Taylor Lorenz, a columnist at the Washington Post, has helped to popularize “cheugy,” “OK Boomer,” and, most recently, “nimcels.”
She wrote about “niche internet micro celebrities,” or nimcels:
While influencers use their online followings to make money, “for a niche internet micro celebrity, the goal is purely to entertain, versus an influencer,” said Da. “I think this term emerged to distinguish people doing a similar thing to influencers, but for completely different motivations. Being a niche internet micro celebrity feels less capitalist, less ‘I’m a brand.’ ”
On this week’s Dead Cat, we used Lorenz’s latest story as a jumping off point to talk about the evolution of the terms “creators” and “influencers,” the rise of podcasting, and Lorenz’s various Twitter scrapes.
Lorenz is a language obsessive and is writing a book called Extremely Online. She doesn’t like the name for the beat most people associate her with — internet culture reporter — since she doesn’t see a sharp line separating the real world and digital life.
We covered a lot of ground in this week’s episode. We talked about Lorenz’s recent tweet dismissing Dimes Square and her online beef with Marc Andreessen.
“All these billionaires are so fragile,” Lorenz told us.
“I love debating tech. I love it,” Lorenz said. “Andreessen had me on their podcast twice and didn’t release either of the episodes.”
We also discussed Dead Cat co-host Tom Dotan’s latest story on YouTube’s accidental podcast ascendancy.
He wrote over the weekend:
Two recent surveys, one by Cumulus Media and one by Voices, showed that YouTube was the most frequently used podcasting platform, edging out Spotify and Apple's podcasting apps.
…
Last year the entire podcasting industry made $1.4 billion in ad revenue and is set to surpass $2 billion this year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. It’s a quickly growing industry but still a drop in the bucket compared to the $29 billion that YouTube made in ad revenue in 2021, or the $209 billion that Google ads made.
So befitting the provincial, self-referential nature of the podcast industry — we talked about a tiny industry, on an insider-y podcast, with a guest who herself says she’s looking to get into the podcast game.
Give it a listen.
Read the automated transcript.
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00:00:05
Welcome Sally. Hey everybody it's Eric newcomer
00:00:15
here with Tom Dayton. We've got guests.
00:00:18
We've been trying to get on the show for a while.
00:00:21
Taylor Lorenz is here, she has a new one of her stories where she
00:00:27
smartly put has a word. That maybe like one percent of
00:00:32
the population knows and then blast it out to the readers of
00:00:37
the mainstream media. Now, her latest is Nim, sell
00:00:41
famous for propagating to Gigi before, and I'll let her tell us
00:00:49
the back story on this story in a second.
00:00:51
I also have to say Taylor is like I've experienced.
00:00:54
I've seen other people say this on Twitter, but is genuinely
00:00:58
amazing at seeing new Cool things, take off the ground.
00:01:02
I feel like as soon as I announced, my sub Stacks using
00:01:05
my DMs like excited about it. Like giving me audience, which I
00:01:08
can see sort of having experienced it.
00:01:10
Firsthand how important it is to a Creator when somebody like
00:01:14
especially sort of a kingmaker, you know, Creator reporter says
00:01:18
oh this is interesting. I'm going to follow this from
00:01:20
the beginning, so before we get into, Nims, on all that, like
00:01:23
what is your strategy? And don't talk about me.
00:01:26
Because I'm, that was two complementary of myself.
00:01:28
But how do you, how do you sort of like, And I ball things on
00:01:31
the come up or what's your sort of or you just like talking to
00:01:34
everybody or like, what's your strategy for watching this
00:01:37
stuff? Yeah, I just kind of like
00:01:39
consume as much as possible and I just kind of spend all day
00:01:43
absorbing content finding new people.
00:01:46
I love to go down rabbit holes and kind of finding, you know,
00:01:49
interesting new people to talk to in all different types of
00:01:52
sort of tech, industries and content creators.
00:01:56
I'm a big supporter of Independent Media and believer
00:01:58
and Independent Media. So You know, I anytime I see
00:02:03
like a new content creator entered the new space, that's
00:02:05
really exciting for me, you know, I think if I had started
00:02:09
later in my career, I probably would have gone that route by
00:02:11
self. Maybe we'll do it one day but
00:02:14
it's so hard. I don't know.
00:02:16
I'm gonna it's kind of nice to have you know Healthcare.
00:02:19
I will everybody stop stack World wonder is like, on some
00:02:22
level. You're the natural, you know,
00:02:23
independent. I know he was always trying to
00:02:26
get me to do that. Sometimes what I really I mean,
00:02:30
my whole like stick is just trying to get the mainstream
00:02:33
audience to care and to kind of understand the world.
00:02:37
The way that I feel like I see it online every day and so I
00:02:42
kind of you know I like writing for a more you know Boomer.
00:02:46
Like if I'm going to stay up all night reading Twitter they the
00:02:51
world at least needs to understand what's happening on
00:02:55
it. Well, the description I always I
00:02:56
always kind of have a view Taylor is is that you know and
00:03:00
Easy on people probably use is that you're like the great
00:03:02
chronicler of Internet culture of our age.
00:03:05
But then I always think that's a bit of a lazy way to describe it
00:03:08
because there really is no defining line between internet
00:03:10
culture, and culture, more broadly.
00:03:12
And so to kind of segment the to in saying, you know, one is
00:03:16
siphoned off into a certain group of people or listeners
00:03:19
just doesn't really explain what's happened over the last
00:03:22
couple of decades and so actually yeah I'm expanding what
00:03:26
I think of your Horizon and as like an example of this since
00:03:29
we're all just about implementing each other is is
00:03:34
you know as a sign of you know the crossover.
00:03:37
I have some friends that I'm in a book club with and the
00:03:39
information wrote a profile of you.
00:03:41
This is a couple of months ago and they were like oh can you
00:03:44
send me that Taylor profile that was in the information?
00:03:47
And I was like, well when I don't work there anymore to
00:03:50
yeah, sure. This was from people that don't
00:03:53
work in Tech. And so, I think, kind of, the
00:03:55
great thing about internet culture reporting as you sort of
00:03:58
approached, it is that you've shown the Check that it has
00:04:00
beyond that and people do care beyond those that are you know
00:04:04
it's a dated term now but like extremely online.
00:04:06
Oh, I've written well, extremely online is the title of my book
00:04:10
coming out next year from 70. But yeah, I mean, I wrote a
00:04:17
piece on that crypto book schedules, right?
00:04:21
Don't get me. Started on years for these
00:04:22
things to reach the light, but, no, I wrote a piece on that
00:04:26
platform, mirror, that was like some crypto blogging platform,
00:04:29
but I wrote About kind of how I hate the term internet culture
00:04:32
so much and I do use it sometimes because it is
00:04:34
effective shorthand. But yeah I mean I just think the
00:04:37
internet is is our lives and world only getting more and more
00:04:41
you know, it's sort of embedded within it.
00:04:43
So yeah, I consider what I cover very mainstream culture and I
00:04:46
think it's a window into what the world will be like, right?
00:04:51
So I like yeah, I like to cover shifts and in that and obviously
00:04:54
covered the Creator world really early and have stayed on that.
00:04:57
And I just it's fun and exciting.
00:05:00
Cover and kind of like as a as a media nerd myself and attacked
00:05:04
lover, like it's, you know, there's just so much happening
00:05:07
in the space and there's so much to cover and I like to cover it
00:05:09
in a way that gets helps people kind of understand shifts that
00:05:13
are happening in Tech media culture, but in an accessible
00:05:17
way, you know, or in a knot in a condescending way, he's one of
00:05:20
your strategies for engaging audiences.
00:05:22
Now, finding a single word or like we have qg, we have new.
00:05:27
So is there another story that fits in there?
00:05:37
I thought about writing about that, I, you know, there's so
00:05:40
many things I don't, you know, I do I like to write about
00:05:44
language especially, I mean I don't know if you read it not
00:05:47
piece about nature at micro celebrities but like I wrote
00:05:49
this whole history of the word Creator itself, which I've also
00:05:52
written about. I wrote, I love there's this
00:05:59
great book called Has internet by this linguist named Gretchen
00:06:02
McCulloch who wrote about how the internet has impacted
00:06:06
language. And I just think that the words
00:06:08
that we use in the phrases that we use to describe the world
00:06:10
around. Us can often reveal really
00:06:13
interesting shifts in Tech culture.
00:06:15
Whatever. And so I like, I like doing
00:06:18
those stories because I think they're kind of just like using
00:06:22
a phrase or a word as a peg to talk about some broader shift.
00:06:26
All right? This is classic for this podcast
00:06:28
where we talk around the subject before.
00:06:30
Telling people what we're actually so Niche, internet
00:06:33
micro celebrity name cell, give us the like, you know, 60
00:06:37
seconds feel like how did you get onto this story?
00:06:40
What is it? I was so late to the story.
00:06:43
I meant to write about it since last spring.
00:06:44
It's like one of those ones has been on my list for ever.
00:06:47
And then I and then I finally wrote a huge condemnation of the
00:06:49
other people on the beach and they didn't do no one on this.
00:06:57
Just to be clear. It's such a crazy.
00:07:00
Like there's almost no one on it and it's I think that it's super
00:07:05
under resource for every place has like the one person that
00:07:07
covers everything and you know we all cover things from
00:07:10
different lenses and so I know I love everyone on my beat and
00:07:16
none of us have time to get to all the stories that we want to
00:07:18
get to. There could be a hundred more
00:07:20
reporters on the beat and they'd still be so many great Scoops to
00:07:22
get out but yeah, I would himself anyway.
00:07:25
I know one of her like she's never going to let you Like slot
00:07:31
like sniping. No, I would never I don't know
00:07:35
if you that are on your behind and they're great.
00:07:38
I am on it to honestly I mean he gets to the story that I wrote
00:07:42
later but yes, the so many people.
00:07:45
Well, when will, you know it kind of it was it was VidCon
00:07:48
that really made me want to write about this and I think it
00:07:50
was Amanda Pirelli or somebody at Business Insider rotary
00:07:53
competed. Khan is this, it causes it.
00:07:56
Yeah. Online convention, for, for
00:07:58
online video stars. Kind of that whole industry like
00:08:02
the influencers Comic-Con, you can think of it like that.
00:08:05
And this year was the first year that Tick Tock was the title
00:08:08
sponsor. YouTube has sponsored it for 10
00:08:09
years and really pioneered it and tick tock tick over.
00:08:12
And one thing I noticed is just kind of like the way that Fame
00:08:14
has shifted like early VidCon and you know previous vidcon's
00:08:18
that I was at sort of more towards the beginning like you
00:08:21
could get all of the famous people on the internet into a
00:08:24
room. And now I just think we live in
00:08:25
such a networked world. There's that famous post of like
00:08:29
we're all going to be famous too. 100 people and it's very
00:08:31
true. Like, there's a lot more.
00:08:34
Well, the term that I wrote about is like Niche, internet
00:08:36
micro celebrities, which is a very tongue-in-cheek term to
00:08:39
call yourself and himself. But it speaks to this thing of
00:08:42
like micro Fame and sort of like being known to people, but that
00:08:46
doesn't necessarily mean commercial success or like, fame
00:08:50
fame. You know what I mean?
00:08:51
Like, a lot of it's just knowing I'll tell us about the lead.
00:08:54
You had sort of a lead character who is super compelling price
00:08:57
woman. Yes, one of my favorite Nimbus
00:08:59
Al's. So Bryce is this guy in South
00:09:03
Dakota that just had like he's like The Unofficial mayor of
00:09:07
Sioux Falls. And he just has like designated
00:09:09
as such by the mayor actually doesn't need to him as The
00:09:13
Unofficial mayor. He just has this loud and fun
00:09:16
internet personality. That kind of everyone in that
00:09:18
area, five thousand Twitter followers.
00:09:21
So the key here is that deep deep in that world known by sort
00:09:25
of the key people, but then it's sort of a tiny following
00:09:28
somebody called it like context. July's micro thing in a
00:09:31
different era and I wonder if this is some of the pushback, if
00:09:34
there has been on this piece is that it's the concept of a local
00:09:37
celebrity, right. I mean the idea that if you live
00:09:40
in a town, like I grew up in a Suburban town, the guy that
00:09:42
worked at Subway Del everybody knew about Dell and like he was
00:09:47
kind of like a joke that we all had in high school of like, oh
00:09:49
yeah, you're gonna go hang out with Dell later and that meant I
00:09:51
go in a Subway. So that sort of thing has
00:09:53
existed for. I mean, probably hundreds of
00:09:55
years but it sounds to me like what you're getting at in this
00:09:57
piece, is there something in terms of Being online and
00:10:02
connecting to, you know, communities, that are not
00:10:04
physically where you are, that changes, the kind of nature of
00:10:07
this kind of celebrity. Yeah, exactly.
00:10:10
So the big difference now is that it's not localized like
00:10:13
these. I mean, of course, it is a very
00:10:15
local thing right there. Tons of local people like that.
00:10:17
Like you said that I think are kind of like the Online
00:10:19
Evolution of those types of people.
00:10:21
And then you have like just, you know, the most Niche internet
00:10:25
micro celebrities for every little random thing, right?
00:10:28
Like a really popular Facebook group or like a chip Person
00:10:30
that's really into chips or whatever like or they're just
00:10:33
really known for their like, weird Tick-Tock lives and they
00:10:36
only have 10 followers like but they're very known to people
00:10:38
that kind of vibe with them or care about what they are posting
00:10:41
about. Like, in terms of the topic,
00:10:44
it's just about sort of how famous becoming more distributed
00:10:47
I guess. And there's less likely internet
00:10:49
a-lister. I mean, I joked online on
00:10:51
Twitter that I was in nam cell that monetizes.
00:10:53
Well, there's a level that that's not really true, I mean,
00:10:58
but it gets it is sort of question in the Use which is
00:11:00
like do Nim cells monetize or like the sort of being the, the
00:11:05
sort of sense that you're like, an influencer or this small
00:11:08
micro celebrity, but you're not really making money off of it.
00:11:11
Or how did you try to draw that line or how do you think about
00:11:14
him? Well, so, you know, I think
00:11:17
influencer is this, like, capitalistic notion where they
00:11:20
used to be like, oh you got an online following your an
00:11:22
influencer, but these people are not influencers and sense that
00:11:25
like they're not looking to Brand themselves, they're not
00:11:27
looking to have that broader cultural impact.
00:11:30
Of them really have that broader relevance outside their own
00:11:33
Niche, social group, they're just kind of known.
00:11:35
So I think like not being able to monetize is is the story of a
00:11:40
lot of these people because their audiences are too small
00:11:42
and they're not really going into it for that goal so they
00:11:45
say it's yeah exactly. That make it a little bigger.
00:11:47
Maybe try to pose is certainly to not want to monetize and
00:11:51
then, you know, someday your top selling TJ.
00:11:53
If at first, you strike out with the Brand's, you might as well.
00:11:56
Reposition yourself as a name cell.
00:11:57
I do this, I purely cynical but there has to be a Of people that
00:12:01
kind of like didn't quite make the cut in terms of number of
00:12:04
audience that you need to be relevant to Brands and they're
00:12:07
just like actually you know what I really was going for Niche
00:12:11
internet. My yes a lot of them do is like
00:12:12
pivot it into careers in XYZ right.
00:12:15
Like you're known Melissa McDevitt you know like known as
00:12:18
this kind of like Nation are at Microsoft ever T in the tech
00:12:21
world for sounding this Facebook group, used it to get a job.
00:12:25
I think she worked at Google or something like that.
00:12:26
So it's a good way to like, kind of get attention and use that.
00:12:30
Attention. Okay, this part got cut from my
00:12:32
story. I'm going to give you the
00:12:33
highlights because it was way too Niche, Media stuff.
00:12:37
I think the media then part of like a lot of sometimes I write
00:12:40
pieces because I'm just so annoyed by how like bad media
00:12:43
coverage elsewhere. I think certain Publications in
00:12:46
New York cannot distinguish between a niche in and at micro
00:12:51
celebrity in their own little media.
00:12:52
Jason universe and an actual influencer AKA everyone in Times
00:12:56
Square. So this is a long day.
00:13:00
Ugly. He's we actually mentioned sort
00:13:02
of you criticizing the obsession over dime Square out another
00:13:05
episode. Axford, it's not like no hate to
00:13:08
them but like let's not act like these people have any kind of
00:13:11
broader cultural relevance and I think like that and again, zero
00:13:16
hate to them. I just think, like the way, the
00:13:17
media covers it is like you see these Legacy Publications, want
00:13:21
to cover online culture. But they don't have an
00:13:25
understanding of the nuances of the internet enough to like
00:13:28
recognize like WhatsApp. Actually culturally relevant.
00:13:31
I pushed back, you know, was just the like Old Guard media,
00:13:35
my imagination. By the way, I work for Old Guard
00:13:37
me. Yes, I'm like you know, I don't
00:13:39
have it but just like media, Prius like there was a sense
00:13:43
that like, whatever the media talked about was sort of like,
00:13:45
what people were chattering about and sometimes it was sort
00:13:49
of elitist and like, it's not like they're running a poll of
00:13:52
the country and saying, like, what is that on?
00:13:54
Everybody's Miller like a snake. The thing is, is that now I'm
00:13:59
used to always being Like what is a trend?
00:14:01
A trend is something that your editors kids started talking
00:14:03
exactly. But no, but you guys, this is my
00:14:06
whole thing is the past 15 years have been about dismantling that
00:14:10
and so I think we just see right like the New York Times, you
00:14:13
know, style section think as a long and I work there, I love
00:14:16
it. No hate.
00:14:17
But like, you know, the definitely I'm sure in the 90s
00:14:19
was publishing some crazy stuff. The point is, is now that now we
00:14:23
see how out of touch specific coverage is and it's so like,
00:14:28
you know, it's so it's so kind of transparent.
00:14:30
So, I think if you write about culture and use continued to
00:14:33
write in that 90s style, without acknowledging the Internet, it's
00:14:37
like, we can see the numbers, right.
00:14:39
We can see those following. We can see cultural relevance.
00:14:42
So clearly that it's just, it's just out of touch.
00:14:45
Do you think some reader to me, some readers?
00:14:47
Miss that, like, well, of course, really understand that.
00:14:50
And that's your leading people to be misinformed.
00:14:53
Like, even you see sub sex? Even really like, I was
00:14:55
Googling. So I think like, some of these
00:14:57
subjects are talking about Times Square like people want like a
00:15:00
No one step stick is talking about it.
00:15:02
He covers it relentlessly, which is fun.
00:15:04
I, and by the way, again, I'm not saying don't cover the niche
00:15:07
internet, my properties. Okay.
00:15:09
I love covering these people. You literally just wrote an
00:15:11
article about just admit that they're like, you know, five
00:15:13
people care. So, important to contextualize
00:15:16
did not act like that is the monoculture are because it's not
00:15:20
right. But what is the monoculture now?
00:15:22
I mean that's what's so interesting about, you know, the
00:15:24
internet as an audience is that it's literally worldwide.
00:15:27
And so like podcasting is so interesting to me about It
00:15:30
because you can have podcast that have a hundred thousand
00:15:33
listeners that I would bet. Most of my friends have never
00:15:35
heard of I, you said, what is internet monoculture?
00:15:38
There is still right. There is still mass culture on
00:15:40
the internet. There are still people that rise
00:15:43
from the internet, especially in music and entertainment, right?
00:15:46
That are that that are mainstream Lucas.
00:15:49
Shock keeps a list of them, I think you, you know.
00:15:53
But I mean, like, look at the rise of like, so many pop
00:15:56
artists are constantly like, and a lot of celebrities are, you
00:15:59
know, you could look at People like Addison Ray or some of
00:16:01
these like internet, you know, famous.
00:16:03
I know she's probably dropped out popped off but like, you
00:16:07
know, she's putting, you know, definitely 2019, 2020.
00:16:09
We're arguing about our parents. Like, it's, it isn't me like
00:16:12
what Joe Rogan, you know? There's, there's these, there's
00:16:15
these people that break out of their niches, right?
00:16:18
And rise to mainstream Fame but that's not the nation at
00:16:22
Microsoft. All right.
00:16:23
Well I love that. This was a subtree of Dimes
00:16:25
square that you weren't allowed to make.
00:16:29
I wanted to add a A line I wanted to have a line in and
00:16:31
matter is like this is like Niche between and I'm with your
00:16:36
grievances but I'm no, no, no, no, I'm not, it's not Grievous,
00:16:40
it's not. He, I just you don't want to, I
00:16:42
feel like Taylor, you're the best when you have fuse, but
00:16:44
you're actively, like, I don't want to be dragged in any feuds
00:16:47
here, like arguing about these things.
00:16:52
I love starting debates online. I just, you know, I don't want,
00:16:56
I have no, like, I think it's all fun.
00:16:58
It's all of your pro air. In your aunt.
00:17:00
I know you once had a strong. Oh God I'm very antsy and I got
00:17:03
can't bear if he can't bring that up.
00:17:06
You need drum. Anyway.
00:17:07
Next I want it. Speaking of fighting I don't
00:17:10
actually know if you guys did. I don't know where this stances
00:17:12
are here and I certainly don't have one but play out the the
00:17:15
influencer Creator debate. I don't know if one can I read a
00:17:18
section of Your Story Taylor? Because I think I read a whole
00:17:21
story about this by the way. Okay, the Atlantic okay, okay.
00:17:25
Well let me just read the paragraph that I thought was
00:17:27
pretty succinct and got to the point It in, in your post piece.
00:17:32
So this is from your story because the term Creator quotes
00:17:35
with. So, synonymous with YouTube for
00:17:37
years, people didn't know what to call those who were gaining
00:17:39
attention on other apps. It's just funny, you say creator
00:17:42
with students with YouTube and there is a term for them called
00:17:44
YouTubers. So I'm interested, why?
00:17:46
Yeah, sort of and they were it didn't transfer because YouTube
00:17:49
itself, I have a whole section on this, in my book I actually
00:17:51
wrote a whole piece about this specifically.
00:17:55
Yeah I'll stop playing a couple years ago.
00:17:58
I met I write this piece like you Again, I love talking about
00:18:01
language, so I'm sure you guys remember, originally YouTubers
00:18:04
were called Partners. Do you guys remember that?
00:18:07
Well, that relates to the YouTube Partner program.
00:18:09
Yes, exactly an initiative. Right?
00:18:11
And so then they bought next new networks and and next new kind
00:18:14
of coined this term Creator and that became so synonymous with
00:18:17
YouTube because YouTube pushed that term, right?
00:18:19
They had the whole ad campaign. It was all creators.
00:18:21
I'm sure. Mark, Bart Bergens book gets
00:18:23
into this to really go after you.
00:18:27
She's awesome. So, you know, it It was people
00:18:31
who were Vine stars and influencers on Instagram.
00:18:35
Remember, they were called Instagram Stars.
00:18:36
People didn't even use that word.
00:18:37
Influenza there was these like, weird words that people and blog
00:18:42
Tumblr, you know, Tumblr, I blood pretty or whatever.
00:18:45
It wasn't until marketers who had always use the term
00:18:48
influencer. Since the early 2000s, you know,
00:18:50
put marketing dollars into the industry and the marketing
00:18:53
industry was dominating. The monetization of that
00:18:56
industry, that that term influencer became popularized.
00:18:58
Also the fall of Vine People needed a word, like, Logan Paul
00:19:02
became so platform agnostic and he became more of a YouTuber.
00:19:05
So anyway and then it didn't flip back and talk to creators
00:19:08
until in the past year. Really, but really 2021 when
00:19:12
tack, when the tech industry came and I think part of that
00:19:15
was because the tech industry is always preferred that term.
00:19:19
And also, because I think a lot of VCS want to distance
00:19:22
themselves between from their bad takes about influencers,
00:19:25
which they spent, you know, everything shitting on his
00:19:28
interests. And also Creator is such a A
00:19:30
good capitalist sort of like, yeah, well, not as good as
00:19:32
influencer though, right? And then I got the greatest one
00:19:35
because that means you can influence other people to buy
00:19:37
products, which like you said earlier is a capitalist arrived
00:19:40
term. I mean, it's as pure As It Gets
00:19:42
In terms of what function they serve to the people that care
00:19:45
about them, which is that these people can push product, which
00:19:48
is how the, you know, the market moves but it but the way that
00:19:52
that people started to monetize has shifted as you guys know,
00:19:55
right? So, it was about pushing
00:19:57
products. So I think influencer was the
00:19:59
best term but I I think as people have relied on more
00:20:01
direct monetization, I think a lot of people that term Creator
00:20:06
is stuck, a little bit more like is used by platforms, like
00:20:09
pushing that or like, no hate for procreator or what's your
00:20:12
preferred. What term do you prefer?
00:20:15
Oh, I love all of them. I loved the web pretty.
00:20:17
Do you guys remember that one? Yeah, that was in your piece and
00:20:20
it was a little Elmer Fudd for me.
00:20:22
Oh my God, I was such a thing in like the Julia Allison.
00:20:26
If Fame ball people used to go, I just think it's, you know,
00:20:29
people are always always trying to kind of articulate this term
00:20:33
for, for you. No more distributed media
00:20:35
environment. I don't have a preference
00:20:37
preference, I mean, Creator and influence are interchangeable.
00:20:40
And a lot of times when you hear people hating on the word
00:20:43
influencer, they it's a little bit of a like misogyny you type
00:20:47
of energy because influence her because the right, you know, you
00:20:52
have to remember the pioneers and the Pioneers that pioneered,
00:20:55
the whole quote unquote Creator, economy were women and people of
00:20:58
color and lgbtq Unity. And again, a lot of VCS were, I
00:21:04
think, like to like distance themselves from the roots of
00:21:06
that, which is a shame, but Creator, you know, I think it
00:21:09
all works out. It's, it's how you wear it
00:21:12
right, that matters, right? And what you mean to your
00:21:15
audience? Yeah, we back to the platform's
00:21:17
specifically. I don't know how much you you
00:21:20
want to make this point in your piece but like the Nim cell
00:21:24
concept, seems intrinsically married to tick tock, I
00:21:28
understand that there are named cells that Are on and you
00:21:30
mentioned there on, whatever Reddit boards are, you know,
00:21:32
Discord or twitch and all other kinds of things.
00:21:35
But just from my read of it though, nature of the
00:21:39
algorithmic feed. And, you know, these kind of a,
00:21:42
i derived entertainment channels would push people towards.
00:21:46
I mean, everything is curated for your particular interest as
00:21:48
the app understands. And so the NIMS cell idea just
00:21:51
seems like it fits so perfectly with that because this is about
00:21:55
Niche interests and this is about an app that is trying to
00:21:58
do its best to cater to what it thinks.
00:22:00
Your interests are which are inherently Niche, I mean, what
00:22:02
do you think like how much how much of a name cell is Tick-Tock
00:22:05
versus the other platforms that you kind of describe in the
00:22:08
piece? Yeah so it actually emerged in
00:22:10
the Instagram meme Community for Niche meme Pages which are so
00:22:16
popular but I think you're right.
00:22:17
Tom 100% like this term would not exist without the rise of
00:22:21
tick-tock I think because you, you wouldn't have seen and I
00:22:24
think with people getting more online during the pandemic and
00:22:26
kind of becoming more networks themselves and knowing more
00:22:29
online people, But yeah it's completely tied to that because
00:22:32
I you know like famous so distributed on Tick-Tock exactly
00:22:35
what you just said the algorithm is like spoon-feeding you
00:22:37
content right in your Niche. I mean like Tick-Tock has been
00:22:40
so good at like the long tail whereas Facebook has sort of
00:22:44
seem to shovel everyone to like Ben Shapiro ultimately or like
00:22:47
these big big Pages. Whereas Tick-Tock and so quickly
00:22:52
Zoom you into whatever, like small Niche, you're interested
00:22:55
in. I want to go to the end of your
00:22:57
piece to because you have a bit of a like dystopic Quote from
00:23:01
from, from one of your one of your characters.
00:23:04
This is at the end of it. You say it's fun to be part of
00:23:06
this wave said Peter, whatever it is and start.
00:23:08
Who's Peter again, Alex Peter. He's he's like a lawyer.
00:23:12
Yeah he blocked me. I don't know what I don't like
00:23:16
him. I don't know.
00:23:17
I feel okay I'll tell him to unblock you I'll talk to him.
00:23:20
Oh I want to know more about that if you're if you're on the
00:23:24
outs with lawyer Twitter he's great though he okay he's
00:23:28
definitely more of a you know Ray Aging anti-capitalist.
00:23:31
I do run a VC newsletter but okay, okay, it's been, here's
00:23:36
the quote, it's fun to be part of this waste of Peter, whatever
00:23:38
it is. I think some people think it's
00:23:40
the decline of society and maybe they're right, but it's
00:23:42
interesting. Let's, let's unpack that a
00:23:45
little bit here. I mean, why would people think
00:23:47
that this type of character is in some way like reflective of a
00:23:50
social and societal decline. Yeah.
00:23:53
That is very tongue-in-cheek quote that I included kind of as
00:23:56
a joke. Like it's a nod to like these
00:23:59
hate these people. That I think do feel like it's a
00:24:01
downfall of society and the heat on the internet a lot, it's
00:24:04
definitely not the downfall of society.
00:24:06
I am very, I mean, I think I'm very Pro these shifts.
00:24:11
I think that are happening and media Purity to it, right?
00:24:14
I mean, like, yeah, the things that the internet has gone
00:24:16
through is, you know, in the origins of YouTube in the first
00:24:19
people that were successful on it, the claim that these people
00:24:22
always had was like, hey I was just posting this so my friends
00:24:24
could see it. It was just a way that we could
00:24:26
host these things and there was kind of like a Homespun
00:24:28
earnestness to it. It.
00:24:30
And then, once it became, you know, people got huge, If people
00:24:33
could see there's a business, the whole like, you know,
00:24:36
capitalistic Community got involved in it, it obviously
00:24:39
shifted and to be like as uncynical as possible, it seems
00:24:42
like the Nim cell idea is kind of a return to those roots,
00:24:45
right? I'm not making me crazy, it's
00:24:47
just me doing the things that I love to do and finding, you
00:24:50
know, a large enough audience for me to feel like I'm reaching
00:24:52
people, right? Know 100%, you're 100% right?
00:24:56
And that's I think the beauty of this and what's really Read
00:25:00
about it. And so.
00:25:01
Yeah. And Alex.
00:25:02
I think Alex knows it agrees, obviously, being an imbecile
00:25:05
himself, but I just thought it was a funny Queen have to be
00:25:08
sort of arch about the whole thing because part of it is
00:25:11
you're not trying to be this big Creator but now you're in the
00:25:14
post. So you have yeah right I wanted
00:25:17
to and we I really like the themes of this part of the
00:25:21
conversation will carry over to the next but Tom I mean you have
00:25:24
a story sort on YouTubes. I don't know if it's that they
00:25:28
just fell backwards and To being great at podcasting or or if
00:25:32
this was a strategy or how much credit you give YouTube or they
00:25:35
just have lists Juggernaut that they locked out with or like,
00:25:40
what, what is your take on why? Well, first prove to us, I guess
00:25:44
the YouTube is ascendant and podcasting, and then why did
00:25:47
that happen? Sure, I don't even know how much
00:25:49
I have to prove. Yeah, as I'm moving on to the
00:25:51
YouTube video, I was talking to some of my media sources back
00:25:54
with that was, you know, my racket and I was like, oh, I'm
00:25:57
covering YouTube. They're like, you know, they're
00:25:59
huge and Thing and I'm like, what do you mean?
00:26:01
Huge and podcast? I mean, like they're literally
00:26:03
the largest platform of podcasts and distributor podcasts out
00:26:07
there. Like there was a survey, they
00:26:08
came out to surveys, I found earlier this year, that showed
00:26:11
that more people, listen to podcasts on YouTube than they do
00:26:14
on Spotify or apple. And so, and the fact that I
00:26:18
didn't know this was something that I realized I was reporting
00:26:20
the Pieces Just because I'm old, I was gonna say I listen to all
00:26:24
podcasts on YouTube that's like the place to go for podcast.
00:26:27
Yeah. And like the more I think about
00:26:29
it. I uh, Obviously Listen to, It's
00:26:30
not on YouTube to so it shouldn't have been a surprising
00:26:32
to me as it was. But yeah, the fact is, you know
00:26:35
where is Spotify? For example, when they went into
00:26:37
podcasting there were like we're going to fucking spend hundreds
00:26:40
of millions of dollars were going to sign exclusive deals.
00:26:43
We're going to make it clear to people that this is the place
00:26:45
that you should, you know, list to subscribe and listen to all
00:26:48
of your podcast and apple is starting to do that now and you
00:26:51
know Stitcher got bought by iHeartRadio and there was like a
00:26:53
huge cash infusion into this space to make different
00:26:57
platforms, the podcast Hub and then you too.
00:26:59
Because it is I think as I described in the piece it's like
00:27:02
a massive star just that because of its gravitational, pull can
00:27:06
just like absorbed various things into its orbit that it
00:27:11
didn't intend to. And like the example that
00:27:14
happened before this was music, right?
00:27:16
YouTube is through the single largest music platform out there
00:27:18
not because YouTube there YouTube's actual music efforts.
00:27:21
They fucking suck. They fail every time you know
00:27:24
that they make like YouTube red and YouTube music subscription
00:27:26
Services, no one likes them. Well, the Bergen book which
00:27:29
we're going to talk about Much more about, but sort of gets to
00:27:30
the point that whenever Google tried to like, do these contract
00:27:34
things, like from the beginning, that was sort of the failed
00:27:36
strategy and when YouTube Just leaned into like let the masses
00:27:39
do what they want. They've been wildly successful
00:27:41
and so the negotiated strategy the business development
00:27:45
impulse. But if but you know, like the
00:27:47
Taylor's old beat, it's just been sort of let it to the
00:27:50
consumer and the creators and that's a more powerful force.
00:27:54
Yeah. And and so, like a lot of the
00:27:56
basic features that we expect of podcasting players as like
00:27:59
Catchers ourselves. We're like, well, he needs an
00:28:01
RSS feed so we can just auto upload or episode when it's
00:28:04
done. It needs to be able to like
00:28:07
fucking play when it's in my pocket so that it doesn't just
00:28:11
turn off every time it's the YouTube app.
00:28:12
Does I mean like basic basic features they don't even have
00:28:15
right? But because it's like this, an
00:28:18
incredible as you like written about so many times, Taylor like
00:28:21
this incredible audience, aggregator and the algorithm has
00:28:24
this insanely powerful. May be dangerously powerful
00:28:28
recommendation tool. It gets people keyed into
00:28:31
different podcasts, which is always been this huge issue for
00:28:34
podcasting, which is like, how do I find out about a new show
00:28:36
to listen to the apps? You know, like Spotify and all
00:28:39
those guys suck at it, but YouTube is the best at it.
00:28:42
And so for all these reasons, it's become this thing.
00:28:45
And you know like Spotify that they consider them their number
00:28:48
one threat a YouTuber. Is, you know, it's like I guess
00:28:51
with the piece as I was like, reporting it out, like tried to
00:28:54
raise is like, what does it even mean to make a podcast at this
00:28:57
point? Like if it's, you know, if you
00:28:59
Something like Joe Rogan, right? He's like, my lead example in
00:29:02
the story, he was huge on YouTube, obviously a tons, like
00:29:04
millions and millions of subscribers to his audio show
00:29:08
but he would have probably more people on YouTube that we just,
00:29:12
you know, listen in on our watch and listen on his and it on his
00:29:15
whole show. And so you know, I think this
00:29:17
whole world you think it's one thing and then it becomes
00:29:19
something else which I guess is like the core of sort of what
00:29:22
you write about Taylor. But but yeah, that's essentially
00:29:25
like the YouTube podcasting story and no one really knows
00:29:27
yet like how much they're going to invest.
00:29:29
To like take it on or it's just going to continue being you know
00:29:32
the side project that also is the most powerful thing in the
00:29:35
industry. I'm wondering Tom like how much
00:29:38
of it is, you know, Spotify keeps trying to get you to like,
00:29:42
watch these video podcasts, like, do you think that's trying
00:29:46
to compete with YouTube and like ad?
00:29:48
Because I've heard that, you know, they're just trying to get
00:29:50
everyone to create video content for their podcast 100%.
00:29:53
And actually, in the story, I was saying that the reason that
00:29:56
they have a video player is because of Joe Rogan I mean they
00:30:00
were going to do it regardless but like as they were signing
00:30:02
the deal for him and his team was like look this guy's got
00:30:06
millions of viewers on YouTube. You do want to just lose that
00:30:09
they like had secludes together really quickly.
00:30:11
This video player to kind of appease those kinds of people
00:30:14
and so I guess like the fine line here is between like a
00:30:17
podcast versus a talk show because that's all it is right,
00:30:21
you know, it's like what we're doing is a talk show.
00:30:22
If we posted this, which we want.
00:30:24
I guess on YouTube, we technically made a pot.
00:30:27
No, it's embarrassing to have you.
00:30:29
You say no, the most powerful podcast platform in the world is
00:30:32
YouTube platform that we do not publish to.
00:30:36
Yeah. But I mean it's much more
00:30:37
production obviously. Right is podcasting, sort of a
00:30:40
thing of the Elites in some way or the sort of part of our
00:30:44
blindness. I guess to the YouTube issue
00:30:47
would seem to be that, you know, someone like me like I want
00:30:50
podcasts like multitask. Marty busy.
00:30:52
It's hard for me to imagine like sitting listening to like Joe
00:30:55
Rogan talk for like hours on end.
00:30:58
Just like dedicating my Attention to that.
00:31:00
It feels like the biggest like waste of time even though I can
00:31:03
see why he's an Entertainer. It's just like getting your full
00:31:06
attention. That is hardly also you can put
00:31:08
any place on YouTube, right? I don't find that way because
00:31:11
like I put on the H3 podcast, which is really long.
00:31:14
And I just like what happened on double speed and just kind of
00:31:17
like which one is H3? H3, H3 podcast.
00:31:20
Wait, are you serious? See, this is what I'm talking
00:31:24
about. The probably has like hundreds
00:31:25
of thousands of listen. What is it?
00:31:27
Has no clue about its massive. Of.
00:31:29
Yeah, it's like those Ethan Klein.
00:31:32
Do you guys know the H 3 H, have you ever?
00:31:35
Yeah, they have almost 3 million Subs but like it's one of the
00:31:37
bigger, the higher castes never heard of it.
00:31:41
Okay. Well there's, you know, there's
00:31:43
a lot like that. I mean, only recognize this guy,
00:31:46
I guess. I I've seen The chopped-up
00:31:48
Tick-Tock of it. I guess I see a lot of these
00:31:50
things now on just like Tick Tock, like hits of it.
00:31:53
Yeah, here's a podcast with Hassan as well.
00:31:55
Yeah, I mean I think that there's so many podcasts I feel
00:31:58
like every No, sort of nation at Microsoft research, Society,
00:32:02
country, two dudes in a room decide.
00:32:06
I'm trying to fuck us to. I'm not hating.
00:32:08
I'm trying to get back in there. I love podcasts.
00:32:12
I think I think audio is a compelling format and like you
00:32:14
said video, I mean the video component just kind of adds to
00:32:18
it. Different podcasts have
00:32:20
different levels of production but I think a lot of YouTubers
00:32:22
also have pivoted. I mean look at what Logan Paul
00:32:24
did that's like his whole business now.
00:32:26
Right right. Yeah and I was like as video as
00:32:29
it could get Get. But his show is really just him
00:32:31
and his buddies, you know, sitting behind a desk.
00:32:33
You know, you know, just talking shit.
00:32:35
The pandemic also seem to play a part in it.
00:32:37
I'm, I'm curious for you Taylor. Like, as you, you know, we're
00:32:42
consuming you to podcasts. I don't know if you were always
00:32:44
a work from home person or that obviously, you know, was a
00:32:48
product of, you know, the pandemic.
00:32:50
But as people were telling me, you know, because you could just
00:32:53
have a tab open at home, listening to a podcast in the
00:32:56
back room, maybe click over and listen to and Watch it a few
00:33:00
times. That kind of helps accelerate
00:33:02
that Trend was that was that your situation as well?
00:33:05
Or you just have always liked YouTube for any other reason to
00:33:09
be your podcast place. The podcast that I listened to
00:33:13
were on YouTube, like I listen to a lot of YouTuber podcasts
00:33:16
and I think like as somebody that covers the beat I'm just I
00:33:19
also spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos or like
00:33:23
listening to them really like listening to video essays on
00:33:25
YouTube. So for me, you know, I feel like
00:33:29
that was just The easiest one and add the Apple podcast player
00:33:32
is so bad. You know that.
00:33:33
I feel like I got into YouTube priest Spotify.
00:33:36
I definitely the pockets that I listened to on Spotify or like
00:33:39
the Wall Street Journal daily podcast.
00:33:41
You know, it's like the news one, you know.
00:33:43
But the other ones, do you listen to All In?
00:33:46
We got everyone tells me to listen to that.
00:33:49
I have listened to few times. They talk about meteors you have
00:33:52
a take. Let us say, it's full of people
00:33:54
that have at certain points in their lives like gone after you.
00:33:57
So I don't know how excited I really loved your well, You know
00:34:00
it's drama queen you and Jason I thought have like front of me
00:34:04
your end of it along sometimes Frenemies I'm not enemies with
00:34:07
anything. Yeah they like to like well I
00:34:09
think in 2020 I think what happened is the VCS all decided,
00:34:14
you know. I mean Jason to be fair.
00:34:15
Jason was Jason's been in like the influencer, like he's always
00:34:19
been on my beat, he's not who I'm talking about.
00:34:21
But you know, people that injuries and other people that
00:34:24
like had always kind of ignored my space and influencers pays
00:34:28
forever suddenly now decide I'd that they want to be in it.
00:34:31
I think they felt very threatened.
00:34:33
Well, they need Viagra. I don't know.
00:34:36
I'm die love debating Tech. I love it Anderson.
00:34:40
I had me on their podcast twice and didn't release either of
00:34:42
that bus. Oh my God.
00:34:43
What, what what would you like to say something about to piss
00:34:49
off, Mark, and then he was like, fuck this girl, what did you
00:34:52
say? They're really sensitive people.
00:34:54
Yeah. Oh, they're babies.
00:34:56
They're babies babies. I just like, it's so like People
00:35:00
who are such die-hard like free speech.
00:35:02
People the amount that they're nervous system Beach at all,
00:35:05
they're not, you know, they that's their pose, but then they
00:35:09
there they like scare everybody. In Silicon Valley that like, if
00:35:12
you say something about us, we're like watching you.
00:35:14
They're very aware of like what people are saying.
00:35:17
I feel like it's, it's really bad.
00:35:20
One thing that I have to say that I love is discovering new
00:35:24
little like really highly preventional kind of groups on
00:35:28
the internet like media Twitter is very much like that,
00:35:30
especially New York media, and I never was on Tech Twitter mostly
00:35:33
because those people kind of, didn't they weren't relevant to
00:35:36
my beat, like, I talk to people at YouTube, maybe the platforms,
00:35:39
but like, definitely not the PCS other than, I mean, see, what is
00:35:42
it tpg or the churn and group? There they were, they were might
00:35:47
and, and light speed, and some other, you know, I talked to
00:35:49
them sometimes, but the, like a reason, whatever.
00:35:52
And 2020, I think they all just decided to get involved.
00:35:55
And I, that's the first time that I discovered Tech Twitter
00:35:57
and I love it. The story.
00:36:01
I feel like it's been maybe a year and a half that VCS were
00:36:06
just like trying to will consumer investments into being.
00:36:09
I mean, there really haven't been a lot.
00:36:11
I mean, you could argue. Some people will say, like,
00:36:12
coinbase, Robin Hood given, but like, I feel like a true like
00:36:16
consumer company hasn't really hit.
00:36:19
Obviously injuries to went all in on clubhouse.
00:36:21
You know. Haha, sub stock is sort of
00:36:23
consumer. I mean, be real.
00:36:27
I mean, what not? I don't know.
00:36:28
Like, Are you? Yeah.
00:36:31
Are you optimistic about any like the new sort of startups?
00:36:35
Well, I think it's cool and I like to see new.
00:36:38
I mean, we need more and more competitive landscape in terms
00:36:41
of social, but yeah, they do try and will things into existence
00:36:45
and they're just so there's a lot of drama and pettiness in
00:36:48
that world and obsession with image, which I find so fun to
00:36:52
watch. I think that's what I love about
00:36:54
covering it influencer world and like, they really want that it.
00:36:57
They want influence so badly. So It's fun.
00:37:00
It's always satisfying to see that.
00:37:02
No matter how wealthy people are.
00:37:04
They still end up having like many of the same concerns that
00:37:08
everyone else has. It's like I'm petty feuds on
00:37:10
Twitter like I. Yeah, well certainly filtering
00:37:13
any of that through Twitter. Yeah, I mean I gotta say Taylor
00:37:16
and you're like, you know, the real cultural Anthropologist of
00:37:20
the internet. So I may be out of my league
00:37:22
here. But like I think Twitter 2020
00:37:25
around the time that this sort of thing was happening that
00:37:27
these guys are all getting up one of the worst times.
00:37:29
Times on Twitter. I just felt like people are so
00:37:32
disjointed and unhappy and just like, spewing out left and
00:37:36
right, anything? I mean we may be terrified
00:37:38
because of the pandemic and, you know, stuck at home and they
00:37:41
people were just losing their minds, but that whole period
00:37:44
just awful. Well, we got any Trump I think
00:37:46
that helped in some ways. Tom, you're totally right.
00:37:49
Like I think a lot of there was a lot of like rage and
00:37:53
frustration that was like pent-up and it kind of came to a
00:37:56
head and I think, especially in the tech world.
00:37:59
Yeah, it was so vicious. I was so surprised because I'm
00:38:03
such a and I think this is why none of these tech people have
00:38:06
been able to like you know they wanted to paint me as this like
00:38:10
in SeaTac data dot when it's like Kara Swisher was had
00:38:13
something on Twitter. It's like you could not pick a
00:38:15
worse, right? Person to kind of like try and
00:38:18
apply those labels to, cause it's like, just counterfactual
00:38:21
to, like, literally everything I right?
00:38:23
And so yeah, it's funny. And I ate and now they've moved
00:38:27
on. I think two different things.
00:38:29
Eggs and sugar and it's kind of diffuse now.
00:38:31
And you know, kind of thinking about this.
00:38:33
I don't even know Eric's thought about this in a way that period
00:38:36
and like you're being a central character to that is almost the
00:38:40
inspiration for this podcast. Wow.
00:38:43
No. Because there was so much it
00:38:45
wasn't just about you. It was also about this
00:38:47
generalized feeling. Yeah, that's right.
00:38:49
Yes. I met a conversation about it.
00:38:52
I mean, part of what's frustrating about Twitter is
00:38:54
that it's so short that it feels like.
00:38:56
You can't really have the actual debate.
00:38:59
And that these tech people have their own built-in audience so
00:39:02
they can get super validated. They act like what we're the
00:39:06
cathedral right? Where are the reporters that are
00:39:08
so powerful? So they act like, we're the
00:39:10
elites even though they often have like bigger following than
00:39:13
us, certainly way more money and people their fans have a
00:39:17
financial incentive to suck up to them because these are the
00:39:20
people that might give them funding but then they act like
00:39:22
they're the victims and then reporters who, I mean, this is
00:39:25
the most, you know, complimentary of us.
00:39:27
You could be, we wanted to Beat It.
00:39:29
It out where the suckers for like, oh yeah, you disagree with
00:39:32
me, let's have like this substantive debate, so it's easy
00:39:35
to and I think as somebody that loves Tech and like, you know,
00:39:42
good products people, I, I find when I, it's like, they like to
00:39:45
kind of, like, think of think about things in an interesting
00:39:48
way, right? And like feel like, hey, like
00:39:50
let's take a look at this product and how it's being used
00:39:52
and emergent user behavior and think about it.
00:39:54
And I think it's, you know, but I will say it every time, I
00:39:57
criticize Tech Twitter or VC is People like not all you know not
00:40:01
and it's true. It is more like Normie.
00:40:03
Sort of only the normal ones are just not doing the feuds but I
00:40:07
think it's fun. I mean I think it's fun to cover
00:40:09
as a journalist and that's I agree.
00:40:11
That's the benefit of podcasting, right?
00:40:13
You can like go a little deeper and it's more obvious is if
00:40:17
someone isn't engaging on a podcast or whereas on Twitter
00:40:20
that you can just say your thing I mean we talk about this
00:40:24
endlessly but Marc Andreessen like the fact that he invested
00:40:27
in real estate thing after the whole Be incident and never even
00:40:31
has to like these where the circle he never even has to say,
00:40:35
oh yeah, this is why I wrote the letter because we live in this
00:40:38
media environment where you can just do two contradictory things
00:40:41
and never really have to answer which is it the contradictions,
00:40:44
right? Like that is like classic
00:40:46
YouTuber, Behavior, never apologize.
00:40:48
Never could sleep. You write your own narrative,
00:40:51
right? And I think that, you know,
00:40:53
yeah, Mark has learned that I just was dying because like,
00:40:56
Mark wants to be you on so badly and he's just not Just like
00:41:03
you're like Netscape wasn't huge.
00:41:05
Like what have you built? Like I think he's desperately.
00:41:07
Wants that wider cultural relevance and he wants to be an
00:41:10
influencer. He's just not like uses Twitter
00:41:12
audience but like no normal person knows or cares about him
00:41:15
and he's really increasingly out of touch and it's just so funny
00:41:19
to like, watch him scramble. One of the show where enablers
00:41:23
the show is named after Marc Andreessen Mark Zuckerberg
00:41:27
exchange. Yeah, mark injuries and I assume
00:41:30
we have enough new people that is good to refresh but Marc Marc
00:41:34
Andreessen messages, look in a sort of text to come out in a
00:41:38
lawsuit where and reasons like the cat's in the bag and the
00:41:41
bags and the river over like some shareholder thing and and
00:41:45
Zuckerberg is like does that mean the cat's dead?
00:41:47
And so that's anyway. Yeah, the whole concept of
00:41:52
influence is such an interesting thing and this again goes back
00:41:56
to your Nim cell idea because there seems to be a huge But
00:42:00
passing Trend among everyone in involved in all of these about
00:42:04
who really has influence and you know who deserves power.
00:42:08
And, you know, I mean, that's why everyone wants to play the
00:42:10
victim because if you're the victim, that means you have no
00:42:13
influence that, you were the subject of larger forces that
00:42:16
are causing you, your unhappiness or worse.
00:42:20
He so, like, in the case of Marc Andreessen him, wanting
00:42:23
influence, the man has a huge amount of influence.
00:42:25
He is the commander, doesn't have cultural relevance?
00:42:29
Evans, he doesn't. He's not a, he's not a
00:42:33
culturally relevant, like he's culturally relevant in Tech.
00:42:36
But I think what he wants is like Normie people.
00:42:39
When I'll never forget, I was doing this documentary about
00:42:42
this all black content House in Atlanta.
00:42:44
One of the first, all black tick tock houses in the fall of 2020
00:42:49
or winter of 2020. And these one of these kids was
00:42:52
like, oh yeah, I have Clubhouse. I love Clubhouse.
00:42:55
The only thing is I hate when you get on and they force you to
00:42:58
follow these, like, Random old white guys at Mark Anderson and
00:43:02
they're all, oh, that guy. That's so yeah.
00:43:04
Yeah, you gotta block him immediately.
00:43:06
Anyway, like I just was like guy because I'm like, these people
00:43:08
have no idea who he is, but he wants.
00:43:10
He wants so badly like but of course, they're all fragile.
00:43:14
I mean, all these billionaires are so fragile.
00:43:16
Looks like anyone right now even though he's like the Paragon of
00:43:19
like, what these people want to be, the guy is claiming
00:43:21
victimhood constantly on Twitter.
00:43:23
I mean, he's buying the company and still thinks he's a victim.
00:43:26
Of course. What's your?
00:43:28
Yeah. What's the one we Haven't talked
00:43:29
about maybe you love the most, but what's your view on Balaji
00:43:33
these days? Like he put out a huge book, but
00:43:35
it feels like his me blocked me. So I tried to get an interview
00:43:38
with him and he blocked me. But of course he said I don't
00:43:41
see him at all. Like I he doesn't penetrate her
00:43:43
like, is he not here relevant? Yeah, he's just not relevant.
00:43:46
Like he's not relevant, I think and I think also you know, I
00:43:49
loved that part in Cade metz's story from a year and a half ago
00:43:54
where he got that email from biology, where he's talking
00:43:56
about targeting about her post. It just shows how Desperate and
00:44:00
how hard these people are trying to work to attack.
00:44:03
People that like, guys, we don't give a fuck about you like
00:44:06
you're so Random like me, I'm sure there's definitely, no, I
00:44:12
mean, definitely, they don't believe in democracy, that's one
00:44:15
of those. I mean, it's the classic sort of
00:44:16
all right, tactic where it's out there, but they won't just like,
00:44:19
say, I'm against democracy. What would actually let can.
00:44:23
We could have any that when you mean by that, why do you think
00:44:25
they don't believe in democracy? I mean, they basically say that
00:44:28
ball. CCP New York Times Like Bitcoin
00:44:33
sort of try I mean, yeah, they oh no sure.
00:44:36
I understand that. I mean look I need you read the
00:44:38
books that Marc Andreessen tweets.
00:44:40
It's like the Machiavelli, like supporting like Blake Masters
00:44:43
and stuff people that are like saying like, you know, only men,
00:44:46
like it's obvious. They don't or, yeah, I guess if
00:44:50
you want to extend the idea that anyone who supports the current
00:44:53
Republican party, I mean, I'd argue any version of it.
00:44:55
I don't think it's just that. I think it's their whole like,
00:44:57
you know, Right? I think they've talked about
00:45:01
this. Like they talked about, like,
00:45:04
their whole thing with a II mean, people like Natasha
00:45:06
Teague, my colleague and, like, speak to this, because I'm not
00:45:08
deep in Silicon Valley lure, but they're definitely all
00:45:11
reactionary and kind of weird have weird political beliefs.
00:45:14
This is sort of a tag on this but are you are you free to like
00:45:19
have opinions of any sort? Now like you're a calmness or
00:45:22
what sort of the former columnist, sorry do you have
00:45:26
like political opinions on Twitter or do you try now
00:45:28
Minotaur? Political opinions on Twitter.
00:45:31
Are you crazy or it's just it's not allowed or like what
00:45:35
something? I know.
00:45:37
I, you know, I feel personally like Twitter, I just kind of go
00:45:42
to share like news and stuff on my beat.
00:45:44
I really I used to tell my like, when I was a running social
00:45:47
media for news companies, I would always say like tweet your
00:45:50
beat, which I find you because I feel like people subscribed to
00:45:53
me for news about influencer stuff.
00:45:54
They don't want to hear me talk about abortion or student debt
00:45:58
or whatever like those are there.
00:45:59
Qualified people to talk about that.
00:46:00
The one thing I do talk about is chronic illness and and covid
00:46:03
stuff because it's affected me. So personally, but that's that's
00:46:07
about as political as I get online and sometimes I would
00:46:11
retweet, you know, just that we live in like hellscape of
00:46:15
environment. Broadly.
00:46:16
But I'm pretty. I mean, I'm, I'm, I don't,
00:46:19
that's another thing. I think these people are always
00:46:21
like, oh, you know, tell around soda.
00:46:23
I'm nobody knows. I'm not, I'm never open about my
00:46:26
political beliefs really well, but to be fair, Although you did
00:46:30
write that article about the person who was out there,
00:46:33
tweeting about all of the trans teachers and, you know,
00:46:37
different types of tags that. Yeah.
00:46:39
Yeah. Hi.
00:46:40
Rachel has a huge influence, right?
00:46:43
No, I cover I cover policy, I cover political stuff all the
00:46:46
time and I was a political reporter for two years.
00:46:48
I cover politics but I'm just saying like I'm not came at that
00:46:53
with, you know, the angle which I and I think any normal person
00:46:56
should agree with that. This person is also bad.
00:46:59
What Doing anything bad thing. I think you can read a story and
00:47:02
if you read it I mean it's funny that you say that Tom because
00:47:06
the story, the story says basically like, you know, this
00:47:09
woman is responsible for doxing and harassing people and has
00:47:12
gotten several gay people fired and wants gay people out of
00:47:16
schools. I think you read that you and I
00:47:19
would take away the physician of like that's bad.
00:47:21
Right. Right.
00:47:22
But other people they read that and they say this is a brave
00:47:25
truth-teller they need to support her.
00:47:26
So you know it's the piece doesn't say My opinion of her.
00:47:30
But it's very clearly lays out her ideology which I think the
00:47:35
majority of Americans would find reprehensible, right?
00:47:38
But yeah, and by the way like I you know I think that story what
00:47:43
it was about as much of sort of her.
00:47:45
And the woman behind it was about talking about the way that
00:47:49
the right-wing media ecosystem works.
00:47:51
And how this this influencer is basically acting as an
00:47:54
assignment editor for the right wing, right?
00:47:56
Media cycle, and that's important.
00:47:59
Honestly, I'm getting at this last leg interrogating your
00:48:02
politics, but more just sort of in the journalists Creator sort
00:48:07
of overlap. Like I think from my personal
00:48:09
experience, when I was free to be more of a Creator, you know,
00:48:12
I in my first story said, like I thought supporting Donald Trump
00:48:15
was like, against the pale and there is a degree to, which like
00:48:18
creators have like a brand an authentic brand where I mean,
00:48:22
you do, expose only parts of yourself.
00:48:25
But like, politics like clearly see through, I mean, even the
00:48:27
Barstool guy came out on the abortion.
00:48:29
Something. So I'm just interested in like,
00:48:32
you know. Yeah.
00:48:33
Do you see reporters being much more open with, like their
00:48:36
opinions sort of, as we continue to move into a sort of a Creator
00:48:40
World? Definitely.
00:48:42
I mean, I think these are things and by the way, I think that
00:48:44
it's important to stand for values.
00:48:46
I mean, I care deeply about equality and, you know,
00:48:50
representation and things like that.
00:48:53
I think what news companies don't generally, like, is when
00:48:58
reporters. Speak to specific pot, like
00:49:01
specific bills and issues and votes and things like that.
00:49:04
And again, I say this is somebody that had to manage and
00:49:06
be the one in The Newsroom, like, hey guys that he's sending
00:49:09
you the your Tweet emails. It's also funny because
00:49:12
newsrooms they only care about Twitter like you can be honest.
00:49:16
Talk saying anything. I feel like sometimes yeah but
00:49:18
yeah I do think I mean I think what what has been really laid
00:49:21
Barren and you know people like Wesley Lowery have have spoken
00:49:25
really well about this and these nuances is this this concept of
00:49:28
quote unquote. Objectivity and how, you know we
00:49:31
all bring our backgrounds and identities to our beads and we
00:49:36
can't be expected to leave that at the door.
00:49:39
And you know, just there's no such thing as having no beliefs
00:49:43
and no ideology. It's just not your human in this
00:49:46
world and you have your own experiences.
00:49:47
And so I think it's really important to newsrooms recognize
00:49:50
that and II support people. I mean, when I say I had to, you
00:49:55
know, when I was running social media bunch of media
00:49:57
organizations, like I really support Porter's doing that.
00:50:00
I just feel like me, personally, I don't, I don't have people
00:50:03
following me for my political beliefs drive, people following
00:50:05
me because they want to know about Creator, economy news, or
00:50:08
they want to know, funny, you know, I like to share funny
00:50:11
memes and things like that. Like, it's more of that.
00:50:13
So I think different reporters, however, the built themselves
00:50:17
like anything, social media account user, you're like, I
00:50:19
know it. My accounts for like.
00:50:21
Yeah, right. I feel like I'm not, I need two
00:50:25
different things, right? Like I use my Instagram account
00:50:28
for promotion. I have a I'm account.
00:50:30
I have a tick tock for other things but that's key to me
00:50:34
because I think part of this idea of, you know, reporters
00:50:36
showed her shouldn't Express, their political opinions to me.
00:50:39
Like, the key aspect of it is that most of their political
00:50:42
opinions are not that interesting.
00:50:43
And I don't really care, you know, if any New York Times
00:50:47
political reporter or watch a food court has started just
00:50:49
tweeting out, you know, I think that this particular Bill unless
00:50:52
it's like, factually informed, I don't really care what they have
00:50:55
to say. I don't think their political
00:50:56
opinions with that meaningful, so knowing your audience, Is a
00:50:59
huge part of having a presence on.
00:51:01
I do think there's this phenomenon with like view from
00:51:03
nowhere stories. I certainly don't think Taylor
00:51:06
does this, but we're a lot of you for nowhere stories where
00:51:09
like the piece can almost lead you to the opposite conclusion
00:51:12
that the reporter might hold. Or there are lots of there are
00:51:15
lots of stories that effectively with you.
00:51:18
Here's the thing. You have to consider how, you
00:51:21
know, there are people, there are specific writers, write that
00:51:24
frame things in a specific way. I think that make it very clear.
00:51:29
The takeaway right York Times has reported this clearly
00:51:31
worried about cancel culture, whoever, but like, that's his
00:51:34
beat. It's like, can't we just, but
00:51:36
wouldn't it be more enjoyable content?
00:51:38
If he just like, said I'm very, they would get more engagement
00:51:41
if he was like I'm very concerned with cancel culture
00:51:44
and like that sort of my be right but they want.
00:51:47
Oh I thought you were going to say someone else.
00:51:48
That's somebody. I know you are you know, Michael
00:51:53
covers campus culture? Sure.
00:51:55
You know, I think I think right. I think like I think all of
00:51:58
these things are things that media These are going to have to
00:52:00
work out. I think it's also interesting in
00:52:01
terms of hiring and recruiting which I don't have to do anymore
00:52:04
and my current job. But I used to have to do a lot
00:52:05
of is you you know, people can be very outspoken activist and
00:52:09
like that was the issue with the girl from the AP, right?
00:52:11
Like she's done something in college, I think to certain
00:52:15
terms of activism and then that was like held against her for a
00:52:17
job interview. So media companies are going to
00:52:19
need to get over this whole idea of everyone being an old quote
00:52:23
unquote reasonable white man. Hey, there's no one that there's
00:52:26
no you know what you consider a mainstream.
00:52:29
Like yeah, it's just we need to we need to take.
00:52:31
We need a more diverse media ecosystem and means think about
00:52:34
just need to be about Gathering facts and Reporting them to
00:52:37
people. But if there's some transparency
00:52:39
and like their history or their personal views, I feel like.
00:52:43
And also, when you make those kinds of decisions, not letting
00:52:45
someone join the AP because they were somewhat and of an activist
00:52:48
and in college. I feel like you're also.
00:52:51
You gotta recognize the macro environment of the way that
00:52:53
people view media organizations now.
00:52:56
And it's the one reason why I'm a little bit sympathetic to the
00:52:59
Is that attack us? And you know even you
00:53:02
specifically is like they are reflective in a certain way of
00:53:05
the way, a lot of Americans view media organizations.
00:53:08
The fact of the matter is we are held in a lower esteem than we
00:53:11
have been in decades and they've done it to themselves.
00:53:14
They've done it to themselves. Let's be honest.
00:53:16
Because I hate this whole rumor, you're saying, no, maybe the
00:53:19
media organizations have done it to themselves.
00:53:22
Like I think that they did not aptly recognize the rise of that
00:53:27
sentiment and they have If not a lot, you know, a lot of them
00:53:31
have not effectively been able to counter that again.
00:53:33
West Lowry as really spoken so effectively on all of this and I
00:53:37
am not as prolific as him so I would encourage people to follow
00:53:40
him. But yeah and I think that's
00:53:43
something that I care. I care a lot of, I think it's
00:53:46
important to have institutions but sometimes media companies
00:53:50
write some really dumb stuff and I'm like, you know what?
00:53:51
You're making yourself irrelevant fine, you know like
00:53:54
you're just this is dumb this is why people turn away from
00:53:58
Legacy. Is Outlets.
00:54:00
Sometimes it feels like the times the posts are more
00:54:02
important. I mean, there are huge.
00:54:04
I mean, The Newsroom, we need a thriving in journalism is a
00:54:09
really important check on Power and democracy.
00:54:11
And there's a reason, people want to dismantle it.
00:54:13
I think news leaders across industry, need to recognize that
00:54:16
and not buy into these bad faith attacks.
00:54:19
Like, that's yeah. Do you have anything?
00:54:22
You're eager to get on the record about or anything you
00:54:25
wanted to talk about before we sort of wrap up, sometimes
00:54:28
people on the record. Yeah.
00:54:29
Yeah, they just want like, I just posted on Twitter.
00:54:46
No One Is Safe. No One Is Safe.
00:54:47
No, I'm not a, I'm not a hater. I'm not about that.
00:54:50
I don't participate in that kind of thing.
00:54:53
Well, I would just say please. Subscribe to my son, exact.
00:54:56
I was up stack. Follow me.
00:54:58
Reach out, anytime if there's Then you think that I should
00:55:00
write about? I would love to hear it over a
00:55:02
good source reporter move. It's like I just want more
00:55:04
resources like sources. Please find me, please listen to
00:55:07
me the VC people, by the way, got me so many sources when they
00:55:10
were like canceled. Oh my God.
00:55:13
I mean, I never knew anyone in the VC world before and now I
00:55:15
have like, I mean, so many people were like, hit me up
00:55:19
because of that and gave me news.
00:55:20
But like, where you were, you leveraging that to be in like
00:55:22
all right, what's the valuation of the next Cloud kitchens
00:55:25
around? I mean, who is this?
00:55:26
Like can you can you get in on, you know, like The the
00:55:30
particular bitchiness and fights that happened in the VC.
00:55:33
Well I'd love to read. I mean I guess that's partly
00:55:34
Eric's sub stack you don't really go too much into the
00:55:37
personal drama. I don't have Ari.
00:55:38
No, I don't cover Silicon Valley.
00:55:40
I know you can give me free scoop sings.
00:55:42
I'm like look at looking out like five years from now I don't
00:55:45
know any predictions about social media or like I mean you.
00:55:50
Yeah you're the sort of whisper on this thing, I mean we didn't
00:55:54
end up really talking about be real.
00:55:55
Are you like optimistic on that or is there anywhere where
00:55:58
you'll sort? Layout sort of a prediction
00:56:01
about where where we're heading. Yeah, I was going to write
00:56:04
something about summer apps and how there's always kind of these
00:56:07
viral apps during the summer and how hard it is to kind of like
00:56:12
the summer, like Pokemon go or let you see these things like
00:56:14
the Khan, these viral phenomenons and they don't
00:56:17
always stay. And so with be real I mean I
00:56:20
know they're putting a ton into like marketing it and stuff like
00:56:24
that, I don't know that the next not to say that it won't be
00:56:27
successful. And by the way, I love front
00:56:29
back. Back.
00:56:29
So I was a big you know, proponent of the whole format.
00:56:33
This is this is no no. I was the biggest loser ever.
00:56:43
I don't think like the next like game-changing up is going to be
00:56:46
a photo app. So I think if be real is going
00:56:49
to be a lasting product it needs to evolve beyond what it is but
00:56:54
it's so fun to write. I mean I've been on that app
00:56:56
since like the third week it launched and I I think it's cool
00:57:00
and funny and I've all push notifications turned off.
00:57:03
So I just post it when I want. And I don't really post it very
00:57:06
often. It really does kind of defang
00:57:07
the app. And I also wants to take had all
00:57:09
my notifications turned off because I reset my phone and I
00:57:11
completely forgot about be real and it is be hearing about it
00:57:14
immediately. Yeah, it just lives entirely on
00:57:16
the back of that. Be real is kind of the Nim
00:57:18
selves social media Clubhouse. Clubhouse should have learned
00:57:21
that lesson Clubhouse, got addicted to the place where so
00:57:23
much and they'd screw. I think that's part of the
00:57:25
reason that the company flop. You think, are we in the
00:57:27
beginning of the tick-tock? Wave or we at the top of it or
00:57:31
like where we're not even close to the top right now.
00:57:35
I loved how. Oh my God, I had to do Tech
00:57:37
predictions in like 2019 on Sam busy or something.
00:57:40
And I was like, yeah, like Tic, Tacs going to be the new Domino
00:57:43
session at work. And somebody was like, oh, how
00:57:44
did you predict that? It's like, it's literally on by
00:57:46
like, a multi billion-dollar Tech Chinese Tech conglomerate
00:57:50
that spent a billion dollars in marketing.
00:57:51
And one year, like does, it's not, you're not a genius to
00:57:55
think that it might do well. So I don't have any real wisdom.
00:57:58
I don't know. I mean You know, you can spend a
00:58:00
ton of money trying to push something.
00:58:03
Sure. He doesn't tap into some sort of
00:58:05
Basil, elements of human nature that causes you to go crazy
00:58:08
because of the you're addicted to it.
00:58:10
I think I'd have been so successful around the world to
00:58:12
that it. Yeah.
00:58:13
But no you're 100%. Right?
00:58:14
I mean Facebook. Does that every six months
00:58:16
before you right? Right.
00:58:17
Yeah I mean what is the best thing you think to come out of
00:58:22
tick-tock? I mean what do you think has
00:58:23
been like the most heartening aspect of the culture that it is
00:58:27
created over the millions of cultures is Adorn its user
00:58:30
interface or make me feel good about Tick-Tock.
00:58:33
Yeah we can close on that sense of it make me feel good about
00:58:36
Tick-Tock. Yeah I mean I what I think is
00:58:38
really interesting is it's broken this whole like follow
00:58:41
based system of social media and it's really I think they've just
00:58:45
nailed Discovery so well, right? And I think that's that's what's
00:58:49
exciting about it. Like you can really go down
00:58:50
these rabbit holes. I hate the video for you know I
00:58:54
don't want video to be like I'm not a video person so I think
00:58:57
like that parts. Little bit of a I don't want
00:59:01
video to be the dominant mode of expression.
00:59:03
I do think that like, that's something I like about Twitter
00:59:05
is being able to write but Tick-Tock has such incredible
00:59:08
creative tools and the stuff. The way that it's kind of like
00:59:11
allowed people to be creative is pretty cool.
00:59:13
This actually may be circles back to the first thing we
00:59:15
talked about on this and we can maybe end here.
00:59:18
I mean, do you worry that the follow base culture going away
00:59:21
and being purely about Discovery does kind of dissociate,
00:59:24
people's connection to the creators are influencers that
00:59:27
they watch? I mean like VidCon.
00:59:29
As an example of this, The Tick-Tock creators didn't have
00:59:31
the YouTuber lines of years past because people one could argue
00:59:36
didn't feel as emotionally invested, para socially
00:59:38
connected to, you know, the people that they were watching
00:59:41
on Tick-Tock I mean, is there something alienating about this
00:59:45
format of, of consuming content versus following it?
00:59:49
That does sort of, you know, reverberate in a negative way.
00:59:52
No, I think 100% which I love that Business, Insider piece
00:59:55
that got into this because I would have written the same
00:59:58
thing. And kind of tried to in that one
01:00:01
paragraph of my story. But like, yeah, it's also just
01:00:04
the rate at which, you know, you spend so much more time with
01:00:07
YouTubers, like you're sitting down.
01:00:09
You're watching long form content and it takes time to
01:00:12
kind of subscribe and find people.
01:00:14
Whereas Tick-Tock you're just getting barrage with new people
01:00:16
every day and you don't form up on do you don't have that same?
01:00:21
I think that can be kind of good too.
01:00:23
I think like the whole pair of social thing is really
01:00:25
unhealthy. I'm crazy about keeping my life
01:00:28
off the internet. No one knows anything about my
01:00:30
life. And I think it's very scary for
01:00:33
the creators and I think it's not a great like that parrot
01:00:36
that deep parasocial bond can be harmful for the creators and
01:00:38
harmful for the audience. So I think it's, I don't know,
01:00:41
it's kind of good to have a little bit less of that
01:00:43
interesting, but I do see lots of sad tick talkers, who are
01:00:47
like I have a million followers in my videos are getting like
01:00:51
10 views and there is. It does feel like, I mean the
01:00:54
beauty of like sub stack is like once I have you, it goes to your
01:00:57
inbox whereas ticked Is literally the opposite where
01:01:00
they sort of like, don't really care.
01:01:02
What people say they're following is, pure is purely a
01:01:04
vanity metric and you know, I know that because I have half a
01:01:08
million followers and they're all people that just mostly
01:01:11
think. I might be with a famous
01:01:12
Tick-Tock ER and they followed me for that reason.
01:01:15
But yeah, it's I think it's but that decoupling I think is very
01:01:18
jarring for people. Right?
01:01:21
Totally. All right well I'm sure we'll
01:01:23
have you back on. Thank you so much for coming on
01:01:25
the show. We really appreciate it.
01:01:26
Thanks Taylor your yeah everyone should.
01:01:29
Others work if they haven't already which I'm sure they do,
01:01:31
she really is the best at this thing, and it's fascinating.
01:01:34
So I highly recommend people, keep keep reading.
01:01:36
Thank you. I'm such a fan of your guys work
01:01:39
and Tom. I've read your stories for years
01:01:41
and XO it's cool to get to chat. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,
01:01:58
goodbye. Goodbye.
01:01:59
Goodbye. Goodbye.
01:01:59
Goodbye.