Episode Transcript
FAWN: [00:00:00] There are a lot of hopeful things on the horizon everybody. I have been seeing more people wanting to connect. I've been seeing more and more people across all kinds of industries and no industries, just like people about town. So tired of the talk of ai, and I think we're going to understand that perhaps we can use AI as a tool and return with a sense of relaxation and more free time perhaps, because we'll see it is a tool and we'll figure out how to make money.
We'll figure out how to make a living, we'll figure out how to have a home. With friends, family, and have more time to create. And when we do that, we're gonna realize that that longing we've all had, even if you don't wanna admit it, that longing we've all had to connect is bringing us closer to together.
And that's definitely coming. It's on the horizon.
Alright, let's talk [00:01:00] about it today.
Grab your teas and coffees or waters and drinks. Everybody, welcome back to our Friendly World.
MATT: Hello.
FAWN: Hi everybody. What are we talking about today,
Matt?
MATT: Oh my goodness. We are talking about, ah, okay. My news sources are my news sources. I get stuff that maybe you've seen, maybe you haven't. There is, there's a new app out.
Okay, fine. Everybody knows new app. Well, this app is, Hmm. So in China there's a, a food delivery service called Are You Hungry? Question mark. Very to the moment. Very to the point, right? Well, a bunch of Gen Z developers came up with an app called Are You Dead, question mark. Now this app is very, very simple.
You sign up, you register a contact, and then once a day you [00:02:00] click the inside the app to say, Hey, I'm still alive. If you miss two days in a row, you're a contact gets notified.
FAWN: Well, what if something happens to the contact?
MATT: What, what if, what if
FAWN: they die?
MATT: What if something happens to your phone? What if, what if what?
You know, what if I leave my phone in my car and there's a, and there's a blizzard?
FAWN: What if you just have the flu and like, you know, what if you lost your phone? What if, yeah, that was my first question.
MATT: There's, there's a bunch of
FAWN: what ifs. Like what if something happens to your technology? What if you go on a trip, you know,
MATT: right, and you leave it, you leave it at home,
FAWN: or you are on a trip and.
It's been a while since I've traveled, but like, what if it's one of those flights where you are on and off planes for two days until you get to your destination, but. I'm sorry, I'm now, I'm dating myself 'cause I haven't traveled in a while. And usually in those cases I'm not really texting people because, I mean, we still have old fashioned stuff because I'm like, oh, I [00:03:00] can't, I have so many minutes.
I can't just text you from another country. You know?
It is too expensive.
MATT: But let's circle back to the app. What is this app saying? You know, there's, there's a part of me that looks at it and is like, whoa, whoa, this is like grim. This is like spooky scary, uncomfortable.
FAWN: Why you have to be dead. Why can't there be an app that says, Hey, I'm alive.
MATT: Well, you know, maybe they should rebrand it 'cause they're actually in the process of rebranding it.
But, uh, yeah. Are you alive instead of, are you dead?
FAWN: But I honestly, that does get more attention.
MATT: It does.
FAWN: You tend to remember that it's, it gets you.
MATT: It does.
FAWN: It's just sad.
MATT: Well, again, you know, welcome to, uh, martial arts or fighting or debate or anything else. It's like, are you that [00:04:00] desperate to connect?
Maybe the answer is yes. Maybe the answer is, this is a way for me to connect with. Whoever my emergency contact is. But you know what,
FAWN: that's one thing I don't understand. You've said that several times now since you've found this app.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: How is that desperate to connect? Because I find it the opposite.
I find that people who will use that app, I, I'm like, do you really wanna connect? Because you're saying only when I'm dead
MATT: or only when I don't press the button two days in a row.
FAWN: I mean, is that kind of like when you call each other and one doesn't pick up and they call back immediately, you pick up no matter what.
MATT: Yes.
FAWN: Because that's a code for I need you right now. Right. Something happened.
MATT: Right. Or just, I need You, period.
FAWN: Right,
MATT: right. Yes.
But that's just,
FAWN: I just don't understand how that's, that's
MATT: Jen.
FAWN: How, how is that desperate to connect? Because I, I just don't see it. I, I feel like
MATT: it's, it's making you think about maybe this person every day, which brings you that much closer to that person, which. [00:05:00] Helps you maybe overcome any reluctance you have to communicate?
FAWN: Is there more than one contact or
MATT: No,
FAWN: there's one. There's just one contact
MATT: only. There's just And emergency contact?
FAWN: Just one.
MATT: Just one.
FAWN: Well, most people won't even have that. I mean, what do we do if we don't even have that one?
MATT: That's
FAWN: depressing.
MATT: Yes. Let's try
FAWN: what?
MATT: Try and stay on the sunny side of life here.
FAWN: And then do you have to tell that person, Hey, you're my dead contact.
MATT: You might,
FAWN: this is terrible.
MATT: Why?
FAWN: I'm not feeling hopeful here. I don't, I'm not seeing how this is a good sign for how people wanna connect. What I've been seeing lately,
MATT: mm-hmm.
FAWN: Is what we talked about totally by accident last week, was how I got a.
Was it last week? But like how I got a Valentine in the mail and
MATT: you were so scared.
FAWN: You know how so I have my email pops up with all the pictures of what's in the mail that day.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: So this [00:06:00] note, this picture showed up of something addressed to me. Obviously handwritten with. Pretty flowers and hearts on it.
That was hand drawn. Right,
MATT: right.
FAWN: And I got scared a little bit. I'm like, what is this?
MATT: I'm coming,
FAWN: you know, I, it was, I was relating it to like getting phone calls from someone like outta the blue. And you're like, why are you calling me?
MATT: Right.
FAWN: I was never that way. But that's actually, maybe I was, but like I had a friendship.
I mean, I realized it wasn't a true friendship anyway, but she yelled at me for calling her. Instead of texting, so I'd never talk to that person ever again. Right. But like, that's how people were. They didn't want the phone call it stressed them out too much. And long before we all had cell phones.
Mm-hmm. I remember a neighbor did that to me. He was new to our neighborhood in Santa Monica, Uhhuh. And we all just yelled at each other from who, you know, from our windows and stuff. No big deal. And I yelled, I'm like, John Claude, come here. And he [00:07:00] ran over quickly, which my friends always did.
We did for each other all the time.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: But they knew like we, our nervous systems were totally copacetic, so we weren't freaked out all the time. Right. That the way people are nowadays, we all are nowadays, but like he comes over, I'm like, taste this. I just made lavender ice cream. And he yelled at me.
He said, don't you ever do that to me again. I'm like, what make you ice cream? What's your problem? He's like, no, you yelled. I thought you were in trouble. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. No, this is what we do here. We just yelled
MATT: for you to come. So how would you communicate if you were in trouble?
FAWN: well, it wouldn't be the same kind of yell, and I guess you'd never heard me yell before.
You are right. You are right. But you know, I, I think more and more people have trauma.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: And you have to be really careful about [00:08:00] every, everything. So we're all walking on eggshells now, right? Because everybody has a trigger of some
MATT: kind. So this is a very deliberate way to. Contact or not contact someone so that they understand maybe there's a gravitas, or maybe they just understand that maybe you've been too busy to hit the button twice in a row.
So they'll call you and say, Hey, hey, maybe you'll pick up. Or maybe they'll just freak out the bed
FAWN: so it doesn't go to the authorities or anything like
MATT: that. It doesn't go to the authorities, it just goes
FAWN: to that
MATT: person. It goes to your emergency contact. So your emergency contact can make decisions. Oh, now what's interesting is originally they, you know, people were saying, Hey, maybe they're creating this for old people who want to maintain their independence.
And so that way if they've fallen in the shower, they can't press the button and you'll know,
FAWN: honestly, this is good for dating. Like if you go but not 48 hours, like if, hey, if you don't hear from me in the next two hours. [00:09:00] Then, you know, help,
MATT: right?
FAWN: If you go with someone you don't know,
or if you go somewhere where you're not,
MATT: it feels like there's a business opportunity there,
FAWN: you know? But it, it wouldn't be 48 hours, it'd be like two hours.
MATT: It would be a preset, whatever, one time only thing. There's a business. Business. Well,
you
FAWN: can it
all
FAWN: the time.
MATT: Business opportunity there. People,
FAWN: you can change it all the time.
Like your Google Calendar, you know what I'm saying? Right. Like you could just put it in.
MATT: Right.
FAWN: Can you do it? You are the techie,
MATT: don't have time. Good idea. Idea is worth $20. Execution is what makes it worth millions of dollars. So right now, if you come, if you, if, if you decide you wanna make this, you owe us 20 bucks.
FAWN: Hmm. I wish you would do stuff.
MATT: I know
FAWN: we always come up with the best ideas and then 10 years later someone does it and it's huge.
MATT: Well, these people already did it. It's just very simple.
FAWN: No, I'm, I'm talking about my dating thing.
MATT: Right? But this would be a very simple thing for them to take this app. Are you dead?
FAWN: Right?
MATT: And make it, are
FAWN: you
MATT: safe? Countdown time, Marie,
FAWN: I am [00:10:00] safe. Made it home safe.
MATT: Right.
FAWN: Uh, but then the, the, they have those tracking apps. Track they do trackers,
MATT: well, that's a little draconian though. And it's also a, a power drain. But by the same token, you're right, but let's not talk about,
FAWN: okay.
Sorry. We dig.
MATT: Digress. My
FAWN: goodness. I'm sorry.
MATT: All right. My, what's the most interesting part about this to me is the fact that the, the team that worked on this, they're all Gen Z people, which means at this point in time, right now, they're between 18 and 34. So these aren't old people thinking about this.
This is reasonably young. This is people just starting their careers and, and, or early in their careers,
FAWN: but like
MATT: things who are making this because they're feeling disconnected too.
FAWN: But they're also seeing how precious life is at that point. Because I mean, just what, two, two and a half years ago, I out of the blue, Googled.
A good friend of mine from the past that I no longer talked to and [00:11:00] found out he was dead, you know, like I don't hang out with that entire group anymore, right? So I had no idea. It was so,
MATT: and then we also, you also Googled somebody else from a similar time in the past, and we found they had a YouTube movie out.
So it runs the gamut. It runs the gamut.
FAWN: Was it a YouTube movie? I thought it was an actual movie.
MATT: Well, it was an actual movie. But you saw it on YouTube, right?
FAWN: Yeah. Yeah.
MATT: So
FAWN: yeah, my, my martial arts instructors, two of them. Two of them, yeah. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. I don't know. I don't know. Like I was saying, I feel like there's a not, I feel like I've been seeing more and more, oh, the, I was trying to tell you this and I got cut off. I, what I was saying was last week I was talking about how I got that Valentine in the mail.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: And then zeitgeist again, there's this [00:12:00] whole movement of people using mail to connect with one another again.
So making handmade written letters by hand and sending them to one another, that's a huge deal right now because everyone is craving the opposite of ai even before AI has totally taken over everything. I mean, it's rapidly doing that, but.
MATT: Well,
FAWN: at the same time, people from all ages and all kinds of backgrounds, I'm hearing them say that I really value this more than I would ai.
I value a handwritten gesture, a note I value an in person something. Like when we started this friendship thing, people were looking at us like we were crazy. Mm-hmm. Like, what do you mean? I have plenty of friends. And then we found out that those same people were actually the loneliest people.
The one that protested too much.
MATT: When we started. When we were [00:13:00] working on the app, we would talk to people about it and they would say, I have lots of friends, so just friendship deniers as it were.
FAWN: Bottom line people are wanting.
The authentic touch,
MATT: right? And people are wanting to connect.
FAWN: So that's a really good sign because whenever there's desire, that's where it goes,
MATT: right?
FAWN: That, that when there's a desire, whatever you're desiring is happening. It may not be there that second, but it is physically coming to show up.
Does that make sense?
MATT: It does. It does. And and honestly, I think one of the other issues with kind of the, the internet and et cetera, et cetera in general is, that it feels like people are too picky. I remember way back when, and this is a very long time ago, I was in community college 'cause I wanted to study something new and I was, and one of the guys in the community college was like, yeah, I, I I just have a, I have a Slack channel [00:14:00] with, friends from high school and they're, they're all in college and, and I'm in community college and we we're talking on a Saturday night because there's nobody else we wanna hang out with.
These are people who are in brand new schools. Maybe they went away uncomfortable, and this was years ago. So these are the, you know, absolutely still locked into that 18 to 34 kind of age group. And on the higher side, who are feeling that. Who were feeling that, that they'd rather hang out with people from high school than in the hypergrowth that is college meeting new people. But apps like this really to me start to get us closer to a world where we're more willing to accept someone's flaws.
And the fact that I may not have a ton of things in common with them, and we certainly don't have any shared experiences to start with. So I, it's building your vocabulary because people from high school or the people maybe you've known for 6, 8, 10, 12 years in some [00:15:00] cases, and starting a, a, a friendship with someone you just met can feel daunting because you don't have the shorthand.
You don't, you know, the. You know, you can't just say that cloud feeling or do you remember that guy on that beach? Or whatever it is, whatever kind of shorthand you have with your friends. All of a sudden it's like, oh my God, this person doesn't know anything about me. So I have to tell them who I am.
I have to explain who I am. And you know, this forces us to even have a good understanding of who we are so we can actually explain ourselves. So it, it feels hopeful to me in that kind of vein because, they're understanding that they're isolated and they're understanding that they need to have some communication.
And this opens the door to really putting a mirror up to you saying, why don't you have more communication? Why do you need this app? Why don't you have friends who are gonna notice if you're not around for a day or two? You know, I, I don't see this as. [00:16:00] I see this as a wake up call. I don't see this as, a sign of, you know, finality like, oh dear, this is just how it needs to be forever.
FAWN: Oh, so you don't, 'cause you told me this is a sign of finality. I'm
MATT: like, well, no, no mean, and, and it, it is provided we don't heed this warning. And I think people will, I mean, that's why you name it something very blunt, like, are you dead? It's kind of hard to make light of that if you pull this app and a bunch of people did in China and supposedly, I guess across the world too.
You start to understand how isolated you are and how you need to get out and how you need to mingle
FAWN: and the need comes in. So, a few days ago, I texted our friends, two of them. At the same time simultaneously. I said, it's an emergency. I need you for an emergency talk session.
Please help. And they were on it, boy, were they on it? Oh my God. They ended up texting me [00:17:00] back and forth. And they wanted to know exactly what was happening. 'cause I said, look, I need help with this. And they're like, okay, give us more details. What happened exactly. So I told them, and then they're like, all right, um, well, Vanessa's on a call until nine.
I'm with you until then, and then she'll call at nine. I'm like, okay. So at nine. Got on a, a conference call together. Mm-hmm. We were on the phone for quite a while and it, the powerful loving feeling that I had, I can't explain with words, but the feeling that I.
Felt like I was watching a movie. The kind of magic that you only see on screen. Mm-hmm. But I was feeling it, the words from my friends, the power from the love
MATT: mm-hmm.
FAWN: Was, it was so big that it felt like I was out of my body. And mind you, I was going through a lot of stress [00:18:00] at the same time, but really it was the love.
The power from these two women, they're powerful. The fact that they came together to help me.
MATT: Mm-hmm.
FAWN: Wow. there's nothing. They're very, very, I can't think of
maybe more than one other thing that would be that powerful.
That amazing. There is no way a machine can do that. We all know that. But just to put down your ego and say, I need you right now. I really need you, and this is what's happening. And not to do it all the time. You're not draining on anyone's, network. You're not draining anyone's power and hopefully making sure even when you do that, it's, it's symbiotic that you are not just taking that, it's powerful together because it's community and that's what we're there for.
We all miss that village. Most of us have never [00:19:00] even had it, of the grandmother right next door. The family next door. If you need a ride, your neighbor's gonna take you, no problem. Do you know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. No one has that, well, I won't say no one has that, but it's, it's, it's hard to find.
MATT: Right.
FAWN: But I think that we're getting back to that. I really do. This is what I wanted to say. Just the fact that people are not resisting us so much with this whole friendship thing.
MATT: True.
FAWN: You know, they finally came to the conclusion like, yes, there is a loneliness epidemic. Now granted 20 20 helped with that.
Like it was no longer us saying this is what's happening, that the whole world felt it at the same time for, for whatever reason. Right?
There you have it.
MATT: Okay. Connect.
FAWN: Well, you can't just connect because you are dealing with people that maybe you can't connect with because there's nothing there, but. Again, just the, just the mere fact that you [00:20:00] want that, that there are apps out there, there are podcasts about that. There are so many people googling friendship stuff like, what do I do?
How do I make a friend? You know, that it's become really huge. That is all good news.
MATT: Yes.
FAWN: Rather than being told you guys are nuts, this is this, what are you doing that for? You know, that's stupid. Indeed,
MATT: indeed.
FAWN: so there you have it. I think that the world will be starting looking much better soon.
So hang in there, everybody.
MATT: Be well.
FAWN: Have a beautiful every day. We'll talk to you soon.
