Skeptics aren’t welcome in the Land of Big Numbers™️ 🤔
This is the Rubesletter from Matt Ruby. I’m a comedian, writer, and the creator of Vooza. This is a paywalled newsletter. If you’re on the free plan, you’ll still get to read plenty of good stuff, but if you’re a paid subscriber you’ll get exclusive content sent only to those who support financially. Sign up here. Thanks! Skeptics aren’t welcome in the Land of Big Numbers™️ 🤔Subscribers. Followers. Views. Valuations. Am I really supposed to believe any of 'em?I’m a bit of a cynic. Every time I hear about a huge “I’m popular online” number, I think, “Really?” For example, I just read there are 1.1 million subscribers to sports site The Athletic. But are there really? Because I’ve never met anyone who subscribes or talks about it. In fact, I have a tough time believing there are 1.1 million people who even know The Athletic exists. If true, the site must be raking it in from all these subscribers, right? Actually: "The Athletic lost $55 million on about $65 million in revenue in 2021." So this sports site is spending $120 million per year!? On what? Are they building stealth bombers lined with diamonds to fly over Wrigley Field? Also: The site is now owned by the NY Times and presumably can’t just lie about these stats. So fine, let’s say that 1.1M number is real. How many of these subscribers are paying and actually consuming content there on the regular? Because it’s not exactly raking it in: “The Athletic has brought subscriber growth to The New York Times — at a fairly significant cost.” Hmm, sorry for my antiquated understanding of math, but hemorrhaging money in order to increase subscribers feels like a poor business model. [Does some Googling.] Aha. Welcome to the land of “bundled” subscriptions.
That seems like it oughta be the real headline: Who knows what the real story is? I’m skeptical. FYI, bundled is a euphemism for “I didn’t actually want to sign up for this but they threw it in for free so [shrug emoji].” I remember when Spotify ran a bundled subscription “partnership” with Hulu where I got the TV service for free simply for already being a Spotify customer. “Um, sure,” I thought. But I bet Hulu chalked me up as a “real” subscriber as if I was all “Please gimme some Hulu!” Likewise, The Athletic is out here bundling it up. Sign up for T-Mobile and you get an Athletic subscription. Do those T-Mobilites use the site? Who cares? It’s another big number to show the money people. But maybe I’m the dummy. I talked to my media expert pal Rex Sorgatz, who literally wrote the book on fakery, about all this. His take:
Fair enough. And I don’t mean to pick on The Athletic. Everyone’s doing this kinda thing. The NYT just published this story today: “Bolt Built $11 Billion Payment Business on Inflated Metrics and Eager Investors.” Reading it, you can’t help but feel like we’re living in a tech world that’s normalizing “stretching the truth.”
According to the Times article, “investors lapped it up” for a while. Until they didn’t. Now, Ken Smythe, CEO of an advisory firm, calls Bolt “a ghost ship sailing in the middle of the night without a captain.” There are ghosts all around. Take bots. Elon Musk wants to ban ‘em on Twitter. Huzzah. But actually, experts are pointing out that Musk himself probably has millions of “fanbots” among his 91.3 million Twitter followers. Lame. Also: Fembots > Fanbots Turns out Musk’s lifestyle is super sexy to bots.
Volatile company! Crypto! Celebs! It’s the hat trick of botnip. No wonder we can’t stop talking about him. In general, I have no idea what to believe anymore. Heard of Mr. Beast? His “$456,000 Squid Game In Real Life!” video (posted in November 2021) has 249,116,533 views. The United States population is 332,660,388. So the equivalent of 75% of the people in America have watched this video. Um…3/4 of America has watched this video!??!? C’mon. Or maybe it’s true. I dunno. After all, Netflix is global. Around the world, Netflix has 222 million subscribers. I can’t help but think it feels off that more people watched “Squid Game In Real Life!” than could even access the real Squid Game show. Maybe that’s about the way we count views. What counts as a view on YouTube? [Googles again.]
LOL at TikTok counting .1 seconds as a view. Sure. Re: TikTok, I posted the same video about classic rock lessons this week to Instagram and TikTok. So far, it has a mere 1,947 views on Instagram while it’s got 100,300 views on TikTok. Why the discrepancy? It’s the same video. How did it sink on one platform and take off on the other? Is it because of that 3 seconds thing? I’d love to ask the algorithm, but it’s not taking questions right now. Skeptics aren’t welcome in the Land of Big Numbers™️. It’s a world that never looks back at previous lies. Talking about the Theranos-es of the world is bad for business. Similarly, no one wants to talk about how Facebook knowingly inflated its video metrics (average viewership metrics were inflated by as much as 900%).
But, y’know, we can trust YouTube. Have you seen Fake Famous? The doc picks three wannabe influencers and then buys their way to “fame.”
Follower counts are like Miracle Bras. They’re real, just boosted. And then there’s my favorite debunking example: “Yes, watching paint dry can fetch plenty of Web views.” In an effort to find out how easy it is to buy YouTube views, The LA Times posted two identical videos of a wet streak of paint and purchased 40,000 views for one of them (WorkingYouTubeViews.com charged $46 for 20,000 views; IncreaseYouTubeViews.com was paid $57 for another 20,000). After eight days, the views on the “promoted” video hit 60,000 — far more than had been paid for. The other had only 13 views. Like everything else nowadays, you’ve gotta figure it all out for yourself. Good luck identifying the unicorn needles in the haystack of bullsh*t. Who knows what the real story is? I’m skeptical. More on psychedelicsLast week’s Rubesletter: 🍄 Something's off with how we talk about psychedelics generated this fun reply from reader Nick D.
Lovely. My first time was at a lake too. Cops came by and got on their megaphone and said, "The lake is closed." I turned around and looked at the lake and thought, "What? That lake is f*cking open. Wide open. These clowns have no idea what they're talking about." But we said nothing and shuffled along. Btw, I’m filming something that’s, well, imagine a standup special + Jackass + Michael Pollan + Super Size Me + a science experiment and you’ll get the gist. Details: NYC: I’m performing 4 Wednesdays in a row under the influence of a different substance and filming it.
Wednesday (May 11) should be an interesting one.
Come check it out at the GOOD EGGS show at
@nycomedyclub (4th St).
$5 tix w/ code SCRAMBLED:
newyorkcomedyclub.com/calendar/coupo… Also, I’m coming to NOLA and Chicago soon:
Funny HowI recently started another (!) newsletter: Funny How is about the craft of comedy. (Hint: It’s got good stuff to inspire other creative pursuits too.) Some recent posts there: George Saunders on how to get your writing fairer, funnier, and smarter There’s a reason it’s called a punchline Brian Eno: Scene + Genius = Scenius Ironic condescension: Looking down while being wrong Quickies🎯 Every religion is literally a cult classic. 🎯 "Machine Gun Kelly" sounds like a name a third grader would make up. "Who's your favorite pop star?" "Fire Truck McGee! Wait, no. It's Bulldozer Fireworks!!!" we got so into “self-care” we forgot how to *other* care. it's all keto cereal, acai bowls, and yoga retreats while we step over homeless people. 🎯 DATING IS WEIRD NOW: "I'm single.” "Do you mean you're committed but non-monogamous, polyamorous, single and co-parenting, divorced, healing or simply prioritizing yourself?" "Um, not sure. I'm just lonely." 🎯 The algorithm is the new industry. 🎯 I never root for Germany in the World Cup because of that time they made the finals and scored a goal and the TV producers cut to some square in Germany with 10,000 screaming Germans going crazy and I was like NAH WE AIN'T DOING THIS AGAIN. This group chat was a strange way for me to learn that BDE is also the Jewish blessing of death. I just thought this dead guy had a lotta swag. 😳 🎯 The internet leads to a lot of false expectations... Women who spend too much time online: "I deserve to be treated like a queen!" Men who spend too much time online: "My stepsister wants to have a threeway." 🎯 It's not actually a caveman diet unless you're hunting for all your food. Cavemen didn’t have the option of going to Trader Joe’s. 🎯 I need the flashlight on my phone to read the menu at a restaurant, which is a super old man thing to say. I keep arguing it's because they're making the font size smaller on menus, but that’s an even more old man thing to say. 🎯 The guy tackling Chappelle is those people going crazy on airplanes is that fan dumping popcorn on Russell Westbrook is those anti-maskers losing it at Walmart, etc. Pandemic shook us. Life became a video game so we no longer know how to behave like actual humans in public. Spotted🗯 Bill Burr: “I’ve Made Every Mistake You Can Make.”
🗯 We’re in a Loneliness Crisis: Another Reason to Get Off Our Phones.
🗯 The Group Chat, according to Ethan Strauss, offers “Blue Worlders” a place to express opinions that fall outside an increasingly narrow media consensus.
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🍄 Something's off with how we talk about psychedelics
Thursday, May 5, 2022
It doesn't have to be all microdosing, mental health, and big business. There's also room for a little bit of wild.
A message to Elon Musk’s numbskull fanbois
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
On Twitter's Muskover, Netflix running ads, CNN-, and how nothing makes sense anymore. Also: Dems love losing, Christopher Hitchens, hippies vs. rednecks, Funny How launches, wokefishing, and more.
Under the bug 🐞
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
I've got Covid, my building's under construction, and I may be losing it. Also, vegan cacio e pepe, the RTO conundrum, passive income, the orangutan effect, and the reverse golden rule.
🟥 His and Hers
Wednesday, April 6, 2022
A look back at the two biggest influences on my life. Also: Tiny Putin, more on "the slap," Kurt Cobain, Morgan Housel, the history of magic, and more.
🟥 Fame is a form of mental illness
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
The "slap in the face" Oscars was the perfect collision of narcissism, ego, victimhood, and fame.
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