Ep. 451: "The Slick Back Kid"
John: Hello.
John: Hi, John.
John: Oh, hello, Merlin.
John: How's it going?
John: Good.
John: You sound a little scratchy.
John: Yeah, I'm probably a little scratchy.
Merlin: Oh, I do sound a little scratchy.
Merlin: Yeah, you're a little scratchy.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Are you itchy?
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: I think I trust people too much.
John: Boy, I'll say.
John: No, no, no.
John: That's really one of your things.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: But, I mean, also strangers.
John: You trust strangers too much.
Merlin: I think I especially do.
Merlin: I shouldn't even say.
Merlin: Last night, we decided we wanted an easy dinner.
Merlin: The family had gone to the East Bay to watch one of my kids' friends dance in a parade.
Merlin: It sounds weird when I say it like that, but...
Merlin: And you wanted an easy dinner.
Merlin: He's an easy dinner.
Merlin: So I went and I thought, you know, I'm kind of in the mood for Chinese food.
Merlin: Boy, this is going to be extremely racist.
Merlin: So hang on.
Merlin: Okay, go on.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: But, you know, I thought, let's try something different.
Merlin: You know, I like to try different things.
Merlin: And then I don't have a name for this yet.
Merlin: But when we try a new place, we usually get the number of things we would get plus one or sometimes two.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Get one for the table.
Merlin: Exactly right.
Merlin: Exactly right.
Merlin: So I'll get things.
Merlin: I try to distribute.
Merlin: I was talking to John Syracuse about this recently when people try to get cute with ordering donuts and end up getting garbage donuts out of an abundance of variety.
John: Don't do that.
John: Don't do that.
John: Don't get variety.
Merlin: Get four good donuts.
Merlin: Like nobody wants vegan coconut.
Merlin: Anyway, and so I have an ordering strategy.
Merlin: I'll keep this as quick as I can and as non-racist as I can.
Merlin: But I have an ordering strategy where I get the kind of things my kid likes.
Merlin: And they're driving back from the East Bay, so I thought I'd be super dad and take care of everything.
Merlin: I'm not even going to ask any questions.
Merlin: That's nice.
Merlin: And I got a lot of stuff.
Merlin: I got a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff.
Merlin: One of those, one of these.
Merlin: Well, but here's what brought me to this particular vendor.
Merlin: Honey walnut prawns.
Merlin: I like that they don't.
Merlin: Well, you know, being a self-involved dad is a lot about the appearance of sacrifice.
John: Sure, sure, sure.
John: I won't get the man easy shrimp if you don't like him, sweetie.
John: The veneer of inconvenience.
Merlin: And so I...
Merlin: did not listen to my better angels i i should have known by looking at this place there's a lot of warning signs and there's the thing is there was there's nothing that should have been a warning sign okay so a lot of stuff the name not particularly distinguished uh the little the signage the little logo if you like is the same generic like it looks like somebody made it in microsoft word
Merlin: You know, the name of the restaurant on three lines with a colored background.
Merlin: And it's like, I've ordered from this kind of place before.
Merlin: But here's the thing, and this is why I think I might trust people too much, is I went in to the stupid food ordering app.
Merlin: And again, I should know better.
Merlin: I did a sort by best rated.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, sure.
Merlin: Okay, and I'm not trying to, don't be creepy about this, please.
John: Are you a member of that app?
John: Do you sign in?
John: Yeah.
John: Do you review things?
Merlin: Ironically enough, no, I do not.
Merlin: But last night, and especially this morning, I was very, very tempted to leave a review for reasons I will try to be as subtle about as possible.
Merlin: Anyway, the point is, I go in and I say, sir, before I put my order in, I say, let's go look at some new restaurants.
Merlin: Okay, red flag.
Merlin: You ready for this?
Merlin: This has got to be the most highly rated restaurant in the genre of food that has ever existed.
Merlin: Five stars.
Merlin: Whoa.
Merlin: And there's over 2,000 reviews.
Merlin: Whoa!
Merlin: Okay, and then just for comparison, though, just as a way to, like... And, of course, I'm doing some back-of-the-envelope math here.
Merlin: I go, huh, that seems really high, especially that I've never heard of this place that's practically in our neighborhood.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: And I went and I looked at, just for comparisons, I went and I looked at places that I...
Merlin: have gotten before oh yeah and really and to answer your question yes i mean i do sign into this i don't review and rate but as of this morning that's something i'm heavily considering okay because the places you like all had two and a half stars no i mean i just it's i mean don't we all know now that it's all a scam oh it's a scam
Merlin: It's all a scam.
Merlin: And I know this.
Merlin: I know that's from Amazon.
Merlin: The way there's so many things that are going on to get high ratings.
Merlin: And there's a reason that, you know, you've probably had more than one ad read in your life where they said, and we have over 700,000 five-star reviews.
Merlin: Like, yeah, that and six bucks will get you a cup of coffee.
Merlin: What does that mean?
John: Is this like Dan telling me the other day that he got COVID and he could tell it was an engineered virus by the way it felt?
Merlin: I knew the first part of that.
Merlin: I had not heard the second part of that.
Merlin: Is that what he told you publicly on air?
John: Publicly on air, he said.
John: He said it publicly.
John: Publicly.
John: He said, yeah, as soon as I got it, I could tell it was an engineered virus.
John: And I was like, tell me more.
John: And he said, no, you could feel it.
John: You could feel the engineering.
John: I probed him for a while, but then I got off.
John: No, no, no, no, no.
John: I probed him for a minute, and then I told him.
Merlin: So anyway, the dude delivering it took a long, circuitous way.
Merlin: And because I'm a magical thinker, I'm already thinking to myself, oh, boy, is this going to be a thing?
John: Here it comes.
Merlin: And the food arrived.
Merlin: And yeah, we had like 14 pounds of food.
Merlin: And I brought it up, carried it up.
Merlin: I did the thing I do.
Merlin: After I walk up the steps, I yell, food!
Merlin: And everybody knows that means you come and eat the food.
Merlin: Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.
Merlin: Opened it up.
Merlin: Everybody's got things they're excited about.
Merlin: It's like that episode of Gilligan's Island where they find the seeds and grow vegetables.
Merlin: Remember that?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And you remember Mrs. Howell running around really fast because of the sugar beets?
John: Yeah, we sow the seeds.
John: Mrs. Howell grows the seeds.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: We eat the soup.
Merlin: Because everybody has things they like.
Merlin: And I had wonton soup, you know, because I'm a big wonton soup boy.
Merlin: I had some garlic chicken, which we'll come back to in a minute.
Merlin: About half the food, let's just say, was gray in color.
John: Oh, dear.
Merlin: It didn't pop.
Merlin: No, it didn't pop.
Merlin: It didn't have the zoom.
Merlin: No, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: The lo mein was, or the, what did we get?
Merlin: The chow fun was extremely gray.
Merlin: It was shades of gray, much like a monkey's song.
I don't know.
Merlin: So I'm looking at that.
Merlin: I'm not loving that.
Merlin: And everything was, well, you know, the garlic chicken was kind of good.
Merlin: Can I give you a couple tips?
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: If you order something and it has vegetables in it, be careful.
Merlin: The hugest red flag, I mean, it's going to be too much cornstarch.
Merlin: They've tried to make something that's got a sauce that's not really a sauce.
Merlin: And right next to that, celery.
Merlin: Can you identify celery in it?
Merlin: Red flag?
Merlin: Celery.
Merlin: I'm going to even say big slices of carrot that are cut in kind of a cute, fancy way.
Merlin: Not a great sign.
Merlin: How do you feel about water chestnuts?
Merlin: I like a water chestnut.
Merlin: I was raised on canned Chinese food as a youngster.
Merlin: That was very deluxe to us.
Merlin: But we got all this food.
Merlin: John Roderick, I'll say this publicly, this is not five-star food.
Merlin: Boy, that's distressing.
Merlin: And then today, I've had a couple emergent appointments this morning in advance of recording our program.
John: And I'm tempted to leave a rating and review.
John: What's the leftover situation?
John: How many leftovers do you have?
Merlin: Not a stitch.
Merlin: Whoa!
Merlin: It was a greed.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: And you know I'll eat me some leftover Chinese.
Merlin: My lady friend is the youngest of seven.
Merlin: That used to be the only way she could find any food.
Merlin: She'd just crawl around on the floor looking for food.
Merlin: Youngest of seven?
Merlin: Everybody else eats.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: I think the dog ate better than she did.
Merlin: It was terrible.
Merlin: So she loves her leftovers.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And we agreed by mutual consent that not only will we never be ordering from this place again, not that I'm mad.
Merlin: No, sure.
Merlin: I mean, you know, roll the bones.
Merlin: I'm frustrated with myself, you know.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But we didn't save a stitch of it.
Merlin: And, you know, lesson learned.
Merlin: I just don't want to become a person who leaves ratings and reviews.
Merlin: Even if I think it might be merited in the interest of justice.
John: It's a question that you have to ask yourself.
John: I left a rating and review earlier this year.
John: One of the few I've ever done.
John: Maybe one of the first, maybe the first I ever did.
John: Was it for food?
John: No, I rated and reviewed my doctor.
Merlin: The one who dipped?
John: The one who took off?
John: Yeah, the one who took off.
John: Oh my God, really?
John: I felt so powerless in that situation, so abused, that I left a rating and review of a doctor.
John: Wow.
John: And it was, you know, it was a bad review.
John: And I contextualized it.
John: I said, this doctor at my actual appointment was very professional, was very engaged.
John: I thought to myself, here's my new doctor.
John: I'm so excited.
John: But then...
John: Here, let me tell you, online people, about my experience.
Merlin: You know, I lost a lot of great points as a kid for having sloppy handwriting, and I always thought that was unfair.
Merlin: But today, I don't say, I still think it's wrong, but I understand what they're trying to do.
Merlin: In life, we evaluate people based on how, not only what they did, but how they did it.
Merlin: And you may have liked mostly what the doctor did, but in the end, in a broader sense, you didn't like how he did it.
Merlin: Because he was being unprofessional at a higher level.
Merlin: It's a she.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: Sorry.
Merlin: Oh, geez.
Merlin: Girls can be doctors.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
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John: I got a lot of flack from my neighborhood busybody moms about the fact that she was working for a Catholic medical institution because, you know, the local busybody moms are mad about a lot of things about the Catholics.
John: About health access, let's call it.
John: But, you know, it was like, look, what are you going to do?
John: On the one hand, you got the Catholics being bad about health access.
John: On the other hand, they've hired a Muslim lady doctor.
John: Where am I supposed to go here?
John: I don't know which direction to turn.
Merlin: But I... Yeah, it sucks to be the most subtle person in the neighborhood.
Merlin: I left... You don't get any points for that.
John: I left this review and forgot about it.
John: Well, a month later...
John: something because the internet, you know, constantly something popped up in my email or some, some notification that I forgot to turn off was like, Hey, you know, your, your online review has gotten a lot of faves.
John: And I was like, what?
John: And I went online and here's my review.
John: And it's got like a bunch of faves.
Yeah.
John: Is your name on it?
John: Well, yeah, because I signed in with Google.
John: And I'm like...
John: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
John: This was in a moment.
John: I had a moment, and I felt this was like yelling at United Airlines on Twitter.
John: I had a moment.
John: I got it off my chest.
John: You know, it's like, oh, I'm just doing fine in life, but this airline sucks, and I had to say something about it, or I had to yell about Firestone tires.
Merlin: You start to feel like a crazy person.
Merlin: Nobody likes the way they look after they've been...
Merlin: You know, any of those things, like public, angry, emotional.
Merlin: The emotional one is a huge part for me.
Merlin: But, you know, but like the thing to leaven that with, well, obviously never do it.
Merlin: But you have to, when people do do that, it's understandable because...
Merlin: I hope the people that I'm acquainted with never see that as the first course of action.
Merlin: I know for myself, that to me is like the court of last resort.
Merlin: I've been patient, I've been gracious.
Merlin: This mountain's covered with wolves.
Merlin: What do I have to do to get you a new customer service person?
Merlin: That kind of experience.
Merlin: And eventually you're like, look, you make me feel, you're gaslighting me.
Merlin: I feel like
Merlin: By which I just mean you're acting like I'm crazy and I'm not.
Merlin: You're treating me, you're setting me up to be a nut because you can make this private.
Merlin: Oh, please DM us to be able to talk about this.
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I want you to do it.
Merlin: I want you to do it here.
Merlin: I'm not here to be convenient for you.
Merlin: I've done everything I can to let you do your job in a normal way.
Merlin: And just in passing here, I used to think this was only true of things like grocery delivery and food delivery services.
Merlin: But now I do think it's true of airlines.
Merlin: Everything's fine as long as nothing goes wrong.
Merlin: Everything's fine.
Merlin: Everything goes flawlessly as long as it goes flawlessly.
Merlin: But it's a zero or a one.
Merlin: Either it's going to go flawlessly or you're going to have to just start completely over.
Merlin: People don't know how to... VCRs, phones, people don't know how to fix things anymore.
Merlin: They don't know how to fix...
Merlin: problems anymore you have to just you have to go back to wherever you flew out of and start over nobody's like your food is not going to arrive ever your plane is never going to leave ever there's no you might as well you're going to be stuck in well one doesn't say stuck in vancouver you could be anchored down in anchorage for for weeks because they have no way to fix it and you're dealing with it in private and that makes them look better and it's gross no one's interested in any of these situations
John: in fixing your problem beyond it being right on their desk, right?
John: There's nobody that's like, hey, you know what?
John: Let me take care of this.
John: And then they spend four hours behind the scenes
John: doing all the things now they're just like oh do you want me to forward you to that person and you're like no no you're the one that knows where things are you're the one that understands your billing system you're the one that please don't do anything that ends this call i don't want to have to start this all over again you've had that experience oh you know i'm just like i'll hold that that becomes sop now is it just like oh did you not write any of that down
Merlin: I have to start this all over with a new person and then wait again.
Merlin: Like that's the ultimate, that is systemic gaslighting.
John: Well, so this situation with the doctor, I'm realizing now,
John: I was set up to fail because the original, I didn't go leave a review about her that hour or that day or that week.
John: Something arrived in my inbox or my, or a notification that said, Hey, how was your experience at Catholic medical thing?
John: Would you like to leave a review?
John: And I was so, I was so insulted that.
John: by this cheery corporate prompting that I was like, oh, you want me to leave a review?
John: Yeah, I'll fucking leave a review.
John: Yeah, be careful what you ask for, Johnny.
John: And it's a thing now, I realize, that the computers, the Catholic medical thing, does not think they're going to get a bad review.
John: That's not what they're trying to do.
John: But the general architecture, the understanding of what the internet is and what we're supposed to do,
John: They are happier people.
John: Like whoever's the intermediary, Google or whatever company it is that's contracted with Catholic Medical to facilitate this process is like no engagement is bad engagement.
John: Okay, that's what I wanted to ask you about.
John: Yeah, we're going to send this out and then you're going to log on with Google and then you're going to leave a review and it's going to get 600 stars.
John: And all of that benefits, not just benefits Google,
John: But benefits the whole concept of rate and review.
John: Like when I was a kid, a doctor was like a priest.
John: You know, like a doctor was a professional person.
John: They were not providing.
John: They weren't.
John: Yeah, it's like somewhere between like a senator and God.
John: Yeah, they weren't a mechanic.
John: They weren't somebody that you rated and reviewed.
John: What the hell does that even mean relative to a doctor?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: To quote Loki, the ant has no coral.
Merlin: What is it?
Merlin: The boot has no coral with the ant?
Merlin: The boot has no coral with the ant.
Merlin: You're not in any position.
Merlin: You're going to evaluate me?
Merlin: I'm wearing this purple sable cape.
John: How could you possibly rate and review me?
John: But the thing is, she is now a doctor, a young doctor, in a world, in an institution, that thinks of doctors as things that you rate and review.
John: And so...
John: One of the things that horrified me about this when I realized that this review had been sitting out there collecting faves was I knew she'd seen it.
John: She couldn't help but see it because I'm sure she gets emails in her inbox that say a new review.
John: Oh, yeah, of course.
John: And then music goes around.
John: And so I sit here as somebody who is conscious of the fact that I got rated and reviewed and
John: And there are people out there right now who have never met me who are reading my my review.
John: And I'm I am perpetuating the problem.
John: I'm rating and reviewing somebody else who whatever our deal, whatever her deal that day, whatever my problem.
Merlin: Yeah, I'm still I mean, I'm still mad about all music.
Merlin: Yes, I'm still mad about that.
John: About the Long Winters review on all music.
John: Or some other reason.
Merlin: Wasn't that the one?
Merlin: Was it?
Merlin: No, no.
Merlin: I thought it wasn't the first record they said.
John: Yeah.
John: All music.
John: So the story is.
John: Sounds like R.E.M.
John: Yeah.
John: All music left like a whatever.
John: A mealy mouth review of the first long winner's record.
John: because they had never heard of The Long Winters, and they pitched it to some young person, and they were like, or whatever.
Merlin: Well, it sounds like it was reviewed by somebody who listens to music as carefully as I do.
Merlin: It sounds like somebody who dropped the needle nine times and then wrote a paragraph.
John: Well, and what they were looking for, you know, they had just gotten done listening to the first new pornographer's record, and they were like, where's the...
John: Where's the mass romantic?
John: There's no hit on this.
John: But the problem was that for the next eight years, every time you Googled the long winters, the first thing you saw was this all music review of our first Alpine album.
Merlin: I know you're still mad at Travis Morrison about your chili, but let's talk about his solo record, for which I am still angry to this day.
Merlin: But the thing was, that was worse.
Merlin: I mean, not only was that a zero, which is almost unheard of, but the review, if memory serves, and maybe I was emotional.
Merlin: It's a word I wrote down to talk about in a minute here.
Merlin: Maybe I was emotional because I like this memorandum plan.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: a lot and it really frustrated me and but it also felt like one of those not even a pissing contest what would you call it just one of those the worst kind of review and i've written the worst kind of review well but yeah but also like this is a fun exercise for me today people would do that like the worst meal of all time review that went around a month or so ago that ridiculous 27 course meal of vapors and foams very i'll send it to you it's really funny
Merlin: But that way you get to show off and everybody goes, oh my gosh, look at this reviewer.
Merlin: I care so much more about this review.
Merlin: For example, you think about getting interviewed by Isaac Chotner or Ronan Farrow.
Merlin: When we read those, I start rubbing my hands together and going like, oh my God, I can't believe this person picked up the phone.
Merlin: Isaac Chotner is going to bury this person.
Merlin: So I'm not immune to that, but it does follow you around.
John: The 0.0 review of Travis Morrison's record was the most
John: famous thing that reviewer ever did and for two weeks they were on top of the world because everybody was talking about their review now everybody was crushed they were josh was crushed that person works in an amazon fulfillment warehouse now and that's it that was their moment you know and they were they were basking in it yeah i did not want to bask in this and i immediately deleted the reviews
John: Because I was like, what, what, what?
Merlin: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Merlin: Had you at that point been contacted by the doctor or other people?
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: I know that... You just started getting, you started getting robomails about how it had gotten another like, another like, another like.
John: Yeah, and she and I, like at some human level, she knew what had happened, right?
John: She knew that she'd gotten several messages from me that I had called the front desk, that I had tried to talk to a different doctor, that I had talked to her nurse three times.
John: Like she knew...
John: that there was a dissatisfied customer, which is not the relationship you should even have with your doctor.
John: You're not a customer like that is such a reduction of the relationship to it, to its meanest basis level.
John: So she knew.
John: And so when she read the review, she was like, it's this guy and here's why he's mad.
John: And there was no reply.
John: She didn't reply in the comments.
John: Like, I'm sorry you had a bad customer service experience.
John: Please DM me privately.
John: You know, she had... That would be so... That would suck.
Merlin: You know, she had enough dignity to just sit there.
Merlin: I've heard professors say, back when I was still Merlin Mann and doing talks and I would visit with academics, there were professors who all but said that dealing...
Merlin: So there's being an academic or professor or teacher.
Merlin: There's all those things.
Merlin: And that means lots of different things, right?
Merlin: You're part counselor.
Merlin: You're part scientist.
Merlin: You're part all those different things.
Merlin: But it would stop just short of saying half of my job now is customer service.
Merlin: Like dealing with students over email, dealing with parents.
Merlin: But like, you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like where it's gone from and dealing with like rate my professor, like that there's all of these levers now for people to get to you.
Merlin: And yeah, I'll put it that way.
Merlin: Y'all don't have to agree, but to get at you like you got a job and then you got your other job.
Merlin: And like I have some I had something like a career in that racket because a lot of America suddenly felt like it had a second job.
Merlin: They had the job.
Merlin: That's your job.
Merlin: And then your other job is like fucking just dealing with the capris of emotional strangers.
John: I will tell you this right now.
John: A college professor should never hear from a parent ever.
John: This is it's not kindergarten.
John: A parent has sent their child away to college.
John: The end.
John: The parent is done like for a parent.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: A more cynical person might say the whole point.
Merlin: One of the one of the numerous points of them going to college is to develop the autonomy that not only do they if there is a problem and maybe they don't think there's a problem, but the last person in the world who should be intervening on their behalf maybe is there.
John: Oh, absolutely.
John: It's not cynical at all.
John: That is precisely what it is.
John: A college professor should never once hear from a parent.
John: And if there is a job for a university administrator.
John: Professor Brandon's pee paws online, too.
John: Should I put him through?
John: If the administration has any job at all is to take those comments from angry parents.
John: and filter them so the professor never hears them.
John: Right?
Merlin: Like if you do the John Hausman in the paper chase, look to your left, look to your right.
Merlin: Both of these students had their parents contact me.
John: Brendan's mother has called me and so she's not being failed.
John: Brandon's Meemaw is very disappointed.
John: Oh, insane.
John: Make him wear a jacket, Professor.
John: He gets so cold.
John: I took it down, and I was humiliated.
John: I was humiliated that my bad review of this doctor had ever reached the doctor, let alone influenced anyone in the world, even though I did at some level want to say this behavior is...
John: is bad behavior for a young doctor and you maybe are young.
John: And so don't understand yet that part of your doctor job is to deal with anxious patients who can't get their meds and you can't just blow them off or reroute them through a phone tree.
John: But part of that problem was it used to be when you called Catholic medical and
John: You could say, Hey, my doctor's not responding.
John: And some other doctor would get on the phone and say, can I help?
John: And in this case, I went with a nurse that didn't know the doctor.
John: She forwarded me to another nurse and it went to voicemail.
John: You know, it was like, okay, now I'm in a situation where under normal circumstances, I would be able to solve this on my own.
John: And the problem would be registered without me leaving an online review.
John: Because there would be other professional people who recognized that this was a profession and not a thing.
John: It's not a job, for the love of God.
John: You didn't go to medical.
John: It's a vocation, an occupation.
John: It's a, yes.
John: So the only other online review I've ever left, when I bought my truck, I was exhausted.
John: I was at this used car dealer shop.
John: I was getting the hard sell from a bunch of smarmy dudes who had gel in their hair.
John: I didn't even know that was still a thing.
John: I'm sitting at a desk.
Merlin: You mean like a Patrick Bateman style, like American Psycho sort of slick back?
John: They're writing numbers on a piece of paper and sliding it across the table.
John: Like, how does this amount?
John: And I'm just like, I want to get out of here.
John: But my daughter's mother has told me that I can no longer shop.
John: I have to buy a truck today.
John: I've been shopping for months.
John: I've been shopping for years.
John: And today is the day.
John: And she's trying to be helpful, right?
John: She's trying to say...
John: today is the day.
John: Encourage you to be decisive, close this up.
John: Exactly.
John: But unfortunately, I've dealt with in my search, I've gone to 15 car dealers where I kind of liked the people, where they were real straightforward.
John: Unfortunately, on this day, the day that she's declared is the day I'm at
John: a bad car dealer and let me tell you their name northwest motorsports and they deal with uh jacked up pickup trucks you know they're selling pickups they're selling big trucks and that's what i want thanks to northwest i want a big truck right and i went to one of their locations and the guy behind the the guy sitting at the desk who was like how can i help you find the big truck of your dreams he had a let's go brandon thing behind his desk
John: And I was like, I'll tell you how that, how you can help me today.
John: And that is that I'm going to leave your, uh, your establishment.
John: And he was like, whatever, bro.
John: I was like, whatever, bro.
John: But I ended up, because I was looking online and I saw a truck that I wanted, I ended up at Northwest Motorsports in Linwood.
John: And I'm sitting there and I'm realizing, oh my.
Merlin: You're running into all the stuff that terrifies me.
Merlin: These are all Larry David moments that I am terrified of.
John: It was awful.
John: And they're giving me this smarm.
John: And then, and I'm like, okay, I'll buy the truck.
John: Just give me the truck.
John: This is the amount.
John: That's fine.
Yeah.
John: And as the smarmy dudes behind the scenes are gearing up to tack on a $5,000 maintenance contract that they don't present as optional.
John: They're like, okay, man, they put on that undercoating back at the factory.
John: They're like, we're going to take care of you.
John: Do you want the gold or the platinum?
John: And I was like, I don't know the gold.
John: And they're like, are you sure you don't want the platinum?
John: And I'm like, just give me the gold.
John: And what I realized later was I didn't, I could have just said neither, you know, like I didn't know gold or platinum that makes no, you know, that's all inside baseball.
Merlin: Well, that's like when you ask a little kid, which you don't get to decide whether you're going to go to bed, but we'll let you pick which jammies you want to wear.
Merlin: He's basically asking you which jammies you want to wear.
John: Which jammies do you want to wear?
John: And it's a scam.
John: It's a racket, right?
John: It is a scam.
John: That's true.
John: They're tacking on scams.
John: The guy's trying to be, he's super duper, my friend, I'm going to get you the best interest rate, bro.
John: Just sign here and here and here.
John: It's all a racket.
John: Yeah.
John: It just grates.
John: It grates on me so bad.
John: What ended up happening was they sold me a truck that was, if not a lemon...
John: Then a truck that had a lot of problems.
John: My truck's been in the, the Ford.
Merlin: This is the one where it's got like lots of electrical problems and smoke and things down here.
John: It's, it's in the, it's been at the Ford dealership maintenance department down here five times since I bought it.
John: And now it's got a new set of alerts and I've got a deal.
John: And the thing is the Ford dealership supply chain problems, Merlin.
John: When they take the truck in, they're like, we'll get it back to you in 14 days.
John: So far, they've never offered me a loaner vehicle.
John: You know, the whole thing.
Merlin: Oh, I can't.
Merlin: Ever since, let's say, March of 2020.
Merlin: And, you know, in fairness, it made a lot of sense to stick up a little snippet of HTML on your site that said, hey, because of COVID, we're not doing things this fast.
Merlin: That was understandable.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It's always been because COVID, because of Delta, because of Omicron.
Merlin: I get a lot about, I have one about a typhoon the other day.
Merlin: It has now just become a way of going.
Merlin: Things are not going to be as good as they used to be.
Merlin: And we're going to put this at the top.
Merlin: And in many cases, it absolutely, I guess, sort of is kind of pseudo true.
Merlin: But like, it has just become the default go-to.
Merlin: Like, don't be unreasonable with our company because we're dealing with unreasonable things.
Merlin: So you're the unreasonable one here with wanting your truck to not be on fire.
John: Well, so what happened was I was sitting in the lobby.
John: Five times.
John: It's five times in the shop.
John: Well, long before that.
John: The day I buy it, I'm sitting in the lobby.
John: I'm waiting for the greasy guy in the back to come out with his gold star service program that I had no idea what it was.
John: You know, I'm just like, get me out of here.
John: And the kid, the slick back kid who had slid me the piece of paper across the table, like, you know, like here, Hey, Billy, uh, being, this is our offer for you to manage the red socks.
John: He comes over, he comes over with a, uh, with a iPad and he's like, Hey man, you know, I'd really appreciate it if you gave me a five star review on dealer rater.
John: And I was like, deal.
John: And he's like, and he handed me the thing and it's open to the while you're still there.
John: I haven't, I've never driven, you know, I haven't closed the deal.
John: And he's like, you know, just, just give me that five-star review on dealer Raider, bro.
John: And I'm like, and he's got the iPad and it's open to dealer Raider.
John: It's open to them like that.
Hmm.
John: And so, and I'm just like, yeah, sure, sure, man.
John: Yeah.
John: A five-star review.
John: And, and I wrote some comment like, yeah, this is, you know, like I bought a truck from these guys and they seemed like they were doing a good job, you know, and I sent it out into the world.
John: Well, ever since the day after the day I bought it, I have felt like that was a terrible experience.
John: They were awful, sleazy car dealers.
John: And out there in the world is a review with my name on it saying, yeah, you know, Brandon and, and, you know, Jeremy were great.
John: And five stars all around, you know, they're real, they're real, you know, they were real decent dudes.
John: Now you're part, you're part of that machine of announcing how many five-star reviews.
John: Yeah.
John: Dealer Raider.
John: And so as I say this, as I say this to you, Merlin, I'm going on Dealer Raider right now.
John: Here I go.
John: I hope this is the password.
Okay.
John: I don't think it is.
John: You never know.
John: Nope, that's not it either.
John: Let's see, what if it's this one?
John: I'm going to go on there, and I'm going to say, these guys are sleazes.
Merlin: Can I say a word about reviews and ratings while you're doing that?
Merlin: Yeah, please do.
Merlin: Because I have to begin just by saying how many thoughts I have about this that I've discussed in other places.
Merlin: I have a lot of feelings about what we're describing here.
Merlin: And I think I won't go into all of them, but...
Merlin: There's a lot to ratings and reviews that are super fucked up in my mind.
Merlin: And what I will say is this.
Merlin: I try to ask myself, I am slightly incurious about what other people use ratings and reviews for.
Merlin: But my gut is that there's a lot of disingenuousness from everyone in ratings and reviews.
Merlin: That there's a lot of axe grinding.
Merlin: There's a lot of anger, to come back to that word.
Merlin: There's a lot of emotions.
Merlin: And there's a lot of feelings of wanting, feeling like you have been, not you, but one has had some power taken away from them.
Merlin: And you're going to bring a little bit of frontier justice to this to bring some power back to you.
Merlin: I think a lot of what makes everything terrible right now is our mutual feeling as a planet of having lost power.
Merlin: And I think one way that we try to get that back is through things like ratings and reviews or web comments, any of those kinds of things.
Merlin: But...
Merlin: What I want to say is, yes, I am curious about what everybody else is using it for.
Merlin: I feel dumb that I did not recognize that 2,000 five-star average reviews for a cheap-ish Chinese restaurant in the western part of town seems a little crazy.
Merlin: But now, you know, fool me five times, shame on everybody.
Merlin: Here's what I want.
Merlin: What I want.
Merlin: I want to be able... Like, when I rate... When I give Everlong by Foo Fighters five stars, that's for me.
Merlin: Or, like, when I heart a song on Spotify, that's for me.
Merlin: If it's being used by anybody else, including Spotify, it doesn't really concern me.
Merlin: That's for me, especially back in the days of iTunes.
Merlin: That's how I could identify...
Merlin: songs that i like albums that i like artists that i like include stuff like skip counts and all that kind of cool stuff and make playlists but that i did not rate any of that as a performance for other people or as a part of some bigger machine i did it for me and john that's really all i want with any of these fucking apps i just want to be able to have a private thing where i can say hey
Merlin: Don't get food from this place anymore.
Merlin: Or, you know, it doesn't have to be stars, but I wish there was a way for me to mark this in a way nobody sees, including other customers, including the company itself.
Merlin: I just want a way to remember, you know, hey, this place, this is the place that was really gross.
Merlin: but will be even more handy.
Merlin: Oh, you know what?
Merlin: This place sucks, but they have this one really, really good dish.
Merlin: Or this place is amazing, but they have these two really terrible dishes.
Merlin: Don't order that again.
Merlin: That's all I want.
Merlin: I want a practical ability...
Merlin: to create a legacy of historical quality for something.
Merlin: That's just for me.
Merlin: But instead, people are out there running around shucking and jiving.
Merlin: John, I'll bet you dimes the donuts.
Merlin: I'll bet you just at least a couple of those 2,000 five-star reviews were from people who got a free meal for giving a positive review.
John: Wow.
Merlin: I don't want to sound cynical.
John: What?
John: Really?
John: People do that?
Merlin: They do that?
Merlin: Why didn't you get a free meal then?
Merlin: I have so many.
Merlin: I didn't get a free meal.
Merlin: I got great food.
Merlin: And now today, you know, today I got the San Francisco trots.
Merlin: I'm just saying.
Merlin: Anyways, it's really frustrating to me.
Merlin: And the whole, the way that we wield these as a cudgel against strangers is really frustrating to me.
Merlin: And in the case of, but like what it gets back to though is what is it for?
Merlin: And again, I'm curious about what other people say mostly, but what is it for?
Merlin: Well,
Merlin: Like, a good, let's get away from the word rating and review.
Merlin: Criticism would be another word.
Merlin: Like, for a long time, it's like, well, what are movie reviews or essays for?
Merlin: Pauline Kael, Michael Medved, Rex Reed.
Merlin: Those are all folks, for that matter, who's the guy who looked like Avery Schreiber?
Merlin: What was that guy's name?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: You remember the guy on the Today Show?
Merlin: Yeah, you know, the guy with the mustache.
Merlin: Oh, Gene Shallow.
Merlin: But, like, everybody was doing a different thing, doing a different bit.
Merlin: But Pauline Kael was closer in some ways to an academic.
Merlin: than to, you know, somebody, I don't even want to say rotten tomatoes, because that's just for viewers.
Merlin: But an innovation of Siskel and Ebert was thumbs up, thumbs down, because they made subtext text.
Merlin: And they said, hey, whether or not you hear, listen, read these reviews, thumbs up means we think you should see it.
Merlin: I think you should see it.
Merlin: Thumbs down means I think you shouldn't see it.
Merlin: And in some ways that was, if Roger Ebert weren't one of the best writers of his generation, that would not be as interesting.
Merlin: But that's just the shorthand for that.
Merlin: Then you got to read the whole thing.
Merlin: But then it's, you know, ratings and reviews all the way down.
Merlin: And like suddenly the whole world has turned into this place where we're just wielding, like I say, wielding cudgels at each other with the number of stars that we delegate.
Merlin: And I hate it.
Merlin: And you got dragged into that.
Merlin: You feel bad about it, and that sucks.
Merlin: Criticism would be, I think this place could do a little bit better with follow-up or whatever, but it all feels disingenuous because it's all cloaked in this culture of revenge and power grabs.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: I do, and... We're trying to be honest.
John: What I don't understand is how much... What I don't understand is what will it take...
John: to get most people.
John: I'm talking about all of our listeners, for instance, and a lot of them work in computers and a lot of them are part of some small cog in building this architecture and they don't see themselves that way.
John: They see themselves as doing something good or, you know, trying to make this better, trying to make this more efficient, trying to do this.
John: But,
John: But at a key level, the whole idea is broken.
John: The whole idea of what the internet is and should be doing and whether or not it helps, whether or not it makes our lives better, the whole thing is wrong.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And when I say this type of thing, I get plenty of letters from people that are like, well, back in the day, you didn't used to be able to call your mom and now you can.
John: So you're wrong.
John: The internet's done a lot.
John: And think about, you didn't used to be able to get toilet paper delivered to your house and now you can.
John: And it's like, all right, all right.
John: I'm not saying that progress hasn't happened.
John: But there's something fundamentally wrong.
Merlin: The preponderance of evidence is that it is not it's no longer just a place where we go get the equivalent of a university education on our own.
Merlin: We get to be autodidacts and we get to connect with old friends.
Merlin: Yeah, we've had that for a while.
Merlin: It's possible.
Merlin: It can be done.
Merlin: But all of the
Merlin: outgassing and effluvia of everything that came with that you can't just walk right past that and go yeah yeah yeah but i found i found uh i found my english teacher on facebook like that doesn't that one cool thing doesn't mitigate against all the incredible shit that comprises most of the day-to-day internet and what so you know it's been a year since i was on social media and i find myself
John: For nine months, I never went there at all, never went.
John: And then it was another one of these, I got an email or a tech or some kind of a notification I hadn't turned off and something, or no, I was reading the news and they were like, oh yeah, you know, look at this.
John: There's incredible footage of a helicopter crashing into a baby carriage.
John: And I was like, wow, I mean, how can I miss seeing that?
John: And I clicked on it and it was like, oh, surprise, it's taking you to Twitter.
John: Ha ha ha.
John: And I was like, oh, wow.
John: Twitter.
John: Whoa.
John: I haven't been here in nine months.
John: And look, I've got some messages.
John: And I went and read them and they were all nice.
John: You know, there wasn't a bad one.
John: Maybe there was one that was like, feed your kid.
John: But most of them were nice.
John: And I was like, oh, Twitter.
Merlin: And then I... Well, so what would it have been like sitting there like floating in amber for 11 months?
John: Yeah, what I did, you know, as soon as the Bean Dad thing happened, I made my Twitter private.
John: I shut it down.
John: And then I scoured it with exactly the same program that whatever troll, whatever millennial troll used to find every instance that I used the word Jew...
John: I trolled it with the same program and I deleted as every millennial friend I ever had told me to do years ago.
John: Oh no, dude, delete everything.
John: Like, you know, so I knew so many people that deleted everything from their Twitter, all of their, everything other than the last 10 posts, you know?
John: And I was like, no, Twitter's an archive of all my thoughts and feelings.
John: And they were like, no, dude, delete it all.
John: I used to feel that way.
John: I used to feel that way very deeply.
John: Oh, man.
John: You know, Twitter, it's like... I was proud of what I'd done.
John: I was proud of what I'd done there.
John: Me too.
John: It was like, no, this has been my life.
John: Like, I'll look back at this and smile 50 years from now.
John: I went through.
John: I deleted it all.
John: And then I was like, I read...
John: You know, at some point in that first three days, I read, because everyone, you know, like there were, I couldn't help myself.
John: You know, I would go on and I would open up the feed and I would see 8,000 people saying Bean Dad should be in jail.
John: And I would shut it down.
John: But in one of those, I saw a tweet from Matt Howey.
John: that said, I'm really disappointed in John for, uh, turning for shutting down his Twitter.
John: He should be here to face the music or whatever as part of a, you know, Matt, how he's speaking as part of the culture, the Twitter culture, like, you know, shutting it down is the coward's way.
John: And you need to be here to face the music, uh, you know, and he referenced somebody who had been in a similar situation who had stayed there to face the music as an example to me.
John: And I was like, ah,
John: You know, so I cleared it all of all of, you know, of every bad thing I ever said, of every time I said, you know, I don't know what, anything, every word I could think of, you know.
Merlin: Yeah, but that's part of the problem.
Merlin: It's one thing to clear out ethnic references and another thing to be like, if you choose to look at anything anybody has ever said wrong, I mean, this is a very, I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, didn't somebody have a famous line, secret police kind of person say, give me, you know,
Merlin: Four lines written by any person, and I could put them in jail.
Merlin: If you're going to be willfully, and I'm not guessing because I think it might have been a Nazi, or maybe Stalin, but if you are choosing to, and this is not about anybody in particular, but if you're choosing to deliberately look for things that encourage a misunderstanding or...
Merlin: certain impression of somebody, you're going to find it.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, for sure.
Merlin: It's the law of large numbers.
Merlin: There's enough out there.
John: I deleted every time I said, Marlon, stop being a bitch.
John: You know, like every word I could think of, like, oh, you know, wood paneling.
John: It's like, no, no, no, you can't talk about wood paneling.
John: And so I left the Twitter up there.
John: You know, I left it alive.
John: So if you wanted to, you could go, you know, all you 4chan trolls that got tired of outing cheerleaders who had sexed their boyfriends and had migrated into this world where you thought you were working for justice by finding every time somebody, you know, said something in 2011 that you don't like.
John: Like, you guys go through it.
John: Scour it.
John: You know, find the words that I missed.
John: Whatever.
John: It's up there.
John: It's alive.
John: I still am technically on Twitter.
John: Well, so...
John: After that first time I looked at Twitter back, you know, six months ago, I shut it down.
John: I didn't look at it again.
John: And then I got another one of these, you know, I was following some news article about a helicopter that crashed into a baby carriage and I, and I ended up on Facebook.
John: You got, you got to look at that.
John: You got to check it out.
John: So then there were all these comments from people that were, you know, over on Gary's van, a place I used to love to be where people would talk about our shows.
John: I followed something there.
John: I, you know, I had an interesting little bit and then I saw somebody say something I didn't like and I shut it down.
John: But I've, I noticed over the last, around Christmas time, I was creeping back.
John: I was looking at Facebook.
John: I commented on a thing.
John: I went on Twitter.
John: I sent somebody a tweet and I noticed, and then, you know, and then I read the timeline.
John: And I noticed by the time I got, by the time I had put the mouse on the thing and scrolled one time down, I saw a thing I didn't like.
John: And it was never about me.
John: It was just some friend of mine from the old days who was thirsty, was on there posting something like, can you believe this?
John: And I knew they were better than that.
John: I know they're a good person and they're on there just,
John: And it was the first, you know, I was only on there for 30 seconds.
John: And right away, I saw some friend thirsting for faves, for attention, you know, taking a stand about a thing they didn't care about.
Merlin: Like performative.
John: And in that tone, that kind of indignant tone of a smart person who can't believe something that they saw.
John: And I was like,
John: Oh, I know, I know this because I, because there were 500,000 or more of those around the world talking about me, a thing I, a thing they didn't know anything about.
John: And here's my, here's a friend, someone who, by the way, I haven't talked to in a year.
John: And it took me one second to find somebody that I knew on their thirsting.
John: And I knew that every person I know that's still on Twitter is doing that all day.
John: It's all Twitter is now.
John: There isn't anything else about it, you know?
John: And I went on Facebook and it did, it took me two scrolls to find somebody on there that was mad about something that I knew they weren't really mad about.
John: And I,
John: And I had to sit alone with my head in my hands at some point and go, do not go on there.
John: It's not a question of you being safe from criticism.
John: It's not that you're not going on there because you're afraid that somebody's going to say, feed your kid.
John: It's because it's awful.
John: And it makes everyone awful.
John: And I lose respect for anybody I see on there.
Merlin: You just happen to be standing out in no man's land on that day.
Merlin: On that day.
Merlin: You know?
Merlin: You know what I'm saying, though?
Merlin: It's just that the shittingness is going to happen.
Merlin: I was watching Civil War last night thinking about Antietam.
Merlin: But you kind of end up popping up and go, hey, everybody, what's going on?
Merlin: Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.
Merlin: And it's like that old Roger Stone joke about it's your night in the barrel kind of.
Merlin: And you were there, but that has consequences.
Merlin: That has an impact.
Merlin: And it starts feeling like Shirley Jackson's lottery all over again.
Merlin: Like, you're either the one throwing the stone or getting hit by the stone.
John: And what I don't know how to do, because four years ago, we all started saying to each other, this is bad here.
John: It's not what it was, even five years ago, maybe.
John: It's not what it was.
John: This is awful.
John: We should not be on here.
John: And the people that we knew that... Oh, you're talking about Twitter.
John: I'm talking about all social media.
John: Or internet in general.
Merlin: Social media.
John: Okay.
Okay.
Merlin: And all the internet because— I didn't know if that was a Trump reference.
Merlin: But you're talking about the way that we talked to each other became more caustic and the platform seemed to be making it easier to be intentionally or unintentionally terrible to each other.
John: I think for me it started the first time I said something about politics and a Bernie Sanders supporter who was a fan—
John: You know, a young Beardo who had been listening to our show for a long time wrote me and they were like unaccountably furious at something I'd said about public policy that seemed like an innocuous thing.
John: They were unaccountably furious.
John: And because back then I used to reply to people and say, what the fuck are you talking about?
John: They were like, you don't understand why.
John: you know, this is what is going to happen and, and Bernie's going to fix it.
John: And you don't understand.
John: And I, and I replied to them like, who the fuck are you?
John: 22 year old telling me, I don't understand.
John: What the fuck have you ever done?
John: And then a third person chimed in and said, you know, Hey John, that's a bad look for you to talk to somebody who cares about the world.
John: And I was like, who the fuck are you?
John: Not only who the fuck is he, but who the fuck are you to talk to me?
John: This kid doesn't know shit and you don't know shit.
John: And I, and all of a sudden this thing was welling up in me and I was like, wait a minute.
John: Why am I doing this?
John: Like that, the, the second person who's a dumb ass was right about one thing.
John: Which is, this is not where I want, but I kept doing it.
John: I kept going back.
John: And I went through six months where I was screaming at people.
John: You know, what books have you ever read, asshole?
John: Some kid at fucking Swarthmore.
John: And that was the beginning of the end for me.
John: You know, the problem was I spent another five years on there, arguing, just saying shitty things to people, you know, embarrassing myself.
John: And full of rage, you know, like Michael Ian Black just spending all night up awake thinking about what somebody's saying to me on Twitter.
John: What I don't understand is what it's going to take, right?
John: What it's going to take because it's so, it's just, it's such a drug and everyone's on it.
John: and i'm not on it i haven't been on it in in a year and i'm still on it that crack pipe is just sitting on the table like oh but what if you went on there and said something funny you know what what would happen like how i said to somebody the other day like you know i i have no idea how much bean dad is still a thing i have no idea how much that's going to be an asterisk on my life for the rest of my life but if i were on twitter
John: I would have a better idea.
John: I'd be on there filling the void with new material that maybe would redeem me.
John: And then someone sent me a, uh, someone sent me one of those year end lists and it was, but wait, it was Paul F. Tompkins, a person that he sent it to you.
Merlin: No, no, no.
John: Yeah.
John: It was Paul F. Tompkins is year end list.
John: That someone else posted.
John: And I think they didn't send it to me.
John: I think they posted it on Facebook.
John: This was one of the things.
John: I was on there right before Christmas.
John: I'm on Facebook.
John: And somebody's like, check this out.
John: They posted Paul F. Tompkins' year-end list.
John: And one of the things... And Paul F. Tompkins, a guy I've known and have done a lot of things with.
John: And, you know, and our relationship is complicated.
John: I would not say that he and I were friends.
John: But we are certainly...
John: well equated with one another, you know, over a decade more.
John: And his, his year end list is like bad things that are going to happen in 2022 or something like that.
John: And fifth or sixth thing down the list is bean dad redemption arc.
John: So, so he's already in front of it, right?
John: He's already like, here's the joke that,
John: this is the year that bean dads, you know, that he's going to do something.
John: He's going to be dead, not John Roderick, not a guy he knows, not his friend or his, his compatriot, but like bean dad redemption arc.
John: Like it's already, it's he's, he's already shutting it down before it's, before it's on anybody's lips, you know?
John: And, but the thing is, it's not just negative there for me.
John: You know, it's not just, I can see it.
John: I can see how bad it is for everybody because I guess I was lucky enough to get hit with it like a ton of books.
John: But, you know, you and I have all these tens of thousands of people listening to the show right now, and they're all on there except for the ones that aren't.
John: And believe me, I hear from them too.
John: I haven't been on Facebook since 1972.
John: Yeah.
John: But they're all on there and they all think that to one degree or another, they're immune.
John: Not from getting publicly shamed, but just immune to the caustic day in, day out grind of it.
John: They think they get more out of it than they put in.
Merlin: Maybe you don't think that it affects them as much as others?
John: Or that they need it.
John: They need it to promote their craft beer, or they need it to connect with people, or because of their job, they have to be on there, whatever.
John: And nobody has to be on there.
John: It doesn't promote your job.
John: When was the last time anybody sold anything because of a tweet?
John: You know, the only thing anybody's selling is a link to a TikTok that's a link to a TikTok.
John: You know, it's no longer a place where... It's difficult sometimes.
Merlin: I was talking to somebody about this on a show recently.
Merlin: I feel like sometimes, and I'm not saying this for clapping, but I sometimes feel like it's... Like, what do you...
Merlin: When you're promoting that thing, I don't mean this cynically, what do you actually want out of this?
Merlin: To me, it makes more sense to go like, okay, well, I understand if you're some A or B list person that, because of the law of large numbers, when you promote something and say, oh, hey, I have this new album out,
Merlin: people should buy it, right?
Merlin: Or like Dave Bazan goes, oh, you know, this Page of the Lion album is out.
Merlin: Like, I bet that does help some.
Merlin: What you're describing, though, I think, is the part that I find so perplexing, which is like, I'm really not even sure if you're trying to sell something, apart from the idea of paying more attention to you.
Merlin: Because I think what you're describing is like, oh, here's a tweet about my update on Insta, and Insta is this thing, and I don't...
Merlin: I'm not trying to be silly about this, but I do sometimes feel like it's just an infinite amount of paying attention to nothing.
Merlin: And the more people you can get to pay attention to nothing, what a higher level of engagement.
Merlin: And you're like, and I'm not even trying to be that guy who goes like, what do you actually do?
Merlin: I'm just saying like, you know, it's okay.
Merlin: Just being amusing.
Merlin: There are people who are just amusing in public and I love that, but sometimes it's just, it's, it's difficult to tell.
Merlin: And it feels, um,
Merlin: it feels pretty gross to just be popping attention quarters into that particular machine.
Merlin: And I sometimes wonder, like, is it that I'm just old that I'm interrogating this and other people are not?
Merlin: But, like, it's when people say, like, I need this for my work or I need this to promote my craft beer or whatever it is, I don't think that's untrue.
Merlin: But, like, have you ever really tallied up
Merlin: Is it worth it?
Merlin: Well, that's the thing.
John: Could you just do one of these?
John: Do you have to do all of this stuff?
John: I don't know.
John: I don't know even one of them.
John: I think that there are 20,000 people that are interested in the music of Dave Bazan, and he knows who they are, and they know who they are.
John: And Dave tweeting about his new record does not sell a single record.
John: It maybe reminds the people that know about him and like his music that he put out a record, but I think...
John: None of social media moves the needle anymore.
John: I don't think it moves the needle.
John: I think what happens is people will join your Facebook group, but that doesn't mean that they will buy anything or that they'll listen to your thing, you know, that they will, that they will engage with you because they're busy.
John: They're busy putting their own shit out there.
John: I mean, the, the, the podcast listeners that we have are the ones that have been with us for years.
John: And yeah,
John: I could be out tweeting about our new episode every week and maybe it would remind 10 people.
John: Oh, I haven't listened to Roderick on the line in a while, but it's not moving the needle.
John: You know, even if it, even if it's a hundred people, it's not moving the needle at all.
John: And I think that's true of everybody.
John: I don't think that it is any more an engine of, of commerce or of, of,
John: Promotion or because I think there's just, there's too much.
John: You can't, you can't follow everybody's link to their Insta and you can't, and, and, and so you can't follow anybody's link to their Insta because it's just a, and especially now it's, uh, they're putting an ad in every four times.
John: You know, like that was the thing I hadn't seen where I was stunned when I logged onto Twitter and it was like, oh, wow, look at them monetize like every.
Merlin: It's weird, though, how it comes for me, it comes in waves where there will be days where I feel like I hardly see any promoted tweets.
Merlin: But then there'll be like it feels like every third or fourth one some days.
Merlin: And I wonder if it's just me.
Merlin: But no, you're right.
Merlin: There is that.
Merlin: And, you know, with Instagram, I mean, well, I don't want to get into it, but, like, I can't see most stuff on Instagram because I don't have an Instagram account.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: And there's a lot of times where I want to see it, and I click through.
Merlin: I deactivated my Facebook over a decade ago.
Merlin: I had Instagram for a little while.
Merlin: It was kind of fun for a while, and then I had it again.
Merlin: Anyway, but the point is, like, there is stuff where it's, like...
Merlin: If you can't see it, well, I'm very much in the minority with that stuff.
Merlin: But suddenly I feel very pure that I haven't written a rating or review for this.
Merlin: I don't have diarrhea anymore, so I don't want to drag them, as they say.
Merlin: I do wish I could say the food was gray and it gave me the shits.
Merlin: But see, then I feel like I'm going to run into things and I'm going to have to get contacted by them.
Merlin: You know, like when people contact people.
John: Free meal for a five-star review.
Merlin: Well, yeah.
Merlin: Like, what can we do to make you change this?
Merlin: You see that a lot on Amazon.
Merlin: But, you know, maybe we should all just keep to ourselves.
Merlin: I don't know.
John: Maybe so.
John: That's nice.
John: It's a lot of five-star reviews.
John: It's nice to talk to you.
John: I give you a five-star review, Merlin.
Merlin: Oh, thanks, man.
Merlin: Let's see.
Merlin: Well, my feelings about you are complex.
John: Yeah, it was a three and a half stars.
Merlin: You're sort of like the people who leave their... Well, it's complicated.
Merlin: I remember the... I don't know if this is the first time, but the time that this still really comes to mind was... Okay, so like, for example, I remember in 1998, my dear friend and bandmate Mike Coleman gave me the Pet Sounds.
Merlin: box set um the box set of that that time um which was wonderful had all that acapella stuff i remember at one point going and looking up pet sounds on amazon and there were a lot of really bad reviews and the really bad reviews were from super fans of the beach boys and super fans of who were mad because they thought it was a naked cash grab to keep releasing
Merlin: all of these, like, you know, I mean, like, for example, you look at something like Straight Off the Dome, ELO, for example, you look at, there are certain bands that have so many greatest hits, so many best ofs.
Merlin: I mean, that was always comical to me, how many albums at Camelot or wherever, music bar, would be best of ELO.
Merlin: And then, but then people feel like, oh, you're trying to rip me off, you're putting this out, the quality's not good.
Merlin: So people who loved the Beach Boys, people who loved God Only Knows were leaving
Merlin: two-star reviews because they were mad about what what was being sold and how it was being sold and that's silly and when you go in you might uncover some of that you know you click through on the name of some of these folks and they're just so goddamn angry about everything um and clearly it is kind of a power grab but like the thing is most people are just looking for should i buy this or not if it's four stars five stars yeah i should probably get it that's more stars than this other one got i
Merlin: Well, the reason that you didn't pick that other one is because somebody is mad that this didn't have audio commentary by Van Dyke Parks or whatever.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
John: Van Dyke Parks.
Merlin: And it's like, you know what I mean?
Merlin: But you follow what I'm saying, right?
Merlin: It's like facets.
Merlin: Some Syracuse and I have talked about facets are very interesting because facets let you do things like say, well, it provides context.
Merlin: It's not just is this a yes or no, a thumb up or down, but like there are aspects of this.
Merlin: Like, for example, I love Outlander's D'Amour.
Merlin: But Outlander's D'Amour, when it first came out on CD, sounded like shit.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, it was a bad master.
Merlin: I don't know if you remember the police record.
Merlin: It was really bad.
Merlin: And so if you came to me and shook me out of my sleep and said, should I buy this new CD that just got released of Outlander's D'Amour?
Merlin: Or might have been Ricardo de Blanc, whatever.
Merlin: But I go, no, actually, no, don't get that record.
Merlin: And then I go back to sleep.
Merlin: What if they said, well, why not?
Merlin: And I said, oh, well, that's an outstanding album with like an unparalleled energy and capturing a moment, but it's not mastered very well.
Merlin: So you're probably better off just enjoying the LP until a better version comes out.
Merlin: And that becomes what has come to be called Merlin's, pound sign Merlin's shit list, which is like, you asked me what I use, what email app do I use?
Merlin: I use the least shitty email app for now, but all email apps suck.
Merlin: Next question.
Merlin: You need facets to get beyond thumb up or thumb down.
Merlin: Thumb down, thumbs down can be very, very clear.
Merlin: Like in this instance, if I'm being honest, if you ask me if this particular Chinese place is a place where you should get a ton of food, my answer would be no, thumbs down.
Merlin: But I could also say, but you know, the garlic chicken wasn't bad.
Merlin: But nobody has time for that.
Merlin: Nobody has context for that.
Merlin: We're all just running around hurling these stars like shuriken.
John: It's absolutely true.
John: I mean, I don't have this app, this ratings app.
John: And I hate it because every time I try and click on a restaurant or a thing, it takes me to the ratings app.
John: And they're like, it's just like Pinterest.
John: They're like, sign up.
John: Sign up.
John: And I'm going to call them Yelp.
John: I'm going to say it's Yelp.
John: I'm just going to say it, Merlin.
John: Nobody can stop me.
John: This is our show.
John: I'm going to say Yelp.
John: I'm going to say Yelp and Pinterest both suck ass.
Merlin: Whoa, you might get contacted for that particular review.
John: They may reach out to you.
John: But so my daughter's mother goes on Yelp.
John: And yeah, you just scroll through and you're like, oh, four and a half stars.
John: Let's go there.
John: This one that has four stars must be, they must have shit all over the floors and the four and a half star place.
John: They must, you know, they must serve it on a golden track.
Merlin: It's almost like there's a five-star system inside of that liminal, almost like self-referential way.
Merlin: The difference between four-star and five-star is like the difference between one-star and five-star.
Merlin: Like, obviously, if you see two stars, you think, oh, boy, somebody's really going after these folks.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, right.
Merlin: But like, yeah, what, I mean, but there are other ways.
John: What's wrong with 10 stars?
John: 10 stars, you know, you could have 8.5 stars.
John: but, but, and we do it on Netflix too.
John: It's like sorting through like, Oh, this one's only got four stars.
John: What a fucking piece of shit.
John: This must be, Oh my God.
Merlin: I think, I think if people actually wanted this stuff and like I say, there's a lot of stuff I'm not bringing up cause I have a lot of feelings about a lot of this stuff, but I do.
Merlin: But here's one.
Merlin: If you actually cared about, let's just talk about ratings in particular and let's say however many stars, like five stars.
Merlin: Um, um,
Merlin: If you really, if you as a company or as a platform really cared about that being useful and meaningful for a stranger to make decisions rather than just be a way to like give a quick tug to a celebrity, you would enforce something closer to a bell curve or a distribution curve of some kind where you would say, let's even say like, okay, you get this many reviews a month and here's the distribution for that.
Merlin: Like, you cannot give another five star until you change this to unreviewed.
Merlin: Like, you know what I'm saying?
Merlin: Like, you can't just give all fives and ones.
Merlin: The most useful review, generally, in my opinion, of all the, and I had a funny list on fives about this, of all the possible five star reviews, the most useful review is usually a three stars.
Merlin: Oh, interesting.
Merlin: Because a three star person, I think so, because a three star person has thought about it.
Merlin: And it's not trying to, I mean, three stars is a very uninteresting, probably the least interesting of the numbers.
Merlin: But, I'm not saying always, but I would bet you the quality of review, and by which I mean the written part, the quality of a review on a three-star rating, I bet it tends to be better than the quality of a five or one.
John: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Because one is total fail, never using again, almost got prolapsed colon, total fail.
Merlin: And five stars is literally the greatest thing in my life.
Merlin: The greatest thing.
Merlin: And I've left some of both.
Merlin: But sometimes when you find a three star, that's where you find context.
Merlin: Because three stars...
Merlin: allows of a world where there's context, which is to say who this is good for.
Merlin: Or if you're just on vacation and are at one of those overpriced resort suntan lotion stores, it's fine to buy this product, but I would not use it as a go-to.
Merlin: Let's say a pocket knife.
Merlin: If you just need something to open a beer, that's fine, but it's not going to be like a family heirloom.
Merlin: Three stars.
Merlin: It's fine for what it was.
Merlin: But that's why I get doubly freaked out and annoyed and fucking angry when every time I want to go to any place that does a thing, I always get bugged for a rating and review.
Merlin: And like, well, could you review your experience?
Merlin: And well, my experience was I ordered some seltzer.
Merlin: And someone delivered it to me.
Merlin: That was the experience.
Merlin: Like, I hope to God there's never a time when that is so good or so bad.
John: I know you never wanted.
John: It's five stars because I didn't know.
Merlin: I asked you to order seltzer and you delivered it.
Merlin: How many stars is that?
Merlin: Normal stars, no stars.
Merlin: But then I think like, oh shit, like I'm already tipping pretty egregiously, which I hope makes a difference.
Merlin: But I also then think like, yeah, but that person like, you know, Uber and Lyft, you rate them, they rate you.
Merlin: If you drop below 4.7, you don't get good routes anymore.
Merlin: There's all that kind of stuff.
Merlin: There's that wonderful thing in, I want to say, was it Slade or New York Magazine?
Merlin: The one about delivery service drivers and bicycles in New York was an amazing article last year about that racket.
Merlin: But you could be, you don't know, you might be harming some to you anonymous person because you're having a bad day.
Merlin: I hate the whole thing.
Merlin: Like, what am I supposed to do differently based on these reviews?
Merlin: Well, I tried it last night.
Merlin: I tried to be credulous about it and I got diarrhea.
Merlin: And like, you know, yeah.
Merlin: Well, not, you know, not diarrhea trots, you know.
John: I remember I was sitting in San Francisco at some point with a bunch of San Franciscans and everybody had pulled up their Uber app and were looking at their ratings.
John: Like, oh, you know, I've got a four point whatever on.
John: And I didn't know that there was a thing like that.
John: And I pulled out Uber.
John: I didn't know you could see it.
John: I thought you had to ask the driver.
John: No, it's on there somewhere.
John: It's like, go down to this menu, go to that menu, go to this menu.
John: And there it is.
John: And I went there and I had of the whole group of six people or whatever, all of whom used Uber all the time because they lived in San Francisco.
John: I had the highest rating.
John: And they were like, how do you, of all the people?
John: But you're a talker.
John: So do they like a talker?
John: I'm a talker.
John: And I'm always like, tell me about your life.
John: And what was Bosnia like?
John: Yes.
John: But the other thing I do is never leave a review for them.
John: I've never left an Uber review.
John: How was your ride?
John: I'm like, why am I interacting with you, dumbass?
John: If you don't give five stars, they get fired.
John: Well, except I didn't give any stars, and I think, and I do this on eBay too, I think no stars is the same as either five stars or it never happened.
John: So there's, it's like an annulment.
John: There's no, it affects their rating.
John: Not at all.
John: And I bet you in most cases, that's fine with them.
John: Like nothing is fine.
John: And it's the machine that's at, that's asking you, they're not asking you some, some machine that they're employing to, to suck your life.
John: It's like, tell me, tell me.
Merlin: It also feels very automated.
Merlin: I get the feeling that with Instacart in particular, like per driver, you can have something like an automatic message because no way do they just type all of that with those emoji.
Merlin: And I doubt they're using text expanded.
Merlin: There's something where they've got shake and bake stuff for going, okay, I'm beginning your order.
Merlin: Please remember to check.
Merlin: And I always, and I, and I respond and I say, thanks, which already feels weird because I'm pretty sure I'm responding to an automation.
Merlin: You are welcome.
Merlin: Which seems odd.
Merlin: You are welcome.
Merlin: Should I kill this driver or not?
John: You hold their fate in your hands.
Merlin: And then at the, and then at the end, it's like, you know, can you, can you like rate and review?
Merlin: And it's like, well, I understand the game we're playing, which is like, you're in this really awkward position where you're doing this difficult work and you're being evaluated as with Amazon or anything like there's difficult work where you're expected to do something, whether you feel like it or not.
Merlin: And in that case, you're supposed to be getting good reviews and that, and there is, there is actual evidence that if you don't keep up your rating on some of these services,
Merlin: I'll try to find this article for notes.
Merlin: Well, we don't have notes on here, but maybe we should.
Merlin: But basically, they'll send you to New Jersey.
Merlin: If you're not doing well in Manhattan, you're not going to get good rides.
Merlin: And guess who makes that decision?
Merlin: Nobody makes that decision.
Merlin: The machine makes that decision.
Merlin: Because when it sent out that email that said, could you please go rate and review, when people did it, it wasn't good enough.
Merlin: In my case, I used to get that email as recently as a year or two ago from Instacart.
Merlin: Every single time, they'd say, please rate.
Merlin: And review it really makes a difference.
Merlin: And I would go and I'd give the person five stars.
Merlin: And you know what happened, John?
Merlin: I would get an email auto-response to my human response to their auto-response.
Merlin: The auto-response that I got back would say, we're glad to hear you had such a good experience.
Merlin: The phrase I think was, we do not proactively monitor five-star reviews, but if you need anything else from us, let us know.
Merlin: So basically they said, oh, cool, fuck you.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: Like they couldn't even be bothered to like pretend that they're grateful that I did it and gave a good review.
Merlin: What is this for?
Merlin: It really does start to feel like there's some kind of like
Merlin: Great AI that's milking us for something.
Merlin: And, like, each star that we squeeze out of a teat, like, is being used for something.
Merlin: And I don't know why.
John: Leave no reviews.
John: It's the only thing that can beat the machine.
John: Leave no reviews.
John: Never leave a review except...
John: Oh, I see what you're saying.
John: Interesting game.
John: That's right.
John: The only winning move.
John: The only review I'm ever going to leave is this new one that I just wrote for Northwest Motorsport on dealerreview.com or dealerrader.com that says, here you go.
John: Dealer Raider.
John: You know, when I was buying this truck, the salesman Eric put an iPod in my hands and said, hey, bro, give us a five-star review.
John: It really helps.
John: So I did, even though the transaction wasn't completed.
John: I said, and I'm quoting my actual review here.
John: I said in my review, everyone, here's the review I left.
John: And you can hear it in my voice that I don't like it.
John: Is it a hostage statement?
John: I said, everyone was cool, period.
John: They don't wiggle on price and the car needed to be washed and detailed, but it was a pretty effortless experience, period.
John: That was my whole review.
John: Five stars.
John: Hmm.
John: You know, it's like read between the lines.
John: Five stars, John.
John: They literally could not have done better.
John: Five stars.
John: And then I said, now, six months later, I can say that dealing with Northwest Motorsports was a negative experience.
John: Their finance guy, Jesse, rooked me into a $5,000 service plan by making it seem like it came with the truck.
John: Everyone at the dealership knew it was a Canadian truck that had been imported as some kind of racket, but they didn't say so directly.
John: They told me they couldn't show me the Carfax because the person who had access, I already don't care.
John: And I'm still going.
John: Show me the Carfax because the person who had access to it.
John: Did you just write this?
John: Sorry, John, did you write this just now?
John: I'm writing it as I speak.
John: The person who had access to it was gone for the day.
John: They took two weeks to get me the Carfax and I had to ask for it three times.
John: And that was how I learned it was a Canadian truck.
John: I don't care anymore.
John: I don't even care about my own review, but I'm going to post this.
John: I'm going to post it.
John: Oh, I don't want to.
John: I just don't want.
Merlin: Would you mind if I, would you mind if I give you a rating for that?
Merlin: Three stars.
Merlin: Actually, you know what?
Merlin: I'm going to change my review and my rating.
Merlin: I'm going to give you 11 stars.
Merlin: Whoa, thank you.
Merlin: That was literally the greatest thing that I have ever heard.
Merlin: Will you follow me back?
John: Merlin, I love your review, but we don't monitor those reviews.
Merlin: Alas, I used to be a big fan of John Roderick, but alas, I have to change this to a two-star review because he doesn't know my name.
Merlin: Alas.
Merlin: Okay, that's really it.
I gotta do this.