A Song About Ethan

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Hi, I'm Alex Goldman, and this is Hyperfixed.

Each week on our show, listeners write in with problems big and small, and I solve them.

Or at least I try.

And if I don't, I at least give a good reason why I can't.

This week, a song about Ethan.

So a few months ago, HyperFix producer Maury Yates sat down with a listener who is no stranger to bad internet.

Oh, wait, here she is again.

Hi.

Hi.

Okay, I'm back.

Is it better now?

I can see you and I can hear you.

Okay, that's great progress.

This is Manol.

She's half French, half American, and she's a journalist, currently based in Liberia and West Africa.

Manol finds a lot of meaning in her work, but she's always far away from family.

And that's what she always expected.

We knew that we were probably not going to be in the same country as our parents because we knew that our careers were probably not going to end up in the same place as our parents were.

Yeah, when did you realize that was like a foreseeable outcome?

Probably in middle school.

That is so young.

Growing up, Manal and her little brother Ethan moved around the world like the wild thornberries.

Except their parents weren't documentary filmmakers and they didn't adopt a feral child named Donnie.

Instead, their dad's a biogeochemist, and his research took him around the world to study climate change, forestry, and soil.

So by the time that Manal was 18, she'd lived in Kenya, Indonesia, the US, and Brazil.

And moving so frequently like that, Manal and Ethan built an unbreakable bond.

You're going to a lot of places where you don't know other people.

And so in those initial days before you start making friends, it feels a little safer to have your sibling there at school with you.

We can understand each other and each other's experience because we share so much of it in ways that other people can't.

Like the time, a 14-year-old Ethan rocked a very specific haircut.

We were living in Indonesia at the time.

He had the droopy like side hair thing that Justin Bieber had.

And packs of young girls, maybe high school age girls, would want to take photos with him.

And my whole family would tease him about it.

It was happening all the time that people were like, oh, Justin Bieber, Justin Bieber.

And he didn't like it.

Ethan was like more into metal music at that age.

These days, Ethan is living in New York City with his girlfriend Rachel.

And Manal and Ethan, at this point, are pretty used to the distance.

They've basically created their own language.

Every day, sometimes every other day, sometimes once a week, Manal and Ethan will send each other animal memes or the occasional poop and fart joke because, you know, that's the humor they grew up with.

I mean, in the family in general,

we always have like, if someone's mentioning that they're going to the bathroom, the joke is usually like, don't fall in or mention my name, you'll get a good seat.

See, why can't I have a family like this?

Oh, I'm so jealous.

Anyway, bathroom jokes, dad jokes, general teasing.

This is all part of their long-distance sibling love language.

And that kind of humor trickles into their daily lives, even when they aren't together.

In fact, the reason Manal reached out to us in the first place is because of Ethan.

And it all started with a prank that he pulled on a colleague.

A couple months ago, the Spotify on our iPad at the bar went out and we couldn't get in contact immediately with the owner of the bar to get his logins or re-login to the Spotify.

That's Ethan.

Before his sister reached out to us, he'd never heard of HyperFix.

He's just not much of a podcast person.

Instead, he's more interested in making craft cocktails at the whiskey bar he works at on the Upper East Side, and occasionally acting as the bar's DJ.

And as a prank, I decided to start looking up songs that had his name in the title and play them throughout his shift, hoping that he would just think something weird was going on with the Spotify.

And as Ethan's playing these songs with his co-worker's name in them, his girlfriend Rachel, who also works at the same bar and is definitely sort of like a yes-and kind of gal and would never say no no to a good bit, she does the same thing to Ethan.

She goes to Spotify, types in the name Ethan, and selects a song with his name on it and presses play.

And for some reason, most songs that have my name in them end up being about Ethan pooping his pants.

And, um, well, it's hilarious.

Um,

I don't think my brother's as amused as me and his girlfriend are, but we've had a lot of

fun with it.

Now, like any older sister, even one as accomplished and mature as Manal, these songs were hilarious.

But it was even funnier and more uncanny because of something that happened to Ethan earlier this year.

So, Manal and her husband were visiting Ethan as a girlfriend in New York City when one day.

We were just driving in New York City.

I think we'd gone towards Rockaway Beach and

we just stopped on the side like we were just hanging out taking a walk trying to find the trail to walk down and then my brother had to

run to the bathroom and

you know I'm maybe five six steps away from that restroom when it just happens and I

shit myself.

Ethan tossed his soiled underwear in the trash in the public restroom.

And when he was done...

When he was done

hiding the evidence and his shame, Ethan met back up with his family and his girlfriend.

But he didn't tell them that he pooped his pants en route to the restroom and that he'd gone commando because his soiled underwear was now sitting in the trash can in said restroom.

No one was the wiser.

That is, until Ethan told Rachel what happened back at the house.

Rachel just announces Ethan pooped his pants.

Ethan's like, Rachel.

And she was basically like, I had to tell them.

I couldn't not know.

So we only found out once we got home.

So given everything you know about Ethan and Manon and Rachel, it will not surprise you at all that as soon as she found them, Rachel sent these songs to Manon.

And Manon predictably started teasing Ethan with them.

But she also had some more serious questions about who made these songs.

I mean, she is a journalist after all.

I mean, is it a human?

Is it AI?

Maybe someone's finding a way to make money out of this.

But even if they are, like,

how does the decision-making process happen is what I'm really curious about.

And then I think one thing that was weird to us as well is that one of the titles says, like, poop your pants or go to France, but we're half French.

And my parents live in France.

So we were like, it's a coincidence, obviously, because I don't think whoever made these songs knows my brother, but it's funny.

So it almost feels like they're talking about your Ethan.

Right, exactly.

That's exactly what it is.

As crazy as it sounds, for Manon, these songs feel personal, and she couldn't shake this feeling that there was more to these innocuous poop tunes.

But as far as Ethan's concerned, he's not too bothered by the existence of these songs.

What he is bothered by is the fact that there just aren't enough Ethan songs out there in the first place.

Yeah, I mean, maybe the solution is actually to have more of those.

Like, what else does Ethan do, you know?

All of Manol's questions boil down to, why?

Why are these poop songs a thing?

Why are there so many?

Why do they exist?

And why is someone compelled to make them in the first place?

And for Ethan, the songs serve as a reminder.

A reminder that there aren't enough Ethan songs.

Because there is a lot more to Ethan than the time he pooped his pants at the beach.

No matter how many times I remind you that he did poop his pants pretty recently, Ethan is much more than just the poop he left in the public restroom in Long Island.

Hey, Alex.

Hi, Amore.

Okay, so I spoke to Manon and her questions were largely around like, why do these exist?

But also, are these human or are they AI?

Before we get started on this journey, I wanted to play these Ethan songs for you.

Do you want to hear them?

I absolutely do.

Okay, I have them queued up here, so I'm going to play the first one.

I'm so excited.

Okay, here we go.

Jesus Christ.

I gotta admit, the drum loop's kind of sick, though.

Yeah.

I like that character.

Are there lyrics or is it just farts?

Oh,

there will be lyrics.

You're so bad, baby.

You're so bad.

You're so bad.

Oh, baby.

Hey, Ethan.

You heard your stomach rumbling, and then the poop came tumbling.

Jesus

Christ.

You just pooped your pants.

I like the auto-tune, though.

It kind of had like a

T-Pain vibe to it.

I'm going to fade out of that because it just, it's much of the same.

But when you hear that, do you think it's AI?

I honestly cannot tell.

I mean, I would think that AI would actually try to go for something that sounds more realistic.

So like that to me sounds like the decision of a human to use like a voice that robotic.

But also, the robotic voice gives me a little pause.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So that's by an artist called Poops with a Z.

I'm going to play another one for you.

Okay.

You smell like doobie.

I love

the fact that

all these songs are like pop songs.

They like just want people to dance and hear fart sounds.

Yeah.

Honestly, that one also like it has too much humanity like too much stupid humanity to it to feel like ai to me it feels like a like a person

being silly what does stupid humanity sound like to you versus ai when you create a song that's ai it's meant to sound like real music like good music And this to me sounds like a person just having fun.

Like the way that the voice is kind of slowed down and stuff.

Like AI's getting served a billion songs, and then it's supposed to regurgitate something that sounds like the sort of aggregate of those songs rather than something that's intentionally bizarre.

So, on the spectrum of AI to human, you're leaning towards human.

Yes, I have a hunch that these songs are made by people,

but I truly have no idea.

Okay, this is another artist called Super Poop.

Every one of these starts with a fart sounded so stupid.

The fart is a very powerful musical instrument.

Man-made.

Hey, Ethan.

If you don't stop pooping in your pants, we're gonna make you move to France.

Pack your bags and buy a beret.

When you go away, we'll all say hooray.

Poopy pants are a felony.

We don't wanna smell any.

A smelliny?

See, that can't be AI because AI would never come up with a word like smelliny.

I just don't believe it.

I just can't believe that being the case.

Okay, so to you, this sounds human.

Yeah, yes.

I would say the word smelliny is a dead giveaway.

Unless you were like, compose a song about Ethan farting or pooping with trap beats and

like Lewis Carroll style rhymes.

Because, you know, Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, he used to make up a lot of gibberish words and stuff.

It just doesn't seem like this could be AI.

Okay, so again, that was super poops.

Ethan smells like a llama, parentheses, Ethan Poop.

Okay, so one of the other things that Manal was wondering is if any of these artists had like some kind of secret vendetta against Ethan, because obviously there are several Ethan Poop songs, but I don't think there is any vendetta against her, Ethan, or any Ethan for that matter.

And that's because all of these artists are making songs with other people's names in them.

So Poops, who I played for you first, has lots of songs like this.

He has Andy pooped his pants, Aaron pooped his pants, and Alex pooped his pants again.

Oh, okay.

That's also the case with Reckless Otter.

Reckless Otter has a whole album called Cowboy Farter that uses 50 different names.

My favorite is Abby Smells Like Donald Trump's Diaper.

And the other thing that Manol was particularly struck with is this fact that these poop songs seem to have kind of like an uncanny resemblance to her brother's poop experience.

And also the fact that one of these songs makes mention to France and Ethan is French.

But I think it's pretty clear that France is mentioned because it rhymes with pants.

That's right.

Yeah.

But the thing I was hoping for instead of just playing these songs for you and asking if you think they're AI, is to see if there's some way to truly determine whether or not they are.

And so that's the thing we need to figure out first.

So

I don't know, Alex, do you have any ideas on how we can figure this out?

Okay, believe it or not, I know exactly the person to answer this question.

It seems like it's a magic trick when you first type in a prompt and then a song is made.

I mean, and it is.

It's a pretty rad magic trick.

This is Ben Jordan.

He's a musician, a freelance scientist, and a YouTuber.

And a lot of his videos are based on his research and study of sound.

And, you know, as a musician himself, Ben thinks a lot about the role of AI in music.

And to some degree, he's right.

AI is a magic trick, one that's constantly getting better and has gotten so good that it's harder than ever to figure out what's AI and what isn't.

And if I can show my hand a little bit, I am not a fan of AI-generated art of any kind.

And the reason I think that it's important that we know what's AI and what is made by people is because AI songs are growing in popularity and volume.

And if human artists have to compete with AI, which can generate music at an alarmingly rapid rate, how are listeners supposed to know what's human and what's not if the streaming platforms won't label it?

A good example of this is an AI band that went viral earlier this year called Velvet Sundown.

They put out two albums right away and then a third album within three weeks.

and quickly got 1 million streams on Spotify.

It only came out that they were actually AI when they released a band photo and the band looked kind of fake, sort of like cartoon characters, not very realistically rendered.

But what's even scarier than the writing speed of an AI band like Velvet Sundown is what happens when AI is training on your sound.

And that's exactly what happened to Ben when he typed his own name into an AI music generator.

The thing that kind of made steam come out of my ears with AI music was not so much knowing that my music was being put into the pool of things that were being trained in general.

Like if somebody types in a prompt that says, you know, glitchy, breakcore, and if some of my stuff is in there, I don't care.

But I did have the misfortune of inputting my own name into Udio and then hearing really crappy music that sounds like it's inspired my mind, which is, mmm.

And now it's being, you know, that's being sold as a service.

All my royalties go down on streaming networks every single year.

And all these things are now being put up on those streaming networks to compete with me.

So economically,

as an artist, I'm just like, well, I don't need to do it.

I'm just not going to do this anymore.

And I just stopped releasing music for a while because I was kind of fed up with it.

AI doesn't live in the world we live in.

It doesn't have groceries, car payments, rent, or aging parents.

It doesn't need the money that Ben needs when he handcrafts a song and releases it into the world.

Ben gets paid when people push play on his music.

But if people are pushing play on a song that sounds like Ben, because it was inspired by him, Ben doesn't get any of that money.

And right now, the companies who are distributing the music aren't empowering consumers to decide who they want to support with their click.

A three-dimensional man?

or a program that was trained on songs made by that three-dimensional man.

But that's way easier said than done, because according to Ben, an AI program like UDIO, the one that he typed his name into, or another one you might be familiar with, Suno, everything that's going on inside of it is a black box.

And that's because no one really knows how AI comes to its conclusions.

Even the people who make AI aren't sure what's going on in AI.

For instance, about seven years ago, Google used an AI to scan medical records to help predict patients' future diseases and when they might die.

They were able to figure out with some high degree of accuracy that was really, really

insane.

And of course, doctors were like, okay, well, how did you figure this out?

What's the underlying cause?

We could actually solve a lot of these problems for these patients.

And they're like, oh, yeah, sorry.

It's just ones and zeros.

We have no idea.

That's so crazy.

Yeah.

Okay, so AI is this impenetrable black box.

No one knows what it does or why.

But despite this black box problem, Ben has figured out a way to identify songs with reasonable accuracy.

And in order to understand how, I'm going to need you to take a little detour with me.

Okay, so when songs are uploaded to Spotify, they are compressed.

That means that they try to make the song sound as good as possible while making the file as small as possible.

So they aren't sending massive amounts of data over the internet every time you wanna listen to like Andrew Lloyd Weber or whatever.

And the engineers at your favorite music streaming platform have gotten very good at this.

They've managed to compress files to about one seventh to one tenth the size they would have been if they were uncompressed.

And you'd think in losing all of that data, you'd lose a lot of the sound quality, because with an audio file, the data is sound.

But they've figured out ways to just discard the imperceptible audio that's hard to detect with the human ear anyway.

Anyhow, the point of this explanation is that when these files are compressed, the compression leaves traces of that process in the data of the audio file.

And the point I'm trying to make here, albeit in pretty broad terms because this stuff is very complicated, way more complicated than I could comprehend, is that this compression process is how Ben found a way to recognize an AI song.

Because these AI music sites like Suno and Udio, they're being trained on these compressed versions of songs.

And when Ben realized this, he had his Eureka moment.

What if we just look for that to see if there's a bunch of these artifacts that are in this music because that was in the original training data.

Once Ben figured this out, everything came together very quickly.

He designed his own AI model that could analyze songs and recognize files created by Suno based solely on the compression patterns of data in the audio file.

Something that a human ear simply couldn't do with any real level of certainty.

That's because our human ear is not a very good scientific measuring device.

It's something that is interpreted by our brains.

Our human ear is just turning pressure waves into sounds in our brains.

So it's very subjective.

And so, I mean, that's why when you're creeped out, you start hearing all these sort, you know, these weird sounds in the house, you know, when you wouldn't be hearing them otherwise.

So, of course, I sent Ben all of the Ethan Poop songs that Manon asked us about.

Did any of them ping as AI?

Yep.

So

three out of the four are not AI.

And Ethan Smells Like a Llama, Ethan Poop.

That one was made on Suno.

You know what is so funny to me?

I listened to all of these songs.

I'll be I'll be and this I think this is an indictment of my taste in music, maybe.

The only one that I was like, this is not terrible

was the Smells Like a Llama song.

I was like, this isn't awful.

Yeah.

The rest of them were really like discordant in a way that I was like, well, it's very reasonable that this could be fake for AI.

Yeah.

So to confirm,

poops and reckless otter are human and super poops, the person who did the song that's Ethan Smells like a llama, that is AI.

Yes.

Yeah.

So the one song that I liked, the one that I thought was like too good to be AI

because it used the word smelliny, which I thought was just peak fart songwriting, ended up being the only song that pinged as AI in Ben's model.

And I think that's a testament to just how good AI's gotten.

It can sound like a weirdo in his basement making shitty music.

Shortly after we chatted with Ben, Spotify announced that they will start labeling AI music, and that they will account for songs that are partially made by humans and AI, which is great news for artists and consumers to finally have this level of transparency going forward.

And now that I know most of these artists are, in fact, human, I need to cop to something.

Because back when Amore played me the Ethan Poop songs, there was one song that she played me that was by an artist I was already very familiar with.

Okay, Alex, I have another song to play for you.

This is another Ethan Poop song that Mano sent us.

Okay, well, this is definitely not AI.

Okay, so

I actually know the guy who wrote this song.

One of the first radio stories that I ever did

was about this guy.

Oh my god.

After the break, the man behind the music.

Poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop.

Ethan, poop, poop.

Poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop.

Ethan poop poop.

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Welcome back to the show.

So, this week, Hyperfix listener Manol reached out to us to investigate all of these Ethan Poop songs on streaming services.

And more than anything, she just wanted to know why they existed.

And fortunately for her, I knew the answer to that right away.

And it's entirely because of this guy.

Are you recording on your end?

Are you rolling?

We're rolling on my end.

I've known Matt for over a decade.

He's the kind of friend that I text about horror movies and, you know, about his music.

And he's the most prolific songwriter on earth, as far as I know.

And by that, I mean he's written and published on Spotify over 26,000 songs.

Throughout my career, I have brought Matt in several times on projects I've been working on.

Mostly because the number of songs he's written isn't even the most interesting thing about him.

For example, he's never uttered a curse word.

He didn't have his first hamburger until he was in his 40s.

He is a fan of taking very long walks, sometimes dozens of miles.

In fact, he used to have a newsletter about his walks, of which I was an eager recipient.

And if you're just curious about him and want to give him a call, well, you're in luck, because not only does he have his phone number in his Twitter bio, he frequently puts it at the end of songs.

And if you call him, he will pick up.

And if he misses your call, he'll call you back.

But the thing that he's become most famous for is his music, especially the rate at which he produces songs.

It was always my instinct to write tons of songs.

And then at some point, amidst my lack of success, I kind of was like, you know what?

I'm just going to make so much music that they can't ignore me, you know?

And so it feels good.

I want more praise.

I want more glory.

You know, when I walk down the street, I'm looking around and being like, Do you people know who I am?

You know, I'm saying that in my head, but I'd like to be mobbed by by fans, stuff like that.

Matt hasn't been mobbed by fans in real life, but last fall he did experience the online equivalent of a mob when he went viral on TikTok for his poop songs.

Because as it turns out, people like poop songs.

And they like songs with their names in them.

You see, while Matt writes songs about all kinds of stuff, he has found that people look for songs about stuff they like or find funny or just have their name in them.

So he has albums worth of songs about celebrities, for example.

He recorded an album for every state in the U.S.

under the name the guy who sings about cities and towns.

And as every parent knows, the first thing a kid does when faced with a computer prompt is to search the word poop.

So when people on TikTok started to notice that if they type their name and the word poop, depending on how popular their name was, they could find a song that included their name and poop.

Kayla Kayla, Kayla, Andre, Andre, Andre, poop,

Andre,

Andre, poop,

Emily, Emily, Emily, Emily, poop, poop, poop, poop,

Danny, Danny, poop,

Danny, Danny, Danny, poop,

Danny,

Danny, Danny, poop, poop, Danny,

poop.

And while it might seem weird that people are actually listening to these poop songs, the fact that we're sitting here talking about them is proof that they work.

Because they went viral, I was getting message after message from people saying, you haven't done my name.

And so I have about 1,200 names on a list that I'm just trying to slowly.

Does it ever start to feel like a slog, or is it always a delight to crank out another poop name song?

Oh, no, no, it's a slog.

Everything, I mean,

I'm sure you feel the same way too.

You love being a podcaster, podcaster, but it's that like getting the momentum, getting yourself off the couch, you know, getting yourself psyched up for it.

But it's the same thing with like a marathon runner.

Like marathon runners, most of them, they don't always love running, they don't always love training, but they love

accomplishing the marathon.

And so

they have to go through the, they have to fight through the times when they don't want to do it.

And Matt is just really good at fighting through it.

Time and again, he gets off his couch, sits at his keyboard and makes his way through the list of names he's got to write about so the day he wrote the ethan poop song was like any other day no vendetta no ai no secret portal into ethan's life just a man with a consistent process it's not like people think i do like market research or something and like i don't even know i don't even know what how to do market research i just think oh wouldn't it be funny if i put out an album about this or that and then then i do it and if things if if i notice one thing's doing real well, I might do more in that direction.

So I don't know how you feel about talking about financials, but like, how, how much, uh, how much does one song make for you?

Or is it, does it vary wildly because different songs have different popularity?

Yeah, it varies wildly.

You know, one song in a year could earn

5,000 plus, and then many songs in a year earn 5 cents minus

five cents minus.

Those are the songs that get no plays and they just cost a lot to put up.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

I was just when you say five thousand plus, it means five thousand and above.

Then I was saying five cents minus, meaning five cents or less.

Oh, not negative, not negative.

I think I just invented a new phrase.

Like, everyone, people say, like, I'm making 10,000 plus, right?

Right.

But do they ever say, like, I'm making $5 minus?

No.

You have invented a new phrase.

No wonder I was so confused.

This is, um, they're going to trace it back when it be when it enters the vernacular.

They're going to trace it back to this episode.

I know.

That's great.

That finally I'll be on Wikipedia.

Can you believe this guy?

He's inventing whole new business models with streaming audio and just throwing out phrases we're all probably going to be using in six months.

I told Matt that Ethan's sister men all wanted to know why these Ethan Poop songs were so popular and why all these other artists were writing them too.

There are artists like the named Poops, Reckless Otter, Super Super Poop, and then you.

It's my fault.

It's all my fault, by the way, that these other ones have sprung up, I'm pretty sure.

Can you elaborate?

Yeah, well, let's see.

When did Poops...

I'm just looking up Poops for the first time.

You know, when did Poops start releasing music?

It's Poops in the Z, by the way.

Oh, yeah, I see it.

2023, you know?

And it was definitely, I was at the forefront of...

of the name poop trend.

But yeah, it's that.

And all respect to poops.

Get out there.

I don't own the right to singing names and poops.

And may the best name poop song win is what I say.

Have you heard of any of these artists?

Do you have like a stiff competitor in the poop song field that you think of as like your poop song rival?

No, no.

I mean, I see it.

I see it here and there, but

I try to keep, you know, I just, I just, you know, stay in my lane, do my thing.

And

if any, you know, I don't want to to get petty but I do I do sometimes feel there's a lack of like humanity to a lot of the other people's name poop songs where it sounds very very robotic whereas I think mine sound very

very full of life in that it's an actual person singing the words you know what I mean

I like mine better

I know I'm biased But of all the Ethan Poop songs, I think I like Matt's best too.

So by this point, I felt confident that we we had answers to all of Manal's questions.

But Ethan did have one request.

If you remember, it was clear that he wasn't upset by the Poop songs, but he was disappointed that they all represented him so narrowly.

Yeah, I mean, maybe the solution is actually to have more of those.

But what else does Ethan do, you know?

So I wanted to give Ethan one more song that, unlike the others, was really meant for him and didn't include any mention of poop.

So I asked Matt if he could write a new song for Ethan.

And fortunately, Matt was sympathetic.

Poor Ethan.

Also, even if he wasn't, I have him on record saying this.

I'll do anything for you.

Hey, can I release this on Spotify

when it's done?

That would be kind of fun, huh?

A month later, Matt sent us the new Ethan song that had nothing to do with poop, but had everything to do with Ethan.

So on one summer day on the upper east side of Manhattan, in the same whiskey bar where Ethan and his girlfriend Rachel work, it made its world premiere.

This is the song for you.

Yeah, yeah, Ethan.

Yeah, yeah.

What is this?

Yeah, it is.

And now I'm gonna get even more specific.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Ethan.

You're so great.

And you make

people smile.

Yeah, Ethan, you're a genius.

A flavor profile

at Caledonia, people wave.

And while Ethan and Rachel listen to Matt's new Ethan song in New York City, in Liberia, Manal and her husband listen to it.

I love it.

I love it so much.

It's like that part of it.

I'm going to get even more specific.

It's hilarious.

I love all of the details that were able to be fit in.

And just, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ethan.

It's great.

There are days when Manal wishes she lived closer to her family, closer to her little brother Ethan.

But over time, she's come to terms with the fact that their lives may always be thousands of miles apart with cultures and oceans in between them.

And it's just sort of nice to create special moments even when we're not together, which is a lot harder to do.

Usually like you're either just like forwarding each other memes or you're on a call catching up on life.

You're not like creating new memories and new moments and new things to bond over as easily.

So, I definitely think that

I really enjoyed that.

And I think it's not just me and Ethan, it's also like, you know, Rachel and my husband, like, all four of us, because all of us have really been into it since

the day that Ethan pooped his pants.

You know, it's just been

like compounding on itself,

especially now that the music is here and now having this song.

yeah, we'll get on like group calls with the four of us to talk about this.

It's nice

when you tell jokes, it evokes laughter on a film set.

You're always an excellent gaffer.

You got a girlfriend named Rachel, you've got a sister, Mano.

Life is good for you, Ethan.

You have got it going on.

Oh, yeah, Ethan,

obsessed with outer space.

We have it on good authority that Ethan is now, in fact, a podcast person.

If you want Matt Farley to write you a custom song, check out his site, MoturnMedia.com.

That's M-O-T-E-R-N Media.com slash custom dash songs.

And if you want to hear Ethan's song, it's up on Spotify.

We'll include links to both of those in the show notes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Talking about Ethan, you were born in Brazil.

Oh, no, Ethan,

making people smile.

Ethan is a genius of flavor profile.

Oh, oh, Ethan.

So great.

He made a great deal.

Ethan is a genius of flavor profile.

Hyperfixed is produced by Amore Yates, Emma Cortland, and Sariasofer Sukenek.

This episode was edited by Megan Tan.

It was engineered by Tony Williams.

Music is by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder and me.

Special thanks to Ethan's girlfriend Rachel for recording and leading the Ethan song reveal at Ethan's Bar.

For our premium members, we are going to be having a watch party of Night of the Living Dead on our Discord on October 16th, just in time for Halloween.

We'll all be hanging out.

I will undoubtedly be sharing trivia because I love that movie.

It'll be fun.

Go to hyperfixpod.com slash join if you'd like to become a member.

Hyperfixed is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, creator-owned, listener-supported podcasts.

Discover audio with vision at radiotopia.fm.

And remember, we can't make a show without your problems.

So head on over to hyperfixpod.com and submit your problem, and you just might be on the next episode of Hyperfix.

All right, that's it from us.

Thanks for listening.

We'll see you soon.

Alex,

Alex, poop,

Alex

Poop, poop, poop,

Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex

Poop, poop, poop,

Alex

Poop,

Radio Tokyo,

from PRX