The Vergecast - Facist papa color

Episode Date: January 15, 2016

This week on The Vergecast, Dieter Bohn is joined by Emily Yoshida, Nicola Fumo, and Sean O'Kane as the panel checks in for the first time since CES 2016. The topics of discussion include the 2016 Detroit Auto Show, Oscar nominations, and bad tech fashion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings mobile accomplishers. Greetings mobile accomplishers. Welcome to the Vergecast. Today is January 14th, 2016. I am Dieter Bone. Nelai is away doing something very special and secret, but I am joined by people that are way more interesting than him. Aw.

To my left is Emily Ishida. Hello. I also have Sean O'Kane. Hi. And Nicholas in the hype seat. Hello. You just survived your first CES. I did.

Congratulations. Thank you. You need to hype check CES. Holy bye. It's the worst. It's the right response. Everyone was like, oh, we go to this thing in Vegas for two weeks. It totally sucks.

And I was like, no way. There's no way two weeks in Vegas could totally suck. No. Have you been to Vegas? Like outside of CES. Okay, yes, yes, yes. But I was like, nah, I can make it fun. Three days, Matt.

I believe in myself so much, I'm like, I can make it fun. I can make anything fun. That's my thing. I have fun. How'd you do? I didn't have fun. Did you stay in the Marriott? Yes.

Okay. So it's not Vegas. No. It's super far from Vegas. That's what I kept. People kept being like, how's Vegas? I'm like, I'm not in Vegas. I'm at CES.

I had to get there super early because I didn't want to fly all the way back to New York before I went to Las Vegas. And since we're at this Marriotta in the middle of nowhere, I'm like, I want to have a drink and there's nowhere to go.

So I walk like 20 minutes, found a Walgreens, bottle of handle vodka, and like, walked sadly back to my hotel. They sell wine in a jar. I had it. It's terrible. In the lobby.

The stackable? Yeah. It's also sitting in the fridge all day and all night. Yeah. It's like not great. I would say the best escapade though is when we like a dozen of us split into small groups and tried to break into the hot tub at the neighboring Marriott Residence. Oh my God.

And then all like lost each other in a very like a very like it was like a horror film that we did wind up. Got real summer campy. Yeah. Yeah. Should have been having like doing a found footage video for it. We should have. Yeah. Next year.

Yeah. That was the appropriate response to you for CES, by the way. Breaking into a hot tub? No. Oh my God. It sucks. Oh, yeah. No, it sucks.

Whatever. I love it. It's the best. Yay for you. You guys are terrible. But we're not going to talk about CES anymore because it's over and painful. And we have like four podcasts in the in the podcast stream in the field that you can list do.

I know that some of them where downloads are broken for a while, but it should all be fixed. Apologies for that. But we do have news to. Today, which I should be excited about, Oscar nominations. You should have opinions about it, which I guess is sort of the same thing as being excited about something. I have a few opinions. So, I don't know, do you want to tell us about the Oscar nominations? Do you want me to start listing off movies?

Oscars nominations, Revenant got 12 nominations. Revenant, yay, it's the best movie. Lernerner, DiCaprio, is he going to win it's Oscar? I don't know. It's a big question. Oscar fever. Whiteness. Yeah, okay.

that's a lot to take in. No, it's not really. It's like there's one movie and then there's some other ones and a bunch of white people. Is Revenant really that good that it deserves this much? I was going to say, you seem to be obfuscating. Your real feelings about this movie because you definitely know. It's not good. Have you seen it?

No, I have not. It's, you know, I wasn't a big fan of Birdman. It's weirdly very similar. The way that I don't like it is very similar to the way I don't like Birdman. Birdman. There's no point to Birdman other than like a man's struggle. And like it's very specific. So it's not,

there's nothing very universal about it. I'm going to spoil Birdman. Birdman was great until the last scene. I was like, oh, this is garbage. I was like, oh my God, this is going to be dark. It's going to be great. Yeah. And everything's going to fall apart.

And then, uh-huh. There's, open to interpretation. No, it's not. No, I know, but that's what they hang it on. It's like. There's something very similar that happens in the last scene of Revenant where it's like, you know, this is.

It's exciting. The bear like breaks and then it was like, just kidding, we're friends. Gotcha. No, it's, it's, there isn't really a point up until then, but you're like, oh, it's going to be really satisfying revenge story at least. Yeah. And then you don't even really get that. Oh, God. Spoilers.

Spoilers. I won't be specific about it because it's not really, I can't really spoil the ending, but it's still, it's just, it's not, it's not, I think that Emmanuel Lubaski for sure does our. serves an award for cinematography for it because it is a great looking movie. It looks fantastic and he's my favorite cinematographer, cinematographer, which is not a very difficult opinion to have. He just is the best. But, yeah, I don't know. There's not a whole lot going on there.

At least we won't have to deal with the same The Martian won Best Comedy. Yeah, yeah. Twitter. Although I got to say, Matt Damon getting a nod for Best Actor in The Martian. I don't know. He was for sure one of the weaker. I mean, he was good, but like, I don't know, that, I came away from that movie really just like, okay, that was like a fun, like feel good. I thought there was going to be way more drama in it.

And maybe it's because it's supposed to be a comedy, but no. It's not supposed to be a comedy. It's not. It was only nominated for political reasons. Just so it could get an homage. And compared to the other sort of space movies that have come out in the last couple years, like gravity, it's, it just felt there were no stakes at any time. Like, they had this wonderful setup. They could have made it feel very.

nerve-wracking. Right. There's no emotional states. Yeah, it should be like very claustrophobic even though you're on a wide open planet and you're the only one there. Like they could play into that so easily and they never did. It was just kind of like I'm a superhero. Yeah. I like the end. I like where he shoots up and he's like not, he's in the unenclosed

little rocket launching thing. Yeah, that was that's cool. There were some great touches. By the way, different from the book. Better than the buck. He gets off of Mars. They bring him home. Yeah, no, I didn't like that movie either. I have to look through and see what I actually liked it okay. Well, let's look at the list. Okay. Big Short. Yeah, let's go through and just bring up some highlights. Big Short is for me is like the classic, I'll get it when I can stream it. Big Short is terrible, but I, I liked it.

It's where I'm at. It's, um, it, so these are trends. I'm, I'm, I'm an observer of trends. Okay. 2015 was a great year for process oriented movies. Yeah. Spotlight, the Martian, and the Big Shorter, like the biggest examples of this, but just like trusting that an audience wants to know the nitty, gritty details of every single step in doing a thing, whether that's like planning potatoes out of feces or, uh, or, you know, bringing down the Catholic church. That was, those, those were both really weird moments in Mad Max Fury Road. Oh man. Man Max Fury Road too. That's my favorite best picture nomination. Oh yeah. It's fantastic. I mean, that's, that actually seems like a genuine like critics were just

unanimous in their praise of it and they actually got through in a way where it's like nobody cares about the Danish girl or something and that still manages to find its way into every single category and I'm like I'm saying this to some of you saw the Danish girl it is not a good movie

it's not like it's really kind of as it gets further and further along the Oscar road it seems more and more of like a nakedly political Oscar bid type thing What, okay, so fill me in on what Bridges Spies was because that's, I'm looking at,

oh, where you like, visits. I'm reading that title and I'm like, East Berlin. Wasn't that a movie that came out in like 2011? But now I remember. Yeah,

I saw it on the plane and that's like, seeing that, seeing Bridges Spies on the plane is the best place to see, see it. It's like, well, I got this. It says a lot about an Oscar nominee.

I mean, it's a fine movie, but it's like whatever. Well, seeing it on a plane is very similar to seen in a theater, except it's like a little less voluntary. Yeah. But you're stuck.

somewhere and you can't go anywhere else or like pick up your phone necessarily I mean you could but like if you're sitting there in front of a screen it's like right here well also and this might just be me and I'm a I'm a prude from Minnesota but like Bridges spies is a safe plane bet because you know there's not going to be like a gratuitous sex scene oh man I will never forget the time I watched an episode of girls on a plane oh boy the episode of girls that opens with a very specific sex act like smash cut right into it. I was like, sorry everybody. Oh, that one.

Oh, wow. I went to Amsterdam a few months ago, and on the plane there, it's like 10 o'clock at night, completely full plane, it's an international flight, and so everybody gets free movies apparently, and everybody's watching complete uncensored 50 Shades of Grey. Oh, wow. Everybody. That's like a... That's like the one that everybody's like, well, I'll get around to this someday.

Talk about a shared experience. I mean, I can't imagine. Imagine what like waiting for the line for the bathroom after that is where everybody's just kind of like, so what did you think about? Oh, it's not sexy though. It's like really, really weirdly clinical. I don't know. Especially for people from Amsterdam, they're going to be like, oh, what is this American, you know, cheesecake? I don't know. Do you do you have something that you hope wins best picture? Because the two big ones are best picture of this director, the two biggest. Yeah, I want George Miller to win everything. Yes. For everything. Yes. Yes. Um, my other favorite of these nominees, uh, is Spotlight. I love Spotlight.

Spotlight a movie I should commit to going in the theater. That's not a classic, like I can, I can see it when it's available to screen. It's not something you need to see on the big screen, but it's, it's, it's, I think there is something that's effective about being in a theater with a big screen, having that concentrated thing because it is so detailed that you want to just like hunker down and focus solely on it. There are a lot of really great performances in spotlight, right? And just getting them in that format, like Mark Ruffalo.

I remember for the first, like, five minutes, I was just like, man, this is, he's really going after this role and playing it up. And by the end of it, I was so glad that I saw it in that format. Yeah. I also saw, so I saw spotlight and room in the same day. Tell me about a room. I know nothing about room. Room is based on a book that a lot of people read. I did not read it. So I wasn't, like, as prepared for what it was.

Oh, this movie. Yeah. It's got Brie Larson in it. That doesn't help anybody. Probably going to win. It should probably actually explain what it's about rather than just me saying, oh, yeah, I remember. this one? Oh, I'm looking at Google results. She, pre-Larsen won for best

actress for the Golden Globes. She'll probably win it for this. She's really good in it. It's a movie where it's like so specific, the situation that like it didn't really get me when I was watching it because it's like, this is such a specific problem to have. I'm really trying hard to like feel this. We should tell people what the specific problem is.

Right. She gets abducted when she's 16. I think it's supposed to be. and is like in a confined room by this, her captor who like she has a kid. And, uh, his her captor son and then eventually they break out. Um, and then she has to return to the world.

And it's, it's a really, um, like I said, it was specific, but, uh, it sounds very law and ordery, like ripped from the recent headlines of the last couple years.

I mean, the, the most interesting thing is everything that happens after they get out and like how the two characters deal with it. differently. It's like a dark unbreakable Kimi Schmidt. It totally is. Well, that's like a knock on Kimi Schmidt

that a lot of people have. It's like, this is actually a really traumatic thing. But that show is actually pretty honest about how horrible the situation is. But yeah, I actually thought a lot about that movie though for the next week after I saw it. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It's not my favorite

by any means of anything that came out this year, but I still, I think it's good. I think it's worth seen. As someone who looks at, I mean, we were talking, we mentioned really quickly earlier about sort of the politics of this and there is also some controversy that came out with these nominations today. Someone who has come around on award shows in the last like a couple years, like four or five years really thinking of like, oh, it's just politics. Like, why would I ever want to care about them? You know, I still watch like sort of, and I don't have cable anymore. So it's like I watched

the Twitter reaction to it and I kind of follow along to that on the night of. But like, why should I care about the Oscars and or like how should I view them? Yeah, that's a very good question. We talked about it on my podcast with Liz Lovato, Virg ESP, which is coming back this week, every week, every week. But we talked about this a little bit because it does seem like one of these things where it's like, how can you not just not watch this out of complete cynicality? I, I have a different answer this time because the first time I was like, well, it kind of influences what gets made and what gets seen is important. It's like a good bellwether for like, what did we think was important at the movies this year.

Like, whether or not that's actually reflective of anything real, it's interesting to see what, like, the Hollywood establishment thinks was important that year. Like, not important in terms of money necessarily, but important in terms of, like, issues and, like, hot filmmakers or whatever. This time I'm going to say, because in light of these nominees, I'm going to say the Oscar nominations are just, like, a giant wall of establishment to just chip at from, like, all angles. because it's crazy.

I tweeted this morning. I was like, oh, the Academy isn't reading our essays. What? Like, because, I mean, I think everybody's like, wait, like, people are writing so much. Everybody, like, in our profession and, you know, in other professions as well, are constantly commenting on the lack of diversity within Hollywood, and it feels like we're a broken record. I'm like, okay, eventually, this year they'll get it.

They'll hear us, and it doesn't matter yet. But hopefully it will someday. It just seems insane, like, especially because we just have seen, like, the most successful movie in America all time now is Star Wars, which is led by three non-white actors. Yeah, yeah. And, like, so far so that, like, it's become, like, that everybody kind of grabbed a hold of that idea. And now a couple weeks later, it's already turned into, like, the meme that I see the most

on Facebook, which is, like, oh, you know, Hollywood never thought we could lead a movie with a woman and a non-white person. And it's like the picture of Finn. Two non-white people. Yeah. So it's like that one picture of Finn and Ray. Yeah, yeah. It's really funny that, not funny, it's terrible.

That like that could reach such a critical level. And then something like this could happen today because you're like, oh, man. Well, this is the thing that's fascinating is it's like, you, like now actually blockbuster movies like what we think of as being like, you know, the biggest movies, whether that Star Wars and like, you know, a lot of Marvel stuff. is getting pretty good at this. It's still not great, but it's getting there. It's inching there.

And still this prestige part of Hollywood is really, really behind the times. And I, like, I don't know. There's, I've talked about Danish girl before. I feel like in some other capacity. But it's the crash of, like, the trans moment of 2015. It's so, it's so, it's so, it's so, dull. It's so just hitting all the right notes. So it's like, we did an important movie

you guys, which is like really unfortunate because there was such a better, if you wanted to pick if you had to pick a trans movie to make it like a topical, cool Oscars this year. We had tangerine which was like an incredible film. Wait, that was this year only? It was last year. Yeah, so it was

all right. And they campaigned. They should have. They should have. Okay, so that they were robbed. Who else was robbed? Oh, well, Creed was Michael B. Jordan. Yeah. And Ryan Googler were both shut out. What else? Julie was robbed.

Charlize Theron didn't get it for Mad Max or Best Actress. That's garbage. Yeah, there's a few. I don't know my computer is locked again. Oh, because I have a cap's lock on. There are a few that didn't. Well, I mean, Carol got all these award nominations and then didn't get Best Picture which, you know, I'm not

terribly passionate about that film, but it's very, very good. And I don't know that it's like I don't know that the Revenant or Bridge of Spies is better than it. Like, you know, I don't know. There's, you can pick almost anything to complain about within the Oscars and it'll all be there for you. There's just, I just, I feel like, Tangerine is the biggest one where it was like, oh, they're actually doing a campaign. Like, like, their distributor is actually like paying for money to put the seed in people's heads that like maybe, the two leads from it should have

been nominated for supporting or for best actress. It just got nowhere. No, no. Nicola. Hi. How's it going? I didn't see any movies this year. A lot of these are Netflix movies.

Well, did you watch the Golden Globes? No, I was on an airplane. Oh, man. I was going to have you hype check that Golden Globes. They were terrible. I heard it was. Yeah, it was rough. I was still checking in.

So fun. I had Wi-Fi. I was on Twitter and I was like in the racked lounge like while we were doing our coverage, but I couldn't actually see it. Yeah. Yeah. It's just. I mean, that's how I watch award shows now.

If I do watch them. I know. Just like following the reaction and having fun with that. I'm, I realized this last week. They always got so late. Yeah. But I can't remember what news broke, but there's just something about, oh, it was the El Chapo thing.

Oh, yeah. Like, I don't even care what the specifics are, but reaction Twitter, like, that first five to maybe 25 minutes is like it's like the best drug that's available right now like watching people yeah watching people try to come up and and i play part in it too everybody does mostly but uh that whole dynamic is just so much fun who can make the best joke yeah or like just even sussing it out like the l chapel thing was funny because new york times was immediate with their sort of like here's what's important from this crazy article from rolling Stone. And it was being passed around so much in that first five minutes that it was almost

hard to tell who actually had the Sean Penn interview. Because I was like, oh, New York Times hired Sean Penn to interview El Chappa. What? That, like, mayhem was so much fun. My version of that was Kanye Real Friends, where my personal Twitter feed just exploded pictures of Kanye next to anything that he's ever been next to with the caption Real Friends, which is perfect. It is perfect. It's like the best part of the echo chamber that we create for ourselves on Twitter. Jokes. It's all about riffing.

It's all about the riff. People are getting creative and being themselves. We have to address the Leonardo thing. Don't we? It's like old and tired. It's been old and tired for like five years. It's like a self-perpetuating machine of a story at this point. I just, I don't think he's a good actor.

I think he's bad in most things that he's ever been in, except for Romeo and Juliet. Ooh. Well, hang on what about you? Island. He's such a joke in that movie. The accent. Oh, my God.

No, I was thinking about this because I was like, you know, sometimes when I have very strong opinions anti a person or especially somebody who does something creative, if they're an artist of some sort, I really don't like Leonardo DiCaprio. I was like, what I have, if I met him, Sarah's like out of bar. And so I was like, oh, Emily, you've got to meet Leonardo DiCaprio. Like, oh, yeah, he's like, you know, going for his Oscar this year. Like, tell him good luck or whatever. Like, would I have the gut?

to say like, oh yeah, I don't like think you're that great. And I wouldn't, but I was thinking I would tell him, it looked like you had fun in the revenue. That would be, I thought about this this morning. If I had to have a conversation with him, it was like, I would be like, that looked like fun. Because it did. It just looked like like going to extreme summer camp or something, winter camp. But I don't know.

I mean, he's really just like that's the ultimate, that's like the male version of like get the ugly makeup on. and gain weight and stuff. Like, go do something extreme in the outdoors. It's monster. Yeah, yeah. It's totally the male version of monster. And he doesn't even have to get that ugly.

He just has to get, like, have all this gunk all over his lips. I thought it was really funny that I still haven't seen The Revenant, but it took until a couple weeks into it being released that they really pulled the focus back from him. I really thought this was going to be something like the road or like even grizzly man where it was like, because you heard so much about him and the bear and survived. driving in the woods. And so I was like, oh, it's this story of, like, this guy who, like, gets lost and, like, needs to find his way home or something.

There's, like, a lot of, like, other people in the movie? Step pieces, yeah, there are other people. Like, they totally focused the marketing just on him. Yeah, yeah. Which, like, obviously. But I had no, like, distorted the idea of what the picture was going to be. Yeah. Just through the marketing.

No, it's, it's, I think that the biggest achievement of that movie is, is the setting and the cinematography. And there's, like, a really amazing battle scene, like, really early on that's just incredibly well shot and that's that's stuff that's actually genuinely cool in it i was just thinking that the people who got nominated because revenant got nominated for best makeup people who did best makeup should win for best actor if lena nod art who can't do that would be great he did a lot of like yeah there's a lot of goo um bizarre ohsars i'm getting yelled out on twitter i'm not saying that the movie the martian is better than the book i'm just saying the ending of the martian

is better than the book's ending that's all i'm saying I heard the book was really boring. No, you're tired, wrong. Also, you're mean. The book was written by a former web OS engineer. I know. I know. I don't know.

I don't know that I necessarily am like chomping at the bit to read a novel by a former web OS engine. Maybe I'm wrong. Speaking of WebOS, I know we said we weren't going to talk about CES, but Dieter got married at CES this year. Wait, what? Oh, Emily didn't know this. I didn't know.

Oh, welcome to the best thing. What? Yeah. Is that like made out of titanium? Was that made out of like a melted down Macbook? No, it was $10 on Amazon Prime. Oh, there you go. I think it's tungsten.

Yeah, it's tungsten. Oh, that's cool. Deeter is going to get like actually married later this year with a big ceremony, but him and his wife. But that was the official. Surprise. Well, that was that we needed papers because we're getting married out of the country and the paperwork would have been a hassle.

It was the final day of CES and they all just like booked it from the hotel, dressed up nice. And I was like, boy, they're going out to an editor's dinner real early, aren't they? Like 3 p.m. And next thing you know, an hour later, Dieter's got a picture on Instagram with a marriage license. Where did you go? The Chapel of the Bells.

I don't know. I've never been married in Vegas, so I wouldn't know it. I've never heard of it. That you remember. The best part about getting married at a tiny chapel in Las Vegas is they won't let you take pictures inside. So they literally tell people, like, put your phones away. They shoot the video themselves. Like, do you want a DVD of your wedding?

Oh, that's nice. How much is $100? It's just way too much money. And then they wanted it. Like 30 or like 100? It was like 100. God. And then that's cheaper than hiring of wedding photographer.

Then there was a photographer, which they wouldn't let anybody else take pictures in the thing. So then we were like, okay, take some pictures, whatever. And that was like, you know, $300 or something if I want those photos. But the photos come on one of those little mini CDs. Do you remember those? Wait, like a minidisc? No, like it's a CD, but it's half the width. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

like GameCube. The kind that you're afraid to stick into your, you know, slot drive. Yeah, it'll get lost. By the way, I have to go to Amazon and buy a DVD player for my computer because I don't have anything that reads DVDs. Oh, yeah. That's a growing problem. I have to, like, rip the video. Whatever.

Anyway. I don't know where to go from that. So, yeah, that was the big news of CES. That's very, very cool. That was the biggest news of CES. Yeah. I want to know what Nicola thinks about the Oscars. Have you not seen any of the movies?

Is there anything interesting to watch at the Oscars? Yeah, do you watch the Oscars? I will for professional and spectacle reasons, and also just to be a part of the now. Wow, there you go. The now? I just want to belong. Nicola just handed Fox Media a new slogan.

Be a part of the now. Be a part of the now. Oh, we hate that. Yeah, no, I'll watch. I'll watch the red carpet for sure, and I'll probably watch the beginning and then I'll get bored and tired and stop watching.

So you find the red carpet to be more entertaining than the show itself? It's part of my job. I gotta know what the people are wearing at the things because it's influencing the other people and...

What was the best of last year? It was Lupita, right? I don't even remember. I'm not a big celebrity person. The red carpet is a chore. It's like a thing I have to do. It's not like a... Do you watch it on mute?

So you don't have to listen to what's her name? No, I usually, all of us, Racked Girls get together, we watch it together. Yeah. And, like, tweet and stuff. The hardest thing about watching the Oscars when you have to work during it is, like, regulating your alcohol intake. Actually, last year we watched in the Verge area, like on a Sunday when the heat was turned off.

And there was, it was just like three of us. It looked like the revenue. I brought canned champagne. Yeah, I had champagne. That's what I remember the Instagram we took. I don't really remember what happened. So the best dress on the red carpet last year was you guys in the verge room. Yes, popping bottles.

Okay. Well, this year, somewhere in Vox Media's office are a couple of slankets that got sent to us. Wow. By like Slim Jim that I think we haven't thrown away yet. They like just sent us slinkets. There you guys. The weird thing about those Slanket, slim gym slinkets is that I feel like they must be scented like Slim Jim. Yeah, they must be.

Like that's a part of the product. Which sounds horrible. No, we're going to have an Oscar party at the verge office. Really? Yeah. Can I come? Yeah. Okay.

Everybody can come. But you have to produce one piece of content. I can do that. But it probably has to also run on racks. We can figure it out. It's like bringing a canned food item. Yeah, yeah. It's a white elephant party, but with content.

Everyone donate one piece of content. I'm trying to think of one other thing I can bring up about. the Oscars that's important or that people should pay attention to. There's a lot, like, a lot of the documentaries, I feel like, you can watch online. Yeah. Which is cool. I feel like I always want to, like, support the smaller categories, short animated films, short, short films, documentaries. It's hard to see a lot of these things because there's, like, they are at film festivals.

Like, that's where you see them. Right. Yeah, this show, it's easy to forget that this show really does kind of make or break some of those. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have a friend who I went to film school with, with Trey, who has a nominated documentary. Oh, my God. Chow Beyond the Lines, root for that. But, yeah, she, I mean, she's been working on that forever.

And, you know, it's like five seconds out of most Oscar viewers' attention, but it's like a huge, life-changing thing for a filmmaker. So I always try to, you know, highlight those wherever we can. We have a great interview with Sanjay Patel, who did the Pixar short. that runs at the beginning of Inside Out called Sanjay's Super Team that's on the site and people should read it. It was a really good interview.

Yeah, he's, it was his first short and now it's nominated. Most Pixar films kind of go straight to the Oscar nomination or the short films do, but it's good. It's different than a lot of, like visually and subject-wise. So, yeah, that's one cool thing

that the Oscars do. Sorry, Dennis Carly just stepped down from running Foursquare. Just a big shock to me. Also, Alan Rickman is no longer with us. Yeah, we've started off 2016 with some pretty serious deaths as far as celebrity goes. The David Bowie thing was really weird because I had just gotten into Detroit, which maybe I guess that'll segue us. No, we're not using that segue. No, but I just gotten into Detroit for the Detroit Auto Show from CES.

and I'm sitting there, you know, I was trying to finish up some stuff before I went to bed. I woke back up because, like, good luck sleeping after CES. And I had woken back up, like, right as that was starting to spread on Twitter. And I hopped into Slack to, like, help Rich was the only one on a reporter in Japan. So I'm just trying to help them, like, figure out that problem. You have to figure out with every celebrity death, which is, like, is this real? Did it actually happen? There was already a false alarm, like, a few years ago.

Yeah. And then people, even early, some even entertainment reporters, were trying to do the like stand down. I've talked to his people. It's fine. And they were obviously wrong. So it was a very strange way to just like start the week. Yeah.

No, it was definitely a strange way to start the week. It was like in a legitimately bad mood for that for like the past few days. I was going to say for that day, but now I'm still in a bad mood. Yeah, no, it's it's bad. I don't have anything else I really can say about it. It's just a very, very sad thing. I feel like now it's really, I think it's sobery now as you start to get into like people that's like, oh, I actually like, this isn't somebody that was like my parents person. Like even though Bowie was.

Like, it's like this is somebody that I cared about while I was like, you know, a teenager and in college and stuff like that. And yeah, it's a weird thing to process. Do you see that clip that MTV posted of Bowie yelling at them in like 1982? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, for not having a black artist son. Yeah, that's amazing. and also him predicting the internet in like 2000, or like the

like the social web basically which is insane. I mean, he's like, I want to hesitate from a lot of people are like, oh, he was this amazing alien that came down and landed and stayed with us for a while,

which was like cute. It's like a cute thing. And so like there was a movie and everything. But like, I mean, he was a human. He was a person. He was just very smart

and good at being a person. Like that now we call that being an alien, but you should just be a good person. That's all I have to say about. I have to read an ad at some point in the near future. Do it. Yeah. This is like the worst thing.

No. This is the worst. How do I transition from this to an ad? Just do it. Sorry, Squarespace. Cry. Cry while you listen to this ad. Just because building a website can be tough.

And even if you know. David Bowie would know if you read earlier this week. No, we are not. We are not. He helped the Yankees build their first website. No, no, no, no. Oh my God. Well, you can celebrate what somebody did.

Should we have one buffer topic? We need a buffer topic. Okay. Bring it. Well, let's, or do you have something ready? I'm really trying. No, this, all right, let's talk about these version galactic space suits. Okay, let's talk about these.

Yes, space suits. Perfect. That's perfect. They're not spacesuits. They're flight suits. I actually had a long slack conversation with Nicol this morning to figure out exactly what the hell was going on with this. Y3 is an ongoing collaboration. between Adidas and Yergenio Miano.

It's like very much like it's very fanboy like big with like the hype beasts. Right. And is known for like all black like super minimal. I mean like cool kind of avant-garde, whatever. So yeah. So that's the missing link. That's why I look at it and I think that it's boring. You're like, oh, this is high fashion.

That's the Yamamoto look. Yeah. This is like minimalism perfection. Also these goes would go so well with a pair of Yeezys. Yeah. Just throw them on. Put on the moon boots. The news today was that they, that Virgin Galactic, which is, was basically the first company

promising people private space rides. Right. On a space plane that, well, they started promising those years ago. People ponied up $250,000 for tickets. And it's the sort of become the running joke in the space industry because they just sort of keep kicking the can down the road of like, oh, our first flight will be this year. Our first flight will be this year. And then during a test flight last year, their spaceship had a really catastrophic accident.

One of the pilots died. The other one was pretty badly hurt. They've been grounded for a year and a half. They're going to reveal the new look of their new plane, space plane, in February. So they're finally, like, getting back to the point where they want to get back flying again. The news today was that they had partnered with Y3 to make these new flight suits and boots. and they are apparently very fitting with Y3's stuff. They are fire resistant, like all the things you expect from a space, like flight suit.

Right. Fire resistant. They've got like extra tough souls. You know, they're all like brought over from other brands. Extra tough souls? Yeah, so that you can like, you're not going to slip around when you're walking around in the space plane. Okay. And then, you know, like Adidas.

Yeah. Yeah, there's a whole company that like sort of does like outsoles. Oh, is it like the Velcro on the shoes in 2001? I guess. sort of. And then Adidas has its own, like, weird sort of off its main business, its own, like, custom insoles thing. And so, like, that's part of it.

It's like this whole big, let's throw all this stuff into this one pot. Oh, yeah, they have the three stripes on the boots. Yeah. So they announced it today. I think they look kind of boring. Nicola who's really, really hyped about it. Are there a crotch? Like, what would make them exciting?

Yeah. What's an exciting space? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Is there a crotch, sir? Is there a crotch? Yeah, seriously, you can't, you can't. I mean, you can, it zips all the way down basically to your belly button.

So you could. Yeah, but you know, it's below your belly button, the things that you need to go to the bathroom with. Well, I mean, so the whole idea with Virgin Galactic is that you're not going to be up there for a long time. It's a suborbital spacecraft. Like, go before. I mean, I drink a lot of water, man. So, well, yeah, maybe it'll be like Las Vegas where, like, the taxes have a cleanup fee. Do they wear, do they?

It's, like, you pay $250,000 to fly with Virgin Galactic and then, like, maybe an extra 200 if, like, like, you need to. Yeah. I mean, it is a scary flight, I'm assuming. Yeah. I don't know. I'm big on a lot of private space companies, but Virgin Galactic is kind of... It seems like the ultimate example of Richard Branson saying, like, let's make that a thing. And, you know, people just... Make it so. Yeah, people just have to do it because he has a lot of money and, like, that's how his companies work. And they've sort of taken the long road to getting there.

But you know what? They did. They got celebrities on board. They did. That's how you make a brand. They didn't. Yeah, I mean, you could probably make the argument that if Virgin Galactic hadn't really spun up enough interest as it did in the early 2000s, that SpaceX probably wouldn't have been able to get into what it was doing. Yeah, yeah. It would have been harder for Elon Musk to pitch people to invest in SpaceX. I mean, the fact that they made a press hit out of the fact that this is what the clothing that their astronauts will be wearing is like, I mean, it's so virgin of them to do this.

Right. And it's like why, it's like that brand is strong and this is how you do that. How long until I get to buy one of these jumpsuits myself? Well, to me, the most interesting thing was that they are also making a, I love this, a jacket celebrating the collaboration. Oh my God. That will, they will give to the people who are paying to get up. Yeah, to get the, oh my God, the press release itself.

They announced the inclusion of a jacket in a swag bag. You basically. But they didn't show a picture. self a collaboration or is the jacket just like something they ordered off of like American apparel? It might be the latter. It might be the latter. They didn't show it though. I was like, oh, that is the most attainable part of this announcement to me. But the fact that they did a component that the average person can like buy into is like again, just like virgin cleaning it up. Right. They need a really strong logo. What is their logo? Yeah, it is kind of weird. That's the only thing is that I like the design of it. It's kind of like, it's a little,

like it's a little fascist, but it's like, okay. It's a little fashion. It's okay. It needs a good pop a color somewhere. And it can be a very minimal. Just one of its... Oh, pop of color. I'm like, Papa color.

What color is Papa? No, it needs like the red. It needs a fascist Papa color. The red or the purple. Show title, by the way. Fascist Papa color. Oh, yeah, the red. I mean, the red and the purple.

Yeah. Do you think they'll have lighting in the cats? like they do on Virgin America flights because that's the best part of version of the brand. Building a website can be tough. And even if you know your way around coding, making something that looks good and actually works is takes a lot of time. Whether you're making a business site, a portfolio, a restaurant site, or whatever else,

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You get 10% off of your first purchase, and it shows your support of this here, the Vergecast. We want to thank Squarespace for their support of this here, the Vergecast. Squarespace, you should. Too many websites. Just going to put that out there. We should just go back to GeoCities. I felt that, yeah, I was going to say I felt that when it was like Angel Fire days.

Yeah. It's like, it's really that much room for all of these Star Wars fan pages. I came so close. a couple weeks ago to finding I used to run a DBZ, a drag mall Z fan page on Angel Fire. I came so close to finding it. And then I also, in looking for that,

discovered that I also had a Pokemon one that I made. And I found someone's... Is your real name attached to these things? No, but I found my screen name from then. I found... Which is? I'll tell you this. I found someone's Angel Fire page that is still around today that links to...

Because remember, like, that was the thing. It was like, oh, I have a link section. Here's 900 links of other people who told me to link to their site. That link to my Pokemon page, but that I used a URL shortener back then that is a service that doesn't exist anymore. So I found the link, but it goes through the pass-through link, and that thing is dead, so now I can't find it. I was so close. GeoCities might have done this all a huge favor by having that four-digit number. And, like, you know how you built your site?

And it was like, you had the section of it, and then you had the subsection. Yeah. So it was like, I don't know. I think I was on some like Hollywood something or other neighborhood and then a four digit number that was like your address. I will never remember that.

Nobody will ever find it. Angel Fire is like you can download like a GeoCities archive. Yeah. And go trolling through it to find stuff. Oh my God. Yeah, I don't even want that really. I mean I was very prolific.

I was prolific on Geo Cities and Tripod. Those are my two. Too many websites. There was a website which I will not name, which in the, in like the late 90s, early 2000s, you could just like send them a short story and they would like have three editors edit it for you and give you feedback. And then they like you'd get to edit it and they would just publish it. It was great. You should go speak those. You should just go say those same words in Silicon Valley and someone will just throw a billion dollars at you.

What a great idea. All right, cars. Cars. What's the best thing from the Detroit Auto Show? Man, you know what? I was really excited to go this year. It was a fun show. But compared to last year, where last year, Chris Ziegler went alone, which amazes me. It was not as crazy as CES is, but like for him to be there the year where they announced the prototype of the Chevy Bolt, which is one of the most important cars ever made. The Ford GT and then Ackier NSX, which are two, like, legacy supercars that both of those companies resurrected.

This year felt a little down, but only because there weren't those like, you know, AAA Blockbuster. announcements. Probably the coolest thing, weirdly, was from Buick. Buick announced this concept car. I know, right? And that's what everybody, it was the thing that was definitely the most talked about at the show. He's like walking around the show floor, you just hear people talking about like, man, I can't believe Buick made something that looked like that. They were totally right. Everybody made like big ass coupes, right? Yeah. So everything, there were so many two-door cars and they were either like executive class. There were two big trends. Yeah. Performance coups or executive class. coops and sedans. And so like if you if you really like futuristic looking two-door cars,

it was definitely a show for you. And if you are a CEO of some sort of company big or small, it was also probably the show for you because you're going to be driven around in one of the cars announced at this show this year. The armrest on the Lincoln Continental. Oh my God. It has like the entire dashboard in the back seat. Yeah. Well, that's becoming pretty standard on these executive class. sedans is like adding in all the features. Except for the music or the the music, the heat, the whole thing.

It has everything except for a screen which is weird because a lot of other rear seats in these kind of sedans have that. You know the Hyundai so Hyundai's been making these cars under the name Genesis for the last like seven years like the Hyundai Genesis whatever and they're like they're really

nice sort of Mercedes competitors and they spun that off into its own brand at this show in their first car as just Genesis is basically like their version of a Lincoln Continental and it's got it looks really kind of chinty it's like trapped uh strapped to the back of the headrests almost like uh looks it was bungeeed on but they've got like an infatema system in the back seats for people that are sitting there and then uh you see that same sort of trend in like the back of a mayback or all these other like luxury kind of cars and so but the coolest thing was this buick this buick of vista is what it's called

it's a concept car two doors and it really is just It almost kind of looks like a smaller version of Porsche's been making that sort of hatchbacky car. So like the front end of a Porsche, but the back end kind of rounds out. It looks like a much smaller version of that. And you should just check out of the photos on our site to get an idea of it. But it's super concepty inside. It's got these things that will eventually be touchscreen displays, but they're not just screens. They're like projecting the animations like through like a piece of glass.

It's super weird. the headrests are really crazy looking. It's definitely like a concept car, whether or not GM ever makes it is questionable. Maybe. That's what they do. That's based on the Camaro, right? Yeah, which is based on like the alpha platform.

It's like a weird hand-me-down of a car, but it was, if not the prettiest, than one of the prettiest things at the show. The other was Accura made a concept that was another two-door, or excuse me, I keep calling it to tour. It's suicide doors. It's got four doors.

But it's this really crazy, you know, super angular concept car. That was really cool. And then Lexus made another coupe. And Lexus looks like a concept, but it's an actual car that people will be able to buy, which is probably the craziest thing that happened at the show just because a lot of other car companies came with these concepts.

And Lexus came with one that was pretty much a lot like the concept had shown a couple years ago, and now they're selling it. So it's really kind of funny. But yeah, then there are all these. The Lincoln Continental was probably the funniest event. just because here's this sub-brand of Ford, basically, that the Ford CEO came up and was introduced in the Continental.

It's the first time they've made one in over a decade, and they're trying to bring back this idea of, you know, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, all used to drive Lincoln Continentals. Because they're awesome. Yeah, but, like, I don't know what celebrity buys. It's a nice-looking new car, but I don't know who buys it over any other, like, Mercedes or anything else. People buy Lincoln Navigators.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that could help. But they had like a jazz band play. I mean, they did this. They like really did the whole thing up to try and like play up this brand new Lincoln Continental. It has actually the weirdest thing. You mentioned the back seats.

The weirdest thing is in the front seat, which has individual thigh adjustments. And it's, I swear to God, it's like, uh, that's like happened in your seat adjustments that started to become more, more of a trend in cars. Wait, wait, like up and down, forward and back? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, so, so you've been able to. to adjust in your seat, but this one actually splits them. So, like, the front of your seat in the front of the car is actually split down the middle,

and you can move it up or down. So you can check. Okay, wait, no, I can feel why you would want this. Yeah. Because sometimes, yeah, you want your driving leg to be, like, lower and more forward, and you want your other leg to be, like, up. You got it. Because you don't want it to get a dead leg.

That's exactly what they said. Yeah. It's really weird looking. Do you think that that would mess with your posture? Yeah, over time, it would probably throw your spine off, right? You like this all the time. Yeah. You'd have to just sit in it for a while in the other direction.

Yeah. Not the CEO, but one of the other Ford executives that spoke during that presentation was like, we want your linking Continental to fit you like a suit, which is like the most, yeah. That's like the broiest line. Hell yeah. Brands be talking. So that was some of the craziest stuff, I guess. Well, that you want everything to fit you like a suit.

Yeah. What don't you want to fit you like this? I mean, I guess the other really crazy thing was, Mercedes. Mercedes showed up to the Detroit Auto Show this year, announced its new E-Class. Well, because they wanted to announce their new E-Class. And they announced their new E-class sedan on, like, Saturday, before the show even started, like just dropped the news and sort of sat back and was like, compete, like, come at us and

did nothing the rest of the show. It was amazing. And it's, the E-class can, the craziest thing about the new E-class is that it can drive itself up to 130 miles an hour. Like, it can handle itself with just the autonomous stuff, which is, you know, insane. I don't know. I mean, you don't really ever need that, but what is cool is, like, you have to be able to know that it will work at that

level because that will trickle down to, you'll learn things at that speed that you would need to know. Right. And might inform you being able to drive at like 70 or 75. Also, Audi made a lunar rover. Oh, yeah. We had an exclusive on that. Yeah. Yeah, you should definitely go look at that. They pulled,

they packed that thing up and, like, pulled out the second day, which was kind of a bummer. But Audi is, so Google's been running this thing called the Lunar XP Prize competition for the last couple of years. And it's basically they, all they said was like, we'll give somebody $30 million if you can build a moon rover, land it on the moon, have it drive 500 meters and take HD video. And there might be like one other requirement. But it's like first person to do that, first team to do that wins $30 million. So Audi probably doesn't need $30 million.

They don't. But what's really cool about it is that they need us talking about Audi. Exactly. And well, and it helps Lunar XPRIZE because up till now there have been all these smaller private space companies that have been trying to do this, and they're having such a hard time making it happen that, like, they keep delaying, oh, okay, you can launch by 2016, oh, okay, you can launch by 2017. And so they keep pushing it and pushing it. And Audi getting in the game is definitely the first, it will be the first company that anybody actually talks about. And they did it, right? They brought Eugene Sernan, who is the last man to walk on the moon to the event, and like he was there. I got him on our Snapchat channel. That was really crazy.

so they know what they're doing and oh man the guy who is running this program at Audi looks just like he could be I mean he looks like he could be your brother it was very very bizarre yeah but yeah it's really cool that they're entering this thing

because no one really talks about XPRIZ and like no one really knows that there is a legitimate competition to go to the moon right now and this maybe helps elevate that a bit so and it's cool looking it's a nice little yeah let's talk about the looks of this thing

yeah it's Just a big flat solar panel with a head sticking out of it. Basically. It's got a cute little head. Yeah. It's sort of a companion. It's got a little tail too, which is nice. Doesn't it?

Yeah, it's got a little tail. Yeah. A little thingy. He's going to... What's cool about this is that they don't want to just fill those requirements for XPRIZE. They want to go like two or three times further than that and accomplish some other things. So they want to help analyze a big thing about going back to the moon someday. and using it either as sort of a hopping point to get to Mars

or just for setting up a base is knowing how much hydrogen is in the soil so you can use it as basically fuel. So they want to help do that. And then probably the coolest thing is they want to go find, when the astronauts left the moon for the last time, they left the lunar roving vehicle there, which is like that big four-reel thing that you've seen video of. And that's just been sitting there,

getting bombarded by radiation and dust and all this stuff. So they want to go, the best we can do is train like telescopes, and stuff at it. They want to drive this Audi Moon Rover to that and examine it up close. What is really funny about that is that NASA's working with them to come up with a course that zigzags to the old rover because if something breaks on this Audi rover and it just keeps driving and they can't control it anymore, it would just crash right in to. Oh, no.

So, like, as much as I don't want that to happen for them, like, how funny it would be. It's like the first. Fender vendor on the moon. Yeah, the first, like, interplanetary car crash. Oh, no. Definitely not a good look for Audi. So they're happily working with NASA on that. I'm excited.

I mean, I'm excited for that. But it was weird that that was one of the bigger stories at this auto show because there wasn't really like a big blockbuster announcement. Tesla wasn't there because they don't really love car shows. It was really cool seeing the Chevy Bolt up close because that's now a real production car. It's not available yet. But, you know, here's this car. All electric car that can go over 200 miles an hour on a single charge.

And that's going to change a lot for some people. It's going to cost around $30,000 depending on your tax. breaks. It was our best to CES. Yeah, it was our best to CES. Because Chris Ziegler actually got to drive it there. So, yeah, it was cool. I have a question about car shows, which is, like, for the electric cars, for stuff that's

a little, like, solar cars, all the stuff that's very far future, more, like, conceptual and stuff. How much does that stuff and the enthusiasm for that stuff jive with the kind of more old school car culture stuff going on there? I think a show like this, which is really big and full of a lot of executive. It's that animosity is kind of hidden. If you go to like any other like car show car show or any of the smaller ones that mix that sort of car fans and executives are here, it's definitely a lot more easy to spot. Oh, really?

Yeah. I mean, there is what's going to be really interesting to see over the next couple of years is you have companies like Porsche that are taking the lead from Tesla and saying, we're going to build an electric car that can go 300 miles as well. Some of them even have concepts out. or Porsche is even already actually starting production on theirs. So it's going to be interesting to see how people react to, there are a lot of people that are going to hold out to the end and be like, I don't want my car not to have an internal combustion engine. But like the car companies are finally starting to go after that.

And that's going to be, there are just going to be people holding on to this for no reason anymore. Yeah. But there is, there's still a really weird divide. And then especially as you get more towards like the performance car side of things, like people who are racing fans and stuff, It's like, it's very, like, get off my lawn.

It's, like, very, very ideologically divided. Yeah, and they're quick to point out, like, oh, there's not enough charging stations. And it's like, that's not going to be the case forever. We could build them. So, but, like, but what kind of charging plug does the bolt use? We're going to talk about plugs now. Go for it. Plugs.

Because they all use different plugs, right? Yeah. I'm pretty sure. I mean, I think that one works off of, like, you have to pull off the side of the road and it'll work off, like, the standard charging. Right. So it's just Tesla that's, like, standing alone right now. If it's a supercharger faster. Yeah, but it's been opening up other cars to that platform.

You can get on the Tesla supercharger platform if you want. The problem with that is that there are even fewer of those for each charging station. Yeah. But that is to make electric cars happen that has to be adopted. Like faster charging has to be adopted. Like a stop on the side of the road has to be 20 minutes or less for sure. 20 minutes is a long time. If you think about...

You go in and get a bite to eat. Get a slurpy. Yeah. Get an icy? I mean, here's the thing. You have to build premium restaurants next to these things. So there's an opportunity for these premium consumers. Imagine the DeKalboasis outside of Chicago with like charging stations.

Oh my God. TGI Fridays. Yeah. And I've had that DeKalb Station. Oh, I've had a lot of like major like life events. Life events at the DeKalbo Isis. Or if you want to bring it back to the first Vergecast we did at CES last week, just like maybe your car is semi-autonomous. and you have infotainment in there to watch, you know, your favorite CBS show.

Yeah, but you've already been, if it's autonomous, you've already been sitting in there watching it for the past two hours anyway. So you need a break. So you need to get out. Yeah, stretch. I asked about the culture clash at the car show because I did a very interesting thing for me over Christmas, which is I went to the, what's it called, America's Car Museum, which is in Tacoma, Washington where my mom lives. shout out to my mom. And it's apparently the biggest car museum in America,

which I would kind of believe, having been in it. It's enormous. It's like some guys privately owned car collection, like all these amazing classic cars and muscle cars and stuff like that. And like I was surprised because I feel like, like I'll watch a Fast and Furious movie. I lived in L.A. Like I enjoy driving.

I enjoy watching people in movies drive. I enjoy watching car crashes in movies in movies. and like that kind of side of things. And I was in this museum. It was like, oh, this is like a history of how we destroyed our planet. Like, this is all this is. Like, I could not get it out of my head. And then so it's like obviously like there's a certain demographic that goes to the car museum.

And then they have one hall that's like all of these sort of historical electric cars and more amazingly steam powered cars from like the 1912. Like 1912 and stuff. Those are the three options back there. Yeah. It was incredible. and it was empty. Like all the other halls are like full of people like, oh yeah, I love this car. Like, oh, let me touch it.

No, because that's what is. When you really boil it down, it's a fetishization of explosions, you know, like internal combustion engines are just very controlled and very many explosions happening all at the same time. We actually-so many explosions. We did a What's Tech, Chris Plant and I did a What's Tech about Tesla that kind of dives a lot into that. And if you run, I'll go real deep.

This guy who runs a website called Wait But Why did a super deep thing about Tesla that really is just like the history of cars and like gets eventually, you know, 25,000 words later gets to the electric car and Tesla. And it's it's a really fascinating way to think about like why. Because there was a split. We got to like the early 1900s and we had these three options. We had steam. We had gas and we had electric. And there's a reason that we went towards gas. And it's crazy to think that it could have gone like either of the other two directions.

Yeah. Yeah. But it is really strange. I was not aware of, I think I'd seen some of those old, old electric cars. I had not seen the steam once. It was wild. Part of the reason why no one wants to let that go, too, is like if you think about why a lot of those, like, really, you know, people who call themselves gearheads, it's because they really love to get in and tinker with a car and, like, change just this thing or tweak just that thing.

When you're talking about an electric car, you have, instead of hundreds of parts, you're talking about, like, 12, 15. I mean, the number is way, way lower. and so it gives you a lot less control over that car. And so then all of a sudden, you don't have control over something. And that's scary for some people. Nicola, I promise we could talk about smartwatches. Yeah, let's do that. Because you wrote a really good piece.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Where do we start? Is this the women's smart watch? Yeah. Just go suggest.

I wrote about why women aren't buying smart watches, which, I mean, this all begins, I don't know, it doesn't run a room all begins. But that's kind of what I was doing at CES, is sort of digging into like what's happening in wearables, which is kind of the most obvious marriage of fashion and technology, which is why I'm here and you're listening to me in your free time. So I found an amazing statistic that I was able to start this off with, which is that of the wearables market,

54% of fitness tracker owners are women. So women are like digging fitness trackers, going great, watch and steps, et cetera. But of smart watch is only 71% of smart watch owners are men, which is a crazy, crazy split. So that I basically broke down what I perceived to be the problems and what some of these issues are, which obviously begin with design

and the fact that there aren't a lot of good options to choose from and why aren't they're good options to choose from? They don't fit right. They look weird. The common idea of like shrink it and pink it is still in a fact year where like this is okay I've heard pink it shrink it and pink it shrink it and pink it is like that used to be the old like activeware adage before we got this like whole new world of activeware but it was basically like oh a women's football jersey make it smaller make it pink now they'll buy it

it's just like no it doesn't work like that like modern girls don't want pink sparkly things why do you keep making pink sparkly things it's nothing but just like it's just insulting it's truly insulting. And yet last week at CES, we saw companies announcing smart watches for women. Oh, yeah. It had nothing but just, they just like glued rhinestones on them. Yes, yes, yes. You can watch me on the Facebook live on the verge Facebook just like ranting with like executive, or not executive, but like a rep next to me just like staring me down just so furious. But yeah, it's just so, so yeah, that's what I wrote about. I got, I got so much amazing, amazing feedback from people like women emailing me being like, you just

out all the things women I don't know be like you just said all the things I've been thinking about for a year and like awesome stuff like that so so so it's really I first of all I don't think most people should buy a smart watch right now men or women second about do women want smart watches like I I would like I would no no no no no it's like you go out there and you're like oh this all sucks or is you go out there and you're like so so so I think before you answer that question you need to figure out like why do men want a small watch because like what is it just said something incredibly reductive like what do women want yeah right no I know and that was a hard thing in writing this is like I don't I hate to gender things like this like people women like these things and men like those things that's awful

and that's dated and I would dress that in here like talking about that stuff is dated but I think part of it is like the activity tracker promises something very specific and it also promises like a better self and I think a lot of purchasing is hinged on this is me but but better. Like, if I buy this thing, it's going to be me. It's, yeah, and I'm going to have this vision of myself. And I don't think smartwatches offer a thing besides knowing everything instantly. It's conspicuous consumption.

The third thing is smart watches, the third thing fitness trackers do is work. Like, smart watches. Liz doesn't even think they work, though. Should we were talking about? Well, there's that. Yeah, there's like a lot of, yeah, a lot of, like, problems with heart rate monitors and step counters being off and stuff like that. Yeah.

Good to be. skeptical about that. I mean, yeah, I will say a heart rate monitors and garbage. If you're using it for actual medical stuff, you should stop right now. But like, and as a general, like, did I move around more this week than I did last week? It's actually, like, in that very broad, wildly inaccurate sense,

that's what I use it for. It's like, there's that out, it's like it helps you get off the couch, but that's really about all it's going to do. Have you looked at all into like the history of the wrist watch? Because wasn't the wristwatch was, wasn't that the women's watch first? I might be misremembering because there's a

pocket watch predates the wristwatch. I can't tell you that I'm... The wristwatch was on modern development. And I feel like it was for women. Okay. I don't know. I don't remember specifically. I've also had a long running, like, theory that...

I thought of a... Sorry, go ahead. Most men, like, have their smartphone in their pocket, like, on their body attached to them at most times. Women, a lot of times, have their phone in their purse or, like, on the table and not physically attached to them. And I think there might be a little bit of a... a mental block going on, of the idea of having the computer

with the screen on your body. Yeah, yeah. The common wisdom, by the way, is that the wristwatch was invented of people strapping pocket watches to the wrist around the time of World War I so that they wouldn't have to pull it out when they were in the trenches.

They were just able to look. Yeah, yeah. First soldiers. Well, that's where, I mean, it's like a really long line to draw, but like that's where I get value out of wearing a smart watch. Yeah.

When I'm in the field. Yeah, when I'm in the metaphor, Oracle trenches. When you have a choice. You can either put on the gas mask. Or you can pull the watch out of your pocket. You got to pick one. I didn't bring this up in my interview two years ago,

but I assassinated the Archduke for a night. Oh, that was you. And then I hopped in a time machine with James Franco, and I came to the future. Right. To stop JFK from dying. Uh-huh. That movie looks terrible.

A part miniseries, right? Yeah. I can't say I'm not going to watch it because I'm definitely going to watch it. I'm really bummed. I thought we were going to get to see it. sundowns, but we're leaving before it premieres. Uh-oh. I don't, I'm not that bummed, but, um, yeah, no, I, I, I, I'm interested in, in, in the role,

yeah, like, like, what, what, what, what women tend to want to hold versus have on their body, like, is, yeah, I don't know. You think of, of accessories, like an average woman is probably wearing on average, I'm not talking about every woman, more accessories on their body than a man. Yeah, and it should be the perfect thing. It's an accessory. Yeah. Like, it should work and it's clearly, like,

failing. Yeah. I don't know. Smart earrings. Is that how we shake it and pink it? Super, super tiny? I don't know. I'm not curious to see what happens.

I feel like the next year will like be a quick tell of like this thing succeeds or we just like let it go. Hmm. I don't know. I always imagined that I imagined there being wearables in like, I don't know when I was like working on some story or something. I imagine something that was like this though, not here. Like something that you had to turn. Like Lila from Futurama. Yeah, yeah.

Like some of you had to turn your arm over for that still feels outside of your body because it's not so close to your hair. Well, there's a bunch of smart fabric stuff coming out. So Google's working on stuff where you can do like touch sensitive clothing. Yeah. There's a smart bra that made a big splash at CES. Oh, wait. Did you see this? Okay.

This is like the thing I'm the maddest about myself with. I rescheduled my appointment with them like three times and that I skipped it. And I'm so sorry. You didn't see the smart bra. And I was just like, ah, like, it seems gimmicky to me. I was like, oh, it's whatever. And then it's gotten so much play sense, and I did not try it on. And I roomed with Lauren Good, and she had one in our room, and I didn't try it out there.

And I should have. What did it do? I don't know. You're the one person to ask, clearly. I know. I know. This was, like, a really, like, big mistake. This is one of the mistakes I made at CES.

Oh, my God. And CES is the land for mistakes. Oh, my God. All right. Anything else? I'm going to wrap. You did. I will say we were paving out your smartwatch piece. You also took to the show Florid Lorne Good.

Yes. And looked at some of the wearables that were announced. For seven minutes of Lauren Good. Seven minutes in heaven of Lauren Good. That's what I wanted to tweet, but I didn't. So I said it now of us walking around and talking about this, about these wristwrapped devices. It was amazing. Like she and I obviously attack this from different places.

And like I just think that I learned so much from her and like she not to like put words in her with, but I think that she got a lot out of me as well. So it was great. It was really great. And it's documented on the internet. The internet.com. If you want to watch that video or any number of videos, you should subscribe to us on YouTube at YouTube.com slash the verge. It's also on our Facebook page and all our videos there, Facebook.com slash verge.

You could follow us on Twitter or Snapchat in both places. Our name is just Verge. It's great. We also have a bunch of podcasts. They are on iTunes where you should review us. Give us five stars. Tell us, I don't know, what it would take to make you buy a smart watch. But the other podcasts that are there are also great.

There's What's Tech, which is going to have an episode about what Tumblr is with Caitlin Tiffany, which would be super fun. And I'm going to be on it next week. You're going to be on it next week. You're going to talk about film festivals. Film festivals. What's a film festival? What is it? Don't answer.

Save it for the podcast. Of course, there's Control Walt Delete with Walt Mossberg and Nile Patel every week. And Virg ESP is coming back. VirgisP, back, back, season two. By the time you listen to this. Renewed. Should be back. Weekly.

Yeah, weekly. Every week. Me and Liz Lapado. It's going to be awesome. In the meantime, I am on Twitter. I'm at Becklon. Sean is S-O-K-A-N-E-1. Yes.

Until Twitter changes it someday. All right. You're Emily Yoshita. I'm Emily Yoshita. You're Nicolaf underscore Fumo. Thanks for watching everybody. Rock and roll. Bye.