SWWP #29 - AI Misinformation & Sydney Sweeney's America (feat. Raph, My AI Expert)

Summary

Podcast Summary: SWWP #29 - AI Misinformation & Sydney Sweeney's America (feat. Raph, My AI Expert)

Podcast Information:

• Title: Something Wrong With The Podcast
• Host/Author: Julian Delgado
• Description: A podcast where your intrusive thoughts are said out loud. Every week Julian discusses ‘something wrong with the culture’ while also being your hilarious unlicensed therapist. Wanna be a part of the show? Call 877-557-SWWP to leave a voicemail and get some advice.
• Episode: SWWP #29 - AI Misinformation & Sydney Sweeney's America (feat. Raph, My AI Expert)
• Release Date: August 5, 2025

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1. Introduction

In Episode #29 of "Something Wrong With The Podcast," host Julian Delgado welcomes his friend Raph, an expert in AI-related content. The episode delves deep into the pervasive issues of AI misinformation, the manipulation of social media through bots, and contemporary cultural phenomena, including a controversial advertisement featuring Sydney Sweeney.

---

2. Dating and Social Interactions

The episode kicks off with a candid conversation between Julian and Raph about personal experiences with dating apps and social gestures.

• Julian shares his evolved perspective on calling an Uber for a date, emphasizing maturity and consideration:
  "Whereas before, it was never. I was always off the table. Well, like, now if, like, if a girl, I take her out and she's like, hey, I don't want to spend the night... I'll get you the car." [00:15]

• Raph echoes this sentiment, highlighting the importance of genuine gestures in late-night scenarios:
  "It's fine. Fine." [00:38]

The discussion transitions into how mutual friends and social media interactions influence dating dynamics, with both reflecting on the authenticity of online engagements versus real-life connections.

---

3. The Rise of AI, Bots, and Misinformation on Social Media

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to exploring how AI and bots have transformed the landscape of social media, leading to misinformation and the erosion of genuine interactions.

• Julian raises concerns about the shift from social media being a platform for authentic voices to a battleground dominated by bots and curated content:
  "The lack of the push for AI content, which can lead to like deepfakes and like augmented reality and all these things that kind of like an erasure of reality from the Internet..." [04:17]

• Raph provides historical context, explaining how initial social media platforms like Facebook and MySpace didn't anticipate the rise of bots:
  "These platforms didn't measure success or build guardrails in to check for a problem that wasn't a problem yet." [05:22]

They discuss the financial motivations behind social media's pivot towards addictive features and targeted advertising, emphasizing how shareholder interests often outweigh user experience.

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4. The Business Models of Social Media Platforms

The conversation delves into the inherent conflicts within social media companies between maintaining user satisfaction and maximizing profits.

• Raph critiques the primary focus of business models on engagement metrics rather than genuine user satisfaction:
  "The business model isn't to make a good user experience. The business model is to be business friendly and to be addictive." [07:40]

• Julian questions potential ethical revenue models, comparing them to subscription-based services like YouTube Premium:
  "Some people say like, oh, like, you know, if as long as it's free, the user is the product. I don't really believe in that." [09:35]

They explore the challenges of implementing solutions like biometrics to curb bot proliferation, acknowledging both technical and privacy-related hurdles.

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5. Encryption and Privacy: Telegram vs. Government Access

Julian and Raph examine the balance between privacy and security, using Telegram as a case study for encrypted messaging platforms.

• Raph explains how Telegram's end-to-end encryption protects user messages from governmental surveillance:
  "Telegram was built as just like fully anti encrypted, like my device and your device... So like it takes both of our phones to decrypt the message." [14:00]

• Julian and Raph discuss the implications of backdoors, with Raph highlighting the challenges faced by Telegram's CEO in maintaining platform security against government pressures:
  "Anytime there's a big tech company in America, the government likely has a hand in it or has a backdoor into it." [15:31]

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6. Discussion on Contemporary Advertisements and Misinformation

The episode touches upon recent advertisements and their cultural impacts, focusing on Sydney Sweeney's America advertisement and Jaguar's controversial campaign.

• Julian criticizes the backlash against Sydney Sweeney's ad, suggesting that criticisms are often politically motivated rather than based on the ad's actual content:
  "I'm not throwing blame on Sydney Sweeney at all... I think people are overblowing the shit out of it." [21:20]

• The duo also discusses the financial repercussions of "woke" advertisements, referencing Jaguar and Bud Light as examples:
  "American eagle stock went up 13... The Jaguar ad... was a disaster." [24:00]

They elaborate on how social media amplifies these campaigns, often blurring the lines between genuine public opinion and orchestrated narratives through bots and influencers.

---

7. The Music Industry and Metric Inflation

Julian and Raph explore how the music industry has been affected by social media metrics and the use of bots to inflate popularity.

• Julian shares insights from his experience with promoting artists, emphasizing the difference between authentic growth and artificially inflated metrics:
  "These are purely vanity metrics. So when people consume this content and come across their pages... how many of those views are actually authentic views." [31:17]

• Raph draws parallels between the music industry's practices and deceptive online behaviors, highlighting the broader implications for authenticity and power consolidation:
  "When it comes to the online ward, Republicans are 100 winning and they're very good at stating what they are doing or are going to do as it's already either happened or it should happen." [19:04]

The conversation underscores the detrimental effects of metric inflation on emerging artists and the overall integrity of the music industry.

---

8. Personal Narratives: Racism and Social Dynamics in College

Towards the latter part of the episode, Julian and Raph share personal stories from their college days, shedding light on racial dynamics and the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes.

• Raph recounts experiences with derogatory nicknames assigned in a highly homogeneous college environment:
  "We called him Terrorist... We had to come up with a nickname, the code name Osama." [69:35]

• Julian reflects on his own cultural shock upon entering a predominantly white college, highlighting the superficial judgments based on appearance:
  "My mom's Lebanese. She's very pale. My dad's just a black man. He's a big black guy... she immediately transferred her daughter." [77:11]

These anecdotes emphasize the pervasive nature of racism and the challenges of navigating identity within institutional settings.

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9. Conclusion

In this episode, Julian Delgado and Raph provide a multifaceted discussion on the intersections of AI, misinformation, social media manipulation, and cultural dynamics. Through personal anecdotes and expert insights, they shed light on how technological advancements and societal structures influence authenticity, privacy, and cultural narratives in today's digital age.

Notable Quotes:

• Julian: "They're both playing to the ultra elites and the Democrats are coincidentally being lame ducks." [21:00]
• Raph: "We have these pockets of people that have made their money or have their... they have a bit more credibility." [12:32]
• Julian: "My throat's up. I gotta do something about this." [82:17]
• Raph: "We're tipping. Like this year, we're tipping." [53:10]

---

Timestamp Highlights:

• 00:15-00:38: Discussion on dating gestures and maturity.
• 04:17-05:22: Introduction to AI's impact on social media.
• 07:40-09:35: Business models prioritizing profits over user experience.
• 14:00-15:31: Encryption, Telegram, and government backdoors.
• 21:20-24:00: Critique of contemporary advertisements and their cultural fallout.
• 31:17-37:40: Metric inflation in the music industry.
• 69:35-77:11: Personal stories highlighting racism in college environments.

Final Thoughts: The episode underscores the complexities of navigating a digitally dominated world where authenticity is often compromised by technological and financial incentives. Julian and Raph advocate for greater transparency, ethical practices, and genuine human interactions to counteract the pervasive influence of AI and misinformation.

Transcript

[Julian]

Nothing wrong with the pussy. Nothing wrong with the pussy.

[Raph]

If you're not my girlfriend. I'm not calling an Uber rich.

[Julian]

You can chime in off camera, by the way.

[Raph]

Well, I don't agree with that, actually.

[Julian]

I think circumstantially, there's things that would make me in my adult years call an Uber. Whereas before, it was never. I was always off the table. Well, like, now if, like, if a girl, I take her out and she's like, hey, I don't want to spend the night. I have a early morning and it's like 3, 4 in the morning and we've been out since like 7pm or like, whatever. All right, I'll get you the car.

[Raph]

Yeah, like, if that scenario. Late night. Like, if she's like, I've. If a girl's at my apartment, right. And it's 3:00am and like, and if. If, like, if she, like, wanted to go home earlier but she ends up staying long, it'd be a nice gesture, I would do it. It's fine. Fine.

[Julian]

Well, according to Twitter, through X whatever, subway is never safe.

[Raph]

Yeah. And I think the older you get, also, it's a bit of like, oh, like, I mean, if I can afford it, it's like, that not a big thing.

[Julian]

It's not a matter of affordability. I. I hate that as an excuse when girls try to throw that in your face of like, oh, what are you. Are you broke? It's like, no, I'm just. Yeah, you can't. Like, that's not a. An incentive for me to be like, no, I'm not. Here's a $200 car. No, like, I'm not. You're not going to get me with that. Like, that's not. That's not how that works.

[Raph]

That's like the modern day of like, you won't.

[Julian]

But the. Also the. Before we started recording, you said she. This girl tried to get you to call an Uber for her to meet other people.

[Raph]

Yeah. And like, mind you, we've been on.

[Julian]

Like two dates and were they really even dates?

[Raph]

Like, no one was an actual. Like, it was a proper hinge meetup date.

[Julian]

You took her in public. Jesus.

[Raph]

I didn't know the whole.

[Julian]

I told you this situation before.

[Raph]

Like, that was. This is before you told me this situation. And then after the date, I was like, yo. I was like. And then after they. I saw the mutual, and I was like, nah, everyone has those, like three or four friends that if you see.

[Julian]

The mutual, you're like, I've been told from Few guys that if I. If they see that I'm friend. Which isn't always the case. I don't like that. Yeah, well, like. Well, in that case you're right. But I'm saying like in. In most cases, like another friend of ours, you know, say his name. He. He always texts me when he matches with a girl. Like has or goes to an Instagram and sees me and he's always like, did you. And 99 of the time I have not. I have this like weird thing where I will talk to somebody. I think I get the thrill of it just from like off lining off the dating app. If we met there, getting that Instagram and then like occasionally sending. Establishing our dynamic and then sending like memes or like dumb shit that reminds me of this. Like I like it's like our thing. Like our Instagram thread is just 911 memes. You're one of my closest friends. It is purely 911 content. So for a girl, if I find that niche thing like this girl loves cats. I'll send. Or 911 cats. And I love.

[Raph]

I'll funnel for cats.

[Julian]

Yeah. The second cat has hit the tower. Well, I'll just funnel all cat content. Like I will literally compartmentalize people. It's probably sick in the head as like a joke or a. A filter for like this is my cat person.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Literally, if I see a nine. Like, like that jacket I saw in public when I was going to the Knicks game and the guy had like a. Never forget 911. I took a photo. I was like, raph, duh. Like I send it to you. So it was very. Anyway, sometimes I want to send you shit.

[Raph]

And I'm like, I can't because it's not 911 oriented.

[Julian]

He sends. He'll send me stuff. He'll send me stuff and then see that I've seen it and then delete it to keep the feed pure.

[Raph]

The integrity of our DS is very just like. It's all 911 jokes.

[Julian]

Yeah. Was it? Damn. I have. This is awful. I'm like losing my voice. It's a bit of a rolling start. I'm here with. Welcome to episode 29. I think if something wrong with the bad guys. I'm just doing new shit. New scenery. Still in the same building. Whatever this is Raph. Raph. No Simmons. Raphael Nadal.

[Raph]

When my hair is long. My brother called me Rafunzel.

[Julian]

Rafunzel is a good one, but Raph is a very good friend of mine. We met here in New York and he's also an Expert in my expert on all things AI related content. We do have, like, how we just started here, the banter to just kind of ramble about women and nonsensical stuff, which we will do. But I also wanted to give Raf the space and time to talk about a field that I've stepped in at the early part of the year. And a field that he's far more educated and versed on is the. The world of AI and AI technology. So we were talking off camera and we can get into what you're building later. But like about the lack of the push for AI content, which can lead to like deepfakes and like augmented reality and all these things that kind of like an erasure of reality from the Internet and it kind of becomes more curated based on who's paying the most for the most bots that can spread X agenda. So what, like, first of all, how the hell did we get to that point and why is that the new norm? When we were speaking a little bit ago, that it used to be social media in particular used to just be a space for everybody to have a voice and everybody just like, you know, share news, joke, etc, used to be a great platform for real journalism.

[Raph]

Yeah. Like when. When social networks popped up in the first place, you know, 10, 15 years ago, these platforms were really fun, exciting spaces. We all made Facebook accounts or MySpace accounts, lied about our ages to get on them. All our friends were on them. The idea of bots, like wasn't.

[Julian]

No, I didn't think.

[Raph]

It wasn't a thing.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And so these platforms didn't measure success or build guardrails in to check. Check for a problem that wasn't a problem yet.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And the hamster wheel kind of started spinning. These companies went public on certain metrics around like engagement numbers and user growth. And so like if user growth is being jet fueled by bots, like they're not gonna stop it if it's not hitting the bottom line. Yeah. Does it diminish your experience on the platform? Yeah, but like there isn't another option. So I don't really care.

[Julian]

But does. I guess I'm asking this because we already gotten to this point, but like in terms of the user experience, which I guess at what point does the user experience become secondary to the. I guess the. I guess shareholders is what I should be saying, because it seems like there's a hard turn. Everything starts with the right intentions. The great idea, the impetus of all these apps is to connect people around the world, share stories. We've seen Stories of Facebook, of long lost cousins and lost siblings connecting, and it's all these beautiful memories and. And then, you know, in the last 12 years, you've seen it influence and possibly destroy an election, most likely destroy an election here in the United States. Like, what is the turn from the purity of what these things are? Is it just because humans got into it and they're like, all right, bet it's up. Like, I feel like once you give humans that autonomy to, like, use it in the way in which they want to, they will find a way to ruin it.

[Raph]

I think that I hold. I hold more optimism than that. I think that, fine, I'll play heel. Yeah. There's. There's two. There's two things that I think cause these platforms to erode over time. One is the business model. The business model isn't to make a good user experience. The business model is to be business friendly and to be addictive. If that's a business model, it will inevitably always reach the same conclusion, no matter what the intentions of the founders were.

[Julian]

But do you think Facebook in its. In at its core, when it first began, even MySpace, certainly Tom from MySpace, I don't think he sought out for this to be an addictive.

[Raph]

No, but it also didn't make money. They didn't.

[Julian]

You didn't make money. He sold that shit for like, half a bill.

[Raph]

Right. I mean, but like, the platform's revenue model wasn't like, it got sold at an inflated speculative price on the opportunity of, you know, monetizing it down the line.

[Julian]

Okay.

[Raph]

Like, Facebook, when it was. When it wasn't making money, was really good because it wasn't prioritizing or designing around these addictive features. And when you're getting. When you're hitting the engagement numbers you want, you're hitting and that you want to hit because you've built the most optimized recommendation feed. You know what that content actually is? How that content actually makes you feel is secondary because that's the way the model was set up in the first place.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

They don't solve the bot problem because it's not financially responsible of them to their shareholders, who have valued the company at a certain number because of the certain amount of users that exist, they're not going to change that because it would shake the number, it would shake the expectation.

[Julian]

Got you. Okay, so sorry, you were saying the turn becomes purely business focused and addiction focused.

[Raph]

Right. Because these companies are built by a handful of engineers that are really smart and really pure intention, and then they need more Money. So they go to a big VC and they say, hey, we need money. The VC has a timeline saying, okay, like, you know, this is a great idea. I love the app, but you got to make money in five years. You gotta make a lot. Except giving you a bunch of money. How are you gonna do that? And all these platforms and like, you know, Facebook was the first one to answer the. Answer the call saying, we're gonna do ads, we're gonna target users, we're gonna use behavioral data, we're gonna do all that. And every platform since then has just copied them.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Try to make money a different way.

[Julian]

Are there ways in which they could make money that would be, I guess, for lack of, more ethical towards the user experience?

[Raph]

Yeah, but it would be less money, probably. It would be. You'd have to basically say, hey, we're not going to build a hyper addictive platform that we can, you know, shove hyper optimized content in your face. Some people think, oh, like, you know, if as long as it's free, the user is the product. I don't really believe in that. I think that there's other ways to think about these things. But, you know, some people say like, oh, you should make users pay a subscription fee. And then there is none of this predatory stuff. But why would I pay for something that's already free? Even though it's not the best, it's free. So you have to be more creative, honestly.

[Julian]

But is that not a model that's been adopted by like streaming services? You can Pay or even YouTube. YouTube without ads, or if you pay a little, it's a free service. But if you pay a little more will make it a little better for you.

[Raph]

I think that the data that these platforms get and how they sell and reuse it is so valuable that they don't want to give you that option. With the amount of consolidated power these companies have and their ability to control information flow, it's also about control. You know, there's a really awesome podcast. Sorry to plug in another podcast here.

[Julian]

Believe. I'm believing it.

[Raph]

Yeah. But I'll say it was the CEO of Telegram was on a podcast.

[Julian]

Just say it. I don't give a shit what the podcast.

[Raph]

It was the Tucker Carlton podcast.

[Julian]

Oh, all right, cool. Yeah, I rock with Tucker now.

[Raph]

Actually, he has like, I used to.

[Julian]

Not like, what a turn, dude.

[Raph]

What a turn. 20, 25.

[Julian]

What I you. I talk about. First of all, anyone can be bought. For those that don't know, Tucker Carlson was a cnn, you know, no, before Fox was on cnn. He was, he was blue. He was a Democrat head for a while. He had a bad sour outing with them. Turn heel when Fox. And then obviously rinse and repeat. Fox threw him by the wayside and, and now he's like, fuck it, it's up with all you bitches. Trump too. And now he's like the arbiter of truth all of a sudden. Yeah, well, because now we're seeing. Which is cool to see someone in that demo. Like I, I even hope of this for Colbert. But to do this with all those moving parts would be nearly impossible with that level of overhead. But Don Lemon's done it. I'm not saying he's done it well, but Don Lemon's also done it where you're leaving the major news network and pivoting to your own brand and propping up your own YouTube channel, your own, you know, long form content on YouTube, X posting on shorts. Like if you, if you see Don Lemon, that motherfucker is just walking around the street with a microphone being like, so tell me your thoughts. He'll go in like black neighborhoods. And like, so tell me your thoughts on Trump's tax brackets. I was like, she's like, why Don Lemon, like, what? But like that's, if you go to his content, that's all he does is just go up to people in the street. He's like, I was going to say, he's like, they're both gay. But like, you know, Billy Iker, like the guy like Billy in the street. It's like that, but for politics. So just like put a mic in your face and be like, talk about Gaza. She's like, it's I'm lunch. Like, you know. Yeah. So. But anyway, that's, Yeah, I love that.

[Raph]

You know, that's one of the best parts about the Internet is that, you know, we have these pockets of people that, you know, have made their money or have their, or have enough money and they, or this because of. They're not tied to any publication or institution. They have a bit more credibility when you like that, that maybe you don't agree with them, but that's their voice and that's their opinion.

[Julian]

They're. Yeah, there's more of an authenticity to it, which can be either good or bad. I mean, we're seeing the extreme end of that. Is that Nick Fuente, his. With like the six inch thumbs, you know that guy? Yeah, yeah. That I watched. I made maybe 10, 15 minutes of that and then I turned it off. It was brutal. And then the Only sandwich. That was the only clip. The only clip where they pushed back was when homie said, I like Burger King. And they were like, whoa, that might. They said. I think the legit quote was, that might be the wildest thing you said today. I'm like, that's what, that's where you lost you 45 minutes in to excusing a genocide. And you're like, bro, Burger King, that's where you. All right, cool. So anyway, we know what's going to be built in Gaza, fast food wise, once they clear it out.

[Raph]

A lot of Burger Kings to circle back around to. The reason I mentioned the podcast thing was that the CEO of Telegram, which is to those that are unfamiliar, it's a end to end encrypted messaging app. He built it so that way, you know, I can text Julian and no.

[Julian]

One can see it because some of the messages also delete after time. Or does that. Or is that just signal?

[Raph]

I think that might be signal.

[Julian]

Okay.

[Raph]

Telegram was built as just like fully anti encrypted, like my device and your device. Like think about like a, like a, you know, like to launch a nuke. There's like two keys.

[Julian]

Yeah, definitely.

[Raph]

That's like how that like no one person can basically, like it requires more than one person.

[Julian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Raph]

At least for like nuclear, like submarines. That's how Telegram texts work. So like it takes both of our phones to decrypt the message.

[Julian]

Got it.

[Raph]

So that communication decrypts it. So like the CEO of Telegram cannot read your message. It requires like permission. It requires permission from the user.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Or like a government seizes a phone because that person's a criminal. And then.

[Julian]

But if they seize a phone, could they get access to Telegram messages? No.

[Raph]

Well, if they, if they are able. If, if the person had decided to biometrically lock Telegram on their phone, like if they know your password, they have access to your phone, they can access Telegram.

[Julian]

Got it. Okay.

[Raph]

Yeah, but if you could. But you can tie an app to like face ID if you wanted to, but it's on your phone, so it's. You could divide the devices. He said in an interview that he tried to do Telegram in America and he couldn't.

[Julian]

How would elaborate?

[Raph]

Basically the governments, the FBI, CIA constantly try to compromise his employees and build back doors in to have access and control over Telegram. So anytime there's a big tech company in America, the government likely has a hand in it or has a backdoor into it. Maybe not to the CEO, but it's legal for the CIA to Build a backdoor into your company and not tell you about it.

[Julian]

What are those? You're saying, backdoor? What does that imply? What does that mean in terms of. In practice?

[Raph]

Like, just think about it this way. It's like someone has a back door to your house and they can access whenever they want. Like, they can.

[Julian]

So they can kind of.

[Raph]

Okay, they can see all the data, all the behavioral data, all the messages, whatever they want. And so that exists. It's like it's legal in America for the CIA to go to one of your employees and ask them to build a back door into your company and not tell the CEO about it and they could pay. That point has to contest.

[Julian]

I was going to say, but the employees. But do they grease that employee or is it just like, whoever they want? But do they. I'm saying, do they have. Is it like common practice for the CIA to pick out somebody, be like, yo, here's $200,000. Shut the fuck up. Let us into the. Let's see what's going on. Don't tell anybody else.

[Raph]

They want to go that route to CIA. So he moved. He left America. He took Telegram. He left.

[Julian]

And where's Telegram based of now?

[Raph]

It was in France for a while, but I think it's in Saudi Arabia now. Saudi Arabia is like. Actually, there's like, yo. Like, we do everyone.

[Julian]

Yeah, yeah, clearly.

[Raph]

I don't think surveillance and human rights are a priority for Rivia at this point.

[Julian]

I was listening to another podcast. I'm just gonna. This. All we're doing is just reference podcast moments. It's called why Theory. Actually, girl recommended to me over the weekend and I listened to an episode on. On Common Sense. It was really interesting. I'm gonna butcher the. The theory that they laid out, but it was basically like the. Which social media plays a large part in. And they were saying they're not Trump supporters, but they're saying Trump does a very good job of. They said common sense is just a matter of the public turning and agreeing on something. There's no inherent. You know, common sense changes over time. Like what used to be. You know, we can say it more in practice with like, laws like common. I'm trying to think of like, of an example, but point is, it changes over time. And what Trump does a great job of is he doesn't speak of things that he wants to implement in terms of them being the unpopular opinion. He speaks it outward. And like, this is the perceived. This is the reality is what I'm saying. It's not. And he also does a really good job of not even acknowledging the, the current common sense. He's very much. Whereas the Democrats have this fucking problem of acknowledging all these things and then including that into their vision of the future and what they want to do forward. Whereas Trump's just like, fuck all that. This is what I'm doing. And they were saying how social media in particular plays a very important part in that messaging for Trump because he does a really good job of whether it be through his pundits like the Nick Fuentes guy that I mentioned earlier or that other piece of shit. What's the one guy that just goes to college camp, Charlie Kirk. So he has like real humans doing it, but also bots just like throwing the, you know, messaging out as well. Which I always find fascinating. And I've said this a hundred times, especially to rich. The Republicans are cooking the shit out of the Democrats in terms of messaging online, dominating the meme war. They put so much money into pages that I don't follow. If you'd think if you grab my phone, I was a right wing conspiracy theorist because all the suggested content is just all pro Trump and pro, you know, right wing conspiracy talking points where in fact that's not where I lie at all like politically or ethically. But they do such a good job of hitting certain pages that touch every demographic that it's unavoidable.

[Raph]

Yeah, I think that the, when it comes to like Republicans versus Democrats on the, in the online ward, Republicans are 100 winning and they're very good at stating what they are doing or are going to do as it's already either happened or it should happen or it, you know, like they kind of make it seem like common sense.

[Julian]

Yeah. They're pushing the normal by just stating it over and over again. So like you just, you, you after a certain point forget that. That wasn't always the, the norm.

[Raph]

I think it's like the called the law of exposure or something.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Where the more that you're exposed to something, the more you get used to it and Democrats don't wield that enough. Like Republicans can pretty much do whatever the hell they want and all they're going to get is a strongly worded letter from the Democrats. If the Democrats don't like it, it's like, oh, we didn't like that. That was mean. But like they don't really take a lot of action. I think there are definitely people in, in the Democratic Party that are starting to, you know, learn that, you know, partisanship or sorry, like bipartisanship or, you know, any sense of decency is completely gone.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Like, you know, when. When I think it was. Yeah, when? By when? No, when Hillary was in her last. No, not Hillary. Sorry. Damn.

[Julian]

Yeah. She didn't win.

[Raph]

You shouldn't win. When Biden was in his last, like, in his, in his, his lame duck year, when he was his last year in office, they didn't let him like, to Supreme Court nominee because, like, oh, like, you're on your way out. You shouldn't be allowed to. But Trump can do it, too. Trump can do it.

[Julian]

Yeah, of course.

[Raph]

Right.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

So, like, that's an example of, like, Republicans just play by different rules.

[Julian]

They. They just create the rules. That's the thing that the. The Democrats have this, like, stronghold of preserving something that is always, is ever changing these. You know, and they have this, like, moral compass that shoots them in the foot more often than it does for the Republicans because they don't give a. Which is, you know, I can go on and on about that or, you.

[Raph]

Know, both are playing. Playing to the ultra elites and the Democrats are coincidentally being lame ducks.

[Julian]

And it's good cop backup.

[Raph]

Yeah, a little good cop back cop.

[Julian]

They're both bad.

[Raph]

Both bad.

[Julian]

Should we talk about Sydney Sweeney's racist tits?

[Raph]

Dude? I mean, I wonder if you did a, like a statistical poll on white women with big boobs and how many of them are Republicans.

[Julian]

We should. Can you create a model that measures that and them if.

[Raph]

I mean, we got sort of blonde in there, too. Blonde white girl.

[Julian]

Blonde, yeah. So we're saying within the. Or we're creating a model that just specifically measures the Sydney Sweeney demo.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Blonde white girl.

[Raph]

Like, it didn't surprise me that much. I mean, I feel like a lot of people thought that our generation was going to be more left.

[Julian]

Wait, what do you mean, surprise? What are you saying that she's. She's not saying anything. She didn't do anything. And I know, like, she comes from, like, a Republican, but, like, in practice for this campaign, she did nothing more than the job itself.

[Raph]

No. Yeah.

[Julian]

I'm not throwing blame on Sydney Sweeney at all.

[Raph]

Not at all. No, not at all. I think it was an oversight. Like a pr. Like, she shouldn't have caught it. Her manager should have caught it.

[Julian]

Do you think. Do you think the implication was intentional with how it's been getting chastised?

[Raph]

No, I think people are overblowing the shit out of it. I think that it was stupid and because there was an ad for, like. I think it was a black Woman in jeans ad, like, 20 years ago, she.

[Julian]

Well, it's. It's a remake of the classic ad. Yeah, yeah.

[Raph]

And so, like, I think that's what they were thinking. And they're like, oh, who's popular and hot? Cindy Sweeney.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

They didn't think about, like, subtext that people would pull from it. But, like, I don't think that it was deliberate at all. I think that they're pulling the Republican thing out as like a c. Republican has to be racist.

[Julian]

Oh, yeah. That they checked her voting registry.

[Raph]

Yeah, I think that it's. But that was known about it. Remember when.

[Julian]

When euphoria was a thing. And there. I remember. I mean, this is years ago when. When Trump was running and there was that. That era where everyone was scrubbing every young actor socials for who they were registered to. And that got brought up years ago, that Sydney Sweeney. And for the record, I'm not saying if you're Republican, you support Donald Trump being a registered Republican doesn't mean you to support that man or his office or anything. I know friends that are registered Republicans that ended up voting Democrat because of his first term in office. So, like, I'm not throwing smut just because she's a registered Republican, but if that's the crux of this is to just kill her, it certainly doesn't help that Trump stepped in and is like, now, did you see his message? Oh, I'll pull it up, dude.

[Raph]

It's.

[Julian]

It's actually insane.

[Raph]

I think that when it comes to, like, celebrities achieving a certain level of fame, people want to tear them down. Like, you can make the case for, like, Pedro Pascal too, honestly, where it's like, yeah, they hit a certain level of, like, general allure, probably from the opposite sex, where just hate bubbles up and then they just, like, wait for the chance to tear them down.

[Julian]

Yeah. Well, here's. This was. Trump posted this on Truth Social. I want to say today, Sydney Sweeney. And this is. This is so brilliant of him to weaponize this. Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the hottest in all caps ad out there. It's for American Eagle and the jeans are flying off the shelves. Go get them, Sidney. By the way, you spelled Sidney wrong in this entire. On the other side of the ledger, Jaguar did a stupid and seriously woke advertisement. That is a disaster. Are you familiar with that one? Jaguar did like, a rebranding of their logo and it's like very Pride flag coded and inclusive. And everyone was like, jaguar's gay. That was like the, you know, the right wing take of so then he continues, the CEO just resigned, the company is in turmoil. Shouldn't they have just learned the lesson from Bud Light, which went too woke and essentially destroyed. In short but very well campaign. In short but very well campaigned the company basically saying they did the same thing. But I did. The market cap destruction has been unprecedented. Billions of dollars lost. Or just look at the woke Taylor Swift. Just bring her up out of nowhere. Yeah. Ever, ever since I alerted the world as to what she. As to what she was saying on truth, that I can't stand her. You just threw that a shot in at her for no reason, which was also kind of incoherent and made no sense. But point is, like, it's sad how it's, it's, it's corny. As for I. It's corny as for the Internet to take this and run with it to the extent that they are. And it's super lame. As for Trump and all his like, you know, cronies to then jump on and be like, oh look, we got the hot one. Because now, you know, the whole Internet debate of like, here's what a liberal woman looks like, here's what it's like a picture of Kamala's daughter, which is like, that's up, like, versus this is what American look like. It's like, all right, bro, like, who does. My question is, who is that for? Who does that work on?

[Raph]

I think it's, you know, like, honestly. And this comes back to like our whole social media conversation, like, I wonder how much of that's fake.

[Julian]

What do you mean?

[Raph]

Like, I wonder how much of that buzz on the Internet is just entirely about driven.

[Julian]

So I think, I think the obviously the story and the truth of it with the ad and obviously now Trump's message as well is real. I think you're right. I think because I did this on a more ethical level for a record label. It's like when an artist would put out a song and like these many plaques on the wall here, like this song in particular, obstopa from ybn. The Mirror was a sound from an old song of his on TikTok. It was like a six year old song, but someone on TikTok posted it, got like 10,000 plays or like recreates and we were like, oh, shit, like, there's something happening here. Let's throw some fire on this. Let's fuel it up. So we ran like a campaign, like got paid dancers and pages to repost it with the audio. A few months later, song goes gold. You get a 21 Savage feature song goes platinum. So, like, I think these are real in. In this instance with the city tweet, these are real things. These are real moments that's happening. It's just what levers are being pulled to then via bot pages, via influencer, you know, ads to then take it to the next level.

[Raph]

I mean, I think that, like, going the organic route, like what you did, but we paid.

[Julian]

It's organic or not, people.

[Raph]

And then whether or not it was, like, received well, you can't. You're not manufacturing that. But I think when it comes to.

[Julian]

Like, meme pages too. Meme pages too?

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

By which, like, aren't bots, but, like, you can influence, like the academics page. I mean, these are pages we used to pay. It's pay to play. You pay academics at. At rap bars, like all those, like, major hip hop accounts that people follow for general rap news. A lot of those posts are paid.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So how. My question, I guess, is how is that any different than, you know, bursting that out to a bot through a bot?

[Raph]

Different is in, like, the, like, how it's received. Like, when you go to an influencer, you're already like, there's an understanding that, you know, a lot of their stuff's paid for. But when you're interacting with what you think is a human on an app and that person's upset about something, you think there's a real person behind that who's actually upset about something. But I think because bots. Bots change us entirely. Because bots make it so that you're being actively lied to and manipulated.

[Julian]

But I think you're challenging more the message itself. But like, I'm saying that the, the method in which the message is getting pushed is more. I mean, I can text someone right now and say, hey, I got. I got $5,000. I. I could get this clip of us talking about this and say, I need this posted across, you know, 20 channels. And yes, like, someone is pushing the pinning post to post those things, but it's like, I don't. I don't see the difference between that and just buying a bot farm and doing it that way. I mean, is it ethical? Because I'm texting a person and I'm paying them, they're also paying for the bots.

[Raph]

Well, if you're paying for bots to post something, post a clip of you, that's one thing.

[Julian]

But how is that any different than me giving academics $5,000 to make the same post?

[Raph]

Those are the same. I'm saying the only difference, like the thing that's different to me is like when it comes to like replying, commenting and interacting, that shouldn't be laden with bots, like posting stuff like posting a video of us talking on 20 things and having a bot do it. Yeah, it's fine. It's part of the game. I don't see that as.

[Julian]

So you're saying the engage because people.

[Raph]

Know you're doing it.

[Julian]

So you're saying the engagement within the post is what?

[Raph]

Yeah, it's the trans. It's the transparency of the online social interaction. I think that's, that's the part where I draw like the moral line. I think that, you know, these algorithms and platforms are set up in a, set up in a way where you have to leverage influencers, you have to leverage trends, you have to leverage, you know how it works, that's fine. But I think the second that you pretend to be the consumer and the second you manufacture like the reception of something or we do.

[Julian]

Okay, another example from a label. Okay, fuck it, I'll throw it all under the bus at the label. We would. Anytime you want to break a young artist, you have to have that perceived notion of success. It's what Takashi 6:9 did that eventually cracked, I think in like Turkey or wherever it popped for him before translating to the US Audience. What a lot of we do with a lot of young artists is when they create their YouTube page, they're starting from scratch. YouTube is one of the hardest algorithms to get in your favor to warm up and like, you know, build a following. So what labels do is they'll run these YouTube ad campaigns, which is basically just paid views. And what, what I would say and what a lot of people at the label and team would say is these are purely vanity metrics. So when people consume this content and come across their pages, it's like, oh, shit, there's this young popping artist out of New York, but he's got two videos, but they both got, you know, over a million views. He must be the shit. But how many of those views are actually. The page was made last month. None of those views are authentic views.

[Raph]

I think that's wrong. Yes, it's. Yeah, it's, it's, it's.

[Julian]

By the way, I'm not excusing it, but I'm challenging you to like the.

[Raph]

Same way that, you know, with the Drake Kendrick beef, how there's claims about, like inflating, you know, I like Kendrick, I'm a Kendrick fan.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And there's claims that he was inflating some numbers. Claims that Drake was inflating numbers.

[Julian]

My point is that's the nature of the industry is inflation. So. So I think that's a really lame strike for Drake to cast on Kendrick because that is. Drake has had more of those opportunities and things on his behalf than I would say than any other artist. So I never liked that angle because as someone that knows how this works, you can't fabricate Drake being number one and being that successful. So like pouring gas on a raging fire is like, yeah, he's already bigger than the Beatles. It. Let's just keep. You know what I mean? Like, keep the perception at a whole nother level. Like, I don't think it's smart for him to say, lob that against Kendrick as if it's like a slight. When the entire industry does that.

[Raph]

I think that, like, I understand, like, if you're in that industry and you feel like you have to do it and you do it, I'm not gonna judge you for it. For me, it's like if we're talking about like ideals on the matters, I think that just because everyone lies about their height on hinge doesn't mean you should. You know what I mean? That makes sense.

[Julian]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Raph]

But it's crazy analogy.

[Julian]

Well, it's like, I guess like the per. Because there. Because there's also like the way in which that can be combat. Like my thing, like just in general with catfishing or height fishing hat fishing. All the types of fishing is as soon as you meet the person, you can sniff out the truth of the. Of the bio of the profile. But in music, it's. You can't. How. How are you as a. As a consumer gonna see that? This video has a million views, maybe it has really low likes and very few comments, which is a pretty good sign that it's bullshit. But it. It's never going to get to that point where it's like, I know this is. Whereas, like, if I pull up to a date and you know, I'm like, I'm a 6:3. And I get there and I'm like, clearly not. She'll be like, okay. Like, this is. She'll have to make the decision to be like, okay, he's lying, but I'll see this through. Or he's lying and I don't trust this. I'm leaving.

[Raph]

I think that I understand the difference and it's totally fair. And so my counterpoint is if I'm a record label and I'm inflating the Metrics to make this artist famous, and the algorithm picks it up. Like everything about that is a computer. Except for the artist.

[Julian]

Sure.

[Raph]

Right.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Not for long.

[Julian]

Well, we've seen artists, AI artists in Spotify. Like, Timberland has a whole deal that he's. He's helping. He's working with AI generative producers and artists. I forget which label. I don't want to throw Sony under the bus. It could be Sony, but point is, like, yes, that's existing as well.

[Raph]

Right? So when you're. So is that gonna be okay when everyone starts doing that?

[Julian]

I'm vehemently against that because it's not. At least in my example, the artist, no matter how big or small, is still authentically making the product. You know what I mean? So much of music, especially in rap, is convincing your audience that you're the shit and you're bigger than you ever were, even though nobody knows who the fuck you are. So, like, Migos talks about this a lot. When they were doing interviews when they were younger. I think Quavo or Offset would often say, all I wore was fake jewelry because I wanted people to think that, you know, I'm this guy that's got shit popping in my hood when everything on my neck was turning the back of my neck green. Like, it's all perception based. So the hope is you put enough money behind the perception that the gap goes from this to this to this to they may finally meet one day and you're like, I'm as big as I've been telling you I was. And now, like, ticket sales show that. And like, real streaming data shows that.

[Raph]

I understand that. I just think that there's such a focus on it, and it's like, you know, I can't wait. We want to change society at large, but it's a reflection of what we value as far as, like, oh, I don't like an artist. Other people like the artist. Well, that's just kind of sad.

[Julian]

I've been. I've had too much time. My hands, like, research and looking at this stuff. So then I was reading another article about the. The flip now of now when we go to an Instagram post, say, I send you a meme. What's the first thing you do when I send you a meme?

[Raph]

Look at the likes.

[Julian]

Not only that, but, like, the comments. So now it's. Now it's not even a matter of how good is the song, or in this case, how good is the meme that I've been sent. I need to go even further and be like, I'm engaging now. The comment culture is now involved and it matters just as much as the piece of content itself.

[Raph]

Right.

[Julian]

I've sent memes to my friends and just wrote comments.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So they know to then go read the comments because they're amazing. So it's like, we care. I'm bringing this up because there's such a. A matter of. Of care between the group think and like, what do others think about this piece of content before I decide if I like it or not? So if I'm pumping money, tens of thousands of dollars per single into this guy, no one knows. But I'm giving you the perception that people fuck with it. Who's to say? You know what I mean? That's.

[Raph]

I would say that I think it'd be better for the longevity of the artist. And yeah, you can, like, play the algorithm roulette game and hope that it gets picked up. Or you could do what you talked about with pushing this album, the one you talked about earlier, where it's like, oh, you paid influencers. You paid people to push it to their audiences. If you're a label, you have artists with audiences, use them.

[Julian]

I think this is in the use case of me doing the best version of my job is finding something that was existing in very niche target demo, in spreading it to a larger audience. I think that's. Yeah, there's purity and like, I'm. I'll. I'll defend that kind of marketing a thousand percent. But in theory, the tactic is the same.

[Raph]

It's similar. I think there's a small difference for me is the manufactured engagement.

[Julian]

Like, I paid. And by eye, the label, we paid like, I think 10 or $15,000 for a TikTok campaign. And I. And I had to try the choice to make two. Two options. I had the choice to go with a micro influencer campaign, which means anywhere from like a hundred thousand to a half million followers on Instagram, on, pardon me, on TikTok. And they would all create. I would get like 10 to 15 influencers to dance to the record or. Because this is what was great about the songs. There was a dance, which we didn't. A lot of times labels try to fabricate a dance or like, you just be. You be creative and whichever dance sticks will push. We had a fucking dance. So that's how I knew this was gonna work. Some black girl, I think, did the dance and it stuck. So then I would send that video as say, hey, your influencer has to do this dance. When they make that Video. So they would do that. And the other option, option B was we run a macro campaign, which is influencers of a million or more. Your Addison Rays, your Charlie d'. Amelios. At that time, they were, you know, much hotter. TikTok was more of a thing. This is years ago. This is during the pandemic. And I opted for the micro for the. My goal was to always cast a wider net. These guys have great followings for the hopes that organically one of these big dogs will see that it's popping and pick it up. Because they. There's always the hunt of who's first in the macro community. I'd rather pay for the smaller guys to do it because someone over there is going to pick it up.

[Raph]

Right.

[Julian]

Option B will in turn pay for itself. So we post, we get all these influencers over the course of I and I. And there's also two ways to go about this. I'm just. Literally, if you're a digital marketer, listen to this. I'm giving you the. All the sauce. There's two. There's methods that people go about this. You can either blitz it over one week or a few days. Everybody posts at the same time. No, no, no. I will space this out over three weeks. Give me a post or two a week. Other people will pick it up. And we're building organic traction on top of the paid posts that we make over the course of three weeks. Sure enough, as soon as our campaign ends, Addison Ray picks it up, does the dance and then we fucking skyrocket. I think Charlie may have done it. We didn't pay a dime for either of them. Point is like that to me is like a proper marketing strategy, but I could have just paid for them to do it.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So it's like kind of like a pick your, you know, choose your own moral journey.

[Raph]

Yeah. I mean, I think that it's. It's definitely. It's harder to do it the way you did it. I also think it's more rewarding to do it that way. Probably for you.

[Julian]

I was very confident in that. Strat. Yeah. Because there was a dance. I knew it would work. I've worked Jason Derulo Records where I would have a half a million dollar budget On Tick Tock alone. You can't fabricate something that doesn't exist.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Like especially on Tick Tock.

[Raph]

Whereas I, like pay a bunch of girls to make up a dance.

[Julian]

Doesn't work. It doesn't work. It does not work. They gave us a hashtag. They said we'll give you guys a hashtag for the song to promote it. It. They gave us everything. It just doesn't work.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So I don't know. I don't know. I got off on that tangent. But the. The world of fake. The world of fake has been. I think it's so universally used across every. You know, and certainly in entertainment.

[Raph]

Yeah, in entertainment, I think that there's a huge financial incentive to use it. Like direct financial incentive to use it.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

I also think that it gets. It gets leveraged, like when it comes back. Back to the. Back to Sydney Sweeney and you know this stuff. Like, what's the financial incentive there? Right.

[Julian]

American eagle stock went up 13.

[Raph]

Yeah. Wow.

[Julian]

Yeah. That's amazing. They did it like they won. They got what they wanted.

[Raph]

So, like, culture pays, man.

[Julian]

Yeah. So like, that's the. The thing is like, you know, the American Eagle CEO put out a statement, you know, explicitly denouncing the fact that this was some, you know, call for white, you know, America and all that bullshit that people have been saying. But, you know, I understand that. Great move by them. Put out the public statement. But on the back end, like, you know, that boardroom is high fiving and everybody's like, hell, yeah, absolutely.

[Raph]

And I think that I guess my moral hang up with like the music one, like you explaining it and outlining it. Like I understand it.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

I don't judge it. I think that it's like, okay, like, there's a lot of factors at play that I don't understand as a lot of psychology that I understand.

[Julian]

But is it because the stakes are lower there where when we talk into politics, it's more. You're looking at swaying an election and people's lives.

[Raph]

Yeah. Like, you know, some. Some new rapper inflating their views doesn't hurt anyone. Right. But I mean, it does hurt the rappers that don't have access to the labels. It makes that. There's that argument. Right.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And so it kind of like consolidates power. And then on the Internet, where things are supposed to be democratized, it kind of just like, once again, it just re. Establishes the same power existed.

[Julian]

Yes.

[Raph]

So there's that problem. And so you can argue that.

[Julian]

Which isn't. Yes. It's not, you know, election swing, but that really fucking matters. When you're talking about creatives and artists and the integrity of what art should be like, that really, really fucking matters.

[Raph]

We have. We'd have a lot. I think music in general has degraded from what it was. Like, maybe my nostalgia glasses, but like, from what it was like 10, 15 years ago.

[Julian]

I always think the tactics were different. Like in radio, there's paola. So you know, you, you basically grease a radio, local radio dj and they'll play your record.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So I think versions of this, gaming, the system has always been a thing. I don't think that's like a new take because we have Internet and bots, but it's, I think in an era of over communication and over stimulation, it's easier to sniff out when you feel like you're being duped. Whereas before, I think users were more left in the dark or the unknowingness of what was actually being done around the levers that were being pulled around them weren't poking out of the curtain.

[Raph]

Yeah. It wasn't so obvious back. Yeah, like, oh, like there's no way they're paying off Z100.

[Julian]

But like, yeah, it's like the wizard of Oz thing where it's like, oh, oh, you okay. Yeah, like, but whereas they may not be shocked in the 80s if they were told that that existed. But today we are just, we're all behind the curtain. It's like we know what's going on.

[Raph]

Yeah, absolutely. And people openly talk about it. But I think what's interesting to me is that when, when like being a tech nerd, you think about the Internet, you think about AI, you think about all these cool technologies. And the first thought I always have is like, oh, like this is going to make the world a better place. Oh, like, like the Internet. I'm sure the people that invented the Internet, Al Gore and, and they were like, okay, like we're going to, we're going to facilitate the greatest exchange of information and ideas to ever exist in human history. Like, ideas are about to get a lot better because theoretically that's what happens when ideas engage in a, in a.

[Julian]

Fair environment, when you're creating a larger community, it creates more think, more thought. Yeah, it should.

[Raph]

And so you can apply the same thing to music where it's like, you know, you could make the argument music is better or worse or the same as it was or in quality as it was 10, 15 years ago. When you look at the Internet, it's like, okay, like we created with TikTok and Spot, you could say even Spotify. The greatest music distribution technologies to ever exist in human history.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And music hasn't gotten that much better.

[Julian]

You're saying music in terms of the, the quality of the actual music itself or how it's created.

[Raph]

I would, I mean, you can make the argument for either or. I would say that for me, the interesting thing that's happened is music sounds more similar now.

[Julian]

But I think that's because they're playing to. It's no longer about playing to uniqueness. I think it's more about being the best at what's already deemed good. So it's like, if I'm the best at pop, I get the most dreams. I'm the queen of pop. Like, same with rap. Okay. What's the hot sound of rap? Okay, let me sign the kid. That's the best at that version of it. And now we have something cooking. Yeah, Like, I think it's less about, like, the. It's less risk. It's like I. These labels. When Taylor Swift became a thing there, all these other labels were like, all right, Atlantic needs their Taylor Swift. Republic. Well, she's Republican. Like, you know, Sony needs their Taylor Swift. So all these other people are trying to replicate what's already multi platinum.

[Raph]

Right. I was kind of hoping for more like Tyler's, you know, in a world of Taylor's, you know, like, super unique, kind of weird out there. Still in it. Still in a genre for sure.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Still has ties to, like. I mean, he was very close to, like, you know, asap in that group. And, like, so he has ties to, like, more traditional versions of the genre. But I thought that the Internet would breed more guys like that and girls like that, but that really have any of that.

[Julian]

That risk is only worth funding when it's already odd. Future was a movement like they. They clothing a television show, you know, Tyler's numbers for his first few album sales were incredible. Like, it took that level of, you know, success to even get.

[Raph]

Yeah, that's fair.

[Julian]

The push to the major. To be like, all right, now you. You greenlight it whatever you want, which is incredible. Like, it's insane that that's like, the case, but.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So how does one combat the Sydney Sweeney stuff and even, like, this stuff? Like what social media. What can social media that exists already do? Or does this type of social media not exist? Or what needs to be put in place for these. The purity of human interaction to become a thing?

[Raph]

Well, like, I think that when it comes to online interaction, there's a lot of things that are really hard to solve. And there are some things that are actually not that hard to solve. For example, I don't think. I don't think the bot problem's that hard to solve. Like, the bot problem has been solved by other industries already. Banking solved. It Investment like Robinhood solved. Yeah, you can't botch it on Robinhood. Right. So other industries have solved it. So the question is, then why have. Why hasn't X or meta implemented that? And it goes back to what we talked about earlier. You know, their valuations are dictated by a certain metric of user accounts. To retroactively verify every user would cost them way too much money because there are more accounts than people in the world.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And it would slice their user accounts by like. Like, by an insane margin. Like, they remove a billion accounts every quarter.

[Julian]

Yeah. Remember years ago when Instagram did a scrub of fake accounts and it was. I think it was Justin Bieber's following went from like 200 million to like 109 or something like that, which is like, oh, my God, broke boy. But like, it was just like the. That level of botting exists, you know, on. To everywhere, to that extent where nearly half of his followers were fake. Okay, so if they're not doing it, then what can be done to change this?

[Raph]

Well, they have to, like, add biometrics in. They have to basically add in, like. Right. Because right now it's an email phone number. Right.

[Julian]

What. What would biometrics do? Just, I'm an idiot. Explain.

[Raph]

Okay, scan my face. Scan my. Or. Or, like, you get even. I mean, IDs are harder because you can spoof an ID, but you can't really spoof face. The problem with that is, you know, people don't really trust a lot of these companies with their faces.

[Julian]

I feel like face ID is so commonplace now, ever since iPhone just made it the lock system.

[Raph]

Yeah. So like, Apple could implement it at the hardware level if they wanted to. Apple and Twitter could talk to each other.

[Julian]

Like, my Chase Bank, I use that, my face id to scan into that.

[Raph]

So once you make an account. So, like. But that's logging in to make a Chase account. That's like, it has to be at the point of account creation, not a point of logging in. Logging in. Okay, you can, like, you can tie Instagram to logging to your face if you want. Now you can.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

But when you create the account, you could. You could have your face on 50 interim accounts.

[Julian]

Okay, so you're saying when the day one I download the app, I have to scan my face to even just create the account.

[Raph]

Right. And you have to limit people to one account per person. Or you mean you could create an artificial limit. Like, okay, like you can make 10.

[Julian]

Would that be sold on like a B2B or.

[Raph]

Well, you could basically say, okay, like we'll give you the chance to make an account and we, and you could from that account. Well, you make like three profiles. You make like a business profile and you could like, and you can like admin your way into that, but it's still just you.

[Julian]

Okay.

[Raph]

And so we have that oversight. But the second that if I, if I say, okay, like we're going to scan your face but we're not going to limit the amount of accounts you can make. Julian's making 20,000 accounts.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And you're going to bought into them from a bunch of different devices. So it doesn't solve the problem. Yeah, you have to limit the amount of accounts too.

[Julian]

So if I'm a user and I hear something like a service like this or an app like this that has those restrictions, why would I, if I'm already have all these other apps on my phone, what would the incentive for me to be like, why should I want to download this and engage with this as a product?

[Raph]

Well, I think when there's no users, there is no incentive. But if there's a community of people on an app like that and it's like, oh, this is the bot free Instagram, this is the bot free. Reddit, this is the bot free insert social platform that you like and you're like, oh, I can go on Reddit and there's no bots, I wonder what that's like. You would be curious about it. And of course you're requiring all this stuff. You probably still want to give users some level of anonymity because that's important on the Internet. And so you'd probably look to encrypt it or just some fancy tech stuff to make it private. But I think there'd be a natural curiosity where it's like, I'm going to at least check it out.

[Julian]

I. A use case that I thought of that would just be probably resonate with just a younger user base is if I have a girlfriend and we have an awful breakup, but I'm like salty and jealous and I know, I heard she got a new man, but she blocked me on Instagram, but her profile is public, I could just make a dummy account and then follow like, you know, shadow, follow what they say, where I just go to her page and look at her stuff. This would, if an app like this were to exist, you wouldn't be able to make that secondary account to then look at activity of other people.

[Raph]

Yeah, you wouldn't be able to. I mean maybe if you, if you have a friend who's following her this well.

[Julian]

Yeah. You could be like, hey, if we're hanging in the same room, I'd be like, let me see. Yeah. But I wouldn't be able to then go out there and create all these dummy accounts to then get.

[Raph]

Okay, I think it's good.

[Julian]

I think. I do think that's great as well. I block you, like, get the out of my life.

[Raph]

Leave me alone.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

If I actual restraining orders.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

So I think there would be like a, like a natural curiosity to see that kind of app. I think also like the idea that. And I think girls experience a lot more than guys do. But girls get like, especially like Instagram famous girls or pretty girls will get, you know, only fan accounts spun up of them or fake accounts or catfish accounts. And so I think that having an app having like a version of Instagram that is a bot. Free Instagram.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

It's like, oh, like I can't get catfished here. Maybe like, someone could potentially like use Gen AI on top of that account. But, like, at least that's a real human being I'm talking to.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And so, like, I think that is going to be important because right now we're actually at 49.7% of the Internet is bots. We're like right there.

[Julian]

Wow.

[Raph]

We're tipping. Like this year, we're tipping.

[Julian]

Is it, is it a me thing or am I naive to. I sounds like your stat answered my own question. When I'm online, I say to myself, I agree, that is true, but I know I'm talking to real people. I know I'm interacting with actual human beings. Is it naive for me to say that knowing that nearly half of these accounts are probably fake.

[Raph]

Well, I think what this the saving grace and the only reason people still use these apps is because they meet people in the real world. Like, if Instagram, like imagine Instagram, but remove all of your actual friends from it.

[Julian]

Oh, I wouldn't use it at all.

[Raph]

Yeah, no, like, and like, yeah, you can meet people on the Internet. Yeah.

[Julian]

I'm saying outside of my friend, I guess.

[Raph]

Yeah, like take your friends out of Instagram.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And like, you're hoping they're real. You can go to their pages. You go, oh, they're following a certain amount of people. They're. They're being followed by a certain amount of people. They have a certain amount of posts that will become completely useless data in figuring out who's real, who's not real with Gen AI, because Gen AI, I can create a hundred thousand accounts. Gen AI all their profile pictures, Gen AI, all the like Gen AI 80 pictures. And then I can make them all the accounts private and I can make them all follow each other. You have no way of knowing. And then you'll have to assume that any private account is fake. So like, like the, the amount of digital literacy you need to tell the difference will keep getting higher and higher and then eventually you won't be able to tell at all. Unless you've met that person in the real world. Then you will like. Otherwise you'll never know.

[Julian]

For, for those that are wondering, like, what are the tells to. To determine if you are actually engaging with a real person or of like a bot farm.

[Raph]

Yeah. I think different apps have different tells. Reddit is probably the easiest tell because you can go on and see all their Reddit posts. You could see. And if it's all like one dimensional, that's pretty obvious to me. When the accounts were created is pretty important too. Yeah, like if I like, I mean, I feel like some Instagram ones are pretty obvious. We get followed by a fake bot and it's like too fun Followers and it's a URL on the link. I think that those are pretty obvious. If the Instagram account is public and they actually post a lot, you could probably look and see how far back they posted. That's a pretty good one as well. Like if they posted since 2012. Yeah, that's a person.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

I think that those are. My tells are like, how many posts do you have? How often do you post? When was your account created?

[Julian]

Do you ever get. I get these a lot. Do you ever get. I, I always get put in these group chats with like sexy women and.

[Raph]

It'S like bitcoin trading.

[Julian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where it's like, you know, just, you know, you're lucky we chose you. We want to have a group gang bang. And I'm like, what? Click the link. Okay. And then the other one is. The other one is. Because it looked like a. I, I didn't fall for it. Like, oh my God, this girl wants to hook up with me. But I was, I wasn't, I wasn't convinced that it was fake until, you know, I don't know what, what the tell was, but I think because I messaged them back, that's what it was. But a girl DM me. And it was a very real photo of a girl. And she said, hey, my friend and I saw you out last night. My friend is really embarrassed. She wanted me to reach out. But if you're interested. Like, you know, let me know. And then I was like, I think I like the metals. Like haha, like can I. Who's your friend? Like what's it? And then like a message or two after that I was like, oh yeah. And then because I engaged with it, I've gotten so many more versions of that where it's like, this is so embarrassing for me to say. But it's never the person reaching out that's interested. It's always on behalf of the friend. Whereas I'm assuming when you follow through to a certain point, that link you need to get access to the friend is like the very fishing thing that they need.

[Raph]

That's the, that's the, I think that and so like you know, the, the Bob problem. It doesn't even need gen to be a problem because you can get catfished by someone using some other girl's pictures and that could be a real girl.

[Julian]

Have you been catfished?

[Raph]

Yeah, like when I was like in high school.

[Julian]

Oh really? I got, I got catfish like in New York as an adult, I got catfished.

[Raph]

Oh, okay. Like I got catfished twice. Once was like, it's like a, probably some middle aged dude. I talked for like two weeks.

[Julian]

Like sexy talk or like what's the.

[Raph]

I was 14, so I, I wasn't sexy talking.

[Julian]

All right, word.

[Raph]

It was some Instagram dm some girl. I mean she had a lot of, she had a lot of followers and some mutual. So I was like, this is kind of legit. But like years later I found out, I found, I, I, I, I, I gave up after a couple weeks.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Because I was like, all right. Like I was like, oh, let's FaceTime. She kept saying no and I'm like, all right, you're weird for that. You're weird energy for that sauce. Yeah. At that point I'm like, all right, I'm, I'm, I'm too smart for this. But like I saw the real girl like years later.

[Julian]

Did you tell her?

[Raph]

No? No, honestly, my sawer, I didn't see her. I was like, yeah, like I, yeah, like 10 years ago a catfish of you asked for feet pics.

[Julian]

Like he asked you for feedback. You definitely said that. You definitely said, you definitely sent your four boy, your boy, your boy toes. You definitely said that guy, he's been cranking it. He's been beating his to your boy toes for 14 years.

[Raph]

I did ask my mutuals. Like I was like, after that I was kind of like, yo, this is kind of weird. She's like Asking for like. And I was like, yo, like, I don't know you, dude. Like, FaceTime me. Like, I don't tell you're a real person. I'm not gonna. Yuck. You're young. But like, I need to know you're.

[Julian]

A real person before I send you these beautiful toes.

[Raph]

Yeah, before I send these, you know, these money makers. Yeah, I need to know you're real. And I. It was like some. I look at my head school and I asked him, I was like, yo, dude, is this. Like, he's like, nah, that's not. That's not. Like, why are you following her? Like, he's still following her. You're giving her a social credit score. Like, why are you doing that? But I saw the girl later on Instagram and she was like, yeah, like multi million followers. Yeah, like. Okay, okay.

[Julian]

What was the other incident? Reason.

[Raph]

Oh, that was like hinged Covid. Hinge.

[Julian]

Yeah, Covid catfish.

[Raph]

Covered catfish. And it wasn't even like a. It wasn't like a full. It was like a full diet catfish. Which is like a funny choice of words in this situation because like, yeah, I mean, it was this. It was the girl, but it was like old photos. Years old, six year old photos.

[Julian]

That's what happened to me.

[Raph]

Yeah, it's tough. And it's like, it's like, like a. Not a small difference either how bad?

[Julian]

Like weights or just wait. Yeah.

[Raph]

And I'm not someone that is gonna like judge weight.

[Julian]

I mean, well, you did.

[Raph]

I've had my fat boy errors. I mean, all right, like, come on.

[Julian]

But fat shamer.

[Raph]

Dude, like, I'm talking.

[Julian]

Like you're just trying to restore Cindy Sweeney's America. That's really.

[Raph]

No, I saw a news article about like make America hot again. Have you seen that?

[Julian]

No, but I mean that's. I mean, it's. They're gonna flip that every which way.

[Raph]

It's tough. It's like a bunch of like really mid looking white people. People. It's really funny.

[Julian]

There's the new. There's a new push online. Actually. A girl that we both know is very heavy into this. I will tell you off camera, but it's like this like new O wave of like New York influencers and their whole agenda is just like fat shaming. Wait, so she's in like this niche community. That's very. If I give out any of the accounts, people can find out, but like, it's like these weird. So all these white people that create these accounts that are like restoring. It's like echoing Conservative values and priorities, but through the lens of, like, a cool young professional in New York City. Like, people that are like, I work in finance in New York, but the subway's dangerous. It's like, people like that. It's like, people are like, you know, I. I drink 25 martinis. They're psyopping tuna tartare, but fat bitches are gross. It's like that. Like, that's their whole thing is just. You know what I mean? Like, I'm a young, successful white person in New York. I'm better than you. But New York sucks because it's a liberal. It's like, I'm the counterculture guy. I live in fucking Murray Hill. It's like, all that shit. It's so fucking corny.

[Raph]

Like, activating. Like, they're, like, activating hyper, right?

[Julian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're. They're hitting. They're pulling, like, it. Flipping all the triggers to then, like, disperse that.

[Raph]

Right?

[Julian]

I don't know. But, like, they're hitting a community enough that, like, one of these couple, these guys had made, like, the New York Post, which kind of echoes those things. And it's like, dating liberals in New York be like, did you vote for Zoran? I'm like, hell, no. I don't believe in that Muslim. And then it's like, you know, it's like white people across, like, America being like, that's right, brother. You hold it down in New York. It's like, that's their target demo.

[Raph]

Right. Because New York is a very important cultural hub. And so they're trying to, like, create a counterculture.

[Julian]

Yeah, they're trying to be like, we exist out here, bro. We're really doing it. It's like, that's their whole thing. It's so lame.

[Raph]

They're definitely getting paid.

[Julian]

They. I would imagine some of them have been getting paid. If not, they're probably traditionally just monetizing via Twitter's metrics, right?

[Raph]

Yeah, Maybe there's capitalizing on, like, outside market, like, audiences. But I feel like in New York, moving like that is like, you're kind of making yourself a social pariah.

[Julian]

I think it's the corniest thing that you can do. It's also extremely performative. And all of them just steal tweets from other people. Like, they're. None of them are actually inherently funny or create genuinely good content to engage with. All they do is cherry pick other things that have already been viral and do, like, a version of it that fits their narrative. It's like an amalgamation of Like, I know this works over here, so I'm just going to copy and paste it to fit my life and put it over here. It's. It's like. It's so lame. Yeah, it's like the fuck Jerry guy that just steals tweets and then just, like, puts it out, you know? That's all it is.

[Raph]

Yeah, there's no. There's no authenticity to those.

[Julian]

Not at all.

[Raph]

Aggregators.

[Julian]

The whole character you're developing is just based on successful tweets from other people. Some. Some. So much so that you're not even creative enough to change the. The font or the messaging at all that you just directly copy and paste it. And then when you post it, screenshotters will just look it up and be like, sick, bro, you stole a tweet from three years ago.

[Raph]

Yeah, I think, like those. Those Instagram or TikTok, like, tweet screenshot posts.

[Julian]

I hate.

[Raph]

I hate people like that. I mean, they can be funny. I'm not going to lie. But, like, it's the laziest form of.

[Julian]

You're not a creator. You don't create anything. You're just regurgitating things to your audience. You're not unique because you found it.

[Raph]

I'm a curator.

[Julian]

Yeah, it's. You're. It's not creative that you just retweeted something. It's. The lowest form of art is reposting something somebody else created. You're not an artist. You're not creative. You do nothing.

[Raph]

Are there lower forms of art?

[Julian]

What's worse on an online environment? What's lower than just hijacking someone's content and reposting it in online art?

[Raph]

Anonymous hating.

[Julian]

Depends on how good the hate is.

[Raph]

Yeah. Okay. You're right.

[Julian]

Be a good hater.

[Raph]

Right. You could be a good hater.

[Julian]

Be a good hater.

[Raph]

Be a good hater. There. There's art in hating.

[Julian]

There's some good art in hating. If you're. If you're a good bully. If you're a good online bully, there's a market for that.

[Raph]

Yeah. Like, if someone roasts me in the comments of this and it's funny, I'll like it.

[Julian]

I'll pin it. I'll post anything and be like, they'll flame the out of me. And I'm like, that's amazing. Congrats. Pinned.

[Raph]

It's like, oh, why are Zoron's cousins on a podcast?

[Julian]

You hit Tower One, I'll hit Tower Two. That's.

[Raph]

I actually had. I actually had some buddies at school. This is actually a really funny story. So I went to Notre Dame. Super white school, right. Very white school. Kind of like went full circle on my super white suburbs. I. It was a good school. That's why I went there. It's the best school.

[Julian]

I mean, it's Notre Dame.

[Raph]

Yeah. It's really.

[Julian]

You don't have to. Excuse me. Excuse. Going to a great academic school and.

[Raph]

Like, I, you know, I spent a.

[Julian]

Lot of Sydney Sweeney's on that campus. No, really? No.

[Raph]

They don't look like her.

[Julian]

Should have gone to a state school.

[Raph]

I visited a bunch. I have some friends at state schools, but. So I spent a lot of time in Queens before I went to Notre Dame. So I had been white passing in Queens for so long.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

That like, I kind of like, I kind of expected to go to their name. And I was like, okay, like, maybe they'll see me as a little ethnic. But like, I'm. I am white.

[Julian]

I'm a white guy. Yeah.

[Raph]

Like I. I'm white fast.

[Julian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Raph]

I got Swiss passport, dude. Like, I'm not. Okay. I'm not facing the same struggles that you are.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And so I got to another name and I'm like, I'm brown there. I'm brown. Like I'm, you know, like the Snapchat Bitmojis.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Like mine was tan. And my roommate, and I love him, he's like the whitest guy ever. He goes, he goes, that's not you. And mind you, it was like the tan Bitmoji. I was like, oh, dude, like, what do you mean? He took my phone, he changed it. He made it like the darkest. And I was like, dude, have you ever seen a black person before? What is this? So our first mid year, we had, we had. It was all guys dorms at Notre Dame. Right? We had all guys dorms at Notre Dame. Sick and yes, fire. I actually spoke directly to the principal about that print about that policy. And I was like, you know, like. Because like, I asked him why. I asked him why he did it.

[Julian]

You went to the prison. Like, sir, this is gay.

[Raph]

He had this. He had like office hours at the school. And like I had the mic at one point, I was like, hey, can you explain? Yeah, the policy. And he was like, you know, we're really trying to create like a family environment. And I was like, I have a mom.

[Julian]

Yeah. I've been around women my whole life.

[Raph]

The audience clapped and he was like, shut up, brown boy. I sat down. But anyway, so like freshman year, dorm hall, all dudes Right. And there's some like athletes in the.

[Julian]

Dorm hall, but couple black guys.

[Raph]

One really?

[Julian]

Okay. Athlete.

[Raph]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we all had nicknames. Actually, no, sorry. My section didn't have a black guy in it at all. The section next to mine did. It was like our floor.

[Julian]

Section eight. No, sorry.

[Raph]

Honestly, there were a couple black guys in section eight on the fourth floor.

[Julian]

Jesus Christ. Dude, that's so fun.

[Raph]

As actually messed up now I think about it. But. So we had nicknames for each other, right? Yeah, it was mostly white guys, but the. There was three non white people in our section. Three.

[Julian]

What were they though?

[Raph]

Two Brazilians and me.

[Julian]

Okay. Brazilians got a nice little tan to them.

[Raph]

I'm not considered white.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

In this environment. Right. So can you guess what the two Brazilians nicknames were? They're related. They're twins. The guys. All guys. Right. And can you guess what my nickname was?

[Julian]

You're probably just a terrorist.

[Raph]

Yeah, no, it was literally terrorists right away.

[Julian]

You're just going to. Literally just terrorists. Oh my God, that's amazing.

[Raph]

And then like we were it.

[Julian]

We would be in the. And you had no say in that. It's just like. You also had to be cool with it.

[Raph]

No, I was cool with it. I like those guys.

[Julian]

Yeah. Isn't it weird that that works where it's like people you with. You're like, yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Yeah.

[Raph]

Like it's all about how it's said, I think.

[Julian]

Yeah. And who says it?

[Raph]

Yeah, who says it? There's a lot like, I laugh when they did it.

[Julian]

There's a lot of nuance that goes into that.

[Raph]

And also the other nicknames were. They weren't racist. They were like, mean.

[Julian]

What were the other ones?

[Raph]

One kid, we just called him fat. And then. And then the two Brazilians were Ola and Adios.

[Julian]

Which is awesome.

[Raph]

Awesome. Which is awesome.

[Julian]

I love that terrorist.

[Raph]

Cuz. Like. And also the great thing about Olan Audios, it's layered because like most people will get the joke.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Is that like Brazilians don't speak Spanish?

[Julian]

Yeah, no, it's Portuguese. Yeah.

[Raph]

So it's just like even better. But so like. And. But my name was by far the worst name.

[Julian]

Oh.

[Raph]

I mean, one kid was named dj. We called him bj. Pretty innocent, right?

[Julian]

It's cute.

[Raph]

One kid was studying to be a priest and we called him Jesus. I don't think he liked that very much because he was pretty serious about being a priest and stuff. Wow. We had a offensive lineman. We Called him Big Snack.

[Julian]

That's a fun nickname.

[Raph]

That's like a fun one. Yeah, like the, the, the issuers and nicknames were a little scared of him, so they didn't like, want to.

[Julian]

Yeah, they're like, and you. He's like 6, 6, 350. You're like big snack.

[Raph]

He was like a four star recruit. Yeah, like we're not.

[Julian]

He's got a Max Prep mixtape online.

[Raph]

You're like the other like Big Kitty. We called him fat.

[Julian]

He was like, you're.

[Raph]

You're fat in this. But then, and then there was other kid. We called him the Freak, but he's like the most normal kid of all time.

[Julian]

I love doing that. That's a great bit. Is when you chastise someone as something that they're just not at all like.

[Raph]

We be out and he's talking to girls like, yo, is the freak the free?

[Julian]

He's like the most normal dude in.

[Raph]

The group and the girl's always like.

[Julian]

What did he do?

[Raph]

And then it's like the best block of all time.

[Julian]

That's a good, that's a good bit. So do they still call you terrorist or what's the.

[Raph]

So we would be like in the dining hall. Like, they're saying, I was like, yo, terrorists. And like, yo, you can't scream that in a, in a public. Yo. So, so we had to come up.

[Julian]

With a, with a nickname, the code name Osama.

[Raph]

It was just Wrist.

[Julian]

That's pretty good.

[Raph]

Wrist, Wrist, Wrist. And it's like, oh, what's that? Oh, it's Terrorist.

[Julian]

Like the terror squad or like something like that. Like, I don't know.

[Raph]

But no, Rich was kind of cool. But then it's funny when you had a party party, it's like, oh, like they call me Wrist. Like, oh, why?

[Julian]

Well, it's short.

[Raph]

It's short for Terrorist. I'm like, oh, great. But the story gets funnier because at one point, everyone in our section got an email from the rector of the dorm. And by the way, the rectors at Notre Dame were all priests. So I got an email from a priest and all my section copied saying, hey, so we hear there's some, some names being thrown around the section and we, we got some complaints about them. So we want to sit down and talk about them. So me, Big Snack, Ola and my roommate, Virgin.

[Julian]

That was his nickname. Virgin.

[Raph]

Well, he was a virgin at the.

[Julian]

Time, so it's just.

[Raph]

Yeah, yeah, he's just a virgin. We just wanted him to, we just.

[Julian]

Want everyone else to know yeah. That's smart.

[Raph]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Julian]

It's good for him. I'm sure he felt good about that.

[Raph]

Yeah. No, he was like. I mean, he was like a 6 4. Like, you know, like, in shape, so.

[Julian]

Virgin by choice.

[Raph]

Virgin by choice. I was his roommate.

[Julian]

Like, even worse.

[Raph]

Yeah, it was, like, annoying.

[Julian]

Too religious.

[Raph]

Yeah. But it's like brothers, where he's actually engaged now. He's had sex with this girl.

[Julian]

Congrats to him.

[Raph]

Yeah. Love you, dog.

[Julian]

Jobbergen.

[Raph]

You are.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Good job, Verge. So me, Verge, Big Snack, and Ola were isolated as, like, the perpetuators of the nicknames. So we had to go to the rector's office and one by one, go in there and have a long conversation with the rector, like, representative of the school in our ra.

[Julian]

If I'm you, I'd go in there and be like, you think I'm the perpetrator? My name is literally terrorist.

[Raph]

And so, like. And like, you know, Big Snack is gonna lose his scholarship over this. Because it's like, it was like, that.

[Julian]

Big of a deal.

[Raph]

No, like, it was a really big deal. They're like, like, we don't. We don't tolerate bullying. It's zero tolerance. You know, you guys are gonna kick you out of the door. Like that kind of. Everyone goes in. Everyone goes in. And I went. I was going last.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And Big Snack comes out, and he was like, yo, dude. Like, just like, whatever you can do. Like, please help me out. I'm like, yeah, dude. Like, like, we won't get kicked out of school, but you will lose your scholarship for this. Like, this isn't. This isn't, like, expelling Worthy. He wasn't, like, a starter.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Red shirting as a freshman.

[Julian]

Freshman. Yeah.

[Raph]

Yeah. So, like, they're like, oh, we can. You know, if he's a bully, we're gonna get rid of them. So I get in there, sit down. Like, oh, like, you know, here's some names being thrown around. We just want to, like, hear it from you. It's like how these names came to be and, like, what your opinions about them are. And they go through all the names and they were like, yeah, but, like, no one told us what your name was.

[Julian]

Oh.

[Raph]

And I sat there and I was like, you can't.

[Julian]

You gotta bite that. You can't.

[Raph]

No, no, no.

[Julian]

You said it.

[Raph]

No, no. So, but, like, the whole thing was, like, the whole conversation I was kind of saying, like, look, like, none of us knew that anyone was upset. Like, clearly, you're.

[Julian]

They're upset. It's implied. You're all getting pulled into these meetings.

[Raph]

Like. Like, before that email.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

No one. No one of the group had come up to us and said, hey, like, I don't like this.

[Julian]

Oh, you're saying of the kids.

[Raph]

Of the kids.

[Julian]

Of the kids.

[Raph]

No one spoke to any of us. And, like, we would have stopped. Like, we weren't. Yeah, we thought everyone was in on it. Like, we thought it was funny. Like, I'm being screamed at terrorists in the dining hall. It's funny. Yeah, I think it's funny. If I had a problem with it, I would have said something to the guys and he would have stopped.

[Julian]

Or you would just handle. You would have blown up the fucking dining hall.

[Raph]

Yeah, I would have. I would have.

[Julian]

Yeah, I bet.

[Raph]

Really? So, like, my whole thing and like, what. What all the guys before me were trying to say to the rector. Hey, like, no one told us that this is a problem and would have. And so I get in there, and I was like, they're like, so, what's your name? And I was like, it was terrorist. They looked dead. They were like, oh. Like, it went from a problem in the dorm hall to, like, an international news story.

[Julian]

Yeah. Why would you say it, though?

[Raph]

No, no, but I was like, but I said to them, no, but, like, it's on me, though.

[Julian]

Oh, you're saying, but it's okay with me.

[Raph]

Now I hold the power.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Like, now I can choose to make this a big deal or not.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

So I was like, my name is Terrace. And they're like, oh, oh. Like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

And if I had a problem with it, I would have told them.

[Julian]

Yeah. It's funny.

[Raph]

And then it just became. It immediately was squashed and the problem went away completely.

[Julian]

Wow.

[Raph]

Yeah. But, like, the names dropped, and you.

[Julian]

Know who it was who complained?

[Raph]

It was bj.

[Julian]

Be the. The least. Like, the least offensive nickname of all of them.

[Raph]

It was bj.

[Julian]

It's literally half of his name.

[Raph]

Yeah. Because it wasn't freak. It wasn't fat.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

It wasn't virgin. It wasn't Jesus. It wasn't Ola or Adios or Terrorist. It was bj.

[Julian]

That's some white boy. It only leads to the one white boy. I mean, I don't really like this one.

[Raph]

We, like, totally, like, isolated him after that. He transferred a semester later. Yeah. Then he actually got isolated. And, like, we were all like, we don't with you because you, like, snitched super hard and, like, you didn't talk to any of us. Like, you almost like, Trevor Big Snack almost lost his scholarship and, like, messed up. You can bleep. You can bleep, bleep the name I dropped. My bad. Big Snack.

[Julian]

Okay, we're good. Clean. All right. Okay. Wait, where do I want to come in?

[Raph]

But. Yeah, that's.

[Julian]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Raph]

Fun story about. I forgot. I forgot why I even brought that up. We were talking about. Oh, like the Zoran jokes and the race.

[Julian]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good story, though.

[Raph]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Julian]

On my school, when my. Was it with my first day or first week, I went to small liberal arts college, Lafayette. Super white. And on my first day, I think I was moving in. It was some mother of another student that was also moving in, sees me. Mind you, my mom and dad are there. My mom's Lebanese. She's very pale. My dad's just a black man. He's a big black guy. This woman sees me, like, alone in the hallway and was like, oh, my God, you must have gone somewhere crazy this summer. Your tan is incredible. As I'm moving into my freshman dorm.

[Raph]

You should have responded in, like, fluent Arabic.

[Julian]

She just transfers her daughter immediately. Yeah, but, like, that was the level of, you know, just white kids from Connecticut, you know, didn't never saw a black person unless it was, like, you know, watching football. So it was like that she legit, like, touched me. It was like, this tan is, like, beautiful.

[Raph]

Like, oh, what's the lawn you go to?

[Julian]

I'm like, what the fuck, dude? Yeah, so that was. That was my big culture shock on that campus.

[Raph]

I think it's funny that white people try so hard to get tan, you know? Yeah.

[Julian]

It's funny how that. Yeah.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Until. I mean, if you really want to. I don't want to tie it back to the Israel, Palestine thing, but, like, a reason why. One of the many reasons why that they're looked at as people, Israelis is because they are by nature fairer skin than Palestinians. And it's historically, no matter what country, no matter what world conflict, whoever's darker is looked at as lesser than. I mean, there's also an act of genocide going on in Sudan right now. But because that's an African genocide and the people that are affected there are black. It's seldom talked about in the news. It's really pretty fucking awful what's going on over there. But by the chance that there are literally no white people involved, it's not a story worth bringing to the mainstream media.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Which is like, that's just the nature of people that we've created that.

[Raph]

It's super fudgeing.

[Julian]

It's awful.

[Raph]

Yeah. It's just like. And I think it's maybe. I mean, I'm sure there's other factors that play with the Israel Palestine conflict.

[Julian]

And that being so many. There's so many. But that's just one of like the.

[Raph]

Yeah, no, I mean, I mean, when it comes to any conflict that involves like an African country or black people in general, it's just like it's less cared about like this. The. The burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral in France has gotten more coverage than. Than the Sudanese genocide.

[Julian]

Oh, yeah, they built. They put more money. They built that back up, bro. Come on. You think they're going to let the Catholic Church fall like that? Yeah, no, it's a, It's a building. Yeah.

[Raph]

And people care more about that than an entire.

[Julian]

Like, it's like, like, than real people.

[Raph]

Real human beings.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Good times, man.

[Raph]

Love that. But they can play on our. They can play on our football teams, though.

[Julian]

They could. Oh, I mean, as long as they. Yeah. Shane Gillis has that great bit Gillian Kees about the bit is like he's a head coach of school in the south and he wants to preserve white. It's like at that turn of the only white players here and then they get the shit kicked out of them by like a school that allowed black players. And then they finally after losing, allow black player. And then he's like start saying, all right, we're gonna only let him play one quarter. And then you'll see the score be like they'll be up 14 nothing. And then they pull out the black players and they lose like 52 to 14. So it's like over the course of each week by week, you're seeing in real time Shane's character loosen up on the racism. And then by the end of it, they win the championship. He's like, I told you guys all along, they're not bad people. He's like, I've been saying it from the beginning. So it's like. But like, it's a good bit. It's a great premise. But also that is literally how the South a large perception of people's towards, like how they felt towards black people started with black athletes being integrated onto those campuses and winning them. Things that matter to them.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So, like, you know, when you. I think it was the historic game where USC came to Alabama, beat the living out of Alabama, white people in the south were like, maybe we need to. Maybe they're not that bad. Yeah. Literally, like, there's, you know, I guess they should play. And now, you know, the rest is history.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

But, you know, good times, man. We're in. We're so lucky to be alive.

[Raph]

Notre Dame is kind of weird because, like, when I was good, when I was there, it's like, if you were black, you're probably an athlete.

[Julian]

Yeah, it's kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah. Not to say that I did, like, your typical sport, per se, but, like, on Lafayette's campus, it was annoying. It bothered me. I'm proud of my accomplishments. I'm happy with what I did. I'm blessed to have the ability to compete. But it is, like, one of those things where it's like, you're only here because you're, you know, an athlete. I'm like, that's not true, dick face. Like, look at my GPA and my SAT score. You like. But it's like the. The. The discredit. My favorite comeback was, which would. I don't say. Get me to a lot of trouble, but would lead to a lot of arguments, is I went to a public school in upstate New York. Now at this college with you, we're in the same class. You went to a. You grew up in a gated community. You went to the top private school in the. In the country. You had private SAT prep. And look, guess who's sitting next to me at this seminar. You're the up. I overachieved. You had all the shit in the world handed to you. Look where we're at. We're in the same room, idiot.

[Raph]

That's hard.

[Julian]

Yeah. So I would say shit like that and be like, oh, me? I went to make fun of where I grew up. Go for it. I'm sitting in the same room as you.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

So guess who failed.

[Raph]

It's like you're saying without saying it. You're like, yeah, but, like, all you're admitting is that I'm way smart. Yeah.

[Julian]

You had everything handed you. You're a leg. Not only that, you're also a legacy student. So who knows if you're even valid enough to be on this campus? Because your dad and his dad has paid this school hundreds of thousands of dollars over three generations, and so they bought you a seat. Congrats.

[Raph]

Yeah.

[Julian]

Yeah. So that's. You know. Anyway, I get too dark, but we can wrap. I feel like we've been recording for a fucking hell of a long time. I got to figure out how to chop this up. I usually don't edit much, but we may have to chop this up. Yeah, there'll be.

[Raph]

There'll be a couple bleeps and things.

[Julian]

Yeah.

[Raph]

Cut out of this.

[Julian]

Raph, I appreciate you, bro. I feel like this is great. This wasn't planned, but it felt right. Pause. And we're. We're doing this. So there's a couple of brown boys, you know, recording the pod. Episode 29 of Something Wrong with the Podcast. Everybody have a good week. I gotta. My throat's up. I gotta do something about this. All right, peace.

[Raph]

Bye.

[Julian]

Nothing wrong with the P. Nothing wrong with the P. Gotta roll with the pussy.