Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello and welcome to the Never Post
Mailbag episode four rainy season 2025 in which we respond
to listener emails, comments, voicemails, and voice messages
about our segments. Folks, you know it because I've said it
before, but I'm gonna say it again. We love to hear from you.
It's why we do the show. Please do get in touch and tell us your
thoughts on our segments.
All of the ways that you can get a hold of us are in the show
notes. Drop us a line. And if you don't, Georgia is gonna cry.
Georgia: I am. I'm crying right now.
Mike Rugnetta: I've seen it
happen. She cries.
Georgia: He said it was
Mike Rugnetta: I'm your host, Mark McNetta. Joining me today
in order of their spicy food tolerance, I assume. Woah.
Ascending Hans Buto, n p s p.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. I think that's right. I think that's
right.
Georgia: I'm the
Hans Buetow: old man of the group. So I got I got that
heartburn coming in the night.
Mike Rugnetta: I didn't I didn't wanna lean really hard into the
Midwest The Midwest. But
Hans Buetow: As long as there's also lots of mayonnaise in
there, I would be like, hey. God. No. Hans. No.
Take it back. My god.
Mike Rugnetta: Next in line, Jason Oberholzer, NPEP.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. I'm probably somewhere in the middle
here. I'm looking at Georgia and I'm trying to figure out which
side of the line we're gonna be on. I can do it. I don't always
seek it out.
So that's where in the middle I am.
Mike Rugnetta: Georgia, and then next in line, Georgia Hampton,
NP, p.
Georgia: I'm honored to have this position in this order. I
do like spicy food. Spicy food doesn't really like me. Oh. So I
do really enjoy it and I have fun eating it.
Mike Rugnetta: What's your favorite spicy dish that you
wish you could have more that you don't?
Georgia: Oh, god. I mean, a lot of like Indian dishes. It's
Jason Oberholtzer: worth the pain.
Mike Rugnetta: It is. When it's spicy and tasty, you just
Hans Buetow: can't you can't do any better than that. Georgia,
would you do hot ones?
Georgia: Absolutely not. Okay. No. I hate that, but that's for
different reasons. I hate food challenges.
Don't
Hans Buetow: like big interviews. That's too bad
because, like, because I saw Sean
Mike Rugnetta: at the Webby's and I
Hans Buetow: was like, Sean, Georgia would Georgia would be
on it. Listen.
Georgia: I locked eyes with Sean at the Webby's, and I felt we
had a cosmic connection. So Sean, get at me. Would love to
talk
Hans Buetow: to you. As long
Mike Rugnetta: as it doesn't involve anything spicy, we're
good.
Georgia: No. No. No. It's my I just I I hate food challenges. I
hate them.
I don't like it. They kinda yuck me out. So I wouldn't I get it.
Do it.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Hey, guys. Mailbag. Look at us.
Georgia: Wow. I
Hans Buetow: think we're mailing it. I think I did it.
Mike Rugnetta: I did
Hans Buetow: a good job.
Georgia: Mike got
Hans Buetow: the call.
Jason Oberholtzer: So you
Hans Buetow: did it? See you on the other side.
Mike Rugnetta: Alright. Let's mailbag. up, in response to a
previous mailbag, and I would just like to aside here for one
moment to formally acknowledge something that Jason has pointed
out, which is that we get the most listener mail in response
to or I shouldn't say in response to, I should say
immediately following mailbags. Yeah. It's great.
Yeah. So even though you are writing in and talking to us
about segments, we get most of this communication immediately
following the publish of a mailbag. So I just wanna say,
that's great. Keep doing that.
Hans Buetow: That's rad.
Mike Rugnetta: But you don't have to wait. You can reach out
anytime you have a thought. Okay. So Hern Sushi wrote in
after the previous mailbag and said, I just listened to the
latest mailbag, and I wanted to say, fuck yes, RSS. Now I'll
pause here and say, fuck yes, RSS.
Hans Buetow: RSS. We did Yes. RSS.
Mike Rugnetta: I am also still using a beautiful turquoise iPod
mini and a Tungara gay open hardware iPod. Oh, yes. To
listen to podcasts and music from Bandcamp. There are dozens
of us. Dozens.
And I just wanted to acknowledge or maybe not acknowledge, but to
request. I wanna know about all of the weird, like, open
hardware RSS gadgets.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. Definitely.
Mike Rugnetta: Because like, this rules.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. This is awesome. And I'm glad that we
are slowly inculcating everyone into the RSS feed life. Okay.
Mike Rugnetta: Next up, on the subject of platforms and hentai,
Gabriel wrote in and said this, I've recently seen a chart on
how ChatGPT is gobbling up the traffic from the biggest
websites. I didn't verify it, but it seems right to me.
ChatGPT doesn't really feel like the Internet to me. It's more
like a tool that just happens to use the Internet, But I already
had trouble thinking of some of the other sites as Internet
websites, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, etcetera, are
more like apps to me. I think that the Internet shouldn't be
apps, but I guess I'm just old school.
For me, the Internet is a website that I access in a
browser on my PC laptop on my desk. Shout out to Mike who has
to sit down with his laptop to write important emails. Still
true. It seems like increasingly how people use the Internet is
through apps on phones, and it just makes me wonder, what is
the Internet? Am I just a boomer who is used to browsing actual
websites like forums and blogs, and I should consider everything
that needs an Internet connection to function?
Is any app that I have on my phone the Internet? Podcasts,
chat GPT, console games, torrenting. What else is the
Internet that I didn't consider? Bonus question. When I'm at work
and I open an app on my phone to turn on the AC and the lights at
home, which are all connected to my Wi Fi, is that the Internet?
When my printer refuses to print because I stopped paying a
subscription, is that the Internet? When I have to wait
for ten minutes before I can start my car because of a
software update, is that the Internet? Gabriel? Gabriel. I
think those things are the Internet.
Georgia: I think it's all the Internet. It's all the Internet.
But like derogatorial.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. Internet open parentheses not
complimentary. Yeah. Internet parentheses threat.
I mean, this reminds me of the there was discussion that
happened many many years ago where it was like, what's the
Internet versus the World Wide Web? Yeah. Like, back when this
was like, you know, we were still sort of figuring out what
this delimiter was. It was like you would go on Usenet, right,
would be the Internet, but like www.yahoo.com was the World Wide
Web. That was the and like, are all of these things the
information superhighway?
Georgia: Oh, boy.
Mike Rugnetta: Getting to your question, the immediate thing
that I thought was like, yeah, all the things that need an
Internet connection to function are the Internet, including like
the Internet of Things. And then you call out the Internet of
Things, which yeah. I think it's like the global network of
machines, even if they're your refrigerator, it's all the
Internet.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. I agree.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Yeah. There's a good decade there,
where like the Internet of Things was always looming in the
think pieces as coming and arriving and life changing. And
it turns out it just like kind of came and arrived and became
everything and nothing really feels any different.
Mike Rugnetta: And now my air conditioner is connected to the
Internet and it's got a timer on it that I can change via an app
on my phone to time when it turns on and off, but it doesn't
it doesn't ever apply. Like no matter how many times I do it in
the app, the actual appliance never behaves any differently.
And that feels like the Internet. You know I mean? Like,
that feels thematically right.
Georgia: But I do think there's sort of different designations
worth being made here of the Internet of things, the social
Internet.
Jason Oberholtzer: Right.
Georgia: I mean, it's all the Internet, but the app Instagram
on my phone feels like a different Internet than the app
on my phone I use to change the color of the light bulbs in my
light fixtures.
Mike Rugnetta: But I think it's like, this is where this like
the psychogeographic metaphors are useful.
Hans Buetow: You know, like
Jason Oberholtzer: Like it does.
Mike Rugnetta: Pittsburgh and Palm Springs are both The United
States, but they're very very different places. I think, you
know, the Internet feels similarly sometimes.
Georgia: Definitely. Well, I think this dovetails very nicely
into some messages we got around my segment around tactility and
buttons and smartphones. And we got this message from Alec that
says, hi, Neverpost. I finished Georgia's segment on tactility
and smartphones with a thick yellow electrical wire in my
hands. I was steadily coiling it in wide circles around a vacuum,
finishing my nightly janitor work at Seattle based tech mega
corp and wondering why I couldn't relate to this lack of
touch, this void that needed to be filled.
The answer came almost immediately. Rubbery plastic
wire running through my fingers, threatening to burn them through
the friction of its passing. Touch is a major sense in my
line of work, only to sight. I can feel the coffee stain on
your desk as well as I can see it. And more importantly, I can
feel when I've wiped it away.
Touching a sticky mess is not satisfying, but what I like
about my job is the act of reaching out and changing the
world around me bit by tiny bit. With each bag of trash, each
stroke of the toilet brush, not only do I know I am doing
something impactful, but my body knows it too. When I spend too
long on my phone, some part of myself feels adrift in the sea
of content, floating further and further away from the pile of
meat and bones lying in my bed. I think the need for tactile
experiences is very high, both as a way for our minds to stay
grounded within our bodies, and as a way for our bodies to get
the feedback that they have a purpose. That they are not just
for ferrying a brain and a thumb around to look at the next
screen.
That's a very long way of saying that I love buttons, and I think
they're fun to press. Thanks for the thought provoking episode as
always.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. of all.
Mike Rugnetta: Fucking shouts to Alex.
Hans Buetow: That was great.
Georgia: Beautifully beautifully written.
Mike Rugnetta: Yes.
Georgia: And I mean, I completely agree with you. I
think what you're describing when you start feeling adrift
from your actual physical body is something I struggle with
constantly because I am online so much, because I'm interfacing
with screens so much more than I'm doing something, I would
say, like intentional with my body, with my hands, with my
physical self.
Hans Buetow: This reminds me of when I used to work in
restaurants a lot. And my wife, who was then my girlfriend, we
were just starting to date, worked in an office, and she
would say, sometimes I really like doing dishes, and I would
say, no. And she would say, all of my projects are long term
projects that never have any resolution, but when I do a
dish, I wash it, I put it down, I dry it, and it's done. And
it's like that same sort of impulse of, ugh, I think I can
touch rather than the thing that swirls around me, I think is a
is a strong inclination.
Georgia: This is something I think about a lot with jobs I've
had in the past. When I was an undergrad, I was the lab
assistant in a dark room for multiple years and was
responsible for mixing the chemistry together that was used
in the black and white darkroom. And even I mean, the act of
printing a photograph in a darkroom is so physical. You
specifically cannot have a phone out because it will destroy your
paper. Even I was a barista when I moved to Chicago, and the the
experience of that job is so physical and so physical in a
way that kind of negates the possibility of using screens,
which is something I find exponentially more helpful for
me when it's like, no, actually, you can't.
Jason Oberholtzer: Mhmm. I think part of what feels good when I
spend like a weekend making music with the fellows that I
record with is that I cannot touch my phone because my hands
are busy. Like Mhmm. They're on instruments. I cannot use it.
And that is very satisfying. The other thing that's made me think
of sort of like in a psycho spatial sense, if not psycho
geographic, is that when I started doing podcasts after
being a writer for a while, podcasting felt more spatial and
tactile to me in a way that's sort of like reminiscent of the
way Hans, your wife was saying that like dishes is a job you
can finish. Like podcast is a job you can finish because
there's so much raw material and you move it around and you drag
it and you cut it. You do all these things that like writing
is just the moving of ideas around and they could be
anything. Like podcast has material.
There's actually materiality to it. So I felt more grounded
doing also just stare at my screen digital work because it
was a different kind of stare at my screen digital ideal work.
Hans Buetow: That's interesting.
Georgia: Yeah. Mean, sort of materialize writing
Jason Oberholtzer: Right.
Georgia: Into clips that you have to move around, that you
cut, that you place, that you organize. Yeah. There's
something to that that makes it feel much more Yeah. I mean,
tactile
Hans Buetow: Yeah.
Georgia: In a way.
Jason Oberholtzer: Much more satisfying.
Georgia: So we actually got a lot of messages around mods and
add ons that you can attach to your devices to make them feel
more tactile and have more sensation to them. And one in
particular that I wanted to bring here is an audio clip from
Tim.
Tim: As a motion graphic artist, I do a lot of your digital
illustrations so that I can get into my animation software of
choice faster. And within the last few years, swapped to
Procreate on the iPad for that specifically because of how
powerful the Apple Pencil is versus, you know, using your
finger or just being on a Wacom which doesn't have a screen in
it, which was my go to for many years. And initially those touch
interface buttons where you're zooming in and out with pinches
and touching four fingers at once to do certain things felt
like magic and I really enjoyed that experience. But then no
matter what I changed in the settings, would always be
undoing by accident with the palm registration turned off and
it was infuriating that all these touch commands actually
became a hindrance to my process and after a bit of googling
found out that there's a large contingent of the illustration
community that uses a party controller called the eight Bit
Do because you can map different key shortcuts to each button. So
there are like number pads, bluetooth number pads that you
can buy from Amazon but they're pre programmed and I didn't like
the bulkiness of it and this tiny little controller just
seems so much more appealing to me so I got one recently, mapped
all of the keyboard shortcuts and Procreate to it and
honestly, like my illustration process is so much better for it
because you still need to, you know, pinch the zoom, that's
still natural part of it, but being able to like press buttons
to swap the brushes, swap the colors, really enhance the
drawing process for me specifically, and it was such an
interesting thing because this eight bit do is like completely
programmable.
It's something that was made for gaming and now is becoming a way
to act activity back to other processes on the device. And me,
I'm going, you can add different profiles to this thing. What
else can I actually add keyboard shortcuts to to improve my
experience with the touchscreen interface? And it's like, can I
use this to start driving music when I'm listening in the next
room or something? Like, it's actually opened a lot of
opportunities that I just wanna start experimenting with after
it enhanced my illustration experience so much.
Georgia: I think this is so interesting, specifically
because the world of digital illustration is one where
tactility is so at the forefront of the conversation. I mean, the
mention of, like, Wacom tablets, the the texture of the screen
that you're using is often something that people will like
modify. So you can find tablets or even almost like films that
you can put over tablets that make it feel more like you are
drawing on paper, even if you're not.
Mike Rugnetta: I believe that.
Jason Oberholtzer: That's cool. Mike, you're a big route your
own keypads macros sort of guy, aren't you?
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I was gonna say, I relate to this really
hard because I spent probably about a full year, maybe like
three or four years ago, trying to figure out what the most
efficient way for me to edit audio and sound design is. And
like, it turns out, yeah, that it's like it really is like
having one hand that is the tool's hand. So, you know,
that's like on the trackball mouse. And then the other hand
is just is switching tools.
So I just have a bank of buttons and a few knobs that switch
between what the tools are, and it's just like I remember when I
got it set up and I started doing it, I was like, oh, shit.
Okay. Yeah. Like, this is sort of how you're supposed to do
this. And it really it drove home for me this idea that it's
like, there is no knowing things without the body.
That, like, the body is just really so intimately involved in
knowledge. And, like, not just, like, getting the work done, but
in, like, knowing what to do next and feeling what the next
step in your process is and knowing the solutions to
problems and, like, building your skills. It's all just so
embodied, and so much of technology just throws all that
out the window.
Georgia: It says, like Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: Flat nothing, touching nothing, all chick lit
Feeling nothing.
Jason Oberholtzer: Smooth. And also, like, freeze cognitive
load because, like, when you are just interacting with an
interface with, like, a mouse or a touch pad or only that, like,
you are making cognitive level they give to think through, oh,
I'm switching to the faders for this and then it's going down by
however many d b's I can pull rather than, like, left hand
turns knob down. Like, loud knob go down.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And that knob does and like the important
Jason Oberholtzer: thing And that's the only thing that knob
does.
Hans Buetow: That knob does. Make it go down.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. And so your body can just be like, go
down. Yeah. And you can focus on thinking about like creative
ideas or the other thing you're supposed to be thinking about
rather than like, okay. So sub menu three.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Exactly. So I think I got to this point
because I was like, know, production and stuff and like
worked in recording studios, and I was like, a mixing desk is
stupid. It is like an ancient piece of technology that does
not represent the way that I work or the way that I wanna
work. However, it is a thing that has one not like, each
thing that's on it has a function and that's important.
And so, yeah, like recapturing that is is great.
Georgia: I think also in the opposite way, that's what drives
me so nuts about, you know, your printer having an app and the
idea of having to wait for your card at work because there's a
software update. Like, you conceptualize everything and
separate it from the physical that much, it's too much. It's
too I I I long for a return to one button do one thing.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Your printer is never gonna work, but
at least it's not working in a one to one relationship with
you.
Georgia: Yes. Exactly. Last thing on this is a message from
Tom.
Tom Lum: Hey, Never Post Gro. It's Tom Lum. Miss you guys.
Regarding touchscreens from episode 32, Smooth Moves, I just
wanted to share a parable that I always think of when it comes to
bad touchscreen interfaces, especially touchscreens on
keyboards like the Apple Touch Bar that I I despise. So at the
Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, formerly the EMP
Museum, there is a small silly video game called Tenya Wanya
Teens.
It was created by Keita Takahashi, who was the director
of Katamari Damacy, one of the best games ever made. And in
this game, Tenya Wanya Teens, you play a teenager going
through a speedrun of their day, but your controls are a grid of
16 colorful arcade buttons, with each color corresponding to a
hyper specific action. Like red might be brushing your teeth,
green might be playing guitar, and blue might be confessing
your love. These are all actual actions in the game, and there
are so many more. And as you are speedrunning through your day as
a teenager, you have to do the right action at the right time.
The catch being that randomly, the colors of the buttons will
swap out from beneath them, so you'll go to hit the button to
confess your love to your crush, but then it will have switched
to brushing your teeth, or you will accidentally confess your
love in front of the whole class. It's a really great
playable metaphor for the awkwardness of being a teen,
that you don't feel quite in control of your body, or that
you feel like you're always doing the wrong thing at the
wrong time. But the thing is, that's exactly what a bad touch
interface is, but not on purpose. Like, here it was used
as a pastiche and a joke, but like, any touch interface that
changes when you're not looking is a Tenya Wanya teen situation.
And of course it's even worse in a car.
So, of course, touch surfaces can be great, especially when
what you're looking at is what you're touching. But you have to
be careful, you're not literally creating a teniawanya teen
situation. Anyway, congrats on the Webby. I don't want to take
all the credit, but if we're being honest, I think my intro
at the start of the episode really did a lot of heavy
lifting in that episode, so you're welcome for the Webby.
That was a joke.
God, that was sad.
Mike Rugnetta: I think I think we should chisel off a part of
the webby and send it to Yeah.
Georgia: Break off
Mike Rugnetta: It's only fair, really.
Georgia: So I have amazing news, which is that I looked up Tenya
Wanya Teens, and it's so cute and amazing. Okay.
Mike Rugnetta: But I mean, what a great metaphor for like it's
yeah. So, you know
Georgia: It's perfect.
Mike Rugnetta: Bad touchscreen interface is just recreating the
awkwardness of not knowing how to use your body as a teenager.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. It's perfect.
Georgia: Confess your love. Confess your love. No.
Hans Buetow: No. I just wanna sign in. I'm just gonna send an
email.
Georgia: You're just my printer. Next
Jason Oberholtzer: up, we got an email in response to my segment
on charts and the turn of the century. This comes from Jack
who says that that reminded him of the way that being able to
graphically present research via chart, infographic, or diagram
almost always makes it resonate more with an audience and or
client. This places huge pressure on researchers like
myself specializing in qualitative methods where the
aim is to understand different experiences, perspectives, and
values, not just count them. Reflecting on my work, I can't
help but link the trend for quantitative charts with the
trend for research methods that promise being able to quantify
qualitative data. In particular, the abundance of workshops and
public engagement methods centered around the post it
note.
These are activities that promise to capture the breadth
and depth of human perspectives into neat digestible visualized
forms. He then references the brilliant Shannon Mattern. And
goes on to say, it feels like there's definitely a link
between the proliferation of charts as the go to research
output and the proliferation of post it note based methods as a
way of performing qualitative research. Being able to point at
a pile of post it notes, group them, count them, visualize them
on a Miro board feels like an attempt of qualitative
researchers to condense their work into charts as a format. I
agree, Jack.
And I have been in a lot of meetings where we move a lot of
post it notes around because somebody came back in with a lot
of qualitative sociological research, and it's not real
until it is visualized, and that is the post it note phenomenon.
There are anguished looks in the chat right now. I think everyone
Hans Buetow: just thinking of like, hey. You know,
Mike Rugnetta: I'm not looking at anyone in particular, by
which I mean none of none of our clients that we all work on
shows for. But like
Jason Oberholtzer: And love.
Hans Buetow: I think about this a
Mike Rugnetta: lot when people are like, you know, we're really
data driven here. So really, our decisions are very data driven.
And then and then the conversation turns to what does
the audience like?
Hans Buetow: You're like, I don't
Mike Rugnetta: we you know, it's hard to explain to people that
it's like so much of what you are using to make very big, and
in certain cases important, you know, at least as far as
decisions related to media are important. Decisions are like
ciphers for things. You know, you're like slapping a mask on
top of something and then only ever talking about the mask
Right. And not the thing that is on the other side of it. But
it's like, yeah, it's how so much of this industry and how so
many people really just like it's what they feel like is the
closer way to access the truth.
Yeah. The truth has numbers associated with it, and that
just makes things complicated.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. And in other ways, it's just like a
continuation of this grand conflict between magic and
science that is sort of always spooling out across time and
various methods.
Mike Rugnetta: Next up friend of the show, George Rohawk wrote in
about my segment on blocking, and George said, in the mailbag,
there was a brief discussion about blocking folk that you
know directly slash personally, and muting was briefly
discussed. But I don't think muting gets as much credit as it
deserves. I have so many people muted. The mute is the unsung
hero of social media. I mean, this is hard to argue
Georgia: with. I completely agree.
Hans Buetow: I'm a
Georgia: huge fan of muting.
Mike Rugnetta: I I don't mute as much as I should. But like,
there's a reason that it, you know, like, the days of IRC or
whatever, it was just the main tool. Right? Like, someone's
bothering you or someone is causing trouble in a channel or
something, just mute them. Like, they'll you just don't see them
anymore, and, like, that's the end of it.
And I think, you know, we talked about this a little bit in the
segment that, you know, Caroline pointed out that sometimes a
mute isn't a solution when you don't want someone to be in
possession of information about your life in any way.
Hans Buetow: Right.
Mike Rugnetta: At least you wanna provide some friction to
them getting that information. And I think that's true. But,
yeah, like, 90% of the time probably, a mute goes a long
way. On Blue Sky, at least, when when I get an irritating at
reply, I have started just muting those people. It, like
Yeah.
It's like one and done. Like, I don't I don't need this.
Georgia: It's just a softer blow. Obviously, there's
different layers of this because, yeah, if someone is
harassing you, if someone is using access to, for example,
your Instagram profile, which if you muted someone, you're just
not seeing what they're posting, but they can still look at your
profile. They might not be able to see your story, but they can
look at your photos that you've posted. Like, if there's danger
or a problem with them even have axing having access to that,
muting is not gonna be enough. Yeah.
But I do appreciate it as kind of a a softer pushing away.
Mike Rugnetta: I actually I have started using it more like
Twitter for all the things that were wrong with it had a great
feature in the the soft block of blocking someone and unblocking
them forced and unfollow. That doesn't work on Blue Sky, and I
would often use that on Twitter for someone who it like it
seemed like them following me caused them distress. That like,
they would only ever
Jason Oberholtzer: I'm replies for you.
Mike Rugnetta: When they were mad about something.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: And like, all of their replies to me would just
be angry. And I'll be like, listen, I'm gonna do you a
favor, and I'm just gonna get me out of your timeline.
Hans Buetow: I'm just I'm just gonna get out of here.
Mike Rugnetta: Now, I just block those people on Blue Sky just,
you know, because I can't unfollow them. I can't force
them to unfollow me. But people who are just like sort of low
level irritating or who do the blue sky thing of like, well,
actually ing constantly. Yeah. That's a mute.
Hans Buetow: Like, those people get muted.
Georgia: And that's fine. It's a gentle way of being like, hey.
Yeah.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. I just shut the fuck up.
Jason Oberholtzer: But truly, as always, the only real virtuous
path is to get out of everyone's timeline, and so never post.
Mike Rugnetta: Just don't do it. Yeah. With that, we're gonna
take a little break. Okay. So joining us is Kurt White.
Kurt, thanks for coming on.
Kurt White: Kurt. Good to see you guys again.
Mike Rugnetta: Alright. Everybody may remember Kurt from
our segment about the Internet and the sense of self and using
technology to construct the sense of self. So, Kurt, thanks
for coming on for us to read some listener communications to
you. Our one is from Paul from Sweden. Is this is was this
furnished in the email as germane information, Jason?
Jason Oberholtzer: This is how Paul would like to be described.
Hans Buetow: Okay. This is Paul from Sweden.
Mike Rugnetta: We honor that. Paul writes, I was just
listening to your latest mailbag episode when a thought struck
me, and I had the idea to write this message. As I was hearing
the questions and perspectives of the listeners of the show, I
suddenly became aware of a thought process that I've
maintained for most of my life. I realized the general apathy
that I had towards my opinions. Every time I heard something
that interested me or that I related to, I would get the
instinct to write it with my own thoughts only to tell myself
that no one would listen before I could even finish the thought.
I've even noticed this in other people my age with barrenous
chat rooms and overly vague conversations. I wonder if the
Internet has anything to do with this as the anonymous nature of
social media can make posting feel like screaming into a
pillow. I wonder if it has always been like this, as I am
only 17 and have never known an Internet without social media.
What do you think? Has our expanded worldview led to the
views of ourselves shrinking?
I'm sure I'm not the person to write about this, but at least
it feels good to get this thought out of my head. Paul,
that does feel like a good thought to get out of
Hans Buetow: your head. Mhmm.
Kurt White: That's wonderful. I I would have I was pegging Paul
as a fellow Gen Xer here. Yeah, same. That was the most
impassioned defense of apathy I've heard in a while. I felt
myself relaxing into it.
But then I also thought, you know, it's a feeling I can
remember when I was 17, interestingly enough, where I
think you're sort of confronted at that time of life with the
sort of all the thoughts in your head and the sort of world that
seems much larger than it actually is in some ways. And I
think it can feel overwhelming and stifling. I think that's a
sort of creativity problem, actually. I think it's something
that has to be kind of born with community. And I don't know that
the internet either seems to me as a positive or negative in
that.
I think it's just something that is. I mean, I didn't have the
internet I had at 17 was so much less. But I think I still had
that strong feeling. And I think one has to sort of learn how to
trust one's own thoughts and feelings as valuable. And very
often, if you can do that, you'll find that other people
will respond to them and take them seriously.
And the world will seem a little smaller, but in a good way. I
always sort of envied the millennials in a way, because
guys What?
Jason Oberholtzer: You hate money?
Kurt White: You guys took it. Well, it's a
Hans Buetow: love hate.
Kurt White: It's a love hate thing. It's Same, to be honest.
You seemed to have an easier time of that, take it seriously,
and the world will make room. And I don't know that we really
thought know what I mean? But now it's so full, maybe people
have come back around, and they're not so sure if there's
any room anymore.
But I think there is room, was room, and will be room.
Mike Rugnetta: I do think I was gonna say my my main thought,
both hearing from Paul and hearing you talk about it, Kurt,
was like, you know, we can all argue about whether or not the
generational divide really makes a difference, but, like, I I
wonder if that is at play here because I remember growing up,
you know, in the early nineties. Right? We're we're just sort of
getting out of the the Gen X apathy, but we're still in this
kind of like, you know, the most important thing is to be cool,
and there was nothing less cool than caring about stuff.
Kurt White: Mhmm. Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: And so for me, like, it felt almost like a
little rebellious to care about things and to, like, have
strongly held opinions and to, like, you know, defend them and
advocate for them. And I wonder now if, like, the Internet is a
place where, like, everybody's got an opinion. They're
constantly advocating for them. They're all irritating as shit.
Is a way for you to, like, look at the world and be like, uh-uh.
Like, that sucks. No. Thank you.
Georgia: I mean, kind of to then add to this chronology we're
creating. When I was growing up in the February, the feeling was
very different than that. That being online was very much like,
oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell everyone. And it was a, you
know, a very embarrassing time, but one that was sort of enacted
upon by my peers and certainly by myself. I was profoundly
sincere online, very publicly.
And I do I do struggle a bit with the cacophony of voices now
and feeling a little paralyzed by it.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. It's interesting. I in pitch meetings
and in discussion, there are so many moments where we pause and
try to think, like, we're assuming the Internet has
something to do with this in some, like like, catalistic way.
But is this just how, you know, insert thing works? Is this just
what it feels like to be a human?
Like, independent of the Internet? Is this just like how
this concept exists on the world? Would a
Hans Buetow: medieval merchant recognize this Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer: Exactly. And so I feel like, yeah, I'm sort
of struggling on this particular question with that. In some
ways, like, yes, this is a just a reasonable way to fuel that a
lot of people feel. But in some ways, I think this is tied into
the chronology we're setting up of sort of caring and posting on
the Internet. As somebody who posted a lot on the Internet and
stopped, I think not just because I burned out from having
a public persona, but because there was a bit of frustration,
cynicism, despondency that creeped in, having been in a
space that was like forwarding ideas and agendas and
understanding of the world, and with some vague goal in the
future that if we just understood things enough and
sorry to the charts question from before, if we could put
them graphically enough, if we could just explain them
correctly, if we had enough post its to move around, clearly,
like, wisdom would win out, and we would like make correct
decisions because we had better and more information.
And as that's became increasingly difficult to see
positive outcomes from, or even like ways in which it impressed
the world, it became more difficult to consider posting.
In some ways, that does start to reflect on like contributing my
ideas to a discourse, or having an idea worth sharing, and some
sort of resentment of people who assume that their ideas are
worth sharing in any way that I have to like get over a knee
jerk response of like, why would you why would you tell anyone
anything you're thinking? It's not gonna fucking matter, which
is a bad place to land.
Georgia: I mean, I think there's a happy medium here. Because at
least personally, my frustration is often with the belief that
you are now automatically an expert on whatever topic. I get
frustrated by all these people basically, actualing each other
until it becomes this ouroboros that just sort of collapses in
on itself. But I think I think there is space, Kurt, to kind of
what you were saying of, like, not taking it to that place, but
also not taking in the other direction where it's like, well,
why even say anything at all? Like, I think there's a space to
just be like, to make room to have observations, to talk to
each other, to communicate without it either being, and
this is the definitive end of the story decision about this.
Hans Buetow: Mhmm.
Georgia: And also feel additive. It's it's more communal. It's
more conversational.
Kurt White: Mhmm. I was reminded, and I hope this is a
building adjoining, but if not, we have editors. I want to read
a little quote from a little book. It was a little book of
Georgia O'Keeffe paintings. Just a tiny little book of Georgia.
And there's a wonderful quote in the front that I always have
loved. A flower is relatively small. Everyone has many
associations with a flower, the idea of flowers. You put out
your hand to touch the flower, you lean forward to smell it,
maybe touch it with your lips, almost without thinking, or give
it to someone to please them. Still, in a way, nobody sees a
flower, really.
It is so small. We haven't time, and it takes time, like to have
a friend takes time. If I could paint the flower exactly as I
see it, no one would see what I see because I would paint it
small, like the flower is small.
Jason Oberholtzer: Well, there you have it, Paul from Sweden.
Here's
Hans Buetow: your answer.
Kurt White: I mean, means something. Every person's
something means something, right? We have to find a way to
not be the cliche of ourselves. And we do have to do that
publicly somehow. There's no correction for that but to sort
of bungle into it.
Mike Rugnetta: And it's and that's probably even harder when
you're 17. You know? Like, it's not easy when you're 40. But No.
It's it's I I've at least got a a couple iterations of seventeen
years under my belt.
Doing the seventeen is particularly hard.
Kurt White: Yeah. That's right. And before long, you have an
award winning podcast. You
Mike Rugnetta: know, you hit 40, they just hand them out
Hans Buetow: to you. They hand them out to you. That's right.
Jason Oberholtzer: Kurt, this next question I found here is
particularly plucks to appeal to the Gen X in you. So we'll get
back to that.
Hans Buetow: Very good. Very good.
Jason Oberholtzer: Chris writes it and says, finally getting
around to writing you about shutting down my PC. My
emotional response to this simple act changed as the
interface did. For reference, I'm 45 years old. My PC was an
Apple two e.
Hans Buetow: Oh, yeah. I hope.
Kurt White: Had one myself. It wasn't my but I did have one.
Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer: My early PCs had dedicated single function on
off switches. Often these came with a satisfying clunk. That
sound Right. The time I found myself with a PC where the
default method of shutting down was to click a menu option, I
felt genuinely offended. Especially since that process
took a bit of time, none of the instant feedback of a switch.
I didn't like that it felt more like a request than a command.
Maybe it was because PCs used to freeze up rather more often than
they do now. I didn't trust the technology fully. PCs usually
still have an instant off switch hidden away at the back, but now
on the rare occasions I need to use this, it somehow feels
violent. Even switching my phone all the way off seems, if not
extreme, then unnecessarily forceful.
I've noticed my language reflects this as well. What I
would once call a reboot, I'd now call a hard reboot. If this
turns out to be a broader phenomenon than just myself, I
wonder what has contributed to the attitude change.
Anthropomorphizing language like putting things in sleep mode? Do
our devices feel more like extensions of ourselves?
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Even if it's to tell me,
hopefully gently, that I'm alone in this. Kurt, is Chris alone in
this? Oh, no.
Kurt White: I I loved all that. Those old noises live in my soul
somewhere. I just love it. I have a collection of them in my
head and heart. And I think that's a good that's extensions
of oneself.
It does feel like that. And maybe we're a little more
hesitant to sort of do violence to it for that very reason.
Know, it's meant to be always shining like a beacon in the
background or something like that. There's something lost
when we do that and something sort of hard when we have to do
it. Yeah, I hadn't thought of it myself in a violent way, but I
can easily imagine it.
I can easily imagine. My current PC that I'm sitting here with,
it hides the button so thoroughly that every every time
I need to press it, I need to shine a bright light on it
because it's it's so hidden that I can't even I can't even see
it. I don't know what that means, but it it does it does
conjure a certain amount of violence in me when I have to
look for the goddamn things.
Jason Oberholtzer: Well, I think that means like, this is these
are conscious design choices made by people who don't want
you to turn these things off ever. And like the relationship
that we had at one point with the machines where you had to
turn them on before engaging is it's gone. Like, they are always
there. We are always engaging.
Georgia: Well, I think there's something here about access and
accessibility in terms of having access to this device and the
device having access to you. Because I cannot remember the
last time I consciously turned off my phone.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. And it's for the same purpose that
it always has been, which is like, it starts doing too many
weird things and I don't know why. And then I try to turn it
off, and I found that, like, I haven't turned off this model of
the phone enough, so I don't actually know how to do it
quickly. Yeah. I have to, like, figure out which combination of
buttons starts to turn it off again.
Kurt White: You have to look it up.
Jason Oberholtzer: And it's like a two stage process.
Kurt White: You you get a lot of screenshots of you trying to
Jason Oberholtzer: set up
Hans Buetow: the phone. Yeah.
Georgia: But and it does Jason Jason, to your point of the
times I've had to turn my phone off are when it's, yeah, it's
glitching, something's not working. And back to the
violence point, it does kind of feel like you're slapping
someone in the face because they're freaking out, and you're
like, snap out of it. Like, you're just like slapping.
Hans Buetow: I'll work you I'll wake you up again soon, buddy.
Just for a couple of seconds. Don't don't worry about it.
Mike Rugnetta: Well, it's like you're you're severing your
connection to the world. You're like, well, I'm you know, like,
it it you disconnect. But that has an embodied feeling to it
now. We are. As opposed to just an an emotional psychological
one.
Right?
Jason Oberholtzer: Right. And also because there's a sense
like, it feels like the software is turning it off, not the
hardware, because there's not a big clunk button Mhmm. To turn
it off. Like, I'm I'm mad, like, I'm touching the screen and
swiping the thing and it's turning itself off, and I always
fear that it will never let me turn it back on.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Where do each of you keep your phones when you
come in of a night and you're kind of done?
Mike Rugnetta: Oh, no. The face that Kurt made?
Kurt White: Oh, god. I've turned into the person I never wanted
to be with this. It's turned into such a multifunction device
that I'm very often trying to wake myself up without waking
Emily up. And so, I'll slip it under my pillow with the hope
that my non noise alarm will wake me and not her before the
noise alarm. So I I literally sleep with it like a child
sleeps with a with a tooth that's just come loose under its
pillow.
No fairy has ever visited me in the night, however.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Well, then yes, it is an extension of
ourselves. I think that answers
Kurt White: the I will make a note about the violence of
processes. You know, the old Unix machines had all kinds of
violence built into the language. You know, you would
kill things, kill as a command, right? I mean, this language,
they had a TV series, not a bad one, a halt and catch fire, you
know, named after a real catastrophic process that would
happen at that time. So I think we were sort of used to a
certain level of violence built into our devices that's maybe
it's been sort of sublimated.
Mike Rugnetta: Kurt, thank you so much for taking some time out
of your busy professional real job to join us for some some
good old fashioned podcasting.
Kurt White: No. No. The world needs podcasts like this.
Hans Buetow: Don't you dare?
Kurt White: I believe it. I believe it. You know? Don't
trust me. We need to send a good message to our listeners here.
Right? We trust your instinct that you have something to
offer.
Jason Oberholtzer: There you go. So you heard it here from Kurt.
I want you to, before you go to sleep, turn the podcast on, put
it under
Mike Rugnetta: your pillow. Kurt, what are you guys working
on over at Unraveling these days? What do got coming up?
Kurt White: Oh, man. Some wild and wonderful stuff. We're in
the middle of a series of three episodes in honor of Pride
Month. We just did an episode on queer theory. And then next,
talked to a colleague in Singapore who's a music
therapist about all kinds of different aspects of expression
and protection and identity, and then resilience in trans youth,
and then some great stuff coming up in July, too.
Mike Rugnetta: Hell, yeah. All right. We'll put some links in
the show notes.
Hans Buetow: Up next, we got a message from Alex about our
segment that we did. It was actually a whole episode that we
did about whether or not the Internet is driving you. Yes.
You absolutely to the brink of your mental capacity. And Alex
said to us, I am an ex smoker.
And while I haven't had a cigarette in over a decade, I
still think of myself as a recovering drug addict. I have
to. It's basically the only thing that keeps me from
starting up again. Shame can be a powerful motivating force. You
know?
Unlike a lot of ex smokers, I never had a problem with a lack
of constant oral fixation. Me, I could never figure out what to
do with my hands. While listening to the episode, I
checked for my own stats of the day, and I was shocked to find
that I unlocked my phone 57 times and spent nearly two hours
on TikTok and thirty six minutes on blue sky during a workday at
a job that in no way requires any use of my phone. Is two
hours on TikTok worse than 20 or so cigarettes a day? Maybe not.
What I'm trying to say is I think TikTok and whatever else
you consider, quote, unquote, the feed are like cigarettes.
Like cigarettes, the feed makes you think you need it to get
through your day.
Georgia: I do really resonate with this idea of feeling like
you have to do something with your hands.
Jason Oberholtzer: Me too. Me too. As Hans was reading that, I
was like, feeling the impulses go down to my arm of like, you
should grab that phone, dude.
Georgia: Oh, wow. Yeah.
Kurt White: A lot
Hans Buetow: of the time Yeah.
Georgia: A lot of times, I will notice myself just grabbing my
phone and, like, opening the weather app for, like, no reason
just to physically do it.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Or it's like that thing where you're
like, oh, I'm gonna check I'm gonna check Instagram. Like,
okay. I checked Instagram. I'm gonna check TikTok.
Okay. I checked TikTok. I'm gonna check blue sky. Okay. I
checked blue sky.
Okay. I'm gonna check Instagram. I check Instagram.
Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: I'm done checking Instagram. I'm gonna check
TikTok.
Georgia: Mean, I've done it even worse where I'd be like, now
that I'm done checking Instagram, I'm gonna close the
app and it's time to check Instagram.
Hans Buetow: I'll,
Georgia: like, look at my own photos. Like, I don't know what
I'm doing. Like, and I will you know, kind of to what we had
talked about in that actual episode. It's almost like I've
been sleepwalking. I'll just be like Yeah.
Am I in the shower? Like, what no. Like, I'm just like, how how
did I get here? Like, what am I looking for? That that's the
question I asked in the the episode and it's something that
I use a lot as a barometer where I'm like, wait a I feel like I'm
doing this with such frenetic energy and then I have to be
like, maybe we just maybe we just fold our hands neatly in
our lap for a couple minutes.
Hans Buetow: I have a question for the three of you. How would
you describe, in what terms, metaphors, however you want to
think about it, the feeling of being interrupted by something
else and being forced to hard eject out of the feed
Jason Oberholtzer: That's great.
Hans Buetow: Before that cycle has completed. Is it great? Is
it great, or do you feel like a like, oh god.
Jason Oberholtzer: No. I don't need anything that's happening
in a cycle. Like, there's no complete need to complete an
activity. There's nothing. It is just time passing because and I
really do think like, Alex, like, I think you're on to
something.
Like, I really do think it it started because my hand hadn't
done a thing in a while. And it's like, well, maybe there's
something on the thing that I grab. And then you're just like,
in it a little bit. But when I'm interrupted, I'm not like, no. I
need my I was like, oh, okay.
Sure. What are we what am I doing with my life?
Georgia: Yeah. It feels like waking up. Like, feels which is
maybe dark to say. But, yeah, it really feels that way. Because
otherwise, I mean, I'll be on TikTok looking at TikToks, and
maybe they're not especially funny or I'm not finding my my
algorithm's not, like, picking up what I want or something.
And I will have the thought while looking at TikTok, like,
oh, after this, I should open TikTok.
Hans Buetow: Like, wear my glasses? They're on your head.
Yes. Yeah.
Georgia: Where I'm like, well, if I go on TikTok, I'll find
what I'm looking. And then I'm like,
Hans Buetow: oh my god. I'm on TikTok. Oh god. No.
Georgia: But, yeah, if if for example, someone calls me on my
phone and I'm scrolling TikTok and it just, you know, pauses
the video, that is the thing that shows up on my screen. I'm
like, oh, my dad's calling me. Whatever feeling I feel of like,
hey, I was watching that or whatever is vanishingly small.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I think what Alex is describing is like
idle phone use. Right? Like, this is like the the hands are
not busy with other things and so I busy them or, you know, in
a sense, they busy themselves with with the phone. And really
what it is is that it's like the phone the phone is a is the
easiest at the moment avenue to just filling minutes and to
occupying the brain, or to having the brain occupied for
you.
Like, you know, you don't you don't have to expend the energy
of practicing an instrument for ten minutes or reading a book
for fifteen minutes or whatever. You can just pick up a device,
look at it, and have things happen to you that are, you
know, entertaining or informing or whatever. And I was gonna say
to sort of extend Alex's metaphor a little bit, like, I
do think that, you know, a lot in a lot of ways, apps are like
cigarettes. It's just like if each individual cigarette was
also able in text to say to you, it's very important that you do
this as often as possible. You this is sort of how you are
defining who you are as a person.
If you don't do this, you're gonna miss out on things that
are happening in the world. Please consider paying money to
do this too. It would be nice if you supported this individual
cigarette with a crowdfunded donation. If you don't, we could
go away at any moment. Yes.
We depend on how good you feel.
Hans Buetow: And now
Jason Oberholtzer: is a great time to talk about membership at
night.
Georgia: Up next, we have a message from Tyver Foucault
about our roundtable on leaving social media platforms. And
Tyver writes, I left Twitter at the end of twenty twenty two.
There was one other sadness that I experienced before I left. In
the strange Twitter sphere, adjacent to weird Twitter, it
was common for micro fiction authors and general weirdos to
make themselves a bot. Not AI as we know it now, but a Markov
chain bot, which remixed the corpus of your posts in the
style of at horse ebooks.
They were sweet little guys happily puttering along, mashing
together pieces of your voice to make their own thoughts, growing
as you grew. They often didn't make sense, but sometimes they
would say something very profound. Not unlike when a
toddler shares a perspective that surprises and delights. My
bot had been there beside me for six years. He had a personality.
I read every post he made. Elon said he would kill the bots, and
he did. He killed mine, and he killed the bot of my dear friend
and fellow author, Tiny Obscure, and we mourned. To honor them,
we made a zine.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. The I think the bot the bot ecosystem on
Twitter at its height was one of the best parts about it.
Georgia: That's why that's so interesting. It
Mike Rugnetta: ruled. It was really really good. Man. And I
totally understand like mourning. You know what mean?
Like, suddenly, you know, like, there was mourning for horsey
books. Like, would be I can see why there would be mourning for
this. Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. It's interesting because it's like a
deletion of a like a content type and as well as like the
community that it lives in. Yeah. But I mean, honestly, the
coolest thing you could do after that is magazine. So
Georgia: Oh my god. That's such a cool idea. I'm so glad you did
that. And then Tyver also shared with us the final tweet before
leaving Twitter, which goes as follows. The Twitter leavers
oath.
I will not be terminally online. My friendships and community
will outlive this website. My heart cannot be monetized. I
will not become food for monsters. Should their claws
find my flesh, may they drown in my blood.
Hans Buetow: Fuck yes. Holy shit.
Mike Rugnetta: Every word of it true and hard
Hans Buetow: as fuck.
Jason Oberholtzer: That's the hardest shit I've read all year.
Georgia: We should start saying this together before we do live
shows.
Mike Rugnetta: Fuck it. I'm just gonna get it tattooed on my
chest.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Sick as hell. Oh my god.
Jason Oberholtzer: Hell yeah. Timer. Alright. And finally,
it's what you've all been waiting for, an update on cool
graffiti. Now I'm gonna have to go over the ground rules again.
This was supposed to be your favorite one word graffiti
instances.
Georgia: The rules have changed.
Jason Oberholtzer: But I'll allow that you just give me good
graffiti, but I'm mad about it.
Hans Buetow: Now it's now
Mike Rugnetta: it's just sick photos of funny things on walls.
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Exactly. Including the one,
which is a sticker. They sent me a sticker from Dylan that says
fuck Yelp.
Mike Rugnetta: Although the sticker doesn't just say fuck
Yelp.
Georgia: It also says pure madness.
Mike Rugnetta: Yes. It's unclear if they're related. Right? In my
mind in my mind, they absolutely are.
Georgia: Yeah. Think they're different because the font is
different.
Jason Oberholtzer: But they're so close.
Georgia: Tonally, they are the same.
Hans Buetow: Somebody thought that putting them together was
funny, and they were.
Jason Oberholtzer: They're right.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And I like this as, one thought that
follows another. Like, premise, fuck Yelp. Conclusion, pure
madness.
Georgia: Yeah. Well then, Jason, how do you feel about the next
one, which has, in fact, no words at all?
Jason Oberholtzer: I hate this, but I'm gonna allow it. Fabie
Fakes sent us a graffiti Among Us guy.
Georgia: Yeah. Just one of the Among Us guy.
Jason Oberholtzer: From Italy. That's the surprising part about
this. Well Some Italian youths are spraying Among Us guys on
their walls. Mamma Mia. No.
Alex Alex Morris sent a phrase, which is really stretching my
credulity here. He moved back to Chicago Let's go. When he says,
when I moved back to Chicago a few years ago, my night out, we
went to Pequads for deep dish. I saw this written on the bathroom
wall and I knew I was home. Wayne Gretzky killed my uncle.
Sad face.
Hans Buetow: The sad face really sells it.
Georgia: I was gonna say, it's like, oh, man.
Jason Oberholtzer: Does does this mean something to you
Chicago people? Like, at all?
Georgia: I mean, I I I'm the worst person ever to ask about
this. Having lived here for almost a decade,
Mike Rugnetta: I Does Wayne Gritsky killed any of your
Jason Oberholtzer: family members? Not
Georgia: yet, though. The possibility is always there. He
has a thirst for blood.
Jason Oberholtzer: Kieran Rex sends in a famed piece of local
folklore graffiti on a bridge over a highway that says, give
peas a chance, as in multiple vegetables. Peas, that's fun.
That's a pun. That's not one word graffiti, but thank you for
sending it in.
Georgia: Personally, I think the Brits have given peas enough
chances, frankly.
Mike Rugnetta: There's they're
Hans Buetow: they're Give seasoning a
Mike Rugnetta: chance. Confounding. The confounding
Yeah.
Georgia: Give sees hey. How about
Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Josh Pelton gave me a one word
submission. It's 50. 50. This is what
Hans Buetow: you want, Jason? This is what I want. This is
Georgia: what you want. You like this
Jason Oberholtzer: This is great.
Mike Rugnetta: A single word that you kinda cannot giggle at.
50.
Jason Oberholtzer: 50.
Georgia: That's great. Scarf.
Jason Oberholtzer: He also sent in chicken jockey,
Hans Buetow: which is two two people joining forces, it looks
like.
Jason Oberholtzer: It does. It's yeah. Two different colors.
Mike Rugnetta: Chicken jockey is a Minecraft reference.
Georgia: Oh, really? Yeah. Finally in this list is someone
who I believe is a friend of mine, unless they have the exact
same name as him, Max Himmelho. Hi, Max. Your mom was my grade
teacher.
Who wrote in to say, it pains me that this could be my
contribution to such a thoughtful, insightful show, but
here's Speedo fart.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Hell yeah. Word. One word, Max. Speedo
fart.
Georgia: One word. Speedo fart is one word. So Max, well done.
Mike Rugnetta: Next to a sleeping
Georgia: Yeah. Yeah. Dick? Is that
Hans Buetow: a sleeping
Mike Rugnetta: dick? Is that a
Georgia: dick that's asleep? Seems to be.
Mike Rugnetta: Wearing a little sombrero?
Georgia: Yeah. Yeah.
Hans Buetow: Wearing a little hat.
Jason Oberholtzer: He's doing something fun. You tell his
mom's a teacher because he knows how to follow directions. One
funny word spray painted on a wall. That's what I like. Well
done.
Put pictures of them on my desk.
Mike Rugnetta: Alright, folks. We mailbagged. We did it. Thank
you, friends, for joining. Thank you, Georgia, Jason, Hans,
Georgia: for chanting. I got scared.
Hans Buetow: Oh, spicy.
Mike Rugnetta: Hans, what spicy food are you gonna try next? And
then tell us in the next mailbag how it went.
Hans Buetow: Oh, next mailbag? Okay. I'm gonna try tuna fish.
With a little bit of ranch powder in it.
Mike Rugnetta: Wow. I'm gonna show it a packet of cracked
pepper.
Hans Buetow: And then point point to it across the room.
Jason Oberholtzer: Now, like we always say at the end of the
episode, should their claws find my flesh, they may drown in my
blood?
Hans Buetow: See you all next time. Yes.
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Bye. Bye.