The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 321 (Best of 5/13/24-5/17/24)

Episode Date: May 19, 2024

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ's season 338 (5/13/24-5/17/24)See 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. 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. Well, that voice you hear is not Harry Kane. We are thrilled to be joined by one of our favorites,

the tech journalist and writer behind the newsletter, Where's Your Ed At? Where's Your Ed Dot At? This podcast with Cool Zone Media, Better Offline, is a must-listen, one of my favorite podcasts that launched in the last year. So good. Go check it out. It's Ed Zitron! What's up? What's up?

Welcome back. It's the podcast zone. Hell yeah. Welcome to the podcast zone. Hell yeah. Welcome to the pod. Podcast voice the entire time. I don't even know what that is. You're in the pod. You're in the pod.

With the casters. Man. I'm surprised you haven't. I did start on college radio. Oh, you did? There you go. Were you playing music or were you just doing like taking colors? I was playing music, but I was talking, and I just bring random people in.

Yeah. And my favorite thing to do was when I got crank calls from people is I'd find their number and call them back. I'd be like, I think we got cut off somehow. Right. Most of the time they're like, I'm sorry. Oh, wow. I'm sorry, man.

It's okay. You're on radio. Whoa. It's always interesting to see that kind of troll energy or like i only meant it for it to go in one direction the second you acknowledge yeah person it all falls apart this wasn't a conversation yeah but i i was born on the internet i was ready for this like right exactly oh man Who was that one dude who did those crank calls in the UK? That comedian? I remember like they went viral over here in the Internet era. Hmm. It was like, oh, my God, he would do. Never mind. I'll find the thing. It was like Jersey Boys. You're thinking of. Yeah. Yeah. The Jerky Boys. Jerky Boys. The Jersey Boys? I think that's a musical. Yeah. Jersey Boys is a musical.

About Americans. Look, my brain's not working. All right. That makes three of us. That's right. Two, five. What is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are or something you've recently screen grabbed that is revealing about who you are? Well, thank God you added in that second one just to really expand.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what we're here for. No, it's good. It's good. It's like, that's why you're doing this for seven years.

You know, it's sometimes we got to add a little wrinkle. Like, did you hear what I did with my voice at the beginning? The like deep thing. Like when I said deep, I, my,

I made my voice deep. It was kind of, it's interesting. You're like Bt middler and how she kept just adding things to her repertoire throughout her long career yeah so she people say she was a triple threat i think it's when tupple far more than that but but that is not what i'm here to to talk about today um we're doing a bett middler special or is that still on the books we can talk about that yeah that's why this episode is called for the boys in reference to the middler film the 90 kids and for the boys

um thing for my i'll choose google search i guess for this one and just because i'm a bit of a traditionalist but i googled steve bonnet and he was a pirate and i thought he was a made-up pirate from that show our flag means death which was on hbo for a while which was a very very very funny show i think it just got canceled but it was very funny that's how you know it's a good show on hbo because you got canceled after one fucking season or at most streaming platforms and it's great. I highly recommend it if you want to watch it. But he was known as the Gentleman Pirate. And then my sister's boyfriend does tours in Charleston, South Carolina.

It was nice enough to give my wife and I and my mom a tour. And we went by this public square and it said, here was where Steed Bonnet, the Gentleman Pirate, was hanged by the neck and it turns out that steve bonnet was a real pirate this is what i googled and he was a gentleman's

pilot a pirate in that he and he was a sea pilot in ways too but i meant pirate and just keep justifying the mistake you made. Make it longer. And pirates in many ways, the pilots of the sea in many ways. Sea, S-E-A, of course. But he was called the gentleman pirate because often pirates, they just stole their ships or got them in a devious way.

But he was a very rich man who wanted to become a pirate. So he bought a ship. Just cosplaying as a pirate? Yeah, but he then became one where he bought a ship and he paid his crew wages, which had never happened before where the pay for pirates was just

if you stole stuff off another boat, you know? Yeah, you get that. That's your pay. Whatever you can fit in your arms, man. That's your salary. Exactly. Exactly. whatever you can fit in your arms, man, that's your salary. Exactly. Exactly. And yeah, he was a real guy, interesting guy.

And I think it is funny when you look at history where it's like, Oh, this person probably died at 50 or something. It's like, Oh no, this man is famous. And he was like 27 or something when he like just black beard was a real pirate.

I went on a real pirate. Yeah. Yeah. It was very 2005. Yes. Correct. When everyone was like, are you a pirate or are you a ninja?

And that was a fucking thing people said seriously to each other. And I was like, get the fuck away from me. Neither. It's so binary. Like that was when the internet was five years old and it had the same interests as a five-year-old. Yes.

She's like, sorry, this is where we're at, guys. Are you pirate or ninja? Next, we're going to be into race cars. And bacon. Yeah. It is true.

And now it's starting to get like terminal ailments as it gets older, you know? Right, exactly. It's very sick. Yeah, yeah. Now, truly. Self-despise and a lot of anxiety. We're teenagers right now.

Paranoia. Going into our early 20s, I guess. Exactly. What is something that you guys think is underrated? I think, you know, last time we were on here, Zarin was bagging on kids. And so I want to bring it back. I'm not going to. Well, it was gentle parenting.

But yes, kids, fine. But, you know, he was just basically like i hate kids and so my general stance um my underrated though are magnet tiles you guys got the kids you're familiar with magnet tiles yes but oh yeah we do not have a magnetic refrigerator no no no no like legos with oh they're. Okay, magnet tiles we do have, yes. Yeah, I got a nephew. He's over at my house every Saturday, and I now believe I have the largest magnet tile collection in North America.

It's just bins and bins. You bought it to host, or he just has slowly been moving it over to your house? Oh, no, I bought him. And then every time we start building something, we go, you know what? I bet we can hit the ceiling. And then he and I— Need more tiles. He's four. We get on Amazon, and we find somewhere. Like, all right, it know what? I bet we can hit the ceiling. And then he and I, he's four. We get on Amazon and we find something.

We're like, all right, it'll be here for next week. And so we just keep building, building. And I think they're underrated because there's so much to take with Zarin's physics talk. You really have to think about balance and you have to be very creative in your thinking and it's not completely structured. And so I think they're an underrated toy for kids. Totally, imaginative totally imaginative play yeah there it is so much easier to clean up than legos oh

yes and less painful yeah less painful but they're all like kind of one of like five shapes usually i mean that's that that's a generalization i don't want to be unfair to magnetiles you gotta do a lot of tessellating yeah it's not like legos is just such a mess uh yeah magnetiles i long for the days of magnetiles that's my overrated is legos for many reasons yeah 100 oh great yeah that's been my overrated basically legos are for losers no i think here's my thing with legos. It's very limiting. They hurt when you step on them. And then now I went to go get Legos and for the kid. And it's like so much of them are preset.

Yeah, build this one thing. Build this one specific thing. And it's really hard to find just like the random. The branded things. Build this Star Wars thing. It's instruction following. It is pretty cool though when they build build a giant parakeet or something. Sure. You're right.

The sense of accomplishment for the kid we're talking about? Yeah. But fuck the kids. Yeah. I don't know. I don't like rules. Fuck them kids. Michael Jordan, fuck them kids.

Fuck them kids. Everybody should Google Jordan, fuck them kids. In some, right? I only know that as a meme. Is that actually, what's the context for that? He was in a shooting contest, like in a, like at a basketball camp.

Right. And some other player was like, hey man, like you're supposed to like let the kids win, I think. And he just said, fuck them kids.

And I think it's on video. But could just be. Patron Saint of Amar movement. Fuck them kids. Yeah. Basically. But I do like, Elizabeth,

how this nephew of yours seems to be just like laundering all of his toy requests through you. Oh my God, completely. You're a safe house. His father, my brother, was at the store trying to get a birthday present

for some other kid's birthday party. And he texts me a picture. Which one should, what present should I get this kid? And it was like magnets, not magnet tiles, but like a magnet kit or like a headlamp and i show my nephew i'm like dude which one should he get he says tell him to get the headlamp and then you get me the magnet i was like all right i am a sucker i will just give him everything so yeah i know i know and then you each return them to the other opposite store you get

a coupon and then you get that coupon exactly yeah yeah the other thing with legos is like they're so they have such a monopoly across like so i got my like it was recently my eight-year-old's birthday and i got him an action figure just like an act you know and he at first he was like wait what i don't i don't get it like what do i do with this yeah what do i do with this but now it's like his favorite toy because it doesn't break into 100 pieces when you drop it right and you can but like legos are just so like all their toys just dissolve into 100 pieces when you drop them and they're like impossible to like store anywhere. Whereas this you like put in a drawer and then like pull it out.

So yeah, it's just, it's great. Yeah. It's good that there's like an interactive toy that like requires spatial reasoning and all that stuff. It is like, I don't know. I feel like it's too much at this point. Like there's, it's too, and maybe that's just in my household because my other son is like obsessed with Legos. Well, and they're everywhere. I don't trust big Lego.

No, yeah. There's no way a company that big isn't like doing something. Spying on you somehow. Just like there are no good billionaires. You know, I don't trust them. Every fifth Lego in like a set has a listening device built into it. It was weird, but my daughter had one that was like, build this eye

tracking device. That's right. And then put it on your daddy's dashboard. While he shops on life. Pallavi, what is something you think is overrated? Okay.

I might. No. I don't. Okay, it's not overrated, but who the fuck is going to watch the presidential debate this year? I don't even know what's happening with voting, but I don't want to watch. What are they going to debate about? I don't know what they're going to even... Who can remember who they're talking

to? Yeah. Alright, the first challenge is name the person standing across from you no first challenge is is getting there without falling over okay this is the least like i've watched the debates before and i've like commented on them and talked about it but i'm like this is gonna be so utterly depressing and also there's so much other shit going on and everybody's mad at both of them for very legitimate reasons like don't nobody don't just put them you know those uh that celebrity uh boxing show that used to be like do that yeah do that see if they can get in the ring without falling over. Let's see if that works. Oh, man.

Purely stress-based experience that will be of just like, God, I hate both of them so much. Yeah. For sure. But then, like, also being stressed out every time Joe Biden starts a sentence. It's like, oh, fuck. How's this one going to end? Right. He doesn't even know.

Yeah. That's how I feel about my stand-up sets. I'm like, there's no fucking way Joe Biden's feeling the same way as me when I start doing crowd work. I'm like, who knows where this is going to go? We're both like, I'm definitely going to bomb today. You know, both of us, me and Joe Biden. Right. Yeah, I don't know what those debates are going gonna look like at all and i don't know like

they both think they're like oh yeah watch this y'all you're gonna fucking love this and i don't know if it's gonna render the results that they think it will i am interested to see how he like approaches trump because the last time he was like all fired up about malarkey and he was like oh shut up and now it's like will he have that confidence and ability to breathe through talking you know what i mean yeah yeah that he has moments of energy where like this feels like a burst of i was saying this on yesterday's episode but like this feels like when he was like that's it i'm going out there i'm gonna call a press conference and answer all their dang questions man and like he was good for not good but like he did what he was hoping to do for like 12 minutes and was like and i'm out and then like came back to the stage and was like sundowning and it's just like yeah man it like doesn't he there's no way to be

confident that he's going to be able to like reliably stand up there and not embarrass himself um you know that uh what do they call it like a second like a right but when people are in like like dying and they're like in a hospital bed and then they get a burst of energy right before they die have you heard about this i feel like that's this entire term for final wind yeah yeah i'm like stop getting your hopes up yeah for yeah probably for both of them too they're like we need this we need each other to stay alive just a few moments longer all right let's uh let's take a quick break and we'll come back and do some art criticism. 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,

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And so to recap, Google search used to be good. It was good. And I remember a time that that was like the tech breakthrough that everyone was like, fucking believe this shit. It's like magic. I feel like it was a slow burn. Yeah.

But then it just was so ubiquitous at some point that it was just like people just assumed it would always work. Yeah. Right. Yeah. There was like a time in the late 90s, early aughts where people were like, it was cool. People were like, here, let me Google that. Right.

Or it was like a skill as a verb. Non ni more. Or like you knew how to use it too. It's like you got to use quotation marks or got to use plus signs between the words. Google foo. That's why I use Al vista actually that's someone say google foo in some time yeah that's a certain kind of guy right but i mean like yeah ed we've when the last time you were talking we were talking about the rot economy and i know we've made mention of just how google's become just worse and worse and in your recent episode about

how Google just became an absolute, just unusable, basically ad service to just because as some of the words I understood, and I was I was right there with you. Other times, conceptually, I knew where you're going, but I couldn't quite put it all together intellectually. So could you, would you mind explaining just sort of the shift from this like code yellow change that occurred or this code yellow moment into this basically glorified ad server we have now? But please explain it as if I am an ignorant person

that was distracted by a toddler while they were listening. No problem. So the episode I wrote and the accompanying newsletter was about in 2000. And I'm now going to pull it up so I have the dates. I think 18 or 19.

Correct, because the dates are important. Yes. So in 2019, there was a bloke called Ben Gomes who was the head of Google search. Ben Gomes had been at Google since 1999. So basically the beginning, he worked directly with Sergey and Larry.

He is, and there are tons of articles about him where everything he talks about, he's talking like a Renaissance painter. He's like, I believe the connectivity between data. Like he's so romantic about it. So on February 5th, 2019, he gets through a connection of events, something called a code yellow,

which is an internal Google thing that says there is a problem that's significant. There are higher codes, but they're extremely rare. Code yellow itself is actually pretty rare. So what happened was this code yellow was the revenue and ad side of Google saying, Google search, you are not making us enough money. You need to make us more money. And also, and this is very important, the amount of queries going into Google is not growing enough. Now, little side note for you. Queries in this case is referring to the amount of times that people search. Now, if you think about it for just a second, is that necessarily connected to how good Google is? Not necessarily. In fact, if there are less queries, maybe Google's better. Yeah, maybe they found what they were

looking for. Right. Yes. Which does not work for Google. So, Google is then in this little futz of the code yellow. And between Ben Gomes and some other guys, there's a conversation where he says, hey guys, I feel like Google is getting too close to the money. Google seems to only care about growth. And after about a month, they resolve the code yellow. And there's a big email thread. And there's a ton of emails that I'm just leaving out, but I'm summarizing as quick as possible.

There's also on the sidelines, this guy called Jerry Dishler, who is one of these noxious VP types, who was kind of like, yeah, guys, we need to make more queries and we need to make more money. So could you just do that? Right. So the code yellow comes to an end. And it turns out that the guy behind it is a guy called Prabhagar Raghavan, who was then the head of advertising at Google, head of ads on Google. And Ben Gomes sends out a thing to a bunch of people who are all congratulating each other, saying,

we got through this. Great job, everyone. Prabhagar responds saying, yeah, actually, engineering did that. You didn't do it. He didn't do anything. So these emails came out through the Department of Justice's antitrust hearing. And I realize this is a lot of history. In 2020, Prabhagar becomes head of Google Search. He takes over Google Search after this. From the idealist guy, Bengals.

From the idealist who worked on Google Search from the beginning. Right. So he came in, he was mad at Bengals. And basically pushed him out. Yeah. And also, to be clear, this queries metric is insane. Having more queries means nothing. And in fact, these emails kind of detail that.

He takes over in 2020. Now, if you really think about it, Google started to get really bad in like 2019, 2020, and has got significantly worse constantly since 2020. To an end of 29, well, mid 2019, they added this to mobile, but they put it fully onto desktop as well in 2020, they made a change to make it harder to tell when something is an ad on Google now. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely noticed that change, right? They made a bunch of changes to make Google worse.

Yeah. It used to be pretty easy. There was like a background. It seemed like pretty clear that they had a internal discussion and were like, we don't want the product. We don't want to be actively tricking people into

Well, it was funnier than that. They were just like, yeah, we need to see the numbers go up, please. Make number go higher now. Line go up now. Yep. But yeah, at some like during the 2000s, like it was like there was a balance of like we need this to be a product that people want to use and we need to make money off of ads. But they've hit a point where they don't really give a shit if it's a product that people want to use, it seems like. It's that and also within these emails, and again, this is from the Department of Justice's

suit against Google for monopoly. So, hey, what monopoly could they have? And what's really stark about it is what Mr. Raghavan's previous job was. worst job that could be previously held by someone running Google search. Just think about it for a second. You might not get it, but just think. What is the worst company he could have worked for that isn't like, I don't know, actively. Yeah, different company. Because one of the worst would be Google Ads.

They're like, in charge of driving revenue. Another company that has, within this period, been not good at their job. I'll skip to it. Mr. Raghavan ran Search at Yahoo! Wow. 2005 to 2012. In that period, they went from, I think,

like a 33% market share versus Google's 36% to literally doing a deal where Bing would power Yahoo. Yeah. Let me just fact check you real quick. Let me go Yahoo that. Nope. Never been said. That's never been said by anyone.

And she says he's great and has a huge dick. Right. Crazy. I don't know how. No, but it's crazy because you read this thing, you read this story, and you read the emails. And I was writing it, and I was like, is this someone messing with?

This is ridiculous right because the emails are so grim there's one with this guy this engineer called Shashi Thakur who's like can we tell Sundar Pichai about this and stop this to be clear that's the CEO of Google and his former job was McKinsey yeah yeah they're on the right side of a lot of things. I was going to say. Bread prices. Oxycontin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's wild because you read this story and you're like, it couldn't be this obvious, could it? And the timeline is just perfect.

Yeah. And I will actually say something. I'm previewing something I'm working on. The only time I've ever seen worse than this story is in my next newsletter about Facebook. Yeah. Well, you don't have emails in this chain where someone is like, yeah, actually it's good. The product sucks. Right. I actually like this. This is good. I've got documents where there's someone writing, yeah, here are the changes we've made at Facebook to increase engagement that made Facebook worse. Yeah, right.

Worse for the user. And guess who? Guess what? COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, until 2022, McKinsey. Yeah. No kidding. The people that run Facebook right now, all product managers, all growth people. This is tying it back to Google.

The people in charge are management consultants, ads people, revenue people. They're not the people who build anything. They are parasites. Yeah. It's sort of like what private equity does to any other business. We don't know this business innately at all. We just know how to make the line go up. And if that means everything falls apart, then great. What are they're going to do we have the monopoly right right well what was the way that search even was making ads before or making like generating revenue before the ads or they're just saying we need to it wasn't so search but to be clear at this point like 2019 search was making them tens of billions of dollars sure it wasn't like it was a fledgling business and they were like, oh, we got to grow up, everyone.

This was a business printing money. Right. It was a beloved product that everybody used, that everyone was like, man, I'm glad that Google exists. I'm glad that Google isn't bad. Right. And it was almost kind of magical. You just find everything.

Now, because the people in charge are thinking, how do we keep people on google more how do we make people use google more versus how do we make google good yeah it sucks and it's across almost every tech platform you look at this is because i spoke about the rot economy last time but since then i've done a lot of work actually covering the actual rot. Because you can speak big picture and you can say, okay, yeah, thing bad, people bad, look at bad person. But when you see in stark writing how these people act and the grimness, the craven nature of the way these people work, it's stomach churning or turning. I forget which one it is. And it's disgraceful, but also these people have names. I genuinely think that just by saying Prabhakar Raghavan, Sundar Pichai,

all them, Sheryl Sandberg, Lars Bergström, all of these people have names. I'm not saying do anything. I'm just saying that I genuinely think that they will stop doing quite as many bad things if we keep saying it. Right. Because Prabhakar, for a man who runs an $100 billion a quarter, I think, revenue property, just Google search. Right. He is very, very quiet. No one had really heard of it. He'd been mentioned. There was a Wired article.

There was a ZDNet article that called him Yahoo's search master, which is one of the funniest things considering how bad Yahoo got afterwards. Right. But these people, I'm not saying anything should happen. I'm just saying, talk about them. Saying their names will shame them. And perhaps they won't feel much shame. But the more that these people are called out for these specific actions, I think change can actually happen. And also, Google's in a real pickle right now.

They have buggered search up quite horribly, if I'm honest. I've never seen a product get destroyed this badly other than Facebook. Yeah, I mean, I think if ads are the guiding principle, I guess, does that mean it's bad for people looking for information if if if part of it means they're getting the best deal on the one of those indoor silent basketballs you know just being serviced to them i'm trying to find the good and the bad yeah but that's the thing so advertising itself is not evil and for a while it wasn't perfect i I mean, it's whatever. Let's go to an ad in a second. I mean, I definitely can't with ads on Better Offline.

I'm sorry, everyone. There's a lot of them. I don't control it. But advertising has always been a problem for search. In the original Google paper written by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They literally say that advertising can create the wrong incentive for Google. Yes. It's so cool. Yeah. It's the main conflict at the center of the entire business. Like this is not coming out of nowhere. This is like a long held battle where they had people in positions of power who were just who knew this was the battle

they were like there's going to be ad people money people who are going to be constantly pushing us to decrease the quality of the service we provide customers so that we can you know make our ads more effective at getting them to click, right? Like that's basically what it comes down to. I think what it is, is that, yeah, there was always going to be some profit incentive.

I don't think that's possible to avoid, but it was a fairer trade. It felt like it wasn't so utterly craven. Yeah. But that's the thing. It's when you look at how they've acted, especially in these emails, and it's where's your ad dot ad,

look for the man who killed Google search or listen to the podcast. These emails, the people fighting against this are saying things out of a disaster movie. They're like, I'm afraid that all we care about is growth. The money is getting too close to

search ads are getting too close to search is there any way we can stop this i'm not signing up to this kind of thing this will create bad incentives all of the warnings are there and then some guys like no yeah cram it you're gonna work as and now ben gomes is srp of education you know google's education like they're sure of education. You know, Google's education? Like, they're sure we all have interfaced with Google's education. They put him on the island from the prisoner. He's gone. This man

has been put in a box probably because they can't fire him, and he's much more valuable in the corner than he is out there talking to people like me. Because I would absolutely, I would be on a plane to go and talk to people. Hey, hey, bankers. But it's the same thing.

We've talked about this with DEI and, you know, other, you know, with environmental, like, policies. Like, when companies are asked to pay attention to the environmental impact, it will be popular and it will be entertained by them for a while. You know, like for Google, it lasted almost an entire decade. But like that was the main battle

that's happening within search is like, OK, we're trying to make this product better. The money people are trying to, you know, take it over. And eventually it just, they wear you down because Wall Street is ultimately the thing that the people at the very top end up getting kind of inundated with to the point that it's like, what, you know, it's their entire incentive structure. So it just feels like, yeah, the whole thing is just management people and above conjugating the desires of Wall Street down through the people who are actually building products that customers use. And, you know, basically that is the conflict that we're seeing happen over and over again. And the people who care about the quality of the product or care about the initiative to make their company more diverse or the people who care about the initiative to make their company more diverse or the people who care about the

environmental impact of their company, like that eventually always seems like it gets drummed out by Wall Street and gets treated as unrealistic and idealistic and childish by Wall Street, who ends up only caring about profitability. And what's crazy is Wall Street loves plenty of very bad companies. Tesla is a garbage company, but it's a meme stock now. It has no connection to reality. Right. Meta, as a company, has burned like $15 billion, I think, or something like that on the metaverse, which is never happening.

But also they have made Facebook and Instagram borderline unusable. And Wall Street loves them because they print money. What's insane is all these companies had to do was provide a decent service and just make them better. And they could just print money, run them like a casino.

Like just, we don't want to mess with the winning formula. That's why casinos look the way they do for so long because they have a supply and demand thing and they work it very nicely. But they know touching that little balance can knock the whole thing off. And it's crazy. It makes me feel a little bit crazy. Like it does, because as I mentioned earlier, when I wrote The Raw Economy, I had a few public things and I looked at it and I was like, this makes sense. This is a strong theory.

It's backed up by things I've read. Seeing it in action, really, and I'm already kind of pissy. I'm kind of a pissy missy by default. But reading what they're doing, and like some of these Facebook things I've got coming as well, I used to think that Google was the worst of them, but Facebook is. Mark Zuckerberg's genuinely evil. As are all the people on Glite and Schultz and all these other

people. There's so many people at Facebook who are just, do not care. They don't care about the user. I kind of admire that there are people at Google who do. And I think that only makes what Prabhupada Raghavan did more evil, because he's just like,

no, no, don't listen to the bloke who built this crap. No, make more money now. Make money now. Make money now. Yeah. Make money for the machine so I can make the search engine worse and get more money now. And all they had to do was just kind of leave it alone.

But guess what? That doesn't create eternal growth for the street. Also, the real change was 2015 when Sundar came in. McKinsey boy. And the McKinsey people, the moment they touch it, they got the brown Midas touch. It turns everything to poopy. It sucks. It sucks so bad because they didn't have to do this. Google would probably, if they left it in a good condition and didn't really touch it for seven years, probably still print like $60, $70, $80 billion a quarter. Right.

Because it's so ubiquitous. They pay Apple like $10 billion a year, I think. To make it exclusive on iPhone as well. It's just insane. It's really insane. And I think the, especially given what I've seen with the Facebook stuff, much of it already out there, is I reckon behind the curtain, there's a lot of companies like this. I wouldn't be surprised if the Boeing stuff is going to reveal a lot more like this as well.

But within the tech industry, this is what is happening. And this is what happens when you don't have the people who build stuff running software or hardware. You just get McKinsey scam artists who crap up everything forever. Right. Right. Yeah. It's like the same thing that happened. That's happened with the film industry where people like the marketing accounting departments displaced the actual creatives who were developing films. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. These are the movies that make the line go up. Do we know anything about movies or storytelling? No. Right. Let me give you a good example. microsoft they just shut down a

number of studios uh including the one i forget what their name tokyo-based studio called uh that made a game called hi-fi rush incredibly successful first party title exclusive to xbox and pc of course great game they shut down the studio and a bunch of other ones then immediately the next day and i think the verge had this one as well it was like microsoft says they need to make more games like the one that the studio they shut down made like they were like we need smaller indie games that people love right right right and it's like you just killed the company that did you and it's so obvious and it's so obvious and also i'm not even sure it's good business right i'm not sure they're actually making or saving more money i don't know well google yeah they're definitely making money

hand over fist same thing with facebook but these things with game studios in particular and the same with entertainment it's like you're not actually making money off of this you're just like i gotta get find 50 million somewhere. Can we just kill that movie we filmed? Can we just not release it? Can we take that off tax return? The IRS should close that loophole, by the way. If I can't deduct a boat, they shouldn't be able to deduct Wile E. Coyote and his courtroom drama. Yeah, not the other movies. But also, the other thing is, I think all these tech companies don't realize, at some

point, people are not going to care anymore. They're going to stop using these products and they're not going to come back. Right. But the actual user churn is going to happen. So that would require them to no longer be a monopoly, right?

It feels like that's the thing that like the actual antitrust lawsuits need to like come through and actually make it so that they don't have these enormous. I mean, that's never going to happen. However, the thing that will, I think is not what people are expecting is,

oh, they'll stop. They won't stop using Google because they need a search engine. Unless they don't. Right. Unless people just change their habits to move away from search engines now that search engines are bad. Right. If they don't use Facebook anymore. You've used Facebook recently, I'm sure. It's terrible. You can't even see the people you want to see same with instagram i mean you run an account for the daily zeitgeist i'm

sure you know you put it out and you're like of the thousands of people that follow you like 12 see it because of the algorithm yeah right at some point people just go i don't care i just won't use that yeah facebook has already had churn. They've had over the last 10 years, a decent amount of churn. They've picked up new users, but it can go the other way. And the problem that these companies have is none of the people who built any of it with Facebook being the exception, they're just a completely different animal. For the most part, the people who built these companies aren't there anymore or they've been shoved in the corner. And going out to the public and saying,

hi, guys, so Google search blew. It was so bad, but it's good now. People are going to be like, yeah, sure, mate. Pull a Domino's pizza. We understand our product has been bad. That was because we were trying to save money. Right, right. It's just very depressing. The whole thing makes me very angry. has been bad. That was because we were trying to save money. Right.

It's just very depressing. The whole thing makes me very angry. But hey, it's broadcast, baby. Yeah. All right. Let's take a quick break because I do want to talk about Enron Musk and what's going on over there.

We will 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. I have followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Fantasy football fans, the NFL season is here and now is the time to get ready to dominate your leagues. The best way to crush your opponents this season is to listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Come hang out with me, Marcus Grant, and my pal Michael F. Florio as we give you all the info you need to absolutely steamroll your fantasy league and bring home a championship. You don't need to spend hours each day breaking down every stat and every stitch of game tape to set a winning lineup. That's our job.

We'll provide all the insights you need to set the best lineups each week. All you need to do is listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast when it drops five times a week. If you're looking for a smart, fun, and entertaining path to dominating your fantasy leagues, then We'll be right back. 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. Is the green microphone for eagles like it is my favorite color and also my favorite team's color my favorite i like green everything is it yeah i love green that's love green y'all greenies over here i'm a green huge green party favorite color i don't think I've ever asked you that. What's your favorite color, bro? Don't start like you care now. You know what I mean? Is it gray? No, you fucking dick. It's orange.

You idiot. Orange? You stupid idiot. I love orange. Orange is near the top for me, too. I love orange. Don't just say that now, Jack. You can't be serious.

I got a little orange flower right here. Oh. Yeah. Orange sunflower. Orange star flowers is what they're called. All right. Is that why you have Netherlands jerseys, Miles? I do.

That is one reason. Aside from the fact that there are a lot of some legendary players that have played for the Netherlands. But yeah, that's one reason I like to wear that jersey. I'm yeah like nice you can't not everybody can pull orange off and you know what i think it was it was it took one ex-girlfriend to say i looked good in orange to be like yes now i'm taking risks baby you used to wear blue i used to i'm not joking i used to only wear fucking blue like only blue not even because i thought i was like some kind of like a crip or whatever i was just so such a boy that I was like, blue is my favorite. And then like, if I'm feeling fancy, baby blue.

Yeah. I'll wear Carolina or I call it Carolina blue. Oh, yeah. No, not baby blue. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. Michael Jordan and Rasheed Wallace. Powder blue.

Julius Peppers blue. I'm wearing my Julius Peppers blue. But then, yeah. And then it took this one X to be like, wow, you look really good. And then like her friend, we went out like to a like a bar or something there. I was like, oh, OK, orange shirt. I like that on you. And I was like, I'm I'm wearing. I will wear nothing else for a year. I stopped shaving my shitty beard because someone in college was like, I was like, oh, it looks terrible. She's like, no, I kind of remember thinking like, oh, what's up with him? Because he had the interesting facial

hair. And I was like, you mean because it looks so shitty? She's like, well, you know, but it was interesting. And for a while, I thought that was the move. It's not. I wonder if they know. They must know, right? They're like, watch. Yeah, they yeah they're probably like yo i convinced this idiot to wear orange and not shave his stupid ass beard someone said i was funny when i was six and i'm still doing stand-up like what were we even doing exactly right yeah yeah look at us now all right i don't

know are we where we are where are we always back the question. It doesn't matter. We've been back. Never been away. All right. We're back. We're, but back to the news. We have important news. A restaurant in Las Vegas promised a bluey day and it ended up being not so great.

It was kind of, yeah, it's kind of Wonka experience ish. That's not, I don't know. Like this, this feels a little different to me. That's why I wanted to bring it to this triumvirate of great minds. Because ever since the Wonka experience in Glasgow,

I've always just been dubious of like any event that's like geared towards kids. It's like, and we've got characters that you can check out. And yeah, this hot dog place, they said, hey, it's called Dirt Dog. They're like, yo, Bluey Day. Watch Bluey all afternoon. Face painting, games, Bluey giveaways. Meet the Bluey. Meet Bluey and friends.

So guess what? The parents showed up. And now you can already guess how this ends because why the fuck would we talk about a successful Bluey event? No, no, no. It was so good. It was amazing. The kids had such a good time well the voice work by the people in the suits was incredible i'll just play this clip from the local news which starts off with a little girl saying how like upset she was about the

bullshit she was seeing in front of her when i saw him i saw him and I just ignored him. I was so mad. Did he look like the cartoon? Did he look like on TV? No, he looked like unexpected. We could like see his beard. Sophia and other kids had the same reaction. The Bluey they expected was not who greeted them. On the left, this is a photo a parent took at an event with the popular cartoon character Bluey. On the right, it's a staff member of Dirt Dog in a makeshift Bluey costume. The kids were distraught. Some kids were crying. Some kids were upset crying in their parents shoulders. 3,000 people RSVP'd on the Facebook event. Crowds poured in for hours. There were lines outside in the heat inside concerns about capacity from the face painting to baked goods many parents

say they were underwhelmed and the free stuff got snatched up quickly how could you do that to to little kids how could you do that to the so when i look at it'm like, it's not it's it definitely does not rise to the egregiousness of the experience. That was like the Wonka thing was like existentially troubling on the inside. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. This looks like a rest.

Like, it looks like a blaze pizza on the inside. Right. That just happens to, like, have be overcrowded and have some like like have a bluey children's birthday party happening. Right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the restaurant's apology made it feel less scam. Because I was like, is this a scam? Or I think this feels more like a brain mistake.

The restaurant's apology. I love this restaurant. First of all, it's called Dirt Dog. It's a hip-hop-themed hot dog restaurant. Hell yeah quote it's called dirt dog it's a hip-hop themed hot dog restaurant i was i was hoping that there would be like more of an old dirty bastard vibe but i don't know how you pull off an old dirty bastard vibe like in a place that serves food but to kids and then they won't do trademark infringement that is one thing they'll have a bad event but they won't they won't steal possessions i mean exactly that is one thing. They'll have a bad event, but they won't steal possessions.

Right, exactly. That was a question that occurred to me. It's like, how the fuck are they... They reached out to the creators of Bluey and were like, hey, we're going to throw an event with... They'd probably get dinged for that at a match. Right.

So this has to be bad news for them one way or another, drawing attention to this event. But yeah, it looks like a Blaze pizza with an M&M poster on the wall. That's the only poster that I could see. Just the one. You're like, really like Eminem. That's great. That's the only hip-hop

thing they have in there. Yeah, it's Eminem. It's from the Encore album, not even one of his good ones. You're like, what the fuck? Encore? Nobody was fucking with that one. The staff just seemed like real cool though. They were like, wow, Bluey's really popular. Good to know.

We won't fuck this up next time. Good to know. We're high as shit at our hot dog restaurant. It's on a whim thought. Maybe this would be something for the kids. They posted on their social media, quote, we are truly sorry this event wasn't to standard. We will work on improving all of the events going forward so we can bring you the highest quality as you all deserve. We appreciate everyone taking the time to send us your feedback and some of the feedback was

fuck you my kids are so upset because you had some guy in a jank ass bandit pajamas that shit wasn't even bluey because that was a thing that like the people the complaints from parents they feel like very american you know what i mean like we're shit isn't that bad you know what i mean like where shit isn't that bad you know what i mean but you want to act like they were like and they served us broken glass they're like okay dude it was some dude it was sure the costume was janky and it was banded okay that's true but they were you know they were giving up they were they had free treats and shit there was a good college effort they weren't telling you any but like ai supernatural effects and shit were gonna happen this is exactly what i would have expected from a free bluey event put on by a hot dog restaurant except i think it's a

bar also i was looking at i think it's almost more a bar with hot dogs at it yeah and it is just a hot dog so you brought your kids to a bar you know what i mean like it's not to not to victim blame yeah yeah but i do like the the part where the news report is like and many parents were underwhelmed that is the story that's the essence of the story it was underwhelming right the costume was a big miss like they fucked up the costume really badly but that is not the level that requires a local news story it feels like this is kind of coasting off of the power of that willy wonka story exactly i think that's what i think everybody that's why i was even like, another Wonka story? And then I'm like, this feels like it.

Look, we get it. We want everybody to, we want another sad Oompa Loompa at a bar, you know? The costume is truly fucked. Like, they really did a bad job with the costume. Yeah, the way that thing is cut, I would not have kids around an adult man in that costume. No. Yeah, the body part is like a big moo-moo, but then the face part is like a flat paper mask

that's rising up over his head because he doesn't want to actually wear it. But look, you can entertain a three-year-old with a cardboard box and cranes. That's an afternoon for a three-year-old. 100%. So if there's this much anguish over an event it's probably coming from like you know them reading your

shit you know yeah yeah so i don't know anyway just just get a fucking cardboard guys is it that fucking hard you don't have to take a bluey fest just yeah i'm like always amazed at what like what the baby is playing with like he's got all these toys and shit now he just likes to play with the fucking weird stopper behind the door that's like those are great yeah that's like his favorite fucking toy i was like what about this thing this is educational no he's fucking playing that shit like a fucking banjo or whatever like mouth harp like the bassist yeah you don't realize how important those door stoppers are by the way fucking playing that shit like a fucking banjo or whatever, like mouth harp. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. The bassist. Yeah.

You don't realize how important those doorstoppers are, by the way, until you break one, because we have not had one in our door for, like, I think maybe eight months, because I just haven't replaced it. Our neighbors, I think, are like, this is, we have to go. Property values plummeted in the entire... It's just the doorknob hitting the wall is so loud and jarring.

The wall looks like the dream palace at the end of Inception, where it's just like crumbling. Right. All right. And finally, big news in the world of AI. Kind of. I don't know. They changed the voice, basically. I saw a headline a a couple days back that was

like open ai releases a new like flirtier chat gpt and i was like all right like i don't don't necessarily want it wait the way you said that you're like yeah yeah no that was me being this one is pretty good this one's better this one already yeah all right so they're releasing basically a new ai voice assistant that sounds exactly like scarlett johansson from the movie her possibly because they realize that people getting horny for their smartphones is good business possibly because sam altman is so sam altman i meant to talk about him more on our tech episode because he's yeah, he's like a real he's a lot. It kind of exactly what Ed talks about when he's talking about like manager class people who pose as like, I'm an engineer.

I understand the ins and outs of all this. Right. the ins and outs of all this right but then like doesn't like all all he's ever really done is like get wall street excited about an idea that he doesn't truly understand or that he does understand but is trying to get people to misunderstand very similar to elon musk so after sam altman freed sam altman freed exactly right back and we're done here actually that's we we got to go out on that but all right what's the song miles yeah just give us the song following the presentation though he tweeted simply the word her which he has said before is his favorite movie he's also the person who like talks about how he keeps a gun and poison pill on him like yeah all the time in case the ai attacks like he just he his whole strategy is he likes to play up how

advanced and like sci-fi his technology is even though experts in the field suggest it's basically just like a glorified autocomplete but like he's borrowing from the cultural capital that sci-fi films have given us to make billions and billions of dollars like it's the there's this massive market on on wall street that is like based on all this hype around these things that i think he's like miss i can't tell if he's like willfully misunderstanding it or like some of the reporting on him suggests he like doesn't really understand the code so maybe he really believes his own bullshit and is like finally we've created my girlfriend that has been wanting to fuck forever i love her so much please tell me what

i'm looking at these are ducks gliding on the water i mean there's all like i feel like on twitter so many people are just dubious like out the fucking gate in terms of like what they like what it said it was doing and they're like they're probably just training it on the like just these very narrow these very narrow examples um but yeah either way like like you were saying on tuesday we're not past the point of fun party toy you know yeah like that's like what it does it's like oh man get it to write a song about jack's plumpers and it's like even then zeitgang is even fucking better than ai so i'm like i don't look that no you're not you're not usurping anybody except for maybe you know being a bad visual artist or something

they're usurping me my ability to write plumpers is pretty limited but definitely not Zeitgang I don't like hearing you say that don't say that about my friend yeah I don't like hearing that but one thing OpenAI had to walk back

the claims that the AI was designed to sound like Scarlett Johansson because obviously they get sued if they didn't. So they're like, we've had these voices forever. But yeah, it's this is not just OpenAI like Cybertruck. Elon Musk was like, this is the truck from Blade Runner. Right. Which is like set in a depressing hellscape run on slavery you know he he's like yeah but that's pretty tight right can robots consent whoa whoa what

the fuck did you get from this here we go yeah shit metaverse is from all sorts of different sci-fi uh universes snow crash being the most dystopian and upsetting and now her which like the movie her ends with the protagonist realizing that he actually has to deal with the messiness of human relationships and the ai is like abandoning humanity right so i mean if they should they need to focus on like the cool shit i get like the overarching themes from sci-fi, but like one part was that I wish they could bring back are like the drugs from sci-fi movies. Yeah.

I dropped my majority report. Remember he's like, Oh, he wants some clarity. And I'm like, what the fuck is that? And this dude was like fucking like watching his dead family and old home videos.

And I'm like, yeah, like, yo, let me see that. i don't need metaverse but yeah you know i'll take i feel like the drug and pre-crime minority report looked like a reverse kazoo like wasn't it like an inhale little inhaler thing yeah yeah yeah yeah like it like kind of shot it in your mouth i kind of of like that. I want more eyedropper drugs. AI butyrol.

That's kind of what it is. I also carry a gun and poison. But then again, I just hate my life. Yeah, that's just in case I need to. Yeah, look at that. Oh, man. My whole my teenage bedroom would have been filled to the pack to the gills with spent clarity inhalers.

Yeah. Man. Yeah. Kazoo mixed with like a little with a vape. I guess we have those. They're called vapes. Oh, I guess they are just vapes. Yeah.

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. It 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. 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. 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. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, 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 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.