The Future of Public Media

My theory about Kara is Kara treats men the way men treat women. So occasionally, she has to remind him I am not your actual work wife. Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. Today I'm talking to two people who you probably know very well if you're a news obsessive like me, Audi Cornish and Ari Shapiro. Both of them hosted NPR's flagship evening news show, all things considered for a decade. Audie left in twenty twenty two to join CNN where she's now a senior analyst and host of CNN this morning. and the ones that manage to break through are algorithmic silos. I think this is great. I love people entering this space. I love talking about culture issues. And of course I love a nice work couple like Scott and I that are much nicer than Scott and I. I think it's really important to talk about culture because I think it does bleed into news now in a way. And of course, politics is downstream from culture, as the famous saying by Andrew Breitbart goes. And they're two really wonderful and interesting people. So it should work out. And it's really important for smart people to be talking about culture when so many dumb people are talking about it. All right, let's get to my interview with Audi and Ari. Our expert question comes from their former NPR colleague Steve Inske ep. This is a fun conversation, but we also touch on some serious topics like the state of the news business right now. So don't go anywhere Support for this show comes from Norwegian Cruise Line. A cruise with Norwegian is a vacation you'll never forget, with an onboard experience that makes it easy for the whole family to settle into their own version of vacation. Because on a cruise with Norwegian, choice comes naturally for the whole family, and destinations feel just as effortless. Wander beautiful cities and take in stunning natural scenery. Norwegian cruise line . It's different out here. Visit NCL.com, call your travel advisor or 1-888-NCL Cruise. Norwegian Cruise Line Chips Registry, the Bahamas and USA . Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of The Guardian to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources the Guardian has across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness, and more. And the Guardians not owned by a billionaire, they fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to thegardian dot com slash stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcast or watch on YouTube . That's thegardian.com slash stateside . What's up y'all? I'm Skylar Diggins, seven-time WNBA All-Star, Olympic Gold Medalist, and mom. And I'm Cassidy Hubbard, host and reporter for nearly 20 years, covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom . And this is and mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds. Dropping May 14th. Tap in with us . Audi and Ari, thanks for coming on and congratulations on the launch of your new podcast. Thank you. So good to be here. Thank you. So both of you hosted All Things Considered for a Decade and overlapped for seven of those years, and you've been friends for over 20 years. Talk about what brought you together to do this CNN show. Well, it's funny hearing like your story knit into a narrative, right? Which is what we do to other people all the time, and now we're finally old enough for it to happen to us. Exactly. Because it's not like we were friends. It was almost just it's like being in a school class. It's like we were hired in a same kind of batch of reporters, I think. Were you hired the year before or the year after as a reporter? It was like the early 2000s. We were both definitely learning the ropes at the same time. There's a world of people, Frank Langfit and David Green and David Fulkenflick. Like it was a moment where NPR like had a little bit of cash and they were hiring a lot of people. And we were like, I think the only really radio people in our classes. Like everyone was a newspaper person. Yeah, we'd like come up through we met in Boston at WBUR. Yeah. And then a few years later we were in New Orleans together in the house that NPR rented for a year after Katrina, like living in two bedrooms in the same house, making dinner together and going out and covering the story. Yeah. So it's like we were always there in close quarters. We were like we were always doing things. Yeah. But then in the process of leaving MPR, I should say, all of the hosts talk to each other a lot. We were in group texts, we were in listservs, we were like during the pandemic, kind of really staying in touch. Right. And that's probably when Ari and I really like came together on issues that maybe coworkers typically wouldn't talk about, like when it comes to salary and contracts and all that sort of stuff. So fast forward to him leaving, we were like kind of in a good position to have a frank conversation about like, hey, do you want to collaborate? Hey, do you want to work together? But I remember those conversations even way earlier, like before the pandemic, we would be sitting in the all things considered studio together, and your mics are off for the duration of an eight-minute story, and the two of us would just like cackle, or we would say, Are you seeing this in your social media feed? I'm seeing this. I can't make sense of this. What are you getting from this? And then we would like share, compare notes because we don't have the same social circle, but we have enough of an overlap to share a common language. So you would tackle. Okay. We started to say, like, why can't we make a show like this where we talk to each other the way we talk to each other when our mics are off. And so we So why couldn't you? I knew she was gonna ask this question. Ari, this is just gonna be me watching Kara, Cara, you some of it is the FCC. Some of it is I mean, like, look, you look at the first pilot that we did back in January before this show is a real thing. And in that pilot, we talk about ketamine and bottom jokes, which is not necessarily the stuff that public radio shows are made of. Yeah, yeah. Also, we doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Right. We is doing it. But also when you've got a two-hour daily show, there's just not the bandwidth to make something like this. That was really it. The news. The news. So you I listen, I have Scott Galloway, so you're none of you are gonna have me be uh penis jokes coming out of my ears and they're not from me. Exactly. So how did you get the impetus to do this though? 'Cause you could talk about a lot of people talk about we should open a restaurant. Finally we should get that boat we we said'd get. Yeah. I mean Kara, you and I, as I've, you know, sort of wormed my way into your like mentorship, you've always asked me what I want to be doing. And whenever I'm complaining, whenever I'm like, I I don don''tt like, like this, I don't like that. You're the first person to just cut through the BS and be like, okay, but what do you want to do? And I think I couldn't answer that. And I was afraid of the thing I wanted to do, which is something like this, which is to like take the superpower or skill or lens I have on the news and apply it to this cultural stuff that people are obsessed with. Why were you afraid? May I what because you know it feels like it's gonna undermine your career. You've been raised that you don't want to be infotainment. That's like the worst thing you could be, you know, to the NPR hosts that sort of raised me. And when infotainment became the news, it was like, well, wait a second. I know how to do this, but I'm sort of busy being over here, occupying this lane that is like narrowing and narrowing and narrowing. And there are ways to have smart, interesting ideas in a conversation about culture. Right, right. It can be interesting. It can be like it's allowed to be interesting. Ari, what about you? I relate so strongly to what you're saying, Audi. Because I think about, you know, like 18 years ago I started singing with this band called Pink Martini, and I still often go on tour with them. I'm gonna be at the Montreal Jazz Festival with them next month. And when I started doing that, you know, there were like this 12-piece little orchestra and we wear suits, ties, ball gowns, whatever. And I I was afraid that it would detract from my credibility as a journalist. When I started, I was uh covering the White House, and I thought, are people gonna think less of me as an authoritative news person because I'm now singing with a band. I got over that over the 15 years of doing it. And I think there is a similar feeling about pivoting away from politics, war, and hard news toward s talking about a show like Euphoria. But that's a part of our culture too. And at this point in my life and in my career, I no longer worry that people are not gonna think of me as a credible news person because I've got 25 years at NPR under my belt, and at this point, I really enjoy digging into something I'm obsessed with with my friend, who is smart and funny and thoughtful, and always has things to say that I would not have thought of. And if people want to get news about Trump and war there are lots and lots of places they can do that. And so this is something different. There are a lot of culture based shows and this is this is called engagement party. You know, you are facing, you know, there's a ton of them. I think um, you know, when I was like in the piloting process, I've always done stuff. I was always like, Hey, CNN, there should be a show that does X. Hey, there should be a show does and I'm never trying to be in the lane with comedians. You know, I'm not going to do a bigger, badder tech podcast than you and Scott. Do you know what I mean? So it was also like really looking yourself in the mirror and be like, well, what do I bring to the table? And I knew that I loved analyzing things and taking the politics and the economics with me. Like I never put that down. So when I look at Summer House, I have like a bunch of other questions going on in my brain than a pop culture commentator who has lots of great funny quips about Summerhouse or who is an amazing Bravo , you know, archaeologist. Right. It's like I think our training to create stuff for the rest of us, air quotes, that like everybody can listen to that if you've never even glanced at a reality show is kind of fun. Yeah, like that actually is not that easy to do. And most pop culture podcasts and most culture TV, whatever, it's very insider-y. It's like unless you're locked into that topic, it's not really for you. Eventually you can get caught up, but it's all like old fashioned radio in a way, and that it's like little inside communities. Yeah, yeah, which that which is why they thrive in a lot of ways. There are lots of culture shows, there are lots of chat shows, there are lots of hangout shows. I'm not sure that any of them has the specific dynamic that Audio and I bring to it. A lot of them have two people who are similar to each other, which is a great opportunity to sort of get into how that fraction of the world sees everything that we're also looking at. But there's something unique about having two people like Audie and myself who I mean, straight black woman, queer white man, been friends forever, have the credibility in news, are obsessed with culture, and can have honest conversations with each other coming from different perspectives. I don't see that very much. And I think there is a certain spark there that is hard to find. Or when I do, it works. Right. Like what makes you and Scott work, yeah, is the same thing that makes this work, which is like there is overlap, but that overlap is not a circle. And even the jokes about like when you were talking about bottoming or whatever, it's like I'm coming at that as like, oh, the straights, and he's coming at it like, oh, here we go. Or even like in our first episode where we were talking about AI-generated animated videos of Michael Jackson stories, I had not encountered that at all. And so there was a moment of Audi kind of explaining to me what this is and me having a genuine reaction, which is different from Audi's reaction. Yeah. Right. Right. And you can also swear now on my side. Which Ari has taken way more advantage of than me. It's dangerous. Let me tell you, Audi is never gonna unleash She doesn't unleash in person. She doesn't unleash. No, that's not true, Kara. You've heard me go on some riffs. No, yeah, but it's always real polite and well said. Well say that no, no, here's where I want to talk about this, Ari, because I think when you mentioned earlier about like what we were doing in the past, it was always a game of comparison. You weren't just yourself. You were sitting next to the person that helped found the company's sound. Right. You know, it was like you were never just you. Yeah, you exist in the context of what Robert Siegel did or what Susan Stamburg did. Yeah. Were you the next so-and-so, or were you not as good as so-and-so ? And so you actually weren't really rewarded for being yourself. And that's why I think you saw so many personalities. Let's just take a really early one, Ira Glass, leave, right? Because it's like you can be the next Noah Adams or you can go off and be yourself. Yeah. And I think that all of a sudden we looked around and we saw a marketpla ce where people were incentivized to be themselves without having to be like a shock jock. You know what I mean? Like there had to be a place for us to go. To be fair, I had a dinner with Noah Adams and he told the best dirty jokes I've ever heard in my life. See, wouldn't you like to hear that? Noah Adams' voice. In Noah Adams' voice. And so it's even like what? And then he would do the voice just to bother you. So talk about how hard is it to shake off that NPR host identity? We all know what it is, right? I personally don't find it very difficult at all. No, Ari is just like shaking it off. He's shaking tail feathers. He's shaking yeah, it's all over the place.. I'm having a good time So how how but how hard is it for you, Audie? It's a good question. Because I thought about someone like Kamala Harris who like could never shake off her professionalism. Nope. It's that pussy bow she continues to wear situation. Well part of it is the contract of upward mobility for black Americans is explicitly shaving off and shaving down some of yourself. Very true. So that everybody, meaning white people, feels safe. And I think I was raised, I went to a busing program, I was raised in Massachusetts. So, you know, I was sort of uniquely positioned to navigate some of these newsrooms, right? And then the flip side of that is then you're like, well, wait a second, is this really me? What am I really trying to accomplish here? What like who am I? Or has it become you? Has it become me, right? Have you calcified into this thing that you put on? And I would argue, you may not believe this, Kara, but I am more myself in these moments on camera than I ever was, ironically, off camera. Yeah. Yeah. It just really between meeting you, between doing the job, between really just being like, well wait a second, who are you hiding from? Um I I am more myself. Now will I ever get to F bomb territory? Well that isn't you. It's not really me. And yet in my personal life I curse up a storm. You know what I mean? There's still a little bit of a curtain there where I'm like, there's a version of me I still want for myself. Right, right. But the more you get to your genuine vision, the better in these things, which I think people even if they don't. Do you see what she's doing here, Ari? She's like , um what why what is it about video that found freeing? I can see how Ari freed right away. I actually think you know, I I do think that for me writing a book was liberating because in the book I talked about going to the radical fairy gatherings for 15 years. I talked about um making a show with Alan Cumming and what that experience was. So like I kind of put out in the world things that had never crossed the private to public barrier . And for me, that was a moment of kind of breakthrough of being able to be myself, talk about myself, and integrate those different versions of myself in public and private spaces both. Right. Because a lot of what happens in NPR or even at CNN is airless. I always use that term. Yes. We've talked about that. Yeah, it's airless. It's like, is there any air in here? And they're much more interesting in that way. But talk about um Ari, both in the subsect post you referred to Audi as your work wife. We all know that particular genre of person. Um and you wrote that for podcast listeners, there's something, quote, audibly different uh about spending time with people you've been friends with for ages. Talk a little bit about that. Because you're talking about chemistry, you're talking about an an ability to work. And obviously Scott always refers to me as that. Yeah. And people are comfortable with that, that idea. I mean it it ties into your question about video, which is totally new for me. It is a sense that if I jump, I know this person will catch me. If the train is going off the tracks, I know that she will get it back on the tracks. And we have each other's back in that way. And so even as we challenge and push each other and rib each other and crack jokes about each other, we know that we have that kind of like substrate of years of looking out for and standing up for each other, which allows you to take the risks and do the new things and go out on a limb that you wouldn't otherwise feel comfortable going out on. Right. We're not conflict audio, because one of the important parts of our Scots Marit is conflict, like that we disagree quite a bit on a lot of things. Often he's wrong and I'm right, but that's a difference. We got we we definitely disagree on things. I think the difference is because we sort of came up together, we professionally part of our work was to come up and workshop conflicting ideas. So it's this odd thing where having been reporters, you're constantly looking at each other and being like, is this a thing? Is this a thing? And then someone says, no, it's not. And you're not like, oh man, I hate you. You know what I mean? You're not like, screw you. I can't believe you said that. You're like, okay, I guess let me figure it out. So I think in a way we're almost like work shopping the ideas in real time. Um, and I think we are feel very comfortable being like, nope, that's not it. Because we've actually had to do that like in front of a room of producers. Although it often degenerates into anger yells on cable, particularly, as you know, I have a thing about that, like the idea that conflict has to be idiotic conflict. Yes, right. And to your point, you and I have talked about this as well, that sometimes there's um let's just say there's some people performing in those spaces. You have noted that. They don't exactly have real conflict with each other. They are actually friends and they perform this wrestling like thing. We're not doing any of that. This is like a pretense free situation. So you're not going to the White House next week to do it. I mean the MMA fight, like I'm into it, but it's more like, you know, Ari and I, like, we just it's not worth it. It's like we're both covered bigger things. And all we want to do now is you can even see our postures like sort of more relaxed and we're kind of like, Hey, like we're gonna break character for a bit and just talk. And we do disagree vigorously about things , but it's not personal and it's not existential. And the things we're talking about are not make or break. You know, I'm I'm thinking about like in our latest episode, we were getting into protein maxing and the idea that I think MAGA is very gender-coded. I think the MAGA movement emphasizes not only gender conformity, but gender extremes. And Audi was pushing back saying, okay, but the Kardashians. And I was like, wait a minute, are you are are you claiming that politics and entertainment have bled into each other? What a shocking concept. You know, like those are the kinds of disagreements that we're having with each other. We'll be back in a minute. Hi, I'm Maria Sharapova, host of the Pretty Tough Podcast. Each episode I sit down with high achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology. This week on the show, clinical psychologist and founder Dr. Becky Kennedy and I unpack what it really means to raise kids today. I think parenting is the most important job in the world and the one that has the most impact on your world and the world. It is non-stop . Check out Pretty Tough, new episodes on Wednesdays. You can watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. Support for this show comes from Delete Me. Have you ever thought I should really be doing something to protect myself from stalkers, scammers, and hackers, but you're not sure what. Here's what to do. Go join DeleteMe.com/slash CARA and enter the code CARA. You get 20% off DELETME. DELETEME removes your personal information that's being sold online. In the age of AI, we're all especially vulnerable to scammers using your personal data that's floating around on the internet against you. Have you ever looked at yourself online and found your home address, phone numbers, and the name of your family members? It's unsettling. I have done this. It is very unsettling, especially when a lot of it is inaccurate, but it's grouped together in such a way that seems vaguely threatening and also very troubling in terms of your own safety and your own privacy. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to www . joindeleteme.com slash Kara and use the promo code Kara at checkout. The only way to get twenty percent off is to go to join delete me.com slash Kara and enter the code Kara at checkout. That's join delete me dot com slash kara code Kara Kala . In the span of a decade, Ben Shapiro built the Daily Wire into a conservative media empire. He produced hit podcasts that bit at liberal excesses and documentaries and lect ures about the founders, the genders, the gospels. He peddled polos, hats, candles, provided a home for deplatformed conservative stars like Matt Walsh, and minted stars like Candace Owens. Let's put a pin in that. The Daily Wire even has kids programming, a judgmental puppet named Zodles. Zodles. Zodals! Who share Shapiro's load-bearing eyebrows. This year, though, the Empire showed signs of collapse. The Daily Wire's YouTube videos are down from millions of views to the lowest Shapiro accused other conservatives of click hooring by embracing radical Islam the,orizing about the evils of Winston Churchill and mocking the widow of Charlie Kirk. The kids still got it. On Today Explained, the fall of Ben Shapiro . Today Explained drops every weekday afternoon. The idea behind engagement party is that each week the two of you talk about pop culture stories you're obsessed with or generating a lot of buzz. So talk a little bit about um what are some of the pop culture stories that have your attention that say won't make it into this week's episode. Ari, you start and then Audi. I mean, one of the things that we've been talking about is horror movies. And like right now, the movie obsession is huge and getting bigger, which is unusual because horror movies tend to kind of go off a cliff after their first weekend. And this is coming after the summer of Weapons and Sinners. And when we were discussing this in our pitch meeting, Audi was like, Are you a horror fan? And my answer is I'm a fan of good movies, whether they are horror or rom-com or action or superhero movies. So I'm really interested in this horror moment. That might make it onto a future episode, but that's one of the things that I'm thinking about a lot. And also horror as allegory. If you think about all of Jordan Peele's movies, from Get Out to Nope to Us , like horror is such a good way of talking about how we live now. I would even put zombie movies in that category, the 28 days, 28 years later. Anyway, this is how my brain functions when I get off on a Right. And you can see the trends among them. But the difference is I watch horror movies. Right. I watch them too. Uh you're naming the big ones. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I watched it. That's like listening to rap music and talking about Macklemore. I mean, you can. It's not the same. Yeah, yeah. All right. So Audi, what about you? What is some of the ones that won't make it, for example? Oh, that won't make it easy. We actually like a great example is the um the time that someone got put in the signal chat uh with the White House, right? The Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg. That's like a great story that I think in a typical newsroom is kind of already doing. And like, are there jokes to be made about like texting and all that stuff? Maybe. But there's no greater story there, you know what I mean? That we can say to people, and here's how this intersects with your life. No, it's just a bunch of dumbasses. It's kind of silly season, right? And even little kids know how to text and how to add someone to the group chat. So no lessons learned. Um whereas something like the horror movie story is also a story of like independent creation. You know, are we gonna see a a 90s style era indie boom just because they can do it on YouTube . Okay, like we're about to find out and horror is the right vehicle for that. Right. Um it's over and over again, we're mostly reverse engineering. We're mostly being like, why is this a thing? Like, why? We know that it is a thing , protein is a thing, but untangling the MAGA masculinity diet culture GLP ones. GLP ones, uh podcast health ecosystem. Right. RFK June. Like untagonically that Gordian knot of things that made it viral. Although I have to say I did like in pi catching snakes. I did. I did. Yeah, great. You're in luck. I know. You're in luck. He's always providing capital C content., you know One of the things that we ask ourselves in every pitch meeting is is there somewhere we can go with this beyond just saying LOL. Yeah L what's happening. What does this say about our life? What does it say about our culture? What are the levels that we can dig into and and ways that we can explore this that'll be meaningful and value added to people beyond this is on your rate? Right. Or is it meaningless? Is it mean like snakes? It was just entertaining. So alright, the main goal of the show is to transcend the cultural silos that social media algorithm put us in and our feeds look so different because they're tailored to us. Um talk a little bit about this because one of the things you as you said, you're a white queer man, I can see that. Audio is a a black straight woman. I can see that. Um, but you're also both quote unquote media leads who are around the same age and live in DC. There's a lot overlap too. So talk about that idea of trying to trans and cultural silos. Yeah, I really used to enjoy in the all things considered editorial meeting when you had like twenty, thirty people of different backgrounds sitting around the table talking about what they thought was interesting and going into those meetings, I would graze widely to try to find stories that weren't breaking through my algorithm. And one of the things that I've really enjoyed about making this show is going back to that idea of actually going out and looking for stories and not just waiting for things to cross my path in my social media feed, but looking at local and regional newspapers and magazines and industry websites and trying to figure out what's going out there that might not be on my radar. But also we deliberately structure the show so that there's an opportunity for people to join in and tell us what they are seeing and give us a pitch of something that they are trying to unpack and understand. Aaron Powell Now there was a great piece in New York Magazine recently on how a lot of hype on social media is manufactured. Companies are paying people to generate clips to generate the impression that everyone is engaging with someone. This is someone I've known for a long time. So how talk talk about uh you're thinking about genuine enthusiasm versus astro turfed hype. Yeah. I'm obsessed with this. Cause I'm doing this kind of show to jailbreak the algorithm. I hate the for you page. My kingdom for an actual search that wor ks. I don't like the word feed. Like everything about the way they have structured social media in the last 10 to 15 years bothers me deeply. You know, the only word that they say user, what's the other industry that uses the word user? Drugs. Drugs. Exactly. Like all those, I do the same thing. I'm like, yeah, feed, user, like just everything about it, content . It's just they hate us. Like, I really just think tech companies hate us. They think we're suckers. And I don't like that if your eyes flick towards like a parakeet puking, now you're gonna get 5,000 parakeets puking. I despise this. You said in a recent address at Tufts that you didn't think we were benefiting from the algorithmic information distribution system. Did I say all that? That sounds very smart. Deeply nerdy. Um I was again, I was trying to be professional. I was trying not to be like I hate these dudes. Um just like me and the Pope. That's the Pope and Terrace Wisher's job. I just want to say the Pope is lifting a lot of my lines. I'm just I don't mind that. But it's like we're not geese with you know whose livers need fattening. Like they just pump all this stuff out and it can be manipulated. Even now, the whole conversation around clips and that to me, I'm like, okay, I've seen this movie before, and guess what? We are one uh dude with a shake conversation from someone being like, actually, that's not the thing anymore. You know, it's a little bit like if anyone out there is old enough to remember the whiz when the wizard is like the color of the day is X. This is how they treat us as consumers and as people who make the content. And part of this show was being like, let's really mine this and figure out if this is a thing. Why it's a thing and then if it's a thing. All right, making a pop culture show. Talk about the challenges when it feels like our sense of shared culture has evaporated, right? Because there was there was a shared well not really. It was kind of white guys on the upper east side of New York telling us what was interesting. But look, it's a challenge, but it's also an opportunity. You know, like if there's a show that everybody is talking about, there's a little bit less to say than if culture is fragmented and you're able to illuminate something for a person who might not be in that conversation. Right. All things considered was a show that in its name, it had to appeal to everyone and it had to cover the waterfront. And we're making something now that is uh I I don't want to say curated, but it's okay if it's not for everyone. And it's okay if we're talking about something that is not your culture, that is not in your view.finder And so yeah, the monoculture may be dead, but maybe there's an opportunity in that that a show like ours can take advantage of. I do think there was one at one point for sure. I do think it's dead now, but I think the pursuit of it is so strong because people still have a desire to connect to each other. So there is still this sense of like I'm not just gonna watch this reality show reunion. I'm gonna film myself reacting to it, upload it, and it's gonna join these, you know, stream of other sort of pop culture salmon. And like we're all gonna, we're gonna force a watercolor moment, even if that's not how this thing is built anymore. Right. So I do feel people still wanting that. And also I respect people's time. Like I don't have time to be read in and all this truly random stuff. And it's really nice. I want to make something for someone like me who's like, you're busy, you care about culture, you generally know stuff. But like, do I have to know every little thing about every little thing? I'm not, I'm not trying to be in hot take culture. Right. And so I think we're still we're choosing a lane for people who like don't want to know every single thing, but definitely don't want to be left out of the conversation. It might be a small thing, but I really like that our show is an edited 30 minutes. Because there are a lot of shows out there that are really sprawling and there may be an amazing 30 minutes in that 90 minute episode. Yeah. Who has the time? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like who has the time? A lot of people . I know, but it's just like every there's a million podcasts to listen to. I only listen to Karis Swisher podcasts. There's not a lot of time. Because we do a tight thirty. Because we're doing a tight thirty. No, just like listen er. And then be like, we're good. I wash the dishes. Okay, we're good. I walk the dog. Amazing. Never a tight thirty for Scott Galloway. I'm sorry. It's it's a it's a long sixty at least, if not seventy. It's a vibe.. Ye Yeahah. We I do you know what I do? I don't know if you guys will start doing this, but I I measure how much percentage he talks versus me. I send them to him. I send word camp. And you send it to him? Of course I do. Of course. Why why would you invoke that level of sort of competition comparison? I'll tell you why. My theory about Kara is Kara treats men the way men treat women. So occasionally she has to remind him I am not yo actual work wife. Yes, exactly. I'm a person with ideas and stop talking. Like Audi, I am gonna make you a promise that I will never measure how much you and I talk relative to each other in our show. Well that's how I know that you're gay. Yeah. Exactly. That's correct. Because you have a regard for women. Yes. And their good. And their voices. So every episode we get a question from an outside expert. Yours comes from your former colleague and host and MPR, Steve Inskeep. Let's listen. Hi there, Audi. Hi there, Ari. Congratulations on engagement party. I have a question for you that grows out of the idea of engaging people and also relates to the work that I try to do. And it's this question: how are you going to deal with what I think of as the destruction of coherent thought. And I don't just mean short attention spans, although that's part of it. What I mean is the device on which you'll be reaching people, the device on which I try to reach people also has a tendency to make it impossible to think things through. It's hard to have the right perspective. It's hard to understand what's important and what's not. It's hard to have a line of logic. That is the world in which we live. That's something I struggle with all the time in the way that I try to present stories. And so that's my question for you. How do you mean to deal with that? What are your thoughts about it? Thanks. Ari and then Audi. Steve is just such a great guy. Extremely NPR question. I don't know. But also just so nice to see Steve again. Nice to see him around the building. I miss him. I think the answer is that you can't change the ecosystem that we're living in. You have to to try work within it. And so in our 30-minute show, we are going to have deep analytical conversations about important topics, even if those topics are related to pop culture. But we're also gonna have TikToks and Instagrams and we are going to have clips and we're gonna be in the chat and we're gonna be in the comments and we are going to engage with the fragmented attention economy because that's what the attention economy is right now. And if you're not working with it, you're out of the conversation. And so I think you have to kind of straddle these two worlds. I mean, as Steve and others on NPR do every day, where you're creating a space for the kind of discourse that you want to have, the kind of deep, fact-based, analytical, thoughtful content . And also, you're recognizing that some people just won't find you there and you need to go find them where they are as well. Right. So it is the oxygen, essentially what you're saying. Auddy? I'm in a different place because I've spent the last couple of years instead of fighting this trend, just simply literally going with the flow. So, like I've done hits on TV, I now have a morning show. I've done social stuff. I've done YouTube only stuff. I mean, Carrie, you and I have piloted stuff. It's like I'm constantly just going to where the audience is and just being like, hi, have you thought of this? Hi, have you thought of that? Instead of being like, How can I figure out like them coming to me and taking the time? Like I'm just done trying that. I'm just trying to be in as many places at once. And I always make sure everything on the plate is edible. So even in the jokey thing, there's uh we've smuggled in an idea, you know what I mean? Even under the joke . Yeah. And I think that's how I'm approaching it. Whereas what Steve's describing is, of course, far more relevant to my life as a morning show anchor doing political news. Like literally this morning, I had one of those conversations where I said to the guest after, I don't want people to hate you for your worst take. I want them to hate you for your best take. Right. So when I present the question to you this way, it's not a gotcha. I'm trying to figure out like what's the through line, what's the logic? And so all that work I'm doing, it's like I'm kind of doing it elsewhere. This is not the show for that, you know, and I don't feel the pressure to do that here. Can I follow up on something Audie said, which is everything on the plate has to be edible. I think on all things considered, the enjoyment of the experience was almost an afterthought. And on engagement party, it is the point. If we're not having fun, if we're not enjoying ourselves, the audience won't be there, we shouldn't be there, we're missing the boat. And that is so essential to what we're doing now. So what you're saying is you're putting spices on the vegetables. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. No, that's the thing. I don't think that's right. I mean, there's no vegetables here. You know what I mean? Like this for the case. Well, I mean, let's think about it this way. Kara, you and I did do a pilot of something. Yeah. Where we we and someone else who is also very smart hashed out a bunch of fun ideas and made jokes. And I never once looked at Kara and thought, wow, she's really given us vegetables here. Right. Right. Even though you completely brought all of your knowledge of the tech industry. Yes, everyone. I think one of the things I used to tell people that used to work for me when I ran all things D and and Recode was, look, we're there's a lot of hot dogs out there. And hot dogs are delicious. I like a hot dog. But you're not gonna win by having a better hot dog. You're just not you have to have something else because it's just not it's just a fucking hot dog. Stop making fucking hot dogs essentially. And at the same time you have to also be very promiscuous, is I think something I've told you many times is going where the people are and stop being so fancy about it. But there is a line between going with the flow and playing the lowest common denominator or playing into what social media platforms want, which is I I I don't know if you'd agree with me, but this is hard to resist. I do, I do. I'm just not sure I'll get there since as we talked about, I don't even know how to swear in public yet. Right. Okay . It's just sort of like I got your back. I'm I'm sure, yeah, exactly. I'm sure I'll get there, but it's it's taking a minute. If anything, just yeah, being like, is it okay to make a hot dog or is it okay to make something else? Is it okay to make something other than vegetables? It's like I'm still giving myself permission to do that. Right. But I mean, Ari, you're talking about this idea of lowest common and honor is not what you're going for, right? It's not who we are. Like if we're talking about being our most authentic selves, if Audi wants to talk about love is blind, it's because she actually has really meaningful insights into what Love is Blind says about the moment we're living in. And I want to hear those insights. It's not because we know that Love is Blind is trending and that's gonna get us hits. Right. get Ye yeah,ah. We would not be good at that actu ally . We'll be back in a minute . A message from the beer store. Alcohol containers purchased on Ontario subject to deposit can be returned to the beer store or authorized empties return locations for a full deposit refund. Well, the legal was the ad, so now I've got to make this quick. Return your empties, reclaim your deposit. Learn more at the beer store.ca . Hy girl, it's Teffy. This week on Teffy Talks, we're talking Kendall and Jacob, reality TV villain Spencer Pratt running for mayor, and a look inside the Con Film Festival. Mind you, I bought the majority of my crystals from Pratt Daddy Crystals. Incredible quality, but I never thought he'd be running for mayor, and it does pay me to say the words Pratt Daddy. If you're not already following the show, find us everywhere at Teffy Talks, subscribe on YouTube and all the podcast platforms, and Instagram and TikTok so you can share with your other work bestie. See ya pregnant athletes are not fragile. Yeah, that's right. I said pregnant athletes. I am Rabinar San, VPN head instructor at Peloton, and I PR'd my deadlift the week before my son was born. I was also a quote geriat ric type 1 diabetes pregnancy and so I know there can be a lot of fear and uncertainty about what is healthy movement when you're pregnant. That is why I got trained in pre and postnatal fitness and this week on my podcast Project Swagger I am sharing some key guidelines and the story of how I stayed active during my pregnancies. Listen now at Project Swagger. Let's talk about podcasting and what sets it apart from traditional media. At MPR I, and and also you audi, most stories interviews are cut down to about three to four minutes. Maybe you get a little more time for a big name interview. Podcasting is very different. It's a very different media. It kind of rolls out. You can talk for hours and people tend to stick with it. Um, talk about how you look at the difference between podcasting and what you both were doing. Um, you know, obviously social media is degrading our attention spans, but podcasts are are bucking that trend. People do tune in, they like the narrative. And I'm firmly the belief the reason they tune into our show is because it's about a relationship. It's not about what we talk about, it's our relationship and it's the constant narrative of that relationship with using news as the vehicle. Carrie, you basically could run a pledge drive. I mean it's pretty much the same conversation. Right. You know, and I think that in radio , that is literally how we approach things. I know people are talking about uh, you know, NPR like it's dry or something, but like it was a cultural phenomenon for a reason. It spoke to people's cultural interests. But it almost that conversation what, you're saying, doesn't feel relative to the where we are now. You know what I mean? We've been in this so long that we've now seen the thing we grow up with become the new thing. You know, like all of a sudden you do want things long again? Great. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, but now we can make the choice. Instead of something being imposed on us because this is just what it is, we can decide what we're offering people. And to your point, yeah, maybe people will be like, I don't want 30 minutes, I want three hours. And it's like, great. But for now, I think it's okay in a world where you can do anything to actually make a decision about what it is you want to do and what it is you can do well. Right. So Ari, how do you look at sort of why why people are attracted to podcasting. Is it everything as auddies noting everything old is new again or I think there's just something so intimate about listening. And I I realize that most podcasts are now viewed rather than listened to it. I still have the mix. I still have questions. Everyone YouTube is the biggest podcasting platform. Yeah. But I know from my years at NPR that people feel like they have a relationship with the voices that are in their car or their kitchen every day. That was something that I didn't take lightly at NP R. And if our podcast engagement party has a future and an audience, I think it will be because people want to spend time with us. as you said about your show with Scott, like the ideas are important, but the ideas are almost secondary to people just wanting to spend time with you and hang out. And what was more parasocial than NPR nerddom? You know what I mean? Those it's not like being a fan of the New York Times or, you know, Time Magazine or something. People knew the person on a beat. People would come up to you and be like, have you met Sylvia Pajoli? It's like, how do you know that? Sylvia Pajoli. Nicosia Cypress. Susan Stanberg used to say that if she sounded sick on the air, people wouldn't just send her a get well soon note. They would actually deliver chicken soup to NPR headquarters. Like that was the kind of relationship that they had with her voice, this person they had never met. And Susan Sandberg and her cranberries. There's there's always cranberries. The fact that you even know that. Exactly. Pretty much says it all. We're not, we are not foreign to the idea of the relationship. In fact, we're here because we want the relationship to be closer. Right. And there were things that we did in recent years that didn't put us closer. And now that we have the choice, we're doing that. Right, absolutely. The parasocial nature of it. But I collect my hate mail. I save it. I love that. I love that call 'em. I call people who hate me. I'm like, hi. Wow, that's a prize. That is a gift. Hi. And then they're really nice. They're always I don't know. Maybe you guys have less racialized hate mail. You know, there's some people I don't want to call. I got some you're a giant card kind of I mean I'm not I'm not trying to be special. There's no oppression elite . I'm just saying I don't want to know them. There's so much. Right now, if you want to write me and say something mean, I will not be reading. Well, again, you're you're the person who's like ready to fight. Ready to fight . Which I learned from reading your book. Yeah, that's true. One of the things that someone did come up here that was very sweet, it's usually nice, by the way. It's o never hostile, which is interesting. Um, is when someone an old lady silent you, know, crutch ed up to me and is like, I just want you to know you're my friend, but I'm not yours. And I was like, that is correct. Thank you. And then that was the whole encounter. No, that's amazing. And I was like, I'm good with that. So last Audi last year. Can we just can we have a moment of silence for this amazing person who said this to you? Yeah. And let's just spread that message throughout the land. Like with your keyboard, uh and the warrioring,. just no Right. Just no. Chill out. Okay. It's fine. Let's listen to the elders on this one. Right, exactly. So w when you had a podcast three years ago, Audi, when you launched the assignment, you said you worried whether anyone would listen because quote, and this is what you said to me, the world does not need another person with an interview podcast. Um, how do you stand out? Is it the relationship? Is it what do you think are the key factors? I am very proud of what I accomplished on the assignment because we ended up being nominated for Webbies like literally with you, you know what I mean? And like you you had an audience and do have an audience that was orders of magnitude larger. But we had a to me, a hard won audience of like real people. You know what I mean? Like I it's not like we could go out and buy a bunch of bots or something like that. It was like these people really listened and they listened all the way to the end. But in that case, it's because it was service-oriented. They like spending time with me. They the lik wayed I delivered news stories. But I also was bringing them someone that they never had heard from before. They had never heard from the doctors who provide gender-affirming care. They had not heard from people who had actually survived a police brutality stop. They hadn't heard from the paparazzi out of like reporters out of LA who understood why Harry and Megan were a thing. Like it was a service. I'm very nervous, right? Like now I'm suddenly just being judged on like whether or not I'm a good hang, right? Like yes. That is a different uh schematic. Most perfectly named podcast of all . Yeah, and I get I'm certainly nervous about it, but I'm nervous about everything, you know? And I think that at a certain point you have to take a leap. But we're not two celebrities interviewing each other, which is a genre. Sometimes I'm like, it's a club, we're not in it. And yes, there are people who want to be a fly in the wall for that, but I don't want to listen to a celebrity interview where the celebrity has final cut. That's for someone, not me. Yeah. I don't want to be trying to catch every joke and reference between two people who genuinely don't know we're there, like are conducting the conversation as though nobody else can hear it. Um and we're not there to just randomly bring people on. It's there's not gonna be interviewing for interviewing's sake. You're not having guests. We will occasionally have guests. But we will, but we won't be on the guest treadmill. You know, and I think we just say different we got rid of guests on pivot. We talked to listeners and they're like, we don't want your guests. This show is also going to evolve. Like we're figuring out what it is as we go, and I like where we're starting from, but it may not be where we are six months from now. Yeah, you might have a ritual sacrifice. Mabey a ritual sacrifice. Bringing some of the things that we . Oh, now Audie knows. Everybody that the week the monthly slap Scott Jennings. Uh I mean, figuratively, not literally. Do you see how this woman tries to get me into trouble? Okay. Singpring people on I've never even heard of. Like what did she even say? You slapped him so hard. I did not take that back. On that show. Not really. No hand in his face. But that that encounter was so fantastic. Well here's the thing here. Think about that. That was quadrillion clips ago. Like there's no I remember it like it was yesterday. So I felt that was the finest. You Audi has a just Ari, just so you know, she has an ability to slap the dickens out of white guys usually. My request is that if I'm on the receiving end, take off your rings first. No, no, she won't slap you. No, it's a certain kind of guy. And I've seen her do it in private, I've seen her do it in public and it is so beautiful. Every person has their limits. Every person has their limits . One meeting polite. We were in a meeting and she did it in this in this thing and I was like, yes . Like it was so enjoyable and so perfect and they didn't know what to do. I won't say who it was, but it was exactly who you want her to slap. Anyway, um let's end by talking about the state of media and the news business. This is where we uh the this is the hard question part. Kara, this is the stuff you know. Why are you asking us? No, no, no, no. No, you can answer these questions about it's about where the state of media, you all work for media, and you also worked in public radio. Yeah. Two big areas, right? We all work for CNN. I'm a contributor. Um I don't know if Ari es are contributor to contributors. As of now, yeah. And Ari is. Um so right now, you don't have to talk about the middle of the paramount and David Ellison's takeover. And um James Murdoch is also buying parts of Vox Media, including the podcast network, Vox.com and New York magazine. I was very intra I was in in the middle of that, which is just I know a lot about that. And I I have said I'll leave CNN if the merger with Paramount goes through, because I don't want to work for certain people. I am not going to put you on the spot in that regard, but how do you navigate this major media acquisition and consolidation time? How do you look at it as a bigger topic? Because it is part of culture at this moment, very much so. So Ari, why don't you start and then Audi? Well to me, it's it's part of the larger story about the decline of news and journalism in this country. I think having more journalists and more news outlets is better. Full stop. I think every major and minor city in the country should have a newspaper. It's even better if there are two newspapers. In too many places in the country, that is not the case. I think competition is good for democracy and good for media. And so, you know, whether you're talking about uh a corpor ation owning most of the local TV stations across the country, or whether you're talking about a newspaper laying off hundreds of journalists, I think the trend lines are moving in the same direction, and it's it's not great for journalism and it's not great for democracy. Go ahead, Audi I come at this having survived a merger, like my introduction to corporate media from believing MPR. Right. Yeah, it was quite literally , you know, the sale and the purchase of CNN by um Discovery. Oh, so you you missed the ATT one. I missed the AT one. And before that, AOL. Exactly. There's so many. So I hopped on the train with a lot of warriors who have been through it. Right. And it has made I took that one really hard. Um because I just was like, what am I doing? Why did I come here? Is this industry dying? Like what a mistake I made . But like MPR is struggling. This is struggling. Like MS now went through a transition. Like everybody is struggling. And what gives me hope is that the audience sees it, recognizes it , is pissed, and is willing to talk about it publicly. Whereas it's not some like backpage business thing where people are kind of like, who cares who owns what? It's like, oh wow, actually a lot of people seem to care who owns what and they're talking about it. So that's actually a good thing. It is actually people are quite aware. And they seem willing, even people who wouldn't talk before are willing to say something publicly. I mean I saw this go around in circles around Oscar time in the Hollywood press where it was complaining about how t you know who owned all of the trade and how did that affect the campaigning. That's like TikTokers were talking about that, you know, just being like, oh, don't believe this campaign because the papers are owned by this and blah, blah, in this studio. And so I'm not here like weeping and wailing, basically. It's like full speed ahead doing the work and connecting with the people who you want. Right. And you feel like you'll be able to do that within that. I don't even know, Kara, but I do know you've given me some hope about that. Okay. Like I'm not the person I was three years ago where I was literally like, How can I do anything? How am I going to pay a mortgage? The landscape has changed. The world is littered with little cable news hosts who have created other lives for themselves. They're actually doing rather well. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not chicken little, you know, it's it's pretty much like, okay, well let's do this. Whatever's coming next, great. That said, uh chicken little uh yeah, you're right, chicken little didn't it didn't well for chicken little anyway. Um Were you trying to remember? You were like, actually, Chicken Little was Cassandra. Right. It was so bad. So both of you, I'd love you to comment on public media, because NPR just announced buyouts. I've talked to a lot of people there after President Trump and Republicans rolled back more than a billion dollars in federal funding. They are getting some funding from very wealthy people like the bombers and et cetera. Um, but even before that, listener numbers and sponsorships were dipping. What does it need to do to become self-sustaining? Because part of me is like, well, good. Now they'll have to figure it out, right? And and then not rely on the fucking government or whoever. Like it's it's long past time because this is a war that's been going on since I started covering media a lot, like do zens of decades ago essentially it feels like. So talk a little bit about how you look at the public media system. Yeah. I Ari, you have to take this because for me it's been a couple of years now and I wasn't there for the real rock of the boat. A.aron Powell Yeah I was there when the government funding was cut. That had nothing I should reiterate to do with my decision to leave NPR. That had been a long time coming. But I think it's going to be a rough couple of years. And after that, I think the future could be really bright for NPR because it's one of the few news organizations in the country that is only answerable to journalists. The challenge, listenership to the radio is going down, sponsorships, as you mentioned, going down. I think NPR has to evolve in ways that have nothing to do with government funding and everything to do with where and how you reach your audiences . I really think Catherine Maher, the CEO, is incredible. I'm very impressed by her, and I think she's the right leader for this moment. But I think NPR is gonna have to evolve a lot in the next couple of years, not only to envision a financial future without government money, but also to envision a future where they're able to reach people in ways that are not turning the dial to 88.5 as much as I love listening to the radio dial. Um that I think is the big existential challenge. I'll only add to that, like the if if there's one thing where a public media people are well positioned to do, it's ask you to subscribe. Yes. Which is pretty much the environment right now. So it's really more everyone else has moved to our model. And I think yeah, NPR is like it's working it out like everyone else. Right. If you were Catherine? will just say that the seeds of what to do are already there. We saw something like the tiny desk concert. That that hit at the right time, in the right medium, in the right way. Right. They have the the building blocks for doing things. That's a really good point. Is that we have this network, I'm still saying we, of hundreds of local stations. And there is a bureaucratic bottleneck between the thousands of talented local reporters all across the country and the national network that takes some of their really outstanding work and shares it with the nation. Figuring out how to get rid of that bottleneck, I think , would be a huge liberating public service opportunity that someone should figure out how to take advantage of. I like it. I like it. I just think they're gonna have to find a billionaire. That's what I think. Well that too. That's that's the unfortunately, a nice billionaire. And then if he goes crazy, you gotta cut him loose. Um anyway, as they are want to do. I'm always on the lookout for good billionaires. Um and then they always go crazy in the end. Except for McKenzie. Kara, please tell me McKenzie's nice. The wives of the bad billion aires tend to be great. They are. I love I love Lorraine Jobs. Or the ex-wives. I love or widows. I love Lorraine Jobs. I think she's amazing. I recently was was talking to her. I love uh Gates, Melinda Gates. I'm French, right? I'll be on Team Billionaires X. Uh I love Anne Would you just make a first wives club follow-up ? I try I First Wives of the Tech Billionaires. I would really watch that movie. And Mackenzie, when I knew her, she's very shy, uh, is was wonderful. Always wonderful. And yeah, there we go. Uh his changes have to do a lot with um a lot of things. A lot of things. He was never nice though, let's be clear it's no but it's no ladies' fault that he's such a jerk Jeff Bezos anyway um let me two more questions Audie during your address at Tufts you also talked about AI and journalism the inevitable AI. Could you find this article? I find everything we're stalking you, Audie. No, there's a student newspaper very happy right now. Okay. You said as journalists, quote, our job at this point is not to be the voice of God, but to listen and analyze and interpret and share. AI is not gonna be good at that. How do you see the role of journalist reporter evolving as newsrooms start to rely on it? I mean, you can't talk about culture without talking about AI, obviously. Um, especially AI generated content. Yeah, of course. But I watched your show and I watched you talking to an AI version of yourself. Yes, I did. Didn't do it well. Not yet. And I don't even think in two or three years it's gonna do it well. Because you are fundamentally an unpredictable person. Yes. And I think human beings do have the capacity still to be unpredictable. And I feel like AI is unpredictable in predictable ways. Again, maybe that'll change. It'll be so amazing, but I just don't think it's an accident that no matter how many new media come along, we all find a way to talk to each other directly. Right. I think you're absolutely right. All right? stop trying to predict what AI is gonna do for the future because I think it's a bigger transformation than any of us have ever lived through in our lives and we were both alive before the internet came along. And so anything that AI can't do today, I assume that it's going to do tomorrow. And I think we have to pay attention and evolve with it. And I'm every day finding new ways that AI is changing my life and opening doors that were not open before. And that's gonna touch everything, including newsrooms. I can't say how, but But um I'm not naive, I'm not Pollyanna-ish, I'm also not chicken little about it. I just think as journalists, we're uniquely suited to track and report and narrate and question and convey what we learn. Yep. That's a fair point. I was also speaking to students in fairness. So these were people who are their freshmen, they're sophomore, and they are still going into journalism. And so they're really like looking at me being not like why? You know what I mean? Because they still want to do it. Right. Right. You wanted to be the speaker who didn't celebrate AI and they went, Yay, Audi. Oh yeah, I didn't know that was a thing. That was a thing. And you know, as I was like, no, this is coming for you. And there are bosses that are gonna have you training it to take your job. Like yeah, it's grim right now. That's why they liked you. You were on the right side of that students. Yeah, but you're not stupid for wanting to do this work. That's how I was approaching it, you know. So I have a last question. You end the show with what you call touch grass segment, where you talk about uh something important in your life happening offline. Uh let's end on that. I I will start. I just bought a paint by numbers set. Oh wow, okay. Totally . I was we were in Manhattan uh we were in a weekend in New York this weekend and we went to a blix to get some of my daughter draws and she loves to draw. And so we got her some really good paper because she's actually getting quite good. And uh my youngest son and I were looking at all the toys because that's where we got to bring him to uh something he can hit something with or throw or a car or some sort some sort of thing, which is not in Blicks, by the way. And I saw a paint by numbers thing that was beautiful. And I used to do it as a kid. And I bought it. I was like, I'm gonna paint. I used to let it be. Have you started doing it? No, I just I have it as a little paintbrush inside. And on instead of the old days where you have the the paints they're on the paper itself they've put the they've embedded the paint on the picture and then you send it as a postcard and each of you are now going to get a postcard obviously, from me paint by numbers. And then the second thing I did is I was in the rest stop on the way home and do you remember where they would have pictures where there were hidden things like a spoon? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Hidden pictures. There's a whole box of hidden pictures. I bought a book of hidden pictures because I used to love that. And so I'm curious how the paint by number experience rewires your brain. Right. Very much so. I think very much so. So I bought those two things and I I don't know why. I just had this moment. I'm trying to picture you having the patience. I know. Well, I think that that's why you do it is to build the patience. I know. I used to do it all the time. I used to care. So I'm like actually trying to picture it. I'm trying to come back to a time when I was patient enough. I used to love paint by numbers. Well it's like I'm not in shape enough to exercise. No, the reason you exercise is to get in shape. I'm not patient enough to paint by numbers. That's the reason why. It's gonna be beautiful. Cause you know, because I'm not artistic, but I enjoy it. All right, what is each of yours now? You start, Audie . Um, for me, it's funny you guys brought up uh paint by numbers because I often make these little kits, activity kits for my kids. So that if we go to a restaurant or if we're in the car, that's what they get handed. They don't get handed in iPad. We also I never pay for the uh cellular anyway. So it wouldn't work. But uh one of the recent things I found for the kit was a little game called Tangoes , which is a little geometry game that has a bunch of like squares and triangles. Oh I remember this from when I was a kid. Exactly. You're supposed to form them into various shapes um to solve the puzzle. And it's a kind of thing where you're like you put it in front of a kid and they're like, oh, what is this? And then next thing you know, magnetiles. Yeah, magn oh magnetiles are huge in our house. Yes. Then all of a sudden there's silence, right? And you look over and they're there like trying to figure this thing out. And it is like travel size. So shout out to Tango's. I don't know who still even makes it, but that was my touchgrass moment. All right. All right. Yeah, for me it's the garden. You know, I started gardening in the pandemic. I have a vegetable garden. And especially when, you know, it was rainy all Memorial Day weekend. And it's nice to be able to say, like, well, this is good for the garden. And you actually see the garden respond to it. And we're in this moment of transition now from kind of the spring crops to the summer crops. So we're taking out the like hawkerite turnips and the carrots and the beets and the peas and putting in the cucumbers and the tomatoes and the zucchini and the peppers. And so for me, just like getting outside, hands in the dirt, touching and feeling and smelling and tasting, like it's a very sensory experience. That's very grounding for me. So you do watch all those Instagram videos and gardeners, hot gardeners. Of course. Yes, hello. You have a literal touchcraft