When I need to unwind, my emotional support videos are sometimes these road trip videos where people drive around small towns and tell you about them.
I watched this video about West Virginia because I was curious to see the $30k houses and was surprised by how charming the towns felt, surrounded by mountains and rivers. I’m probably romanticizing these towns but it made me picture an alternate life where I gathered up a bunch of friends who also made a living on-line and we bought up a town in a place like this.
Then I stumbled on this video about an artists’ loft in Brooklyn:
This is another romantic vision of a bunch of artists occupying an old factory, turning it into a magical place full of wonder. If you’re a fan of dark comedy, watch all the way through until the epilogue at 19:14.
Lots of artists would love the idea of living in an NYC loft but you’d need to have some sort of trust fund to do that nowadays. There was a time though when these neighborhoods were run down, abandoned and cheap. It makes me wonder if any of these abandoned towns will become the next hot artists’ enclave, where people will wish they had moved there once it gets too expensive to buy anything.
Another video I enjoyed recently was this one about Shankweiler's Drive-In Theatre, an hour away from me although I’ve never been there (yet).
I was kinda struck that a common comment from customers is, “oh, I thought you were the owners. I didn’t realize you actually, like, did things.” It made me think about how so many of us have gotten far removed from the idea of the business owner being someone who works there. It made me think about this episode of The Sopranos when they tried to extort a Starbucks.
Somewhat related, I’ve watched and read a lot of stuff about Private Equity over the years and I’m not sure which was the best but this past week Stuff You Should Know had a decent podcast on the topic, “Private Equity: Your Ears Will Bleed.”
One example of the vampiric nature of private equity was the purchase of Red Lobster. Red Lobster owned all of its properties and was paying $16 million per year in property taxes. The new investors sold all the properties and split up the windfall amongst themselves, after which Red Lobster was now on the hook for $158 million per year in rent. It doesn't matter to these investors because once all the assets have been sold and the loans have been maxed out, they let it all go bankrupt and walk away with the money they collected along the way. Even the initial purchase of the company itself is a loan, a "leveraged buyout."
Another good podcast I listened to this week was the Search Engine episode titled “A Dubai Chocolate theory of the internet.”
This episode talks about things like Dubai Chocolate and Labubu, which have also been on my mind this year. Something I found compelling is the case that YouTube was founded on the idea that “people will make culture we can use to sell ads”, while TikTok was founded on “the culture will be people making ads.”
I also liked the idea that “everything is porn” now, as in everything is raw stimuli, even if it’s not sexual. For example the video that made Dubai Chocolate viral is “porn.”
The case is also made that TikTok isn’t a video platform made to compete with platforms like YouTube and Instagram, it’s a shopping platform made to compete with Amazon, something that is more clear to people who understand how apps integrate commerce in China. The user videos are there to drive attention to TikTok shop, essentially.
