The guys, @mrbenja and @the_real_theo_harvey, discuss about the new GTA VI trailer and the Culture of Rockstar Games, AI Watch: is AI still taking jobs? Podcast doesn’t make much money but you should start one anyways, Woke Negro Explains Why Woke Storytelling Doesn’t Work, and Double Barrel Rant: Social Media Is Doing Things.
Story Number 1 - 22:30
Story Number 2 - 35:04
Story Number 3 - 43:03
Story Number 4 - 48:46
Story Number 5 - 54:41
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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.
----------
Follow us on Instagram - https://instagram.com/show_vs_business
Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/showvsbusiness
Like us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShowVsBusiness
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuwni8la5WRGj25uqjbRwdQ/featured
Follow Theo on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@therealtheoharvey
Follow Mr.Benja on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BenjaminJohnsonakaMrBenja
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The guys, @mrbenja and @the_real_theo_harvey, discuss about the new GTA VI trailer and the Culture of Rockstar Games, AI Watch: is AI still taking jobs? Podcast doesn’t make much money but you should start one anyways, Woke Negro Explains Why Woke Storytelling Doesn’t Work, and Double Barrel Rant: Social Media Is Doing Things.
Story Number 1 - 22:30
Story Number 2 - 35:04
Story Number 3 - 43:03
Story Number 4 - 48:46
Story Number 5 - 54:41
----------
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.
----------
Follow us on Instagram - https://instagram.com/show_vs_business
Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/showvsbusiness
Like us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ShowVsBusiness
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuwni8la5WRGj25uqjbRwdQ/featured
Follow Theo on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@therealtheoharvey
Follow Mr.Benja on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BenjaminJohnsonakaMrBenja
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Theo Harvey: This is show versus business. Your weekly take on pop culture from two very different perspectives. The host, the real Theo Harvey and Mr. Benja come with all the relevant info about the week in pop culture. So Mr. Benja, what are we covering today?
Mr.Benja: What's up, Theo? How you doing, man? We have five awesome stories for you as we usually.
Do first of all, the GTA six trailer has come out. People have been going gaga over it. People have been making memes. People have been cutting and dissecting it. And we're here to talk about not only GTA six, but a little bit of the legacy. And I'm going to throw in some of my rockstar experience in there for you in the know.
I used to work at rockstar games. It was an awesome time. I'll tell you some, a little bit about that. Also, we're going to check in with our AI watch. As we always do. AI is still taking jobs. Some people would like to say. No, they're not taking jobs. They're taking jobs. And we're going to show you a very interesting case where sports illustrated tried to pass off some articles that were written by a supposed real person.
And it wasn't even a real person in the article wasn't real. And now you can't find it anywhere. And they're totally denying it. It's stupid, but it's actually happening out there. And another story, podcasts don't actually make that much money, but. You should make one anyway. Why is that? Why are people leaning so hard in the podcast?
Why are they still putting all of this energy in the podcasting? We've got a surprising not terribly surprising answer for you, but it's not the same as radio, not the same as TV, not the same as streaming. Podcasting has its own little weird niche that we're going to talk about and get into and.
Possibly why we continue doing it. Also I didn't know what to title this one. Theo and I went back and forth on titles. But, I want to say it here. Let's see. Woke Negro explains why woke storytelling doesn't work. wHich one of us is the woke negro? Possibly both of us, but we'll get into why woke storytelling doesn't work.
We're going to call it Go Woke or Go Broke, but that sounded a little too, I don't know, but that's going to be our topic. Basically a lot of discussions with Disney, Bob Iger, how stories are coming across in the marvels, in the whole Disney camp with the way they've been putting out their stories Snow White, Little Mermaid.
You've heard all these discussions before. And we think there's something that is being missed on a very large scale. And we're going to talk about it in a woke way. So don't sleep on that one. Also, we've got a double barrel rant to round out the stories. Social media is doing things. If you haven't noticed, the social media landscape has been changing.
We've talked about this a little bit before, but we're going to rant on it. We've got TikTok. We got Snapchat. We got Facebook. We got Instagram. We got threads. We got. Linked in and we got spill fan base, whatever else you might decide my boy Ryan hit me up talking about. Hey, I need to get over on Mastodon and get in this discussion.
I was like, ah, not doing it too much. So we got things to talk about with social media and what it's doing and what it's not doing because the landscape is changing. If you haven't noticed, We've got some insights on it to show you. So Theo, I think those are going to do it for our five stories. How does that sound to you?
Theo Harvey: Yeah, I'm super excited to get into it as always. Got some great ideas and thoughts, but you know what, before we get into all that, Mr. Benja, are you a Godzilla fan?
Mr.Benja: I Am a Godzilla fan. Yeah, I do. I like Godzilla. I like Godzilla as a concept. Some of the stuff that's been coming out lately, I haven't been terribly excited about, but yeah, I like Godzilla.
Theo Harvey: As a record company, as a whole crew, yeah Godzilla as a concept, the image, the product, all that, yeah. I wasn't really a big Godzilla fan, Mr. Benja. I like a good Marston movie like anyone else. I remember those old movies back in the day, watching them on Saturday mornings with my brothers and sisters and, being, Oh yeah, that's Godzilla.
Cool. It's a guy in a rubber suit playing with toy planes.
Mr.Benja: WaIt. You didn't like the ones back in the past? No,
Theo Harvey: They were cool. Let me just say this. They were cool for what they were when I was a kid, just like wrestling, you watch it on a Saturday morning and they had those old Godzilla black and white.
Shows are pop up Godzilla. And you know what? To be fair, there was a moment. See, now we're going to show our age. Mr. Benja, you remember those Saturday morning? They would get you so hype because it was going to be in 3d and you had to get these special glasses, right? It was going to be Godzilla versus Martha or Godzilla versus, whatever.
And you had to get these special 3D glasses to watch it on your crappy. If you guys don't know, we didn't have flat screen TVs back in the day. So they were just regular television sets that you saw your grandma have. And we would get so excited. We're gonna watch Godzilla in 3D. So to your point, I was a fan just like all eight year olds, ten year olds, right back then.
So I remember that. And then of course, in the nineties, they try to bring it back in big screen TV, but, to mix results and they brought it back, just been what movie at the movie, Godzilla. I think I've seen all of them and bits and pieces, but wasn't too overly impressed. So when this new movie came out, Godzilla minus one, right?
I just I wonder what we'll watch a movie. That's just what I do. I say, Hey, I need to just. Shut my brain down. It was my birthday week. I said, I just need a day, just to go out and go watch something that shut my brain out in the middle of the day. And I was debating between that and the Ballad of Songbird and the what's it called?
The shoot, I'm drawing a blank of it, but the book series, right? The Young Adventures. And I was like, I don't want to see that. I heard mixed reviews on it, but this Godzilla might as one is getting a lot of good reviews and I guess I'll go watch it. Mr. Benja, this is top five movies of the year, Mr.
Benja. And it blew my mind. I
Mr.Benja: didn't want to go see a movie today. I might have to get up and do it.
Theo Harvey: I text you. I text you. You remember I said, Mr. Benja. I don't, I don't put praise out for movies often, but when I do, you better take it to the bank, bro. I was, it shouldn't have worked.
Obviously it was is directly from Japan. A lot of subtitles, but I was like, oh, it's going to be a lot of reading and all that. But man, I was the story that the human story was just fascinating and it all made sense, man. I don't want to spoil it for, those who haven't seen it yet, but let's just say the themes of what it means to for honor for your country, to be a family, to survival war because it was set.
I can tell you that it's set literally after World War Two. And so now Japan is trying to rebuild itself and get in and be a country again. And so now you have these three broken people trying to put their lives together in this environment. And then now you got Godzilla. So it's like a metaphor for even as you're trying to rebuild and be better.
There's still going to be conflict coming towards you and it just blew my mind, man. And I found myself getting emotional, man. At the end, I was like, this is good. It's getting a little blurry in here. So you probably seen the reviews. A lot of folks have been saying a lot of great things about this, but yeah, I was.
Pleasantly pleased and it gave me hope for cinema again. Always just what I'm always giving up, man. There's always one movie a year that just gives me hope, man. Gives me
hope.
Mr.Benja: Take note Godzilla providing hope for high cinema. Let me call Scorsese,
Theo Harvey: And I was thinking of that. So why is this working?
Because I think a lot of times, I can name on my hands, like movies that surprised me. SnOwpiercer. I was amazed by that. When I first saw it, of course the book of Eli with Denzel Washington, so it's like movies that just you go in there, low expectations and it's a passive, right?
And the more recent one, Parasite, right? I was just like her good things. We'll see. So I think it's a mix of definitely having low expectations. You shouldn't have sky high expectations for some of these movies. And then the second thing, and a lot of times I don't, and I'm still, I'm like, okay, blue beetle didn't have high expectations.
Pleasantly surprised. Was it a top five movie? No, right? But I was pleasantly surprised. But then, so that's number one. And number two is if you're going to riff off something that's known, like Godzilla, you gotta play the hits. You're gonna see Godzilla. Do his hey, you not spoiling are you?
You don't see Godzilla? I'm not spoiling man. Come on. Godzilla does what Godzilla does, man. He stomps and he throws his blast. You gonna see that? Oh my gosh.
Mr.Benja: Come on. I, God, why'd you see that? How dare
Theo Harvey: you? He go, you wanna see that? So you going to see that? But then they mix it in. With something that you didn't see coming and that's what makes movies.
I think great. And that's why I'm hyping it up. So anyway that's my recommendation. Theo's industry recommendation to go check out.
Mr.Benja: You can also recommend it obliterated on Netflix why did I turn that on, man? I turned that on because you
Theo Harvey: said I just said, did I recommend it?
Did I recommend it or I said it was decent? I told you, I gave you fair warning. Ha!
Mr.Benja: My dog! oh. I did, what? I just didn't know what was, I was like, It's, it's funny, I put it on and I was like Oh, man, I am. I am not stoned enough for this. I had no recreational drugs around. But I was doing stuff and I kept it on and there were parts where it made me laugh and For some reason, I was just like, why just why
it's not bad, but it's that Netflix quality of something just raunchy, mad calf, loud guns, exploding things happening jokes. Yes. And the raunchy part had me chuckling my. My 19 year old self was cracking the hell up. buT I want to tell you, it actually got better when I turned it to 1. 5 speed, which is wild.
When, when they do the slow pan on the face after a dick joke, it's like, when you 5 speed, it all looks this really fast Charlie Chaplin, stuff's exploding.
Theo Harvey: So I take it, it was mildly pleasant, do you have a scale, Mr. Benja scale of movies and TV shows, where does that fit on your scale?
Mr.Benja: So I generally have a six point scale. There is no middle ground. There's three below and three above. So I use a six point scale. This definitely. It somehow, miraculously, lands at both number two and number five at the same time. At the same damn time. It's like this quantum split of terrible number two and you need to see this number five.
I think it may be You know, one is with drugs and one is with that. Not out, but I don't know.
Theo Harvey: It exists at the same place in time at the
Mr.Benja: same time. Yes. Different points in the same time. Yes.
Theo Harvey: That's all right. That's about right. Mr. Benji. That's
Mr.Benja: about right. But it wasn't a Christmas movie and you said you had some Christmas ones.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. Since we're on the topic of crappy, Netflix, pseudo crappy Netflix movies. Yeah, I just had a couple bad experiences with some Netflix movies. There was this one called the Switcheroo. It was basically a family switch comedy kinda Freaky Friday but everybody in the family switches places and it's the holidays, right?
Sure. Man, it kids liked it. Mildly amusing. Man, it's just too much going on. And then the CGI was just terrible. Not to spoil too much, but they had the baby doing crazy things. And it was like, they could have spent at least an hour more just to make that CGI just a little bit more believable.
They just didn't care. They just didn't care. And and it shows. And yeah, it was that. And then this, they're not really Netflix movies, but they're along the same lines. What was the Ludacris and Lil Rel movie about Santa Claus? Oh, that was terrible. That was terrible.
Mr.Benja: I'll tell you a real quick story.
I remember I was working at a, of working on this game. We didn't, we weren't spending very much time on it. And I was thinking to myself. I'm going to make this better. It was me and two other two artists were like working yeah, I'm going to make this better. And I remember one of the producers was hanging out at the studio.
For some reason, he wasn't working either there for some reason, though. He walks by the computer. And the guy's hold on. I'm just going to make this one part better. He went over there and turned off his monitor. It's it won't make the game better. It will make you feel worse. He just turned off his monitor and kept walking.
And I was like, wow. Okay. That's the cue to go home.
Theo Harvey: So there it is. There it is. I think that's what it was. So yeah, that and there's some other I think Candy Lane is some Eddie Murphy Christmas movie on Amazon Prime trash. The kids liked it though. And then the ludicrous little real Christmas movie about Santa Claus.
Yeah, it's just, I don't know, Mr Benja. This is early December when we're recording this. I don't have hope. For the rest of the new traditions of Christmas movies that are coming out now we have our old classics, right? Home Alone and what's it the what's the one the Christmas story, things like that.
But these new generation elf, that's pretty decent, but that's all I know. Don't do that. Don't do it to yourself. Don't do it not gonna be able to do it son. So yeah, anyway, that's all I got. Mr. Ben. Just stay away from crappy Christmas Streaming movies. That's my recommendation. All
Mr.Benja: right. I'll try to do that.
But yeah, I think last week I remember I mentioned I was going to Release the podcast, right? Yes, I sat down did some recording got it out of my system and was like, you know what? It's not enough. Oh, it's not enough I'm hitting it harder. So I think I'm going to go with a much, you remember how I did the Instagram joints where I was on there pretty much every weeknight?
Yeah. I may be jumping back on that train with this new format, this new podcast all connected in the threads. So I'm going to be hitting them up pretty much every day. Content, banging banging. Like Grant Cardone said, Hey man, go big and then go bigger.
So that's what's up. That's what's up with me for this week. And oh yeah, I secret project. I'll mention to you after the podcast is over, but secret
Theo Harvey: guys going good. It's going good. Yeah. Show versus business after dark.
Wait a minute. Show versus business.
Mr.Benja: Kids don't know about that era.
Theo Harvey: I love it. I love it. No, man, Mr. Benja. Oh, real quick on my tip. We always talk about our development. Yeah, just going through Dr. Benjamin's heart is, of course, right now we're in fifth week, powerful stuff, man. It's just really helping me raise my floor. And, he talks about your floor is really who you are.
So what you accept, and that's really eliminating that 80%. It's hard, it's hard because you used to doing certain things, but the more you get clear and clear on your future self and understand what that 20 percent is. Then you have to start getting rid of the 80%. And so I'm learning that more and more because that's who your character is.
Yes. Your aspiration and who you want to be is 20%, but who you really are is, what you accept and what you're, and I appreciate you. Earlier today, as we record these podcasts, you mentioned in so many words, Hey, you said X, Y, and Z and I did. And so you held me accountable. So I appreciate Mr.
Benja. So I just want to give you a shout out and say, Hey, I love it. This is what we're going to do going forward. Keep each other accountable and stay focused and keep that floor high so we can keep developing ourselves into the next level.
Mr.Benja: All right. I'm going to, Hey, I want to show something to you.
You just reminded me of something and it's poignant and awesome. So I'm going to turn off my camera for half a second. Say something awesome about your 20 percent focus, because I got to get some, I got to get a visual aid to show you.
Theo Harvey: Mr. Bidja with the visual aid. I love it. I love it. This is new guys for us, but the 20 percent is so key and really getting clear on that, if you can see it, sense it, feel it, then it becomes more real.
Because almost even realer than your normal self. And so it's really powerful kind of understanding of that. And that's really what I've been learning more and more about that 20%. And it's funny. It's Dr. Benjamin Hardy talks about these that look really your skills and what you are, what your skills doesn't matter.
Your care, what you want to become is what matters. And then you're built with skills to get to that point. And so it's just blowing my mind on that 20%. But what's the visual cue? I'm excited.
Mr.Benja: A long time ago, I got on this this kick and I forgot where I got it from, but it was in late high school.
It bled into some of my college area era where you, I figured out that, and my mom had something to do with this too. She was like, you can't just stop doing something. You need to find something else to do, channel your energy in a proper way. aNd I remember somebody said what I was doing was silly and she's Hey, leave him alone.
He's doing this and at least he's not doing that or something else, right? Had to do with games and technology. She's leave him alone. He's not out in the streets. He's doing this and he's focusing on this and whatever. Total.
Theo Harvey: It could have been the streets y'all been could be in the streets, bro.
Mr.Benja: Weren't for that dang super Nintendo. But basically I carried that thought and I carried that information into the current era. And we've been talking about Dr. Benjamin Hardy, the 80, 20 focusing 10 X go big Grant Cardone, et cetera. And. One thing I was doing was, I remember I'd have situations where I got really hurt or really tired, worked up, frustrated.
I'm like, this isn't moving the way I want it to. I don't have this creative boost. And then when I got a little bit of a gain, I would go Or too much of a loss. I would go 40 worth of sushi, have some sake and be just like, this is great. I would basically blow four hours, going to the restaurant, waiting, hanging out with people or whatever, then going back to what I was doing.
I couldn't really get back in the zone after that. So I'd end up probably watching TV and that'd be a whole afternoon, evening, pretty much blown. And I didn't need to do that. But I couldn't get out of that loop. So I was shopping one day and I saw a little stand and said, Hey, look, that's an awesome little hot wheels car.
And I said to myself, you know what? I'm going to get that one. This is the gold Batmobile right here. And I decided to pick it up and I got it as a marker of time where I know people who do this with paintings and outfits and things where they say, I got this something happened.
Awesome. And this was me recognizing I have a superpower in my drive. My drive is a superpower. So I'm going to pick up a Hot Wheels car every time I make an awesome. Little adjustment in my mind. I make a step forward and there are thousands of Hot Wheels cars So I don't see this running out anytime soon This car is a representation of my drive and my thinking at that moment.
I have a little journal I wrote down why I bought this car. It's gonna sit on my shelf and It's gonna make me remember that time and it will save me. Let's see. This cost me like two bucks Instead of 50 bucks, I'll save 48, I'll have a car, and I'll have the rest of the day to actually feel good about myself and do whatever the hell I want, but not indulging sushi and sake and wasting the whole day.
Silly little thing, but I
Theo Harvey: love it, Mr. Benja. Thanks for sharing that. Man, that's a deep insight. I haven't heard any guru say anything like that. And I think that's you. You're uncovering your unlocks, right? I'm trying to uncover my unlocks. You can listen to the gurus all you want, but ultimately is what's going to work for you.
And that, that could help someone that's listening to this right now to say, that's a clear physical marker. I need that. I may try that. Because to your point, you get some momentum and then you're like, Oh okay. I figured out this. Now let me go. Take some time, relax. No, you need to stay back in the zone.
So maybe you're right. Just get a simple marker, celebrated for like that, whatever long it takes to do that and get back to work. And that might help folks to continue the momentum to greatness. So I love that. Thanks for sharing that.
Mr.Benja: Yeah the celebration thing. Hormosy is big on that and a couple others are big on the Celebrate, enjoy, and keep moving.
The keep moving part was what was slowing me down. So yeah,
Theo Harvey: that's tough. I'm the same way You know, it's like sometimes you like, oh I got his momentum. Okay, I think I know how to do this now You know, sometimes the deep thought the deep work that you're doing just trying to figure it all out and you get the breakthrough Okay, good.
Let me go break now. I'll come back to it. But then, yeah, what was I thinking again? So yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. Mr. Benjamin. That's definitely insightful
Mr.Benja: for those wondering. I do open up my packages. So He
Theo Harvey: opened up the value just went down
Mr.Benja: It's my drive in physical form. All right. I love it. Sorry about that. Had to jump in and interject that. People are like, Oh my gosh, when are they going to start talking about the stuff? The awesome stuff. Go
Theo Harvey: to our YouTube channel. Go to our YouTube channel. You'll see all that stuff. Short form. This is for the true
Mr.Benja: believers.
That's right. Which leads us into story number one, GTA six trailer just got released and the internet's going wild. This is possibly the introduction of, no, I will almost certainly say this is going to be the introduction of the biggest media product ever in terms of scale, scope, cost anticipation.
Theo, I've got so much to say about this, but basically they released a trailer. Rockstar games. It's a continuation of their Grand Theft Auto series. Obviously, it's the sixth one sixth major one they've had other titles along the way and It smashed a YouTube record and has the most views of any launch trailer to date.
And it's got a, it's been four days now, and I think it's got 128 million views, racked up a gang of views in the first 24 hours. Everybody was talking about the graphic fidelity, the fact that they got a, some people still haven't gotten a PS5 after all this time. They're going to go get one now. It's blowing up the news waves.
I don't know. Have you seen this trailer? I have
Theo Harvey: Mr. Benja. I have. I even featured it on my social media as well because of the excitement around this game, Mr. Benja. For me, let's just, I'll just talk about me. I know you have so much to talk about as We have a celebrity guest here, Mr.
Benja, who actually worked on Grand Theft Auto games in his heyday. So
Mr.Benja: Red Dead Redemption, I've worked at Rockstar Red Dead Redemption. I never worked on
Theo Harvey: it. You never worked on it, but you were adjacent to it. And so it's close enough. Then I'm sure 99. 99 percent of our audience, close than they ever get to development of.
Grand Theft Auto, but I will just say this though on my side. Yeah, the introduction just like anyone else. It's been around. I didn't know since, 1997 Grand Theft Auto one, but, GTA three was the one that just, blew everybody away. Just the world building, it's almost like a.
You could pretty much do anything because you're a criminal basically, right? And so you could do all the worst impulses were bled into that game. And then it would really open a lot of young men's ideas and mindsets of wow, what's possible and the freedom you can achieve in a game play.
And so I Topped out at Grand Theft Auto three, but I'm sure the other ones four or five and now six, blowing people away, but it was just a fun game to play and do different things and just find a little Easter eggs and different places you can go in the city. And so it was one of those things that just is a hallmark.
And so I think probably one of the reasons why I blew up, it came out with over 25 years ago, 26 years to the date is almost like a nostalgia play. You have folks our age, and older. who played it, remember playing it? They got kids, the kids played the other versions. And so now everybody's super excited about a game that, let's be honest is basically getting to the fabric and the more fabric of, just almost what's that wish fulfillment, right?
If I could just do anything and don't care, no consequences, I would love to do it. So yeah, Mr. Benja, that's just, an outsider's take on it. What are your thoughts on it? From a business standpoint, real quick and I'll let you get into it, but yeah, that was 7.
7 billion. Grand Theft Auto five. The revenue comes from sales over 180 million units of the game. The game makes approximately 1 billion per year. Just the previous, so it's almost like it prints money, for the game, company, the is it still rockstar is a different game developer.
So it's almost like the on giving. So this new ve Turn heads and be a blockbuster, but yeah, mr. Benja. What are your thoughts on this in general and high level?
Mr.Benja: High level this is it's like the video game art project that just keeps getting bigger and bigger You know the first game they were it was top down.
It was 2d. It was almost thrown away they were trying to make a police game where you chase bad guys around and they realize no, it's better if You're just going around doing whatever you want because that's what people were doing at the police anyway They were driving around doing whatever they want.
So before the first game got released, it's hey let's switch sides and just have us doing random missions And it got it went from there and it just kept growing and it's hey, wait a minute. What if I couldn't, if I could just steal an ambulance, what if I could actually pick up sick people while I'm in an ambulance and the what ifs kept on building and building on top of each other and it's become such a social phenomenon and how it can talk about culture just by being so madcap and over the top, like a lot of people are seeing the trailer and they're like, Oh, shake it ass and all this, it's just degradation of society.
It's. One of the most artistic pieces of media out there the commentary that it makes is just yeah I'm gonna go do all this stuff. I'm gonna go, mess with the cops. I'm gonna cause all this mayhem and everything It's just an interesting expression, right? And they've got, as always, they've got people involved at a very high level with the music, the cinematography, the voice acting.
It's on its, it's on another level. And I think it's, Rockstar always keeps growing things bigger and bigger to see just how far they can take things, just how far and how big it can go. And that's one of the things about art. It's like, how far can I go with the violence? How far can I go with the sex and nudity?
What does it say that, we make a game and we punish this thing, but people keep still keep doing it anyway. It's very weird. And it's Hey, let's push the online space. Let's have people play games with each other and race each other around in these cities. It's huge. And like you were mentioning microtransaction and subscription services that it makes a billion dollars a year.
I don't think people understand how this is, I don't think people understand who don't play the game regularly, understand how deep and engrossing these things can get, like you start building a community, all your friends are getting online, and you're going out, get 10 people, you both jump in, you all jump in some cars, and go ride out, and attack some other fools it's just this whole community and lifestyle, that's I don't want to say all encompassing, but it's seriously engrossing total cultural phenomenon that I don't think anybody talks about enough.
No,
Theo Harvey: I obviously, like I said, I've jumped out of it for a while ago. And, we talk about this, the game industry is by far bigger than movies streaming. And we don't talk about it enough. So I think it's one of those things is when we talk about culture, we just don't do enough. We don't give enough attention to video games anyway, but I can attest, as being a young man myself and having an eight year old, seven year old, about to be eight year old, video games are the tabula franca of, young men's existence.
You just, and then now with, the app, we didn't have it growing up, but now with access to the internet and ability to connect with people, you form these almost Social connections via video games that, we didn't have before. And then also the whole Twitch phenomenon, people watching people and observing things. And now that there's debate there, Mr. Benji, I just read the happiness survey, it talks about that where, we're creating these kind of. Social connections was that really healthier for us because, just because we feel like we're connected, not necessarily true human connection is really what makes us happy, physical connection, not the phone connections we get over dopamine hits from watching twitch or talking to someone via a gta kind of session.
But I will say this though, it is something that I think people need to be aware of and understand this is something that's just Baked into society. And Mr Benji, it can even be bigger. Just, and I'll let you get into this, I'm talking about sports, right? And then sports betting, it's becoming a big problem now for young men.
Imagine they start incorporating that into gameplay. They already got microtransactions, but what if you can bet? And they probably are doing something like that on races. They have games inside the game that people are betting on and it becomes almost like that person's life. And, is that a good or bad thing?
I don't know. As art form, it does seem great as it expands and does, simulate life in some ways, but I question if it's something that's healthy for society.
Mr.Benja: It's a known thing that.
This is just a weird trivia, like people in criminal enterprises will log on to games and speak to each other in code through a game and then log off. It's this is, it's, when people talk about the metaverse, this is what we're talking about. When you've got this virtual community, you're in a game with a virtual character taking out a phone, recording something crazy on your in game character's phone, and that phone Can kick out to the PlayStation, the PlayStation share button.
You could actually share that out into the real world and it will probably get more likes and shares than any of your real content, but it's something you saw in a game or not. You saw your in game character saw and recorded on their phone. yeAh, but this one is going going back to Florida, back to Miami with vice city and that when we did the calculations on that made huge amounts of money the earlier vice city.
So the coming back to Miami biggest landmass they've ever used. They've got all kinds of new technology. So you'll be able to, ostensibly you'll be able to do a lot more swimming, flying. They've hinted at being able to. Yeah. and interact with animals. It's probably some technology they're pulling from red dead redemption with all the animal trapping.
You're out in Florida. You're going to see a lot more animals than you would if you were in like New York or Los Angeles
Theo Harvey: as one who lives in Florida now. Yes. You will see them snakes and other stuff. Mr. Benji, I just remember just an antidote here. San Andreas, right? Just driving to the canyons, off in the off, off in the yonder, when nothing was out there.
Yeah. And then trying to see if you can drive, driving off the cliffs. Those are always fun.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Oh, one quick background story we'll finish this up. We we were working on Midnight Club at Rockstar San Diego, and we had all these game modes, right? So you set up game modes where people, you know Hey, you can, see who gets to the end the fastest and can have a slalom, or you can have a race to see who gets to the end without getting any damage.
We had all these different modes, tag King of the Hill, et cetera. One of the most popular things we did was when we just turned on showcase mode, and that's basically. People in a parking lot. They just drive up and they show off all their different cars, dude. It was like, it's Hey, can we do this?
It's yeah, sure. And we just turned it on. And instantly, like people were like driving up, this dude in a green Cadillac drives up dog. Look at my Cadillac dog. Look at my Cadillac. He just starts doing donuts. And everybody else in the chat room is Oh man, that's fly.
That's fly dog. Hey man. Yeah. You'll be on here next week. Yeah, man. I'm going to try to finish up my red Cadillac. Cause I got a red one too. Oh, you got a red one dog. Oh, this would go on for hours. And I'm like, they're just sitting in a parking lot, a virtual parking lot with people. You don't know from Korea, Florida, Arkansas, wherever, throw some Canadians in there.
They're talking about, their Cadillacs too. It's. It's phenomenal. So just a shout out to Rockstar for putting this huge endeavor together. 10 years was at least, I want to say 10 years in the making. I'll leave the exact date to those guys, but 10 years in the making, possibly the biggest piece of media coming in all time.
We'll hear more about it later, but we got until 2025. So we'll see.
Theo Harvey: Love it. Love it. Mr. Benja definitely keep up
Mr.Benja: with this. Yay. Yay. And that's going to take us to story. Number two, we got an AI watch. I want you to know AI is still taking jobs. AI was just messing around and it's just to make cute little pictures.
And Hey, it's not really going to take anybody's job. I got a funny story for you here. So Sports Illustrated started releasing some stories by this character called Drew Ortiz. Drew Ortiz was writing up these articles and putting out content on the Sports Illustrated website. Sports Illustrated, they used to be very big back in the paper days.
You had paper pulp magazines, you'd actually go every week, you'd pick up one off the shelves. You'd bring it to school or you'd bring it to work and you'd see them in the doctor's office and everything. Sports Illustrated was all over the place as a physical magazine. But they had a little trouble getting into the digital space.
They just didn't hit it off Vice Sports or Fox Sports or, or Barstool especially, yeah. Any of these new online cats they just didn't hit it off. And they couldn't figure out how to make the online streaming thing, social media thing work. So Somebody some guy, some smart guy over there probably decided, Hey, let's use AI.
And how did they figure, how did this whole story come about? Some journalists were poking around and they were like, huh? Oh, this drew Ortiz guy. You keep up with sports writers sometimes because they write one thing. You're like, okay, what does this person have to say about something else?
So they started looking up this drew Ortiz guy and they can't find much information on him in the real world, but they find a couple of articles about him in sports illustrated. Some guy takes the initiative and looks up his profile picture on Sports Illustrated. This guy's Sports Illustrated picture comes from an AI generated stock photo site of generic neutral white male, and somebody actually found his same exact picture on the stock photo site and said, Hey, wait a minute.
This is the same picture. Is this Drew Ortiz? Who is Drew Ortiz? They called Sports Illustrated Hey man, who's this Drew Ortiz guy? And they didn't answer, they didn't It didn't acknowledge the question. They just kept on going about their business. They looked through the articles and they're like, these articles are strange.
Did AI write this? And they're like no. Our Drew we're not talking about this. We have nothing to say. No comment. And after a while, people did a little more digging. They found out that yes, in fact, Drew Ortiz was not real. It's just total fake and this is, it's ridiculous. Theo before I go on, what do you have to say about this?
Cause this is nonsense to
Theo Harvey: me. That's hilarious. Mr. Benjamin is one who watches, sports. I remember Sports Illustrated. I don't know if you remember, once again, it was old man corner. You remember back in the day, if you ordered the Sports Illustrated, you would get that little football phone. Do you remember that back in the day?
Yeah, the football phone. Yeah. That came from them. If you ordered that when you were a kid, you got Sports Illustrated as a magazine. Yes, folks. Back in the day, there's these things called magazines. You'll read the articles and stories and interviews of your favorite sports Artists as sports professional.
And yeah, man, Sports Illustrated was top of the line, man. It was, before ESPN. Yeah. Nintendo power. Yeah,
Mr.Benja: I have actual magazine here,
Theo Harvey: Shout out. Yeah. And then you have ads and stuff that was pre internet guys, but sports illustration was big time, when it came to sports and just learning about like characters like Michael Jordan and Joe Montana, but to have them, not making the transition well to.
To the new medium, which, folks like ESPN did well. And then folks that evolved out of that Ben Simmons create his own kind of sports conglomerate called the ringer. But sports illustrator just never really did well with that. And they've been around, but it's not the same to see them have to go to this length to stay relevant, they still are relevant in some ways, what do you know them mostly for their swimsuits?
Yeah. So that's the only reason why they stay relevant, every year, but in between time, what are they doing? And it seems like they're shenanigans with this yeah, AI. And so I did deep dive into it. It looks like two senior executives were fired because of this. And obviously they had to, somebody had to go down for this.
This is it journalism? Yes. It's not the top line. It's not you're not looking at something on a scale of Wall Street Journal or New York Times, but it's definitely something that needs to be aware of and needs to be they can't do shenanigans like that. So we'll see where this all goes, Mr Benjamin, but I, my take on it is we have to make sure that people are adhering to what AI can do and can't do and making sure you're telling stories that are true.
And I hope this is not a. A portent for more stuff to come out where we find out a lot of stuff, a lot of these stories and people are not real.
Mr.Benja: yeAh, I think that's the thing, lying and saying that the story didn't come from a real person and you expect that in sports. This is actually, AI has been seeping into journalism for a while now.
a Lot of the, a lot of the pictures that they use, the custom illustrations, they've started replacing those with AI illustrations instead of finding an artistic illustrator or finding a photograph, they'll just do an AI illustration. And on the content side, if you go to MSN, they do plenty of stories now generated by AI and they tell you right at the top, Hey, this is just AI generated information.
We're not trying to write a story. We're just saying this is AI generated information and it'll be something like, yeah, the weather in Florida was hot today expect this and that. Nobody needs to write a weather report. I'm going to piss off some, weatherman, meteorologist out there.
Too bad. No one cares. It's hot, it's going to rain, look out for wind. And I heard there was a mongoose on the loose. That's your weather report. You don't need, it's just information. Yeah, it's out there taking jobs. And I'm looking at the notes here.
I didn't see this one, but Goldman Sachs, the potentially large effects of How did this one go with you?
Theo Harvey: Yeah. They estimate 300 million jobs are gonna be gone from AI, right? Eliminated. And so this is along those lines that, we talked about this before AI, we thought it was coming for those blue collar workers, right?
The factory workers are gonna have robots picking up boxes and stuff for us. Nah, dog. They coming for the creatives, man. They coming for people like you, Mr. Benja, the artists, the writers. The ones who create art, who create stuff for us, man, the AI is coming for those jobs and they're saying roughly, that's going to be about 300 million jobs.
This could be affected or eliminated through the AI. And so Sports Illustrated just proved the point, right? I don't know how many articles were found written by this character, but I'm sure that could have been a real art, a real a writer that could have done that didn't have a job there or Sports Illustrated couldn't afford.
And also, one thing I just brought up to my mind, they're vaunted Sports Illustrated. What's to say they can't make up a model or two, right? Once the AI gets really good and create an image of a hot, just a new model from Brazil, right? You've never seen her before.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, there, and there are plenty of those out there.
And we mentioned this before, there are Instagram. There are. Virtual models out there that companies actually hire to put clothes on, to put products in their, in the hands of, and what's weird is if you go to Twitter or Instagram, sometimes these AI generated virtual characters will talk to each other.
I think, I think it's automated. It's Hey, this person mentioned you say hi back to them or whatever. And there's a little bit of a person behind the scene saying. Say this in your voice or whatever, but still it's very weird. I don't know how much we need to else. When you say on that, but it's just a weird state.
Definitely it is. All right, let's get on the story. Number three, a podcast. Don't make much money. You should start one anyway. So we're going to keep this one short, but I've ran across an interesting fact. There are a lot of podcasts out there and the whole podcast landscape is changing.
Google podcast is going away. Google is dropping the whole podcast thing. Stitcher was acquired by Sirius XM, the big podcast. They were acquired by Sirius XM, that got shut down. Spotify has been laying off all types of people. And so I was wondering what's going on. Is podcasting disappearing or dying?
And no, not really. It's just that there's not much money in it, but still a lot of energy is being put into podcast and I started wondering why I don't know. Do you have anything else to say on the whole landscape, the state of things with the, all the data that's going around with podcast? Yeah,
Theo Harvey: I think according to some of the latest data of, it says that there are about 464 million worldwide podcast listeners.
So that equates to about 22 percent of all internet users. And the number of people that listen to podcasts have increased by over 40 million in the last year. But I think the challenge has always been with podcasting is ones who run their own podcast. It's tough to grow one, right? Because it's not inherent into the structure of podcasts to find it easy to find, right?
You have to be searchable and usually you have to use other methods, but, and also right now the revenue is just not as high, even though. 1. 7, close to about 1. 7 billion people worldwide will listen to a podcast next I think next year, a month. The revenue is going to be about 3. 5 billion, which is a 30 percent increase from last year, but that's only 2 per list per listener per year.
But now you equate that to other audio type of content and forms music. That's 31 per listener per year, audio books, 26, and even radio. Even radio is 10. So it's the lowest form of revenue, so basically how you produce revenue, sponsored, sponsored call outs, you have in ads, all that, and the listeners, but it does seem that it's very difficult to monetize a podcast, Mr.
Benjamin, but. What is the thing we believe that it can get? I'll just tell us a little story and you can hint at it. Professor Prop G Scott Galloway, we talk about him a lot of times. He has a well recognized, YouTube channels, podcasts, all that he said he could always tell if someone found him from his talks.
from his YouTube channel or from the podcast. And Mr. Benja, the ones that listened to his podcast were the ones who felt like they knew him like intimately. They tell him stories about his kids. They tell him, Prof G, I know you, you're like a family member because I know everything, all these things about you.
And he was like, that's the most engaging type of audience he has. Because let's face it, if you listen to a podcast, Intimate moments, let's be honest in the bathroom traveling the car at the gym, why are you driving? And so To him, podcasts provide the most engaged user and all
Mr.Benja: exactly, it's funny.
My, my cousin called me and said, he, my cut I'm straight forward. So apparently I've trained family members to be straight forward with me, which kind of surprises me because nobody else does. I'm walking around and my cousin was like my nephew, I'm sorry. My nephew was like, yeah, man your podcast just seems to succeed unless you make it longer.
And I'm like. I just released a two hour podcast. Yeah. What are you talking about? You're like, Hey, I need more, he's got a security guard job. And he's Hey, I'm a security guard job. I get it now. I'm like, oh yeah. So security guards truck drivers, people just work in the night shift, as you said, in the gym and all this, man, they will take you on that, three hour listen and just be there.
That's exciting just to hear that, there's that strong branding and this chart by buzzsprout, was talking about the attention span of the listeners and tick tock. You've got an attention span of seven seconds, YouTube attention span of three minutes, buzzsprout you got an attention span of other Mickey sense.
What are you talking about? So yeah, we go from seven seconds to three minutes on YouTube to a 40 minute attention span. On the podcast services. So if you can get somebody in Raptor for 40 minutes, that's quality branding. Customer attachment, a number of metrics will benefit from that 40 minute.
Listen,
Theo Harvey: tHey talk about this, to get a new customer, no, like trust, podcasts can do all that in one hour. Or two hours because they get to know you, they know about you. They start to like you, you tell stories and you laughing. That was funny. Yeah. I agree with that.
And then they trusts you, man. He's right again. So you can do all that in the podcast. And even Ryan Pineda, the one guy I told you about, I listen to he's all in on podcasts. He's does two, three hour podcasts with his art. His folks, because he's seen the numbers, the they will buy and someone takes the time.
They do. Customer surveys after they purchased something, where did they find them? They found them do a podcast nine times that they are they will buy something. They're the ones who buy the most from them. So it just goes show you, you need to have a podcast in 2024. So that's what we're telling you.
You listen to all this, we're giving you advice. Do one anyway, if you want to make money.
Mr.Benja: That's right. Story number four, the woke Negroes explain why woke storytelling doesn't work. All right. So this kind of came from our discussion of the marble. Oh, real
Theo Harvey: quick. We're changing our podcast name. Oh, woke Negroes.
Mr.Benja: W N N.
Theo Harvey: Yes. Negroes
Mr.Benja: network.
To be clear I'm not part of the, usual. Woke argument. I'm thinking of woke back from when we used it, when Spike Lee brought it up in, in school days talking about, wake up, telling everybody to wake up to what's happening. So woke storytelling, let me just get into it.
The story is greater than the message and people keep arguing over the message. That's. An almost pointless argument to me. And, Iger's been getting in trouble. Disney's been getting in trouble. People are on the internet arguing over. The social politics and calling people social justice warrior, calling people internet incels.
There's a bunch of name calling going back and forth, Oh, he's an edge Lord or Oh, to the libtard, whatever you want to call anybody on the other side, you crack it up. I've been in these arguments.
Theo Harvey: I love it. You do all the terms. I love it.
Mr.Benja: Maybe I've been in these arguments too much.
But yeah, it's and we're bringing you the story because recently Iger and maybe you should explain this explaining what Iger did in the wake of, the results of the marvels and the new film wish and a lot of the backlash and arguments what came out of that from Disney CEO, Iger.
Yeah.
Theo Harvey: So Bob Iger was at a, I think it was at a deal book event hosted by Andrew Ross Sarkin, who's big time influencer out there in the business world at Bob Iger, they are talking this the same one. Maybe we'll talk another time about Elon Musk and what he said, but Bob Iger was talking about roughly, hey, we held the storytelling was great and wonderful, but maybe we need to focus on the story and, not really, go into the details of what it means to, what the characters and what that's all about and really focus more on story, which is interesting for Bob Iger to say, because he's the one that's been pushing for more story.
Basically, to help with Disney and having more characters and also he's been pushing quote unquote, there's woke agenda if you will. He was the one that greenlit agenda. How do you like panther? Yeah, I know. He is the one that green lit black panther at the insistence against I permit promoter who was insistent that Disney do not, I did not do a black superhero and he also did Miss Marvel.
He was proud of it that way. He wrote a book right of a lifetime. Bob Iger was proud of what he did to green lit. Black Panther, right? And Ms. Marvel. And so now he's starting to push away against that. He said, maybe we went too far on that side and we need to go back to storytelling. So it's like he's doing a backpedal, right?
You know what, what I said was and it's so how do I feel, as a woke Negro, right? Quote unquote Mr. Benja. So on one hand, I do understand the need for people to be seen, for in their entertainment. That is so powerful.
And it's been amazing to see that because I don't know if every like show we're watching now, there's always either if it's not all black, it's almost like colorblind casting. Interracial marriages, interracial kids now, and that's powerful, man. I do respect that.
And that's the effect of what happened in 2020 with George Floyd. We're all aware of that. But I do feel like it does take away from some of the storytelling when it does become over too much. It's almost with the whole controversy with the little mermaid, I get people's concerns with it, let's be honest, a little memory, it was from the Caribbean, kind of area they had, so they had to do something to make that make sense. But then, strange world. Have you ever seen that, that cartoon that a lot of people were mad about? Yeah, they had a lot, yeah, they had a lot of little check boxes, right?
They had the gay parents, the handicapped son, the The dog that was mute that had to do sign language, it's like boom, it's just wait a minute. Is this a message or is this a story? And it's almost like it gets in. And then of course, the big one was the Buzz Lightyear and the the kiss, and in a cartoon and as a parent, I get it, but at the same time, you just don't want to put it in your face. And so I think there has to be a mix between the message and the storytelling.
Mr.Benja: So I get a lot of pushback from a lot of people when they say every story has a message and, good stories have messages.
So what the hell are you talking about? And what do you say to that?
Theo Harvey: I would agree. They do just like Godzilla minus one great story.
Mr.Benja: But did it have a message? It did. Oh, okay. Carry on. Carry on.
Theo Harvey: No, to your point though, I would say, but it didn't drive the story. It was compelling. Does that make sense?
Yeah. They didn't hit you over the head with it. Yes. It's the guy is not, yes. Let's just say, I'm just gonna use an example. Let's say the story is, overcoming adversity, right? . They're not gonna put 'em in a wheelchair. And his girlfriend's way across.
It just becomes unbelievable, right? It's just look, you can have one obstacle per movie. Yeah. Not like 20 different obstacles.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. It's a very transparent when you're trying to tell a story and somebody's coming with the message as opposed to the story. And you said it best hits you over the head.
Listen, messages are for your head. You hit people over the head if you want to give them a message, but you go to their heart, you go to their soul with the story. So I say, go to the soul, go to their heart first and the head will follow. And that's my talk on that. You want to go into, you want to do a 32nd rant?
Theo Harvey: Do it. Mr. Benja.
Mr.Benja: Story number five, social media is doing things. Go to you.
Theo Harvey: I, my rant is Mr. Benja. No one cares about social media anymore, man. It's just a bunch of marketers and grifters, not swindlers, grifters, people who are out there trying to get your dollars. Matter of fact, I was at a Dunkin Donuts the other day.
There was a grifter. Trying to set up a five day challenge, man, in my face. And he told his guy, his assistant, that the same place ain't working no more. So everybody knows. And I went to, I followed him. I said, Hey, let's connect. I followed him. He's got a hundred thousand followers, Mr. Benja. So he knows the grift ain't working no more, Mr.
Benja. And so I truly believe. What's going to rise to the top? Gary talks about it. Good content, making sure you're focused on creating value for your people. Because at the end of the day, no one cares, no one views unless they do. And when they do, you want to make sure it's powerful. So that's my rant, Mr.
Benjamin, what's
Mr.Benja: yours? Same thing you said so I got nothing to add to that. But yeah, social media is on its way out. People are forming communities. They're trying to talk to real people instead of being hit over the head with the message that they should buy something. They want to touch with the heart to heart connection and be like, Hey man, I'm feeling you.
Let's get up, join up on the metaverse. Hey, maybe I'll meet you in GTA six or something. It'll be all fun. Good as humans.
Theo Harvey: I love it, Mr. Benji. I love it. Wow. Hey guys, we did it. Maybe we need to make this podcast longer as we talked about earlier, but everyone we're going to end it for today. Please like subscribe and comment at services business on Twitter.
X YouTube and Instagram. Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Go check out our website. It's show versus business as well. Mr. Benja have a great one. Peace.