The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 440 (Best of 7/20/26-7/24/26)

Episode Date: July 26, 2026

The weekly round-up of the best moments from DZ’s season 448 (7/20/26-7/24/26)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia, AEO, rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters,

and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysler, the mayor, himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song.

I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. A.O. Rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tuturo. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest yard, or Spike Lee's Black Klansman. And on my new podcast, delivering happiness with Nick Tutu. I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins.

What are you doing, my belt? To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am. And now, we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tuturo. It's called Happiness, Delivering Happiness. And many, many more.

Open your free High Heart Radio app. Search Delivering Happiness with Nick Totoro. And listen now. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men.

Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no one else, including here. Huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary. It was like the Jaws shark. Didn't always work. Came with its own problems.

That's what made it great. The cast of obsession. On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together. Deep dives into classics like 2001 of Space Odyssey or Fight Club. Plus weekly episodes on all industry news. Listen to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow at Raiders of the Lost podcast and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. 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, laugh stravaganza. Yeah. So without further ado, here is the week. What is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are? Oh man, this is more of a class of searches from my search history because I had to almost do it this morning, which is just like blank companies politics. Sure. Because I've gotten so, I guess, paranoid is what most people would call it.

Because this morning I got a marketing email from the company that makes the eye that I come in a little packet that I put into distilled water with which I use to brew coffee. Okay. There's really only one company that does this, so this is not really that anonymous. Anyway, their marketing email said, you're what makes us great. And so I had to go into a rabbit hole to figure out if this was some secret magnet. And survey says? I didn't actually go.

It's just a thing that it's a type of search that I do all the time. I can't stand to learn the truth, man, if it's going to fuck up my coffee. scary. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going to tell you this. I don't know what I would do without these people because, like, the water in my tap. Well, you were about to do home brew genetic testing. I feel like you could figure out how to, like, ionize your water in a way. Yeah, I just don't want to figure out the, yeah, I guess I'm just buying potassium and.

Yeah, man, I get you potassium. Some K? You need some K, bro. Yeah. Is that there? Oh, yeah. Update on sodium. Yeah, sorry.

Update on sodium. Sodium citrate. Did we talk about? about this. We've talked about how you, because you made it that she made that cheese sauce with sodium citrate. Yeah, yeah. Sodium citrate.

I did not realize this. I'm so dumb. It's made by Donald Trump. Sodium citrate, the chemical formula for it is. Oh, fuck. It's not show. Oh. It's sodium, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, yeah.

I don't know. I was like, is it cock? My. Sorry. What the hell is going on with you? I don't know what's going on. Our show is never like this, you guys. Chris, Breed, I want to apologize.

It was way better a few days ago, wasn't it? The show, we were more professional. She said what? She said what? This show, Bree, why? I'm confused. Who are you speaking to? I'm going to engineer, Bree.

Feel like you guys are having just like tropical brain rot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Brain rot. Yeah. It's terrible. I was like, I was apologizing all last week. I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen to my brain when I'm just coming out of a laying down position.

and then having to be like, surveillance capitalism. I get it. I get why all the oligarchs come out here. Every time I bring up a serious news story, Miles is over there giving me the throat-cutting muscle. No, no, no, no, no, no. Well, yeah, you don't know true vacation

until you get a text from Jack telling you to report to the water slides at 11 a.m. I was told I had to. All hands. All hands on deck. We got an all-hand. We're just a cyclone rush. Cyclone drop.

My kids aren't heavy in a lot. for us to send it like I think all three of us can plus one of my kids yeah velvety cheese sauces yeah uses and applications according to the AI overview from Google a white crystalline powder derived from citric acid that will give you a velvety cheese sauce all right yeah it is magic it is it is the chemical it's the powder that turns cheese into cheese you said you have like an industrial like you for how much you need you have more than you'll ever need right okay I'm gonna stop by for someone I get back yeah yeah yeah I have I have like you know whatever this is.

I've an eighth. An eighth. Three and a half grams? That's not a lot. You robbed it. You robbed a train. What's up, dude. I got an eight ball of nacho right here.

No, what I have is I have the like bag from the Indian store, which in retrospect is for a restaurant. Oh, like you bought a restaurant restaurant supply quality, quantity. I'm guessing. Yeah, yeah.

Because once I started using it, I was like, like I would have to actually drink nacho cheese for the rest of my life to finish this. I've got like a jar of MSG that I don't think I'm ever going to get through. Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, you'll get through it. You'll buy two in your life.

Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. But it's like, you know, we're talking decades is the order for this fucker. Anyway, so sodium citrate, it's the best. And it's like letters. N-C-H-O. N-C-H-O. Yeah, sodium. That's purely.

I don't know. Because it says that the word Nacho comes from Ignacio Nacho and I. Yeah. Yeah. You would have to be. That's crazy. Like nachos has a concept like existed long before this fucking Frankenstein. It's a thing

that makes American cheese American cheats. Right. Right. That suggests that like our world like there's a glitch in the matrix and like Nacher cheese is just like the one message being sent from God that's like This is the one thing you guys got right. The universal constant. Alvi, what is something you think is overrated?

Well, now this is silly, but I was going to say resorts, I'm totally fine not being there with you guys. I don't even, I'm not even jealous a little bit. I don't care about your fun drinks and pinia colladas and love to be people. You don't want to be here, man. You're going to hurt your butt on the most fun slides ever. It's really, really dangerous, actually. I don't want to be around people who are so relaxed and rich and stuff. and just like chill it and have the best time of their lives.

I think it's stupid. I want to be of the earth. Yeah, that's right. In like the, in the different parts of towns and not on a, not on a friggin people zoo. So there's that.

Yep. You don't want to do a total stranger. So I don't even care. On the elevator and just, you're just both like, pretty nice, huh? Yeah, pretty nice. Yeah, you're both just like getting massages and doing the sauna and the most relaxed

you've ever been in your life. tomorrow. Actually. God damn it. You got home a little tight from the water stuff therapy. The resort burns down. Oh no. Oh, no.

I'm so sorry. I know who did this. I'm a little tight from the water slide where you need. On the slide. They close you in a capsule. They close you in a capsule and then you don't know how long it's going to be. Could be three times. So there's a water slide where they close.

you in something that. It's like a phone booth. Some people would say phone booth if they're really old. I don't even know what those are. But it's like a phone booth that has water running down the back of it. It's like a photo booth. And then for the youth. Either like one second later or five seconds later depending, the floor just drops

out from underneath you. And there is, I was experiencing some dark night of the soul. I was like, Jesus. Yeah. If you're in a water slide too long, it feels like a K-hole. Yeah. Yeah, because sometimes that are so long, you think you're going up when you're going down.

Those are disorienting. Yeah. But I like it. Yeah. Okay. But see clear. So we have problems too. You're choosing to do that over and over again.

Yeah. Yeah. He's just right. He's like, I almost died. And then he runs back up. The lifeguard who like runs it. He's like,

hey, don't cut these people again, man. He's like, sorry, sorry. He was just taking too long, kid. Why is that guy from cracks cutting the lawn? Yeah. Sorry,

John, motorcycle, from Jack, got to get to the front. I have an idea. I have a badge of some sort of. It's an empty chip bag. Talking to people in line about water slides.

You're like tricking children. What's over there? Yeah. I like to ask everybody else what their experiences are with this water slide. Other water slides, other fun water slides. You're going to make a great elderly man at a fast food restaurant. Oh, man. I'm already there.

All right. What were you saying, by the way? Did you have something? Oh, yeah. Anna, you're about to say something. Hey, how about you over there? You got something else? I did not say anything.

I thought you were about to say something, though, when we were talking. I said that Jack is choosing to keep going on these water slides and having these dark experiences. Massico, he's working stuff out in there. Somebody's like, you know, I've done ayahuasca and he's like, well, I've been down the slide in the box. I've been down devil's backbone. Oh, interesting. That's what it's called. That's a good name.

What is something that you think is underrated? You know what? This is a fun. This is something that's really come into like my, like I've started to notice this more and more. I mean, I think I've always noticed it. But recently I've been like, there needs to be like almost an award systems for this. But like sort of like ambulance chaser lawyer billboard.

Yes. Are they not incredible? Yeah. Like Jacob and Ronnie or Sweet Jim or sweet Jim. What's the name? Sweet James. Sweet James. We all know what happened to Sweet James on Real Housewives of Orange County.

Ladies. No, cool. What happened to sweet James? What happened to do you? What happened? James. I just called him. What happened with the point of Chief James Orange County?

What happened to Wheat? What happened to Wheat? His wife was on it. And he, like, moved to Puerto Rico and, like, divorced her and left her with nothing with their kids. She was like, they were, like, in a brutal divorce all season. Sweet James bounced on his old lady and children. Not sweet. Wow.

What about Jacob and Ronnie? Los Angeles legend. Legend. Never met each other. No, he's a legend. I thought you said Jacob and Ronnie. Oh, no. That's how, see, that's how a lot of people, they miss here.

that same thing with Her Majesty. She's like, I thought it was Jacob and Ronnie. The law firm, I'm like, no, it's Jacob and Ronnie. No, and Ronnie. Yeah, and Ron. But there was, I saw one recently where it's this white woman and she's just back to back with Jaw Rule on her poster. And it's like, oh, you got a New York one.

Or her billboard. You're like, what? I mean, genius. But like, why is, did you help Jaw Rule? Is there some language that goes with that? No, it just says her, I have a photo of it. I can show you guys. But like, it just says her, like, law firm name.

But there's the jaw rule of law. That's smart. It's the same way like, isn't it Sue James that does like a lot of Laker stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Gets in front because he's like, that's how I'm going to legitimize, legitimize myself to the people. Yeah, right.

And so does Jacob and Ronnie. So I can only imagine this one was like, Jal rule, I got a hundred round a hundred quid. I'm New York. He's like, yes. But also, you know, there's the woman in Southern California who just has her like German Shepherd. Yeah.

Which is like, what's. And there's accidentes? Yeah. What's the angle with the German Shepherd here? Something wrong call Anna Fung. Yes. She's a classic. But yeah, no, I think they do.

Who hurt you? You see that one? There's a really good stuff. Who hurt you? Yeah, there's one that says, who hurt you? And it's just a lawyer, like, looking kind of empathetically. In a crash? Oh, it's because it says always there when you call.

Yeah. Hurt me crash. Because that's the jaw rule with the lady. But how did she get jaw rule? Oh, always on time. Gave you my, baby, baby. But like, this is who jaw rule. This is who J'Role is hanging out with?

It's, you know, hold on. Let me look at Jock Rool really quick. I got a lot of that later. Oh, man. There's something about this generation of rappers in their latter date. They're all looking the same. Like, he looks like Exhibit.

Exhibit looks exactly like this now. Did you also see Exhibit with his cat? I saw that post. Yes. That's what I was just thinking. He said, I've had him since 2006. That's a Pimp My Ride era cat. Yes, exactly.

And he's, it's so funny that clip where John, where exhibit is like he's so in his just normal talking thing and you can tell he loves this cat he's like this is what she's on you know so this she gets the 11 and older cat food and a little junk food when she's feeling like that then she she needs ivies and stuff so i have somebody coming to give her ivies and that's why she's 20 years old now wow and i have people sending me things about her and i really it's just funny to hear this exhibit me so earnest about his but also like if you look at his cat, like she's also a mugging. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Really cute. I'll show you a photo for that later, too. What is something you think is overrated? Oh, the overrated. Yeah. This might be controversial. Period. Period.

Period. Period. Period. T, period. T period. Who's cruising for a bruising, Anna? Yeah. Who's cruising for a bruising?

I think what's overrated, I mean, this is very, like, topical because of everything that's been going on, but like, the flop. Mm-hmm. The flop. The World Cup. So I have, okay. My mention. You're saying like, there's about to be 8,000 dudes in my mentions, but.

No, this isn't to universally. I just think the flop. Here's a thing. Keep it in the penalty box. That's where it matters. If you're flopping midfield, get up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're humiliating your family.

Your last name is like a shame. Like, get up. His wife is over there. Be like, get up. Like, and the way. And I understand. of footballer's greatest performance is when you're barely touched in the penalty box. I understand.

I get it. You want that free kick. It is what we are all fighting for in life. A free kick. It's a metaphor. But like, again, if you're within inches of the center line of this field, there is no reason for you to be rolling all the way downtown, holding your knees. As if like, honey, you. You work out, you're fine.

You're a professional athlete. Get up. That's a tactic. Unless it's like messy coming and using his entire cleat to drag down the back of your leg. You think of a player like Messi, he doesn't go down like that. He's actually just so focused on getting to the goal. Like he's not as big of a flopper as like a lot of other players are. Well, penalty box.

Yeah, but even that, I feel like he's his mojo is, I think because he's so small, he was just kind of like sort of over his time playing. Yeah. He's like, I don't have time, man. They're going to try and hack me, but I'd rather just score. But I do like the stakes of like only flopping in the penalty box because if you are diving and they find you guilty of simulation, you can get sent off. Yeah. Or you can get a yellow card.

But I feel like don't waste it on that. So that's already a rule. They already have the anti-flopping rule? Yeah. If it feels like a clear dive, they call it just they call it simulation. Like if someone is like and you fly across the field, they're going to be like, crap. But at the same time. But I'm very weak.

That's true. Your wrists. I have very low pain tolerance. I just think, just... They're like, damn, bro, he's crying. I'm like, I don't have... I don't have time for you guys to add 85 minutes to the end of this game. Like, keep it moving.

That's the thing is like it's done tactically to slow the game down. Or if like your team, the other team's playing, they got a lot of momentum, then you just slow it down with tactical floppy's. There's the thing they do where they get hit in some way. And like, maybe if I may not. And then they do both new. knees up like the like their heels hit their butt

and they're like is one of the funniest things that like an athlete can possibly do. Like you just have both legs sweep simultaneously Yeah. Avoiding a tackle though too because if your weights on that foot and someone comes through that's Yeah. Yeah.

So it's broken bone city. Yeah. But I will say like a clean tackle is some of the greatest work. Oh yeah. Mexico did it well. Mexico had some incredible clean tackles where I was like they didn't even touch the guy.

Yeah. They only got the ball. They were on clean tag where the person was flying. They were supposed to do. Get the ball back and give it to your attackers? Yes.

Yes, that. There's some moments of physics in soccer where like, do you see that video of that male buffalo just like sending that guy flying? Yeah. And you know what? Let's not blame that guy.

He was just walking by. He was trying to get away. Yeah, he was so far away. That buffalo got up. Would you say Yellowstone? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And he said, you, my friend, are fucked. You've been selected.

Yeah. They were far away from him. He'd not walk up to this Buffalo. Oh, that's crazy. Because I think I've only seen the impact clip. Like the legs up. Yeah, yeah, right up. She didn't have been near that fucker then. You've seen the remix. Yeah. Yeah. That Buffalo said, today is your chosen day to be home up. Your descendants have created karma for you that you cannot escape in the field. And I'm here to fucking deliver it. I feel like sometimes that's what like a good tackle will just send somebody like flying through the air. Well, that's kind of happened with Enzo Fernandez's the second yellow card

in the final. Like he came through and I think blue with a pal Crabassi or something. Yeah, that shit was wild. That is exactly what I was thinking of when I said that. It's funny. All right. Shall we take a quick break? Let's do it. We're going to do a quick lap on the on the lazy river. It's going to go down three water slides and then we'll be right back. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHard Radio app.

Gets the blood going up. Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. Now with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing. Right on your screen.

Cheers. Open the free IHR radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports,

a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars,

the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all. All week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka, showing out, she beat Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that.

Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us or rather you know them.

Tony and Candice, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, The Chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

Why do you think that was a good idea? ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody. I thought he was going to write.

I thought you were going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo, rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you. Okay? If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'ma play you. Join Yomeneika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new

podcast. You're the problem with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who's sitting sweetie, sweetie was. New episodes weekly every Wednesday is part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea Network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika, and I'm out.

Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. and I'm not locked in. You're all locked in here with me. Hey, has anybody done that yet? Is that something? I don't know, actually. Shartanay.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. Is that something? All right. Throw it down, big man. All right, I'm sorry. Continue. What do you want to talk about AI? I'm talking about Bill Walton.

We didn't record the Bill Walton thing earlier. Oh, I'm terrible at my job. at my job. Before we started recording, there was an anecdote. I was with my dad when he ran into Bill Walton. How old were you? I was like in my 20s. Oh,

I was like, yeah, my dad knew Bill Walton. My dad worked in basketball for new listeners. And Bill Walton said, how are you doing Jim? I was like, great, you know,

things are great. Can't complain. He was like, how about you, Bill? And Bill said, awful, I'm terrible at my job.

And this was when he had just taken over as a commentator. on the national news. And I think about it every day. I'm terrible at my job. It was a time when everybody was kind of making fun of him, but like the internet didn't exist really. He couldn't have really known that.

He probably getting direct feedback. Yeah. Hey, Bill, you're kind of terrible at your job. The director from the truck is like, Hey, Bill, come on, man. Can we try it a little less terrible next time? Hey, any notes for that one? Be less terrible at your job.

Be less terrible at your job. your bad at it. All right. Don't know how you got this and we're live. I'm going to go to sleep, standing up in my hotel room. Is that what he does? No, it just feels like a thing like Bill Walton. Gets terrible news, goes to his hotel room.

Turns the lights off. It just stands like a horse. Huge fan of psychedelics. That guy, you know. We can tell of that headband, dude. Oh, yeah. All right. Let's talk about Mark Zuckerberg.

Mark Zucker nerd. Yeah. He's got, we were just talking about like the, you know, last AI thing. Oh my God, it's broke out of containment and it's hacking and, blah, blah, blah. Have you seen the latest thing they're worried about? What? China too good. Oh, China.

China AI, too good. Two bomb. They're like, they're doing it without spending trillions of dollars. What the fuck is going on? They're training it on ours. I did have that question for Ed Zittron when he came on. I was like, is it possible that AI could be, like, There's a version of AI that doesn't burn down Memphis that is like used for useful things.

And what we're seeing is just the fact that the American economy, like we've seen what this version of hypercapitalism does to industries that used to be good. Imagine an industry that is starting from whole class in this fucking swamp water that we live in. You know, like, and, you know, is there a possibility? Like, I saw a poll that said that Europeans are, like, more favorable about AI and, like, other countries are more favorable. Maybe outside of this, like, you know, shitty environment where everything is just used to funnel as much wealth as possible to the wealthy. Maybe it could be, maybe there's a theoretical possibility. And so China's introduced models where they just, like, stole shit from the American models and are like, we're going to make this open source and everybody can use it.

And the AI executives are like, no, stop. It's not fair. Yeah, it's not fair. Sue them. Well, yeah, so right now, I guess Meda just brought this ad that's more preaching AI optimism. Oh, good. And this is what is being said, quote, some people will have you believe AI will make us less connected. That's just going to leave us behind.

We couldn't disagree more. Call us optimists. Call us streamers. Just that we've always done. We're betting on people. And then in a post, Zuckerberg posted, quote, meta has always believed in giving people the power to share, connect, and shape your world in ways you want.

As we enter this next wave with AI, we continue to believe the future is for everyone. We're focused on giving every person the tools to reach your full potential and making sure the benefits of technology are distributed to everyone. And then it goes on to be like, hey, man, look, quote, we bet on people when we connected you to the ones

you lost touch with. And again, when we connected you to the ones you couldn't be near, 22 years and 3.5 billion people later, we're doubling down because while technology will change, our intention behind it never will. And you're like, okay, so this ad still does fuck all to address people's actual concerns about, like, I don't know, safety, the environment. Right. No explanation. Like, again, it's just like completely assuming everybody's an idiot. Like, there's also this cloud ad or Claude, whatever, however the fuck you pronounce that. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. cloudy with a chance of meatballs. There's an ad where it's just like shows a house on fire and then it's like,

people are worried about AI. And then it just like starts showing increasingly sunnier images. And then it's like, but it's gonna be good. And it's like no explanation for like how this is not going to make the world a worst place. They're just like, ding, ding, ding.

It's just, they're all just like, have like this thin veneer of positivity. Yeah. With no explanation. Yeah. They're relying on the whole, you know, long-time notion that technology is bettering the world and bringing us further into the future. Yeah.

But without acknowledging all the, you know, more drastic sides that AI needs to operate. So it's like we're just sort of, we're fucked, you know. No, I think, I trust, I think, Zuckerberg. Let's see where Zuckerberg. Yeah, let's see what Sam Altman's cooking up. Then I will just. Say so goodbye. I'm off to have gym.

No, that's really, I also like, yeah, the meta of it all just not even acknowledging like 22 years, 3.5 billion people. Yeah. It's like. Genocides, we've helped spur on with our misinformation. Videos we've like over. Insurrections. Live stream violence. We've sold all your information.

What do you want? Yeah. Hey, we're just doubling down on that. Meon Mar, you're like, what? What the fuck? Does this add four people in the year 2008? What you know us for is connecting people, right? Right.

Forget all the rest. Don't worry about that. Stop Googling. Stop Googling. Stop it. You don't even know how to spell Rohingya. Can't actually Google because now Google's AI. So there.

So you can't even look up Rohingya. All right. The other thing that just feels very much, like that some ideas seem to be escaping containment and containment being like the world of mainstream media and mainstream politics. And one of those ideas seems to be just everything that Zoran is doing.

He had said he was looking into the legality of arresting Benjamin Netanyahu. He ultimately made a speech that was like, direct address to camera being like, so apparently it's illegal, but like we would and the U.S. should. And it's a sort of thing that couldn't have gotten by anybody with a political advisor. And it seems to be extremely popular. Yeah.

I mean, because he was like, look, we've been looking at what legal avenues we have to or authority would have to enforce a warrant. We don't. The federal government does. So I encourage them to do that. And then he's like, but I like, but I like, I was just like towards the end, he's like, quote, I want to be equally clear. Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City, nor is any other war criminal at large.

Yeah. Yeah. Just very plain English respecting people. Like, he's like, so here's what I've said before. And I'm going to double down on the thing I said, so you know I mean it. Right. Essentially. Whereas the other, like, mainstream, you know, they're like, with regards to the AI thing,

it's like spending billions of dollars putting. happy images together to try to create this smoke screen that I just feel like everybody can see through. And then, like, people, you can just break through it by it. Like, it is, I'm more optimistic now that I probably was, like, one or two years ago, because it does seem like some people have discovered

this one trick that doctors and, you know, mainstream politicians don't want you to know about, which is just like telling the, truth and using plain language and just not moving off of that when they try to threaten you and put you on like secret enemies of the state lists like they have with Zoron. It would be cool if we could like citizens arrest and then Yahoo. Yeah, you can't do that for the international criminal for the ICC. Police Academy.

International citizens arrest. Paying citizens arrest. Yeah, but I mean like to that end, right, like there's like all this push to change the opinions or like present AI in a different way. And there was a Wall Street Journal report, too, that was talking about that Israel had like set aside $700 million budget to quote change their public opinion around the world. That was their 2026 budget.

And like 50 million of it is going to like U.S. firms, like one of them being ran by Brad Parscale, the Trump guy, which I'm like, dude, you are absolutely rinsing them. Brad Parscale doesn't know anything about it. He knows how to shit post. He got fired like halfway through the campaign. So you're gonna, but again, like, it's this whole idea of like, okay, we're gonna try and just use propaganda to sort of change the opinion

when you can't use propaganda to sort of change people's like understanding of humanity. Yeah. You know, it's like, you know what the best thing would be is to cease all of this. Yeah, we've just been inundated with marketing for so long that I just think that people are immune to it at this point. And like they, they're not changing the game plan. Right. they're doing they're trying to have their stolen land and need it too yeah like they're not they're not evolving with our opinion right they're just trying to be like well we're going to stay fixed

and maybe we can just do a bunch of light shows to convince people that what is happening is not and i think that just again speaks to this like this disconnect of like the three worlds we're living in simultaneously it's as if they haven't seen inception dude Netanyahu announces inception technology Like it's right in front of you, dude You have to incept us for us to start falling in line I'll get you the inception machine That is the dream

That is the dream of marketing Maybe I shouldn't have said that out loud Maybe I shouldn't have given them that Cut to us being incepted by Israel It was her I hear Edith Piaf. I hear Edith Piaf. It's the new saxophones.

Let's talk about Olive Garden real quick. Last week, Olive Garden revived their never-ending pasta pass promotion. God, they love alliteration. Giving 10,000 lucky customers a special VIP card granting unlimited access to never-ending pasta bowl menu for 13 straight weeks at a cost of just 100. This seems like too, this deal is too good. This deal is too crazy at all.

13 straight weeks. 10,000 people 13 weeks, $100 unlimited pasta. I'm sorry, this does seem like a piece of sponsor content. It's not, it just doesn't, it doesn't make sense to me. Think of the marinara you could eat with that pasta. It's like if the Willy Wong, if there had been 10,000 Willy Wonka golden tickets, I know this does probably go back to my marinera. But you actually have to, the pasta pass is separate VIP card from the Marinera VIP Pass. Yeah, yeah.

You have to each. Oh, you're paying for that. It's like printer ink where they like give you the printer for $10 and then the printer $100. Sorry. No, see on. You're not printing. Oh, this is for never ending pasta like noodles, loose dry noodles.

Sorry, bro. Yeah, yeah. You want sauce? Oh, you got your own sauce. I can see that make you finally snapping. Um, in the situation right. God damn, I got enough of this world.

That's not a game. I've got enough of this world. Falling down with Michael Douglas, but it's Jack because he had to pay for mariner. Anyway, the corporation finally does a cool thing, you know? It's like,

I mean, it is nice, obviously, like, for the amount of food you can consume for that much, great, but to be more for.

That's too much. Uh, but people are like, are they flipping these cards? So this is the issue. Because we live in hell, this has become a major political talking point. So they've had to make these passes

because they've done this in the past. These passes were being sold on eBay for like thousands of dollars. Right. Because that is the value. Again, this is what I'm saying. This is too good a deal. $100 for 13 weeks of unlimited pasta.

Yeah. It's insane. What? What are you talking about? It's like you could feed it. town. Like what? It's too much, too good deal. It's like early movie pass.

You're like, this doesn't make sense, although they're limiting it. They're limiting it. So it doesn't actually completely, you know, bankrupt. So they've had to make the pass as non-transferable. And pass holders must prevent a valid photo ID along with the pass at the time of the ordering. So first of all, so much for when you're here, your family. Oh, your family? Not him. That ain't Hospitaliano.

Oh, hell yeah, dog. But since this deal coincided with Trump's election conspiracy theory speech, right-wing accounts started claiming that Olive Garden takes pasta security more seriously than Americans take election security. And because there's just utterly jam-packed, full of shit, just like that, that's like, okay, I can see how that's like a good tweet or like talking point that would like be fun for some Republicans to retweet. it's like become a major talking point for the Republican Party Oh, it's just like the faux outrage Like, oh like the same way Wouldn't like Trump be like, you gotta show your ID to buy groceries

Yes, there's always some dumb thing He tries to connect to daily life And it's like, they got better security When you're trying to buy a tangerine. Yes. And it so they're Like it distracts from the fact that it like also just You give it two seconds of inspection and it like doesn't make

any sense. The Save America Act isn't about security. It's about disenfranchising tens of millions of American voters because you don't get it. You can't vote just by showing an ID. You have to like your photo ID like most states, photo ID does not give evidence of residence. So there are only five states of citizenship. Yeah, only five states issue photo IDs that indicate American citizenship. So people would have to show passports and birth certificates. So the thing they're actually drawing attention to is the opposite. Like, no, Olive Garden is actually doing it the way that we currently do our elections, which is just with, you can get it with the driver's license.

Do them? Yeah, cool, great. Also, it's not trying to do away with fraud. The reason that they're having to ask for ID is because of capitalism, you know? Because people are selling the thing. It's, yeah. Well, and also like to the Save Act, like the House just passed a version of like a reconciliation bill

that has some of that stuff in there. And again, like the Senate Republicans, like, look, dude, we keep telling you, there's no votes for this. Yeah. Like you have budget hawks in here who think it's way too much money. You have other people who are like, it's not enough money for the military.

Also, I don't know where Mitch McConnell is. Right. So, like, I can only lose, like, one person. And I'm actually counting John Federman on our side for the math year. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it's... Also, Olive Garden, this deal is not like a paragon of efficiency.

One Olive Garden employee told the press that they have no idea how it's going to work when the passes are activated at the end of August. Yeah. And I doubt any fucking server at Olive Garden is going to bother to be a hard ass about it. They get the pass, whatever, dude. Yeah. Fucking let it rip. I also just love the same.

anecdote because everything becomes 9-11 now. Like, the way the story, Olive Garden devotees are suggesting that there were never any pasta passes available at all. And the company just faked the whole thing for free publicity. Like, so they have like truthers. Miles Tamboli would never. Olive Garden never ending pasta pass denial.

Come on down. You're going to be family. But there's no unlimited pasta. I'm sorry. Be realistic. You don't even need that much pasta. We don't have that kind of money. Let's take a quick break.

We'll come back and we will ask the question, are society's eyes adjusting to CGI? We'll be right back. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Hello. My gosh. Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish

right inside the free IHare Radio app. Get the blood going up. Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like the Tom Green Farmcast and park the bus. with full video. We're building a ramp for Tony Hawk. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing

right on your screen. Cheers. Open the free IHard Radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and IHart Women's Sports.

Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women sports.

Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. I mean, you get the harm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports.

On the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. You know us, or rather you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike, and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years,

but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about Podlandia, A.O. Rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made?

Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysler, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song, a melody.

I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. Ayo rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Hanel from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier.

And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible your the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'ma check you. Okay? If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'm going to play you. Join Yomeneka Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the problem with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday is part of my new network, the dear Chelsea network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question.

Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. So there's been a lot of talk online about how Gen Z and some elder millennials even have embraced what are called Grandma. hobbies. I don't know. I just be fun young hobbies. I'm fully leaning into all this shit.

I'm like, I want to learn how to crochet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Embroiter, quilting, jigsaw puzzles, reading. Tangible things with your hands. I've been reading so fucking much. I'm reading like my life depends on it. The fact that reading is on this list as a like weird hobby is fucked up.

It is because the literacy rate is crashing. Yeah. It's crazy. Also, people in Love Island don't know how to pronounce words. Oh, then that's the epitome of ignorance. That's the epitome of what we're talking about it.

Brie was watching. She knows what I was sincere, wasn't it? That was sincere. But there were so many of them. Also, bro, he was going way too hard on the edges of his hair line. Like he was trying to frame his face. I'm like, bro, you're fucking up your hair line. Just shaving it back.

So I saw a lot of black barber content where there was like dudes watching with their partners like, pause, look at this. Who's his barber? You should not be doing that. That is not his natural hair line. He's trying to shape something. And when it grows in two days later, it looks like a weird shadow. Yeah, you got a five o'clock shadow on your forehead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like taking notes. I'm like, okay. All right. So quilting, jigsaw puzzles, reading is thrown in there. Needle point. And the biggest one. I would throw a movie cinema going in here as like a thing that people are,

is making a comeback with the youngs that was, supposed to be dead and gone and like fading out. I'm part of the AMC. Charlemais. Right. I get seen your discount. Well, then thank you so much for your service. I'm a celebrity.

I'm part of the A list. And I got all these paparazzi flock cameras taking pictures of me. So, Jack, you're Gen Z based on this too. Katrina, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. So I guess I guess you could say I'm a little Gen Z, right, Anna? You've always said that. Canonically. Very yelling at heart.

Very cool. No comment. But one of the big ones is bird watching, which has skyrocketed in popularity with people age 18 to 24 like myself, meaning that around. Honestly, I support things like this because the world is too sad. We must look to the skies. You know? It's beautiful. It's amazing.

It's like such a great hobby, especially with this app that we're about to talk about. You know what your kids are watching? Wasn't this an app you were using? This is an app that I've used that I've been talking about it. Big old cockatiel titty. Big titted. Why are they also horny names? You look at his phone.

You're like, well, it doesn't say that at all. Yeah. But you could tell, though, right? You could tell. Listen, listen to it. A parent discovering their child's notebook and it's like half of these names with horny birds, yeah. A lot of horny bird names.

You're crowned. Dude, crowd pro bobs. Very poetic. many times, but around 750,000 Gen Z bird watchers, according to the same people who came up with those Taco Bell numbers, apparently. And the big tool that has, like, really helped us new birdwatchers is Merlin, which was developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and uses machine learning to identify bird calls. It is the Shazam for birds.

Oh, so it never opens when I try to find it. Yeah, yeah. When I swipe down from an iOS menu. Ah, now the song's over. Oh, it's gone. Yeah, I like this is what I go outside, meditate for like 10 minutes and A day in the life of Jack O'Brien.

And put the Merlin. Get ready with me. They're ready with me. We both just do. Put a little moisturizer under my eyes. 5.15 a.m. Saratoga Sprintuitive. rings ice space bath.

But yeah, I mean, I've had the thought that like, this is the one good thing that AI has brought us. And apparently other people have had that same thought. I guess it's more machine learning. It's just basically, so there's also like, it's somehow arresting people. It's causing people to. Birds are getting arrested. It's the same thing that's happening. Tiny handcuffs.

So AI generated images of birds are popping up because the main way that like real birders are identifying birds is like people, I think that's the next level. I'm still entry level, like, interested in birds and just like, you're not about to recording their calls. And then sometimes when I hear one, I'm like, I think I know what that one is. And then I'll like look up to confirm it. But like these, a lot of like people want to take pictures of the birds. That's their proof. And then if it's, if it doesn't look as good as they want it to, they are. They yassify the birds. They yassify the birds. Oh, no. They make it bigger tidied, Huckin, whatever.

Like, what if this thing was stacked? Stacked with a chad jawline. They all have fake lips. That's so sad. I don't know. But yeah, so these databases that are using machine learning and AI to identify birds are now they've found have been infected by hundreds of fake images. And they say the true scale of the issue is unknown since you can't really tell. if it's, you know.

And so those images probably will go undetected and they contaminate the records. And now, like, you're off to the races with, like, fake bird species, you know? I can always tell if a bird picture is AI or not because it always has, like, 12 beaks or, like, 36 feathers in one wing, you know. You can always tell. Yeah, yeah. More beaks. Wait, so then basically what people are doing is, like, they take a, like, a, like, a shitty picture that they want to upload

and they're like, enhance, enhance, enhance to the point. Like, now that is a prehistoric animal. So a birdwatcher in Brazil made a false sighting of a red winged blackbird, which is usually only only found in North America. My God, in Brazil, where are you fucking new?

So it wasn't a red wig of blackbird. I could have told you that. Stupid. But it was a more common bird for the area. But the birdwatcher asked an AI program to make the picture look better. And the AI picture did that, and then they uploaded it, and now, you know, the machine learning doesn't know what it's learning from. Right.

And like citizen science databases are valuable scientific tools because they're importing. Like that's what always seemed cool about Merlin to me is like when I'm doing that, when I'm like recording the bird song around my backyard, it's learning from that. It's like uploading information and it's like, okay, so this is where these birds are now. And so you're like kind of contributing to something larger and also like gaining information. Right. It's like how they used to use Captcha, like when you're trying to get into a password. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just wild too that basically AI, like everything before this, it was fine.

But with the advent of this now, it's like giving you false images, which are only going to be exacerbated by the fact that these things are like just iterating on each other. Yes. Yeah. People keep using AI to yassify birds. Yeah, they're going to have to have like some barricade at the front of like the network or whatever to rule out any AI images. But like how do they, as AI gets better, how do they do that?

Right. Yeah. And this is just the problem with AI in general. It's called a model collapse or AI cannibalism on the runway. And Katrina, Katrina. Katrina. It's called model death. Oh, my God.

What happened to her? Get, get, get down. Model collapse. Model collapse. Model collapse. All right. I'm done. You shouldn't be.

I should have wore my Paris's burning hat today. You do have Paris's burning hat. That's awesome. People are worried that it's going to degrade into AI bullshit like everything else. Well, don't worry. It's here. Yeah. Maybe we could start uploading fake images to.

You think this will like, will there be enough of a backlash, like, where, you know, obviously younger people are, like, sick of the digital age or they're like, I kind of need to do things where people are going to be like, no, we just need to start taking, like, film photos again. Yeah. Because everyone loves to look at film. They kind of are. But also, I think, like, everything is going tangible as, like, the economy, like,

is horrific. Like, people are like, I'm on TikTok and people are like, you know what? I'm just going to build a farm. And, like, everyone is. doing some sort of like planting stuff or like. Right. On Farm is all, right? Mending things.

Like, everybody has a homestead. No. In real life. Yeah. Wait, what? Yeah. Everybody is like homesteading. I know people who are like starting a farm.

Wait, what? Yeah. What? Do you what? Would you think you could handle that? Rural life. A farm. The way you were just looked in me like, come on, asshole.

What? I almost got my ass beat by that flamingo earlier, man. Oh, yeah. Animal sense weakness immediately. Yeah. My one friend who I grew up in the valley with, he got one of those weird grow bed towers and he's blown that thing out.

And he's like, dude, there's no way I could ever do anything without this weird plug-and-play tower. Every time I go, he's like, you want 700 basil plants or arugula? Yeah. That's incredible. That was one thing from the David Lynch story

that was really cool. You know, people are always like, he's an Eagle Scout. That's like so weird that he was a Boy Scout because he's like, you know, the movies he makes are so dark and strange. But that actually, like helped his career because he would just hand to make shit like when he couldn't afford a full

movie budget he would just like build sets and you know put it together and like if i was another person i would be like oh man maybe that could like inspire me to build things with my hands probably just like no that's yeah no that couldn't be me it's just yeah like could david lynch build better hands for me david that's that's how an ai coder would think about it. But if I got him to build a better version of me, then it would be a recursive loop where we all just keep improving. 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.

Indiania fans. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia, AEO rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysall, the mayor

himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it. Well, I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia. A.O. Rewatch on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea.

Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier. And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out. Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Nick Tuturo. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, The Longest Yard, or Spike Lease Black Klansman. And on my new podcast, delivering happiness with Nick Tatoro, I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing my belt? To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am.

And now we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tuturo. It's called Happiness, delivering happiness. And many, many more. Open your free High Heart Radio app. Search Delivering Happiness with Nick Totoro. And listen now. On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no one else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project.

tale Mary. It was like the Jaws shark. Didn't always work, came with its own problems. That's what made it great. The cast of obsession. On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together. Deep dives into classics like 2001 of Space Odyssey or Fight Club, plus weekly episodes on all industry news. Listen to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more, follow at Raiders of the Lost podcast and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.