Euphoria: Exploitation or Empowerment?

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2:05Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osman. Hello listeners, hello Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? Very well, I've got a glass of water, I've got a cup of tea. I've got my podcast partner with me. Yeah. What else could I ask for? Very little. in this world. What should we talk about this week? What shall we talk about? What are we going to talk about? Like we haven't planned it. Well, we've planned what we're going to talk about. We are going to talk about the return after, even by the standards of peak TV, quite a long hiatus, Euphoria.

2:36And Euphoria is one of those shows that lots of people over here have never seen, but they can now see because of HBO Max. And it launched the careers of some of the biggest stars in the entire world. And there's beef. There's plenty of beef. So we felt that ticked a number of boxes. Beef and Binfire, so we'll get there. Beef and Binfire? Yeah. No, that's one of those, like a pub in Hoxton, isn't it? The Beef and Binfire. I'd actually love to go there. Yeah, set up by four Eton venture capitalists. Speaking of venture capitalists, we're also going to talk about a podcast, which I've actually been listening to, has not got a big audience, has just been sold for low hundreds of millions of dollars.

3:13It's only been going 18 months. I know. We'll talk about what it is and who bought it. And how we could get our hands on low hundreds of millions of dollars. Absolutely. And we're going to talk about set security. There's all sorts of trouble on the Harry Potter set with drones kind of taking images of things. But the world of set security and script security and what companies do to protect their IP before it comes out. Yeah. Talking of IP before it comes out. No, because it came out last night. It came out last night. See, that's what you have turned into that. You can do a link and I can't.

3:44I've lost my linkability. You've taken it from me. There's only a fine amount of linkability that can't be created or destroyed. It can only be passed from one host to the other. So every time you do a good link, I have to do a bad one straight afterwards. Euphoria is one of those zeitgeist shows. Well, when it started, it's one of those zeitgeist shows that are a long tradition of transgressive shows about, hey, this is what teenagers are actually doing. And what being a teenager is really like. When they come out, they instantly sort of make all the other mainstream shows look incredibly vanilla and kind of twee and scripted.

4:17They're always darker and grittier, which always means there's lots of drugs and sex. And it comes in, I mean, I suppose like the early ones like that are things like Degrassi, but then get more into something like Skins or 13 Reasons Why. It's in the tradition of those shows that's darker and grittier. And one of the things about Euphoria, firstly, is massive, but secondly, it launched the careers, but it really crystallized the careers of three friends of the podcast. Three great friends of the podcast. Who are? Who are Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Jacob Elordi. I mean, come on. All of whom are now big stars.

4:50And the interesting thing there is when it started out, Zendaya, she was well-known, the other two less well-known. But now as this new season comes out, essentially it's a new season of a TV show, which was a scrappy little underdog. And now it's a new season of a TV show starring three of the biggest stars in the entire world. What's the basic premise behind Euphoria for people who know nothing about it? Well, I'll just do the very basics so that you can get into the story. But at the very start, when we meet her, she is centred on Zendaya, who plays a character called Rue. She's a drug addict, and it sort of follows her journey, her friendship group, things with her family.

5:28And I won't say any more because otherwise you're spoiling the stories. But it's teens and their troubles. Teens and their troubles. in a gritty, honest, open way. Euphoria is based on an Israeli series of the same name. Sam Levinson, he created it for the US and in large part, it has directed a lot of it, certainly directed a lot of the new series. And wrote a lot of it. And wrote it, yes. And he is the son of Barry Levinson, so he's a sort of Hollywood legacy person. And Barry Levinson, he directed Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam, Bugsy, all sorts of things like that. It's so weird in Hollywood to have father and son in the same business.

6:06Very strange. Yeah. Who knew? Coincidence, isn't it? It broke a lot of boundaries. Not always positive, I would say, because there was a huge amount of nudity and shock value scenes. I remember, I mean, I think there's one, you have to sign something called a nudity waiver or nudity rider when you're doing these scenes. A nudity rider? Yeah. It's a hell of a job. I know. And I think there's one episode where they were literally in the hundreds, these things. More riders than the Grand National. Yeah, very minimal and somehow less safe in some ways. No, I'm joking. Not less safe. It's very well run as a production.

6:43Although there have always been rumours of people feeling they were made to either go too far. And some of the cast have explicitly said, oh, I was actually, Sidney Sweeney started saying, you know, I started asking for my shirt to be put back on at a certain point because it was unnecessary. So it started last night. Can I ask a question? Because this, I think, is the interesting thing about it. because often you have these shows that launch big stars why they all come back to it would be my question you got three people there jacob alority sydney sweeney and zendaya who could do anything literally anything and yet they've gone back to this show which does have occasionally a reputation that it's a it can be a difficult set to be on and yet they've all come back can that just be money or is it do they feel they owe it something okay well i think it's both to some degree i think it was such it was such a groundbreaking show and it was such a big sort of deal.

7:31And the reason why lots of those things have been tolerated, as it were, and there'll be a lot of people who will talk about Sam Levinson, and I don't think he's the most particularly beloved person. However, what it did is it brought in an audience that HBO just didn't have or hadn't seen, or it brought in a whole new, young, very engaged audience. And there's a lot that can be forgiven for that. The third season of Anything is where suddenly the money becomes very different. if you sign on and you do uh and you'll sign on and you'll sign on for a season of something and your next season will effectively be on on the same terms or maybe there's a slight uplift but it's kind of built into the initial contract like a two-season contract yeah the third one is where they get you your paydays um so i but these guys have big paydays anyway so i think there is partly some of that um but i also think that i think they probably think it's iconic and they probably do feel they owe it something um and either hbo or sam levinson himself has been very persuasive i mean you might want to do lots of other things on hbo you might you know you might want to there's lots of reasons why you'd come back for season three and maybe they get on with each other and they have happy memories maybe some of them do some of them don't the red carpet the show was okay zendaya and sydney sweetie you're not going to see those two in a picture the red carpet just reading about the red carpet made me laugh so much because i when you're reading between the lines and you know how it works you're thinking i can't actually believe what military position this must have been planned by their all of their individual teams so you've got the show was supposed to start at seven as in everyone's supposed to be in their seats and they were supposed to have the screening i don't think zendaya turned up till eight which is the ultimate power move like everyone else was long in their seats there are two shots of some of them but there's supposed to be a big big beef between zendaya and sydney's winnie who knows where that's true but they're certainly not in any pictures together and when you look at it all you can see oh okay so those two like each other those two yeah and there were so many angles and plot lines just on that and who will arrive and in what order it made a sort of paris fashion show where eventually you know rihanna will turn up like two hours late and then the show can start do they all like jacob elordi though i i haven't heard anything specifically about him i must say i haven't heard I was reading about the, you know, so when this started, Sidney Sweeney had been in a few things, but not really.

9:57This was her proper big breaks. And they, as we said, had been Disney Club. Spider-Man. And had done Greatest Showman. So she was just breaking through. But I think she's talked about Euphoria and said, I found I was in a place where I could go in. I could only really go in one direction. And it was a direction I didn't want to go in. And so she jumped at the chance of doing this. But Jacob Allordi was, I mean, he was a sort of Australian heartthrob. And he'd been in a couple of things. But he was out in Hollywood trying to make it. He was just about to go home. I think his visa was about to run out.

10:24He was helping a friend do a self-tape for Euphoria. And then he said, I wonder if I can send him my own self-tape for this. So did. And just before he's about to go back to Australia, gets this part. And now is an Oscar nominee. So it was really, really the making of him. Something else would have made him because he's terrific. But this was the show that really saw him through. The Skins comparison you made is very, very interesting because occasionally a show will come along that will make a generation of actors. And this really, really did in the States, particularly with those three. But Skins in the UK, which, as you said, is a similar proposition, which is this is what teens are really like.

11:01And suddenly everything else about teens looks ridiculous. And on that show, you had Dev Patel, who was a non-actor before that. You know, so that was his first thing. You had Daniel Kaluuya, who had actually done all sorts of things, but was writing on Skins as well. you had nicholas holt who had been in about a boy but you know was a was a child actor and was a nerdy little boy and then was like tony it was like that's everything yeah jack o 'connell was in it again a made an absolute generation of actors so anything where you you have to cast teens to try and be teens seems to be that seems to be the sweet spot for for creating a generation of Oscar nominees.

11:43But they do grow up. And they've done a time jump for obvious reasons because there has been a time jump. But even the sort of indulgence of peak TV where you had three year gaps between seasons. Actually, the last season of Euphoria wrapped shooting, not transmission, but wrapped shooting almost five years ago. And certain key actors have died. Eric Dane. um angus cloud died and again he was someone he he was street auditioned angus cloud which is something they you know um they tried to do for this in fact zendaya's part was originally they they'd found someone on the street who they thought could play that part yeah he passed away so it's there's there's a lot of behind the scenes drama as well that ties into all of this tell me a bit about sam levinson then because you know i i keep reading i keep reading like allusions to this being a troubled set and we know what he went on to do next which we've talked about before which was well i'll have to talk about it within the context because i think this is quite interesting great so sam levinson i think you know he as i say he's sort of son of hollywood royalty i think he effectively kind of dropped out of normal not completely out of normal education but sort of sat around watching a lot of movies sam levinson i said i had had a childhood where he'd been through various you know substance abuse issues and so he was writing that sort of thing anyway and in a meeting someone said oh we got this show euphoria from israel would you like to adapt it and he said yes and essentially just wrote the thing that he wanted to do but that's the way the tv works sometimes yeah so when euphoria premiered and came out and it was shocking and it was it struck a chord completely and it brought in this audience it felt real yeah and it brings in an audience that they don't have and that is something that you can't really put a price on because there were regular stories of things would come out of the set and say it was difficult you could see what was up there on the screen which was that it trod a very fine line I mean I find it pretty bleak actually and I don't know and most a lot of the time I just think this is actually I think this is actually quite exploitative do you know stories about Sam Levinson that you would never be able to say in public I think lots of people have heard lots of stories about Sam Levinson that they can't necessarily say in public as again I would say that it's not necessarily well loved, Richard.

14:02I will say that, look at what's on the screen. A lot of it's up there on the screen and you can decide whether that comes from a place of love and understanding or whether it comes from a place that seeks shock value at almost all costs. It's often the case if you are looking at a scene to go, okay, step outside of this, step behind the camera, think about that morning, think about all of those actors and think about how they were asked to do what they're going to do, how they felt during it, and how they felt after it, and then ask yourself whether you would be comfortable doing that. And the actors themselves would say in interviews, yeah, I know I've pushed back on certain things.

14:40I think because if even your actors are saying, I push back on this, and even Sydney Sweeney is saying, I'm actually asked if I could put my shirt back on in a few scenes, there's something about they are aware that there's a perception that they're being exploited and they don't want to show that they are. They I own this. I do this on purpose. I mean, I am empowered. In the new season, she's trying to be an OnlyFans girl. And there's a lot of, I mean, there's, she's done it as a dog at certain points. I don't know. You know, I'm sure she's a strong, independent woman. And anyway, so, but Sam Levinson, I think it's fair to say from a lot of, many, many people would tell you that he's not particularly well loved.

15:22However, because he brought in this audience, he then wanted to do this other thing. which was The Idol, which he did with The Weeknd. That's the one that stars Lily Rosedep and The Weeknd. And it's sort of about a cult thing. I have to say, if that was set out to satirize, well, not satirize, but to critique exploitation and cultish behavior, I think it was the thing it was trying to critique. If you've listened to this podcast before, you may well have heard me say that episode three of that is potentially the worst episode of television I've ever seen. But whatever. So I don't think people within the cast were thrilled.

15:56By the way, as I say... The people in the Euphoria cast is sort of in the same universe. Sort of, yeah. And also, if they are going to do season three and wrap up this story that they maybe feel they owe something to. I mean, Zendaya's done like Dune, Challengers, the drama, lots of things like that. Sydney Sweeney's done Anyone But You. Since it wrapped, The Housemaid, Immaculate. Okay, I'm Madame Webb, but you know, it's a movie. Jacob Elordi's Unsortburn, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights. So what you're saying is we've got the three of them who've done this incredible show that they owe an awful lot to.

16:28And before the next one comes out, they're all massive superstars. In the meantime, the director and writer of this show has done a massive dump right in the middle of Hollywood. Yeah. And I think everyone involved in that was just hoping they would just get out alive of that. It didn't. Unlike a massive dump, it did not hang around for long, did it? It didn't. But, you know, you can find it all. You can still go and watch it. I mean, don't, but you can. But anyway, so during that time, all of those people became not just, you know, they didn't just have good roles. They became proper bankable.

17:06You can open a movie, movie stars. And so it's very, very odd to see people of that heft, I suppose, as in people who can get money for films, which somehow is still the benchmark even though we might say that television has been much more successful or much more reliably successful in recent years. But if you can get money and you can open a film then you are still huge. And to see all of those, particularly those three on the red carpet is odd now because it seems almost like it's top heavy. Like how can all these people be in this show? Because each one of those is now a lead in whatever they're in.

17:44It's sort of happened all around us. So we know it already that television, especially for a younger generation of actors, has equal, if not more prestige, than movies. And this is an object case. And the three of them are happy to co-star in this thing on television because they're not thinking I could be making a movie instead. They're thinking, no, this is an enormous worldwide hit. I'm not sure I think that. I actually think, isn't it interesting that they could all be leading TV series, but maybe they want... don't forget tv is a massive commitment as this more than anything shows i think it's the commitment that they are less interested in are you really going to sign away potentially seven seasons of something or seven years or however many years rather than doing lots of high profile potentially great film projects and i think that's still why they it's interesting that none of these particularly have been doing tv series they've been all doing films because not just because it remains perhaps undeservedly the prestige thing but because actually you don't have to commit to seven years or whatever and wait around while someone goes and makes the idol you're you're much more master of your own destiny and i wouldn't want to imply that by the way they weren't because i think casey bloys who's the ceo of hbo stood up and said you know thank you all for being here and i've just been shouted at so many times over the last few years by your agents and managers and pubs you know because getting to just try and get the schedule to make it happen but i think that's why do you really want to commit to something that lasts for years and years and years or do you want to get in and out in four months plus promotion well that's why this is perfect this is like a movie to them isn't it this is all the advantages of the scale of television with none of the disadvantages which is you're going to be tied up for years and years and years this is that this is a one and done because they've already done the first two seasons so this one they can just go in do a thing they know it's going to absolutely absolutely explode everywhere around the world and get out and back into the uh 10 million dollars a movie i also wonder whether it will explode because it will get masses of traction um and i but i wonder whether people will think oh gosh that was such a sort of covid era you know that sort of thing and somehow Now when I look at it, I just see, I'm not quite sure what the purpose of some of this shock value stuff is.

20:04It really felt much clearer in earlier seasons. Not always, by the way, but I thought most of the shocking stuff landed and you understood the substance beneath it and you understood why it was in the narrative. The danger when you have this much time has passed and things have moved on a bit and actually the culture has moved on. And everyone involved has got so much money. Do you actually think this is quite exploitative or does every single thing for me will need to land without there being a big backlash as to, you know, why is this any of this happening? Would you recommend season one to our podcast listeners?

20:37I would recommend anything. Don't watch with your kids. No, it's not a kid show. Or I should say don't watch with your parents. Yes. Depending on your age. Just don't watch. Yeah. Fifth biggest show in the history of HBO as well. It's interesting, as you say, HBO had these huge hits, but they did not have a really, really young skewing hit. and this was absolutely that. Biggest show in HBO history, of course, Game of Thrones by quite some way. And then The Last of Us, funnily enough, and there's slightly different ways of measuring which shows are big. But, you know, Sopranos is number four. This is number five.

21:08Succession is number six. Sex and the City, number seven. They've had some good shows, HBO, to be fair, haven't they? White Lotus must be creeping up there. White Lotus is number nine as well, which, of course, is what Sidney Sweeney sort of went on to do next. First time lots of people who haven't seen Euphoria would have seen Sydney Sweeney. Yes. Okay, let's go for a break, shall we? And after that, we're going to talk about this insane, genuinely insane podcast story.

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23:30Welcome back, everybody. Now, we are going to talk about the sale of a podcast. It started 18 months ago, less than 18 months ago, actually. It's called TBPN. By chance, I have been listening to it for the last six months. I'll say what it is. it's two finance bros, well, technology finance bros, originally the technology brothers, TB, called John Coogan and Geordie Hayes. A year ago, they rebranded it to TBPN. And they started this. So it's now Technology Business Programming Network, rather than Tech Bros, which was what TB wrote on. Yeah, Technology Brothers, which they were at the start. A year ago only, they started this with no outside investment, which is going to become relevant.

24:07And they started doing a three-hour daily live stream, which is cut down which i don't you know watch but i watch the 30 minute podcast it's cut down into but i'm so not the typical audience it's a daily show and it covers the business world and particularly the tech business world so it covers a lot of ai it covers all of the movements in that industry and there are a lot of business defense for obvious reasons last week they did stuff about space travel and space travel companies and all of that sort of stuff and i would say to describe them i would say they're 100 they are techno optimists they are sort of good looking in a kind of benign patrick bateman style way anyway we're talking about them because this podcast that started less than 18 months ago which has 70 000 viewers and to put 70 000 into context there are podcasts in this country that you'll get a million listens an episode i mean that's not that's not beyond the realms of but you know for the stuff in the in the top 10 this is getting 70 ,000 and that's in America and America is big.

25:08And that's on a good date. It averages 50 ,000 viewers per episode, per live stream. Has been bought by OpenAI, a company they cover all the time, for some in the low hundreds of millions of dollars. And I think you would definitely expect a significant percentage of that to be in OpenAI stock options, which we know that it's almost a trillion dollar company and it's probably may go to IPO later this year. By the way, it's a good product i'll say that i mean it depends on your view of them and the world and that but they put it together nicely and i don't know about the reason i started listening to it is because i don't really know about this world they're a good hang yeah okay and that is crucial they are a good you don't mind spending time with them and they have turned like a text message from one to the other in october 2024 into let's say 200 million dollars minimum and if it's an open stock then with just 70 000 viewers slash listeners less than 70 that is their peak i think 11 people work on this show by the way 11 and sports center is a us show where they there's a desk on espn yeah it's on espn and they talk about sports news it's like sky sports news yeah would be it would be how i'd see it yeah exactly but they wanted to be like that for tech the jump to always on as in they have made it daily and they've made as much of it available as they can sort of humanly do so they do a three-hour live stream but they now cut it down to a 30-minute episode that you can which is a bit i listen to there's an amazing part very early on in this story and i think it's useful for all and any creatives is these two guys had done a couple of episodes and sent them off to a friend who was in the business and this is any advice you got at all and his one piece of advice and this is such a great piece of advice for anyone is you need to take this 100 times more seriously yeah which isn't be 100 times more serious on air you've got to be yourself but you've got to take the business of what you're doing and your idea 100 times more seriously and they said we never look back from that moment and i think that's unbelievably great creative advice always and some people say oh it's like sort of cnbc like a rolling news channels business desk but for gen z um and they've got sort of little details they do they've got a good sort of studio they've you know they've got a gong that they bang they film it properly it's lit properly they dress properly i mean it's to all intents and purposes it looks broad it's like old television quality it's a desk with two guys yeah as i say why did i listen to it they had an easy and appealing style they covered an area i just feel like it feels like it's the defining issue of our times and i don't really know that much about it and they were good to hang out with um but i am not the typical audience and i am absolutely none of the value in that audience.

27:50The point is, Silicon Valley is obsessed with it. And, you know, if you look at their sponsors, it's absolutely wild. I think they've got$5 million off sponsors in the first year. This year, they're on track for$30 million. They're all sort of things like Ramp, which is charge cards, Plaid, which is a fintech thing, Google Gemini, the New York Stock Exchange. I mean, it's wild, you know. But the point about that audience, while small, is that it is incredibly influence dense, I suppose. So it's venture capitalists, it's engineers, it's all the people who work in the businesses about which they're talking.

28:22And as I say, they do primarily talk about AI, not exclusively. And they've had guests, you know, Sam Altman's been on it. Zuckerberg's been on it. Yeah. Satya Nadella's been on it, the Microsoft CEO. So if I'm John Coogan and Geordie Hayes, I absolutely see what I get out of a deal of somebody giving me$200 million. I see my upside. As you say, look, it's almost on course to have revenue of$30 million this year, but that's not a valuation where you would pay$200 million for it. So Sam Altman must be getting some extra value out of his$200 million. Well, this is the most interesting part of all of this.

29:02And that's probably why we're talking about it is because the head of strategy at OpenAI said, you know, when this deal was announced, I've been thinking about the future of how we communicate at OpenAI. And one thing that's become clear is that the standard communications playbook just doesn't apply to us. We're not a typical company. Sure. And then they also said, with the mission of bringing AGI to the world, comes a responsibility to help create a space for a real constructive conversation about the changes AI creates. By the way, in my opinion, the best way to have a real constructive conversation about something is to pay somebody$200 million to have that conversation.

29:37Well, it's interesting, isn't it? Because until this point, whilst they obviously are incredibly well connected, they're both angel investors, tech angel investors. They have a lot of… These two guys, even before this started, they weren't starving. No. They've been involved. I think John Coogan had been involved in Soylent, that meal replacement thing. They've both been around. They've got a tobacco patches company. Yes, called Lucy. Yeah. They are very well connected. They've done very well from the sales anyway. The reason people are watching them is they know what they're talking about, not just a couple of dudes turning up and saying nonsense.

30:11Well, they are, but nonsense that they understand. Yes. Yeah. So they've said, oh, this will not interfere with our editorial output. Sure. Okay, sure. Sam Altman says, I don't expect them to go any easier on us. So you just paid them$200 million and you don't expect them to go any easier on you. Listen, okay. I get it. Okay, they're trying to say this isn't compromising because we are not a news organisation. We would prefer other people went and broke their scoop somewhere else. And then we got people on our show to talk about context. They said, yes, they have said, look, we're not journalists.

30:46We are literally, we are personalities talking about this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But you now are owned by OpenAI, so whatever. But what has happened there is that OpenAI feel that they need, I suppose, If you're a nearly a trillion dollar company and you're thinking, what is my communication strategy? We didn't need one. Now we do need one. I mean, 200 million is nothing to get. Literally nothing. And if you're giving it partly in stock or whatever, to get people to push your story all the time. And as I said, they are techno-optimists. They're not sitting there like me thinking, oh, my God.