2025.07.02: Squid Most Likely To Succeed

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We're recording the podcast!

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Morning to you, wherever you are, because it is World Express!

For July 2nd, 2025!

My name is Byron O'Byrne.

Sit right over there.

She's Mrs.

O'Byrne.

Say hi to Ashley, everybody.

Putting through a name change there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a really

good.

That goes out to our Reddit

subreddit user, who I don't know the name.

I'll look it up soon.

But they were, they made a whole post saying, what happened to the end of the day?

They missed the Burka Berka.

They would have the end of it.

I think they missed the other version, which is me.

But nonetheless, there's a dumb thing going on in entertainment right now where people are upset because Rob McElhaney is changing his name to Rob Mac.

And it's like the dumbest thing to be upset about in 2025.

It's just like, what?

He had to make a video.

I don't know if he had to make a video, but he made a video about it and put it on Twitter, a one-minute video.

About like why he's making his name change.

Why do we think we can tell someone what they can call themselves?

Look,

if you have the energy to put into hating Rob McLane's name change, you know,

good on you.

That's great.

I just have other things to be upset about.

Right, right.

We've fought enough about pronouns.

Let's move on to proper nouns.

That's what we're doing here.

But also, it's like if someone, if you find out that someone whose name you've known in Hollywood forever was born with a different name and they changed it before they became super famous or whatever.

Or if they it's not a big deal.

Or if it's been like a stage name this entire time like Emma Stone.

Right.

You don't hear the Emma Stone story that her name is really Emily Stone and she had to change it because of SAG rules or something like that.

You don't hear that story and go, what a fucking bitch.

You know, it's just like, was it, I don't get it.

I don't get it at all.

And my,

as a fellow Irishman, my name changed when I moved over from America.

My family name, it was Clan O'Byron.

And we were called Burns.

You know, we all came through fucking Ellis Island or whatever.

Someone's like, it's what?

And then you say, oh, I'm traveling alone.

And they go, oh, and they just wrote your last name down as solo.

Solo.

That's it.

Must have been an Irishman who wrote that.

The solo movie.

Yeah, but then my name would be Michael O'Byron.

And then later, I would have got a nickname in high school, Byron O'Brien.

Byrony.

Byron O'Byron.

Look, it's Byrony O'Brien.

Anyway, who gives a shit?

And

speaking of dumb stuff, Ashley, there's something I have to ask you about.

Okay, go ahead.

I don't collect anything.

I never really have collected anything.

I can't say that anymore.

I do collect something now.

You collect things now.

But it's like I collect it kind of for decoration more than anything else.

Maybe this is going to completely undermine my question before I ask it.

Laboo Boo,

Ashley, do I have to?

do I have to start paying attention to this?

What is this?

And do I have to pay attention to it?

First of all, obviously, no.

Thank you.

All right.

That does it for us today, everybody.

I mean, so I keep seeing them as well popping up everywhere.

There's these Laboo Boo, like little dolls.

Honestly, they're giving big beanie baby energy, right?

Do you remember the beanie baby craze in the, was that the 90s where like everyone is collecting all these like crazy beanie babies and you don't understand the value these things are going to have one day.

Do you remember the photo?

There's one photo.

I'll see if I can find it.

It'll either be the thumbnail or we'll put it in the linkedum of a couple who's getting divorced.

I was going to say, I think I know the photo you're talking about.

You know exactly the photo.

And there's a pile of beanie babies in the middle of the courtroom and they're dividing up the beanie babies.

This is like the biggest issue in their divorce.

How do we split the beanie babies?

Adults.

These are adults.

Like it's a big pile of beanie babies and they are combing through it.

Like you take a turn, I take a turn.

God damn, dude.

Yeah.

So laboo boo are giving me like the new sort of like beanie baby energy where they're these little little dolls with kind of like weird faces i guess they're initially they were from uh from a hong kong artist uh who who designed these and then they've kind of gone viral

and now there's these laboobus all over the place and we're of course running into now counterfeit labooboos and we're like oh which pop stars have labooboos on their purse and like all these kinds of things so you know it's i'm staying very far away from it because i couldn't care less uh but uh it it is happening there is a luboo boo craze so if there's someone who's like suddenly running around with like a whole collection of these little plushies attached to their handbag maybe just check in on them make sure they're doing okay they remind me of the drop today was munchie chi from the 80s back in the era where it was like kind of plush dolls.

They look all like they were made out of like carpet, shag carpet with hard

leftover.

Yeah, these are kind of like that.

Yeah, that reminds me of those.

If you look at Luboo Boo, just like just Google it, whatever, that's what they look like.

It's these little plushies with kind of the plastic face on them.

And they come from Hong Kong.

Yeah, so it was created by Hong Kong artist Casing Lung and then distributed by designer toy brand Pop Mart.

Okay.

So I guess their distinctive features are the long ears and the wide grins and stuff.

So they have a specific look and they do come from initially a specific artist and this company, Pop Mart.

but as you can imagine as with anything someone else goes oh i can make that and then make all these like knockoff laboo boos that's how you know you've made it as when uh is when people are are knocking them off and calling them la rob max we're actually a little bit we're actually a little bit behind the curve here because they were big in thailand last year so we're america is behind the curve and the western world

always happens yes they came from hong kong now they're in thailand and they're moving on to the western world

and they're finally getting to us.

In a ray of sunshine in this whole discussion about this, you know, maybe this is a good example.

Maybe tariffs aren't all bad things.

There's a good side to it.

This is, Bernie, I think this might just be like another version of moving away from the U.S.

dollar as like where to, where to hold your value.

Invest in Labo Boo.

You can buy Bitcoin or you can buy Laboo Boo.

Make your choice why.

Make a choice.

Make a choice.

See, that's the thing, right?

That's the thing.

Once something becomes a collectible, right right a collectible it starts to immediately decline in value right or depends on the thing sometimes uh if it's one of those very few things that manages to be very valuable and collectible over a long period of time that value can increase dramatically and you just don't know and they can do you know they can do enforced or manufactured scarcity where they put out less of a thing and that's a but there's some things like beamie babies for example they put out a ton of them and because one or two were limited then they got a high price tag and then they all suddenly became collectible but that's not necessarily the case basically what i'm getting at is popular does not equal collectibly valuable

yes that's correct in fact a lot of times if there are a lot of them available they're not gonna hold their value.

I'm gonna speak to people in the future now.

I'm talking like 10 or 15 years from now, maybe even 2025.

All right, so

set the petty reminder on your phone and check back in on this episode in 25 years.

New people tuning in in 2050.

First of all, thank you for joining us, both the humans and

the artificial sentients that are listening to this.

If you want to have a collectible that's going to make a bunch of money, you talk about buying low, selling high, go buy a cyber truck and put it in a garage.

20 years from now, you bust out a cyber truck.

You got to buy something.

It's going to be the new DeLorean, right?

Exactly.

You got to buy something when everybody's dogging on it.

And like, why the fuck would you buy it?

That's going to be an incredible collectible thing.

It really will.

It's going to be in all the like, you know, the like retro future future sci-fi movies one day.

One day.

But Bernie,

speaking of all the sentient intelligences joining us for the podcast, have you been keeping an eye on this ongoing sort of controversy with AI generated music on Spotify?

There's been a lot of artists complaining about this for some time now about

music on Spotify, a lot of AI generated stuff being pushed into generated playlists with the theory being that it's so Spotify doesn't have to pay out royalties, right?

They put in something AI-generated, and then that's it.

Wait, so Spotify is doing that first party?

Because they would still have to pay royalties if just some random dude is doing it.

Yeah, I guess.

But there's a new band,

a new band on the scene that has been raising a lot of red flags with people.

It's this band called the Velvet Sundown.

And it's been getting hundreds of thousands of streams every month on Spotify.

Right.

But there's no record of this band existing.

What?

Right.

And so, like, if you go to their Instagram account, Bernie, this is the most AI band of all time.

The Velvet Sunset?

The Velvet Sundown.

Sundown.

Velvet Sunset.

Yeah, so it's not the Velvet Underground.

It's the Velvet Sun.

Even sounds like an AI name.

It does, right?

But they have been, so they've been raising a lot of red flags.

People are being like, there's no record this band actually exists, but it's getting hundreds of thousands of streams.

How?

Why?

What is happening here?

And this band that doesn't exist has just put out like a big statement on

X that they say it's absolutely crazy that so-called journalists keep pushing the lazy, baseless theory that the Velvet Sundown is AI-generated with zero evidence.

Not a single one of these, quote, writers has reached out, visited a show, or listened beyond the Spotify algorithm.

But there's a lot of things about this that still don't make any sense.

Like, once again, no one could find

the existence of any members of the band.

Even their Spotify description about the band referenced like billboard articles about them that don't exist.

So clearly AI.

Yes.

Here's what I'm hoping, listening to you say all this, I hope they're actually really, real dudes.

And they're leaning into this as hard as they possibly can.

And they're like, and then they'll go on a talk show and people will still be saying like, no, no, no, that has to be fake.

That's a deep fake or something like that.

You could have a whole career at this point based on that.

Their first live show is going to be a banger.

All right.

That's going to be like one to turn up to.

It's like the first live show of this band.

Like, if it's real dudes, like, proving their own existence.

If, if they are real dudes, if they are real dudes and they're already getting so much hype because of this, and so many people know about them because of this AI controversy, free advice.

Your first like big live stadium gig should be opening for the ABBA hologram show.

That should be what you do.

Lean into it so fucking hard.

Oh my god.

Yeah.

So do you think are they real?

Are they I'm leaning towards AI generation.

I think they're probably AI.

The likelihood is that they're AI.

You know, the fact that like there's not even a real photo that exists of the band, their Instagram account is absolutely ridiculous.

It's like a study that someone is doing a social experiment somewhere.

They're using every AI generation tool under the sun to make this band that doesn't exist seem like it exists.

It's almost like the new version of

what was that?

What was that like blue-haired hologram musician idol?

Do you remember what I'm talking about?

There was like, there was like a musician that doesn't exist.

You talk about gorillas?

No, no, no.

I'm talking about there was like some...

You say blue-haired that makes me think of an old lady.

No, it's like, I'm thinking of like a Japanese pop star anime type girl, right?

And she was a pop star.

There have been video games about this character.

She's done tours and she's never existed.

Lollipop Chainsaw?

No, but that's a great game.

I'm so far away from it.

I'm gonna get this one.

Hold on, let me go.

When you say blue-haired dancing,

I'm now thinking of

Anna DeArmis' cameo as a dancing girl

in a hologram in Blade Runner 2049.

Actually, I would prefer to think about Anna DeArmis and not whatever you're over there.

No, I don't know.

I'm gonna think about this.

Um, Hatsunamiku, the Japanese pop star that doesn't exist, okay, right?

So, this has been a thing for like 10 years, I think, that Hatsunamiku's been around.

And this seems like a new version of that, but more subtle, right?

In that

they have like all these things and they're pretending to be very, very real without actually existing.

They just haven't done a hologram show yet until they open for Apple.

Well, we've been talking about this for years and years.

There's the Instagram influencer, Lil Michaela, and she was in Calvary.

She also doesn't exist.

She doesn't exist.

I mean, can we say that anymore?

That she doesn't exist.

She's artificial.

She doesn't exist in the physical realm as we know it.

Like,

for instance, you wouldn't say, like, when some kid goes, I really like Mickey Mouse.

You wouldn't go, you know, Mickey Mouse doesn't real.

Doesn't exist.

It's like, it's a weird thing to say that Mickey Mouse is.

That's true, but Mickey Mouse isn't pretending to be a human, right?

I think there is some.

Because he's driving a fucking steamboat.

Is doing it.

Wearing pants.

Is there some value in gatekeeping humanism?

Fucking these mice taking our acting jobs.

I mean, there are 2.4 million people who follow Lil Michaela on Instagram.

2.4 million.

I feel like she's falling off a little bit.

That's interesting.

I would have assumed assumed I was going to look her up too.

I was assuming at this point she was up to like 10 million or whatever.

It's because all of her fans are off listening to the Velvet Sun.

Sundown.

Yeah, but this has been going on forever.

I mean, even back going all the way back to the 80s during the summer of Munchi Chi, Ashley, they had the Max Headroom was a person like that where you didn't know if he was a CG generated person.

person.

It was actually more interesting and novel back then.

Like Max Headroom would go on talk shows and things like that.

But it was really just a dude, an actor, who you would definitely recognize if you saw him out of the makeup, you know, wearing this like plastic hair and this like angular suit and everything.

And yeah, it was really popular, but it was only popular for like a year.

As a thought experiment, right?

But did anyone think that Max Hedrom was like a real regular dude?

I mean, I think there was a little bit of controversy of whether or not he was actually like what would have been the 80s version of artificial intelligence because there was movies like War Games and like they

told the general audience who was learning about computers all the things that computers could do even though they couldn't you know like matthew brodder going in and changing his grades and an interface or whatever right because of his like 300 baud modem or whatever fair enough i guess speaking of like uh like 80s sort of futuristic sci-fi did you see there's a trailer out for the running man

yeah with glynn powell who by the way is fucking gigantic in that he's uh gotten stacked yeah he's on the alan richson plan or something like that i don't know what it is but uh uh yeah i really like the novel A lot of people really like the Schwarzenegger campy version of the novel or the novella.

And this one seems to be a little bit more faithful, although it's faithful via the lens of Edgar Wright, which is its whole own thing.

So I'm excited about it, but I'm not really excited about it because it's, oh, we're finally getting the real adaptation of The Running Man.

Right.

It's just like a new, different take on the story.

Yeah.

But it does seem, it does seem.

much, much, much, much, much, much, much more faithful to the source material than the Richard Dawson and Arnold Schwarzenegger version of it.

But

related note about the sort of like deadly television genre,

there's so Squid Game 3 came out, right?

Have you heard anything about it?

I was going to bring this up to you.

I'm fascinated by this, by this show that was enormously popular and it just finished, and you're the only person I'm hearing talking about it.

But people are watching it.

There's an article on variety from yesterday.

Squid Game 3 sets a Netflix record with massive 60.1 million views in three days, which is up.

The season two debuted to 68 million views over four days, over its first four days.

So it's outpacing season two in terms of how many people are watching it, but no one is talking about it.

You say 60 million people?

60 million people.

That's crazy.

To put that in perspective, for season two, in the first four days, based on Netflix's reporting periods, the first four days of

Squid Game Season 2 was 68 million views.

So it's outpacing how many people are watching.

You lost me there.

68 was last season, but 60 is this season?

Well, so it's, but they're slightly different reporting periods because Squid Game season two came out like a day earlier in the week.

Netflix's reporting period is week to week.

So Squid Game 2 in its first three days had 60 8 million views.

Squid Game 3 in its first three days has had 60 million.

So it is outpacing it.

You know, it's not exactly like apples to apples because we don't have the day four numbers at the moment, but it's still outpacing it dramatically.

I suspect it's a lot of people who want to wrap it up.

Yeah, it's really interesting to me because it's clearly a hit, right?

It's just I'm not hearing anything about it, but it makes me wonder between like squid game one, then two, then three, nothing happened.

I don't hear anybody complaining about it.

Like they are unhappy with a development, or in the case of this particular series, there wasn't a character that died that like everyone got really upset about like some other series.

You know, it's like there's nothing happened it's just like it's just out of the zeitgeist which i guess happens in two or three seasons now i guess and i wonder too if it's a little bit like um remember at the beginning of the pandemic there was a huge spike in people who were uh playing plague ink uh and then it really fell off right people got sort of exhausted by it and they're like i this i don't need to focus on this right now let's um let's bring in something that will make me happy bring me animal crossing right and and and so and like took went in a a different direction, went more like bubblegummy and comforty.

I wonder if this is kind of the similar thing where like at first the whole like, you know, rich people wearing gold masks, watching the poor fight to the death over scraps was like, oh, that's the dream.

You know,

feeling really like, you know, subversive and like, yeah, this is, you know, like this fascinating thing.

And now everyone feels like, I'm living too close to this reality and I don't, like, I'm not as, you know, I'm not as interested in this anymore as a work of fiction.

I get what you're saying, but like Plague Inc, wouldn't that translate to lower numbers, right?

This is something different.

Like

people are still watching it.

I guess that's true.

They're still going to see it, you know, and tuning into it, but they're just not talking about it.

Yeah,

there's just no talk.

I'm not seeing any, almost any chatter about it.

I was expecting to, like after when season two came out, at least, I was like, everyone was like, oh, here's like all the pop stars who were actually, who were in Squid Game that you didn't spot.

Or like, here's all the other stuff that these people have been in.

Or like, here's, did you notice this crazy detail?

I'm not seeing any of that.

And right now,

I'm pretty far into the Korean media algorithm.

I should be seeing that stuff.

You should be seeing that stuff for sure.

And it's also, it's like, I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying this, a big part of, it's almost like a mystery box actual mystery show because it's at the end of this, who's going to be left alive?

Like, that's a big deal.

I'm assuming a lot of people die towards the end of the finale.

Do you think there'd be a lot of chatter around that?

Like, I don't even know, like, there's no spoilers out there about who survived and who didn't.

Yeah.

And maybe that's part of it, too, is like those of us who have seen it wanting to preserve the experience for those who haven't.

This is our, this is our Rocky gatekeeping moment.

Yeah.

Where it's like, we're like, just preserve it for those who are maybe still watching.

Maybe the conversation will happen

soon.

I don't know.

But this is just, it's very weird to me that I'm seeing so many people watching it, but no one talking.

That's just, just, just a weird thing that I'm noting.

Right.

Who's the final final squid?

That's what I want to know.

Who's the best squid?

And is it going to be a keychain?

It will be collectible.

How many of them will be available?

Who got most improved squid?

All right, Ashley, who are two of our nine tentacles we will be thanking today?

All right, big thanks to Tentacles, Lance Plummer, and Dylan Pruitt for sponsoring this episode of our show at patreon.com/slash morning summer.

All right, well, that does it for us today, July 2nd, 2025.

We will be back to talking tomorrow.

We hope you will be here as well.

Bye, everybody.