The Pop-Tarts Mascot, Unmasked: Share & Tell with Sarah Spain, Charlotte Wilder, and Pablo

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

I am, and I want to word this very carefully, but I would say I'm like just on the line right before you become a furry.

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Charlotte's like, we can talk about my luscious hair, really, whenever.

The hair is

like models.

I don't think I brushed it, though.

It's all right.

It is shiny.

Thanks, Baba.

I feel unqualified to compliment

a woman's hair on a tape recording.

So I already feel like I made a mistake in wading into these waters.

Well, Pablo, your hair looks amazing.

Thank you.

Are you still not washing it?

Absolutely.

Okay.

How's your scalp feel?

It's, you know, I become more self-conscious about it.

That's the first step, though, is being aware that maybe you should do something differently and then eventually getting to doing that thing.

Counterpoint.

I'm going to do nothing.

What is, wait, Sarah, what's your conditioning routine?

I shampoo

every like two days and conditioner pretty much every time.

I also have like mostly fake hair.

I've revealed this on television before.

And it is like a very cool kind where you can just take it in and out on a little wire.

It's not even like attached to your head.

This is, I got to say, this is.

Wash that separately.

This part is news to me.

Yeah.

I didn't know that I'd be finding this out so soon into this episode.

Yeah, it's called a halo.

I would show show you by taking it out, but then I'd have to try to put it back in.

And then the rest of the episode, there'd be clips that people are like, what's happening here?

But

it is precarious.

I did go during Pride Fest here in Chicago out till the wee hours at a club.

And my one friend wanted to leave.

So I decided to encourage her by dancing even more aggressively, which involved whipping my head around, which did then throw the weave onto the dance floor.

At that point in the night, I knew that that was a real possibility and I went for it anyway.

And she did indeed stay because she saw the sacrifice that I made in order to keep her.

But yeah, I wash that separately.

I do that like every like month or so because it's not, you know, connected.

It doesn't get dirty, but I need to still condition it for lushness and shine.

Wait, wait, just the origin, though, of whose hair that once was.

I don't know, Pablo.

And you know what's weird about it is one of my only things I get creeped out by is other people's hair touching me.

Like specifically at concerts or sporting events when someone's in the seat in front of you and then they like do this thing oh yeah i've got to drop it over the back of the chair and then your knee your like bare knees are now against and i have many questions for instance are they like pablo and do they never wash their hair um so it's a weird thing for me to have had that lifelong problem and then literally just put i have like six of these i have tv braid swimming you know variety of different styles like the happier they get the further down the line there's like hooks on the wall right far hook is nicest tv and then they move down the hooks as they get progressively crappier.

And then eventually I have to buy a new one and start moving them again.

But I don't know whose hair any of them are.

And indeed, it is creepy.

This, like, some of this is mine.

Some of this is just somebody else's hair.

Which one did you grab off the

hair rack for today's proceedings?

This is TV.

Since I'm not on TV regularly anymore, you qualify as the highest level of quality hair required.

Stop it.

This is the pinnacle of media right now, Sarah.

That's right.

This is the mountaintop.

What I heard is, I believe, the big lead best podcast of the year.

That's right.

Hell yeah.

The follicular peak of sports media is right here.

That's right.

And whoever is responsible for having a hair.

I'm bringing you only my best hair.

Whoever's responsible for Sarah Spain's hair, thank you for your sacrifice.

Yes, thank you.

To some girl who's probably seven and like cuts her hair every three months and it keeps growing like this, that little

it looks beautiful.

Okay, we've never done this.

Two debuts simultaneously.

Two reporters that we brought into our newsroom.

Sarah Spey and Charlotte Wilder.

Hello to you both.

Sarah.

Hi.

I'm so happy to see you.

I know.

I miss you guys.

I miss you.

I think the last time we saw each other was at Gronk's Beach Party in 2020.

Oh, man.

That is correct.

Just brief summary of Gronk's Beach Party for those who missed, like myself, Gronk's fucking beach party.

It is

just a large party with a lot of techno and Gronk dancing on stage for eight hours shirtless, like spraying water on the crowd.

Very fratty.

Obviously, Flowrider was there.

Wouldn't be a Gronk's Beach Bass without him.

I ate a slice of pizza roughly the size size of my head.

My friend got an IV, which was part of the offerings there, mid-party.

Char posted with a bunch of bachelor folks in a tent

that we were pretty fired up about discovering.

And it rained, so everyone was wet.

Also, I don't know.

I'm not going to say it, but.

Yeah, don't say it.

I want you both to know, especially Sarah, the next year I went back to Gronk's Beach Party, this time at the NFL draft in Las Vegas.

And what was it like?

I went to Gronk's speech party and all i got was covet so oh no it felt but i knew it you know it's the kind of thing where you walk in and you're like i know exactly what i'm getting myself into and i'm gonna leave it was gonna be that or hep c and i would prefer honestly the vid yeah I have follow-up questions that'll hold for deeper into this episode when we talk about what it means to be friends with each other.

Because I feel left out, honestly.

But I want to start with journalism.

I want to start with an investigation because as you guys know, here at Pablo Toria Finds Out, we get,

I don't like to call it mailbag questions, but we get inquiries for our detective agency to solve.

And here was one of them.

Hi, Pablo.

I would really love for you to find out the story behind the Pop-Tart mascot.

If you could sit down and interview that Pop-Tart mascot, that would be even better.

But just finding out who the marketing team is, how they put it all together, that would be amazing.

Love the show.

Thanks.

The amount of time that we have spent trying to figure out who the f is in the pop-tart

and why will they not talk to us has been actually depressing.

Even sadder, I think, might be the possibility that there are some people out there who actually don't know even what we're talking about.

And so

we need to jump in the time machine back to December 28th when this happened.

Oh, yeah,

Steeler Swift music.

Are you ready for it?

Control.

Oh, here he comes.

Or she, or it, or they.

Wow, look at that reveal.

So this is like a little hands.

This is an actual bowl game.

Like, nationally ranked NC State

against nationally ranked Kansas State began with a

very

smiley, excited, thrusty pop-tart.

The fact that they chose Taylor's reputation era to match this energy is just chef's

did not clock that pyrotechnics giant toaster they spared no expense like from the beginning that all the buildup to the Pop-Tart spool was worth it uh i am one of those people that you could stick googly eyes on a fork and call it frank and take me on a journey and i will be in tears within minutes and that is not a joke you could anthropomorphize literally anything and i will root for it cry over it and i when i saw that there was a mascot being eaten i was not excited.

I was worried.

You are empathizing with the Pop-Tart.

You're like, what you were, first off, I like that Sarah Spain is one of those little animals that, in order to

recreate what it's like for them to be fed by their parent, has like a sock puppet, a poorly designed sock puppet, like feeding crumbs into Sarah Spain's mouth.

But speaking of feeding things into mouths, this was how the award ceremony went.

The sign, holding a little sign.

A little

made it okay.

Looney to eat.

Like the fact that this mascot, the entire time the energy was, I can't wait to be eaten.

Yeah.

Like, that made it okay for me when he met his untimely toaster death.

Dreams really do come true, is what that sign said.

With a little heart.

How much money did they spend on licensing music for this?

I have so many questions.

I know, right?

The victorious coach, victorious

player.

Player waiting.

Waiting for the

gurney to slide out of the toaster.

Yeah, they slid his just murdered body, and it's still warm.

I liked both the toaster and death.

I like to think he was at least cooked, you know?

Like, well, this is this is how we got here: is because this was the most viral thing, arguably, the entire college football season.

College football is the second biggest board in America.

This seemed to be the thing the internet was most invested in.

And so I took this responsibility seriously until I realized that I was getting nowhere.

And it turned out that Sarah Spain

had a beat on what the truth actually might be.

So, Sarah Spain, please explain your exclusive reporting.

Well, I'm glad that you called on me because I am perfectly fit for this role.

I am, and I want to word this very carefully, but I would say I'm like just on the line right before you become a furry.

Oh,

love mascots so much.

And I am not ashamed to admit that I do sometimes find them a little arousing.

Not sure why.

Is it Big Red?

Big Red Who?

Who's Big Red?

Western Kentucky's.

Oh, the Hilltopper.

The Hill.

Big Red.

Oh, no.

Man.

Okay.

Okay, so Charlie Jerry.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no.

Totally normal.

Let's move on.

Let's move on.

Yeah, there's like a very particular set of qualities.

It can't actually be too human-like.

It can't actually be like muscular.

I don't want like a man thing.

Like the Chicago sky mascot is this like sky guy, and he's got like abs, and he's like part man, part or something like that.

Like bolt man with the chargers, too much animal, too much man.

The Purdue guy, yeah, right,

yeah, also too much man.

To be fair, now it feels a little like it's inching toward bestiality, too, because I said it had to be full animal.

This is a no-judgment zone.

I mean, remember, like, we're we've all been attracted to cartoons, like when that, like, Fox Robin Hood guy, oh my god, but he was into that.

We can all agree that that fox was up to some stuff.

That hot fox, also, uh, the goofy movie, the sun in the goofy movie.

Oh, no, I need to dip into that.

Near enough, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I do.

Sarah, I want you to know, though, that you couldn't be speaking to.

I'm honored to be on here with you as a fellow mascot enthusiast and someone who took a picture of a leek the other day that I was cooking and then drew eyes and a mouth on it because the hair, the roots, that's like hair.

So, we're own kind of sickos.

I don't know what it is, but we have our own special Fantasia for the record for me made me feel a lot of feelings that I've never unfelt.

Really?

There are just some scenes.

For the broom?

Well,

I really shouldn't continue.

Anyway, the point is, I am uniquely qualified to embark on this investigation.

And let's just say, I heard from multiple sources that the person inside the tart was, in fact, someone I knew.

Someone I had met before.

Wow.

Someone I had admired and potentially lusted after

when he was dressed as none other than Benny the Bull.

Man.

Okay, so you need to explain.

You got to explain Benny the Bull, who he has meant to you in your loins and also in your fandom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Benny the Bull is up there with the greatest mascots in all of professional sport.

Absolutely.

Yes.

The athleticism, the ability to pull off all the big tricks that you need, the lowering from the rafters, the dunking, the half court backward shots, all of that.

Yes, Chicago Bulls games were punctuated by Benny's gymnastics.

Still are, in fact.

Like if you go, there's a full Benny cam.

Everyone stops watching or doing whatever they're doing, and they're ready to see Benny do a variety of things, one of which is carrying the world's most giant bag of popcorn, pretending to look for his seat, tripping and spilling it all over the entire section.

People go wild for it.

They embrace having a class popcorn dropped into their laps and purses.

So I have always loved Benny.

I actually shot a local news hit with Benny and, unlike many, was able to see what was going on under the suit.

You don't stop it.

What was going on under the suit?

Now, listen, a mascot never speaks.

A mascot never takes off his head.

They're like a Mandalorian.

Unless the cameras are off and the job is done.

And you discover, surprisingly and delightfully, that the man inside Benny is pretty cute.

Not what you expected, in fact.

Athletic, good dancing, attractive man in there, which only makes your problem with mascots a little bit more complicated.

What you're saying is that inside of this mascot, there is a creamy filling, if you like.

Oh my God.

I mean,

I didn't know this is where we were going to go today, and I'm

honestly excited to be on this journey.

Yeah.

Well, because sometimes when you think about mascots too long and how much you're touching and hugging them, or let's say like at a haunted house, when someone gets to jump out and scare you, but then they hold you for too long.

And then you think somebody's in there choosing to hold on to me and whatever parts they first grabbed for this long.

Right.

And you don't want to think about who's in there.

You want to assume they all look like the guy that's inside Benny.

And then you're like, hold me closer.

Anyway,

wait, when you, when you, this is, this is, this is a, a particular first-hand experience you have with the person who is both the now number one ranked mascot in the mascot power rankings, clearly.

Pop-tart.

Viral sensation.

Viral sensation.

And when you watched Pop Tart,

did you see Benny?

Now when you connect the dots, does this all actually make sense to you?

Well, so I didn't see it at the time.

I was too enthralled with the tart to think about anybody else.

It was, I was a one tart woman for the entire game.

Even after his death.

Can I ask you a question?

Were you attracted to the tart?

Yes.

Okay.

Sorry, I just wanted to say that.

And also, just to complicate things further, his little hands and the way they poked out only really at the elbow length reminded me of raccoons.

And I also love raccoons, not sexually, but I love their little hands.

And when he came out and did the like

with the spirit fingers, like with the little hands, I was just like, I love this thing.

It there.

And so anyway, I wasn't nearly as attracted as, say, Benny.

That's just a different vibe altogether.

But there was something about the tart that was drawing me in.

There was a chemistry there.

so after the fact when i find out via the first source someone who knows both barry which is his name wait wait wait wait wait yeah benny's benny's real name is barry was was this is not the current benny this benny left a couple years ago to be replaced by someone who's doing a fine job but honestly it ain't the same so barry was inside benny No longer.

Now Barry was the tart.

Now, somebody who knew Barry and me

posted something alluding to the fact that we might recognize some of the tart's moves due to the Benny connection.

Wow.

I immediately needed to know more.

So I went to a couple sources.

Now, let me tell you, Big Pastry was not interested in cooperation.

In the least.

In the least.

They completely flaked on me when I first tried to reach out.

Well played.

And it was a rising problem the longer I tried to get information.

And honestly, I believe they were protecting their dough, which

standard.

The problem is, I also couldn't go to the source because mascots famously don't speak.

And also, this one was dead.

So unless I planned a full seance with Whoopi and Patrick Swayze and you in Danger Girl,

I was not going to find this tart.

To be making pottery with the pop-tarts, tiny raccoon hands.

Oh, I just pictured it.

So please, can you please Photoshop that?

If there's anything we do in this episode, make that Photoshop.

With the little hands, with the little tart hands around me.

Anyway, the point is, I could not get confirmation from either Big Pastry or the deceased tart itself.

But I felt comfortable going ahead with the reporting based on multiple sources.

And I do think now looking back and re-watching the tape over

and over and over again, that there was a mischievousness, an impishness to the tart that was very much Benny.

And then the spin move really sold it.

Like that spin move in the end zone was straight up Benny.

The athleticism, the playfulness with the ref, the dancing.

Really, the only difference was that through line of the tart bowl was that wanting to be eaten was very key to the character.

That was a real departure that I had to put aside when connecting the two.

But that was all Benny.

It was pure Benny.

As Sarah was on one investigative track,

we were hitting that PR firm hired by Pop-Tarts with an S relentlessly.

And so we asked a couple questions, right?

Like, can you confirm or deny that strawberry the Pop-Tart was played by the former Benny the Bull of the Chicago Bulls?

They responded, quote, we are very grateful to the individual inside the mascot suit who helped bring Frosted Strawberry to life.

Frosted strawberry.

That's all they would give us.

Okay.

We then followed up trying to isolate some variables.

Did strawberry identify as a certain gender?

They responded, frosted Strawberry is a Pop-Tart.

The binary.

The two genders.

Absolutely.

And tart.

And tart.

A construct all around.

Last question.

Is it possible for strawberry the mascot to be resuscitated?

To Sarah's point.

If so, how?

And they said simply, that specific Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tart is deceased and in mouth heaven.

Jesus.

This is where I am mindful of the economic opportunity for Barry.

I just feel like If I was Barry, I would want the world to fucking know that that's right.

No, listen, guys.

The thing about mascots, the thing about people who are mascots is they take enormous pride in not being known.

This is like, they get to be famous without the hassle of being famous.

I once did a story on the Syracuse Orange at the ACC tournament.

He was a senior and he was finally ready to reveal his identity.

His roommates didn't know that he was the orange.

He would, he said he was a part of the spirit team like behind the scenes, and he would sneak out at night for his orange rehearsals.

And I don't even know if his parents knew.

And he was like, he was so proud that he had not betrayed his, because the orange is its own thing.

For all intents and purposes, no one is inside these mascots.

One of many reasons I'm not a mascot,

but namely, not at all mysterious.

No one has a single question about me.

I've got nothing to hide.

I have never been mysterious.

I talk too much.

After you established that you wanted to that pop chart, I'm pretty sure America agrees.

Honestly, like, wow.

I just, I admire

your transparency, Sarah.

Always.

Thank you.

I admired that you were willing to stand with me as a near-bestiality for

Jason.

I am not attracted to the mascots.

Wow.

But she steps it back.

Sorry.

This is

a classic political pivot.

pivot.

Are you accusing me of waffling?

I'm waffling.

Now, I'll tell you what, a waffle mascot?

All those nooks and crannies for the syrup?

I am in.

This is not safe for work.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Ramy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Feen Champain, and Fortune Alcoholic Volume recorded by Remy Control, USA Incorporated in Europe, New York, 1738.

Centaur design.

Please print responsibly.

All right.

So I did not expect this all to be this horny, quite frankly, but I'll roll with it.

Charlotte, what did you bring up?

We are here to talk about the Stanley Thirst Quencher 5000 Mega Max quench machine tumbler.

That's how I was feeling trying to get you guys off of your horniness.

Where is the thirsting

five years?

Oh, yeah.

So, okay, the thirsting.

Yeah, so this is right.

This is perfectly

aligned.

These are essentially thirst traps, these Stanley mugs.

She's good.

She's good.

So, yeah,

so saw an article about the Stanley craze.

The Stanley Cup craze.

You're going a long way to not say Stanley Cup.

Because there is also an entire Reddit thread thread devoted to people who are confused as to why a lot of women are drinking out of the Stanley Cup trophy.

People are confused.

People think that when you say Stanley Cup, which honestly, of course.

No, this story, this thing, it's kind of like the Michael B.

Jordan of

cups.

It's like it shouldn't be its own entity.

I have no idea what the story is about.

I just know that this is everywhere also.

Also omnipresent on the internet.

If you are not familiar with this tumbler, this is a large tumbler.

It comes in, I believe, 30 ounces, 40 ounces.

They have a 64 ounce one, which is just entirely too large for what I think it weighs like two pounds.

And it is insulated and it has a handle and it comes with a customizable top.

They have a straw option.

They have an open mouth option.

You can close it completely.

It fits in a car cup holder.

And I think this is key.

I think this is crucial because how many water bottles, I mean, I had at one point a Yeti, which I will also get into.

I actually still have it.

I don't know why I said past tense.

It is not in mouth heaven.

It's dead to you.

With frosted strawberry.

Yeah.

Mouth purgatory.

But a lot of these don't fit in a cup holder.

So Stanley came along.

But this was not originally a viral product.

It has gone viral.

I'm sure, I bet a bunch of you have seen the video.

My only exposure to this is watching.

What was it?

It was that fire.

It was like a.

A woman's car caught on fire.

And after the fire, she goes into the car.

The Stanley cup is in the cup holder.

She takes takes it out opens it up and there is still ice inside

and the cup's like almost untouched looks pretty good it's impervious to fire ready check that i love that part

that's ridiculous that woman is owned millions by stanley well they did offer to buy her a new car Oh nice.

Never let a tragedy go to marketing waste.

Exactly.

That's what I have.

It's all content, Pablo.

But this is...

Content brain.

But is that where it starts?

Where does this all?

This started.

Stanley is a heritage brand.

Stanley is like Abercrombie and Fitch, how Abercrombie and Fitch was like in the 1910s.

They sold hunting gear.

Stanley has sold camping gear forever.

If you've camped, you might have used their little cookware sets or they've had sort of tumblers or I guess thermoses they used to be called.

They introduce this product.

They've had it for a little while.

It's not doing great.

So they decide not to restock it.

Little does Stanley know that there is a blog.

Three women have this blog called The Buy Guide.

I think they started it in 2017, and they've been linking to the Stanley Flow State Thirst Quencher 5,000 Mega Max million water bottle since the beginning.

And every time it sells out, and there are these women, there's Ashley Le Seur from California, Taylor Cannon from New York, and Lindley Hutchinson from Utah.

How are we spelling Ashley?

A-S-H-L-E-E.

Of course we are.

And Linley.

Of course we are.

With no S.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you had asked me which state Linley came from, it's Utah and nowhere else.

I wouldn't give you a second answer.

And Utah factors into this story because these women, they're promoting this.

They have all of a sudden, Stanley stopped selling them and they're like, well, what are we going to do?

So they go to Stanley and they say, hey,

if you let us sell these, we promise that they will sell out.

Ashley, I believe, said, we promise you it will sell.

We will introduce this cup to an army of other influencers on Instagram, and it will blow your mind what women selling to women looks like.

So Stanley is initially a little bit like, I don't, we're sitting down with these blogger women.

Okay.

So they end up having a meeting with them.

The buy guide women come away with 5,000 thirst quencher 5,000s from Stanley that they they only have to buy the product, but they have to pay for the warehouse, the shipping, everything else.

They sell it through their site.

These things absolutely sell out.

So they meet with Stanley and they say, if you keep producing them, we will sell them and give us a revenue share of the affiliate links because these are going to sell out.

And they peddle them out to their influencers.

Once it hits the Utah moms, just absolutely takes off because they were like, we need to market this to moms.

We need to market this to nurses, to people who want to have basically two women.

And this was very interesting to me because in 2016, I wrote an article called The Cult of Yeti, because this is when Yetis were taking over.

Right.

I had known about Yeti long before.

I'd heard of the brand before Stanley as a non-camper.

Yes.

Right.

But Yeti was this very male, very fratty, very macho brand.

It was for men who fished and camped, women too, but you know, this is how it was sort of marketed.

And the bottom line on both of these products, I do want to say, is that they work.

Like we saw that woman.

They hold water.

They hold water.

They keep it cold.

They keep it cold, though.

They'll keep your fish cold.

They'll keep your dead deer cold.

Whatever you need to keep it cold.

Whatever.

Your beer.

So Yetis took off with college kids.

And I just started seeing this, that people were using Yeti as a...

identity, as a way to say, this is what kind of person I am.

It was either, you know, you're Fratty, you're old money Nantucket kid, you're a hunter.

And there was also this dark underside of it where they had these, they had something called Yeti Butts where women would sit in very skimpy bikinis on the Yeti.

In this case, a well-lit underside.

Is this a cooler at this point?

Yes, or this is a cooler.

This is a cooler.

Just confirming.

Sorry.

True.

Good point.

They'd sit on the cooler.

Because again, I wanted to know which mouth attachment we were working with.

Oh my God.

This is a horny episode.

So they were sitting on the cooler from and take pictures from behind so you can see their butt on the cooler.

But sometimes they would have like machine guns propped up against it.

They would often be draped in an American flag.

Yep.

Sure.

So it took on this whole.

So now Stanley comes along, and these women are like, wait a second.

We think

you can have a much bigger market share than what Yeti's got, even.

And now I don't see anyone talking about Yeti.

Everyone's talking about Stanley.

It's the Stanley Cup.

But also, like, the

other Stanley Cup or now the dominant Stanley Cup, it's there are these like stampedes.

Yeah.

Like like they can't stock it enough, right?

Like Target.

Well, they created that.

That's part of the magic.

So a couple weeks ago, I posted about this after I saw a young girl crying over her pink Stanley.

for Christmas.

And I was like, what's happening?

Like someone explained to me how we've gotten to eight-year-olds crying over a water bottle.

Like, what's the deal?

People sent me all the content.

And one of the things was they did basically the shoe drop form for water bottles.

Yes.

This was scarcity.

They said, they said, here's, we're only going to make X number of this color, this collab, this kind.

And then people have to buy multiple, I guess, water bottles, even though the point is kind of to like not use multiple.

To Sarah's observation, like part of the reason why ostensibly this is a thing and why 2024 has been proclaimed, unironically, the year of the water bottle, and why they are, quote, this year's most covetable, most fashionable accessory is also because there is like an ecological conservation thing of like, hey, plastic, forget all that, all of the footprint of that.

This will save the planet.

Right, which is funny because it takes like seven times more energy to make something out of steel than plastic.

And if everybody just had one and used that, great.

But people are collecting these things, as you said, like sneakers, and it's taken on its own

way of

saying who you are.

It's a piece of your identity.

I think that it's so fascinating to me that the most basic need, drinking water, is now a way of saying the thing that I'm going to drink water out of is going to tell you what kind of person I am to the point that I needed to buy a water bottle recently.

And I was like, oh my God.

I was like, this is a massive decision.

What is this going to say about me?

If I'm seen with this, I ended up, first of all, I don't like very cold water.

So I didn't need.

Charlotte was in here drinking a cup of just hot water.

I was freezing Pablo it is so cold in here it's very cold in this it's gotten a little bit cold he really wanted to wear that cardigan pullover it's jumper it's it's it's nice it's very nice a Japanese cardigan that I got in Japan

but I digress

yeah so specific so I went with a Nalgene with the the small mouth because this is what I'd had in college and I loved it but also I wanted it to say about me is I am someone who is not following a trend I'm going with the OG I'm doing what I've always done.

I'm not going to be influenced.

I am about to make a statement.

I'm so sorry, but I

said I

was.

So, okay.

Here's what that says about you.

Yeah, I was looking at this.

Was it, I think it was like the Washington Post through another, another esteemed newspaper that called that Charlotte the populist bottle.

Yes.

The people's bottle.

Four years ago, Hydro Flask was it.

Four years ago, Hydro Flask was cool.

I think Stanley is actually even in danger with Gen Z of not being that cool anymore.

Because I think once millennials like something, it's the death now.

And I don't fully understand when our

liking something killed something.

But I mean, I guess you get to be in your 30s.

Because you're kind of old now.

Yeah, yeah.

It feels like everything I get sent promotionally is in water bottle form.

So I have witnessed the evolution.

Not only do I have multiple branded Yetis that were sent to me when Yeti was the thing, including two coolers from various brands.

But then I started getting, this is from the World Surf League.

Then I started getting hydro flasks sent to me.

And this one just stuck because

hydro flask keeps your water colder than anything I've ever used before.

It's simple.

It fits in.

It's becoming a spot.

Because people become evangelists for the water bottle that works.

They're like, this actually

works.

It always tastes better.

It's always colder.

It's always crisper.

It fits in everything.

It fits in a spin bike.

It fits in a car.

Anyway, the point is, then

I went Nalgene because I went to the Grand Canyon and it has the screw off top that's connected to the bottom.

So you can screw it through the side of a backpack and you can travel with it without needing its own space inside a bag.

It can be connected to any bag you're already carrying.

So now I have two distinct identities.

Home Sarah.

I'm hydroflask all the way.

Travel Sarah is old school Nalgene with four seasons Grand Canyon guides on it, which is very crunchy, very shar, actually.

Thank you.

Like, well, yeah,

you are an algene.

Yeah, I contend that both of you guys.

I take that as a compliment.

I mean it as one.

I contend that both of you guys have one identity, and that is water bottle shill.

What are we doing?

What are we doing here?

There is nothing.

We're not drinking out of plastic bottles, Pablo.

Let's just start with that.

And the differences, like even when I was collecting POGs, P-O-G-S, when I was collecting POGs, I had a collection.

Right.

And at least they did me the courtesy of pretending like there was something super like art.

I'm collecting bits of art.

You guys are just collecting like colors and vaguely different shapes.

The fact that you're surprised at this point that anything can be commodified is what's most shocking to me.

Like the idea that we would turn drinking water into something that gives makes people money is the least surprising news ever.

It feels just like the last bastion of something to be commodified is the most basic thing that all of us need from time.

Yes.

That'll be breathing, which I think, aren't people like taping their mouths shut when they're asleep?

Pure mist machine.

Some, you know, you can breathe through a straw.

I do think you're right, Pablo.

I think this is also an

example of how influencer marketing has now just touched absolutely everything.

These are selling out because people that other people follow tell them to buy them and they buy them.

There was one There was one article with a quote that I did

reluctantly

relate to, which is that there's a 26-year-old anonymous

who said after she was accosted by the reporter on her way to grab dinner about her

hydro flask

nuclear energy 5 million.

I've gotten like five comments on it today.

People don't usually stop you for your water bottle.

And it reminds me of when you look up any product that you're contemplating buying, a lot of the feedback is like, I got so many compliments on this.

And it's just people testifying to other people having said nice things to them in real life.

And that's what really we're all looking for.

What's the thing that's going to get someone to ask,

hey, where's that?

Where's that?

Where's that?

Where's that cardigan from that you're wearing?

Japan.

Thanks for asking.

Japan.

You're welcome.

So I underestimated when I invited both of you guys here

your previous non-poplatory finds out related friendship.

And it made me contemplate the decline of the friend as an American institution.

And I want to cite some research here.

This is a survey published in the Wall Street Journal that said four in 10, 40% of Americans say that they don't have a best friend at all.

This is a 2020 survey.

This is up from 25%

in 1990.

So we have fewer best friends now.

This was a poll by the Survey Center on American Life.

And we're just spending more time alone.

And it also relatedly went into this whole notion of like, in order to create a close friend, you got to spend time.

And so there is a study here that cites about, you got, you need about 200 hours together to, to,

to really get to that level of, of friendness,

or you can sort of create very, uh,

and I'm familiar with this, invasive conversations that are emotionally intimate and sort of accelerate the timeline.

Yeah, same.

But it just made me get paid for it.

And get paid for it on the DraftKings network.

Um, but for me, it made me reflect on like, I don't know what my depth chart of friends is.

Maybe because I'm using all of them for content perpetually, perpetually, but also because I look at Sarah Spain's Instagram account, Charlotte.

And no one has more friends in the world.

She goes on these trips for people who don't know her, and you should follow her on all her social media accounts, unless you're a real creep or you are into the kind of creep that she is, as previously established.

But a mascot.

A mascot.

A mascot.

Unless you're Barry.

Barry?

Yes.

But it's a thing where like you go to see who's tagged on a photo and it's like so many names that you can't tell what any of them say.

That's Sarah living a social life unlike anybody else that I know really in my life.

So Sarah, where are you on the friendship curve at this point?

I think we were just talking about collecting water bottles.

I literally collect friends.

Like when my husband and I got married, it was part of our like speech to the guests was that.

having everyone in in in the audience and in in the crowd for our wedding was like proof of like

the thing that we valued and cared about the most.

And like when I met my husband,

we didn't get married for seven years, which is a long time for most people.

But in that seven years.

Shout out to Brad.

Hey, Brad.

Shout out to Brad.

We went to 40, no, 58 weddings, I think.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

That was only counting once we met each other.

So not the weddings we went to before we met each other and not once we got married.

Like it was somewhere around 50-something weddings just in that seven years.

And like we both realized, oh, wow, we're bringing in like full squads.

This isn't like, hey, let me introduce you to my two people I hang out with all the time.

All right, here's my two.

Let's see if everyone gets along.

It was like, here's roughly 50 people that I tend to spend a fair amount of time.

Here's a baseball, a baseball roster full of friends.

I overdo everything.

Like everything has to be done to the fullest.

And I think also I'm not good at relaxing.

So when I'm not working, I'm like putting my all into having fun.

I can't sit still and just do nothing.

I have a major productivity complex.

And so being out with my friends, throwing costume parties, I just threw a, me and LeBron threw the same birthday party this year, same age too.

And I had like 55 people in full disco wear on roller skates, in a lot of them in their 40s, like

for a birthday that's not even like a big one, right?

Ron Beach Party for you, in other words, is like a relaxing Sunday.

Like that is not high on the list of costume-driven events that you have thrown.

I guess I'm an introvert is what I'm saying.

Yeah, clearly.

But I'm starting to realize.

There's this other wrinkle in this, Charlotte, right?

So there is, okay, there is the vastness of one social network, and Sarah is one end of the spectrum, which I love and appreciate, and I'm honestly horrified by.

But also...

A lot of people are.

So many people.

But on the other side of the spectrum, there are people for whom there is a best friend.

I don't know the idea of like, who's your best friend?

Do you have an answer?

Yeah.

Shout out to Hillary.

What does a best friend mean to you?

And why is it that people are having fewer of them according to this research?

I mean,

I think the pandemic changed a lot.

It certainly did for me.

I think, you know, it's actually, I think we're the two perfect people to have on to talk about this because I'm on the far other side of the spectrum.

I think that I feel recently, you know, my...

the people that I hung out with the most before the pandemic left New York and I'm still here.

And so they're sort of scattered.

So I feel like I have, I have family here and I have I'm very close with my family and extended family in a way that feels like if I'm not working that's who I'm spending time with or you know a select few people who feel like family and I I don't know whether it's I used to be much more social

and I used to be much more like you Sarah like I'd want to go out I need to be doing so and and I think I've become a little more

insular lately.

but I think part of that is the pandemic changed a lot of habits.

I also think it's getting older.

And I really admire you, Sarah, that you can keep that many friends.

And you're also a glue person, right?

Like, I think there are people who are glue people, and then there are people like me, like, invite me to the dinner.

I'd love to go, but I'm not going to plan it.

Like, my husband and I got married in September, and there were 10 people there.

We were like,

our style is we don't normally throw big things anyway.

So for us, the sort of least stressful, most intimate, sort of beautiful way for us to do it was very small.

I want to know because I'm thinking about who my best friend is.

And like, maybe it's my friend Pietro from high school, my friend Jaime from high school, I went to college with, or my friend Russ, who I spend most time with in real time now outside of the work context.

And I'm like, I don't actually know like who would get the championship belt of my best friend, which is a strange thing that I'm now sort of self-conscious about.

But Sarah, amid all of that vastness, do you have someone that is number one with a bullet?

Yeah, it's funny you said that because it has changed.

And that's why I think it's okay for you to say like, in high school, this was my best friend.

In college, this was my best friend.

I have a best friend when I lived in LA for six years who I still hang out with all the time.

She's not my best friend now.

I don't see her enough.

We don't know enough about the daily intricacies of our lives.

So now I have four best friends.

Oh, God.

My husband, Brad, and then Kylie, Kara, and Leah, who are the ones in all my photos that people meet them when I bring them to events and they're like, I feel like I know you already.

Wrong speech party.

Yeah, you met two of them.

I know Sarah Spence.

What?

Yeah.

Like the three of the, the four of us are, we're almost always together.

And if we don't see each other, we're literally, we have a Marco Polo thread where we're talking to each other almost every day.

Like if we don't talk to each other for a day, we're like, we feel estranged.

What did everyone have for lunch?

Like it's an aggressive familiarity that we really love.

I'm so bad at aggressive familiarity in that way way in terms of just like updating, like, hey, in case you wanted to know, here's where I am.

Yeah.

Where I am in the world or mentally, like, I will know.

I am, I am, I just, for me, like bestness also means

a privilege that I enjoy, which is, um,

we're good, right?

Yes.

We're good.

I get, yeah.

I get extremely stressed out.

You can do that too.

I get very stressed out in friendships that are that communicative because I'm always like, oh my God, if they text me, like when I take my phone out and I don't have anything on it, I'm like,

like I have relief.

And for me, like my, my relationship with my best friend is we don't live in the same place anymore, but she's, you know, since we were five years old,

we've been best friends and been in every aspect of each other's lives.

So it's sort of, there's a unspokenness of like, you know, I can text her right now with something very intimate or something very banal, having not spoken in a week.

And it'll be like, yeah, cool.

It raises this question of like, what are we here for when it comes to friendships?

What do we get from it?

And so there's a related story I wanted to bring into this conversation.

I've been doing all of this reading.

This is from The Guardian.

And it's about the buddy boost.

And it's about accountability partners, right?

Like, so what do we want from best friends?

Charlotte mentioned there is a certain ability to go to someone when...

you're in either need or you want to, you just want someone you can trust, a confidant.

There are also people for whom friendships, buddies, are a practical concern.

They want to be, in this article's parlance, healthy, happy, and more successful.

And so there are accountability partners.

And there is one particular accountability partner that this article mentions who happens to be the new speaker of the house,

the just perfectly named Mike Johnson.

And his accountability partner.

He's bringing it full circle on the horny face.

His accountability partner.

Wow.

I thought we left the horniness horniness behind, but we are very much

into it in ways that only Mike Johnson's teenage son can fully appreciate.

So Covenant Eyes is the software that we've been using a long time in our household.

I first learned about it at a Promise Keepers event in the early 2000s.

I think it was developed in about the year 2000.

But it's the largest accountability software that there is.

When your kids become teenagers, especially if you have boys, dads, they're talking to the guys at this event, you might want to think about doing this with your sons.

And so we've been doing that.

And so what it does real simply is it has an algorithm and software.

It's way above my head how it works, but it scans.

You obviously opt into it, but it scans all the activity on your phone or your devices, your laptop, tablet, what have you.

We do all of it.

And then it sends a report to your accountability partner.

So my accountability partner right now is Jack, my son, right?

And so he's 17.

So he and I get a report of all the things that are on our phones or all of our devices devices once a week.

If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice.

I'm proud to tell you my son has got a clean slate.

But we get a report and it says, hey, no activity of concern.

And it's really, really sensitive.

It'll pick up almost anything.

It looks for keywords, search terms, and also images.

And it will send your accountability partner a blurred picture of the image.

It's called a burner phone, dude.

Yeah.

Symbol fix.

Use your friend's phone for your porn.

A remarkable, a remarkable thing to be like,

hey, son,

you and me, we're going to know everything

that we are wanting.

You get a ding on your phone and you're like, son, are you actively jerking off?

Just wanted to call you real quick.

Sorry to interrupt.

Son, I saw you went to, you searched the hashtag YetiButts.

Is everything okay?

You've been Googling.

Yeah, dad, just wanted to look at some guns.

All right, we're good.

Yeah, seriously.

Oh, yeah, beautiful.

You've been Googling a lot of Benny the Bull spin moves.

What's up?

I am never living this down.

All right, so I'm still kind of reeling from

the hormones

of all of this.

What did we find out today?

Who wants to go first?

Ooh, that's a Sarah Spain lob, is what Charlotte just.

Yeah, I was going to say.

Yeah.

That's over to me.

I was surprised to learn that Charlotte is on the opposite spectrum of friendships because I find her so delightful.

And every time we've like hung out or spoken, she is just like, so I just like love her.

And everyone I've ever spoken to loves her.

So usually it's people that feel a little more anxious and at a distance that tend to say that.

So, she's a surprising and delightful combo of

easy to get along with, and everyone likes her, but also, like, maybe she doesn't want to hang out with them.

Oh my God, I'm blushing so hard.

You are.

That is such a nice thing.

Listening to the podcast, not on YouTube, but the Draft News Network.

Charlotte Wilder is blushing,

genuinely blushing.

But yeah, if anyone wants to be my friend,

I'll probably not hang out with you that much.

What I found out today is that it's possible to literally sell anything to people.

I have just heard an extended series of pitches for

water bottles, as well as,

yeah, the eroticism of

what feels like generally

childlike manifestations of

animals.

I learned,

well, I already knew that you're both lovely.

I mean, I'll be friends with you guys.

Yeah.

Good job.

Pablo's like.

No, I learned that Sarah and I both like to anthropomorphize things.

Very cool.

I also learned that Benny the Bull, the guy inside is named Barry, and he is,

yeah.

Was.

I learned that Barry possesses a skill as a mascot that few can only hope to reach the pinnacles of the profession, of their profession, the way Barry reached the pinnacle of his.

Yeah, I guess what I learned is that according to two of my female friends on today's show,

whoever's inside of that Pop-Tart is hot.

Figuratively, also literally.

This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Meadowlark Media production.

And I'll talk to you next time.