197 - Ghosts From the Internet (feat. Josiah Sutton)

Objectively COVID sucked. Subjectively COVID was a good time for me everything was empty and I got to have the surreal experience of walking down empty city streets. It probably didn't help my depression but I was in the right head space to enjoy it because I could go outside for a walk and not interact with anyone.

I love Brian episodes. This was my first listen after a summer-long hiatus from listening. I wrote a whole stage play, and I blame this podcast.

I really connected with the talk about how exhausting it can be to make something in this weird, horrible attention economy. Because you don't just have to be the writer and the director and the actor, you also have to be the editor and the promoter and the cinematographer and the sound engineer... All I really want is to be locked in a warehouse with a typewriter while Sam Goldwyn yells at me.

It's a tragedy that y'all never did more videos. I love the pulse and quest 64 vids

I always watch at least one rec per episode and it's always a good time.

Man I really liked this. Really interesting to hear you both talk shop.

The term NPC is pretty hilarious. Am i the only person who wakes up as the same person every morning? You're all NPCs to me. Although sometime in early elementary school, I developed a higher level of thinking called basic human empathy. I can imagine that people wake up inside their own bodies and have thoughts and feelings just like I do

this was actually one of the most interesting episodes in a while. Id definitely be open it a bit more free form discussion from time to time. Sometimes I think really interesting thread get dropped or cut down in for the sake of the script. Which i get why, but its nice that this topic was able to breath a bit here

Yknow I think it would be pretty cool for you guys to do an episode on Snow Crash, A surprising amount of modern scifi stuff comes from it, hell even a lot of real life stuff got inspiration from things in the book. Metaverse, google earth (maybe) and his other book Diamond Age inspired the Kindle. Its got a kinda crazy plot, like just try explaining it to someone else if you want to be looked at like you've gone insane. Short version is that a tech billionaire is paying the fbi to code (in sleeper cells) an ancient Sumerian mind control ray, and the only people who can stop him are Hiro Protagonist, a punk rock kid, and papa john.

This feels more like a Fruitless episode than Worst of All Possible Worlds. But still good

Folks it’s a good ep 🥺

I will say that 28 years later is really good for about an hour then it gets a little muddled before being saved again by Ralph Fiennes mournful character/performance. I will say that there aren’t many studio movies coming out that take the risks it does and most of them hit, at least for me. If a post apocalyptic Jimmy Seville power ranger cult is wrong, I don’t want to be right brother

I watched a ton of creationist dunking stuff in early YouTube but I took a left turn at gamer gate thank god.

Also, the interstitial does sound remarkably like Blemish by David Sylvian for a brief second so even if it’s a joke, the joke’s on me for liking it when things are barely coherent beep boops and nice singing

I’ve seen this movie 4 times and recently tried to show it to a friend but I got too scared 10 minutes in and had to watch arthur for an hour. thx for the great episode!!

The portion where you talk about the continuous noise of content and just using others talking about content as a way to sublimate experiences is so wonderful and devastating because it is so universal right now. A well made point and put something in words I’ve been wrestling with for a bit.

Yay. Finally Pulse

36:10 the commentary about staying informed as an escape tactic to keep one from having to face the things more immediately around them hits like a cudgel to the back of the head To have done that and start escaping from it, and then to watch others doing it without recognizing what is happening; from my experience it feels like one of the great maladaptive behaviors of our time in left-adjacent (read: progressive but non-activist, or even activist but non-practicing) spaces.

Ooh, Massacre on Martin & 3rd is a great pull. I haven't watched it in ages, but remember thinking it was the most creative and interesting thing I'd seen done with the format at that time. And it probably still is at least in the lead, although Abby has a few strong contenders. Spoilers below (I guess, might as well use the "read more" cutoff when I have it): It got very mired in "when is it okay to lie" discourse and has had "fiction" tacked on to the end of the title now, though, so the original effect of it is lost ephemera. But I'm glad it's still there at all!

I think the failure of Bead Tube is because people have been moving further to the left in the past five but especially since October 7th. The type of format has also changed long form content such as twitch streams like Hasan or short clips rather than a 30 minute video unless it’s on an esoteric topic.

Brian I appreciate your voice. Your calls to action always have some genuine, palpable weight to them. Thank you to you and the boys for all the content and hope you contribute to the world!