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🎧 The internet wants more lore and less pretending · Open Tabs

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, guys.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to today's episode of OpenTabs,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: our twice-weekly chat where we talk about the things taking up space in our tabs,
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: our feeds, and our brains.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Melissa.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Megan.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Emma.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Hello.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little earlier than we usually do, which is fun for me on the East Coast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you guys.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So two fun topics as always.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: First one is Megan's piece that we just published this morning.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I really loved it.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to chat about it live with you.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And in case you missed it in your inbox this morning,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: it was all about surprise and delight Easter eggs and how brands
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: and platforms are kind of gamifying fandom and these like fun cultural moments.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let you speak about it, Megan, because you're kind of the expert.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to botch it, but it's very, very fun.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we talked about kind of like how this is evolving.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: You guys know I love a residual dominant emergent framing.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: So in the residual space,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: which residual doesn't mean bad,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: it just means long established, been around, it's the norm.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: We've got Google and their Delights features.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're doing a really fun one.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's still active,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: but for Fat Bear Week,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: if you Google Fat Bear Week,
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: a bear comes on screen and you can feed him fish and then he gets bigger and bigger
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: and it's really, really cute.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then in the dominant space,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: we've got TikTok,
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: who's really leaning into a whole suite of Easter eggs,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: but the one that I think is the most fascinating and differentiating
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: for them is their comment pop-ups.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So my favorite of this was when Ariana Grande's Petal was released, if you commented.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: A pop-up of Ariana Grande's face in a flower would come up, and that was really fun and cool.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in the immersion space,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: we had the movie platforms, which are changing when you have the seat selection map.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're changing the seats to be timely and topical.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, Wicker, which is the new movie.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Starring Olivia Colman is coming out and they've changed those seats
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: on some platforms to little baskets.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of choosing a seat, you choose a basket that you want to sit in.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so all of these are just, yeah,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: all of these are fun ways to add a little bit of surprise and delight to
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: the interface to make it more interesting and just fun for the consumer
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: as they're going through and checking out.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also a great way to encourage I think that word
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: of mouth is being severely undervalued in our very tech-heavy,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: engagement-heavy landscape.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it is the best form of marketing when you do surveys.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: People saying, my friend's telling me they like it is the biggest intervention.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: So these are really fun ways to create word of mouth.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: We have like takeaways for brands and one of them is like designed for the screenshot.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so what these activations do really well is they are something you want
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: to screenshot and send to your friends and say,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: oh, look at this and get that word of mouth.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: We talked a lot about how it's less about what people are posting and more
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: about what they're saying in the group chats.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: So these Easter eggs are a great way to get into those group chats.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I love this.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that like any consumer or marketer, it's kind of like, it's like the like dessert.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the fun thing that makes like marketing fun.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's, I mean,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: so many things that I love about this too,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: because like I actually received it with everyone this morning.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't share it with me last night.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, oh my God, like this is actually such a fun topic.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's one that, And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this, Megan.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's like,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: if you're a brand right now,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: how important is it to invest money in doing this type of thing?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because to be honest with you,
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: one thing I'm actually so curious about,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: and I'm just going to put this out there too so you guys keep your eyes
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: and ears open, but I kind of want to know attempts at Easter eggs that have failed.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like ones that maybe didn't land for brands where it was like,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, because I think like to do it right is actually so much more.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's like one of those examples of something that's simple and complicated at the same level.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's like you really have to make sure you understand the fandom.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: You understand how the fandom communicates this word of mouth concept.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And like how do you measure success with it?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like obviously there's always like Taylor Swift is probably just synonymous with
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: the word Easter egg at this point.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: Even for her, I wonder myself, I suspect for every 100 she does, 10 get discovered.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just curious your thoughts.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you are Olive Garden out there or you're Nike or you're AMC,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: How do you sort of do this in a way that lands but also is really thoughtful
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: and can kind of withstand a marathon as opposed to sort of a flash in a pan?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think a good Easter egg doesn't need to be discovered right away.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think part of what has made Taylor Swift's strategy genius is
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: that she'll reference old Easter eggs in her new work.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: That will lead her fans back to previous things that are like, oh,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: this now makes sense,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: which kind of just re-engages them around her previous and past content.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: So she did this very overtly with the re-releases where she would kind
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: of re-release her music and add new context.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that drove people back to the old music to say, okay, well, what is happening here?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: What did we miss the first time?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I wouldn't even say like the Easter egg has failed.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: It just hasn't hatched yet.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they should think about ways that they can like Seed it later on
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: to bring people back to that original thing.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then people love when they can be like, oh,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: this was the plan all along and go back in the archives and find proof
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: that it lived there in the past.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And people also love being the one to find the Easter egg.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that they can think about maybe giving clues to people
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: who might be invested in actually finding it so they can be the one to discover it.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know of any failed Easter eggs.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're right that not all of them hit,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: but I think I would reframe that as an opportunity to just deepen the lore around
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: that Easter egg.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm dying again.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is also reminding me of the great American novel, Ready Player One.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Am I the only person that references this book this much?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: I should teach a course on this book.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: That is so much of what that book does so well.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Are we in an era, especially with AI right now, where the archive
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: The art of the archive
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: becomes the new thing because it's wholly human,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: untouched, machine-free work of the past.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: And again, that book dives into the history of the 80s and It creates a lore around it.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: You have brought up the word lore now in the past two of these,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think, and I sit with it often now.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's a word that wasn't in my lexicon often.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know even the last time I would have said that word out loud,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: but I think about it a lot now,
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: and it's interesting because it's sort of part of this like I don't know, like,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: it kind of touches on this larger movement of, like,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: the romanticizing of the everyday,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: you know, like, creating a lore, creating, like,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: you know, a story, a deeper thing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and that's really, like, what the, like, crux of, like, the romantic-y novels are, too.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: That, like, you never quite...
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's always something else in the mystery that you don't know in the darkness.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And oftentimes...
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: In those books,
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: it's literally in the deepest,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: darkest hallway of a library that doesn't end somehow.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: It literally goes into the core of the earth and like into other worlds is like through there.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very interesting right now.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like so much of this is happening because of AI as well.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: I also think a way that this is intersected with technology is something
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: that I'm calling timestamp clout,
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: where people are getting clout of saying, like,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: being able to pull up something from their digital archive and say,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was here first.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then people pull out their concert videos from when she was a nobody,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: not selling out huge arenas and kind of just playing in a basement.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's also going to become more of a thing
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: that I think should give brands permission to do the cool thing.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And even if it doesn't hit,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: they'll have that timestamp clout for when everybody's doing it
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: that they can be like, we've actually been here.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the people who are fans will love that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: They can be like,
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: we're associated with a brand that's actually on the cutting edge,
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: not just pretending to be.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's also, Emma, that goes directly to your Gap sweater.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: it's the same thing.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like, but in a different way.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like it goes to...
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Really quickly,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: we need to definitely do some fresh, like, definition graphics on this stuff.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I love timestamp clout, obviously crediting Megan.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: But also, I think Lore, I think we should, like, put that out there as well, just because...
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: I even feel like it's, we just keep referencing it.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Just like how I should do something with Ready Player One, the Great American Novel.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, sorry, Emma, go on.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna say, I mean,
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: another internet term that's like the insults,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: the main insult on TikTok right now being LARPer and that the worst thing you can be
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: on TikTok is a fake fan or a poser.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this whole lore and digital archives and timestamp cred all ties into that.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, LARPer, it was like a video game.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's like video games.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Live action role playing.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's so mean.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like LARPers are actually legit super fans.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, isn't that what it's like?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, they were.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: The ultimate superfans where they were such big fans of these,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: whatever digital media it was,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: usually a video game that they would dress up as characters and battle in fields
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: in real life.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And now it is the, like, gen alpha insult that they're labeling at people online.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you want redemption for LARPers?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, leave them alone.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I will one slight reframe.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like there isn't that much animosity towards LARPers,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: especially LARPers of like video games.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: LARPing, I feel like, is seen as like the derogatory thing.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like your live action role playing being a human,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: essentially, not that you're like a super fan of something.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's, they're borrowing the language of the LARP.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: would say
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: most of them probably don't even know about actual LARPers.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was going to say though,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: it's so funny because I have talked about this in a completely different context.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Cosplaying is like the term that I use where I feel like it's someone like pretending.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: And here are the real life examples that I use.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, the farmers markets in Marin.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_02: They are not real farmers
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: markets, in my opinion.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, like direct to source, like farms are showing up there.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Fish market too.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: I am from the east end of Long Island.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: It is very farm forward.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: There are farm stands everywhere.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's part of the culture.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: And like,
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: if there's a farmer's market there,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: like you are going,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: you are bringing a wad of cash and you're getting like bags of produce
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: and walking away.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: The farmer's markets here are a total, like, it's just...
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like a total like hack.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like it is like they appear Tuesdays here, Wednesdays here, Thursdays here, Fridays here.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same group and everything is marked up so high.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Even in harvest tomato season, like you will spend $500 and it's completely BS.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Look, I'm supporting the farmers.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not like crapping on them.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: These are not farmers markets.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like when people go to the one in Larkspur Landing, I'm like, you're cosplaying.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like this isn't like, A real farmer's market.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you fakers.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's the same thing.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we have friends who have a...
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: They are members of this, like, super fancy club in Montana.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's so great.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: But, like,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: it's literally like a mirror of the show Yellowstone where all of
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: the ranchers are like, who are these people?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, cosplaying as ranchers.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like, they're not... Like, yes, you are there and you are fishing.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: And, like, I think it's part of the criticism, obviously, that Ballerina Farm gets, too.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: So all of which to say is, like,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: I am actually curious about, like, even digging into this more, the idea of LARPing.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, can you guys just use cosplaying?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I think that that's where the, like...
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking I totally agree.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: I really hate being a hater.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a hater on being a hater.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I, like, be cringe if you want.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do what you want to do.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a free country.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I do cringe hardcore when I see people going to Montana or YouTube,
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: YouTube, Utah, and they do the full Western getup.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I mean, you have that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you live in Manhattan, please don't buy a cowboy hat.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for your Three days to Montana.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: You live in New York.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my God.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And those hats are so expensive.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, props to the hat people and the farmers in the farmer's market.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know what?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know where to make a profit.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: You guys go.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, I'm not criticizing them, but it is, like, I don't know.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's also, like...
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: The Instagram application of everything.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is like an ancient impulse that rich people have always had.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think of Marie Antoinette and she had her fake little village in her backyard
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: where she cosplayed a peasant girl.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You did?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: She had her husband build a fake small village on The castle property.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And she would go there and dress up as a peasant girl and pretend to feed chickens
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: and milk goats.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you watch the, I highly recommend the Sofia Coppola movie.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blanking on the name right now.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, is it the one
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: with, yeah, I was going to say.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's Marie Antoinette.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's Marie Antoinette.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was real.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: She did that.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I need to watch
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: The bourgeoisie class has always had the impulse to cosplay what they are not.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's so funny.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: It is very funny.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I also think this is very interesting generationally.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like when I was younger,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: being a poser was like the biggest insult someone could give you in middle school.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was like, you're such a poser.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that went away a little bit with Gen Z,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: where lifestyle tourism is so welcome and dupes are totally fine.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's interesting that Gen Alpha,
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: the generation being raised by millennials,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: is kind of bringing back the shame around being fake and being inauthentic
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: with terms like LARPing and cosplaying.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's interesting.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Gen Z's frame it as like, it's my journey to find my true personal style.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on a journey.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is just a stop along the way.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay,
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: I like that framing.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that's like, okay, it's me.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah,
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think that,
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: what is interesting, too,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: is that I actually feel like a lot of what we're talking about is also kind
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: of causing the focus on what we talked about in the first part of this call
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: with this Easter egg,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: discoverability,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: returning to the past of 10 years ago,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: you could go to the farmer's market quietly and show up and you would have something
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: and not for a lot of money.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think the money element here is becoming the barrier to entry.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And what I think it sucks too is that I think COVID was sort of like this big push
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: of people into further corners of spaces where they weren't.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And now many of them have settled there, which I think from an economy standpoint,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think it is good for like sort of middle sized cities like,
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Tampa and Raleigh and like Nashville and like all these different places kind
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: of got sort of more of a surge of people living there full time.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like even out where Emma and I are from,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: like there was a big infusion of people who sort of settled out there as opposed
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: to like staying in the city and coming on the weekends, you know.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it's sort of like with that money coming into some of these places,
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: it kind of like Has sort of disrupted like maybe a less expensive bespoke,
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: you know, culture in each region, you know?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then again,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: with the layer of Instagram on there where it's like everything is so visual
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: and it's all about sort of like displaying one's life in a variety
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: and all these different things,
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: it's kind of like you can see why You know,
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: again, a store in Nantucket is like, get out of here, influencers.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you can see the path as to how that happened.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's like,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: people live on Nantucket now, like,
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: and they go there and they cosplay around like they are from there
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: and there are people who have been there forever and now the internet is reacting.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: So now what is everybody doing?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: We're turning to the past.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're looking for vintage because honestly,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: As Emma pointed out so well on Tuesday,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: there's only so much, and it was made, and you can't replicate it now.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Money can't recreate that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: You could try to make a fresh one, but the one thing we cannot still do is buy time.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: You can't buy time.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it all goes back to gentrification,
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: and I think Instagram has gentrified the farmer's market.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: A bit.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Totally.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you get your bag and then you have competing bags.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how wild is the Trader Joe's Toad?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: Are you serious?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny,
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: speaking of the Trader Joe's Toad,
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've been getting videos from people who live in London,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: specifically,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: and Paris,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: where Trader Joe's Toads are hot commodities over there because it signals to
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: the people around you,
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had enough money to go to America and visit a Trader Joe's
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: because Trader Joe's are just domestic to the US.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: People are coming on vacation to the U.S.,
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: taking a bunch of Trader Joe's totes,
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: going back to London,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: going back to Paris,
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: and reselling them on eBay for hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's $4.99.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's $4.99.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to knock an entrepreneur.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: People who figure that out,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, kudos to them.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: I was just going to say, though,
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: this is kind of making me laugh because I thought about this a little bit after
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: the fact,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: after our conversation on Tuesday,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: you guys, like,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: In relation to all this, like,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: you know who should be doing live auctions and, like, have a component of that?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: EBay.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, they totally should be, like,
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: you know, like,
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: can you,
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_02: can't you, like, see that just being, like, such a no-brainer function in there?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because they are, don't you, like, bid on stuff in there?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: You do bid on stuff.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let me see.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do they do that?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: If they don't, they're, if they do, they're very
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: low-key about it.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: They do?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: They have eBay live.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, my God.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Then I'm the one behind on that.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: But, well, it looks like they're just
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: copying TikTok.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't seem to be very popular.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I am regularly on eBay and I have never.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's another,
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: that's like one of those platforms that I'm like, who are the eBayers of the world?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, they don't get any attention.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: They don't, you guys don't get any attention.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like this is your, yeah,
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: your like top social platforms are not,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: you guys are like quite,
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: it's like, it's like Pinterest, Reddit, and eBay are like the same.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: I swear to God, like they're the same Enneagram or something.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like eBay is very niche.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: I just stuck on Instagram, which is awful and I hate it.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: I hate it here, but here I am, you know.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: But you know,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: there are starting to be eBay content creators where What I like about eBay,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: what I also like about Reddit and Pinterest is the curation.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I curate my subreddits.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: I curate my Pinterest boards.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I curate and dig on eBay, and that's what's fun about it for me.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: There are people who do that for other people.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: There are Substacks that just are like,
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: here are the best 10 things I found on eBay this week and I sourced them for you
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: so you don't have to dig through the platform itself.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's becoming a form.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's labor digging through.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting about that?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: Megan has been on the cutting edge of that.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: For a long time,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: remember how Megan,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: you had said, like,
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: it's a function,
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: if you can identify that as a functionality that's not being used,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: like, on Substack right now, right?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and maybe it has, but, like,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: two years ago when you first said it,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: like, no one was curating
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: other Substacks that you should
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: look at.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And, like,
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: I do think,
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: I do think that that is, like,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: a skill set, whether you apply it to anything, like, whether it's Garden centers.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's like bedding.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of bedding does one buy?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: like even actually,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: in fact, the more niche and weirdly specific you are, I actually think the better.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I think would actually be like such a smart job right now?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not even kidding you.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: You guys are going to laugh.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like a pet consultant for families.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody that would like Meet with the family,
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: do an intake, and be like, you are interested in a pet.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about what that could look like.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: And let's talk about what is needed for that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so it might be like, let's start with a fish.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then this person procures a fish tank,
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: all of that, and is also already built into the family with that.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then like, okay, you guys have proven yourselves with the fish.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm not kidding.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: I have friends who they go to this like
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Really funny pet shop.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's called like Red Hill.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it is like a blast in time, this pet shop.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of scary.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: It has like weird statues everywhere.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: And like they're constantly going,
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: they're buying fish because fish are dying and like they have to buy new ones.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then like you have to, I mean,
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: the thing is when you have some of these pets too,
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: like you're teaching your kids about like death and like caring for something.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it can be really heavy.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, can you imagine a pet consultant?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: It would kill.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: It would kill here in Marin.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: People would do that.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: People would totally hire someone to like, Take care of it.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: And, like, maybe they're a built-in dog walker, too.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's, like, it's all sort of, like, interconnected.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: And they could do training.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: They could be.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Training.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Train the kids.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and here's, like.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: Train the pets.
• 25:22
  Yeah.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: I like training.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, yes, I want my kids trained.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it is a good idea.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to tell my, my sister-in-law is a dog walker, and she.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: She rushes it.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you know why, like, part of why she's so good?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, she's, like, an excellent dog mom herself.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: But she's totally down.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Her kids are grown.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: They're, like, in their latter 20s.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: So she is, like, totally down to, like, stay at someone's house and, like, be with the pet.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: And, like, so these people don't have to, like, board their animal.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the animal doesn't have to leave their home.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, she's the one there.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, my God.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: She's so funny.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, Debbie is, like, just hilarious.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, she was, like,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: texting a friend of mine and was,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: like, Is it okay if I have my coffee first before I take Puppuccino out for a walk?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: And like my friend, Kelly, was like, yes, you can have your coffee before you take the dog out.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you're allowed to.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the dog's name is Puppuccino.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: And her other dog's name is like Nicknack.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: And they're both like these chihuahuas.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Awww.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, everyone needs a Debbie.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, million-dollar.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we're always dropping million-dollar business ideas.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's this week's million-dollar business idea.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Put that below the paywall.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: Emma, let's call that a thing.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Let's call that a thing.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not kidding.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Say, like, today's million-dollar business idea.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, pet consultant, start in Marin.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to tell my swell friends.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean... You can start curating.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Here is what I'll tell you.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Perfect individual for this, okay,
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: is a recent college grad on a gap year that, like,
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: needs to make money,
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: has had pets,
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_02: wants to be entrepreneurial,
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: but doesn't want to sort of, like,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: jump into a nine-to-five into a corporate world and, like, wants to be in Marin.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: They would crush.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you could have a whole business.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: It could be, like, Babysitter's Club, but it's, like, pet people.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, guys.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: We'll leave on that note.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, guys, for a great conversation, as always.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we will be back next week.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, guys.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, guys.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is so fun.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: No, literally.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Great way to start the day.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'll talk to you later.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Bye, guys.