Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Senior Gym Boyz

Episode Date: February 6, 2022

The guys talk big gym changes, and Daniel gets some good news! And as always thanks to our sponsors.  Thanks BetterHelp.  Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/qq. Shop with confidence — ...get Honey for FREE at JoinHoney.com/qq. Skillshare.com/qq and one-month free trial 

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Si vous faites vos achats tout en travaillant, en mangeant ou même en écoutant ce balado, alors vous connaissez et aimez l'excitation du magasinage. Mais avez-vous ce frisson d'obtenir le meilleur deal? Les membres de Rakuten, eux, oui. Ils magasinent les marques qu'ils aiment et font d'importantes économies, en plus des remises en argent. Et vous pouvez aussi commencer à gagner des remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés, comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumuler les ventes et les remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia. Et même cumulez les ventes et les remises en argent.
Starting point is 00:00:31 C'est facile à utiliser et vous obtenez vos remises par PayPal ou par chèque. L'idée est simple. Les magasins paient Rakuten pour leur envoyer des gens magasinés. Et Rakuten partage l'argent avec vous sous forme de remise. Téléchargez l'application gratuite Rakuten et ne manquez jamais un bon deal. Ou allez sur rakuten.ca pour en avoir plus pour votre argent. C'est R-A-K-Uor of the award-winning After Hours, and senior writer for last week tonight with John Oliver, Daniel O'Brien,
Starting point is 00:01:12 joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Buies. Soren, say hello. No, fuck me. You're a senior writer now. Let me hear all about this. We were just named senior, me and four of my co-workers, Sina Valli, Joanna Rothkopf, Owen Parsons, and Charlie Redd, we were all named senior writer out of recognition of, I guess, time on our show and work that
Starting point is 00:01:33 we've done. And yeah, it doesn't give me any powers, which is always my first question, is like, great, what can I... Right. What's the... It doesn't need to be a lot of power because it just what achievements have i unlocked something something to go to my head there there's that like there's a kids in the hall sketch that i'm sure you have a better memory for than i do about uh like a manager calling an assistant manager into an office
Starting point is 00:02:01 uh because he's let the very minuscule amount of power of being assistant manager go to his head so dramatically. And I was like, yes, I feel that. What, what, what, what power can I Lord over someone? I need to be able to Lord over Lord something over someone. And I, and I don't, I don't have any, um, which is unfortunate, but, but, uh but very wise on their part. Did you change the handle on your email sign-offs to Senior Writer? No, but this is like, because I always sign my work emails with something silly, like, love you or stay safe out there, guys. Every email that I send opens with, can't believe it's already whatever month it is, is and ends with some version of I love you or stay safe out there, guys.
Starting point is 00:02:50 Yeah, that's perfect. Good branding. Thanks to BetterHelp for supporting Quick Question. For 10% off your first month, go to betterhelp.com slash QQ. Start living a better life today. Thanks to Skillshare for supporting Quick Question. Skillshare empowers you. It's an online learning community that offers membership with so much to explore,
Starting point is 00:03:09 real projects to create, and the support of fellow creatives. Explore your creativity at Skillshare.com slash QQ and get a one-month free trial. We'd like to thank Honey for sponsoring this episode. These days, it feels like online shopping is the only shopping we really do. That's where Honey comes in. It's a free browser extension that scours the internet for promo codes and automatically applies the best one available at checkout. Go to joinhoney.com slash QQ. And this is perhaps too vulnerable to admit, but like the day that we found out about these title these title bumps, we're all like it's it's comedy writers.
Starting point is 00:03:48 So like every celebration amongst ourselves is like like winking and cynical in some way because we're all too cool for school. And even when we're talking to our our co-workers who are who are not senior writers are just are just staff writers, civilians, they might as well be. are just staff writers, civilians, they might as well be. Even that's like a celebration couched in layers and layers of very healthy irony and detachment. But then like privately I'm texting one of my coworkers and I'm like, did you, so are you going to change your Twitter bio? Like when the season starts or are you not going to change it or like what and uh they were just like i think i'm going to change it now it's like okay let's both do it now and we both simultaneously
Starting point is 00:04:32 changed our twitter bios because like it is a thing that i'm super proud of and i i you know yeah called my parents because they're that's the best audience for an achievement like this. Of course. Your co-workers are going to give you shit, and they should. But your mom is going to say, what took them so long? Yeah, absolutely. That's been exciting.
Starting point is 00:04:56 It's been huge for moms and dads. It's going to show up in the credits. It's going to be on my resume forever. It's a thing that I genuinely didn't see coming. That's so exciting. And honestly, I mean, this is a little bit of your mom and me here, Dan. But do they, you do think they realize how lucky they are to have you, right?
Starting point is 00:05:20 Like at this point, they know. At this point, they must realize, oh, we got a really good one. Oh, I have no idea. The senior writer thinks they should suggest that, but I want more. I like, I want at some point for like John or, uh, the other one, Henry, Tim Henry. Uh, I want them to sit down with you and be like, hey, we really, you're bringing it at your all. And we really appreciate everything that you're doing for us and that you'd even stay at this show for this long. Like something that would acknowledge that we need you. Well, I don't think they'll say we need you because that's like terrible for contract negotiations that's
Starting point is 00:06:05 like you can't play your hand that poorly um but i think the version of that that uh they're comfortable with and i'm comfortable with is just like the the mutual expectation that i'm going to perform this job well i think is is uh it's's there. The highest compliment they can give is like, yeah, you can, you can do this, uh, at times very difficult job and at times in stressful situations with short deadlines. The fact that they trust me with it is, is the highest compliment they can give me. I have, here's the thing that I'm finding 2022. I don't know what it is about me. I'm just fucking simping all over the place. I'm just such a work simp. I can't help it. I don't know what to do about it.
Starting point is 00:07:05 thing like you that's how you keep a job like it doesn't necessarily it doesn't mean you're a simp it just means like no you're a good employee that's fine it's okay to be a good employee it's okay to like want to do your best for somebody i know but culture keeps coming up with with new words to describe things that i do uh pejoratively uh it's not a great time to be someone like you that's so exciting though dan senior writer that's got such a nice ring to it yeah it's very very cool i'm i'm thrilled um should we get into this show i guess so i mean i'm i spent my load there i mentioned up top and you laughed about it, that this was a fitness and friendship podcast. Yeah. I got excited about the fitness portion because I've got some fitness news for you coming up.
Starting point is 00:07:52 Oh, good. But is there specifically something you want to talk about fitness related? I do. Yeah. It's less of a question and more of a story of a thing that happened to me recently that is all my own doing. I'm, I'm in a new town, uh, and I, I signed up for retro fitness. I think we talked about before I was looking for a gym. I signed up for one. Uh, it's, it's fine for like, if I need a place with a treadmill or I want to do
Starting point is 00:08:22 lots and lots of big weights, which I almost never do, but it's, I like to throw it in every once in a while. I have the resource of a gym to go to that's two and a half miles away from where I'm living. So it's, it's fine. Perfect run.
Starting point is 00:08:32 Yeah. Yeah. I don't like being in gyms. And this one especially is like, it's, it's, it's a, uh,
Starting point is 00:08:41 an affordable public gym, uh, where people who don't wear masks and spit on the floor. I don't know what else to say It's not my favorite thing on the planet so I tried to Diversify my workouts also because I just get bored in gym. So like I do classes on Men's health fitness app that I like a whole lot and I do like a bunch of other stuff that I just know from other class that taking just from from other classes I've taken just from memory.
Starting point is 00:09:05 But I still wanted to like once a week do a few different things. When I was living in New York, I would do kickboxing once a week and rock climbing at the indoor rock gym once a week just to like change things up. So I was looking for something like that here. I found a kickboxing gym and I called them and I was like, hey, I wanna start taking some classes. I don't wanna like just one-on-one box, but like I'm assuming you have classes that like some integration of kickboxing and cardio,
Starting point is 00:09:37 which is a lot of these kickboxing gyms do. Or I can also just duck into a crowd and I am not the focus of the attention. And they were like, yeah, we have those. And they gave me the attention and they're like yeah we we have those and they gave me the schedule and i was like and i was like great what can you tell me about these these classes are and they were describing them and i said oh so it's sort of like uh a hit class and when i say hit you high intensity interval training okay yeah um and uh that's i would describe like orange theory is a type of hit class.
Starting point is 00:10:06 Anything where it's like there's generally a lot of cardio. You're not using heavy weights. There's just a lot of changing your workouts and using light weights. And just like you're sweating and it's like near constant work for about an hour. I like it a lot. Can I just interject for a second here, Dan? You asked a place that specializes in hitting if they have any hit classes.
Starting point is 00:10:31 Yes. Okay, go on. But I would understand if I said hit class, I'm going to a kickboxing gym to take a hit class. It's reasonable, I think, for most people to think I meant like a punching and kicking thing. Yeah. But this gym, this professional gym they said no you won't be doing doing like hitting or anything it's like a group fitness class and I was like okay so this this should have been a flag
Starting point is 00:10:58 that the professional didn't know what a hit class was but it wasn't uh and then I was was like, all right, so there's a class tomorrow morning. I'll go tomorrow morning. And then I show up there at 8 or 9 a.m., whatever it was. And there's two people in there and it's locked. And then the guy comes out and I was like, hey, can I take a class? He's like, there's no class today. Like, all right. The website said there was and the woman on the phone yesterday said there was, but I'll just go fuck myself. the website said there was, and the woman on the phone yesterday said there was, but I'll just go fuck myself. And then the woman from the gym called me a few days later and she was like, hey, you said you're going to take classes. Uh, did you do it? I was like, no, I, I tried. And, and they said it was, they weren't doing classes on, on Friday. She's like, oh, uh, who told you that? I was like, some guy. I don't know. The man at the gym. So they weren't doing classes. And then I called the Monday after that,
Starting point is 00:11:51 because it was Martin Luther King Day, and I wanted to see if you were doing any classes. And I assumed you guys were closed, because I called twice and no one picked up. She's like, no, we were open. What? Okay, well... What is this place? I've given you guys a couple shots now. And she's like, no, come take a class. I was like, alright.
Starting point is 00:12:08 My Thursday morning is open. It says on your website you guys are doing a class. And she was... No, I said, do you guys have a class Thursday morning? And she said, no. And then I said, your website says you have a class. And she checked the website. She goes, oh, then um... Yep, we...
Starting point is 00:12:23 We have a class. I was like, okay, I don't, I'm not going to come if I'm the only one. And she was like, you won't be. And like, to this gym's credit, I wasn't. There were three other people there. this class is like if you had just started working out and you had just been going to classes at a gym for two months and then you showed up one day and the teacher wasn't there and and then so you decided to teach the class that's really what it felt like the our instructor was very clearly making things up as she went along and there were there were four stations and like it's it's still an hour where you're still doing things uh so like i'm i i
Starting point is 00:13:12 worked up a sweat and if if you're doing some kind of active workout for an hour it's not it's not time wasted so like we're there are four stations and there's a trx ropes bands whatever they're called at each station. And she was like, in this one, you do this. And then this one is this, three is this, four is this. And you guys, you each start at one because there was four of us and you're going to rotate around and you're all going to do it. And one of the women and the group was like, how, how long are the rounds?
Starting point is 00:13:39 She's like, I'm not going to tell you that. Like, okay. You don't know. Well, that information is actually helpful to me for pacing but i'll just like i'll time it on my watch and find out how there's i i i don't understand the physical benefit of keeping us in the dark on how long rounds are so i'm gonna i'm just gonna like time it myself so we're we're doing these workouts and one of the things that makes me nervous is one of the reasons that I I specifically want to take classes with a person is is for
Starting point is 00:14:10 safety I can do anything I want in a gym and I could do as many classes on an app as I have time for but I'm 36 years old and and form is is like more important to me than anything right now because i don't want to do anything that's going to do any real damage and like class time or one-on-one time is the only time that someone is checking my form this person is just not and so we're doing this this stuff and i'm like i i feel like i i feel like i might have to walk out of this class if something starts to hurt because this might actually do more do more harm than good so that's one additional flag is that no one's checking form the only sometimes she will say uh fix your feet if my if my feet were wrong and i was like oh man please say more she was like
Starting point is 00:14:59 fix your feet all right uh another strange thing that happened in the class is she sent when we did one of our rotations and she sent a woman to like a fifth trx station and the woman was like aren't i supposed to go to to number one and the trainer was like like stared for a long time it was like no there's a fifth one there was always a one. I just didn't tell you all before because you were standing at the other four stations, but there's a fifth one. There's been there the whole time. And like, we're all pausing our workouts now
Starting point is 00:15:32 for this meltdown. And she teaches us the fifth station. They're like, all right, I guess there's five stations now. And like, we'll all just take this to our greatest that there was always five stations and it's our fault for not knowing that. So we complete this circuit, and there's a couple more either TRX or medicine ball related
Starting point is 00:15:52 Workouts that we do again made up as you go as we go along where it's like station number one You're doing medicine ball floor slams, or you slam it on the ground. Yeah, and catch it whatever Number two, you guys are doing floor slams with a jump. Okay. Hang on a second. Do you know anything other than a floor slam, Lady P? Number three, side-to-side floor slams. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:19 And then number four, she was trying to do this around-the-world floor slam where you take the medicine ball. By the way, at no point did she like say like relatively what weight you should be using. Right. I've done a lot of these classes before. A crucial point. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:40 If you're doing like a class with dumbbells,s they'll be like guys we want you on a 10 or an 8 and girl and ladies we want you on an 8 or a 5 like they give you these like these rough guidelines so you at least can mentally know like the the the area it's it's all going to be down to your own experience and fitness level of course but like okay i if someone tells me we want the men to have 10 pound dumbbells i know what that means it also gives you a good indication of like you do your first set with it and you're like oh that was rough and you're not going to drop all the way down to like if you were if you started at a 10 you're not going to drop down to a 5 you're like oh no she gave the range
Starting point is 00:17:19 of 8 to 10 i'll go down to 8 yeah like you know you know now how far you're supposed to drop if things don't go well. Right. But this was just grab a medicine ball and then leave it at your station. So I'm just like moving from like six to eight to 12 pound medicine balls, depending on what someone fucking grabbed. And station four, once again, she's like trying to do a different variation on the floor slam where you slam it and then wrap it around your head and slam it on the other side.
Starting point is 00:17:46 And she kept confusing herself and like still ending up slamming it on the left side over and over again. And then one of the other people, I think the same woman who asked like, wait, are you sure after three, I shouldn't go to four? I should go to five. The same woman who asked her that is like, no, no, no. Here's how you do it. This is, this is the way to, to, to switch it, switch your hands. So you, so you get it the way that you want it. And the instructor was like clearly getting tense about being undermined in this class. And the woman was like, I'm sorry. I'm, I'm, that must be bothering you. I'm sorry. I won't say anything else. And the instructor was like, nope, she messed it up. We're not doing that anymore now we're doing sit ups
Starting point is 00:18:26 and you throw the medicine ball in the air like completely threw it out blamed the woman and created a new workout for us oh that's so awesome and we did all that it was one of the weirder and and kookier workouts I've ever
Starting point is 00:18:42 I've ever seen and like our instructor two other things that I feel like I And like our instructor, two other things that I feel like I should mention our instructor jeans in a hoodie, uh, was one thing. And the other thing was, there was no warmup at all. I've never been to a workout class in my entire life that didn't have like, all right, we're going to do jumping jacks or something to, to, before you get into whatever the set is, there's like a minute or two of like some basic loosen up stuff,
Starting point is 00:19:12 but we just went right into the, the TRX circuits. Yeah. There's no warmup. No, this is like, I don't, if not everybody warms up before a workout,
Starting point is 00:19:22 whatever that's, that's, that's up to you. If you're going to, that's, there's no law against it, but it's like, it's one of the things that I expect of a class. Cause I don't always warm up.
Starting point is 00:19:32 I was like class, it's guaranteed. I'm going to do some warming up and I'm going to do some cooling down because they know what they're doing more than I do. No, no warmup and no cool down. And the only other final weird thing about this class is uh she the instructor really liked me doing this medicine ball slam when we were doing the workout because it was like to the music that's what she wanted me to hit you know we're listening to to fun workout music and i'm slamming the ball to the beat and and she was like standing in front of me and cheering for me and, and like, you know, doing like good coach stuff at that point. And it did make it fun.
Starting point is 00:20:11 I was smiling. I was having a good time and like getting amped, slamming this medicine ball in one of the three variations on medicine ball slam. And we high five after it. Good moment. And then at the end of class, she was like, hey, can I film you? Oh, God. And I said, sure. No, Daniel. Because it's, you don't understand how rare it is for me in a fitness setting for someone to be like, I want to capture this in a positive way. That never happens for me. This is not a woman who's sizzle reel you want to be a positive way. That never happens for me. Um, you, this is not a woman who's like,
Starting point is 00:20:46 who's sizzle reel you want to be a part of. And that's the other thing that I, crucially, I should have said, what is this for? And I didn't. And so now I don't know what it was for because I went to like the Instagram account of the gym. There's been no posts on it not even like not a video of me it's just a dead account they've never posted anything so she just has this video now and it was it was a funny and silly strange thing where like the whole workout is done and i'm i'm sweating because you're definitely you're gonna sweat doing this stuff as i said and we get to all right we're all gonna leave now and then she says can i film you and she puts the same song on she like recreates the magic from the thing and like stands and cheers
Starting point is 00:21:30 for me again and has one of the other people film it and no there's no person involved in this yes not even her film damn i'm slamming this stuff down while she like cheers me on recreating the magic uh and then uh she turns to the to the person filming he's like did you get it he goes now someone tried to call you while i was filming and so it stopped filming so we have to do it again so not only is this whole thing like silly i'm also fucking exhausted from slamming this medicine ball now by myself while people are like shuffling out of this class i'm like okay all right i guess i'll dance again. Monkey again. Yeah. Um, okay. This is deeply uncomfortable. I didn't really like, it was a fun,
Starting point is 00:22:16 silly story until, until everyone else left. And you're alone with two people who are like, let us film you. Hey, do you consider yourself a happy person? What is getting in the way of that happiness? If you are not, if you thought to yourself, I don't know, or no, or I think so, then there must be something that's getting in your way. BetterHelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. Nobody is too good for therapy, my friend. Even if you consider yourself happy, therapy can still help. You connect in a safe and private online environment. So it's convenient. You can start communicating in under 48 hours. So it's quick and all without ever having to leave your chair at home and go somewhere. So, uh, that's convenient. Again, better help is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches. So they make it easy and free to change counselors. If
Starting point is 00:23:00 you need to, it's not always going to be a match. That's just the way it is. BetterHelp is more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is available to those who qualify. BetterHelp also offers a broad range of expertise and some of the stuff, hey, it might not even be available where you live if you were to try and go to a brick and mortar. Is that what they call physical therapy? Is that what they call therapy? Places. Therapists. Is that what they call therapy? Places? Therapists? Is that what they call therapists? Shops? Shops? Boutiques? Brick and mortar? Anyway, everything you share at BetterHelp is confidential. It's convenient, professional, and it's affordable, and you'll get timely, thoughtful responses. Plus, you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions and
Starting point is 00:23:42 send a message to your counselor anytime you need to. And these are licensed professionals in a large array of areas. You can talk to professional counselors who are specialized in depression, stress, anxiety, relationships, family conflicts, anger, grief, self-esteem issues, gender identity, trauma, etc., etc., etc. So start living your happier life today. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash QQ. Join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health. That's betterhelp.com slash QQ for 10% off your first month. Thanks, BetterHelp. You guys know how much I love learning. I talked about it this entire episode. I love learning stuff. And if I didn't talk about it this episode, I talked about it in another episode. Skillshare is an online
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Starting point is 00:25:54 I think my favorite, the best part of it is the epilogue is, uh, no one from that gym has ever called me again. I'm sure they like the, the one woman who kept trying to get me to go to the gym must've talked to this woman who held the class and be like, yeah, he's not coming back. There's no way. I honestly, I think it's the same woman. I think the woman who you called and when you were like, Hey, there's a, there should be a class on Thursday. She was like, Oh, and she just started like pulling at her collar and it's, I got to leave the class now. Um, it's deeply uncomfortable, but I, I have, I have some questions.
Starting point is 00:26:30 Sure. First of all, best case scenario, that was for her own private use that this never sees the light of day. And for some like horny reason for her that she wanted it because like, that's like, that's great. That's a loose end that's tied up and it's fine but the muse i'm very curious about did she actually have like a mix that she was playing for you guys that she had picked out or was it clear that like every once in a while you're getting spotify ads in the middle we weren't getting ads um but i don't i've had better djs i guess okay okay yeah yeah and so she's not like mouthing along to her. She's not like, all right, we're going to pick it up here in 20 seconds.
Starting point is 00:27:08 We're going to pick it up. Absolutely not. No. She didn't know what was coming on that mix. That's amazing that you think she planned out a mix. That's why I'm asking. Before, like clearly it's the night before the class and she has time for one thing. It's definitely not coming up with the moves.
Starting point is 00:27:25 It's so generous of you to assume that she had a whole night in which to play on this. I also want to know, you have a gym that's playing hard to get with you a little bit in a way that I've never experienced with a place you want to pay to use. But did you ever find out what happened that first day and who that guy was and like why the gym was locked or like just some dude came out was like this isn't even a gym you can't be here
Starting point is 00:27:53 no i i my best guess is that um they they must not see a lot of people walking into their classes. Like I, I imagine the three other people who are in my class take that class somewhat regularly. And the gym almost never has to answer to the schedule that actually exists on the website for people like me who just want to show up and start taking like audit a class and see if I want to join that gym for any membership tier. I, I think they probably have been open as a gym long enough that they know, even if the
Starting point is 00:28:34 website says we have a class on Friday, no one ever takes it. So it's safe to assume there's no class. And I think the, the guys in the gym was like one of the trainers who works there working one-on-one with a person because normally Friday mornings are free. So both of our truths were, were valid where I'm like, Hey, the website says there's a class here. And meanwhile, his truth is I've been coming here every Friday morning for months and there's never been a class here. Yeah. Get out of here. Is there a there a ring there no this is a kickboxing gym right yeah well uh okay where's the kickboxing happening did you see any of it was there yeah there's evidence of it there's a whole like extra room with a bunch of punching bags okay and there's a like speed bags and stuff around all right and then did was the other gym equipment that you
Starting point is 00:29:24 could have used like if you wanted to go back there and be like, I'm just not even going to bother with the classes. I will just work on my own. Like not machines, but like plenty of benches and free weights. God, I want to know so bad where all that footage is. It's strange to me because like when I was taking, when I was doing HIIT classes at my kickboxing gym, kickboxing was a part of it. Right. You're still doing jump rope and running and push-ups and stuff and a bunch of other things to switch up what you're doing. But also you're doing a couple of, I would say the centerpiece of it is the regular three-minute rounds where you're learning different punch and kick combinations on the bag. And then you break that up with the other cardio stuff. And this was just
Starting point is 00:30:09 TRX and medicine ball workout. That's so bizarre. I certainly, there are muscle groups that you're going to be training. That's it. When you go to a kickboxing gym, you're like, well, there are specific muscles that are more advantageous to have attuned to kickboxing. specific muscles that are more advantageous to have attuned to kickboxing. And like, that's really what you focus on. And it doesn't sound like that's what you're doing at all. It's just sort of like a general, like, let's, uh, let's just shed a few pounds today. Let's see what, what we got going. Yeah. It really,
Starting point is 00:30:36 the vibe is very much like me walking into a gym for one of the first times and be like, well, I can't do anything wrong. As long as I'm moving something heavy to work out. I know that feeling. Were you sore the next day? No. Yeah, I didn't think so.
Starting point is 00:30:52 Okay. I was more sore my first scuba class. I've been taking scuba classes, as you know. Yeah. I do want to hear about that as well. That's big leg work. And as much as I run a whole lot, it's really, it's different work to just like, just kick your legs the whole time. Oh, I never even thought about that.
Starting point is 00:31:18 Yeah. You've got big fins on your feet because you've got to jump in the water backwards. Yeah. Okay. So it's a lot of work to be down there? A little. It's just, it's more work on my legs and I guess my hips than I normally put on them.
Starting point is 00:31:36 Because they don't want you to bend your knees and they don't want you to use your arms. They want your arms like in front of you or behind you. And you're just doing long strides with your legs. They want your arms like in front of you or behind you. And you're just doing long strides with your legs. Yeah. And you're like, and like getting in and out, you're, you know, you've got weight on you. You've got a tank and you've got little weights in your pockets. Yeah. Oh, that's fascinating. I guess it's also a way that you'd be using your legs that you're just not accustomed to at all. Yeah. And these muscle groups that are like, oh, are like oh we we have a job now like they like they're on a smoke break and
Starting point is 00:32:08 they just got to put down their cigarettes okay all right all right we got this yeah they also i've i've i've gone my whole life being someone who can like not drown and and and that the the big secret is like that's the beginning and beginning and ending of of my swimming abilities and this after you do after you do like because it's all swimming abilities. And this, after you do, after you do like, cause it's all in a, in a pool. And after you do your, like your lessons that you're learning on what to do when you're scuba diving, you take all of your gear off and you do four laps of swimming. And they're like, it doesn't matter. You know, you can, you can doggy paddle, you can, whatever stroke you're comfortable with, take as much time as you want. You know, you can doggy paddle. You can whatever stroke you're comfortable with.
Starting point is 00:32:45 Take as much time as you want. You're doing four laps swimming. And Soren, buddy, that's easily the most swimming I've ever fucking done in my life. Is on a Sunday morning at this gym being like, oh, and you're going to watch us do it? Oh, no. None of these are going to look good. They're all going to look bad. And I'm going to do one of them for a while
Starting point is 00:33:10 where I'm doing what I think people do when they're like swimming with their arms over their heads and like popping their head out every once in a while to breathe. I'm going to do what I think that looks like. You're going to watch me figure that out for the first time in my life. Yeah. You doing that. No, that wasn out for the first time in my life. Yeah. You doing that. No, that wasn't it.
Starting point is 00:33:28 I've only ever seen it on TV. And I'm like, I don't think Michael Phelps swallows as much water as I'm doing when I'm doing an impression of him. Did I ever tell you the story of when I was in Minnesota and I almost drowned my son in me? No! Okay. I consider myself a strong swimmer. I do have a good stroke because I was on a swim team for a very long time as a child. And I know what I'm doing.
Starting point is 00:33:56 I know that like, if I, when I have somebody on my back, I'm not going to do freestyle. When I have him like hanging onto me, I'm going to do breaststroke. So that both of our heads are above the water the entire time. And there's a little dock out in the middle of just about every Lake there is in Minnesota. And it's just like this, nobody, it doesn't, I don't know who it belongs to, but it's tethered to the ground out in the middle and you can go swim out to it. And it just kind of floats around out there. And I was like, Oh, that one I'll swim my son out there and we can hang out on it. I I'm not as strong a swimmer as I anticipated like, oh, that one, I'll swim my son out there and we can hang out on it. I, I'm not as strong a swimmer as I anticipated, I guess, or this thing was just so far away, but like I I'm swimming for a while and it doesn't feel like it's getting any closer.
Starting point is 00:34:36 I'm getting a little tired and maybe my son can read my body language because he starts to tighten his grip and sort of starts to rise up, like put his chest up higher on my head. So like now I'm sinking down a little bit more and I was like, I should turn back. I should turn back. And I look back at the shore and I'm actually closer now to just closer to the dock that I am to the shore. I'm like, it wouldn't make sense to turn back. I have to go to the dock and like, it's really trying hard not to panic as like, I'm just running out of gas and it's becoming clear to me, like, I don't know what I would do. Uh, and so I, I've just like, I gotta make it. I have to make it. I have no choice. And so I get out to it finally. And the ladder's on the other side of
Starting point is 00:35:17 it. So I couldn't like crawl around and I'm completely gas, like ready to throw up basically. And I start crawling up the ladder and he's still holding onto my back but obviously he his body weight is a whole lot more in the air than it is in the water so his arms can't hold my neck anymore and he just slips off of me into the water as i've crawled up onto this dock and i'm like oh god and he cannot he doesn't know how to swim yet and so like he just like but he just it's just just like immediately is like a dart down into the water. And I just reached down all the way to my shoulder and like grab him by an arm and pull him up and get him up. And I thought he would be freaking out, but he got up and he was like, well, that wasn't supposed to happen. No, it really wasn't. I thought you were going to die.
Starting point is 00:36:02 I'm going to think about this moment for a very long time for the rest of my life where I almost killed my son. But yeah, no, you're fine. Yeah. It was terrifying. And it was a real humbling experience. That little kid thing where they like acknowledge it's scary, but they don't think any harm would ever come to them anyway. So they don't really know. It's just like fun, scary.
Starting point is 00:36:19 Yes. And he thinks no harm will come to him because dad is there. Dad will take care of it. And dad was in no condition to be taking care of anything. And I couldn't like let that, I couldn't let him know that or he would have like panicked out there. And I just sat on the dock for a while. I was like, let's go back. And I was like, just, you got to give me like 20 minutes.
Starting point is 00:36:36 I need this time. And it was, I'm just, I remember just lying on that dock thinking, am I old? Did I never know how to swim? What is going on here? This is, this is humiliating. I never thought that this day would come where I would not be able to swim to something. Um, but anyway, I, I think about that moment a lot now because of what could have gone wrong. I like it played over in my mind. I'm like, it feels like one of those things where I, I have to know what I would do in that circumstance in case for whatever reason it arises again.
Starting point is 00:37:07 And so I'm like, okay, I turn over onto my back. I grab him around the neck. It's not going to be comfortable for him, but I can keep his head above water as I float on my back. It's like going through the whole thing before I'm even allowed to fall asleep. Yeah. I'm in a tough spot now because I have engineered my life in a way where I would never have to reckon with those kinds of conversations until now. Like I was, I'm, I've been okay not being a good swimmer for a lot of the same reasons that I'm okay not being good at like trigonometry and stuff. Cause I'm just like, well, I don't think that's ever going to come up. Right. I'm not going to
Starting point is 00:37:38 put myself in a position where life or death depends on me knowing either trigonometry or being able to swim for long periods of time, especially not making it look good. Like, I just, I'm not an adventurous swimmer when I'm at the beach and at pools. I'm just, like, hanging out in a pool. I've never used a pool for, like, working out. swimming in front of my four scuba instructors and just like taking up a lot of everyone's time. I can't be like, look, I, uh, I don't need to know how to do this. I don't like swimming. I'm, I'm not going to do it because they're like, well, you're at scuba class.
Starting point is 00:38:19 There's going to be some swimming involved. Thanks to honey. Manually searching for coupon codes is a thing of the past. I don't even know if that's something you do. I have never in my life just been like about to check something out, going to go buy it. Oh, this is expensive. Oh boy. I should go look around the internet and see if I could find a coupon code. If that's something you already do, hey, you're much smarter than me. But now you don't have to do it anymore.
Starting point is 00:38:44 Honey has put me on the same playing field as you my friend because what honey does is that work for me honey supports over 30 000 stores online so if you as soon as you go in to buy something honey automatically finds any coupons from the internet that will help you get your item cheaper i recently went and bought a ring polisher something I wanted to get for my wife. And I also kind of wanted to get it for myself because apparently it also does night guards. And I thought, Ooh, I would like to have that thing crystal clear. And when I bought it, I used honey and I saved $11. So imagine you're shopping online for your favorite sites. When you get to check out the honey button drops down and all you have to do is click Apply Coupons.
Starting point is 00:39:29 Honey has found it's over 17 million members over $2 billion in savings. 11 of those were mine. If you don't already have Honey, you could be straight up missing out. It's literally free and installs in a few seconds. And by getting it, you'll be doing yourself a solid and supporting this podcast. I'm glad that you brought up gyms, though, Dan, because I, this past week, have walked down, I've descended the marble staircase
Starting point is 00:39:57 to work out in the gutter with the fucking riffraff and see what that's like for a while. I think I'm gonna be leaving equinox oh wait i thought um so this is so that story is about you thinking about leaving equinox well i'm leaving i'm leaving equinox but i'm looking for a new gym and um and so i've now gone to to three different gyms to see what it's like in, in my particular area, because it doesn't make sense anymore. My old gym was near my job. It was very easy because I could drop my kid off at school, go to work. I would just immediately go to the gym before work started
Starting point is 00:40:34 shower. And then I'd be ready for work. And that just doesn't make sense anymore. Now I have, now it's just like, it's me driving half an hour to a gym and then driving home half an hour for no reason other than that, that that's the gym I used to go to. And, uh, Dan, let me tell you, I I'm spoiled. Oh yeah. Yeah. Gyms are bad. Oh yeah. Oh, okay. I thought you meant spoiled. Like everyone's courting the bell of the ball. Like all these gyms are really rolling out the carpet for you. I know I am not spoiled for choice. There are a lot of gyms, but none of them are great gyms. I went to one today that I was like, OK, this is a little small, but like, I think I can
Starting point is 00:41:14 make this work. There weren't a ton of people there. Everyone was wearing masks. And I was like, this is great. And then this guy walks in in flip flops, kicks him off near these cubbies doesn't put him in a cubby or anything just kicks him off and is barefoot throughout the gym the rest of the time that i see him oh no and i'm like oh i mean i'm not a huge fan of that but who does that what kind of person wants that i nobody and i can't imagine i don't understand why the gym tolerated it i feel like that's a liability there's not wearing clothes like shoes i i worked with someone back when we had offices
Starting point is 00:41:51 who uh would take his shoes off at work and just be in his socks and like i wasn't gonna do that but i i understood yeah you're gonna you're sitting at this chair all day take your shoes off it's more comfortable put them on when you have to go to the bathroom. There are a lot of cases where I understand wanting to get down to a level of casual, super casual dress in public situations. But I don't understand any benefit to being barefoot in a gym. And I only see danger. Yeah, it was bad, but he had like, it was really loose in it over here. It was clear that like, this was a lifestyle choice for him because the feet were so calloused and leathered.
Starting point is 00:42:33 You could see the souls of them cracking. And, uh, then there were, there were a couple other people in the gym that were really surprising to me. There was a guy who he was wearing a N95 mask to his credit, but was just hacking the entire time and doing some very dangerous workouts. He was doing like a, these cleans where like, he just, his back was like a candy cane. And then he just lift up the weight and grunt, grunt, grunt. And I was like, Oh, that you're going to die. And, uh, there was, it was just this very strange, strange little gym,
Starting point is 00:43:06 considering there were only so there were so few people there. Then I went to another one that was in part of a mall, which obviously should have been a red flag, but it was packed. It was very, very cheap. It turns out. And it took me a while to realize that only about 20% of people wearing mat were wearing masks and when i had walked in no one ever asked me about my vaccination status so i went to the front desk i was like do you guys care if i'm vaccinated or not and they're like nah it's all optional here yeah and i was like is that is that legal i wear the police like are you allowed to do that right it's all here and like um but do like the people like that, though? And so it was it became clear to me that if I want to go work out at this gym and actually work and be a member, I will get COVID at this gym.
Starting point is 00:43:52 It's just like a guarantee. And so I thought, I don't know if this is the gym for me. And as I'm thinking this, this woman comes up to me and she says. You play hockey. And I was like, what? And she's pretty. And she's like very confident in her approach of me. And she's like, you play hockey. And I was like, no, I mean, I've played it. Obviously I played it, you know, Grove and Colorado. And she was like, lady, look at me. What am I going to do? Sit around with this all day. I'm going to waste this.
Starting point is 00:44:26 She goes, she goes, hmm, I could have sworn you have a hockey build. And I was like, this woman is saying all the right things. Hockey build. I don't even know what that means, but it's athletic. It sounds like, and I'll take it. And then it becomes clear to me that she's offering a hockey class. And it's not at the gym. It's some other place
Starting point is 00:44:45 where they're like some of the third place where you can go and you can do ice skating there and you can learn hockey. And I'm not even now I'm thinking, I'm not even a hundred percent sure it was ice skating. It might've even just been like dry, like roller hockey, uh, which is even more humiliating, but she was offering basically like, she was offering a class to me. And I was like, I'd never been so high and then fallen so low. There was a moment there where I was like, maybe this is the gym for me.
Starting point is 00:45:16 Get mistaken for a hockey player here. You know, this is, can I interrupt to bring up like a memory that is rushing back to me right now? Of course. It's something that I haven't thought about in years and years and years. Just because you were talking about a hockey player's build. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:35 Because it truly awakened something inside of me. So I'm in college and I have a friend that I go to college with that I went to high school with this, this woman, Samantha, who's great. Like one of the sweetest people in the world. Uh, I was really glad that we got to know each other better in college. As I was working, as I was in college, I was also a bartender at Ruby Tuesday attached to a hotel. And I made a friend who was another bartender there. This guy, Ben, who also went to the school, but our paths almost never crossed at the school. I knew Ben in the context of like, we worked together and I loved working with Ben. When the two of us were behind the bar, I was thrilled. We got along. We liked a lot of the same music. We liked a lot. We were telling each other jokes and he was like a very good
Starting point is 00:46:17 worker. And I was a good worker. It's like, great. Ben is awesome. One day I am with Samantha in one of the, in one of the libraries at rutgers and we see ben and i'm like ben oh my god these two worlds colliding ben come talk to me and samantha meet samantha and he was asking samantha questions about herself and she was talking about how she was uh just gonna go to figure skating uh club rehearsal workout where you go and you figure skate for an amount of time yeah on purpose uh and he was like ah love figure skaters they just have such high tight asses i was like oh no ben sucks i didn't know because we were in a professional context all this time i can't have been around my friends it was just a strange memory to come rushing back to me that I had to like, look at Samantha and be like, this isn't. Look, I'm just as shocked as you are that Ben's talking about asses around you, about your ass right now. Ben is flirting with you and this is how he thinks is the way to do it.
Starting point is 00:47:25 right now it's ben is flirting with you and this is how he thinks is the way to do it he i mean even someone's saying that if has she not even been there had she been erased from the situation right it's still like a what the fuck oh no what well okay i guess if he had done that at work i'd have been like uh-huh uh look we're gonna need more lemons for the the dinner rush so you probably should chop those and i'll be over here on the other side of the bar uh drying the same glass performatively for about 45 minutes but to say that in front of an actual figure skater is just humiliating for everyone yeah but he doesn't know enough to know that it's humiliating no that's right and she and poor samantha bless her heart is probably thinking like well at some point i point I'm going to have to walk away. No, she's thinking.
Starting point is 00:48:08 And I know what they're going to look at. I know what at least Ben is going to look at. I'm sure her first thought was, oh, no, Dan sucks. Oh, no, look at the people he hangs out with. He hardly ever talked about asses in high school. He saw Ben and was like, oh, good. you should meet ben dan sucks maybe it's because i only knew him in a scholastic capacity oh that sucks bad um i will i love talking about the gym and i think that we're going to do it a lot more but i do have a quick question that is uh uh, so far afield from that. There's no segue possible. So let me ask you, Dan,
Starting point is 00:48:50 let's say someday that you're famous, right? You're like big time famous. Okay. I want to know who the person is in your past with an outsized opinion on their influence in that success. Like somebody in your past who was like, at some point along the way, they were like, I taught him everything he knows. They're going to be the person sitting in a bar, seeing you on television and being like, senior editor rolls up on last week tonight
Starting point is 00:49:15 because for some reason they're watching it at the bar. And this person's like, looks up from his dreams, like that guy, I taught him everything he knows. And it's just somebody who you were, you kind of like politely tolerated for a while, as long as you knew them. And then you just moved on. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:29 And it's got, for me, it's, it's a tie between, uh, either, uh, Nadia,
Starting point is 00:49:34 this woman who taught me medicine balls, taught me everything I know about medicine balls, how to slam them, how to jump. And who else? Um, sincerely, I probably think, like, an old drama teacher. Just because, like, there's, like, a lot of people have emotional connections to drama teachers because, like, because high school and local theater is a cult. It's a terrible, dangerous cult.
Starting point is 00:50:25 And all of my experiences were no exception with like plenty of drama teachers and directors in my rear view who I'm sure will cling to any former student who is succeeding in any field, even if I'm not doing anything with, with performing, I sometimes think about old directors or teachers who will do exactly what you're saying. And like point at the Emmys or any other article or any other success at all. And be like this, I know, I know this one and this one, we were very close and like, I was sort one, and this one, we were very close.
Starting point is 00:50:46 And I was sort of a mentor to this person. I have vivid daydreams that one of my teachers will be like, yeah, he came to me for acting, and I think I really kind of pushed him more towards writing. Ultimately. It's very funny that you say that, Dave, because I had the, my, my answer that's locked and loaded is almost identical. It was like a teacher. It was a,
Starting point is 00:51:13 it was a drama teacher that did cold auditions to like, see what sort of talent he was working with, with the new students as they came in and cold shit. And you could, yeah. So you're, you're, you're supposed to come in there with a monologue that you had pre-prepared and uh do it and then at the end he could be like all right so these are the ones i got to mold and he didn't talk like that but uh but i i came in with something that i had written and i did it and at the end he was like or not even at the end
Starting point is 00:51:42 he stopped me and he's like what is this and i was like i uh i wrote it he's like as a play and i was like no it's just a monologue and he was like what are you acting for you should be writing and i was like deeply hurt in the moment because i had just been like performing my heart out right and this person was like this isn't what you should be doing have Have you considered a different career? I've only seen it for 30 seconds, but let me stop you right there. This is not it, my son. And, uh, and from like that point forward, it was just like locked in his head where like, we'd be doing a show and he'd be like, he would bring that up. He'd be like, it was good. It was
Starting point is 00:52:20 a really good performance. I gotta say though, man are you writing still right you should be writing instead and i was like yeah i mean i guess so uh and i'm confident that like if i ever like had any sort of motocross success and he found out about it he'd be like i sent him on that path i'm the one who put him there and it pisses me off that he thinks he's done that for me and said it was just this dude insulting me where I was like, I'm allowed to do two things, motherfucker. Guess what? I do like seven others, too. It's okay. It's okay to do a lot of stuff.
Starting point is 00:52:52 Yeah. It's also like not an easy place to defend yourself where it's like, well, let me finish the monologue because the acting gets really good. And jokes on you, the writing takes a turn and gets worse. I didn't stick the landing but i cry you're gonna hate the end it's trite it's so cloying it's it's offensive anyway i had one also locked and loaded for you okay i might know do you okay i wonder if it's fun for people for you to to guess, because no one's going to know who these people are anyway.
Starting point is 00:53:28 If I'm right and I say his name, it won't matter to anyone. But I'll just like, I will tell you if I'm right. Okay. So when we worked at Cracked, it had a parent company. I'm fucking right. And the parent company had like these heads, these, the big wigs at the top who were like running things. And you know, there's a CEO, but there was also like these guys who were just on his bus, like these guys who got in early with him and they were kind of
Starting point is 00:53:58 spearheading every single department and being like, okay, you're going to be doing this from now on. You're going to be doing this. And they didn't ever know what to do with cracked. Cracked was such like a black sheep there because it didn't, it didn't go with their general internet plans and they didn't understand it. They didn't know what to do, but it was still like doing well. And they had a clear whole audience and they were just for like, well, we'll just let it run, I guess. Except for this one guy who was like, he definitely credits himself with creating After Hours, which is a show that you and I used to do. And Michael Swaim and Katie Willard. This show that Jack and Dan created that it's a couple, it's four friends sitting in a diner and it's after work. It's just these friends who can't turn off their brains and are just deconstructing pop
Starting point is 00:54:47 culture. It's the thing that we were most known for at Cracked. It was like this flagship video series, uh, probably more famous than our columns. Like any, anything else we did, it will, after ours will be the thing that will be like our legacy at Cracked. And when I, when I traveled around Europe and got recognized all over that side of the planet, it was people who were like, we are fans of your YouTube channel. Yes.
Starting point is 00:55:12 Yeah. You're a YouTube guy. You're a YouTube. They don't know Cracked even necessarily. They just saw you on YouTube. And I was like, look, I know that this is Amsterdam, but where I come from, that's deeply insulting. How dare you? YouTuber means something different in America
Starting point is 00:55:26 and it's horrible. I saw you on YouTube. You should be a writer. Ouch. My heart. So this guy, which is also very funny because you and him shared a nickname, which was Dragon. But he, to this day believes that he invented after hours, like that he, it was his idea that he came to us, like it was fully formed in his brain and he just gifted it to us. And then it became this huge, he planted the seed, he watered it and it became this huge success. And it was like, I grew this, I grew this thing. And I don't think he ever realized how much work went into it what we actually had to do and that none of it was his idea no and and like i can i don't need to rehash it now but i
Starting point is 00:56:13 can like point to every step of the creation of this show because i was there for all of it and i remember how it happened and like the false starts of it and yeah who was responsible like whether it's stuff that like a lot of the back to the future stuff in the first episode that conversation was born out of an editorial meeting with that jack was there jason was there i was there i think you were there and then really like the what became the show was uh us in jack's aunt's pool house yes when jack wasn't even living here no he was jack lived in new york and he came to visit and he lived in his pool house for a little bit we hang out and like drank juice and ate pizza and talked about what we wanted this show to be for hours and came up with it there really like sanded it down there. Uh, all of which is to say this,
Starting point is 00:57:06 this other lesser dragon wasn't around for any of it. And I, and I think his sole contribution was very casually at one point saying, have you seen the movie diner? You guys should do something like that. My recollection of it was that he was like i like seinfeld my favorite parts of seinfeld are like when they're just sitting there they're sitting there at that restaurant yeah and we were like okay well let's we can let's do that let's
Starting point is 00:57:38 just do seinfeld yeah and and here's the really uh here's where being a soft little simp like me backfires. Because when there's, when you're, when I'm 23 and there's this rich CFO or whatever his title at the company was, and he jokingly wants to take credit for the show, simp that I am is like, ha ha, yeah, you're the man, diner. What a good idea yeah well that was because you don't know what can get you fired when you're that age so you're just like you give them anything that they want right he's gonna say those things and at the time i can't be like ha ha well you know we'll let the the writers guild decide because they actually have like they're they have lawyers that figure out who created these things and and and like luckily you and i don't have to hash it out.
Starting point is 00:58:26 We just like bring the scripts to the lawyers and they will, they will assign an arbitrate credit. Right. Fairly. So I, I could foresee a time when you like, you're running your own show and he, and like your name's out there showing up on deadline and stuff like that. And he's, he's looking at it and he's being like, you know, I gave this guy his start and i just know like i know my heart that's happening that's uh 100 happening you're also just bringing up memories of these there because there were so many uh adult rich VPs
Starting point is 00:59:05 and senior VPs like him at that company and I met with all of them individually I'm sure you did too but I would always have meetings with them whenever Cracked was doing well and they would be like how do you do it? How do you guys do it?
Starting point is 00:59:21 And I was like well it's it would be sexy for me to say it was magic and and and like my raw talents but like the truth is we got a bunch of people working very hard and we spend time on every piece that we write and uh and we pay our writers fairly uh and there's no real substitute for that and they're like well never mind because they always want to know like how do you do this at scale and you can't do it well and do it at scale no it's like creation business we have core a core of like six editors who work 40 hours a week stressing about their job and agonizing over a piece that doesn't even have their name on it right and that's how we make
Starting point is 01:00:01 really good content it's like hey the site's doing well how do you guys do that well we've got a lot of people who uh uh worry that if the site fails they'll die so that's a good motivator i've i've i've found it to be a good motivator for people who are willing to uh destroy their personal relationships in the pursuit of internet immortality to literally go blind. Uh, yeah. So yeah. And we were at that age, like you didn't know it's your first business that you're really working at where there's like a clear hierarchy of positions and you don't know what's acceptable behavior and what's not, or like what people are supposed to be like at the top. And we had like a really weird, a rare, weird. Silicone beach group of dudes at the top of this company who are all like very bro-y and very eager to tell you the famous people that they're hanging
Starting point is 01:00:53 out with and stuff like that. And it was at the time I was just like, I guess this is just what it's like to be 36. Not knowing that that's not life. Yeah. I wonder how many people realize that, like, I don't know if it's still happening, but certainly for so long startup culture, Not knowing that that's not life. that was just around and maybe put in some money early on, or maybe it was just like a board member or a figurehead who really just existed to like attract talent or give
Starting point is 01:01:37 the appearance of success. And then if the company does well, the company goes public and those people have a lot of shares in the company. They invest those shares, they get a lot of money, they cash out and they just bounce and do it again. I didn't realize that was like, that was a career path where it was just like, yeah, I, I'm at demand media now. And then once we go public, I will be very rich. So I will leave because like, I don't actually do anything. Yeah. If we go public, I will be very rich. So I will leave because like, I don't actually do anything. Yeah. If we go public, I don't, I don't like my job is to, uh, make us a profitable, profitable enough company to go public. And then I go away
Starting point is 01:02:17 and do it again somewhere else. Yeah. It was very clear to me, or it wasn't at the time. It's very clear to me now, like what the game was that you build this thing and you build it so big and fast that no one can see that it's the trajectory can't last. And then you get out from under it before it all comes down. There's a card game that you can play. I don't know if you ever played this. It was a, you put a beer bottle on a table and you put one playing card on it. And then you continually put playing cards on it. And each card has to be at two edges, at least have to not be,
Starting point is 01:02:48 have to be exposed. And so you, what you end up building is this umbrella of cards on a beer bottle that all kind of rely on each other's weight. And eventually the whole thing comes toppling down. And like, that's what these guys, like these guys bounce around building those everywhere and they don't care. Like at the time we were editors at this, at these websites. And I worked for another, uh, another website for them, um, that I cared about because it was about the outdoors. And I was like trying to tell them, I was like, we're not, we're pumping out a lot of content, but this is, I don't stand by some of this stuff. Like there's way too much to edit all of it. We're getting in tens of thousands of pieces a day and we're just putting them up on the website. And they're like, yes, please don't stop. I was like, but it's that we're, we're devaluing the site. Like that doesn't anyone who's like
Starting point is 01:03:35 anyone who's in this field, if they even read one of these articles, they will never come back to our site. And they're like, that's not our, that's not who we're getting. We're getting everybody who's coming to this because they type something into Google and like, that's all they wanted. They wanted somebody who was going to come once, not even realize what site they were on and then leave. And that's all they cared about. And as long as they were capturing that traffic, that's all that mattered. And it was not like sustainable by any means. And then of course, the whole thing collapsed, but these guys all got out before that happened. Yeah. It's crazy how many how so many
Starting point is 01:04:05 of these startups certainly in in in our age were just like uh sophisticated seeming scams they they you know it's dressed up with like a bunch of buzzy tech terminology and and flashy perks we're at this company where it's like it's margarita thursdays and like our company fucking rocks we're on all these lists for the best companies to work for but it's like it's a shell game for a couple of people at the top and that's it yeah there was i mean that's not it's also where dreams come true a real low moment was where one of our bosses uh announced uh all hands call today is like how many articles we publish every day across all of the sites. Like that was a big deal, that metric.
Starting point is 01:04:52 And he was like today in one, I think it was like in one week we publish more words than there are in crime and punishment. And I was like, that is a bad metric. It's not indicative of anything. What are we doing? All right. Well, I might as well tell everybody how they can find us. If you go to Twitter, twitter.com, you can find Daniel and me. You can find me at Soren underscore LTD. You can find Daniel at DOB underscore INC.
Starting point is 01:05:22 You can also find quick question at QQ underscore Soren and Dan. You can email us at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. You can also find, I should actually put it out there. So bacon is our CFO and you can go to make me bacon, please. That's his Twitter address, PLS.
Starting point is 01:05:42 And you just wish him congratulations. Yeah. Apropos of nothing. And just wish him congratulations. Yeah. Apropos of nothing, just wish him a congratulations. I'm sure it will be well received. You can also, you won't ever find Gabe Harder, so I'm not going to give you any of his information, but he's our producer and sound engineer and editor.
Starting point is 01:06:00 And you can find us on Patreon slash Quick Question if you were so inclined to give us money or write us a question. And we will answer a lot of those questions behind our subscription wall. I don't totally know how it works. You pay a bunch of money and a bunch of money. You pay a small amount of money and then you get a small amount of content from us that no one else gets to hear. Okay. Bye.

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