332: The (Social) Wild West

The (Social) Wild West

[00:00:00] Brett: Hey there, friendly listeners, you are tuned in too. Overtired, this is Brett Terpstra. I am here as always with Christina Warren. Um, Jeff is currently in Africa, so filling in for Jeff. We have Brian Guffy, friend of the show. Long time connection, silky smooth voice. How’s it going, Brian?

[00:00:29] Bryan: That’s for Jeff. I can do it because I’m black.

[00:00:36] Brett: Um, but yeah. Okay. Um,

[00:00:41] Bryan: just popped into my head. Yeah, no, I’m good. Um, it’s, it’s Saturday after the, you know, a week in which the 4th of July is on a Tuesday is one of the weirdest weeks in existence.

[00:00:55] Christina: Yes, I

[00:00:56] Brett: guys have to work Monday?

[00:00:58] Christina: um, I took the whole week off.

[00:00:59] Brett: [00:01:00] Oh wow.

[00:01:00] Bryan: Smart. We got Sonos. Sonos gave everybody Monday off, so that was great. Yeah.

[00:01:07] Brett: I, um, I technically worked Monday, but I didn’t work. Um, nobody scheduled any meetings, so I just kind of like kept Slack, giving me notifications all day, but went hiking instead. Um, I do have, I have a two week vacation coming up.

[00:01:27] Bryan: Ooh,

[00:01:27] Brett: It’s gonna be nice.

[00:01:28] Bryan: where are you going? Are you going somewhere or are you staying at home? Yeah.

[00:01:32] Brett: For me, uh, for me, an ideal vacation is doing nothing.

[00:01:36] Brett: Um, I, I may be headed to Chicago. I might try to make it to the, uh, Midwest barbecue that happens right before Max Stock. Um, I’m not gonna make it to Max stock itself this year, but it would be cool to go see all my, uh, all my podcaster friends that show up there and everything.

[00:01:54] Bryan: Yeah, I need to get out to Chicago cause I, apparently it’s impossible to do [00:02:00] a regular podcast with Alex. Um, uh, but I would like to see them in person.

[00:02:06] Christina: Yeah.

[00:02:07] Brett: Yeah. What

[00:02:08] Bryan: queer is on infinite hiatus,

[00:02:10] Brett: oh, that sucks.

[00:02:11] Bryan: but that’s partially because Alex has had like so many cat issues.

[00:02:17] Brett: Okay.

[00:02:18] Bryan: So it’s just been really hard. Like they just have been like dealing with sick cat and so it’s just been struggling to find a time and then Quinn has had to go back into the office.

[00:02:27] Bryan: Um, and yeah. We’ll, we’ll get there. We haven’t given it up.

[00:02:33] Brett: on our last road trip, uh, l and I binged, um, two-headed girl and it was, it was delightful. I feel like I got to know Alex and Maddie really well.

[00:02:45] Bryan: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:48] Mental Health Corner

[00:02:48] Brett: Um, so should we do a little mental health check-in? Are you guys. Prepared to bury your souls for the, the listening public.

[00:02:58] Christina: Sure.

[00:02:59] Bryan: sure. [00:03:00] I’ve already bared my ass for the public, so why not?

[00:03:02] Brett: I’m gonna have a glass of wine while you guys talk for a second. Go ahead.

[00:03:07] Christina: Do, do you wanna start, Brian? Guess first.

[00:03:09] Bryan: Um, sure. Um, my mental health is, Uh, like in that unsure Okay. Space where, so about a, about maybe a month ago, my therapist and I made a realization or I made a realization that a thing that I thought that I had like processed that was a trauma in my life, I had not processed at all and was still like, undergirding so much of like my, um, you know, like instinctual reactions.

[00:03:51] Bryan: And so I’ve been doing a lot of work on like, when I get body snatched back into like trauma land, like regrounding [00:04:00] myself. Um, and it’s going mostly okay, but it’s like, it’s still trying to like, like every, every time I don’t land it effectively, it’s still feels like a big failure.

[00:04:14] Brett: Sure.

[00:04:14] Bryan: Now I’m paying attention to it.

[00:04:16] Bryan: Um, so, you know, it’s in that space of like, uh, I mean I think we’ve got the thing to work on, but also it’s just like really exhausting. And because of course it’s like relational, um, like it’s just even harder. Like it was just a thing for me and myself. I, like, I wouldn’t have to worry about like my impact on other people, but it’s like me in relation to another person when, where the issues come.

[00:04:43] Bryan: So, and then of course

[00:04:45] Brett: So hard.

[00:04:46] Bryan: yeah, and then the other thing is like, we might have to reschedule vacation plans because, um, after I got my job at Sonos last year, I thought I was rich and then was [00:05:00] irresponsible with money. And it turns out that flying to Portugal and Spain is kind of expensive.

[00:05:08] Brett: Yeah.

[00:05:09] Bryan: So, you know, we’re working through things, but like overall, like day to day I feel pretty good.

[00:05:14] Bryan: Um, you know, just it’s, you know, it’s like, it’s like you never know when the wave is gonna hit, so.

[00:05:21] Brett: Yeah. All right. Well, I actually will go next because that, that struck a lot of chords for me. Um, I am, uh, first off, well, okay, let me do this in an order that makes sense. Um, I am going through some stuff in my own relationship right now that is making me examine like every single one of my insecurities.

[00:05:46] Brett: And one thing that has come up hardcore is religious trauma that I have these, like, like intellectually I believe one thing and I believe people should be one way. Uh, but my upbringing [00:06:00] like. Rails against that. So I have what my brain says and what my mouth says to my partner should be true. And then when things become real, like I have these deep seated emotional, uh, like physical reactions to certain situations and, and I’ve been able to trace it back to like things that were instilled in me, uh, like under threat of hell, uh, as a child.

[00:06:28] Brett: And, um, and I discussed some of this with my therapist who was impressed that I had figured out where it came from, but couldn’t do shit to help me. Uh, so I have a, uh, an appointment with a new therapist in three weeks, um, that I’m looking forward to. It’s, it’s a woman. I feel like I’m gonna relate better to a woman than this.

[00:06:51] Brett: Bro, dude that I’ve been seeing, um, uh, I’m looking, I’m looking forward to that. I’m hoping that she will be able to [00:07:00] work with me on some of this because it does, like, it’s not just me. Like I’m really happy. Like I hate that this happened, right? I hate, I hate that this is happening in my relationship. It sucks.

[00:07:11] Brett: It hurts. Like it feels shitty, but also, like, I had no idea I felt this way. I had no idea I would react this way. And, um, the fact that this got brought to the surface, yeah, it sucks, it shitty, but now I can deal with it. Uh, and now it can grow in a way that I didn’t even realize I needed to grow. So, so it’s, you know, it’s a mixed bag.

[00:07:35] Brett: We’ll call it a mixed bag.

[00:07:37] Christina: Well, I mean, I’m, I’m glad to hear that at least. Um, so I’m gonna be the downer. My mental health is pretty shit right now, to be honest. Um, that’s, that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t been that active on social, because this is what I do, um, when my, uh, mental health is bad. Like there’s only so much, like I still have to do my day job and I still have to like, be able to pseudo [00:08:00] function as a human.

[00:08:01] Christina: And there are only so many cycles and things you can do. And like, um, my way of, of masking is, is not, uh, It’s not like, I guess, um, you know, people who are on the spectrum sort of way. It’s a little bit different. It’s more like I have to like mask that I’m not depressed. And, and so, I mean, it’s similar but it’s, it’s, it’s a different type of thing.

[00:08:20] Christina: And so there’s just, there’s only so much energy you can expand with that. So mine has been pretty shit. This the reason I took this past week off, which was really good. Uh, I just, just took the whole week, uh, for mental health reasons because I’m not in a great space and I’m not performing and I’m not doing well and it’s kind of gotta that point.

[00:08:36] Christina: So I’m not doing great, but having the week off was, was really good. And, um, I’m hoping, um, I have a, my next, uh, appointment with my shrink is in I think like a week and a half. And when we talked last time, he mentioned to me, There are some new antidepressants that are similar to, uh, ketamine because [00:09:00] they, they do similar things and it’s like based on, on, um, uh, similar, uh, like pharmacological stuff, but it’s not ketamine, so it’s much easier so you can actually take it orally.

[00:09:11] Christina: And so, uh, there, there’s like one, um, drug, uh, that got approved by the F D A last August. So it’s been on the market for a year now. And, and the, the studies and the papers are all really good. And so I’m gonna talk to him about trying that and seeing if that sort of thing could help. Cause I think I’m at the point now where my, my medication isn’t working and I’ve been in denial about that for a really long time, like a really long time.

[00:09:33] Christina: And it’s gotten to the point where I’m just like, I, I can’t be in denial about this anymore.

[00:09:39] Bryan: Yeah. Well sending you,

[00:09:42] Christina: that’s the upside.

[00:09:44] Bryan: sending you lots of love and hugs. I know this is so hard. Um, and, but I am so proud of you for doing the things that you need to do to take care of yourself.

[00:09:54] Christina: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. No, and it’s hard because I’m, you know, I’m [00:10:00] public and in insofar as like, I obviously do this podcast and I’ve never lied or hidden, you know, like my, my mental health struggles, but it’s not my brand and it’s not the thing that I wanna be known for. And I respect people who do wanna like, make that what they’re known for and really wanna advocate for that.

[00:10:15] Christina: I really respect that, but that’s not me. And so it’s always weird when it, you know, when I feel like I’ve reached a place where I’m like, okay, this is actually impeding my life in a way that I now have to, you know, like, uh, talk about it with people both publicly and then also like my colleagues. Which that honestly sucks more than talking about it with strangers listening to your podcast or with your friends over the internet.

[00:10:42] Christina: Like that’s, that’s the real shit, you know, because it’s, it’s fine when it’s an abstract. And I think a lot of people who you work with are fine with it as an abstract. You really see how people react and how people really feel when it actually like, could potentially impact them or [00:11:00] when how it’s impacting you is something that they have to, you know, grapple with.

[00:11:04] Christina: Like that, that’s, that that’s the real truth, you know? Cause everybody I think thinks, oh yeah, I’m, I’m fine with this sort of thing. And then you’re, maybe you are, and some places really are. And, and some, uh, employers. And employees really, coworkers really are, and some people really aren’t. So that’s, that’s, that’s always the

[00:11:22] Brett: until you’re, until you’re confronted with the reality, you might not even know

[00:11:27] Christina: Yep.

[00:11:27] Brett: how, how you feel about something. So I, I can, I can tie our two together in that way. Um, have you ever heard the Huberman Lab?

[00:11:37] Christina: No.

[00:11:38] Brett: It’s a podcast with this. Guy, I don’t know if he’s like a neuroscientist or, but he does like extensive research into like medications and talks about like, brain science.

[00:11:50] Brett: And the last one is about like eye health, but he, it’s like a solo podcast. It’s just him like sharing research and, and talking. [00:12:00] Uh, occasionally he’ll have guests, but, um, I, I would recommend that, I’m gonna drop that in the show notes. He did a, he did an awesome episode on, uh, ketamine and hallucinogenic treatments, and he did a great one on, um, uh, A D H D medication on like Adderall and Vyvance and, and nons stimulant, uh, treatments and, and how they work and why they work and who they don’t work for.

[00:12:27] Brett: Uh, it was really enlightening. Um, but that’s Huberman lab. Um,

[00:12:33] Bryan: I’m always really impressed by solo podcasters. Cause like that’s just gotta be like to just mainline your own self talking for like an hour.

[00:12:47] Brett: by, what I’m impressed by is successful solo podcasters. People, people, people who are actually as interesting as they think they are when they sit down to record a solo podcast,[00:13:00]

[00:13:00] Bryan: Yeah. I mean,

[00:13:01] Brett: that’s a fine line right there.

[00:13:03] Bryan: It really, really is a fine line. You know that if Elon Musk was a podcaster, he would be

[00:13:08] Brett: my God.

[00:13:09] Bryan: podcaster.

[00:13:09] Brett: Oh,

[00:13:10] Christina: Oh, of course he would. Of course he would because, no, it is always interesting and there are some solo podcasters who can do Okay. Just like radio hosts. But yeah, Ilan would totally be a solo podcaster cuz he doesn’t wanna hear anybody else’s thoughts.

[00:13:23] Brett: Well, can you imagine Joe Rogan, just by himself just talking his shit for an hour at a time?

[00:13:29] Christina: No, no, but, and

[00:13:32] Bryan: the world would’ve been better off if he did that, cuz it would’ve ended

[00:13:35] Christina: I was gonna say, I was gonna say, the unfortunate thing is, is that Joe Rogan is not a dumb person, which is kind of going back to uh, uh, like a thing we were talking about pre-show about certain people. He’s not a dumb person and he’s actually a very good entertainer and a very good like, live performer and understands that for the medium that he’s doing with podcasting, he needs other people.

[00:13:56] Christina: Uh, and, uh, uh, Dave Portnoy, who I also [00:14:00] can’t stand, but also have to kind of respect his skills. He’s the guy from, uh, bar, um, uh, uh, Barstool Schwartz is another thing, like his podcasts are. I, I know why. I completely understand why they’re successful. And he’s also a guy who does solo tos that are compelling.

[00:14:18] Christina: I hate that cuz I, I can’t stand the guy. But he’s, but he’s compelling, but he knows he’s compelling in like 92nd doses. You know,

[00:14:26] Bryan: Yeah.

[00:14:27] Brett: Yeah. Should we take a quick sponsor break?

[00:14:30] It’s Not Really a Sponsor

[00:14:30] Christina: we should, that’s a great segue.

[00:14:32] Bryan: Yeah.

[00:14:32] Brett: This episode is brought to you by none other than Mark Zuckerberg, the confident, evil billionaire. If you’re looking for a winner in the cage match, and a billionaire who would rather waste his money on failed virtual reality ventures than Fallek Spa space exploration vehicles, Zuck is your guy.

[00:14:50] Brett: Head to Zuckerberg for president.com to save 100% on your subscription to Facebook where your data goes farther than any other service. That’s [00:15:00] zuckerberg mma.com for 100% off of your identity. Thanks, mark.

[00:15:06] Bryan: Thanks, mark. We really appreciate it, especially on, you know, this the day three of your new social media project threats.

[00:15:17] The Social Media Landscape

[00:15:17] Brett: the perfect, perfect lead in to, to one of our topics. Should we talk about, should we talk about the threads specifically, but also the, the, the landscape of social media at, in the, in the, in the death rowes of Twitter.

[00:15:35] Christina: yes. Yes, we have to.

[00:15:38] Brett: So, Christina, tell us what threads is.

[00:15:40] Christina: Okay. So Threads is, is Twitter, um, missing a number of features, but it’s, it’s Twitter except you use Instagram as your login. And it turns out that that’s really all you have to do if you wanna get, uh, I th they, they had 70 million users in two days. Um, and, and to be clear, this is not people who, [00:16:00] like, th this is people who had to manually download the app and then opt to log in.

[00:16:04] Christina: So, so this is 70 million signups, like actual things in under two days. They’re gonna hit a hundred million probably within the first week, um, easily. And so it’s one of the most successful, uh, social app launches of all time. But it is essentially Twitter mixing a bunch of features. And again, it’s kind of telling that you can literally do the bare minimum, like all these Twitter clones, Macedon, blue Sky, uh, what’s, what’s the queer one, um, that, that, uh, has been in, in, um, invite only status?

[00:16:34] Bryan: Is that spill?

[00:16:36] Christina: Yes. Spill, uh, a bunch of other ones, like all, all these things that have tried, uh, post, um, there’s, uh, t2, all these things, like they had to like, go out of their way to really be like, oh, look at all these features and look at this and that. And then like, if you have the network effect, you can literally do the minimum viable product that is real minimal and you can get 70 million plus users [00:17:00] in two days.

[00:17:02] Bryan: Yeah, it’s, it’s fascinating. I listened to two podcasts where Adam er was on, um, I think Hard Fork and then

[00:17:16] Christina: It’s the bcast.

[00:17:17] Bryan: the Vergecast. Yeah. And it, it’s fascinating. Um, I It’s very interesting that,

[00:17:24] Christina: Oh, oh. And just for clarification, Atmos runs Instagram, um, at Facebook. Sorry, go on.

[00:17:29] Bryan: Yeah. And Adam Aria is a very interesting man because like Adam Aria is the one who’s like, we’re gonna change everything about Instagram.

[00:17:35] Bryan: And everybody hated him. And then he is like, no, we’re not. Um, um, so he’s used to, he’s used to like getting out there and saying things that people may not like. But this was one, I think what’s really interesting to me is that they’re trying to create Twitter, but not about news.

[00:17:53] Christina: Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s what they say. I, I, I, I wonder how much of that has to do [00:18:00] with a, the EU lawsuit, which is ongoing. So this is interesting. 70 million users, and if you live in Europe, you can’t even sign up unless you use an Apple ID or Google Play account that is not based in the eu. Um, which, look, even if you agree with the EU on this, my personal opinion, this is just the American and me, I think that banning apps from app stores based on their country and whatnot, I think that’s bullshit.

[00:18:22] Christina: I think it’s bullshit when China does it. Uh, if the US tries to ban TikTok, I think it’s bullshit. I think it’s bullshit When the EU does it, like honestly, that’s some draconian, like, like level, just like that’s, that’s fucked. But putting that aside, I wonder if this whole statement about saying, oh, we don’t wanna be about news.

[00:18:40] Christina: It’s not worth a small amount of money for us, is because of the lawsuits they’re in, where they might have to pay publishers and people per post or whatever.

[00:18:48] Bryan: thing too.

[00:18:49] Christina: Yeah, the Canada thing. Exactly. So I wonder if it’s not so much that they care or they wanna discourage it, but if they’re just like, we have to very publicly make it clear, cuz like [00:19:00] Twitter famously changed the way that the app was put in the app store, I think in 2016 to be in news category rather than in the social category.

[00:19:08] Christina: So like Twitter actively went into that direction. Right. So there, there was like a, a meme a while back where people were like, oh, look at how far blue sky is trended in Twitter’s not even the top five. And I was like, that’s not where Twitter is categorized. Um, but like, um, yeah. So I wonder how much of that is like, legitimate and how much of that is based on like the lawsuits and this is just them saying the right things to try to avoid.

[00:19:33] Christina: Uh, the, the, the government’s trying to force them to, to pay for stuff. I don’t know.

[00:19:36] Bryan: Yeah. But it’s also weird because like I, yeah, it is interesting because there also are like applying Instagram’s level of like moderation and filtering to it, which like to me again, since. One of, I mean, one of my primary uses for Twitter is porn. Um, like, I’m just not sure how, I [00:20:00] mean, except that there seem to be all these people signing up, but we’ll see how long they stay around.

[00:20:04] Bryan: Like is there interest? Like can you have a text-based social network that is sustainable? And, uh, I mean, it doesn’t have to be that big in the scheme of Facebook for it to matter or Instagram for it to matter, but that like people will use and doesn’t get boring if you’re not getting into fights about news or looking at porn.

[00:20:25] Christina: Yeah, no, I think that’s a good point, Brett, your thoughts because I I, I, I have many thoughts on this, but I, I don’t wanna dominate this

[00:20:33] Brett: No, no. Please, please continue.

[00:20:35] Christina: okay. So I totally agree with you, and I think this is this interesting thing. And so I’ve been working on this thesis in my mind basically since this launched.

[00:20:42] Christina: And. Even the fact that at like, I’m embarrassed by this, I was like, user like 444,000, which to me is way, way high. Like on any social network, like I feel like I should be way lower on the list. MG Segler who wrote a great post for his, um, blog, um, [00:21:00] 500 words ish, though I think it was more than 500 words.

[00:21:02] Christina: He had a really great analysis that has usually with MG stuff is like everything I’ve been saying in group chats, but didn’t actually take the time to write because that’s why he is great. He actually gets the words out. But he was, you know, he’d been in Europe and so he was like overnight, so he’s like user 1 million or something.

[00:21:19] Christina: And he was mad about that and, and I

[00:21:21] Bryan: 710,000.

[00:21:23] Christina: right, and see we’re early adopters and this is the thing, I kind of had this, the epiphany over the last few days. I don’t think threads is for posters. I think it’s for Normies. And that’s interesting.

[00:21:35] Bryan: for normies? Yeah.

[00:21:36] Christina: I think it is. And, and the thing is, is I, I look as a poster.

[00:21:41] Christina: I don’t like that. And I feel alienated and, and I feel wronged and I feel like this isn’t a place for me. But then I have to look at where the social landscape is today, and I have to ask myself and be very honest to say the moment that allowed. Twitter 1.0 to [00:22:00] exist, has that passed? And, and would you even be able to, if you didn’t have, you know, the monopolies of, of scale and whatnot, and you didn’t have the Elon Musk bullshit and whatnot, could you even create like what, what Twitter 1.0 is now?

[00:22:12] Christina: Like would the, the landscape that exists now except it, and I don’t think it would. And so there’s a part of me that, even though I’m always going to be skeptical about what the long-term interest in these sorts of things is, because I think Twitter’s a great example of this where, you know, like the number of people who logged up, signed up for Twitter accounts in 2011 and then posted a few times, never came back, is massive.

[00:22:36] Christina: Um, I wonder if there is a larger sustainable base of normies and non posters, and if that’s what this is and if this could almost succeed by. Just virtue of, of getting people that would never post to Twitter to begin with. I don’t know. You know what I mean? Like, it’s an interesting thing to think about.

[00:22:57] Christina: It’s not for us though. This is not for posters.

[00:22:59] Bryan: and what’s [00:23:00] interesting is I was an early Twitter signup person, but I did not really start using Twitter until 2019 in like, there was a period in which I caught like back to back to back bands on Facebook for talking about white people. Um, surprise. Um, and so like I Twitter being much more lax about that stuff.

[00:23:31] Bryan: Like I got into Twitter cuz I couldn’t use Facebook, I couldn’t talk to people on Facebook.

[00:23:34] Christina: And that, that, that’s a lot of people’s story. Right. I mean, I think that’s the thing is that Twitter has always had that much more for, and this is the irony, both on the right and the left. It’s for all the people who’ve complained about. Twitter’s censorship policies one way or another. It has honestly, for better or worse, been the least resistant of any of the services.

[00:23:52] Christina: Like their, their terms of service and their content guidelines early on were basically non-existent. They [00:24:00] were like, you can’t have porn in your header or in your profile photo. And that was basically it, like originally. And you know, Facebook is not like that and, um, but most platforms are not like that.

[00:24:11] Christina: But, but, but, but, but there’s, there’s a, a question that I have in my mind, which is, I think that Twitter had an inordinate, and this has always been the case. It had an inordinate amount of influence compared to its relative size and certainly, um, compared to the amount of money that, that it, it made and, and you know, that advertisers were willing to spend on it.

[00:24:28] Christina: And I think that was largely because the posters TM that were on it were, you know, news people, media people. And, and there were some celebrities who would get into high profile feuds, but even most of the celebrities left over the years. Right. And then once it became a Donald Trump and an Elon Musk thing, then that became like a thing that kept it in the news.

[00:24:46] Christina: But like, I. I don’t know. I, I don’t, I feel like Twitter itself has lost a lot of that relevancy and in that aspect, and I don’t think that’s really the case anymore. Um, for, for a variety of reasons. And [00:25:00] so, a, I don’t think you can ever, I don’t know if you can ever recreate like what Twitter was in that sense, that this is like the, the place where highly influential people are talking.

[00:25:09] Christina: I don’t know if you can recreate that and, and have this relatively small service have this outsized amount of attention and influence. But b, I wonder if you were going to do a social posting app. If the normy way as again, like it’s not for us potentially, like if that could actually be successful just because the, the boringness, the sanguineous, the, you know, the brands, the, you know, like Normy, you know, photos, the, the lack of nudes, the lack of, you know, threatening to, to, you know, um, set people on fire, you know, um, would, would be able to, to work because I mean, it works for Instagram, it works for TikTok.

[00:25:50] Christina: You know, YouTube is a little more lax, but you know, those, these are all the platforms that thrive and they’re much more Normy based, so I don’t know.

[00:25:58] Brett: How does Threads [00:26:00] launch without hashtag support? That’s some Twitter

[00:26:03] Bryan: Well, but who? But who? That’s because the normies don’t care about hashtags.

[00:26:07] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they say it’s on the roadmap. Here’s my read. They’ve been working on this for a while. I think that they took advantage of the fact that when, when Twitter last week, for the various reasons, you know, turned off its scraping stuff, which also now based on the, the lawsuit that that Musk is threatening, might be tied to what they thought threads was gonna do.

[00:26:27] Christina: I think that they pushed up the launch.

[00:26:29] Brett: well in the rate limits on Twitter, what, who’s whose brilliant idea was that, I gotta assume, must decided we’re gonna limit how many tweets people can read. That’s just fucking dumb.

[00:26:42] Bryan: I, I read that what I read from somebody, and I’ll see if I can find the link, but they were talking to somebody who used to be a Twitter sre and they were talking about how. If, first of all, it’s unlikely that the cover story, [00:27:00] like the, the, oh, we are getting all our data scrapes, so we’re going to block that is the real reason.

[00:27:06] Bryan: And, and it’s much more that like things were starting to not work well in a way, and that they needed to throttle the system usage and they, and somebody was saying like, that means that like a lot of things are going wrong.

[00:27:21] Christina: Right, right. I, I, I think, I think that’s probably correct. I think part of it was about cover story. I do wonder, especially with how quickly they had the lawsuit, um, threat planned and, and the language that was used there. If they got word that maybe threads was expanding their beta. They started thinking, okay, we know we have a number of former employees working there and we are concerned that threads might be scraping us or some other things.

[00:27:48] Christina: Cuz there were a lot of Twitter scraping sites. Um, but I don’t, I don’t think they impacted, I, I don’t know if they impacted performance or anything else. And if that was, you know, kind of his like impulsive, well we must shut down [00:28:00] this, this potential competitor. And instead all he really did was potentially accelerate.

[00:28:04] Christina: This is again, all my, uh, unfounded speculation. So do not take any of this as, as anything that is for anything more than that. Is, this is completely unfounded. Basically was like, okay, this is backing and, and threads launch. Cause I have a feeling that Threads wasn’t planned to launch the, the week that it launched.

[00:28:24] Christina: I have

[00:28:24] Bryan: No, I think they even literally said that that was the case.

[00:28:27] Christina: Yeah, I mean, I think they took advantage of, of the moment that, that all this is happening. And, um, that’s, if, if you are the, a sensible, you know, on paper CEO of Twitter who is trying to reassure advertisers and sign them back up and then your real boss, um, cuts off the API or throttles how many posts people can see, doesn’t let people view things logged in, all things that advertisers are going to hate.

[00:28:53] Christina: And then the company that literally has the best relationship with advertisers. Advertisers love, [00:29:00] love, love because A, they’ll give you all kinds of data and b, they have just a massive audience and they launched their text thing and they don’t have ads yet, but they’re already talking to brands. Man, wow.

[00:29:11] Christina: That, that would make your job as the on-paper CEO really hard, wouldn’t it? Because

[00:29:15] Brett: Yeah.

[00:29:17] Christina: if you have so much spend to do on, on a text platform, I don’t think you’re gonna spend it on both, you know,

[00:29:23] Bryan: Yeah. And this is what, this is what Facebook or Meta is good at, is like the operational excellence of being able to be like, all right, we’re gonna launch this thing early. We’re gonna make it happen. You know?

[00:29:38] Christina: And it broke a little bit, but it stayed up. Like there were errors, but it was so impressive to see that number of users coming. And yes, there were errors and it was janky, and I was like, I can’t even drag this because this is literally the best I’ve ever seen. Can you even imagine onboarding 70 million users in two days?[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Christina: Like that’s unreal.

[00:30:02] Bryan: about what happened to Blue Sky right after the rate limits happened. So like, I mean, as we, we can expand our conversation into some of these other social networks. There’s the, the, the, the most buzzies before. Threads was Blue Sky, which is ex Twitter, you know, which is, um, was originally spun out of Twitter.

[00:30:20] Christina: right.

[00:30:20] Bryan: Um, started with money from Jack Dorsey and Twitter I think actually just took a new, uh, 8 million seed round.

[00:30:28] Christina: Yep.

[00:30:29] Bryan: Um,

[00:30:30] Christina: announced the day threads launched. Awful timing. I felt, I felt so bad for them. I felt so bad for them.

[00:30:35] Bryan: um, and the reason probably they announced it that day was the two days before that they were getting hammered left and right because everybody was jumping to Blue Sky because of the, because of the rate limits on Twitter. Um, I think, I mean Blue Sky, I think Blue Sky is very weird.

[00:30:55] Brett: I agree.

[00:30:56] Bryan: It’s like, again, it still feels like Twitter for Normies to some

[00:30:59] Brett: I, [00:31:00] I don’t cotton, I, I don’t cotton to it.

[00:31:02] Bryan: Twitter for shit posters.

[00:31:04] Christina: Yeah. I

[00:31:04] Brett: Jake, Jake Tapin. That’s about the only good thing about Blue.

[00:31:07] Christina: I, I, I was gonna say Blue Sky is for posters, literally Blue Sky. It’s, it’s like, I feel like Blue Sky and Threads are like the, are opposite size of the same coin. Like one is explicitly for posters, one is explicitly for Normies, and I think that this is what’s sort of frustrating is that Twitter was that happy medium and I don’t know if we can ever have that again.

[00:31:27] Bryan: Because like, I like and because Blue Sky really feels like it’s just, there’s a large contingent of people there who are not just posters, but shit posters. Like the, the posters. The joke is the meme. Like, and what I dis for me, I am a, I am an earnest poster, um, al almost to a fault. Um, and

[00:31:48] Christina: does not work there. Which, which, which doesn’t work there.

[00:31:50] Bryan: not at all worked there, but there were like, there was enough of a dilution on Twitter.

[00:31:54] Bryan: On Twitter, you could find everybody.

[00:31:57] Christina: Well that, that, that’s the thing. This is what, this is what I [00:32:00] think like makes me saddest about Twitter as inevitable to demise and decline and whatnot. Even if it continues as an ongoing concern, is that for me, for so many years it was my primary social platform because it was the only place where I could be all parts of myself.

[00:32:15] Christina: I could be the shit poster, I could be like the, the, the earnest person. I could be the tech person, I could be the pop culture stand. I could be like all those things. And I would have different followers for different reasons and I would be discovered by different people in different groups. And I never felt like I had to stick in one box on Blue Sky.

[00:32:33] Christina: I do feel like I have to basically be in shit post mode on Mastodon. I feel like I have to be in more tech earnest mode. I’m still figuring out what I can be on threads. And it’s, it’s weird cuz Instagram has always been more curated, but I’ve never. Invested a ton of time on Instagram. Um, and I mean, I had, I have like 6,000 followers there, which for my standards is like, I know this sounds awful, but, but compared to my other, but compared to my other [00:33:00] accounts, it’s not, but compared to my other accounts, it’s like microscopic.

[00:33:04] Christina: And so, but, but here’s what’s interesting. Two, three days on threads. I already have a thousand followers more than I have on Blue Sky, where I was active and actively posting up until

[00:33:14] Brett: Well, because everyone, everyone who followed you on, on Instagram automatically becomes a follower.

[00:33:21] Christina: Well, not automatically. Like you have to opt in. I I chose

[00:33:24] Bryan: and because there is no follow and because there is no following right now. Cause it’s all algorithm. The graph is all algorithmic, like that timeline, there is no following right now. So, and they say that’s on the roadmap, which is fascinating because they’ve been leaning so hard into the algorithmic thing that I would, and actually I think that that’s one of Twitter’s strengths,

[00:33:45] Christina: I agree.

[00:33:46] Brett: Can I tell my joke? Can I tell my joke? That went really poorly on threads.

[00:33:49] Christina: Yes. I

[00:33:50] Bryan: so ex Yeah, I saw it. It was so good.

[00:33:52] Brett: I, I kicked off my account with a meme that said my friend got mad at me for sniffing his sister’s panties. [00:34:00] I’m not sure if it was because she was still wearing them or because his whole family was present. Either way, it made the rest of the funeral really awkward.

[00:34:09] Bryan: Uh, so good. It’s so good.

[00:34:12] Brett: It got

[00:34:12] Bryan: It’s so good because there,

[00:34:14] Brett: two likes.

[00:34:15] Bryan: it’s, this is the thing though. That’s because, that’s because Twitter is like, or like, because Instagram, like that’s not the Instagram content.

[00:34:23] Christina: no, it’s not. Not even remotely.

[00:34:26] Bryan: Yeah, but that’s so good because

[00:34:28] Brett: I should note that at the bottom of this meme, there’s a picture of Yahweh, God, and he says, Noah, and the next frame, his eyes are lit up and it says, get the boat.

[00:34:39] Bryan: I love that joke because there are three different points where you’re like, holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

[00:34:51] Brett: I said, I said the whole thing, straight face to someone, as if I were giving them an update on something that really happened to me last night. And it took, it [00:35:00] took a minute, uh, for them to process that this was a joke. And

[00:35:05] Bryan: that’s a tick. That’s a TikTok joke, Brett.

[00:35:08] Brett: I’m not onac