Hey, everybody, it's Eric newcomer here with Tom do Tom and we've got guests we've been trying to get on the show for a while. Taylor Lorenz is here she has a new one of her stories where she smartly put has a word that maybe like 1% of the population knows and then blasted out to the readers of the mainstream media. Now, her latest is nem cell famous for propagating Chu ghee before and I'll let her
tell us the backstory on the story in a second. I also have to say, Taylor is like I've experienced I've seen other people say this on Twitter, but is genuinely amazing. It seemed new, cool things take off the ground. I feel like as soon as I announced my substack, she was in my DMs like excited about it, like, give me audience which I can see sort of having experienced it firsthand how important it is to create or when somebody like especially sort of a kingmaker, you know, creator reporter says, Oh, this is interesting. I'm gonna follow this from the beginning. So before we get into nimsoft, all that, like, what is your strategy? And don't talk about me? Because I was too complimentary of myself, but how do you how do you sort of like, eyeball things on the come up? Or what's your sort of? Are you just like, talking to everybody? Or like, what's your strategy for watching this?
Yeah, I just kind of like consume as much as possible. And I just kind of spend all day absorbing content, finding new people, I love to go down rabbit holes, and kind of finding, you know, interesting new people to talk to, and in all different types of sort of tech industries and content creators. I'm a big supporter of independent media and believer in independent media. So I, you know, I, anytime I see, like a new content creator, enter the news space, that's really exciting for me. You know, I think if I had started later, in my career, I probably would have gotten that route myself. And maybe we'll do it one day, but it's so hard, I don't know, I'm gonna it's kind of nice to have, you know, health care.
I will everybody in substack World Wonders, like, on some level, you're the natural, you know, independent.
I know, he was trying to get me to do that. I might, on top of that, sometimes what I really, I mean, my whole like, shtick is just trying to get the mainstream audience to care. And to kind of understand the world, the way that I feel like I see it online every day. And so I kind of, you know, I like writing for more, you know, Boomer,
like, if I'm gonna stay up all night, reading Twitter, the world at least needs to understand, like, well, the
description I always I always kind of have the view Taylor is, is that, you know, and it's the easy when people probably use is that you're like the great chronicler of internet culture of our age. But then I always think that's a bit of a lazy way to describe it, because there really is no defining line between internet culture and culture more broadly. And so to kind of segment the two in saying, you know, one is siphoned off into a certain group of people or listeners just doesn't really explain what's happened over the last couple of decades. And so, yeah, I'm expanding what I think of your horizon. And as like an example of this, since we're all just about complementing each other episode. podcast is, is, you know, as a sign of, you know, the crossover, I have some friends that I'm in a book club with, and the information wrote a profile of you this is a couple of months ago. And they were like, Oh, can you send me that Taylor profile that was in the information? And I was like, well, one, I don't work there anymore. Yeah, sure. This was from people that don't work in tech. And so I think, kind of the great thing about internet culture reporting, as you sort of approached it is that you've shown the impact that it has beyond that, and people do care beyond those that are, you know, it's it's a data term now, but like, extremely,
I know, I've written well, extreme landline is the title of my book coming out next year from Simon Oh, it's not. Right. But yeah, I mean, I wrote a piece on that crypto
book schedules, right. Don't get me started on errors for these things to reach a lead.
But no, I wrote a piece on that platform mirror that was like some crypto blogging platform. But I wrote about kind of how I hate the term internet culture so much. And I do use it sometimes because it is effective shorthand, but yeah, I mean, I just think the internet is our lives and we're only getting more and more, you know, it's sort of embedded within it. So yeah, I consider what I cover very mainstream culture, and I think it's a window into what the world will be like, right. So I like Yeah, I like to cover shifts in in that and obviously covered the Creator worlds really early and have stayed on that and I just it's fun and exciting. to cover and kind of like, as a, as a media nerd, myself and a tech lover like it's, you know, there's just so much happening in this space. And there's so much to cover. And I like to cover it in a way that gets, it helps people kind of understand shifts that are happening in tech media culture, but in an accessible way, you know, or in a not in a condescending way
is one of your strategies for engaging audiences now, finding a single word or like, we have chewy, we have no so is there another story that fits in your story, you're
disappointed that you're not responsible for vibe shift?
I thought about writing about that. I, I you know, there's so many things I don't you know, I like to write about language, especially, I mean, I don't know if you read in that piece about Nietzsche at Microsoft DS, but like, I wrote this whole history of the word creator itself, which I've also written about the rise of the word influencer and yeah, like I love. Well, there's this great book called because Internet by this linguist named Gretchen McCullough, who wrote about how the Internet has impacted language. And I just think that the words that we use and the phrases that we use to describe the world around us can often reveal really interesting shifts in tech culture, whatever. And so I like I like doing those stories. Because it they're kind of just like, using a phrase or a word as a peg to talk about some broader shift. All right,
this classic for this podcast where we talk around the subject before telling people we're actually niche internet micro celebrity named Sal give us the like, you know, 62nd Spiel like how did you get on to this story? What is it
I was so late to the story I meant to write about it since last spring, it's like one of those ones that's been on my list forever. And then I finally wrote a huge
condemnation of the other people on the beat.
First of all, there's like, there's no almost no one on on this beat. Just to be clear, it's it's such a crazy, like, there's almost no one on it. And it's, I think that it's super under resourced, or every place has like the one person that covers everything. And, you know, we all cover things from different lenses. And so I know I love everyone on my beat, and none of us have time to get to all the stories that we want to get to there could be 100 more reporters on the beat and there'd still be so many great scoops to get out. But yeah, anyway
them so anyway, I
know that I knew one of her like, she's never gonna let you like, slot his like snipe. But
no, I would never I don't know. If you that are on your you know, I'm on it too, honestly. I mean, we can get to the story that I wrote later. But yes, the show?
Well, when what you know, it kind of it was it was VidCon that really made me want to write about this, and I think it was Amanda Perrelli, or somebody at businessinsider wrote
VidCon is this VidCon is it
online convention for for online video stars and kind of that whole industry like the influencers, Comic Con, you can think of that like that. And this year was the first year that Tik Tok was the title sponsor YouTube sponsored it for 10 years and really pioneered it and Tik Tok took over and one thing I noticed is just kind of like the way that fame has shifted like, early VidCon. And, you know, previous VidCon, that I was at sort of more towards the beginning, like, you could get all of the famous people on the internet into a room. And now I just think we live in such a networked world. There's that famous post of like, we're all gonna be famous 200 people, and it's very true. Like, there's a lot more well, the term that I wrote about is like niche internet micro celebrities, which is a very tongue in cheek term to call yourself in himself. But it speaks to this thing of like, micro fame and sort of like being known to people, but that doesn't necessarily mean commercial success. Or like, fame, fame, you know what I mean? Like a lot of it's just knowing Oh,
tell us about the lead. You had sort of a lead character who was super compelling.
Bryce Wallman. Yes, one of my favorite muscles. And so Bryce is this guy in South Dakota that just had like, he's like the unofficial mayor of Sioux Falls, and he just has designated as such by the mayor actually designated as the unofficial mayor. He just has this loud and fun internet personality, that kind of everyone in that
5000 Twitter followers. So the key here is that deep, deep in that world, known by sort of the key people, but then it's sort of a tiny following.
Somebody called it like contextualized microfi,
in a different era. And I wonder if this is some of the pushback if there has been on this piece is that it's the concept of a local celebrity, right? I mean, the idea that if you live in a town, like I grew up in a suburban town, and the guy that worked at Subway, del, everybody knew about Dell, and like, he was kind of like a joke that we all had in high school of like, oh, yeah, you're gonna go hang out with Dell later. And that meant like go in a subway. So that sort of thing has existed for I mean, probably hundreds of years. But it sounds to me like what you're getting at in this piece is there's something in terms of You know, being online and connecting to, you know, communities that are not physically where you are that changes the kind of nature of this kind of celebrity.
Yeah, exactly. So the big difference now is that it's not localized like these. I mean, of course, it is a very local thing right there tons of local people like that, like you said, that I think are kind of like the online evolution of those types of people. And then you have like, just, you know, the most niche internet micro celebrities for every little random thing, right? Like a really popular Facebook group or like a chip person that's really into chips or whatever like, are, they're just really known for their like, weird tick tock lives. And they only have 10,000 followers, like, but they're very known to people that kind of vibe with them or care about what they are posting about, like in terms of the topic. It's just about sort of how famous becoming more distributed, I guess. And there's less like, internet a Lister.
I joked online, on Twitter that I wasn't named Sal that monetizes? Well. There's a level that that's not really true. I mean, but it gets into sort of a question in the piece, which is like, do nem cells monetize? Or like the sort of being the sort of sense that you're like an influencer? Or this small micro celebrity, but you're not really making money off of it? Or how did you try to draw that line? Or how do you go about it?
Well, so you know, I think influencer is this like capitalistic notion where they used to be like, Oh, you got an online following. You're an influencer. But these people are not influencers in the sense that like, they're not looking to brand themselves, they're not looking to have that broader cultural impact. None of them really have that broader relevance outside their own niche social group. They're just kind of known. So I think like not being able to monetize is, is the story of a lot of these people, because their audiences are too small and they're not really going into it for that goal. So they say this. Yeah, exactly. Then they get a little bigger, maybe they try to pose
and certainly to not want to monetize and then you know, someday you're selling t shirt
if at first you strike out with the brands you might as well reposition yourself as an himself I know that's like purely cynical, but there has to be a percentage of people that kind of like didn't quite make the cut in terms of number of audience that you need to be relevant to brands and they're just like actually, you know what I really was going for niche internet my
Yeah, a lot of them do is like pivoted into careers in XYZ, right, like you're known Listen, McDevitt, you know, like, known as this kind of like Nisha, micro celebrity in the tech world for founding this Facebook group, used it to get a job, I think she worked at Google or something like that. So it's a good way to like kind of get attention and use that attention. Okay, this part got cut from my story, I'm gonna give you the highlights because it was way too niche media stuff. I think the media then part of like, a lot of sometimes I write pieces, because I'm just so annoyed by how like bad media coverage elsewhere. I think certain publications in New York cannot distinguish between a nice internet micro celebrity in their own little media adjacent universe and an actual influencer, aka everyone in Times Square.
So this is a lot of times where exactly if we actually mentioned sort of you criticizing the obsession over Time Square on another episode
manufactured, it's not like no hate to them, but like, let's not act like these people have any kind of broader cultural relevance. And I think like that, and again, zero hate to them. I just think like, the way the media covers it is like, you see, these legacy publications want to cover online culture, but they don't have an understanding of the nuances of the internet enough to like, recognize, like, what's actually culturally relevant I
push back, you know, was just the like, old guard media, my imagination, by
the way, I work for old guard me, yes.
But just like media pre us, like, there was a sense that like, whatever the media talked about, was sort of like what people were chattering about. And sometimes it was sort of elitist. And like, it's not like they were running a poll of the country and saying, like, what is on everybody's
was always out of touch. The thing is, is that
we used to always be like, What is a trend, a trend is something that your editors, kids started talking.
Exactly, no, but you guys this is my whole thing is the past 15 years have been about dismantling that. And so I think we just see, right, like the New York Times, you know, Style section, I think as a long and I worked there, I love it, no hate, but like, you know, definitely, I'm sure in the 90s was publishing some crazy stuff. The point is, is now that now we see how out of touch specific coverage is, and it's so like, you know, it's so it's so kind of transparent. And so I think if you write about culture, and you continue to write in that 90s style, without acknowledging the internet, it's like we can see the numbers right we can see who's following you we can see cultural relevance so clearly that it's just it's just out of touch
Do you think some reader to me some readers miss that like
you understand that that's you're leading people to be missing for like
even you see subsets even like I was Googling, I think, like some of these subjects are talking about Time Square like people want like it's No
one is talking about it and he covers it relentlessly, which is fine. I and by the way again, I'm not saying don't cover the niche internet micro celebrities, okay, I love covering these people
you literally just wrote an article about just admit that they're like, you know, five people care,
it's important to contextualize and not act like that is the moniker because it's not right but
what does the mono culture now I mean, that's what's so interesting about you know, the internet as an audience is that it's literally worldwide. And so like podcasting is so interesting to me about it because you can have podcasts that have 100,000 listeners that I would bet most of my friends have never heard of.
I used that what is the internet monoculture there is still right there is still mass culture on the internet, there are still people that rise from the internet, especially in music and entertainment, right that are that that are mainstream
keeps a list of them I think
you know, but I mean, like look at the rise of like so many pop artists are constantly like, and a lot of celebrities are you know, you could look at like people like Addison ray or some of these like internet you know, famous people he dropped a little bit popped off but like, you know, she's you know, definitely 2019 2020 We're
arguing about her parents like it isn't me like Joe
Rogan you know, there's there's these there's these people that break out of their niches right and rise to mainstream fame. But that's not the nation at Microsoft.
Well, I love that this was a sub tweet of Times Square that you weren't allowed to write
about it. I wanted to add a line I wanted to add a line in and I was like this is like nice
tweet out this with your grievance.
I'm no hate again. No, no, no, I'm not It's not grievance. It's not Hey, you don't want
to I feel like Taylor you're the best when you have views but you're you're actively like I don't want to be dragged in any feuds here like I love
debates I love I love I love arguing about these things I love starting debates online I just you know I don't want I have no like I think it's all fun if
you're pro air conditioning you're anti no you want to have
a strong oh god I'm very anti and I can't bring that up.
You need drama. Anyway, next I want to speaking of fighting I don't actually know if you guys I don't know where the stances are here and I certainly don't have one but play out the the influencer creator debate. I don't know if
I can I read a section of your storyteller.
Interest. I write a whole story about this, by the way. Oh, for the Atlantic.
Okay. Okay. Well,
let me just read the paragraph that I thought was pretty succinct and got to the point in the in your post piece. So this is from your story, because the term creator quotes was so synonymous with YouTube. For years, people didn't know what to call those who were gaining attention on other apps. It's just funny you say create a response with YouTube and there is a term for them called YouTuber so I'm interested why.
Yes. And they were it didn't transfer because YouTube itself I have a whole section on this in my book. I actually wrote a whole piece about this. Specifically, yeah. Like a couple years ago, I wrote this piece like you know, again, I love talking about language. So I'm sure you guys remember originally YouTubers were called Partners. Do you guys remember
that? Well, that relates to the YouTube Partner Program. Yes, exactly on initiative. Right. And
so then they bought next new networks and next new kind of coined this term creator and that became so synonymous with YouTube because YouTube push that term, right? They had the whole ad campaign. It was all creators. I'm sure Mark Bart, Bergen's book gets into this
episode after.
He's awesome. So, you know, it was people who were Vine stars and influencers on Instagram. I remember they were called Instagram stars. People didn't even use that word influencer. It there was these like weird words that people and blog, Tumblr, you know, Tumblr, liberty or whatever. It wasn't until marketers who had always use the term influencer since the early 2000s. You know, put marketing dollars into the industry and the marketing industry was dominating the monetization of that industry, that that term influencer became popularized, also the fall of vine. People needed a word like Logan Paul became so platform agnostic and he became more of a YouTuber. So anyway, and then it didn't flip back until two creators until in the past year, really, but really 2021 When tech when the tech industry came, and I think part of that was because the tech industry has always preferred that term. And also because I think a lot of VCs want to distance themselves between from their bad takes about influencers which they spent, you know, shitting on
those injuries and also creator is such a good capitalist sort of, yeah,
well not as good as influencer though, right? I mean, that's the greatest one because that means you can influence other people to buy products, which like you said earlier is a capitalist derive term. I mean, it's as pure as it gets in terms of what function they serve to the people that care about them, which is that these people can push product which is how the you know the market moves but
the it but the way that that people started to monetize shit has shifted, as you guys know, right? So it was about pushing products. So I think influencer was the best term but I think So, as people have relied on more direct monetization, I think a lot of people's that term creator is stuck a little bit more like is used by platforms like pushing that or like,
oh creator, or what's your preferred? What term Do you prefer?
Oh, I love all of them. I loved celebrity. Do you remember that?
Yeah, that was in your piece. And it was a little Elmer Fudd
oh my god, I was such a thing. And like the Julie Allison fame ball people used to, I just think it's, you know, people are always trying to kind of articulate this term for for, you know, more distributed media environment. I don't I don't have a preference preference. I mean, creator and influence are interchangeable. And a lot of times when you hear people hating on the word influencer, they it's a little bit of a like, misogyny type of energy. Because influencer because the right you know, you have to remember the pioneers, and the pioneers that pioneered the whole quote, unquote, creator economy were women and people of color, and LGBTQ community. And again, a lot of VCs were, I think, like to like, distance themselves from the roots of that, which is a shame, but creator, you know, I think it all works. I it's, it's how you wear it, right? That matters,
right? And what you mean to your audience, back to the platforms, specifically, I don't know how much you want to make this point in your piece. But like, the NEM cell concept seems intrinsically married to tick tock, I understand that they're in themselves that are on and you mentioned there on whatever Reddit boards or discord or Twitch and all other kinds of things, but just from my read of it, the nature of the algorithmic feed, and you know, these kind of AI derived entertainment channels would push people towards I mean, everything is curated for your particular interest as the app understands. And so the NIMH cell idea just seems like it, it fits so perfectly with that, because this is about niche interests. And this is about an app that is trying to do its best to cater to what it thinks your interests are, which are inherently niche. I mean, what do you think like how much how much of Nimzo is Tik Tok? versus the other platforms that you kind of describe in the piece?
Yeah, so it actually emerged in the Instagram meme community for niche meme pages, which are so popular, but I think you're right Tom 100% Like, this term would not exist without the rise of Tik Tok I think because you you wouldn't have seen and I think with people getting more online during the pandemic and kind of becoming more networks themselves and knowing more online people, but yeah, it's completely tied to that because I you know, like famous so distributed on Tik Tok exactly what you just said, the algorithm was like, spoon feeding you content, right? In your niche.
I mean, like, tick tock has been so good at like the long tail, whereas Facebook has sort of seem to shovel everyone to, like, Ben Shapiro ultimately are like these big, big pages, whereas tick tock, and so quickly, zoom you into whatever like small niche you're interested in.
I want to go to the end of your piece too, because you have a bit of a like dystopic quote from from from one of your one of your characters. This is at the end of it. You say it's fun to be part of this wave, said Peter. Whatever it is, and sorry, who is Peter again?
Alex Peter.
He's like a lawyer. Yeah, he blocked me. I don't I don't know what I did. I like him. I don't know if
I'll tell him to unblock you.
Oh, I want to know more about that. You're you're you're on the outs with lawyer Twitter.
He's great, though. He he's definitely more of a, you know, raging anti capitalist. I do run a VC newsletter. But
yeah, okay.
Okay, it's been even, here's the quote, it's fun to be part of this way. It's a Peter, whatever it is, I think some people think it's the decline of society. And maybe they're right, but it's interesting. Let's, let's unpack that a little bit here. I mean, why would people think that this type of character is in some way like reflective of a social and societal decline?
Yeah, that is very tongue in cheek quote that I included kind of as a joke, like, it's a nod to like these, these people that I think do feel like it's the downfall of society and the heat on the internet a lot. It's definitely not the downfall of society. I am very, I mean, I think I'm very proud. These shifts, I think, that are happening in media,
you're ready to it, right. I mean, like, the things that the internet has gone through is, you know, in the origins of YouTube, and the first people that were successful on it, the claim that these people always had was like, Hey, I was just posting this and my friends could see it. It was just a way that we could host these things. And there was kind of like a homespun earnestness to it. And then once it became, you know, people got huge people could see there was a business, the whole, like, you know, capitalistic community got involved in it, it obviously shifted and to be like as uncynical as possible. It seems like the NEM sell idea is kind of a return to those roots, right? I'm not making money. It's just me doing the things that I love to do and finding, you know, a large enough audience for me to feel like I'm reaching people right
now. 100% You're 100% right. And that's, I think the beauty of this. And what's really great about it. And so yeah, and Alex, I think Alex knows that agree is obviously being nem saw himself, right. But I just thought it was a funny way you have
to be sort of arch about the whole thing, because part of it is you're not trying to be this big creator. But now you're in the post. So you have Yeah, right. I wanted to, and I feel like the themes of this part of the conversation will carry over to the next but, Tom, I mean, you have a story sort on YouTube's I don't know, if it's that they just fell backwards into being great at podcasting, or, or if this was a strategy, or how much credit you give YouTube or they just have was a juggernaut that they lucked out with or like, what what is your take on why? Well first prove to us I guess the YouTube is ascendant and podcasting. And then why did that happen? Sure. I
don't even know how much I have to prove. Yeah. As I'm moving on to the YouTube beat. I was talking to some of my media sources back when that was my racket. And I was like, Oh, I'm covering YouTube. They're like, you know, they're huge. And podcasting. And I'm like, What do you mean, huge. And podcasts. I mean, like, they're literally the largest platform of podcasts and distributor podcasts out there. Like there was a survey that came out two surveys I found earlier this year that showed that more people listen to podcasts on YouTube than they do on Spotify or Apple. And so, and the fact that I didn't know, this was something that I realized I was reporting the pieces just because I'm old.
I was gonna say I listened to all podcasts on YouTube. That's like the place to go for podcasts. Yeah.
And like, the more I think about it, I obviously listened to a ton on YouTube, too. So it shouldn't have been as surprising to me as it was. But yeah, the fact is, you know, whereas Spotify, for example, when they went into podcasting, they were like, We're gonna fucking spend hundreds of millions of dollars, we're gonna sign exclusive deals, we're gonna make it clear to people that this is the place that you should, you know, listen, subscribe and listen to all of your podcasts. And Apple is starting to do that now. And you know, Stitcher got bought by I Heart Radio, and there was like a huge cash infusion into the space to make different platforms, the podcast hub, and then YouTube, because it is, I think, as I described in the piece, it's like a massive star, just that because of its gravitational pull can just, like, absorbed various things into its orbit that it didn't intend to. And like the example that happened before this was music, right? YouTube is the the single largest music platform out there. Not because YouTube, they're YouTube's actual music efforts, they fucking suck. They fail every time. You know, they make like YouTube read and YouTube music subscription services, no one likes them.
Well, the Bergen book, which we're going to talk much more about, but sort of gets to the point that whenever Google tried to, like, do these contract things, like from the beginning, that was sort of the failed strategy. And when YouTube just leaned into, like, let the masses do what they want, they've been wildly successful. And so the negotiated strategy, the business development impulse, but But you know, like the tailors will be, it's just been sort of let it to the consumer and the creators, and that's the more powerful force.
Yeah. And so like a lot of the basic features that we expect of podcasting players as like, podcasters. ourselves, we're like, well, we need an RSS feed, so that we can just auto upload our episode, when it's done. It needs to be able to, like fucking play when it's in my pocket. So that it doesn't just turn off every time which the YouTube app does. I mean, like basic, basic features, they don't even have, right. But because it's like this incredible as you'd like, written about so many times Taylor, like this incredible audience aggregator, and the algorithm has this insanely powerful, maybe dangerously powerful recommendation tool, it gets people keyed into different podcasts, which has always been this huge issue for podcasting, which is like, how do I find out about a new show to listen to the apps, you know, like Spotify, and all those guys suck at it, but but YouTube is the best at it. And so for all these reasons, it's become this thing, and and, you know, like Spotify, that they consider them their number one threat, a YouTuber is, you know, it's like, I guess, with the piece as I was, like, reporting it out, like tried to raise it's like, what does it even mean, to make a podcast at this point, like, if it's, you know, if you post something like Joe Rogan, right, he's like, my lead example in the story. He was huge on YouTube, obviously had tons like millions and millions of subscribers to his audio show, but he would have probably more people on YouTube that would just, you know, listen in on a watch and listen on his on his whole show. And so, you know, I think this whole world you think it's one thing and then it becomes something else, which I guess is like the core of sort of what you write about Taylor, but But yeah, that's essentially like the YouTube podcasting story. And no one really knows yet, like, how much they're going to invest to, like, take it on, or it's just gonna continue being, you know, the side project that also is the most powerful thing in the industry.
I'm wondering, Tom, like, how much of it is, you know, Spotify keeps trying to get you to, like, watch these video podcasts? Like it? Do you think that's them trying to compete with YouTube and like to add because I've heard that, you know, they're just trying to get everyone to create video content for their podcast.
100%. And actually, in the story, I was saying that the reason that they have a video player is because of Joe Rogan. I I mean, they were going to do it regardless. But like as they were signing the deal for him, and his team was like, Well, look, this guy's gotten millions of viewers on YouTube, you don't want to just lose that they like had to Cluj together really quickly this video player to kind of appease those kinds of people. And so I guess like the fine line here is between like a podcast versus a talk show. Because that's all it is. Right? You know, it's like what we're doing is a talk show if we posted this, which we won't, I guess on YouTube, we've technically made a pod. I know it's
embarrassing to have you saying, Oh, the most powerful podcast platform in the world is YouTube platform that we do not publish to. Yeah, but I mean, as much more production, obviously. Right. Is podcasting sort of a thing of the elites in some way? Or the sort of part of our blindness, I guess, to the YouTube issue would seem to be that, you know, someone like me, like, I want podcasts like multitask Marty busy, it's hard for me to imagine like sitting listening to like, Joe Rogan talk for like hours on end, just like dedicating my full attention to that. It feels like the biggest like waste of time, even though I can see why he's an entertainer. And it's just like,
getting your full attention. I just hardly you can put any points on YouTube, right? I don't find that way. Because like I put on the h3 podcast, which is really long and I just like what happened on double speed and just kind of like, h3, h3 h3 podcast. Wait, are you serious?
Like hundreds of 1000s of listeners has no clue about
its massive. Yeah, like the hoes. You think Why do you guys know the h three? H Have you ever? Yeah, they have almost 3 million subs, but like it's one of the bigger podcasts? I've never heard of it. Okay, well, there's you know, there's a lot like that. I mean,
I recognize this guy. I guess I've I've seen the chopped up tick tock of it. I guess I see a lot of these things now on just like, tick tock like hits.
Yeah, here's a podcast with Hassan as well. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's so many podcasts, I feel like every, you know, sort of niche added on Microsoft.
Every two dudes in a room decide.
I'm trying to do a podcast to I'm not hating. I am trying to get back in there. I love five guests. I mean, I think audio is a compelling format. And like you said, video, I mean, the video component just kind of adds to it. Different podcasts have different levels of production, but I think a lot of YouTubers also have pivoted, I mean, look at what Logan Paul did. That's like his whole business now.
Right? Right. Yeah. And I was like, as video as it could get, but his show is really just him and his buddies, you know, sitting behind a desk, you know, just talking shit. The pandemic also seemed to play a part in it. I'm, I'm curious for you, Taylor, like as you, you know, we're consuming YouTube podcasts. I don't know, if you're always a work from home person, or that obviously, you know, was a product of, you know, the pandemic. But as people were telling me, you know, because you could just have a tab open at home, listen to a podcast in the background, maybe click over and listen to and watch it a few times, that kind of helps accelerate that trend was that was that your situation as well or you just have always liked YouTube for any other reason to be your podcast place.
The podcasts that I listened to were on YouTube, like I listened to a lot of YouTube or podcasts. And I think like, as somebody that covers the beat, I'm just, I also spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos, or like listening to them really like listening to video essays on YouTube. So for me, you know, I feel like that was just the easiest one and the apple podcast player is so bad, you know that I feel like I got into YouTube, pre Spotify. I definitely the pockets that I listen to on Spotify, or like the Wall Street Journal daily podcast, you know, it's like the news one, you know, but the other ones you listen to all in, I'm gonna get everyone tells me to listen to that. I have listened to a few times they talk about I'm just
curious. Have you ever take
that to say it's full of people that have at certain points in their life? Like, gone after you? So I don't know how
they loved it. Well, you know, it's drama queen.
You and Jason I thought have like a front of me. You're going along?
frenemies? I'm not enemies with anything. Yeah, they like to like, Well, I think in 2020 I think what happened is the VCs all decided, you know, I mean, Jason, to be fair, Jason, was Jason's been in like the influencer. Like, he's always been on my beat. He's, he's not who I'm talking about. But you know, people that Andreessen other people that like, had always kind of ignored my space in the influencer space forever suddenly now decide that they want to be in it. I think they felt very threatened. Well, they need to I don't know I'm done. I love debating tech. I love it. Andreessen had me on their podcast twice and didn't release either of the episodes so God what
what what were you like, say something about
the guy started to piss off mark and then he was like, fuck
this girl. What did you say? People Yeah.
Oh, their babies their baby.
I just like it's so like for people or as such diehard like free speech people the amount that their nervous system beach at all there seems to be you know they that's their pose but then they they're they like scare everybody in Silicon Valley that like if you say something about us we're like watching you they're very aware of like what people are saying I feel like it's
one thing that I have to say that I love is discovering new little, like really highly provincial kind of groups on the internet like media Twitter is very much like that, especially in New York media. And I never was on tech Twitter, mostly because those people kind of didn't, they weren't relevant to my beat. Like I talked to people at YouTube, maybe the platforms, but like, definitely not the bee's knees, other than I mean, see, what is it TPG are the turn and group there. They were, they were my and Lightspeed and some other you know, I talked to them sometimes but, but like Andreessen and 2020, I think they all just decided to get involved. And I that's the first time that I discovered tech Twitter and I, I love it. I love that
story. I feel like it's been maybe a year and a half, that VCs were just like, trying to will consumer investments into being I mean, there really haven't been a lot. I mean, you could argue some people will say like, Coinbase Robin Hood given, but like, I feel like a true like consumer company hasn't really hit obviously Andreessen went all in on clubhouse, you know, substack is sort of consumer. I mean, be real. I mean, whatnot. I don't know, like, are you? Yeah. Are you optimistic about any, like, the new sort of?
Well, I think it's cool. And I like to see new I mean, we need more of a more competitive landscape in terms of social. But yeah, they do try and well things into existence. And they're just so there's a lot of drama and pettiness in that world and obsession with image which I find so fun to watch. I think that's what I love about covering in a influencer world, and like, they really want that they want influence so badly. So it's fun. Well, it's always
satisfying to see that no matter how wealthy people are, they still end up having like many of the same concerns that everyone else has. It's like, oh, I'm petty feuds on Twitter, like, I will
certainly filtering any of that through Twitter. I gotta say, Taylor, and you're like, you know, the real cultural anthropologist of the internet. So I may be out of my league here. But like, I think Twitter 2020 around the time that this sort of thing was happening, that these guys were all getting one of the worst times on Twitter. I just felt like people were so disjointed and unhappy and just like spewing out left and right, anything. I mean, we may be terrified because of the pandemic and, you know, stuck at home and the people were just losing their minds, but that whole period, just awful.
Well, we got rid of Trump. I think that helped in some ways.
Tom, you're totally right. Like, I think a lot of there was a lot of like, rage and frustration that was like pent up and it kind of came to a head. And I think, especially in the tech world, yeah, it was so vicious. I was so surprised, because I'm such a and I think this is why none of these tech people have been able to like, you know, they wanted to paint me as this like, anti tech that when it's like Kara Swisher said something on Twitter, it's like, you could not pick a worse, right person to kind of like, try and apply those labels too. Because it's like, just counterfactual to like literally everything I write. Um, and so yeah, it's, it's funny, and I and now they've moved on, I think, to different things.
Sure. And it's kind of diffuse now. And, you know, kind of thinking about this. I don't even know Eric's thought about this in a way, that period and like you're being a central character to that is almost the inspiration for this podcast. Because no, because I there was so much it wasn't just about you. It was also about this generalized feeling this
meta conversation about it. I mean, part of what's frustrating about Twitter, is it it's so short, that it feels like you can't really have the actual debate, and that these tech people have their own build an audience so they can get super validated. They act like what we're the cathedral, right? We're the reporters that are so powerful. So they act like we're the elites, even though they often have like bigger followings than us certainly way more money. And people, their fans have a financial incentive to suck up to them. Because these are the people that might give them funding, but then they act like they're the victims. And then reporters who I mean, this is the most complimentary of us, you could be we wanted to beat it out. We're the suckers for like, oh, yeah, you disagree with me, let's have like this substantive debate. So
that's, that's frustrating. And I think as somebody that loves tech and like, you know, good products, people I find when I it's like, they like to kind of like, think think about things in an interesting way. Right? And like, be like, hey, like, let's take a look at this product and how it's being used and emergent user behavior and think about it and I think it's, you know, but I will say and every time I criticize tech, Twitter or VCs like people like not all, you know, not
like Normie sort of totally the normal ones are
just not doing the feuds. But I think it's fun. I mean, I think it's fun to cover as a journalist. And that's I agree that's the benefit of podcasting, right, you can like, go a little deeper, it's
more obvious if someone isn't engaging on a podcast or whereas on Twitter, you can just say your thing. I mean, we talked about this endlessly, but Marc Andreessen, like the fact that he invested in real estate thing after the whole NIMBY incident and never even has to like, you square the circle. He never even has to say, oh, yeah, this is why I wrote the letter because we live in this media environment where you can just do two contradictory things and never really have to,
which is influencer world, right? Like that is like classic YouTuber behavior. never apologize. Never could certainly not you write your own narrative, right. And I think that, you know, yeah, Mark has learned that I just was dying because like, Mark wants to be you on so badly and he's just not like he just
like, you're like, Netscape wasn't a huge like, what have you built? Like, I
think he desperately wants that wider cultural relevance. And he wants to be an influencer. And he's just not like, he has his Twitter audience, but like, No normal person knows or cares about him. And he's really increasingly out of touch. And it's just so funny to like, watch him scramble.
This show where enablers this show is named after Marc Andreessen. Marc exchange. Marc Andreessen. I assume we have enough new people that is good to refresh, but Marc Marc Andreessen messages Zuck in a sort of tax to come out in a lawsuit where Andreessen is like the cats in the bag and the bags in the river over like, some shareholder thing. And, and Zuckerberg is like, does that mean the cat's dead? And so that's,
anyway, yeah, but the whole concept of influence is such an interesting thing. And this, again, goes back to your nem cell idea, because there there seems to be a huge buck passing trend among everyone involved in all of these about who really has influence, and you know, who deserves power. And, you know, I mean, that's why everyone wants to play the victim. Because if you're the victim, that means you have no influence that you were the subject of larger forces that are causing you your unhappiness or worse. So like, in the case of Marc Andreessen, him wanting influence, the man has a huge amount of influence he is the commander doesn't
have cultural relevance. He doesn't he's not a he's not a culturally relevant like he's culturally relevant in tech. But I think what he wants is like normy people when I'll never forget, I was doing this documentary about this all black content house in Atlanta, one of the first all black Tiktok houses in the fall of 2020 or winter 2020. And these one of these kids was like, oh, yeah, I have clubhouse. I love clubhouse. The only thing is, I hate when you get on and they force you to follow these like, random old white guys. Mark Anderson, and they're all like, Oh, that guy. That's so yeah, you gotta block him immediately. Oh, anyway, like, I just was like dying, because I'm like, because you have no idea who he is. But he wants he wants so badly like, right. But of course, they're all fragile. I mean, all these billionaires are so fragile. Right now,
even though he's a paragon of like, what these people want to be. The guy is claiming victimhood constantly on Twitter. I mean, he's buying the company and still thinks he's a victim, of
course. What's your Yeah,
what's the one we haven't talked about? Maybe you loathe the most, but what's your view on Balaji these days? Like he put out a huge book, but it feels like he's, I mean, he blocked me. So I tried to get an interview with him and he blocked me. But of course, I don't see him at all. Like, he doesn't penetrate or like is
irrelevant. Yeah, he's just not relevant. Like he's not relevant, I think. And I think also, you know, I loved that that part in Cade Metz, his story from a year and a half ago, where he got that email from Balaji, where he's talking about targeting whatever, because it just shows how like, desperate and how hard these people are trying to work to attack people that it's like, Guys, we don't give a fuck about you. Like, there's so random, like, I mean,
even democracy, like no,
definitely no, but I mean, definitely, they don't believe in democracy. And I feel like
that's, that's one of those. I mean, it's the classic sort of all right tactic where it's out there, but they won't just like say, I'm against democracy,
what actually, can we do that? What do you mean by that? Why do you think they don't believe in democracy?
I mean, they basically say that
he has this whole TCP New York Times like Bitcoin sort of try. I mean, yeah.
Oh, no, sure. I understand that.
I mean, you read the books that Marc Andreessen tweets, it's like the Machiavellian or
like supporting like Blake masters and stuff that are like saying, like, you know, only men like, it's
Yeah, I guess if you want to extend the idea that anyone who supports the current Republican Party, I mean, I'd argue any version of it. I don't
think it's just that I think it's their whole like, you know, ideology Right, I think they've talked about this, like, they talk about, like their whole thing with AI. I mean, people like Nitasha Tiku, my colleague can like speak to this because I'm not deep in Silicon Valley lore, but they're definitely all reactionary and kind of weird, have weird political beliefs.
This is sort of a tag on this. But are you? Are you free to like, have opinions of any sort now, like you're a columnist or what sort of the former columnist? Do you have like political opinions on Twitter? Or do you try now?
I'm having political opinions on Twitter. Are you crazy?
Dziedzic or it's just or it's not allowed? Or like what's
No, I you know, I feel personally like Twitter. I just kind of go to share like news and stuff on my beat. I really I used to tell my like, when I was a running social media for news companies, I would always say like, tweet your beat, which I do, because I feel like people subscribe to me for news about influencers stuff, they don't want to hear me talk about abortion or student debt or whatever. Like those are, they're more qualified people to talk about that. The one thing I do talk about is chronic illness and COVID stuff because it's affected me so personally, but that's, that's about as political as I get on online. And sometimes I would retweet, you know, just that we live in, like, a hellscape of environment, broadly, but I'm pretty I mean, I'm, I'm, I don't, that's another thing. I think these people are always like, oh, you know, Taylor, and Sarah. I'm Pete, nobody knows I'm not. I'm never open about my political beliefs really?
Well. But to be fair, though, you did write that article about the person who was out there tweeting about all of the trans teachers and, you know,
yeah, higher rhetoric is a huge influencer, right? No, I cover I cover politics. I cover political stuff all the time. I now as a political reporter, for two years, I, I, I cover politics, but I'm just saying, like, I came
at that with, you know, the angle, which I and I think any normal person should agree with that this person is also bad what they're doing.
I think you can read a story. And if you read, I mean, it's funny that you say that, Tom, because the story, the story says basically, like, you know, this woman is responsible for Daxing and harassing people and has gotten several gay people fired and wants gay people out of schools. I think you read that, you and I would take away the position of like, that's bad. Right? Right. But other people, they read that and they say, This is a brief truth teller, and I need to support her. So I, you know, the piece doesn't say my opinion of her, but it very clearly lays out her ideology, which I think the majority of Americans would find reprehensible. Right. But yeah, and by the way, like I, you know, I think that story, what it was about as much as sort of her and the woman behind it was about talking about the way that the right wing media ecosystem works and how this, this influencer is basically acting as an assignment editor for the right wing media cycle. And that's important.
I honestly, I'm getting at this less like interrogating your politics, but more just sort of, in the journalist, creator sort of overlap. Like, I think, from my personal experience, when I was free to be more of a creator. You know, I, in my first story said, like, I thought supporting Donald Trump was like, against the pale. And there is a degree to which, like, creators have like a brand, an authentic brand, where, I mean, you do expose only parts of yourself, but like, politics, like clearly seep through, I mean, even the barstool guy came out on the abortion thing. So I'm just interested in like, you know, yeah, do you see reporters being much more open with like, their opinions? Sort of as we continue to move into sort of a crater world?
Definitely. I mean, I think these are things and by the way, I think that it's important to stand for values. I mean, I care deeply about equality and, you know, representation and things like that. I think, what news companies don't generally like is when reporters speak to specific pot like specific bills and issues and votes and things like that. And again, I say this as somebody that had to manage and be the one in the newsroom like, Hey, guys, that just sending your that your your tweet emails. It's also funny because newsrooms, they only care about Twitter, like you can be on the clock saying anything I feel like sometimes, yeah, but yeah, I do think I mean, I think what what has been really laid barren, and you know, people like Wes Lowry have, have spoken really well about this. And he's he wants his his this, this concept of quote, unquote, objectivity and how, you know, we all bring our backgrounds and identities to our beats, and we can't be expected to leave that out the door. And, you know, just, there's no such thing as having no beliefs and no ideology. It's just not you're a human in this world, and you have your own experiences. And so, I think it's really important that newsrooms recognize that and I support people. I mean, when I say I had to, you know, when I was running social media, a bunch of media organizations like I really support reporters too. I just feel like me personally, I don't I don't have people following me for my political views. I have people following me, because they want to know about creative economy news, or they want to know, funny, you know, I like to share funny memes and things like that. Like, it's more of that. So I think, different reporters, however they've built themselves, like any
social media account user, you're like, I know what my accounts for like, yeah, right. Like, I'm not,
I need different things, right. Like, I use my Instagram account for promotion, I have a meme account, I have a tick tock for other things.
But the but that's key to me, because I think part of this idea of, you know, reporters should or shouldn't express their political opinions. To me, like, the key aspect of it is that most of their political opinions are not that interesting. And I don't really care. You know, if, if any New York Times political reporter or Washington School reporter started just tweeting out, you know, I think that this particular bill, unless it's like factually informed, I don't really care what they have to say, I don't think their political opinions were that meaningful. So knowing your audience is a huge part of having a presence. And I
do think there's this phenomenon with like, view from nowhere store is certainly I don't think Taylor does this, but where a lot of you for newer stories, where like, the piece can almost lead you to the opposite conclusion that the reporter might hold, or there are lots of there lots of stories that effectively are where you
have to continue. Here's the thing, you have to consider how you know, there are people there are specific writers, right? That frame things in a specific way. I think that make it very clear. The takeaway, right, we're
times as reported that's clearly worried about canceled culture. But like, that's his beat. It's like, can't we just, but wouldn't it be more enjoyable content, if you just like, I said, I'm gonna get more engagement if he was like, I'm very concerned with canceled culture. And like, that's sort of my beat. Right? But they want to whose name is yeah,
oh, I thought you're gonna say someone else? That's funny. I think no, you are, you know, Michael covers campus culture, for sure. You know, I think I think, right. I think like, I think all of these things are things that media companies are gonna have to work out. I think it's also interesting in terms of hiring and recruiting, which I don't have to do any more in my current job, but I used to have to do a lot of is you, you know, people can be very outspoken activists. And like, that was the issue with the girl from the AP, right? Like, she had done something in college, I think, to the insert in terms of activism, and then that was like, held against her for a job. And so media companies are gonna need to get over this whole idea of everyone being an old quote, unquote, reasonable white man. There's no one that there's no, you know, what you consider a mainstream, like, yeah, it's just we need to, we need to take, we need a more diverse media ecosystem, we
just need to be about gathering facts and reporting them to people. But if there's some transparency, and like, their history, or their personal views, I feel like,
also when you make those kinds of decisions, not letting someone join the AP, because they were somewhat of an activist and in college, I feel like you're also you gotta recognize the macro environment of the way that people view media organizations now, and it's the one reason why I'm a little bit sympathetic to the VCs that attack us. And, you know, even you specifically, it's like, they are reflective in a certain way of the way a lot of Americans view media organizations. The fact of the matter is, we are held in a lower esteem than we have been in decades,
and they've done it to themselves. They've done it to themselves. Let's be honest, because I hate this. You're saying no movie organizations, media organizations have done it to themselves? Like, I think that they they did not aptly recognize the rise of that sentiment, and they have not a you know, a lot of them have not effectively been able to counter that. Again, Wes Lowry has really spoken so effectively on all of this, and I, I am not as prolific as him. So I would encourage people to follow him. But um, yeah, and I think that's something that I care, I care a lot. I think it's important to have institutions. But sometimes media companies write some really dumb stuff. And I'm like, you know, what, you're making yourself irrelevant. Fine. You know, like, you're just This is dumb. This is why people turn away from Legacy news outlets. Sometimes it feels
like the times the posts are more important. I mean, they're, they're huge. I mean, the news,
we need a thriving. Journalism is a really important check on power and democracy. And there's a reasons people want to dismantle it. I think news leaders across the industry need to recognize that and not buy into these bad faith attacks, right? That's, yeah.
Do you have anything you're eager to get on the record about or anything you wanted to talk about before we sort of wrap up? Sometimes people
are on the record, but ya know, that they just want to like get I just posted on Twitter if
you use our platform, right? Yeah, hundreds of 1000s of Twitter followers is
exactly the right place to go after Times Square. You're safer here than like, you're like, Oh, I got in trouble on Twitter. Anyway.
No one is safe. No one is safe. No, I'm
not a I'm not a hater. I'm not about that. I don't participate in that kind of thing. Well, I would just say please subscribe to my substack substack follow me reach out anytime. If there's anything you think that I should write about I would love to hear it ever a
good reporter move. It's like, I just want more sources like sources, please find me. Please listen
to me. The VC people, by the way, got me so many sources when they were like cancelled. Yeah. Oh my god. I mean, I never knew anyone in the VC world before. And now I have like, I mean, so many people were like, hit me up and gave me news.
But like, were you were you leveraging that to be in like, Alright, what's the valuation of the next cloud kitchens around? I mean, just like, Can you can you get in on you know, like the particular bitchiness and fights that happened in the VC world. I'd love to be I mean, I guess that's partly Eric's substack you don't really go too much into the personal drama. I
don't know, I don't cover Silicon Valley. I
know you can give me free skips. Like look looking at like, five, five years from now. I don't know any predictions about social media or like, I mean, you. Yeah, you're you're the sort of whisperer on this thing. I mean, we we didn't end up really talking about be real. Are you like optimistic on that? Or is there anywhere where you'll sort of lay out sort of a prediction about where we're heading?
Yeah, I was gonna write something about summer apps, and how there's always kind of these viral apps during the summer, and how hard it is to kind of like the summer like PokemonGo are like, you see these things, like become these viral phenomenons. And they don't always stay. And so with be real, I mean, I know they're putting a ton into, like marketing it and stuff like that. I don't know that the next not to say that it won't be successful. And by the way, I love front back. So I was a big, you know, proponent of this is like this. Yeah, no, no, no, I, well, I said something about the real people like, Oh, you didn't give credit to front back. Like I was the biggest front back user ever. I don't think like the next like Game Changing app is going to be a photo app. So I think if if be real is going to be a lasting product. It needs to evolve beyond what it is. But it's so fun to write. I mean, I've been on that app since like the third week it launched and I think it's cool and funny. And I have all push notifications turned off. So I just post to it when I want and I don't really post it very often. It really
does kind of define the app. I also wants to like handle my notifications turned off because I reset my phone and I completely forgot about be real. And he does it immediately. Yeah, it just lives entirely on the back of that be real is kind of the NEM cell of social media
clubhouse called that should have learned that lesson. clubhouse got addicted to that so much, and they'd screwed I think that's part of the reason that the company flopped. Do
you think are we in the beginning of the Tick Tock wave? Are we at the top of it? Or like we're
even close to the top? Yeah. Right. This is I loved how oh my god, I had to do tech predictions in like 2019 on CNBC or something? And I was like, yeah, like tick tock is going to be the new dominance session. Somebody was like, Oh, how did you predict that? It's like, it's literally owned by like, a multibillion dollar tech, Chinese tech conglomerate that spent a billion dollars in marketing in one year. Like, does it's not you're not a genius to think that it might do well. So I don't have any real wisdom.
I don't know. I mean, you know, you can spend a ton of money, trying to push something doesn't tap into some sort of basal elements of human nature that causes you to go crazy, because if you're addicted to it, I think it
had been so successful around the world to that. Yeah, but no, you're you're 100% Right. I mean, Facebook does that every six months.
Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, what is the best thing you think to come out of tick tock? I mean, what do you think has been like the most heartening aspect of the culture that it is created? Or the millions of cultures is created? Or its user interface or make me feel good about tick tock? Yeah, we can we can close on that sentiment, make me feel good about tick tock? Yeah,
I mean, I what I think is really interesting is it's broken this whole, like, follow based system of social media. And it's really, I think they've just nailed discovery so well, right. And I think that's, that's what's exciting about it, like, you can really go down these rabbit holes. I hate the video for you know, I don't want video to be like, I'm not a video person. So I think like, that part's a little bit of a, I don't want video to be the dominant mode of expression. I do think that like that's something I like about Twitter is being able to write but Tik Tok has such incredible creative tools and the stuff the way that it's kind of like allowed people to be creative is pretty cool.
This actually maybe circles back to the first thing we talked about on this and then we can maybe end here. I mean, do you worry that the follower base culture going away and being purely about discovery does kind of dissociate people's connection to the creators or influencers that they watch? I mean, like VidCon is an example of this. The Tick Tock creators didn't have the YouTuber lines of years past because people one could argue didn't feel as emotionally invested Paris, socially connected to you know, the people that they're watching on Tik Tok. I mean, is there something alienating about this format of consuming content versus following it? That does sort of, you know, reverberate in the negative way? No, I
think 100% Which I love that Business Insider piece that got into this because I would have written the same thing and kind of tried to in that one paragraph of my story but like, yeah, it's also just the the rate at fame. You know, you spend so much more time with YouTubers like you're sitting down, you're watching long form content, and it takes time to kind of Subscribe and find people whereas Tik Tok, you're just getting barrage with new people every day. And you don't form that bond yet, you don't have that same. But I think that can be kind of good, too. I think like the whole parasocial thing is really unhealthy. I'm crazy about keeping my life off the internet. Like no one knows anything about my life. And I I think it's very scary for the creators. And I think it's not great. Like that pair, that deep pair of social bond can be harmful for the creators and harmful for the audience. So I think it's, I don't know, it's kind of good to have a little bit less of that.
Interesting, but I do, I do see lots of sad tick talkers, who are like, I have a million followers, and my videos are getting like 10,000 views. And there is, it does feel like I mean, the beauty of like, substack is like, once I have you, it goes to your inbox, whereas tick tock is literally the opposite, where they sort of like don't really care what people say
the following is pure is purely a vanity metric. And, you know, I know that because I have half a million followers, and they're all people that just mostly think I might be with a famous tick tock er, and they follow Me for that reason. But yeah, it's I think it's that decoupling I think, is very jarring for people.
Right? Totally. All right. Well, I'm sure we'll have you back on thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thanks,
Taylor. You're Yeah, everyone should read Taylor's work if they haven't already, which I'm sure they do. She really is the best at this thing. And it's fascinating so I highly recommend that people keep keep reading
Thank you. I'm such a fan of of your guy's work. And Tom, I've read your stories for years and so it's cool to get to Silicon Valley Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
