Share & Litigate & Tell with Katie Nolan and Michael Cruz Kayne

Influencers are finally suing each other for making seemingly identical content. Should we be laughing or crying (hint: we’re doing both)? Ben Affleck thinks that AI will never replace movies. Is he hot and wrong, or just hot? And how is everybody not depressed? Also: if Ray Romano and Dan Le Batard became one person, cryptic births, Clean Girls, Ding Dong Primple Pants, and Michael’s finest career credit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  This episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out is brought to you by McDonald's. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Medium Fries and a Drink is now $8. And look, I've chased down a lot of strange stories, but nothing quite like what's inside a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. It is 100% fresh beef, cooked right when you order it, with no artificial flavors, colors, fillers, or preservatives in the beef. The onions are hand-topped by someone who knows the perfect amount by memory, two slices of cheese and a star, and two pickles, side by side. So every bite gets both. And every time one's ordered, a cowbell sound rings in the kitchen. That's the grill master's cue to put a fresh patty on the grill. My move?

• 0:42Pablo Torre?

  QPC, fries and a drink after a long day of recording. That is my happy place. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese with Fries and a Drink, now $8 for a limited time only, only at McDonald's. For a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska, and California. And for delivery, fresh beef not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Offer not valid for delivery.

• 1:09Speaker 01

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• 1:54Pablo Torre?

  This episode is brought to you by Apollo.io. A lot of the stories on this show start the same way. Something that looks pretty simple turns out to be a mess once you look under the hood. Well, it's no different in the sales world. Your team has a tool for finding prospects, a different tool for reaching out to them, and a third for keeping track of it all. On paper, that's a system. In practice, it's a salesperson spending the better part of the day copying names from one tab into another, and not much of it actually selling. Apollo.io is a platform that helps sales teams find the right buyers and reach out to them. It brings prospecting, outreach and follow-up into one place instead of several separate tools. It's used by sales teams of all sizes, from small businesses to larger

• 2:39Pablo Torre?

  organizations, and it's built for teams who want less manual busywork and more time with buyers. If your marketing and sales teams are trying to work from the same view of the customer, it's worth a look. Sign up for free at Apollo.io. That's Apollo.io. Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Is Ben Affleck the boy who cried Dick Wolf? Right after this ad.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  Eric Ridehome, Eric Roadhome, told me that he loves when we're on together because it seems like the three of us, there's nowhere else we'd rather be.

• 3:32Pablo Torre?

  Hmm.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  And that we're really enjoying ourselves.

• 3:34Pablo Torre?

  Who said this?

• 3:35Speaker 03

  Eric Ridehome, creator of such television greatness as PTI, Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn.

• 3:42Pablo Torre?

  Yep.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  There's gotta be another.

• 3:44Speaker 04

  I love those shows.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. Highly questionable. Oh, can I show you a picture of somebody that was on? Oh, and this?

• 3:50Pablo Torre?

  Isamiro.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Oh, that's right.

• 3:51Pablo Torre?

  Hi Noon.

• 3:52Speaker 03

  I was watching Dateline last night and I saw a guy on there and I was like.

• 3:55Pablo Torre?

  That's just a thing you do?

• 3:56Speaker 03

  That, yeah. I mean, I'm a woman and.

• 3:59Pablo Torre?

  What crime will I be sucked into in real life? Let's find out.

• 4:02Speaker 03

  And I said, this is the halfway point on a spectrum where the polls are Ray Romano and Dan Lebatard.

• 4:11Pablo Torre?

  Whoa.

• 4:13Pablo Torre?

  That, okay, let's just show.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Exactly right.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  It looks like the disguise that they used in Argo.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  It looks fake.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  It does. But I was like, that is, that is Dan Le Romano.

• 4:28Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, it looks like prosthetics circa 2002.

• 4:32Pablo Torre?

  Mm-hmm. Who is this gentleman?

• 4:34Speaker 03

  No idea. I barely, I was falling asleep.

• 4:36Pablo Torre?

  Le Romano?

• 4:36Speaker 03

  We put this on to go to bed and I was like, hold on, I gotta take a picture of that to show Pablo. Because I told Dan exactly what I just said to you.

• 4:43Pablo Torre?

  Soder.

• 4:44Speaker 03

  It might, yeah, who I was in bed with, yes, not Le Batard.

• 4:46Pablo Torre?

  Well.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  And he didn't react in the way I wanted. I really wanted a like, wow, that's exactly right. So I said, I'm gonna take a picture and show it to Pablo tomorrow.

• 4:55Pablo Torre?

  I am here to validate that that is exactly right.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 4:58Pablo Torre?

  What was that guy?

• 5:00Speaker 03

  I have no idea. I think he was.

• 5:01Pablo Torre?

  In the Dateline episode?

• 5:02Speaker 03

  I think he was either, I think he was probably like a prosecutor. I have no idea.

• 5:07Pablo Torre?

  Hmm, a safe guess.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  I truly didn't listen.

• 5:09Speaker 04

  That feels like one of the stock characters. That's someone who's gonna be on a Dateline episode.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 5:13Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  Prosecutor and investigator. Usually somebody who's just repeating exactly what the interviewer just said to them.

• 5:20Pablo Torre?

  Dateline is incredibly popular, still.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  Much better than 2020 if we're taking sides.

• 5:25Pablo Torre?

  Are we ranking the true, the original true crime podcasts?

• 5:29Speaker 03

  I mean, that's Dateline. So Dateline has a recurring cast of characters like Keith Morrison. They'll host an episode. So it'll be like Keith Morrison's episode where he'll do the VO and then he'll do like the interstitial shots of him walking through the crime scene and then he'll do the sit-down interviews. 2020 has that recurring cast and they just sit and do the exposition throughout the episode as if they're being interviewed. And that blurs a line for me that I'm like, you're just a reporter. Why don't you just report it instead of making it look like you're being interviewed?

• 6:04Speaker 04

  That's like a producer's choice.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think it's a dumb choice. So that's why I'm team Dateline.

• 6:09Pablo Torre?

  You know Keith Morrison's face?

• 6:11Speaker 03

  The best. You know who he's, who's uncle?

• 6:14Speaker 04

  He's beautiful.

• 6:15Pablo Torre?

  He looks like a guy who is also wearing like a Keith Morrison mask at this point, which is a compliment.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  He looks like Glenn Close.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Winged victory of Samothrace.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  What's that, the second one?

• 6:29Pablo Torre?

  It did autocomplete in my Google search.

• 6:32Speaker 04

  It's a headless piece of art.

• 6:34Pablo Torre?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  It's Nike, it's the goddess Nike.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I knew, I know art.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  I know art.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  I know all art.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  But would you show, just because I do feel like Glenn Close.

• 6:43Pablo Torre?

  Oh, the Glenn Close call.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, Glenn Close is right, that's right, absolutely.

• 6:47Pablo Torre?

  A true Close call.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:49Pablo Torre?

  Winged victory of Samothrace, famous hell in a stick marble statue of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  He was like a new color.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  I'm actually colorblind, it's blue, I think.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  You're colorblind for real?

• 6:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  How do you get dressed?

• 7:01Speaker 04

  I mean, I'm not like crushing it.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  No. No, but how do you do it?

• 7:06Speaker 04

  Uh, mostly like jeans, I'm, okay, so colorblind.

• 7:09Pablo Torre?

  How colorblind are we?

• 7:10Speaker 03

  Here we go.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  So, I can see, I can see a lot of colors, thousands and thousands of colors. But you can see like millions of colors.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  I can?

• 7:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. Regular people can see millions, I can only see thousands.

• 7:19Speaker 03

  Doesn't sound as complimentary as I can see thousands of colors.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  You muggles. But I could, I can see fewer colors, so I can see a lot of, not most colors, but enough colors.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  What do you struggle with, greens?

• 7:29Speaker 04

  All kinds of [BLEEP].

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  Okay, so like the, there's red back there, the circles?

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 7:33Speaker 04

  Okay, but the other, whatever the other thing is next to circles?

• 7:35Speaker 03

  Blue, and then that's yellow green.

• 7:36Speaker 04

  If you told me that was blue or purple, I wouldn't know, and yellow green, I wouldn't know.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  You wouldn't know, what does it look like to you, the yellow green?

• 7:42Speaker 04

  I would just, I would say either yellow or green, being unsure.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  It's both, so you'd be right.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  Well, great, never mind.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  So you seem colored fine to me.

• 7:50Pablo Torre?

  Where does this become a problem for you?

• 7:52Speaker 03

  Do you play video games?

• 7:53Speaker 04

  It becomes a pro, I mean, the only place it's actually a problem is when you go to museums and they have those colorblind things and they're like, "Look here, do you see the number?", and I'm like, "There's no number there", and my kid's like, "It's an eight", you know, moron.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, you should stop going to museums.

• 8:06Speaker 04

  My kids are mean also, that's, those are the two problems.

• 8:08Pablo Torre?

  Then when would you encounter the winged victory of Samothrace?

• 8:11Speaker 04

  Well, you'd have to be, I think, at the Louvre.

• 8:13Pablo Torre?

  At the Louvre. Yeah.

• 8:15Speaker 04

  I feel like it does.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  There's no head on it.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I feel like.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  It's a headless.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  I feel like if you took Glenn Close and the texture of that part of the blouse or whatever.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  So you're just saying he's wrinkly and old.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, kind of.

• 8:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  But like, but like chiseled wrinkles.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  He does have interesting wrinkles.

• 8:28Pablo Torre?

  There's John Kerry in this.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  Yes, for sure.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  A little, yes, for sure.

• 8:30Pablo Torre?

  Mm-hmm. John Kerry and Glenn Close.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I like that.

• 8:33Pablo Torre?

  He is the John Kerry and Glenn Close of Ray Romano and Dan Lebatard.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Indeed.

• 8:56Pablo Torre?

  I think we're gonna start with my topic.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Yes, I think we should.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  That sounds great.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  It's a lot.

• 9:02Pablo Torre?

  It's a great topic, it's a great story. I'm pretty sure neither of you read the whole thing.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  Who could have?

• 9:07Speaker 04

  I read most of the headline.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  A very long story about a beige influencer. And I don't know what to, I couldn't get any further than...

• 9:17Speaker 04

  I started scrolling and you know the little thing on the side that tells you how far you've gone? It hardly moved when I was going and I was like, I'm never gonna make it.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Once I saw how small it was, I was like, this is something Pablo can tell me.

• 9:26Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, the headline aforementioned is "Bad Influence." It is on theverge.com. Subhead, "One Amazon influencer makes a living posting content from her beige home." But after she, this is sounding like a 2020 sort of setup now. But after she noticed another account, "Hawking the same minimal aesthetic, a rivalry spiraled into a first-of-its-kind lawsuit. Can the legal system protect the vibe of a creator? And what if that vibe is basic?" So it's a landmark case. It's a great setup. I love this story. It's about, yeah, a landmark case seemingly in the world of influencer, intellectual property, plagiarism. These are two Amazon influencers.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  And to define what that is? That's just people who order off of Amazon? And then tell you, "This is good, this is bad?"

• 10:13Pablo Torre?

  So they, yes, but also they have the ability to create a storefront. This is scare quotes.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  Amazon storefront, I think we all know what that is.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  I don't know, but I can, I feel like I'm in my bones, I figure it out.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  If I say the link's in my Amazon storefront, you can go click on like Katie Nolan's Amazon storefront and it'll be like, "Here's the jeans she's talking about, here's the can opener she's talking about."

• 10:32Pablo Torre?

  If everybody could be Oprah with her favorite things.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Right, but only on Amazon.

• 10:36Pablo Torre?

  On Amazon, that you get a share of, profit-wise.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, that's right.

• 10:41Pablo Torre?

  If in fact people click on your storefront to buy it from your store.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  Gotcha, okay.

• 10:47Pablo Torre?

  So this storefront operator, her name is Sydney Nicole Gifford. She's 24 years old, live in Minneapolis. She sued Alyssa Sheal, who is 21 years old in Austin, Texas. What the aforementioned Sydney Nicole Gifford did was hire an attorney, send cease and desist orders to Alyssa Sheal because she claimed that Sheal had participated in, quote, "willful, intentional, and purposeful infringement of her copyright." Dozens of posts across platforms like TikTok and Instagram, posts, in the case of Sydney Nicole Gifford, that looked like this.

• 11:21Speaker 05

  My vanity was needing some organization help, so I partnered with Target to share these bathroom and storage products that work so perfectly for makeup and countertop organization. This is the prettiest trash bin, so I had to grab that. Then I found this spinning turntable, which I thought would be so perfect for some of my skincare and fragrances. Sticking with all the gold tones, I also had to get this candle. For the other side, I got a vanity organizer and countertop mirror. I love how all these pieces match each other and really go with the glam room aesthetic, and everything's on my Target storefront.

• 11:52Pablo Torre?

  And so the plaintiff is claiming, Gifford...

• 11:54Speaker 04

  That's Gifford.

• 11:56Pablo Torre?

  That is Gifford. There's a pattern...

• 11:58Speaker 03

  You couldn't tell? She's got that aesthetic that we all know.

• 12:00Pablo Torre?

  There's a pattern of copying. Basically, days or weeks, the allegation goes, after she would share photos or videos promoting an Amazon product, Sheal, the defendant, would share her own content doing the same thing, and this is what Sheal's content would look like as an example.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Oh my God, can't wait.

• 12:16Speaker 05

  Amazon Black Friday home finds that are actually worth the money. Starting off with my personal favorite, my makeup vanity is on major deal right now. This is hands down one of my favorite items in my entire home. It has so much storage, and it is absolutely stunning. It would look great in any space. Nothing makes me happier than opening this drawer and seeing how organized it is. These organizers are truly game-changing. Having a towel warmer has truly changed my life. It is truly an 11 out of 10. Next are these curtains. We have them in every single room of our house. I think they look so luxe. I just can't get over how much these make our house...

• 12:44Pablo Torre?

  You're familiar with this genre, though, this type of person?

• 12:47Speaker 03

  Yes, but it's just... I don't mean to sidetrack. That depresses me so much because the language of it, the happiest I've ever felt. Is when I opened this drawer. This is the greatest thing that's ever been in my life. I have three children. This is the happiest day of my life is when this partizion was delivered.

• 13:08Pablo Torre?

  You're saying it's a bit of a hard sell.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  It's crazy. The fact that that works on anybody makes me feel uncomfortable. To just always go, this is, oh my God, you guys, this changed my life. This is a glasses case where I put in my glasses and inside this, it cleans, is a clot that cleans my glasses. Truly, I'm a different person having found these two together. You have to get this. It says, nice to see you inside.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  I am gonna buy that now.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  You can decide why.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  I do, I understand what you're saying, though, that sense of like, you too can have access to the great stream of happiness. You can dip your fingers in if only you buy these locked curtains.

• 13:48Pablo Torre?

  So, so it comes inside of this archetype, which I was not familiar with in this specific way until this story, which is the clean girl.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  You've never heard of the aesthetic of the clean girl?

• 13:59Pablo Torre?

  You're familiar.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  Yes. I spend a lot of time online, Pablo. It's why my mentals are the way that they are.

• 14:04Pablo Torre?

  Can you explain what a clean girl is?

• 14:07Speaker 03

  Image wise, to me, the first thing I picture is a slicked back bun or ponytail with very groomed brows and dewy looking skin and everything is very clean lines. I guess for your home, it would be like, all the picture frames on your house like are the same size with the same matting and they all match.

• 14:30Pablo Torre?

  Very few colors, exactly.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  A lot of beige, a lot of neutrals.

• 14:33Speaker 04

  Minimalist.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's a current, like, feel like micro trend on, on the internet.

• 14:39Pablo Torre?

  Yes, it promotes quote unquote self-care, comfort and looking put together.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:44Pablo Torre?

  The most famous clean girl, if you were wondering, is perhaps Hailey Bieber. And there are many such people in the Hailey Bieber coaching tree, it turns out.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  I would've said Alex Cooper.

• 14:53Pablo Torre?

  Well, okay, yes, yes, a current practitioner, a master of the form perhaps. Gifford is claiming though in this lawsuit that in the course of 70 pages of side by side screenshots, you can clearly see that she posts stuff and then she... Sheel, the defendant, is copying her. We can see a couple of just side by side still frames here. Again, it's the gallery wall, black and white photo with a black frame. They both have this, yeah, this sort of look. As we cycle through, we see yet another example. Oh, this is my favorite part.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  What? It's a tattoo.

• 15:25Pablo Torre?

  So at a certain point in the story, you realize, as there's this back and forth about, "No, no, no, how can I possibly be held accountable for embodying an aesthetic that is not simply Gifford's to claim?" You learn that Sheel has gotten a flower tattoo that is disturbingly akin to Gifford's flower tattoo, same spot on their arm.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  Lower.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  I guess what's weird about this to me, just from this, from, at this point in the story, what I'm thinking is, Gifford's first, right?

• 15:53Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 15:53Speaker 04

  So Gifford's like, "I got this tattoo."

• 15:55Speaker 03

  First in what sense?

• 15:56Speaker 04

  I mean, first of the two of them, relatively first.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  She is like, "Buy all this stuff." And so this gal goes, "Okay."

• 16:04Speaker 03

  "Buy all this stuff."

• 16:05Speaker 04

  And she does it. And then she's like, "Hey, this stuff I bought? Y'all should buy the stuff I bought." Gifford, this is a success. You did, you, you did it.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  You influenced.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  The thing you wanted to do, you did.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:17Speaker 04

  It's weird to me to be like, "Well, hang on, someone bought my, bought the stuff that I said to buy? And then told other people to buy it? That doesn't seem right."

• 16:23Pablo Torre?

  So at the core of it is the question of, "How can you possibly claim that you are the originator of a style that you yourself have derived?"

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 16:32Pablo Torre?

  "From this larger recurring conceit of we're all trying to be Hailey Bieber, or it turns out, in this very particular archetype, Kim Kardashian, who turns out, in a bit of a twist of the story, to be established as the actual originator of a lot of this."

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Oh, because her house is boring as [BLEEP].

• 16:52Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 16:52Speaker 03

  Have you seen Kim Kardashian's house? I know you've been.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  I'm sure I have at some point.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  I know you've been to her house.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've seen it when I'm there.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  But it's just like, it's just very sad and cold looking.

• 17:02Pablo Torre?

  Neutral is the, is the, is the term that they like to embrace.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  Boring. It's the, it's the absence of, um...

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Like warmth.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  It's the absence of anything in, of anything kind of focally interesting.

• 17:15Pablo Torre?

  It's the absence of-

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Of taste.

• 17:18Pablo Torre?

  Of a personal.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  Of a personality. It's an absence of like my, of injecting myself into my home decor. Like, listen, you're talking to a lady who's got a blank wall because she's overwhelmed by the idea of hanging anything on it. Not because I think it's like a nice, cleanest, that like, I know I'm no expert on this stuff. But like, it's hard to say like, that's, she stole that from me when what that is, is like a blank wall.

• 17:43Pablo Torre?

  Right, right. So what's happening legally.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Or a gallery wall. It's a very common thing.

• 17:49Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  We also in our house have four pictures on a wall.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Watch out.

• 17:52Speaker 04

  Did I?

• 17:53Speaker 03

  So watch out now. You better have a lawyer.

• 17:55Pablo Torre?

  But, but even if we were to grant, though, that they're both very, very similar to each other. The legal precedent here is interesting. Um, it references a lawsuit that was actually a case in which Nike, so the, the famous, this is sports, we're a sports show.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 18:09Pablo Torre?

  The famous, uh, Jumpman logo that Nike made popular of Michael Jordan extending his arm out, legs splayed. It turns out that that was originally photographed in 1984 by this guy, and this is a strange name, but it's Co, C O, uh, Rentmeester.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Great.

• 18:24Pablo Torre?

  Co Rentmeester.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  I love it.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  I love that.

• 18:26Pablo Torre?

  Definitely not the name a child invents for himself when he's asked at a movie theater. Sir.

• 18:31Speaker 03

  I'm Co.

• 18:31Pablo Torre?

  What's your name? Um, Co Rentmeester says, uh, that he photographed Michael Jordan, uh, in that pose and that Nike then reshoot it with Michael Jordan and did that pose in their own advertising. This is the original Co Rentmeester's.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  The leg is bent a little more than it is in the.

• 18:47Pablo Torre?

  You see the right leg being bent a tad more and Nike, of course, looks like this.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Yes. Well, yes, the leg a little straighter, the arm a little straighter.

• 18:55Pablo Torre?

  Perfected in that way, optimized in that way, you might even say. Um, the judge did rule that Nike, uh, had no liability for this.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  Because you can't.

• 19:04Pablo Torre?

  What Nike, uh, won on the basis of was this court finding that the images were not substantially similar because the photographer didn't own the pose. Like, how can you possibly copyright this pose? Um, and that only creative choices like Anglo photograph and camera shutter speed could be protected, which is interesting. But the point is, a judge gets to be an art critic and in this. Case, what we're waiting on is the judge to determine is the thing that these people are making a creative decision that can be protected as, as, uh, as precedent suggests. And all of it speaks to what the [bleep] people are being incentivized to do.

• 19:43Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 19:44Pablo Torre?

  Like, the thing about all of this is that, and this is a recurring theme, I think, on this show. Um, the internet and its economy promised a great multiplying of sensibilities and tastes and different ideas. And instead, it incentivized homogeneity.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 20:02Pablo Torre?

  And so here are people just doing what this new economy is instructing them to do. And simultaneously now claiming what I am doing though, because I am doing it, I care about this, this is me, um, they are claiming that this is worthy of legal protection. And this will be a landmark case if in fact it is ruled in favor of Gifford against Shield.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  Now, I'm no copyright lawyer, but I don't think they'll possibly rule in favor of whatever the first lady's name was, and I don't even remember.

• 20:33Speaker 04

  I just can't see how you would.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  Oh, do we have more? Because I do want, I need more.

• 20:38Pablo Torre?

  If you're in, if you're in the jury pool for this, um, you may be lucky enough to just go to trial to, to see.

• 20:44Speaker 03

  Now, see captions are, I guess, to me, a number one indicator of if you're copying. I've seen a lot of, not to get distracted, but I've seen a lot of this on the internet over the last year or two of someone alleging that someone stole someone else's content. And a lot of the times, the nail in the coffin for me is I'll look and be like, oh, same exact caption. They took the same exact caption of the post and posted it on there. And they're not usually, um, in a legal battle. It's just someone going like, hey, this girl's copying everything I do. But this, um, the captions, I can't read them, even with my glasses on.

• 21:18Speaker 04

  The captions aren't the same.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  But they clearly aren't the same.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  They're wearing the same sweater. It looks like.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  But it's a sweater from Amazon. Aren't we all wearing, aren't we all wearing the same sweater?

• 21:28Pablo Torre?

  But it's also like phone covering the face in the same way.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  We all do that when we take a picture of ourselves in the mirror.

• 21:33Pablo Torre?

  Right leg angled.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  We all do that when we're taking a picture of ourselves in the mirror.

• 21:37Speaker 04

  I guess the way I feel is if you go onto Instagram right now, you will find a billion people doing this exact thing. I think at least the first hurdle you have to clear, and I don't think this is sufficient to win this lawsuit, but the first hurdle I would imagine you have to clear is, if I didn't exist, no one else would be doing this. But in fact, if both these women were vaporized at this exact moment.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Wow, he just murdered two ladies.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  You could find two new of this.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  Ladies that are doing this. You're absolutely right. They're also not even selling the same products. This one's selling, I think, the mirror, her most used object in her house, and that sweater. They're selling the same sweater.

• 22:15Pablo Torre?

  So this is also, just to be clear about how this all works, is you see a photo of somebody, and on these storefronts, the products are basically tagged so that you can shop the look.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Oh, I want that sweater.

• 22:26Pablo Torre?

  I want that mirror. I want this Chris Evans in Knives Out sweater kind of deal.

• 22:31Speaker 03

  Cable net, I think, is the more commonly.

• 22:33Pablo Torre?

  It is worth pointing out here that the model in the product shot does look also like she is that.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Is she stealing it? Is she stealing it?

• 22:43Pablo Torre?

  So part of this is about an alleged loss of income, right? So Gifford is claiming that she would post this thing. She very often would replicate it, and she would be able to see in a data-driven way the money taken out of her pocket because somebody else was allegedly doing the same thing and competing for the same exact customer.

• 23:04Speaker 04

  That just feels like the world. You know what I mean? I sell oranges. Wait, now you're selling oranges? What the [__] dude? I sell oranges. But if there's enough oranges, the other guy's gonna start selling them too.

• 23:12Pablo Torre?

  Can sheer naked consumerism be an artistic, creative choice to be protected legally? In a world in which everybody who's a creator and influencer is also a storefront operator, in which they're selling products as their actual main goal? That is the legal scholarship that we're watching develop, which people have been, by the way, people have been waiting for. Because this is, of course, these complaints are rampant. It's not just these two people. People are the first to have this complaint. It's just that Gifford actually took the step of copyrighting her stuff.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  And how? What do you mean by that?

• 23:46Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, so here is.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  What do you mean?

• 23:49Pablo Torre?

  What do you mean by this? She registered her social media post with the US Copyright Office. An unusual step, according to the story, not taken by most influencers.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  You can just copyright anything you want?

• 23:59Pablo Torre?

  Uh.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  How much does it cost?

• 24:02Speaker 04

  This post that you posted has you in it. So if you're not in the one that I made.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Then it's different.

• 24:07Speaker 04

  Isn't mine different?

• 24:09Pablo Torre?

  This is her claiming that her hair was dyed from black to brown.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 24:13Pablo Torre?

  On September 27th, 2023. And that the defendant.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Months later.

• 24:18Pablo Torre?

  On December 2nd, 2023.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  Also in her car.

• 24:21Pablo Torre?

  Did the same thing.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Also in her car. I mean, listen, that's what a trend is. Like, I'm seeing a lot of blondes currently go brunette. And be very dramatic about it, side note. They're very, they're being very like, oh, my God, my hair is so dark. Which is like, yeah, all right, that's what brunette is. But it's a trend. You know, a couple of months ago, there was a trend of, I think it was called cowboy copper. Same thing with like nails. There's like nail trends. But it doesn't mean that you're copying as much as it means you're following what you're being literally influenced to do. So I just have a hard time with all of this in general. Copyright law in general is very confusing to me.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  I sympathize somewhat with the defendant because it's a human being. But the thing that I brought in to talk about today, which we'll get to later, is AI. And the idea of, like, I don't, so I guess what I'm trying to think through in my own mind is where I draw the line. But I don't draw it here.

• 25:21Speaker 03

  Does she claim like, I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars, now I'm making?

• 25:24Speaker 04

  Right, because she was making like 600 bucks a week. I'm gonna be mad that we're talking about this.

• 25:27Pablo Torre?

  So the proxy answer I will give is that they were both able to buy new homes as a result of their Amazon storefronts.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  What's up with money? What's going on with money?

• 25:33Speaker 04

  How does money work?

• 25:34Speaker 03

  That does not make anything to me.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  Cancel this. Let's talk about that.

• 25:36Pablo Torre?

  Bought new beige homes.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Where? In the markets that they're from?

• 25:40Pablo Torre?

  In, in, outside of Minneapolis and Austin, Texas.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Both lovely, lovely cities.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  Well, Austin's sort of.

• 25:47Speaker 04

  It's changing.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  It's different.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  But it's lovely.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  Very different now. I don't think it's weird anymore.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  I don't, um. Yeah, I just, I can't, maybe I don't understand it. I'd love to have Sydney on the pod. Sydney, if you're there, pop off in the, pop off in the comments.

• 26:00Speaker 03

  I'd love to have a house, actually.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  But I, I'm having trouble sympathizing with her, only because it seems like what she does is ver- is both easy to replicate, no offense, and the goal of her channel, or whatever you call it, is to get people to buy the stuff. So.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  There's also a sense of like, um, you know, entrepreneurship, right? That people like to embody when they're influencers. It's like, I did it myself. I took my life into my own hands. And then sort of slamming the door behind you to be like, and don't you do it?

• 26:35Speaker 04

  I used to be one of the hosts of, I don't even know if it was a show.

• 26:39Pablo Torre?

  2020?

• 26:39Speaker 04

  On amazon.com. If you went to amazon.com, the website.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:43Speaker 04

  There'd be like a little, a little video popping in the corner with a fella who'd be like, you like spatulas? Guess what, jerk?

• 26:47Speaker 03

  You did that?

• 26:48Speaker 04

  I got a spatula you're gonna freaking love.

• 26:50Pablo Torre?

  That was you?

• 26:51Speaker 04

  I did that for, I did that for a while. I don't know how long I did it for.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Good money?

• 26:53Speaker 04

  It paid pretty well.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Or did you make money off of how many products were bought during your?

• 26:56Speaker 04

  I don't think anyone ever, I don't think I sold a single item. I couldn't believe that they didn't fire me. Because I would, they would give me, um.

• 27:02Pablo Torre?

  Wait, you'd be like the Microsoft paperclip, but for amazon.com.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  Where did you film it?

• 27:06Speaker 04

  There's like a studio in, like, 34th Street.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 04

  Uh, during COVID, then they, you would film them in your house. But before that, it was a studio on 34th Street. And they would send me like a packet with, you know, all of like, this is, this is what, these are the products. This is like, the points about them that you should be making, and they'd also have stuff loaded in the prompter. And I would be like, I'm not gonna read this, and I'm not gonna say that. And I guess they loved it, but I would be like, you know, buy this 20, they'd like a 20 CD changer. And I'd be like, no one is gonna buy this. So I'm on the thing saying that. Like, don't, don't buy this. Don't buy this. I don't know why you would buy this. This technology won't exist in five minutes. And they loved it. I was ba- I was there all the time.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  This is a fascinating chapter of your story.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  I really, I really liked the people who worked there.

• 27:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  They were nice people. The end.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  The end.

• 27:52Pablo Torre?

  Why did it end?

• 27:54Speaker 04

  I got a different job and I left.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  You said, "Baby, I outgrew you."

• 27:57Speaker 04

  But I was very fun. Because they did not care what I said, which didn't make sense to me.

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  But they just let me say whatever. It was very fun. And all the other people were like professional hosts. Like, they were on the money. They knew the product.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  How'd you get the in?

• 28:10Speaker 04

  They could tell you the voltage of the

• 28:11Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  thing. I think at some point, someone over there said they wanted somebody funny.

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  So then I went and I gave a presentation on some product.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  Sick.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  And then they hired me, and then there I was.

• 28:21Speaker 03

  Fascinating.

• 28:22Speaker 04

  I was professionally bad at it. Like, extremely bad at selling your product.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  I'm gonna find the old footage.

• 28:28Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, we gotta find this. Is this available?

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Was it live?

• 28:31Speaker 04

  I think it's all...

• 28:32Speaker 03

  It was all live.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  It doesn't like go to YouTube or something, you know what I mean?

• 28:35Speaker 03

  Maybe you had a big fan who just saved everything you did.

• 28:38Speaker 04

  I have a superfan who clipped it all.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  That's what I've found. Anytime I need something from my archive, I have a big fan who has it saved somewhere.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  He's got it.

• 28:45Speaker 03

  I also think that if this lady does end up winning this lawsuit.

• 28:49Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  I don't think that's good for the internet. I mean, the internet has always kind of existed in this weird space where you sort of are taking and recreating, or taking and spinning forward, or taking and elaborating, or parodying. It's all kind of in this... And it's always been a weird place with copyright law, if I'm remembering correctly, where it's like, kind of the Wild West.

• 29:11Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 29:12Speaker 03

  The law has had to evolve to keep up with how it works.

• 29:15Pablo Torre?

  Yes, like, even just like copying tweets.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  Right. I don't think the world is better if only one lady can advertise being basic.

• 29:24Pablo Torre?

  Good news is that Alyssa Sheel, who is the defendant.

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 29:27Pablo Torre?

  Whose name perhaps you were searching for. She has decided to pivot to a new aesthetic.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  Well, that's usually an indication of guilt, I feel.

• 29:34Speaker 04

  She's hosting a podcast called Alyssa Sheel Finds Out?

• 29:37Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 29:47Pablo Torre?

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• 30:18Pablo Torre?

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• 31:02Pablo Torre?

  fast free shipping, premium support, and financing with flexible payment options. Plus, you can find great deals on monitors and accessories. That means you can score a whole new setup now for less. This Black Friday sale is one you don't want to miss. Head to dell.com/deals. That's dell.com/deals.

• 31:25Pablo Torre?

  I'm pretty sure this won't shock anyone out there, but buying a car is just a hard process. You have to figure out what you want from thousands of options, then you have to find somewhere that's offering a good deal, then you get hit with unexpected fees. But let's just break it down, and think about how you'd describe your ideal car to a friend. You know, something like, "good gas mileage, four-wheel drive, reliable, under 30 grand." Luckily, CarGurus makes it that easy. Just describe it to CarGurus the same way. With Guru, you search in your own words and you get listings, real listings, that match. No endless filters, just the car that fits your life. CarGurus also helps you shop with more transparent pricing, allowing you to see when dealer fees are included

• 32:09Pablo Torre?

  so you can compare listings with greater confidence. And with more than 4 million listings, CarGurus has the biggest selection of cars. So it's easier than ever to find the right car and the right deal. It is no wonder CarGurus is the number one most-visited car shopping site according to SimilarWeb's estimated traffic data. So buy or sell your next car today with CarGurus at cargurus.com. Go to cargurus.com to make sure your big deal is the best deal. That's C-A-R-G-U-R-U-S dot com. Cargurus.com.

• 32:48Speaker 06

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• 33:26Pablo Torre?

  Michael?

• 33:26Speaker 04

  Yes?

• 33:27Pablo Torre?

  It's your turn on the main stage.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  Ooh, Michael, it's your turn on the main stage.

• 33:31Speaker 04

  I don't have like an article behind this. This is just like a video that I saw.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  But anyway, I saw on the internet Ben Affleck articulating what the future of AI will hold for like filmmakers, et cetera. And it sparked a lot of thoughts among me and my fellow artistes. Uh, roll the clip. Can I do that? No, I don't have the power. I thought I had it.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  You might. No, here it comes. Look at that.

• 33:55Speaker 06

  How do you see it? I mean, is it a benefit or is it a real threat? Is it possible that a Netflix could say, you know, we're gonna do our own, excuse me, James Bond thing out there with a bunch of actors that are completely recreated for this market or that market? A, that's not possible now. B, will it be possible in the future? Highly unlikely. C, movies will be one of the last things, if everything gets replaced, to be replaced by AI. AI can write you excellent imitative verse that sounds a little beefy, and it cannot write you Shakespeare. The function of having two actors, or three or four actors in a room, and the taste to discern and construct that is something that currently entirely eludes AI's capability and I think will for a meaningful period of time.

• 34:38Speaker 06

  What AI is gonna do is gonna disintermediate the more laborious, less creative, and you know, more costly aspects of filmmaking that will allow costs to be brought down, that will be lower the barrier to entry, that will allow more voices to be heard, that will make it easier for the people who wanna make Good Will Hunting to go out and make it. Look, AI is a craftsman at best. Craftsman can learn to, you know, make stickly furniture by sitting down next to somebody and seeing what their technique is and imitating. That's how large video models, large language models, basically work. A library of vectors of meaning and transformers that interpret in context, right? But they're just cross-pollinating things that exist. Nothing new is created. Not yet, not yet.

• 35:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, not yet, and really, in order to do that, look, craftsman is knowing how to work, art is knowing when to stop. And I think knowing when to stop is going to be a very difficult thing for AI to learn because it's taste. And also, lack of consistency, lack of controls, lack of quality. AI for this world of generative video is gonna do key things more. I wouldn't like to be in the visual effects business. They're in trouble because what costs a lot of money is now gonna cost a lot less. And it's gonna hammer that space, and it already is. Eventually, my hope for AI is that it's an additional revenue stream that can replace DVD, which took 15 to 20% out of the economy of filmmaking,

• 36:06Speaker 06

  which is, and there should be negotiated, right? Right. And visual rights say, if you wanna, what if people wanna make five-minute, 30-second TikTok videos where they look like the Avengers? Well, great. You can, you know, just like you used to be able to buy your Iron Man costume at the store, you're gonna buy your Iron Man pack and you and your buddies are gonna look like Iron Man and Hawkeye, like, you know, on Twitch. That's what's gonna really happen.

• 36:29Speaker 04

  Most of the comments, like, once you see the video once on Twitter or whatever, then it starts feeding you quote tweets of the same thing. Uniformly, pretty much, the comments are, Ben Affleck is brilliant. And this is like, you know, he's really articulated what's gonna happen. I feel so much better about AI. But I don't feel, when I watch this, I'm like, dude, what are you? I love Ben Affleck. Let me just, at the base of this, I love Ben Affleck. I think he's handsome. I think he's talented. I think he's smart. I think he's so wrong about this.

• 36:58Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, a lot of the responses when I first saw this, Ben Affleck, shockingly smart. A prophet of the way media is gonna go, and you are actually saying, um, [BLEEP] all that [BLEEP].

• 37:10Speaker 04

  First of all, Ben Affleck knows more about the movie industry and films than I will ever know. But he, the thing he says AI can't have is taste. And I think that also, most people don't have taste.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  Most people don't know the difference between a good joke and a great joke.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Most people don't, I'm in comedy, so I know those things. I can't tell the difference between, you know, a house that's been painted well and a house that's been painted exceptionally well, because I don't know [BLEEP] about that. When people watch TV shows, you can lower the bar quite far, and they'll still go, "This show is awesome. This is my favorite show." And AI, I believe, can get to there.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  That level. I agree with you.

• 38:00Pablo Torre?

  What you're saying is that, in a world where a standard of success is just popularity, that what he is saying will not happen, has already happened, and it will happen more because the guardrail on popularity is not quality.

• 38:16Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. And I'm not even, not in a ser- popularity, but only important in so much as that correlates with where the money goes.

• 38:24Pablo Torre?

  Exactly.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  You know what I mean? Like, in order to make a living in this industry, I fear that AI will make that incredibly hard to do in the near future because people who pay money to have things made are very incentivized to make that happen. If I could press a button, or with a prompt, write a movie, that's gonna save me $200 million. I'll spend $199 million trying to make that. That's what worries me.

• 38:52Pablo Torre?

  The thing that's happening now, though, is that whenever I see AI, and it seems like it's discernible and obvious that this was AI-generated, it feels like an indictment of AI.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Yes, totally, totally true.

• 39:04Pablo Torre?

  So, right now, it feels like to be AI is to indicate that you are getting, like, subprime-

• 39:12Pablo Torre?

  Like poorly made uh work. It feels like uh my hope is that AI becomes stigmatized to the point where it comes associated with bad things. And what you are indicating, which I find very hard to disagree with, is that our ability to discern bad from good is actually less relevant to whether something will succeed as a commodity.

• 39:37Speaker 04

  I worry that that's that that's the case. I think that idea that like all AI does is imitate what you know, it can't create anything brand new. The whole what we've been talking about with Burfany and the other one is that really everything is imitated. Almost everything you do for your entire life is an imitation of something you already saw. And a computer will be able to imitate more and will integrate and imitate more things.

• 40:03Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 04

  I don't hold myself like so special that a computer couldn't eventually do what I don't think a computer would come up with Burfany, but I think other than that, I'm replicable.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  I also think that like um we the shortening of the attention span is discounted in the way that Ben speaks about Mr. Affleck speaks about it.

• 40:26Pablo Torre?

  Thank you.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  In that like he is thinking about it from an actor's point of view and when he watches a movie or Shakespeare and two actors creating this, I think like a lot of media being consumed now is almost like a second screen consumption. And I don't think that people are paying as much like discerning attention to what they're consuming. And that's obviously not the ideal. In an ideal situation, you're putting your phone down, you're watching a movie. I think younger generations were seeing less and less willing or capable of doing that. And so I think like AI slop can slip in under the radar a lot more easily. I also will say when people say Ben Affleck sounds smart, we've had Ben Affleck sound smart a lot of times.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  Remember when he was on Bill Maher and everybody was like, whoa.

• 41:14Pablo Torre?

  Right, right, right.

• 41:15Speaker 04

  You're not listening to what we are saying. You guys are saying if you want to be liberals, believe in liberal principles like freedom of speech, like um you know, we are endowed. Our forefathers, the name of the last strike, all men are created equal. No.

• 41:26Speaker 06

  Ben, we have to be able to criticize bad ideas.

• 41:28Speaker 04

  Of course we do. No liberal doesn't want to criticize bad ideas.

• 41:30Speaker 06

  But is, at this moment, is the motherload of bad ideas.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  Jeez.

• 41:34Speaker 06

  So we have, we have ideas like glass in me.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  It's not, it's not, it's an ugly.

• 41:38Speaker 06

  Apostasy.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  Or how about more than a billion people who aren't fanatical, who don't punch women, who just want to go to school. Wait a second. Say, just break five times a day. Wait, don't do any of the things, but you're saying all mugs. Wait a second.

• 41:50Speaker 06

  I'm not saying all mugs.

• 41:52Speaker 04

  Wait a second. And you're painting the whole group religion with that. No, no.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  Ben Affleck, when he's doing well, is a great mind and a great talent, and I wish that he would get his [BLEEP] together.

• 42:04Pablo Torre?

  Right.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  I wish he would figure out what's going on with him.

• 42:06Pablo Torre?

  Ben Affleck.

• 42:07Speaker 03

  And he would, you know, better himself.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  I don't know, I don't know about that. I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't want to know.

• 42:11Pablo Torre?

  An eagle back tattoo in the sheets.

• 42:13Speaker 03

  Oh, God, I always forget about the tattoo.

• 42:14Pablo Torre?

  And a philosopher in the streets.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly.

• 42:17Speaker 04

  Do you guys remember when he made the movie The Town? You know, have you seen the movie The Town?

• 42:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  Have I talked about this on this podcast before? I'm having deja vu.

• 42:23Pablo Torre?

  Uh, I don't think so.

• 42:24Speaker 04

  Okay, well, The Town's so [BLEEP] good.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 04

  When I saw The Town, this is my first thought. My first thought after The Town, I turned to my wife and I said?

• 42:32Speaker 03

  Let's rob Fenway Park.

• 42:35Speaker 04

  I said, Ben Affleck's gonna be president of the United States.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  He's very smart, very smart.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  That's how I felt. I really do love him. I just, I think he's wrong. I think he's, uh, maybe insulated from these fears because of his stature in the industry.

• 42:48Pablo Torre?

  Right. As a guy who worked inside of a pop-up window on Amazon.com, what you're saying?

• 42:53Speaker 03

  I value his perspective. I found his perspective interesting. I just think he's so, he seemed very sure of the fact that AI was coming for everyone around him's job, but couldn't do what he does. And I think that's always a tough perspective to sell anybody. Because to me, I'm like, if it's going to be able to do everybody, like, he said it's coming for the CGI people.

• 43:16Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  But it cannot do.

• 43:17Pablo Torre?

  We've conceded that the CGI people are definitely screwed.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Right. And I just think, um, I just think that attitude has never historically panned out. Where you're like, yeah, it's coming for everybody else. It will not come for me. It can't do what I do. I think, like, I think he's right in the sense of, like, the art of acting at its highest form. But I also think, to what you were saying, is that, like, The average person cannot tell the difference between incredible acting and fine acting, or like decent acting, or like barely. You can tell when it's bad acting most of the time.

• 43:54Pablo Torre?

  Well, I

• 43:54Speaker 03

  I don't think most people are like, wow.

• 43:57Pablo Torre?

  Like, so I was thinking about this the other day, actually. As somebody who tries to make things that are good, first and foremost, is my main standard of success. Is this good? Yeah. If you're wondering, do I think this podcast right now is good? It's real, it's real, it's a real concern of mine. But what I'm saying is that I, this is where I'm like, where are the guardrails?

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:16Pablo Torre?

  If it's an open field in which it's just sheer popularity and the money follows the Amazon storefront, you know, revenues. What I'm hoping for is like, truly, I thought this. I'm so glad the Academy Awards exist. I'm so glad that there are things, institutions that signal in a very obvious way, reward this, it's good, there's a critical appraisal behind this. Which leads me into this incredibly unpopular position of awards shows being the thing that'll save us. The elites who reward movies that I very seldom think are the best, are the only hope we have for signaling in a market, in a market way. This is worthy of your eyeballs.

• 45:00Pablo Torre?

  Because everything else is just left for, again, an open, boundless focus group in which people are like clicking on stuff.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I, I, I, I hope that you're right about that. But I think the enemy to that is, you know, some studio making a film with AI and then paying Alana, whatever the first woman's name is, to make a, to make a video saying how, how good that movie is. Do you know what I mean? So once you've got, once Kim Kardashian and Gwyneth Paltrow and some third person say this movie's good because they've been paid X dollars to say it, Joe Blow is not going to care what, you know, the Hollywood

• 45:42Speaker 04

  Elite that haven't been paid have to say against it. Do you understand what I'm saying?

• 45:46Pablo Torre?

  Well, the question is like, can AI plausibly write an episode of like Law and Order? Can it write an episode of Chicago Fire?

• 45:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  I feel like for sure.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Easily, yes.

• 45:54Speaker 04

  I would be surprised if right now it can't. Truly.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  I'd be surprised if right now it isn't.

• 45:59Speaker 04

  Which isn't to say it's gonna write good episodes of it. But I don't think most people who watch those shows, because those are procedural, so it's like it's pretty much the same kind.

• 46:10Pablo Torre?

  Right?

• 46:10Speaker 03

  They're a little formulaic.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  A literal formula. So, you know, we change the name, we change the job.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  But you're interviewing the guy, the guy that saw the suspect the night before, the guy that saw the victim, then you're moving to the, that part of it, the investigation. Then you move to the interrogation part, then you're moving to the court part, and then it's over.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  And again, is it gonna write episodes as good as the professional writers who are writing those episodes right now are writing them? No. But will the net gain of profit to the company making those be enhanced by scrapping all those people and making a slightly worse show?

• 46:43Pablo Torre?

  Is Ben Affleck the boy who cried Dick Wolf?

• 46:47Speaker 03

  My goodness.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Holy moly.

• 46:48Speaker 03

  My goodness, I hated that, can I be honest? I hated that.

• 47:00Pablo Torre?

  Life in 2026 is tough. We all have our struggles and we could all use some help. But trying to figure out how to get the right mental health treatment for you can feel overwhelming. Talkiatri helps you move from "I know I need help" to actually having a psychiatrist who listens and a clear personalized treatment plan. Talkiatri is 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, and more. With Talkiatri, you can meet with a licensed psychiatrist, who takes the time to understand what's going on, builds a personalized treatment plan, and supports you over time with consistent, evidence-based care.

• 47:44Pablo Torre?

  And all 800-plus clinicians are in-network with major insurers. So you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out-of-network costs. Head to talkiatory.com/ptfo to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com/ptfo to get matched in minutes. Talkiatory.com/ptfo. Did you know over 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated and 90% don't get enough potassium, which is a key electrolyte responsible for energy, muscle function, and clear thinking? Well, that's why you can be drinking water all day and still feel tired, or foggy, or

• 48:29Pablo Torre?

  just off. And while most hydration packs really load up on the sugar, Instant Hydration contains zero sugar. There's no glucose spike and no sugar crash. And that is really important to me, because it not only gives me electrolytes without loading me up with sugar, but it also helps me avoid that late afternoon crash. You know, that time of day when your eyes start drooping as you reply to yet another email, and you need something to get you back on track. Just mix a packet of Instant Hydration with water, and I am feeling ready to push through to the end of the day. For a better way to stay hydrated, go to instanthydration.com/ptfo and use my promo code PTFO for over 40% off your first subscription order. It's Instant Hydration's best offer available.

• 49:13Pablo Torre?

  That's instanthydration.com/ptfo, promo code PTFO. Cozy makes furniture for the part of life that nobody warns you about. Getting the couch into the room, making the room feel like you, then actually living on it, spills and all. With Cozy, your home can grow with you by adapting to new spaces, new styles, and every era of your life. It's modular furniture, so you can actively adjust your furniture to fit any space. It's all built around making the entire home comfortable and easy, so that your stuff works with your life, not around it. The covers are washable and interchangeable, so a refresh is only one wash away, and the spill goes from panic to shrug. And it all ships to your door in easy-to-move boxes.

• 49:55Pablo Torre?

  Plus, Cozy's free one-on-one design consultations make the whole home vision a lot less intimidating. Cozy has everything you need to make your home feel like it has a plan, because Cozy makes every part of the process easy. So, visit Cozy today. That's C-O-Z-E-Y.com, and make yourself at home.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  How is anyone not depressed? Every day I sort of come to this conclusion where I'm like...

• 50:31Pablo Torre?

  Is this your topic?

• 50:32Speaker 03

  I think so. Again, I know this is a symptom of my depression. But most days I come to the conclusion that my depression is correct. That the way that I feel is the natural way that one should feel. Living in the current world that we live in, maybe given what I'm trying to do with my life. Maybe that's what is influencing it. But the more I look at like, oh, so the website that I used to go to to hear people's opinions that I value is now mostly bots and other content machines trying to get eyeballs on the most offensive

• 51:15Speaker 03

  or polarizing topics. Misinformation and people being paid to do things but not disclosing that they're being paid to do things. All of that has kind of like muddied the waters in a way that's very difficult for me to just go like, oh, that everything's fine. This is fine and good. This is fine and good and we're going in a, in a direction I feel is a good one.

• 51:41Pablo Torre?

  Have you considered buying the mirror in Burfany's Amazon storefront?

• 51:45Speaker 03

  It's in my cart currently.

• 51:48Pablo Torre?

  It's in your cart?

• 51:48Speaker 03

  She said it changed her life.

• 51:50Pablo Torre?

  It's on your storefront.

• 51:51Speaker 03

  And I'm hoping, and you can buy that from me. I'll take a picture in it and post that and you can buy it.

• 51:56Pablo Torre?

  As long as you don't show your face.

• 51:57Speaker 03

  Not trying to make an ad for depression. I just don't feel like, how does everybody not also have it?

• 52:02Pablo Torre?

  So the reason I know you're not alone is because there is a topic in our portfolio of topics that we could have selected on today's show that does fit entirely with this idea.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Which is it? Because that's the one I picked.

• 52:11Pablo Torre?

  Yep. I picked that one.

• 52:12Speaker 03

  I picked that one.

• 52:12Pablo Torre?

  It's that the Oxford English Dictionary has selected its word of the year. It's word of the year. This is a thing that all dictionaries do because dictionaries are brands too. And the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year is brain rot. And of course, in the-

• 52:27Speaker 03

  Two words, famously.

• 52:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:29Speaker 03

  Phrase of the year, I guess.

• 52:30Pablo Torre?

  Are you challenging?

• 52:31Speaker 04

  How dare you?

• 52:32Pablo Torre?

  Literal dictionary-

• 52:33Speaker 03

  Is it hyphenated?

• 52:33Speaker 04

  Challenge Jeff Oxford.

• 52:35Pablo Torre?

  It is not hyphenated.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  So, two words.

• 52:37Pablo Torre?

  It is brain rot, though. And if you're wondering, the other words of the year that, of course, have been selected-

• 52:44Speaker 03

  Gaslighting, I believe, was last year or two years before.

• 52:47Pablo Torre?

  There's always a thematic summary of sorts.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  You guys see that?

• 52:52Speaker 04

  See what I did?

• 52:52Speaker 03

  You guys see that?

• 52:53Pablo Torre?

  I'm sad. Not good enough at hosting.

• 52:56Speaker 03

  No, you were busy. You were Googling.

• 52:58Pablo Torre?

  I was trying to scan a QR code to access the full version of the Washington Post story, which is owned by the company that Michael Cruz Kayne used to host a show inside of a pop-up window for.

• 53:07Speaker 04

  That's right. I think I- Go, you go.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  No, it's-

• 53:10Speaker 04

  No, you-

• 53:11Speaker 03

  Did you guys know the aliens were supposed to come today? Did anyone see that?

• 53:14Speaker 04

  I'm so glad I didn't keep going.

• 53:16Speaker 03

  I know. Dan said December 3rd, they said the aliens were coming.

• 53:19Speaker 04

  Who's "they"?

• 53:19Pablo Torre?

  Who is "they"?

• 53:20Speaker 03

  No clue. And it's coming from Dan, too, which is like, ah, that could have been for anyone.

• 53:23Pablo Torre?

  The guy who thought that vase and vase were two separate sorts of pottery.

• 53:26Speaker 03

  Guy who sent me an Instagram video, clearly AI, of a cabin with snow falling and cartoons and was like, "We should go here." And I was like, "Dan, that's not real."

• 53:35Speaker 04

  It's not a place.

• 53:36Speaker 03

  Not a real place. That's very fake.

• 53:39Pablo Torre?

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  But anyway, he said that "they" are saying the aliens are supposed to come today. So I said, "I'll be on the roof with the sign that says, 'Take me.'"

• 53:47Pablo Torre?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Got an ID4. Hold on.

• 53:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, we were doing something.

• 53:51Pablo Torre?

  Are the aliens-

• 53:52Speaker 03

  No, no, stick to the other thing you were Googling.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  It's here. You've Googled yourself into a pretzel.

• 54:00Pablo Torre?

  The Oxford English Dictionary chose "brain rot," a term that describes the overconsumption of material or content to the point that it deteriorates one's mental state. Katie Nolan is the picture, it turns out, next to the word "brain rot" in the OED.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 54:16Pablo Torre?

  First used in 1854.

• 54:19Speaker 04

  Walden.

• 54:20Pablo Torre?

  Nailed it.

• 54:22Pablo Torre?

  You knew that?

• 54:22Speaker 04

  I knew that.

• 54:22Pablo Torre?

  Just from life.

• 54:23Speaker 04

  I've read about this already.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  Oh, I was like, "Wait, really?"

• 54:25Pablo Torre?

  How dare you prep for something?

• 54:26Speaker 03

  My God, I was so impressed.

• 54:27Pablo Torre?

  How dare you prepare for this show?

• 54:30Speaker 03

  It's my article, and I was still impressed that you knew it.

• 54:32Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, so there are these, like, I love that every dictionary, a dictionary organization, what it's called, in the Washington Post. I love that they all have these councils, like a Hall of Fame, like, voting committee that decides what's the word of the year. And Casper Graffwall-

• 54:48Speaker 04

  Hell, yeah. Is that one of the influencers? That's one of the women?

• 54:53Pablo Torre?

  Casper Graffwall, also in his homeowner era, president of the Oxford Languages, said that brain rot speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life and how we are using our free time like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology. Contrary to Casper Graffwall, Collins Dictionary named, as its word of the year, brat.

• 55:16Speaker 04

  That feels right. That Oxford and Casper Graffwall would say brain rot and Collins, which is a dictionary that sounds kind of lo-fi, would be like, "Our word's boobs, y'all."

• 55:40Pablo Torre?

  At the end of every episode of Palatory Finds Out, a show about finding stuff out.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  We're already at the end. It's only been six hours.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  I didn't even do my article.

• 55:45Pablo Torre?

  That Katie hates, which is we say what we found out. So, Michael, let's start with you to give Katie a little bit of time.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, because I've got something at the ready. I would say I found out that the fella who runs the Oxford English Dictionary is named, and I believe I'm getting this right, Ding Dong Primpelpants.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  Primpelpants?

• 56:08Speaker 04

  Something like that?

• 56:10Speaker 03

  Is this all right?

• 56:10Speaker 04

  And I was surprised by that.

• 56:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:13Pablo Torre?

  Yep, yep, yep, yep.

• 56:14Speaker 03

  It's misinformation. You're actively participating in the misinformation that's making me feel like I'm dying. Actively participating in it.

• 56:20Pablo Torre?

  How dare you slander a dictionary?

• 56:21Speaker 03

  How dare you?

• 56:22Speaker 04

  Well, can you say his real name again?

• 56:23Pablo Torre?

  His name is Casper.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  Oh, sorry. Different name.

• 56:27Pablo Torre?

  Graffwall. We've had some all-time names on the show today.

• 56:30Speaker 03

  A lot of all-time names here today.

• 56:31Pablo Torre?

  Casper Graffwall.

• 56:32Speaker 04

  Well, that's what I learned today. Casper Graffwall.

• 56:34Pablo Torre?

  Yep.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  I'm not going to forget it now. I would have forgotten it before, but now I'm not going to forget it.

• 56:38Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, he's up there with Burfany and the names we'll never forget. Katie Nolan.

• 56:43Speaker 03

  What did I learn? The, uh, Wellbutrin's not doing it.

• 56:48Speaker 03

  That maybe I need more MGs, you know? That's, I think, what I learned today.

• 56:52Pablo Torre?

  If Katie's doctor is in the comments.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, sound off.

• 56:55Pablo Torre?

  Sound off.

• 56:56Speaker 04

  Pop off in the comments.

• 56:57Speaker 03

  Safely.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  If you're a doctor.

• 56:59Pablo Torre?

  What I found out is that, uh, on this show, we can actually validate Michael Cruz Kayne's finest career credit.

• 57:10Speaker 04

  Okay, let's see, squeezing. Yes! It's taking my blood pressure. Yes! It's got a bunch of numbers on there that I personally don't know the meaning of. 98, that's a number. You guys have heard of that one. 111, also 117. I'm supposed to be selling this. So far, this checks out. These are all real numbers. And now here's everything you could possibly want to know about my blood pressure. Uh, let's see, hypertension, stage one and stage two. So if you don't see me when we come back, it's because I'm at the hospital or on the internet Googling what those things mean. I'm hopeful that putting this on my wrist is why it gave me that reading, but honestly, I might have a real problem live on camera for you, America and the world to watch.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Is it not supposed to go on the wrist?

• 57:48Speaker 04

  I don't, I have, I have no idea.

• 57:49Speaker 03

  No clue.

• 57:50Pablo Torre?

  You don't know how to use the Amran Evolve without a second D Bluetooth blood pressure monitor.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Can you put that in your storefront so I can find it later?

• 57:57Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I also just placed a bet and it sounds like, Michael, uh, yeah, take the under, I guess.

• 58:12Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 58:18Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

• 58:38Pablo Torre?

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