By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.
My First MillionHow This Amateur Copywriter Scammed Victims Out Of $200M (#482)
Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.
Great conversations run long. Their best ideas don't have to.
uListen is free on iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, and Claude.
See howTranscript
95 min read · 18,744 words- 0:00 – 4:05
Intro
- SPSam Parr
After they sent in the money, they would get a document called A Guide to My New Life that included winning lottery numbers. And so this guy did this, and, uh, he did [laughs] it so well that he was making $20 million a year doing this. [upbeat music]
- SPShaan Puri
What's up? Dude, according to the YouTube data, by the end of this sentence, half the audience will have dropped off. That's how content goes nowadays. [laughs] You have like four, 4.2 seconds to hook everybody. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Is that true? It was... Is it really that short? I thought it was like-
- SPShaan Puri
No, I'm just joking, but it, it is like that. I mean, like, after somebody clicks play, you just see the rec- the curve start to go Space Mountain downwards, and then, uh, and then it flattens out, but-
- SPSam Parr
Are you-
- SPShaan Puri
It's insane
- SPSam Parr
... looking at the data? Like, I, I ne- I rarely log in
- SPShaan Puri
You just let it flash the camera in the first five seconds every, every time, so there we go.
- SPSam Parr
You, you know how, like, there's a joke about news anchors wearing, like, uh, shorts? With me, it's the sleeveless T-shirt.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] I'm going jacket and sleeveless T, baby. How's that for flashing?
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I mean, I don't even know what you're prepared for. You're like, "I can go outside. It can rain."
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
"I could become a doctor for a minute. I could work out. I can climb a mountain." [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Well, it's-
- SPShaan Puri
You are dressed for success
- SPSam Parr
... it's 107 degrees in Austin today, and so-
- SPShaan Puri
I know. It's insane, yeah
- SPSam Parr
... I, I'm either shirtless or sleeveless T most of the time. When I record I gotta put the jacket on so I look a little professional.
- SPShaan Puri
Dude, I've been trying to convince Ben to move to California from Austin, and-
- SPSam Parr
I originally pegged it at a 15% chance. What's, what's it at now?
- SPShaan Puri
Oh, I think we're, like, up to 50. I think we've made serious headway. Now, I put in all this work. What I needed to do was just wait for summer. Just smoke them out, right? The... All I had to do was just smoke them out. I don't know if I ever told you this. I once was doing a deal that required us to negotiate with a company called PetroChina. PetroChina is basically like ExxonMobil, but it's owned by the government in China. And so we go to this... And they're, like, the big- they're, like, you know, huge company, but it's owned by the government, so nobody knows how much it's worth, all that stuff, but it's mega powerful oil and gas company in China. So we go, and we're supposed to negotiate this deal, and I c- the, I, they, I kid you not, they just, they did the opposite of smoking us out or sweating us out. They just froze us out. They put us in a room that was, like, just cold as hell, and there was no way out. Like, first getting to the room was, like, a 20-minute walk, like a m- like a passage, like going through this labyrinth of doors. And we get to this room. We're in. They're like, "They'll be with you soon," and then they leave. And seven hours pass [laughs] and we're sitting in this room, and I'm like, "Hey, I think they forgot about us, and we gotta go talk to somebody." And then I tried to stand up, and immediately an arm, like, puts me back in the chair. They're like, "No, no, no. This is part of doing business here."
- SPSam Parr
To, to freeze you?
- SPShaan Puri
Just to, yeah, just to make it uncomfortable. And they're like, "You show no weakness here. We just sit, and we wait."
- SPSam Parr
There's this, uh, urban myth, I don't know if it's true or not, where Steve Cohen, uh, you know, one of the guys who apparently is based off of, uh, or his c- Billions character is based off of him, Steve Cohen, rich guy, owns the Mets, where the reason why Patagonia vests are popular on Wall Street is he used to make his office freezing, so when the SEC regulators would come in, they were really uncomfortable and everyone knew-
- SPShaan Puri
They didn't wanna stay
- SPSam Parr
... yeah, they didn't wanna stay.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- 4:05 – 11:00
$200M copywriting scam
- SPSam Parr
there's this guy, it's called The Greatest Scam Ever Written, and it's about a copywriter who ran this scam. His name was Patrice Runner. And so it started basically in the '90s, where he originally saw this ad. Have you ever heard of this book called The Lazy Man's Way to Riches?
- SPShaan Puri
Yes.
- SPSam Parr
So I don't remember when that originally came out, I think in the '60s, but The Lazy Man's, uh, Way to Riches is a really famous ad. It sold like 3 or 4 million copies of this book, and the ad is famous amongst copywriters because it was really successful, and a lot of the copywriting that we use now for the internet, uh, they kinda originated from that ad. And this guy, Patrice Runner, he saw this ad and he was poor, and he was like, "I don't wanna be poor anymore. It's pretty amazing that this guy just convinced me to buy this book based off of just, like, uh, you know, 20 paragraphs of text. That's amazing. I wanna learn how to do that." And so he did. And so he starts studying copywriting, and he reads a newspaper about this lady named, like, Madame Duval. Maria Duval was her name. And basically there was this story about her and how there was a murder in the Caribbean, and how they couldn't find where the body is, and she was a psychic, and she led the people to where the body was. And I don't know if that's actually true, if she actually did that, but it was in the newspaper that that happened. And so he contacted her and was like, "Look, I wanna side u- s- uh, create this psychic company, and I want you to be the face, and I'm gonna give you 5% of profits forever, and you really don't even need to do anything other than, like, let me use your face occasionally and that's it." So she signs up for it, and he starts creating these ads where he would mail people these letters that looked like it was typed out, and it was from Maria Duval, and it would use these amazing, like, bits of copy. So, like, the thing would say, like, the opening [laughs] line was, "If you've got a special bottle of bubbly that you've been saving for celebrating great news, now's the times, now is the time to open it up." And that would be like the opening line. And it was a nine-page letter that he would send to people, and he would say like, you know, "Send me, uh, $40 or $50 and we will like, uh, you- you- you'll have good luck." It was basically like you send money and you get nothing. And then eventually it was like, "Oh, you sent $40? We're gonna keep sending you more letters." And they would send like two letters a day sometimes. So someone would so- oftentimes would rece- receive two letters, and they would send like an ad for some vitamin that you would need to take. And recipients, basically it said, "The recipients were urged to reply and enclose a check or money order for $50 to receive a mysterious, uh, bit of power and luck in order to tra- attract money." And, and then also they would re- after they sent in the money, they would get [laughs] a document called A Guide to My New Life that included winning lottery numbers. And so this guy did this, and, uh, he did [laughs] it so well that he was making $20 million a year doing this. And eventually the thing ran for 10 years, and it made $250 million. And then the government swoops in, and they're like, "Dude, this is fraud." And so now he's in jail, and he's waiting sentencing, but he might get up to life in prison. So like he's looking at like at least like 20 years of prison for this. And he- they were like, "Why'd you do this?" He's like, "I was just so attracted to copywriting. And with writing," he told the reporter... This is all from this, uh, an article fro- uh, called The Walrus. It was a great article, and they show you like what the ads look like, but we'll talk about it in a second. But he goes, "With writing, you could get the attention of someone, and at the end, after just a few minutes, that person sends you a check to get a project, uh, to get a product to an address or company that they've never heard of." And when I read stories like this, that should be the takeaway, which is not like this criminal is bad, but how do I use this amazing copywriting stuff actually for good?
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And if you click on the article, you'll see the envelopes would have these amazing things. Like where on the back of the envelope it would say something like, um, "After you've sealed this envelope, we will be the only one to have ever opened it." And it says, "Please leave the following blank." And it says, "Here's the day we received it. Here's the time that we received it." And the recipient, who's supposed to be Maria Duvall, would have to check the box in order to like say like, "Yep, I've opened it." And they put all these little like strange like tactics of getting someones to convince and believe what they were saying. It's incredibly fascinating. So it's called the, uh, the, the publication they did an article on this guy, it's called The Walrus. It's really good because you should read this and think like copywriting is amazing. This guy was a fraud obviously, so that's bad. But whatever he did-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... do that for good shit, and it's awesome. It's a really fascinating article about this guy. But n- yeah, now he's gonna get sentenced to like it looks like 20 years of prison. And you know who else did this? This great copywriter, uh, great copywriter Gary Halbert. You remember Gary Halbert? So-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah. Why, why did he go to jail? I didn't ac- I didn't actually know. It was tax, tax something?
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. Tax a- I think tax, and also basically he would sell this product, I think it was called a family s- uh, was it called a suit of arms? What's it called? A, a crest. Like a family crest.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
He would sell this product whereas like you mail in like par, and then you get mailed back like a crest. I don't know if it's like a graphic. But he just didn't fulfill the orders. He just took the money and like-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... bounced. It was just like I just-
- SPShaan Puri
It's so easy to do that too, to j- to just give them a crest. Like [laughs] ...
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, he just took the money.
- SPShaan Puri
He just needed Fiverr. He was just too early. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. And so he went to prison I think for like 10 years, and that's where he wrote this really good book where it's like he wrote s- uh, letters to his son on copywriting, and that's called the Letters From Boron. I guess Boron was the name of the prison that he was in. But these copywriters, it's really cool how you're able to pull this shit off. And you, by the way, people act like you can't do this anymore because people are smarter. That's not true. You 100% can still pull off all this.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
It's very fascinating.
- SPShaan Puri
Uh, I'm with you. I think this is one way that we are very, very similar, where we both read these things and have the same sort of like, uh, unexpected reaction, which is some blend of like excitement and admiration, not for the crime, but for the, the tools that led to the... Like, you know, it's the same way I love-
- SPSam Parr
It took skill. It definitely took skill
- SPShaan Puri
... Ocean's 11. It's like robbing a bank. I like, I like it. I like the, I like what goes in to robbing that bank, right? Um, it's like you shouldn't like the criminal in this case, but you are attracted to the skill, to the cleverness, to the, um, to the guile that goes into doing something like this.
- SPSam Parr
Well, every guy who saw Leonardo DiCaprio in Wolf of Wall Street or Catch Me If You Can was like, "Hey, Bob, can I, can you give me one of your checks? I want to see if I can actually change the numbers on it." Like everyone like-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
You know what I mean? Like everyone who saw that would do the same thing. Or like everyone looked up like, you know, Stratford Oakmont, Jordan Belfort's thing after the, uh, Wolf of Wall Street movie.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Like everyone's attracted to it.
- SPShaan Puri
Counting cards or whatever,
- 11:00 – 25:05
Great phrases & mantras
- SPShaan Puri
right. Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
You're right. They're like, "Oh, I c- counting cards. How does that work? I could do that."
- SPShaan Puri
You had a great bit of copy that I read on Facebook the other day. You, you go, [laughs] you go, "The more shirtless pictures I s- I post, the more free protein I'm sent. Some ask me to, some ask to pay me to post. I've never done that, and I don't intend to. But here are some brands that I use," blah, blah, blah. You go [laughs] this is the best part, "We may be whores in the Parr household, but we're certainly not-"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] That was so good. Where did you get that? That was so good.
- SPSam Parr
I stole that from Ari Gold. So, uh, Ari Gold of that TV show Entourage. So every great copywriter does the same thing, where... You do this too.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
You hear phrases, you hear phrases, and you store them.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And you just store them. And so every single person who's good at writing, you have a bank that you just... We call it a swipe file. But I remember even when I was in sixth grade watching Entourage at Sunday night at 9:00 PM on HBO.
- SPShaan Puri
Stop it.
- SPSam Parr
I remember hearing that. I go, "That's mine. I'm stealing that one." [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
And you just wait for that perfect opportunity to use those lines.
- SPShaan Puri
Dude, I have my, my... It's literally called... You said, you said phrases. Literally my sheet is called, my note is called phrases. Um, and I just have so many good ones here. I love it.
- SPSam Parr
Because what people don't know is, like, phrases are really important. So I'm working on this with Hampton, actually, where we're trying to create, like, our mantra. Or like, with every type of community, it's basically a cult or a sorority, where you like, you need like a phrase that summarizes it.
- SPShaan Puri
You need a crest.
- SPSam Parr
You need a crest.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I need a crest. Like, I need something. And I've been, like, tinkering with phrases. And it's so important to, like, nail a phrase. And, like, there's so many, like, really good phrases. Um, like for example, I'm reading this book about Martin Luther King's assassination, and he was assassinated, uh, while, well, basically he was at this protest where garbage workers, Black garbage workers were, uh, were... Wanted to be treated better, and their phrase was just, "I am," and it was underlined, "I am a man." And, like that, like that one phrase is, "Let's treat me like a... You know, I'm not a, I'm not a slave anymore. I'm a man. Treat me like a man." And so I just, it's like all these phrases. And I just like will see a phrase, even that, I remember writing that I am a man.
- SPShaan Puri
Hampton, we are mostly men.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
We're looking for more females to apply. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Oh, that's too touchy of a subject. Uh, that's a whole nother thing.
- SPShaan Puri
Oh. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
But anyway, I love these, like, beautiful phrases. I love these beautiful phrases.
- SPShaan Puri
So what-
- SPSam Parr
You gotta collect them
- SPShaan Puri
... what do you got from Hampton? Are you, are you workshopping a couple right now? What, you wanna do a li- little live workshop?
- SPSam Parr
So one that has gotten shut down, but I love it, which is [laughs] CTC, confidential, confidentiality, transparency, and commitment. So CTC.
- 25:05 – 36:45
Newsletter growth scheme
- SPShaan Puri
after the, after you said it on the podcast, then people started running it. Then there's also a guy who worked for you, who worked for u- for us at, at Milk Road, who then goes and he's pitching, uh... He's basically going and telling every newsletter company, "I'm the key to the growth of The Hustle, of Milk Road, of e- every fucking newsletter company. I did it. I'm the best. Um, I could tell you exactly what they did." And, um, I don't know about you for The Hustle, but for us, I'm like, "This guy is massively overstating [laughs] what he did." But, like, whatever. I g- I mean, I guess-
- SPSam Parr
We were already in the-
- SPShaan Puri
Good, good for you
- SPSam Parr
... we already had a million subscribers, but, uh, yeah, I mean, I... And I didn't work closely with him, but I'm, uh, uh, I'm sure he's great. I just, uh, we were a bit, we were-
- SPShaan Puri
I'm not saying he's bad at his job, but he is definitely overselling, and he is... People will come to me and they'll be like, um, "Hey, I just wanted to get a quick reference check. This guy basically, like, he does a presenta- a sales deck that just says, like, 'I did everything for [laughs] Milk Road. Like, I, I figured it all out. I did all these things.' Uh, like, is that legit?" And I'm like, "No." And actually, the funny thing is, I think in the short term, that helped him. In the long term, that hurt him because two very big names have come to me, and they said, "Hey, I'm thinking of hiring this guy. Sounds like he did great work for you guys. Just wanna do a quick pulse check, like, um, thumbs up, thumbs down? Would you recommend?" And I was like, "I wish I could say yes, but, like, no for these two reasons. One, he's overstating what he did. If he just said what he did, they would've been fine. Uh, two, when we sold the company, he [laughs] went and put up a Twitter thread saying, like, 'Hey, Milk Road sold, and here's all the things that they do to, to grow.'" And we asked him, we were like, "Hey man, can you take that down? Like, we're still running as a business. Like, you can't just... You shouldn't just... Like, you're a, you're a service provider. You're, you're a contractor for us."
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
"We're a client of yours. We never said you should-"
- SPSam Parr
So and you want some confidentiality.
- SPShaan Puri
"You should never go publish all of your clients' things or..." It wa- and even it's not actually all, but, like, we don't want any of this stuff out there.
- SPSam Parr
Right.
- SPShaan Puri
And, um, and he's like, "No, I gotta get mine too from the sale." And I'm like, "What? Like, dude, I'm asking you to take this down. Are you really gonna... Like, your client has just basically-"
- SPSam Parr
So it was never deleted?
- SPShaan Puri
And he was, he tried to say no again, and I was like, wow. Like, Jesus, that is, like, insanely unprofessional to do that, um, in my opinion at least. And, uh, you know, so whatever. He did delete it after that, after I was like, "Wow, are you, like, are you serious? This is actually the stance you're gonna take? That's an insane stance to take." And so-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, I don't like when people talk about-
- SPShaan Puri
Two, two really big-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah
- SPShaan Puri
... names that I think would've been, like, way bigger than The Hustle, way bigger than Milk Road, were gonna work with him, have asked me, and I'm like, "I can't... I'm just gonna tell you what my experience was. You decide." And they're like, "Oh, no, we would not wanna work with somebody who does that." And I was like, damn. Like, the short term benefit-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, that hurts
- SPShaan Puri
... leads to long-term loss, unfortunately. Like, you know, that- that's the, the irony of, of doing stuff like that. And I've done stuff like that too, where I make a short term, short term good decision that actually costs me in the long run, but it's hard to see in the moment, you know? So it's, it's a-
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, that's a, that's a, that's an expensive lesson. But my question was, were you running this ad and did it still work? Up until we sold, it was still working. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
We, we didn't run that ad. We didn't run my boss thinks I'm whatever. Um, we did, I think, try a version of, like, my friends think I'm, uh, you know, like, whatever. I was, my friends think I, uh, I know everything about crypto. What they don't know is that I just read The Milk Road every morning. Um, so- something like that. I think we ran that, but those weren't high perfor- like, that wasn't the highest performer. Our other, we had other stuff that was better performers, but, um, in general-
- SPSam Parr
But that was our best one
- SPShaan Puri
... more than 50% of our subscribers were organic. So it do- like, you know, you, you know, uh, the... If more than 50% of your growth comes organic, then that, that means it's the content that's lead, the content and the brand that's leading the-
- SPSam Parr
Dude, I've talked to so many of these new newsletter guys, and they're all doing... So when we, [laughs] when we started The Hustle, like up until, hundreds of thousands were organic, and then we, like, learned, I didn't know what paid marketing was, then we learned about it. And then we started doing this thing called co-registration, which w- it would typically only scammy marketer type of people would do that.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
Like, people selling, like, sex pills and shit, and we were like, "Well, that's interesting, like, in theory. Let's actually figure out what it means in a non-scammy way." And so we, like-
- SPShaan Puri
Well, ex- explain it. So, so you, you go to a site-
- SPSam Parr
So for example, um, you go to, uh, I'll try to find a real life example. Go to, if you go to bold.org-
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah
- SPSam Parr
... it's a website where you can apply, uh, you can enter in your information, and it automatically applies you to tons and tons of different scholarships. Um, and what it says was, great, if you want... Uh, somehow they have a point system where it's like, it's free to use, but you have to s- uh, sign up for, like, these newsletters in order to be able to, um, in order to be able to apply to even more scholarships. And so we would pay bold.org some money, I don't remember the money, $1 let's say, for every s- college kid who entered their email and sent to The Hustle, and then they would go and subscribe to more stuff, uh, more scholarships. And so that's what co-reg is. So you're registering for one thing, but then you are asked to register for another thing in exchange for some type of perk. Typically, that would, that's an internet marketing hack that's done with scammy stuff, really scammy people. But we went to Product Hunt and we were like, "Hey, have you guys thought about doing co-reg?" And they're like, "Yeah, we're working on it." We're like, "Well, that would be great. We would be your first customer."
- 36:45 – 40:00
Laird Hamilton interview recap
- SPSam Parr
Hamilton
- SPShaan Puri
How did it go?
- SPSam Parr
So it went really bad. Uh, it went very-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
Not what I expected you to say.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] It went bad. Uh, the reason it-
- SPShaan Puri
Like what?
- SPSam Parr
Well, he's not a business guy, for one. But I'm like a fitness... I'm into fitness and stuff, but I wanted to ask him all the fitness stuff, but I was like, I don't... I watched so many hours of him leading up to it, and I was like, I don't wanna just ask the same questions.
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
Like, I just watched so much of your stuff that all the questions that I thought I was going to have, you've already answered them.
- SPShaan Puri
I have answered. Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, you've answered it. And so there was like that, that there. But also, dude, I just think it's a bummer to meet your heroes because he's amazing, but I just want him to be this, like, idea rather than this reality. Do you know what I mean?
- SPShaan Puri
Right. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I like, I like him. So, like, I remember... Like I, I just... I've been very lucky to meet a bunch of my heroes, and once you meet them, they're a little bit less of a her- a hero, and I think I just prefer them being a hero.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Uh, not to say that he didn't live up to my expectations. He did. It was just that, uh, I don't wanna be even remotely a peer of his. I want him to be, like, you know-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... my, my great-grandpa, who I've read, heard stories about. [laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I- if you're a fan of this podcast, if you consider me and Sam, you know, somebody that you look up to in any way, prepare to be disappointed, all right?
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
We're just very average people. [laughs] When you meet us, we will destroy... We, we will ruin this podcast for you. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
But I was super self-conscious about it, so if you guys hear the pod, let me know, like in the YouTube comments, what you think. But it was, it was only okay. Uh, I think it was... Maybe it was only okay for me as... 'Cause I was in interviewing him, but I just learned so much about him, and I'm like, "Oh, I already know everything. There's nothing new to know about you."
- SPShaan Puri
You should've shifted gears-
- SPSam Parr
Or I'm just not u- unique enough to ask a question
- SPShaan Puri
You should've shifted gears and gone Bobbi Althoff on him.
- SPSam Parr
What's that? Oh, uh, like the-
- SPShaan Puri
That girl. Awkward interview girl
- SPSam Parr
... uh, and just act like you don't care? She has shot up. So basically, I saw her on TikTok, and I... The thing about TikTok and Instagram is you don't know who else knows what you're watching, right? Uh, like, it's har- Like, there's no, like, chart or there's no, like, greatest hits, and so I was just like, who is this random chick popping up, uh, is interviewing these, uh, these guys when she's, like, in her bed? And-
- SPShaan Puri
Interviewing, like, Drake. Like, not just like random guys
- 40:00 – 45:15
Why is Bobbi Althoff famous?
- SPShaan Puri
like, uh, she was like, "So go, um... You can use SeatGeek if you want, I guess."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Dude, it's so funny. She, uh, she's pretty good. I don't wanna listen to 60 minutes of that interview, but, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
Like she's interviewing Drake
- SPSam Parr
... like, the greatest hits is good.
- SPShaan Puri
So she's interviewing Drake, which is, like, I think her f- the first podcast that came out, and she's like, in the middle of it, she's like, "I don't, I don't know any other questions. Do you-"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
"... do you have, do you have any other questions?" And he's like, "Uh, not really." Like [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Weren't they in bed under the covers during the interview?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, they're in a bed-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... which is just... I mean, she's a genius, clearly. So she's a genius. So I think her story is she was, like, a mom... She was, like, a mommy TikToker. But I don't really understand how she went from mommy TikToker to podcaster interviewing Drake with, like, a really c- clear brand that's amazing. Like, a very distinct style that's amazing. 'Cause if you watch her TikToks, she doesn't talk like that.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, that's normal.
- SPShaan Puri
It's just a character she's cr- or, or she doesn't... I mean, it's not like... I don't think her TikTok is mainly like that. Like, I'm gonna pull one up right now. But, like-
- SPSam Parr
No, uh, it... Some of it w- is, like, normal or her joking around with her friends. But no, it's k- it's, it's like Stephen Colbert, but instead of this conservative guy, it's the I-don't-give-a-shit type of person.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
So-
- SPShaan Puri
She, uh... I watched, like, an hour straight of one of these podcasts. I rarely listen to... Like, if you tell me, "Hey, there's a new podcast," like, I need 10 people to recommend a podcast before I go try it. You know what I mean? Like, uh, it's not, like, an easy ask. But, um, yeah, I got hooked on her shit really quickly and watched a hour-long awkward interview with her and Mark Cuban and her with Rick Glassman. Uh, th- I don't know if you saw this one, but she did one with Rick Glassman, and it didn't seem like he was in on the joke. He was just like-
- SPSam Parr
Who's Rick Glassman?
- SPShaan Puri
I think he was actually the first one that she recorded. Rick Glassman's a comedian. He's really funny.
- SPSam Parr
Oh, got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
He might've been in on the joke 'cause he's, like, a very talented guy. Like, he could, he could find that line where it looks like he's not in on the joke, but he is. Um, but she was just like, uh... I mean, she's just awkwardly interviewing him, and he... at some point, he's just like, "What i- like, what is this? Why are you doing this?"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And then she's like, "Why am I doing what? I'm, I'm interviewing you."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And he's like, "No, but you're..." He's like, "You're saying that you're interviewing me, but everything I say, you just Say is a lie. Why would I lie? Why would I come to your podcast-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... and lie? And she's like, "I don't know. Why are you lying?"
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- 45:15 – 50:45
Chaotic Singles Party
- SPShaan Puri
um, I heard, I read this story in The New York Times and I was like, "What? This sounds fascinating." So here's the story. This woman, Cassidy Davis, is on the dating app. She's just a normal person. Um, and it's Valentine's Day 2022. So last year, Valentine's Day. She's frustrated. She doesn't, doesn't have anything to do on Valentine's so she just basically she's like, "Hey, here's let's, what we should do. We should throw like a singles party on Valentine's Day. So if you're single on Valentine's Day, come to this." She tells every one of her girlfriends who's also struggling with online dating, "Hey, match with someone on Tinder and then invite them to this party. Invite them to a house party." And they're like, "What?" And she's like, "Yeah, just match with one person, invite them as your plus one to this house party, but everybody's gonna do it so it'll be just a bunch of single people at this party." And she's like, "All right." So they s- they try to do it. She at the last minute is like, "I don't know if anyone's gonna come." So she invites 65 guys from Tinder [laughs] to be like, "Come." And they're like, "What is happening? Is this real? Are you like catfishing me?" She's like, "Dude, just either come or don't come, all right? That's it."
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
And so she has this house party, and you could see the video on her, on her TikTok, but it's like a very-
- SPSam Parr
Which city?
- SPShaan Puri
Um, I'm not sure where this one was, but s- it's a small... It was like a small thing. It looked like maybe there was like 20 people there, but they were kinda having fun. So it was like a bunch of single young people playing like drinking games, whatever. She records a t- she makes a TikTok out of it, stitches it together, like just the highlights of the party basically, posts it on TikTok and says what she did. She goes, she's like, "I did the most chaotic thing possible for Valentine's Day. I invited, I told ev- all my girlfriends to match with someone on Tinder and invite them to my house for this house party, and it was awesome." And then people, that thing explodes. That video gets like, whatever, tons of views, and the concept, people really like this concept and so she's like, "I'm gonna do another one." So she posts an update. She's like, "I'm gonna do another one in t- two or three weeks." Puts a link up for the Chaos Singles Party. Same rules.
- SPSam Parr
Is it free?
- SPShaan Puri
Um, I think it might have been free. Uh, maybe there's a cover charge, I'm not sure. 500 people show up to that one.
- SPSam Parr
Wow.
- SPShaan Puri
And since then, for the last year and a half of this woman's life, she's just been going on the road, traveling city to city. She partnered up with Tinder. They like promote this thing now. In the app they'll even promote her, her parties. Um, and she gets paid to basically host these things, and now 200 or 300 people a night come to these singles parties. Same rules. Match with one, that's your plus one. Come to this event. You can mix and m- mingle. You can, you can stick with the person you invited or, or just whatever. It's all just people on Tinder who wanna like have this chaos singles party. I love this idea.
- SPSam Parr
This is awesome. I'm looking at her TikTok now.
- SPShaan Puri
So well done by her. And now these things are like big. Like they're, they're partnering with like legit venues. It like looks like a lot of fun. It looks like a whole, whole scene now.
- SPSam Parr
This is awesome. I'm looking at her TikTok. This woman's talented. Did I tell you about the... Or did you ever see the Twitter things that I used to do for dating sometimes?
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, those were great. It was basically like-
- SPSam Parr
They were great
- SPShaan Puri
... Date My Friend, right?
- SPSam Parr
It was basically like, it was Thanksgiving and, uh, we were having friends over and some of them were single and I'm like, they were like, "Hey, can you post me on your Twitter? I want, uh-
- SPShaan Puri
They asked or you said it?
- SPSam Parr
It was-
- SPShaan Puri
'Cause that's a crazy ask
- SPSam Parr
... one of the people made a joke. They're like, "Dude, just post me on your Twitter. I need to meet a guy." Or some of 'em, well it was like one of Sarah's friends was like, "I need to meet a, a nice, a nice guy who's successful. Can you like introduce me?" I was like, "I'm just gonna post you on Twitter." And then I was like, "Well, I don't wanna make you the only person, like I'm your p- so I'm gonna get 10 friends." And the Twitter said-
- SPShaan Puri
Right
- SPSam Parr
... the tweet said, um, um, "Get- Hope you're hungry on Thanksgiving Day. Uh, you know, like here's 10 people, uh, 10, 10 of my buds who are-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Hungry.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah. I was like, "Hope you're hungry."
- SPShaan Puri
Meet my friend Jessica. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah. [laughs] He- here's 10, here's 10 of my friends who are single. And I said, like, a little bit about what they do for work and just, I just went on their Instagram and took a picture.
- SPShaan Puri
Great.
- SPSam Parr
And, um, it got viewed like two million times, and I got DM'd by a lot of brands. Like, "Hey, you wanna make this a thing? We'll sponsor it." I was like, "No, that's not gonna be my thing. I don't want that. No, I was just fucking around." And I think that that could potentially work. Like, we actually turn it into like a, uh, uh, like where it's like, uh, an affluent crowd dating app or something like that. I think I, I did it with Jonathan, and Jonathan actually met a girl who-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
... he went out with, I think, like a handful of times. Like, so it, for Jonathan, I think it was successful.
- 50:45 – 1:04:15
DateMe Docs
- SPShaan Puri
what you're not into, where your boundaries are, all that stuff. And you just make a very detailed Google Doc, and that's your profile. And then somebody cl- created the directory that links all the people, like a Air- it's like an Airtable table. So it'd be like, you know, "Here's, you know, um, Christina. She's a female. She's interested in men. She's age 42." And it's, it's just literally an Airtable. And, um, and you can see-
- SPSam Parr
Dude, they're all poly. They, they put mono and poly. They're, like, it looks like almost half of them are poly.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah.
- SPSam Parr
Does that mean they want to have an open relationship or they're not serious?
- SPShaan Puri
Kids these days. No, I think it's like op- I think they wanna, like, be dating a bunch of people at once or something. I think that's what poly means.
- SPSam Parr
They're... It's like half of them are poly. That's wild to me.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, I think, um, you know, that's, that's something that's changed, I think, since we were... Like, when I was-
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
... dating 10, 10 years ago, I never met anybody who was like, "Yeah, I'm polyamorous." That's-
- SPSam Parr
No, it was like you'd see it on a TV show.
- SPShaan Puri
There wasn't even a question that came up.
- SPSam Parr
It's like-
- SPShaan Puri
It was like... [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Yeah, the only people who did that are, like, are, like, um, it's, like, a guy who's got, like, 10 wives, and it's on the TLC channel.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah, exactly. It comes on after Jon & Kate Plus 8.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah, this is, uh... I think that's new. So anyways, the, these docs, if you look at these, click, click into some of these docs, they're-
- SPSam Parr
They put photos and stuff and, like, a huge bio. This is wild.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] I clicked this one, uh, that's by Misha. It's the fourth one down. So Misha is a male, and it takes you to a website that there's just, like, [laughs] these, like, t- torches like you're entering a dungeon. [laughs] Probably not the vibe, Misha, that you want, but here we go. And then the title is just Romance. "Hi, I'm currently single looking for a primary partner." Hot. That's hot how you said that, primary partner. I like that. Um, "Only been in open relationships. Just bought a house," blah, blah, blah. Um, [laughs] and then it's like, "Here's a bunch of my favorite blog posts. Here's some of my first dates. You can chat with me on Discord. Here's my Spotify. Here's some pictures of me." Uh, a bunch of pictures, boom, boom, boom. All right? So that's, that's Misha. That, but, like, one of the things I noticed, I clicked through a bunch of these, is how intellectual all of these are. So they'll be like, you know, things you don't normally put on a dating profile. It'd be like, like here's one. I'm on this woman's, uh, page, uh, Shreda. She, she says, um, "I'm not ideologically monogamous, meaning I don't think monogamy is innately superior to polyamory. I hold romantic feelings for more than one person at once but also struggle with jealousy," blah, blah, blah. It's, like, very... It's like, is this therapy? What is this? This is, like, a whole, like, open book style of letting somebody into your brain, which I can definitely see working for some people. And I can see it totally not working for a ty- for the type of person who they don't want out. So I actually think this is a really great idea because I think it attracts in a lot of the same type of person, the kind of, like, a little bit overly intellectual, very open-minded type of crowd that would be attract- you know, it's kind of tech, tech-focused, uh, crowd here.
- SPSam Parr
Oh my gosh, this is wild.
- SPShaan Puri
Sam is just smiling.
- SPSam Parr
Yeah.
- SPShaan Puri
Sam, Sam is just literally s- he's looking at a screen, and he's just smirking. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I'm looking at a lot of this. Uh, it's... There's one guy, he's got a 15-page user manual, and he, like, documents his whole life to explain how to, like... And he talks about, like, ethical stuff. He's like, "The correct answer to the trolley problem is to kill one person to save five."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like, he, like-
- SPShaan Puri
There is a correct answer. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like, this is wild. And on some regard, I'm like, well, if you're, like, a single woman who's, like, 30, and you're like, "Look, I just need to meet, like, a competent man who's, like, thoughtful," I guess this is the way to go. Unfortunately, these aren't the type of guys that typically, like, can woo a woman.
- SPShaan Puri
I'm on a doc right now, and it just, there's a whole sub- subsection called Child Rearing Plans. [laughs] And then it's 17 paragraphs of their plans for child rearing. This is pre-first date, which is kind of amazing
- SPSam Parr
So have you heard of, um... This reminds me of two things. One, if you, uh, there's this guy named Christian, uh, Rudder, I think his name is. He founded OkCupid. He was one of the three or four co-founders, and he had a blog on all the data that OkCupid had, and so, and then eventually turned it into a book. And the thing was basically, like, you say one thing, but your actions on our dating app say another thing. Like, you say you want X, Y, and Z. And I think one of the big takeaways was you say you want this, this, and this, you really just go after people's photos.
- 1:04:15 – 1:22:34
Things our grandkids will think are insane
- SPSam Parr
"What's an example of things today that our grandkids in 50 years will think is absolutely insane?" I've been thinking about this because t- on TikTok and Instagram, the kids now-
- SPShaan Puri
Grinding is my example. Grinding at the club is my first example. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
I don't know if they do that anymore or not, but may-
- SPShaan Puri
I- it didn't even take 50 years. It took me 15, and I already realized that was batshit crazy then.
- SPSam Parr
Well, you'll see these videos, and they'll be of high school. Uh, so, like, the kids now will be like, "Check this out. This is a home video of the class of 2008 in high school," and you, like, see them walking around, and, like, you see, like, the, the s- the stuff that we used to wear, and you see, like, our Razor Flip phones.
- SPShaan Puri
Right, and now, yeah.
- SPSam Parr
And then, like, the kids reminisce. They're like, "I can't believe they did this," or, "That was so much better," or, "This was so much worse." You had a cool question on here about what do you think will be crazy.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, I think about this a lot. What are things that 50 years from now, like, our grandkids will look at the way we lived today and be like, "What the hell were you thinking?" Right? Like, um, you know, there's past examples. Like, if you go way past, it's like slavery. Wow, I can't believe that was just, like, the way you guys did things or whatever, right? Like, you know, r- riding horseback. That's crazy. That's how people got around? Or just, like, people just dying of, like, everything, you know, like, uh, early on, e- early aids. Like, that's crazy that it was so risky to have a kid. Like, you know, one out of, what, four or five kids would just die before they even h- hit 10. Like, that's, that's really, really rough.
- SPSam Parr
I was reading this Lewis and Clark book, and whenever they get sick on the trail, they, like, give each other pills, and they're like, "We're just gonna give you diarrhea and you're gonna shit out the sickness."
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Right.
- SPSam Parr
They call it a rush pill. They go, "We're gonna give you these pills, and you're gonna get tons of diarrhea, and you're gonna be healed."
- SPShaan Puri
Right.
- SPSam Parr
And that was, like, the thing, was just we're just gonna make you poop a ton.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs] Yeah, yeah. We did that with Four Loko. It was great. [laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
It just changes shape. All right, so, so you had... You wrote some on here of more recent history. So you said driving to places without Google Maps. Yeah, I, like, these are things that we experienced the before and after, right? Like, we're at that age where we experienced the paper map era, the asking people for directions era, just knowing how the interstate system of the United States works. Like, my dad just kinda knew roughly what you do to Google Maps.
- SPSam Parr
Dude, I don't even know the highway. I live in Austin. I don't even know the highway, the, the big highway one mile away. I can't even tell you the name of it.
- SPShaan Puri
Same. I don't even look up when I drive.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
I just stare out at the map. Go by feel.
- SPSam Parr
[laughs]
- SPShaan Puri
All right, uh, then you had landlines versus cell... Like, landlines being the only way to contact someone versus cell phones. We, we both experienced that. Um, you wrote unsafe cars. What'd you mean by unsafe cars?
- SPSam Parr
Dude, my first car was a 1992 Mazda Protege, and we bought it for... I got it for $900 from my mailman. And when you look at that-
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
[laughs] Yeah, but I, I was friends with my mailman.
- SPShaan Puri
He delivered your mail, and you're like, "I'll take it"
- SPSam Parr
Well, sometimes, uh, we'd have to wear, we'd have to wear ties on, uh, we'd have to wear ties to school every once in a while, and if, like, my dad went to work too early and he wasn't there, my mailman would tie my tie. So, like, I got to know the mailman a little bit. Kinda weird. Bought it from, bought my car from him for $900. And if you see that car ... to a new, brand new, like Honda Civic. If you ever watch the videos of them running into each other, it's insane. It's absolutely insane.
- SPShaan Puri
[laughs]
- SPSam Parr
Like the safety. It, it's pretty wild how dangerous they are. So yeah, I think like these like, uh, when we look at cars, uh, when I look at cars from like the '80s and '90s, it's ridiculous how shitty they are.
- SPShaan Puri
Yeah, that's crazy. Um, so what are the ones that you think 50 years from now... So y- we got a couple on here. Let's just go back and forth. You do one, I'll do one.
Episode duration: 1:22:34
In the uListen app, the transcript lights up word by word as you listen. Get uListen
Transcript of episode 64GpdPh9GFs
