Final Thoughts on Immersive Experiences

Fellllow conspiracy realists, we're returning with a classic episode. I think still Mystifies all of us. Guys, is San Francisco just too cool for us Cool enough for Sam Fran Well, we you call it San Fran, you're definite right. Yeah yeah, they don't like that. It's a fun place. I haven't been in a long time. And they say it's not like it used to be. But boy, o boy, do they used to get up to some fun artsy hijinks. and they probably still do, but today we're talking about one Oh yes, the latitude society guys. Oh This is the Jeff Hull project. Yes, it is. Do Do you remember talkking about that invited Yeah. Yes, we did. And we got invited out to go to the cartage somethingomething that we didn't we didn't have the opportunity to go and do it, but it sounded really interesting So let's roll the tape on our previous episode, What is the Latitude Society This is an IHart podcast Guaranteed human This is Tony Eo from The Real Report with Tonyo and Uncle Murder. 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I'll take it to the grave Listen to the Devil'sQuar in the Bone Valley feed on the IiHart radio app podcast or wherever you get your podcasts seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news Body Bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, IiHart. Open your free iHart app and search Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, and start listening Every family has its secrets But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation, I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deepcover The Family Man on the IiHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. uction of IiHarRP radio Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt. My name is Noel. They call me Ben and we're joined as always with our super producer, all Mission Control Deckons. Most importantly, you are you, you are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know Here's a question Who doesn't want to belong to something bigger than themselves, whether it's feeling like you belong to a family, to an organization, to a religion of some sort For most people, this is a fundamental primal drive and there's a bonus It's cool to be a member of something bigger than yourself, but it's even cooler to many people. if the thing that you are a member of is exclusive, if not everybody can be as special were as enlightened as you. It's actually that drive is a huge problem with the world today. The intrigue of it It makes you feel alive. It's the basis of so many works of fiction includluding things like obviously, as you'll see when we when we explore today's topic, folks, obviously the game, the nineteen ninety seven film with Michael Douglas, and of course, the fantastic Foault pendulum by Umberto Echo Today's story is a story of curated conspiracy. pererformance art partart Silicon Valley startup push for genuine adventure push for cold hard cash. We're talking about something called the latitude society Here are the facts. Here's what happens when you join this. Just put as we explore this, put yourself in the mind of a person experiencing this. And you'll get a sense of how cool it is at the beginning. Well, yeah, I think the first thing you have to do is imagine that you are yourself. Doing whatever mundane things it is that you do every day, no matter how much you even enjoy We enjoy our jobs. We like doing this, but we have to We have a regimented schedule where we do this over and over and over again. This is what we do. We take care of our families, we, you know, eat, we bu blah, blah, blah All the things you do, imagine that And now imagine that you get an invitation to this thing called the Latitude Society And the way you get the invitation is very important And it It generates so much intrigue in someone like you, like me doing their everyday things It is There's there's almost no way to say no Yeah, I mean, you know because it comes in the form of a friend who is essentially inviting you into this kind of shared experience with an invitation, a actual physical invitation that takes the form of a blank credit card in a sleeve, like you might get at a fancy hotel or maybe not a fancy hotel for your keycard they're slid into those little paper sleeves where the Wiifi code is written on Only this sleeve has a strange kind of geometric symbol on it that's embossed and kind of a little shiny you know, bespoke looking. So it's already like reeks of intrigue Then you pull out the actual card and it looks like a blank credit card. There's a website, there's an invitation code where flip when you flip it over to the part where there would normally be like the signature, it says absolute discretion, which is sort of a buzzphrase that we're gonna to hear repeatedly in this story. It's almost a mantra, absolute discretion Once you go to the website, you enter your code, you get a selection of different appointment times. and You lock yours in, then you show up to an address in the mission neighborhood of San Francisco. At this point you will have an experience that feels Very through the looking glass, very Alice in Wonderland. And if you have not had this spoiled for you Wning spoilers ahead What happens when you open the door? The website before this organization has a kind of decadent description of this saying through the door and behind a thick curtain was the flux chamber An automated hallway with only one way through downown a wooden slide at the base of an ornate Victorian fireplace mantle Awaiting the visitor at the bottom of the slide was a lobby area with one red neon sign reading then three doors So you have, you know, you already have this really this really cool, almost David Lynchian vibe whatever door you choose, you'll go through an increasingly narrow passage surrounded by All the walls are padded with black carpet. and this is called the Dark Maze. You hear music, you hear a suserus whispering And that's what guides you through this completely dark labyrinth, you're monitored by cameras the whole time, which is important later. And then finally, go through this crawl space and find yourself in what they call the library chamber This is surrounded this is really cool if you see it. It's surrounded by all these bookshelves and then there's one book on a pedestal It' called the Book of the Latitude firstirst, this book appears to be blank It does, and it's important to note that all of the books in the room are the same book. It's the same book that is open. with blank pages sitting there in front of you U and You know, you just curiosity is going to lead you to, like Ben said, open it up and you find that the pages are blank then almost out of nowhere You'll hear a voice And then these pages, or at least the pages that the book is open to begin filling up with the words that are being spoken to you So it's almost as if the book is being written in your presence in that moment And that's on the left hand side You'll get the words being written out and then on the right hand side, you'll actually see an illustration start to form. a video of sorts playing somehow within this book. Yeah, I mean, it really is sort of an interactive theater experience, if anyone's familiar with the company Punch Drunk who did the or continues to do, I think, probably during COVID, it's on hiatus, but hopefully we' back soon an incredibly beautifully curated kind of theatrical experience in New York and I think there's other versions, but it's called Sleep No More. And it's essentially like an interactive theatrical experience where as you're progressing through this actual physical space you can choose your path and things happen based on which path you choose, et cetera. This really reminds me of that. The using whatever theatrical projection technology that they use, essentially what's formed before your very eyes is this like mythos, this sort of like base kind of fable that is at the center of the latitude society's kind of lore And you can actually witness this for yourself in a couple of places. There's a really good article on Vice about it called My Year in San Francisco's two million dollars startup. and also the documentary bright axiom where you can actually see it visually ery much worth a watch. Yeahep. In Bright Axiom is the name documentary. You may also be interested in the Institute be warnants. They are they Hm There're somewhere between documentary and long form infomercial. but this fable is important to the latitude society. It's one of the first pieces of literature that people experience when they interact with the society. It's often recited before new adventures or new society meetings, which they call prraxices. I want to point this out just before we go any further. and I just want to make sure everyone understands Everything we're describing to you here, these are physical experiences. This is not some virtual reality thing. This is not some web based experience that you're going through. You are physically going through those doors down the slide, looking at this book filling up with pages, hearing this fable for the first time. It's all real real time, you just experiencing it. And then after you have experienced this fable, you are sent off on somethingomething similar to a scavenger hunt. here you're on a mission in the mission. You go you do things like go to a bar have a coded conversation with a bartender, and you get this special coin and you end up using it to participate in an arcade game, which leads you on to another another experience, it's all very just so. This entire thing is an introduction to the Latitude society wasas the Latitude society is a self described secret order dedicating itself to expanding human consciousness And it's vaguely locked in in a conflict with forces of darkness who are trying to stop the society from growing and expanding and sending their message out. prettyretty exciting, right? Pretty exciting way to moonlight What happens? Once you pass this first adventure? You are inducted as a full time member and you get access to something called the Nightbook The Night book is like a social network. platform And this is where people get together And they try to decipher the various mysteries of practice and philosophy they also have L you said, Nat. The emphasis here is on in person experience. So they also had town hall events. you can see various video of this They also had dedicated talks and meetings. This was throughout the San Francisco area and active members of the community could mingle and they could openly talk about the future of society with one another Because the thing is theres there's a fight club vibe here that helps with the exclusivity The society has four kind of guiding principles. Number one by far is absolute disiscretion, meaning you're not supposed to talk about latitude in front of people who are not involved with latitude unless you want to invite them whichich case you give them one of those little cards? And really, you know, it feels like it's very secretive, but it also it makes sense logically to avoid spoilers, right? This all about surprise. And as N said that that phrase absolute discretion was embossed on the slip that you would get that the card was inserted into. So that's your first Your first interaction with the Latitude society after someone, you know, quietly says, Hey, can you keep a secret is the phrase absolute discretion. And here's the thing about that phrase. The people or the creators of the Latitude society took great pains to make sure that the meember, the user, understood that that phrase has two different meanings. and one of them was was essentially saying that you will be able to have good judgment in what you decide to share, what information you decide to give out. The other one is essentially just implying secrecy So it's both of those things That's what Ben's talking about. You get to choose as a member Who else becomes a member And they had and like like we werere saying, there are several other tenants that were very important to latitude society. Yeah, val we value experiences over things is that's the second tenet. And I think that's something a lot of people can agree with. Especially you'll find this belief common in People who have lived a long time, peopleeople are at the end of their lives tend to enjoy the experiences they had or the memories of those, more so than the gadgets they accrue So I get that one. Third, Tedet, we give in order to become part of a story greater than ourselves Think about it, what does giving mean there? We'll get to it. And the fourth is freedom from dogma The person who invites you is thereafter referred to as your ascendant and you are their descendant. It' It's a bit like a less sinister version of an upliner downline in a multi level marketing scheme And I want to be very clear, the latitude of society is not multi markarked No. And it's also not Nxium And it's also not Nxium. Anybody who is a member of this, they don't, for instance, have a quota of other people they had to invite or anything like that You want people to be an know of this adventure. So After you finished this first mission. They call it book one then you are given a code word that gets you further access on the website and then you get the opportunity to invite other people, theoretically as many as you would like just like Facu's pendulum The majority of people involved knew this was a game, but felt it was more fun and more immersive if you took it seriously So many people did And it did not hurt that the group responsible for creating the latitude society Nonchalance. was staffed by very talented creatives. They made it compelling. You know what I mean? It didn't seem It seemed real. It felt real in a way it was. I also wanted to point out one tiny detail from the experiential part, the first kind of down the rabbit hole visit to that mission, you know facility, I guess you would call it. There is a part when you go to that window where it says sh in the neon, there's like kind of like a shrouded figure behind sort of I guess frosted glass You're not quite sure if it's even a real person or not. And like a drawer pops out and you're instructed to place all of your personal possessions in that drawer So it's got this like inherent kind of decoupling from like, you know, the Hrum day to day of existence and identity, not to mention things like your phone and all of that. And it's actually taking you out, and especially like a place like San Francisco, Silicon Valley, that's the epicenter of this type of like decoupling you from real life and thrusting you into this place where you have to separate yourself from all of those trappings and literally, you know, go down a rabbit hole of actual physical experience as opposed to virtual. And then at some point while you're experiencing this or while you're hearing this show, you have to ask yourself, what exactly is this thing I would say it's immersive theater. There are a lot of things like this. It's similar to projects from places like Serembi Playhouse in the Atlanta area, multiple haunted houses in the US around the world various theater projects in New York. It's also a networking opportunity I mentioned this on an earlier Listener mail segment People tend to want to be Prometheans whether or not they've like earned that feeling, we want to be the bringers of knowledge often rather than the receivers. So this became a way of looking very cool. Two friends were colleagues, M somebody at a business lunch. thinkink they're dope. You want them to feel the same way about you sllide in one of those little black cards I can't tell you anymore Asolute discretion. Right? And then maybe it leads to better things in your working life. What else was the point was actually going on here. behind the scenes of this behind the scenes underground endeavor. Yeah, it's not like this was a cheap thing to produce. You're talking about physical elements, like you said, with people working very hard to create a story and things and then going to various places throughout the city and planting a bartender making sure that bartender is going to give out the information making coins that have to go I mean, you it's a production. This is expensive stuff Why would you spend all that money to do this? In multiple locations too. We mentioned going to an arcade. That's another physical location with all of these kind of like bespoke sort of psychedelic looking arcade machines, One of which when you put that coin in, like you're mentioning, Ben, a deity appears to you, which is a theme that we're going to see throughout the story sort of looks almost like the creepy rabbit from Donnie Darko. Oly it's more of like a half man's face with these weird eye stalks that don't have eyes. And he in sort of like again, like serial killer, voice disguiseiser voice gives you instructions on where to go next and you know starts feeding you these kind of philosophical lines about access and all of that good stuff So what was the point? an expensive production, multiple rented locations in the city with the highest cost of living in the country It's not a it's not a it's not a small amount of overhead here. What else was the latitude Society and what were the motivations for creating it? We'll explore this after awardd from our sponsor This is Janna Kramer from Wind Down with Janna Kramer. So why do they call it a dishwasher? Well, don't worry, it's not a trick question or anything. It's just because it washes dishes. If the filter and the dishwasher itself are dirty, those dishes aren't actually getting clean. That's why you need Cascade pllatinum plus, powered by two times the cleaning power of dawn, Cascade pllatinum pllus, doesn't just remove one hundred percent of grease and residue from dishes It cleans your dishwasher and filter too. So you get clean dishes and a dishwasher that keeps washing. Just scrape, load and done Find Cascade Platinum pllus at your local retailer. Cascade is a proud sponsor of the Elton John Imact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to equality. Cascade would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of this year's deserving honorees. Don't miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first on the I Heart radio app Ewhere podcasts are heard In the moment, it felt like it was going on forever. I didn't think I was going to live terrified There was no hing inside those eyes. scared the hell out of me That was your first murder case.es It's fair to say this was theg case your career? Yes, sir. Rape but murder a chung twelve year old childallenge. bad he gets. I would think so People wake up The wom saw the murder take place by Cret and dePippo. Anthony D Pipppo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unphazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grave Listen to the Dvil's quuarry on the I Heart radio or wherever you get your podcasts o hear the Devil's quuarry ad free with exclusive content Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts Hey, I'm Hodak Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy one hundred one with Hode Kotbi. Together, we're gonna have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. likeike when actress Olivia Mun shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression is not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy one hundred one with Hoda Kotby on the IHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts We're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news Body bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, Hart. Open your free iHart app and search Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, and start listening Here's where it gets crazy. To understand the Latitude society, we have to understand the organization I mentioned earlier, nonchalantance, along with two people Jeff Hull and Kat Meller Jeff Hall is the company's founder. He started nonchalantance in the early two thousands. Kat Meller one was one of the primary employees and there were other people It takes a village, right to make a conspiracy. There were artist, community engagement experts various engineers, the money for this came from Jeff Hull directly. He gave he gave two million dollars We came to find out or that's what's believed that he gave two million dollars to get this thing started How does one end up with two million dollars such that you say I want to make a weird conspiracy A good way to make two million dollars is to haveave money given to you through your family We've talked about wealth in the United States and countries throughout the world that have a long history and how One of the best ways to just become filthy rich is to get it from people who came before you in your family So there's something that happened with Jeff Hoall his father We created an incredible company. that was valued just under five hundred million dollars And it was sold to Goldman Sachs in nineteen ninety nine for five hundred thirty one million dollars And maybe that's how he got that two million dollars. But at least according to Jeff, in response to that vice article that we mentioned before, he states that he actually made his wealth or it began his wealth working for his father's company before it was sold to Goldman Sachs. And that he became a partner when the firm was acquired by Goldman Sachs. So mainly and he wrote to the SF Fist and then, you know, he wrote the same message deviceices as you said where where he was taking issue primarily with the implication that he was a trust fund kid. And he said he found it belittling which is understandable. Its not it's not a phrase I don't think it's a phrase a lot of people use to self identify. you know what I? It's also inherently dismissive and unfair People that are fortunate enough to be in that situation. It's one thing if you just lean on that money and do nothing or just, you know, live some opulent life of privilege where you don't actually contribute anything, but I would argue this is an example of taking that privilegege and converting it into something interesting, which I think is you know should be applauded. the Latitude society is not the first iteration of this that nonchalance has done. They tried something earlier called the Jejun Institute, which I think is a cool name That's what that other documentary in the Institute is about. This was another a similar theme, you're crossing through the city of San Francisco on kind of a scavenger Hunt immersive Adventure game. But here's the here's the secret. here's the secret to this secret society. and it's something that some of the ascendants and descendants did not care for when they learned about this. The Latitude society was not just an artistic statement. It was a business and in theory, was a very smart one Pole was thinking in terms of A theme park of the mind I would say is a fair description. Do you think that's a fair description, guys? I think it absolutely is. And also this like this push pull between artistic pure artistic expression and creativity and making money is like tale as old as time, right? And so many artists, brilliant artists are very bad business people and it's interesting when you see that kind of like And I guess, I don't know, conflict. There's another interesting kind of group that reminds me of this called Mow Wolf. and there's a fabulous documentary about them. And it started off as this collective of just like minded weirdos in Santa Fe, which has kind of a stuffy art scene that's like very, you know, like exclusive in that everything is very expensive, you know, and kind of boring. And like these kind of like scen kids like who were into like DIY punk type shows and weird music started this group to kind of be a counterbalance to that. But it became so successful and they started getting investments from folks like George R R. Martin and essentially turned it into this giant business, some people were less enthused about that direction than others. And I think that's what we're seeing here Yeah, the the weird thing is there's this intense dichotomy between what was presented internally at nonchalance, and what was presented to people who were participating in this artistic endeavor the idea is that they would one day be able to like like it was startup thinking, right? Like let's get it going Let's prime the pump as much as we can. Let's go hard on the paint and eventually we will monetize this We will make it self sustaining Pole said the vision was to create an immersive narrative experience that rivaled a theme park, ride and production value, but was embedded into the urban landscape of San Francisco, and they had a deck PowerPoint And when it was presented internally It was a quote, growth oriented business model with an identifiable product and service So they were definitely talking Turkey behind the scenes It would not be easy to monetize this. It would be a toll milkshake because the society was, as you said, Matt a hugely expensive endeavor. We're talking about even not talking about renting multiple properties in a very expensive urban area, We're talking about technical design, hours of work ideating and assembling this stuff, these elaborate ornate spaces. It took three years to build that first place, which really does have like this wooden slide. It's crazy And when they finally opened it to members people weren't sure how to react. and it's pretty impressive too that they did this for three years without spilling the beans. But again price tag on that according to employ former employees of the organization was a cool two mill Here's why a lot of people got turned off We were talking about money that was started as investment, but how did they plan to monetize the user experience if we want to just keep being soless and corporate about it? Once you got invited, once you were in And you know, did you did the book one or the first mission, first adventure. Then we said you could theoretically invite as many people as you wish That's because the invitations were sold to you per card basis Let's say you're Paul Mission contontrol Decond. you want to invite some friends You want to invite your pals, Matt, Nool and Ben to Tue this. to this adventure Then you pay twenty five dollars a card But later that was raised to thirty two dollars card. And then you look around and you see on this website, there's all kinds of stuff you can buy. very weirdly specific Oh, absolutely. and then that's why I think it's interesting that people didn't kind that people like got so out of shape because this is was like This is the deal from the beginning. you know, it's a closed website where you can't even log into it until you get that card with that unique code. And then once you go through, like you said, Ben, that book one experience, that's when you get access to what's called the marketplace. and you can buy shirts with that slogan Asolute discretion, which the author of the Vice article found very ironic, which I think is sort of the point. It's like it's fun. The idea of buying a t shirt that says absolute discretion. And yeah, that's right. You buy these cards, you can distribute them to whomever you wish. and then doesn't that make it kind of like a I don't know, like a pyramid thing where you kind of like you buy one, you get it and then you buy more and then give it others and then they give it more and it branches off. I guess not, notot really. It's not Yeah, it's a little different. It's not certainly not taking advantage of folks in the same way Yeah, because you're not you're not making money from the cards that are sold after you. That's right.. And you know, like was saying earlier, even though they have some some language that's reminiscent of MLMs There's not a baked in quota. No you don't get in trouble if you don't get twenty people per month or something like that So it's not it's not Ponzi is. it's not MLM, but they do want to make it profitable. I The thing is When you're talking two million dollars uh and you're and you're trying to recoup that based on the sale of T shirts, imndants, and invitation cards You're looking at a very large a nearly sisphhean ill to climb. It would be very difficult to cover that initial investment in a reasonable amount of time Some journalists estimated the math. They said, okay We think over the part over the span of the Latitude society during its heyday mayaybe two thousand people were given cards and participated in some part of the initiation They went to the website They never showed up to the place or they showed up to the place And then they left and just didn't pursue the rest of book one or they did the whole first book and then they said, Okaykay, that's it. That was a great weekend, but I'm done two thousand people did this, they participated in some way, then that means the most revenue from that part of the part of the business that Latitude could make was about sixty thousand dollars Which is cool, but it's not two million And so later, they did something that cheed off a lot of the members, a lot of the existing members who were very into this adventure in society They instituted an annual membership fee It's over three hundred bucks. It's still less than a burning man ticket. People are quick to point out peopleople were like, what is the mission of this changing and to the You know, to the participants, it felt like maybe it was, but to the creators, no, this was just a further pursuing the original plan I think it's almost like the They started, you know, the members started taking things upon themselves because they Like really the vice article is, I think the most straightforward. like the film is interesting, but it almost has an agenda a little bit. Like it really, like you said at the top b, it almost feels like a weird kind of commercial for the thing. And it feels like it has a little bit of an agenda. But the vice article is from the perspective of someone that goes through the whole process. and what ends up happening is You know, this person starts wearing that absolute discretion t shirt and using it to identify other people who have done the experience in the wild. And then those people start connecting with each other on like forums, thenen they start actually doing kind of little, you know, gatherings that are sort of, I guess un notot sanctioned or whatever they need it to be sanctioned, but they really do start to form a community around the lore and around the whole experience of this thing. you know, again, because It's almost like a religion at that point or it starts to at least have the sense of community that a religion can have at its best. And so I think those people who really start to get a real value out of this in their lives start to see it becoming, quote unquote, becoming more commercial. Maybe that's where they start digging that because they feel like it's taking something that's very special and personal to them and, you know, bastardizing it in some way. But again, to the creators This is what they had planned all along. So is it really them doing anything, but what they already kind of set out to do? Yeah. The writer for Vice Lydia Laurerenson, she she had quotes from several members U I don't want to spoil anything. She had several quotes from members who were talking about this very thing like wh Why the money? Why is this happening And one of the big takeaways is that this felt to them like a gift that they had been given. L someone handed them a free card then they got to go through this experience and then they got to choose whether or not they paid for anything, right Now they were being told that they had to pay. And it was like a gift became a burden, essentially. I'm sorry, what had to pay in order to continue doing what? going to these things L they were doing real world events. So those were official events. There were official events, but then also just little little gatherings of members. Privately. Right, right. similar to a less sinister version of squirreling in scientology, which we can talk about a little bit later, but squirreling is A scientology term for when someone takes what they describe as Elron Hubbard's technology or tech and they use it in an unsanctioned way. It's similar to maybe the way that the Catholic church in days of old looked at Protestants. You know what I mean? Like, hey, you're taking you're taking stuff that we both know is true, but you're doing the wrong doing it the wrong way. You're doing the way like the film industry looks at pirating movies. You know what I mean Maybe Yeah. I mean, it's like you're stealing. you're basically saying you're taking our stuff and you're using it and you're not like giving us our due or like, yeah, I don't know. like paying part certainly is at the heart of it, but yeah, you're exactly. I think squirreling is a perfect comparison. Let's think too about social media in the internet One thing that the internet has made abundantly clear in every culture, in every iteration, is that if people have something for free There's something deeply offensive to people if that changes to a paid service. You know New York Times? R. I see that as a guy with a subscription. really quickly, just slightly slightly off the subject, but it's sort of like what you know, Apple is talking about potentially putting podcast siloing podcasts behind paywalls or making it a subscription thing or it's a little vague what they're talking about doing, But that would be exactly what you're talking about, ' Apple is sort of the arbiter of this industry of like free content, you know, ad supported free content. And if all of a sudden that changed, I think people would like lose their minds Mm Mh. And The reason I mentioned social media is because we can see clear parallels here. Right? social media A lot of the platforms thrive on exclusivity in the beginning I can only have a Facebook page if I go to this school or than later if I go to a school we see this time and time again. peopleeople want to be Promethea. they want to be in the know. And then as it grows And more people are involved, more people are aware of this of this fight club, then the problems grow as well. It's a symptom of scale. If I want it to be all Ted talky and pop sigh about it Yeah because they're doing testing on those early users. you know, they're like they're literally beta testing everything, including that experience that we described to you at the top of this episode likeike going in and checking out that book, down the slide, all that stuff, They're testing to see how people react. and it's very, very helpful to keep it low number. And how effective like it is in like making people want to continue on You know what I mean? Like that experience, that first pop is what really gets you, you know, kind of converted almost, right where you're either like, wow, this is something really special. I was given this gift. They had to really tailor that experience to get the exact right kind of unch to make people feel that way And imagine how cool it is just objectively how cool it is if you're seeing a and a at a bar somewhere, let's call it the syycamore and you're rocking your absolute discretion. T And then you, you know, you just hanging out And you see somebody come in like furtively and have a weird whispered conversation with a bartender and they get this coin and they turn around and they see you and their jaw drops and you're like, I what of People love that stuff. That's why you have all these coded signals that like the when we did our episode on secret languages Right a city in a society speaks to itself in an ecosystem. And I guarantee you that on any given day in a city, there are people who are subtly communicating to one another right under your nose. And in One method or another, a signal by something signaled by a piece of jewelry, a particular piece of clothing etcer. I think it's, I think it's so You guys are right. Pople had peopleople had problems with this. like A guy named Thomas Lootz, who was speaking with Lydia Lawrennon over advice objected because he felt the monetization was blow to the things about the society that were important to him and his colleagues It gave them meaning. It seemed like there was a space where they were coming together as a community in a nonperformative way. It felt like there was a genuine Connection and they were taking taking dedicated time to reflect on ideas And a lot of these people are in, you know, very stressful day jobs. They they're very go go, go, you know, with high stakes and stuff the idea that you're hanging out with people And it's not about a work thing It's just hanging out with people because you like hanging out and you like the stuff you do together. That's a beautiful feeling and that seemed very meaningful to people and They liked being in a secret society There was a story, we're part of the story, where the audience and where the author That's amazing But You'll notice, astute listeners, we've been talking about the latitude society in past tense Why We'll tell you After a word, fromr our sponsor This is Janna Kramer from Wind Down with Janna Kramer. So why do they call it a dishwasher? Well, don't worry, it's not a trick question or anything. It's just because it washes dishes If the filter and the dishwasher itself are dirty, those dishes aren't actually getting clean. That's why you need Cascade Platinum pllus. 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Yes It's fair to say this was the biggestase your career? Yes, sir. Rape murder of chung twelve year oldallenge. bads he gets? I would think so People wake up woman saw the murder take place by Creet and Pipo Anthony DPipppo showed no signs of remorse, appearing unphazed after being sentenced to the maximum. I said I'm not guilty. I'll take it to the grave Listen to the Dvil's quuarry on the I Heart radio podcast or wherever you get your podcasts To hear the Devil's quuarry ad free with exclusive content Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts Hey, I'm Hodak Kotbi, host of the podcast Joy one hundred one with Hodakotbi. Together, we're gonna have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. 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He said the latitude society may have served multiple purposes But ultimately, it could not be all things. to all people So maybe everybody just wasn't on the same page. Maybe that's where the issues began Yeah, makes a lot of sense Ands there's a quote here again from that vice article from Matt Weinberger. He's a person who, you know, took part in the Latitude society. and here's this quote Some people treated it as a game That makes sense, right? Some people as a social club and a networking opportunity. And some treated it as a religion. And he mentions that at some point there was a Rddit thread created by you know someone who had heard about the society and then joined. and then this person who created this thread believed they joined a cult So they took it very, very seriously And laid out a lot of the things that were not supposed to be spoken to non members. And this person, Matt is saying that It kind of spoiled the fun of the society itself after everybody knew what it was, or at least a certain number of people And here's another thing Latitude wasn't just a business It was a genre of business that we will call a startup Startups have different rules Startups have a very high rate of attrition. Startups can do enormously wonderful and disruptive things. they can also fall flat. They're risky likeike a lot of startups Nonchalance did not seem to have a very clear focus, in the opinion of observers then they just ran out of money the Latitude Society before they could finish the overall arc of the story they wanted to tell. the founder himself estimates that the Daily cost of the latitude society, justust keeping the lights on, keeping the rent paid keepeeping the weird coins in circulation. That was three grand a day And apparently they didn't even have a a very let's say developed business plan or well, not business plan, but they weren't keeping books particularly well. They didn't have some of the most basic kind of bookkeeping sheets that you would have to have, especially with an operation that's expensive in a city as expensive as San Francisco. you know any business startup or otherwise keep something called a profit and loss ledger which allows you to keep track of the comings and goings of money. You got to spend money to make money, but if your losses outweigh your profits, that's not a good look. And this could well be an example of, you know, one of the I guess luxuries or privileges of being independently wealthy and sort of doing this like as a personal project U not being super meticulous about the bigger picture of of the finances Yeah, yeah, there's something a little bit aristocratic about it. I could see critics taking that stance. I'm always reminded of There's an Italian publishing house that I really I really love. I respect the books they put out. And they're called Rizoli. I believe it's Rizoli. The owner is this old school or was this old school Italian aristocrat. and I was reading an interview with him where one day he just decided to build a hedge maze Huge hedgemaze and invite his friends over That's the kind of stuff that most people do, you know what I mean? And Now we have to ask ourselves to your point, Nel, is is the perspective then For this person, are they just thinking, I am I am creating this thing that I want to give to you And the only reason money becomes involved is because I want to makeake it a thing that can stay around you know, instead of something ephemeral. but at ninety thousand dollars a month this these conversations have to happen. and There were a couple of ideas. and how to how to emm the financial hemorrhaging, and one of those was Let's stop emmphasizing physicality. Let's move entirely to virtual reality And that's that's a bummer that also makes me love your New York Times example, Matt, because we've seen so many print publications say, okay, we're going to go entirely online. We're going to keep a subscription fee. And so for people who have subscribed to a paper and received a physical copy for years and years and years, they feel like they feel like they're getting robbed because they don't have the thing This is an even more extreme example, I would argue, because the entirety of the focus of the Latitude society was in person adventure, a type of a very clever type augmented reality. That's really what's happening So of course, folks are Push against this. and there's another article by a former member called the author's name is Caveat Magister and caveat compares compares this again to Burning Man and says that the exclusivity of the Latitude society may have gone too far, leading to that practice that scientology would call squirreling And they there was a really I would say inspiring organic thing to happen ive members were like, you know I don't really need to do the official experience and I don't really need to worry about my ascendant or whatever. I've met some people. We can just hang out. We can do our own thing inspired by this. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's kind of like You know, at some point, if you're a fan of Legos, At some point You worry about what you're supposed to build from the box you buy, you just build your own stuff. They're still Legos and you're still having a heck of a time U I just say I don't see anything wrong with what these folks are doing. And by this point, of course, yes, they're paying three hundred something. a year for a membership. Yeah. And of course, that The push to then have a membership whittled away at the membership veryer quickly, immediately Um and You know, that that's that's obviously a problem. if you're trying to build a user base, essentially like a startup does want to do Now we've got some other criticisms from People hear about the Latitude society and what was happening there. And a big criticism comes from someone named Rebecca Power. who was known by the writer of that vice article that we discussed there And she didnn't have a great experience essentially going through it And it started on that book one experience where, you know, she looked at the book and everything because she was contacted almost immediately after that by the person that invited her to the society, and he stated something a little strange somethingomething we didn't note before this is that In many of the rooms there, the physical space that you enter, there were cameras with, you know, lights, as cameras generally do have like a CCTV camera, has a light that lets you know you're being watched or that the camera's on at least or recording And he mentioned to her that, oh, I was watching you when you when you went through the fable. when, you know, you sat down and you got that book read to you U and that kind of creeped her out a lot Just the thought that someone was there actually watching her the whole time, not interacting with her, just surveilling her and observing her So that was the first little thing that happened. then she felt it got weirder from there Yeah. she saw a an imbalance u in in the agreement some kind of information asymmetry be a drive phrase for it you do have to sign this terms of service thing, right But as Rebecca Power found out There wasn't a formal procedure for releasing yourself from it And she said, I know the employees are monitoring us Who is monitoring them? And there's another good point but I totally forgot about this. That's before you even set up your appointment, right? When you sign that. So you dont you have no idea what you're signing up for and you're just going to put all your info in there. Exactly, exactly. And there's that that detail you mentioned about being observed. is so creepy. because she found out this Facebook message that the person who invited her had been watching her the whole time. So she got spooked and she asked that the group deactivate her membership So This is where we get like to the Fu pendulum Has the performance become real She says, When I left, I became a security risk. People I knew made vague threats that I would regret leaving or talking about it A roomm mate of mine stopped telling me where he was going when he left the house Friends I trusted contacted me and played stupid about their own involvement in order to suss out what I knew. That's wild. Line imagine you can't like imagine you go to Disney World and you're supposed to spend a week there and you go for a day and you're like, all right, I'm not going to go. And then you like you go home early and the next day you get these weird calls and messages from your friends who are like Dist keep this Keep yourself The first rule of Disney World is you don't talk about Disney Wor. Yeah I don't think those parks would function that way if that was. I love it though. It's like the U I'm not gonna do theice. have this Gy mouse think in my head. He calls you late at night He my vice C on. Although, isn't there that secret members only club at Disney World Yeah, it's same It's se my secret, you know. But yeah, it's supposed to be nice. The menu seems cool. I want to stay on Rebecca Power just for a moment. So One of the other things that she really didn't like there is that She went to an actual gathering, one of these things they call Praxis, or a praxis, Praxi And Someone there essentially doxstered, not really, but just, you know, mentioned they knew what she did and knew who she was, but it was said aloud. That's one of the main reasons that she left. And the really interesting thing about Rebecca is that She continued this kind of work afterwards. She started a thing that had a different name at the time. It's changed names, but now it is called hoax, H O A X It is it's in San Francisco and it's the same kind of thing. It's a company that creates experiences. They're an interactive design studio And they like to create quote novel situations and powerful experiences So same kind of thing. she continued on to do that stuff just outside of this other group nonchalance. That's a very good point, Matt So now we're reaching the end. We talked in past tenents. You see some of the problems. Some people are worried about their own privacy Some people have what they feel are ethical objections to the business model And then also, You can understand this. from the perspective of the employees of nonchalance and the people responsible for making these experiences They might feel kind of underappreciated , hey, man, I gave you a thing. I'm just trying to I'm trying to keep it going You know, what I mean? You can't be like you can't go to the The sandwich shop get a free sandwich every day and expect those sandwiches to just appear. have to It's a terrible comparison, but you get it afterfter the membership fee rule out There's internal division within nonchalants employees resign And then Jeff Hull sanctions an article about the society where he says various critical things or various not, you know super happappy fun times holding hands, singing Kumbaya things about the organization, and this itself is a violation of that absolute discretion policy. Is it not And then less than a week after that article publishes, Jeff shuts down the website He leaves a note that the San Francisco House of Latitude is closed And the society closes down on Monday, september twenty eighth twenty fifteen This was news reportedly to several of the employees involved. As happened, you know, recently in the days of the pandemic, some people just showed up to a job that no longer existed, which is a massive bummer. It really is. I do just want to point out too, I think we've made it pretty clear, but A lot of these things, this idea of these rules, quote unquote, very loose and it's not like there's a set like a code of ethics or conduct, you know, I mean, even their whole idea of discretion Uh is ironic. in a lot of ways because like it's a secret, but it's also tell your friends. So it's very loose, all of this stuff. and to the point where it's clearly meant to be a bit of an ironic performance art thing, almost commenting on the types of the way social media works and the kind of, you know, what you're what you're saying, Ben about how exclusivity in and of itself makes things more attractive. And now we've got things like this new social media platform clubhouse that's once again based entirely on exclusivity. and it's very much a Silicon Valley thing. that's about networking and being more anonymous, less tied to your persona and more just based on the worth of the things that you say to other members. So I think there's a lot of that's sort of Some of the folks that really started taking this seriously seem to have maybe maybe have been lost on them a little bit which is interesting to me. because again, it's D the definition of what this is changes based on the perspective of the people and their degree of involvement So After Jeff Hull closes down, Latitude Society, he goes on Facebook and he post an update I'm someome people copied and pasted it and then The reactions were mixed. Some folks were like, you know, I get it