Latest / Never Post / Mailbag #12: We're Not Built For This

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Mailbag #12: We're Not Built For This · Never Post

• 0:08
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello and welcome to Never Posts.
• 0:11
  Finally, it is spring twenty twenty six mailbag in which we
• 0:16
  respond to listener emails, comments, voicemails, voice
• 0:19
  messages about our segments. When you have thoughts, send
• 0:23
  them our way. They don't even really need to be about the
• 0:26
  show. Not sure what color to repaint your bedroom?
• 0:28
  Send those swatches over. We will weigh in. Got a kid on the
• 0:34
  way and unsure what to name them. Jason has ideas.
• 0:38
  Jason Oberholtzer: And they're all German words.
• 0:41
  Georgia Hampton: But not the ones you think.
• 0:44
  Mike Rugnetta: New exciting German words. Volkswagen. For
• 0:49
  your baby today.
• 0:51
  Jason Oberholtzer: Hey, gang. It's finally spring, and it's
• 0:53
  snowing outside of my window.
• 0:54
  Georgia Hampton: I was gonna say it is, for sure undeniably 35
• 0:58
  degrees
• 0:58
  Mike Rugnetta: right now. Will we ever see the end of winter?
• 1:02
  Georgia Hampton: I think this
• 1:02
  year, no. I think they're doing it differently.
• 1:05
  Mike Rugnetta: We're gonna skip straight to a 100 degrees and
• 1:08
  99%. Yes. Yes. Yes. And it will have been because of them.
• 1:12
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Welcome to our Los Angeles listeners.
• 1:14
  Currently at 95 plus degrees.
• 1:16
  Georgia Hampton: Oh my god. Yes.
• 1:18
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm your host, Mike Rugnetta. Joining me today
• 1:20
  in order of tales Georgia first heads Jason first. Woah. Oh.
• 1:28
  Never Post producer Georgia Hampton.
• 1:29
  Georgia Hampton: Bullshit. Yes. Yes.
• 1:32
  Jason Oberholtzer: The unluckiest man alive.
• 1:34
  Georgia Hampton: Eat my dust.
• 1:35
  Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
• 1:38
  Mike Rugnetta: And Never Post executive producer Jason
• 1:40
  Oberholzer.
• 1:41
  Jason Oberholtzer: Well, nothing's going my way this
• 1:43
  year, is it?
• 1:46
  Mike Rugnetta: Hans will not be joining us today because he has
• 1:50
  literally been sent to The Hague. A sentence I could
• 1:54
  explain, but I will not.
• 1:56
  Georgia Hampton: No questions. No.
• 1:58
  Mike Rugnetta: Nothing. He knows what he's done.
• 2:00
  Jason Oberholtzer: But we don't need him anyway, because we have
• 2:02
  you
• 2:02
  Mike Rugnetta: That's not true. We obviously We've been we've
• 2:05
  been recording for two minutes and thirty seconds, and it's
• 2:07
  obvious that we need us.
• 2:09
  Jason Oberholtzer: Anyone who's seen any of the livestreams we
• 2:11
  have tried to accomplish while Hans has been gone knows we
• 2:14
  desperately need him.
• 2:16
  Georgia Hampton: God.
• 2:17
  Yeah. Me and Jason together
• 2:19
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh my lord.
• 2:20
  Georgia Hampton: Trying to stream video games.
• 2:21
  Jason Oberholtzer: It's not our fault. We're We're children who
• 2:25
  can't do technology.
• 2:26
  Georgia Hampton: We're just two infants
• 2:28
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.
• 2:29
  Georgia Hampton: Using a computer for the first time.
• 2:31
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh, but it's so cute. Alright. Let's see what
• 2:34
  people had to say about some of the stuff we did.
• 2:37
  Georgia Hampton: So we got a very interesting message from
• 2:40
  Elise who called in to weigh in about my archive episode, which
• 2:48
  was actually my first segment I ever did, about the
• 2:51
  disappearance of tween fashion and how the algorithmic Internet
• 2:54
  is partially to blame.
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: In thinking about the way that tweens dress now, it
• 3:01
  definitely is interesting. I'm currently 29, so I'm definitely
• 3:05
  someone who shopped a lot at stores, like, limited to when I
• 3:10
  was younger. A thought that I've had, and I feel like friends of
• 3:14
  similar ages have talked about and it's pretty popular online
• 3:18
  that people are always discussing. It's just this
• 3:21
  concept of looking at middle schoolers or early high
• 3:25
  schoolers or just really any tweens and teens and being like,
• 3:29
  wow. They look like adults.
• 3:32
  And I think it makes sense within the clothing aspects that
• 3:36
  you were talking about on this segment. But, also, the way that
• 3:40
  makeup trends have changed is really interesting to me.
• 3:43
  Because when I was in middle school, everyone was, you know,
• 3:47
  getting into makeup for the first time, And there were a
• 3:52
  number of people who were just smearing on crazy eyeliner or
• 3:56
  putting on way too much blush. And it felt like this rite of
• 4:00
  passage where both in clothing and maybe also in makeup, kids
• 4:05
  kind of like, we just looked like shit. And we look back at
• 4:08
  pictures, and we're like, damn.
• 4:09
  I look like an awkward, weird little middle schooler. And it's
• 4:14
  really crazy that it's different now. And they look like many
• 4:18
  adults, and I feel like a lot of that has to do with makeup
• 4:22
  trends, which I'm sure is also related to the rise of TikTok
• 4:27
  and YouTube tutorials and different things like that.
• 4:30
  Georgia Hampton: This is a great excuse to talk about my favorite
• 4:34
  makeup memory
• 4:35
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, okay.
• 4:37
  Georgia Hampton: Which is one of the first pieces of makeup that
• 4:39
  I had was a single eye shadow from Revlon in, like, powder
• 4:45
  blue, like, baby baby blue. And I remember going to school with
• 4:52
  it just slathered
• 4:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes.
• 4:55
  Georgia Hampton: Over my eyelids.
• 4:56
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes.
• 4:57
  Georgia Hampton: Dusty eyelashes. I was not wearing
• 4:59
  mascara. I hadn't gotten there yet. And I remember being at gym
• 5:04
  class, which for some reason was the first class that year with
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  just, like, a metric ton of baby blue eyeshadow on my eyelids,
• 5:13
  feeling very vividly the transition from, like, I am the
• 5:17
  most beautiful woman in the world to being, like
• 5:21
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh, no.
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  Speaker 4: Somehow, this is I've made a terrible mistake. Jim Jim
• 5:26
  first period, like,
• 5:28
  Mike Rugnetta: middle school is the coolest shit in the world.
• 5:31
  Georgia Hampton: Evil evil behavior. And that is
• 5:34
  Mike Rugnetta: I had to do that every, like, a a couple years
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  and, like, whole there is no quicker way to be like, oh, I I
• 5:40
  have no idea what I'm doing just as a human.
• 5:42
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah. Do I hate myself?
• 5:44
  Jason Oberholtzer: Because you lack, like, both the old man
• 5:47
  wisdom and audacity to show up to school in gym clothes with
• 5:51
  your regular clothes in your bag, and then just take a full
• 5:54
  fucking shower after gym class.
• 5:56
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, wet hair all day? Hello? Hello? Wet hair
• 6:01
  all day during my Spanish exam? Anyway Anyway.
• 6:06
  This is such a great point because I completely agree. I
• 6:11
  mean, when I was first researching this, those
• 6:14
  conversations about, like, the tweens at Sephora buying drunk
• 6:18
  elephant and doing, like, 12 step skincare routines on, like,
• 6:22
  prepubescent skin and using retinol and, like, all of these
• 6:25
  products that are really not meant for them at all. I do
• 6:28
  agree that I think there's this odd, like, jump to a
• 6:32
  presentation of adulthood that is much more smoothed out. And I
• 6:36
  think access to makeup tutorials, the social Internet
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  writ large, influencers, any kind of online video content,
• 6:47
  written content, any content that is showing you how to
• 6:50
  properly do, like, a cut crease or, like, baking your face or
• 6:54
  doing, like, certain kinds of eye makeup looks, it it's just
• 7:00
  so much more accessible, which doesn't necessarily have to be
• 7:03
  bad, but I do agree that I think there is a sort of beautiful
• 7:06
  rite of passage component to being a tween and looking like
• 7:11
  shit.
• 7:12
  Mike Rugnetta: Looking like an awkward weird gremlin for a Yes.
• 7:15
  Couple of Mhmm. This makes me think of like, is the awkward
• 7:21
  phase of being a tween and the fashion associated with it sort
• 7:26
  of being treated in a way like boredom? Where it's like, it is
• 7:30
  something that
• 7:30
  Speaker 6: Mhmm.
• 7:31
  Mike Rugnetta: In the on the individual level, you're like,
• 7:34
  oh, this is unpleasant to experience, but what's really
• 7:36
  important is the stuff that you get out of that unpleasant
• 7:40
  experience. Yes. And so we've sort of, like, massaged away
• 7:43
  boredom with devices, and we massage away this kind of, like,
• 7:47
  awkward period of dressing and figuring out who you are and
• 7:50
  applying makeup and getting haircuts and whatever just like
• 7:53
  through content. And, you know, you I mean, may maybe it's maybe
• 7:59
  I'm just old man yells at cloud, and what happens now is, like,
• 8:02
  the awkward period disappears because you can just figure out
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  who you are faster because there's more options and there's
• 8:07
  you you're exposed to more and more quickly, and so you don't
• 8:11
  have to stumble through it. You can just point at something and
• 8:13
  be like, I'm Matt.
• 8:14
  That's me. I'm gonna do that one.
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  Jason Oberholtzer: Or does the awkward period just happen
• 8:18
  constantly and more publicly, you just look better while it's
• 8:22
  happening?
• 8:23
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Fair.
• 8:24
  Georgia Hampton: I mean, that is kind of the thing. I think
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  because also so much is documented online and there is
• 8:29
  so much incentive to document online, And you're as as a young
• 8:33
  person, I feel like significantly more susceptible
• 8:37
  to being like, oh, well, I should be posting online. Like,
• 8:39
  all my friends are online, and I should be participating in this
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  experience together, which I think is also very normal. I
• 8:45
  think there's a version of this that happens to everybody when
• 8:47
  they go through this age group. There is such a a I mean,
• 8:52
  discomfort an important discomfort in being seen,
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  stumbling through, and trying and failing to figure something
• 9:01
  out.
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  And everything is so documented and available to not just your
• 9:08
  friends, but anyone that that kind of experience becomes a
• 9:13
  performance, which then turns it into something that is more
• 9:18
  polished, at least, on the outset.
• 9:20
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Mhmm. Wear your gym clothes first period if
• 9:23
  you have gym class first period. Just wear them to school. Yeah.
• 9:26
  Georgia Hampton: And might I suggest Revlon's single
• 9:30
  eyeshadow palette. Baby powder blue. It's it's coming back.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: It's coming back. It stings the
• 9:37
  Jason Oberholtzer: eyes when you sweat.
• 9:38
  Georgia Hampton: God, it really that was yeah. That was that was
• 9:40
  the big problem there. Georgia,
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  Jason Oberholtzer: where is the Internet?
• 9:46
  Georgia Hampton: Well, Jason, the true Internet is in your
• 9:49
  heart.
• 9:50
  Mike Rugnetta: No. Get it out. Get it out.
• 9:53
  Georgia Hampton: But to answer that question more fully, we
• 9:56
  must turn to yet another message from a beloved listener. This
• 10:01
  time from Julia, who has written in on, you guessed it, my
• 10:05
  segment about where exactly is the Internet and what kind of
• 10:09
  place is it. Julia writes, I think a strong contender for the
• 10:13
  inheritor to the throne of the computer room is the bed. With
• 10:17
  phones being untethered from the cables of the desktop, I have
• 10:21
  gravitated to my bed when crossing the threshold into the
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  online what? Unseelie?
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  What is that?
• 10:29
  Jason Oberholtzer: I don't know.
• 10:29
  Georgia Hampton: I mean, look them. Silly? It's kind of Okay.
• 10:32
  Sorry.
• 10:33
  Mike Rugnetta: That looks purposeful, doesn't it? Right?
• 10:35
  Georgia Hampton: I think so.
• 10:36
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Unsealy court
• 10:38
  Georgia Hampton: this word ever.
• 10:39
  Jason Oberholtzer: The dark, malevolent, and often aggressive
• 10:41
  faction of fairies in Scottish folklore and fantasy.
• 10:45
  Georgia Hampton: Let's go. I'll take that sentence again. Woah.
• 10:48
  With phones being untethered from the cables of the desktop,
• 10:51
  I've gravitated to my bed when crossing the threshold into the
• 10:55
  online unsealy. And I see a lot of people posting that they have
• 10:59
  too.
• 10:59
  I think this in part comes from people's living situations.
• 11:03
  Since we're seeing a shift toward people renting individual
• 11:06
  rooms in flats, or as you Americans would put it,
• 11:09
  apartments, thank you, The computer room has been dissolved
• 11:14
  into storage, or even worse, a bedroom charging two times the
• 11:18
  average income. And the bedroom has become one of the few spaces
• 11:21
  we feel are actually our own. I think this has significant
• 11:25
  implications for both your discussions of third spaces and
• 11:29
  people's behavior being unusual online. I have had very few
• 11:33
  interactions with anyone in my bed other than sexual partners,
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  or I guess my cat.
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  So now a significant amount of social life is occurring from a
• 11:41
  space which has had no history of socializing other than the
• 11:45
  intensely intimate. Additionally, beds are very
• 11:48
  comfortable. If we spend our time in algorithmic feeds and
• 11:52
  constant simulation while wrapped up in a literal comfort
• 11:55
  blanket, do we further the current moment's fear of boredom
• 11:58
  and discomfort? In this situation, we are at our most
• 12:02
  physically comfortable and completely alone. Is it any
• 12:06
  wonder that we are so sensitive, erratic, and unadventurous?
• 12:11
  Julia.
• 12:13
  Mike Rugnetta: I think Julia is just right.
• 12:15
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I think this is an amazing observation.
• 12:18
  Mike Rugnetta: I think this is ugh. I think when we log on,
• 12:21
  maybe, like, a hair shirt and nail chair.
• 12:29
  Georgia Hampton: Jared Oppenheim. We are in a position
• 12:35
  now more than ever of of creature comforts, both in
• 12:39
  sensation, physical sensation of being in a bed, being in
• 12:43
  sweatpants, being in your own space that has all the things
• 12:48
  you like in it, and then using your phone to be in a space that
• 12:51
  has all the things you like in it. And, absolutely, I think
• 12:55
  there is a direct correlation between that state of being, And
• 13:01
  I I don't know if it's even a conscious feeling, but, like, a
• 13:06
  a lack of desire to do anything about it because there is the
• 13:10
  risk of boredom, of uncertainty of, like, well, now what do I do
• 13:13
  I with my time? What do I how do I interact with the space? Like,
• 13:18
  why worry about that when you can just go back on your phone?
• 13:20
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Everything's just a little
• 13:21
  harder. Everything's just Yeah. And and, like, I'm more unsure,
• 13:24
  you know?
• 13:25
  Georgia Hampton: And you're even less incentivized to be in a
• 13:28
  state like that.
• 13:29
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I think it's such a great metaphor.
• 13:31
  Like, the few open up your phone in any particular location.
• 13:34
  Right? In one place, in one way, what you said is absolutely
• 13:37
  true, Georgia, in the segment, like, you open up the phone and
• 13:40
  you automatically, instantly, kind of, like, transport to
• 13:45
  another room that is either on top of or below whatever room
• 13:49
  you're currently in.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Inside, within, and without.
• 13:52
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Whether it's, like, the train or the
• 13:54
  coffee shop or the office or whatever. You know, you it's a
• 13:58
  portal into this other space where you keep all the things
• 14:01
  that you like. Mhmm. And how interesting to think of that as
• 14:04
  like, you know, which one is a metaphor for which?
• 14:07
  Like, is the bedroom the metaphor for that weird
• 14:10
  psychogeographic space? Or is that space a metaphor for the
• 14:13
  bedroom? But it makes it at least feels really right to me.
• 14:17
  Jason Oberholtzer: There's another email that came in that
• 14:18
  I think actually puts an interesting spin on this. This
• 14:22
  came from Ari. Ari says, this episode really made me think
• 14:25
  about my relationship with the Internet and work. From 2020 to
• 14:28
  2022, work and home were the same place for me and the
• 14:32
  combination of those spaces eventually started to drive me
• 14:34
  mad. I wanted work to be a place I go to, spend time in, and
• 14:38
  leave.
• 14:39
  Now, being back in the office full time, I appreciate the
• 14:42
  space between my worlds. Still, I spend a lot of time online as
• 14:46
  I work. But for some reason, my time on the Internet at work
• 14:50
  feels different. When you describe the Internet as a
• 14:53
  place, I realized my work Internet is separate from my
• 14:56
  home Internet.
• 14:57
  Mike Rugnetta: Big screen, big screen, small screen,
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: big screen, small screen. Back here again. But so,
• 15:02
  Jason Oberholtzer: like, that's also true. Right? We have this
• 15:04
  superstructure of emerging to the Internet room when we're on
• 15:06
  the train or we're in our bed or we're wherever. But I think the
• 15:10
  most discreet difference is work Internet is a different
• 15:13
  Internet. And I don't think it's just because there's, like,
• 15:15
  certain sites you're not allowed to go to.
• 15:17
  It just, like, feels different. It's work Internet.
• 15:20
  Georgia Hampton: And I do think it matters where you are going
• 15:23
  to the Internet in the sense of on your phone, on your tablet,
• 15:26
  on your computer, on a desktop. How visible is your screen to
• 15:29
  other people? How big is your screen?
• 15:32
  Mike Rugnetta: That's exactly what I was gonna say. Like, how
• 15:33
  much of work Internet feeling different is, like, people can
• 15:36
  see what I'm doing. Yes.
• 15:38
  Jason Oberholtzer: I have always thought of that it is completely
• 15:39
  destabilizing that I would feasibly break up with my
• 15:45
  girlfriend and have an important meeting with my boss in the
• 15:49
  exact same location staring at the exact same device, mere
• 15:53
  moments from each other, and have to exist as a cohesive
• 15:57
  human.
• 16:01
  Georgia Hampton: Damn.
• 16:01
  Jason Oberholtzer: There's one final email that came in about
• 16:04
  Internet places that I don't get because I have not seen any of
• 16:08
  this media, and I just want Georgia for you to tell me if
• 16:11
  this makes any sense.
• 16:13
  Mike Rugnetta: No. Okay. I'll read it because this makes this
• 16:16
  makes sense to me.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Mike.
• 16:18
  Jason Oberholtzer: Who who knows this media?
• 16:20
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh. Okay. So Denise sent an email in, and
• 16:23
  Denise said, I had to pause George's piece on what kind of
• 16:25
  place is the Internet to make this meme my first one. I'm old.
• 16:30
  Probably did it wrong.
• 16:31
  I'm from Minnesota. You kids are great.
• 16:33
  Georgia Hampton: I'm rooting for you, Denise. First of
• 16:34
  Mike Rugnetta: all, huge compliment. I like I like how
• 16:38
  Denise being worried that she probably did this wrong seems
• 16:41
  somehow connected to us being great. Oh. The the movie
• 16:47
  Surrogates 2009 always comes to mind when I feel the wake up
• 16:51
  detachment of looking up from my phone, especially the scene
• 16:55
  where a disheveled Rosamund Pike staggers out of, quote, the
• 16:58
  computer room where she's been linked to her robot surrogate
• 17:02
  that has been out in the world being beautiful and amazing. So
• 17:06
  the surrogates is a movie that if I remember correctly, Roseman
• 17:09
  Pike and Bruce Willis.
• 17:11
  Georgia Hampton: Okay.
• 17:12
  Mike Rugnetta: It's based on a comic book. It is a very poor
• 17:14
  adaptation of what I remember being a very, very good comic
• 17:18
  book.
• 17:18
  Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
• 17:18
  Mike Rugnetta: And basically, this last sentence that Denise
• 17:21
  writes is effectively the premise of the movie, that there
• 17:26
  is a murder mystery. I think it's a murder mystery. It's been
• 17:28
  a long time. But you can, as a person, have a surrogate. You
• 17:34
  can sit strapped into a piece of technology in your room
• 17:38
  completely still, kind of like WALL E style Mhmm.
• 17:41
  And have this perfected robotic version of yourself walking
• 17:46
  around out in the world. And so the two pictures that Denise has
• 17:51
  sent is Rosamund Pike's surrogate, who's beautiful, has
• 17:56
  perfect skin, flowing blonde, like, you know, nineteen
• 18:00
  seventies pinup Yeah. Model So it says me when I'm online on
• 18:05
  the first picture, and then me when I turn off my phone and try
• 18:08
  and get something real accomplished. And it's Roseman
• 18:11
  Pike like, her skin's already blotchy. Yeah.
• 18:16
  Her hair is, like, all dirty. She looks very unhappy. Yeah.
• 18:22
  Jason Oberholtzer: One assumes that this is the real person who
• 18:24
  has just left the computer room.
• 18:26
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes. I like, the way that I describe this is
• 18:28
  often it's like scrolling hangover or, like, screen
• 18:33
  hangover.
• 18:34
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah.
• 18:34
  Mike Rugnetta: And it's like, there's a moment where I, like,
• 18:37
  you know, when it happens, I kinda come to and I'm like, I
• 18:41
  need a glass of water. Literally. I have to go to like,
• 18:47
  I both I'm, like, embarrassed, and my throat is dry, and my
• 18:52
  skin is itchy, and I need to go take a shower. And
• 18:55
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, completely. I feel for, I don't know, maybe,
• 18:59
  like, ten to fifteen seconds after I emerge out of the
• 19:03
  scroll, kind of like the mental equivalent of coming off the
• 19:06
  tilt a whirl, where at first you're like, like, getting your
• 19:11
  sea legs back and being like, where am I? And what are my
• 19:15
  values? Yeah.
• 19:17
  Jason Oberholtzer: Guys, I gotta update you. Since I deleted
• 19:19
  TikTok at the beginning of the year, I scroll so much less.
• 19:23
  Like, I try to scroll on Reels and it, like, barely holds the
• 19:27
  attention. It's so deeply bad. It's such a watered down drug.
• 19:30
  Like, I'm really, like, getting off. This is, my Narcan or
• 19:33
  something. Yeah. It's my update. That's a good update.
• 19:37
  Mike Rugnetta: Wow, Jason. Your hair looks beautiful.
• 19:41
  Jason Oberholtzer: Thank you. Anyway, congratulations, Denise.
• 19:44
  You did it. You made a meme. It made sense.
• 19:47
  Yeah.
• 19:47
  Georgia Hampton: Was great.
• 19:47
  Mike Rugnetta: Thank you. Denise, good meme. Nailed it.
• 19:50
  Next up, we have a voicemail that was sent in by Penelli on
• 19:54
  Hans' segment about Minneapolis and clicktatorship that I'm
• 19:58
  gonna respond to because I think it's something that I have a lot
• 20:02
  of thoughts about, something I think about pretty frequently.
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: The thing about the clicktatorship and how power is
• 20:09
  content, policy making is content now, and the the right
• 20:13
  the right wing media ecosphere. So I teach civics. I'm a high
• 20:19
  school government and economics teacher, and I am required by my
• 20:25
  job description of the fact that I teach AP gov, which, you know,
• 20:28
  by college board through to be, quote, politically neutral as a
• 20:34
  teacher. I'm also required to teach media literacy. What is
• 20:40
  media literacy in 2026?
• 20:44
  Okay. So as of the twenty sixteen election, everybody was
• 20:47
  like, oh, we gotta teach people how to distinguish fake news,
• 20:51
  and we gotta teach people to slow down and not trust
• 20:57
  everything that comes across their social media scroll. But,
• 21:00
  like, all of the lessons that people have come up with and the
• 21:04
  ideas of, like, what media literacy means with social media
• 21:07
  age are inadequate to handle this. I mean, they just they
• 21:12
  don't. And I don't even know, like, how to begin approaching
• 21:17
  this in this era as a teacher?
• 21:21
  Mike Rugnetta: Penalty, I do not envy you.
• 21:23
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, no.
• 21:25
  Mike Rugnetta: God. Oh, boy. I'm just
• 21:27
  Jason Oberholtzer: sitting here hoping that another sentence
• 21:29
  arrives in this message and nope. That's the end of it.
• 21:31
  Georgia Hampton: Nope. That's
• 21:32
  Mike Rugnetta: it. It's like and that's why we Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:36
  I know.
• 21:36
  God. I think about this all the time, and I don't I'd like I
• 21:40
  don't think I have a good answer. I don't I don't know
• 21:42
  that there is a good answer, but here's where I've arrived, and
• 21:46
  I'm curious to know what Jason and Georgia think. I agree that
• 21:49
  the whole framework of media literacy just kinda doesn't work
• 21:52
  anymore.
• 21:53
  Georgia Hampton: Mhmm.
• 21:53
  Mike Rugnetta: And because because the whole framework of
• 21:56
  media literacy is to, like, take the media that arrives in front
• 22:01
  of you and to compare it to other pieces of media, and to
• 22:05
  use your experience out in the world to confirm which of those
• 22:09
  things is the one that, like, you feel like most aligns with
• 22:13
  what you experience in the world, and to maybe take half
• 22:18
  truths from some of those things or to reach an aggregate of
• 22:22
  meaning compiled from those things. And so what do you do
• 22:25
  when all of those things is wrong? Right? Like, the
• 22:29
  information environment, like we talked about with our science
• 22:33
  communicators, is, like, so poisoned that it's, like, really
• 22:36
  hard to even know that you are getting a full portrait of what
• 22:43
  is going on in the world even if you have many, many media
• 22:47
  sources at hand.
• 22:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: Mhmm.
• 22:48
  Mike Rugnetta: I think that there are a few things that are
• 22:51
  true. The first is there's no future in media literacy if we
• 22:57
  don't wanna completely abandon that title or that framework
• 23:00
  where you're not intimately familiar with how the media is
• 23:06
  made and by whom. Oh, yeah. There's just absolutely no no
• 23:12
  way forward without intimate knowledge about who holds the
• 23:18
  power in creating the media and what they want in the world. And
• 23:23
  what's nice, at least, about right now is that most of the
• 23:27
  people who are in positions of power, they're very clear about
• 23:31
  what they want.
• 23:31
  They kinda go on their own owned media and say it very clearly.
• 23:36
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah.
• 23:37
  Mike Rugnetta: You just have to believe them, which is maybe
• 23:39
  sometimes a little bit hard. Mhmm. I have seen a couple
• 23:43
  people render this a few different ways. Cameron
• 23:46
  Kunzelman, who does the shelved by genre podcast, who's really
• 23:50
  great. He's like a communications professor and a
• 23:53
  game studies person, rendered this really succinctly recently
• 23:57
  as, I think, something like tired media literacy or retired
• 24:02
  media literacy, wired ideology.
• 24:05
  There's kind of no analysis of this that doesn't just really
• 24:10
  fully focus on ideology. Mhmm. And I think I don't know how you
• 24:15
  do it as a civics professor or a civics teacher, especially in,
• 24:18
  like, AP classes, but there's kind of no way around this where
• 24:22
  you don't have to do Marxist analysis of things, and talk
• 24:27
  about, like, how capital in all of its forms plays a huge role
• 24:32
  in the creation of meaning in the world and how things reach
• 24:37
  the level of prevalence that they are. And, like, you're
• 24:41
  basically just replacing media literacy with sociology. Yeah.
• 24:45
  Whoops. Yeah. But, like, I think we maybe kind of have to.
• 24:49
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I mean, to to your point of, like,
• 24:52
  specifically ideological approaches to looking at media,
• 24:56
  I think also it just I'm thinking of this idea of having
• 24:59
  to present civics and things like that from a, quote,
• 25:03
  unquote, politically neutral perspective. How do In a you in
• 25:06
  an environment where, like, being politically neutral is now
• 25:09
  a kind of I mean, it's a position. It's a position. Like,
• 25:13
  it is it is also sort of it its neutrality doesn't exist
• 25:17
  anymore.
• 25:17
  Mike Rugnetta: No. And I think and I think now being
• 25:19
  politically neutral would, in fact, get you being accused of
• 25:23
  being a leftist by many of the
• 25:27
  Georgia Hampton: you know
• 25:27
  Mike Rugnetta: what I mean? Like, have
• 25:28
  Georgia Hampton: to gonna say republican. No.
• 25:30
  Mike Rugnetta: You have to act like, I think a lot of the
• 25:32
  people who are the most mad about this and who are in charge
• 25:35
  of a lot of the the media at least would say that, you know,
• 25:39
  you have to, like, vociferously affirm their positions or else
• 25:44
  you are taking a side.
• 25:45
  Georgia Hampton: Sure. Well, yeah. And also it's yeah. It's
• 25:47
  the politicization of all topics. Yeah.
• 25:51
  It also then, yeah, makes makes for a very difficult
• 25:55
  interpretation, if it's even interpretable anymore, of media
• 26:00
  literacy if you have to consider neutrality as the goal.
• 26:04
  Mike Rugnetta: I mean, I think
• 26:05
  Georgia Hampton: Which I don't think you can Yeah. Anymore. I
• 26:07
  think that's a problem.
• 26:08
  Mike Rugnetta: We're so far like, there's it's really,
• 26:11
  really hard to defend the classical journalistic
• 26:13
  perspective of, like, positivistic empirical analysis
• 26:17
  of, here's what's going on in the world. Like
• 26:20
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah. Because I think in the last, I
• 26:22
  don't know, at least twenty years, if not more recently,
• 26:24
  like, there has, as you said, been this far broader
• 26:28
  understanding of who is controlling these media outlets,
• 26:33
  what their perspectives are, and also the people controlling
• 26:36
  those media outlets becoming people like Jeff Bezos owning
• 26:40
  the Washington Post.
• 26:41
  Jason Oberholtzer: Right. I think this runs into exactly
• 26:43
  where media literacy contains two incorrect words for the
• 26:48
  moment. Media literacy would tell you that Jeff Bezos owns
• 26:52
  the Washington Post and has done a measurable series of things
• 26:56
  with obvious outcomes. And that like Sinclair News shows the
• 27:02
  same news feed across the entire world, and here are the people
• 27:05
  whose concerns are involved in the operation of that media.
• 27:09
  That that is also easy to document, and that the
• 27:14
  disagreement lies then past that point onto me bringing that up
• 27:21
  is a political position rather than a documentation of like
• 27:25
  obvious flows of information that's publicly available.
• 27:30
  That is where the literacy is at. So it's not about the media.
• 27:33
  Also, media is like a very weird term here because it sort of
• 27:36
  assumes some presentation and receiving of information rather
• 27:41
  than a a constant interaction with information, which is
• 27:45
  really how people engage with information at this point.
• 27:47
  Georgia Hampton: I mean, it's content literacy.
• 27:50
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. And so maybe it's like content more
• 27:52
  than media or maybe it's like we have like transcended media's
• 27:56
  screen bound utility to instead constantly be in political
• 28:00
  discourse about the things we will or will not be open to
• 28:06
  believing about our worldviews. Yeah. And that is really the
• 28:09
  consistent meta conversation that's happening regardless of
• 28:13
  the formats in the middle.
• 28:14
  Mike Rugnetta: And that's before you even get to, like, does the
• 28:16
  fact that Brendan Carr approved the merger of the News Corp so
• 28:20
  that now one company controls 60% of the news in The United
• 28:25
  States, is that is knowing that media literacy, or is that
• 28:29
  something else?
• 28:30
  Georgia Hampton: Is is having to teach my parents how to
• 28:33
  recognize if a video is AI? No. Like, where does that lie in
• 28:37
  this? That might be media literacy. I think that I was
• 28:39
  gonna say
• 28:39
  Jason Oberholtzer: that I think that is media literacy.
• 28:42
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah.
• 28:42
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. That might be the only thing.
• 28:43
  Mike Rugnetta: That is the
• 28:47
  Georgia Hampton: piece of media literacy that I think is
• 28:49
  genuinely correct by the traditional definition that has
• 28:52
  remained.
• 28:53
  Mike Rugnetta: Penalty, we got it. If you need to teach media
• 28:55
  literacy, it's the the the curriculum's very short. It's
• 28:59
  one item. Yeah. Show your parents.
• 29:02
  And the and the answer is, it's always AI.
• 29:05
  Jason Oberholtzer: I'm sorry, captain disillusioned. You are
• 29:07
  now the only media literacy professor in the world.
• 29:10
  Mike Rugnetta: The only educator. Next up on the
• 29:15
  subreddit, we got a comment from Nondeterminist System about our
• 29:21
  chat on digital storage. They write, I'm sympathetic to Hans's
• 29:24
  position, which to review, Hans's position is you're all
• 29:28
  gonna die.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: He was
• 29:29
  Mike Rugnetta: freaking out. Be You thinking about that
• 29:32
  constantly. Yes. So, like, whenever you open up your text
• 29:37
  edit program on your computer to, like, take a note just to
• 29:40
  make sure that you capture, like, the grocery list or
• 29:44
  something you need to do later, you gotta make sure you save it
• 29:46
  because you're gonna die.
• 29:48
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. You're gonna die. Mhmm.
• 29:49
  Mike Rugnetta: And you have to make sure that those files
• 29:52
  Georgia Hampton: are Every if your eyes touch it or your hands
• 29:54
  Speaker 8: touch it.
• 29:55
  Jason Oberholtzer: It's your responsibility for those who
• 29:59
  come after you.
• 30:00
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And please make sure that you appreciate
• 30:02
  each individual file as a different individual
• 30:04
  responsibility.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: Of of course. I'm so glad
• 30:07
  Jason Oberholtzer: Hans is at The Hague and not here to defend
• 30:08
  himself.
• 30:09
  Mike Rugnetta: Ephemera can certainly be helpful in the
• 30:14
  mourning process, but but ephemera are meant to be
• 30:18
  ephemeral and have been painfully so for the vast vast
• 30:21
  majority of human existence. Personally, I don't think that
• 30:24
  my life will, one, require tangible reminders to be
• 30:27
  remembered by my loved ones in the short term, or two, benefit
• 30:30
  from tangible reminders in the long term. Now, if I were a fur
• 30:34
  trapper living in seventeen hundreds Kentucky, the journal
• 30:37
  of my quotidian life may have become a valuable historical
• 30:39
  relic, a window into everyday travails that would be
• 30:42
  immortalized via recollection on niche YouTube channels. But even
• 30:47
  that level of recollection would be contingent upon my musings
• 30:50
  surviving the very organic process of historical
• 30:52
  preservation. I worry that our current emphasis on preserving
• 30:56
  everything will contribute to a collapse in perspective.
• 30:59
  When everything is important enough to immortalize, nothing
• 31:01
  is. So I guess if I felt like anything about my life was
• 31:04
  important enough to immortalize, maybe I should set it to paper
• 31:07
  and donate the chronicle to an organization dedicated to
• 31:10
  preservation, like a museum. Or Hans. Or Hans. Maybe or Hans.
• 31:15
  Interesting.
• 31:17
  Jason Oberholtzer: Or if
• 31:17
  Mike Rugnetta: I don't feel like it's that important, maybe it's
• 31:19
  better to just let it go. Or maybe I'm being proud in
• 31:22
  thinking I should be the one to curate what's important about
• 31:24
  me, and that's a task I should turn over to people who care
• 31:27
  about me instead. I legitimately don't know. I so my family,
• 31:33
  there aren't a lot of, like, heirlooms. There aren't a lot
• 31:35
  of, like, we don't have many documents.
• 31:38
  We don't have a lot of photos. It's maybe, like, from each
• 31:41
  side, there's, like, one or two books just of, like, mostly
• 31:46
  photos, mostly photographs. And I think that's just because, you
• 31:52
  know, they didn't have much. They really didn't have
• 31:54
  anything. Yeah.
• 31:56
  You know, they my family my family on both sides were, like,
• 31:59
  fishermen mostly, like farmers, and like didn't really have
• 32:05
  anything. And so the I guess what I'm saying is that, like,
• 32:08
  the small number of things that we do have are cool and feel
• 32:14
  significant because we have them, and I think because
• 32:17
  there's not much of that. And I think about what sorts of stuff
• 32:23
  we're gonna leave behind when when we die for Clem to have to
• 32:29
  look at with her family when she's older. And, like, I think
• 32:33
  about it in a very similar way where I'm like, a couple books
• 32:36
  is probably fine. Yeah.
• 32:39
  You know, unless, like, when she's older, you know, like,
• 32:41
  I'll have a discussion with Clem where I'm like, do you want the
• 32:43
  guitars? If you want them, they're yours. Like, do you want
• 32:46
  the studio equipment? Like, those are legitimate
• 32:48
  collectibles, but, like, none of that stuff exists in my family.
• 32:52
  There's up until me.
• 32:53
  Like, I'm the first one that will have, like, things to give
• 32:56
  to a kid. And I do feel like it not being a lot is probably
• 33:04
  meaningful, and I never ever think about any of the digital
• 33:08
  stuff ever.
• 33:09
  Georgia Hampton: Mhmm. Mhmm.
• 33:10
  Jason Oberholtzer: I come from a family of like quilters, like
• 33:14
  crocheters, knitters, textile people. Yeah. Woah. So like Oh.
• 33:19
  My mother is an incredible quilter.
• 33:21
  And so that is sort of what we have, like she has pieces from
• 33:24
  like her great grandmother that like, she found fabric
• 33:27
  collections of and then she turned them into something, and
• 33:30
  so like, there are all these sort of handmade objects that
• 33:33
  survive generations that have meaning to them, and then
• 33:36
  there's also a fair amount of like, you know, furniture that's
• 33:42
  interesting just by dint of it having been sat on by a couple
• 33:46
  generations of folks that kind of floats Not a lot of
• 33:49
  photography, but there's some. And the member chat we had was
• 33:54
  specifically about our digital collection of photography
• 33:58
  mostly, and the archiving practices there. And I was
• 34:01
  actually just talking to my parents about it this weekend,
• 34:04
  talking about our very conversation, and how very
• 34:07
  similar very similarly to how non determinist system put it.
• 34:12
  If everything is worthy of documentation, nothing is, and I
• 34:15
  don't think I'm just like built for that. I am sort of built for
• 34:20
  a time where you have eight pictures maximum of somebody and
• 34:23
  you do the rest of the work.
• 34:25
  You look at those and you conjure a character, you think
• 34:27
  about who they might be and you try to connect it to stories you
• 34:29
  have of them and it comes to life for you rather than a world
• 34:33
  where I could have feasibly one to one documented without
• 34:38
  spending that much effort or money, like my entire life from
• 34:41
  the age of 20. I could have just given that to somebody. I could
• 34:44
  have done that work and it wouldn't have been that hard or
• 34:46
  expensive. That's unbelievable. I'm not prepared for that.
• 34:50
  I don't want that.
• 34:50
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. I yes. I completely agree with that. I
• 34:54
  can also feel Hans, like, emotionally reacting to this all
• 34:58
  the way across the ocean, like, just knows we're talking about
• 35:02
  it. But, yeah, I I feel completely the same way.
• 35:07
  I think volume is the enemy of sentimentality in many That's
• 35:13
  good. Yeah. Crushed it. And I mean, I I do have a good amount
• 35:21
  of heirlooms and things from generations of family I never
• 35:25
  even met. Like, my great grandfather made banjos.
• 35:30
  So we had, like, a bunch of banjos. But then, you know,
• 35:34
  like, my mom donated quite a few of them to a museum. And the
• 35:41
  conversation around what to keep, what to donate, what to
• 35:44
  sell is a practical one that I have with my specifically with
• 35:49
  my mom, virtually every single time I come home to visit. Mhmm.
• 35:54
  It happens constantly.
• 35:56
  Often, it's like the first thing that happens when I come home,
• 36:00
  where we sort of go through the the art on the walls and she'd
• 36:03
  be like, well, this is you know, you should keep this, you should
• 36:05
  donate this, you should do this this this this this. Wow. So
• 36:09
  it's just a conversation that we've had and that we've been
• 36:12
  having and, like, the awareness of my parents' mortality, of my
• 36:17
  grandparents' mortality when they were still alive, was
• 36:19
  abundantly some like, something I was abundantly aware of
• 36:23
  forever. There was no space for, like, the fantasy of, like, this
• 36:27
  is never gonna happen, and I'm never gonna have to think about
• 36:30
  this. Yeah.
• 36:32
  I think about it all the time. And when I think about it, I'd
• 36:35
  land very much where, Jason, you just described landing, which is
• 36:40
  I am not built to become a museum of myself. Whether that's
• 36:48
  a curator of a museum of of endless amounts of ephemera, nor
• 36:54
  a museum of my own life in its minute detail. I think there is
• 37:00
  so much beauty in being able to imagine and interpret through
• 37:07
  context of certain ephemera. I think ephemera is very special.
• 37:11
  But I think volume can really get in the way of how special it
• 37:15
  is.
• 37:16
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Ultimately, where I landed on it
• 37:18
  during the discussion, where I land on it now is like and I
• 37:23
  think nondeterminist system put a little bit of this language in
• 37:25
  there too. Like, it's kind of for other people. If they want
• 37:30
  more of me or to keep more of that, they can. And I hope they
• 37:34
  do and they're thinking about it.
• 37:35
  But like, I'm gonna do my best. I will keep around what I can.
• 37:40
  It's a deeply sentimental project. But like, if you want
• 37:44
  more, it's on you, man. It's on you.
• 37:47
  Mike Rugnetta: To quote Jason, come and take it. We're gonna
• 37:53
  take a quick break. When we get back, we're gonna talk about
• 37:55
  gamers No. And customization.
• 37:57
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. Yes. Welcome back. We have got an
• 38:19
  email from Germany. From Gwyn, I believe, g w y n.
• 38:25
  Gwyn wants to talk about video games in relation to George's
• 38:30
  segment on customization. The death of customization over time
• 38:34
  from the hallowed halls of my space dripping with your
• 38:39
  personalized nonsense to the anodyne corridors of Facebook
• 38:46
  and other
• 38:47
  Georgia Hampton: Oh my god.
• 38:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: Corporate dystopian platforms where your
• 38:51
  personality should not exist and only might perhaps in the
• 38:55
  personalization of your ads.
• 38:56
  Georgia Hampton: Mhmm.
• 38:57
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh. Win. Writes about video games. Video
• 39:00
  games, mobile games in particular, and the surrounding
• 39:02
  spaces have become somewhat of a testing ground for predatory
• 39:05
  digital practices and business models. There seems to be a
• 39:08
  pervasive and not completely incorrect sentiment among the
• 39:12
  business side of the industry that capital g gamers.
• 39:15
  Enjoy their gamer swag that they will eat up whatever you market
• 39:18
  to them, that they will take their increasing exploitation
• 39:21
  sitting down. Many of them are young and impressionable, not in
• 39:25
  a, so will somebody think of the children kind of way, but in a
• 39:29
  way toy companies learn to advertise to kids directly
• 39:31
  instead of their parents because it's much easier to get their
• 39:34
  hooks into them. Getting an eight year old to gamble on
• 39:36
  mom's phone is well, literally two steps removed from taking
• 39:40
  candy from a baby. They go on to write more about the pervasive
• 39:44
  addition of monetization stages and ads into games and continue
• 39:49
  here. Discord has taken what Steam introduced and run with
• 39:52
  it.
• 39:52
  The platform is VC funded unlike the privately owned Valve slash
• 39:56
  Steam and has been adding more and more monetization features
• 39:59
  in an effort to become profitable. Since 2017, users
• 40:02
  have been able to subscribe Discord Nitro, which at first
• 40:05
  allowed them to use animated avatars, upload bigger files,
• 40:07
  and a handful of other things. In the last few years, this has
• 40:10
  expanded exponentially with more and more features added to the
• 40:13
  platform in order to make the subscription more appealing, and
• 40:16
  a few things that used to be free locked behind the paywall.
• 40:18
  You can now get special banners and animated profile backgrounds
• 40:22
  and emotes and frames and more. You can change the color of your
• 40:25
  client with Nitro and just generally present yourself much
• 40:28
  much more ostentatiously than people who don't spend money on
• 40:33
  Discord.
• 40:35
  They continue later. All of this is gamification and is obviously
• 40:39
  in shitification. And assuming that nothing fundamentally
• 40:42
  changes about the ways in which we collectively use social
• 40:45
  media, I think this might well be what's to come for the more
• 40:49
  mainstream social platforms. You can already buy a Twitter
• 40:52
  subscription and get that blue tick. What's stopping them from
• 40:55
  making that more appealing by making your profile all sparkly
• 40:58
  for a little extra cash?
• 41:00
  The digital gifts and hats and whatnot you can give people on
• 41:03
  TikTok live aren't that far removed from their counterparts
• 41:07
  on Steam. I think this is so good. Oh my on gamers to mass
• 41:17
  media adopting of the will buy some silly little trinkets and
• 41:22
  maybe reclaim some personalization of our online
• 41:24
  spaces seems so accurate.
• 41:27
  Mike Rugnetta: What do they call it on MySpace? Blingify? I think
• 41:30
  so.
• 41:30
  Jason Oberholtzer: Sounds right.
• 41:32
  Georgia Hampton: The whole time you were reading Jason, I was
• 41:34
  sort of experiencing the entire grieving process, all the stages
• 41:40
  of grief. Because it is so sad how true this is. That, of
• 41:45
  course, customization, which was something that was so beloved
• 41:48
  and so special about, at least, my early experience of being
• 41:53
  online, is now monetized and weaponized and used as a tool in
• 42:00
  a in a larger, horrible machine of getting you to invest in
• 42:06
  micro transactions and spend money that you don't necessarily
• 42:10
  think about until it all adds up and you're like, uh-oh, I can't
• 42:13
  afford groceries. I think this is so true.
• 42:16
  Mike Rugnetta: Someone take the lathe of heaven from me. Just
• 42:18
  take it take it from me so that I'm not holding it when I say
• 42:20
  this. Just take here, George. I'm gonna hand it to you. Thank
• 42:22
  you.
• 42:23
  Here's the
• 42:23
  Georgia Hampton: wave of heaven.
• 42:24
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Sharing the Ready? I'm gonna say a string of
• 42:26
  words. Social media profile skin loot boxes.
• 42:33
  Georgia Hampton: Stop it. Mike, stop it. Stop it. Stop.
• 42:39
  Jason Oberholtzer: Just a
• 42:40
  Georgia Hampton: I'm just a baby, Mike.
• 42:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: God. Someone is going to become a billionaire
• 42:49
  because you just said that. And it won't be me.
• 42:52
  Georgia Hampton: How could you? How could you, Mike? How could
• 42:54
  you do this?
• 42:54
  Mike Rugnetta: We often get accused on Fun City of
• 42:57
  predicting the future, except it's the bad future. Yeah. And
• 43:00
  so maybe we can get some of that credit here on the Yeah. This
• 43:03
  seems inevitable. And Discord will absolutely be the first.
• 43:06
  Right? If they haven't already done it and I'm just not aware
• 43:09
  of it.
• 43:09
  Georgia Hampton: Although, I don't know. I could see Meta
• 43:10
  doing this as well. Like, I could see it being like, hey.
• 43:15
  Remember when we basically devoured Myspace in front of all
• 43:18
  of you?
• 43:19
  Mike Rugnetta: Like, no. No. No. No.
• 43:20
  Georgia Hampton: If we just gave it back to you at a price.
• 43:22
  Jason Oberholtzer: Hey. Does Justin Timberlake still have
• 43:24
  Myspace? Because I've got some ideas.
• 43:26
  Georgia Hampton: I know how to save the world tour. Next up is
• 43:32
  Liz calling in with her thoughts on my segment about why nobody
• 43:36
  dances at the club anymore and how smartphones are to blame.
• 43:40
  Speaker 8: I was hearing about the discussion about places
• 43:43
  where you use of phone as explicitly, prohibited, And you
• 43:49
  mentioned church, sir. And I am driving back from my church, and
• 43:55
  I regret to inform you that it's not really true anymore even
• 43:59
  though the message there is still on the And I've been a
• 44:02
  volunteer for my church for a long time. And, like, I have to
• 44:06
  have WhatsApp business constantly open because I have
• 44:09
  to watch the church WhatsApp number. And, like, when we are
• 44:13
  studying our religious texts, then there's a lot of language
• 44:17
  that's from a long time ago that uses very weird words, and we
• 44:21
  have to look words up. So we have to use our phones for that.
• 44:24
  And, you know, that ship has sailed, and it sucks. But at the
• 44:29
  same time, it's good to have those tools. But when people are
• 44:33
  just, like, I don't know, browsing Instagram during church
• 44:37
  functions or whatever, like, that's usually called out. So
• 44:41
  it's like it's we we try to use it well, like, it as a tool, but
• 44:46
  it's still always an uphill battle. But it's like that
• 44:49
  that's the place where I have that most healthy relationship
• 44:52
  with my phone.
• 44:53
  So that's something.
• 44:54
  Jason Oberholtzer: So that's something. So that's something.
• 44:56
  That is something. You know what this made me think? We've talked
• 45:00
  about this in Never Watches when we're watching great movies of
• 45:03
  one particular year in the nineties.
• 45:05
  When we envision future technology, it usually is
• 45:08
  devices that are somewhat form and functionally related to what
• 45:11
  they do. They look like a thing. Like, if you were to say, we
• 45:13
  have these ancient religious texts and scholars are going to
• 45:16
  need to translate and transliterate them across all
• 45:18
  these things, you would imagine some, like, cool fucking tome
• 45:22
  reading table that, like, doesn't your fucking minority
• 45:25
  reporting on it. And, like, it just sucks if it's just your
• 45:28
  phone. It's always your phone.
• 45:29
  It's the same Yeah. Dumb little shit that
• 45:31
  Mike Rugnetta: does everything. Yeah. Yeah.
• 45:32
  Jason Oberholtzer: There's nothing cool. They gotta, like,
• 45:33
  look at old text with their fucking Instagram machine, and,
• 45:36
  like, that is why things are lame. Yeah.
• 45:39
  Georgia Hampton: Not to bring customization back into it, but
• 45:41
  because the phones all just kinda look like this big soft
• 45:44
  rectangle, like, with rounded edges
• 45:47
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Boo.
• 45:48
  Mike Rugnetta: And
• 45:48
  Georgia Hampton: and not some beautiful gilded specialized
• 45:54
  sort of holy feeling object.
• 45:57
  Jason Oberholtzer: Right? Like, we could make a digital object
• 45:59
  that was, like, commensurately reverential to the rest of the
• 46:02
  spiritual architecture of the building.
• 46:05
  Georgia Hampton: And every day, we refuse to do it. Yeah.
• 46:08
  Mike Rugnetta: Is this what straying further from god's
• 46:10
  light is? Is the light the light of the screen?
• 46:14
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh. The length of heaven is still in my
• 46:15
  hands, Mike.
• 46:17
  Mike Rugnetta: Give it back. Give it back. I just wanna know
• 46:21
  what the church WhatsApp is like.
• 46:23
  Georgia Hampton: Oh my god.
• 46:24
  Mike Rugnetta: Drama. Alright. Next up, Drew wants us to know
• 46:29
  more about Empreg Garfis. Hi.
• 46:31
  Georgia Hampton: Okay. This
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: is Drew. First time, long time supporter of the show.
• 46:35
  I'm listening to Mailbag number five. I'm about forty minutes
• 46:40
  in. You guys are talking about, quote, Garfies, and you talked
• 46:45
  specifically about one that has a large, you know, maybe
• 46:49
  distended belly and big hoohas.
• 46:53
  And I really think I can't see the image, but I really think
• 46:57
  this is not a, like, a fat satisfied Garfield that ate a
• 47:01
  lot of lasagna did we get here? But maybe a Garfield that is
• 47:04
  pregnant. This comes from, like, like, fantasy pregnancy type
• 47:10
  stuff where, like, males get pregnant called mpreg. I just
• 47:16
  feel like it's pregnant Garfield, and I think you should
• 47:19
  know. Thank you much for doing the show.
• 47:22
  Bye.
• 47:23
  Mike Rugnetta: I don't even think we need to respond. I
• 47:24
  think we can just file this under FYI. Yeah. Is this show
• 47:28
  good?
• 47:31
  Georgia Hampton: I think this shows that it is very good.
• 47:36
  Jason Oberholtzer: Okay. Alright.
• 47:38
  Georgia Hampton: I can't believe we were so blind.
• 47:40
  Mike Rugnetta: I should have looked at that, and I should
• 47:41
  have said immediately, m preg garphys.
• 47:44
  Georgia Hampton: He's got the glow. He's got the glow. I know
• 47:46
  exactly what that means.
• 47:52
  Mike Rugnetta: Alright. And finally, here it is. If we can
• 47:56
  find the theme music from Hans before we have to publish this,
• 48:02
  a Molly's Corner.
• 48:14
  Speaker 9: If you were all on a season of the traitors, who
• 48:20
  would you collectively, banish at the round table? Like, who
• 48:26
  would you think was a traitor? Thank you. And oh oh, wait. And
• 48:30
  who who do you think actually would be a traitor?
• 48:33
  Might be the same question. Might not be.
• 48:36
  Georgia Hampton: Have fun. Oh my god.
• 48:39
  Jason Oberholtzer: I don't know how the traitor works.
• 48:43
  Georgia Hampton: I do. Alright. So for those who are unfamiliar,
• 48:50
  the traders is basically a hidden role competitive reality
• 48:54
  It's like mafia. Game. Yeah.
• 48:55
  Okay. Where, like, in the very beginning, a couple people are
• 48:58
  chosen as the traitors. Every episode, there is a roundtable
• 49:02
  where everyone, traitors and faithful included, votes someone
• 49:07
  to be banished who they think is a traitor. And that person has
• 49:11
  to reveal if they're a traitor or not, and all remaining
• 49:15
  traitors then get to choose someone that they're going to
• 49:18
  murder. So just, like, remove from the game completely.
• 49:21
  Okay.
• 49:21
  Jason Oberholtzer: So if I had to pick who I think is a traitor
• 49:24
  in our group, it's probably the person at The Hague right now.
• 49:28
  Georgia Hampton: I literally was about to say the same show.
• 49:36
  Jason Oberholtzer: But as for who has the temperament for it,
• 49:38
  which I think is Molly's second question, not just like, who
• 49:40
  would I vote out, but who would actually betray me.
• 49:44
  Georgia Hampton: Okay. Hold on. And do it with a smile.
• 49:50
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Same answer.
• 49:54
  Mike Rugnetta: Wow. Wow. Damn. Yeah. I don't does friend of the
• 50:00
  show, Meagle Jnarden, count as Yeah.
• 50:03
  Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna say, I think Meagle I think Meagle.
• 50:06
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.
• 50:07
  Speaker 9: It could
• 50:07
  Jason Oberholtzer: be one of us three. Right? No.
• 50:09
  Mike Rugnetta: We're very trustworthy here.
• 50:11
  Jason Oberholtzer: Think we're aware
• 50:12
  Georgia Hampton: that actually, usually, there are three traders
• 50:14
  chosen
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: at the beginning of the game.
• 50:16
  Georgia Hampton: Just us. Mhmm. I think we're in an oops all
• 50:18
  traders call.
• 50:19
  Mike Rugnetta: Right?
• 50:20
  Georgia Hampton: I'm gonna be so honest.
• 50:22
  Mike Rugnetta: And we've just and we've just voted to out the
• 50:24
  only two faithful people.
• 50:26
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. So we win?
• 50:27
  Georgia Hampton: But that means we win the game.
• 50:28
  Mike Rugnetta: Does that mean is Audrey the Alan Cumming of the
• 50:31
  group? Yes.
• 50:32
  Jason Oberholtzer: She'd be honored. Oh, yes. And now for
• 50:36
  everyone's favorite postscript to the show, Jason wrestles with
• 50:41
  the listeners Yes. In a segment we like to call one word
• 50:45
  graffiti, or as the first submitter Weston put it, is it
• 50:49
  two word graffiti now? It's impossible to say, I hope Jason
• 50:52
  will be okay.
• 50:53
  Mike Rugnetta: He won't be, but that's not your problem. No.
• 50:55
  Jason Oberholtzer: Weston's first submission here is a one
• 51:00
  word graffiti that they say is very Kiwi, a very Kiwi word, and
• 51:06
  it is on the side of a transformer box and it says
• 51:08
  jandal, and pictured under it looks to be a thong sandal.
• 51:13
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. Jandal. Flip flop. Is it that's
• 51:15
  the word jandal with a picture of a jandal.
• 51:17
  Jason Oberholtzer: That's a jandal? That's a jandal?
• 51:18
  Georgia Hampton: Just so we're clear.
• 51:19
  Mike Rugnetta: Just so it's clear.
• 51:20
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Alright. I'll take your word for
• 51:22
  it. Going back to the subreddit, a place you can all hang out r
• 51:26
  slash never post.
• 51:28
  Mike Rugnetta: I believe this is from Talia.
• 51:29
  Jason Oberholtzer: Talia sends in
• 51:32
  Georgia Hampton: the word caring. In a beautiful font.
• 51:35
  Jason Oberholtzer: A considered and caring font.
• 51:37
  Mike Rugnetta: It's great. It's like bright, all lowercase, on
• 51:40
  the side of King Tut. Mhmm. What's King Tut? King Tut's the
• 51:43
  place for
• 51:44
  Georgia Hampton: Nepalese food?
• 51:45
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh. Painted on the side of King Tut, the place
• 51:47
  for Nepalese food.
• 51:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: Our next submission from the subreddit
• 51:49
  comes from Mothalax, who has on the side of a DHL van, either
• 51:56
  Moses with an m or Hoses with an h. What do we think?
• 52:01
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm I'm going with Moses because that first
• 52:04
  letter has a little package. Yes. You know?
• 52:06
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. I was gonna say the exact same thing.
• 52:08
  It has a sort of like v.
• 52:10
  Jason Oberholtzer: The traders have spoken. It's Moses.
• 52:13
  Georgia Hampton: And so it is writ.
• 52:15
  Mike Rugnetta: Also, like, you know, you've heard of cool s's,
• 52:18
  but cool h's, o's, and e's? Woah. Oh. They abound here. Just
• 52:23
  a quick reminder, we're gonna put all these on the website so
• 52:25
  you can see them, and you should.
• 52:27
  Jason Oberholtzer: Next one from the
• 52:28
  Mike Rugnetta: This next one in particular, I think, slaps. This
• 52:30
  is maybe the best one we've ever gotten. It's awesome. I love
• 52:33
  Jason Oberholtzer: it. This comes to us via the subreddit
• 52:35
  from GigaDumpy. Woah. And I am struggling to describe it.
• 52:40
  Georgia, can you use some art school words on this?
• 52:43
  Georgia Hampton: Okay. So we're looking at a a a kind of script,
• 52:46
  I would say, that's almost like calligraphic.
• 52:50
  Mike Rugnetta: But it is definitely graffiti in like,
• 52:53
  graffiti style lettering, but Yes. Calligraphic in nature.
• 52:57
  Georgia Hampton: But, yeah, like, with this sort of quality
• 52:59
  that has a lot of filigree and, like, accenting on each letter
• 53:03
  and, like, some of the tails of the letters are really long and
• 53:05
  then, like, turn into a circle with a bunch of lines. But it
• 53:09
  does undeniably say absorbo. And that's so important.
• 53:18
  Mike Rugnetta: It does. You cannot argue that it says
• 53:21
  absorbo. Yeah. Absorbo. And we also know from the post that
• 53:25
  this is from the inside of a porta potty.
• 53:28
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, let's go. God.
• 53:30
  Jason Oberholtzer: That's good. It's despicable. And I love it.
• 53:33
  Mike Rugnetta: Jason, I'm curious if you think this next
• 53:35
  one counts.
• 53:36
  Jason Oberholtzer: Now this
• 53:36
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, yeah.
• 53:37
  Jason Oberholtzer: This submission from land of doom, I
• 53:41
  feel like is rage bait. You are trying to get me mad because you
• 53:45
  have submitted me a finger drawing in the snow of the word
• 53:50
  high with an exclamation point. This is not graffiti. This is
• 53:57
  snow.
• 53:58
  Georgia Hampton: But what what is a line in the snow if not
• 54:02
  graffiti ephemera, Jason?
• 54:04
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, come. This is don't you
• 54:05
  Mike Rugnetta: fucking take take a picture take a picture. We're
• 54:08
  all gonna die.
• 54:09
  Georgia Hampton: We're all gonna die. We have to remember this.
• 54:11
  Jason Oberholtzer: Hans might think this is precious graffiti
• 54:13
  worth surviving, but I think this is a sand castle that
• 54:16
  deserves to go back into the sea. To you, land of doom, I say
• 54:19
  no. I say no. This is not one word graffiti.
• 54:22
  Georgia Hampton: But, Jason, what are we if not sandcastles
• 54:24
  that will one day return to the sea?
• 54:26
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Alright. Too many art school words.
• 54:30
  Jason Oberholtzer: You're cut off.
• 54:31
  Georgia Hampton: You have woken the bees. Alright.
• 54:34
  Mike Rugnetta: Take your notebook to the seaside. Next
• 54:37
  up,
• 54:38
  Jason Oberholtzer: we have j j c mouldery in the subreddit with
• 54:41
  droidica. Droidica. One word, d r o I d I k a droidica, which I
• 54:49
  understand is like a misspelling of a Star Wars term.
• 54:54
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. I would just like to comment on the fact
• 54:56
  that this is on the side of a good barn directly next to some
• 54:59
  train tracks.
• 55:00
  Jason Oberholtzer: I'm told in the comments that this is in the
• 55:02
  Hudson Valley. So hello neighbor.
• 55:06
  Georgia Hampton: Gotta go look for it
• 55:08
  Jason Oberholtzer: Our next submission, I love. This is good
• 55:11
  and this is right and the kind of thing I want. This comes from
• 55:13
  Colin, and on the side of a beautiful green building is the
• 55:17
  word green written in yellow. Yellow. And that's what I like.
• 55:23
  Awesome. Amazing. And finally, for the one word graffiti
• 55:28
  section, Mike, it looks like you submitted something of your very
• 55:31
  own.
• 55:31
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh. I did. There is one word graffiti that is
• 55:34
  showing up all over Bed Stuy. This person has ups, as they
• 55:39
  say, everywhere, and it is in all caps, always the same style
• 55:44
  lettering, and it just says guillotine.
• 55:47
  Georgia Hampton: Hell, yeah.
• 55:49
  Mike Rugnetta: Guillotine is guillotine is all over the place
• 55:52
  in Bed Stuy at the moment.
• 55:54
  Jason Oberholtzer: Thank you for your service, guillotine.
• 55:56
  Spreading the message one word at a time, which is what I like.
• 56:00
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. So but now we've also got a bunch of two
• 56:04
  word submissions. And
• 56:06
  Jason Oberholtzer: to be fair, this is what I told people they
• 56:09
  were allowed to do this year. On the final recording of 2025, I
• 56:14
  opened up the possibility for two word graffiti for this year.
• 56:18
  So I am accepting it and we got some stuff that has come in.
• 56:22
  Josh b sends in two examples. Well, no.
• 56:26
  One of them is two word graffiti. The other I don't
• 56:28
  know.
• 56:28
  Mike Rugnetta: The second one is I'm mad again.
• 56:30
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. I gotta be done.
• 56:31
  Georgia Hampton: This one's not it's demonstrably I'm trying to
• 56:34
  be charitable.
• 56:34
  Jason Oberholtzer: I'm trying to broaden the parameters by which
• 56:36
  people can send me graffiti, and still, they send me fucking
• 56:40
  finger diagrams in the snow. Anyway, gotta move on.
• 56:44
  Georgia Hampton: It's if you give a mouse a cookie. Right?
• 56:46
  That's what's happening. Yeah.
• 56:49
  Jason Oberholtzer: Alright. Well, first he sends is two word
• 56:51
  graffiti. The iconic Houston one forty five b someone across a
• 56:57
  bridge across a highway, which I believe you it's iconic. It
• 57:00
  looks beautiful. It's a wonderful thing to say to people
• 57:03
  in two words on the side of a bridge.
• 57:05
  Bonus, Josh is also sending me the tag of the Nighthawk, which
• 57:10
  says beware the Nighthawk and is found on the side of the
• 57:13
  building which he says is a Houston icon, a knockoff Batman
• 57:17
  who calls themselves the Nighthawk, which I think is
• 57:20
  exciting.
• 57:21
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. So the beware is kind of an accessory
• 57:25
  to the main tag, which is the Nighthawk.
• 57:28
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. I would say so. I wonder if they say
• 57:30
  other things in other tags about the Nighthawk, like, was here or
• 57:33
  is coming.
• 57:34
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm gonna say just the Nighthawk, in case
• 57:37
  you're listening, just
• 57:39
  Georgia Hampton: And you are.
• 57:39
  Mike Rugnetta: On off chance. You could do better, pal.
• 57:43
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.
• 57:44
  Georgia Hampton: No. I don't wanna I don't I I don't want
• 57:46
  them to do
• 57:46
  Mike Rugnetta: better. I love
• 57:47
  Jason Oberholtzer: it. Scrawled nonsense on the side of this
• 57:49
  building.
• 57:50
  Georgia Hampton: It's just like capital letters, handwriting. I
• 57:54
  love it. Never do anything else.
• 57:58
  Jason Oberholtzer: I prefer this Batman to the buttoned up one.
• 58:01
  Mike Rugnetta: It does it is a tag that reads as sudden.
• 58:04
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. Oh, yes. Like, I was just sort of walking
• 58:07
  down the stairs, like Yeah. Yeah. Oh.
• 58:08
  Oh, that's right. I'm a Nighthawk.
• 58:09
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Like as though like as though in a
• 58:12
  moment, the Nighthawk had to put this here.
• 58:15
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. Well, the spirit overtook them.
• 58:17
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Josh Pelton sent in a few eligible
• 58:22
  pieces of graffiti, one of which I particularly appreciated and
• 58:25
  is two words. And Mike, you wanna describe a piece of
• 58:29
  graffiti?
• 58:31
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. This looks like some marker on the inside
• 58:34
  of a frosted window. It's hard to tell the larger context
• 58:37
  because it's pretty close-up. And it sort of looks like a
• 58:40
  piece of, like, the outline, drawn in black marker of a piece
• 58:46
  of paper towel that you've ripped from the dispenser, in
• 58:50
  the bathroom, and written on it in all caps are two words, and
• 58:54
  those words are magnum dong.
• 58:58
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. That's good. Hell, yeah. See, we all
• 59:01
  like that.
• 59:02
  Jason Oberholtzer: That's the kind of thing I like.
• 59:03
  Mike Rugnetta: It's good. I really like the next one too.
• 59:05
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. This one is one of
• 59:05
  Mike Rugnetta: my favorites.
• 59:06
  Georgia Hampton: This one's so good.
• 59:07
  Jason Oberholtzer: Georgia, this one deserves the art school
• 59:09
  treatment.
• 59:10
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, and I'm happy to deliver it. So we're
• 59:13
  looking at a sidewalk, specifically a manhole cover.
• 59:17
  And below it, in two layers of spray paint, first is green,
• 59:24
  second is pink, it says vault, question mark, and then under
• 59:29
  it, in parentheses, empty.
• 59:32
  Mike Rugnetta: Though that could be what the Nighthawk has
• 59:34
  written to throw you
• 59:35
  Jason Oberholtzer: off his
• 59:35
  Mike Rugnetta: Just what
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: they want
• 59:37
  Jason Oberholtzer: us to think. So do you think do you think our
• 59:40
  tagger arrived at this sewer cover, scroll down vault,
• 59:46
  excitedly went down, looked around, and came back up, and
• 59:49
  really disappointed, followed up with empty.
• 59:53
  Mike Rugnetta: Empty. Just letting the next guy know.
• 59:55
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Sorry. You were in a Dark Souls game,
• 59:58
  just giving you the directions. I think this one's particularly
• 1:00:02
  gorgeous. It just it's nice to look at and it's the kind of
• 1:00:05
  thing I like and it's why two words full of graffiti is
• 1:00:08
  something that I now allow.
• 1:00:09
  Mike Rugnetta: It's so my question for this was gonna be
• 1:00:11
  whether or not this counts because I don't think that this
• 1:00:13
  is graffiti. I think that this is probably functional text for
• 1:00:17
  a utility worker. Because if you look, there's there's spray
• 1:00:22
  paint on the side of the picture too that seems to draw an
• 1:00:24
  outline of what is maybe a utility cable in the same in the
• 1:00:28
  same color.
• 1:00:29
  Jason Oberholtzer: See, one of the things that I like is to
• 1:00:33
  have fun and the things you're saying aren't fun.
• 1:00:36
  Mike Rugnetta: Fair. Fair. Fair. I take it back. I take it back.
• 1:00:39
  Georgia Hampton: Thank you. I don't claim this energy.
• 1:00:41
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Perfect.
• 1:00:43
  Jason Oberholtzer: Thank you, Lenny, for sending that in.
• 1:00:45
  That's truly a delight.
• 1:00:46
  Mike Rugnetta: It is really good.
• 1:00:47
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. One of the things I don't like Uh-oh.
• 1:00:50
  Is when somebody sends me in four words of graffiti. I'm not
• 1:00:54
  even gonna talk about it. Favy fake, you know who you are and
• 1:00:57
  you know that sending four words of graffiti means I won't read
• 1:01:00
  it.
• 1:01:00
  Called out. Four words in this economy? Are you kidding me?
• 1:01:05
  Mike Rugnetta: Let's end on a high note. Jason, what's this
• 1:01:07
  last thing you've put here under the heading poem?
• 1:01:10
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, this will cool us all down. So many
• 1:01:15
  mailbags ago, Michael Bukino had sent in a poem that they had
• 1:01:21
  written and we had read on the air called Bugs on My Beard.
• 1:01:28
  They have since animated that poem in a delightful little
• 1:01:32
  YouTube video that we will put in the links here. And I figure
• 1:01:36
  it's been since it is our custom to end things with poetry
• 1:01:40
  wherever possible, that perhaps we can just play ourselves out
• 1:01:43
  in Michael's own reading of his own poem, the bugs in my beard,
• 1:01:50
  and send us all into this good good night.
• 1:01:53
  Mike Rugnetta: I think that's a great idea.
• 1:01:55
  Georgia Hampton: Love it.
• 1:01:55
  Jason Oberholtzer: Happy spring everybody. Let me go get my
• 1:01:58
  shovel.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 10: The bugs in my beard I bring back from my bike ride
• 1:02:05
  are just souvenirs from failed attempt flybys. Buzzing and
• 1:02:08
  bumping and flipping and flapping, jittering, jumping,
• 1:02:11
  slithering, slapping. One proboscis, two antennae, 600,000
• 1:02:16
  limbs, shiny shells, wondrous wings, and a slimy trail of
• 1:02:20
  mucin. Each camouflage colorful cute creepy crawly itching a
• 1:02:25
  lift on the fuzzy face trolley can look like a lot at the end
• 1:02:28
  of my hall, but these little critters don't bug me at
• 1:02:31
  Mike Rugnetta: all. Okay.
• 1:02:35
  Jason Oberholtzer: Bye. Bye. Bye.