The Gargle - The Fall of the Metaverse and the Rise of the Run-fluencer

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

On this week's Gargle, the glossy magazine pull out to The Bugle’s audio newspaper, Alice opens it with Tiff Stevenson and John Robertson, as the trio breakdown the week's news in science and tech, from the fall of the Metaverse, the wellness peptides craze and the rise of the Run-fluencers! Alice Fraser: https://www.patreon.com/AliceFraserTiff Stevenson: https://tiffstevenson.co.uk/ John Robertson: https://www.thejohnrobertson.com/ Subscribe to Realms Unknown - a fantasy, sci-fi and speculative fiction podcast from Alice Fraser and The Bugle!https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/news/realms-unknownYou fund what we do!https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/donateProduced by Harry Gordon, with Executive production from Chris Skinner Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I am Andy Zaltzman, as you may know. The Bugle, as well as being the world's only ever, longest-running and arguably best audio newspaper for a visual world, is one of the very few fully independent media empires remaining in this thus far very silly millennium. Our voluntary subscribing listeners have made this possible, and you, if you are not already one, can join them to keep our shows free, flourishing and independent for the rest of all eternity. Disclaimer, eternity may not be completely eternal. Get more of what you love. Exclusive subscriber-only content,

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put your bits together and welcome to the gargle me. Your host, Alice Fraser, the host of the gargle, and our sister pod blather, realms unknown, where we talk about science fiction and fantasy, and it's lots of fun for nerds, open bracket, prerogatory, closed brackets, unlike here where we talk about science and technology, the realm of cool nerds, open brackets, complementary, close brackets. Our guest hosts for today, she's on the cutting edge of edgy cuts.

It's writer, actor, comedian, and all-round, Glammer Zama Ding-dong, Tiff Stevenson. Hello, thank you for referencing me by my full name, glamour-zama-zammer-zing-dong. I don't feel very glamorous. I'm on my fifth cup of coffee, but I'm... I'm making it happen. I'm in a lobby, which you can probably tell by the echo here. But give this man its head. It's the hideous, headless horseman and captain of a boat on a doomed quest, John Robertson.

Hooray! Delightful. I really enjoyed that in a primarily audio medium, a reference to my massive forehead still somehow managed to get in there. Thank you. That was that. Not at all intended, but I'm glad to have accidentally. melted to you. Oh, Alice, I have incredible only child syndrome. I can happily take an insult

when none is intended. It gives me something to do with the rest of my day. Well, we are going to plunge into this week's top stories. Hold on to your peronyums, or is it perine? The metaverse is our lead story. Apparently, the metaverse has fallen at last, much though it straddled the minds of anyone who used the internet over the last 700 years at last the Colossus has collapsed into the sands of time john robertson can you tell us a bit more about this story well there isn't more to the story a thing that no one was using wasn't used and now won't be able to be used again that's that's pretty much it it's it's the poem ozimandias but nobody bothered to look at the statue also

there were legs in Aussie Mandaire, so the irony of that's quite strong. But yeah, look, a man who had a hit ripping off some friends of his at uni had another idea which was, we're going to bring VR to the masses, which has never worked. I have lived through that four times, I think, and now once again, $700 billion spent, and it's over. And the nicest thing that they've done is one of the founders at Netta, apparently received an email from maybe the single user of the Metaverse who said, look, I'm terribly upset that this is being shut down.

So they said, all right, we're not going to shut it down immediately. That's about as good as it's gotten. So that's the story. If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, does Mark Zuckerberg still lose $700 billion? That's like losing a fiver down the back of the sofa. It is, it is. But then you look down and your legs aren't there either.

I didn't know, Alice, you said, we're going to lead with the metaverse. And I was like, I'm not because I had no idea what this was. I was like, I thought the metaverse was the one after the bridge before the chorus. Metaverse, I hardly know a verse. It's the verse that talks about the verse that talks about the verse. It's like inception. but for songs, right? Yeah, it's the thing that happens when you're listening to a Leonard Cohen song

and you go, oh, this bit's about Joni Mitchell, as though that makes it inherently good. So it's virtual reality platform. Because, I mean, I have a VR headset here that I think I bought my steps on for his PlayStation and we got really into it for like a month so for Christmas. And the main joy about anything virtual reality is watching someone else on it. It's not really even being in the virtual reality. So putting the helmet on my dad and sending him on illusion, watching him go, fucking, fucking, fucking. Leave it all out like, oh, fucking. And my mom

go ahead, shut up, Ron, stop swearing. And he was like, well, you be on it. I feel sick. And that's enjoyable for me. But actually being in the virtual reality, less so. To me, the tragedy is less that the metaverse fell and that they spent $80 billion on a folly that was never going to work. If you talk to one single person about what being a person is like, they could have told you. In fact, they did tell you, but you decided that you knew better.

Yep, yep. The idea as well, because it was just another attempt to reinvent the chat room. And this just goes on and on. You know, like there's this odd idea that tech pros always have, which is what would make the human condition better? the thing I've got shares in, that'll do it.

Well, I mean, all the money's in platforms now, right? You don't longer have a business. That's a business is just millions of dollars, maybe billions of dollars. But if you want, if you want tens of billions of billions of dollars, what you want is a platform where you can get businesses and customers to match, make with one another, and then you bring them together. And then you tear them apart and make them pay to get closer together. And then you tear them apart and make them pay more to get closer together.

And then you give people a platform where the only thing that, The platform offers is the opportunity to buy stuff on your platform instead of the places that they normally buy stuff. And it turns out doesn't work. Because also gives you a headache. And I brings us to your ad section. Your ad section now because you can't be what you can't buy. And this section of the show is brought to you by the name Liz. Is it short for Elizabeth or could it be short for lizard?

Give her a frightens. Find out if her tail falls off. Liz. And are you being attacked by a man in armour? If so, the best defence is rust. Rust. All you need is half a glass of water and a time machine. And that brings us to our next story,

which is people fighting the good fight in Odessa, old people getting dressed up in fancy clothes as a way of expressing their defiance against the grim, dreariness of ongoing war. if Stevenson, you're the most glamorous person in this Zencastle room, can you tell us a bit more about this story? Sure, I mean, I'm definitely the fashion correspondent whenever I appear on any of the Bugleverse podcast, let's just say it that way.

But this is basically the ultimate in dopamine dressing. And if you don't know what dopamine dressing is, it's where sad women in their 30s and 40s, I include myself as one of those. You put on a rainbow because everything's a bit shit. So this is just like next level of that where people are actually dying. I think the only humane thing to do is wear a hat at a jaunty angle whilst missiles are flying over your head. And we should all just start wearing the best clothes that we have in our wardrobe every day as the apocalypse is coming. There's just no rules anymore.

I think we should all dress up like all the clothes we wanted to wear as kids. I'll start getting on the tube in my tutu until they release the unredacted files. My spandex avocado onesie until they sort out the straight of hummers. You know, we just need to think about like dressing like the end is coming. Yeah, I mean, look, it can be positive, it can be negative, whichever way you put it, you know, I think if we believe that this is as good as it's ever going to be and it's all downhill from here, what are you saving it for? just go hard and go out looking sexy

well like I quite liked it as an expression you know of hope and of humanity but then I scrolled through the article that I had to look at what they were actually wearing and I've been to Camden you know so there was a thing where I was like if there weren't missiles flying into your house you would be the most tiresome hipster f*** but what a wonderful idea but they can't be hipster when they are the OG You got be hipster in your 70s and 80s, which was the people that I saw in the article. So anyone who is hipster is a young person trying to replicate that.

It's kind of like when we bring back the old-fashioned names, you know, like Elsie and Doris and Edith and stuff. You know, that's a slightly more hipster version, isn't it? Oh, I don't know. I think you can absolutely be an OG hipster because you tell me that those people who have survived, that other people around weren't just going, take that f***ing, off. Who is that for? The only virtue of that in a war zone is it already looks partially collapsed.

You can use it as a tourniquet if you've got a cravat. That's true. Multiple uses for these kind of things, you know. And also slightly more classy, expensive fabrics are much more breathable. There we go. So you just, it's, it's, they're working in harmony. I think anything stick your lip-y on. Yes.

face the day and go, yeah, I'm doing this. I'm wearing, I'm wearing the entire, you know, wear your bondage gear if you want, whatever it is that floats your boat. I have done that and it does work as a degree of self-defense on the main streets of London. If you, if you're, like, I've done this. It's a wonderful thing to do. But if you go downstairs, because I've, where I've lived, we've had various assemblages of street gangs over the years. But if you go downstairs in the latex dress with big boots on and just maybe a.mastroids, because I've, I've, I've, where I've lived, we've had various assemblages, and just greet them with a hello boys. They part.

They just part like Moses is here. It's wonderful. Yeah, yeah. You don't, why meet it with aggression when you can inflict confusion? Exactly, exactly right. It worked for Psy Duck in the Pokemon games and it'll work now. And that brings us to the news about looking as good as you possibly can. Peptides are everywhere.

John Robertson, you have put some suspicious substances in your body before. Can you unpack this new craze for peptides? About as much as anyone can comprehend the thoughts of a man with a worm in his brain, I certainly can. Whilst I don't want to sound political in any way, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arguably the deadest of the Kennedys, has sort of just come forward with, well, here's a bunch of stuff that under the Biden administration was declared deeply unsafe. And the way that we're going to get around that is just to declare it safe. So, yeah, there's just been a recent spike of people who were very, very afraid of getting injections of COVID vaccines, getting very excited about putting research drugs

into themselves in the name of weight loss and muscle rebuilding. And I was the only part of this that charmed me in any way is I learned the word peptide, as so many of us did from Star Trek the next generation. In an episode in which Deanna Troy becomes a cake, she is a cellular peptide cake with mint frosting. But this somehow is even worse than eating a nightmare version of your counsellor during Wharf's weird alternative universe birthday. This is just more odd stuff from people with a financial interest and some bizarre desire just to jam horse sedatives into themselves.

I mean, look, I didn't know what peptides were. I sort of assumed it was when your energy levels go up and down and your Vim and Vigar for a day received from the peptide going out. But I... The Pactide Rally. Yeah, basically all science now is people on Reddit forums telling each other what happened when they put something up them. This is what we call double blind testing in that people shut their eyes before they inject themselves twice. Yes, and they end up somehow blind in two parts of their body. Yes, I'm with you.

Look, Alice, like just in terms of time and tide, to be honest with you, right? Do you remember about a decade ago when the thing that was being considered a. increasingly stupid was people were just eating tide pods. You know, you remember this? This is the equivalent, but then they have the gall to write a faux scientific treatise about it to their friends and try to sell it, you know? You did mention there, JFK's brainworm, but I think we haven't fully investigated what kind of worm it is.

What if it's a bookworm? It's actually really clever. More likely the tequila worm. Or maybe the glowworm. I don't know if you had glow worms, but it was like a toy that would tuck you into bed at night. I had a father. Sorry.

But bear that in mind. It just, we don't know. And I know that they're on this maha journey of Make America Healthy again. And we saw JFK Jr. And kids stay under your rock doing. Sorry. And whence you crawls. But, you know, they did a video where they were in a sauna for unknown reasons or unspecified reasons wearing 501s.

In a sauna, taking a cold plunge. And everyone was like, name this band. And I think I went with not wet, wet, wet. I'm dry, dry. That's what I feel like right now. So, I mean, it's well in the wellness arena. the biohacking. And look, I have to say, I do, I do have an interest in a side of the, you know, I take a

collagen supplement and, you know, I'm sort of interested in NAD supplements and all this kind of stuff. And I do think that there is some, I mean, it needs more money and research into it. I think so much healthcare and that is here, and I would say in America as well, is based around the idea of treating stuff when it comes up as opposed to longevity. or like general health. So it would be good. But it would be great to not have absolute lunatics at the forefront of it, you know.

But people are just buying it online. You can get something called glow stack, Wolverine stack. So you've got peptide stacking, creatine loading, salt or flushing, biohacking. I'm a nightmare. Thank you very much. Yeah. Look, all of this is the latest face of the weight loss pills that I used to take in my early 20s because, you know, the media does a terrible job on everyone's sense of

self. And the only thing that made those good is they were obviously speed and I loved them. Amphetamins. They were amphetamins. That's exactly what they were. I don't bring it was on it. And I'll tell you what, he would like really go around and hoover the flat. So I was like, I'll take it. The washing up's all been done. Yes. So we've taken the. So we've taken this massive swing from people in power pretending to be more serious than they actually are and having all of these revealed depths of depravity and hypocrisy under the surface to these people who are performatively trolling, putting on jeans and getting in the soreness that you can pay attention to that and assume that that is a presentation of their authentic self,

they have to be presenting their authentic self. It is so deranged. It has to be their authentic self. But in reality, it is just another smokescreen in order to do whatever it is they're doing in the background, which is, you know, fiddling, fiddling with the, fill of the rights and with children and the, and the peptides and the whole bloody thing. It's all being driven by these online memes and Reddit forums

and four chan men who've only grown up very slightly, putting their, you know, sweaty little fingers on the levers of power. And then, you know, on the other hand, at the same time, we all feel like we want to be a part of the cutting-edge future of tech and what if we're in medicine and what if we're ahead of the game? Wouldn't that be fun if we were ahead of the game? That'd be nice. Yeah, it'd be lovely.

I have a fun game that I play whenever I see a bunch of people starting to do their own kind of amateur, you know, like amateur surgeries and, you know, just injecting things that are labeled for research purposes only, which is you sit there and you go, give that 10 years. See you in a minute. call me when your face has fallen off that would be great if they just actually listed that as a side effect so you knew what was you're in for side of it might cause face falling off

well do you both remember when like the big chemical like the big sort of chemical health scare was when it was illicit drugs coming out of Russia do you remember like illicit street drugs from Russia Crocodile do you remember this oh no I've not heard of this yeah the big thing about

Crocodile was that it was essentially had a side effects very similar to flesh eating virus, right? So it was just people going, this is Natalia. Her nose has fallen off due to crocodile. And I'm like, my God, if they just let the American government get a hold of that, there'd be millions of people using it now going, this is good for me. I lost about 10 grams. It was all just up here in the nostrils, but nevertheless. I remember when I was four years old and my brother and I found a sun-bleached can of metamusole on the beach. We used it to make potions, which was a great thing if you stirred it into water and then put like rocks and leaves in.

It would harden into a sort of a transparent jelly, which was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. But even at the age of four, my brother and I knew better than to eat it. And that brings us to our next story also about beauty. this is the rise and fall of the run fluencer, not a diarrhea influencer, but a person who goes running in a performative way, inspiring others on social media to feel like they also have gone for a run

by watching them do all of the running things. And as with so many influencers, it's a pipeline to monetization of everything. Tiff Stevenson, you've bought a pair of shoes before. Can you unpack this story for us? I've bought, I've actually just bought a new pair of running trainers. However, I was given a running machine. I was gifted by Roger Black.

I think he might even be a Sir Roger Black. I don't know. The Olympic medal winning athlete who I did House of Games with. And I'll tell you what, this running machine is a very, very good clothes hanger. It just has a lot of jackets and jumps. and jumpers draped over it. It's incredible for

clothing storage. I have used it a couple of it. It's a really good running machine. I like it. It's just, I don't have enough space here to do it. But I, you know, I used to really,

really enjoy running, but I didn't even know there was such a thing as a run fluencer until I, I'm in the wrong corners of the internet, clearly. I don't know about the metaverse. I don't know about run fluencers.

But I do know that that's, as long as there's been social media, one of the points of social media is when you exercise, you must share a photo of yourself exercising. Otherwise, it's like the exercising didn't happen. And it's actually almost more important to share a photo of yourself going to the gym or exercising than it is to actually do the exercising. People will share their entire workouts.

I don't want to see, by the way, I don't want to see that. I don't want to see you working out. I'd literally rather watch you have a wank. Like it feels less. I don't actually know I wouldn't. I don't send me your videos of you wanking. I guess I'm saying it feels like it's one of those things you could keep to yourself. I don't need to see a video of you working out.

I'll just trust. Well, to be fair, isn't every video that anyone posts themselves online, a video of themselves wanking? It's all quite. Onanism is, yeah. Oh, yeah. As a sort of aging Christian schoolboy, It made me so happy to hear oninism again.

Welcome back. Bring it back. We need to start, you know, they're talking about Make America Healthy again. Let's just bring some of the old. Yes. Ah, the sound of one hand fapping, yes. Onanism is where you give a zinger to a noob. Yes, but it's when you spell onanism with a zero.

Basically, what's happening is these run fluences are getting these large followings by showing themselves in the process of running, but then by definition you cannot run all of the time. And so they have to sort of start pretending that they're running more than they are running, falsifying results, downplaying injuries, because eventually if it becomes your job to be a run fluencer, then you have a cascading pipeline of various products that you're meant to be shilling from day to day to people who then start to feel kind of overwhelmed and stressed out by the fact that they're not meeting your level of running, even though running is your job. So, you know, not wildly wholesome content, even though it started in quite a nice place.

I'm just like, hey, I'm going for a run. We're the victims of our own everything. Well, they're actually on the video of the woman who's got the stress fracture, which she's described it, how stress fracture gave. happened and I was like I don't I don't think you can put the gate in there what you're showing me is just a video of how the stress fracture happened not not a conspiracy or a theory behind how you manufactured your own injury gee Gordon Liddy didn't fuck up a burglary just to hear this ruined oh god she's Australian guys

she's Australian the runner in question oh that's of no great surprise, we roll in appalling health influences. Then they make a Netflix film about them. Good God. This is a PSA here. Save the environment. Recycle your jokes. And that brings us to our final story, which is a sad one, but we have to think here about the impacts that people have had on science and technology.

Chuck Norris has died last week at the age of 86. and so that feels simultaneously tragic and complicated too soon and like he should have kicked death in the teeth with a high high kick in some way John Robertson I know you've watched a lot of Chuck Norris doing Chuck Norris Can you tell us a bit more about the life of this man Chuck Chuck Norris is a man who when he was alive I once saw referred to by the phrase, a poor man Stephen Segal.

So the idea that in death, I've just read the Guardian's live coverage of him, in which somebody talked about his gravitas in film and the way that he was a compelling actor and all of this seems incredibly obscene and a lie. He was a man who once participated of what could be described as only a Caucasian remand, make of the karate kid called sidekicks, where he was the Mr. Miyagi figure, but was also just

Chuck Norris. So it was just a boy in a karate competition. Oh, if only he could find an older man to team up with. Fortunately, international badass Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris in every universe, but the indication of his impressive athletic regimen and limited acting range. because, you know, this was a guy who generally people seem to have enjoyed him as a person. He was a person that the internet picked up and made a meme out of back when that was a fun activity and not directly contributing to the downfall of democracy. And as with all, as with all actors, at one point or another, somebody says, oh, and this is that man's politics. And you go, really? Walker, Texas Ranger has some f***ed ideas?

I never would have considered this. It is an extraordinary proportion of men whose job is being action stars who think that they're tough, even though their job is to have makeup on and say things that other people have told them to say. Well, see also the miracle of Dean Kane, who was the least successful Superman, who is now a man far removed from the days when he had to work out and diet and was Superman. and he is now convinced that he is the king of law enforcement. It's like, no, no, no, Dean, you were an actor and you were barely that. Good Lord.

Oh, yeah, he's ice now, isn't he? Oh, sure, sure, yeah. In exactly the same way that, you know, Stephen Segal became a lawman, you know, or tried to do it in real life. Very sad. Mark Wahlberg said 9-11 would have gone down differently if he'd been on one of the planes. Look, this stuff fascinates me. You know, like when it turns out that the only one who had their head screwed on even remotely was Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, is astonishing to me that the Terminator was the one it was like, I could run a state.

I was actually able to run a state. Jesse the Body Ventura was able to run Minnesota, the man most famous for the words, I ain't got time to bleed, you know. I kind of understand it as an actor, thinking, you know, like I've watched, I've actually watched so much Grey's Anatomy. I've watched so many medical dramas. I actually diagnosed a case of encephalitis. Oh. Yeah, on one medical drama because I'd seen it on another. So I do actually think I could be a general surgeon.

I've watched enough. I think it's interesting how they've described Chuck Norris as well because it says in this O bit of him, it says, it just sounds like they're describing a comedian. For one, he was a rugged individualist, a fighter on an off screen, who symbolised the international cultural influences. And, you know, that is many, many, yeah, combined B-movie campiness and ubiquity

that defined a potent form of sweaty masculinity in the late 20th century. I mean, if that's not describing most American stand-ups. Yeah. Also, I challenge this use of the word ubiquity, because it was incredibly easy to avoid watching a Chuck Norris film. They weren't good. No one ever accidentally saw a Chuck Norris film. They were played at about 3 a.m. on the television if they're played at all.

If they're available on demand, you don't see them because there's no demand for them. You know? God. Just when we talk about Chuck Norris memes, they might have been the last incidents of actual jokes being written by the internet. because that's what they were. They're all quite charming. Jack Norris doesn't do push-ups.

He pushes the ground down. You know, people are working on their type five here. That brings us to the end of this week's episode of The Gargle. A slightly short episode because I am in Melbourne at the International Comedy Festival. I don't have time to bleed. John Robertson, can you tell me, have you got anything to plug? Certainly. My show, The Dark Room, the Lime, the Lime,

live action video game is on permanent tour. It'll be in the UK, the US and Australia. This year, you can find all details at www. Thejohn Robertson.com. Just click on live dates. Find me in an area that's near you. All my social media is on there. And to Stevenson, where can people find you online?

I will be on Instagram mainly, although I've got to say, posting stuff on there at the moment feels a bit like sort of throwing a penny down a well but I'm sticking with it. I mean, you can find me, I'm on TikTok. I got a lot of followers and then stop posting, which is not really what you're supposed to do.

But you can find me on there on Instagram and various other social media platforms. And I've got tour dates coming up. I've got, I'm doing the 10th and 11th of April at Pohoehae Theatre with my show post, Coitle. I'll also be in Edinburgh on the 4th of April. So if you're listening in Edinburgh, Easter Sunday, I'll be doing my show.

It's what Jesus would have wanted. So you can see it there. And I'll be in Belfast on May the 6th. So try and come and see me at any of those dates. Fantastic. I will be in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival running my show, A Passion for Passion, and my new work in progress,

which is called, Oh, Man, at 6pm and 9 p.m. every night for the first two weeks. And then I'll only be doing the 6 p.m. show For the second two weeks of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Join me in my writer's meetings over at patreon.com slash Alice Fraser at any level you can join my twice weekly writers meetings. If you're working on anything from poetry to a novel to academic writing, it's just a really nice group of people and we get together when we write some stuff together and then we do a

little workshop and it's great fun. So feel free to come and lurk for a few sessions until you feel confident enough to join in. And that is all I have to plug because this is a beautiful podcast and Alice Fraser production. Your editor is Harry Gordon. Your executive producer is Chris Skinner, and I'll talk to you again in two weeks, unless you listen to Realms Unknown, in which case I'll talk to you again next week.