Join journalist and documentary filmmaker David Farrier as he explores various rabbit holes, trying to make sense of the increasingly mad world around him. www....
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed recently, but discovering stuff on Netflix can be kind of hard. Sure — you’re presented with a bunch of categories like “Top 10” when you login, but outside of those initial lists, finding things that are compelling and worth your time seems close to impossible. The compelling stuff is there — it’s just buried. With that in mind, I feel very excited to be able to share two things from Giorgio Angelini, one of my favourite documentary makers. The first is something I’ve been wanting him to write forever — about what it was like to release his latest documentary on Netflix. Secondly — Giorgio’s let me publish his latest short here on Webworm. It strikes at the heart of what’s going on in America right now. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe
--------
9:03
Painting of NZ PM Chris Luxon Deemed “Risky for Buyers”
My friend loaded about a year’s worth of our text history into Google’s AI (privacy, what privacy?) — and instructed the AI to create a podcast about me based on those texts. That’s what today’s podcast is — just a couple of AI people talking to each other about me, based on nothing but a text thread between me and my friend. It’s truly awful and I told Aaron as much. On top of this Joshua Drummond shares his latest big of art around New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe
--------
12:13
A World Full of Potential Cult Leaders
A conversation with someone I find endlessly fascinating to talk to — one of my favourite authors, Jason Pargin. He’s perhaps most well known for writing John Dies At The End, or a host of other books that all have amazing titles including This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It, What the Hell Did I Just Read, and If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe. His latest comes out this week, and is called — in true Jason style — I Am Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom. I was reading his stuff way before I knew I was reading his stuff, later finding out he was the guy who started Pointless Waste of Time which ended up being Cracked.com. If you don’t know his writing, you might know him as “the geriatric TikTok personality” (his words, not mine) who stumbled upon Tickled recently, before moving onto Mister Organ. After watching that reaction video, I got in touch with him and fawned a little, before discovering that we have a lot of interests in common — from the chaos of social media and AI, to cults and religion, to all the stuff Tickled and Mister Organ touched on. I loved talking to Jason — and so here’s our conversation. It goes all over the place, and I hope you enjoy what he has to say. BOOK LINK: https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/starting-to-worry-about-9781250285959/ This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe
--------
42:15
Spaceman Barry
Today’s Webworm is a podcast episode which tells the story of Barry. More specifically, it’s a story about Barry as told by my neighbor and friend Noah. Noah lived with Barry for six years, first as a housemate and then as a friend. This all seems pretty normal, until you realise that Barry was about 50 years older than Noah. I guess you could say it’s more a story of friendship, but one based on a fairly big secret. As usual, I will be in the comments all week at www.webworm.co if you listen and have any questions. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe
--------
57:57
What Happened to David D'Amato's Millions?
I’ve been trying to have this conversation for about seven years now, but it was impossible due to ongoing litigation in various United States' courts, including the New York State Supreme Court.David D’Amato (the “big bad” in Tickled) died from a heart attack back on March 13, 2017. He left behind a legacy of tickling videos and online harassment, along with a couple of cats and tens of millions of dollars.I noticed that one of the key people named in D’Amato’s will (as you’ll know from the film, we had a trove of documents from D’Amato’s computer) was Robert Maher. So back then, out of sheer curiosity, I dropped him an email.To my surprise, he replied. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.webworm.co/subscribe
Join journalist and documentary filmmaker David Farrier as he explores various rabbit holes, trying to make sense of the increasingly mad world around him. www.webworm.co