USEFUL: with Ritesh Gupta

28:49So Kevin, so a lot of my team has been built through working, not working. Okay. So shout out to Justin and Adam. Very useful platform. Very useful platform for me. Those are friends of mine and like something I didn't really use. I was never really a freelancer. I've talked about this a little bit on the show, so I don't want to go too far into it. But like a lot of my team early days, not quite so much like once we, you know, not like employees like seven through 12 as much as like one through five, six, seven. Right. We're basically just like going on working, not working and putting job postings and finding people.

29:23And of course, like being a good designer and stuff like that is like table stakes to a certain extent. Right. You're looking at work and you're like, can this person do work at the level in which we're we need to do. Right. Whatever. I don't think I was able to do center quality work at that time. Which is a good example of why Kevin maybe wasn't – he was pretty fresh out of college. You were left of center? He was left of center. Okay, gotcha. But his profile had this incredible photo in which Kevin is wearing this denim shirt, and he's got really long hair. And it's sort of like – it's the rock, right?

29:59Is it a reference to the rock? A turtleneck with a gold chain with the long hair. I don't know. It's just a solid look. It was a really good look. And then his actual bio said, if you've got a problem, I'll solve it. Yo, I'll solve it. Yo, I'll solve it, which obviously Vanilla is referencing. And so I don't know what it was about it, but it was a certain amount of energy from that photo. and that sort of like I'm down to solve problems attitude that I was like yo this guy like I don't necessarily know like if it's if it's about like making design as much as like and and this was for an internship so it's a little less like table stakes of like oh this person's got to like build this brand identity system tomorrow because we have this pitch it was more like someone to like bring in and talk to and kevin famously walked in the door and like he was was that when okay sorry you were wearing denim on denim yeah that's when i had the denim yeah he had the black turtleneck in the photo and he just kind of walked in like he already worked at center he was just like kind of like walked in very sort of like comfortable and became just like part of the team in the first interview and i just was like oh this i really like this kid he's got a good vibe he's good energies feels ambitious he feels like obviously he's got a style and a personality that's his own and his some of the things that we were into were like we both are sports fans we're both are comedy fans we're both food fans and things like that and i was like cool like we have common interests and i think that's a good example of like as much as i'm looking for designers and portfolios and things i'm also looking for people and i felt like he was like a good human that like, and part of it was like thinking about center being making content quite literally and how we can make content together, whether it's a video show, podcast, et cetera.

31:49And that's really what. And that's how I set up my portfolio is like kind of just like the fun projects I did in school that like I was really pumped about and wanted to talk about. And like, I kind of was striking out in my early days of like job finding. Cause I don't know, I was like probably applying to the wrong places. And like, I was showing the work that I wanted to do, which maybe wasn't being received by some of the people that I was banging on the door for but it all worked out I guess the sort of two things takeaways there it's like attitude over skills like that's something that I was taught early on in my career it's like if you have a positive attitude and you're like I'm going to quite literally like solve problems or I'm down to like figure things out like that's so much more useful than like someone that's like I'm an expert give me a job and I'll make a perfect design for you and I'll hand it to you on a platter.

32:36Like I, I, I like people that are like, want to figure things out and just like have a good positive attitude. That's always been something that's like important to me. Cause like, again, like I'm not the best designer on the planet. They never claimed to be, I'm not like, you know, like LeBron James level skill. It's like, you got to work hard and like care deeply about what you do. And that to me is like what makes great designers and great, you know, people, employees, and then personality. It's like, I want personalities and like, yeah, maybe some you know studio down the block or some studio that just like wants like you know people that are just like keep a perfectly clean desk and build like perfect brand identity systems it's like that's great but and that's their sort of thing it's like i have always tried to be a designer that's like leads with personality humanity and like humor at times and that to me is sort of like what has led to any success that i've had is like i i say people like to work with center more as more for the people than they do for the work.

33:31The work has obviously got to deliver on their business needs and identity issues or challenges and things like that. But it's like, I want a team that's like, oh, I worked with Center and we had the best time. We enjoyed going to dinners together and moments that weren't just only about the work. And ironically, a lot of that comes from my experience working with Wydon Kennedy and working with Collins and working with other agencies at Coke that I felt like we had great relationships with. And so I wanted our team to be people with personalities and positive attitudes and that also make great things.

34:02Yeah. So that's what I look for. Obviously, you know, other things like, you know, taste and, you know, you know, other ability or, you know, intelligence and things like that, like are all part of like how I look at portfolios and things like that or what I'm looking for and for people. But it's it really starts with attitude and like personality. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And people, people like, again, it's just like human people. Like, without saying, like, people hire designers, of course, they got to make things. But I feel like so many people are so focused on being the world's greatest, most technical graphic designer, thinking that that's going to get them everything they want in their career.

34:41And I just don't think that's what it is. Yeah, I love that. And I think also something, well, first of all, I love that you're wearing a chain to pay homage to... Oh, to Kevin. To Kevin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to figure out my hair. I love that. And then secondly, I think the taste, I know you kind of breezed very quickly over that. Yeah. it's on the list that's a that's an important one i think i think i'm always curious like what if i if i'm hiring people like what are they watching reading what books are they like being exposed to what artists are they digging because that's the stuff that they might pull inspiration from for potential work and like that's really interesting to me i don't want to just see just your your book or your case studies or whatever i also want to see like what you're what you're up to yeah because if i'm just getting a bunch of people who are just on the standard branding blogs that's going to potentially create a different type of designer than if they're going out and looking at something different.

35:30I would say to design for people, you have to understand people. And to understand people, you need to understand culture and what people are into. And that's my excuse for watching hundreds of documentaries on Netflix. It's a business expense. Yeah. No, it's really important that I watch all 66 episodes of Love Island every season to really understand people and culture and dynamics. But I do think that's important. Kevin and I, We often talk about the bear or whatever fucking idol. Again, that's what this show is based on. It's like our interests outside of design. And I think those things do bleed into what we make.

36:04And it's funny, actually, this show has been interesting in that way where we'll talk about something on the show. We'll be like, oh, this brand did this. We're talking about this thing on the show and the sort of zaza-fication of this or da-da-da-da-da. And then all of a sudden, I'll bring it up in a meeting or it will come up in something that we're making, talking about Logan Paul's Prime. I don't know if I would... That type of thinking about brands and da-da-da-da-da then does kind of find its way into the work that we make. So all that to say, yeah, it's a huge part of what we look for. I dig it.

36:36It's taste and culture and being curious about those concepts. Totally. What are some of your big wins with the Useful School? I think one of the big wins has been when I did my first exit survey, right? Exit interview type of thing. Like, hey, how'd you feel at the end of this? You know, that type of thing. And most, if not all, and every single cohort has said that they feel more confident and less imposter syndrome, which I fucking love. That's really important because once that is kind of addressed and people are feeling really good and comfortable in their own intersectionality, the rest of the dominoes just fall.

37:07Right? So I think that's like a huge one. I think the other one is just like seeing people like get gigs, getting promoted at places, those types of things. Awesome. I think also like having our like sponsors and partners just being really stoked like just being part of this thing and just being part of the journey like I love talking to people who like want to help us out in any whatever way whether it's monetarily or you know sharing something on social or whatever it might be and that's really cool um I think also just the fact that I was able to be in a position at least at this point where I could just leave my past job and and just do it full-time I think that is huge like I think that was because I think I think there's like this common joke with with a lot of asian parents where it's like okay you can choose three career paths doctor engineer or lawyer right you could be anything in the world as long as one of those three basically right and so to be able to like show my parents and like my family and just all all of india that there's like a career that like i can do at least for a set number of months yeah right i've been doing this for a couple months like it feels fucking great so i think that's great.

38:13And so that allows me to spend more time one-on-one with people in the community. It allows me to try to grow it, make more classes, things like that. We have a really cool... I think about a third of our applicants have asked for financial wellness classes. So that's one of the reasons why we came out with that. And then our first week, every single cohort is on decolonization. And we created an entire curriculum based on people's feedback and fascination with the topic, blowing that out into an entire 12-week class. So if I wasn't able to get to this point, I wouldn't have been able to launch those two classes and anika hansen azora actually co-created those curriculum with me i'm super stoked about the guests and everything in that so yeah i think those were probably also wins too is like being able to like work with other professionals to like co-create curriculum because they're bringing a different perspective different set of interest and intersectionalities and viewpoints and lenses and that's exactly what what i want to be doing with with the curriculum that's freaking sweet dude it's dope yeah i i love my job as a as an extrovert but also somebody who needs time alone a little bit to like watch like a show every now and again by myself.

39:14It's a perfect kind of balance. I got to imagine it feels better too, right? Like I think there's a sort of soullessness or maybe so like sadness that comes with chasing like trophies and creating the world's best branding systems. Like where, what I've learned, you know, over, you know, my short time of being an entrepreneur, it's like, it does help or it does feel a lot different when you're helping other people, like giving back and like, like paying it forward. Yep. And that to me is ultimately what does lead to happiness in a lot of ways versus trying to compete to be the greatest designer.

39:49Because that is an endless journey that's never going to be fulfilling. Yeah. But paying it forward, helping other people on their journeys, like that ultimately does fill me up with happiness. And I imagine it does for you as well. Yeah. A hundred percent. I don't want to get in also this talks in my set of like, oh, it doesn't even feel like work anymore. like it's still work and we're doing the work we're putting in the work to like help the design industry like be like more representative of different um like intersectionalities but um it it feels like better work than than some of my previous gigs for sure um so and and i think what's also really great is like people are coming in to the school needing a specific help on something specific and then coming out of the school like having that like acknowledged and like learned and feeling better about it just keep going i think i think that's really dope and also another thing that I would say that's a big win is I just ran the numbers we have a good percentage of our past like students and graduates who are also like going to be taking our upcoming classes too which is like a huge co-science that's really that feels really good like our time is valuable like as we know so like I'm stoked that people are like hell yeah I'm in like I'm really interested in decolonization I'm really interested in financial wellness I want to come back I took the beginner product design class but now I want to take the advanced one I took the beginner branding class now I want to take the advanced one you know that that's really dope so at some point it'd be really great to see where we're creating like this kind of ecosystem where people are like going from junior to mid-weight to senior to design director to vp you know and then be making design decisions in the industry that's where i think a big i think a big win will happen hopefully yeah it's like three or five years we're already seeing some of the folks being like managers and director level types of things but like that's just owners but that would be dope i would love to see that that's sick that just speaks to like how useful the information you're trying is yeah yeah trying i think what's also important is that a lot of people are just like all right i want to find a community yeah and i want to also be inspired by people who like look and speak and act like me right and so like that's really dope to be like all right i'm bringing this individual inspiring them and now they have like another person like a lean on potentially be a mentor things like that it's like creating community and creating a community is really important right so yeah that's like another big win i would say awesome last thing on the useful school yeah what's up um because we do want to get to some topics here.

42:06On your website, one of the things I do love, right from the beginning, it says it started with one person saying, you better do this, which feels so personal and not exactly what other academic websites would say. Who is the person? And let's give them a little bit of a shout out. Absolutely. So let me set the context for this. I'm glad that you mentioned that because our About Us page is either our second or third most visited page on the entire website which is like super interesting because usually like people like try to hide the story and whatever but people are genuinely curious so i'm stoked about that his name's forrest young he used to be the chief creative officer of wolf allens now he's now he's at rivian the mentor of mine incredible the story yeah legend story was that i spoke at the brand new conference in 2019 in las vegas shout out to armin and yeah exactly i love this i love this You're just like the hype dude for each person I mentioned.

43:02Brand new. All right. So let me give you another kind of like ones to knock out of the park. Okay. I was talking about my branding with the Sagmarsh and Walsh team. Shout out to Jessica. Shout out to Stefan. And the presentation was basically like half of that time I used to talk about that. But then the other half was talking about the issues that POC and queer people are experiencing in the design industry. So after that, Forrest was like, this is all well and good. I love that you did this. Like I basically crunched numbers in Excel, like using AIGA and Google survey data and stuff like that, doing pivot tables and shit.

43:37Wow. And so I was like, all right, here's the statistics. But Forrest was like, all right, this is all well and good, but like you better do something about this. Like let's come up. I want to challenge you to come up with some sort of model to address this or whatever. D-Roy, my former boss from Hyperact also kind of was like, dude, I really dig this. Like what can you do about it? So I challenged myself over the course of like three months, basically to come up with some sort of concept. COVID hit. So my initial concept didn't end up working out. The idea was essentially to create a platform that was kind of like TikTok where you can swipe up and down to see videos, but you could also go left and right.

44:14So what you'd essentially do is you would, I would have like a hire a bunch of creators. They would create content around a specific number of topics. And then you'd be able to swipe up and down if you want to hear a different creator speak about the same topic. Wow, cool. But if you want to, but you go left and right, if you want to actually continue hearing about different topics from the same creator. Okay. So it's basically like this huge grid in the UI where like you just swipe up and down left and right and just like try to like vibe with that. So don't take that idea. Yeah. I might still build that.

44:43Yeah. It would be really, really dope to do, but that's essentially my, was my idea. But the issue with that was COVID was happening. Very few people have like really high quality cameras, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. ended up like pivoting to to a different to a different idea and which was ended up being useful school so i basically took a pretty long pause out of frustration in in 2020 took a pretty long pause in 2021 and then finally i was like thanksgiving 2021 fuck it i'm just gonna like do this thing right like the kind of like pressure makes diamonds kind of mentality where it's just like all right let me just even what would it even look like if after x number of hours i just like want something and i just work backwards like figure out like what was the most bare bones version of it.

45:23Turns out I didn't really create a bare bones version. It was hard for me to do that. Like I use all in the branding. I use all fonts from people of color, which took me like, I think I calculated like 200 hours just for fonts that felt really good. Like did all the, like some of the interaction design, all that kind of stuff. It was like a lot. I went, I try to go above and beyond, but, but for the community that I'm working with, which are designers, this stuff matters. Yeah, of course. And it expresses its personality, right? Yeah. Yeah. You can totally tell like that website's fucking sick.

45:48Yeah. You did an incredible job. I'm glad. I assume you designed it. And yeah, no, I agree with you. It definitely tells a story and feels, yeah, it feels modern. It feels hip. It feels like something that you are, yeah, building that feels different than academia. And I wanted the personality kind of expression of me at least a little bit. I was fortunate to find like a Webflow template that was able to like tweak like crazy. And then I didn't know Webflow super well at the time. So like I had one of my best friends help me with that. So shout out to Joe Velasquez and JP. cool um it takes a village well thank you for doing what you're doing obviously it's super important and like you know as we talked about a little bit before i've got one i've got one more i've got one more sorry sorry kevin's got before before we get to how to get involved yeah can you just give us a 30 second off the cuff pitch to the camera shark tank shark yeah pitch for the clip we gotta get we gotta get a nice little yeah yeah what up sharks clip you know i'm saying yeah Yeah, yeah.

46:45It's kind of like a little like, yeah, whatever you want. Whatever you want. I'm Kevin, Mr. Wonderful, and Kevin will be Rob Mark. I'll be Mark. Yes, we're ready. But I'll just pitch the camera. Okay, sick. Hi, Sharks. My name is Ritesh Gupta. I run Useful School, the world's first online design school for people of color. I'm here before you asking for$0 for 0 % exchange of equity. Let me just adjust. I'm out. He's out. Are you still in? I'm in. I'm still in. I might give you royalty. Yeah. Okay, great. And we've got five more classes coming up in the fall. Super stoked about it. We've got decolonization, financial wellness, advanced branding, advanced product design, and beginner product design.

47:30We already have a community of around 100 students who have already gone through our program. All people of color. All of our guests are people of color. We're building a community. We're building the next generation version of a school. Sick. Sick. Excellent. Boom. Boom. Something like that. Usefulschool.com? Usefulschool.com. get involved if you want to be an applicant slash potential student just go to useful school.com slash apply check out all our classes and then if you want to be a speaker a sponsor or get involved in some sort of other way just hit me up rertisha at useful school.com i like also secret guests oh yeah that felt very like exciting to me okay i want to see like ed sheeran break through the wall just like kool-aid vibes yeah yeah ed sheeran with all his tattoos um who's that it's Zipengzu and he just like comes in and just dance like it's unexpected there yeah so funny fun thing about that is we've kept our secret guests like pretty secret literally we announced them like the day of or a couple days beforehand for the students we're changing that up a little bit this like upcoming time we're to like like kind of reveal people kind of like a music festival ahead of time but yeah it's been dope I don't know I felt like that's kind of something like I don't know just something that wouldn't happen at a regular school like you wouldn't have someone just like open up the door and be like who is it totally absolutely that's exactly right i mean i'm kind of fun i'm trying to use like different colors fonts like like different like types of like things to like make this thing feels like super different from another school yeah for sure yeah we all know school is uh you know is needs a redesign like quite literally yes and i feel like uh yeah you got to keep it fun keep it interesting keep it and useful i love it look at that yeah keep it useful keep it useful also shout out to both of y 'all for reading the brand manual like the verbal guidelines for useful school ahead of you all are just dropping the word useful and everything.

49:08I love it. But it's true. I mean, a lot of school is not useful. So it makes a lot of sense to me as someone who understands concept very literally. Dig it. We are going to move on to a couple topics. Yeah, all of our topics this week involve food. I can't tell if Kevin was just hungry when putting this together. I'm always hungry. My hustle grind set. Yeah, yeah. The rising grind of every day. Never satiated. No, can't stop. Can't feed me. keep feeding me please uh we're gonna talk about fast food real quickly before we get there we're not gonna talk about mcdonald's but in our sort of uh you know sort of discovery and background check uh you you you found your way into a mcdonald's commercial ritesh uh talk to us about like how you became a uh paid actor question mark uh for mcdonald's i think they mentioned i was like a featured extra oh featured extra i guess which i guess basically means you still don't have any lines okay like verbal lines you don't like make any sounds essentially but you are featured on the camera more often than you were definitely emoting i was definitely emoting yeah okay we watched it i loved it thank you yeah are you on strike with all the actors union uh happening if i wasn't if i was in sag yeah which i would i was actually going to potentially be casting in a honda commercial and if i joined that then the rules would have been i had to have joined sag but i'm i'm not a sag okay no we you're just one we stand we stand in solidarity we stand absolutely absolutely so essentially i was at ucla i was in the marching band i was in the drum line specifically i played this this instrument called the tenor drums aka sextets six drums hell yeah heavy i was the section leader at the time and i don't okay first of all i want to say ucla's colors are blue and gold yeah right gold alex sorry yeah let's rewind that blue and gold blue and gold i don't know why as mcdonald's they didn't go to usc because their colors are mcdonald's colors like the trojans they're the kind of like that crimson red and like kind of like a gold as well sure so i don't know maybe they did and they like refused and then they just gave us the commercial leftovers i don't know but essentially what happened was they came over after a practice and it was like uh the copywriter slash creator director like the director and some sort of casting agent they just basically set up a table and they just basically asked us one by one to like grab a chicken mcnugget from a fake chicken mcnugget from a fake bag and then put it into our mouth and just smile as we're eating it so i did that oh yeah and wait so it was a fake mcnugget it was a it was they just gave yeah and like these casting things they barely want to what was it have any budget no no no it was It's not for the commercial.

51:53No, it was straight up. The casting was just straight up. It was just casting. It was just imaginary. Oh, okay. Just get an imaginary. Okay. Shout out to Nugs. Shout out to Simulate. Yeah, yeah. Simulate. At this time, yeah. Yeah. So an imaginary nug and you had to eat it. Had to eat it and smile and love it, right? So I was like, oh, okay, cool. Got it. I could do this. I was very curious because at the time, I wasn't in the branding world, the advertising world. I wasn't in any of that stuff. So I was really curious. So I went up to the person named Courtney. shout out to Courtney Pulver who like created the commercial I believe and I just like asked her a bunch of questions like what is this what is all this and all that kind of stuff and like we ended up just like talking I wouldn't say hitting it off like it wasn't like any sort of romantic thing but it was just like hey like this is really cool like thank you for like telling me about this world I never even knew about it so um so yeah eventually got got cast and what was interesting is that we did this it was during finals week we had a we had a uh like basically film this fucking commercial and the reason i'm using the f word is you'll you'll know in the second i was stoked up to that point but it was essentially a really cold day i was really stressed because i didn't study for finals at that point and we had to go from like 8 8 p.m until like 4 a.m or something stupid in terms of filming and it's really cold it's a rare cold like windy day in LA.

53:13What's that? What's the temperature on a cold LA? Yeah, like 65. No. It was colder than that. It was annoying. It was really cold and they had already fed us a full delicious dinner beforehand. McDonald's dinner? No, it was a regular dinner. They had these custom fucking trucks come and make whatever you want type of thing. So I didn't think ahead and I was like, oh yeah, great. I'll just basically play drums. I won't even be touching and at the time I didn't even know what I was going to be doing. anyways i had this huge fucking dinner and then take after take after take after take like i'm just like putting chicken mcnuggets in my mouth eating them this this like kind of older dude came with like this kind of like chum bucket for me to spit inside every after every single take i so i should also mention that i'm vegetarian and i was vegetarian at the time and i still am and i still and i will be and so it was like really hard to like get that shit down so like I just ate it for the take and I immediately spit it out into this bucket.

54:13But I feel like the director didn't really know exactly what angles he wanted or something. We just had to do all these different angles and all this type of shit. It was really difficult. And also, they basically created, and this is a very common thing, they basically took, they just hired, I think, maybe 40 or 50 of us to be the marching band. But they wanted to make it look like a huge marching band. So what they did was they shot it in such a way where they actually duplicated all 40 or 50 of us four different times. to make this big circle. And the circle looks like it's 200 people, but it's actually only 40 or 50.

54:44So they had to shoot in a very specific way multiple times to get that effect happening. And this is where your love of advertising and movie making and creativity starts? Yeah, this is where the grandeur started. Do you play the drums? Yeah, I play the drums. Still do. I'm working on a live dance music project right now, which I'm really stoked about. You really are a renaissance man. I'm trying. I'm trying. And I would say like the McDonald's commercial opened me up to like know what the hell advertising was. And then I just like Googled all the places. Then shortly after that, I, you know, I like got linked up with Biden and Kennedy and then poof.

55:18Yeah. So I read that you were like a social media strategist and you started 2012. So you must have been kind of on the cutting edge of that entire industry. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, that was wild time. So essentially what was happening is Facebook had basically just launched their like ads platform. that's crazy that that was like the first social media marketing yeah it was facebook putting like ads yeah so i was like running with like a very small team like eight figure budget into facebook like doing like all this i would basically do like data science like data analytics and like optimization so i would launch like thousands of ads with all these different creative combinations and then see what like hits and stuck with the audiences then i would pause everything else and or just keep optimizing and do that over the course of days and days and days um i ended up working like really hard at widen and it was it was tough but um it was it was good it was a good time i love new york or portland that was in new york got it um widen has had or at least at the time had like a a really profitable like social paid social paid search digital media arm like obviously widen is known for like great creative but they also had like a really sick arm of media So that's the department I was in.

56:31Eventually I transitioned to like some other things. Like I helped out with like a few different departments and I helped them win some sort of new business, which I don't think they'll ever admit, but I helped them do some stuff there and it was good. It was a good time. It was a good time while it lasted. Cool. And then I left. So what's your relationship with fast food these days? I just had on a road trip to D.C. yes best time best time to have an incredible egg and cheese from shake shack really their egg and cheese from shake shack is phenomenal actually i've i've had one of them yeah really good really back that up so i think that's like a big one if i'm ever in la or san diego like anywhere in california or like west of essentially texas i'll try to go to go to in and out absolutely um that's that's a huge one do they got good veggie burgers too yeah well they call it a grow cheese so they call it a grilled cheese but it's a scent it's very confusing basically what they do is they just remove the meat patty and then they just call it a grilled cheese the trick is to get it extra toasted buns and to get also chopped chilies on top and both uh both types of onions yeah they've got grilled and fresh love chopped chilies speaking of grilled cheese yeah boom saw that segue coming layup right yeah fucking we're cramming that shit Yeah, so Burger King, Thailand, has a burger that is sweeping the world, and that is because it is a cheeseburger minus the burger, even though they're calling it a real cheeseburger.

58:01And it's causing quite a stir because it's a burger with no meat and a draw-dropping amount of cheese. Draw-dropping. Well, Alex, the cheese is the burger. That's why it's called cheeseburger, the real cheeseburger. So the burger looks like a cheeseburger, except for there's no meat to be seen. As Kevin said, it is all cheese and has as many as 20 slices of American cheese. As a vegetarian, someone that I imagine eats a lot of grilled cheeses, is this something that you would ever potentially try? I think it's an interesting social experiment to have this launched in the U.S. just widely. I think it would be what would happen.

58:38It needs to come here now, yeah. I think, well, first of all, I want to give a shout out to the JKR team for the branding for Burger King just in general. It still looks great. It still looks great. And I would love to see how this is specifically branded with the new Burger King branding. It looks phenomenal. It looks great. Yeah. It looks so good. I've looked at some marketing sort of stuff related to this. And yeah, no, that brand system looks really great. But what I mean is, have you seen the real cheeseburger be branded in the new branding? Yeah. You have seen it? Okay, let's see. I think it's in the...

59:08Yes. I believe I saw an ad or two that was just like, yeah, some sort of billboard. And it looks amazing? And it looks great. Yeah. Of course. The brand system is really great. Yeah. Great. I'll show it to you. I can pull it up. Oh, okay. Cool. So, shut up. I think... You have to go on like some Facebook Thailand. Ah, yes. I see it here. I see it now. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Even with the, you know, wacky idea of a 20 slices of cheese sandwich, the branding still holds up. Yeah. So, good branding. It doesn't look insane. what I would do is I would kind of do what Kevin from the office did did you hear about this concept of like a second burger a second burger no essentially what he does is he gets how many ingredients are like in a McDonald's burger like let's say 10 tangible ingredients yeah no not the intangibles not the love and all that kind of stuff I was talking about like the sodium benzenite all that shit no the tangible ones 8 or 10 Yeah.

1:00:07Okay, so we'll call it that. What he essentially does is he gets a burger, and each time he gets a burger, he removes a different ingredient from it. Okay. So by the time he's done with essentially 10 burgers, he can use all those ingredients that he pulled out to create like an 11th burger. Whoa. So what I would do here is I would order one of these things. Yeah. And I would take out each bit of the cheese so I can make 20 different burgers. Okay. A hack. A hack. Menu hack. don't don't buy cheese from the deli buy one of these and you know that shit's not gonna be melted either no it's definitely not i think it's gonna be super easy like craft singles or whatever just like for sure just i'm surprised it's even out of the plastic yeah i i'm i'm surprised that i mean obviously for like the photography they need to have like the spiral cheese yeah that shit's gonna be just a hunk of cheese like in reality like they're not gonna be offset or anything it's gonna be 20 slices thick it's gonna be a it's gonna be a square so i i I would unhinge my jaw to try this.

1:01:07Yeah. For sure. I would try it. I think you'd have to. Yeah, I would definitely try it. I think what this also reminds me of, and the reason that I'm not above this, trying this, is when I went to Carnegie Deli, this was maybe 10 or 15 years ago, I asked for a cheese sandwich. And they said, are you sure? No one orders that. Like, they get the pastrami, the Reuben, whatever. Sure. And what they did, I shit you not, they had a slice of rye, like 30 slices of cheese, and then another slice of bread. You heard it here first. Carnegie Deli did it first. With a side of mustard. Right? Yum. So what I essentially did, I was with my buddy Evan at the time.

1:01:48I essentially just like chopped his, of course, unhinged my jaw to try at least one bite of it because I have to do it for the story. And then I removed most of it and I just like condensed it down and I ate that. That's basically what would essentially happen to me. Took the cheese home for later. Yeah. I would essentially have at least one bite of this thing. Yeah. And then I would do some sort of food hack to make sure that I'm not wasting all this cheese. I think one bite is the responsible amount that you could probably have. I think if you housed one of these, it would just mess up your entire stomach.

1:02:15It's an insane amount of cheese. Yeah. What I do respect about it is it's obviously like stunt food. Sure. It's obviously like - But they said it's not a joke. It's not a joke, but it's TikTok inspired, right? The CMO said it's not a joke. It's not a joke. Oh, fuck. He did say that. So therefore, I must listen. No, it is a joke. But what I respect about it is they've put just the right amount of cheese that, to a certain extent, you could take one or two bites. I don't think you would finish the whole thing. But it looks insane, but it doesn't look completely – it looks like maybe someone could actually eat it and enjoy it.

1:02:54not me per se but i don't think it's like i don't know 20 slices is too many it's too many slices but i think you could probably to you know it's it's not a hundred slices or it's not a burger that just looks like it's completely for show and you can't eat it i do think you could eat this but it takes a sick a sick individual and i think yeah i think they should bring this to america i think this should show up um yeah i don't know why international fast food gets all the fun and by By the way, just so I know I'm reading this right, the cost, they had it launched on a Sunday at a reduced price of essentially$3.10.

1:03:32But the regular price is$10. Oh, my God. That's not okay. $10 US dollars. Yeah. $10 US dollars and$90. That's a lot of cheese. That's$11. That's$11. I'm rounding up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And fast food, that's a million dollars. You could get at least a full meal for the price of just this one 20-sliced cheese sandwich. I don't know. I would try for the stunt of it or the gimmick. But I think, yeah, I mean, I think this is, again, TikTok menu hacks, which I do think is a thing where they're like, give me a cheeseburger minus the burger with 20 extra slices of cheese. there's like a content series now where it's like going, asking the deli for extra pickles every day until I don't like, and it's just like, they just stack up and people love that.

1:04:25So I like it. I like it. I think it's like, you know, it's tasteful and I think they should bring it to America. Yeah, let's go. We're going to, we'll try it on the pod. Okay. I wouldn't say that I would describe this in one word is tasteful, but yeah, for me, I'm seeing this as a, yeah. Elegant. Yeah. Ah, yes, even better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this is a beautiful piece of creative. It's an accomplishment, I think. It's just a shame that, again, Thailand beat America. I mean, it's our cheese. It's an American cheese. One of our great exports, right? So how did we not bring this out here? Right, right.

1:05:04And I do agree with you. It is an accomplishment. Somebody did accomplish this. Something. Yeah. I agree. Also, I like how they've melted some of the cheese, but not all of the cheese. So it doesn't feel just like a sort of a totally just dry cheese sandwich. It does have some meltiness to it. Yeah. Food photography. Shout out. Yeah. Yeah. Even the regular image from CNN here. Shout out to CNN on the beat, of course, covering all the stories that the world needs to know about. The real photo of it actually has a little bit of that meltiness and a little bit of that sort of regular. You get those cheese edges, and really, it's all coming together.

1:05:42Yeah. Shout out to Brand Guidelines. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. Speaking of Burger King, again, in Brazil, we're just traveling around the world looking at what fast food places are doing this week. Barbie. This movie's finally fucking coming out this week. God damn it. I don't even think I want to see it anymore. I think I've been promoted and marketed to death. I put on my YouTube yesterday or whatever, and it was just like, Margot Robbie, a million fucking interviews, Issa Rae. You know how every magazine has their content series where it's like 10 things I can't live without or just like Vanity Fair goes through their most iconic looks.

1:06:21It's like every fucking channel has a Barbie fucking feature. And they've done a lot of brand promos. We talked a little bit about this. Brand collabs and stuff like that. This is actually one that's kind of funny to me, I guess. But yeah, Barbie. This may be the... Yeah, one of the last ones. But Barbie lands coming to Burger King with a whole bunch of Barbie pink menu items, including a hot pink sauce, which is another TikTok thing. Yeah. I don't think it's the actual pink sauce. I think they just ripped them off. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a combo meal. It involves a shake, which looks just like a strawberry shake with a donut on top.

1:07:06Ken fries for no other reason just other than Ken needed something. Yeah, nice sidekick roll, they said. Yeah, and a burger with pink sauce, and it all comes in pink wrapper with pink type, and everything kind of has a sparkle to it with Barbie branding all over the box. Yeah, they said they're invoking the trend of tween girl summer. I wasn't familiar. Which? Great trend. Ritesh, how do you feel about Barbie? How do you feel about Barbie mania? Where do you stand? I'm going to be honest with you. I've been so distracted by thinking about what the next Burger King location is going to be that we're going to have to talk about.

1:07:41I've been so enamored by that. I thought you were going to say what the next Barbie-like movie is. Because I've been thinking about that. I'm like, what other things from my childhood that should they hire an actual creative director to sort of pimp out and modernize? Because I think the success of Barbie, which hasn't even come out yet, is so massive. I think every movie studio in America is like, how do we take He-Man? How do we take Ninja Turtles? They've already done it. No, I know, but to do it in a way that actually is new and interesting, like what Greta Gerwig is doing with Barbie. I would love to talk about that.

1:08:19Yeah. I think it would be funny to see Tamagotchi, or Digimon or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think what I'm noticing is just this huge trend towards nostalgia. Of course. We see it in a lot of sneaker brands. We're seeing it with Amelie Andor. We're seeing it a lot with Noah, a bunch of brands that are doing stuff in the street wear space. and I think we'll continue seeing it in the like the pop culture space for sure um but yeah old days the yeah the good old days I think yeah I think before everything went to shit life sucked yeah I think that nostalgia I'm seeing it a lot happen with within techno and house where a lot of people are making productions that like purposely sound like oh yeah like back in the day like one of my favorite tracks right now is by Peggy Goo okay and she wrote she wrote a song called na na na and the the the actual like aesthetic of the video is like this old like kind of karaoke like those lyric videos that you see like when you go to karaoke bars and it's like super old school and also like the the samples and everything that you're using are like very like of the 90s like techno house trance types of vibes which is like really interesting and fun so So, yeah, that's my comment on the Burger King Brazil Barbie.

1:09:30I like it. Also, the number one album, I don't know if it's still, but Lil Uzi Vert, the pink tape, has a million samples. It's like, you know, Eiffel 65. It has like, you know, punk rock samples. It's got like all sorts of, yeah, it's just all nostalgia. And it's interesting. It's like, it's very 2023 to just like go back and look at just like everything and anything that anyone liked in the past can now be just like completely brought back and just reinterpreted in any which way. Yeah. And that's, that's just like, that's art, baby. That's art. And people, and you know what? It, it works, you know?

1:10:06It's like, yeah, I really love this like Chief Keef song from like 10 years ago. Let's just, you know, do it again. Differently, but in a different style, a different, you know? And I think Barbie is like, again, a huge part of people's childhood. And I think it's just how you reinterpret it. Like, I think if you just sample it and do it one for one and it's lazy and it's, you know, it's not reimagined in any which way. It's like, okay, that's, we don't really need that. But what Barbie has done clearly is like, do it in an interesting reimagination and reinterpretation in an artful creative way.

1:10:43I think that's what like people are resonating with. I think a couple things. I know you'd posted on the front and center Instagram of the RGA tweet of, at this point, there's no way the Barbie movie can live up to the case study. Yeah, of course. Right? And I think that's really interesting. And I'm generally hoping that this movie is good because it's featuring a lot of people of color. At least I hope that's what I've read. So I'm pretty stoked about that. So I hope it doesn't bomb. It's going to be hard. I think it's going to be successful no matter what happens here. I think the other thing I'll say is for these, especially for movies, I like to go to like Nighthawk Cinema or like another place where like I know the food and drinks are going to be amazing.

1:11:18So even if the movie isn't like super amazing, like at least I know I'm going to get a good meal out of it. Right. So like I just hope that like the movie is just like really amazing and I don't need to use like food as like a crutch. Yeah. I've heard great things about the martini at the Alamo Draft House. Okay. I've heard top tier martini. Oh, interesting. Just from friends. Wow. Dope. I will say I saw a movie last week and I did go to like a, just a regular AMC, but it had the sort of cushion sort of recliner seats. And I will say it's really important that movie theater step up their seating and their food as, you know, literally like watching things from home.

1:11:53Everyone talks about this, but like you can watch a movie at home and it's not that different from a theater. So it's like, if you're going to go to a theater, it's like, come on, we got it. We got to get better than these like shitty ass seats that like, you know, airline seats. Yeah. The airline seats, like, come on, we got, we got to step up our game. and I think Alamo and sort of what's the other one? Nighthawk. Nighthawk. Like, come on. Like, that's a good experience. That's a good, you know, a good time. And for Barbie, I feel like it's going to be a raucous, like, good energy movie. And I feel like that's something, maybe that's a good place to see it.

1:12:25It's like some people that have had a couple cocktails, you know, maybe a couple drinks inside and like, you know, are looking, you know, it's a good, it's an upbeat, fun time. I'm definitely going to pregame the Barbie movie. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Pregame with Burger King. um barbie uh barbie land milkshake okay real quickly uh chipotle moving around um chipotle is the latest story to bring in uh automated uh robots to take uh some of the hard work out of cutting coring and peeling avocados specifically uh to make the chain's famous guacamole they've created a robot called the AutoCado, which essentially will, yeah, kind of looks like a refrigerator.

1:13:07And yeah, it's sort of AAA joins the ranks of many fast food companies. We talked about Sweet Grain kind of automating some of their services using robots to trim costs and not remove employees. That's something that's very important to note here. Yeah, it's a collaborative robot. It's a collaborative robot, not to be confused with a robot that's taking your job. Yeah, don't be scared of it. Yeah, don't be scared. It's just a robot that wants to collab. Yeah, actually, I have some collaborative AI that I've been using to write recently. It's not taking anybody's job. It's just helping me, and I'm collaborating with the AI.

1:13:43I like this spin of AI and robots for the future. They're not here to take your jobs. They're just here to collab. Yeah, we're working together. Yeah, we're just working together. Ritesh, how do you feel? Okay, two things on this one. Yeah. I think number one is I'm really curious to see if the savings are going to be passed on the consumers. They're not. I doubt they won't. They're not. I doubt they won't. Getting guac at Chipotle is expensive, right? Yeah. So this is purely a cost-cutting measure, right? Which is a bummer. It's not a cost-cutting. Let's call it a profit-boosting. Profit-boosting.

1:14:17Got it. But the other thing that I think is interesting is that they're also testing something called Chippy, a robotic kitchen assistant that uses AI to make tortilla chips to dip in a avocado's guacamole. I think what's interesting about that is Chippy just reminds me of Clippy from MS Word. And I hope it gets a whole personality. I hope it becomes a meme. I hope it becomes a huge TikTok. Because I think these different robots, brands are going to try to humanize them. Yeah. I'm cool with robots as long as they have cute names. Yes, 100%. That's my completely – my main takeaway for you. Autocado, great name for a robot that automatically makes avocados.

1:14:57Chippy, a robot that makes chips. Harmless. We need to make our robots cute. They need to be friendly. Yeah. And we can't have them sort of just be like faceless machines. We need personality. Whoever is naming these things, A+. Yeah. Because then we can welcome these robots into our lives as long as they have cute, funny names. What's interesting about the story is you all talked about not laying off employees or whatever because of this. And I think that's interesting because the guacamole is really hard to make. They're going to be using that to do certain parts of the process. But then humans are going to come in and help.

1:15:30But what's interesting is they're also working on dishwashing robots. And I'm wondering, okay, is there going to be a collaborative dishwasher? Are you going to have a human and a robot collaborating on dishwashing? I wonder if their promise of not laying off employees or whatever due to AI is going to actually uphold. We're dipping our toe into full automation. Yeah. But as long as it's cute and funny, it's not scary and bad. I will say one thing I did really like about the Sweetgreen one was that it was automated, but it was visual. So I could kind of watch it happening like a K &D machine or sort of had clear tubes.

1:16:05My one issue with the autocado is like, yeah, I can't see the automation happening. I want to be able to watch it and see how fun it is. Guacamole is really important in that it can't just be smashed. Like, I think I need, you know, bits of avocado in there. Well, the humans are still smashing it, Alex. Oh, they're still smashing it. So what do they do? They just like line up all the - It just peels, it like removes the skin in the pit. So I'm still have to smash? Yeah, absolutely. That's important though, because I don't trust the robots to really kind of understand the line between sort of a fully creamy like uh smashed and sort of that in-between place where it's like it's it's broken up avocados but still has yeah you need some irregularity yeah i think i think what i'm interested in and just just a general trend is like how can we have ai still work with us in a way that like feels really good and not lose like human jobs yeah and and put people out of work right and so i think what's what would be really interesting to hear from these different restaurants and other places is like all right here's how we're using ai and here's what we're doing with the people who like that ai is doing some of their tasks for like here's what we're how we're optimizing their time yeah okay is it like best to cut better customer service is it better like what is that thing that like improves everybody's life rather than just like profit boosting scary times let's move to the less scary stuff logan paul is responding to a story we talked about last time, the Food and Drug Administration was kind of looking into Prime's business.

1:17:38And there was a lot of social media conversation about what we were talking about was more about Chuck Schumer, like kind of raising the concern that the energy drink sold by Prime isn't clear enough about how much energy or how much caffeine it has for kids. And then another story that was sort of out there was about how it was being recalled in Canada. And I think Logan Paul is very keen to social media and how to like change a narrative. And obviously, that's where his brand is born. so he basically just went on tiktok and was like yo all this shit is fake um you know all these companies are talking about uh you know sort of how prime is being recalled in canada but actually we don't even uh sell in canada there's no distribution there so how these companies are just using it for clicks and anytime they talk about prime anytime they talk about uh the paul brothers they know they're gonna get traffic and therefore all of it is bogus yeah canada is just trying to ride the clout coattails of Logan Paul.

1:18:42That's right. I mean, he is right about complex and a lot of these social media-driven news sources, and I'll put that in quotes, where it's like, they just need shit every single day to talk about. And to a certain extent, they know that if they post something about LeBron, they post something about Paul's, they post something about TikTok trending topics that people are are just going to click and comment. And unfortunately, he is right that a lot of this, it doesn't matter if those news stories are 100 % true or fact-checked, they can pretty much just say anything and misinformation is really, yeah, it's a problem on social media.

1:19:27And he is right. I don't think it totally changes the fact that there is too much caffeine for kids. Yeah. I mean, Logan Paul making himself the victim is kind of wild. Yeah, it's kind of hilarious. It's kind of a wild move on his part. But he's not wrong about what is happening here in some regards. If you put Prime, everyone wants to talk about Prime. And in some ways, it is helping him create mystique or more story around this brand, which, again, doesn't need any more fanfare or awareness. It seems like it's everywhere. Yeah, I think a couple of things. I've been following Logan Paul. I've been following the Paul brothers for a while.

1:20:06It's hard to avoid them, right? I think a couple of things for people who might not know about, specifically Logan Paul, he's done some really problematic stuff in the past, right? And if you're interested in that, you can easily find that on his Wikipedia. Anywhere. I think what's interesting about his response and what I wish he had said, and I probably would have respected him just a little bit for, is if he had said, hey, this is an ongoing investigation. We're trying to figure out how this got into the hands of consumers in Canada, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, rather than being like a victim right yeah i think what's interesting about and ironic about the situation that they're in is that he and ksi have like created the hype around this like it's been it's very much a human made like thing that they've done to like build hype and i think what's interesting and i read this story recently where prime is so popular amongst like certain like kids particularly teenage boys yeah that they actually like want to just carry around the prime water bottle and just fill it up with water yeah they're not even actually drinking the actual thing so i'm wondering if people are actually even just drinking this stuff or if they're actually just want that clout that comes it like kind of reminds me of like what teenage boys used to do a few years ago where they would just be head to toe supreme yeah or head to toe babe right and there's i think they're just like finding this next thing that they're like lashing on to um but i think i i would just have loved to see like logan paul respond in like a much more like dignified way where it was like a little bit more clear like more from a legal perspective Yeah.

1:21:35Yeah. Right. Cause it sounds like he's kind of like a loose cannon with, with like no PR awareness. They should just say like how, like we're just, this is an ongoing thing. We're trying to figure it out. Because I mean, I looked on LinkedIn, there's like over 182, there's like 182 employees on LinkedIn that, like that work for prime slash work for their parent company, Congo brands. I, plus apparently they're going to be opening up a huge hundred, like 500 person facility or something soon as well to manufacture this stuff. So like they have employees, they could easily like figure out hopefully like what's happening.

1:22:07Yeah. I think you bring up a lot of good points and, and most notably I think is about how it's become a status symbol, obviously amongst kids and teens. And we talked about this with Andrea from Snackshot when she was here. It's like, you know, a way to show that you're in the know, just like fashion brands have been in the past where it's like you wear a logo on your chest or wear something on your hat. And it's like, I'm a part of a community. I'm part of a tribe of some sort. And that has always been a big part of what branding is and you know, what it communicates to the world and prime has become that in some ways.

1:22:37Um, I still continue to be confused why people want us to be associated with these people that are arguably terrible people and yeah, they may be entertaining, but, um, there's, there's so much proof of their bad shit. And I think ultimately, but you know, I think to your point, that's a young boy audience and sort of maybe they just don't know better. And I think that's ultimately the problem here, which is what I was saying last week, which is like they're selling those same young boys energy drinks. And yeah, they may be totally like legally up to code. And, but I think the like responsibility to not like just say it's up to code.

1:23:15And like kind of in that response, he was talking about sort of the, the, the fake media and the misinformation, but he didn't really address at all what sort of people were asking about. And said it was just kind of like, you know, putting this against, you know, the sort of complexes and the sort of news sources of the world, Instead of being like, to your point, being like, yes, we are a very influential brand. We have a responsibility to people to make sure that you know that energy drinks, maybe they are sort of legally up to standards, but they maybe be responsible. And maybe you don't need that much.

1:23:50A 12-year-old boy doesn't need two Red Bulls worth of energy or caffeine to just go hang out with their friends after school. And so, again, I don't expect the Paul brothers to be moral codes or to have moral standards. But I think the response is more like, in my opinion, was just like, how can I use this to make it into more content and to continue to get more eyeballs and to continue to go prime, which ultimately will help his business. But I think is not necessarily the sort of, yeah, the stand up thing to do, which is what I think you're asking. I mean, it's just like the classic formula of the past six, seven years is deflect and then blame the media.

1:24:35Yeah. So I'd love to move past that. And I think what's also interesting about the situation that they're in right now is similar to other brands like Monster and even in different industries like tobacco industry, where if you end up having government regulations where it says big warning symbols or whatever on these drinks, that sometimes makes people even want it even more. Yeah. so that is an interesting problem that they're now kind of caught in in between so i'm really curious to see what's going to happen yeah yeah and it is interesting that like the brand is you know is too high in in caffeine for canada's regulations but they don't sell there so i guess it's some in some ways the product must have made it there or some people are like importing it which again only speaks to it's like you know kind of uh it's it's it's popularity but i think a lot of the breakdowns that I've seen have been saying what I've been saying, which is like, there's a photo on the TMZ website where it's just like literally Logan Paul, two different photos.

1:25:34One, he's holding the energy drink and one, he's holding the caffeinated, or sorry, the caffeinated energy drink in a can and one, he's holding the sports drink in a bottle. And you can't tell the difference between the two of them, even though they're saying that one is 18 plus, which is the energy drink, even though they know their audience is definitely not, like is mostly under 18 and so i just think it's just like i don't know i i mean you can't expect them to be uh you know to have a moral compass because you've of all the things you've seen them do in the past that have but you would i don't know just it just feels like childish and and dumb yeah and yeah i guess like not to say disappointing because i don't give like a fuck about like i don't i don't i don't expect anything from them and i'm not a fan but i do think if you're gonna sell if you're gonna be a if you're gonna be famous you're gonna be popular you're gonna have a brand you're gonna sell people things i think you do have an obligation to to to be responsible especially when there are young kids involved yeah and i think that's yeah i mean that's just kind of what you're getting is just like fuck it we'll just like turn it into more conversation yeah and i'm they knew they know exactly what they're doing like it's a very calculated all these types of things this could have been a pr stunt right to get people talking wanting it more and be like oh my god there's like this fake hype going on right i think they knew exactly what they're doing like they they they're calling it prime right like okay you're like now the prime person you're like pack right like and like these little young boys who like want to be part of something or be one the main person like they might as well just call it alpha or sigma yeah or something right it's like this is like very toxic they like knew exactly what they're doing like everything from the fonts to like the branding to how they're promoting and everything.

1:27:13I think the part that I hate is the part where they're like, it's some sort of conspiracy. They're trying to take money out of our pocket. It's like big beverage. I forget exactly how they claimed it. Yeah, they were talking about big beverage. Yeah, it was like the big Pepsi and Coke, where they're implying that there's bigger forces at play. They're trying to prevent Prime, which is, again, just a more strategic, very calculated move to be like, don't let them take away our brand you love our brand go out there and buy more you know in an effort to sort of like you know fight the imaginary man so it's like like this underdog story is like i i i don't know like it don't be fooled by that i also i also think it's it's from his perspective it's a dangerous thing to start saying that because he probably wants to get acquired by one of these like 100 companies right and like do exactly what's happened for like previous brands.

1:28:09What I found really cringy in the article as in preparation for this is like, he says like, we're a quote unquote better for you product, which is like, so like brand strategist, like lingo, like, okay, what's your value proposition? Are you better for you? Like, what are you like? I can't believe he used that like kind of lingo, like in the broader public. The bar is incredibly low for sports drinks though. True. I am thankful that social media has given us underdogs trying to make a business, a disruptive better for you business, a voice to talk the truth. Don't be fooled by the media. Take every headline with a grain of salt, and most importantly, drink prime.

1:28:48Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. So listen, I agree. Don't take what the media says 100 % for truth, but certainly don't take what Logan fucking Paul says for truth. And yeah, anything that is sort of like, there's no like giant conspiracy boogeyman trying to take down their success i just think people are actually concerned about people that drink it but i don't think about the children they're they care about the kids and uh this is what i was saying again last week was like i think they know who their audience is and to a certain extent like there is just a they have some obligation to have some responsibility to what they're putting into their bodies i think i think i love that i yeah i get that and also what's happening like is i want to underscore this thing of i quote think the government's traditional media underestimates the collective intelligence of the american people oh yeah and although some people will be fooled i am thankful that social media has given us underdogs like there's like that he he does know that some people will be fooled and that he's doing this classic like oh like just trust the american public to like make the best decisions for that for themselves Yeah.

1:29:55Which for this demographic can be problematic because it's like hard to find like reliable information sometimes for like these types of things. Yeah. No, I mean, it's a question. You know, we've talked about this in branding and advertising is like the age of great questioning where people are questioning a lot of things. And they do like it is it is tough to understand what's real and what's fake. So, you know, that's why you've got to listen to Front and Center every single week to understand as we break it down and we deep dive into the topics of the week to help you understand the truth. We bring you the truth.

1:30:27Nothing but the truth. Ritesh, thank you so much for coming. Yeah, we're a useful podcast. We're a useful podcast for the people. Where can they find you? Where can they follow you? And, yeah, social media, websites. Shout them all out right now. Okay. Usefulschool.com. We've got usefulschool.com as our handle for Instagram. We've got usefulschool on LinkedIn and also like my own LinkedIn. If you ever want to connect with me there, I'm pretty responsive. And then like my email, retishaatusefulschool.com. Boom. Sweet. Reach out, get involved, take a class, apply for a class. And yeah, just track the school.

1:31:06Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you. Doing great work. See you next week.

1:31:16Thank you.

1:31:45I can't explain I got a feeling that I just I can't erase Just a feeling that I want Won't leave behind Because it's something that is on It's on my mind I guess it goes like na-na-na Na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na Na-na-na-na-na I can't erase, I got a feeling that I just, I can't erase, just a feeling that I want, won't leave behind, because it's something that is on, it's on my mind, I guess it goes like na na na.

1:32:43Thank you.

1:33:13Thank you.