#the one good thing about this website is over

[welcome-to-the-neotheater]

I made one of those iceberg memes for AJR

It includes both songs and also just like fanbase stuff

Thanks to the website I made this on for putting their massive fucking watermark over the bottom

Full explanation:

Bang!: Bang! has been, in some ways the most popular AJR song. YouTube says WSV has more streams than Bang! does but I think that has more to do with the online popularity of it than anything else, as I've honestly heard more people say they've heard bang than WSV so I put it at the top.

WSV (World's Smallest Violin): WSV from Ok Orchestra has been one of songs I go to when I'm trying to see if maybe someone's heard an AJR song before and just hasn't realized it. It went pretty viral in 2022.

Weak: Weak was also a pretty massive song. It was released on the Click and according to YouTube Music has 238 million plays.

Burn The House Down: This song was released on the Deluxe version of The Click (it's not on the main one, which is surprising as it's the most popular song from the whole album). It's also one of AJR's biggest songs.

The Good Part: This was the first AJR song I'd ever heard! A lot of it's popularity was from TikTok trends that we're using the "can we skip to the good part" as a transition audio.

AJR is a band: I feel like this should go without saying and should be higher on the list, but the number of people I see referring to AJR collectively as "he" is infuriating. There are 3 of them holy shit dude look at any album cover of theirs and use some of those counting skills we should've learned in preschool. However, I do see people not involved in AJR stuff who understand how to count and say "their" when referring to them collectively so I put it above the water level on the iceberg.

Way Less Sad: This song also did pretty well. It was released on Ok Orchestra. However it's not one I think most non-AJR fans would've heard so I put it as the first "under water level" spot on the iceberg.

AJR stands for Adam Jack and Ryan: A lot of people don't know this but I think it's one of the first things you'd google if you were starting to join the fanbase. Adam Jack and Ryan are the first names of the bassist, lead singer, and keyboardist respectively.

Jack's Hat: Pretty much since I want to say 2015 (?) Jack has worn this hat during pretty much anything relating to the band.

It was his mother's hat and appears as early as Living Room overture

pssst Women's Ultrawarm Bomber Hat | Accessories at L.L.Bean (llbean.com)

They're brothers: Adam Jack and Ryan are brothers. Not much more to elaborate on here except that a lot of people didn't seem to know this.

Karma: One of the greatest songs ever made and definitely one any fan knows. It was on Neotheater

Overtures: For the albums the click, living room, and ok orchestra the album has started with a song called "Overture" (or "Ok Overture" in Ok Orchestra's case). These songs are just like a mash up of the other songs on the album.

Both Living Room and The Click's overtures display this definition at the beginning of the song as "Overture" isn't in most peoples vocabularies

I guess by Ok Overture we were expected to understand what was going on as there was no definition at the beginning of that one.

T__ M____ M__: So whether or not you know what this is will depend on how active you were in the community at the time TMM (what we now know is The Maybe Man) was being teased. Essentially we were told of the initials "TMM" and that the first word had 3 letters, the second 5, and the 3rd 3 and nothing else. There was someone selling shirts that said "AJRdle" at one point (I can't find them now), and that refers the wordle we were essentially playing with the album name.

Joe: This song was written about a guy who went to Ryan's high school that he looked up to. It's not a hugely popular song but it's one most fans would know. It appears on Ok Orchestra.

Adventure is Out There: Another less popular Ok Orchestra song. This one's great too.

I'm Ready: This song was their "first" (more on that later) song and was also their first hit. Sia shouted them out and that pretty much made the song a hit.

It was in the trailer for Trainwreck in 2015

Trainwreck (2015) - IMDb

Pitchfork Kids: Beloved by fans and considered by some as the best song on Living Room. It originally came out in the Infinity EP.

Normal: So a lot of people miss this song's existence as it was on the deluxe edition on the click but not the official one. It's kinda overlooked. Citation needed, but I believe it's the least popular song that's post living room.

Weak has an acoustic version: This title is pretty self-explanatory, but a lot of people missed the acoustic version of weak that came out in the "Weak Remixes" EP (I guess its an EP?)

City Savers: My beloved city savers. Sadly this and other AJR webisodes were taken down from the official page but there is a reupload.

AJR WEBISODE: CITY SAVERS (youtube.com)

Essentially it was just a skit they did. I'm not sure when it came out but if I had to guess it looks like it might've been around 2013.

A Day In The Life: City Savers' slightly overlooked twin. Another webisode from around this time.

Dear Winter 2.0: AJR released an alternate version of Dear Winter. All the lyrics are the same but the production is different. A lot of people don't seem to talk about this.

3 AM: Not to be confused with 3 O'clock things, 3 AM was released on the infinity EP in 2014. It's the least played AJR song that's still officially available.

AJR Covers Channel: There exists a second official AJR youtube channel thats @/AJRBrothers instead of just @/AJR

AJRBrothers - YouTube

They posted covers of songs. It hasn't been active for 11 years.

I also love how hilariously outdated their About section is.

6Foot1: This was just an alternate title for the I'm Ready EP.

Woody Allen, AfterHours, and Buy You A Rose still have their 6Foot1 versions up on AJR's youtube channel.

Jack was in The Pink Panther 2: Yeahhh

So when Jack was 11 he was in a movie called the Pink Panther 2. He played a character named Antoine. I watched the movie and he was only in like 5 minutes of it total. I wasn't paying a ton of attention to the movie but I think he was supposed to be the nephew of the main character.

If you've ever seen this:

Its from the promotion for this movie.

He was also in one called Billy Bates according to IMDB but I've never seen that one.

Anyways if for whatever reason you want to watch the Pink Panther 2 (it's terrible and absolutely earned its 12% rotten tomatoes rating) you can watch it here for free on Tubi:

Watch The Pink Panther 2 (2009) - Free Movies | Tubi (tubitv.com)

Married On A Hill: Mostly just mentioning this song cause I discovered it and became obsessed with it a couple of weeks ago but essentially it's a song of theirs from like 2014 or 2013 that was played live a couple of times and never officially released (but was released accidentally in 2020 Married On A Hill | AJR Wiki | Fandom) but there are still concert recordings of it on YouTube.

Here's one:

AJR - Married On A Hill 11/4/14 (youtube.com)

Born and Bred: Born and Bred was the first album they ever released, but it's been taken down. According to genius.com, it came out on March 8th 2010, but take this with a grain of salt because genius.com sucks balls. But, I digress.

It still exists on YouTube but I didn't tell you that.

Adam was in a The Onion video: This also has a pretty self explanatory title.

Adam appears in the Onion's "High School Tonys Nation's Drama Club Nerds" at 0:55

High School Tonys Honor Nation's Drama Club Nerds (youtube.com)

Go On Take A Chance: This was AJR's first song. It exists on YouTube and has a music video. It appears as the first track on Born and Bred and was released as a single according to genius.com on January 13th 2010. Again, take this with a grain of salt because genius.com sucks balls.

But I digress put your hands up cause I won't

Venture: Venture was the second album released by AJR and has also been taken down. There is a lot less of this album available online so it's lost media in a way. Genius.com says venture came out September 12th (yikes) 2010, but have I mentioned that I fucking hate genius.com. This album has 10 songs.

AJR - EP: And we reach the end. This EP was released after Venture and Born and Bred and had 4 songs, one of which was The World Is A Marble heart, which I'm pretty sure makes it the oldest still publicly available AJR song. I think it's the same on the AJR EP as it is on Living Room but I haven't heard the original version to confirm that. If genius.com is to be trusted (it generally is not) it came out July 17th 2012. I think most of the EP is available on YouTube.

I only put this one at the bottom because in my experience the community seems to talk about it less than Born and Bred and Venture.

[the-physicality]

why would they schedule the canada game at the same time as the march madness final?

#it's literally so mean to me specifically #and it's not like the breaks are long enough in either one for me to flip back and forth #:( i'm gonna end up watching mm sorry #the thing about basketball is it's all action all the time #like you don't sit around waiting for people to score #like how it is in soccer and hockey #like i am rooting for south carolina for a variety of reasons #even tho it also goes against my bracket #also what is with the IIHF website being shitty to navigate and also listing things in military time #i used to be good at doing the math and calculating wsl times have made me worse at 24 to 12 hour times #please don't yell at me for being a dumb american i took ap calc #and listen i know now that you just scroll down to get to the live scores #but a few too many times i have ended up in a different division's women's worlds #this wouldn't be a problem if ESPN would buy the rights to this tourney #bc then they wouldn't program over mm #eyeroll anyways

[skhardwarevers1]

sorry for saying I was going to do things and even starting them and then disappearing from this website entirely for three days. It will happen again

#Nothing new. Tbf I’ve done this a lot #I would say I’m focusing more on school and my personal writing but that’s more of a fucking lie than full truth #I genuinely have felt sick to my stomach posting here for whatever reason #Guilt shame anxiety paranoia etc etc you get the point. I feel like shit with no valid reason as to why #So for now I’m going to stop doing the thing that makes me overly emotionally sick to the point I have actual physical reactions???? #Yeah that’s the logical course of action. Might post small personal anecdotes and doodles and such to give off the vague energy that Im fin #But beyond that I quite literally can’t. I sat down and thought about writing this post and immediately broke down #I don’t know why I feel guilty over having inconsistent motivation for putting up shitty writing on a website for strangers to see #But I do and k think the only good way to get past that is this. Gotta stop acting Impulsively it’s ruining my fucking life man #There’s only one other thing that I’ll thank Eloise for #and it’s for getting me off of tumblr long enough to realize that I desperately need to get help #This is fucked I fucking hate it. I might be online if k can bare the possibility that people can see this #Namely people I’ve grown attached to in concept #Idfc at this point. it doesn’t change much about how things have been going for the past year #Vent #S.K explains that things never really got better they would just suck less for short periods of time

[camelspit]

hey. maybe you shouldn't write a book review if you haven't even finished the fucking book. btw.

#i see shit like DNF AT 32% on goodreads all the time and it annoys the shit out of me #how can you give a good review if you havent even been through all the source material?? #how can you objectively say you know it well enough to write a review? #especially when its below 75% #or even 50% #It annoys me so much #goodreads reviews in general annoy me alot because #people cant seem to tell the goddamn difference between i didnt like it and it was bad #for a website about reading #the users can be severely lacking in reading comprehension #anyway ive always felt like this but it sort of boiled over last night ig. #because i read a book that went so so hard. And it has 4 stars which is like. pretty hard to get. in my opinion. #And someone gave it a low rating because they listened to 32% of the audiobook and didnt care for one of the voice actors. #and then said they got the physicsl book to read and then didnt read any of it bc they didnt want to #And thats fine! But like! You are not the person that should be writing a review about it! If you havent experienced the whole thing! #>:(

[shitty-check-please-aus]

the weirdest part of this website’s history that I never see anyone talking about is that period where people got so obsessed with a guy who played Peter Pan at Disney that he had to quit (or maybe got fired?) because he was getting stalked

#Instagram has decided recently that I want to see videos about Disney parks #probably should stop liking the pics of a girl from high school who's one of Those Disney People #anyways the thing I can't get over is how like. obstinate people are in their refusal to acknowledge that the 'characters' #are all severely underpaid college students #like I was excited to meet Ariel when I was 5 and didn't have much of a grasp on reality vs fantasy #but these are grown adults being like 'I bought honey to give to Winnie the Pooh :)' #like. maybe campaign for the person inside that very hot outfit to be paid enough to afford their own honey #ik they're not all college students but a lot of them are #anyways I think a Loki actor is gonna end up being Peter Pan 2.0: TikTok Edition #this is just what my gut and my experience being on this website in 2012 are telling me #like they're very good at their jobs and creating an immersive experience but these are all humans who get W2's and pay rent

[youve-always-had-me-cas]

The Reddit blackout is really funny because I fucking hate Reddit, I can't stand it, I will rant about the flaws in Reddit's Moderation system at the drop of a hat and as someone who used to mod a >300k subreddit believe me there are so, so many of them, but finally the admins of the website who have been profiting off the unpaid impossible labour mandated of their moderators by the structure of their website for years are getting the exact same treatment mods get every day. Your users are demanding an impossible thing of you. They hate you. They hate you. They want what you are offering them but their sense of justice is irreparably skewed and they will not listen to a single thing you have to say anymore. But unlike the people stuck trying to hold a community together under these absurd constraints they do not control you made this horrid mob of people and fostered this culture for decades this is entirely one hundred percent your fault.

#brain.txt #the redditors are right btw #that's the thing #it wouldnt be impossible if they were wrong #redditors are always right about knowing what would be best for them as an individual but because of the way the site works what is right #for the individual is in direct opposition to what is right for the group #and for the people calling the shots #so there is never a compromise and there is never a halfway everyone is just supposed to hate the ones at the top as a way of feeling like #they have some semblance of control over the situation even though it literally doesnt have to be like that #tumblr exists #pretty much any website that isnt reddit exists ans doesnt force people into this unbearably shitty mindset #ugh #one comment and i drop the manifesto honestly #AND BY DESIGN THE ONES AT THE TOP GETS OUTSOURCED TO REGULAR PEOPLE JUST TRYING TO DO GOOD #its so evil #reddit as a metaphor for everything that can be wrong with a society #i sound crazy but you havent seen what I've seen!!!

[cruelsister-moved2]

what you eat has an impact on the environment thats just a fact. how u choose to mitigate that might be trying to use locally sourced produce, it might be growing your own, it might be reducing meat intake, it might be supporting community food initiatives, it might just be buying un-packaged produce or avoiding out-of-season fruit, or maybe ur not in a position to do anything. but stop fucking listening to people who tell you that the other regular people who choose to do a different thing from this list than you do are the enemy to distract you from who’s really creating the problem. if you spend more time railing at vegans than you do at monsanto and cargill and ADM then you’re literally falling into the same trap as someone who makes 40k and complains about the minimum wage being increased

#a lot of u guys are straight up brainwashed and think its really leftist somehow who else cringed #DISCLAIMER this is not to say white vegans dont do stupid racist things #but to argue that white vegans are not more racist as a group than like other white people #like. have the same reaction when indigenous land is taken over for animal agriculture #i think its very weird and sad to make it a competition rather than recognising corporate food production as the shared proble #and if u actually care abt farmers then get mad at john deere lol #i cant stand the either/or thing w vegetarianism/veganism #when someones like oh ur vegetarian to mitigate the impact on the environment?? ummm what about [vegetable that can be farmed unethically]?? #girl do you not fucking eat vegetables??get help #also so many of them are just not true like the quinoa thing is sooo annoying because its not true #no one even knows exactly what they think is wrong with quinoa theyre just lke umm isnt it bad #actually one of the biggest concerns quinoa farmers have is that the fad won't last and then they'll be plunged into poverty #and the soy thing everyone repeats okay well again. vegans arent responsible for the majority of soy consumption but also #consumption literally accounts for like 5% of soy production #most of it is for ANIMAL FEED and biofuels. #the same applies to like vegans who get mad at people who buy locally sourced meat etc etc but tahts not what i see on this website #i mean anyone whos getting mad at regular ppl over literally trying to do something good for the environment is an idiot

[so-you-melted-22]

I need someone who knows how to make edits to make a soapghost one to Johnny by Stereo Total because that song just fits so well and i can't edit for the life of me

#also idk where these people are even getting all of the raw video material from #like did you sacrifice someone and just got all the footage from the cut scenes in perfect quality straight to your computers or what is #going on exactly #the last thing i edited was slapping a background picture and an audiofile together on some free website to upload it to youtube #because my only service to the larger amity affliction fan community is uploading all the lovecats songs on yt in good quality #but that doesnt matter #anyways i was listening to the stereo total cd my mom gave to me once again and was randomly struck by the fact that #'holy shit this song from 27 years ago is literally about this ship from a video game i never played!' #idk but like the hook literally translates to /johnny is the right man for me ive know this for a really long time/ #and then it just continues to pine for the entire song #also it is so gay and not on the tracklisting of the cd i have for whatever reason #its just not listed #its great #generally stereo total changed my life #stuff #text #cod #call of duty #ghostsoap #also rip to my mutuals who have to watch me obsess over a videogame literally not a single one of them cares about #dont worry ill be back to the regular yearly spatort posting soon #none of these tags are comprehensive and thats ok

[andthebeanstalk]

It's important to play a "LEVEL UP!" sound effect in your head whenever you get better at a skill because the world is flawed and so this does not happen automatically.

Often, in this life, we must provide our own sound effects.

#original #life advice #you can read this as a metaphor but i literally do mean that today i learned a lot about drawing backgrounds and upon surveying my work #i took a moment to imagine - as vividly as i could - a garbled video game announcer voice going LEVEL UP #it's garbled because sound files on classic video games were compressed as fuck and i am imagining like... a ps1 era game. #the kind where it holds up really well to this day and in all of the continuing sequels they #still use a lot of the same sound effects because they're so recognizable and iconic. I can picture the graphics and everything. #what does yours sound like or look like? #it isn't actually important that you do this specific thing but it is good to recognize when you're getting better at something #my favorite thing about learning to draw is when I can focus on a really good tutorial and #improve a skill so quickly that it really feels like I filled out a skill tree with my XP #it isn't always an immediate improvement but i am so low level in background illustration that i still level up with just a little XP #whereas if I want to get better at drawing expressions I don't think there is a single tutorial that will cause me to level up on its own. #just because this is the thing I've always focused on for most of my life and so a lot of the tutorials don't have new information for me #so that skill is at a point where it's just gonna improve slowly as i practice and pick up tips over time. #but I know so little about drawing shops or castles that literally one page of information is increasing my knowledge by 20% at least #Pro tip: the Etherington Brothers tutorials are so good and I was able to find several hundred for free on their website #so good #etherington brothers #how to think when you draw

[jayswing101]

.

#warning for tag rant / sad feels incoming #in august i started going to a local youth group finally #ive been following them online and wanting to participate for over 3 years but was just too anxious until this summer #and going to the gatherings every friday night was so so good and i made a bunch of friends there that i absolutely adore #but today i found out that my work and the youth group have a negative history with each other #the founder of the group asked to talk to me bc she saw on my works website that i work there #and basically the old director of the organization i work for did some real sketchy stuff and hurt people in my youth group #since 2020 they've been keeping their distance from my work and they kinda feel betrayed that i work there and didn't tell them #and i get why she feels like that but it hasn't ever come up before #no one's asked where i work #and i didn't know about what happened between my work and the group so it wasn't like i was deliberately hiding things either #but now. fuck. idk what to do #bc i know i don't work at the same org as the one that hurt them in 2020 #the old director was immediately suspended as soon as his actions were uncovered and there was a whole investigation #everyone who took part in those sketchy things the director did was also fired - even board of directors members that were involved #they published a report about it and theres still a 3rd party lawyer monitoring current anonymous reports from community for accountability #also even if the org was still the same as back then i can't just leave my job #my minimum monthly loan payments are 500$ a month and i can barely pay that as is #and i truly believe in what my work is doing and how we're helping youth and community #i do believe we're doing good work #but i also believe the youth group founder when she says she was deeply hurt by past actions and that she doesn't trust our org #and I've never felt more at home than spending time with the other youth on Fridays #so like. it's a whole mess and it's so complicated and idk wtf to do #like. even if i did quit work - would i even still be welcome at group? #if i am still welcome how many other youth would i make uncomfortable? #if i don't quit work but i stop going to the youth group - how many friends will i lose bc they feel betrayed i picked my job over them?? #will i even be able to like. continue supporting the group from the background by donating beadwork or visiting the store? #i thought things were finally going well - i had a community for the first time and a job i liked and was making decent progress on my loan #but of course that was too good to last #if it had to end - i just wish I'd never had that taste of happiness and stability at all

[iloveyoumorethansoup]

Update I must of been in shock or something because the sadness is starting to hit and it’s hitting hard

#the past few days I’ve been doing a rewatch because of how excited I was over the season 4 finale and how excited I was for season 5 #and it sounded really good for a renewal! the actors sounded confident websites who monitor this sort of stuff we’re confident #it looked so good! #and then to see that out of the blue it got canceled?? every article I read is shocked #top 25 show on a Friday night was pretty impressive #also?? to see that it was canceled due to not being able to negotiate a contract #of all the things to get canceled to. set up more negotiations make it work Yknow? #I’m genuinely really upset about this one #there aren’t many things that hold my interest for long periods of time but I’ve been watching this almost since the first season aired #i have a shred of hope since it seems that people who watch this seem to be very vocal on social media #and that cancellations have been reversed before. hoping this one is too #also just the part where so so many people r talking so much about this and the news has only been out not even 3 hours yet #man if it gets this show back I’ll use Twitter #soup talks #adding to this bc I forgot. jay hernandez was asked to direct another episode next season and said so! and now there is no next season :( #sobbing rn I won’t recover until the cancellation is reversed

[hua-fei-hua]

running around fimfiction.net makes me feel like i’m hanging out in my old nursery

#like i was just old enough to know a bit about what i was doing but i still had so much more to go hahaha #i'm poking around the site a little bit more bc i was thinking abt what kinds of features i'd want in an ideal fic archive site #which quite frankly is just a hybrid of ao3 and fimfiction i'm not gonna lie to you but that might also be bc #ao3 fimfiction and ffn are the *only* fic archive sites i've ever gotten familiar with #and i can't help but to feel that mlp was one of the last fandoms to have this kind of thing/culture #where they had their own fanfic website; heavy emphasis was placed on community; the sites had tutorials and etiquette pages #i'm reading their writing guide now bc i was curious abt what it might have n it's like. actually really useful advice #like it starts from the very beginning scratch basics like a well-organized n thought out english class n the thought of it is so sweet imo #this is actually a really useful guide like. i had a very good english education so it's just confirming stuff i know #but the person putting all this together mentioned he did it bc he was giving out the same advice over n over to fic writers #and he's RIGHT this is stuff i often tell people i beta read for so like.. i might just save the link n hand it out sometimes LOL #truly the impact mlp has had on me as a person cannot be denied. my roots will follow me around forever lmao #花話

[boykisses]

One thing I really love about seedy anime websites and YouTube mp3 converters is like. They actually do what they say they’re doing. But they WILL try to trick you into downloading a virus. Like it’s almost just a greeting at this point. I try to extract a song from a YouTube video and it says free VPN installer tonight perhaps? Free VPN installer tonight queen? And I say YouTube-mp3 converter you sly dog, you know what I’m here for. Show me the goods. And YouTube-mp3 converter says ahhh you got me, no getting one over on you. Thought it was worth a try tho. Here you go king x

[phantomrose96]

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

#chrissy speaks #long post #-gestures broadly-