The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 283 (Best of 7/17/23-7/21-23)

Episode Date: July 23, 2023

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 296 (7/17/23-7/21-23)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 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 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 Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Carrie 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 this episode of the weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one nonstop infotainment laughstravaganza. Yeah.

So without further ado, here is the weekly Zeitgeist. I got to give a shout out to Zeitgang, Zeitgeist listener Smooth Lou, I believe is the name. Smooth Lou. Okay. Who solved the mystery. Did you see this on Twitter? No. Of 2000.

Wait, what was it? Grand Puba. It's a Grand Puba track. Whoa. From 1995, I guess. Did you go back and you checked it out? Yeah, yeah. It's definitely, that's the song.

Oh, wait. Wasn't it? It's a track that's the song. Oh, wait. Wasn't it? There's a track called 2000. Yeah. I don't know why it took us so long. I guess it like didn't really hit that hard on the internet. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. Check out that song. It's kind of good. Wow. I stand by my reference to it. 2000.

Yeah, man. I still love it. Okay. The energy is still there. Wow. Shout out. Zyking. Honestly, you guys fucking between all of y'all, we don't need Google and we could have Googled it, but it was hard to just Google 2000 song lyric.

We really try. So smooth Lou. Great. Great Twitter handle. Even better at saving my ass from making it seem like i was referencing billy joel song yeah smooth lou we owe you a hamburger yes smooth lou came through to with that said i got you fam thanks for all you do then somebody else came through and vouched for smooth lou was like pretty cool dude i miss you smooth lou it's No. So much love to Smooth Lou.

Wow. This one goes out to you. All right, Miles. It's a special episode. We're talking labor. I'm sorry. I'm still blown away that Smooth Lou put this together. I'm still like, I'm really.

I mean, did you hear it? Did you hear the song? No. Yeah, I started playing it a second ago, and I'm like, this is, wow. Yeah. Big poop ahead over here. Yeah. Damn anyway sorry anyway back to you jack and back to you miles yep no back to you back to you fam no so this episode we are no and i'm still gonna go back to you pal shoulders are loose yeah loose, head on a

swivel, the hips got honey in them, so it's time. You know what that means? It's time to be thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a professor of Alaska Native Languages at the University of Alaska Southeast, the host of the podcast, The Tongue Unbroken

from the NextUp Initiative. Please welcome Dr. Huney Lance Twitchell! Huney! Hi, it's me. I'm the problem. I'm colonization. Hey! How's it going?

It's so good to see you guys. Yeah, it's good to have you back. You know, someone tried AI with our Tlingit language. No. No, there's a reporter here in Juneau for the Juneau Empire. And so she had entered a short, she wrote a short story, and then she entered it into this thing that had the Tlingit language as an option. And then she sent it to me.

She said, could you just take a look at this? And I said, well, those those are words but it's just grabbing words and just putting them at random including my name like my name was in the story like 10 times and so i said wow it's just complete gibberish it makes no sense so the computer like from it from it trying to glean information about cling it that it found your name and it's like okay so this must also be part of the mix yeah Yeah, yeah. And here we go. Here's your story. Wait, how did you read? Like, just truly out of order, just like word salad? Yeah, there's a couple of words, but like, one of the big problems is when you change a verb in our language is it changes a lot.

And so to be able to, man, you could develop something that could manufacture stuff in our language, but you would have to spend a lot of hours. And so what it seems like it did is found a dictionary and just sort of grabbed words, but never really looked at what they mean, I guess. And so it's just like, here's a bunch of words, here's a word salad, and that's your story. So, you know. Task complete. Yeah. I salad and that's your story so you know task complete yeah i mean that's good good to know that ai is still right now it's only fucking up like english you know

yeah right and so but it's probably coming for everything eventually and so but maybe maybe there's a world where you have someone to talk to because Because with our language, we have about 40 people left who could speak. So it does get pretty scary. And we have a language north of us that's called Iyak that lost its last living birth speaker. And when she was the only speaker for quite a while, she would say, I talk to my TV, I talk to the walls, I talk to God and nobody talks to me.

So like what we're trying to do is like keep that from happening. So I started with a Taylor Swift take on a Taylor Swift song because I thought maybe if we can get the Swifties and the Beehive on board with decolonization. Right. Like they've got so much energy and commitment. And so I think maybe we'll get somewhere. Yeah, I think it definitely makes sense for Taylor Swift. I feel like she, her career has gone from being just like, oh, shucks. I don't know.

I guess I'm just kind of a good songwriter to like, she, we've like witnessed her waking up a little bit to the complexities of the modern world. So I don't know. Or at least private equity. Yeah. You know, which isn't, isn't that why her, yeah, that's why't know. Or at least private equity. Yeah. You know, which isn't, isn't that why I heard? Yeah. So that's why I got those new albums, private equity because of the Taylor's version, baby, private equity, all lines go back there. Hey, even a broke clock, you know? Yeah. What is something from your search history

that is revealing about who you are? My search is chaotic and just like so i looked at it and was like oh this screams help me i was looking up asexuality the difference between attraction and desire but i was also looking at sti rates in america and uh non-toxic condoms okay so asexuality sti rates non wait so wait what arexic condoms. Okay, so asexuality, SDI rates, non-toxic. Wait, so wait, what are toxic condoms? Most condoms are owned by the, most condom companies are owned by the same five companies. And if you get a box, you'll notice that it doesn't have ingredients listed on them,

but they do have ingredients they're just not required to, which is really crazy. And a lot of the ingredients are harmful, irritating, or in some cases, toxic. I didn't know that. Like I do all this research for the show that I have. And I just interviewed these ladies who have a non-toxic condom company. And I had the same reaction. I said, I'm sorry, what? Right, right, right. I've like, you know, been with a toxic dude or two, but I didn't realize I was... The condoms as well. Yeah, that seems like something I can control. So yeah, things like parabens or preservatives,

like why would a condom have preservatives? For the flavor. Keep it fresh. Okay, but shelf... You're not wrong. Shelf're not stable yeah you're not wrong right is it but but if it's just if you just have like just latex and just silicone right right you don't need those other things right so what is it preserving exactly the patriarchy i didn't no no no that's really what it is The patriarchy. No, no, no. Deadass.

That's really what it is. Truly. It's like, I don't know. It doesn't fuck the guy up. Yeah, basically. So we're good over here. It's just like all those memes about like, is he worth risking your pH over this? It's like, no, that's really accurate.

Right. Truly. Oof. I know. So anyway, that's how I spend my time. There you go. Django, what's something you think is overrated? Oh, my God.

Well, this is going to kind of fly in the face of my whole summer tomatoes love. But I am coming to the conclusion these last couple of years that I think the season of summer is overrated. Two days in a row. Yeah. No shit. Well, there you go. It's a consensus. I think it's in a row yeah yeah no shit yeah well there you go it's a consensus I think it's just too hot people are a little too weird and angry in New York City especially it just kind of like fucks the brain chemistry a little so I think as I get older I'm quickly transitioning

to a fall man I think fall is where it's at fall is where all the dreams come true. Summer is just sticky, repetitive, day in, day out. Rain falling apart, can't sleep at night, three showers a day. I just can't take it anymore, guys. You're a fall guy. I'm a fall guy, there you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is like, it gets really positive media.

We were talking about how heat waves, the deadliest weather event in the united states year in year out and the photographs that get like posted next to that story in the news is like children playing in a sprinkler or like drinking out of a fire hose or not people at the beach yeah like going to the beach or just somebody sweating while pouring water on their head so it's like but yeah summer i mean in addition to just like the straight up heat deaths like violence always rises during the summer bedtime they should show the b-roll should be like a guy freaking out the subway like my car's not working my car's not working my car's

not working like yeah losing his mind that's what summer kind of evokes for me these days yeah it's interesting too how climate change is just completely souring people now on seasons that used to be like the coolest one like i know so like it used to be like no one would ever like i think summer is overrated unless you're like someone was like i get burned easily but now it's truly it's like it's fucking unbearable at times outside and that isn't a good feeling but i wonder if then that swings with like winter when we get like more intense winters we're like yeah and fuck the arctic freezes that we have every six months too yeah got a lot in store it seems like what's uh what's something you think is underrated oh boys strap in for this one i i've lately become all about room temperature water.

Okay. I think I want my water the same temperature as my body. I don't want it hurting my teeth. I don't want space in my refrigerator, my tiny New York refrigerator filled. So lately it's been a pitcher of water on the counter at a nice 80 degrees, pound it, easy. That's my approach going forward.

So it's not a sipping thing. It's more like you're doing like an F1 pit stop just to get the hydration in quickly. Yeah, purely efficiently. And also, I think in the same way the media hypes up summer, the media will hype up glistening, cold glasses of water with perfect cubic ice cubes cube i don't think that's about it i think water should be nice nice and mild so as not to offend my delicate

sensibilities oh i can i i feel like i can only drink ice water i don't know why i just like it feels i think that's how in my mind i elevate ice like water to like a fun thing. It's cold and nice and crisp, and now I can just drink jugs of it. But yeah, body temp water, all right, I'll try it. I'll think of it in the way of like, it's more about how can I get it down quickly. Yeah. I'm one of those neurotic,

drink a shitload of water every day guys. So I think it just makes it easier for me. So maybe if you had a more pleasurable relationship with water it'd be different but for me it's all about the function right right yeah why do i think room temp water is like drinks slower than cold water is that just because that my preference is cold water i'm not sure but yeah i think i can like just hammer back a lot of cold water and room temp water is like harder to get down don't you ever get the shivers i don't know oh man you guys get the shivers django from a little ice water a hundred percent man your lips turn blue you're like i'm like i'm a delicate little flower i think

it's the lesson we're learning here is i really yeah it's like don't the water can't be too hot or too cold now it has to be just around the temperature of his internal organs. Yeah. Something related to what you said about tooth pain that I've just discovered is underrated for me is sensitive toothpaste. I wasn't, for some reason, I was just not paying attention to that as an option. I've started using it lately and my teeth don't hurt anymore when I eat stuff that's cold or hot. So, yeah.

I don't know. I thought, I picture, I thought like I lumped sensitive toothpaste in with elderly toothpaste for some reason. Like, what is this, for people with dentures? Yeah, that's how it started. You know what I mean? But we all got those little sensitive spots

you know sometimes it's better to do it like that you got a gta5 poster behind you oh is this me oh jesus no this is uh south south vietnam north vietnam the edge of it which would be a great a great place for the GTA franchise to go. Vietnam War. Carjacking people in Saigon. Yeah, right. Exactly. At the fall of Saigon. Okay. Because there's like that little peninsula at the bottom because I'm so video game brained.

I'm like, oh, is that a GTA 5 map, bro? No, totally. I get it now. Yeah, yeah. It does have little icons, you know, like banks and safe houses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool, cool, cool. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about an imploding presidential campaign. We'll be right back.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jumae 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 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, first-hand 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. 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. And we're back. And we are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a very funny comedian writer executive producer tv host and labor organizer who you know from adam ruins everything his podcast factually and being out in these streets picketing acting as a member of the negotiating committee, serving on the WGA West Board of Directors.

It's Adam Conover! Adam! Oh, it's lovely to be here. That was all my credits. I have a lot of titles now. All of them. Having those things I'm not doing now because I'm on strike. I'm not a TV host right now.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, that's all cat. Never mind those things. Nascent. When it's all over, I'll be back on your screens, you know? There you go. Yes, yes, yes. Well, thanks for

joining us i can't imagine this is a busy time for you at all yeah i was just sounds like you got nothing going on i was just out on the street you know for for three four hours 90 degree heat with the sign talking to people it's a blast man it's i'm having so much fun out there the solidarity feels so good it's just it's great i love it yeah yeah i mean people are making sacrifices you know but there's uh our political director this wonderful woman rachel torres she's brilliant she told me uh you know if you're smiling while you're sacrificing if you're having a good time while you're making the sacrifice then they can't beat you and i think that that is uh really true yeah for sure big cheerleader smiles out there on the yeah people it's it's a party

a guy brought a sound system to netflix and now he's playing like sort of mid-tempo like dance music you know it feels like kind of that kind of that outdoor day club like pool club kind of right people almost feel like they should be having frozen cocktails walking around like it's just the vibes are good and then he's like remixed like people giving speeches like fran drescher's speech someone told me he like remixed one of my tiktoks into a song of like you know so you want to pick a line line line line line and you sent him a takedown notice immediately i'm saying right yeah yeah better yeah like who signed off but yeah i mean we were talking with this feels like a huge moment for labor these are

you know with the wga some of the most influential like unionized union protected workers on the planet but with with actors with the screen actors guild you know the faces the beauty yeah it's the brain beauty and brains coming together you know but yeah i don't know just kind of thinking about this think about the history of labor and unions in hollywood it feels like hollywood to this point the fact that unions have been a presence in Hollywood for as long as they have, it's a great learning moment for why capitalism doesn't work without unions, basically. Yeah. Well, it's an open question whether capitalism works at all, you know, and I think we're arguing're arguing yeah like unions are the thing that

keep people from being like oh marx was definitely right it's like just bad enough that people are like i don't know it's not bad yeah right i mean look i sort of don't get into marxism socialism i don't do isms i just know that the union and the union structure is the only way to fight back right and so so i you know the union is a hammer and I grab the hammer and I start smashing shit. And it's it's really fun. Yeah. So, I mean, the only reason people even think of writing, acting, directing as being lucrative jobs, you know, like if you say, oh, my cousin's an actor in L.A., you might be. Oh, my cousin's an actor in L.A. You might be, oh, if he's working, he's making good money. Right?

That's what your assumption is. That's only because we've had strong unions in this town for 90 years. The Writers Guild was founded 90 years ago. And it's only because those unions went on strike. The last time the writers and actors went on strike together was 1960. And in that negotiation, we won our health and pension plans, and we won the existence of residual payments, which are the payments we get every time the product is aired. And and that's why I have a health and pension today is because they went on strike then. That's why I've gotten residuals to help tide me through the slow periods of my career is because of those actors and writers going on strike. And so now it's our turn to do the same thing.

And that's why we're out there. Yeah. strike and so now it's our turn to do the same thing and that's why we're out there yeah as a thought experiment i was trying to think of like what do we think the last 90 years of movies and tv look like if the industries were never unionized uh youtube looks like youtube right yeah you know people barely scraping by um or it looks like i mean look at uh korea for instance there was um or the anime industry. Right. Those are two extremely popular. You know, they make a lot of media that's consumed by a lot of people and the people who make the media aren't able to make a living.

There was a great piece in The L.A. Times a couple of weeks ago about how the guy who created Squid Game, you know, and Netflix trotted this guy's story out as a hero story. You know, oh, he tried to make the show for 10 years and he couldn't make it until Netflix gave him a chance. It became a worldwide hit, right? That guy made, from the first season, which was a, again, worldwide smash, like Game of Thrones level, you know, people watching it. He made $200,000. Yeah. That's, you know, that's a good living, right? That's not what you should get if you made the most popular show ever, right?

And that's the guy who created the show. The people who work on the shows and the people who create, you know, your more average K dramas, right? That, you know, I hear about one or two K dramas or K comedies a year, but, you know, the ones that are a little further down the pipe that the real fans watch, those people are literally not making a living making television. They are writing those shows in between their day jobs

or they're working 18-hour days. And then when the show ends, they're just like, well, back to my day job, right? And this article, you can look up LA Times, you know, Squid Game, Korean, Google that and you'll find the article, goes into really long detail on that. And the reason is there's no unions.

And Netflix is exploiting that. I mean, they talk about Netflix came into that market and said, oh, we want to spread Korean content around the world. Right. And they created a lot of work. They created a lot of shows, but no one's being paid because the work standards are so abysmal. It's sweatshop media, unfortunately. but no one's being paid because the work standards are so abysmal. It's sweatshop media, unfortunately. Yeah. I had no idea that that was the thing.

I mean, again, obviously, because a lot of Korean media is so good that I was like, oh, this is a natural progression of things. And then I remember seeing, oh, Netflix is going in. But there was a moment when I was like, oh, they're going in. To the point where I was like, oh, they're really trying to put their foot down in Korea. I had no idea because they're like, yeah, man, you can get away with anything over here. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, it's just like it's a car company moving to Mexico, right? Or to any other or Nike in Bangladesh, right?

They are taking advantage of poor work standards to get the product a lot cheaper. And why do the companies love anime? You know, it's awesome as an American, you know, someone who grew up, you know, trading VHS tapes of anime. Right. That it's like popular in the U.S. now. It's popular around the world. That's great. But, I mean, you guys know the horrible conditions that anime has made.

And, I mean, people die in that industry. Yeah, like the Simpsons would make jokes about it, I remember. And I was like, is that a joke or is that one of those Simpsons jokes? So they're like, no, no, no, that's American American media is still the most popular, valuable media in the world. Right. It's still what people want to watch, like from a big budget thing like Avatar to right to, you know, even reruns of old sitcoms. Right. People are still watching Friends in Australia, you know, Ireland. Yeah. And new shows as well. Right. That is what people want to watch more than anything else, both in America and around the world. And one of the reasons for that is because the the entertainment industry has been the only place that paid creators fairly for the last hundred years. You know, if you are a great writer and you want to make if you want to if you

want to buy a big house of your writing, you know, where are you going to go? Are you going to work in journalism? Are you going to work in novels? No, you're going to go try to sell a big movie script. Right. That's been the pattern in Hollywood up until basically the early 2000s, where you had the best writer. Literally, Faulkner and Fitzgerald came to Hollywood, right, to write movies. And, you know, to write movies. And, you know, think about that. Well, they both drank themselves to death.

Too much money. Yeah. But, you know, that was that was the way it worked. And the companies have broken that compact. And as a result, the content is getting worse, unfortunately. But, you know, we're entering this Marvel period where they're trying to, you know, they the the actor doesn't matter the writing doesn't matter all that matters is spider-man people will go to see spider-man no matter what you know no matter who's in the suit no matter what he's saying right and it's not actually true because you know look at what happened with the flash right they realize they can't just cram in superheroes and expect people to show up

right but you know all that that makes the the CEOs think is they need to pump harder. They need to get more blood out of that stone. So these companies are destroying the compact. And why did the compact work? Because of unions. We had strong unions here. We had good working conditions that meant people wanted to move here to Los Angeles

or to New York to make the content. And we're fighting to change that, to make it the way it should be. I feel like The Flash is a good example of, you know, The Flash recently came out, Indiana Jones recently came out, and the primary complaint that you heard from them is creepy CGI, like terrible, weird CGI that takes you out of it. And like effects are a frequent complaint and you hear people like wonder why, like how this happens on some of these movies. They spent $300 million on effects and it's at least partially because the effects houses are not unionized. That is not a part of the industry that is protected. And so you have situations where the FX house that won the Oscar for Life of Pi is out of business by the time they get the award.

You know, if you talk to I talk to people who work at FX houses for Marvel and they're treated terribly. You know, they're asked to do impossible things on impossible turnarounds that, you know, we oh, we want we want to like this. No, we want to like this. You have to change everything, but we're not going to pay you more and you have half as much time to do it. You know, that kind of request. The people who work at these companies, you know, their careers last five years and then they burn out because they can't do it anymore.

It's a lot like video games. And, you know, the proof is in the pudding. But also, you know, we're in a new era of the special effects, right? It used to be that the special effects, the CGI, was there to impress and delight the audience, right? Oh, my God, look at the Terminator in Terminator 2, right? He's melting. He's the melty man. It's liquid.

Look how cool. Or Toy Story, right? Look how great it looks. Now they use it as a cost-cutting device. They use it in order to, they're like, oh, if we just, like, send it all to a VFX house that's non-union and make them do all the work, it's a lot cheaper. If you look at the difference between, look, the new Mission Impossible, right? I saw it. Look, it's not a good movie. You don't think it's an accurate depiction of AI?

Well, it is interesting that the villain is AI, right? Right. The script is, I don't want to get into it right but the action scenes right it's got these two incredible action sequences that are totally worth seeing in a theater had people hooting and hollering great time and why did they work so well because they fucking happened in real life because they put in the effort and the craft and the time to you know go to the place and do the stunt and shoot the thing or to build the set or to buy the car or to put the person in the place right and uh for movies like the flash they're like just have the guy stand in front of a green screen and we'll make some underpaid couple bozos yeah you know

sorry they're not bozos they're great artists, they're not bozos. They're great artists, but they're underpaid. They don't have enough time. They're getting squeezed. We're in terrible conditions. Yeah, so it's cut rate. It's sweatshop content. What about another lightning portal in the sky? What if we did one of those?

I feel like people are just coming out of portals and stuff. Yeah, yeah, there's portals, right? There's flashy stuff. Yeah. Adam, I got to ask, though, right? Like, these costs, the studios got to cut costs because I've heard it straight from their mouths. Times are tough right now for studios. I heard Bobby J, I'll say Iger in a very fancy way, you know, really be out here being like, you know, their demands are unrealistic or other people.

I've heard the thing over and over that times are hard for studios. I've heard the thing over and over that times are hard for studios. And we've talked a lot about this where, you know, Iger's pay was, what, approaching $27 million for the year. And people like David Zaslav almost paid like a quarter of a billion dollars in 2021. How would you define, from their perspective, it's that they're trying to inaccurately describe a problem that maybe they have created through their own business decisions? Yeah, I mean, that's a wonderful answer to your own question. That's a great way to put it. I mean, look, these guys are raking it in. And let's be really clear. So writer producer pay has fallen by 23 percent at the median over the last 10 years. That's the Writers Guild's own figures. That's total pay. Over the same time, show budgets have gone up by 50%. Revenue has gone up.

Profits have gone up for these companies. Just their entertainment divisions. I'm not even talking about, you know, Disney's got sports. They've got theme parks. We're not talking about that. We're just talking about literally the entertainment divisions of the companies. Revenue, profits, budgets all up while our salaries go down. At the same time, they're paying these CEOs massive, massive amounts of money.

I mean, Bob Iger, when he made those comments, he had just negotiated for himself an additional two years, and he's making an extra 50 million bucks a year. That guy doesn't fucking need that money. He's already incredibly wealthy. If you look at the aggregate he's made over the last 10 years, how dare he go on television and plead poverty while the rest of us are not able to make a living, while his workforce is not able to make health insurance or make a living anymore? It's revolting.

But it's line goes up shit, right? They're answering to the Wall Street, and for Wall Street, it's never enough. Like when you have a good year, that that is an indication that you should keep being better years. Like that's what we want to consistently see that line. Also these, but, but, but it's not just that because growth is growth is possible, right?

If you do, you can do it the right way. You can pay everybody properly and make good shit that people actually like and make more money. That's my belief in life. And there's companies that fucking do it. Right. And also it's what the entertainment industry did for a long time. A lot of people were paid shitty in the entertainment industry. You know, like the unions are the ones that, you know, that protected us. PAs have always been paid shittily. There's a lot of bad shit in Hollywood. But like, you know, from the 80s through the 2000s, everybody liked the product, right? We had peak TV, right? Everyone had cable. We were watching ads. We were fine with it. We could watch on demand or use DVR if we

needed to. You know what I mean? Everything was, people were making so much money. People were going to the movie theater. The content was good, you know, and the people who made it were paid. And now what's happening? People don't like the product anymore. You know, the Netflix revolution was a lie that they, you know, the idea that you could pay $15 a month and never have to pay another penny and never watch an ad and watch every show ever made. They were lying to the public that that was possible. They destroyed a profitable business model in order to find a new one. But at the same time, they kept enough of the money for themselves that the people at the top are doing better while everyone else does worse. But the companies would grow more if they did it the right way, period. Yeah. The golden age of TV is a great example

of the WGA working because, you know, like you mentioned, like the WGA and like the things that the WGA has provided like writers with, like the ability to make a living during dry periods or whatever, like helps writers, you know, remain writers. And a lot of the best tv is created by

people with the long time experience in like past successful and unsuccessful tv shows like breaking bad is created by a former x files writer like there's a big break between those sopranos comes from a writer on northern exposure like matthew weiner cut his teeth on Becker and In-Laws before he got on Sopranos. You know your shit. Yeah. But like, you know, on your episode where like where you were talking about the strike, you were talking to, I think, David Goodman. Yeah. And, you know, he's a family guy writer who told a story about how he almost quit the industry,

but like a residual check for a show he wrote on in the past that he said wasn't very good, but it got him through so that he could keep being a writer. And there's just all this information that gets passed down. I forget where I heard it, but somebody saying that like the family tree of all of the golden age tv shows it all like traces back to colombo and like that show then like created all like all the writers on that became showrunners on other shows and it just like branched down so we magically have this period of golden era tv but like that doesn't happen if the television industry works the way like the industry that i think all three of us have a background in is like creating content for the

internet yeah like just the way that we've seen that devolve over the past 15 years doesn't exist anymore yeah it doesn't exist like there were no guardrails and there were no ways to you know like ensure good outcomes for the people that were contributing to that environment. Yeah, because the companies decided to sell them for parts, you know? I mean, look, I play video games, right? So I like reading video game websites. There's no such thing as video game websites anymore. I mean, there's sites where people upload shit for free, like YouTube, right? Where people put in all the work and all the risk themselves of putting up work. And then,

you know, if you're lucky, you get paid by YouTube if you happen to hit, right? But in terms of being somebody who is like a journalist who covers video games, goes to E3, interviews people, breaks stories, right? There literally are not outlets left that pay people to do this because they've been stripping them for parts. One of them that I read is Kotaku. I've read it for years. They're trying to replace those writers with AI. They're trying to like, and like, what's the fucking point of that?

Do they think I'm gonna go to Kotaku.com to read AI generated articles? I also have chat GPT. I can just ask chat GPT if I want an AI answer. Why are you hiring someone to copy paste from chat GPT? What the fuck is the point of that? Why destroy your own industry? People go because they like the people.

Right. And I guess there's like that. That's just like that disconnect. We see like in every industry where, again, there's like a motive to make sure that like you provide value to shareholders while completely like missing sight of like the actual products that are being made. I like actually well-written television also. And I can already see just that shift to Max was sort of like a preview of the worlds we're looking at. It was like, well, remember HBO? There's that. And then there's all this other unscripted nonsense

that also is really cheap to make and kind of maybe where things should be going if writers and actors don't get off their shit. Max is such an antithesis of the last you know of how you build a successful media company right like hbo there's a wonderful book about hbo i read it this year called it's not tv it's just a history of hbo from the beginning what you realize hbo is like this you know starts out as just a cable company that you know you pay extra you can watch fights and stuff like that right Right. And then they find this niche of, oh, we can make content that doesn't exist on broadcast. Right. We can make

something that's edgy. We can dot, dot, dot. Right. And they build on exactly dream on. Right. This show with a because there was boobs in it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, they do the Larry Sanders show. They do the Sopranos. right? And they sort of create prestige TV as created by HBO to the point where, you know, by up to, you know, three or four years ago, you know, if a show comes out on HBO, you're like, I'm going to assume this show is good, right? Because you know that their creative culture is like, if HBO is putting their muscle behind that, it's got to be good. There's exceptions. There's stinkers, of yeah sure like like uh you know the idol or whatever but that's the it's the cathedral of television and people know that right and so when netflix comes along and all these other channels starting their

streamers what would have been the easiest thing in the world call the streamer hbo just people are already subscribed to hbo for 15 bucks month. There's a streaming service called HBO. Have HBO make more shows. Keep the brand that people know. The thing people care about. They actually like HBO. It's for adults. It means something to people. It's not TV.

It's HBO. Instead, now HBO is a vertical underneath this mystery meat thing, Max, that no one's ever heard. That's not a brand. That was literally what they called it instead of plus they're like should we call it hbo plus no too small we'll call it hbo max right it's extreme hbo and then like but then they got rid of the part that people fucking knew and just called it max that's like like if Disney Plus just called itself Plus.

People are there for the Disney. They're not there for the Plus. It's Mouse Ears. And then the Max ads were all trading on these icons of film. The things that are completely outside of the model that they're trying to force things in the direction of. Or call it fucking Warner Brothers. People know Warner Brothers. Call it Warner Max. People have been watching Warner Brothers in this country direction or call it fucking warner brothers people know warner brothers call it warner max

people love the people people been watching warner brothers in this country for a hundred years like just call it that but instead you know zazlav treats this company it's like a stock portfolio to him right he's like oh i put this in i put that and i put that and that's my tranche of content that's my big batch of content i don't give a shit what it's called, right? Because his plan is to sell it or whatever he wants to do. He's financialized it. But that's not how you build a media brand. And, you know, it's a shame.

Like, it often feels stupid to say, why don't these companies, like, respect these old time values of having, like, a good media brand that people actually care about, you know, that means something to people. But like, I feel stupid saying that because they don't care. They only care about money, but like they lose money by doing this, you know, like people, how have we forgotten the lessons of the last hundred years of cap capitalism? Did these people go to fucking marketing school like it's just basic brand shit sorry no but it's true i mean it's it's so reactionary and it's it's everything about like whatever is good in the short term with no long

term thinking like everybody's getting into streaming i guess we're getting into streaming too wait what does it take to do that and now we see like i mean like with hbo max we saw half of the shit that was like interesting to people get absolutely vaporized. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back to talk more about this and AI. 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 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 to 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. Why is that? 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. And we're back. So to my question, repeat that question. Yeah. But I like I was saying, no, like I think if you didn't just skip ahead, the point being is, I think there's there's a lot of like you've you've spit a lot of facts every time you've come on this, but that have really made me think about how much.

lot of facts every time you've come on this, but that have really made me think about how much the way that we, this like our societies were built in this country was built, how much it affects us now, how much it poisons us now to the point that we have no connection to each other, community to land and things like that. I'm, do you see this as part and parcel of that disconnect or do you, is there, is there another way you're looking at it? Well, so I guess I think of a couple of things. One is when I was going to school in Hawaii, I was living with one of my teachers named Larry Kimura, who we call him the godfather of the Hawaiian language movement.

He's just, he's an amazing person. And at one point he was just, he kind of started going off about these, people wearing these shirts that say Aloha Aina, which is like love the land. And he says, you love the land? Show me your fingers. You got dirt underneath your fingernails? Have you been out working in the land? You've been digging? You've been planting stuff? You've been doing stuff? And so for me, I think if the world starts glitching out, go out on the land, right? Just go see what's out there and go get your hands dirty. And then I also, sometimes I have theories that maybe people don't want to hear. So I was in a class on American literature and the theme of the class was paranoia. And at the sort of culminating

moment in the class, this was for an MFA in creative writing, and the teacher, who was really, he was a great guy. And he said, well, why do you guys think there's so much paranoia in American literature? And this person had an answer, and that person had an answer, and that person had an answer. And I raised my hand. I said, well, I think it's because America stole everything from Native American peoples, and they're just kind of waiting for their comeuppance. And I also think that you can really geek out on sci-fi theories and stuff so you don't have to assume that your ancestors did something really horrible. And so I think if people say, no, this is all part of this larger program that we have no control of,

I think it's another system to avoid doing the work that it's going to take to sort of or the limitlessness of resource extraction and the absolute limit of budgets and time and energy, right? And so it just sort of gets you trapped into these systems. So for me, I'm always, you know, I'm always paranoid that something is racism and I'm always paranoid that something is colonization. And I'm usually right, but I'll also say, you know, so that's my matrix that I'm stuck in, you know? So sometimes I'll be dealing with something else, like, is this a colonization thing? Or is this a race?

Like, am I getting treated different because of, you know, my name or because of who I am or how I look? Are my kids being treated different? And so I'm always sort of, I'm paranoid myself. But I'm also, I have it, you know, I don't have the TikTok channel for it, but I've been right quite a few times with this kind of stuff too. So for me, I think it's fascinating and it's neat to look at. And like, I have friends who've seen UFOs and I have friends who've seen, we have our

own monsters here that live in the woods. We went camping last weekend and it's fun. It's a blast. We're like, we're in Alaska. You can just walk out your door and you're in the wilderness. But that means, you know, the dog starts barking, you're cooking some delicious dinner out in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Well, it's not in the middle of nowhere, but far from, you know, a hospital. And the dog's barking and looking down the trail, and you're like, grab all the food, get in the cabin, you know, because there's probably, you know, like, we respect the grizzly bear so much

that we got two names. Like, so hoots is what we would call it, so it means brown bear. And we say tz'ik for black bear, but the brown bear is the one that's, it owns the forest, And we know that. But when we're out in the forest, we say yetzinit, which means a living thing. So we don't even say its name when we're out there because we're like, you say its name,

it's going to be like, you talk us up. You call me? Wait, you're in my house. And so we talk to them before we go into the woods and we sort of live this life that's pretty connected to the natural world. So I think the other thing too, is there's a fascination with an artificial world because there's a prescribed disconnect with the natural world in order to maintain a sense of colonization and economics the way that it's required today. Like you have to be separate from it to say, yeah, cut all the trees down. Yeah. Like kill off all those buffalo. Yeah. You

know, like this, these mountain lions scare me. So just murder them. Right. And so, but in order to do that, you have to remove yourself, which, you know, Christianity kind of did that already. It's like man has domain of everything, including women, right? And it just creates tons and tons of problems because I think human beings, and especially if you just narrow it down to one gender, don't have enough skills and ability to like manage the universe. It's sort of like, actually, you should just be in the universe and figure out how you're part of that. Because you're in the food chain. You're in all these circles.

You're in all these cycles. And what you do affects all of these things. And so I like the conversations. I think it's fun. I think it's fun to watch this stuff. You're like, oh, yeah, that is weird. And that's pretty cool. But you can also zoom in on your iPhone.

It starts to get pretty grainy. And then it's probably pretty easy when you've got a shitty camera. There's grains in my house. What the fuck? zoom in on your iPhone, it starts to get pretty grainy. And then it's probably pretty easy when you got a shitty camera. There's grains in my house. What the fuck? I think, I mean, I think that kind of ties nicely into just, you know, if you have any additional thoughts on Avatar, but like the reality of, you know, what we're doing to the world and other humans and the history of what,

you know, white people have done to the world and other human beings is maybe too uncomfortable for some people to take in, and they want to create an artificial reality. In the case of The Matrix, it's like just coming up with a system of belief that, like, we are an unofficial reality. But in the case of Avatar, it's like creating an unofficial reality but in the case of avatar it's like creating an unofficial like an artificial reality that you can go live in for a couple hours that also like

rewrites that history where you get to like be on the good guy side on the on the side of the victim the people being victimized by colonialism like i i do think avatar is really interesting just as a phenomenon because i don't like i can't think of another cultural pop cultural thing that was that is as successful as that those movies when they're happening and then as completely embarrassing the second they stop happening like like it happened once with the first avatar and everyone's like man that was weird and like avatar was like a punch line and but then they did it again like he brought avatar 2 out and every everyone went to fucking see that one too and like they are the two of the three most uh top grossing movies of all time.

But like nobody would put a movie poster of that movie up except ironically. And so I don't know. I think there's like a weird disconnect. And then we also have the thing where like people were experiencing depression after they came out of the movie because they couldn't just like experience that reality around the clock. So it's definitely filling a need that people have, but one that is disconnected from their mind in a way that like makes it unique where they can't like kind of incorporate it into their lives the way they can a Star Wars or something like that,

where they make it part of their personality. Like, it just feels like Avatar is this thing that is an experience, the thing you, like, try not to think about when you're not at an Avatar movie or something. But yeah, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Avatar. Well, you know, I think largely there's this fascination with white savior films, you know, but it's very rare, especially when they like, they win or something. And so I started to think about this stuff quite a bit. And then there's a film called Real Engines, which is spelled R-E-E-L-I-N-J-U-N-S, which is a documentary on the history of Native Americans in film. And it kind of goes through a number of different sort of scenarios. And at one point it talks about all these different white actors who have played Native Americans. And so there's a growing list of, you know, there's quite a few of them who have played Native Americans. you know, there's quite a few of them who have played Native Americans. And then you also just get really interesting things. Like there is a guy, I think his name was Iron Eyes Cody or Cody

Iron Eyes. I can never remember which way it goes, but he played so many Native Americans in films that he full on believed he was Native American when he died. And to some extent, I think his children do as well. And so he can assume this entire identity. And so I think there's a fascination with that to think about what if there was something different, but then there's a disconnect as well, because you don't really see that embraced in people's reality. Because if they come out of, like, let's say they came out of Avatar and said, whoa, like, I should learn an indigenous language and I should go contribute to a land back initiative and I should actually do something

that's embracing decolonization. Because the film, you could argue, is about decolonization, right? It's a totally fictionalized decolonization. And so you could, like, if it translated into real action, that would be more interesting to me than just sort of saying, well, you know, it's it's a nice fantasy to say, oh, yeah, well, what if what if we had actually done something a lot more humane instead of taking everything from everybody. Because if you look at some things like, we talked a bit about the Supreme Court, who is all kinds of fucked up, like just the types of things that they're doing, these decisions are horrible, and they're just destructive for movements towards equity. But the one thing they couldn't do is dismantle the Indian Child Welfare Act, you know. And so

the reason why the Indian Child Welfare Act, you know? And so the reason why the Indian Child Welfare Act exists is because in the mid to late 1970s, one out of every four Native American children were removed from their homes and placed with white families. In addition, one out of every four Native American women were sterilized without their full consent. Like this kind of stuff was still happening. And so the removal of people. And so like, the other thing, I think there's a fascination with the idea that colonization had an endpoint or it had like, we're in this post-colonial sort of world, which we're not. And we could be, but it requires a consciousness that's going to move you beyond going to a movie for two or three hours and completely immersing yourself in this other idea and just saying, actually, we can have a reality that is kind of close to the Avatar universe, which, you know, I'm not opposed to that reality.

But what I'm opposed to is the idea that it exists or that going to the movie is somehow enough. Right, right. It's funny too because to your point, if you're not coming out of the movie being like, wow, we got work to do then I don't know how good it's doing because most people come out of that movie and be like, why isn't Pandora real? Why can't I go there?

That would be so tight. So the message was maybe secondary or tertiary to the, wow, isn't this shit fucking cool anyway? Like then there's like some other shit happens to these blue people, whatever. I came out inspired to be seven foot six. With a tail. With a tail.

Because that does help with balance, it turns out. Yeah. And I guess sex too, apparently. Well, Hunay, such with balance, it turns out. Yeah. And I guess sex, too, apparently. Well, Hunay, such a pleasure having you back on the show. Where can people find you, follow you, all that good stuff? Yeah, well, I have a podcast called The Tongue Unbroken, and season two is launching in November. So we're going to launch during the start of the Native American Heritage Month.

And the NextUp initiative is fabulous. And I really encourage you to just go check it out. It's the NextUp initiative with the iHeartRadio. And look at the current, this whole new generation of NextUp initiative folks who are coming out. And I'm really excited to hear their podcast and to to be a part of this movement where we're trying to find voices in the margins and pull them closer to the center uh so you can find me i'm sometimes on facebook sometimes on twitter although twitter has gotten a lot less interesting as they used to be oh you know, this billionaire bought it and now his tweets just keep popping up. And so I tried to mute one of his tweets

and says, this will make Twitter a better experience for you. And I was like, it will actually make Twitter a better experience for everybody if we saw less of that voice. I've been getting a lot of AI ads that are just like really insulted like here i'd screenshot one crazy thing happened with x ask data.co today still in shock i was troubleshooting

with a customer on zoom and he had just gotten his person and it's like keep reading meet data get it done and it's like a promoted post for fucking some bullshit. They're all over the place. Anyways, I'm glad I interrupted for that. Yeah. The other thing I really want to promote is just indigenous language revitalization. So if you're not familiar with what the Hawaiian language movement is, or Ojibwe, or Mohawk, or the Salish of Spokane, go look at what they're doing. Like, it's very possible. So on The Tongue Unbroken, we like to talk about how do you do it? How do you take these steps? If you have a thousand speakers left, if you have ten speakers left,

if you have no speakers left of your indigenous language, what kind of steps could you possibly take? And we like to envision a world where we dream the impossible dream and we get back to a place of strength, which takes action, which takes courage, which takes determination, and also takes a ton of self-analysis. Like colonization isn't just about people creating a bunch of harm to people. It's like also the indigenous people internalizing that harm and then hurting each other, which we got a lot of work to do with that as well. All right, that's going to do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist.

Please like and review the show if you like the show. Means the world to Miles. He needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend, and I will talk to you Monday. Bye. Thank you. 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 Teheripour. 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.

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, Caitlyn 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. 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