High Low Brow
Cracking Open the TV Industry: Strikes, Social Media, and Fair Pay with podcaster/TV writer Kyah Green
We're wrapping up our third season of High Low Brow, and what a ride it's been! We've had quite a diverse array of topics and guests and we take the first little bit to reflect on the wild and chaotic energy that fuels us, a few of our favourite moments, and what we're excited to bring into season four.
For this finale episode, we're diving into the chaos of the SAG/AFTRA strike, and how it has shaken up TV production and shone a light on the unfair pay structures. Joining us is the brilliant Kyah Green (they/them), a screenwriter, comedian, and co-host of The Fandom Show from Toronto.
In the episode, we ponder social media's chokehold on creativity and its impact on publishing. We also ask questions like whether the streaming model has led to an overconsumption issue leading us to view film and TV as content rather than art.
So, join us for our finale of the year! It's gonna be bigger, bolder, and packed with more insights than a treasure chest in a Hollywood blockbuster.
We're wrapping up our third season of High Low Brow, and what a ride it's been! We've had quite a diverse array of topics and guests and we take the first little bit to reflect on the wild and chaotic energy that fuels us, a few of our favourite moments, and what we're excited to bring into season four.
For this finale episode, we're diving into the chaos of the SAG/AFTRA strike, and how it has shaken up TV production and shone a light on the unfair pay structures. Joining us is the brilliant Kyah Green (they/them), a screenwriter, comedian, and co-host of The Fandom Show from Toronto.
In the episode, we ponder social media's chokehold on creativity and its impact on publishing. We also ask questions like whether the streaming model has led to an overconsumption issue leading us to view film and TV as content rather than art.
So, join us for our finale of the year! It's gonna be bigger, bolder, and packed with more insights than a treasure chest in a Hollywood blockbuster.
Welcome to High Low Brow. The show with high brow takes on low brow culture. I'm your one host, amanda Scriber. I'm your host, river Gilbert. It's hard to believe, but it is December and we have come to the end of the season.
Speaker 2:This is it.
Speaker 1:This is it. It feels like last year, I don't know. It's been a while. It's been 36 weeks. It's been 36 weeks since we started the third season. This was your first season as co-host. How did you feel?
Speaker 2:I thought it was fine. No, it was great.
Speaker 1:It was. It was okay. I don't know if we'll come back for next season.
Speaker 2:It was mid. I understand why everybody leaves after one season.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, I feel so cold out. I mean please don't leave.
Speaker 2:I'm not planning on it Making the basement very awkward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would, wouldn't it? Hi, can you come up downstairs and help me? I'm gonna. I need you to set up the lighting. Yeah, you, I think it was going to be like you serve a purpose, but like no, you don't just set up the lighting.
Speaker 2:I also edit the episodes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you certainly did. Shout out to you and kind of just script.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:it's terrible, but we make it work we make it work, but I think for me, what I loved about having you as the co-host this year was that people really got to see just how chaotic we are actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is what our world and house is like all the time 24-7. And you're not even getting the ocean experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you're not even getting the full, the full experience.
Speaker 2:You're getting roughly half of the experience. Yeah, I mean because, you get you, you get me, and then you get you and me, but you don't get ocean and me an ocean and you an ocean. Yeah, or the three of us. Oh, it's less than half, that's 37. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was like math is not my forte. It doesn't sound like a half but like it's close to. Yeah, it's close to Practically half. I would argue that you are the funnier one in our Well, I wouldn't say that that sounds like transphobia. What?
Speaker 2:Because it's misogyny and transphobia. It's the men are funnier than women and used to be man. That is literally not so funny.
Speaker 1:I was saying that you are funny, but then you had to make it into a trans thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I have all trans things, baby, it's all.
Speaker 1:Wait, it's a trans thing always has been. Oh true, that's fair. Well, this was just me trying to pay you.
Speaker 2:Gas me up. Yeah, I guess you will.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. I make the games too. You do a lot.
Speaker 2:You do a lot, I'm just.
Speaker 1:It's true, I do do that, and I do do that as my self-time job, and I hate my life. Yeah, it's the bad place. We knew that. I chose it for myself, so Alright, I'll just transphobe with you. Be like that. Sometimes it's okay.
Speaker 2:When you date a trans person, you have to deal with being called a chaser at least several times a week. I mean, we have talked about this.
Speaker 1:How basically every one of my serious ex-partners is now trans, so I mean half of the serious ones. Oh right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whatever.
Speaker 1:And I'm not an ex no.
Speaker 2:I just meant, like You're a chaser, you smell us out.
Speaker 1:I'm like.
Speaker 2:This is gonna have some tasty girl dick.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, but G is not trans femme, they're trans mask. Thank you, oh fuck, I forgot.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god man, you really. I was thinking about your other ex. Yeah. I know so God knows, has your gender journey gone?
Speaker 1:Well, it's a long time back there, bro Egg.
Speaker 2:Hello egg, One egg. Are you on one egg talk?
Speaker 1:No, I mean I'm not even I'm on TikTok, but like I feel, like I'm not on TikTok, You're only on TikTok because I'm like Hi, I've sent you 42 messages within the last two hours. Why haven't you responded yet? And I'm like Ma'am, I am Slow down, please, ma'am. I am in a work, doing a work.
Speaker 2:You're, so am I, but you gotta make room for the little things in life, Okay, we've gotten so off track.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show. Yeah, I know, literally With like what's your favorite part of the season? My favorite part of the season, my favorite part of the season?
Speaker 2:Oh God, I don't know, I think I'll start off. I think my favorite part of the season was the AI game that we did.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:With Pablo.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually, you know what Having Pablo on as our guest this season was actually? I love Pablo, I love Pablo's TikToks, I love everything that they do. They were like the chillest, most, just fun.
Speaker 2:Not to say the other guest, and our other guests were shit. Yeah, the other guests meh, but Pablo just he exudes this warmth and all of these Great takes. Yeah, I had such a fun time, that episode yeah so I think that was such a fun episode.
Speaker 1:I think the other episode that I really enjoyed was with Lisa, where we got to talk about all of the terrible magazine covers.
Speaker 2:That was a highlight.
Speaker 1:And I think the game that you created for that was like is this a magazine cover or is this?
Speaker 2:Oh no, they were all magazine covers. You have to decide who who it was about.
Speaker 1:So I think that was also a really great. I'm sorry, maybe I'm bias, obviously, but the games you came up with this year were just like they were good.
Speaker 2:I have done, gotten almost to alpha testing of two board games and made a cube, so I do know things about game design sometimes. So here, raw dogging life, I'm just happy you show up and agree to alpha test our games yeah true, true, true, true.
Speaker 1:I mean, are you going to come back next season? I hope so.
Speaker 2:You're invited, oh good, I was like I'm still waiting for the invites.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, for those who are listening, we are taking a short break because the fact of the matter is that sometimes you need to take a break for creative reasons. A busy year. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I had bottom surgery.
Speaker 1:I had a parent to pass away and I turned 40.
Speaker 2:And you turned 40. I'm sure there was other things that happened Well, I left a job, you left several jobs.
Speaker 1:I left a job, started a new job and then left that job. So you know, there's been things, Things have happened and I think the general state of the world. Yeah, the world is like on fire.
Speaker 2:Slash, genocide is happening, slash everybody's trying to redeem George Santos. All of the all the tech talks and all of the like. Fucking like John Oliver was even like ah, and I'm like girl, you know he made life worse for.
Speaker 1:He can still be a problematic fave.
Speaker 2:No, that's no you can't it's like having Henry Kissinger as your problematic fave. It's like, no, you can't have politicians as a problematic fave. None, okay, bernie, terrible, aoc, terrible. Kill your darlings.
Speaker 1:Okay, I mean for me poisonally, I don't like I can say some like Controversially at brief, I don't know if it's that, but like I think he's a terrible human for all that he's done, 100%, absolutely. Which is the shit that comes out of his mouth? Is it absolutely ridiculous and hilarious? Yes, and do I. When John Stewart was like, get George Santos on Real Housewives, I was like, holy shit, if, like, if we took George Santos out of like the body that he's in and had him in a woman body, which is Feminized George Santos.
Speaker 1:I will send him to Twin Flames but like he is the definition of what you want on like a reality television show, so I know we're not trying to get.
Speaker 2:This just came to me, though I'm concerned that people are going to miss the point, kind of like they did with Joe Exotic. Like Joe Exotic, not a good person Tried to have someone killed Did terrible things to wild animals. Everybody loved that fucker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean like I didn't love him.
Speaker 2:I think he's funny and I think that as long as we can draw the line of the sand, there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, separate the art from the artist.
Speaker 2:Separate the fart from the artist You're like no, I am not participating in this. Yeah, only good politicians are dead politicians.
Speaker 1:Yeah, capitalism, fuck it. But yeah, we're going to take a break. Yeah, because like this kind of shit that we're going to Like.
Speaker 2:It needs to cook.
Speaker 1:It's like a good risotto. It needs time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got to toast those grains and slowly ladle in, one cup at a time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, constantly stirring, stirring stirring, yeah, you get it.
Speaker 2:I get it.
Speaker 1:I think it's my fair share of risottos in my day, I know. So, like, feel like we're going to take a break. We're going to like we have and I feel like I've talked about this before, probably last season, but we together have kind of talked about a few different ideas that we want to bring in to the next season. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So at some point this year we were looking at expanding our video onto YouTube. Yeah, that clearly did not happen.
Speaker 1:We're looking at introducing some new series. Yeah, do you want to tell the folks about that?
Speaker 2:Oh, we're going to talk about it now. We're going to talk about it now, yeah, so we talked about the show a couple of times in the season. It's Giggalos. We're going to talk about it in a rewatch, slash power through watch, where we're going to watch all the episodes of the first season and record an episode of a review, one after the other, in 24 hours.
Speaker 1:So that will be fun. Yeah, I mean trust me, if you've never seen this show, it is wild.
Speaker 2:We said it was on Crave and it used to be on Crave yeah.
Speaker 1:There are too many streaming services. There are too many streaming services Actually, it's funny because we're going to talk about that on the episode but yeah, there's too many streaming services. And yeah, when we come back for next season, we're going to fine-tune some things. We're gonna introduce some new.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe get a better mic setup. Maybe, yeah, get a better camera setup. Yeah, maybe have camera at one, camera at two. Yeah, it's not just one of us alternating eyes like the ones we're with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, who wouldn't love that? Yeah, I. They always say you watch your like favorite YouTuber or podcast or whatever, like they start off. They start off from the ground up.
Speaker 2:Oh God, the first hundred episodes of my Brother, my Brother and Me you can't listen to. They are just three white guys who are moderately too, very problematic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we're. It's only up from here, baby. I hope so. If it's not, well, fuck yeah.
Speaker 2:There's always cameo apparently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is, and apparently you know influencers are gonna be the next big thing, so we could just become influencers, god.
Speaker 2:Haven't they been the next big thing for the past decade? Yeah, I don't. I don't know, man. How many friends have we lost to becoming influencers? At least two.
Speaker 1:Remember when our friend Helen used to call me an influencer, and I'm like, I am not an influencer.
Speaker 2:I used to call you an influencer First, and I still do sometimes.
Speaker 1:I hate it, I know.
Speaker 2:They're like what, emma's big on the internet. I'm like, yeah, she's kind of an influencer. I'm not anymore. Yeah, oh, yeah. No, you're not anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like. Look at my dog, look at the food I ate.
Speaker 2:I'm influencing you to look at my dog please yeah. Isn't she goob?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am like one step away from being beige mom.
Speaker 2:Emma, the day you become your beige mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think I. It's a sad, sad day. I don't think that's ever going to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't be fashion icon and a beige mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was very funny. I was helping a friend today vent at a holiday market and my real person job had something happening at the same venue. So I went to just go and say hello but I was wearing overalls that basically look like workers overalls. They were like khaki and they have. They have like a big loop where you can put your like hammer or something like. And then I was wearing a workers jacket.
Speaker 2:And when I say a workers jacket it's like oh yeah, on you it's like a trench coat, it's like a trench coat.
Speaker 1:It's plaid, it's like what you see truck drivers wearing. Yeah, I looked like your quintessential butch lesbian, but anyways, where I was going with this is that I saw this someone that I worked with and they were just like yeah, it looks like you sort of planned this. It was like a vibe and I was like sure you planned everything, though.
Speaker 2:I mean, I didn't you planned. Hashtag looks yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:What are we talking about this week? Our final episode of the season.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think when we were sort of planning for our final episode, we thought it would be considering we talk about so much pop culture, tv film, all of it, all of it.
Speaker 1:We kind of thought it would be really important to discuss the TV writer strike, sag ASTRA all of that strike and just how it is going to affect TV moving forward and how all of us have been affected by this in ways that we kind of never really noticed or understood. And on the show we have Kyra Green, who is a TV writer, but also they have their own podcast, the Fandom Show. Yes, I don't know. I'm excited to sort of end the season off on this note.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I'm coming from the future, but I think it's going to be a great episode Ooh, should we get Kyra? Let's go to the episode. Okay, great.
Speaker 1:We're back, we're back and it's the final episode.
Speaker 2:It's the final episode.
Speaker 1:I can't believe it's the final episode.
Speaker 2:It feels like just yesterday you were like, hey, I don't really find it feel like finding a new host. You just want to do it.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I said sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then that's seasonal depression hit.
Speaker 2:That's seasonal depression hit and the end of seasonal depression hits. Yes, yeah, and now we've come full circle, full circle, full circle, full circle, but now we are here.
Speaker 1:We are here and we are recording the final episode. Final episode. What is the final episode about? I feel like it's a timely one.
Speaker 2:It is. I mean it's the celebratory afterwards. Celebratory Celebratory.
Speaker 1:I'm like.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's an interesting way to describe it. I mean, the strike is over.
Speaker 1:The strike is over we in some of our episodes previously we had talked about the writer's strike and what was happening. As a former journalist not a TV writer, but as a former journalist you know standing in solidarity with those who were part of the strike but also say after everything that was happening and just how important it was for us, especially since so much of the content that we talk about on the podcast is related to pop culture and television and film, et cetera, et cetera. So today we're kind of talking about how the ripple effects, the after effects of the strike.
Speaker 2:What's a TV and film going to look like in the next, you know, six to 10 months?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it got real weird in 2007, 2008.
Speaker 1:It got a little weird and bad. Yeah, it got bad, but I think it's going to be good again and we have a guess, we have a guess. It's not just going to be us rambling for like an hour which I think to be fair, the people who tune into the podcast. They're probably sick of listening to us.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a nice thing. Yeah, so why don't we throw it to our guests? Hello?
Speaker 3:it's me. I'm here to provide some rambling, a different tone of ramble, if you will. The perfect segue. Hello, my name's Kyah Green. I'm a Canadian TV writer, a podcaster and just a general nerd about town. I also do some live comedy and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Okay. So this is going to be great, like not only are we going to have some commentary on television, but you're also, we're going to have some laughs.
Speaker 3:That's the hope. Depends on how the commentary about television goes.
Speaker 1:We're going to have some laughs. Maybe we'll be cries. It depends on how the time goes.
Speaker 3:We laugh and we cry that's right. The two masks, the duality Of man, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Tell the dear listeners about your podcasts.
Speaker 3:So I work on a podcast with my partner, steph, called the fandom show, and basically what we do is we interview people about their fandoms, their passions, their hobbies, their pursuits. Basically, if somebody can obsessively talk about it for an hour, we will cover it. So we've covered all sorts of things from, obviously, the big fandoms like Star Wars we just recently dropped a Doctor who episode but we also pursue weird things that people get really passionate about. We did an episode on clocks, which is one of our most popular episodes, and episode on mechanical keyboards, sneakers. Basically, if people are passionate about it, we want to talk about it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, amazing. I feel like it's funny because when I mentioned to River that you were coming on, the episode see we're already going off the rails. I mentioned to River that you were coming on the podcast. I was like, oh, their podcast is all about fandoms. And you were like, oh, like, I would never want to be on that show. I don't want to expose myself like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do it every episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were like I thought I didn't know like what you talked about. I was like, oh, that's fair Cause I keep that that part of myself just like locked away.
Speaker 1:I feel like now we have to expose you.
Speaker 2:For what? What I really love to know.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like are we talking about that time that I was into my little pony? Nothing. We'd happily talk about that? Or were you talking about my foray into closeup magic? Were we talking about?
Speaker 3:Look, are you a fan of Fulus? Because I love that show.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, yeah, penn and Teller. Teller is such a good magician.
Speaker 3:Oh my God, he's incredible. Are you kidding me? See, there's no bad fandoms, and this is my take. We are very big proponents of love what you love and tell everyone about it. That is our slogan, and both those things are absolutely awesome. Fandoms Get out of here.
Speaker 1:You got to say it with your chest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, whole chest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's when I was saying spoiler alert, because I will be on your podcast Hell yeah, you will Future and not to spoil anything, but I will be talking about Crocs because, oddly enough, Crocs has become a little bit a part of my brand. Like people will just send me if there's something about Crocs online. People will just send it to me and they're like oh, I saw this Croc thing online. I'm like great Thank you. I did not know that this was.
Speaker 2:We have croc props that are a photo or wedding photo.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is true.
Speaker 3:So like Crocs are just like part of my, my brand, yeah, and it can be a way to connect with people, right, Like I can't tell you how many good things have happened to me because I am very vocally a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. Now that has some problems because the man who made it sucks, and I can go on about that forever. But that's not what we're here for.
Speaker 1:Not what we're here for. Maybe we should try and talk about what we're supposed to do?
Speaker 2:I was going to say if Xander is the self insert character. Last, thing, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:He is, and that says so much frankly, doesn't it? We'll have a conversation, yeah.
Speaker 1:We we're going to re rewatch Initial watch.
Speaker 2:I wasn't allowed watching it when I was.
Speaker 3:Congratulations. That you watched it now, not the.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I feel like we need to go back and watch it again.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think we got it to like season three or four and then didn't they take off Netflix? Then they took it off Netflix.
Speaker 1:Oh cruel, it's rude Very rude, that's right. So the strike? Yes, oh yes, and that was the thing that happened. Remember that five months ago? Absolutely yes, was it five months ago, am?
Speaker 3:I doing my math correctly.
Speaker 1:Time is a construct. I know I'm like, I feel like the actors strike was like 104 days.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then the writer strike was Considerably longer yeah.
Speaker 3:One of the longest in history. Yeah, and the entertainment industry anyway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the strike happened and I feel like there was so much While the strike was happening. So many people were so confused on like, why is it happening? We're like, at least there was not, there wasn't an understanding as to like, why it was going on for so long, so, and why people were so upset about the use of AI. Yeah, what do you, as someone who writes a lot about TV, who is a writer themselves, what are your thoughts and feelings about this? Totally.
Speaker 3:So first of all I will say huge disclaimer. I'm in the Canadian TV industry, which was not affected by this, this strike. I mean it was affected by it and that a lot of productions stopped up here, but we were not on strike, so I was not in the middle of it, I only saw it from afar. But with that caveat of take everything I say with a grain of salt, forever I can tell you this. So, basically, what's been happening in the industry the writing industry, the entertainment industry is what's been happening in like quite a lot of industries, which is that you know, the people at the top are making a lot more money but the people at the bottom aren't seeing any of that.
Speaker 3:And I think what was particularly confusing for a lot of people not in the entertainment industry was that when we see, when people who aren't in the industry see stuff from entertainment, it's mostly billionaires and millionaires, it's mostly the most famous showrunners, the Shonda Rhimes, you know, who are at the top of the pyramid and they think that everybody who works in entertainment makes that amount of money.
Speaker 3:But that is unfortunately very far from being true and the majority of people who work as actors and writers in the industry who are working day to day are making a hell of a lot less money than that, and quite a lot of them have second or third jobs in order to support that. That hasn't always been the case, but it is getting worse and worse, and there's a variety of reasons for it, but most of the reasons have to do with streaming services becoming a very large part of the industry and how, in order to disrupt the television world, what streaming services did was shrink a bunch of the ability for writers to do their work. There's more details there, but I feel like I've been talking for a while.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I, on a digital side, I've worked on two or three shows in Canada, so I totally, like I hear exactly what you're saying. Yeah, some of them have appeared, without saying the names of the shows. Some of them have appeared on our Canadian broadcaster, on their digital platform, if you will. So when you're talking about these streaming services and how they sort of work 100%, I got to witness it from the other side of how these shows.
Speaker 1:Some of them were trying to make content. I say content, but really it's television, and they can only make what they can make because of the grants or the funding that they're being provided, which is literally less than nothing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the really interesting part of it all from a Canadian TV writer's perspective is the conditions that the American writers were striking against are the conditions that Canadians have been living with as an entertainment industry for the last decade or more, which is a couple of big things, one smaller rooms. So for those of you who don't know, the writers' rooms are basically what the engine of TV is. A bunch of writers will get in a room, they'll drum out a whole thing, they'll come up with the whole plot and then the thing gets shot. Traditionally they've been anywhere between seven people for a small room to like 20 people for the Simpsons room, and it's prime had like so many writers.
Speaker 3:But more recently they've started doing something called mini rooms, which is two or three, maybe four writers in a room who will then come up with all the same things that those bigger rooms would, but then they'll hand them off to a creator who will then go off and write everything. So it's they're shorter, there's less room for development and growth and there's just simply less hours. Basically, they're doing it so that they can pay writers less, so that's a big element of it. Also, shorter series orders have been like a huge problem. The actual payment has gone down by adjusting for inflation something like 23% for even like the bare minimum that they're paying writers. So it's just like a combination of things that you can see echoed in so many industries of people just not being able to survive or make a living wage off doing work that a lot of other people are making so much money off of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think, even if we're not talking about the Canadian industry, when we look at like what was happening in the US, I think the biggest reality check, so to speak, that we saw is when people from Oranges to the New Plac.
Speaker 2:I was going to say my introduction was Kimiko Glenn, who's also on Oranges to the New Plac, being like look at my $27 paycheck. And then later on, billy Porter being like I've literally got 6 cent paychecks and that's Billy Porter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And these are two huge actors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're huge actors. You think by seeing them at, like, the Golden Globes and all of these places, that they have tons of money that they're making, but it's all just show, and not only that. It's like, I think, when that whole Oranges to the New Black I don't want to say scandal, but when those actors were sort of sharing their residuals, they were also sharing stories about how some of them were working jobs at ours when they were working on oh yeah, taking cabs from the restaurant to the chute.
Speaker 3:Yep. It's wild 100%.
Speaker 1:People don't understand that reality. They just see oh people, this is so glamorous, it's Hollywood. But that same reality applies on a larger scale to the Canadian film industry and television industry as well.
Speaker 2:I worked with a guy who was on the degrassi, like my ex used to work with one of the guys on Radio Free Roscoe. Oh, no way, I love that show and like it's just yeah. Yeah, it's not a. It seems to be impossible to be a full-time job, yeah, but I think it's a great aside hustle for what's supposed to be the gold standard of you've made. It is wild.
Speaker 3:And it's confusing and frustrating for a lot of people because they're seeing just a massive increase in TV shows, right? So it's hard for the average person to be like, how are they not enough jobs to go around? And the question is not the amount of jobs, it's how good are those jobs right? How well do they pay? How consistent are they? Essentially, the streaming services have turned the entire entertainment industry into a gig economy and like, maybe you become a famous influencer but like, unlikely, right, most people are struggling in obscurity, even if they're on big shows. Like, for instance, a very big article by writer Alex O'Keefe came out. He's a writer on the bear and he was talking about how, like he's on one of the most successful shows right now and he was writing in a New York apartment without heat. You know, like this is, this is the kind of thing that it's a very working class existence for most people and they really hide under the illusion of Hollywood to make it feel like that's everybody's experience.
Speaker 1:Well, not having not worked in film and television, but in my journalism days, I can say this. But when I used to get sent free things, I'm like, oh, I'm not making nearly enough money, so I will gladly accept. Yes, free food. Thank you so much, absolutely. But also.
Speaker 2:Take what you can get, I'll take what I'll take. Hashtag total comp.
Speaker 1:Exactly, but I think it kind of speaks more to kind of what you were referring to earlier. It's like at the top when we think about, like the Disney's, the Netflix, the Hulu's, the like, all of these places they're making a shit ton of money but that's not trickling down to any of us, it is not. Yeah, and I think even during the strike they talked and discussed about raising their fees and they were trying to position it as well. We're going to raise our subscription rates so that we can pay everyone fairly. That's not what I meant.
Speaker 3:Yeah, BS, no they're not, absolutely not. I call shenanigans.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like and that was a lie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's something that I think a lot of people are feeling in other industries. Is this squeeze of like getting less stuff for more money and that being passed on to the consumer? I think is getting more and more frustrating for people, and one of the interesting things about this writer strike is watching these studios blame the writer strike for some of that squeeze. Well, and the truth is that firing one of those executives would have paid for the entire industry's worth of demands.
Speaker 1:Well, how dare we try and ask them to give up any of their wealth?
Speaker 3:How dare they need all of those boats? They need them.
Speaker 2:Which corporate shithead was it? That was like we're going to wait for three months from now and people start losing their houses.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think that might have been Bob Iger but I might say it seems like a very Bob Iger thing.
Speaker 3:Doesn't it though? Doesn't it though? I can confirm this.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think too, wasn't it, I think it also might have been Bob Iger when people were picketing on one of the lots, there were trees and they had them removed.
Speaker 2:They cut them off, all the branches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that they wouldn't have shade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah Wild.
Speaker 1:They were like oh, you wanted this shade.
Speaker 2:Go, fuck yourself, we're going to we're going to hire somebody to do this unnecessary road work that's actually worse for everyone. Yeah, just to stick it to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's brutal.
Speaker 1:I don't know her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's just like to me. It's a perfect version of the just the disdain that so many of these major companies have for the people that make them their money, and I think the thing that I reiterate as much as possible when it comes to talking about this writer's strike with people who aren't in the industry is it's the same struggle that everyone in every industry is having is just, the people at the top will do absolutely anything to not pay their fair share, including cut off tree branches.
Speaker 1:Well, and for me it's kind of like nobody needs that much wealth when, at the end of the day, everybody is just asking to be paid fairly.
Speaker 3:Fairly yeah.
Speaker 1:Which seems like a simple concept, but apparently it is not.
Speaker 3:It's also a little turkey, because I think there is there has always been this sort of interesting perspective on art, which is because it's a fun job and you want to do it. I mean, I do want to do it, but I'm doing air quotes right now for a podcast, not a visual medium. But yeah, I think because you, because people consider it a fun job, that people would choose to do, that they should take hits to money, to their livelihoods in order to do it. It's the whole like work for exposure thing is like well, shouldn't you be grateful you're even doing this fun job so you don't have to go be, you know, whatever other thing you don't want to be. And that really undercuts the fact that like enjoying a job does not mean you shouldn't be compensated for it, and no one would ever argue the same thing of doctors who love their job, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, if we went to a doctor, we're like, actually we're just like we're not going to pay you, we're just going to like, wait this one out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what do you do for the experience?
Speaker 2:It is such a wild double standard because I think about like the just incorporate being like oh, yeah, no you. You don't have to like your job. You should like your job, but you know paycheck.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and like, just because you, there's lots of carpenters that enjoy their job and it doesn't mean that they, they should take a pay cut in order to continue to do it Right. And I think that's take it Right. It's, it's a. It's something about how we value art in this world too. Is that like we? We really just don't a lot of the time, unless it's something that we're told is is valuable. So the work of all of those people is really valuable and they deserve to get paid for it.
Speaker 1:And it makes no sense, like I'm sorry I'm not out here directing films and I maybe I could learn, but I don't think I'm going to learn anytime soon, so, please, I would gladly give money to any of those people who are doing that and I feel the same Same should happen, like if you want some. We went and saw film last night.
Speaker 1:We won't talk about it but like you know, there are people trying to make art, who are trying to make films, who aren't necessarily like. They're small, independent, scrappy, whatever it's like. Those people need that money to create the things that aren't being made by major studios, that aren't like these things should exist.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and part of the issue with the current system is that the squeeze on all of these writers' rooms jobs, the squeeze on all of these mid-budget movies that we don't see anymore, like we did in the 90s, where there was a million romantic comedies and just like mid-range films that were like fun, that's being squeezed out as well. All of these sort of like stepping stones that people used to use to build up their careers, like spending time in a writer's room and working your way up to a producer, where you could go on set and learn how to show run, used to be part of how we built show runners. That's how we built really talented people who knew what they were doing, and now there's no space for that because it basically goes like entry-level job, expert job, and there's no way to train people in between. So there's just not enough space for people to get experience to be the kind of artist we're demanding. Maybe.
Speaker 2:Yep. I was very encouraged when the A24 was given the blessing to produce.
Speaker 3:That was so awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, this is great, and I recently found out that they received funding to start acquiring other smaller, like various movies to branch out, and that worries me Interesting, but I'm like that was such a win though. Yeah, it's like, oh my God, hey, look these guys who are just everybody loves A24.
Speaker 1:A24 can do it. I think you can do it.
Speaker 3:I mean, it really begs the question right. If a smaller studio can handle this, then Disney, why can't you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, one has to ask. One of the interesting things that I noticed, too, that happened during the strike, was to get around the strike people who were crossing the picket line, or what have you. There are a few things. One because the strike was happening in the US, they would come to places like Canada to film or use Canadian actors, or what have you.
Speaker 2:They're just saying we're not doing anything wrong.
Speaker 1:What's that? It's fine. I know I'm thinking of something in particular in my head. I'm just like, oh, or they were using influencers and content creators and reality TV stars to film and be in shows. So a good example is Kim Kardashian and horror story. I haven't watched it, I don't, I just I've seen it, heard about it. So it found like there was these slimy things happening in the background in order to continue to make and create content. No-transcript. I'm going to be honest. I don't think Kim Kardashian needs any more money than she currently has.
Speaker 3:She's doing okay, I think. Last time I checked.
Speaker 1:Yeah she's fine.
Speaker 2:She's almost a lawyer.
Speaker 1:Is she still trying to pursue that thing?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but she's almost a lawyer, yeah, fair.
Speaker 3:And almost a lawyer is lawyer enough isn't it.
Speaker 1:She's like a quarter lawyer.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But, like I remember at the time where I was working because we worked with influencers, we had to actually send them out the document from SAG being like these are the rules. Please follow them, because if you do not, we will have to stop working with you.
Speaker 3:It's an interesting environment we live in right now, too, because influencers are being very interesting to the entertainment industry for these reasons. Right Is they come with built-in audiences. In fact, a lot of auditions now. People are getting asked how many followers they have, because people are more likely to get cast if they already have a following of some kind, which is weird. And again, this is another one of those things you're seeing in every industry. In publishing, writers have to have a following.
Speaker 1:Now, yeah, my agent, when we were going out with my book, was like okay, so part of your package is we're going to include how many followers you have. But I'm going to be quite honest with you you don't have enough followers for the US. You're actually kind of like you're not a big deal, so we're just going to focus entirely on Canada and that's it. I was like okay, whatever. So, yes, 100%. It's weird to feel like you're selling yourself, which I mean, that's part of it, but it's weird. It's a weird exchange.
Speaker 2:It's like having to include a headshot on the resume.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's my headshot. Yeah, Please, please, hire me. It's weird, it's kind of why I hate it. I just want to do good work.
Speaker 3:Right and this is part of the problem is that we've, we've, like we're sort of putting a chokehold on every industry, in that you have to go through social media in order to stand a chance, and it's part of this like larger trend where everything in the creative industries is being reduced to data points Just across across the board, and that's what the streaming services have done and that's what's. That's what's happening as a whole is just like what we're putting the information that the data gives us above art, above the actual creativity part of creation, and that isn't going to work, is going to be my, my prediction for the future, I mean it feels like we're doing design or written by committee or designed by committee all over again.
Speaker 1:It's like this, doesn't work long term right. Yeah, and spoiler alert, I hate to break this to any of the big wigs, but do they know that you could go on places like Fiverr and buy followers? I mean, if you're that desperate, it can be done. Yeah, low, low price of like anywhere between 10 to $50, just saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a. There's a really good article I recommend that everybody read, if they if they want to learn more about this, by Madeline Ashby. It was an article for Wired and it was called Hollywood's Future Belongs to People, not Machines, and it sort of talks about what a thing a phenomenon that has a lot of names, like Ed Zittron called it the Rod Economy. It's been called the IP era or like the principle of least interest, which is just the idea of, like using exclusively data points to make things because it's the most cost effective and it cares the least. So, basically, like, what streamers do with television is, as opposed to, you know, back in the broadcast era, for those of us who are old enough to remember it myself very much included, but there used to be shows that would go on the air and would take two or three seasons to get good.
Speaker 3:Speaking of Buffy, that is absolutely one of those shows. I would never recommend anybody start with the first season because it is not as good. But the thing is there's a lot of shows you can you can point to that have that formula, like I mean, dawson's Creek is a great example. They didn't hit on their love triangle until the third season. I think it was, as discussed in a really excellent book called Million Dollar Kiss that everyone should read if you're interested in the television industry. But yeah, what happens now with streamers is they basically throw a bunch of episodes on a Netflix, see if they die, and if they don't, maybe they'll make more, and it has just no room for people to develop a voice, to listen to their audience, to like create a TV show over time, and that's why things are generally getting worse.
Speaker 1:They might have strong first seasons, but you'll notice a lot of things start to decline very fast now and that's why Well, and this is why we see shows like Emily in Paris thriving, yeah, but then you know, actually it shows that are, you know, good, just never coming back.
Speaker 2:I mean Blue Eye Samurai hasn't been renewed for a second season yet, which is unreal, because it's probably the best anime of 2023.
Speaker 3:I've heard very good things about that, my barber was talking about it. Okay.
Speaker 1:I have not watched it.
Speaker 2:It's great.
Speaker 1:But to your point, it's like who the fuck is watching Emily in Paris.
Speaker 3:Somebody apparently.
Speaker 1:But page moms, page moms, that's, it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker 1:But I'm like, who asked for this? Like, who is the demo? I need to know and also, why do we have so many seasons of this? It cannot relate.
Speaker 2:Also what you mentioned earlier. It's been like rattling around. I'm like, wow, they really have done shorter and shorter seasons, like I remember when Standard was, you know, 24 to 26 episodes per season. And then that got cut to 13 to 12, now to eight or six and it's like how do you even tell a story in six episodes Like yeah, and second season You're going to be telling stories that are a little less rich a lot of the time.
Speaker 3:I mean, don't get me wrong the 22 episodes season had its fair share of filler episodes. Maybe there's some episodes in in every TV show. I love where you're like well, this was unnecessary, no one needed this episode. But, on the other hand, I think no one needed this episode is part of what made a lot, of, a lot of TV fun. Yeah, because you've got to explore side characters, you've got to go on side adventures, and most of the stories you're getting now are like deeply plot driven because there's no space. There is no space for anything else, which, can you know it could affect the storytelling.
Speaker 1:For me, I miss the filler episode 40 minutes and we have to tell this deeply intense story and we have no room for error.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's no breathing room in a lot of these shows.
Speaker 2:And that's. That is there's. There's a whole lot to say about breathing room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like, if I think back to shows that we've watched in the last little while, I would say probably the bears, like the best show that we've watched in in the last little while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, phenomenal animated show.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't want I I.
Speaker 2:I, I, you don't watch cartoons.
Speaker 3:What's what's the best animated show I got to know?
Speaker 2:I really do think that Blue Eyes MRI is probably up there Okay well, I got to watch it. It's really, really, really good.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, I mean like I well, you watch anime, I, I'm like reality TV.
Speaker 3:So okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:And honestly two sides of the same coin. Two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 1:Like reality television is more like story, like there is storytelling in that, but it's like you're just, someone is scripted, it's scripted. There is someone pushing that along.
Speaker 3:Yeah, narrative directors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so like at least I can watch that critically and be like, ah yes, I want the drama Like Vanderpump Rules. This season was like the best reality television Of all time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was the Blue Eyes MRI of reality TV.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did a whole episode on Vanderpump and immediately after my co-host and partner, Steph went and started watching it and finished 10 seasons in like a month. It was wild yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, I had watched it. I everybody see sidetracked. But like everybody had told me at the beginning of the pandemic they're like you need to watch Vanderpump because I'd never watched it I was like this looks like trash, like I'm a true real housewives girly.
Speaker 2:We're like if you're worth under like $50 million, I don't care about you.
Speaker 3:What's even the point of view with that?
Speaker 1:No, no, not this. But then, you know, the pandemic hit. We were locked inside of our homes and I was like, all right, I guess it's time, I guess it's time to enter my Vanderpump error. You come in and I'd be like it would be three in the morning and I'd still be up and I'd be like I'm on like season three now it was like what it would be like.
Speaker 2:I woke up the next morning and be like, did you sleep out here? And you're like, yeah, fell asleep, watch your Vanderpump. But I'm almost on season six.
Speaker 3:This sounds deeply familiar to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like I don't know what happens, Just something happens and it takes over. I watched a tube, yeah, so then, eventually, because you didn't watch it in the beginning. And then, when we started the pot well, when you started to co-host the podcast, one of our first guests we were talking about Scandival and you were like I think I need to actually watch it.
Speaker 2:No, it was. One of my best friends texted me about it, Okay sorry, I got the timeline. No, no, and he was just like you got to watch it. It's on Amazon, yes, and you?
Speaker 1:were like sorry, we have a Google account, we don't need Amazon. Thanks, exactly.
Speaker 3:You were ready. You were ready to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like oh, I could do a rewatch. I could do a rewatch, yeah, and then we literally didn't watch anything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was exhausting.
Speaker 3:It is a bit of a marathon, I think, relentless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but now we are ready for in January. Maybe when it starts in January. God, anyways, you prepped, we're prepped. We're prepped, we're ready. But to be fair, like reality television is a whole different beast than just television period.
Speaker 3:It really really is and, interestingly enough, very much came into its heyday because of the first well, not the first strikes. There have been many strikes over the past history, but the first of this century. Yeah, sure, what is time? Back in 2007, 2008, as you were talking about that's sort of what created the behemoth that is reality TV today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they needed content to fill the air, which is kind of going back to the point that you're making about how all of these like big goon bosses sort of being like, well, you know, now we don't have television to put on because the strike happened and the actors were striking and yada yada, yada.
Speaker 1:It's like they were using reality television to fill those gaps. Well, now that we've had this period of time where movies and there's a lot of people who are watching this they're saying we don't have anything, which is like, okay, we're going to see a lag.
Speaker 2:I think Well, I was indigging back to the previous strike. Apparently, we got Dr Horrible out of the last strike.
Speaker 3:We did. We did get Dr Horrible out of the last strike. What? That's what they were doing with their time when they couldn't make everything else, although you know what else we got out of the last strike the celebrity apprentice. You know who hosted that.
Speaker 2:Oh no, oh no.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, donald Trump. Here's the thing His show was canceled before that. They brought it back because of the strike, I'm fairly certain. And so, and then it became a big hit the second time around. The first time they aired it it wasn't popular. So the first, that writer's strike is part of the reason that Donald Trump's star rose.
Speaker 2:So it's the writer's fault that we, that Donald Trump was no, no.
Speaker 3:It's the studio's fault, the studio's fault.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, don't put that in the writer's.
Speaker 1:What are you doing? Let's move away.
Speaker 3:But yeah, that's, that's an interesting like. Obviously many factors led to that, but it definitely didn't hurt him.
Speaker 2:That is a wild butterfly effect.
Speaker 3:Isn't it, though? I love that.
Speaker 1:What do we think is going? To happen this time around. We have to like.
Speaker 2:Kanye for president 2024.
Speaker 1:I think the three mate will be Elon Musk, oh God, them together. I don't know, just like yeah.
Speaker 2:Something wild is going to happen, though. Something wild is going to happen 10 years from now, on the reunion of this episode, we're going to look back and be like poor stuff without you. Sweet summer children.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow, we never knew that Tom Sandoval was going to become the great emperor of the world?
Speaker 1:Weird, I have no idea he's related to emperor Sandoval. That's wild. Oh my God, I like it's funny because I think people are making it out to be this huge deal of like. Oh, my. God we're. You know we're going to have to take a pause, but I think we seem we seem to forget that and stick with me here as I try to formulate this thought. But I think part of the studios, the streaming services, is we have sort of started an over consumption.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, problem, it's a bubble.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where people expect that content will be available to them 24, seven, immediately, at all times. It's not like we don't have films and television shows and stuff available for us to watch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and like this is it's an interesting element of this, because like this is what tech companies do right, these big disruptor tech companies is they come in, they give us the most convenient thing at a financial loss for several years until they drive out the competition. Then they become the only monopoly and then they drive the prices up. Right, what they did is they got us really really used to this convenience and then they're they're driving all of the prices up so that we have to then pay for it. But in the meantime, yeah, people have gotten really used to the idea that that content just appears and that it's content, not art or entertainment. Well, to add to that idea, it's also an issue of like.
Speaker 3:Even before the writer's strike, these big companies were already operating at such a loss that they're earning money, but in the grand scheme of things, based on what they're spending. This was not long for this world, this particular business model of theirs. That's why you see them all turning more towards following the cable subscription philosophy again. Yeah, basically, what they've done is they've taken a world where some of the entertainment was free, they've destroyed it and then they've made us pay individual prices for cable, like for each cable channel. It's good.
Speaker 2:Cable with more steps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is what we were talking about the other day about how, when you add everything up altogether, we're technically paying more than if we just had a regular, regular cable subscription. Absolutely, and it's like wait, how did we get scammed into this?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, top of that, if you remember when Netflix first happened and all of House of Cards dropped it once and suddenly people were like you can watch a TV show all at once, and it blew people's minds For us nerds who already owned TV on DVD, it was nothing. But for those people, watching a brand new show 12 episodes at a time was wild and awesome and they had so much control over it. And then, years later now you see them releasing episodes once a week because they figured out that releasing it all at once is a terrible strategy. So it's like cool, you're now just making TV that's exactly the same as the TV that we got before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it's like every day. I'm like why did we get scammed into this? I don't know.
Speaker 3:It was a bait and switch.
Speaker 2:It was a bait and switch. It was driving people back to piracy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think we talked about that the other day.
Speaker 2:I mean legally. We did not. But there's a reason that VPN subscriptions are increasing oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's why every YouTuber we watch is like, hey, subscribe to this VPN.
Speaker 3:And yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, we're going back to the days of like LimeWire.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like NordVPN, please get on us yeah.
Speaker 1:Also your partnership. Why not Didn't we try and use it one time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was because I tried to install it on the regger and I was bad at it. It was partially my fault, but also partially because it didn't work with the combination of things that we wanted to use it for. Fair enough.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I think on the one hand I'm like, yay, I love everything being on the internet for us to stream, but then on the other hand, I'm like can we just like have it all in one place, pay one price? Like I don't mind it.
Speaker 2:Can we have?
Speaker 3:socialized television please. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:That's what PBS is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is what PBS is. Oh my God, I get it. Yeah, that's what the CBC is.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, well, that's the episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow, we've come a long way today, I think.
Speaker 1:We've solved everything.
Speaker 3:We've learned We've grown. Should we play a game? Yeah, we should play a game.
Speaker 1:I'm going to let you go. All right, all right, all right.
Speaker 2:So the original idea for the game was I wanted to do AI or bad product of the previous writer strike, but it was too much work to go through all the terribly written scripts back then Incredible. But so the compromise was dystopian future or real life AI issue for writers and actors. So I'm going to go back to a situation and you're going to have to tell me if it has happening in real life or in some kind of science fiction dystopian universe.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to be so depressed at how hard this is.
Speaker 2:It is designed to be a very depressing game. Excellent, just the way we want to end. A mega corporation designs AIs that are created from famous people to be companions to the general masses.
Speaker 3:That's dystopian.
Speaker 1:That's real life.
Speaker 3:It's both. We both got it good for us.
Speaker 2:It's both the meta AI with, like Kylie Jenner's.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I forgot about meta, for intentionally.
Speaker 2:It's also from Futurama season three, episode 15. I dated a robot with Lucy Liu.
Speaker 3:I thought it seemed familiar. There we go, futurama. What didn't you get right?
Speaker 2:A show has been designed to be run indefinitely with no writers, thanks to automation. To critical acclaim.
Speaker 3:That is, netflix's Joan is awful, oh sorry, black Mirror's Joan is awful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was also going to say real life.
Speaker 2:I actually hadn't thought of Joan is awful, but that is, joan is awful. It's both I have.
Speaker 3:Both again Tricky.
Speaker 2:Nothing Forever, which is the AI Seinfeld show on Twitch. What I haven't heard about this. It went down momentarily when the account got suspended for accidentally doing the white supremacy thing that all AI devolves into eventually.
Speaker 3:Yeah, interesting, how that happens.
Speaker 2:Weird, but the episode I had picked up was actually from South Park, season 10, episode four cartoon wars with the manatees that took the balls and put them down and they had various verbs and nouns on them.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, was that a family guy? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But that's I also have to recommend if I don't know if you guys know this YouTuber or if anybody listening does, but a philosophy tube is a great show. I love Abby so much Huge, huge fan. She recently did an episode on AI where she talks about why, like these black box AI systems often go into things like white supremacy. Super interesting, cannot recommend it enough Love it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, death is no longer a concern, as the famous can be reanimated with AI to allow their craft to continue posthumously.
Speaker 3:That is real, for sure. Yeah, that's real. They did it in man, in a High Castle, I think. Yeah, they also Hello this.
Speaker 1:Kanye bought that hologram of her dad's birthday for Kim's birthday.
Speaker 2:It was both. I specifically was thinking of Carrie Fisher and Paul Walker yeah, our Wars and Fast and Furious respectively, and the fictional example I used was from Neuromancer by William Gibson, with the construct it's also in like cyberpunk, it's like the number one way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's that and the character I think is also done into that effect.
Speaker 3:One thing that's really interesting in recording our podcast we were very lucky this past summer to talk to Gates McFadden about arts education. She's a Star Trek actress for those listening that don't know and she's wonderful. But one of the things she talked to us a little bit about was just like when working on something like Star Trek, you get body scans done for visual effects and like what I know outside of just that interesting fact is that unfortunately those body scans are often the property of the studios. You know.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that was one of the biggest points that everyone was striking about as well was just how AI was going to be used in the future, and were they going to get residuals for that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what counts is a credit, and like, if you get an AI to come up with a movie idea and you get writers to then punch up that idea, do those writers need to be credited for their idea? No, they don't right. So they, or at least that was the concern, and so a lot of striking was to create guardrails, so stuff like that doesn't happen. Unfortunately, they didn't get all of their demands on the AI side, but they got at least some of them, which is something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's gone. It's a scary, scary future, speaking of which, Excellent segue. Viewers are shocked by the uner-eth, on-authorized usage of their likeness in a commercial setting.
Speaker 1:That's real, yeah, that's real. It is real, that's absolutely real.
Speaker 2:There was a paperscape which was a machine learning company used the likeness of Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio in 2022 without their consent.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I should say those are two actors you probably don't want to do that.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna say can you pick the people with the best legal team in Hollywood, or what?
Speaker 1:Tom Cruise is gonna get Scientology after you.
Speaker 3:Look at who Leonardo DiCaprio dates. You don't think he has lawyers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, come on.
Speaker 2:I also have written. There's a Black Mirror episode. Joan is awful. Season six, episode one. But the actors in that episode consented to their likeness being used, so this is a real example of real life being worse than dystopian futures or dystopian sci-fi.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that episode which, by the way, stars Toronto comedian Kayla Lorette as the real Joan Yep. She is an amazing, amazing comedian. You should go look her up and follow her because she's awesome. But yeah, a lot of people in the industry look at that and they're like that's a documentary, that's real, that's gonna happen, that's already happening.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 2:I remember hearing I think it was an anecdote on YouTube about the original Deepfakes and the person who was pioneering them finished it and was really excited about it, and then it just hit him like a sack of bricks of like what have I done? I have become death destroyer of worlds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a real Dr Frankenstein moment, that of just like, oh God, I've created life where life should not be. Exactly what a fun time we're having.
Speaker 2:Those were all the. That was the game. I was just gonna say I wasn't too depressed.
Speaker 3:Kidding. This is my idea of a good time talking about the many ways in which humans will eventually destroy themselves.
Speaker 1:It's okay. Apparently, elon and Jeff Bezos are figuring out a way for us to go to Mars or something, so we're fine.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's what we all want and need.
Speaker 1:Space.
Speaker 3:Space.
Speaker 1:Honestly, let's just figure out where the actual aliens are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll go with them, like I want to go hang with them At or soon. We're all going to be, unfortunately, conscripted into building basilisk, so don't look it up apparently.
Speaker 3:Okay, I won't, I promise you, I won't. You told me not to, so I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I think that's the episode.
Speaker 3:I think that's it.
Speaker 1:Do you want to tell the folks where they can find you, please?
Speaker 2:plug yourself. Yeah, plug yourself.
Speaker 1:And so in the beginning, but like no more time for feelings.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. If you are in Toronto, I'm doing a. I'm often on stage at Comedy Bar with Bad Dog Theater, so go check out Theater Sports. It runs every every Friday and I'm often there. You can also listen to my podcast called the Fandom Show If you also like Vanderpump Rules. We did an episode on that. We do episodes on Just About Everything. We have one on Taylor Swift coming up, so check that out. You can follow us on Instagram at fandomshowpod, and you can find the Fandom Show pretty much anywhere. You get podcasts and yeah, that's that's. That's it for me.
Speaker 1:Well, it's over, it's over.
Speaker 2:We broke up, we're packing it in. Don't put it like that Joint custody of the dog.
Speaker 1:That was a great episode, it was such a good episode. Yeah, I. I love how we could all agree that. You know, the Disney's who lose Netflix's of the world have us in a vice.
Speaker 2:It was also great having like, because obviously you're a writer. But like having like very specific like TV film writer yes, Discussing like hey this is kind of like what this would look like, like you know, I know about writers rooms, but I did not know about, like, how small they have actually gotten over the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have. They have gotten very small and it was really nice to sort of I think I've alluded to it in other episodes as well, but getting to share my experience about working on shows and just you get to see those budgets Like it's, it's, yeah, it's tight, it's tight.
Speaker 2:They're very tight.
Speaker 1:I'm sad that this is going to be our final look.
Speaker 2:I feel too. I'm genuinely very sad about that. Like I think it's, we need a break.
Speaker 1:We're tired.
Speaker 2:But I think that the giggle hose which is our working title will sustain us and hopefully sustain you, the listeners. Yeah, I think we're going to try to release. I don't know if we're going to do a dump and like have it all live like a Netflix, or if we're going to do it like weekly. Yeah it's going to be, hopefully, christmas Day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we will be releasing the first one, yeah, and Well, I guess that's it until when we come back in 2024.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're going to people find us. Will we be updating social? No, okay, I'm taking a break.
Speaker 1:Great.
Speaker 2:That thing we talked about, yeah the break.
Speaker 1:Mental health and the break. But if you are listening to this and you haven't followed us, you can find us at high, low brow pod on Instagram and on Twitter. Tiktok and threads because fuck Twitter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because fuck I love Rav, because fuck Twitter Merchline coming soon.
Speaker 1:Merchline coming soon. Or you can go to high low brow podcom. That is our website and we update there all the time, and the other thing that you can also do is leave us a review. You can tell us what you thought of the season. You could leave us a voicemail. There's a link in our bio on Instagram that goes to a voicemail box for us. We have never received one, but it's very sad. If you are listening and you want to leave this voicemail go for it.
Speaker 2:Go back and listen to the other episodes from previous seasons. I'm not there, but like they're still good, yeah, I listen to them.
Speaker 1:I mean, they are good episodes and we, like I was much more professional than these ones.
Speaker 2:The common denominator is me.
Speaker 1:I bring this whole operation down. Hi, I'm from, it's Me. No, I was actually explaining this to someone the other day. I'm really proud of our little show. Yeah, I've been in the like three years because this podcast was a pandemic project and it has stuck and it's the one thing that has constantly brought me joy. But it's also every time I invite people on to be a guest and they accept. I'm always so shocked and delighted because I think wow us, not us. Why would they say yes?
Speaker 2:It's going to get real. Real for a second. It's like when we started dating and I was like, of course I want to date Emma because they're the best, but me what? No, oh, I don't want to say bye because then that's it I know it's sad, but we got to say goodbye Because we got to make dinner and we got to like head at the episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you got to. I got to probably introduce me to the girl. Yeah, okay, well, I guess this is the it for 2023, but we will be back in 2024.
Speaker 2:And we'll probably publish the Jigalow review on this podcast. Yeah, cool, so stay subscribed and that'll come out at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'll get a ding, yeah, a ping. Subscribe to us on your podcatcher please Auto download that shit, yeah, bye.