Terrible Journalism & Interesting Statistics - Rob Orchard

1. 0:00 – 0:29

   Intro

   1. RORob Orchard0:00

      ... journalists come in in the morning and they're given a list of the stories that were trending online overnight, which is why, you know, these poor, poor buggers, they come into work and they're like, "Write, write something about this." "Who is this?" "I don't know." "It's an American celebrity. She was on some kind of series that you've not heard of." "Then what's happened to her?" "I don't know. She's breaking up with her boyfriend." "Who's her boyfriend?" "I don't know. It doesn't matter, just write something."

   2. CWChris Williamson0:23

      (wind blowing) Rob Orchard, welcome to the show.

   3. RORob Orchard0:25

      Nice to be here, Chris. Nice to be here. Thanks very much for inviting me.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:28

      My pleasure.

2. 0:29 – 5:11

   What is Slow Journalism?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:29

      How do you describe what you do for work?

   2. RORob Orchard0:32

      Uh, so I'm an editor. Uh, I edit a beautiful quarterly news magazine called Delayed Gratification, uh, which I launched, uh, with my co-editor, Marcus, back in 2010 with an idea of providing a sort of an antidote to knee-jerk, uh, Twitter-driven news reporting, uh, which doesn't give journalists enough time to really get to grips with stories. So we kind of go the opposite way. Once every three months, we produce a beautiful magazine, news magazine, which looks back over the big events of the quarter, uh, with the benefit of hindsight and asks the question of what happened next.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:03

      So that's slow journalism that you've coined?

   4. RORob Orchard1:07

      (laughs) Yeah, yeah. So I wouldn't... I'm, I'm not gonna claim ownership of it. It's, um... You know, a lot of people have been talking about it for a long time, but I think ours is the first magazine, or ours was the first magazine to put a flag in the sand and say, "Yes, this is a slow journalism magazine." And the idea is it's a bit like, um, slow food and slow travel, right? So taking your time to do something of quality and, and kind of providing a counter, a counterbalance to sort of life getting terribly speedy and, and news getting terribly speedy and everything getting terribly speedy.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:35

      What's the big difference between slow and fast journalism?

   6. RORob Orchard1:38

      Well, there's all sorts of different things. So what tends to happen in terms of the way that we, we, we process our news is that, um, it's coming at us from all directions. You know, it's on our phones. It's kind of quite often the first thing that we do in the morning, right? Instead of turning to our loved one, we turn on our phones. We, and we check and make sure nothing horrible has happened overnight. Um, and last thing at night as well, and throughout the day and on our socials, and it's, it's, it's kind of this, this white noise of news. And what, what tends to happen as well is that it moves in, in kind of cycles. So you get an intense concentration on a massive story for a few days, and then suddenly the news agenda moves on, and you're quite often left with a, the sort of the feeling of not having really got to grips with what the story was or, or wanting to know what happened next. Um, but, but, you know, the, the news cycle feeds on novelty, and so it's kind of constantly moving on. So to take an example, um, uh, Afghanistan, we were all glued to the story, um, over the summer in August, um, August 15th, the fall of Kabul and the, kind of the few days leading up to that and the few, few days after that. But since then, the coverage of what's been happening in Afghanistan has completely fallen off a cliff, um, and we happened to have in the next issue a very, um, a very well-written, a very well-considered piece from a female journalist who's been there for the last year and who, who continued, very bravely continued, didn't leave with everybody else, stayed there, um, and has got this incredible 6,000-word read for us, really getting to grips with what has happened in the country since then. So I suppose when it works well, what it is, is you open up the, the magazine or, or, you know, wherever you read it. You open up the magazine and you think, "God, yeah, that story. What the hell happened with that? I remember that." And we tell you, you know? And in amongst that, we also tell you the stories that you missed, and we have this kind of slightly cheesy line of, "The stories other missed or others missed or mistold." Um, so this idea of in the kind of the heat of, of, you know, like 24/7 rolling news, there's, there's stuff that gets missed and there's stuff that gets, that gets put out there, uh, wrongly. So this is ideally, in its best form, it's an antidote to that.

   7. CWChris Williamson3:42

      Mm. I remember doing an AS level in social media... Uh, no, sorry, in media studies and sociology, so a quarter of an A-level in media studies. And even then, I remember learning about on 9/11 the way that certain companies' executives said, "It's a good day for bad news," and they released tons and tons of weird, murky stories that they just needed to kick out into the press 'cause they knew it was gonna be relegated to page 105 and it didn't really matter. So that's super... So that's before social media, that's before Twitter, that's before rapid smartphone delivery for information and disinformation and misinformation. And even then, people were able to play these games and they were able to work with the if-it-bleeds-it-leads, um, seductiveness for the press to look at the things that are in front of them, and there's now even more... I- it sounds like we're delivered the front end of the story because that's where the novelty lies, but we never close the loop around what actually happened in the story because who cares about closure? All that anyone wants to know about is what's new.

   8. RORob Orchard4:57

      Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's very easy to get very cynical about it. And obviously there are tons of brilliant journalists and brilliant news organizations. And one thing that I'm always trying to be careful about is not in any way to say that, like, we are the answer, 'cause we're not. We're a small team. We make a beautiful magazine, comes out once

3. 5:11 – 12:25

   Why the Current Media System is Broken

   1. RORob Orchard5:11

      every three months. If you relied on it for finding out what was happening on (laughs) you know, what was going on in the world, then, you know, uh, like three months after the fact you'd be like, "Oh, wow, so Biden got in," you know?

   2. CWChris Williamson5:21

      (laughs)

   3. RORob Orchard5:21

      "There's a, there's a pan- there's a pandemic on. That's why everyone's been dying. There's a pandemic going on." So we're not, we're not the answer in that sense. There are tons of, you know, skilled and talented journalists out there doing amazing work, and there are people doing kind of follow-up stories. However, that's not, that's not the way that most of the news that we receive works. And part of that is, as you say, it's novelty, it's if-it-bleeds-it-leads, which is kind of, you know, from time immemorial, that is, you know, the, how, how journalism has worked. But part of it is also the economics, right? So as you have moved away from y- y- you know, you get up in the morning and you go and buy your particular newspaper, you spend money on it and, you know, you kind of take it and dissect it and so on, and the, the editors make their best guess as, as to what will be interesting and useful to you, you move to a time when news is largely free.... and has been expected to be free. Um, and the way to monetize it is by, kind of, you know, using the data of the people who are buying it and, you know, feeding them up very invasive, very targeted advertising. And that kind of militates away from considered journalism, right? Because actually, if you're only measuring value in terms of clicks, then the sensible thing to do is not to, you know, is not to commission a 6,000-word considered piece, which, you know, a team of editors work on with a brave journalist and, you know, you kind of get something really interesting. The sensible thing to do is to bang out a couple of hundred words of nonsense, uh, with some sort of sly reference to a celebrity who's in vogue at the moment, put on a provocative headline, and just kind of pump it out and pump out 20 or 30 of those, you know, a day. That's, you know, because then you get the clicks, and then you get the advertising, and then you can fund things and so on. So there's something rotten about the system. There's an interesting thing though, I mean, in- in recent years, I have seen the pendulum start to swing back a little bit, as it always does, right? Which is paywalls, um, people putting up, you know, paywalls and- and demanding money for their journalism. And thank God, right? Because we got into a really bleak period. When we launched this- this magazine, it was, you know, like, the only way forward that people saw was in digital, um, like, print was there, digital and, um, had to be free. Had to be free and you had to get mass. And that was really, really kind of scary, because we were educating an entire generation of people to expect that they should get, you know, all of their news for free, even though good news costs money.

   4. CWChris Williamson7:43

      Sam Harris has a point around this that he says the entire internet made a price estimation error in terms of how much it values content. Podcasts shouldn't be free. Everyone that's listening to this right now should be paying me for my time. Everyone should. And ev-

   5. RORob Orchard8:00

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson8:00

      ... they should be paying every- every other podcaster as well. When you think about the amount of value and pleasure that you get, and how engaging it is, and how awesome that platform is, and that's just one platform. And then talk about the best follow that you have on Twitter, and then think about the best blogger that you follow that just writes because they like to do it, and the best newsletter that you subscribe to. And yeah, people are picking up the scraps with affiliate deals, and maybe they've got a member's area where you can pay for more content, and maybe blah, blah, blah, like, freemium model, thin end of the wedge shit. But the bottom line is that when we began the internet, when we began content creation on the internet, we misjudged, the entire universe misjudged what you should be paying for and what you should expect for free. And sadly now, because of anchoring bias, there is... that genie can't go back in the bottle. You cannot do that. There is... d- d- anchoring bias is precisely what people are doing with gated content. They're saying, "You still get the show for free, but you pay for more," as opposed to-

   7. RORob Orchard8:59

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson8:59

      ... "This is what you could have got, and now you have to pay to get it." It's all about a- avoiding the anchoring bias. But yeah, I- I think that the perverse incentives that de-incentivize people from writing good pieces of long journalism that would have taken ages versus, "Can you believe what Khloe Kardashian wore last night? Here's a photo of her with no makeup on going to the whatever," that's gonna get shared around and that'll trend, so...

   9. RORob Orchard9:25

      Yeah. Of course. Well, it's- it's even more insidious than that. So it's also, um, you know, in- in certain news organizations, what happens is- is journalists come in in the morning, and they're given a list of the stories that were trending online overnight, you know, kind of the things that are out there in the ether people are talking about. Which is why, you know, these poor, poor buggers, you know, they- they- they come into work and they're like, "Right, write something about this." "Who is this?" "I don't know. It's an American celebrity. She was on some kind of series that you've not heard of." "Right, and what's happened to her?" "Something... I don't know. She's breaking up with her boyfriend." "Who's her boyfriend?" "I don't know. It doesn't matter. Just write something."

   10. CWChris Williamson10:00

       (laughs)

   11. RORob Orchard10:00

       So, you know, at the bottom end... The o- the other thing that happens with this, of course, and you're absolutely right that there's... I mean, it's not a difficult argument, fundamentally, is it, to say that, um, you know, when you're talking about journalism where you're sending people to- to difficult and scary places to, um... you know, to be put into situations that you wouldn't want to be put into on your behalf so you can get information. That's- that should be a fairly easy sell. But the other thing that happens, of course, is that, um, as- as the number of media multiply, right? So as you kind of burst outside of the established media, which in many ways was very, very, very good, because it empowers a lot of kind of smaller producers to- to do some interesting things and to experiment. But as you do that, um, and as their, you know, economic clout comes down and down and down, and as they sort of hemorrhage cash, there's fewer opportunities for journalists to take, you know, what was tr- traditional route of journalism? So in this country, for example, what would happen is you would, you know, you'd start at an entry-level job on a local newspaper, and you'd frantically work away. Hopefully some nice editor would take you under their wing and sort of knock some of the- the- the rough corners off, rough edges off your- your writing and so on. You'd start writing pieces and try to send them to the Nationals, and eventually you'd get a couple placed, and then eventually you might get something, you know, like, you know, at the Nationals and then you'd work your way up... There was a- there was a- a- there was a- kind of a- a ladder that you could climb. It- it kind of made sense, right? And so what you end up there with is- is proper training and, you know, proper experience, and you can do that in a context in which you can make enough money to survive. That sounds like a good way to fund journalism, which, as we all know, is incredibly important to a stable society, right? And to democracy. But the problem is now there's so few... there's no local news jobs. Local news is basically dead. It's been killed by the internet. Um, and there's very few opportunities at the- kind of the bigger est- establishment organizations. So you've still got all of these people wanting to become journalists, still loads and loads of people desperate to- to kind of go into that. They come out the other side and they realize there's nothing for them to go into. And so then what they have to do is they have to find some sort of backdoor. So there's the possibility they could launch a podcast. It might take off, it won't. It might, you know, or they could launch their own magazine. It might take off, it won't. It might. You know, and you sort of... you're- you're hollowing out the whole ecosystem, and what you end up with is the- kind of the few opportunities that there are there-... tend not to be for the- the better sort of, kind of interesting journalism. They tend to be this thing where you're just turning the wheel to- to keep the whole sordid process going.

4. 12:25 – 16:27

   Is it Better to be First or to be Right?

   1. RORob Orchard12:25

   2. CWChris Williamson12:25

      Talk to me about the difference between first and being right. I heard you talk about the Amanda Knox story as a really good example of this.

   3. RORob Orchard12:33

      The Amanda Knox story was fascinating. So it was this, um, you know, it was the retrial of Amanda Knox, uh, for the murder of Meredith Kercher-

   4. CWChris Williamson12:43

      Future Netflix story.

   5. RORob Orchard12:44

      ... in Perugia. That's right, yeah. And, um, so this was, uh, this was a highly attended court event in Perugia, and all of the world's major news organizations were there. There's these extraordinary photos of, you know, these banks and banks of- of people kind of watching the story. And, um, the Daily Mail had prepared two news stories. Uh, one for if the- the verdict went one way and one for if- if it went the other way. And there was something that happened, maybe somebody in the court misheard something, um, you know, it was guilty but it was guilty to something else or to a lesser charge of slander rather than murder. Um, and the button was pushed and the wrong news story went up online because as we know, at the retrial, Amanda Knox's- the- the guilty verdict was overturned and she was- she was, ended up subsequently being released. And so this story goes up on the, uh, world's single biggest English language news site, which is, um, it is diametric opposite of the truth. And, you know, this sort of thing has always happened, right? Because news organizations, they've always prepared, you know, for eventuality. You think about elections, you know, there's, uh, there's famous examples in the past of people just being certain the election was gonna go one way and they publish their front story with X won and Y wins. Um, and the thing that they got into trouble with, uh, the- the Mail was that there was quite a lot of kind of elaborated color, there was quite a lot of elaborated quotes that went in there as well.

   6. CWChris Williamson14:13

      What like?

   7. RORob Orchard14:13

      Um, and of course... Well, so I think there was a thing about, uh, the need to be careful to get this right, but I think there was a thing about the- the, uh, the reaction, um, of, uh, of, um, of Knox and- and- and of the family. And I think also, um, there was a quote from a court official, which I think was not correct. And so, you know, you have this- you have this very weird situation where this- this- this wrong story kind of goes up and you can completely understand why you get to that point, right? Because getting stories out first means that when lots and lots of people are searching for them, th- that's the story that they land on, right? So people all around the world were interested in this verdict and they, you know, they wanted to know. So there's this incredible pressure to get the story out first. And obviously the people at the Mail wanted to get it right, but they- they kind of like, they pushed the wrong button and this went up, it's only up for a couple of minutes and they put the correct story up. Um, uh, and, you know, if the verdict had been, you know, what they thought it was, then that would've been, you know, part of the- the record of- of this event for the rest of history, even though stuff in it was not kind of correct. So that's- that's a weird thing. You know, this- this need for speed in this hyper, hyper, hyper speedy knee-jerk news environment means that we are kind of built for, um, for error kind of creeping in. And then more than that, and this is not what I'm sort of suggesting in- in this case particularly, but, you know, the whole ecosystem is built up for- for spreading disinformation and misinformation very, very rapidly around the world.

   8. CWChris Williamson15:41

      You know what it's like? It reminds me of the algorithmic trading companies on Wall Street-

   9. RORob Orchard15:47

      Mm.

   10. CWChris Williamson15:47

       ... that moved their exchanges closer-

   11. RORob Orchard15:49

       (laughs) .

   12. CWChris Williamson15:49

       Uh, moved their offices closer to the exchanges to gain half a millisecond.

   13. RORob Orchard15:53

       That's right. That's right. And, you know, because it matters, right? Because the economics of it are such that if you get that story out first, then you're higher in the Google rankings, which means more people link to you. And I mean, I know the algorithm is changing all the time, but, you know, uh, but, you know, you're- you're- you're notionally gonna get higher up, which means you can get more clicks, which means you can charge more for the advertising, which means at a time when people aren't prepared to pay for news, you can still continue to fund your organizations. But I mean, if you sat down to construct a kind of a news ecosystem from scratch, you know, it wouldn't be that.

5. 16:27 – 30:55

   What the Press are Getting Wrong

   1. RORob Orchard16:27

   2. CWChris Williamson16:27

      What else are the press getting wrong at the moment?

   3. RORob Orchard16:33

      I'm very loath to criticize the press because I think that by and large, um, the- the press is kind of comprised of editors and journalists who are just trying to do their best, um, and trying to get the truth out there. And of course, you know, my magazine, you know, uh, one way we've- we've talked about it is we're slightly the kind of, we're the seagulls following the trawler, right? Because we're not, you know, we're not breaking the news that the- the- the slogan down the spine of all of our issues is "Last to breaking news." So we're kind of following along behind and, you know, we get to- we get to look at, at what has happened and then we get to kind of ask people to take a broader view on it. And there are interesting things around that. So, you know, one of the things that often happens is, um, when people are interviewed about an event when it's just happened and sometimes when it's still happening, still unfolding behind them, they tend to give a very different reaction, understandably, to a few months down the line when they've had a chance to consider and put things in perspective. You know, when they're standing in front of the burning building trying to process what's happened, it is a very different reaction to, you know, three months down the line, "Okay, I think about it." So- so we have that-

   4. CWChris Williamson17:37

      The people selecting for witnesses and for statements and for reactions from people and commentators and opinion pieces, they're selecting for a very particular type of opinion.

   5. RORob Orchard17:48

      Well, that's right. So it- it is the opinion that you get immediately and also because the media moves, you know, uh, en masse around certain stories, you also get things. So, um, I remember going to Salisbury three months after the poisoning, and, um, it's actually my- my hometown, and, uh, just kind of walking around talking to people and they're like, "God, there's endless journalists." And, you know, people were almost scared to go into the town center because they would just be stopped. Like, "Hi, I'm from CNN." "Hi, I'm BBC." "Can I, you know, can I get some words from you?" "How are you feeling?" "Hello. I'm feeling fine. Just..."... fuck off. I just like the, my entire town is now just journalists and, like, potentially some Novichok. So, uh, yeah, so... (laughs) So that's, you know, that's, that's another kind of quirk there. But no, as I said, sorry, I'm, I very loathe to criticize journalists. Um, I think in an ideal world, um, we would find... And I think, do you know what? I think slowly we're getting there 'cause I think these paywalls seem to be working. And actually, a wonderful example is The Guardian. So The Guardian was losing money hand over fist for, for many, many years. And, um, they took this kind of very grownup decision to say to their readers, "What we do costs money, and you need to support us if you want it. We'll keep giving it. We'll do it free because we want reach, and we think our journalism needs to reach the four corners of the world. And if you can't pay, no problem at all. However, it costs money, and if you can support us, then do." And they had tremendous reaction, and they managed to, you know, break even, I think ahead of where they thought they were going to. So, um, so I think, you know, that people are trying to do... I mean, obviously there's always, you know, as in any, any organizations, there's obviously kind of, you know, there's, there's bias, and there's corruption, and there's things that I see happening which, you know, I think are un- unpleasant in terms of invasion of privacy and things like that. But, you know, that's been with us forever and, and probably always will, uh, always will be. But I think, you know, I, I just have, I just have the privilege, I guess, of being able to offer a slightly different view.

   6. CWChris Williamson19:44

      The bastards are ubiquitous. It doesn't matter where you are or what industry you're in.

   7. RORob Orchard19:47

      That's true.

   8. CWChris Williamson19:48

      The bastards are gonna be... They, they're gonna be everywhere. I'm pretty fascinated thinking about what it, what it does to the psyche en masse for people to hear stories, very vociferous, aggressive, eye-catching stories, and never get to hear the conclusion to them, never get to tie up that loose end. That's something I've never, ever thought of before. But it's almost, unless it's a court case in which the court case itself becomes another piece of novelty that people want to get to. The only reason that that closure is being featured is that the closure is also another piece of novelty. But for the most part, you hear... The Afghanistan exit is a perfect example. We all knew what happened with the, those photos of people falling from the plane as it's taking off, they're clinging to it as they're running along, and they're waving at the camera. And tha- I, I don't know how that's even been completed. I, I have no idea at all.

   9. RORob Orchard20:48

      Well, this is, this is, this is true. And also, I mean, I suppose the other thing is, arguably, you know, you could do a magazine that does this every six months. Uh, you could do one that does it every year. You know, there's loads of stories that we could continue to follow up and, you know, when, when does it end, right? When do the ripples stop emerging from that, from that story? Um, and I suppose that we've always kind of positioned the magazine as halfway between a magazine and a history book, right? You know, it's like, it's, it's sort of, you know, somewhere in between the two.

   10. CWChris Williamson21:15

       Who says a lot that three months is history?

   11. RORob Orchard21:16

       (laughs) That's true. That's true. I mean, we do do deeper stuff than that. So I mean, it's, it's often the, um, the stories are kind of inspired by something that happened in that three-month period, but we'll reach further back. And what... I guess what we try to do is, given that we have these lovely, like, long-form stories that we can, uh, we can do is we try to get to do what a lot of journalists aren't given time to do, which is, um, provide lots of context and seek out lots and lots of expert opinion and, um, you know, like, try to, try to take a broad view. And that's, that's very difficult to do if you're having to turn out stories, you know-

   12. CWChris Williamson21:47

       But that's the-

   13. RORob Orchard21:47

       ... at, at such a dramatic pace.

   14. CWChris Williamson21:48

       That's the thing is the, it's the consistent ambient, unfulfilled open loop that it has to have an impact on the public's psychology. It has to. You're constantly being fed issues that do not get resolved. That's what the news is.

   15. RORob Orchard22:06

       That's true. That's true. And also, of course, I mean, you know, this is not, uh, a new thing, and this is, this is, this is just th- the nature of news as we kind of see it, um, is that because everything is... you know, not everything, because there's a lot of terribly bleak things out there, um, and because you want to cut through with your stories, you kind of have to escalate. I mean, you know, this is, this is, right, you know, this kind of feeds back to this amazing, um, Anna Lembke, uh, you know, interview that we're talking about, that you, you, you kind of, you know, you, you, you can't... you just, you can't give people the same thing and expect the same reaction. You kind of have to escalate. So... And that's part of the reason I think w- why, you know, so many people have said that they want to switch off the news, you know, th- and that they feel so much better when they stop reading the news for a few months 'cause they can't do anything about it, you know. None of the massive issues are anything that we can actually influence. We can't influence government coronavirus policy. We can't influence China's plans to build coal-fired power stations. We can't do anything about any of these things, and yet they weigh on us as though we could and, uh, as though we're, like, we're not fulfilling it. So you're right. News is very anxiety-inducing, which is part of the reason that, um, you know, that people want to consume it, because they think if they can consume it, then they can master it and somehow get on top of it. Uh, but they can't. I mean, I, I kind of wish that I could stop reading the news, but I can't 'cause it's, it's my job.

   16. CWChris Williamson23:26

       I got sent a plugin by my buddy George called Twemex, which is just a plugin for Chrome. And it's... it brings up a highlight of the person whose profile you're on, their top tweets of all time by likes and retweets, but the most important thing that it does is it covers over the trending portion of my Twitter home page. So I go onto my newsfeed now, and this thing comes up. And if it, if you're not on someone's profile, it just randomly chooses one of the people that you follow, and-

   17. RORob Orchard24:00

       Right.

   18. CWChris Williamson24:00

       ... and it, and it brings up their best tweets of all time, which is awesome because I only follow 99 people, so they're always someone that I know or someone that I absolutely adore what they're doing. But on top of that, it stops me from seeing trending, that, that trending-

   19. RORob Orchard24:14

       Right.

   20. CWChris Williamson24:14

       ... thing on the side. And when you realize, when you log on, there is nothing that I can be surprised by now-

   21. RORob Orchard24:21

       (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson24:21

       ... that would go in that point.

   23. RORob Orchard24:24

       Right.

   24. CWChris Williamson24:25

       Like, it, it, it could be any story at all. I don't know whether you've seen, um...I can't remember who the comedian is, from America that did this, but they pieced together, I think it might have been Ryan Long, Ryan Long pieced together how you make an eye-catching headline.

   25. RORob Orchard24:43

       Right.

   26. CWChris Williamson24:43

       And it's just a bunch of, uh, a particular group does something in this, so it's outraged mothers fighting over...

   27. RORob Orchard24:55

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson24:56

       ... um, misappropriated cat culture or something like that.

   29. RORob Orchard24:58

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson24:58

       And it's just, that's how you piece it together. And he, he does all of that. And you look at, you look at the side of trending and you think, "This is fucking, this is the world that we're in, this sort of formulaic, algorithmic headline writing."
6. 30:55 – 38:45

   Rob’s Side Interest of Data Science

   1. CWChris Williamson30:55

      interest in data science or something then? 'Cause you've written a, a book that works out things like how much it would cost to buy everything in an edition of Vogue or what the actual best inventions since sliced bread have been or the UK's most popular dog breeds. Are you a, a closet data scientist too?

   2. RORob Orchard31:12

      Um, so I would never glorify myself as a data scientist. But since we launched the magazine, so in the first issue of the magazine, my co-co-editor, Marcus, said, "Do you know what we should do? We should do some infographics. Infographics are fun." And our art director, who's the best art director in, art director in the world, sort of came onto this and said, "Yeah." So from the very first issue, we started doing infographics and just trying to work out, you know, how we do them. And, and over the years, we've, we've kind of worked out... well, we've got, we've got better and better at them, I think and... Um, and so actually what happened with this book was, it was April 2020 and, uh, the first lockdown, and suddenly we'd gone from selling, you know, three or 4,000 copies of the magazine at the newsstand to selling zero copies because nobody was going to, you know, airports, nobody was going to bookshops, nobody was going to train stations. I mean, obviously, as, you know, in terms of what was going on at the time, that was a very small drama. But for our, our business, that was a big deal. And so, uh, we were just casting around for something that we could, we could do, a project that we could all throw ourselves into in this time when we were, you know, not going out, when we were just staying at home. And we thought, "Let's do a book." 'Cause we'd talked about doing a book for ages, and we had 10 years' worth of infographics. So we started putting stuff together and coming up with new ideas and, and how it would all look, and then we found an agent and, um, we got the, we got an offer from Bloomsbury so we sell- sold it to them and then we started putting it together. And I love infographics. And, uh, I'm not a data scientist, but I have enough, I have enough data manipulation skills to pull together, you know, um, infographics and to do the, do the research for them. And they're brilliant for a magazine because they give you, they give you a way in. I think that they are like a gateway drug for magazine purchases. And I've seen people at the newsstand flicking through a copy of Delayed Gratification. You know, and it's not the long-form features, the earnest kind of analysis, any of that that they stop at. It's the funnies, it's the little infographics, the little things like, "Oh wow, at that... My goodness, did you know how many chickens there are? Wow." And, um, so that's, that's, you know, been great for us for, for the magazine. But I also think that they're, they're really interesting from a journalistic point of view because you can kind of use them in a way slightly to take the heat out of, of, you know, kind of quite controversial stories. Because you can just, you know, you can just put the facts down, right? And you can, you can kind of give people a way into the facts, you know, that, that kind of looks good and that kind of amuses them and intrigues them at the same time as, as hopefully giving them some, some information. So they're great. And this, yeah, this book is, I mean this book is 10 years in the making and it's got lots and lots of lovely silly stuff in it, but it's got quite a lot of serious stuff in it. I think... I'm glad that you mentioned what's the best thing since sliced bread, 'cause that took me flipping forever to work out how to answer that question. Um, but, uh, but basically what we ended up doing was getting loads and loads of lists, uh, that eminent bodies had produced of the best human inventions of all time. And then we, we totted up... we did a meta list, so we totted up all of their kind of votes and we worked out what the most, kind of, uh, most lauded inventions in human history were, um, post the Industrial Revolution. So it wasn't like fire and the wheel and stuff like that. And then we found out when sliced bread was invented, it was introduced in 1928, I think in June 1928. And then we just looked at the two inventions that were best ranked after that which were, spoiler alert, they were penicillin and the internet. And penicillin only just scraped under the wire because I think that was something like September 1928. But that's it, you know, like that's... So it's, it's, it's-

   3. CWChris Williamson34:29

      Wasn't penicillin grown on bread as well?

   4. RORob Orchard34:32

      Yeah, and actually-

   5. CWChris Williamson34:33

      So that's two bread-based...

   6. RORob Orchard34:35

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson34:35

      And if we'd been able to make the internet off of bread, we would have had-

   8. RORob Orchard34:39

      Wow.

   9. CWChris Williamson34:39

      ... three bread-based inventions.

   10. RORob Orchard34:42

       Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, let's not rule it out at this stage. Let's see if we can get some, uh, some funding-

   11. CWChris Williamson34:47

       Into bread, yeah.

   12. RORob Orchard34:49

       ... (laughs) um, exactly.

   13. CWChris Williamson34:49

       So I, here's... I've, I've got some of my favorite ones that I went through. So the world's oldest person was 122 years old, and she was French, apparently.

   14. RORob Orchard34:58

       Yeah, Jeanne Calment. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, so we like looking at old people, so we did this whole infographic at the, uh, the other end of the book which was, um, it was called How to Live Forever. Um, but it had a little asterisk that said up to a maximum of 122 years. And, uh, what we did was we looked at supercentenarians, so people who had lived older than 110. And the nice thing about that is that they've all been interviewed at some stage and, I mean, quite often they're, you know, sort of barely kind of capable of, of giving answers, but the one question everybody has always asked them is, "How did you live to such an old age?" And, um, and the answers are just, just absolutely delightful. So, um, there's mad stuff like, uh, so whisky and boiled onions, uh, eating boiled polenta. A sense of humor, quite a few people said that. Lifelong virginity.

   15. CWChris Williamson35:49

       Eugenie Blanchard, lifelong virginity.

   16. RORob Orchard35:52

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson35:52

       God, no alcohol, tobacco or, (laughs) or fooling around.

   18. RORob Orchard35:57

       No fooling around.

   19. CWChris Williamson35:58

       No fooling around.

   20. RORob Orchard35:59

       Yeah, exactly. My favorite one is there's a lady who said, um, daily raw steak and brandy and leaving her husband.

   21. CWChris Williamson36:06

       Aged 39.

   22. RORob Orchard36:07

       (laughs) Um, so that's quite nice. Like you can, you can start to get... I mean, I'm not sure, I wouldn't necessarily... I'm not sort of necessarily endorsing lifelong virginity and a, a all-brandy diet to people, but there's, there's kind of nice funny things that you can find out from it. I, I-

   23. CWChris Williamson36:20

       I'm a big fan of May Harrington who lived to 113, died on the 29th of December 2002, and just has "Nothing divulged" written below her advice.

   24. RORob Orchard36:32

       That's right, yeah. Yeah, she's not giving her secrets away.

   25. CWChris Williamson36:34

       (laughs) Right. Yeah, yeah.

   26. RORob Orchard36:35

       Why, why would she, you know? Hey-

   27. CWChris Williamson36:35

       Yeah. Enjoy dying at 80, bitches. (laughs)

   28. RORob Orchard36:38

       Yeah, exactly. I knew, I didn't tell.

   29. CWChris Williamson36:41

       You didn't know. And then, uh, the oldest living creature was a clam that lived to 507 years old-

   30. RORob Orchard36:48

       That's right.
7. 38:45 – 47:13

   Data Surrounding Emissions & China

   1. RORob Orchard38:45

      it.

   2. CWChris Williamson38:45

      Yeah. Looking at the CO2 emissions, I was quite interested in this, the UK has seen the biggest CO2 emissions drop of all G20 nations, a decrease of 41% since 1990. Meanwhile, China is emitting 11.5 billion tons of CO2 per year, which accounts for 30.3% of the global total. That's one country...

   3. RORob Orchard39:10

      Mm.

   4. CWChris Williamson39:10

      ... contributing 30.3% of the entire global total of CO2 emissions.

   5. RORob Orchard39:16

      It's true. I mean, one thing to kind of bear in mind, I suppose, about that, you know, that's, that is an impressive drop by the UK and, um, a lot of it has been this real kind of like throwing ourselves into renewables. And so actually since 1990, you know, coal-fired, um, power, um, energy production has, has kind of absolutely plummeted. But another thing that's happened is that manufacturing in this country has effectively been offshored to China. So, you know, our emissions data doesn't take into account the embedded emissions of the products that we buy constantly from China-

   6. CWChris Williamson39:48

      That's interesting.

   7. RORob Orchard39:48

      ... and are kind of, you know, made there using less clean energy and that are shipped here, flown here, whatever it might be. You know, so actually there's, there's loads of different ways of... Okay, I mean, e- even in this, you know, so actually there's, there's three different kind of major standards for how you measure emissions and some of them take into account, uh, you know, like, uh, aviation and, and, and some that don't.

   8. CWChris Williamson40:12

      Livestock and stuff, yeah.

   9. RORob Orchard40:13

      You know, all of these different things. So, um, so yeah, I mean, yeah, generally the UK has done well. Um, it's, it's probably also the case that a lot of the low-hanging fruit for the UK has now been, been picked. Um, whereas actually, you know, somewhere, somewhere like China, actually, um, they, they haven't kind of, you know, made that switch to renewables. But if they did, that would make a massive difference.

   10. CWChris Williamson40:33

       I'm terrified of China. Sometimes-

   11. RORob Orchard40:35

       Mm-hmm.

   12. CWChris Williamson40:35

       ... I just sit and think about what it's going to be like with our new East Asian overlords, which personally I welcome with open arms-

   13. RORob Orchard40:45

       (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson40:45

       ... and have always been an ardent supporter of the Xi Jinping entire... e- everything that he's done, his hair, his outfits.

   15. RORob Orchard40:54

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson40:55

       His 30.3% of the global total CO2 emissions per year. I, I welcome them.

   17. RORob Orchard41:00

       Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, so we did actually, we did an interesting infog- infographic in the book about that, and it was just called, um, How Has China Changed, and we just looked at some of the data, um, about w- what has happened to kind of, you know, the, the quality of life of, uh, citizens in China in the 20 years, you know, the last 20 years. And it is astonishing, you know, across so many different measures across, you know, um, education, um, public health, uh, you know, earnings. Uh, just all, you know, all of these different things, Chinese citizens have lept ahead. Like their government has brought them incredible, incredible benefits. And, but I mean, you are absolutely right that they are on the path to becoming our, our overlords. I mean, certainly economically. One of the, kind of the most telling things as well, um, i- in the book for me was we just looked at how, um, GDP, um, has changed in the, in the kind of the, the, the nations of the world with the, the highest GDP. And it's fascinating because Japan's GDP has increased by something like 3%, um, in that, in that, in that last 20 years, and China's has increased by more than 1,000%. I mean, it is completely... I think the UK is around 97 or something like that. But it's just, I mean, it's, it's an incredible thing that's been happening there in the background, this economic, you know, expansion, um, which has been coupled with a lot of, um, kind of very good things for some of the citizens and a lot very bad things for some of the other citizens.

   18. CWChris Williamson42:27

       Totalitarian communist regime is good for the GDP. That's-

   19. RORob Orchard42:32

       Effective.

   20. CWChris Williamson42:33

       That's the l- it's effective.

   21. RORob Orchard42:34

       In this case, effective.

   22. CWChris Williamson42:35

       Gets the job done.

   23. RORob Orchard42:37

       Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson42:37

       I would love to see a- an accurately done study around happiness levels and around fulfillment and meaning levels for Chinese citizens. Uh, you're never going to... The same as finding out if COVID came from a Wuhan lab or whatever. We're never gonna find out. I think it's very unlikely that we're going to find out 'cause you, by its very nature, the people that would be conducting the study have a perverse incentive around the outcomes of the study. But...I don't know what it's like to be a, a Chinese citizen with a social credit score and all of your movements being tracked. And have you seen that they've got gait analysis now on the artificial intelligence system? So even if you don't show your face, they can predict who you are to a 97% accuracy simply by the way that you walk.

   25. RORob Orchard43:26

       Oh, it's petrifying.

   26. CWChris Williamson43:27

       Terrifying.

   27. RORob Orchard43:28

       Absolutely petrifying. Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson43:29

       Yeah.

   29. RORob Orchard43:29

       I don't know. I mean, you also have, you know, uh, what's going on in Xinjiang and with the Uighurs. You know, this is a, kind of a, a, a, a petrifying development. I mean, the, the other thing to, to kind of add in, I suppose, about the, you know, there's this incredible expansion, economic expansion, is, of course, it, you have to measure it from the base. So actually, you know, Japan 20 years ago was, was one of the, kind of the most developed nations in the world. And China has made this drastic jump-

   30. CWChris Williamson43:53

       Finally caught up with everybody else.
8. 47:13 – 54:27

   Post-pandemic Lifestyle Changes Data

   1. CWChris Williamson47:13

      dog breeds. I love this one. I hu- I love dogs. The most popular dog crossbreed was cockapoos with 39,000 being sold through Pets For Homes in 2020. This is in the UK. 10 of the 24 most popular dog breeds has poodles as parents, and cavapoos are the most expensive dogs. Now, I know a lot of people that have got cockapoos, so I anecdotally can completely back this.

   2. RORob Orchard47:39

      Yeah. Well, this was fascinating. So this was something that we looked at in the magazine first, right, because it was a big phenomenon about COVID and, and the lockdown. So actually, we, we did a ton, a ton, a ton, a ton of, um, uh, infographics about COVID. I mean, there was so much amazing data there to, to, to play with. And this was a fascinating peripheral one. It was w- it was going through this unbelievable inflation. And so there's two things going on. So people are getting more and more interested in, interested in cro- crossbreeds, um, and they were also paying more and more and more for them. And so we got this incredible data, and quite often, you know, for, uh, for the book, we would kind of go and approach somebody that we thought had some interesting data. And Pets For Homes did have interesting data, they sell kind of tons and tons of dogs. I think the thing, one of the things that I like the most, though, I'm not particularly a dog person, but I do love, um, the kind of these, uh, portmanteau names. So you've got, um, you know, you've got cavapoo and maltipoo and goldendoodle, but you've got pomsky, poochon.

   3. CWChris Williamson48:33

      (laughs)

   4. RORob Orchard48:33

      You've got sprudel, you've got sprocker, a mulchie, a morkie, a pomchie, a chorkie, a puggle, a jug, and a shorkie. And they're just kind of lovely, lovely things. But the prices for these things were insane. I mean, actually, the thing to really invest in over the last year has been crossbreed dogs.

   5. CWChris Williamson48:49

      Dogs.

   6. RORob Orchard48:50

      Um, yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson48:51

      Crazy. I'm trying to work out what it is about poodles that make them... Because I know that cockapoos are, I want to say, hypoallergenic, which sounds like the sort of thing that you look for in a bed pillow.Oh, yeah. Well, thankfully, because Jonathan, he's got infertile goes. So we need to have a hypoallergenic fucking pillowcase for him, or else he comes up with a rash.

   8. RORob Orchard49:12

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson49:12

      Like, but, yeah, I think that there's something to-

   10. RORob Orchard49:14

       But no, you've, you've answered it. That's exactly right. But it's the poodles that are hypoallergenic.

   11. CWChris Williamson49:18

       Okay, so they pass that down. That's a dominant gene, is it? Like having brown eyes?

   12. RORob Orchard49:22

       Exactly.

   13. CWChris Williamson49:22

       The hypoallergenic nature is... it... that gets passed down. Even if you mate that with a Dulux dog, the Dulux dog's genes just get completely whitewashed by the poodle.

   14. RORob Orchard49:31

       Now that, you have me there. I think that's the case. But you know what? I don't want to definitively say that. But, um, but can I tell you about... So the, the other, the... So I, I'm really glad that you picked that one up. The other one that I loved from the, the lockdown was... and the other kind of really novel bit of data that we got, was we, um, we looked at what people were searching for across the world during lockdown. And it was kind of... it was, it was so revelatory because it's such a, such a weird experience we've all had, right? We all went through this and, and, you know, a third of the world at one point was in some form of lockdown. And we did quite earnest stuff about the disease and how it spread, um, and, you know, the financial impact and so on. But the really human story, and I think that's where the infographics work best, is when they're kind of got this real human story at the heart of it, was what people were searching for on Google. And, um, we... so we went to Google and we said, "Look, the sort of thing that we're looking for is, um, is, you know, kind of data that tells us about, you know, how people's priorities changed." So the data that we got was, um, searches that had increased the most year on year. So the year before the, the pandemic and then the year after. And then we drilled down. We got it kind of day by day. So we related it to how the, the whole thing unfolded. So fascinatingly, before, um, the coronavirus was declared a pandemic, the big thing that people were searching for was hoarding. You know, you know, we can all remember there was this unease and, you know, there were things starting to kind of... people were starting to hoard things. We weren't quite sure what's going on. And then in order, this isn't all of them, but it went hoarding, toilet paper, coronavirus.

   15. CWChris Williamson51:00

       (laughs)

   16. RORob Orchard51:00

       People just, across the world in every language under the sun, just going, "What is coronavirus?" Hydroxychloroquine, when Trump was just like, "This is, you know, this... I'm interested in this. This is gonna sort things out." Ammunition, so driven by people in the States being like, "Right, it's the end of the world. Let's load up." Exercise bike. My absolute favorite bit is on day 12, there's two searches that spike. The first one is homeschooling. So people just being like, "How the hell do I do this?" And the second one is, "When will schools open?"

   17. CWChris Williamson51:29

       (laughs)

   18. RORob Orchard51:29

       Then you had social distancing, which is a term that had not... had never been searched for in a quantity that it would register on Google's radar before. Complete breakout term. Same with, uh, Zoom dating, cut your own hair, permit to go outside. This is lovely. Cafe sounds on YouTube. People hadn't searched for that before. 'Cause they, they wanted ca-

   19. CWChris Williamson51:48

       Cafe sounds. They wanted to sound... make themselves feel like they were in a cafe while they were sat at home.

   20. RORob Orchard51:53

       Like they were in a cafe. So, you know, what they used to do in the old days was go to a cafe, and then they were just sitting at home on their bed and just being like, "Oh, this is a bit sad." Looking for cafe sounds.

   21. CWChris Williamson52:01

       Too fucking silent in here. Let me get, let me get the sound of Sheila making a cup of tea.

   22. RORob Orchard52:05

       I know. So, which, you know, which the market provided, like the clink and the clank and the sort of, you know, people tamping down espressos or whatever. Unmute on Zoom.

   23. CWChris Williamson52:13

       (laughs)

   24. RORob Orchard52:13

       How to make your own McDonald's.

   25. CWChris Williamson52:14

       That's the most boomer search ever.

   26. RORob Orchard52:16

       (laughs) Isn't it? That's a bit... "Why, why is my face not here?"

   27. CWChris Williamson52:20

       Yeah.

   28. RORob Orchard52:21

       "Um, where are my grandchildren?" Yeah, how to make McDonald's. And then, you know, all of this kind of stuff, all of this, this kind of stuff, you know, like mads kind of social stuff. And then another breakout thing, and this was quite a long way down the line, but how many people can attend a funeral? This was a breakout search that people hadn't had to think about before, 'cause, well, as many people as can fit in the church or crematorium. But that was the thing that people were searching for en masse around the world. So I love, I love that sort of data, you know, where it's, it's kind of... it's both epic 'cause it's on, it's on a global scale, but it's also personal and immediately, you know, relatable. You understand it.

   29. CWChris Williamson52:54

       Are you familiar with Seth Stephens-Davidowitz?

   30. RORob Orchard52:57

       Yes, yes. Everybody Lies. Yeah.
9. 54:27 – 59:41

   People’s Distrust in Big Tech

   1. CWChris Williamson54:27

      in a techno-utopian way-

   2. RORob Orchard54:30

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson54:30

      ... it's a bit of a shame that the period of the world that we're living in at the moment, everybody is incredibly protective about their data because we do not believe that the people who are mining our data have our best interests at heart. You can imagine another world in which we, th- the, the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Jeff Bezos of the world were just seen as these benevolent saints, right?

   4. RORob Orchard54:51

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson54:51

      These sort of technocracy saints that would just... all that they did was make our lives better, and we knew that they had our best interests at heart, and they weren't selling it, and they weren't trying to limbically hijack us. And we just wanted more. We wanted to just continue to give ourselves away. But-... because of the framing that this situation's been given, because of concerns around privacy and hu- I had Sebastian Junger on the show not long ago, talking about the brutal history of freedom. And freedom is something that we have been fighting for, for a very, very long time.

   6. RORob Orchard55:22

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson55:23

      Uh, so when you start to encroach on that, humans have a very visceral response. They're really, really not happy about it, and understandably so. But there could have been, this could have been done a different way, and we may end up in a place where it is done in a different way. But the amount of time it's going to need to regain the public's trust of big tech-

   8. RORob Orchard55:44

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson55:44

      Think about big tech, the words big tech, it makes you think of this dark, malevolent being, you know, hiding at the top of some fucking gilded tower behind an AstroTurf lawn.

   10. RORob Orchard55:54

       (laughs)

   11. CWChris Williamson55:54

       Like, that's, that, you know, it's Silicon Valley run amok, and that's what we think about. We think they're selling our data, they're trying to target us with ads. I don't want them to even know my fucking name, let alone my bud- blood pressure.

   12. RORob Orchard56:04

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson56:05

       That's what, that's how we feel about this situation. But they, it could have been different and, um, it would've been nice. It would've been nice to have wanted to supply as much data that you have to these companies as possible. Maybe, I, I have no idea about this, but maybe Web3 will be able to enable this a little bit more because you can have genuine levels of security. And, uh, I, I don't understand how it works, but someone said that it sounds like it might be a better version than the internet we have at the moment.

   14. RORob Orchard56:36

       Well, I mean, it would be difficult, wouldn't it? But, I mean, you're absolutely right. There was, there was very much a missed opportunity there, because actually when all of these things started, we could only see the benefits, right? I mean, you know, some people were moaning because actually it turned out that all of the people that they looked up on Facebook from their childhood, you know, there was a reason that they weren't in touch with them anymore and they're all pricks. But, you know, actually-

   15. CWChris Williamson56:53

       Being reminded by their assholes that I wasn't friends with. Yeah, exactly.

   16. RORob Orchard56:55

       Exactly, exactly. (laughs) So there were things like that, but generally there was a lot of, "Wow, and I get this for free. Wow." And, you know, there were incredible social benefits and people kind of reconnecting and they were wonderful, won- wonderful things. And you're absolutely right, there must have been a moment at which you'd built enough, but the problem is, you only build enough mass by making it free, um, because there can't be that barrier to entry. But once you set up that relationship where, you know, the people, you know, we are not the clients, we're the products, it's very difficult to turn that around. And at some point you just say, "Tell you what, do you want, do you want this? But you pay for it and we won't mess around with your data." Or well, I mean, you can't, there's no way you can package that up. You have to continue. Once you set this course, it has to be all about freedom. But I don't know, I think, you know, the, the wiser the people get about what is happening and what it's... I mean, when, less so about the data, but what it's doing to, to your mental health, I think, to be kind of, to leave yourself this open to constant, constant distraction and constant kind of titillation and constant anxiety and so on. The more people move away from that and the more pe- you know, capitalism moves in and it provides alternatives. Not necessarily quarterly printed magazines, um, but, like, other stuff, other tech stuff, you know, where there's a kind of a kudos associated and, you know, you, you pay for it, but, but you get a better service.

   17. CWChris Williamson58:10

       That's the visceral response. The fact that everybody understands that their relationship... I don't know a single person whose relationship with technology doesn't need work. And-

   18. RORob Orchard58:20

       Yep.

   19. CWChris Williamson58:20

       ... 10 years ago, that would have almost not been the case. I don't know a single person that doesn't need to work on their relationship with technology. And the fact that that's there and it's so obvious and it's felt, it's a felt sense by everyone, that's the gateway drug to people saying we need to have a systemwide change with how-

   20. RORob Orchard58:41

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson58:41

       ... technology and us relate. You might see something when we move more towards AR and VR and wearables being a little bit more integrated, when you get a step change in the type of, um, media mechanism or the type of consumption mechanism-

   22. RORob Orchard58:59

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson58:59

       ... you may be able to reset some of the market's expectations to do with cost, to do with relationship between you and the supplier or the-

   24. RORob Orchard59:09

       Hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson59:09

       ... the, um, the tech company. So that may be, that may be something. But again, it's just anchoring bias. It's the fact that until you change a bunch of different things at once, we fix ourselves to, "Well, this was free," and so many people want to have all of the things that they think that they want with none of the things that they know that they don't want. So I want to still have, be able to access my friends and talk to them, but I don't want them to limbically hijack me, but I also don't want to pay for it. And it's like you don't get to have those three things.

   26. RORob Orchard59:34

       (laughs) Exactly.

   27. CWChris Williamson59:35

       So exactly, the reason it's free is because they're selling your data and they're targeting you with ads. So I, another one, another one of the things

10. 59:41 – 1:11:50

    Interesting Sets of Data

    1. CWChris Williamson59:41

       that you looked at, which was the decade with the most blockbusters based on an original idea, and that was-

    2. RORob Orchard59:47

       Oh, yes.

    3. CWChris Williamson59:48

       ... that was the 1980s. And-

    4. RORob Orchard59:49

       It was the '80s.

    5. CWChris Williamson59:50

       ... unsurprisingly the 2010s came last, last, last out of the ph- last 100 years. The last century, the worst decade for blockbusters based on an original idea was the 2010s.

    6. RORob Orchard1:00:07

       Isn't that fascinating? Yeah. I mean, it's all, it's all kind of based on, well it's either, it's kind of remakes and it's based on story- storybooks and things like that. And, um, yeah, I mean there was, so actually, if you look at it, the '80s, you had sort of the biggest, you know, biggest film of each year, um, in terms of ticket sales, you had Star Wars: Uh, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. So you've got the first Star Wars, um, uh, um... Sorry, not the first Star Wars. You've got 1980, you've got Star Wars, and then you've got '81, you've got Raiders of the Lost Ark. '82 you've got E.T., '83 you've got another Star Wars, '84 you've got Indiana Jones, uh, Back to the Future, Top Gun-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:00:44

       Spielberg is spanking it, isn't he?

    8. RORob Orchard1:00:46

       ... Fatal Attraction, Rain Man. I mean, you know, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, all just kind of just original ideas, not based on anything. Um, so yeah, that's, uh, yeah, the, the, that stuff is absolutely lovely. I think one of the, the nicest things that we've done in film is, um, and I always kind of come back to it, is how to win an Oscar. So we just looked at every single Oscar winner going back to 1928, every single male and female winner of the best actor category. Um, and it's fascinating because w- we look to kind of like modally.... how you're most likely to win, uh, 'cause everybody's got that question when it comes around to, um, Oscar season, like, you know, who's going to win and they've- you all got your pet theories. And actually, it's fascinating to see the- the facts, which is that, mostly speaking, you'll play a fictional character who's North American, from the present day if you're a man, uh, from the recent past if you're a woman, who works as a soldier, a lawman, a monarch, a politician, a creative/media type, or a performer if you're a man. And how depressing is this? Who works as a performer, a housewife, a mother, a socialite, a service industry type, or a prostitute/escort if you're a woman-

    9. CWChris Williamson1:01:47

       (laughs)

    10. RORob Orchard1:01:47

        ... in that order, who participates in no sexual scenes, and who in the end, doesn't die on screen. And these are, these are quite, these are very clear trends as well. Like, you know, it's- it's fictional character and it is North American. Now, none of that is necessarily particularly surprising, but I think one of the nice things about diving into datasets like this is, it kind of allows you to confirm, you know, or confound the prejudices and the ideas that you, that you already have about, you know, what you would expect to see going into this story. Uh, but I lo- I love that one in there, and the films. A lot of cultural stuff is really nice. Um, we did a lovely one about, um, we got this data from Spotify about songs that have stood the test of time. So the songs from each year going back to the '50s, um, that are the most played now. So, you know, like, uh, uh, I think like, um, yeah. And it's quite funny 'cause actually it's almost like a- it's like a list of guilty pleasures. It's a bit like, you know, uh, Seth's book Everybody Lies, you know, you tell the truth to Spotify 'cause you actually want to listen to those songs. And you might, you know, if you were asked to compose your list of the best songs of the last 50 years, whatever.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:02:50

        None of those-

    12. RORob Orchard1:02:50

        And you'd push-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:02:50

        ... are gonna feature on there.

    14. RORob Orchard1:02:51

        None of that shit, yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:02:52

        One of my buddies, one of my buddies-

    16. RORob Orchard1:02:53

        Litany of

    17. NANarrator1:02:53

        Loki.

    18. CWChris Williamson1:02:53

        ... is absolutely adamant that the window into a person's soul is their suggested videos on YouTube Home. That what-

    19. RORob Orchard1:03:00

        Wow, yeah.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:03:00

        ... someone watches between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM at night on a weekday evening on YouTube, that's-

    21. RORob Orchard1:03:06

        Yeah.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:03:07

        ... that's who they really are. Not the person that they tell you, not who they are with their- with their lover in their-

    23. RORob Orchard1:03:13

        Yep.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:03:13

        ... most vulnerable moments, it's the shit that they watch between 10:00 PM and 11:00 PM at night on YouTube.

    25. RORob Orchard1:03:18

        Yeah, I could see that. And that- that book Everybody Lies, there- there was a lot of stuff in there, wasn't there? 'Cause they have this- it has this lovely example, um, which is, you know, what people write about their partner on Facebook as opposed to what they type into Google, um, about their partner is mad. It's like, you know, "My boyfriend is so sweet, charming, kind, generous," like, you know, adorable, whatever it is. And then people are typing into Google, "My boyfriend is horrible."

    26. CWChris Williamson1:03:42

        (laughs)

    27. RORob Orchard1:03:42

        "My boyf- is my boyfriend autistic?"

    28. CWChris Williamson1:03:44

        (laughs)

    29. RORob Orchard1:03:44

        "What's wrong with my boyfriend? Why is my boyfriend so mean?" And that's how we use Google. It's like, it's, you know, like it's a- a electronic psycho- psychiatrist on the couch, isn't it? Why is this happening? I mean, one of the things I liked in the, um, in the- the thing, um, uh, the pandemic searches, one of the things people were just doing in large enough numbers for it to register a massive spike, was just going into Google and typing in, "I'm bored." And that's amazing. What do you- what do you fucking want them to do? I- it's a search engine, what- but I mean, it's actually, you know, it probably would throw up some useful stuff. But I love that, just people, y- you know, all around the world in all different languages, "I'm bored."

    30. CWChris Williamson1:04:19

        569 people have been to space, 24 went to the moon, 12 of which walked on the moon, and three went to the moon twice. Plus we left two golf balls on the moon because one of the astronauts played golf up there.

Episode duration: 1:22:19