Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of Germicidal Ultra violet Zeits courtesy of Johnny Davis and the organizers of that boord Ape event, that board Ape NFT event.
Where Welder's eye.
Everybody came away with the little case of the how you say welder's.
I or arc I because you're looking at an arc welder This is all It's never good.
It's never good.
An ocular sunburn resulting from prolonged exposure to harmful UV rays. And this happened because people were dancing it up, celebrating in the face of people's doubt about the longevity of their board movement, of the NFT movement, and they got some burned corneas, got a little cornia burn. Yeah, I don't know.
That sounds so fucked up. I don't.
Yeah, I don't. I don't even wanna. I don't like it.
But it's so weird too that like you wouldn't figure out untill after the fact, Like you couldn't like or I don't know, have people been around these things and be like, you know, if UV rays are fucking your eyes up like that, you know what I mean? Like, or is it one of those things where it like takes a second and then the next day you're like, my shits are cooked.
You wake up, you wake up and try to open your eyes and they're just like glued shut. But like that Homer Simpson gift exactly, there's.
Simpson needed your drops. Your eyes will crust over there.
You go with the ends, Like when I googled this because I actually didn't know what mister Davis was referring to the discord that some of the articles that popped up word like from the pandemic being like, yeah, these things are gonna be everywhere to kill the germs. Oh those right for they will give your eyeballs sunburn. Anyways, I'm Jack, that's miles. These are some of the things that are trending. Uh. The am PTP, Yes there you go, has issued their best end, final uh to to the actors.
And you know what. One of the details that people seems fixated on for some reason is that they can pay you once to scan you and then not never pay you again. Yeah, to quote George Bush, h scann you once. Shame on you scan. You can't can't get scanned again.
You're don't scam. You're not gonna scan me again, Okay, all right, good to know.
It also sounds like right now the AMPTP is now saying they are they will adjust language around AI. Oh hot, damn, Shane's just like thirty minutes ago.
It's tough for them with this world where like we actually pay attention to the bullshit that they try to pull, you know.
And also like really pulling up with your chest out like that, like this is our best and final offer, and they're like, or what.
Or okay fine, or there'll be more AI people.
I know it's the rhetorically our best and final offer.
Okay, that wasn't our best because now we're clearly going to meet you somewhere in the middle with AI.
But yeah, ongoing saga there, ongoing ongoing.
Well. Speaking of George W. Bush, I recently heard somebody referred to where Joe Biden is currently as similar to like where Bush was in the aftermath of Katrina, Like oh, in terms of just like the absolute lack of moral authority, you know, like we've seen you just ignore horrifying shit and just try and like keep it moving. And I guess I was just curious, like I've heard people kind of assume that this is what's happening to polling numbers.
That that's what it seems like to me. But then when you like go to the New York Times article about like Joe Biden's polling in freefall all of a sudden this month, you might think that the major story of you know, what's happening in Gaza that has like dominated every day of news for the past month would be the focus of a shocking polling free fall for Biden over that same period, and specifically, like his polling is in freefall among people of color, specifically during a
time that he has demonstrated what would seem to be a belief that the lives of you know, brown people in Palestine are worth less in the grand colonial scheme of things than the lives of white people. Yeah, but like the New York Times articles just like, yeah, well people think he's old, and you know, and it's like, well, they've thought he's old for a while.
Yeah, that was a thing that they've been talking about like since last year or the concern or whatever. But like, yeah, that's that's very convenient to leave that part out, because you know, there are people who are doing polling specifically of like Arab Americans, and they showed that he went from around.
Like sixty percent support of Arab Americans.
Now like seventeen yes, and that and they say is like astounding because it's never there's never been a precipitous dropped so quickly in such a short amount of time, like.
With this specific community.
But also when they are like, look at the polling, it it goes across all like the cross tabs like no matter religion or gender and things like that.
Age.
And yet to your point, a lot of people of color too also see something that resonates with them on some level, where it's systemic oppression or watching like people Palestinian people literally walking to relocate, you know what I mean.
Like and like I think Andrew.
Jackson might have just might harken back to the time of Andrew Jackson with the Trail of Tears.
So there's a lot of things that resonate with people.
But you also see like these really weird things too, where they're like it's TikTok, actually that's the problem, right, And.
You're like, are you really doing the principal Skinner thing right now?
It's like it's it me, It's no. The children.
And I think again, this goes back to the idea like people know more people are are informing themselves a little bit more so like to do this like full court press of manufacturing consent and it not working, Like I don't know, I don't know why. That's a shock, Like people are are a little bit more tapped in, and there's plenty of people that aren't, but it's just wild.
And then you also hear people like Democratic strategists that are like, well, you know, like if there's a woman who is not supporting Biden right now, she'll figure it out once, you know, like November comes because they don't want to vote against their own rights, and that's so fucking patronizing and callous and also like plays into the like Biden's administration and just the Democratic Party in general
not doing shit to protect reproductive rights. It it I don't know, like none of their none of the levers are working right it seems like for them. So yeah, I mean, obviously a year is a very long time and when it comes to politics, but this is just I don't know, like like a lot of the shit that you see right now of what's happening in Gaza, like you can't unsee it and then you can't be like disconnect the idea.
They're like, but we give them the capability to do that, so are we also?
You know, like a journalist recently asked their representative from like the State Department about, like, is there any concern that like, you know, these are like because these are international war crimes, that like the US is a party to that because they're providing the ammunitions, and like it's just like completely glossed over. But sure, because well we
all know how the US works. They're like, oh, you want to take us to the Hague, will invade everywhere if you try that shit with us, right, which is not a good default position to have when you're talking about international law.
But yeah, Yeah.
The New York Times article specifically like reporting on it, mentions Gaza in like one sentence fragment about how people like trust Trump more on foreign policy. They're like, yeah, and specifically and Israel, they try they trust him by eleven percentage points and just like kind of keep it moving.
But I wonder if he is like getting that message, Like I'm assuming he's pretty well insulated by these democratic strategists who are from a different era where it's just like, yes, we just ride with Israel, no questions asked, and like that's good for you.
Yeah, like just going full neoliberal and being like, oh, this is what we do.
Dude, I don't know, I can't really.
Just got to remind them how good the economy is.
Yeah, it's and again it's just this doesn't help anyone. This is every like every day that this like this genocidal campaign continues, it's it's it's radicalizing people in every direction. It's causing more chaos. There was a guy who was at a protest in California who is like a supporting Israel like and there was like a like a pro Palestine thing and he got shoved or something and hit his head and died.
Yeah.
It's things aren't like And to think that it's like, oh this ends well, right, like like let's even let's even game out the logic they destroy whatever quote unquote destroy Hamas means you're right, we've seen this play out. You're just going to create a vacuum for something worse to show up, right, And do you think people, the people of Palestine are going to say, ah, right, y'all got us right?
All right?
Like back to like I don't understand, like even it even defies like how we believe human beings to respond to trauma. So it just all feels it's just it. Yeah, every day gets worse and worse. And then like then there's like head I saw that the IDF is put together like a short film of like really awful October seventh attack footage. Uh to just try and like I don't know, they're like their screenings potentially happening in New York and Los Angeles.
And it's like, how quickly are you like reducing these people who actually lost their lives into this like obscene piece of propaganda to justify the killing of more innocent people.
It's just everything feels.
So all over the place, man, And all you're asking is like the US to the supposed leader of the free world. Yeah, and to hear people say things like, well, you know, I don't know what else to do.
How about you say.
We can we won't give you munitions? Why is it that's not even a thing that's discussed. And I get that that in terms of art, that's so such a departure from American foreign policy, But to act like nothing can be done that doesn't help people will feel good about what is happening or how the US is involved with that.
So yeah, all right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and talk about some other stuff. We'll be right back, and we're back. We are back. And as you found the study about how Hollywood affects how we visualize the end of our lives.
Yeah, like we talked, you know, you you bring this up a lot about how like movies and TV are sort of like formed the bedrock of like our understanding of certain parts of like life, you know what I mean.
Yeah, they affect how you imagine things that you haven't experienced yet. Right, so a country you haven't been to.
Getting your whole bit by a great white, your.
Whole shit bit by a great white, or like your future, like how your life will end. Like I've seen way more crashes that I've seen people die of cancer in a movie, and therefore I, like my brain at some level believes I'm going to die in a plane crash or dying in a plane crash is more likely than dying of cancer, even though that's wildly incorrect.
To that end, right, Like the USC and this organization end well, they're dedicated to dismantling barriers and confronting stigmas surrounding end of life experiences. They just found like while doing an analysis of like TV and film for like the last twenty odd years, they're like, yeah, like just everything is so violent.
Quote.
The study found scripted television skews heavily toward violent death, with over eighty percent of television deaths caused by violence. It noted research that shows depictions of gun violence on popular primetime dramas doubled from twenty to twenty eighteen, and then shooting, stabbing, poisonings, and beatings together made up forty nine percent of depicted TV deaths, while illness was only
four point three percent. And then so like their whole thing is like if a majority like characters experience of violent death, that are it's already painting a very skewed picture that deprives viewers of like a better representation of sort of what end of life care specifically could look like, and like what options are, Like we talked about I need to.
Prepare for a end of life care. Man, I'm going out in the hall of bullets or.
A plane crash or a Tornado's gonna throw me into the sky and I'll never come down. There's like a lot of research, right we talk about psychedelics and psychedelics used for like end of life sort of therapy to help people sort of come to grips with their mortality. But that isn't even really like a scripted thing in media.
They even pointed out, quote for instance, in our investigation of discussion of psychedelics and scripted programming, we found hundreds of mentions, but only three storylines where psychedelics were used to treat patients, and only two of those are about treating end of life. So basically saying like there's so much room for creators to paint more like realistic representations. And I get that obviously sensational stuff is they're like that just like gets people or whatever. Yeah, but it
doesn't quite capture like the breath of human experience. And it's like, you know, people are like we're all like experts and like understanding like stab wounds and poisonings because of the TV shows we watch, but have no idea about like differences like what's palliative care right hospice and it just you know, they're going on to say that like there's a lot that can help people understand sort of what these what this sort of looks like, because
we're only getting presented the version that is just very violent and sensationalized.
So interesting. I didn't really quite think of that, but now.
When I think when you look at the stature, like yeah, right, everybody's like killed and stuff, like unless you're watching.
Like a medical drama.
And they even point to the fact that a lot of medical dramas are also kind of like not doing the best job of showing like oh yeah, it's always.
Like some strange like unprecedented illness. It's never like, yeah, this person has been smoking for forty five years and finally just caught up to them, you know.
Yeah, it's right, right, And like even grief like how that's not even it's like used as like a plot point too. It's like just grieving character this is the jumping off point for all this like activity following this or whatever, and there are other ways to depict it.
So yeah, interesting analysis for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
We were which we launched this podcast from a we work We.
Did, We absolutely did.
We were in Hollywood, did not have an office yet, and so we were working out of a we work with a strap room. Yeah, it really felt like a broom closet.
That was like that was not that was not an office.
No, No, it's they I well, I had asked them like, give me like one without windows because it was going to be a lot of reverb if we had windows, and they were like, I mean you could have this ship hole over here. Yeah, And they're like, you know, shoot some rats out of the way. Uh, and like they're like.
Do youdys mind leaving? We got some people that are actually paying now.
But I think early episodes we were talking about like the you know, the spa water that they had there, the nice little cucumber water. The yeah, nice little perks. But it was not fun to work there. But at
that time we work. Rocket growth to everyone was they were valued in twenty nineteen at forty seven billion dollars in around of funding, and they were aiming to like hit the stock market and become basically the next I don't know Airbnb or like something like that work Airbnb, and then it all fell apart, like people realized that that valuation was like based on basically they were valuing themselves like a tech company instead of like a real
estate company, and so they were like, tech companies, you can value yourself at like eight x what you're actually making money wise, or some like really high number, whereas real estate you can value yourself at like two x. And they were like, well, when you think about it, we're kind of a tech company, like we have an
app right that people can sign into. And they were like, oh, oh no and so and then there was like a lot of behavior behind the scenes that made it made them fun to dunk on as as people as investors were realizing this.
The CEO a lot of self dealing there basically fucked it all up, but also a lesson about how people get so caught up in this like Silicon Valley like visionary shit that they're like, yeah, it actually defies all logic that we have about how, you know, macroeconomics work. But don't worry, we're going to the fucking tops put a saddle on this unicorn because we're going to.
Guys like got a big personality and he's fun to party with. So yeah, they have since lost ninety eight percent of their value the company. The reason we're talking about it, they have filed for bankrupt see in mid August, they announced a one for forty reverse stock split to get its shares trading back above one dollar, which is a requirement for keeping it by the New York Stock Exchange.
Bro, thank you getting ten thousand shares. Bro.
Watch this ship jack, Yeah, but anyways, you hate to see it.
Yeah.
And there's an article I'm Wired about first gen social media users. Yeah, millennials. Yeah, and it's just how like they're now now that Twitter is bordering on unusable and headed let's just call it more unusable. It's unusable, it's unusable.
I think we're in denial, like we're seeing It's like when a relationship is really bad, Like.
But I laughed last night, right, and it's like, yeah, but how's everything else? Awful? Awful? It's really bad.
If you could be in a relation, I would break up with them. Then I think you have your answer.
That's right now?
Yeaheah Yeah. So people are like, so where do they go from? Here has been how it's been covered up to this point. This Wired article is like, or do they just like not go anywhere?
Are they like?
Oh? Social media was like an experiment that went badly and now we go back to living our lives in reality.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know, Like, it's just this is this excerpt that people are sharing from the article that said quote, Millennials are the last of the analog world, both of yesterday and tomorrow, the bridge between what was and what will be. Maybe this is where my hesitation takes root and why it feels like there are no good apps left for socializing the way we used to. We came of age on a diet of chat rooms
in MySpace. Our expression was devoutly digital. We signed up in mass because we sought in the next frontier of adulthood we solely realized was being actualized online friends or blogger, tumbler, Twitter, and Facebook, where where we found community, honed our creative urges, and secured careers. In time, we used social media to
remake civic life. Okay, it feels a little you know, Okay, I see where you're going with that, But I feel like that evolution definitely, Like I remember being going from no internet ever to dialing up on AOL, to like just seeing what the you know, all the shit that was possible online, to then even like making YouTube videos or funnier die videos and things like that, and knowing that like there was like all this possibility and now it just feels everything has been like co opted by
like just corporate interests that have no like see no value and what the connectivity aspect is and just like you know, farming for data or just like shit that is completely uh unmoderated and become total cesspits and there's no there's no there's there's nothing like a value or you have to wade through too much excrement to find the real stuff.
So yeah, yeah, I don't know.
There's like one part is talking about it's like this person's like I use Twitter maybe three or four times a year.
I barely post anymore.
And I've seen how like even myself, like I've I went from loving to post shit on Instagram I really like, and then I.
Just slowly like one of my things that feels weird.
It's just like, yeah, like I don't know what happened, but I could just be a function of getting older.
But I still do like I missed that excitement of like.
When it was a little bit more pure, or maybe it was always like it just seemed pure in the beginning because we were always kind of pursuing something a little bit toxic underneath at the end. So I don't know, I don't know which way it is exactly, but I definitely feel the like thela the lost love that's on some level.
Yeah, that paragraph like reminded me of the year twenty ten, like when it was like we are going to you know, like it has that like propulsive energy of like and you know, the sky's the limit. Who knows what we're gonna do with this? Yeah, like, oh, the it just became a marketing tool that wound its way into like the very fibers of and I don't know if.
There is even like I don't know if there is an app that would come out there you're like, oh, there it is, you know what I mean, Like there's the thing or it's always just some version of like I don't know, fucking the racists are just going to show up eventually and just like fuck are whatever the fuck happens or you know what I mean.
Yeah, definitely going to be something on the model of like Wikipedia open source you know, projects where it's like people like a community that isn't owned and isn't like trying to make a profit and is somehow using hippie crap. Yeah, like hippie shit. It would have to be some hippie bullshit. I think mine is.
I wonder if that would put investors off, Like you just it's called hippie crap, but it's actually like the best social media platform.
Just to scare off investors.
I mean, that's something that they talk about in Ministry for the Future, and I've heard other people. I think Douglas Roushcoff talks about it in his book that we had him on to discuss on one of our recent
Tuesday Expert episodes. Is like the idea that some of the most successful things in the history of this these past like thirty forty years online have been like open source like community right driven things like that just you know, did didn't drive a profit and the whole Internet is like written on the back of that code or like the one website that still like works Wikipedia And the reason for that is because it but it's just they they don't get hyped, they don't get any media attention
because it's like, well this is this completely undermines the circulatory system that our entire like political body is like built out of.
Yeah, at Wikipedia, like how do you guys make the line go up. They're right, you mean with users, right. No Elon Musk is like so hostile towards it. He's like, look at these losers asking for uh donations anyway, Uh neo Nazi's paying me five dollars a month. Yeah, and you will be you will get special blue check mark. Or it's like when I was like in college and like my friends used to smoke weed with stop smoking weed, and I'm like, you know, I'm actually not smoking.
Oh really better than me now? Like it's that kind of that kind of shit too, or something being the muck.
Yeah, well, anyway, where to go from here? Who knows? It's impossible.
Just hang out at the park, dude.
We should just go back to those like electrical transformer boxes that would just randomly be on the sidewalk.
You know, wait what I'm talking about? You know, like those just like ship that hold on you know, you don't you know, like the no.
The transformers, the transformers, Like, isn't that what they're looking for?
No, dude, I don't even I don't know that movie at all. But this kind of shit, you know, like an electric like just like bos that would be so somewhere randomly out at that spot. Yeah, maybe we shoed to go back to bring our kids. Just hang out in parking lots again like we used to.
Yeah, you've been pitching that for a while, even before the Internet was broken, Like, hey, guys, come hang out with me on this uh transformer. Yeah, those were the days.
Those were the days.
I'll tell I'll tell you about a new new app called the Stoop. Yeahhere, you hang out out there and you see people with your damn eyeballs instead of a virtual reality helmet. All right, well, those are some of the things that are trending. We are back tomorrow with a whole last episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get the vaccine, do nothing about white supremacy, and we will talk to you out tomorrow. Fight bye.