The Truth Behind Weird Fitness Ads | Quick Question Ep. 320

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I'll go to quick quick question you hear your thoughts
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or to know what's on your mind. I've got a
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quick quick question for you. The answers not a quoting.
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I'll just by the week and talk tonight. So what's
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your favorite do give?
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Gautet or Daniel see best friends in comedy? If there's
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an answer that I'm gonna find it, I think you
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have a great time.
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I think you have a great time.
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You Soren, Welcome to Quick Question.
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Thanks Daniel.
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We're doing things a little bit differently today this week.
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This time, I'm I want to talk Soren first about commercials.
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We've talked about them a little bit in the past,
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and I want to get right out ahead of things
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and say that I love commercials. I think they're good
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and I actually think they're important. Do you have anything
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to say about commercials before we get into this.
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Yeah, commercials. I like to credit as my highest rated
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article at Cracked. It was about commercials. Was it really? Yeah?
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I was that one where I keep I remember coming
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to you and I was like, Hey, has anyone written
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an article about the worlds that commercials insist are true?
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Like that all women bleed blue from their vaginas and
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that no one drives on streets except for one person
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at night, and you're like no, and I was like perfect,
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And so I did an article on that and it
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did Gangbusters. That was like the first viral one I did. Correct.
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That's I think because commercials, more than almost anything else, are,
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whether we're conscious of it or not, part of the
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monoculture in a way that shows aren't anymore because we
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all kind of live through and experience commercials. And I've
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had to come to Jesus moment about commercials in general,
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because I feel like, starting out as a writer, commercials
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felt like if you're going to create a hierarchy of
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like writing and entertainment jobs, advertising always felt like a
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thing you would do as a writer if you couldn't
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find if you weren't lucky enough to land like a
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TV or other kind of writing job. It's like, well,
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at least I still get to write. It's commercials, but
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I still get to write like that.
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He's also a stepping stone in the opposite direction. It's
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like you start at commercials and then maybe you do
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a good Dorito's commercial and you get to move up.
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Yeah, That's that's where I held it in the hierarchy
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for a long time too, and I've I've if not
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reversed that, I've certainly like sweetened my opinion about commercials
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from like a writing standpoint first, but also just like
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here are the things that I think about commercials. Now,
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why I think commercials are good. I think they accomplish
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a few things, and like, business wise, they employ actors,
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usually like incredible sketch and improv actors. We've talked on
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this show before about how progressive commercials cast. It seems
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like by design they're going after like groundlings and UCB people,
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whether it's Stephanie Courtney or Natalie Palomides Kimmo. We see
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pop up in commercials here and there, and it it
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almost feels like a benevolent patronage system where they're scooping
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up these sketch and improv comedians. These are not like
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sketch and improv are not lucrative pursuits, but progressive is
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like funding these great comedians so they don't have to
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have other jobs, so they can like keep doing these
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these funny, silly progressive commercials and like continue to live
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and pursue art the way they want to. And the
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commercials also employ like cruise. Like you'll hear every once
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in a while about like breaking bad, Vince Gilligan directing
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a commercial or Paul Figue directing something, and it's like,
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why is this a list TV director doing a commercial?
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It's because when breaking bad ends, they want to keep
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giving work to their crews, like all of the hair
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and makeup and glam artists and like sound operators. These
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are like the working class crafts people that may Hollywood run.
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None of them are millionaires. They just need steady work,
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and commercials provide so much steady work for all these
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that's still true? Is that still true?
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I mean I don't now, I don't watch broadcast television
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if forever. But our commercials do they hold the same
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weight as they used.
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To in terms of what weight? In terms of like.
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People still spending money on a commercial outside of the
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super Bowl?
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They are yes, okay, and I uh and I love
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them for doing that. And I think about it now
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that I think we will have we should probably devote
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a future episode to why specifically insurance companies seem to
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be pouring a lot of money into commercials, because that
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is when I think of examples of commercials that I like.
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It's almost exclusively Geico, Progressive, Liberty, Mutual, all these companies
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that are that have just been pouring money into commercials
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and Mutual.
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That's David Hoffman, right, He's another geesy Growlings guy.
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Yeah, and you're half in your frame and we have,
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thank you, we have. We will one day do a
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reckoning about like why specifically insurance companies are trying to
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to funnel so much money into commercial actors. But that's
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not today's episode. Today, we're just talking about why I
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think they're important for like the economy, the amount of
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jobs that it creates doing these commercials. And also this
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is like like less defensible. I really enjoy a lot
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of these commercials on a content level. I don't think
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of it as stepping stone work anymore. When I think
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about the progressive commercials, there's like the ones with Flow
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in the Extended Flow Universe. They also do this run
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of commercials where Progressive Auto Insurance Progressive Home and Auto
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Insurance can't keep new homeowners from turning into their parents,
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but they can help them with insurance.
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It's a really solid commercial.
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It's it's like the longest running sketch series in my
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life now because it's it's one premise for that commercial
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that they hit over and over again, different different escalations,
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different great actors from the comedy scene, and I watched
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iliat humiliating as it is, I look forward to these commercials.
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I'm watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Force every night, which
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is where I get a lot of my commercials from.
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And when a new progressive commercial comes on, I'm just like,
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oh great, I can't wait to see what they do
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with it now, or the Liberty Mutual it's been for
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years where they've been running this set of ads with
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a lemu and.
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A guy who that world has exploded cups together.
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I don't even understand what the narrative thread is anymore.
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I've been watching this show. I've been watching for years,
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and I love these characters, even if I don't completely
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understand what they're doing together. Yeah, and crucially, I am
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not switching insurance companies based on anything that happens in
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these commercials.
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Well, that's a big point of the commercials, right, is
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that no one knows what they're actually doing and them
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like they like they know how to get your attention.
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My son, if we go to like a restaurant. We
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go to a BJ's or something, and we're sitting there,
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he will he'll kind of check in on the sports
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or whatever happens to be on the TV, because kids
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love TV. But the minute commercials come on, we've lost him.
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He is so engaged in the commercial. He has no
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idea what it's for. He has no idea with like
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what's giving going on. It's just like staring at a campfire.
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He can't help himself. It's just like he's riveted by
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whatever formula they've put together in terms of cuts and
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timing that he can't look away.
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I had something click for me recently when our in
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laws were staying with us and they watch a lot
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of news, and they watch a lot of documentaries, and
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when something funny happened, either on our television or like
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something funny happened out in the world, my father in
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law was like, that's funny, Like one of those progressive
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commercials like that is if you're not watching sitcoms all
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the time.
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That's like you're touched on for comedy.
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And it's like, yeah, of course he's not going to
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comedy shows, so like, where is he getting findings? Jokes
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and it's like, yeah, it's because so the best sketch
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comedians alive right now are doing progressive auto insurance commercials.
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Yeah, oh wow.
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I'd like to talk about my dog, Jackson a little bit.
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It snowed recently, which is not his fault, but it
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snowed about ten inches. And I care so much about
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my dog that I shoveled out a little pathway from
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our back door into the lawn so he had a
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little trail to get away from the house to go
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to the bathroom if he wanted to, because I will
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do anything for this pup. And then it turned out
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the path effectively got him away from the house, but
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he wanted more room, and so I dug out even
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more space so he had variety. I am telling you,
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I am giving my dog options for peeing because I
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don't want him to be bored with the limitations of
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just a small singular path. That is how much we
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care about our dogs, our pets, our family. We have
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a quick message from today's sponsor, the ASPCA Pet Health
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that becomes ice that he doesn't want to walk on.
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So now we have to go in the streets because
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the streets are clear, but the backyard is not. An
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unexpected vet bill ten inches of snow. That's why I
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Visit ASPCA Pet Insurance dot com slash Amazon terms for
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more info. This is a paid advertisement insurance is undwritten
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by either Independence American Insurance Company or the United States
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Fire Insurance Company and produced by PTZ Insurance Agency Limited.
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The ASPCA is not an insurer and not engaged in
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the business of insurance. So all this is why I
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think commercials are important for the economy. It's creating jobs
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and it's making me laugh, which is why commercials being
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an early casualty of the upcoming AI revolution that no
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one asked for is a real bummer to me. Soren,
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I'm gonna present an ad to you. It's been served
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to me on Instagram and on my television because we
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watched through YouTube TV an ad that I've seen ten
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thousand times. And one thing I'll say for this ad
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is that the conceit, the setting for it is normal.
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It looks like two people in a podcast studio, which
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is a reasonable thing for an ad to do, because
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if you're living on Instagram and TikTok, a lot of
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my feed is that, so much of what I look
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at are clips from podcasts, two people in a room
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with a microphone, and things that look like clips from
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podcasts that I don't actually know if they are or not.
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Some of them are ads. And some of them are sketches.
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He brought this to our attentional l back right where
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he was like all those like when you see something
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that's insightful or like inciting and kind of somebodys saying
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something crazy and it looks like they're on a podcast.
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Most of the time, they're not on a podcast at all.
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It's just designed for clicks.
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Correct, and it it sort of lulls you into paying
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a little bit more attention in the way that like
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old FM radio commercials, if you were listening to like
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your morning Zoo guys on your commute, sometimes a commercial
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would just try to slyly sound like it was part
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of a morning Zoo, Like you would just be dropped
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in the middle of like two people casually talking. It's like, ah,
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you have a good weekend. Yeah, I had a great weekend.
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You know, my wife did the blah blah blah blah blah.
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But that's why we actually never agree on dinner. But
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we agreed on door Dash.
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Isn't that crazy?
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And I'm like, ah, fuck, I'm listening to a door
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Dash commercial.
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I had no idea.
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And that's what these like the fake podcast things try
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to do because they know like your brain might tune
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out if you're watching a commercial, but if you think
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you're watching two people having a conversation, you're more inclined
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to lean in. So this commercial, but I'm gonna show
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you I've seen it a thousand times. I've said ten
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thousand times, and it looks like seeing it a fake podcast.
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And we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna play it now
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and you're gonna watch it for I hope the first time. Great,
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and we're gonna talk about it. We're gonna pause it
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hit commercial number one.
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Game please it happens if my husband starts tai chi tomorrow.
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How old is your husband?
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He is fifty six? Oh perfect.
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Yeah, by the end of September, you won't even recognize him.
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Yeah, Sort and describe what you've just seen.
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00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:41.879
Okay, it's a woman who is dressed for a job interview.
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It looks like she's like she's where she looks nice,
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but she looks like two nice for even most jobs.
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And then there's a guy who is I want to say,
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naked on the other side of the table, absolutely shredded,
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00:14:54.679 --> 00:14:57.600
looks to be about fifty years old with a man
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00:14:57.679 --> 00:15:00.000
with a man bun, gray hair and a man bun,
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and he is completely naked.
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Yeah, we can confirm that he is shirtless. Is he
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00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:10.799
is an absolutely yoked, shirtless Asian man. There are a
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00:15:10.879 --> 00:15:13.960
couple of There are a couple of subtle cues that
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00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:16.879
this is AI. When they cut to a wide shot,
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you can see there's a there's a window behind them
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that completely breaks in half, like the AI machinery just
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couldn't handle that. That's if you're paying attention and looking
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for clues that it's AI. The biggest clue is probably
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that in the the AI was clearly told do this
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in the style of a podcast where two people are
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00:15:41.240 --> 00:15:44.440
into micro are talking into microphones, and they nailed that part,
269
00:15:44.879 --> 00:15:49.200
ignoring the fact that this specific genre of podcast where
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00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:53.960
a woman asks for fitness advice to a shirtless Asian
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00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:59.200
man on behalf of her husband, that doesn't exist. No,
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00:15:59.399 --> 00:16:04.120
there's there is a new podcast where where you interview
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00:16:04.159 --> 00:16:07.200
a fitness expert for like tips for your husband.
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00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:11.320
Yeah, it's also I'm noticing now the damn microphones in
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00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:13.360
front of them. The chords don't leave the microphone in
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00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:18.440
any way. They are in a gorgeous room, and my tip,
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00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:21.399
my get My red flag for Ai is always the
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00:16:21.480 --> 00:16:25.120
lighting right, like the lighting is way, it's got this
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00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:28.120
like that real stink of Ai all over it. In
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00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:32.600
terms of the shading, Gabe keep playing. But what if
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00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:35.720
he hasn't worked out in years? That's even better? Yeah,
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00:16:35.840 --> 00:16:39.200
Taichi was built for men forty plus. Isn't the gym
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00:16:39.240 --> 00:16:43.000
better after forty The gym breaks you. Taichi heals your
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body and soul and makes you live longer.
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00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:52.799
So this is this is a commercial that is trying
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to trick you.
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Take gi.
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00:16:54.879 --> 00:16:58.679
It's a natural conversation about Taichi, And like, I know
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00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:00.679
that all commercials are a little bit of fake world,
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00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:05.599
but I'm it's they're not even trying to convince you
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that this could be real, because again, what is the
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reality of this world? The premise is that this woman
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went on this show to ask softball gimme questions about
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her husband. Again, not even like her, not even like,
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00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:28.200
how does a person just like my husband is over
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00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:31.319
forty and he wants to get in shape? What can
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00:17:31.359 --> 00:17:34.319
you tell me? Oh, you gotta do tai Chi. Isn't
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00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:35.079
the gym better?
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00:17:35.559 --> 00:17:35.839
Yeah?
300
00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:39.839
Hey, fantastic question. No, the gym is, in fact not
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00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:42.799
better than the thing I'm selling yeah.
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00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:47.599
And this guy okay, as somebody who goes to a gym.
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00:17:49.119 --> 00:17:53.640
This guy would never I mean, this is also a
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00:17:53.640 --> 00:17:55.920
conceit of commercials, but this guy would never have gotten
305
00:17:56.880 --> 00:18:01.000
to look like this doing tai chi. This is not
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00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:02.880
the result of taiti that we're seeing.
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00:18:03.440 --> 00:18:06.720
Absolutely not. We're gonna there's one more part of this commercial,
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00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:10.759
if you again, I'm not convinced that it's a I
309
00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:14.720
I want to see if you if this bumps you
310
00:18:14.759 --> 00:18:15.000
at all?
311
00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:15.799
This commercial?
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00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:19.480
Does he need any equipment?
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00:18:19.640 --> 00:18:23.680
No body is enough to build a strong physique and
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clear mind.
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00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:28.599
Do you notice that he suddenly has an accent?
316
00:18:29.640 --> 00:18:32.200
Yeah? I in fact, I thought, did I just not
317
00:18:32.200 --> 00:18:33.119
notice this before?
318
00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:38.839
Nope, that's that's ai doing its absolute best with whatever
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00:18:38.920 --> 00:18:42.240
prompt it was fed to give this specific thing. And
320
00:18:42.359 --> 00:18:44.720
oh my god, I'm hung up on it only because
321
00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:50.400
I saw it so many times. It was uh, it
322
00:18:50.799 --> 00:18:56.720
took over my entire holiday season, every time I turned
323
00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:00.640
on anything, and I really felt first it felt like
324
00:19:00.680 --> 00:19:04.559
targeted attack because it's forty this year, and it's like,
325
00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:08.480
am I now only getting ads about how to stay
326
00:19:08.680 --> 00:19:10.920
fit in my fucking fifties?
327
00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:13.039
Is this my life? And then I thought it was.
328
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.359
Just truly an insane spend on these ads because they
329
00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:22.480
were unrelenting. They were everywhere I googled around a lot
330
00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:25.920
of people are seeing them. And maybe if it was
331
00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:27.759
just this commercial that I was seeing over and over again,
332
00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.279
I would have been able to move on with my life.
333
00:19:30.799 --> 00:19:32.640
I would have been mad that it was AI, but
334
00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:35.200
I would have just like moved past it. But then
335
00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:39.319
another one started getting fed to me. And as crazy
336
00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:42.519
as the premise of this podcast, this ad is where
337
00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:45.720
a woman interviews a martial arts expert about how to
338
00:19:45.720 --> 00:19:51.680
get her husband in shape. The second installment strange credulity
339
00:19:52.160 --> 00:19:54.720
even further because I could almost make an argument for
340
00:19:54.759 --> 00:20:00.119
this one that it is designed for men. Because a
341
00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:03.920
man watching this commercial can see a beautiful woman asking
342
00:20:04.039 --> 00:20:06.440
a strong man, how do I get my husband to
343
00:20:06.480 --> 00:20:10.039
look like you? I can see that as being a
344
00:20:10.079 --> 00:20:12.720
motivator to a man watching the commercial at home who's
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00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:15.319
thinking like, oh, that's a beautiful woman. I kind of
346
00:20:15.359 --> 00:20:18.119
want a beautiful woman a woman in my life, and
347
00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:21.480
it seems like beautiful women want strong jack men. So
348
00:20:22.039 --> 00:20:25.920
I'm I'm sold. I'm going to buy whatever this product is.
349
00:20:27.039 --> 00:20:29.920
The second commercial, Sorry, we just wrong quickly.
350
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:32.960
Yeah, this commercially you've watched a million times? Is it
351
00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:35.400
by the tai Chie Council? What's going on? What is
352
00:20:35.440 --> 00:20:37.240
this actually a commercial for Soren?
353
00:20:38.119 --> 00:20:41.880
We're going to get into it, Okay, all right, but
354
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:44.200
first I want to show you the next commercial.
355
00:20:44.440 --> 00:20:44.799
Okay.
356
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:49.119
How long it takes a beginner like my dad to
357
00:20:49.279 --> 00:20:52.680
go from beer belly to get ripped again with tai chi?
358
00:20:52.920 --> 00:20:53.960
How old is your father?
359
00:20:54.160 --> 00:20:55.200
He is fifty six?
360
00:20:56.599 --> 00:20:58.920
Oh perfect. By the end of November, you won't even
361
00:20:58.920 --> 00:20:59.720
recognize him.
362
00:21:01.559 --> 00:21:05.039
Subscribe to our listeners. What you're looking at?
363
00:21:05.319 --> 00:21:11.200
Okay, different, different background. Now we're in a sound booth
364
00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:15.319
type studio, something a little bit more intimate.
365
00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:19.920
It still has the visual language of a podcast, absolutely,
366
00:21:20.119 --> 00:21:22.480
but it is a Yes, they have different types of mics.
367
00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:26.000
It is now a young girl talking to a ripped
368
00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:29.599
naked man, a different ripped Asian naked man.
369
00:21:30.799 --> 00:21:37.559
That's correct. This is the premise of this commercial. Is
370
00:21:38.920 --> 00:21:43.160
a teen girl is as a podcast a shirtless older
371
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:46.960
Asian man for fitness advice for her father. Yeah, which
372
00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:52.400
is a genre of thing that doesn't exist, will never exist, No,
373
00:21:52.599 --> 00:21:56.559
could never exist. This couldn't be anything, And I don't
374
00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:00.279
want to gloss over the fact that the scent. It's
375
00:22:00.359 --> 00:22:05.160
the opening line of this podcast, how long it takes
376
00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:07.720
for a beginner like my dad to go from beer
377
00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:13.480
belly to get ripped again with Taichi? That is one
378
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:17.599
of the most AI sentences I've ever seen in my life.
379
00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:22.440
It's so clearly run through different translators back and forth
380
00:22:22.759 --> 00:22:25.200
that it doesn't and your brain almost doesn't catch it
381
00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:29.000
because you're watching a thirteen year old girl talk to
382
00:22:29.039 --> 00:22:32.839
a shirtless, possibly naked adult man, and because it's Ai,
383
00:22:33.279 --> 00:22:37.440
her eyes aren't focusing on anything that your brain doesn't
384
00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:39.319
even have time to stop and go like, wait, what
385
00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:42.559
was that She's asking how what was the sentence structure?
386
00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:45.160
She's asking how her dad goes from beer belly to
387
00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:48.160
get ripped? She asked me how long it takes her
388
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:54.920
dad to go from beer belly to get ripped? Yeah,
389
00:22:54.960 --> 00:22:58.240
let's continue a commercial. Oh perfect.
390
00:22:58.240 --> 00:23:04.960
By the end of November, you won't even reckognized same dialogue. Yes, years,
391
00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:05.960
that's even better.
392
00:23:06.279 --> 00:23:09.160
Taichi was built for men forty plus. Ourym's better?
393
00:23:09.240 --> 00:23:10.079
Isn't the gym better?
394
00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:12.039
After forty The Jim breaks you.
395
00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:15.480
Jim breaks Taichi will make you feel better and lose
396
00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:17.359
weight faster than in your twenties.
397
00:23:17.599 --> 00:23:19.000
Does he need any equipment?
398
00:23:19.519 --> 00:23:20.839
No, his body is enough.
399
00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:26.279
Okay, I have a question. Are what are we doing here? Are?
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427
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Are we trying to? She says, from beer belly to
428
00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:10.359
get ripped? I assume that what that translates to is
429
00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:12.599
how do I get how does he end up looking
430
00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:14.880
like you? Yes, which is also maybe the mistake I
431
00:25:14.960 --> 00:25:17.079
meant on the first one, And now that I'm actually
432
00:25:17.079 --> 00:25:20.640
listening to the commercials, this is like a weight loss thing.
433
00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:24.160
Tai Chi is weight loss, not as let's get fucking
434
00:25:24.200 --> 00:25:27.079
shredded like these two guys. It's just how do you
435
00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:28.960
lose weight using taichi?
436
00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:31.599
Well, in the commercial they seem to boast that you
437
00:25:31.680 --> 00:25:36.200
can get ripped, you can lose weight and clear your mind.
438
00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:37.920
It's good for the mind of the body and the soul.
439
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:41.440
There are some other commercials that for the same company
440
00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:44.720
that we won't show today that are just talking about
441
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:49.240
an exercise called tai chi walking specifically. I do think
442
00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:51.920
it's important for where your heads at right now to
443
00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:53.759
let the end of this commercial play out.
444
00:25:53.880 --> 00:25:56.599
Okay, sorry, yeah, please go last thing that he says.
445
00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:00.240
Okay, just do it for nine minutes a day and
446
00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:01.799
see your body feel younger.
447
00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:03.240
So what's the first step?
448
00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:07.880
Click the link, get the app and start tomorrow. Why
449
00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:10.200
do they slide in the accent every once in a while.
450
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:15.480
The accent, of course, is an insane move, But nine
451
00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:19.200
minutes a day is what this So this press is
452
00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:23.079
a workout plan that has so far not mentioned diet
453
00:26:23.400 --> 00:26:28.799
or any other lifestyle changes. But it is believed that
454
00:26:28.960 --> 00:26:31.039
just in a few months you will lose your beer
455
00:26:31.039 --> 00:26:34.960
belly and get ripped by doing an activity for nine
456
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.440
minutes a day and sore in you. And I know
457
00:26:40.440 --> 00:26:45.440
that there is truly man, Do I want to say
458
00:26:45.440 --> 00:26:47.319
there's nothing you can do for nine minutes a day
459
00:26:47.359 --> 00:26:51.400
that will change your life? I think I might think that, yeah,
460
00:26:51.640 --> 00:26:53.720
maybe reading for nine minutes a day, but even then,
461
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.839
I don't know. I think nine minutes is not enough
462
00:26:57.880 --> 00:26:59.960
to do anything, even if you do it every day.
463
00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:07.079
But that's what this ad boasts you, your little girl,
464
00:27:09.599 --> 00:27:12.440
your dad will stop being such a fat, fucking embarrassment.
465
00:27:13.039 --> 00:27:15.599
And for just nine minutes a day, all he has
466
00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:22.839
to do is download this app, oh man.
467
00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:27.759
And so first of all, I'm looking at the now
468
00:27:27.799 --> 00:27:29.440
the end of this the only text as is apperals
469
00:27:29.440 --> 00:27:32.279
Greatest tapped the link, and then it's got two arrows,
470
00:27:32.279 --> 00:27:36.640
which I'm pretty confident are the the Berries fitness logo
471
00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:43.519
upside down. That's probably fair, and that I did not
472
00:27:43.720 --> 00:27:46.279
because I was so absorbed in the accent, I missed
473
00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:47.599
that he had said that you could do this in
474
00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:50.440
only nine minutes a day, which is outstanding. I think
475
00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:53.000
maybe if you did, I mean maybe if you did
476
00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:56.880
like wall sits, or you did every time that you
477
00:27:56.960 --> 00:27:59.599
went to the bathroom you then did pull ups afterwards,
478
00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:02.720
that could eventually by the end of the day you
479
00:28:02.799 --> 00:28:04.960
might have worked out for nine minutes doing pull us.
480
00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:08.920
Maybe that would be helpful. But you doing Thai chi
481
00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:11.640
for nine minutes a day, will doing anything new for
482
00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:13.319
nine minutes a day. I don't think it's going to
483
00:28:13.400 --> 00:28:13.680
change you.
484
00:28:14.119 --> 00:28:18.319
I And yes, as someone who was working out over
485
00:28:18.440 --> 00:28:24.160
forty and doing more than I've ever done in my life. Yeah,
486
00:28:24.559 --> 00:28:26.160
nine minutes a day is not going to do it.
487
00:28:26.559 --> 00:28:29.759
An hour a day is barely fucking doing it. But
488
00:28:29.799 --> 00:28:32.000
I got really cherious about these commercials, not because I
489
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:34.599
thought it was a good product or a good ad.
490
00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:38.160
I just just fell down a rabbit hole because I like,
491
00:28:38.160 --> 00:28:42.839
this is so ai what is this? And so I
492
00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:45.200
went to their website just to see what it was
493
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:49.480
all about. And there's a whole like there's a sleek interface,
494
00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:51.000
and there's a survey you fill out. You put in
495
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:53.440
your age, male or female, if you've ever done tai
496
00:28:53.559 --> 00:28:57.160
chi before your goal. I selected weight loss, chose the
497
00:28:57.160 --> 00:29:01.920
body that you want. Idea like a bunch of like
498
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:03.920
shirtless bodies, and they're like, which one of these you want?
499
00:29:04.839 --> 00:29:07.480
I'll take that one. It's a few sizes smaller and
500
00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:10.880
it's fit and Athletic did the survey and they believe
501
00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:13.880
that I could lose ten pounds in one month and
502
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:17.400
one week and wow. The way it works is they
503
00:29:17.440 --> 00:29:21.160
send you a customized workout plan for that you pay for.
504
00:29:21.319 --> 00:29:23.880
You don't get to see a single thing about this
505
00:29:24.359 --> 00:29:28.279
until you give your credit card information, which I was
506
00:29:29.079 --> 00:29:32.599
not going to do. I didn't even sign up with
507
00:29:32.599 --> 00:29:35.759
my real email. I created a Burner email account, and
508
00:29:36.759 --> 00:29:41.400
immediately my Burner email notified me that the email service
509
00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:46.160
was protecting me from a tracker, which isn't necessarily nefarious.
510
00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:48.440
It's a thing that lets the sender know if you've
511
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:52.559
opened the mail. And the non tracker email that they
512
00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:55.480
non tracked email was standard. It was just like good news,
513
00:29:55.519 --> 00:29:57.240
you're almost there. Sign up with a credit card and
514
00:29:57.279 --> 00:29:59.759
will send you your plan. And I didn't want to
515
00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:03.640
sign up because I didn't want this much plan cost.
516
00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:09.279
They said for one week plan, they would send me
517
00:30:09.319 --> 00:30:11.839
a plan for one week that costs five dollars and
518
00:30:11.880 --> 00:30:16.000
for eighteen ninety nine a twelve week plan, you just
519
00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:17.160
have to pay for it if you want.
520
00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:19.440
To see it, and I was not going to do that.
521
00:30:20.559 --> 00:30:24.039
I especially I never really wanted to see the plan.
522
00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:28.759
I just had a few questions that I wanted answered
523
00:30:29.200 --> 00:30:33.319
about this commercial, the nature of this AI commercial, and
524
00:30:33.359 --> 00:30:37.359
so from the Burner I emailed them, Hi, my name
525
00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:41.000
is Daniel. I'm a fitness enthusiast and podcaster with the
526
00:30:41.039 --> 00:30:44.480
show Quick Question All True. I was curious about an
527
00:30:44.519 --> 00:30:46.480
ad for tai Chie walking I came across with a
528
00:30:46.519 --> 00:30:48.319
link to the ad. Would you be able to tell
529
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:50.720
me what company produced the ad or, given that it's
530
00:30:50.720 --> 00:30:53.559
an AI AD, what prompt was fed into the AI
531
00:30:53.680 --> 00:30:58.440
to create it? Thank you, because I thought I needed
532
00:30:58.480 --> 00:31:01.599
to know how we got to thirteen year old girl
533
00:31:01.599 --> 00:31:04.119
talking to shirtless man about how her dad loses beer
534
00:31:04.160 --> 00:31:08.319
gut and gets tai chi ripped again. Yeah, Soren, they responded.
535
00:31:08.319 --> 00:31:11.160
Would you please read the first response?
536
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:15.119
Yes, this says hello, Daniel, thanks for reaching out and
537
00:31:15.200 --> 00:31:17.519
for your interest. I'm happy to clarify this for you.
538
00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:22.640
The tai Chi walking ad you came across as associated
539
00:31:22.680 --> 00:31:27.240
with mad Muscles, a fitness app that offers guided workout
540
00:31:27.279 --> 00:31:31.119
programs designed for different goals, experience levels, and physical needs.
541
00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:33.880
Within the mad Muscles app, the tai Chi inspired walking
542
00:31:33.920 --> 00:31:36.400
in similar mindful workouts are presented as part of a
543
00:31:36.440 --> 00:31:40.920
broader fitness ecosystem that may also include strength training, flexibility work,
544
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:45.440
and optional nutritional guidance, all personalized based on the user input.
545
00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:49.000
At mad Muscles, we are dedicated to helping you achieve
546
00:31:49.039 --> 00:31:51.480
your fitness goals and develop healthy eating habits with a
547
00:31:51.519 --> 00:31:55.480
personalized plan tailor to your preferences. Our comprehensive approach ensures
548
00:31:55.519 --> 00:31:57.839
that you receive the support and resources you need every
549
00:31:57.880 --> 00:32:00.640
step of the way. Once you activate your account on
550
00:32:00.680 --> 00:32:03.240
our website, you will gain access to our app, which
551
00:32:03.319 --> 00:32:06.160
offers a range of benefits to enhance your fitness journey.
552
00:32:06.359 --> 00:32:08.279
If you have any other questions, please feel free to
553
00:32:08.279 --> 00:32:11.000
context us any time. Have a wonderful day, Regards Elsa,
554
00:32:11.400 --> 00:32:12.400
Mad Muscles team.
555
00:32:13.440 --> 00:32:19.440
Now this was frustrating because it didn't answer my question
556
00:32:20.039 --> 00:32:20.839
and also.
557
00:32:21.279 --> 00:32:22.079
Was written by Ai.
558
00:32:22.400 --> 00:32:25.480
It seemed like it was written by Ai, so I responded, Hi, Elsa,
559
00:32:25.559 --> 00:32:27.480
thanks so much for replying, though I don't believe my
560
00:32:27.559 --> 00:32:29.839
question was actually answered. I mean the process of signing
561
00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:32.680
up for Mad Muscle. My question was about the advertisement itself,
562
00:32:32.960 --> 00:32:35.160
what company produced the ad and what was the prompt
563
00:32:35.279 --> 00:32:37.440
or prompts that went into its creation. All my best,
564
00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:41.039
Daniel and Elsa got back to me, Soren, would you
565
00:32:41.119 --> 00:32:42.200
mind please reading that?
566
00:32:42.519 --> 00:32:46.559
Hello Daniel, thank you for reaching back to us. Fuck, Okay,
567
00:32:46.920 --> 00:32:49.119
thank you for clarifying, and I'm really sorry for the
568
00:32:49.119 --> 00:32:52.039
confusion earlier. I appreciate your patience and you're absolutely right
569
00:32:52.079 --> 00:32:54.920
to want a clear answer here. Your question relates specifically
570
00:32:54.960 --> 00:32:58.079
to the creation and production of our advertisements. This area
571
00:32:58.119 --> 00:33:00.759
falls under the responsibility of our marketing department, and we
572
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:03.680
do not have access to the detailed information you're requesting.
573
00:33:04.200 --> 00:33:06.400
As a result, you're not able to We're not able
574
00:33:06.440 --> 00:33:09.680
to provide further clarification on this topic from the support side.
575
00:33:09.799 --> 00:33:12.920
We appreciate your understanding that different teams handle different aspects
576
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:15.440
of our operations. If you have any questions regarding the
577
00:33:15.440 --> 00:33:19.400
product itself, pricing, or account creating matters, we'll be happy
578
00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:22.279
to assist with you. A wonderful day, Regards ELSA.
579
00:33:23.279 --> 00:33:25.640
This is yeah, let's see it. I'm fully convinced this
580
00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:27.160
is AI because.
581
00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:29.039
They air responds when you get mad at it.
582
00:33:29.079 --> 00:33:32.359
They do the AI thing where it's where they restate
583
00:33:32.359 --> 00:33:35.319
your question for you to show that they've been listening.
584
00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:38.480
And so I reached out again and I said, thank
585
00:33:38.480 --> 00:33:39.920
you for your response. Could you please put me in
586
00:33:39.960 --> 00:33:42.559
touch with someone from your marketing department, a human being,
587
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:46.960
preferably no disrespect. Now notice that I said no disrespect,
588
00:33:47.400 --> 00:33:49.480
no disrespect, but I have a strong feeling you are
589
00:33:49.519 --> 00:33:52.319
a language learning machine or chatbot and not a real person.
590
00:33:52.359 --> 00:33:54.680
I'd love to get someone on the phone best Daniel.
591
00:33:55.359 --> 00:33:59.119
Yeah, yeah, you did the tourney test on her. Okay,
592
00:33:59.359 --> 00:34:01.680
here's what she says. Dear Daniel, thank you for your
593
00:34:01.720 --> 00:34:04.799
message and for sharing your concern. Wait is that exactly
594
00:34:04.839 --> 00:34:07.039
the same? Thank you for reaching back out to us. No, okay,
595
00:34:07.799 --> 00:34:10.239
I'd like to clarify that you are currently communicating with
596
00:34:10.239 --> 00:34:14.599
a real person from our customer's support team. I'm sorry
597
00:34:14.599 --> 00:34:17.599
if my previous responses came across as robotic. That certainly
598
00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:21.079
wasn't my intention. We've carefully reviewed your request and genuinely
599
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:24.000
appreciate you taking the time to reach out. At the
600
00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:26.079
same time, I should let you know that I'm part
601
00:34:26.119 --> 00:34:29.039
of customer support and unfortunately I'm not able to share
602
00:34:29.079 --> 00:34:32.119
direct contact details for our marketing department at the moment.
603
00:34:32.159 --> 00:34:35.079
We don't offer support and all assistance is handled via
604
00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:36.000
written communication.
605
00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:41.239
So I felt a little bit bad, but I also
606
00:34:41.559 --> 00:34:43.760
still kind of because you think was a person? Now,
607
00:34:44.079 --> 00:34:46.920
do you right? Well, I'm well, canonically it's a person.
608
00:34:47.079 --> 00:34:48.239
Do you think it's a person?
609
00:34:48.679 --> 00:34:50.960
No? Absolutely not. This is not a person's response.
610
00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:53.559
No, I got back. Thank you also for filling me in,
611
00:34:53.599 --> 00:34:55.440
and I'm sorry for choosing you of being a robot.
612
00:34:55.639 --> 00:34:57.639
Your company utilized to AI and their ads. You can
613
00:34:57.719 --> 00:34:59.679
forgive me for assuming they might also rely on machine
614
00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:02.639
learning their customer support, as many modern companies do. But
615
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:05.760
you're a human being and I think that's great. As
616
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:07.519
far as signing up goes, I fill out the questionnaire
617
00:35:07.519 --> 00:35:08.800
on the website, the only thing left to do is
618
00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:10.840
give my credit card information and sign up. I put
619
00:35:10.840 --> 00:35:12.920
that on hold because the AI commercials from your marketing
620
00:35:12.920 --> 00:35:15.079
department gave me pause. And now I am more than
621
00:35:15.079 --> 00:35:17.400
a little concern that I can't find any information about
622
00:35:17.400 --> 00:35:20.039
these commercials. I have a few reasonable questions about the
623
00:35:20.039 --> 00:35:22.920
commercials and the claims made in them, and once those
624
00:35:22.920 --> 00:35:25.119
get cleared up to my satisfaction, I would be more
625
00:35:25.119 --> 00:35:28.079
open to complete the sign up process. All my very
626
00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:30.239
best fellow human Daniel.
627
00:35:31.159 --> 00:35:37.320
Daniel, you're you're arguing with a robot about commercials you
628
00:35:37.320 --> 00:35:41.639
don't actually care about, and tempting them with the possibility
629
00:35:41.639 --> 00:35:43.519
that maybe you would put in your credit card if
630
00:35:43.519 --> 00:35:46.360
you could just find out. I don't know what your
631
00:35:46.440 --> 00:35:48.679
end game is. You know that the commercials are AI?
632
00:35:49.559 --> 00:35:50.559
Yeah, I want to know.
633
00:35:51.360 --> 00:35:53.199
You want them to admit their commercials are AI?
634
00:35:53.559 --> 00:35:55.480
No, I know their AI. There's a disclaim around the
635
00:35:55.559 --> 00:35:58.480
ads that said that their AI. I wanted to know
636
00:35:58.559 --> 00:36:01.920
what prompt was fed in to generate a commercial like that.
637
00:36:02.159 --> 00:36:05.400
It got me very curious, like I wasn't making up
638
00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:07.599
that part. I wanted to know, like, Hey, how did
639
00:36:07.639 --> 00:36:11.880
you how did you do this? If this is if
640
00:36:11.960 --> 00:36:16.599
this is the future of commercials, If commercials want to
641
00:36:16.639 --> 00:36:21.519
deprive my fellow writers of jobs, If AI commercials want
642
00:36:21.519 --> 00:36:25.440
to make it so the actors lose out, the directors
643
00:36:25.480 --> 00:36:30.480
lose out, the cinematographers, the sound operators, the makeup people,
644
00:36:30.840 --> 00:36:35.639
the drivers, the fucking caterers, the craft services people. If
645
00:36:35.639 --> 00:36:40.480
they're going to destroy all those jobs, show me how
646
00:36:40.519 --> 00:36:45.440
you're doing it, and show that you're not being lazy
647
00:36:45.480 --> 00:36:47.519
about it. Not that I think that there's a good
648
00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:51.719
way to eliminate a million jobs, but just like, try
649
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:54.480
a little bit fucking harder, have some respect for us
650
00:36:54.480 --> 00:36:55.039
a little.
651
00:36:54.840 --> 00:36:57.960
Bit, okay, And you also want to know why, Well,
652
00:36:58.039 --> 00:37:00.440
yeah was the prompt? Hey show me a little let's
653
00:37:00.440 --> 00:37:03.360
have a little girl asking somebody about this. Yeah, why
654
00:37:03.400 --> 00:37:04.400
they chose this? Okay?
655
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:09.519
As some of you may know, we have got a
656
00:37:09.800 --> 00:37:12.039
baby on the way. Not me and soorin, but me
657
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and my wife, my other sore and were just about
658
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prepared for everything that we have. We've got diaper stations everywhere,
659
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We've got changing tables, we've got bibs, we've got blankets,
660
00:37:24.599 --> 00:37:26.920
we've got binkies. And you know what we don't want
661
00:37:26.960 --> 00:37:29.280
to do is we don't want to think about our meals.
662
00:37:29.280 --> 00:37:32.239
We are over it. Butcher Box is here to help us.
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They're helping us stay on track with premium protein. It's
664
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and we don't have to think about it, and we
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don't have to go anywhere to get it, and it's good.
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the meat from butcher Box. I had my in laws
678
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679
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680
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delicious chili. It lasted for days. My in laws loved it.
681
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I loved it. I ate it for multiple meals for
682
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multiple days. Another thing, my wife and I took some
683
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steak from the butcher Box and we made a beautiful
684
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blue cheese steak salad. It was so healthy, it was
685
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so wonderful. And what's great is it came right to
686
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our door. The meat, the meat, the steak from the salad,
687
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and the beef for the chili. It all came in
688
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the same box from the same place. And whether your
689
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meal prepping for a strong start of the year, feeding
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693
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it's pretty beef heavy, and that's what they sent us.
694
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We loved it, and we got some chicken there too.
695
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And we haven't even scratched the surface of the different
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That's butcherbox dot com slash qq. Don't forget to use
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710
00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:04.679
You've got a response now from somebody new I got
711
00:40:04.679 --> 00:40:05.159
a response.
712
00:40:05.199 --> 00:40:07.320
We can keep reading the responses, but I think we
713
00:40:07.400 --> 00:40:10.840
can cut them there, because the long and short of
714
00:40:10.840 --> 00:40:15.079
it is, after I accused Elsa, after I credibly accused
715
00:40:15.079 --> 00:40:17.239
Elsa of being a robot and also said she's not
716
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:21.360
a robot, I apologized and said I thought it was
717
00:40:21.360 --> 00:40:23.960
great that she's a human. I never speak to Elsa again.
718
00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:27.320
I get a response after that from someone named Lumina,
719
00:40:27.920 --> 00:40:30.760
and I respond to Lumina to see if she could
720
00:40:30.760 --> 00:40:33.639
put me in charge with marketing, and instead of her replying,
721
00:40:33.679 --> 00:40:36.679
I get a response from someone named Gloria and she
722
00:40:36.800 --> 00:40:39.280
cannot get me in charge of anyone from marketing, and
723
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:42.920
so I believe I have officially reached a dead end
724
00:40:43.119 --> 00:40:44.880
with my correspondence.
725
00:40:45.800 --> 00:40:46.079
So I.
726
00:40:48.119 --> 00:40:55.039
Felt the wind dropping from my sales a bit, not
727
00:40:55.159 --> 00:40:56.760
just because I couldn't find out the answer from them,
728
00:40:56.800 --> 00:40:59.239
but also it just seemed like, well, it's no longer
729
00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:03.199
entertaining to be to talk to different robots and you can.
730
00:41:03.239 --> 00:41:07.679
You can see every robot from the Mad Muscles team
731
00:41:07.880 --> 00:41:11.840
in their email. They have a profile picture, and I
732
00:41:11.880 --> 00:41:16.559
gotta say it looks extremely AI. Every profile picture of
733
00:41:16.599 --> 00:41:22.280
everyone who emailed me is too professional to stock photo
734
00:41:22.639 --> 00:41:27.800
model e and I just I even when it's a
735
00:41:27.880 --> 00:41:31.719
robot telling me I think I'm that I'm a real person,
736
00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:34.199
that I'm a real human being, they're still doing it
737
00:41:34.239 --> 00:41:37.239
in the AI way of like, I understand that you
738
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:39.239
were worried that you were talking to a machine. I
739
00:41:39.280 --> 00:41:41.719
am not a machine, and I apologize it was my
740
00:41:41.960 --> 00:41:44.679
It was not my intention to sound robotic. It's like, man,
741
00:41:44.760 --> 00:41:45.599
that's what a fucking.
742
00:41:45.440 --> 00:41:46.199
Robot would say.
743
00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:51.800
It's one hundred what an AI would say. So now
744
00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:55.920
I started to get worried about the company itself. That
745
00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:58.320
I couldn't get a person on the phone to talk
746
00:41:58.360 --> 00:42:02.840
to me about the commercials is not unreasonable, Like, I
747
00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:06.320
don't think if someone tracked me down from last week
748
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:08.320
tonight I was like, I want to talk to I
749
00:42:08.360 --> 00:42:10.639
didn't like a billboard that you guys ran, and I
750
00:42:10.679 --> 00:42:13.840
want to talk to the person in charge of billboard placement.
751
00:42:14.480 --> 00:42:17.239
I would also reasonably say I don't have that person's
752
00:42:17.239 --> 00:42:20.679
contact info and PS, get fucked. I'm not going to
753
00:42:20.679 --> 00:42:22.840
connect you with anyone in our marketing department because it's
754
00:42:22.880 --> 00:42:23.280
not my.
755
00:42:23.320 --> 00:42:23.920
Job to do that.
756
00:42:25.400 --> 00:42:27.679
So it's not weird that they wouldn't connect me with marketing.
757
00:42:28.039 --> 00:42:31.119
It is weird that I learned in this process that
758
00:42:31.559 --> 00:42:35.239
no communication is handled on the phone. There is no
759
00:42:35.320 --> 00:42:37.920
way to get a human being on the phone to
760
00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:41.440
speak to me. And I started doing a little bit
761
00:42:41.480 --> 00:42:46.760
of googling about this company, and lo and behold came
762
00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:51.320
across some reviews from Reddit and trust salt oh great,
763
00:42:51.519 --> 00:42:54.280
saying it's a scam. They added me to a subscription
764
00:42:54.360 --> 00:42:56.239
and upsold me to fifty dollars a meal plan with
765
00:42:56.320 --> 00:42:59.679
ninety nine dollars subscription with zero action on my part. Luckily,
766
00:42:59.679 --> 00:43:01.639
I pay on PayPal and saw the charges right away
767
00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:03.599
and was able to cancel and report them. If you
768
00:43:03.639 --> 00:43:05.920
have already bought in, you better check your payments. You
769
00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:07.880
might be paying one hundred and fifty dollars a month
770
00:43:08.079 --> 00:43:09.599
when you thought it was going to be an eighteen
771
00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:12.840
ninety nine trial. Be aware this is a scam site.
772
00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:16.000
Another user said total scam site. I purchased a nine
773
00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:17.599
dollars four week trial and was hit with a fifty
774
00:43:17.639 --> 00:43:20.320
dollars add on. I immediately contacted them for a refund
775
00:43:20.639 --> 00:43:23.079
minutes after receiving an invoice, and they refuse to refund
776
00:43:23.119 --> 00:43:25.400
the add on cost of fifty dollars. It also comes
777
00:43:25.400 --> 00:43:28.639
with an automatic monthly subscription that you need to cancel
778
00:43:29.039 --> 00:43:32.159
or they will keep charging you one hundred percent scam site.
779
00:43:32.360 --> 00:43:35.480
A report made to the Better Business Bureau Sorein describes
780
00:43:35.480 --> 00:43:38.320
an identical experience with the app, concluding with this is
781
00:43:38.360 --> 00:43:40.679
not just a bad customer experience, this is a business
782
00:43:40.679 --> 00:43:44.079
model based on confusion, misleading design, and forced up sells.
783
00:43:44.320 --> 00:43:46.320
They prey on people who just wanted to get healthy,
784
00:43:46.599 --> 00:43:49.519
only to trap them in a billing nightmare. I strongly
785
00:43:49.639 --> 00:43:52.239
urge others to avoid mad muscles, and I encourage the
786
00:43:52.280 --> 00:43:55.840
Better Business Bureau to document and investigate this pattern.
787
00:43:57.239 --> 00:44:04.039
Okay, all right, I don't totally feel bad for these people,
788
00:44:04.079 --> 00:44:08.400
but the way, but the people who are tricked by
789
00:44:08.400 --> 00:44:10.440
an ad like this. Yeah, First of all, anybody who
790
00:44:10.519 --> 00:44:13.440
tricks that clicks on a single ad on social media
791
00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:17.280
like Sean, you're in your reels and Facebook, on Twitter
792
00:44:17.360 --> 00:44:20.480
or whatever, X, You're a fucking idiot. Don't do that.
793
00:44:20.599 --> 00:44:22.880
Don't ever click on an ad on those.
794
00:44:23.079 --> 00:44:26.639
There was a story I came across several years ago
795
00:44:26.679 --> 00:44:30.440
about someone who ended up giving a lot of money
796
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:35.559
to someone purporting to be a fortune teller or a
797
00:44:35.599 --> 00:44:38.440
palm reader or something. And this person was giving them
798
00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:42.320
like truly thousands of dollars uh, and then tried to
799
00:44:42.400 --> 00:44:46.440
sue them when they didn't get the results that they wanted,
800
00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:48.599
like a future didn't like prophecy didn't come true, or
801
00:44:48.639 --> 00:44:51.119
they were supposed to do something that that whatever. They
802
00:44:51.159 --> 00:44:54.880
felt that they did not get what they owed. They
803
00:44:54.880 --> 00:44:57.679
were sold a false bill of goods, and I looked
804
00:44:57.719 --> 00:45:00.760
at the court case because this is the kind of
805
00:45:00.800 --> 00:45:01.360
person I am.
806
00:45:01.679 --> 00:45:08.159
And the name of the person who scammed them, her
807
00:45:08.239 --> 00:45:12.039
last name was you want a Witch, as in you
808
00:45:12.119 --> 00:45:14.320
want a witch, and it's like a force and teller
809
00:45:14.400 --> 00:45:15.480
last name, you want a witch.
810
00:45:15.880 --> 00:45:19.239
And I felt bad that this person gave Anita you
811
00:45:19.280 --> 00:45:22.559
want a Witch twenty thousand dollars, but a part of
812
00:45:22.599 --> 00:45:25.880
me was like, if they didn't give this fake fortune
813
00:45:25.880 --> 00:45:29.679
teller twenty thousand dollars, they would have given someone else
814
00:45:29.719 --> 00:45:33.719
twenty thousand dollars. Some people are always going to be
815
00:45:33.840 --> 00:45:39.440
scammed and that sucks. That doesn't mean we should be
816
00:45:39.519 --> 00:45:42.800
a country of scammers. That's just sometimes how it feels,
817
00:45:42.840 --> 00:45:48.280
And like the whole AI business feels like scammers scamming
818
00:45:48.320 --> 00:45:49.079
other scammers.
819
00:45:49.800 --> 00:45:51.639
But the reason I get mad at people who fall
820
00:45:51.679 --> 00:45:54.480
for this kind of thing is that it's creating the
821
00:45:54.480 --> 00:45:57.840
circumstances in which these things continue to work on that site.
822
00:45:57.920 --> 00:46:00.000
So like, I'm sick of looking at these types of things.
823
00:46:00.599 --> 00:46:03.079
If it doesn't work for everyone, they would stop doing it.
824
00:46:03.639 --> 00:46:07.320
But because it works, I have to look at this
825
00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:09.800
every single time. Because it works. I can't use my
826
00:46:09.880 --> 00:46:12.440
phone as a real phone because I get twenty five
827
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:15.559
other calls a day from somebody who's trying to steal money. Like,
828
00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:17.559
I want these things to stop working, And the only
829
00:46:17.599 --> 00:46:19.079
way it's going to stop working is if everyone can
830
00:46:19.199 --> 00:46:22.679
just get a little bit of social media literacy of
831
00:46:22.719 --> 00:46:27.599
like technology literacy, and not deal with not fall for these.
832
00:46:28.880 --> 00:46:34.280
I agree with you. I think it's getting harder to
833
00:46:34.559 --> 00:46:39.760
keep up with social media and technology literacy. I think
834
00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:45.639
I can spot a scam relatively well. I think they're
835
00:46:45.679 --> 00:46:51.440
making it immediately harder to spot scams. I don't think
836
00:46:51.480 --> 00:46:54.480
they hold up to screwtin me really at all. Again,
837
00:46:54.519 --> 00:46:56.679
you can see in the ad where like the panel
838
00:46:56.760 --> 00:47:00.159
breaks in the background, his accent changes. It's a little
839
00:47:00.159 --> 00:47:04.840
girl asking about her father's beer belly. But if something
840
00:47:04.920 --> 00:47:08.239
is just coming across your feed and your only real
841
00:47:08.280 --> 00:47:12.360
takeaway is these are two people talking about losing belly
842
00:47:12.440 --> 00:47:15.320
fat in a cheap way that doesn't involve in the gym,
843
00:47:15.360 --> 00:47:17.000
which I hate. And it's just an app that I
844
00:47:17.039 --> 00:47:18.960
could do on my phone and it's nine minutes a day.
845
00:47:19.960 --> 00:47:25.280
I think there are some people who don't. They like
846
00:47:25.360 --> 00:47:31.480
how long did it take to reach national literacy about
847
00:47:31.880 --> 00:47:35.719
Nigerian Prince email scams that took a long time. It
848
00:47:35.760 --> 00:47:38.840
took a long time for the targets of those scams
849
00:47:38.880 --> 00:47:42.480
to realize exactly what was going on. We have a
850
00:47:42.719 --> 00:47:49.079
thousand different versions of Nigerian Prince email scams. New ones
851
00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:52.599
every day. Yeah, done by AI companies that are iterating
852
00:47:52.599 --> 00:47:56.920
on things that have worked, and they they are more
853
00:47:56.920 --> 00:48:00.960
effective than the Nigerian email phishing scam because because it's
854
00:48:01.000 --> 00:48:03.760
not a guy, it's a company that is a million
855
00:48:03.840 --> 00:48:07.159
guys sending a million emails to a million people or advertising.
856
00:48:07.199 --> 00:48:11.440
The Nigerian Prince thing didn't advertise, it didn't show up
857
00:48:12.119 --> 00:48:17.400
right after a Guy Co commercial. It was a thing
858
00:48:17.440 --> 00:48:19.199
that showed up in your email. So I could at
859
00:48:19.280 --> 00:48:22.320
least then kids could tell their parents, Hey, if anyone
860
00:48:22.360 --> 00:48:24.960
that you don't know emails you, it's a scam. We
861
00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:28.960
don't have that anymore. We don't have the ability to say,
862
00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:31.079
like all apps are scams, all fitness aps are scams.
863
00:48:31.079 --> 00:48:35.199
We just because the scams are happening too quickly, and
864
00:48:35.239 --> 00:48:37.719
this one there's a lot of it. I dug in
865
00:48:37.760 --> 00:48:40.800
a little bit more. And there's a company that estimates
866
00:48:40.800 --> 00:48:45.559
approximately eighteen thousand AI generated advertisements for Taichi Walking or
867
00:48:45.599 --> 00:48:49.480
Mad Muscles came across YouTube, Instagram, Reddit and other platforms.
868
00:48:49.519 --> 00:48:51.719
I don't know if that's a real number or not.
869
00:48:52.320 --> 00:48:57.760
It feels real, yeah, And in some further digging, we
870
00:48:57.800 --> 00:49:01.079
still don't. It's not publicly known what AI platform or
871
00:49:01.199 --> 00:49:05.639
service was used. It is generally believed to still be
872
00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:10.679
a scam. What else is my reporting turnout? Oh? One
873
00:49:10.679 --> 00:49:12.599
of the things that they flag on this scam is
874
00:49:13.320 --> 00:49:16.039
how hard it is to get a refund. And if
875
00:49:16.079 --> 00:49:18.360
you go to the mad Muscles website there are terms
876
00:49:18.480 --> 00:49:23.400
of service. You get a refund only if you have
877
00:49:23.480 --> 00:49:25.960
adhered to the plan for at least fourteen days in
878
00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:29.760
a row. Your refund request should include supporting materials to
879
00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:33.400
demonstrate your compliance. Specifically, please provide us with a screen,
880
00:49:33.480 --> 00:49:37.079
video or screenshots of your workout plan history indicating your
881
00:49:37.079 --> 00:49:41.920
personal progress. For the sake of clarity, the money back
882
00:49:41.960 --> 00:49:44.880
guarantee does not apply to the following cases. Personal reasons
883
00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:47.840
you don't like the product, it did not meet your expectations,
884
00:49:47.840 --> 00:49:51.599
et cetera. Financial reasons you did not expect that you
885
00:49:51.639 --> 00:49:54.239
will be charged, that the trial will be converted into subscription,
886
00:49:54.440 --> 00:49:57.239
that the subscription will automatically renew or that the services
887
00:49:57.239 --> 00:50:00.400
are paid, et cetera. If you thought the the hardest
888
00:50:00.400 --> 00:50:02.400
thing about the canceling process was that you would need
889
00:50:02.440 --> 00:50:04.679
to show proof that you tried it for two weeks.
890
00:50:05.199 --> 00:50:07.800
Even that if you clear that bar, it doesn't matter
891
00:50:07.880 --> 00:50:10.159
because you're still not allowed to cancel it if you
892
00:50:10.280 --> 00:50:14.199
didn't like it or it costs money.
893
00:50:20.599 --> 00:50:24.119
That's it's amazing that this is and it's not actually
894
00:50:24.119 --> 00:50:26.440
amazing to me that this is all written in AI.
895
00:50:26.559 --> 00:50:28.239
By the way, this is like, this is not the
896
00:50:28.239 --> 00:50:33.039
company is run by people who are not native English speakers,
897
00:50:33.039 --> 00:50:35.239
so like, this makes total sense that you would choose
898
00:50:35.280 --> 00:50:37.400
to do AI for every single component of it, your
899
00:50:37.400 --> 00:50:38.599
customer service, everything.
900
00:50:39.000 --> 00:50:41.440
I think the most charitable read is that the company
901
00:50:41.519 --> 00:50:43.800
is based somewhere where English is in the first language,
902
00:50:43.880 --> 00:50:48.159
and it is in fact registered to Cyprus. That's where
903
00:50:48.159 --> 00:50:50.280
they say that they're based, and that would make sense
904
00:50:50.280 --> 00:50:55.599
if they're just translating things back and forth. Mad Muscles is,
905
00:50:55.719 --> 00:50:59.559
according to Wikipedia, founded by a company called Amos Apps.
906
00:51:00.920 --> 00:51:03.000
Oh, Mad Muscles isn't even the parent company.
907
00:51:03.079 --> 00:51:06.039
No, the parent company is Amos Apps, a company focusing
908
00:51:06.079 --> 00:51:10.639
on AI driven wellness solutions, personalized training, nutrition plans. That's
909
00:51:10.679 --> 00:51:14.480
the one that's based in Cyprus. This comes from Wikipedia.
910
00:51:14.599 --> 00:51:18.360
I think a thing that is a little bit concerning
911
00:51:19.239 --> 00:51:23.559
is that you can't publish something on Wikipedia without sources,
912
00:51:23.639 --> 00:51:27.239
otherwise the Wikipedia editors will delete it. All of the
913
00:51:27.760 --> 00:51:31.360
sourcing on the Wikipedia for Mad Muscles and for amos
914
00:51:31.400 --> 00:51:37.239
Apps comes from different press releases. There are no like
915
00:51:38.400 --> 00:51:40.960
fast company announcing a new company.
916
00:51:41.039 --> 00:51:41.519
It's a lot.
917
00:51:41.599 --> 00:51:44.280
It's just a press release that like it can get
918
00:51:44.320 --> 00:51:49.039
published on Yahoo. But if you paid, you could get
919
00:51:49.039 --> 00:51:51.440
a press release published on Yahoo and then you can
920
00:51:51.440 --> 00:51:53.360
get that link to Wikipedia to make you seem like
921
00:51:53.360 --> 00:51:58.440
you're a legitimate company. Got me concerned, soaring that it's
922
00:51:58.440 --> 00:52:02.199
not just Mad Muscles making apps with AI and having
923
00:52:02.199 --> 00:52:06.360
an email correspondence with AI. I does ab now so
924
00:52:06.599 --> 00:52:09.960
insane that I don't know if there's anyone working at
925
00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:12.199
any of these sites, any of these companies at all.
926
00:52:12.920 --> 00:52:15.840
Amus Apps has a website. It is described as a
927
00:52:15.880 --> 00:52:18.760
team of professionals that make health and wellness mobile applications.
928
00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:22.519
They launched in twenty seventeen and in twenty eighteen created
929
00:52:22.559 --> 00:52:25.280
the YouTube channel ASA and according to their website, made
930
00:52:25.280 --> 00:52:28.360
it profitable in three months. We could talk about ASA
931
00:52:28.360 --> 00:52:31.840
in a minute. But shortly after they made a YouTube channel,
932
00:52:32.119 --> 00:52:34.920
they pivoted into mostly health and fitness apps like mad Muscles,
933
00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:36.719
which is where we are today. Another one of their
934
00:52:36.760 --> 00:52:40.159
apps is Unimial, an AI powered fasting app, which not
935
00:52:40.199 --> 00:52:42.599
for nothing, everything pulls from a quick exploration reveals a
936
00:52:42.639 --> 00:52:44.880
story very similar to Mad Muscles. Iye, lots of ads
937
00:52:44.920 --> 00:52:47.800
promising a healthier you, leading to an attractive landing page
938
00:52:47.800 --> 00:52:49.559
asking you to fill out a quick survey, which they
939
00:52:49.639 --> 00:52:51.360
used to create a personalized diet plan for you that
940
00:52:51.440 --> 00:52:53.760
is only accessible behind a paywall. All of this before
941
00:52:53.840 --> 00:52:57.079
ultimately resulting in users complaining about surprise up charges and
942
00:52:57.119 --> 00:53:02.119
a difficult time canceling subscriptions and getting customers supper. Yeah.
943
00:53:02.280 --> 00:53:08.000
The YouTube channel osa ASA is I tooled around a
944
00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.280
little bit. It's it's like a This is a curveball
945
00:53:12.760 --> 00:53:17.320
of sorts. It's a celebrity and pop culture focused YouTube channel.
946
00:53:17.440 --> 00:53:20.599
Fucking what and if it's not AI generated, it's a
947
00:53:20.679 --> 00:53:24.039
remarkable fact simile. They're the channel description ASA is the
948
00:53:24.079 --> 00:53:26.400
bottleless well of stories about the celebs you love or
949
00:53:26.440 --> 00:53:28.760
love to hate. Here you'll find everything to know about
950
00:53:28.760 --> 00:53:30.760
the cast of the shows and movies you watch all
951
00:53:30.800 --> 00:53:33.119
the time, from the struggles they face out auditions, to
952
00:53:33.119 --> 00:53:35.719
the strict rules they follow while shooting, from relationships on
953
00:53:35.760 --> 00:53:37.719
set to their real life partners. We'll keep you up
954
00:53:37.719 --> 00:53:39.880
to date with all the fresh drops from Netflix, Amazon
955
00:53:39.920 --> 00:53:42.400
and HBO, as well as remind you of good old friends,
956
00:53:42.400 --> 00:53:44.280
How I Met Your Mother and the Big Bang theory.
957
00:53:45.760 --> 00:53:50.960
Yeah of this us go ahead, I'm just gonna say that.
958
00:53:51.679 --> 00:53:53.960
In hearing that and like hearing their descriptions, and they
959
00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:55.960
give those descriptions that go on and on, but they
960
00:53:56.000 --> 00:53:58.679
say they're like the same exact same framing for the
961
00:53:58.719 --> 00:54:01.480
sentence from this to this to this, from this to
962
00:54:01.480 --> 00:54:03.679
this to this, from this to this to this, Like
963
00:54:04.119 --> 00:54:07.239
that is something we used to do when we worked
964
00:54:07.239 --> 00:54:09.320
at demand media. And like what you're doing there is
965
00:54:09.360 --> 00:54:13.639
you're creating words that are specific to be searched. Like
966
00:54:13.719 --> 00:54:16.440
that's like a real that's the whole goal in your metadata,
967
00:54:16.480 --> 00:54:18.880
which is like the brief description you can give of
968
00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:20.519
what the fuck people are going to be clicking on.
969
00:54:21.280 --> 00:54:24.239
You're just throwing throwing in as many key words as
970
00:54:24.239 --> 00:54:26.199
you possibly can, but while still trying to make it
971
00:54:26.239 --> 00:54:29.800
sound like a real traditional sentence. Sore and I'm so
972
00:54:29.920 --> 00:54:30.639
glad you brought up.
973
00:54:30.679 --> 00:54:33.400
Demand Media is where we got our start, and we
974
00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:36.559
were both at Cracked and Demand Media was our parent company.
975
00:54:37.079 --> 00:54:40.199
There was pressure from Demand because their big thing at
976
00:54:40.239 --> 00:54:44.719
the time was gaming the Google algorithm. They found what
977
00:54:44.760 --> 00:54:48.760
people were searching for and whatever was the most google thing.
978
00:54:49.239 --> 00:54:53.400
Their algorithm would generate a bunch of titles, and then
979
00:54:53.719 --> 00:54:58.280
their roster of writers, the Demand Media writers, would write
980
00:54:58.360 --> 00:55:04.519
articles based on those titles. It's something that's still happening today.
981
00:55:04.920 --> 00:55:09.760
It's why one of the most prevalent articles you will
982
00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:13.400
ever see on the Internet is articles under the search
983
00:55:13.480 --> 00:55:16.000
term what time is the super Bowl. It's because a
984
00:55:16.039 --> 00:55:18.599
lot of people are searching for that, and so algorithms
985
00:55:18.599 --> 00:55:21.400
like the one that Demand Media know that people want that,
986
00:55:21.920 --> 00:55:25.320
and so they ceded those titles to writers so writers
987
00:55:25.360 --> 00:55:29.440
could write articles that answer that question, put those articles
988
00:55:29.480 --> 00:55:33.480
on the internet, get them searchable on Google, and place
989
00:55:33.519 --> 00:55:37.639
an ad on those pages. That's what Demand was doing,
990
00:55:37.760 --> 00:55:41.480
was getting a bunch of people to write shitty articles
991
00:55:41.920 --> 00:55:46.320
that fulfilled basic search engine optimization prompts so people could
992
00:55:46.320 --> 00:55:48.320
click on the thing that like, oh, I want to
993
00:55:48.480 --> 00:55:50.039
know what time of the super Bowl is, I'm going
994
00:55:50.079 --> 00:55:52.960
to click on this article that's like poorly written and
995
00:55:53.039 --> 00:55:57.480
it's right, and there's a bunch of ads on it,
996
00:55:58.199 --> 00:56:00.840
and it just made like a less rel liable Internet,
997
00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:04.079
and people at the time got very mad that their
998
00:56:04.119 --> 00:56:07.960
Internet was full of e how articles with unreliable information.
999
00:56:08.119 --> 00:56:09.239
We did everything right.
1000
00:56:11.320 --> 00:56:15.440
People got mad. They Google changed its algorithm to punish
1001
00:56:15.559 --> 00:56:20.199
companies like Demand Media for this specific practice, and it
1002
00:56:20.400 --> 00:56:24.599
was devastating for our parent company, but seen at the
1003
00:56:24.639 --> 00:56:27.960
time as a win for the Internet. And it made
1004
00:56:28.000 --> 00:56:30.840
everyone at Demand Media pivot to what cracked dot com
1005
00:56:30.920 --> 00:56:34.440
was doing because we were still having human beings write
1006
00:56:34.519 --> 00:56:36.719
articles based on what we thought would be good, not
1007
00:56:36.920 --> 00:56:39.519
responding to an algorithm. The rest of Demand was like,
1008
00:56:39.840 --> 00:56:42.039
maybe we should start doing what Cracked is doing, because
1009
00:56:42.440 --> 00:56:46.679
that Crack doesn't crumble when Google changes its algorithm. If
1010
00:56:46.719 --> 00:56:49.760
the content is good, people keep coming back. Something has
1011
00:56:49.840 --> 00:56:52.519
changed between now and then the Internet is back to
1012
00:56:52.599 --> 00:56:59.440
being e how Demand media seo algorithm style articles. And
1013
00:56:59.480 --> 00:57:02.760
now it's get even worse because you're not even paying
1014
00:57:03.199 --> 00:57:04.920
what Demand would do. Demand would pay.
1015
00:57:05.920 --> 00:57:08.719
I don't know writers. They'd pay five cents a.
1016
00:57:08.679 --> 00:57:12.960
Word to writers to write ten dollars an article to
1017
00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:15.440
write articles titled what time is the super Bowl?
1018
00:57:15.519 --> 00:57:18.079
What channel is the super Bowl? Now?
1019
00:57:18.119 --> 00:57:20.840
AI is writing those articles itself based on what you're
1020
00:57:20.840 --> 00:57:25.000
searching for, and it seems like they're making full ads
1021
00:57:25.360 --> 00:57:28.159
based on what they think people are searching for. This
1022
00:57:28.280 --> 00:57:34.199
YouTube channel seems there might be a person doing the voiceover,
1023
00:57:34.440 --> 00:57:37.000
and there might be a person editing the videos on ASA,
1024
00:57:37.360 --> 00:57:42.800
the film channel that launched Amos's business. There might be
1025
00:57:42.840 --> 00:57:45.559
a person. It doesn't sound like it. I can't prove
1026
00:57:45.599 --> 00:57:49.239
that it's AI. The voice sounds like AI, the editing
1027
00:57:49.599 --> 00:57:55.840
could be AI, and it's editorially driven by search engine optimization.
1028
00:57:56.239 --> 00:57:58.679
That's why they have friends and how I met your
1029
00:57:58.719 --> 00:58:02.119
mother and the office in their metadata and their descriptions,
1030
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:06.119
because people are constantly searching for those things. It is
1031
00:58:06.719 --> 00:58:11.639
a channel that is putting out nothing but fucking slop
1032
00:58:12.199 --> 00:58:16.639
based on what people are searching for. I it should
1033
00:58:16.639 --> 00:58:20.239
come as no surprise reached out to Amos Apps to
1034
00:58:20.320 --> 00:58:23.920
ask them about the prompt for the Ai Tai Chi
1035
00:58:23.960 --> 00:58:26.840
walking ad, and it should come as no surprise that
1036
00:58:26.880 --> 00:58:30.360
they didn't even bother to respond to me, which is
1037
00:58:30.440 --> 00:58:33.159
we're at our conclusion now, Soren, which is I don't
1038
00:58:33.159 --> 00:58:39.239
know why I did this. I strongly suspect based on
1039
00:58:39.280 --> 00:58:42.800
the evidence, which the evidence is free apps that are
1040
00:58:42.840 --> 00:58:47.199
designed to be scams that are impossible to cancel. They
1041
00:58:47.199 --> 00:58:50.800
just get your credit card information. They're all running AI
1042
00:58:50.920 --> 00:58:57.679
powered ads with no customer service behind them, all under
1043
00:58:57.679 --> 00:59:02.039
the umbrella of a parent company. The website that reads
1044
00:59:02.039 --> 00:59:04.840
like it was written by AI and a YouTube channel
1045
00:59:04.920 --> 00:59:11.000
that seems powered by AI. I'm trying to find one
1046
00:59:11.119 --> 00:59:14.960
human being from any of these companies that will talk
1047
00:59:15.000 --> 00:59:16.960
to me, and I know they don't need to because
1048
00:59:16.960 --> 00:59:17.440
I'm just a guy.
1049
00:59:17.440 --> 00:59:19.480
I'm not even a fucking journalist. I'm just a guy.
1050
00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:24.119
But I can't find a single real human being who
1051
00:59:24.119 --> 00:59:27.280
works at any of these companies that is collecting money.
1052
00:59:28.599 --> 00:59:33.880
And I just want to know, is anyone real or
1053
00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:38.599
is this just? Is this somehow an AI scam of
1054
00:59:38.639 --> 00:59:39.519
perpetual motion?
1055
00:59:40.400 --> 00:59:42.199
It's AI all the way down, is it?
1056
00:59:42.440 --> 00:59:43.840
But then who gets the money.
1057
00:59:44.079 --> 00:59:46.679
There's one person probably who set it up. But they
1058
00:59:46.719 --> 00:59:49.840
wrote whatever the code was that responsible for like creating
1059
00:59:49.880 --> 00:59:53.559
these ads, even that's written by AI too. It's somebody
1060
00:59:53.599 --> 00:59:55.559
who just was like doesn't even maybe not even doesn't
1061
00:59:55.559 --> 00:59:57.639
even know how to write code, and like was just
1062
00:59:57.679 --> 01:00:00.559
like doesn't isn't even putting in the prompts even like
1063
01:00:00.599 --> 01:00:03.119
they're just like, I need commercials for this, and I
1064
01:00:03.239 --> 01:00:07.480
need I need, I need the customer service at rep
1065
01:00:07.559 --> 01:00:09.760
and I need this, and they're putting all that in
1066
01:00:10.079 --> 01:00:14.480
and then they are making whatever amount of money it
1067
01:00:14.559 --> 01:00:17.679
is from people who don't realize that this is a
1068
01:00:17.719 --> 01:00:20.800
scam every single day. And then these people get on.
1069
01:00:21.400 --> 01:00:23.760
Then these people are creating their own ads of themselves
1070
01:00:23.760 --> 01:00:26.039
being like, these are all the books that I have
1071
01:00:26.119 --> 01:00:28.280
in my garage. If you want to get the grindset
1072
01:00:28.280 --> 01:00:31.159
in my lifestyle, you want to make over a million dollars,
1073
01:00:31.239 --> 01:00:35.119
then this is how you got to do it. It's
1074
01:00:35.119 --> 01:00:36.920
not I think it's those guys all the way down.
1075
01:00:36.960 --> 01:00:42.760
It's Ty Lopez for sure. That's the guy you were referencing. Yeah,
1076
01:00:43.480 --> 01:00:46.760
I mean, I guess I'm I'm doing this as well.
1077
01:00:46.760 --> 01:00:48.320
I'm doing it because I put the work in and
1078
01:00:48.360 --> 01:00:50.079
I want someone to show the work that I knows.
1079
01:00:50.760 --> 01:00:53.039
I'm really I thank you for doing it. By the way,
1080
01:00:53.079 --> 01:00:54.760
I'm very impressed with the amount of work that you
1081
01:00:54.800 --> 01:00:59.039
did in trying to dig into this. And yeah, I
1082
01:00:59.079 --> 01:01:01.920
mean it did what we used to make. When I
1083
01:01:01.920 --> 01:01:03.800
say we I mean this company to main media. What
1084
01:01:03.840 --> 01:01:07.440
they used to make was was slop before slop was
1085
01:01:07.480 --> 01:01:09.840
this bad like that. What they made was their most
1086
01:01:09.880 --> 01:01:11.880
popular article was something called how to boil an egg?
1087
01:01:12.280 --> 01:01:15.239
And it was like everybody's searching that, So like, how
1088
01:01:15.280 --> 01:01:17.440
do we capture those people? How do we capture that audience?
1089
01:01:17.559 --> 01:01:19.199
We could put ads next to telling them how to
1090
01:01:19.280 --> 01:01:22.679
make boil an egg? And so they create an algorithm
1091
01:01:23.159 --> 01:01:28.199
that they fucking named Cassandra. I'll get to that in
1092
01:01:28.199 --> 01:01:30.639
a second, we'll put it up in Cassandra. But they
1093
01:01:30.960 --> 01:01:34.440
they created an app or an algorithm that would determine
1094
01:01:34.480 --> 01:01:36.880
how much an article was worth, how much you could
1095
01:01:36.880 --> 01:01:39.000
how many times that was actually being searched, how many
1096
01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:41.280
times you can anticipate it being clicked on, and if
1097
01:01:41.280 --> 01:01:43.360
you put an ad on that, how much you would
1098
01:01:43.400 --> 01:01:47.280
get back year over year and uh in the app,
1099
01:01:47.400 --> 01:01:50.519
And like the algorithm was working for a very brief
1100
01:01:50.519 --> 01:01:52.320
time where they were like, oh, look you could do this,
1101
01:01:52.400 --> 01:01:53.960
and you can, and then there's going to be all
1102
01:01:54.039 --> 01:01:55.559
kinds of different ways that people are going to search it.
1103
01:01:55.599 --> 01:01:57.760
Because they don't use a uniform phrasing. They don't just
1104
01:01:57.800 --> 01:01:59.400
say how to boil an egg? They say, how do
1105
01:01:59.440 --> 01:02:01.639
I boil an how does one boil an egg?
1106
01:02:01.840 --> 01:02:02.639
How boil egg?
1107
01:02:02.880 --> 01:02:05.639
Boil egg? How like that kind of stuff. So uh
1108
01:02:05.920 --> 01:02:09.320
so now they're creating articles that are like a little
1109
01:02:09.320 --> 01:02:12.559
bit different for each one of those. And so at
1110
01:02:12.559 --> 01:02:14.559
the time we were watching this happen, we're like, this
1111
01:02:14.639 --> 01:02:16.639
is this is the end of the Internet, Like we're
1112
01:02:16.719 --> 01:02:19.559
killing the internet. And they're like, but we're gonna get rich.
1113
01:02:19.679 --> 01:02:21.880
I mean, they're never explicitly saying that, but they that's
1114
01:02:21.880 --> 01:02:24.360
what the thought process was. And then they bail. But
1115
01:02:24.559 --> 01:02:29.320
they if you have somebody who's doing that, you're like,
1116
01:02:29.360 --> 01:02:30.960
this is the end. This has got to be the bottom.
1117
01:02:31.239 --> 01:02:34.400
And then and then I think what you're finding, Daniel,
1118
01:02:34.639 --> 01:02:38.119
is that there may be is no bottom, that everything
1119
01:02:38.119 --> 01:02:41.840
can always never nothing's ever so so terrible that you
1120
01:02:41.880 --> 01:02:43.039
can't sink even lower.
1121
01:02:45.880 --> 01:02:54.239
It's it's wild that that this has quietly become a
1122
01:02:54.280 --> 01:02:58.639
fight that has dominated both of our careers, coming from
1123
01:02:59.280 --> 01:03:04.119
early webc and publishing, where all the pressure from outside was, hey,
1124
01:03:04.199 --> 01:03:06.039
we like what you're doing at cracked. People are reading
1125
01:03:06.039 --> 01:03:11.079
this thing. How can we do it faster and cheaper
1126
01:03:11.440 --> 01:03:14.199
and more of it? And we're like, well, you you
1127
01:03:14.320 --> 01:03:16.280
just can't you can't do it and it's still be
1128
01:03:16.320 --> 01:03:19.559
good And they're like, well, what if we remove the
1129
01:03:19.599 --> 01:03:21.039
good part and we're.
1130
01:03:20.960 --> 01:03:24.000
Going to always the question. So yeah, the fight that
1131
01:03:24.159 --> 01:03:27.000
we always had to have at Cracked versus the rest
1132
01:03:27.000 --> 01:03:29.000
of this company that had like twenty websites and was like,
1133
01:03:29.000 --> 01:03:31.360
why aren't you doing everything like us? And then like
1134
01:03:31.440 --> 01:03:32.960
that other piece of the side of the website fell
1135
01:03:32.960 --> 01:03:34.840
apart and they're like, how do we do things like Cracked?
1136
01:03:35.320 --> 01:03:39.360
Is that they were relying on search, so they're relying
1137
01:03:39.360 --> 01:03:42.360
on somebody already looking for something they already have in
1138
01:03:42.360 --> 01:03:44.559
their head what they want. The difference between that and
1139
01:03:44.559 --> 01:03:46.679
Cracked is that Cracked is a website that's an entertainment
1140
01:03:46.679 --> 01:03:48.840
based website, so they don't know what they want yet,
1141
01:03:48.840 --> 01:03:51.199
and you're fucking giving it to them. So they come
1142
01:03:51.239 --> 01:03:53.039
to you because they're like, what do I want today?
1143
01:03:53.039 --> 01:03:53.400
Cracked?
1144
01:03:53.800 --> 01:03:57.599
Oh, I didn't even have any idea that Leonard eventually
1145
01:03:57.599 --> 01:04:00.760
tried to steal a river. That's fucking great, And so
1146
01:04:01.119 --> 01:04:03.239
you didn't. They don't. They don't know what they want yet,
1147
01:04:03.280 --> 01:04:05.639
and so like, you can't, you can't apply the same
1148
01:04:05.639 --> 01:04:06.320
model to both.
1149
01:04:06.559 --> 01:04:11.679
And once understood that Cassandra. The algorithm wasn't telling anyone
1150
01:04:12.159 --> 01:04:16.159
that the Internet would love an article about shared universes
1151
01:04:16.159 --> 01:04:20.400
in commercials about blue period of blood, or or driving
1152
01:04:20.400 --> 01:04:23.320
by yourself on a road, Cassandra, was that you needed
1153
01:04:23.320 --> 01:04:28.719
a human you needed. You needed Soren, who has been
1154
01:04:28.760 --> 01:04:32.480
reading and writing for his entire life and generating ideas.
1155
01:04:32.760 --> 01:04:37.480
You needed him to talk to me, a professional editor
1156
01:04:37.719 --> 01:04:39.880
at the comedy website, to say, yes, I think this
1157
01:04:39.960 --> 01:04:42.400
is a good idea. I don't think I needed to
1158
01:04:42.400 --> 01:04:44.480
give any feedback on it other than yes, do it.
1159
01:04:44.840 --> 01:04:48.199
You still needed my bosses to look at it. You
1160
01:04:48.280 --> 01:04:51.400
needed a copy editor to go through. You needed someone
1161
01:04:51.440 --> 01:04:53.719
from our graphics department named Randal to go through and
1162
01:04:53.800 --> 01:04:57.840
add images and captions. You needed all of these people
1163
01:04:58.119 --> 01:05:01.159
to get an article that went fuck viral and didn't
1164
01:05:01.199 --> 01:05:05.159
piss people off like how too boil an egg dot com.
1165
01:05:05.639 --> 01:05:07.840
You needed all these people, and our bosses were like,
1166
01:05:07.880 --> 01:05:10.679
but we want to do it with fewer people. And
1167
01:05:10.719 --> 01:05:13.840
they did that successfully for a while until they were punished,
1168
01:05:13.920 --> 01:05:16.320
and instead of learning any lessons, what people took away
1169
01:05:16.320 --> 01:05:18.280
from that was, so that's what happened when you did
1170
01:05:18.320 --> 01:05:21.800
it with fewer people. What about doing it with no people.
1171
01:05:21.920 --> 01:05:26.199
The ultimate goal is to make things so cheap that
1172
01:05:26.599 --> 01:05:29.960
eventually you don't have to pay anyone to do any jobs.
1173
01:05:30.559 --> 01:05:35.320
Ever. Yeah, it was.
1174
01:05:35.480 --> 01:05:36.800
It was very shitty.
1175
01:05:38.079 --> 01:05:41.039
I want to go back to Cassandra really quickly. Yeah,
1176
01:05:41.039 --> 01:05:45.440
before we finish here. Just a Cassandra in Greek mythology
1177
01:05:46.000 --> 01:05:48.519
is a woman who was cursed with foresight that no
1178
01:05:48.519 --> 01:05:55.159
one would ever believe she was a woman who she was.
1179
01:05:55.480 --> 01:05:57.519
She could see the future, and she was right every
1180
01:05:57.519 --> 01:06:00.519
single time, and every single time everyone was like, Nah,
1181
01:06:01.199 --> 01:06:06.320
that can't be right. That's so awesome.
1182
01:06:11.199 --> 01:06:13.559
Thank you for joining us on this weird episode, everybody.
1183
01:06:13.800 --> 01:06:14.079
Wow.
1184
01:06:16.400 --> 01:06:19.360
I like commercials. These ads drove me crazy.
1185
01:06:19.880 --> 01:06:21.760
I think.
1186
01:06:23.280 --> 01:06:26.719
Probably the government or the Better Business Bureau or whatever
1187
01:06:27.159 --> 01:06:32.480
shouldn't allow companies that have one or zero humans to
1188
01:06:32.599 --> 01:06:37.199
design fake fitness apps built to trick people into giving
1189
01:06:37.239 --> 01:06:39.519
them money. I don't think they should be allowed to
1190
01:06:39.599 --> 01:06:46.719
do that. Even if they spend enough money to create
1191
01:06:46.800 --> 01:06:50.440
eighteen thousand ads, even if they give all that money
1192
01:06:50.480 --> 01:06:55.119
to Google, they still shouldn't be allowed to advertise a
1193
01:06:55.199 --> 01:06:56.440
fucking scam.
1194
01:06:57.119 --> 01:07:00.960
Yeah, that's gonna be. The nice thing is that this
1195
01:07:01.039 --> 01:07:03.000
is the best it will ever be. It's only gonna
1196
01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:04.760
get worse from here. It's just gonna get worse, and
1197
01:07:05.239 --> 01:07:08.079
uh shall today if any of.
1198
01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:12.320
My listeners work for Mad Muscles or Aimos Apps, I'd
1199
01:07:12.320 --> 01:07:14.639
love to be proven wrong. I'd love I'd love for
1200
01:07:14.679 --> 01:07:18.840
it to be like a hard working entrepreneur in Cypress who,
1201
01:07:19.000 --> 01:07:21.760
like I'm doing my best to scam everyone.
1202
01:07:22.559 --> 01:07:24.679
How is that gonna make it better? Knowing that it's
1203
01:07:24.719 --> 01:07:26.360
AI scamming everyone or people.
1204
01:07:26.599 --> 01:07:28.480
If there's like a person in Cypress who is like
1205
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I truly did. I came up with a nine minute
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way to get ripped after.
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Forty I just don't know how to get it out
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to the world, all right, thanks? Bye bye?
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Oh good Quick quick question, Quick question.
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Tonight.
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So what's your Fay Brown give girl happy.
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Hope you get or a baby Daniel Hope broies two
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best friendom comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're gonna find.
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I think you'll have a great time. I think you'll
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have a great time.
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You