Ep. 484: "Chief Technical Chief"
John: Hello?
John: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Marilyn.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Beep, beep.
Merlin: Beep, beep.
Merlin: The beeps have been exchanged.
Merlin: Beep.
Merlin: When I text you out of curiosity, when I text you and I say, I'm not going to do it in the voice, I'm just going to say, when I say good morning, Captain, have we talked about this?
Merlin: You know what I mean.
Merlin: You know that reference, right?
Merlin: Morning, Captain.
Yeah.
Merlin: Well, it could be a slant record.
Merlin: But before that, I'll do it in the voice.
Merlin: Good morning, Captain.
Merlin: Still don't know what it is.
Merlin: Good morning, Captain.
John: Sounds like something Paul F. Tompkins says to you when you meet in the hall in a cruise ship.
John: Oh.
John: Good morning, Captain.
John: He might be making the same exact reference.
Merlin: He can't remember your name.
Merlin: No, I was thinking of when Captain Kangaroo comes on.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: They do a cold open where they show a bunch of people, sometimes CBS celebrities, but sometimes it could be a farmer or a telephone operator.
Merlin: And they greet Captain Kangaroo at the top of the show.
Merlin: They say, good morning, Captain.
Merlin: There's good compilations of this out there.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: That's what I mean.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Good morning, Captain.
John: Oh, that contextualizes it so – oh, thank you, Merlin.
John: Now I know –
John: What good morning, Captain, means, and it's a Captain Kangaroo reference, and that just pleases me tonight.
Merlin: Good morning, Captain.
John: Oh.
Merlin: Doesn't that feel good to say?
Merlin: That does.
Merlin: It feels good to hear.
Merlin: Now, you're a contemporary of mine.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Masomenos.
Merlin: Like, we're contemporary-ish, and you didn't know that reference, so now I feel bad.
Merlin: So if I say that to a youth...
Merlin: It's fair to say they'll have no idea what I'm talking about.
Merlin: Why would I do that?
John: No idea.
John: And I don't know.
John: If you spend an hour explaining who Captain Kangaroo was, I don't think anyone would believe it's true.
John: The TV used to have three channels.
John: Yeah.
John: I don't think anyone would believe it.
Merlin: You mean like three different streaming services?
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: No, no, no.
Merlin: It all came in over the aerial.
Merlin: What's an aerial?
Merlin: The aerial is what your grandparents called an antenna.
Merlin: What's an antenna?
Merlin: Anyway.
Merlin: So right before we started, I'm not sure how this happened.
Merlin: I was just kind of killing time, got everything set up.
Merlin: And I went to the New York Times website and I took a quiz.
Merlin: I want to get this wording exactly right because it's – I'm about to come up with a new phrase, which is metacringe.
Merlin: Cringe, cringe that's extra cringe because it's cringe.
Merlin: I took a quiz because the New York Times says – God is dead.
Merlin: God is – wait.
Merlin: The New York Times says God is dead.
Merlin: Wait.
Merlin: Oh, shit.
Merlin: Oh, Elm John, Elm John.
Merlin: I'm not a present for your friends to open.
Merlin: There it is.
Merlin: Are you okay?
Merlin: All right, let me find this.
Merlin: Jen, I know I got to look for Jen X, Jen General, Russian General.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Or was it Washington Post?
Merlin: It might have been Washington Post.
Merlin: But I took a quiz because apparently, and this is another one of those articles that I take with so many grains of salt.
John: Sure.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: First of all, you got the main article, which is, Gen Z came to slay.
Merlin: And that's in quotes.
Merlin: Their bosses don't know what that means.
Merlin: And then below that, under more coverage, it says, Cringe Quiz, are you fluent in Gen Z office speak?
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Gen Z office speak.
Merlin: Cringe Quiz, are you fluent?
Merlin: I'll send this to you in case you want to take it as well.
Merlin: I do want to take it.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: I'm sending it to you in our private text channel.
Merlin: The deck.
Merlin: Find out how well you understand emojis, slang,
Merlin: God, no Oxford comma, really?
Merlin: It doesn't cost anything.
Merlin: Emojis, slang, and reactions.
Merlin: Emojis.
John: Slang and reactions.
Merlin: Yeah, slang and reactions.
Merlin: Slang and reactions.
Merlin: That your Generation Z colleagues use.
Merlin: I don't know what you'll get.
Merlin: I got a six-question quiz where it shows you something that might be confusing to somebody of my age.
John: But this is what's great about the lead here.
John: It's also now lumping millennials in with boomers and Gen X as people who are out of touch and don't understand the quirky new Gen Z lingo.
Merlin: And still no Oxford comma.
Merlin: With boomers, Generation X, millennials, I'm adding a comma here, I'm pausing, and Generation Z all in one workplace and increasingly communicating online, some of the quirkiness of each generation...
Merlin: has come to light.
Merlin: This is the Washington Post.
John: Now, wait a minute.
John: Why are Generation X and Generation Z capitalized, but boomers and millennials are not?
John: Whose style guide is this?
John: John, is that a microaggression?
John: I feel like it is.
John: And it's a microaggression that apparently X and Z are pushing on the boomers and millennials.
John: I'll bet.
Merlin: Washington Post style guide probably had to formalize this.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: Yeah, because you know why?
Merlin: They get a participation trophy for being born.
John: The thing is, boomers and millennials are the ones that I would capitalize because those sound like...
John: Those sound like names.
Merlin: Well, we used to call it baby boomers in another time.
Merlin: But baby boomers is absolutely, if I was doing something writing about demographics, I would title case baby boomers personally.
Merlin: For shizzling.
Merlin: Now, what we're doing right now, for example, before you're taking the test, this is a blue book off test.
Merlin: Now, us worrying about title case capitalization, Oxford commas, I'll speak for myself, I'll complain for myself, title.
Merlin: Now, is that something other generations do, or is it peculiar to our uncapitalized generation?
John: what what is what well then like i sweat this stuff why don't you guys care yeah i know well yeah so i have a i had a friend who was in the music industry here who even he's he's between you and me and age right in there so nice grouping yeah it's a little tight grouping that's right right at the bullseye and he would send things out i'm sorry
John: When he would personally correspond with his friends via text or email, it was rife with typos.
Merlin: And I would say – and I did say to him – And just in passing, are those typos a good reflection of that person's intellect and or care?
John: That was always hard to say.
John: Like somebody who is making grammatic errors –
John: In personal correspondence, it was enough that I said something to him.
Merlin: Oh, I would absolutely say something to that person.
Merlin: What's going on here?
Merlin: Do you know, at least for me, for this particular reader, I think one way to do this is very therapy-ish.
Merlin: But when you do this, I feel this.
Merlin: And I'm sharing that with you.
Merlin: When you send me something, especially something very, let's say probably really long, you send me something and it's got typographical errors, I feel like you don't care what you're writing.
John: And what he said in return was, and this is a Gen X person, but he said,
John: Well, what's the big deal?
John: It's just personal stuff between us.
John: It's not like something that I had copy edited.
John: It's only your anniversary card.
John: Why would I spell your name right?
John: And I was like, whoa, what a weird attitude.
John: And I feel like that attitude...
John: Although uncharacteristic of us is maybe more characteristic of people who've come later who feel like, what's the big deal?
John: Maybe they notice, but they don't care the way we're just like, you know, I got to put an extra I got to put apostrophes in things.
John: Come on.
John: We all know there's an apostrophe there.
John: Don't make me like reach over and get all the way over to the apostrophe.
John: And then I've got to.
John: I might hit return by mistake.
John: And I'm really confused.
John: I'm on the phone.
John: So anyway, so it feels like.
John: How'd they respond?
John: Do you remember?
John: He was.
John: I think he was a little indignant at having his grammar micromanaged by a peer.
John: But he was a professional person who I think had somebody to look over his.
John: prose before it went out in his job and oh interesting you know i don't know maybe he was just used to just you know throwing some things down on a piece of paper and somebody else tightens it up but you know ariella she has younger people working for her and she does say that there's a little bit of a typo thing
John: That then she has to – it's above her – I'm sorry.
John: It's below her pay grade to go through looking for typos.
John: She's not a copy editor.
John: Right.
John: In press releases.
John: But she does feel like she has to go through and skim.
John: And part of it maybe is that so many of us love to copy edit.
Oh.
Merlin: Oh, I will sit there on this is why I recently explained this to Billy, which was like, you know, I have to be honest with you.
Merlin: I used to spend I know you know this, but I used to spend hours a day on Twitter trying to not do the 140 thing exactly, but sweating every single word.
Merlin: And how can I make this better?
Merlin: And like, in some ways, I feel like the smaller it is sometimes the more time I spend on it, certainly proportionally.
Merlin: But I do think there is a distinction, though, to be made between, well, it's not that I don't notice it.
Merlin: It's just that I don't care like you care.
Merlin: And I do.
Merlin: I care when I compose it.
Merlin: I care when I read it.
Merlin: And it's one of those, I'm not big on regret in life, but I'll be so mad at myself if I posted something, like a screenshot of something that I wrote that's got a typo.
John: Oh, but you'd write a thing, you'd look at it, and then you'd flip the word order, and then you'd say, what if I took this word out?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, you would not believe how long it takes me to write like two sentences in a bulleted list.
Merlin: Anyways, but those are all good.
Merlin: Just so you know, I scored a four out of six on this.
John: Okay, so the first one is... Are you really open to doing this real time on the air?
John: Here we go.
John: I didn't realize there were going to be emojis in this test.
John: I didn't tell you there was going to be a test.
Merlin: Yeah, so there's six questions, and y'all can find this.
Merlin: I'm not going to put it in notes.
Merlin: Cringe quiz, are you fluent in Gen Z office speak?
Merlin: It's a companion piece to a larger omnibus project about our inability to communicate.
Merlin: John, is this something you'd be interested in taking live on air?
John: Yeah.
John: Do you want to administer the test?
John: Yes.
John: Because I have the graphics here, so you can administer it to me.
Merlin: Well, forgive my saying.
Merlin: Can I be your proctor?
John: Yeah, please do.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Question one of six.
Merlin: Your Gen Z colleague.
Merlin: Well, each one of these has a really nice piece of art.
Merlin: for the question where somebody's in a notebook drawing what it looks like, but I'm going to just tell you what's in it.
Merlin: It almost feels like your old 3x5 cards.
Merlin: Yeah, it does.
Merlin: I have a lot of problems.
Merlin: Question one, your Gen Z colleague reacts to something you said with...
Merlin: what i will call skull emoji what is this person likely conveying i'm going to repeat the question your gen z colleague reacts to something you said with a skull what is this are we the baddies what is this person likely conveying there are four answers from which you can choose does it mean a laughter b the end of life c destruction or d halloween
Merlin: Those are the four options?
Merlin: Well, it's the four they've given us here, unless this is one of those meta-tests.
Merlin: Remember the internet idiot test where you keep asking you questions until you realize there was no end to the questions?
Merlin: It could be some kind of mix-em-up.
Merlin: Now, these kids today, only 90s kids will appreciate that.
Merlin: Is it laughter?
Merlin: Does a skull?
Merlin: So you're doing your work with the Roderick Group, and somebody – well, I don't want to give it away here, but –
Merlin: Laughter, end of life, destruction or Halloween.
John: So I look at that skull emoji and I would think the option I would look for of the four is you're killing me.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Right, like, you're killing me.
Merlin: And the skull saying, you're killing me, has the same sort of, it can mean several different things of you're killing me.
Merlin: Or like, for me, you're killing me means like, oh, again, with this thing, you know, drives me crazy.
John: Yeah, or like, or really, that's your answer?
John: Or it's lighthearted, but it's a you're killing me.
John: And of the four, I mean, there's so many ways to communicate laughter.
John: The end of life means nothing.
Merlin: I don't think Gen Z remembers laughter.
Merlin: Now, I'm going to tell you, when you click your answer, it's going to let you know if you got it right or not.
Merlin: I'll share mine after you share yours.
Merlin: Laughter, end of life, destruction, Halloween.
John: I don't think, I think it has to be laughter and I'm pressing it and it is laughter.
John: I got that one wrong.
John: I said the end of life.
John: So I feel like laugh, I feel like there are so many ways to communicate laughter via emoji.
John: You can say LOL or Lamau.
John: And there's how many smiley face ones where the person is smiling?
Merlin: Well, you've got to be careful with those, John, because I've been told by articles written by millennials about Gen Z, all the things that are supposed to concern me about that that I'm going to get wrong.
Merlin: I'll save that for the after the conversation.
Merlin: I don't want to drag this out.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But no, that's one for you, zero for me.
John: Now, before we move on, I heard a recent thing.
John: I have a friend who's CEO –
John: Often, texts are when it's not working hours, sometimes in the middle of the night and on Saturday morning at 8.
John: One of these CEOs.
John: Is it a CEO who's a friend of yours, an acquaintance?
John: No, the CEO is not.
John: The friend is a VP who gets texts from the CEO.
John: Oh, shit.
John: Ugh.
John: And the friend is like, I don't want to work 89 hours a week, but I am expected.
John: This is a common millennial problem, right?
Merlin: Because if your boss can get at you anytime, you need to unconsciously – if I could say, as whatever I am, Gen X, you need to mentally block out an unlimited amount of time.
Merlin: You can never disappear into anything if you think – it goes back to inbox zero in some ways.
Merlin: If you know there could be something that's going to blow up and you have this person who's constantly texting you and, like, it's not okay to talk about it, woof.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And it's a startup.
John: And the startup culture is all there in it.
John: But –
John: Whenever my friend would send any kind of reply about it, and it's not just reply like, I can't do this right now because I'm at a wedding or whatever, but replies where it's like, yeah, we got that.
John: We got those numbers and they didn't line up with what we thought it was going to be or, oh, that's not going to be delivered until two weeks or, oh, that person's fired or whatever.
John: Anything that it felt like.
John: it was kind of a bad news or a drag, the CEO would reply with,
Merlin: ACK.
Merlin: As in acknowledged?
Merlin: Or as in Kathy?
Merlin: Or as in Bill the Cat?
John: Well, that's what we couldn't figure out.
Merlin: You know what we're going to do?
Merlin: I've got two things to say.
Merlin: First of all, if you haven't done the test yet and you don't want to be spoiled, come back to this because we're going to be reading the actual answers.
Merlin: But I think we need to do our own test, John, that we could build probably with, I mentioned some help from Syracuse using the Perl programming language.
Merlin: One of our questions would be something like somebody says ACK.
Merlin: ACK.
Merlin: What does that mean?
John: Personally, I like Kathy.
John: Every time it happened, she would text me and go, what does this mean?
John: Because their relationship is not close enough that she can write back and say, what does that mean, ACK?
John: Right.
John: And so ACK.
Merlin: That's very Seinfeld.
John: With no punctuation.
John: All caps?
John: All caps?
John: All caps.
John: Okay.
John: And so she would send it – she wouldn't send screenshots because, of course, that's privileged corporate communication.
John: Absolutely.
John: It's happening.
John: But she would say –
John: Here's what I said.
John: And then they said, what does that mean?
John: And then I would send her either.
Merlin: a Kathy that I found on the internet and I, and I built up a whole, she's got to get ready for that weekend with Irving, which means that she's got to go try on swimsuits.
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John: So I compiled a very large reservoir of Kathy screenshots.
John: Kathy replied.
John: So every time she would say, what does this mean?
John: I would send her a Kathy.
John: And then I started sending her Bill the Cats.
John: Oh, perfect.
John: Because he's got that hairball.
John: And it went on for months.
John: And I kept saying, you need to find out, you need to clarify what this means because we could not conceive that it meant anything other than, oh, no, right?
John: Like, act.
John: It would help to know if the person were a veteran, I feel like.
John: Well, and they were from overseas.
John: The CEO is from overseas.
John: Okay.
John: And somebody, I think maybe the CTO was talking to my friend at one point and said, oh, he means acknowledged.
Right.
Merlin: Kind of like the way you and I, as people who are stealing valor from our brave first responders, what do we say?
Merlin: We're constantly saying Roger or Roger, Roger.
Merlin: Roger, Roger.
Merlin: Roger, Roger.
Merlin: Roger, Roger.
Merlin: Roger, Roger.
John: We do say Roger all the time.
John: And maybe a Gen Z person would say like, why does he keep calling me Roger?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Are they talking about the great singer Roger Whitaker?
John: Are they talking about rogering as in having sex?
John: Should I file a complaint with HR?
John: Talking about the act from MASH, Wayne Rogers?
John: Yeah, he keeps trying to roger me.
John: So anyway, it was this great relief to realize that this was just some super spectrum-y reply to, like, I acknowledge that you have told me.
John: Right.
John: But you were able to contribute to that.
John: Well, yeah.
John: I mean, now I have all these Kathy memes.
John: Oh, I'm looking right now.
John: I can act people all the time.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Act.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: I'm thinking of on 30 Rock when somebody, probably Jack, makes a joke about Liz and, you know, something about a Kathy character.
Merlin: And Liz Lemon responds, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.
Act.
John: Okay, moving on.
Merlin: Question two.
Merlin: Okay, so that is our, so far, John one, Merlin zero, typical.
Merlin: Number two, you assign your Gen Z colleague a task on Slack,
Merlin: and end the sentence with a period.
Merlin: Bum, bum, bum.
Merlin: What's risky about this message?
Merlin: And in the illustration, they show, like, actually, they're doing more of an iMessage, but it says, imagine you got a message, and it's also, they're making it look like you sent it, which is weird, but you can send it to me Thursday, period.
Merlin: That's fine, period.
Merlin: Okay, so you've sent that...
Merlin: What is risky about a message that says, you can send it to me Thursday, that's fine, periods, periods.
Merlin: Number one, Gen Z hates Slack.
Merlin: Sorry, A, Gen Z hates Slack.
Merlin: B, Gen Z only reads messages that arrive via email.
John: C. Who's writing these answers?
John: What a boomer.
Merlin: Okay, groomer.
Merlin: Gen Z might interpret the period as a mere suggestion versus an assignment, or D, Gen Z might interpret the period as a sign of anger slash coldness.
Merlin: So I know this one.
Merlin: Yeah, I learned this one the hard way.
John: Yeah, and that is D, Gen Z might interpret the period as a sign of anger or coldness.
John: If you don't have an exclamation point at the end of your sentence, according to...
John: According to the boomer slash Gen Z kind of look down their nose at younger people interpretation.
Merlin: It's not enough to just, it's not enough to use the correct pronunciation.
Merlin: You must also use the, you'll remember Elmore Leonard says, for most people who are writing fiction, you should use an exclamation mark every 100,000 characters.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That was his rule of thumb.
Merlin: And every single time I go, sounds great.
Merlin: I think about Elmore Leonard, like just harming him.
John: The fedora just falls off the hat rack right on the floor.
Merlin: Yeah, but see, that's... Yeah, way to go, Boomer.
John: Read another book.
John: But here's the crazy thing.
John: We discovered this on our own because I... I've been told specifically.
John: I've been told.
John: You sound mad when you write in sentences.
John: You sound mad, but I felt it before anybody even said it to me.
John: I remember sending something that I meant as a joke, reading it on paper.
John: This has been, I've realized now this is my life.
John: This is going to be my lifelong struggle because things that I mean as a joke, when I type them,
John: they seem very deadpan, and that has gotten me in trouble on the internet, and it gets me in trouble in my personal life.
Merlin: It used to be you put a winky emoticon to say, I know, but in the 90s, I learned, if you say something you think is clearly sarcasm, you're supposed to do a winky emoticon, and then that lets people know that they're not actually fired.
John: Yeah, and realizing that just putting a period at the end
John: was like, and I started reflexively using exclamation points, and I felt like Elmore Leonard was scowling at me.
John: My dad, I don't think my dad ever used an exclamation point.
John: And now I feel like if I don't get the exclamation point, they're mad at me.
John: No, I'm in now.
John: Yeah.
John: So now every, I end every single, even marginally, like hard to interpret text, I sit and agonize over which punctuation mark to use.
John: And this happens now probably nine times a day.
John: And it's only a second long agony.
John: But it's like, can I just use a period, please?
John: I can't.
John: Can I?
Merlin: But not to drag this out, but I feel like this is one of those things where, John, we're both trying to grow.
Merlin: We don't have that much longer here.
Merlin: Well, you do.
Merlin: You're going to live a long time.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: But I don't think we have that much longer here.
Merlin: I do think it is beneficial.
Merlin: Look at it this way.
Merlin: You say to a little kid, for example, like when I was coming up, you call everybody ma'am and sir.
Merlin: And this is not a John Mulaney bit.
Merlin: This is really true.
Merlin: When I was a little kid, you were expected to say please and thank you and say ma'am and sir, and I don't think that was terrible at all.
Merlin: And if you said to somebody, or like, you know, again, the Mulaney joke is, could I please have a Diet Coke, please?
Merlin: If it's not inconvenient, could I please, please, please, and thank you very much, thank you, thank you.
Merlin: Please pass the...
Merlin: Please pass the milk.
Merlin: You go in, you say to the person, you know, obviously you're not going to go, hey, give me some nickel candy, fuckwit.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Now, and you also don't say, give me some nickel candy, period.
Merlin: You say, could I have some nickel candy, please?
Merlin: Comma, please.
Merlin: Comma, please.
Merlin: And now, see, Washington Post, I'll leave that off because commas are common.
Merlin: costly but you say but like the way you said a little kid might go what's the difference you say well the difference is you're you're a piece of shit if you walk around not saying please well not saying please and thank you and also something i advise my kid on a long time ago you get away with a lot more in life if you treat people well and and also are are more polite than you need to be
Merlin: Is this an example of that?
Merlin: Is this an example of, is that the equivalent of saying, please, for your nickel candy?
John: See, I don't know whether this is happening in Gen Z text Slack work culture, but this is going to scald you.
John: This is going to tap your butts.
John: I don't want that.
John: I have started to, in that moment, can I not use a period?
John: No, I can't.
John: Am I willing to put an exclamation point here?
John: Am I willing to do that?
John: No, I'm not.
John: I have started ending texts with no punctuation.
John: Oh, yes.
John: Because the balloon is the encompassing.
John: Act, right?
John: The balloon tightens it up.
John: It shrink wraps it.
John: And so it serves as its own kind of like implicit background period.
John: Right.
John: Or in those monsters that like Dan Benjamin that send 40 texts in a row or or Ben Acker does this too.
John: Apparently those little bubbles are commas, implied commas.
John: Or, I mean, it's very hard for me to tell what some of those text threads are trying.
John: I mean, like, well, this is the problem with them, right?
John: Because then you try to reply to one, but then like four more come in in the time that you've been trying to reply.
Merlin: Oh, and now it's out.
Merlin: I hate that.
Merlin: I wish there was a way to fix that.
Merlin: You should be allowed to fix that.
Merlin: You should.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Okay, well, we've got to finish this.
Merlin: We're almost halfway done, and we're learning a lot, so I think the score right now is two to one in your favor.
Merlin: It's 30-15.
Merlin: Okay, question three of six.
Merlin: You say you're going to be out of pocket for a week.
Merlin: Your Gen Z colleague is confused.
Merlin: Why?
Merlin: Answer A, they think your clothing is out of pockets.
Merlin: B, they assume you're lost.
Merlin: C, they think it's a warning you're going to be wild or crazy.
Merlin: D, they think you've run out of money.
John: So you say, I'm going to be out of pocket for a week, which is already a coinage I don't recognize.
John: I have never once in my life said, I'm going to be out of pocket for a week.
Merlin: It was definitely in parlance in the 90s and 2000s, or off the grid, maybe.
Merlin: But out of pocket meant, usually implied there's something going on.
Merlin: This is a live issue we're dealing with.
Merlin: And you're like, oh, my kid has to, I don't know, my kid has to have their, they broke their tooth and I got to take them to the dentist.
Merlin: So I'll be out of pocket this morning.
John: I see.
John: So that's some work office culture stuff that went right past me.
Merlin: And it implies pre-cell phone in a lot of ways.
John: Cell phone, Jesus.
John: Right, right, right.
John: You won't be able to, you won't be reachable.
Merlin: John, is this about clothing being lost, going wild and crazy, or is it about thinking you've run out of money?
John: Okay, so I know that it's not the first one.
John: They think your clothing is out of pockets.
John: I know that's not the answer.
John: You've had SAT.
John: You've had compliment classes.
John: You know which one to just throw out.
John: That's stupid.
John: Yeah.
John: They assume you're lost.
John: No.
John: The slang would have to be way, way out.
John: It would have had to have gone through a French translator and back for that to be an option.
John: They think it's a warning you're going to be wild or crazy or they think you've run out of money.
John: I'm going to go they think it's a warning you're going to be wild or crazy because out of pocket sounds like one of those Gen Z ways to say like, whoa, I'm a wild and crazy guy.
John: So here I go.
John: Hey, I got it.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I didn't think any of them made any fucking sense.
Merlin: So I picked, they're all wrong to me.
Merlin: And so I picked the fourth one.
Merlin: They think you've run out of money.
Merlin: So you're, you're doing great.
Merlin: You're, I mean, you're doing great compared to me, but you are a little bit, you know, more youthful.
Merlin: I am a little younger than you.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You're like riding that zeitgeist.
John: Yeah.
John: I have spent enough time sitting around, uh, with, uh, with younger people, uh,
John: doing the thing where I'm like, so wait a minute, spill the tea.
John: Tell me more about the tea.
John: And then they roll their eyes at me and they go, the tea, that's not even a thing we say anymore.
John: And I'm like, okay, all right, all right.
John: I get it.
John: I get it.
John: It's on fleek.
John: And they're like, stop it.
John: God, you suck so bad.
John: So I play that game with teens.
John: Yes.
John: Just enough that although I've never heard of Out of Pocket, it just felt...
Merlin: Well, I mean like it's one of those phrases where like you've heard – a person might have heard the phrase.
Merlin: One of these, again, that drives me crazy because I do know what it means.
Merlin: I understand that people don't all know what this means because they're not Broadway fans like I am.
Merlin: But off book –
Merlin: and this has been a joke in sitcoms, is like off book does not mean that you are out of pocket and losing your mind.
Merlin: It means that you've learned your lines.
Merlin: So when I hear you say that you're off book, I don't, or like to use a term we don't use anymore, like you're off the reservation.
Merlin: Like you're a wild card.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: No, off book is like, we're ready to go.
Merlin: Yeah, exactly.
Merlin: Like the dress rehearsal.
Merlin: All right, well, we're halfway through.
John: Out of pocket, I always assumed that it would have...
John: It would have meant that you've spent some money for something that now you expect to be reimbursed for.
Merlin: Oh, and that's an out-of-pocket expense.
John: Oh, yes, of course.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
John: So on a Slack channel, if I saw that, I would say like, oh, they're going to send us their receipts.
John: It's all recoupable, John.
John: Yeah, there you go.
Merlin: Okay, so that was three.
Merlin: All right, we're getting there.
Merlin: Number four, you're doing great at this.
Merlin: Thank you.
Merlin: Question four of six.
Merlin: You sent an email to a Gen Z colleague asking the person to complete a task.
Merlin: So they keep saying colleague, but then it sounds like you're their boss every time.
Merlin: It elides the bigger question of power that would help this a lot.
John: Are you and your boss colleagues?
John: Is that true in business?
John: Or is there another word?
John: Because colleague sounds to me like someone that is at an equal level...
Merlin: I would say – in my version of that because I'm like this and I like words.
Merlin: A colleague to me is somebody who is pretty much roughly at your level.
Merlin: I would not think of – but maybe it's like Ron Swanson says, a workplace proximity associate.
Merlin: I guess it could be your boss or –
Merlin: Conversely, it could be a term I fucking hate, your direct report.
Merlin: It could be somebody who works for you.
Merlin: But I agree.
Merlin: I think colleague, it should be clearer about the power differential because see also your thing about the CEO and the VP.
John: Yeah, right.
John: Well, is this a thing where millennials went into businesses and said, calling you my boss is no longer a thing that we do because it suggests power hierarchy?
Merlin: It's a macroaggression.
John: Yeah, and so everyone that works in the same zip code, they're all colleagues now.
Merlin: Right, where ideas can just hang out and do whatever.
Merlin: You send an email to a Gen Z. That's right, all these goats are.
Merlin: You send an email to a Gen Z colleague asking the person to complete a task.
Merlin: You add a smiley face emoji, and then they very thoughtfully include a smiley face emoji.
Merlin: At the end of your paragraph, your Gen Z colleague becomes worried.
Merlin: Why, John?
Merlin: God, this is going to kill boomers.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: They were just figuring this out in the first place.
Merlin: When they keep changing the rules, there's four options.
Merlin: A, your colleague doesn't want more work.
Merlin: B, the emoji makes your colleague think something is wrong.
Merlin: C, the emoji makes your colleague think you're happy there's more work.
Merlin: Or D, your colleague hates emojis.
John: Well, the answer here is obvious.
John: B, the emoji makes your colleague think something is wrong.
John: And yes, I got it!
John: Woo!
Merlin: Because what is more passive-aggressive than a plain smiley face?
Merlin: Oh, but could that be something like, take your time, smiley face?
John: No, well, yeah.
John: I think that smiley face is actually a clenched smile.
Merlin: Well, this is why I love the Grimace icon, not the purple McDonnellan character.
Merlin: But I've been told from some of these articles, again, I want to super clarify this.
Merlin: I think a lot of this is some stirred up, made up bullshit from millennials who are the worst trying to make – it's what?
Merlin: It's Waxlax.
John: It's swinging on the flippity-flop.
John: Oh, are you talking about Zibba Zabba?
John: Yeah, it's a little bit of a Jim Jam.
John: A little bit of –
John: So you think this is written by a millennial?
Merlin: Well, this whole raft of things we do, this goes back, and again, this is probably a meta-old reference, but, oh, millennials can't buy houses because they eat avocados, and that whole narrative that started five years ago about how millennials are stupid, and before a lot of us copped to the idea that, no, it's just that the economy has changed completely.
Merlin: Something they talk about on the wonderful show, Fleischman is in Trouble, and
Merlin: I heard a wonderful interview with the woman who wrote the book and the TV show.
Merlin: And she was talking about how, like, just these differences in perception that people have and the way... Wait, what was I going to say about this?
Merlin: Your colleague... Wait, what was I talking about a second ago?
John: Oh, who knows?
Merlin: No, you were talking about...
Merlin: Millennials throwing shade.
Merlin: Oh, and she mentioned something.
Merlin: I asked my wife this question.
Merlin: So she had said, doesn't it seem strange?
Merlin: This is one of those hiding in plain sight things.
Merlin: Her name's Taffy Brodesser-Ackner, I think.
Merlin: But she said, what is this thing going on where I feel, I, in my case, a 56-year-old guy, I feel so like, Jesus Christ, I feel like I know so many people who are like two to eight years older than me.
Merlin: who have so much more capital, whereas a ton of people younger than me ain't got no capital either.
Merlin: What is the deal with people who are two years older than me having more stuff than I do?
Merlin: And I said, Madeline, do you ever feel that way?
Merlin: She's like, I absolutely feel that way.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: There's just this whole thing of like we haven't acknowledged that the whole there's so many things that have changed about not just the economy, not just because of COVID, all these different kinds of things.
Merlin: But like there's just not as much of that old capital drifting down.
Merlin: You're you're you're you're.
Merlin: I guess I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm not trying to sound, as Ron DeSantis says, woke.
Merlin: No, please.
Merlin: We beat the shit out of generations younger than us without ever acknowledging that we and our parents are largely responsible for why they're so fucked.
John: Well, wait, though.
John: And I think about this all the time.
John: Just demographically, there are twice as many people in the world as there were when I was born.
John: Oh, boy.
John: And every passing day, there are...
John: The population of San Francisco is so much bigger than it was when you arrived there.
John: The population of Seattle is so much bigger than it was when I was here in bands in the 90s.
John: The population of everywhere.
John: And so there's just more people.
John: They have not built enough more houses to accommodate all the people that have come to San Francisco.
John: There's just not...
John: we haven't built as fast as we're growing.
John: It's difficult to build.
Merlin: Apart from public housing, it's difficult.
Merlin: I'll say this to my wife.
Merlin: I remember before I ever moved here, I was told or had heard that San Francisco was at the time relatively anomalous, maybe Manhattan, but that it was anomalous in the sense that it breaks a lot of typical economic laws.
Merlin: Because there's always somebody who will pay more for something here, but really disruptively, there's a lot of people who have a lot more.
Merlin: And so, like, it's difficult to say, oh, these condos that we're building in the Castro are just going to be for people who are upper middle class even, right?
Merlin: There's no way – it's very difficult to indeed restrict –
Merlin: housing in such a way that only the people who super need it and can't afford anything else or you know if you want to keep nurses and even doctors in the city like you're gonna have to have different housing because it's all going to be swept in and picked up by people with tons more capital we were watching the other the other day so one of the very few movies that i've ever there's a there's a list of like four movies that i've uh that i've gone to the theater to see and actually stood up
John: in the first hour of the movie and said, this is garbage, I can't stay and walked out of the film.
John: Not because I was like offended, unless you mean I was offended by how stupid it was.
John: And, you know, you walk out into the theater, you walk up and down until you find a movie that looks better that started more recently and, you know, like get your money's worth at least.
John: One of those movies was Bugsy starring Warren Beatty.
Merlin: Warren Beatty, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Couldn't do it.
Merlin: Couldn't do it.
Merlin: I was afraid you were going to say Bugsy Malone, which would break my heart.
Merlin: Bugsy Malone I've seen 80 times.
Merlin: We could have been anything that we wanted to be.
John: No, it was Bugsy.
John: Uh, I couldn't do it.
John: And maybe it was cause I was super baked, but I could not be in that movie.
John: But another movie that I got up and walked out of.
John: Oh, something about Mary.
John: Couldn't do it.
Merlin: It was a bridge too far.
Merlin: The jizz.
John: This is so great, and I'm not in the vibe of this at all.
John: But another one was Mrs. Doubtfire.
John: I went to it.
John: I went to it because I thought it was a Robin Williams movie.
John: I might have also been stoned, but I got up and I was like, this is garbage.
John: It is not, John, spoiler alert, it has not aged well.
John: So the other day, because I'm always with my kid, I'm always like, hey, why don't we watch this Gary Cooper movie?
John: She's like, no, I want to watch The Simpsons or I want to watch Adventure Time for the 14th time.
John: And I'm like, no, I want you to just be exposed to the kind of late night movie culture that I, you know, like the alien.
Merlin: Here's a movie from the 80s that I assume won't be incredibly offensive and slowly paced.
John: Well, so she said to me, I want to watch Mrs. Doubtfire.
John: Kids keep talking about it.
John: Yeah.
John: And oh, the other day.
John: Oh, my God.
John: This is something maybe you and I should talk about.
John: But she said to me, she said, the kids are always talking about memes.
John: Can we look at some memes?
John: And I was like, we can look at memes.
John: And so I pulled up, uh, some memes like of Kathy going ack and like, uh, like a hang in there, baby, a cat, a wet cat on a, on a, uh, a shower curtain rod.
John: And she was like, no memes.
John: Like, like, uh, and as she tried to describe it, I realized it was tick tock.
John: She was describing short videos because what she said was that kids were saying things to each other like somebody would knock over a cup and somebody else would go, and then all the kids would do a dance move.
John: And she was like, they keep saying act, and then everybody does like a dance move, and I don't know what it is.
John: And I was like, oh, baby, I'm afraid.
John: As online as I am, I have no idea how to find those.
John: And we kind of stared at each other for a minute, and then she shrugged and was like, oh, I guess it's one more thing I don't know.
John: But so she says, let's watch Mrs. Doubtfire.
John: And I go, all right, fine.
John: I think that this is a terrible movie, but let's do it.
John: So we sat down together.
John: And here comes Mrs. Doubtfire.
John: And I know what you're thinking.
John: The number one thing that stood out to me was that this loser and his professional wife –
John: live in a house that now is probably worth $30 million.
Merlin: I mean, I'm not sure.
Merlin: I mean, it looked like they might be in Pack Heights or something.
Merlin: I don't know what it would cost.
Merlin: It's like a 10-bedroom house.
Merlin: Miranda is making some bank, is what I'm saying.
Merlin: Sally Field is making some serious money if they can afford that house.
Merlin: Absolutely.
John: the time right at the time interior designer especially yeah it was just like uh oh i guess that's i mean it was still a nice house right but it was like a house even accounting for the fact it's the 90s that's still a super nice house yeah but then the movie is trying to portray them as middle class people
John: Anyway, so we watched this movie for a little while, and about an hour in, I look over at her, and she looks up at me with those eyes where she's like, this movie blows.
John: Oh, no.
John: I was like, really?
John: And she said, oh, my God, it's like the parent trap except not as good.
John: Woof.
John: And I was like, tell me more.
John: And she said, I know what's going to happen.
John: Yeah.
John: Something terrible and then something terrible and then there's going to be some end where it all gets resolved somehow.
John: And I'm just not in it.
John: I don't have the energy to watch another hour of this.
John: And I turned it off and we looked at each other and I was thinking, I'm so proud.
John: I've never been so more proud.
John: Like, she got up and walked out of Mrs. Doubtfire just like I did.
Merlin: Oh, that's a good feeling.
John: A lot of stuff doesn't translate well.
John: Yeah, she stood up and she was like, I'm just going to go read and sort of...
Merlin: you know slumped off and i was like journal you should journal about that that's really good that's a moment okay anyway let's go back to our test um just so we're up to date we got two more questions um do you remember what your score is i think i missed one wrong yet i think i've gotten them all wow okay all right um question five wait there's five
Merlin: Question five of six.
Merlin: Your Gen Z colleague responds to something you said with a painting nails emoji.
Merlin: And this is when you see a hand and it's got, at least in this instance, purple nails and there's nail polish being applied.
Merlin: I think this might be a comma splice.
Merlin: Your Gen Z colleague responds to something you said with the painting nails emoji.
Merlin: What is this person expressing?
Merlin: You have four options.
Merlin: Option A, it's time for our manicure.
Merlin: B, your colleague is suggesting sass, pettiness, or nonchalant confidence.
Merlin: No Oxford comma.
Merlin: C, your colleague is extremely bored and has nothing to do.
Merlin: Or D, your colleague's nail has chipped.
Merlin: Okay.
Okay.
John: Again, whoever wrote these answers is lame because there are always two that are just like lame.
John: Like it's clearly not time for a manicure.
John: They're being a little bit cute.
John: Yeah, it's like what kind of lame BuzzFeed thing is this?
John: It's just clickbait.
John: But your colleague is suggesting sass, pettiness, or nonchalant confidence.
John: So that would be the thing that we always did, which is like look at your fingernails as a way of being like –
Merlin: I got this.
Merlin: You can also determine whether you're a homosexual, depending on how you look at them.
Merlin: How you look at your fingernails?
Merlin: Don't you remember that?
Merlin: You take the test?
Merlin: Oh, if you hold your hand out.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: As opposed to turning them in.
Merlin: You wonder how we got the... Listen, this is a side note.
Merlin: Y'all wonder how we got the way we are?
Merlin: That's why.
Merlin: Things like that.
Merlin: On the playground?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: That's how we're this way.
John: Yeah, when you say the number three, do you use your thumb, in which case the Nazis won't know you're like an infiltrating spy?
Merlin: Or like the Viet Cong can't smell the soap.
John: There it is.
John: They can't smell the soap.
John: All right, you got a pick?
John: So it's suggesting sass, pettiness, or nonchalant confidence, or your colleague is extremely bored and has nothing to do with it.
John: I'm going to say that times have not changed so much, and it is sass, pettiness, or nonchalant confidence, and yes!
John: John, you slay, if I may say.
John: I'm slaying this quiz.
John: I feel like that, painting your nails, is just like, I got this.
John: I got this so hard.
John: That I'm just, I got time to paint my nails because it's already.
Merlin: Well, you know, what I haven't mentioned is underneath these, then there's a little bit of, uh, to really, you know, kind of increase the journalistic, um, uh, Weltanschauung.
Merlin: There's a little explanation.
Merlin: Gen Z is going for a non-literal meaning with the nails emoji.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: New paragraph.
Merlin: The manicured hand could have several different nuances, including some sort of sass pettiness or nonchalant confidence.
John: Right, that's there in the answer.
Merlin: People in Gen Z were early adopters of texting.
Merlin: They learned quickly how to develop and use quick nonverbal communications cues.
Merlin: Anyway, it's all explained here.
John: And their style guide apparently does this thing where new paragraph after every sentence, just to keep it light and keep the eye moving.
Merlin: I wouldn't even have periods.
Merlin: I mean, I think these returns are going to be very – returns are a microaggression of a kind.
Merlin: Like, ugh, I'm still with this.
John: You know, a big block of text, Merlin, like three sentences all together without a line break.
John: It's just T-L-D-R.
Merlin: Talk about the kind of person that sends you like 40 texts and each one is kind of a sentence.
Yeah.
Merlin: sixth and final question john is john i might have i might have accidentally um done like a what was the show 21 like i might have just done a game show thing where i accidentally gave you the answer for this yeah yeah yeah so forgive me it's okay it's six you're gen z i'll pretend i don't know please do it's it's for the effect
Merlin: Your Gen Z colleague responds to you with the word slay.
Merlin: What does this person likely mean?
Merlin: Your four possible responses.
Merlin: A, go kill something.
Merlin: B, you got killed at slash beaten by something.
Merlin: C, kudos, awesome job.
Merlin: Or D, defeat the dragon.
John: I don't know if you play the in-seat-back trivia game on Delta Airlines, but it's a thing that I... Trick question.
Merlin: Unless they make a home version, I'll never know.
John: Oh, that's right.
John: Merlin does not fly anymore.
Merlin: I don't like, and again, for the last season finale of White Lotus last night, my family does not love when I say this, but as I've grown very fond of saying in so many circumstances, and that's why no one should ever travel.
Merlin: especially on Delta or United or any other airline.
Merlin: Your Gen Z colleague responds, this is going to be kill something, kill that beaten at, kudos slash awesome job, or D, defeat the dragon.
John: The problem with this is that all three of the wrong answers are just dumb.
John: They're not even trying at this point.
John: This is a millennial microaggression, clearly.
Merlin: Yes, yes, thank you.
Merlin: And they had to meet deadline.
Merlin: Oh, let's add some vertical space by putting in carriage returns.
Merlin: Carriage returns, by the way, you guys, comes from the age of typewriters movie.
John: Because they're millennials, they were always told that they were perfect and got three days.
John: And so they didn't learn to be good comedy writers because the people gave them fake laughs.
John: And this is why John hates a white ribbon.
John: Why don't you people hate white ribbons?
John: That's right.
John: No white ribbons for me and no white ribbons for go kill something as a possible answer to slay.
John: No.
John: Defeat the dragon?
John: No.
John: You get killed at.
John: Beaten by something?
John: No.
John: The correct answer is kudos.
John: Awesome job.
John: And?
John: You slay.
Merlin: When you click it, what's it say?
Merlin: Kudos!
Merlin: Awesome job!
Merlin: Yeah!
Merlin: John, I have not been keeping the best score at this, but is it correct that you got six out of six?
Merlin: Is that right?
John: Six out of six.
Merlin: You are so ready.
Merlin: You're so ready to get into the workforce and stop using periods or commas or full sentences.
John: You know that I think I would be a great CEO.
John: I think that I have what it takes to be a big idea guy, a motivator, a
John: Like, I think I could just, like, steer the ship.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: It's like you're a visionary and yet you're so human as a person.
Merlin: It's like you are, as we used to say, the topokaj.
Merlin: Like, you've got it all.
Merlin: You brought it all together.
Merlin: You have the vision, but you're also so down to earth that you're willing to just stop using an entire class of punctuation because it might upset someone who's a stranger to you.
John: Well, what I've discovered, and you know this better than any of us, by that I mean of the two of us, that founder-led startups often go straight into the garbage bin because the founder is making techs and he's tech and makes, and they don't understand how to do business.
John: Because he was good at something five years ago.
John: He's now great at everything.
John: And now he's sitting there and he's like, oh, I'm changing the whole... No, it's all about supply chain.
Merlin: I'm not merely just lucky in terms of timing.
Merlin: I'm also brilliant.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, flurb, flurb, flurb.
Merlin: And I know all about marketing, too.
John: Flurb, flurb.
John: Yeah, flurb, flurb.
John: Flurb, flurb, flurb.
John: And what a lot of those founder-led tech startups need is the founder needs to hand over the keys and appoint themselves chief technical chief, like CTC.
Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, you're saying get a role that's more suited for what you were actually once theoretically good at rather than your reckons and speculations about what you imagine you're also great at.
John: Yeah, all these founders of tech companies should give themselves like a white lab coat and take the top floor of the building and just walk around.
John: Yeah, and never leave.
John: Don't talk to other people.
Merlin: You just be a genius up there on your own.
John: What are those little balls that you roll around in your hand that have little chimes in them?
John: Is that Benoit balls?
John: Yeah, little Benoit balls.
John: Just walk around up there with the lab coat with the Benoit balls.
John: Let us run the company.
John: And by us, I mean me.
John: And I, you know, because I see all, I'm in a seven-sided lighthouse full of made of dreams.
Merlin: Yes.
John: Right?
Merlin: Like I have a, I'm the panopticon here.
Merlin: I see the market.
Merlin: John, if you're in a seven-sided lighthouse made of dreams, forgive my saying, you can't help but see stuff.
John: There it is.
Merlin: Your vantage point has put you in a place where you're going to see stuff.
Merlin: Whereas if you're the guy with the Benoit balls, and they have a cream for that now, you're the guy who's out there.
Merlin: And like I say, you got a little bit lucky once.
Merlin: It's kind of like winning $300 in Las Vegas and assuming that you're Warren Buffett.
John: See, that's exactly right, Merlin.
John: The Oracle of Omaha, they call them.
John: That's the kind of analogy that somebody that could run a company might come up with.
Merlin: John, this is not a new idea.
Merlin: I understand we're bringing in literally thousands of new listeners every day, but this is something a long time ago I think we talked about.
Merlin: You literally walking into a boardroom in a bathrobe with a scimitar and said, clear the room.
Merlin: Now I'm the captain now.
Merlin: That's right.
John: Now I'm the captain now.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: That's the quote.
Merlin: Yes, you're the technical chief technician.
John: So I do feel, though, that this quiz here, it's the beginning now of a thing where you've seen these examples where some cultural outlet will be talking about generations and just leave Generation X off.
John: I have noticed that.
Wow.
John: Where we're just not even in the game.
Merlin: It's almost like I don't want to exaggerate our importance as being born in a certain period of time.
Merlin: But I feel like it would be a little bit like going, oh, let's talk about the five greatest British invasion bands.
Merlin: And it's got Paul Revere and the Raiders, but not the Beatles.
Merlin: Like, we caused a lot of problems, John, our generation.
Merlin: Our cohort has caused a lot of bad shit.
Merlin: We should at least be in there.
Merlin: We should at least be mentioned.
John: My feeling is that a lot of those political polls about the last election, because of the way I think – I mean, I don't have a good explanation for this, but I think it's one of these, like –
John: these uh do you apply do you do you qualify for aarp like oh the people between the ages of 55 and 69 all voted for trump and and then people are concluding from that that generation x is full of uh conservative dinosaur white people who can't change and it's a it's a
John: It's a skew that is coming from the fact that all the writers now are millennials.
Merlin: Or the people who are only people with landlines answer the phone for quizzes like that.
John: And so I've read a few think pieces about how Generation X –
John: is part of the, uh, the world that votes for Trump, like lumped in with Jen, uh, with the boomers.
John: Yeah.
John: And I just, I go, Oh my God, are you really, is this really how we're going to start talking about this?
John: Right.
John: As the conversation switches to one where millennials and Gen Z are throwing shade at each other, and everybody pre-1984 is just sort of like, ugh.
Merlin: But it's almost like doing some kind of longitudinal –
Merlin: It's like a longitudinal study about, oh, we have this amazing observation that people, their interest in Lego seems to peak around age eight, and therefore we can draw these conclusions.
Merlin: Well, you know, Winston Churchill has at least credited with that line of saying, anybody who— I love Lego.
Merlin: I love Lego.
Merlin: Anybody who's not a liberal by the time they're 20 is hard-hearted, and anybody who is in a conservative by the time they're 40 is soft-headed, which I think is an interesting observation that does sort of track with the idea of like, well, as people get older for their own selfish reasons or their own philosophical reasons, but
Merlin: But like, you know, all those people are going to become different people, but they're still going to be the same people.
Merlin: They're all going to get all the different things.
Merlin: And like, before we even get to the fact of like, yeah, really?
Merlin: What the fuck are you talking about?
Merlin: That observation is going to help no one.
Merlin: I don't think that's going to help anybody.
Merlin: What would you do differently to learn that Gen X loves Donald Trump?
Merlin: I mean – What would I do differently?
Merlin: Well, but like isn't that kind of the implication here is like the – oh, boomers are just Gen X Jr.
Merlin: and they love Donald Trump.
John: I mean I think the implication is that with a sweeping generalization like that, it allows you to then discount anything those people say.
John: So if we've decided that Gen X are a bunch of disgruntled suburban whites who don't want – forget about all the people in Gen X that aren't suburban whites, but they all are.
John: They all are Trumpies.
John: Then all of the Gen X people that are like, hey, I had a thought about that other thing you were saying.
John: that maybe some of my experience might bring to bear.
John: It's like, nope, sorry, Gen X, you guys, everything you say is just, you all own houses and you're all conservative, out of touch.
Merlin: Our age and character class does not necessarily, in this sense, in this particular campaign, does not have to come with alignment.
Merlin: Like, don't guess how I am, you jerk.
John: Well, and I think part of it – He had it good.
John: If we stand around – if I stand around with my group now – I went to two parties yesterday.
John: I went to a neighborhood Christmas party that was full of olds.
John: And we stood around and we talked about mid-century modern furniture because it's in this neighborhood and everybody's got a names chair.
John: And then we talked about rhododendrons.
John: I spent more time yesterday talking about rhododendrons than I have in a year.
John: Is that a perennial or an annual?
John: Well, a rhododendron is a perennial.
John: But they can be a lot of work, right?
John: Aren't they easy to overwater?
John: Oh, there's a lot.
John: But up here, a rhododendron does not need a lot of care up here.
John: They like being here.
John: This is where they... I'll save it for Patreon, but I do want to hear about your rhododendrons.
John: They're not all native to here, but they love it here.
John: This is where they feel they belong.
John: Oh, it's like us in nasturtiums, huh?
John: Like they just grow.
John: There you go.
John: And then I went downtown to a party in a bar that was – a millennial friend had a book release party and she had an eclectic guest list that was –
John: A lot of Gen X era post-grunge indie pop superstars.
Merlin: That sounds like you, John.
John: That's me.
John: And all the people that worked in the labels and the radio around that era.
John: And then the millennial cadre that came up underneath us –
John: as indie rocker fans first and then bands and became then the next generation that picked up the torch and carried it.
John: And now they're all old right now.
John: They're all in their early forties or they're four.
John: They're all turning 40 and they're like, we're 40 now.
Merlin: Whoa.
John: And their bands, their, their bands are now irrelevant.
John: You know, like their whole scene is starting to fade.
John: Yeah.
John: And you've been to the—or, I mean, back when you went to gatherings or saw people in life.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Remember that party at Ev's house where Elon Musk was?
John: Oh, that one?
John: I don't.
John: Oh, Ev, you nut.
John: Were there naked people in bags?
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah, well—
John: But standing around and, you know, and it's what everybody does now.
John: You stand in a group of four people and, hey, what have you been up to?
John: Oh, this, that, and the other.
John: And very quickly it turns to kvetching.
John: Everybody's kvetching about something.
John: We know enough not to start talking exactly about politics, but you're trying to talk about politics by talking about some microcosm of it or something.
Yeah.
John: Kvetching is one of the great things to do in a group of people.
John: If you have a shared language and you know, when I say this, I am acknowledging... There's no greater way.
Merlin: You're getting at such a wonderful broad point, which is that... Broad, broad is in like applicable broadly, which is that if you're trying to figure out... You will unintentionally figure out how to bond with somebody if there's something, or perhaps someone, but there's something you both don't like.
Merlin: That's a great...
Merlin: That's a great way to strike up a conversation with somebody.
John: And in this group of people, everybody knows where we're all coming from because we're all in this, we've all been members of a scene, some of us, for more than 30 years.
John: And it's a scene with a set of shared values.
John: It's a scene that was in some ways, and I mean in terms of inclusive of gay culture, very inclusive from the very beginning.
John: In terms of it being diverse racially and culturally, less so, right?
John: Certainly not in the early 90s, more so all the time.
John: But so there's a shared sense of like, well, here's the diversity that we know well.
John: And we're all very comfortable as sort of members of what I would never deign to say queer culture, but like, we're very comfortable with queer culture.
Merlin: But I mean, even like, and again, you can't tell these kids this because they have no sense of this.
Merlin: But like, you know, what my kid lives with is very different than what my kid might have lived with, let's say, in the 70s and leave it at that.
Merlin: But but also just that sensibly, who's could do you get a gay, a straight and a bi?
Merlin: In the band.
Merlin: And that was never like a headline about Husker Do.
Merlin: It's that there were three different sexual orientations in that band.
Merlin: Because it was really all about taking ephedrine and playing really fast.
Merlin: That was so much more important than, you know, than who Greg was attracted to.
Merlin: Yeah, right.
Merlin: As against say, like, I think probably like, I don't know, but I've seen 24 hour party people.
Merlin: But for Pete Hamill coming up in the 70s, I bet advertising that he was attracted to men was not the kind of thing that's going to get you a lot of friends in a depleted factory town like Manchester.
Merlin: Whereas it became more table stakes eventually, you know, by the 90s.
Merlin: Maybe not like you say, not so diverse.
Merlin: You get a, what do you get?
Merlin: You get a Bad Brains, you get a block party, you get a Thin Lizzy, you're not going to get a ton of bands and people at the party because that's just not that attractive to a lot of African Americans.
John: You got a white trash, you got two heebs and a bean.
John: You got this guy over here, you know, not me, not me.
John: He says no soup.
John: But the thing about it is that shared language, right, where everybody knows where everybody's coming from.
John: But if you took some rando, if you took a BuzzFeed writer who's 24 years old from...
John: manhattan and stuck them in the middle of this party it wouldn't take them long for their ears to start burning uh listening to people kvetch and thinking to themselves oh these spoiled rotten brats or oh these you know these precious uh like gen x out of touch conservatives or
John: Whatever.
John: Like you could find in that private language.
John: And I'm not talking about a bunch of people standing around being like ironically racist.
Merlin: It's not that.
Merlin: We're not talking about like Southern strategy euphemisms.
Merlin: It's just like more like a shared patois or code switching where everybody knows.
Merlin: When I say this, you know what I mean.
John: Yeah, right.
John: And in the fun of complaining at a cocktail party about how hard it is to X, how much harder it is to do this thing than it used to be, how much weirder it is to be in this bar now than being in this bar 22 years ago, all that kind of stuff.
John: where if you aren't attuned to what everybody in the room knows, you're going to listen to it and go like, ah, they're just complaining about gentrification or, oh, they're just complaining about... Especially because, again, there's subtle distinctions that everybody else understands, right?
Merlin: I mean, we're not just talking about word choice here, but there's subtle distinctions that everybody in that room remembers that will not be applicable to somebody today because they only know the post...
Merlin: The post-subtlety era of something.
Merlin: Whether that, you know what I mean?
Merlin: Whether that means, like when saying you were a friend of Dorothy in 1970, like what that meant, or calling yourself a fellow traveler in the early 50s.
John: I still use that term.
Merlin: Fellow traveler?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So you don't get called up by McCarthy?
Yeah.
John: Whenever I'm introducing a Jewish friend to another Jewish friend where the shared Jewishness is not obvious right on the surface, I always go, you know, hey, Jim, this is Bob.
John: He's a member of the tribe.
John: And then they both raise their eyebrows at each other and go, hello, hello.
Merlin: That's subtle.
Merlin: Very subtle.
Merlin: I like that.
John: Hello, member of the tribe.
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Handshake.
Merlin: Dr. Goldberg, Dr. Silverstein.
Merlin: Amen.
Merlin: That's pretty good.
Merlin: Uh huh.