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EPISODE 116: SOCIAL MEDIA IS TERRIFYING! Vol. 2
778 Plays8 months ago
Social media can be fun, ridiculous, informative, and inspiring— and it can also illuminate some of the darker aspects of human beings and how we interact. In our second volume exploring social media, listen in to hear more about the state of social and AI, and the wild world of influencers.
HORROR IN THE MOVIES
We’re not watching reels, babes— we’re watching movies. SICK and INFLUENCER, to be exact!
WHATCHA BEEN WATCHIN’, BITCH?!
Listen in to hear what we’ve been watchin’... bitch!
SOCIAL MEDIA WORTH FOLLOWING
Get a recc on an account actually worth following!
–
A proud, independent podcast
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Frage the 13th Horror Podcast'
00:00:00
Speaker
Frage the 13th Horror Podcast is a proud, independent podcast. To learn more about the show, visit frage13.com.
Becoming an Influencer: Humorous Insights
00:00:11
Speaker
Matty, so I'm an influencer now. Really? That's a pretty big career shift. I know, but it just felt right. Like and subscribe. So what's the industry that you're influencing, do you think?
00:00:26
Speaker
Well, horror, naturally. Uh, okay, cool. And is there like a special way you're gonna do this? Are you building a new following on Insta or something? Or... Actually, influencers are merely a cog in the machine of the social media leviathan, slowly sucking the marrow of humanity to draw us deeper and deeper into the widening quagmire of technology, driving us further and further away from our own and our own shared humanity.
Episode 116: Social Media's Terrifying Impact
00:00:52
Speaker
Andrew, you know what?
00:00:55
Speaker
I agree with you. It's episode 116, social media volume two is terrifying. I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom. I'm Marjorie Greene and I approve this message to save America, Scott socialism and Scott China.
00:01:23
Speaker
In real life. Doubters, the Doomsters, the Gloomsters, they are going to get it wrong. They are acting oblivious. Where are you gonna go? Where are you gonna run? Where are you gonna hide? Nowhere. Because there's no one like you left. What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! Let's go! What are you waiting for, huh?
00:01:54
Speaker
I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning.
00:02:03
Speaker
Valerie influencers aren't always under the microscope. In this case, she certainly was. The details in this case are also quite disturbing.
Podcast Theme: Horror from an LGBT Perspective
00:02:10
Speaker
Can you just remind us what happened here? Isinkli, this was a parenting lifestyle channel that Ruby Frankie had on YouTube. But critics say it was really a harsh parenting style that she was promoting. She pleaded guilty to numerous charges, including things like holding a child's head underwater, putting her hand over a child's mouth and nose so they couldn't breathe, kicking a child while she was wearing boots.
00:02:32
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of Friday, the 13th Horror Podcast. My name is Maddie and I'm Andrew. And if this is your first time with us on Friday, the 13th Horror Podcast, welcome. This is our one hundred and sixteenth episode. And this is Social Media is Terrifying Volume two, because we did another one called Social Media is Terrifying. I think it was three years ago, Andrew, I want to say it was twenty twenty. It was our first one, I think.
00:03:00
Speaker
over digital. That was when the pandemic happened and we were both right. That's four years ago. Hi, everyone. The pandemic happened four years ago. How's your life going?
Certified Terrifying Corner: Real-World News
00:03:16
Speaker
If it is your first time with us also too, we are the podcast that talks about horror in real life and in the movies from an LGBT perspective.
00:03:26
Speaker
And we choose a theme every episode. We match two horror films that meet that theme, and we chat all about it in about an hour and a half to two hours. Sometimes, though, it goes longer if you're feeling a little bit naughty. Yeah, if you're feeling naughty and sexy and spicy, we talk to you all night long. Anyways, Andrew, good to be back with you.
00:03:48
Speaker
You know, Andrew, the thing about our podcast that just keeps it ticking, do you want to know what it is besides the fact that we're both insane? Oh, what is it? The thing is this, the world never stops being terrifying, Andrew. Oh, yeah, that's right. The world just sucks still. And I'll take you, Andrew, to get this episode on a roll to the first segment that we always do, which is called Our Certified Terrifying Corner. Andrew, I have three items for you today. These are coming straight from the news of the real world. They're all fucking nuts. Are you ready for them?
00:04:16
Speaker
I'm already terrified. Perfect. Yeah, me too. Um, the first one is this look, uh, so it is, we're recording this on Sunday, March 3rd. Uh, it was about a week and a half ago that a U S airman, uh, died after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC on Sunday, shouting free Palestine.
00:04:40
Speaker
Aaron Bushnell, who was 25 years old, was taken to hospital after Secret Service officers extinguished the flames. I want to say this.
00:04:50
Speaker
I don't really even care how you feel about Israel or Gaza or Palestine or Hamas. I don't care what your opinion is. The thing is this, whatever your opinion is, it's fucking insane to light yourself on fire and you shouldn't do that. And I don't know if you've followed the story at all or if you've heard much about it beyond just like, you know, what happened, which is insane, like literally clinically insane. But like people are making this dude into a hero.
00:05:20
Speaker
And you shouldn't be doing that. I don't know what else to fucking tell you that this is not the person to make into a hero, a person with very clear mental health problems who lit himself on fire.
Israel-Hamas and Global Tensions
00:05:30
Speaker
It doesn't matter what your cause is. It's wrong. You shouldn't do this. This is it's a terrible thing. And not only that, but the part of the story that people aren't talking about so much is that this guy came from a pretty weird background man. He was in sort of like a fundamentalist Christian cult.
00:05:48
Speaker
for a while apparently. Perfect. So I mean yeah like look this guy was not in the right mental state to begin with it is it's scary to me and sad to see young people especially young progressive people on on the left just sort of like making him into like a like a hero about this I I you shouldn't do that if you're doing that please stop you can make your voice heard
00:06:29
Speaker
their opinion across the table where it's like, no, stop. Everyone stop. Everyone stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. This is too much. We need too much. Come on, like fucking stop it. Now let's go on further from here because it's another one about Israel and the Israel Hamas war.
00:06:33
Speaker
by not lighting yourself
00:06:49
Speaker
Now more than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza. And that is terrifyingly sad. And it's awful. And it's something that should not have happened. And passing that milestone, which is a grim milestone to pass, is just, I don't know, dude, it's pretty terrible that this is even happening in the modern world.
00:07:11
Speaker
There's a couple things that I think about and I think number one Hamas should have never attacked Israel in the first place. You knew what was going to happen. You knew exactly what Israel would do and you did it anyway. You knew that innocent people would suffer and you still made this decision to do it. You're evil. You're an evil son of a bitch for doing that.
00:07:30
Speaker
And at the same time, Benjamin Netanyahu, you are a fucking freak. You're a fucking freak. And while I do think that Israel has a right to defend itself, I think that at this point, like, you got to get your head in the fucking game, people. Like, this is ridiculous. All you're doing is creating people that are going to hate you in the future.
00:07:47
Speaker
And it's going nowhere. So I don't know what needs to happen here, but it needs to fucking stop already. Things need to occur. Peace needs to happen. Hostages need to be released. We need to come back to some kind of fucking sanity because 30,000 people dead is awful. It's terrible.
00:08:04
Speaker
I mean, it's the same thing with Russia and Ukraine. If this is gonna be the precedent that we set for the future, this is really grim. And this is what people are going to look at as what the future looks like, and it's okay to just
Social Media's Role in Misinformation
00:08:23
Speaker
fucking kill your neighbor or start something. Honestly, it scares me so bad because I just know that everything is like
00:08:36
Speaker
And I feel this I just feel like everything is right on the brink and I can't I Honestly, I honestly feel the same way I really do yeah and like, you know III watch I'm sort of like right in the middle like if you think about like I don't know if you laid out a map I kind of am right in the middle right now. That's like yeah
00:08:54
Speaker
I look back at America and I see what's going on there. I look sort of over to my rights and I see Europe and I see what's happening here. And then I think about all... It's scary now. It's so scary. It feels like everyone's on edge no matter where you're at politically. Agreed. It just feels like everything is like... There's like a scale and it's right in the middle right now and I don't know which way it's gonna tip.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Nothing feels right right now. And I think you were right to bring up the social media aspect of the Aaron Bushnell case up there, because social media is helping to fuel all of it, I think, in a lot of ways. And so we'll talk about that. My final piece here, which should also be pretty terrifying to everyone around the world, not just to Americans, maybe especially to Americans that are around the world,
00:09:48
Speaker
Trump beats Biden in the latest CNN poll with Biden's disapproval rating higher than ever at 47%. The election now is eight months away. I don't understand this. I don't understand.
00:10:07
Speaker
People, do you remember what it was like coming out of the Trump era? Do you remember where the country was at and where everything was happening? I'm not trying to say that Biden is a great guy or a perfect president or anything, but
00:10:24
Speaker
we're at least better than we were. So like, I don't know. If there is no one to go up against Biden, I don't understand why we can't just let this old guy do it for another four years. I don't know. I am not in the fighting bunch anymore when it comes to these things. Same. Like my fire is gone, dude. It's gone.
00:10:50
Speaker
It's not my time to fight for it. It's time for another generation to do it. And if they don't want Trump, then we gotta fucking figure it out. But that's the thing, is that this new generation, they don't seem to understand.
00:11:06
Speaker
I think that, you know, what you were saying earlier makes so much sense with what I'm about to say now, right? So like you were saying like, you know, everything just feels on the brink. And I think for young people, I think that they feel that too. But it's almost that they feel it in a different way. It's almost like they feel like, yes, everything is on the brink and nothing matters. And so it's like for them, they're like, well, if I vote in this person, it doesn't matter. And if I vote in this person, it doesn't matter. So I'm just going to do whatever I want to do and fuck off. And they don't care about the future.
00:11:36
Speaker
And like, you know, the thing is to is like, you know, I am a person who considers myself on the left. But like, I'm also a person who considers myself on the left, that would be like, the closest thing I could describe myself to would be like a democratic Bernie Sanders socialist. And you can think whatever you want about Bernie Sanders. But here's the core of what Bernie Sanders believes.
00:11:56
Speaker
Bernie Sanders believes in a world that is equitable, where everyone
Social Media as a Modern Religion?
00:12:00
Speaker
gets what they need and blah, blah, blah, blah. But he also believes that America is a force for good. He believes in democracy. He believes in the power of all these things. He doesn't want to completely destroy the institution, whereas
00:12:15
Speaker
I don't know, the new American left wants to destroy the institution. And I'm saying that doesn't, that's not going to work. That's not, that doesn't solve anything. It doesn't solve anything. And like, and also too, I will say this, like now that I have lived outside of the country for almost three years,
00:12:30
Speaker
Trust me when I say this, America can be a force for good in this world. We can also do bad things, but fuck, we can be a great force for good in this world, and we have to keep trying. We have to keep trying, people. And I think, just to kind of round this up, I think that
00:12:48
Speaker
we as a like a really big country in this world, we are going to set a precedent by this next election. And it's either going to be for keeping on being progressive or really taking a weird right turn. And it's going to be fucking weird, man. Well, I'll talk to you when we take that right turn, because I think that's what's about to happen. Anyways, in Costa Rica. Thank you. Yeah.
00:13:16
Speaker
Make sure your passports are ready to go. Folks, that does it for the Certified Terrifying Corner. We'll move on with the show now into our Horror in Real Life segment. Yes, sorry about that, everybody. That just got really dark there for a second. Don't be sorry. This is the world, dude. This is what we talk about. So, yeah, we're talking about social media and its more terrifying aspects today. I think what I want to start out with is this, a bit of a disclaimer. Just like Andrew, if we were doing one on healthcare, you would probably do it the same way. I work in social media.
00:13:45
Speaker
Right? And so I work in social media technology. The company that I work for created an aggregator software, which is wildly successful. I'm very proud of the work that we do and proud of the tool that we have and the work that we do for our clients. I think it's wonderful. I think that social media can be an amazing force for good in this world. I truly, truly believe that. I've seen it be that before.
00:14:09
Speaker
And I also think that we are still in the adolescence in many infancy. I wouldn't even call it adolescence. I think adolescence because it's a wily ass teenager. You know what I mean? Like if it was a baby, at least I could like fucking make it like, I don't know, I could soothe it. But like, it's like a fucking teenager that just won't shut the fuck up. You know, it's like, shut the fuck up.
00:14:35
Speaker
up. And that's the problem. It's like any other thing. It's all about the intent that you bring to it when you use it. You know what I mean? And with fucking social media, people just can't stop. They just can't stop. And they can't stop arguing. They can't stop faking. They can't stop falsifying. They can't stop spreading misinformation.
00:14:59
Speaker
They can't stop trying to con people and trying to swindle people. And those are the dark sides of social media that are just terrible. So what I think about when I went exactly what you're talking about is exactly how I feel about religion. Religion can be harnessed for such good and such community and such awesomeness, but it also can be used for such harm and
00:15:26
Speaker
just taking advantage of people. And that's exactly like what has evolved with social media is that it was harnessed to be a thing of community. We think about, you know, the beginnings of like live blog, MySpace, Facebook, like those were all created. Did you just say live? Did you just say live blog, by the way?
00:15:48
Speaker
live journal. But those were all meant to like share ourselves with other people and like try to, I don't know, try to use the internet in a way to like connect.
00:16:03
Speaker
Jan what exactly now well and now it's become how much money can I make off well here's the thing it's great that you brought up religion because you're describing the sort of how various religions have have come about and in themselves I mean so is the new church this is the new temple this is the new mosque this is the new place where people come together to connect which in the end
00:16:26
Speaker
when religion is done right, that's what religion is about, is a place or a feeling or a concept that connects people into community. And like you said, there are some religions and not some religions, I should say, there are some people that do religion right, right? An example, my community back in Chicago, they do it right, All Saints Episcopal Church, incredible community of people that love to just do good in the world.
00:16:52
Speaker
But then you've got plenty of other people who are just fucking pieces of shit about it. It's the same thing with social media. I think you're dead on.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's the comparison of your church giving out free food every Tuesday to the comparison of Joel Austin not letting anybody come in after Hurricane Katrina.
Digital Threats to the 2024 Election
00:17:12
Speaker
It's insane to think about. But at the same time, beyond just all of it being either morally or ethically dubious or even wrong in a lot of cases,
00:17:23
Speaker
It's also dangerous. And we've learned over the years of the harmful effects of teenagers using Instagram too much and how that destroys body image, how it destroys self-esteem, how it can lead to suicide or to suicidal ideation, to mental health issues. I gotta tell you, Maddie, if we had social media in high school, I don't know if I would have made it out.
00:17:48
Speaker
God, Andrew, that's sad to hear, but I know what you're saying. I get it. It was already tough not knowing what people were saying about you. If I knew what people were saying about me, oh, I don't know. Yeah, I'm grateful for it myself that it didn't really become a thing until after college. I mean, it's just... And I'm also grateful that I don't have a track record on social media.
00:18:11
Speaker
my god almighty yes dude yes but i mean look there there are some dangerous things here that that are that are coming about too and there's there's a piece that i read in the washington post this morning getting ready for the uh for this episode and it's directly related related to the 2024 election we were just talking about
00:18:30
Speaker
So, Andrew, I'll read you a bit from this article, and this is from the Washington Post, and the title here is, The Biggest Digital Threat to 2024 Elections Isn't AI, New Report Says. So, here we go. When people talk about online misinformation and threats to democracy in 2024, artificial intelligence fakes tend to get the attention.
00:18:54
Speaker
A new report from New York University surveys the digital landscape and finds that the greatest danger remains a more familiar and stubborn one. In short, it's just social media. Three years after the January 6th insurrection and a year after Brazil's January 8th violence, major online platform companies such as Meta, Google, and X have largely failed to fix the systemic problems that contributed to these events, according to the authors of the report.
00:19:22
Speaker
And the report came from NYU's Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Based on a review of academic literature, relevant news reports, and interviews with a dozen current and former officials at social media companies, the report aims to catalog the various ways online tools and platforms could be used to subvert the 2024 U.S. election.
00:19:43
Speaker
It identifies AI-generated deepfakes as an increasingly problematic vector for propaganda. But there's a more basic solution, lead author Paul Barrett said, which is that social networks are still designed to spread information of all kinds, fast, far, and wide. And there are signs the networks are retreating from commitments to safeguard public discourse by eliminating misinformation when they should be redoubling those efforts.
00:20:12
Speaker
The most glaring example is X, formerly Twitter, where Elon Musk has slashed the workforce, disbanded the election integrity team, and reinstated accounts previously banned for hate speech and pushing baseless claims.
00:20:28
Speaker
At the same time, Musk has helped to fan suspicion of content moderation more broadly, framing the efforts by Twitter and other tech firms to identify and remove election-related falsehoods as part of a liberal effort to censor speech. X did not respond to a request for comment for the story.
00:20:46
Speaker
Musk's actions, combined with industry-wide layoffs and Republican-led hearings and lawsuits aimed at stopping coordination between social media firms and governments, have lowered the bar for rival social media platforms, the author argues. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and now Threads, retains a large content moderation workforce by industry standards, continues to enforce policies around election interference. But the NYU report notes that the company also reinstated Donald Trump's account.
00:21:16
Speaker
after banning it in the aftermath of January 6th and has loosened its rules to allow political ads to question the legitimacy of the 2020 election. It also cites media reports from 2022 that amid layoffs totaling 21,000 employees, the company's election team dwindled from 300 employees to 60 and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stopped meeting with them regularly.
00:21:46
Speaker
YouTube also reinstated Donald Trump's account, recently did a policy of removing videos that questioned the 2020 results, although it still demonetizes them. Then there's TikTok, which the report identifies as a sort of X factor in 2024. While it's clear the platform has become more influential in politics since 2020,
00:22:05
Speaker
It's not clear exactly how that influence will play out. While their policies are all fine, quote unquote, there are concerns that video misinformation is harder than text or images to moderate its scale. And there remain questions about the app's connections to its Chinese parent company and the Chinese government. So I could go on here, but I won't. It's just the same thing over and over again. But I think you get the drift here, right? We are in a major
00:22:33
Speaker
Major election and like I know that some people think like we'll have reelections major We're always trying to make it sound like that. I genuinely think Andrew that if Donald Trump wins this election
00:22:47
Speaker
It is the end of America. And I'm not even joking. Like I really do feel that way. I think it's the start. And if it's the start, it's going to be swift coming down because he already has plans in place to have like the military come in to get rid of these people. I mean, he's a fucking dictator. Like they have been working. Well, he wants to rewrite the why am I blanking on our declaration of independence? Right. He wants to like he wants to rewrite that shit.
00:23:17
Speaker
Exactly. This is what is going to happen and he has smart people around him that are waiting with their teeth gnashed to do it. So look, we are in dire straits and with everyone on social media, the new religion, this is where people go to worship now, not every Sunday. They go there every day all day. They're praying at the temple
00:23:40
Speaker
all day long to the invisible god of social media. And they're being fed this shit nonstop. Everyone in the world is a zealot now. No one, no one out there is reasonable. And so what are we gonna do? Like what are we going to do if the companies themselves won't do it? And the reality is they won't. And we know why, because they are making so much money. They're making so much money.
00:24:10
Speaker
So this is a terrifying time indeed. And I really hope that, you know, look, people out there that are like me, you know, like I said, I'm sort of a Democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders socialist, that's where I find myself. And I know how it felt in the past, you know, decade to feel like people thought that you were weird and stupid and dumb and your voice didn't matter. I'm with you on this. Trust me, I get it.
00:24:34
Speaker
But please, for the love of God, listen to one of your brothers in exile. Don't waste this election right now. Like, please don't fucking do that. Please. Biden sucks. I know it. But just fucking vote for him and get it done. I don't know. I don't know what else to tell you. Please. I agree with you. It's it's it's not like we don't want more progressive people in office, but we have to get this person in office in order for those people to thrive in the future.
00:25:04
Speaker
And listen, my dudes, look, the man is old. He's kind of fit. And I'm not saying that I want him to, but he might die in office. So you'll have another chance. I don't know what else to say. I'm not even trying to be mean about it. No, it's totally fine. It's the fucking truth. So vote for this 81-year-old person, get him in office, and let's fucking move on.
The World and Earnings of Influencers
00:25:24
Speaker
Because if Donald Trump wins, if you think your life is going to be better with Donald Trump,
00:25:29
Speaker
You have a fucking screw loose. If you think Gaza is going to be better under Trump right now, you're fucking crazy. He would nuke the fucking place before he did anything else. So this man, this man would send his own children to jail before.
00:25:44
Speaker
He would kill, he would kill, he would dig up his own mother to kill her again and then bury her again. I mean, come on. This is a monster. You don't want this. Trust me. So get off social media, get your head back in the fucking game, get to real work, elect Joe Biden for the love of God. I know it fucking sucks to say that, but just go fucking do it. That's it. Agreed.
00:26:05
Speaker
Do you want to talk about influencers? I do. Yeah. So, you know, influencers are so interesting. It's become a bigger part of my life recently, not because I am one, but because our company recently we acquired an influencer management piece of software. And so I think about this a great deal more than I used to. And it's really, really interesting stuff. I know you've got some cool stats to share and even a little bit about
00:26:33
Speaker
how they make money and how much money they make. So influencers, even if you don't know, you've seen one of these people. They have gotten so sneaky about how they're doing influencing these days to where you don't even know anymore.
00:26:52
Speaker
It's not like a lot of times, even on podcasts, we've been sponsored by Manscaped before. We've had a couple of different things where we try to sell you shit for money. And that's how the world works and whatever. We've dabbled in this area.
00:27:10
Speaker
I mean, we've we've we've dabbled in advertising like influencers are that that's a whole. Well, we've we've we've had endorsements. We've not had like like we've never tried to like actively sell things like no. So influencers are this for right now, Andrew, I'm just having this delicious diet poke. And I don't know about you, but every time I get ready to podcast, I just.
00:27:35
Speaker
Pop open a Diet Coke and feel refreshed the whole time. Oh, and I have this delicious Arizona iced tea. Oh, Arizona. It's so hot there. Why wouldn't you want a beverage? I'm so parched. Jeez.
00:27:52
Speaker
So there are a couple different ways that they describe influencers and really it's honestly all based on social media following. So there are nano influencers which are about a thousand to ten thousand followers so we would kind of fall in that realm as far as Instagram.
00:28:09
Speaker
Um, there's mid tier influencers, which are 10,000 to a hundred thousand followers, macro influencers, which are a hundred thousand to a million followers. And then there's mega influencers slash celebrities, which are a million plus. So the average income, and this all comes from a website called, uh, demon D sage, unless you say that we're a different way. I don't know how to say that.
00:28:37
Speaker
I like how I went to Demon, right? Yeah. I think there was Freudian Andrew. It's demand sake. That was really funny. So this has actually been updated on February 19th of 2024. So it's very recent. The average income per post for a nano influencer is $195. So think about that. Like we could be making $200 a post. Oh my God.
00:29:04
Speaker
We could be rich right now. I do it for the 47 likes that we get. They are right exactly. Jesus.
00:29:11
Speaker
Mid-tier influencers can average about $1,200 per post. Macro influencers can average about $1,800 per post. And mega influencers and celebrities can average about $5,000 per post. Can you fucking imagine that? I dream about $5,000 like it's gonna solve my life. I know, for real. I'm like, give it to me, please. So additionally,
00:29:38
Speaker
Think about this. For instance, Cristiano Ronaldo, the soccer player, or football, if you're listening from the UK, makes $2.3 million per post.
00:29:57
Speaker
That's not fair. That's not right. There's something wrong in the matrix. It's two things. Number one, if someone offered it to you, you would do it in a heartbeat. And then at the same time, it's like, how is it possible? And then I would retire. I mean, seriously. I mean, it's run amok. It's run amok.
00:30:20
Speaker
Um, yeah. So like, there's just like, I don't know. There's sometimes where I just don't understand why people need so much money. Like, I don't know if it, if it's just like, if it's like growing up in the Midwest, like from like a kind of, you know, kind of poor family. Like we, we always had food on the table. We always had what we needed, but like, I don't know if it's that mentality that just like makes us like, well, if I like, literally, I still think this way. Well, if I had a million dollars, I'd just be done. Like,
00:30:50
Speaker
I think like anything else, the richer you get, everything just becomes relative. The more money you get, the more money you spend. I'm at a fortunate place in my life that I've worked very hard to be at now, but I've seen it in my own life too. You work really hard, you make more money, but it takes money to make money in a lot of ways.
00:31:12
Speaker
And then too, you just spend more money on things. It's weird. And I imagine at a certain point, even for like, I don't know, for Messi and Ronaldo, it's gotta be somehow like that for them. I have to imagine. I imagine for them, they've turned themselves into a company at that point. It's not just like a person anymore. And it's almost like they just probably float above it in a lot of ways.
00:31:39
Speaker
Yeah. Do you want to hear some of the crazy things that influencers have done to get some of these like likes? So one woman, a college student in Mexico decided to play with her life and did an extreme yoga pose over the railing of her 80 feet balcony. She fell from the sixth floor and broke both her legs, suffering fractures from her arms, hips and head.
00:32:01
Speaker
Oh, maybe that wasn't a good idea, like just saying. Another person, they drank the contents of a snow globe. You know, like, how do you think a snow globe works? Like, do you think the stuff just floats in there like like like little angels because it's water? Like, what do you think? Her tweet following the incident just said hospital.
00:32:28
Speaker
I mean my god like I mean like are you fucking dumb like come on oh glitter poop for days um um so there's another thing that kind of follows in social media is like social media trends so if we remember like years ago tide pods wherever oh my god
00:32:47
Speaker
There's a new trend going around where girls are trying to glue their top lip to their upper, like, where they're like, where a mustache would be basically to look more like Kylie Jenner or to have fuller lips.
00:33:02
Speaker
I mean, like, do they think the glue is just gonna stay there forever? Forever? I mean, like, I don't, like, go ask your mom for Botox. I don't know what else to tell you. Like, I don't know, like, maybe we should just let them do this so that they can figure out how dumb they really are.
00:33:18
Speaker
You know what? I agree with you there. Like, let let them figure it out. OK. OK. I'll tell you what. Why don't you try that and tell me how that works for you. Right. So another one, an exploitative YouTuber. They actually YouTuber Chris Conner noticed a disturbing trend on YouTube in December where creators, quote unquote, pranked their friends into thinking they were in an abusive relationship.
00:33:43
Speaker
He called out two TikTok stars, Sebastian Bales and Lauren Godwin, for a video that saw them yelling at each other and even using fake blood to feign violence. What is good about this is that it led YouTuber Curtis Connor to raise $10,000 for basically an anti-abusive
Social Media's Impact on Morality
00:34:07
Speaker
thing, what's bad about it is that these people thought abuse would be popular. My thought here though is this, I think that in... I think we can go back to the idea of social media as the new church, the global unified religion. I think that morality
00:34:34
Speaker
has changed because of it. And I think that especially young people who are so impressionable don't have the same sense of what's right and what's wrong and why something like that would be so terrible for some people to experience.
00:34:55
Speaker
or why it would just be so fucking dumb to do. Yeah, it's all about the serotonin directly into the brain of the life. I mean, the reality is this, Andrew, it's not like they're being, you know, it's not like they're not being shepherded into this, right? I mean, we're sitting here talking about young people. The priests of the church are their parents. And they're the ones who are taking them with them on the little journey.
00:35:24
Speaker
to church every fucking day. It's just like, for example, for a long time, there's been a lot of talk about how much screen time is right for your child in early childhood, from zero to eight, but even when they're teenagers. And the thing that my former boss who did a lot of research on screen time
00:35:43
Speaker
would always say is that it's up, the parents are the ones who model it. So if you're at the dinner table, which I mean, I hate to sound like an old fogey, but I mean like who is anymore, quite frankly, but like if you're at the dinner table or whatever sort of communal thing you do as a family and all the parents are doing is sitting on their fucking phones on social media, what the fuck do you think your kid is going to do? You know what I mean? Like you're literally showing them, this is how you interact with the world you get on your phone. And so it's like,
00:36:12
Speaker
What do we expect that we have people who are growing up with their neurons connecting and they don't understand empathy anymore because they're not even around other kids anymore. Like they just want to be on their fucking phone or on their fucking, I don't know, PlayStation or Discord all fucking day. That is not good. It's not good developmentally for our species. It's not.
00:36:33
Speaker
Yeah. One other one I want to talk about is this, this, this new bitch that just literally this just happened in the last like six months. Um, do you know the story about Ruby Frankie? I have no idea and I'm glad that I don't.
00:36:47
Speaker
So as of September, Ruby Frankie, she basically was a YouTuber who gained fame by having a very popular, she called it eight passengers channel. And it was her and her six, her husband and her six children. And she kind of shared parenting advice.
00:37:10
Speaker
and it just kind of followed their daily life. Well, just hear this. After Frankie began receiving criticism from her following about her strict parenting, which someone commented suggested was abusive, she stopped uploading videos on the channel and began a Connections Parenting Advice podcast with her friend Jodi Hildebrandt.
00:37:38
Speaker
Frankie and Hildebrandt were arrested last Wednesday. This is as of September 6, 2020, at Hildebrandt's home in Ivins, Utah, after police say Frankie's 12-year-old son allegedly escaped the house and ran to a neighbor's home asking for food and water. This comes directly from a police statement.
00:38:00
Speaker
The neighbor called police and officers arrived at the house soon finding Frankie's 10-year-old daughter in a similar physical condition of malnourishment, according to the statement. Both children appeared emaciated and malnourished with open wounds and duct tape around the extremities.
00:38:18
Speaker
and they were taken to the hospital for treatment. The press release from the attorney's office claimed that each defendant is accused of causing or permitting serious physical injury to the victims in three different ways. A combination of multiple physical injuries or torture, starvation or malnourishment that jeopardizes life and causing severe emotional harm. Thankfully, as of February 20th, so just what
00:38:44
Speaker
13 days ago, the former family vlogger Ruby Frankie was sentenced to four one to 15 year terms in prison by Utah District Court on Tuesday. And same with her partner Jody Hildebrandt, who was also sentenced to one to 15 years in prison. So once again, just a reminder, what you see on the internet is not always the truth.
Reassessing Social Media Engagement
00:39:13
Speaker
And that will be very evident when we get into our films today. Just like remember that like you don't, I don't know. I don't know what to say to people at this point because we're like literally on the internet talking.
00:39:32
Speaker
I know what to say, I know what to say, but this is what I would say is this. Like, I remember a time when I felt like I had to say something on social. And I think everyone has probably gone through this recently. I'm sure you've had moments of it, our friends have, our family has, we've all been there.
00:39:50
Speaker
I definitely changed that last year. And it just I suddenly got into my head that, you know what? What if I just don't participate? And like for the large part now, I don't. In fact, if you follow me on any social media, what I do now is I will post an Instagram story now and then of like usually I'm stoned and like I think and I think something's funny. So it's like the Muppets or like, I don't know, music.
00:40:19
Speaker
Or I might be a little sad and I'll post a song or something. Or it's something I want to celebrate and find I'll do that. But I hardly ever actually post anything anymore. The only time I post on Facebook is if I have something positive to say. And it's about my job, basically, or my wife here. And I post on LinkedIn, of course, for job updates. That's it. And then on Twitter, I've mostly left it. Every now and then,
00:40:44
Speaker
every now and then I'll come back to Twitter to say something and I will always say popping in to say bam and then I'll just walk away from it because I want to say it to somebody because frankly I have a lonely life sometimes but like in other words you don't have to say as much as you think you do you really don't and so take a breath
00:41:04
Speaker
Take a step back. Call your friends. And just really think, do I really need to post this right now? Is this helping? Not even, is it helping the world? Is it helping this person? Ask yourself, is it helping me? Do I feel better?
00:41:20
Speaker
doing this? Will I feel good posting this thing or commenting or replying or keeping the argument going? Chances are, my dear sweet love, you will not feel better. You'll feel worse. Trust me. Just call and talk to people. Go do something.
00:41:41
Speaker
I don't know. Agreed. Look, Andrew, in the spirit of doing something, that's it for this segment. Um, lots of positive stuff there, folks. We're going to leave it there. Hopefully you're logging off of all your social media accounts right now and you're, I don't know, booking, booking something
Recent Media Consumption
00:41:57
Speaker
positive for yourself. It has nothing to do with the screen. Um, but while we still have you on this screen that you are listening to right now, uh, we're going to take a little break and come right back with our next segment, which is what you've been watching bitch.
00:42:11
Speaker
Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat. Welcome back. It's time for the very famous segment. What you been watching, bitch?
00:42:28
Speaker
What you've been watching, you social media influencing little bitch. This is the part of the show where we literally talk about what we've been watching. Sometimes it goes into what we've been reading or what we've been like listening to. But most of the time it's what you've been watching. So Maddie, what you've been watching, you little bitch, I will tell you what I've been watching.
00:42:48
Speaker
The first thing that I've been watching is this. It is one that I had never heard of until last month. It's called The News Reader. The News Reader is a television series out of Australia. And it stars a number of people, but you might not really know them because they're Australian. And what all that I mean by that is they're just not very popular outside of Australia, as far as I can tell.
00:43:14
Speaker
But one person you do know, it's Anna Torv. And you know Anna Torv because she was the professor, the researcher in Mindhunter, right? So that's what drew me in right away. Also, I was the person that I was dating.
00:43:30
Speaker
No longer dating Andrew. He introduced me to this. Also, I just wanna say, if you're listening to this, you suck, dickwad. Anyways, whatever, that's over now. But I did get this out of him, which was nice. This show is great. There's two series of it. Now, I don't know how you can watch this, I'll be honest. I watch this on RTE Player, which is Ireland-specific. I don't know where else you find it, so I don't know, but trust me, you're gonna want to.
00:43:58
Speaker
because it's really fucking good. So it came out in 2021, there's two series, and it's what it sounds like. A news reader over in this part of the world is a news anchor, right? And so it's about news readers at the station, Channel 6 in Melbourne, just doing the news in the 80s. And so each episode sort of goes through a different big news story in Australian history, right, about that?
00:44:24
Speaker
And so that in itself is really interesting. But then on top of it, the drama in the show and the comedy in the show and the acting, everything is so fucking good. Andrew, I think you'll love this show. I think Michael will like it too. I think honestly, most of the people that I know would be really fucking into this.
00:44:46
Speaker
So find it if you can. I think it's really wonderful. I won't tell you too much more about it. It's just called the news reader and a tour of it in it started in 2021 and it is fantastic. Go find it.
00:44:58
Speaker
Well, I can tell you if you're here in America, there is a really good app called JustWatch that you can download for free. And if you just search, you know, like what you did, the news reader, it will tell you if it's streaming anywhere or if you can purchase it anywhere. And actually, if you have Letterboxd too, JustWatch is integrated with Letterboxd. Oh, cool.
00:45:19
Speaker
All right, well, we are like in sync today because my first one comes from Australia too. What? Oh my god. So my first one is the Traders Australia, which if you know, I talked about the Traders to US last episode. I went ahead and moved over on that little peacock app and I saw a very handsome man saying the Traders Australia and I said, okay, let's give it a shot.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yes. The difference between the traders US and the traders Australia is that the traders US is all reality stars. Whereas the traders Australia are all common people. And so what makes it so much more dynamic is that they actually need the money. So they're much more. They're much more conniving. They're much more manipulative to try to win the ultimate prize of the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
00:46:17
Speaker
And so it makes for such fucking good TV. Like, let me tell you this. So there are two players. One is a a guy who was the longest standing Australian war prisoner of all time. Oh, my God. So he was in he was in I think I can't remember if it was Iraq or Iran. So the journalist.
00:46:42
Speaker
and got abducted and was held prisoner for like years. I think it was like 300. It's insane. I can't remember the actual type. And then the other one is a clairvoyant. There's a clairvoyant on this season. Okay, my goodness, where is going for it?
00:46:59
Speaker
And I got to tell you this a fucking I watched all of it in like three days. It was so good. But and then I was trying to perfect my Australian accent, but it never really came to be. So I expect that on the show. Australian.
00:47:15
Speaker
So if you like if you like reality TV, I can't recommend The Traders Australia enough. Love it. My next one comes from Netflix. It is love has won the cult of the Mother God or excuse me, the cult of Mother God, not the mother. I've heard about this. I have not make myself watch.
00:47:33
Speaker
uh it is awesome i really enjoyed it if you like watching stuff about cults definitely watch this um this is one that i had never heard of before uh before the documentary no yeah and it is the story of a woman named amy carlson
00:47:50
Speaker
who just became a self-proclaimed god. She one day just started this fucking like channel with like fucking videos and writings and all this shit and just started calling herself the mother god. That was it. And she had a very odd theology. She like
00:48:13
Speaker
believe that there was a galactic circle of angels around her. But among those angels were Robin Williams, for example. He did hear about this. And Prince, and I don't know, Donald Trump was one of them. Even though he's not dead. It is. It's absolutely bizarre. Bizarre shit. And also a crazy story. So I'm not gonna give a lot away here. I'm just gonna say, look,
00:48:41
Speaker
I enjoy stuff about cults. So if you do too, you probably will really like this. It is a wild story about people and how they believe and how they come to believe and how they come to have deep faith. And look, I think what's interesting about cult stories is that they always sound crazy. They always do. But you have to remember that like
00:49:06
Speaker
normal everyday people get caught up in them all the time. And it could be you, it could be me, it could be you, Andrew. It could happen one day and you wouldn't even realize it because you wouldn't believe that you were in a cult. And that is the case for the people who were in this cult. So watch it, it is well worth it. I watched it all in one night and I thought it was wild and I'm glad I did. It is crazy. Love is one, the cult of mother God.
00:49:37
Speaker
All right. My next one is an update from our last episode because you brought this movie to us the last episode and I finally had a chance to watch it. Um, this is gay angst. I'm sorry. No, all of us strangers. Um, this movie is so good, but so devastating.
00:49:55
Speaker
Like it is it is one of those movies, like I've said on this podcast before, I'm so happy I watched it and I'm so happy that it's there for people to see, especially for people our age. I'd never want to watch it again.
00:50:12
Speaker
It's too much. Did you also feel like there wasn't any real hope in it? Did you feel that way? No. I want people to watch this so I don't want to give too much away, but I don't really even quite
00:50:28
Speaker
truly understand the emotion of the ending that we're supposed to walk away with. Honestly, same. And it's not to break into your your selection here, but it is. It's odd to me to see people say, like, this is about the power of love. I'm like, I don't know. Is it? I don't. I didn't. What are you watching?
00:50:51
Speaker
I think that people want it to be about that. But I walked away thinking, number one, that it was a great observation of real life for gay people, but also that like it was pretty fucking hopeless at the end. I mean, it's like it's honestly like life is pain gay version, which is got some news, folks. It's reality. Yeah. No, but what I will say about it is that it's it's it's a really
00:51:20
Speaker
I don't want to use the word lovely, but that's the only thing I can think of. Like it is a really lovely movie, but like at the end of it, I'm just walking away thinking like Jesus Christ, there's no hope in this world anymore. Like totally agree with you. So a good movie. I don't know if I ever will truly understand.
00:51:42
Speaker
what I'm supposed to do with it. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. It makes total sense. I mean, it is one that I do want to watch like one more time just because I just want to get more of it again, I guess. I just the structure of it really weirds me out. Like I don't know what's real in the movie. I mean, we should stop there because it might give too much away. But I do. I do understand what you mean, though, for real.
00:52:10
Speaker
We can talk about it offline. Yes. All right. What's your next one? Oh, and is that on Hulu now for you? It is on Hulu. Yes. Oh, for everyone here in the U.S. of A. Yeah, can't get that over here. Anyways, my next one is called the outfit. This is on Netflix right now for us anyway. Oh, it is. It is for you, too, I think. And if not, I think it's also on Amazon for people in America.
00:52:38
Speaker
Anyways, the outfit. The outfit stars one of my favorite actors of all time, Mark Rylance. Also, Dylan O'Brien is in this, who I always think is a little cutie. I love Dylan O'Brien. He's just so good. Is that the guy from Teen Wolf? No, Dylan O'Brien. Well, he might have been. Dylan O'Brien was in, remember that Love and Monsters movie?
00:53:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's the same guy for the same guy. OK, yeah. OK, same guy. I wish Dylan O'Brien would date me like I wish that he would be my boyfriend. Anyways, this is a great movie. It is about a tailor, not a tailor, a cutter in Chicago in the 20s during the mob era, during the mafia era. So think like Al Capone type type business here, right? And Leonard owns this shop.
00:53:26
Speaker
Sort of like down the kinda like downtown basically and Leonard is English and he's in Chicago and his shop is used by the the local mobsters as a place to like like like pass messages back and forth.
00:53:42
Speaker
basically. And it's really, really good. I will not give you much information about this because there is a twist that you're going to want to be surprised by. But it was wonderful. It's so much fun. It plays on film like a play. And this very well might have been a play before. I honestly don't know.
00:54:04
Speaker
But I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was really, really good. Mark Rylance is just great as ever. And the rest of the cast is also really good too. Zoe Deutch is in it, Johnny Flynn, and some other people that you might have heard of before. So I enjoyed it. If you can watch it, you should. It's called The Outfit. It's on Netflix for me, but it might be somewhere else for you.
00:54:24
Speaker
Cool. Yeah, I had never even heard of this. I will definitely check it out. Definitely up my alley as far as Chicago viewing. Yes, ma'am. All right. My next one is now on Paramount Plus. It is the last voyage of the demeanor. So if you don't know, this is a chapter out of the book of Dracula.
00:54:43
Speaker
where Dracula basically is on the ship called the Demeter traveling in the UK from I think Transylvania to Britain is what they're trying to do.
00:54:59
Speaker
I don't know, it was just okay. This movie was really dark, so don't watch it during the day because you won't be able to see anything. It gives you a cast of characters that you kind of don't really care about all that much.
00:55:18
Speaker
when they die at the hand of Dracula, because spoiler alert, it's in every version of Dracula, but nobody makes it home from the demeanor. I don't know. This one just didn't hit for me. It wasn't. It would have definitely not been on my top list of last year. And yeah, I've I've thought about renting this a couple of times and I'm just like, rent it. Wait till it's free for you. I don't think I want to. Eventually, it'll be on something here that I can watch it. But I'm not surprised at hearing this, to be honest.
00:55:47
Speaker
And the weirdest thing is that there is no companion. So I don't really understand why they left him out of it. Weird. So there's there's no Renfield? No. Why? And like he's a main part of that whole thing. So unless I'm missing something and maybe I am, but like.
00:56:08
Speaker
It feels weird because in the original 1930, whatever, Dracula, Renfield's the only guy that survives and is the one that comes out and is like, he, I'm crazy Renfield. And so to like leave him out completely, I don't really understand unless I'm missing something. So listeners, if you know something I don't know, let me know.
00:56:31
Speaker
I think that's a weird choice, but to get more Dracula, you can go back to one of our episodes about monsters or terrifying vampires. Correct. Crazy. My next one, Andrew, my last one is One Day on Netflix.
00:56:46
Speaker
Okay, this stars Ambika Maud and Leo Woodall. You'll know Leo Woodall, of course, from the latest White Lotus, right? He was the really hot English guy with the nice body who talked like he's from Manchester. Yeah, yeah.
00:57:04
Speaker
this is a show that is about these two people who like fall in and out of love over and over again kind of thing. Um, yeah, so I put this on here and I will say, Andrew, I didn't finish it and like, I am probably one of the people out there who like,
00:57:22
Speaker
I'm probably going to be pilloried for this, but like people love, people seem to really love this movie or this, this series. I just, I thought it wasn't sufferable. I got through nearly the end of the first episode and like one of my friends over here was like, Oh my God, I just watched. I just, I just binged one day. I can't stop crying. It was so good. I was like, Oh, okay, cool. It's Sunday. I'm in an emotional mood. I'll watch it too.
00:57:47
Speaker
And I just thought it was absolutely insufferable. Like truly. Like to saccharin or like. It's so saccharin. The writing is so bad. And like, I don't know, sometimes I just feel like straight people and love are just very boring. They're very hallmark. And this is very, like, this is just very fucking weird. It's based off a book from what I understand. And there was also a movie called One Day Before, which I don't know if they do it a little bit differently in there.
00:58:11
Speaker
Um, I, it just didn't work for me and I'm not going to make fun of people that like, if you like it, you like it. I'm not, I'm not, I'm just razzing you right now. But for me, it just did not work. Maybe, maybe I'll go back and watch the rest of it. I don't know. Just like make sure that I'm being like a good watcher of things. But I, Andrew, I gotta be honest. I just don't want to. You don't have to. So there we go. You know? So that's one day for me, but if you like it, more power to you.
00:58:36
Speaker
All right. My last one is a back to Hulu. It is life and Beth season two. This is the Amy Schumer led TV show. So listen, I, I, I, and I don't really understand this. Amy Schumer gets a lot of shit and I don't really know why. Um, because a lot of it is real. A lot of it's Israel and Palestine right now.
00:58:58
Speaker
But I mean, like she gets a lot of shit for being like, like, for instance, she just had to publicly come out and say that she has this like disease that makes her like her face a little bit more puffy because everyone on the fucking Internet was like, why does Amy Schumer look like that in life and death season two? Why is she why is her face so puffy? And so she had to publicly come out and say that, like, I have a thyroid disease like.
00:59:21
Speaker
It's absolutely stupid. And that kind of shit just drives me absolutely insane. Stop commenting on people's bodies. Stop commenting on plastic surgery. Just let people fucking live their life the way they want to live their fucking life. If you don't like it, don't fucking watch it. Exactly. For me, I don't like one day. I'm not going to have to go back and fucking watch it. There you go. Yeah. And yeah, I have a podcast. I'm going to talk about it. If you don't like it, start a podcast. Stop being a dick.
00:59:49
Speaker
Yeah. But life and best season two follows, you know, life and best season one, obviously. But it's about, you know, her it's essentially Amy Schumer's real life. Like this is like what happened in her real life. And this season, they are falling more in love and they get married. But then she has to deal with, you know, his he has some mental capabilities that are not all there. So she has to deal with how does she communicate with her husband differently?
01:00:16
Speaker
But it's all through a lens of humor. And so it's really funny. Michael Cera plays her husband. And, you know, this season, they get they go down to New Orleans and it's I don't know, just watch it. And honestly, if you watch one episode and you don't think it's funny and but with a little it's a dramedy, that's what I'll say. It's like a dramedy. There's some drama, but it's also like really funny. And if it if that kind of humor doesn't capture you, then don't watch it.
01:00:45
Speaker
like move on to something else. But that kind of humor to me, just like somebody somewhere, which I talked about on HBO, this kind of humor is like my humor. It's a little bit self-deliberating. It's a little bit dry, but it's also just like witty and funny. So like, I don't know. I really liked the series. We watched it in about a week.
01:01:08
Speaker
I don't know. There's just something really special about some of these really small shows that are happening at this time that I think is really good. And so if you like somebody somewhere, if you like Life is Beth season one, you're going to love Life and Beth season two. Cool.
01:01:23
Speaker
Well, Andrew, that brings us to the end of what you've been watching, bitch. Andrew brought us The Traders Australia on Peacock, All of Us Strangers on Hulu or On Demand, The Last Voyage of the Demeter on Paramount+, and Life in Bath season 2 on Hulu.
01:01:39
Speaker
And Maddie brought us the news reader. Just look it up. You'll find it somewhere. Love has won the Cult of the Mother God on now, the outfit on Netflix, and one day on Netflix. So folks, we'll be right back with our next segment, which is the first of our horror in the movies, the film called Sick. Here's your mask. It's a vacation. It's a quarantine. A quarantine and smile.
01:02:13
Speaker
This is incredible. Sick. And it's all ours. The only neighbor is miles away. I thought you were spending quarantine alone. What are you doing here? I wanted to see you. And quarantine can be fun.
01:02:42
Speaker
Mary. Jump in, water's fine. Who is this? I don't know. That's creepy, Parker. Who is that gun? Ah! Ah!
01:03:19
Speaker
Oh my god! Just one moment. I'm off the door! I'm off the door! You have a mask, don't you? You're mad. What? I can't let you in. It's insane. Are you kidding me? Let me breathe! I think I might be sick.
01:03:43
Speaker
No, that's just the movie we're talking about. Manny, tell us about sick. No, folks, he's sick. All right. Sick in the fucking head. Here's sick. You're not safe inside. In the midst of the pandemic, college student Parker and her best friend, Mary, decided to self quarantine at her family's lake house where they will be alone.
01:04:04
Speaker
or so they think. Sick was directed by Jason Himes, written by Kevin Williamson, folks, and Caitlin Crabbe, produced by Blumhouse and distributed by Miramax. Parker played by Gideon Adlon. Mary played by Bethlehem Million. What a name. Wow. That's what a fucking name. Anyways,
01:04:26
Speaker
DJ, played by Dylan Sprayberry. Also, what a name. What the fuck is going on here? Of course, his name is Dylan. I know. And Sprayberry. It's so weird. Jason, played by Mark Manchaca. Pamela, by Jane Addams. Tyler, by Joel Courtney.
01:04:43
Speaker
Part of me jed by chris reed the film is rated r eighty three minutes moving fast it's from america of course released on september eleventh of twenty twenty two i filmed in utah but we don't know where and there was no budget information available for this film andrew i know this is not a first watch for either of us so why don't you tell me a little bit about what you think about sick.
01:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, I remember when this premiered on Peacock, because that's like where, at least in the US, that's where it went first. I remember watching it. And I think when it first came out, when I first saw it, I was a little too raw from
01:05:27
Speaker
the pandemic to enjoy it as much. And so I remember when I first watched it being like, I don't think this is really that good. But then watching it this time and having just that extra two years of retrospective
01:05:46
Speaker
I loved it. I really liked it. And I don't know, and I was talking to Michael about this as we were like done watching it. And it was like, it almost is like a weird nostalgia for like that time. And I don't mean like a positive nostalgia, but just like, oh, remember that? You know what I mean? Like, remember when we were wiping down groceries? Remember when we were having to stay six feet apart? Remember when we had to wear a mask everywhere?
01:06:16
Speaker
And it just kind of brought me back to like, and it's not it's like I said, it's not positive nostalgia, but it's just pure nostalgia of like, oh, weird. Like that was what the world was. Sure. Sure. Because they do such a good job of depicting what the world was like then.
01:06:33
Speaker
And we all knew a Parker and we all knew a Mary. So like, like we all knew the different like ends of the spectrum that these characters play of like the person that is like, whatever, it's fine. Everything's fine. I'm young. I won't get sick. Blah, blah, blah. And then the person that's like, well, what were your mask? Like, why are you wearing your mask? Like, why are like why are we not taking this seriously? And then to add on to it, this kind of like stalker slash murderer, you know, slasher element
01:07:03
Speaker
God why wouldn't i like this it's like right up my alley and then on top of that they add in all like mostly practical effects and. Like good like good or not over the top or but like good or.
01:07:19
Speaker
It's great. I mean in in it screams of a time of scream like because of Kevin Williamson So it's also like right up our alley as far as like age-wise of like what we grew up with as far as like horror movies were concerned in the and like the late 90s early 2000s and so like yeah, I don't know I just there's a lot of smart stuff in here and I think the way that they wove in and
01:07:44
Speaker
what was going on at the time was really smart. And I'm really surprised that Kevin Williamson turned this around so quickly because I think that we're gonna get more of this kind of horror in the future, but I think it's gonna take a good five years. You know what I mean? I'd agree. So what did you think initially? Yeah, so I watched this actually back in December for the first time. And what's interesting is that I watched it when I had COVID. Oh no.
01:08:14
Speaker
And I don't know, I think that I had heard of the movie before but just didn't want to watch it. And when I got back from Germany, I think I watched this like the day after I got back because I unknowingly had COVID while I was in Munich for my annual solo Christmas trip. Felt awful the whole trip, got back, felt even worse. The latest round of COVID for me was not good.
01:08:39
Speaker
I mean, they're never good. But you know how for some people, even for us, we've had COVID and you're like, eh, it's fine, whatever. Yeah, it wasn't this one. I felt like shit. And I still feel like shit if I'm being honest. But decided that I would watch it. I was like, you know what? Why fucking not? I'll do it. And so watched it and I actually wrote in my letterbox review
01:09:03
Speaker
I said, this is December 27th, I said, I have COVID as I write this, and decided to watch this, though it seemed a bit on the nose. And holy shit, did not expect this to be anywhere near this good. So well done. And I still think that, you know, a few months on here, I think that the movie is so well done. It is, as I said earlier, when I was doing the credits, it's only 83 minutes. It's an hour and 23 minutes long.
01:09:30
Speaker
That's because they just get right. Fucking do it. Exactly. It zooms by. It zooms by. And in that short amount of time, it does a fantastic job of telling the story of the pandemic in like a in a weird way. Right. So like, I mean, you know, all you need to know. So future generations will know, like, what are no matter how much they know about about the pandemic, they'll get the idea in watching this short little fucking slasher movie.
01:09:58
Speaker
And I think, like, in the very start with, I forget the name of the character that gets killed first. What's his fucking name? I don't remember if they name him. I can't remember. They do name him because the main killer lady says it, but whatever. It's the guy in the grocery store that gets killed in his apartment, right? Yeah, it's essentially the person that infected Parker. Exactly, right. And so, like, I mean, from his going into the grocery,
01:10:25
Speaker
how he has to shop for things, asking for toilet paper, bumping into somebody without a mask, being in a... When that one woman coughs and everybody looks at her. Oh, my God, totally. I mean, I remember these things. They are burned into my brain of going to the Marianos in Ravenswood with a giant can of Lysol, spraying everything around me, including the doors, the air, the fruit, fucking everything. I was a maniac.
01:10:52
Speaker
I had on giant gloves and I had a bandana tied around my face. That was how I went shopping in Marianas, right? Also, this guy at the beginning, super cute. Oh my God, same. So cute. I hated that he died because I wanted to have sex with him, Andrew.
01:11:07
Speaker
And I don't have sex with dead bodies. That would be weird, Andrew. No. Do that. God, you weirdo. Anyways, back to the story. So, I mean, there's that part. And then it goes into these two friends just trying to get away. It reminded me of, you know, like us as a quarantine, you know, me, you, Michael, Courtney and Beth, just like trying to do whatever we could to feel normal.
01:11:32
Speaker
you know, hanging out in your backyard or like doing a random camping trip because we could, like just anything to get away and just go do something to feel comfortable in one way or another. But like also being afraid of it. Like I remember when we first started quarantining,
01:11:49
Speaker
I remember going to pick up Beth and I hadn't seen anybody in 70 days. And so we were going over to your house and Beth got in the car and she sat in the back seat with her mask on. And I was like, girl, we're a quarantine now. You can change this. You can come up to the front seat, you can take your mask off. It brought back all these memories for me because like I said earlier, they're burning your fucking brain.
01:12:13
Speaker
But it does such a good job of it. I think that it just zooms along at such a pace that is remarkable. They keep the story solid. They keep it going. And they do a great job, Kevin Williamson and Caitlin Crabbe, of crafting dialogue that is not cheesy, that doesn't take you out of it, and that makes sense. And it just rolls along. And I think, you know, like, look,
01:12:39
Speaker
There there could be some criticism here of like, OK, so this family of the kid Benji who died because he got kissed at this fucking party or whatever, like they want to seek revenge and they're seeking revenge by doing this and whatever. Like, couldn't they just shoot them or couldn't they just like burn the house down or whatever? I mean, I did have a moment where I was like, why don't they just kill them while they're sleeping? I know. And instead of just taking their phones and like doing this whole thing.
01:13:07
Speaker
So I mean, so I think that there's like, there's some legitimate criticism there of like, well, why are they going to so much trouble? But then I did think about it on this latest viewing. And I was like, what's interesting about it is when they, so they knock, they knock Parker out, remember? And they wake her up and they're taking her COVID test. And like, they're, they're explaining to her, like, they're telling her why they're doing this, basically, like, this is why we're doing this right now.
01:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a Bond villain moment where you explain why you're doing and and and Pamela says she's not getting it. She's not getting it. Remember? And that's what it's about. She's not getting it. And it did remind me of like, also, here's another memory from it from it. All right. Like, think about all the people that were so disappointing in the pandemic.
01:13:58
Speaker
You have them, Andrew. I certainly have them. People in our lives, our friends, our family that we were watching on Instagram do stupid fucking things, stupid things. And like also doing some things that like now we know, yeah, that actually was okay for you to do. You know what I mean? And maybe, maybe we did get a little too worked up about that thing. But like, for example,
01:14:19
Speaker
People very close to me going on vacation to another country during the pandemic and like pretending like it was nothing and going to I was like, what the fuck are you doing? I understand that sort of like the thing that Pamela was saying of she doesn't get it and you just want them to get it.
01:14:39
Speaker
Right? And so I think that explains why they went to such ends to say, okay, we're going to do this. We're going to kill them. But if they don't understand what they did wrong, is it really justice? Is it going to make us feel better? And the answer would have been no, because they just would have killed some young people and it might have made them feel better for a moment.
01:15:04
Speaker
But they wouldn't have had that satisfaction of knowing, ah, we fucking told them and now they get it. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's it's not just for revenge, for revenge sake. It's like revenge like, yeah, like you need them to understand why this is happening to them. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than just like killing them. Yeah. And in a certain way, like, I mean, look, what they're doing is wrong. But in a certain sense, do you understand them?
01:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, the only thing I will say about like the motive of the killers is that they they don't take personal responsibility for what their son did because he also went to the party. Exactly. Like it is a little bit it is a little bit hypocritical, but you know, but I will say when they're giving that whole like announcement of like why they're doing what they're doing. And she and she says, well, why DJ and why Mary?
01:16:01
Speaker
And she, and Pamela goes, well, per CDC guidelines, you were supposed to be quarantining alone. I cracked up. I thought it was so funny. I know. I do love that actress, though, that plays Pamela. I think that she pops up in a lot of things here and there, and she's always a delight to see. A couple of things that I have in my notes.
01:16:22
Speaker
They're like the effects in this movie are really good. Like when that that first guy gets his throat slit after that very extensive chase scene, which I will say, Kevin Williamson, you love a phone and you love a chase scene. He showed you what he showed you. And and you know what, though, he does it so well and it was done well here, too.
01:16:44
Speaker
Um, but when he gets his throat slit, that looks really realistic and gross. Um, and I will call out when, uh, DJ gets that. I don't what, what even is that like a curtain rod or something? Like through, through his chest. That was disgusting and gross. And oh, DJ, you're so hot in like a dumb way. I hate you. I also thought he was, I also thought he was cute.
01:17:14
Speaker
But I know you beat up like all your like underlings and then yeah but yeah which makes it hotter actually and then the one I'm the one I really wanted to call out and I don't know how they did this it must have been a mix of like green screen and whatnot because when Mary falls from the roof.
01:17:34
Speaker
And they don't cut away. Like she fall and you see it and it looks so realistic that I was like, how did they do that? It had to have been green screen or something. I don't know. But like that was really well done. And I thought that that girl was dead after that. Dead girl. He dead. She dead.
01:17:57
Speaker
Um, but, um, I don't know. There's just, there's so much to say about, I love when DJ tells the story about the baby and the snake. And, and then Mary's like, actually, that's not correct. This is where it comes from. But then he says folklore. But then he says, my aunt Libby's a Christian, so she
Critique of Extravagant Lifestyles
01:18:16
Speaker
doesn't lie. I was like, Oh, honey, you have something to learn about these Christianes out here in the United States. Um,
01:18:25
Speaker
And I also have on my notes, I hate rich people in their, quote unquote, vacation houses. Oh, my God. You do not. Nobody deserves to have a house and then a house that looks like that. No, no, Andrew. Andrew, you're wrong. I do. I deserve that. So sorry. Sorry to burst your bubble there. I'm just saying it's a little extravagant to not share with anybody that house. That house is fucking awesome. Like, I would love to have that house.
01:18:52
Speaker
Yeah. OK, so I do have to go back to the original kill because there was a a thing that I didn't understand. And I don't know if you'll know it or not. But when the guy is texting with the killer in the grocery store, he says, do you want to party? And then he says, have you been tested? Like, we want to be covid safe. Have you been tested? And he texts back N O Y F B.
01:19:20
Speaker
Oh my God, I was thinking the same thing when I was watching it. Do you know what that means? I don't. Here, let me look it up right now. Do you? No, I, I, I think it means like, know why. Okay, hold on. And then I don't know what FV is. Listeners, we're going to find out. Oh, answer. I know what it is. I know what it is. Okay. Listeners, we're going to find out here's two late middle aged men. Well, here's, I know we're in our middle age, uh, finding out what a thing means. Um, it means none of your business.
01:19:46
Speaker
Oh, now I've never seen that before. I mean, none of your business. Well, we're both going to. I mean, I'll be 40. I'll be 40 next year. So look forward to more of these conversations in future episodes. It's all it's all downhill from here, Andrew.
Pandemic Reflections and Movie Review: 'Sick'
01:20:03
Speaker
Trust me on this. It is.
01:20:05
Speaker
Oh, and then the other thing that made me wince about this movie is remember early day covid test to where they had to fucking go into your brain together. Do because when she gives her that covid test at the end, she's going deep. Oh.
01:20:21
Speaker
It just, it sent me back to like, I don't ever want to feel that ever again. It was also that like, it was like that total American style test where you had to put the fucking thing into the thing and like, like clamp it down. Yeah. Yeah. Like all of ours over here are like, like you, you, you take it out, you put it in the dropper and then like, you just have the dropper and you drop things into the whatever.
01:20:41
Speaker
Well, that's what they are now. You don't really have those nasal tests like that anymore. Thank God. That's one thing I think about the pandemic sometimes. Do we ever think that we would be shoving shit up our nose as much as we did? I have taken
01:20:58
Speaker
I have taken hundreds of home tests now, hundreds, literally hundreds, and I have shoved things up my nose more than I thought I ever would in my life. You know what I mean? It's fucking crazy. I also have in my notes, at this point, would she still be testing positive?
01:21:17
Speaker
I did think about that today too. I was like, well, maybe the timeline is just a little bit shorter than we think. But like, if the kid died, like, I don't know, that seems kind of odd to me too.
01:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, that was one thing that I just like noted in my, in my watching. Because in the timeline, had the kid, had Benji died three days before this, basically? Correct. Is that it? Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, okay, if he got it, I'm just trying to think about like how I've gotten COVID before. Like, I guess this is taking place in like the 10 days. So like, if he is, if she had it, but you wouldn't die in the first three days of COVID.
01:21:57
Speaker
That's what I mean. Yeah. It's a little strange, but I get what they're trying to do. I mean, we will suspend our disbelief, but maybe the time, maybe the COVID timeline itself was maybe a little bit off.
01:22:07
Speaker
One thing that was striking to me in this watch is that so at the very end, we obviously get the killer's demise. So the brother gets bludgeoned slash slash knifed to death. The husband gets mounted on the antlers because he falls from the the the upstairs, which he deserved.
01:22:29
Speaker
Yeah. And then Pamela, who we think is dead, like does the whole Pamela Voorhees thing about. And she shows up at the end. But what was funny is that she gets set on fire and this actress that plays Parker also gets set on fire in Scream 5 because she plays one of the killers in Scream 5. My God. And also notice that they are Jason and Pamela. Hello. Yeah.
01:22:58
Speaker
Yeah, that funny. And I did have in my notes when Pamela is running down the road on fire and the police show up, all I had in my head was Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween Kills saying, let it burn. Yeah.
01:23:15
Speaker
And I do have to say, too, like the the the film ends with I mean, it doesn't end on that image, but the the final main image of the film is this woman running down the street in flames. Yeah. And it is it is exceptionally well done. I just I think if that doesn't tell you what was in any stronger, truly.
01:23:36
Speaker
If that doesn't tell you what was going on in 2020, I don't know what to say to you. It's true. And I mean, like, you know, I will be real about it. I mean, it did make me think a little bit about like, you know, I mean, we we are we've talked about this before, but it feels like eons ago. Andrew and I were part of a quarantine that took everything extremely seriously. And we we followed the guidelines. We followed the rules. I can walk away from that era.
01:24:02
Speaker
with no blemishes on my soul, if you know what I mean. And I know that you feel the same way. And I will say that there were times during the pandemic because we didn't know, now we know better. We got a little nutty. Of course we did. Regardless of ourselves, I did look at some of the things that people were doing during the pandemic.
01:24:27
Speaker
running on the lakefront for example like looking back now it's like yeah we should have let people run on the lakefront like there was nothing wrong with that there wasn't and like you know if you want to do it at your own risk anyway but like the chance of you getting covered from it we now know are pretty fucking low right so like you but we didn't know that back then.
01:24:45
Speaker
So it's like, you know, what were we supposed to do? We were just trying to stay alive for God's sake. So like it was interesting to look at this and go, yeah, there were some things that like even you as somebody who, you know, you know, you did your due diligence about everything. Like we didn't know and you sort of fell into the hysteria of it. I do grant that. It was interesting to think about that.
01:25:04
Speaker
Does that make sense? Yeah, I know. But it was very well documented in this film when we see when Mary is stoned out of her mind dancing. What is she dancing with? A bottle of Lysol. Oh, my God. I don't know about you, but remember how hard it was to get Lysol? Yes. Fuck. Fuck. It was so hard. I just made me that maybe crack up that she was dancing with that bottle just spraying around.
01:25:29
Speaker
I remember I remember my bottle of Lysol, the one the one that I had, it was like it was like a foot and a half long. It was it was like the crazy pants. Oh, my God. It was. I loved it. I love that bottle. I miss it. But yeah, that is sick here at Frage, the 13th horror podcast. We judge on a scale from one to seven for the seven stripes of the gay old rainbow. So that means listeners three point five is an average score. Maddie, what do you give sick?
01:25:59
Speaker
I give Sick 5.5 and I said that this is way better than I originally thought it would be and packed with action to keep it moving. A chilling look back on the insane times of the pandemic.
01:26:12
Speaker
I also gave it a 5.5 and I said that the further away from this time period they are depicting, the more I like this movie. Smart writing and interesting characters round out a solid movie. Love it. Well, Andrew, we'll break here and come back with our next film of the episode, Influencer. Traveling is all about experiencing new things.
01:26:37
Speaker
You're in one of the most beautiful places in the world. What could possibly be wrong with that? My boyfriend and I planned this trip together. And at the last minute, she bailed. You can come crash with me. I'll show you. I couldn't wait you up. Hey. It's gonna be fine. Change of plans. I made a new friends. Looks like I'll be staying here for a while longer. We're going to explore the country.
01:27:03
Speaker
I just realized I haven't been in front of a fire in like a decade. You probably brought me all this way to kill me. In the middle of the ocean. No one can hear you scream. Everything is so much better now that I've decided to stay.
01:27:25
Speaker
I have some ideas for what we should do tomorrow. I actually have a surprise for each other. Everything is so much better now that I've decided to stay. Since when are you suddenly shy? I just don't like being on camera. So someone else was pretending to be you the whole time. Hello? Everything is so much better now that I've decided to stay.
01:28:06
Speaker
No, I'm not gonna kill you. Well, that is just...
01:28:18
Speaker
They make you buy things and you don't even know it. Andrew, tell us about Influencer.
Movie 'Influencer' and Social Media Facades
01:28:25
Speaker
Be careful who you follow. While struggling on a solo backpacking trip in Thailand, social media influencer Madison meets CW, who travels with ease and shows her a more uninhibited way of living. But CW's interest in her takes a darker turn.
01:28:44
Speaker
Directed by Curtis David Harder, written by Tesh Gudikonda and Curtis David Harder. Production and distribution, I should say, was handed by Shutter. I think this is the first Shutter original we've ever done, if I remember.
01:29:01
Speaker
Haven't we done another one? I don't know. I think this is the first one. But anyway, we'll call it anyway. It's our first shutter original. Here it is. Madison is played by Emily Tennant. CW is played by Cassandra Nod. Jessica is played by Sarah Canning. Ryan is played by Rory Saper. Rupert is played by Paul Sperrier. And Jay is played by Justin Sams. And I think that's the most easy. That's the best way I've done that in a while. I didn't mess up anybody's name. Good for you.
01:29:28
Speaker
This is not rated. It was released on October 16th of 2022. It is 92 minutes. Locations include Bangkok and Krabi, Thailand. And it was that's it. There was no budget. So this is direct to shutter. So it's hard to find those kind of like budget things. But I don't think this is a first watch for either of us, because I think we've brought it up on what you've been watching before. But Maddie, what did you think of influencer?
01:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think Influencer is really great. This was my third time watching it, I wanna say. But the first time that I watched it, I remember going, I remember doing what I always do with Shutter these days, if I'm being honest. I'm like, look, we just wanna say we love Shutter. But if I'm being honest, Andrew, I don't watch it very much.
01:30:16
Speaker
It's one out of five is gonna be good. Yeah, and I go to Shutter nearly every day on my Apple TV box thing. Every day that I go to go watch something streaming, I kind of look through every streaming service that I have on Apple TV. And so I go to each one, have a look, see if anything's new, whatever, there we go. And so I look at Shutter all the time and most of the time I just go, okay, see ya, and I just shut it.
01:30:45
Speaker
For whatever reason, I watched Influencer the first time that I watched it way back when. And I just thought, okay, we'll give it a shot. Shutter originals aren't always very good, but maybe this one will be. And it was great. I was so, so surprised.
01:31:04
Speaker
And so the influencer is the story. I mean, you heard it in the plot summary there, but it is about not just one influencer, but sort of like a circle of four or five different influencers, really. Well, and I will say, just to preface our conversation here, this is one of those movies
01:31:24
Speaker
The more, the less you know going into it, the more you're going to get out of it. So if you haven't seen this movie, you should go watch it first before we discuss it. Just want to put that out there. Yeah. And if you haven't figured this out by now, like we, we, we talk with spoilers in our reviews so that that's entirely up to you, of course. Um, but I think that this movie does a really great job of sort of skewering the way that influencers are.
01:31:48
Speaker
the way that influencers practice what they do. And I don't think that it skewers it in a way that like says it's wrong. I think that it skewers it in a way that just says that sort of points out a bit of how fake it is in a lot of ways and how and how lonely and how lonely. Yes.
01:32:05
Speaker
I mean there's a really great moment in the first sequence of the film where Madison is doing this voiceover because she's at a hotel in Thailand
01:32:24
Speaker
And she's doing a voiceover about something, right? Something very influencer-y, very like community and positivity. And honestly, you just did it right there. She's using her influencer voice. Her influencer voice appear like this. And she's walking around this hotel and there's no one there.
01:32:43
Speaker
There's no one there and so she's and she's talking about like how good it is to be around other people and she's walking up past all of these you know that pool chair that can equal what those are called but walking by the pool chairs there's no one there it was so it was it's a tiny moment.
01:32:59
Speaker
But it's so well done because like you just said, Andrew, it's a lonely life. And like, you know, I when I was in Munich for Christmas, besides being fucking sick, there were Munich Christmas is pretty packed because the Christmas markets are so good. Right. Yeah.
01:33:14
Speaker
And there were hundreds of influencer-y type people there when I was there. And they're not hard to tell who they are because they're all carrying around a gimbal for their phone. They have somebody else following them. It might be their boyfriend or girlfriend or somebody, but there's somebody else following them, literally videotaping them or taking photos of them at the same time.
01:33:40
Speaker
And they never stop doing it. They never stop. They just keep going and going and going. It's like it doesn't matter where they are, how beautiful it is. It doesn't matter how special something is. It doesn't matter how how new or unique an experience is. They can't experience it without capturing it as content. And I think that is a terrifying existence. I really, really do. I just I think it's that how could you want that?
01:34:07
Speaker
But we find in this movie people who do want that. And then you find sort of the ultimate one, the one who is ready to destroy others so that they can take whatever they've already built and keep going from there. And so when we meet CW, she's wild, man. And it's a crazy movie. I think that it's acted exceptionally well. I think especially CW does a fantastic fucking job on this.
01:34:35
Speaker
She's so good at flipping. Holy shit. Like being like bubbly and then switching to like the like very dark persona that she has. Like it is so good. And then I don't want to skip right to the end, but like when she has that moment at the end where she sees that Madison has the boat and has left her to the same fate that she left Madison.
01:34:58
Speaker
And she has that smile on her face like, God darn it, you got me. That's good. Oh, it's so good. But then everyone else around her too, all the ancillary characters are equally as good. I think Madison for the short time that she's there is pretty fucking great. The guy Ryan is really good. The only weak link might be Rupert, but whatever. He's there as a deus ex machina in some ways anyway.
01:35:23
Speaker
He's the guy at the bar, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, he's just whatever. He's just whatever. He doesn't really matter. I'm like the thing I like about this movie so much is that it could have been an insufferable fucking bitch could have been Madison. Yeah. Like to be that kind of like influencer that you just want to fucking hate because we've seen it just a normal person.
01:35:48
Speaker
Yeah. And that's what it like breaks down. And like, that's what I like about this movie is that they don't depict Madison as like an insufferable person. They depict her as kind of just like a normal girl that got sucked up into all this. And that's just it is, you know, eventually we learn through a flashback, like how she got into this and she got into it because Ryan, who's like this influencer manager sort of guy almost, um,
01:36:14
Speaker
we don't know if it's even real the story but he was like oh yeah my friend grab my phone i was messaging girls up that follow me and he message you make their meeting for a date the same time right. And it and it's just okay well you know.
01:36:27
Speaker
Um, that's good because I, I thought you were really stupid, but now I'm glad I met you. Like that's like, you know, like they, they meet and like, there's clearly, there's clearly a connection there. And he's like, Oh, you know, you're really beautiful. Like, have you thought about being an influencer basically? And that's how she gets into it. And like, it makes you want, it makes you, it's, it's, it's a smart tool there too, by, by the filmmakers, because
01:36:48
Speaker
I don't know. The only way that somebody could keep doing what I described earlier, which is basically every single thing you experience becomes content that you have to capture. What a miserable experience. The only way that you could possibly continue to do that is if you feel somehow that you're getting love from it at the end of the day. And that's what happened to this girl. It's wild.
01:37:09
Speaker
And even Ryan, like at the beginning of the movie, when she's on a video call with him, he's kind of he's he's basically gaslighting her the the entire call because it's like, Oh, yeah. He's like, Of course this happens to you. Like, of course that are like. But then by the end of the movie, you kind of realize that, like, hey, Ryan's actually not a bad guy. He just doesn't have the best
01:37:34
Speaker
I don't know. It's not intention. That's not the word I'm looking for. Like he's wrapped up in it, too. They all are. He's like at the end of the day, he's out there flown halfway across the world to try to go find this girl. And he sets up all the rose petals and like the whole dinner thing. And and honestly, even when CW fakes the sex scene and sends him on his way, what does he do? He keeps looking for Madison. So like,
01:38:02
Speaker
I gotta say, even though he's kind of a shitty guy, at least he had good intention at the end. You know what I mean? It ultimately gets him killed, but that's another thing. But I do want to talk about Jessica for a second, because she's kind of our middle character that we kind of meet and is the next victim of CW.
01:38:27
Speaker
And like even Jessica, like they could have depicted her as a nasty bitch, but like they kind of just give her kind of like, well, this is just what I have to do to survive. And this is what I do. And I'm kind of snarky, but I I know what I need to do to like make money and build this quote unquote community that she always talks about my team of girls. Yeah. And I got to say her death
01:38:54
Speaker
I had to learn. I when she puts that high heel up to her throat, I feel that I could feel. I mean, I mean, even when she just grabs her at the start of it and slams her head in the fucking wall, I mean, like it's it's filmed. It's filmed so well. I mean, and that is something that we should mention, too, is that I think that this film is is just really made very well. And the film in itself is so good. And it's I think that goes for sick today, too. We have two well made films.
01:39:22
Speaker
But when she grabs her head and just pummels it into the fucking like stone frontis of the house. Holy shit. My God. And I there is a funny moment to where she puts her into the suitcase and then the suitcase is sitting there when Ryan gets back from the bar. And he's like, where's Jessica? Well, no, he goes, Jessica's still here. And I was like, yes, she is. She's right there in the suitcase. So fucking weird, but so good. So well done.
01:39:49
Speaker
Also, just to go back a little bit to the whole Madison part, we don't get credits in this movie until 27 minutes in, which I think is kind of genius. Yeah, I love that. And I love the monologue that CW gives to Madison when they're sitting on the beach and she says like,
01:40:09
Speaker
I'm not going to do anything to you, but I am going to leave you here. Oh, my God. This will happen. And then this will happen. And then this will happen. And then they laugh at the end like, ha, ha, ha, really funny. But I was like, oh, that is that is. And that's what I mean about this CW Cassandra nod. She's so good about flipping.
01:40:26
Speaker
like so good about being so sinister but also then being able to be bubbly and god damn it is she not fucking beautiful yeah and also you know something to mention here too is like obviously the the big thing about cw's appearance is that she has a birthmark on her face
01:40:44
Speaker
And I was wondering if they were going to play that up more as like why she was like not really fond of social media, if like that was like a part of the story, but it never is, which I kind of commend the the the filmmakers and none of the other characters treat it like it's anything, to be honest, until they have to because of the the just the the the essential quality of
01:41:09
Speaker
of identity, right? Yeah. But but her birthmark is not a makeup effect. And this comes from from Wikipedia or from wherever I got this from, whatever. Actress Cassandra Nod was born with a large Nevis under her right eye. So it's a real birthmark.
01:41:23
Speaker
Yeah. And, um, she has a, she has a bit part in it's a wonderful knife too. She plays one of the, the lesbian ants, but, um, I just, I, I just appreciated that in a world of people talking about people's looks, because let's face it, that's like what we do as humans. We, yeah.
01:41:45
Speaker
And coming from the 90s where we grew up, we call people fat. We point these things out. And for the movie to not point it out was kind of refreshing. I don't know if you felt that way or not. I thought it was fucking cool. And look, she
01:42:04
Speaker
I don't know, if people did say anything about her, if you want to go up against her acting, good fucking luck, dude. Seriously. Because she will win. I mean, she's incredible. And like, it's an amazing job that she did with a tough role. Because I mean, like, if you gave anything away, the role fails. And she just, she doesn't do that. She does a fucking great job with it.
01:42:25
Speaker
Okay, so two things that I have to scrutinize about them. Okay, tell me. One is that when CW goes to the island at the end and she kind of sees that there's like a fresh fire and there's like a fresh fish, and she sees all the markings that she's been there for. What I counted I think is 38 days.
01:42:47
Speaker
Why does she just leave? You know what I mean? Like she goes to like hunt her down at that point. But like if I was fucking CW, I'd be like, cool, bitch. Got to go again. I mean, maybe maybe there it is. Maybe that is a full confirmation that she is a killer.
01:43:03
Speaker
You know, I mean, look, instead of like an opportunist, she is a serial killer. Like for her, it can't she's not commit enough murder to write. Well, I mean, not even that, but I mean, like if she's if she's a serial killer, the only way she's going to get that satisfaction is if that person is dead. And like, I mean, the other ones she she knows were dead before. And like, I think she's also going there with the intention of burying the body. Right. Because she's got you and she's got Ryan in the in the thing.
01:43:32
Speaker
So when she gets there, she's like, well, now I'm gonna kill you, bitch. Like, now I'm gonna kill you. Because I mean, she does have the shovel. So I mean, like, that must be part of it, I would say. Oh, yeah, you're right. She brought a shovel this time. Yeah, I didn't. Yeah. Okay. And then the other thing that just like a minor criticism of the film, I think that it's a little overscored.
01:43:53
Speaker
Like there's music the entire movie. Like, you know, it's interesting. I'm trying to think because I just watched it this morning and there were parts where like they were trying to do the like influencer voice. Yeah. Like and I had trouble.
01:44:08
Speaker
hearing what they were saying because the music was also playing at the same time. The composer is Avery Kentis, who also, get ready for this Andrew, who also composed for Spiral on Shutter. With What's His Face, Jeffrey. We interviewed him.
01:44:26
Speaker
Um, so that's interesting. She hasn't, it looks like this person has not, uh, scored a lot of things. It's funny. I can't quite recall if I noticed it or not, to be honest. I mean, don't get me wrong. I like the music, but we, but it makes it too much for you. Yeah. It makes sense. I don't like it when things are overscored either. I think you need to give the ear a chance to catch up with things instead of constantly dragging it in the direction that you want it to go.
01:44:52
Speaker
And I will say, you know what movie this made me wanna watch? What? The Beach. Oh, I love The Beach. Didn't this give you beach vibes though? It did. Oh my God. We can talk about The Beach at some point, can't we?
01:45:05
Speaker
Yeah, I would say it's like a horror thriller. Sure. Yeah, we'll figure that out. We'll work it in. People die. So people people get killed. It's not a good thing. It's not a happy thing. It's a scary thing. And then those were the only two things that I like had to like criticize about the movie, because like upon watching it for this, for me, was a second time. Yeah, I just I kind of just like.
01:45:27
Speaker
it's something into like who i wanna be free to like i wanna be just in thailand doing like stuff you know i do know and i honestly like it made me sad that cw turned on madison because in those early scenes where they're just like
01:45:48
Speaker
kind of like getting along and like hanging out. Like they seemed like they actually really did like each other. So it made me sad when CW turned on her. I don't know. I think, you know, it's a good sliver through
01:46:07
Speaker
what influencer life might actually be like for people. And there's so many young people now who like literally they just want to be influencers growing up, which I just think is fucking weird, but here we are. And I hope that this makes it through to them in some way. A couple of interesting things too about the movie, the voiceovers of Madison narrating after the title sequence were created with an actual AI voice creator.
01:46:33
Speaker
No actual recordings of Emily Tennant were used. That's so gross. There you go. Right. Also in a scene where CW takes Madison back to her place, she has a copy of Mark Twain's The Innocence Abroad. One recurring theme in Twain's book is how is how he finds himself bored and even angered by places where history and culture is exploited for profit.
01:47:01
Speaker
And did you notice in that book there was another girl's name written in it? I think it was like Becky Jones or something. Oh, yep. There you go. Uh-huh. Not the first time that she's done this. Little Miss Steve W. Well, Andrew, that is influencer. Tell me what you rated it and what your final thoughts were.
01:47:19
Speaker
Yeah, I gave this a solid five and I said a beautiful, all caps, beautiful movie with interesting takes on modern day social media. Nice. I gave it a 5.5 just a little bit higher. And I said, as someone who works in social media technology, quite frankly, I found this film legit chilling.
01:47:36
Speaker
Well, that does it for influencer, and that does it for horror in the movies. And so we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back. And what we're gonna do today is give you one recommended person to follow on the internet. And what do y'all's families think about you doing these stunts, these pranks? Personally, mine, don't love it, but it's not gonna stop me, because it's getting me somewhere, obviously. Right. How about you? I mean, I don't talk to my family.
01:48:06
Speaker
Why not? They're irrelevant. They're irrelevant? None of them have followers. If they got followers or got rich, I'd probably talk to them again. Now hang on a minute, did you just say I don't talk to my family because they don't have followers? If they had followers, they'd be here right now.
01:48:21
Speaker
So folks, that does it for episode 116. But before we let you go, we're going to, instead of playing a game, we thought it might be fun after talking about all the bad things about social media to give you something positive or fun to follow on social media. So we've both chosen one, and Andrew will tell us his choice first.
01:48:41
Speaker
Yeah, mine is not going to change your life. Like, this is just kind of like more of like a fun one for us, for us little gays over here. The one the handle is man can cook and Z on Instagram. And it's just this really hot guy that dances and has fun and cook stuff with his pug.
01:49:01
Speaker
I love that. That's wonderful. He's easy to look at. He teaches you recipes and he's got a pug along for the ride. So what can't you like there? I am. I'm definitely into that. My choice is, uh, it's, it's called Cain Hill CC. I'll spell it for you. It's C as in cat. A E N H I L L C C. So you can find that on Instagram and on Twitter actually. Um, and maybe even
01:49:30
Speaker
on TikTok, not entirely sure. Anyways, this is the Canehill Conservation Farm in England. Oh, you've talked about this before, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so it is run by this farmer named Chris, who's just this jolly dude who loves his farm.
01:49:50
Speaker
And on this farm, it's rescue animals. So it's like rescue ducks and rescue cats and rescue pigs and this and that and emus and chickens and llamas and fuck. It's fucking everything on here. But what's great about it is that every morning, this farmer gets up like when a farmer does, of course, and he does what's called the morning rush hour. And so he'll go over to the barn where like all these animals stay. They all stay in one big barn, right?
01:50:18
Speaker
I like the animals know it's morning they want to get out and I go for a walk or whatever the fuck animals fucking do so he goes to the door of the barn and he says oh it's the monday rush hour or the tuesday rush hour or whatever and he opens the door and fucking andrew it's like noah's fucking arc comes walking out of this fucking barn every morning
01:50:38
Speaker
And it'll bring a smile to your face every single day. I used to not be able to get out of bed if I did not watch this. It's lovely. And they're really great people. You can donate to them to keep up the good work that they do. It's a really cool thing. So if you haven't followed them yet, I highly suggest you do it. It will make you very happy.
01:51:01
Speaker
Love it. It's basically what I want my life to be is just rescuing animals and living on a farm. Andrew, there's still time. I know. We're inching closer to death. Oh, Jesus. I mean, we were ending positively, Andrew. Ending positively.
01:51:17
Speaker
Anyway, Andrew, that was episode 116. Before we let these people go, a few housekeeping items. First off, Friday the 13th Horror Podcast is a very fucking proud, independent podcast. We take no shit from anybody. But we do take your donations on Patreon. So if you are not yet a patron,
01:51:37
Speaker
You can become a patron really easily. You can either go to Patreon and just search for us, or you can go to our website, which I hope you do, because I love our website, quite frankly. It is www.frygay13.com slash support. You can become a patron there, and you can also buy merch from our merch store.
01:51:55
Speaker
And I will add that, listen, we're not making money from this podcast. Like we're, we're, we're scratching the surface of Andrew. I would say we lose, we lose money on this more than anything. So if you even thought like, Oh man, I thought they brought up some really good points or Oh man, these guys, they are putting way too much effort into this thing.
01:52:18
Speaker
You know, maybe just throw us like a buck. I don't know. It's just a thing. But if you don't have a buck to give, that's cool too. A free thing you can do is leave a review. And that is either on Apple or Spotify is the best place. But if you want to leave it somewhere else, I'm sure we'll find it eventually. Baby, you go right ahead. It's not a problem for us.
01:52:40
Speaker
Yeah. And so I think, you know, at the end of the day, what what do we what do we always tell everybody to do? And that's to get slayed.