't catch the bit at the start where they told you the name of the film you don't know what it is. And there's no way to find out.

And often you'd arrive halfway through the film. And it's fucking brilliant. It's amazing. But you don't know what it's called. And again I remember this happened with me. I was about 10 I suppose. And it was late night. And this film came on.

And I just thought it was fucking amazing. I just thought it was brilliant. Reese Witherspoon was in it. I didn't know who Reese Witherspoon was. I didn't know who any of the actors were. It was just this really weird film that was basically the story of Little Red Riding Hood except it was set in California in the 90s and as a child I just thought this was the best thing I'd ever seen. Not a fucking clue what the film was. I had to go into school the next day and say

did anyone stay up last night and see that film that was on at 12 o'clock? Did anyone see it at all? And no one saw it. There was no one able to say I saw that thing too so it just had to be lost in the ether this piece of art that I thought was amazing was just gone forever and I ended up finding it about five years ago by accident the film was called Freeway with Reese Witherspoon it was one of her first films I think she was only about 16 in it and it wasn't that good

you know looking back it wasn't that good at all but to me when I was fucking 10 or whatever age I was it was amazing it was fucking incredible but the thing is is that yes that's frustrating that I saw this incredible film

and I had no internet I had no teletext I mean if I really wanted to I probably could have gone to the shop the next day and looked for an RTE guide to see what was on TV the night before but you just didn't think like that you didn't think like that at all that's internet thinking you asked other people and then if you didn't get an answer you just had to accept it I saw an amazing piece of art and I might never ever see it again and I have to hold it dearly

in my memory as this incredible thing I once saw and I have to describe it to people when I see it and I don't know what it's called and the cultural scarcity of that culture things you consume music tv these things became really really scarce and you had to hold them in your mind like real precious jewels and worship them

and it made you appreciate art more i think when art was a passing experience that could just disappear into thin air at any time. Another mad thing that you used to do back then, because art could suddenly disappear. And this is a little hot take I have about writing. So back in the days before the internet, before DVDs, if a movie came on television, right? if a movie came on television right so it's on tv you can't pause it you can't rewind it you can't fast forward you're at the mercy of television so a movie comes on tv and you walk into your living room and your family are watching this movie but you have to be extra cautious how you interrupt

because no one can pause so you have to walk into the room really quietly and if you have to be extra cautious how you interrupt because no one can pause. So you have to walk into the room really quietly. And if you decide to join your family in watching whatever movie is on the TV, you're allowed two questions and you have to get them out of the way in 30 seconds. And this is how it used to work. A character comes on the TV and you ask, Is he a goody or a baddy? And then they say, He's a goody. Then another character comes on the TV and you ask, is he a goody or a baddy? And then they say, he's a goody.

Then another character comes on and you say, is he a goody or a baddy? And then they say, he's a baddy. That's it. Boom. Now you're watching the film. And the only piece of information you have is, Bruce Willis is a goody, Alan Rickman is a baddy. That's it. And I think films were written with that in mind and it made the plots of films quite simplistic, quite binary. The force of good and evil battling

each other, which is the theme you see in movies from the 70s and the 80s. And then it changes a bit when VHS comes in. Because pause in VHS was a bit of a cunt. But when the DVD came in, which was something that was really, really easy to pause, that changed the game altogether. Because the thing is, if you walk into the room and someone's watching Breaking Bad, you can't just say, is he a goody or a baddy? You have to pause and have a conversation about morality. You have to say, well, Walter White there, he's actually a drug dealer. Also, he's a baddy. Well, no, because he's

dealing drugs so he can pay for his cancer treatment. Also, he's a goody. He's kind of a goody and a baddy at the same time. We're're not sure that conversation can only happen when there's a decent pause button similarly the wire that fella is he a goodie or a baddie and then you pause it and you go but there aren't really any goodies or baddies and some people say that the main character is actually the city of Baltimore itself so I think the ability to pause things and to rewind allowed for greater moral complexity in TV writing, as opposed to when it's just on TV and everyone's a goody or a baddy. Another thing that cultural scarcity before the internet did, if you liked a band, because you had so little information about them,

they truly became otherworldly gods in your head. Like I was obsessed with the Prodigy. I used to fucking listen to the Prodigy every fucking day when I was a kid. But I had them on tape. And I didn't know what the Prodigy looked like. So here's this fucking band that I'm obsessed about I don't even know what they fucking look like because on the CD if you opened up the CD there was a photograph of the prodigy

but on the tape when you open it up there was no photo of him and the idea that my favourite band like I didn't know what they looked like I had no information about them I knew

fucking nothing. I just had the music and whatever was available in the inside of the paper that comes with a tape. And if you wanted to find something out, you had to hope that when you, if you went to a shop and there was magazines, you had to hope that maybe there was something about the prodigy in the magazine, but never was so I went years just knowing nothing about my favorite band but the scarcity and the rarity of that made me appreciate the art much more intensely like now you can't do that anymore now because you'll find some artist you fucking adore them you love them and then you find their twitter and they turn out to be a bit of a fucking eejit and it's ruined back then rock stars truly were like not real they were gods they were mythical creatures

like some of my earliest experiences of hip hop music I was a child didn't have a lot of money so a huge amount of rap music that I first heard I had a buddy and he used to just get me tapes out of his brother's bedroom I'd give him like 5 pounds and he'd run into his brother's bedroom

and grab 3 or 4 tapes from his drawer because his brother had stopped listening to rap and started listening to rave music so he used to just grab random four tapes from his drawer, because his brother had stopped listening to rap, and started listening to rave music, so he used to just grab random rap tapes for me, but like, they were all taped over and stuff, so I'd just have this blank tape, and I'd be listening to Public Enemy,

for a year, and I'd love it, and I wouldn't even know what it was, I didn't know the name of the band, this tape that I love listening to, this album. I didn't know the name of the band. This tape that I love listening to, this album, I don't know the name of the album. I don't know the name of the band. There was a poverty of information that truly asked you to engage with your imagination and it made art more valuable and we've definitely lost that. And even as I got a little bit older in my teens

and I used to save up money if I wanted to buy a CD it was 20 fucking quid so you were only buying maybe three CDs a year so if you bought an album you fucking listened to it until you loved it because you couldn't waste 20 quid on a shit album nowadays one thing I really dislike nowadays if I come across a new artist now even someone who's like a complete fucking legend whose music

I haven't really gotten into like someone like Bruce Springsteen I'm not hugely familiar with Bruce Springsteen but I can just go onto Spotify now and flick through every single one of Bruce Springsteen. But I can just go onto Spotify now and flick through every single one of Bruce Springsteen's albums really quickly and it's stopping me getting into Bruce Springsteen. Like I should have to live with one album

and listen to it until I understand every single bit of it because it cost me 20 quid. But you can't do that now. Just flick through everything on Spotify and it loses all its value it's no longer scarce and maybe I'm looking back

with rose tinted glasses because so I'm pining for a time when we had less information and I'm saying to myself it was I remember that as being better but

we definitely pined for the internet before it existed and I'll tell you why there was this cartoon I grew up with called Inspector Gadget and on Inspector Gadget Inspector Gadget was like this weird robot man and he had a helper who was a little girl

can't remember her name was it Lucy I don't know her name she was small blonde girl and she, this was before the internet now, she basically had an iPhone or an iPad before iPads existed. So this girl in Inspector Gadget, her special power was that she had this book that had an antenna on it and she could open up the book and there was a

video in it and she could ask this book any question in the world. She could ask the book about cheetahs and then it would play her videos of cheetahs. And we as kids used to look at Inspector Gadget and we used to think to ourselves, wow, imagine having a magical book like that and you ask it anything and it shows you videos about anything in the whole world. So that's just a fucking iPad. But when we were kids, that was science fiction. It was impossible. And we used to pine for that. We used to imagine, oh my God, if only we had the book of infinite wisdom that shows you videos of cheetahs when you ask for it. Here's another thing I often wonder about. you know, was it better before the internet?

So this observation isn't before the internet, but this is definitely before smartphones we'll say. Because again, I'm in the weird position of, I grew up with no internet then when I became a teenager there was some internet and then when I got into being an adult that's when we started getting broadband so I remember going on holidays before I had an iPhone and back then I'm not even back then I'm talking fucking 2010 in 2010 if I went to like London or York, I don't know where the fuck I am. I don't know my way around. So if I was in New York in 2010 and I wanted to get around the place, I had to literally use a map, ask for directions and be completely aware of my surroundings at all times. And it was stressful, but I was fully present with the experience of being in New York

I'm looking at buildings I'm looking for signs I'm memorizing oh there's that church there so if I get lost I know that when I walk back I'll be going taking a left at that church so I'm experiencing New York in this really immersive way, using all of my senses, my sights, my smells, the whole shebang. And then the iPhone comes along and I've got Google Maps. So now, from about 2012 onwards, when I was going to London, when I was going to New York, Italy, wherever, now I'm just using Google Maps. So when I want to go somewhere, I'm just staring at my phone and I'm not looking at the buildings.

I'm not looking at the road. I'm not memorizing landmarks. I'm not asking people for directions. I'm not immersing myself in the environment of my holiday at all. Therefore, I'm not being in any way mindful and my holiday just becomes the screen of my phone at all. Therefore I'm not being in any way mindful and my holiday just becomes the screen on my phone where I'm following the arrow to get to where I need to get. And I think that's a bad thing. Like Google Maps is good if you really need to get somewhere quickly

but when it was like holidays were better without google maps you were fully immersed experiencing relaxing in a different city and taking everything in google maps ruined all that just following an arrow it's very similar to video games there's certain video games like grand theft auto 5 where they've put all this effort into this digital recreation of Los Angeles. But you end up just playing the little mini-map. They have a mini-map in the corner that looks like Google Maps. And when you play Grand Theft Auto 5, you're just using that mini-map.

Which actually looks like a video game from the 1970s, like fucking Pong or something. So you're not now enjoying the environment of the video game because you're just using this mini-map. Google Maps has done that to holidays. Another mad thing we kind of take for granted and don't think about. I don't know whether this is good or bad. but before smartphones everyone's watches were kind of out of sync with each other like

if you agreed to meet someone at 3 o'clock and you're relying on your watch or even your shitty Nokia phone you had to set your own time to the television so everyone was a few minutes out of sync. Now, if it's three o'clock on my phone, it's three o'clock on your phone. We're all perfectly synced. That wasn't the case. You could have some people five minutes out, some people three minutes out. Nobody was in sync with each other. But also you had to really be on time.

If you agreed to meet someone before mobile phones. Because I remember before mobile phones when I was a child. And just before. I got my first mobile phone when I was about 12. That's when everyone started getting them. 12 or 13. But when I was like 10. I would have been allowed to walk into town and if I was meeting

someone at 3 o'clock you literally had to be on fucking time and you had to agree to meet at the same fucking place and there was no middle ground you couldn't text someone and say I'm going to be a little bit late one thing that's definitely

a negative of the internet and technology is it's nice to not be contactable all the time. And I feel a sadness for the loss of that feeling. I can't believe that I spent a huge portion of my life with that much privacy. Like, even back in the days of mobile phones, when you used to have to buy credit, if your friend texted you, it would be perfectly acceptable,

it would actually be normal to wait a day to text them back because that text costs 16p. So when I was texting people in like the early 2000s, texting my mates, like we weren't texting like you are now where you have a full on conversation. now where you have a full on conversation. If you had a conversation in 2002 via text, like an average WhatsApp conversation, it could actually cost you 30 quid and that's no word of a lie. So you had to ration out your texts and extreme texting was like maybe six texts in one night which would cost a euro so it was perfectly acceptable to get a text message

and just leave it a day and that was grand and if someone expected a text back immediately that person was mad I saw someone online recently suggest that the one thing that they missed from the pre-digital days were

if you had a relationship and you broke up and you literally never ever wanted to hear from that person again if you literally wanted to just move on and that person disappears from your life back then you could actually do it. If you needed to cut someone off, it could actually be done. And then as soon as Facebook came along,

email came along, that's not the case anymore. You still have to have that lingering sense of one day this person could find me on Facebook, they could get my email back then you could actually cut someone off and move on forever if that's what you wanted to do another thing that was quite healthy from we'll say the middle era when we had a little bit of internet when Bebo first stood so the first proper social media network,

well, there was Myspace, but in Ireland, the first proper social media network was Bebo, the one that everyone joined up. And Bebo was the same, same shtick as fucking Instagram, the same shtick as, it's social media, you're posting about yourself, you add your friends, blah, blah, blah. But... when you had Bebo back in 2006 you checked it like three times a day that was it

you had to go to a computer an actual computer and turn it on and check it and people didn't post as much it wasn't non-stop continual refreshing and I remember around 2006, an urban myth going around the internet. And the myth was, did you hear they're going to make Bebo notifications available on your phone? And it was like this terrifying idea.

and it was like this terrifying idea. Like we laughed about it, but we're also terrified, thinking, what? Bebo on your phone? So you mean like you pick up your phone and you can find out when someone writes on your wall? Jesus, that would be hell. That would be your life ruined. So we had an awareness back then that social media was toxic but we knew at least if you're

checking Bebo like twice a day that you can compartmentalize it and then have this private life where your mind isn't colonized and we knew that the idea and concept of being able to check Bebo on your phone would be highly toxically addictive and it was such an absurd idea that it was a joke, it was a meme and then of course it happens

then of course it happens with smartphones I remember another similar meme around the same time this would have been a bit later 2008 when people started joining Facebook I remember another similar meme around the same time. This would have been a bit later, 2008, when people started joining Facebook. Like a conspiracy theory going around in 2008. That was like, Facebook is run by the CIA and it's actually a way to gather everyone's data. And we all went, ha ha ha ha, how absurd, how ridiculous. And then it turns out to be fucking true

with that Mark Snowden shit so it's time now for a little pause for an advert I don't have the ocarina so what I have this week again is the plasma lighter now I did this last week and quite a lot of people said they enjoyed the sound of the plasma lighter

so this is the coolest lighter that I ever bought. Which is an electric lighter that instead of a flame, there's like laser plasma. So let's have the laser plasma lighter pause. There's a sentence now, if I said it to me in the fucking 90s, I'd be like, what the fuck? That's pure futuristic. That's exactly what I thought I'd be doing in 2022. Playing with a plasma lighter. There's the plasma lighter pause. forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care.

From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at

sunrisechallenge.ca. That at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you, no doubt.

The first omen, I believe, girl, is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! The to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real.

It's not real. It's not real. Who said that? The First Omen. Only in theaters April 5th. Very pleasant noise I think it's actually causing electrical interference as well like I think that's not just the sound of the lighter when I enact the plasma

it looks like lightning it's like a lighter that has controlled lightning and you light your cigarette with lightning and I think when I do that it creates electrical interference which gives us that pleasant static noise yeah so imagine lighting

that's right I'm never going to smoke a cigarette again but if I did have cigarettes I'd be lighting them with lightning I should get sponsored by plasma lighters. He's a shill for big plasma. So that was the plasma pause. You would have heard an advertisement there.

I don't know what for. Support for this podcast comes from the Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast. This podcast is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living this podcast wouldn't be possible if it wasn't my full time job it pays all my bills

it gives me a sense of certainty most importantly it gives me the time space and freedom to work on this podcast and not just this podcast but all my other artistic endeavors so thank you to everyone who is a patron and if you're listening to the podcast frequently if you get some enjoyment out

of it if i'm providing you with any entertainment please consider becoming a patron i'm just looking for the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it for that you get four podcasts a month if you can't afford that if you're out of work you don't have the money don't worry about it because the person who can afford it is paying for you to listen for free so everybody gets a podcast i get to earn a living it's a wonderful model that's based on kindness and soundness and it keeps the podcast listener funded and it means i'm not beholden to any advertiser. And I get to create.

The content that I want to create. And put out the podcast that I want to put out. Without some advertiser telling me. Hey don't talk about that buddy. So thank you to my patrons. And please support all independent podcasts. Support independent podcasts that you enjoy. Because they need support.

I've got a couple of gigs to plug now here's the bollocks about plugging these fucking gigs right so I've got I technically have three gigs in like February but currently we've got these shitty fucking government restrictions which mean that in order

to run a gig it has to be half capacity so the government has forced a bunch of people to cancel gigs so i'm now in the position where i'm contractually obligated to advertise these gigs in february but i can't even tell you whether they're going to happen in february or not because of the government so as you can imagine this is destroyed fucking ticket sales for all artists in ireland at the moment because how do I fucking plug gigs and I can't tell you whether they're going to go ahead or not in the dates that I'm plugging them for.

But we're going to do it anyway because I'm contractually obligated. So on February the 5th, I'm in Killarney in the INEC Theatre. Hopefully that gig goes ahead. Buy tickets for it anyway because if it doesn't go ahead then it'll get moved forward to a different date

so none of these are going to get cancelled I just can't guarantee that they're going to happen in February because of government restrictions so I neck Galarney 5th of February Wednesday the 16th Ulster Hall Belfast that is definitely happening because it's up in belfast

and different restrictions then mayo i'm in castle bar on the 25th of february come along to that and then in march and april i have a lot of vicar street gigs in dublin check they're definitely happening on those dates. Check them out. Three blind boy podcast dates in Vicar Street. Go on to Google. And then I have three dates in Cork. Opera House and Two St. Luke's. Most of them are sold out.

But you never know. There's my contractually obligated plugging. Back to the geriatric millennial content. So how was the world different? Before the internet. I'll tell you one mad thing do you know the way like if you think back to the fucking 90s there used to be all these different subcultures

like skaters and rockers and goths and punks and then we had jocks like these things still exist now. But when I was a child, these things were really, really important. Teenagers had really strong subcultural identities. Like really, really strong. You had your gots, you had your punks, you had your skateboarders, they dressed a certain way. And this is straight up how things were delineated and the thing was is that this is what you had to

do. When you're a teenager you're searching for your sense of self, you're searching for your sense of identity so you then have to broadcast your identity to other people and when you don't know who you are when you're trying to find out who you are as a teenager an easy way to communicate your sense of self is through the music you listen to the clothes that you wear and the group that you identify with

so teenagers in the fucking 90s and early 2000s had to write their favourite fucking bands on their school bags or walk around the place wearing their favourite band on a t-shirt or dressing like the sport that you play or dressing like the music that you listen to and like there was no there's no social media

so if you listened to Slipknot in 2001 we'll say and you wanted to find someone else in Limerick

who liked Slipknot you had to go into the middle of town wearing a Slipknot hoodie and then everyone who listened to Slipknot hoodie. And then everyone who listened to Slipknot would like literally hang around one place. And in Limerick, for some reason,

that was the door outside Brown Thomas. Don't know why that was. But if you listen to a certain music, you had to wear that band's t-shirt and hang around a certain area and then hope to meet like-minded people by physically broadcasting yourself in public that stuff really changed and diminished as soon as social media came around

like you don't really see gangs of teenagers anymore not like you did in the fucking 90s and the early 2000s. You didn't see groups of teenagers hanging about and moving around. Because now you have social media. Back then, you literally had to physically get out there and be around a group of people.

And have a collective identity. You're skaters, you'reaters your punks your gots whatever the fuck but as soon as myspace came about bibo came about and then facebook you no longer needed to wear a slipknot hoodie because you could curate your identity now as a digital avatar and as soon as social media came out it's when I started to notice the decline in like gangs of teenagers

just hanging around the place like in 2001 you'd look outside the door of Brown Thomas in Limerick or in Dublin it's the Central Bank in Cork it was a place called Paul Street and in 2001 I'm not joking you you could see 150 people wearing slipknot and corn hoodies

no word of a lie 150 teenagers like the entire street mobbed and then you'd walk down the corner and you'd see not as many skateboarders but you'd see a bunch of skateboarders before there was a skate park and there was just a very identifiable areas where certain subcultures gathered and now you'd still see

you never see more than three goths or three metlers together anymore now so if I'm in town now and I see, you still see teenagers You never see more than three goths or three mettlers together anymore now. So if I'm in town now and I see, you still see teenagers who are emo or goth or something like that. But it's only just three of them. And they're never standing anywhere. They're never waiting around anymore. They're going somewhere.

So the internet got rid of that. Social media got rid of that. Because now you can construct your identity and your sense of self-esteem when you're a teenager online. And I think that's a bad thing. Social media creates a sense of isolation and mental health issues and anxiety. Hanging around in a group of 30 people who listen to the same music as you doesn't. Now I'm not saying it's perfect. You're always going to get little bits of bullying and peer pressure and all the stuff that goes along with it but not like fucking

social media because with social media you can construct your identity and it's hugely unrealistic and you're competing with other people and their identities are unrealistic and it can never be lived up to because it's social media whereas there was still that bit of competition back before it like with the goths outside brown thomas everyone would meet on a saturday and you might get someone would try and dye their hair fucking blue and they were the talk of the circle for the day like i wasn't a goth or a metler but i used to hang around there because it was where i'd meet people who cared about music. That was really important to me it's like holy fuck I'm gonna hang around with a lot of teenagers from all different schools around Limerick and I'm guaranteed to meet people who like Led Zeppelin or Bowie or Deftones but I ended

up getting quite competitive around how many wallet chains I could wear and it had gotten to the point where I was going up to the pet shop not even buying wallet chains anymore they were just like dog chains and I was hanging them off my pants and me and another fella had like a wallet chain competition to see who could wear the most amount of wallet chains and I won but it culminated in my pants falling around my ankles in the middle of O'Connell Street in Limerick and everyone laughed at me and pointed which was the 2001 equivalent to getting cancelled on social media but yeah marauding gangs of teenagers in different subcultures just out in vast numbers having crack in real life

and sharing common interests in music and dress that's something that's gone because of the internet and that was a really healthy fun thing what else memory

so back before the internet you had to actually fucking remember things you had to hold about five different phone numbers in your head which for me was fucking impossible because I'm very poor with numbers but now you don't have to remember shit anymore and a new thing has started happening to me

which I really want to stop and this is recent. So now, so a huge part of my job, whether it be this podcast or writing or anything, I have to continually stimulate my brain with new information. And a lot of that will come from, I'll just see an article on the internet. Could be about whatever the fuck. that will come from, I'll just see an article on the internet, could be about whatever the fuck, and I'll read that article, and then the process of reading that article will feed my unconscious mind, and then an idea might come into my head, and then I write something, or I come up with a

hot take, or whatever, but I've stopped, if I come across a page on the internet now, if I come across a page on the internet now I save it onto a website called pocket so now I've stopped reading articles and instead I see an article that looks interesting and I go I'm going to save that and read it later but I never read it later so now I've started saving articles because I know I can read them later. Rather than reading them on the spot. Like I used to have to do five years ago. So that's a bad thing. I also never have to remember anything. Because I immediately just shout into my phone and put it into my reminders. So I have no need anymore for short term memory.

I get to compartmentalize my brain. And put it into my phone. And I don't know is that a good or a bad thing another thing you can't build your personality around being someone who has interest in facts anymore that used to be a huge thing if you were someone who did a lot of reading and had interest in facts about stuff that gave you cultural capital in the real world it meant that you were an interesting person and people would come to you and like you could literally be the person that other people come to to find things out like that was a person that was a type of

person every friends group had the one person who was a total nerd with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything and they acted as they were the internet for each friend group so if you wanted to know something and you couldn't go and look it up because there was no internet you you just knew a person you just knew a person and you rang them up and chances are they might know the thing that you're looking for. And that was really valuable. That was really valuable cultural capital if you were to build your identity around being that person. And it wasn't being a nerd because a nerd can have lots of information about something but it can be quite useless. It's more of like an obsession.

I'm talking about someone who was basically the internet, the internet of a about something. But it can be quite useless. It's more of like an obsession. I'm talking about someone who. Was basically the internet. The internet of a friends group. That person's gone now. They've disappeared. That person is obsolete. Because now you have Google. And having information.

Or interest in facts. Or knowing about something. Or being the person who knew about fucking music. Like this is where the 2010s hipster came from. Like hipsters were teenagers who fetishized music to the point that they knew fucking everything. So they were the ones who knew the coolest bands. And they were the ones you'd go to to find out who's this band who should i listen to that's gone now you've got spotify for that so there's no longer any cultural capital in having rare pieces of information so an entire

personality is gone disappeared dead in the ether which is both a good and a bad thing it's a bad thing for the people who are ethical with that information. People who are genuinely passionate about knowing an awful amount about cinema. Or knowing an awful amount about music. Who are welcoming to other people and wanted to share it. Like these people were highly sought after. There used to be a fella in Limerick called Albert who worked in HMV. Who knew fucking everything about music. Everything. And people all in Limerick called Albert who worked in HMV who knew fucking everything

about music everything and people all over Limerick knew him you go into HMV and if you have a specific niche taste in music if you like this band and you want to find out another band that sound like them and they might be a tiny band from Portland, Oregon. You go to HMV, you ask for Albert and he would be able to pull out this catalogue and recommend music to you. Because there was no fucking internet. There had to be a person who was a living embodiment of Spotify and they got gainful employment. And that's the positive side of that that's gone, that the internet destroyed.

The negative side is there were other people who had encyclopedic knowledge of music or of films or of whatever and they would instead use those powers for evil they'd use it to gatekeep that information they'd use that information to make people feel less than, to bully them. So I'm kind of glad that the internet has replaced those people. Now here's the other thing. A lot of this stuff I'm talking about like the early 2000s or the late 90s. And you might be thinking, but the internet did exist. The internet was a thing.

It was, but it was different and we hadn't gotten our brains around it like Google wasn't smart Google didn't exist until 2003 or something search engines weren't smart so the internet was a weird place where people would recommend websites in real life.

You couldn't type into Google a question and it would give you an answer. Like that type of smart search engine shit, where it collates everybody else's searches to have a form of artificial intelligence, that didn't start becoming apparent until about 2009. So before that, search engines were dumb and the results weren't very detailed so a search engine didn't really work

and our brains hadn't developed a symbiotic relationship with the internet yet I'll give you an example and this is going to sound fucking mad but I remember it was probably 1995 The Simpsons

The Simpsons had who shot Mr. Burns right, so there was a season finale of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns was shot right and no one knew who did it A season finale of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns was shot. Right?

And no one knew who did it. And that was the whole thing. It was a cliffhanger. It could have been anyone. And we all had to guess who shot Mr. Burns. And it was massive. Everyone was talking about it. Everyone was guessing. And you had to wait until the new season to find out.

And this was like 94, 95, maybe 96 so anyway it had gotten to the point in Ireland where like Paddy Power and people like that were taking bets on who shot Mr Burns and then and I remember this because it was on the radio at the time and it caused a lot of controversy and I think it was the first time in Ireland I heard people speaking about the internet. So these

two lads in Ireland went to Paddy Power and put a bet on and said that it was Maggie Simpson who shot Mr Burns and they won but when they were asked how did you know it was Maggie Simpson who shot Mr Burns and they won but when they were asked how did you know it was Maggie Simpson the lads said

because the episode aired a day before in America and we just checked it out on the internet so we got the answer on the internet and then we won the bet and Paddy Power had to pay them and I remember being a child and listening to the radio it might

have even been Joe Duffy or something and hearing people talking about the internet for the first time and the crazy mad idea that these two lads went and asked the computer a question and got the answer about something that was happening over in America. Like that's the other thing, there was a real sense of distance. Like before the internet, people used to go over to America and get a sense of culture shock. They'd walk around New York and they'd see new trends and clothes and fashions. Or you might go to New York and you could buy a CD or an album that simply didn't exist in Ireland. Like we have homogenized culture now. If you go on to TikTok and you look at a teenager from like Mayo. So a teenager from rural Mayo in Ireland is going to look the exact same as a teenager from Los Angeles

who's also on TikTok. They're going to be wearing the exact same clothes, have the exact same hairstyle. There's no culture shock. There's no everything's homogenized because everything is sped up and quick. Like even on a smaller scale, you hear Dublin people using the word cultures.

Like, first of all, I'm not having that because Dublin's not a real city compared to like fucking Toronto or New York and London Dublin's just Galway on a boner Dublin's not a real city it's you're all boggers as well but anyway when I hear a Dublin person saying like culture, that doesn't make sense anymore. Before the internet, you literally, you had Dublin people who had access to better music, better clothes, better style. So Dublin people genuinely were a little bit more cosmopolitan. And then you went down the country and people didn't have access to cool clothes or the same type of music. So you literally had a cultural divide

between like Dublin and Kerry or you'd have Dublin and Limerick and Limerick might be a year behind. That existed back then. That's gone now. That's gone. You'll have kids in Mull Huddert dressed the exact same

as the ones up in Dublin listening to the exact same music talking about the same shit so there's no more rural and urban cultural divide whatsoever in Ireland so one last point classic fucking blind

by podcast question answering podcast I'm still answering the first question. I'm still answering the first question. And I'm fucking 64 minutes in. I'm still answering the first question. But. I'm going to make one last point about. Life before the internet.

Analog life we'll say. And life after. And one thing that I definitely think is a negative. Where social media is right now. So. Bebo, Myspace. Early Facebook. Definitely toxic.

Definitely toxic. But. You could walk away from it. You could walk away from it you could walk away from it it wasn't continual bombardment but what's happened now with social media and this is i'd say almost a new thing in the history of humanity so if you actively have a social media account and it's a part of your life which is the case for most of us. So you have an Instagram, you have a Twitter, you have a TikTok, whatever. For most people, it's an important part of our lives,

especially over the fucking pandemic. It's how most of us communicated with other people. But one of the issues with having a social media account, especially now, because it's updates so continually and social media is now very addictive in order to have a social media account you have to construct a separate identity for yourself we all have our real selves who we are in real life and then your social media ideal self constructed identity now already that's unhealthy because if

you've listened to any of my podcasts about the psychology of carl rogers you'll know that one of the recipes for having poor mental health is if you have your real self which is who you actually are and then you have your ideal self which is and then you have your ideal self, which is who you actually are, and then you have your ideal self, which is... And then you have your ideal self, which is how you'd like to be seen by other people. But the thing with your ideal self is that it's always out of reach. So Carl Rogers says that if you live your life too much in your ideal self, the part of you that's how you'd like others to see you,

if you live too much in ideal self, the part of you that's how you'd like others to see you, if you live too much in that self, you'll never be happy because that ideal self is unattainable and unrealistic. So with social media, with Twitter for instance, you create this version of yourself that exists online and interacts with other people and you get to curate it perfectly but the problem now is in 2022 we no longer even have control over what our online identity is back in the days of early facebook or bibo or MySpace you had a degree of control over what your online identity was I'm only gonna put up these photos of myself I'm only gonna put up that I like these bands I'm gonna speak this way I'm gonna be witty all the time in how I respond to people

you construct your online identity but because of the way that social media today uses algorithms you lose control of what that identity is so for instance let's take Twitter for example so Twitter Twitter's not social media everyone thinks Twitter's not social media. Everyone thinks Twitter is a social media app. It's not. Twitter is a video game. It's a massively multiplayer online role playing video game similar to World of Warcraft except we don't know we're playing a video game and the Twitter algorithm only rewards combative behavior so everybody on Twitter is fighting with each other all the time or competing to see who has the best complaint or anytime anything is spoken about on Twitter and this could be something really important like

politics or something to do with gender or race. Important issues that require compassion and nuance. Anytime an opinion is expressed on Twitter, the rules of the game demand that someone else must disagree with it just for the sake of it. Or must find a polarising opinion about it. Because all public interactions on Twitter are a form of performative combat where points are awarded. So now what happens there is it changes your fucking brain. So if you spend too much time on Twitter, as an example, your online self now has to become very hostile just to survive. So you've lost control over what your online identity is.

But this still exists in your brain as a part of yourself. And I know because I've seen people on Twitter saying it. People who use Twitter too much, when they're trying to think thoughts in their heads privately, they could be sitting on their couch not on Twitter. When people who use Twitter too much try to think a thought in their head, they already think about how someone's going to disagree with them in bad faith or quote tweet them as a way to shame them. And the thing is moral perfection doesn't exist in our private thoughts like we often think things that are unacceptable or problematic or that contain

the inherent biases that we learn from society but it's what you do with those thoughts that matter it's how you challenge them and how they enact in behavior that matter. But basically, there's people who are using Twitter all day and then they're sitting at home on their couch, feeling the shame and terror of being publicly canceled for a thought that exists in their own head because the Twitter algorithm has hijacked their neural pathways. So your brain is changing to abide by the rules of a game that's been invented by billionaires who have set it up so that people respond with the

most combative emotionally reactive things all the time so that's desperately unhealthy that's a desperately desperately unhealthy thing and I don't thank the internet for that. And it's not just Twitter.

Instagram will fuck your brain up. Facebook will fuck your brain up. And it's hard to use these things in moderation anymore. It's very difficult to use social media in moderation. And I would strongly advise everyone to delete your fucking social media if you don't need it. Like, it's my job. I have to have it. But fuck me, I would not have social media if it wasn't my job.

I simply wouldn't. I pine for the days of no social media. I just want to go onto the internet and read articles. That's all I want. And I don't want social media. And I never want to read the comments on anything there's something I miss about the early internet the bottom half of the internet is a

recent enough invention it only started becoming a thing around 2008 before that you could happily just read an article and that's it and you didn't have to see a bunch of people fighting or being racist in the comments underneath.

So that was this week's podcast. A rambling meditation on the days before the internet. I'll be back next week. Hopefully with a hot take. Thank you everybody for joining in. And have a lovely week ahead. I haven't got a Twitch song this week

but I will have one next week God bless you all Rock City you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciationation Night on Saturday, April 13th

when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.