Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out Share & Rage & Tell with Mina Kimes and Dan Le Batard About this episode LeBron is taking a break from social media. Should you? Are you ready to stop being performatively fascinating and get authentically dull? And is Bluesky the XFL of Twitter — or a refreshingly Musk-free community worth joining? Plus: "Re-Potting with Pablo," making lentil, fighting in Temecula, road rage, Mastodon, two ejaculating giraffes, a charging wildebeest and the actually hungry hippo (with suspenders and a pocket watch).
Relevant reading:
How Bluesky, Alternative to X and Facebook, Is Handling Explosive Growth (Mike Isaac) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/technology/bluesky-growing-pains.html
The Age of Social Media Is Ending (Ian Bogost) https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/twitter-facebook-social-media-decline/672074/
The Bluesky Bubble (Ian Bogost) https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/11/bluesky-bubble-twitter-replacement/680679/
"With so much hate and negativity in the world today..." (Rich Kleiman) https://x.com/KingJames/status/1859317470680502712
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:56 Pablo Torre? Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
3:03 Speaker 02 Did we sound extra woke in whimpering about a need for community? This is not, not, not an echo chamber.
3:14 Pablo Torre? Right after this ad.
3:16 Speaker 03 You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.
3:32 Pablo Torre? Dan has stories of great road rage that he has felt himself personally that have maybe humiliated him in front of loved ones.
3:41 Speaker 02 Recently, my wife, and when I say recently, I'm going to say a year ago, my wife had to sort of hold or try to hold unsuccessfully, me, my seatbelt, and my chest back because after shooting me a bird, somebody also started talking to me, and this is not safe for me to do. It's not wise, it's not smart, but the last words I heard set me off. And the way rage works is you don't do smart things or do much thinking.
4:14 Speaker 03 What'd you do?
4:15 Speaker 02 I leaped from the car and scared my wife. And it's dumb because people here are armed.
4:20 Pablo Torre? You tried to get out of the, that was an actual.
4:22 Speaker 02 No, I did get, I did get out of the car. I did get out of the car.
4:25 Pablo Torre? Jesus, man.
4:26 Speaker 02 No, I.
4:27 Speaker 03 Got out of the car?
4:28 Pablo Torre? If you're out there, if you're out there, you have a video of this, send it in, send it in to our show. We want the tape of this. That's, that is actually, I'm glad, I'm so glad Valerie was there. Jesus, man.
4:41 Speaker 02 Um, well, I, it went okay. I'm still here and I've learned, I've learned my lesson and the person scampered off because I was enraged.
4:52 Pablo Torre? You were a charging wildebeest and you effectively intimidated them.
4:57 Speaker 02 That's right. That's right. That's what happened. Well, I, I was enraged. I was legitimately enraged.
5:03 Speaker 03 So my theory is it's one of the very few spaces right now in public life where the customer doesn't have recourse, where if you're mad, you can't log on and leave an angry review. You can't find someone's social media and spit vitriol at them. It's literally only IRL, right? It, it, there's so few places like this now in our lives where there's no way for someone to express their anger virtually. So if you're in a car and something happens and maybe a guy cuts you off or somebody doesn't go at a green light, I, I suspect
5:44 Speaker 03 there's like increased anger because of the sense of impotence you feel relative to other situations.
5:51 Pablo Torre? What Mina is saying, which is a through line, I think that'll follow us through today's episode, is that she would like every driver in America to post their username on their window so she can get in their mentions and dunk on them personally.
6:05 Speaker 03 I don't have road rage. I'm trying to explain what I think is happening. Um, it's just a theory. I don't know. What do you think, Dan?
6:13 Speaker 02 I'm surprised that you guys are surprised though, that I am capable of a rage that would not be able to be held back by my wife's delicate and, and model-esque hand. I'm surprised that you guys didn't think, you guys thought I was just gonna like fake my anger, that I wanted to be seen by my wife this way and that she would be able to successfully hold me back with just her hand?
6:35 Pablo Torre? My thing with you is that so much of our interactions on this show and yours are just us making fun of you. So the idea of there actually being a straw that breaks the hippo's back, I'm like, what was it? And it turns out you don't even know.
6:51 Speaker 02 Well, which is it? Is it, well, is it hippo or is it wildebeest? Because what I'm about to do, if you were here, I'm feeling helpless because right now, I want to physically attack you.
7:01 Speaker 03 Hippos are like the most aggressive animals quietly amongst, nobody talks about this because they're like, oh, hungry, hungry hippos. They're so cute. They're so fun. They look so funny. Those, you do not want to encounter a wild hippo.
7:14 Pablo Torre? They are hungry, hungry for, for blood.
7:17 Speaker 02 They will kill you. And I would, at this point, like to beat Pablo by swinging Nina by her ankles. Just.
7:44 Pablo Torre? Nina, do you want to begin the actual show with the topic that you brought us that you wanted to, to share and tell about?
7:50 Speaker 03 Yeah. Um, my topic is the rise of Blue Sky. There's an article in the New York Times about it. There's been articles all over the place about this app, Blue Sky, which was created, I think, a few years ago, right, as an alternative to Twitter around the time that Elon Musk took over, but didn't really catch fire until this past week around the election. I mean, the daily activity was very low, way behind Threads, which is the other, the meta-owned alternative, and it has actually spiked and exceeded it, which is incredible, given how far ahead Threads was in terms of the daily users. It's up to 20 million users, over 20 million now. So exponential growth for an app that is
8:35 Speaker 03 currently run by like 20 people. For those who aren't on it and who are on Twitter, X, pardon me, it is basically the same in terms of the interface. It looks the same, it feels the same. The biggest difference really is the way it actually allows you to moderate content. It provides much more aggressive blocking features, provides tools you can use to just not see certain corners of the internet. It allows the reports of harassment actually work on Blue Sky. And that seems to be a big part of the appeal. I know it's a big part of the appeal for me personally, especially over the last week, I think, as what, you know, the harassment and aspect on Twitter has been escalating
9:19 Speaker 03 for a while now, but last week did feel like a turning point. So there's that. There's also a lot of skepticism. Nobody wants to be on a zillion apps. Everybody's on Twitter, so people don't actually want to leave. People in media might not want to leave for career reasons. I'm curious about all of your guys' thoughts about this and just about kind of whether or not you even, I know Dan and Pablo have different feelings about this, whether you even feel like you want a place to engage and post and do all these things.
9:48 Pablo Torre? So Dan, for me, I tend to just see what Mina's doing and I'm like, I guess it's time to join Blue Sky. When she joined, I was like, I guess the person who thinks most rigorously about social media has done this, I should probably just follow her. And so I did. And it is hard to shake the feeling that you're now watching a spring football league. It's like, I guess I'm on the XFL of Twitter now. I'm on there and I've been also curious, like, what am I on? And so just a couple of the background facts here, because I don't know if you know this. I didn't know this until I started Googling this. Mina referred to this sort of like odd ownership group. Blue Sky originally was started by Jack Dorsey, who was the guy behind Twitter at first.
10:31 Pablo Torre? He wanted to be decentralized and then, of course, he is no longer part of this team. He left in May 2024. And now it is a US public benefit corporation. And it's the thing that like Patagonia is and Allbirds and Warby Parker. These corporations that apparently have some sort of legal protection under the guise of, I guess it's now colloquially known as conscious capitalism. They have protection from being sued or I guess held to account by their own shareholders for not maximizing shareholder value?
11:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, which is really interesting, right? Because as we look at this platform and ask, what is the potential? If I'm joining, will it change? Is it worth investing my time? The corporate structure, which Pablo, you explained perfectly there, gives you a roadmap, which is to say, it makes it so that this company, this app, this social media platform is far less likely to go down a road where they are making profit-driven decisions at the expense of usability. But one thing that caught my eye, unlike every other social media platform right now, they have already come out and said, we will not allow our data, anything you post here, to be used for generative AI.
11:49 Speaker 03 That's very unique and unusual and would not be happening, I believe, without the corporate mandate that you just described.
11:56 Speaker 02 There are a couple of things here that I wanted to discuss with you guys because in the reading material that I was doing, I did get on at your behest. I have not used it very much, but it looks and feels very similar to Twitter. You seemed very excited that I got on there.
12:12 Pablo Torre? You're on AOL. I don't ever know what you may or may not ever try when it comes to new internet technologies.
12:18 Speaker 02 You guys are using old information on me. I now have Metalark Media email address, but that's okay. You've properly shamed me. I am no longer an AOL person, but thanks for bringing it up yet again. I appreciate it.
12:31 Speaker 03 You are in our hearts forever, an AOL.
12:32 Speaker 02 Yes, thank you. I appreciate it. The hippo and the wildebeest appreciates all the kind words that he's gotten so far as you continue to enrage him. One of the things that I read that I don't know if it's true or not is the headline, "The Age of Social Media Is Ending," which I wanted to explore with you because I have seen the fleeing from Twitter. It is a thing that is actually happening now and the entirety of my life. I've been pretty used to public criticism, going back to a day when people had to put a stamp on and write a letter to a newspaper and go through a great deal of effort to insult you and be bothered by your opinion. But this is being viewed as a place where you are safe
13:14 Speaker 02 as a liberal to be free from poisonous, acidic, hostile bullying criticism, and that is viewed as a weakness to seek community that is a little bit kinder. Because I do believe in the social media age, one of the things that's been lost is just community, just in general, people are on their devices so much that I think, I don't think I have this true for all of America, but in the bigger cities, it does seem like there are fewer kids playing with other kids in the street. And in my own group of people here, our family, our bubble, this is not, not, not, an echo chamber, our safe little bubble here, these guys have
13:58 Speaker 02 told me that their kids don't play in the streets and they don't know their neighbors. So is there anything wrong with seeking community that has a little bit less of faceless, acidic insult in it? Because you just want to be around, not necessarily a group of like-minded people, but just a group of people that aren't perpetually looking for the way to make jokes at your expense. And I say this as someone who just started doing this show, being called a hippo and a wildebeest by people that I care about in my community.
14:29 Pablo Torre? A lot of the critique of the Exodus has been, this is libs going to seek a safe space. And none other than noted, noted, reasonable man, Dean Phillips, if you may recall from his attempt to be president, was saying like, we need to have conversations with the other side. The entire lesson of the election was, we don't talk to each other enough. And this is the embodiment of the problem. And meanwhile, my number one takeaway from Blue Sky is, it is so refreshing to not have your algorithm dictated by Elon Musk. Like it just, if nothing else, I just want to lead with that. Like it's just free from his personal thumb on the scale.
15:14 Pablo Torre? Before we get into the political nature of it, that is just so glaring as well.
15:18 Speaker 03 I think that actually what you're describing is why the echo chamber critique rings false to me. So the reason why, for me personally, I still use Twitter to post my content and try to direct people. Frankly, it doesn't do a very good job of that anymore. And this is another thing that the new platform seems to be doing well is actually encouraging people to click on stuff. But anyways, for the most part, I don't read the things people say to me on there. Because if I did, it's just, you know, I have recognized that being called DEI 30 times a day is not great for my mental health. Call me weak, I stopped, I don't care. So the reason Pablo too, that that happens is not even looking in my mentions. If you open up something you have posted on X,
16:05 Speaker 03 the replies that are prioritized and elevated are either bots, engagement farmers, or in many cases, the most foul, you know, comments possible because that is what the website now prioritizes. You can pay for the opportunity to be the worst person in the world and rock up to somebody with a giant megaphone. So I bring that up because what I'm, and I think a lot of people don't like, is not a difference of ideas. It is someone literally saying toxic foul things to me. And I think, Dan, what sometimes bothers me when we have these conversations about,
16:45 Speaker 03 well, you know, about safe spaces and can both sides talk and whatnot is we are conflating, like egregious racism and misogyny with diversity of thought, right? Or with like reasonable opinions or disagreement.
17:02 Speaker 02 I will tell you as a longtime newspaper columnist a long time ago, and maybe people won't believe this, I not only don't mind criticism, I find criticism useful. I have found that a community of people who like what you do, or the original form of Reddit for our show, made our show better because the criticism was constructive and not something to get defensive about. But we are conflating criticism and the kind of insult that makes me jump out of a car because no, you're not allowed to talk to me like that because that's not in any way helpful. It's not useful.
17:44 Speaker 02 And I believe, I don't think this can be disputed, the acid is so poisonous that I can't even help but notice as a 55-year-old that I believe is more accustomed to criticism or public criticism than the average person. I'm like, no, that's bothering me. Like, that's affecting the way that I feel that whether this is a real person or not, or a bot, there's something there that's trying to bother me. Why would I choose to be around that? Why would I choose to spend time with something that seems to be designed to get into something, into a soft space of mine
18:27 Speaker 02 that has over the years gotten pretty strong at handling whatever this is?
18:33 Pablo Torre? You know, I do want to also just add on to that by saying, part of what I use Twitter for is to get news, right? And so I was following and still continue to follow a lot of conservatives because I'm actually curious what they have to say. Genuinely, just like, I am curious from an earnest like, okay, what is the other side on some things I feel strongly about saying? Also, like, what's the conversation over there? It's the same reason I have group chats with my friends from high school where it's like, hey, these are how Republicans feel right now. I am actually going to click on that content. What I am most objecting to, though, is, I think, the structural incentive system that Twitter has become. Because now it is content farming. Like, it's beyond the ideology.
19:16 Pablo Torre? It's just impossible to disentangle your experience as a user trying to read things that are meant as just actual thoughts from the things that are meant to trigger.
19:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:30 Pablo Torre? It's just really hard to think that I am getting a thought as opposed to someone's attempt to get money.
19:37 Speaker 03 I'm so glad you bring that up because so much of the discussion about these two platforms and the exodus and what people are looking for and echo chambers is about politics.
19:45 Speaker 02 You were just doing the Trump dance, by the way. While you did that, the way that you were doing that, you were doing the Trump dance. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
19:51 Speaker 03 People are calling everything Trump dance right now.
19:53 Speaker 02 There's only one. The one that's ejaculating two giraffes is the only Trump dance that there is.
19:58 Pablo Torre? That's right.
19:59 Speaker 03 Certainly, there is a political element to this. But Pablo, you're speaking to the other thing that has made that app fairly significantly less user friendly and unpleasant. And I think it is not political at all, which is the engagement farming, which is that people are now using it to make money in the lowest ways, right? It is all either rage bait, engagement bait, misinformation. It's the lowest common denominator. And one thing that has been nice is when I open the algorithm on Blue Sky, the viral posts have just been funny. It's been like, good jokes. It reminds me of Twitter back in the old days.
20:39 Pablo Torre? Why we fell in love with this terrible addictive platform that we all hated initially also in the first place?
20:45 Speaker 03 And not, it's not, they're not political jokes. They're just like weird goofy observations, mundane things. They're cleverly written and that's what I want out of social media. I just want to be entertained. I also, I will say this, though, I have really, and I hope it lasts and I hope that the moderation tools keep working. I have really missed hearing from people who actually watch and listen and read what we do. Because I have not been able to do that now for the last three years or whatever, ever since Elon Musk took over, a little bit before that, to be honest. And it really has been quite gratifying. And again, maybe I'm a loser for wanting to hear from folks and wanting to talk back to them. And it's, but I missed it.
21:28 Speaker 03 I missed that part of social media and it is fun, however short-lived it'll be.
21:33 Speaker 02 I had a thing happen to me in New York that sort of illustrates some of what it is that you're talking about because I'm walking through the streets of New York and I meet somebody who is clearly a fan of what we do and he filed what were his complaints with the present evolution of our show to me, three or four of them, and a warm feeling came over me as I'm digesting what is criticism because I'm in front of a real human being who cares about what we do and I'm like, let me hear what you got. I'm actually interested in your opinion because I think that your care is authentic. You're not trying to manipulate
22:14 Speaker 02 a situation with an agenda where I have to question where you're either real or not. Like, I don't know whether you're a bot or not. And so I, in front of a person who was being critical, was like, yes, this is what it feels like to be a part of a community. And then the next step on that is the reminder that I only actually care about opinions and criticisms that are given to me by people whose opinion I respect. I have to respect your opinion. And in order to respect your opinion, I have to know that you actually authentically care about what it is I'm doing and saying, not that you're somebody who is
22:58 Speaker 02 just living in order to see if they can trigger me.
23:03 Speaker 03 A real human who speaks to me like a human being who has objections to my thoughts or wants something different out of my show, I will absolutely hear out. The problem is on the other app, it's people being paid to inflame, paying to pick fights who are just, you know, it's, they're not there for anything being done in good faith. And the people who are, their voices are being ground out.
23:30 Pablo Torre? Yeah. All of which is to say that becomes a blue sky. I give about two months, two months and then roll back.
23:37 Speaker 02 Did we sound extra woke in whimpering about a need for community? This is not, not, not an echo chamber.
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26:39 Speaker 02 Dan, what you got? Hold on a second here, buddy. Oh, glasses, glasses, glasses on.
26:45 Speaker 03 When he puts his glasses on, you know it's gonna be a serious story.
26:48 Speaker 02 I hate that I have to still put my glasses on for things. He's riffling through papers. Well, you know what? Okay, I'm not gonna be made fun of about this anymore. Uh, this is the LeBron James leaving social media, and he was leaving social media essentially because, this is Kevin Durant's agent. It confuses me why some of the national sports media still think that the best way to cover sports is through negative takes. We can all acknowledge that sports is the last part of society that universally brings people together. So why can't the coverage be the same? It's only clickbait when you say it. When the platform is so big, you can make the change and allow us, and all an escape from real-life negativity. I, for one, find it all a waste of breath. The Olympics and JJ and Bronn's show was the future of what this can and should all be.
27:33 Speaker 02 LeBron then agrees with it and says he's taking a break from social media. Your thoughts here, Mina?
27:38 Speaker 03 I don't think sports media is more negative than it was five, 10, 15 years ago. I just think that, per our earlier discussion, the people who run social media accounts for sports media understand that putting out...
27:56 Speaker 03 The most divisive, controversial, whatever, things that are said is more likely to engagement. And I think athletes, agents, which climate are more likely to see those things. So I think there is, if there's any, if there's veracity to sort of what they're both claiming. And again, it's a little bit muddled here. It's centered in the fact that social media is amplifying negativity as opposed to the underlying commentary being different from what it was in the past.
28:29 Speaker 02 I think that LeBron is thinking that media is skip Bayless. That media is someone who has chased him for 20 years to remind him that his excellence isn't what his excellence actually is, which is to compare him to Michael Jordan and have him fail in that comparison. I don't know that LeBron is doing the beat reporters who he interacts with, none of whom are going to be especially mean to him. The grand majority of media that interacts with LeBron James does the positive thing. But then I would disagree with Mina on, I believe this has all gotten coarser. I believe sports radio began this before social media and the need for everyone to
29:11 Speaker 02 compete in a space where they are getting the attention for what their opinion is. I do believe makes it so that a lot of coverage, and you tell me where it is you think I'm wrong here. I do believe a lot of coverage is about blame instead of celebration of excellence because it's a lot easier for us to make content out of blame than it is out of celebration.
29:35 Speaker 03 You don't think 15 years ago, I have seen some really toxic segments, really, I mean, the discourse around LeBron James in particular, or what was the, going back to the decision, like, I don't think it was gentler or more celebratory back then, personally. I would also note with LeBron, I don't think this is skip Bayless, just skip Bayless, Dan. It bothers him that everyone thinks he lies, right? That's an internet meme.
30:13 Speaker 06 So what am I now?
30:16 Speaker 03 That is people roasting him online. That to me suggests like LeBron isn't just turning on the TV. All those clips not on TV anymore and saying, wow, they're being mean to me. I really believe the way he is being discussed on the internet is a big part of what's affecting him here.
30:34 Pablo Torre? But I think this entire attempt to sort of isolate the variable is why this is an eternal, unending argument because Michael Jordan, by the way, pre-internet, right? So it's sort of like, okay, are we disentangling the internet from what it is to be in the media, which is really impossible to do at this point. And so I do want to focus in on something that Rich said at the end, which is that JJ Reddick, of course, now LeBron's coach, my guy, JJ Reddick and LeBron's show, how this was a way forward. And if the argument is simply we have oversaturated media, television and internet with controversy and that sort of more salacious debate stuff.
31:15 Pablo Torre? And there's room for great things that are underappreciated, like the appreciation of basketball as a skill, as as sort of a nerd, an art that nerds can appreciate and dissect, then absolutely. Like, yeah, that is one way forward. The thing about the power that he is giving, though, to the media as a concept is also funny, not just because of the internet and the way that, of course, that has made all of this sort of this this giant blob. It's because sports itself, if you talk to fans, is full of naturally occurring criticism. And most people forever will always be saying, that guy sucks, that guy is good. And we're not going to be able to to move the needle on that, you know?
31:58 Speaker 03 So just speaking not only from personal experience, but like today, Thursday, I started the morning, I start my Thursday mornings doing First Take, and then at the end, I do NFL Live. On NFL Live, we do breakdowns, we discuss trends, we get deep into matchups, we do X's and O's stuff, and it's, people seem to really like it. It does well, some of the clips do well, whatnot. However, if you walk into the average sports bar in America, two guys, they're going to be arguing about whether Jalen Hurts or Matt Stafford is more likely to choke, you know, in Sunday Night Football. I personally don't think those sorts of debates, which do reflect what Pablo's talking
32:38 Speaker 03 about, are inherently toxic. I think there's a vast spectrum here with regards to like the kind of things that are being discussed. There are things that are toxic and absurd, and this sort of connects back to our discussion at the top. I just think like we're painting with too broad a brush sometimes when we talk about sports media as a whole, as a Goliath.
32:58 Speaker 02 We are, but I would say if we're going to speak in these generalities, I have generally found, taking the entire spectrum of human beings into account, that athletes are generally better at criticism than other human beings, at least in part because they're going over film room in their jobs where they're making a million different mistakes and the coaches are constantly criticizing them and they're getting that criticism from people whose criticism they respect as informed, as expertise, and as greater than the people who are on television
33:37 Speaker 02 or the people like even us. I think they're objecting to how ill-informed it is when all you can do, all the information you got is, ah, you're a choker. And I understand how all of us, if we walked out into a community full of people outside of whatever show we did, and they arrived with lazy criticisms, we'd object to that more than we would to good criticism.
34:03 Pablo Torre? What you're saying is a fair point, right? Like, would you ever expect somebody who is doing PhD-level work to hear the criticism of somebody who can barely understand it on an elementary level and not feel justified resentment? And I think this is where the unfortunate reminder, the unfortunate caveat to all of this must be made, which is that this is the consequence of the biggest tent in America. Like, the whole point is that you actually want people with elementary-level understandings of the sport that you have mastered to care and presume that they can do it because that is actually the business
34:45 Pablo Torre? you have chosen. It is not the business of media, it is the business of the spectacle. And Mina, that's just part of it. And I just don't think we can ever solve that frustration. It's actually part of why you get paid so much money.
35:00 Speaker 03 Yeah, I agree with that. And I would also say I don't think Rich Kleiman is arguing in favor of more educated criticism than like I know that Rich and LeBron are two different. I don't want to.
35:11 Speaker 02 Well, but but but when he's talking about the JJ Reddick and LeBron podcast, what he is clamoring for there is an expertise of an elevated level when talking about sports.
35:21 Speaker 03 Sure. But also saying, you know, why can't it be more like the Olympics? The Olympics is human interest stories. People who work for athletes, by the way, you know, now, especially now that they control a lot of the media around them, particularly have replaced a lot of the actual journalism being done with their own self-produced documentary shows, whatnot. They want public relations, which is fine, you know, like there is obviously space for things that are made by people about themselves, which is what celebrations really is. I don't think that critique is coming from a place of wanting like from a value perspective so
36:06 Speaker 03 much as it is from a business perspective, if that makes sense.
36:10 Pablo Torre? The irony of Kevin Durant's agent being like, we need to be less online. It's like, dude, just just call him up. Just call Kevin yourself.
36:19 Speaker 03 He's just laughing, Pablo. He just finds it funny. He's not actually mad about anything he reads.
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39:53 Pablo Torre? The last topic today is a response, I think, in some big-picture way to the first two topics, because there is a community online. And this is a thriving community I didn't know about until I read this story. It is a group on Facebook that has over a million members, and there is another group, an offshoot of that group, that has over a million members. I want to get the name exactly right, because it is worth enshrining in this way. It is the Dull Men's Club on Facebook. And so, this is a bunch of people who have been, I think, chewed up and spit out, it felt like, on social media, because there is a competitive arena where everybody's trying to be interesting.
40:34 Pablo Torre? Everybody's trying to post, as the article posits, the same photograph from Greece of, you know, the octopus dangling in the air, and you're all trying to be, you know, performatively fascinating. And the Dull Men's Club is like, hey, here's some photos of the lentils that I was making. Here is my most boring hobby. Here is the lawn I mowed. And so, I bring this to you guys, because I think I am about to join the Dull Men's Club. I think I have qualifications. I'm curious what the dullest [BLEEP] that you guys do might be. Dan, do you want to start?
41:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, I will start, but I want to ask you guys a couple of questions here before we start. Do you guys fancy yourselves interesting? Like, are we self-aware? Are we, and are people in general, self-aware about whether they're dull or interesting? Or do most people think they're kind of dull? Or do most people think they're kind of interesting?
41:39 Speaker 03 I'm not sure what is dull anymore to people. And a lot of this is because of the internet, frankly, because similarly to this dull men's club, you can find a community of people who think anything is fascinating. Like, for example, my probably most prevalent hobby is playing word games and crosswords. And I'll talk about it that much. But if I do ever post like a crossword score, I think that would seem to be dull. But because there is an audience for everything these days, it's not dull to everyone, I have found, when I talk about such things. So I think I have actually lost sense of what qualifies as interesting.
42:21 Pablo Torre? That is a very political answer. The real answer that all of us have to give if we're being injected with truth serum is that we all think we're interesting. That's why we ask you to watch the [BLEEP] we're doing right now. Like, let's be honest. Like, if we are boring, you're not watching that unless you're into performative boringness. And the thing about this men's, this dull men's club is that this seems to be, and this is a word that was missing from the article, but seems to be, I think, a real key aspect to this, is that it's authentically dull. And Mina actually articulated it before in a, I think, a specific way, where she's not constantly posting about the things she does, I know, every day, multiple times a day, to the point where I'm on a group chat with her and I'm like, not engaging with her like
43:04 Pablo Torre? screenshots of like, there was a point where Wordle was a thing and she was like on, just like the, the ninth version of, I'm just like, I don't care about any of this.
43:13 Speaker 03 It's me and Mike Schor and Alan. So we're in this group chat where the three of us love word games and puzzles and Pablo does not. And during the height of the pandemic, we were all doing like 20 puzzles a day. We were doing Octordle was a big one. There was one above Octordle. We were playing this game where you guess a country purely based on its shape and sharing our results with each other all day long. And Pablo apparently was bored out of his mind by our dullness.
43:44 Pablo Torre? It's horrible.
43:46 Speaker 02 That's not dull, that's dorky. I don't, that's a different classification.
43:49 Pablo Torre? Disagree. It was both. I think it's not an either or, this is a yes and, it was. It was both.
43:55 Speaker 02 Well, but I don't, I don't know how to answer this question because I don't think of puzzles as necessarily dull. Making lentil, yeah, I'm making lentil soup. I don't find particularly interesting. I, I solicited my wife's help on this because I don't believe my governor is good because the nature of speaking for three and a half hours a day. You must find yourself fascinating. You must find yourself really interesting if you think that people should listen to your opinion for three and a half hours a day. And so she said that me watching the CBS Sunday morning is dull and I yelled at her because it is not dull. It's one of the great programs in American television.
44:32 Pablo Torre? That's the most AOL news program that exists.
44:34 Speaker 02 It's a great show though. I'm not gonna, well, I mean, maybe you don't.
44:37 Pablo Torre? It's just the oldest show that's ever, ever been shown.
44:41 Speaker 02 I'm not dis- I'm not disagreeing with that. I, I happen to like the tranquil sounds for 90 seconds of a creek. And I'm not going to argue with you about it. You can have your own opinions about it. And I was thinking to myself, well, riding my bike and stuff and I was gonna nominate that, but I stopped doing it when I, you know, ran into the street. A car door opened and I hit it and I fouled up my body in all sorts of ways, but that's not dull. And then I started a bunch of stretching and stuff that I have to do that I talk about too much to get my body realigned on that.
45:13 Speaker 03 People talk about stretching. My husband's always talking about stretching. It's so boring to me.
45:17 Speaker 02 Also dull. Yes. Thank you. All of the things nominated by my wife as well. But I settled in on Beyond Royal Crush, which you guys have made fun of me. The mindless exercise of royal crush.
45:30 Speaker 03 Wait, are you still playing Royal Crush and how far have you advanced?
45:33 Speaker 02 Occasionally I am. I'm about at 8,000.
45:36 Pablo Torre? He's not a player. He just crushes royally.
45:38 Speaker 02 That's right. That's right. In another way I crush royally. I'm gonna, you talk about old here.
45:43 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
45:44 Speaker 02 Miss Pac-Man. I've got a machine and I love playing Miss Pac-Man and I'm not going to apologize for it.
45:51 Speaker 03 You have a Miss Pac-Man machine in your house?
45:53 Pablo Torre? He has a tabletop arcade Miss Pac-Man machine.
45:57 Speaker 03 That's kind of cool. They have arcade in your house. Even your dull story like buried and interesting and like cool fact.
46:03 Pablo Torre? That's still, that's still pretty interesting. I submit that my thing that I do all the time, every day that I pretty much never post about. But sometimes occasionally we'll allude to is take care of my plants.
46:18 Speaker 03 Oh, God. Nobody wants to hear about your.
46:21 Pablo Torre? No, yes, they do.
46:22 Speaker 03 No one wants to hear about this.
46:23 Pablo Torre? Yeah, look at, look at this. This is the show that I host privately. It's called Repotting with Pablo, debuted during the pandemic, although I owned many plants before the pandemic, just for the record here. I have over 35 plants. I counted this morning. These are all today, the various kinds. Look, I, I can, I can, I can raise a fiddle leaf fig, you know, I can, I can absolutely make sure a pothos can stretch its vines over all sorts of shelves in my apartment. I can go on and on about this stuff.
46:54 Speaker 02 This looks like something I'd see on my CBS Sunday morning show. This looks like something that I would devour on Sunday mornings.
47:02 Pablo Torre? Snake plant. That's a money tree over there. That's sort of like craning its neck towards the sunlight.
47:09 Speaker 02 I've got so many money trees in my house.
47:11 Speaker 03 I need, I need.
47:12 Pablo Torre? The best.
47:13 Speaker 03 I need, okay, I need to ask my husband to come up with something for me because all of the dull interests you guys have brought up are things that my husband talks about that I find extraordinarily dull. Stretching, plants, watches. I'm not trying to roast him, but when he and like when I hear two men talking about watches, I don't know if that fits into this category because is that dull? It's dull to me.
47:35 Pablo Torre? The thing about watches is that I don't, I've never worn a watch, but I will find myself, because I am a man, like watching watch content. And contemplate, do I, should I have a watch?
47:48 Speaker 03 Sometimes I'll look at a watch, a video he's watching where people are talking about watches and it honestly is the most boring content I can imagine that exists. I cannot fathom it.
47:59 Speaker 02 I told everybody here the other day, this is going to shock you all, that when I came out of college, I look forward to the look on your face when I say this, that out of college, my original attire to sporting events early in my reporting career, suspenders?
48:19 Speaker 02 And a pocket watch with the chain with the chain going from my belt loop to my pocket.
48:27 Pablo Torre? That's.
48:27 Speaker 02 Given to me by my grandfather. So be careful how much you make fun of that. Uh, but, uh, I figured you guys would enjoy that.
48:34 Pablo Torre? We're, we're gonna, we're gonna have to search for photographic evidence of this. Um, why?
48:40 Speaker 02 Text, uh, let me text some people here and see.
48:42 Pablo Torre? Why did you want this to be your aesthetic?
48:46 Speaker 02 I actually, at the time, this will be funny to all of you, said to myself, you know what? I'm going to dress a little better than sportswriters are reputed to dress.
48:57 Pablo Torre? Oh, this is classic.
48:58 Speaker 03 Better, in my mind, he looks like a union busting oil tycoon.
49:03 Pablo Torre? He looks like, no, he looks like the Penguin from Batman. Like, what, what is this?
49:08 Speaker 03 Pablo and I have left out the most actual boring [BLEEP], which is just talking about anything related to our children.
49:13 Speaker 02 Well, this is what I was, I was actually gonna ask you guys.
49:16 Pablo Torre? Thing I do right now is apply to kindergarten. You guys want all of the takes that I've never aired? But I got, call me up sometime. I have so many opinions.
49:26 Speaker 03 I was in New York, um, what was it, like a month ago or something, Pablo? And we got together, you, me and Katie Nolan, and shocker, Katie was late. And as Pablo and I were sitting in the bar, Dan, we like speed ran kids [BLEEP] for like 15 minutes. Cause we knew Katie, we didn't want to bore her with it. Like, I know all about Pablo applying to kindergarten. I know the kindergartens you apply to. I know your thought process. I know about, even Pop Dance looks bored right now. I know, it's so boring.
49:54 Speaker 02 No, no, it's great.
49:55 Speaker 03 If you don't have kids.
49:56 Speaker 02 No, it's great. It's great self-awareness for you guys to have to get the parenting stuff out.
50:00 Pablo Torre? You know, all girls kindergarten have thoughts.
50:03 Speaker 02 Me and, me and Valerie went out to dinner with a couple who had kids and had to strategize beforehand how to not open that portal conversationally. And we strategized and failed and then our evening.
50:17 Speaker 03 No, no, no, it's not on you. It is on the people who have kids. Nobody wants to hear about your kids.
50:22 Speaker 02 But I was just gonna, I was gonna ask you guys this when we started this conversation because. I was going to say that some people might think that motherhood is boring, but I do not happen to think that motherhood is dull. But if you sat with me and started telling me for many years, if you spent a lot of time telling me about your kids, I could see how others would find that boring.
50:55 Speaker 03 Would you like to hear about Nino's transition from two naps to one? And how it's potentially affecting his sleep schedule at night? And how perhaps we need to stretch his wake window a little bit longer? Because he's been waking up at 4 a.m. and then we don't want him to- we're not trying to avoid co-sleeping at all costs. So we're not going upstairs. We are letting him cry.
51:25 Pablo Torre? At the end of every show, Mina, we say what we found out about on a show that is about finding stuff out. Dan has left, which is understandable because we've been talking about parenting for
51:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
51:36 Pablo Torre? Longer than I ever, ever intend to on a show that wants viewers. So what did you, what did you, what did you find out about today?
51:46 Speaker 03 Um, I found out that Dan apparently dressed it dressed like Boss Hogg as a young reporter. I'd like to see photos of this.
51:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, ironic for somebody who was all about player empowerment, that he dressed like someone who wanted to break up the players' union. I'd like to dig more into that. How about you? What'd you learn?
52:06 Pablo Torre? No, I found out that everything that Dan is now is the product of a hard pendulum swing directly away from what he initially tried to be.
52:19 Pablo Torre? And also that, uh, that guy who Dan intimidated, on the road that Valerie saved him from going to jail over, is somebody I'd like to talk to. So, you know, you know, reach me.
52:32 Speaker 03 Find out. Find that out.
52:33 Pablo Torre? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
52:34 Speaker 03 Like to get his side of the story.
52:35 Pablo Torre? Yeah, I have a feeling that you may have been in the right. Just a, just a hunch. Just a hunch.
52:42 Speaker 03 Follow me on Blue Sky.
52:55 Pablo Torre? This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metal Arc Media production. And we are produced by Walter Avaroma, Ryan Cortez, Sam Daywig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Rachel Miller Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumanello, and Julian Warren. Our studio engineering by RG Systems, our sound design by NGW Post, our theme song, as always, by John Bravo. And we will talk to you next time.
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