SvB: Apple Vision Pro reviews are out, Black History Month and Zuckerberg turning into Elon? Ep 151

The guys, @mrbenja and @the_real_theo_harvey, discuss the hottest stories for this week.  Carl Weathers is no longer with us. RIP. Black History Month is here, Apple Vision Pro reviews are out, Zuckerberg is turning into Elon? TikTok shenanigans and more! 

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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.

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Transcript

Theo Harvey: This is show versus business where pop culture meets pop money with your host, the real Theo Harvey and Mr. Benja coming with all the relevant information. So Mr. Benja, what's been going on with you? Oh, what's been going 

Mr.Benja: on, man. I've been staying hydrated and doing my thing, getting my water on. I don't know why you didn't film me getting the water.

I thought it was an interesting. Intro, but today we're going to have a little discussion about a couple of things. First of all, Carl Weathers is no longer with us. We're going to reminisce on that a little bit. And the Apple vision pro has been released this week. We're going to talk a little bit about that.

Some impressions Zuck is turning into. The Threads version of Elon. Really interesting, just a persona check right there. And speaking of persons, we've got Pharrell doing the Lego movie for some reason. Byron Allen's making a bid for Paramount. And, not everything is good in the world of trying to get ahead.

This is Black History Month, so this is an interesting one that came up. But! Some people are getting sued for equality. It's interesting. More on that. It's the DEI kind of thing. So I don't know if you're into that or not, but we're going to talk about it. And TikTok's in some shenanigans as always with the Sopranos, UMG removing content, Sony suing people, and we may drop a couple other little things in there, but that's pretty much the week in review, what you got going on.

Theo Harvey: Mr Benja, man. Oh, it is. We're filming this a little bit different. So Fridays, man, it's a little different for me. But this week has been it's pretty, pretty good, man. Just trying to get a lot of things done from a work perspective. But I would say this, Mr Benja don't ever coach You know, I think I talked about this last time, but don't ever coach nine to 10 year olds right on a Friday.

It is, it's fun, but it's a lot, man. It takes a lot out of you. And I'm thinking about, talking to nine to 10 year olds like 20 times. Stand here. Turn left, jump this way, jump that way. And then my son who's eight is on the team as well. So just dealing with that.

So it's, it can be a lot, man, just dealing with kids and run around with them and keeping up with them. But yeah, I think that was the highlight of my week. Be honest with you. I was trying to think, okay. Usually have some, witty story or repertory, but really that was the, just.

Of it was really dealing with a lot of these nine and 10 year olds and just being fascinated by a lot of new reading I got into. So I'm super excited about some of the stories this week. 

Mr.Benja: New reading. You mean like news articles and, oh yeah, man, I was hyped, 

Theo Harvey: man. It's a lot of stories, man.

It came out this week between Byron Allen and vision and all this other stuff. I was like, wow, man, this is some good stuff. So yeah. So do you read on a, do you read on a tablet? No, I read on my phone. I used to read on tablet, but yeah, I have a tablet somewhere. I just, I'm terrible, man. I probably do more reading and watching movies with this little thing a little bit.

Once a week, I may watch something on the big TV. It's so sad. Yeah. Have you ever 

Mr.Benja: been in bed looking at your phone and it slips and hits you in the face? 

Theo Harvey: Oh, yeah, man. Last night. But I had it. What I do is I hold it like this. Sometimes it did. It fell on the floor. Yes, I do know that experience. I'm really be honest with you.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to get away from having a phone in the bed sometimes, take some days off from it. But yeah, usually when I'm watching and that's how I go to sleep because back in the day, this is a good Like the story back in the day, I used to watch TV and put the sleep timer on.

If you remember that back in the day, and so you put the sleep timer on as you could just watch TV and they'll go off on its own. But man, it's just funny how everything just slowly migrate to the phone over time. And next thing what you do almost the last thing you see the first thing 

Mr.Benja: yeah. I actually, I asked about the tablet because a while back I was like, Oh yeah, I get all my news and I could meet, little PDFs and everything to store them up. And then, when I'm ready to read at night, like I used to, flip open a book or something and read at night or a magazine, a copy of EGM or Nintendo power, just flip through the glorious glossy pages.

I love magazines, but then I got a tablet. And I'm just like, Oh, this is great. I can scroll. And, but when you slip and drop a tablet on your face, that's different than a phone.

Theo Harvey: That's a different feeling. 

Mr.Benja: So I hit myself in the mouth once I was like, Oh crap. And then I hit myself in the nose. And that, that nose feeling you get, this is like the little burning tingling after the second time. I was like, nah, we're. We're switching back to paperbacks at night, soft cover 

Theo Harvey: paperbacks for bed.

Nah, man I feel you. Those are some times. Yeah. I used to read in bed too, but I've actually had a hard cover one time and I fell asleep and it hit me in the face.

Wake yourself up sucker with knowledge. So yeah, man, it was one of those things that happened, but nah, man, what about you? How was your week? A week was good, 

Mr.Benja: man. And, I'm glad you brought up the nighttime routine thing. I've really been working on that. I was, we've been talking about, I haven't moved on, but I've jumped into more of what Benjamin Hardy has been talking about and breaking down.

Okay. Where can I apply this? Where can I apply that? And 1 of the things was the author of Gain, Gain and the Gap, Who Not How, 10X Easier and 2X, and Your Future Self Now, those are the four that I rock with. I don't really know too many of the others, 

Theo Harvey: but Oh, you read all four of those now, at this point?

Yeah, I need to 

Mr.Benja: go back and redo Future Self Now, because I can't talk confidently about that one. But 10X Easier and 2X, and Gap and the Gain, I can talk pretty confidently on. But, and Who Not How, I'm coming up on that one. But one thing he kept reemphasizing was the whole sleep process. So this past week, I just really started to nail into it.

And I was doing my review, doing one of my reviews and looking back through my. My my journals and it was like, got to get good sleep, man. Hey, make sure you get good sleep. Make sure you get good sleep. Go to sleep by this time, wake up and do this. And I had it listed down like a lot. And when you list something a lot, you're like, okay, this is a recurring problem.

I need to go ahead and take care of this man. That whole nighttime ritual of hitting a certain time. Turning off all notifications. I don't put on any more music. I just put on I put on Jedi ambience, sound, the sounds of Dagobah, right?

That's what I'm just 

Theo Harvey: saying. It works for me, nerd.

Speaking as one who put on Duel of the Fates while he was studying for his calculus test, but I digress. So yeah, I'm, 

Mr.Benja: I'm like wandering around the house with my headphones on, listening to Sounds of Dagobah or whatever. And I'm like wondering, I wonder if I got any phone notifications. It's only eight o'clock at night.

I don't care, and then it just shuts off. And over after a while, man, you just start flushing out all the random thoughts. I'm not touching my phone. I'm not touching any websites, any outside information, I basically cut off like I do my Sundays, it's just been great.

Cause then all of a sudden that random thought comes up and I'm like, that is a good freaking idea, jot it down. And then when I wake up, I grab my phone. I do, but I always turn on a little, there's like a little morning prep playlist I have, it's just like somebody it's either somebody talking or certain songs where it's just like, all right, I'm getting up in the morning.

I can. Yeah, it's just changed me so much. Just in terms of how I attack the day. So right when I turn them right, when I turn on my phone to see all those notifications, I was like, Oh, I was expecting you.

Theo Harvey: Yeah. It's as a family guy, he's got kids and everything. It's almost like I have to get up early and I get that two hours to myself just to think, and the business owner, as that was the day starts just. Stuff is trying to get into your day.

So to your point, I do the Benjamin Hardy thing, Dr. Benjamin Hardy thing, where I write my stuff down at night and then hopefully my subconscious is working through it. And then when I get up in a day like you, I do, read a few things, but then for the most part, I get in and do some scripture reading, do a little meditation prayer and I give him a little coffee and then, start my day.

And so I'm writing all these emails. And so I'll wait till it gets, I've got like 20 emails banked by 7, 5, 7, 7 a. m. So I'll wait for a respectable time, like 8 0 5. Since this is

Mr.Benja: chaos, 

Theo Harvey: He's up. He's the, Oh yeah. So there's some people know, like I have a VA, she gets, she to them, it's like what 12 hours difference, right? So it's 5 p. m. to her. But she wanted to move hours to 5 a. m. I said, yeah, sure. I'm up. Yeah. So sometimes I'll even send her, say it's 5 a.

m. You didn't send me your email. What you going to do today? Yeah, man, that in routine morning routine is it is almost like a sacred and you have to get that in because if you don't. I've literally gotten sick if I didn't get some time to myself in the morning. Cause I'm like, man, I got nothing for myself.

So even if it's 30 minutes is better than nothing in my opinion. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah, exactly. How do you real quick, how do you meditate? Do you have any certain? 

Theo Harvey: No, just more and more prayer and more than anything just just, yeah, just, close my eyes and just breathe in and breathe out.

Just take a moment because, we get so much dopamine pumped into us all the time. Dopamine got to get this. We dope, trying to stay off it as much as I can and try to stay, present more, but it could be difficult, but, that's the key. But, yeah. So I guess I did have an eventful day.

A couple other things too. I helped my daughter set up her Shopify shop. She was talking some stuff. She's 12 years old, so I got inspired to set up her up with a Shopify account so she could start selling clay beads in these streets. And , so getting her on this entrepreneur path, she seemed pretty excited about that.

So That's good. And so yeah, man, I'm just just trying to be more present with everybody, as we get older, that's probably why time seems like it's moving so fast because it is number one to us because relatively speaking, a year is so much little. Space in our mind compared to what, 40 years of life lived at this point.

So the more present you are, the more aware of everything that you probably, you know, your mind is not like, Oh, that's just a random February in 2024. So really trying to be more present, but I love your evening and morning routines and so definitely we should do more of that, man. 

Mr.Benja: Totally. Yeah, I guess that's that for now.

Are you ready to jump into this, huh? 

Theo Harvey: Let's do it, 

Mr.Benja: man. Yeah Carl Weathers, we'll start off on a somber note here. Yeah. The icon of

The icon, Carl Weathers, is no longer with us. And we know him From Rocky. We know him from Haffey Gilmore. We know him from the newer Star Wars mo shows Mandalorian this guy's been around and he recently passed at how old do you Want to say 73? 

Theo Harvey: Yeah, 76 76. Oh 76. Thank you. Yeah, i'm looking at right now wow, man, did you know he's from your neck of the woods new orleans?

Actually, I did not know that. Yeah, he's from New Orleans, man. But yeah, Carl Weathers, what can what can't we say about him? It came to the forefront in our minds was Rocky, right? He played Apollo Creed, just the heavyweight champion in the world. He was the best foil for us.

Sylvester Stallone's Rocky because Rocky was his down his left Italian guy trying to make it happen and Apollo was bigger than life, right? Had to be granted and he just, sparkled and he also, was super in shape and that was, in the beginning where, sylvester Stallone was taking over Hollywood with, these quote unquote, physiques that were man made.

But who knows man made in a bottle. But so yeah. So Apollo Creed, man, he just popped off the screen to me, if that. And of course, I always remember Rocky three where he didn't give up against. Drago, right? And, throwing the towel, don't throw in the towel. Then he went down and, so to the point where now, they did create a whole with Michael B.

Jordan, actor Michael B. Jordan based on his character. Just that he created iconic character. When you look at the, what the first three things they talk about is one of them is Rocky. What's the second one you think they talk about when it comes to Carl Withers?

Mr.Benja: They talk about predator comes up 

Theo Harvey: a lot. Yeah, that's up there. That's up there What would your thoughts on him in predator real quick? 

Mr.Benja: He didn't die first

Theo Harvey: You ever seen that meme no Where him and Arnold Schwarzenegger come up and they shake hands with their biceps, you son of a gun! So that's what I think about every time. Oh 

Mr.Benja: yeah. 

Theo Harvey: That's the big meme. Me and my son, we create that every day, almost. So yeah, he was in Predator and then, did Action Jackson, it's like the first.

Black mainstream, I think Vanity was in it. I think so. Yeah. Let me look at the picture here. Yeah. Vanity. Yeah. She was in that for those who don't know Sharon Stone. Wow. I know she was in that. Vanity was like the, black princess right there. I love back in the day. And so those are pretty much, the big things, but the one I was thinking about was happy Gilmore.

Remember he made that comedy. He was the Derek Chubbs Peterson, who was the just crazy kind of character that and I guess he showed he was funny too. And that kind of opened my mind to him. It's Oh, wow. He's not just, this beefcake type of dude, but he can be funny as well.

Cause you remember he was, he didn't have a hand because he ate it off. It's just crazy stuff, man. Shake my hand. And then last but not least, the other thing they've been mentioning is Mandalorian, man. He basically, at near the end of his life, he basically was. A Star Wars geek, man, because not only did he was in it as grief carga, right?

But he actually directed two episodes, of this, of the show. Man, he was living his best life. And he, and matter of fact, one of his last roles, he was actually nominated for Emmy award. So it just goes to show you, man, even near, you get older, you can still have a recreation of your life.

And I just blew my mind that he was like, still, relevant, in this day and age, it was pretty good as that role too. Like this like an older version of Lando Christian, right? This more swarmy type of politician guys with a little shady past. And he played that role pretty well and he directed, some of the episodes.

So I thought he was gonna have a long future with Inside the Star Wars universe, thanks to Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, but yeah, man, it was just, yeah, it's just sad to see him go mean and, and all the things he's done. And I think definitely, the Mandalorian was probably made a lot of folks realize, and he's done a tons of stuff. All the way back to good times, right back in the day. It's just, he's just been around, like you said, for a long time. 

Mr.Benja: I couldn't find what he, what the cause of death was. If there was anything besides just,

I hadn't heard anything about it coming up. That's why I'm asking like, or he's sick or he's old or he won't be filming, usually they throw out a little something like that, but I don't see anything on that, but I can tell you, he definitely was working. I checked his IMDb starting from 1973, he skips a year.

And then in 1975 hits good times. 1975, Kung Fu. 1975, 1975, 1975, SWAT, The Six Million Dollar Man, Cannon, Switch, Bronk, Friday, Foster, McCloud, Most Wanted, Rocky, Starsky and Hutch, Barney P. Jones, dealt, Streets of San Francisco, 78, 79 he skips 80, 81, 82. Then it just keeps on going every year, like continually working.

And I think this is a little bit of what Taraji P. Henson was talking about, how we get caught up in these situations where they just keep working. Sam Jackson is in that similar vein where, there are the mindsets is just, Hey, get in there, keep working, keep doing your thing. And I don't know if anybody's spoken on this, but it definitely seems like something black actors have to do a little more or if they get into that.

Sphere that certain level. They just have to keep working. Otherwise they could fall off. Ooh, interesting. I definitely think that's the case 

Theo Harvey: Never thought of it like that. So yeah, but kudos to him man And just you know, but I mean it definitely go down as one of the iconic, You know, characters he created with Apollo Creed and then, obviously, his involvement with Star Wars.

So he definitely, will live on. Rest in power, Carl Weathers for all the things you've done. So definitely was great. 

Mr.Benja: Played the voice of Jax in Mortal Kombat 10. Did not know that. That's what I talk about when I 

Theo Harvey: say working. And I don't know if you remember, there's a show called Heat of the Night.

He actually replaced the black guy that was in that. Heat of the Night was this, the Heat of the Night was based on a movie, a 1967 movie about a a black sheriff coming into a kind of almost racist. In the South. And he came in at the last season and took over for the previous black guy that was there.

So in the last season so yeah, he's always been around, done stuff. So yeah, cool. Yeah. 

Mr.Benja: And I hope this doesn't sound dark, but I'm going to use it as a segue. It's not going to be too dark, but wouldn't it be interesting if you could. Go to a funeral with the apple vision pro. 

Theo Harvey: Okay. 

Mr.Benja: I just thought about like celebrity funerals.

And I remember the Michael Jackson funeral was a big, huge thing. Everybody lost their minds. Apple vision pro came out and everybody was talking about all these different apps and augmented reality. And as a designer, I'm always like. Hey, couldn't you do this? And wouldn't that be man, a funeral? What if you got to walk up to Carl weathers and just that'd be weird.

That'd be weird. Sorry. Apple vision pro is out. Everybody's going nuts over it. It's selling out apparently at 3, 500 a pop, right? 

Theo Harvey: Yeah, that's about right.

Yeah. Did you watch any of these reviews out there about it? Mark, MKBD, is it? Markets Brownlee or how was his MKBHD is how you pronounce this? Yes. But yeah, he, these reviews, these tech gurus, but the one that kind of went pseudo viral was the tech reporter for the Wall Street Journal Joanna Stern.

She says she, she's had the pro. On vision pro for 24 hours. And so when the first thing she, if you go to the video on YouTube of her reviewing, when the first thing you see her doing is be on a ski scope slope. And I was like, makes perfect sense. Because they do look like skiing goggles. It's just hilarious.

So it's just as a tech reviewer, she is she's funny. So anyway, so she wore it out there just to see if you could do it and just gave her review of how the tech works and all that. For the most part, the general consensus is amazing for immersing yourself in the video itself, right?

You can see camera, almost like holographic images of your. Family members. She loved the fact that you can watch movies on it, and obviously work, right? So now you can, it looks like it can connect to your MacBooks and you can actually point that to the sky and you have your calendars and windows in different areas.

You can have different windows, opened up in different areas while you're working. So it's pretty great for work. Pretty great for you. attainment, but nothing much else. And I think one of the cool things that you'd like to buy if you watch that video, is that cooking, which is amazing. You ever cooked before, you're looking at the recipe where you're trying to cook and cutting stuff and your hands are nasty and dirty with the vision pro you can, Put the recipe up in the window sky so you can turn to your left and see it But then she said there was an app she would highlight it and she actually put like timers on top of the boiling pot So she knew exactly when they were going to be done, so she could put a timer on boiling, Hot water here or timer on What was cooked in the oven.

And so when she looked, glanced at the pot, she is real augmented reality, right? You saw actual timers and say, Oh, I'm going to touch that for right now. And so if you can look at, you look over here, that's your recipe. While you're chopping stuff up, you look at the timers. She said, okay this could be the beginning of the future.

It's not there yet. Because the headset's too heavy, the battery life doesn't last. The true vision is where these things can stay on, and you're using it to interact with your daily life and make it so much useful. So it sounds like that's where they're trying to go with this, and but, it's still a version one.

Kind of like the iPhone, right? There was the iPhone version one. That's where we are with this vision pro. And yeah I thought it was good reviews, the best out there, she said, but for the most part, still got a little ways to go. 

Mr.Benja: I was surprised at the buzz that I got from online, at least on, on threads and X.

Just like the people who were going to get one, they were going to tell you about it. And it's fun, man. Seeing these people go out and they're like, all right, I'm here. I'm going to get the vision pro, oh, wait, they can't just mail it to you. You have to, they made a whole new ordering pickup process for this thing.

Theo Harvey: Yeah, 

Mr.Benja: so no, it's funny. It's, I didn't, I don't know if there were, cause I didn't look, but I didn't see any long lines out of a door, but. Instead of a physical line where people take pictures of it and whatever, I just kept seeing all these people posting up there, your product will be ready and such at blah, blah, blah, thank you for whatever.

And they just kept posting their little messages about their journey to getting that, the Apple vision pro. And it's huh, this is interesting that they've fomented this whole experience where even before you put it on your head and talk about it. You're talking about it. So it's just I'm hyped for it and it seems like everybody's who's bought it has been, if not happy with it, excited at the possibilities.

Theo Harvey: Yeah, I think that's the general consensus too. Yeah. So are you buying one tomorrow, Mr. Benja? Is that what you're saying? We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna pop one on. We're gonna do this in the Vision Pro next time. Next time. 

Mr.Benja: I don't know if it'll actually hook up to my computer because I got a bootleg one coming in from my boy Connor down the street.

He said he can get me Is 

Theo Harvey: it? Oh, 

Mr.Benja: The iFruit edition. 

Theo Harvey: Yeah, man. Like I said, I'm gonna wait and see. Yeah, I'm gonna wait and see myself, the price point. She said you could just go to Hawaii for that price point instead of going to the virtual reality in the vision pro. But, yeah, like I said, I'm good kudos for Apple to put it out there It's like this the world that Facebook or meta was trying to create, right?

Was lapped them because now meta is really going all in on AI now, but would I digress there? But yeah, man, so I think people are just using it for content, be honest with you, and just to have something unique and different to talk about tech reviews. I get that. But just general people, they're just looking for the next new thing.

We talked about this, I think, end of last year, people are just not excited. It is nothing exciting anymore, right? It doesn't seem like there's, we don't have any NFTs to talk about. We can talk about AI, but everybody thinks, you can still learn AI, but Let's be real. 

Mr.Benja: We're numb to it, man.

I think we're just numb to this stuff. Just being hit with all the stimulation, put it this way. Over a decade ago, I realized we were numb to stuff when I saw somebody start watching porn in a meeting on their phone. A meeting was really boring, and everybody was just like, doing this, dude, I leaned back and,

Theo Harvey: and no shame, he had no shame. Did he do just,

Mr.Benja: and I was just like, we're lost. We're desensitized. Something's gone wrong, 

Theo Harvey: man. Geez, don't say that, man. 

Mr.Benja: But yeah. Speaking of the weird and wild world of social media and Zuck has started to. Posts a lot more on threads and I swear, about zucking, right? When they call somebody gets zucked, whereas Zuck will take your idea, your energy, your flow, make it meta, and then put it out to his audience and his suite of products.

That just happened. Or it's been happening in the past week or two, whereas Zuck's been showing up on, on threads, just like dropping these Elon style posts.

He's playing that, he's playing that number one marketer. 

Theo Harvey: Oh no. So it would be just the way he's posting stuff about his adventures, pilot, piloting a helicopter or MMA fighting. Yeah. Is it just. Yeah, kind of stuff. That whole thing. Do people dig on it or what? They just whatever.

No, they're, 

Mr.Benja: They're totally digging on it. He's posted memes, right? Yeah. And he's responding, how everybody's going to throw the name Zuckerberg or just into their random comments. Yes. He's jumping into the comments, responding and everything like Elon does. And this is Yeah.

I could imagine this is just a continuation of what I think I was seeing, or I mentioned seeing last year, when all these business accounts and all these major accounts, when they started turning left and doing weird posts, it's like Bloomberg starts posting about, Hey, watch these two kids play basketball.

And, this crazy shot by this kid and everybody's watching and they're like, huh, Bloomberg, what the hell are you talking about? That was interesting. And I stopped and I hit but Bloomberg, why are you doing this? 

Theo Harvey: It's I think the lines between business and personality had just been.

Gone now. Even myself, who has a business, I thought, oh, you can just stand behind your business and be successful, but no, you have to be a brand apart from your business, and Joe Rogan, the example Alex Hormoza gets all the time is like Joe Rogan. He likes comedy.

He likes mixed martial arts. He likes aliens. And they can all exist. And that's what makes him. And so if you show more of your personality and who you are and all that, then, you become more popular and you go more insulated so you can do more business dealings. 

Mr.Benja: That makes sense for comedians and Podcasters and musicians.

No, but doesn't, it just seems weird when it goes into business 

Theo Harvey: world. It does seem weird, but not anymore, man. Think of all the business podcasts out there. Scott GI mean, he's a business guy. A prof, G excuse me. He's doing Scott Galloway, he was a business professor at, Columbia, right?

And or New York Stern and. He's leveraging his status to do other things, with that aspect, all the guys in the all in podcast, they're all BC investors. And they're using that to stay clear of certain things. They can move markets because they have popularity as personalities.

And so Elon Musk, like you said, the edge Lord of all edge Lords, he is the one that is leading the Pied Piper in that effort. He's almost invincible, because of what he says on the Internet. And so I smoking weed with Joe Rogan. So I'm telling you, man, I think that's the end of business.

I'm seeing it too, right? The more of a personality become where people know you, you're almost like it's almost like the halo effect of that. You can do no wrong. And I think that's why a lot of them go in and surprise exact took this long to realize that, but good for him. That's going to insulate them even further, right?

As he starts to build the company towards something, bigger and better. You saw his the stock price went up about 20 percent recently because this whole pivot to AI, right? Yeah. Who cares that the name is called meta for a reason, but. We all forgot about how much he spent on the metaverse.

And now he's an AI. And so now let's talk about me riding my helicopter. 

Mr.Benja: Huh? Yeah, I think it still works the meta name, but that's another story. So 

Theo Harvey: now he's on his helicopter now. And look at me at the helicopter, who cares about the business strategy anymore? I'm telling you, man, that's the world we live in now, man.

It's all about the views, man, and you got to invest in that. Those views, man, that sweet views on the social media streets. If you want to keep growing. So anyway, that's just my take on it, but I'm glad we are you, man. That's good. I'm glad we got difference of opinion here on this. First, we need more than a podcast.

Mr.Benja: Yeah. Basketball is a terrible sport, by the way. Oh, 

Theo Harvey: yes. Let's get into it. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. And we got celebrities speaking of celebrities, Pharrell doing this Lego movie. I don't know where this came from, but this is a creative move that I like. I like when people do something a little interesting where you're Okay.

And it makes you take notice two things you would never think of together. This is an easy one, Pharrell and Legos. He's doing I don't even know what to call it. A biopic sort of film. I don't know. We're not sure exactly how it's going to turn out or what's going to be exactly, but basically deadline says that Pharrell Williams is creating this movie called piece by piece about his life, getting a fall release from focus pictures.

That's pretty Indy, right? Yeah, it's pretty 

Theo Harvey: Indy. What are your thoughts on it? I thought it was, quirky, like he is, cool. He's going to do a Lego movie. That's for real. You know anything about for real? But yeah, I knew you would like that artsy fartsy stuff.

Mr.Benja: Do you remember The Eminem music video where Eminem is sitting in the audience watching all the shena that go down and something flies above his head and he's just that's the look. I, that's the meme in my head that plays every time Pharrell does something outrageous and crazy. Like when he showed up at the music awards that, that huge hat, 

Theo Harvey: yes, please tell me you remember the hat. Yeah, I do remember that. That was a thing for a minute, that was a thing.

Mr.Benja: Everybody was like. Yo, dude, you got the hat, man. What's going on? 

Theo Harvey: And that, remember that song, Happy Man? He probably made so much money on that song. Just, yeah. God forseen. Did you know he had that, I don't know if it's still up. I was gonna look it up. There, there's, there was a YouTube, there was a website you could go to.

24 hours? Yeah, 24 hours. Is it still up? I don't know, I heard that. 24 hours, Happy Yeah, I don't know if it's still up, but yeah, I would go. Yeah, it's 24 hours. I'm happy. It's still up to this day. Mr Benja. Yeah, the world's first 24 hour music video and it's basically the video on loop with the different people dancing to the song happy.

Previously, they had edited for the for the video and that came out. My daughter was like, what, two years old. We used to play that for hours. So yeah, for real, definitely quirky dude. I don't know. Yeah. Do you feel like he's still relevant? I haven't heard any, some music here and there, but nothing like brownshaking 

Mr.Benja: lately, these artists they use music and then that becomes their brand, but not necessarily their profession, their job anymore.

Yeah, it's like he just did the Louis Vuitton thing. Yeah. So he's head of the Louis Vuitton creative, kind of a figurehead position, but yeah, he definitely came in with his own taste feel did that for Louis Vuitton. He was. Really doing big things for G star raw. I don't know if any of you guys know that brand.

He's, producer extraordinaire. Yeah. So Pharrell's been around always doing stuff and doing a quirky move and also having quirky stuff come out. Yeah. That's this, that's par for our discussion here. How do you get. Get these views. How do you get that attention?

I'll just, hey, do something crazy. Say something crazy. Wear a crazy hat. 

Theo Harvey: Yeah. I don't think he was really one of those like outlandish dudes. I never heard him say anything. I was too at he just wore different things, did a little, quirky little things here and there, but he had some good music, especially when we were in college, the clips and, beautiful 

Mr.Benja: people don't understand how serious the clubs were ruled by Pharrell and the 

Theo Harvey: Neptunes. Neptune. Yeah. Neptune sound and Timberland. Cause they had a little battle. Yeah, they sure did. Yeah. And what the late arts, late nineties, early arts, they would say.

So yeah, man, Pharrell was running things. So kudos to him, man. But I will not watch that in the theaters. I don't think, but we'll see if it gets good reviews, I may check it out.

Mr.Benja: And what else we got here? Oh, speaking of being online and weird stuff, we got some TikTok shenanigans. This gets a little more into the business side of things, but I originally started looking at some of this tick tock stuff because I saw that they were putting out for the 25th anniversary of the Sopranos, they were putting out episode recaps of every episode in 25 second clips.

And it just seemed, I don't know, bizarre. What are you going to, what are you going to 

Theo Harvey: do? Tick tock is going to tick tock, man. They're gonna find anything. It's all about content, man. They can remix or change anything up. And some of the studios try to make things go viral, but you just don't know, man.

And that's the thing, I think. The studios are scared of they don't know what movie's gonna do well. Remember last year this time, Megan went viral with the little robot dance, right? And so everybody's oh, I gotta go see that movie. And then the Gentle Minion stuff on TikTok. And so now You know, obviously if you don't know, Sopranos was a show that I can't believe this 25 years ago, golly, 1999, 25 years ago, it started and it was a hit.

I watched, I don't know. Did you watch the Sopranos at all? Yeah. Yeah. I love Sopranos. Yeah. Back then there was no such thing as prestige TV. That was like the beginning of it. It was like, wow, this is interesting show. And very. Very anti women, very kind of pseudo racist, but it was definitely something we all watched.

You know what? No matter 

Mr.Benja: who, if you, I don't know about the misogyny side of things, but as far as the race was concerned, it's like we expected him to be a racist piece of shit and everybody else that he was rolling with. So whenever we saw the black people get involved, And we saw them like talking bad about him.

I don't know. I didn't feel bad about that. I thought it was hilarious because I'm like, Yeah, I know guys like that. I know who you are. We know the get down. So we're just it was funny to see it actually portrayed because 

Theo Harvey: we know the get down. Yeah, like I said, man, it's one of those things where but it was great show anyway.

TikTokers have decided to edit it down 25 seconds, cause it was like an hour long show and they had 13 episodes every season. And just to keep the young ones involved. So kudos to them, man. That's what TikTok does, man. They just try to make things old new again.

Mr.Benja: I can't stand tick tock. I just want to go ahead and put that out there.

Theo Harvey: Same. Yeah, I'm on there doing some stuff. But yeah, I just, yeah, it's, yeah, it's a time suck to number one. Anybody can get sucked into tick tock because the algorithm so good at figuring out what you're going to they see you just look at something like.

Longer than half a second. Guess what? The next video you're going to get is the same thing. YouTube is like that too and other stuff, but not tick tock will grab you and take a hold and you look up. It's four in the morning. What happened? 

Mr.Benja: Has tick tock ever told you to slow down?

No, I haven't got that. You got that? That's when I, that's when I deleted the app. I was, Dog,

I was scrolling and looking and I was like, dog, this is incredible. And I was just jumping in the comments, boom, reply, boom boom swipe, boom, reply comment boom. I was all over the place, dog. And I was moving. I finished and I went to the search bar.

Boom boom. Okay, search for Pharrell. Boom. Okay, Pharrell. Pharrell was good. I was just going crazy. Dude, a message came up saying, Hey, you should take it easy on social media. Social media is a tool, but it is not meant to be. And I'm like, what help you ? You got the warning. He was like the warning. He was like, if you need help, I was just like, I don't need help.

I need you to shut up so I can get back to commenting and posting . 

Theo Harvey: Oh man, that's crazy. TikTok. And said to you that you were in danger yourself. 'cause you're on social media too much. Oh wow. It wasn't me. It was the algorithm. I got to get off this thing. It's slow down, bro. Slow down, bro.

That's hilarious. 

Mr.Benja: Good story. But yeah, UMG is getting off of TikTok too. That is the universal music group. So they're taking music off TikTok right now. It's a big stink about this corporate battle. I don't know if you heard about this one, Theo. 

Theo Harvey: I did hear about from I think from you, Mr.

Pinchup, but I was like, it's funny. I hear something from you or somebody and then that's every everywhere. So once you mentioned it, I did say, Oh, wow. That's why there's no music coming from TikTok and certain platforms. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. Reading from NBC news here, let's see, singer Dean Lewis said, I have a new song coming out.

So my music is getting taken down in five hours, but I have a music, a new song coming out in nine hours. And so he says, so my song is not coming out on Tik TOK as if that's a thing. It is a fair, it is, but it's funny just hearing someone say, so my song is not coming out on a tick tock. I've seen people launch their songs on tick tock and what do you call it in Instagram and Snapchat before?

So that's where you break a new music, 

Theo Harvey: screw. The sound cloud is not what it used to be. It's all about tick tock, right? Cause you want to get those youngins. Creating those little tick tock dance for you. Is that really what it's all about? 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. When they used to say, Hey dog, you seen that new music video by such and such, it's don't even worry about it.

Just drop a hot song on tick tock, and then people start using it and adding it to their dance or making a, yeah, making a stitch out of it, and then next thing you know, you're hot and that's how songs get around. I've bought a couple of songs just because they were floating around like that.

I'm like, huh, I really liked that song. That's 

Theo Harvey: true, man. Yeah. Tick tocking, it can get in the earworm and you man and stuff like that. I can see how that happens. But it's amazing how it's just influencing culture, man. Cause there's a movie out now called anyone but you. It's just like a mid level rated R romantic comedy with To want to be super, movie stars and not movie stars yet, but they're trying to be this guy named Glenn Powell.

And I think her name is Sydney Sweeney and they, various TV shows, movies, but it's just, they're trying to make new movie stars. So the movie came out, nothing happened with it. And then they just left it out there. Okay, we released on Christmas. We'll see what happens.

And so here it is like about a month and a half since, they released it and it's still doing gangbusters, man. And all because some Tik Tokers loved one of these songs that showed up on there and they remixed it. And now everybody's recopying it from the movie, right? And so now the movie is a thing that's similar to Stranger Things.

Remember, they had that song with what's her name? Run up that hill. The young lady who wrote that song Stranger Things went viral because of that, right? And I think Kate Bush, run up that hill, a deal for God and that blew up. So it's man, tick tock. You just don't know, man.

You just put it out there. People grab onto it. They make a name for themselves by remixing it or add it with some different music. Wednesday, another hit, right? Because of that dance, right? They did. So it's just TikTok is the place to make hitmakers, to your point. Not just music, but also video.

Mr.Benja: Did you see did you see there's a video going around this young girl who's all into video editing and social media and she's really That's her world. And she's you don't understand. Editing is everything. We can make you feel anything. And she's the major corporations know this, but they're, people are just like, Oh yeah.

Edit your videos. And it's no, you don't understand. Watch this. And so they did these cuts of Epstein, politicians, a random kid outside somebody's house a cat, just, she did these random video edits of all these people and you really were like whoa, I want to know who this person is.

Whoa. I want to, and they were really good. And I was like, this is, this, these are. It was just, it was worthless content as in terms of people and everything, but like they pick a random like football guy who doesn't do anything, they play the hard music and he's sitting on the sidelines. Just, you're thinking about the game and it's like some guy who's never gotten any field time at all.

And it's 

Theo Harvey: just it's like editing a part of editing. Is it music too? And stuff like that. Yeah. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. The whole editing 

Theo Harvey: cuts the lighting. Yeah. Contrast. Yep. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah, so she's an, she's a, an editor and was like, Hey, listen, she's TikTok is destroying our concept of everything. And that's a shame.

Theo Harvey: That's why we hate it.

Mr.Benja: I don't know what's real. I don't know what's real.

Theo Harvey: Speaking of real, I got a transition for you. Speaking of real, Mr. Benja, do you know who Byron Allen is? And do you realize that he put something out there that people don't think is even real?

Byron Allen, if you don't know, he's the owner of the weather channel used to be comedian, stand up comedian. He hosted the real people back in the early, like in the seventies, almost before our time, he's a big time mogul now. And so now he's making bids for pieces of property, property in this case entertainment assets.

And he just made a 30 billion bid for Paramount global. This is a huge deal because Paramount Global is owner BT Showtime CBS and it's trying to sell itself, right? There's been people circling around it for for a while from David Ellison's son to other folks trying to see if they can get a piece of that.

And so here comes Byron Allen. And so basically his offer is 14 billion just to outright buy it. And the other 14, 15, 16 billion is really for debt that they're on my own. Because as we talked about this before, all these folks got a lot of debt so they can build all their content libraries up to go after the streaming wars.

We all know streaming wars are dead now, so they all got this debt that's why they're trying to sell, trying to get out of it as a Byron Allen's coming and the rumor is he doesn't even want. The streaming services, or and Paramount is great. Cause they have a lot of IP, transformers, they got mission impossible series. They got a lot of stuff that they, Godfather, they got a lot of IP and they have a studio, but the rumor is he doesn't even want that. He's a cable guy. He has a weather channel. I think he has centric TV, which is like a black owned kind of thing.

He just wants it for like his assets, like CBS. And so he can leverage that to do more. That's the other rumor to the other rumor is this is a ploy because he did bid for I think he put 3 billion out there for BET and they just dismissed them. The rumor is the banker that's working with Sherry Redstone, who's the owner of, Paramount amusement court, but the owners of Paramount Global Byron Allen and the banker for Paramount Global, they teamed up and he's look.

Go ahead and put a bid out there so we can get these other jokers to move faster with their bids. And if they win, we'll go ahead and get you your BET that y'all want. So that's the rumor because they don't know the rumor is. So he's okay, he's trying to, he's going to get 30 billion.

He's put out a bid for 30 billion, but where's Byron Allen getting his money from? And so that, so I hate to say the board is down is basically, does the brother have enough money to spend to get into this, into this rarefied air? And I think that's what they're trying to figure out. They don't know if he has the cash to do the deal.

He has the funding, because you can, the way that the, ritual approach would be like, Hey, he really needs to just You know, get an enough capital to hold it and then he can get backers who want to buy off pieces of it. So let's say they sell the paramount, paramount plus, or they sell off, the studio to someone else, he can get more money to pay off the debt and, make the deal worthwhile.

But they're wondering if he can put that together in a financing package. And that's the question right now.

Mr.Benja: I'm tired of hearing a Byron Allen. I love this guy. I think he's cool. He's funny. But it's every couple of months, I just hear about Hey dawg, I heard Byron Allen is gonna buy Krispy Kreme. The whole thing. I'm like, really? Huh, okay. You know he owns the Weather Channel. Of course he can own that.

Alright. Two weeks later, Hey dawg, I heard Byron Allen was about to buy K Swiss sneakers. I was like, really? It's just all over the place. I don't know. Just those aren't examples in his area. But yeah BT, you know offer 10 billion to take ABC and other networks off Bob Iger's hands 

Theo Harvey: Yeah, it does seem like it's hey who's got something they want to sell.

I got buy it, I'll buy it You know, and then it's like you almost become creepy and desperate, right? What's that? What's that analogy, man? You just don't want to be so thirsty for a girl, right? Every girl that walks by you say, Hey, can I get a date? Can I get a date? Can I holla at you?

Wait a minute. Do you want me or you just want a girl? And so that's the thing. I think with Byron Allen, does he want Paramount Global or he just wants, a seat at the table to be. Considered a media mogul. And I think that's what he wants. But to be fair, he may have a shot because look, there's not to me.

Black owners is these big media projects and because he owns the weather channel. If you read this article I sent you for the puck, it broke it down. He has good relationships with the FCC. And the challenge is any other buyer they're gonna may have run into some regulation issues because FCC don't play that mixing of, company.

So if you own a already own a TV station, like NBC, they could not buy paramount globals because play my global on CBS, that would be too much. Yeah. So Byron Allen knows that it has good relations with the FCC. And so they may, may let it ride. Yeah, so he'll get something, man, but kudos to him, man, to go from a standup comedian in his career to offering 30 billion for Paramount.

It's like phenomenal. 

Mr.Benja: You know what I can't trust. What is whenever you go to a website and it says, Hey, look at all these things I've done and then you actually click on one of the things they've done and just a broken link. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just found a broken link on his web page.

You put 

Theo Harvey: a 30 billion offer out there. You have a broken link. 

Mr.Benja: There's a broken link on the site, but no, it's hard to find. I'm just clicking 

Theo Harvey: all around. What they do, he texts the share wet redstone, the owner of Burma, the offer. Hey, Mr. Benja, how are you today? Hey, guess what? You know your Paramount Global?

Fourteen billion dollars. How about that? 

Mr.Benja: The text. On the toilet right now. We'll text you back after 

Theo Harvey: Wait a minute. BRB Your shoulder struggle emoji. 

Mr.Benja: BRB.

Reply. Reply. Stop.

Theo Harvey: What if it was, the water mochi's with the eggplant.

Oh 

Mr.Benja: yeah. 

Theo Harvey: So anyway hilarious, man. You just text an offer of 14 billion. Oh, man. That's hilarious. But you know what I 

Mr.Benja: think the problem is? 

Theo Harvey: Yeah, man. I think so too. 

Mr.Benja: By the way it's funny that's a, I say that in serious jest, like all the time, and I caught one of my friends, he got really nervous, it's God damn it, let's cut them black, and I was just joking to myself, and he was like, hey man, you could hear the soft music just playing over his head he just came over to me, hey man, it's okay we know you've gone through a lot in this, I'm like, it's okay.

Make it away from me. I'm just joking around.

Theo Harvey: This is the race car bed. Yes. What they would say, but it's man, I don't even, in the back of my mind is there, but I just, what's it called? I put that buffer in all my calculations, right? Just, that's just part of the calculation. So you can't get mad at it, right?

If you're going to be, your wife is, takes her 10 minutes to get, hour to get ready. You tell her. The party starts at seven, even though it really starts at eight and so you don't get mad. That's exactly what I do with racism. I tell myself I have to just be just a little bit better and I'll be okay.

So I don't know. That's just always been my take on it. But I know that's just, you're not mad. You're 

Mr.Benja: not mad. It's no, I had another had another gig lined up and. This might be a probability. Exactly. 

Theo Harvey: And then, cause at the end of the day, man, you just can't, dictate that.

You just got to roll the punches. Cause whatever my, my irritations I've had or microaggressions they were called I guarantee, our predecessors, had way more than us. So I said, Hey, I'll fight the good fight for another day. 

Mr.Benja: Yeah. And we were, we brought that up because of black thing, because real quick, the DEI whole thing back and forth, racism, reverse racism.

I'm hearing words about anytime I hear somebody talking about skin color, I know it's Oh God, here we go. It's not about skin color and black history month. Two fam Ewens. From the school that we're from are in the news over a lawsuit that came up and it's quick, maybe, the story better.

Maybe you should just run through it real 

Theo Harvey: quick. Yeah, just high level. Two young ladies, they started a venture capital fund looking to fund black women and which was fine, in 2020 after george floyd and all that. But now in 2024 anti woke sentiments out there and the construction of D.

I. Programs, diversity, equity, inclusion and the Supreme Court ruling. Taking back affirmative action. That's a no stone starter now. And now they're being sued by other folks saying that their V. C. Funded discriminatory against other races and genders. And so now they're fighting for their lives to keep the program alive.

Getting funding is hard now because a lot of corporations who promised millions of dollars is backed out because I think initially they got scared. They scared. And so now they're suing and doing a kind of court stuff and there's rumors that it's going to go all the way to Supreme court. Definitely tough time, and then also to get some backlash against black men who said why is this guy before women only?

So it's just they're getting it from all sides. Kudos to the sisters, trying to, going out there. I knew one of them on Yana Parsons. I think I know her husband, but do some things, but yeah, kudos to them. Hopefully they can get this, on the right footing, but we'll talk more about this, Mr.

Benjamin, maybe throughout, this is February black history month because we black and we're going to talk about it. So that's what we do so often. So it may, we'll bring back black Batman week. Yeah, we got to do that. 

Mr.Benja: Yes. Yes, absolutely. It's 

Theo Harvey: here. All right, Mr. Benja. Thanks for your time.

Everyone. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. Please like subscribe and comment at show versus business on X YouTube and Instagram. Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts, visit us at our website, show versus business. Mr. Benja have a great one. Peace.