Welcome, Sally. Welcome everybody to dead cat, very exciting episode, I sort of ward off in, you know, 2023 talking too much about media. I worry that I'm about to directly contradict that. But I guess I can never turn away and happy to have on the show Taylor Lorenz, thanks for coming on dead cat. Nice to have you. Thanks for having me. And a very well timed story like right in our wheelhouse here. You wrote about FTX. And sort of all the little I don't know, you have probably have better language for them. But like the Twitter characters who have been sort of doing reporting, and super interesting, like topics, so can you just like give a little background first on what your synopsis of these like, Twitter scoop machines slash T accounts is?
Yeah. So I mean, I wrote this story, it just went up. But I actually initially wrote it back when FTX story broke. And I don't know if you remember how crazy the internet was like that whole week. But all of these accounts on Twitter, and some sub Sackers and YouTubers were kind of like all hands on deck posting. 24/7, about FTX
and stuff like autism capital, right? Yeah. All like really weird named
Mario Nossal, the Twitter space, right? They have these huge
Twitter spaces that the top characters like, come on. I mean, it's pretty amazing.
Yeah. And so I mean, what I noticed is that, and I feel like I write this every news event. It's the same story. But it reminded me a little bit of like the Johnny Depp, Amber Heard stuff, where like, it's this breaking news kind of event where everyone uses it as an opportunity to capture an audience. And I think one thing that these influencers for lack of a better word did better than the mainstream media is really tell the story like captivate people with the story and give them these kinds of 24/7, updates, gossip, things like that. And so yeah, I just wrote about how they kind of I use the word outshine, there's no word for like our attention, but basically, like, you know, they're like, stealing eyeballs away from the mainstream media with this type of coverage. Like he said, I compared a lot to drama channels and T accounts, which
was also I've only you got to tweak them a little bit, because there's sort of a condescension, you know, of like, Oh, we don't see ourselves that way, but Right, exactly feminized thing that's a very smart parallel, it's like TMZ, does great reporting. And then there are these sort of gossip style accounts that do it on sort of pop culture, stuff like that call themselves T accounts, and then you can sort of extend that metaphor exactly as you do in the story to to business reporting, and that's what we sort of saw with some of these crypto accounts.
I love somebody tweeted that the FTX thing is like the James Charles versus Tati drama get in but for the for business people. Yeah. And so that's kind of what I noticed. Of course, everyone, it's funny because the story came out then everyone's like, you forgot, you know, XYZ influencer. And there were so many I took a handful of the ones that I noticed, right when it was all happening, but you know, there's a lot and there are people doing really great work too. It's not to say that everyone using the internet to break news is I mean, not doing stuff like Steven from coffee. Zillow has done great reporting that guy Mike Mike burgers Berg, not his real name, but the dirty bubble media, you know, he's exposed real fraud. So in the autism
capital account, I mean, I see that a lot. It has gotten some stuff right, right. Some stuff wrong. Some Yeah,
I would say that. So I would say we're like Mike burgers, Berg, whatever. And coffee Zilla are like the New York Times and Washington Post, you know, autism capital is like the Daily Mail. You know, it's like, 20% of the stuff is wrong. You kind of want to click on it anyway, sometimes they do get something first. But I think people know that. I mean, I give people much more credit. I hate when the media is like, oh, you know, so dangerous. It's like, look, we love gossip. I think it's fine to consume unverified gossip as long as you're taking it as that, you know,
it's hard for me not to read this as sort of a narcissist or it's like, where do I fit in? Right I'm, I'm a sub stacker. But clearly I have. I have, you know, old media, I literally came up newspaper internships, you know, clearly sort of inculcated in the cult of Old Guard media. But my real question is, do you think this media versus like, these accounts like these T accounts or whatever we're calling them will last right? Because right now, I still think in sort of the newspaper construction of the world there's like some sort of tabloid you see in the grocery store it's still seen as sort of like the media world where these like Twitter accounts are seen as like something else. I don't know how do you draw the lines and like you ever just, I just want to relinquish sometimes the reporter banner because you're just setting up expectations that all these little accounts don't have to have. So anytime they succeed, people are like pleasantly surprised?
Well, I think that's the thing. People are pleasantly surprised, I wouldn't say that all of them are going to be seen as reputable. Like, I mean, you have to develop a reputation to be reputable. I think most people recognize like these accounts is inherently non reputable, but they're still enticing to follow. I mean, yes, I think this, is this going to be around? I mean, this is the whole way that media has been moving for 20 years. It's right. I think, what it's only hitting business, and I think it hit this business. Like, I mean, we've seen all of these shifts happen in women's culture, like I say, women's culture, but like, you know, beauty, fashion entertainment. And I think what the business world has been this more
showing direct started sort of with some of these celebrities, you know, goop or whatever, community and then it became a big issue in Silicon Valley.
Exactly. That's the thing. They're the last people to it. Once again, Silicon Valley is the last person to discover something and yet they take it as if there is you know, they're talking citizen journalism, the usage of the term citizen journalism peaked in 2004. Like, I mean, I started as a blogger, like people used to call us citizen journalists. Very funny. But this is why you're
not supposed to come on the show. It's like, oh, she's an agonist VCs are?
No, not at all. No, I mean, I mean, some VCs obviously, made a lot of money, you know, recognizing this early, like all the ones that invested in all those companies. I just mean the ones and actually, Vc is not really an apt way to describe them. Because it's like, Elon, it's the coin base sky topology.
It's the people who want to be cultural warriors about this. Yeah.
And it's just like, we've had the cultural war, and like, they've already won, guys, like, you know, don't worry. But I will say like, what I think is interesting, or the reason that it's affecting sort of entering I think this corner of the finance world is like, there is a hostility towards legacy systems in crypto. And also, crypto is just like the most online thing ever, you know, everything's public, so it's easy to dig through receipts and stuff like that. And no one is more online, I think, than the crypto people like they're like, plugged into Twitter with their brains. So I think all of this was like a perfect storm.
I mean, the big scoop on FTX came from coin desk. And that's like, that's immediate sensibility. I mean, there's some debate about whether like the media gets credit is like an industry rag, because a lot of the people who want to shit on the media, you know, or like, really just want to shit on like, the big outlets. But anyway, that's a side debate we had to Antonio Garcia Martinez on an earlier episode, and he was sort of like, just Coyne desk out. But my point. So we i Deep in all these people's heads at this point, but, you know, I guess for these Twitter accounts, it still sort of needs to make its way to like the big authoritative outlets for people to sort of have confidence in them. Yeah, even the people consuming. The accounts, like their worldviews must ultimately, sort of net out with more reputable submit
again, I think more reputable sources don't have to be the New York Times. look at someone like Stephen Coffey, Zillow, like he's been able to get real accountability on these crypto scams. People know, okay, if he's talking about something he's authoritative on, you know. So I think it's just a reputational thing. And I think that what legacy media companies don't realize and refuse to realize is that they are not the only ones. It is not true. But until it's published in a legacy media outlet, you know, oh, nothing can happen. You know, they're the final word. No. Reputation is something you build. And there's a lot of very reputable content creators.
Yes. Okay. I'm obsessed with this topic of like, just like reputation online, right, which was sort of raised with all Ilan Twitter badge problem, where he didn't seem to understand what the value of badges were in a certain way badges can take away the power of media institutions, because it's, you know, Twitter, sort of designating certain people as reliable. My question to you, and this has no easy answer, but like, where do you see reputation going? Like the next couple of years? It's just like, hard if you just drop into Twitter to know, like, even I follow scripts of this coffee person, you're saying, Oh, they're the reliable one. Autism capital? Sometimes, like, how do we get to the point where we have like more of a scoop scorecard? Or it's just like, who's getting stuff? Right? Or do you see any efforts like, outside of like, people have to join media organizations that build such a big reputation? And people sort of understand them? How does the layperson track reputations?
It's really hard because like you said, you don't know the background on a lot of these people. They're not right. I mean, ideally, these people become big enough that they become household names. Right. And you kind of know, the gist you know about them. I mean, a lot of people would say that the New York Times is not reputable, right, because they disagree with you know, so I think yeah, reputation is something you know, Eric, I've thought about a lot because my own reputation is so
very polarized in the scoring,
right? Which is so crazy to me because like, I just see all this stuff online. And I'm like, anyone that knows me knows that like, this is just delusionally. This is not who I am. This is not what I even espouse. But it's very hard to correct that because your reputation is not your own right? Like you, it used to be this top down thing where you could kind of declare, and you still can obviously, you can build your own presence online, but I think it's very much crowd sourced reputation for all, which is not good. I mean, I imagine that there are going to be better ways to filter it. You mentioned the Twitter verification thing I'm interested to see like with substack to like, how do they, you know, handle reputation,
right? Well, we have badges now for based on
paid great, but like Alex Berenson, you know, who I think people would say is not reputable. Like, you know, he can still get one of those badges? I don't know, I think there's no good proxy for it. And the verification thing is like, brought a lot of these tensions to light. I mean,
part of your, you know, you know, Tucker Carlson, sadly loves to make you a character. I mean, he knows you're not like that. I mean, right. It's just people want a foil to create the storylines that they want, right. I mean, that's sort of how these YouTube accounts work in the same ways. And everybody's just telling you a story. And you need to sort of villainize somebody and like, at least in the lower stakes world of non politics, it feels like everybody's sort of in on it. Because if you're getting villainized, it makes you more of a character. And that's good for you. I don't like my politics is serious, I guess. How do you separate that you drink by a firehose, like all this tea culture on YouTube, where it feels like the stakes are lower, and then you see it playing out in politics, where it affects you and the stakes feel higher? I don't know. How do you make sense of the world here?
Yeah, well, the stakes are higher. Right, Eric, it's like, I mean, that this is literally how Donald Trump and by the way, I covered the 2016 election, you know, and this is stuff that I cover, it is this battle for online attention. It's funny, you know, when I was just arguing with someone, so many people, it's like, people see my work. And I think there's this narrative of like, Oh, she's writing about like, he said, silly things or entertainment, adjacent things. influencers. It's seen as very like, teen feminized, but online influence is shaping everything
old are, you know,
87? I know. It's the way the age theory is so funny, too, because like, it's very obvious when I graduated college and started work. Because I've been self I'm like, where did I think this like last decade came from? Like, what was I doing?
Yeah, sorry, for context. I just feel like you, you've articulated it very well, but you get hit from both ways. When you were a young reporter. I was like, Oh, she doesn't know anything. And then as soon as you're sort of, of the age of, you know, I don't know, credibility, clarity. And then you're also you're too old to be like, worried about creators. And so there's a lot of very obviously gendered sort of gatekeeping just sort of come at you on Twitter,
which is hilarious, because anyone that watches YouTube, like there was one week last year, I think it was last year, the year before, but it was like Trisha, Paytas, Jeffree Star Shane Dawson and Keemstar Oh, and Phil DeFranco. Got involved, we're all fighting. And I'm like, These people are all like, between the ages of like, 38 and 45. Like, if you think YouTube drama is only for teenagers, like please, please spend some time on YouTube, right? I mean, that's the thing is online influence. It reminds you of technology, right? It's like, people think of things as a toy. And they don't take it seriously, at first, a lot of, you know, consumers,
this whole kayfabe sort of culture, like the fake fights. I mean, obviously Trump would do it all the time. I mean, to a certain degree, we're literally experienced with the Speaker of the House right now, where there isn't like this super advanced like policy agenda. They're seemingly getting everything they want, in terms of like rules, changes to the house. But what they really want, like all the stories basically say is just to have like the fight on Fox News, like there was one of the members of Congress didn't even go vote until he got done with his TV hit. Because it's like, the obvious priorities. I don't know. Like, our culture is just what do you think? It's because of YouTube? Or like, yeah, do you think the internet has changed our culture to make it sort of less serious and have these drama fights in every pocket?
Obviously, I mean, this is what algorithmic This is the consequence of like algorithmic feeds and optimized for attention. I mean, you know, if you're going to set up the social internet, the way that we have it set up, this is the type of thing it's going to incentivize. It's going to reward engagement overall else, which is, that's the system we have now. That's why we obviously need to build it better.
Would you go back to the gatekeepers? Like I guess Oh,
no, definitely see that.
I'm more mixed. I believe in the gatekeepers a little I mean, there was value in like, you know, the New York Times sort of learning about something and deciding this is like too petty so we're not going to cover it. You know, like Hunter Biden's Dick Pics or something. And so then it wouldn't seep into the culture and the culture wouldn't become about that now we live in this world where there's almost like a fatalism to what gets covered because the internet's obviously much more powerful than than any of these institutions. Yeah,
I mean, I'm a believer, I obviously work in legacy media now. So I've believed in the, you know, the promise of, of legacy media, but I don't want to live in a world where that is the only dominant system only because I remember that world from when I was younger, and it was horrible. Like, I mean, there's
this certain war in the Middle East. misguided, and nobody complained.
And also, just like, I mean, on a personal level, like, that's what got me in I, like, got into writing about this stuff, because these mainstream outlets were writing about influencers and the Internet in such a ridiculous way. And I was like, I'm going to do it myself, you know. So I think there's flaws. I think we obviously need a better system. You know, I think it's tempting, in times of disruption, right? To be like, Oh, well, let's just go back to the old one. Because, you know, you you kind of get nostalgic and stuff, but it's like, no, no, no, we need to move forward. We just need it. Like, you're saying, we need this infrastructure. All of this is very new, you know? Well, we
don't even know how to talk about someone like Elon Musk, like, if any, I mean, the media, probably even more than, like Twitter has struggled with people like Trump, and musk who clearly lie all the time, but are also beloved, in some cases, for very valid reasons. And, and people can have the view that like, them being honest, consistently is not the thing they value the most, but But the media is very sane, someone just like doesn't have like a consistent rep, you know, good track record of honesty, becomes such a moral claim about like, their whole being that the media feels like very uncomfortable calling it out, right.
I mean, I think a lot of criticism and fair criticism of the media is legacy media's, you know, deference to power and deference to other legacy institutions and corporations, right, you hear that a lot. And when I talk to people, especially people that get most of their news from the internet, they're sick of that corporate media environment. Right. And so then they sort of overcorrect by listening to some billionaire on Twitter. Right? Oh, that's like, okay. But I do think that like, you know, the media industry, as a whole needs to look in the mirror and be like, Okay, who are we not talking to? Because we're just serving this one audience. Right.
Right. Yeah, it's so easy. I mean, one of my last quarters of Bloomberg, I don't want to get into the whole thing. But like, I basically, it was, you know, in my newsletter, so I was sort of free to have opinions, but they wouldn't admit it. And I just sort of was suggesting that Ted Cruz was playing footsie with Q anon by getting really upset about the whole Netflix cuties thing. Yeah. And like Bloomberg went ballistic that I was suggesting that connection, even though cruise people, you know, I, you know, I didn't ask cruise people for comment, because that was like a column type situation. So then, of course, Bloomberg sort of wielded that as like, well, you have to ask for comment, which like in any, you know, it's like, and then we did, and they didn't comment, right? It's like, what, where's the common distance? Ted Cruz, please distance I was begging them, like, distance yourself from Q anon just say, cute ons like laughable. And I would never, but of course they didn't. And so the media is like, you know, even Bloomberg sort of deference to, you know, they want to keep their sources in in the hill and play the game the right way. And so it's a powerful force. Yeah,
I mean, DC media, especially, it's like the entitlement of certain people. I have worked in DC media for two years. So I can say this. But it's just I understand that, you know, I understand where the resentment comes from. That said, I think that legacy media institutions are at a very crucial check on democracy, because only they currently in this media environment, have the resources to do a lot of this, like really intense accountability journalism, that these content creators, who many of them are amazing, and given the resources could do a lot better work, you know, don't have
and there's value in certain reporters having like, leverage over sources or like, I worry sometimes that just sort of the intense, high scrutiny interview right in this world where people just go on like Lex Friedman. And he asked like, I mean, they're interesting, but it just sort of, in some ways fills with whatever public appetite there is to hear from, you know, a tech CEO, while they don't have as much pressure to like, I don't know, sit down with the New York Times B reporter who's worried about all this sort of serious storylines, or I don't know it was this never were we ever in the situation where B reporters had, I mean, it sort of ebbs and flows. But is there a solution to this or what? What's going to get these people in front of the pen and paper of of the hard serious Be reporters,
I think it goes back to the audience, right? What audience are you trying to reach? If you are just trying to reach your fans anyway? or convince people to be fans? Yeah, you're gonna go on those friendly podcasts. I would say people in powerful situations still might do antagonistic interviews. I mean, I just think of celebrities, which is, again, all of this stuff. It's like, so much of it starts in entertainment, celebrity culture then bleeds out to politics and business, but like, you know, celebrities will do this, too. They'll just have these Bs, red carpet reporters and stuff. But sometimes Will Smith is a good example. Right? He fucked up. He wanted to do that sort of accountability, interview with, you know, a television journalist, because he knew that that was something like he knew that like fans wanted his feet to be held to the fire, and like he had fucked up. And that was a way to, like, redeem his own credibility. And so I think, you know, are they going to be our I don't think business leaders are going to do those types of like, casual interviews anymore. Like, I don't think they have to. But I do think that, you know, if you mess up publicly, you need to reach people. Like,
at the end of the day, human beings, thankfully do care about reputation. And so if you have a reputation for seriousness, that is the value that will last more than like, whatever the current battle lines are on, like, media,
or maybe you just don't want to lose your money, right? Like, I don't want your you know, it's like you're hemorrhaging money, or movies are being canceled. Shit.
Do you think media like the big outlets like New York Times post? Maybe with this line of thinking, it's almost like should they have restricted reporters more on Twitter, like the strength of their brand was being sort of authoritative when there's sort of this like, tea culture? I don't know. Like some of your own fights. Yeah. are like people will like shit on Taylor, the Twitter persona, when I feel like if they went through all your stories, there'll be nothing really familiar with
my work, though. They're not they're not reading,
right. But the Twitter thing is a double edged sword for you. Right? Oh, 100%.
I mean, the internet, it gives and takes, right. And I had an audience before Twitter, like I got into media because of my Tumblr audience and blogging. I mean, that's I built my own audience before. Well, I had a platform before Twitter, and I have a platform. I mean, I have way more followers on Tiktok than I do on Twitter. So I know the media is obsessed with Twitter, that is certainly not my end all be all at all, I mostly just go on there to yell at other people lately. But I think like in terms of journalists, in general building brands, or whatever. And I've always said, I understand if I was CEO of a media company, I wouldn't want my journalist building brands, of course, I want them serving me. I totally respect that perspective. Right. But as a journalist, I don't think that's that's not you know, that obviously, your your incentives are not aligned in that space. That said, it can be very beneficial to these companies in terms of generating subscribers to hire big name brands. Right? So it depends, do I want my DT reporters building up their own brands? On my back? No. But when I go out and recruit some big name columnist, because they're gonna bring in subscribers, yes. So I think it depends on goals. It depends on given take. For me. It's been Yeah, it's been a double edged sword. I don't even know, it's mostly been bad in terms of the harassment. But it's been good in the sense that I think a lot of people who weren't familiar with my work, see people ranting about me and then read.
I mean, it's amazing. I mean, you got a lot of interviews for your FTX store. It's like, I feel like you're getting even sort of people who might be skeptically, not on the Taylor side of Twitter drama, are still picking up the phone and talking to you for a lot of these stories.
Yeah. Because also, I do think I do a good job in my story. I mean, I don't know, like, I don't. I think also, you know, I'm talking to influencers. And I do have authority in that space. Because it's a space that I've always covered. You know,
the second half of this conversation, we're gonna talk about the state of the Creator economy. But before I got to that, and since we're talking about Twitter, and I mean, one of your recent stories was on sort of the whole Elon Musk flight jet tracking situation and basically throwing water on the idea that there was like a real security threat. Yeah. What happened with that story, by the way, I mean, it's the classic Musk situation and that we all just, like, move on to the next thing.
Well, what happened is, I was on Twitter, and I saw him tweet out this video that was like, you know, do you know this man, and it's video XYZ, and I was like, Alright, I'm gonna find the guy in the video quickly found the guy in the video found him even before the police found him. I spoke to him I reached out to him it was the whole thing. So I reached out to Ilan Hey, you asked for the guy in the video. I know who it is, you know, will you talk to us with Drew Harwell my colleague who did the strike together? It no of course not. He didn't want to talk to us and then I and then he banned me right after every chapter coming and I was like what the hell and then there was like this made up excuse for banning me about like that I violated the my tweet that was violated was like I promoted my Instagram account. It was like ridiculous. I think he was searching hard on that one. But Drew is still banned. But these drew refuses to do refuse. I'm caught.
That's gonna be the subject line here. No.
No. But anyway, that was what kicked off that story. But I thought it was such a good example. Because when we actually untangled what happened, it was not as Elon was representing it at all. And I think it's just a classic example of Elon lying.
Right? Do you think Twitter is going to die? Or what is your view? No. And do you think people are just gotten like hysterical? No, yeah, I don't think it's gonna die. I do think people are a little. I mean, just, I think it'd be coming like the Musk's storyline, plays hurt it almost as much as anything it was just becoming. It's like, the storyline can't just be one thing all the time. I mean, I've never been somebody who's like, oh, I don't know, the whole service is about to shut down. And I thought people were getting a little crazy about that.
Yeah, but I had a fight with one of my friends over that, because he was like, the service is going to shut down. And I was like, You are delusional.
Yeah. But you think Twitter lives on fine.
I mean, I just think of other sort of examples of tech platforms. And I think unless the company is actively shuttering it like Vine, for instance, it kind of just goes on to oblivion, like, it turns into a ghost town, right. Like, it's, I think that like, people didn't all leave, you know, Tumblr didn't shut down. But everyone kind of migrated on to Twitter. And I think already we're seeing people now, the roles that Twitter used to play in terms of real time news, in terms of reaching people at scale, I think actually, tick tock has completely taken over all of that. for average people like, I mean, I was just thinking, it's like, if you see a fire on the side of the highway, no one else has seen it yet. You take a video of it. It used to be that you'd probably post that on Twitter. I think people's first instinct is like, oh shit, I better share this on Tik Tok.
Right? If you posted on Twitter, it's just so other people can steal your video. Yeah. You actually get the audience yourself.
Yeah. And also, just like, I think that's just the algorithmic discovery there, you know, it's gonna get seen, but I don't think like Twitter is gonna go away or whatever. Also, you know, you and I are in tech, like tech people are so addicted to Twitter, they're not going to leave their cloud on the table. Well, I
just I, you know, so many of the fights that happen on Twitter are just like pretending Twitter's real life. And I think the more everyone just disengages with that idea, like the happier and less conflicted, we will be, yeah, the crater economy. So I feel like there are lots we're changing gears. You know, I think there's been a lot there's a sort of sense out there that the crater economy, I don't know, has been overhyped, or at least has a business story, or did some of the investment in creator stuff is pulling back or I don't know, what's the meme in the air about the crater economy? Am I saying it right, and what's your view on it as the expert here?
Yeah, I know. Well, I have to say the term creator economy was kind of like the bane of my existence. I like it. And I mean, here's the thing. I think having covered this industry, it's like, there's been so many names for everything, like names for creators, you know, I remember when people were called celebrities.
Anwar ad?
Yeah, exactly. Now, I'm just a millennial and ancient millennial. But I started in 2009, you know, and the term creator, as you know, which was pioneered by next new networks, which wasn't even acquired by YouTube, I think until 2011. So that's really when the term took off in terms of a YouTuber creator, which is what, you know, where it's sort of seeped out from, but I think that I mean, the influencer industry is also what I would call it. I think that it's like it's been going again, this is a shift that's been happening for 20 years that I think when the pandemic hit, VCs and investors were like, Oh, wait, what is this, like a lot of VCs, I noticed a lot of VCs that never paid attention to media before, suddenly be interested in like, you know, this world. And I think the ones that were like a little burned by digital media were not as like, full hyped on it. But yeah, and then then they started publishing all this stuff. And like you said, there was this whole hype cycle, which was great, but I think a lot of those investments were really bad investments. Like, it's not that there isn't a market and this isn't a huge multibillion dollar industry. It's just that like, they hyped this group of startups where there wasn't really a need and I think that showed just like a maybe a misunderstanding of the market and opportunities.
I mean, because most of the money is just flowing to the creators themselves as sort of ad brands like that trend is still continuing even if there's an advertising pullback
and then building your own I mean, that's the big thing like right is productizing yourself like the happy to add seltzer from milk or whatever, right? Like yeah, that's been the trend for seven years now is that move towards promoting your own stuff, which again, is like I think this is the another misunderstanding of silicon Belly maybe just like, not realizing that a lot of this infrastructure was already in place. Like they don't necessarily need XYZ platform for XYZ like, but I think it's, you know, it's like all hype cycles, it's good because money flows into the space and it accelerates, it makes all these cool changes, and most startups don't survive, right. And I think VCs are like, Oh, shit, maybe we didn't understand, you know, this market.
And a lot of the people getting screwed or like you didn't have a big following. And so like, if you had a newsletter on Facebook, and they were paying you some upfront thing, you know, is it a crisis? I guess? I don't know. So you're getting free money before now it's coming to an end. Like, I don't know how, sorry, like I feel for you. But
yeah, well, they were like, I mean, I think it's like a lot of people built create a resort type features, like you said, and then like paid money to boost it. I liked this thing that Mike Nick nano wrote, he's at lightspeed. Now he's, he made a podcast app that makes it easier to make podcasts. And he just talked about sort of like, he called it the creativity supply chain. But he's talked about, like creative tools and how there is a market for creative tools. Maybe not like these niche things of like, allowing specific creators to do specific things with their product, but like, creative tools, like we all need those, and they're very useful products like
descript stuff that makes it easier to edit. We're using Riverside right now, which makes it easier to record a podcast. Yeah, that sort of thing. Right, or?
Yeah, exactly. And it's hard. I mean, I don't it's investing in companies. It's very much a game of luck, too. But I think that's where a lot of the contraction is coming from. I've literally been through I'm sure you remember to just so many things have is the influencer world over I remember, in 2017, when the FTC started cracking down, and it was like, same thing, like is the creator economy dead or whatever, you know, people, none of these shifts in media media is only getting more distributed. Legacy systems are only losing influence. So like, those are shifts that have been happening for 20 years, it's, that's not going to change.
It's sort of like, you know, I've been guilty of this in the business world, it's like, is this.com is this the.com Bust? And it's like, well, clearly tech isn't going away. Whereas in.com, and really felt like maybe it was, but it's just like, is this a really bad sort of downturn and are sort of the dominant players really gonna get hurt it? It's like, no one thinks tech is going away. No one thinks these creators are going away. But if, if everybody's pulling back, what does that mean for them? And obviously, there's been a lot of like, free money on both both sides.
Yeah. And I think that's going to obviously contract like the it's going to be the smaller ones. I mean, Mr. Beast is going to be fine. I have this girl that I know that graduated journalism school just went to work for Mr. Beats do I think that's a good example of the future of media? You know, I always say that, like, if I was graduating college today, there's no way in hell, I would be going to try and work at the New York Times, you know, like, no, it's just not where media's going. And so, you know, I think things like that always free
and it is good corrective. I mean, the reality is, most people don't care about like news they want, they want, like content created, but you know, they want like advice about their lives. Or it's something that as a creator, that I, I guess, you know, inside the head of a creator at the moment is just how much am I news? Only? Or how much am I sort of investor tech, you know, as I think about even like this podcast, you know, I love like, what's in the moment, sort of like, what's the story line? But there is like such an audience demand obviously for for advice, and great, great journalism, you know, can be instructive. You know, I feel like that's why people love like biographies. You know, I read Ashley Vance's Musk biography. And I think on the e book, you can sort of see where people take notes. And a lot of this stuff they like is just like Musk's, like business wisdom, you know, it's like journalists are reading it for like, the craft and like the scoops. And then regular people are like, How can I like, in some small part of my life, like, emulate these successful people? And we, we have such a like, skewed view? I don't know of what, right? I mean, part of the problem I like, do you think the media is just like lost track of like, what the consumer wants? And like, how much should consumer want dry? Like we were monopolies for a while, right? So we lost touch with what people want it
100% I mean, I think of this all the time, with the rise of mommy bloggers, which I know is a term a lot of women don't like, but for lack of a better term, the reason that that entire boom happened was because women's media was not talking to moms the way that they you know, there were giving, like the worst advice ever. It was like how to clean up for your husband before he gets home. When these moms were like, No, I want advice for like, you know, when my nipples get raw from breastfeeding, or like I won't be able to talk about these hard things. And so I think that's something that the Creator economy and I would consider bloggers among that shift. You know, it does it meets consumer demands in a better way because they're forced to compete, which as we know, is is usually a good thing.
Hey, Taylor's pro capitalism to hear like,
I don't I've never said I an anti capitalist. I know, I know,
but I've just made I feel like there's Is it the foil to the crypto people?
I know, the crypto people are like, I know that. They're like, okay, and we're gonna fix that with tokens. Right? Right. I think those disruptions are are a good thing. I think the problem becomes when you add all these algorithmic feeds on top of it, and things get warped.
Right, and because then everybody's chasing incentives created by these platforms that have nothing to do with like, truth or law. You know, it's just sort of whatever it right. I mean, that's sort of been so much of the Facebook coverage. On You know, I feel like there's been a lot of talk about just sort of YouTube being such a generous place for paying out creators relative to the rest, or like, what what's your view on sort of the state of platform compensation for creators? And like, do you see any movement?
Yeah, I love I mean, Hank, green is just like the best on all of this. I don't know if you've seen his videos are
great. I love him and his brother there. I mean, I watched way too much tick tock. So yeah, of course.
You will Hank me these like amazing YouTube videos, just breaking down how bad tick tock is for creators in terms of payment, right, specifically calling attention, I was jealous that I didn't write this, like takedown of creator funds myself, because the whole notion is like you only have one pie, and it gets get split more and more ways for creators enter into the fund. YouTube has always just given a cut of ad revenue. And I think that's actually smart business. And it's, it allows for stability. And it's undeniably a better way. Now, it is more generous to creators, and I think YouTube is, you know, Twitch also was doing that, and then Twitch now is like, you know, grabbing more money. They're getting greedy, I think because they realize, again, these they do have a monopoly. I mean, I do think that our like, platform ecosystem is not competitive enough. Right. Right. So I don't know if how friendly YouTube will be forever. But
I've generally, and this is wonky tech territory, but like, I've been much more in favor of, I love Congress to pass like a revenue share law, or like a platform rake law, like, I feel like Democrats have gotten so excited about antitrust is the solution. And it's just like, how many? Are there really going to be that many like video players? Or is it more about, okay, there's probably a couple of dominant ones. And we just need to like, they're vital institutions for our society. And so we're gonna regulate them, like, auto manufacturers or something. Or airlines, you know, it's just like, these are really fixed industries that have a lot of power. And we need to protect like, you know, the pilots and the workers and the passengers. Yeah, I don't know, what is that gonna happen?
Do you think? I feel like they don't even know what like a fin says,
right. I think they're learning. I mean, you know, these things take so long, but I just think, I don't know, antitrust is the vehicle for it versus a bill that sort of says, here's, here's, you know, you probably need like a, you know, a revenue threshold. Like, you don't want small startups to have to deal with this. But it's some sighs
Yeah, I wonder what that would look like. I guess to me, it's hard to picture only because I feel like people within the media don't even grasp, you know, the stuff and I don't know, but it would be interesting. I mean, I think something's gotta give you know, and I do think that like, it's been really fun to watch, tick tock come in, and just like, force all of these companies to like be on their toes, because, you know, it's getting a little like flatline, I think 2017 2018. And
so literally, the last episode was sort of about how consumer apps of pretty much flubbed, you know, like, there was the clubhouse hype, there was all this people really wanting to like, will a consumer into being but besides, you know, of course, tick tock, which, you know, a lot of the money's in, in China. I mean, do you agree? It sounds like you're agreeing with that thesis. But yeah, we've been in sort of like a consumer app. Winter, right?
I think so too. Yeah. It seems like that only because all these apps, like you said, they get hype, and then they kind of fizzle.
Yeah. Be real. Are you? Are you optimistic? Or? Yeah,
I mean, again, I think it depends how they can evolve their product. That's always the challenge. It's like, sometimes you come up with this interesting new format. Can you scale it and scale it while retaining that audience? I think that's very hard to do.
It just seems like yeah, France. I think it's, you know, it's just sort of peaked so many of these things, you know, yeah. You have to keep growth is everything. Yeah.
I mean, Nikita beer keeps doing his quiz apps. And
oh, yeah. Well, what have you keep your expectations? You know, it's just like, what's the new one is like,
you hate each other. Okay. Yeah. Like those little like viral things. I think it's like you go into it. And I think he would agree with this. Like he I think he's pretty clear eyed about, you know, it's not like he's necessarily trying to evolve that into the next generation social Clap or maybe he is but I think, I think it's like there's room for those viral apps but staying power. I don't think that everyone wants to be connected either. Like, I don't think I think I think what Tiktok did in terms of removing the need to follow people and putting so much of a burden on the user and forcing them to develop these permanent connections, I think is actually I don't think that's the future. So
are you not worried about like the China issue? Or what's your view?
Oh, my God, I my view is if you all these people, the same people, there's a great Gizmodo video actually about this that I was meant to share on tick tock. If you have concerns about data, privacy rate, tick tock, let's talk about data privacy, because the people that are, you know, all amped on tick tock are the same ones that are, you know, totally fine with Facebook, stealing all of our data like China can buy us data. China's you know, tick tock is not the only Chinese app, you know, there's tons of US data firms that would happily sell our data to Chinese interests. I think it's just totally overhyped BS, it's not consistent. Of course, it's like, first of all, we don't have a smoking gun. But second of all, it's like, Okay, fine. I'm willing to accept that, you know, maybe, okay, we should talk about like, Chinese or foreign entities buying our data. That means we need comprehensive data privacy reform. Right now. We're so far away from that. And no one is even talking about that. It's just like let's villainize tick tock.
All right, I have to it is good. We actually disagree on something. And you've been pretty positive on tick tock, I would say from what I've
not positive, I think that I think that's good to be skeptical. Sorry.
Yeah. All right. The two things I'll say, like, first of all, this speech code, and I'm not saying this specific to what China is doing, but there's a lot of self censorship because of TiC TOCs. Content moderation?
No, nothing compared to Instagram. Nothing.
Okay, just let me Yeah, I know. That's true. But like, I'm not saying because it's Chinese. I'm just saying the fact that like, tic TOCs, deciding whether people can say suicide or not, like everyone says, Oh, no lived, just,
I'll let you
want that in the hands of a Chinese company, even if they're making the same decisions that a US company would, it's just, it feels like such a like, this is like the morality of our society. And there's a lot about, you know, I would just want in the hands of Americans and not people who are sort of at the whims of the Chinese Communist Party, then my number two point which is very different, is just like if China is not going to let American apps compete competitively in China, it's terrible, like, foreign policy, business strategy, whatever to let them like, have one of the dominant consumer apps, the United States, I guess, if we like some if Facebook's allowed to compete in China. I'm more opening to revisit, but it just we're suckers at the moment. Let
me respond to two things. Number one, tick tock is far more permissive than Instagram, I say this is somebody who has lost multiple Instagram accounts and is constantly getting community guidelines violations. Okay. I can't even say haha, like, I can't remember what I got banned for the other day. I mean, I've been banned for saying stuff about women when I'm like, I mean, there's just is so it's tells me that people have spent zero time on Instagram, because Instagram is the strictest platform out there in terms of what you can say and what you can't say, in my opinion. Yeah. And I think many I mean, there's entire movement mean movement that agrees with that. So I think I mean, I guess Marc
Andreessen can lock arm and arm free.
I've always I've I am never I know people say I argue for censorship. That is just never that is not true. And I never have and I you know, I don't agree with that. I'm very I think it's important to have open discussions. And like I said, I tweeted this recently. I'm like, if people on Twitter had to spend one day on Instagram actually using it, like, the way that people do to share news and have conversations they would be radicalized, because it's very restrictive. And look, I get wide, right, because they've gotten a lot of criticism on safety. And I think they've cracked down because of that. But if you know, it just drives me crazy. Where do you think all those terms came from? On a live that started on YouTube? That was a YouTube and Instagram thing far before tick tock. So whatever. I agree, I guess
Instagrams worse and it's American. I accept them.
Yeah. But well, it's worse on that issue. Right. And so I think that like, you know, if you want to dock a company, let's not, you know, go there. The second thing I will say is like I get what you're saying in terms of maybe you don't want China setting like a Chinese interest setting those speech rules, but there's no there's no evidence that they are doing any of that, I guess. And in fact, there's
a country that like had Jack Ma like running scared, like the most powerful business elites. You know, I just feel like China is a totally divorce in. Look, it's
an authoritarian country. However, Tik Tok is a global platform and you know, especially with the content moderation stuff, it's very localized. And we in America are, there's nothing that you know, you're censored at on Tik Tok I've ever seen that isn't equally censored on Instagram or other platforms. I will say also, you know what you're saying about, oh, we can't compete in China. So why should they whatever I think, or sorry, why should you whatever, you know what I'm saying? I think that we live we want to live in a globalized society, right? I mean, I don't know that it's really good to have this hyper nationalist thing where we're suddenly we're drawing borders. I think that it's a little bit of a taste of our own medicine, like we've exported Facebook all over look at the Havoc it's wrought in different democracies. So I get it, maybe it maybe these platforms shouldn't be global. I guess that's the argument. I
don't know I support globalism, I'm wield the fact that we they can compete in the United they're like a global power. It's not like this is some developing country anymore. That needs to like protect its own industry, like they have thriving media,
right. So are you gonna say that, right? I just think like these these rules are very, it's a very slippery slope. You say Chinese companies can't do business in America? I mean, look at all these
rules. They allow American technology companies to compete.
I enjoy that. So I mean, I think that's really interesting, Eric, because like, there's so much entanglement isn't like League of Legends, like, have huge Chinese ownership. Like I think INTAG, entangling all of that, maybe I think that's an interesting point. And I mean,
on the muscle story, which we talked about in the Alex Stamos episode, I mean, Musk's wealth is so tied into China. And I just want to also flag just sort of in the China in the air sort of thing. I mean, Peter Thiel recently gave a big speech, where I took his main takeaway to be being that the Republican Party should focus on China confrontation is one of their main issues, which I don't really know how that plays out in Silicon Valley, where so many Silicon Valley companies are totally tied in with China.
Right, and if we're going to talk about authoritarian regimes, let's talk about the Saudis as well. Right, like, look at musk, you know, hamming it up. Just sure recently, you know,
those regimes, it's felt like we get their money. And a lot of times we blow it on, like we work, you know, is like, that's so bad for us. Whereas China, you know, they're setting policy with Hollywood, they're, you know, and I just feel like tick tock is such an app where such subtle, you know, you could just boost something, and nobody would know, because it's like, what's the aI think like, right now, we believe in this sort of like purity of the algorithm. But for all we know, somebody could put your thumb on the scale.
If you want to talk about nefarious algorithms, we've yet to see that harm from tick tock, I don't doubt that it'll come tick tock is that the the way that tick tock functions in terms of the mass mob behavior is terrifying, and I think we'll end up horribly, but I don't know. I you know, it's interesting. I don't have strong I mean, I have strong opinions about the content moderation stuff, because it's like my thing, but Alex Stamos, you mentioned is like really smart and security. And I very much, you know, trust Him on a lot of security, like that type of stuff. For sure.
I'm gonna ask a question. You were saying your anti the anti censorship thing. Like, do you think we gotten like a period? Where we were to like, word school D like, I feel like one of your incidents like showering you with Silicon Valley was the whole clubhouse like, retard? Are
we Yeah, cuz I confused. Yeah. Let's be clear. What's his name? Ben Horowitz said that word. And I thought it was Marc Andreessen. We're both bald white guys who have never had anything to do with any other reporter who I will not name tweeted that first. So I know I'm persecuted because I confuse the two in a single tweet that I immediately corrected. You
made the mistake. And you correct. And they take advantage of the they don't really explain the whole story that someone said it and there was just a confusion if
you're confused, which was founder of Andreessen. Like, why did we sorry one other thing let me just clarify. If you read my fucking tweet, I'm defending I'm defending I said, basically, like if you're gonna like my thesis with my thread, which I deleted immediately within two minutes was like, you know, if you're gonna get mad at this one co founder of Andreessen for saying this word there's seven other people on stage who didn't say anything. So quote unquote, hold those people accountable as well. You know, I feel like if you
are I'll there was definitely a period where everybody was like tattletaling on people for saying particular words, right. Like I've
never been I'm not part of that. And I don't, I don't I think that's a complete miss. Intentional mislead misconstruing what I said, and I look if I want to call somebody out, I call someone out. I'm not doing it like in some passive way, as you know, I'm not like,
right. I know. That's what I mean. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure I was on Team Taylor on that at the time, but it does feel like I don't know. I thought it was an objection to the word.
Well, of course, I mean, I think it's an ableist word. I'm just saying if you crazy
earlier in this, I mean, oh, yeah, exactly
what you said. You, by the way, I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna say that. Totally, I mean, look, this is something that I personally care about. But I would never say that that means that you shouldn't be able to type something and put it on Twitter. You know what I mean? I guess my feeling
to them, but it doesn't mean it should be banned. Or I'm not saying I don't think
it's the platform's role. I think we as a society can develop social norms. And of course, different groups develop social norms of what you consider acceptable, what you consider racist, whatever. I don't know that that is the platform's role to determine that. And again, this, this is why I think we need as I've always said, despite the fact that people love to say, I'm canceled culture, whatever, I think that we as users deserve the ability to control our environments on the internet. Right now. It's like everyone's subjected to this one thing, and everyone's trying to put their different rules on it. I mean, that's why something like discord, it's like, okay, you can set the rules and people can engage. Sometimes you want to be in mass massive at all, and you don't give a shit like you want to scrap it. People find sometimes you want to safer, quote, unquote, environment. And I think you should be able to set those terms.
And I do think I do think part of what sort of broke everybody's brains. I'm like, the media in Silicon Valley is just, I mean, reporters, or it's like, the backlash against you like showing up at the lives of tick tock door, which obviously, like door knocking on the source is the most like, traditional, like media, like I will defend that to my death. And it's absurd. And like, Antonio Garcia Martinez, I think was trying to say basically, like, what if a random like Twitter account did it? I'm like, Yeah, but were they doing it to like, Fine, get comment, or were they just doing to like intimidate someone? Anyway, so I stand by that 100%. But I do think the media is sort of like, it's an authority figure. It's like the police. It's like, when you show up at somebody's door, there's like, implicit like we you know, we're coming for you. And similarly, when we blow something up with big followings and retweet people, it feels like we're sort of like, yeah, the cops are like the tattletale sort of, you know, depends. You can frame it different ways. But, you know, anytime a big account, or an authority figure blows people up on these social media
platforms, Marc Andreessen. Right. I
mean, they, yeah, they do. They've been balls, you blocked me because I wanted to do an interview request. So I see it less. But I feel like the call call out culture is sort of like calm down on Twitter a little bit.
I think so. I mean, I think a little bit I think all of them were getting way too online during the pandemic. I mean, obviously, we're still in pandemic, but like in 2020, right. Yeah, it's really, you know, it's funny with the door knocking thing too, because I do understand, you know, people not understanding that or feeling like that. I think it's so often too, we expect that digital things will stay digital, right? So we expect that. And so I think it's like, suddenly jarring to be like, Oh, shit, this is the real world, right? And even people, I mean, my family has been swatted multiple times I've dealt with all this stuff. It's like people, even harassers will think in their head. It's still digital, you know, they're living this digital world. And they're not realizing like, No, this is all the real world, right?
I mean, I think one of our profound problems with society, if I had to, like sum up like a core problem I think we have in society, it's that people that if you were at dinner with them, you would hate them are your preferred political candidate. It's like, like Rudy Giuliani, like some of these people, their children, hate them, right. Like, from everything I can tell like some of these people, it's like, if your children hate you, that should matter much more than like, I don't know whether you're good at doing like a CNN or Fox News hit. And I feel like social media has totally failed to deliver the information that people who sit down with these people and people who know them better than anyone, don't like them. And like, I don't know how the Internet solves that. But that's Silicon Valley, people go solve that, like, that's what I want someone to solve, like, how do our reputations as good humans actually, like count for something online,
while also just online, as we know, is so performative and you have this across the political spectrum, right? Like this performative bullshit that kind of is meant to bolster your reputation, and nobody knows what you do in private, right? hard. It's hard to know, you never really know if someone online is quote, unquote, good or bad. You know, I mean, you know, through their behavior, and they're talking and stuff, but it's hard to know them, you know, you're never going to know them personally, probably. But yeah, I mean, I don't know the lives of tick tock stuff. I did my job and I absolutely did not Doc's, her for somebody that concerns so concerned about Daxing she tweeted a picture of me at her doorstep where you could see not only the street, she lived on us, and then there are constantly Oh, you linked her real estate license, which had the address of her company that's like, yeah, that's a house.
Of course it was. Oh, my God. I mean, this is where he was like, just put in the link and you guys took out the link to anywhere? Yeah,
yeah. They took out the link I think because of all the stuff I don't remember the exact reason but probably because people were misrepresenting it. That's like somebody linking to Washington post.com. And then me going on Twitter. Oh my god, I've been doxxed. You link to this address in DC. Yeah, that's the company address. You live in LA lady. She was living in LA, she even admitted that she lived in LA and I visited her house. Right that she's that? You know, by the way, it's like, where are you registered to vote? Where? Where do you pay your cell phone bill? Like, where are you actually living? Like, no, I would never link to that I would never reveal her address. And yet, here she is tweeting a photo of me at her door that reveals everything. So it's just, yeah, no, I would never link to someone's home address.
I mean, we need we need more people to actually care about whether someone's ally or not like I mean, there's just like a lot of people in our society right now who don't seem to prioritize like people who are honest enough. I don't know that. That's not a social media problem. That's like a priorities values problem.
I think social media feeds into it because people develop these parasocial relationships, and they just want it basically eat up content from people that they agree with, you know, and there's no intellectual consistency to it.
I'm gonna let you go even I also didn't know this would turn into Well, I think it's good. Some of these scandals, like,
honestly, throughout my drama, and I'll clear the air like,
this is good. You know, this is why people should give interviews it's like, useful to like, Oh, I didn't realize that this thing people think is like, you know, a slight against you is different than the facts that you you consume on Twitter. But I had another point. Well, I was gonna say we were talking about I don't know, tick tock. No, yeah. I mean, lives of tick tock, you probably can't say this. But it's terrible. I mean, it's and the fact that Elon is so supportive. I mean, it's just so mean spirited. Like, who would want What are you doing valuable for society? Like I find it so so sad. And that, I mean, you were the one to say this is really driving a core part of like the republican party conversation. And that's absolutely true. And the media is so bad at stating that. So yeah, you don't get enough credit for some of that stuff. This is a Taylor I distribute podcasts. But But yeah, I mean, I think I do this is the sort of overly sincere wrap up but I do think like, podcasts in YouTube, like long form audio, where you can really like get a sense of someone is really the response to Twitter where people can just like, and cable news, which is terrible, you know, where you actually hopefully get more of a glimpse into someone's soul. So I guess to the extent that the rise of long form, I mean, you tweet Joe Rogan, but like Joe Rogan, that's like, I think it's good for the world, like long form with people. Listen to them.
Joe Rogan needs to fact check stuff before it goes on his show. Yes. Just tweeted ridiculous. Or he just he ranted for 11 minutes about a fake tweet that I cannot believe anyone would fall for it by the show on the show. Him and Brett Weinstein, right.
Well, this is the sort of low expectations like the genie, I need to I need to foster lower expectations for myself, because then if you clear them, people, you know, it's all like what you do relative to your expectations were nobody expects him to be 100%. Right?
Yeah, it's always what they say. I always think of this too. It's like under promise over deliver. Exactly. And I again, I yeah, I agree with you, Eric, I think long form. In places like podcasting, where you can have a conversation, it just you get a sense of who someone is, you know, a lot better. It's not to say that misinformation can spread all the time on podcasts? Because it does. I mean, such partisan bullshit comes out on podcasts. Well, there's
a very different thing between a podcast where it's like back and forth, and you're really trying versus like, you know, I mean, right wing. You know, I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh sort of as to know the other side. And you know, there's no, there was no search for truth, there is such a performance. So I'm not saying you can't fill many, many hours of audio content with like, total manipulation. But I do think this sort of conversational human, podcasting gives me some hope for humanity in 2023. Good, I
love it. Great.
You have a last word where what what are you most excited about in 2023? That's, that's the last word in
Well, yeah. My goal for 2023 is to not Yeah, it's to do more stuff outside. That's more talking about the stuff that I care about outside of Twitter. I think media people are so on Twitter, but my book comes out this year. So that's one big thing. October.
I knew the headline would remind me
extremely online. It's about the rise of the attention ecosystem online creator world's kind of just like how media became what it is.
Great. We will look forward to it. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Cool. Great. Yay. Okay, that was fun. Oh my god. It was so fun. Design Silicon Valley Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.
