The Daily Zeitgeist - Trend Square Ball Drop 1/07: The Windy Angel, Meta/MAGA, Popcorn Buckets, AI

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

In this edition of Trend Square Ball Drop, Jack and special guest co-host Andrew Ti discuss the new windy city: Los Angeles, Meta going full 'mask-off' MAGA, the weird popcorn bucket trend continuing with… whatever the hell you want to be a bucket (including Cinemark's BYOBucket event) and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jason Alexander and I'm Peter Tilden and together our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor? What's in the museum of failure and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to ReallyNoReally.com and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast.

Follow us on the iHeart radio app app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We want to speak out and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn, an investigative journalist and this is my journey deep into the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a player boy my dog. He was like, I'll take you to the top, I'll make you a star. To expose an alleged predator and the rotten industry he works in. It's honestly so much worse than I had anticipated. We're an army in comparison to him. From Novel, listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of trend square ball drop Reference to time squares ball drop which miles where Yeah, it's good I love it yeah gross face killer on the discord and it's fucking good shout out to gross face killer for that and for also making the football card of David Lesser's. So David Lesser on the Discord said, I know it's too late, but when JM McNabb, our writer, comes on, I always think John-a-Vam McNabb.

I think John of them McNabb and then gross face killer made a baseball card or a football card of it every time I've seen James name since then I have thought John of them McNabb. So thank you all for that. My name is Jack O'Brien. I'm thrilled to be joined in our second seat by the brilliant and talented, Andrew T. You know, I'm from Yo, is this racist? Uh, and many, many times being on the show, Andrew, how are you doing? New year. I'm eating just insane amounts of salad. You can hear about that.

Hear that's the word. I actually heard that before you even came on. People are talking about it in these streets I'm saying I'm saying that's mainly what I've accomplished you hear I'm 25 salad Andrews eating a mad amount of salad. That's a crazy amount of salad man We had a what's the wind equivalent of a rain out a blowout? Yeah, we got blown out. You got blown out blow out today and can't be with us. The wind in Los Angeles is such that both miles,

Super Producer Justin, both of their power is down. That is wild. I will say I am at a south-facing window and it's unbelievably bright right now, but I'm sort of in, if the wind is where it seems to be, I think I might be just in the Leeward side of the mountains because I'm really not seeing much where I am. Yeah. I mean, wind is tricky and like if you're closer to the mountains, it gets really intense.

Yeah. But it is,. is very weird. It has very strange weather where sometimes it'll be so windy. They'll be like, I don't think you should drive. It's like, wait, what do you mean? It's hard to know because it's like at some point in recent history, the entire proposition of Los Angeles was that the weather was very even and fine. Yeah.

And obviously that climate is changing, allegedly, for natural reasons. See how cold it is in the Midwest? Come on. That's fucking crazy. It's all crazy. But I do think part of it is like the absolute inability for, um, you know, post 19th and 20th century, Los Angeles is infrastructure is not designed to handle much. No.

And so we're getting, it basically fails at any given opportunity. Yes. It is, it's like a hot house flower, you know, it's's just beautiful orchid that has never had to face a stress test of any sort. And when there is a danger, it shatters and falls, falls apart. Brian, the editor has this little job is LA the new windy city more at 11 very well. Yeah, sure. I honestly would. Producer Victor asked if I, if I could come on the show, I immediately said yes before checking my own internet connection or power and then realized

the probably was unwise. But I'm here now. The last two men in Los Angeles with internet. That's right. Yeah, we are the internet. We we. Daily's like, guys, we are the internet. Wait, I am legend.

Let's talk about the meta. Yeah. Just, just a cool company that has understood definitely didn't get lucky one time, but has understood human humans and human interaction. Was not just somebody who happened to cash a winning lottery ticket and has let that convince him that he is a all consuming genius. Yeah. God, he this look. So, so,

narc sucker nerd put on his, you know, gen Z hair and big black tea and addressed the nation and said, basically, guys, like we're magging out. Yeah. He he announced on the corporate meta blog that he is basically all in on free speech and wants to fit in with the incoming regime. Like it's just straight up like he's just like, yeah, Trump is right about everything. We want to be in the Trump business. And yeah, it's basically everybody getting in line as fast and as shamelessly as possible here. Okay.

This is this is I know this has been a bit of a drum I have been beating since the election and a little before the election, I think. I know that there's been a lot of this hand wringing about like look at all these media companies getting in line. And I'm a little I just want to raise the specter of using the present tense on getting in line. It may be incorrect. I'm just like they're changing their tune from when they were doing the right thing

for all those years. All these things are exactly like everything that Zuckerberg says he's going to do vis-a-vis free speech, I guess I'm a little just like unclear the ways in which this wasn't already happening. I should say free speech and massive square quotes, obviously. Sure. I don't know. Has Facebook not been clear Nazi propaganda for the last fucking five years? Am I missing something? Yeah. They had a fact checker department that was bad at its job. And you know, like, so they had a fact checker department because there were like things like mass casualty events caused by Facebook rumors in other countries. And so in order to like, you know, be careful about liability and things like that, they

instituted fact checker departments. And now they're like, well, we're not doing that in America anymore because it was, he specifically, he's like, we're going to get rid of a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender. They're just out of touch with mainstream discourse. So, I mean, I don't know. It's like, yeah, they've been racist and fucking transphobic. But while they had these things, I guess I'm like,

I understand this will be quote unquote worse. Yeah, but I will just kind of slow a little bit. Caution the people like the hand ringing. The hands should have been rung. I guess not really like I don't know what really how much like this is. He's the same person. He's just saying it. But these things are all cool now.

Yeah, he does. Like he does look lit. He looks so tight. Do you see that video where he was was like wake surfing with the American flag? I mean, he's just a fucking huge Nazi dork, but he's been a huge Nazi dork this whole time. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, all, all the things that, yeah, it's just, it's just like the getting in line of it. Like look at, look at all the capitulation and it's like,

I'm sorry to tell you that this capitulation has been happening. It's just that in their official corporate communications. It's like, like McDonald's just announced that they're rolling back their diversity goals. But like that also is like none of those were instituted by the government. These were all based on their perception of the market. And like, I guess we'll see whether they're right or wrong. But like, you know, the people haven't really like changed that much. It's just like, you know, a lot of people are low information,

don't give a shit and, you know, feel economic pain that both political parties are giving to them. So like, I don't know, man, I just think this is going to be, this is going to go, like the thing that was making online spot like places care about sense, quote unquote, censorship was not the government. It's the fucking market. And like, we'll just see. Yeah. Facebook will be more Nazi than it was. And yeah, don't use it. I will say that a lot of my politics were driven by just what Joe Biden told me to do for the past four years. So it is going to be a little tricky for me now that I don't have my guiding light, my true north there

to tell me what to do. They also just deleted a bunch of AI profiles. So they created fake AI people on Facebook. They were bots for people to interact with. And this is going to surprise people who have been following all of the AI developments, but they looked like shit and didn't work. Yeah. You pointed out this Goldman Sachs paper from June of last year that was just like, yeah, it's a trillion dollar answer to a hundred million dollar question. Yeah. That is a paraphrase, but yeah. Yeah. But essentially, I'm paraphrasing probably a newsletter, right? Right. But yeah, I mean,

it's, it's like the, the like, like nose to the grindstone money people who like can't afford to let, you know, they let ideology drive their desires, but not what they more or less what they're, you know, obviously they're hugely biased. Yeah. But these folks understand, and I think, you know, broadly speaking, we can all sort of see that there's no like

the actual reason to use any of this AI stuff, but especially all of this stuff that's supposed to be social and entertaining. Yeah. It's like so weird because it's like, yeah, it's better than the horrible racist nerds that run Silicon Valley at socializing, but that doesn't mean that's good for humanity. Right. There's a reason.

The lowest bar. It clears the lowest bar of humanity that you could possibly like define. Yeah. Yeah. But that, that by the way, is also what gives me a little like, to the extent that there is hope on this, like, you know, Zuckerberg has gone, like, you know, decided free speech and we're taking away all this stuff. It's like, yeah. Or like McDonald's, like these analyses are being driven by people that also think that these AI profiles were a profitable idea. Like, and if you see the common theme

is that these people don't know shit. So, I don't know. I mean, it's gonna, obviously it's gonna be bad, but like these people are very, very stupid and truly do not understand how people work. They just got lucky once. Same with Elon Musk. Donald Trump at least understands how racists work, although it's like you're like,

you know, he he's just right place, right time and sort of right vibe. Yeah. Just like historically with like the level of genius that people ascribe to Hitler. I've always like found it like when you actually go back and like read about what Hitler was like, he was like kind of a dumb guy. Yeah, he's very narcissistic and so like was good at presenting himself because he like studied every like photo that was ever taken of him and like did a lot of like work for like, but like just he slept through the D day attacks.

Like he is a fucking dipshit, but he was just like the person for that moment in time. Yeah. Not that dipshits can't be dangerous, but it's like, let's not like, let's, let's not ascribe like they have power, but they don't have the genius that they think they have. So it's like, okay. A lot of people in America scribe to them because in America we love a winner and we want to give them like all powerful status. But yeah, not that they're not dangerous, but like, let's be real. These people are fucking morons. Honestly, social media is the thing that has most pierced that veil, like more pierced that veil than anything else. It's like, how would we have known truly how actually stupid Elon Musk is? Right.

Without Twitter. Yeah. Like it's, it's amazing. All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. I'm Jason Alexander and I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true

answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse To make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer We talked with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the wooly mammoth Plus does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts his stunt man reveals the answer and you never know who's gonna drop by Mr. Bryan Cranston's how are you? Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park Wayne Knight. Welcome to really really sir bless you all Hello, Newman and you never know when how I'm in down might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No, really. Yeah, really.

No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really? No, Really? And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. We want to speak out, we want to raise awareness, and we want this to stop.

Wow, very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn and I'm an investigative journalist. When a group of models from the UK wanted my help, I went on a journey deep into the heart of the adult entertainment industry. I really wanted to be a Playboy model. Lingerie, topless. I said yes please. Because at the center of this murky world is an alleged predator. You know who he is because of his pattern of behavior. He's just spinning the web for you to

get trapped in it. He's everywhere and has been everywhere. It's so much worse and so much more widespread than I had anticipated. Together, we're going to expose him and the rotten industry he works in. It's not just me. We're an army in comparison to him. Listen to the bunny trap on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. All right. Popcorn buckets. The trend has continued since the last time we checked in with it.

I think the last time we checked in with it, like we, you know, obviously covered the fuckable doom sandworm. Yep. Have we did we talk? Have you seen one of those things? My brother had one. I saw one over Christmas in person. You saw it in the flesh.

What would you say? Yeah. It's real gross. I mean, like many of like common theme and everything we're talking about, it's wild that this made it off the corporate chain and it's a whole product. Right.

The number of very powerful people who had to approve this thing is baffling to me. Yeah, it's, uh, I mean, they were right. It was a huge hit, um, which gave rise to the fuckable Wolverine popcorn bucket, um, and a slimer popcorn bucket that somewhere someone somewhere probably tried to have sex with. And then of course, recently we got the witches hat bucket for wicked and a literal coffin shaped

bucket to time with Nosferatu that I feel like they could have done better. Spoiler alert for Nosferatu. I will just say, but obviously if you don't want to be spoiled, skip ahead. The popcorn bucket should have just been a huge mustache. Yes. The mustache is by far. I mean, nothing else in that movie made me like truly gasp as much as first seeing the mustache.

Maybe it was in the trailer, but either way you're like, oh fuck, that shit is crazy. That is a crazy looking thing. Gladiator 2 had a popcorn bucket that was shaped like the Colosseum, but then if you viewed it through a smartphone, it allowed you to watch a tiny fight to the death inside of your popcorn bucket, which I kind of love. Did you see Gladiator 2? I not only did I see Gladiator 2, I realized I hadn't seen Gladiator 1 possibly in its entirety because I probably caught most of it syndicated, chopped up. But either way, I hadn't seen any version of it in probably fucking 15 years. Yeah. So what I did was I had the most. Just imagine the most fucking Italians yelling at each other day you could have. I watched the finale of Penguin, Gladiator 1, and Gladiator 1 took me to...

I was like two minutes late to Gladiator 2. Just like right... you just ran it right into the... Just like fucking straight in. So I will just say if anyone else is even remotely considering doing that do not it really Really ruins gladiator Yeah, because gladiator ones better or just because it's too much gladiator to me It's because not this is not film criticism there to me. They're very similar yeah, it just kind of goes boils down to like I think there's a world where

gladiator 2 is sort of going to be generationally like the Phantom Menace, like the way kids for whom the Phantom Menace was their first Star Wars are like, it's fine, it's great. There's probably a world where people who didn't see Gladiator 1 are like, Gladiator 2 is better. It's fine. Yeah. I mean, cause the thing is, that's not the one with sharks, right?

It's the same movie just with more yeah, so it's like fine, you know, yeah probably Purists would say they prefer the performance of Russell Crowe over Paul Mezcal I don't think you know, it's just a lot of Italians yelling each other. Yeah, I guess I don't know really bannered by the way, he's not Italian. And that only makes sense when you realize that, like, very close to the beginning of production, Antonio Banderas was cast in that role. And then they were like, oh, fuck, Antonio's out. Who do we get? How about the guy from L.A.

Confidential? He doesn't look like we don't have time to change the name, but we'll we'll just go with it. It's right. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I thought the movie was fine. I just was in the wrongest possible headspace to watch all the gladiator battles happen at a tiny scale and a popcorn bucket in my hands personally. But other than that, I was on board. Well like also like all corporate stuff, right? It's like, Oh, there were three like, you know, just normal, um, hits with the popcorn buckets. So let's make one that includes fucking our and you know,

like implementation of a fucking app. I'm just like, how did this go from like, you know, two pieces, two to three pieces of molded plastic to needing fucking like servers? Like they always do the wrong thing with a business. I mean, this had to be a huge money pit. Like, why would you do this? Oh my God. The amount that like that movie just like looked so expensive. It was just look like money was being burned in every corner of the screen, which is like a great you know, that's a lot of fun. I will just say also also spoiler for gladiator two, I'm pretty convinced they just used the xenomorph models.

There's a scene where they're fighting some monkeys. And tell me that those are not simply xenomorphs reskinned. They look, they're just like, what if there was a different animal back then? It just is exactly, they're just xenomorphing around. They're doing xenomorph stuff. Their tails move the same way. Yeah, it's really strange. I feel very confident that that's just xenomorph and around. They're doing more stuff. Their tails move the same way. Yeah, it's really strange. I feel very confident that that's a xenomorph.

Anyways, coming up January 19th, the working man's popcorn bucket. It's National Popcorn Day and Cinemark is having a bring your own bucket event, which sounds like something you would get with an invitation to an ayahuasca party. But in this case, you just bring any container as long as it's not over 400 ounces. This is sad that they had to make that stipulation because they knew. 400 ounces, like, so a 40 ounce is so 10 X that don't bring something 10 times the size of a 40 and we'll fill it with popcorn.

I'm sorry. $400 ounce container. Okay. The containers I'm seeing like on home depot.com look closer to like rolling luggage. Yeah. Yeah. In, in, in general vibe. Yeah. Yeah. So don rolling luggage. Yeah. In general vibe. Yeah. So don't bring. Which makes sense. 1040s. 1040s is just, it's like a thick carry on.

Yeah. Or a thick checked bag. Okay. Yeah. I'm looking at some, it's like a, you know, one of the larger plastic containers you would get at the container store. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, this is

this is not to like, like, I know everything is getting shittier, but just off the success of fun popcorn buckets, making one that costs them nothing. Exactly. Here you go. What kind of fucking Tom Sawyer ass bullshit is bring your own bucket? It's very like not corporate. It's like, did you just like give this like an 80 year old Eagle Scout or something like who came up with this idea? This idea seems so anti-corporate. They're like they went all the way corporate with the Gladiator to one where they're like, okay, so it's a little

coliseum, but then put on your VR smartphone app and you can have that little bit. Whatever budget went into making this VR app clearly was earmarked for the bucket that was supposed to come out on January 19th. And yeah, that budget has shrank to precisely zero. Yeah, absolutely. I'm just another. Obviously, they headed everyone off at the pass with not over 400 ounces. So my pitch is someone cobbled together, I guess, maybe a series of graduated cylinders or tubes so that technically it is under 400 ounces, but it is like

whatever the length incredibly long could be. Yeah. Yeah. Just make the most annoying thing. It's super long be be. Yeah. Yeah, just make just like annoying things super long beaker Yeah, yes. Yeah a single file line of popcorn These are good ideas Andrew T what a pleasure having you on the daily zeitgeist as always where can people find you follow you? Oh, you know my podcast is Joseph's racist Where can people find you? You know, my podcast is Joseph's racist

Andrew T on whatever the least Nazi social media available is at any given time As far as I know Far as we know that is gonna do it for us this afternoon We're back tomorrow with a whole last episode of the show Until then be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves, get your vaccines, get your flu shots. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to y'all tomorrow. Bye.

Peace. I'm Jason Alexander and I'm Peter Tilden. And together our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor? What's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

Go to ReallyNoReally.com and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead, the Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We want to speak out and we want this to stop. Wow, very powerful. I'm Ellie Flynn, an investigative journalist, and this is my journey deep into the adult entertainment industry.

I really wanted to be a playerboy, my doll. He was like, I'll take you to the top, I'll make you a star. To expose an alleged predator and the rotten industry he works in. It's honestly so much worse than I had anticipated. We're an army in comparison to him. From Novel, listen to The Bunny Trap on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.