Pod Meets Twirl'd: Reality Tactics with Chad Kultgen

00:00:09
Speaker 1: Well, as you know, we are now full fledged experts on Traders and Dancing with the Stars, but we can still acknowledge that a little outside help will only strengthen our ability to dissect and break down the intricacies of these shows.

00:00:22
Speaker 2: So it'll help help a little. We're kind of experts already.

00:00:25
Speaker 1: And so for Traders, we've called in a fellow reality TV expert, the co host of the Game of Roses podcast and the author of How to Win the Bachelor, which, to its credit, has resulted in a winner of The Bachelor. You've also constantly seen him on your social media feeds as host of The Necessary Conversation, a podcast where he and his fellow liberal sister sit with their MAGA loving parents to talk about the current political climate, a firecracker show that has become an Internet sensation. But since his own experiences in Hollywood as a writer give him a little behind the scenes leg up on analyzing reality TV, we wanted to dig deep into his feelings on this season of The Traders, which we know includes some very hot takes. So welcome to Pod meets Twirl Trading Places. Unscripted TV expert Chad cult Gen, Hello, Hello, oh, don't we interrupt in reading time.

00:01:19
Speaker 2: I'm engrossed in this book. I would love it.

00:01:22
Speaker 1: If it's your own book, please tell us that's your own. Is that a Magic Magic card? Is that a Magic the Gathering card?

00:01:27
Speaker 2: This is yes? Yes, do you guys play?

00:01:30
Speaker 1: Of course, yes, we play.

00:01:32
Speaker 2: Allow me to move three feet to the left and show you my collection of collectors.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: Oh my, nice, nice, Yes.

00:01:42
Speaker 2: I've been collecting Magic the Gathering Card is way too goddamn long at this point, but yeah, I've almost got a full beta set.

00:01:48
Speaker 3: Ryder might be how to play Magic the Gathering in the mid nineties in the unlimited of a hash bar in Amsterdam. Yep, and we've been playing ever since.

00:01:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, And do you still have some of your those were unlimited cards? Do you still have some of those? Will you do?

00:02:04
Speaker 2: Right?

00:02:04
Speaker 3: I still have my original deck. That's I still have my original Shiven Dragon, my original Sarah Angel, all my original instants and everything. Yeah, I've still got that's awesome, little literal, original white, white and red deck. Yeah.

00:02:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just a little bird token and I use as a or at least in this book. It's my book mark.

00:02:22
Speaker 1: Nice.

00:02:23
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it well.

00:02:25
Speaker 3: We're instantly friends.

00:02:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in is the thing that?

00:02:29
Speaker 3: And you're drinking and you're drinking a Trader Joe's purple zesty drink.

00:02:33
Speaker 2: I am this one is a black cherry, black cherry vanilla.

00:02:36
Speaker 3: Oh please, I've a fridge full of them, my friend.

00:02:39
Speaker 2: Wow. Well we're the same people now that we've got that out of the way. Right.

00:02:44
Speaker 1: So you've made a very interesting career out of this sort of this reality TV. But you actually you started as a writer, am I right?

00:02:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and still primarily that's how I make my living. The reality TV thing has been like a bizarre side project.

00:03:00
Speaker 1: Well have you ever thought about being on reality TV? Has that ever been? Yeah?

00:03:05
Speaker 2: I applied for the Civilian Traders and hurt nothing back. But my I think my application, like I chose a direction and it was basically like I'm an expert at this, and I've been kind of controlling the Bachelor franchise from outside of it, unbeknownst to the producers by like sending in players that I'm training secrets. Oh my god, And uh, I think they didn't like that. I think they don't want somebody who like kind of knows the game that that cold do.

00:03:30
Speaker 3: You have a bat I just see this weird Bachelor training camp where they're like they're weighted roses, So it's like you're working your arm out as you're trying to Like it's like you're doing fifty of those of the Rocky theme song playing in the background, like that kind of thing.

00:03:42
Speaker 2: I wish, No, it's it's much less interesting than that. Basically, is just like helping people fill out their applications all, you know, cut their application videos if they want me to. And then once they get into the show, we have about usually two or three weeks to just do a crash course in like mathematically, what are you most likely to encounter? How do you avoid a villainet it? What do you do if you're get embroiled in a rivalry? You know, what do you want out of this game? Do you want a million Instagram followers? Do you actually want to get married? Do you want both? Et cetera, et cetera.

00:04:14
Speaker 3: Wow, I again knowing nothing whatsoever about The Bachelor.

00:04:17
Speaker 1: I've never seen it either.

00:04:20
Speaker 3: Do most people go in wanting to get married? Or are they going in full on just playing? They're playing a game. That's all it is they're just playing it. I would say that is the vast majority.

00:04:29
Speaker 2: Even players that I've coached that are what we call one hundred percent for tr R or for the right reasons still understand the immense opportunity that platform offers to make a million Instagram followers or at least a couple hundred thousand. And then while you have some relevance, when you've just come off of that whatever season you might be in, you know you're going to get spawn con deals, and if your numbers are high enough, that can certainly be your job for the next year or two.

00:04:55
Speaker 3: Wait, what what what deals?

00:04:58
Speaker 2: Spawn con sponsored content? Sorry?

00:05:00
Speaker 3: Right, conn deals? Geez.

00:05:04
Speaker 1: So here's what I'm confused by, because, like, I definitely think of like winning The Bachelor as getting married, right, Yeah, So when you're how how you do you get more followers by being better on the Bachelor?

00:05:17
Speaker 2: You mean by being better in what way? You do?

00:05:19
Speaker 1: Know what I mean?

00:05:19
Speaker 2: I don't you're really about to get the dissertation? Now, Okay, please.

00:05:24
Speaker 1: Please, because I don't. Yeah, because I'm I mean, I'm assuming that you're strategizing that you're giving them is like how to be good at the game that they're in. But it's also how to just be a good reality show personality.

00:05:38
Speaker 2: Yes, some of that is accurate. I mean The Bachelor basically, how to even put this? There is kind of a broader meta game in all of reality television that I am now playing like a video game across all different reality shows. The Bachelor's where I started, and that is like where I kind of learned some of the mechanics and came up with various, uh, you know, game things like pt personal tragedy card that how do you begin this?

00:06:05
Speaker 3: How many mana do you have to tap to get your personal tragedy cards? How many swamps? Because it's black I'm telling you, it's definitely a black.

00:06:13
Speaker 2: Spell A three cards?

00:06:16
Speaker 3: How many swamps to play?

00:06:20
Speaker 2: The PDC is I'll say it like this. I guess I really think reality TV right now is about where baseball was in the nineteen tens and nineteen teens, where sports writers from all the major cities were looking at baseball scrutinizing it statistically in a way that had never been done. And it was sports writers who came up with terms like RBI and e RA that got absorbed into the game itself and changed how teams were made and contracts and all that shit. I think reality TV is kind of there now. Our podcast Game of Roses is doing a little bit of this work. Other podcasts are too, where we're identifying these repeating patterns in the reality shows and seeing the game mechanics of them, taking the statistics. My podcast hosts on Game of Roses, Lizzie Pace and I wrote a book called How to Win the Bachelor. It's kind of like the Moneyball of the Bachelor. Multiple players have been caught reading it in the mansion Wow. But the basic idea of the PTC Personal Tragedy Card is at some point in any of these games, there will come a time when you are going to be I won't say forced, but you'll be strongly encouraged to reveal the most traumatic incident that has ever occurred in your life. And then, if you play it correctly, you can use it to deflect an attack from arrival. You can use it to deflect a for the wrong reasons attack that may be coming from a lead someone like the Bachelor or whatever. But basically use the PTC by playing it, which garners you sympathy. If you can do tier play on top of it, it makes it more for the right reasons. Then you go through a series of a short narrative that is, this happened to me, Here's how it affected me, Here's what I've learned from it, and here's why that makes me ready for whatever. The premise of the show is you're on finding.

00:07:52
Speaker 3: One, so it's doing The whole show is a role playing game.

00:07:56
Speaker 2: It's an RPG, yes, And I would say the ones that are Bachelor is one that is extremely simple because and this this is prior to what is happening right now. Right now, Bachelor just had a big changing of the guard. This guy, Scott Teddy, took over from Summerhouse. They were that whole franchise was basically like swirling the toilet. They brought him in too, kind of revamp it and in a couple. In about a month, I guess a little more than a month, we're gonna have our first bachelorette under his new watch Taylor Frankie Paul, who is by her own right, a giant social media celebrity. She's the star of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And they've never cast anyone like this before. And I think that season is gonna be fast.

00:08:35
Speaker 3: How how can she be a Mormon wife and a bachelorette?

00:08:39
Speaker 2: I mean, is mom gonna survive this? You guys don't watch Secret Lives. Like the whole premise of Secret Lives is it is this group of these Mormon moms who started making tiktoks together. And what blew it up is Taylor Frankie Paul, the de facto leader of mom talk. I can't believe I know all this shit, and yet I can't. She essentially outed them all as doing what they call soft swinging, that all these wives and husbands were not necessarily having sex, but they were like making out with each other naked and showers and stuff, and so that elevated all of them. They got millions of TikTok followers off this. Then they got a show on Hulu about them that's kind of a housewivesy in style.

00:09:20
Speaker 3: We saw that because our friend was on Dancing with the Stars with one of the Whitney with Whitney.

00:09:24
Speaker 2: Who now is the star of a Broadway musical selling out every night.

00:09:28
Speaker 3: Right, but are But if she's a wife, how can she be a bachelorette? Isn't she married?

00:09:34
Speaker 2: You must have no she was, But yeah, now divorced. She has a couple of different baby daddies, and she's has a very checker path. Sure Ah, like they live in Utah and they say they're Mormon wives, but it's like, wait a minute, none of you were going to church or doing anything.

00:09:52
Speaker 3: It's full.

00:09:53
Speaker 1: I just feel as a brand listening to you talk, I feel like I'm such like a nai you know, I just don't like I just I'm still like you go on reality shows to make friends and maybe exactly.

00:10:12
Speaker 2: And I think most players are like that, and those producers are counting on it. Producers for most of these shows don't call the players players or the people people. They call them subjects. I would say, in my kind of tenure doing this weird side project, I have been given access to various documents, will put it that way. Some of them include very long discussions by producers as they're producing a show, as they're doing like a season of a show, and so you get to read in these giant, like you know, thousand page group chats, how producers actually think about the players, how they're manipulating them, what they call them behind their back, all of that, and you're just like, Okay, I get it. That's the real game. So back to like what is this game? All? Reality TV breaks down essentially into what we call the four audiences, and if you are playing in a reality game, you're playing to all four simultaneously. Audience one is the lead or main character of your show. So if it's a bachelor or bachelorette, it's the bachelor or a bachelorette. If it's like a Housewives, it's the main housewife. That's the person who's going to keep you in the show or kick you out of the show. They kind of control it. Audience two is the other players. So like on Bachelor or Bachelorette, let's say we all three go in as the dudes dating the bachelorette. We are each other's second audience. You both have to play against them and with them. Audience three, arguably the most important, is the producers. They are the ones trying to cause you to have a never break down on TV for good TV. And then audience four is us at home watching you play in No other sport is it like this, but in reality TV it is. We decide how much money you make by putting that number next to your head on TikTok and Instagram.

00:11:55
Speaker 3: Wow, I hate, I hate, I hate it.

00:11:59
Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw it a fifth crowd or a fifth audience, because isn't there the critic audience, like people like you that you're talking this sort of like fifth state.

00:12:09
Speaker 2: That effectively at this point, you know, it's not like I think what I'm doing is like potentially unique in terms of like infiltrating these games and controlling them from to some degree. But I think for the most part, with the advent of like podcasts that talk about reality TV and all this stuff, uh, there's a lot of us now at this same kind of tier that isn't like Nick Vile level. But we're also like, you know, we're able to monetize and stuff like that. I think there's a lot of us that are affecting how these shows are made, or at least the discourse around them. Like producers can't get away with as much as they used to be able to. Trader Season four is an interesting example of that with the casting of Colton Underwood. I don't know if you guys are following.

00:12:46
Speaker 3: That, Yeah, well yes, talk about it. Well before we do. I just have one I have one question that is going to make me sad in my soul and want to weep for the world. But I'm curious, what percentage would you say of reality body show contestants go on just to get followers.

00:13:04
Speaker 2: It's okay, yeah, I mean I think I would say there are definitely a lot of players who are going on only for that there are a smaller person And it also depends on the game. Like there's a show right now being a cast that Chris Harrison supposedly is going to be hosting. It's basically like trad wives, like a tradwife bachelor, Oh god, And there's a lot of people like outrage by and all this stuff. I'm trying to coach some players to go in and basically destroy the show. Should be interesting, but that is something different, Like I think you're going to get people applying for that show who really are for the right reasons and want to get married and their secondary goals like man if I become an influencer, great, But generally speaking, especially if you're looking at like a Love Island right or even really Love is Blind, primarily players are going into these giant platform shows where you have tens of millions of viewers, high level social media engagement. They are going into those shows to come out with millions of Instagram followers and get like Leah kateb from season six USA Love Island is getting deals with Google. You know. It's like, this is not a small thing. This is It's like being a pro athlete. It really is.

00:14:12
Speaker 3: So I mean, is there eventually just going to be a reality show where the winning prizes you win ten million followers?

00:14:17
Speaker 2: If I have my way with it, yes, I think like the the idea of how these shows are presented still, to me, is kind of archaic, and I think a lot of reality producers come from that early two thousands era where they're like, people who watch this show is or stupid? Reality TV is trash TV, And it's like, no, you have a reality TV show host as the president, Like it influences our entire culture now in a way no other media does. So Yeah, for me, I think the presentation of social media numbers should be a part of reality shows. When you see like an it well they call it in Bachelor and IM in the moment that's like the confessional footage where they're talking direct to camera. I want to see on the bottom of the screen, like a little NFL motion video of the person with their Instagram and TikTok followers, pop numbers popping up. You know, that's how I think it should be presented.

00:15:09
Speaker 1: But wow, god, well, I mean, you know, it's one of the things that we've talked about because we're going through Traders right now season four, which I had never seen. Will was convinced that he could win it. So that's kind of the conceit of our podcast right now. And you know, one of the things that we've talked about is how ridiculous it is that they even offer money because it doesn't seem like anybody cares. And we're like, correct to your point exactly. We're like, it's like a three thousand dollars and they're like, you need another seven thousand. No one cares. None of these people want. They are here for that money, which is exactly to your point.

00:15:39
Speaker 3: They're there for.

00:15:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been a thing that has come out as a result of this season. Carolyn Wiger, who was on season three, she was a Survivor player and really popped off in season three. She came out and basically said, like to Housewives two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is meaningless. They're making millions of dollars per season, but to somebody who came in like third place on Big Brother or something, that's money that can get you through the next year or two. So the disparity of kind of like how much the money means to people is gigantic, and I think the money will obviously mean more in the civilian version. But like Traders has so many pieces of the game, it's still a very young show, and none of these shows solidify their formats in the first four seasons. Bachelor notoriously took season four to twelve. That's like the experimental era where they were creating group date roses, one to one date roses, first impression rows. None of those game mechanics were in the game until they were invented in those seasons. So I think Traders is kind of going through those growing pains right now. Eventually, I think the challenges will have nothing to do with money. I think it'll be like you're saying, a kind of overall million dollar prize to the winning team. Traders are faithful, and I think the challenges are going to have to start skewing more towards survivor esque challenges exactly individual people going against each other. The winner gets immunity of from some kind of banishment.

00:16:57
Speaker 3: Well, we also talked about the other thing we talked about was the idea that one of the things you win is a clue to find out who the trader is.

00:17:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, something that affects the game. And yeah, one they have to start doing that.

00:17:09
Speaker 3: Another conversation writer and I've had over and over and over again, and we both go back and forth on it, frankly, and I'm so curious what you think. Do you think being a reality show contestant takes talent one percent?

00:17:23
Speaker 2: Really? Oh my god? Yeah, After like coaching people through the casting processes of all these different shows, I feel like I'm as good as any casting producer at this point and seeing almost immediately if a person can be on reality TV or not, because they all of these shows cast archetypes. You have to be the nerd, the professional, the athlete, the weirdo, the whatever. Right you don't fit one of those things, you are never getting on reality television period. And there's a bunch of them now. Like those those kind of archetypes have definitely evolved over the past twenty years, but you have to fit one of them, or potentially a couple of them, have elements of a couple of them. And then even above that, the really good reality players just have that thing it's like to talk about, Yeah, yeah, it's like game sense. And when I talk about game sense, it's really like how to interact with a camera, how to do things that will guarantee a good edit, like affect your own edit while you're in front of the camera. That is like a skill. That is what Mark.

00:18:26
Speaker 1: Dallas does not have, for instance, correct, Because yes, our friend was you know, our friend Danielle was on Dancing with the Stars with him and loved him and said he's a great guy. He's so smart, he's so cool, and we were like excited to see him on the season. And he's just been the worst player ever and like clearly cut out and it's like, oh, he doesn't have that thing that you're talking about. He clearly doesn't have like the SoundBite factor or the confrontation factor or whatever it is that seems to get more of the screen time and make you a successful player. Although he's lasted a long time because he's the Patsy, But that's.

00:18:57
Speaker 2: What it becomes like Traders. This is one of the big problems with Trade. And by the way, as I'm saying all of this, please understand, Traders is literally my favorite show that's ever been made, across all genre, unscripted whatever. Real love it. Yeah, but I think it has massive problems, massive areas for improvement. One of them is what is this show? Is it an objective game that we are watching these players play or is it a an entertaining reality show about wacky characters. They never know what it is. And so when you see somebody like Mark ballas I've watched a bunch of his tiktoks where he has like, here's all the notes I took when I was in my hotel room and I was involved in this play, in that play, and they never show it. That is the I think detrimentally so the part of Traders that is like, we're trying to make an entertaining reality show. So somebody is playing the game too good, or they express too much of an acumen for being able to detect deceit or whatever, they get cut out of the show. And that's just because the producers think they know what makes a good show. The truth is the real version of Traders. In my opinion, the best version of it would be like a Big Brother type thing where the players actually do live in that castle, not in a hotel at the airport, right, Yeah, and we get to watch them twenty four hours a day on online, and you cut an hour long show out of that every week, just like they do in Big Brother. But for people who really want to see how the game is being played, it's all right there. And I don't know if they'd ever do that because there's so much. Traders just has a lot of stuff that's not real, like the clocks on the challenges and stuff. You know, right, those are fake.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: So it's like, wait, what do you mean the clocks and the challenges.

00:20:35
Speaker 2: They give them like a time limit to do the challenges. Yeah, that is not real. Wait so there's no time why they always finish the challenge with like three seconds left? It's incredible. Yeah, we've I've interviewed some people in our Game of Rosa show and that has been corroborated.

00:20:49
Speaker 3: Chad, you're taken to taking all the mystique away. Ah, I'm kidding, You're not at all the idea that the reality is.

00:20:57
Speaker 2: Real. None of them are, though, of course, just at a very base level. You are looking at one hour of edited content, and every shot in it, every music choice, everything you're seeing and hearing is put in there for a very specific reason, either to conceal the truth or reveal the truth, or entertain you or make you afraid or sad or whatever the case may be. But you're never seeing everything, and so it can never actually be real.

00:21:24
Speaker 3: Has there ever in the history of television been a real reality show?

00:21:29
Speaker 2: Big Brother, I think is the closest because those feeds are available. You can literally watch all their camera feeds in that house twenty four hours a day if you want online. The program they present or the document they present is obviously like a drastically edited down version to fit network TV our time slot. But I would say Big Brother is like, but I don't know. I mean, you look at it like you are we going back in history here. Reality TV technically started in nineteen forty five. I believe with candid Camera you go up through the seventies and you're looking at this American family on pe yep. I mean that that was kind of a first of its kind. Certainly, and it was doing very innovative things. Was it real though? I don't know. Did the people who edited that show have some kind of agenda? Were they trying to make plan this loud look better or the dad looked better or whatever? You know? Inevitably, Yeah, I think there's always that question for me is always like primary whenever I'm watching anything, why are they putting this in the show? Yeah, because they can choose not to put whatever you were looking at. They can choose to not put that in the show just as easily as they put it in.

00:22:31
Speaker 3: So do you curiously do you watch any of the twenty four hour footage of Big Brother? And if you do, is any of it entertaining or is there a reason it doesn't?

00:22:40
Speaker 2: Mean you kind of make like cutdowns of it and stuff on the website so that you don't have to. And that's what the show is too. It's like here's the best shit, here's who works the challenges and whatever. It's like, who has time for that unless you're just a massive super fan, Like at this point, everything I watch is on two time speed minimum, just to take as much as possible.

00:22:58
Speaker 1: Wow, oh dude, Okay, we have to get back to the Coulton thing because you threw.

00:23:04
Speaker 2: That out there.

00:23:05
Speaker 1: But before we do, yeah, yeah, this question occurred to me. What would be your archetype if you were going for traders? How would you get on the show?

00:23:12
Speaker 2: What would your your well, Charisset, I applied and it didn't work to be kind of like a game expert, right, I don't know. Maybe I could go with like intellectual power weirdo. I could do that.

00:23:24
Speaker 3: I think that's just an ip W chat. You got to use the you gotta use the acronym ip I, like the actual power weirdo.

00:23:36
Speaker 1: What would be like? Okay, so like what because like I look at what Eric is going through right now, as like the bad trader who's just such a horrible liar. I feel like that would be me. So could I apply with that sort of like character type where I would just be like the innocent, nice guy who would never lie to you.

00:23:53
Speaker 2: You are like a tried and true faithful and they need those players on the show, right. I think what most people don't understand though, is like not everybody goes into that show saying I want to be a trader for sure, but faithful is actually a way harder game to play statistically and in the mechanics.

00:24:09
Speaker 3: Of it, you think, oh yeah, dude, really, but you don't have to. You don't have to worry about what you're saying. You don't have most of you are going to get.

00:24:17
Speaker 2: Banished double about what you're saying. Traders only have to say to everyone, I'm a faithful that's they have one lie to do, and that's it. Faithful have to identify the traders. If you want to play the game in a way that will win the game for you, you have to identify the traders, then I and be certain about that. That alone is an impossible task. You then have to be able to get a group of faithful together that you can trust and tell your ideas to and hope that that doesn't isolate you from them and they banish you. Also hope that a trader's not in that group is like he's on to us and they murder you. You have to lie to faithful sometimes about not thinking this person's a trader or thinking they're okay. You have to lie to traders sometimes. I mean it's just the permutations mathematically of how you have to navigate that ye are infinite. Traders are very like straight line. It's basically like, don't fight with the other traders and don't do anything weird and you'll win the game. That's basically a trader strategy. And occasionally you have a trader that's like Serie, you know in season one, who's just like a fucking Da Vinci of playing these games. I just have never seen anyone like her.

00:25:27
Speaker 3: We haven't seen season one yet, so we literally started. I started three and he started four. So no, it's out there. I mean, by this point, season one is wild. That Season one, to me is like they invited somebody who is maybe one of the greatest game players in reality television in the history of the genre, and said, here's season one of a show that nobody.

00:25:51
Speaker 2: Knows anything about. As she was just like, got it, let me run the table. It was unreal. That season is so good.

00:25:57
Speaker 3: Wow, So you said, you can you see if people have the kind of what it takes to be on a reality television show. Rider, and I've been talking about trying to get on either Traders or Amazing Race. Do you see the possibility of us being able to do that?

00:26:09
Speaker 2: Oh, one hundred percent. Traders for sure, the celebrity one for sure, Okay, you should one hundred percent apply, and I mean whatever, you shouldn't even apply. You should be reaching out to whoever you know it NBC and you know, getting on the show. There's no real application for the celebrity one. But of course, and if you.

00:26:27
Speaker 3: Do, let me know, well you've also yeah, well you've also mentioned this a number of times. Now, I'm so curious. What does an application for a reality show look like?

00:26:35
Speaker 1: You should have to do a video, right.

00:26:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, for traders, like for the Civilian one, it's essentially one question. It's like name, address, blah blah blah, job. But then it's one question do you want to be a trader or faithful and why? And then you have to put a picture, full body length picture, headshot and a little video and that's wow. So I mean, and that's another and you put your social media handles and stuff too. That's kind of like a very common thing that I coach most people to do, is like go through your Instagram and archive everything except what makes the producers understand what you will look like in their show. So if you're going into Bachelor, it's like, I want to see some pictures of you in cocktail dresses. I want to see some pictures of you in like athletic wear because you'll invariably be on a group date that's like a sporting event. Pictures of you in like a hoodie, what you'll wear in the morning for those shots after they wake up from night one. It's basically like, just look at what is in the show, recreate it in some pictures and make that all that's on your Instagram when you apply for the show, because the producers will look at your Instagram. Same thing for Traders. If you want to be on Traders, you know, have a couple of shots of you and the athletic stuff that you're going to be wearing for the challenges. Have a couple of shots and what you're going to wear to a round table. Get some dark lighting, some mood lighting, a couple of candles, glass over the top, breakfast gear.

00:27:51
Speaker 3: Yeah samon So yeah, what happens if you're like me and you have no social media? Will you ever be cast?

00:28:00
Speaker 2: You have a podcast? That would be hard? Yeah, I mean a podcast is social media, but I think for the celebrity one, you do need some kind of a public profile.

00:28:09
Speaker 3: Okay, so interesting, because I have no Instagram, no Twitter, or whatever the hell it's called now, I literally have no public profile whatsoever.

00:28:16
Speaker 2: I mean maybe they would, though, Look I don't know. I think as a result of the Cult Underwood thing. I think what you're gonna see in the next few seasons of the Celebrity Traders, and this is bearing out in the people that are getting calls right now for the next season. In my opinion, I just think it's going to be squeaky clean. There's not gonna be anybody with a restraining order cast like Michael Rappaport. There's not going to be anybody who stalked their co star on another reality show like Culton Underwood. And so maybe having no social media footprint at all is actually a good thing in that regard, you know what I mean?

00:28:46
Speaker 3: So how did they get cast if they have these backgrounds?

00:28:49
Speaker 2: This is the question, and this is what I was talking about this season of Traders, in my opinion, is when it's like, oh, full corporate greed machine, It's like every other reality show. Now, Bachelor has had so many scandals like this, where like a picture will come out of somebody in high school in blackface, it wins the ring and then they don't even discuss it at the reunion, and the show is basically saying it ain't on us, we didn't know, and you're just like, how did you not know? So in this case, it's even more egregious because all that shit's all over the internet. FIRS casting producers one hundred percent knew this, and we're just like, well, whatever, some other people put him on reality show, so we can too. But it's like, this stage is so big, the scrutiny is way worse than it's ever been, and it blew up in their face. They have issued no statement about it, other than putting out an Instagram post saying like these are people too, so don't believe them. And it's like, but you cast this guy in your show? What is going on? And I think they have heard loud and clear the backlash. I just don't think they're going to address it. And there's now news coming out about the reunion that Colton supposedly storms off the set. He is there all this wild shit. But then I'm also looking at that and I'm like, okay, but is that like a real storm off the set? Or is that like a Housewives ninety day fiance? Every Reunion has one person storm off the set that's scripted, you know, I don't know.

00:30:13
Speaker 1: Oh man, wow, all right, so what would you have done differently producing this season of Traders?

00:30:33
Speaker 2: No, Coulton. First of all, that that to me is just like the biggest brightest one.

00:30:37
Speaker 1: Is he I'm sorry? Is he?

00:30:38
Speaker 3: Yeah? What can you tell us the whole kind of thing? And also is he worse than Michael Rappaport, Because we've heard a lot of really bad things about Michael Rappaport too, So I mean it's like, I.

00:30:47
Speaker 2: Think it's in my mind, they're both bad choices. For sure. Rapaport had a restraining order in the nineties. In my opinion, anytime you're making a group psychosocial dynamic game, that disqualifies from being able to be in those games, right, I mean, it's just like the liability of it is insane.

00:31:06
Speaker 1: Right, right, learn boundaries? Right.

00:31:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. But he's got, like, you know whatever, millions Instagram followers and ship and they're just kind of looking at it like that. This season two was the first season that they had six players that I called non reality celebrities. That was the other than Housewives. They both had six players. Those two groups and I find that kind of weird. I would have liked them more to be reality celebrities.

00:31:26
Speaker 1: But whatever, Wait, you're talking about who are who are non reality celebrities like you You mean.

00:31:32
Speaker 2: Like this season it was Eric Nam, it was rapaport Ron, functious.

00:31:39
Speaker 1: Missing, and you think those those as a category, they make worse.

00:31:44
Speaker 3: No, Mark Ballace would count as a reality star. Mark Balace's reality so is so is uh Kristen is reality.

00:31:52
Speaker 2: Is definitely reality. I know there were three others.

00:31:55
Speaker 3: I remember Stephen Coett, Stephen Colletti.

00:31:58
Speaker 2: He'd be one in Kaletti. I put even Colletti in the housewives group because he came from one of those early reality kind of dating hills or whatever too right, so I thought he would kind of have that play style. But at any rate, Oh h, Taylor Swift's so.

00:32:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, her missus Taylor don Taylor Swift.

00:32:22
Speaker 2: Donna Kelcey was one of them. And there were two others that I now cannot remember for the life of me.

00:32:26
Speaker 1: But and you think it just made for a boring, a more boring season or less dynamical.

00:32:32
Speaker 2: I mean, no, I don't mind it. I guess I just like for me the Traders is really like the mixed more sial arts of reality television where you get to see like Housewives discipline versus survivor discipline versus And I'm like, I want to see which of those games trains players to do this weird thing together better, And I think Bachelor does. Like Bachelor basically is just a game of detecting deception. That's the whole thing. And so I think when Bachelor players come in there, they're like people are like, oh, they just try to find love on reality TV, and they way underestimate them. And it's like, no pilot. Peter Weber has the things those producers put him through, has hardened that mother, and he is going to run this game. I just love that shit. But wow, in Cult Underwood's case, so do you guys know the story of what happened on his season?

00:33:20
Speaker 3: I kind of vaguely know that at the end it got very bad with him and whoever.

00:33:26
Speaker 2: He picked, or yes, I can give you a in my head, I'm like, I can give you a quick breakdown of it, and I'm like, this is gonna take twenty minutes. Okay, this is the basic breakdown of Colt Underwood. He is a top three finisher on his season of the Bachelorette. His bachelorette was this woman named Becca kuferin.

00:33:45
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sorry. So he wasn't the star. It wasn't a bachelor he was after that.

00:33:50
Speaker 2: How he got the job as the bachelor was it was up to him and the guys who finished or he was top four, sorry and the guys. Two other guys who finished in the top three with him were both like super viable, came and it's to be the bachelor. Supposedly, the story is per his own telling, he walked into Mike Flis, the creator of the Bachelor's office, and said, I know you're talking to these other two guys, but I'll do anything you want. I'll give you the best TV you can imagine, and they gave him the job. Kind of the rumor is many of the prousers knew that he was likely a closeted gay man and they were hoping to induce a nervous breakdown on camera. Oh god shit, which they did do. In his season, he performed an act. This was also an executive priser Atlaw on Gales last season. On that show, he was kind of the mastermind of the whole franchise for a while. He created Bachelor in Paradise. He got Colt Underwood basically so flustered at one point that he runs into the night and jumps over this fence, and that moment is collectively known as the fence jump amongst all of us in the fourth audience, and Chris Harrison is then sent out into the night Colton Colton like yelling for him and shit, and it was wild, right, So that season ends he this ring winner named Cassie Randolph. It kind of ends in like a muddy are we together? He dumps two of his other candidates, so there's like no final rose ceremony exactly. It was kind of like a mess of an end of a season structurally. But after they rotate out of the show, that relationship starts to fall apart. He begins stalking her. He puts a tracking device on her car, He creates a fake identity from which online identity from which he is messaging Cassie Randolph, her brother, I believe, and himself acting like he too is getting stalked. Oh my god. So it's like diabolical, yes, exactly exactly, and all that goes down and then the news of that comes out, and he also relatively around the same time, comes out and says I'm gay, and that's he never like directly said that's why this is happening, but it did seem to kind of like, let's forget about this sweet that out of the carpet and this is the new thing now. Netflix gives him a show called Coming Out Coulton. It was a show literally all about him coming out and going around West Hollywood and dating and stuff. He gets married, I believe they've adopted a child to him and his husband, and as all that's going on, he's trying to rehab his reality TV career. He gets on Masked Singer. He hosts co hosts the show called Are You My First? With Caitlin, the.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: Reality show he hasn't done the hell Yeah?

00:36:25
Speaker 2: Did he start as like a football player, Like, yeah, he made a practice team for the Seattle Seahawks and was on that for like two or three months. It's kind of like almost NFL players are. That's kind of a a trope almost in Bachelor Nation. Wow. But yeah, and then you know, for whatever reason, he he winds up on traders. He clearly is like hungry for fame and wants to be in reality TV. Yeah, and he's just like, if you watch that show, are you my first? He's a co host of it. It's I would encourage you to watch it. I'll leave it at that. It's like, it's so hard to watch. He's not good at that job. But you know, I think this is probably gonna be his last shot on reality TV for a long time. And then you also have to ask yourself, like why he doesn't bring enough to the table to warrant an exception for this type of behavior. It's not like, you know, some actors are remembered to be like just monsters on set, but if they're in your movie, it opens to one hundred million dollars. So a studio is like, well, we kind of don't care. He's in the movie. You know, Culton underwould ain't that in reality TV? Right?

00:37:31
Speaker 3: He's not bringing it?

00:37:32
Speaker 1: So who who is playing a good game this season?

00:37:35
Speaker 2: In your opinion? Rob rousch.

00:37:38
Speaker 1: Amazing? Right?

00:37:40
Speaker 2: Did you guys watch him on Love's Mind season?

00:37:43
Speaker 3: No, we don't know any of these people, or yeah, he was on season six?

00:37:47
Speaker 2: Leg except okay, so how to explain it? Season six of Love Island USA was transformative for the franchise. It was the most watched season of that show of all time by a giant magnitude for the US version or for all of them, I believe for all of them. Definitely for the US version. Prior to that, the US version had kind of floundered, but they got a new host in Ariono Maddox, who comes from vander Pump Rules. She's like a super fan of the show, fantastic at that job. She's almost like an Alan Cumming type like character at times in the show. It's really fascinating. But the talent they had on that season, including Rob Rausch, was just like elevated to a level you'd never really seen. And Rob Rausch turned in that show also was like big Brother. They live in this compound.

00:38:37
Speaker 3: I've seen that one. I've seen, but not the US version. We watch UK and Australia, and by episode sixty two it's like I can't do this anymore. Like there's so many episodes.

00:38:49
Speaker 2: I love it. To me, it's like the baseball or basketball season where you got games every night. I love so much to watch. Yeah, it's fantastic though, but rober Aush turned in this performance. That was like, what is going on here? Is he doing performance art? What the is this? He did a thing where he was sitting in a day bed talking to this woman about invariably, on that show, the conversations will get as deep as like what's your favorite type of candy? Right? He was having a conversation like that, and just a fucking spider is like crawling across his face and he's not even He's like, I don't even know it's there. I was like, what's going on? What is that guy doing? And I was just mesmerized by him, his weird outfit choices, his turns of phrases, and when he got on Traders, I was like, I can't wait to see this. This is gonna be very weird. And it turns out he's the greatest player of all time.

00:39:37
Speaker 3: He's we're talking about he's so smart. And the second I saw him sit down and play chess and I was watching his hands move, I was like, oh, he knows what he's doing, like he actually he's thinking several moves ahead. Yeah, And then it turns out he's the secret genius. This guy, yes unbelievable.

00:39:56
Speaker 2: And then you watch his tiktoks and he's like stomping around the swamps of floor or to picking up snakes that are like biting him in the face and ship and he's like, oh, that one got me in the lip anyway, this is my favorite snake. And you're like, how is this the same guy? He's like gaming one of the most reality shows ever. So it's Steve.

00:40:11
Speaker 3: It's Steve Irwin meets you know, a James Bond villain kind of all wrapped.

00:40:16
Speaker 2: In together, meets like a Tyler Cameron. He gives off like kind of a a standard hymbo kind of but like he's not that.

00:40:24
Speaker 1: No, no, no, Well do you think he would be as good if you were a faithful It's hard to say because faithfuls aren't, like they're just not given the opportunity to play in the same way.

00:40:37
Speaker 2: Like if you look at in was it the most recent episode with the Jack in the Boxes? Yeah, yeah, where he makes those two choices where Eric crawls out of the boxes like shit, what do we do exactly put down Tera Lipinski's name every time on the time we don't put ourselves on the short list. Both of those choices are like statistically exactly correct on our Patreon. We watched the show and I always anytime somebody has to make a choice, and I say, like, here's exactly what you do. And he did both of the things exactly as I said. And I was like, Oh, this guy's going to dominate the game. Yes, but like Faithful don't get those those same kind of choices to affect the game. They're kind of just there floating around. And this is like kind of I think the flaw in the game, the real game of a Faithful if you are actually trying to win, like the game of Traders, is not eliminating traders. You actually don't ever want to do that until the very final phase. You want to identify them, keep them there, and essentially hamstring them like Lisa Renna this season. Wow, there was a moment where basically everybody knew she was a trader, right and they vote her out. Yeah, that's wrong. You want her there tell the end, so you can take her to the final fire pit and be like, Okay, you're a trader by Faithful win. You know, you don't ever want to get traders out until the final round.

00:41:56
Speaker 1: That makes so much sense, That's what That's what I didn' understand cause I didn't know the rules of the game. Was like, wait, they can't ever vote all the traders out because they're just going to keep recruiting, so you actually you just inevitably because what's weird is to me is like so often they seem to just vote up people they don't like or they don't get along with. But actually that based on like that actually makes sense kind of in a way, based on what you're saying, Like you just get rid of the faithful you don't trust and don't like or don't want to be around, and stick with the faithfuls.

00:42:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so interesting in terms of game theory. This is how I would play it if I could. But I think even saying these things like in the context of being in the show would probably get you eliminated from one side or the other. Right, But basically, what you want to set up, in my opinion, is a system that completely neuters trader's ability to do anything if you're a faithful That would include two things in my opinion, which would be like on day one, before anyone is selected as a trader, and you have what is called reality where they let the players go into the castle and meander around talk to each other. I would get everybody together and I would say, look, here's the deal. Right now, we're all faithful, So these are two things I want institute as a faithful that we can all agree on as Faithful's one, we're gonna have a buddy system right now. Randomly, we're gonna select pairs of two that buddy can never be let out of your site. Statistically, it's almost impossible that two traders will be picked from two people who are randomly buddied, So that will make it impossible for them to go sneak off and get the tarot cards or have conversations or whatever. So we all agree to this or not.

00:43:23
Speaker 1: I said this exact same thing because there was one episode where someone asked somebody to talk along Candice like kick somebody out, and I was like, why would you ever walk away from that person? Just say nope, I am never leaving your side. Yeah, because you never leave anybody alone if you.

00:43:37
Speaker 3: Can help it.

00:43:39
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that makes so much sense.

00:43:40
Speaker 2: I think that's a way to kind of, like, you know, invalidate a lot of what traders are trying to do. There's also a murdering plane sight, you know roughly. Now, I don't know what the statistics would bear out, but either in round three or four, you're gonna have a murder and plane site. If you suspect that's happening, you could institute and again this would have to be laid out on day one, like teach everybody basically, but you can institute what I would call statute protocol. Everyone just sits in a chair, completely silent and still looking forward, not moving. I said, good luck with your murder and playing sight. Terrible reality television. The producers will hate you, but it breaks that element of the game. It completely invalidates it. And there's a lot of stuff in Traders like that that I think you could do as a faithful.

00:44:26
Speaker 1: Wow, they want you on this show, Like that's you know.

00:44:33
Speaker 2: I come up with these strategies because like the game needs to be honed still and there are these gaping holes in it that could be exploited in any way you want, really, and one of them is that it's the Traders thing. It's like they don't Sandra was just on a podcast talking to Carolyn Wiger. Sandra from season two. She's a big survivor champion. She won two Survivor seasons back to back, which I think still has never been done again. She basically was saying, like, the producers don't like what they call trade or angel strategy, which is a faithful kind of teams up with a trader and they both agree, we're going to take each other to the end game. Because the real game being played is how long can you last in the show? How much screen time can you get? Can you get famous enough or be remembered enough from the season to be invited back to another season or an All star season or another reality show or whatever, And so that's really what you're doing. You want to basically be aligned. If you're a faithful, you want to be aligned with the trader. If you're a trader, you want to be aligned with a faithful. And that's the game they've designed. They don't want that to be the game they've designed, but that is what it is.

00:45:35
Speaker 1: So that moment with Colton and Lisa Rena was actually the moment that could have broken the game if they had because because couldn't I know, you hate him, but couldn't he have said he did? He kind of did the right thing by saying like, I know you're a trader. If she had said to him, okay, I'm with you, they could have run the game from that point on.

00:45:57
Speaker 2: Right Unfortunately, like they both both were bad players, right, No, we also have to kind of be good at what the game is, you know, to be that my kind of like dream in terms of coaching people to go in this game, which I'm trying to put together currently. I'm curious if I'll be able to do it or not, But basically I want to send in a team of multiple people, at least five, who all know they're going into the game, and they have kind of a pre made agreement that says probably one of us statistically will be a trader. If that's the case, the first breakfast after the traders are selected, one of us will say this code word, pass the bagel whatever. And if we say that, it means we're the trader. And we all agree now that whoever that is, we support them as faithfuls, and that trader will protect us in the turret and we will run the table of this game. There is no way that could be stopped. But then who wins at the end, whoever? I mean, that's what we have to determine, like what is win? You know, to me, win is make it to the firepit, basically that you've been in the show the whole time.

00:46:57
Speaker 3: Well you also win the pot of sixty three.

00:47:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.

00:47:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:47:03
Speaker 2: Season three, I think there were four winners, right, And I remember Gabby Wendy make him post like where's my fifty thousand dollars? Yeah, she makes that in an afternoon with the Instagram reel, you know.

00:47:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, So who do you think is gonna win? What do you think is gonna happen? What's the end of Traders is?

00:47:34
Speaker 2: I don't know there's a I mean, unfortunately, I feel like it's very hard to say because you're only given the edit. And I do think they're they're good at that like kind of misdirecting you. I want to say Rob Roush wins. But there's just a part of me that's like, come on, Candice voted for him twice. Nobody saw that. Nobody thinks that means anything. I think people know he's a Trader, and I think he's gonna make it to the finals. Faithfuls might kick him out and that'll be that. Maybe Eric wins. I can see that.

00:48:06
Speaker 1: I have no idea. I kind of would love it if Eric won, just because I see myself in him so much. I'm just like, I would be such that guy, and I just kind of rooted for him, like the fact that he like reluctant Trader. He's like, we have to kill someone tonight. Oh geez, that would be so I can't do that.

00:48:25
Speaker 3: So then do you see Rob however he finishes this show, Do you see him as the next Bachelor or on Dancing with the Stars or I mean, is this kind of like, is he the next big thing in reality?

00:48:39
Speaker 2: I mean what they're doing in the Bachelor franchise right now, they they skipped a Bachelor iteration. So the cycle of that show is generally January is a Bachelor, March is a Bachelorette. Sometime in the summer's Bachelor in Paradise, and then after that is a Golden Bachelor iteration, either Golden Bachelor or Bachelorette. That's the cycle of that year long show. They skip the Bachelor this year, there is no cycle, so the whole thing is now broken because the narrative you're watching is generally speaking, a player on Bachelor gets into the top three, gets her heartbroken becomes the Bachelorette, and then all of the players from those two seasons are now in Bachelor in Paradise, and then the Golden Bachelor's kind of its own end of the year cycle with its own player pool, although those players are now being put on Paradise two without that kind of like that break in the narrative cycle is definitely like a reset. There's no everybody in this next season with Taylor, Frankie Paul will be completely new. We've never seen them in the franchise before. She obviously is completely new and is a giant reality star in her own right, So I think it's going to kind of revitalize the franchise. If they stick with that idea of casting a super famous person as the lead or a reality star as the lead, and they cast Rob Rousch as the Bachelor next January, that will be the biggest dating show ever made. Really. Yeah, she's gigantic, especially in like the dating world, and I do believe he is single. But there are like some other shows that are starting to kind of nip at the heels of even the format of The Bachelor. Alex Cooper, who hosts Call Her Daddy, that I don't know if you guys know that podcast, I know the podcast, or she's producing reality shows now she's doing one for Netflix called Who Wants to Marry Harry? I think not the English Royal, but Harry Jowsey, the most successful male reality player of all time. What's he from? From what he was on Too Hot to Handle? He was on Perfect Match? He's big Netflix Reality Universe.

00:50:37
Speaker 3: What's the same, Harold?

00:50:38
Speaker 2: What? Harry Jowsey? Harry? He has a big podcast, and he has been very explicit about the fact that he created characters and applied to all these shows as different characters multiple times.

00:50:49
Speaker 3: They all look the same. All these people look the same.

00:50:53
Speaker 2: There's a look that's part of it. You know.

00:50:56
Speaker 1: It's pro reality athletes.

00:50:58
Speaker 2: I love it.

00:50:58
Speaker 3: Okay, so somebody come see you tomorrow and they say, all right, Chad, here's one hundred million dollars, go create the next big reality show.

00:51:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you make? I'm probably going a dat house shit. I have multiple of these ideas in mind, but with one hundred million dollars, I don't think a hundred Well, maybe it would be. This is the show I really want to make. It's a perpetual dating show called the Dating Pool. They are all the players, twenty of the hottest guys and girls. I would make them all bisexual as well, so that any mathematical combination of romance can happen. Of course, they essentially live in a poolhouse that is fantastic and nice, and they have a butler. There are no bad conditions here. Once you come into the show, you are locked into the show for the rest of your life, barring two ways out. One you get voted out of the show by the audience, and that vote takes place once every week, and then a new person replaces you. Or two you get engaged to someone on the show and you leave in love. Those are the only ways out of the show. This is a show that shoots over the course of a week and airs every Friday forever, fifty two weeks a year. That's the show I'd want to make.

00:52:16
Speaker 1: That's pretty great. It's sort of like Running Man, except there's no death. There's just yeah exactly.

00:52:23
Speaker 2: It's basically like I mean, reality TV shows are basically the modern day soap opera. If you look at like Love Island has like an app for all the fans that you get to vote on people Who's your Favorite couple? Is kind of shit. That app in season seven, which aired last summer, crashed like ten times because so many people were like locked into the show. And to me, everybody I've ever pitched this idea too, they're like, oh, you can't do that, that production is too crazy. I'm like, Love Island has a show every day.

00:52:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, right all over the world, every day that nine versions of it, Yeah, all over the world.

00:52:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's like the production model exists to do something like this. I think it's just a matter of like there's still a lot of old guard producers in reality TV who came from those early two thousands that like, see it exactly. They can't have their cell phones and no, no, no, no, that's another thing. I'm like, why let them have their cell phones and make social media and interact with people while they're shooting the show? Right? You don't think that's the level of engagement that would produce would never be topped in my opinion.

00:53:22
Speaker 1: Wow, Well, Chad can't thank you enough for so much information. So we need to come back.

00:53:29
Speaker 2: Can you please come back?

00:53:30
Speaker 1: Come back? We're doing Survivor.

00:53:33
Speaker 2: I have no idea how cool it is for me Boy meets World occupies a very specific space in my life. Oh, absolute pleasure you are.

00:53:40
Speaker 1: I mean, you are a Machiavellian genius. This is it's really it's really wonderful and like, yeah, I need this in my life because I am still, like I said, such a naive reality.

00:53:52
Speaker 3: We're neophytes.

00:53:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're neophytes, and I feel like a rube. And that's really nice to have, like your your education. So when we Survivor next, and we would love to have Yeah, we're gonna do season fifty, so we'd love to have you back and discussing Survivor, we'll never seen it or he watched one season years ago, and every other.

00:54:10
Speaker 3: Season with Naked Guy was the only one I saw years of Survivor's.

00:54:13
Speaker 1: The only reality show I watched, so it's the only one I actually know a little bit. So yeah, we're gonna be starting. We're gonna start that next week, So in a couple in a couple of weeks, we'd love to have you back.

00:54:23
Speaker 3: And you are officially now the rt Y since you love acronyms, you're the rt Y.

00:54:28
Speaker 2: What's the arty?

00:54:29
Speaker 3: That's reality television, Yoda, thank you very much. That is official artie.

00:54:35
Speaker 1: Why you are?

00:54:36
Speaker 3: Yes, you watch? That's any fantasy books behind you on the shelf?

00:54:45
Speaker 2: What do you think?

00:54:46
Speaker 3: I saw Dune? But I'm trying to see what you what you read?

00:54:49
Speaker 1: Uh?

00:54:49
Speaker 2: Where should I be good? Right now? I'm reading a bunch of weird shit about human consciousness. But yes, there's a dragon writers a pern that.

00:54:56
Speaker 1: Yes, that's cool.

00:54:58
Speaker 3: Wheel of time and somewhere up here you Robert Jordan fan.

00:55:02
Speaker 2: I mean it in the middle.

00:55:04
Speaker 3: It meandered in the middle.

00:55:05
Speaker 2: I was, Yeah, exactly, I was. I was a Robert Jordan fan when I was in high school.

00:55:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know why meandered those because originally he sold it his six books and it was doing so well the publishers came to him said double it.

00:55:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. Have you guys watched the Real Time show? Halfway through? I couldn't. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't do it anymore. Hurt it hurt my soul. My My biggest pet peeve in these fantasy series is when like everybody's dressed in something that just came off the rack.

00:55:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, that whole show is that.

00:55:33
Speaker 2: I'm like, what the is this?

00:55:34
Speaker 3: I just love how they go into the ways and it's nice and bright. I'm like, yeah, exactly if there's a darkness, So what are you doing?

00:55:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just it was misguided, that's all right.

00:55:43
Speaker 3: It seemed I can already tell we're all going to be friends, so we're good.

00:55:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:55:47
Speaker 1: The second we saw a magic card, we were like, oh.

00:55:52
Speaker 2: But you have no idea. I just went out to dinner the other night with an old friend that I hadn't seen a couple of years, and somehow, immediately in the first five minutes, the conversation went to magic the gathering, and We're like, oh, yeah, no, I'm one hundred obsessed again. Yeah, there you go.

00:56:04
Speaker 1: Love it. It's such a time stuckage though. There's so many times where I'm just like I can't. I'll be building decks for like three days and then I'm like.

00:56:12
Speaker 2: What am I doing?

00:56:13
Speaker 3: What is all this?

00:56:14
Speaker 1: Yeah? I know it's so fun though, so much. All right, Well, Chad, yes, we'll definitely have you back. And then yeah, Chad, are you are you in l A?

00:56:22
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh are you guys in A?

00:56:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we could we could conceivably have a magic night. Yes, I'll get together.

00:56:27
Speaker 3: Yeah done, all right, good, all right, thank you so much.

00:56:33
Speaker 2: So yeah, all right, bye bye.

00:56:36
Speaker 1: I love that we keep discovering in this reality expert world. You know what, it is so cool.

00:56:41
Speaker 3: We always talk about microworlds yea. And first of all, the idea of looking at reality TV as sports, yeah, is so interesting.

00:56:51
Speaker 1: Or it's even more than that. It's more like game theory. Like it's some more like.

00:56:55
Speaker 3: You said, running Man, which is kind of true.

00:56:57
Speaker 1: It's like some kind of weird strategy. God, it's so it's it's really the way to look at it. It's really the smartest way to look at it. I just am so like, I'm just yeah, I'm not cynical. I still like kind of want to believe that, like people are good and they're not pretending.

00:57:13
Speaker 3: You're going to find love there. That's right, good for you, you found love. No, it's it's not such a world that when you look at it different, I mean again, he looks at it from the side and it's a whole different shape. So yeah, it's oh, it's so interesting to hear all this stuff.

00:57:28
Speaker 1: Well, that's gonna do it for this episode of Pod Meets Twirled. Join us next time as we continue our journey through season four of Traders, a show in which, as Shakespeare said in his Scottish play, fat as foul

00:57:39
Speaker 2: And foul is fair