DOD138: I'm a...Sad Sad Fish with a Sad Sad Face

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's definitely sad to be fishing because that shit is fucking boring. I'm Tom Curry. I've joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick.

0:00:39 Eli: Hello.

0:00:39 Tom: Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello. I would like everyone to know if you want to know how opposite Eli is to what people perceive him to be. Eli was, I would say not even late. It was like on, it was like time, on like on the button. And Tom and I called like a rescue helicopter. Yeah.

0:00:58 Eli: 9 -1 -1, right.

0:01:00 Thomas: We were like, this is not big.

0:01:00 Tom: I had a wellness check done at his home.

0:01:01 Thomas: Yeah, because he's normally, I don't know, at least like three minutes early every single time.

0:01:05 Eli: Yeah. Seven cops came and shot my dog. It was a whole, it was a whole thing.

0:01:08 Tom: You can't

0:01:11 Thomas: Yeah, well, the next time be three minutes early like you always are.

0:01:15 Tom: Set a precedent of always being early. Literally Look, my dad's an always early guy, and if my dad showed up on time somewhere, I would be in a panic, in a panicked, I, if he showed up, if we're supposed to get together at 12 and it was 11:45 and he wasn't where he was supposed to be, like, his arm is blown off in a war somewhere, like, that's the only possible way this has happened.

0:01:17 Eli: Yeah!

0:01:17 Thomas: Exactly. Oh, Jesus.

0:01:33 Eli: This How bad my dependable earliness is. A friend of mine was doing, like, a pre-wedding celebration, um, he texted me, "Hey, Eli, I know you are within a five minute walk." It was like an hour beforehand. He was like, "Hey, I know you are within a five minute walk of this location. We need the following things from the store. Will you stop pretending that you're not here already and bring those?" And I had to be like, "Yeah." "Yeah, I'll get ice." Oh.

0:02:02 Thomas: Jesus.

0:01:57 Tom: Yeah. That's That's a very much a Cecil thing too. Cecil has never been late that I'm aware of. I mean, I've known Cecil for, for coming up on 30 years now. And I don't believe he's ever been even on time. If you want to piss off Cecil, be late with a cup of Starbucks coffee in your hand.

0:02:22 Tom: I, oh, let me tell you a quick story. I was going to go, it was going to be Cecil, a very, very good friend of ours and myself. We were going to do a little of a talk to go just recreation. We're going to go like a skeet shooting. So just going to fuck around and just have like a day, just hanging out, doing nothing. So there's no agenda here, right? Right. There Nothing important is happening. But we had agreed to meet at my house at let's call it 8 a .m. I'm making up a time since it's been 15 years since this happened. And 8 a.m. rolls around and my buddy's not there. And like 8:05 rolls around. And Cecil's getting agitated because Cecil, of course, has been here since 7:45 waiting

0:02:19 Eli: The coffee, the ultimate insult.

0:02:38 Thomas: Oh

0:02:54 Eli: Right, obviously.

0:02:55 Tom: In his car because he also won't knock on the door until 8 o'clock. Right. Because that would be rude.

0:02:59 Eli: Right. Too.

0:02:59 Thomas: Wow. Okay.

0:03:00 Tom: He's Right.

0:03:00 Eli: Early is also rude, yes. Yeah.

0:03:01 Tom: So he's going to get there early is going to wait in his car until the appropriate time. That's just who he is and who he'll die being, right? I mean, it's a great thing. Like, none of this is a bad thing about Cecil. It's great about Cecils. Incredibly dependable. 8:10, 8:15, maybe 8 16, 17.

0:03:16 Thomas: Thomas wakes up and is like, fuck.

0:03:19 Tom: Buddy rolls up, gets out of the car, and he's got a cup of Starbucks coffee. Cecil gets in his car and drives home. Ha, ha, ha.

0:03:20 Eli: Oh. God drives away. Yeah, obviously. I'm I don't know if you did, you ever have a time where a teacher didn't show up to class and someone you down to the, you stood there in the hall like the huddled masses, and so you sent someone down to the principal's office, and I don't know if this, I hope this just happened to me, but that, that person was like, if they're not there by 30 minutes after the bell, you guys can leave, and that's what I've been on for the rest of my life.

0:03:30 Thomas: Oh my god, that's so funny yeah yeah

0:03:52 Eli: Like, if, if any event is, the Broadway show Funeral is running 30 minutes late, I'm like, no, we don't have to be here. No. It's over. The

0:03:48 Thomas: Yeah Boy, how have you and I ever done something together? No. I will say you will never see me with the Starbucks cup though, like, at least say that for myself it wouldn't be like, oh, I'm gonna take my time. Good at it.

0:04:01 Eli: Principal No. No. The someone who just spent a week with the Smits. Can I tell you, the Smiths are never casual late, right? There's blood streaming out of Lydia's forehead, a wound is hand stapled clothes on Thomas's arm, and I'm like, you guys just came down for breakfast, what happened? Sharp stairs. We don't have time, we don't have time, throw bacon at us as we get into the vehicle.

0:04:09 Thomas: Yeah oh yeah yeah Yeah, because I try so hard to get on time once I've made myself late like an idiot. Like just I know, there have been times where it's genuinely a fucking mental illness. Obviously, I really make an effort with you gentlemen. That's why I was here on time to call that rescue helicopter for Eli. Like even noticed it in myself where I'm like, OK, hockey, for example, I play hockey. Hockey, it's something I care probably more about than, like, much anything, including my children. No, I'm just kidding, I love hockey so much, and even still I'll be like, all right, well, if I left now I'd be about five minutes early, and then my brain's like, yeah, so you can't do that, that'd be fucking insane.

0:04:46 Eli: Right, can't

0:05:06 Thomas: What Are you talking about?

0:05:05 Eli: Leave now. I mean saying Yeah.

0:05:06 Thomas: You can Like, I'll literally be in a of pair prison of my own mind, being like, "Can't do it, that would be stupid, you can't be early." And then all of a sudden I'm like, 10 minutes later, I'm like, "What the fuck happened?" I don't, don't know how that happened. And so I just want everyone to know it's nothing, not to do with not caring about something. I do it with everything, like, okay,

0:05:05 Tom: So Yeah, You

0:05:23 Eli: It's no more tragic piece of fiction than Lydia Smith saying she's gonna be in an activity before noon in a chat thread. Nothing, they're fucking, what does it got, Schindler's List and fucking Sophie's Choice have nothing on Lydia's message being like, "Yep, see you at 8 a.m.," and I'm like, you, you sure will, old dog, you sure well. What

0:05:45 Thomas: Here's the thing. I, this is so funny. I don't know what happened. I don't know if it's because of having three kids. I don't know if it's because Lydia finally just gave up, 'cause I'm always late, but I'm the early one one out of the two of us now. Yes.

0:05:45 Tom: So, so That

0:05:57 Eli: Yeah.

0:05:57 Thomas: I swear to God, Eli, I swear to God, I am the one getting up and being like, maybe not. Okay, sorry, not getting up, that's wrong. If it's in the morning, I'm not the early one. Yeah.

0:05:57 Tom: Was gonna be my question we already didn't believe you as soon as you started that sentence

0:06:07 Eli: Okay. Lydia

0:06:07 Thomas: Nope. Nope. I want I I'm becoming a hundred percent honest, if it's something where it's like, okay,

0:06:08 Tom: Yeah.

0:06:11 Eli: His voice breaks into the podcast guest. Hey, it's the fourth dad here, he's a fucking liar, right?

0:06:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, no. It's not that No. Definitely not, if it's something early, that's a still a challenge for me, but pretty much anything else, and there's a lot of things that don't start right in the fucking morning, somehow I have a sense of how long it's going to take to get these fucking kids ready. And it's always 45 goddamn minutes. And I don't blame Lydia because you think, oh, well, if we start getting the kids, all we have to do is like get their shoes on and get like, you know, a snack and get them in the car. How could that possibly take more than 15 minutes? And somehow it takes four hours. I don't know how, but I have updated my brain to calibrate to where I include all that in my brain, and I'll still be five minutes late with that, but Lydia I hasn't updated or something, because it's, here's another thing about me I haven't updated, that I'm the early one, so I'll constantly be like, well, okay, if she hasn't started moving then I guess we're fine.

0:06:17 Tom: I

0:07:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:07:06 Tom: Have time. Yeah.

0:07:06 Thomas: Exactly. And then I'll be like, "Shouldn't we keep going?" She'll be like, "Yeah, no, no, we probably should." And I'm like, "Fuck." And then, like, racing to get the kids out, you know, ready.

0:07:06 Eli: Yeah.

0:07:14 Tom: So Eli, are you, is Anna also an on-time person, or is she a... So I think I'm the only one here where I am the on-time person, and Hayley is the "eventually" person, or at least she used to be. She's gotten much, much, much, mucho much better over the years, and that's because we've finally worked out about a system that doesn't make either of us crazy, and that works like this. One, I have to be like, if we're late, I, I don't get to have a heart attack about that. I just have to be like, "We're late," and that is a thing that sometimes happens, and that helps me not have a fucking aneurysm.

Because when we first started you dating, and we would have places to go, and we hadn't worked out, like, time management, which is like a real thing, you know, like we hadn't worked out this collective time management issue, and we were going to be late, like, my blood pressure would be like 300 over 200, because I can't, I just can't do that. Like, it makes me insane to be like, not on time to anything. It makes me feel like a fucking crazy person, and so then I start to act erratically, because I'm like, "Ah!" So I've learned is, one, if Hayley is still getting ready, I have an infinite amount

0:07:14 Eli: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:22 Tom: Of time to get ready because Because there's

0:08:22 Eli: Infinite Yep. You do whatever you want, start a novel, yeah, for

0:08:25 Tom: No way for me to get ready at a pace that doesn't mean that So, like, if Haley's like, you know, picking out her outfit, can, I, I'm like, I'll seriously be like, "Oh, she's picking out an outfit. I definitely have time to still shower, right? Like I can shower, brush my teeth. I could shave. I can like write an essay for Citation Needed. I have plenty of time. It is fine.

0:08:37 Thomas: Take a nap. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:08:39 Eli: A bath Yeah, I'm yeah. Yep.

0:08:47 Thomas: Have have you seen those, you know, tick tocks or whatever of of like, you wife trying to eat at the pace of the husband or vice versa? That's a. Oh, oh, sorry. I thought I figured Eli has seen everything, but that's the thing people do now where it's like Like they set up you a know, a phone kind of like hidden and it just says like trying to eat at the same pace as my husband or vice versa. And it's like impossible. It's like that.

0:09:02 Eli: Yeah. There

0:09:07 Tom: It, it is. So now what I do is I've recognized that, like, because I don't have ADHD and she does that, I have to be the keeper of time. And so I have a whole series of strategies where I lie to her about what time things start. I gently say things about what Time it is that have nothing to do with hurry up. It's already five o 'clock. Right. I'll be like, God, I can't believe it's already this dark at five o'clock. And that's a way for me to signal, hey, it's five o'clock, without sounding like I'm a pestering asshole. Hole, I, and it works, it works great, right?

0:09:30 Thomas: Really? Huh?

0:09:36 Tom: Because she'll like look up and be like, "Fuck, it's five o'clock," and then I'm not the asshole who created pressure. It's so we have this whole system and we are never late anywhere anymore. We are ever late anywhere anymore.

0:09:45 Thomas: Really? Never late anywhere anymore.

0:09:47 Tom: It works well, that we, we don't go out as much as we used to, but we are never late anymore. We make it almost on time to absolutely everything except for once in a, a great while. And I mean, I'm talking like it's happened twice in seven years. I'll be the reason we're late. So the other day we I were driving to an appointment and office had moved. It was a doctor's appointment. The office had moved. I put old address in my GPS and we were like seven minutes late.

0:09:45 Eli: You go, oh Yep.

0:09:48 Thomas: Oh, you stopped going anywhere. Okay. That's yeah. Technically speaking.

0:10:05 Thomas: Oh yeah.

0:10:14 Tom: And she was so happy because I was the reason she was like walking with like a little, like step, you know, like a little spring in her step, like, "He's the reason we're late." It's

0:10:20 Eli: Hey, sorry, we're late. Hey, Tom, remind me why we were late again? No

0:10:31 Thomas: The doctor's like, anyway, I can't do the kidney transplant. It's been too long. You got to, yeah, the kidney is no good now.

0:10:35 Tom: Been seven minutes, right? Yeah.

0:10:37 Eli: Problem. Doc, Tom, this is your fault. Yeah.

0:10:39 Tom: I know. Yeah.

0:10:47 Eli: Here's the thing. I think me and Anna have started out, I think it's different people, because I think Anna started as a late or on-time person, but then shared airport habits, right? Is that we are both 19 hours early to the airport people. There's no amount of time you could suggest getting to the airport ahead of time that I'm not like, "Yeah, it sounds great." It's awesome.

0:11:07 Eli: So 24 hours, and I'll fucking Tom Hanks it, right? And then we get a job in construction and we learn a different language from the Friends Flan book. I get it. I'm fine with it, right? So I think that just crept into the rest of our life, because I was always in such a, because here's the thing, and I want to own this, if you are an on-time person and you're married to an early person, your life is a fire drill, right? You spent your whole life just being like, "All right, well, we need to be there at 6:30 and it's a 15-minute drive." It's six.

I think now is the time to leave. And I'm in the car sweating and crying, crying and vomiting out the window, but the car is still, so it's just splattered in a puddle down the door. Like, a certain point you either give in to that psychosis or, or you develop the, like, insane. And I don't know if you guys have ever seen the mismatched couple, because those people make abusive relationships look healthy by comparison, right? He comes in just soaked in sweat, eyes bleary, blood coming out of one nostril. She's still in her bathrobe and she's like, I don't know, he said something about a hospital. I wasn't really paying attention.

0:11:06 Tom: I'll go a day early. It's fine. Yeah, right.

0:12:21 Tom: When Hayley and I first got together, I need 30 minutes or so with a shower to get up, like showered, dressed, presentable, out the door. That seems to me, it's always seemed to me like that's a reasonable amount of time, even for a guy. It's so easy, right? Even if you're going to put on a suit, a suit takes an extra minute to two minutes to tie your tie.

0:12:40 Tom: Everything is easier. Right? Getting dressed is easy. Doing your hair is you get thrown deodorant. You know, I guess nothing is difficult. It's also easy. So my brain, my stupid idiot brain, I'm it takes about 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes to get ready to go out. And I remember when we were first dating and we had like like a little bit of a mini fight about something. And I'm like, well, how much time do you need? And it was like three hours. And I was like, that can't be true.

0:12:40 Thomas: Yeah, it is.

0:13:06 Thomas: Oh my God. Yeah.

0:13:08 Eli: Yeah.

0:13:08 Tom: That cannot be true, But she's like, I, well, I got a shower and I got to, like, pick out something to wear and I gotta, like, wait for my hair to dry and like, yeah.

0:13:09 Thomas: Tom had a stroke on the spot. I got to watch the Lord of the Rings extended version. Yeah,

0:13:19 Tom: And I'm in my brain that's what I said. I remember being like, it takes you a Lord of the Rings movie to get ready, like, you could storm the fucking Mordor or whatever, in, in my brain it's like that's six times as long, but that is that's

0:13:19 Eli: Yeah, exactly. It's

0:13:19 Thomas: I get it. See,

0:13:30 Eli: Not true. Real is why. Because it is not real. Do it.

0:13:33 Thomas: That's not real. Three hours is

0:13:35 Eli: Watch them. Watch them.

0:13:35 Tom: The amount of time it takes her

0:13:36 Eli: Wash them with your eyes. Be like, oh, really? Is that the amount of time it takes? Great. Let's do it right now. Let's pretend we're headed out. I just started a timer on my phone. I'm going to climb in the shower with you in my full fucking clothes. There we go. Oh, look at that. Same amount of legs as me. Not, I don't know, 18 legs. Let's

0:13:35 Thomas: Not real, there's no way.

0:13:36 Tom: Right? Oh, No, you've never met Hayley. Absolutely.

0:13:54 Thomas: Okay, here's what I will say. I've studied this a little bit because Lydia does not take that long, but you know, she can take a while. Here's what women do, I think, part of it. Men that don't Do they? Well, that, maybe. No, but often They actually try, like, four different things. They'll be like, no, no, no outfits. Like, oh, really?

0:14:04 Eli: Lie. Is what they do lie about how long it takes.

0:14:12 Tom: That's adorable. Yeah.

0:14:15 Thomas: Are she trying more than four outfits? Holy shit. Well, okay, Haley might be a special case, but like, and so they'll do the whole routine. They'll do the whole thing. It'll be like fucking hair and makeup for Mask, you know, that movie with that guy with a giant head? They'll be like, all right, here's my look. And then you'll be able to see it and you'll like, cool, so we're going. I don't like it. And then, you know, and then it's like a whole nother thing, like a hole different. They do that several times sometimes, and that does add up, I guess, because if they were just getting ready with one thing, there is no way it takes three hours. I'm sorry

0:14:15 Tom: Oh, 12, 15.

0:14:29 Eli: Yeah. That

0:14:42 Tom: Well, it does. Yeah, no, but the choosing of things, but

0:14:47 Eli: That's like if I was like, I'm sorry, every time I've got to get ready, I just have to play Zelda: Link from the Past, like I know you don't have to do that yeah I know. Look, I know you might have a moment here where your brain tells you it's time to change outfits, but you don't. Now look, I will say, as the other side of the spec, when Tom said 30 minutes, I was like, you misspoke, it's seconds, right?

0:14:54 Thomas: Yeah. Now you're talking now you're talking my language. Yeah.

0:15:09 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:10 Eli: The time it takes me to get ready for any event that is not the funeral for a person who said please wear a suit to my funeral is the time it takes me to take off my basketball shorts and put on my cargo shorts. That's it. Because the basketball shorts do not have the tensile strength for a wallet and keys. If they did, it would take zero seconds.

0:15:10 Thomas: Exactly. No, I'm with you either.

0:15:23 Thomas: Maybe Yeah. That's

0:15:29 Tom: Oh, my god, no, I'm, no, uh-uh, no. That's insane. That is, that is insane.

0:15:37 Thomas: So true.

0:15:41 Eli: But motion that it would, it would make me longer than to get, go again. Literally, when people, I have this happen this year because I have two weddings this summer, and both of the weddings are like, wear what you're comfortable in, and I called both people and I was like do you mean that? And they were like, no, I don't mean that could

0:15:41 Thomas: Oh, that's awesome.

0:15:45 Tom: Not

0:15:54 Thomas: Hey, Yeah.

0:15:57 Tom: For you, no, not yeah, so

0:15:58 Thomas: They're like, Eli, you didn't get this special invitation that we printed that was different. It was like color-coded for you. Human

0:16:04 Eli: All of them needed to put on the invitation, except for Eli, who we expect to wear a suit that he has worn before.

0:16:10 Thomas: Clothes Yeah.

0:16:11 Eli: Yes, exactly. And

0:16:13 Tom: Let me give you guys an example. So we're going, Hayley and I are going to a concert on Friday, so we've got tickets to go see Billy Joel.

0:16:19 Eli: She started to get it ready just before this record began.

0:16:21 Tom: No,

0:16:21 Thomas: Well, as long as Tom reminded her that it was the time to go. Yeah.

0:16:21 Tom: You're not wrong, though. So we

0:16:22 Eli: Right Huh, crazy that it's Friday already. That's

0:16:27 Tom: We bought these tickets six or eight weeks ago, and she started planning her outfit the day we bought the tickets. She started planning what she's going to wear. So she already knows what she's going to do. She already knows she's got to wear down to, like, the accessories she's gonna wear for this, because this is a big event. That's the thing. This is a Big Event. If that sort of, like, planning work isn't done in advance, because Haley's very image conscious. She wants to make sure that if she's going to go out in the world, she wants to feel for herself like she looks really nice. That's really important for her, so

0:16:39 Thomas: Well, there there you go, should take even less time, right?

0:16:57 Eli: Fair. If I had the capability to look as good as Haley looks, I also might put some time it.

0:17:01 Thomas: Yeah. Fair.

0:17:00 Tom: Same. Right, that guy. That's what I'm trying to recognize here is like I

0:17:02 Eli: Yeah. I'm I'm maxing out at a C-minus.

0:17:02 Thomas: Oh, I hope people don't take this as, like, a criticism. This is genuinely Just, like, especially Eli, because I'm with Eli, I'm like a 20-second get ready, but that's more out of the necessity of so much training, you know, the 10,000 hours thing, of being so fucking late that you have to do. I can do stuff. I can put on clothes in ways you wouldn't even imagine. I can and get ready, and it's like I'm a magician all of a sudden but Tom, I'll let you get back to it, but I hope nobody takes that as, like, a criticism. It's just like trying to understand the anyone else works, is all. Yeah.

0:17:06 Tom: Right. No.

0:17:26 Eli: It's Lovecraftian horror. I've see Thomas throw his car keys in the window into the ignition of his car. He just, like, a dart like a dartboard, just bullsize it. It's what has to happen.

0:17:40 Thomas: That's why I have to be

0:17:44 Eli: It's what has happened. Years of practice. She's, guys, you know the only thing worse than, uh, patriarchy, which I think we can all agree is the creation of all of these problems? Why, it's the auto ads, which you've probably heard 17 of at this point. We went a little bit long, but if you wanted the smooth jazz listening experience that you so deserve as a podcast listener, why, you can give us as little as a dollar over at patreon.com/dearolddads as well. You'll get an extended commercial-free version of every single show when Tom feels like it, as well as monthly bonus episodes. We got a hot, fresh AMA that's

0:17:44 Thomas: Good at darts. Yeah, that's why Oh, Sometimes Eli sends the link at one minute after the hour. So,

0:18:25 Eli: Right. Sometimes I send the link on time. And so, you know, there's ever, everyone's at fault for different reasons. I also do nothing for the bonus on this podcast and don't edit the show, so what the fuck am I to? I mean, not that Tom does either, but so, you know. But yeah, you get all that stuff over at patreon.com/dearolddads. Rip into it.

0:18:26 Thomas: Yeah. Damn.

0:18:47 Thomas: It I was hoping you'd forget that one. Yeah.

0:18:51 Tom: We gotta get T-shirts. Just Dear Old Dads: Rip into it.

0:18:53 Eli: Rip into it. And it's got that, like, Raptor font. Yeah.

0:18:54 Tom: Yes. Yes.

0:18:57 Thomas: It has to be Yeah.

0:18:57 Eli: Hell

0:18:58 Thomas: Breaking it through the shirt. Yeah.

0:18:58 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:59 Tom: It needs to look like it was clawed into the shirt. That's only read shirts that are clawed into can

0:19:00 Thomas: Oh,

0:19:03 Eli: One of these centuries we're gonna convince Tom to do a live show and you can all get your rip into it shirts on that day yeah

0:19:09 Tom: You imagine the disaster buckle of a Dear Old Dads live show. It's already a ramble like like an on -stage ramble. Like, I've taken one unscripted show live and I, I'm not looking to repeat that performance. All

0:19:13 Thomas: Be fucking great, man. I'll do great. Oh, Oh, don't worry, that's just me, apparently never being allowed to do a live show by Tom because I don't have of a fucking script. Oh, so does my kind I know.

0:19:31 Tom: No, I'm saying I did a bad job. What

0:19:34 Thomas: But Tom, does my kind not get to do live shows?

0:19:34 Tom: I'm saying is, well, if you're competent at it, it's probably great. If you're me and you just bomb terribly in front of a large crowd.

0:19:44 Thomas: That don't take that one. Scotland audience to be represented.

0:19:48 Eli: Oh no he was talking about australia scotland was all of us together

0:19:49 Thomas: Oh, Okay.

0:19:51 Tom: So, oh, Scotland was all of us. Australia, Australia was my, yeah, that was, great. That Biggest stage I've ever been on. So that was good.

0:19:57 Eli: I want to put you on stage at madison square garden that's my goal how do we get tom with With Billy Joel and Madison Square Garden.

0:20:05 Tom: Here's the thing though, to be honest, I had a great time and I would do it again. I didn't can give a shit actually

0:20:09 Thomas: Yes

0:20:08 Eli: That was a great, yeah, that was lovely. So the problem was like, like not a lot of people at that, that was a huge Australian conference and just not a Lot of People knew us. And so it was like and now Nishi McNeish and their niche friends. And so most of these very lovely people were like, I don't fucking know this show, and they left but we were there also Tom, fuck you, because I had to follow the educated lady and I know she's not actually the educated lady, but I had to follow Australian educated lady who escaped a cult and she came off stage and she hugged her lover and she was like, you did it, you told your story, and I was standing there in a wedding dress that I stole from someone's wife and I was like, good speech, I'm gonna go out there and do some gay marriage jokes

0:20:20 Tom: Right yep yeah

0:20:21 Thomas: This is obscure

0:20:49 Eli: Look

0:20:49 Thomas: Even for me, I hope people know what what this is That was like 10 years ago, wasn't it?

0:20:52 Eli: Our Aussie listeners get it and they're are like yeah time's

0:20:55 Tom: That was a while ago, but yeah, all right so let's talk about sad fishing. There was an article, I think from parents.com, I sent you guys, um, I want to just read very briefly from it to catch the audience up, and then I want to chit chat with you guys a little bit about it so sad fishing, uh, is raising concern particularly among teenagers. The term, which researchers define in the Journal of American College Health in 2021, refers to social media users who exaggerate their emotional state online in order to generate sympathy.

0:20:58 Eli: A flat circle are

0:20:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, catch them up for sure.

0:21:24 Thomas: I just have to point out, though, that this article is of the form, they're calling it sad fishing. You know, that a new trend. Yeah.

0:21:29 Eli: Your kids safe. Stay tuned

0:21:37 Tom: It a an ominous quote, or a vague post. Journalist Rebecca Reed coined the term in 2019.

0:21:40 Thomas: Oh, come on, dude. I'm sorry. Already, Tom. We had, okay, maybe this was just me and Eli's generation. We were literally called like emo. Like we were the emo generation. We went on, we had fucking, what was that website before Facebook? You'd pick a song, you could have a, you have a sad ass song for your fucking thing. Come on, this isn't a new thing. Anyway, sorry. Hmm.

0:21:55 Eli: Oh, No.

0:21:56 Tom: MySpace, yeah. No, no, no. That's okay. So experts say sad fishing is likely due to the fact that a child or teen is struggling with something and wants to let others know. In these cases, they often don't feel that they have a person they feel comfortable to share their struggles with, so they turn to the social world. So study published in the journal BMC Psychology found that teens who participate in sad fishing, exhibited signs of anxiety and depression, while low social support was a large contributing factor. And the article goes on at length. I don't want to read you an entire article, but I do want to talk about sad fishing because one of the things that the article does say is that these social media posts are largely unsuccessful for teenagers teenagers, in getting them the kind of support and response that they likely are looking for. And I think that anecdotally, I totally believe that. And I know I'm the social media is evil guy. So I want to throw that out there. I do think that social media has a net loss to humanity.

0:22:10 Eli: Yeah, Yeah.

0:22:43 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. How dare these sad depressed kids cry for help? That is so stupid of them.

0:23:06 Tom: The it doesn't work. If they're crying out for help and they feel like this is the space for them to do it, that isn't working, it is not giving them oftentimes what they end up receiving instead is ridicule and mockery, and so Yeah. And-- So like the sad fishing, they're not catching what they're looking to find, right? They're, they're going out there into the world and they're creating these posts that are vague and these creating these hosts that are sad. They're, they're creating this stuff. And rather than actually receiving what it is that they want or need, which is likely something that social media simply can't provide, which is genuine connection and probably therapeutic support, they're getting mocked and they're getting ridiculed. They're getting screenshot. The shit gets passed around. It does seem like the one hand, really understandable, normal kind with social media sort of publicly vent your shit, but on the other side for teenagers, like, we know it doesn't work, like seems

0:23:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Really?

0:23:22 Thomas: Is That what, that's-- what's, oh shit, that sucks. Yeah.

0:24:07 Tom: Like it doesn't work. So it's, it's really kind of an interesting article for me about that.

0:24:11 Eli: And I think it's because, um, media is probably the most different product than what you're being sold, right? Are sold that social media is this place where you go on and you say what's on your mind and you're like, having a sad day today, miss you, woofy, hope it's fun on the other side of the wearing bow bridge, and your aunt is like, oh honey, feel better. Like, that's the, that's outside of the candy wrapper, and the inside of the candy wrapper is more ads than the human eye can comprehend, and Russian spies making your grandma, I'm a racist.

0:24:41 Thomas: AI generated viral content.

0:24:45 Tom: Yep.

0:24:47 Eli: Nonsense.

0:24:47 Thomas: Top actor performance movie, and then it'll be a video from fucking some Godfather one with the write-up that makes that's all of my, I don't know what happened to me, but that's all of my Facebook. Yep.

0:24:53 Tom: Oh,

0:24:48 Eli: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Nope. And it's just like weird clips from movies and stuff. Yeah. So think part of that reason is that like young people, as much as I think they have a healthier relationship with social media than we do, those who still get sucked into the product, not only like, is are they not getting what they want out of it? I'll go a step further than crazy Tom and say, there's nothing good there.

0:25:01 Thomas: Okay.

0:25:18 Tom: I'm right there with you, buddy. Let's link arms, my friend. Yes.

0:25:23 Eli: Let's dive into crazy town. Tom, join me over here in crazy town, the Surgent General in the last 75 years has issued warning labels on four products, alcohol, tobacco. There was a general widespread acknowledgement of the COVID-19 virus. And now he is requested to place a warning label on social media websites. Sights. That's

0:25:26 Tom: Buddy. Yep. Yep.

0:25:46 Thomas: They really do. Like, hey, I know you've probably heard of this COVID-19, we're saying it's not great over here. Like, surgeon general

0:25:52 Eli: That's how infrequently the surgeon general comes out in his little fucking minute

0:25:57 Thomas: Two thumbs way down for the COVID-19.

0:25:59 Eli: Yeah. In his little minute man military uniform that makes no fucking sense because that's from the 15th century. And he's like, Hey everybody, I just thought you might like to know that lighting something on fire and then breathing that process and

0:26:11 Thomas: He should have to be half scrubs and a scalpel in one hand and then like the Patton

0:26:18 Eli: Then a gun. One causing the wound and the other,

0:26:19 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:26:19 Tom: Yeah. Or Or

0:26:20 Eli: Yes.

0:26:20 Thomas: He's a surgeon general, he's like, two face

0:26:23 Eli: Every Surgeon General looks wildly uncomfortable in the little military outfit they put them in. As well they should, because they are not a member of the military. They are a doctor who knew someone in Congress, always. And this guy, it's in the Times, today when we're recording this, a couple weeks ago when you're hearing it, where

0:26:40 Tom: Yeah. Yep.

0:26:42 Thomas: Literally be a couple days, but

0:26:44 Eli: He was just like, sorry to bother you everyone. It's just killing kids at this point. It's like a, it's like kid-murdering barn. Like if there were a barn filled with sharp knives, that's basically what social media is, and they're fucking a lot of them. They're really, I can't emphasize, I would like to put a sticker and everyone's like, fuck you. I've never heard of you I thought you were Anthony Fauci and it's a no he's a different guy. Please if someone Did you I don't know are you Jewish too? I don' really see how that's relevant. No, but I also, well then we'll

0:26:44 Thomas: Yeah. It'll Yeah. Oh,

0:27:17 Eli: See, see like, right

0:27:18 Tom: Well, And let me, let, let me just, and we'll talk only exclusively on this show about kids because that's where it matters, but I would add, like, I also don't think there's any reason to think that the harms are exclusive to kids. I think we just care more about kids in general. So

0:27:29 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:30 Eli: Yeah. The same way that, like, I don't care that the guy standing outside the factory with his eighth cigarette that day, he doesn't need the label. Like, he could just fucking have his cigarettes. He gets it

0:27:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:40 Tom: I, I just I just don't want there to be a perception out there that, like, this is only dangerous for kids or the kids are primarily, all I go, you know, kids are really uniquely, no, it's just like, we, it's so bad for you, like, like smoking or alcohol, that like, like, just got to try to not hook them early, right? Like that's the thing because it's really hard to hook People.

0:27:41 Eli: Yeah.

0:27:56 Eli: Well, And he says if you read the opinion piece he says it's like, it's bad for grown-ups too, but I mean, you're not even gonna listen to me about this, so I don't fucking know, I've never, honestly, there are, there are tween suicide notes with more wellbeing in them than this.

0:28:00 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, well,

0:28:12 Thomas: He's Sad You're saying He's sad fishing the Surgeon General's sad fishing it somehow

0:28:14 Eli: He's yeah. He's truly sad. This makes sense as a like Facebook note.

0:28:18 Thomas: The newspaper has like an emo song. Yeah.

0:28:20 Eli: Right. That he that he tags at everybody in and you're like, oh, Jesus, are you shutting down the discord for the United States? I bet they are.

0:28:30 Thomas: Oh, do I, okay, you crazy boomers. Go ahead, Tom, and then I can step in And I

0:28:34 Tom: And I think like what's what's funny about this is that when you read it, it's like another like moral panic about social media. And I totally get that idea. But it's also we already know that we should be worried about cyberbullying. Right. We already knowthat that's a real thing. And there's this like intersection of like on social And sharing your innermost thoughts, which really amounts to creating like a public micro journal, like a Public Micro Multimedia Journal, and then allowing that to intersect with the toxic cyberbullying culture, which we know exists and which we know is pervasive and problematic. And then sort of like shrugging and being like, well, I don't know why that didn't go well. It's like, Well, how the fuck was it ever going to go? Well, it's It's like imagine if somebody read your fucking diary because you made it public and then like it was every bully at every school everywhere always and it never goes away.

0:29:15 Eli: Yeah.

0:29:30 Tom: Like that's the problem here.

0:29:30 Eli: And then for the last 25 years, all the greatest minds that should have been landing us on Mars were using that journal to try to sell you Skittles. That's, that's what happened. We landed a guy on the moon and then we took all our nerds and we were like, make the most powerful algorithms for buying humanly possible. And they were like, don't you want us to cure cancer? And they were like, no, Skittles AI generated ads for a magic show he won't see, or get the fuck out of here. And they're like, okay, if you say so. Oh

0:29:41 Tom: Yes. Right.

0:29:59 Tom: What? What?

0:30:08 Tom: So I think it's really interesting that like idea of sad fishing, I and I've talked to the kids about being really real. You will not be surprised, but being really conscious about what they're putting out online for a lot of reasons. Right. Safety reasons for, you know, no,

0:30:23 Thomas: Bet Bet that Tom's kids are like, Dad, can I just not think about one thing? Can you ever let me do something and not think about it, please?

0:30:27 Tom: No. No, no.

0:30:27 Eli: I bet that I Bet they, I bet they gather privately and they are like, guys, guys, guess what he is afraid of today. Guess what he's afraid of. Aislinn, you get to go first because you won it last time. I will give you a hint: it is a snack cake that was available when he was a kid. Yeah he does think

0:30:45 Tom: OK, I'll stop being worried when I'm wrong. But yeah, like I what I just find it really fascinating, this desire, this like confluence like of desire to reach out and have connection and to confuse real connection interaction with the internet with social media and like is actually does kind of if you look, if you read advice blogs on Reddit, which I've done for like farming for content for Talking Ship, for example, one thing I think is fascinating about Reddit, and I think it's a function of the anonymity, um, like people will post something and sometimes it'll be like a real like complicated problem. It's not like some like little like, oh, here's a piece of pithy quick advice, but you'll read through it and be like, holy shit. And Reddit will a lot of times get it right. They'll say something like, hey, this is above Reddit's pay grade.

You need to get to a therapist. Reddit does a good job of that sometimes on these advice column areas, like marriage advice and sex advice and all those kinds of places. They'll be like, Hey, this is above the Internet's paygrade. Social media that is not anonymous does a bad job of

0:30:48 Eli: Yeah.

0:31:46 Eli: They're like, thank you for coming to me, president of opinions.

0:31:47 Thomas: It's not the anonymity, by the way.

0:31:49 Tom: That. But I think that the anonymity, here's why I think the anonymities a factor. Factor, if I'm connected with somebody on social media, right, I see that they're sad fishing and I recognize, even if I don't have that term, if I recognize what it is, I will feel, yeah, I probably would actually, but like, I, I would feel a certain sense of obligation to like say something kind or say something supportive or to interact with it in some way, and that interaction, I think, validates and reinforces that behavior in a way that is not only unproductive, but it's counterproductive to actually going to places that provide real help and real support and real connection.

0:32:03 Eli: Unfollow.

0:32:29 Eli: Yes, yes.

0:32:30 Tom: That make sense? And that's why the anonymity thing, because if I'm anonymous, I can be like, dude, fucking get help. Right. But if I see like a friend post something and be like they actually want me to support, they want a little hug reaction, you

0:32:36 Eli: Uh.

0:32:41 Thomas: Oh, no, I'll say get get help to a friend. I mean, OK, I don't know how much this point matters, but I think that has more to do with the fact that Reddits are organized a certain way and you join a subreddit like that for a specific reason. There's also moderation to a degree. And so a lot of the people who have joined that subredtit, they're not seeing, oh, my friend posted something, they're seeing like a whole thing. They're like, well, this person has problems and it's to this level where they need to get help.

And it's not like, I think, that's also a lot of it like you're joined a focus group, but But I, okay, here's what I want to say. I don't know that like I'm coming out strong that everything you're saying is wrong per se, but I do want to come out strongly with a I don't know opinion about this for a couple reasons. For one, haven't read that's whatever the latest thing you're talking about is. So maybe I've changed my mind. I didn't, did they come out really today as we're talking and say something? Surgeon General thing? Or is that, what

0:33:09 Tom: I think so So, too, I think that that's part of it, too. Yeah, for sure.

0:33:31 Tom: Think it was yesterday.

0:33:31 Thomas: The yesterday? Okay, I didn'T catch it. I'll catch it, but Here's my, here's the other thing, Tom, that I worry, and maybe you can answer this question. Question, I don't believe that any of my experience, I'll speak for myself, I don't believe any of my experience on social media is at all relevant to kids today, because they're not on the social media that I'm on. They're on other stuff that I don't do. And maybe that's not true of you, Tom, I don't know, but all I know is if you mention Facebook to anyone younger than like 30, they're like, "That stupid site that the old people like you guys are on."

And So, and that's like what I'm on, you know, and, and I'm, I'm on Reddit as well, but I don't, I don't really think that's like what you're talking about per se. So I don't, I don't really know, you know, like I, I think there's definitely some bad stuff going on when it comes to Instagram and body image and that kind of stuff. But I, I don't, what, what are people sad fishing on? Does it talk about that? Like what it? What social media is

0:33:32 Eli: Yeah. Two days ago, something like that. That's

0:34:00 Tom: Right.

0:34:20 Eli: A good question, yeah, because the, the difference between sad fishing on Facebook, which is what I see, because, cause I'm on there, and sad fishing on, like, Tick. Well, tick tock, I think, is just like all the worst things about the internet turned up to 11. Right. So it's not sad fishing. It's like pretending you have Tourette's fishing or whatever the fuck the kids are into these days.

0:34:25 Thomas: This? Yeah.

0:34:39 Thomas: But someone in the Chinese government might be sympathetic to your condition though. Like, hey, you know, I'm just spying on you for the data and all that.

0:34:42 Eli: Yeah. Xi Jinping. Sad face. So

0:34:50 Thomas: But, like, hey. You should see somebody about this.

0:34:51 Eli: You're going through it. Also buy something with your credit card on the in, in, in app browser. Use your mom's credit card. It's for something we're using it for something. Yeah.

0:34:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:56 Tom: Yeah, wrong about this, but I think the apps primarily, the social media apps primarily that I see the teenagers using, like Instagram is huge. Huge, huge, huge.

0:35:12 Eli: Oh.

0:35:12 Thomas: Which I don't understand. But, yeah.

0:35:14 Tom: Yeah. Right, so So Instagram is big. I know a lot of kids use Snapchat. We don't let any of our kids use Snapchat, but I know a lot if kids do use Snapchat

0:35:15 Thomas: Don't get it.

0:35:21 Eli: The child porn app. Your kids don't you get to use the fucking job the job or No, no, here's the thing. Like, Instagram, there's a possibility that it's not for children to send naked pictures of themselves to each other. They do, they allow it, they actively encourage it, but Snapchat is the, the take a naked picture of yourself as a child app. That's what that app is for, right?

0:35:22 Tom: Yeah, well, I mean, I feel similarly about Instagram. I'm like, it's like, oh, fuck.

0:35:46 Eli: Anyone who's like, no, I need a way to send secret hideable picture. Why would you need secret hide?

0:35:41 Tom: That's true. Yeah, right. I know it's so

0:35:52 Eli: The best version of that is cheating on your spouse. The best.

0:35:52 Tom: Awful. You're not even remotely

0:35:59 Eli: Because if you're allowed to send other people naked pictures, then that's just your phone. That's just the text messaging service.

0:35:59 Tom: Fucking wrong. Yeah, so I think Instagram is huge. I think TikTok obviously is massive, massive, massive.

0:36:15 Eli: And I'm on the bleeding edge of TikTok, everybody.

0:36:17 Eli: So if you need any knowledge about that,

0:36:19 Tom: And then Snapchat. Which, Snapchat is so funny. You're exactly right. I remember being on Snapchat when it first came out for about seven minutes and being like, oh, this has nothing to do with me. There's no space on here that has any intersection with me possible. This is bonkers

0:36:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:31 Eli: When they incorporated the Snapchat stories, which was like the content section of Snapchat. I have never felt older. I shriveled like an apple left in the sun for a thousand days and a thousand nights, because it was just some guy making spaghetti on a marble countertop, and I was like, I don't remember a culture that was relevant to this one. And he was like, we're gonna gonna put 12 pounds of gold in there. And I was like, don't do that. They really need aid in Casa right now. I think you should focus on that. Yeah.

0:37:05 Tom: You know You know, that's actually a funny, that's a funny to say that, because it feels, this feels like the therapeutic equivalent to slacktivism, right? Like

0:37:17 Eli: Well,

0:37:17 Thomas: Okay. Hold on, let me, I meant to say this though. Yeah, what I expected when you said sad fishing, which seems to me to be quite a derogatory term, I thought you were going to say, "You don't understand, it's the children of rich parents who actually have everything they could possibly want, pretending to be sad to get attention." And then the article is like, "Yeah, so it's kids who are anxious and depressed, they have actual anxiety and depression, and they're posting things that that are sad." I was like, well, so maybe they're just sad. Like, why is it like, it feels a little like insulting to be like sad fishing. You should just be sad in private child who only knows social media as a way to interact with anyone.

0:37:57 Eli: Of all, Thomas, don't announce my inner thoughts on the air like that. That's not kind. No, but I, I agree it's a derogatory term. I think the point of the article, which, because I was going down the same road, which is like, this is going to turn out to be about how kids' emotions aren't valid. I thinkthe point ofthearticle and what I, I think is interesting, is that it's, it's not that they're not really sad, and it's not that their not worthy of care and help. It's that social media doesn't do that. Yeah.

0:37:59 Tom: But

0:38:20 Thomas: Yeah, I get that. I just feel like the fishing part is maybe a little unnecessary.

0:38:22 Eli: Yeah.

0:38:24 Tom: Let me, let me offer this too, because I, I think the article in its definition does make a distinction by saying that, and I think I see this, I do see this, even with adults in addition to kids, is the exaggeration of those feelings in order to get attention. And the article does point that out, that sad fishing as a definition term involves the exaggeración of those feeling.

0:38:36 Thomas: Yeah, definitely. Oh, okay.

0:38:38 Eli: I see it with myself, right?

0:38:50 Thomas: Huh?

0:38:51 Tom: And I do think that there's a really vicious and problematic psychological and emotional feedback loop where if we validate exaggerated feelings, we encourage more of that sort of exaggeration, and encouraging that exaggeration in a space that is not therapeutic, and encouraging that that exaggeration in a space that cannot functionally help in the meaningful ways that people who are really sad and really anxious, like, what they need is not an online boop hug. Like, we know, we actually know that that stuff has no lasting effect. We know that that's actually not an overall good for, for us, like They, yes.

0:39:17 Eli: Right.

0:39:33 Eli: Especially Because everyone talks like Tumblr came to life in some terrible midnight lightning strike now, so no one's just like going through a hard time and it is like, "Sorry, friend, hope you feel better," which is like, I guess fine, right? Right. I hope that helps you. But everyone's like, you know, when I first self-diagnosed with cross anxiety, multiple upside down boobs disease, it's when I realized the toxic capitalist capitalist toxins that were capitalist toxins, toxins, toxic capitalist toxins.

0:39:37 Tom: Yes. Yes.

0:40:03 Eli: And, and I'm just like, you don't fucking know this person. Why are you writing a paragraph of advice when they just fucking did a pair of fucking sad face on their Facebook? Why are You writing a Paragraph of advice? Like you're a psychiatrist giving a presentation at a fucking conference.

0:40:03 Tom: Of my of my narcissistic gaslighting that. Yeah. Right.

0:40:23 Eli: Right. I would, extend I the joke to be like, you wouldn't give people medical advice, but they fucking do that too. Right.

0:40:23 Tom: Yeah, yeah,

0:40:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:31 Tom: And I think that that's exactly right. And I think also there's a conflation that happens where sort of like the public exposure of feelings is being sort of confused with a private connection. I mean, think about, like, when you've really needed help or when you've really been upset about something, as a person, is it for you to interact on a private one-to-one level about something that actually has a deep emotional impact on your life versus this sort of public exposure? It's sort of trying to replace quality with quantity, and combine that with the sort of exaggerated for effect plus validation feedback loop. Like, this is, this is a recipe for sadder people. This is a recipe for more alienation, not connection.

0:41:20 Eli: They provide such different things and we don't often acknowledge that. Right? And like, let me say, 'cause I don't want to call anyone out here, but myself, I will say no one is more guilty of this. Certainly on this podcast, no one is more guilty of this than me. I was listening to a podcast the other day, uh, and this comedian I really like was talking about how the most toxic people are the ones that are always on a social media break. And I had just been like, Hey everybody, time to go on a social media because I'm just a fucking sack of shit.

And here's the thing, here's, right? Why, right. Cause I could say it as one who does it. The reason why is feeling sad about something you see online and going to my wife and being like, "God, man, I am so sad about seeing this news thing, man. It just, I, it breaks my heart and I feel feel powerless and helpless and I wish I knew something to do." And we talk about a little bit and I'm sort of like, "Okay, you know," and we offer each other the comfort we can offer each other in person, which is not much. That's how humans work.

0:41:43 Thomas: Yeah. So true. Oh my God.

0:42:16 Tom: Right?

0:42:17 Eli: Right? Oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. Thanks. All right, well, you know, cheer up. Thanks, I appreciate it. Versus the internet wall of sympathy, which you can summon from the ether at a moment's noticed. Having a sad bad day, friends with an S and no D, right? And then 11 billion people, right, no matter who you are, and yes, it helps that we are public figures to a certain extent, but no matter who you are, a hundred people will hop on and be like, apostrophe, hug, apostrophe, and that feels good, right. It's the difference. Look, if you're hungry, sitting down and having a meal of steak and potatoes and green peas is one thing, but eating an entire bag of Cool Ranch ranch Doritos just hits different.

0:42:58 Eli: And social media is eating an entire bag of cool ranch Doritos. It is filling a need that the steak and potatoes of human contact doesn't. And we're addicted to it. And it's like, I, about million little pieces, which I know is a bad book because he made up a bunch of stuff. And a lot of the stuff he madeup is wildly racist. And we've got to deal with that in its own way. But the thing that he said is like, that is in that that book that I think really pertains to social media and like be lot of things in life is he talks about how, like, I had to get real with myself that nothing was ever going to feel as good as heroin felt, and that's okay, right? And I think that's the conversation that needs to be had about social

0:42:56 Thomas: Yeah? Yeah, that's fair. I

0:43:15 Tom: No,

0:43:39 Thomas: Gotta

0:43:39 Eli: Media is like you're heroin rules. Everybody, if I can make one recommend, if you learn anything from today's

0:43:40 Thomas: Gotta try heroin.

0:43:45 Tom: No, that is not the official position of this show.

0:43:47 Eli: Uh

0:43:47 Thomas: Surgeon General hasn't come out against has he

0:43:48 Eli: Also Thomas

0:43:49 Tom: This does not the official position of this program

0:43:51 Eli: Uh in the name of rip into it our new motto, uh, Thomas, how do you vote about whether or not Daddy Issues LLC feels about heroin? Ah

0:43:53 Tom: This cannot be two against one we got

0:44:02 Thomas: I'm I'm agnostic on it, yeah, I'm sorry I'm abstaining I'm voting for hold on hold on I'm voting for a third party candidate because I don't think either of the candidates are you like I think honestly we need more options this was the thing

0:44:03 Tom: Okay ah what an impasse what a goddamn heroin impasse no

0:44:05 Eli: A tie I win so we are neutral if anyone asks, Daddy Issues Lc neutral on heroin, that's the second t -shirt you can buy.

0:44:21 Tom: That can't be the thing that we are that

0:44:23 Eli: Dear old dads, neutral on heroin.

0:44:16 Thomas: Yeah neutral I think

0:44:24 Tom: Can t be our position It can't happen to me.

0:44:26 Thomas: So much truth to what you've said, Eli, for sure, like. That's really interesting. I to do some reading, honestly, because I do feel like the literature has not quite supported the doom and gloom about some of these things that I think Tom and I have disagreed on, but doesn't mean it won't any minute. It, you know, it doesn't mean, like, okay, they've run this study on this new social media you app or usage and and like truly like it could be that they just have not you the right studies yet, or I'm a little like to go all in on the social media is the devil thing, but I do, I do think just on our level, Eli, a of what you said just there is spot on. I've done a thing where because social media has become so useless because it's all the AI I have a weird ritual I do where I wake I go on Reddit or something and I'm like, okay.

0:45:14 Eli: Already don't believe you.

0:45:17 Thomas: I wake wake up. I'm already late. I go, no, is that a little more realistic? Yeah.

0:45:17 Tom: Yeah.

0:45:21 Eli: Ah, Reddit.

0:45:22 Thomas: I cancel something.

0:45:23 Eli: I got to read Reddit so fast right now.

0:45:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And, and then I, I opened Facebook out of habit. Like it's an old, like, you know, it's just some old ritual I did back in the day where I opened facebook and it had something that was relevant. So I have this feeling somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain. Oh, facebook, that's a place where I could see something. And then I'm like, Oh no, absolutely.

0:45:43 Eli: Yeah.

0:45:44 Thomas: Literally literally nothing there anymore. Like it's

0:45:45 Eli: Yeah, like a widow making four eggs instead of two. Just, oh, John.

0:45:46 Thomas: Absolutely. Yep. And then I close it and I'm like, that was stupid. And Then I'll look at Reddit and then I'll open a Facebook again and be like, Oh, that's something Facebook is. Nope. Just did that. I just did it. Why did I open it again? There's nothing there. And so I just quit in a, I don't announce I'm on a social media break everybody, but, but

0:46:01 Eli: Yeah because you're not a miserable sack of shit like me. I

0:46:12 Thomas: I just like found myself not really doing it much except for like, at least we We have our podcast Facebook groups that can be really cool. And I do enjoy those. And that's about it.

0:46:12 Tom: But you

0:46:23 Eli: Will say because I quit Twitter, right? I actually quit Twitter. I just deleted my account. Um, it didn't matter, and the secret was I realized I didn't miss it at all when I actually did it, and that still has not made me quit Facebook, which is so fucking weird, because it's like, I'm on, I'm one meth and heroin. I gave up meth and my teeth grew back, and I'm like, I don't, though maybe it's still nice to do heroin sometimes. How else am I gonna find out what my niece is up to? Oh, any other way that doesn't drive you insane and turn you into a mewling golem of the internet?

Nah. Yeah, I want to be very clear, because Thomas put it very nicely, I want to be clear, I am not saying anything that I said or say is fact-based, right? Let's be very clear where the opinions are coming from. Tom is like those people who don't drink soda and they're They're like, you shouldn't drink soda. I read this article and it says soda is bad for you. And like, I don't know. I don'T know if they're right or wrong. Maybe soda is Bad for You. I'm the person who's like on my 600 pound life and

0:46:26 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:46:50 Tom: Hey, fuck you.

0:47:24 Eli: Is explaining to the doctor that you've been on an IV of Mountain Dew Red since 1992. And they're like well you should fucking stop that. That's where I'm at. All right. I'm not studying CITES. I'm being airlifted out of my emotional and psychological hell on a zoo stretcher. Okay, you might have a totally healthy relationship with social media, you might fucking crush it, no illusions, great example has a totally unhealthy nor he's like, here, look at a picture of my cats. And I'm like, where's what? You guys don't understand about Yemen. No one asked. No one fucking at the world's easiest job, the nicest, most pleasant job for which I am overpaid exponentially, and once a day I tune into a pain website and shock myself in the balls like I'm Tom trying to wake up. And then I'm like, I don't know why it hurts. It's

0:47:34 Thomas: Okay. That. Yeah.

0:47:50 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And

0:48:18 Tom: Look,

0:48:18 Eli: Just the thing that's happened every time since 2015 and

0:48:22 Thomas: No one will post about, like, he was sad when, you know, he posts sad stuff, like no one would post that stuff in a healthy way, that that's what's funny. Like, I think you can, I don't want to say this diminishes any of the effects of this stuff on children, which very much may be real, but like, as as adults, like trying to figure this stuff out. I think there is a way to use it in a healthy way. It doesn't make it easy for sure, but it is funny that you bring up. No, I never thought about that. Like, he does have, like, the perfect relationship with social media. Now that I think about it.

0:48:50 Eli: I see it and I'm like, I should, I read books, I could talk about the books, and I might, oh, I just finished my book, I should go online. And then instead I'm like, you motherfuckers. I donno what happened. Someone else takes over my my brain and body and horny.

0:48:59 Thomas: No it's you.

0:49:00 Tom: Well, like I do think, I, I do think though that, like, we as adults need to remember, if we can, what it's like to be a teenage person and the the vulnerability, like, but No, like the the the sort of like Yeah.

0:49:16 Thomas: It's still, still relevant.

0:49:18 Tom: Still, yeah, it doesn't change, but it's still like the emotional vulnerability and the the self-seeking that is a part of that adolescent space, and and the outsized influence of our peers, which by this age we've all outgrown, right?

So you have to sort of like put yourself in that same space and remember how influential the reactions of our peers were, how much self-seeking and identity finding we were trying to do, and how, like, big and uncontrolled our emotional responses were when we were preteen and teen people. And that's all, that's all developmentally normal, right? That's all appropriate.

And now we've got this insane tool that amplifies all of that in these, I think, and I do think, like these really deeply troublesome and problematic ways. And the sad fishing to me is, like, really an example of the real danger of kids not doing that self-seeking and not doing that emotional regulation in places that are genuine and authentic and individual and peer-to-peer, but doing it in these sort of, like, big public spaces where it can be screenshot, it can being mocked, it be belittled, it also be problematically amplified, so that the message they get back is, wow, I get a lot of attention when I'm sad.

When I'm said, I got a lot this really positive attention. Maybe being sad is part of my my personality, maybe being sad as part of my online personality. And there's a conflation there and a feedback loop there that I think we should be cautious of. And I know the studies aren't out, but I think instinctively, we shouldbe really deeply cautious of that. I remember back to when I was a teenage person, and maybe you guys had really different experiences, but my peers were incredibly important.

Their thoughts, their opinions, their validation, whether or not I, like, I was attractive to girls, whether or not, like, I was having problems with my friends, like, these things were, like, everything my world revolved around. And at the same time, I'm trying to figure out who I am, and I'm try to figure out, like, what things make me feel good and validated and important as a person.

And have a real confluence problem with the with Internet, where if we allow kids sort of, and we sort of train kids that, like, putting negative stuff out there gets them this kind of attention, that there will be a, like, I'm not talking about, like, genuinely sad, but there can be an exaggerative effect that then becomes a truth, because eventually they realize, wow, you know, this is the kind of person that gets these hugs, these online attention, this online, you know, interaction. That stuff seems real fucking dangerous to me, real. Don't think it solves the problem of actually sad people and actually anxious people, so I think it has, like, just a net negative that that feels very real to me and, like, connects with what I know about having experienced growing up. Does that ring true to you guys at all, like, in your experience

0:52:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:16 Tom: Of growing up that

0:52:17 Thomas: Do you ever feel like you got too busy to be fucking insane anymore? Cause I feel like definitely that's a lot of it.

0:52:22 Tom: Seems insane to you Honestly, that seems insane.

0:52:26 Thomas: No, no, no. I'm Matt. That was me agreeing, Tom. That wasn't me saying like the, the

0:52:25 Eli: Oh no.

0:52:26 Tom: Oh, oh, oh, I thought you were calling me insane again.

0:52:31 Thomas: Oh no, no, back in the day, genuinely you more time as well. Like it is also hormonal and all that, but you have more time to care about all that shit, and now it's like, ah, third kid, I'm sorry, I, damn it, I want it to be insane, but I forgot, and I, I could try to work it in my schedule.

0:52:35 Eli: Yeah. 2015 me and Thomas. Oh yeah. 2015 Thomas had two podcasts. I had two podcast and we were like, wait a second, someone's wrong on Twitter. Let's really get in there and fix some bad ideas. We're going to help. And now I'm not, I deleted my Twitter in the only suicide I'll be brave enough to do. Thomas, Thomas is just like, block, block, block, black, black black, oh my

0:53:08 Thomas: I tweet something, I just retweet stuff occasionally, I'm like, ah, why did I even do that, I don't want to delete it. You know, it's got a lot of, I think, followers, but I don't know if they're real, so. So yeah, yeah,

0:53:14 Eli: God none of it was real, it was all, it was all a terrible dream, it was a terrible, here's the thing, that's gonna be crazy, I feel like I've said this on the show before so I'll try to keep it brief because we gotta wrap up, the thing that's going to be crazy is that Max will not be insane in this way, right? And so what I'm gonna have to do, the way that, like, our boomer parents were constantly having to be like, no okay, so go to your settings, swipe over, swipe over, no it's the one that's the little gear on it, okay, click that, and now click open, just click up, yes, it's there, it's absolutely, it is 100 there, well, yeah, you do do have to turn the computer on first. Right. So like that, that is what my son is going to have to do for me with emotional regulation in the world of an algorithm. Right? Because he's just going to be like, oh no, dad, you can't scroll six to eight hours a day through an algorithm meant to upset you and make you engage in content.

0:53:42 Thomas: We're going to be like,

0:54:14 Eli: I'm going to, but it's there. These are all real people. None of them are real people.

0:54:14 Thomas: But it's there. It is there. No, not real.

0:54:19 Eli: They're all real and they all have real thoughts and hearts and I can reach them. None of that's real. None of that. You're literally looking at an AI generated photo of Britney Spears riding a shark and I want her to be safe. I'm going to tell her me and Britney are friends and I'm gonna tell her Britney be safe girl. I helped daddy helped just now Max daddy was big help to Britney. That's what she needed.

0:54:33 Tom: Oh,

0:54:51 Eli: Right, gentlemen before we go someone asked me if I had a favorite prog rock band I'd have to say yes do

0:55:00 Thomas: I love it. Love it.

0:55:06 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:55:48 Tom: Only read shirts that are clawed into can