SvB: #109: Everything Real Is An App Now

Show vs. Business is your weekly take on Pop Culture from two very different perspectives. Your hosts Theo and  Mr. Benja provide all the relevant info to get your week started right.

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Transcript

Mr Benja: Hey Theo, man, you remember back when we were in college we used to head out to the, the mall, hang out at the food court, maybe hit the theater up and you know, a after that go to a little club club or something and I don't know, you remember all that, that real tangible stuff we used to do. 

Theo: Oh, yeah, man, that was awesome.

Mr Benja: Yeah, it's  gone now. No, you gotta go to Amazon to get your mall fixed. You gotta go to Netflix to get your theater fixed. You gotta, you gotta go to Tinder to get your bar fixed and wait, wait, wait. Hold, 

Theo: hold up. There's no parking lot pumping anymore. 

Mr Benja: Dog. Your, your parking lot's in your pocket. Son,

Can we talk about it? Can we talk about it? 

Theo: I, I guess, man, that's what we do. We gonna talk about it, man. 

Mr Benja: That's right.

Theo: Parking lot pimping. So, yeah, man. I, I love where we're starting here, man. Yeah. This is, this is kind of like, you know, we used to have a segment here, right? We would go talk about you know, old school stuff, right? And yeah. Back in the day, you know, kind of things. And this is kind of along those lines.

This, this, this episode. So, so what you got, man? How, how we wanna break this one down this week. 

Mr Benja: You know, I don't know. I, I put a, I put a post out on, on my Instagram and you know, I got a, I got an idea from, from your Boys in the All In podcast and they were talking and he just mentioned like, yeah, Netflix is the new theater now and.

Amazon's the mall and everything. It's just like, this is where we're going. And from those two little bits, I was thinking about that and I was like, well, how far could this go? And I started listing out like all the apps and all the stores like, and, and to continue, you know, zoom that's, , like the office meetings and we used to do channel surfing, just bounce through channels.

And that's kind of like what we do on TikTok. You know, going to restaurants and everything. We just hit up GrubHub, Spotify is like your tower records. Um, YouTube is basically your television now. And you know what? Only fans is. I mean,

Theo: I don't know, man. Certain places in Atlanta they, that's, that's, that's almost blasphemous. , 

Mr Benja: man. You, you know, they'll be in there. Talk Whis whispering in your ear talking about Visit my only fans,

Theo: man. Literally, I saw someone talking about this on Instagram and said, Hey, you know, , just, this is what all the strippers should be doing. Being our o only fans, you know, you don't have to deal with men, you don't have to deal with, you know, all this other issues and you make way more money. And it was just like, I think it was a click bait and it worked.

Uhhuh, , but , you know, he ain't wrong. , 

Mr Benja: he ain't wrong. No, it's, it's terribly fascinating if you. And not just for only fans, but like for any of these institutions, I think if you can find your ease of access and getting that same type of, or not same type, but a similar type of interactivity that used to get in the real world, and you can find a way to make it work digitally or through an app.

Some people, people are gonna be like, wait a minute. Well, why do I have to, you know, get dressed, put on my shoes, get in the car, get, you know, drive somewhere, waste gas, et cetera, et cetera, when I can just do this digitally. Well, 

Theo: well they just did something recently. Experiment on Netflix. I don't know if you saw this, but Chris Rock had his comedy special.

It was live selective s Right. Outreach. That's right. And that's like, you know, back in the day, you and I used to in LA used to go to the comedy store or the comedy you know, on Tuesday nights AM hours and things like that. Yeah. And you, you know, you would dress up and laugh and giggle and, but it was live, right?

It was the first time they kind of did a live kind of comedy. Say live the concerts you see. , you know, pre-recorded or they Yeah. You know, they kind of set things up. Matter of fact this is true store. I dunno if you saw some of the news around it. Chris Rock literally messed up the joke at the end, of, of what?

The jokes and because he messed it up. He has Netflix if he could re-edit it. So yeah, if you watched it live, you saw to mess up. But now, Now that lives on Netflix and recorded form, they've changed the joke. And so it doesn't work now. So it's kind of interesting how that happened, but yes, the comedy stores have even been replaced by you know, the, this digital first type of mentality.

Mr Benja: Yeah. I mean, it's not like a, an extreme jump, right? I mean, it's, it's what we've kind of been building towards since the internet came out. I think since I guess obviously since the pandemic I'm talking about, I guess. Yes. Obviously since the pandemic that just kicked into overdrive. . 

Theo: Mm-hmm. . Good point.

I mean, I think that's what it was. I, so I'm, I'm just talk, you know, so look, we were kind of there, the birth, I mean, we were college right when the birthplaces of the internet kinda exploded. I literally remember being in your room and we were like, what's this thing called internet? No. What's it, Netscape?

We were like, what's this thing called Netscape? Mosaic? Yeah, mosaic. This guy's making all this money, . We were just like, what is going on? And. You know, cuz we, we had, you had email for the first time in college and you know, so to me remember South Park episodes, geezes, they've been around a long time.

Yeah. They would pop around. So it was like, to me the internet was always kind of like this way to get information faster. Right? Yeah. You know, and, and so that was always the case, but now it's exploded to more of entertainment and. Apps accessing to the real world, like you said, GrubHub and access to real life experiences, you know, through the app Airbnb, right.

You know, that's like the hotel, right. You know, kind of teach to the hotel. So so yeah, the pandemic just accelerate that. Right. You know, I think 20, you know, 2020 hit and then everybody was like stuck in the house. and it was like, this is crazy. And now you saw the rise of, you know celebrities, you know, more so influencers, right?

Mm-hmm. Just blew up during that period of time. And then also all these other digital first type of mentality and technologies and stuff like that. And so I agree. I think you know, this. was an interesting time to kind of see a lot of this kind of take hold of us. Did it go all the way though?

That's my, my question. As a business person, I'm, you know, I, I questioned, you know, people a little, were a little over optimistic. I mean, I don't know. Let, let's take it back to 2020. Mr. Benja we were in there when we were, you, you were experienced that I, I literally remember, dang, it was like around this time March, right?

March three years ago. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. . And we you know, they say, oh, things are shutting down, right? I mean, and then, you know, what did you think? Did you think, oh man, are we ever gonna be meeting in person again? I mean, what were your thoughts? 

Mr Benja: So March 5th, 2020, I actually remember the date because I had to make posters for an art show I was putting on.

And at that date, we. , we set the date and we heard about, you know, the pandemic and, oh, some, some reports in New York. Some reports from the Midwest somewhere, and we were like, whatever. And then we got reports from San Francisco leading up to that week, and I was like, huh. All right. Interesting. And people were just now starting to talk about, Hey, make sure you wash your hands.

Make sure you, but it wasn't like a thing that stopped anybody from doing anything. And by the time the night of the art show came around, , everybody. The news was out like, yo, there have been three reported cases in Long Beach, and that's right across the bridge from me. You know, just mm-hmm. . I was like, oh man, it's crazy.

And everybody, there's this weird kind of like, you didn't know how to act. You were like, all right, this is a person I've known for a while. But they have a big family and they meet up with a lot of people all the time. Should I hug? Should I shake? Should I fist bump? And then we were kinda like letting people know.

Hey, if you just want to, you know, do a air AirWave or you know, we were telling people, you know, if you don't feel comfortable getting all close to people, you know, here's what you do. Let 'em know. And it was weird cuz this one friend of mine, I talked to her and I was like, so, so how do we do this? And I was joking about it, right?

Cuz everybody was talking about the pandemic. So I was, how do we do this? You know, shake, hug, whatever. And she like got mad at me like, , this is a, you know, this isn't anything, you know, I don't know why everybody's so afraid, da da da da. And you know, we hugged and everything. In the back of my head, I was like, I might die tomorrow.

I didn't know. I was just like, oh my God. She can know she's been around hugging everybody and you know, yeah, pandemic is going around now. But yeah, that, that's how it hit me. And after that, I do remember after that night was over. It was literally the next day, three days or week after, it was like, all right, we're shutting down.

Nobody can visit the art gallery. You know, people stopped going to work sometimes like, man, just that fast. It happened and I started thinking, , can I sell art online? What should I be doing now? Mm-hmm. and my whole thoughts process started to change, 

Theo: so, mm-hmm. , so, so you, you hit the nail on the head. I think everybody's mind shifted at that point, right?

Where it's like, how do you still make money in an environment where you can't physically meet with folks? Likewise, my business, I was supposed to go to a big healthcare conference, literally that got canceled. That was like the canary in the coal mine because obviously, We just weren't being very overly cautious, but when it hit, it hit bad.

And so I started doing more content online. Right. Just talking, you know, to people and doing videos. And so that was a precursor to doing this podcast and some of the other stuff I'm doing on social media. But, you know, you had to do something, right? Yeah. And then you saw the rise of other, and I, I started seeing myself watching a lot more YouTube channels, right.

And other folks. Mm. , and that's how a lot of folks probably, you know, grew their audiences right during that period of time. 

Mr Benja: Yeah. You, you probably even subscribed to something like YouTube, right? 

Theo: I, yeah, I did. I did. Well, I didn't do it then. I, I just recently did it. I just recently did it, but yes. Yeah, it took me two years.

Yeah, it took me two years. But the ads were, you know, okay. But yeah, so I think, you know, I think. That's when you start the rise of people. Like, and then this thing called Clubhouse, you know, took off audio only kind of messaging kind of center. Yeah. You know, like, and then they had like big celebrities join it.

So we, I think we're trying to reminisce. Going back to that point was just like how we just thought everything was going. We're already there, but just kind of accelerate. I mean, we're ordering food now. I mean, you know, even if you never use GrubHub or Insta or Instacart or all those other, I mean DoorDash, you know, they just exploded, you know?

That's how restaurants even survived. Even then, during that period of time, they had to use that to get food out. And so I think you know, this push to digital only, and, and then you, you kind of nailed the head and nailed it on the head with all these different comparisons. That's pretty much what happened.

You know, Amazon became our mall. You know, Tinder became our bar. I mean, you know, I don't know, you know, To the single folks. I don't know how y'all did it, but to the married folks, I don't know how we did it. It was just like you were with that one person the whole time, and if you're single, you were pretty much like scared to kind of go out almost, you know?

So yeah, I guess there's a lot of Tinder stuff going on, just remotely. Like you said, Twitter was a town hall, so you would listen to, to you know, different folks you know about what the topic of the day and what's happened with Covid. Let's see. Groups, you know they had those meetups and people were kind of communicating Yeah.

And forming, you know, teams. So everything you highlighting here, you know, was already there. And LinkedIn, you know, I think people were kind of networking and figuring out, you know, who they could still work with. And it surprised everyone. But we, we, we not only survived, but we thrive because I think there was so much money and people had cash in their hands that they didn't have to work.

And the unemployment money was coming in, you know. We thought it was gonna be terrible time. That should become one of the best times in retrospect. You didn't really have to go anywhere. You spent all, you had all this money, you were playing on the stock market. And so, you know, now we always, we wish we went back to that right.

Well, yeah, 

Mr Benja: I mean a little bit. Unless you were a brick and mortar, you know? 

Theo: Yeah, it sucked. or older person, you know, so there's a lot of people. Over a million people did lose their lives. So it definitely was a interesting time. But I think, you know, what we're trying to figure out is like, you know, Yeah.

Is this, is this for, for real? You know, so did this last and I don't know if it has, I mean, I think some things are ingrained, you know mm-hmm. with Amazon and stuff, but I don't think to the level that everyone thought it was right with these big startup companies, you know, like Amazon Meta, I think they went all in.

I mean, they put all their chips into today. This is it. This is the world we've been waiting for. We're ready now. Let's do this . So 

Mr Benja: meta us so stupid. I mean, get on a nerves, but 

Theo: I mean, did it seem like the guys they were hiring like crazy, like 2021 and just going bananas, man, because they just like, this is the world now.

This is how we're gonna live our life. , and I don't think that was the case. On the other side of that, I don't, I don't think that's at all 

Mr Benja: the case . No. I mean, nobody's out there buying VR headsets, talking about, I'm gonna live in the, in the metaverse in the virtual world. I mean, you no, we're, we're not there yet.

So I think we pulled a classic, you know, everybody's running in one direction and then they get there and it's like, huh. Okay. Well, not every, it's like, you know, the gold rush kind of thing where everybody runs out to California and they're like, Aw man, there's too many people out here looking for gold.

Hey, I'm gonna plant oranges. Look at that field over, look at that field over there, and hey, I'm gonna do this. Because everybody's out there, they just start going back to what they did. They're just 

Theo: in a new place, right? Mm-hmm. . Good point. Good point. Well, you know, isn't it like, I don't know, man, you know, we're kind of another situation with, you know, AI Chat G P T, right?

You know, it's just like, we're just, it's just these booms, you know? Just there's this one. Oh, everybody's all, you know, frenzy us gonna be remote only, right? We got this app for this. We got this app for that. Didn't work. Oh, meta. Meta gonna take off. Let's get, let's all invest in meta. Oh, didn't work. Crypto.

Oh, we're gonna do NFTs and crypto. Let's all do it. So, you know, it just seems like there's these, these ways and ways and just like, you know, and, and I think, I think maybe people are sick of it, . It's just like, wait a minute, this, yeah, this is, this is not working. You know, everybody's thinking these are gonna be the next big things and we'll probably talk about another pod.

But there's a big incident that probably will hamper a lot of innovation in the startup world with, you know, with capital. and I think yeah, it was Silicon Valley Bank. And I think, you know, that might be a good thing because I don't know if this capital has, has done well, you know, because of all these kind of this is the next big thing.

And then it really, it is really not site, you know? 

Mr Benja: Well, it makes me, it makes me wonder because I mean, there are definite, there are definite shifts, you know? Maybe a is a stock market chart where there's always ups and downs. Mm-hmm. , but if, mm-hmm. , if you're looking at the trend, the whole trend is going to a certain digital direction.

I mean, once, because now, you know, we were saying shopping online you know, aside from Amazon, like I. Started one, one week, I decided to start just buying all kinds of stuff online. Like, Hey, what if I did my grocery shopping online? I never do that, but lemme see what happens. And I was kind of like, Hey, it's Scott cool.

You know, just all this stuff showed up. A friend of mine was talking to me and it's an older friend and he was like, ah, I've never, I've never really actually bought anything from Amazon. And I was like, what? You. 

Theo: I'm like, that meme, that guy that he was like, what? ? Yeah, exactly. 

Mr Benja: I was like even possible.

No. Yeah. Had a, had an Amazon account for, for cuz he bought stuff from Audible and , you know, and was using it for Kindle, you know, but I was like, wait a minute, you never actually ordered like stuff. It's like, no, no, just I, I like to go to the store. You know, as an older person, they actually liked getting up and going out whenever they got the chance.

So he would jump on the bus, go to the mall, or. or Target or whatever, but yeah. Totally hadn't bought anything like physical online because he wanted to touch everything first. Hmm. 

Theo: Yeah. And I mean, you know, I know I'm still kind of a little bit like that sometimes, even with clothes. I mean, some people buy clothes like that, but yeah, I do.

It's good to. . Yeah, . I like to try it on, you know, just to see, you know, what's going on. But to your point, it's sometimes easier just, oh, I just like that. Let me just buy it. If I don't like it, I'll just return it. So I get that part of it too. But yeah, sometimes I just like touching things or, you know, convenience of it.

It's like, oh, I just need something like today. Yes, Amazon can sometimes give you same day deliveries, but I don't know. Something about like. , I can just go get it. Something I just need, like right now, you know? Yeah. It's still still something relevant to me. So unless they can get, create what they call what transponders or teleporters or whatever to get you whatever you need by just saying computer, I need that wrench and just materializes in your hand.

Yeah. We still got long ways before that. . 

Mr Benja: Well, you know, I mean, we talked a little bit about the ghost kitchens. Mm. And you know, online only restaurants where you just, you only can order it online and you have little franchised cooking areas or kitchens that are just often some office complex or something.

And Yeah, they, they send you your food. So, I don't know. It's, it's definitely a different world because I was you know, Not just talking to the older people, but going around. There's like a skate park around the way over here, and it's just like the phone being digital. It's not an option. It's just how kids growing up now interact.

That's that's what they do. That's all they, I mean, that's their first point of contact. 

Theo: You know what I. You are right man. Definitely. I mean, two things to that. You know Mr. Beast right? You know, he's an influencer and he created this Mr. Be burger and just, it's, it's all digital. Right? You know, it's basically doesn't really, I mean I think he may have some locations, I think, but it's mostly all online.

They just ordered and you know, you get order at your local Chili's, right. Or something. . Cause I was there sitting there one time and I saw all these Mr. Be burgers popping up. They say, yeah. We were a Mr. Be Burger place. I'm like, like what's, what's different about the burger? Nothing. Probably nothing. No.

There is no product differentiation beyond the brand. And so, we'll, we'll have a pod on that, just brand specifically on how that differentiates you. But but to your point, you know, I didn't know You know, people were online as much, you know, cause I'm not really online like that. But you know, as someone who's starting to, you know, put his brand out there and doing more of these videos and doing Instagram, you're right man.

People on there all the time. And that's what people are making money. It's like people are always, that's just what they do, you know? Whereas, you know, after a long day I may put on like a, you know, TV show or something on Netflix. People, that's what they do. They just do the doom scrolling, right. And. . Yeah.

That's where people are. And that's, that's how the, the, you know, these, these teenagers you know, and younger, not just younger folks, just a lot of folks, you know, spend their life and, and time. But you know what, I, you know, some studies I was listening to, to these podcasts recently, they talked about that, you know, these teenagers are not happy.

And a big part of that is social media. The comparison. Yeah. Especially young girls, you know? Well, it's, well, it's 

Mr Benja: to, to clarify, I, I actually didn't know what you're talking about. It's not like they're angry, not happy, they're. A little sad. Yes. I don't wanna say, I don't wanna say depressed.

They're, they're, they're missing a certain connection and I'm pretty sure most kids wouldn't know how to define what it is. 

Theo: Yeah, well, you know the instances of car accidents is down, you know, drunk driving is down, but suicide is up. And so that's kind of, to your point, what's happening with this younger generation.

And then they did another study on what makes people happy for the lifetime of the, you know, for the, for the, the length of their life. and it's basically something called social fitness. Basically the people who have strong ties with people that they work out with or do physical things together with.

Mm-hmm. , they tend to live happier, longer lives. And so social media gives you that faux ex, you know, exchange of, Hey, you know, I got a buddy, you know, but are, do you? Yeah. . So, 

Mr Benja: man, and gosh, you know, even to that point, , you and I will connect on like the new Mario Cart trailer came out and we talked about how we played Mario Cart back the day and we'll like text each other and we're like, hahaha.

Mario Cart. But that's between us, right? The kids growing up, now they're being fed. And we talked about the, the graphs of how, how people are connecting. They, they're being fed an interest graph as opposed to a relationship graph. Mm-hmm. You know, so we have a relationship graph where it's like, you know me, you, we both went to Fam u Florida a and m.

We connect with other people who went to FM U and oh, you know that person? Yes. My cousin, da da da. It's a relationship kind of connection. , but you know, marketers, advertisers, and businesses have found that it's more profitable or more beneficial in the long run, which means profitable to business, but it's more beneficial to them to push an interest graph where it's like you're on TikTok, you're not so concerned about knowing the person you're commenting on, or, you know, interacting, creating a long-term friendship with, you know, you know Xbox Gamer dad, you know, 4 57

It's just, it's just like, yeah, jump on his page every once in a while and, and watch him play new games. And then I, because I'm interested in the games he plays. , but it's not like a relationship. It's interest, if that 

Theo: makes any sense. No, it makes perfect sense. Interest is more broader, right? And so you can probably put them in cohorts and you can market them better if you know all their interests.

And cuz we talked about this Netflix's algorithm, right? It's based on interest. And they say, oh, you know, since you like dark dramas with black female leads, you know who who have a dog, right? Here's some other things that you like and it's based on your interest to give you recommendations to kind of keep you in that.

You know, into the ecosystem. Whereas relationship to your point is about, you know, knowing someone and being connected. So you're probably happier, but then, you know, how do you scale that? Right? You, you know, . And so it, it, you know, when you think about marketing, it is really about like, how do you, you know, how do you get the biggest bang for your buck, right?

And I can't scale relationships as well. Now they could be profitable long term in the from a longer. Longer, two larger, you know, like a longer period of time they could be more profitable. But if you want the biggest bang for your buck initially, you know, like a big bang thing mm-hmm. , then you need to kind of hit a broader market and interest will probably hit it.

So, no, I like that. I'll write that down. Mr. Benja. Yeah, I might, I might might use it. use, use it right. Use it. Interest grasp versus relationship graphs. I never thought of it like that. Yeah. 

Mr Benja: You know, on the relationship side, and I guess it, it blends a little with the interest. Had, you know, we were talking about Disney offline, and one of the reasons I stayed on Disney Plus for as long as I did was because me, Andy, Al, and a couple others.

We used to do watch parties. Mm-hmm. for the Mandalorian show, like the first season came out. Yeah. We would actually sit down and do watch parties, but that's not like a technology. They push the, they don't, they don't push for the relationship 

Theo: connections. Good point. Yeah. They push for Netflix. Netflix doesn't either.

They have the same thing. They had the same capability. They don't really that 

Mr Benja: you're right. That stuff is, that stuff is great, man. I love that. Like laughing with your friends while you're watching it. 

Theo: And see, it's better for you, the relationships, right? Because you Oh, it's healthier. Yeah, it's healthier.

Yes. Yeah. Healthier for you to build those, those tighter bonds from a relationship standpoint. But yeah, they just can't monetize it as well. And that's the sad part. Oh my goodness. Wow. We just figured this out, man. Yeah. The interest graphs, I mean, you know, and also they're more broader, and so you could just, you know, compete, you can because if, if someone has interest on this, there's the anti interest, right?

And so now, , you can have engagement because you create en arrangement, right? So you have people who are fighting against each other. En engagement. Yep. Engagement through en arrangement. That's another good one. I'm gonna write that down. Write that down, sir. 

Mr Benja: put a little T on beside it so they know.

Theo: But Yeah, but think about it, they, they use the interest against you, like democrat, Republican, right. You know? Mm-hmm. , or, you know, whatever religious beliefs you have and things like that. I mean, that's, that's an element of it, right? You know, cultural background, black, white, so, You know, they have these kind of ways to kind of keep you engaged because of your interest and, you know, they know what to keep you engaged in.

So, so, yeah, so, so your point digital kind of sucks because it does leverage a lot of these, these algorithms to kind of keep you you know, hooked in longer. And, but you know, to replace those, those analog experiences that we, we've come to build relationships with, right. You talked about, you and I would go.

You know, two-way place, right? We would do something together. We would hang out the mall. We would do then go to the parking lot, you know, and do some parking lot pimping. It was all, you know, in physical kind of interaction, you can do all that. But you know, I may not do it just with you. I might just, you know, I might, you know, do this first part with you, then I go meet someone else, or I'm just having hang here by myself.

I'm just kind of all over the place. Sometimes I'm doing it at the same time. Right. Cuz I'm flip flopping between apps. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like a, it's not linear or it's not like, A story is more kind of like a, it's all jumbled together in my mind when I'm using my phone cuz it's all there. So, I don't know.

It's kind of interesting, man, I think. So let's, let's net this out. Is it a good thing to be digital only or, you know, what are your thoughts? 

Mr Benja: You know what, I, there are very few apps and. Platform developers that are really thinking about the humans first. And you know, Snapchat was one of the better companies at, at doing that.

Mm-hmm. , you know, as, as weird as it seems. But you know, they would, I don't know if you've ever seen a group of people connected on Snapchat that only sends snaps to each other. Mm-hmm. , it's kind of interesting and weird, like, you know, you're, let's say you go to Thanksgiving dinner. . Mm-hmm. . And you get everybody together.

Let's assume we're all on Snapchat. I just make a little boo boo boo boo boo. Put everybody in this Thanksgiving Snapchat group, right? And we started doing snaps and suddenly when you open up Snapchat you can see like basically a miniature version of like TikTok or something that's, you know the Thanksgiving family shenanigans, you know.

Oh, nice. and it's like, and then you're going through the snaps and you're like, wait a minute. Hey, did you see this? Hey Johnny, boy, look at, look at uncle, uncle Johnny. He crazy. Ha ha. It's all just between you guys. And the app is developed to encourage that type of interaction between people. Mm-hmm. , which is really interesting.

And you know, you don't notice these differences. You're just like, well, this app does this and this app does that. But nevertheless, if you're on Twitter, you'll find yourself arguing with random. and on Facebook you find yourself sharing pictures of your family because of the way the apps are set up.

Mm-hmm. 

Theo: No, I think that's, that's, that's a good point. I mean, you know and that, so to your point, some of these apps are really kind of focused in on the relationship piece of it. Like, you know, Snapchat, there's some new ones coming out that's trying to figure out how do you build little tighter bonds with those relationships, and then more importantly, how you monetize it.

and I think, you know, they may have to start charging cuz the advertising model only works best for those interest graphs I think. But yeah, yeah. But I think there's some new model cuz you right, I mean YouTube now is more like tv. You know, Twitter you know's coming as broadcast, you know, all these other, you know, social media, you know are more kind of broadcast mediums.

Now they're not really about building that relationship, but there are some apps that they're building that are really promoting that more relationship angle. 

Mr Benja: And I, I want more of that because, you know, those bonds are, are pretty unbreakable. Like when we've actually had these experiences together. Even if it's like the family Snapchat or you know, the, the people I used to play Diablo with, you know, down in the basement of the computer lab and stuff like that.

But that was like we, we did that in the lab together as people. . So, yeah, I don't know what this means. But I looked up the, the numbers we were talking about earlier, cause I didn't just wanna, I didn't just wanna say kids are doing bad or anything like that, but from the Chicago Sun Times got this article called teen Mental Health is in a Sad State.

Mm-hmm. The Covid Pandemic was rough on everybody. Fear and sorrow were ubiquitous and not just among high school girls. And yeah, it just goes on to. Just goes on to say how, how people, teachers administrators you know, people who talk to people a lot politicians, they're like, yeah, they're there's something really off with how this pandemic and the shut in, closed off nature of digital access is affecting everybody.

And now you're gonna start charging people for that. It's really kind of . 

Theo: Yeah, I think it's one of those things where, you know, they really have to think through how they want to kind of position these type of technology tools, especially for this younger generation. But you know, they said rap was going to.

it rolled us, right? Yeah. When we were growing up, right? Yeah. Know. What was that? What's the intro to th Rubish Bone? These rappers. We, not a rapper. What? How'd it go?

the intro to it too. . Trying to think. But these thugs, yeah, these ths, these rappers. So yeah, so, you know, maybe it's also a little bit of older folks kind of being like, Hey kids, you know, get off my lawn. But but it does seem like, you know, there, there's some, the, the studies are showing that there's this social media stuff is, you know, directly affecting people's mental health because of the algorithms and what they're pushing down our thoughts.

So I don't know if digital only is you know, the, the. Path we wanna go down. But with that being said, do you mind if I. segue into like, you know, a company, some of the companies and you know, how they're kind of flip flopping what, where they wanna go, digital or analog. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mr Benja: And I, I'm gonna wrap it back around to how we started too.

So this will be 

Theo: good. Go ahead. All right, so let's talk about Warner Brothers Discovery. So, you know, this is one of our big themes. We talk about streaming entertainment and business Warner Bus Discovery. You know, it's been going through some changes since they got the new c e O last year. And Look, they're, they're, they got no money, man.

They got tons of debt, 15 billion of debt. streaming ain't working for 'em no more. And so they're all about, you know, how they make money in the real world. And so they're looking at this streaming pile of crap and how they can turn into gold. And one of the just interesting things they're doing is like, take licensing some of their, you know, cool.

Core to the brand of DC and Warner Brothers superheroes like Batman licensing, seeing that to other companies like Amazon. So for the first time ever, you're actually gonna see a new Batman anime show, you know, an on Amazon, right? And it then premiere, you know, from a DC branded kind of content or video or something like that, or, and so that's kinda interesting.

So you. We'll probably see more of that. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be interesting to see anime features from DC show up on Disney Plus, but I could see that happening, , why not? Yeah, so so more to come on that. And then also, you know, they committed to linear cable bus bundles still, which is a dying business because everybody's cutting cable and trying to go to streaming.

But, you know, it's still, it makes so much money. Think about cable, you get paid twice. You get paid for that cable fee that people pay every month for, plus they get paid advertising. So that's why it's such a great business. You get two revenue streams for entertainment, which is unheard of. So whereas in streaming, you only get the, the paid money, or if you go TVs advertising, right?

cable had had both, and so that's why they always were looking to kind of keep cable going and then also removing streaming content. I mean, this is something that you noticed firsthand, Mr. Binger, with your favorite show, Westworld, and how they just took it middle of the night, you know, like a thief in the night, man, you watch episode two and gone just like that and they put it on these two beat, these channels they call what they call fast networks, like free leaner.

as support tv, things like Tubi, where basically you can watch an original show but still, and not pay anything for it, but have to watch commercials, have to not advertising to your pre tier, just there's nothing else but watching commercials. So anyway, so, so that's more to come on though. That's kind of how they're thinking through 

Mr Benja: And, and that's one definitely one of those fields or apps that I, I churn through because if everything's becoming a subscription and we're gonna be all digital, I don't, I don't want, I don't want all these. You know, tethers strapped into me or plugged into, you know, my financial veins sucking money from me.

You know, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, they're all gonna start charging if you want the, the better access. And it's, it's a slow thing, man, but I expect everybody's gonna start doing that, you know? The video game consoles do that in a certain extent with oh wow. With, with their season passe. . Mm.

It's like, you wanna play, you wanna play Fortnite and all these other games with everybody. They're like, yeah, we'll keep the servers up for a year. We'll keep everything running, give you all the support, get to join tournaments, win prizes. But you gotta buy that little card that you see by the, by the checkout desk at, at GameStop or, or Target or wherever you go.

Says like, Hey, you know, season pass, get in on it. Everybody's gonna be playing this. , 

Theo: so interesting. Interesting. Didn't know that. So, yeah, so like I said, it's, yeah, it's a weird world. So let's talk about Disney too. . There was a time when Disney was digital first, so Bob Iger before you know, he left Disney.

One of his big strategic moves was creating streaming service, right? So announced Disney Plus and everybody loved it. Everybody was ready to go. And then when the debuted it, it was huge success. Success, basically 10 million signups on day one. I was one of, tho I was in that number, Mr. Benja, you know what, , I had to get it.

I said, lemme get this, let me like down this year, this year contract. Cuz that's some, that's, you know, they, they promised us the moon. Right. You'll see all the Disney stuff, you know, I think the first day I got it I was like, wow, this, they got ducktails on here. Right. . So I was instantly transported to Yeah, yeah.

Early nineties, right. Remember, you know, afternoons watching uh, ducktails. So yeah, it was awesome man. And matter of fact it was so great. Twitter, everyone saw that it peaked subscriber mania took off, and it dictated roughly about 90% of Disney stock growth because, you know, it was all about streaming at that time.

And yeah, because Netflix was, you know, highflying stock option, and this was reinforced even more so during Covid because. Activist investors were encouraging Disney to, to to lose even money faster. Right. Put more money to streaming. Yeah. Because you know, the, the theory at the time was that if you put more money into streaming, the stock market would get higher, and guess what?

You know, you can leverage that to do whatever you want. look at Netflix, right? Yeah. Yeah. They had billions of dollars of losses for years until they finally were able to turn the faucet on. Kinda like Amazon, you know, the, the, the, so that's the, that's the problem with these, these startups, right? The, the, the, the premise is you just, you, you lose so much money for so long.

So you get enough market, you know? Penetration and then whenever you want to, you just turn the faucet on and you're making so much money is it'll make your head spin. Yeah, very few companies do that can achieve that. Amazon is able to do that. Netflix did it in their market, but typically what I see mostly only happens if you if you're kinda almost like, you know, a big first mover.

I mean, you can be a first mover and still lose, but you have to have a lot of capital and people leaving you more so than your competi. that you're gonna be the winner take all in that market. And so Netflix was able to do that in entertainment business and you know, so now they're wanting to, they're the only streaming company that's profitable because of all those losses for so many years.

Mr Benja: Yeah. Well you know what, it's funny and it was the, the buzz from it too, right? Everybody was just talking about like, yo, the Disney vault, you gonna be able to watch all this and watch all that? Yeah. But they don't have, they don't have a killer new show that I wanna see. They don't have a killer new show actually, dog.

They got the Mandalorian Premier in November 12th, 2019, and everybody lost their minds, you know? Sure 

Theo: did. Sure did. That first episode. You're right, man. It was like one of those, I don't think they knew how, I mean, that's one of the first things that, that kind of shocked Disney. Cause I don't think they knew how big it was going to be.

Yeah. Yeah. Literally. I could remember after Baby Yoda or Goku. Popped up on, on episode one, everybody lost their damn mind, man. And , I went to Disney. I, you know, I had passes, you know, you know, was, was the dad corner, right? You went to the physical Disney, yeah, the physical Disney World and, you know, went around to the stores.

There was no, I mean, it's a Mandalorian merch, but there's no mention about Baby Yoda. And it was around Christmas time too. You like. Man, Disney man, y'all. Y'all, y'all messed up. What happened here? Somebody probably got fired. You said you didn't see this coming. we could have made a billion dollars extra billion 

Mr Benja: actually accepted.

Actually wonder, it feels one of the soft firings where you don't kind of know it's coming and people are in a meeting room and it's like, . All right. So thanks for being going. Well we are lining up our next projects. Rob is gonna be the head. We're gonna have Diane also coming in with the creative, and we're gonna bring us, you know, such and such over here from Imagineering.

It's gonna be great, guys. And then, like, you know, the old guy who's the head of the group is like, Hey you know, Martin I, I was the lead on the last project. You didn't have an assignment for me. Oh. Talk to HR right after this meeting. We're gonna be shuffling some things around a bit. Oh, thank you.

And you're like, . He just kind of like stuck sitting there like, Hey, I have nothing to do. What's going on? Oh 

Theo: man. That happened to, that happened to me once, man. It was, luckily I was on the good side, you know? Spoiler alert man. They literally, you know, said, Hey, okay everybody, we're gonna come to this room.

You, you and you, you go to this other's room and I was like, okay, what's going on, ? And then you sat in the room, you're just sitting there quiet, what's going on? And then the person would come, the other person came in, the, the lead had the HR person. She said, okay, everyone we've had some riffs. But everyone in this room is safe , and you like, oh geez, man.

So you just had moved your finger to the left a little bit longer. You didn't know which room was safe, you know, you could have been in the wrong room, didn't even know it. So yeah, man, I agree. Those are some interesting times. But yeah, so Disney you know, so they were all about digital. What happened?

Like all things, so Disney's a unique case, cuz I think it's one of the few streaming companies, entertainment companies that can understand analog too, right? Because they're known for their parks and cruises and their experiences, right? So when. Wall Street came call in 2022 and said, Hey, you know what?

I don't think streaming works as the business and Netflix start losing half his value, less, less than a month. Everybody was like, what the hell's going on? Streaming's not popular anymore. And that was exactly right. And so it's so funny that you know. all, everything. And Disney was prepared. Again, they had lost a lot of money in theaters.

Remember they were moving all their movies into the streaming. But then now this last quarter, they had two big successes with Kanda forever. And because they bought Fox Avatar. Mm-hmm. way of water. Yeah. And so now they're like, you know, killing it, the theater. Right. Which is all about what people wanna do, go back to the movies and, and they're talking about creating sequels to all the great hits.

Yeah. Like Frozen Zootopia Toy Story. , 

Mr Benja: I guess now since we're talking about the theaters and, you know, real quote versus digital. , are the theaters back or you know, are we talking about just the blockbusters or what are we looking at? You 

Theo: know what, it's funny man. We went to my family, I went to a movie last night.

We went to go see Creed three. And so it was pretty packed. And then it was like, matter of fact, creed three premiered last and you know, obviously it's got John the majors in it who's, you know, playing big part in the MCU right now. It's King. And then Michael B. Jordan, you know, up and coming guy, been around for a while and you.

Legacy IP with Rocky, but now it's called Creed. So it, it's, you know, but it was the biggest opening for a sports movie of all time. I think it was like 60, 60 million or something like that. Nice. And so that was unheard of. So, and this is the third. , there's a third movie in the trilogy. And then, so now this week they have Scream Six coming out.

They got Jenny Ortega and that, who's getting, you know, big push because of Wednesday. Then they got this dinosaur movie with Adam, Adam driver, you know, killing Dinosaurs called 65 million or 65. Yeah. And so, so it's like, wait a minute, our movie's back . 

Mr Benja: Yeah, they should, they should've, if they called that Turk, they would've made a lot, lot more money.

Oh, I knew it was coming. Tur, rock Turk, dinosaur Hunter. I don't, they dropped the ball on that one. Dumb mess. Well, did 

Theo: you see predators? I mean, no pray. Did you watch, did you watch, pray on Hulu? 

Mr Benja: Pre was okay. I, you know, not 

Theo: that kinda, that turac, that's a turac vibe, 

Mr Benja: right? Yeah, I guess so. You know, it works.

It works. Turac, the Dinosaur Hunter. If anybody wants a script, I'll whip one up for you. 

Theo: Matter of fact, you have one right here, right? ? Yes. 

Mr Benja: If you like that. I've got Shadowman as well. So don't trip. Don't 

Theo: trip . So anyway, so theaters are coming back and Disney's killing it in that experience. And then meanwhile you know, Disney is still kind of thinking that.

they want to even go down a path of theaters more, right? They, they wanna put more movies in the theaters. So I think they're kind of, kind of weighing the fence. And someone, one of the articles I've been reading is like, maybe Disney should buy a theater or, you know, a theater chain, right? Because they have Fox, they have that content from Fox.

Fox Searchlight is their kind like this prestig. Oscar bait. And then they have you know, of course all the Disney and the Marvel Pixar stuff star Wars. God forbid we, I sent you a, a post about this. Mr. Benja. Can you believe we have not, we don't even have a sniff of a Star Wars movie. I know you, you, you talked to those guys over a pods card, your man and some other pods, man.

What, what is going on with Star Wars? Man? Why do we have a movie? They just announced like this week the Kevin Figge movie is kaput. The Patty Jenkins one, we knew Rogue Squadron, that's dead. They said maybe the taco at TV one is coming, but what is going on? Man, this is unheard of. How do we not have a Star Wars film in over five 

Mr Benja: years?

And, you know, that's, it's a shame, man. And, and maybe they're taking that, you know, commercial route. And I mean that in terms of like an advertisement route where it's going to come off of the Mandalorian. I heard some rumblings about that, where it's like, you know what? , this is our best starting point.

Let's rewind a little bit and do everything from that direction, but that's a totally unfounded internet thing. I don't know who's been talking to who in whatever cafe on Sunset Boulevard, but , 

Theo: I mean, it wouldn't be a bad premise. Maybe really going back to, you know, It's all about mandalore now. Right.

You know, seeing that actually happen and what happened there if they don't do a flashback on a TV show. I guess, I mean, you know, I guess that's, that's the challenge. You know, star Wars has always been about the Skywalkers. Right. And so how do you, I mean, but, and or got the prestige of treatment, right.

Recently Prestige. Yeah. 

Mr Benja: A lot of people thought it was, you know, dry as the Sahara. Aw. 

Theo: What'd you think of it? I did. We, I think we talked about it. We, we 

Mr Benja: talked about it. I. Highly, highly respected . 

Theo: That's like, that's like the girl in airport was like, oh yeah. How, how's the date with her? Oh man. Oh, oh bitch.

She's so smart. I highly respect her. Were you gonna date her again? Hell 

Mr Benja: no. It was, it was a. I had to act. I don't always want to think about Star Wars . I just want to get in there and be like, pew, Jerome you know, ah, somebody's screaming and falling, and I'm like, all right. Cool. That was great. All right.

What's up next? You know, I wanna be able to 

Theo: bumping their heads. , 

Mr Benja: I, I wanna be able to watch it drunk, right. And just be happy and, or it is kind of, , I needed to stop simplifying wine, you know, put, put my, put one leg over the other and just kind of, Hmm. Lean forward. 

Theo: in that thinker pose, huh? ? 

Mr Benja: Yes. It was definitely lean in TV if you're talking about that.

Yes, it was. But you know, you make a good point with the, the, you know, Disney parks and, you know, you're talking about that still being their, or more of their focus, you know, pushing back a little more and like, Hey You know, the parks are still a big focus. And how is how is that Star Wars resort doing by.

Theo: Oh, you know what? Just an article about this. Not well. Oh, . I mean, it's $5,000, I think roughly for a family of four, for like three nights, I think. And That's expensive. Especially during a, you know, pseudo. Procession, right. I would like to go, I, my niece who works there, she, she visited, she says it's great, you know, it's an interactive experience, you know, you kind of create, they create character for you and all this other stuff.

So, yeah. But yeah, it looks like they're not, they're not booking as many and so they're gonna slow it down. But I tell you what is taken off, the parks have busy than ever been. I mean, I'm like, man, and they actually went up on their annual pass holder's passes a little bit. Disney Genie went up too.

So Jeanie, Jeanie was their big, you know, even though people got check a hard time about it, Igar kept it though because it's making money. Yeah. Is basically the way that the new fast pass system where you get, you know, head of the line a little bit faster, but now you pay for it. Yeah. So, so yeah, they're making money handover fist.

Matter of fact I put it in our notes. I show notes, so, Disney Parks experiencing products. In 2020 when everything was dying they made less than a billion dollars, right. In all the parks and, and everything. And consumer products, matter of fact they made one point 0.9 900 million in the parks, but they made more money in consumer product, you know, which is 1.3 billion.

Yeah. But 2021, you know, starting to come back, you know, and then, you know, be honest with you, Florida never shut down. 3.5 billion. And then last year, $5 billion. And this is all revenue. What that came in? Yes. 

Mr Benja: That's like a five x in two years, three years. 

Theo: Well, it kind makes sense, man. Pent up demand, man.

You, you'd be surprised. I mean, Disney, you know, is like Disney World, Disneyland. Yeah. Yeah. Think about us. I mean, we did when we were younger. I mean, Disneyland, I'm sure you went, you told me a couple times. It's like you do that. I mean, matter of fact, I know. Two of my business partners and three of my employees are going to Disney World for spring break.

Mr Benja: Yeah. So the, the surprising part isn't that people are going, to me, the surprising part was like, how much is, is money is being funneled over there. So 

Theo: man, well, and then, you know, it is a function of volume number one, and then also price hikes, right? So you got both. You're gonna accelerate a lot faster.

The volume is unheard of. I mean, it's ridiculous how many people are showing up for these things. It's crazy. Yeah. So anyway, they're making money handover fist. 

Mr Benja: Nice. So I was oh yeah, I said I was gonna wrap it back around to what we started with. So I, the reason I was on the Tallahassee Mall kick was was because, you know, I used to go to put putt golf and, you know, behind the mall and the AMC theaters when they put it in and everything, it was all, it was all great.

Right. Random internet search. I was like, what's going on with the Tallahassee Mall? One of the first links that came up was dead malls.com. Oh, no. And they keep track of malls that are dying dead or getting renovated. And I have this, I, I was looking at what's been happening to the malls. Well, over the past decade or past several years, malls have been doing this, if not dying.

They've been transforming into these different type of centers. Where some of them have become like Amazon warehouse hubs, you know, where, you know, half of it's like this little warehousing operation where they can send stuff out of to different stores. Some of them have become more like Entertainment centers.

Mm-hmm. , where you put in like a, a skate park. Yeah. Where you put in a, a literal park, you know what I mean? Like trees and stuff. You just chop up half the mall. It's like , 

Theo: just experience mall. Just come here in half experiences. Yeah, exactly. 

Mr Benja: But the Tallahassee Mall is gonna go to an outdoor format where, you know, they basically chop, chop off the ceiling, save on ac cost.

you know, you still have some restaurants and things. Part of it turns into an office park and you know, you've got, it's just a, a new type of experience. And one of the craziest ones I've heard of which, which, which is pretty cool, is turning it part of your mall into an actual apartment complex. Mm-hmm.

So, and this is what I was thinking about, you know, with the Disney kind of thing, where it's a resort, well now you can have an apartment complex or in Talli Mall's case, a large part of it's gonna be a. So it's gonna be a hotel with this, all these connected areas and stores as part of it. So, I don't know.

I've never thought about living in a large, glorified strip mall with its own park, but that's what, what's happening now. 

Theo: No, that's a good point. Yeah, I've been down to D T L A, downtown LA and you know that center mm-hmm. And you got all these different places. And so I think that's a new mall.

You're right. I mean, they have something in here in Tampa called Amateur Works. They have something in Atlanta where it's like a food course slash They got what's it called? Can't remember the name of it. PON City Market. where you go and you just hang out and they've got like, you know, food, they got like clothes, they got little, you know, bars and stuff.

So I think that's the way this is going. Right? It's not so much, you're still gonna have a place where people shop and, you know, get together. Mm-hmm. . But it's not gonna be like the traditional malls that we know. But, so , but you know, then they're gonna have some ways where, some places where you can take pictures and do your selfie, right for the, for the gram.

So a mix of both, right? The, the, the, the, the digital and the live. I think that's kind of where everything's going for the future. So 

Mr Benja: all I'm saying is I wanna, I wanna live in a shopping mall that has an Amazon locker in it. And, and, and the Netflix and the Netflix theater, which they've been talking about for the 

Theo: longest.

Hey, good point, man. Hey, that's the where it's going, man. So, holy crap. 

Mr Benja: I didn't, I didn't even think about all these little connections we could start making where it's like if you got your, your Whole Foods, Amazon owns the mall or something, they've got their distribution center. You just walk downstairs.

You don't do, you know the Amazon Go thing where you don't? Take out your phone or wallet or anything. You just walk through. You just walk in, walk out, walk out with the product, walk, walk back up to your Amazon owned apartment, and then early in the morning you hear the Amazon trucks leaving. It's like, that's beautiful.

I love it. , 

Theo: welcome to the future, right . 

Mr Benja: I live in this digital dystopian blog sphere, 

Theo: the dystopian, and then with your, you know, Oculus while you're walking around in the Metaverse, right? , yes. NFTs. So yes. This, this is the future we are building guys. It's gonna be interesting. Well, Mr. Benja, man, I think this is a good, this is a good pod, man.

Anything interesting popping up, coming up for you this next week or so? Nah, 

Mr Benja: man, I just I just talked all the crap about Scott Adams and where he messed up on my podcast, so I got more of that coming up. Not Scott Adams, but more podcast ish talking. He gave me some ideas though, so I'm gonna 

Theo: use 'em.

I love it, man. Yeah, keep doing it, man. Same here, man. Spring break for me. So it might hit the beach a little bit later this week with the kids kiddos, but man, just trying to get some more content out there. Trying to get these eBooks, you know, getting ready for Q1 is almost up here, so we're trying to take it to the next level with the business.

But you know, but I'm really enjoying, you know, just trying to build a presence on internet. Just trying to, seeing what's gonna resonate with folks and building my own little audience over time. So it's kind of cool. You get a little. Comments here and there and say, okay, I'll respond . Guess you a follower now.

So, you know, I got, I got, I got some, I got some, I got some knowledge. I got some knowledge I can share. Thanks. So so we'll see how it goes over time, man, but enjoying it. Well, hey guys thanks for listening. Look, if you like what you heard, please like, subscribe and comment at SREs. On Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Wanna check us out online? Go visit our website at show versus Business. All Mr. Benja. Have a great one. Peace.