The Battle for Originality

Episode 369

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Phillip: [00:01:21] Welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm Phillip.

Brian: [00:01:25] I'm Brian.

Phillip: [00:01:26] Brian? Do you have new books behind you there on the YouTube feed?

Brian: [00:01:31] Oh.

Phillip: [00:01:31] Are those new?

Brian: [00:01:32] I do. Yeah.

Phillip: [00:01:33] What are those? Very nice.

Brian: [00:01:36] An old set. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Right? Yeah. And it's the Kristen Lavransdatter trilogy.

Phillip: [00:01:49] I'm not terribly familiar.

Brian: [00:01:53] Yes. Really interesting. I have not started yet, but I've seen it pop up in a few places now that make me really wanna read it. It won the Nobel Prize for literature back in the early 20th century.

Phillip: [00:02:12] Wow. Okay.

Brian: [00:02:13] I've heard people say that they don't even like historical fiction, and they love this series.

Phillip: [00:02:18] Okay.

Brian: [00:02:19] I went to go buy the books, and I found this old set that was the same price... Well it was, like, $5 more for this beautiful old set of books than it was to get each of the new ones in paperback. And I was like, easy buy.

Phillip: [00:02:38] Friend of the pod, Karen Dilley and then also Joy Howard are now at... What's the company they're at these days? Do you remember?

Brian: [00:02:46] Is it B-Stock or no. No. No. It's not B-Stock. What's it called?

Phillip: [00:02:53] Back Stock. I think that's the name of the company. Right?

Brian: [00:02:55] Wait. Yeah.

Phillip: [00:02:57] Is it?

Brian: [00:02:57] No. This is bad.

Phillip: [00:03:00] Back Market.

Brian: [00:03:01] Look at us.

Phillip: [00:03:01] That's the one.

Brian: [00:03:02] Back Market. There it is.

Phillip: [00:03:03] I was in New York a couple weeks ago, and they have ads all over the subway, and some really clever ones. It was "Downgrade our tech," and it was a picture of an old like, the JVC film cameras that everybody's using or the JVC DVR cameras that people are using for that old school retro tech aesthetic when creating, I don't know, social media content. And I really liked the way that they positioned that, but it also kinda got me into that idea of, well, recommerce often it's, like, really polar. It's either the most expensive thing that you'll ever buy or it's the cheapest thing you'll ever buy.

Brian: [00:03:47] In this case it was oddly same price as the net new option, but so much cooler. I mean, look at the look at these. Way cooler.

Phillip: [00:04:00] Yeah. You really need to go to youtube.com/FutureCommerceMedia. Those are so cool.

Brian: [00:04:08] Yeah. Yeah. And to get this set, I was like, no brainer. It was like $5 more.

Phillip: [00:04:13] I did a keynote for the Motion Creative Strategy Summit.

Brian: [00:04:18] Oh. The Motion Creative... Yeah. Yeah. That was an incredible yeah. That was absolutely amazing. One of my favorite talks I've heard all year.

Phillip: [00:04:24] Thank you. Thank you. And it was like a one off thing they asked me to do this, "how to be polymathic." I was like, oh, jeez. That's a tall order.

Brian: [00:04:34] Yeah. You did a good job.

Phillip: [00:04:36] Yeah. I thank you very much. But part of that was there's something really profound that you don't get through digital media or through any digital means where if you have a library, you go to the library and you stand in front of a wall of books. And you're, like, "Oh, that one. That one's speaking to me." And then you open it up and you flip randomly in it, and you land on something. And you're, like, "Oh, that particular thing is speaking to me." And you feel like you're in some sort of control of it because, you know, it's tactile. You're the one grabbing something, and you're the one flipping through something, which is not the same as the stumble upon used to be or something where it was, like, a web ring. You might wind up on some random digital something.

Brian: [00:05:20] Right.

Phillip: [00:05:21] But I had the same. I showed it off in that summit. We got the stack of books, these huge art books for, like, $5, and it was the life and times of various artists, very prolific people like Degas or in this case, the Rodin was the one that really blew my mind was how much of a sculptor's work is commercial in nature. And you have these sort of government entities that buy things like monuments in his day. And as a sculptor, you're competing to win a contract to build a monument, and then you build the monument. And then they're, like, "Well, that's scary, Mr Rodin. We don't like the gates of hell that you built for us."

Brian: [00:06:06] "What are you saying about us?" {laughter}

Phillip: [00:06:08] It's like tactility of the book. And the smell of the book, it's something that's just unparalleled. There's no digital equivalent to any of that.

Brian: [00:06:19] Totally agree. No. None of it. Yeah. It's all asynchronous. It's all very monosense type of engagement.

Phillip: [00:06:27] It is. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Phillip: [00:06:30] In some sense, because you're eliminating the other senses, it's less immersive, but maybe in some dimension that sense is heightened because I definitely get the feeling of I'm seeing the Matrix when I'm on Twitter. When I'm on Twitter I'm just scrolling. I feel like I am immersed, but in a different way. I was looking at... I use Claude these days for some strategy work. So when I'm thinking about making creative ideation or I'm making, like, a 2 by 2 or something for a piece that we're writing, I use it as a sparring partner, if you will. {laughter} And I was thinking about these levels of immersion. Actually, I'll read you some of the things I was chatting with Claude about. I've been working on this idea of visualizing a 2 by 2. And then a 2 by 2 being singular immersion, like personal immersion versus collective immersion. So just off the top of your head, what is a singular immersive experience that you can think of, and what is a collective immersive experience that you can think of?

Brian: [00:07:45] A collective immersive experience would be something like going to Disneyland with friends.

Phillip: [00:07:50] Sure. Yeah.

Brian: [00:07:51] And singular immersive experience would be, like, sitting in your living room and watching a Disney movie by yourself.

Phillip: [00:08:01] Or mine was the Apple Vision Pro.

Brian: [00:08:10] That's even better. Right.

Phillip: [00:08:11] I'm watching that. That's truly singular. But I could be watching Disney Plus. I could be watching a 3D film on Disney Plus. That's very immersive. Other collective experiences that I came up with was Meow Wolf,

Brian: [00:08:26] Oh, yeah. Good one.

Phillip: [00:08:28] So but think about it this way. So that is the x coordinate. Right? It's, like, singular versus collective.

Brian: [00:08:36] Singular versus yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

Phillip: [00:08:38] And the y coordinate that I was... We came up with a bunch of ideas, me and Mr Claude. But the y coordinate was, like, psychological, right, or tactile.

Brian: [00:08:51] Oh, that's good.

Phillip: [00:08:52] So something that's, like, it's singular, but it's psychological is passively watching a movie, or maybe it's taking a psychedelic of some kind. That is singular, and it is psychological. Right? Collectively tactile...

Brian: [00:09:06] Bottom left corner is...

Phillip: [00:09:09] Totally.

Brian: [00:09:09] Yes. Singular is, like, sensory... Versus multisensory. So it's, like, multisensory is the top.

Phillip: [00:09:18] Yep. Top right.

Brian: [00:09:19] So single sensory is the bottom. And then singular experiential versus collective experiential is the x. Love that.

Phillip: [00:09:27] If you think of it in that way, things that you consider to be highly immersive aren't as immersive as you think they are. The sphere is very immersive, but it is not as tactile as Meow Wolf's, you know, Omega Mart.

Brian: [00:09:42] Right.

Phillip: [00:09:42] Because you're touching things. You're walking through space. You're piecing together a story, multilayered story. In some ways, the level of immersion becomes more apparent when you start to analyze it. I think that's really interesting.

Brian: [00:09:57] I agree. It is interesting. And then also, what it does to you when you have multiple sensory inputs, I think that the language games get a little bit simpler in some ways because it's easier to understand what's being said. At the same time, it gets more complicated too because you have multiple competing games that are entering in, and you have to make sense of it all. And so it requires a really thoughtful artist to be able to bring multisensory things together in a way that's understandable, or at least lead you on to the next thing. I love that, and I think that you could apply this to all kinds of things in life, as you're trying to understand something. Monosensory is hard. It's hard. It's one of the hardest forms even though it is simpler.

Phillip: [00:10:59] And what does this have to do with commerce? Well, I think a lot of commerce is heading in this direction.

Brian: [00:11:04] Totally.

Phillip: [00:11:05] Trying to create... Well, first of all, everything that I listed is commercial in nature. {laughter} You spend money to go to have these experiences. Or technology has to be created, which then you create entertainment platforms on top of that's like the sphere is entirely bad.

Brian: [00:11:22] Right.

Phillip: [00:11:24] This Apple Vision Pro Rev seems really interesting to me. So there are two pieces of news that came out about this. The Vision Pro, which by the way has had no new shopping content since its launch. That's for free. {laughter} But they have launched and announced a new short film that's coming called Submerged, which would be... I think we had talked about in one of our YouTube shorts. Underwater movies already give me panic attacks. I don't know if you do this, but when I watch anything that has an underwater scene, like, the end of Avatar The Way of Water, I was basically holding my breath for half the end of the movie.

Brian: [00:12:07] I have a confession to make.

Phillip: [00:12:08] What's that?

Brian: [00:12:09] I haven't watched that movie.

Phillip: [00:12:11] {laughter} That's rare for you. But any underwater scene, do you just hold your breath when you see an underwater scene? I do that instinctively.

Brian: [00:12:21] Maybe. I don't know. Actually, that's a good question. It might be unconscious. Lot of submarine movies out there. I gotta go back and watch. Yeah. I should do a list of all the submarine movies that I actually get emotionally involved in. It's really hard not to get involved in a submarine movie emotionally because it's...

Phillip: [00:12:46] {laughter} In a submarine movie. I'm emotionally invested in my submarine genre.

Brian: [00:12:52] Life Aquatic. You know?

Phillip: [00:12:53] That's not the first one. Hunt for Red October was the first one that came to mind for me.

Brian: [00:12:56] That came to mind very quickly for me as well. Was it U 571.

Phillip: [00:13:03] That's another one. This is gonna be a new installment in that long running list of submarine based films, where you might have to hold your breath during underwater scenes. So I don't necessarily want that, but I do think it's literally immersive. It's like so on the nose. It's like literally immersive.

Brian: [00:13:26] Well, immersive to submersive.

Phillip: [00:13:31] It's an immersive submersible that you are being submissive to while being fully immersed in the media platform.

Brian: [00:13:43] And it's subversive. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:13:45] It is subversive. {laughter} If you haven't turned this off yet, we have an installment of this new segment we have for the month of October called Spooky Commerce coming up here in just a minute or two, so stick around. But Brian, any other thoughts on some of this that we just talked about? There's so much too coming up.

Brian: [00:14:07] Yeah. It's interesting. The recent Elon Musk event, talk about that. That actually was...

Phillip: [00:14:15] Yes.

Brian: [00:14:16] I mean, we think about multisensory. It's interesting, you know, Elon's so polarizing, and I think you did a great job covering the event with the Art Dorko thoughts. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:14:30] They say, in production design nowadays, like, you think of, if it looks like it was made by elves, it's Art Nouveau. And if it looks like it was made by dwarves, it's Art Deco. And if it looks like it was made by Elon, that's Art Dorko.

Brian: [00:14:49] Dorko. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:14:50] That was my take on it.

Brian: [00:14:52] I like it a lot. What I think what makes it Art Dorko is that I think Elon is actually standing on the shoulders of giants.

Phillip: [00:15:03] Oh for sure.

Brian: [00:15:04] He's actually carrying out a lot of sort of vision perspective that that people have had from the past and sort of putting himself underneath it and trying to carry out a vision of the future from the past. And I think that's one of the things that makes it so dorky is that it's like, "Elon, I, Robot, already covered this." In fact, he's being sued, I believe, by the maker of the movie, I, Robot, for copying.

Phillip: [00:15:37] It was by the, I don't know if he's actually being sued. I think it's being threatened at the moment. Patrick Tatopoulos. He's the production designer from I, Robot who went on to do Batman v Superman and the Justice League. It's very interesting. Ruby Thelot said recently on a podcast episode that we create the future that we know, which is something that we had set up for him in the Reggie Ruby panel at VISIONS New York. It was sort of like, you know, the art design, the art artists that create the visualization, the image reproduction of our picture of the future, in this case, I, Robot. The title of the event, Brian, was We, Robot. It wasn't even like, Elon's not even being shy about where the inspiration came from in this case.

Brian: [00:16:35] Totally. Totally. Yeah. He's trying to make the future what it was envisioned to be, sort of in the line of a Marc Andreessen, like, where are the flying cars? Well, where are the android robots that are our servants and take care of all of our household stuff for us and our butlers? And I think it's interesting...

Phillip: [00:17:04] You've been on the butler kick for a long time too. {laughter}

Brian: [00:17:07] I did. I'm back on the butler thing. I know. Nobody who's listening to this can remember back that far. But here's the thing. He's putting himself underneath people's perspective. He's actually ceding power to visions of the past. He's not creating visions of the future that are new. He's implementing visions that are old. And I was reading Reggie James' Product Lost, recent email, A Land Without Giants, and he said, you know, he watched the Tesla We, Robot event and he's and as a result, he texted his friends, "Elon really is him." Looking for that archetype, that top level archetype, of what you can categorize a whole series of archetypes around. And but I think actually Elon represents a set of archetypes that already uncovered the future or at least put their vision of the future into that or into fiction, really. And that might be why we find some of his stuff so distasteful because it feels like he's derivative. We call it Art Dorko because Art Deco has already been done.

Phillip: [00:18:39] Right.

Brian: [00:18:40] The aesthetic has already been played out. And we're trying to impose a vision of the future that's already been imagined.

Phillip: [00:18:54] Think of it this way, because I have to prod that you and I took a Waymo for the first time together.

Brian: [00:20:23] Yes.

Phillip: [00:20:23] Is that an objectively better experience in your vision in a potential future that is it's not even future. It's here. It's literally operating in multiple cities in the United States.

Brian: [00:20:33] It's really here. Right. Yes. Same with Elon, you know, Elon's androids. They're not here, but they are. They're coming. We will have robots in our home that mirror us in a very mechanical and metal sense. Instead of flesh and bones.

Phillip: [00:20:53] It seemed so far off. Right? When we started this podcast, could you have imagined a humanoid robot in your house doing something?

Brian: [00:21:03] Yes. I could have. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:21:03] Yeah. I know you could've. {laughter} Could one have possibly imagined? It's wild.

Brian: [00:21:09] But it's so funny. We're sitting here walking into the future, and we're like, "Man, this is kinda cringe."

Phillip: [00:21:16] It is.

Brian: [00:21:17] It's dorky. It feels weird, and yet I step into that Waymo, and I get, you know, a technology rush. It feels like finally, oh, finally, it's here. All the things that we've all dreamed, and I think it's because the imagination has already moved on.

Phillip: [00:21:36] That's true.

Brian: [00:21:37] We have already absorbed this from an imagination perspective, and we've been waiting. It's almost like it's almost maddening how long it's taken. The tomorrow land of Disney World. Like, sheesh. Okay. Great. We're here. Our lives don't feel necessarily that much better. We haven't perceived the benefits in our daily lives. I saw a tweet recently. It was like, "Oh, step outside. It's, like, actually kind of 2005 still." Well, I don't believe that's true. The benefits to our perception haven't been what we had hoped that they were. And when we finally get it, when we finally get the thing we asked for or we all thought we were gonna get, we're like, "Cool. Okay."

Phillip: [00:22:36] Well, it's yeah. It's because you've been waiting around for it for so long. I think that there is a gap in the perception of what you think you want versus how it actually comes at the end of the day, and it's never quite as futuristic or as exciting as it is. That's what makes Waymo different for me. Self driving cars, I do perceive the benefit around because it is wild that that exists, coexists, not just in a dedicated lane, not just in a dedicated highway, not just in a very manicured sense. It exists in the real world right now that people can actually go use. And here's the vision of the future. I'll finish this. I'll give you the last word. You and I were in oh, it wasn't you and me. Sorry. Aaron, JT, and I were leaving the VISIONS Summit in LA. We got in a Waymo. Everybody that gets into Waymo for the first time is filming the empty driver's seat driving, and you're screaming a little bit. It's a little bit unnerving. It was a 30 minute drive across LA.

Brian: [00:23:39] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:23:41] About 15 minutes into the drive, we're getting ready to turn left. It's a green light. No protected left. No green arrow or anything. So we're gonna turn left. There's opposing traffic coming. There's someone crossing the street at the same time against traffic.

Brian: [00:23:59] Yes.

Phillip: [00:24:00] And in between that person crossing and the oncoming traffic is a little food delivery robot with a House of the Dragon advertisement on the side of it. And this car is navigating another robot, a person, and oncoming traffic driven by humans. And the it to me was immediate like, it's a picture of this is like it's everything that I was promised as a kid is coming to pass in fruition right now. Also, Lammer's Law still hold in the future because one of these robots is an advertising surface. But that's it for me.

Brian: [00:25:41] What I'm getting at though is so yes. We are in. We are in the future, officially. Welcome to the future. We've made it. We're here between the robots and the driving cars and the self driving cars and so on. We're here. The perceived benefit is actually pretty minimal because the users of these services are not getting anything additional out of them think about this. We're still getting into a car to go somewhere. We're still getting things delivered to our homes. It's that now people aren't doing it. It's robots, but it's all the same stuff that we did before, and it's just happening faster, and it will be cheaper eventually. It's just we got into Ubers before. They took us to where we wanted to go, and a human drove it, not a robot. The benefits of this are, they're not what we thought they were, if that makes sense.

Phillip: [00:26:48] Well, maybe but in Elon's sense, they're happening at a grander scale. So if you look at Robo Van. This is a larger capacity people mover that can be imagined in my mind. It's like in the way that public transit existed before Uber. Right?

Brian: [00:27:06] Right.

Phillip: [00:27:06] Uber is a smaller version of public transit. This is an evolution on Uber to be a more automated form of public transit. I don't know why I should be so excited about that other than the price and affordability and the on demand nature of it is drastically different to what we currently have.

Brian: [00:27:24] It will be. And when traffic starts to go away, people are really gonna start to feel the benefits. Although, it's gonna take time, and those benefits are gonna come slowly. Now I think I have an alt vision of the future, and I believe that some of it's already represented, but people don't see it. It fell through the cracks of a lot of the future casting that has been done by our greatest leaders, our thought leaders, or whatever, our fiction writers, whatever you wanna call them. And I think I talked about this a little bit on After Dark, so you should go sign up for Future Commerce Plus if you wanna hear about my vision for the future. I need more time and space. I wanna be able to bring more visions of where I think we're headed with some of this stuff, and it's not what people think it is. Perhaps it's even dorkier and sillier than we even realize. But the benefits will be significant as a result, and we don't really realize as humans what are benefits to us from technology and when they're going to hit us and how they're going to hit us and what it's gonna take for those benefits to actually get to us. And that's where I think I actually have a more singular vision for where we're headed with all of this than even Elon does, and I know that sounds insane. But I feel like I know what's next. But it's probably a good 50 years.

Phillip: [00:28:59] The art production too... So to your point, as a futurist, you are a writer. I would say your biggest form of creation isn't even just discourse. It's like you write and you write fiction or auto fiction or you write in a genre that allows you to be free of... The way I see you is you have a different way of communicating your vision of the future that requires people's attention to really tap into it, and you have a very emotional, you have a strong sense of being able to deliver the emotion along with the message, which very few people have, Brian. And on top of that, you don't have the production design of I, Robot without Isaac Asimov. It's the art production and the imagery production that captures imagination is downstream of the idea creator and the writer in the first place. So these are very singular visions of the future.

Brian: [00:29:56] They're singular visions. That's what I'm getting at. And Elon, one of the reasons why we feel so bad about it is because it is perspective that has already been in the collective conscience. So, anyway.

Phillip: [00:30:09] Alright.

Brian: [00:30:09] This is all I got for today.

Phillip: [00:30:11] Brilliant. Okay. If you want more spookiness, stick around. We've got an installment of Spooky Commerce heading your way. Brian, this is, I think a haunted Toys R Us? Is all of commerce haunted?

Brian: [00:30:25] Is that what we're on today?

Phillip: [00:30:26] That's where I think we're headed.

Brian: [00:30:26] We're headed to the haunted Toys R Us?

Phillip: [00:30:30] We are. Yeah. Come along with us.

Brian: [00:30:33] We're doing this every year. We're gonna do this every year, and every year, I'm gonna just be scared.

Phillip: [00:30:38] Get in the automated self driving mystery machine, and we're gonna drive you to Spooky Commerce. Here we go.

Brian: [00:30:44] Spooky ghost in the driver's seat.

Phillip: [00:30:47] Ghost in the machine.

Announcer: [00:31:05] The time has come for Spooky Commerce.

Phillip: [00:31:12] It's time once again for Spooky October, and, of course, we have back with us producer Sarah. We're gonna do some Spooky Commerce. What do you have for us today?

Sarah: [00:31:22] Okay. Today, we are talking about the haunted Toys R Us of Sunnyvale, California.

Phillip: [00:31:29] Ooh.

Brian: [00:31:29] It's already haunted. It's in Sunnyvale. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:31:35] It's already haunted. Toys R Us went bankrupt.

Brian: [00:31:38] Yeah. It's already haunted. It's coming back from the dead.

Sarah: [00:31:42] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:31:43] Actually, have you seen the AI commercial, the Toys R Us AI commercial?

Brian: [00:31:47] That was haunted.

Sarah: [00:31:48] No.

Phillip: [00:31:49] What's really funny is that Leslie Silverman from UTA, who's speaking at our VISIONS event, repped the team that created that commercial, and they're gonna show it at our summit. And I'm like, "Yo, I'm pretty sure I said that that was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen." {laughter} It's somewhere out there. I hope she doesn't find it.

Brian: [00:32:09] It's the craziest commercial that there ever was.

Phillip: [00:32:11] Until the haunting of Toys R Us, in Sunnyvale. Tell us more about it.

Sarah: [00:32:17] We're going back to 1970 South Bay Area. The employees, I couldn't find a specific date that things started happening, but the earliest I could find reported about this was 1980. So I'm assuming this took place in the late seventies. Basically, employees started reporting what you would expect in a haunted Toys R Us, which is the toys are moving by themselves, toys that make noise are making noise by themselves. Kind of your typical... Think that one scene of The Polar Express where all the puppets come to life and...

Phillip: [00:32:49] Yep. Also a creepy movie.

Brian: [00:32:52] I was gonna say, this just sounds like the people who made Pixar spent a lot of time there. Or sorry. Yeah, Toy Story is based off of this toy store. Toy Story.

Sarah: [00:33:10] The timeline fits. Maybe they were inspired.

Brian: [00:33:12] It does fit actually.

Phillip: [00:33:14] So it starts with employee reports.

Sarah: [00:33:19] It starts with employee reports.

Phillip: [00:33:20] How do we know about it now?

Sarah: [00:33:22] So, I mean, obviously, the story blew up because some news programs picked it up and started digging into it. I think the catalyst for this becoming a true, certified urban legend happened when they brought in this, okay, a self proclaimed psychic named Sylvia Brown. She's been featured in, like... You know?

Phillip: [00:33:45] Oh, yeah. Oh, she's famous.

Sarah: [00:33:45] Yeah, eighties and nineties. Mhmm.

Phillip: [00:33:46] Yeah.

Sarah: [00:33:47] So Sylvia Brown herself came in, so this brought a lot of coverage to the story. And she started speaking with the ghost. They did this whole televised seance moment, and she discovered that the ghost's name is Johnny Johnson.

Phillip: [00:34:06] {laughter} Stop.

Sarah: [00:34:07] They start looking into it, and it turns out this Toys R Us was built on the grounds where an old ranch used to stand. The ranch hand was in love with the ranch owner's daughter. The ranch hand's name was Johnny Johnson.

Phillip: [00:34:22] No. No.

Sarah: [00:34:25] And he died a tragic death as expected. So now he haunts the Toys R Us that was built on the grounds of this ranch.

Brian: [00:34:34] What a weird fate for him. You know? Like, first of all, tragic death. Second of all, this is built over this beautiful ranch where he was supposed to live this life, and then he gets to haunt toys.

Phillip: [00:34:49] Yeah. You're doomed to work retail for the rest of your days. {spooky intercom announcement} "Make sure to clock out before going on break." {laughter}

Brian: [00:35:02] {laughter} "This is so annoying. I just have to make everyone realize that I'm here. Like, get out of here. I don't want a toy store here."

Phillip: [00:35:10] I'm really afraid to ask, Sarah. Do we know how he died?

Sarah: [00:35:15] Yes.

Phillip: [00:35:17] Stop.

Brian: [00:35:17] Did he choke on, like, a toy or something?

Sarah: [00:35:20] No. No. No. No. It it had nothing to do with toys.

Brian: [00:35:24] He tripped over at Sofia the Giraffe.

Sarah: [00:35:26] He was probably, like, chopping wood or something, but he essentially accidentally hacked his leg open with a...

Brian: [00:35:34] Did you just say, "Accidentally?"

Sarah: [00:35:36] Accidentally. {laughter} Total accident. Did not mean to almost chop his leg off, and then he perished.

Phillip: [00:35:47] Wow.

Brian: [00:35:47] Wait. So you don't perish from accidentally almost chopping your leg off.

Phillip: [00:35:52] In the 1800s, if you gash your leg open, you absolutely do perish.

Brian: [00:35:57] I guess he bled out or he died of some infection, or is it both?

Sarah: [00:36:01] During the seance, Sylvia Brown spoke to him about the incident, and he did bleed out slowly. So she believes that he's confused because when you die slowly in such a manner, you cross over slowly. And so she thinks he got stuck in what she was calling a time warp, and now he's just trapped in that general space, which Toys R Us was built around.

Phillip: [00:36:28] Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Sarah: [00:36:29] So now he's trapped in the Toys R Us.

Brian: [00:36:32] This is time bandits level right now. Time bandits.

Phillip: [00:36:34] Where we, like, put over, like, a a really creepy, like, {singing} "I don't wanna grow up. I'm a Toys R Us kid..." You know what I'm talking about? Like, a minor key.

Brian: [00:36:44] It was kind of a creepy song, actually.

Phillip: [00:36:46] Yeah. Oh, it's a terribly creepy song.

Brian: [00:36:49] Actually, a lot of the toys that were in Toys R Us for those in the nineties were kinda haunted. I didn't like them. There were some that I did like, but, man...

Sarah: [00:37:01] Toys used to be a lot creepier, didn't they?

Brian: [00:37:03] I think that's why there's so much haunted toy stuff out there. We already had a segment on some haunted toys. This is common. It's like electronics and toys are haunted, but our toys are electronic. So it's like electronic toys is the perfect spot to be haunted.

Phillip: [00:37:25] I think it's interesting that we still kinda live in a world where we believe that this stuff is I mean, I don't wanna say we believe that stuff is... I mean, let me ask you, Sarah. Do you think that this is the haunting of a Toys R Us?

Sarah: [00:37:44] No. I don't, and here's why. {laughter} Because Toys R Us...

Phillip: [00:37:51] Because ghosts aren't real.

Sarah: [00:37:51] Because ghosts arn't real. And the Toys R Us is no longer standing. It's now an REI, and there have been zero reports of hauntings going on in this REI. So according to Sylvia Brown's theory, unless Johnny Johnson passed over into whatever is next, into the light, he should be haunting that REI. And there are no canoes jumping off of the walls or...

Phillip: [00:38:17] He only haunts capitalism. REI is a co-op.

Brian: [00:38:20] Yeah.

Sarah: [00:38:22] There's nothing to hunt.

Brian: [00:38:23] No. But hold on. No. It's back to my earlier point. These objects in an REI are not, like, haunting appropriate.

Sarah: [00:38:31] Why not though?

Brian: [00:38:32] The electronic toys are like...

Phillip: [00:38:36] You're really on this electronic...

Brian: [00:38:38] No. It's like germane. It's like good terroir for haunting.

Phillip: [00:38:43] It's wow. That was, like, the most Brian thing you've ever said.

Brian: [00:38:48] You can't haunt a canoe. Have you ever heard of that? Are there any haunted canoes on eBay?

Phillip: [00:38:53] Where's a haunted canoe coming from?

Brian: [00:38:56] No. REI. We just talked about this. No haunted canoes.

Sarah: [00:39:02] I bet if you looked long enough, you would find a haunted canoe.

Brian: [00:39:06] They flipped us over randomly. That's every canoe. All canoes are haunted because they all flip so easily.

Phillip: [00:39:15] {laughter} Wow. We're really getting the full unfiltered Brian on this segment. I'm loving it. There's gotta be literally any other facet to this that I feel like it's not just the toys that are freaking me out. It's not just the confirmation from a psychic that's freaking me out. I think what's interesting about this is how often it's been covered in the media. Because this seems to be a story that just is so perfect because, you know, there's a lot of intersection of yeah, it's the creepiness of true life stories, reports. It's easy to dramatize and reenact and keep the story alive.

Brian: [00:40:03] Well and toys are, like, the perfect thing that they would attract media. Oh, haunted toys. Such a trope. Also, I think retail spaces are interesting stories for hauntings. Yeah, I think retail naturally lends itself to having a story around being haunted. Maybe it has to do with objects are inherently could have some sort of connection to things. I don't know. There's a lot going on here.

Phillip: [00:40:42] This according to, what is this from? This is a screenshot from Haunted Planet, but this is a Level 2 haunting, which...

Sarah: [00:40:52] Oh, yeah. There is a hauntometer.

Phillip: [00:40:56] Tell me about the hauntometer. I need to know about that.

Sarah: [00:40:59] This is according to a fandom Haunted Planet wiki, I believe is what this site is called. So Haunted Planet wiki came up with a ranking. I actually don't know if they came up with it or if this, I'm not really well versed in the haunted and paranormal world. But according to Haunted Planet wiki, the Toys R Us haunting is a Level 2 haunting because there are very distinct audible words. Some employees have claimed that they hear Johnny Johnson calling their name down aisle 13.

Phillip: [00:41:32] Stop.

Sarah: [00:41:33] Or they've seen apparitions. So he's been seen in photographs taken by news organizations as well.

Brian: [00:41:39] Woah. That's Level 2. I wonder what a Level 3 is. That's a Level 2. {laughter} I think there's also some an interesting thing here, like we talked about in the segment with the wedding dress. There's an opportunity for things like this to be taken advantage of as a brand. I doubt, I have no idea if Toys R Us was, like, making a move here. They clearly brought in a psychic. That is a media event onto itself, especially one that famous, to make a moment out of it. I do think that actually this would probably do really well in today's environment. I feel like the interest in something like this would be highly peaked. Although, I will say, California in the seventies, also a lot of interest. So these things come in waves, I feel like, where someone would be interested in a spiritual, retail experience. And we're in that moment right now, I think.

Phillip: [00:42:56] Sarah, while Brian was waxing poetic about the philosophical implications of Johnny Johnson, this is about an hour and a half from you. I feel like you need to make a visit to the REI at Sunnyvale.

Sarah: [00:43:10] {laughter} I actually mapped it because I also feel like I should make a visit to the REI. And I had been to an REI in the Bay Area, and I thought it was the same one, but it was not. So I'll have to go see. Maybe I can ask the employees if they had any...

Brian: [00:43:24] Bring some ghost detecting technology.

Sarah: [00:43:28] Infrared camera and...

Phillip: [00:43:30] Yeah. Buy online, pick up in store as some sort of a camping axe.

Brian: [00:43:35] Maybe REI just closes too early. That's the problem. The Toys R Us was open late for Christmas shopping or whatever. And REI just shuts down at 5, and they're like, let's go.

Sarah: [00:43:47] Maybe I need to bring a toy to plant in REI.

Phillip: [00:43:50] Yes. It has to be imbued with a...

Sarah: [00:43:53] An electronic toy.

Brian: [00:43:55] An electronic toy.

Phillip: [00:43:57] I love that. I love that. Alright. Thank you. I don't know how I'll ever be able to forget this one either. This has been, this is a very, I think, world altering segment that we've been doing for this month. I can't wait for the last one.

Sarah: [00:44:14] {laughter} Same. Thanks, you guys, for having me.