Why Everything You See Online Is Trying to Get Your Attention (Older kids, parents, & teachers)

This week, Amber sits down with digital producer and internet culture veteran Matt Silverman for a real talk about algorithms, slop, screen addiction, and why being a little bit skeptical online might be the most important skill a kid can have right now.

Matt has spent decades covering how the internet works — and more importantly, how it works on us. He breaks it all down in a way that actually makes sense, whether you're 10 or your parent is 45.

In this episode:

• Why the internet shifted from connecting people to feeding you content, and who profits from that
• What "digital literacy" actually means (hint: it's three questions)
• The difference between harmless scrolling and content engineered to manipulate you
• What AI-generated "slop" is and why it's getting harder to spot
• Why being bored might actually be good for your brain
• The screen-free comedy podcast made 100% by humans, for kids

The 3 questions to ask before you like, share, or believe anything online:

1. Who made this?
2. Why did they make it?
3. Why is this platform showing it to me?

Check out this week's newsletter on Tuesday for a screen-free activity that relates to these three questions.

Links & Resources Mentioned:

• Matt Silverman
• Tales from the Cloud Sea: The completely improvised, screen-free comedy adventure podcast for kids.
• Locket: The low-key, non-algorithmic photo-sharing app Matt recommends as a healthier social option for kids.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Matt

Speaker 1 0:31

Hi everyone, welcome back to AI for Kids. The internet changes fast, and right now, a lot of kids are growing up in a world full of social media, viral content, online communities, and one of our favorite words, AI. That can be exciting, but also kind of confusing. That's why today's guest, Matt Silverman, is so important to talk to you right now. Matt is a digital producer, and I'm gonna need Matt to explain what a digital producer is, just in case folks don't know, who has covered internet culture, online communities, tech, and social media trends for more than 50 years. He also makes podcasts and videos and helps create shows people love and talks to adults, parents, and kids about digital media literacy. So excited to have Matt as part of the show. And he's also part of a really cool screen free comedy adventure podcast called Tells from the Cloud C. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Silverman 1:20

Hey, Amber. Thank you so much for having me. I'm such a big fan of this show, so I am thrilled to be part of it. Thank you for including me.

Would You Rather Internet Edition

Amber Ivey 1:28

No, thank you so much. And folks, if you had an opportunity, I got a chance to sit on one of Matt's shows in the past for parents, definitely check it out. I'll also link it in the show notes. But Matt, before we jump in, let's start with a quick game of would you rather be ready?

Speaker 1 1:42

All right. I am not prepared because I'm not prepared to give short, succinct answers on anything. So keep me in line, Amber.

Amber Ivey 1:50

I will try my best. Would you rather go viral or make one thing your favorite people really love? No explanation.

Speaker 1 1:58

I having gone viral many times in my life, I'm gonna flip over to the other side and say that making something meaningful for people I care about is is much more rewarding.

Amber Ivey 2:10

I love that. Would you rather be famous on YouTube or secretly be the funniest person in every group chat?

Speaker 1 2:16

Famous on YouTube for sure.

Amber Ivey 2:18

Okay, okay. Would you rather have unlimited creativity or unlimited followers?

Speaker 1 2:25

I need unlimited creativity because my my creativity wells run dry as a as a dad and as a you know do doing all these jobs. So I need more creativity in my life, please.

Amber Ivey 2:37

Okay. And then would you rather, this is gonna be interesting, make podcasts or make videos?

Speaker 1 2:41

I don't know how to answer this one. I I think I'm gonna do say podcasts because that's where I spend most of my mental energy in terms of what I enjoy these days. So yeah, I gotta go podcast.

Amber Ivey 2:58

I love that. And last but not least, would you rather explore a weird online fandom or a thing that everyone loves and is fans of, or create your own imaginary world?

Speaker 1 3:10

I love online fandoms and I love learning about them, but I want to make my own things. So I want to create my own stuff.

How The Internet Changed Media

Amber Ivey 3:19

Okay, I think you passed the cool test and creative thing. So I'm so glad to have you here. Thank you for doing that. But the interesting thing is why I asked a lot of these questions, just to let the kids get an idea of who you are. You spent years covering internet culture. What made you want to pay attention to the internet? Why did that become the thing you wanted to do in the first place?

Speaker 1 3:38

Totally. I grew up in a time before the web, the modern web. And then as I was coming into my professional life and my adulthood, that's when the more modern internet was taking shape. And I was so, so fascinated by how it was changing the world and broader culture. And also super fascinated by the idea that, like, for decades, if you wanted to reach people, you had to like be chosen to be on the radio or be on television or be in a movie or be a rock and roll star or sports star. But suddenly, if you wanted to create something, you could just do it. And then 10 or 10,000 people could then be part of that. And it could be very quick. And that was so enticing to me. And then in parallel, I ended up getting a job at a digital media company that was very hip and trendy and exciting at a time when media was changing. And that skyrocketed my ability to reach people. And it taught me a lot about how internet audiences operate and what they care about.

Amber Ivey 4:47

So I know in the intro, and even now, you mentioned terms like digital media. One sentence for a person who's in fifth grade, what does that mean?

Speaker 1 4:57

It means anything that you encounter on the internet or on social media, you know, videos, podcasts, newsletters, articles, you name it. I love that.

Amber Ivey 5:07

So, folks, anytime we open up the computer or open up a laptop, when we have media that's digital or online, that is exactly what we're talking about today. And the cool thing is, Matt, that you have seen a lot of trends come and go in this like internet slash digital media space. What is something about the internet now that feels very different from when you first started? Because you actually saw the world before the internet, before digital.

Speaker 1 5:33

I have been talking to parents and kids and teachers a lot lately about a very important shift that is a little bit difficult and worrying to me. And I think it's important to talk to families about why this shift has happened. But the internet historically has been about connecting humans together around interests or social bonds. And increasingly, we are seeing the social internet become extremely algorithmic. And by that I mean if I want to go online and send you a message, Amber, or share something with you, I totally can. That's still there. But if I open up Instagram or YouTube today, I am bombarded with content that I did not subscribe to or uh consciously elect to see, but it is being shown to me because algorithms are determining what I like and serving me the most engaging or addictive content in order to maximize advertising revenue. And that is a massive departure from how the web was originally conceived, which was Amber has a website and I have a website, and I can check out Amber's stuff, and Amber can check out my stuff, and we can talk. And now it's just you open up an app and scroll, and and robots feed you what it thinks you're gonna like. And that can be fun and cool and a great way to discover interesting things. And it can also be very toxic and dangerous and limiting to the types of content that is out there. Because when we talk about digital content, I think the greatest media that's ever been made in human history is being made right now, today, on the internet. The best stuff in terms of quality and inspiration and creativity and education. It's the greatest of all time, but you may not know where to find it because algorithms are just like, look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this. Ads, ads, ads. And that is a shame because tech companies have trained us for the last decade to just scroll instead of be curious and creative.

Amber Ivey 7:45

Matt, you know, I know enough about the space. That didn't hit until you like just explained it right now. Like I didn't realize or I didn't think about the change from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. I didn't think about that. And if I was on like an Instagram or Facebook, I would see the stuff from my friends. But now everything, no matter where you go, is using algorithms and is targeting me. And that makes me a little sad that I I kind of just let it happen, if that makes sense. Like I kind of do the thing, but not thinking about this like fundamental change to why we actually, I know for me, why I struggle with screen time addictions and making sure that kids aren't addicted, is not because of necessarily just being online, it's the marketing tactics behind these companies that are pulling me in. And it that's helping me think about why screen time is so different now and why addiction is so high. So I really appreciate you for that. You talk a lot about digital literacy, and as we think about that, if you had to explain it in one sentence to a fifth grader or in a way that they would understand what is digital literacy?

Speaker 1 8:55

In a nutshell, it is this understanding that everything you encounter on the internet is served to you for a reason. And these days, as we just talked about, usually that reason is to maximize profit. So digital literacy to me is a person, a kid or an adult, because it's a problem for adults too, to look at something and say, uh, who made this? Why did they make it? And why is this platform showing it to me? And if you can't answer all of those questions, then you need to do a bit more thinking or research or corroborating, which just means looking at other sources to see if this thing is useful, truthful, real, when it, of course, when it comes to generative uh content. I hope if I leave anyone with some advice, it's just that like we have to do a little work before we hit like or share or or send it because um there are forces behind that piece of content that may not have your interests at heart.

Amber Ivey 10:05

The three steps that you just walked through, I'm gonna add that to a screen free activity for if this comes out in the newsletter. I think that's a really good concept on how to think about digital media and interacting with digital pieces and giving kids like a real way to walk through how they consider what they're interacting with online. So thank you for that. Um, and I'll make sure I give you credit in the newsletter. A lot of kids are online all the time, but no one really teaches them or the parents how to understand what they are seeing. What do you think kids should know about the internet and things that they may not actually get taught either in a classroom or at home? What should they know?

Breaking The Scroll Habit

Speaker 1 10:44

It does get back to that critical thinking point of view. I liked what you said earlier, Amber, about like that, you know, you're feeling disappointed that you fall into the we all we all do it. We all fall into the trap of being passive and scrolling. It's not always bad, but you don't have to do that. You can choose not to do it, and it can be hard sometimes. But the great content and the great social connections, and like we were saying earlier, the fandom, the the beauty of the internet is that I love this type of movie or I love these video games, but my classmates, my neighbor, my coworkers have no idea what this is. So I have no one to talk to. Well, guess what? The internet is here so that you can be connected to people who love the same things that you love. And that's that's why I got into this business in the first place, because I love that. If you'd put a little effort in, you can do the work to re-establish those intentional social connections and intentional consumption of content rather than this passive mode. Choose it. Choose to use the internet as a tool, choose to use the internet for creativity and social connection. And maybe when you scroll, just kind of say, I know this is just um cotton candy. I know this is just mostly junk food. And I'm gonna eat some cotton candy for a while, but I'm not gonna eat cotton candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You know what I mean?

Amber Ivey 12:09

I love that. That's interesting though. So the scroll idea, I know for me, kids, as an adult, I know I have a screen addiction and I'm addicted to the scroll. I was actually considering, like a couple years ago, getting like an old school brick phone as we used to call them, or a phone that doesn't connect to the internet. But then I realized the way the phones are currently built, my phone is often used to get in other accounts and to get in my banking, to get in my investments, to get in so many different things where I don't want to ever have an interruption there. So I actually found like this device that basically allows you to lock certain apps on your phone. And I've been trying it out for like two weeks now, and it's been super helpful. And what I've seen, because I've tried it a few times, when you try to go into like Instagram and you know your phone is locked, you have to then go physically get this thing to unlock your phone.

Speaker 1 12:56

So oh yes.

Amber Ivey 12:58

Puts a barrier in between me to do so. Then I'm like, forget it. Like, I don't need Instagram that bad to walk upstairs and get it.

Speaker 1 13:04

Because you're just you're just doing that to kill like two 20 seconds of boredom. And if you if you put that barrier, you you don't get in there. Um and I want to be clear, uh, you know this because we've talked about this, but I am I am pro screens. I turn you know, screen time into food that goes on the table for my kids, you know. I'm not anti-screen or anti-phone. I am identifying the issues with for-profit algorithmic social media.

Amber Ivey 14:04

I am struggling with this. Understand, I know what you all are going through as well. So let me actually give you a hypothetical. Say I'm in school and I see a post or video or screenshot that everybody is sharing, that we're all scrolling past and we're all engaging. Now we're sending it in group chat and all the things that we do when we see something. It looks real, but I'm not totally sure. What should I do before I believe it or continue to share it?

Speaker 1 14:28

You should be critical and skeptical of everything you see, full stop, period.

Amber Ivey 14:35

Especially today.

Speaker 1 14:36

Especially today. However, there's so much nuance here that is hard for everyone, including adults. Sometimes there are things that I interact with on the internet where the stakes are so low. Let's just say memes, right? A silly meme with an image from who knows where that was photographed by who knows who, with some text on it that is just so relatable, and you send it to your friend, and it's so funny. The stakes of that don't affect, you know, the news, doesn't affect my health, doesn't affect truth and ethics in the wider world. I'm just sending a meme to my friends because it's super funny. And I think in that context, you can just be like, hey, this is fun. I'm sharing it and it's it's going around and it's viral and we're all being silly. And that and the internet should be fun. But that line gets super fuzzy really quick because now you get into is it a picture of an actual person? Is it a person you know? Has that picture been manipulated either through photo editing tools and now through uh generative AI? And is that ethical? Was the AI trained on thousands of copyrighted images that never got paid or credited? And now we're making memes with tools that have been unethically trained. For listeners, these are questions for Amber and I to worry about and solve. Amber and I are working on this, and we will be saving the world from all of this. And I would say in about six months. But for you, I would stress that you should be cautious and think critically about it.

Amber Ivey 16:21

Yeah, and I think one thing I like to tell kids too, and it's making me remember it as you're talking, it's like you made like the ah sound and you show the face of like the feeling you feel when you feel like something's wrong. We all have like that gut feeling, that intuition, like right before we're either about to do something or make a decision that it's like a voice that says stop for a second. When you hear that voice, that's when I pause and say, Hey, this is something we need to think about in a different way. Because if making me feel icky, there may be something wrong here. And my neurons, my brain, and my body is feeling something or seeing something that I may not recognize at first, and it's giving me that pause. So totally as you're engaging with this stuff, if you feel the icky feeling, don't share it and don't go for it.

Speaker 1 17:04

Your point is so, so important. We intrinsically have those icky detectors of like we see through body language and vocal cues when someone is like, ah, maybe this is true, I don't know, maybe, or you see someone acting a little shifty. You intrinsically know that something's up and you feel cautious about it. Because a lot so much of the internet is nonverbal or very polished and very slick, the video you're seeing has been very carefully curated, and we are lacking those cues that we have evolved to sense deeply. And it just means we have to be extra, extra cautious on the internet.

Amber Ivey 17:47

That's such a good point. One other thing to add here is I often watch YouTube. Now YouTube ads have gotten like really bad. YouTube, Instagram, and and they have some rules they still follow that are like laws that they have to follow. But for the most part, you can put darn near anything online and say it's true. And it just makes me so upset that now someone's telling me this saved my life, or this can do this, or this can do that. Where in the past, if it was on television, they couldn't do that. So to Matt's point, a lot of those protections are removed, and you don't have the ability to see a person come tell you or try to sell you something. Now they are using marketing, they're using science and things like that to target you in a way that makes it harder. So this is just reminding me that you and I need to hurry up and fix this problem. Or yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 18:33

I would say four within four to six months, Amber and I will have fixed the internet. But right now, it makes sense. Yeah, we gotta be cautious for for now.

Amber Ivey 18:41

Okay, so we're gonna do another quick rapid fire round. Okay. And you did well earlier, but not as well as you could have. No, but seriously, I wanna um I wanna do a quick rapid fire round on my thoughts and questions. We'd love to hear your responses. Are you ready?

Speaker 1 18:57

I'm ready.

Amber Ivey 18:58

Sure or false? If a lot of people like something, that means it's true.

Speaker 1 19:02

False. I think a lot of your kids know that answer. Kids are super smart and they're really good at sniffing when things are not quite right. And like we said earlier, if something has a lot of likes, that really just means that algorithms have determined that it triggers an emotional response from thousands and millions of people and serves it to thousands and millions and tens of millions of people in order to get 10,000 likes. It's it's pure scale and profit. It's not about whether the content is good or true or valuable.

Amber Ivey 19:37

Thank you for that. What is one clue a video might make?

Speaker 1 19:41

If you do the work and you search for other accounts or channels, or better yet, if you're feeling ambitious, reputable journalistic organizations, and nobody is covering it or talking about it or referencing it, then I would say that's a big question mark on that piece of content.

Amber Ivey 20:01

The number of times I've searched for something and the source was Facebook, it makes me exactly true or false. AI always knows what it's talking about.

Speaker 1 20:10

Amber Ivy AI, she knows what she's talking about. Okay. I've I have vetted her thoroughly. She is huge. I'm 94% confident she's she's a human being.

Amber Ivey 20:20

Me too. I'm probably 94%.

Speaker 1 20:23

The thing that makes generative AI amazing is also this sort of magic sauce that causes it to hallucinate. AI, when it runs out of facts, it doesn't know that it has run out of facts and it just keeps talking. The product is built to be an answer machine. It's very useful and it's usually telling you useful information, but I often say only ask AI questions that you already know the answer to. The point of that is I need to use this tool to speed up something that I'm doing or make my work or effort more efficient. And I'll give you an example. I know that my co-host said something in the transcript of a podcast somewhere, and I don't remember where. So I could go back and listen to an hour and a half of audio, or I could ask AI, hey, where did my co-host say XYZ so I can trim it out? And that saves me time, unless ChatGPT can't understand what the heck I'm talking about and completely makes up a conversation that I had with my co-host. And that cost me more time because I had to untangle all the hallucinations.

Amber Ivey 21:39

And it still does that, even when I'm like looking for quotes, like I'll use it to try to find a quote from our conversation, and then it'll make up a quote. It'll try to like get close to it, but it doesn't fully do it. I'm like, no, I need like the actual quote, then it'll give it back to me. So I've even seen that on my own. Yes. So what is smarter? Sharing fast or checking first?

Speaker 1 22:00

Checking first, always.

Amber Ivey 22:02

Always. And then last one, what is one question every kid should ask before trusting something online?

Speaker 1 22:09

Who made it? Why did they make it? And why is the platform showing it to me?

Spotting Slop And AI Tricks

Amber Ivey 22:15

I love that. And kids, again, that will be in a screen free activity for this week. So ask your parents to play that with you. All right. So we're gonna shift a little bit more to like the misleading parts of the internet. So, what are some signs that something online might be fake, misleading, or trying to get a big reaction out of me? Like, I want to be able to know how to do this. You're an expert. Help me.

Speaker 1 22:39

It's it's it's a lot of gray area. And I think there's a lot of nuance between like whole cloth fake, like this is completely generated for no other purpose than to create fakeness, versus hey, this might be a piece of content that has value or dubious value, but it is packaged. In a way that is to elicit an emotional response. And the reason I know so much about that is because I do it for a living. I work with wonderful podcasters and YouTubers who are my clients, and they are all excellent. You know, they are uh hackers and doctors and they know what they're talking about. But in order for their video to reach your eyeballs, it is my job to package it with a face that has an emotional response on it. Or, like, you know, we've all seen the Mr. Bee stification of YouTube thumbnails. And the reason why that happens more and more is because it works. It does. When we open an app and we just go to the for you page or the home page, or we're just scrolling, we are wired, our brains are wired to respond to human faces eliciting emotions. And in the worst case, those emotions are fear and anger. Those work really well on the internet. And in the best case, it might just be me making a handsome doctor look very inquisitive because he's gonna talk to you about um colon cancer. You know, that's something we published recently on one of the channels. And and that video is so good and so important, but I had to make sure that it's gonna reach the most people that it possibly can. What I would say to anyone using social media, if you open an app to look at something and you're like, oh, I gotta message my friend. And then before you do that, something makes you feel like, oh, I got what is this? I gotta look at this. That piece of content is at the top of your algorithm because 10,000 other people already were like, What is this? I have to and if you immediately feel that from seeing something, you should know that that has been engineered to make you stop and look. And that's not always bad, but usually it's not the best.

Amber Ivey 25:03

It's a really, really good red flag when like there's some evidence because it's popping up on all of our feeds, or a lot of people have engaged with it. So, how has AI made this harder? You kind of start getting into it, but what can AI do now that kids should know about that makes it harder for them to go through that process?

Speaker 1 25:23

Slop, let's call it slop, or now we call it brain rot. That has been on the internet since the beginning of the web. Like we've all we used to go on forums and post the the silliest things that was just nonsensical and random. And that was because that's fun. So this is not new, but what I do want to stress is that there is now financial incentive for platforms and for creators to put the most engaging and emotional and sensational and misleading slop onto the platforms as much as possible. So that's where we've been for the last five to 10 years-ish or so, where it's like there's a lot of incentive to put dangerous nonsense on the internet. And there are there are professionals in the field, including me, who have gotten really good at saying, well, if I'm change the face to this expression, or I change the cut the background to red instead of blue, I'm getting 20% more engagement. There is a science to engineering attention and addiction. And that used to be a job for humans. Now, instead of A B C testing, thumbnails and video frames and emotional response, AI lets us A, B, C, D, EFG, A, H I J K L Infinite. There is a massive industry of we in the biz, we call it content farms. And content farms have been creating slop content on the internet for two decades now, but now it's supercharged by the iterative nature of generative AI.

Amber Ivey 27:08

Yeah, that's the hard part. I think about it, but I didn't think about it as much. That now, because you can create so much content in seconds, now I can put out just as much content as I can create. And like you said, infinite. AI can do infinite things. So that means I can put infinite things in front of you to test out which one you're going to grab onto. And then I get to learn what works, make sure the algorithm is helping me push more of that out. And then you start to see a lot of the same types of videos online right now. But we see all that because they've learned through science. There's science around how humans react to buying things. I don't think I've talked to the kids. Exactly. Adults, we've been manipulated by this for a very long time. But now, kids, it's in front of you. Or you had to go somewhere to a store where that same marketing was happening, now it's in all of our hands.

Speaker 1 27:56

Or if you watch a TV commercial with a toy for kids, it's like, well, this is on during cartoons and it's for kids as a cohort, right? I don't do ad targeting, but if you were to peek under the hood of these ad targeting platforms, you would be terrified with the accuracy and the precision with which I could hone in on Amber's exact secret thoughts and then target her with something that she doesn't even know she needs or wants, but somehow can't live without. And we're we are doing that with content as well. And I just want to remind everyone listening, you're being targeted all the time.

Amber Ivey 28:38

Yeah.

Pressure Online And Mental Health

Speaker 1 28:39

And so you should always take a step back and say, why is this in front of my eyes right now?

Amber Ivey 28:46

That's very true. We're just in a different world, kids, and AI makes it even harder to cope with. And I also realize there's a lot of pressure on you kids to perform, to look cool, to have the right person or right opinion or keep up with the trends, and this doesn't help. What would you say to a kid who feels that pressure? If you've been in a digital space for some time, you've been able to see the generations and how things have changed. How do we help kids today navigate this age-old problem? But I think it's harder now to deal with.

Speaker 1 29:24

I'm sad to say I don't know the answer. I I I like talking with experts and psychologists and other people who are more in the weeds on this. All of our social lives are so wrapped up in these apps, and teen teens and preteens social lives are deeply interwoven in these apps. We and they are seeing perfected versions of their peers all day, every day. And there's so much research that indicates that that is just awful for self-esteem. And guess what? Those algorithms, even if you don't like it or comment, because you want to be cool and you want to just be like, I don't want, I don't know, I didn't see that photo. What are you talking about? But you actually did look at it. Well, the platform absolutely knows that you looked at it, which then triggers the algorithm to serve it to more and more people. So we're in a world where perfect and ridiculous beauty standards are rewarded exponentially by algorithmic platforms, which just makes all of us feel less than. It's not a great ecosystem for mental health, especially teen mental health. And I wish I had a good answer for like how to address that. I don't. I think my best answer is like don't scroll. Go online, message your friends, sh be creative, consume content that you love, that you care about. Try not to scroll because scrolling will just show you unrealistic things that will ultimately make you feel bad about yourself. You won't feel bad in the moment you're scrolling, but you will feel bad, you know, 15 minutes later, and you won't really know why.

Amber Ivey 31:13

Yeah.

Speaker 1 31:14

And using um very simple social platforms like Locket, I don't know if you're familiar with Locket at all. I'm sure some of your listeners, maybe all of them, uh, might be aware. Um, it is kind of like how social media used to be. You just take a picture of your sandwich, and that's your picture for the day. Okay. And it's like, hey, my friend Karen uh, you know, shared a funny thing. And that's it. It's I don't believe it's algorithmic. It is just like, hey, my seven friends shared their picture of the day, and we're all laughing and commenting and emojis, and it's it's adorable, but it is not a thing that's like scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll.

Tales From The Cloud Sea

Amber Ivey 31:52

I hope more sites, as I as I question my my statement. I hope more sites go that way. I do know that their motivation is profits. It's gonna be hard to do that because ads is how they make their money. But I'm glad there are places that offer that for kids. And kids, if y'all know about it, that's great. If you don't and you want to talk to your parents about it, definitely do that as well. And so I want to shift a bit to something that you do that's a bit of an interesting ideaslash platform. You actually have something called Tells from the Cloud C. What is that? And why do you think kids enjoy the screen-free comedy adventure that is a tells from the cloud C podcast?

Speaker 1 32:38

Tales from the Cloud C is a completely improvised comedy podcast. And every single thing that is said on this show is is made up in the moment. It is not scripted. That's awesome. Um, and so it roots back to my love of improv comedy and improv comedy podcasts. And I think the mainstream touch point for improv is typically um, like, Whose Line Is It Anyway, which was like, which was a network sort of game show. We are like a theatrical creative family. And I was like, oh my goodness, they would love these shows, but all of them are absolutely filthy. Like they are not appropriate for kids at all. So I said, there must be improv comedy podcasts for kids, right? It must exist. It doesn't exist. So I had this idea for so long to make one, but I am not an improviser. I these people are wizards. I don't understand how their brains work. They're they're brilliant people. And so when I want to make something on the internet, I'm like, all right, well, I'm gonna do the research and I'm gonna write the script and I'm gonna figure out the art and I, you know, cobble together what the thing that I want to make. But for this, it's I literally can't do it. I don't have the talent to do it. And through a very coincidental happenstance, I got connected with five performers at a very legendary improv theater called Dad's Garage. They all work in children's improvised theater. And I said, Hey, what do you think of this idea? And all of them were like, we have to do this. And so the premise is that two kids from Earth, who are named Amelia and Arthur, who are named after my own kids, they find a secret portal in their attic to a fantasy world of sky pirates and floating islands and steampunk robots. And they find themselves there and they get to go on adventures that are, again, completely unscripted, completely improvised. And the best part of the show is that kids who listen call in and invent the island. So they might say, Hey, I want you to go to Black Cat Island, or hey, I want you to go to Lollipop Island where everything's made out of candy. And the performers do not know what the island will be until the moment we record the episode. And I do hope that people listening will check it out because there's nothing else like it. And also, I've made my entire living putting silly, funny, ridiculous things on the internet. This show is the funniest thing I've ever worked on. And kids and parents and grown-ups all love it together. This is for everybody. It's the show I wish existed for me.

Amber Ivey 35:21

That is so cool. Also, I want to go on record saying Matt is actually funny and does come up with things. So I appreciate you being humble, but I'm pretty sure you would have been able to handle it. But yeah, let the professionals go, but you're also, you are still funny.

Speaker 1 35:37

Improv is a special is a special magic skill that I don't have. I just push buttons and make sound effects on the show. But there's magic in this show, and I'm so proud of it.

Amber Ivey 35:49

I love that. We'll make sure, kids, make sure you check that out with your parents. It will be in the show notes. Um, so you can see how things get created even without using AI in a way that we often go to AI for. It'll be it'll be great just to hear humans doing their own creation and being able to go off the we are 100% human-made.

Speaker 1 36:09

Uh on Salesforce. Thank you.

Amber Ivey 36:12

So, what is different about listening? And I know we're getting close to the end here, but I wanted to ask a couple more questions. What is different about listening to something and imagining in your head instead of always watching content on a screen? Because you're your this podcast is an audio version. Correct. Correct.

Speaker 1 36:30

Correct. It is audio only. We put video versions on YouTube and we put social clips, but there isn't video of the actors performing. It is theater of the mind. It is the show is fully sound designed. The reason I love improv is that it's exciting and it's dangerous. And by that I mean like you don't know what's gonna happen next, and neither do the people literally living the characters in real time. It is like real life, but also it's silly and it's heightened and it's fantasy. We all watch SNL. That is scripted, but let's be real. The funniest part of SNL is when the actors break, when something unexpected happens and they can't keep it in, and they start to laugh. That is happening all the time in our show, and it's the funniest part of the show because they are we are making each other laugh and it's all part of it. You are in it, like you are listening, you are immersed in this soundscape and in this unpredictable thing. And that allows your mind to create the imagery or to feel the texture of the audio, right? And I think, you know, I'm not a psychologist and I'm not a not a scientist, but there is tons of research and discussion around like we need time to escape into our mind's eye, to imagine, to be, to be bored, which is not, you know, when you're listening or engaging with something, hopefully you're not bored. But when we're bored, our br our minds go to other places and we think different thoughts that are from within us, right? They're not being fed to us. I truly miss, I miss being bored because all of my best ideas came out of being bored. And when I'm always going to check my phone to fill in that 20 seconds of boredom, I am consuming other people's thoughts instead of sitting with my own. Don't be afraid of boredom. Take a moment to escape to your own theater of the mind.

A Kid’s Best Question To Ask

Amber Ivey 38:33

That was that was great. I love that answer. Even the part where you said, like allowing yourself to be bored, to hear your own thoughts, because what we are doing, to your point, is we're listening to everyone else's thoughts. And that's what's in our minds, which leads to us having low confidence, which leads to us thinking we're not good enough, which leads to all these things, and just allowing for the silence for you to hear your own voice. I think that's just amazing. And I wanted to give you space for just to share if there's a kid that's listening right now and trying to figure out how to be smart, creative, and not get fooled online, or any other thoughts that you have that you want to make sure you leave behind with the audience. What would you want them to remember most?

Speaker 1 39:13

I just appreciate this conversation so much. It's so important. So I thank you for like including me in it. This is funny. This I think this happened yesterday. Okay. So my daughter, she doesn't use social media that I know of. But she likes to engage with like visual effects and theatrical stuff. And, you know, we're big Wicked fans. And you know, so she is consuming Harry Potter and Wicked and all kinds of media through mostly through YouTube. Because I interview internet creators on one of my shows, which you were a guest on. She is occasionally sending me influencers that she finds on YouTube. And she's like, Oh, you should check out this, you should interview this person. And it's super valuable because it allows me to peer into the consumption habits of a 13-year-old, which I definitely don't know anything about, and potentially talk to very creative, interesting people. And so she sent me this visual effects artist who uh just does these amazing videos where he's like, he's unzipping his uh his like sweatshirt, and then the camera zooms in and it becomes like a speedboat, like zipping through the water. And it's like the most amazing thing. And he, in his videos, he says, Here's how I made this. Here are the steps that I used in After Effects and Premiere to make this thing. And he says, absolutely, no AI was used in the creation of this video. Today or yesterday, she said, Hey, did you ever get in touch with that guy? And I was like, No, I couldn't, I didn't, you know, I watched his stuff, it's really cool, but I don't know if he's a fit for the show. And she said, Yeah, he says he doesn't use AI, AI. I was like, Yeah, I know, I did notice that. And she said to me, like, but is he using AI? Like, maybe he is. How can I tell if he is? And I said, Well, we can't, because all we're doing is just taking this individual person's word for the fact that they are not using it. And I wanted to share that story because I am immensely proud of her for saying that. Because we could have just said, yeah, this guy doesn't use AI. Isn't he talented? And we still can say that. We can still admire his work. But she still took that moment to say, well, we don't know for sure. And I think that's important. If I could leave listeners with one thing, it's just have that little teensy bit of critical thought. Even if you still share it, even if you still subscribe, even if you still enjoy and watch, that's okay. But just reserve a little bit of space for, well, we don't know for sure. That's the most important thing we can do on the internet right now.

Final Thanks And Subscribe

Amber Ivey 41:57

Matt, that's such a great way to end the show. Being able to remember that part of this is us keeping our curiosity, keeping our critical thinking, and trying our best because we're all trying to figure this out together. And just the story of you and your daughter and how you're navigating that today is something I hope that the parents, as well as the kids, are able to resonate with. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for being on the show and for joining us. And kids, we look forward to seeing you next time. Remember, stay curious, and I will see you all somewhere soon. Bye bye. Thank you for joining us as we explore the fascinating world of artificial intelligence. Don't keep this adventure to yourself. Download it, share it with your friends, and let everyone else in on the fun. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast or on YouTube. See you next time on AI for kids.