199: Danette Chavez Goes Guesto Mode

[00:00:00] Anime Sickos

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Danette Chavez, Danette, thank you for joining us.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, thanks for inviting me.

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_00]: If folks out in the class, if students out there don't understand, understand, don't

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_00]: recognize your name, how would you describe your own self?

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_02]: So I started in Alt Weekly's, I'm a media person, I started in Alt Weekly's and we

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_02]: all know how Alt Weekly's turned out.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Great, they made a lot of money.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: They're thriving.

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And now they're next to nowhere.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And since about 2015, I've been in digital media.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, a great time to join an industry pivoting to video.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I should probably sum myself up as I'm an editor, I'm a culture writer

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_02]: and editor.

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And I worked at the AV club from 2015 to 2022.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_02]: When people may, I mean, not everyone knows this, but the senior staff were pushed out

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_02]: by the previous owners.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_02]: And the AV club became much less of a Midwestern thing.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But earlier this year, back in April, Pace bought the AV club.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And since July of this year, I have been the new editor in chief.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: That is the coolest shit that I've ever heard, folks.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Because usually the story is there's a cool website and then it dies forever.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is the opposite.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is so fun.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And also, like I did so much time theft in my 20s on the AV club.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I've been since we've been preparing for this episode, I'm like, I go to

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: the address bar.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I never go to the address bar anymore.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I just type. I just press the Twitter button.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I type in A V and I'm like, that's like these muscles are so atrophied.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And I go to the AV club page and I'm like there's like there's an article by

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Sean O'Neill.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Huh?

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_00]: What?

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It's incredible.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so pleased.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And I OK, so I reached out to you about this episode, Jeanette, because I knew

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00]: you in the sense that I know I used to know like a lot of artsy people in

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Chicago because of my old live show, The Skewer, which died in an ignominious

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_00]: death or rather was put to an ignominious hibernation, I hope by a

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: fucking that big virus that made a lot of dead guys exist.

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_00]: But you did The Skewer and I was just like, Jeanette is a person to

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: know.

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And I saw that, you know, you worked in media and I'm like, I hope Jeanette

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00]: makes it because everyone else I know who works in media is constantly

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: announcing their layoff.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I saw again in the in 2022 there was that big AV club thing where

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Geo Media was like, everyone has to move to L.A. today.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not paying for you to move and we're not increasing your salary

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: when you live in L.A. where everything costs more.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And then and I was like, that just goes to show evil always wins.

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And then fucking like you're like, hey, I'm editor in chief of the

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: AV club.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_00]: My mind was completely blown.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't believe it.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Congratulations again.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so cool.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_02]: It's really nice to hear that because I do think, you know, I mean,

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_02]: one, that you're going straight to the home page.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, it's it's one of those things where it sounds like

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_02]: such an outdated concept, right?

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_02]: That, you know, that you would go to a website instead of having it

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_02]: presented to you in some format, either through social media or I

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_02]: actually, I guess, Tiktok is social media too.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, like somebody summarizing an article in a video and

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_02]: then, you know, you have to look up the article.

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Don't do that.

[00:05:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Go to the home page.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's also, you know, like I think you you touched on this a bit, but

[00:05:50] [SPEAKER_02]: like the reason people stop going to home pages is because so few sites

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_02]: have really tried to present like a real entry point for people.

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_02]: The last few years, I mean, this is something that's happened on and off.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But like it's so many sites have just tried to kind of anonymize

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_02]: themselves, right?

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_02]: They wanted you to like feel like you were on Entertainment Weekly, even

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_02]: though you were actually on AV Club.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like and that, you know, that that drives away readers, right?

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_02]: When when something doesn't have an identity.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, you know, we've just seen over the last few years sites

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_02]: just trying to mimic each other.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, the thing is if they're all the same, what's

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_02]: going to make you go to anyone?

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think what we're we're going to start seeing and, you know, I might be

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_02]: getting ahead of the conversation here, but I think we're going to start seeing

[00:06:49] [SPEAKER_02]: sites sharpen their focus again.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's not going to be, you know, this broad entertainment thing.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Like a site like ours, you know, we're not big on like celebrity

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_02]: gossip like historically we weren't.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's because there are other sites that do that and do that well.

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And they should get to do that.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas, you know, we the A.V.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Club was started with this belief of like there's always something to say

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_02]: about pop culture, whether you're doing it today or two weeks from now.

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, that was the Midwestern sensibility of it.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you weren't on a red carpet.

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's no need to just promote, you know, a movie

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_02]: or a show through your site.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_02]: It's you know, you're you're showing it a lot more respect by actually

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_02]: taking time to evaluate it, whether or not it's good.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I think people need to say this when they're talking about like their Midwest

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_01]: cultural heritage, the onion is part of it.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And they try to make everyone go to L.A.

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: They said, do not be in the Midwest. Insane.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I so I love that.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I love what you're saying here, just the sharpening of focus,

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: because like again, what was it that made A.V.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Club beloved in its heyday?

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: What made it have a heyday to begin with?

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like because and one, like as a reader,

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you got to sort of know the writers, what they were into,

[00:08:11] [SPEAKER_00]: what they tended to write about.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And like there would be like the like a weird list.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like top like songs that are that involve some crazy.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I wish I could have thought of a better

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_00]: this is why I'm not the editor of A.V. Club, because I can't think of a list.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_00]: But there'd be like a weird list and like everyone would contribute

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: some shit I never heard of again, going to an entertainment site

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and hearing about something you've never heard of is like unthinkable

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_00]: because like for, you know, the last decade,

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_00]: the the thing for an entertainment site to do if they wanted to make money

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_00]: was again publish an anonymized article called

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00]: like who was Blungus at the end of the latest Marvel movie?

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Blungus explained.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And like that's that's so I don't care about Blungus.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I just don't.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so I'm so pleased that it's coming back.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like a huge reason why I became an annoying snob

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: like was the A.V. Club and it's it's weird shit.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And like I love that, like it's back there.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Your random rolls is back.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I love it.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It's we we we're bringing back writers,

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, some ringers, also, you know, some ongoing series.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: But the goal is also to the, you know, use those same principles.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. And and come up with new series, too.

[00:09:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. Because you you just mentioned the whole Marvel thing.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's a really good point in terms of like right now.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_02]: So few sites are trying to be ahead of the conversation.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_02]: They're not trying to be tastemakers.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone is waiting until something is already at critical mass

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_02]: before weighing in, because then it's not worth your time.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. Like it's like, oh, no one has, you know,

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_02]: the long Oz Perkins, the his long legs.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. The cage horror movie.

[00:10:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not I can't recall what the box office was opening weekend for it,

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_02]: but it's now past the 100 million mark.

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just know there there there's some editors who are going,

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_02]: do we know about this?

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Do we know long legs is going to be a thing?

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, well, this is why you try to look ahead.

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is why you hire actual writers and editors

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_02]: instead of just like a bunch of audience development people to then,

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, instruct what few writers and editors a site has

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_02]: to tell them what's already popular so that they can write about that.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. So this is something I assume that that sort of

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: the former way of only going for the proven critical mass stuff.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I have to assume that that is from the sort of philosophy of like

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_00]: we like all all online publications must scale forever.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_00]: We must make more money every quarter forever.

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And that means more, you know, more who was Blungus,

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Blungus explained articles put who's Blungus on the top page,

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_00]: which is awful.

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: No one wants to read that other than people who are looking

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: who watched the Marvel movie and say, who is that guy Blungus in the end credits?

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And then they look it up and like, oh, that's who.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And then they never go to the site again.

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Is there sort of a growing faction of people in charge

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: who are becoming like happy with or will tolerate

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: a site that does not scale forever?

[00:11:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Because like the onion, if I understand the news correctly,

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_00]: has been purchased by like a company of rather like a holding company

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_00]: that is just like fans of the onion who don't want the onion to scale forever.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: They just want like like keeping the onion because we like that.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_00]: The onions around like is that are they like crazy anomalies or like

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: because I would hope that, you know, given that people like good writing

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and it seems impossible for that to scale forever.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Like someone is just going to be like, well, whatever,

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll lower my ambitions for the good of humanity.

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Is that happening?

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that it's happening

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_02]: very broadly at the moment, right.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think you you encapsulate it well in terms of like it.

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It starts with ownership.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_02]: It starts with these companies like, you know, these investors,

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, whatever you want to call them.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It starts with them having realistic expectations, right.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's like I will bring up a much older example.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_02]: When I was at the reader, it was it was sold for something

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_02]: like 30 million dollars in the early 2000s.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's that's an insane amount of money to, you know,

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_02]: the four even, you know, with our during our classifieds heyday,

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: that would have been that was an insane amount of money.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing is the company,

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_02]: it was a company called Creative Loafing that was based in the South.

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And so they had a bunch of different all weeklies, right.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And so they thought it was going to be this big media network.

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_02]: But then, you know, like there were certain expectations

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_02]: of the readers, sale numbers and circulation numbers

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_02]: to offset that 30 million dollar loan. Right.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So that the reader was never going to be able to stay the reader

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_02]: with that kind of, you know, like debt waiting to be paid. Right.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. And that's that's what keeps happening

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_02]: with these media companies, you know, like somebody like Great Hill,

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, like you get some investors and these are the people that fund G.O.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, you get investors that somebody tells them,

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, like we can get this for a song.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the immediate thought is, OK, you know, then we need to make this

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_02]: kind of profit forever. Right.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_02]: And you can't just have some profit every year.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_02]: It has to increase every year.

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And the problem with that, right, isn't just that perpetual growth isn't a thing,

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_02]: but it's that it's not a goal that it's not an objective

[00:14:28] [SPEAKER_02]: that I think should be applied to any kind of journalism,

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_02]: whether it's, you know, like New York Times style,

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, like investigative reporting, although they're kind of dropping the ball there.

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Or, you know, it's culture writing. Right.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, the reason people are so excited about The Onion

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_02]: is because they know what to expect from it. Right.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, they they really those people are great

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_02]: and they really stuck to their guns through some real,

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_02]: a really dreary chapter in their history.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, you also have to realize that like, you know,

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_02]: because of the because the onion is satire, you know, you're probably not going to get

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_02]: there aren't any big toy companies anymore.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_02]: So I can't say a toy company.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But do you know what I mean?

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you're not going to get certain advertisers willing to do that.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so, you know, it's you have to have you have to understand

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_02]: what it is you actually own. Right.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And if you own a satirical website, you're not going to, you know,

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_02]: get the same kind of advice you would if you were, you know,

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_02]: if you just had like a really broad lifestyle blog.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, it's it starts with responsible ownership, I think,

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, like realizing that we shouldn't be trying to get blood from a stone

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_02]: in journalism because then, you know, again, then that leads to

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_02]: everybody making the same SEO plays.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It leads to everybody making the same stories and the thing.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And in the end, it leads and we've seen this right in the end,

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: leads to fewer sites.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_02]: So like, what are you guys even doing?

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, is this a is this a good way to look at it?

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm seeing that as you're saying this, the thing, the image that's

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_00]: popping in my head is the idea of like a park or like the post office

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_00]: or like the library.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_00]: No one is just like, why isn't the library turning a profit?

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like these are public services that everyone wants and everyone knows

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_00]: that just life is better when these things are around.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Like you do like, you know, there's no local journalism anymore

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_00]: because it doesn't make money.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And thus, like if you are the mayor of that one suburb who just like did pure

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_00]: like who just stole like all she did was steal.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you can just do that.

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And like what are the chances anyone's going to catch you?

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing I'm curious about, you said responsible ownership,

[00:16:55] [SPEAKER_01]: which would be cool.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01]: My understanding and I don't know if this is 100 percent true, but like

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: these debt bombs that all these companies were carrying because it was like

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_01]: venture capital moves, right?

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Constantly moving to the next thing.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that a fair assessment or?

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I watched the show industry.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I won't pretend that I super understand how, you know, moving around millions

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_02]: and if not billions of dollars really works.

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, I think the overarching principle, right?

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Like when you take somebody else's money to buy something, the person that you

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_02]: in a sense borrow money from is eventually going to want it paid back.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing is you are going to want something for your time, right?

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's, you know, that's basically what keeps happening is that

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, look at what happened with Vice, right?

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Look at what happened with Buzzfeed.

[00:17:48] [SPEAKER_02]: There's just a fundamental misunderstanding of what journalism should do.

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And I can't speak to what, you know, what's going to happen in the future.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_02]: But like I wish that more people would accept that sustainability,

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I think is the real goal.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Like when you, you know, like let's, you know, to kind of change

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_02]: the tenor of the conversation a bit.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I get really excited seeing sites like Hellgate,

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: that New York based like local news site,

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_02]: obviously Defector sites like Aftermath.

[00:18:23] [SPEAKER_02]: These are, you know, like Defector was founded by a bunch of the former deadspin people,

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_02]: the people that were first pushed out, right?

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_02]: The whole thing to sports nonsense.

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Aftermath is a bunch of former Kotaku people.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_02]: So you're kind of probably noticing a trend in terms of like 4Gio sites.

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, these are worker owned sites.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, like they run on subscriptions.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_02]: And I mean that whole model requires familiarity, right?

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_02]: It requires people to know exactly what they're going to get

[00:19:00] [SPEAKER_02]: in terms of the quality, right?

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And that kind of thing is so exciting to me.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's also just like, I think, you know, just I say this just as someone who

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_02]: has had to weather a few of these like, you know,

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_02]: industry crumbling chapters.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_02]: But sustainability just seems to be where to go.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_02]: Like everybody gets paid.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's that is just as an individual that is, you know,

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_02]: where I would like to see a lot of sites end up.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I agree.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean this is sort of what we have moaned about in the past

[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_00]: just as sort of outsiders who see, you know, posts about people being like,

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I lost my job.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Got laid off again.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just like, and, you know, when we would see someone who we follow

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_00]: or know in real life be like, I got it.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, I just got a job as a staff writer.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm like, I know the tone of your post is positive because you got a job.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But I, as like someone who's reading it from the outside, like all I see is,

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_00]: hey, Tom, in six months, you're going to see a post from this person saying,

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_00]: got laid off again.

[00:20:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyone hiring?

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, because again, it just feels like it felt like for a long time

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_00]: sustainability was simply not.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't even like that sustainability wasn't possible.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_01]: It was like weird cannibalization and implosion was the goal.

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_01]: It really felt like that.

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it really did seem like the goal is so when it fucks up,

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: there's a big boom.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like these people spend all their millions to buy a site

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_00]: like so that they can like see it die.

[00:20:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, it's like fucking the guy from Mr. Robot

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: who would go and pay homeless people to let him beat them up

[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_00]: so he could feel like he could feel something cracked underneath his fist.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like that but for a place where a bunch of people work.

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_02]: And the hope is that we see more of this, right?

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Like people controlling the means, right?

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just excited about sites like that

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_02]: because do you remember the push for substacks over the last few years?

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And I like the number of people would say like just start a substack.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, I would pay $5 a month and it's like,

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_02]: well, you still need however many people.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Like that still in a sense needs to scale, right?

[00:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: The substack push felt especially bad to me

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_01]: because it just felt like we were walling off more and more of the internet.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Like we're now putting this, what would have been like website or blog content

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_01]: 10 years ago now is like a newsletter email.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And like unless you were subscribed to this person, you'll never see it.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_02]: No, it's a good way of putting it.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And then ironically despite that you could still make huge dollars doing this.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you can be a substack writer writing like insanity

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_01]: but if you have your audience, you're like have your walled off revenue box.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:22:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But then, you know, that was saying like

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_00]: if you're just like a normal, if you don't have your hook of like

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be really racist.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to hear the weirdest slurs out of me.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have that sort of like gimmick.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I mean, it's like Patreon.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, did you know that fucking the Chapo boys make a lot of money,

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_00]: they make their living off of this.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, well, that's nice for them.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But like most people are going to be like us and make a couple hundred bucks if that.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And like again, like it's nice.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to say I'm unhappy when the Patreon money comes in

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_00]: but like this is not something, it is not anything but like a funny hobby

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_00]: which is fine for me because this is our funny hobby.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But like if you are a culture writer and the fucking advice is start a substack

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_00]: it's like, well, good luck.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Can I ask a question here?

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like obviously like the forever money incentive is impeding

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_01]: culture writing and new sites.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But I really feel like just like the feed,

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_01]: like the idea of the feed and apps is just like incompatible with

[00:23:28] [SPEAKER_01]: a really vibrant like sort of rich web of culture.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just thinking of how what was consumed, longer form text versus just now.

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_01]: It just seems like now we spend our time on feeds

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_01]: which we don't even have control over what we see on them.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Don't even like.

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which that to me, shortage is ignoring it.

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's the move.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_01]: It seems like it is.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_01]: How do you square that circle?

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Like a social media just a time sink?

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's become incompatible.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't think it always was.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I mean, God, do you guys remember FARC.com?

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I like?

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it used to talk about a way to kill an afternoon.

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I remember going to like a bunch of different sites

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_02]: and then somebody saying, well, you know,

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_02]: instead of loading a bunch of different like,

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, homepages and scrolling through things,

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: you can do it.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you can do a feed.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_02]: You can have something, you know, like try and curate it.

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_00]: That was the devil.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_00]: That was the devil in a suit.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I swear to God.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I wonder how much of a turning point it really was, right?

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Because like, you're right.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Part of this is you do have to consider that people's,

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_02]: the way people consume things has changed.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Like we were just talking about, you know, TikTok videos

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_02]: and I don't know if you guys, I saw this tweet.

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I know we hate Twitter now.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but we still, that doesn't mean we fucking stop.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Give us the tweet.

[00:25:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody was like, I'm Jen Axe

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_02]: and I have an actual attention span

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_02]: so I don't need a video to break down a story for me.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Just give me the text and I'll be able,

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_02]: just let me read the text.

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And one, I'm like, I'm not sure anyone's attention span

[00:25:30] [SPEAKER_02]: is what it used to be.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_02]: But also like it does speak to like this weird filtering

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_02]: that's happened where somebody will read an article

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_02]: and then make a seven video series,

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_02]: like a seven clip series on TikTok

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_02]: just summarizing the article.

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing is people are refitted by that.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It does really feel like it's just,

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_01]: we are accepting that reading an article is beyond,

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_01]: like it's just not gonna happen for some people.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_01]: But instead a documentary series needs to happen.

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_01]: That makes me feel not good.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think you can't overlook the fact,

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean like, Jeanette, you said you don't know

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_00]: social media was always so incompatible.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you can't overlook the fact that

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_00]: over the decade that social media has been around,

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_00]: decade plus, geez, I don't know how long.

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_00]: When did Facebook come out?

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember, I don't care to look it up.

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, in that time,

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_00]: they really have distilled the formula

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_00]: where like it didn't used to be what it is now,

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_00]: which is to say like a slot machine of hell

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_00]: where you never win.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you never win in a real slot machine

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_00]: but you especially don't ever win on the fucking feed.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_00]: You're always pulling the fucking lever

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's just more shit that makes you angry.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, even if you, again, as you say,

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_00]: even if you aren't looking at the TikToks

[00:26:59] [SPEAKER_00]: shredding your brain in that way,

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_00]: like we all live through the pandemic.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_00]: No one's fine, like we're all fucked.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_00]: We can't read.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, it's just like,

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_00]: at least for me,

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_00]: and I hope other people like me,

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_00]: by which I mean you listener,

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_00]: like yearn for the days when like there was something

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_00]: online that was good.

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, I'm so happy to see the AV club like be that.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Like for example, did you know listener

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_00]: that AV club undercover is back

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_00]: where they have fucking bands cover songs

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_00]: from a big list?

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Remember that?

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that's something I just want to know

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_00]: for me personally.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_00]: How the hell is this accomplished?

[00:27:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Like the logistics alone astound me.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Like how is, wow.

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this is something that has been in motion for a while.

[00:27:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm pretty sure reviving it was, you know,

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_02]: one of the original goals in purchasing the site

[00:27:59] [SPEAKER_02]: because, you know, obviously Pace started off

[00:28:02] [SPEAKER_02]: as more of a music publication.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So Josh Jackson, he's the publisher for all the sites

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_02]: under the Pace media banner.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, he just got to work

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_02]: and you know, we came up with the, you know,

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02]: we took a bunch of reader suggestions for the songs

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: which is what we always did.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_02]: But so the logistics are actually trickier

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_02]: because we don't have this home base, right?

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Like we don't, you know, we don't have the studio

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_02]: for bands to drop in.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So the recording is done in a few different spots now.

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, the videos will over time

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_02]: start to look a bit different.

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Right now there are a bunch that have been done

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_02]: in like a space in New York.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_02]: So like this first batch, you know,

[00:28:49] [SPEAKER_02]: similar background or backdrop.

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, if they take place

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_02]: in like LA or something,

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: it's going to look a little different.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it gets tricky too because, you know,

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_02]: like you put out and, you know,

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_02]: like you send out the kind of invitation

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and you know, you're also just fielding interest.

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_02]: And then it's like, you start to see the list shrink down

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_02]: in terms of available songs.

[00:29:15] [SPEAKER_02]: But I'm really excited that we are,

[00:29:19] [SPEAKER_02]: we have a bunch of recording sessions coming up.

[00:29:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Some newer acts, a few very kind of classic AV club bands.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I'm so excited about that.

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And also, you know, in terms of like,

[00:29:34] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, just the spirit,

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_02]: the original spirit of the internet is,

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_02]: like that whole series was just born from the idea of,

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_02]: like, wouldn't it be cool if,

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and like that, like I just want to see more of that.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, just that's the spirit

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_02]: that I'm embracing right now is like,

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_02]: wouldn't it be cool if for 2004 week

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_02]: we kicked off this nostalgia,

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_02]: you know, this nostalgia week,

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_02]: this retrospective package

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_02]: with a 4,000 word music article from Sean O'Neill.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's just like.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_00]: It was really good.

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_00]: It was, I mean, this is what you're talking about,

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_00]: about like being forward thinking.

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yes, like no one's doing what if something,

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_00]: like, what if we did this?

[00:30:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Because it feels like so much,

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_00]: like the standard at least,

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_00]: the standard operating procedure,

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_00]: if you don't sort of think any harder about it

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00]: is again, just like,

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_00]: what was on Marvel's latest press release?

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Which is just like, there's not like,

[00:30:35] [SPEAKER_00]: there's no what if there.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing exciting and new.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like literally like these,

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_00]: the AV undercover series,

[00:30:42] [SPEAKER_00]: if you don't familiar with this listeners,

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_00]: it did and still does kick ass because again,

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_00]: you're getting, it's a website

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_00]: that is not simply describing something

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_00]: you already know back to you.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is something new.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Like this didn't like this,

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_00]: this fucking band didn't used to have covered this song.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And now like, just like new,

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_00]: shit is so cool.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I love it, it's really good.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So Danette, I gotta ask you,

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_00]: it's been too long.

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Usually people get asked this.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I say that.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_00]: If you look back the last few guest episodes

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_00]: have gone the same thing.

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe, you know,

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_00]: maybe this is the normal way.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I was gonna say people usually get asked this before now,

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_00]: but whatever, I'm asking it to you now.

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you, Danette Chavez, an anime sicko?

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Probably not.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank we love a not.

[00:31:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Please someone say no to our shit.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, tell me more, speak on this.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I've definitely watched anime.

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, my Midwestern accent is flattening that A.

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I find the shame is it should be anime.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And I get it.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I get pronouncing words properly.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_02]: You double check the pronunciation of my last name.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's because I respect you.

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't respect anime.

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_02]: We watched this show growing up

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_02]: and it was like on regular TV.

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't even remember like how,

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: it was a show called Transor Z

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_02]: which I think is more widely known as Mazinger Z.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Incredible titles.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It was like just these giant robots doing battle,

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_02]: but the thing that I think

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_02]: this is probably the only thing most people remember

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_02]: is for some reason, the female battle bot thing,

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_02]: like a Mecha, right?

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_02]: The size of this.

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_02]: She shot her boobs as missiles.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_01]: They were gone afterwards.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_02]: They'd eventually come back, I think.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_02]: To the whole base.

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I remember getting to college

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_02]: and describing that to someone

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_02]: and of course it was a guy who was like,

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_02]: oh, there's a whole world of things you can check out now.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_00]: A whole world of boob missiles or non-boob based anime?

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_02]: It was kind of like the whole Mecha thing.

[00:33:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So we watched stuff like,

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_02]: there's an anime called Escaflowne.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, you know what I mean?

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And this was back when you still go and get DVDs,

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_02]: individual DVDs from the video rental place.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think there's some really beautiful stuff.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I've seen some more recent stuff like Delicious and Dungeon.

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just, I think what happens is

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_02]: it's just such a big thing to broach, right?

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much there.

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_02]: People feel like, oh man, the MCU,

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_02]: we're 18,000 movies in, how do I even find my way in?

[00:34:07] [SPEAKER_02]: You'd have to multiply that by like a thousand

[00:34:11] [SPEAKER_02]: to get the scope of anime.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And not only just the sheer scope of the amount of shows

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and media and what have you,

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_00]: but just there's so much,

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_00]: especially if you're not sort of inured to it,

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_00]: there's so much that you sort of context

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and sort of just the sort of feeling of the,

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_00]: like how the air feels.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Just like what is going on here?

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I guess a good example is just like

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_00]: if we were to watch a new show

[00:34:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and one of the characters was an old, old man

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_00]: that kept trying to grab women's asses

[00:34:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and his nose was always bleeding,

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_00]: make sense, totally normal.

[00:34:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And if a human being were to watch that show,

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_00]: they'd be like, did they put that guy in by accident?

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_00]: What's the point of him?

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, don't worry about him.

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_00]: He's not important, just don't worry about him.

[00:35:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like, but why is he there?

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, because sometimes that guy is there.

[00:35:12] [SPEAKER_01]: There's always one, okay?

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_01]: There's always at least one.

[00:35:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, yeah, I feel that.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I will push back a bit.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_00]: But I don't want to say push back

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_00]: because I respect people who aren't anime sickos

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_00]: because it means that they have a moral code.

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think you have sort of an anime sicko's mindset

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_00]: about posting.

[00:35:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've discussed that a bit,

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_00]: which is to say that it sucks ass,

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_00]: but we still do it all the time.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I hate the feed,

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_00]: but I'd be looking at it every day.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So what are your social media feed poisons?

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Are you Twitter only?

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_02]: The thing is, like the reason I'm still on Twitter

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_02]: is because I have not figured out threads.

[00:36:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't know what it's for.

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_02]: People tell me like, oh, it's best

[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_02]: for like recreating the Facebook experience.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, which Facebook experience?

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it doesn't seem good.

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Blue Sky was really fun at the start

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_02]: because people were just being really weird.

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_02]: And there was a very old internet feel to that.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you remember when you needed an invitation to Spotify?

[00:36:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It had a very old, like classic internet feel

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_02]: or classic online posting feel to it.

[00:36:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And then that got really big too.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, huh, maybe I just need

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_02]: to find the right Discord.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Twitter can feel too big, but then at the same time,

[00:36:53] [SPEAKER_02]: unless you're like paying for the check mark or whatever,

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_02]: or you're already a really big account,

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_02]: no one is seeing anything.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we've noticed that.

[00:37:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. That's also one of the reasons why I feel like

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_01]: there's just inherent incompatibility with the feed

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_01]: and any sort of fun cultural production.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just because all of these sites have been set up

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_01]: where it's like, is that an outgoing link?

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm sending that to hell.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, are you a little demon man?

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you a man from hell?

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_00]: No?

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then get to the bottom of the feed, idiot.

[00:37:26] [SPEAKER_00]: We have to put a deep...

[00:37:27] [SPEAKER_00]: We have to put some...

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_00]: God, I was going to say someone doing a new type of racism.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just like, JD Vans literally did a new type of racism today.

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Or he's like, the damnable Irish are not welcome.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_01]: He's doing a full-court press on anti-German and anti-Irish sentiment.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see how it plays out.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But like, yeah.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_02]: A little vintage racism.

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like Deadwood stuff.

[00:37:53] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so wild.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like you...

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I want someone to ask him, like, Mr. Vans,

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_00]: what are the good races?

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I thought you were going to say white, but now...

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It's unclear.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Because you have to be racist against waltz too.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_00]: You can't do one without the other.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_00]: It's got to be an up topic.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_00]: What were we talking about?

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Posting.

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Blue sky is not exciting anymore, I'll say that.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm with you.

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It was sort of chaotic when it was new.

[00:38:25] [SPEAKER_00]: In the sense that anything new is chaotic because it could...

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_00]: All these paths, all these possible paths into different dimensions are still open to us.

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_00]: We could walk down any road.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And now it's very clear what road they're walking down.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, this is just bad Twitter with less people on it.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't care.

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_01]: There's just never going to be a critical mass there was.

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think any app will have super juiced the way Twitter did in 2018 or something.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_01]: It will be smaller audiences.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And actually you shared an article with us the week before we recorded, which is...

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was like the audience fire hose is now coming back.

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I keep coming back to...

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And this is...

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying this as someone outside of media, so obviously I don't know.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Is this driven largely by wanting to get the highs of how things were?

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_01]: People getting hits on blog posts the way they were in 2000.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Is trying to achieve that same sort of growth model the issue here?

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Is there some...

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_01]: What's the word I'm looking for?

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Reluctance to let go of that.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_02]: What's that 30 rock joke?

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Make it 1997 again.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Through science or magic.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_02]: Again, it's just this misunderstanding of that kind of surge and seeing it as the rule

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_02]: instead of the exception.

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember in my earlier days at AV club,

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_02]: I would write a news wire that because...

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:40:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it was during Me Too, like the traffic on that thing would completely eclipse something

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_02]: that I'd worked on for hours.

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just...

[00:40:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a reality you accepted, right?

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_02]: You wrote those things so that you could publish 6,000 words on Married with Children.

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I wrote 6,000 words, but I wrote a lot.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what I mean?

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that most editors are pragmatic enough about that.

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_02]: There are some writers that will absolutely not...

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_02]: I get it, right?

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_02]: And this idea of like, well, no, I don't really care to...

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_02]: The way that I describe it now is one for them, one for me.

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You write the thing that you know.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_02]: People want to know...

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_02]: And they do want to know this.

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_02]: People do want to know who the next big villain is in Marvel's arc or whatever.

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe it doesn't have to be that...

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_01]: That optimized?

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_02]: The way my thinking has always been is like, okay, if people are interested in Marvel,

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_02]: what's something we can say beyond just aggregating what everybody else has done?

[00:41:33] [SPEAKER_02]: But no, I think especially over the last 10 years,

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_02]: site leads, editors, writers, everybody in media has become more pragmatic about how it works.

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_02]: No one thinks that you're going to keep the lights on

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_02]: by running a bunch of stories about Soviet film canon.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_02]: A few weeks ago, we ran a great feature on that.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That's the kind of thing that maybe makes somebody like you guys go,

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_02]: oh, I want to come back to this site.

[00:42:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And then maybe you take in a little news.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_02]: Both of those types of stories are very important to the health of a site.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's just always the stick gets bent the other way,

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_02]: where somebody goes, well...

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And by somebody, I mean like the higher-ups.

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_02]: They go, oh, well, 500,000 people read Blungus Explained.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_02]: And only 15,000 read this really thoughtful essay somebody wrote about the Alien franchise.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, we need to do more of Blungus or whatever.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_02]: We need to start explaining the ending of everything.

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_02]: The ending of Stepmom, this 30-year-old movie with...

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, no, 20-year-old movie with Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to explain that ending for you.

[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_02]: That's what ends up happening.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that anyone has any illusions about how easy it's going to be navigating.

[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Because the thing we haven't even touched on, and this is probably a topic for your next show,

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_02]: what Google did to...

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_02]: The role that Google played in completely blowing up...

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Just read her alone?

[00:43:27] Yeah.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's just...

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_02]: It's something that can't be ignored.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And then the other side of that coin is why did so many companies,

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_02]: why did so many publications tailor their strategy to a search engine?

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's like, again, when you do that, you're already kind of like

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_02]: yielding control of your own future.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_02]: When you say, well, we're going to write to the algorithm.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to appease the algorithm.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And now nothing appeases the algorithm.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And so now what?

[00:44:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's bad.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it feels like sort of the original sin that all of this comes from.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_00]: This sort of idea that those news wires or what have you,

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_00]: those little things that become the loss leader

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_00]: that gets the huge amounts of hits that brings people in.

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Some of them might stay.

[00:44:26] [SPEAKER_00]: From the outside perspective, for somebody who has no money in it,

[00:44:29] [SPEAKER_00]: it's clear to me that like, well, those are just going to happen sort of randomly.

[00:44:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's impossible to know when.

[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And you just got to keep trucking and have faith that that'll happen

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_00]: based on the sort of inherent quality of your team.

[00:44:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the original sin is the people who see that.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's do that again.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_00]: We have to do that every single day.

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, well, that can't be done.

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_00]: If it could be, then why would any post ever not get a million views?

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Am I making sense?

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Does this ring true?

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_02]: No, it's the whole go viral strategy.

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Just make a million dollars.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Just make $100 million at your first job

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_02]: and then you never have to work again.

[00:45:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Like it's wishful thinking.

[00:45:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we talk a lot about how like a lot of these Silicon Valley guys,

[00:45:24] [SPEAKER_00]: like I have a great idea.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I will simply make an app that does everything perfectly.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, oh, well, OK, that sounds pretty good if you can do it.

[00:45:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I also had that idea, but I don't know how to pull it off.

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So good luck.

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_01]: One of my questions about the current media environment,

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just curious the degree to which the fact that we don't live in the 0%

[00:45:47] [SPEAKER_01]: money interest rate 2010s anymore.

[00:45:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And now that has changed things.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the free is telling Tom that how like the Juicero is like the

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_01]: perfect poster child for that era of just like,

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_01]: we don't know what to do with the money to make a stupid toy that makes juice.

[00:46:07] [SPEAKER_01]: But now, as you said, money has value baked into it.

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not free from the bank anymore.

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So what does that mean for like what do you want to do

[00:46:20] [SPEAKER_01]: and what do you want to see on the Internet?

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm pretty pragmatic.

[00:46:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I always have an eye for what is doing well and how to kind of capitalize on that.

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_02]: OK, so people are really into reading about genre shows on AV Club.

[00:46:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Historically, they have been.

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not about then hitting every single one, but still like basically trying to combine what

[00:46:52] [SPEAKER_02]: the audience wants with what we're good at.

[00:46:55] [SPEAKER_02]: I will say that the role of an editor in chief is very different from a writer

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_02]: and very different even from a section editor.

[00:47:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Because one, I have to think more holistically.

[00:47:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Whereas before it's like TV all the time.

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But I have to think about how each section's coverage is,

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_02]: how it works with the others.

[00:47:23] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a very different way of thinking and part of that also involves thinking about the

[00:47:31] [SPEAKER_02]: financial realities.

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Knowing that times are very different than they were before.

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Even something doing really well today doesn't quite mean what it used to mean

[00:47:44] [SPEAKER_02]: when a story did get a million page views or something.

[00:47:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I think I would have to approach things differently anyway,

[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_02]: whether or not the whole economic realities had shifted as much as they have.

[00:48:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But the goal then is to be the one to deal with that with my bosses instead of making that the

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_02]: concern of my staff.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I want them to be thinking about wouldn't it be cool if?

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And also just figuring out what it is that they're passionate about and channeling that

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_02]: energy.

[00:48:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think you can go wrong when you write with both passion and purpose.

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_02]: There are things that I love that I don't think necessarily need to be written about.

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And there are things that might not immediately interest me, but people clearly care a lot

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_02]: about this thing.

[00:48:52] [SPEAKER_02]: And if they want our take on that, then we think about like,

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_02]: how do we address that?

[00:49:01] [SPEAKER_02]: There are certain things that you're never going to be able to get to.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I think that passion and purpose are equally important.

[00:49:12] [SPEAKER_02]: When you skew too much in either direction, I think that's the problem, right?

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Where you could be writing 10,000 words that no one would read and it's like,

[00:49:24] [SPEAKER_02]: it's not the best feeling.

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's my sub stack.

[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That's the anime, Psycho's newsletter, baby.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing wrong with an article that really only draws a few hundred or a few

[00:49:37] [SPEAKER_02]: thousand people, right?

[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Something is not immediately good just because a lot of people have read it.

[00:49:47] [SPEAKER_02]: But I also want people to feel proud of everything that they put out there.

[00:49:55] [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, okay, even if it is quote unquote just news, let's get this right.

[00:50:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Or if you want to slap a fun headline on it, that's always been our approach to things.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's harder now to ignore just how tricky things are, just how bad things are

[00:50:23] [SPEAKER_02]: in digital media.

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Beyond acknowledging that on a podcast here and there, my goal is really to just

[00:50:31] [SPEAKER_02]: keep the people at the AV club inspired so that they can continue to have guys like you

[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_02]: load up that front page instead of waiting for someone else to tell you what to read.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Hell yeah, I love this.

[00:50:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to say mean things about generative AI?

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really have any good points about that, but do you want to just complain about it?

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_01]: It sucks.

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It fucking blows.

[00:51:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Every time I try to speak about why it sucks, not that I'm doing lectures,

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_01]: but I just end up getting so frustrated.

[00:51:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, and another thing, it fucking sucks.

[00:51:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I get so upset because it seems so anti-life.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And talk about if you want the impetus to be wouldn't it be cool if,

[00:51:22] [SPEAKER_00]: AI truly is the looking back machine.

[00:51:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It can do nothing else but look back.

[00:51:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so gross when the fucking money men are like make an AI writing article.

[00:51:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So have you had meetings or been in conversations with people who are clearly

[00:51:41] [SPEAKER_01]: very excited about this in a way that you cannot meet?

[00:51:45] [SPEAKER_01]: They're excitement.

[00:51:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe not so much now because I feel like the smoke on it has faded a little.

[00:51:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I luckily was not at the site during that failed experiment

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_02]: and it's certainly not part of our strategy, the PACE media strategy.

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_02]: What I will say about AI generative, AI whatever we want to call that,

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the thing that galls me the most about it is why the hell

[00:52:20] [SPEAKER_02]: are we trying to replace creativity?

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I get a calculator being maybe better than an abacus.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

[00:52:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that for sure.

[00:52:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I've heard people extolling the virtues of the abacus.

[00:52:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Abacuses look cool.

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_00]: They make a cool sound.

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:52:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I understand computers.

[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I understand how computers have made things better because they can do things we can't do.

[00:52:50] [SPEAKER_02]: The thing we can do is create.

[00:52:53] [SPEAKER_02]: The thing that most of us are pretty good at is writing and music and art.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_02]: These are distinctly human things.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Why on earth would that be the thing that we would task these computers with instead of,

[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, finding a cure for cancer?

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it's too pat of an explanation but I haven't come to anything more compelling than

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_00]: the AI boosters have contempt for creative people.

[00:53:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Whether that be jealousy or just simply why aren't you doing something more important like me?

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Why are you wasting your lazy hippie type thought?

[00:53:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Because nothing else really makes sense.

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_02]: No, I agree.

[00:53:49] [SPEAKER_00]: It's bad.

[00:53:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't like it.

[00:53:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It also burns down a forest every time.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Which...

[00:53:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Not that the forests weren't burning but yeah, no, that's still bad.

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_01]: They just turned on the image generation on whatever the stupid Twitter AIs and they didn't

[00:54:10] [SPEAKER_01]: put any filters on it so I've definitely seen Trump doing 9-11.

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm surprised because usually when you do the generative AI stuff you do kind of try to

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_01]: rein it in a little.

[00:54:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever, I don't give a shit about that.

[00:54:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I remember what I was going to follow up with and I'm doing it now.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_00]: So you made it a point that being editor-in-chief is markedly different from being a writer or

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_00]: even an editor of a specific vertical.

[00:54:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Did I use that right?

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it vertical?

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Is that...

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so smart.

[00:54:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm interested in for two reasons.

[00:54:51] [SPEAKER_00]: One is just like I was saying before, surely evil can't lose, evil always wins.

[00:54:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I was so amazed that oh my god, I've seen...

[00:54:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Danette's been putting in the work and she moved on up and has...

[00:55:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to say made it because again you're still doing the work but in terms of

[00:55:09] [SPEAKER_00]: the way we are little cogs and peons, from our perspective you have made it.

[00:55:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like that's so fucking cool.

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And how did you get...

[00:55:20] [SPEAKER_00]: What was your journey to this vaunted position?

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_00]: What are the skills that you had to learn to become not just an editor who wasn't the chief

[00:55:33] [SPEAKER_00]: but the chief one?

[00:55:35] [SPEAKER_02]: I read the AV club so much when I was at The Reader because there was...

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_02]: It was a weekly paper so there was always like a down period.

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So I'd read the AV club and television without pity.

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Do you remember television without pity?

[00:55:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I do.

[00:55:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I had watched Rome and I'd still read like a 6,000 word recap of the HBO series Rome.

[00:55:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think for almost everybody who works at the AV club,

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_02]: the journey begins as a reader of the site, as a fan of the site.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_02]: And when the sun times bought The Reader and we had to move over to a different part of River

[00:56:19] [SPEAKER_02]: North, I used to go for walks at lunch and I'd find myself up by the old AV club building,

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_02]: which is still the Onion office but you know I'd find myself up there.

[00:56:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I'd see the directory for the building, the office directory,

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_02]: and I'd see the name of the AV club and I would think to myself,

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna work there one day.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Hell yeah.

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And it took a bit but you know like I think everybody's journey is a bit different.

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of hard work involved in everyone's journey.

[00:56:55] [SPEAKER_02]: The thing I will say, I started off as a Newswire fellow

[00:57:00] [SPEAKER_02]: which is basically how they break you in, right?

[00:57:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And then from there they decide like, oh yeah, this person's got something.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_02]: They can do more than aggregate.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_02]: They've learned our ways and I immediately started to try to stake a place in TV

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_02]: and I was lucky to have an editor like Eric Adams who nurtured that.

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Because that's a big part of this is that you can't pull up the ladder behind you.

[00:57:32] [SPEAKER_02]: You gotta look back and see who you can help up.

[00:57:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And I was a TV editor for a while, pushed out,

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_02]: spent some time at a few different places.

[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I was actually the IC of a TV focus site called Prime Timer which I loved,

[00:57:48] [SPEAKER_02]: talk about being very small and independent but also just how on earth do you keep that up

[00:57:56] [SPEAKER_02]: in the middle of Google just suppressing everything.

[00:58:01] [SPEAKER_02]: But I think in terms of the broader steps, writer, editor,

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I think that is probably pretty universal.

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_02]: One thing I wanna highlight because I think we've talked a bit about news

[00:58:20] [SPEAKER_02]: and short form stuff but so many people will act like that stuff's the devil, right?

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_02]: This is what's wrong with sites.

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_02]: Frankly, even some of our readers take issue with the idea of Newswire.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But I find that experience was invaluable to my development as a writer and as an editor

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_02]: because you have to come up with a way to...

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Not only are you writing it quickly, right?

[00:58:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Not only are you in some cases taking a crash course on a topic,

[00:58:59] [SPEAKER_02]: wringing that information out of your head like a sponge

[00:59:02] [SPEAKER_02]: and then immediately moving on to the next thing, right?

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So I hadn't seen Fast and the Furious when I was writing about the fifth sequel

[00:59:09] [SPEAKER_02]: but you know what I mean?

[00:59:11] [SPEAKER_02]: You absorb a bunch of that information and it teaches you so much about

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_02]: developing angles, about trusting yourself, right?

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_02]: The more time that I spent writing longer things,

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_02]: that was where the doubt started to creep in when I had more time

[00:59:29] [SPEAKER_02]: to write 2,500 word stories and it would be like, oh, am I doing this right?

[00:59:35] [SPEAKER_02]: But when you're doing news and when you're doing it in the right environment,

[00:59:40] [SPEAKER_02]: it teaches you so much about trusting yourself.

[00:59:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just wanna say that because I think that news gets dumped on

[00:59:50] [SPEAKER_02]: regardless of the outlet, right?

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Even at some of the best outlets with some of the best writers,

[00:59:55] [SPEAKER_02]: people act like either they see news as a stepping stone,

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_02]: they don't see it as a place to really be and to really flourish

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_02]: but there are people who have been writing news at AV club for 10 years

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_02]: and they do it better than anybody in digital media.

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_00]: This is sort of a small observation off of that larger explanation

[01:00:22] [SPEAKER_00]: but one thing that I, even as an outsider,

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I become furious about is when there is a post on social media

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_00]: that is a news article from whatever publication, be it AV club or any

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and the response, the top comment is like, why would you write about this?

[01:00:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, why don't you fucking read it and find out idiot?

[01:00:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Like why would you write, why is this news?

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like because of the explanation that's in the article, you idiot.

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_00]: But from a larger perspective, that is fascinating and I think very

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_00]: interesting.

[01:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad to have heard you say that because I feel like this is true

[01:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: because how do I put this?

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_00]: It's sort of describing, I mean like as you said, the pragmatism of

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_00]: both the passion and purpose, you gotta have both,

[01:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: if you are intending to make this be a business,

[01:01:25] [SPEAKER_00]: something that can support not only yourself but a staff

[01:01:29] [SPEAKER_00]: because I think about how Joe and I do this show.

[01:01:33] [SPEAKER_00]: We are not intending to make this a business.

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_00]: We do not have this supporting us as a goal because we are intentionally

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_00]: pushing purpose away.

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_00]: This is just pure what we want to do, the format of this show is so malleable,

[01:01:54] [SPEAKER_00]: it was literally just like, what do we want to fucking yap about this week?

[01:01:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And if there's nothing, we don't record.

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's really, for us, that's what works because again,

[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: our goal is just to be having fun and make a product we're happy with.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I said the word too optimized before but that is very much something

[01:02:20] [SPEAKER_01]: maybe you would notice it when you're just looking at a piece of content

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and in fact I said piece of content that's disgusting,

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I should be beat for saying that.

[01:02:28] [SPEAKER_01]: You can just tell this thing has been polished in the optimization sense,

[01:02:33] [SPEAKER_01]: not polished in goodness but just polished in...

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even want to say SEO because Google doesn't even do that now

[01:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: but what would have been SEO?

[01:02:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You can just tell this is so clearly we are fitting this into an existing whole.

[01:02:50] [SPEAKER_01]: What gets communicated is secondary.

[01:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't stand that.

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_01]: More and more of everything online and in feeds feels like that.

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It feels like it has been intentionally curated.

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just everything is too polished, everybody's too smart by half.

[01:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: By comparison, I wanted to say a 6,000-word long read

[01:03:21] [SPEAKER_01]: is not going to be perfect in the same way

[01:03:24] [SPEAKER_01]: but I want that because there's humanity in there.

[01:03:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Give me some of that.

[01:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: If the short form stuff is made with an eye towards identity

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Joe, when you say polished, I sort of took that to mean

[01:03:44] [SPEAKER_00]: the polish that is the anonymizing factor that Danette mentioned earlier

[01:03:50] [SPEAKER_00]: where trying to scrub an identity and a voice out of a piece of writing.

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I could say this because it's just like, did he really do that?

[01:04:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Eyes emoji.

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the goal because anyone could...

[01:04:05] [SPEAKER_01]: That fits to anything, any voice, any speaker.

[01:04:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I just want more humanity and I'm glad there's

[01:04:13] [SPEAKER_01]: a frigging website that's doing it.

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_01]: The AV Club, the only website that has humanity.

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Go read the AV Club or you're not a guy, you're not like a person.

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_00]: You don't count, you're not real if you don't do it.

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Danette, I have this question

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and you brought this up because you mentioned the AV Club

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and Onion Office which is now just the Onion Office.

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been in there a handful of times when I was a younger person

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_00]: and it really did feel like I was in the Willy Wonka factory.

[01:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So AV Club and the Onion are no longer together.

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: They're owned by different entities.

[01:05:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to feel about that.

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, I'm glad they're both thriving.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad mom and dad are both doing well

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_00]: but I wish they were still together.

[01:05:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you guys still talk?

[01:05:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I do not because the staff has changed a bit.

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I know Jordan LaFleur.

[01:05:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Somebody wrote about Dodgeball this week

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_02]: and every time I say the name LaFleur

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I always think about Vince Vaughn's character.

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_02]: There's no real collaboration or anything going on.

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_02]: It's one of those things where like Tom put it,

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_02]: it's not a breakup.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_02]: That's not a good way to describe it

[01:05:50] [SPEAKER_02]: but it's more like describing us as foster kids

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_02]: is probably insensitive.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_02]: We're just happy that everybody's doing well,

[01:06:04] [SPEAKER_02]: that everybody's finding a way to move on.

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I could not be happier for them to have backers now

[01:06:14] [SPEAKER_02]: but understand what the onion is

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_02]: because we've seen it.

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_02]: We've seen how many times people thought

[01:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: they understood what the onion is

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and thought that they could recreate it.

[01:06:25] [SPEAKER_02]: We've seen all of the really pale imitations

[01:06:28] [SPEAKER_02]: and nothing comes close

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_02]: and that's why you can't dilute it.

[01:06:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You've just got to let those weirdos do what they do.

[01:06:38] [SPEAKER_01]: The Babylon Bee stuff is amazing

[01:06:39] [SPEAKER_01]: because I love when people are like,

[01:06:42] [SPEAKER_01]: this is just like the onion.

[01:06:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You have brain damage.

[01:06:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you were magnetized in your sleep or something

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: but that is not the statement of a coherent person.

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Politics even aside,

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: the quality here, first of all they don't do jokes.

[01:07:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean that's the thing of all right wing comedy.

[01:07:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like there's a person I don't like.

[01:07:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Look at this freak, kill them.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like okay, that's not very funny.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember when they redid some website bullshit

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: that just deleted all the images

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and so all of the onion stuff

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_00]: that was just a photo with a headline

[01:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: referencing what was in the photo.

[01:07:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like that's just all gone

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and again, that just feels like

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: the only kind of person who does that

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_00]: is someone who just fully does not

[01:07:41] [SPEAKER_00]: conceive of the onion as anything

[01:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: other than a money-making entity.

[01:07:46] [SPEAKER_00]: That is, it's just a line on a fucking spreadsheet

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's like this line's,

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_00]: the block next to this line is red.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm mad, bam, bam, bam.

[01:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like just anti-life creature would do this

[01:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: and I hate it.

[01:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So back when the onion and AV club

[01:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: were of the same entity,

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: like was there, now I suppose that

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have a frame of reference

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_00]: because I don't know what's different now

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: because was there ever cross-pollination?

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Were the teams working together

[01:08:22] [SPEAKER_00]: or is it just two separate entities

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: that just happened to be in the same office?

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the overlap happens when

[01:08:33] [SPEAKER_02]: the onion or clickhole would need someone

[01:08:36] [SPEAKER_02]: to appear in a video or to appear in the image.

[01:08:42] [SPEAKER_02]: My old coworker, Gwen Einat,

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_02]: who is the culture editor at Block Club Chicago now,

[01:08:48] [SPEAKER_02]: I think she had the most frequent appearances.

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_02]: If you look this up, she's in the

[01:08:58] [SPEAKER_02]: veteran prostitute,

[01:09:00] [SPEAKER_02]: because they use prostitute in the headline,

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_02]: not sex worker.

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Veteran prostitute instructs new prostitute

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_02]: in everything that Richard Belzer likes.

[01:09:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I found it.

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Older prostitute explains to younger prostitute

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: who Richard Belzer is, what he expects.

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And so they'd ask you to pop up for stuff like that.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember doing some voice thing.

[01:09:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I had to be some kind of expert

[01:09:35] [SPEAKER_02]: and it was all voice stuff, right?

[01:09:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Like where they just had you play over,

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: your voice would play over a segment.

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_02]: Eric is Mr. Autumn Man, our interim EIC

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_02]: who was prior to that TV editor

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_02]: and prior to that he worked at one of the local sites

[01:09:52] [SPEAKER_02]: because that's the thing that we haven't even touched on

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_02]: is the AV club used to be made up

[01:09:57] [SPEAKER_02]: of a bunch of local sites.

[01:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't-

[01:09:59] [SPEAKER_02]: What?

[01:10:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Like there was like the AV club, like Austin Bureau.

[01:10:04] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was a whole thing,

[01:10:07] [SPEAKER_02]: but that's how he started.

[01:10:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, Eric is Mr. Autumn Man

[01:10:12] [SPEAKER_02]: goes for a walk in a plaid shirt.

[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, holding this little cup.

[01:10:17] [SPEAKER_02]: It was stuff like that.

[01:10:19] [SPEAKER_02]: I think no ownership was ever perfect,

[01:10:22] [SPEAKER_02]: but I do think the original owners

[01:10:25] [SPEAKER_02]: very much understood that these were two separate things

[01:10:28] [SPEAKER_02]: and it made no sense to try and force them together.

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Like synergy was never part of the strategy.

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I will say that the-

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Here's how the synergy did work

[01:10:40] [SPEAKER_00]: even if it wasn't strategic.

[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So when I was like a little kid,

[01:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I knew that my older siblings read the onion

[01:10:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and went, ha ha.

[01:10:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And I said to myself, I want to go ha ha

[01:10:51] [SPEAKER_00]: but I wasn't allowed to read it,

[01:10:53] [SPEAKER_00]: which meant that I would do anything it took to read it.

[01:10:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So I would eventually get my hands on

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: like a print edition of the onion,

[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_00]: which again, a week ago I would say,

[01:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: what in-

[01:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: How dated does that sentence make me?

[01:11:06] [SPEAKER_00]: But they're fucking bringing it back.

[01:11:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I would have the print edition of the onion

[01:11:10] [SPEAKER_00]: and I'd go, oh boy.

[01:11:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would read the jokes and I'd go, ha ha.

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And then I'd get to the back part.

[01:11:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, this fucking part doesn't have any jokes.

[01:11:16] [SPEAKER_00]: What is this piece of shit?

[01:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: This part sucks.

[01:11:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And then as I grew older

[01:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and was like maybe I'll read the part with no jokes.

[01:11:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh, this is also good.

[01:11:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And as I've grown up

[01:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and talked to fellow fucking annoying guys like me,

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I've learned that this is a very, very common journey

[01:11:37] [SPEAKER_00]: that one goes on.

[01:11:39] [SPEAKER_00]: We're just like, again, there wasn't-

[01:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: It really did feel like the onion stopped

[01:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and this other thing with no jokes started.

[01:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: What?

[01:11:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't agree to this when I picked up the onion

[01:11:50] [SPEAKER_00]: but just like the fact that they were next to each other

[01:11:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and both good, you just end up, just by osmosis,

[01:11:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I guess I'll read this.

[01:11:57] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, oh, I did enjoy that.

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_00]: How about that?

[01:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the unifying thing was just good writing.

[01:12:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Completely different approaches but the writing was great.

[01:12:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.

[01:12:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Currently do not follow any writers specifically.

[01:12:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm thinking of the Gawker media days

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_01]: where I had my little e-commerce job

[01:12:23] [SPEAKER_01]: and I was like, I am very curious to see

[01:12:26] [SPEAKER_01]: whatever Ashley Feinberg says about it.

[01:12:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know what I mean?

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I actually follow people regardless of what they were writing

[01:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: and if they're writing about something

[01:12:34] [SPEAKER_01]: that I didn't care about,

[01:12:36] [SPEAKER_01]: the fact they were writing about it made me interested.

[01:12:39] [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't happen now

[01:12:40] [SPEAKER_01]: because it's all just fucking dopamine.

[01:12:43] [SPEAKER_00]: What you gotta do, Joe, is you gotta go to fucking-

[01:12:46] [SPEAKER_00]: You gotta go to the website.

[01:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I will start doing that, of course.

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Type it in.

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Look who's fucking saying it.

[01:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I guess that's sort of what a substack in theory is meant to do

[01:13:00] [SPEAKER_00]: but again, I don't feel like the substack model is like...

[01:13:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's feasible for anything

[01:13:08] [SPEAKER_00]: other than the outlying 1%

[01:13:11] [SPEAKER_00]: which is statistically insignificant

[01:13:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and not really worth mentioning.

[01:13:15] [SPEAKER_02]: One quick thing that I would just want to say about substack

[01:13:20] [SPEAKER_02]: is that there was the whole controversy too, right?

[01:13:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Where a bunch of big accounts were leaving it

[01:13:28] [SPEAKER_02]: because they were like platforming assholes

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_02]: which would be a whole other thing

[01:13:32] [SPEAKER_02]: but I think it would help to just say one thing

[01:13:37] [SPEAKER_02]: about how it's not that...

[01:13:39] [SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing inherently wrong with substack, right?

[01:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Even if you only have 50 people subscribing,

[01:13:46] [SPEAKER_02]: my thing about that is that's not a cure-all,

[01:13:51] [SPEAKER_02]: that's not a real solution for what's going on in digital media.

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_02]: This idea that like, well, if you got laid off from one site,

[01:13:57] [SPEAKER_02]: just go start another one

[01:13:58] [SPEAKER_02]: because that's part of the problem

[01:14:01] [SPEAKER_02]: is that it's all the independent sites that are shutting down.

[01:14:06] [SPEAKER_01]: The substack might help an individual circumstance

[01:14:09] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's gonna do nothing for the ecosystem.

[01:14:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah.

[01:14:13] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a great forum

[01:14:15] [SPEAKER_02]: and I think that there are some really interesting...

[01:14:18] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, whether it's substack

[01:14:19] [SPEAKER_02]: or a different platform for newsletters, you know?

[01:14:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I subscribe to several.

[01:14:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I fully believe in that model

[01:14:29] [SPEAKER_02]: but that's just, you know, it's not a strategy.

[01:14:33] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not gonna fix what's going on

[01:14:35] [SPEAKER_02]: more broadly in digital media.

[01:14:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's not an infrastructural solution.

[01:14:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[01:14:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's still email.

[01:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, it is taking what could be content elsewhere

[01:14:47] [SPEAKER_01]: and moving that to your inbox, which is fine.

[01:14:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But if that's the only way to do it, then we see what happens.

[01:14:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and if the newsletter takes off and is great,

[01:14:56] [SPEAKER_00]: again, what does that actually entail

[01:14:58] [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of the broader ecosystem of cultural writing?

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It means one person got a bag,

[01:15:08] [SPEAKER_00]: which again is statistically insignificant

[01:15:10] [SPEAKER_00]: and should not be counted.

[01:15:12] [SPEAKER_00]: One person is not an industry.

[01:15:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I never thought I would like feel such relief

[01:15:19] [SPEAKER_01]: seeing a sidebar of related articles.

[01:15:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm on the AV club and it's just like, yeah.

[01:15:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I remember when I used to see that all the time.

[01:15:28] [SPEAKER_01]: You can click on them and shit.

[01:15:30] [SPEAKER_00]: You can do it now, dude.

[01:15:32] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not on the Geo media Kinja shit.

[01:15:36] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I guess my question is what was the deal with Kinja?

[01:15:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I was very interested.

[01:15:42] [SPEAKER_01]: As a reader of Gawker, it was interesting.

[01:15:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I know you weren't responsible for it.

[01:15:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess a better question is, as someone on your side, did it suck?

[01:15:59] [SPEAKER_02]: It's so funny because we recently switched the comments to discuss

[01:16:05] [SPEAKER_02]: and people are like, oh, yay, we're doing this again.

[01:16:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But then even within those conversations,

[01:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I see people saying, well, Kinja wasn't really that bad.

[01:16:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's just with enough distance,

[01:16:19] [SPEAKER_02]: you're like, there are worse things.

[01:16:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I was traumatized, but a few years have passed.

[01:16:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm still alive.

[01:16:29] [SPEAKER_02]: That part of my life is over.

[01:16:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't a good system.

[01:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: At some point, or maybe this was the end state,

[01:16:38] [SPEAKER_01]: you could get stuck in what they were called the grays.

[01:16:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Your comments didn't count until you were ungrayed.

[01:16:44] [SPEAKER_01]: That ruled because half of them were about,

[01:16:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I should definitely not be gray anymore,

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: which is just so good for a discussion.

[01:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: That's really when you get to the best of the internet,

[01:16:59] [SPEAKER_00]: when the discussion becomes focused on how I am not getting

[01:17:07] [SPEAKER_00]: what I am entitled to with regard to grays.

[01:17:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Shadow banning is just the funniest concept.

[01:17:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Anytime someone gets legitimately huffy about a shadow ban,

[01:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: it's like, oh my God, have a real problem.

[01:17:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to thank Danette Chavez for going guest-o mode with us today.

[01:17:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Danette, that was, I'll say it, great and fascinating stuff.

[01:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER_02]: No, thank you guys.

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you.

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome.

[01:17:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, people want to know more about you or are curious about the AV Club.

[01:17:50] [SPEAKER_00]: What should they do about that?

[01:17:52] [SPEAKER_02]: They can go to AVClub.com.

[01:17:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Right now we're wrapping up a week-long retrospective into the year 2004.

[01:18:02] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's where you'll find that gorgeous long read on indie music

[01:18:06] [SPEAKER_02]: we were talking about earlier, but also our picks for the best movies of the year

[01:18:11] [SPEAKER_02]: and a few different pieces that,

[01:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: there's a reevaluation of Green Day's American Idiot.

[01:18:18] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a piece about how NBC, despite finding success after Friends,

[01:18:24] [SPEAKER_02]: like wrapping up such a huge show actually shook their confidence and their strategy.

[01:18:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Just a lot of good long reads and then a very fun post about

[01:18:38] [SPEAKER_02]: that being the year that movie tie-in games stopped sucking.

[01:18:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Shit, I need to read that.

[01:18:44] [SPEAKER_00]: That sounds good.

[01:18:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and next week, I don't know if it'll be next week by the time this is out,

[01:18:51] [SPEAKER_02]: but we have a package dedicated to BoJack Horseman running next week.

[01:18:58] [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like a few essays and then a few interviews

[01:19:02] [SPEAKER_02]: with the creator and one of the actors.

[01:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Nice. That was a pretty good show.

[01:19:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I remember that.

[01:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: You mentioned that there were some other independent sites,

[01:19:15] [SPEAKER_00]: worker-owned sites that you were excited about.

[01:19:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Can you just rattle them off again to their fresh and dull listeners minds

[01:19:22] [SPEAKER_00]: so that they too can go and be excited about

[01:19:26] [SPEAKER_00]: hopefully sustainable culture writing on the internet?

[01:19:30] [SPEAKER_02]: There's Hellgate NYC, Defector, and Aftermath.

[01:19:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And then one that, Pajiba has been around for a while too.

[01:19:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And I really like the scrappiness of all of these sites,

[01:19:50] [SPEAKER_02]: but also just, you know, they're especially Hellgate and Defector right now.

[01:19:54] [SPEAKER_02]: They're publishing some really great investigations and essays

[01:20:01] [SPEAKER_02]: and I highly recommend all of them.

[01:20:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Hell yeah.

[01:20:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Well folks, but listening, you know what you have to do.

[01:20:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Support this shit or else I hate you.

[01:20:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, real clear. I like that.

[01:20:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:20:19] [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to do and fun too.

[01:20:22] [SPEAKER_00]: You'll enjoy yourself.

[01:20:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, thank you all for listening to Anime Sickos.

[01:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you again to Danette for being our guest.

[01:20:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I forget what I say when it's the end.

[01:20:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it is the end.

[01:20:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been Tom in Anime Sicko.

[01:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I've been Joe in Anime Sicko.

[01:20:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I've been Danette a not sicko.

[01:20:43] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you next time.

[01:20:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Bye bye.

[01:20:45] [SPEAKER_00]: See ya.

[01:21:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, until next time, bye.