Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Welcome back to Tasteland. I'm Francis Zehr. And I'm Daisy Alioto. And we have no guests today. It's just us. No, we're just gonna riff. 0:15 End of the year, last episode of the year, New Year's Eve episode, 2025, 2026, 2027. But we're recording it on December 23rd, so, you know, take that into account. 0:29 Christmas, Christmas Eve ep- if only we were recording this two days later. I don't wanna record on Christmas, obviously, but I am, I am gonna go see Marty Supreme tomorrow night. Um, we'll talk about... 0:39 I guess we'll talk about that when we get back, but- Ben just forwarded me our free A24 Members Club tickets too, but I don't know if we're, we can hit that window, 'cause we're gonna be- Your free- The free tickets are between, like, the 25th and 29th or something. 0:52 What's the A24 Members Club? Um, they... I don't... You get, like, benefits. Like, they send you a zine- Mm... and they send you something on your birthday. Ben's a member. Um, we got a mug. Ugh. 1:04 I accidentally destroyed it by microwaving it too many times. 1:07 [laughs] Well, I, I think that's actually probably for the best because you get too many mugs, and you, you kind of just have to put some on the street anyways for people to take because your cabinet gets too full. 1:15 I have some mugs that have been around since my frontal lobe wasn't developed. Hmm. Really? I certainly don't. Um, well, I will be having a New England Christmas, and I saw a cool TikTok. I actually didn't know this. 1:27 So I kinda took for granted the whole putting a candle in your window in New England thing. I don't know what that is. The Santa? Massachusetts is sort of the epicenter. 1:36 So no, I mean, people put, like, tall white tapers in each- Mm... of their windows, and you know, they've gone through different evolutions. The modern version, it's, you know, it's electric. It's on a timer. 1:48 Um, there were all these comments about like, "Remember when you had to, like, run around the house and turn them all on?" I'm like, "I sure do." Uh, and they were so annoying. 1:56 They were always falling off the windowsill. Mm-hmm. But very pretty, and kind of like the classic New England house is, you know... 2:04 I think it's, like, Georgian style, where it's like, you know, of the King George era- Yeah... where you just have, like, this kind of colonial style home. It's, like, flat on the front. 2:12 Okay, and then each window you have a candle, right? Mm. And then just, like, a single green wreath on the door with, like, a red bow. Mm. That's the sort of classic New England home. Yeah. 2:22 And so what I saw was- Spirits celebratory... spirits celebratory. Like, basically, they were saying it was... it's an Irish tradition. Um, it was a way to indicate that Catholics and priests were welcome in the home, 2:36 uh, during, like, the Protestant rule. 2:39 So I, so they were saying that, like, Irish immigrants brought this to New England, and because Massachusetts is really, like, a high Irish population, that's why this is a Massachusetts, New England, but, like, specifically Massachusetts thing. 2:53 I genuinely didn't know that. I never really thought about it that much, but we always had that. Um, I'm pretty sure peop- my parents have candles still, like, in their window, so kind of cool. 3:04 I, I never did that, but when, when I was a small child, we stopped it probably by the time I was, like, five or something. 3:09 But when we, when my, when my family lived out in the mountains, uh, and had, had the farm out there, this is a German tradition. You know, my dad's German. 3:18 We would have real candles on the tree, these, like, short red candles- Mm-hmm... 3:21 that are, like, two or three inches high, probably, I don't know, two and a half inches, and you'd, you would light a bunch of candles on the tree, which I, which seems insane to me now. Mm-hmm. 3:30 That, whi- which incidentally, long after we moved out of that place, out of that farm, uh, the, the barn, we did live in a barn. 3:37 That barn did burn down, but I don't believe it was [laughs] due to any Christmas related flames. Yeah, real candles on the tree is so risky. 3:47 The thing is, like, these, um, some of the fake candles now, they're really nice and accurate. Mm. Like, I have some of the battery powered, um, more like pillar candles. Mm-hmm. 3:57 Um, and they're, they're waxy, and then the way they have the wick, it, like, does really give this illusion that it's flickering. Yeah. So those are kind of fun to break out in the doldrums. I, 4:09 I feel like there's a lot of invisible labor that goes along with this time of year, and I definitely feel, like, a lot of holiday pressure. Have you performed any, uh, such labor? I've performed a lot of that labor. 4:20 [laughs] Um, you know, it's like, I have my mom texting me, "What does Ben want for Christmas?" Mm-hmm. I have his mom texting me, "What does Ben want for Christmas?" You know, it's just like the add... 4:29 It, it adds up, you know, when you're like- You've got Ben texting you, "What do I want for Christmas?" [laughs] "What do I want for Christmas?" Um, if you... 4:37 Like, when you're kind of, like, responsible, and especially if you're, like, really sensitive to making sure other people's- Mm... emotional needs are met, then it can feel like an all-out just, like, assault of 4:50 competing priorities. But whatever, I'm working on that. Um, I, I did like... Like, even the guy at the post office got me good. I went to the post office. 5:00 I was mailing 16 packages, and he was like, "Why are you doing all of this?" I'm like, "First of all, sir, you work in the post office, so, like, you don't see people mailing a lot of packages?" 5:11 You go to the grocery store, the cashier's like, "Why are you buying all these carrots?" Yeah. It's kind of like, does, does... Do people not do this anymore? I was telling him, like, I was answering really honestly. 5:22 I was like, "My mom always sent holiday packages-" Mm. "... so I send holiday packages." Oh, 'cause he's more like, "Well, why didn't you just buy all this shit on Amazon?" He was- So to speak... he was kind of like... 5:31 No, he was kind of like, "It's really nice of you to do all this, like, for your friends." I was like, "Well, um, by, like, few people, people who mean something to me." 5:44 You know, it was a combination of my friends and people who've, like, have been, like, close dirt contributors. I'm like, "I want people to feel valued, and this is, like, one of the ways I show it." 5:52 And then he was like, "Well, do people send stuff to you?" It's like, what if I was just like, "No"? [laughs] I'm like- Well, yeah... "Yeah, people do send stuff to me." Okay, good. "People send me really nice stuff." 6:02 Like, and it was just, like, so funny. Like, he was genuinely inquisitive. Like, why is this, um, you know, person under 35 coming in with all these holiday packages? 6:13 But-And then I was like, "Do people not send holiday cards anymore?" I should do a Dirt 35 under 35, uh, in 20- [laughs] next year. Yeah, that would be fun. Um- 20- 26 under 26. Um- It was interesting, though. Yeah. 6:27 And but we could, um... I, I have a holiday card on its way to you, by the way. Oh. Oh, thank you. Sorry to spoil the surprise. Oh, that's okay. 6:34 I got, I got to the post- um, the actual post box with the cards, like, a little late, so I think it'll come after Christmas. That's very nice. But- I don't really... 6:41 I'm, I'm, I'm not a big gift sender myself, honestly, these days. It's all right. Maybe a little exchange among friends at, at the dinner, um, at Christmas dinner, but yeah. I, I'm, I'm a really lazy guy. 6:53 We got the Christmas cards from friends with kids- Mm... with the family photos. Yeah, I have that from my sister. I... 6:58 Yeah, and like, I will definitely do that in the future, but since it's just Ben and I, I'm not gonna put a photo of Ben and I on the card. But I did order nice cards- Mm... that say... 7:09 All of them are printed with Happy Holidays from Ben and Daisy. That's- And then I ran out, and I doubled down and ordered more fancy but- cards but for New Years. Oh. And so I'll have to do another round. 7:19 So I feel like some of these holiday pressures are, like, pressures we all put on ourselves. But then I went... Like, my parents have a binder with every holiday card they ever received from- Wow... every family. 7:31 And it's crazy 'cause you could just, like, watch these kids grow up. And sometimes I'm like- I love the archival instinct... who are these people, you know? Like, some of them we never really... 7:41 I never really even knew them that well. Mm-hmm. My mom's like, "Oh, I went to college with this person," type thing. So I don't know. I feel like I wanna have a big, I wanna have a big circle. Yeah. You know? 7:52 Like, it's just too easy to- Do you, do you, uh... Like, are you an archiver of, of ephemera like that? Like, do you have, like, a, a stack of binders, folders? I really do think I keep... 8:03 I tr- really try to keep every card people send me. Mm. So I do have, like, boxes with them just thrown in loose. I have a shelf. Someday I have to, like, organize. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 8:14 Um, I did wanna talk about Dirt books, because you've been dripping this out a little bit over the past week or so as we record. Yeah, there was some great news dumped. Mm-hmm. 8:23 There was the, the little Cut mention and then the Vulture mention. Do you wanna hear what really happened? I'm gonna tell you this exclusive story of what really happened. Oh, okay. Um- Jocelyn's tweet... 8:31 well, some people already know this. [laughs] You're gonna think it's really funny, 'cause this is definitely something. So, 8:38 um- You texted the wrong person that this thing was coming out, and then the person that- No, I either- You let a journalist into your group chat where you were planning this publishing [laughs] mention. Not even that. 8:47 Well, like, Michelle Santiago Cortez was like, "I saw it," and I was like, "Oh my God, who leaked it?" And I was like, "Girl, who do you think?" 8:54 I either rage baited them or was rage baited by them into telling them this. 9:00 So what happened was I DM'd Jasmine on Instagram, shout out to Jasmine, who writes Book Gossip, and I was like, "Hey, we have this new podcast, The Desire Question. Like, 9:11 I think it's really awesome and innovative, and you should talk to Laura, the host." And she was like, "Well, um, we're kind of, like, really trying to focus on, like, actual gossip," and I was like, "About time." 9:26 [laughs] "And industry news." And I was like, "Well, yeah, Blank has really set the standard high." So I was like... So she's like, "It's not a good fit." And I'm like, and I'm like, "Okay. 9:38 Well, in that case, definitely don't print that we're gonna start publishing books." [laughs] So she, she, she rage baited you into giving them gossip? I... 9:49 Yeah, I guess she did rage bait me, but then I, I quickly tried to rage bait her to make sure the message really stuck. Mm. So she was like, "Well, that does sound interesting," and I just, like, left her on read. 10:02 And then, [laughs] and then there were, like, some follow-ups. Just like a book. [laughs] That was awful. And I was like, "Yeah. Yeah." Mm. 10:10 [laughs] So, so anyway, um, I, I didn't know if, uh, my rage bait, uh, my mutual rage baiting was successful until people started sending it to me, and I was like, "Wow, rage baiting works." Mm-hmm. 10:22 Um, but I'm so grateful [laughs] that they did print something. It was, it was fine. It really wasn't, um, pre... It's not premature for, like, where we're at now. Yeah. 10:32 Which is we, we have one title that I'm working on. I need to do some more editing this afternoon. Coming perhaps Q1? Um, June probably. Okay. 10:39 But we'll, like, actually announce the title and put up pre-orders in January. Mm-hmm. And, um, yeah. And so 10:48 then of course Emily Sundberg, friend of the podcast, wanted to ask some follow-up questions, so I trickled a little bit more out that way. And then we posted our logo, um, some of our branding today. I like the logo. 10:58 Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, that's been really fun. So yeah, I'm really excited. I mean, I have been, like... I keep telling people, like, I'm winging it, but that's not really true. 11:09 Like, we've been thinking about this for a while. Yeah. It's just that, um, uh, it's like, "What's gonna happen? I don't know." 11:17 [laughs] Um, and, like, where was a lot of exploration that happened, like, a couple years ago, where I was talking to larger imprints or larger publishing houses- The 900... about having a Dirt imprint within them. 11:28 We at one point tried to pitch an anthology that we would write, and that didn't... Nobody bought it. 11:35 So when I was like, "Oh, I wanna have something that's like books that go with Dirt," like, it wasn't like my first tactic was like, "Well, t- we'll do it ourselves." Yeah. 11:44 It was just like the more conversations I had and realized how slow and hard it is to do it when you involve other people, um, the more I kinda got pushed towards, like, you know what? We could do this. 11:56 Like, I'm seeing other people do really interesting stuff independently. Um, it's h- really hard, but it's, like, not that much harder than what we already do- Mm-hmm... 12:09 being a company that distributes media and sometimes physical goods. Well, you know what I want? Which this is, this is a little too big. It's almost this size. I want more books that... 12:19 I have this journal, like, th- like, this size. Yeah. 12:21 More like inner breast pocket size books that are, you know, for days where-I'm going out, and I don't really want to, like, have too much in my bag or even to have a bag at all, but I want, like, a book to read on the train. 12:32 Like, I'm trying to not look at my phone Yeah. The guy that wrote Schattenfrau, Michael Lentz. Hmm. Um, Isilari- Okay, wait. 12:40 I'm gonna, I'm gonna out myself and say I've heard p- I've heard the name of this book a lot, and I've heard people talk about it a lot. I don't know anything about it. I'm staring at it right now. 12:47 I picked it up at Tophos at the bookstore in Ridgewood here, and I looked at it, and I put it back down. I, you know, I haven't been rage-engaged [laughs] Can you tell me what this book is about? 12:56 You weren't rage-bated into buying it? No, it was- I don't know what it's about, but I am staring at a copy that I was sent to my house. [laughs] Um, anyway, like Isilari is the... They do- Oh... the really tiny books. 13:07 You've been ta- So- You've talked about this, like, a couple times. Yeah Yeah. Well, 'cause I was reading it on the train 'cause it's my first book. Mm-hmm. And this guy was like, "Excuse me. Like, sorry to bother you. 13:15 Like, what is that?" 'Cause he's like, "This woman's engrossed in, like, this tiny book." And I explained to him, like, "It's Isilari. They do all these different titles." I actually... 13:24 They did one, um, about Gaza that I really wanted- Hmm... to get Ben for Christmas, but I don't think it's on sale yet, so I got him a different book. Yeah. 13:34 Will you reveal exclusively on this podcast which comes out after Christmas? 13:36 I will reveal exclusively on this podcast that I did buy him Keith McNally me- b- Keith McNally's memoir because so much of the beginning of the memoir is about the theater scene in London. I thought it is, yeah. 13:47 And I thought he would enjoy that part of it, yeah. I really, and I really enjoyed that book. It, it's one that, like, I bought it a few months after all the hype. 13:54 Um, and it, you know, it was just one of those, like, oh, maybe this'll be, like, an easy read. I think I was going on a trip, and it felt like a good b- you know, beach read, as it were, and it really was. 14:04 That's the gift I haven't given to him yet. Hmm. I gave him the Le Labo, and I got him a, a Night Gallery long sleeve Ethel Cain shirt. Oh, nice. One of my songs of the year. 14:14 Did you fill out, um, friend of the pod, Ethan Sawyer's songs, uh, song-album of the year thing? Yeah, but I was kind of in a rush, and sorry, Ethan, I feel like I didn't give him, like, my true- Hmm... answer. 14:26 I, I did, I did, like, a bit of a cheat where I gave him one album and then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 10 songs. Um- I didn't know he was asking for both. 14:34 I thought he was asking for one or the other. Oh. So I sent him my song, and then he was like, "Album?" Yeah. And I just, like, named the first one that came to mind. Oh, what was it? Um, Van- Not to scoop it... 14:44 uh, Vanities by Malibu, or no? I haven't listened to it. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. I bet you can predict. It's really more... It's really predictable what my album of the year was. It was... 14:54 Well, was it Cameron Winter? 'Cause that technically came out in 2024. 14:58 Yes, and, and so let me say, uh, well, a- and Ethan wrote a whole piece about this and how he was annoyed by the, uh, end of year list industrial complex. No, I, I picked, I picked an album I... That was... 15:09 I cheated by picking 10 songs, but I did not cheat by picking songs that did not come out in 2025, or albums. Okay. I mean, that's fine. But I picked... 15:18 I j- [laughs] I did pick Geese's Getting Killed, um, because it was the only album that I really... 15:24 the only album that came out this year that I listened to really as an album a lot instead of like, oh, there's this one song I said that my song of the year was Bored Alone by Billy Woods. 15:35 I haven't, I don't know if I've heard- And then I, for... I said Vanities by Malibu for album of the year. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't know that I would change that answer. Like, that's an acceptable answer to me. Mm-hmm. 15:45 I think this is gonna sound really bad, but, like, I, I kinda realized that once, um, Twitter was, like, making, like, Spotify links bad and people were sp- sharing less Spotify links and I was sharing less Spotify links, 15:57 I kind of fell off, like, tracking my music and my- Yeah... playlists. And I was like, "Well, I guess my interest in music was performative this whole time." 16:07 'Cause it was like I used to make more playlists of stuff that I was currently listening- Hmm... to, to share. I mean, outside of the ones that I make for sure. Not a playlist guy. 16:17 I've never, I've never been making playlists for people or for myself even. I feel like you've revealed that before. Yeah. 16:23 Um- But I do, I do, uh, like, well, [laughs] maybe once a week, not always, I will post a YouTube link of a song to Twitter, and typically you and maybe one other random person will like it. 16:34 So I appreciate that because I'm ho- you know, I'm horrible at Twitter. I've, I've said this multiple times on this podcast, but- I liked the music video you were in. Oh, yeah. Um, th- I don't think I told that story. 16:45 Uh, that was, that was fun. They, they, they also credited me, credited me wrong, but it's Flood by Suicide Year. 16:53 In 2017, I had just moved to New Orleans, and I didn't have a job yet, and I was looking at Craigslist for jobs and gigs. I was working in the service industry at the time. Mm-hmm. 17:01 And I found this, and I was a fan of Suicide Year's music. Listener, if you don't know him, you may know him for p- I think he produced Ginseng Strip by Yung Lean. 17:10 He produced one of Yung Lean's early hits, uh, but he's from Louisiana as well. 17:14 But the Lucky Me label guys were in town to film this video, and I spent a day with them, and basically- It's on an EP song called Hate Songs, by the way. Hate Songs. I feel like that's an important detail. 17:24 [laughs] The, the Suicide Year album? [laughs] Yeah. I mean, the Suicide... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is, Hate Songs. Um- [laughs]... which it's really just a beat. There's no lyrics. 17:31 But the premise of this video is, like, this, which has nothing to do ostensibly with the song, is it's, like, this future sci-fi New Orleans w- Louisiana world where, like, everybody is stuck in, like, a VR video game where they're, you know, playing, like, big robots fighting each other. 17:48 But I was a character who had gotten caught up in playing this game. And so at one point you do hear me talking about how, "Oh, I don't think it'll affect me. I've heard of bad stuff happening to other people." 18:00 As in, like, you know, maybe their attention span gets totally ruined or something. Hmm. Um, but I spent a day with them, and, and then I walked home in the pouring rain, uh, and they miscredited me. 18:12 It's like Francis Zesis. They replaced the Rs with Ss. Um- They thought that was cooler. They spoke the truth. Yeah. Paid me 70 bucks, I think. I had a good time. That's nice. Yeah. Um, okay. 18:24 Well, anyways, other, other Tasteland book syllabus of the year. I'm trying to remember what other authors we, we spoke to. We spoke... At the very beginning there, we spoke to Mike Pepe about his book- Mm-hmm... 18:33 Against Platforms. We spoke to Cora Lewis about Information Age. He's still against platforms. I follow him on Twitter. He seems to- He's, he's still against them... still be against, yeah. He hasn't come around? 18:41 Uh, Elon- No... Elon hasn't paid him?So he, he, yeah. Um- Mike Pepe can't be bought, everyone Mike Pepe, Mike Pepe can't be bought, and you heard it here first. [laughs] Uh, finally, Sloppy by Rax King. 18:53 I think it's just those three. Oh, um- Oh, well for those four... did we say Information Age, I think? Yeah. Oh, those four- Yeah... if we count Notes. Oh, those are good. 19:01 I actually think that that really shows the gamut of our interests. Mm-hmm. Um, they're all books that tackle taste in a very different way. What Mike's book is, kind of looks at the way technology shapes taste. Mm-hmm. 19:14 Um, I think to a certain extent Cora is as well, although it's also about like the way that media uses technology. Mm-hmm. And then with like Rax, it's very like, I mean, personalized. But- Yeah... 19:30 to me it's sort of about the way that addiction shapes our taste, which is not something that we've delved into super deeply in other episodes, but- Mm-hmm... I think 19:42 that was probably one of my favorite nonfiction books I read this year. Sloppy? Mm-hmm. No, it was good. I, t- uh, just to be totally clear, looking back at the list, some other like technicalities in the book realm. 19:55 We did have Bookshops Andy Hunter. Mm. Not as an author, but as, you know, a bookseller. We had W. David Marx, but this was before his new book Blank Space came out. Oh, we gotta count him though. We gotta count him. 20:07 And then we had Kaila Scanlon on. You were absent for that episode. We did get into it. She's published a book, I think it was last year, but we got into that a little bit. 20:17 Matt Rodbard, but he had not recently published. He's a published author. But these are all the authors we've had on, I believe. 20:23 Yeah, I think A- A- Against Platforms is one that, it, it feels like it was two years ago I read that, because a- as a way to start the year, I felt like it was very, it was very influential and I recommended it to people. 20:33 I bought it for a few people. Mm. Um, it's such like a simple and clear repudiation of platform culture, which, you know, more and more you could call it the tech lash, whatever. 20:45 Uh, I've definitely read in a few 2026 predictions articles that this is gonna be the year that people really turn away and back to the dumb phones, which I feel like I've read that for the past couple years, and it's probably been true- Yeah... 20:57 all of these years, but at the same time, it's never a big enough tech lash, a big enough return to, to mode. Which I should say, I, I think I talked about this a week or two ago, [clears throat] 21:08 that I'd put a screen time limit on my phone, uh, uh, like an hour a day for Instagram and Twitter total. I think it disappeared. 21:15 There's a chance I just turned it off, but I don't remember doing that, and I think I, I think I clicked like ignore limit for the day enough times that it just turned it off. Ben lost his Twitter. 21:26 He took too long of a break and he didn't sign back in. And so Pasta Ben, which is like- Mm... the account that he- I, I'm a follower... rage baited me into going on a date with him, dust in the wind. Forgot about that. 21:40 Dust in the wind. Um, yeah, it's weird. I, I agree. It's like we've been talking about this for a while. I mean, there does seem to be like more breakthroughs, more objective examples of like what can happen. 21:54 So, you know, that article about the schools, like locked up the phones, the students started doing better. Great, like objectively, this changed the outcome. Um, but will I log off? 22:07 I, I make no promises, and mainly because I think that's... It, it is boring to hear other people talk about their relationships with technology. Like, despite the fact we do that on this podcast a lot. A lot. 22:19 [laughs] It is- Almost every episode we're doing it now. [laughs] It's boring. I mean, also, I guess it's boring in the same way people s- people think listening to somebody else describe their dream is boring. Mm-hmm. 22:30 I personally am always interested in somebody describing their dream. Yeah. But I can understand that it's not. Strung came out this year, didn't it? Yeah. Well, I'm gonna, [laughs] I'm about to blow your mind. Oh, okay. 22:44 Blank came out this year. Strung came out this year. Clone came out this year. It's a lot of stuff. Uh, there was, there was a time, I think these all came out within like a month of each other. 22:53 There was a time where you- Mm-hmm... I felt like you were releasing something new every, every time we spoke. You're like, "Oh, this is coming out." Yeah, then I flopped. No, I went into- [laughs] 23:02 Then the, well, you know- I, I went into development mode... clams famously kind of live underground, so. But yeah, we had that burst of energy in the spring. Um, summer for me was really about, um, 23:14 like technical and product stuff that's not public yet. And then, you know, we got, boom, Dirt Books in under the wire, so, you know. I don't think anyone would say... Oh, and the, and the two other podcasts. Mm-hmm. 23:28 [laughs] So I don't think anybody would say like- Oh, and the two other podcasts. [laughs]... Dirt Books or Dirt, Dirt Media didn't do enough this year, but- Yeah... I'm always focused on the next thing. Mm-hmm. 23:39 I sent a lot of newsletters, like Creator Spotlight this year. You sent a lot of newsletters. Sent, uh, well, as we speak, I think it's 89, 88. We got 18 point some million impressions across those newsletters. 23:53 Best piece we published this year was when we brought in an assistant editor, Natalia Perez-Gonzalez. She's great. She did this great, probably the most well-reported piece we've published so far 24:05 at Creator Spotlight, this piece on the creator economy scene in Chicago, which is interesting because a lot of the people I speak to are in New York, partially because I'm in New York and I'll meet them here and, you know, it's New York, big city, good place to work in that industry. 24:18 But it was, it was sort of an interesting- Mm... 24:20 portrait of like a scene being built and some people trying to build like grassroots community, connecting creators, so to speak, in Chicago, and then other people trying to, I don't- I'm not gonna say exploit, but like, you know. 24:36 A lot of the people I've spoken to who work on the agency side, who connect creators with brands, [sniffs] 24:42 uh, this is something I specifically remember from a holiday party I was at about a year ago for like more executive side creator economy people-N- for very few of these agencies or, you know, management companies are the creators the customer, right? 24:55 It's always the brand because the brand has- Mm... the money, which tracks with, like, how cr- the relationship creators have with platforms is also one where they're typically being exploited, right? Mm-hmm. 25:06 So getting, uh, away from the Chicago piece a little bit, which, which was really good, but increasingly, like, when I... 25:13 The, my, my ongoing thing that I've asked so many people when I have them on the Creator Spotlight podcast is like, "What is a creator?" 25:20 And about a year ago, I thought I had a pretty good definition, and it's kind of disintegrated for me a little bit. It's lost a bit of meaning as, like, [lips smack] 25:28 you know, The Washington Post is starting their creator program, and you see other media companies trying to build their creator program. And it's like all... 25:37 Whether it's a company or an individual person or a traditional media company, they're all making things that, you know, look somewhat similar- Mm-hmm... 25:47 whether the production value is really high or low, but it's all, like, leveraging these kind of creator norms to publish content. Um, and so the longer... There's, like, a... 25:57 It's, it's like one of those, you know, bell curve things, where, like, when I started, I was like, "Well, a creator is just, like, you know, somebody who posts to platforms," I think. 26:06 And then in the middle, I'm like, "Okay, a creator is a independent person who produces digital media, publishes it on these platforms, and they, they have to be independent, and they're bootstrapped and blah, blah, blah." 26:17 And then now I'm kinda coming back to a creator is just somebody who makes content that's published on platforms. Which then, like, what does that word even mean, and is it just media? 26:26 So this is something I've been chewing on, is, like, in the next year, will the creator economy eat everything, or will it just be eaten by media, and people will stop using this word? 26:42 I think it's like I'm thinking about it too much, and probably the word will be used more. 26:49 Like, as you see traditional media companies starting to use the word and have, like, creator programs, but, like, that's actually a little bit behind the curve. And maybe, I think by 2030, 27:01 the word will not be in use anymore, or it will just be how we refer to all media. I, um, I think that's such... 27:12 I think that's true, and I also think, like, a word being used more is not mutually exclusive with it being meaningful. Like, I think- Mm... there's an inflationary effect- Yeah... 27:21 where it's like the more it's used, the less meaning it has, and, like, you might have to, like, decamp, you know, to a different word. Might have to change the name of the newsletter that I write. 27:31 [laughs] We'll see about that. Um- Well, yeah. I'm, I'm... We have a tradition that we do with Dirt for the end of the year, um, where we vote. We have the readers select, like- Mm... 27:45 the top stories, and we also have everyone sign a poster. And I was checking in on the poster to make sure everyone's behaving. 27:53 Um, Nicholas Russell has signed his name and written a, like, a pr- drawn a pretty cool skull. So I appreciate that. Mm. We love skulls. [laughs] I don't- Classic... 28:03 see anything inappropriate, unless people are doing it really tiny. Long, he signed his name really big, which I- Mm... respect a lot. I signed my name pretty big. "Happy holidays, you filthy animals. 28:17 Rob in Chicago" Thank you. Um, somebody has, seems to have hidden a maybe, like, T for tea invitation in here, which I- Mm... also respect. Oh, Francis, you're in here right now. Yeah. 28:30 We're in [laughs] we're in the Figma together here. We're in the Figma. I love this tradition. Um- Me too... 28:35 I'm sure Kat's monitoring it for, um, inappropriate iconography, but I, I also trust our readership, which I like. 28:42 And I'm looking at the responses, so i- it's only been not that long, so I feel like we're still in, um, the zone where I, like, can't tell if people are just voting for their own stuff. 28:51 But I will say Songs of High seems to be cleaning up in these reader awards. I, I s- your 7,000-word piece that I still have not read, not yours, but that you published. You should read it. I should read it. 29:02 I feel like it. Yeah. We also, um, Paula Mejia, former guest of the pod, edited our December issue, which was really focused on archives. And, um, we had a, a great Jeff Weiss piece about- Mm... 29:14 Britney Spears and the tabloids and- One of our best living music writers. He's very talented, but the whole issue is great. Um, so highly recommend checking that out. 29:23 Any votes for, uh, the one piece I published in Dirt this year? Not yet, but you can go vote for yourself right now. I can vote for myself. Okay. Mm-hmm. Zoran style. Yeah. 29:32 I'm going to look in the affiliate dashboard of Bookshop and tell you which books we sold the most of at Dirt, we referred the most people to. So, hmm, interesting. It seems to be a tie. 29:49 My Struggle Volume I and My Struggle Volume II. [laughs] No, it's a tie between Sloppy and- Oh... The Dry Season. You hear that, publishers? Come on Tasteland, and we'll sell, we'll sell your book. 30:02 I can also tell that some of these, I use the same, um, [lips smack] I use the same affiliate link for my book list that I have pinned in my- Mm, your famous book list-... personal Twitter... 30:11 where you, where you track all your books for all to see. My book list, I see Letterboxd. You could, you could find my Letterboxd profile, but my book list is in my Notes app. Whoever went into my personal book list 30:24 on December 9th, 2025- They just went in and bought, like, the last 10 books? [laughs] I, I hope there's, like, there's a hot girl. I hope there's a hot girl somewhere in Brooklyn getting all four of these books. 30:36 [laughs] Mm. I'm just gonna say them. Sorry. Um, I don't know if this is doxing, but we don't know who you are. Convenience Store Woman, The Dry Season, I Love Shopping, and Joe Brainard, amazing taste. Mm. 30:47 When I first saw this appear on the dashboard, I was like, "Wow, this person has amazing taste." 30:51 And then I was like, "Oh, that's, that's me."This person ordered books off my list, but they po- they picked good ones off of my list, so, like- Yeah. You know what I'm reading right now? You know, tea. 30:59 My current book, uh, which I've never read before, though I've had it for, like, a couple years. I just never read it. Speedboat by Renata Adler. Oh, I... Renata Adler is somebody I've been hearing about more and more. 31:11 Mm-hmm. What was... I remember I had the book and then, was it when Lauren Oyler's last book called- came out, and what, what the critic called her- The Renata Adler of looking at your phone too much... 31:23 of looking at your phone. Yeah, mm-hmm. That, I love that we both had that memorized. Yeah. That was, that was cued up. 31:29 In some ways, though, Coral Lewis' Information Age is much more akin to, to Speedboat in, in form than Lauren Oyler's essay book was. I agree. Yeah. Spirit of law, not the letter of the law. 31:43 Spirit of the law, not the letter. Many [laughs]... I, I'm not even gonna finish saying that, 'cause I need, I need to just exercise my mind of some of these Twitter isms- Trumpisms... that are also Trumpisms. 31:53 Just, ugh. I know. It's not fair. Canned responses. Cathedrals everywhere. Well, that's, that's Peterson. That's a good one. You're gonna keep that in the lexicon. Well, this is... 32:02 Yeah, and I, I guess, going back to the, this conversation about, you know, getting off your phone, this is why. It's, it's to remove, to, to remove these canned thoughts from your mind. 32:12 Well, somebody needs to remove Girl Moss canned from their mind, because this company with, like, so many followers, um, posted a Girl Moss meme. And with no credit to you. 32:22 It was pretty much bar for bar m- for my Twitter- Intellectual property theft... tweet. Yeah, it's fine. Your- Girl Moss blogs. Never mind... your, um, I, I've... 32:29 You can tell me if you think this is true, but I think your, uh, recycled tweet or reposted tweet, tweet that was p- repurposed for Instagram, your... 32:37 In, in that way, your tweet of the year, I don't even know if it's from, if it's from this year, but that one, I've, I've seen it multiple times, about there should be a magazine about deer that isn't just about killing them. 32:47 That was from this year. If I- Wow... It seems like a long time ago. Um, but that was from this year, and that- Especially in deer years... went crazy in a way that I was not entirely expecting. Mm. 33:00 Although now I'm questioning myself. Like, maybe that wasn't from this year. There, this year was so long. Oh. [laughs] It's from 2024. Oh, okay. Well, that's- Camera roll doesn't lie. I tweeted it on October 28th, 2024. 33:17 Mm. So it's 2025 in the same way that Heavy Metal is 2025. Yes. Yeah, yeah, December... I mean, the, the- Q4, Q4 2024- Mm... we can round it up. It's the, you know, it's like a fiscal year, but what would you call this? 33:29 The editorial year? The, the opinions year? The opinions year or the editorial year, maybe you can help me come up with a better name here, runs from December to, through November. Yeah. 33:41 I mean, I think that there's a lot of editorial calendars actually that look a lot more like the school year, though. Yeah, true. You know, actually, I noticed we, at, at Creator Spotlight, we have a summer drop-off. 33:56 Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, on a school year drop-off, you could say. You gonna get an intern? No, I've had, I've had some, I've had people- Remember when I had four interns? That was, like, too many, I think. 34:06 That was, like, when we started doing this podcast. I'm, I think, I might, I might have a tasteful number for spring, maybe two. What will you have them doing? All sorts of things. 34:17 Danny's been telling me that, um, it is significant legwork to be in the, the Figma for IC.FYI, updating everyone's X. Oh, right. So we might need some help with that. Yeah. 34:28 I had somebody email me and pitch them as a, as a dirt- Editorial design intern, perfect... editorial design. Somebody pitched themself as a Dirt Books intern. Um, it was like, "This person's very on top of it." 34:39 Dirt Books doesn't even exist yet. Cool. Well- We book gossiped it into existence, and that's what matters. We book gossiped it, yes. It's, we, you know, let, let, let the rage bait you create- Light your path... 34:52 build, build the bridges that you burn. Yes. This has been Tasteled. Thank you, everyone. This has been [laughs] Tasteled. We're done. See you next year. We're done. Thanks for listening. 35:03 [outro music]
