The Vergecast - Net neutrality, Final Fantasy, Gilmore Girls, and the Spectacles line

Episode Date: December 2, 2016

Welcome to Vergecast Lonely Paul edition. Dieter and Nilay are out this week, so Paul enlisted some of his colleagues who would never let him down like that and made his own Vergecast that's centered around talking to people not named Dieter or Nilay. Want to learn what AT&T's new DirecTV Now service has to do with net neutrality? Want to figure out why nearly all women and nearly everybody actually loves Gilmore Girls? Want to know if video games are good sometimes? Want to experience what it would be like to stand in line for Snapchat Spectacles but not actually purchase Spectacles because you hate lines? Then you'll probably love what we've done here. 2:39 – Interview with T.C. Sottek on net neutrality 33:24 – Interview with Kaitlyn Tiffany on Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life 52:38 – Interview with Andrew Webster on Pokemon Sun and Moon and Final Fantasy XV 1:06:30 – Interview with Ashley Carman live at the Snapchat Spectacles line in NYC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello. I'm all alone. This is the Vergecast. It's a very special edition because I'm all by myself. My name is Paul Miller. There's no Nilai Patel. There's no Dieter Bone. It's just me. They are at like a cool work thing. They didn't invite me, probably learning about leadership or something. So I'm doing the Verge cast. And I thought I would, oh, by the way, this is flagship podcast, theverge.com, brought to you by Cizervi. Cogka cut through the night. There you go. I thought I'd talk to a few people at the verge that aren't always on the show that do really cool stuff that's really core to our coverage. So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to talk to T.C. Sotec, who is our managing editor and also knows a ton about policy and government and politics. And we're going to talk about

net neutrality and just a little warning. It's probably going to get a little heated. Next, Next, I'm going to talk to Caitlin Tiffany, who is one of our social editors at The Verge, but also covers a lot of internet culture and just straight culture, culture stuff. And she reviewed Gilmore Girls. And I really want you to go into that with an open mind. Even if you're not a big fan of Gilmore Girls, I think it's important to understand why it matters so much to so many people. And then I'm going to talk to Andrew Webster, who is our games reviewer. at the Verge or one of our games reviewers at the Verge.

He reviewed Pokemon, Sun and Moon, and most importantly, Final Fantasy 15. So we're going to talk about that, which is very exciting. And then finally, I'm going to talk to Ashley Carmen, who's been on the Verge cast before. She's one of the editors of Circuit Breaker, and she's been spending some time with spectacles. So we're going to get kind of like a day in the life look into what it's actually like to use these weird camera sunglasses. That's going to be our show. You're not going to hear any beautiful philosophical words of productivity wisdom from Dieter.

Nelai is not going to say anything mean to me the whole time. It's going to be a weird time for all of us, but I think we'll come through stronger and more knowledgeable about culture. And who really makes the verge tip? Let's do this. Hey, Paul. Hey, I was going to say, hello. That's kind of my little bit for this.

No, it's cool. It's cool. You're here. You're here now. I'm here with TC. Hello. Hi, Paul. This is really exciting. This is like the newsiest bit of the show, so we want to get this out first. I'm a newsman. Yeah. You're also my boss. Am I? I guess that's true. I think so. Which is weird. You're managing editor of the Verge. What do you do with the Verge? I manage an edit. Yeah. I would say. I'd say you do a great job. I write a newsletter now every day. Oh, yeah. Which is a lot of fun. Command line. You can check it out at, oh, shoot. It's just a bunch of links. No, what's the domain name?

Click number two, feel. Click to feel.com. And you can sign up for. Which was Paul's idea. It's a great idea. It was a great idea. I did a good job. Okay.

So the big news is AT&T just wants to give their customers more. They were like, looked out at the landscape and like, what do our customers need? Right. So they bought DirecTV, which was the satellite. About a year ago? Yeah, satellite television company. All these ads about how this is a whole new world. It's a whole new world, which is the same world of media consolidation that we've been in for a while now.

So don't you dare close your eyes. Big ISPs, big internet providers, Comcast, AT&T, Verizon have all been gobbling up media companies. Basically, they have huge, they're very dominant in their spaces. You know, Comcast has monopoly conditions in a lot of areas of the country. AT&T and Verizon are called a duopoly because they basically split the market, you know, compared to their market share, T-Mobile, Sprint, are not really big players. And basically they've used that position, all the profits that they've been making in those positions to buy up content. So all these companies own the access layer, the networks, and they've been using the profits from those networks to buy up content companies. So Verizon bought AOL.

Comcast bought NBC Universal years ago, which was a really huge deal. AT&T just bought DirecTV. And also they just announced this year that they want to buy Time Warner, which owns Game of Thrones, Batman. Right. All kinds of us. So AT&T is going to own Batman, which is weird. Yeah. Does DirecTV own any of the networks?

Isn't there some old-timey rule about, that was designed to keep cable networks separate from some other industry. Yeah, so DirecTV is a satellite provider. Right. Well, now it owns 18T sports networks, game show network. It has a 42% stake in. But Comcast is a cable company that owns NBC now. So those rules, the rules don't prohibit cable companies or networks from owning content companies,

but they can't hold on to those and not sell them. They're required to sell those channels to other networks. to other providers. So they can't make them exclusive. But those rules don't exist on the internet yet. Right. They exist in the crazy, tangled network of laws that have been argued out over cable television in the past 50 years or so.

Which is becoming increasingly irrelevant, hence AT&T announcing Direct TV now, which is an over-the-top service. It's just TV over the Internet. Right. It's direct TV, but it's just streaming over the Internet. So you can watch it on your computer, you can watch it on television, probably through an app, and you'll be able to watch it on AT&T devices. And the issue that we are getting into this week is that AT&T is doing something called

Zero rating with DirecTV now. They've already been doing it with DirecTV's streaming app. So it's not necessarily new, but it's a relatively new thing that these companies are doing it because AT&T is so big it's actually really important now to look at what the consequences are of doing that. Before we get into that, how big do you think this DirecTV now services, like compared to some of the other options, the PlayStation, it's called View? There's PlayStation View, there's Sling TV. Apple theoretically, someday.

Maybe Apple, yeah. And then the one weird thing with DirecTV now is it doesn't have CBS. But other than that, it kind of makes sense to me as someone who doesn't have any way to watch live TV. Like, I'm looking into these services. It'd be nice to be able to watch CBS. watch live TV without having to worry about setting up an antenna. Right. So there are about 350,000 direct TV subscribers right now.

So it's not huge. Right. But the streaming service has obviously the potential to get a lot more. And I think the end game here and something that AT&T executives have been talking about already is that they're going to start to try to offer like double play packages with their cell service. So cell phone service plus cable, tell it were, you know, And premium television is going to be the new cable bundle. Right.

And then you can just live an AT&T lifestyle. Right. You can live in AT&T's world, which will include DirecTV and all of these channels without having to go elsewhere. Unless you want Netflix or other competing video services, which is where we go back, get back into the zero rating issue. Right. So, yeah, explain zero rating. I'm a T-Mobile subscriber, so I'm so familiar with zero rating. How do you like it?

Well, first, let's explain what it is. Sure, sure, sure. It's essentially a good but imperfect analogy is free shipping, right, that a company is paying for free shipping. So AT&T and T-Mobile, normally, you know, if you watch a video or listen to a song or go to a website that uses data, you have a data cap. Most people have data caps. That data counts against your data cap. Zero rating is when AT&T says, or T-Mobile says, we're going to exempt this content. from your data cap for whatever reason.

Which T-Mobile started with music and ended up adding almost every music service you could think of and then moved into video. Yeah, and their video thing was super sketchy. It wasn't actually a zero rating scheme as much as it was. They started throttling. They downrised it, right? Everybody's video content without permission. And it was an opt-out program.

So that was kind of a different sketchy situation. And also their program is a little different in that. they're allowing anybody to participate. It's just a standards thing. So if you want to downgrade your video to 480P or I guess DVD quality is what they're calling it, anybody can do that. So if you're a content producer, do you even have to talk to T-Mobile or can you just- I think you just have to comply with their specifications for video delivery?

And then T-Mobile will just throttle it. Right. Okay. So AT&T is kind of new to the-ZO-R-Ree. ATT's situation is much different because T-Mobile doesn't own any of those content companies. They're just doing that probably because they are trying to relieve some network congestion. It's a way to downgrade it while making it look like an upgrade. But AT&T situation is very different.

They're going to offer DirecTV and HD. But the zero rating is a problem because AT&T owns DirecTV. So essentially they're giving their own product a free pass on their service, which is anti-competitive. If, say, you want to go watch a Netflix movie and it eats up a huge part of your data cap while watching AT&T's videos doesn't. It gives the consumers big incentives to only pay for ATD services and to maybe not pay for other services that are going to count against their caps. So the FCC made new net neutrality rules, or the kind of the big net neutrality ruling was last year, last year. And that went to, it's been appealed some. So far it's been upheld, as far as I know,

and it hasn't gone to the Supreme Court yet. That one has not, I mean, I think, It's in the process of people are starting to fight against it, but it hasn't been. That's the Title II classification. Right. But that's for basically home broadband providers. No, the big deal with the new rules is that it applied to both wireline and wireless. It did. The previous rules only applied to home broadband.

Wireless companies were kind of special flowers. They were given huge exceptions. Why hasn't that stopped T-Mobile zero rating? Zero rating is actually not expressly prohibited by the net neutrality rules. The net neutrality rules have just a few bright lines. You can't discriminate, which means you can't look at packets and decide to throttle them or treat them differently when they're coming over your network. You cannot block other services from being delivered to your customers. So, like, you know, if you're Comcast, you can't block Netflix from coming to your customers because you want them to pay you.

Basically, you can't hold services ransom. And you can't do something called paid prioritization, which means you cannot degrade other services in favor of one. that's basically paying you a ransom to get a, that's the fast lane, slow lane thing. Zero rating's different because it's not throttling, so you're not slowing down traffic. Aren't you kind of looking at the packets? That's complicated. I don't know. It's not in the way that net neutrality prohibits.

But basically, FCC said we'll look at zero rating on a case-by-case basis. They looked at T-Mobile. They sent T-Mobile a letter. They haven't done anything with T-Mobile. They also sent AT&T a letter saying we're going to look into, you know, we're worried about what you're doing with zero rating and direct TV, but they also have not done anything yet. And it's possible they will not do anything under a Trump administration, which is probably going to try to completely dismantle the net neutrality regulations we have now. So how would that work? Because as far as I understand, like, the FCC is an independent agency?

It's an independent agency, which means that the president and Congress can't meddle. in its affairs once it's going. So the president, and there's a tradition of the parties getting balance on the commission. So the president will appoint a chairman to the FCC, and Republicans and Democrats will get almost a fairly even split of commissioners, but the majority party that's in rule usually gets majority. Which the net neutrality rules were on those party lines with the deciding vote being the chairman. Correct. So Democrats voted for net neutrality, both the minority commissioners, U.S. Pi, and Michael O'Reilly

are the two minority Republican commissioners on the FCC right now. So conceivably... And they've both been extremely vocal in opposing the net neutrality regulations. And also... Everything else they've been trying to do. Pi wrote like a paper

earlier this year saying like, okay, it's been a year of this net neutrality. Here's all these problems with it. And this is not going well. Which was obviously not the rules are still there. But theoretically, Trump would nominate a new chairman and possibly other people, but we'd probably end up with the same split but have a new Trump appointed chairman.

There would be probably more Republicans on the panel than Democrats. Okay. It's customary for the ruling majority to have the majority on the FCC. What the independent agency thing means is that after the FCC is established, after that group is that the appointees are established, the president can't go in and say, hey, do this from doing that. The FCC works independently of the rest of the government. So could they reverse this rule?

This is a classification. Congress is, you know, supersedes the FCC. So obviously, any time all along this whole net neutrality timeline, Congress could have made a law saying broadband is classified as this, or here's a rule for how broadband should work, or what internet providers should do. Congress hasn't made any of those laws related to this topic at all

and has left it up to the FCC. So could a new FCC theoretically just change this rule back? Like, okay, now you're not under Title II? There's a process they have to go through. There's public rulemaking procedures. They have to get comment from people. But Congress can conceivably just pass a law and undo it.

So what's your feeling on what's going to happen? I think they will undo it. it. Yeah. They will undo it, you think? Yeah, getting rid of the Title II classification seems pretty high on, you know, from what I've heard, it seems pretty high on the agenda of members of Congress who are, you know, deal with telecommunications regulation. So it seems likely all of the ISPs would love not to be subject to those rules because it lets them do things like zero rating and sponsored data, paid prioritization. Basically, it gives them the ability to create a bunch of tolls that get money both ways. Now, people who are, you know, one of the reasons that

net neutrality, I think, is a good for consumers is that it eliminates those tolls. Basically, you know, you're already, if you pay for wireless internet, if you pay for broadband at home, you're already paying for access to the network. So it's kind of a given, you know, when you pay for the internet, you are saying, hey, Comcast, I want access to the network. If I ask for Netflix, you should give it to me because that's our agreement. And the ISPs would like to reap money on both ends. They want to have the consumers pay for access. Consumers are already paying for access to the service,

and then they want to charge the companies for access to the customer. Well, and they want to sometimes be the company that is the profitable content company. Right, and really the ultimate goal is to own both ends of that, so you're making all of that money. And by the way, T.C. wrote this excellent, what would you call it, an apocalypse, A dystopian short fiction that doesn't seem so fictional. Yeah, two years ago I wrote something called Your Corporate Internet Nightmare Starts now. And it's just about like an AT&T branded universe.

Yeah. And a lot of people thought that was hyperbole. But it really is what they have proven they want to do. They want to own the network. They want to charge exorbitant rates for it. And they also want to own the content on that network. so they're really reaping all of the money for the flow of information. Do you think there's something to these providers being so interested in content

that it's like either they can't figure out a way to make enough money by just being a provider or there are rules that keep them from making as much money as they're already making a ton of money. They would like. That's not a problem for them. I mean, their profit margins for internet service providers are probably the highest out of any industry. or one of the highest out of any industry. Walmart, for example, probably has a 3% profit margin. The profit margins on wireless service anywhere from 19 to 30 plus percent.

It's enormous. So they have these billions of dollars and they could invest them in more infrastructure, but they see it as more profitable lately, it seems, to invest in content, not infrastructure. Well, it's always more profitable to be vertically integrated to own both the transport layer and then the product that you're delivering, right? And it's also a way to kind of deflect regulatory fairness. One of the original classification that the ISPs worked out was that they would be considered information services

instead of telecommunication services because telecommunication services were regulated by quality, basically like quantity, speed, and the amount of stuff you could download. They don't want to just be dumb pipes where they're just having people pay for access to the network because ultimately in the long run

they're going to make less money doing that especially if the government decides to cap the amount of money they can make by providing that service as a public utility. Once you start calling it a public utility, then there's a public interest in capping the amount of profit you can make off of that.

So they want it to be considered information services which is different. They're providing extra value to customers that they can charge more money for. And that would be something like, you know, AOL giving you an email, account on top of your internet access. That's why they're an information service, not just a telecommunications service. So they would like to continue being information services, even though

they're classified under Title II now. And these days, that means owning video companies, owning publications, owning the information that actually travels across those networks. Right. So some of this monopoly and sort of duopoly situation seems like it'd be a job for the FTC to get involved in. But as far as I understand, stand it, the FCC's classification of these services under Tile Tube sort of protect them from the FTC. It's like a protection from monopoly prosecution and stuff like that. Is that correct? So the problem is there's a patchwork of laws across the country. A lot of, they enjoy monopoly conditions because it's extremely hard to compete because you have to get rights of way,

dig up the ground, install infrastructure. It's a massive, all of these companies have massive, what are called sunk costs, meaning they spend a lot of money up front to create infrastructure, and then over time those costs are really just up front, and then they make a lot of money on the back end charging people for services on top of those sunk costs. But they've spent a lot of money over the years lobbying, local governments, lobbying states to prevent municipal internet services. So I think in either South Carolina or North Carolina, I don't remember exactly where there's one town in particular where they just got the state to ban a city.

from creating their own Wi-Fi networks because they thought it was unfair competition for the state to be providing people with Internet for free. And that makes sense to the extent that until you realize that there's really no competition in the Internet, you know, there's, and it's a public utility. So it's something that people really need. It's not something that's really optional anymore. If you want to be part of human civilization now, you need the Internet. If you want to be prosperous, if you want to even save money. I mean, think of how much money people save by ordering things online rather than having to pay for things local. It's a huge, I would say even civil rights issue for people to be denied access to networks. And there are lots of parts in the country

where it's extremely expensive or very difficult to get internet access. What did you want, for the areas that are the hardest to serve, wouldn't you want sort of the profit carrot at the end of the internet racetrack to be larger, to make it a more incentive to grow this infrastructure? Well, I think the carrots already enormous. I don't think the profitability is a problem. I mean, a lot of these companies threaten to stop investing in networks if they were reclassified as Title II. None of them followed through on that because it's BS.

They are going to make a lot of money no matter what because it's an essential service that so many people need and are going to pay for that the scale that these networks exist on, they're just going to make a lot of money even if they're regulated more tightly. And another problem, especially a unique problem in the wireless industry is that spectrum, which is the electromagnetic spectrum, the waves that this information travels across, is a finite, limited natural resource.

You can't make more of it. There's only so much we can use because a lot of devices and services, like police radio uses a part of that spectrum. There's lots of things that use up that spectrum. There's only so much that we can use for cell service. And so these companies are using a resource that really belongs to everybody.

And there's a big public interest in making sure that not just one or two companies uses that resource for their own benefit, which is why things like zero rating sponsored date, which is why net neutrality is really important because it makes sure that the companies that are using these shared resources are using them in a way that is fair and egalitarian for everybody in our society to use. I just, so I'm going to, I'm guessing I've said this before on the Vergecast and never talked much about it, but this is such a ripe opportunity. I'm not a big fan of net neutrality as a government policy. I think it's a great way to build a network. I think it's the ideal way for the internet

to be. I just get the sense that the more of this regulation that has gone into place, than the more rules there are of how you can be an internet provider, you've seen more consolidation happen, less upstarts. And I also really thought that, yeah, like there's a lot of regions where Comcast is your only option or you only get good service from Verizon maybe or something like that, wirelessly. But there is a real chance for wired broadband and wireless broadband to compete and make it not a single possible provider in the area. And we, you know, we even saw that like however long, it was almost a decade ago when like YMAX was like going into people's homes. And like that was going to be like a different kind of broadband and possibly cheaper or just possible.

available on a lot more areas. And I just feel like this regulation is just consolidating this power. And it is putting limits on what these companies can do, but it's not stopping them or making them or opening up the market to new upstarts. So here's my response to that. I think net neutrality has nothing to do with media consolidation, and it has nothing to do with preventing competition. One thing to look at, one thing to consider there is that net neutrity,

for the majority of the history of the internet, net neutrality was the status quo. But it wasn't a government rule. It wasn't a rule, but it was something that everybody agreed upon because that was the idea behind the network from the beginning. It was just kind of understood that if you are connecting to the, if you're a part of the network, you should be

everything should be treated equally. We shouldn't be setting up walls between services. ISPs shouldn't be basically deciding for people what they can access and not access and charging tolls. So why didn't these companies charge tolls when they have the opportunity? Well, they found out

there's a lot of money in it. And they also just did not want to be prevented from coming up with creative ways to erect tolls, which is why they fought against it so vehemently. But net neutrality itself, I mean, I would argue it's actually a very small government solution. It just sets up rules of the road for how to operate your network. It doesn't prevent you from competing with anybody. In fact, it makes you, the only thing it really does is forces companies to compete in ways that they don't want to compete. But compliance is a cost. It's not really.

You comply by setting up the rules of your network, which is we're not going to discriminate against types of traffic. And if you're a large network, you have to file paperwork with the FCC. You have to go to court or talk to, you get a letter from the FCC says maybe we don't like this, which kind of gives uncertainty to your business. Yeah, I mean, it's trivial, really. The amount of money that these companies make that's not preventing them from doing anything.

Comcast bought or tried to buy Time Warner, for example, because it just didn't want to compete with Time Warner. Comcast could have gone into New York City and said, we're going to spend the sunk costs, we're going to spend money to develop infrastructure here to compete with Time Warner rather than, and they chose not to do that. It has nothing to do with net neutrality.

Net neutrality just forces these companies to actually compete in ways that are good for consumers. It forces them to compete on speaking. It forces them to compete on quality and the amount of basically data that they're giving customers. And they don't want to compete on that because that makes them dumb pipes. It makes them have to actually compete and they don't like to compete. AT&T hated competition. Alexander Vail, who was one of the magnates of AT&T.

AT&T was a government granted monopoly. He wrote a paper in the 20th century arguing why AT&T should be a government grant of monopoly. And he said monopolies were good as long as they provide quality service at a fair price. And it turned out that AT&T eventually didn't do that. They used their monopoly position to reap massive amounts of money from everybody. I absolutely agree that a government-granted monopoly is a worst-case scenario. But on the other hand, I think there are realistic limits to competition in the marketplace, right? There's only so much spectrum that can go around. You know, people just can't dig up cities every year to create new competing networks. So there are certain realities involved

that there are only going to be so many competitors. And with that reality, you have to say, we have to do something as a society to make sure that this essential public utility is actually being sold to people at a price that's fair and a quality that's reasonable. So yeah, so at the end of your article, you said, like paraphrasing, the net neutrality fight is back on. You get ready to fight. Something like that. He said, fight, fight, fight. And the fight for the internet begins again. Fight to win. Go, go, go.

I think those are the words that you type. Okay, so what are some steps going forward? One thing I would love is there to be another 2.4 gigahertz, be it like an LTE appropriate band that is public spectrum, because I think some really cool stuff could happen with that. But that's just me. What are some things? I mean, there's all kind.

I think there's so many possibilities for things that can happen if these dominant players weren't part of this revolving door in government and didn't spend billions of dollars lobbying to prevent competition. The history of these companies is that they've demonstrated time and time again they don't want to compete. They would prefer to pay their sunk costs

and then reap profits for decades. And they want to come up with as many creative tolls as they can to charge people and companies both ways to use the network. We could have mesh networks, we could have a lot peer-to-peer stuff, We could have municipal Wi-Fi all over the country, which would reduce congestion on cellular networks, by the way.

Having municipal Wi-Fi everywhere would reduce congestion on those networks, and all the wireless companies love to do is complain about how they can't accommodate everybody because video is so much traffic, which is another ironic thing. They complain about how video is overloading their networks, and now they're giving video data for free to their customers. Yeah, it makes sense. It's funny how that works. I just think, why do they spend billions of dollars like lobbying?

It's because there are powers in the government that can make their lives easier or harder. Oh, for sure. That's why anybody lobbies. Right. So I just want to get the government out of the way. Okay, so, but yeah, any other action items, how do we fight net neutrality if we are scared of this getting worse? One thing to do is not elect someone like Donald Trump. So time travel is the top priority.

Don't elect people who want to roll those regulations back is one thing. Forward-looking elect people who want to keep neutrality regulation. But then also, you know, what worked last time was really flooding the FCC with comments. The public has a say in what the FCC does. The FCC listens to the public. And Congress listens to the public. So contacting your representatives, contacting the FCC. Those are all good ways to make your voice heard.

if you like having a free and open internet. That's a good way to do it. If you don't like free and open internet, just sit pretty. If you want there to be one or two companies in the world that control internet access and own all the content and lock you into their ecosystems, and I would say fight against net neutrality. Okay.

All right, well, thank you so much for joining me, you're great man. Yeah, this was fun, Paul. Next up, I'm talking to Caitlin about Gilmore Girls. Any thoughts? I've seen every episode of Gilmore Girls. Including the new season? Except for the new season. So no spoilers for me.

Well, spoilers about the interview with Caitlin. Don't listen to the interview with Caitlin because there are some major spoilers in that. Wow. Yeah, I hear a lot of people not so keen on the new. Yeah, she's not a big fan. She's not a big fan. But, you know, I hope you can go into that season with an open mind and heart. We'll see.

And I'm all about Westworld. I got to watch the new. Westworld. I'll see Gilmore Girls later. Okay. All right, priorities. Maybe Rory is a host. Yeah. I want to tell you about socks. When I was a child, I didn't appreciate socks. And when I would receive a gift of socks, I'd be like, I wanted Legos. But now in my early 30s, I treasure every pair of socks I own. And I want to tell you about a company that makes it easier to get socks. This company is called Sock Club, and they have a sock of the month subscription, so you get a pair of quality American-made socks straight to your door every month, which is the

best way to receive socks, in my opinion. These socks are premium-quality American-made socks, and they use cotton sourced from the southeastern United States. They're designed in Austin, Texas, and knit in North Carolina. And apparently, and I can't vouch for this myself, but apparently you can't tell this American made difference when you put them on, which is a great promise. Every month you get a brand new, never before seen sock design. And these are classy designs, not just crazy, weird animals or something like that. It's classy socks, specifically created for that month. They even come with the background story on the sock's name and design. And I challenge you to find a background story for any other sock on the market right now. You can give these as a gift and you can

actually print out a membership certificate if this is like last minute shopping. So you give the person a membership certificate. Now they're part of the sock club. Congratulations. They're going to get new socks every month. Oh, by the way, American made socks, crazy designs, but classy and American made. Sock club offers gift subscriptions for men, women, and children. So you can give sock club to all the men, women, and children. life. I think that's a great idea. So you can go to sockclub.com and get a 15% off promo code if you use verge at checkout. It's sockclub.com promo code verge. Buy some socks. Hello. Hi, Paul. Hey, Caitlin. Thank you for joining me to talk about a topic that's, I would say

near and dear to both of our hearts, but probably more dear to your heart. Yeah, probably. Gilmore Girls. Yes. You wrote about the new season that they put up on Netflix all at once. Is this like the first show since Arrested Development that's like been a revival that the name did a season? Well, they also did Fuller House. Oh, that's right.

Which was a disaster, but a controlled disaster. This Gilmore Girls reboot is a disaster that is like completely just running wild. Nobody's paying attention. No one cares. it's a, it's a, it's, it's a trash fire. Okay, so before we talk about why it's trash fire, why is Gilmore Girls so important to you? Gilmore Girls, first of all, it's from a formative time in my life. If you talk to almost any woman of my age, they have seen Gilmore Girls. And I, that sounds like a generalization, but I feel like it's literally a fact. And it's about a girl named Rory,

who, um, she's like super smart. She's like a little, weird and her whole life she wants to be a journalist. She goes to Yale. She and her mom are best friends and they know everything about pop culture. They talk super fast. They drink a lot of coffee. They're just like cool. And it was important to me because I was, you know, like a nerd in high school and struggled with basic social functioning. And Rory is like that, but she's, it's not portrayed like she's a freak because of it. It's like very pro-intellectual. And it's just like funny.

It's just like well-written TV about like Rory and all of her friends are, you know, women who want to do cool, important things with their lives, which is just like fun to watch. I'm scared I liked it just because it was like a soap opera, like just following the peaks in valleys and relationships and the dramas and the will they won't days. But I also really liked Rory. I was like jealous of Rory because she just reads so much.

Yeah. She keeps on reading those books. Yeah, she does like them books. If I just read more books, I'd be more like Rory. Yeah. Well, and like the human drama is also compelling. I mean, it's like part of everyone's lives. And people just love, and people love the soap opera twists.

But like, I don't know. I mean, it's just like a really well-told story with it's easy to jump back into it any time. So I never finished Gilmore Girls. original series. Paul, what are we doing here? I watched into the last season but didn't finish the last season. So I don't even know, like who, if you, if you're going into this cold and you do want to watch this new season, do you have to watch all the old stuff? So actually, this new season was, I think you can tell quite obviously, supposed to replace the seventh season. Because the creator of the show, Amy Sherman Palladino and her husband, Dan Palladino.

They weren't involved in the last season of the show, and they have kind of been like, oh, well, it's not canon and made it clear that, like, a lot of the things from this reboot were supposed to happen in the seventh season, which makes sense because in the reboot, you see 32-year-old Rory acting like she's 22 at almost every turn. So, yeah, I guess if you didn't watch all of season seven, maybe you would have an interesting, fulfilling experience.

What if you never watched any Gilmore? If you never watched any Gilmore Girls, there's no reason for you to watch this reboot because you, I mean, it's terrible to watch it as a fan of Gilmore Girls, but if you didn't have any reason to be like invested in these people, you would find them very boring and mean, I think, pretty quickly. That's really sad. So who are you rooting for? Rory had few boyfriends throughout the original series. Yes. Laurel I had a major on and off relationship with Luke and drama with her ex-husband. Yes.

Well, who's the good guys? Who's supposed to be the winners? Who are you rooting for going into this? Or did that not matter? You just wanted to hang out with Rory and Lorelai again? Well, if this year on planet Earth has taught us anything, there's no such thing as good guys. But in my experience with Gilmore Girls, I was always Team Jess. First of all, he's the cutest. Sorry.

Second of all, he's the only one on Rory's intellectual level. He's the one that makes her go back to Yale. And in this reboot, he's the one that kind of nudges her into a new passion project, even though I feel it's sort of a lame one. Yeah, Team Jess. But it also, like, it doesn't matter. You don't really get, like, any satisfaction from caring about Rory's relationships in this reboot because it's quite clear that every cast member was brought on for random scenes

that had nothing to do with each other. and in some cases you can tell that the actors weren't even in the same room when they shot their scenes together. So, okay, so why, what's so bad about this? Okay, what's so bad about this? Wait, just to preface, I want to read your headline, the new Gilmore Girls is weirdly hostile towards fans, women, and storytelling in general. Yes. So I guess the thing that made me think that a reboot was a good idea is that the main draw of Gilmore Girls is the world that's set in,

which is this town called Stars Hollow in Connecticut. It's super cute. Everyone in there is, like, charming and quirky or whatever. And it's like a place that you just want to hang out. So it's like, even if the story is lame, like, it'll be nice to hang out in Stars Hollow again. Which turned out to be not true at all because Netflix showered this creative team with money and they used it to do a bunch of messed up stuff. Like, the Stars Hollow set was huge but also much more fake looking.

And at one point they had people standing on one of the roofs so you can like tell. that it's not a real building. And it was just like very gaudy. Everything was much more like colorful in a way that was like off putting. It was like sort of even like sinister at times. I just found it like very disconcerting. How is it sinister? It just like, I mean, first of all the all of the plot lines of the story were like much

darker and sadder than the show has ever been before. So then for the visual situation to be so like flashy and in your face was kind of like, Ugh, like, what are you trying to do to me right now? I just feel like I'm in a nightmare. It was literally like having a nightmare because everything was extremely heightened and also deeply terrifying, just like quietly under the surface, just like utter horror at all times. And I know this sounds dramatic, but it really was so bad I can't even believe it. Like, Paul.

Yes. There is a character in the show named Paul now, a new character. Okay. You meet him in the first episode. he's introduced as Roy's new boyfriend, and they've presumably been dating for two years, yet she constantly forgets that he exists, serially cheats on him,

just like very casually with no remorse, and, like, leaves him in public places and forgets he's there and, like, and walks out and gets in a car. Story of my life. And you're not, like, this is supposed to be, like, a cute running joke, like, ha ha, nobody remembers Paul, but it's like, that's so, freaking mean to not remember that you have a boyfriend and to like act like he's not a person with

dignity it's terrible. It looks like a nice guy. I mean he seems fine. He seems like someone that would like explain to you how to torrent without being asked. But he doesn't deserve to just be completely ignored. It was it's really sad. I'm like what is the point of this? You seemed really disappointed in Rory in general. Yeah. Is it because you looked up to her or or saw yourself in her and then it's just not working out? I mean, I always thought Rory was kind of a brat, but the thing that's supposed to be good about Rory is that she actually is really smart and, like, well-read

and has, like, you know, interesting, insightful things to say about the world, and she wants to, like, write them, and she's willing to, like, leave Stars Hollow. Oh, sorry, that's a spoiler for those of us who haven't watched the final season of this show for whatever reason. But at the end of the last season, she, like, is going on then-Senator Obama's campaign bus to become like a political blogger, which is like cool, especially because in 2007, everyone was like, what, blogging? I mean, everyone who was watching ABC family, probably not

everybody. Yeah, I was a professional blogger in 2007. Yeah, but it was supposed to be like, oh my God. And she, now she's just like this loser who's like coming back to Stars Hollow and working for free at her town newspaper, which doesn't even make sense. Why isn't there a salary? It doesn't make any sense to me. And like she, at one point, she like, is reporting on a piece for GQ and falls asleep while she's interviewing a source, while she's wearing like a giant, like, taffeta T-length skirt and like heels. It's just ridiculous. Everything she does is ridiculous.

Her lucky outfit is like this ugly red wrap dress that you would get at like Anne Taylor Loft in like 2004. It's everything she does is just absurd. Okay, you said you wanted to give me some facts. about this show, things that happened, and I'm going to guess if they're true or false. Okay, yes. I didn't realize you had read my review, which points out many of the most absurd things. Yeah. Well, maybe you could just check my reading comprehension and retention.

Okay. Here is a factual thing that happened on this show. A pig runs down the street as an omen, and then when Roy turns around, there are three men in gorilla masks in the street. False. No, that happened. And then they all run down the street in steampunk attire to the across the universe version of with a little help from my friends. Well, I think that's true because you said that they had that. There are just some sober people running around this tiny town, um, stealing golf clubs and listening to little help from my friends for no reason. I feel like The show used to have like, the camera would pull back and show a little more of the town at the end of an episode because something emotionally resonant has just happened.

Yeah. That makes sense. It sounds like they made a whole season of that. I don't know what it was a season of. It was a disaster. They also, Emily has like a new maid who's played by the same woman who plays Gypsy. Emily is Lorela's mom. Yeah.

Sorry. Emily is the grandmother. She has a new maid. And the whole joke of the maid is that they don't know what language she's. speaking. They like think it's Spanish, but it turns out not to be Spanish. And then they have someone come from the UN who also can't figure out what language she's speaking. And then she moves her whole family into the house, which is like a pretty offensive like, oh, immigrants, they all live tend to a room, like joke. It's like really messed up. I don't even know why I'm saying these

facts to you because it's clear that they're real because I'm getting so upset. I'm going to go true. Yeah, that one was true. Nailed it. Andrew, you're counting, right? Yeah. They're all going to be true. There's nothing I could make up that's more ridiculous than the things that really happened. In closing, is this like Netflix's fault? Is this just the fault of 2016 as you've accused before possibly?

Or is, you know, is this, you mentioned a lot of the problem is possibly just how much money they had. Yeah, I think they definitely got too much creative freedom from Netflix. But I also think perhaps the show's creator might be a terrible person. Because she planned all these storylines for when Rory was 22. And it seems just like brutally mean to make like six years of a show about this like talented young woman who like wants to be a journalist and, you know, influence the world in like a positive way. And then to have spoilers, to have her get pregnant and then cut to black. like that's the last thing that she says is like I'm pregnant is really fucked up like wait are you camey that's the end of this season that's the end of this reboot which is like it's

whatever because she's 32 you know who cares and she's also obviously failed at being a journalist so maybe she should try something else but if it was the the end of the original series when she hadn't even gotten a chance to try to be a journalist after like all of the investment that we have in her it's i can't even believe it i can't even believe it's the same like that the same woman who wrote the first six years would like have that idea in mind for her character not that like becoming a mom is a terrible thing to happen to you but well that's almost the genesis of the whole thing's laurie had rory when she was really young yeah but like if you're if the whole point of laura la's storyline is making sure that her daughter doesn't make the same mistakes as her

Like that's when she has her freakouts is whenever it seems like Rory is doing something that she would have done. And then she's just like, oh, yeah, like everything I've ever dreamed of is now either postponed or derailed because I'm going to have this freaking kid. And also, if it cuts to black, like, there's not even any purpose in that storyline because we don't get to see how she handles it. I mean, maybe she wouldn't keep that child. What do I know? But, like, you don't, you just don't know. It's just pointless. It just seems cruel.

It just seems like a mean thing to do to us. All right. Well, I'm really sorry. I'm not going to recover. This season happened to you. So would you still call yourself a fan of Gilmore Girls? Yes. So for me, I watched the new episodes with my grandmother and my mother and my sisters and my aunt and my cousin. And while we were watching it, I was like into it. I was trying really hard to enjoy it. You weren't like watching this for work because you're a journalist.

No. In particular. because I forgot to ask for screeners until it was too late and then they wouldn't give them to me. But anyway, I was watching it with my family. We bought Pop Tarts and Twizzlers, even though the Gilmore Girls are technically a Red Vines household, but Red Vines are disgusting. So we were nestled in for the whole day. And so I did try to really enjoy it. And it was nice to be with some of the characters again. Like Paris, Rory's friend from high school is always hilarious and great no matter what.

And I also thought, like, Emily Gilmore's plotline was actually really satisfying the way that she, like, dealt with her husband's death. So I was trying to like it. And then that night when I was talking about it with my mom, I was like, yeah, I liked it. But, you know, why didn't they talk about having a kid for, like, 10 years? Or, like, why is Rory so bad at journalism? Or, like, and then, like, gradually, the more I thought about it, the more I was like, oh, I really don't like that. Like, I really feel betrayed by these, like, departures. and yeah I'm just never going to watch it again but I can still love the original show hopefully

I don't know I haven't tried to go back to it it's also hard to love Gilmore girls anymore just because like everyone loves Gilmore girls now in a way that's like oppressive it's like if you say you love Gilmore girls everyone's like yeah course you knew like you're a white woman in your early 20s like duh um so that's too bad but you know I don't I don't know yeah I definitely tried to like get out of loyalty and then just couldn't do it. It just didn't seem like it's been a really rough year and it was something to look forward to especially like that's directed specifically to women who you know could use a good use the mood boost and then it was like a slap in the face and I was like okay thanks for that. Thanks for another one always always always always always another hit coming

from this terrible year. Well I'm really glad you joined me even though it is still 2016. Is there any other entertainment in the pipeline that you're just really looking forward to that's going to make it all up to you? The next Star Wars movie you're just so excited about. Okay. There is a movie coming out that's a World War II movie, which in general I object to the fact that we have a million and a half World War II movies. But it's coming out in March and Harry Stiles was in it. So I'm on the lookout for that.

There is a new Jake Gyllenhaal movie in theaters right now called Nocturnal Animals. And it's like a little messed up, but it's really good. And Michael Shannon is in it also. And he's like, I think one of the more like underrated supporting actors. And he does a really good job in it. And he also just gave a compelling interview about Donald Trump that I suggest people read. Michael Shannon. Mm-hmm.

Well, thank you for joining me. Okay. Please cheer up. Paul, wait, wait, before we finish this segment, can you tell me other things you haven't finished besides Gilmore Girls? Well, for the longest time I hadn't finished Battlestar Galactica. I think I finished Battlestar Galactica. Is that a TV show or a movie that Rihanna is in? It's a TV show.

The movie is Battleship, based on the hit board game Battleship, which I have. I've watched twice actually. What? Yeah. You've managed to watch a movie based on a board game twice, but not the final season. I never finished Friday Night Lights, which I absolutely loved. What? I absolutely, especially the first season.

It was just the most amazing thing and that just fell off. Okay, you have to watch the last season. I never finished Gossip Girl. I love the first two seasons of that. I never finished Veronica Mars. I loved like the first couple seasons of that. It's a lot. There's a lot that.

Okay. I will tell you. finished wheel of time. Skip gossip girl. The ending of that will not make you feel nice. Okay. Never finish wheel of time. I don't know what that is.

It's a book series. I'm all caught up on the Game of Thrones books. Nice. Well, you'll never finish those because the rest of them will never be published. Probably. All right. That's okay. Thank you.

Turns out finishing things is awful. Yeah. See, it's not all chalked up to be. Nope. Thanks, Caitlin. Okay. Have a good day. All right. So, yeah, Gilmore Girls, big disappointment, apparently. But still, watch the show. I think, I really think it's a great show. And I still don't know why it's so important to me not being a woman. Just, I just really like the show. On a much more positive note, I have Andrew Webster on the line here. And he got to review good pieces of media that brought a,

joy and happiness and entertainment into his life. So yeah, it'll be a real pick-me-up. So let's talk to Andrew. Hello, Andrew. Hello. Thank you for for talking to me. So you review video games, which sounds like coolest job in the world, but is it the coolest job in the world? I mean, it's pretty cool until you kind of need to walk through and the game hasn't been released yet. Yeah. Other than that, it's pretty cool, yeah. Well, and then I feel like the hardest part would be RPGs. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, when Fallout 4 came out, I had to block off like an entire week to review it. All right, everybody, I'm dead. Fall Out 4 is out.

Yeah, pretty much. So you just reviewed two RPGs for The Verge. I did, and I'm alive. Yeah, so thank you and congratulations. So I wanted, there's a big, a big, big RPG, but there's another big, big RPG that came out right before it, which is, Pokemon, sun, and moon. Which one did you choose? I played Moon because it has like a time shift thing.

So when you play during the day, it's nighttime in the game, I thought that would be kind of interesting to mess around with. Did you feel like there was anything different about the game? Not that they changed the game because of Pokemon Go, but just you see Pokemon differently now that there's been this huge cultural phenomenon. I don't know. I mean, the most interesting thing, about it, I think, is that it's a more kind of like approachable game. It has a lot of kind of

little tweaks that make it easier to pick up and kind of less complicated RPG, which I don't know if that's in response to Pokemon Go, but I'm sure it's a, it's a very good thing to have all these people who are interested in Pokemon now and have a much kind of like easier way to get into the main games. Yeah, you noted in your review, I mean, first of all, I don't know if you want to give a basic outline. I mean, it's a Pokemon game. I think we're pretty familiar, but You want to explain what a Pokemon game is or what this is? I mean, it's a, it's a Pokemon game that takes place in fictional Hawaii is basically what it is. So it's a lot of chill island vibes.

It's super chill. The main professor doesn't wear a shirt. So it's super chill. And like walks into your house unannounced. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned this in your review, but this is my first Pokemon game since Pokemon Red. I actually, I got that $99 3DS Black Friday deal. Nice.

And, yeah, first game was this Pokemon. And yeah, you mentioned this in your view, but when you beat a Pokemon or capture Pokemon, what moves are effective against it when you fight it in the future is just like listed right in your moves list. And is that's a new feature? That is so helpful because I almost knew, oh, man, I'm sure there's something that counters this. I have no idea what. So for me, being not very familiar, it really is really helpful. And it has been a pretty friendly experience so far.

Yeah, and it's one of those things where I feel like if I played an old game now, it would be like it feels like this is missing because it just makes so much sense. Especially now that there's like so many different types of Pokemon, it's like super complicated now. So having that information like right there so you don't have to memorize it is super helpful. What's the new type for this game, some like transdimensional beings or something? Yeah, I don't even remember what they're called, but I can't keep track of them now. Are you going to catch them all, or are you kind of done with this Pokemon?

Oh, yeah. See, that's the rough life of the game reviewers. I have to move on to the next thing. You got to move on. Okay, so let's move on. No offense to Pokemon. Lots of stars out of lots of stars. We don't do star ratings for video games.

But would you say it gets lots of stars? It's a good one? It has a good amount of stars, yeah. Good, good quantity of stars. All right. Final Fantasy. 15. It's a big deal. It is a big deal.

10 years? I didn't know it'd have been 10 years. It's really been 10 years since the last major? Well, it's been 10 years since this game was, like, announced and work started on it. Okay. I actually don't know what times when Final Fantasy 13 came out, but that was the last single player, like big single player game because 14 was an MMO. But yeah, it's been like a long time. When it was announced, it was actually a spinoff of Final Fantasy 13 for the PS3. That's how long ago it was. And they kind of changed it into 15 and moved it to current gen systems and stuff.

13 came out in 2009. Yeah. So this was announced, yeah, and this was announced or development started on in 2006. Okay. Yeah, and it was called Final Fantasy versus 13 originally. And I always felt like there's been this trend where, like, there was kind of like almost peak RPG complexity in like the PlayStation 1 era. And then as graphics got better, it became more and more expensive to put that much game into your game. And so, and I just felt like, well, next gen graphics are just going to kill this.

This was basically be a movie. And, you know, I assumed it would have the same problems as Final Fantasy 13, just be some real linear story because you can't afford to make a huge world at the production value of a next gen game. But it kind of seems like they just did it anyway. I don't know. It's, it's, honestly, it's considering, like, not just the length of time, but, like, all the changes and that have happened over the course that it was made, like, they changed directors partway through. Like, it's kind of a miracle that it works. Like, it is, it's still kind of messy and awkward in places, but, like, it's a really, really good game. And it's kind of shocking that they managed to pull it all together. So as someone who's never finished a Final Fantasy game, I've definitely dabbled with a lot of them. I spent the most time with 12, actually. I really love 12.

12 is good, yeah. I liked some of the stuff in your review and some of the other things you've written. Because, like, you wonder, what is a Final Fantasy game? What makes it a Final Fantasy game? Why should I care? Is this just another RPG with a cool brand to it? Like, what makes, and it seems like there's, like, a lot of entry ways into this game that, like, connect you to the characters and story.

I mean, that's kind of, like, a difficult question, actually, like, what is a Final Fantasy game? Because one of the kind of cool things about the series is that, like, they sort of start over with each new one. So they try new things, and it's usually very different. There's, like, kind of core kind of elements, like it's an RPG, and the way some of the systems work are the same from one game to the next. But what kind of makes the series cool is that they're very different from one to the next.

And this one is, like, one of the most different, because, like you mentioned before, it has, like, has an open world, It has real-time combat. It's not quite an action game, but it's like somewhere between an action game and like an old school Final Fantasy game. It has a car you can drive around. But if you get the right parts,

you can turn it into a flying car, which I haven't managed to do yet. Oh, really? I think that's the, that to me, is pretty much all. I didn't play the demo or anything. When I saw the first trailer, it saw these guys in a car,

I was like, that is simultaneously, simultaneously the least fantasy RPG thing you could make, and also like the most final fantasy thing that could ever exist. Of course it's a boy band in a car. Of course that's what the Final Fantasy game is. Well, I mean, that's kind of, for me anyways, that's like one of the kind of defining things about, at least about the really good Final Fantasy is that they're kind of like these big, serious, world-saving stories that are also like really weird and silly

at the same time. And this is a kind of perfect example of that because you're like a boy band who are rescuing the world from imminent danger. So I went with my roommate to like game stops, midnight release. There's like a decent line there in Bushwick. I watched some like streams last night. I stayed up pretty late because this game seemed awesome. I don't have my own copy yet because I don't know what I'm going to actually play it. But it's awesome. So I almost feel like we should help lay the groundwork. You said on the site that people should definitely watch like these intro animas that kind of like these short free on YouTube videos that introduce these main characters. And also there's a feature film that you're supposed to watch too. Can you set the stage like this this hook, these quirky, weird

characters that I'm like instantly in love with just watching gameplay for a few hours. Can you set the stage like like hook us into this beautiful new fan? I don't know. I don't know. I don't want. I've never been this excited about a Final Fantasy. Everything I see about it, it's just like, oh, it's just surprising and fun and beautiful. I don't know. Yeah, it's really weird. Like, the four, the kind of four main characters are really, like, the hook of it. And the whole idea is that you're, you play one character.

You play Prince Noctus, who's a prince who kind of, at the beginning of the game, he goes out on a road trip to marry someone he's betrothed to or whatever. He's got a real attitude. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, he's a very kind of surly sullen Final Fantasy lead character. And he brings, as you do, he brings three of his friends along. One of them is like, you know, the tough guy who's his bodyguard. There's like his kind of personal minder who's the driver and their chef.

Tell me this true or not. My friend told me that this guy has been trying for years to cook this one dish. that Prince Noctus had randomly at a bakery? Yeah. So that's, if you watch the, the anime you mention, it's called Brotherhood Final Fantasy 15. And they're like these, it's this five episode series on YouTube. And each episode kind of focuses on a character.

And his sort of backstory is that he, yeah, he has no idea what this dish is. And he just changes like one ingredient each time he makes a dessert and gives it to him. And Noctus will say, it's closer, that's farther away, or whatever, and he's just been doing it for years. Also, he hates nighttime driving. He does. I mean, it's dangerous, and he's like a very serious, sensible person, so. Cool. And then there's the photographer guy.

Yeah, prompto, who's like the goofy one. When my wife was playing, she said he sounded a lot like Mikey from Ninja Turtles, which actually kind of works. And his backstory is, like, even weirder is that he used to be really chubby, and he wanted to be friends with the prints, so he started working out, so he would be thin and cool. That's a real lesson for everyone to learn. Yeah, and he likes to take selfies, which is one of my favorite prints of the game. Which is weird to say, but I don't know, it all makes sense. It's such a final fantasy.

Yeah, what it does cool is it has, like, all these little things, like the blonde guy, prompto is a photographer, and he'll take photos, and Igness, who's the serious kind of caretaker guy. He cooks and meals and stuff, and you have all these, like, little moments that kind of make it feel like you're really hanging out with your buddies. Like they go, you know, in like, Final Fantasy games, you always like stay in to replenish your health or whatever. And you can do that here, but you can also like go camping and, you know, cook some food and just kind of hang out. And it like creates these really cool, small, intimate moments that

make it feel like you're connecting with these, with these dudes. How long did it take you to play it? It took me just under 40 hours, but like I had to skip past a lot of stuff. But the good thing is that you can kind of go back after you beat the game and do things. That's a pretty big game. Like, there's a lot of stuff that I still want to do that I couldn't do in that 40 hours. Is it just because we're older that 40 hours seems like almost too much to commit to a game? Or is there something changed in society that?

Because everybody talks about the death of JRP's, and I feel like that's almost part of it. It's just like, who's going to spend 40, 100 hours on one game? Yeah, if it wasn't my job, I could do like maybe one, year. That's a long, long time. But if you were going to pick, pick one this year, it would be this one. Oh, yeah. I mean, if I was going to pick one of the last several years, it would be this one for sure. Well, awesome. Thank you so much, Andrew. Keep fighting the good fight of playing those video games. It's rough work, but, you know, someone's got to do it. No, I love your writing. I love the reflections you have on the games. If you haven't read Andrew's stuff, I definitely recommend

checking out No Man Sky Travel Diaries. That was awesome. It's just the exact right way to approach that game. And I thought it was great. Thank you very much for joining me. Cool. Thank you. I really love the way The Verge does video game coverage. If you haven't checked it out, I just feel like somehow it matches my lifestyle better than a traditional games publication. It's a little bit more about the art form.

It's a little bit more. I don't know. It's not about the score necessarily. I don't know. Check it out. good it's good stuff thank you Andrew so last on the show but you know not least because this is typically a pretty gadget centric podcast this is your first time listening you should probably check out some of the other episodes because there there really are some cool co-hosts that i get to

spend time with and i think you'll really love to meet them but ashley carman has spent some time with spectacles we also had a review go up by shana o' cane about spectacles these are snap Ink's new gadget and we've talked about it a lot on the show but now that people a couple of our editors have spent serious time with these camera glasses on their face

I want to know what it's like so let's talk to Ashley Hello Ashley Hi we are literally outdoors would you agree I think that's actually correct So we are standing in the Snapchat Spectacles Live Snap Inc

The Madison and 59th. Yeah, it's around the corner from the Apple Store. For some reason I visualized it right next. That's what I was envisioning too. I thought it was going to be in the toy store that's going to like. I thought it was going to like. Yeah. He's a line.

I don't like this. This is really scary. So right close to, oh hey. Right up near the door there's the campers. And then there's a really long line. We have some fancy stores. And now it's going around the corner. So it's basically almost a whole city block.

Yeah, but it's actually not as many people as I thought it would be. Because the store isn't filled. Well, no, but the store doesn't open in town. Yeah, but I was expecting it to be like, how many people are you going to say 100? I would say about 100. We're reporting live from the Snapchal Spectacles Live. This is also the noisiest block ever. Yeah, it's pretty.

Well, it's not as crazy. Did you walk past Trump Tower on the way here? No. So if you're going up Fifth Avenue and you're on the Trump Tower side, there's like a bag check. So just get onto that sidewalk. I'm not going to, you know, get to politics. Yeah. All right.

Well, so, anyways, you have been hanging out with the spectacles. Yeah. You have this object. Well, because Brian Bishop, our entertainment reporter, got a pair or two pairs in L.A. when they first came out. And he sent one pair to the New York office here. and Sean O'Kane had them. And then Sean was like,

Ashley, you can play with these because I know you've been excited. So I've been playing with that. And then it got really cold out. Yes. And then it turned to winter. Perfect time for... That's so funny.

It's like in L.A. They put the vending machine on a beach. And everyone was just like, chatted on the beach. Like, worst case you're in a line on a beach. Like, whatever. Here, it's like everyone's bundled up. It was raining yesterday.

It's miserable as hell. Yeah. And semi-truing. driving by every minute like this is bad this is not you if this line wasn't so crazy I would buy a pair yeah if I could just go online and buy them I would get them yeah it's only $130 they're fun do you think part of the reason that people want them is because it's so hard to get on oh yeah totally false scarcity what do you think about you've used them what is the like how is it

Did you find any beaches? Yeah, it totally changed my perspective on the world. A lot of more serendipity. Yeah. No, I was saying to Andy at work, like, the spectacles are cool. I feel like in a very specific situation, where it's like if you're on vacation and you want to remember your vacation but you don't want to always have your phone out or anything like that, that's cool.

If I had a kid and I wanted to, like, Amelia, a photographer has a daughter who's really young and she hoisted her up in the air while she was wearing the spectacles and put her daughter over the glasses. And I think that's like a really cool moment because you can see Luna's reaction. I don't know, you're never going to be able to. Amelia's right here. Yeah, I'm talking to Amelia.

You can talk. How do you feel about spectacles, Amelia? That was really fun. That was a really fun little video. Like, don't you think you'll revisit that video one day? Yeah. Maybe not all the time, but like you could find it on your computer and you're like, oh, and I think you would actually bring you some joy.

Yeah, no, I was psych to do it. And I've tried to get that photo, actually, of her in the air. I need to send you it. Yeah. Oh, it's really cute. I loved it. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's in your Snapchat memorandums. Yeah. Yeah. So then you have to download it to your phone. It's not as fun to play with. Like, I can't turn my phone. So when I send it to Amelia, it's just going to be a circle video. But just so cool.

So, yeah. Yeah. But I feel like the spectraves are really good in those specific circumstances. You were saying yesterday that it might be bad if you had spectacles like during a relationship and then that relationship ended. ship ended because it's such a visceral memory. If you wear them all the time and the whole point is that it's your view of life, I could just easily see myself in love one day if it ever happens, you know, holding

someone's hand or something and you press the record button and it records this video of you holding their hand and then you revisit it when you break up. It's gonna happen. It's in your memories. Yeah, and then you're like, dang, that's done. Like, that's sad. I don't even, I delete all text threads when I break up with someone. I don't actually have many photos of exes.

And the ones I do have, I really don't feel anything towards them. I'm just like, oh, that was a weird time. But like, something about a video to me, from your perspective, seems like it could definitely be more visceral. Well, I'm thinking of, like, stranger days and, like, minority report. Like, that's like a plot element. It's like these, both cases, men. who have these digitally recorded memories in some weird futuristic format.

And they just revisit this old relationship and they can't let it go. Yeah. Because it's like from their perspective. Yeah, I think it could help you keep alive in a relationship that maybe you don't want to keep alive. I don't know. I definitely think for daily wear, I don't need to record myself going to buy a $9 couple of like I don't ever need to read this at that moment although who knows I don't keep a daily diary and sometimes I wish I did I'm just lazy so I'm like yeah maybe it would be nice to just be like oh

on this day in 2016 I literally did nothing exciting at all but that was my life in 2016 do you record just mundane tasks around the house where you're your spectacles I one day made it a goal to just record my day and it was kind of and I shared it on Snapchat too So it was sort of embarrassing almost for me because, so I woke up and I was like, I'm walking down the block. Fine. I'm walking in my neighborhood. Fine. And I'm like, I'm at the gym alone.

Not so far. I'm eating an assaye bowl alone. Like, look at me. I love being alone. And then I would like go home. And then like I started, I actually made plans that day because I was like I need to look like I have friends. And then it felt a little bit better. But I don't know.

I just think you need to record all those things. Like I don't see myself. revisiting these memories that I took that day. Also, again, I hate to keep harping on this, but it's literally the winter. Right, yeah, you and I have talked about how... It's so weird, I don't wear sunglasses, I typically forget them. And then in summer, I try to remember to put my pair of sunglasses in my backpack, so every once in a while, it's just so bright, I can pull them up.

But I've never been good at just, like, having sunglasses on me all the time. Right. Well, that's the other thing, too, I wear glasses normally. I do have contacts, but, like, day to day in work, I can't have not to put my contacts in. Here's a thought experience. What if technology is so advanced that there was a virtually invisible camera

that you could choose to have built in to your whatever glasses you want to wear? Would I? For $130. You don't even have to wait in one. So it would just be like my regular glasses. Yeah, you could, like, when you're like choosing if you want scratch-free lenses,

you choose, do you want this? Yeah, I would get them. It's cool. Also, you and I bought those spy glasses. That's true. And I just want to say that these things have been available since like the 90s. You've been able to mount a camera to your...

Yeah, this is not new. It's just Snapchat's marketing. Right. And the glass are actually stylish, whereas the ones we got off Amazon are like, I think they're cool. But they're kind of heinous. Like 90s, Oakley, Cyberpunk, it's have a look. But yeah, Snapchat's all about marketing. Well, yeah, it's really...

I'm sure people have seen pictures. Yeah. But this building... Well, Amelia will have some photos with this. It's like the whole face of this building is one big Snapchat The vending machine looks really cool. It's an animated vending machine. Yeah.

I just want the vending machine. Which apparently doesn't work super well. Yeah, according to our sources in line. I'm standing next to somebody. Yeah, we're not actually allowed in line. Just to have a wristband. I have a wristband. You have a wristband.

I could buy this if I wanted to. There are line patrols. Well, it's keeping it a number. Yeah, apparently, because I have a wrist fan, if I stay here, tell however knows, who knows how long, it's open. it's open for four to ten, I will get a pair of speck. But apparently from the point we are in line right now, it takes two hours, even after the store opens. Because there's just one freaking pinning issue.

Yeah, that messes up. I don't know, I really, I just, I have this vibe. Like, I feel like there's people who walk past this line who have this innate desire to get in line before they even know what it is. Oh yeah. They like, fill themselves like gravitoritating towards a line without even knowledge of it. That's totally human nature. in nature is to see a line and think that's the line you're supposed to be in, even though there wasn't a line you were supposed to be in at all today.

I hate lines, though. I'm an active line avoider, which is why I can't wait in this. You don't do Black Friday? I don't, I've never waited in a line. Good for you. I don't think. What about that? You just grab a line.

Like, I'm stealing this if there's a line. This is going to happen. Well, thank you for joining me out here in this gesture of, by you know. spectacles but not actually buying spectacles. Andrew you almost bought spectacles. Yeah, twice. Do you've been here twice and almost bought them but then just like, deny? No, I got denied both times. Oh you got denied? I didn't even get a wristband last time. Okay, Andy didn't do you know. And actually I was telling Andrew that one of someone at Vox, not at the verge, but in our company has spectacles and I said to him,

I was like, how'd you get those dude because we had just been talking about how we wanted them but didn't want to wait in line. He paid someone to wait in line for him. Not he didn't even just buy them already bought. No, apparently there is a service that does that. Well, I bet there's a lot of people. Yeah. It's what I always think is so crazy.

There's so many things in New York that people wait in line for it. Like Shakespeare in the Park and iPhones and Broadway tickets. It's like, I thought everybody in New York is like really busy. New York is a line city. I did see a scalper and the line police. Police forcibly ejected it. What do you mean to stop her? Like, can you already have glasses?

No, there was a lady holding a pair of spectacles trying to sell-in. Into the line? Yeah. How much was she asking? She didn't even get a chance. She's got food in. She's like, you have to leave, which I don't even know how you do that. Well, that's the other thing.

That's why New York is such a funny place for them to put this. New York is seriously the flipping capital of the world. Like, everyone here is hustle it. So, these things are just getting flipped. Yeah. Hustler. Sometimes, no. I'm not a good slipper either.

I'm very much like a... Sometimes I'll like, give my roommate some of my Doritos so that he feels like slightly indebted to me. Is that hustling? That's not flipping. Close though. You're getting there. Last word on spectacle, actually. They are affordable, which is awesome.

They actually are stylish. The camera feature is cool. Do you want to wait in 12 hours or for 12 hours? I don't know. That's up to you. Cool. Thank you for joining. Yeah. Thank you. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace.

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Squarespace, set your website apart. Well, that is our show. And I think we learned a lot this week. I think first off, we learned that I have no idea what I'm doing as a solo podcast host. But thankfully, there are millions, nearly, I don't know, 70 ultra-intelligent people who work at the verge and are all wonderful to talk to you. and I feel blessed that I got to talk to four of them. So thank you, Andrew, Ashley, T.C. Caitlin for making this a great verge cast. And no thanks to you, Neli and Dieter, leadership experts, big wig, money movers.

No, they don't do that. They don't move money. They're great guys. And I look forward to having them back next week because it's their show anyways. So that's it. We have a ton of other podcasts in the Vox Media Empire stable of podcasts. There's Control Walt Delete every Thursday with Walt Mosberg and Eli Patel. And Eli Patel, even though he didn't do this show this week, he did do Control Walt Delete. So, you know, he's got his priorities.

There's too embarrassed to ask with Lauren Good, Recode Decode with Kara Swisher, and Recode Media with Peter Kafka. Also, if you go to iTunes.com slash The Verge, you could leave a review. You could say, Paul was the best podcast host. Thanks, Paul. That would be, you know, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but if you believe that in your heart, maybe that would be a good thing to type into the iTunes review page. Just something to think about. Also, you can find the people I talked to this week on Twitter. Andrew Webster, who's the video games guy, is A underscore Webster, Ashley R. Carmen, who talked to me about spectacles, is Ashley R. Carmen on Twitter. So that's convenient. Caitlin Tiffany is Kate underscore Tiffany, and Kate is spelled with a K. And then T.C. Sotech, who talked about Net Neutrality, is obviously Chillmage on Twitter. So yeah, thanks again to all of them. Thank you for listening. And that's our show. Rock and roll, Paul. Those are the cool outro words that are like an inside joke that, you know, sometimes I wonder, when we say them at the end of a show, does anybody even know why we say these things?

And this is still funny. But we do it anyways. And that's really what the Vergecast is all about. Oh, I got a text message. All right, have a good day.