Highlights:

How the Mexican City Mannequins inspired this episode

Ushabtis: ancient Egyptian figurines (2600–2100 BC) placed in tombs to do labor in the afterlife, in place of killing servants

The Louvre Doll: a bound female clay figure pierced with 13 needles

Kolossoi: ancient Greek defensive effigies designed to contain hostile spirits

Victorian mourning dolls: wax effigies made at funerals with the dead child’s hair and clothing

What did Mal do to her Cabbage Patch doll?

Robert the Doll

“It was like a metal bar running down my back... That doll was listening to us”

The connection to an apparition of a biracial girl

Robert exhibits both Type A and Type B inhabitation, and he might be the only one

Thousands of apology letters at the museum from visitors who took photos without asking permission

Poppets

The Nkisi tradition from the Congo

Connection to the movie Weapons

How Robert the Doll became haunted (possibly) — he might be a mourning doll?

The Free Robert the Doll campaign

The Kuleshov Effect

Projecting consciousness onto human-shaped forms

Tsukumogami and vengeful yokai

The Hyakki Yagyō, the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons

Djinn in Islamic tradition

The etymology of pandemonium

Michael Singer on not resisting the snake

Knowledge vs respect

And in the epilogue…

Mallory’s gluten-free experiment

Suspicious exercise equipment at the gym

Pros and cons of Western vs Traditional Chinese Medicine

Some of the grossest words we know

To help you share this episode, we picked out three moments we all loved and tied them up with a little copy/paste-able bow.

“Mal made herself a poppet” (~9:40) — Mal put a lost tooth into her Cabbage Patch doll’s mouth as a child, and Tom points out she was accidentally participating in an ancient ritual of fixing a part of yourself into an effigy.

“Don’t go up the stairs!” (~12:12) — Why Victorian mourning dolls never seemed to get haunted, and how human carelessness drives the plot of every horror movie.

“It’s not a monster story. It’s an ecosystem.” (~58:11) — Tom’s synthesis after connecting Mexico City mannequins, the Night Parade, jinn, and tsukumogami: when humans leave, something adjacent that was always there fills the space.

And then of course there’s this neat little thing we made, if you want to send someone one of our more popular past episodes:

The Sharing Kit

***

SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring creativity, the esoteric, and the unknown. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions.

spectrevisionradio.com

linktr.ee/spectrevisionsocial

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Business!

Our SECOND EVER Open Epilogue!

Monday, March 23, at 1pm PST / 4pm EST.

All paid supporters will get an email invite with a link.

Be one of them!

Episode highlights:

Mal watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time, and talked about it every day for three weeks

Stanley Kubrick’s astonishing team and the mind blowing scale of the project

He tried to purchase preserved human embryos from a Chicago biological supply company for research

He applied for insurance from Lloyd’s of London against the discovery of extraterrestrial beings before the film’s release

The movie came out in 1968, a year before the moon landing, with basically two pictures of Earth from space to work from

Shots that still hold up 60 years later

What makes this movie transcendent

Why Kubrick told actors not to emote

The book and the movie were written simultaneously by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, then diverged at the end

Clarke was a techno-optimist atheist who envisioned transcendence through technology; Kubrick saw something darker

The bad news monolith

Also: the phone in your pocket

Is evolution terrifying? Is it good?

Kubrick collapses linear time

Moon landing was…probably real

97% of people can’t identify human-made vs ai-gen music

A friend who spent 20 years making about 500 songs — AI makes a thousand in an afternoon

The communal difference between art and AI slop

Provenance is the point

The porn-pocalypse — news, politics, food, music, everything is porn now

When we dehumanize art we don’t experience anything

Why the viola is out of tune on purpose

The Great Man theory of history is stupid

The idea that you can’t make art because you don’t meet criteria for profitability is “the worst way to treat yourself”

Idolatry is worshipping the thing you make

The two basic human needs

Speaking of which… another Open Epilogue on March 23rd!

And in the epilogue…

Grand Theft Auto cheat codes

How to achieve the bliss of absolute focus

A fierce and exhausting debate about patriarchy

We picked out three moments we all loved and tied them up with a little copy/paste-able bow.

“Everything is porn now” (46:18) — Jordan defines porn: taking something real, subtracting everything except one sensation, and reproducing it at scale for profit — and applies it to news, politics, food, movies, music…everything. We’re living in a porn-pocalypse.

“The viola is slightly out of tune” (49:39) — Tom explains that orchestras sound beautiful precisely because they’re not perfectly in tune, in a gorgeous defense of imperfection as the actual source of beauty.

“Is the terror because it’s bad, or because everything has to die?” (~28:00–27:20) — Mal wonders if maybe the dissonant horror the monolith inspires isn’t a warning, it’s just what evolution feels like from the inside.

Or just open up The Sharing Kit

***

SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring creativity, the esoteric, and the unknown. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions.

spectrevisionradio.com

linktr.ee/spectrevisionsocial

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love this episode and want to share it with someone, we made it easy.

Just scroll down to “Share this episode…” and pick a great moment to courageously copy and paste.

Highlights:

Rabbi Rami Shapiro is the author of nearly 40 books and co-director of the One River Foundation — find him on Substack

“Religions are like languages. No language is true or false. The more languages you speak, the more nuanced your understanding of life becomes. Yet it is silence that reveals the ultimate truth.”

Rami’s spiritual journey through Zen Buddhism and how he became a “zen rabbi”

Why ten years of meditation practice didn’t work

You already have it

The point isn’t to be enlightened, it’s to be a decent human being

Genesis 12:1 in Hebrew is telling the reader to journey inward and free yourself from conditioning

“be a blessing to all the families of the earth”

Narratives as addictions, Overeaters Anonymous, and Purim cookies

“Narratives Anonymous” anyone?

“Who’s craving the cookies?” (hint: not the one who’s aware of the craving)

Heschel’s architecture of time

Space is about having, time is about being

“Being is infinite.”

Good luck selling The Gospel of Thomas

Tom’s researching and writing a book on the suppressed non-dualism running through all Abrahamic religions

The divine feminine: wisdom (Hochma) in Hebrew, Dao in Chinese, Mary as Theotokos

Rami’s constant mantra

How the ego gets in the way writing

Rami moved to Nashville and his ego told him to stop playing guitar

The spiritual insights of Rami’s 10-year-old grandson

And in the epilogue…

The true Hebrew translation of what the burning bush said to Moses

How your body literally spells the name of God

What Jews and Coca-Cola have in common

We picked out three moments we all loved and tied them up with a little copy/paste-able bow.

“Because it doesn’t work” (~11:00) — Rami tells his Zen teacher he’s been meditating for ten years and nothing’s happening. The teacher says “because it doesn’t work.” Rami: “Why didn’t you tell me that ten years ago?” Teacher: “You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“Who’s craving the cookies?” (~25:13) — Rami uses his Overeaters Anonymous experience and a kitchen full of Purim cookies to demonstrate self-inquiry in real time.

“We’ll just keep waving” (~58:20) — Rami’s ten-year-old grandson processes the idea that God is like an ocean and arrives at his own theology of death and hope in about thirty seconds.

Also, if you want to send someone one of our more popular past episodes, here's a Sharing Kit we made just for you.

***

SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring creativity, the esoteric, and the unknown. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions.

spectrevisionradio.com

linktr.ee/spectrevisionsocial

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Real quick real fast —

You know how we're basically betting the farm on people who love the show sharing the show (hint hint nudge nudge THAT’S YOU RIGHT??), well, we’ve done our best to make that even easier with this episode. After the bulleted list of episode highlights, you’ll see a section called “Sharing made easy!”

If you want to share this episode with someone, all you gotta do is copy and paste one of those suckers.

So please do that!

And thank you!

Highlights:

Beth Williams is a professional psychic energy healer - find her on Instagram @psychicintegration

Mal’s seen several energy healers over the past 8–9 years, and Beth is her favorite

Growing up deeply religious, and the framing for mystical experience

Panic attacks in the middle of the night

Yoga produced mystical experiences

Cognitive dissonance - “Why now, when I’m doing nothing?”

How “doing nothing” can be the thing you need to do the most

The correlation between trauma and psychic ability — ”There is no healer who has not first been wounded” (Brother Richard)

Quitting the job, leaving the religion, becoming a psychic healer

Her husband and kids told her to go to all the yoga she wanted because she was so much easier to be around afterward

Discovering that healing can feel easy is almost universal, against the common instinct is that growth is supposed to be hard

Training in Reiki, and Beth’s first “clients”

Her psychic massage therapist mentor

The difference between feeling someone else’s energy and your own

A message too private to share, and the realization she should have shared it anyway

Saying what comes through, ignoring personal cost

Three messages to a banged up mountain biker, who admitted to one, denied the other two, and then later called to confirm

Psychics are only right 70% of the time. Discernment is important.

It’s messy — real info has to get through the psychic’s own mind, then the client’s, with layers of assumptions and self-deception on both sides

Western medicine saved Tom’s his son’s life, and his own vision, but traditional Chinese medicine saved his mother’s vision

Messages seem adapted to clients’ existing belief systems: Jesus shows up for Christians; for non-Christians, he doesn’t

How being Christlike is asking what the other person actually needs, which may not be what they want and may not be what you want to give them

What Beth gets out of her own work

How being yourself is the answer to the question of what you’re supposed to do with yourself

And in the epilogue…

Spiritual direction Mal’s own feet gave her

Whether there are overlaps between Mormons and psychics (yes (many))

The prosperity gospel of art — craft still matters more than divine inspiration alone

Sharing made easy!

“Why am I experiencing this when I’m doing nothing?” (09:36) — Beth describes the cognitive dissonance of having mystical experiences in yoga after a lifetime of trying to earn them through religion, and Jordan reframes it: you weren’t doing nothing, you were finally doing the thing.

“Psychic confirmation” (27:33) — After Beth delivers three very personal messages to an injured mountain biker, he denies the first two and confirms the third. Days later he calls to admit she was right, and that her advice saved his relationship with his daughter.

“You’re not doing the science anymore” (46:18) — Mal’s observation that you’ve gotta stay open to do real science.

And then of course there’s this neat little thing we made, if you want to send someone one of our more popular past episodes:

The Sharing Kit

Energized,
Jordan, Tom, & Mal

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A Benedictine monk with training in quantum physics, Gregorian chants, and exorcism claimed to have built a device that could see into the past.

This man was Father Pellegrino Ernetti, and he assembled his Chronovisor with a secret team high-profile scientists that allegedly included Enrico Fermi and Wernher von Braun. Fifty years ago, they told everyone they took pictures of Christ’s crucifixion.

Unsurprisingly, the evidence didn’t hold up. But that didn’t stop the story from getting stranger. The Vatican itself refused to confirm or deny rumors that it had ordered the device dismantled, and Ernetti died without fully recanting.

Maybe the problem with any supposed means of looking into the past is that you have to answer the question of who’s holding the camera, and how.

Regardless of whether the thing ever actually existed, the Chronovisor did successfully get us talking about the Scole Experiment, Edison’s spirit telephone, and why the past might be genuinely incomprehensible even if you had the means to look.

Welcome to episode 50, everyone.

Highlights:

An introduction to Father Pellegrino Ernetti (1925–1994), a “Renaissance monk”

Ernetti’s music scholarship—reconstructing ancient sounds—led him to believe every event leaves behind energy traces, reminding us of the Akashic Record

A secret team of 12 scientists (that makes a quorum, folks) began work around 1952 at the Catholic University of Milan

The “chronovisor” was reportedly an array of specialized antennas tuned to “historical frequencies,” combined with cathode ray tubes and oscilloscopes

Ernetti even claimed it could pick up thoughts

What they allegedly saw

Story went public in 1972 in Italy

Ernetti presented a grainy black-and-white image he said showed Christ’s face during the crucifixion

But the image matched a wooden crucifix sculpted under the direction of a mystic named Mother Speranza

When confronted by his friend Father François Brune, Ernetti admitted the published photo was of the sculpture, but never explained why he let it circulate

Also claimed he was forbidden to talk about it

In a letter before his death, he said “everything about the device and Christ’s passion was the sacred truth”

The Vatican has never confirmed or denied the Chronovisor’s existence

Comparisons to this now-mythical device and remote viewing

Perception is never objective (see: our conversation with Mark Turner in Episode 30)

Is this why the sculpture of Christ inspired by Mother Speranza looks like a guy from 1960 instead of a first-century Jew?

The tension between mystic technology and material technology: two different means of achieving the same ends, maybe?

Tom wonders, offhandedly, Why the crucifixion? Why not the resurrection, or better yet, the Beatitudes?

The Cottingley Fairies

The Scole Experiment in the 90s (wild)

Thomas Edison believed similar things to Ernetti, and also proposed a device

“Physics is broken”

This is not going to work the way you think it’s going to work

An old filmmaker who had his actors wave their arms around nonsensically to represent the incomprehensibility of the past

We end with some behavior calculated to baffle far-future audiences

And in the epilogue…

We’re joined by listener Brendan McKinney to talk about his experiences with synchronicities, which he wrote about here:

https://ggupodcast.substack.com/p/authorial-intrusions

***

SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring creativity, the esoteric, and the unknown. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions.

spectrevisionradio.com

linktr.ee/spectrevisionsocial

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Way back during the COVID lockdowns, when the streets of Mexico City were quiet and empty of people, something else started walking them.

Multiple witnesses reported encounters with humanoid entities that moved like mannequins. With stiff limbs, and lifeless arms, running on their tiptoes. Backwards. One guy got chased. Another got followed to a bus stop. Someone else watched one of these things lift a sewer grate like it weighed nothing and climb inside.

After looking at three independent accounts, Tom gives some historical context, including the Golem of Prague, and a bridal mannequin in Chihuahua that stood in a shop window for almost a hundred years.

It turns out there’s real science way down in Uncanny Valley, and it doesn’t make us feel any better about it.

Neither does a certain “fantastic” YouTube video.

No more almost-faces, mmmkay?

Highlights:

Mannequin-like entity encounters during the COVID lockdown in Mexico City

A woman-shaped entity running backward on its tiptoes, arms outstretched like lifeless prosthetics, later appeared in the second-floor window of a derelict house

A mannequin in an empty commercial space with its hand extended, then reappearing down the boulevard

A mannequin-like figure crossed Reforma with clumsy steps, then lifted a sewer grate like it weighed nothing and climbed inside

All three accounts independently describe unnatural movement

Mexico’s most famous “living mannequin” was a bridal figure in a Chihuahua shop window from 1930 to 2024, rumored to be the embalmed body of the shop owner’s daughter

The Golem of Prague, a 16th century clay entity brought to life with God’s name

Talos, the bronze giant of Greek mythology

European chess-playing automatons (which actually had a small person hidden inside)

The term "uncanny valley” was coined by Japanese robotics professor Masahiro Mori in a 1970 essay published in an obscure journal called Energy

Mori believed our affinity for humanoid things increases as they become more realistic, then plunges into revulsion when they’re almost human, then recovers when they’re indistinguishable from human

Mori noted zombies are scarier than corpses because they move

The pandemic was a perfect storm for uncanny encounters

Spring-Heeled Jack was a Victorian London entity that assaulted people, breathed fire, and leapt over 10-foot walls

Brother Richard’s idea that paranormal entities “clothe themselves in our imagination” makes us wonder if mannequins were the imaginative “clothing” available to people surrounded by empty shops and display windows

Our revulsion to almost human things might be adaptive, helping us identify the diseased and dead

Could also imply the existence of a predator that mimicked humans (good luck sleeping tonight!)

The mountain lions that cry like human babies

“I Feel Fantastic” - an impromptu watch party

That track Tom mentioned at the end

And in the epilogue…

Monster mannequins in pop culture

How 28 Years Later’s psychedelic zombie twist mirrors real-world partisan dehumanization

“Playing in the ruins” when the systems around us are broken

Subscribe now

PS - If you want to join us on our no-kill run, we made this for you:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A former analyst for the Bank of England just warned that alien disclosure could throw global financial systems into crisis.

Tom and Jordan can’t stop laughing.

We’re already in financial crisis, aliens or no aliens.

And if there was some official disclosure tomorrow, people would just go back to work and worry about groceries. Unless the revelation materially changes people’s lives, they won’t care that much.

But what if there’s free energy technology? The analyst worries that would be a disaster. But, uh, for whom? ExxonMobil? Probably. You and me?

No.

The materialist scarcity mindset is transactional. If you get something, it must be taken from me. But there’s a more efficient way to structure our communities, and it’s about building for mutual benefit. Not easy, but definitely not impossible.

Anyway, we’re still pretty sure we’re headed for calamity, thanks for a broad cultural inability to accept reality, which turns out to not care very much about our ideas about what it should be.

The highlights:

Helen McCaw, former Bank of England policy expert, warns that revelation of aliens could throw global financial systems into crisis

The cases for and against this prediction

Tom reads part of McCaw’s letter to Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey urging contingencies for alien disclosure (from The times of London article)

How she even came to care about UFOs

Internal memo from British Defense chiefs from 1997 discusses “technology acquisition” from alien tech

Basically, same as America

What if there’s free energy technology? For whom would this be a disaster?

Where Lord of the Flies got it wrong (the real life kids who went through it)

Materialism leads to scarcity mindsets and zero-sum transactional societies

How mutual benefit structures the most efficient social models

Buddha in the Dhammapada: “Therefore Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves, clinging to no external refuge, clinging to the truth as a refuge”

Regardless of anything, we’re basically headed for disaster

Why suffering and the acceptance (or rejection) of reality are closely correlated

A practice of presence with the expectation of imminent cataclysm

The Honey Doctrine

Mindfulness and presence are the last words on living the fulfilled life

After recording this episode, we did our very first Open Epilogue, which we unfortunately were not able to record. Don’t worry! We’ll do another one very soon.

Don't miss the next one!

PS - If you want to join us on our no-kill run, we made this for you:

The Sharing Kit

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brother Richard Hendrick is a Capuchin Franciscan friar and Celtic mystic. He comes from “a people who embrace faith but did not let go of magic and understand that one completes the other.”

When Tom asks how to deal with anger and powerlessness in the face of cruelty, Brother Richard offers this: “Anger externalized is actually internalized fear.”

Those moving in hatred WANT hatred in return because it justifies their action. They push and push waiting for the explosion. So the hardest practice is maintaining compassion even for those who hate you—because that’s when the other is actually disassembled and overcome.

Three practices: Hold yourself in compassion. Take refuge in great teachers—we’ve done this before over thousands of years. And manage basic human needs—no good decision is ever made at 2am.

Also, how can we grow up? Our culture is bad at helping people make the transition from adolescence into adulthood. What if the big missing piece in our development is transcendent experience? Are we doomed?

Brother Richard says no! But you’re gonna have to start meditating. The good news is that he has some things to say that might help you finally start the practice.

Brother Richard’s sternly non-political take on what’s going on in Minnesota

Most hatred and anger comes from fear

Choosing compassion means accepting vulnerability, even and especially when your compassion is rejected

Hate wants hate, anger wants anger — it’s cyclical justification

“No matter how much hatred they are pouring on me, fundamentally I have a brother or a sister in front of me”

Three practices for holding compassionate solidarity

People full of compassionate energy can often forget their own needs—they become tired, worn, anxious, and then make bad decisions

How Brother Richard became a friar

Celtic mysticism maintains the sacred nature of both the subtle world and ourselves, plus our venerable relationship with it

What to look for in a good spiritual teacher

The icon of the Ladder of Heaven shows monks climbing to heaven, and at the very top, just as one steps in, he’s falling

Saint Augustine: “God wrote two books—the book of Scriptures and the Book of Nature. We have not read His word if we can’t read both.”

When we’re in relationship with nature, the transcendent begins to happen

The Dalai Lama: “Meditation over thousands of years becomes a laboratory of the mind and soul”

If meditation stretches you with compassion and bestows peace, it’s real; if it makes you think you’re superior, it’s egoic

The muscle of focus and inner attention is atrophied in the Western world

Start with basic stillness practices, even just two minutes, because most people haven’t done it before

Distraction is literally half of the practice of meditation

And in the epilogue…

What the Fae actually are (hint: it’s complicated!)

Why believing everything a non-human intelligence tells you is dangerous

Brother Richard’s take on a particular passage from the Gospel of Thomas (because of course Tom had to ask him)

PS - We’re on a no-kill run. If you want to help, we made this Sharing Kit for you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most people believe in ghosts. Always have. Always will.

EJAE, the lead vocalist from K-Pop Demon Hunters, told a ghost story on Jimmy Fallon and nobody questioned her sanity, because it turns out people who DON’T believe in ghosts are the minority.

Tom recorded in one of the most haunted studios in New Orleans in the ‘90s. And boy does he have stories. A distorted face in a window. A badly burned little girl pleading for help. A late night tryst with an apparition…

Do artists see ghosts more often? Or does making art make you more sensitive to what’s already there?

Regardless, when you make the effort to really say something—to write, to record, to create—there’s magic in it. Maybe you’re more that thing than you are the relentless cyclone of anxious thoughts you live with the rest of the time.

Ars longa, vita brevis. Art is long, life is short.

We’re here to play the long game.

IMPORTANT UPDATE

We promised to have our first virtual hang this week, but then we made a scheduling mistake, and so now it will officially be NEXT WEEK.

Monday, February 2

1pm PST / 4pm EST.

Do you see that? That’s an actual date, and an actual time. Which means it will be WAY MORE EMBARRASSING if we have to reschedule again, which we will not.

All paid Substack and Patreon supporters can expect to get the link within the next couple of days.

(And a quick reminder that the 1st 100 people get Founder status for $4/month for life — and not all those spots have been taken yet.)

Okay, enough of all that.

On to the highlights:

The vocalists from K-Pop Demon Hunters saw a ghost and told Jimmy Fallon about it

People who don’t believe in ghosts are in the minority—always have been, always will be

Mal always asks people if they believe in ghosts at parties

We love people who say “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I saw a ghost”

Tom’s was in a swing band in the 90s and has lots of other recording studio ghost stories

King’s Way Studio in New Orleans was (is?) famously haunted by Germaine Cazanave Wells, Queen of Mardi Gras, total party girl from the 1950s/60s who fell, hit her head, died, never left

Tom’s friend saw a distorted, glaring face appear in the window

Tom made deals with Jermaine in the clawfoot tub: “Listen, don’t show up now—I don’t want to slip and fall while naked”

Another band’s bass player (an EMT) was awakened by a young woman badly burned, pleading for help—turned out to be Jermaine’s daughter who died in a fire

And, uh, another story, which you’ll have to go ahead and just listen to Tom tell it

Creative people seem to encounter ghosts more often—artists, musicians, people in heightened emotional/creative states

Are ghosts attracted to creativity, or does creativity make people more sensitive to what’s already there?

What it’s like to re-read own old writing

Maybe we’re more than the stuff that constantly spins in our brains

The more you create, the more you pin down and make substantial, the more that you ARE

There’s a magic to making the effort to really express yourself in some tangible way, going on the record, so to speak, even if you’re wrong, even if you’re full of crap

Tom loves himself and his friends as individuated people, even while recognizing we’re expressions of Brahman

He also talks to his peach trees, so

And in the epilogue…

What it’s like to prank a prankster

That one time Mal got kicked out of girl’s camp

A truly horrific story about fried chicken

***

SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring creativity, the esoteric, and the unknown. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions.

spectrevisionradio.com

linktr.ee/spectrevisionsocial

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we’re doing something ambitious and maybe a little bit stupid, but hopefully the right kind of stupid.

We’re rejecting the algorithm. No clips for the feeds. No farming for engagement. Because social media is antisocial.

Tom wrote a book about the Chapel Hill music scene in the ‘90s. Before discoverability tools and doomscrolling. Before music became something you listen to by yourself. Back when people listened together, and told their friends.

After all, word of mouth is the OG algorithm. So that’s how we’re gonna do it.

It’ll be slower, but it’ll be better.

So go tell your friends, and come on up to the house.

~~~NEWS!~~~

We’ll be having our first virtual hangout next week for all paid subscribers and Patreon supporters — speaking of which:

THIS IS THE LINK TO OUR PATREON
1st 100 people get Founder status for $4/month for life.

You might be wondering what the difference will be between Patreon and Substack.
Here’s the breakdown:

Paid supporters of either will get access to ad-free episodes and epilogues.

For the Patreon folks, there will be more bonus video content, as well as access to a private Discord, which we will be launching as soon as the first 100 people sign up.

On Substack, there will be more written work (essays and supplements), some of which will be behind a paywall, as well as access to a paid-subscriber chat, which will go online once we reach 100 sign-ups there.

The world is full of people asking for your money. Anyone who supports this show with actual dollars will have our undying gratitude, and we’ll do everything we can to return the love.

Highlights:

The algorithm is killing us. We have the data.

Social media melts attention and connection

How and why Jordan got into podcasting

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History proved millions of people will listen to 4-hour deep dives, despite the TikTok-ification of everything

How do we produce stuff that earns thoughtful attention without marketing it on platforms that absolutely ravage attention

How posting on socials violates the creative instinct

If you build your platform on social media, you don’t get to leave

David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water”: we’re all actively worshiping something—the passive viewing sneakily changes our personalities

Tom’s book (A Really Strange and Wonderful Time) about the Chapel Hill music scene in the 90s became a manifesto for “scenius”—Brian Eno’s term for the genius of community, not individual artists

We used to listen to music publicly, with friends, talk about it

Now music is private, instantly available, and we listen alone

The Great Deceleration: we’re trying to build something that encourages depth over virality, connection over “engagement” (whatever the hell that is)

We can’t fail. We’re already on the path.

First 100 Patreon supporters get Founding Member status at $4/month for life

If we can grow successfully without bowing to the algorithmic feeds, it’ll chart a path for other creators

Complete transparency and monthly updates (at least) on the numbers, tracking the OG algorithm of word of mouth

If we’re not giving you what you want, tell us

If we ARE giving you what you want, tell your friends

And in the epilogue…

Once again, here's a link to our freshly-minted Patreon.

And a reminder that the first 100 supporters will get Founder status for $4/month, forever.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices