Stuck at the desk

👀 What I’m watching: This guy who keeps trolling his AI chat bot.

📙 What I’m reading: Another book about murder.

🎧 What I’m listening to: An old favorite, for comfort.

🍣 What I’m eating: A new section, suggested by a reader.

👨🏼‍💻 What I’m doing: Adjusting my video strategy, again.

I’m not typically a “reply guy” but I realized I’ve unintentionally become that for this series on Instagram, in which creator @husk.irl keeps trolling his chat bot.

I barely even keep up with a single user on any platform, but the algorithm understands I will watch these videos to the end, comment, rewatch, share, and watch again. I cannot get enough of them.

The deadpan delivery and slightly smug AI voice response get me every time. But there’s a utility to these videos too. Whether or not it’s meant to be a satirical look at our over-reliance on AI, I don’t know. But it’s very effective.

I think society - especially the U.S. - has plunged head first into the shallow pool of AI without thinking twice. There are certainly practical uses for AI, but we’ve been going about it the wrong way. I’ve been trying to demonstrate this in my weekly iDave series, covering all things AI. I thought this commenter really nailed it:

That comment is pinned on the latest iDave video from Friday, in which I really flexed my Star Wars prequel trilogy knowledge. Or as one user put it, convincingly came off as a nerd by wearing my “undersized Star Wars’ shirt (they’re right, I bought that shirt in college).

I’ve literally just cracked open this book, so I cannot fully recommend it, but allow me to share the summary that hooked me:

I read this description, whispered “hell yeah” to myself, and immediately purchased “How To Solve Your Own Murder” by Kristen Perrin.

Binge-watching as many Traitors seasons as possible has really put me in this murderous mood. I also just love these kinds of books (see also: “The 7 and ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle,” and “Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone.”). Coincidentally, my mom said she had just finished the book. She said she liked it and then I immediately made her stop because she has a knack for making every review of anything a massive spoiler within one sentence. So, we’re gonna go off of her rave review of “I liked it” and keep reading this book.

When the government shoots someone multiple times, at least once in the head, while they’re just trying to drive away from a militarized force that has billions in funding, that no one wanted in that city to begin with, you tend to go back to your comfort music. For me, that’s Bleachers.

Headlined by Jack Antonoff and - inexplicably - two live drummers, it’s one of the best bands I’ve ever seen live. They’re music is good while working out, driving, fuming about fascism and just walking your dog. Here’s my favorite Bleachers song (though I think the music video is meh).

Sushi bake! My wife found this recipe early in the pandemic and I’ve probably made it 50 times since. It’s called “sushi bake” and we remain obsessed. I’ve made two adjustments though - I include a whole jar of pineapple chunks in the salmon mixture. And I’ve never really included the crab meat (I love you Hy-Vee, but I just don’t trust any midwestern grocery store to carry decent crab meat, imitation or otherwise).

We are responsibly for at least 1 million of the 44 million views in this TikTok recipe:

Last week was our biggest week ever. Our video on Greenland alone earned nearly 15 million views across TikTok or Reels or YouTube. Thank you for watching. I hope I was able to make you chuckle, whenever possible. And otherwise just keep you informed.

Naturally, when something does well, you want to replicate whatever was effective in that video. Views are nice, of course, but I care much more about making something that both I love and audiences love. It can be hard to balance both content strategy and content creation. I realized after my video on Friday that I had veered a little too far into making something that I thought would work versus what I wanted.

To be clear, I am proud of that video and all the nerd jokes. There’s really just one aspect I regret - sitting at the desk again. When I was writing it, I realized the last few videos sitting at the desk had been very effective. So I kept at it on Friday, as opposed to my original idea, which was more green screen, placing myself in a Terminator movie.

Variety is the spice of life! And for me personally, I don’t want to keep making videos from the same area. This is a long established rule I made for myself from the early pandemic TikTok days. Whenever I look at our main page, I want to see a variety in thumbnails

This isn’t too egregious. But I think it got a little stale sitting at my desk. So next week, you’ll see me moving around again. It’s no accident that our second most successful week was when I traveled to Portugal for a conference and had to make my video about 50-year mortgages in the Newark airport.

The situation (flying internationally while making newsworthy content) forced me to get creative, like shooting off of the back of one of those shuttle cars, or inside the perfume section of the duty-free store.

I’ll be in New York for a couple days this week and will also let that inform my setting. If you see me, say hi. Maybe we can even get a bite to eat at the best pizza spot in New York.