112: Can Sell Culture

And one of the things we discussed was that there is something called the problem, which is, as you can tell from the title, going to happen in And we got a bunch of both helpful and very like straining the capacity of my brain right now, emails and calls from sners about what problem is. So, um, yeah, Test, you want to like talk a little bit about I don't know what what you've learned, I can go through like my basic understanding of it. I'm so scared to

get into this, but I have to first. I want to shout out a couple of people who wrote in um, We're gonna pull from what they said. We we got, um, former software engineers, very very smart people who I don't know what capacity they work in software, but yeah, it was amazing too to have this explained, and and it

was truly humbling. UM. I have to say that one thing that might that was a through line that might make sense before we get into the meat of these emails, is that you may have noticed if you have a Mac that recently you had to upgrade update your computer to the computer iOS to Catalina. And if you did that and you had some older software on your computer like word, um, I believe, Excel, Scrivener, those might all

of a sudden have excess through them. And so one of the things that I kind of drew from this, having updated to Catalina just a couple of days ago, is that that is because Catalina can't work with thirty two bits software, it has to work with sixty four bit software. Yeah, so some of these kind of antiquated UM programs that we're using will eventually no longer work

unless you upgrade to the sixty four bits. So even if you can't, yeah, if you can't understand some of what's going on here and know that in real life, it actually does affect you. And and everybody who wrote in did touch on the thirty two bit difference. UM. So, first off. We have Diane the former software engineer, and

she said, uh. In regards to explaining the eight bug, the underlying issue is in the way that most computing systems represent time stamps as the number of seconds that have passed since January one represented as time stamp zero, So that was kind of an arbitrary date that was decided as your one. Computers. Your for its UNIX, right, yes,

it's UNIX. So in some systems, she goes on, this time stamp is stored is stored as a sign, meaning it can be positive or negative thirty two bit integer, so there are some bits that are that are used to store what the number is and a bit to store the sign. The highest number that can be represented by this type of integer is, Oh god, do I have to read this long number? I'm just gonna say no. Two billion, one hight three thousand, six hundred and forty seven.

Thank you. How do you measure a year in the life? In the life? How about how about as time stamp January? If if a program increments the time stamp beyond that, she says, it will cause integer overflow, which means that having run out of usable digit bits, it will instead flip the bit used to store the sign, causing it to be interpreted as a huge negative number representing December one, which, without needing more much more explanation, would cause a cluster fuck.

And now I would like to also tip my hat to Jeff who wrote in to point out um. He wrote a long explainer that was also super comprehensive that unfortunately we don't have the brains to be able to explain but before the time, but he did make He did point out something that's very night call, which is that from the computer's perspective, I'm quoting here rather than rolling from December January one, d the y two k problem.

If the problem isn't fixed, some computers will go directly from three fourteen oh seven on Tuesday nineteenth of January fifty two on Friday, December one, little spooky dash of a computer computer creepiness. Uh So that was that, I mean, we actually we. We even had one who pointed out a link to the legend a Zelda. One of my favorite factoris that I found out about the problem was that we kind of got a preview. Another way to kind of understand it a little bit is we got

a preview of the problem from Gagenam Style of all things. Um, I this was referenced and I think a Guardian article and then I found like a Metro UK article which is like dodgy but also like it's been sided by a lot of people. But that Um, when Gagnam Style passed that number two billion, one hundred and something thousand or a million, uh it uh, there was a glitch and the views went down to zero. And I remember this too because everybody was like, oh my god, it's

like breaking records. And then suddenly it showed zero and it was because YouTube had only had thirty two bit thirty two bits to count views, and then they did a quick update to sixty four bits and then and now they can count up to I don't even This is when I actually don't know how. I'm pretty sure that's a quintillion, like nine quintillion, two, three quadrillion. Uh yeah,

I don't know. It's a lot. So yeah, it just seems like it's this The idea of counting time as in this linear way is kind of what's going to trip up a lot of um computer systems. So interesting, we got it. But yeah, like like the like you mentioned with the Catalina thing, it just seems like like everybody's It seems similar to the Y d K thing, where it's just like this isn't a big deal, and like most people, there's an easy fix for all of this stuff, like what what Apple did. It's just like

everybody has to do it. That's the main thing. And the other the other thing that's weird is that Apple does have to do this and the other programs do you have to update? And and we were warned because I complained to my dad about what happened when I upgraded to Catalina. I was like, and now I have to, you know, do a subscription model for Microsoft Office and

all this stuff. And he was like, but you were they sent They told you millions of times that this was going to be a problem and no, and everyone who's complaining was kind of just ignoring being told by these technological companies like hey, you're gonna have to change at some point or everything can't work. But it still makes me mad. I mean, we're talking about getting into

custom computer stuff. Uh, just off the air a little while ago, um and telling one of our other producers about basically the halt and catch fire, the flashpoint of computing deciding that you couldn't just decide what gets to stay on the computer. The computer brand decides for you with the update and things like that. I'm definitely like, no, I want a computer that lets me have an old

Yankee word if that's what I want. You know, like, people have emotional attachments to programs and just even interfaces, and I think that the way, especially with Apple prod next, that they've made it so it's like you really can't use anything from a product when it stops wanting to work is like not what customers want at all. Well, I think the issue here is not that it's Apple saying you can't use these things you feel nostalgic about.

It's just that they literally weren't built for the president, Like you can't use it anymore. If you ever bought word, it should just give you word. It shouldn't be like you have to buy a whole new office package because you updated the software. Yeah, I mean, I think I don't even mind having to buy it again. It's the fact that it's now that they're kind of pushing a

subscription model, which I think they'll continue to push. But I mean, I also wonder if our reactions to the problem by just being very blase until we can't use the programs that we want to use, has to do with the fact that we saw what happened with Y two K, and also that you know, there was no way that we could prepare for what would happen with Y two K. It's all in the hands of people who can write us emails like we received. You were so smart. Also, it just made me think our listners

are so cool and smart. So listeners are so cool and smart. UM one y two K. Thing I wanted to mention because it's the end of why two came month, and I can't believe I didn't mention it all month is that my elementary school was called Lawrence two thousand because it was the School of the Future in UM and it was very sort of like fifties space age, and they changed the name in the year two thousand. Now it's called the Lawrence School and it's like a

fancy school. But when it was Lawrence two thousand, we did like a time capsule, I believe for the year two thousand in I think that was uncovered in two thousand. What was in it probably just like some drawings from some kids such as I. But I remember thinking that the obsession with the year two thousand was like a very mid century type of thing, you know, like when I think of the fifth use space age, that's what I think of, is like, that's the year two thousand,

that's the future. Is the year two thousand? Now that we're in the real horrible future. Well, we'll be talking a little more about White two K at the end of the show to wrap up White two May. Before that, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be back soon. Um, Welcome back to Nightcallum. Hey, guys, I got COVID tested. Wow, how was it? It was so easy? I mean again, I just keep thinking about that William Gibson quote over and over and over again, because it's just like the

future is here, it's just not evenly distributed. It's just like I know that there are so many places in the country where it's not this easy. So I don't want to like sound like I'm gloating about it, but seriously, like, and I tried a few weeks ago to get a test and it was all backed up in the line was it didn't seem possible. But I made a reservation for the next day. I drove over to the Dodger Stadium.

Person in a haz matt suit gave me as a black bag basically hawked up alogie and swabbed it out of my mouth and put it in a test tube and then gave it to another person that has met suit, like through a one inch crack in my window. And I don't know. I guess I'll find out if I have COVID in five days. But I was truly impressed. To be clear, this was the active infection test, not the antibody test. The antibody test, yeah, this is the

active infection. Yeah. I signed up to get tested last week, and then right before I went in it was for my whole family. Um, I saw that those tests that are not the nasal tests but that are the cough swabs are only seventy accurate. And then I was like, oh, okay, well should I not do it? But we're being You're not like taking a test away from someone else. We're all being urged in Los Angeles County, or at least

in the city of Los Angeles. I know it differs to get tested to see how many people are asymptomatic carriers. And I actually know someone UM who has no one and her family has had any symptoms. They all got tested and with the cough test, and her husband tested positive but has no symptoms. So it's great to get tested if you and just like you know, submit your data to the pool, just so we can help understand

and help people understand what this thing is like. Although I read something yesterday that was about how they're sucking up all the data nationally because they're combining the active infection tests and the antibody tests, and it's making it seem like less people have it than actually do so that they can push to reopen. Essentially, it's like a

big funk up. It's almost impossible or I don't know, I haven't looked too deeply, but UM, some friends I have who are trying to figure out if it's safe to reopen their preschool at some point, I have been trying to find out if they can get antibody tested, and apparently it's very difficult to you know, find it's it's so much easier to see if you are actively infected with the virus than to be able to be antibody tested. UM, which seems odd. It seems like that

should have been a coordinated effort. Yeah, it's it's really like I wish that anybody tests were like more where they needed to be right now, because that just feels like it would be so helpful. But just until recently, though, we didn't. We weren't sure if people could be reinfected. I mean, we still aren't sure, but I think the most recent um, you know, article that I read said that it seems like maybe you can't get reinfected. But before that, you know, I thought that that was not

the case. It's as I've seen both. I think that's the thing too, is it's like the story is still unfolding, so the data is slightly ahead of the information. It's like, we know some stuff is going on, but like, what does this tell us is it safe? Maybe we won't find out until people try to reopen things and it goes badly. Yeah. I love making that noise on a podcast. Sorry,

but that's the noise of twenty twenty. Yeah. Officially, speaking of quarantining and and COVID, there's an article in New York Times UM about a certain certain phenomenon happening among TikTok houses in Los Angeles where all the TikTok kids are quarantining together and doing TikTok quarantine content. I guess

can you tell I'm not on TikTok um? But I just this is of interest to me because I now live in a neighborhood where, um, basically the street that I live on is like the emptying out street for where a lot of these houses are, so I get all of their like lambo's like speeding by at all hours of the day and um, and if you walk up towards like Hollywood, some of those houses are up there. Um, these hype houses or whatever I mean, they all have

different names cloud houses, um and uh. I I just it's been it's been an object of fascination for me since moving and since being in lockdown, because at first I was like, oh, I know what this is. When I was passing by it, I was like, this is very obviously a place where like influencers are staying, you know, and semi temporary ways to like grow their careers in l A. I've read about this. But then they all seemed empty and I was like, oh, they all went

home to like North Carolina or wherever. They're from like for COVID, but now they're filling back up again. Uh and now it's like the thing to to to be quarantining with like twenty other TikTok ers and everybody drives like Bentley's or whatever. Um so your this is your pitch for the night call cloudhouse. So what you're saying, No, can you imagine how like unsanitary one of those places are? They all just look like frats. Well that's what happens

when super young people have a lot of money. Yeah, you know, yeah they are like frat houses. Having interviewed some like rappers, I feel like it's like, but it's just seems fun because they're nineteen. They don't care if they're like, yes, they're never going to die. They drive around and they like huff nitrous and like get into car accidents. So that's also happening. And that's the funny thing is that like I'm on next door now, I'm

I'm showing my age. That's always the thing I find very funny is like for how much people are like freaked out about non white people walking around the neighborhood or homeless people under underpasses. You've got these people up here that are way more annoying right now. And um, they complain about them too. They call them the horror houses. On the horror houses. Guys, your next door is so much better than my next door is almost entirely lost or found pets, which is why I'm still on it.

I mean, Emily, you don't want to be like the dean in the college movie who's like, oh, I'm just lurking. I have those damned kids. I'm gonna I will say that, will prank on them, that'll go viral. Oh, I don't know if you can hear it. Another one just screamed by outside. I mean, uh, this is a big divide in nightcall culture that I may be the only one on this side of. But I'm really into all the COVID street racing. Yeah, no, I'm not at all. I'm sorry.

I've been in too many car accidents, Molly. I don't think it's cool, not necessarily the people speeding down canyons, but I feel like those people do that all the time anyway, more than like people taking over deserted streets and stuff to do fast and the furious stuff. I personally don't understand it when people are talking about like, oh, I can go so fast they almost feel as boulevard or whatever because nobody's on it. I'm like it, don't you want to be in your car as long as possible?

Like I have slowed way down when I'm driving. I'm just like, let's take it, like I'm gonna take a lot of the longest route I can to get back home because being home is so boring. And it always happens during holidays. It's like when the city clears out, it just turns into a little bit of grand theft auto And I find that beautiful. But I understand I do enjoy it as an idea. I cannot enjoy it as a human being. I know someone who was hit on Los Filas Boulevard by a speeding car and she

she is still like recouper. It's it's that it's a very very dangerous uh stream about the middle of the night. Street racing middle of the night on Los Filas Boulevard is where accidents off. And how you are you're talking about like deep in the desert in the remote you know, outer ridge of Los Angeles. But it's like people are shutting down streets and stuff. I've read about it happening all over the country. Um, there's also some dickhead people

that are doing it, but in a way that's really funny. Um. Robert Evans from Mind the Bastards is talking about it. There are these super rich people who set up like a gumball rally where they're driving across the entire United States in some absurdly short amount of time, and they have all these flag points and things. It's like very complicated in a huge t waste of money. It seems

like the movie rat Race wheat. But aren't they also going around from town to town like potentially spreading coronavirus as they because they're never getting out of their car ever, you know, if they're soiling themselves like what they do you very in the sky. They probably have diapers and like, you know, trucker stuff. I'm kind of boggled that you're like, I'm into that because I'm like, what are the only like interesting new things happening. I mean, I's obviously dangerous.

Don't try it at home. There are lots of interesting things that I would say are not good good. It's like a ven diagree, guys, don't you like Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, I And I think the whole point is those are deserted highways, you know what I mean, Like I think I think that's it's not supposed to be, Like I'm gonna go to Santa Monica and just speed. You know

that's my I just call me Grandma killer seed. Um. I when one other thing I just wanted to bring up about the TikTok house thing because this feeds into your interest with Kylie Jenner Molly and her house, is that one of the houses in my neighborhood. And I found this out from next door um because people were complaining. They're like, some people thought it was a hotel. They

didn't know that this it was this TikTok house. And then then some people cleared it up for them, but they're like, there's one of these houses is empty right now, like nobody's it's it's ready to be like moved into. But obviously the real estate market has slowed down, so whoever owns it has been throwing parties for for influencers at this big like horror house in the hills, um to to advertise it on social media, which is just like and I guess people are going like enough people

are going that it's like blocking traffic and stuff. So it sounds like a great found footage horror movie. So you could film it from really far away. You could just get out there, long lens, long lens it from across the street, love with one of them through the window. It just I I would be stalking these people. Yeah, I was just I was pretty shocked. I mean, nothing can truly shock me when it comes to like influencers in the real estate market. But I wouldn't crash this

party right now, obviously because there's a pandemic. But I would absolutely like crash one of these parties and have them be like, who's this weird woman there. You'd be like FSA back in the day, like at the Big She would just like crash parties. Apparently crash parties. Well, it's just like if a party is down the street from you, you can crash it. Those are the rules. That's the rule. So one other quick piece of news about Quarantine Times is that there's possibly a parallel universe.

I guess this is good news. Um, good news for is very It's very twenty that when these so nanoparticles were discovered by the Anita experiment. Uh again, this this whole this whole episode of our podcast is us trying to talk about things that are like quantum physics or

like how computers work. However, um, for a while there, everyone on Twitter was kind of fantasizing because of evidence that there might be a parallel dimension that they everyone started kind of theorizing and running with the idea that time runs backwards and up is down and left is right in the parallel dimension. And it's I just took it as everyone so badly wants to rewind that we're like, we're willing to think that there's a place where like we could just go back. Well, it's so in tune

with with y to May. I was just excited about the free advertising they were doing for our y two K theory, Right, I know, Wait, which y two K theory? The split timelines, Ben Lambert, Yeah, that the parallel universe began in y two K, and that's where everything has been running smoothly more or less compared to here, where everything has gotten so stupid that you can't even really predict how much more stupid it will get each week. Because it's like the quantum physics, it's like my mind

just can't get there yet. You know, I don't know. Um, I know, I read something from c ne net um. So the first the first I read of the parallel universe was in thrill lists and uh, but then sat yesterday, I believe, so, you know, Thursday of last week, if you're listening to this on Monday, had kind of a partial debunking of it. Um. I'm quoting from the article. There's a really interesting science story here, but it's not the one you're being sold. The Anita experiment is mind

boggling in its own right. It looks for ghostly particles that pass through most matter. It is definitely detected something unusual and unexpected. There are plenty of competing theories that aren't explored in the quick news hits, like the idea that Antarctic ice may itself be giving rise to these anomalous events. Um. And then later the author of that article says that you know, if you remember the Sagan standard,

which is extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Uh, we do not have the extraordinary evidence to prove that this is evidence of a parallel dimension. Unfortunately, this is basically a theory that has existed for a long time. At this point, the findings were two years old at least. Right Like other fun theories, it's fun to think about, but there isn't so much of a smoking gun to prove there's

a parallel universe. Also, it's just like it's not news, Like it's something that somebody dug up to be, like, let's make let's let's package this is a news story to get hits because this is the story everybody wants right now. And I saw the guy who UM popularized chaos theory just passed away recently, the guy who Jeff Goldblum's character in Drassic Park is based on. People love we love a theory we love of UM the thing that explains everything in a universal way. That would be great.

I would love that if they're parallel universes. Well, speaking of theories during hard times, Uh, there's this box piece that UM you guys linked to about kind of why the general anxiety of coronavirus times is leading to a lot more conspiratorial thinking, perhaps more than than usual. Even um,

I feel like I've seen that. But I also feel like, and I was talking about this with Molly last night, like I feel like it's also just making it's bringing out the inner cop and everybody like there's the conspiracy theory have like so it's like, are you a detective or are you a cop? Yeah? Police, right right right? Because people are too online because there's nothing else to do. Um, and that is the thing, Like the Reddit detective thing got so big and out. There's totally like Reddit cops

and like little Twitter cops everywhere. And I was just like, especially the past few days, I was just like, what is up with like the day of the Locust energy on Twitter? It's been out of control recently for people who don't know what we're talking about, either because they're not on Twitter or because time is moving at such warp speed that they have missed this. I think you guys are talking about both the Alison Roman controversy and

the Lawna del Rey thing. Yeah, a bunch of other things, a bunch of stuff, a lot of like as particularly, and I think that Molly was ready to point this out on Twitter, particularly stuff that people who are now out of a job because they used to be journalists are aware of, like media gossip and that kind of which the Allison Roman story is obviously a prime example of that. Then went from media gossip to like actual mainstream tabloids. I was like, whoa, I mean, I guess

the connection to Chrissy Teagan. But it's also just like people are so starved for like stories that aren't about coronavirus. These stories get really saturated everywhere on Twitter. Uh, and then I guess do become like newspaper news now, but there's still I think Emily was saying, it's like people, it's the same reason people would go to conspiracies. It's like people feel so much of a loss of control

that they're like, what can I control? And what can I like say is the unequivocal truth right now, to which I think has been something that's been going a lot on a lot more. Yeah, and like even pre pre COVID, just like like being able to say, like, for example, this person is canceled. It's always like so you can like bring down the gavel really hard on one thing, because there's so many things you can't bring

the gavel down. I came up with something really dumb on Kate Rap show, Hot and Rich the other day, which is I was like, there isn't really canceled culture, but it's just like can sell culture. Like if you can sell stuff, you're never canceled, you know. Like, but isn't that the whole point of being canceled is that you cannot sell. But it doesn't matter if you come out with the product people want, it gets undone. Remember when R Kelly got canceled the first time for very

good reason. I mean, he should obviously actually be canceled, But when he got canceled, then he came out with the remix to Ignition, and there was just like a just people just forgot or just a lot of people didn't know. They really did not believe that R Kelly did it, like initially in the sketch about it on Chappelle's show. I feel like every everybody wants just like this is a good song, let's not talk about it

for another ten years. Um. Yeah. I just feel like for some people to getting canceled like just helps their brand, because some there like the bad boy of whatever the fuck you know. Um. I was looking at the podcast top charts last night because I'm insane, and I it was like entirely Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro and and then like a little bit of like news, and I was like this is horrifying, like this, this is what people want. It's just like things that I think are

just very bad. But I feel like it works totally differently for um, say, like female artists versus like male commentators or whatever. Joe Rogan would describe himself as being pundit um like I don't know, try guy, try guy, Like uh, like the dojak had has been canceled for the second time now as of this recording, which is just like and it's like a more minor version of that where it's just like right, well, it's also like

I think when people here's what I mean. I think, like, here's my hot take on the Laana thing is like I think that it's it does go to like a universal thing about structural inequalities and like you could connect it to this larger thing about like, let me just say this about Lana del Rey. And everybody probably knows that I've never really been that into Laana del Ray, but she it was clearly to me, it just seemed like a troll, like she was she has some things

to sell. She knew that she she saw what happened with Alice and Roman. She very you know, she wanted publicity. She knew that the people who like her will see, you know, I don't think she's I think she's smart, but I don't think she's smart in that way. I think she's actually kind of dumb in that. And I

see that. I actually see those conspiracy theories pop up a lot where people are like, this is a publicity strategy where they're trying to get canceled for like publicity or whatever, um, And I don't think anyone's ever actually done that. I think that's like a big foot of things.

I don't know, guys, I just feel like it was so it was so I mean when she said like I'm just a glamorous person, and like when you know, even her follow up where she was like I'm just saying like women who were very beautiful and delicate, I was like, you're just you cannot possibly be earnest about what you're saying, like you had they had to be in a really like misfired or even what. Maybe that

was the goal. I'm not sure. I thought it was like super offensive and dumb, But as someone who's not a huge fan of Laana Delry, I was just like, oh, it just seems as though she's trying to grab attention anyway she can. The thing is, I will go on the record as saying I love everything she said. If she took out other people's name, she didn't need to, like I I am, I am there for a late night Laanna drop of just I've been thinking about this. This is why people have misunderstand me. I mean, like,

that's what you want out of an artist. I feel like as somebody who's just like you, guys don't understand, Like I don't think you need to bring up other artists in that conversation. I think she drew attention to something not necessarily on purpose. I think she was just comparing herself to those artists and being because popular to be three dimensional and like you know, portraylor sexuality on their own terms and like I'm one of these women.

But you don't think that the way that she contrasted like mostly women of color and kind of like acting as if they were not somehow like you know, in control of the message that they were sending, whereas she she was, Oh, she's like beautiful and feminine and delicate when she does it. Here's where I think, like, I think she always just steps into like uh, psychologic the American psyche hornet nests that exists everywhere. So like, I

don't think that's what she meant. I'm giving her a benefit of a doubt here obviously, um, but I do think that she inadvertently drew attention to something that's extremely true, which is that like, because of racism, like white women are always viewed as like more fragile and delicate and breakable and like and have more nuanced to that experience, and like that is because people overstate the sort of like the you know, the strength and maturity of black

women from a very young age and the sexuality. That's just a structural racism issue to me. That again, I don't think that's what she was saying, but I do think I was like thinking about it a lot afterwards. No, Yeah, I mean I think if most women, who like non white women were singing about being in abusive relationships and being helpless, it would be yes, it would be treated

very differently by christ Well. I was like trying to think of, like what's the closest, who's the you know, who's an artist who's like a black woman who's like like Lona del Rey and like fka Twigs is the person I came up with where I was like, you know, and I love her obviously, but you know, I kept thinking about how like Beyonce, like people they're like age truthers about Beyonce because nobody believed she could be like so mature. Like even when Beyonce was seventeen, she did

not get treated like a lowlita. She got treated like an adult sort of. So that was the thing too, is I was just like the you know, like I don't I couldn't think of like an artist who is like a like a black musician who got you to like a lolita. The only one I could really think of was like Aaliyah. And even then the whole thing was like that. It was like she's mature beyond her

her age. So I think again, it's like she was she brought attention to something about racism and femininity that I don't think was her intention to bring up that conversation. But I'm also like we should have that, and nobody's having that conversation also now, like everybody's having the dumbest conversation.

I was, well, that was the thing too. I was like, that's the way in which I'm like when we get into these conversations about like with Alison Roman too, about just like cultural appropriation and food and like the global pantry and like who gets to be the face of things, you know, And then last night, like the Ariana Grande and uh Lady Gaga song came out and I was like, I'm too tired to deal with thinking about like how this is like them, you know, like Madonna, like a

white Italian woman appropriating house music, and then they're like just appropriating from Madonna, you know, like they're just doing like if the music was appropriated like so long ago. It just broke my brain and I was just like I just want to listen to the song and not think about this right now. And I think that's how most people feel. There's a limitation to an appropriation conversation, which is not to say that you can't have an

appropriation conversation. You just have to know that that's not that you can't explain everything with I think there's also things that fall in between that are fusion genuinely, you know, like especially there's a lot of that in Los Angeles because there's so much um. I think the intention does matter and who's doing it does matter very much. Um, but I'm also like I don't know, like maybe like law No will talk to some people about this. Yeah,

but there's some stuff. This goes back to what I'm saying about everybody being a cop is that when you when you bring a concept like cultural appropriation into the mainstream and now like young people who are consumers of pop music know about what that is in a very kind of one oh one way and can use it and and be conversant in it, then it very quickly can just become out well as this appropriation or not as opposed to like this is a dynamic that can

be going on in this work. Intention matters, All of that matters, Like this isn't politics, this isn't law I think this is in two is It's like just like I don't want my politicians to be celebrities, Like I don't need my celebrities to be politicals, you know, And honestly, like I interviewed Laana like a year ago, and I was totally nervous about it for so many reasons because I was like, you know, what if we don't get along, Like what if this makes me feel differently about her?

Or like, you know, she doesn't like me never meet your idols, but really, well it was great actually, and I told her to listen to Night Call at the end, and she was everything. She gave me a tip on a ghost tour that I'll reveal someday. I mean, look, I I I really carefully didn't say. I mean, I'm not on Twitter that much these days anyway, But I think it's it's important to also understand that you can have thoughts about what people are saying or doing and

not necessarily air them. Right now, we're so isolated that it feels like the only way we have a conversation is to do it on in public. But I think I do think that you guys are being very generous to Alana, which I don't think is wrong to do. I do think though that you know, I do think it's it's not really giving her enough credit as like a person who is good at marketing herself to say that she wouldn't have done this to get publicity, even if it, like, I think it was tremendously misguided if

that was the case, but it's a possibility. It's not it's not like crazy three D Chess, like she she's done a good job of marketing herself. There's something to me where it's like I prefer for somebody to like funk up on their own terms occasionally then to like just be perfect everything perfect can always be, always be in character and like selling it. Like that's the thing too. But like when I did meet Lana, I was like, Oh, it's not a persona like that is. This is just

who she is, Like she is a glamorous person. You guys like, yeah, I don't know, though it can get for as I mean, I'm a white person who's saying this, but I do think that it's still important to say that.

Like we give people like Lana's Delray and Alison Roman like the benefit of the doubt almost all the time, Like they benefit from so much good will that sometimes when they make a mistake and people jump to defend them, you know, I I feel a little bit like uncomfortable with that because it just feels like that's what happens all the time to me, Like it shouldn't be. You know.

I also think you can like unfold slowly, And that's the thing too, is I think making the verdict, having the verdict on any of these controversies like the day it happens, which is what happens, and that's the day of the locust aspect is like just people swarming online to be like schadenfreude of something, you know. Um, but it sometimes takes like weeks and then sometimes things that are good happen out of these things. I would like to think, Um yeah, maybe maybe people get canceled for

a reason. Also, I think that there's never I mean, it's the apology that kind of like manufactured apology, just like you guys said, you know, you don't need your celebrities dB politicians, like it doesn't need to be that like and and it's never right when people do that. It always feels like it came out of a box or something like that. But I mean, I yeah, I

don't know. I think like white people and white women especially can always be like learning about their own ignorance and the limitations of what they think is their generous you know, inclusivity. And that's something I've been thinking about a lot this year anyway, So I think it's something

that needs to be talked about in the culture. Um. I think Lana's mistake is to think it was to put it in like a post racial context where it's like, I am just like all of these black women who are great artists, very naive of her, very naive of her. But that seems very on brand. That's something more on brand to me than like that she was trolling. I think she just was like, we're all the same, and we're all talking about our sexuality and how we're delicate

sometimes and strong sometimes. And this is also like a privilege of being where she is and being a little bit distanced from and not being on Twitter all the time all the time. She's like not a very online person, and I don't think that she like is really tuned into this at all, and it is this it's a big blind spot for her. Yeah, And I think that when you know that is a thing that like women questioning, like interrogating the dynamics of especially heterosexuality in music is

gonna sound fucked up a lot of the time. Um, And that doesn't mean it's it's you know, glorifying it in some way. The other thing I thought about at the end of the night was that I remember that Joni Mitchell did black face the cover of an album, and like war black face parties a bunch. Apparently in

a certain time period. Now, Joni mitchell Is has also become I mean the things that she says even recently, although that is probably due to you know, not recently, like since she became very ill, but in the in the past decade or whatever, she she says some wild shit. Yeah, I was just like man kids today. I don't even know about what people didn't get canceled for in the seventies, Like everybody was being racist right and left, and they're

all played on classic rock stations. So hopefully we're just we're on a positive trajectory right now. We can only go up right right things. We can only make running up, running up that, running up, will I will I will um. We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna wrap up a wild and wonderful y t MA. Welcome back to Night Carl. We have a voicemail from Amy. We wanted to play high night Call. This is Amy

from Stoke on Trent in jolly old England. Not so jolly at the moment, So there's time long time following the episode talking about why two K Aesthetic. Molly was kind enough to remind me of the artist Molly Soda, who you guys have mentioned a couple of times, And as I was scrolling through a Molly sodas Instagram feed, I saw that she's actually scandard uploaded all her old fanzines, and that prompted me to It really kind of took you back to thinking about how fanzines we're such a

huge part of. So we'll still she's still such a huge part of the late nines and early two thousands, that kind of Y two K culture. So I was about fourteen, sort of fourteen fifteen in like thousand, and fanzine is like a huge huge part of my kind of um social life, if you want to a better word.

And it's really interesting thinking about how the Internet was, you know, was becoming more of a thing, and I was spending a lot of time on particularly music forums, and kind of like d I y U culture was kind of moving onto you to step, but there was

still this real love and attachment to fanzines. Um. And Yeah, it's kind of really interesting thinking about to these like I was like healthy and days of just rushing home from school and been desperate to see if something had arrived like on the on my porch to see see that.

You know, some messages from the great beyond outside of Stoke on trent Um and fantines like sutally huge part of my life that they actually helped me decide where I wanted to go to university more college, as you know you guys would say, Um yeah, there's actually my favorite fanzine was a short lived series called Paranoia and it was produced in Manchester and it was kind of all about the Manchester indie scene and d I y scene and riot girl and a feminist culture and that

was what made me decide to go to Manchester to um, to study and to basically live my goddamn life. Um yeah, so maybe fanzines is something you might want to just like touch on a little bit. I don't know whether you guys are any particularly of experience or if you were all digital kids. Um so yeah. So um that's my night call. So thank you very much, love the part, bye, Thank you so much for the car amy. Um, this

is great. I feel like I was a little too young to truly be an interzine culture around this time, though I there was a zine shop I remember going to not infrequently in my hometown but um, it was not like I would say, the Internet was more of that sort of you know, sending out your signal, finding your people type thing for me around then. I guess that means I was a digital kid. What about you guys?

Did you guys sunk around with me? I thought of ziness like a jen Xe thing for sure, So it was like I had heard of them, but nobody I knew made scenes. My friend Caitlin and I would like try to make a zine sometimes when we hung out, but we didn't actually print anything. There's definitely some Zene culture and Providence because it's like always kind of the

nineties and Providence. Yeah. I think that was like the situation in Iowa City too, especially at being like everybody's like a want to be writer and wanted to be a little hemanway, so everybody was like publishing their short stories. And they've definitely come back really hard because in response to people being sick of digital stuff. Yeah, and and also so people's outlets, like the outlets just shrinking rapidly

from where you can put that stuff. I mean, that's like all they have at the Art book Fair now, which is very I've really been enjoying seeing how znes have kind of come onto Instagram and and the web as well, because I know, like Edith Zimmerman Um was doing spiral Bound on medium that we're all, you know, like hand drawn comics, and then she also has um she she publishes her own kind of comics on Instagram, and I was like, oh, this is this makes me

so nostalgic. Even though I wasn't a fanzine p I was also like a digital kid. But now that they are kind of coming back, they teach them in my son's art class, and our friend Kate Raft has given us znes and I was like, I need to start making znes and like it's nice to see them coming back. I feel like we're actually a little bit older than Amy, maybe based on I think she was fourteen she said maybe in y two k Um, which we were a little bit like we were like roughly the same, a

little bit older. Uh, but yeah, I think in l A like it just it was for sure that when we went to Providence, I remember going to the record store into the bookstore and being like zines zins well also like she was talking specifically about fanzines, and I think that's very different. Like I think, I think of well, maybe I'm wrong on this. I just remember all the znes that I was exposed to around them mostly being like funny stuff and like writing like people's short stories.

They definitely yeah, they sold some fanzines at Tower Records.

You just like uncovered something in my brain. It was like there were some sort of like you know, just and some of them were like retro fanzines yet where they were like small press, but they were like I remember there was like a power Pop one um and possibly a Monkeys one see all my I I feel like the equivalent that like the overlaps with that era and basically ends up not exactly replacing it because it didn't stick around long enough, but just sort of like

carrying the torch for word is like the Geo Cities page like that that sort of ended up kind of evolving that format because I had geoc these pages and like fan sites for different like animal shows and stuff like that, you know, and just like gathering all your j pigs and putting them in a in a row and having a MIDI song play when you log onto the site, like that's that's my that was my intro

to web, the web basically, but it's fun though. I love that people have been sharing the things that they've been that they associate with Y two k um because Amy is in England and was talking about how she wanted to go to you know, Manchester because of the fans. I love like hearing stuff like that because it's so specific.

But you know, we tend to think of why two ks we associated with, like what we were dealing with at the time, and everybody has such like sweet stories of I mean right now, the past is just sweet in general. Y two k past. Yeah, I love to live in the past. Super health suit all the time, just just that feeling of long and so indicative of great mental health. And on that note, let's take a

call from listener John greatly. This is John, I think humiliated the most listeners, and I do recall the year two thousand. It's very significant as you folks are talking about. The big issue initially was computers and they're supposed failure as we moved from two thousand. I would call him not being too worried about that though, because I thought if the banks lost my checking and savings accounts, they can also lose my mortgage and maybe I'd come out ahead.

But the concerned about computers was everywhere, and some people even claiming, I don't know if you are aware of this, that WWW for Worldwide Web was actually six six six. Since the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet the vove the rough equivalent of the English bubble, you meant that WWW was the mark of the Antichrist, that the web was actually Satanic. So the general concern over these matters

did extend to more apocalyptic worries. My mother in law was going to fill all of her sinks and bathtubs with water to prepare in case for some reason there was no more water. Um. But the whole town of the millennium really was leading up to it, especially in the late nineties, really was a big deal and actually

a taught apocalyptic literature. So there's all these movies that were coming out back then, like End of Days, Lost Souls, Blessed the Child, Fallen, Last Night, Stigma, Mega Code, and of course Buffy was on television and all of these, Um, we're really driving into people's consciousness. A students kept bringing up all of these movies teaching apocalyptic literature at that time. Was. It was actually pretty cool. Um. I just wanted to

mention something too about the millennium. It's not exactly based on, you know, the time Jesus was born, which is actually more like four to six BC actually or BC um, but it stems from these passages in Revelation twenty three to seven where it talks about the millennium and take me being loose in things, and that's where we get millennarianism, and and from the Greek chilia for a thousand Achilleyism or Achilliyism. People have been calculating these times from almost

the beginning of Christianity. Those those numbers, that thousand numbers just driven people a little mad. Anyways, thanks for hy to take and help to keep on listening. But excellent call. Hit every single hit, all the basis everything I like in a good call. We got Arnold sportsneger of a some Hebrew alphabet, uh, the erroneous conspiracies uh, and uh, the true meaning of of of the millennium and millennialism. So yeah, great car, thank you so much. I want

to teach apocalyptic literature class. Yeah yeah, I thought I did not know about this w ww me neither. I've never heard that, but I love it. I believe it completely. I did find a site that, uh, it's like it looks like a very oh yeah, it's copyright N Dial the Truth Ministries, UM. And it's like the U r L is like a V sleven dot org slash six six six slash WWW six six six UM so cool cool uh And it's it says uh and it's just

like clearing up whether www s six six six. I mean they thought everything was six six six back then. That was like the tail end of Satanic panic, but it was still around. Yeah, but like techno satanic panic the best, yeah, vav vav. But even this uh site which oh my god, this has this form at the bottom.

This is I'm like discovering a wonderful time capsule in real time and has a form at the bottom that says, tell some friends about this page and then you put in your email and then your friend's email, and then you push the button to send it to them, UM, send it to us, okay, on sleeve. But Dial the Truth Ministries. It does actually seem to be U tamping

down concerns over this. You know. At the end, it's just says, should I be concerned with www six six six answered no, I love whatever churches are, Like, what are the kids in two now? Like it is satanic? We must warn them. Um, I'm sure there's something like this about TikTok. I was gonna say, TikTok is is exactly the thing people are concerned to say, because it's because you know, it's six letters, TikTok. Yeah, that's it, that's it. They live in hell houses up the street

from Emily. Molly. You had a little Y two k nugget from our past that you want to Yeah, I just wanted to force tests to remember that we were in a high school show where we sang a cover of nineteen for the lyrics were changed to Uh was dreaming when I wrote this, so forgive me if it goes astray. But when I woke up this morning could

have sworn it was Y two k. Oh. That was the same musical review show where I had a panic attack and I had like a little mini solo in one of our numbers, and on one night I just didn't do it. I just couldn't do it. I just hung out backstage and pretended that it hadn't happened at all. Good times. Thanks for reminding me, Molly. Sorry, I was just like, hey, traumatic memory to just end the show perfect, um.

So we wanted to wrap up Why Too May by talking about about prepping and kind of you know, obviously Why two K didn't start the phenomenon of prepping, but I think it probably brought it into the popular consciousness and in a way that it hadn't been before and kind of made it something people your average person was aware of, is a thing that you could do and test.

Dug up a really great White two K preparedness video that appears to just be from uh that's yeah again a great time capsule um, and also like just sort

of feels like now just best practices. It doesn't feel that crazy any of the stuff in the video of even the fact that we now know that Why two K didn't result in any power outages, but I thought it was it was really uh interesting to watch it did say that, um in the In the description, it also says this that it had tips about emergency water sources such as snow sure water heaters uh huh, toilet

tanks and water beds. Of course, at the turn of this entry were still a thing, and now it seemed to no longer be I mean some of this stuff, I feel like it's also just on deck in l A all the time because the earthquakes and fires. Um, we definitely got a ton of earthquake preparedness drills and stuff like that. That was all of the emergency stuff we got, was like about earthquakes, and then there was

the ninety four quake was a big, a big emergency. Um, but I didn't I don't feel like people gott into being preppers after that. I feel like the same thing always happens, which is that people don't go to buy

water until there's already like the water shortage. And I noticed that with this too, or it was like, you know, that's why we had the grocery shortage issues because people were just like, oh, I don't have anything in my house if I can't leave it, Well there's I mean, I think an interesting difference with this video, even though it is from versus like us today in l A, is that it was posted by the Detroit Historical Society.

So this is like a local p s A in from the city of Detroit, and so it is very it's talking very specifically about like environmental conditions that one would experience. A few were in Detroit in January of two thousand, which you know would be winter, so they are talking about snow, they're talking about like making sure you stay warm. I mean, I remember a freak blizzard UM hit Tacoma and Seattle when I was a kid, and UM knocked out our power for in my memory

it was a week. It was probably just a few days, but it was a long time, and we didn't have heat, and we didn't have electricity or anything, and uh and really had to like figure out how to live day to day and to stay warm. And it was that was sort of my only real encounter with that kind of environmental reality of of losing the grid. But um, yeah, like the what you stood to have to go through in why two k and in Detroit versus California was

obviously very different. Yeah. I think, Um, when I was looking through y two k detritus to try to figure out some weird things about, you know, how people were like preppers and what they did. One of the things that kept popping up was this article. And I guess it had like a I didn't listen to the audio from it from CBC Radio this is that section. Man emergency emerges from a bunker. Fourteen years after Y two, k scare with a picture of this grizzled dude. Uh

and it says that the caption under his photo. After being away from society for fourteen years, Norman Feller is most impressed with KFC's double down Sandway. I saw reposted a bunch of places completely bought it for about that was like, no, they're having a choke in me. But a lot of people just totally just totally spread this as news. Um. I think it was just last Bunny Past come out again. That's like the atomics but it's

all like that. Yeah, that was Yeah, blast from the Past came out because everybody was still expecting like the flying cars future in the year two thousand and then it became clear that that wasn't going to be here yet. Um, but maybe like a big computer glitch is something that will transform society. Did you guys have a fallout shelter in your school? Knew, No, we did. It was it felt like a little vestige of another era. It was a pretty old building. Yeah. I've definitely noticed like in

buildings in New York and Queens. I remember the last time I was there, I noticed a lot of like just things announcing that the building had a fallout shelter. And having gone to the Atomic Museum, there was definitely a time obviously when that was like something everybody thought every home should have. It was like, you know, the standards for building in California. Now just to lis stand quakes, you know, just I mean that that give or whatever.

I don't know if those things would actually protect you from an atomic bombs. Oh yeah, luckily we know now. I don't remember if I already talked about this on the podcast, but I watched Mattenee the other day. Again. Perfect, it's the perfect movie to rewatch now. Mattenee, in many says, is a perfect movie. Oh my god, so good. It's about atomic age, hysteria and horror movies in the fifties and B movies. Um, and there's a fallout shelter where some some teens get trapped and have a nice little

makeout session. But yeah, it's it's really it's weird how cyclical the these kind of regardless of whether there's a pandemic or a disaster that actually plays out. It is really kind of something you don't think about often how cyclical, Uh, these kind of things are, these these strong human reaction, these cycles of fear, kind of kind of noticing how similarly people react every time UM, but it doesn't seem to matter whether the thing actually happens or not in

terms of like what we learned from it. I guess it's so cyclical that it almost just feels like a mainstay, Like it's not something we ever really fully get away from. Because I was just thinking about, like ten years ago, I was really into like observing the the like apocalypse pop phenomenon, where like every single song had something in it about like this is the end of the world, if this is the last night we have like etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Like it was just this recurring theme of all the pop hits UM. And then I actually saw recently like this somewhat unrelated, but New York Times posted like a playlist of UM climate change pop that includes a smash Mouse all star, but like it's a it's a my World's on fire? How about yours? That's change? Well, the ice we skate is getting thin. We also had a smash Mouth. We had a smash mounth song on our y k X, so we challenged The New York Times

to a publicity feud. But there's also like they put in this pit Bull song called global Warming because people put out album called Global Warming in twelve and it's like actually, like they interviewed him in this piece and it made me almost cry just because I love pit Bull so much. It's just Mr Worldwide, but he was just talking about like he you know, he's from Miami, like he and he's very concerned about this stuff, and he's just like I wanted to like bring it into

the public discourse. So I thought if it was like a dance song people would dance too and put words like climate change in global warring into the dance songs, then maybe people would be ready to talk about it more. Um. But yeah, I just think it's it's it's constantly interesting to see how this stuff plays out. And like even like we put we put Till the World Ends on the playlist, the Britney Spears song and the video of that I love is just like about living in sewers,

like for the end times. It's just it's been a it's been a it's a it's a mainstay love living in the sewer. This is this podcast will turn into a teenage Ninja Turtles, the original TikTok house the sewer where the Ninja Turtles live. Um, but I kind of wanted to just talk you wrap up this month by just talking about prepping specifically, because it is it has weirdly become the the facet of y to K mania

that we like maybe are living in. With the reference, I think we talked about this little bit last week. But yeah, the people who were the most hardcore preppers are the same people that want the country to like reopen immediately because they don't actually experience that much inconvenience or oppression in their lives, so they interpret this as

against their freedoms. In some ways, I think everyone has no did that there's like only a certain amount of time you can spend in your own mind and in your own house, um, before going crazy. So I think a lot of people's cozy catastrophe fantasy about what the end times will be like have been like put to the test here of like, well, if you still can go outside, are you going to like? Probably, Um, I doubt anyone will be coming out of their COVID bunker

to get a double down. Fourteen years later, they want those double downs right the funk Now that's the whole thing. They're like, they're like, reopen the KFC by me as a dining in restaurant because it's not it's not the same. And there's been people like there's been psychotic people like spitting it, drive through workers and stuffy. Um. It hadn't occurred to me that spitting would become like one of the most violent acts you could do in a pandemic.

Just coughing in people's faces. Yeah, that is just hit us now. I don't know. The melancholia will come when we least expect it. Um. Well, I enjoyed revisiting in the year two thousand this past month with you guys. Uh. It was both in both edifying for what we're going through now. I'm kind of weirdly escapist too, so I

hope everybody who listened enjoyed as well. Yeah, and thank you to everybody who wrote in and called in, because we I think we've actually gotten more calls and emails for this topic than any other and it was really great to hear from you guys. We would love to start incorporating this many calls and emails in future theme months and next month. We've already announced it, right, I mean official channels. But get ready for Rambling Gambling June. We're going to lose all our money in June from

gambling and other reasons. Um, but we're gonna be having a whole month of Vegas gambling poker if you will watch Molly's game for sure. Um. Also, if you haven't subscribed to our Patreon, we're gonna be putting out our Rambling Gambling mix in our newsletter and bonus episodes as we always do. Uh, so please subscribe Patreon dot com forward slash Nightcall. I think you will really enjoy this system.

You can also follow us on social media on Twitter at Nightcall odd and Instagram and Facebook at Night Called podcast And if you have it already, please leave us a review at a rating on Itune that helps people fund the show and gets Nightcall into more people's gears. Thanks for joining us for ye too, may uh we really enjoyed it. I'll see y'all next week. See you in the next millennium.