Flashing Eyes In Which My Hopes Rise
Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, September 10, 2024 at 8:52 AM, and we have a marvelous show for you this week. In our first segment, I talk with Know Your Meme editor in chief and old friend of mine, Don Caldwell, about the life, prevalence, and decline of the laser eyes meme and the ever shifting place of Internet memes in presidential election season, and then me, Hans, Georgia, and Jason sit down to talk about things we found on the Internet that baffle and confound us in a segment we are calling, what's going on here. But first, let's talk about a few of the things that have happened online since the last time you heard from us.
Mike Rugnetta:I have 5 news stories for you this week. The European Court of Justice ruled that Apple does in fact owe the Republic of Ireland €13,000,000,000 in back taxes that should have been collected between 2,004, 2014. EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager ordered Apple to pay the sum back in 2016 claiming the Irish government had given Apple illegal tax aid, according to the Irish Times. The order has since been passed around to various courts. Irish Times points out the money is enough to pay for 6 children's hospitals, almost 33,000 3 bedroom homes, or, ironically, 5,000,000 MacBook Pros, one for every resident of Ireland.
Mike Rugnetta:A US District Court ruled that an AI powered system built by Deloitte to distribute Medicaid and other benefits to Tennesseans illegally denied thousands of people. In practice, Todd Feathers writes for wired.com, the system often doesn't load the appropriate data, assigns beneficiaries to the wrong households, and makes incorrect eligibility determinations. Feathers points out a similar case is shaping up in Texas, where many residents say they are improperly denied benefits by a system meant to streamline distribution. Brazil has blocked access to ex Twitter after Elon Musk refused to name a national legal representative for the platform. Supreme Court justice Alexandre Ghemoraes' superior electoral court demanded a contact be named after Musk and the platform's refusal to comply with the removal of, quote, posts with extremism, hate speech, and anti democratic discourse, according to Moraes.
Mike Rugnetta:Musk claims to be a free speech absolutist, and thus, to be taking a moral position by denying these requests. But honestly, I think he just searches for the approval of dictators because he thinks they're cool. He's a 14 year old boy, and the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has a motorcycle. Anyway, should the government be targeting specific posts and accounts for removal? Oh, boy.
Mike Rugnetta:Does refusing to comply in this scenario make Elon a principled defender of free speech? No. Tim Pool, the well known right wing knit cap aficionado, was bank rolled by Russia unknowingly. According to Pool, Tenet, the production company which produced work by Tim alongside Benny Johnson, and Dave Ruhl. Dave Ruhl.
Mike Rugnetta:Dave Ruhl. Okay. Never mind. You know who I mean. And if you don't, even better.
Mike Rugnetta:Tenet was accused in a recently unsealed DOJ indictment of taking 1,000,000 from, quote, Russian operatives looking to influence the 2024 election, according to Time Magazine. Forbes reports that Tenet was not named directly in the indictment, but the business described is, quote, an exact match for Tennessee based Tenet Media. On September 6th, YouTube axed Tenet's channel, which included 100 of videos and several other channels run by its founder, Lauren Chen, as, quote, part of ongoing efforts to combat coordinated influence operations. And, finally, co host is shutting down. The bespoke social network, which rose to prominence amidst Twitter attrition over the last few years, will go into read only mode on October 1st and will aim to remain accessible for the duration of 2024.
Mike Rugnetta:The development team at cohost has made a name for itself through their frank updates on the state of the platform, its financial precarity, and the amount of work it takes to maintain. On September 9th, Jay and the team announced that the user base and revenue of the site had dipped enough for the year to make it difficult to justify continuing to run. Jay writes, Colin and I have been doing this for 5 years, Aidan for 3, Cara for nearly 2. We've been at or overcapacity on moderation, engineering, and general operations nearly this entire time. We have all been on call 247, 365 since we launched two and a half years ago.
Mike Rugnetta:The day to day needs of just running the site meant developing alternative funding options wasn't possible. Rip to a real one. Let's get an f in the chat. In show news, I have a question for you, our dear listeners. We would like to do a segment, perhaps recurring, on posts that changed lives.
Mike Rugnetta:Is there a single post, a discrete internet media object that changed the course of your life, that revealed something fundamental about the nature of existence or experience to you, that spawned through however many twists and turns a fundamental change in your being or outlook? If so, we wanna talk to you about it. Send us an email at theneverpostgmail.com. Call us at 651-615-50007 or send us a voice memo. There's a link in the show notes.
Mike Rugnetta:And if we wanna hear more about your experience, we'll reach back out to you to set up a time to talk about the post that changed your life. Okay. That's the news I have for you this week. We have a lovely show for you. You'll hear from me and Don on laser eyes, and then the lot of us asking each other, what is going on here?
Mike Rugnetta:But first, Hans, our resident Midwesterner, recently recorded himself wandering the Minnesota State Fair. And so that is what we have for you in our interstitials this week. Headphones, highly recommended.
MN Fair Attendee:Evelyn, can you back up here with us, please?
MN Fair Docent:Alright. If you have tickets, I want you on the right. If you're buying tickets, I want you on the left. So this is the middle. I don't want anybody in the middle.
MN Fair Docent:Are we buying tickets? Are we buying tickets?
MN Fair Attendee:No. Okay. Get in the
MN Fair Docent:I already have ticket 1.
MN Fair Attendee:That's why I try to make you look good. We already have tickets.
Mike Rugnetta:There are a million reasons to brace oneself around presidential election season in the US. And one of them, maybe not a major one, but definitely one of them, is the anticipation of how each candidate may attempt pandering to the terminally online. For a long while now, but I I think especially since 2016, it's felt like campaigns have identified a kind of power that Internet communities have. The ways in which they can impact public opinion. And I mean, they're right in a way.
Mike Rugnetta:Right? Like, look at JD Vance's political career all but sunk by a tweet about couch copulation. Biden, for his campaigns part in this a number of years ago, adopted a meme well known for its association, in my mind at least, with the right. Laser eyes. Where the subject of the photoshopped image is given usually red, bright, glowing eyes.
Mike Rugnetta:For uncle Amtrak Joe, this became something of an avatar for his dark Brandon persona. But I had noticed something, and it was that though there were early attempts at carrying this over to the Kamala campaign, the laser eyes meme, Kamala has been mostly laser eye less. It has not been applied to her. Her campaign has opted instead for other markedly online approaches and jokes. So I called my pal Don to ask him if my sense of all of this was right.
Mike Rugnetta:Was Laser Eyes originally a right wing meme and why? How did that become the case? Why did the Biden campaign adopt it? And has its absence from the campaign signaled to some degree its death? Joining me is Don Caldwell, the editor in chief of Internet Ephemera tracking website Know Your Meme, where he has been on staff since 2010.
Mike Rugnetta:Don, thank you so much for joining us on Neverpost.
Don Caldwell:Thanks for having me, Mike.
Mike Rugnetta:So I asked you to join me here on the show so that we could discuss, laser eyes, which, just to get us started, I was wondering if you could give us a kinda, like, rundown of the different visual styles of this meme so that folks can know it when they see it.
Don Caldwell:So the glowing eyes memes typically take the form of either yellow or blue or red glowing eyes on someone's face, a picture of their face. They often looks like they use, like, a lens flare of some kind in Photoshop. Yeah. Sometimes they'll have lightning bolts around them too if people get a little bit more creative with them.
Mike Rugnetta:Sure.
Don Caldwell:And then sometimes they will also put some sort of colored filter on the entire image along with, the eye edit.
Mike Rugnetta:And, like, it's pretty cartoony. Like, it's not meant to look at least my impression of it is that it's, like, not meant to look necessarily good.
Don Caldwell:Yeah. I'd say that's right. I mean, it's it's a meme that's based off a long running trope that comes from, you know, like, superheroes, like, Superman's heat vision and, like, you know, Avatar the last airbender when characters' eyes would glow. That is used to indicate that someone's super powerful in some way or has, like, entered their, like, super mode. It was probably adopted to try to say, oh, we're powerful.
Don Caldwell:We're gonna make this happen. Sure. And I think in this specific context where people were using them on their pictures of themselves was mostly kinda spawned after this meme that got big in 2014, and we call it I am growing stronger on know your meme. It was when a picture of a doctor that contracted the Ebola virus was given glowing eyes, paired with headlines about him saying, I am growing stronger. He meant that he was getting better after contracting Ebola.
Mike Rugnetta:Right. But it sounds like Ebola is giving him superpowers.
Don Caldwell:Exactly. It sounds like the Ebola was like the spider bite for Spider Man. Another early one besides the, growing stronger one was 200% mad, and it was just a picture of, like, senator arms Armstrong from Metal Gear, you know, had the text 200% mad and make his eyes glow. Yeah. There's, like, silly silly memes like that.
Don Caldwell:My favorite one of all of them was probably, layers of irony, which was this kind of 4 panel comic of, you know, meme man saying, you know, you were like a little baby, and then, like, suck, s u c c, and then his eyes were glowing in the comic. So I would say, like, yeah, this was like a shitposters meme. It was like a meme enthusiast meme, like somebody who was really into memes at the time in this period. And the practice of people doing it to their own pictures really kicked off with Bitcoin stuff in in 2021 when, you know, Bitcoin enthusiasts and Bitcoin maximalists, began doing it on on Twitter and their profile pictures as a way to express support for Bitcoin hitting a $100,000 a coin. It was a meme that was forced to try to to pump, cryptocurrency.
Don Caldwell:It changed context, and that wasn't being used for jokes. It was being used to support something or hype something, use meme magic, to to to put a force behind something. So the ship post variety was being done for the the fun of it and, you know, often anonymous posts.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. There is to me a noted lack of irony in a lot of the use of the laser eyes meme. That it's like sort of communicating a kind of earnest boosterism. I think you don't normally see in other parts of the Internet or, like, other parts of this kind of visual visual culture online. How did this get adopted as as the thing that shows sort of, like, genuine support?
Don Caldwell:I I think if I was to compare it to something similar, it would be, gigachad style memes where, you know, somebody will present somebody as a Chad. Like, they'll give them, like, a really square jaw. They'll put, like, a filter on it. They'll make them kinda look like this this meme character, gigachad. Both are on the same principles is that the figure that they are chaddifying or, you know, laser eyeing, they are trying to show support for by making them appear to be strong and respectable or admirable in some way.
Don Caldwell:With the laser eyes things, when it moved into, like, a more political context, so the kind of things I cite for that would be dark maga and dark brandon. They were both kind of building off of that principle to use by supporters to try to paint their candidate in a a light that makes them seem admirable and and strong. Right? You know, there's been quite a few variations of Trump having glowing eyes, and those have definitely been popular, but I think dark Brandon definitely got a lot bigger in terms of going mainstream, and actually was adopted by the Biden campaign.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. What was the jump like? Because it does feel like there was a jump at some point from, you know, crypto, NFT bros, VC funders, having laser eyes, in their PFPs on Twitter. 2, it being a a symbol that was largely associated, at least in my mind, with right leaning politicians. What accounts for that that transition?
Don Caldwell:There might be something there. I think I would be hesitant to say it was, predominantly right leaning just because of the size of dark Brandon. Right? And dark Brandon was largely used by people that were more center left to
Mike Rugnetta:to to Do you think there was? It it felt to me and I'm could be totally wrong. It feels like there was a moment where this was the domain of, right leaning posters on Twitter for an amount of time before it was, like, adopted by the left or the center left as, like, kind of a joke, but maybe maybe they happened much more quickly and and, in in parallel than I had originally realized.
Don Caldwell:No. I think there could be something there, especially with that, like, 20 2021 to 2022 period. So, you know, you got 2021 with the the Bitcoin laser eyes. There's some overlap between crypto and and and maybe some right leaning circles. I would say that it did seem like it was a more Trump in political context, it was a more Trump enthusiast meme before it became dark Brandon.
Don Caldwell:I think the timeline seems to line up with that. Yeah. And I think that there might have been that period in that, you know, 2021, 2022 before dark Brandon period where that was, certainly the case.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. And it's funny to me because it it feels like this is also the moment where it like, do you feel like it maybe takes a little bit of the ironic turn that it didn't have for its use around crypto bros and NFTs and Trump because, like, the it's giving Joe Biden laser eyes feels ironic to me in a way that it doesn't for other uses.
Don Caldwell:Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons it was adopted by Biden and his team earnestly too. I mean, the the the kind of elephant in the room when it came to Biden was that, you know, there was this perception about him being old and frail and giving him laser eyes is and make him appear like a a superhero, you know, could combat that perception. At least maybe that was the calculus that was done.
Mike Rugnetta:How does this fit into the use of Internet memes by presidential candidates?
Don Caldwell:I can't think of another Internet meme that was adopted to this level
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah.
Don Caldwell:By a candidate. And I think it's a it's an interesting question because the an old Internet adage is that, like, when a brand uses a meme, it kills the meme. Right?
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. Yeah.
Don Caldwell:You know, there's kind of some similar things going on with with when a politician uses a meme like that earnestly. They might kill it. Pokemon go to the polls, for example,
Mike Rugnetta:or, like, I mean Yeah. Oh, gee.
Don Caldwell:Jesus. Comes to mind. So, yeah, I mean, like, whether or not it's a wise thing to do is a good question. So, like, you know, should the Kamala Harris campaign, you know, really go full coconut? I think that remains to be seen.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. I you know, there's 2 different approaches. Right? There's, like, the how do you do fellow kids approach, which that to me is the that's the Pokemon go to the polls. I've heard about this thing, and I'm I'm cool.
Mike Rugnetta:Please politics. Yeah. And then there's the slightly more thinking informed and online use of something like a dark Brandon or, yeah, the the coconut memes. And it makes me think about, like, when you and I got started in this business, a long, long time ago, and these sorts of things would move from relatively small online communities then to have larger notoriety in the public eye. It would be like weird.
Mike Rugnetta:And it would, it felt a little bit like theft and it felt a little scary. Like the normals are going to show up and it felt a little bit like, you know, that's like our fun thing. Like, don't ruin it. And it's been fascinating to see that just completely change over the last, you know, 10, 15 years to where yeah. Like, you know, the joke now or not the the joke.
Mike Rugnetta:It seems like the absolute truth is that so much of the communications team around Kamala specifically is made of people who are very online. Right? Like, there was that drill tweet that was at the top of the Kamala Harris Mailer, which is just Right. Such a development.
Don Caldwell:Yeah. And I I think you you touched on something key there. I mean, if I was to say, what are, like, the biggest changes that I've seen over the last 14 years at know your meme, that would be a really big one. The Internet culture going super mainstream like that. I think that also has to do with the life cycle of memes now too, where they're much shorter lived.
Don Caldwell:And, you know, back in those days of like, you know, 2010 to 2015, you'd have memes last for a much longer time before they died out. You know, I also think that people are just okay with a meme dying out really quickly now. They aren't as protective of it. Right? So, yeah, if a politician embraces a meme and it dies a little quicker than it would have anyway, then then what's the big deal?
Don Caldwell:Right?
Mike Rugnetta:That's interesting. That is something that I don't think I've considered. That yeah. Like, 10 years ago, you might mourn the death of a meme because it got co opted, so to speak Right. By a broader audience.
Mike Rugnetta:But now it's just like things last as long as they last. You move on to the next thing because you know for absolute sure, there will be a next thing.
Don Caldwell:For sure. The the value of a cultural currency, like a meme. Right? Like, if everybody knows about it, it gets devalued like an inflationary pressure. Right?
Don Caldwell:But then when the you can't stop it and it it's it's everywhere and everybody's on it, then, you know, you just get used to it.
Mike Rugnetta:It feels like there was maybe not a fully earnest attempt, but an attempt nonetheless to give the the power of the laser eyes memes to Kamala Harris. Like, I saw a couple when Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out, like, right at the start and then it just got completely replaced by the coconut and the palm tree emojis. And so, you know, in discussing the the death of memes, do you think what do you think? Did Kamala Harris kill laser eyes? Because I haven't seen it much at all.
Don Caldwell:I mean, it reached, like, you know, levels of saturation with dark Brandon that were pretty pretty high.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah.
Don Caldwell:And that meme was going on for, you know, 2 years, and they were still putting dark Brandon billboards up. Right? Like, it's 2 years in 2024 for a meme is a freaking eternity.
Mike Rugnetta:Also, I did not there are dark Brandon billboards?
Don Caldwell:Yeah, man. Like like, just a few months ago, like, before Biden dropped out, they was putting billboards up. Woah. Still selling merch, and that's too long. 2 years is too
Mike Rugnetta:it's too long to make a long opinion.
Don Caldwell:Yeah. My professional opinion, 2 years is too long to milk a meme.
Mike Rugnetta:What do you think accounts for the fact that it was able to last as long as it did? Is it is it that it is identifiable? Is it that it made that shift from, community to community to community, from left to right? Like, did that reenergize it in some way? Like Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta:How did it sustain for as long as it did?
Don Caldwell:I think it's a combination of all those things. So strong symbolism is a big factor in a meme's longevity, Pepe, Wojak, Doge. Like, these are, like, the memes that still somewhat relevant today that are Yeah. You know, over a decade old. Adaptability clearly is also a key factor that's common throughout all those memes you just listed as well.
Don Caldwell:Like, you know, there's still new Wojaks being made today. But the community aspect, I think, is an interesting one because it's adapting in the new communities and also reaching a new group of people. So I think it's a combination of of all of those things.
Mike Rugnetta:Turning for a moment back to the coconut tree. It shares a lot with dark Brandon, which is that it's got this, like, sort of semi ironic twinge to it. It's like everybody Yeah. Sort of knows that this is, like, doesn't really make sense, and is maybe even kind of making fun of Kamala Harris a little bit. But it has been taken and and ran with, in a way that at its beginning was really Internet, felt really Internet, at least to me.
Mike Rugnetta:And then now is like much more mainstream. How do you think that plays? Do you think that that's like are politicians just all posters now and they need material to post, and so they're looking for anything that they can get? Do they know that they need to appeal to an Internet using demographic? Is the Internet using demographic everyone?
Mike Rugnetta:Like, what motivates, this sort of, I think, otherwise, maybe sort of insane choice?
Don Caldwell:Well, first of all, I'll point out something I think is significant and that the big Kamala meme that was recognized in some way was not the coconut meme. It was the brat, the brat memes.
Mike Rugnetta:Right.
Don Caldwell:When Kamala HQ, you know, changed the cover image to have, like, Kamala on the on the green, Brat album.
Mike Rugnetta:And then charliexcx tweeted, Kamala is brat. Right?
Don Caldwell:Yeah. And I think the sequence was was first charlie tweeted that, and then Kamala HQ changed it. So, like, that's telling and that, you know, charliexacx associating Kamala with Bret doesn't have the baggage of, you know, Coconut Tree being built off of memes from Kamala opponents making fun of her for for sounding nonsensical. There was the other one, which was the supercut of her saying, I'm burdened by what has been, right? That's the other one there.
Don Caldwell:And both of these were adopted by Kamala supporters after Biden dropped out. And I think, you know, it's hard to tell for sure with any of this stuff. This is this is, you know, all very complicated how how Internet reality works.
Mike Rugnetta:But I give you full permission to speculate.
Don Caldwell:Oh, I I will speculate. I think that there was building anticipation and energy for Biden to drop out. I mean, I think this is pretty undeniable. And people that wanted democrats to win, once he finally did drop out, needed a vessel for all of this pent up energy and to express excitement that they had a candidate that could finally possibly win. And these were 2 kind of viral things going around about Kamala that were kind of funny and, you know, they're forgiving.
Don Caldwell:Like, you're not they don't make Kamala look like an asshole. They're kind of silly.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. They make her look kind
Don Caldwell:of kooky.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah.
Don Caldwell:Yeah. Kooky and you can have fun with it. Right? And, they lent themselves really well to being put into video edits and then combined with the Charli XCX brat memes that have, like, Charli XCX songs with, like, cuts of Kamala saying the coconut tree line and the what has been on burden line. So I think largely, these these memes were built up off of energy that was just being bottled up for a very long time and needed somewhere to go.
Mike Rugnetta:And they feel so much more aligned with Kamala as like a, like a character
Don Caldwell:Right.
Mike Rugnetta:Than laser eyes. I know some people see her as this, but she doesn't strike me as someone who is like powerful even though she was a DA. Right. Like that is not, at least not at this point, her political persona. Her political persona is much more the, yeah, the the coconut tree.
Don Caldwell:I don't think people would want to do that. Like, the laser eyes with Kamala thing wouldn't be a good strategy because they're not trying to combat Kamala appearing weak or frail.
Mike Rugnetta:Right, right, right.
Don Caldwell:If anything, they'd be wanting to, you know, distance themselves from the prosecutor stuff because that was one of the biggest criticisms of Kamala, at least in the primary among people on the left was that, you know, the meme was Kamala is a cop.
Mike Rugnetta:She's a cop.
Don Caldwell:Yeah. But the coconut tree stuff make her, makes her appear relatable and funny, and like somebody you'd wanna, you know, get drunk at brunch with or something like that. Right?
Mike Rugnetta:So Sure.
Don Caldwell:And so yeah. I mean, it it makes her seem more fun and kooky and and less intimidating and cop like.
Mike Rugnetta:It is it is actually a really good point that it does make her seem almost like her by proxy through her team, like they are participants in this media culture in a way, which like Biden definitely and Trump largely feel like very absent from. So I think having the Kamala association with Bratt, having them make drill references, having them seize upon the coconut tree stuff, makes them feel more contemporary in a way that I think both political parties, they struggle with politicians who feel really absent from contemporary culture. And this is a way of saying like, look, we're like, you know it's a little self conscious, but it's like, look. We're here. We are we are where you are.
Mike Rugnetta:Maybe a slightly more effective, how do you do fellow kids?
Don Caldwell:Yeah. I mean, I think it was different with Trump back in, like, 2016 when when he was on Twitter, and he was tweeting all the time. I think he was inserting himself into the digital discourse a lot more. And, you know, now you can't get him off through social. It's like, yeah, I think there is a a big difference in the digital and just Internet culture involvement in in in these candidates.
Don Caldwell:And, yeah, I think it probably largely has to do with, like you said, their teams being so involved and and being on top of all this stuff.
Mike Rugnetta:You think that's gonna be the norm from now on? Is it gonna be like you know, we joked about this years ago being like there's gonna be a secretary of memes at some point. Like, this feels like this is increasingly just something you have to be familiar with.
Don Caldwell:I I think I think so. I mean, I think it's clear how powerful memes are. I think, you know, every brands need to know about memes and use them. Politicians need to know about memes and use them. Anytime that you have, like, you know, large audiences that you're having to deal with, it definitely benefits you to be meme literate and to know how to engage with them and to engage with communities online.
Don Caldwell:And it's just a natural progression of how just ubiquitous the Internet and social media has become. Yeah. It wasn't like this. It wasn't like this, 14 years ago. You know?
Don Caldwell:It was it's it's it's definitely changed a lot.
Mike Rugnetta:John, thank you so much for joining us and talking to me for so long about, laser eyes and political memes.
Don Caldwell:My pleasure, man. It was great talking to you.
Mike Rugnetta:Where can people find you and your work on the Internet?
Don Caldwell:Number 1, they can go to know your meme.com. You can also find me on twitter slash x. Getting tired of saying those two things together.
Mike Rugnetta:When are we gonna stop? When? Yeah. I feel the same way.
Don Caldwell:Twitter or x at d0ncald, Don Cald. Know your meme on x, know your meme on Instagram, know your meme on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat. I think I hit them all.
Mike Rugnetta:And we'll put as many links as there's room for in the show notes. Thanks again to Don for chatting with us. I'm curious what you all think. Is there ever a way for a major political candidate to appear savvy through the use of Internet trends? Can a campaign ever effectively masquerade as being run by posters in the Internet sense?
Mike Rugnetta:And, like, you know, how far are we from the existence of a meme czar? Email us at the never post atgmail.com, call us at 651-615-50007, or submit a voice memo through our air table. There's a link in the show notes. So I make another podcast. I know this is shocking to so many of you.
Mike Rugnetta:I make another podcast. It's called Fun City. It's a tabletop role playing AP show where we play a game called Shadow Run, and me and the cast of that show sometimes do trivia streams. The chat organizes into teams. We ask them questions.
Mike Rugnetta:When they get them right, they get points, and there's a winner at the end. The most popular trivia game we do, by far, is called What Am I Looking At Here? And it was conceived by the inimitable Shannon O'Dell. Shannon, basically and I am vastly underselling the skill that goes into making this game. Shannon finds a set of images, zooms in really close on them, 1 by 1, and asks the chat, what am I looking at here?
Mike Rugnetta:Sometimes you find out it's the top of a skyscraper. Sometimes it's a Cheeto, etcetera, etcetera. It's it's really good. It's a lot of fun. We were thinking here at Neverpost about what sorts of interactions we can have, we meaning, the producers, what interactions we can have in segments.
Mike Rugnetta:And I thought it would probably be fun if we could capture something like the mystery and humor and inanity of what am I looking at here. And so was born this idea. This segment which we've prototyped once, for members and which went over pretty well. So we thought we'd give it a try in the show and it felt like an episode that also featured Don from Know Your Meme was a good place to try this. It feels very thematic.
Mike Rugnetta:So I hope you like it. It was really fun to record and if you do dig it, we will happily do more of these in the future. And just as a note about context and timing, we recorded this segment on Monday, September 9th in the early afternoon Eastern Time, which puts us ahead of a couple developments that we'll discuss at the end of the segment. Friends, hello and welcome to a potentially recurring segment that we are calling, what is going on here? Each of us brings a post to the group that we well and truly do not understand to see if anyone else does.
Mike Rugnetta:Could we each have done a little Googling? Maybe read a little bit more down thread? Most likely. But what is the fun in that? What follows are posts we have recently stumbled upon a thought?
Mike Rugnetta:What is going on here about and then bookmarked to return to in this very segment. Joining me in ascending order of how much I assume they enjoy the band Steely Dan
Hans Buetow:Oh. Hell yeah.
Mike Rugnetta:Or I
Mike Rugnetta:think I immediately feel like I've gotten this wrong. Hans Buto, Never Post senior producer.
Hans Buetow:So wait. I don't like it or I do like it?
Mike Rugnetta:Don't. Do not. Well
Mike Rugnetta:Oh.
Mike Rugnetta:We're gonna have to kind of talk later. Jason Oberholtzer, Never Post executive producer.
Jason Oberholtzer:You're not doing well, Mike.
Mike Rugnetta:And Georgia Hampton, Never Post Producer. And I can only assume massive Steely Dan fan.
Georgia Hampton:I was gonna say, I'm shocked. Shocked by this fight.
Jason Oberholtzer:It appears you might have reversed the whole order.
Georgia Hampton:I was gonna say.
Mike Rugnetta:Hans, Steely Dan lover.
Hans Buetow:I I just I really like yacht rock.
Mike Rugnetta:I like how apologetic that was. I just I do. Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer:The thing is, Steely Dan is something that I refuse to have taste about. I love that.
Hans Buetow:Welcome to today's game.
Mike Rugnetta:Okay. Georgia, what do you got for us?
MN Fair Attendee:Okay. So I, shock and awe, have a TikTok for you all.
Jason Oberholtzer:Love it.
MN Fair Attendee:Mike, why don't you tell me what you see?
Mike Rugnetta:Okay. I I've pressed pause on the first frame. So what I'm seeing immediately is, Netflix. This is someone's television, but in front of a brick wall on, a TV stand. I will say TV right height.
Mike Rugnetta:TV not too high.
MN Fair Attendee:Yes. Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta:That's a callback just for the members. There is text on top of it that says, Netflix, what the fuck is this? And I'm gonna hit play and we'll find out.
Clip:Okay. I'm at my girlfriend's house. Can someone tell me what these categories are? Fungus? What the fuck?
Mike Rugnetta:Okay. Alright. There is there is a category that is called shmongus. S h m u n g u s s.
Georgia Hampton:Yes.
Mike Rugnetta:The first is, a poster for the Shmungus King. It looks like a picture of Paul Giamatti dressed up as, like, Richard the 3rd.
Georgia Hampton:I believe it is.
Mike Rugnetta:I married a Shmungus. The Shmungus Among Us, which looks like a horror film. Shmungus revenge. Okay. I'm gonna hit play again.
Mike Rugnetta:I'm on a VPN.
Clip:A VPN into what? Another dimension? I married a Shmungus. What the hell is a Shmungus? What is the Shmungus among us?
Clip:What the fuck? Shmungus' revenge? What
Jason Oberholtzer:They stole my Shmungus. Why?
Mike Rugnetta:Well, they and they have, like, descriptions. Like, Shmungus revenge. After it's stolen by the mafia, ex cop Jason Lane must fight his way through the criminal underground to recover his shmungus and his sanity. All of the comments are basically taking the interdimensional cable Right. Joke and running, I have no idea what this is.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer:Yeah. So I guess I have an assumption. So so there's a known listener of the show, Henry Birds Eye, used to be the best at the bit of going into the source code of a website and changing all of the text of it and then sending that link places and making jokes out of it. I assume that somebody has similarly figured out how to render a bunch of fake Netflix and has done this as a bit. Mhmm.
Hans Buetow:But even with the voice over and the, like, all that stuff
Mike Rugnetta:I mean, it's high effort.
Jason Oberholtzer:This is high effort.
Georgia Hampton:I was gonna
MN Fair Docent:say high effort.
Mike Rugnetta:It's so much work. I think that Jason's guess is the most likely, which is that this is just a high effort rendering of the Netflix interface with custom assets. I'm gonna do Yes. The I'm gonna Google Shmungus Netflix and see what happens. Well, we gotta know your meme entry.
Georgia Hampton:Oh, hell yeah. Yes.
Hans Buetow:Don, welcome back.
Mike Rugnetta:Don, thank you. This is yeah. This is this is 2 for 2, Don, on this episode.
Hans Buetow:Thank you for your service.
Mike Rugnetta:Discover we actually created it since the video is just one of several satirical TikToks. Regardless of whether the video is real or fake, it generated, like, a lot of traction. This is this is very good.
MN Fair Attendee:Right?
Jason Oberholtzer:It's very well done. This is really good.
Mike Rugnetta:It's really well.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. Appreciate efforts.
MN Fair Attendee:So yes.
Mike Rugnetta:And also, the the word, Shmungus, specifically Incredible. Just has it's very Internet. It's like close enough to Chungus Mhmm. That it really sort of has a little bit of nostalgia to it. It's very fun to say.
Mike Rugnetta:Putting Paul Giamatti in the top slot, pro move. That's a pro move.
Hans Buetow:Yeah. And you can see the fun. You can see them. I love it when really talented people are obviously having fun with their craft. That is a lot of different genres that they were able to make into Shmungus movies with, like
Mike Rugnetta:Please, Hans, Shmungus Cinema.
Jason Oberholtzer:Oh, see. Oh, yeah.
MN Fair Attendee:Put some respect on that.
Hans Buetow:Just having fun, like, that makes me very happy. Round 2.
Jason Oberholtzer:I brought in something that I began to understand and then immediately didn't understand. As I got closer to it, I got more confused as to the history of it. So I'm gonna put a link in here. Georgia, would you describe what you are seeing?
MN Fair Attendee:Yes. So this is a link to a Reddit page for r slash celebrity number 6. And it's a post that just says, celebrity number 6 has been found. It is a picture of a woman, a model, with her hair half up, half down. She's got sort of a grayish greenish shirt, maybe jacket on, what looks like maybe a purse strap across her chest, and she's looking right at the camera in front of a sort of brown colored wall.
Mike Rugnetta:I do not recognize this person.
Jason Oberholtzer:I do not. I don't know who this is.
Mike Rugnetta:This they are labeled celebrity, but I know
Jason Oberholtzer:This is part of my confusion. Okay.
Mike Rugnetta:I do not know who this is. Yes. Nor do
Jason Oberholtzer:I.
Georgia Hampton:I know about this.
Jason Oberholtzer:So from the point of views of someone who does not know about this at all, what comes next in this thread is even more confusing. There are, like, context clues I can figure out that there is some celebrity who had not been found, and this is a picture of that celebrity. It's confusing that I don't recognize this as a celebrity, but still, I can see that some mystery has been solved. And then the moderator comment comes in.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. There's a there's a top voted comment which is understandable. Where were you when celebrity 6 was found? Maybe with more context we would understand that. But the stickied comment Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer:Is wild. From the moderator says, this seems ridiculous to need to ask, but if everyone could please hold off on the random reports of self harm and such for Hugh's appropriate skepticism, that would be great.
Hans Buetow:What?
Jason Oberholtzer:Already a little bit lost here. Is. After 20 years of mystery What? Being thoughtful and patient for a few days while everyone seeks to confirm things to their satisfaction seems reasonable. What?
Jason Oberholtzer:As moderators, we've seen ridiculous levels of fakery, sham, jokes, and trolls. Please remember, the human, in this case, you, in their diligent effort to continue to moderate what is shaping up to be the biggest post this sub will see. I'm an AI expert, so I'll wait for folks wiser than me to weigh in conclusively, but it sure seems convincing enough to warrant excitement. Those buttons look to me like the fancy type that goes straight through without a cap.
Mike Rugnetta:Oh my god.
Jason Oberholtzer:Pretty rad, pretty nice. This is when I got totally lost.
Mike Rugnetta:I'm like, that is just a diamond of Reddit right there, isn't it? Especially once you get to the button part, that's like, oh, that's a Reddit post.
Jason Oberholtzer:Yes.
Mike Rugnetta:Wait. Okay. Georgia, do you understand all of this?
MN Fair Attendee:I I do, most of it.
Georgia Hampton:Okay. Okay.
Jason Oberholtzer:Tell us.
MN Fair Attendee:Okay. I'm going to share with you another post from this subreddit that will give you basically the context I'm about to give you.
Mike Rugnetta:Wait. Is this the fabric thing?
MN Fair Attendee:Yes. Oh, shit. Yes.
Mike Rugnetta:Okay. I know the barest sliver about this.
MN Fair Attendee:So basically, someone posted this picture of a curtain in 2019 to the subreddit tip of my tongue, which is a curtain that has basically a repeating pattern of pictures of people in a repeating pattern. And they're flattened so that each person is like one color, and their face looks very graphic and very, like, one color and white. Wow. And
Jason Oberholtzer:a baffling array of celebrity. Yes. I also do not think I could identify Adriana Lima, Travis Fimmel, by name or by look, Ian Somerhalder Yeah. Both by name or by look. And the others are Orlando Bloom, who I could probably pick out, Josh Holloway, who I could say is The Lost Guy, Jessica Alba
Don Caldwell:Oh.
Jason Oberholtzer:And then this mystery human.
MN Fair Attendee:Yes. So this mystery woman is Leticia Sarda. Okay. She is a model. For years, there's been this community online trying to figure out who this is.
MN Fair Attendee:And I believe it was a photographer who shot something that Leticia modeled for who was contacted and was like, do you have a picture that looks kind of like the image that is used in this pattern to which he sent that image that you shared
Georgia Hampton:Wow.
MN Fair Attendee:Which looks exactly like a match.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. Way down thread, the OP posts. God, what a journey. A few days ago, I got in touch with the photographer, Leandra Escorcel, asking if he knew something about the image. I asked him because he took the photograph that served as a cover of the supplement of woman number 162 Spanish Magazine that features Leticia.
Mike Rugnetta:He claims that he recognized the photo and sent me this picture. Mhmm. Here you have the original photo. Woah. Woah.
Hans Buetow:So the question that they have, it's still they think they found her, but they're trying to verify back to the back to that sticky post. They're trying to verify that it somebody didn't just AI a person and retrofit and create a person from the fabric. Right?
Jason Oberholtzer:Okay. Got it. Yeah. So back to this this moderator's appeal for sanity. There's apparently people reporting self harm for hue who's hue in this?
Jason Oberholtzer:Who's hue? Who's hue?
Mike Rugnetta:In the sidebar, there's a link to a Google doc that I will put a link to in our chat that is Hughes searched list. It's a grid. We're looking at, it's listed alphabetically. Pictures of Adriana Lima, Alex Vega, Ali Larter, Alice Braga, Alicia Keys, Allison Mack, Amanda Bynes, Amy Lee, Andrea Bowen. Wow.
Mike Rugnetta:This is just a
Hans Buetow:maze. Wow.
Mike Rugnetta:This is like
Jason Oberholtzer:so much
Mike Rugnetta:really a very exhaustive list with many pictures of many people, presumably, trying to figure out if any of them match. Yeah. So it stands to reason, looking at this, that Hugh has invested a significant amount of time in this.
MN Fair Attendee:Yeah. Mhmm.
Jason Oberholtzer:And so Hugh was expressing skepticism to make sure that after all of Hugh's energy, that this was indeed the end of Hughes search.
Mike Rugnetta:And I mean, dovetails in with a massive anxiety online, something that we talk about a lot in our editorial meetings which is, you know, trying to determine whether or not this is AI generated. Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer:Yes. In some ways, this is a really representative bummer right now because this is one of the best things the Internet does. A decades long trivial search, appreciated by its seemingly thousands of people contributed to by one imagines as good score of folks, kind of tarnished in its final moments by the looming threat of AI fakery. Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta:I am looking at Hughes posting history. Uh-oh. He's getting a lot of down votes. His posts are in negative numbers, talking about how he's skeptical. He's made a post where he zooms in on certain portions of the image that is supposedly the original.
Mike Rugnetta:It says like, you know, these are AI defects. He's just not sure, But then his most recent post from 13 hours ago, well, folks, the time has come. I'm stepping down as a mod for this sub and hanging up my ban hammer with only minimal tears. I'll still lurk around as a member, but you'll be seeing a bit less of me. As for the latest drama, let's not jump to conclusions just yet.
Mike Rugnetta:We've been burned by hoaxes and this is the one moments before. Let's wait until someone gets their hands on that magazine. It's on its way. Or we hear from the photographer who can confirm the pic is legit, and they indeed sent it. Patience is a virtue.
Mike Rugnetta:Also, a quick PSA, death threats are not cool. So let's chill on the threats to me and Indigo Room. Okay?
Hans Buetow:Oh my god.
Mike Rugnetta:So I think a picture develops that Hugh is like, hey, hold your horses. Let's be sure. And then in standard Internet style, people tell him to, you know.
Hans Buetow:I hope I hope Hughes okay. I hope Hughes good.
Mike Rugnetta:I hope he's I hope you Hughes is making the right decision for you. Yeah. Well, I'm
Hans Buetow:for one, I'm sad. I only found out about this now.
Jason Oberholtzer:Yeah. This seems like it would have been really fun to care about.
Mike Rugnetta:Right?
Jason Oberholtzer:Yeah. Hey, Hughes. Links in the show notes. Reach out.
Mike Rugnetta:Come say hey. Yeah. Spectacular. Alright. Next up, Hans.
Hans Buetow:Alright. I'm putting a link in the chat. Jason, can you open this up for us?
Jason Oberholtzer:Okay. I am opening Twitter.
Mike Rugnetta:Run wild, Kian.
Jason Oberholtzer:There is a video, 54 seconds of video on Twitter. On half of this split screen, it is split left and right. The left side is can I make out that word? It is somebody dressed like a, Miss Universe winner with, sort of a tiara and piled up red curls, but with a lot of, white powder makeup
Mike Rugnetta:and some blush.
Georgia Hampton:Jason. Jason. Jason. Oh my god. Jason.
Jason Oberholtzer:Do I need to know who this person is? Jason.
Mike Rugnetta:Chipotle Rowan.
Georgia Hampton:That's Chapel.
Mike Rugnetta:Oh. Alright. It's Chapel Rowan?
Georgia Hampton:I don't think
Jason Oberholtzer:I've ever actually seen Chapel Rowan. I guess I have not. I've heard the music. I have not seen the person. Well, that part of the mystery is dispelled.
Georgia Hampton:The silent panic of all of us hearing that. Oh, fuck.
Jason Oberholtzer:Why do you need to see your musicians? Tell me right now what Donald Fagan looks like.
Georgia Hampton:Jason, that's the cover of her album. That's like the cover of the album.
Hans Buetow:Who needs to
Jason Oberholtzer:see that to hear it?
Hans Buetow:So that's half the screen. Jason, will you help us understand what the other half looks like?
Jason Oberholtzer:The second half, the other half of the screen is a figure that anyone can recognize even at a distance, which is New York Mets manager Terry Collins arguing with 3 umpires named who have
Mike Rugnetta:been working with the MLB since,
Jason Oberholtzer:arguing with 3 umpires about I will press play and see what the argument is about. Terry. Terry. Terry. Terry.
Jason Oberholtzer:Terry. Terry. Terry. Terry. Okay.
Jason Oberholtzer:They are playing what one assumes is a Chapel Rowan song. You gotta give us a
Mike Rugnetta:shot. You know what?
Jason Oberholtzer:Over Terry's famous monologue, you gotta give us a shot where he argues back and forth with an umpire.
MN Fair Docent:Is it famous?
Jason Oberholtzer:I mean,
Hans Buetow:this is part of my quest. Like, why are those two things mashed up together?
Jason Oberholtzer:Well, it kinda slaps for 1.
Georgia Hampton:I can probably help here.
Jason Oberholtzer:Yeah.
MN Fair Attendee:What is? This has become basically a meme format where the music you're hearing is the beginning to Chapel Rohn's song, super graphic ultra modern girl, in which she is talking. Oh. That's like, you know what they say. Never waste a Friday night and a first date, but there I was in my heels with my hair straight.
MN Fair Attendee:Like and so what people have been doing is taking the intro of that, like, the whole section where she's talking, and then it, you know.
Hans Buetow:Removing the voice.
MN Fair Attendee:Yeah. Removing the voice so it'll fit all these different kinds of monologue, stuff from movies, like, even the sort of, like, scene from the Devil Wears Prada where it's like, I see. You think this has nothing to do with you? Like like, stuff like that. People's ranting on YouTube, like Yeah.
MN Fair Attendee:And they'll put that music under it.
Mike Rugnetta:Got it.
Jason Oberholtzer:It's kind of like it's related to when people were taking, usually dialogue of people screaming at each other and then tapping Midwest emo riffs over it.
MN Fair Attendee:Exactly. I
Mike Rugnetta:was just gonna say the same thing. Exactly.
Jason Oberholtzer:Got it. Yes.
Mike Rugnetta:Last minute. Okay.
MN Fair Attendee:It's the same thing.
Hans Buetow:That's pretty cool. Why these two things,
Jason Oberholtzer:Great monologue, great song, identifiable characters, 2 very famous people we can all identify in hindsight.
MN Fair Attendee:It's also important to say here that the tweet, like, the heading of it is, I fear this may be for a very niche audience.
Hans Buetow:So who has an overlap of interest that are
MN Fair Attendee:Chapel Roan and New York Mets arguments.
Mike Rugnetta:Yes. Yeah. And this has 10,000 likes and a half a 1000000 views. Yeah. Mhmm.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah.
Jason Oberholtzer:Yeah. So and clearly, none of us are that niche. We all missed at least half of that. Yes.
Mike Rugnetta:Yeah. Tying it all together, down thread, a reply from Steely Dan maximalist.
Jason Oberholtzer:Yes. Yes.
Mike Rugnetta:I don't understand it, but it's a vibe.
Hans Buetow:That was me, you guys.
Georgia Hampton:Right? That is what
Hans Buetow:I wrote this morning on it. I said, I don't understand
Georgia Hampton:it. But
Mike Rugnetta:it's a vibe. Yeah. That was my post. Zoom in here. Is that that PFP is Hans.
MN Fair Attendee:Got him. Ladies and gentlemen,
Georgia Hampton:we got him.
Hans Buetow:Good
Mike Rugnetta:job. Friends, I feel like we've learned a lot here today.
Georgia Hampton:Have we? Yes.
Mike Rugnetta:No. We've learned nothing. It's just like Seinfeld, you know, no hugs, no lessons. Did we attain the predicted outcome and get to the end of this segment not feeling any better?
Clip:I I
Mike Rugnetta:feel the same. I'm gonna be honest.
MN Fair Attendee:I feel fine.
Mike Rugnetta:Okay. Hey, listeners. If there are things that you are confused by that you encounter on the Internet and you think, what is going on here? Send it our way. We would love to see them.
Mike Rugnetta:Maybe we will, do more of these. If you like this segment, let us know. This is something we can do often, if you like. Assuming that we don't all develop, pervasive and perfect knowledge of the Internet. Mhmm.
Mike Rugnetta:Which would require Jason to learn about Chapel Rowan, and me to learn about the Mets. Both of which just seem impossible. Thank you, Georgia, Hans, and Jason for sharing their confusion and expertise. Mere hours after we recorded this, Celebrity 6 was fully confirmed and even interviewed about the saga by Spanish Vanity Fair. You can read the conversation and a translation of it at the links in the show notes.
Mike Rugnetta:But spoiler alert, Leticia Sarta would appear to not be a celebrity at all, but rather a very normal, very nice, and down to earth lady, a former model who now works in hospitality. It's a really great conversation about someone who has accidentally become very notable to a large group of people online, highly recommend reading it. Anyways, we're curious. Are there things, about these confounding posts that we missed? Or are there things out there that make you think what is going on here?
Mike Rugnetta:Tell us about them. Email us, call us, leave us a voice memo. Links for how to get a hold of us are all in the show notes.
Hans Buetow:Good night, everyone.
Mike Rugnetta:That is the show we have for you this week. We're gonna be back here in the main feed on Wednesday, September 25th. Members, we will have extended cuts of my conversation with Don, our what's going on here conversation, where everyone shares something that confounds them, and also a full over 1 hour long recording of the Minnesota State Fair for you. It is an embarrassment of riches. We spoil you.
Mike Rugnetta:So keep an eye on your member feeds over the next week or so for all of those things. If you're interested in helping us continue to make the show and listening to any of our side shows like posts from the field, slow post, and never watch, alongside extended segments, bonus segments, and an ad free version of this show, head on over to neverpo.st to become a member. We have had so many extra and extended things for the show. Even at 18 episodes, it feels like the back catalog is really good. There's a lot of good stuff in there.
Mike Rugnetta:Listen, I I think it's a no brainer. I think you should do it, but, I'm biased. Never Post's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and The Mysterious Doctor First Name, Last Name. Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer, and I'm your host, Mike Rugnetta.
Mike Rugnetta:All day, we leave and arrive at the hive, concelebrants. The hive is love, what we serve, preserve, avowed in Latin murmurs as we come and go, Skydive, freighted with light to where we thrive, us, in times on history's breath, industrious. Identical. Excerpt of Hive by Carol Ann Duffy. Never post is a production of charts and leisure.
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