Ep 46: "Cults of Personality"

What starts on the fringes often shapes the future. In this episode, we explore how subcultures from hip-hop and punk to skateboarding, gaming, streetwear, and internet communities have transformed into mainstream influences that shape today's music, fashion, art, entertainment, and even the way we think. Join us as we discuss why yesterday's "outsiders" often become tomorrow's trendsetters, and what that says about culture, identity, and the lasting influence of Generation X.

Intro and Outro music by Erin Garris and Khari Garris 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Yo, yo, yo, what it is, what it was, what's it gonna be? Welcome. Welcome to the latest episode of the Gen Expertise Podcast, episode 46, entitled Cult of Personality. We are your hosts, Main N Rance, aka the hardest working dads in podcasting, yo.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

What's good, my brother? What's good, man? How's everything going?

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Everything's going well, man. We're about to get this heat wave here in the NYC. About to bring out the fans, bring out the ice cubes, the ACs, whatever we have, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Y'all got the um did the did the the cocoa cherry mango ladies come out here?

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Oh, the coco helado pushes. Absolutely. They've been out in full mask. They got the cherry, the pina, the all of that, son. The strawberry, the fresa, the piña, the cocoa, yeah, the coco rico, son, the peanut, the pinagua man, the ice-shaving pinnacle.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Yeah, the pinagwa man. Yeah, that's how you know it's summertime.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Yeah, son. The hydrants are starting to open up.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 1:25

People still doing that? Yeah, the hydrants are open up already, son. Like it's not it's a game, it's not a game. Although I do wish, I'm not gonna front, I do wish when we were kids, we had a uh guy on the neighborhood, he had the wrench, he would open up the pump, and we had the thing, the screw on the front that would make it like the sprinkler.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Yeah, that would make it the sprinkler. Now they just open it up and it's just water just blasting out. So four or five hydrants in an in a seven-block radius.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I remember there would always be somebody that would have the wrench to open it up, but there would be also somebody out there like to have a uh that had a can.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

The can. And they would actually spray it.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, they would actually make it spray.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

That's what they would spray the cars with.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

If you pass by, you try to pass by. Some of them would ask for the car wash, but most of them didn't. And if you had a convertible, yeah, most people don't want to. Yeah, if you had a convertible, forget about it, Joe. Tread lightly, B. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tread lightly. So the culture personal Oh, oh, before before we even start, we mentioned a couple of episodes ago about uh the gym and the way guys don't know each other's names in the gyms and what do uh women call each other in the gym. So a friend of mine, shout out to Susan, who's a uh a listener to the podcast, she came up to me and she was like, You know, Rance, there is a place where women go that's our gym, so to speak, when we and our we aren't in the gym, and that's yoga.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Yes, that's yoga. So she said that just like guys at the gym, women in yoga don't always know each other's names either. So there would be like Lululemon Matte girl, they would be they have names, they have names for each other as well. That's funny. So she said, make sure that I let I let the world know, man. So I said I'd give her a shout out and tell you that on our next episode. She said there'll be like downward dog lady, um, warrior pose girl, you know what I'm saying? Um that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

That's hilarious because in theory, shouldn't they all be doing the same poses if they're in a yoga class?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

But I guess the ones who do, like, there's probably some a person that does it like really bad.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Or does it really well, you never know. Could be a very enthusiastic downward-facing dog.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Yeah, who's that? Yo, that's child's pose, B. Or master. Master. So they don't always know each other's name.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Either way, someone that mastered the tree pose.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Yes. And what is it, the sun salutations?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

The sun salutation lady. So we have the gym, they have yoga, and they don't always know each other's names.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

I want to know what the Pilates ladies call each other.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Oh man, have you ever taken Pilates?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

No, never. Nah.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

Oh my god, dogs. Death. Death. Death.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, no, I know I haven't had the pleasure, so maybe one day.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Yeah, I've done I've done Pilates a couple of times, and then they have Pilates on steroids, which is called like SLT.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

It's called like strength, lengthening, strength, lengthening, and tone. SLT. So that's like they use like this power reformer and they just try to destroy you. Especially if you're a dude. If you step, that's enemy territory, so to speak, if you go. You know, I've gone there. I never let them know that I'm a trainer. Because if they find out, first of all, that I'm a dude and I'm a trainer, it's lights out for me, yo.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

And try to take you out. Wow. Yeah, try to work you to death. That's funny, man. Yeah, man. Before we start, um, I want to give a quick shout out to um actually my wife's family. So this weekend we went, oh, actually, the past few days I've been out of town. Like I was in Detroit for um my wife's family reunion, right? And I just feel like I'm that time of year. Um, and I feel like I have to mention this because it was such a a great event, like um, it's so well done that I just wanted to give a shout out to um to the Heinz family. Um, I think most of them are out of like either Detroit, it kind of started out in North Carolina. A lot of the family back way back moved to Detroit as part of the Great Migration. Um but it was really a well-done event. I got it was almost like a conference, but for their family, right? Like they had a welcome kind of meet and greet on the first day. Um we did a lot of stuff, and then they had a lot of things planned. We went to a Tigers game because you know, I would we were out in Detroit. We went to a Detroit Tigers game. Um, there was a picnic by the Detroit River in this big park. I think I think it was just I think it was actually called Riverside Park, if I'm not mistaken. Um a big picnic, you know, like a big cookout, real, real, all the good food, um, everything you would expect, you know. Electric slide?

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Was there some electric slides going on?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

That was one thing that I did not witness. There was no, I can't say that it didn't happen, but there was I didn't see any any electric slide, to be honest with you. Um we went to top golf one day. Um, there was a game night. There was actually some seminars. They had seminars in the hotel, like where they talked about um just their fields of expertise, right? Like, so so a couple of family members, they gave talks, right? Like, so the technology folks, they gave talks on artificial intelligence, right? Um, there were some folks that had recently graduated from college or had experience with college admissions. They did a whole talk, a whole seminar on college admissions. Then there were some finance people in the finance profession. They did um one on financial literacy, right? Um, they did a mental health one, right? Like so um that was amazing. There was a pool party, a casino night, a luncheon in a hotel. Um, a luncheon where they did um this is what this is what was was awesome for me too. Like they they did um a history of their their ancestors, right? Basically their genealogy. Like one of their cousins had done a lot of research and got he also gathered a lot of information from the other family members. So he got he put together this book um with all their ancestry, at least as much as they could he could gather, right? And um he also went to I think Ancestry.com and got some information. So I found out that that my wife, and I guess, you know, by by relation, my my kids are actually related to Dred Scott. Oh yeah. Um so yeah, like so Dred Scott was in the book, and I'm looking through this book, and and and I see the picture, and I'm like, oh, this looks very familiar. But then I look and I see Dred Scott's name, and I'm like, wow, they're related to Dred Scott. So they gave a little explanation about that. Um, and for those of you who don't know, the listeners out there, Dred Scott um was part of a famous uh Supreme Court case. It was the Dred Scott versus Sanford case of 1857, right? And he was unsuccessful in gaining his freedom. Him and his wife actually sued um because he believed because he had spent some time in a free state. I think it was he had spent some time in Illinois and Wisconsin as an enslaved person. Um, and in those states, they had actually outlawed slavery, right? But I think he was originally enslaved um in Missouri, if I'm not mistaken, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

So Yeah, I believe it was Missouri.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

So he was a slave in Missouri. He had spent some time um in Illinois and Wisconsin, and Wisconsin was a free state, so he believed that he was he had a right to his freedom since he had spent an extended time in a free state. And by law, by federal law, if you had lived in any free state for an extended time, you lose kind of the right to your to your slave property, right? Um, so he sued and actually lost. And it goes down in history as as one of the Supreme Court's worst decisions ever, because it was kind of a clear-cut case.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Um, but he actually lost that case. But I just found it, you know, the whole thing was just kind of fascinating to me because it caused me to to do a little more research on Dred Scott again, and then the fact that they they're related to him actually has blown me away because that means my kids are related to Dred Scott, um which is which is pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

That's like that's like super on brand. That's like on brand for you, yolks.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

To find out right, it is, it is. I was pretty amazed, man, to be honest with you, like just to to be at a luncheon. And um, you know, I was already impressed with the family in terms of like just the way they put the the you know this whole thing together. The itinerary was like, like I said, it was like going to a conference, like some type of business conference, except for his family and kids, and people are having fun, um as well as like learning too. They really put an emphasis on not just getting together, but also getting together with a purpose, you know, like making sure that they're sharing information, making sure that they they have like some reason to actually keep in touch, besides the fact that they're just but related, like they're actually giving out information that you would want to follow up on later.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah, right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

So yeah, the whole thing was was um was pretty amazing. So shout out to the Heinz family, um, mostly based in in um in Detroit.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah, that's dope. Shout out to the Heinz family. We do our family union every year too, but we're not that we we go to dinner, we have the reunion, we go bowling, then we have a cookout at somebody else's house again. Shout out to my cousin Keith, who's always usually drinking beers and sweating all over the barbecue on the grill, you know, from that season on it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yeah, absolutely. Somebody got to work.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Yeah, somebody has to work the grill, man. We just go throw him a six-pack and he goes to work, man. You know? So she's gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

So there was even a website for this one, where it's like there was a website, yeah. There was a family website where you could get the itinerary, the schedule. They had a like a virtual scavenger hunt. So you could upload extras, you know, they they do certain things and like official, official little tasks. So it had the whole itinerary, the schedule. Um, it had like if you if you wanted to go off on your own and kind of explore the city, it had like you know, things going on in the city, um the location of like museums and and and historical spots and stuff like that. Um nice. Yeah, it was um, yeah, I was pretty blown away, like I said, man. I just wanted to give a shout out to them before we before we go into the today's topic.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah, they seem so organized, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Unlike Yeah, it was it was pretty amazing, man. It was pretty amazing. That's dope.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Hopefully it'll go on for years and years and years and years. Keep the tradition rolling, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I hope so. I'd I'll be there.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

You know, so so okay, now cults of personality. My wife sent me a reel, or we were looking at a reel a few weeks ago. Yeah you know, sometimes I like to give my motive my motivation and my inspiration for these podcasts, and it was a reel of a gentleman talking about subcultures and the absence thereof nowadays. So there was it led me down a rabbit hole to another uh article by a woman called Katie Byrd, and it's called Embarrassment Has Good Bones. But the the gist of this reel was him just talking about briefly the absence of something that you've taught you've mentioned at least twice in past episodes, and that's the absence of these thirds, what is it, the third spaces?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Third spaces, third spaces, bases a quick placement for people to gather that are kind of like not not school, not work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

These safe hubs for people to be a to be creative, um, to come together, and now how the absence of it is really taken away from creativity, and we're starting to see it in the cultures. And I thought it was interesting. So um I you know, when I I I I start thinking podcasts start coming out. So we're gonna talk about we're gonna talk about these third spaces again. We're gonna talk about the subcultures, we're gonna talk about the absence of self-cultures, um, the embarrassment that has good bones, so to speak, uh, by Katie Bones. And that was just just uh the um just the gist of that is basically she talks about how embarrassment creates creativity, how being embarrassed and not afraid to be embarrassed, which is something that you alluded to in last week's show, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Um Yeah, when we said when that when we talked about uh no nobody cares. Yeah, nobody cares.

SPEAKER_02 14:48

There has to be gives you this absence of fear, so to speak, to just do what you want to do, just make what you want to make. One of the things I thought of the first thing that instantly came to my mind was Dungeons and Dragons.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Uh okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

And I'm gonna tell you why. Pretty much every RPG game that we have today that all these kids play on their computers and such are the children of Dungeons and Dragons. And that Dungeons and Dragons was that subculture back in the 70s. So it started in 74 by Gary Gay Gaz. I might be butchering his name.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

You definitely butchered his name.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

I butchered his G-Y-G-A-X and Dave Arneson. Those two, they created Dungeons and Dragon, and it was uh they played this game, which I guess was a precursor to Dungeons and Dragons, which was called Chainmail, and that was like these medieval like little figures. So they wanted to make like this type of war game, this one-on-one 1v1 game with the figuratures, and they've created Dungeons and Dungeons and Dragons, and they have somebody who was like the Dungeon Master, and uh anybody who knows Dungeons and Dragons knows you roll the dice, it's like this big fantasy game, and there's a uh Dungeon Master who's basically who leads the game, who he makes the rules, he creates the booklets, all of this stuff. But this is that subculture that wasn't popular back in the day. If you played Dungeons and Dragons back in the day, bro, you weren't one of the most popular kids in school. You don't say you know what I mean? So that's an example of how like a subculture blossomed into pop culture because it started in like a back room or like the janitor's closet or the that the back room of school. It was maybe it was the Glee Club or the chess club. You know what I mean? It may be the considered the proverbial, the air quotes, the nerds at school who wanted to group up and they wanted to play these fantasy role-playing games. And that game that started in 1974 spawned all of these RPG games up until now.

unknown 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

If you think about it, the board games and the computer games.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah. I used to work with some folks. Um one of my well, one of my earlier jobs, um, I used to work with folks that were heavy, heavy into um World of Warcraft. Yes. And man, they would talk about this thing all day during work, right? Like you know, we I was working at a help desk at the time, and these guys playing, they were playing actually, yeah, actually included my manager at the time. And they were so into this game, and I remember them asking me if I wanted to play, like once somebody asked me if I wanted to get in on it. And at the time I had no idea about these kind of things, and these are like massively um large, like role-playing games, right? Like where you have the you know, internet connection and you're playing against different groups. Um, but the same, but I guess at its core, like the concept is the same, like people play different roles. You have like a sorcerer and you have like warriors, and you have all these different roles that you can actually play to to kind of contribute to your group. And then you you go on these these missions, or or I forget exactly what they call them, but they would they would go on these quests. Yes, that's a perfect that's perfect. Even if that's not exactly it, quest is sounds like the perfect word for it. Uh huh. But then we do these quests together, and um they would talk about it all day long, man. And they they would schedule these things when they're gonna get on, and and and like at night, like you know, they have a battle, they would make sure that everybody's online because they need everybody's powers. And to me, it was just like you said, it was it was to me, it seemed pretty fringe, but by the time it got to that point, you you're talking about millions of people playing this across the world. Yes, I'm out of the loop, actually. Like, I'm thinking, oh, this is kind of a fringe, kind of nerdy thing, but really I'm the one that just doesn't know.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

And then, like, what's wrong with you, bro? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Eventually, that that one went on to become a movie, right? Like, it's so did so did Dungeons and Dragons, matter of fact. Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons Dragons is a movie. It was a cartoon. I used to love that cartoon, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah, even though I can't even imagine ever playing.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

I I would I wouldn't be interested in playing that game even today. Like, I wasn't interested as a kid, yeah, and I I don't think I would have ever been interested in playing the game, but the cartoon had me hooked, right? And then that that became a movie eventually, and so did World of Warcraft. Yeah, so um, yeah, these things became pretty popular. Like you said, like it's something that spawned out of kind of a uh, you know, subculture and became like a worldwide mainstream, yeah. It became very mainstream, very pop culture, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Yeah, when subculture becomes pop culture. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you something crazy. This is what I saw. There is a there's a um a Dungeons and Dragons game that's been going on since 1982. It's the world record for the longest Dungeons and Dragons active Dungeons and Dragons game. And it's been going on for over 40, 40 years up in Canada, Ontario. This guy just teaches, he's a teacher at like the University of Ontario or something. And he's literally had a Dungeons and Dragons game that's been going on since 1982. He has over like 30,000 pieces. Um, it goes on every week. It's it's it's nuts, man. It's nuts. It's and it's still going on today. And when I saw it, I saw the YouTube video.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

He has other people playing with him this long, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

So not only does it have this people have been playing for 20, 30 years, there's people his daughters played, his daughter's boyfriends played. Um, his daughter's boyfriends have broken up with have broken up with his daughters, or his daughters have broken up with their boyfriends. And he's like, This has nothing to do with Dungeons and Dragons. So whatever y'all do, y'all still play. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

They're still playing.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

They're still playing, man. It's not personal, man. He said I don't got nothing to do with Dungeons and Dragons. And he's the dungeon master, he's the dungeon master. He's been keeping this game going since 1982. I think he makes his own pieces. This it's elaborate. Like, if you go on YouTube, you can see it. I think they did a 60 Minutes episode on him as well, but it's insane, man. Yeah, that sounds amazing. These were like the guys that like got the um when we were when we were younger, you would consider them the guys that would always get a doctor's note for Jim and stuff like that. Said they had asthma. You know, these subcultures that become pop cultures. And one of the things that that I that I noticed is that we don't have these type of little pockets anymore. It seems like the we have like one large subculture almost now, and it's basically technology. You know, and it's it's not a lot of offspring, so it's not a lot of creativity anymore. We're seeing movies, old movies being redone. We've seen, I mean, history always repeats itself, but as far as the arts and the culture, it seems like a lot of things are being just re-producted. Kind of rehashed.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

It feels like we talked about that. Yeah, we talked about that too, where um, you know, for our generation, we're seeing it a lot because we grew up with a lot of things that were kind of firsts, right? Yes. Like we were the first to see certain toys and certain movies, um, you know, certain TV shows, um, certain technology, even, right? Yeah. So we're seeing a lot of things retro um that were that were considered like, you know, innovative at the time while we were growing up, but we're seeing them kind of as part of this nostalgic wave coming back around um and being sold for a lot of money. Like I I saw something online where these kids are selling um VHS um and you know, like the tape machines, basically.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:12

Um they're selling these VHS machines and they're selling them for hundreds of dollars, but they're buying them for like $2, right? Because they don't, they're not even made anymore. Like I think the company that that used the last company that made them stopped maybe like a year or two ago, just stopped making them, right? Um, so now the only place to get them is on a secondary market. But people want them, and I think it's just for nostalgia's sake, right? Because there's not much you can do with a VHS um player now.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Um that you that that that problem has been solved by streaming, and but you know, the internet has solved a lot of our problems and with our devices and such, right? So, but yeah, I mean, but but but the real point is like you're saying, there's very little innovation in in the same way it used to be with these subcultures, and I think it's because of the internet making the world so small, right? Like you can connect, you don't have a subculture per se, because you can connect to your tribe really fast. Like you can you can go online and kind of find whatever it is that you're into pretty quickly, right? Like, so you don't have you don't really have that same like subculture mentality where where you're part of a small niche anymore.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Um because you know, you can you can find a global niche that's not so small, and you can find it at literally light speed, right? Just by going online. Yeah, so I think that has a lot that has a lot to do with it. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Yeah, it was almost cool to be an outcast, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

When you had these these subcultures, even when you look at music like the punk rock scene of the 70s, like the Ramones and the CBGBs and things like that. Um just music in general, uh rock and roll, punk, uh, hip-hop, everything. Everything started off as something.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah, as soon as you said that, like I started to think about how hip-hop started, and also, you know, being a Gen Xer, we kind of were there for that as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Like, so it's our birthright, so to say.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

But that that's one that I that I guess I'm most intimately familiar with just because we were there for kind of the birth of this thing. We're from the Bronx, and that was something that was considered a fad at at first, if you remember. There were a lot of folks saying that this is gonna come and go, right? Um, you know, in the time of in the 80s, especially when you have like Runde MC and LL Cool J and Um artists like that, right? Like, yeah, like um DJ Cool Herc, um and um what was it? Um Flash, you know, folks like that, Grandmaster Flash.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

So when these folks were doing it, they were DJing and they were um, you know, looping up break beats and rhyming over these samples and all that stuff was was first starting to happen, and you know, park jams and house parties and all that stuff. Our parents actually thought that this is a fad that's not gonna last. They thought it was silly because it wasn't quote unquote even real music. Yeah, because it wasn't it wasn't just the traditional, you know, somebody singing and playing an instrument, but it turned out to be obviously not a fad. And it's like it's a it's a it's a great example of, like you said, like a subculture becoming pop culture on a massive, massive scale, especially when corporations got wind of it. Um the technology also made it easier to to create and to spread and to, you know. Um, there's been a cultural exchange too that I think has happened because of technology, like where it used to take a while for like fads to even spread, right? Like so, even the things that we were doing back then, like as far as like fashion, um, you know, slang words, you know, the the whatever the the vernacular of the day was, it would take a while for that to travel outside of your region, right? Like you usually have like regional things that where you say a certain word or you say it a certain way, or you call things, you call things differently depending on where you're from, right? And I find that that technology has made it so we're all kind of all we're getting the slang even at the same time, right? Like kids are are all saying the same thing because because the the internet is making it so you know the the information spreads much quicker than it did, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, absolutely. And I made mention some episodes ago about the mixtape being like the pony expressive hip hop and how my brothers would send my brother who was stationed out in Germany, they would send him like red alert tapes and such. Um so you talk about something taking weeks to happen. Well, now it takes seconds, literal, literally, it takes seconds for subculture to become pop culture. But let me ask you this question. Do you feel that and this is a point that the guy was saying when I looked at this reel, technology itself, especially surveillance and the camera phones has kind of eliminated like these subcultures or these third spaces? I I stand corrected, these third spaces because people just don't want to be outside being filmed all the time. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 28:21

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

That that that's an interesting one, man. But honestly, I think that especially for the younger generation, they I don't think they care as much. Like that might apply to folks like us, like in our age bracket, like Gen X and and maybe maybe even older. But I feel like um the generations coming up under us, they are not as conscious about being filmed, and or the way I don't think they mind it as much. And it shows itself in stuff like just the technology that they're willing to um to popularize, right? Like um, when I think about um, you know, something like the the Ray-Ban, the meta Ray-Ban glasses, those have cameras in them. And I sometimes I joke about this with people. I'm like, imagine, like, you know, back in the 90s, if you were out with your friends or you were on a date or something, and somebody said, Hey, by the way, my glasses are gonna record this whole thing, and later on I'm gonna post it somewhere, and everybody will be able to see what we ate and what we did or what you said, right? To me, like like as a kid from the Bruns, that's almost like you might as well be like you're wearing a wire. Like, why why are you doing that? Like, why would you be doing that? Like, why are you recording everything? Like, yeah, just the concept of just recording everything that we're doing is just something that I don't think older people are comfortable with, just because, and especially if you're from a certain place, yeah, the concept of recording what we're doing is just like not cool, you know? But I feel like for the younger generation, like I said, like they're so they've grown up with social media, they've grown up with this concept of like going live. Um, they grow up with this concept of being influencers, and the only way to become an influencer is to put out more and more content. And that that content, the competition for that content is that they're they're more and more kind of providing information about themselves, right? Like they're they're going live. Like I said, they're um their content is very much like an expression of what they're actually doing at the time. So I feel like I don't I don't think that that that there's any like um apprehension in the in that case. I don't think that's stopping them from going into third spaces or or getting together. I think that that where the technology might be hurting people is that you could do things like stream movies more, right? Like so you don't have to go to a movie theater as much, right? Like you can the fact that you can like FaceTime and go live and all this stuff, man, I I think people are not kind of um as thirsty for for personal connection. Yeah, and you know, I could be wrong about that, but I because I I still think people want to get together, but I feel like you know, inertia sets in, right? Like, and you and if it's easy, you do what's easy, right? Like you might want to get together with your with your friends, but if it's easier just to get them on FaceTime and have a drink, or like have them, you know, I don't know, man. Like it just feels like it's easier to get on the internet.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

I I feel like it's it makes it easier for you to get together on your own terms, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

So they can do what they want to do on their own terms, and if they want to just sit in their house, they can have everything at their disposal. They can FaceTime their friends while watching the movie. Um, they even had something, I don't know if they still do it, but I know they were doing it during like COVID where you can watch Netflix, like the the movie parties. Do you remember that? Did you see that? So you can you can like watch a movie with five other people. So like how you and I right here on the screen will be watching a movie. Yeah, Netflix is like a movie party or something. Yeah, I think that technology has made creativity redundant. Things catch on so fast that you automatically want to do it. Like they they automatically want to do what they see because someone's getting 15 minutes of fame within five minutes. So I feel like it's kind of it's kind of made creativity redundant and that lack of going to third spaces where, you know, meeting what we would call each other or we would call we uh each other like weirdos, so to speak. People would call themselves like we're the weirdos, we're the outcast of or we're the outsiders of of society, and we do what we want to do, and we make our or you know, the non-conformists, which I always found funny because if you get a hundred people non-conforming, then wouldn't that make you a conformist? But that's a whole nother but that's a whole nother.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Yeah, that's you go into like the the philosophical debate about the break.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Yeah, but I feel like it's it's stolen some of the creativity from because you can see something happen in the snap of a finger and a blink of an eye, like it makes you lazy to want to kind of like go off and create your own where you see something that already works and you can follow it step by step in like 20 seconds or five minutes, or you can learn it. So I think that's I think that's what it's done to uh it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

That that makes sense, right? Like that if if somebody does come up with something, then because of technology, because of social media, because of the way information spreads, you'll see that quickly, and then people can hop on that and it kind of burns out quick as quickly, right? Like so, even if there is creativity happening, it does feel like it has a shorter shelf life, right? Like it has a uh it doesn't have as long a life because it becomes like a trend faster. And and and if anybody wants to pick up on it, instead of like a small kind of group of people, you're gonna get thousands of people that pick up on it, and then it causes it to not be because you know there's like a cool factor to to some of the subculture things, right? Like there's a cool factor there, and and part of the cool factor isn't that not everybody knows about it or that not everybody's doing it, right? So in this age of information where information is passing so fast, if I do something that somebody thinks is cool, it's gonna spread pretty quickly. Then next thing you know, it goes from, like I said, being like this small little niche thing to now it's blown up and it has it has a very short life um to to make until it burns out because it's kind of played out. You you have a choice either to to let it out or to keep it to yourself. Um, but if you let it out, it has the potential to have like a very, very short life, you know?

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Yeah, yeah. And you don't imagine if also with technology, imagine if everybody could be Basquiat, right? Did I say his name right? I think I said his name right. I think the artist, Basquiat.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Yeah, Basquiat, yeah, Basquiat.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Imagine if everybody can can can paint like him or do things like him. Because that was also a big thing in the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

That's the whole other thing that you don't require like things because of technology. Um, honestly, the same amount of talent and effort is not required for the for certain things. If you want to do some sort of art, or if you want to even even make music, man, to be honest with you, like it feels like we've evolved to the point where making some music um that people like has gotten easier and easier. Like you went from having to learn how to play an instrument, learn having to learn how to sing, um, you know, having talent in terms of like even in just with hip hop, like you had to put a decent amount of effort to be noticed as a as a as a rapper. But now, because of technology, like I said, the information spreads so fast that you don't have to exactly be the most creative. You just have to get your your information out there, you have to get yourself out there fast and um and hope that that some some number of people enjoy it, right? And and even with the um with the playing of instruments, going from that to like you know, the MPC back in the days, like, you know, people will use a beat machine to make music all the way to now, where you can just use a computer program to make music for the most part, um, or some sort of application that's even easier. Um, and you could come up with something that that's catchy enough for people to to to to bob their head. And next thing you know, you have the it, and you don't need um you don't really need anything. You don't need the infrastructure that you once needed, right? Like so I think that that comes into play too, and the same with the arts, like you said, like Boski at one point was a very unique artist, um, and he had a style that you hadn't seen before. But now, like I said, like if you spread that information, if in the age of the internet, all it would take is for him to post one time, and next thing you know, anybody can start to copy this, and God forbid they they're using artificial intelligence. Next thing you know, they're doing everything in the style of his style before he has a chance to even capitalize on it, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah, exactly. Yo, you know, one of the worst things that happened to like hip-hop production was Fruity Loops, son. Yeah, I remember Yo Remember Fruity Loops? If anybody, for you people out there, Fruity Loops was like one of the first um like programmable, like computer programmable beat machines where you didn't do have to use the SP1200s. And um, I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think Ninth Wonder as a producer, I think he was one of the first to like really introduce Fruity Loops into hip hop because he was doing he was making beats off his Fruity Loops like in his college dorm room when he formed the Greek Little Brother. Yeah, so I I believe it's Ninth Wonder. I believe it's Ninth Wonder. He he like introduced it. Um, but if you follow Ninth Wonder, like he he kind of used it and he created his whole his whole style. And to going back to what you just said, now you have somebody who says, yo, we can use Fruity Loops, and then they just pretty much copy and paste his formula. You know, now you don't you don't have to have the ear for the music. Like we grew up listening to jazz, we grew up listening to bebop, we grew up listening to big band, we listened to rock, we listen listen to all of these all of these different z genres of music. So now that you have all of these like Gen X, these Gen X uh producers who who had these ears for these music or these sounds that can go in and they would just dig in the crates and find these abstract albums and just pull one little piece out of it and stretch it and turn into all these things and and find another piece and spend hours and hours just listening to music. Now you just press a button and you're starting to see the results because what what is what did they say? 30, 35 years, the first time since we haven't charted, like hip hop hasn't charted uh in years. You know, simple everything is still redundant, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Yeah, absolutely. Like I I think that the technology is having both those impacts, it's spreading um the kind of the formula, so to speak. It's spreading the formula very quickly so people can kind of copy and paste, like you said. And then the other thing that's happening is that it's making it easier to recreate that formula without much, without as much effort as it took back in back in the days, right? Like so you don't you don't need hardly any effort. And especially with the with the um with the introduction of artificial intelligence, um that's only exacerbating the problem because you can just prompt now and just say, hey, make me a beat. And you know what I mean? You don't have to do anything almost. You can just say, hey, make me a track in the in this with the sound of um like you know, like ninth wonder. Ninth wonder style. Yeah, make me a ninth wonder style track, right? And you have AI that can do that for you, and it'll pump out something that may fool the world, you know? Yes, yes. So um yeah, it's interesting, man. I don't know what to say about that. It like I feel it almost makes me sad in a way. Um, I know that some people are are getting more access to things, and and I feel like technology and artificial intelligence give people access, right? It democratizes things, like we said, maybe in the first episode, we were talking about the democratization of even this media format that we're using, right? Like we're able to do a podcast because of technology making it so easy for us to talk to each other over the internet. Um, we can come up with topics, we can talk on this medium, we could go quickly to the different distribution networks that that would put our podcasts out, right? So, in a way, man, it it's giving people the freedom um from all of that infrastructure that you would usually need. It kind of separates you from the machine and you could do a lot of things on your own, right? And I think it's good in that sense, but I also kind of feel sad for the time where certain things required a little more effort, right? Or they required you to have a almost like a passion or a love for it, man. Like music is one of those things, and the arts um is a type of thing where I hope that the technology doesn't completely kind of wash out or dilute um the arts, right? Because it there's something, there's something, you know, something about the art and music that is a representation of our of our souls, man. I don't want I don't want to get all sappy about it, but but it's when people became used to it, they came from a place like inside you. And that was that was part of the allure, especially with hip-hop, because that's you know, we come out of that hip-hop culture, right? Like, so when it comes to hip-hop, it especially in the early days, you you you could feel that they're making this music because they they really think these things, or they're really, they're really observing things, and it's making it's making something come out of you, right? Like you're observing something in the world, and it's coming out of you in the form of this this art form, right? Like you observe something or you're living through something, and that feeling is coming out of you authentically, at least, at least in the at some point in the beginning, right? And I feel the same way about art, man, whether it be painting or people drawing or whatever the case may be, people singing, whatever, whatever art form you you want to you want to name, um, there was a point at which you had to have a passion for it in order to get to the level where you were good at it, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Yeah, yeah. And remember when we talked about also the the the laws of the playground, how even in the playgrounds when you were in school, um or just uh just the playgrounds outside of school, how there's different factions everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Right, right. You you you get the you get a sense of people's personalities that are coming out naturally, right? Like they're like there's no barrier. Yeah, there's no and there's no buffer between them. There's no there's no phone between them, there's no internet between them. You're seeing kind of a natural uh like evolution almost of a child, um, and and some of their natural qualities just come out like you said, like on the playground, right? Like things just come out as you observe, man, but it's the playground, whether it's at school, yeah, um, wherever it is, there was without the technology, there was a chance for for you to see kind of people's net more natural inclinations, right? This is a double edged sword, man. To be honest with you, because it's like I said, like I feel good that people have access, right? It democratizes things to the point where nobody's left out of of things just because they can't afford the infrastructure, right? Right. Um it it makes things cheaper, it makes It makes things faster, you know, it makes things accessible. But at the same time, would would people go some different route if it required more effort to do some of these things, right? Like would they do something that they're really passionate about that they're really willing to put in that effort?

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

If if it wasn't so easy to, like you said, to get fruity loops and loop up a hip hop beat, would they go do something else that they really were willing to put in a little more effort?

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Would they go all around the city looking for records? Would they go, you know, looking to the going to their I remember uh uh Aaron coming to my house to look through my father's records. Yeah, just digging through the records, you know, and him in my house for like hours, just playing stuff and listening to it and playing stuff and listening to it and taking bits and pieces off of it what he wanted, what he wanted to. And that was also a way to like bounce ideas off of each other to be a human.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

And exactly, like you're seeing with your friend doing that. I remember doing that with with people too, like Aaron and other folks, like just going through my parents' records, just listening and finding things that we didn't even know about. Like we'd find things that um you know rappers had already sampled, but we just didn't know where it came from, and then just stumbled on it sometimes just from playing old records, right? Stuff like that. And and those shared experiences are important too. And I don't know if that's happening as much with with with you know with technology being the way it is. I feel like there's a lot to be said for the access um that that the technology has provided, but I do kind of feel a little bit sad sometimes for that and long for that time where we did have that effort that you had to put in and and that passion that you had to have for things, and that passion that would come out and be evident, you know, in people's work, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Um, so so yeah, and and I think the uh the the other subculture that I that I find, even in and not to keep going off on hip hop, but this is something something I know, I guess, and and yeah um we grew up with, but even like the fashion, man, like subcultures, the five pillars. Yeah, like fashion is a is like a another subculture where let's say like stuff like having rips in your jeans, and a rip in your jeans might mean that hey, like I can't afford new jeans. Like back when we were kids, like it just it just it didn't mean that that you're making a statement. Sometimes it meant like, hey, I ripped my jeans, and until my folks give me some new jeans, or until somebody buys me some new ones or repairs these, this this is what I have to wear, right? But at some point, that becomes like a fashion statement for folks. Like, like, you know, next thing you know, years later, you start seeing ripped jeans in department stores and and you know, luxury places, right? Like in outlets and thrift stores, and people are looking for jeans with a certain rip, you know. Or you bedazzle them. Or you bedazzle them, or you you make them look a certain way, and then throw graffiti on even even yeah, even that, man, like graffiti and and um the fact that we were doing stuff to clothing that that you just couldn't find everywhere, man. Like, remember, I don't know if you remember, like in the 80s, they had shirt kings out at Queens, they would do um they would do graffiti art kind of yeah, they would airbrush into art styles on on t-shirts, right?

SPEAKER_02 47:14

Did they do the first Simpsons? Did they do with Shirt Kings? Were they responsible for the first Simpsons?

SPEAKER_00 47:19

I'm not sure. I wouldn't be surprised, man, but like black black dudes, yeah. That one went platinum after a while. They they couldn't hold on to that one. That got that guy if they would have if they were the originators of it, they got bootlegged.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

And they did Mickey, I know they did like Mickey and Minnie Mouse too. Like they do like Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

SPEAKER_00 47:38

Yeah, they would they would do characters, they would do um if if like if a person had enough money, I think like they they could they could actually spray paint or or airbrush your own likeness onto the shirt, right? Or onto some jeans or something, or a jean jacket, right? But even stuff like that was stuff that you couldn't find that everywhere. You could you had to go to them for it, right? And even that was like a subculture, right? Even the way we wore our clothes and and like just some of the things that we did, man. Like I remember um like back in the 90s, early 90s, we were all wearing army suits, right? Like everybody had an army jacket and fatigues to match. Um we had flights. SWAT hats, the flight suits, flight suit, you had the flight. They had that alpha jacket.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

We had we had we would just take over something and turn it into something that it it it almost wasn't meant for, to be honest. Like like I remember kids were wearing everybody had a Columbia rain suit, right? And I don't think Columbia kind of bet on kids and the yeah, it probably wasn't the intention that kids, and maybe it was though, because I because of the color combinations and all that stuff, maybe it was, but but I remember like kids just taking stuff that really was meant for something else, like outdoorsmen type of clothing, and we were just wearing it to hang out on the block or like to go to a party or something. You got people wearing stuff that's really meant for like the Arctic or like some camping trip, and people are wearing like utility vests and and fishermen vests and stuff like that, right? Like, but but that was part of like a subculture of fashion that you just wouldn't see it everywhere, right? Like you didn't you uh like you wouldn't go to some other state and see it. But I feel like another that's another thing that technology has made information spread so fast that once somebody starts wearing something that is cool, then everybody's doing the same thing suddenly, right? And and that trend comes and goes pretty quickly. And and you know, there's there's a few that stay, you know, some have staying power, but for the most part, you know, you have these things that kind of come and go very quickly because they spread so fast, right? And everybody jumps on it and then it kind of burns out, right?

SPEAKER_02 49:50

Yeah, yeah. And for all those out there that don't know, the five pillars of hip-hop is it's DJing, right? MCing, breakdancing, uh graffiti.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Graffiti.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

And I I think hold on, is it fashion or is it knowledge? Fashion, it's it's a fashion because it is.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

But it's it's arguable. Yeah, I mean, like there's gonna be folks that that argue about this. There's no it's I don't think it's official. Like there's no unless you ask Carol S1 or something, like Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's a spokesperson. It's official.

SPEAKER_02 50:25

Yeah. So that's five, that's five little subcultures right there that just spun off into whole totally different things. Like breakdancing. That's the other thing.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

Yeah, think about breakdancing. Yeah, exactly. That's that's what I was just thinking. Like breakdancing went from from something as a sub, you know, subculture to like, you know, being a global phenomenon. Even before it got to the Olympics, it was going on in Asia, it was going on all over the world, basically. Like people were breakdancing and taking pieces of it and and putting their little their spin on it, right? Um, it was popular everywhere, right? Um so but yeah, like you said, like it went from like in the 80s being a very niche thing, yeah, um, to our parents thinking that, oh, those those guys are crazy. Like you, you, you're spinning on your on your head on carboy to to making it all the way to the Olympics, right? Um for better or worse. For better or worse. This creativity, like you said, like it's a creativity that that is formed out of like not having much a lot of times.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Um, at least in at least in in the case of like, I could say for hip hop, right? Like, it comes out of like not having much, and you have to be creative. Like, you have to create your own because you don't have um all of the infrastructure, you don't have all of the tools that you would need to do something else. So you make do with what you have, right? Yeah. Um I feel like hip-hop is a big example of that. And and all of those, um, all of those, those five pillars that you mentioned are examples of that. Even even the graffiti art, man, is like just some some kids trying to express themselves, man. They want to, they're looking for a way to get their name out there, you know. Those are the first influencers.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

You know, yeah. If you think about, at least for us, those are the first influencers. Like seeing somebody put their name on every train car with a with a cry-on marker, right? Like that was if you could get your name on every train car, you know, you're popular. That's that's your that's the influence you had. Or you could you could bomb up a uh a train, or if you could bomb up a wall in some neighborhood with your name and get it in some fancy lettering and do the wild styles, then that's how you got your name out there. That was the first, those are the first real influences for us, man. Like just seeing those names all across the city um in those styles, that was influencing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

That was a dope movie too, Wild Style. Wild Style was a dope. That's a dope subculture movie. If you want to, if you want to see the beginnings of a subculture, check out Wild Style, man.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

Yeah, so so and and everything you mentioned, man, like the dancing, the graffiti, the fashion, the MC, um, even you know, even that style of DJing, like we talked about Cool Herc and Grandmaster Flash, that way of like looping up a break beat and making that continue on and on and on. Like they talked about that in a couple of documentaries where they they would just keep the break beat going, and next thing you know you have an MC you know kind of rapping along with them, and now you have the of some of a new music genre out of that, right? Like so in that break, you got somebody talking over it, keeping the party going, keeping the party live, and next thing you know, you have what we know is a kind of a global phenomenon that is hip hop, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:38

And then in those same that same party, you gotta be fresh. You know what I'm saying? You gotta be fresh. You gotta have the crease, you gotta have your AJs, you gotta have your pumas with the fat laces, you gotta have your Kango, you gotta be fresh. So these kids walking out of these parties just created a whole new diff a whole art, a whole fashion that that you see even to this day being replicated.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

And and and they did that without if you think about it, it's amazing because I was thinking about this the other day, like how back in the days there was nobody to tell them how to dress, really. You know, like so like there was they went from like the 70s, maybe 60s and 70s, like where people were kind of dressing up more, like with like slacks and dress shirts and suits, like you know, skin suits. Yeah, our parents might go to parties with a suit on, right? Like, you know, and somehow like the kids figured out how to put outfits together. They were just making do with what they had at first, but then they started, you know, if they got a lot of little money somehow, um, it started you started seeing seeing that get more elaborate, right? But it feels like they were taking things that weren't really that weren't exactly meant for us, and just and and just taking them anyway and putting them together in a way that was very subculture, right? So, yeah, it's just it's just amazing. I when I think about that, like nobody told them how to do that. There was no internet like spreading the word, like, oh, this is the new thing that we're gonna wear, or here's here's the way we're gonna wear these. Yeah, here's the glasses we're gonna wear. And if you did see it on TV, it was amazing, man. Because I I think about this too sometimes, where there was a point at which, like for hip hop, things flipped, right? Like, where at first, if you saw like a video or something, and they had on like let's say like shelter Adidas in the 80s or something, or or whatever it is, or Jordan's, right? Like, it was almost like, okay, that was cool. You know why it was cool? Because we were already doing that in our neighborhoods, right? Like it was like, oh, we're seeing what we what we're doing now that we're seeing it on television, right? Yeah. And it was almost like that flipped at some point when where the kids had to start looking to the television to tell them what to wear next, right? Instead of it being the other way around. Like where I got like as a kid, I was used to like we would do it, we would do it in our neighborhoods, or I would see it in our neighborhoods, and then you'd see it on TV, and then you'd be excited that you saw something from your neighborhood being done on TV. Like I remember seeing um um even Will Smith. When I the first time I saw a Fresh Prince, right? He was he was wearing um the Jordan, like I think Jordan Fives, right? And I remember being, yeah, it was definitely Jordan Fives. So like the I think it was the great Jordan Fives or the like the white Jordan Fives, right? Like so, but I remember distinctly thinking to myself, like, wow, this is cool. Like I'm seeing what we're already doing. He's bringing it to television, right? Yeah, but I feel like, like I said, like that flipped at some point where kids started looking to the television and looking to the internet for what the next thing is that they should be doing, instead of it being kind of the other way around. Like the trends were were kind of being dictated at some point by the media instead of us dictating the trend and then it showing up later in media where we'd be like, oh, now they're doing what we're doing on TV, you know?

SPEAKER_02 57:03

Yeah, man. Um you remember your first like no parents allowed house party? I remember my first no parents allowed house party when I was in a room. I don't remember I had on jeans, a dress shirt, and penny loaf was and I thought I was I thought I was flying. I said I had a jeans and dress shirt, and penny loaf was I must have been 12. I was 11 or 12.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

Yeah, at the time you were.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

A good house party set, and that's a subculture all in itself, too. Like a good house party set. Oh my gosh, man.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

I'm gonna be honest with you. This the house party was like a double-edged sword, too. Could be fun, then it could turn not so funny.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

It could turn ugly.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

It could be dangerous, it could turn really ugly. I don't know why, man, but a house party is a is is like a hit or miss, man. It could be ugly.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

They made a uh blockbuster movie out of it. House party the kid and play party.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Oh yeah, but but kid and play parties. I don't know if I don't know if I've ever been to a house party that was like a kid and play party.

SPEAKER_02 58:06

Yo, my first one, man, was was dope. I remember I was 11 or 12, man. I had a time of my life. I was like, wait, this, so I I wait, like, where's your mother?

SPEAKER_00 58:16

There's no parents. My mother's not here.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

Yeah, my mother's upstairs, you know what I mean? We were just kids, we had a DJ, we were just having a good time, man. We just partying, dancing. It was a good time, man. I missed those, I missed those parties, man. I missed those. When I was in college, we used to have like suite parties. We called them functions in these in the suites. We would just cram a bunch of people in the in the room and they call them functions. And we would have we would have stuff like that. But you know, they don't have things like that anymore, it seems. Maybe it'll come back. I hope that's one of the things that like just kids going out, just having a good time, man. You know, face to face and getting shot down. You know what I mean? Trying to walk up, yo, such and such like you. You know, you you try to get a get a number or or something like that. Learn communication skills, me. These shared, these shared third spaces. You know, malls. You know, imagine how big malls were back in the days.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

Right. That's the other thing, man. Like that people are not getting together to go to to go shopping as as much anymore because you can order everything online.

SPEAKER_01 59:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Um yeah, I mean, I I guess at at the root of this is definitely the convenience factor um of not having to get together as much as we're gonna be. Even I I remember even like the first time I heard of rappers kind of sending traps to each other. I remember as a kid feeling kind of disappointed the first time I heard, like, oh, they weren't in the studio together. Yeah, even yeah, even that when the digital era started to really kick off, and you could send the track, and um, they could just record their part and send it back to you, and oh, I emailed you the track, and it's like, wait a minute, you emailed him the track and he just did it somewhere else. Yeah, because in my mind as a kid, I used to always picture these guys like in the studio together, and I don't know why I cared about that, but but um bouncing I just felt like you felt kind of versus trash, then getting laughed at in the group, which makes you try harder, you you know, there's that. Exactly, man. If if there was something cool about thinking that that's the way they did it, like they were always together in the studio or they would meet up, or they would have to, you know, fly across the country or drive somewhere to get to the studio, yeah. Um, and just meet up with each other and do it that way. And then when I heard that, I just you know, I don't know why I felt I felt disappointed when I heard the first time that they could actually just email each other the track and you know put the later vocals and send it back. Uh it kind of kind of took something out of it for me, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:51

Yeah, but you know it wasn't the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

Progress progress has to move forward, man. You know, yeah, and there's there's that double-edged sword that you talk about, so it's convenient for the audience to put out to you can just churn out, churn out music, but maybe some people would have never but maybe some people would have never never gotten to even do stuff together if it wasn't for that, right? Like so it is a double-edged sword. Like I definitely understand, it's it's it's definitely pros and cons to everything, man. And I feel like there might be some collaborations that we would have never heard if it wasn't for that type of technology, like where you could just send a track or people could lay their vocals and send it to you later, you know, whatever the case may be. But but I I you know, like I said, like it's it's uh it definitely feels like that double that double-edged sword where um I long for the days where where it had to be more effort put in. Um but I definitely I definitely have that that feeling like I I could relate to to the idea that that things need to be um more convenient for people, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Even if you want to even take it to sports. Look, basketball was created by a Canadian dude for gym class with two peach baskets, James Naismith. Um nothing starts off what it is football, uh baseball, which is now America's sport, you know, tennis, uh golf. These are all things that a few people got together. Um the triathlon. The triathlon was a bunch of uh military guys, if I'm not mistaken, who got together to see who was the biggest and the baddest, who can swim, run, and bike and bicycle. Now you have like the the world championship of yeah, these are all, and it's just a few people, a few people that are just like, yo, it's a challenge or it's a it's yo, let's let's try something different, let's try something new, let's do this. And uh you don't get that same appeal just looking at each other on a screen or not going outside and meeting up or even just sitting on a park bench. You know, just say the ciphers, you know what I mean? The ciphers back in the day when when when dudes who weren't rappers would just try to rap, or we would just we would just be making jokes, uh, snapping on each other, playing the dozens, just to just being together and it's being create being creative, you know, us going to high school together and our small pocket of friends, you know, being um competitive if and not wanting to be the one that didn't succeed succeed, being able to lean on each other. These these subcategories, that's why we always say we grew up in the best era, bro.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:30

You know, that's why.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

I honestly hold on, like I I hope that it's happening, man, and that we're just not privy to it. Because there could be a certain like kind of like a bias that we have because we're not seeing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:42

Oh, absolutely. Plus we're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:44

Because it could be that one, we're we're we're older, so we're not like exactly like on the cutting edge, or like we don't have our ear to the ground over time for new stuff. But I'm hoping that something is happening, like thing like new things are being created and things are bubbling, and it's just that we're not privy to all of it, right? Like I'm hoping, yeah, I'm hoping to see things kind of blossom in a way, like where it was like, oh, I didn't even realize that that was coming. But it feels like when I do see any of that, it's really some some new technological advance. And the funny thing about that, like when we're talking about technology being um kind of democratizing things and making things more accessible, it feels like it it's it's at the same time like controlled by a few. At least at like the you know, the top levels and the most popular technologies and the and the you know the technologies that that make it big, it feels like those things are really controlled by a select few people that do have the infrastructure. So I guess that's the kind of like irony of this, is that at the same time, like it's you know, it's offering some folks a chance to do a lot without without needing a machine, basically, and so to speak. Um it feels like the the real control over some of these things is by folks that do have the resources to to create and build an uh a whole infrastructure around themselves, right? So so yeah, everything seems to be a double-edged sword. I guess it's just a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:09

We create something like we create something. You don't have distribution though. And then you have you have the people that come in who aren't creators who find a way to monetize off things, and this can be this is anything. This is anything, you know what I mean? Like you said, it's the few, and they find a way they're not creative, but they find a way to exploit the creativity, or they find a way or maybe like maybe they're creative in their way, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

Because what I'm trying to get at is that you know the creatives nowadays they they may be be able to access things because of the usage of certain tools and certain platforms, right? Like even us, like we're using this platform to to do our podcast, right? So if this podcast um if this platform goes away though. We'll be scrambling for somebody else's platform to go do it on, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

I mean, if all the platforms go away for some reason, which is unlikely, but we're we're kind of we're kind of sitting on somebody else's rails, if if if that makes sense, right? Like we're like we got a train that's moving, but we need somebody else's rails to we don't have all the like we need we need some electricity. Yeah, like we need we need we do need some infrastructure, and that seems to be where there's a separation between the creator and and like those folks that do have the resources there.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

Yeah, absolutely. Yo, you know how hard podcasts it must have been at the beginning?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

I've heard I've heard stories. Like I've I've talked to some people that that tried it, and some people that actually discouraged them from continuing, right? Um because of the difficulty of like editing um or having to get somebody that had a certain expertise that to edit, right? So you had to pay someone to edit your podcast. Um if you needed music, you know, just things like what just weren't as as um as kind of turnkey as they are now. Yeah, things, yeah, things, things are inverted available and they weren't turnkey the way some of some of the stuff is now, because the technology is just simply advanced more, so it makes it more more accessible. And I'm happy about it to a certain extent because folks like us, like it's made this thing accessible. It's given us a platform to express ourselves and you know, just give our opinion on some of these things and get our message out, you know. So it's definitely good in a in a lot of ways, right? And and I think it's I I honestly think NetNet is doing more good than than it than than not, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

But like I said, like I'm just old school and and I'm hoping that people are still creating in a in some old school ways. Yeah. Like I'm I'm hoping that the artists are still out there drawing. I'm hoping that the artists are still playing. Yeah, I hope people are still writing and painting. And I hope that, yeah, I hope that you know the the the singers and the rappers and the rock artists, I hope they're still writing their lyrics. You know, I hope people are still learning how to play instruments, man, like and people still have a passion for those things that technology seems to have kind of you know pushed pushed out of the way so a certain extent.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:21

Yeah. So you got anything else to add, brother?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:25

Um, yes. And this is a this is this this is a little off topic, right? Like so. Oh, is this a main minute?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

Or are we just gonna tell?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:37

It's it's it's all of the above. This is a tangent, it might be a this might be a main minute. All right. Um but with everything that's going on lately, right? And um you'll you'll get what I'm saying, like in a in a moment, but like there's a lot going on, right? Like, and we're not oblivious to it, and we're like to a certain extent, like we're kind of like impacted, right? Like, even if it's just like in your gut, in your feel your feelings, like you you you feel that something is not right. Um because there's so many things happening, right? Like in the news, um if you've been paying attention at all, like there's just a lot happening, and not all of it is positive. Matter of fact, a lot quite a bit of negative is happening right now, right? But I found myself like um thinking about something that Tony Morrison has said, and and up until like recently, I I couldn't I didn't know the exact quote. Um it was something that I had seen like in a in a video or I saw online a while back, and it kind of resonated with me, but I I didn't have the exact wording for it, right? But Tony Morrison, for those of you who don't know, Tony Morrison is a famous um black woman author. My blueest eye? Isn't it she didn't she the blue as I blue as I The Bluest Eye, and I think the um the Song of Solomon, if I'm not mistaken. Um so she's written some some some really good books, and she censors typically um black characters, right? And she's even had interviews where she's been questioning why she always censors black characters, and if she just found the question to be pretty absurd, you know, given her that she's a black woman and she's writing from the from a from the perspective of black experience, right? Like so she she she thought that was um I remember an interview where she just thought that was an absurd question, right? Um, because a a white author would never be asked, like, why do they censor white characters? But I I just wanted to um talk about this quote from Tony Morrison, right? So bear with me. So she talks about um actually she talks about racism um very specifically, right? She says the function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work, it keeps you explaining over and over again your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language, so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shape properly, so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art, so you dredge data. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge data. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing. And so that's the quote um from Tony Morrison and it just resonates with me, man, because I feel like um a lot of energy is being put out by some very intelligent people to kind of um fight against like other folks' ideologies and philosophies and uh their thoughts, and and and I and I get it, right? Like because when it especially when it comes to some of these things, like you know, these thoughts turn to turn into actions that are kind of detrimental and and deadly sometimes. So but there's an extent to which I feel like you know Tony Morrison is right that the real function of this is to keep us distracted from our work, right? To keep us explaining. And I guess I just want people to kind of just think about the message that Tony Morrison has given here that um there's no amount of explaining that one is gonna change much. And then your your your mental energy um could be spent it could just be better spent, right? Like you could you I I feel like she's saying that you should be doing your work. Like don't let um these type of setbacks or what people think of you stop you and distract you from doing your work. Don't waste time, I guess, explaining, right? Just do what it is that's in your heart to do. Do what your passion is, like we talked about passion. Um yeah, just do your work, whatever that means to you, whether it's art, music, science, um, what whatever your work is, training people to get fit in your case. Um just whatever it is, don't let this, you know, don't let these things distract you from that, right? Like be great, continue to be great. There's always gonna be um kind of adversity, and there's always gonna be people out there that are gonna kind of doubt you and kind of like haters, man. To put it really simply, there's always gonna be there's always gonna be haters, especially if you're doing something um of any significance. You're gonna have people that are throwing stones proverbially, right? Like, and sometimes, sometimes physically. But um, but really, like, you know, the no seriously, like, like it what really what I'm getting at is I I want to encourage people to just don't be distracted and keep doing your work, whatever that means. Like, put your head down and do your work, don't let yourself be distracted. Um and there's a couple of other Tony Morrison quotes I want to I wanted to leave people with. Um, another one is the function of freedom is to free someone else. Um, and this last one is about books. Books are a form of political action, books are knowledge, books are reflection, books change your mind. So this is a tangent, you could call it a main minute, whatever, whatever, whatever you want to call it. But um, I just felt that, you know, it was resonating with me, and I just wanted to make sure I I I speak it out, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:19

That was a good one. Or as my uncle would say, don't get caught chasing your own tail.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:29

That's definitely another way to say it. That's another way to say it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:39

That was a good one, bud. That was a good one. I like that one, man. I like that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:44

I'm glad.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

So this concludes episode 46 of the Gen Expertise Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

We're getting close to the 50s.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:55

We're getting close to the close to the 50.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:57

Yeah, shout out to the Heinz family again. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:59

Shout out to you guys. You know what I mean? Please listen to our demo. Um shout out to our day 46s now, our day ones, and everyone in between. And as usual and as always, see, I'm throwing different cadences on. Shout out to our day one, day one, salute. But you know what, babe?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:22

Since we are prolific.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:23

That's right, my brother, since we are prolific, we will be back. Same gen next time, same gen next place, next Wednesday uh for episode 47. Oh, oh, and one more thing, one more thing. What's that? The USA has advanced to the round of 32. We have a big match on Wednesday, and we play Bosnia. So the United States, if any of you guys don't know or don't follow sports, it's World Cup time, uh, the most popular sport on the planet. There you go. And the USA, for the first time, has advanced into the round of 32 by winning their by, I believe, winning their their division, their division that they win. Um, also, it was the fastest. We advanced in two games, and we've been as far as a third place finish, but that was all all the way back in 1930, and we got a quarterfinal finish in, I believe 2002. So um we have a big game. This is a round of 32. We're trying to get to the round of 16, we're trying to get to the final four if we can, but at least quarterfinals of bust, team USA, and that's what I have to say about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:49

Yeah, shout out to Team USA.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:52

Shout out to Team USA, man. Shout out to Team USA, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:55

Team football, football, football, the football.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:01

Good. And I have another tidbit because everybody's always given the United States flack for calling football soccer. Yeah, United States did not, we did not come up with the name soccer. That name was originated in the UK. So there you go. United States, we are not, we do call it soccer here mostly, but it came from the UK. So there you go. But I call it football because I know a lot of Europeans.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:28

So I'm calling it soccer.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:32

He's calling it soccer because Maine don't care about it anyway. Unless we win, son, if we win.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:40

Yeah, if we win, then then I'll go get my jersey and get the jersey set in.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:47

You're gonna have the soccer ball background.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:49

Yeah, you know, you know I gotta do it. You know I gotta do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:53

So we'll we'll see you we'll see you soon, and you'll hear from us soon. Peace and power to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:00

Power to the podcast. Peace.