Why Are LeBron James and Charli XCX on Roblox?

Summary

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Infamous Podcast Episode Summary

Episode: Why Are LeBron James and Charli XCX on Roblox?
Date: January 22, 2026
Hosts: Vanessa Grigoriadis, Natalie Robehmed
Guest: Sam Biddle (Technology Reporter, The Intercept)

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Overview

This episode explores Roblox, the sprawling online platform that captivates millions of children and increasingly draws top celebrities and brands—including LeBron James and Charli XCX—into its virtual world. Hosts Vanessa and Natalie, joined by technology journalist Sam Biddle, examine Roblox’s meteoric rise, its bewildering user experience, the underlying commercial incentives, real-world dangers, and the broader implications for the future of advertising, digital culture, and childhood.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Is Roblox and Why Does It Matter?

• Cultural Ubiquity:

  • As reported by Bloomberg, two-thirds of all US kids aged 9–12 use Roblox.
    • Vanessa (02:25): "2/3 of all US kids between 9 and 12 use Roblox. Crazy."
  • Roblox has become a common part of family and social life, sometimes to the bewilderment of parents.

• Platform, Not Game:

  • Roblox isn’t a single game but a platform hosting thousands of user-created mini-games with huge variation in style, structure, and purpose.
    • Sam (03:40): "Roblox is easily the most inscrutable thing I’ve ever encountered on a computer of any kind... it is so alienating if you are above the age of 12 or 13."

• Visual and Experiential Overload:

  • The interface resembles an overwhelming, hyperstimulated space—likened to Shibuya Crossing or Las Vegas on acid—with bright lights, spinning effects, endless stimuli, and relentless in-game advertising (04:54).

2. Compulsive Consumerism and 'Shittification'

• Hyper-Commercialized Play:

  • Roblox is a showcase for rampant consumerism aimed at children, blending in-game rewards, social status, and real-money transactions (08:13).
  • “Shittification”—decline in user experience as everything is monetized—permeates the platform:
    • Sam (09:12): “It’s the continuous sort of inexorable trend towards everything in our tech-enabled lives... getting steadily worse. Everything is free, but everything sucks. And if you want it to not suck, you have to pay money.”

• Low Tech, High Accessibility:

  • Roblox’s intentionally simple graphics and cross-device compatibility make it ubiquitously available—even on old family phones—broadening its reach among all income groups (10:46).

3. Origins and Libertarian DNA

• Founder Backstory:

  • David Baszucki, the founder, came from creating educational software and once hosted a libertarian radio show. This reflects in Roblox’s laissez-faire, heavily market-driven virtual economy (13:14).

    • Sam (13:58): “It’s a vision of a society that is entirely the private sector. I mean, obviously it’s all taking... place on the servers of a corporation... but it is a hyper-capitalist, market-oriented vision of people living and interacting...”

4. Kids, Safety, and Moral Panic

• Predators and Safety Concerns:

  • News headlines and actual cases have highlighted predators using Roblox to contact children (16:11). 
  • The platform faces criticism for being both a virtual playground and a potentially unsupervised environment for children.
    • Sam (17:22): “If you’ve created this virtual world where all the kids are—of course, that's going to be where someone who wants to harm or prey upon children is going to go.”
  • The responsibility of moderation is debated: Roblox claims to empower parents, but critics view this as the company passing off the problem (18:16).

• Commercial Predation:

  • The more common and insidious threat may be rampant in-game advertising, designed to be invisible to kids.
    • Kids often don’t recognize branded experiences and virtual purchases as advertising (19:32).

5. Blurred Lines: Ads, Consumerism, and Socializing

• Invisible Advertising:

  • Brand activations (LeBron James & Nike, Charli XCX & Samsung) are embedded into the core experience, blending the line between play and advertising to the point kids often don’t recognize ads at all (19:32 out).

• Comparison to Other Games and The Mall:

  • Their nostalgia for old simulation games is contrasted; in The Sims or Roller Coaster Tycoon, everything was fantasy with no real-money purchases. In Roblox, the play economy blends with real money (21:41).
  • Roblox is what the mall was for previous generations—a social space, but now “you weren't friends with a brand ambassador.” (23:28)

6. Microtransactions, Gambling, and Social Divides

• Robux—The Platform Currency:

  • Kids use Robux (purchased with real money) for upgrades, items, and worship-worthy status symbols. Conversion rates are opaque and incentivize buying in bulk (29:32). - Sam (30:15): “It is essentially... a way of obscuring how much things cost in this world.”

• Social Inequality:

  • There’s an on-screen divide between kids whose parents buy them Robux and those who can’t afford it—mirroring or amplifying real-world inequalities (30:28).

• Quasi-Gambling Elements:

  • Random rewards, loot boxes, and roulette wheel-style mechanics echo techniques banned in other jurisdictions. Sam equates this to a casino for kids (32:11).

    • Sam (32:11): “There’s a reason why we don’t let kids in casinos, right?... they are absolutely games of chance where you wager real money... you might get a really rare... item, but odds are you’re not going to get that.”

7. Child Labor Debate

• Third-party and Child Developers:

  • A significant portion of Roblox’s content is created by children, who can earn (but only convert Robux back to dollars at a disadvantageous rate) (34:46).

  • Critics weigh whether this amounts to virtual child labor—Roblox PR is sensitive to the question.

    • Sam (34:46): “A lot of the virtual items and games... are created by children for an audience... If this were happening in the real world, it would be illegal. No one would ever tolerate this...”

8. Roblox’s Future: Scandal, Resilience, and Ubiquity

• Stock Volatility and Resilience:

  • Despite scandals, especially involving child safety, Roblox’s share price has demonstrated resilience (36:39).

  • The company remains well-poised due to cash reserves, lack of substantial legislative threat, and the vast trove of data it collects on children (37:34).

    • Sam (37:34): “Their ambitions are growing and growing... They’re also sitting on a giant ocean of sensitive granular data about kids, which is of immense value to advertisers.”

• Ambitions Beyond Gaming:

  • Roblox aims to become a central platform for much more than play, including job interviews and possibly even dating (for adults)—raising additional questions about child safety and the ever-expanding commercial reach (21:41).

    • Sam (21:41): “They want Roblox to be a platform for just life itself... where eventually we’ll do job interviews... where you can do dating. A really great idea for a platform filled with children.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Roblox’s Strangeness:

  • Vanessa (03:14): “It feels like a video game created to repel parents.”
  • Sam (04:54): “It is like every trick in the book to hook the very meager attention spans of a growing brain, everyone is deployed simultaneously.”

• On Contemporary Tech and Shittification:

  • Sam (09:12): “Everything is free, but everything sucks. And if you want it to not suck, you have to pay.”

• On Hypercapitalism and Libertarian Roots:

  • Sam (13:58): “A hyper, hyper, hyper capitalist, market-oriented vision... generally very appealing to tech libertarian thinkers.”

• On Advertising’s Invisibility to Kids:

  • Sam (20:53): “They just do not process that that is an advertisement... the advertising has been integrated into the quote-unquote game so seamlessly that the game is the advertisement, the advertisement is the game.”

• On Gambling and Dopamine Loops:

  • Sam (32:11): “...they are absolutely games of chance where you wager real money that’s been laundered into Robux and you might get a really, really rare brain rot, but odds are you’re not going to get that.”

• On Child Labor:

  • Sam (34:46): "If this were happening in the real world, it would be illegal. No one would ever tolerate this kind of working arrangement in the real world. But because it’s happening on a virtual platform, it’s kind of obscured...”

• On Parent Responsibility:

  • Sam (39:20): “I would encourage anyone who has a Roblox player in the household to... watch a little bit and ask questions and discuss this stuff, because I think the company is largely counting on that not happening.”

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Timeline of Important Segments

• 00:00–01:37 — Opening; context-setting, why Roblox is worth examining
• 01:38–04:27 — Introduction to Sam Biddle, describing Roblox’s mass appeal and oddity
• 04:27–06:12 — Overstimulation and immersive mechanics
• 06:12–09:08 — Consumerism, social feedback loops, introduction to 'shittification'
• 09:08–10:46 — Definitions and how low-tech design boosts accessibility
• 13:10–14:31 — History and ideology behind Roblox (libertarian roots)
• 15:14–18:16 — Safety, criminality, and corporate responsibility
• 19:29–21:41 — Advertising, social relations, modern-day mall analogy
• 28:08–30:17 — Robux economy, social divides among kids
• 31:36–34:26 — Gambling, loot boxes, comparison to other games
• 34:46–36:27 — Child developers and virtual child labor
• 36:39–38:57 — Corporate future, market resilience
• 39:14–End — Final advice for parents, sign-off

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Final Takeaways

• Roblox is far more than a harmless kids’ game; it blends immersive play, socialization, brand infiltration, and real-world capitalism into a world that is both enticing and worrying for parents and critics alike.
• The platform is at the forefront of “shittification” in tech—monetizing distractions and normalizing transactional, status-driven digital sociality from an early age.
• Real-world dangers—ranging from predatory adults to relentless marketers—are complicated by the seamlessness with which play and advertising are fused, and the platform's intractable blend of fun and risk.
• Parents are strongly encouraged to stay engaged and critical, rather than panicking or ignoring, given how deeply Roblox is shaping youth culture now and potentially for years to come.

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Transcript

[Natalie]

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[Vanessa]

Thank you all so much for coming back to Infamous this week, a Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment production. So we are going to talk about something that is not at all near and dear to my heart but extremely present in my home, which is Roblox. It is a juggernaut, culturally, financially driving the parents of America insane. Apparently really, really entertaining the kids. I have a 9 year old son who insisted on dressing up as Tung Tung Sahar for Halloween. For those people who know what that is, which you know, we were walking around on the streets of New York City and some people had no idea. And then other people were like, why?

[Sam Biddle]

I can't believe it. That is so cool.

[Vanessa]

Cool again, not being something I would use to describe Roblox, but very much in the minority because as Bloomberg reported, 2/3 of all US kids between 9 and 12 use Roblox. Crazy. So we have Sam Biddle here today to join us. He is currently a technology reporter at the Intercept. He was was a staff writer at Gawker, if any of you guys read that back in the day. And he wrote an Incredible feature about Roblox for New York magazine. Trying to figure out, like, what is this thing all about? And how can adults, parents and not reckon with it? So welcome, Sam.

[Sam Biddle]

Very happy to be here. Thanks for having me. And I can say the only thing that makes me feel older than referring to Gawkers back in the day is Roblox.

[Vanessa]

So it truly is something. I mean, I think you have a line in your story saying it feels like a video game created to repel parents. Like, there's so many different things going on. When you look at it, you kind of can't believe. Like, what. What is this? What are you even looking at? I don't. This isn't Frogger. This isn't Smurfs. Can you describe what it looks like when you log on, as you say?

[Sam Biddle]

I mean, like, the games that I grew up playing, if one of my parents walked into the room, they would at least have some intuition that it was like, you know, a game like Mario, you know, you're jumping on things. It's pretty straightforward. And I am like a lifelong gamer and that kind of nerd. Roblox is easily the most inscrutable thing I've ever encountered on a computer of any kind. Visually, mechanically. As I say in the New York Mag article, I think part of its appeal is that it is so alienating if you are above the age of 12 or 13. I think also part of what makes it so confusing is that it's not one game. It is a platform that hosts and provides access to thousands and thousands and thousands of different miniature games.

[Vanessa]

But they all look like that famous place in Tokyo, like Shibuya Crossing. They all look like a million different people walking a million different ways.

[Sam Biddle]

Yes, it is visually super overwhelming.

[Vanessa]

Exactly. With like, enormous blaring billboards. It's just impossible to orient yourself. You're just looking at this screen of moving things. They almost have no rhyme or reason.

[Sam Biddle]

I've taken care to never be on any sort of hallucinogens while in Las Vegas. But I think that if you were on, like, a very, very heavy dose of acid and you walked into the. Walking down the Strip, this is what it would look like. And. And it is like every trick in the book to hook the very meager attention spans of a growing brain. Everyone is deployed simultaneously. So like you said, it's lights, it's spinning, it's roulette wheels, it is blinking things, it's flashing things, it's sounds, it's people yelling at you, it's text, it's video. It's buying things, it's advertising. It is every medium merged into one at time with the intention of making money off of children, largely.

[Natalie]

I mean, you wrote in your story that roadblocks. I mean, it's not just a game. That is a place where some of the most insidious trends of the contemporary Internet gambling, compulsive distraction, mindless consumption, and overall. And shittification. Am I saying that right?

[Sam Biddle]

I believe so, yeah.

[Natalie]

Have hardened into governing realities. And I mean, I think that's part of what is so interesting and also concerning about Roblox. We're always worried about what the kids are doing, but in this regard, Roblox seems to be making them into fiendish little consumers.

[Sam Biddle]

It occurred to me as I was finishing reporting and writing on it that I would have loved this. Right. I do not blame any 9 year old or whatever for being super into this. This is the kind of thing I would have been begging to play at all times when I was, if I was a little kid today.

[Vanessa]

But why would you have loved it so much? Because it's free and because it's immers, like fully immersive.

[Sam Biddle]

And because I think if you're that age, all your friends are there too. When I was a little kid, you know, we were on like AOL and Instant messenger and I was doing that all the time because that's where all my friends were. And now those things are long, long dead. And if you're nine, you know, you probably have zero interest in Facebook, if you even could have an account, but it's a place to, quote, unquote, hang out with your peers and to play basically an infinite variety of free video games.

[Vanessa]

Yeah, I mean, this is truly what I think my son is doing. He wants to get on and he wants to get on when his friends are on. Right. Which is why I often lose my phone as well when he goes to play, because he wants to call his friend and be like, are you playing? Get on now. Now we're gonna play. You describe. They're in this vast expanse of what looks like green LEGO plastic, subdivided into these fenced lots.

[Sam Biddle]

Okay, yes, grow garden.

[Vanessa]

And then there's like some Mozart playing, but there's also a chorus of mewing cats and squeaking mice being like, mew, mew, mew. And then there's a signpost with your name on it. And it says, this is actually where you're going to plant your garden. Because this is a garden game and you need to now plant your garden. So this is sort of Like a farmville type experience. Right. And now this is why my, my son at this point will come running into my room and go, I need Roblox. I need Roblox. Because he doesn't want to have a barren garden, he wants to have this Eden. He wants to have vines and bugs and monkeys and fruits and he can buy all those things.

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah, the more money you spend, the crazier it looks, the more impressive it is.

[Vanessa]

Exactly. So it's like, it's weird and surreal. Kids like that. Then you're with your friends, kids like that. And then also you're paying money and you're getting gifts, I guess, which both Roblox and kids like because they're making a ton of money from this.

[Sam Biddle]

I think it scratches the itch that kids have from, you know, being in a toy store. There's just this super variety of very, very colorful plasticky options of things you can consume and look at. You know, I think the difference is that when you're at a toy store you have and you're, you know, let's say a 9 or 10 year old, you have to beg your parents to take the thing to the cash register and buy it. Or if you're on Amazon, you know, you're like asking for a specific thing. With Roblox you can actually sort of preload your account with this virtual currency and spend money on your own. Which I think also probably has a big appeal if you were a younger Internet user.

[Natalie]

So wait, can we go back a second and define inshidification?

[Sam Biddle]

I think it's broadly defined as the continuous sort of inexorable trend towards everything in our tech enabled lives and society getting steadily worse. Everything is free, but everything sucks. And if you want it to not suck, you have to pay money. Whereas before you could obtain a good or service that was not deliberately made worse so that you could pay for a better version of it. You know, I mean if we're talking about, we're talking about video games here, but like a video game that I would have got when I was a kid, that's you got the game and that was the game. You paid once and it was either good or it was bad, but it was a finished product. Whereas you know, today, and going back to things like, you know, I think games like farmville which we already mentioned, were pioneers of this. You get a kind of shitty version and if you want to make it better, you have to pay to unlock things. And you know, you see that outside of games and outside of products or entertainment for Children too. I mean, if you're ordering, take out the like the contemporary way we feed ourselves is you like order your bucket of slop from Uber Eats and if you want it to arrive faster, you can pay $3 more. Anyway, it refers broadly to the thing, the fact that everything sucks and you can pay your way out of it slightly if you want. So I think Roblox is really emblematic of that.

[Natalie]

Well, I also think it's really interesting and you make this point that Roblox in a way is really low tech, that it's not where you would think gaming might have gone. With everything being so pristine and optimized, it's profoundly accessible. Like you can run it on virtually any ph, the family tablet and aging PC. That's intentional, right?

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah, I mean we could say it's a good thing that like if you can't afford the latest and greatest game console or your family can't afford a brand new computer, you could still have forms of entertainment accessible to you. The fact that you can play Roblox on basically anything is a huge part of its popularity. Something that I've noticed, and I noticed as I was working on this piece, was that once I started learning about Roblox and playing it, I started to see it in public a lot more. I would notice just being at like a Starbucks or something. The kind of like spare phone that a family might give to a kid to keep them distracted. That has become like the Roblox machine that you can hand to a kid if they're in the backseat or at the airport or at a coffee shop or whatever to keep them distracted. And if you don't want to pay any money to keep them distracted, Roblox is just a turnkey solution for that.

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[Natalie]

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[Natalie]

So who's behind Roblox? How did it, how did it get started? Who founded it?

[Sam Biddle]

It was founded by a gentleman named Dave Buzzucki, a host on a libertarian radio station. That was the first thing that I'd ever seen of him in his professional life, which I didn't really have the chance to get into this in my article, but I think explains a lot about Roblox as a platform. But he got his start in tech doing educational software for kids. I think his idea was to create computer toys for children where they could learn about elementary physics or something that could be incorporated into a teacher's lesson plan pretty easily. And that idea of an educational toy is the great grandparent of Roblox.

[Natalie]

Interesting. Okay, wait. Why do you think libertarianism relates to Roblox? Like how do you think that informed this?

[Sam Biddle]

You know, well, it's, it's a, it's a vision of a society that is entirely the private sector. I mean, obviously it's all taking, all this stuff is happening on the servers of a, of a corporation. There's no government aspect here, but I think that it is a hyper, hyper, hyper capitalist, market oriented vision of people living and interacting with one another that is generally very appealing to tech libertarian thinkers.

[Vanessa]

So I mean, you do say that the guy who started it is sort of kindly and avuncular.

[Sam Biddle]

Welcome back to Swackback. Today is the Wall street debut for video game company Roadblocks. It's happening via direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The exchange set a reference price of $45 a share, valuing Roblox at about $30 billion. Joining us first on CNBC is Roadblocks founder and CEO David Bouzouki. House as builder man. David, you know this. I all we talk about in my household with my children is your company. They're more excited about this interview than any other interview. I think we've ever done on Squawk. Hey, first Andrew, thanks for having us on the show and what a great day for the Roblox community as well. We know a lot are watching us and we're just so grateful to be here and we appreciate it.

[Vanessa]

But then there was a report on, you know, Hindenburg. These short sellers put out a report about Roblox where they call it an X rated pedophile hellscape.

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah, I mean I think both of those things are true. I mean, I mean, yeah, he is, I think that he is particularly kindly and sort of harmless seeming in comparison to his peers. You know, he is not a Bezos, he is not a Zuckerberg, he's certainly not a Musk. He, as far as I could tell, he's made a hell of a lot of money from Roblox, but he's really into medical research. He's given a lot of money to the study of neurological conditions. But, but you know, he also doesn't have like political aspirations. He doesn't go to the Met Ball. He doesn't crave the public eye. And when you see him in interviews, yeah, I mean just his demeanor is not like immediately reptilian and startling the way that a lot of other CEOs in tech might be.

[Vanessa]

But let's go back to that hellscape, the pedophile hellscape, quote, exposing children to grooming pornography, violent content and extremely abusive sex speech. Because the fact is it's not all just your friends on Roblox. It's anyone and everyone and people pretending to be different people and people who love talking to kids and trying to meet up with them later on. At a 7:11 this morning, Florida's Attorney.

[Sam Biddle]

General is issuing criminal subpoenas against Roblox, citing alleged abuse of children by online predators. Companies like Roblox have become breeding grounds for predators to get to and have access to our kids. You're confident that the tech technology has gotten good enough that you can use it to do moderation at a platform of Roblox's scale. The scale we're at is, is absolutely mind boggling. You don't think you have a problem with predators on the platform? I think we're doing an incredible job at innovating relative to the number of people on our platform and the hours in really leaning into the future of how this is going to work.

[Vanessa]

What do you think about the real dangers that are there? Do you think some of that is like media clickbait?

[Sam Biddle]

If you've created this virtual world where all the kids are. Of course, that's going to be where someone who wants to harm or prey upon children is going to go. I don't think there shouldn't be places for children to congregate. That wouldn't be an argument against having playgrounds. But it is a largely unsupervised place for children to congregate. It's a place where you can get away from your parents. Right. And no matter how good of a parent you are, if they're on Roadblocks, you're not also on Roblox. Right. Unless you're standing over their shoulder nonstop, which no one wants.

[Vanessa]

Totally. Yeah. No, it's like a neural ray. I mean, ultimately, do you feel that it's so scary that it should be shut down? I mean, in one notorious case, a New Jersey man was sentenced to 15 years in prison after Ubering a 15 year old girl he met on Roblox to his home where he repeatedly sexually abused her.

[Sam Biddle]

And these are, and just to say, like these are the cases that have been prosecuted. Right. That is one well known, well documented example. There are surely more. I think that the company wants to have it both ways. I don't, I think that they want, they don't want to have the responsibility for having this virtual mega community for children and also be on the hook for policing it. I mean, whenever I asked the company about this, in the course of writing this story, they said over and over again, you know, we believe really strongly in empowering parents to make responsible decisions. You know, it's the same, it's the same old thing, Right? Like they create the problem now it's your job to clean it up. Yeah, but as I also get into the piece, I think that there is also a great danger presented by the really rabid commercialization of children's spaces. That's obviously less provocative than children being molested. I mean, that's horrific. But I think far more common is children being preyed upon by marketers and advertisers in a obviously very, very, very different way. But I think that brands and pedophiles are both drawn to Roblox for the same reason, which is it's an easy place to get kids just to find kids. That's where they are, that's where you meet them at.

[Vanessa]

But do the kids even know they're being advertised to?

[Sam Biddle]

I mean, I spoke to people for this article who started playing Roblox when they were maybe just at the age where they could start to read. Right. Like truly the most developing of developing Brains. We don't know what it will do to a young mind if you grow up exposed to this kind of stuff for hours and hours and hours every day. How that shapes your view, your conception of social relations, how it shapes your conception of relationship to corporations. You know, what is considered normal after you've been immersed in this world. I mean, I spoke to a sort of child development expert and she regularly runs focus groups with Roblox playing children. And she said that she was really struck by the fact that she would ask kids, you know, some younger than your nine year old Vanessa, who they would say, well, do you ever see ads and Roblox? And they'd say no. And then the next breath they would talk about how much they love being able to save up and buy like a virtual Gucci hat. And it just, they just do not process that that is an advertisement because the advertising has been integrated into the quote unquote game so seamlessly that the game is the advertisement. The advertisement is the game. They no longer see marketing as like this separate attempt to persuade. It just is the whole world.

[Vanessa]

Yeah, right.

[Natalie]

As you've been talking and even in reading your story, I was thinking about what, you know, the things that were concerns when I was younger, right. Which was like, okay, chat rooms, that's where pedophiles are gonna go. And then I was also thinking about the, the games that were often very immersive and also teaching you to be a young capitalist like SimCity or rollercoaster tycoon that I played when I was younger, which was Roller Coaster Tycoon. You were literally trying to build the best theme park, if I remember it correctly.

[Sam Biddle]

You got it right.

[Natalie]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So what's the difference there? And the difference in those games is that there isn't any real money involved. You know, it's all fake. Even in the Sims, there's no in app purchases as far as I can recall in Roller Coaster Tycoon. Right. But the difference here is that it is real money. It's Robux.

[Sam Biddle]

Robux is a huge part of this. Yes. Based on the games you just mentioned, I think we're probably around the same age. I grew up playing those same games. And as you'll recall, especially around games like Doom and Grand Theft Auto, there was a huge moral panic over this belief that playing these games would turn kids into killers, which is just has been debunked a million times over. I do not think that that is the risk presented by Roblox that it's going to like brainwash Kids or harm them that overtly. I think that you really nailed it. Those things were so obviously like fantasy and make believe. Whereas Roblox really wants to encroach upon the real world. Like it wants to be the place where your actual friendships play out. When you weren't playing the Sims, you were probably hanging out with your friends in person, right? Maybe you guys play the Sims together, but, like, there was. The Sims was a thing that was separate from life Roblox. And this is something that actually that Dave Zucki has said in some of his corporations keynote addresses. They want Roblox to be a platform for just life itself. A place where eventually we'll do job interviews where you can do dating. A really great idea for a platform filled with children. I mean, they haven't introduced this yet, but he has talked, you know, speculated that it will be a place that will host online dating. You know, a place where you can have meetings for your job. I worry it is rewiring young minds to look at social relations in a fundamentally different way. When I was a little kid, I would watch Ninja Turtles all the time. And my mother always, still to this day, jokes about how during the commercial breaks, my best friend and I, when we would watch it together, toy commercials would come on and we both immediately start going like, oh, I want that. I want that. And. But at least the commercial breaks were separate from the program.

[Natalie]

A really helpful framing for this for people like me who don't have kids who are playing this game. And also, I just feel like a boomer talking about this, if I'm completely honest, is you compare it in your story to the mall or like what the mall was when perhaps me and other people my own, your age were growing up, which was that it was this place for socialization that you went to away from your parents and you hung out. I just talked about Mean Girls on another podcast with somebody I like, rewatched it. And the mall is shown. There is this, like, watering hole, right? And where all the animals come to socialize. And that's exactly what it was, at least when I was a kid. Maybe you saw who was dating who. Like you, if you had a few precious hours away from your parents and. And you make the comparison that Roblox is sort of is that. But you seem to be saying that it's more concerning because of course there are stores in the mall, but you weren't friends with a brand ambassador.

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[Vanessa]

Roblox in the mail Arriving time Wednesday. It's coming Wednesday.

[Sam Biddle]

Can I see this?

[Vanessa]

Are we sure this isn't a fake email?

[Natalie]

Let me delete all of them since.

[Vanessa]

I need to make room for everything.

[Sam Biddle]

Wait, wait.

[Vanessa]

No, no, no. Do not delete my email. Do not delete my email. This is my ebay stuff. There's definitely some very high emotions that go on, I have to say. Like the in Roblox, I mean, I often hear my son going, he's so excited by the game. He's like, actually. And what is Tung Tung Sahar?

[Sam Biddle]

I have no idea.

[Vanessa]

Okay, what is this?

[Sam Biddle]

Absolutely no idea.

[Vanessa]

It's a brain rot. It is a brain rot. So why don't you tell us what a brain rot is as well?

[Sam Biddle]

I mean this, this is so.

[Natalie]

Hello fellow kids. We're really trying our best here.

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is. Being asked to define a brain rot on on camera is like an anxiety nightmare for me. It is in popular the idea of like AI slop. Just like low effort content illustration.

[Vanessa]

Yeah, it's like, it's a little like animated illustration that moves around the game.

[Sam Biddle]

And the brain rots again. I can't believe that's a noun that I'm using.

[Vanessa]

But like the brain rots by the way, I'm not sure that I'm just thinking he's a brain rot, but I know there is a thing that's called a brain rot.

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah. Well, so I think we're talking about the same thing because there was a. God, this sounds crazier. The more I think about it, there was a sub, sub genre of brain rots that were Italian brain rots. There was this really famous AI generated video called Ballerina Cappuccino. There was just like this guy in Italy who was cranking out these very low effort, like I think deliberately low effort AI generated videos. And there's Ballerina Cappuccino. It was like an anthropomorphized cup of coffee. And then she had all these friends and I think maybe what you're talking about is one of the other Italian brain rots.

[Vanessa]

Yes, this is what it is. I'm researching it and it says it is a inside joke. Freeze. That means something bad is chaotic is about to happen. It's popular. So it like pops up in these high stimulus brain rot games. And it's like a shock thing.

[Sam Biddle]

I feel like I'm about 10,000 years old right now.

[Natalie]

Yeah, yeah. I'm on Know youw Meme which trying to read about this.

[Vanessa]

Which so. But basically a brain rot is a thing and then what? Basically there's this game where kids try to steal them from each other.

[Sam Biddle]

Steal a brain rot adults as well. Yep. It's called Steal a Brain Rot and I played it couple times. It is literally just large conveyor belts in a virtual world with different brain rot characters going through them. And you can buy them for virtual currency. And we should get into that as a whole separate topic. But then you can also, and this is sort of the fun, I guess, steal brain rots from other players.

[Natalie]

So it's like Capture the Flag but in an Amazon warehouse.

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah. So once you purchase Robux, which is this fake virtual currency, if you want accessories, like cosmetic accessories to dress up your character or you want to buy Power Ups and steal Brain Rot so you can better steal brain rods from your friends. That all comes from Robux. And there is no set conversion rate. It is essentially, I think a way of obscuring how much things cost in this world. Because like I said, if you want to buy something, the price is in Robux and it's extreme. I spent so much time and got the poor fact checker. New York magazine was, was excellent. We spent so much time trying to nail down what is a roebuck worth. And there isn't really an answer to that.

[Vanessa]

Oh my God.

[Sam Biddle]

It shit. Because it shifts constantly.

[Natalie]

Okay. So there's a lot of fluctuation.

[Sam Biddle]

It fluctuates. It fluctuates. And it also like it changes depending on how many you buy at a time. Which incentivizes you to buying more Robux. The more Robux you buy at one time, the cheaper they are. Which is another tried and true tactic to get people to spend more. The conversion rate is favorable the more you spend, but also it's, it depends on where you buy them. So if you buy them on the website, it's a different price versus if you buy it in the, say, iPhone app.

[Natalie]

This is really interesting. This is like teaching kids well, I guess it's not teaching anything, but it's like the stock market in a lot of ways, but with currency trading. But just I don't think kids are understanding that that's what it is. But it's like even if the rate fluctuates, kids are spending real money on robots.

[Sam Biddle]

Absolutely right. Absolutely right.

[Natalie]

And you had this example of in a 2023 Reddit thread, one parent asked Roblox users for help after claiming their 11 year old spent $6,000 in roughly two weeks.

[Sam Biddle]

Many such cases. Yeah, I think it is very easy for this to go out of control. I, I can imagine that there are par intentioned educated on the ball parents who will connect their bank account to Roblox thinking it's maybe just a one time thing. Next thing you know, something like that has happened. This is by design, I think it's fair to say the platform is incentivized to make kids feel inadequate. And you know, I spoke to kids who play the game and their parents who said that like, yeah, there is a major have and have not divide at school between kids whose parents give them money for Robux and kids who have to just use the free items, right. And like it is literally like on the screen obvious who has money and who doesn't. If you're lucky enough to have your parents load money into, into your account, you can buy, you know, a virtual Adidas bucket hat or like name brand shoes. And then the kids who don't have the money on their account are stuck with the sort of generic default. I mean, it's like the Sims, right? Like, yeah, it was very fun to dress up your Sims. Now imagine if, you know, 90% of the stuff that came to the Sims required a credit card to unlock.

[Vanessa]

But the other thing about it is that it is a little bit like gambling, right? Where like sometimes you get, you know, reward, sometimes you don't get a reward. I mean there's certain things you can buy, but it's also that the dopamine hits are coming at random moments in the world. We know all of the Internet works on Our brains. I get ads now on Instagram asking me if I want to join a lawsuit to sue Roblox for addicting children. And I often wonder if I should join the lawsuit.

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah, there's a reason why we don't let kids in casinos, right? Roblox is emphatic that what they're enabling is not gambling because you cannot spend Robux and make more Robux. I don't find that very convincing. Whether you call it gambling or not, they are absolutely games of chance where you wager real money. Well, you wager real money that's been laundered into Robux and you might get a really, really, really cool item, a really, really rare brain rot, but odds are you're not going to get that. And there's a flashing roulette wheel and all these special effects and sound effects and clicking sounds and bells and whatever. And we just know it is human nature that you think, okay, one more spin, one more spin of the roulette wheel. Five more Robux. Right. You know, in a lot of countries this is not legal. If you live in, I think it's certain EU countries, you literally cannot use certain functions of Roblox because they have been banned at the national level. Because some countries have recognized that it's probably not a good practice to let children spin paid roulette wheels in exchange for prizes.

[Natalie]

But I mean, Roblox isn't the only game where kids are incentivized to buy things and that they can see the have and have nots. Like.

[Sam Biddle]

Right.

[Natalie]

Like Fortnite, you can buy skins.

[Sam Biddle]

I think it's more, I think it's, it's being done to a degree inside Roblox that I have not seen, that I personally haven't seen in other games. I would guess that the user base of Fortnite skews maybe young, but there are also plenty of adults who are playing Fortnite. It is not to the extent that Roblox is a world for children, but also I think that Roblox as a company provides so many tools for game developers to create these very dazzling, whether it's a roulette wheel or some other kind of visualization, they have gone so far out of their way to allow developers to create opportunities for quasi gambling, whatever you want to call it. I just find that Roblox is on the bleeding edge of pioneering and perfecting these techniques to, you know, to manipulate children.

[Vanessa]

So what about the idea that this was all created by kids also? Not all of it, but third party developers made this and some of those third party developers were children. They were under 18. They created the worlds. Is that exploitative child labor? There was some talk about that and then that got dropped out of the media story.

[Sam Biddle]

If, if you want to get a Roblox PR very freaked out, mention the words child labor. This is an extremely sensitive spot for them. So yeah, I mean a lot of the virtual items and the games themselves are created by children for an audience largely consisting of children. And I believe if you are 13 years or older, you can create stuff on Roblox other people can buy and you can earn real money. What's fascinating about that is that you are paid in Robux, not in dollars. And then when you want to, you know, let's eventually earn real money, you have to then convert the money back into US dollars at a worse exchange rate than buying the Robux in the first place. So you buy Robux at a far more favorable exchange rate than swapping them back for money you can actually spend at the bank. I think it'd be very hard for them to deny that they are profiting on the work of children. I mean they are just in the most literal sense, right? Children are working, they are making money off of it. There's a terrific video sort of criticism of this child labor dynamic that I would really encourage people to watch. It's by a YouTuber named, I believe People Make Games. If you search People Make Games, Roblox Child labor, it'll come up. And he says if this were happening in the real world it would be illegal. No one would ever tolerate this kind of working arrangement in the real world. But because it's happening on a virtual platform, it's kind of obscured the dynamics here between Dave bouzucki and a 14 year old making virtual shoes. There are enough layers between those two people that we have decided to tolerate this for whatever reason.

[Vanessa]

It's totally fascinating. So what's up with the stock? I mean I'm looking at this graph now. It's like up and down and sort of wildly careening. So what is going on?

[Sam Biddle]

You know, they have their, their, their share price has been rocked quite a bit by scandals and lawsuits. I mean they are a magnet for bad press. I think in particular because of the, I mean this will probably not surprise anyone. The pedophilia worries I think had proven far more harmful to their, their share price and their bottom line than sort of the hyper commercialization advertising stuff. Whenever there has been a new report or high profile legal case or a lawsuit and you know the words Roblox and Pedophile are in the same headline. Yes, that has knocked them a little bit, but I mean, not that much. So.

[Vanessa]

So what's the future? Like, what. What does the future hold for Roblox? Like, are they gonna be real lawsuits that are gonna take them down? Would you invest personally? I mean, you're a reporter. You're not gonna invest personally. Company.

[Sam Biddle]

But I mean, I think that depends on whether you think that this country has the political will and interest to legislate for child safety, which by and large, it does not. I think that tech companies tend to have the both cash reserves and the tenacity to withstand lawsuits, even really bad lawsuits. I think that that's the kind of thing that could harm them short term. But in the long term, they are growing and growing and growing, and their ambitions are growing and growing and growing. They're also sitting on a giant ocean of extremely sensitive granular data about kids, which is of immense value to advertisers. And they haven't really. I think they've only just sort of started to tap that. So, you know, if I am deeply cynical and mercenary, I probably say, yeah, like this. This company is a pretty bright future.

[Natalie]

Yeah. And I mean, I think part of roblox's defense as, as far as I understand it, is sort of saying like, no, these. These kids are learning how to code by doing this. Like, this is. This is good. But I mean, I personally feel like I don't want kids to do that. Like, that's like going back to having chimney sweeps or something.

[Sam Biddle]

You know, it's really funny. I mean, try to imagine a company that was soliciting the labor of children and then paying them in company script. That would never be. Not in this century would that ever be. Or the last one, really, would that be looked upon favorably?

[Vanessa]

I would just like to say that while we were on this call, my son sent me a request for $1 in Apple Cash. And I'm pretty sure that is to play some Roblox, you know, at least it's only $1.

[Sam Biddle]

Yeah, there you go.

[Natalie]

Oh, boy. Well, Sam, thank you so much for coming on and explaining Roblox to us.

[Sam Biddle]

My absolute pleasure. Well, I can't say my pleasure, but it was great being here. And yeah, I don't think people should panic about this game. But, Vanessa, it seems like you have gone out of your way to, like, actually, like, learn what the hell is going on in this virtual world. And I think I would encourage anyone who has a Roblox player in the household to do the same. Just, like, watch a little bit and ask questions and discuss this stuff, because I think the company is largely counting on that not happening.

[Vanessa]

Thanks so much, Sam. We appreciate you being on.

[Sam Biddle]

Thank you so much. Great to be here.

[Natalie]

That's it for Infamous. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review and tell your friends. If you want to follow me on Instagram, you can find me at Natrobe. That's N A T R O B E. And if you want to support Vanessa's work, you can buy her book, Blurred Lines. Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus. See you next week.