Gadgetory

we need this level of production creation humanity to make more sense of the world people were asking was it too soon that satire go too far most kids inside of a household you get a book like see spot run I didn't get that book i got this is apartheid this cute chubby as helpful as possible it's not all about taking it's about giving as well so we have the opportunity for new stories you have the opportunity for new ways to engage there is something happening here when you marry the creativity and potential of the tools with the story swing it around the world and move that ball of freedom forward that's what we're about here so bear tunde thank you so much for speaking with us ha who is there to nicoles genesis are you kidding me here it's the first question do I have to answer the third person yeah you have to the whole interview yeah I'm sorry does Berra tunde have to answer yeah Nathan refer that all right Nathan better tunde I am i embarrassing day I'm a human being all born to a human mother in the United States of America and yeah I'm a writer I'm in a creative expressive person I use a lot of tools to do that I love comedy I love politics I love exploring the intersection of those especially with technology and I'm a traveler I like hopping around the planet relatively freely and uh yeah that's who I am I'm someone who likes to try to use humor to make points or to bring people together or as a catalyst of some kind so often it means it's me talking sometimes through like the company I helped set up it means bringing other people together to express themselves and that's cultivated wet yes tell us about cultivated wit cultivated wit is an organization a new york-based LLC that was founded by me and two other former employees of the onion we all left roughly a year ago summer of two thousand twelve to extend the mission a little bit love the onion was time to try something new but still grounded in humor and so the idea is to use humor creatively with technology to make the world better better content so we do original programming that our marketing so we act as an agency using humor to power marketing campaigns and ad campaigns better products so we put on hackathons that are comedic Lee grounded to make hilarious products and we have some products and development on our own and I saw you have one coming up but next month yeah we're doing this is our third comedy hack day it's happening at the MIT Media Lab September 21 and 22 it's going to be amazing that we've done we did one in New York almost a year ago September 2012 we did one in san francisco at Twitter's headquarters in april 2013 and this will be number three which should be the most perfect what kind of apps have have come out of this beautiful things that the world needs like shout roulette which lets you find people you disagree with on the internet and open up a video channel between you for the purpose of yelling at one another in real-time possibly HD depending on your camera and we need yelling in high def so that's very good there was also citation needed which one the San Francisco around a group of Stanford students made it possible to lie to your friends with ease you've ever been in an argument with someone and you're not sure you have the facts on your side you can ensure it with this app which allows you to insert your chosen fact into a copy of the Wikipedia page in question so if you claim like Oh Miley Cyrus is actually 40 years old and I've been using sort of a human growth hormone to maintain her youthful insanity you could add that to a facsimile of her Wikipedia page through a mobile web app and show it to your friends seconds after uttering that falsehood do you know where this happens now since yeah you can play with it as that citation needed that CO and then most interestingly actually or at least as interesting as an app wasn't an overall winner but it's a purchasable in the App Store it's an iPad app designed for people who have kids or access to kids you're like reading two young children a lot in the to the four year range of age you don't really know what you're talking about they just demand that you read to them so parents are often stuck reading nonsense to their kids about a tank or a dinosaur or a princess same story night after night what if you could read the news you want as the founder says news written for adults by adults so you choose from mashery powered api into USA Today or some other news source the stories you want to read then you pick a skin a design motif of a children's book an original children's book and it merges the two so you have an article about the eurozone crisis looking like it's a story about a cute little monkey dangling from a tree and that's not where else yeah it's literally a win win win win I think it's a four-way win because the parent gets real information a child gets placated but then a child gets educated about the eurozone crisis and then you're also powering a tech economy its innovation so um how long have you been doing comedy I've been doing it uh through amplified microphones since 2002 prior to that in writing roughly 1996 my freshman year of college I started a satirical email newsletter and that's when i first got serious about trying to be funny do you feel like since then humor has become a bigger part of of news or I guess The Daily Show on The Colbert Report obviously huge the onion far with the Daily Show it's it's on comedy central comedy central okay I'll it up you got it yeah um anyway do you feel that comedy is an important part of news is it a great way to make a point I think comedy is an important special power that is often deployed for good purposes sometimes that is to relieve people of their pain sometimes it is to remind them or teach them something that they may not want to learn sometimes it is to inform them about things they may not know about so in the context of news I think comedy is really important I think not necessarily as a primary delivery device for news but certainly as a way of set in the context of what's BS and what is it and you will often find that people are willing to listen to a comedian where they wouldn't listen to a professional news delivery person or a preacher or professor certainly a politician so there's a level of trust that comes with an authentic comedic voice that you see and strong examples like colbert and the daily show through text and even in college humor and the onion through overseas outlets through fake twitter accounts we got a yearning for someone to be honest with us and there's fewer people in society more prepared to be honest than a good comic now so you when did you start at the onion 2007 2017 you started in college writings caracal new yeah got to the onion yeah what did you do what did you bring to the onion mmm a bicycle I wrote it in those days and some granola bars what really super erbe organic type yeah this quinoa based nonsense I was hired initially as a politics editor they were looking for someone to orchestrate the two thousand eight election coverage under the banner war for the White House Onion News Network web video had just been launched a few months prior to my arrival that was Onion News Radio on a podcast format that was the print paper and the website and social media hadn't actually yet we had a myspace page back then to post links to videos and links to articles who is in your top eight Tom and then Tom's friends okay mostly and I think maybe general Assad probably he's a different guy back then it was a different time yeah stop a koala yeah yeah he's really fallen today so my overall job was kind of coordinated to integrate all this coverage to come up with new types of digital comedy that we could do do you have a favorite onion headline man I do and it's no one else's favorite go ahead but it's uh is really simple was a magazine cover I think mocking the new york times mag is sunday magazine and it says enough is it enough it's a question mark is very deep it's great seemingly deep yeah headline but it captures so much of you know our quests for meaning but also like the BS layer and like super serious media you know headline treatment I really and I like the simplicity of it yeah now the onion is clearly evolved from just like a newspaper to go online and then you brought the onion to Twitter sorry about that do it if you've made it actually what was being a lot Twitter yeah it's a new--it's a platform for anybody but comedians can use it now yeah to do you think it's to work out material is it a new stage yeah everything's a stage someone great once said all the world's a stage he's dead now but he was right that is right and I think Twitter being a part of the world is true for that the biggest realization I had consciously at the onion I think I realized it even in my own work passively but everything is a performance venue your e-mail newsletter your 404 error page the apps that you release the Terms of Service wherever you have an opportunity to communicate you have an opportunity to be you that's true for individuals for corporations for nonprofits for editorial outlets like the onion or you know the verge so I think with that our social media evolution at the onion went from one that was explicitly simple and promotional read this article come back to our real estate and spend time on site to power that metric so hey we can play out narratives and scenarios on this other platform for comedians it's a lot of different things it's a public notebook it is an open mic it is a way to connect with potential fans and collaborators like meet other comics like you and start mutually mutually following people including idols you know folks you've always looked up to and there's judgment you know that comes with being on Twitter there's there's the release of your material before it's really ready you know the idea of speed over quality and maturation I something to Twitter doesn't really respect twitter is all about the instant zing the splash that going for maximum faves and retweets and that's a little different from trying to cultivate a voice over a period of time and really hone your craft is there like shame associated with comedy now because of things like Twitter possibly just like people are going to throw in zingers out there but for those who do take it seriously I think it pushes the envelope when Bush left office there were a lot of I think really dumb questions will comedy exists now that this guy's not president anymore it's like don't be an idiot but a lot of people were idiotic a lot of very profound news outlets asked the same question that everyone can you make fun of the president if his name is not george w bush he hasn't spent a lot of time on vacation clearing brush obviously you can but it does raise the bar I think Twitter does a similar thing I think all these outlets was give everyone microphones step up the game for those who really want to wield them with some skill you look at patton oswalt he basically said something he split his full statement across two tweets so what tested your attention and he said something in the first tweet that set up something ridiculous to be said in the second tweet and if you just saw the second one you just lost your mind because you're like way what I don't want blacks in my neighborhood but the setup was something that made that not about race what about something else so that's great because it also wasn't just about him it was about the audience and where their minds are and who was willing to do the work to figure out what he was really trying to say and I answer is not a lot of people for those who were willing to do the work you got an extra reward that's novel that's interesting that sort of thing interest me do you think any part of that though was uh yes it was a creative creative way to tell a joke on Twitter to test people's attention you think it all others any part of it that was just kind of see what the trolls would say of course I mean who's begging people yeah but that's the other here's the problem with twitter is that it it is an outrage endorsement engine you can find anything you think you don't like you can literally have an all sexist experience on twitter you can have an all imperialistic experience on twitter if you just search enough you can find something to upset you and often you can choose to interpret someone's words in the most negative possible interpretation regardless of whether or not that was their intention yeah I have a little saying that I have been burned by not following before which is click before you retweet like before you know something that looks really interesting maybe it's someone you think you trust you look up that's a fun headline retweet you don't know where that goes test it first before you inflict that upon your own community so there's a responsibility of media literacy that we all have in the way media is now changing and I think what Patton did with that was hold that mirror up to us to say should we really be mad or is he really you know messing with us he was definitely messing wink that's good air tunde thank you so much for a man sitting down with that of course