The Daily Zeitgeist - Dr. Strange = Proud Boy? Too Much Content 05.11.22

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

In episode 1245, Jack and Miles are joined by hosts of Better Call Paul, Mesh Lakhani and Paul Sarker to discuss… Streaming Fatigue Is Real, The Right is Trying to Claim Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and more! Streaming Fatigue Is Real How subscriptions took over our lives The Right is Trying to Claim Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Banned in Saudi Arabia The Scarlet Witch in the Multiverse of Misogyny LISTEN: Make You Wanna by Ta-KuSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.

Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have

changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pardenti

and I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation,

then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.

Hello, the internet, and welcome to season 23 236 episode 3 of your daily zeitgeist production of iheart radio this is a podcast where we take a deep dive into america's shared consciousness it's wednesday may 11th 2022 which of course means that it is national school nurse day it is also national twilight zone day yeah we talking about the uh ocean zone are we talking about the tv property i think we are talking about you have entered the twilight zone the tv show which uh i don't know why it's on may 11th because it premiered in on october 1st in 1959 but hey whatever knows yeah wait are you a big Twilight Zone fan? Nope. That's just me reading the information about the holiday.

I mean, you can just fake it. I know, but I don't... I celebrate October 1st. In the back of my mind, I'm not... As a kid, I was like, it's in black and white. And then as I got older,

they're like, no, the writing's really good. And then I watched it. I'm like, okay, you had a point. Right. So that's my relationship with Twilight Zone. But I'm not going to front. I'm a super fan. I never watched it growing up.

I watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Oh, yeah. Do you remember that? That was also in black and white. What do you remember? But I remember it being primetime viewing for something. Is that the one where he would walk into his silhouette on the side? Yeah.

Unflattering silhouette. Yeah, yeah. I remember that. Well, anyways, my name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. My Anaconda Don't Want None Unless You're Pro Boar, Sean. That is courtesy of Ruthless Fudge at Ruthless Fudge on Twitter. And I'm thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. It's Miles Gray, a.k.a. the Blazin' Visual Artist.

Your boy, Kusama, straight twisting backwards on Lankerson. They call me Hideo Noho. Get out my way. I'm here. Thank you so much for having me, Jack. I like that you sung the kind of intro to the standard AK. Yeah, I just wanted to feel I've had a song in my heart, you know? Well, Miles, we are thrilled to be joined in our third and fourth seats

by a former Marvel Entertainment lawyer, current big law media attorney, and an entertainment enthusiast who hosts the podcast better call paul it's mesh lakani and paul sarker what's up hello hello hey guys how are you doing hey guys thanks for having us thanks for coming to be here oh we're taking tips on those intros that's uh that's quite an intro you guys have there you got any aka's you? You got any sing-song wordplay on your names? Not off the top. Can't put me on the spot like that. AKA John Mesh,

like John Tesh. That was what I was going to say. Some people use it. AKA Mesh like the shorts. Yeah. There you go. Mesh like the shorts. Mesh Marina like the Jamaicans wear. Mesh tank top. Yeah. I like that also. Yeah, no, but mesh marina like the Jamaicans wear. That mesh tank top.

Yeah, I like that also. I think that's Kid Marrows, a.k.a.? No, that's Desus. That's Desus. My bad, my bad. He's the mesh marina with the cool demeanor. I forget. It's been so long since the art has come out.

Too long. But anyway, that's another thing. Ooh. That's another thing. Subtle, subtle shade. We're not fans. Just fans. We miss you.

Just fans. Where are you guys coming to us from? NYC. Okay. Heard of it? Right now. Yes, sir. The big old apple, I think.

It was called. Nice. The big old apple. Yeah. That big old apple. Never sleeps? Well, actually, you know, it does sleep. I was out last night with friends and we couldn't find anywhere to go to it was completely dead so it sleeps on mondays there you go not in a good way

when i worked for diane sawyer i had to stake out the clubs in the meatpacking district to interview young men about whether they were using viagra as a party drug and and they they were like the clubs don't get out until like four and it yeah it got pretty sleepy there for a little while and i was cold but people were using uh viagra as a party drug wait so jack were you just outside the club you're like hey man can i talk to you really quick they're like yeah i mean i had a camera crew viagra at a party what was the answer you were getting You're like, hey, man, can I talk to you really quick? And they're like, yeah, what's up? I mean, I had a camera crew. And they're like, hey, do you use Viagra at a party? What was the answer you were getting? They're like, no, it's called something else.

Mostly it was, I would. Do you have some? And you're like, no, this isn't that kind of. You're selling? Yeah. No, I'm here with ABC News. What? Nah, bro.

Leave me alone. Yeah. what nah bro leave me alone yeah i don't know what the conceivable like what conceivable story they were after there but it it sounds like a thing older people would think of it's like man imagine if it's doing this to me at 55 what are the young guys doing they're taking it are they just are they just blasting off to another planet? Jack, go down there. Give me 3000 words on this.

Mike Nichols was like, Hey, you know what, Diane, this stuff could work for a lot of people. The, I do remember that like one of the young people who like started with me, like I was 25 when I started there and you know,

she was around the same age and she had all these scoops on like what the kids were up to that i'm pretty sure she was making up and like one of the i think i think the viagra thing might have been one of them another was called two thing which was where like you use bluetooth to just like hit people up and randomly proposition the people around you to see if they want to have sex. Oh, my. That's such. That actually sounds like something that did exist.

I think there was an app that worked. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why we spent a year looking into it. Never found anything. People do that with the AirPods now. They'll try to connect to people's AirPods and play some stuff on it and see if they can get some type of interaction. I don't know.

Yeah. God, I can't think of an easier way for me to be like, oh, cool. What? You just completely invaded my ear space. Oh, you want to have a cool, nice to meet you, person who has no boundaries. Well, Mesh and Paul, we are going to get to know you guys a little bit better in a moment first we're going to tell our listeners a couple of the things that we're talking about we're going to talk entertainment industry since that is you guys specialty specifically streaming fatigue is it real where where do we go from here and then uh

we are gonna talk about dr strange in the uh multitude of Madness mesh, I think you called it, a couple times on your most recent episode. I actually did it right before. I was talking to Paul earlier and I did it again. I'm now just convinced this is the name of the movie. It's a mouthful, that title. In another multiverse,

there is a movie called Multitude of Madness. There's many madnesses i've i've specifically come out as anti this movie because the title is scary to me but it it does seem popular uh and the right is trying to claim it so we'll talk about the culture wars around that and try not to fall asleep while doing that. All of that, plenty more. But first, Mesh and Paul, we do like to ask our guests, what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? So I'm kind of a nerd. I like to research a lot about like

space and sort of like interplanetary societies and, you know, what's going to happen if Earth runs out of water or fresh water or you know an asteroid comes too close or whatever so i searched a lot about that um from philly i'm a big eagles fan so i've been searching a lot about our draft picks and like what they did in college and how they're going to translate to the pros and i got a lot of business travel lined up so i'm always kind of looking for flights and um hotels and stuff nice so in your interplanetary searches do you have these thoughts and then you're like okay i need to see who's thinking about this also or who's who's seemingly coming to an answer about like a question that's

something i think of living in california with the drought and you know desertification of the west seeming to be in uh effect here. What kind of things have you learned in your search for these answers? Well, so I don't want to say I'm fatalistic about it, but I think there's a lot of optimism and hope out there that people think it's just things are going to progress sort of logarithmithmically you know we can get some critical mass of people to travel really quickly to you know moons in the in the solar system and sort of set up shop there and then you know kind of so perhaps fly business yeah i think oh sky is falling but yeah you know there's there's optimism out there and it's so vast right

like that's the other thing we don't really can't really comprehend how far things are away from us and how long it would take to get there but it doesn't mean it's hopeless yeah yeah space at like the solar system is the size of ohio in most depictions of space. It's like, and then a little bit out further, you've got the asteroid belt, and the asteroid belt looks like a lazy river full of asteroids, whereas reality, everything's so far apart. The asteroids themselves are very far apart.

And from one planet, the other planets look like just little specks in the sky they don't they don't look like uh i don't know i feel like i when i picture outer space in a movie it's just like a classroom model you know yeah right the maps are off maps your maps are all all fucked up hollywood but to your point, there are a lot of oceans, even on moons in our solar system, that have more water than Earth. And I think only 3% of water on Earth

is considered fresh water. So it may not be hopeless if we can find a way to treat ocean water and drink it or something. Has that not been the case? I thought they'd not been able to do that. I thought they were. Yeah, I think they do. It takes massive amounts of energy.

Maybe cruise ships. Oh, I see. Well, aircraft carriers have nuclear reactors on them that power them, and they're able to create tons and tons of desalinization but yeah on a daily basis i think the hard part that people say is like if you don't live near the coast then getting the access to that desalinized water is like the next

sort of problem that would have to be solved is like sure that can help things along the coasts but how like where's the infrastructure to move massive amounts of money? Right, right, right. That constant. Yeah. How about you, Mesh? What is something from your search history? Helping my sister find dinner for 10 people in New York City

at 8 p.m. on a Wednesday, which is impossible. And you need a private dining room. And I got some. I actually went. I was helping her, and I couldn't find anything that was like, you know, you don't want to throw, I don't want to throw her like a buko to Beppo in Times Square. Right.

And so I'm trying to find her something. I'm like, look, I found this private room. Like, hopefully it will be legit. And then we did the search and then I emailed them and they came back. So it's a $2,500 minimum for 10 people plus $500 renting the room. Plus that doesn't include tax and gratuity. Oh my. And by the way,

we can only fit 10 people in the private dining room. And I'm like, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. That's New York for you. So that is New York. Yeah.

What do you do when you want to have like a big birthday kind of thing and eat with a bunch of people in New York? Like, is it just like, what is the place that you're sort of reflexively would think like you gotta you gotta like a bar you gotta a bar dive right or you gotta like a does camino yeah there's a chucky cheese you're basically going for like the c-list of uh right right anything you wanted so you basically get rid of all your friends or like mix them across like part of the week like a 10 person dinner you got to plan like yeah especially now in new york reservations

are just taking over our lives you can't just walk in anymore i don't know if la has the same problem no i mean it depends but i think new york has such a like people it's such a destination and on top of it there's like so many good restaurants popping up all the time that like i remember one of the times i was visiting in the fall someone was like oh you got to try this restaurant but you got to log on to like the reservation site at midnight and i and i'm not joking i felt like a bunch of bots fucking took up all the reservations and i was like how the fuck did that happen like i i'm good at buying shit like when it drops like just from being a like you know reformed hype beast so i was like how the fuck did that happen like i i'm good at buying shit like when it drops like just from being a like you know reformed hype beast so i was like oh it's nothing

to get a reservation cut to like literally within seconds everything was vaporized like i don't know what okay i guess you walk in at five o'clock when it opens on a monday and you pray right right right yeah i guess i'll go to Esther Bagel again. What's something you guys think is overrated? I think sparkling water is overrated. Okay. I'm a tap person. Oh.

I guess I get that some people don't like tap or can't drink still water, but I don't personally understand it. Do you disagree on that then, Paul? Okay, well, didn't mean to cause some tension here. Do you like sparkling at all? Or you just, you said, no, I don't need that. I'm fine.

Seen gas. Sparkling? No, I mean, so I don't mind fizz like soda or like a Red Bull, but I just, I don't, I don't get the sparkling water thing. I think it's, you know, I think it's a little hoity-toity. Oh, wow. Digging away. We did not coordinate.

That's the thing. Maybe we should have. I didn't realize. I didn't realize you hated sparkling water so much, Paul. I didn't realize you hated me so much. We're trying to turn this into crossfire where you guys are just going at each other.

Sparkling water sucks. Mesh, go go you're a butthole uh i have a soda stream in my house yeah i just got one they're great i don't i i feel you on this paul like when i'm thirsty i'm not thinking oh i need a sparkling water i'm like i need water so i can down a bunch of like fluid before without my chest bursting because of like the intensity at which I drink things when I'm thirsty. You know what I'm talking about? Like when you start, you take a toothful of that and then your chest feels like alien baby is about to pop out. Yeah. So I don't like it for that, but like, I like it to, you know, I'll mix drinks with sparkling water and things like that. It's nice to have to sip on, but for pure hydration, there's no fucking way I could be like, I need a Pellegrino.

Yeah, see someone with sparkling water in the gym? That wouldn't make sense, right? Oh, what? Yeah, see, I'd have something to say. Or I wouldn't say something, but I would be judgmental in my mind. I wanted something to say under my breath after I left. I went into an infrared sauna the other day, and you get bottles

of water, and you go into it, and they were only stocked with sparkling water. I think someone made a mistake. So I'm in the sauna, and I'm chugging it, and don't realize it's sparkling water, and they didn't have regular water. In that case, sparkling water does not work when you're in 175 degree heat no and then i'm sure the burps are like criminal in an environment that hot yeah well what's something that you think is underrated

paul okay i'm so i'm in i used to live in think In-N-Out animal style fries are underrated. I think they're the best fry. And I've heard a lot of hate about In-N-Out fries. And I think if you get them well done animal style, you can't go wrong. You know what's so funny? I was with you and then you lost me because I'm the most despicable kind of in and out fry fan. I like them lightly fried. I like she sticks on my.

It's like a loaded baked potato when you do it like that. Yeah, that's in my mind. It's happening. Yeah. Then you definitely need the fork. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You got to have the fork.

Yeah. So it's like more miles. What you order is more like shepherd's pie. Basically it's not potatoes stuck to the bottom of the big chunk of cheese and yeah melted american cheese and whatever they're fried you know thousand island is basically yeah yeah are you missing it out there in new york or are you i do i miss a lot whenever i'm in la i go like two days a week because I really like it that much. And I haven't been there since end of February. So there's nothing like it out here. Shake Shack's nothing like it? I don't

understand. The fries are different. The Shake Shack is not. The eye roll from Paul, I just had to narrate it. Oh man, when this man came through with the... I'm personally... I love Shake Shack. I feel In-N-Out is a little bit overrated. 100% agree. Specifically because of the fries.

This really is crossfire. Up to, you know, they're just not my favorite kind of fries. I hear you on the uh i hear you on the kind of like the mushiness of it that's why i get them well done and then god i think they're they're really good yeah but the burgers are kind of the same though miles and i order together and he always makes me order the medium rare he says can i get those fries me the fries no get them well get them blue no i say blue yeah i want those fries me? The fries? No, get them well. Get them well. Blue. Get them blue. No, I say blue.

Yeah. I want those fries blue, baby. Like fucking. I want the natural cultures from the earth that the potato grew and still alive. Right. I mean, they're really fresh. You watch them like slice the potato right in front of you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. right right in front of you yeah well like speaking of new york culture uh cuisine culture

like the my roommate and i once like drove i think an hour and a half to go to like a chick-fil-a on the jersey turnpike because like there was no chick-fil-a at the time like you come to like really be into weird things that are available elsewhere. Like the, the Ikea at the time there wasn't an Ikea on Manhattan and people would like, there isn't anymore. They closed that. Yeah.

I was trying to go and they closed it in January. Yeah. There's one in Red Hook. And I think in Red Hook or something like that. It's like randomly a Kmart hidden in the middle there. I think they closed that too. I think square. Yeah. But like the, I would hidden in the middle there. I think the clothes that do. I think that Kmart. Yeah.

But like the, I would go in there and just be like, I'm in Dayton, Ohio again. Mesh. What about you? Well, something that's underrated,

underrated. I would say that I'm quite disappointed. I don't know if you guys seen it, but station 11, the show on HBO max that was based off the graphic novel just didn't really get the attention. I thought, I thought that was a fantastic show.

It was one of my favorite of the, of this, of the year. So, yeah, I, I thought it was very effective to the point that it was unsettling for me at the time that like,

I was like, we're kind of like, like live in a version of this right now. And y'all are doing it so well. Like it really, I think encapsulated like just, you know, from that first episode,

like that transition from like order to chaos. And then like, what do we do next? So in that sense, I think it was absolutely great for me. I think I say it was so good. It unsettled me to the point that i had to like put a lot of space in between episodes i try to get people to watch it when i tell them the

premise they're like why the hell would i watch that like that's our life right now it's not and that's not really our life that we're living right now but it could be if you don't watch it you would be prepared for it life like that if you watch and then everyone's like you got to get like he's like once you get for your friends like when you get deeper it has more of a story rather than you just living in the panic of the earth is crumbling around us and we need to hide in our house forever yeah get to episode eight of ten and then you're you're right there yeah i feel like it came it came out around man i gotta start watching it it's a good one yeah it's really good it came out around the same time as yellow jackets which i feel like they they split voters a little bit like it was it was kind of a they

were both like sort of post-apocalyptic wilderness type things it is i was on yellow jackets first and then i was like fine it took me a while to get around to it because i was like i don't i don't have time to just watch the same show twice in a row but station 11 is really good it's funny you say that because i never haven't seen yellow jackets as much as people have been like watch yellow jackets and i was like ah i can't do it i you know i only had the the mental capacity for one of them you watched the better one already so like yellow jackets is fun but you like station 11 more than yellow jackets i did yeah oh wow i mean not that i got through yellow jackets but i remember how enthusiastic you were about yellow jackets but i know in your back pocket you're like but station you still have

that picture of station 11 unfold and look at like it's still you it's still you yeah yeah there is more buzz about yellow jackets people weren't talking about station 11 like you have seen station 11 it'd be like me and then they'd all be talking about yellow jackets. People weren't talking about station 11. Like you have seen station 11. It'd be like me. And then they'd all be talking about yellow jackets. So you're just at the wrong. Yeah. Cause I think having like Christina Ricci and like Juliette Lewis back and stuff,

people like, or like a, like a real, like something awoken people like, yes, the nineties and odds. That's true. Yeah.

I still have like quotes from station 11, like pop in my head. It added that old tribe song to my playlist which yeah it's just it's just a really a really like all-around great show i highly recommend it it's a good underrated man all right let's take a quick break we'll be right back i'm jess casavetto executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church.

And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions, like how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary

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Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better.

This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months.

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This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And, I mean, we were just kind of talking about this streaming fatigue. Enough time? Too many shows? Too many shows? There are currently three shows on

that I would have, like have wished for in the past. Like I would have, you know, objectively, We Run This City should be something that is like appointment viewing for me and I should have a text chain going with all my friends who I watch The Wire you know, I watched The Wire with and, and I haven't watched, it's like out, the reviews are great. It's by the people who made The Wire. It's about Baltimore City police and corruption updated for the realities of our modern world and what we've found out about police just in general and i'm just like

i don't know it's right you know we've i think increasingly since the simplicity of just it being netflix to then every other platform coming online like with every single one like i feel like my attention is split and fractured and on a certain level it feels like everything's blending together like there's no such thing as tv or film in a way like i think that's the sensation it's had on me like i used to be very like as a kid it was like you watch hbo has fucking movies and then you watch tv shows here but now with everything coming online with streaming like i I, I don't know. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing that I'm sort of viewing everything through this singular lens. But yeah, I think the reason why we even bring up the fatigue and stuff is obviously like when Netflix lost a bunch of those subscribers.

Everyone's like, what the fuck's going on? And so many like the streaming world felt like it was very, some were high-fiving others were panicking yeah wall street shit themselves when they lost subscribers for the first time and i think people there were a lot of think pieces about streaming fatigue but it's definitely something i don't know it seems like when the pandemic hit there was too little and then they over compensated and now there's too much and i don't know like will we just will there be too little again and then we'll all catch up on all the stations 11 that we missed and all the great content that we missed or but you guys you guys talk about the business of entertainment what what are your

thoughts on on this kind of overall story well i mean i think from a business perspective this is sort of how things ebb and flow i mean you know rewind you know to what you guys were talking about 10 years ago when it was basically just Netflix and people were watching a lot of linear television and appointment viewing or whatever, one show a week and then tune in at eight o'clock and watch next week. And Netflix was just crushing everybody because they had a brand new business model.

There were no ads, you could binge things. And that instantly shifts every studio heads, every content executives focus to, all right, now how do we win at their game? How do we compete in that arena? And there's a couple of year lag when you sort of build out your infrastructure, you get your talent team, you raise the capital, you start developing shows and getting intellectual property to make a competitive offering. And then it usually overcorrects, right? Because it's not like you just find the ideal amount of content. It's like everyone jumps in and tries to start competing. And then at a certain

point, the pendulum swings back the other way, then you have content overload. And then, you know, as we saw with CNN Plus, and you know, there's other streaming services that are not going to be here a year from now or two years from now because the money isn't there. People can't have 10 or 15 streaming services. And so it's going to go back into some form of consolidation. At least that's what I think. But I think this is just the process. Everyone sees the dollars and thinks, I want to get into this space. And then they commit a certain amount of money.

They probably overspend and they're chasing something and hoping that they can get a piece of it. Yeah, I mean, you can also compare it to like not just streaming in the sense of content like movies and TV. Pandemic, we have two years growth and just generally a lot of places ran up like five X more than it would run up in a two year span. It would, it was like the equivalent of like five, six, seven years of growth in like a 24 month span. Obviously like the zooms of the world, the Pelotons of the world, we've seen all of those come, come, come down.

Everything's correcting itself. So I think it's all just coming down to a point of like this was a weird time uh people were doing more stuff we're going back to almost regular life i mean look at gym memberships there was a point in time when nobody wants to go to the gym we have peloton now gym memberships are back up again people are like leaving their peloton subscriptions like fuck it i want to go to a gym again and so i think you know to paul's point you're just seeing a general correction of these things. And what's like, I mean, when I would always look at just the amount of content coming out, because on some level, like it's somewhat sustainable based on their subscriber growth and things like that.

But on another level, like I think the fatigue part, do you think that's anything that networks consider? I think the fatigue part, do you think that's anything that networks consider, right? Because on some level you see, like with Netflix, they have so many shows they'll put out. A couple are the ones that like really move the needle. And then like, you see like constantly them like a wave of cancellations. I'm always looking at that. I'm like, is that good business for them? Because we see, we've heard about like, you know, the ups and downs of, you know, the way they spend money. And I'm always curious. I'm like, what is, the ups and downs of, you know, the way they spend money. And I'm always curious. I'm like, what is the long term goal here? Because it's very it's from I'm looking at purely as a consumer with a little bit of like industry know how.

But I'm I'm always like thinking, like, how do you keep doing this? Like spending tons of money, then being like, OK, we have that was a bad investment. But then this thing we spent a little bit of money end up taking off. that was a bad investment but then this thing we spent a little bit of money ended up taking off yeah like how lucrative is it when a show like squid game or the first season of stranger things or like shit like that like just takes over the zeitgeist like is that and not like does that pay itself back i'm like they're like all right that covers all all those other shows that we made that nobody watched it's a great question i mean think the question, I think it comes down to stickiness, right? Because if you are subscribing to a service just for a show, and then you cancel when it's over and you wait till the next season comes out

to rejoin, then I don't know that it's as lucrative. If you're someone that's sort of like, you know, I just want to turn on Netflix. They've had a show that I really liked a couple of years ago. I'm not going to cancel it. And I'll just turn it on and browse when I want to watch something. Then that's great. Like if a show brings a lasting customer, then it's awesome,

especially if it brings a ton of them. But I think one of the things that you see in film now is the proliferation of franchises, right? And so it's like fast and the furious 10 and thor 4 and thor 5 and and that's because you you're basically like you're starting you're not starting over from scratch like you've invested all this time building a fan base telling about you know creating characters making them familiar you have merch out there. And so you don't want to lose that investment. So you keep going with the franchise. And I don't think, at least to this point,

Netflix is quick to cut the bait on things and sort of go in a different direction. I guess they have a lot of analytics that say justify it from their perspective. But I think you're right. They haven't... Yes yes they're stranger things and and maybe who knows what the second season of squid game is going to be like but they're they are sort of like they put everything behind their brand so it's all about netflix right that was the the primary thing they were selling and the shows were supposed to be kind of fungible and it in a more competitive environment, I don't know if that strategy is going to, you know, prove to be ultimately successful.

And fungible, a word that I know the meaning of, but maybe our listeners don't. So why don't you explain what that is? So it's more, it's fungible meaning like interchangeable, right? Exactly, right. Yeah. Totally. That's what I'm yeah totally yeah

so i also wonder if this is a compounding problem right because now even even if they like bring it back to like okay we're making a manageable amount of content like it it feels like there's still, like, more places to, like, see the content. There's, like, Squid Game was not the result of them having, like, a great farm system where, like, the Netflix writers hit this one out of the park. They, like, found the show, like, you know, didn't pay that much for it. The creatives involved seemed kind of pissy once the media started paying attention. They were like, they didn't pay a shit. It was fine.

And it took forever to make, right? It took a long time. I don't know. Now they're... The other concern I would have with Netflix is that they do seem to be saying,

I think this is a direct quote, actually. Reed Hastings was trying to reassure everyone that Netflix had been through tough times before and that it would solve its problems. He said the company was now super focused on getting back into our investors' good graces. And I feel like this's maybe not the, like this was around the time that they started talking about introducing an advertising model and like cutting password sharing.

And I don't know if that's gonna do it. It's like, I think just the unfortunate thing about public markets though, is that they probably have a 10-year plan of the type of content they're gonna be making, you know, shows that can be made really quickly, like Selling Sunset that a lot of people watch to an Ozarks that takes a long time to make and that just concluded. At the same time, they have to please investors on a quarterly basis, and investors are not happy, especially in a market like this. I think he just has to say

things that were looked like, obviously, at the the end of the day we're just going to continuously make great content it's very competitive right now um as the market corrects we'll see what happens but it is generally like pretty competitive but i would say that netflix then comes back in and you got boom boom boom show after show after show and i think just like with all the networks that you find a little bit of, the fatigue is really more, it seems like on their side, where it's like there's a bit where,

okay, my favorite show is not running. Like HBO Max doesn't have, Euphoria just finished. And some of the other shows just finished. And now we're kind of waiting for, what's the next big show to pop up on there. And in the meantime, you watch something on another network and another network and another network. i also feel like their main strength is supposed to be all the data they have

on us and like their ability to like dig into that to figure out like what people want and then you know create create like phil flood the zone with that and like now there's a meme about like doom scrolling netflix and just you know i'm not being able to find the thing that you want or anything that's interesting to you and i saw a specific like complaint from somebody who's like i'm a horror fan and the things that they recommend to me are always the conjuring and like, you know, the most popular horror movies. I'm like that. I know that that like, wasn't initially what they were supposed to have,

like such a, there is supposed to be able to like flex their algorithm. And like, you know, he was like, Netflix has deep cut horror movies, like the old ways, but those don't ever get recommended to me.

like the old ways but those don't ever get recommended to me i'm just wondering if they could use some human curation like a maybe we've hit the like fail point of the turing test of netflix's like algorithmic algorithmically generated like content suggestion model and like they why wouldn't you i know they just like fired all of their editors who they were who they had hired but like why wouldn't you try to build up you know the way that like peloton instructors had like a following and like people you know there were memes about them and they were like oh this is the one that i love and you know you should have like these people curating channels on netflix and you know like like give give some humanity to it rather than just a wall of fucking content good idea right and they should hire me to do it i generate i like the mix i like the mix

of algorithm and curated i would i like your. I think it's a great idea. I think you maybe should have not given it to them for free. Yeah, you know, that's what we do. We just give out brilliant shit for free on this podcast. You should hear some of this stuff. Oh, man, we came up with old distressed malls that we take over and we make them like 90s retro experiences. We've got a lot of business ideas,ul like uh you know we give out for free

but yeah that was one of the better ones the curated thing the curated thing i think works is like i'm i'm always looking for like there's a handful of people that like oh you're like hey someone recommended me you know a show i trust their judgment and shows i want to watch that shit i generally don't find the algorithm does anything for me although for my sister and my mom who are like obsessed with k dramas for like sister and my mom, who are obsessed with K-dramas, and my whole Netflix now is just complete. They use my profile, and so it only recommends me. We're going to give you an opportunity to take that again.

We don't want Netflix to hear about that, that you guys are sharing a password. They're going to come for you. No, no, no. We have a family account. Oh, shit. Someone's rappelling down the outside of his family account. Multiple profiles. They just choose to use by profile each time.

That is very frustrating. And now it's just it. Nothing against K-dramas. I've never watched one. I've watched it in passing with them, but now I need Curate. I have no choice. K-dramas are Korean dramas, like the Korean soap operas? Yeah.

Yeah, my wife, that is my wife's big guilty pleasure on her. They're popular. They're very popular. Yeah, they are. We don't have the thing that is just right in between primetime dramas, actually almost HBO dramas, and then then like fucking soap opera like just the lowest of the low soap operas and they are just churning that shit out right at that level it's like 50 of each and they're they're crushing it well i i think what also i'm not on the apple tv

but i've seen on like the samsung tv put the top 10 in some different regions or whatever. I actually find that to be the most useful. Not their recommendations. Just tell me what the top 10 is. I'll probably watch something within that. What are the most popular shows that everybody else is watching, which is kind of curated to some degree? Okay, I'll watch that.

I'll take a look at it. I don't know why that doesn't pop up more recently. mean they know about the idea of like the curation xbox game pass is apparently very good at this like gamers say that they have like a curated selection of games and they're like pulling hidden gems out that people really value like people are like oh shit like you guys are really nailing this so it makes it easy to interact with new stuff when it's put in front of you in like limited quantities not like here's 700 free games this month it's like here are the fucking five we think are good yeah and i think like even to what you're saying i imagine like even jack like we we all kind of say the same thing and i'm probably same for you paul's like you kind of need like these three or four friends

to tell you to watch something yeah and then that you hit the tipping point you're like okay now i'll do it because yeah we're already in an environment where it's like there's already few shows i don't need prompting or encouragement to go see like seldom is like oh when that's out i'm watching it and if it is it's usually trash reality TV. But other than that, like good stuff. I need like Anna. I need Jack. I need my other couple other friends of people to suggest something. And then I'm like, oh, OK, that's the we've reached the suggestion tipping.

I think, you know, I think Euphoria was a good example of this where I know Euphoria. Most people start that I knew started watching and started watching it in season two and started telling people about it and I started paying attention to it on TikTok because it was like all these scenes that would pop up on TikTok I had no idea what the show was it just looked kind of like you know dark and and fucked up and then you would hear the soundtrack with like labyrinth constantly and then over this period of time like season two comes out boom everyone I know is watching it it's just like it's like the word of mouth phenomenon especially with social um and i think euphoria was like now what it's like one of the biggest shows um in the u.s or i don't know about the

world but it's definitely one of the biggest shows in the u.s that was another uh strategically questionable decision netflix made where they like turned off the ability to screen cap it and it was like they they were like, all right, you know what our issue is? I know people are concerned about the subscriber numbers, but I think our problem is that we're too cool. And we're like,

we need to be just like way less cool and let, let fewer people share passwords, fewer memes about our content. So if you try and screen cap it, it'll just be a black screen and yeah just drill down on those things they're like we're getting killed by shit posts and well everybody loves ads though that's the thing you have to understand i'd pay more for ads the but with like as we as we are like hitting this like peak content world,

I just feel like there's, I am so reliant on recommendations like miles was saying, and there's, we're split between so many different things. I feel like it's going to be harder and harder to like generate those. Like, I guess severance was the last one that like really seemed to i think my threshold's like five six people recommending it i think people want i think there's need for more i i

think there's a supply issue here like i think we just want more good shit it takes us a while to get into it once we're into it it's like i keep hearing about slow horses one more person tells me about slow horses i'm gonna watch it you know one more person tells me about severance i will watch it those are two shows i haven't seen yet but now more and more people recommend it is slow horses the very first thing committed to film where the guy's riding a horse and to settle a bet on whether whether his feet leave the ground at the same time even when you said that i'm like slow horses i'm like is it called maybe i guess maybe i get the name wrong uh no it is it's the some detective show spy fiction slow horses uh yeah i mean this is a real show but

again i'm like i'm so overwhelmed by the amount of thing that's why i'm like i guess if like what you're saying is there's if there isn't a demand issue there's a supply issue i'm like i don't know maybe because i don't have the same like uh blocks of space to like consistently consume many shows um or i don't know i think i wouldn't say it's many i think it's like that one show it's not like multiple shows it's like what is the show you want to spend your time on now okay it hasn't hit me yet i'm just gonna wait for the next one so i saw a headline about slow horses and then i just heard you mention it now it's just gonna take nine more people to mention it but i am at the point and

this is how i know content fatigue is real for me that when you just said that I got a little bit mad at you come the fuck on slow horses I was like the fuck it's got a great cast it's got a great cast we should do a group viewing together and make a judgment

I don't know what you guys think there's also like people can do social events again where they couldn't really do that for a year a year and a half like there's concerts and you can go to live sporting events and I've been doing a lot more of that past couple months so that also adds

to it like March April June yeah whatever mid 2020 all you could do is stream right and now you can do more stuff the movies that are coming out are great like the top gun movies coming out i don't know for some reason the top the fact that the top gun movies finally coming out i'm like whoa movies are back baby and it's advertised all over the nba so that might be part of that trailer

must that trailer was like originally pre COVID. I think that came out. Right. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk about the multiverse of madness. I'm Jess Casaveto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series,

dancing for the devil, the seven M Tik TOK cult. And I'm Cle Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high-control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives.

Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?

Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes! Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies.

Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game.

Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black.

I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.

The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back uh did you guys see dr strange two is that do we have that number right it is two that's the right number yeah yeah i went and saw it paul did you see it yet i i've not seen it yet and paul you used to definitely see it you used see it I know you're a lawyer at Marvel what kind of things are you doing over there? I was doing a lot of different things I was doing business affairs so actor

writer director deals for the films and television shows I was doing all the production legal on the film so like basically from pre-production production post-production all those different agreements like location agreements equipment um vfx everything like anything you can think of travel even booking the private jets for the talent that didn't want to fly first class or whatever so there's like a separate group at

disney that did that. I did corporate stuff, real estate, random stuff, merchandise license, thousands of license agreements for putting Spider-Man on backpacks and t-shirts and stuff like that. So really, I was there for six years. I did a ton of different things. Wow. So you were there at its

heaviest period. Yeah, I was there from, if you want to, Iron Man 2 coming out, being released to uh cap civil war going into pre-production oh basically like that's great so what this movie is significant from a like licensing perspective right because isn't there like x-men crossovers happening in this one? Yeah, so this is the first.

So Kevin Feige, for those that don't know, is the kind of the creative head of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And he actually got his start working on Superman and I think X-Men films, which were licensed out. So for a long time, the film rights to the X-Men characters, who are Marvel comic characters, were controlled by Fox. And Disney bought Fox a couple years ago. So now Disney, who owns Marvel, and Fox are under the same corporate umbrella. So now the Marvel creative team can use the X-Men. And Doctor Strange 2 is the first movie where they're able to sort of freely incorporate them. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So, Mesh,

what are your thoughts? How'd they do? Look, from a fan perspective, I thought it was a fun movie. There you go. I thought it was a blast. I went in there, didn't have much expectation. I tried not to watch many of the trailers because I didn't want spoilers. Because honestly, man, these trailers now, I get it it you're trying to get people in theaters but they just

give you all the surprises and it ruins the whole fucking movie yeah i knew because i heard patrick stewart's voice in a trailer and i was like what yeah and it's like and then you know and like i won't say with any other spoilers but you know especially with like fandom now like people are like leaking stuff and it's like just go and enjoy the movie have some fun this is the first time we went to normally we go to an imax in midtown but we went to our local my buddy and i went to our local williamsburg cinema which was a lot of fun because people were like yelling at the screen and it was um clapping honestly fun movie i thought the interesting thing about the movie, besides some interesting character developments, was that it really shows Disney.

And Paul and I talked about this recently in our show, where we talked about the master planning of Disney+. And how if you haven't watched WandaVision or What If going into the movie, you're watching it after because you need context. One way or the other, you need to watch the Disney Plus context, the content that gives you context for the movies. And to design it in a way like that, just from a business perspective and a content perspective, I just think it's pretty cool. Right. It makes sense that it's truly all many people consume is like i can get all of my like marvel jollies like yeah pretty much year but the the flip side of that though is like and my this is my wife's issue is like i can't watch 15 hours worth of stuff to go see a

movie with you and understand it right yeah yeah i only really watch the movies occasionally and i feel like i can like pick up on what's happening most of the time and that's not really necessarily like i can kind of intuit it but yeah i think that's by design too though i think it's like they just give you enough where if you're a new they still want like a new person to come in and be able to watch it but to paul's point, yeah, I mean, it is a lot. You have to just kind of watch it. Like I watch it when it comes out. So I'm not catching up right before the movie.

I'm like, hey, Paul, have you watched like 30 hours of these shows? You can go to the movie. You have to go to the YouTube. No, because I'm a lawyer. Yeah, he's got four in the morning. He's still doing contract negotiations and stuff. And I'm sitting there telling him about how great Moon Knight is. Yeah.

So I don't want spoilers. I don't want to ask you, like, how strange is Doctor or how madness the multiverse is. But so one thing that's happening in the discourse, just constantly, like now with everything, is that the the i guess the right is claiming this movie is like uh this one has a woman who's bad and we are the party of misogyny i think they're just like openly like that's us now um so yeah there we go we're team this movie. Also Sam Raimi apparently like donated to George W. Bush and may have been a Trump supporter, but we don't know the details of that. But some of the arguments around this actually like bring up interesting stuff. I don't, I don't think it's interesting to be like, this movie is wholly bad or wholly

good or that it is this movie. It's dangerous. Like it is this movie, it's dangerous. Like, it's a movie. It needs to have interesting ideas in it for me to, like, watch it and then think about it later. And it does seem like there's a trend of the bad guys in Marvel movies having compelling points of view that are like i remember that from the first avengers when like loki came through and like you know he like ultimately he's about like fascism and authoritarianism but like he put it in a way that i was like that was like i don't know are they trying to get people on board with with what he's saying like they did they did a good job writing him in in a way that like i feel like other past previous uh superhero movies

might not have done but now people are pointing out that like thanos quotes a bunch of like environmentalism like talking points killmonger like is explicitly associated with the like militant american black panther party and people are like is marvel like trying to send an overall message that like you know the the avengers are here to like bring things back to a safe status quo i don't think that means i think that's an interesting conversation without saying like so don't see these movies you know miles did you you you uh objected to my my take that loki had some interesting things to say no it's i think it's like you know partially like writing right old superhero films was always like here's good guy and here's bad guy don't

fucking worry about this fool's backstory he's fucking bad and don't worry superman's gonna beat the shit out of him for you uh was like kind of like the energy we took into it and then over time like there was this you know there's more nuance to writing like characters we think are bad or evil you know and giving them a little more depth or texture and i think part of that does end up being like how do we make this guy who has some really problematic ideas about the world more relatable because then we're kind of pulling out that they're this isn't just like a very one-dimensional evil character but i think on the other side of that coin is someone who is like not really thinking very critically will be like yep exactly that part dude and therefore fuck everybody who believes the environmental talking points are that like eternal growth is unsustainable i think was one of the

things thanos talked about but also think of how many how many memes from conservatives and far right wing figures involve the mcu you know like this is very popular stuff that everyone is watching and for whatever i mean i think it's like when it's just i don't know maybe if it's like a rorschach test that like many of these people just look at and like and this is how i can make it a thing to reinforce my world but i don't know. I don't, I don't necessarily, I don't think there's a concerted effort, but who knows?

I mean, you know, more sinister things have happened. So, you know, whether the comparison of social commentary, political allegories, like everybody wants to claim something or get creative with it.

I mean, shit, when I was in college, first year of college, we had like writing classes on, you know, how X TV show is compared to like this historical event and you have to write about it and almost come up with creative ways to

like compare the two i'm sure there's some like old school there's you know inspiration to write certain characters i think the interesting thing that we see now that either people want to claim something politically but in the case of these characters i think one it seems that there's a conscious effort to be like okay the world we live in now is to be more inclusive two by the way there's multiple like you know you they introduce this whole concept of variance like there's different versions of the same person so the one villain could actually be a good version in a different world and i don't know if that's actually being pushed to cover all these potential like historic tracks of writing but yeah i mean i think if you want anyone could watch these movies and these characters

and claim it in however way they would want would be my opinion on it you could flip it either way right paul you were at marvel was there did you ever have to do a licensing deal with Greenpeace to be like, you guys are going to be our bad guys in this next movie? No, I mean, it's an interesting question. I think there are relationships you don't want to influence negatively.

So for example, it's a business at the end of the day. I think people have to realize they're not trying to necessarily make a cultural statement. If they can, great. But the objective is to maximize revenue, maximize merchandise sales. And so there's a time, and I'm not going to say whether it was marvel but

there are studios right that before they finalize the script they'll have a pre-screening where executives from walmart or target or whoever will come in and watch and say okay well maybe i can fit this many toys in my in my aisle right or i like this part of it and so you know there's there's a commercial element i think which which drives a lot of this uh and i think the rorschach test uh that that that idea that you know people will make of it what they will right they'll they'll they'll take cues because i think the idea is to sort of hit it close to the middle not really offend anyone maximize revenue make a statement if you can but that's not really the objective and on the black panther side i mean i thought i i left that

movie rest in peace chadwick boseman thinking killmonger was the best character right like he not that i necessarily resonated with him but he was like an awesome guy and i didn't i mean his politics is his vendetta his anger were kind of all justified given the background and what he sort of went through growing up so um you know i think you could look at it and say that he was glorified in a lot of ways yeah yeah yeah i guess i guess it's that that's a really good point and like the reading of this that i disagree with that's like marvel is bad because they're the uh good guys in that are you know conservative is like well they're making movies with like interesting ideas in them being played by our most charismatic actors you know like michael b jordan and then yeah

like the bad guys are like where to put the fun stuff. Like Heath Ledger's Joker, Hans Gruber, two of my favorite. That you root for, kind of. Yeah, well, I root for them to be on screen more. Yeah, exactly. You know, they don't have to make sense. Like the fact that they're on screen only to like pop up say something badass and then like kill someone makes it a much easier character to write and be awesome and be cool and and like the fact as long

as their you know philosophy sounds badass like it doesn't need to hold together like the fact the joker is a agent of chaos and also has the most meticulously planned like just 40 part schemes you know constantly swirling around him it doesn't make sense but it doesn't have to because it's just like how antagonists work in movies but man emergence of the anti-hero right like we just generally like those weird characters that are like the deadpools or your wolverines like a don draper like they're likable but they're not likable. Bane, we like these characters. Yeah, he made really high-pitched voices.

Fucking awesome, Bane. Man, that's so interesting about the movies having to go through like a focus group of executives because anytime I've been involved with a creative project that needs to be focus grouped by a brand it's not good for the real bad notes yeah the the notes are usually pretty pretty wild so i don't know that that explains something paul would you say like that is the benefit of marvel is kevin feige is a can he's an executive but he's also like the creative vision behind it all so like he can

make both decisions yeah exactly like and i'm not suggesting that it was marvel or that there would be like a complete rewrite at the you know behest of a corporate executive for walmart i'm just saying that you know on the margins maybe there's a thumb on the scale. Maybe they're like, oh, if you could fit this gun or this toy gun, whatever, would sell really well. Or, oh, let's get another shot of this hammer in here a little bit longer because we're going to make this plush hammer or whatever, that Hasbro Thor hammer that was sold out forever. I mean, I'm just saying like in the margins, that could be a part of it,

but I don't think it's driving anyone creatively. And I also don't think that if Kevin or the creative exec were like, no, I don't want to focus on this or feature this piece of merchandise, then they wouldn't do it. But ultimately, there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. The creative head is going to have final say. And to Miles' point,

these stories are a lot more nuanced than they were 20 years ago because you're making three of them a year, four of them a year, and they're $200 million budget, so they can't just be uh you know very plain vanilla anymore right yeah yeah i mean because they were so formulaic and i think that may be the reason why people even began to crave an anti-hero more is because i felt like our the good guy bad guy binary became so formulaic they're like here we go inciting incident the bad guy came to town now the good guy's got to figure it out.

And then in the final battle, he's going to lose real bad in the beginning. And then he's going to pull it out at the end. And I think the ebb and flow of that may have gotten a little bit stale. And I think why even like James Bond, when Daniel Craig started playing James Bond, they were even like, this guy's kind of fucked up. Yeah. You know? People were pissed.

Yeah. But I was like, no, I like this. As a younger viewer, I was like, this is dope. Because this is what exactly. I don't like to see these people just like, I feel nothing. I do everything the same every day. I kill people. Plenty of women's lives are lost because of my actions.

And I'm fine. And I'm fine. I'm riddled with venereal disease. Right. But I have blonde hair now what the fuck yeah but i mean i think all those things kind of come together and begin to sort of shape all those things and i think to the what you're saying about brands coming in and looking at things of course like these are all these are all revenue generating endeavors and even like we've talked about in the

past jack about how the pentagon can even get involved with things when you use military equipment that like yeah sometimes they will have real notes um to to weigh in because of you know there there's a there's a relationship there but i think uh yeah looking at all of those things together it's it you kind of get a a better understanding of like well is it so sinister is it more just like no we kind of got to make it sort of nebulous so the most amount of people come and say they like it and continue to like it yeah i think up until very recently top like the pentagon was still like top gun is still our best recruiting tool like has has been continues to be is and now they have a sequel coming out, I'm sure. What war were they fighting?

They weren't. It was just, it was like unnamed bad guy. Love that. This is a hot mission. Yeah. Yeah. Well, guys, this has been, it's been really fun having you on, Paul Mash.

Paul, where can people find you, follow you, hear you, all that good stuff? So, Better Call Paul, the podcast, is Instagram, and then it's Paul Call Paul, the podcast, is Instagram. And then it's Paul at SayHiLola is my email. And the podcast is Better Call Paul. So anywhere you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, you name it. We've never had anyone give their email.

Are people just able to hit you up? We have an email so they can hit paul specifically got it okay damn all right you have some curious curious listeners about your time there uh mesh how about you yeah no check out the podcast better call paul i'm at mesh lacani on twitter and uh always happy to engage with folks and really appreciate you guys having us on this is a lot of fun. Yes, fun conversation. Yeah, you guys are great. Very informed.

And is there a tweet or some of the work of social media you guys have been enjoying? I actually had a couple here that I took down that I found a good one today. Did not notice. I felt like an idiot when I read this, but someone wrote, I've been on Twitter since 2009.

I'm just now realizing the home button is a birdhouse. I laughed out loud because that did not occur to me until today. Yep. And then, yeah, no, there's another one. Someone said, there will never be another product that inspires me so much,

that inspires so much envy in me as the original iPod did back in 2001 and it was just like a picture of it i thought that was actually cool because it was so innovative and since then you know like things have gotten a little boring yeah yeah man those are two tweets that i found today that uh the other one's really about bear markets and stuff but i won't bore everybody with that shit and they they just discontinued the ipod right that was the big big news oh is that what happened yeah oh i didn't even realize that i didn't even know they sold ipods anymore so um yeah yeah i just thought everything yeah i thought it all became an ipod touch at a certain point

yeah exactly they just didn't discontinue the touch yeah i think they're discontinuing all you are not allowed to say the word iPod anymore. I think that's what... Tim, please. Now you have to buy a new phone that has a headphone jack for your old headphones that used to not work and now we have to buy another adapter for it.

The real troll move is it's going to have the headphone jack from the first iPod that had a remote on the fucking thing. So it was like that three and a half millimeter thing plus a circular thing to send the data for the remote. That's how

they're going to fuck us. That's it. But I got mine on deck. Miles, where can people find you? What's a tweet you've been enjoying? Man, find me on Twitter and Instagram at milesofgray. That's gray with an A. And also if you like basketball, check out the basketball show.

Miles and Jack got mad boosties. It's an NBA podcast, uh, official, you know, they decided to get in, get involved with two rap scallions like us. And also if you like,

uh, trash reality, check out my other show for 20 day fiance. Uh, some tweets that I like. First one is from, uh, AME Choppa at Malik Thomas tweeted,

this Buzz Lightyear movie going to be good until you got to do an origin story for Woody and we find out he was a slave overseer at a cotton plantation in Antebellum, Texas. And this one, another one is from at G Kush Baby tweeted, a party,

but everyone brings potatoes prepared a different way. Yeah. I like that. I was like, well, we know that what the difference between the, the fries between miles and Paul are going to be. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Rare. The other is going to be fried or like, I'll take an old Play-Doh thing. Like the old McDonald's Play-Doh thing, put mashed potatoes in it and just be like here are the fries you can find me on Twitter at Jack underscore Brian and tweet up and join Paris

at Solaris Hilton tweeted me having remembered girls like it when you ask them questions what's your problem and and then just gotta give it a Miriam Posner giving it up for footnotes reading a book with

footnotes instead of notes and sorry haters it's so much better it's true so from now on we will be just doing the citations in the episode right when we read from an article we'll be reading off the URL

the text of the URL http www.com we read from an article. We'll be reading off the URL. The text is URL. HTTP. And then WhatTheFelc tweeted, I'm a lot of things, but first and foremost, I'm a Taco Bell customer. And Skyler Higley tweeted, the Star Spangled Banner sounds like it was made

up on the spot. And I... Higley tweeted, the Star Spangled Banner sounds like it was made up on the spot. And I... Oh, say can you see? It sounds like... Put on the spot real early in the morning? Yeah. By the dawn's early...

You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're at The Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan page and a website. at daily zeitgeist we're at the daily zeitgeist on instagram we have a facebook fan page and a website dailyzeitgeist.com where we post our episodes and our footnotes where we link off to the information we talked about in today's episode as well as the song that we think you might enjoy miles what song do we think people might enjoy well let's go out on one of my favorite producers from aust, Taku. This is a track called Make You Wanna. It's just good, dancey, sample-based beats.

You should like them. They're good. And Taku in general. Check. If you're not familiar with Taku, really great artist. Can't recommend him enough. All right. Well, The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That is going to do it for us

this morning. We're back this afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we will talk to you all then. Bye. Bye. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Teherry-Poor. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball.

And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.