Latest / Never Post / Mailbag #13: Tinky Tiny's Post-Party Palooza

Transcript

Mailbag #13: Tinky Tiny's Post-Party Palooza · Never Post

• 0:08
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello. And welcome to Never Post's
• 0:10
  summer twenty twenty six mailbag. So nice to see all of
• 0:16
  you. Where are you spending summer?
• 0:24
  Georgia Hampton: At the bottom of the ocean.
• 0:29
  Jason Oberholtzer: That's all royalty free by the way.
• 0:30
  Mike Rugnetta: You can have that. In which we respond to
• 0:33
  listener emails, comments, voicemails, and voice messages
• 0:35
  about our segments. Do you have thoughts? Do you think? Have you
• 0:43
  considered or perhaps pondered?
• 0:46
  Send those thoughts, thinks, considerations, and ponderings
• 0:48
  to us here at Never Post, and perhaps we will make hay of
• 0:52
  them. No wondering, though. You can keep the wonders to
• 0:55
  yourself. I'm your host, Mike Renetta. Joining me today paired
• 0:58
  with their Slurpee flavor.
• 1:01
  Oh.
• 1:01
  Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
• 1:02
  Hans Buetow: R.
• 1:03
  Mike Rugnetta: Never Post senior producer Hans Buto pineapple
• 1:06
  whip.
• 1:06
  Hans Buetow: Because you said whip.
• 1:07
  Mike Rugnetta: R. Georgia, you put that tongue back in your
• 1:09
  mouth. Pineapple pineapple whip slaps.
• 1:12
  Georgia Hampton: Whip? Like a is it like cream?
• 1:15
  Mike Rugnetta: I don't it's like it's like sort of creamy, but I
• 1:18
  don't think it has any dairy in it.
• 1:20
  Hans Buetow: I mean, I've never had one, but it sounds delicious
• 1:22
  and a little bit like me.
• 1:24
  So it's a it's a bit of me.
• 1:25
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I just I wanna make it clear that I this
• 1:29
  is not like I'm not assuming this is your favorite. Like,
• 1:34
  there's no what I am. There's no question involved here. Yeah.
• 1:37
  I am I'm making a definitive judgment here.
• 1:40
  Hans Buetow: I'm a symbol of welcome mixed into a pleasant
• 1:44
  refreshing drink.
• 1:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. This is your Enneagram.
• 1:47
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Exactly. And, Hans, you are some
• 1:50
  mysterious percentage of nondairy creamer. Yeah.
• 1:54
  Hans Buetow: You're not the first to say it.
• 1:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Never Post producer Georgia Hampton,
• 1:57
  Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Yeah.
• 2:02
  Hans Buetow: Heavy as the head. This is
• 2:03
  Hans Buetow: a huge honor. Why? Can I confess something? I've
• 2:07
  never had a Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
• 2:09
  Mike Rugnetta: We know.
• 2:10
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. That's why you're the whip boy. Wow.
• 2:14
  Hans Buetow: I'll just lay on the floor for the
• 2:16
  rest of
• 2:16
  the guests.
• 2:17
  Mike Rugnetta: Should we should we pause for a second so
• 2:18
  Hans Buetow: you could
• 2:19
  Mike Rugnetta: just take that in?
• 2:20
  Hans Buetow: I we we let's pause for an hour
• 2:22
  so
• 2:22
  can
• 2:22
  go get one.
• 2:23
  Georgia Hampton: I was about to say
• 2:23
  Hans Buetow: Be a
• 2:23
  Hans Buetow: cool kid.
• 2:24
  Georgia Hampton: Sure Taco Bell is open right now. Yeah.
• 2:27
  Mike Rugnetta: Actually, this week in particular, they might
• 2:29
  not be.
• 2:30
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, actually,
• 2:31
  there's there's taking a lot of heat right now.
• 2:34
  Hans Buetow: But you know what's always been safe is the Baja
• 2:36
  blast. Yeah. This
• 2:38
  Georgia Hampton: is a huge honor. Thank you, Mike.
• 2:40
  Mike Rugnetta: I was gonna say, the elite flavor. It really is.
• 2:43
  The PT Cruiser, really, of assortment flavors.
• 2:46
  Georgia Hampton: She's an icon. She's a legend, and she is the
• 2:49
  moment.
• 2:50
  Mike Rugnetta: And Never Post executive producer Jason
• 2:53
  Oberholzer, Pina Colada.
• 2:55
  Jason Oberholtzer: Hey. I like this. This is classy answer.
• 2:59
  Hans Buetow: Taking a trip to
• 3:00
  Georgia Hampton: the islands.
• 3:00
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Right? My heart was set on Blue
• 3:03
  Raspberry because I like like an uncanny Sure. Ungodly creation
• 3:10
  of man. But pina colada is it shows that you have a difference
• 3:15
  for me I don't hold for myself.
• 3:17
  And I like that.
• 3:18
  Hans Buetow: So I'm the working man's Jason. Is that what you're
• 3:21
  saying?
• 3:21
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. What is a pina colada
• 3:23
  Hans Buetow: if not a dairy creamer and pineapple? Well,
• 3:28
  Hans Buetow: think famously it's coconut.
• 3:30
  Mike Rugnetta: Fair. Pina okay. Now, let's go through all the
• 3:34
  Slurpee flavors and rank them by social class.
• 3:39
  Hans Buetow: Right. What do we, three of us, name mister
• 3:45
  Rugnetta, our esteemed host?
• 3:47
  Mike Rugnetta: Feel free to Google list of Slurpee flavors.
• 3:49
  It's a delight.
• 3:51
  Georgia Hampton: Because I was thinking we'd have, like, a Coca
• 3:53
  Cola or, like, a cherry
• 3:55
  Hans Buetow: Right.
• 3:56
  Mike Rugnetta: I mean,
• 3:56
  Jason Oberholtzer: don't none of us
• 3:58
  Mike Rugnetta: think any of us is a Coke Slurpee.
• 4:00
  Hans Buetow: No. Mountain Dew confetti chill?
• 4:03
  Mike Rugnetta: I don't even know what that
• 4:04
  Hans Buetow: is. Oh.
• 4:05
  Jason Oberholtzer: Has matcha made its way to the Slurpee?
• 4:07
  Yeah.
• 4:08
  Mike Rugnetta: A heinous thought.
• 4:10
  Georgia Hampton: Dubai chocolate.
• 4:12
  Hans Buetow: Oh, No.
• 4:14
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Sorry.
• 4:15
  Hans Buetow: Mike might be brisk blood orange.
• 4:17
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, hell yeah.
• 4:18
  Hans Buetow: That sounds really good. That's
• 4:21
  Georgia Hampton: Aw Come on.
• 4:25
  Jason Oberholtzer: I think
• 4:25
  that's it. He sort of like a Cormac McCarthy that gets things
• 4:28
  done.
• 4:29
  Mike Rugnetta: Sure. I'll take it. Sounds murderous, but I'll
• 4:31
  take it. Yeah. Alright.
• 4:34
  Let's ponder some orbs. I mean, listener comments. Okay. We have
• 4:39
  something to start with. I don't know what it is.
• 4:40
  This is a big mystery to me.
• 4:42
  Speaker 7: Hi. This is Asa from Denmark. And I have a question
• 4:47
  about a phrase I've heard probably on a weekly basis for
• 4:51
  the past decade or so that I'm really curious about in terms of
• 4:56
  like where it originated.
• 4:58
  Hans Buetow: So much drama.
• 4:59
  Speaker 7: And the phrase is
• 5:00
  Jason Oberholtzer: This is how we get cancelled.
• 5:01
  Speaker 7: Or wherever you listen to podcasts.
• 5:09
  Mike Rugnetta: I have a before we answer, ask this question. I
• 5:12
  have a question for the group. Yeah. Is or wherever you listen
• 5:16
  to podcasts our don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe.
• 5:20
  Jason Oberholtzer: I will. Yes. Probably.
• 5:22
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Yes. Definitely.
• 5:24
  Mike Rugnetta: So, Asta, the answer to this is podcasts are
• 5:27
  distributed via a decentralized technology called RSS for really
• 5:33
  simple syndication. That means that there is no one place where
• 5:37
  you go to get your podcasts. It is not like YouTube. We do not
• 5:42
  upload our podcasts to the same spot. And in fact, many of the
• 5:47
  places that podcasters use to upload podcasts are not places
• 5:52
  where you go to listen to them.
• 5:54
  Yep. What those hosts do is they syndicate the audio that you
• 6:00
  upload to many different services called podcatchers,
• 6:06
  like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocketcasts, Overcast, a bunch
• 6:13
  of others, Podcast Addict. But the reason people say or
• 6:18
  wherever you get your podcasts is because there's so many
• 6:23
  podcatchers that one, it would be irritating to list them all
• 6:27
  out by name. And two, there are probably more than we know
• 6:31
  about. Oh, for sure.
• 6:32
  There are people who are listening to this show on a
• 6:36
  podcatcher where we would be like, what the hell is that?
• 6:38
  Hans Buetow: It's a seashell that they Yeah. Yeah. Like, you
• 6:42
  know,
• 6:42
  Mike Rugnetta: you could, in theory, make a podcatcher out of
• 6:46
  like a raspberry pie. That's just yours in your apartment,
• 6:50
  and that's where you get your podcasts.
• 6:52
  Jason Oberholtzer: Raspberry pie slushie.
• 6:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Now hold on.
• 6:55
  Hans Buetow: So thanks for writing in from Denmark.
• 6:59
  Amazing. To clarify something you've been hearing for ten
• 7:01
  years. Thanks for asking us.
• 7:02
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. But I do also wonder who was the first
• 7:04
  person who broke the seal on that efficient way to nod to all
• 7:08
  the podcasters.
• 7:08
  Mike Rugnetta: I imagine it was the first podcast host, Sarah
• 7:12
  Koenig.
• 7:14
  Jason Oberholtzer: Not the second one, Conan O'Brien.
• 7:17
  Mike Rugnetta: Certainly not the third Amy Poehler. The father,
• 7:20
  the son, and the
• 7:20
  Hans Buetow: holy ghost.
• 7:25
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, boy.
• 7:27
  Georgia Hampton: We got some very interesting submissions
• 7:29
  about my episode about how no one wants to hard launch their
• 7:33
  man, in which I explored this very numerous cynical mindset
• 7:41
  around women posting their boyfriends on social media. And
• 7:46
  the prediction there being that this guy is always gonna
• 7:48
  disappoint you, he's gonna ruin your life, and you might as well
• 7:51
  just learn that as soon as you can, not post this person ever,
• 7:57
  and kind of live in that cynicism. And to start us off,
• 8:02
  Matt Stromageddon.
• 8:04
  Speaker 8: As someone who is nonbinary but identified as a
• 8:08
  man for many years, I still find myself falling into overly
• 8:14
  masculine tropes. But also there are parts of, like, my my
• 8:17
  maleness as I find this new world of non binary ness that
• 8:23
  like I love and I hold onto like the idea of being mushy on
• 8:27
  social media about your partner. I don't know. I make anniversary
• 8:30
  and Valentine's Day posts on social media all the time. I
• 8:35
  think being mushy gushy with my spouse who I've been with for as
• 8:40
  of this recording almost eleven years, I like being kind of a
• 8:43
  hopeless romantic and mushy gushy.
• 8:45
  And I'm curious about the queer perspective too, which Georgia
• 8:49
  does mention a little bit, though this is mostly looking at
• 8:51
  the very straight version of it. But like, I'm curious if, like,
• 8:56
  men are embarrassed by their boyfriends too. If, you know,
• 8:59
  non binary people are embarrassed by their boyfriends
• 9:02
  as well? Like, I'm just curious. And then I love love.
• 9:05
  Right? And this just seems like I guess my bigger question is,
• 9:09
  like, what happened to that? Why why don't we love love in the
• 9:13
  same way? Why do we think there's a specific thing that
• 9:17
  caused this gigantic turning point? Is there hope?
• 9:21
  I guess, ultimately is my question. Is there hope for
• 9:24
  loving love and being gushy and and cheesy online? Or will there
• 9:29
  always be this cloud of embarrassment around it? Like,
• 9:32
  what can we do to rehabilitate that?
• 9:34
  Mike Rugnetta: Well, love is weakness, so we just can't we
• 9:36
  can't put that in public. She's
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: not allowed.
• 9:39
  Jason Oberholtzer: You came to the wrong place,
• 9:40
  Speaker 6: man.
• 9:41
  Hans Buetow: Heck no. Come with me. I'll protect you.
• 9:44
  Georgia Hampton: A big reason why I wanted to focus this
• 9:48
  segment so much on heterosexual women dating men is that I mean,
• 9:53
  that dynamic of, like, women dating men, I think, as a queer
• 10:00
  person, like, within queer community, can get kind of waved
• 10:04
  away as, like, well, obviously, you're dating a man. Like, what
• 10:06
  do you expect? And the issue I was discussing, I do think, is
• 10:11
  unique to heterosexual relationships in its specific
• 10:15
  nature. But I think there's also kind of across the board, you
• 10:21
  can find this fear that gets sort of crystallized into
• 10:28
  cynicism of sharing too vulnerably your love for someone
• 10:35
  else. Slight pitch
• 10:36
  Mike Rugnetta: for member content. We were talking about
• 10:37
  this in the paper report that we just recorded that will be out
• 10:40
  soon, where Alice Marwick talks about, like, there is no place
• 10:43
  to go online to share my actual life because doing so feels just
• 10:49
  too risky. Yeah. Like, there's too many shitheads out there.
• 10:52
  There's too many people who are gonna read it wrong.
• 10:55
  It just feels like a kind of vulnerability or a kind of
• 10:58
  danger that I'm not interested in. I wonder if a lot of that
• 11:02
  is, like, then you kinda you do like a post hoc justification of
• 11:06
  like, well, that's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to I don't
• 11:10
  wanna commit too fast. When really what you're just feeling
• 11:12
  is fear of being seen and of the vulnerability that comes with
• 11:17
  exactly the thing that Matt describes, like being mushy
• 11:20
  gushy in public.
• 11:21
  Jason Oberholtzer: Say mushy gushy one more time.
• 11:25
  Georgia Hampton: And I do think I think looking at this, like,
• 11:27
  within a queer community, it is its own thing. Like, this
• 11:32
  question is is coming with so many other contextual elements
• 11:37
  of, like, queer relationships, you know, in some top down
• 11:42
  circle, shall we say, is treated as no good and bad and taboo
• 11:47
  already. So to defend and celebrate your relationship is
• 11:51
  sort of part of the experience. It's part of the joy of being
• 11:55
  queer. So I do think it's it's unique.
• 11:59
  But I also you know, in the same way that, like, a fuck boy to me
• 12:02
  is a genderless term. Like, it it exists they're in the walls.
• 12:06
  They're everywhere. If there is anything that kind of kick
• 12:11
  started this cynicism, this fear of being too public, I think
• 12:18
  it's the emergence and intense power that the fuck boy has.
• 12:25
  Speaker 6: Mhmm. Mhmm. Oh, I
• 12:26
  Georgia Hampton: want all the trappings of a relationship, but
• 12:28
  I don't want a relationship. I wanna introduce you to my
• 12:30
  parents, but this isn't a relationship. I'm gonna say I
• 12:33
  love you, but this isn't a relationship. You know, whatever
• 12:35
  the case may be. Yeah.
• 12:36
  And I think that kind of understandably, can elicit this
• 12:41
  reaction of like, well, then, I'm not gonna be playing this
• 12:44
  game at all. Like, I'm gonna beat them at their game.
• 12:46
  Jason Oberholtzer: You know, when you create a relationship,
• 12:49
  when you start or announce relationship in the light of
• 12:51
  day, you have to end it in the light of day, and when you do it
• 12:53
  in the dark, you can end it in the dark. It was easier to carry
• 12:57
  on with your fuckboys, regardless of their gender,
• 13:00
  entirely alone, and only be mortified by your own actions
• 13:04
  than it is now when you have to perform some of those actions
• 13:07
  online. Yeah. We wanna love love too, man. More or less.
• 13:11
  I I think this is an interesting transition to an email that
• 13:15
  frequent writer, Ben Sparaji, sent in about, like, when the
• 13:19
  public nature of putting a man on your brand is actually very,
• 13:24
  very public. Mhmm. I said a few months ago, I saw a vertical
• 13:27
  video by professor Neil, who had a story about the cover of his
• 13:30
  book on Canadian pop culture. He wanted the cover to feature
• 13:33
  Canadian pop slash rap star, Drake. Okay.
• 13:37
  Love you had to describe this to me. He's a multi hyphenate. But
• 13:41
  the publisher was against it. After a bit of back and forth,
• 13:44
  he asked if they were afraid Drake would be me too'd, and
• 13:48
  they said, yes. Professor Neil connected this corporate
• 13:51
  understanding of men generally causing trouble to women's
• 13:54
  understandings of boyfriends causing trouble.
• 13:56
  Is this a thing? Yes. Do men just be causing trouble and it's
• 14:02
  dangerous for your brands to associate with them?
• 14:04
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. Yes. Even within straight women community,
• 14:10
  there is this, well, girl, like, you hit your wagon to a man.
• 14:15
  Like, what do you expect? That phrase, what do you expect?
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: Mhmm.
• 14:20
  Georgia Hampton: And the answer is always, well, I expect him to
• 14:23
  basically, like, rake me over the coals and ruin my life.
• 14:27
  Jason Oberholtzer: We expect him at the very least to be Drake.
• 14:30
  Yeah.
• 14:33
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Next up, we got some comments about the
• 14:36
  episode about Doom, wherein we talked about the history of the
• 14:40
  development of the famous first person shooter. The reasoning,
• 14:45
  the reasons that it can run on many different systems, and how
• 14:48
  it has become a platform for technological and cultural
• 14:52
  experimentation. We got a couple really good comments. The first
• 14:55
  that I'm gonna read was left on the website by Ikechukwu
• 14:58
  Okareke, and they write, Ring Racers is actually a bit more
• 15:03
  storied.
• 15:03
  And let me tell you listeners, no better way to start a
• 15:08
  comment.
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: No better way to start a comment.
• 15:11
  Jason Oberholtzer: You want the comment in the mailbag? Start
• 15:13
  with that.
• 15:14
  Mike Rugnetta: Start this way. As it is a continuation of SRB
• 15:19
  two kart, a racing conversion mod of the fan game Sonic
• 15:23
  Roboblast two, which was built on Doom Legacy and has been
• 15:27
  developed for over twenty five years. I've been looking into
• 15:29
  the early history of the Sonic fan gaming community. Listeners,
• 15:37
  halfway through your comment, this is what you do. And there
• 15:44
  is a lot of interesting interplay between Doom and the
• 15:46
  then Sonic research scene, which was primarily looking for
• 15:50
  unreleased demos and cut content where this open source principle
• 15:54
  for creativity was carried over.
• 15:56
  Woah. I mean, hell yes. I have no additional comments except
• 16:00
  hell yes, and please write in with more discoveries. And now I
• 16:06
  know what I'm doing with my Friday night.
• 16:07
  Hans Buetow: I think half of our audience just grabbed an
• 16:09
  electric guitar and just ripped a sick rift, and
• 16:12
  Mike Rugnetta: half the audience went,
• 16:13
  Hans Buetow: what?
• 16:14
  Speaker 6: You know
• 16:16
  Hans Buetow: what? Second second half.
• 16:17
  Georgia Hampton: Everyone was like, Sonic, I know him.
• 16:23
  Mike Rugnetta: Jed Cole writes in and says, this was so fun and
• 16:25
  kinda inspiring as an artist listening to this. I personally
• 16:28
  would read and enjoy a book written by Mike about Doom's
• 16:30
  uses in art despite knowing that he pronounces tretus that You're
• 16:36
  gonna
• 16:36
  Jason Oberholtzer: commit to this. Yeah. Like, there has to
• 16:40
  be a reason this happened to you.
• 16:42
  Mike Rugnetta: Well, I have no clue what
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: it is.
• 16:42
  Mike Rugnetta: So you don't know. This is just what it is in
• 16:44
  your brain. The alternate pronunciations are a different
• 16:46
  way of saying the second syllable. So I'm just wrong, but
• 16:50
  I like it.
• 16:52
  Jason Oberholtzer: That's how language works.
• 16:53
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Jed, thanks for writing in. We also got an
• 16:57
  email in from J. P. LaBretton, who I think some of you, if
• 17:02
  you're like real doom heads, might know.
• 17:04
  J. P. LaBretton is actually someone that me and Zazer talked
• 17:09
  about briefly in our longer interview. It didn't make its
• 17:12
  way into the final cut of the episode. But J.
• 17:16
  P. Is a game developer and wrote a really well known and kind of
• 17:19
  beloved blog post called Lessons of Doom, kinda talking about
• 17:24
  like what it is about Doom from a game design perspective that
• 17:29
  makes it feel like a great game. And it's a really great read. I
• 17:33
  highly recommend taking a look at it. We'll put a link to it in
• 17:37
  the show notes.
• 17:38
  So first things first, JP, it's amazing that you found the
• 17:42
  episode and listened to it and double amazing that you wrote
• 17:45
  in. So thanks for the email. I'm gonna read two parts of it
• 17:48
  because I think that there are things in here that are really
• 17:51
  fascinating just from like a game design industry
• 17:54
  perspective. One of the things that JP writes is, until it was
• 17:59
  mostly choked out by rising triple a production values, And
• 18:03
  for anybody who doesn't know, triple a games is just like the
• 18:06
  biggest, most expensive games that you know.
• 18:08
  Hans Buetow: That's the part of the segment that you explained.
• 18:11
  Mike Rugnetta: Mom my mom won't know that. My mom knows what
• 18:13
  Doom is.
• 18:14
  Georgia Hampton: And I didn't know what that was.
• 18:15
  Mike Rugnetta: You're like That was for Georgia. Thank you.
• 18:18
  Jason Oberholtzer: Mike's mom does know what s r b two cart
• 18:20
  is.
• 18:21
  Mike Rugnetta: Shit. She was like, well, I mean, some
• 18:24
  interesting things happened in the then Sonic research scene.
• 18:29
  Okay. Chopped up by rising triple a production values and
• 18:32
  publisher abandonment of game mod support in the early mid two
• 18:36
  thousands, the mod community was this incredible golden age of
• 18:39
  amateur creativity that only really came back a decade later
• 18:43
  with Minecraft at all. Yeah.
• 18:46
  I still think we could have something like that again even
• 18:49
  though the tech landscape and society's overall conception of
• 18:52
  what a hobby is, and then in parentheses, monetizable, says
• 18:56
  the devil, has changed a lot since then. Cool.
• 19:00
  Hans Buetow: And I
• 19:01
  Mike Rugnetta: think that that's like there's a lot to say about
• 19:04
  these couple sentences, but I think it really gets to one of
• 19:10
  the things that is so powerful about Doom and the community
• 19:13
  around it, and the things that are made, and the things that
• 19:16
  are made with it and the way that it was designed by the
• 19:20
  people who made and released it, that there is both a norm and a
• 19:24
  little bit of a barrier to rampant monetization. And that
• 19:30
  makes it great and also what makes it feel impossible. And
• 19:36
  that's something that JP goes on to sort of talk a little bit
• 19:39
  more about in the next part of the email where he writes, Doom
• 19:43
  and Quake together are, I think, an ideal lens for understanding
• 19:46
  the evolution of the cultural political economy of game
• 19:49
  development. Listeners. And more broadly, how capital influences
• 19:55
  creative labor.
• 19:56
  This is a such an interesting point. CarMax engines brought
• 19:59
  into focus the idea that game technology, which birthed the
• 20:03
  GPU market and thus the blueprint of all modern consumer
• 20:08
  technology development. Woah. Woah. Has always had this
• 20:15
  capital intensive imperative to put more money on the screen,
• 20:20
  which is basically like the maybe correct, maybe incorrect
• 20:23
  received wisdom that what game players want to see is a video
• 20:28
  game that looks like a movie, essentially.
• 20:30
  Do they actually want that? Big question mark. And with the PS
• 20:33
  five gen, we're more or less at the end of history of where
• 20:36
  everything about computing architecture is now about
• 20:39
  sucking unbelievable amounts of data off storage and into GPU
• 20:43
  RAM and splatting it on screen maximally random accessibly. And
• 20:48
  that these gobs or wads, if you will, of data are by necessity
• 20:52
  the product of immense hierarchies of human labor that
• 20:56
  I've spent my whole career inside and progressively
• 20:58
  alienated by. And all the economics of game development
• 21:02
  are downstream of that bottomless need for, not a fan
• 21:05
  of this word, but content.
• 21:08
  And maybe deeper critical awareness of that tech
• 21:11
  determinist imperative that started with Carmack realizing
• 21:14
  he could do a trick with EGA registers could shine a light on
• 21:17
  alternatives, all the way up to imagining what game development
• 21:20
  and amateur creative work would look like in a post capitalist
• 21:23
  world. A quote, people's history of doom or general talk about
• 21:28
  creativity and capital intensity that I'd like to do someday.
• 21:33
  Hell, yeah. A thousand percent, hell, yeah, please. And I think
• 21:37
  just such a great way of framing what feels like a tension
• 21:40
  between like Doom, especially the newer Dooms, we only talked
• 21:44
  a little bit about, does a great job of making a game that is
• 21:47
  very fun, and feels great, and looks good.
• 21:51
  But like, so much of why I feel alienated by triple a production
• 21:56
  is that it really does just feel like an expensive magic trick.
• 21:58
  They're like, I that I'm not interested in firing a gun for
• 22:01
  thirty hours. So a lot of them are just like an expensive
• 22:04
  visualizer for firing a gun for, you know, thirty to a hundred
• 22:08
  hours. It's like, I'm okay. And the more independent development
• 22:15
  where it's like, there are interest really fascinating
• 22:18
  stories and mechanics and, like, technological systems being
• 22:23
  developed so that people can play increasingly complex and
• 22:26
  interesting games on not something that costs $500.
• 22:31
  Because in 2026 and beyond, that's just gonna be
• 22:35
  increasingly difficult to do. Yep. But people still wanna have
• 22:39
  interesting, entertaining, interactive media experiences.
• 22:42
  Hans Buetow: Next up, we are headed to the happiest place on
• 22:47
  Earth to find some of the happiest things on Earth because
• 22:49
  we're talking about hunting trash in Disneyland where
• 22:53
  contributing producers, Rose and Maggie, talked about the process
• 22:57
  of looking for things that you love in person or online, and if
• 23:03
  there's an emotional difference between those things, plus what
• 23:06
  it's like to be at Disneyland. And we got a couple of emails.
• 23:08
  The first was from Violet McNeil who says, as far back as I can
• 23:14
  remember, I've been enamored by small shiny objects. Violet is,
• 23:19
  I forgot to say, a corvid.
• 23:21
  Georgia Hampton: A corvid. Maybe a magpie.
• 23:23
  Hans Buetow: You know? I'm not gonna not gonna judge. Violet
• 23:27
  says, I used to pick up sequins up off the pavement and keep
• 23:30
  them in a little box. When I was maybe five, my mom took me,
• 23:33
  definitely a magpie, into a crystal shop, one of those
• 23:37
  hippie shops that leave you smelling of incense for hours
• 23:39
  after, and I bought a little tumbled piece of rose quartz.
• 23:43
  Since then, at every museum gift shop, market stall, and tourist
• 23:47
  village, I have an eye out for a place I can buy a little
• 23:51
  crystal, usually one per visit.
• 23:53
  I have over a 100 now in display shelf I made myself from
• 23:56
  cardboard and papier mache.
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: Woah. Jed,
• 24:00
  Mike Rugnetta: looking forward to your email about that. Yeah.
• 24:03
  Hans Buetow: I'll see. There have been some crystals that I
• 24:06
  knew I wanted but hadn't found yet, says Violet. And I would
• 24:11
  occasionally look online or on eBay where they could be found
• 24:14
  in multitudes for cheaper than the shipping cost. But when I
• 24:17
  looked at the images online, I realized it would feel
• 24:20
  profoundly wrong to buy them this way. First, most of my
• 24:24
  crystals are only an inch or so big.
• 24:26
  It would feel kinda silly having just one shipped across the
• 24:29
  country for me. But also the joy of buying a crystal is so much
• 24:33
  more than the item itself. Ding. Ding. Ding.
• 24:36
  Ding. Mhmm. Each one is a little souvenir of the place I bought
• 24:39
  it from. I could recall the memory of where I got each one
• 24:42
  from over fifteen years, where I could spend ages pouring over
• 24:47
  little boxes of gems, making sure to find the one that looks
• 24:50
  the most interesting and unique even especially in parentheses
• 24:54
  if it's a little uglier and cheaper than the pretty ones sit
• 24:58
  next to it. I like to pick the one that speaks to me.
• 25:02
  In most of the online shops you don't even see an image of the
• 25:05
  crystal you're buying. Who would bother taking display photos of
• 25:09
  every single tiny rock they sell? Anyway, tldr, I like
• 25:14
  collecting pretty rocks and buying online would suck the fun
• 25:16
  out of it entirely. I've attacked a picture of my crystal
• 25:18
  display. If you'd like to see it and you do wanna see it, we'll
• 25:21
  put it in the show notes.
• 25:21
  Mike Rugnetta: It's pretty sick.
• 25:22
  Jason Oberholtzer: It's Violet. Violet,
• 25:24
  Georgia Hampton: I I do the exact same thing. I have a
• 25:26
  million crystals. I love buying them. I would only buy them in
• 25:29
  person.
• 25:30
  Hans Buetow: Cooper Mulderry follows up with an email. The
• 25:32
  friction touched upon in the Disney pin segment reminds me of
• 25:35
  a
• 25:35
  Hans Buetow: lot of the
• 25:36
  Hans Buetow: friction lost in online gaming. Yes. Many games
• 25:41
  in the early two thousands had split screen and local area
• 25:44
  network LAN capabilities that encourage people to be all in
• 25:48
  the same room and play together. I would often throw LAN parties
• 25:51
  for my birthday as a teen, landing Halo Star Wars
• 25:54
  Battlefront and Starcraft. We'd all be in the same room.
• 25:57
  We'd have to organize, connect our routers, network cables, and
• 26:00
  Xboxes, and we'd each make a profile on each system. Now in
• 26:05
  order to land on modern consoles, each player must make
• 26:07
  a Microsoft account, give their email, and set up a gamer tag to
• 26:10
  do so. This seems to me to be trying to prevent local area
• 26:14
  networks and in person gaming. Many multiplayer games don't
• 26:17
  even offer split screen functionality. I've always
• 26:20
  thought this has contributed to the perceived and sometimes
• 26:22
  actual toxicity and aggressive nature of many online gaming
• 26:26
  circles.
• 26:26
  We are isolated from the people we play with. There is no social
• 26:30
  cost for being a real jerk. In the same way that Rose and
• 26:34
  Maggie could have just bought the Disney trash can pin online
• 26:37
  and skipped human interaction in the trade meets, I have found
• 26:40
  that in person gaming creates a more welcoming and friendly
• 26:42
  environment as opposed to online matchmaking. Hell yeah. I have
• 26:46
  so many things to say about this.
• 26:48
  Mike Rugnetta: I I think Cooper is a thousand percent right.
• 26:50
  Yes. Yeah. It's exactly what JP wrote about sort of. Right?
• 26:53
  They Yeah. Video game developers who want to maximize their
• 26:56
  economics will do not want two people playing one game. They
• 27:00
  want two people playing two games.
• 27:02
  Hans Buetow: Yep. I think there's one group that makes
• 27:05
  some exceptions to this, and that's Nintendo.
• 27:07
  Mike Rugnetta: 100%. Mario Kart. Splatoon, actually, you can do
• 27:11
  you do play online and does have a massive online player base.
• 27:15
  Hans Buetow: Nintendo sports, like, there are a couple of
• 27:18
  things that are intended, and that's all kinetic. So you're
• 27:20
  supposed to move. You're supposed to be in the room with
• 27:22
  somebody while you do it. So this does live in some small
• 27:25
  places. But, yeah, it all goes back to Love Island.
• 27:30
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, no. It does not. It says here we need
• 27:35
  to go to commercials. So Yeah. See you guys on the other side
• 27:38
  of this break.
• 27:39
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay, Hans. Get started. Love Island. Lay it on
• 27:41
  us. Actually,
• 27:43
  Hans Buetow: Love Island should be called Accountability Island.
• 27:59
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. We're back. Georgia, what did you make our
• 28:02
  listeners do? How dare you?
• 28:04
  Hans Buetow: Well, I somehow created the most discourse I
• 28:10
  think we've ever
• 28:11
  Mike Rugnetta: created about anything strangest place
• 28:14
  Speaker 6: on the Internet. Yeah.
• 28:16
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. So this was member content, wasn't it?
• 28:21
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. This was member content.
• 28:23
  Georgia Hampton: So another plug for member content. We had an a
• 28:25
  whole episode where we discussed the event planning app,
• 28:30
  Partifle. And during that conversation, I had an evil
• 28:36
  idea, which is that if anyone wanted to submit a comment about
• 28:43
  what we were talking about, they had to do so through an event I
• 28:48
  created on Partifle.
• 28:50
  Mike Rugnetta: For Hans' friend, Tinky Tiny.
• 28:53
  Hans Buetow: Who knows how to play lefties, righties?
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: If you
• 28:55
  Hans Buetow: were a member, you would know what that means.
• 28:57
  Mike Rugnetta: No. You wouldn't. You would absolutely know.
• 28:59
  Hans Buetow: In fact, none of us know what that means.
• 29:04
  Georgia Hampton: But I created an event called Tinky Tiny's b
• 29:07
  day bash on the July 4, because Tinky Tiny is nothing if not a
• 29:12
  patriot. 38 people RSVP'd that they were going to this party. I
• 29:19
  got seven maybes and an unknown number of nos. It would not show
• 29:25
  me that. And a very vibrant comment community of, by my last
• 29:34
  check, 43 messages in this little event, many of which were
• 29:40
  yelling at me and other people doing a fabulous play pretend of
• 29:47
  telling me why they couldn't come.
• 29:49
  My favorite of which was that someone said they had to drive
• 29:52
  their grand aunt to her jujitsu class, which then prompted
• 29:56
  someone else to say that they were teaching jujitsu to a rival
• 30:01
  of the Grand Anne and also couldn't. I
• 30:04
  Mike Rugnetta: love the, the stories in the Never Post
• 30:06
  extended universe. Yes.
• 30:07
  Hans Buetow: So good. I am nothing if not someone
• 30:10
  encouraging lore creation around this community we've built.
• 30:15
  Georgia Hampton: Now when we talked about Partifull, we were
• 30:17
  discussing it as kind of this unfortunate sequel to something
• 30:21
  like Facebook events. So to start us off, Angus Dingwall,
• 30:28
  who was going
• 30:28
  Mike Rugnetta: Thank you, Angus.
• 30:29
  Georgia Hampton: Said, this is the problem of modern app
• 30:33
  creation. All focus on UI, no real thought about UX. Ends up
• 30:38
  with a thing that feels like it was made by someone who has
• 30:41
  never been to a party or even met another human being.
• 30:44
  Hans Buetow: Can someone explain to me the difference between UI
• 30:46
  and UX?
• 30:47
  Mike Rugnetta: UI is like the stuff that you look at, and UX
• 30:50
  is how it feels to use that stuff.
• 30:53
  Georgia Hampton: As Annabelle August, who was also going to
• 30:56
  the event.
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: Thank you, Annabelle.
• 30:59
  Georgia Hampton: As they also commented, there's this, like,
• 31:02
  built in personality to Partifle through the way the app is
• 31:06
  designed. That I'm sure is meant to create this kind of like,
• 31:12
  what's up party goer? Like, you're going to an awesome
• 31:15
  event. But it feels very forced
• 31:18
  Jason Oberholtzer: Mhmm.
• 31:18
  Georgia Hampton: And weird. Next, we have Morg, who also
• 31:22
  went to Tinky Tiny's B Day Bash.
• 31:23
  Mike Rugnetta: Thanks for coming, Morg.
• 31:24
  Georgia Hampton: Who writes, the method used to advertise an
• 31:28
  event someone's hosting can also be used as a way to abdicate
• 31:32
  responsibility and not be direct about who they don't want there.
• 31:37
  Like using a Facebook event page and inviting people they know
• 31:40
  won't see it because they don't use Facebook anymore. To have
• 31:44
  the out of, well, I invited you, didn't you see it? Versus being
• 31:49
  direct with them. People want the plausible deniability.
• 31:53
  Mike Rugnetta: The secret thing of, like, I don't actually want
• 31:55
  to have this event, but I feel like I have to. Or, like, I
• 32:00
  wanna have this event for a small number of people, but I
• 32:02
  can't just invite those people.
• 32:04
  Georgia Hampton: I think that's the
• 32:05
  Hans Buetow: true thing.
• 32:05
  Georgia Hampton: Because I was
• 32:06
  Hans Buetow: about to be like, you're being very generous.
• 32:07
  Georgia Hampton: And that I think it's a sort of, you know,
• 32:10
  political nightmare of friends.
• 32:13
  Jason Oberholtzer: I don't live my life like you people do.
• 32:15
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I don't that's yeah. I just wouldn't do
• 32:17
  it. Yeah. So sorry that
• 32:20
  Jason Oberholtzer: it feels like this to you, though.
• 32:22
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh, the next one is from James Bolanbaugh. That's
• 32:24
  my friend James.
• 32:26
  Georgia Hampton: James has this to say, who was also going to
• 32:28
  Tinky Tiny's birthday party.
• 32:30
  Mike Rugnetta: He better. Of course. Thank
• 32:33
  Georgia Hampton: James writes, only Partifull RSVP of my life.
• 32:38
  I'm honored. It's an honor, James. I never opened their
• 32:42
  texts because they look exactly like fishing. Unknown number,
• 32:46
  short link, vague urgency.
• 32:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes.
• 32:49
  Georgia Hampton: Congrats to Party Palooza for making party
• 32:51
  invites indistinguishable from a scam.
• 32:54
  Hans Buetow: Hard yes. Hard yes. All invites all invites software
• 32:59
  and apps and invites are this. I know I can't open any
• 33:02
  Mike Rugnetta: of them. Too many emojis and shapes. Cool.
• 33:05
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Again, it's the it's the personality.
• 33:08
  It's the personality. It feels fake. It feels like a threat.
• 33:11
  Moving on, we have another message from Cooper Mulderry.
• 33:15
  Jason Oberholtzer: Second time in the bag.
• 33:16
  Georgia Hampton: Cooper's back, who also went to the birthday
• 33:19
  bash.
• 33:20
  Mike Rugnetta: Good. Thanks for coming.
• 33:21
  Georgia Hampton: I'm surprised you all missed the most wild
• 33:24
  feature of this app, the crush feature, where you can say you
• 33:29
  have a crush on another party goer to an event you RSVP'd to.
• 33:33
  Wow. And it will only tell them if they crush on you too.
• 33:37
  Hans Buetow: Oh, god.
• 33:38
  Mike Rugnetta: That is psychotic.
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: That's so
• 33:40
  Georgia Hampton: bleak. I swear, it's like everything I think
• 33:44
  we've we're slowly coming to a conclusion that everything is
• 33:47
  both gambling and dating apps.
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: Right. Which is itself a form
• 33:52
  Hans Buetow: of gambling.
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah. It's just gambling again. Yeah. It's just
• 33:55
  roulette.
• 33:56
  Jason Oberholtzer: And yet Gen z has no money and does not have
• 33:59
  sex.
• 34:00
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. And we wonder why.
• 34:02
  Georgia Hampton: This is, like, a Machiavellian, like, evil evil
• 34:08
  thing. I have never known anyone to at least admit that they've
• 34:12
  used this, but I don't think anyone I know has ever used this
• 34:15
  feature.
• 34:16
  Hans Buetow: It is
• 34:16
  Georgia Hampton: so unimaginable
• 34:17
  Mike Rugnetta: to I'm gonna go I'm gonna go RSVP and crush on
• 34:21
  James.
• 34:22
  Georgia Hampton: I also wanted to say that many people who
• 34:24
  commented on Tinky Tiny's b day bash also offered other event
• 34:30
  planning softwares or apps to use. So I've amassed a
• 34:36
  collection of them. The Knot. We have using a separate Discord
• 34:41
  server for planning parties within your friend group. Wow.
• 34:44
  We have evite.com, which does not have an app, only exists as
• 34:48
  a website. We have Meetup. We have just the the desire to
• 34:53
  bring back forums.
• 34:55
  Hans Buetow: Sure. Like Socrates?
• 34:58
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. Yes. The forum. The salon.
• 35:03
  Jason Oberholtzer: Who among you will hang out with me?
• 35:06
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. And then finally, we have Paperless Post.
• 35:09
  Jason Oberholtzer: Well, what a treat. I hope the Tinky Tiny
• 35:11
  feels properly feted.
• 35:13
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I do too. Alright. Next up, we got some
• 35:17
  mail in about the Brain Rot segment. In this segment, I
• 35:20
  talked with academic Emily Owens about brain rot as a complex of
• 35:26
  media that exists online in order to kind of defeat the
• 35:31
  pressures of productivity amongst teenagers in particular
• 35:36
  is who Emily studied, but potentially everybody.
• 35:40
  Sort of an answer to the Internet and all of the media on
• 35:44
  its insistence that you always be either consumer or laborer,
• 35:49
  and brain rot as a way of saying, like, no. You could just
• 35:52
  be a an idiot. That's fine.
• 35:55
  Jason Oberholtzer: Sounds
• 35:55
  Hans Buetow: There's a weird third option.
• 35:57
  Mike Rugnetta: Be a big old dummy. Yeah. The secret the
• 35:59
  secret third option is is head empty. Yeah.
• 36:03
  Jason Oberholtzer: And I think this email in particular is
• 36:05
  downstream of a couple subsequent conversations on
• 36:08
  other mailbags. One of which I think we were responding to
• 36:11
  someone asking if they're, like, crossword habit was brain rot or
• 36:16
  anything. Yeah. We got, like, deep into the weeds of, you're
• 36:18
  allowed to just, like
• 36:19
  Hans Buetow: You can enjoy the task that isn't productive.
• 36:22
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Exactly. You're allowed to.
• 36:23
  Mike Rugnetta: But a crossword is productive, so no.
• 36:27
  Jason Oberholtzer: Sorry. Anyway That's
• 36:28
  Hans Buetow: a laborer. It depends on if it supports your
• 36:31
  streak or not. Then is
• 36:32
  Mike Rugnetta: it labor or not? This is what Ross Lewallen says.
• 36:36
  Right? Ross says, how do you never post? What habits or
• 36:38
  techniques do you use that go against or thwart the design of
• 36:41
  the platform?
• 36:42
  If you don't know, I regret to inform you that LinkedIn games
• 36:45
  are actually pretty good.
• 36:47
  Hans Buetow: Oh, Georgia's waving her hands and backing
• 36:49
  away from
• 36:49
  Hans Buetow: the microphone. To believe this. I refuse to
• 36:52
  believe this.
• 36:53
  Mike Rugnetta: Ross says I play them alongside New York Times
• 36:55
  games most evenings. Something I don't like about them, however,
• 36:58
  is that they automatically track your streaks, daily wins in a
• 37:01
  row Look at that. In a way that annoys me. I don't like the
• 37:05
  influence keeping a streak alive has on what should be a fun
• 37:08
  casual thing for me. So that's you are choosing to not be
• 37:11
  laborer.
• 37:13
  Choosing to be idiot. So for most of the games, I
• 37:17
  intentionally play them all the way up until the last click or
• 37:21
  tap, and then I stop. Oh. I get to know that I completed the
• 37:27
  puzzle,
• 37:41
  Georgia Hampton: The, like, mental fortitude to be like
• 37:43
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 37:44
  Georgia Hampton: I know.
• 37:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: You're the strongest person I have ever
• 37:47
  heard.
• 37:47
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, gosh. It's so admirable. I I love this. Oh
• 37:52
  my god.
• 37:53
  Mike Rugnetta: So, you know, it makes sense, right, that this
• 37:55
  would happen on LinkedIn. This would be how LinkedIn does it. A
• 37:59
  very sort of, like, productivity oriented in a lot of ways social
• 38:03
  network. So Ross is taking an action to thwart this insistence
• 38:07
  on productivity and wants to know if there are similar
• 38:11
  actions that we all take in our lives.
• 38:14
  Hans Buetow: Going to the library, does that count? Like,
• 38:18
  going to get going to get DVDs of the library, listening to
• 38:21
  records, does all that stuff. Like, stuff that doesn't tick
• 38:23
  something on a counter.
• 38:24
  Georgia Hampton: I think it has to be something where you are
• 38:27
  using an interface, but denying a component of it.
• 38:33
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. The one that I can think of is that I
• 38:36
  don't have notifications turned on for anything. That's
• 38:39
  reasonable.
• 38:40
  Hans Buetow: Is something like using Facebook only for the
• 38:42
  marketplace fit into this, or is that
• 38:44
  Mike Rugnetta: too mainstream? No. Because Facebook knows that
• 38:47
  you're doing that, and they That's such a they like it. And
• 38:49
  they're using that. Maybe
• 38:50
  Hans Buetow: I can get five years ago when it was just a sub
• 38:53
  side thing.
• 38:54
  Georgia Hampton: But now
• 38:55
  Hans Buetow: it's not.
• 38:55
  Georgia Hampton: It's also like, there's a reason they don't have
• 38:57
  just an app for the marketplace, which they should have. Because
• 39:01
  so many people, myself included, only have Facebook still for
• 39:04
  marketplace.
• 39:05
  Hans Buetow: Yep.
• 39:05
  Georgia Hampton: But they want you to have to go to Facebook.
• 39:08
  Mike Rugnetta: They they want you to log in so they can read
• 39:10
  the contents of your clipboard.
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: Yep. I
• 39:13
  Georgia Hampton: don't know. Maybe we gotta think about this
• 39:14
  a bit more.
• 39:15
  Mike Rugnetta: Ross, good question.
• 39:16
  Hans Buetow: Great question.
• 39:18
  Georgia Hampton: Alright. Up next, we have two voicemails
• 39:22
  about my episode regarding the perfect vehicle ever to be made.
• 39:29
  The 1993 Renault Twingo, which if you are unfamiliar or you
• 39:33
  have somehow forgotten, is a funny little guy of a car that
• 39:38
  has very round headlights, a little smile on its bumper, and
• 39:43
  is just sort of the perfect little friend of a car. The
• 39:48
  first comes from Erin, who called in about another fabulous
• 39:52
  dorky little car that came to the culture through a notably
• 39:56
  non car guy method.
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: I called to give a shout out to the I know about
• 40:04
  the Yugo because that is heavily featured in the movie Nick and
• 40:09
  Nora's Infinite Playlist, the True Hats now was a very
• 40:13
  important piece of teen media in the, late aughts. A shout out to
• 40:18
  the Yugo.
• 40:19
  Georgia Hampton: Erin, I'm so glad you mentioned Nick and
• 40:21
  Nora's Infinite playlist. A beloved piece of culture for me.
• 40:24
  Completely independent of this car guy lifestyle by virtue of
• 40:29
  the fact that the Yugo, a car that is famous for not really
• 40:32
  being a great car.
• 40:35
  Mike Rugnetta: Manufactured in Yugoslavia, and I believe up up
• 40:38
  until the late eighties.
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: Mhmm. So
• 40:41
  Georgia Hampton: yeah. Yeah. A car that I don't think was
• 40:43
  especially reliable is very cute, very boxy, looks like a
• 40:48
  toy, is very much taking a page from the the Twingo's visual
• 40:53
  book. Fun cars exist everywhere. You do not have to rely on the
• 40:59
  car guy to find a car that you think is cute and fun.
• 41:02
  Mike Rugnetta: Also, a quick fact check of myself. The Yugo
• 41:04
  was produced until
• 41:05
  Georgia Hampton: 2008. Speaking of sweet little cars, Penalty
• 41:12
  sent in a voicemail about my favorite car of all time, which
• 41:16
  is the Mini Cooper, a car that I am desperately trying to find an
• 41:19
  excuse to buy one of these days when I have the funds, and I
• 41:22
  don't mind the fact that you have to go to a mini dealer to
• 41:26
  get everything fixed.
• 41:27
  Speaker 10: So there was a car forum online called North
• 41:30
  American Motoring for many enthusiasts that I spent a bunch
• 41:33
  of time on before I ever got a mini. Learned a bunch of stuff
• 41:37
  about them. People were super welcoming. Happy to educate you
• 41:40
  about them, including things like, here, these are the issues
• 41:43
  to look out for or just like, hey. Look at my mini.
• 41:47
  This is how I've modded it. Doesn't it look cool? And
• 41:49
  everyone's like, yeah. It looks super cool. I don't know how I
• 41:53
  could possibly have found
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: a comedian like that, IRL.
• 41:56
  Speaker 10: Especially because, like, there's a gender thing to
• 41:59
  IRL car culture that is inescapable when you are a small
• 42:04
  woman.
• 42:06
  Georgia Hampton: A gender thing in car culture? It's more likely
• 42:10
  than you think. I'm just so happy to hear this. I love
• 42:15
  minis. I'm not surprised at all that the online mini community
• 42:18
  is wonderful and sweet.
• 42:20
  And it's just nice to hear about other corners of the Internet
• 42:25
  where this is happening.
• 42:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: I guess I never really properly considered
• 42:28
  how hard it would be to find other people who like your weird
• 42:31
  little car if you just have to, like, see them on the road.
• 42:34
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah.
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: It's you.
• 42:37
  Jason Oberholtzer: Alright. Next up, we have a section just
• 42:39
  called cool things to check out.
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: That's the
• 42:45
  Hans Buetow: theme song.
• 42:46
  Jason Oberholtzer: Guess I don't need to compose anything.
• 42:48
  Mike Rugnetta: Easy. Is that also that also
• 42:50
  Hans Buetow: Okay. Actually,
• 42:53
  Speaker 6: no. Oh, shit. Okay.
• 42:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Hanzo, just let
• 42:55
  Georgia Hampton: us thousand dollars. Okay.
• 42:58
  Speaker 9: I've just been listening, catching up on some
• 43:03
  episodes. And I know it's quite frequently. There's a discussion
• 43:06
  on, man, current mobile phones are really boring. And I agree
• 43:12
  on this. I wanted to point out a resource.
• 43:16
  It is called the mobile phone museum. Literally mobile phone
• 43:20
  museum dot com. It just is a catalog of a bunch of models of
• 43:25
  phones.
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: They're Oh, yeah.
• 43:26
  Speaker 9: This phones is as determined by the staff who work
• 43:29
  there. They have it organized by brand. They have it organized by
• 43:35
  decade, by country that they were
• 43:37
  Jason Oberholtzer: Sure do.
• 43:37
  Speaker 9: Sold in. They have one called James Bond Phones.
• 43:41
  It's very fun. I like to draw some of the weird guy weird
• 43:44
  little guys on here. That's all.
• 43:47
  I hope you have a great day.
• 43:48
  Georgia Hampton: What collection are you guys looking at?
• 43:50
  Hans Buetow: Because I'm looking at fashion.
• 43:52
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm looking at the full catalog, and it's just
• 43:55
  Same. There are so many good phones.
• 43:59
  Georgia Hampton: I instantly looked up my favorite phone I
• 44:01
  ever owned, which was the Pebble.
• 44:03
  Jason Oberholtzer: There's I like these motorolas that have,
• 44:06
  like, the middle finger antenna in the middle.
• 44:08
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh, yeah.
• 44:08
  Hans Buetow: Yep. Well, this is this is a great resource.
• 44:11
  Georgia Hampton: It's so wonderful.
• 44:12
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. The Japanese with the chick lit
• 44:14
  buttons.
• 44:15
  Georgia Hampton: Oh my god. Cool.
• 44:18
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. This rules.
• 44:19
  Mike Rugnetta: I guess I'll just go back to using my perfectly
• 44:23
  smooth ingot of glass later. Fuck.
• 44:29
  Georgia Hampton: Thank you to the person who sent this in. You
• 44:31
  did not include your name, but thank you so much for this. This
• 44:35
  is Imagine if technology
• 44:36
  Mike Rugnetta: in any way acknowledged the human body.
• 44:38
  Georgia Hampton: Just imagine. Literally. If it in any way
• 44:41
  Colors. Acknowledged
• 44:43
  Jason Oberholtzer: Mike is so mad right now. Next cool thing
• 44:48
  to check out comes from Timothy Banas, who sends us their
• 44:52
  website, solar.lowtechmagazine.com. And
• 44:58
  says, Low Tech Magazine is an excellent little publication
• 45:01
  mostly headed by Chris De Decker about technological solutions to
• 45:05
  climate change looking to the past for inspiration. But it's
• 45:08
  not just what you would think. First, the energy is entirely
• 45:12
  solar powered It has been for a couple years now.
• 45:16
  Mike Rugnetta: And this The subhead on the website is, this
• 45:19
  is a solar powered website, which means it sometimes goes
• 45:22
  offline. Yeah. Some go away.
• 45:25
  Jason Oberholtzer: Some go away. So based in Barcelona, Spain,
• 45:28
  it's on a very energy efficient little server attached to a mini
• 45:31
  photovoltaic in a window.
• 45:33
  Hans Buetow: You have to watch it when it's sunny in Spain.
• 45:35
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. The background of the entire website
• 45:38
  can slide between a cheery yellow or a gray indicating how
• 45:41
  charged the website is at that moment. As it says in multiple
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: places cool.
• 45:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: Sometimes, if it's too cloudy for too long,
• 45:48
  the website goes away.
• 45:49
  Hans Buetow: I love this. Timothy, great find.
• 45:54
  Georgia Hampton: Is so cool.
• 45:55
  Mike Rugnetta: I love this. This is great. This is great. Also,
• 45:57
  like, great subject matter. Like an interesting an interesting
• 46:00
  idea, and also just like interesting stuff on this
• 46:03
  website.
• 46:03
  Jason Oberholtzer: Next cool thing to check out comes from
• 46:05
  BluntFarce, who says, Ari, your conversation about the
• 46:12
  difference between the old joyously chaotic aesthetic of
• 46:15
  Myspace versus the enforced conformity of Facebook. Did you
• 46:18
  know that some brave souls have pretty much recreated Myspace at
• 46:22
  spacehay.com.
• 46:25
  Hans Buetow: H e y, not h a y. Correct.
• 46:27
  Jason Oberholtzer: It is messy and glorious. Recent figures
• 46:29
  have it about 2,000,000 users, including me. Well, including
• 46:34
  this online slash art aspect of me. Blunt farce.
• 46:40
  Hans Buetow: Georgia just gasped.
• 46:41
  Hans Buetow: You can go home again. Oh my god. It's like
• 46:46
  greeting an old friend. It looks exactly the same.
• 46:49
  Mike Rugnetta: When I try to use it, it says Space Hay is not
• 46:51
  currently available in your region.
• 46:54
  Georgia Hampton: Oh. Wait. I can.
• 46:56
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. I can too.
• 46:57
  Georgia Hampton: I can look at blogs.
• 46:59
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh, yeah. It does say specifically, you're
• 47:00
  currently unable to offer space hay in New York. Yeah.
• 47:03
  Hans Buetow: There you go.
• 47:04
  Mike Rugnetta: This may be because of local requirements
• 47:06
  like age verification on social media, which I don't think we
• 47:09
  have.
• 47:09
  Hans Buetow: I love space hay even more now.
• 47:11
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah.
• 47:12
  Hans Buetow: This is great.
• 47:12
  Hans Buetow: Come on, Hans.
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Go Midwest. Let's
• 47:15
  Speaker 9: go. Our
• 47:18
  Jason Oberholtzer: next cool thing to check out comes from
• 47:22
  Thomas Zauner.
• 47:24
  Hans Buetow: Good luck with this.
• 47:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: I was born to do this. If I can't get this
• 47:29
  first take as an Oberholzer, I resign my name.
• 47:32
  Georgia Hampton: That's so true, actually.
• 47:34
  Jason Oberholtzer: Same is so true. Dear Never team, I am
• 47:37
  intrigued by one item in the call for submissions for the
• 47:40
  Never Post Olympiads. We asked people to talk about their
• 47:42
  favorite kitchen implements. Anyway, while he didn't
• 47:45
  participate in the Olympiad, he's very happy to share his
• 47:47
  favorite kitchen implement for our enjoyment. It is the Holy
• 47:53
  moly.
• 47:53
  Yeah.
• 47:58
  Georgia Hampton: Irish in the
• 47:59
  Mike Rugnetta: first give the name off. I'd give it back.
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: Why did it
• 48:02
  Jason Oberholtzer: broke so we it broke so
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: quickly? Yeah. We got lost. Alright.
• 48:05
  Jason Oberholtzer: Alright. Gonna take it again. Our first
• 48:10
  first first. Some
• 48:12
  Georgia Hampton: are worse. Did provide a a helpful phonetic
• 48:18
  pronunciation below.
• 48:20
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, if it's so helpful, why don't you do it?
• 48:22
  Georgia Hampton: Alright. This sounds Hebrew a little bit.
• 48:33
  Jason Oberholtzer: Hans? Before I tell you what the item is,
• 48:46
  listeners, you can do your own pronunciation. It is spelled
• 48:49
  Gusby.
• 48:51
  Speaker 6: E I r s h
• 48:52
  Jason Oberholtzer: a guys? I need to lock in. Focus. E I e r
• 48:58
  s c h a l e n s o l l b r u c h s t e l l e n v e r u r s a c h
• 49:07
  e r.
• 49:08
  Mike Rugnetta: What is it?
• 49:09
  Hans Buetow: Well, obviously.
• 49:11
  Jason Oberholtzer: It's a clack egg opener. You put it on top of
• 49:14
  your cooked egg in the egg cup. You then let a metal weight
• 49:18
  clack down onto the metal receptacle that is placed on top
• 49:21
  of the egg in der besten aller mochlichlen Welton. This breaks
• 49:27
  the eggshell in a perfect circle around the edge of the metal
• 49:30
  receptacle, allowing you to pull it off cleanly. You may thus
• 49:33
  enjoy a perfectly beheaded egg.
• 49:35
  Georgia Hampton: Okay. Well, now I want one. Sort of an egg
• 49:37
  guillotine Yeah. In a way.
• 49:40
  Mike Rugnetta: And finally
• 49:42
  Jason Oberholtzer: And finally graffiti. It has come to this.
• 49:45
  Mike Rugnetta: So it seems like we're we're both one and two
• 49:47
  word now.
• 49:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: The year is 2026. We accept one word and two
• 49:50
  word graffiti.
• 49:51
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay.
• 49:51
  Jason Oberholtzer: We'll start with the one words. Matt Steclow
• 49:56
  sends us from Colorado, a piece of graffiti on the side of a
• 50:00
  little green transformer box on the side of the road, Amok.
• 50:05
  Mike Rugnetta: I I love the word.
• 50:06
  Jason Oberholtzer: M u
• 50:07
  Mike Rugnetta: So good.
• 50:08
  Jason Oberholtzer: K, Amok.
• 50:09
  Mike Rugnetta: Isn't that also not how you spell Amok? Not
• 50:12
  Speaker 6: at all.
• 50:13
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Not how you
• 50:13
  Georgia Hampton: spell Amok. Not even
• 50:14
  Mike Rugnetta: a little bit. Both are correct. Hey. A m o k
• 50:17
  is the preferred standard spelling in modern English.
• 50:21
  Jason Oberholtzer: Lame.
• 50:22
  Mike Rugnetta: Jesus. The word originated from the Malay word
• 50:24
  amok, a m u k, meaning to go on a killing spree.
• 50:31
  Georgia Hampton: I've been using it wrong. Wait.
• 50:34
  Mike Rugnetta: Hold on. No. I got fooled. I thought that I
• 50:37
  skipped the AI overview, but that maybe just be a this might
• 50:41
  just be a further down second AI overview. Oh, lord.
• 50:46
  Okay. Don't believe what I just said.
• 50:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: I never do. Next up, Georgia, will you tell
• 50:51
  the people what Megan Burdick has sent in?
• 50:54
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. On the side of an internet cafe in
• 50:58
  Schimkent, Kazakhstan.
• 51:01
  Jason Oberholtzer: Good German.
• 51:04
  Georgia Hampton: Forgive me if that is pronounced incorrectly.
• 51:06
  But it just says SpongeBob. And it's underlined.
• 51:12
  Jason Oberholtzer: Hell, yeah. It does. Classic.
• 51:13
  Georgia Hampton: As it's great.
• 51:15
  Jason Oberholtzer: Hans, moving now to two word graffiti.
• 51:18
  Hans Buetow: I think that's one word.
• 51:19
  Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
• 51:20
  Hans Buetow: I think it's one word. It's not one word. It's
• 51:23
  two different words next to each other. That's two different
• 51:25
  artists tagging two different things. Okay.
• 51:29
  It just happened to be linked by an outline. So it's a railroad
• 51:33
  tracks fence where it says beer, and next to it, maize, m a y s,
• 51:41
  and they're both outlined in white together.
• 51:43
  Jason Oberholtzer: This is sent in by Sven Luke from Berlin.
• 51:46
  Mike Rugnetta: Interesting. Interesting. The color scheme
• 51:49
  between the two is similar, but not. Yes.
• 51:51
  Jason Oberholtzer: Beyond similar and be the same.
• 51:53
  Mike Rugnetta: Distinct. Yeah. I don't know
• 51:55
  Jason Oberholtzer: what it means.
• 51:56
  Georgia Hampton: I know what this next one means.
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: The next one, unfortunately.
• 52:00
  Jason Oberholtzer: Georgia is I'm exhausted. I thought they
• 52:02
  falling the turns,
• 52:03
  Mike Rugnetta: I would get to do
• 52:06
  Hans Buetow: special boy.
• 52:06
  Jason Oberholtzer: My cut. And this is definitely two words of
• 52:10
  graffiti.
• 52:10
  Mike Rugnetta: Two words. Yes. Okay. So chaikaholic sends in
• 52:13
  from Frankfurt, Germany, the side of a concrete wall where
• 52:17
  there is a bunch of graffiti, but in the middle of all of
• 52:20
  these tags, in bright red, all uppercase script, written in
• 52:25
  such a way that it seems like someone has done it quickly.
• 52:29
  Yes.
• 52:29
  It's urgent. In a in a hurry. Yes. With urgency. Almost like
• 52:34
  emergency.
• 52:36
  Yes. La boo boo cum shot. You know, La boo boo cum shot
• 52:42
  released a couple good records in the early two thousands. Oh
• 52:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: my god. And one last submission from myself
• 52:51
  that I found in my photos from a number of years ago that I want
• 52:56
  you all to have to parse. I know what's going on. I desperately
• 52:59
  want you to try to figure out what's going on.
• 53:01
  Georgia Hampton: This should
• 53:02
  Hans Buetow: have been a why go, Jason.
• 53:04
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. This is this is why go worthy. Georgia,
• 53:07
  you want first crack?
• 53:09
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Absolutely. So, in a totally
• 53:12
  normal situation that I'm looking at right now, we've got,
• 53:17
  five, well armed gentlemen with automatic weapons, as far as I
• 53:24
  can tell, sort of against a wall that has some graffiti on it,
• 53:28
  but they are beautifully framed in sort of a whitewashed section
• 53:32
  of that wall. And three of these men are pointing their guns to
• 53:39
  the right of the image off screen, I hope, because at the
• 53:43
  very edge of this photograph is another man with, like, a bolex?
• 53:49
  Like a
• 53:49
  Mike Rugnetta: I was gonna say, I believe that's a 16 millimeter
• 53:51
  film camera.
• 53:52
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. A film camera, I think, were on a roof
• 53:56
  as well. But between these five guys with guns and this other
• 54:01
  guy facing them with a video camera of some kind, written in
• 54:06
  teal, all capital letters, script, kale chips.
• 54:11
  Jason Oberholtzer: Kale chips.
• 54:12
  Mike Rugnetta: The favorite snack of all brave Mujahideen
• 54:15
  fighters.
• 54:16
  Georgia Hampton: Well, this is during the Kale Chips war Yes.
• 54:20
  If you recall.
• 54:21
  Jason Oberholtzer: This is an old pal of mine, Tom Leverett,
• 54:25
  filming for a movie that he was making on a Brooklyn rooftop.
• 54:30
  And this was supposed to be set in like Tunisia or something,
• 54:34
  and he is doing like brick building to brick building
• 54:36
  combat footage with his like 16 millimeter camera. And the only
• 54:40
  thing that belies that you are not in Tunisia, but instead on a
• 54:44
  rooftop in Brooklyn is kale chips graffiti.
• 54:48
  Mike Rugnetta: Also, I think all of these guys are wearing
• 54:50
  Clarks.
• 54:51
  Jason Oberholtzer: So there are two anachronistic things.
• 54:56
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Finally. Finally. An important piece of
• 55:00
  information.
• 55:02
  Jason Oberholtzer: Maybe the most important piece
• 55:04
  Mike Rugnetta: of information. Important piece of information
• 55:06
  in this mailbag.
• 55:07
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes.
• 55:07
  Georgia Hampton: Definitely.
• 55:08
  Mike Rugnetta: This we should maybe just produce like, release
• 55:10
  this as its own post so that everybody knows.
• 55:12
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah.
• 55:13
  Mike Rugnetta: Azalea Dring writes in and says, hey, never
• 55:16
  post. I just listened to the most recent Mailbag, number 12,
• 55:20
  and I have to stop to give you the true lowdown on Garfies.
• 55:26
  Absolutely. Absolutely. It also offers an important correction.
• 55:32
  Garfys pronouns are she, her, not he, him. So sorry, Garfys.
• 55:38
  Jason Oberholtzer: Now before we go on, if this is your first
• 55:40
  time hearing about Garfies, and I hope for you it isn't, someone
• 55:44
  has to tell you what Garfies are.
• 55:45
  Mike Rugnetta: Imagine a drawing of Garfield with big old
• 55:47
  titties. Done. Here in Norm, so called Melbourne. I'll hold on.
• 55:52
  Sorry.
• 55:52
  I'll say it right. So called Melbourne, Australia. Garfies is
• 55:56
  the local tag slash motif of a graffiti artist. There's a lot
• 56:00
  of the Garfies all over the city, and they're a beautiful
• 56:03
  sight to behold. Perhaps, not surprisingly, there is a lot of
• 56:07
  her in the areas where us queer folk live.
• 56:09
  Oh. It's well known in the local trans communities that Garfie's
• 56:12
  is transfem. She's a meme icon of fat positive trans femininity
• 56:18
  ready to greet you with big fat tits at pedestrian crossings
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 56:22
  Mike Rugnetta: On street lights, transformer boxes, street signs,
• 56:25
  or just about anywhere else she can rest her heavy weights. DIY
• 56:31
  estrogen has done her punk arse wonders.
• 56:34
  Georgia Hampton: Oh my god.
• 56:35
  Mike Rugnetta: I can confirm the canon of transfem Garfies
• 56:38
  through trustworthy sources, namely as a polyamorous trans
• 56:41
  woman in NARM. Two of my partners have both met the
• 56:45
  Garfies artist, of course, keeping the hero artist involved
• 56:48
  anonymous, though. Listeners, if you wanna get on the mailbag.
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: Oh my god.
• 56:58
  Mike Rugnetta: Azalea, thank you.
• 57:00
  Hans Buetow: That's amazing.
• 57:00
  Jason Oberholtzer: Thank you. Great info. I feel a great sense
• 57:03
  of closure.
• 57:04
  Hans Buetow: Love that.
• 57:05
  Mike Rugnetta: That is the mailbag we have for you. Thanks
• 57:09
  everybody for writing in. Thanks friends for joining. We will be
• 57:13
  back here in the main feed on or around whatever is one week from
• 57:18
  when this comes out.
• 57:20
  Hans Buetow: Good luck to all
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: of us.
• 57:21
  Mike Rugnetta: Currently currently currently in flux.
• 57:24
  We'll see you in about a week. Okay. Bye.
• 57:27
  Speaker 7: Bye. Bye.