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In a spring and summer that has been dominated by female artists, Nora and Nathan talk about some of the male artists that have managed to break through on the charts: Post Malone, Zach Bryan, and Eminem. They discuss Post Malone’s forthcoming country album and what it tells us about the evolution of Nashville’s music scene (1:00), Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene and his rebellion against the music industry (27:16), and Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) and whether the rapper has the capacity to shock anymore (53:48).
Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Nathan Hubbard
Producer: Kaya McMullen
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Nora Princiotti
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Last week, I posited that the Xbox showcase on June 9 would be the most important in the history of Microsoft’s gaming division. If it wasn’t, that could be because this slick prerecorded show couldn’t possibly compete for historical impact with, for example, the garbage fire that was the 2013 Xbox One reveal event, or the bungled E3 show that followed it. It was confident and smooth in its orchestration, impressive in a way that was almost calming after the awkward anticlimax of Summer Game Fest two days earlier. But it was still immensely significant: for its indication of the seismic publishing power Microsoft now holds, for the questions it answered about Xbox’s future, and for the questions it didn’t.
In fact, the two most telling bits of news emerged outside the boundaries of the show itself. The first was the confirmation, more than a week before the show, that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be released on Game Pass on day one. The second, which was not mentioned by Microsoft during its showcase but slipped out in a press release alongside it, is that Doom: The Dark Ages (one of the biggest first-party reveals of the event) is also coming to PlayStation 5.
Between them, these two facts spell out Microsoft’s strategy quite clearly: Game Pass is everything, and Xbox consoles aren’t. Microsoft is doubling down hard on its subscription service, and bringing its new, almost terrifying might as a game publisher to bear on the Game Pass catalog. But the company had little to say about Xbox hardware, and its attitude to console exclusivity for Microsoft-owned games remains ambivalent at best.
After the shock release of four former Xbox exclusives on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch earlier this year, many Xbox fans were looking to Sunday’s showcase for explicit reassurance that Microsoft was still investing in Xbox consoles by getting its vast army of first-party studios to make exclusive games for them. That reassurance did not come. In fact, Xbox console exclusivity was not mentioned once. The words “coming to Xbox Series X and PC” appeared as much at the end of trailers for games in storied Xbox franchises like Fable and Gears of War as they did for multiplatform releases from third-party publishers like Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Assassin’s Creed Shadows. There was no attempt at differentiation on this score.
Reports indicate that Microsoft has “no red line” internally when it comes to which of its games it will consider for release on other platforms, and the wording (or lack of it) used on Sunday shows that the company is keen to keep its options open. It’s striking that Microsoft chose to open the showcase with two heavy hitters that’ll be available on PlayStation: Black Ops 6, which was already slated for PS5 (per Microsoft’s Call of Duty deal with Sony), and Doom: The Dark Ages, which wasn’t.
The Dark Ages’ PS5 release is a clue to how Microsoft intends to handle exclusivity in the short term, at least as far as games from Bethesda, Activision, and Blizzard are concerned. Speaking to IGN after the showcase aired, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said, “Doom is definitely one of those franchises that has a history of so many platforms. It’s a franchise that I think everyone deserves to play. When I was in a meeting with Marty [Stratton, id Software studio director] a couple years ago, I asked Marty what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to sell it on all platforms. Simple as that.”
Spencer’s explanation — as well as Microsoft’s handling of Minecraft — suggests that Microsoft does not intend to make previously multiplatform game series exclusive. It’s a strong indication that Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 6, for one, will get a PlayStation release. For everything else, it’s an open question. It might seem unthinkable that Gears of War: E-Day or Fable will come out on PS5, but nothing said (or unsaid) on Sunday indicates that that’s off the table.
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As far as Game Pass goes, however, Microsoft could not have been more emphatic. “Play it day one with Game Pass,” boomed the stinger on the end of trailer after trailer after trailer. Of the 30 games, expansions, and updates featured in Sunday’s showcase, 20 will go straight to Game Pass. Of those 20 Game Pass titles, 13 come from Microsoft-owned studios; nine are scheduled to debut in 2024, eight in 2025, and three have no release windows yet.
Call of Duty, Doom, Gears of War, State of Decay, Perfect Dark, Fable, Indiana Jones, STALKER, Flight Simulator, Avowed… all coming to Game Pass as soon as they’re released. There are blockbuster shooters and role-playing games, strategy and sim games, wistful indies, and, thanks to partnerships with companies like Kepler Interactive and Rebellion, a good helping of AA Eurojank (perhaps the ideal kind of Game Pass game).
In a way, it’s more illustrative to look at what from the showcase won’t be coming to Game Pass. Those 10 titles include big third-party franchises like Metal Gear Solid and Assassin’s Creed; a handful of smaller third-party games; and expansions for Starfield, Diablo 4, The Elder Scrolls Online, and World of Warcraft. Selling DLC for Game Pass-included titles like Starfield, Diablo 4, and TES Online is a big part of the Game Pass business model, so you could still consider those titles under the Game Pass umbrella. (World of Warcraft is the outlier here as the only Microsoft-owned game featured that isn’t on Game Pass at all — and indeed, the only one not available on Xbox consoles.)
If Microsoft has doubts about the commercial viability of console-exclusive releases in the long term, it certainly doesn’t seem to have those doubts about Game Pass. With subscriber numbers seeming to have plateaued (according to Microsoft’s rarely released figures), and with the presumed considerable loss of revenue resulting from rolling a guaranteed seller like Black Ops 6 into a subscription service, many were wondering if Microsoft’s “Netflix for games” approach made economic sense. It’s possible that this debate has been ongoing in Microsoft until recently: Black Ops 6 developer Treyarch told Game File’s Stephen Totilo “it wasn’t that long ago” that the studio was informed that the game would launch on Game Pass. But taken as a whole, the showcase was a resounding vote of confidence in the service, and an indication that it will go on to provide great value to subscribers through 2025 and beyond.
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After its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft is now the third-biggest gaming company in the world by revenue — and arguably the biggest in terms of intellectual property and publishing might. Sunday’s showcase demonstrated quite convincingly how it intends to fill those massive boots: dozens of solid-looking games in famous, fan-favorite franchises, stretching far into the future. Quality and quantity. The surprise inclusion of a few long-gestating titles that had reportedly been stuck in development hell, like Perfect Dark and State of Decay 3, seemed like a pointed message that Microsoft can be trusted to keep all these projects on track, despite its spotty record in studio management.
But Xbox hardware only got the briefest mention, in the form of three new console configurations and a promise that “we’re hard at work on the next generation.” The rumored handheld announcement did not materialize. And exclusivity remains a glaring open question.
Regarding Microsoft’s position in the broader game industry, it seems we have our answer: It’s now a publisher first, a subscription platform second, and a console hardware platform a distant third.
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Oli Welsh
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Measures in Springfield that would ban hemp-derived cannabis beverages in Illinois — a move that the state’s breweries say would have dealt a big blow to operations — did not go forward. That includes legislation that would have begun regulating delta-8 and other forms.
All parties involved, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker, say the issue will come up again during the next session — the growing industry needs rules, they argue. In the meantime, the summer should provide some data in terms of how popular THC-infused drinks can be in Illinois. Observers believe the state could generate larger sales — and tax dollars — compared to Minnesota. Minnesota, whose lawmakers have embraced the drinks, has become
THC drinks have been a lifeline for struggling breweries aiming to diversify revenue streams. Breweries say they were caught off guard by bills that were introduced to regulate the THC industry — actions they say they support — and then altered to crush their business. There’s the belief that no one wants the drinks truly banned, but larger players want to weed out smaller competitors that were first to market before introducing their own brands.
It’s been a year since news that some of Chicago’s major restaurant groups — Boka, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, and One Off Hospitality Group — were organizing to deploy private security patrols in West Loop and Fulton Market. The owners of restaurants including the Publican, Aba, and Girl & the Goat, have gotten their wish. Block Club Chicago reports P4 Security Solutions is working with the groups and patrol SUVs have been spotted outside the restaurants in those neighborhoods.
The restaurants are part of the Fulton Market District Improvement Association, and the patrols are “entirely funded by contributions from businesses and organizations.” Security guards carry handcuffs and are armed. Their shifts extend to 3 a.m., according to Block Club. Chicago police have launched nightlife or “entertainment patrols” in areas like Wicker Park and the Near West Side. P4 is supposed to augment that and serves Bucktown and Lincoln Park. Greektown is another area that has its own patrols.
Observers who witnessed One Fair Wage’s efforts in Chicago to abolish the tipped minimum wage could see this building. Lawmakers in Springfield did not move forward with the measure to abolish the tipped minimum wage statewide, but the campaign is still going national. The National Restaurant Association, which earlier in May hosted its annual show in Chicago, is gearing up its opposition to the effort. After lawmakers finished their session in Springfield ended, the association sent a statement to Eater defending the tip credit (a government subsidiary fills in the gap, and allows restaurants to pay workers below the minimum wage) as a “win-win-win for tipped restaurant workers, restaurant operators, and customers.”
“This win for Illinois restaurants will help keep menu prices down and will protect the jobs and high-earning potential of tipped workers in vibrant Illinois restaurant communities,” a statement from NRA Executive Vice President for Public Affairs Sean Kennedy reads.
Irene’s Finer Diner in North Center is closed indefinitely after a fire on Thursday at 2012 W. Irving Park Road. The owners announced the news on Friday morning: “We’re deeply saddened to share that due to a recent fire, we are forced to close for further notice. We are very grateful that no one was harmed. We’ve put a lot of heart and sweat into this diner, and will keep you posted on when we can welcome you once again for breakfast.”
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Ashok Selvam
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Matt is joined by Puck’s Eriq Gardner to discuss the U.S. government’s monopoly lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation
Matt is joined by Puck’s Eriq Gardner to discuss the U.S. government’s monopoly lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation (02:58). They briefly go through the history of the Ticketmaster–Live Nation merger, what led to the eventual lawsuit, why concert prices won’t go down even if the two companies split, whether this lawsuit is just a PR attack against Ticketmaster, what impact this could have on the secondary markets, what a broken-up Ticketmaster–Live Nation would look like, and more. Matt finishes the show with a prediction for this weekend’s holiday box office (27:00).
For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, What I’m Hearing …, click this link: puck.news/thetown.
Email us your thoughts! thetown@spotify.com
Host: Matt Belloni
Guest: Eriq Gardner
Producer: Jessie Lopez
Theme Song: Devon Renaldo
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Matthew Belloni
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On a balmy Saturday afternoon in March, a crowd gathers in the parking lot as Dirk Fucik, owner of Dirk’s Fish & Gourmet Shop, presides over his customary seafood sampling event. Amidst the alluring scent wafting from the grill, Fucik invites eager onlookers to savor an array of oceanic delicacies, including salmon, shrimp, tuna, and fish cakes.
“Try these copi cakes,” Fucik urges, introducing the unfamiliar fish cakes to some intrigued guests. Their puzzled expressions accompany inquiries about the nature of the fish. “They used to be known as Asian carp,” he adds.
In 2022, Illinois launched a marketing campaign spotlighting the invasive carp, which have gained infamy for displacing native fish in the Mississippi River and its surrounding streams. The Chicago Tribune reported that the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative earmarked $600,000 for a five-year promotional drive to boost the fish’s consumption. Concerns over the unappetizing name “carp” led to a rebranding initiative. Its new name, “copi,” is derived from “copious,” symbolizing its abundance in state waters.
Esteemed restaurants in Chicago such as Ina Mae Tavern and Gaijin joined the cause to popularize copi as a food source, crafting enticing recipes and leveraging their influence to amplify the campaign. Spearheading the promotional efforts is Tetra Tech, a consulting firm, that manages a dedicated webpage and an Instagram account. The latter regularly features upbeat promotional videos with catchy rhythms and slogans proclaiming, “An invasive species that is delicious!”
But two years into the campaign, enthusiasm among chefs and restaurants to promote the fish has waned. Except for Dirk’s, all participating restaurants and fish markets in Chicago have quietly removed copi from their menus.
“Nobody bothered to order them,” says an operations manager at one of the partnering restaurants, who requested anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their relationship with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR). Despite having a pleasant, mild flavor, the fish is very bony and hard to process, the manager says. Converting the fish into chopped or ground form was an alternative, yet selling patties at a profitable price point proved challenging. According to the manager, copi was removed from their menu within two weeks of promotion.
Brian Schoenung, program manager at the IDNR overseeing the copi campaign, acknowledged challenges in maintaining partnerships. In addition to supply chain disruptions and manufacturing failures, the campaign has had to navigate diminishing media interest along with lukewarm consumer reception.
“We had a dip, and that dip has not been insignificant,” Schoenung says. “We got a lot of media right off the bat. As things fall out of the spotlight, you’re going to see a little bit of a backslide.”
Emblazoned with promotional materials featuring the slogan “Choose Copi,” Dirk’s introduced copi burgers in salsa and teriyaki flavors, and it continues to offer chopped and ground carp.
However, the persistent negative stereotypes surrounding carp make it a hard sell. Fucik says that many consumers mistakenly associate copi with common carp, imagining them to be bottom-dwelling creatures with a muddy flavor. On the contrary, the four species designated for consumption primarily inhabit upper water regions, feeding on algae, wetland flora, and, notably for black carp, mussels, and snails. Fucik frequently finds himself explaining the distinction to customers, emphasizing that copi, unlike their European counterparts, are mild-flavored and boast high levels of omega-3 fatty acids while maintaining low levels of mercury and other contaminants.
Due to its relatively low demand, copi doesn’t grace the menu at Fucik’s restaurant. Sales of frozen fish patties notably lag behind seafood staples like salmon and tuna. On average, about 100 pounds of copi move in a month, compared to the rapid turnover of salmon, with 100 pounds often selling out in a single day.
“I don’t sell a ton of it, but I don’t mind buying it,” Fucik says. “It’s a good cause, and it’s a good fish. And it would be nice to figure out a way to eradicate [them].”
Invasive carp found their way into American waters through deliberate introduction, as detailed in the 2017 book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Egan. In 1963, researchers at a federal lab in Arkansas advocated for importing these bottom-feeding fish as a natural means of water purification, aiming to reduce reliance on chemical treatments. Amidst growing environmental awareness spurred by Rachel Carson’s influential book, Silent Spring, which illuminated the dangers of widespread herbicide and pesticide use, there arose a pressing need for alternative, environmentally friendly solutions. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish Farming Experimental Laboratory imported three cardboard boxes of juvenile grass carp, native to Asia and renowned for their insatiable appetite for seaweed, with hopes of them cleaning up weed-choked rivers and irrigation ditches across the Southern United States.
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Within a decade of the grass carp’s introduction, an Arkansas fish farmer, in pursuit of his own batch of exotic weed-eating fish, accidentally imported three other Asian carp species: black, bighead, and silver carp. However, these carp didn’t fulfill their intended purpose. Silver and bighead carp, as filter feeders, depleted plankton and other nutrients from the waters they inhabited, while black carp sustained themselves on mollusks. Recognizing the potential ecological threat posed by these species, the fish farmer handed them over to the government. State fishery workers attempted to breed the carp in a laboratory but were unsuccessful. So they released the fish into the river and expected them to perish. To their surprise, the carp thrived and rapidly reproduced.
As reported in Egan’s book, the carp began proliferating in the wild, with baby bighead and silver carp appearing in rivers and streams throughout the South. They starve out their competition by stripping away the plankton upon which every other fish species directly or indirectly depends. Bighead carp can grow larger than 100 pounds and consume up to 20 pounds of plankton daily. The invasive carp biomass in some stretches of rivers in the Mississippi basin is thought to be more than 90 percent.
Silver carp, slightly smaller than bighead carp, have gained notoriety as YouTube sensations due to their tendency to leap out of the water like aquatic missiles when disturbed by the sound of a boat motor. This makes them a significant concern for recreational industries and water sports. Their disruptive behavior, coupled with their impact on the fish market, make them a primary target among interest groups for government intervention.
“The Great Lakes provide a lot of jobs and bring a lot of money into the region,” says Molly Flanagan, chief operating officer at Alliance for the Great Lakes, who works on invasive species policies. “If invasive carp get into the lakes or get into the rivers that feed the lakes, it could have devastating consequences for our $7 billion a year fishing industry and our $16 billion a year recreational boating industry across the region.”
Around 2010, the invasive carp crisis gained high-level policy attention. Following the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in 2009 (there were concerns fish would jump over to the other lake due to the hurricane), policymakers rushed to devise strategies to prevent the intrusion of carp into the Great Lakes, according to Flanagan. A study conducted by the Great Lakes Commission explored various measures to impede carp from migrating northward, including a proposal to reverse the flow of the Chicago River (again) to sever the connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin — an essential conduit for invasive species movement. However, the exorbitant costs associated with this plan rendered it unfeasible, Flanagan said. Nevertheless, the study prompted Congress to urge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct its own investigation.
Among the options explored is the inclusion of the fish on restaurant menus. The White House had appointed a special committee to address the invasive carp issue, and it was keen on exploring the possibility of turning them into a food source. To test the market, they enlisted out-of-state chefs to prepare complimentary samples, offering them frozen carp at no cost.
In 2010, Fucik received a call from the White House. Initially dismissed as a scam, the phone call proved to be legitimate when Fucik got in touch with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Fucik’s lifelong passion for fish stems from memories of growing up in a Catholic household where fish was a dietary staple, plus regular summer fishing trips with his uncle. After working in the fish market for several years, he opened his store. So when it turned out the call really was from the White House, Fucik immediately embraced the invitation and began to experiment with new recipes incorporating the fish.
The same year, Fucik showcased hundreds of carp burgers at Taste of Chicago, a summer food festival in the city. Despite initial hesitation from some diners, many found themselves pleasantly surprised by the taste. As word of mouth spread, eager patrons quickly formed lines in front of his venue.
Then, Fucik noticed a decline in the momentum of the campaign. He attributes this downturn to an incident in Minneapolis, where an Asian business delegation arriving at the airport was confronted with a sign urging them to “Kill Asian Carp,” a well-intentioned plea aimed at curbing the spread of the invasive species. The visitors found the message off-putting.
In 2014, Minnesota state senators successfully passed a measure mandating that Minnesota agencies designate the fish as “invasive carp.” This move was adopted by other government agencies during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in response to the surge in anti-Asian hate crimes. According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service changed its designation to “invasive carp” in 2021.
In Illinois, the main concern is the infiltration of carp into Lake Michigan via the Illinois River, which connects to the Great Lakes through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. To counter this threat, the state has implemented a series of measures — electronic barriers, locks, and dams strategically positioned at key choke points along the waterway –– to prevent the fish from swimming upstream into Lake Michigan. By deploying multiple barriers, policymakers hope that even if an invasive carp could bypass one, it would encounter another barrier, the DNR’s Schoenung says. The state also implemented contracted removal efforts, paying 10 cents per pound to fishers to incentivize commercial harvesting. According to Schoenung, since the autumn of 2019, approximately 22 million pounds of carp have been removed through these initiatives. Targeted removal has reduced the fish’s population by half and successfully prevented invasive carp from establishing a population in Lake Michigan. In the South of Joliet’s Brandon Road Lock and Dam, the carp population has decreased by nearly 90 percent, according to Schoenung.
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Following the earlier marketing attempts, the copi campaign emerged as a pivotal initiative to provide an outlet for commercial fishers to offload their catch. A majority of the harvests find their way into fertilizers, pet meals, and bait for lobsters and crayfish in Southern states. However, recognizing the nutritional value of carp — high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids — and its status as one of the most consumed fish worldwide, there’s a compelling case to diversify the use of these fish by incorporating them into the domestic food market. The high costs of transportation hindered efforts to simply export the fish.
“By doing so, you’re making the best use of a valuable resource, and you’re also incentivizing harvest,” Schoenung said.
In other regions, particularly in Asia, copi is an essential part of the culinary culture. Historical records trace Chinese consumption of carp back to the Tang Dynasty, according to the U.N. During this period, the family name of the emperor sounded similar to the Chinese name for Eurasian carp, or common carp, the only fish cultured in China at the time. To avoid potential political innuendo, the royal family prohibited the sale and consumption of common carp by the public. This restriction led farmers to turn to alternative species for aquaculture, including bighead carp, silver carp, grass carp, and black carp. These species thus thrived in China and became significant protein sources, symbolizing fortune.
Many ethnic groups are bewildered by Americans’ aversion to the fish. The phenomenon even caught the attention of a Korean television outlet that dispatched a crew to interview Fucik. Schoenung noted that the fish’s name change has little impact on the international markets in the U.S. Many foreigners are accustomed to eating carp and indifferent to the stigma around its former name.
Johnny Zheng, an established entrepreneur based in Chicago’s Chinatown, has become an organic participant in the campaign in recent years. Hailing from China’s Eastern Fujian province, he fondly remembers eating carp cakes and carp fish balls during his childhood. Propelled by a strong sense of cultural pride, he says he has made it his mission to challenge the negative perceptions surrounding carp by introducing it to mainstream markets.
In his role as president of the Mid-America Restaurant Association, Zheng discovered a factory specializing in repurposing carp into fertilizers and animal feed. Frustrated by how his cherished childhood delicacy was underutilized, he took over the factory and resolved to transform the fate of the fish by redirecting them to the dinner table.
“When Asian carp make headlines, the coverage is always negative. It’s reminiscent of other narratives about things from China such as its technology — a portrayal of invasion into mainstream American society and driving out its local supply,” Zheng says. “I know this narrative is wrong and want to prove that Asian carp are not mere ‘trash fish.’ They can be delicious and serve as a valuable source of protein.”
Zheng’s primary customers are Chinese, and not the average American. To reshape the fish’s public perceptions, Zheng invested substantial capital in transforming carp into packaged goods. His factory produces fish heads, as well as fish balls and fish noodles. These products have gradually found their way onto the shelves of numerous Asian groceries. In 2022, he opened another restaurant, A Fusion, in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, to prominently feature the fish on the menu. By creating a dedicated supply chain and culinary outlet for carp-based delicacies, Zheng says he hopes to promote their consumption while honoring their culinary potential.
Despite waning media attention to the cause, Zheng says he remains committed to popularizing copi among U.S. customers. While his investment has yet to yield a noticeable outcome, he says he is faithful that his investment will soon generate an impact.
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Schoenung says he expected the campaign to be a marathon. Creating a market for something unfamiliar to many U.S. diners will take more than an overnight operation, but he remains confident that it will eventually take off.
“We’ve got the right pieces in place — we’ve got the marketing, we’ve got the stories, and we’ve got the fish supply,” Schoenung says. “Just building those other pieces, and linking it all together, I am very hopeful and very confident that we’re going to be able to do that.”
For now, Fucik plans to continue to sell copi in small amounts, holding onto hope for future funding that would allow him to host more events promoting the fish. He remains optimistic that public perception of the fish might change through continuing media exposure. Perhaps a headline reporting an injury caused by carp leaping out of the water could reignite interest in consuming the fish, thrusting it back into the news cycle, he says.
“I’m sure we’ll have another surge in interest at some point in time when something comes up,” Fucik says. “Somebody will get hit by a carp in the head in their boat and it’ll make the news. Then all of a sudden they’ll get resurrected again, and they’ll be showing all the videos and then it’ll trickle down to me again. Things get recycled because there is always a new generation of people who haven’t heard about it.”
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Xuandi Wang
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Lil Dicky wants to be taken seriously. The rapper born Dave Burd released his first album in nearly a decade last week, titled Penith (The DAVE Soundtrack). As the name states, it doubles as the soundtrack to Dave, Burd’s TV show not-so-loosely based on his own life as a rapper. Together, the show and the music create a meta feedback loop. The FXX show chronicles Burd’s creation and promotion of an album called Penith. (“Penith,” naturally, is pronounced like “zenith” crossed with the word “penis.”)
In addition to writing and starring in his own comedy, Burd also created the music for the show. Now he is releasing the songs featured in the show as a real-life album. Appropriately, he gave it the same inappropriate name from the show: Penith. It’s art imitating life imitating art imitating dick jokes.
“I’m just over here redefining the alpha male,” Dicky raps on his new song, “HAHAHA,” a nearly uninterrupted three-minute verse intended to flex his rapping bona fides. Later on the album, on the song “No Fruits or Vegetables,” the chorus goes, “I don’t eat fruit or vegetables, no fruits or vegetable.” Burd is the alpha man-child. But Burd’s show is so good that the next phase of his career will be taken seriously.
Dave has perhaps the best celebrity cameos in a television show since Entourage. At various points, the show features Justin and Hailey Bieber, Kendall Jenner and Kourtney Kardashian, and Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly. But the star power isn’t as impressive as the way it is used. In Season 1, Dave learns that a young fan of his has died, and the kid’s parents ask Dave to perform at the memorial service. But when Dave arrives, he sees Macklemore showing up to a hero’s welcome. The parents ask Dave to cancel because their son liked Macklemore better. In Season 2, Dave releases a song called “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar” and is elated when Kareem reaches out to talk to him about the song. But to Dave’s horror, Kareem ends up interviewing him about white rappers appropriating Black culture for a profile in Time.
Burd’s greatest strength has been taking his weaknesses and making them his armor. His rap name is based on his insecurities about having hypospadias, a birth defect that led to a surgery that accidentally created a second hole in his penis. (When Burd explained that childhood trauma to The Ringer back in 2020, he explained that when he pees, he has to cover the second hole with his finger or it comes out “like a Super Soaker.”)
On the show, Burd’s craven, shameless desire for fame is spun into an episode in which an internet rumor that he is dead goes viral. When he sees that he is the no. 1 trending person on Twitter, he decides to hide at a motel and wait an extra day for his songs to reach no. 1 on Billboard before announcing that he is still alive (even to his parents).
With the help of Seinfeld writer and Curb Your Enthusiasm producer Jeff Schaffer, the show touches on a stunningly wide range of jokes and emotions. Burd’s friend and real-life hype man GaTa, who also plays himself, gives a genuine and stunning view into the relationship between childhood trauma and sex addiction. This is from the same show where Burd, who is Jewish, hallucinates a conversation where he teaches Anne Frank how to do the “Whip/Nae Nae” dance.
Burd’s next trick is blurring the lines between his TV show and his music. At the end of the second season, Burd buys an ad on a billboard in Los Angeles to announce his (then-fictitious) album, Penith. His plan in the episode is to tape himself, practically naked, to the billboard as the “t” in “Penith” like Jesus on the cross. But Ariana Grande releases a single the same day, and nobody shows up to see him. The image is now the real-life album cover for Penith.
(Incredibly, two years after that joke appeared on the show, Grande released a single on January 12, 2024, one week before Burd’s Penith album came out in real life. Art imitates life, etc.)
Burd is hoping to do what his show did and defy genre. For white guys with white-collar jobs who love rapping Drake lyrics alone to themselves in the car, Lil Dicky is the embodiment of the American dream. He had an excellent career at the powerhouse advertising firm Goodby, Silverstein & Partners working on campaigns like the NBA’s legendary playoff commercials. But Burd quit a potentially lucrative and relatively creative job to become a rapper. Wear your weaknesses like armor, and you too can quit your job to be a famous rapper who writes a TV show about his own life and then convinces Brad Pitt and Drake to be in a season finale. We sat down with Dave to discuss his new album, cold-emailing Brad Pitt to be in his show, what comes next, his custom sex doll, and why he does not eat fruits or vegetables at 35 years old.
What was the weirdest thing about making a show about your own life that you didn’t see coming?
Probably just the amount of people asking, “Is this true? Is that true?”
You want to do a rapid-fire true or false?
Sure.
Rick Ross lent you a chain, and then you got robbed. Is any of that true?
No, no, no, it’s not true. I’ve never experienced anything like that, but GaTa has had a chain get stolen and has had to go through steps to get it back. So it’s like part of the details of that were inspired by stuff that GaTa’s gone through, but I’ve never experienced that.
So do you have a stalker? Was that real?
No, I don’t have a stalker, thank God.
OK. Did you order an absurdly expensive custom sex doll?
Yeah.
What did it cost?
I got the $3,000 model. There were other models that I could have splurged on. There’s a scene in the show where I have sex with the sex doll and very much based on—please, for all the readers, just know that I didn’t bring this up; I was asked this question, and I’m not trying to be intentionally vulgar.
But the first time I did have sex with the sex doll, I just remember being shocked at how heavy it was. Literally. My favorite sexual position is girl on top. So I don’t know why I thought that that was the right thing to do with this 80-pound doll, but that’s where my head went for the first time I ever experienced it. Then it was so hard to get it positioned. I remember by the time I was actually in a position where I could start doing anything, I was so physically tired. The wig started to fall off of it. I remember thinking in my head as it was happening it felt so much like Ex Machina.
Pre-nut clarity?
I didn’t find the experience to be overwhelmingly positive. It was really tiring. But after that, I just immediately went and got on my laptop and started writing things down and details that I don’t want to forget. I remember thinking, “This is such a crazy scene for the show.” So there are times where I’m living life and I’m thinking, “Wow, this is a great scene for the show.”
So you do that a lot? You’ve basically been chronicling this stuff for years?
Even before I had the show, when I was just a rapper going on tour with GaTa, I was like, “I know I want to be a comedian. I know that this life that I’m living right now as I’m a rapper going around the road, it’s really funny.” I don’t have a great memory. I’m not going to leave it up to hoping I remember the insane thing that happened in Iowa. I just have to write it down. So I’ve been writing this stuff down for over a decade.
Did you actually match with Doja Cat on a dating app?
I have matched with Doja Cat.
What happened?
We matched, and we talked. She was very sweet, and we’re friends, but we matched during a time where we didn’t work out. It was always very difficult. I think I was shooting Season 1 or something, or I was just very much doing something and she was doing something. It just was friendly banter, but then I reached out to her for the show, and I was like, “Remember that time we matched?” She was like, “Yeah.” Then I was like, “I want to make an episode based on online texting.”
On the show, you cannot ride a bike. Was that true? And have you learned?
I learned when I was a kid. What’s the phrase? You can’t forget how to ride a bike. Well, I forgot. If you put me in a meadow and there’s a path, I can ride straight. I’m just not good at turning. I’m not comfortable on the road. I don’t know how people can ride. Then if there’s a stick, they get smacked by a car. So, no, I’m no more comfortable riding bikes. I’ve always been a Rollerblader. I’m still a Rollerblader. They always think Rollerblading is a bit or that I’m joking, but no.
On your song “No Fruits or Vegetables,” the chorus goes, “I don’t eat fruit or vegetables, no fruits or vegetable.” When you say no fruits or vegetables, are we talking zero?
I mean, look, 10 years ago, I hadn’t even tried fruits or vegetables.
How old are you?
I’m 35.
Hmm.
When I was 25, I had tried an apple, but I didn’t eat any fruits or vegetables. Today, I’ve tried—when I say tried, I’ve taken a single bite—I’ve tried a lot of them. But I don’t on a regular basis eat any fruits or vegetables. I will eat something like a Caesar salad or a kale Caesar salad. Besides that, no. There’s a lot I haven’t tried. I have never tried a cherry. I could really list endless things that I’ve never tried.
Are you worried about getting scurvy?
I worry about my health in the sense that I live a very high-stress life, and I know that my diet can’t be good. It’s not a good diet. So I don’t know if I worry about scurvy, but I worry about when I go and get my levels checked that they’re going to be like, “Oh my God. The inside of your body is like tar.”
Why didn’t you try stuff?
I think it’s a textural thing for me and my parents. I put this in the show too. I always blame them for not forcing these foods on me when I was young so I could grandfather them in and eat them today, but my mom always said it wasn’t worth ruining her own life. Apparently, I really objected.
While we’re separating fact from fiction, you have a Coca-Cola commercial where you call Jordan Poole the best stealer ever. Do you want to correct anything on the record?
Yeah. I didn’t write that line. I questioned it when it came out, and I just had to go along with corporate. I didn’t want to put up a stink. I think they only had so many players that could be featured. Of course, I was the guy writing these ads 15 years ago, so I empathize with their position. I don’t want to be the talent on set being like, “No,” but I didn’t write that line, and I know that he’s not. Blame Coca-Cola.
You did a video with Benny Blanco where, among many other things, you ordered an unsliced bagel and said, “I’ll slice it myself.” Was that a bit for the video? Or do you actually want to slice a bagel yourself when you get a bagel?
So I find that if you get the bagel sliced by the bagel place, they have that machine that goes like this [uses his hands to mimic a bagel-slicing machine]. The bagel ends up being very texturally flat. But if you use your own knife and you slice it in a human way, there’s a rigidity and fluffiness to the bagel that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. It’s not that difficult to slice a bagel. Whenever I order a bagel from a bagel place, I always say, “Untoasted, unsliced.”
You want to create your own texture, map your terrain, create your own landscape?
Right.
Speaking of your own terrain, your new album doubles as the soundtrack to your TV show. Is this an album, or is it a soundtrack?
I don’t know why it would have to be one or the other. I feel like it’s labeled as Penith (The DAVE Soundtrack) because the common theme of the music is they’re songs that have existed in the show. But my process for making music is whenever I get free time from the show, I then work really hard on making music. I make music to make music, and I think about it existing on an album one day. Or I think about various ways it could exist, and then it’s time to make the show again. The show is obviously about me, and I’m a rapper in the show. So there’s obviously a need for music in the show. So oftentimes some of my favorite work can get plucked up and put in the show.
It varies in the sense that sometimes I make songs that aren’t for the show at all, and then I’m like, “Oh, OK, we’re making the show. We need music. What’s good music that we could build around and put in the show?” Other times I do make music directly for the show. I didn’t envision my second album being a soundtrack album, but I think this is the right thing to do because I love all this music and I want to get it out as opposed to just waiting to finish whatever’s coming next. I want people to have music, and it’s been so long.
Why is the soundtrack to your TV show coming out eight months after the show ended?
I wasn’t going to put it out during the writers strike. You can’t really promote it and do anything like that, and I just needed to finish. Songs will enter the show in this demo, unmixed form. Maybe there’s not a second verse on some things that I want to add a second verse to maybe. So it’s like certain songs had to get finished, and not only finished, but then mixed and mastered. It’s the whole process. And then we want to shoot videos for it. So it’s like we have to like them. We got to edit the videos, and there’s a little bit of a production timeline. You got to realize I’m working on the show every day up until four days before that episode. So it’s like there’s no time to do all those things that I just mentioned until after I wrap on the season.
You cranked out a lot of TV in a very short amount of time. That’s in an era when people aren’t really doing that anymore. Meanwhile, you have not put out a huge amount of music. My editor always says, “Go where your effort takes you.” At this point, do you like making TV shows, movies, whatever more than the music?
Well, look, I’ll bring it back to the beginning of my career. I always wanted to be a comedian, and that was my grand vision. I started making music with the hope of being found as a comedic presence. Then I fell in love with making music and began making realer and realer music that didn’t even have to rely on being funny as much and started doing real tours. Then my initial dream of being a comedian took a back seat for a few years because I was really rolling with the momentum of music and just going on tour and doing all these things, and the comedy thing had to be put on hold. Then the TV show happened, and it takes up all my time in that way. Then the momentum happened there, and it really started rolling. I had less and less time to make music.
I think what happened was when the strike happened, I was able to finish this body of work, and I thought it was a really good idea. I designed this project to be the type of thing where even if you’ve never seen the show, you can listen to it and sit, and it flows really well, because I think it really is a real album. But in the process of doing that, I’ve re-fallen in love with music again. I’ve always been working on it whenever I can, but I’ve now really been able to start focusing on it without being pulled in all these different directions. If you’re asking me present-day today, what I’m focused on right now, it’s music today. Will that change? Of course. I’ve always loved film and TV, and I will always have a future in that.
Season 3 of Dave ended in May. I know it’s up in the air, but will there be more of the show?
I’m trying to operate under the mentality of focusing on one thing at a time. Like you said, I’ve put out just three seasons. The amount of work that it’s taken to get those three seasons to where it’s been, it has been so unbelievably strenuous to the point where I still feel like I just wrapped Season 3. I feel like I just finished that, and I’m sure, yes, eventually, the story of my life will continue. I’m not kidding when I say I’m really excited about being focused on music for the first time in a while.
Last time we talked about how you have hypospadias. Just wanted to follow up and confirm: You did not get the corrective surgery?
No, nothing as an adult, thank goodness. My dick still is fucked up in the sense that I am peeing out of two holes, but I shouldn’t be. So there is a surgery that could fix that that I could get. I’m just not trying to deal with that. I’d rather just piss on myself.
How long were you friends with Benny Blanco until he was like, “I want to watch you pee”? Because I know he’s seen you pee.
Oh, very soon [after meeting]. Me and Benny are just such instant soulmate friends that I feel like within four times of hanging out, our dynamic was that of best friend brothers. So I’m sure I showed him very early.
You guys do seem like long-lost friends. In one of the early episodes of the show, you’re pulling gum out of his ass or something. For people who perhaps don’t have a relationship like that, how would you describe that bromance, why you and Benny are like that?
Yeah, obviously it’s a foreign relationship to certain people, but I feel like other people can relate to it. It’s weird. I get stopped in the street, and some guys are like, “I got friends who were like that too.” Then other people would be like, “That’s the weirdest dynamic I’ve ever seen.” So it varies, but really it’s just we love each other, not romantically, but just as best friends. I’ve never met someone who I just hit it off with. So we make each other laugh nonstop. Then even if Benny was a plumber, we’d still be best friends.
So to have your best friend who, when you meet this guy, you’re like, “Oh my God. That’s the guy who’s always meant to be my best friend in life,” and then he also happens to be the biggest music producer and best music producer in the world. It’s so fantastic to be able to work on this album with Benny, Penith. Literally, it’s like we’re finishing songs that I love while also sleeping over with your best friend. You’re not even a kid anymore, but it feels like you are. It’s really a joyous experience.
You repeatedly have said, “I will be the biggest star in the world.” You’re also one degree of separation removed from Taylor Swift [Editor’s note: Dave’s friend Benny is dating Taylor Swift’s friend Selena Gomez.] Deep down, when you’re watching this Taylor Swift Eras Tour, is any part of you like, “Damn, I got to do that”?
Not really. No, no, no. In my heart, I know that I’ll never be as big of a musician as Taylor Swift. It’s like ambitious, and she’s the biggest and best of all time. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I obviously have always believed in myself for sure. I think maybe 10 years ago or five years ago, we had our conversation, I would be more likely to say, “My desire is to be the biggest star in the world,” but I don’t even think that’s my actual desire anymore. I think my desire is to make the best stuff in the world and to feel really proud of the stuff that I make, and my desire is to be really, really happy in life.
But there are certain things that come along with being the biggest star in the world that I have no interest in experiencing for my fame. You know what I mean? You got to plan every single time you go outside, and I like the comfortable life I live of feeling like I have achieved the things that I want to achieve while not feeling burdened by a toxic level of fame that is truly damning to your life.
Some of Brad Pitt’s last words in the finale are explaining to you that fame is a prison.
I think Season 3 in a nutshell is it’s under the umbrella of looking for love and romance and then the bait and switch of realizing when you’re living in this endless loop of validation seeking, and then you’re not even truly loving yourself if every single moment is based on how you’re being received and whatnot. So the end message is there’s more to life than seeking validation. I think that’s a real valid lesson from Brad Pitt.
About the cameos: You’re just cold-emailing Brad Pitt?
I did cold-email Brad Pitt.
Will you send me a copy of that?
I won’t send you a copy. It’s between me and Brad, but it was really well-written, and I took my time with it. I didn’t write it in 20 minutes. I wrote it, and then I reread it the next day, and then I thought about it, and then I trimmed it. You only get one shot of Brad reading your email. People always say, “How do you get all the people in the show?” It’s a combination of two things. One, pretty much at this point, anyone who I’m getting in the show has seen the show and loves it. When I didn’t have a show, and I’m trying to get YG in a pilot for a show that he’s never seen, it’s a much harder sell to be like, “Trust me, it’s going to be great.” Now it doesn’t feel crazy to me to email Rachel McAdams and Brad Pitt, the biggest stars of our time, and be like, “Hey.”
Because what I find about the show is that it’s incredibly well-respected in the community of artists—I’ll say, the talent of L.A., the pool of actors, the musicians. It’s everyone’s favorite show, and I’m able to really sell them on it. Oftentimes that’s enough. But back in the day, I think when I moved to L.A. and I became friends with Benny, yeah, I think that it’s like our social circle, and I’m at a party, and I meet Kendall Jenner. I try to be a nice person whenever I’m meeting anybody. If someone likes you, they’re more likely to be like, “Yeah, I remember that guy. He’s cool.” But it depends. It’s just living life and meeting people when you meet them, but at this point, I really feel like it’s just the product speaks for itself.
People like Drake and Brad and Rachel and Killer Mike and Usher, these people, they love the show. There’s really no better feeling than having that belief of these people who are just icons, even to the point where I’ve grown up idolizing a lot of these people. Now they’re so willing to come play in my sandbox and trust me. There’s no more gratifying feeling that I’ve ever had than being on set with Brad Pitt, giving him notes, and him respecting what I’m saying. I can tell that he was looking at me the way he would look at any other director that he works with. This guy’s the biggest star of our time, working with my favorite directors of all time. I think that feeling as a filmmaker was so gratifying.
Last time we spoke, you told me the best day of your life was when you put out the video for your song “Ex-Boyfriend.” It was April 25, 2013. Ten years later, April 2023, you’re putting out Season 3 of a show about your life with Brad Pitt and Drake. So, with the utmost seriousness, I ask you, with everything you’ve done, 10 years from now, what would make you satisfied?
The truth of the matter is 10 years ago, if you asked me this question, I would’ve listed out all the things that I have achieved. When I describe 10 years from now, I’m not listing out, “I want an Oscar.” It’s more like, “I have kids and a family, and I’m married. Life is as good as it possibly can be, independent of all the art that I create.” The tricky thing about me is I’m so aware that wrapping your whole identity up in the art that you create is a never-ending cycle. There’s always more—there’s always improvements, things to do—and I try to infuse that in the show. Trying to be that lesson is something that I try to deal with on a day-to-day level.
Having said that, you’ve alluded to making movies next, including a screenplay about your childhood; you’ve said going through puberty with your condition was formative. Is that basically your next project? A movie about being a kid growing up with a messed-up dick?
[Laughs.] I think that I’ve said enough about the dick, if I’m being quite honest with you. There’s other TV series I’m developing, and I have a bunch of other things at play for sure. The future, there’s so many other things I want to do besides just make the show Dave and even just make music. I feel like I’m only getting started. I know I’ve been in this for 10 years, but I do feel like the things that I’ve done for 10 years have all been setups for the future. I don’t think I need to make another movie about [my penis].
I feel like so much of your stuff started with taking this insecurity about your penis and frankly wearing it like armor. Do you feel like you’ve grown up? Do you feel like you’re over it?
I’m not saying I’m over it in the sense that it’s not an important part of shaping who I am. I just think that I don’t need to make art about the same material every time. Do I feel like I’ve grown up? Yes and no. I definitely feel like the things that I’m saying now are different than the things I would’ve said five years ago, are different than the things I would’ve said 10 years ago. Do I feel any more ready to have children today than I did when I was 16 years old? No, I feel like I’m still a kid at heart, but I think a lot of people feel that way even when they have kids.
In 10 years, I’ll be 45 years old. My back’s starting to hurt. I want to figure out ways to make my back stop hurting. That’s one of my main priorities right now, is to fix my back this year. It’s not really answering your question, but do I feel grown-up? No, but I definitely feel like I’m actively growing up at all times. All you can do is just do that as things are thrown at you and as you live life. I don’t think I’ll ever feel grown-up until I’m dead. I think I’m about to enter the second half of my life. Maybe not half, but the middle of my life.
Well, it’ll be the middle third of your life as long as you start eating vegetables.
Yeah, I’m entering the second half if I don’t fix something.
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Danny Heifetz
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Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag invite Amanda Hirsch of the Not Skinny but Not Fat podcast to discuss her beginnings (09:07) and why she loves the Kardashians (13:58). Then, the trio discuss all things pop culture, including whether Ryan Reynolds follows Spencer or not (21:00), who will be the biggest star of 2024 (31:55), their dating predictions for the year (34:23), and their one wild celebrity prediction (44:13).
Hosts: Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag
Guest: Amanda Hirsch
Producers: Chelsea Stark-Jones, Amelia Wedemeyer, Aleya Zenieris, and Devon Renaldo
Theme Song: Heidi Montag
Subscribe: Spotify
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Heidi Montag
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Sean and Amanda give some box office thoughts from the last couple weeks, before honing in on two films in theaters right now: Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell’s sex comedy Anyone but You (15:00) and the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple (49:00). They close by each sharing three New Year’s movie resolutions that relate to the show (1:04:00).
RSVP for a chance to attend The Big Picture’s OPPENHEIMER screening at the IMAX campus in L.A. here: uni.pictures/oppenheimerbigpictureevent.
Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins
Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner
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Sean Fennessey
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At least once per year we’re treated to incremental upgrades in headset designs from manufacturers like Razer, Steelseries, and HyperX. These improvements typically touch on some of the more objective points of their peripherals, like audio quality and battery life. However, the latest headset model from Logitech, the Astro A50X, is offering something a bit more drastic.
In addition to the same outstanding audio quality we’ve come to expect from Logitech headsets, the docking station for the A50X effectively serves as an HDMI switch, which not only makes the headset universally compatible, but allows you to quickly swap between HDMI inputs with a dedicated button on the headset. But, at an eye-watering $379.99, it’s difficult to recommend this headset to all but the most frequent of users.
The docking station is fitted with a pair of HDMI and USB-C inputs that can be used with PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo consoles. You’ll also find another USB-C port that provides power and can also connect the dock to your PC. The single HDMI 2.1 output is capable of full 4K 120Hz passthrough to your preferred screen.
Setting up the entire system and getting its myriad cables organized required significant time investment, but I ultimately felt that was a small price to pay for a single unified headset that also allowed me to swap between the inputs on my TV. This is a pretty neat trick — however, the console will need to be powered on via its respective controller before you make the switch, in order for this to work properly.
Of course, if you’d prefer to skip the docking station entirely, you can also pair the A50X with your phone, Switch, or PlayStation via Bluetooth instead. You won’t be able to swap inputs, though.
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The sound quality of the Astro A50X is amazing regardless of which platform you’re playing on, with no noticeable latency when operating on 2.4 Ghz wireless. I tested the A50X with a pair of rhythm games that have excellent soundtracks, Hi-Fi Rush and Metal: Hellsinger, on both PC and Xbox. The A50X had no issues matching the gameplay beat for beat, which is something my reliable noise-canceling earbuds just couldn’t match. The default sound profile is a little bass-heavy, but you can fine-tune everything from the Logitech G app on your phone or PC.
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The fit and finish of the Astro A50X will be familiar to anyone who’s used a headset from the Astro A50 or A40 series. The ear cushions and headband feature plush fabric, and the headset can lay flat around your neck when not in use. The surface of the right earcup allows you to adjust the balance between game and chat volume. Around the back of the right earcup, you’ll find a volume wheel, power and input switches, and a Bluetooth pairing button.
The aesthetics of the A50X aren’t quite as offensive as some more gamer-centric designs, but it still isn’t what I’d call a good-looking headset. A bit less plastic in the overall build, and the ability to remove the boom mic would’ve been welcome. Normally, these are annoyances that I’m willing to overlook, but for $380, I do expect more.
While Logitech’s designers have clearly gone to great lengths to expand the functionality of this headset, they haven’t done much to improve the fit and finish, which is disappointing given the massive price tag. At $380, small issues like the plastic-heavy design, and how the headset doesn’t always want to seat itself in the dock correctly, feel more glaring.
I applaud Logitech for producing a headset with features that genuinely improve user experience, but its high price and limited appeal make it extremely difficult to recommend. For a select subset of people who play games and chat regularly across multiple platforms that share the same screen, the A50X represents a sound investment, but for everyone else, a headset that costs a third of the price will do just fine.
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Alice Newcome-Beill
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CD Projekt Red fulfilled a five-year promise last week when it added a fully functional metro system to Cyberpunk 2077. While the feature does wonders to make Night City feel more alive, I was surprised to learn just how little California’s public transportation infrastructure has improved in the game’s alternate-reality future.
Cyberpunk 2077 now includes five Night City Area Rapid Transit (NCART) rail lines servicing 19 stations. Every stop still functions as a fast travel point, but players can also use them to hop onto the subway and relocate, in real time, to other parts of the city. As movement is restricted while on the train, this is a mostly visual experience, providing folks with a new perspective on the sprawling mega-city as well as limited opportunities to chat with their fellow riders.
During one trip, I noticed a screen indicating the train’s speed was consistently hovering around 43 mph, which felt awfully slow for futuristic transportation. The average speeds of modern-day heavy-rail systems in the United States range from the high teens to the mid-30s, but they’re capable of reaching much higher maximums. And that’s not even accounting for more developed public transportation in Japan and China, whose magnetic levitation (maglev) bullet trains zoom through major cities at hundreds of miles per hour.
This fits with what the first Cyberpunk rulebook had to say about then-future transportation in 1988:
Surprise, surprise. Contrary to expectations, the year 2000 has not yielded any staggering new developments in transportation. Years of economic strife and civil unrest have discouraged research into new ways to travel—in fact, the very act of travel has become very restricted. Expect the world of 2013 to be much like the 20th century—a network of crowded freeways, packed trains, and swarming airports.
A subsequent expansion, Welcome to Night City, indicates light-rail maglev trains with ground speeds of 200 mph existed in the eponymous metropolis as far back as 2013, the year the first Cyberpunk adventures were set. Every book since makes some mention maglev trains as a staple of Night City travel, and 2005’s Cyberpunk V3.0 even noted an improvement in their top speed to 300 mph despite the apparent destruction of the intercontinental maglev line during the Fourth Corporate War (which took place from 2021 to 2025 in-universe) between the world’s ruling megacorps.
(And just to cover my ass, 1990’s updated Cyberpunk 2020 rulebook makes it clear that NCART and the light-rail maglev trains are one and the same.)
It’s here that Cyberpunk 2077 does something clever by expanding the consequences of this conflict. Rather than only putting rail travel between continents in flux, the game describes the Fourth Corporate War as debilitating the entire maglev system, as explained by the following database entry:
Maglev trains cruised at high speeds via tunnels and on the surface thanks to the advent of electrodynamic suspension technology, allowing fast and comfortable travel from Night City to other cities, including Kansas City, St. Louis, Atlanta and Washington D.C. Unfortunately, this new era of transportation didn’t last long. The social unrest and armed conflict of the 4th Corporate War brought with it an economic crisis that soon crippled the entire system. Currently inoperational, the abandoned Maglev tunnels are used by the homeless and various gangs.
The destruction of the maglev system and the slow NCART speeds exhibited in-game lead me to assume the local government was forced to revert to pre-2013 tech to ensure NCART remained operational, a massive downgrade from the bullet trains that once transported residents through Night City and beyond.
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While researching this situation, I couldn’t help but see darkly hilarious parallels between the difficulties facing the fictional California depicted in Cyberpunk 2077 and the actual state in which I live.
Despite being one of the largest (both in terms of land and population) and richest states in the union, California has long struggled with plans to build public transportation on par with the bullet trains of eastern Asia. A lot of that is due to politics, as even ostensibly supportive legislators are wary of spending the billions of dollars necessary to complete the project. And let’s face it: Americans are just way too devoted to their cars.
All that said, there’s one very simple explanation for Night City metro’s relatively low speed: The developers didn’t want NCART rides to happen in the blink of an eye. What good would the long-awaited subway experience be if players didn’t actually, you know, experience it?
A trip taken at 300 mph wouldn’t provide any time to people watch Night City’s eccentric residents or take in the view of skyscrapers surrounding the bay outside the train’s windows. The entire point of the subway system — and a big part of why folks clamored for its inclusion all these years — is to give players new opportunities to role-play and experience the visual splendor of Cyberpunk 2077’s setting and its over-the-top aesthetics.
I find it hard to fault CD Projekt Red for playing a little loose with established Cyberpunk history if it makes for a better game in the end.
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Ian Walker
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Of all the deliciously tedious courtroom conversations that have happened between federal prosecutors and failed crypto founder Sam Bankman-Fried—who is standing trial on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering related to the loss of $8 billion of customer funds at his crypto exchange, FTX—one on Tuesday really had it all. Pedantic dissembling! Experienced persistence! The Bahamas! FPOTUS Bill Clinton! It began when assistant U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon asked Bankman-Fried what ought to have been a straightforward question on cross-examination, and things quickly snowballed into the absurd:
Sassoon: In April 2022, you invited the Bahamian prime minister to a private dinner hosted by FTX, right?
Bankman-Fried: When was that? Sorry?
Sassoon: Around April of 2022.
Bankman-Fried: It’s possible. I don’t remember what that’s referring to.
Sassoon: Well, do you recall inviting him to a private dinner in 2022 with former president Bill Clinton and former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair?
Bankman-Fried: No, but it doesn’t surprise me.
Sassoon: Did you in fact attend a dinner with the Bahamian prime minister, Bill Clinton, and Tony Blair?
Bankman-Fried: During the conference, the FTX conference, there was a—something like a dinner with them, yeah.
Sassoon: When you say “something like a dinner,” was it a dinner?
Bankman-Fried: It may—I don’t remember whether there was food. It may have been.
Sassoon: And you were there, right?
Bankman-Fried: Yup.
Perhaps out of deference for his may-have-been-dinner-mate Clinton, Bankman-Fried thankfully avoided bickering over the meaning of the word “is.” Still, he argued about plenty of other terms during his three-ish days on the stand. For example, less than a minute into Sassoon’s cross, which began Monday afternoon, Bankman-Fried said the phrase: “Depends on how you define ‘trading.’” The next day, he haggled with Sassoon over the meaning of “transact with.”
At one point, after being asked whether he remembered making various positive statements about the company he founded, SBF responded, “No, but I may have,” to five consecutive questions. More than once, he called something “effectively correct” instead of just saying yes. And he responded, “I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” to Sassoon’s inquiries often enough that Judge Lewis Kaplan finally broke in.
“The issue is not what she is referring to,” Kaplan admonished, as a few jury members smirked. “Please answer the question.” The question in question: “Generally, do you recall in substance making statements that FTX was a safe platform?” Bankman-Fried’s eventual answer: “I remember things around specific parts of the FTX platform that were related to that. I don’t remember a general statement to that effect. I am not sure there wasn’t one.” Got it!
While Bankman-Fried continued in this manner, a filmmaker sitting next to me in the gallery murmured that the defendant ought to be lifting his face up more, that maybe he might appear more sympathetic if he found better light. When your defense revolves around keeping everything shrouded, however, it turns out there really isn’t much you can illuminate.
United States v. Samuel Bankman-Fried commenced in early October and could conclude as soon as the end of this week. In its closing argument on Wednesday, the government stated that Bankman-Fried had said some version of “I can’t recall” over 140 times in his cross-examination and that, as attorney Nicolas Roos put it, “A pyramid of deceit was built by the defendant. That ultimately collapsed.”
As I watched Bankman-Fried testify in his own defense over the past week, I thought a lot about chaotic spreadsheets. This was, at least in part, because throughout the trial, a lot of .xls files have been entered into evidence, each more tenuous than the last.
There are spreadsheets with line items labeled “Oops this seems like not a thing we should be counting,” like one that Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research, said she prepared. There are spreadsheets where the accounting is rounded not to the nearest decimal, but to the nearest billion. There are spreadsheets where the accounting is labeled with euphemisms, like “exchange borrows,” that mean illicitly wormholed FTX customer funds. There are spreadsheets showing Alameda’s $65 billion line of credit on FTX’s systems, an allowance that was $64,850,000,000 more than that of the next-highest customer. So many spreadsheets, all crowded with tabs, each one lousy with alarming valuations and bad news.
But it wasn’t just the spreadsheets themselves that stood out to me. It was the fact that Bankman-Fried, up on the witness stand, often resembled a spreadsheet himself. Sometimes this was because of the way he processed, added up, divided, and extrapolated his thoughts and testimony in real time, stacking and rearranging his words in linked columns and rows. More often, it was because he said, again and again, that he didn’t know what Sassoon was referring to—a living embodiment of the dreaded #REF! error. Number-loving and load-bearing, Bankman-Fried was, for years, the guy whose base values provided the enterprise value to an entire apparatus of people and industry. Now, his cell contains only his own errors. When he went bust, everything linked to him went broke.
“I trusted Sam,” testified Adam Yedidia, Bankman-Fried’s former MIT classmate who also worked at FTX, in early October. A few days later, Ellison, one of three trial witnesses who were a part of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle and have already pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges as part of a cooperation deal with the government, described Bankman-Fried as so ambitious that he felt he had a 5 percent chance of becoming president of the United States. Former FTX employee Nishad Singh—whose own bottom line went from “billionaire” to “#REF!” with the collapse of FTX just about a year ago—also recently testified for the prosecution. He was asked how he would describe his relationship with the defendant. “I have always been intimidated by Sam,” Singh began, to the overruled objection of the defense. Singh continued: “Sam is a formidable character, brilliant. So I had a lot of admiration and respect for him. Over time, I think a lot of that eroded, and I grew distrustful.”
When Bankman-Fried took the stand, a will-he-or-won’t-he decision that had been hotly speculated about for weeks, the full arc of all of these descriptions of him was on display. For a time, courtroom observers did get a sense of the once-formidable iteration of Bankman-Fried. And then we also saw that same erosion, right before our eyes.
While most white-collar defense attorneys typically don’t like to have their clients testify—the risks of perjuring oneself, irritating the sentencing judge, or getting pinned down on cross-examination all frequently outweigh the potential upside of, say, charming a juror—Bankman-Fried’s counsel almost certainly had little choice in the matter. Their client has a famously idiosyncratic risk tolerance. And the case was not going well for the defense otherwise: Their cross-examinations, particularly of Ellison, hadn’t drawn much blood, and the judge denied a number of their proposed expert witnesses. So why not swing big?
In his direct examination, which began for the jury on Friday, Bankman-Fried got off to a steady start. When asked what his early vision was for FTX, SBF said that he had hoped to “move the [crypto] ecosystem forward,” but “it turned out basically the opposite of that.” (Shades of his “same, except exactly the opposite” quip to Ellison, which will live in ex-boyfriend infamy.) Bit by bit, he and his lawyers chipped away at some of the prior witnesses’ testimonies, trying to establish that mistakes were made and money was lost, but crimes were not intentionally committed.
To that point in the trial, the government had repeatedly offered evidence that Bankman-Fried is well-attuned to the best PR angles for him and his companies. As he sat on the stand, we in the courtroom could see the defendant strive to be perceived as forthright—and maybe also a little bit funny? Speaking about FTX’s decision to enter a 19-year, $135 million arena-naming deal with the city of Miami and the NBA’s Miami Heat, for example, Bankman-Fried unexpectedly and amiably roasted both Dak Prescott’s Sleep Number bed ad campaign (too unmemorable, per his analysis) and the Kansas City Royals (“With no offense to the Royals,” he said, talking about having considered working with the team on a possible stadium-naming deal, “I didn’t want to be known as the Kansas City Royals of crypto exchanges, so we passed on that one”). Honestly, some of it was solid material. A number of jurors grinned, maybe even chuckled a little, and so did I. And that was before he had this exchange with his lawyer, Mark Cohen:
Cohen: Can we turn to the second page, please? Pull up the paragraph entitled: “Things Sam Is Freaking Out About.” First entry is hedging. Do you recall discussing this with Ms. Ellison?
Bankman-Fried: Yes.
Cohen: Were you freaking out?
Bankman-Fried: I don’t tend to show a lot of freak-out-ness, but relative to my standard, yes.
Unlike the jurors, though, I was getting a kick out of this mainly because I had a good idea of what would be coming down the pike. Last Thursday, due to a dispute between lawyers about the admissibility of certain topics of inquiry, the jury was sent home early so that Bankman-Fried could offer limited testimony in a special “hearing” in front of Judge Kaplan (and the rest of the gallery). The direct questioning in that period had gone smoothly, much like it did in front of the jury—Sam’s father even gave him a big thumbs-up during a courtroom break.
But during a truncated cross-examination by Sassoon that afternoon, Bankman-Fried wilted. Simple questions like when …? or where …? or with whom …? gave him (and his mother, scoffing in the gallery) fits. The jury wasn’t there, so it was in some ways a dress rehearsal for both sides, but it went so resoundingly badly for the defense that I spent the night fretting that we’d come into court the next morning to find out that Bankman-Fried had run the numbers and would no longer testify at all. Luckily, that wasn’t the case.
When it came time for the real cross-examination, Bankman-Fried’s whole presence on the stand shifted. Gone was the strenuous (approaching affable) nerd who had described his college living situation as “coed, nerdy, and dry” and had explained to the jury why he’d been photographed carrying a deck of playing cards: not because he was a gambling man who wanted to be ready in case a poker game broke out, but rather to give his fidgety hands something to do. (It wasn’t a sustainable solution, he said: He shuffled the cards so often that he shredded through a pack of them a week at one point, and he had to switch to a fidget spinner.) Gone were the chatty asides about how most people strive for Inbox Zero, but his goal is Inbox 60,000. Bankman-Fried was now on the hot seat, and while he’d clearly learned since Thursday to keep his answers as close to “yep” and “nope” as possible, he still couldn’t help but veer into his own way.
In his direct testimony, Bankman-Fried had displayed a precise, expansive memory, but on cross, he had a much tougher time recollecting even the recent past:
Sassoon: You testified that you stumbled your way into Michael Kives’s Super Bowl party. Do you recall that?
Bankman-Fried: The seats at the actual, physical Super Bowl, yes.
Sassoon: And you flew to the Super Bowl in a private jet, didn’t you?
Bankman-Fried: I don’t remember.
Sassoon: You don’t recall flying to the Super Bowl in a private plane?
Bankman-Fried: I don’t recall how I got there.
Sassoon: Is that because you traveled on private planes so frequently?
Again and again, Sassoon asked him about specific statements he made, and he said he didn’t recall or didn’t know what she was referring to. Again and again, she came calmly with the receipts, posting Google Docs or old articles or video links or Signal messages. “Does that refresh your memory?” she would ask. “No,” he’d reply.
Sassoon [calling up a photo of SBF on a plane]: Mr. Bankman-Fried, is that you in shorts and a T-shirt on a private plane?
Bankman-Fried: Chartered plane, at least, yes.
Sassoon established that Bankman-Fried had bragged about being wholly separate from his trading firm, Alameda, but that he had also been directing trading activity—a big blow to his attempted defense that Ellison, the Alameda CEO, should have hedged better. She made Bankman-Fried read aloud a DM of his that said “fuck regulators” and had him admit that he had called some of the folks on crypto Twitter “dumb motherfuckers.” (Well, kind of admit: Bankman-Fried would agree that he had said that about only “a specific subset of them.”) She pulled up stock transfer agreements and wryly observed: “And this says, ‘Unanimous Consent of Board of Directors.’ Looking at the bottom, you were the only member of the board, correct?”
Once, cornered, Bankman-Fried piped up plaintively: “I can explain …” Sassoon wasn’t interested in that. “That’s all right,” she said, with the exact singsong cadence Miranda Priestly uses when dismissing an underling, as the exhibit monitor displayed all the explanatory proof she needed.
During the defense’s redirect on Tuesday morning, Bankman-Fried reverted to being a more eager talker and reminiscer. His memory became clearer when he was asked about past conversations and states of mind. He joked to the court about the photo of him on a private jet that the government had posted: “very flattering one.” Ha ha, I guess. But the whiplash in tone mostly served to make his reticent responses to the prosecutor’s earlier questions seem even more shady and petulant.
In Bankman-Fried’s time on the stand, the wide scope of his personality became clearer and clearer: how convincing and, in his way, winsome he could be; how cold and harsh he could become. Business in front; coed, nerdy, and dry in back. Still, while a lot of his chatter seemed designed to fill the air and distract the jury from the painful caesuras he’d endured from Sassoon, one thing he said came almost certainly from the heart.
Asked by Cohen why he had told Sassoon “no” under oath when asked if he had spent the missing $8 billion of FTX customer funds, Bankman-Fried had a couple of answers. One was, “Money is fungible anyway.” In other words: Hey, who’s to say?! But the other seemed to speak to one of Sam’s broader, odder points of view. “The other part of it, I mean, I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but for better or for worse, it has been a part of me that, like: I wasn’t particularly interested in trying to dole out blame for it. That wasn’t my priority. It generally wasn’t my priority. It was generally something I de-prioritized.”
This tracked with something his mother, a law school professor and ethicist, had written for the Boston Review a decade ago: a polemic against “blame mongering.” It also tracked with what Bankman-Fried had told Michael Lewis in the course of being interviewed for his book Going Infinite: that at his first job out of MIT, “Jane Street [Capital] really didn’t like blaming people. … They sort of asked, ‘Did anyone do anything contrary to what they were being told?’ When the answer was no, they said it could just as easily have been the CEO who did it.”
Later in Going Infinite, Bankman-Fried is quoted as saying, “Fault is just a construct of human society. It serves different purposes for different people. … I guess maybe the most important definition—to me, at least—is how did everyone’s actions reflect on the probability distribution of their future behavior?” In Bankman-Fried’s case, the record seems clear: His actions made him more likely, in the future, to behave as though there would be no consequences for them. His actions made him more likely, in the future, to repeat said actions. And his actions made him more likely, in the future, to arrive at a scenario where he would want to testify in federal court in his own defense in a multibillion-dollar fraud case.
On Thursday, a different construct of human society—the jury—will begin its deliberations on the seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering leveled against Bankman-Fried. And they will ultimately be the ones to determine whether the fault lies with Bankman-Fried or if he’s not guilty of the charges against him. “He took the money. He knew it was wrong. He did it anyway,” Roos said in the government’s closing argument. “Because he thought he was smarter. … [He thought he could] talk his way out of it.” Cohen, speaking for the defense, told the jury, “The government has sought to turn Sam into some sort of villain, some sort of monster. … It’s both wrong and unfair.” Regardless of whom the jury believes, both sides are referring to the same missing billions, the same broken spreadsheets, the same defendant who sat up on the witness stand and made one thing really clear: that he’s forgotten so much more about all of this than we’ll ever be able to know.
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Katie Baker
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In mid-September, YouTube announced a collection of new artificial intelligence tools coming to the platform. The tools touch basically every part of the content creation process, from generating topics to editing and even generating video footage itself through the Dream Screen feature. But even as AI features have caused an uproar in so many other creative industries, the response to YouTube’s new suite of tools has been muted. Instead, YouTubers are sharing other concerns about the ways generative AI is already affecting the platform.
It’s been a watershed year as generative AI tools have made it easier to create images and text, all generated from internet scrapes of others’ art and writing. Artists and writers have typically pushed back, citing issues like copyright and their own work being undermined — in September, high-profile authors including George R.R. Martin and Jodi Picoult filed to sue OpenAI for scraping their books. And then there’s generative AI’s issues with hallucination and inaccuracies.
On the other side of the coin, these tools have been used by many people, either experimentally or professionally. Prizes have been won by AI art, while some news sites cut their staff and put out AI-generated articles. AI has also become a cornerstone of TikTok, particularly AI-powered filters. Creators use the Bold Glamour filter to apply makeup, a Ghibli filter to look like characters from the studio’s films, and even pay a fee for filters that generate themed avatars — like the hugely popular ’90s high school photo filter.
Maybe it’s the fact that YouTube’s tools aren’t available to the general public yet. But the quiet reception still seems to buck the trend. On the YouTube Creators account on X (formerly known as Twitter), the announcement only picked up a few hundred likes, doing similarly to engagement-bait tweets like “how do you make your audience feel seen and heard?” On the main YouTube account, it performed worse than a tweet reading “stars are kinda just sky rocks.”
On the platform itself, it’s difficult to find videos discussing the tools at all, despite a thriving community of YouTubers who explain how to use AI tools in making videos — just not the ones announced by YouTube. Instead, these videos focus on explaining existing tools to generate scripts and voice-overs, and to create and edit together images for the video visuals. YouTube’s new tools basically give creators an in-house option for much of this: Creators will be able to generate video prompts and script outlines, automatically edit clips together, and create AI-voiced dubs into other languages.
The main potential draw is that these AI tools would generate content based off of creators’ own historical output. For example, YouTube says the “insights” tool will be personalized so that new video ideas will take into account what a creator’s audience is already watching, something that other text generators can’t do without access to YouTube’s data. It also aims to recommend music for videos, including royalty-free music that hypothetically should help creators know what won’t get them troublesome copyright strikes.
But existing creators don’t seem particularly interested one way or the other. “No one’s heard of it yet,” says Jimmy McGee, a YouTuber who recently made a video titled “The AI Revolution is Rotten to the Core.” As the title might suggest, he’s not a huge fan of YouTube’s proposed tools, but he says it’s “strange” how they’ve been received.
He thinks it may be that these tools are mainly geared toward creators, and viewers may not notice if, for example, a video is edited with the help of AI. He doesn’t think the more obvious tools, like the melty generated visuals of Dream Screen, will take off in the long run. “People will get sick of those quick enough that it’s not really a problem,” he says. But the other tools might lead to longer-term issues in the creator space.
Viewers might not immediately notice if AI software is used to edit videos, but McGee worries that it will undermine those who actually use it. “It’s going to de-skill newer people on YouTube,” he says. Although he finds it unlikely that it will replace professional editors in its current form, it will prevent newer creators from growing their skills. YouTube is billing the feature as an easier way in for people who might not be as confident in their skills yet. It’s also aimed toward Shorts, YouTube’s vertical-video spinoff, so it might make things easier for those who only have their phones to edit on. But McGee thinks that relying on it may end up discouraging video creators in the long run as they struggle to grow creatively.
“I think the more decisions you can make in your video, the better the video can be,” says McGee. “Maybe it won’t be [at first], but the ceiling is higher. That’s what worries me. If someone goes in earnestly trying to use these tools, it’d be very sad to see them give up.”
That potential pitfall depends on whether YouTube’s tools stick around. Parent company Google has a habit of shuttering things — including features it has hyped up a lot more than this one. And generative AI is currently running at a loss for most companies. “We’re probably going to see a decline in its popularity pretty soon,” says media and fandom critic Sarah Z. “[In the meantime] I hope these tools are helpful to creators and serve as a way of empowering them to better execute videos that serve their visions rather than a way to undercut creators.”
But some creators already feel undercut by AI on the platform. Just before YouTube’s tool announcement, creator Abyssoft released a video about a potential case of plagiarism. In it, he detailed the similarities between a previous video he had put out and a video uploaded by a different channel and speculated on how AI could have been used to perform the theft, including using speech-to-text programs and AI voice-over software.
Contacted for comment, Abyssoft pointed out that this is already a widespread issue on the platform. In May, science communicator Kyle Hill spoke out against YouTube channels using AI to create unverified but attention-grabbing content on the site. These videos are often misleading and in some cases appear to copy topics that Hill himself had made videos on.
In his video, Abyssoft says that he isn’t sure what the solution to these issues is. But one thing he suggests is that YouTube should disclose when AI is being used in video creation. He’d also like to see “a punishment or strike system for people that fail to disclose and are proven to be using AI.”
This would be easier if it were YouTube’s own AI tools that were being used; the platform would already be aware. In response to a request for comment on whether Google was considering implementing this feature or any additional measures to avoid plagiarism and misinformation on the platform, Google policy communications manager Jack Malon stated that all content is subject to the existing community guidelines, and that these are “enforced consistently for all creators on our platform, regardless of whether their content is generated using artificial intelligence.”
Although Abyssoft considered some of the other generative AI tools as potentially useful, like the music tool helping creators avoid copyright issues, he continues to fear what easy access to AI tools might do to YouTube creators. “AI facilitates plagiarism in a way we haven’t seen before, and with a bit of effort it will soon become undetectable,” he says. “Competing in a sea of faceless AI channels will be a tough challenge for creators who make a living this way, as their upload cadence will be greatly outpaced by the AI.”
However, he doesn’t think that AI will necessarily produce interesting videos. “I’m assuming the tool that suggests video topics is only going to suggest ideas that it thinks will do well in the algorithm,” he says. “Things will get incredibly formulaic if [it’s] relied on too much.”
He does acknowledge that channels with technical content, such as his own speedrunning history videos, have the advantage of research and understanding that can’t be carried out by AI. McGee similarly feels somewhat protected by his own style. “My videos are messy and I like them that way,” he says. “I can make all the melty, weird visuals myself and make something I’m actually proud of.”
But other channels might not be able to survive. “Someone that covers current news will see AI upload videos before their editing is finished, since it can just scrape whatever articles have been published for the day and render out a video and voice-over in less than an hour,” says Abyssoft.
YouTube’s tools haven’t yet launched beyond a few test countries, so it’ll be some time until we see the impact they’ll have on the platform. But while creators have concerns that they might add new issues for both existing and upcoming video makers, they also have prior concerns about the use of AI that they feel aren’t being addressed by the platform. It seems to be these that are holding creators’ attention, not any new announcements.
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Jay Castello
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