Emily, Brian and Troy delve into the complex world of influencers and celebrities as they navigate public scrutiny and fame in the digital age. They explore the societal impact of extensive phone use and the rise of influencers creating their own brands.

• Troy Young's People vs Algorithms newsletter
• Brian Morrissey's The Rebooting newsletter
• Alex Schleifer's Universal Entities
• Follow Alex, Brian and Troy on Twitter

Topics:

• 00:00 An Unforgettable Trip to the Grenadines: The Start of an Influencer's Journey
• 01:12 Introducing 'People vs. Algorithms': A Deep Dive into Media, Tech, and Culture
• 01:17 Emily Sundberg's Unique Blend of Business and Culture in 'Feed Me'
• 02:31 Exploring the Complex World of Influence and Celebrity
• 08:11 The Intricacies of Being an Influencer and the Impact on Personal Identity
• 16:01 The Huberman Controversy: A Case Study in Celebrity and Accountability
• 30:52 The Future of Celebrity: Microdramas and the New Age of Public Scrutiny
• 38:19 The Unpreparedness of Rising Influencers
• 41:57 The Personal Touch in Building a Brand
• 47:06 Exploring the Future of Work and Influence
• 53:27 Navigating the Complexities of a Digital Career
• 01:03:13 The Impact of Technology on Society and Personal Life
• 01:06:48 The Good Product Corner

Have you guys ever been to the Grenadines?

I don't even know where it is.

Carribean.

What are you doing there?

Is this a paid for trip,

It's a really funny story actually.

a sunscreen trip, isn't

This is influencer travel, Emily.

So wait, tell us about the trip.

Okay, so A year ago, I was at this farm restaurant in France,

and there was this other young woman there.

And we became friends, and then a few months ago She said my friend opened this property on this island called Canawan and I can't go i'm busy but you should go and write about it.

I started talking to the Gm of The Soho House here.

and he was like, yeah come down check it out Have like your Hemmingway moment,

Hemingway at the Soho House, I love

Hemingway at the Soho House So, I'm gonna write about it and hope to blow it up and make it like the hot island to come to.

Welcome to People vs.

, Algorithms, a show about patterns in media, technology, and culture.

I am Brian Morrissey, and each week I'm joined by Troy Young and normally Alex Schleifer, but this week Alex is traveling to Fiji or somewhere else, and instead we are joined by Emily Sundberg.

Emily is the writer of Feed Me, a daily business newsletter that mixes business with culture in a unique way, and I really like Feed Me because, I think one of the great things about substacks and newsletters, and maybe hopefully the next phase of media is that it's going to produce brands that are different because they're a reflection of the individuals behind them.

And that can make them more, I think of as intersectional, in the generic definition, meaning they're at the intersection of multiple quote unquote verticals.

And I think normally in an institutional media construct, you get shoved into one vertical.

Or another vertical and usually the business models dictate that, right?

You, you gotta be in the fashion, vertical or you're in the retail vertical or you're, in the advertising vertical and, you know, the reality is, you know, where culture meets business and vice versa, everything is just a mix of these things.

So, I do recommend you check out Feed Me.

And this episode really stems from that.

It's around.

The business of influence and to me like celebrity is a multi sided thing with lots of good and lots of bad and time and again, we see how corrupting fame can be.

I mean, this diddy case I become obsessed with.

It's a perfect example of that.

And I suspect it will ensnare many other celebrities in this as it progresses.

Now we live on a time when we've never had more celebrities than ever.

Well, we tend to call them influencers.

You know, and after all, majority of influencer, at least according to a Morning Consult survey that found 57 percent said they wanted to be an influencer.

So in this episode, we discuss the business of influence and whether Emily considers herself an influencer, what it's like to be called a B2B influencer.

Andrew Uberman's sins and if they, they matter and if they are going to hurt his business.

Kate Middleton and the Royals as original influencers.

Trump as our first influencer president.

How influencers are, you know, changing, how businesses are built.

The dark side of personal commodification when you go down that influencer route.

And also, we try to get into our favorite influencers, as funny as that is, and why the real money, if you do have to work for money is, is being a behind the scenes influencer like Michael Kasson.

Would love to hear your feedback on this episode.

Send me a note at bmorrissey@therebooting.

com and also please leave us a voice message by going to memo.fm/PVA we will continue to dip into these for future episodes and last thing is leave this podcast a rating and review on Apple Spotify or wherever you can do.

So think it helps people discover the podcast You know, our audience is, is nicely growing.

It's nice to see.

And, I regularly hear about it, so that's always rewarding and we'd like it to reach more people now under our conversation.

So,

I want to talk about, how you do it.

I can't even imagine

She won't tell you.

She told me by secret text and it was all bullshit.

Yeah, group text, that's the way I understand it, the method.

But, you write Feed Me, and I find it difficult to actually categorize, and I think that's what I like about it, because it mixes business with culture in a unique way, and I think, I think the great thing about Substack and a lot of newsletters And I think that's why they're the next phase of media post algorithm is or alongside algorithms is they produce brands, if you will, that are a reflection of the individual and individuals have all kinds of things that they're interested in.

And that's the vibe I get from from Feed Me.

How do you describe it?

I describe it as a newsletter that looks at culture through the lens of business and I get kind of annoyed when I say that because I feel like culture is this meaningless word And when people say what kinds of business it's hard to answer that because it really is different in every letter There was this Vogue article yesterday that quoted Feed Me and they called it a fashion business newsletter and I almost corrected them, but then I was just like, I'm not

gonna lose my mind over that.

If that gets me new readers, then great.

Troy's thinking he's like, Oh my god, this will open you up to a new category of sponsor trips.

But it really started because I was working in Tech and surrounded by a lot of people who were working in either consumer startups or venture funds that supported consumer startups I was really interested in that world and how hot it was in New York and how the conversations around those were taking on the same sort of

tenor as conversations about celebrity news or You know fashion news or beauty news like Business as a, as a topic, the same kind of business that Wall Street Journal covers or Sorkin covers in The Times was becoming, like a, a juicy thing to, to talk about, whether it was workplace issues or founder drama or whatever.

And I saw that there was kind of like this blank space for a high cadence newsletter talking about all those things.

And I've worked at a lot of places that touch.

The topics that I talk about so something I always say is like I don't always say this because it's not really nice, but i'm not just this person coming out of syracuse journalism school Writing about all these industries like i've been in the room getting paid by a lot of the

businesses that i'm talking about

But you got a, you got a little bit of a liquidity

vibe going on.

Like there's a little

I'm, happy to have that.

I I like like

having a little bit of a wink when i'm talking

Yeah.

But you're a writer, though.

I mean, you've worked on this play, but you're a writer.

You wouldn't be able to do it for, I mean, like what he does is like bullet point.

I mean, I had lit on my other podcast, but like, you know, he's not like a writer.

Yeah,

he's he's funny though

Yeah, he's fine.

He's funny.

He's done an

what do you mean a writer, like a writer?

Well, like Emily is, aren't you a writer?

Like you write for, you've written for New York Magazine.

We were just talking about you writing for other magazines

Yeah, but

you can tell writers when you, when you read.

Yeah, no,

there's, there's no accreditation.

Yeah, I would say I'm a writer.

That's kind of the first way that I identify now.

I think six months ago it was like, I'm a consultant, and I write a newsletter, and I made a movie, and I did all these things, but I've kind of settled on writer as the title.

I'm trying to figure out what to identify as,

professionally.

Podcaster.

Yeah.

how do you identify?

influencer.

That's what I wanted to talk about.

Not myself, but influencers.

I, I, actually I got introduced to

you by, by Blake, who I believe, now he wasn't,

someone else called me, he's my favorite investment banker of the moment.

He's the best.

I

And, another investment banker, I went to one of those investment banking dinners, you know, where they put everyone in, in like a square.

And you have the name tags in front of

They put you in like this small room in a restaurant for private

And it's the only time I'm on

the Upper East Side.

And,

I was introduced as like a B2B influencer.

It was, it was mortifying.

But I want to talk about influence because do you identify as an influencer?

I don't Because I don't have a lot of the traditional makings of it.

Like I don't post on Tiktok.

I don't really post on Instagram I don't even really post on Twitter.

Like if I was an influencer, my medium would be sub stack It's easier to say that i'm a writer But then I also like if I when I go home this week from this island I'll have a stack of boxes at my front door from brands sending me

stuff which is like a key marking

of an influencer

Hey, I didn't want to be a B2B influencer,

But do you, do you, I mean,

another key marking would be the shilling of

these things.

Are you a shiller?

No.

Bay on a, on a

gig

right now.

how are you going

to return the favor for this free trip you got?

You're going to shill it a bit?

Yeah.

doing it right now, actually.

Yeah.

I'm looking out on like This beautiful

harbor.

like, call me what you want.

I'm looking at a beautiful

Harbor in

or is that like the traditional way that travel writing has

worked forever?

Great.

Yeah, that's true.

But like with Feed Me, I mean, there are aspects of, It's influencer adjacent, right?

Because the way I look at it, and I think that these worlds, particularly around individual brands, really bump up against the quote unquote influencer or the even cringier creator economy stuff, because what you're doing to me, like, it has a lot of like you in it.

I mean, you're, there's a selfie of you every day.

It's

That's the, that's the format innovation.

That's the great format

innovation

I don't think people would be reading it if I wasn't writing it.

You know, like I couldn't sell this to somebody and have them run it and, and have it last more than like two weekS.

so, yeah.

But I guess like, is that different?

I'm just playing devil's advocate because I think you're right.

But when you go to your favorite newspaper and online and you see the little photo of the writer

next to it.

Totally.

Very different.

Because you bring, like, your personality and your life into it.

Like, I don't know.

Tom Friedman.

Like, whatever.

Like, I don't know.

I mean, he'll fill a room at like, you know, Boca Raton, but, I feel like the parasocial aspect is probably that we see with, with influencers, it is probably evident in your, with your audience.

Because I, I see your, it's like

a paid newsletter.

Troy, do you subscribe?

Do you pay?

I got a couple things to

say about this.

First of

you pay?

Do you

I I pay, but you, you, you

never

wait, wait, wait, you would not, you

would not pay for my newsletter.

This is why I

Well, because I give you material, valuable advice for which I feel like I deserve, the compen the compensation of a free sub.

But, but, but, but breaking news, breaking news right now.

I bought a sub

yesterday to

Yeah, and what's funny is you took

Why didn't you even bring it up, Brian?

because I'm bringing up now and the the You know, it was very unstrategic because

everyone who takes out the 20 a month thing That's what you want them to

I'm not, it's not clear to me that I'm gonna get value beyond one month.

I just wanted to read one

about It

You're gonna forget about it

was a 20 article about Michael Kassin.

And it wasn't worth it, actually.

But, hold on, hold on, hold on.

I do subscribe to Emily's News, and I'm happy to do so.

But you asked a question in the text thread a minute ago, Brian.

You said, who's your favorite influencer?

I thought that was a hilarious question.

Who is your favorite influencer, Emily?

Who's my favorite influencer?

asked.

What about the OGs?

Like Kim?

Kim, maybe even Martha.

Yeah, I mean, Martha had a skill before she was famous though.

Other people get famous and then they figure out what industry to get into, you know, like Martha or Gwyneth or whatever like they had a skill and then they turned it into Their face pushing products or or pushing a lifestylE.

I don't know if I have a favorite

What about Chris Black and Jason Stewart, your buddies, your boys from How Long Gone?

Brian, you like those guys?

Like Chris a lot It's funny you bring up Chris because like I think there's some similarities in that Chris is really difficult to You I don't know him well, I've only met him I think a couple times, but he's difficult to pigeonhole within specific labels and

verticals.

Did you see Jason just join

Substack?

He did.

Yeah.

I think Chris is interesting because 15 years ago, his career would be totally different than it is now.

He does, he does all kinds of different things that before he would be pigeonholed into just one thing.

And I think that's an interesting part of, it's easy to hate on the influencer thing when, I mean, I'm in Miami, I see the influencers everywhere stopping traffic.

But it really allows for people to build autonomous small businesses.

Like I, it is kind of true when they talk about like the TikTok ban and like small businesses, because that's basically this is what like small businesses look like, I think, going forward.

Yeah.

You know, somebody like Chris is interesting because he really was a consultant or creative director, however he positioned himself.

First, and then he sort of decided, I'm an expert on

taste, I'm gonna do a podcast about it.

The same way

Well, what's the podcast?

We should tell people what the pod,

I think I

how

long

gone

How

Long Gone?

Did you guys ever listen to my episode on How Long Gone?

I read the transcript.

Yeah, it was like talking about my crypto ex boyfriend.

For a lot of it.

So, I like that, you

Is he rich?

Is he rich now?

No, I think he's still like working on trading the day the day trading like shit coins.

He'll be fine.

and like you're saying with small businesses, like, I like following people who are chefs and then they blow up on Instagram

for their chef

Right.

Not people who are famous for being famous, or just

Well, I just think it's a lot more delicate and you're way more likely to get taken advantage of if you're a hot girl who becomes famous for being a hot girl and then all these management teams come in and they say, Hey, Launch a skincare brand, write a cookbook, start a podcast.

And then you don't even know what your talent or interests are because you're just doing money grabs because you fall under management.

And like, I have friends who have built careers like that and.

The amount of people in their heads pulling strings to get these, like, businesses behind them richer is really concerning.

And then I don't know what you do when you start in that world when you're 21 and then you're 31 one day and you don't,

your whole life has sort of been

You become a mummy influencer.

I like Alison Roman.

I love Allison.

She worked in restaurants, and then she worked at a

food magazine, and now she has an incredible

this is, it sounds like you, you're more,

you're more biased towards the creator end of the spectrum.

Right?

Like, so if you go, like, along, there's like some kind of continuum, Troy, you could probably make some sort of Venn diagram,

Yeah, I, I like people with

skills.

I like people that study their crafts and

What about, what about Rick Rubin?

He's one of the great influencers now, right?

he's

got

had a, I, I, I feel like I come across him on Instagram every once in a while, like a quote or a video clip of him.

Incredibly skilled,

has influenced a lot of people.

Yeah.

But the big, the influencer in the news is, is Andrew Uberman.

We got

to talk about this guy.

I've only listened to one

podcast that he

Did you, but Brian, before we jump on it, I really want to know who your favorite influencer is.

I'm sorry to

disrupt your, your, yeah.

Oh.

Is it like Lex Fridman?

Is

No.

uh, no, no, but let's keep going.

Is it, is it, Ben Thompson?

Is he an influencer?

Well, he's a business influencer,

sort of.

Yeah.

Yeah, he is.

He's a big mouth.

No, I don't think I I've, I

Brian.

Is it a runner?

Is it a running

person?

No, the running influencers are the worst.

That Goggin, the one, the one Uberman episode I listened to was David Goggins.

He's a psychopath.

I'm like, nobody should be following this guy.

He has no life.

He's like, I just got to like run, 90 miles in the middle of the night and tell my like partner to get up and like drive a car three

miles an hour next to me.

I was like, that's,

Who's your favorite influencer, Brian?

So lately I've been getting into, this My First Million.

It's, it's a terrible name for a podcast,

but Sam Parr is, I actually like Sam a lot.

I knew him before and, I think he's really good at a podcast.

And I think that him and Sean actually are, cause like you were saying, like they have chops, if you will, and it, they're not

just empty personalities.

That episode they just did was really good.

I

got to

with Jason Freed, who, who is honestly, he, do you know, Jason Freed, Emily,

he, he runs 37 signals, which I don't know, 20 years ago was, you know, It

was

always that, that yes, it is completely bootstrapped.

It was an agency that actually made the move into becoming a software company, which every agency like fetishizes and never does.

and they actually made it work and.

They skipped all the venture capital stuff and he was, he's a writer and he's always writing and, and talking about this stuff.

And

I always thought, Oh, he's just, you know, fine,

but you're not building,

guy.

He

speaks the

much of a business.

And then they start this podcast and they talk about all his real estate transactions.

And it turns out he's like buying like 26

million homes and stuff.

I'm like, this sounds like a great,

Well, he made bank off his software

company.

It's, it's a little, you know,

So, do you consider him an influencer?

Jason Freed.

Yes.

I think you can be, and I think nowadays you have to be a quasi influencer to be a CEO.

Trump is the first influencer president.

Did, did Emily have a favorite influencer that she could share with the group?

She said people have talent.

People with talent.

I mean, Trump is a funny one.

Like,

He's selling a 60

Bible.

I know, I saw that.

God bless the

It's a good product.

You get, you get the Constitution,

you get the Declaration of Independence.

What else do you get?

Pledge of Allegiance, which

is kind of bullshit.

That's like a very, well, the Pledge of Allegiance

actually came

I did my school announcements in high school, so I had to say it every day.

It's a surprise, you

guys, that I did my school announcements.

Not at all.

No, he pivoted to, we must make America pray again, Brian, for the

Oh, did it?

It's called the God Bless the USA Bible.

You also get a handwritten version of the chorus of Lee

Greenwood's, God Bless the USA.

I guess that was the song.

They should package it with the Never Surrender sneakers.

It's

Saving,

99 plus shipping and tax.

It's actually a

licensing deal, which is the way to go.

You don't want to have to make this stuff.

I can't wait to talk about Huberman with, with Emily because she had an

get into it.

Let's get into Uberman.

That was really fun yesterday.

So with these big sort of Controversial New York magazine stories.

I've been doing this thing New York magazine should actually like co host these with me But I started with the the woman Who wrote the story about giving all of her money away in a shoe box to the scammer Did you guys read that a few weeks ago?

Yeah, yeah.

So I, I dropped that in a Substack chat and I was like, let's talk about it.

And then hundreds of my readers came in

and just debated back and forth about it.

That tells me you're an influencer in a good way.

The fact that like hundreds of people get in just because you're

saying, Hey, let's talk, I see it.

You're like, Hey, let's talk about

But my favorite part of that is Again, like buzzwords, but like pulling all of my community together and seeing how, like, they make each other laugh and they're on the same page and they have the same sense of humor and they're not, like, overly politically correct and they can, like, just be a little wild online.

And I like that, and I think that there need to be like, more spaces for people to converse the same way that they do with their friends and feel like they can like, shoot the shit a little bit.

So I did it last night with the, the Huberman story, and it was great, and I, I went to a yoga class yesterday, and I came out and I looked at one of my friends, friends, readers, close friend stories, and he was like I posted about being gay and non monogamous on the Feed Me chat, and now everyone's calling me sexist.

And I was like, I left you guys for one hour and you're going crazy in there, but it was Somebody came in, was like, I worked at Athletic Greens and I didn't sign an NDA, I'll answer any of your questions.

And then two chats later, somebody was like,

I'm non monogamous, ask all of your questions, and

Wait, for those of us who are not

steeped in this stuff.

I mean, I am, but can you run through the Uberman story?

He's a neuroscientist who is really a podcaster.

He's a, he's an influencer.

he's part of this new media.

world

and incredibly popular.

like the scientist, Joe

Rogan.

Middle aged men gravitate

to him, but I guess his following is even bigger than this.

I got it wrong.

I thought it was

Well, he's cute as shit, right?

He's kind of hot.

middle aged men, but it's also a lot of young men, and I think that there's this thing with young men where they're like, trying to figure out how to be a good man.

Mm.

Like masculine and healthy and Honorable and not drink too much or fall like fall prey to like, oh, there's like a little mosquito in here because Because i'm on an island.

There's a downside of the island.

life.

Yeah so this story, basically, this, this writer found out that he was a bad partner to one of his partners, who he was supposedly in a monogamous relationship with.

And as you keep reading this story, you find out that he has this huge, network of women, all who think that they're the sole girlfriend, who he kind of lies to and manipulates, and the question at the end of the story is like, can you trust health advice and life advice from somebody who isn't a good partner and often not a good friend?

Like, it sounds like he flaked a lot on his friends and wasn't

always the most dependent with them either.

And

we're not going to hang people for being a little unresponsive on text, but yeah, I mean, he had, he had five to six girlfriends.

I don't know.

The sixth is, is, is me, but anyway, he had, he had several and he was also, I think it's pertinent.

One of his partners, was undergoing IVF treatment and he also apparently, one of them, got a, sexually transmitted disease.

Probably via him, I would assume.

What's interesting to me of reading these stories is, I end up seeing the reaction to them, the like, the fighting about them, before I see the actual article.

And I think a lot of people don't actually see the article.

Like, I would bet probably more people commenting on it have never actually read the

I completely agree.

I mean people were texting me

last night saying like what's The huberman story I was like

The market for 27 page New York magazine hit pieces is pretty small, actually, but the fallout is big.

yeah, they have a big blast radius with their, they, they've.

I think they've really, I mean they, this is I think under intelligence here?

I don't know, like it's confusing to me.

I'm like, to me it's just like it's a cut story, but like they They have developed a real factory of these, these viral magazine

stories.

It's impressive to a degree.

Do you think it was, Brian, you had a take, right?

You thought that maybe.

It was, you know, kind of waste of paper.

Yeah, but I think that might be generational, and that's why I'd like to, to get Emily's take on it.

My, personally, I think, like, a lot of these things, first of all, anyone who is a self help, self improvement influencer, I just assume by default is pretty full of shit.

Like, I just, Assume it.

And so I think that colors my approach to it.

And to me, it's again, it's goes back to the influencer thing.

I would think that zone would be more like private life versus if he wasn't really a neuroscientist.

But because of him being an influencer, he doesn't just stick to the neuroscience stuff, the sciency stuff, he goes into the life advice area, and that probably, I could think, I could see, you could argue that that opens him up to, investigation on whether he, he is following that advice.

Now,

journalists love hypocrisy.

Well, he may be following the advice,

Brian, but he, he's a work in progress, right?

And, you know, he was clearly missing

the love of a

in

mother.

You know, I mean, he was abandoned like many of his generations.

So he's

Oh god, he's

received from his mother.

So now, yeah, well now he's got, you know, he's got a lot to work out on the pod.

I guess it's because he, he moves.

You're right.

The cross the terrain from being kind of neuroscience guy to being life advice guy that he's, and he's now a celebrity.

So he's, I guess, it's fair game.

I just think my biggest takeaway from it was I don't think people always consider what can happen when they decide to Go down the route of becoming famous like to me more than anything.

It was a You Sad story about fame, right?

Like, if he just pursued what he loved and didn't have to become this superstar with massive sponsorships and whatever and just, like, Dedicated his life to science and, like, preaching the truth and maybe, like, working on a book and researching and whatever, He probably wouldn't have dealt with this

because he just would've There would be no story

All of these stories are stories

of addiction, Emily,

Yeah.

because, you know, his was, you know, the need to, to, to feel

I mean, it's the same, actually, and we can get into it with the costume, the costume thing.

Like, it's like, it's addiction to a lifestyle or to, you know, being the kind of person that you think you ought to be,

I, I think that's like, across all influencer industries, like, I kind of wrote about this last week in a slightly like Adderall fueled essay that I was Just in a newsletter last week.

I was kind of writing about this phenomenon that I'm seeing with a lot of women who do what I do, which is like kind of consult and write online, but they've become addicted to kind of networking in public and like tagging a lot of people.

And this addiction to fame and being noticed and having power and being associated with greats it's so easy.

To do for anyone now, and I think that Huberman was an example of that at scale and not really thinking about the repercussions and honestly probably not having the right PR team, like, I don't know how that got, that story even

happened, like,

What do

like, like I feel like he should have had better people, lawyers or something in his

corner to avoid that story even getting that far.

Yeah, what I would love for these stories, and I think this would, would You know, there's a lot of this trust in journalism stuff going on right now.

And of course, right when it came out, the Lex Freedman's, whatever, it's a hit piece, hit piece, everyone likes to say hit piece nowadays, and they don't even need to read it.

Most of the people, it's funny, in the comments are like, I never read The New Yorker.

and I'm like, okay, you've pretty much proven the point there.

But to me, the, the, the question ends up coming down and, and we saw this with like Business Insider and Actman and all kinds of things.

Like, I would actually like to know how the story came about.

I would actually love to know, like, how did that come about?

Like, was it that one of these women who are in the, like the text thread?

Because I think it actually matters.

And I think, you know, the Times, New York Times is doing stuff to, to basically pull back the veil.

I think that more of journalism needs to take an open kitchen approach.

Whether they want to or not.

Because how

these stories come about actually matter.

Like, how did this

come about?

the story came about.

No, I don't.

Somebody at a dinner, or through a friend of a friend, or some direct connection to the journalist, said, I know this woman who's, you know, dealing with slash sleeping with Andrew Huberman, and It's a mess.

And it feels like there's a big story underneath of this.

And he's got five other girlfriends.

Oh, that's interesting.

He's this sort of sanctimonious podcaster.

Let's go get it.

I mean, I don't think it needs to be anything more complicated than that.

Hmm.

I

Right.

He, he's a, he's a perfect, you know, character in this story.

It's, it's, it's the flip side to, you know, everybody's a celebrity, right?

Well, then there's, you know, you go hunting for them.

I mean, of course, of course, it makes tons of

So you think this is like typical celebrity journalism.

But just we have way more

celebrities.

Hmm.

If not that,

Oh, I don't, I have no idea.

I don't know.

Like, I mean, it could just be, cause like, I think To me, it's more about dispelling.

I'm not like a conspiracy person.

I don't think, but, it's more about dispelling the hit piece stuff, right?

Because I don't know what exactly constitutes a hit piece.

Now, if let's just say the B.

I.

Ackman story, which, you know, Business Insider.

Thankfully it's back to Business Insider, not Insider.

That was a terrible period.

Let's just forget it happened.

They wrote a story about Bill Ackman's wife, and about her playing fast and loose with possible plagiarism, how to define it.

And I You know, the argument that it was a hit piece was that this was in retaliation for some of the political stance that Bill Ackman took.

I think it matters how that piece happened.

I think it, it matters.

I just think it would do something to, dispel some of this, accusations of bad faith that seem endemic to any of these articles.

Like, I knew, there's no way this article could drop without that reaction.

Everyone just goes to their battle stations.

I don't know, maybe it's like unavoidable.

But I do think that it is an aspect of, we've never lived, I don't think, in a time of more micro celebrities to some degree.

You know, like there's the number of people who could be qualified as celebrities and therefore subject to public figure treatment is in like the tens of millions, it would seem.

Do you guys know about all, like, the snark reddits?

Oh,

Okay, so there are these subreddits on, on reddit, and they're called, like, New York Influencer Snark.

And pretty much any person who qualifies as an influencer has been mentioned on it.

And they will go for the jugular on women.

They'll say like, I went to middle school with her, and she was like this, and she her dad does this, and all of this, and it's kind of just this public place where people can say whatever they want about other people.

And because it's all anonymous, it's not like Twitter or Instagram, where plenty of people have anonymous accounts, but Reddit is all anonymous, like, People can say whatever they want, and I have friends who have lost their mind from posts on there.

Like, it's, it's pretty scary.

Some of the

people that are talked about are not famous.

Like, it's, it's wild.

well, what is,

there's a bigger picture here, I

think, and it's the, the, Now that we can all participate in this common narrative, right?

This kind of internet TV drama that is life that we live inside of.

And now that I think it's the, there's a bunch of consequences to that.

One is that.

you know, there's a dimension of celebrity to all of us.

We are all fair game that talking about someone's past, you know, is, is juicy and interesting and can live for a moment on a Reddit, on a subreddit.

And that also related is truth is tenuous.

And we live in like, because it's all just.

this kind of weird kind of game that we play online and that we just live in a world of warring narratives.

It's like whose narrative is better than the other person's narrative and what's going to get a little bit of kind of like a microdose of attention.

But it's like it, it, to me, it's the consequence of this game that we play.

It was really different when it was controlled by a few and there were You know, a smaller number of anointed celebrities and, you know, they were subject to this kind of scrutiny through a, a kind of, controlled and established press mechanism.

And now it's just like everybody's in the game you know, the other thing I think related to it is that Huberman will be fine.

Because what'll happen is this is kind of a beautiful narrative for him because there's a redemption opportunity here that he can work through on his podcast.

It's going to make him significantly more interesting.

that's interesting, Emily, what do you think?

What is your gauge on the reaction?

Because it's interesting because there's no mass media anymore and there's no mass culture.

It's just all a bunch of subcultures.

And so gauging the impact of this kind of piece on his celebrity, let's just say, is really difficult to do because you see polar opposite reaction, at least I do.

What is your.

Yeah, I think he will be fine because the, the, I don't think that the people who adore him and listen to him regularly are gonna be swayed by this.

I think the people who are already skeptics of him are probably gonna feel sort of Higher than thou and say I told you so I told you that these guys are snake oil and they're ridiculous But the men who listen to him are probably going to relate to this some of them They'll be like i'm imperfect.

Also.

I said i'm sober and i'm not

Oh, they're also gonna be like, Oh, I would

love that.

like, they're gonna be like, well,

Yeah, maybe that maybe like that is something that they're less likely to admit I think more people will say like he's human.

I thought he was perfect.

That makes me like him more I think that there will be a lot of that and I say that Because I've seen a lot

of that on my timeline already from people who I wouldn't expect it

No, the Stans, the Stans love him still.

Yeah, I think he'll be fine.

I, the thing that's interesting is if some of his advertisers will stay on knowing

that he'll probably end up getting more views.

Well, the one, the one episode

I listened to is him and David Goggins, and it lasted forever.

And he read, like, ten minutes of ads, like, one after the other, and he does them with gusto.

Like, I'm like, wow, he's not just, like, mumbling his way through some DraftKings ad.

He is really going for it with, with AG1 and all these other potions and powders and supplements

and

Yeah, he's a

great spokesperson.

you know, these, these kind of micro controversies that emerge are actually delicious.

In the same way that You know, old celebrity, controversies were interesting to a large number of people, right?

Like I got to tell you the week that Cass, Michael Kassin is a kind of the ultimate connector was the CEO of a company called MediaLink is known to everybody in the media and advertising business is the king of con, you know, everybody knows Michael.

And when the Michael drama happened, there's just a couple of things that were interesting about it.

You know, say what you want about Michael.

He's someone I know well, and you know, people like him, people don't like him, whatever, but, it was a little micro drama for people in the media and advertising industry and everybody talked about it.

And so, you know, Michael's a celebrity and he's a celebrity in a little community of people.

And, you know, Michael's it's a different issue.

There's a, there was, I think an interesting point about your PR point, Emily, which is that.

When this thing was about to blow up between Michael Kassin and UTA, Michael went on the offensive immediately and he said, no, you didn't fire me.

I quit.

I'm suing you.

You're full of shit.

And suddenly there was this kind of cloud of smoke around the whole thing that gave each side an opportunity to kind of pick their You know, pick their hero or pick their, you know, just pick a side.

And I think that increasingly those kinds of micro dramas inside of different communities that we occupy are just the way our way of life.

And some of them are bigger.

Like the Huberman one is bigger.

The, the, the, the, the Catherine, the Royal one is global.

But they're all kind of, you know, just little dramas that we need to live with now.

And I think for the people that get caught up inside of them, it's, it's.

probably horrifying.

Like that person,

caught up in a micro drama, you're like

I got caught up in a microdrama and it was horrifying for me.

It took me several years to heal from it.

And I'm probably still not healed.

So

But I think what's interesting about that, not specifically your thing, but that with so many people being celebrities, I almost feel like the path to becoming one of these influencers, you can almost accidentally become one.

Like, or you can just like, all of a sudden you, you

you arrive in this.

Yeah, but it is through, through

sweat and grit.

No,

thank you again.

I'm not sure if it's a compliment.

Is you can be subjected to that kind of scrutiny, but not have, you know, You know, like Brad Pitt, like, he worked like hell to get there, and it was like against all odds that he would possibly become Brad Pitt.

Now, these people like Andrew Huberman are not Brad Pitt or something, but we've got so many of them out there that I don't think they're prepared for, I mean, this is, I'm not in pity party for Andrew Huberman, but like, they're not prepared necessarily for this kind of maelstrom to, to some degree.

Like, I think the downsides, I saw this study and everyone, artists.

survey that said 57 percent of Gen Z wants to be influencers.

Maybe, I don't know, but obviously it's, it's a draw, but the downside to it is

tremendous with the commodification of yourself.

I agree.

But I, I, I just want to highlight this point again, that I think that, that equipped to deal with it.

From, let's just call it a PR perspective.

They're either, they don't know, they're paralyzed, they're not getting good advice, whatever it is.

I mean, even, I, I mean, one could easily argue that the, the Catherine Middleton thing was just so badly handled.

Like it didn't have to go this way.

Yeah, I think the thing with that is that The palace is such a large network you'd assume that they have the best the best in the world working with them in the same way that You know A lot of people in politics have the best and the brightest pr teams are on them And it was such a novice mistake like even influencers know that they can get caught for photoshopping like it You The photoshopping thing really was bad.

And the response to it was bad.

Yeah.

So I want, I want to spin this forward, to about

it, one, can we, one

last point though, Brent.

In this game, the people that I sort of begrudgingly admire are the people that just do not give a

Like, portnoy?

Portnoy is a good example.

Trump is the obvious example.

It's like,

or just do it lining up.

with all the greats.

don't think that's lining up.

I'm saying that there's a shamelessness and a fearlessness associated with just running headfirst into

whatever it is, making your lie bigger, making your smoke screen bigger, whatever it is.

It's like, this is a game.

These are warring narratives.

We're going to fight and play dirty on our side and we're going to challenge and everything you're saying, call out your lies, we don't give a shit about the truth, it's a game.

So you think it's more of that, unless, like, I'm being vigilant about my desires,

like, fuck you if you don't get it?

you think it's all, like, lie?

no, it's

don't think in his quietest moments that Trump realizes that he's playing in a simulation and he's a fucking liar?

more portnoy.

Fortnite?

No, I don't think he I, I just

I absolutely think Portnoy plays a next

level game

for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

and it's tremendous leverage.

The biggest, I always say like the, the last remaining moat, particularly in media and this, this larger culture, is shamelessness.

If you can be shameless, the most shameless you are, the most protected you are.

Right.

know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But let's talk about the

to the

want to, I want to talk about business because influence, it gives tremendous leverage in the marketplace.

And, and obviously people are recognizing that.

And I think we saw that with DTC and attaching celebrity to brands and, and George Clooney with, with tequila and whatnot.

But I think now it is becoming, you build the brand.

A network and an audience first, and then you go into the products and that is a totally different game.

And, I think it's pretty interesting.

And, and you, you cover a lot of this, right?

Definitely.

Yeah, it's kind of part of my thesis about the whole letter.

Like I was kind of saying this earlier But how founders become celebrities and now all the celebrities we know are becoming founders or they know That they need to create some sort of celebrity project to become a founder It's a lot easier to sell a product when you have a built in audience of potential

customers Yeah, I Think that You know a good example of that going well Sometimes and going poorly other times is like the Kardashian family right like they became famous They launched a lot of brands that have failed Skims happens to be doing really well Some of the new Kylie brands are doing very poorly.

So it they're But they're launching brands and they're getting manufacturers to create this stuff and it's they're they're getting immediate retail partnerships so that's like a an extreme example, but there are smaller examples too like

Oh, I know the best one, the best one.

Azealia Banks with Cheapy XO.

yeah

to Google this person.

I never, I don't, I knew the name, but I don't know what, what

No, I'm, it's, it's maybe a

nothing thing, but you know, she's famous for attacking people.

yeah,

she's yeah, she

called

there.

People call it her beef Zodiac.

It's hilarious.

has she

like had a threesome with Grimes and Elon.

I think she's wild.

But she uses the internet as like a total playground like she creates a lot of drama.

I guess she launched What did she launch clothes?

No, she's got soaps and things.

Okay, that's fun

Unicorn soap.

But It makes sense like to build

the customer base first and then tell them what they want to buy.

Mean do you agree like don't don't you think that that makes sense to like build a devoted audience?

Like if I was to launch a product tomorrow,

I'm sure it would do decently well if I told my readers my

Do you think about doing that?

I mean, you're selling a product,

but it's a subscription.

But,

Yeah, yeah, of course.

I think about like

What would you sell, Emily, do you think?

What would you like to sell?

really want to make a money clip merch

Right?

Okay.

like fun merch weird merch

but what?

People don't really carry money anymore.

Well, it's kind of like a wink,

and you can put cards in it.

And people do carry money.

Money's coming back.

Money's coming

back, and the people who read my

I didn't even know what that meant.

I just

Will that have a, will that have an integrated

crypto wallet in it

Definitely not.

It's like analog cigarettes are coming back.

Do we call them analog cigarettes?

They're back.

I see so many people are smoking

Cigarettes are back, nicotine's back in general.

I'm super buzzed on nicotine right now.

Troy's on his fifth zin.

Yeah, we did a, we did a zen trade the other day at our coffee

meeting.

Do you do

I guess it wasn't a trade, cause I didn't

she, it wasn't a trade.

She bummed us in for

Yeah.

All the girls do zen.

Oh, really?

I

had No, idea.

Vaping is out, I guess.

A party the other night, a dinner party on Saturday, and we smoked in the house around the table.

That was,

no, cigarettes.

Oh, they were all European people.

Many of them were European, right?

She was French.

And yeah, she didn't mind.

We just filled her apartment with cigarettes.

Yeah, they just spray a little perfume around.

It's fine.

What else do we have on

influencers?

Have we covered influencers too?

Well, I, I, we didn't get your take on the, the Cassin drama, Brian.

Oh, Michael, do you know Michael Kass and Emily?

Yeah, yeah, I've

You know this character?

Oh, you've, oh, you've even

like, he's someone who I always run into and he's like, Brian, why have we not had coffee?

And I'm like, we've never had coffee together.

It's strange that you keep saying that.

It would be more noteworthy if we had, had coffee together.

I have nothing against the guy.

I do think that it shows that it's better to be a behind the scenes influencer.

It still is like being out front is still It's a mugs game.

I mean, you get all the, the blowback.

It's the same with, you know, the, the best like rich people are the people nobody's ever heard of.

They don't have to deal with all the security concerns and all this like, they don't, the scrutiny, they don't need to deal with any of that stuff.

But, to me, like, the Kassin story is one of influence and getting caught up in that lifestyle that seems to be, he's a very L.

A.

character to me in this game.

He doesn't exist, I don't believe in other industries.

I got notes that there is a Michael Kassin of other industries, I'm like, I don't know if it's the same type of character.

and heating?

Yeah, like, I just don't believe that that is,

Yeah, Some guy deep in Long Island that has like the kingpin of,

I don't know.

Maybe I'm naive.

You like to say that.

So yeah, no, I mean, I think, the Kasson story is, is the downside of, of influence, just more on a B2B side.

Do you think that we'll hit peak influencer or do you think that this is just the future

Of work

I think it's the future of work in a lot of ways.

I think about like what you're doing now, you could not have done 10 years ago,

No

right?

And it's amazing because if you, you would have been forced to.

Pick a lane, go be a creative director for Meta or for Google or whatever, or you could continue down the documentary film lane, right?

You directed some, like you could go down that lane.

You could be a freelance writer.

I would not recommend that to anyone.

It's a really difficult existence.

But you don't have to choose anymore and you can do all of these things.

And you've got a ton of people paying you for your, for your newsletter,

right?

And that is,

so the

whole thing.

Yeah.

That is

great.

So I look at that as like, that's a tremendous, like, that is always going to be incredibly attractive because you have autonomy.

You can go to Secret Bay or whatever.

You can do all these things and you don't have to like, ask your boss if you can like, get a day off or any of that

stuff.

I don't see that as very attractive if people

did you have to ask anyone if you could go, Emily?

No

What about the intern?

No

Okay.

Same time zone which makes it I do.

I think the other thing that substack has been with with with instagram influencers like that wave you had to divulged quite a bit about your life.

You had to give your, your, your followers quite a bit of yourself and like, that is something I appreciate about Substack is I don't, or at least mine, is I don't need to tell my readers everything about myself.

And I think that there was probably a wave of blogging where like, the more you exposed about yourself, the more readership that you got, and I'm sure it could go a different direction, but that's something that I really enjoy about.

Substack and like the world that I've built is I don't need I people are paying me to read my curation And my takes but I don't need to tell them everything about my life and keep my camera on like showing them everything.

So I really do value a certain amount of privacy as well, and I don't think that

well, Yeah,

I do think it's, I, we, I remember you mentioned it before when we met, like you're a private person.

I was like, but Emily, there's a photo of you on every single newsletter.

It's there's nothing like that revealing about

right.

I get it.

It's very superficial where some people and we were all the articles are starting to come out, you know, even like, like size inclusivity, influencers who are getting, you know, they, they go on to like a Zempik or, or just

start working out.

I don't know.

and people get mad at them.

for, for losing weight.

There was a tragic story, I guess, I think the journal covered it with a guy who used to be a Disney executive and then he became like, I don't know what they're called, but like he was like a wife guy influencer, and then they got divorced and like he's being like dragged

Even Alex Cooper, like, she built a brand on being like a party girl that had sex with a lot of guys, and now she's married and rich, and like, she's just a little bit less interesting to listen to, because she's not relatable anymore.

She's, she's kind of like a set up Hollywood woman now, which is great.

You know, there's a couple observations about this.

One is I do, I delight in the new hybrids that are being created.

Like, you know, Emily represents, you know, business culture, and, you know, a wink.

And, you know, that one that you highlighted from Instagram, the woman who's like MAGA woman that also does home decorating.

Yeah.

So there's all these kind of like, I'll do the news, but I'm also, you know, this is my life.

But I think that what you asked if it's going to continue, and I think that My observation of that would be that not only did the internet make the, the funk, you know, you think about what are the primary structural organizational features of a media company that meant that writers had to slot into a corporate system, right?

And I would say they're, they're just two basic ones.

One is distribution.

And the other one is monetization.

And the internet.

allowed Emily to build an audience directly.

So that's not going away, right?

You can now go do that.

And the other interesting one.

And Brian, you comment on this all the time is that.

Suddenly monetization is kind of plug and play.

And you know, like if you looked at the P and L of a publishing company, call it, you know, Harper's bazaar or time, time, time magazines or dot dash Meredith or whatever, 60 to 80 percent of their costs are tied up in ad sales, closer to 80, by the way, ad sales, technology and operations.

And so

not actually making the thing.

Not making the thing at all.

I mean,

it's usually your edit line item is under 28, it's under 20%.

And so now you have a system where you don't need to make it nearly as much.

And that whether it's subs or endorsements or selling products or, you know, doing fucking webinars or

online forum with Viafora.

It's on April 10th 1pm if anyone's interested will be a link in the show notes.

yeah.

You know, people can go out and they can do their thing.

And I got to believe.

You know, maybe the flip side to all this, well, suddenly you're exposed to being scrutinized because you're an independent kind of influence person in this new game that we play.

The flip side to it is, oh my God, how great is it that you can build your business, Emily?

It's awesome.

And you might take it to a few hundred grand and you might take it to a few hundred million.

And, that's kind of up to you.

Which do you want to take it to, Emily?

I'm interested.

she

What, what would you go for?

What would I go for?

I think, I think the future is in lifestyle businesses and everyone's lifestyle business is different at different phases in life.

Like you've, you already have a lifestyle business right now.

So it's just a question of how much.

Do you

really want to build like infrastructure around you

Oh, I'd jam some

and all that high cost cafe you've lost the,

Yeah, I

cost part,

These past few weeks, like the past, I guess six weeks have been the first time in my life where this is my job every day.

Before that, I was doing a consulting project with Shopify, or I've worked with other brands.

So this is the first time I've be able to really be to incubate the ideas of the directions that I wanna go into.

And at the same time, the more effort that I put into this letter,

the more it gives back to me, like I've gotten great.

You got to know us,

I got to know you guys.

What could be better?

But i've i've had more readers.

I've had advertising opportunities I've had the opportunity to go on this trip like and those all add value to my life and I When i'm ready to start turning on different levers, like I I will do that.

Because I do I don't want this to

to

plateau.

I want it to keep growing

Yeah, but

you

200.

She's gone.

She's gone.

for it.

yeah

yeah

So, how, how how many paid subscribers do you have?

I don't

ask things like that.

Why not?

Why,

rude.

I,

is, why not?

much money do you have in the

bank?

What is the, why are people so, so weird about that?

I don't

understand.

don't think a lot of people are.

I think most people would

Okay.

Well,

No, Emily's not sharing.

No.

I'll tell you guys.

I'll tell you guys later.

Yeah.

But you

So, so Emily, I just need you to do a visualization

Oh, oh my god, tens of thousands?

You're fine.

Oh my god.

I'll tell you because she, and she also offered me a free sub.

Okay.

For

Well, if I had tens of thousands, I'd

offer a free sub

Plus her sub is cheaper

than yours, F4I.

I know, but her, her total addressable market

is, is far larger.

I mean, how

Yeah,

saying,

I'm beyond tech.

you

but here's the visual, the important visualization manifestation exercise, Emily.

We have to imagine a world where Emily Inc.

is like, you know, it's a accessible line of money clips at target.

And it's, you know, also the kind of, you know, it's a boutique on, you know, in Soho and it's, or it's a, you know, massively elevated consulting practice that does the LVMH or it's, you know,

People who know me listening to this are probably laughing right now, this part.

It's hilarious, right?

It's a Huberman level podcast that literally has everybody dissecting your life.

Where is Emily from?

Emily, you know, who are her parents?

What part of Long Island did she grow up in?

Blah, blah, blah.

It's following every move, right?

Like, so you have to really think about where this 300 million business is going to come from him.

And then your search autocomplete changes, right?

It's like,

It already, like, what is it right now if you

look it up?

I'm curious what it is.

I always said like, what I want is like, Brian Marcy and then like, Net worth?

and then, and then wife.

That's what I want.

Okay, white guy.

Emily's

because if that, that means that, no, that means that people are, you're looking for affirmation and you're, you're autocomplete.

You don't want to add tech afterwards.

That's just sub stack LinkedIn Twitter for me.

Alright, well, aspiration.

Anyway, we just have, so there's a.

What do you want, Brian?

What's your, what's your end game?

Well, to bring it back to that, the Jason Fried thing, what he, I think what he's, what he advocates is, is amazing.

Right?

Like, I think the idea of, building media entities of any kind with the idea of, of building equity to trade on is if that happens, that happens.

But to me, it's better to run these kinds of businesses

for, for cashflow and

Yeah, I like, I like that.

So you could get to a 10 million

EBITDA business and you would be like pimping in Miami.

exactly.

I don't know what that, maybe

not that I wouldn't use those phrases, but,

Well, that's a colloquial

thing, right?

Like it

Yeah, yeah, Yeah, Yeah, like

like

off, Yeah,

All right.

off, Yeah,

Sorry.

I got the,

In the context

of Miami, that it literally means like, I don't need that.

I don't need any of that stuff.

I just think to me, like the, the attraction of this, I don't know how you feel is, is the autonomy.

I mean, I, you had more of a flexible career, I had a long career in, in cubicles.

And, I, I will never go

back to that kind of like, life either in the cubicle or in the

open

you were so angry then.

I like, you

know, a

angry.

I was just, yeah.

I don't like, I don't like the, the company stuff.

It's, it's, it's not, it's not greAt.

I don't know.

I, to me, it's, it's, it's an old organizational, framework that

I think you've absolutely flowered as a human being.

Thank you.

Anyway, that's my, that's my take on it.

But I think it's a problem with, I mean like this, just to, I'm going to have to wrap it up, but like writing every day, can we just talk about this for a second?

how do you, like, that's a lot.

But it's my job.

You wake up and you do your job every day.

Everybody has a job that they wake up and do every day.

Mine is to write a newsletter every day.

I don't, I don't see it as like it's, it's not like this struggling cathartic thing to write about the news every day for me.

Every once in a while I'll do something that is feels a

little bit more difficult.

But it's

but you're in the zone.

It's like brushing your teeth.

That's when you

know that yeah, it's just

it's

my zone and I work for myself and when I don't do it I don't get paid.

So it's like you have to you have you have to be like hungry to put in the effort and I have like a pretty high bar for For like excellence and I want to just keep creating something that's working really well.

That's like the most common question I get asked like how do you write every day and how did you get to where you are?

And like the answer is kind of the same.

It's like I enjoy working This is the first time in my life where the harder I work the more money I make And I'm also on an island.

Like it's, I, and this could be you too.

If you join my multi level marketing newsletter, but it's not, I've been writing my whole life, you know, like I spent a lot of time on the internet writing growing up.

Like it's a very second nature thing to me.

I just happened to get paid for it now.

well

I know how to scan the internet for my links every day

very well.

It's a skill that I had to develop.

Do you have a personal mantra?

Like don't lose I don't know like I I heard something the other day and it was like no

silver medals But it was somebody it was from somebody else.

So you're like total hustle,

like,

yeah.

you were that

No, she's a

I didn't know

Wow,

hard

I didn't know that it was like, you know, no silver medals.

That's like

I was listening to I back to backed the Kobe and Michael Jordan

Founders episodes

and those were really good.

I, work has always been a big part of my

personality.

I don't know.

Well, it's less the work thing.

It's, it's more, I think, a lot of work.

And we've talked about this on this podcast about like this sort of careers sort of push you into not doing the thing that you're, that you started doing.

Like if you want to advance as.

You know, when you're a reporter, you, if you're gonna advance, you become an editor.

I mean, you can stay as a reporter.

You just, you won't, and it's, it's also, you get older and you have like less energy, honestly.

And, it's Kind of boring, but easier to go in meetings a lot and just be like, yeah, just to build on what Jim is saying.

you also get more money in these organizations and accrue more power and quote unquote prestige just by being in meetings instead of actually doing the actual work.

So.

I think it's interesting to, I mean you're, you're still like in your like writing prime I guess.

I, I find it hard, it gets harder when you get, when you get older to do these things but but do you think that the brand, do you think about introducing other writers to this brand?

Like can this, do you think, is this like Emily as the brand or is it Feed Me as the brand or is it somewhere in between?

You seem to be working through this

I am working through This this is

like, my project over the last few weeks.

I didn't think, six months ago, I didn't think I'd be here.

Like, I didn't think I would be doing this as a full time.

I thought I was always gonna have to have a side client that I had to make happy that wanted 100 percent from me.

I never thought that I would be in this position, so now I have to, Develop based on being in this position and there aren't that many people who I can ask for advice because this is a new platform

I think for the audience, it's important to highlight, Brian, that the skills that Emily has are very rare.

They are, because Emily knows how to make things interesting, and that's a kind of packaging skill and a tone and a vibe that, makes people want to jump in your sub stack, chat box.

And it's not, you know, it always makes me sad when I see someone else on Substack that opens up the chat thread and it's like, wah, wah.

So it's, you know, it's a, it's a rare, it's not easy to do what you're doing.

Thank you, that's very nice of you I Don't I'm not like great at acting or being any other way And I think that that's also made it taken a lot of stress off of my

You're pretty open minded too, by the way, which is kind

Yeah, I again, like most of that is just from how I grew up right like

That stuff you can't really change.

Born this way, Emily.

Mm hmm.

hmm.

are you, you know, one last item I had on my list, Brian was the, are you worried about the kids and the phones, Emily?

Are we, have we completely fucked up a

Absolutely.

I was talking about this last night.

Specifically, I'm noticing the range of how schools treat the phone usage.

So there are schools in, in better funded areas that like take the phone at the door, put it in a box, they You know these these kids go home and they have other stimulation besides their phones They have a different relationship with it.

And then I have friends who work in probably schools where The kids are going home and the parents just hands them a tablet and maybe the mom isn't even around or whatever and I find it highly concerning.

My dad's a teacher.

So I also hear like his angst constantly about Especially during covid when everybody was getting the laptops and the zoom and whatever Yeah, it comes down to parenting.

It's not really the kid's fault that this is like a really fun thing to use.

It's not, it, I, I think it really comes down to like, parenting decisions.

I don't have

kids, so I haven't gone through that yet.

I was having this discussion with my

sisters, who do have children,

and they really resent that Both government and they're not like, you know, super, pro government people, but like that government and these technology companies, they blame them more because they're like, it is literally impossible.

It is impossible.

How are we going to?

We're gonna say, Oh, you're gonna be an outcast.

You're not gonna have the phone like it.

They're put in their view.

They're put in an impossible situation by, you know, People who don't, who are acting for just pure financial interests like that have let loose this on the world and maybe as unintended

consequences, but it's pretty obvious now that the phones are pretty bad.

Yeah, I feel bad about it personally.

My kids went to like a hippie German school called the Waldorf school and they were like, no TV, no technology.

And I used to like crack dealer that shit to them.

I'd be like, this is super cool.

You should check this out.

And now I have to deal with the consequences.

But do you see, do you see that like there's going to be like, that there's some kind of like backlash where it's, it's, it's a little bit like punk rock not to be so on your phone all the time and, and, and because there's always, there's always a backlash.

Anything that is like the mass and the mainstream, there's always a counter reaction to it.

It usually comes from

Yeah, like you see the people getting flip phones, ironically or not ironically.

I see a lot of friends, I guess, like self disciplining and putting alerts on their phone that they've been on it too much.

I think more and more I've become sensitive to friends who constantly have their phone like we're going to a restaurant and they look up the restaurant or I've noticed this specifically when i'm driving and the person in the passenger seat is using their phone the whole time for some reason it makes me feel so frustrated like That's it.

That's like a new

pain for me.

I just got the rabbit is being delivered to me in a week or so.

what's that?

That's that orange device that you it's an AI phone device.

Have you not seen the

You can get one on ebay in like a year when it goes out of business

no

Okay.

it.

But yeah, I I yeah, I think that there will be more people realizing that Their life progresses when they maybe are on their phone or like their anxiety decreases when they're on

their phone less

All right,

we should leave it i'll go ahead

try it then we gotta leave it there

have to do good product too.

And then we should keep Emily around for that.

It doesn't won't take me long, Brian, but you know, it's my job.

I do the good product corner.

like i'm being lectured go on

What a great setup.

We're really looking forward to this.

You know, every week we, we try to identify something in our lives that are worthy is worthy of, you know, attention and praise.

And so it's called good product and you know, you know why we do it, Brian.

And we like this segment.

We'll

Okay, let's go let's do it

So I was thinking

that I like going to restaurants.

I like, I love eating at restaurants.

And I think what people underappreciate about a good restaurant, and it's the thing that's probably more important, or certainly as important as the food, is the front of house.

And the front of house is how you feel when you walk into a restaurant.

And I love people that do front of house well and appreciate it for the art it is because it makes me feel belonging.

It makes me feel like I'm meant to be there, like they're happy to have me there.

Like I'm someone who, You know, is found the right place.

And so to me, you know, like I went into this, there's this hyped restaurant in Fort Greene, you know, Fort Greene brand where you always use it as a reference

point for journalists, right?

There's a new restaurant

there called Sailor.

And, it's kind of a hotspot and I, it's a beautiful room and I went in and the way they greeted me and had greeted my guest who had arrived before me just made me feel like, and I had never been there before, but it made me feel like I belong there.

And it was so warm and you know, the food was great too, but you know, it's that it's a Danny Meyers thing, right?

Like understanding front of house is.

and art.

Some people are great at it.

And you're not just going to a restaurant for the food.

You're going for the feeling.

And that feeling is belonging.

And that's my good product this week.

Wow

What do you think?

Is that, am I right?

I mean, I'm not objecting to it.

I, I hadn't put as much thought into it as you have,

Emily.

agree.

I

think bartenders have to do a lot of that too like a lot of

I love a good

bartender.

There's nothing better, Emily, than eating at the bar, in my opinion, because then you can talk to the side, to your, to the person you're with, and to the bartender, and the person to your other side, which is good.

It's kind of a, it relieves some of the social pressure if you're awkward like me.

Now I, that I agree on, because, and also because New York has become a reservations place when it was never a reservations

place and I hate Rezzy.

I will never, I don't know any, I don't know

how Rezzy.

came about, it's an abomination, and it

I got a new one this week, Brian.

Do you know about this one?

And it's called

Oh yeah, I'm, yeah, I know Dorsia.

Come

on, I'm, I'm in

Very new money very

got, you got to pay for the

table up front.

And so like it'll say if you're going to like lure fish bar, it's a buck 20 ahead, you pay it up front.

And if you

Yeah.

that hurdle, you pay it

If you want to go to Carbone, it's like 3.

75 a person

That's ridiculous.

Carbon is fancy pasta.

I, I'm just saying

that's, it's, it's, it makes a lot of sense that they're in like New York,

Can you believe that they made the cheese wheel into something sort of coveted?

I mean, they were doing that stuff in like Regina where I'm from, like in the eighties.

Cheese wheel.

Stop it.

brian.

What's your product?

I don't, we only do one,

one product?

I don't have, I don't

have one.

That it's true.

It's Troy's, Troy wants

to make it his own podcast.

I don't know.

So do you have a product, Emily?

You wanna hear about my product?

Yes, please.

I'm not gonna say the brand, but I got sent a new sunscreen and it didn't work.

It didn't

Oh, was it vacation?

Okay.

Well, they do the brand really well.

Sometimes when I wonder when people do the brand really well, although I know Dakota and he, he really grinded it out with, with that, he's one of the founding team and.

They do it great.

That's a great brand.

All right.

Thank you all for listening, and if you like this podcast, I hope you do.

Please leave us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

That takes ratings and reviews.

Always like to get those.

and if you have feedback, do send me a note.

My email is bmaracy at therebooting.com.

Be back next week.

Well, we'll leave it at that.

What a pleasure to have you here, Emily.

Thank you for doing it on short notice.

right.

This is fun.

Thanks for This was a blast..