The 404 Media Podcast

By 404 Media

Welcome to the podcast from 404 Media where Joseph, Sam, Emanuel, and Jason catch you up on the stories we published this week. 404 Media is a journalist-owned digital media company exploring the way ... more

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FAQs about The 404 Media Podcast:

How many episodes does The 404 Media Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 199 episodes available.

The 404 Media Podcast episodes:

July 08, 2026How Influencers Fake Being Rich
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This week, we talk about Jason's dive into the world of LARPing, where hustlebros and influencers use fake YouTube, OnlyFans, and Stripe dashboards as "proof" that they're rich in order to sell low-quality get-rich-quick courses in pyramid schemes. We show how easy it is to pretend like you're rich, and how these strategies are used all over social media.
How I Bought a Private Jet By Selling $10 Subscriptions to 404 Media

Inside Cannes, the Advertising Industry’s Biggest Party

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51min
July 06, 2026 Is the Best Game of the Year a Failure?
Remap Radio’s Rob Zacny and Emanuel dive deep into their current favorite game, Marathon, and what its middling success says about the future of games.

If you listen to the 404 Media podcast by now you probably realized that Joe and I are a little obsessed with a game called Marathon. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve played it for almost 300 hours since it was released in March.
But as much as we’re enjoying it, and there are thousands of players who feel the same, Marathon so far has failed to find the audience we’d expect from the developer that made Halo, Destiny, and which a few years ago acquired by PlayStation for more than $3 billion. It’s bad news for Marathon fans and a good sign for how much the video game business has changed over the years.
I wanted to have Remap Radio host Robert Zacny on the podcast because much like me and Joe, he’s been obsessed with Marathon as well. One of Rob’s greatest skills is dissecting how and why games get their hooks into us, and what a game’s popularity, or lack thereof in Marathon’s case, might reveal about the state of the industry and culture more broadly.
Remap Radio: https://remapradio.com/
00:00 Rob Zacny Introduction
03:08 What Is an Extraction Shooter?
08:42 The Genre's Evolution
14:48 Why Marathon Works
18:36 Bungie's Design
22:27 Cryo Archive
34:02 The Thrill of Extraction
47:33 Is Marathon Dead?
52:22 Can Bungie Save It?
58:50 The Business Problem
1:05:20 A Millennial Medium?
1:12:59 Aging Out of Gaming
1:13:40 The Rise of Sweats
1:20:06 Bungie's Layoffs
1:23:09 The Destiny Era
1:28:00 The AAA Dilemma
1:34:22 Sony's Big Bet

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/K4U4mWObX84

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1h 41min
July 01, 2026The Tokenpocalypse Is Here
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We start this week with Joseph’s story about the Tokenpocalypse, which is companies scrambling to stop spending so much on AI after providers started charging per AI token. After the break, Joseph and Emanuel tell us about the ways companies are trying to do this, including using a tool to make their LLMs talk like cavemen. In the subscribers-only section, Emanuel explains how entirely fake AI-generated flowers are all over eBay, Etsy, and Amazon.
The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI

Companies Are Making Claude and Codex Talk Like Cavemen to Stop

AI’s Soaring CostsScammers Sell Seeds for Exotic AI-Generated Flowers That Don’t Exist

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43min
June 29, 2026 How Brands Use Reddit to Poison AI Search
This week, we're doing a deep dive into how marketing companies are poisoning AI search results by manipulating Reddit. You may remember when Google’s AI search results first launched, it recommended that people put glue on their pizza. Well that happened because it scraped a 10 year old Reddit comment. We’ve learned over the last year or so that this sort of thing can be done on purpose, and brands are taking advantage of it. There’s been the rise of AEO or GEO, which stands for AI Engine Optimization or Generative Engine Optimization. Basically this is trying to get mentions of your brand into web content that’s likely to be scraped by AI tools. It’s the new version of SEO and lots of marketers and companies are trying to do it.
The most reliable, easiest way to do this appears to be by putting brand mentions onto Reddit. Reddit’s volunteer mods have noticed an increase in bot accounts and entire sequencing efforts—where a post and its comments are all basically done as a stealth ad—intended to boost brands. I wrote an article about this a few weeks ago, about r/biohackers banning mentions of peptides, which were a popular promoted class of product. After we wrote that article, researchers from Cornell University reached out to me about a new study they had just done.
The research is called “Deep-research agents can be poisoned via user-generated content,” which provides a mechanism for the ways reddit, wikipedia, and other sites that allow users to post are being attacked by brands doing AEO: "We show that a tiny snippet—just 13 words—of retrieved text on a UGC website like Reddit, Wikipedia, Quora, or Facebook can change AI agents to output spam / scam content pretty consistently," the study says.
We spoke to two of the researchers, Hal Triedman and Tingwei Zhang, about this problem and what, if anything can be done about it.

Deep-Research Agents Can Be Poisoned via User-Generated Content: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24245

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/2uG8ohZHOD8

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42min
June 24, 2026If AI Is Sentient Then So Is ‘Age of Empires II
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Our listeners can buy one pair of glasses and get 20% off any additional pairs at WarbyParker.com/404 — and using our link helps support the show.

We start this week with Matthew’s story about a fascinating paper that argues if LLMs are sentient, then by those metrics so is the classic game Age of Empires II. After the break, Matthew tells us about a wild story out of Texas with a data center being built on land that was donated to be a park. In the subscribers-only section, we talk hacking and basketball.
If AI Is Sentient Then So Is ‘Age of Empires II’

A Farmer Donated Land to Turn into a Park. The City Is Building a Massive Data Center Instead

Hackers Publish Knicks and Madison Square Garden Data Online

Madison Square Garden Made Dossier on Activists Who Opposed Facial Recognition

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/LlWJTM18z3E

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42min
June 22, 2026Stopping Tech Company Censorship (with Jake Hanrahan)
Go to surfshark.com/404Media to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN, with the reassurance of a 30-day money-back guarantee, or just use code 404MEDIA at checkout. That's surfshark.com/404Media.

Our listeners can buy one pair of glasses and get 20% off any additional pairs at WarbyParker.com/404 — and using our link helps support the show.

This week Joseph speaks to Jake Hanrahan, creator of the independent conflict-focused media company Popular Front. They talk all about conflict journalism and how to get your journalism out there when platforms like YouTube make it all that much harder, sometimes.
Popular Front

Away Days

Plastic Defence: Secret 3D Printed Guns in Europe

Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/Yf51H5IuRcM

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45min
June 17, 2026The Government Wants to End Anonymity on Phones
Go to surfshark.com/404Media to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN, plus there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee—or just use code 404MEDIA at checkout!

We start this week with Joseph’s story about the FCC’s wild proposal to require peoples’ government ID numbers to even get a phone plan. The FCC is doing it to curb robocalls, but also said it would be useful for a bunch of other stuff. After the break, Jason tells us all about cops abusing Flock to stalk girlfriends and other people. In the subscribers’ only section, Emanuel explains how a software update is impacting Amazon drivers.
FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms to Get All Customers’ IDs

Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People

Software Update Automatically Turns off Amazon Delivery Drivers’ AC During Dangerous Summer Heat

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/hP53hSJSsSU

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50min
June 15, 2026 Meet Me at the Opsec Rave (with Imani Thompson)
This week, I’m thrilled to be joined by Imani Thompson. Imani is a digital security trainer and host of a series of events called Cache Me Outside, where she and partner orgs help people understand their personal security, divest from big tech platforms, and learn how to stay safe online. She recently hosted a “de-Googling” party and a self-doxxing rave.

We get into how platforms have tried to make surveillance cute, why that damn Duolingo owl emotionally manipulates you, and why learning about privacy best practices when surrounded by community works.

Follow Imani on Instagram

A 'Self-Doxing' Rave Helps Trans People Stay Safe Online

Now you can break up with big tech at a bar: ‘cybersecurity disguised as a party’

Fix It With Piggy

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/C4WVYBEIgzM

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54min
June 10, 2026Google Employees Meme About How Bad Their AI Is
We start this week with Emanuel’s story about the internal memes Google employees are making all about AI. Definitely check out some of the examples in the article or on YouTube. After the break, Jason tells us how Microsoft explicitly wants to “make people addicted” to its new AI assistant, according to an internal document. In the subscribers-only section, Jason explains how companies are using Reddit to manipulate AI search results and big LEGO drama.
Google Employees Internally Share Memes About How Its AI Sucks

Microsoft Wants to 'Make People Addicted' to its New AI Assistant, Internal Documents Reveal

Companies Are Using Reddit to Manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search

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36min
June 08, 2026 It’s So Not Over for Hollywood (with Devindra Hardawar)
Emanuel talks to Devindra Hardawar about AI in Hollywood and the state of the movie industry.

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I didn’t plan it this way, but it’s a good coincidence that my interview with Devindra Hardawar is coming out on the week that the first Star Wars movie in years is being crushed at the box office by two low budget horror movies. Something is extremely off at Hollywood, or at least the old studio executives and streamers who control most of the money that funds movies.

This week we’re joined by Devindra Hardawar. Devindra is a senior editor at Engadget and a co-host of The Filmcast, a podcast about film I’ve been listening to for 15 years. We’ve covered the intersection of the movie industry and AI here and there on 404 Media, but Devindra lives at that intersection. He’s the perfect person to talk to about AI and film, but also the state of the industry more broadly, how to fit movies into your life in the age of the infinite scroll, how to introduce kids to film, and more.

YouTube Version: https://youtu.be/imCSQkhFkoM

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1h 2min

FAQs about The 404 Media Podcast:

How many episodes does The 404 Media Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 199 episodes available.

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