PsyOp & Share & Tell with Mina Kimes, Dan, Pablo, and Elmo

Summary

Podcast Summary: "PsyOp & Share & Tell with Mina Kimes, Dan, Pablo, and Elmo"

Pablo Torre Finds Out – February 2, 2024

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Overview

In this lively episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, Pablo hosts Mina Kimes and Dan Le Batard (along with memorable visits from Elmo and Cookie Monster impression attempts) to explore the bizarre convergence of sports, politics, and pop culture. The trio discusses recent right-wing conspiracies around the NFL and Taylor Swift, why these phenomena have become monocultural flashpoints, the generational impact of social media addiction, strategies for productivity in a distracted world, and more. The episode combines sharp analysis, personal anecdotes, humor, and pointed social commentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sports as a "PsyOp": The Politics of Football, Taylor Swift, and Culture Wars

Notable Segment: [02:33–22:00]

• Opening Satire and the Elmo Revolution

  • The show opens with lighthearted Sesame Street (Elmo, Cookie Monster, Yoda/Grover) impressions, setting a playful yet critical tone ([00:06–02:11]).
  • Notable quote:
    • Mina (as Cookie Monster, parodying “When Harry Met Sally”):

      "I'll have what she's having." ([02:11])

• Right-Wing Attacks on Sports and Taylor Swift

  • Pablo, Mina, and Dan dissect a viral right-wing news clip framing organized sports as a deep-state "psyop" ([03:03–04:01]).
  • Pablo:

    "The right wing has decided to attack just sports as a concept, which to me is just the worst political strategy for that group of all time." ([04:04])

  • Mina notes that sports and Taylor Swift are among the last remaining “monoculture” phenomena—ubiquitous and widely appealing, thus irresistible targets for culture warriors ([05:49–06:53]).
  • Mina:

    "Sports and Taylor Swift are the closest things we have in modern society to monoculture." ([05:49])

  • Discussion of how conspiracy theories latch onto these big targets—for no strategic reason but because it's where attention is ([06:53–08:22]).

• NFL, Masculinity, and Shifting Political Tides

  • The hosts recall how the Republican right was once the party of "jocks", now bizarrely hostile to sports and their cultural icons ([07:28–08:22]).
  • Pablo:

    "It feels like what they've done is they've bullied Goliath into being a David. (...) The NFL and Taylor Swift are like this weird underdog against this political movement." ([07:28])

  • Dan highlights the echo chamber effect—what’s “funny or dumb” in one bubble is deadly serious in another ([08:22–09:07]).

• The Attention Economy and Riding Pop Culture Waves

  • There's consensus that much of the political outrage is manufactured for virality and engagement, exploiting moments where the “algorithmic wave” is strongest ([09:07–10:38]).
  • Mina shares:

    "If I talk about these four topics that everybody is talking about right now, it doesn't matter what kind of boneheaded, insane conspiracy theory I graft onto it. I will go viral." ([09:52])

2. Misogyny, Gatekeeping, and the Taylor Swift Backlash

Notable Segment: [14:16–18:33]

• Dan opines that the backlash against Swift is not just about football, but also about misogyny, feminine influence, and discomfort with perceived invasions of “masculine spaces.”

  • Dan:

    "I do feel and see the undercurrent of a party that seems to be anti-woman in a lot of very obvious ways, going after a woman who has powerful young women in her influence and can actually be someone who uses that power in a way that is threatening." ([12:50])

• Mina differentiates between the types of backlash she’s experienced as a woman in football analysis versus what Swift represents, suggesting it's now about gatekeeping fan spaces and resenting 'newcomers’ diluting the product ([17:20–18:33]).

  • Mina:

    "I don't think most men who watch football games are, like, really upset by the fact that they're showing Taylor Swift for two seconds. I think they're upset with the idea of what it signifies. Oh, other people are now being allowed in here..." ([17:55])

3. Fandom, Identity, and Earning Your Place

Notable Segment: [20:33–22:00]

• The group jokes about “fandom being earned” and the resentment hardcore fans can feel when so-called “bandwagon” fans suddenly join, especially in moments of cultural overlap like Swifties at the Super Bowl.
  • Dan:

    "I actually understand Jets fans looking over at the Swifties and being like, really? You just got here… you get to play in the Super Bowl six minutes after you got here." ([20:32])

4. Time Management, Procrastination, and the Nature of Creativity

Notable Segment: [22:00–34:16]

• Mina Brags About Her Time Management

  • Mina introduces a New Yorker article by Cal Newport on productivity, segueing into her own self-professed expertise ([23:04–23:34]).
  • Mina (nerdy humblebrag):

    "I am amazing at time management and productivity. I have always been amazing at time management…” ([23:13])

  • Both Dan and Pablo discuss the downsides of hyper-discipline—especially missing out on spontaneity and creative breakthroughs ([25:32–29:48]).

• The Creative Process and Deadlines

  • Mina and Dan reflect on how deadline pressure and structure can sometimes stifle creativity, while Pablo confesses to process quirks like compulsive paragraph formatting ([32:16–33:00]).
  • Pablo:

    "The only way I could really feel comfortable moving on to the next paragraph was for the previous paragraph to feel like a rectangle." ([32:39])

• Managing Differences in Relationships

  • Both Mina and Pablo discuss being in relationships with someone with an opposite approach to time and organization, sharing advice on communication and setting realistic expectations ([33:56–35:20]).

5. Social Media Addiction, Mental Health & the Elmo Twitter "Meltdown"

Notable Segment: [35:49–46:49]

• The Viral Elmo Tweet and Global Sadness

  • Prompted by a New York Times article, Dan laments how a simple Elmo tweet ("How's everyone doing?") led to an avalanche of online sadness, citing it as evidence of widespread social media-driven unhappiness ([35:49–40:03]).
  • Dan:

    "If we were all wandering around addicted to heroin, we would understand that there was a health consequence to this." ([38:01])

• Social Media’s Ubiquity and Dangers

  • Mina confesses to auto-piloting back onto Twitter, reinforcing how involuntary addiction can be ([37:43]).
  • The hosts explore generational effects: how platforms are intuitive for children, yet uniquely corrosive for all age groups ([42:03–44:17]).
  • Pablo:

    "Human beings, despite that ease, were not meant neurologically to consume information like this." ([42:03])

  • Dan:

    "I am consistently with a feeling of a film of anxiety on me that's not normally there because... Click. Are you doing it again, Mina?" ([38:59])

  • Mina shares her coping strategy of muting internet hate after a bad experience, increasing her own happiness by 25% ([44:17]).

6. Comedy, Catharsis, and the Elmo Revolution

Notable Segment: [46:49–48:10]

• The crew closes with an extended, absurdist riff as Elmo and Cookie Monster, joking about overthrowing capitalism in response to social malaise.
  • Dan as Elmo:

    "Elmo wants to know why everyone is so angry. Elmo has been pondering the secret sadness hiding inside everyone living in modern society." ([46:49])

  • Mina (as Cookie Monster):

    "It makes Elmo regret capitalism… Who will join Elmo in the revolution?" ([47:17])

  • Pablo:

    "Because Elmo is tired of this!" ([47:30])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Mina Kimes (on monoculture):

  "Sports and Taylor Swift are the closest things we have in modern society to monoculture." ([05:49])

• Dan Le Batard (on misogyny & backlash):

  "A party that seems to be anti-woman in a lot of very obvious ways, going after a woman who has powerful young women in her influence and can actually be someone who uses that power in a way that is threatening." ([12:50])

• Mina Kimes (on productivity pride):

  "I am amazing at time management and productivity. I have always been amazing at time management..." ([23:13])

• Pablo Torre (on information overload):

  "Human beings… were not meant neurologically to consume information like this." ([42:03])

• Dan Le Batard (on social media):

  "If we were all wandering around addicted to heroin, we would understand that there was a health consequence to this." ([38:01])

• Mina (as Cookie Monster):

  "It makes Elmo regret capitalism… Who will join Elmo in the revolution?" ([47:17])

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Episode Highlights & Timestamps

• Elmo & Cookie Monster Impression Cold Open – [00:06–02:11]
• Right-wing NFL Conspiracies / Taylor Swift Discourse – [03:03–10:38]
• Echo Chambers and Viral Outrage – [08:22–10:38]
• Fandom & Cultural Gatekeeping – [20:33–22:00]
• Time Management & Creativity Discussion – [22:00–34:16]
• Social Media, Productivity, and Mental Health – [35:49–46:49]
• Elmo Leads the Revolution – [46:49–48:10]
• What Did We Learn? (Personal Reflections) – [48:10–49:42]

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Tone & Style

The episode is a high-energy, highly self-aware blend of cultural criticism, comedy, and personal narrative—reflecting the hosts’ chemistry and signature mix of wit, pop-culture fluency, and journalistic curiosity. Humor, especially via muppet impressions, acts as both icebreaker and method of throwing social critique into relief.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

This wide-ranging episode offers a snapshot of how American sports, pop culture, and politics are colliding, leading to odd conspiracies and newly drawn social battle lines. At the same time, it zooms in on how these macro phenomena affect individual wellbeing and relationships. The hosts dissect everything from the supposed NFL “psyop” to the gender politics of fandom, confess to their quirks as creatives trying to function in a digital-obsessed world, and close with a cathartic, silly call for a muppet-led revolution. Throughout, the episode is incisive, funny, and unconventionally honest—a must-listen for anyone curious about why sports fandom feels so fraught, why social media feels so dispiriting, and what it means to be (almost) truly productive.

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Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[Mina Kimes]

Who will join Elmo in the revolution?

[Pablo Torre]

Because Elmo is tired of this. Right after this ad.

[Mina Kimes]

You'Re listening to Giraffe Kings. So we were talking about Elmo, which is going to be a topic today, and the Elmo voice. And I said I could do an Oscar voice, and then I remembered it's actually Cookie Monster is the voice that I think I can do. I'm not saying I'm the best at it, or I'm Jeff Passon Elmo, or I guess Chris Cody, who's kind of like Kirkland Brand Jeff Pass in here, but I'm. I can try.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Let's hear it. Even though you don't know the difference between Oscar and Cookie Monster, let's hear what you've got. Don't put any pressure on it. Let it go. Let it fly.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, Lord.

[Mina Kimes]

Oh, no. What was.

[Pablo Torre]

What was that?

[Mina Kimes]

Okay, Brock. Brock Purdy isn't a game manager.

[Pablo Torre]

He's a game changer. That is good. That is me. That is bootleg Yoda.

[Dan Orlovsky]

That's Grover. It did something. It's something between Yoda and Grover giving football analysis for some reason.

[Mina Kimes]

Oh, Big Dad Nepethard thinks he's so much better than me on voices. Let's hear your voice.

[Dan Orlovsky]

No. No. Because the only impersonation I do, the only one, is one of the characters in Harry Met Sally talking about how they fell in love. And I don't think it's. It holds up. It's something that would have been funny in 2002 and would not be funny anymore.

[Pablo Torre]

I thought it was gonna be a different scene from When Harry Met Sally. I thought we were about to get Dan LeBatard's screaming female orgasm.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Yes, that's exactly what I was saying.

[Mina Kimes]

I could do Cookie Monster recreating the scene in winning Men's Alley.

[Pablo Torre]

I'll have what she's having.

[Mina Kimes]

I'll have what she's having.

[Pablo Torre]

All right, so I wanted to start the show with a little bit of sports, and I mean that very sincerely, because the Taylor Swift thing with the Super bowl, we'll get into that to some extent, is one part of the whole, like, right wing war on. On America's biggest event. But it's now gone beyond that, beyond Taylor Swift, into just football itself. And I want you to listen to this as our first sound of the show today.

[Mina Kimes]

I mean, let's be real here. This is bread and circuses on steroids. Major league sports in and of itself is nothing but a psyop. Get kids plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps, playing sports for their school, and going to games. Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in various sports, only to be cut from the team. At which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams because they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will probably never happen. So then they become obsessed with some grown man who gets paid millions of dollars every year to throw a ball around while promoting poison death shots and child slave labor through various brand deals and endorsements. So sad. Let's see who ends up winning the super bowl. And if there's a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped up couple this fall, only time will tell. But don't forget who warned you and predicted it before it happens.

[Pablo Torre]

So that is one American news network. And if I showed that to you in like 2015 and I blocked out the lower third, I think a lot of people would guess that that came from msnbc. The idea of sports being this sports ball. But suddenly, like, we've gotten to this point, Mina, we've gotten to this point where the right wing, the movement has decided to attack just sports as a concept, which to me is just the worst political strategy for that group of all time.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, there's a few things while that woman was talking that made me react in the help I'm hit fashion because she was kind of nailing me. But I think you're right. It reminds me a little bit of I saw. I can't remember which network it was. Somebody was criticizing Taylor Swift for flying private and it was pointed out that. Wait, so now you're actually. This is a pro climate change argument. Right. And I think that's similar to what you're describing, which is you go so far right that suddenly you're flanking from the left is how I would describe that clip we just watched. It's what I find fascinating about this is sports. And this is actually kind of a continuation on something I think we've talked about. Us three. Sports and Taylor Swift are the closest things we have in modern society to monoculture. Like there's nothing else. There's so few things now. And this is actually another thing we're going to talk about. It gets out there are so few things that are almost just. I wouldn't even say universally liked. They're just a universal thing that products that everybody consumes.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, they're enormous. They're the biggest tent that everyone still walks into despite liking many other things. Otherwise, Marvel.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Marvel movies are somewhere in there, right?

[Pablo Torre]

A distant third though. A distant third these days, I would say.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah. My husband is a music producer. You guys know this. And I remember asking him a couple years ago, do you like Taylor Swift? Like, do you appreciate her work? And he looked at me and he was like, it's like an iPhone. I don't know, it's just like every, you know, I don't dislike it. He wasn't pro or con. His point was just that it is everywhere. It is ubiquitous, it is appealing to everyone or most people, it seems. And that's what I find so fascinating about this and what Pablo said. The fact that all these conspiracy theories and hate and politics are being projected onto two things that are so wildly unobjectionable or wildly. Just normal, generic to generic, extreme. Yeah, that's. It's fascinating. I don't think it's strategic. I think it's just like throwing darts and they happen to land on the biggest possible bullseye.

[Dan Orlovsky]

But before, before the last few months of this, wouldn't you. The single most objectionable thing about Taylor Swift was just that, that she's everywhere. That that was the greatest trigger on anyone not liking her, that she's had too much success, she's got too much of everything. And then someone goes to her show and there are people outside the arena singing her song because they cannot get in. And then they see the show, the people who are there, and they're like, well, that's kind of amazing. But what was objectionable? She's like something out of Disney. But now Disney's also objectionable.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, it feels like what they've done is they've bullied Goliath into being a David. And so the NFL and Taylor Swift are like this weird underdog against this political movement. A political movement that I'll remind you, used to be sports personified. Like the reason why this is so funny to me is that like the Republican Party, the right wing, once upon a time, Gerald Ford, right, Like playing football. I think of all of these guys, these jocks, it was the party of jocks. It's the party of all these politicians who in the caricature from the left were like the, you know, the numb skulled football brained idiots. And now what we've done is come all the way around. It's just, it speaks to just the. I think I agree with Mita. It's just like a non strategic decision, but it also just feels like an incoherent one. Well, you say this a weird one.

[Dan Orlovsky]

But you say this. Pablo and Mina help me with something of this, because I keep saying, no matter how some of these arguments continue to stupefy me, the way that they go, I keep saying, in this echo chamber, some version of this is funny to me or this is dumb, but in the other echo chamber, it is not. And I'm confused by how it is. Even as it becomes more and more difficult to have moral consistencies along all of these lines, before you find conflict, I am confused that the other side would listen to what we're saying and just simply argue, no, you're funny and you're dumb. The way that you're doing this.

[Mina Kimes]

I think there's. I. This is not strategic. Look, the AFC championship game just broke records. People are still watching football. This is not a calculated, let's take the side opposite football because it's not popular. Football is as popular as ever. I think, however, what. What is happening is if there's any strategy, it's less about a coherent political stance or an argument, but the strategy is to see, oh, here's our. Here are the two of the remaining things in culture that move the needle. Let's ride that wave. Because right now, there are so few things that everybody talks about, and some of that is due to the fragmentation of culture as we kind of talking about. Some of it is if I hop on social media, I am directed to Travis Kelce content, Taylor Swift content, and football content. So naturally, people who are in the business of getting eyeballs, that matters to them more than electing a candidate. The people who we're talking about who are making this argument, they want to get eyeballs, they want to get attention, they want to ride that algorithmic wave they. They are seeing. And this is the strategy aspect of it. Oh, if I talk about these four topics that everybody is talking about right now, it doesn't matter what kind of boneheaded, insane conspiracy theory I graft onto it. I will go viral. I will get attention, I will join this movement. And I think that is what is motivating this more than anything.

[Pablo Torre]

Pablo. Yeah, look, I want to, you know, a tip of the cap to Dan for pointing out that somewhere there's a different echo chamber, and we should be acknowledging the ways in which we are talking to each other, and we generally agree fundamentally on, like, the bottom line principles of this thing. But what we're trying to do also, as Mina just did, is sort of discern, like, what's really happening here and why. And you're Right. It is about engagement in any form. And it also means that this party, which used to embrace sports, remember like Colin Kaepernick, used to be a campaign issue because he wasn't sticking enough to the thing that now the right wing is saying should not be stuck to as a general thing people should like. And so the people who are invading, who are like in this tug of war maybe for like the soul of the right wing movement, include this guy. Travis Kelce is this guy who also.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Kind of out of the blue became this big time celebrity, really rich, really powerful.

[Pablo Torre]

Why? He's a tight end. He's like a glorified lineman.

[Mina Kimes]

That doesn't make any sense.

[Pablo Torre]

Tight ends aren't famous people in football. What are you talking about?

[Dan Orlovsky]

What world are we living in? Sure seems planned.

[Pablo Torre]

Sure seems like something that is like.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Concocted in order to.

[Pablo Torre]

Accelerate the fame of these two people, get them to the super bowl largest screens on earth. Do you know how little you need to know about sports and talking to a microphone for me to feel like a jock in comparison to you? Like that's Benny Johnson, one of these influencers that is now very popular, Dan. And that dude doesn't know about sports in any way. And that's the party that, that, you know, the former grift that again campaigned on keep sports pure. These guys just don't even like it, even vaguely.

[Dan Orlovsky]

You say this, but I'm assuming that the two people we have shown have followings that probably aren't enormous here to do anything other than then end up in the comments and do the trolling that so many people enjoy doing. Because there are a lot of lonely people out there addicted to their devices who enjoy having a voice in these forums that perhaps they do not have in other places. And I want to again press you guys on because I did some of this on our show this week and I am genuinely confused by it. I thought Taylor Swift was just benign. I don't think her telling people to vote is anything controversial. I do feel and see the undercurrent of a party that seems to be anti woman in a lot of very obvious ways. Going after a woman who has powerful young women in her influence and can actually be someone who uses that power in a way that is threatening. Because where we are right now is anyone who has power right now in these calls for equality that I keep saying sound like threats becomes a threat to the people who are armed and are used to having that power. So anybody in those instances can become Taylor Swift if they simply ride against you politically, it doesn't even matter who they are. They are simply a vessel for trolls to attack because it's on the other side of something. And no matter who's talking about this, they all have their armies, and no one's coming to the other side. No one's being persuaded. No one's changing their minds. There aren't even fence sitters anymore.

[Mina Kimes]

I think there are a lot of fence sitters. They're just not online. But I also think, Dan, you hit on something that we should acknowledge, because Pablo and I were talking about sort of the. The creator side of it. Like, why are these people making this argument? And we're both very cynical. We're talking about how they're just trying to surf pop culture waves and get eyeballs. And I think that's ch. However, you have hit on something in your points about misogyny and why Taylor Swift in particular, that I do think we also, Pablo and I, we have to acknowledge. Well, why does the argument work? Like, why is it. It works in part because of the fame and you're riding this wave, but it also works because of. There are undercurrents of misogyny and gatekeeping and this feeling of having masculine spaces invaded that I think do underlie a lot of the bad feelings. And there are people who have bad feelings about seeing Taylor Swift for 0.5 seconds on their TV screens. I don't think it's a straw. Like, I. It's so funny. This thing is so monolithic now that Colin Cowherd has become, like, the feminist icon.

[Pablo Torre]

So this is my. I don't mean to. To interrupt you. Like, so many of these people would like to force Taylor Swift to stop talking, but that's exactly it. No, like the. The Colin Coward, okay, has become this icon to Swifties because he actually is seeing the marketplace clearly. There's a lot of really weird, lonely, insecure men out there. The fact that a pop star, the world's biggest pop star, is dating a star tight end who had one of his greatest games ever, and a network puts them on the air briefly, that it bothers you. What does that say about your life? And this is where the fence sitter stuff, I think, is actually quite relevant. I think there are a lot of people who love sports, okay? There are a lot of people forget about Taylor Swift. They just love sports. And when they hear a guy talking about a tight end, clearly this no name has become an engineered product by the Biden administration. They're like, oh, wait a minute, I can't even swallow this bull. Right. It's not a political take, it's not a conspiracy. It's something that they know so intuitively and obviously as a fan of football that they're like, oh, no, I think this is bull.

[Mina Kimes]

It's embarrassing.

[Dan Orlovsky]

But, Mina, you can talk to what I mean, you can have specific experience and knowledge how men or cavemen have reacted to you invading the man cave. You particularly, you coming in to the football sphere and sitting next to Ryan C.L. orlovsky and Dominique and having your opinion, looking the way you do, looking like most people don't look when talking about football. Over the last 50 years, you've invaded this space and you've been made to feel welcomed by colleagues, but I think the constituency, the customer, has made that somewhat difficult for you. That's been an obstacle course.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah, I, I think, though, you, you have pretty different dynamics at play. I think for me, a lot of the misogyny or resistance I've encountered over the years has been men feeling, men feeling suspicious of, why is she here? What credibility does she have? I must know more, et cetera. I think with the Taylor Swift backlash, and it's not universal and maybe it's even being overstated, I don't know. But the impression I get is that people are annoyed with the idea of the product or rather other fans being allowed into their space. I don't think most men who watch football games are, like, really upset by the fact that they're showing Taylor Swift for two seconds. I think they're upset with the idea of what it signifies. Oh, other people are now being allowed in here, or, you know, the product is being diluted in some ways. I think that's kind of a different phenomena.

[Dan Orlovsky]

That's normal with, like, bands and stuff, right? That you're, that you're attached. You think that's what's happening there. You like this indie band and all of a sudden they become more and more popular. Football's a funny one to do this with because it's like the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. Well, it's not an exclusive club.

[Pablo Torre]

I feel like when men, when, when these morons, these misogynists, frankly, when they get mad at Mina, they don't eventually get radicalized into hating football itself. Like, that is where, like, the ceiling on that as a coherent approach absolutely falls short. And actually, I, I, the coward thing was so funny to me, Mina, because it was just like the easiest layup of, like, oh, wait a minute, one of the sportsmen are going to, like, elevate Our queen and I just want to help Dan get a version of that. How can we. How can we strategize on a take that Dan can say in a similar.

[Mina Kimes]

Tap into the swifty audience. You are. We're do. You're doing the same calculus that Ben Johnson. That Ben Johnson and that weird Oan lady did, by the way, in doing this.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Oh, but Pablo, I mean, Pablo loves the idea that the entire world has turned attention into currency. Pablo, like, well, they'll take his shirt off. He's like, yes, slather it all over my chest, all over my nipples. Attention currency. I'd love to be there. You're trying to get me somebody that elevates me that way while secretly strategizing so that Pablo finds out has that particular viral appeal.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, I see through you. I'll show a nipple. I just think it's funny. We're in a world. Look, you wake up in 2024 and the face of math is Dan Campbell and the face of. Of ball, knowing, relatively speaking, is me. Because I know that Travis Kelsey is good at football.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Okay, but you guys.

[Pablo Torre]

No, but you got life.

[Dan Orlovsky]

The. The. The part. The part that we explored some on our show this week, when Mina fandom being earned. The idea of that. That I actually understand jets fans looking over at the Swifties and being like, really? You just got here. You don't know who Travis Kelce is. You think Colin Coward's a silver fox and you get to play in the super bowl six minutes after you got here.

[Pablo Torre]

I know.

[Mina Kimes]

How did you. Literally, you just showed up and you're rooting for the best team in the NFL.

[Dan Orlovsky]

You won two road playoff games. You think that's normal to go just, hey, let's go through the playoffs with the best quarterback and as tight end, and even though we're the underdog, we're going to win road playoff games.

[Mina Kimes]

A glorified lineman.

[Pablo Torre]

I. I just caught Dan with. With acidity. Say silver fox. And I think that's a solution. That's the pivot Dan needs to make. Don't seed. Don't cede silver to Coward as his brand. You can compete on that. On that front, Dan, just go.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Just go get Grayer. Have more stress and death in my life. Just go. Go. Yes. Good suggestion. Perhaps I'll do that. Excellent. Yes. My face. My face is aged 20 years in the last two. Yes, let's do more of that.

[Mina Kimes]

The story that I sent to you guys wanting to discuss it is from the New Yorker. The title is how to have a More productive year. It's by Cal Newport, who is a professor of computer science at Georgetown, I think. Yes, Georgetown University. So it's about time management and productivity and he gives some advice. He talks about the history of productivity books, how to books in the space over the years, how they have evolved. And then, and this is really the focus of it, the unique challenges of productivity or of trying to be productive rather at a moment where not only are we inundated with distractions because of the Internet, we also people can reach us at any time, which also makes it very difficult to segment your schedule to get things done to be productive. So he has some advice on that in terms of time management to do lists, organizing, being fluid. And I brought it up to you guys because.

[Pablo Torre]

Because you bragged on a text chain. Because you bragged unapologetically.

[Mina Kimes]

Listen, okay, I'll just tell everyone what I said, please. There are not many things that I feel very confident in that I think I'm great at. Very few things that I would to my own horn about that I would view myself as being an expert in. I am amazing at time management and productivity. I have always been amazing at time.

[Pablo Torre]

Management in front of the nerdiest possible brag.

[Mina Kimes]

I just, I just get things done on time. I don't know what to tell you guys. I am not late. I. This was in college. I was. I'm going to lose a lot of people here. I was the student who seethed whenever professors handed out extensions because I would be watching being like, well, some of us got this done two days early because some of us know how to do schedules and manage their time. And here you are handing out extensions to everyone in the classes is cheering because they got another 24 hours. And meanwhile I'm like, what should have gotten your done on time? So I enjoy this article because I think I thought his tips were good. But I also think he was correct in the Writer and the New Yorker in explaining how difficult it is right now to be productive. Which is interesting because people work from home. They work remotely because of technology. You have all these tools at your disposal to get work done on your own time and to organize that work. But I think the challenges outweigh the pros of technology. And I was curious to hear your your guys thoughts as inferior time managers.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, I'm curious what Dan hears when Mina is bragging about how she doesn't need the extension. And you, I mean truly the worst, just the worst perspective to have is celebrating. Celebrating? No, just celebrating a gift that basically means that everyone who could have used an extension is. Is actually just playing the game wrong. Like, come on.

[Mina Kimes]

Spoken like someone who got a lot of extensions.

[Pablo Torre]

Love, love, love a sudden extension. Love a grace period when you show up late to your own show potentially. But Dan, I hear discipline in that. I hear Mina saying, like, my superpower is discipline. I can actually just do the thing that I say to myself I need to do. And I don't see. I don't see you in that way necessarily.

[Dan Orlovsky]

You, I think this is fair to say, certainly compared to Mina, but maybe in general, I believe you to be Pablo, someone who is inclined to certain procrastinations, a lack of. Some people might call it lazy if they wanted to be pejorative. I had never considered the question before Mina asked it. It's not something I had ever thought about. Am I good at time management? And then I started thinking about it because my brother was an artist and I am in a creative field. And both of us coming from exile families, both of us never missed a deadline ever. It was not one of the options. And it was unusual that it was sort of. I was surprised when I got to ESPN and ESPN the Magazine that it was sort of understood that writers were going to blow the deadline because they're used to working with creatives and that's how that one goes. But I also, when I started thinking about it because I was made responsible by my parents at an unreasonably young age that you can argue might steal some childhood. I would say that my punctuality, my always being aware of how much time there is, gets in the way of being present, gets in the way of just enjoying where you are at that moment because you're always cognizant of I've got this on the horizon. And if you're a, if you're a task coach completer, and I don't know if this is gender specific, but I know men like to fix problems and be task completers. Generally speaking, if there is some of your identity wrapped up in that, you're not going to enjoy moments to moments because you're always off to the next one. My mother used to say when I was little that the thing that she remembers about my imprinting as a child is I'm on It's a Small World, the ride, and I'm in the middle of the wonder and discovery of that. And I'm like, and what's next? And what's next? And I mean, if you get to 55 years old on what's next? And you're on the It's a Small World ride and you're not filled with wonder and awe and joy because you got to get to the next meeting.

[Mina Kimes]

I have so many thoughts about this. So I mentioned actually earlier, my husband is a music producer. My husband is very creative. He's an amazing writer. He is not good at time management. He has asked me for advice on. He gets overwhelmed by schedules. There have been moments where he's, at the end of the day, he's just like, I just couldn't get all of it done. And I don't. And I went down this rabbit hole and I don't understand how you're done at 5pm every day. And I'm happy to walk you guys through my system if anyone wants to know. But he gets really frustrated by it. However, I also think a lot of his creativity, some of his best work, stems from the fact that he is willing to go with the flow and go down those rabbit holes and, you know, emerge 24 hours later with a unique ide. He's seen something in a way that he didn't plan on because he let himself get lost in his work. I have always viewed that actually as a limitation of mine. And as much as I'm here bragging about time management and getting things done and my productivity and I do view those as strengths, I also feel that a negative side effect of that, Dan, is that I don't go with the flow sometimes. I always, you know, I was really stressed about this as a writer because I was so hell bent on meeting deadlines, getting things done, and then I would turn in my work and then feel like, but maybe I missed out on something interesting or something unconventional or creative because I was so strict with myself about being productive. And I felt that way in school as well. Like, you're always going to be, I always felt, Mina, you're always going to be. You're going to be good at enough to get it done and get it done well, and the teachers love you. But then I would look at someone else and be like, you don't really have that creative genius that, you know, Bobby has or whatever. So, you know, I think there's positives and negatives that come with being very productive.

[Dan Orlovsky]

There's a ted's talk in there somewhere about the freedom to get lost. The freedom to just lose your way and find a new idea because you're painting outside the lines, outside of discipline and structure.

[Pablo Torre]

I, I, it's funny, like, as a writer, I think I'm more like Nick, Mina's husband and just like my capacity to get lost and, and literally lose track of time. But I remember as a writer, some of my own drawbacks are just about when my brain is good to move on. Like, I think something I admire about Mina is like, it's good enough. I'm gonna move forward. And I told me, do you.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Do you ever forgive me, Pablo? But do you ever. Do you ever show up late or lose track of time? Does that? Because I rarely, if ever. And Pablo, let's come back to what you were saying.

[Pablo Torre]

I get the drift, okay? I get the gist. I'm the one who's late on the show.

[Dan Orlovsky]

No, but I'm. But I'm saying that almost with envy though. I'm. I'm not saying that it. Look, this, my responsibility has obviously gotten me some of the things that I want, but one of them is not the, the creative expressions of things that will be found because you've stumbled in different direction than the one that was scheduled.

[Mina Kimes]

I think, Dan, you might actually share this quality with me. I'm extremely regimented professionally and then outside of work, I'm very disorganized and I, I will get lost in like hanging out with a friend and suddenly I'm like, oh my God, it's, it's, you know, been four hours. What are we doing? So it's interesting. I. Maybe my capacity for organization only goes so far because I think a lot of people who would describe themselves as organized, it is totalist. Like, they're like, I'm just. This is how I am. Everything is regimen. It's really just work with me.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Me too. Me too.

[Mina Kimes]

Yeah. Like, if I showed you guys the other side, if I just spun the camera around and you saw the office. It is appalling right now. Like, it is.

[Pablo Torre]

I like how Mina's office looks like my inbox, which is gonna say she's afraid. 5,000 unread emails. Mina is an inbox zero person. But now she's spinning us around on YouTube and the DraftKings network work to. Yeah. Oh man, there it is.

[Dan Orlovsky]

So literally, the order is only in this one little box of her life. This one little box where. This hermetically sealed box where she lives.

[Pablo Torre]

A couple televised like a shoe hanging upside down somehow.

[Dan Orlovsky]

You were saying, though? Pablo, I interrupted you. I'm sorry.

[Pablo Torre]

No, no, it's, it's. It's something I've told you about before, which is like, for me, I almost need to give myself permission. Like I've Check, check the box on this being as good as it could be. I am kind of just OCD in that way. It got to the point where when I was in a Google Doc writing stories, when I was a magazine writer, I realized far too late that the only way I could really feel comfortable moving on to the next paragraph was for the previous paragraph to feel like a rectangle. Like it needed to be evenly weighted. So like, I hate it if the last line. Yes, the previous line of that paragraph par. If the last line of a paragraph was just like a dangling word and a period, I could. I, I would literally change the paragraph.

[Dan Orlovsky]

That's like bringing architecture, arguably architecture school to like the circus. Like, what are you doing?

[Mina Kimes]

Yes, that's.

[Pablo Torre]

No, it was, it was deeply unhealthy and, and admittedly revealing about like what I need to feel like, okay, good enough to move on. And I ended up conceiving of an entirely artificial counterproductive rule which was it needs to feel geometrically symmetrical. And I like, it's just, I am that guy. But also the guy with 25,000 unread emails. Like, that's what's happening in here.

[Mina Kimes]

This, you know me, I'm an inbox 20 or less person.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Are you able to manage like the understanding and acceptance needed with your husband to sort of tolerate that he's the opposite of this or not, not, not even tolerate it. Just meet it with compassion at all times, even though it's not you at all?

[Mina Kimes]

I have, although we've had to communicate through it and so that I can meet him where he is and he can meet me where I am. This is probably the most I've ever talked about my marriage and my husband. But what, you know, this might be helpful for anyone who, where one person is very time, time.

[Pablo Torre]

My wife, I should say my wife is, is, is. Is the opposite of me. Super regimented, always on time, highly organized. Type A in that regard.

[Mina Kimes]

So something that we would sometimes like that would bother me is if he, he'd say he'd be home at a certain time and then would be home late. And what I had to explain to him was, I'm not upset because you're late or because you're working or whatever. I'm upset because you said incorrect expectations. No, this is. If I can give one piece of advice like this is it for people who have these types of relationships. All you have to do is just not say you're going to be home at the wrong time. Just tell me. Be like, I don't know when I'm. And I'll be like, fine in my to do list. I will change that to reflect that. My expectations will be set and I will be happy. I don't care if you're late. I just don't want to have my schedule with and once we realized that and started communicating about it better, we never have any issues about punctuality.

[Pablo Torre]

I just personally hate that I've created a podcast where I get nagged by my wife through the vessel of my friends.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I cannot imagine how frustrated your wife is daily that you are a professional communicator and you didn't learn this lesson from her. Where I'm guessing you are constantly failing to meet expectations that you've raised to an unreasonable level.

[Pablo Torre]

Level I am constantly home in 5 minutes 25 minutes ago.

[Dan Orlovsky]

It is hard to love that, Pablo. It is hard to love that. The worst she should be allowed a physical leash on you is what she should be allowed, given how frustrating that must be. You will forgive me after we've talked about discipline and organization. That the article I was supposed to have in front of me to tell you who wrote it and what it's about is not in front of me because I left it near a sandwich outside. However, the article points out in the New York Times that what happened when Elmo simply asked the Internet on what used to be known as Twitter, how's everyone doing out there? The response, the. The clinginess of the Internet responded with a sadness, an acidic well of unhappiness that basically told Elmo that everyone is in a deep, deep acid pit of despair. And I know that this isn't surprising. I know that many people on the Internet are not merely addicted to the Internet, but are also addicted to the ability to show some of their personalities on their Internet, have a voice they might not have in other parts of their life. And the part I wanted to talk to you guys about because I believe social media is the single largest untreated addiction that we have in the globe where people aren't paying attention to the fact that we kind of like this thing, even though it makes us unhappy. And if you live in this thing and addicted to your devices, you will find more and more unhappiness. Why are you laughing, Mina? Because this is a story about Elmo and I've gone dark on it because.

[Mina Kimes]

I know, because while you were talking, I picked up my phone to look at the article because you didn't remember it. And then my fingers, like literally, it was like an out of body experience switched over to Twitter.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Just your Addiction. Okay.

[Mina Kimes]

Literally just instinct drove them.

[Pablo Torre]

So this is a podcast and also an interview. Prevention.

[Dan Orlovsky]

And so. But I want to. I want to talk. I want to talk about what's happening all over the globe in a way that we all understand. If we were all wandering around addicted to heroin, we would understand that there was a health consequence to this. And if we're wandering around addicted to something that foments so much unhappiness that it metastasizes when an Elmo character merely asks how you're doing, this has to be treated. Unhappiness, mental health combined with an addiction. All of this, even through a cartoon character, should alarm us on what's happening in the world right now, where people are everything from broke to broken. And I just find it all disheartening. And I have found because I can't Frisbee my iPad into the ocean and just be done with it, that I am consistently with a feeling of a film of anxiety on me that's not normally there because. Click. Are you doing it again, Mina? Are you back in?

[Mina Kimes]

Are you the only person I know who uses their iPad to look at social media?

[Dan Orlovsky]

I'm the only person.

[Mina Kimes]

Frisbee, you're on iPad.

[Pablo Torre]

Dan is at a concert videotaping it with an iPad. He is that guy.

[Dan Orlovsky]

It's just a bigger screen. I need a bigger screen because I'm not just old. I'm not just old technologically. I need a bigger screen with bigger fonts. The phone's too small. My hand's too big.

[Mina Kimes]

Whenever he sends texts, and it's always an inventor. To what. What account is it going to come from? I assume if it comes from your G email, it's. You've typed it.

[Pablo Torre]

And all you got to know about his email.

[Dan Orlovsky]

This is not what this is about.

[Pablo Torre]

Aol.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Oh, stop it. I've got a metal arc media email now. I've got a metal arc. I've graduated from aol, but occasionally I'll slip in there if I'm on the iPad.

[Pablo Torre]

That's not what I'm here.

[Dan Orlovsky]

That's not what this is about. Stay on point. Do not point your finger at me and laugh at me. Do not. Do not point and aol. God damn you.

[Pablo Torre]

We're interrupting Dan's presidential campaign speech.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I'm just.

[Pablo Torre]

By laughing at him.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Am I wrong? Am I. Did you not read this? Stories don't make me sad. They don't make me sad. This one made me sad.

[Pablo Torre]

It's just very on the nose. Like all of this is. Is clearly the thing that I talked about sports before is like sometimes you do something often enough stuff such that you immediately know what's or not. You don't have to fake being informed about it. We all know this is real and it does take a cartoon character to be like yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. The what? The, the accidental therapist where everybody's actually saying the truth while joking earlier, I.

[Mina Kimes]

Was talking about time management. I think we have to say everyone has to be very like everybody. If you are concerned about time management, you have to explicitly reckon with the way time management affects your or, sorry social media affects your productivity and strategize around it. I think the same thing applies with mental health sadness. The way being on our phones affects our brains. There needs, we, there needs to be more education around this. There, we need to be strategic around. It feels like for the last 15 years or so it's kind of been the wild west where this thing has slowly taken over our lives, but nobody has. We haven't had that many conversations about how to deal with it, how to regulate it, how to be more careful with it. And I feel like now it feels like we're kind of beginning to think about it. Like Pablo, I have a kid now. I hope that in school this is taught. Like I hope that teachers are thinking about it. I hope that mental health people are thinking about it because everything is different now and you can't just take it for granted that you can go on living your life the way we did before when the way we interact with the world is so different.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, the scare Dan, the scariest thing that happens as the father of a daughter is, is just how immediately obvious operating an iPad is to her, right? It's old people and little kids who love tablets. And it's just intuitive and it's intuitive and that, that belies I think the larger truth, which is that human beings, despite that ease, were not meant neurologically to consume information like this. I just can't come up with any other answer other than we weren't meant to be like this. But, but it is the most time managed people like Mina, we're not meant to manage all of these morsels of information. I think that's revealing about who can.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Handle this beyond that though, right? Because if you have a parenting blind spot and I don't have kids, but I would imagine that these devices are excellent babysitters and you should be disciplined about how early you put this in a child's hands. But when we were talking about this a moment ago, And I was thinking of the effect that it has had on me at some point from the AOL age who is a formed adult. If it's this corrosive and contaminated to someone who knows what he wants and needs at this age, what is the impact of this thing on teenagers? What is the impact of this thing on younger people? When you talk about not having the tools, the education to properly identify this. If I told the audience right now, do you realize that everyone listening to this that, you know, is addicted to something we know is at least in part unhealthy? If it was anything other than social media, there would be alarms going off all across the globe on this is a huge crisis. This is a crisis for future generations because this is so corrosive and it is so unknown in spots that we are rotting our young people. Because I'm telling you, I have difficulty with it when I'm a, you know, otherwise confident formed adult that finds myself plagued by certain anxieties that weren't there before. They just weren't there. That this thing is respons.

[Mina Kimes]

It is still unappreciated, I think, how significant of a problem it is to your point, Dan. And I just speaking for myself, like, I. There have been points. There was a point last year where some people were making videos about me or whatever, and I was looking at it and I broke down in tears. I remember I was about to go for a run and I sat down and I opened my phone and I looked at it and I started crying. And then I remember I called my friend Mike Golic Jr. And he kind of talked me down. And after that I changed it so I could no longer see what people I don't follow say about me. And I you not. It probably like, increased my happiness for from that point on by like 25% in real life. And I bring up this example to sort of, I guess, get at where I think we have to go, which is we need people, experts, teachers, parents, whatever, to develop these types of strategies for everyone. That's just a concrete example of something I had to have, like an intervention in how I used the Internet because it was affecting my mental health. I think think those sorts of strategies are needed for children, teenagers, adults, because it feels like a crisis to me.

[Pablo Torre]

It, it, it makes me long to come full circle here for the days of aol where there were like, walls around our audience. One of the issues, of course, is that, like, everybody's professionally talking to people they don't mean to talk to. And we're now Also overhearing conversations that in Mina's case, were deliberately meant to torture her. But even the ones that aren't targeted at us can be exhausting and affect how. There is that chart recently that was staggering about Gen Z. Men and women, boys and girls, just the political divergence of boys becoming conservative, girls becoming liberal along these just standard political axes. And I have to imagine that just the way that the algorithm is sorting us like an evil sorting hat, that we don't want that we don't want that degree of difference. And it reminds me that, like, Mike Olich Jr. Is a great person to call in that circumstance, and. And he's maybe second only to this person.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Elmo wants to know why everyone is so angry. Elmo has been pondering the secret sadness.

[Mina Kimes]

Hiding inside everyone living in modern society.

[Dan Orlovsky]

And what Elmo wants is everyone to be happy.

[Pablo Torre]

But we live in a dystopia where.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Everyone assumes everyone is lying. And the only thing I believe is.

[Mina Kimes]

That everyone is sad. It makes Elmo regret capitalism.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Elmo wants to burn capitalism to the ground.

[Mina Kimes]

Who will join Elmo in the revolution.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Because Elmo is tired of this. Whoa, Whoa.

[Mina Kimes]

Chris. Nailed that. I'm sorry, Elmo.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, thank you.

[Mina Kimes]

My bad. Yeah. That was really good.

[Pablo Torre]

That was shockingly good. Shockingly good.

[Mina Kimes]

Not as good as my cookie monster.

[Dan Orlovsky]

10 takes. It only took 10 takes things.

[Pablo Torre]

So at the end of every episode of Pablo Torre Finds out, we go around this table and we say what we found out today. Who wants to go first?

[Dan Orlovsky]

I'll go first. I learned more about Mina's marriage than I have ever known before. I, I, we got up in there and we found out about what a functional union Mina has in the chaos of trying to raise a little monster.

[Mina Kimes]

You know, Dan, I. I was watching you and I could see you. You had a little bit of hunger in your eyes, so I threw you a few emotional morsels.

[Dan Orlovsky]

Oh, my God, they were so good.

[Pablo Torre]

The truffle pig.

[Mina Kimes]

That'll keep you satiated for a while. Just throw a little bit your way. Well, speaking of marriages, I learned that Pablo's wife is a saint. And God knows what she is dealing with.

[Dan Orlovsky]

I couldn't even imagine. God almighty, right?

[Mina Kimes]

And I know her. She's great.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Liz, what I found out today is that I need to text my wife right now before she hears this episode so I can show proof of change before she realizes that it was just content.

[Dan Orlovsky]

He'll forget. He will forget. You're not going to do it, surely. Forget. He will not do it.

[Mina Kimes]

Not going to do it.

[Pablo Torre]

I'll do it in, like five minutes.

[Mina Kimes]

Cookie Monster, so hungry for emotional truths. Tear down those walls.

[Pablo Torre]

What did Cookie Monster become? Ronald Reagan at the end.

[Mina Kimes]

Of the wall? I don't know. Don't co opt me for your politics. It's not Cookie Monster. It really. It is. It is Yoda.

[Pablo Torre]

It's Yoda. But speaking of people that I need to immediately say thank you to, Pablo Torre finds out is produced by Michael Antonucci, Brian Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rachel Miller, Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris To Manello and Juliet Warren. Studio engineering by RG Systems Post production by NGW Post our theme song by John Bravo and we will all talk to you next week.