Decoding The Gurus patreon

Supplementary Material 17: American Dreams, YouTube Algorithms, and Poisonous Plastics

🕑 Added 2024-11-01 06:52:02 +0000 UTC

Comments

Carolina Sunshine

I really enjoyed your San Francisco commentary. But I don’t think we have the reverse uncanny feeling, There are a lot of different people here and that’s part of what’s great about it.

SHOUNAK SARKAR

Far out, that was embarrassing by Bernie. Good decoding guys; I have really grown an aversion to mindless populism, no matter which side of the political aisle it comes from. Freaking millionaires and rich alternative media morons talking about the journalists at legacy media outlets making 70K a year as if they’re the “real elites” is god damn infuriating! Very disingenuous and it was pathetic by Bernie not to call Musk out more forcefully; he was acting like a typical politician there & serving as an useful idiot for the hard-right.

Monica B.

This was a great one! And oh Bernie : / Politicians gonna politician. I never would have listened to that on my own, so I appreciated the clips and your take. Lex has the kind of cis-dude persona my friends and I used to call SNAGs back in the 90s—sensitive new age guys. They were always libertarians (US meaning of the term, so conservative individualist right wing) when you scratched their pseudo-counterculture surface!

Monica B.

I’m happy Matt liked San Francisco since we get a lot of hate from people (and we may deserve side eye, but for other reasons like corrupt local political fiefdoms, and continually letting some horrible and very rich union busting tech focused neighbors just south of town try to take us over, not for being a hellscape!) It’s a big country that’s pretty regionally diverse. We are mostly all social, nice to chat with one on one, and smiley weirdos,though! I remember someone saying how strange it was when US newscasters give terrible news with, or immediately followed by, a big toothy smile, and…yup! We mostly do our best to even smile in passport pictures! For reference I’m a NYC raised person (fam all still there) who has been in SF since I was a teenager oh so long ago, and they are super different places, but also hey hi from the working class coastal elite ; )

Brendan H.

Matt! Don't eat the dongle! That they put warnings on electronics about potential consequences if you try to smoke or eat it does say something about American cuisine.

Jeanne H-B

Beware the VFHT (Vague Future Health Threat). That has been held over our heads since forever. When you die, be it from a cancer, a virus, or being hit by a bus, we shall smugly blame it on receipts. (I am still waiting to die of my fatness, or vaccines, or microwave popcorn. I’m in my seventh decade.)

Penrice

I was fully expecting Ricky Gervais' goatee from the original Office to get a mention. Have always thought Chris was aiming for a slim David Brent vibe.

Daniel Reed Miller

There truly is no better roll in the world than a German brötschen. No American bakery has *ever* managed to replicate it, to my knowledge.

Daniel Reed Miller

Portlander here, definitely sounds like he got the gist of the place. And in truth there really are some amazing burgers in Portland, dunno if that’s one of the good American burgers he had but food cart culture here is on point.

Karl Franz

Onwards and upwards gentlemen!

Jack

"We should be just drink water from mountain streams that have been blessed by a druid", gold! xD

Kyle Wilson

Just revisited Alan Partridge bits on YouTube and it’s fairly uncanny tbh

Kyle Wilson

lol yeah that’s the thing, it’s so on the nose that it’s hard to even believe

Sean Doody

That was pretty disappointing from Bernie, considering how utterly demagogical and stupefyingly Trump-brained Musk has become.

Christopher Kavanagh

There is so much good material there but most of it is of the Alan Partridge variety.

Kyle Wilson

I always thought if it more as a Magician’s beard, but this was perfect

Bri Koral

Pretty spot on.

Randy

Different regions are VERY different. His northern California and Pacific Northwest impressions are pretty good. But south, Midwest, northeast are almost like different countries.

Kyle Wilson

Please give us more Andrew Gold content. He is my new fascination, almost on the level of Bret Weinstein. He’s describing audience capture with excruciating, textbook detail while totally failing to recognize why this may be problematic. This is a mind that needs to be probed further.

Saksaas

I’ve been working in stores for over 20 years handling receipts. I should be dead by now 😑

Dries T.

Less than two minutes in: "No I did my best. I did my best. Which was nothing." A minute later: "And it turns out that Bret Weinstein was in our hearts all along." How does he do it?!

Dries T.

Relatedly: I kept hoping you'd mention Timbah.On.Toast, Chris. I hope he makes a killing!

Judson

Justin Trudeau said all that under oath. So of he was lying he could go to jail. JBP would not need to sue him.

Stephen McGlinchey

Matt's audio was grand. Dongle panic over!

Beebop-Skedadle

Ope, similar comment to mine lol. Afaik Rhonda Patrick is the more 'legit' person against cans/plastic, she's also been on jre, but not since his anti-vax turn probably

Beebop-Skedadle

Id be curious to see a deep dive re: microplastics being bad for you. That's one of those things I've heard there's actually mounting evidence for, although huberman talking about it is concerning 😅

Robert O

Who was translating Trudeau? That was the most agonizing thing I’ve listened to in ages, maybe ever?

Robert O

Northern Californian living in Texas here, also wish people would chill out a bit lol I guess I’d argue the idea that it’s mostly genuine, most people are probably putting on a face — not all, but most of us are dead inside ya know lol Lived in New York City for a bit too where less BS is tolerated or put on. Lived in Michigan where I’d say more people are genuinely and exuberantly kind. Just my parochial experiences—US is a huge place and I’ve been to most but not nearly all of it. Also never traveled internationally, going to Europe next year though!

Chomagerider

Didn't you listen to the JRE episode with Shanna Swan from a few years back? BPA shrinks our TAINTS!!!! I actually always wondered how legit that Dr Swan was but never enough to actually ever check 😅 c'mon Chris, please do my work for me.

Linda Sears

Matt’s from crypto seller to gold seller was perfect.

Linda Sears

Matt’s experience rings true for me. Americans are more emotionally exuberant on the whole. We also tend to get excited by Australians because of their accents and “exotic” background, so my thinking is that makes us more likely to ramp up our enthusiasm. This could also explain Chris’s experience since many Americans have a big thing for Celtic music and such.

Jackie Isaksen

Hello from Springfield, OR (hometown of the simpsons!)

Jake Kortum

if he came here to Nebraska I think he’d find comfort in a familiar dissatisfaction and greyness

Christopher Kavanagh

I watch his secondary channel and I don’t think that’s an accurate description of what is on there. But even if it was what you described it wouldn’t in any way undercut the point it would just illustrate you can also make money via the clickbait / reaction way, which we fully acknowledged.

rooftowel

The point is that he was held up as investment in quality as proving an alternative model but many videos on his channel 2 show you can get many views either discussing something in the news already or get influencer reaction/drama.

Níall Faughnan

I'm curious, what do Americans think of Matt's description of you? Anyone feel like chiming in?

Christopher Kavanagh

Yeah but in that case he seems to be mostly posting about his investigations and stuff he wants to talk about. He doesn’t seem to be chasing the algorithm, just giving himself a less formal outlet. No issue with that I see.

Christopher Kavanagh

I’m allowed to say it. 😉

Christopher Kavanagh

There’s another one coming soon. This is the aperitif.

rooftowel

Coffeezilla made channel 2 (voidzilla) which ended up getting a lot of views despite significantly lower effort so sadly confirming that there is a path of least resistance to getting views if the topic is about influencers, drama, etc. To his credit he didn’t chase revenue by posting as frequently as the audience would bear, which tends to incentivize tenuous bullshit

Allan Malcolm McPherson

Nobody sticking up for karaage...this is pure US triumphalism in the fried chicken culture war!

Roland Weber

Thanks for this... shall we call it a quickie, with just over an hour? 😄

Kyle Wilson

Chris acknowledging his “out of fashion, 1990’s dodgy investor style beard” had me rolling.

Anne Stephens

https://www.puzzlemuseum.com/month/picm07/2007-02_radioactive.htm A rather nice jug with a Uranium glaze 🤷🏼‍♀️

Chomagerider

The French have their bread MY ASS. THE GERMANS have their bread. No better bread in the world. In fact, the only dough product worthy of the term BREAD!!!!!!!! ok, with that, go catch Bread Weinstein.... oof... been a long day, excuse the very shitty humor.