10 Things We Like (and Don’t Like) About ‘Euphoria’ This Season. Plus, “The Feed Is Fake” With Lane Brown.

Chris RyanHost0:00

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Chris RyanHost0:42

Hello, and welcome to The Watch.

Chris RyanHost0:43

My name is Chris Ryan.

Chris RyanHost0:45

I am an editor at theringer.com, and joining me in the studio today is me.

Chris RyanHost0:50

No Andy today, it's just Prince alone in the studio.

Chris RyanHost0:53

I am, however, joined remotely by Lane Brown from New York Magazine today.

Chris RyanHost0:57

He's gonna talk to me about his incredible piece in New York Magazine called "The Feed is Fake," which, uh, scratches an itch that I have been having, uh, a- for a long time, especially ever since, you know, the whole is Geese a psyop debate raged online, and yet I don't really know if it raged anywhere else.

Chris RyanHost1:16

And that's sort of what Lane's piece is about, is why it always feels like everyone is talking about something, but nobody is actually talking about it.

Chris RyanHost1:25

He gets into the exploding, uh, industry of clipping for, uh, social media feeds, but also narrative manipulation.

Chris RyanHost1:33

And then his piece is also, like, a much larger kind of essay about the current state of our cultural conversation and our understanding of what is popular and what matters, which is something that I think Andy and I always grapple with on this, on this pod.

Chris RyanHost1:47

But I am gonna talk a little bit about some, uh, some TV news, and also give you a few thoughts on last night's episode of Euphoria.

Chris RyanHost1:54

As far as, like, what's coming out this week, as always, busy week in new television, but I...

Chris RyanHost1:59

You know, I didn't get a chance to watch any of Dutton Ranch, and I have to be completely honest, like, uh, Beth and Rip, when it comes to the Yellowstone universe, this is a Yellowstone spinoff starring Kelly Reilly and, uh, Cole Hauser.

Chris RyanHost2:12

Their characters were beloved on Yellowstone.

Chris RyanHost2:14

I think that they worked really well as supporting characters.

Chris RyanHost2:16

I'm not so sure I wanna watch a television show entirely dedicated to them, and you don't have to because Annette Bening, uh, amazingly, is also on this show, as is Ed Harris.

Chris RyanHost2:26

But I, I will try to get to that at some point.

Chris RyanHost2:30

Other new releases this week include Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, which is a new series on Apple TV, um, with Tatiana Maslany, and it seems like it's a little bit of a, a normal suburban woman goes down a crazy rabbit hole when she witnesses something she shouldn't.

Chris RyanHost2:47

Looks like a thriller with some social satire.

Chris RyanHost2:50

I'm, I'm interested to check that out.

Chris RyanHost2:51

Also, we have from Netflix, I believe this week, is The Burrows, which is being kind of dismissively or d- you know, casually referred to as, uh, old Stranger Things or new Cocoon.

Chris RyanHost3:04

But it is about a, a retirement community and, and an incident, possibly supernatural incident, or extraterrestrial incident, always had problems with that word, occurring at this, at this facility.

Chris RyanHost3:15

So, uh, great cast, Alfred, uh, Molina and Alfre Woodard are in it.

Chris RyanHost3:19

But haven't got a chance to check out any screeners of that.

Chris RyanHost3:22

That comes out this week, and I, I think Andy and I will probably hit both Maximum Pleasure and The Burrows at some point.

Chris RyanHost3:29

As far as, like, n- TV news, I mean, they're...

Chris RyanHost3:31

Really the biggest thing is that the Lantern's trailer dropped.

Chris RyanHost3:33

I know Andy talked about Lindelof last week in my absence.

Chris RyanHost3:37

Uh, this trailer is awesome.

Chris RyanHost3:40

Eh, the pairing of Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre is the backbone of, of...

Chris RyanHost3:45

That's, like, how a great TV show gets made, is you find the right two people and you fit them together.

Chris RyanHost3:51

And Kyle Chandler as this kind of rugged and, uh, you know, sort of self-involved version of, of Green Lantern, and, and Aaron Pierre is the up-and-coming one who wants to do everything right.

Chris RyanHost4:04

It's, like, a very solid basis for a show.

Chris RyanHost4:07

Um, and there are Watchmen vibes in it.

Chris RyanHost4:10

There is more special effects than I think I was expecting from the trailer, and maybe that's...

Chris RyanHost4:15

They're, they're putting that forward a lot in the, in the trailer just to bring in the DC heads.

Chris RyanHost4:18

But it, it was a little bit more comic booky than I thought because I think the original sort of understanding of this show was that it was essentially, like, a True Detective, but happened to be set in the DC Universe.

Chris RyanHost4:29

It'll be great to see, uh, how it actually shakes out.

Chris RyanHost4:32

I'm, I'm super excited for this, for this series.

Chris RyanHost4:35

Uh, I think what we're gonna do with Widows Bay, obviously the last episode, the one that focused mostly on Patricia, Cato Flynn, uh, we've been singing her praises all season, but this is her standout episode.

Chris RyanHost4:46

Uh, I won't give anything away if you haven't gotten a chance to see, uh, Widows Bay yet, but we'll talk about a couple, a brick of episodes together.

Chris RyanHost4:54

Maybe, maybe on Thursday's show what we'll do is do four and five together.

Chris RyanHost4:58

I do wanna talk about Euphoria, though, and in honor of my colleague Zach Lowe, I put together a 10 Things I Like and Don't Like About Euphoria, Episode s- six, uh, Stand Still and See.

Chris RyanHost5:09

So for those who don't know, Zach Lowe obviously, uh, now has his own podcast with The Ringer Podcast Network.

Chris RyanHost5:14

I worked with him at Grantland, and at, now at The Ringer, and while he was at Grantland and, and at ESPN, he had kind of, like, a, a great column called 10 Things I Like and Don't Like, which was his notebook dump on the week in NBA that he had been watching.

Chris RyanHost5:26

This is similar for this episode of, uh, Euphoria.

Chris RyanHost5:29

I just thought it would be an easy way to kinda move through what was not necessarily my favorite or least favorite episode o- of all time.

Chris RyanHost5:36

I thought it was, like, a needed setup for what is obviously going to be a incredibly cathartic last two episodes of the season.

Chris RyanHost5:44

Um, I would, I would imagine it's in play of the series, but we'll, we'll see.

Chris RyanHost5:50

Um, first of all, I would say I loved, uh, number one, I loved the col- collection of images that he put together charting Rue's longing and receiving of her, her sign or salvation.

Chris RyanHost6:02

I mean, in the church, like, sh- Zendaya well-litIn a church praying, hearing a call from her mother, you know, her face looks like Passion of Joan of Arc.

Chris RyanHost6:15

You know? [laughs] Like this...

Chris RyanHost6:16

Sam's got a bag, and he goes into it, and I think especially in the, the Rue sequences about her trying to save herself is where the show is still at its best.

Chris RyanHost6:27

And I think that her experiences over the course of this series are the most easily legible from the outside, where you're like, "I can see what happened to this person and I can see what this person wants to become." The images at the end of the episode, her- she's listening to her book-on-tape Bible and it starts skipping, and she almost crashes.

Chris RyanHost6:49

She sees the bright light of the incredibly well-lit [laughs] monster truck or, or s- uh, 18-wheeler coming towards her, and crashes her car or pulls off the road, and a spark gets on a tree and lights this burning bush, and you get this, this incredible biblical image of this woman finally, finally hearing the voice of God, you know? And the, the connections to, uh, the roads to Damascus, the connections of, of Christ and the burning bush, like, it's obviously rich with that imagery.

Chris RyanHost7:26

It...

Chris RyanHost7:26

Does it play fast and loose with it? I think with the Rue stuff it doesn't, because, uh, so much of what addicts go through in recovery and, and in trying to save themselves comes from this relationship to a higher power, and that may or may not work for all addicts, and there are plenty of people who get clean without it.

Chris RyanHost7:45

But obviously, it's something that Levinson is deeply fascinated by, and it doesn't even have to come down to any specific dogma of something you'd find in the Bible, something you'd find in the Old Testament or whatever.

Chris RyanHost7:58

It's just about believing that your life has value, and that's obviously something that Rue is looking for, and it leads me to one thing that I don't really like, which is the, what we've kind of done with the Jules character.

Chris RyanHost8:12

Rue goes to Jules at one point in this episode and kind of makes her pitch for starting a family together and be- finding, like, new problems to have and, uh, more classical American suburban concerns of, you know, what, what to do with your kids and stuff, rather than, uh, fentanyl and sex work.

Chris RyanHost8:36

[laughs] And I think that Jules' reaction to Rue was good.

Chris RyanHost8:41

I liked the slap.

Chris RyanHost8:43

I liked the "Get out of my painting." If you think about this show as these people existing in their separate realities, I liked the idea that Jules was sort of snapping Rue out of whatever dream she was having and was like, you know, "You don't actually have anything to trade here." Like, "We are not, um, gonna go off and ride into the sunset.

Chris RyanHost9:05

This is not the love story." Whether or not that remains the case for the rest of the series, I d- I don't know if I, if I believe that, you know, maybe to the extent that you care about something being endgame on this show, but, like, are Rue and, Rue and Jules, like, meant for each other? I don't know.

Chris RyanHost9:20

I don't know if it, it's actually germane to the actual show itself, but I did like that scene.

Chris RyanHost9:27

I don't really know what they're doing with Jules.

Chris RyanHost9:29

Um, and I don't know...

Chris RyanHost9:32

You know, this was a, uh, uh, the, the things of behind the scenes in this production of this show and what it required to get people in the same room to shoot it, I think I sometimes allow myself a little... to get a little distracted by that, because I'll be like, "Oh, you can tell this person wasn't available and they had to shoot all their scenes in, like, a hotel room." Like, I, I don't know if Hunter Schafer had more or less time than usual to shoot or whether or not there was, like, discussions about what to do with the Jules character, but I find, like, she ha- she had her artistic breakthrough on the set of LA Knights, and now seems to be in her, "I am going to do a, you know, a, a body study figure and then paint over it" as, like, her new, like, art phase that she's in.

Chris RyanHost10:16

I don't know if that's, like, really that compelling television, but I like Hunter Schafer as a performer, so I, I wish there was more for that character to do.

Chris RyanHost10:26

Um, as far as more things that I liked and didn't like, look, I love the high and low, and I love the sacred and the profane.

Chris RyanHost10:33

I love the church and the OnlyFans and the spaghetti Westerns and the Polanski dread, the Hitchcockian moments, the '70s noir.

Chris RyanHost10:42

You know, I think that Levinson moves pretty easily between those, and if anything, I think I've oft repeated I'm never bored watching Euphoria.

Chris RyanHost10:51

It's because of those tonal shifts, which even if the transmission really grinds sometimes on them, I still welcome them.

Chris RyanHost10:57

It's still fun to have, um, a completely different feel from scene to scene.

Chris RyanHost11:05

You could say that it's mimicking kind of, like, our s- our feed.

Chris RyanHost11:10

You know, it's like when you flip through social media videos and you're kind of, like, going from one thing to another without any kind of, uh, transition.

Chris RyanHost11:19

That, that, that would be one way of looking at it.

Chris RyanHost11:21

Another is just that he had several different shows that he wanted to make, and he's just gonna make them and then stitch them together.

Chris RyanHost11:29

I think that's also, you could make a criticism of the show, but in terms of, like, the, um, spectrum of tone that he's playing with and also, like, reaching very, very, very high and then also wallowing around in the grime and the grit of something exploitative I think is pretty fascinating to watch.

Chris RyanHost11:47

I also think it's really interesting and I really like the tension between cinematic and TV storytelling.

Chris RyanHost11:52

I thought it was very funny, um, when Sydney Sweeney walks onto the set of LA Knights for her one-line, pretty much throwaway day player part and starts m- improvising or disassociating with the actor who's playing opposite of, from her, and that she obviously is kind of s- thinking it's, she's talking to Nate.

Chris RyanHost12:14

And she does this kind of riff aboutHow, you know, scared she is for her life right now.

Chris RyanHost12:21

And the guy is kind of playing along with her, and it's then shattered [laughs] by the character of Oceana walking onto the set and saying, like, "Are you gonna cue me up or what?" Um, I was very, very highly amused by Colleen Camp saying, "Ah, yeah, it's- this is giving a real Clute vibe." Because I think everybody is always like, in their mind, they're making Clute, you know? Like, [laughs] in their mind, I'm sure everybody would love to be, um, Alan Cool in the '70s and, and that to, for Clute to be what everybody was watching.

Chris RyanHost12:51

But obviously they're making LA Nights, and I think that there's almost a sly commentary happening there where it's, yeah, like, Sam Levinson is making, like, an episodic spaghetti Western opera, but he's also making a soap opera, and he's trying to sort of pay both vipers there.

Chris RyanHost13:08

And I, I like the, the effort.

Chris RyanHost13:12

You know, I don't think it's successful for everyone.

Chris RyanHost13:14

I, I know that Andy has both, uh, rejected some of the storytelling and also the interests, uh, that, that Levinson obviously has.

Chris RyanHost13:23

Um, he's also given it the college try, so I really, I appreciate him doing that for me, 'cause we're, we're enjoying talking about the show.

Chris RyanHost13:30

I think that Levinson, for as much as he's interested in high and low art, he's also interested in television and cinema and whether or not you can bring the feeling of cinema, the cinema that he loves.

Chris RyanHost13:41

And Sam's actually programming a festival out here in Los Angeles over...

Chris RyanHost13:46

Like, I think it started last Friday, and it's going through this week, where he's showing a bunch of movies, um, that he says influenced season three.

Chris RyanHost13:53

And he's showing, like, Dirty Harry and Candy Snatchers, which is, like, a AGFA movie that you, you, you should check out.

Chris RyanHost14:00

And he's showing Freeway, which is, like, the Reese Witherspoon '90s thriller.

Chris RyanHost14:04

So he's, like, throwing a bunch of different, like, things up on the mood board.

Chris RyanHost14:08

And it's hard to take all those cinematic influences and consistently make a television show.

Chris RyanHost14:13

And maybe that's why the production of Euphoria is inconsistent, because it's difficult to translate all of that stuff, but I am, I am enjoying it.

Chris RyanHost14:20

Um, I will say that one thing I, uh, I also enjoyed was Daniel Deadwyler as Alamo's mom.

Chris RyanHost14:28

The character introductions on, on Euphoria, a hallmark of Euphoria, the sort of backstory flashback moments, uh, people, their mi- your mileage may vary on these.

Chris RyanHost14:39

But, uh, I don't know that I necessarily walked away from that scene truly understanding Alamo any more than I already did.

Chris RyanHost14:46

Uh, but I did think this little, um, message in a bottle from '70s grind house movies or...

Chris RyanHost14:55

It actually wasn't really like that really.

Chris RyanHost14:56

What was it? It was more like an LA noir set in '70s Black Los Angeles, and some people might be like, "The temerity of Sam to do that." I don't know.

Chris RyanHost15:07

I thought it was pretty cool.

Chris RyanHost15:08

Like, it looked great.

Chris RyanHost15:09

Daniel Deadwyler, I will watch read a phone book.

Chris RyanHost15:11

But seeing her play this, uh, Alamo's mother who essentially runs a long con on a, a kindly but, you know, disfigured man to set herself up with her boyfriend, uh, is, is awesome.

Chris RyanHost15:27

It was a cool little, little snatch of time, and it...

Chris RyanHost15:30

Obviously Levinson had a blast making it, 'cause it just looks great.

Chris RyanHost15:35

Uh, it told me nothing about why Alamo was riding at Rue with a polo mallet while she's buried up to her head in sand, and it told me nothing about why he doesn't kill her.

Chris RyanHost15:44

Um, so I enjoy Daniel Deadwyler.

Chris RyanHost15:47

I don't know if that, uh, that segment necessarily was necessary, quote, unquote, but it was very cool.

Chris RyanHost15:53

I think it's also cool that we're returning to meta Euphoria.

Chris RyanHost15:56

I- this is a degree of playing the hits, but one of the season two highlights for me was the show within a show, uh, within a show of Lexi's play depicting on and off-screen events.

Chris RyanHost16:07

The LA Nights thing has potential.

Chris RyanHost16:09

It's coming...

Chris RyanHost16:10

They're calling this, this pitcher in at the seventh inning.

Chris RyanHost16:13

Uh, I, I like the idea of Lexi being responsible for writing Cassie's arc on, uh, LA Nights and also Lexi perhaps thinking of how to kill off Cassie's character and that little throwaway line that Lexi has where she's just like, "You know, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna kill her." And then I think...

Chris RyanHost16:33

I can't remember.

Chris RyanHost16:34

It's, is it Gideon Adlon who's playing that friend? I can't remember.

Chris RyanHost16:37

But she's just like, "You gotta kill somebody every once in a while or else people get bored." That does not bode well for our, our ensemble.

Chris RyanHost16:43

Somebody, uh, somebody may pass away in the last two episodes.

Chris RyanHost16:46

I liked that return to meta Euphoria.

Chris RyanHost16:48

Um, if that was sort of Cassie's longterm goal was just, like, fame no matter what instead of making tons of money to help Nate, I think that this arc for her would have been kinda interesting.

Chris RyanHost17:02

Unfortunately, and this is my sixth thing, Cassie's OnlyFans modeling is kinda getting in the way of, of this show being legible to me.

Chris RyanHost17:10

The further out we get towards Cassie and Nate, that's where the show gets really muddy.

Chris RyanHost17:15

And on its own it's kind of amusing, and I like how every scene with Sydney Sweeney seems to be from another w- universe, whether it's, like, that Hitchcockian kind of tension of whether or not she's gonna delete OnlyFans.

Chris RyanHost17:27

We talked about the sci-fi B movie stuff of a 50-foot woman from a couple episodes ago.

Chris RyanHost17:33

Earlier in the season on the wedding night, the kind of almost Ari Aster-ish horror of Nate's sh- you know, being, getting his, uh, pinky toe chopped off.

Chris RyanHost17:43

Nate is shrinking.

Chris RyanHost17:44

Cassie is growing.

Chris RyanHost17:46

But this leads into my seventh thing, which is unfortunately also something I don't like, which is just Nate.

Chris RyanHost17:52

I think they're leaving a lot on the table here 'cause Nate is actually closer to Rue than anyone else.

Chris RyanHost17:56

I mean, he's looking for redemption.

Chris RyanHost17:57

He's trying to find a piece of the American dream.

Chris RyanHost17:59

He's trying to shake off his past, which we get a glimpse of the old Nate as he stomps on the protected flowers, uh, that have held up his, his retirement community construction.

Chris RyanHost18:11

But we get so little time with him, and he gets almost no time with anyone of consequence from the show.That it's kinda hard to tell how he got there and where he wants to go.

Chris RyanHost18:22

And now we're in this ritual humiliation phase that's lasted the better part of the season, and this is my biggest question mark about where they wanna go with this character.

Chris RyanHost18:33

You've got Jacob Elordi.

Chris RyanHost18:35

It doesn't really matter one way or the other if he's having fun, I can't tell, but give him something to do, please.

Chris RyanHost18:41

Like, let- let's do something with Nate.

Chris RyanHost18:43

Can Nate interact with anyone else from the show aside from Sydney Sweeney? I don't know, but it would be nice.

Chris RyanHost18:48

It would be nice to get him...

Chris RyanHost18:51

I loved that moment with him and, and Under Shafer at the wedding.

Chris RyanHost18:54

Like, that, that actually had a charge.

Chris RyanHost18:57

Let's do more of that.

Chris RyanHost18:58

Kinda don't know where I'm at with Maddy.

Chris RyanHost19:00

Eight is not a thing I don't like or like.

Chris RyanHost19:02

I, I just like Alexis Demie and I love, like, this character historically on the show.

Chris RyanHost19:07

Her being a shadow madam of OnlyFans models who's now curious about Alamo's business and, you know, her pursuit of, like, financial gain for security to, like, gird against, like, everything that's happened to her in her life, not unsimilar, not dissimilar from Alamo, I guess.

Chris RyanHost19:25

Her reactions to things, I think, sometimes are a little convenient for the television show and, and, and have nothing to do with the character.

Chris RyanHost19:33

I think that that's, like, I- understandable in terms of writing a TV show.

Chris RyanHost19:37

You have to have s- people just kind of go along with stuff, but we're getting towards the end of this season and series, and I'm not exactly sure how they're gonna bring together, like, the Alexis Demie part of this show, the Nate part of this show, the Jules part of this show, with the thing that's the most successful, which is the, the Rue part of the show.

Chris RyanHost20:01

Though there is one thing that's starting to bug me about the Rue part of the show, and it, after I've sort of, like, waved away every criticism about, like, "But what about this and what about that?" when it comes to, like, talking with Andy about Euphoria this season, and I'm like, "You don't get it.

Chris RyanHost20:12

It's a vibe.

Chris RyanHost20:13

It's a feeling.

Chris RyanHost20:14

Just, just go with it." The crime plotting is starting to get to me.

Chris RyanHost20:18

That's, uh, I don't know if this is actually 10, but I'm calling it 10.

Chris RyanHost20:21

Uh, we're doing too much and explaining too little here.

Chris RyanHost20:25

Laurie is going to give up Alamo to the FBI, thus forcing him to work with her and allow her to use his m- m- I guess, uh, ambulance service to bring fentanyl from Mexico into the States because the border is closing.

Chris RyanHost20:40

I'm not sure I buy that.

Chris RyanHost20:41

I, it, typically, like, in crime dramas, like, the threat of revealing someone to the FBI is, like, more of, like, a, a mark on your reputation, and I, I think that Alamo wouldn't be just so, like, "Ah, checkmated by Laurie." Now, I know Alamo has, uh, uh, ulterior motives here where he's also trying to get his stuff out of Laurie's safe and perhaps everything else that Laurie has, but this seems like it's, uh, one extra, like a hat on a hat.

Chris RyanHost21:11

Like, Laurie and Alamo's collision course and the, uh, the presence of the DEA on the outside via Rue is good.

Chris RyanHost21:19

That's a good beef.

Chris RyanHost21:21

They should have a shootout and work this shit out [laughs].

Chris RyanHost21:24

You know? Like, whatever.

Chris RyanHost21:25

Let's get, let's get these characters getting after it.

Chris RyanHost21:30

Now being vaguely in business with each other while also intending on, uh, killing one another and robbing one another is, is a little thin.

Chris RyanHost21:39

And then, uh, you know, I'm not so sure why Rue is being given all these important gigs if seemingly everyone in Alamo's crew knows she's a rat.

Chris RyanHost21:50

So, uh, we obviously end with the, the rat and, you know, we have the rat and the snake for Rue, uh, before she goes on the road.

Chris RyanHost21:58

She's terrified because her mother is now in danger.

Chris RyanHost22:02

Um, you know, we know that Alamo never lets a woman get over on him, but I don't really understand why Rue is now becoming the, you know, the agent of revenge against Laurie.

Chris RyanHost22:13

It doesn't seem like she is the most dependable person.

Chris RyanHost22:16

It's not like she's, like, a, a, she's not a burglar.

Chris RyanHost22:19

She's not a gunman.

Chris RyanHost22:21

She's just a convenient person to work in a strip club and manage the girls until she wasn't.

Chris RyanHost22:27

I don't really understand why not, like, when everybody shows up at Alamo's house with guns, I don't really understand [laughs] why the...

Chris RyanHost22:32

The shootout probably should've happened then.

Chris RyanHost22:34

Um, and now we're, we're off for another element of this.

Chris RyanHost22:38

This was more, among the more, you know, amusing parts of the show for, for much of this season, so I hope that they tighten the screws a little bit.

Chris RyanHost22:45

I have a feeling based on what we saw as the trailer for next week that next week is going to be largely focused on Colman Domingo's Ali character and how that, I mean, seemingly his health incident impacts her.

Chris RyanHost23:00

So I wonder if I had to guess, it's like, take a beat and then the big crime happens in the finale.

Chris RyanHost23:07

I don't know.

Chris RyanHost23:07

I, I don't know, I don't know when the, the moment is, and I don't know how much it's gonna feel like a series finale versus a season finale.

Chris RyanHost23:14

Um, those are my thoughts on Euphoria.

Chris RyanHost23:17

I wanna get into my conversation with Lane Brown.

Chris RyanHost23:19

So I introduced Lane a little bit, uh, in the beginning of our convo, but I'll just tell you, I- I've worked with Lane about 15 years ago, uh, when Grantland started.

Chris RyanHost23:27

Lane is somebody I've always really admired, and he's now a features writer at New York Magazine where he does some really, really, really great reported pieces.

Chris RyanHost23:35

And the thing that makes this, uh, Feed Is Fake piece so fun to read to me is that it's really, really deeply reported, and it's really fascinating to read about all these different methods that marketing, digital marketing companies are using to populate our feeds with clips of shows and music and movies that we're, we're then supposed to be talking about, supposed to be ingesting.

Chris RyanHost23:58

But it's also about, like, how the narrative around those things get shaped, and then really more, it's Lane kind of writing this, you know, awesome rant about, like, how do we even know what things are actually popular, and it, does that even matter anymore? And-You know, we had talked about the, the Geese PSYOP controversy on this show and on Wait A Second a couple of weeks ago when it really popped off, and that's what really got my interest in this going, but I've also had this, like, nagging feeling for a while.

Chris RyanHost24:32

I've noticed a really perceptible change in the tone of online discussion, like no shit, but not in the way that you think, not in, like, this everything is getting angrier way, but that, like, everything kind of is starting to sound the same.

Chris RyanHost24:47

Like, it's ...

Chris RyanHost24:48

I'm starting to just be like, I can't tell the difference between the post above and the post below if you read on Reddit.

Chris RyanHost24:54

Or, you know, everybody's Instagram is starting to kind of, like, merge into one Instagram, and this kind of everything is being optimized for engagement because I think that this has, like, become way more important than connection with other human beings.

Chris RyanHost25:08

Like, yeah, in your stories you might, you know, be following what your friends are doing at any given moment, and that's kinda like my primary use of Instagram, but that whole other side of it with Reels and then I think especially for TikTok where people are making content more or less, has led this to our phones being, like, our new connection to what we think a conversation is about culture in the world.

Chris RyanHost25:33

And Lane writes about that beautifully, and I really wanted to talk to him about this piece.

Chris RyanHost25:38

It's kind of a different look for the pod, but I thought it would be fun, um, on, on a random Monday to do this.

Chris RyanHost25:44

So, thanks so much to Lane Brown for joining me, and thanks to Kai and Sarah and Kaya for producing today.

Chris RyanHost25:49

I'll be back on Thursday.

Chris RyanHost25:50

We're gonna talk about Widow's Bay.

Chris RyanHost25:52

I'll have a guest, and I'll, I'll get into deep Widow's Bay lore then.

Chris RyanHost25:56

But thanks to everybody for listening, and let's get into my conversation with Lane Brown.

Chris RyanHost26:02

My guest is my former Grantland colleague, I should put that first, uh, and current New York Magazine features writer Lane Brown.

Chris RyanHost26:10

Lane, it's so great to see you, man.

Chris RyanHost26:12

We were just remarking that I think the last time I have seen your face is as you were leaving Los Angeles [laughs] and I was arriving in Los Angeles.

Chris moved in, and I, I moved out.

Yeah.

Chris RyanHost26:20

[laughs]

It's, uh...

And it is an honor to be here on my, my favorite podcast, the, the only-

Chris RyanHost26:24

[laughs]

... organically popular podcast, uh, in the world.

Chris RyanHost26:27

And also maybe perhaps the least clipped in, in [laughs] anybody's-

[laughs] Exactly.

Chris RyanHost26:31

No, actually, you know, we are doing-

It's good to know that

Chris RyanHost26:32

... more clipping.

Chris RyanHost26:33

Uh, last week New York Magazine published Lane's article, which is one part deep dive into the exploding clipping economy that has, uh, taken over algorithms, and one part jeremiad about how this shadowy industry has distorted our understanding of the conversations taking place within our culture.

Chris RyanHost26:51

I think that's, that's if I had to pitch it to anybody, I suppose that's what I would say.

Chris RyanHost26:55

And for people who've been listening fairly closely to The Watch over the last couple of weeks, this stuff has come up in conversations even though we haven't known it.

Chris RyanHost27:03

I think most notably Andy and I more or less jokingly talked about the, the stuff that happened with Geese, the band Geese, a couple of weeks ago.

Chris RyanHost27:12

Wired Magazine wrote an article about Geese's, uh, marketing company or the marketing company that works, uh, on behalf of Geese, uh, that Geese is a client of.

Chris RyanHost27:21

And, uh, Jon Semley wrote an article called The Fanfare Around the Band Geese is Actually a PSYOP, actually was a PSYOP.

Chris RyanHost27:27

And the piece is largely about the unorthodox practices that Cowdy good use, used on behalf of Geese.

Mm-hmm.

Chris RyanHost27:34

But this is, like, Lane, I, I wanted to know, that's, like, sort of my in on this article.

Chris RyanHost27:40

I saw this.

Chris RyanHost27:40

Um, there's a funny story I have to tell you, like, after I, we hear from you for a little bit.

Chris RyanHost27:45

But, you know, I think that that was sort of my in on your article.

Chris RyanHost27:49

But what was the thing that kind of was, like, the kernel of, of the idea that got you to write this piece?

It's sort of a two-parter, basically.

I, on, uh, I, I feel like I have been noticing things, uh, just every story I try to write, uh, uh, just in my sort of daily intake of information.

Uh, you know, I'm, I'm looking on Reddit.

I'm, uh, you know, I'm seeing w- you know, what the, what the voice of the people is on, uh, you know, in the internet comments.

And then, uh, I don't know, I, I've kind of noticed, uh, just sort of more and more things, uh, I don't know, a little, little strange.

And so I did a story on real estate a couple of years ago that was all about how, uh, New York City rent prices were just sort of exploding at a time when basically people were leaving the city.

Uh, and, uh, just in these, these, you know, New York City apartment Reddits and just, uh, they, they would be full of people saying, like, "Um, you know, this is not happening.

The, nobody's leaving.

Uh, people are moving in.

People are flooding back." I was like, "This is just totally not the, not the case." So I, I sort of noted that, and I, I saw the, kind of the same thing over and over again when I was, as I was working on some other stories.

And then I found this, this service.

Uh, I'm not gonna say the name of it because I maybe don't want to give them, uh, I don't want to do the, any product placement here.

But basically there are services that will essentially advertise your product within Reddit comments.

Uh-

Chris RyanHost29:04

Uh-huh

... and I thought, "Oh, this is really, uh, you know, they've, they've, they've really figured something out here, and they've, they've got me." Uh, and so I, I've kind of, you know, I've been begging, uh, my poor editors at New York Magazine to let me write a version of this, uh, for so long.

And finally the, sort of the, you know, the Geese thing came up, and suddenly this was a thing that was, you know, sort of in the conversation, and I was finally able to break them down, but after years of, uh, of sort of twisting their arms.

And so they finally kinda let me, uh, uh, let me take a couple of weeks and, uh, and sort of dig into this.

The other thing too also is I have no idea what's popular anymore.

Chris RyanHost29:39

Yeah.

Uh, as somebody that, you know, cares a lot about culture, I, uh, was the culture editor at New York Magazine for a long time, and I, my job was kind of, all right, figure out who people are gonna care about in six months so we can put this person on the cover.

And it used to be kinda simple to do that.

Uh, we had, you know, things like ratings, uh, uh, back in the olden days, and so, uh, you know, that was fairly easy to do.

And it got harder and harder and harder, and now I just have absolutely no idea.

Like, I was, I was thinking, do you have any idea, what is more popular, the Bear or the Pit?

Chris RyanHost30:11

I don't know.

Chris RyanHost30:12

Uh-

Yeah, 'cause I-

Chris RyanHost30:13

I mean, I think, I think definitively in this case right now, the Pit, but I think cumulatively, culturallyWhen you think about the, like, footprint of The Bear, people saying, "Yes, chef," like-

Right

Chris RyanHost30:25

...

Chris RyanHost30:25

the way people maybe started dressing because of the way Jeremy Allen White dresses on that show.

Right.

Chris RyanHost30:31

It's a different kind of influence.

Chris RyanHost30:32

It's maybe people saying things and not even knowing that, "Yes, chef" is from The Bear.

Chris RyanHost30:37

[laughs] You know?

Right, right.

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost30:38

But it, it goes hand in hand with there's different kinds of impact that shows can make.

Chris RyanHost30:44

And I think we, you know, over the course of our lives and, you know, uh, especially working in music, there are bands that are important and there are bands that are big.

Right.

Chris RyanHost30:53

And that's always been a tension in the media is to, like, you know, are we making too big of a deal out of a band just because we personally like them, so we're gonna fashion some narrative about why this is the only band that matters?

Right.

Chris RyanHost31:08

When there is objectively NSYNC or somebody who is, like, exponentially bigger than The White Stripes or something like that.

Chris RyanHost31:16

And y- that, that kind of back and forth has always been really fascinating.

Chris RyanHost31:19

And like you, dude, I have ne- I don't think there's ever been a time-

Mm

Chris RyanHost31:24

... where I've been less certain of not only what, how many people are watching something, and you get at this in your piece where you talk about when you really start to go in about, like, you know, all of this stuff being made by companies that have no incentive to share how-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost31:40

... people are watching it, how deeply people are watching it, how much they're paying attention to it.

Chris RyanHost31:45

It's so complicated now.

Chris RyanHost31:47

I'm sure you've had this experience now when you're, like, even talking with friends or if you go to a bar and, and TV or movies come up, and the, the amount of siloing that's going on now where somebody is like, "Yeah, man, I w- I am, like, a For All Mankind, every scene completist."

Right.

Chris RyanHost32:06

And then the next guy over is like, "I don't even...

Chris RyanHost32:09

I don't, I have no idea what you're talking about."

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost32:11

And both are conversant in television.

Right.

Yeah, it's, it, like, every conversation about culture has that, has that, that sidebar, uh, about, like, where you sort of justify, uh, how popular you think a thing is.

And it's like, oh, my, I was talking to my niece about this, or you always bring in, like, this, uh, as your evidence, like a cooler young person that you, uh, that you know or something that is somehow more tapped in than you.

Or, uh, you know, yeah, I was at brunch, and I, I overheard this and everything.

And it's, we sh- in theory, we should be able to track this stuff better than ever.

Uh-

Chris RyanHost32:38

Yes

... everything is, uh...

And, and but, uh, yes, there is no incentive, uh, on the part of these companies that are, you know, making this stuff to actually share that data with us.

And so we are just, uh, uh, y- you know, trying to look for every sort of strange little signal that we can find about how big one thing is.

And uh, uh, and, uh, kind of unfortunately, in this vacuum that we, we have now, it's become really, really easy to sort of fake these signals of, of popularity.

And so I feel like, uh, we do not have a very clear view of, uh, [laughs] of, of reality, uh, which is kind of, uh, yeah, kind of strange.

And so I, I wrote mostly about, uh, you know, TV, pop music, sort of, uh, celebrity gossip, like the frivolous stuff, but it's like you can obviously see the implications for, for everything here.

It's like we're getting, uh, you know, all of our information, uh, right now through the same, uh, you know, sort of rectangle in our, in our pockets-

Chris RyanHost33:31

Yeah

... through, through social media.

And it's, uh, uh, it's so easy to sort of get a, a distorted look at, uh, just reality with this, and so it's, it kind of terrifying.

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost33:41

And well, it creates an ecosystem in which I think that, I'm sure you find this challenging as a reporter and as a, as a features writer, where I think in m- my romantic conception of what my dad used to do as a newspaper journalist, you know, even though he was a film critic.

Chris RyanHost33:57

But, like, he would still have to gather a lot of information, especially when he was a crime reporter.

Chris RyanHost34:03

The crime reporting happens in the courts, you know? Like, you would go down to the courthouse and sit there and wait for an interesting case and, and then be like, "Oh, this is good.

Chris RyanHost34:10

This was a rich kid, got into a car accident and is trying to get out of it.

Chris RyanHost34:14

This is a good article," or, "This is a good hook for a piece." But we're l- deriding, deriving a lot of our concept of what is, what is popular or what is unpopular or what is beloved or what is being said about all those things from online platforms that are very susceptible to the kind of manipulation, uh, data inflation, and also narrative construction that, in some ways, I'm like, the game is the game.

Chris RyanHost34:45

And I, I think-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost34:46

... you've probably heard some pushback about this piece where it's like, how different is this from, say, Paola? How different is this from street teams p- plastering stickers all over a city for a band in the '90s? I was wondering if you could give our audience, without aggregating yourself, 'cause I, I do want-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost35:04

... people to read the piece, uh, just an idea of what clipping is and how it maybe is a little bit different from, say, a digital marketing campaign for a band, a TV show, a movie 10 years ago.

Basically, if you've got a, a song or a, a movie trailer or a TV show, you, uh, you take it, and you cut it into social media-friendly clips, like short 20-second clips, and then you find a bunch of dummy social media accounts that will post all of this online at huge volumes.

And essentially, as you do that, you are tricking the social media platform algorithms into, uh, interpreting it as a, uh, uh, basic, a sign of organic interest in this thing.

And so when that happens, the platforms sort of push these videos far and wide to users who ordinarily wouldn't have seen it.

And then sometimes, uh, they will kind of engage with it, and that will sort of, you know, add even more fuel to the fire, too.

It's, yeah, it's a thing that started only, uh, not too long ago.

It's, uh, probably at this point four, five years old, but, uh, really kind of in the last year, it's really sort of, uh, become a thing that everybody's doing.

Chris RyanHost36:08

Oh.

Uh, and, uh, you know, it, it, like, yeah, it's from, from Geese all the way up to Justin Bieber to Bad Bunny.

And so it's, it's tiny artists and big artists and everybody in between are, are doing it.

Chris RyanHost36:19

Do you feel like it grew out of-Something organic.

Chris RyanHost36:23

So, like, obviously TikTok and Instagram Reels, uh, one of the, like, sort of pillars of how you make stuff on there is to soundtrack it or interpolate clips of things.

Chris RyanHost36:36

Like, I follow a Thick of It memes account on Instagram where it's just scenes from The Thick of It, you know, being posted all day long.

Right.

Chris RyanHost36:45

And I'll just be like, "Oh, that's a, that's a funny line." That's p- primarily how I've, like, re-watched that show in the last two years.

Chris RyanHost36:51

I don't really know that there's a lot in it for the Thick of It producers to have that still on my feed.

Chris RyanHost36:58

But-

Hmm

Chris RyanHost36:59

...

Chris RyanHost36:59

I'm curious whether you think that this has become a weaponization of organic fan interaction or if it's something different than that.

That's a good question.

It is really, really hard to tell, and I feel like that's kind of the point.

Uh, I think that the people doing this have probably learned from things that actual, you know, fans were doing, and they saw that it, you know, uh, worked, uh, in one way.

But now it's like the, the volume is different.

It's, uh, you know, it's not just a, a couple of fans making...

Uh, you know, adding a song to a, a clip of, uh, Euphoria or something.

This is like 50,000 videos of the same thing being sort of dumped into, uh, social media all at the same, you know, over the same weekend to basically kind of like overflow the, the toilet, uh, and sort of get this, uh, uh...

Sorry to be scandalological.

Chris RyanHost37:43

No, you've obviously get this-

But, but yeah, sort of get this-

Chris RyanHost37:44

As a watch listener, you should know [laughs] it's fine.

[laughs] I think why it's different from, uh, you know, sure, there are b- people that say that, you know, this is, uh, payola, fine, has always kind of existed.

The fact that we don't have any trusted culture metrics at all anymore, uh, to tell us what's actually, you know, popular or, or not, uh, is, is sort of one thing.

And so we, you know, in the olden days, you could check a street team, you know, people putting up stickers or something, uh, against like SoundScan sales and, uh, you could kind of see the gulf.

But now there's just nothing to, uh, sort of check, uh, this against.

It is just trivially easy to do.

Chris RyanHost38:18

Yeah.

It is, like, so simple.

Uh, it's, uh, everybody's doing it.

It's at a scale that I think is, is, is different.

It's like it's not just in one city that this is, you know, you're putting up, uh, posters.

This is like you're blasting this out to the entire universe of, uh, uh, you know, TikTok's user base really, really quickly.

Uh, and so the, you know, the, the scale of it is, is pretty different.

Chris RyanHost38:40

So y- the clipping stuff happens obviously on video, but you were talking a little bit about the, the feeling you were getting reading Reddit threads.

Chris RyanHost38:48

And I, I certainly agree that there seems to be, over the last couple of years...

Chris RyanHost38:52

I can't really pinpoint the moment, but it reminds me a lot of like, you know, Twitter, I think, went from this thing that was sort of everybody's running, like, gag journal over the course of a day and was very much directed towards, like, a select group of followers.

Chris RyanHost39:09

And then, like, right when we started working at Grantland is when I think it became the primary promotional tool for journalism in, in the world.

Right.

Chris RyanHost39:16

And there was...

Chris RyanHost39:18

That, that had its benefits, and obviously also I think made everybody slightly insane.

Chris RyanHost39:22

Um-

Mm-hmm

Chris RyanHost39:23

... and then now it's kind of like a rage factory where you go, and if you look on your For You page, at least when I do, there are people having these, like, insane arguments about things that I'm like, "Wait, how do- why are you guys even fighting about, like, how-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost39:39

...

Chris RyanHost39:39

My Bloody Valentine isn't that good? Like, what, who started this fight?

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost39:43

Why is this now r- like, crossed over to six different friend circles that I seem to ha- have and, or businesses, you know? And, like, some guy from Bloomberg is like, "Actually, My Bloody Valentine-

Right

Chris RyanHost39:54

... is the best." And I'm like-

Right.

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost39:55

... "Why are you commenting on this?"

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost39:57

There's this...

Chris RyanHost39:58

So the, I digress just to say with Reddit, I noticed a real, um, collapse of voice.

Chris RyanHost40:06

Like, everything started to sound exactly the same.

Chris RyanHost40:09

Um, and obviously on Reddit you can comment anonymously, and if you click on someone's user profile, often they'll be like, "This person has hidden, like, their activity." Uh, w- is...

Chris RyanHost40:21

How much of, of what interested you about this project was not only, like, the obfuscation of data, the inflation of the sense of popularity that people can have, but also the shaping of narrative around cultural objects?

Clipping is sort of one technique.

The other thing that they're doing now is, uh, this thing that Chaotic Good sort of put a name on it.

I don't know if this is the, the name sort of used by everybody, but narrative campaigns, uh, where they are basically, uh, yeah, using internet comments, using dummy accounts to, uh, comment on things in a way that makes it seem like, you know, everybody is talking about a, a thing in kind of the same way.

And so you see it on Reddit.

You'll see it, uh, you know, you'll see it happen on Twitter.

A couple of people that I talked to, I thought this was sort of interesting.

It's like clipping is something that you wanna do at, you know, huge volumes because you wanna push this out to everybody.

Uh, narrative campaigns are a subtler thing.

You actually don't want that many people to notice this.

You want kind of the right people to notice this.

Uh, you want, uh...

You know, it's sort of a, a light sort of sprinkle of, uh, uh, of sort of like narrative juice on a, on a story to kind of shape something.

And then, you know, once you do that, you can then, uh, use these other accounts to, like, amplify, uh, certain arguments, too.

And so, uh, yeah, it is, it is really interesting because it's like it seems like a lot of the pop culture fights that we've had over the past, you know, I don't know how many years, have basically been, uh, seemingly the, the result of some of this, uh, some of these techniques.

And so in the, the story, I talk about, uh, you know, one example is, like, Bad Bunny in the Super Bowl.

Chris RyanHost41:50

Yeah.

Uh, for, for a month, there was, this was the loudest argument in America.

Uh, you know, the NFL has hired this, this Spanish-speaking artist to perform.

Uh, uh, and then, uh, you know, people are upset about that, and other people are sort of defending this.

And, uh, it, uh, yeah, it turns out that, uh, basically the, uh, these bot detection firms that, that track this kind of thing found that, uh, basically the shape of the argument was exactly the same on both sides.

Chris RyanHost42:18

Yes.

Chris RyanHost42:18

[laughs]

And the, and their, these accounts were basically posting at the same time, maybe in the same time zones, uh, which is sort of suggestive of, uh, something coordinated.

Uh, and so yeah, when you, when you think about that, it's like all of these things that we're just, you know, at each other's throats about, uh-All the time.

Uh, it's like, you know, how much of it is real? We have no idea.

Chris RyanHost42:38

I was talking to a friend of mine who's a lawyer in the music business about your piece and about the, the Wire piece, the, about Chaotic Good and Geese, and he was like, "I wonder if the guys who did Cambridge Analytica knew that the end point of this was to get a Geese song-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost42:54

... on a montage of Sixers highlights?" [laughs] That would-

It's, yeah

Chris RyanHost42:58

... you know, it's like-

Dreams come true, yeah.

Chris RyanHost43:00

But the Bad Bunny thing is a really, uh, good segue into the thing that I, I wanted to ask you about.

Chris RyanHost43:06

You know, uh, I was talking with, uh, well, both...

Chris RyanHost43:10

Y- I guess your former colleague in, in a sense I, at Grantland, Kirk Goldsberry.

Chris RyanHost43:13

We, he works with us at The Ringer now, and we were chatting about...

Chris RyanHost43:17

For some reason he hit me up about like why is everybody talking about the Kevin Hart roast? And I was like, "Yeah, me, me too, although I don't know who's talking about it," because really what's happened is it has been atomized down to its 30 most important 30 second clips, completely decontextualized from like the fact that that was like a three-hour show on Netflix-

Right

Chris RyanHost43:44

... that I find roasts like s- super uncomfortable to watch.

Chris RyanHost43:47

[laughs]

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost43:48

Honestly don't understand them at all.

It's excruciating, yeah.

Chris RyanHost43:50

And yet it is, um, I think Kirk called it like my junk feed, where there's all these things that everybody I talk to seems relatively conversant in, but you can't find a single person who's like, "I absolutely made time to watch-"

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost44:07

"... a three-hour roast of Kevin Hart," and have a-

Right

Chris RyanHost44:09

... concert- like a, an opinion about it.

Chris RyanHost44:12

And there's tons of stories like that.

Chris RyanHost44:14

Like I, I am a person who likes the Bad Bunny I have heard, does not give a shit who plays the Super Bowl halftime show, and-

Right

Chris RyanHost44:23

... like was very aware that that was like a weaponization that worked for both parties.

Chris RyanHost44:30

Like-

Right

Chris RyanHost44:30

... whether or not Bad Bunny or Bad Bunny's label or Bad Bunny's marketing company participated in that debate, I s- I think it's actually like important that he gets to play the, the halftime show, but I, it ca- you know, and I thought his performance was really good, but it's like that-

Right.

Yeah

Chris RyanHost44:47

... kind of thing where I'm like, how the fuck are we talking about this for a third week? Like, and, and who-

Yeah

Chris RyanHost44:53

... actually is like-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost44:54

... every day I wake up and go to bed thinking about the Super Bowl halftime show?

You really do have to wonder how many of these people actually exist.

Who gives a shit about anything? Like, uh-

Chris RyanHost45:03

[laughs]

...

I, people have enough, uh, enough on their plates, uh, I would think.

I don't know.

I can't imagine being upset about, you know, enough about anything to, uh, sort of log on and, and go off anymore.

I talk about, uh, Justin Bieber using this for Coachella.

Uh, uh, at least we think so.

Somebody paid to clip, uh, Justin Bieber's Coachella performance, and I, I really thought, uh, you know, I, maybe I, I don't know if I have to go into witness protection after this.

Chris RyanHost45:28

[laughs]

Uh, like am I gonna be, I mean, i- is this gonna be, you know, uh, uh, are people gonna be after me this weekend? Uh, and uh, you know, I was out walking around.

I didn't hear from one, uh, Belieber.

Uh-

Chris RyanHost45:39

Yeah

... uh, and so it, it really, it's, like just how much of this is, how much of this, uh, uh...

How many p- paper tigers are there out there? It, uh, you know, how much of this is real? It's like, uh, we hear about the, you know, these fan armies that are supposedly just, uh, you know, burning people's houses down every time you say a negative word about, uh, whichever pop star, and it's like, uh, how much of that is real? Uh, or, and how much of that is just bots sort of, uh, you know, bullying, uh, you know, people into, uh, uh, into submission? It, who knows.

It's, it's really, uh, it's a, yeah, strange, strange world out there.

Chris RyanHost46:14

But there is like real world implications to it.

Chris RyanHost46:15

I mean, obviously like our political landscape is completely like shaped by this kind of online discussion.

Chris RyanHost46:23

I mean, going through the Los Angeles mayoral race here now, and you can see a lot of the old, uh, positions being taken, the, the same ones that have been sort of, people have been manning since 2016.

Chris RyanHost46:37

There's like a-

Right

Chris RyanHost46:38

... a sort of progressive spoiler candidate.

Chris RyanHost46:41

There is a far right-wing reality TV like candidate.

Chris RyanHost46:45

Like, there are two people kind of in the middle trying to s- scrap to see who's gonna get into the runoff, and watching people talk about it online, even sometimes people I personally know, I'm like, oh, it kind of feels like you, if you're gonna actually take the, the indignity of posting, you are m- still parroting one of like seven pre-agreed upon positions, right? And most of the time-

Exactly

Chris RyanHost47:13

...

Chris RyanHost47:13

I think it's almost reflexive now that people say things.

Chris RyanHost47:17

I find this sometimes even talking to Andy, I'm like, I don't know how to make my point without making it in an extreme way, right? Like-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost47:24

... um, I don't know how to say like I acknowledge this without saying I hated it or I loved it.

Chris RyanHost47:29

Um, and I think that that's something that I see a lot in criticism and in online discussion of culture now, where it's like the, the idea of something being like a two and a half star, three star out of five star thing-

Right.

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost47:42

... has completely vanished.

Chris RyanHost47:44

You know?

Right.

Chris RyanHost47:44

Because even if you think that, there's like a really vocal contingent of people somewhere online, or quote, unquote, "people", who are like, "This is actually the GOAT sci-fi show.

Chris RyanHost47:54

This is, this is-

Right.

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost47:56

... better than 2001," and you're like, "Uh, God, man, I really, really don't think so." [laughs]

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost48:03

But that doesn't mean I think it's an unredeemable piece of crap.

Chris RyanHost48:07

I just don't wanna spend 30 hours watching it maybe, yeah.

The, the negative engagement, the stuff that starts arguments, is the stuff that sort of goes, goes further, and so I think that's more kind of more of what you see.

Well, okay, Spencer Pratt is obviously clipping it up.

Chris RyanHost48:19

Yes.

Chris RyanHost48:19

Yes.

Uh, like he's got, he's got, uh, clipping events started going, going full time.

Uh, although he is, uh, to, uh, the, to his credit at least, he's, I think he's, because of election laws, he's gotta disclose it, and so he's the rare, uh, uh, you know, sort of clipping event that actually you-Sort of know where it's coming from.

Most of the journalism in the world now has sort of disappeared behind pay walls.

Chris RyanHost48:38

Yeah.

And so we are getting the TLDR version of stuff for the, you know, the stories that we're not subscribers to, uh, from the, you know, the, the tweet about it or the, you know, the quote tweet or the, you know, the comment in, uh-

Chris RyanHost48:50

Or the argument about it afterwards.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

And so the, it, the terms of the debate are basically set by whatever that argument is, which is really easy to, uh, you know, sort of amplify a real thing or just completely astroturf it from, from scratch.

Uh, and so it's, uh...

Yeah.

So I think that's probably another reason why you're seeing it's like everything is the most extreme kind of, uh, you know, fight, uh, that it could possibly be because that's, you know, it's, uh, somebody benefits when that, when that happens.

Chris RyanHost49:18

Yeah.

Chris RyanHost49:18

And you see, I mean, we ...

Chris RyanHost49:19

And this has been going on since we were kids, but you see all the time on the left and the right, political candidates, television shows, pieces of music, movies, TV, you know, whatever, are essentially rejected from trying to occupy some sort of, like, middle ground.

Chris RyanHost49:33

You know, like, the, the, the stuff that really kind of at least drives conversation is the stuff that's gonna be, and increasingly the m- the more extreme kind of version of whatever we're, we're talking about.

Chris RyanHost49:46

Um, you know, I always try, on this show, Andy and I always have this kind of running conversation about doing something because it's, uh...

Chris RyanHost49:55

Doing, like, covering a show because we think it's popular and, and there are shows that, um, are hugely popular, but d- not w- necessarily within the algorithm that we follow.

Chris RyanHost50:07

So something like, say, I think the Sheridan shows, Taylor Sheridan shows are a good example of something-

Yeah

Chris RyanHost50:13

...

Chris RyanHost50:13

I, I cannot honestly say that we would do as much Taylor Sheridan coverage if those shows weren't obviously very big.

Right.

Chris RyanHost50:23

Taylor Sheridan also would not have made 13 shows in four years-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost50:26

...

Chris RyanHost50:26

if he wasn't big, and if Paramount and hadn't decided, like, this was what we're gonna bet the farm on.

Chris RyanHost50:33

By that same token, you know, we cover Euphoria on a week-to-week basis.

Chris RyanHost50:37

I think that's a very big show.

Chris RyanHost50:39

I, uh, most of my friends have stopped watching it.

Chris RyanHost50:42

You know?

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost50:43

Like, um, so it's, it's a, it's always this murky thing feeling around in the dark for a light switch.

Chris RyanHost50:49

And the thing that's funny about what you were writing about, especially, like, you know, when you're talking about Geese, which is a band that I like and I kind of wonder if you don't based on your description of-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost50:59

... how Cameron Winter sings.

I like a good, uh, yeah, caterwaul.

Yeah.

Chris RyanHost51:03

But I was, like, mildly offended by, like...

Chris RyanHost51:06

I'm not, I'm not being manipulated, man.

Chris RyanHost51:08

Like, I like Geese.

Chris RyanHost51:09

I like, you know-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost51:09

I, I, I started liking Geese two years ago.

Chris RyanHost51:12

[laughs]

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost51:12

Like, uh, do you f- did you come across anything in your research or in looking online and seeing these Discord servers where people are, you know, begging someone to clip Apple TV shows or what have you, where you were like, "Oh, well, I like that thing, though"?

[laughs] Chaotic Goods roster, uh-

Chris RyanHost51:31

Yeah

... has got some good stuff on it.

Uh, and, uh, uh, so it was kind of maybe a little bit, yeah, disappointing, I guess, to, uh, uh, to see that.

But I, I also, uh, you know, I also understand.

It's, uh, we are s- this whole system is so broken that, like, you kind of need to, uh, you need to do this.

You're either in or you're out.

And so being in means, uh, you know, sort of resorting to some of these, uh, sort of shady techniques.

I was in these Discord servers for, uh, three or four weeks and, uh, basically I would ask the publicists of the, uh, the people being clipped, uh, you know, "Is this something that you, uh, you know, did...

Is this something that was paid for by the, you know, the artist and their, or their, or their team?" And, uh, nobody wants to talk about this.

They're, everybody's doing it, but I think, you know, for understandable reasons, they don't, uh, uh, they don't wanna talk about it because it is just kind of, uh, lame, I guess, would be the, the word.

Like, it's, it's really sort [laughs] of a bummer that, that, uh, this is what we've come to.

But, uh, at the same time, I totally understand why Geese or, uh, you know, McGee or, uh, you know, whoever, uh, has to do this because one of the things that this does, it's not just, you know, the artists that, that do it are, are sort of in the conversation, it's basically everybody who doesn't do this is, uh, sort of left out of the, the conversation.

You can't help that it gets too many of the artists themselves.

It's, uh...

I feel like it's more of a, a information ecosystem problem that is, is complicated-

Chris RyanHost52:55

Yeah

... and it's the, I blame the platforms, I think, more than anybody.

Chris RyanHost52:57

At one point you mentioned, like, the Chaot- one of the Chaot G- Chaotic Goods narrative-shaping tactics was if an artist has a performance on Saturday Night Live, at midnight you're posting it, and the narrative, the comments under the video should be, "This is the greatest live performance I've ever seen.

Chris RyanHost53:17

This is the best live show I've ever seen on Saturday Night Live.

Chris RyanHost53:21

Like, we have our new Strokes.

Chris RyanHost53:22

We have..." Like, there's, like, an obvious, like, echo of, like, there's this, uh, a sort of excellence or supremely, like, amazing thing that's happening rather than, like, "Cool," like, "They played on s- SNL," or whatever geeky thing some fan would say w- if they saw their favorite band playing on SNL.

Chris RyanHost53:40

I was wondering whether or not you felt like, you know, you kinda mentioned this with the paywalled media, traditional media sites, but whether or not you felt like this had kind of filled this vacuum where I don't even know where I would go now to find out what someone thought of an SNL-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost53:56

... live performance anyway.

Chris RyanHost53:58

I mean, when we were coming up, there were plenty of things that recapped Saturday Night Live on Monday.

Chris RyanHost54:03

There were plenty of articles where it was like, "It sure seems like this band is having a moment." That would kind of shape maybe a narrative around it, but that's not in the artist's hands.

Chris RyanHost54:11

The artist is hoping that Jon Pareles at The New York Times or, or somebody at Rolling Stone is, like, into them enough and is like, "Yeah, that was good." But-

Right

Chris RyanHost54:20

... you know, it's easier maybe to say, have, like, a lot of, like, a stan army of Ashley Padilla fans who are like-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost54:26

... "This is the new Kristen Wiig." I don't know.

It is really hard for, uh, for culture journalists, and I think just journalism in general, to, uh, to know anything anymore.

I think that this is, uh, like, I don't know where to go to find out, uh-You know, what's, what's actually popular.

I, I used to think that I had my, my finger on things, but, uh, all of the advertising sort of moved to short-form video.

Chris RyanHost54:47

Yeah.

All of the, yeah, the websites that you would, uh, you'd sort of go to to, you know, find out what a writer, uh, sort of thought about this stuff have, uh, you know, uh, some of them are still hanging on, but, uh, it's like a quite a lot of them have disappeared.

And so it's, uh-

Chris RyanHost55:00

Yeah

...

it is, it, I don't know, it's really tough.

Uh, I, I don't think, uh, you know, uh, I am no better at anybody else, uh, than anybody else at, at figuring this out.

I'm, like, just, you know, fumbling around in the dark here.

Chris RyanHost55:11

Yeah, I mean, it's also like there's a degree to which there's like, I, I would actually be curious to get feedback from, from this conversation from people who are not necessarily working with it within the media or are not handcuffed to their laptops 12 hours of the day and kind of working for seven of them, but also like ambiently looking online at stuff.

Chris RyanHost55:32

Because I do think that that phenomenon, while it gave us careers, it also is kind of why sometimes it's really hard to tell, like, is there a whole world out there that doesn't give a shit about X, Y, or Z thing that we're writing about or arguing about? I, I know there is.

Sure.

Chris RyanHost55:50

Um, but what are they, what do they care about? You know, because it's, it's, maybe they are not watching as much TV or listening to as much new music or care about whether Obsession made $15 or $16 million-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost56:01

...

Chris RyanHost56:01

this weekend, but they're engaged with culture on some level or, or else, like, we cannot be propping this entire thing up.

Chris RyanHost56:09

So how do they get their information, and how, how seriously do they take what they see on their feeds? It's, it's, it's, it's an impossible question to answer maybe.

Sort of a culture emergency, but, uh, you know, the people I worry about maybe the most though are the artists themselves.

Uh, because, uh, nobody has any idea what's popular.

Nobody knows what people are actually responding to anymore.

This is, like, we, we talked about, okay, like in the old Grantland days, we covered a show like Mad Men, which 200, 300,000 people watched, but we understood that the people that watched that show would maybe come to our-

Chris RyanHost56:40

Yes

... website and, and read about it.

Uh, but, uh, you know, now it's like the, the, uh, and we knew it wasn't as popular as Big Bang Theory, for example.

Uh, but I feel like the, yeah, it's, it's impossible to compare something like, uh, I don't know, Beef to, uh, uh, you know, House of the Dragon.

I have no idea which is, uh, which is, has sort of more of an impact.

Uh, you know, you just think of an artist trying to pitch, uh, something right now.

Chris RyanHost57:05

Mm-hmm.

And it's like, I don't know what, uh, you know, they don't know what kind of feedback they're, they're getting.

Sort of their, their market research has just sort of been run through this, uh, this whole, you know, sort of distortion pedal of, uh, uh, of social media that, that really kind of warps everything.

Yeah, so like, it's, it's just, it's hard to know.

And so I, I feel like, uh, you know, I, I think about how the fact that, uh, you know, every show on TV lately seems to be, uh, sort of derivative of, like, the, the White Lotus or it's like we had a...

I know a couple of years ago, like, the agencies were telling, you know, uh, telling everybody, it's like, "All right, no more nice out, uh, riffs," uh-

Chris RyanHost57:41

Yeah

... and anything.

And it's, it, it's like I kind of wonder, were those like the last two shows or the last two, like, culture products that we sort of had hard numbers for-

Chris RyanHost57:49

[laughs]

... uh, uh, for the, you know, original things? And now, uh, you know, we're just sort of, uh, reinterpreting them into perpetuity because we, we have nothing else that, uh, uh, with, like, real data on.

It's, uh-

Chris RyanHost58:00

It's so hard-

And it, it-

Chris RyanHost58:01

... 'cause like, but back when you, you and I were working together, like something like Homeland would come on.

Chris RyanHost58:05

It would be a sensation for two years.

Chris RyanHost58:07

I mean, it was a very popular show for its entirety, but, like, those first couple of seasons of Homeland were like, it felt like you would come in on Monday, and people would be like, "Let me know when you're ready to talk about Homeland," you know?

Right.

Right.

Chris RyanHost58:18

Um, and that's what this, like literally this podcast is built off that premise, that there are these-

Sure

Chris RyanHost58:22

... five, 10 shows a year that, yes, we, Andy and I are happy to recommend 100 shows or 20 shows in a year, but there are gonna be five or six that, like, we feel confident, like, that Mad Men group of people are gonna be like, "I wanna talk about this or hear people talk about it." That Homeland thing that would then lead to 10 Homeland rip-offs that-

Right

Chris RyanHost58:44

... would have varying levels of success or critical appreciation, and then they would kinda shed that and get out.

Chris RyanHost58:51

But you're right.

Chris RyanHost58:51

It's like I don't even know what I would try to imitate now.

Chris RyanHost58:57

Like, I don't even know-

Yeah

Chris RyanHost58:59

... what a show, like White Lotus is a good example.

Chris RyanHost59:00

I think that there's a lot of reasons for that.

Chris RyanHost59:03

One is, I think, shows-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost59:06

...

Chris RyanHost59:06

T- TV networks maybe are like, "This is great," 'cause this is, like, a very controlled environment.

Chris RyanHost59:11

You can isolate people, so that's essentially, like, we don't have to worry a lot about extras.

Chris RyanHost59:16

We don't have to do a lot of set pieces.

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost59:17

Like, it's just find a good location, have a mystery, and then have people betray one another, and that's great for us.

Chris RyanHost59:23

Um-

Totally

Chris RyanHost59:24

...

Chris RyanHost59:24

but I'm not sure what a show now, The Pit, I think, would be the best example of, I think, that Max and other places will start to try to say, "How do we get a 16-episode procedural up yearly but have it be stickier and more maybe long-lasting in the psyche than, say, the Chicago Dick Wolf Em-

[laughs]

Chris RyanHost59:52

...

Chris RyanHost59:52

Empire or, or a procedural on a network?"

Right.

Chris RyanHost59:56

But I don't know.

Chris RyanHost59:57

I don't know.

Chris RyanHost59:57

I don't know if you can, like, recreate that magic.

Chris RyanHost59:59

And by that same token, if you clipped it enough [laughs] and if you had, like-

Maybe you could

Chris RyanHost1:00:05

... and if you had the faction of Pit fans who seem to be talking about these people like they're actual humans instead of fictional characters, maybe you could manufacture, like, an illusion that your Pit rip-off police procedural or Pit rip-off family drama was actually as big as The Pit.

Chris RyanHost1:00:23

I'm not sure.

Talking to some of the people I've talked to, uh, I believe you could.

Obviously, shows fail all the time.

Obviously, things get canceled all the time.

Things just don't work.

Things, you know, don't catch on.

It, it feels like there's a way to sort of put your finger on the scale a little bit more than there, than there once was, and you can sort of declare a, a hit by, by fiat a little bit.

I don't know.

I think you guys were having a conversation the other, the other day about Apple, uh, shows, and it's like a hit on Apple is different from a hit on, uh, obviously Netflix or, uh, any other service with more subscribers.

And so you're, you're dealing with things at totally different, uh-Different scales.

And so if a show without a lot of viewers, its survival prospects on Apple TV are probably better than they are on-

Chris RyanHost1:00:59

Yeah, I think, I think that-

... on Netflix.

And so, yeah

Chris RyanHost1:01:01

... there's something to Apple's volume play is still modest compared to Netflix.

Chris RyanHost1:01:08

Uh, they seem to be way more willing to bring shows back.

Chris RyanHost1:01:12

I don't know what their bo- budget and model is, and if it's different from show to show.

Chris RyanHost1:01:17

Like, I, I will s- routinely see renewal announcements or a new season of something that's in season four or five.

Chris RyanHost1:01:24

Traditionally, a lot of these places, they wrap things up by season three, either because they see, like, an attrition in viewership, or because that's when contract renegotiations come up with cast.

Right.

Chris RyanHost1:01:35

And I don't understand the economics of what Apple is-

Mm

Chris RyanHost1:01:40

... playing at.

Chris RyanHost1:01:42

It's pretty much a write-down for them in their larger business.

Totally.

Chris RyanHost1:01:44

So I don't, I'm not sure.

Chris RyanHost1:01:46

And then you get into something like Netflix, like you're saying, where their data, to me, is incomprehensible.

More people watched Bridgerton season three than watched the moon landing.

Chris RyanHost1:01:55

[laughs]

Uh, uh, is, like, my- my favorite stat.

Uh, yeah, uh, none of it makes any sense.

Everything is incomprehensible.

Who, who knows? Uh, it, but interestingly enough, so the, one of the things that I mentioned in the piece, The Night Agent was something that was being-

Chris RyanHost1:02:08

Yeah