This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
And here we go get another episode of the Gas Weekend Fix.
I don't even know what we're talking about.
I know this is a surprise. It says, if you're walking into this blindfold.
I am, I am, I don't know what it is. This is an intervention.
Yeah, we'd like to talk to you. First of all, I want to read a letter to you. Oh no, I really think you're great at what you do.
But but your personality.
But there's a lot of you could get through.
Say no to your personality. That would be great.
Can can we send you to a center today to get rid of your personality?
It's all expensive. Page just so you know, it's all on me.
Just have to leave you there.
So this is this is kind of an addition to the regular podcast stuff that you hear from the show, because during the week we package all of that together and put it in a podcast. If you miss parts of the show, you can go back and listen. This
is a segment that has well today. It actually has something to do with we talked about a little bit earlier in the week, but it's also about stuff that we didn't get a chance to expand on probably, So if you do listen to the podcast, make sure that you subscribe to it wherever you're listening to it, and you'll get this gas weekend fix automatically delivered downloaded to your device whatever it is, every weekend. So earlier in this week, we talked about what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
had talked about when it came to friends. And when we say friends, we use it a couple of different instances, right, I mean, if you use it in just a normal sense that normal humans, it's people that you like, people that you hang out with, people that you do life with, or whatever term you want to use.
That's real world.
And then you have friends in this digital world. Some of them may be the same people, but it's a much lower are to be a friend with someone in a digital realm. You think Facebook or Twitter or whoever, people you follow, people you friend, All you have to do is have met that person once.
Didn't you have an odd feeling When Facebook first started becoming a thing for us, I think we were probably later adopters. So I want to say two thousand and eight ish. Sure, didn't you get a feeling in the back of your brain like.
There's something wrong with this.
Yeah, it's just like I love reconnecting with friends that I lost connection with after college and after college, and for me, that was my age frame of like, oh okay, oh so and so you know, we were such good friends in high school and we kind of kept in contact in college and then fell out of contact and then we're building our lives and our jobs and families
or what have you. And it was so cool, but there was part of there was something in my brain that was like, this seems like a bad idea, Like these surface level interactions. I don't want to say it's phony intimacy because they are people that you knew, but it was just an odd thing.
Well, that was just the tip of the iceberg.
I would use a term when it comes to computer animation of human beings. There's a term that has been used called its uncanny Valley where if you remember the old was it Polar Express? That movie Polar Express was really one of the big first movies that tried to computer animate humans, and the eyes on those characters were creepy and it was just it didn't sit right with people. It just was it did not work, and you couldn't You couldn't really describe why. But you knew those weren't people.
You knew those weren't real actors in there. You knew that was a computer thing. But what about it made it creepy? What about it made something not feel right? That was what they referred to as this uncanny valley. You like, a computer will never be able to replicate a human being very well. And I think that's part of it, is that there's a because it goes through a digital filter before it comes to you, even if it's just somebody typing an update on their kid, you know, barfing for the first.
Tha seem like friendship, but it's not the real thing.
Yeah, I had.
A friend that I will I'm using friend loosely. Somebody I went to high school with that I saw at a football game or something and I said, oh my gosh, good to see you. You know you're not on are you on the Facebook? I haven't seen it on a Facebook?
And he said.
I opened up Facebook and I lost my freaking mind and I turned it off and I never went back. Well, and at the time, I was like, you fool, it's great, And now I'm like, what a smart individual. I mean, maybe not, but but still, you know, like yeah, Like his instant response was, this is way too much.
This, this is crazy.
This is too much of everybody that I've known my whole life, and they're all together and suddenly boom, here's all their information and what they're doing, and I'm losing my mind and I can't even process.
It's too much.
Yeah, I mean, there's a certain amount of filter that goes through just the normal course of life. You're at work eight hours a day, you travel without your friends. It's nice to come back every once in a while, and you know, reconnoiter and figure out what's been going on in each other's life.
That's for us who we were in our I was in my twenties. I was in my mid twenties when Facebook came out. The people that have lived with this is where anxiety comes from. I'm convinced because we didn't have anxiety, because we weren't overwhelmed all the time growing up. Yeah, we just had the normal basic like anxieties of going to school, if you're not getting along with somebody or you're worried or you have a test or whatever.
The people that grew.
Up with this being bombarded by all of this information all the time. That's that can be anxiety. That can that can give you anxiety. I firmly believe the reason why everyone who's twenty two or what have you feels that is because their whole life, they've had access to that amount of information and that's too much.
It's weird the way that you say that, because we've talked about this time of the world, this time of human evolution, is the information age. Right, we have everything available to us at all times in the smaller devices that we've you know, a phone right now connects you to literally anybody in the world with a phone and literally every you know, repository of information that there is, from the Library of Congress to the library in Mariposa, California.
You're connected to everything at all times if you want to be.
I love being connected to Mariposa.
But that that information age is also the time when we're seeing more people with so much anxiety because.
It's too much, so as much stimulation.
Is it the search for information that alleviates your anxiety or is it just the fact that you're not bombarded with it all.
The time, that you're not bombarded with it.
The other thing that you mentioned, and I think this is interesting.
Are you smoking? I smell cigarettes. Do you smoke on the weekends?
Are you.
It's fine if you do.
I do, but it's only it's only Saturday morning.
Yeah, on the porch.
Yes, it's on the side, way over on the side. So if my wife gets a couple of coffee, she can't see me, I know. And then she comes outside and I have to quickly stub it out.
And she's you wear your old like your old stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I point over the fence. I'm like, there he is. Harry is smoking a cigar again? Yeah, And blame it on that guy or Harry you're eight years younger than I am. But I think it's important because of where you were, Like you said at the beginning of Facebook two thousand and what did you say, eight two thousand and seven eight something like that, because back then it was all friend information period, that was it. There weren't these giant club pages or you know, fan
pages for sports teams or anything. It was just your group of friends and you would see what they would post and you would see their information. It's now changed to the point where it's all advertising.
I don't even I haven't looked at Facebook in a long time.
The only time I look at Facebook is to look at our show page or like comments from or messages from people, which are all lovely. By the way, thank you so much for those not true not true, but I really and I rarely look at those. So and Instagram too, I'm kind of the ship is saled for me on Instagram.
I'm over that.
The idea that I used to post things all the time, every day, several times a day is odd to me.
The same way it's odd to me when.
I look at back at my Facebook posts from you know, twenty and I'm like, who the hell is that?
Like, you're an idiot.
I feel the same way about Instagram right now, Like I look back at like four years ago.
I'm like, what are you doing? You're an idiot.
So I want to delete everything, but then I'm like it, don't be the person that deletes everything.
I mean, what's the next thing.
I don't know, but I'm done with the oversharing I think is what I think. I over I got to the pinnacle of oversharing and now I'm just like E shut it all down.
All right.
So that's the digital realm of it. Mark Zuckerberg was talking about getting rid of friends or sorry. People want more friends in life generally, whether you're the average person says they could handle one or two more good friends in life.
I'm full up.
I love my friends, but I don't I I don't need I guess, like because for it's a female to a female thing too. It's like when you have friends, you are it's a full time job, you know what I mean, Like you got to be there for your friends.
It's not just like grabbing something once in a.
While, a beer every Tuesday, you know, it's like every third Friday.
Especially at this.
Time in my life, is suddenly everyone's got problems.
Everyone's losing their breaking minds.
No, they don't come to me per se, but you know, it's it's just.
I already feel like.
I'm not doing a good enough job with the friends that I have. I guess I should.
Say, well, maybe you need an AI therapist. Okay, So that's what Mark Zuckerberg was talking about.
I had a conversation with someone this morning who has a client who is a therapist, and her client said that she works for a greater organization, a hospital like organization, not hospital like a hospital, and she's been directed to have AI listen into her therapy sessions. AI will take notes, and then she goes through the notes AI took and correct them to train the AI on how to do her job.
Yeah, that sounds like an awful nightmare. It's a dystopian future, and the idea I do too.
Furthermore, the idea that AI is listening to your therapy session and that's not being shared is blowing.
Now.
I can understand if it's just uh dictating or transcribing. If it's transcribing what's being said.
Right, If it's transcribing, you have to you'd have to disclose that ASA Dolex is not listening to you when you're asking for the weather and all the other stuff you're saying when you're not talking to her, you're an idiot.
But the question I think that that I wanted to pose it just in general when it comes to friends, is Okay, you reach a certain age whatever it is forty fifty for some people tolder than that, and if outside of a major life change, right outside of a job shift, moving across the country something like that. Uh do most do people feel like they are full up on friends or they want more? You say, you're you're full up right now?
And then just because I want to do a better job with the friends that I have, I guess I should say.
I think that.
I think okay, you know how, like the kids were still dealing with like the learning laps after COVID. Sure, I think people are still dealing with the interaction laps because we didn't interact with each other. People were bad and we didn't interact with each other or new people or strangers or go to the store, like just talking
to people. I noticed that the more things that I choose to do actually get out there and not order or not go to the convenient route, the more interactions I have, whether it's going to a dance class or going to FedEx or going and get coffee or what have you, like that makes me a happier person at the end of the day, the more people that I interact with. And I think that it doesn't have to be like your deepest friendships, that you water that garden every day, although I'm sure it's lovely.
You've been listening to Jay Shetty a lot every day watering that guard.
But you apparently good for you. I love your growth.
But you know, I think just interacting with another human. I think the more you can do that every day, even if you have to kind of push yourself to do that, does make you feel good and connected at the end of the day, even if it's not reaching out to one of your best friends and having one of those deep conversations where you're laughing and you're sharing and all the things, because who can do that every day? Just having a connection with another human I think makes you happier.
There is my sister, My oldest sister lost her husband a couple of years ago to cancer, and she both kids are out of the house. You know, they have grown kids, and she's about to welcome her first grandkid. And she's been in the same job for twenty years, twenty plus years. And she found something that I didn't know existed, which is a dating app for friends, a platonic platonic dating app.
I mean, I don't even know.
If I've done a story on these, and we've talked about them before.
Yeah, And she found somebody that works in the same industry that she does that lives nearby where she. I mean, you could, you know, you could filter your results by somebody who actually lives close and they spend all kinds of time together and they have vacation together, and it is just and they're just it's just a great it's a friend thing. And as ironic as it is, because we started the conversation with how awful and awkward some of those digital friendships?
Have you had sex yet?
Oh no, No, he's not into that.
What do you mean he's not he's not into ladies? Oh?
Perfect, So she got herself a gay that's perfect, which is perfect like every Yeah, you know.
That's wonderful.
I'm so very happy and she they.
Have a great relationship and they're fun and they post pictures all the time.
I mean, because if he wasn't gay, you would be sitting here going, well, gonna have sex, right right? I would the old Meg Ryan Billy Crystal question.
I'd be a little bit more protective than I am.
Yes, but you don't need to be. That's sweet. She is a grown woman.
She's my sister, though, Yeah, like it shouldn't I have some amount.
Of My brother has never had one shade.
Of that's not true. I think it is, So she just kept it from you.
Lies.
It's true. Okay, it's a brotherly thing. You can't stop it, you don't think, so I'll get them on the horn. I'll ask them, I think.
But that's very wonderful. I wonder how successful those are. We should do, We should do some research into that.
I did find an article about it last night, and it was it was an article about a woman. She had again the major life change outside of losing a spouse or something. She had to change jobs during COVID, of all things. And she actually was separated from her teenage kids late teens or something like that because she
couldn't she had no money. So she went to go live with a family like a cousin somewhere else and sent her teenage kids or kept her teenage kids in their town so they could finish high school.
And she.
Used a dating app, Platonic dating app to find friends and made she said, the closest friends that she's ever had in life. But I also think part of that, at least her aspect of it. No, she described it as being she was desperate. Now I'm not sure that that kind of a friendship. A friendship built on desperation is one that lasts necessarily unless there's some sort.
Of a new school.
I mean, yeah, I went to a couple of new schools, and it's like I need a friend. I am desperate, or even moving markets.
It's like, well, I was gonna say, that's the biggest life change that I've had in the last outside of kids, obviously, but.
That's a kind of desperation.
Moving from Seattle to la you are nobody. You already married, I know, but but not knowing anybody.
And then we have to.
Look at the butterfly you've become.
There's a lot of alone time with with my spouse at that, and then we don't have any friends. We got to figure out. So you got to try to meet neighbors and filter out which ones are the weird ones that you don't want your hen want to as them not at all.
Now, all right, let's go enjoy our weekend. I mean, not that this hasn't been enjoyable, because it has. Once you put out that cigarette.
I'm glad I could spend a Saturday morning, Oh my god, meets you.
I'm gotta go finish my cigarette.
Runs are great.
Got to relight that thing? Is that what people do?
If you what.
Do you mean I didn't finish You didn't finish it through.
We need to start recording, and then Jesus can smoke while we're doing that.
Yes, you can. You're a bad smoker. You're a bad, bad smoker. You're the worst smoke.
I'll take that, all right. The Gas Weekend fixed your cigarettes. Make sure that you leave a comment, make sure that you rate the podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast wherever it on. The whole rating thing, yeah, no, you got to rate.
We need more. We need more.
We do traffic that a thing.
Yeah, okay, rate it. We don't care what the rating is. We all know they're fake anyway.
I haven't looked. It's probably better really, alright, all right, we'll see you. Elmer's like, we gotta go shut the fuck up.
You've been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show.
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.