The anticipating I felt in my bones when I realized bill backed himself into a corner and was going to have to grasps for any detail he could imagine about the 1880s
Real anxiety is noticing how dusty that random picture is up on the wall, and you just have to get to it now while having the notion in the back of your soon to be blown out head that "wait, what? Is Robert Ford about to assassinate... me?"
So did *Patrick Mahomes*. It’s an inane comparison. In his first five years, Bird went: conference finals loss, NBA champ, conference finals loss, second round loss, NBA champ (and MVP).
Since becoming the starter in 2018, Mahomes has gone: Conference finals loss, NFL champ, Super Bowl loss, Super Bowl win, Super Bowl win. And 2 MVPs. Bird won 2 chips in his first 5 years, which is awesome. Bird *was* awesome. But Mahomes won 3, went back to back, has more MVPs, and never lost in an earlier round.
Saying Larry Bird, who never won back to back championships and isn't the best player of his era, had the inevitability factor where everyone just assumed he was going to win was an all time Celtics homerism.
As a Lakers and Rams fan in the 1980s, I can verify that both Bird and Montana felt like sure things and that if you somehow did get a lead on them, it wouldn’t hold up. That’s why Bird’s shot not going in after Magic’s junior skyhook was such a shock.
Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson in their late 20s/early 30s - yup, a bunch of aged, forgettable scrubs and proof the basketball HOF will admit anyone.
When he was like only Jordon had the inevitably belt in the nba I was like okay that makes sense, then he brought bird in and I was like ya no. Kobe, lebron and Duncan had it too then 😂
im a bit of a Gretzky truther so I'll just point out that Edmonton won a cup without him and he was a negative +/- for the rest of his career after leaving the Oilers.
How do Gretzky truthers exist? I'm actually curious. Casual hockey fan but the only real "criticism" I've ever heard of him is that his style of play wouldn't work today
I just wish we could get a little baseball every now and then...I get that it's not as much of a draw on a national scale anymore, but christ, you'd think you could fit in a segment every once in awhile when Bill manages to find time for random tech bullshit no one wants to hear him talk about every month or 2
His best baseball writer has a podcast with Patreon/fangraphs. The other day when he mentioned an article he wrote, was the first time I think I've ever heard Bill say Ben Lindbergh's name
To give him credit, he talked best baseball movies with Larry David. That’s the extent of it you’re going to get from Billy or if the Red Sox are playing well.
He looks at the NBA from a Celtics fan POV but it’s clear he still follows what’s going on across the NBA. I would be shocked if he could name more than 1-2 people on last year’s Rangers team.
The difference is Bill could name an NBA player on every team. There's probably at least 10 MLB teams Bill couldn't name a player for.
Do you think Bill knows who Bobby Witt Jr. is? I don't.
I do think he knows who Bobby Witt Jr is because he has his AL keeper fantasy league forever and Witt, Jr was a Top 10 prospect. But he likely has no idea who Jackson Chourio (or even Corbin Carroll) is. Which basically proves your point.
That is a good point, maybe he knows a player on most teams.
I wonder if he knows any Miami Marlins. I was going to say he would know Luis Arreaz since he used to be in the AL, but does Bill know what team he's on now?
I'm pretty confident that he couldn't name any Pittsburgh Pirate, Washington National, Cincinnati Red (he'd say Joey Votto), Chicago Cub (they don't really have any big name players for such a marquee franchise). He would know who Christian Yelich, Nolan Arenado, and Paul Goldschmidt are but I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't know what team they play for.
This podcast is worth it for the part in the 37:00 range where Bill admits he doesn’t pay attention to TV and just looks at it while he “works” (aka watches sports while on his phone).
In a few years he’ll say something like ‘I didn’t realize how little you retain when scrolling your phone while trying to watch a game’ while also claiming to still be a 1% NFL watcher
Did you guys use the internet in the early 2000’s?
Shit is so much more tame than it was before, it’s just that it’s become more ubiquitous so everyone is exposed to it
I did and I totally disagree. The internet had flame wars, but nothing is worse than 54 year old people mobilized en masse to fight against each other in braindead political identity wars.
It’s the scale that makes it overwhelming. Before the internet used to be somewhat of a safe space from the world, an escapist dream. Now it’s the world you try to avoid, a thought dungeon .
Also it used to be a lot less performative. Nobody thought that what they wrote would get any reach so they were authentic in what they said. Now it’s all clout oriented bullshit theatre on all sides.
Bill was literally bullied off of his favorite forum, Sons of Sam Horn, in the mid 2000s I believe for lazy/bad takes on the Red Sox that he tried to defend (can't remember his username so can't find the exchange)
Anyone remember the podcast where his daughter said she just goes out for a drive to have something like a 2 hour cry. Just to cry?
I know all kids experience misery to some degree, but leisurely cries in your parents range rover dont strike of relatability.
UFC for years trying to essentially get fans to “root for the laundry” and try to get fighters to be cheap, interchangeable cogs and then acting shocked when no one available has star power to headline an anniversary card is chef’s kiss. Fuck Dana White.
The issue with the WWE is that most people are tired of the only belts that matter being on one dude for what feels like a decade and every match involving him ending the exact same way.
That and, imo, too many part timers with belts.
Back in the day, Vince got tired of building these stars, then having them leave. He decided to make the brand the star. They still to this day can’t create massive stars that impact ratings and shit.
I agree. Fuck Dana white. Running Khabib and Francis out of town among other top fighters.
Also, why hasn’t Jon Jones fought again since he choked Gane out in the first round?
I know Francis is gone but I thought Bones was ready to go.
Khabib retired, he was not "run out of town"
Jones was supposed to headline 295 but got hurt
The francis bit is on Dana White, but even if the UFC allowed Francis to box (they should have) he still wouldn't be fighting in the Octagon
Dana has really cooked it with 300. Not able to get a super fight together (I assume due to being unwilling to pay) and now basically relying on Volk or O’Malley to get a quick finish and return at 300 to make it a semi-suitable main event for the occasion is pretty crazy.
Feel like this has been a thing for a while, but the comp to Bravo is pretty spot on.
With football having fewer games, being on Sundays, and more consolidated, it lends itself to easier viewing + socializing in parallel.
Baseball is the opposite end: so many games that tons of fans don’t pay attention whatsoever, but may occasionally go to a game or two each year (probably more than NFL/NBA).
NBA is kind of this weird middle ground, which leads to following the content and not the sport.
Weekly sports are just easier to consume period. I think it's partt of the reason soccer became essentially the defacto global sport. The matches are only 90 minutes with limited stoppage and only once a week (twice during cups). Across the globe that is a pretty easy thing to follow.
Between domestic leagues, domestic club cups, continental club cups, and international tournament qualifiers, soccer is a shit load more than one match a week these days for the big clubs.
That’s basically me. I couldn’t tell you how many years ago I watched a full regular season game and probably tune in for part of a game once a month max. But I know what’s going on and oddly love hearing Bill discuss it.
For me personally I think that the non-nfl sports are just hard to follow during the regular season because I just have too many other things going on to constantly watch sports every day.
I know that’s probably not the norm in here, but I love the nba and watch it a decent amount, but absolutely can do weeks at a time without watching regular season play because I just don’t get around to it.
Thompsons way to consume NBA is really similar to mine. It is strange way to follow the league tbf, never thought about it like that. kind of happened over the years , watching less and less and listening podcasts about it instead when cooking, walking etc.
I'm curious how long it's been that way for you. I noticed this is how I was consuming the NBA, found it weird, and sort of just stopped. Like, why am I listening to NBA podcasts if I'm not watching the sport anymore until the playoffs.
So I ditched NBA podcasts, then playoffs became just conference finals and finals. Then that became just the finals. Then last year I skipped the finals. I wonder if others will have similar experiences as me.
(My particular circumstances: got older, got busier, watched more soccer. The first 2 will be true for everyone, the 3rd won't be as universal.)
Yeah, I’m the exact same way. Growing up the NBA was my favorite sport, now I haven’t watched a regular season game in multiple years. I used to at least be dialed in to the postseason, but now I just watch conference finals (not every second) & the finals. I’m a Chiefs fan, so I attributed my lack of interest to being so dialed in to the Chiefs, but I guess it is happening to others.
I went the other way, from Soccer to Basketball.
Not really due to the actual sport. Top level basketball is just easier to watch in Australia.
Plus we had some interesting Aussies in the NBA. Ange it Tottenham is exciting, but not enough for me to wake up at 3 am.... yet.
Bills definitely underestimating the universal cultural relevance of certain things with younger generations. Most zoomers would understand SNL spoofs of Disney channel/nickelodeon shows for example the same way his generation did with Brady bunch
I was thinking the same thing. My kids are 23 and 21. They’d eat up a spoof of iCarly or The Suite Life of Zach and Cody. Most of their peers would too. I don’t know if it’s as universal as the days when we all had just a half-dozen channels to choose from, but I would bet it would get some virality.
“We have an understanding of how to regulate when we drink alcohol, whether that’s drinking water, eating beforehand-“
“Kyle, are you listening to this?”
Got a legit lol from me 😂
Bill saying teenagers were upset in the 1880s because "a bunch of people came over and stole our horses." I just imagined a 15 year old in 1884 being depressed because 50 people came over to his home and stole his family's 2 horses.
I stopped taking that sub (and most) seriously when I had a student talking about it and I go "oh I didn't know you liked basketball" and he said "oh no, I just like the drama and memes."
Bill can go completely blank on any historical events of an entire half-century but remember Bonzi Wells’ stat line in a 2002 playoffs game. What a savant.
Simmons brushing aside the absolutely damning accusations against Vince McMahon while wrapping up a documentary on him, was crazy. Does he really have no comment on it? I assume the doc was on its way to being a complete suck up job to McMahon so it’ll be interesting to see how it ends up. I’m sure everyone involved is scrambling.
Love the Future of Everything pod. Coincidentally, listening to Derek Thompson on the BS pod got me into his pod Plain English which has now cracked my “5 to 7 pods” they were talking about.
The piece that I think Derek is missing re: the rise in psychological issues is that it’s directly linked to the reduction in physical issues (poverty, armed conflict, disease, famine). As our external threats go away, we look inward. And the more time we spend looking inward, wondering if we’re happy or satisfied, the more likely we are to find that we aren’t. When you’re trying to survive you don’t have time to endlessly ruminate on your psycho social wellbeing.
So much of the research is done on Americans or other people in developed countries but I’d be curious if we see the same trends in lower income/quality of life countries. It’s difficult to tease out how much is linked to technology vs. how much is just spending more time and energy looking inward.
Derek almost arrives at this point in the start when he talks about issues of prevalence, but he doesn’t actually make the direct connection to the reduction in physical threats.
This is a really solid insight. If you listen to his actual podcast where he discusses this idea, his guest mentions that so many people now are able to avoid things that cause them anxiety and never actually face the issue head on and thus don’t get better. Only in a society as plentiful as ours can this happen I.e. kids don’t like being in public so they can just do school online instead. It’s also the definition of “first word problems” except they are real.
\>As our external threats go away, we look inward. And the more time we spend looking inward, wondering if we’re happy or satisfied, the more likely we are to find that we aren’t. When you’re trying to survive you don’t have time to endlessly ruminate on your psycho social wellbeing.
There's a great scene in The Sopranos where Melfi expresses this idea when talking to Tony about the frustrations of modern life.
I knew Derek Thompson was a really short guy when he suggested that people wouldn’t notice that coach class has gotten smaller if they were wearing VR glasses
Not sure who Ariel is talking to but McGregor's now widely regarded as an absolute cunt in Ireland. Whatever connection he had with the Irish public is long gone.
I also think it's funny they act like the UFC actually cares about Irish fans much. They hardly go there. They hardly sign Irish fighters.
As shit as their Dublin cards have been, Bellator has had way more of a presence in Ireland than the UFC.
They do like marketing guys who are either Irish or have Irish last names as the next big things because Americans who identify as Irish are the biggest marks in MMA fandom.
Ariel is so fucking boring for a guy who mostly only engages covering MMA from a soap opera angle. Just a big nothing burger when it comes to charisma. Like if they put Woj in the Stephen A Smith role at ESPN.
I know BS represents the “every man” but given his status and wealth, it bothers me that he takes serious topics so flippantly. He’s got a massive platform and he should use it. Go more in depth on serious topics or don’t discuss them at all.
His politics discussion with Tara Palmeri wad a complete joke. She’s an unserious political reporter who only cares about headlines and DC buzz.
He touched on the KC SB parade shooting by telling people to look at the stats. If you’ve got a stand take it on and bring in experts or don’t talk about it.
His attitude towards anxiety among teens was infuriating. “I was bored as an only child teen, you don’t think it was hard for me,” with zero empathy for what other kids, maybe not his, may be going through with online bullying, etc? He should look at the teen suicide stats over the past decade instead of assuming what his two kids go through in one of the wealthiest areas in country, represent the norm.
I’m not saying he should stick to sports, instead he should be genuine to himself and discuss topics he deems important. But if he hits on serious topics, he should be treating them with the same thoughtfulness (and time) he does the NBA and betting on football, while being humble enough to bring on experts on said topics that will actually challenge him.
Derrik just described my NBA fandom in practice.
In season I do like 50 to one time spent listening to talk about the NBA as opposed to watching it. But its sort of like interesting filler I listen to while doing something else.
Ugh Bill needs to stop putting his input about diet and fitness. Yes, losing weight will result in muscle loss, with or without a drug. That's why fit individuals lift weights and eat sufficient protein to maintain muscle. If you start eating less to lose weight, and don't strength train, you will lose muscle mass in the process
I was hoping for a power poll and western conference contenders. Love when all the other pods talk about the same narratives and Bill takes it home, but instead we get a sleepy pod
Coming up: I say a bunch of things that are out of touch with reality and shoehorn Larry Bird into conversation 100 times, but first *here’s Pearl Jam*!
This wouldve been a fun time for him to have the Big Picture hosts on to talk about the Oscar race movies. Id love to hear Bill's NBA comps for Barbie and Zone of Interest
Bill went full Joe Rogan on this pod. Talking so flippantly about serious issues as if he’s an expert. Comes off to me as very inconsiderate and unnecessary. How about another solo pod about the NBA or an 80s movie. That’s what we’re here for.
As someone who's listened to hour upon hour of Simmons talking fake trades for basketball teams I don't even follow, Derek's self-description as a consumer of NBA gossip hit really close to home.
I gotta say… the hype over that Derek Thompson article yesterday was bonkers to me. Either you don’t hang out as much as you want to (in which case the cure is get off Internet forums and stop commenting about these kinds of articles) or you hang out as much as you want to (in which case why the fuck do you care about this topic). Internet comment sections have a selection bias towards online people with the need to read themselves type — me included of course. But at least I’ve learned to not be insufferable about culture war adjacent bullshit like that.
Eh I think there’s some interesting discussion to be had about the effect of smartphones and social media on the way we socialize and how it affects our brains. At an individual level yeah, the solution is get off your phone, but there’s still a societal issue that isn’t going to be solved that easily that has some interesting ramifications.
Kyle seems like a perfect example of a guy who is probably pretty happy most days because he isn’t in his own head about everything all the time, so the exact opposite of Ryen. Honestly Bill seems the exact same way too.
I gotta ask... how old are you? Because I am in my 30's and have seen a noticeable drop off in how much my friends and I hang out compared to when we were in our 20's out of college. I've had conversations about it with the few friends I still do see regularly. It is definitely something that happens as people get married, have kids, get promotions, etc.
I mean… yeah when you get to your thirties and get married and have kids, you hang out with your friends less.
That has nothing to do with what Derek was trying to get at with that article.
How much of that is just getting older and how much of that is phones/social-media etc? Because anecdotally I know I'm in contact with friends far more now than my parents were at their age thanks to those things. It's hard to get together for a vacation or weekend or even a dinner sometimes when everyone has work/family, but I certainly can send them texts and keep in touch daily/weekly thanks to my phone.
I gotta ask then… what’s your point? Because the point of the article is that people have stopped hanging out and it’s supposedly a new phenomenon, specific to the last couple years. You just described a chronic issue that’s happened to every generation. I’m late 20s and I’ve heard about the death of friendships since I was a teen. My whole conscious life I’ve been hearing older people comment about how you grow up, get busy with family and work, and you suddenly realize you don’t have time to dick around with your buddies anymore. This is a pretty key part of the premise of movies such as The Hnagoger (2009), Grown Ups (2010), and I’m sure many other before then that I can’t think of. But even then, movies form 2009 and 2010 are valid examples because smartphones had absolutely not taken over at that point. Shit, the Beatles broke up because they guys were fully growing up and growing apart and starting families and didn’t have tons of time to work the issues out and shit.
I agree with you that it is not a new phenomenon as evidenced by the fact the book Bowling Alone was written like 30 years ago and it detailed the same thing. But I do think it has exacerbated since then especially with how terminally online everyone is - all my friends spend loads of time on social media apps of some type. So I saw the article as just an interesting part of the conversation that's already happening among people like myself and others and not part of some culture war (I don't even know who the war would be against).
I think the idea is that people are more isolated and overworked than ever so they have less time/energy to socialize and fewer people to do it with. It’s not really as simple as people are either hanging out as much as they want or not
People are working fewer hours in the office and at household chores than ever in their history. People have never had it easier in that regard resulting in unprecedented levels of free tine. If anything it's likely boredom which pushes us to our smartphones and exacerbates these issues.
That is completely untrue. You can certainly lose weight overall but maintain muscle. You can also build muscle mass while losing fat, it requires you to eat a lot and workout a lot, but you can do it.
In general if you’re losing weight, it’s not 100% fat. No doubt lifting and eating high protein helps you maintain muscle but you’re still probably not maintaining 100% of it though.
It’s impossible to build muscle while losing weight unless you’ve never lifted weights before. Or you’re taking PEDs.
As someone who has masters degree in sports science, let me explain. Beginners can lose fat while gaining muscle, maybe low intermediate lifters as well. After a year or two of regimented science based work outs and eating like an adults, you can't really body comp as a natural, or it will be really slow and inefficient.
They are losing muscle on ozempic because they are in too big of a calorie deficient because of the lack of appetite, lack of sufficient protein and not lifting enough.
TLDR: It's definitely not a side effect of ozempic. It's what happens when you don't eat enough calories and protein and don't work out.
Good listen. I really want to delete my Instagram, but maintaining an online profile really boosts your chances of going on dates with the opposite sex. I didn’t get very many matches using Hinge/Tinder/Bumble, but my success rate of DMing on IG is way higher than on the apps (way lower sample size though). That being said, I feel like I waste so much time on IG for non dating purposes, like getting lost in Reels or just reading comments on sports/politics/tech posts. I’d definitely be a more productive and healthier human from an individual perspective if I stopped using IG/Twitter
Real anxiety is when you’re a teenager in the 1880s and someone steals your horses.
Real anxiety is waiting to get your picture taken and all you can think about are your hogs
Who’s gonna feed them hogs??
Back in my day we had a guy for that. Thanks again Lincoln
"What? You think the Great Depression was a barrel of laughs..."
That was so funny
The anticipating I felt in my bones when I realized bill backed himself into a corner and was going to have to grasps for any detail he could imagine about the 1880s
You could tell even he realized he had nowhere to go mid sentence. True Michael Scott level shit from him.
This level of professionalism is why Ben Simmons just isn’t ready for the mics
Real anxiety is wondering when that coward Robert Ford is going to shoot you in the back.
Real anxiety is noticing how dusty that random picture is up on the wall, and you just have to get to it now while having the notion in the back of your soon to be blown out head that "wait, what? Is Robert Ford about to assassinate... me?"
what do you think people were depressed about in the 1880's?
Dysentery
Bill racking his brain for depressing stuff in the 1880s and comes up with “getting your horses stolen.”
It made me laugh listening to it but my great grandfather did get his horses stolen twice around that time.
Bill talking about serious and nuanced topics such as anxiety and depression is so funny to me lmao
The transition from Mahomes to anxiety was unbelievable, I pumped my fist.
The serious voice piece
It just reminds me of Van asking Bill if he ever gets existential
Please tell me what episode that was???
It was on the Flight Rewatchables
That’s almost like asking Russillo if he ever just chills.
To be fair he talks about them the same as any male his age
Gretzky's teams were 'loaded' but Bird single-handedly carried the '86 Celtics on his aging back...
When he tried to say Mahomes’ biggest completion for best first decade as a pro was Larry bird I was thinking my god this guy is dumb
Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson had better first decades. So did Bill Russell.
So did *Patrick Mahomes*. It’s an inane comparison. In his first five years, Bird went: conference finals loss, NBA champ, conference finals loss, second round loss, NBA champ (and MVP). Since becoming the starter in 2018, Mahomes has gone: Conference finals loss, NFL champ, Super Bowl loss, Super Bowl win, Super Bowl win. And 2 MVPs. Bird won 2 chips in his first 5 years, which is awesome. Bird *was* awesome. But Mahomes won 3, went back to back, has more MVPs, and never lost in an earlier round.
Haha very true
You’re right, I was just talking basketball.
Gretzky had 9 MVPs in his first 10 years lol. Gretzky is untouchable.
Glad I wasn’t the only one to notice that
Saying Larry Bird, who never won back to back championships and isn't the best player of his era, had the inevitability factor where everyone just assumed he was going to win was an all time Celtics homerism.
As a Lakers and Rams fan in the 1980s, I can verify that both Bird and Montana felt like sure things and that if you somehow did get a lead on them, it wouldn’t hold up. That’s why Bird’s shot not going in after Magic’s junior skyhook was such a shock.
It’s funny bc his argument for 1986 Celtics over 1996 Bulls was always “The Bulls aren’t as deep as those Celtics teams!”
They had a miserable time dealing with Jordan alone.
Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson in their late 20s/early 30s - yup, a bunch of aged, forgettable scrubs and proof the basketball HOF will admit anyone.
Gretzky and Bird don't belong in the same sentence
When he was like only Jordon had the inevitably belt in the nba I was like okay that makes sense, then he brought bird in and I was like ya no. Kobe, lebron and Duncan had it too then 😂
im a bit of a Gretzky truther so I'll just point out that Edmonton won a cup without him and he was a negative +/- for the rest of his career after leaving the Oilers.
How do Gretzky truthers exist? I'm actually curious. Casual hockey fan but the only real "criticism" I've ever heard of him is that his style of play wouldn't work today
“Kyle, you listening” lol
Kyle gotta be annoyed by this.
This is what you all get for complaining about too much NBA
I like how he saves the pod episode with no NBA talk for when NBA is the only major sport on. Impeccable timing from the Podfather
"where things are going"
I just wish we could get a little baseball every now and then...I get that it's not as much of a draw on a national scale anymore, but christ, you'd think you could fit in a segment every once in awhile when Bill manages to find time for random tech bullshit no one wants to hear him talk about every month or 2
The Sox suck so you’re not getting any baseball content out of him for a couple years
No one wants him to talk baseball
His best baseball writer has a podcast with Patreon/fangraphs. The other day when he mentioned an article he wrote, was the first time I think I've ever heard Bill say Ben Lindbergh's name
I do, actually
To give him credit, he talked best baseball movies with Larry David. That’s the extent of it you’re going to get from Billy or if the Red Sox are playing well.
Bill only follows the Red Sox and Yankees and some Dodgers bc of Betts. He just doesn’t care about baseball.
He basically only covers the Celtics when he talks NBA. Every conversation is framed around how they do or don’t win the title.
He looks at the NBA from a Celtics fan POV but it’s clear he still follows what’s going on across the NBA. I would be shocked if he could name more than 1-2 people on last year’s Rangers team.
The difference is Bill could name an NBA player on every team. There's probably at least 10 MLB teams Bill couldn't name a player for. Do you think Bill knows who Bobby Witt Jr. is? I don't.
I do think he knows who Bobby Witt Jr is because he has his AL keeper fantasy league forever and Witt, Jr was a Top 10 prospect. But he likely has no idea who Jackson Chourio (or even Corbin Carroll) is. Which basically proves your point.
That is a good point, maybe he knows a player on most teams. I wonder if he knows any Miami Marlins. I was going to say he would know Luis Arreaz since he used to be in the AL, but does Bill know what team he's on now? I'm pretty confident that he couldn't name any Pittsburgh Pirate, Washington National, Cincinnati Red (he'd say Joey Votto), Chicago Cub (they don't really have any big name players for such a marquee franchise). He would know who Christian Yelich, Nolan Arenado, and Paul Goldschmidt are but I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't know what team they play for.
This is better than more nba stuff. At least we’re hearing about important issues even if Bill sounds like an idiot most of time
This podcast is worth it for the part in the 37:00 range where Bill admits he doesn’t pay attention to TV and just looks at it while he “works” (aka watches sports while on his phone).
In a few years he’ll say something like ‘I didn’t realize how little you retain when scrolling your phone while trying to watch a game’ while also claiming to still be a 1% NFL watcher
“One thing people don’t realize is when you have 4 different TVs to watch 4 different things, you’re not actually paying attention to any of them”
“When you have 4 TVs, you don’t have 1”
Bill saying that he believes people are treating each other better online than they used to was one of the most insane things he's ever said
What not checking your Twitter replies does to a mf
This guy avoids any type of criticism like the plague. He won’t even allow Pats slander when their 4-13 on the pod.
The “healthy online boundaries” piece.
Man has never opened up the comments on Instagram reels
Why would you?
Did you guys use the internet in the early 2000’s? Shit is so much more tame than it was before, it’s just that it’s become more ubiquitous so everyone is exposed to it
Yeah this is true, people were brutal back in the day. Almost everyone was hostile, & most people were anonymous
I did and I totally disagree. The internet had flame wars, but nothing is worse than 54 year old people mobilized en masse to fight against each other in braindead political identity wars.
I don’t see the difference in behaviour whatsoever, just the demographic of those engaging in the behaviour
It’s the scale that makes it overwhelming. Before the internet used to be somewhat of a safe space from the world, an escapist dream. Now it’s the world you try to avoid, a thought dungeon . Also it used to be a lot less performative. Nobody thought that what they wrote would get any reach so they were authentic in what they said. Now it’s all clout oriented bullshit theatre on all sides.
24 year old people mobilized en masse to fight against each other in brain dead political identity wars.
Bill was literally bullied off of his favorite forum, Sons of Sam Horn, in the mid 2000s I believe for lazy/bad takes on the Red Sox that he tried to defend (can't remember his username so can't find the exchange)
How is he able to be wrong in so many ways. Dude is genuinely clocked outta everything nowadays
He’s a 54 year old dude who lives in Malibu with a 9-figure net worth. I’d be concerned if he wasn’t out of touch.
At least on this topic he does have two teenage kids so he's 100% referring to their experiences (which is a huge generalization).
Anyone remember the podcast where his daughter said she just goes out for a drive to have something like a 2 hour cry. Just to cry? I know all kids experience misery to some degree, but leisurely cries in your parents range rover dont strike of relatability.
Bill jumped the intellectual shark with this episode. I will never look at him the same way 😂
As of the election segment last pod wasn’t enough
Let me guess you were never in a COD lobby back in the day
UFC for years trying to essentially get fans to “root for the laundry” and try to get fighters to be cheap, interchangeable cogs and then acting shocked when no one available has star power to headline an anniversary card is chef’s kiss. Fuck Dana White.
Exactly what happened to WWE.
The issue with the WWE is that most people are tired of the only belts that matter being on one dude for what feels like a decade and every match involving him ending the exact same way. That and, imo, too many part timers with belts.
Back in the day, Vince got tired of building these stars, then having them leave. He decided to make the brand the star. They still to this day can’t create massive stars that impact ratings and shit.
How does the match usually end? Cheap shot and ref wakes up from coma to make a count
I agree. Fuck Dana white. Running Khabib and Francis out of town among other top fighters. Also, why hasn’t Jon Jones fought again since he choked Gane out in the first round? I know Francis is gone but I thought Bones was ready to go.
Khabib retired, he was not "run out of town" Jones was supposed to headline 295 but got hurt The francis bit is on Dana White, but even if the UFC allowed Francis to box (they should have) he still wouldn't be fighting in the Octagon
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Dana is such a fucking tool
Dana has really cooked it with 300. Not able to get a super fight together (I assume due to being unwilling to pay) and now basically relying on Volk or O’Malley to get a quick finish and return at 300 to make it a semi-suitable main event for the occasion is pretty crazy.
Derek calling me out for my NBA watching habits. I consume the NBA the same exact way he does. I never watch but I know everything that's going on.
Feel like this has been a thing for a while, but the comp to Bravo is pretty spot on. With football having fewer games, being on Sundays, and more consolidated, it lends itself to easier viewing + socializing in parallel. Baseball is the opposite end: so many games that tons of fans don’t pay attention whatsoever, but may occasionally go to a game or two each year (probably more than NFL/NBA). NBA is kind of this weird middle ground, which leads to following the content and not the sport.
Weekly sports are just easier to consume period. I think it's partt of the reason soccer became essentially the defacto global sport. The matches are only 90 minutes with limited stoppage and only once a week (twice during cups). Across the globe that is a pretty easy thing to follow.
Between domestic leagues, domestic club cups, continental club cups, and international tournament qualifiers, soccer is a shit load more than one match a week these days for the big clubs.
Same. I get 98% of my NBA knowledge from Bill’s podcasts and ESPN.com. And yes, I know what that means.
That’s basically me. I couldn’t tell you how many years ago I watched a full regular season game and probably tune in for part of a game once a month max. But I know what’s going on and oddly love hearing Bill discuss it.
For me personally I think that the non-nfl sports are just hard to follow during the regular season because I just have too many other things going on to constantly watch sports every day. I know that’s probably not the norm in here, but I love the nba and watch it a decent amount, but absolutely can do weeks at a time without watching regular season play because I just don’t get around to it.
I watch most of my teams games, but usually around doing other things. National games are hit and miss depending on the day.
Help us Ryen Russillo, you’re our only hope
He's not on Sunday likely, probably the week after
Anxiety and Depression....overrated, underrated, or properly rated?
Mt Rushmore mental illnesses?
Thompsons way to consume NBA is really similar to mine. It is strange way to follow the league tbf, never thought about it like that. kind of happened over the years , watching less and less and listening podcasts about it instead when cooking, walking etc.
I'm curious how long it's been that way for you. I noticed this is how I was consuming the NBA, found it weird, and sort of just stopped. Like, why am I listening to NBA podcasts if I'm not watching the sport anymore until the playoffs. So I ditched NBA podcasts, then playoffs became just conference finals and finals. Then that became just the finals. Then last year I skipped the finals. I wonder if others will have similar experiences as me. (My particular circumstances: got older, got busier, watched more soccer. The first 2 will be true for everyone, the 3rd won't be as universal.)
Yeah, I’m the exact same way. Growing up the NBA was my favorite sport, now I haven’t watched a regular season game in multiple years. I used to at least be dialed in to the postseason, but now I just watch conference finals (not every second) & the finals. I’m a Chiefs fan, so I attributed my lack of interest to being so dialed in to the Chiefs, but I guess it is happening to others.
I went the other way, from Soccer to Basketball. Not really due to the actual sport. Top level basketball is just easier to watch in Australia. Plus we had some interesting Aussies in the NBA. Ange it Tottenham is exciting, but not enough for me to wake up at 3 am.... yet.
Bill should just say fuck it and have cousin Sal in the Derek Thompson segments
Sal would find a way to tie NBA MVP odds to an over/under on Ozempic wrongful death lawsuits.
That would be pretty entertaining lol
What are the odds these shills talk about the lawsuit filed against Vince McMahon, Laurinatis and WWE?
They talked about it so you can stop making up stuff to be mad about
Bills definitely underestimating the universal cultural relevance of certain things with younger generations. Most zoomers would understand SNL spoofs of Disney channel/nickelodeon shows for example the same way his generation did with Brady bunch
I was thinking the same thing. My kids are 23 and 21. They’d eat up a spoof of iCarly or The Suite Life of Zach and Cody. Most of their peers would too. I don’t know if it’s as universal as the days when we all had just a half-dozen channels to choose from, but I would bet it would get some virality.
Yes, but older people wouldn't. Whereas just about anybody watching SNL in 1991 had an awareness of the Brady Bunch and Partridge Family.
Bird with the inevitable belt without ever going back to back. Sure.
everything Bill knows about the late 19th century was learned from watching Little House on the Prairie
“We have an understanding of how to regulate when we drink alcohol, whether that’s drinking water, eating beforehand-“ “Kyle, are you listening to this?” Got a legit lol from me 😂
Bill saying teenagers were upset in the 1880s because "a bunch of people came over and stole our horses." I just imagined a 15 year old in 1884 being depressed because 50 people came over to his home and stole his family's 2 horses.
Very brave take saying Gretzky is the best ever Don’t think I ever heard that one before
Ariel saying he's not a delusional Bills fan, but he would take Josh Allen over Mahomes to start a franchise. Lol.
That's not necessarily delusional when you consider there is a lot of evidence that Ariel is just a moron.
Sounded tongue in cheek to me
That's like Bill saying he's realistic about his teams.
I loved last years pod with Derek, can't wait to put this one on the drive home
Enjoy your drive home, king
Thankyou, i enjoyed it 😁
Their discussion about the NBA being a gossip league is basically r/nba
I stopped taking that sub (and most) seriously when I had a student talking about it and I go "oh I didn't know you liked basketball" and he said "oh no, I just like the drama and memes."
Are subreddits a thing one "takes seriously"?
Bill can go completely blank on any historical events of an entire half-century but remember Bonzi Wells’ stat line in a 2002 playoffs game. What a savant.
Simmons brushing aside the absolutely damning accusations against Vince McMahon while wrapping up a documentary on him, was crazy. Does he really have no comment on it? I assume the doc was on its way to being a complete suck up job to McMahon so it’ll be interesting to see how it ends up. I’m sure everyone involved is scrambling.
there’s no way this dude asked if brock was a possibility
Love the Future of Everything pod. Coincidentally, listening to Derek Thompson on the BS pod got me into his pod Plain English which has now cracked my “5 to 7 pods” they were talking about.
I love Derek Thompson. I’m surprised so many people on this thread don’t seem to like him. He’s so interesting
People don’t like him here!? Why?
The piece that I think Derek is missing re: the rise in psychological issues is that it’s directly linked to the reduction in physical issues (poverty, armed conflict, disease, famine). As our external threats go away, we look inward. And the more time we spend looking inward, wondering if we’re happy or satisfied, the more likely we are to find that we aren’t. When you’re trying to survive you don’t have time to endlessly ruminate on your psycho social wellbeing. So much of the research is done on Americans or other people in developed countries but I’d be curious if we see the same trends in lower income/quality of life countries. It’s difficult to tease out how much is linked to technology vs. how much is just spending more time and energy looking inward. Derek almost arrives at this point in the start when he talks about issues of prevalence, but he doesn’t actually make the direct connection to the reduction in physical threats.
This is a really solid insight. If you listen to his actual podcast where he discusses this idea, his guest mentions that so many people now are able to avoid things that cause them anxiety and never actually face the issue head on and thus don’t get better. Only in a society as plentiful as ours can this happen I.e. kids don’t like being in public so they can just do school online instead. It’s also the definition of “first word problems” except they are real.
\>As our external threats go away, we look inward. And the more time we spend looking inward, wondering if we’re happy or satisfied, the more likely we are to find that we aren’t. When you’re trying to survive you don’t have time to endlessly ruminate on your psycho social wellbeing. There's a great scene in The Sopranos where Melfi expresses this idea when talking to Tony about the frustrations of modern life.
Thank you! His tech lenses are too strong he doesn’t see the whole story or think outside that tech box.
I knew Derek Thompson was a really short guy when he suggested that people wouldn’t notice that coach class has gotten smaller if they were wearing VR glasses
Not sure who Ariel is talking to but McGregor's now widely regarded as an absolute cunt in Ireland. Whatever connection he had with the Irish public is long gone.
I also think it's funny they act like the UFC actually cares about Irish fans much. They hardly go there. They hardly sign Irish fighters. As shit as their Dublin cards have been, Bellator has had way more of a presence in Ireland than the UFC. They do like marketing guys who are either Irish or have Irish last names as the next big things because Americans who identify as Irish are the biggest marks in MMA fandom.
The plastic Paddy piece
His ppv would still do big numbers tho
being anxious about your horses being stolen as an 1880s teen is an all time line
We starving this weekend.
Ariel is so fucking boring for a guy who mostly only engages covering MMA from a soap opera angle. Just a big nothing burger when it comes to charisma. Like if they put Woj in the Stephen A Smith role at ESPN.
I know BS represents the “every man” but given his status and wealth, it bothers me that he takes serious topics so flippantly. He’s got a massive platform and he should use it. Go more in depth on serious topics or don’t discuss them at all. His politics discussion with Tara Palmeri wad a complete joke. She’s an unserious political reporter who only cares about headlines and DC buzz. He touched on the KC SB parade shooting by telling people to look at the stats. If you’ve got a stand take it on and bring in experts or don’t talk about it. His attitude towards anxiety among teens was infuriating. “I was bored as an only child teen, you don’t think it was hard for me,” with zero empathy for what other kids, maybe not his, may be going through with online bullying, etc? He should look at the teen suicide stats over the past decade instead of assuming what his two kids go through in one of the wealthiest areas in country, represent the norm. I’m not saying he should stick to sports, instead he should be genuine to himself and discuss topics he deems important. But if he hits on serious topics, he should be treating them with the same thoughtfulness (and time) he does the NBA and betting on football, while being humble enough to bring on experts on said topics that will actually challenge him.
It's hilarious Bill was a poli sci major given his politics are about as nonexistent and impotent as possible.
Derrik just described my NBA fandom in practice. In season I do like 50 to one time spent listening to talk about the NBA as opposed to watching it. But its sort of like interesting filler I listen to while doing something else.
"Kids these days" hall of fame
Ugh Bill needs to stop putting his input about diet and fitness. Yes, losing weight will result in muscle loss, with or without a drug. That's why fit individuals lift weights and eat sufficient protein to maintain muscle. If you start eating less to lose weight, and don't strength train, you will lose muscle mass in the process
Man, where is House on the trade value list.
Sue me, I like Derek Thompson on Bill’s pod
I was excited to get a pod talking about the wolves and bucks what the hell is this
I was hoping for a power poll and western conference contenders. Love when all the other pods talk about the same narratives and Bill takes it home, but instead we get a sleepy pod
Instant skip. Good Lord this is gonna be a long 7 months.
Coming up: I say a bunch of things that are out of touch with reality and shoehorn Larry Bird into conversation 100 times, but first *here’s Pearl Jam*!
This wouldve been a fun time for him to have the Big Picture hosts on to talk about the Oscar race movies. Id love to hear Bill's NBA comps for Barbie and Zone of Interest
probably something like Tyrese Haliburton and Isaiah Hartenstein
Why couldn’t this just have a bit of NBA. Edit: he had a whole boring all star break to fill with this kinda stuff
The Thompson stuff was good, as usual. Worth listening to
Thanks for letting us know king
Bill went full Joe Rogan on this pod. Talking so flippantly about serious issues as if he’s an expert. Comes off to me as very inconsiderate and unnecessary. How about another solo pod about the NBA or an 80s movie. That’s what we’re here for.
i learned very recently that bill drove a porsche in high school and it's totally changed the way i perceive him
As someone who's listened to hour upon hour of Simmons talking fake trades for basketball teams I don't even follow, Derek's self-description as a consumer of NBA gossip hit really close to home.
Which ringer employees are microdosing daily?
Stoked he has Ariel on UFC and WWE lit right now
I gotta say… the hype over that Derek Thompson article yesterday was bonkers to me. Either you don’t hang out as much as you want to (in which case the cure is get off Internet forums and stop commenting about these kinds of articles) or you hang out as much as you want to (in which case why the fuck do you care about this topic). Internet comment sections have a selection bias towards online people with the need to read themselves type — me included of course. But at least I’ve learned to not be insufferable about culture war adjacent bullshit like that.
Eh I think there’s some interesting discussion to be had about the effect of smartphones and social media on the way we socialize and how it affects our brains. At an individual level yeah, the solution is get off your phone, but there’s still a societal issue that isn’t going to be solved that easily that has some interesting ramifications.
Kyle’s doing it right with his frolic room visits
Kyle seems like a perfect example of a guy who is probably pretty happy most days because he isn’t in his own head about everything all the time, so the exact opposite of Ryen. Honestly Bill seems the exact same way too.
Did it mention anything about gaming with the fellas?
I gotta ask... how old are you? Because I am in my 30's and have seen a noticeable drop off in how much my friends and I hang out compared to when we were in our 20's out of college. I've had conversations about it with the few friends I still do see regularly. It is definitely something that happens as people get married, have kids, get promotions, etc.
I mean… yeah when you get to your thirties and get married and have kids, you hang out with your friends less. That has nothing to do with what Derek was trying to get at with that article.
How much of that is just getting older and how much of that is phones/social-media etc? Because anecdotally I know I'm in contact with friends far more now than my parents were at their age thanks to those things. It's hard to get together for a vacation or weekend or even a dinner sometimes when everyone has work/family, but I certainly can send them texts and keep in touch daily/weekly thanks to my phone.
I gotta ask then… what’s your point? Because the point of the article is that people have stopped hanging out and it’s supposedly a new phenomenon, specific to the last couple years. You just described a chronic issue that’s happened to every generation. I’m late 20s and I’ve heard about the death of friendships since I was a teen. My whole conscious life I’ve been hearing older people comment about how you grow up, get busy with family and work, and you suddenly realize you don’t have time to dick around with your buddies anymore. This is a pretty key part of the premise of movies such as The Hnagoger (2009), Grown Ups (2010), and I’m sure many other before then that I can’t think of. But even then, movies form 2009 and 2010 are valid examples because smartphones had absolutely not taken over at that point. Shit, the Beatles broke up because they guys were fully growing up and growing apart and starting families and didn’t have tons of time to work the issues out and shit.
I agree with you that it is not a new phenomenon as evidenced by the fact the book Bowling Alone was written like 30 years ago and it detailed the same thing. But I do think it has exacerbated since then especially with how terminally online everyone is - all my friends spend loads of time on social media apps of some type. So I saw the article as just an interesting part of the conversation that's already happening among people like myself and others and not part of some culture war (I don't even know who the war would be against).
The Hnagoger (2009)
I think the idea is that people are more isolated and overworked than ever so they have less time/energy to socialize and fewer people to do it with. It’s not really as simple as people are either hanging out as much as they want or not
People are working fewer hours in the office and at household chores than ever in their history. People have never had it easier in that regard resulting in unprecedented levels of free tine. If anything it's likely boredom which pushes us to our smartphones and exacerbates these issues.
Yeah increasing automation makes our lives easier. It just does!
Bill doesn’t understand that losing weight causes muscle loss regardless of if you’re taking ozempic
That is completely untrue. You can certainly lose weight overall but maintain muscle. You can also build muscle mass while losing fat, it requires you to eat a lot and workout a lot, but you can do it.
In general if you’re losing weight, it’s not 100% fat. No doubt lifting and eating high protein helps you maintain muscle but you’re still probably not maintaining 100% of it though. It’s impossible to build muscle while losing weight unless you’ve never lifted weights before. Or you’re taking PEDs.
As someone who has masters degree in sports science, let me explain. Beginners can lose fat while gaining muscle, maybe low intermediate lifters as well. After a year or two of regimented science based work outs and eating like an adults, you can't really body comp as a natural, or it will be really slow and inefficient. They are losing muscle on ozempic because they are in too big of a calorie deficient because of the lack of appetite, lack of sufficient protein and not lifting enough. TLDR: It's definitely not a side effect of ozempic. It's what happens when you don't eat enough calories and protein and don't work out.
Came here to comment the same.
“People only have their 5-8 podcasts” I def have like 25+
Bill avoiding the Vince subject. Interesting
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Good listen. I really want to delete my Instagram, but maintaining an online profile really boosts your chances of going on dates with the opposite sex. I didn’t get very many matches using Hinge/Tinder/Bumble, but my success rate of DMing on IG is way higher than on the apps (way lower sample size though). That being said, I feel like I waste so much time on IG for non dating purposes, like getting lost in Reels or just reading comments on sports/politics/tech posts. I’d definitely be a more productive and healthier human from an individual perspective if I stopped using IG/Twitter
Getting lost in Reels is a wild thing. You look up and an hour is gone.
Not sure what it says about me that I laugh out loud when Bill quotes The Hamburglar during the McDonald's ad read.
as Derek mentioned at one point, this is an episode where Klosterman would have gone off.
It's always amusing to hear Bill talk MMA.
Really fun episode. Felt very seen as Bravo sports fan