The Vergecast - Solo Acts: Tinymakesthings' custom keycaps

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

On today's episode of our Solo Acts mini series, Ashley Esqueda talks with Tiny of tinymakesthings, who makes artisan keycaps for mechanical keyboards. Tiny explains how she got started making her projects on Twitch, the process for designing the keycaps, and the community she built with her art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Build Me a Revenue Dashboard on our Salesforce data. And Retool actually builds it on your company's data, in your cloud with enterprise security built in. Go to retool.com slash vergecast. We all need to retool how we build software. Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of little tiny hamburger keys on a keyboard. I'm your friend Alex Kranz, and today we have a new episode of our solo acts miniseries, which features interviews from people who are working independently to create great things on the internet.

Every Monday on the Vergecast, our friend Ashley Eskeda, is curating and hosting the, these interviews and sharing with us what she's learned. Hey, Ashley. I did not realize I was legally required to learn something. Oh, no. Yeah, you're legally required. So what are we learning about today? Who are we talking to? I am very excited to talk to Tiny Makes Things. And Tiny Makes Things is a maker and dreamer. That's how she describes herself. She's an artisan keycap creator, which means she makes really, really adorable key caps for your mechanical keyboard. I love it. Now, you're like a mechanical keyboard enthusiast.

Oh, yeah. I have been in this space since like, oh, 2009, actually. That was my first big mechanical keyboard. It had Alps keys based kind of on like an Apple keyboard from the 90s. I spent way too much money on it. I still have it. Are you able to discern like a musician can hear a note? Are you able to discern an MX cherry from a...

I can hear a toprey. I can hear that because that's the key that makes my heart sing. But I was very excited to hear you were talking to Tiny Makes Things because, like, the little novelty keycaps, oh, my God, I love them. They're so cute. Yeah. She has got some really adorable key caps. One of my favorite things that she has ever made is an entire keyboard full of open-mouthed curbies. Yes.

Just bloop. Which are extremely. extremely adorable. And she is a content creator as well. So part of her early career was spent on Twitch making keycaps and talking about her process and building a community there. She also does, I mean, she does hand sculpted clay keycaps. And then she also works with resin. She makes accessories. I mean, it's really, it's really impressive stuff and also just outrageously adorable. Well, I know our listeners have had to hear me talk about mechanical keyboards a whole whole whole lot. And I'm super jealous that you got to go and chat with Tiny Makes Things. So let's just like, let's get to this

interview. I want to hear everything you guys learned. She's terribly fascinating. I love talking to her. Let's do it. Tiny, thank you so much for coming and talking to me today. Thank you for having me, Ashley. Really, really happy to be here. I want to talk about Tiny Makes Things. Can you give listeners just a brief overview of your work? Yeah. I just love making key caps that are silly, funny, cute, and just bring joy to you when you, like, see it on your keyboard. I basically just started out just making things that people doing commissions, like making key caps that people would ask me to make of them. I kind of draw a lot of inspiration in general from pop culture, like things that are trending, like memes, anything that I just find funny or entertaining.

Mechanical keyboards back maybe, you know, six years ago or so, a lot of it was just the gamer aesthetic of mechanical keyboards, a lot of the darker, like black colors with RGB. When people thought about mechanical keyboards, they thought about, oh, it's like for gamers and it's a certain kind of look. And I just, I felt like that wasn't true. And being part of the mechanical keyboard hobby, I knew that there was a lot more to it. And so doing keycaps and making kind of fun little keycaps was my way of sharing and trying to get people to understand that like, yeah, mechanical keyboards can be for everybody. How and when did you originally get into? to mechanical keyboards as a hobby. Yeah, it was maybe like seven years now. I was just in college and I had

built my first PC to play video games on. And then the keyboard component actually just, I just went and bought like a $15 keyboard. It was not mechanical. Because back then, I think the only like the cheapest mechanical keyboard that you could get was something like $80 to $100. And it was like, why would I spend so much more money on a keyboard? I don't really see the need for it. And I think it wasn't until a little bit later that year that I, it was because I had this crush on this boy and I knew that he was into keyboards and it was a very small hobby back then. I was like, oh, you know, maybe I just, I just used that as an excuse to like talk to him. And so I was like, hey, can you tell me about keyboards? I'm thinking about getting a mechanical keyboard and I basically just, I kind of used

it as an excuse, but I definitely got actually interested in it and I learned a lot about it. For me, it was just learning about like, oh, you know, like it does really make a big difference how it sounds, how it feels, and the typing experience, and it being something that you use so often, like every day in your life, it feels like it's kind of just a good investment to make, to have something custom, and that feels good whenever you use it. What do you think it is about mechanical keyboards that sort of capture people's imagination? Because there is so much creativity in the space. And, I mean, your work and the work of others, I've just seen some stunning keyboards

just by themselves, independent of custom keycap work, which is its own separate community of makers. What do you think it is about mechanical keyboards that really just captures all of our nerdy little hearts? I think it's so customizable that it appeals to people in different ways. Some people are really, really into, just for example, the keycap collecting part of this hobby, which is some people don't even mount these keycaps ever.

they just keep it in a display box. And I actually got into that. That was kind of how I got into making the key caps in the first ways because I used to collect them. And it's just one of those things. It's like collecting funco pops or something where you just really like something and you'll collect a lot of it. And you kind of trade around different key caps. And so that's like one, that's just a very small portion of the bigger hobby. But because people can be like, okay, well, I want a keyboard, but I really like these cool, like little art pieces that can collect and put them on my keyboard if I want to.

But there's people who also just really are into like, I really want something that sounds a certain way. Or I want it to sound like nothing at all. I don't want it. I don't want any sounds when I'm typing because I just want it to be quiet. Or I want it to feel like stiffer or harder or maybe a very light touch. And I think like people can get into it however they want to. And the fact that you also don't really have to get into it if you don't want to. I think a lot of people see how crazy like the hobby can get. And they're like, oh, there's so much to. to kind of like think about to learn and you could just go in and get something just like a one-time thing and that will last you many, many years and you don't ever have to like go really deep into the hobby. You can just kind of pick out something that you like and just stop there.

So I think like the flexibility and the kind of the customization of the hobby really allows people to be as much into it in whatever fashion they want to or not at all. I think your workspace and how it looks affects how you function in that workspace. and I think we saw a huge growth in the hobby, like the lockdown and pandemic happened in the start of that because everyone had to kind of buy their own like work from home work spaces. And so the keyboard might actually probably be the most like customizable part of that. So I think people really like to just make something their own. And it affects how they, how you see your workspace and how you feel in that space. And I think that's the impact that it has is big considering how like it's not really. a big thing, but it can have a big impact. Now, you have mentioned that what a lot of people associate with a mechanical keyboard are sort of these very loud, clicky switches. So there's sort of like clicky switches and linear switches. The linear ones are sort of the higher end ones that a lot of enthusiasts like to use when they build. What setup are you using the most these days? Like, what is your favorite keyboard switch profile set? Like, what's your, what's your,

What's your setup for the enthusiasts listening? I have in front of me is, it's called the Mr. Suit. It's just the name of the keyboard. And the trend or maybe the past year or two's trend is this kind of marbly, like, thawky. It's just terms that we use, but marbly thawky sound. I'm not sure if you can, it's really hard for me to, like, record the sound because I feel like I've tried, even with my phone or just to get it in a video, even with a nice mic setup, I just feel like it doesn't capture the like marbly sound quite well and hearing it in person is kind of like it just I don't know how to

describe it it. It just kind of like hits differently when you're when you hear it. I can I can type on it really quick but this is a the trend is kind of putting foam into the keyboard and it mutes a lot of the kind of like yeah yeah it's like a thick more like dense kind of sound. Okay we're going to take a break and then I'll talk with Tiny about her creative process. Support for this show comes from Shopify. Every thriving successful business has to start somewhere. A good place to start is a relatively simple question. What if, given the right tools, I've really put my all into this.

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Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash vergecast. go to Shopify.com slash vergecast. That's Shopify.com slash vergecast. All right. I'm back with Tiny Makes Things. I would like to move on from mechanical keyboards in general to your work with custom keycaps and talk about your creative process. So what is the very first keycap that you made? The very first keycap to my recollection,

because it's been many years, was actually this link and Zelda. Well, I actually made a pair of just like this kind of cheapy, like cartoonified version of Link and Zelda. And I actually, it was just kind of a thing that I wanted to try out doing. And I think somebody actually, I saw a post on like one of the subreddits that was asking about like, oh, you know, does anybody know if Link key caps exist? I want to get one for like me and my girlfriend or something like that. And that's why I made two of them. And I actually remember reaching out in DMs to this person after I made them. And I sent a picture of it.

And I was like, hey, do you like want these? I literally like offering them for free because I made them. And back then I wasn't even making them as, you know, like as an artist. I don't think they ever responded. So I was just like, oh, you know, I guess that's that. Like it's not good enough or whatever. I think it was just like a random. I just thought about it because I was like, I don't think there are back then.

There weren't a lot of people making custom. And that's maybe where I got. this idea like, oh, I can make certain characters and designs for people that are looking for those design and the hobby because it doesn't really exist. At that point, it wasn't like a full-blown thing that it is now. So, yeah, that's the one that I remember off, I guess, the top of my head that I made. So how did that initial pair of keycap snowball into what you're doing now? Is it, was it a process of, like you mentioned, was it a process of being on subredits?

and joining mechanical keyboard communities and offering those commissions, or was it more of, I'll just start making and then post them and see if people want to buy them? I would say maybe it is a combination of that. After I started making them,

I obviously was like, okay, well, you know, me reaching out randomly to people, the chances of people being like, oh, I would like a keycap, or I guess the eventual goal is to be paid for the keycaps if it was something that I wanted to do. But even in the beginning,

I would just make them and then we'll see kind of where it goes from there. And I think I made key caps that I personally thought were cool or the designs that I really liked. It wasn't one of my first, I would say, sales or ideas was, well, what I called sushi keys, which were just like sushi keys. It would be like a salmon or tuna that's like mounted on top of like a white keycap. So it kind of looks like a little sushi. And so I made maybe a couple of those. and then the way, I guess, most people go about, you post on, like, one of the subredits and you just

kind of announce, like, your sale that it's happening at a certain time, and this is how you can buy one. When I first started making key caps, I was very inconsistent about it. I was working a full-time job, and when you get home, you just want to, like, just like potato and just play video games or watch TV. And then, like, you don't want to do anything productive because you kind of, you just feel, like, tired. And then I just felt very kind of, like, my life was just not going anywhere. because I was like, I'm working full time now. And is this just what my life is going to be for the rest. For the rest of it, I come home.

I'm just like, I want to watch TV. I feel like everybody asks themselves that question at a certain point. They're just like, is this it? Yeah, I was like, 20, whatever, 22 out of college. And I was like, I have to. And you're already asking, is this it? Oh, no. I was like, yeah, I guess like for the next, what, 40 years, this is what, like, life is

going to be like. So I was having a hard time, like, getting myself to make. the things even though I wanted to. And so what I did to kind of make myself be more consistent about it is I started streaming on Twitch, just the actual creative, like, keycap process. And a lot of times I wasn't even making key caps like for anyone specific or even for a sale. I was into Overwatch back then. So I started making all of the characters from Overwatch. I think I still have a lot of those keys that I just made the full cast of the Overwatch characters. A lot of key caps. Yeah, it was a lot of keycats, but it was a lot of like I would do it while I'm streaming. So then I had, you know,

company, you know, people would stop by. It's like, you know, chat with people. It helped me be really consistent because I would force myself to, you know, stream for a certain amount of hours. And I think that really helped me practice and helped me kind of get better at the actual keycat making. And then too, I think even though I don't think my stream was, you know, super popular or anything, I think it did help me grow. And then I had to, you know, to not had to, but when you have a Twitch, you're like, okay, I also should be on other social media. So I was also on Instagram and it gave me other outlets to kind of share my work and to really, you know, post about what I was making. And so I think that helps grow my audience and also

potential, I guess, clientele. And then from there, I think I started to get actual commissions and I would open up for, you know, like, hey, I can take a certain amount of commissions. And then people would request certain things and then I would kind of do commissions and I could also stream that as well. So I kind of like built on itself over time. But I did really kind of start out just making without the intention of like I want to sell this. It was just like I want to make these things because I think they're cool and I like them and I want to practice. And then eventually we got to a point where I was like, okay, look, people are interested. There's there's a need for kind of custom key caps in this space.

That's how I, that's how I started out. I've heard this from multiple people, at least over a dozen, that have attributed their success in a creative field to getting on Twitch and being held accountable by their viewers to be consistent. As your community has grown, do you stream the same amount they used to? Do you stream more? Because now this is your full-time job. Do you find that your community is really supportive or has it more, has it more transitioned into a business and customers situation on Twitch where a lot of your viewers are sort of treated like a business relationship as opposed to that sort of parisocial Twitch relationship that we see that's like very common?

In the first maybe two years of streaming, I was very streaming a lot. I was very gung ho about like, I need, you know, I want to hit partner. I want to, you know, hit certain numbers or whatever it was. I would just, I put a lot, I would say, like, 80% of my effort and maybe 20% was still like keycap making, but of my efforts into streaming. And it was a really big thing for me to have that platform and that community and just that space. And I think you're right in that it really helped having that consistency.

And I think a lot of people, when I look back and even just thinking about it now, I think what I do is not particularly hard, I would say, like the actual. craft. And I don't want to say that in a way where I'm like, oh, this is so easy. But like, I just, sometimes I'm like, yeah, I just did it for a long time and consistently. And consistency is key for a lot of people because I would say a lot of people also give up on, you know, on the way to doing something because you don't see results or you're not seeing whatever you're expecting. And it's hard to kind of be in those places when you don't feel like you have to hit some numbers or you feel like you're not growing as fast as other people or whatever it is.

is, it's sometimes really tough to stay in, you know, that mindset and to keep doing things. So in the beginning, I would say streaming was my very kind of, I put all my effort into. And then over time, I would say, especially since I kind of discovered short-term video content was for me and my style and maybe just my own personal, like, expression, I thought that short video content really suited the way that I like to share my art. Most of my TikToks of my art are very quick, maybe like 15 to 20 seconds, like not time lapses, but short kind of parts of me making things and then you see the final product. Sometimes that takes like hours to do and you get to see 15 seconds of it completed really quickly.

I just thought that was like easier for people to digest, obviously. And I got into TikTok right before the lockdown and everything happened before. I think TikTok blew up. And when I got on the platform, I was like, this is great. I don't have to. Streaming is fun, but it's also, you know, you're sitting through hours, like, you have to prep for it. There's hours of it. And then afterwards, you're really tired.

But at least for these videos, I could post it and just, like, leave it there. I don't have to. There's nothing I have to do once I'm done with it. After I started doing more short form, like video content, I just took a backseat from streaming. And I don't stream as often now. I would say, like, a couple times a month maybe. I really still do enjoy the community and kind of just the people that I've basically hung out with for the last like a couple years and people who are there when I wasn't,

you know, whatever influencer or content creator, I think I really value just those connections that I've made in the past. And it's like, kind of just like seeing friends from time to time when I, when I stream now. So it's not something that I use particularly to like grow anything, I guess at this point. It's more of a, hey, I want to hang out with the community. I kind of just want to relax and like do something. But, you know, it's just there to. kind of like relax and catch up and not use it as a this is my thing this is what makes me money this is like you know and I think it was like that in the beginning where I felt like oh I want to be you know a really big streamer and make lots of money or whatever it is and for me I just kind of felt like

yeah I don't know if I'll ever reach that point and and maybe I don't want to because I feel like when it gets big it's hard to have like close community and I really value that aspect of it. All right we're going to take one more break and then I'll chat with Tiny about the challenge of making her key caps and the accessories she's making for them. Support for the show comes from Grammarly. You don't need reminding that the world moves fast. But work today requires clear communication, and when every message counts,

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With Gramerly, you never will. Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com. That's grammarly.com. Okay, I'm back with Tiny. I am curious about the most complicated keycap that you've ever made and how long it took for you to make. So that question is sort of difficult to answer in a sense that sometimes I take like days, weeks, months, or whatever to kind of prototype a keycap and that's a lot of

design and then you like sand. things down, you maybe cast it to see what it would look like, and then you kind of go back to the drawing board. If something doesn't go back, you can sand things off and remake it. So that's hard because it's technically, it is one key cap, but then once you finish like the master, the initial key, you can make like tons of it after. So sometimes just things take a lot of like reiteration, just based on the design. I'm generally a more fast-paced designer, kind of like less intricate, but more like more designs. Like I've made a lot of different designs. I kind of just, you know, hammer them out just to kind of get something on the table. I think it's just like my

style of doing things. One of the design, I'm just going to name one that I don't know if it is the most difficult one, but it's a little panda. And I have it here, but for anyone listening, it's an extremely cute panda keycap. And I'm sure you can see it on your Instagram. It is on my Instagram. The thing that this makes this hard though. And what maybe people don't really recognize from the get-go is that when you make a keycap like this, which has multiple many black and white kind of like layers, the keycap is actually made upside down. And what I mean by that is the mold is, it's casted upside down before in this mold. Basically, it's poured into a mold. And so it's a liquid. And you have to fill up

this liquid in order. It's like a jello mold. Yeah. have a clear yellow mold, you pour in, if you're making different color layers, you have to like pour in a layer, let it set, pour in a new layer, let it set. Exactly. That is a great way to explain it. And so you have to think about like his eyes and his ears. Those are all like black. And those are not like a whole layer. Those are like you have to take like a needle basically something very tiny. And I'm just tapping it into the resin and like dripping it as carefully as I can into these areas. So this is like a maybe six shots, what we call. So I have to do the eyes and the ears and the nose and that's, they're all black. The next layer is white, which is his, like, face. So that's another layer.

And then you do his, like, toe pads, which are white. And then you have to do his, like, legs, which are black. And then the last layer is the white. So it's like, I think that's six. And any part that you get wrong in the middle, you just, the cap is, I just, I don't usually sell, like, what I call B stock or something that's like slightly, if there's bubbles or whatever, if you mess up and the lines aren't clean. So it's just frustrating because if you mess up in the middle, you're like, crap, I got to go back and redo it again. You can't really like undo the layers.

You can't go back. You just start over again. So this is more just like a complicated process one, not very like, I wouldn't say like the details are super intricate. It's just the process was tiring and I didn't get a lot of like the yield wise was very low, the successful pandas that came out of this. So when you are making key caps, you also have what I have deemed accessories for your key caps, which I find extremely adorable, but also very clever. For example, you have these kind of little curbies with open mouths, and then you have for a shift key, for example, you've got a piece of corn, like an ear of corn that you can drop onto the top of that and remove, if so desired.

I would love to hear about how that came about. Your work was the first time I had ever seen accessories for custom keycaps or removable parts for custom keycaps. And I'd love to know sort of how that experimentation kind of came about. Yeah. I think when I think about keycaps and the design of it, a lot of what I think about is how do I make this fun and kind of like a toy. And I think maybe not the only source of inspiration, but I was really into hats when I was playing TF2, Team Fortress 2. It's a shooter game. But there was this whole economy that had to do with like literal hats in the game.

And I think all the time I'm just thinking about key caps. I don't know. Just like ideas come and go. So I was like, it wouldn't be cool if you had a keycap to head, you know, like hats or something that you could just swap around and give it like things that it could take off or put it on. I didn't end up doing something specifically like Hats for Kirby, but I think it was just the idea of like either modularity. I always think that's kind of a cool concept of like being able to swap things out with other things or like move things around. For keyboards even, there's actually keyboards that have like num pads that are modular, which I think is a really cool idea. But I just think about in general when I think when I think about design, I'm always just trying to think of like what other things can we do with key caps.

And it's hard because it's such a small space. You obviously have, like, restrictions about what you can really do in a certain space. Yeah, there's a few of them. Got a few accessories for the little Kirby. I think the first ones came as tongues. And I think maybe it even came out during a stream, which I feel like I, there was one time when I was just making different things for Kirby's face, but it wasn't, like, magnetic yet. I think I was just adding, like, teeth, which makes Kirby look very weird, or, like, glasses.

and yeah, just kind of facial accessories. And I think maybe it came up to me or to think about like, oh, maybe if he did have a magnet in his mouth, it could be a magnetic accessory that you could pop in and out. And then it also wouldn't be as haphazard. Yeah, it snaps on. Yeah, right. Snaps right on. Exactly. And if it comes off, that's part of the design, right?

Like it doesn't, you don't need for it to be bonded in that position. And I think it might be dangerous if there was actually like a tongue coming out or something like skinny like that. So yeah, I think I had that idea and I was like, oh, let me play around with it. I think I thought about magnet key caps long ago, but I just didn't really, one, it's hard to, like, mass produce at a scale. And I thought it would be fun to have it in between, like, different artists to have some sort of, like, base or standard magnet. So, like, if I make accessories and someone else makes accessories, but we use the, like, different polarity, then they won't work with each other. but my original idea was like, what if there was a standard and we had all these little accessories and not just it being like, you know, a tongue specifically, but like, you know, Kirby could eat

anything. So if you had like another keycap that maybe did have hats, Kirby could eat hats. I don't know. You know, like it could be something that you could swap among your key caps and you could even, you know, standardize it if you did want to say like, oh, maybe food things. And then we all release like our own food things for our own key caps, but then you can swap it among different makers and different, you know, kind of themes or whatever. And then anybody could make little magnetic things because you could buy one of these and just make your own accessories. And it would be really easy. And I think like sharing that and having that in a space, so something that I was really excited about. I actually have not ever actually released a magnetic cribby like to sell. Like I don't

think I've ever sold them. I just make them and I just throw them on myself. But yeah, that was the original idea and kind of how I wanted this to go and wanted people to kind of experience this and have, yeah, I just like cool things that you can throw on your keyboard, a keycaps at any time. That's so fun. And I encourage everybody to go look at your Instagram page because there are some very delightful videos there of examples of all of this that we're talking about. It helps put a visual to the description, I'm sure. I think my very last question for you is I would love to hear your advice to anybody who sees your work or the work of another custom keycap creator or mechanical keyboard enthusiast and wants to get into this either as a hobby or a line of work to go

into business for themselves. I think you have a lot of experience here that is very valuable that you could share. And if you have any advice for those people who feel inspired, what would it be? For people who just want to get a keyboard and to learn more about it, we have these, not we, but the community as a whole has these meetups. They're just called keyboard meetups. And people just bring their own keyboards and we're just usually in one big space. And you just talk to people about keyboards for like hours. It is probably one of the best ways to really get a good deep dive into keyboards. If you want to spend the least amount of time like studying or learning or researching about it,

it's really easy to go into one of these places. And I want to say that they're beginner or like friendly to people who are into the hospital. Obviously, if you're there, it's likely that you are already in the hobby, but everyone is really psyched to talk about keyboards. Like, you could probably go up to anybody and be like, hey, can you, you know, I'm new to this. Can you explain to me about keyboards? And I would say, like, a good amount of the people there would happily talk your ears off about keyboards for the entire time.

It's a great place to just see a very wide variety of everything. And I'm going to take this chance to plug in. And if you are local to the Bay Area in Northern California, I actually opened up a keyboard shop in downtown San Jose. You can just search tiny keyboard shop. And it is literally a tiny keyboard shop. But if you're new to the hobby and we'd just like to learn and you don't want to go to a meetup, you can go there and kind of experience keyboards and we'll happily explain to you everything

you want to know about keyboards. And you can also walk away with a keyboard if you would like to. or and or any of the accessories that are related to keyboards. Thanks again to Tiny for sitting down and talking to me in this interview. Alex, I just want to know how many mechanical keyboards you've purchased in the time between the start of this interview and now. I don't think I'm allowed to respond to that legally. I have to consult with my lawyers. Are you going to go get one?

I think I have to, right? Now I think I've got to. After talking to Tiny, I'm really excited about it. I want to learn more about the community. And from what I have seen, a lot of people are just super welcoming in places like the subreddits and other groups that you can find online, discords, things like that. People have just been really welcoming and they want to help you be an enthusiast. So it's really, it's a great community.

It is a great community. I 100% recommend going to like a meetup because everybody brings their keyboards. And the thing that everybody wants you to do is like type on their keyboards. I think that sounds like a great idea. And I'm sure being in Los Angeles, I'm sure there are lots of meetups. I think you will have no problem finding a meetup. All right. Well, thank you again so much, Ashley.

We've got one more episode of our Solo Ax miniseries. What are you going to be talking about? I am very excited to say that I will be talking to the solo app developer responsible for Overcast, which is my personal favorite podcasting app. It is the one I use. And he didn't pay me to say that. Marco Arment is going to talk to me about being a solo app developer and his journey into that arena and also the time he has spent in the space. And he's been there since pretty much the beginning of the app store.

So it's been it was a really, it's a really good conversation. Oh my God. I cannot wait to listen. Well, thank you again, Ashley. That's kind of it. This show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James. Brooke Mentors is our editorial director of audio. and the Vergecast is a Verge production

and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you've got thoughts, feedback, feelings, you can always email the Vergecast at Vergecast at theverge.com, or you can call the hotline. It's 866 Verge 11. Again, 866 Verge 11. Call us with any of your questions.

We love to hear them. And we're going to be back again on Wednesday with an all new episode of the Vergecast. So see you then. Stay classy.