Mike Boody shares the origins of his podcast name, the Midnight Citizen and his substack “Mike’s Bonfire,” and expresses confusion over multiple branding efforts, highlighting the anxiety surrounding content creation.

The conversation shifts to the impact of AI on education, content creation, and the ethical dilemmas surrounding its use in writing and research.

They reflect on the challenges of monetizing content while staying true to creative principles, considering alternative funding models like microtransactions and the potential of platforms like Substack.

The Midnight Citizen

Mike’s Bonfire

Bad AI Transcript

hey everybody, this is Bob, and i’m talking to mike Booty, your midnight Citizen. uh also also that’s up already, Mike’s Bonfire, which i think is a very inspired name, actually. I love the, you know, whenever i saw that, I was like that’s that is darn interesting. I don’t know why, I mean, why wouldn’t no i mean, but i’m like, yeah, I can see that. No, having some knowledge of you and your style. Definitely. Yeah. It’s fitting. What do you think? Where’d you come up? Why’d you come up with that? Well, I’m going to preface it with like saying that all branding is probably about to change because I’ve been doing the podcast. Like I’ve had that name now for 15 years and I did a show recently where I gave some, I gave it, I gave the origin of it. And I think like I’m, I’m,
I’ve moved past it. I’m sort of ready to try something else out, um, to, to try a, so you’ll be the podcast formerly known as the midnight. Yeah, no, I’m thinking of like just doing a little symbol and, uh, all that and coming up with a very specific name to pronounce the symbol, like duck sound or something. But, um, but yeah, and, and I, and Mike’s bonfire was created completely separate of the podcast. It was a place to, um, like a sub stack that I created to do more writing and all that. But I have not done much writing consistently at all over there. So it’s just become the podcast. And so now, now I feel like it’s just confusing to people that I got to go to Mike’s bonfire. And then I watched the midnight citizen and like, what else, like what else, what other kind of branding is he going to throw at me? So one of those things that I constantly feel anxiety about is just like having, you know, everything is just so, um,
different and uh and i and i do think about static radio kind of constantly because you guys have why same name since you’ve had the same name since 1999 yeah and i wish i wish i would have changed it it’s a fantastic name and i know and it’s like i’ve i’ve gotten some feedback from people in like the last few weeks since i’ve talked about changing it and people are like you know feel free to do that but like i’m fine with what you’ve got it doesn’t bother me at all yeah i i think it’s, I mean, either one of them are good. I did. I do really do like, uh, Mike’s bonfire. It’s not yeah a typical naming convention and, but yeah, it, it, I, you know, it totally fits the persona. Yeah. Initially it was like, uh, the, the bonfire aspect, uh, was, you know, like when you create a sub stack, you’re supposed to have like an introductory post that just introduces yourself to like, you know, breeders and
my idea of like the bonfire was like, I was trying to write at the time, like a serialized novel. And I’d gotten about like, you know, 20 pages through the first chapter. And, uh, my idea was to put it out there. And so to emulate what Tom Wolf had done with the bonfire, the vanities were serialized that novel and Rolling Stone, um, in the eighties. And so that was like, my idea was like, you know, this is like my, my bonfire. Um, and, so that was kind of the thing. And it just sounded like kind of a cool name, but it, to me, to be honest with you, it sounds like also like kind of pervy, to be honest. Like, it sounds like I’m like, I’m like a, I’m like a weird. I didn’t think of that at first. Come on over to Mike’s bonfire and bring your slim gems. And, uh, well, I wasn’t, I did not get that vibe at all. I,
Yeah, I think like I just I have that general anxiety that like, you know, just any anything I create is any name that I come up with has like some kind of a weird, you know, like S&M connotation. Like the Midnight Citizen sounds like. Well, for one, I initially like right after I came up with that name and put it out there years ago, I sort of thought that like that sounds like an underground, like right wing militia group. Um, you know, and I, I think you’re, I think you’re reading way too much into it. That’s just me. I don’t know. It’s like, I doubt, I doubt everything that i do. So, you know, yeah, no, I, I just, the midnight, it sounds because there was a thing called midnight caller. Um, uh, it was eric begorzian was the actor, right? Don’t you do midnight color is that somebody else? Well, uh, anyway, talk radio.
Talk Radio. That was his play that he turned into a movie. It reminds me of that. You’re up all night. You’re talking about what’s happening. You’re keeping people on the straight and narrow and telling them what’s happening in the world. Talk Radio was obviously… When I created the show, I was watching that movie a lot as well as pump up the volume. I just was really… just so incredibly sad that a lot of that was going, was going away. Yeah. Well, no, it’s actually exploded. It has. I know. And I was thinking about that at the time where it’s like, you know, you know, podcast, like I’ve been thinking about like, you know, when podcasting came around, you know, which is, was six years before that was around 2004. That was like a really exciting thing. And getting like,
my first like getting the iPod and everything and being able to just, just for specifically for podcasts, I was like, this is fantastic because it’s like taking this like talk radio. I mean, talk radio obviously still exists, but you know, if you weren’t, you know, Howard Stern or at the time, you know, like air America had things you were like, you had to be like Rush Limbaugh. You had to be like some kind of like, you know, loudmouth conservative um uh be on talk radio anymore and just the audience had gotten so incredibly like it just it made me really sad like i was very young i was only like 23 or so but um when when podcasting came out but i it made me very happy to see like this medium suddenly like come out of nowhere where like anybody could suddenly do something like that um
Um, it was, it was really cool, but, uh, obviously like my interest in it died down because like the, the dream sort of died very quickly. Like after it was introduced to the world, like people just started figuring out that like, Oh, since everybody can do it, you know, then there’s like, it’s, it’s harder to kind of break through and it’s like becoming oversaturated and everything. And, and then eventually, uh, when podcasting made a big comeback like when welcome to night veil came out and like uh um that show cereal came out right it was like great everybody loves podcasting again but it’s still not the it’s not like the podcasting that i like i liked and that i that i was really interested in i’m not interested in like these heavily produced radio stories that might as well just be on public radio
Right. Yeah. And that’s really around the time that I found the overnight scape and I would, you know, and I, I found the overnight scape underground, um, and, and met all you guys who were like sort of doing the exact same thing that it should have been all along. So, uh, it made me frustrated cause it’s like all these years I could have been hearing, uh, you guys, I could have been hearing Frank, um, you know, it was a little frustrating. Um, and, sort of like, you know, what you hear people say, like after they, like when they, when they get clean or something off of drugs and alcohol, like all these years, like living this like fantastic clean life, you know? Oh my gosh. I’m finally sober. Yeah. Look at all that i’ve been missing out on. I know. Oh my gosh. The life, the world’s changed. Um, not what it, yeah. I mean, I,
Yeah. Well, at this point, I mean, it’s been 20, uh, 21 years now, so yeah you can romanticize about it a little bit. Um, having that much time pass, uh, right. Yeah. I mean, it, it was cool. I mean, you didn’t make any money, but, uh, you know, whatever yeah you have to, it’s art. Well, again, I mean, you still aren’t, really making any money you know but like the idea is is that there is so much money out there to be made in podcasting um by people selling things to podcasters but again it’s the money yeah the money it’s become like a pyramid scheme you know um and my thinking on it is is just like let those people flush themselves out of it um and uh you know like my my my friend um who uh
last summer he works for a production studio in town and i was helping him. They wanted to get into the podcasting space, like have like create a studio that they could then rent out to local podcasters. Um, and, uh, so i went down there and kind of helped him set it up and, uh, they’re, they’ve been doing really well they’ve got people coming in but like uh they find that they have a client come in, record one podcast, maybe two podcasts, and they just drop off after that because it just is not the moneymaker that they think it’s going to be. It’s like everybody just kind of does it because it’s what you’re supposed to do to get your name out there. It’s like social media in a sense where it’s like, yeah, I have to have all these social handles so that I can be…
out in the space and it’s like, yeah, yeah, I, I, you know, it’s, yeah, there’s, um, what was it? I mean, it’s like three million or something, uh, podcast now, but apparently the, the real number i’m told, at least from a little bit of research and, and other people who have done research is the reality is it’s about a hundred and less than 150 000 that actually produce anything with any regularity. Like daily active users. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not even daily production, but I’m just saying that they have some type of schedule that they’ve been sticking to. Yeah. People just consistently come back to. Right. Yeah. And so apparently, I mean, they love to, everybody loves to throw around statistics. I mean, if, you know. Yeah. Statistics are one of the things that everybody buys into every
But the reality is everybody makes them up. And so it’s like, why? How can we be consistently tricked by all these statistics? But we are, you know what I mean? Because it’s the self-fulfilling prophecy of the mathematical world. You just, you know, I can find a statistic that tells me whatever I want, you know? Oh, yeah. So, yeah, it’s just really kind of sad stuff. uh yeah in a lot of ways but you have to do it because you enjoy it and obviously i think you do yeah i think so i think i do it gives me a lot of uh yeah no it’s one of those things that uh i you know i do go like long stretches at this point i’m just thinking of like well i have seasons and
I don’t have like a consistent schedule right now. I, right now I consider myself, I guess I’m like, you know, technically 15 years, but I did take like three years off when I was like teaching like all the time and didn’t have any time at all for those. But like right now I just consider myself, I’m like in my 13th season, you know, I’m like right there where the Simpsons kind of started going downhill a little bit, you know? I always joke about the seasons. That’s my joke. I always ask people, what do you consider a season? Because everybody, there’s no consistency. So a season for, you know, I don’t even, maybe an old time radio, they had seasons, but I always think of television. And the season was basically from September to May. And that was a season, right? And so, yeah, or yeah, or sometimes a 44. Yeah.
But that was a season. So now, I mean, in this world, a season is whatever you make of it. Right. And I was doing, I was making fun of the seasons and I was doing a recording with these comedian people. And I joked throughout the whole show that I just entered my, you know, next season. Yeah. And by the time we got to the end of it, I said, wow, we went through three seasons in just one show. And, you know, because it gets kind of ridiculous. Yeah. Uh, everybody, I, I consider us, if, if we had to give ourselves a season, it would be a year and that would be about 52 shows. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, see my, my aspiration where i want to get to with my podcast, my ultimate goal is to get to a point where i can actually tell my audience that i’m not going to do a show next week or the week after that.
And I can give them a set date for when I’m going to start doing shows. Because the way that I do it is I just stop. I mean, I just completely ghost my audience. And I just like, no. And the thing about it is you feel bad about it. Like that first week when you’re like, I can’t do a show tonight. I just don’t feel like doing it. And nobody notices that. No one sends you a note. That’s not even a note. And then you go from just feeling bad that you’re not giving your audience something to suddenly feeling mad that like nobody cared, you know, and, uh, you know, so it’s, uh, it’s this thing. And, uh, so, uh, I, I don’t know. I mean, like right now, um, the thing that, uh, I, I am really enjoying, you know, just the doing, doing a show every week, uh,
Um, and in the past I’ve really, uh, put like a lot of, um, a lot of weight on myself to do one every week. And what I’m finding is the fact that like just reframing it to think about like, this is the easiest thing you really have to do all week. You know that, right? Well, I was thinking actually, because I know you’re a, uh, uh, right. And you’re a writer. Yeah. I mean, isn’t this in a way kind of, formulating your writing in a way. I mean, it’s just a different format and you could, and now with AI and everything, you could literally get it transcribed to suite when you’re done. And, and now you have something, I mean, you could edit it and then you’ve got something written. I mean, that’s kind of the way things are going and it would be interesting to, to utilize it that way. Yeah.
Yeah. There’s, there’s something to be said about that. I think like, there’s definitely like some shows that I’ve done where it’s like, you know, the way that I normally do like do shows is I usually like open up with some kind of like a monologue first that sort of like, I try to, you know, like tell a story or kind of get to like a theme or something that I’m thinking about that week. And it’ll usually be like about 25 minutes or so. And I don’t go into those thinking that like, these would be really great stories to actually develop. as like in the written word. But then there are some that I like, I just did one this past week where afterwards I was like, that really should be a story. That should be like actually something that I write down and develop. And because again, like, you know, just the big inspiration, you know, for my show. And this is how I found Frank’s show as well was Gene Shepard. Right. Who in the 1960s and seventies, you know, would do a lot of that. He would adapt a lot of his written word to,
uh, for, for radio as monologues and, and then he would do monologues and then later on adapt them into the, into writing. And so, uh, I always thought about that, um, is that there’s a lot of, you know, cool stuff. Like one thing I was thinking about doing was like just kind of starting a collection of just like jobs stories, you know, cause like a lot of my stories are related to just like working, you know, just like I’ve, I’ve worked a million jobs in the, you know, however long it’s been, you know, 30 years that I’ve been in the workforce and, you know, and just like, you know, like, so, you know, and there’s nothing like spectacular in them at all. There’s nothing like really amazing that I did in these jobs, but there are like really kind of like interesting little moments that I’ve, that I pull if I just kind of like mine, my memory enough that it’s like, that’s a pretty unique thing that I did there. But anyway, but yeah, you’re, you’re right. And it is true. It’s like, you know,
in a way it’s like, if you just tell the story, you could have a transcription and you could just like edit it and everything like that. Um, I don’t know if I would go that far as to like, you know, be that, you know, uh, is, is to, you know, use AI in that fashion. Like I, uh, you know, right now, like a lot of the things that I’m consumed with thinking about, like all the time or like the ethics of like, you know, how we use AI, you know? And, um, so i like the idea that like the transcriptions there and i may take that transcription and put it into like chat gpt and ask me to like write kind of a summary or sort of like generate some key points from it but in terms of like just writing the actual story from like soup to nuts would really have to be like something that i sit that down and just you know do completely from scratch um so you wouldn’t you wouldn’t want to you would because i mean you’re
mm-hmm it’s almost as if you’re workshopping the story whenever you’re talking. Yeah. I think that, yeah, that’s the thing. Same thing. It’s like, again, it’s like a lot of the the um the uh i i have like a lot of admiration for stand-up comedians, even though i wouldn’t want to do that. because you know, they, they tell like one joke or one story and they have to like do the same thing every single night. But like one of the, two No, I’m not. Stand-up comedians, they hone those jokes over time. There’s a lot of great stand-up comics who can come on and basically do a different show every single night, but they’re few and far between. Most stand-up comics get up there and they just night after night take the same exact jokes and just punch them to perfection. I have a lot of envy for that, even though I wouldn’t want to do it. It’s
like when you when you’re sort of doing a podcast, you know, like one podcast a week, you don’t want to like tell the same story every single week, even though like at the end of like every podcast that i do, I always sort of think about the fact that like there’s something so great that i discovered while i was telling that story that i wish i could have known before i started telling it and that was that that’s like where the writing aspect would come in for me. Because it’s like i can’t go in and and and record that again i can’t i can’t i don’t have time to record a whole oh knowing that knowing now what i what i wish i knew so yeah um so i i like had that ability to sort of hone it and uh to kind of shape it into something and fully form it before i get on and the microphone and just start telling it so but yeah i know i i just i just thinking of um
because there’s so many tools now that will allow you to do this, that, I mean, this is really a, you know, kind of a new, you can do it before. Right. But now it’s so easy. I mean, literally you could, well, if you’re in certain programs, it does it on the fly. But you, but once you get done, you just feed it in, boom, you got a transcript. I’ve actually been putting transcripts on all the posts because I, um, here lately just because I can number one. And then the other thing is because, uh, the internet is still a very text based beast. Oh yeah. And so by doing that, you’re, you know, increasing your, your chances of, of being indexed because you’ve got all these nice words in it. You’re right. And, uh, that’s one of the reasons that I love
substack why i went to substack is because they actually do like automatically generate a transcript for your podcast that people can read and look at and uh and uh substack is like, there’s a lot of, uh, backlash right now that people on in the, I don’t want to call it the substack community but like people, people on that platform are getting really mad at substack right now because they’re going more toward video. Um, you know, they’ve got like a reels button that they recently introduced. So they’re, they’re just adopting and stealing everything that these are the reasons why I like leave Instagram. Right. Why I’m not, you know, cause it’s like, I want to actually be able to go on there and I want to have them push stuff on me that I can read. Um, I would sit there in a quiet room and not just be overwhelmed by like sudden loud sounds coming at me from my phone. Um, you know,
Yeah, well, everybody, that’s the problem is this mimicry, right? So everybody, whenever something becomes, you know, popular, then all of the majors are like, well, we got to mimic that on our platform. And nobody’s really taking kind of the road less traveled and saying, okay, we’re specializing in this. I know. And then actually doing that. So, you know. Podcasts aren’t podcasts anymore. They’re vidcasts or whatever you want to call them. We’re doing it right now. We have video going. It used to be just an audio thing. I’m a big believer in giving an audience for anything more than one way to receive what you’re putting out there. That’s why it’s like when I i was telling you that, you know, when i got my first iPod, I waited and I, you know, until i had enough money to get the video ipod because i really wanted to watch the ricky gervais podcast. That was a big deal at the time. Right. Um, and that was video and audio as well and it was uh it was like i i loved that idea that like you could listen to audio if you wanted to, but they’ve also got like that extra video component. Right. That’s why it’s like on Spotify. I like upload my video
show every week because i sort of saw what like people like bill maher were doing with their podcast where it’s like, you know, you could listen to it or i was, it was so weird because i was listening to that, his show one day. And then i looked on my spotify feed and there was like, he was, there was video. I didn’t know that yeah so it was so interesting, uh, to me, but, um, yeah, I mean, you’re right. It’s like the way that like the internet has caught up, it’s like, it’s now like, Between the ability to do AI transcripts of your show, people can read your show without you having to do any extra work. They can watch your show. They can listen to your show. It’s everything that we wanted it to be. Again, I know that you’ve been doing this much longer than me and you’ve got a few more years on me, but I just remember so well the dream of what the internet was.
say like 1994, 95. Um, and, uh, and it’s everything that we’ve wanted it to be has come true, but there’s also obviously like a lot of dark things that we had to like that we have to take in order for it to be like this. True. True. There’s a few dark things about the internet, I guess we could say, you know well more than a few, unfortunately the, uh, but you know it’s it’s interesting and and You know, the funny thing is you talk about, you know, kind of the infancy. And, you know, the interesting thing about the internet, it was going to be the clarifier, right? So anyone could find out anything at any time. And so it was going to clarify what you’re thinking. So you’re going to look and you’re going to see an answer. And what it’s turned out to be is exactly the opposite. Yeah. Because you can go and you can get…
a hundred different answers and then people are constantly fighting to be the answer right and marketing between marketing and gaming the system and everything else it really it’s not the great clarifier of things it’s actually the opposite it just i’m trying to think of what would what would the word i would say modifier but what would the word be that’s more appropriate uh the uh i you know i don’t know the Gosh, I’m trying to think, um, you know it’s it’s like i’m gonna i’m gonna call it uh the the the plinkoing of uh you know, you take one little piece of knowledge, you know, right there. And then you like, just kind of drop it into a tray and it may go this way. It may go that way but um yeah the reality is ai is now saying, Oh no, wait, we’re gonna be the great clarifier. Yeah. Yeah.
and we’re, we’re playing this game again. And the reality is that they won’t. No, no. And it’s, it’s, we get, you know, do you remember there’s, um, uh, the monorail show for the Simpsons. I always find that hilarious because oh god yeah one of the great episodes of television sold the monorail again and again and again in these things so from from you know early search engines to now early ai yeah we’re getting resold the same monorail that goes nowhere right you know it’s just one of these things it’s it’s like and i that you know it’s something that just cannot be put back in the box and i’ve never ever wanted something to be put back in the box more than ai because again like as a as a teacher you know you get you know you’re playing
plate is already full trying to teach students about like you know composition but now you’ve got this extra added headache on top of like on top of uh ai that is now completely corrupting research and uh the way that students actually receive information um and it’s it’s you know i i am and just 100 like constantly just like i i use ai but i also know that it’s a tool, that it’s the same way that we were taught to use search engines years ago. It’s just a tool and you have to be careful with that tool and know exactly what the limitations of it are and how it can backfire on you if you don’t know how to use it. But if you talk about the students that I teach right now who have now been using AI
for most of like the the live the lives that they’ve had where they’ve been asked to write papers and things like that um this is like what they know. And they don’t see ethical issues with it at all. They don’t see the idea that like they’re missing out on the complete critical thinking process work of it um and when you also see the fact that like, you know, teachers are now using it as well, like the people that i work with and some teachers who are much older than me and have been doing it for much longer. are using AI to actually generate feedback from their students. So they’re literally not even reading the work. Their students are actually turning in work. They’re putting it into an AI and then asking that AI to grade it based on the rubric that they also asked AI to create for them is really messed up to me. It’s, it just is like completely, it’s like, it makes me feel like we’re all just like that person who’s like that standing behind the counter, like a circle K watching you,
scan your items into, into the computer, just put them down on the tray and then you pay for it. And like, I had this experience yesterday, somebody at a circle K was like working there and ostensibly getting paid to literally stand there and watch me do their job. And it was so weird to me. Cause it’s like, this is what, this is so indicative of like where society is going right now is that we’re literally taking the human element out of the most important jobs, you know? Yeah. That’s the funny thing. then as you were talking about this, it just shot through my head. I’m like, you know we’re we’re all um through pop culture, we’re all assuming that the terminator is going to come take away humans right it’s no they’re taking it away, but they’re just in, basically they’re just making us redundant. So we just stand around. Yeah, that’s exactly that that’s exactly the case is the fact that like, you know, obviously, yeah, the terminator is like a very overused cliche to describe the ai revolution
but it’s all, it’s, it’s an incorrect thing because like that movie assumes that we’re going to fight back and we’re not at all. I mean, we, we are welcoming AI with like open arms and, and just totally like let it come in. And I find it, I just find it so fascinating. Like I actually had a job interview yesterday. I was like, right now it’s like my contract with teaching is about to end for the semester. So I’ve been looking for jobs and I had a job interview yesterday for a Uh, a position, um, uh, with, the this local parks commission. I was like, you know, applying for development to help them with development. And, um, uh, the, the person who was interviewing me asked me point blank, like about 25 minutes or so into the interview, she looked at me the same way that i look at students when i have to ask them the same question. She’s like, kind of like accusatory a little bit. She said, like, I have to ask you, did you write your resume with AI?
And the question just kind of like took me aback because she’s looking at a resume where it’s like I have about 15 years of not only teaching experience, but also like writing grants and developing programs and things like that. And so it’s like my qualifications are right in front of her that I am a writer and that I have been writing a long time before AI was around. And she’s looking at a resume that I don’t know why she would ask me if I wrote it with AI. It just was… but it’s it’s interesting but i i also i i should have asked her, like, why do you ask? Like, you know, are there any red flags? Number one, I didn’t write it with AI. I used template on microsoft Word. I don’t know. She was sort of that was what she was thinking about is that it was like laid out with template with a template but um but the thing about it is, is like even if i did write it with AI, I was trying to ask myself, like, would that be ethical?
And I think it is, it is totally ethical to use AI to write something like a resume because a resume is not indicative of your writing experience. It’s indicative. It’s not. Yeah. It’s just, you’re just formatting what you’ve done. But that’s, but it’s that, that, that kind of comes back to my whole point though, about just wanting to put AI back in the box until we can kind of shake it a little bit and figure out what it’s about. Because like nobody, there are no cut and dry ethics in any medium right now where we can use AI, right? There’s no cut and dry ethics in teaching, in writing grants, in the way that it’s used in offices all over the country or the world. Everybody has their different opinion about what is ethical when it comes to AI. That’s a huge issue right now because I personally believe that teachers should be heartily embracing AI when they’re working with students.
because we’re sending students out into a world where AI is being used in every single space you can imagine. So it’s like, it would be unethical to like tell them that it’s wrong to always use AI. So it’s like, you know, like I don’t allow them to use it in writing their papers, but I’m like, if you’re doing research, that’s totally fine. Just make it, just make sure that you’re actually following the links that, that like the AI overview on Google gives you and like actually seeing if that information is correct. So it’s like, Again, trying to teach them to use it as a tool that i instinctively know that it is because i’ve been, you know, writing professionally in different capacities now for 15 years. Um, so it’s like, I know how to i i knew how to do all this stuff before ai came along, but like, you know, students now don’t and really lazy people don’t care so right right well that’s interesting. Um,
It’s an interesting thought about the ethics of it all, because I mean, we can get to the point where the AI writes the grants, the AI reviews the grants, and then you as the person receive the grant. Right. But then what happens, you know? Well, you, you implement it, but like, you know, again, nobody, you know, that was the interesting thing that she was asking me about that. And I, I, I feel like, you know, if I get asked back for a second interview, um, I, I do want to, I would talk to her about this because, um, I’ve been out of grant writing for a while now and I’m interested to know how much of it is now done. Cause I have to imagine because grant writing already is about 60% taking boilerplate language grants and then just like adding in your own content specific, um, you know, language. Um, like I have to imagine now that grant, the, the, the,
the grant writing space is almost completely AI. And not only that, but just like, yeah, you’re right, the reviewing of grants. It’s like the same way that like being on LinkedIn has shown me that the entire job marketplace right now is run by AI. Because you’ll apply to a job, you feel like you’re a perfectly good candidate for it. And then like, you know that you’re getting screened by AI, especially if it’s like a national company or something. Um, and, uh, and, and then they’ll send you like an AI response back that said that you didn’t meet their recruiting standards. It’s like what human being talks like, but yeah, I mean, it’s like you almost have to go through several rounds now before you get, you know, you, you know, it’s, it’s like a title or something. You have to go through several rounds before a human being even gets to you, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah. It even takes the time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s,
The funny thing is, again, it was supposed to be one of these things that was the great leveler, and it’s worse. You have to be in the organization to get any traction on anything that you might want because anybody from the outside is going to be so heavily screened that it’s going to be really – unless you’re some kind of stellar applicant, you’re never going to get through all the hurdles very easily. Right. unless you have an inside track. And that’s not the way it was supposed to be. The idea was it was supposed to level the playing field so that people would equally have a chance. And it’s just gotten worse and worse. It’s funny how all these things, all the grandiose notions of all this have really just fallen. I mean…
Just us talking tonight about it has really got me ticking on this in my head because it’s like, yeah, I mean, it was very Pollyanna to think that any of this would actually come to be. I mean, social media is marketing. I don’t know why they just don’t call it that. I mean, yes, there’s people who are social, but the vast majority is marketing for whatever you’re trying to market or marketing they’re wholly created uh you know entities that are not a person yeah it’s ridiculous i i’m uh i’m getting to the point uh where i’m like completely leaving meta because i don’t even know why i have it anymore i don’t even know why i have a facebook or instagram anymore obviously to watch like reels on static radio but but
I put them other places. It is this point where it just, it completely depresses me to be on these platforms because like I, I saw Facebook grow from like a little seedling, you know, like I, I, I was in like a sophomore in college, you know, when Facebook came to, to my university, you know, like, and you could only get one if you have like a, you know, a university email, college email address. And yeah, I got on it for the same reason that like it was invented, which is to like, sort of see if that, like this girl in my writing class had a boyfriend. And so like, you know, you, you know, you got on there. I mean, it seems so innocent at the time. I know it’s like now it’s cyber stalking, but nobody cares that it’s stalking. But you, you know, it was such a cool place because like everybody that you knew was on there and you could connect with like all these other people. And there was like, no, no,
there was no marketing involved. There was absolutely no like go on there to promote yourself and, and things like that. It just was simply to connect with people and to kind of like Justin Timberlake says in the movie that was made about Facebook, just like relive the party, you know, go someplace and then spend the next day connecting and communicating with like the people that, and just kind of keeping the conversation going. And it was a lot of fun. And then I remember like the specific game, day it was announced that they were letting high school kids get on it. And then, and now it’s a text message from my mother-in-law every other day telling me to go onto Facebook and see the post that she made. And it’s like, that’s the only reason I would still be on it is just to connect with like my, and just to let my mother like check into my mother-in-law and my mom and everything. But it’s like, I can do that on text message. So it’s like, there’s no point really to be on it anymore. And, and,
you know again i’ve had like you know i’ve used it for like to promote the show for years, but it just doesn’t really do anything for me it makes me honestly like sick in the stomach whenever i’m putting a show together and i’m like, now i gotta go to facebook and do that, you know, and, uh, and, and all that. So, um, you know, like i don’t even want to like, you know, kind of grow, uh, any following over there anymore. It’s just, uh, because, um, it’s, it’s not just the fact that like, obviously there’s a lot of political stuff, like things that I’m irritated right now about the people who run these companies, but there’s been so much just come out in, you know, over the years about just how much they are like, you know, how much they spy on us and how much they think of us as just like, you know, like little matrix pods to like mine and then sell, um,
And not only that, but there’s just been so much just like after reading Jonathan Heights book, the anxious generation about just like how these companies are just like so obsessed with like getting kids in and hooked as early as they possibly can without regard for like Kappa or federal regulations or anything like that. It sounds like, you know, tobacco. It is. No, that’s, that’s, that’s, I mean, you know, and he’s not the first one, you know, I don’t know if you, you know, the Jonathan height, the social psychologist, you know, who wrote these two books together, the coddling and the American mind and the anxious generation, um, which are just all about like how, like, you know, we, we have the data to support, like in 2010, as soon as Apple invented that iPhone four with the, with the front facing camera, that’s when everything started to go downhill for Jen, for Gen Z. Um,
And again, it’s like, these are the students that I’m teaching now and that genuinely, like, I will get emails from them every single day that they can’t come to class because they’re suffering mental health issues. Right, right. You know, and it’s just like this term mental health is something that has just become such a tool that is preventable, that we can easily prevent it. Oh, sure. Yeah. just don’t have to be in the know of all this crap. Yeah, exactly. And you know these the whatever they say, it’s like, you know, mental health issues are now very, you know, very self-diagnosed among teenagers because adults are constantly using that term. So it’s like the adults are like, you know, it’s sort of like, you know, the male teacher never could like, you know, accuse like a female teacher of like, or a female student
of like leaving the class, you know, because it’s like, you’re not really on, you’re not really on your cycle right now. You know, now it’s like, you know, teachers can’t, teachers can’t call into question when a student says that she’s, she or he is having a mental health crisis. Like we’re not, we’re not allowed to do that. So it’s like students, and I saw this when I was teaching high school, totally know now that like adults cannot question their mental health. And so they, they’re gaming the system. Yeah. They use that against you all the time. Yeah. But, but again, it’s like, it is totally legitimate. They, they wouldn’t have that excuse to fall back on if they weren’t genuinely, I think at some level going through some kind of like a mental health anxiety about the way that they look about the fear of missing out, you know, that they see all their friends on Instagram doing something together and then they’re not with them. You know, but yeah,
Well, what I was saying is, is that like just getting off of these big companies like meta and everything, it’s like, just, it just feels like almost that we know so much about it now that it just almost feels like it’s just like, it makes me feel icky to like give these companies any data about me or any bit of my time. So, right. Yeah. But don’t you think, I mean, you know, is there a way to have, because the communicate, I mean, we’re communicating, right. Yeah. The chances that you and I, let’s be honest, would have ever, ever met in the regular world, the meat world, whatever you want to call it, is slim to none. And you and I have had good conversations here on Exit Ramp and then listening to other things that other people have produced and so forth. Is there a way for the internet to be that?
without all this other baggage and, and ridiculousness and, and constant marketing. What I find is fascinating is that, um, uh, yeah, of course it it can be. And, um, I think like, again, I’m not like shilling for substack or anything, but what’s so interesting to me is that i’ll go onto reddit And people have a completely different experience on sub stack than I do. They’ll, they’ll talk about finding hate rhetoric and Nazi sub stacks and, and things like that. And it’s like the algorithm over there, it’s almost like they have learned everything from what Facebook and Instagram and Tik TOK have done wrong. And they’ve adjusted it to do everything not like them. And I think like the, and as I said, like there’s been a lot of controversy about like the, the,
sliding that Substack is doing lately into kind of, you know, just being more like those platforms. But I just think like it’s really going to come down to more and more like Silicon Valley companies or whoever, like, you know, just creating, you know, the individual websites that will ultimately like people will go on and use the way that everybody kind of goes on and automatically uses Google. We need to kind of like shift that to like new companies coming over and taking over for the old companies and these companies operating on like, like just being genuinely very ethical people. And I know that that’s like really hard to find right now is people starting up companies that have ethics about them and are more interested in,
and that are like marrying ethics and money, you know. But they all starve. I mean, if you look at the Internet Archive, they starve. If you look at Wikipedia, it starves. I know, I know. And unfortunately, you know, not that those are, I think those are good examples. They’re not the, you know, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, right, is not rolling in cash. And then you, if you have the government involved in it at all, then it’s control of the media, you know, it’s control of the medium. So you can’t have that. So the weird thing is, is we’re kind of stuck in a way. I mean, what happened to excite? That was my search engine of choice way back in the day. Well, I think like it, it is going to come down to like, you know, we can’t rely on, you know, yeah. Like,
private interest or the government to do it anymore. And I think what it’s just going to come down to is like, I, like I said, on sub stack, you’ve just got to be really conscious of like the fact that like, whatever you look at, the algorithm is going to log it. And it’s going to like, it’s going to like hold up a mirror to your soul. You know, that’s, that’s what I was telling. That’s what I was like responding to somebody who wrote a piece on this the other day about how sub stack is like a completely different experience for people. you know, where it’s like on Tik TOK and Instagram and Facebook, like you can, you know, you can click on something and you’re going to get fed, you know, whatever the person who created that content is into. So, you know, you know, you’re like walking into their house and you’re going to leave with like their stink on you. But like with sub stack, it’s like only you. So it’s like these people who are getting like these bonafide, like this,
racism just like thrown at them on, on sub stack. It’s because they clicked on something. They engaged with a conversation. They did this. And it’s like, that’s what, that’s what it ultimately is, is that it’s a very specific algorithm. What I’ve noticed that holds up a mirror to you and be like, well, this is what you’re interested in. You know, you’ve got to tell us that you’re not interested in it. Yeah. Half the time I accidentally click on the stupid team who add, um, And then now I get a little mini bulldozer. I don’t want a mini bulldozer. Well, again, that’s another reason why Substack is so great. And it’s just because, and again, this is not a paid endorsement at all. It’s just this is where I’ve been. And I’ve never, ever been addicted. I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to Substack, but I’ve never been so heavily involved on any kind of social media platform until Substack because you go there and it is completely ad-free. There’s no ads on it.
I mean, it’s all user generated content that you’re seeing. And it’s like, I’ve never had the site like crash on me or stall on me or like send me to like something else. It really is just like kind of a cool platform. But again, like you say, like stuff like that, that seems only interested in the content that it wants to give you, they do starve. And I think like, you know, that company is starving a bit right now. They’re really trying to figure out like what they are trying to be that will hold true to the principles that they founded it with while still being able to like generate income and money, you know? Right. Exactly. And it’s, it’s, it’s hard. And, you know, you would think, and this is one of those debates that’s been going on forever, micropayments, right? So let’s say you read a sub stack, you pay a penny, and,
So, I mean, if you have enough of those, then it can easily sustain something. But it’s a hassle. But at this point, I think we’re past that hassle. We just have to – somebody has to implement it and make it stick, right? So maybe it’s just a nickel. I don’t know. Whatever it is, right? And then with all that going through, then that would help sustain it. But the problem is that – The funny thing is us as consumers, we don’t want to pay a nickel. Why am I going to pay a nickel? But I’ll pay $100 a year. Yeah. You know what I mean? Or I’ll pay $50 a month. Yeah. I think that that’s the thing. That’s what that website really needs to figure out is because they’re – and the only note that I’ve posted on Substack, and this is the only time I’ve ever gone semi-viral in my entire –
20-year history with social media, is I posted a note on there that just said, I’m reading so much great stuff on here, but if you send me what you have for free, I’ll read it. That got all of this traction and I ended up just getting a ton of meeting a ton of people on there. This was about two months ago that I posted that note and I’m still reading people every day, the stuff that they write. Um, is because the, the, the frustrated, the frustrating thing about sub stack is that like every single person on there has a separate thing that you have to pay for. Um, and obviously Pete, like I don’t put anything on there for free or I mean for a, I don’t charge anybody anything. Um, but a lot of people do sort of think about it as like, if I’m going to put this much work into writing something, um, I would like to ask people to pay for it.
if i’m gonna if i’m gonna click on that button on chat gpt and have it write it for me i gotta get paid exactly i know i uh yeah but like, you know, that’s, that’s what i think substack should figure out. And, and there’s a lot of people who are writing about this. It’s very like hotly debated right now is that like, you know, what is this thing? Like, should we just do microtransactions? Like if i give substack a hundred dollars a year And I’m telling, and I tell Substack, it’s like, okay, I’m giving you a hundred dollars a year. I subscribe to 25 people, you know, take that a hundred dollars and divvy it up to them once a month. You know, like I want Substack to be able to do something like that because that would allow me to like support them, you know, while, you know, the people that I truly believe are worthy of supporting. And it also would cut down on people just subscribing to each other just to get some subscribers.
subscribe right just to move the, move the number up exactly yeah because like that that’s a that’s a big pain in the ass that like is on all social media right now that substack can easily solve um but again it doesn’t make sense for them as a company because it’s like they are supporting the creators but that doesn’t really do a whole lot for the platform itself you know it’s sort of um so like i i understand all that it’s you know that’s that’s the issue right now is like how do you get that platform To, um, you know, uh, to, to, to make money while being able to hold true to its principles so yeah it’s been interesting to watch the drama unfold honestly i’m just like, because I was on sub stack. I’ve been on it now for two years. So it’s like, I discovered it very early on. Um, I would say, um, and it’s been interesting to just kind of see it evolve with all these new features and everything. It really does remind me of like just seeing facebook slowly go down the toilet.
You know, it’s interesting to see Substack sort of like at the same exact like critical juncture, you know, where does it just go the way of like all these other soulless corporations or does it actually try to do something important here? Well, hopefully it doesn’t get bought out by Meta. I, Oh God, I don’t even want to, I don’t know. I don’t think Mark Zuckerberg would see anything valuable in it. He’s like, wait, you’re eliminating competition. Well, yeah. Users. Yeah. No, you’re all worthwhile. You’re exactly right. I, I, that, that would be such a nightmare. Yeah. Or just another company that comes along and replaces it. Like sub stack is basically replaced medium, which is, I had never heard of medium. I had no idea what that was, you know? So yeah.
Yeah. So I guess here’s, here’s the things we have to work on here, Mike. So we have to figure out a way to, this is all about solving the problems of the world yeah yeah yeah um is you know, we have to figure out how to to have uh some type of exchange to keep, you know, the lights on for the provider and also to provide the, uh, people who are making the content with some incentive to keep making content. And I mean, the weird thing is it’s like, you know, how can we, you know, they always turn to advertisers. That’s the answer typically. And a lot of things don’t want to turn to advertisers. I remember, and this goes way back again, Leo Laporte, who was early into podcasting,
who was a technology writer and the technology person, he, when he started doing his stuff, he’s like, we’re not going to take advertising. You’re going to just send, you know, send me some money. Essentially it was before Patreon and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And he, he did that model for a while and it didn’t work. Yeah. I mean, he did, people did send him money, but not in the quantity that was needed to grow the network. And so then he did a hybrid and then now it’s, you know basically advertising so you know um but Patreon, I think doesn’t work. I mean, I think patreon maybe works enough for itself, but it doesn’t really work i mean yeah you have, you know, uh, people who do their pay, they get a patreon and then no one ever donates to them. And then they’ve just given over their information. So now patreon is selling their information. Yeah. Patreon also fundamentally alters like your plan for,
what you want to do, because in order to have a Patreon, you’re already doing something that you want people to support, but then you have to do extra stuff on top of that. So that that’s like, I had a friend who was doing a comic and he was doing it every single week for several years. And he got on Patreon and he doesn’t do the comic anymore. And a lot of stuff, you know, there were a lot of other factors involved in that, but one of the, you know, like, in his life that, that were went into that decision. But one of those things I have to think is because of, you know, this extra pressure to, to, you know, do like, you know, videos every week of like showing people how you draw the comic and, and everything. And so it just, it’s sort of fundamentally altered, you know, like his whole goal of like creating and, and it did turn it into a business and, you know you know, which is fine. Like, I think like, you know,
I don’t necessarily agree. I know Frank Nora will sometimes say that just taking something that you love and turning it into a business is the best way to kill it. I don’t think that that’s possible at all. I don’t think any business would exist if that were the case. But it is absolutely true that if you want to turn what you do into a business, don’t adopt a model that forces you to instantly change what you’re doing. And Patreon, that’s what Patreon does. And That’s, that’s why it’s like, I, the only time in the history of anything that i’ve done where i’ve asked people to pay money for something that i’ve done was a few weeks ago, I wrote an article and i put a lot of time into it. It took me like two weeks to write it and i put it up on my sub stack and i went and created a really quick account with buy me a coffee. because I was like i i did
I did a lot of work on this and I had to miss making money, going out and making money to sit home and finish this thing because it was a current event thing about what was going on with the Department of Education. And I was like, if I publish this in two days, it’s not gonna be relevant anymore. So it’s like, I need to stay home this week and finish this. So it’s like, that’s the only time I’ve ever done that. I went on, I made it as little as possible. It’s like, I think the lowest amount you can do, $2 for a cup of coffee. So I, so I went on and did that and everything. And, uh, so it’s like, you know, I got a little bit of support, which was kind of nice. It was kind of cool to actually get paid for something specific that you did. That was sort of neat. And, um, it didn’t make up all the money I lost writing it, but it was okay. You know, you need to make a new version called buy me a cake cup. Yeah, exactly. But that’s like the model that I enjoyed though. You know, that’s the model I, I, I think is important is to be,
make something that you’re already going to be doing. You’re already doing it. Right. And you make some kind of a model that allows people to pay you for that one specific thing and nothing else. And if you want to get paid again, then make something else, you know, and you know, don’t just like create this like anxiety on yourself to create all this extra stuff and completely fundamentally alter, you know, your, your plan in life. writing something or, you know, doing a podcast or whatever. So yeah. Words to live by. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel bad if i put the sub stack back up on the thing, I feel like i’m shilling. No, you’re not no no no don’t don’t show no it’s like again yeah we we need to get away for mike’s bonfire no no we i i think like we really need to get a, like i was, I had a lot of anxiety about it for years, but i think we need to kind of get away from the,
point where it’s like we’re ashamed to like promote ourselves and what we do or we’re ashamed to like promote these companies that actually are doing a great job in the current moment like I think like we have so much tech anxiety that’s been birthed out of like how these companies have just like taken such advantage of deregulation to completely you know distort our world and the way we receive information it’s like if there’s a tech company out there that’s doing good things and like we need to by God you know embrace it and promote it and tell people about it you know well i’m i’m waiting for ai to make this all redundant so that we can just kind of hang out and do things for free. And then we don’t have to worry about any of it. We just kind of put it out there for free and isn’t that what elon musk wants? Isn’t that his like ultimate plan? Like his weird vision for, he wants us to just like hang around all day long and just like create art and not have to worry about work and things like that. Sounds good. That sounds like a good bit as long as i can,
eating stuff. I’m fine with that. I think so, but I also think about all the great art that has come in this world from just working a shitty job and things like that. I just think… You can’t take the suffering out of art? Is that what you’re telling me? No, you can’t. You absolutely can’t. Tell me one happy person who’s ever written a novel. It’s like… you even see like these people, like these big literary, you know, giants of like the last 25 years, like Brett Easton Ellis or David Foster Wallace or Jonathan Latham. And you see these like literary giants and who grew up in privilege and kind of grew up with everything handed to them. And they’re freaking miserable, you know, because they’re not happy people. It’s like, you know, it’s like, you know, you have to,
yeah, I, I absolutely 100% believe that you cannot have any kind of really good art that’s worth, uh, consuming if it wasn’t made by a miserable person. There you go. You know, maybe, maybe we can come up with a new, uh, uh, currency that’s the misery and then everybody can just share their misery to help each artist. If I were to ask you, thinking about movies, what do you think the best decade for movies was for film? What do you think? That’s a tough question. The best decade for movies? Well, I mean, for me, you know, unfortunately, but that I think has to do with when I really got into movies would be like the late 70s and then the early 80s. Yeah. So for me, it’s like no question at all. It’s the 1970s.
And it’s not because like, I was not alive in the 1970s, you know, and like, but you know, I, when I think back, like on my favorite movies of all time, you know, like the French connection jaws, you know, all that jazz, like these are movies that were made during like the darkest, you know, one of the darkest decades in American history, you know, the only decade that was really darker was like the 1930s. And, you know, there were some pretty damn good movies during that time. So it’s like, you know, it’s like things had to be bad in order for like great. And I hate that. I hate that that’s the case, but you know, it’s sort of, it’s sort of is, you know, it takes some pressure to make a diamond. They say, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, yeah, you could definitely say that. So well, Mike, we’re going to do this again. Yeah, definitely. Let’s, let’s wallow in our misery again. Another time we will call, we will call this misery part one.
Yeah. Come up with another part too. I’m fine. I mean, you know, the sequel. Yeah. See, that’s the problem right now is that I’m too happy. I’m too happy. I need to like, you know, I need to, you know, get miserable again. Don’t go outside. You’ve got four flat tires. Oh yeah. Well, that’ll do it right there. Yeah. That just means I can stay home. Thanks Mike for talking to me. I appreciate it. I definitely, man. I’m looking forward to it. And you know, go read some of Mike’s stuff at the bonfire. And it’s not anything bad. It’s good. Yeah, no. You hang out, you get something to drink, and it’s all good. It’s not offensive at all. Until next time, folks. Hang on for a second, Mike. Okay. Was that an actual