Big Things Podcast
A weekly show where we talk about the big things we're watching in marketing, social media, pop culture and sports. We also talk through signals we’re seeing that could inform the future of digital marketing.
You can catch the podcast every Friday wherever you listen or watch it on YouTube. Be sure to follow us on Instagram or TikTok for updates on every episode.
Big Things Podcast
Beyonce's Levi's Collab Dropped And We Have Thoughts (E3)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This week on Big Things: Beyoncé’s new Levi’s collab feels like it’s missing something, Meta’s conceptual smart glasses could lead to doxxing, LVMH partners up with F1 and Mitzi might be in her villain era. Thanks for tuning in!
More from us:
- Mitzi Payne @mmmitziP
- Mike Payne @mmmiiike
Timestamps:
- 02:00 – Why we rely on following signals to inform future marketing trends.
- 06:00 – The fun art event Mitzi went to this week (and struggled at).
- 08:20 – Millennials need to watch this new show.
- 12:00 – Thing 1: Beyonce released a collaboration with Levi’s and it’s just okay.
- 17:15 – Why didn’t Levi’s take it all the way?
- 19:00 – What makes a celebrity brand successful and relatable?
- 28:00 – Thing 2: Meta’s smart glasses and the feature that could lead to doxxing.
- 28:00 – Mike has the worst Uber rating on our team.
- 36:50 – Thing 3: LVMH x F1 announce partnership to begin in 2025 (we saw this coming).
- 43:00 – The Nike campaign we can’t stop thinking about.
- 45:00 – Is Mitzi in her villain era?
- 47:35 – Help us pick our next show.
Big Things with Mitzi (@mmmitzi) and Mike (@mmmiiike).
For more from Arcade, follow us on Instagram and TikTok @helloarcade. https://www.arcadearcade.ca/
Production by Morgan Berna, editing by Oliver Banyard.
Big Things
Speaker 1Wow, I'm surprised you're not wearing your slippers today.
Speaker 2Oh, my clogs. I thought those were slippers. I actually thought about wearing them today.
Speaker 1I thought about wearing mine too, my Uggs.
Speaker 2See, those are slippers.
Speaker 1Welcome to Big Things. I'm Mitzi and this is Mike.
Speaker 2And this is our show where we talk about the big things that we're seeing in marketing, social media, pop culture and sports. We'll also talk through signals that we're watching that could inform the future of digital marketing. You can catch this show every week on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. My preference is YouTube because, of course, we've got these lights and these cameras and these mics, but you do, you boo?
Speaker 1Totally, and if you're a listener of Waves or Tea for Lunch, you're going to love this show, because it's a lot of the same stuff, but just more of us, which is, I'm sure, why you're here. But you can expect less interviews, more news and pop culture and signals and trends.
Speaker 2Yeah, I feel like the trends are nice. It's like a way to help you kind of zoom out from being reactive to all these micro trends that are happening and be more proactive in the big picture, which is something we all want totally also, if you're new here, that means our social clips are working.
Speaker 1So, hi, I'm mitzi, this is mike, we're married. We're also co-founders of an agency called arcade and we've been working in digital marketing for over 15 years have we actually 15 years? Well, that's just fact checking. You live. You're like. You agreed not to fact check me um.
Speaker 2Okay, we'll roll with it 15 years wait, should we fact check it.
Speaker 1So what? What year is it? Oh, almost 15 years. It's the year 2024 of our lord because I got my first job in 2010.
Speaker 2So almost 15 years. Yeah, so there you go, there you go. Thanks for fact-checking me Pretty close, close enough.
Speaker 1Anyways, but we're going to talk about a few things today, a few big things, including Beyonce's recent collaboration with Levi's.
Speaker 2More about Meta's glasses, their AR glasses.
Speaker 1Right and the F1 partnership with LVMH.
Speaker 2It's going to be good. Mm-hmm partnership with LVMH it's gonna be good.
Speaker 1There's some good topics, so buckle up. But before we get into all that, I had this amazing night. Last night I went to a fabulous event that was put on by Sunday's Furniture. Shout out to Barbara and Oscar and the whole team there. They kindly hosted me for this creative craft night and it was so fun. Their show room, which we've been to, is so beautiful.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's stunning. It's one of those show rooms that like kind of feels like an art gallery, like you walk around, it's kind of immersive, everything's like beautifully designed. But for last night they like re-imagined the space and it really felt like a home. They had like a crafty kind of night so they had like all these like um cloths over some of their platforms and they had like an art area, like a painting area, and they had like a sculpture area with this really great ceramicist who's from Calgary and she was like teaching us all how to make these like little ring dishes. They had like an illustration space with like an illustrator and they had this like a massive charcuterie board and beautiful flowers. It was just like such a nice night and I had so much fun seeing like old friends new friends.
Speaker 2The setting makes me, for some reason, it's making me think of Bridgerton no, it was nothing like you know the one brother who's like the artist. I'm not a big Bridgerton fan so I'm probably like gonna just mess this up, but from one of the few episodes I saw, I feel like the one brother who like isn't really trying to get married and he's kind of like an artist type and he's often at parties and a lot of them are like art parties, at least from what I saw and they're like painting at the party.
Speaker 1Yeah, they're doing like portraits of each other and there's like sheets everywhere. Yeah, right, stuff like like that happens. It wasn't like that.
Speaker 2No one made out no.
Speaker 1It was really wholesome and sweet.
Speaker 2Sounds kind of regal, though Like that kind of vibe no.
Speaker 1No.
Speaker 2Was the furniture still there?
Artistic Exploration and Creative Discourse
Speaker 1The furniture was there, okay, but it just felt like a living room party, like it was just really sweet and wholesome and it was such a great night and wholesome and it was such a great night and everything was going great and I did the ceramicist, like the ceramic part, I did like mingling, I had some snacks and then we got to the painting part of the evening and me and Mel who came with me, we sat down to do a painting and this artist her name's Tannis, she's very talented and she was going to teach us all how to make this like oil-based watercolor painting and like her work is beautiful, like it's so stunning. But it's one of those like you know, when you go in an art gallery and you're like, hmm, I feel like I could do that. It's kind of like similar vibes, not that her work is like that, but it was like similar, kind of like it doesn't look super complicated to like the untrained eye yeah, it was like you know, you don't really see everything that goes into it.
Speaker 1So that's kind of like how I went into this. So we got a canvas, we got like our palette, like our paints, our brushes, different like sponges, and then she did this like walk through and she's like this is your mood board. So she had these like like printouts of like different like ocean scenes and like caves and like all these beautiful like ocean scenes and like caves and like all these beautiful like photography. And she's like this is the mood board that inspired this piece and this is the mood board that inspired this piece. She's like now, here's your mood board and here's your colors. And then it was like go crazy.
Speaker 1And I like was really struggling because I don't I'm not like a free form person that can just just like use their hands to make something Like I need structures, I need paint by numbers. I need someone to show me like this is right, this is wrong. Now take your brush and do this. So I was literally like paralyzed. I felt like I was having an existential crisis, because I was like what do I do now? And she's like just do whatever, whatever you're inspired to do, and I'm like what does that?
Speaker 1mean yeah like I literally could not compute, like I couldn't understand pick up, like I was like, okay, I pick up my paintbrush, put in the paint and then what, like blank canvas, is like really intimidating yeah so I did my best and I went through many like.
Speaker 1I feel like it was like art therapy for me, because I started one way and then I completely painted the whole board and started another way. Then I see people like pouring water and people using these like like, um, like boards to like move the water on the canvas. It was like crazy. So I tried a little bit of everything and then ended up with like a nice brown piece with a few splotches, and I actually left my painting there because I was so discouraged by it but anyways, I went through like quite the emotional roller coaster in 40 minutes on my own, so it was quite the night.
Speaker 2Wow, considering the roller coaster, you came home pretty cheerful.
Speaker 1Yeah, it was a great event. I still had like such a great time. I just walked away with so much respect for artists who don't. Great event. I still had like such a great time. I just walked away with so much respect for artists who don't get like a playbook, you know.
Speaker 2Drew, are you listening?
Speaker 1all the artists and then, on top of that, people judging them like me. It's like, oh, that doesn't look that hard. Like, yeah right, like I could never, ever it's so vulnerable to put out art in the world. But then also like like it just takes so much restraint and creativity and like I walked away with the whole newfound respect for artists and creative work and all that.
Speaker 2It's like yeah, creativity and imagination, but also like discipline, in a way to not like try to do too much right like when?
Speaker 1do you know when to stop?
Speaker 2I know it's also like kind of like communication, like it's easy to try and fit in too many ideas and like if you're speaking at an event or like.
Speaker 2I don't know, I don't need to force that analogy, but I feel like you and me, at our company, we have the luxury of getting to have ideas but not necessarily be responsible for, like, using our hands to bring them to life right, because we have a great team. So, yeah, I could see. I think I would be crippled in the same way, where it's one thing to visualize something in my mind, like I can maybe picture what I'd want the canvas to look like, but how do I get there?
Speaker 1I don't know. No, it was so, it was so crazy cool.
Speaker 2It sounds like a fun event. Yeah, you showed me a picture of the charcuterie and that looked wild.
Speaker 1I know the charcuterie, it was beautiful and I was actually I was totally planning to like do something and then bring it home and then like prank you and tell you that I like it was like worth six thousand dollars but I got it at an auction for like two thousand, and be like really excited and see how you'd react. But I was just like I didn't bring it home yeah, couldn't, couldn't sell it, probably no but yeah, that was my evening amazing charcuterie reminds me of that show we've been watching.
Speaker 2Nobody wants this. When the mom eats the, it's the charcuterie in the kitchen yeah, that shows like the talk of social media.
Speaker 1Right now, everyone's watching it, which is really exciting because it's been a while since we've all like collectively, as a society, watched a show together, so we binged it when was the last time like game of thrones? I mean, it depends on who you ask. There's a new shot audience for everything.
Speaker 2You could say, like everyone's watching the bear for a little bit yeah, that felt less communal though, because even us, like, we watched the first few episodes of season one of the bear and then kind of abandoned it and then, like months later, returned to it and then got hooked, you know, but yeah, to your point, I feel like it has been a community experience. And one thing I feel like we've been lacking beyond just watching a tv show in community with people on the internet is a good rom-com yeah like we've been craving a good rom-com, we and we've thought about it in more of like a movie context.
Speaker 2But even what we talked about last week, it's hard to kind of stick with movies right now and I feel like when we went to watch this we actually thought it was a movie and then we we opened it up and it was episode one.
Speaker 1We were like yes, it's a show. I was so thrilled that it was a show. I'm like yeah, that's my format.
Speaker 2But it's great for millennials because it just brought us back to the OC days.
Speaker 1I know I love Seth Cohen, I love Sandy Cohen, and Kristen Bell is fun too.
Speaker 2She's got some good OG movies and like comedies that we've all enjoyed.
Speaker 1Yeah, so you watched the OC when it was live.
Speaker 2I didn't watch all of it. I definitely watched enough to like know what was happening and be part of like the cultural moment at the time. Yeah, nice.
Beyonce Collaboration With Levi's
Speaker 1Yeah, it's a good show. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend you check it out. I'm also watching the golden bachelorette and I think I'm like alone in this. This is a show that's like the complete opposite of nobody wants this because I'm the only one watching it. Well, me and alissa on our team are the only ones watching it, but it's so good I feel like a lot of people aren't watching it because it is like too emotional right.
Speaker 1It's like. I mean there's it's funny because it's like it's so emotional, like people can't bear to watch it. But then there's shows like Breaking Bad and like Game of Thrones that are so intense and like to me that feels like something, something I wouldn't yeah, but those are more of like a they take you out of your reality kind of intense, whereas even breaking bad I think so, although to your point, like we never got through breaking bad because it was too stressful yeah maybe less that one, maybe they're separate.
Speaker 2Game of thrones is because it's like fantasy. It just feels completely disconnected from reality so it's almost therapeutic in that way where breaking bad just makes you feel like someone's. If you look out your window, someone's going to be like parked at your curb like watching you with binoculars or something.
Speaker 1I guess my point is I like just wonder what it says about us as a, as a society where we have more of an appetite for like violence and like gore over something so wholesome like widows falling in love.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's someone talking about their husband that passed away and how much they miss them.
Speaker 1Like people are like I can't go there.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's too much.
Speaker 1Children being beheaded like we'll get through it. Whoa Well, that's what the show, that's what. What was it? House of Dragon.
Speaker 2I guess. Yeah, there's some hectic stuff in those shows for sure, anyways. Do you want to get into thing one?
Speaker 1Let's do it. Thing one this is a big thing of the week for me especially is a proud member of the Beehive. Beyonce released a collaboration with Levi's and it's fine.
Speaker 2It's fine. I never thought I'd see the day that you, speaking about something Beyonce related, would just say it's fine.
Speaker 1I know, like, I know, like, I know I, when it comes to Beyonce, like I live my life with, like, like arms wide open and wallets wide open for anything that she has to offer me, I hear that, but unfortunately this just wasn't quite what I wanted, what I needed. But I'm going to hold hope, because this is one of many.
Speaker 2There's apparently more to come.
Speaker 1Yes, Chapters in this collaboration. Beyonce just loves to do chapters. She's all about like this is the end of one chapter. This is the start of the next chapter, Kind of like her Renaissance albums.
Speaker 2Maybe there's something psychologically there in the same way that, like we don't really like movies, but we like TV shows.
Speaker 1So you're saying I'm kind of like Beyonce.
Speaker 2No, maybe there's something happening, just like in the culture. That's like we need everything to be episodic.
Speaker 1Right, maybe, although I feel like I'm the only one who thinks that way.
Speaker 2You think so? Maybe, I mean, I feel like TV used to be like the inferior version or the inferior side of Hollywood compared to the movie side of Hollywood, and now it's it's flipped. So I think, right, it's not just you oh, that's good.
Speaker 1Well, anyways, back to Beyonce. She teased a collaboration with Levi's, like for the last few weeks or, I guess, week or so and it was actually turned out to be a collaboration which is a reaction to Beyonce's latest album, which included a song track called Levi's Jeans. The track spelled Levi's L-E-V-I-I Jeans, while Levi's the company is L-E-V-I, so there's a little bit of a difference there. So apparently this track was actually surprised to the Levi's marketing team and when the track list first went live, the CMO and the team is like scrambling to come up with something to make this moment matter for the for the company classic, I know which I was the classic brand marketing team scramble like.
Speaker 1I can't believe that they didn't know that Beyonce was working on a song about what they're like. Name in it.
Speaker 2You would. You would think that, but also, like Beyonce, isn't that thirsty to be getting her team to give the Levi's a heads up just so that you can get that brand partnership, you know yeah.
Speaker 1So I was reading an article about this and they talked about with the like CMO of Levi's and I guess when they saw this happen they knew they needed to react to it and make it a moment. And the big plan that they wanted to do is make or, I guess, convert more women to become shoppers of Levi's. So currently the company says that a third of their shoppers are women. They wanted to bump that up to 50%, which I thought was interesting, because sometimes you see these collaborations and some people who maybe aren't in our industry would be like, oh that was really cool that they did. But I think with all these collaborations there's a goal in mind and I think for this one specifically, it was to increase the number of women customers For this one specifically it was to increase the number of women customers.
Speaker 1So Levi's announced the campaign. It's called Reimagine with Two Eyes and it's a campaign that's going to stretch into 2025. And it will unfold over four chapters. Also, beyonce loves the number four. If you don't know Beyonce, her birthday is September 4th. Her husband's birthday is December 4th. Her husband's birthday is December 4th, her mom's birthday is May 4th, or something like that. She just loves the number four. And then Blue Ivy is like the Roman numeral four.
Speaker 2And Jay-Z has the album 444.
Speaker 1Right, they're both like obsessed with the number four, so it's kind of cool that there's four chapters to this collaboration.
Speaker 2What are these fours there for?
Speaker 1nice, um. But they're also going to lean heavily into the history of the company and really focus their shift into women. So the first iteration of this collaboration was commercial. That, you know, shows beyonce going to this laundromat laundromat is you say it.
Speaker 2Yep.
Speaker 1Where they wash clothes, and she's carrying a bucket of diamonds, or like jewels, and she, like, takes off her Levi's jeans, puts them into the laundry machine and then pours the diamonds into the laundry machine and she's wearing like a cowboy hat, of course, and just getting her laundry done as one does.
Speaker 2And you're telling me they didn't put the diamonds on the jeans right.
Speaker 1So that's the thing that can kind of like feels a little meh to me is there's nothing special about the product. So usually when you see a celebrity collab with a brand, like they do some personalization to the product. But there was nothing. It was just like your basic Levi's jeans and there's nothing wrong with Levi's jeans, but I just wish they would have added something to it.
Speaker 2No kidding, yeah, I don't know. It's giving to me that Levi's didn't have the budget to take this all the way. Could have been anything. Maybe Beyonce just didn't want to, yeah, or maybe it reminds me of that Michael Jordan movie recently with Ben Affleck, where the whole fight between Jordan and Michael, or between Nike and Michael Jordan, was around Jordan wanting a royalty like an indefinite royalty, and they had never done that for an athlete before Right.
Speaker 2I wonder if maybe there's something going on here with that where Beyonce's like if you, if, if we're gonna do a collab product, then I need a royalty, and Levi's just wanted to pay her for her, her presence it's an appearance, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, that could very well be it like a deeper partnership would cost more and they just didn't have the budget for it.
Speaker 1I don't know, I just and I also feel like beyonce doesn't care that much, she's not that invested to do it right yeah and that like made me start going down this rabbit trail about her other brand.
Speaker 1So right now she's really pushing her whiskey brand. It's called like I forget, sir, something, um, but it just makes me kind of sad because I I mean'm a huge Beyonce fan and she has such an intense fan base but for some reason her brands don't really become these huge global, billion dollar brands like other celebrity brands are. So it just kind of made me start thinking about it and I read like a few articles about it and some deep dives and I guess the consensus, what I think, is that Beyonce is that kind of like uber celebrity that is a bit like she's hard to touch. You know, she kind of lives in a different orbit. She really doesn't live in our common person orbit and she's not that relatable. And I just feel like when I compare it to a celebrity brand like skims for example like you know, kim wears skims you know, it's so she wears nothing but skims right and it's so like it's such an extension of who she is.
Speaker 1Same goes with like road beauty, which is another big beauty brand that's coming out with hayley bieber or is out and it's very popular. But you see her use it like she uses it in her daily life. She posts about it. Like the things in her life feel like I know her lifestyle and I can kind of relate to some pieces of her lifestyle. It's not so out of touch for me and she's wearing this lip gloss and I want to wear that lip gloss. Like that's not so out of touch for me and she's wearing this lip gloss and I want to wear that lip gloss. Like that's kind of how like celebrity brands work.
Speaker 1And same with like Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez, like she is using that product and all these companies are huge, huge brands. And I just feel like with Beyonce when she she's released brands like Ivy Parker or her recent brand, sacred, which is her hair product brand, it just feels a little too produced and not as organic. And it's sad to see because I want Beyonce's brands to do well. I want her hair care line to be as big as Fenty Beauty, but for some reason, because Beyonce is, like so, intentionally private and doesn't keep us into her daily life. She doesn't really get the same kind of like. She doesn't give us the same access that we need in order to buy into her brand.
Speaker 2So yeah, I 100% agree. It kind of has this like launch and walk away kind of attitude to it. It kind of has this like launch and walk away kind of attitude to it, when I'm even just as you're talking, I'm trying to think of other artists and celebrities with brands.
Speaker 2And everyone I can think of like their brand really embodies them. Kanye West is a funny topic these days but like Yeezy was like Kanye, you know he wore it all the time. It was his brainchild, it all. He like pushed the envelope um and stood by his decisions and he was always talking about it and integrating it into shows and other types of experiences.
Celebrity Brands and Primetime Business
Speaker 2Rihanna is a big one. That's like she wins big with her brands, um, and even in sports, like Michael Jordan is the obvious one, but other kinds of like namesake brands like Kobe and, uh, even more recently, anthony Edwards and people like that, yeah, I agree it just feels kind of like a line item on their like business plan for the year.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, and the other thing is like Beyonce doesn't need to do brands, like she's successful with just her music, um, and she's so famous that like she's either going to have to sacrifice her privacy to make her brands bigger or just not expect much from them, you know.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1Which reminds me like the only other celebrity that's like that big like her is Taylor Swift, who's also incredibly successful just through her music. She doesn't need a brand to like make her uber famous, you know, or put her into like a billionaire status, like she's already doing that with just music, which is really hard to do.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure. She just put out a merch line.
Speaker 1Taylor.
Speaker 2As apparently a bit of a nod to Travis Kelsey. It's called Greatest in the League and she put it out on National Boyfriend Day.
Speaker 1That is so cute.
Speaker 2I'm surprised you didn't know that.
Speaker 1I didn't know that.
Speaker 2Well, now, you know, I love that you might have to get some stuff. Is it like great, like what?
Speaker 1is it? That's all I know.
Speaker 2I haven't like seen it, but that is so cute yeah I love that I appreciate your little post on national boyfriend day too.
Speaker 1You're welcome I saw that um the kansas city chiefs team was wearing like these travis kelsey shirts because he had like a bad media few days I actually saw something about that too, and I didn't understand what his bad media was. Well, I think people were just like talking a lot about how like he didn't get any passes in a game and like everyone's like calling him to retire because he had like one bad game Right.
Speaker 2And so he had a slow start to the year.
Speaker 1His team for practice or before the game, were all wearing, like Travis Kelsey, fan shirts, which I thought was really nice that is nice.
Speaker 2I'm not a big Mahomes fan, but right, I'll get past it.
Speaker 1I like Travis yeah, I do like Travis. I like. Jason. I know, jason is too fun he's how I want to be in like 10 years yeah, they're so irreverent to like fan like they love their fans. They're so nice to their fans but they're so irreverent to like fan like they love their fans. They're so nice to their fans but they're so irreverent to like pop culture and like the lore about them that it makes them. It makes me like them more like him and Kylie.
Speaker 2I was just about to fact check if Kylie was her name, but you're right yeah, I know but that's what gave me pause.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2But yeah, the Kelsey brothers are fun Speaking of podcasters they're big podcasters Speaking of the NFL. Maybe someday we'll get our big deal.
Speaker 1I know. Speaking of the NFL, I saw a TikTok the other day that said that Carrie Underwood, like her song for Sunday Night Football, gets her a million dollars a week.
Speaker 2I mean NFL, like football in general, is just big business. I know that's not shocking.
Speaker 1So she makes about $18 million per season just for that song.
Speaker 2Just for one game a week and she doesn't even need to perform it live. See, that's the difference between the day slate and primetime games, because her jingle is for Sunday night football specifically, so those primetime spots do stand apart.
Speaker 1I know you've explained primetime to me so many times. I still don't know which one's primetime Sunday night.
Speaker 2It's the evening games.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2On Thursday, sunday and Monday because there's only a single game. Usually Sometimes there's a double header, but typically there's just a single game. Usually Sometimes there's a doubleheader, but typically there's just a single game.
Speaker 2So primetime means Kind of like you were talking about last week, Matthew Perry and friends and they were fighting for the primetime spot when they started. Same thing in football. That primetime spot is like the highest viewership and the most attention to, just because there's not a bunch of other games going on at the same time, right, there's not as many competing games. Yeah, so Carrie Underwood's jingle is specifically for the Sunday primetime game.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2And I think she's been doing it now since 2005.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it's crazy, it's just one night, it's not even like all primetime, it's not like Monday night song is her song and Sunday night song and yeah, a million dollars a week to be the jingle for one game.
Speaker 2I know that's so nice, legit um I'm sure she doesn't take all that home like she's got, probably like her agents, producers and all the other people that take their cut.
Speaker 1But but carrie underwood, underwood inc. Carrie underwood and co yeah someone said mitzi and co as a reference to our team, because they wanted us to do something For their whatever Like work and I just thought that was so cool.
Speaker 2Should we rebrand?
Speaker 1To Mitzi Co yeah Sure.
Speaker 2Alright, let's run it.
Speaker 1Okay, I also wanted to talk about Kim Kardashian, because she wrote an open letter Asking for the Menendez brothers to be freed, and apparently it worked. The LA prosecutors in that case are reviewing new evidence in the Menendez brothers case that could lead to a resentencing Do you want to say who those people are. I don't remember their first names.
Speaker 2But they're a topic right now because of the, there's a new show about them.
Speaker 1Yes, by Ryan Murphy. It's such a crazy. We attempted it.
Speaker 2Are we going to keep watching it?
Speaker 1No, I don't think I can Like I had kind of like weird vibes Not even to be part of the moment. Like I, I want to. I want to watch it, but I don't know.
Speaker 2Like I, watching them kill their parents. It was a lot, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1I do want to know, like I think I've seen a lot on TikTok and the thing that I'm seeing on TikTok is that the way they're portrayed in the show is not really like accurate. Like some parts of the court scenes are very accurate, but then like they're, it's not accurate in other ways, like this, like gruesome, like portrayal of them is not accurate.
Speaker 2Got to make it interesting for the screen, you know.
Speaker 1Totally. Keep people off their phones. I know, it gets darker.
Speaker 2Really yeah, let's not.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2We can just read about it.
Speaker 1I know a lot about it. So I feel like I've gotten the gist. But I mean it looks really good.
Speaker 2Kim Kardashian has really taken her lawyer thing seriously, getting people out of jail.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'd love to see it.
Meta AR Smart Glasses and Alkofina
Speaker 2Fair enough. Put some respect on the name. I was a doubter at first. Should we get into thing two, let's do it. Someone put facial recognition tech into Meta's smart glasses to instantly dox strangers, dox strangers. So we talked about Meta's AR smart glasses. Smart glasses, man man.
Speaker 2I'm struggling right now because we didn't have tequila shots I know you're putting us on blast we started a little tradition where we have a little sip of tequila before each episode, just to kind of loosen loosen up the gears. Today it's just coffee and water, so maybe we need to get back to the tradition next week.
Speaker 2But we'll see um meta's smart glasses called orion. Um, we talked about that last week with the story around snapchat, but, um, there's a little bit more development to the story this week, as now there's the ability in these concept glasses to be able to, um, as you're looking at a person, pull in information from the internet about them, even their contact information and where they live, and things like that.
Speaker 1And like who their family members are.
Speaker 2Yeah, and what they do for work and what their social handles are and all that kind of stuff. So I feel like we've all seen this before in like futuristic movies and stuff. But I think what it reminded me most of was Black Mirror. You remember season one like? I don't think did we even watch past season one, maybe a couple episodes and other seasons, but season one there is that classic episode where it was all about people kind of like rating each other. It was futuristic and you'd put your phone up and stuff would pop up about the person and then you'd rate them based on the interaction you had with them yeah um, and it was so kind of alarming and off-putting, but I feel like we're still slowly moving in that direction in real life, especially with AI now.
Speaker 2But it also reminded me we were recently on slack with our team sharing our uber ratings with each other and looking at that and comparing notes and and it was interesting even just to feel the feelings of getting poor ratings as drivers or as passengers on uber and you had the worst rating of the whole team was it the whole team?
Speaker 1yeah, I'm pretty sure everyone who was willing to share their ratings, you had the worst rating, it's because I shared too many rides with drew I think, yeah, I don't know what you did, because yours is the worst, you know what I think it actually is.
Speaker 2I, because at first I was like, oh, it must have been during covid, when you're required to wear masks, and I forgot to wear masks a couple times and they still accepted me as a passenger and didn't say anything about it but then I got reported later.
Speaker 2It was honestly an accident, but I wondered if that was one of a few of the five one-star ratings I have out of hundreds. Yeah, it's not that bad, but I actually think sometimes I use Uber Eats to order like groceries, like from Sentara or something like that, if we need milk for kids or just like little miscellaneous items like that, and you always have to pick like a replacement item for the things that you order, in case it's not in stock, and I usually do that. But then sometimes if they don't have that thing available or the replacement item, they'll try to contact you right, and I never notice when they contact me.
Speaker 1So I feel like some of these guys are just like chilling in Santerra waiting for me to reply, like trying to call me but I'm on, do not disturb, and like putting our kids to bed or something like that, definitely it so that's got to be where the one stars came I'm sure they're also silently judging you, like this guy's like making me come to his house for like three, three boxes of oat milk and well, you think I'm the only one like there's.
Speaker 2It's on there. There's got to be lots of people that do that I don't know.
Speaker 1Sometimes they're like uber, like grocery.
Speaker 2Deliveries are kind of like silly I mean, they're getting paid and I always tip.
Speaker 1well, yeah, true.
Speaker 2Sometimes time is money.
Speaker 1It's true Always, time is money.
Speaker 2Yeah. So that was my self-exploration of why on earth did I have the worst rating? But also the worst rating was like 4.82 out of five. Like it was still a respectable rating.
Speaker 1They must, like, rate the ones higher than the rest.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Because you only had five one-star ratings.
Speaker 2anyways, I think once you get up to a certain amount of reviews, then the old ones start to disappear off your record. I think it's a few hundred or 500 or something like that, and I feel like I'm getting close to whatever that number is, so hopefully some of my one stars will start to fall off the back end of my my reviews also okay.
Speaker 1So this story is about two Harvard students who did this. Like don't, aren't the Harvard students busy? Like is this part of their like class project? Because I just feel like so many things like Harvard students are just like pulling off so many different like projects and stunts and like making such a big impact Like it wasn't meta started by two Harvard students.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2I feel like schools like that and they might not be like bachelor studies, they might be like masters or like other kinds of programs, yeah, or this could be like a thesis project or something Right where it's like you're actually doing real life cases and coming up with solutions to real life problems.
Speaker 1So it's likely that kind of like.
Speaker 2AI project you know, yeah.
Speaker 1Meanwhile we're just complaining that we're behind in our first syllabus class. Yeah.
Speaker 2Like these.
Speaker 1Harvard students are actually doing like real work for the world.
Speaker 2I'd like to think that if I went back and did a master's now, at this point, I'd be a much better student.
Speaker 1I'd like to think that too, but then I heard about Alyssa writing her thesis and it was like 42 pages and I was like hard no.
Speaker 2It's a big commitment.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I need to get my rating up on Uber so that I don't get some like weird blacklist like in Black Mirror eventually. But there is a new season of Black Mirror coming in 2025. There's some pretty cool cast on it, like Issa Rae and Awkwafina. Awkwafina, honestly, is probably like one of my low key, like underrated favorite actresses, because she's in all the disney movies that we watch and she's just her voice is so distinct and she's just really straight up funny yeah, she is funny.
Speaker 1I'm actually really proud of her. I think about her often, so it's funny you're bringing her up.
Speaker 2I wish I had a friend like her I know same.
Speaker 1I think about her often because she's really figured out like how to monetize her assets, like she's in so many movies, like animated movies, her voice, and her voice is so distinguishable and it's not like too much, like I'm sick of this. I. I actually just want more and I'm like I feel like an animated gig is such a nice gig because you don't have to like, like it's not that, it can't be that hard like little mermaid you mean yeah, like. So I'm just like really proud of her yeah, I'm proud of her too.
Speaker 2I feel like she was fun in in animated movies like little mermaid as scuttle. But what was that? Oh crazy rich asians she was like that's not animated that's like an.
Speaker 1She actually acted in that and she was hilarious in that yeah, and she was also in another movie that we both really liked, where the grandmother told everyone she was gonna die and then she didn't, and it was like just her way of like getting her whole family together I do not remember that I feel bad that I don't know the title of it, but I really liked that. No, you didn't. We both liked it. It felt it gave indie film vibes.
Speaker 2I can't remember the name of it, but I feel like I'm like sort of picturing it. I just can't really remember the plot.
Speaker 1But but yeah, I like alcofina, so are we gonna?
Speaker 2watch the new black mirror.
Speaker 1That's, that was gonna be my question no, I think if I were to watch it, I'd want to, like, read a synopsis and spoil it a little bit before, like before I watch the episode, because some of them are so dark. Some of them are still lingering in my mind. I can't believe it. The pig episode.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was messed. That was crazy. Yeah, the writer Charlie Brooker said it's going to be a mix. They're apparently all sci-fi this time all six but there's going to be a mix of disturbing. Some will be funny and some will be emotional. What's you like emotional? You're watching the golden, golden bachelorette yeah, I'll watch emotional and funny.
Speaker 2I'll probably skip the disturbing yeah, I think so too yeah but beggars can't be choosers and we don't have a show right now um, I have a show golden bachelorette yeah yeah, but you're, it's once a week, you know yeah.
Speaker 1We need more than that.
Speaker 2We watch more than once a week. For sure we do have Shrinking Season 2 coming out in. October, I think the 16th.
Speaker 1What was that other sci-fi show that we liked with?
Speaker 2Rashida Jones in common Silo, silo. I think that's coming out soon.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Or is it next year, I don't know. We'll see. All right, so maybe we'll watch Black Mirror For thing three, lvmh and F1 announced a decade-long partnership to begin in 2025. A statement from Formula One and LVMH described the deal as an unprecedented agreement between the world leader in luxury and the pinnacle of motorsport.
Speaker 1What makes it unprecedented? Like it's not, like any of us didn't see this coming.
Speaker 2Well, I think a lot of people might be surprised, but we saw this coming because of Scan Club. Oh, we've been monitoring for a long time all these signals around sports and fashion.
Speaker 1Right. But LVMH it's like the luxury house of luxury houses, and formula one is such an elite sport like, of course. This makes so much sense it does make sense.
Speaker 2I think it's gonna be cool, but I think that quote is definitely like a media release kind of quote.
Speaker 1It's like sensationalistic for sure.
Speaker 2So as part of the deal lvmh um, a few of their brands, including louis vuitton, moet, hennessy and tag ewer, will enjoy sponsorship opportunities across the sport, and other brands under the lvmh umbrella also include sephora and amelion door, which are less talked about. But I'm curious like how many of the brands in the portfolio become a part of this deal? Is it just the big kind of classic Maisons?
Speaker 1like.
Speaker 2Louis Vuitton, or is it the whole family? You know?
Speaker 1I love how you said Maisons.
Speaker 2I said it like that because I don't really know how to say it, so I was just trying to like, sound like.
Speaker 1I know how to say it yeah, what do you think though? Um, I feel like this is just an exclusivity thing. I think they're just like signing this deal to make sure, like none of the other, like non-lvmh properties, try to get in into the f1 and f1 business do you think there's exclusivity in it?
Speaker 1because, like, f1's been doing stuff with puma and puma hired asap rocky to be the creative director specifically of their f1 partnership and there's just in general, been other houses and brands that have been part of the f1 world yeah, I would assume so, because I feel like sometimes when these big global like sports events sign deals, they make like official partnerships, like, for example, like the olympics, like you can be an official olympic partner and you're allowed to use certain terms, like in your marketing, like olympic whatever, like before a product, but if you're creating some sort of marketing campaign around the olympic event, you can't use certain language because you're not a certified olympic partner so that's what I feel like is exclusivity in the language that they'll be able to use around this and I'm sure, like all the like events and side situations and collabs, like I feel I would just I would hope that there's some exclusivity with it.
Speaker 2Yeah, maybe they end up kind of being a gatekeeper for other sorts of experiences and activations.
F1 Fashion, Villains, and Heroes
Speaker 2Like I think about the F1 event in Las Vegas this past year, when Joshua Vidas as an artist, for example I think this was a signal that we tracked, but he got to do some stuff with the Ferrari team and he created their custom driver uniforms and he painted the actual race cars for the race itself and they put out a series of products. So maybe now, instead of that just being a collaboration direct from an artist to a F1 team, maybe it'll be like an artist through one of these fashion brands with the F1 team or something like that.
Speaker 1Yeah, I would assume that, like, teams could still get their own partnerships and sponsorships though, because this is F1. Like is F1 kind of like the league, like it'd be like right.
Speaker 2It'd be like the NFL Right.
Speaker 1So I just would be shocked if there's like F1, I almost said players, drivers couldn't get their own partnerships.
Speaker 2Yeah for sure. Like Lewis Hamilton, doesn't want to be limited by whatever F1's licensing deal is and what he wears to his races by any means Right he wears to his races by any means.
Speaker 2Right, speaking of Lewis Hamilton, obviously we, many of us, if not all of us, know about drive to survive, the show on Netflix that's kind of catapulted F1 into more like mass appeal. But there's also a movie in the works called apex. That's being produced by Apple in partnership with Lewis Hamilton and it's going to be starring Brad Pitt. So there's just more and more happening in this kind of like F1 atmosphere that's bringing it and increasing and kind of like accelerating its popularity.
Speaker 2And some people, as I was researching this, are speculating that it's going to be part of the big three or four of like global sports brands, which right now I think most would agree. It's going to be part of the big three or four of like global sports brands which right now I think most would agree. It's football, basketball and tennis. Um, tennis, yeah, tennis is up there. It's huge. In the fashion space. It's almost more like, maybe a little bit more exclusive, than basketball and football, um, but they're also saturated with fashion partnerships already. So F1 is kind of the unharvested crop for lack of better words where there's more opportunity and less competition so far. So it makes sense that they're going after this now. But it's interesting to note that F1, specifically, beyond just having more mass appeal, their Gen Z audience has really boomed.
Speaker 1Interesting, interesting.
Speaker 2Yeah, so I think every fashion house is wanting Gen Z's attention right now.
Speaker 1Yeah, of course they're like the up and coming generation. But yeah, I mean, I remember watching Drive to Survive and I was like really it was such a good show but it didn't turn me into a fan, which was like shocking, because it didn't. Like I haven't really paid attention to anything related to f1 for a while. I mean, it was a, it was a really good show and I was like, oh, this is really cool and it obviously made me more respectful of the sport, but I wasn't like it was.
Speaker 1It didn't do the same thing to me like hard knocks did right, okay.
Speaker 2Well, if I had to pick between football or f1 for you, I'd prefer you be excited about football.
Speaker 1Yeah, it might be because there were no wags in it.
Speaker 2Maybe, although the thing I do like that I've noticed about F1 compared to like football and basketball, for example, is just the level of like villain story that exists in it, like I think you kind of have your role players in the nba and the nfl that some are like the likable ones and some are the family ones, and some are the, so they kind of have a villain kind of attitude or or persona about them, but they don't lean into it as heavy.
Speaker 2But I think in the f1 space or in the f1 world there's definitely like heroes and villains, yeah, and for a while.
Speaker 2It kind of seemed like lewis hamilton had a bit of the villain edge. F1 space or in the F1 world there's definitely like heroes and villains. Yeah, and for a while it kind of seemed like Lewis Hamilton had a bit of the villain edge, but then Max Verstappen came onto the scene and just his whole personality. He doesn't care about anything, He'd do anything to win and he wins most of the time. I feel like is like one of the bigger villains in sports right now.
Speaker 2I feel like is like one of the bigger villains in sports right now and obviously every F1 racer and team wants to win every event. But I think almost as much as they want to win, they want Max to lose.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know, I don't think you see that as much in other sports, at least not right now. No, I love sports, athlete villains, like I think it's so cool that it reminds me of that Nike campaign where it was like, am I bad? And it was oh my gosh. I still sometimes just like go and find it and watch that ad. It's so good. It's like the OG Nike voice, which I think was Willem Dafoe.
Speaker 1He's also like a villain, like a movie villain where he plays a lot in villains. But it was like am I bad? Because you know I win. Like am I bad? And I just love, like I. I love when people are like so good that it makes you want to see them lose. Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 2Right yeah, michael Jordan, lebron James. But I think more than any of those sports. It's like that right now in F1. And I think what goes really well with a hero and a villain is fashion. Like you think about movies like James Bond and Mission Impossible, there's always like it. It's set in like Europe and they're wearing suits and designer and like things like that and it's all these like really high end, high net worth kind of moments and that seems like the reality coming from a F1 and LVMH partnership.
Speaker 1Yeah, have you seen like the trend on TikTok, when people are like, oh, oh, I'm entering my villain era?
Speaker 2I feel like I've heard that term, but I don't think I've necessarily seen it on TikTok.
Speaker 1Yeah, as much as I love that, like I wish I could embody that, that's so not me, no you're not a villain.
Speaker 2I'm way too nice. I wish I was villain.
Speaker 1I gave villain vibes. Why?
Speaker 2Because that's kind of cool. You're my hero.
Speaker 1That's, but I want to be your villain.
Speaker 2You do. I'll talk to you about that later.
Speaker 1You're just pumped Friday night, you can be my villain. No, no.
Speaker 2Yeah, I like a good villain story and the vibes that come with it.
Speaker 1Who do you think is the most iconic villain? Whoa.
Speaker 2Do you have one in mind?
Speaker 1The first thing that came to mind is Ursula from Little Mermaid.
Speaker 2Wow, the first thing that came to mind.
Speaker 1I mean I'm sure there's better. I mean like the Joker, yes, so misunderstood Joker's iconic. That is a really good villain, yeah.
Speaker 2I don't know.
Speaker 1I'm kind of spinning my tires.
Speaker 2It's hard to choose.
Speaker 1Well, what villains are you thinking about?
Speaker 2Well, yeah, I think my brain first went to Batman, because I've always loved Batman. The interesting thing about Batman too, now that you bring up the Joker is there's always kind of that question in your mind with Batman is like is he actually a hero or is he a villain?
Speaker 1Yeah, that's the thing, like it really depends on your perspective. Anyone can be a hero and anyone can be a villain, like, I'm sure, to the villain.
Speaker 2The hero is the villain, so you still have potential to be a villain. You come off as a hero right now, but If you look deeper, I could be the villain.
Speaker 1I will look deeper, stop yeah.
Show Recommendations and Interaction
Speaker 2Anyways, we're going to explore this further. Well, that's all we have for today. So make sure that you subscribe on YouTube and follow along on Instagram. Catch our clips, leave us a comment. Most of all, I think, out of this week, we need help picking our next show to watch.
Speaker 1So if you have any ideas.
Speaker 2We don't like things that are overly disturbing. We don't want to be scared or stressed. We love rom-coms, but also a little bit of fantasy or sci-fi here and there. You love a documentary. I need to be in a certain mood for a doc, especially a docu series, because that's a serious commitment. But yeah, if you got anything good, especially something that's funny, drop it in a comment on youtube or instagram and we'll let you know if we watch it thanks for watching.
Speaker 1See you next time I almost forgot oh goodness, oh no, it's backwards, it's not too, not too loud.
Speaker 2Thanks for listening, great job, salutations.
Speaker 1We need to get that branded. We're going to keep it around.