Transcript

There Was a Line to Meet Him and I Had No Idea Who He Was

From Pretty Funny Business · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 43 min · 8,563 words · 223 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "There Was a Line to Meet Him and I Had No Idea Who He Was", an episode of Pretty Funny Business published October 20, 2026 (43 min, about 8,563 words). It mentions 15 people, works and ideas, including Bob Does Sports, LinkedIn, Kacey Musgraves, HubSpot, Migos.

What this episode is about

In this episode of Pretty Funny Business, hosts Lauren and Sydney riff on the "algo-rhythm"—the idea that algorithms shape everyday life—with playful skepticism about who “invented” the algorithm. They mix pop culture jokes, behind-the-scenes banter, and a lighthearted debate about quality versus speed versus cost in both content creation and personal grooming. The conversation highlights how tech myths, humor, and candid workplace dynamics intersect to reveal what makes their show feel authentic and relatable.

Key takeaways

  • Two is the new three: you can have two good things, never all three.
  • The algo+rhythm is everyone’s backstage boss—just with Al Gore as a punchline.
  • Parental advice from the couch: parallel play is the new social life.
  • Humor thrives when you embrace the chaos of imperfect setups.
  • Self-awareness: even on a podcast, you’re still choosing which two from you show up.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Kacey Musgraves, Lauren Aquilino, Sydney Washington
  2. – 15:00: Bob Does Sports
  3. – 20:00: Shakespeare in the Park, Titanic
  4. – 25:00: Bob Does Sports
  5. – 30:00: New York Times
  6. – 40:00: LinkedIn, HubSpot, inbound
  7. – 43:26: New Yorker, Wicked

Notable quotes from "There Was a Line to Meet Him and I Had No Idea Who He Was"

  • I'm Lauren Aquilino, that's Sydney Washington.
    about Lauren Aquilino · at
  • 0.75, right. I would like to call out that I'm feeling a little like woodsy today. I'm wearing a But it is a Kacey Musgraves hoodie.
    about Kacey Musgraves · at
  • Jib jab videos? Yes. And so there was this video that someone made the guys on the Bob Does Sports video YouTube doing the Migos song, and he was crying laughing. I don't know like this is like totally his niche of algorithm.
    about Bob Does Sports · at
  • I this summer went to Shakespeare in the Park with my husband.
    about Shakespeare in the Park · at
  • So a few weeks after that we saw Titanic, which is a parody musical about the Titanic movie.
    about Titanic · at
  • She's yeah, I pay for the New York Times and I pay for whatever, and that's how I get my news. you pay, you just end up paying the advertisers, and that's how you get.
    about New York Times · at
  • Usually when the sales people start being mean in the comments of my LinkedIn posts.
    about LinkedIn · at
  • To make this a little bit more business specific, I would like to tell you something about HubSpot Okay.
    about HubSpot · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

  • Migos — Concept · 2 mentions
  • AI — Concept · 1 mention
  • Zoran — Concept · 1 mention

Places & events

  • LinkedIn — Place · 3 mentions · first at
  • Shakespeare in the Park — Event · 1 mention · first at
  • inbound — Event · 1 mention · first at
    Later in life. But, last week I went to inbound, previously known as inbound is the HubSpot conference. And it was my first time.
  • New Yorker — Place · 1 mention · first at
    One this morning that was like this is what my a day in the life of a New Yorker Turn off the sound on this.

Media & podcasts

  • Bob Does Sports — Media · 3 mentions · first at
  • Titanic — Media · 1 mention · first at
  • Wicked — Media · 1 mention · first at
    Stabbed and then you go to your favorite place, which is Times Square where you get stabbed and then you go see Wicked the Musical.

Full transcript with timestamps

Today, we're going to talk about the algo. The algo? Algo is a pet name for the algo-rhythm.

Which is the machine behind all of our lives. Invented by Al Gore. That's why they call it

god. THE ALGO-RHYTHM. IS THIS TRUE? NO. Did you just make that up right now? No.

Oh. Yeah, actually, yeah, I made that You're on a different algo-rhythm than me.

My algo-rhythm is delivering Al Gore jokes and yours is not. Hello and welcome to Pretty Funny Business. I'm Lauren Aquilino, that's Sydney Washington.

Oh, I didn't even get to introduce myself. I didn't I didn't want you to. You felt like you were going through it a little bit. So, I wanted to take that off your plate.

Thank you so much. We always really regret not recording earlier, like earlier in the session. We just say the funniest thing first thing.

We used to do that, just like let it rip immediately once we were river side. We really should.

We really should start doing that again. We should at least put that in the behind the scenes content for the VIPVs.

I agree. For cam comrades exclusively. Should we re-replay what we said? Yeah, do you remember what we said?

It was something along the lines of Your hair can be clean, you can have makeup on or you can like your outfit, but you can't HAVE ALL THREE.

YOU CAN CHOOSE TWO. TYPICALLY, THIS is not a Venn diagram, but some kind of diagram. It's the pretty funny diagram where you can either get something cheap, fast, or good, right? This is like my boss taught me this like early in my career.

Yeah. Like, if you want something done, you can get it cheap, fast, like your options are cheap, fast, and good, but you can have two, but not all three. Yeah.

And so, that's what makes this podcast what it is. You can have You can have two, but not all three. You can have two from me, two from Lauren, and two from the whole thing. For us personally, you can have clean hair, you can have makeup on. You can like your outfit. Choose two.

Yeah. I like my hair. It is not clean, but I do like it. So But that's not quite

It's not all three. I'm not in love with my outfit, but I I do like it. I do like it. I feel like I have half the hair and half the outfit.

Okay. But that's like only one cumulative. That's not bad. That's not That's not That's not That's not That's still That's still me, too.

I um don't like my hair. And my dream was to wash my hair before this occurred and and that didn't happen. Um I also didn't have time to go to Drybar, so no one washed my hair. And my outfit I feel neutral about, and my makeup I feel neutral about.

Okay, so this is not actually fitting our framework whatsoever. You're right. I think that maybe peak performance, it's best you can hope for is that you can have two. But most days you maybe have

less than less than 1.7. Today I'm a 1.5. Today I'm a 0.75. 0.75, right. I would like to call out that I'm feeling a little um like woodsy today. I'm wearing a But it is a Kacey Musgraves hoodie.

Oh, wow. Which means I paid a lot of money for it. That wasn't Bass Pro. That was the merch stand.

Which means it was very expensive, which is why I feel okay listeners, Laura is wearing a camo, but I would say not like a not like a

Not military. No, not military. And I would say not aesthetic camo. I think this is hunting camo.

Hunting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's not orange. It's not I'm trying to fit in to the woods. Yeah.

There's no safety orange. Yeah. Well, I didn't know that was Kacey Musgraves platform, but She has a lot of platforms, to be fair.

Today we're going to talk about the algo. the algo The algo is a pet name for the algo- rhythm.

Which is the machine behind all of our lives, if you don't know. Invented by Al Gore.

That's why they call it the algo- THE ALGORITHM? IS THIS TRUE? NO. Did you just make that up right now?

No. Oh. Yeah, actually yeah, I made that You're on a different algorithm than me.

My algorithm is delivering Al Gore jokes and yours is not. I do know he invented the internet. And so it makes sense that the algorithm would be named

In a way, Al Gore did invent the algorithm because he invented the internet. Give it or the internet, yes. And the reason that I wanted to talk about this today is because I was hanging out with my husband a few days ago. And

[clears throat] And as we do when we hang out, we were both on our phones. Sure. That's what we call parallel play.

And I looked over and sometimes, you know, as much as I'm sure he's like, "Your content, stupid." I actually spend way less time This is not a This is not me This is not me being humble or on a high horse. I spend spend way less time on like content on the internet. Just like scrolling. Yeah, he spends a lot more time scrolling. I spend a lot more time playing stupid games on my phone.

Oh, really? What games you been playing? I They're so embarrassing. Oh, no, this is a safe space. It's time I'll tell you my games, too.

Do you think they're the same? No, I don't think so. I think our autism is different.

I have some I The one I'm playing right now I really don't want to tell. I will, but I'm going to soften myself

Okay. and be less embarrassed and tell really embarrassed. Okay. I'm going to commit to not making fun of your games.

I was hoping you weren't going to. I just wanted you to know that that was something you were scared of. I'm telling you right now I'm not going to.

Okay. They are Okay, so some of them are a number-based, which is really nerdy. So, I like this one called Nonogram, which is like kind of a logic puzzle. You have to like fill in different blocks based on like it tells you like in this row there's going to be 10 blocks or 15 blocks that you fill in. And so it's kind of like a logic

with like No, you like color it in. Oh. Yeah. That's fun. each row. So there'll be like a graph like um

Look at this graph. Look at this graph. Look at this stupid graph. Anyway. And then you fill in the numbers. There's another one called number sums which is kind of like Sudoku in a way where it tells you how much

I was going to ask if the other game was kind of like Sudoku. They all sound like cousins of Sudoku.

They are They are. They are They are all cousins of Sudoku. Um so I really like those. Those are like my go It doesn't matter.

Whatever. It's math, not words. After all, they should have named it something easier.

Totally. Four square. That's what that one should be called. Sure. And then I also like these I like really like just color by number if I'm trying to pay attention to something if I'm watching TV. Yes.

Do you have to actually color or do you just tap it? You just tap it. That's kind of fun.

It's so satisfying. that super fun. And it helps you like And the one I do is um oil painting and so it ends up being like a really pretty picture.

Look at this beautiful art I made on my phone. And it helps me when I like I'm trying to watch something.

when you're done? No. I would I would immediately screenshot it and just like send it to all my group chats. Be like, "Guys, look what I made."

It's going to get old real real fast. Are you Is this like a high volume activity? Like how many of these paintings are you finishing in a week?

Not a lot. It It used to be more, but I do like to do it when I'm supposed to be doing something. So to be honest, when I go to church, I do it during service so that I'm not scrolling otherwise.

stained glass. Stained glass, exactly. But what's funny is there was like a a little kid next to me was like also doing it and Mike was like, "Look, Lauren. Look." And I was like, "Do you think he's

Like it helps me pay attention otherwise I'm going to be like, "What's on I don't know. I'm going to be doing something else.

It's fine. It's an accommodation. I agree. That's how I use that one. Okay, now the one that I'm actually just addicted to and wasting too much time on right now, it's called Just your most embarrassing one?

Yeah. Okay. It's called Colony Flow and it's a picture made of, let's say, pixels that are different colors.

Okay. And you have to um select different colored ants to go get the different colored pixels.

Okay. And they go and they pick them up and they put them away in their anthill. I'm not really sure.

Okay. But the goal is to like get rid of all the pixels as if they're like food.

So they seems like you're trying to identify the color of ant to send out? To send out. Yes, but it it is harder because it's like a puzzle almost of like you have to do it in a specific order and if not, like it might be like, oh, like I can't even get to the black ones, but all I have left are black ants, so like

Okay. I die. Like I lost a life. Oh, okay. All right. I I don't think that's any more embarrassing than the other ones.

I think maybe it's because they made it bugs. Like I think it could have been anything. Have you seen like the sand ones? It's similar to that. Oh, yeah. So there's like a sand art and then you have to choose a different color buckets and collect the different sand that's com- it's flowing down. I actually like don't want to introduce you or anyone else into any of these games because they are

else to get sucked into your sickness. It is a huge time suck. Like it is it is it's an illness. It's awful. It's like if I just want some quick dopamine

than the infinite scroll on the algo- rhythm. I'm not getting any information. No news. Like no just

I have no idea what's going on in the world. It's just me and these ants out here in the mean streets.

Exactly. So as I'm like playing this ant game, I'm like, uh, "What are you watching over there?"

Obviously. He's always laughing and I'm so jealous about it. Like he really does he's easy to make laugh, but like it just like

He's a cheap laugh. laughing at? Yeah, who are you laughing at? Who are you laughing at? Get a job.

Get a job. And he goes Whatever they give me. And I was like, "Oh my god, that's like I'm not saying that's only him, but it really got me thinking."

Just I'm just Whatever [gasps] Al Gore wants me to consume is what I am consuming right now.

Yeah. And then he was crying laughing, and this is going to be like this honestly it's not my algorithm, but and I'm going to say some things that I don't think I could be wrong, but I don't think you know what they are, but he watches the YouTube golf. Bob Does Sports. And there's some kind of new AI thing where there's a Migos song that you can make it's a rap group.

Okay. Where you can make face person You know like kind of like those old elf Oh, the jib jab.

Jib jab videos? Yes. And so there was this video that someone made the guys on the Bob Does Sports video YouTube doing the Migos song, and he was crying laughing. I don't know like this is like totally his niche of algorithm.

Algorithm is like, "You know who's going to like this one? Mikey Accavitti." Mikey Accavitti.

There you go, Mikey. Hi, algorithm. Curated this from my internet library for you.

showing me, and I'm like I'm so like happy for you. Do you remember I feel like this was a unique um era of time where you would go to your friend's house and the primary activity was going to their family computer and showing each other all the YouTube videos that you know.

No. I feel like my least favorite activity ever, but it was all anyone wanted to do.

We talked about this on our last episode is that this These are the types of things that we did at our sleepover, and I said there was a lot of haunted things, and you said you were doing a lot of

Yes, we were watching just all the YouTube videos. That was the the when you say I built this algorithm brick by brick, that was literally building your algorithm brick by brick. It was your friend. Not Al Gore, your friend who was supposed to know you, but somehow Al Gore knows me way better.

Oh, your friend was like, here look at this. You're going to like this. you're going to like it because I like it and you're going to like it and I'm like, wow.

I don't know if we said this before the podcast, but I know that I've talked to you about it that this is how this is the difference between my generation and yours even though we're both technically millennials is like something happened with YouTube between the two of us because

YouTube was big in my childhood, but it was new. New on the scene, brand new technology.

didn't really do that. Like we I went over to my friend's house and we did a lot a lot of chat rooms. A lot of chat rooms. Like we were still deep in

It was on the computer. Adults knew that chat rooms were really bad. So they were like, you are absolutely whatever you do on this machine, no chat rooms.

No, no, no. A lot of chat rooms, a lot of talking to strangers, a lot of lying to strangers about how old you were. Yeah. Like looking back, that is definitely something that's been stomped out quite a bit.

How do you get kidnapped? But that's mostly what we were doing was still very much AOL Instant

Messenger and then like YouTube started to come on the scene more like I mean obviously we use YouTube and my brother who's a little bit my brothers are younger than me. Like they actually were probably the ones that were showing me the funny YouTube videos and my brother had some friends that were like I'm not going to name names now cuz number one I'm going to get it wrong. Number two I don't know if they're still doing it. Number three I don't know if they It doesn't matter. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'll talk to you later and you're like, yeah, I knew them. He had some like famous YouTube friends like early early on. So that was like fun for him. I actually think that's probably why he ended up going to school for film and video.

Because he had friends that were YouTubers. Yeah, and that was like fun. It was like so fun.

You know, like every kid's dream now is to grow up and be a YouTuber. Definitely my youngest. She's like

I was like working at the book fair at my kids school last year and some some random kid comes to check out and we're at the book fair cash register and he's like, "I got a YouTube channel. I got 27 followers. Do you want to follow me? I I'm making content about whatever." And I was like, "No, thank you."

Yeah, Pippa has a YouTube video and she gets real mad cuz she can't show her I'm not she's not allowed to show her face. So and she'll be like, "Why? I don't understand." And I'm like in the nicest way I want to be like, "I don't

There's creeps out there." algorithm. I don't want the algor to be saying, "You know who wants to see this little girl's face?"

Right. Exactly. Well, what algor know what your face Pip. I'm like, "I just I love you too much." Like I don't really even know how bad it can get, but I know that this is the first stop to like me letting you have a YouTube channel

Yeah. and everyone being okay that you're like showing them the picture you drew, you know, or like she also will make really weird she uses some um she uses my Snapchat to make weird videos.

You use Snapchat. I don't actually use it. Like I have an account, but I don't have I don't even know if I have the contacts or anything. Like if there's no messaging happening, but she uses like

the templates Yeah. So she'll make like little videos. So she's like, "It's kind of like my face." And I'm like, "Yeah, but you look like a perogi, so it's fine."

Perogi Pippa probably less attractive to the weirdos. I like how we call everyone perverts except in that moment we were actually talking about perverts. Neither one of us really used the word pervert.

[gasps] Somehow we need to come up with something worse. something worse than pervert? Sicko.

Sicko. Real pervs. I don't know. Something with you like talking about children. I don't get weird.

we can talk about perverts in all contexts except for children. Gets weird. Sorry everyone. Anyway.

Anyway. Never mind. Never mind. Um You know We that is from our mom's supposed to spill the tea phone last year and it is on an earlier episode of this season and it has become a vocal stem for both of us for the rest of the year. All the time we'll go

Never mind. Basically anyway we well you pointed out that I always say anyway doesn't matter

all the time which is a way for me to self-edit. Yeah. So I'll be like in the middle of like a long drawn out ADHD story and I'll be realize

The details are not relevant Yeah, I'll tell myself anyway doesn't matter. And then you're like you always say that anyway it wasn't really a mean way mean way but you did point it out and so now I just go never mind.

Never mind. It's shorter. It's much better. And I'm pretty sure that's what that means. We say it with a British accent because somebody who was from the UK said it.

Never mind. Anyway. So my husband said he watches whatever they give me. Is that Like are we What's Are we good with this?

I Not for him specifically but for the world. For the world. No, I mean I think it's terrifying for the world, right? It's like it's influencing political elections. It's it's not a good thing. Like everyone's too heads down in their algorithm. In their algo-rhythm. Um

I this summer went to Shakespeare in the Park with my husband. And I've always wanted to go and it's like really hard to get tickets. Anyway like my friend was able to help me get some tickets and we went and it was really fun. The problem with Shakespeare in the Park is that it starts at 8:00 p.m.

Mhm. That's late for you. Yeah, and it's a 3 and 1/2 hour show. Oh my god. Yeah.

And it's Shakespeare, so like It's Shakespeare. I'M NOT GOING TO SAY MORE, BUT Thank god they had um open captions because otherwise I truly would have had no idea what was going on.

Yeah. Open captions and a synopsis of the story in the playbill. Those were the accommodations they provided for the neurodivergent among us. Um anyway, after we finished that show, my husband said, "You know, Shakespeare was really not writing for the TikTok generation. There's like not There's not enough happening. Like that didn't really need to be 3 and 1/2 hours long. That could have been a tight 90."

But it did then. No intermission. Yeah, it did then cuz why not? What else were we going to do? Go

Yeah. watch the grass grow? You're going to read the Bible for the 9,000th time? I'm sure 3 and 1/2 hours of Shakespeare, that's the afternoon, baby. The crowd was shouting more,

You know. So a few weeks after that we saw Titanic, which is a um parody musical about the Titanic movie uh starring Celine Dion, quote unquote Celine Dion, telling the story as if she were on the Titanic. And it is a tight 90 minutes no intermission Celine Dion jukebox musical. And when that was over, he was like, "That was a show for the TikTok generation. A joke every 10 seconds. Joke, joke, joke, joke, joke. Lots of lights, lots of music, disco ball hanging from the ceiling. THAT'S THE ALGORITHM."

DO YOU GET THAT? YOU GET that Shakespeare? This is what this could have been. Shakespeare.

If we're going to bring Shakespeare into the modern world, I think that we need more disco balls and more rapid-fire jokes.

Well, I mean, that is kind of what sex is, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, that is what he THINKS IT IS. [sighs]

UM, OKAY, SO Mikey's algorithm, I'm sure, is It's bad. I asked him this morning more questions about it.

Okay, he did tell me this morning. He said that it is currently all cars, Lexuses and Mercedes. Which there's a backstory here. A quick one. Which is our second year of marriage, he wanted me to get a new car and I did not want a new car and for Christmas he bought me a new car.

That's terrible. Awful. So we've been married You know, important backstories that you were 22 when you got married and likely could not afford a new car.

I had a my car was fine. Like it was totally fine. And yeah, we end up getting like a $99 month Nissan Sentra. Like I didn't This was not like the car of my dreams. It was just a car.

Yeah. Yeah. So he really wants a new car and right now we have a our family car.

drive. Yes, and then we have a soft top Jeep Wrangler, which is I would agree like not the best car in Cleveland, Ohio, but it's a fun car and also

cold for so much of the year. Yeah, and also it's my car. It's not you're not cold when you're in it, but it does take like quite a bit to like feel comfortable. Yeah.

That the Jeep is your car? I call Yeah. I call my car because he bought the if we remember correctly, my our babysitter got rear-ended in the

Yes, I recall. minivan minivan and then Mikey comes home with the largest car known to mankind. Literally certainly some like federal government law was appealed at some point along the way to allow this car to exist.

Yeah, so so the car the minivan goes to the shop and he's like it's going to be 3 weeks before it's fixed and he's like, "Nah, we're just going to get A NEW ONE." LIKE WHO DOES THAT? SO ANYWAY, so like dropping hints now that like he does not want the Jeep anymore. But I'm like, "But the Jeep is my car." It's also I'm not really very interested in cars and I always wanted a Jeep Wrangler like for whatever reason. And so I'm like, "I finally got it. I'm not somebody who needs a new car all the time because I don't really There's not like a special interest of mine and like and I like that car."

You just need a car to get you around. Exactly. So anyway, so I can't Oh, so he is on the

car algorithms because he's always thinking about getting a new car. And then he said this morning that that story he told me about Bob does sports smashup with the Migos thing Migos trend is that now his algorithm is only the Migos trend with whomever

Okay. people are making of it. So it switched pretty quickly. Like he obviously watched that whole thing maybe like five times before it to be like

Al Gore was like this is going to be his algorithm. loves Migos. Quick truth, marketing ops is hard and no one taught you how to survive it. That's where Emmy Collective comes in. We fix the mess your team's already made. Databases that don't explode, campaigns that don't implode, and MQLs that actually mean something. Basically, we do the heavy lifting so your marketing can stop being an dumpster fire. Check us out at emmyco.com before your next email sends itself into chaos.

You told me when we first met like way back in the days of yore in our mermaid Airbnb, you looked in my makeup bag and you were like, "Wow, you get you got got by everything. You got Glossier, you got Billie razors, you got all the Instagram ads. They're right there." And you said my husband is just like that too. He He get got got by every ad known to mankind.

And he's been like this since ads on the radio. Yeah. I I love advertisements. I love that my algorithm is showing me the ads that I want to see. I was just with someone I took my kids somewhere and they were like, "Wow, how did you know about this?" Instagram ads. That's how I know about anything. Yeah. Yeah, oh I come up with 10 new activities for my kids to do every summer for our summer Yeah, for my for Instagram ads. My Instagram ads are foundation of me doing anything fun or having anything I like. Al Gore selected this activity for me.

Like the algorithm algorithms aren't like bad by default, but No. I would I like to think that I choose more of what I'm watching than my husband does, that I'm a little bit more selective. I'm probably totally wrong. I'm probably totally wrong. How would I know? How would he know?

yesterday we were talking to Kaylee, who is one of my friends who is working with us right now doing some event planning stuff, and we were talking about algorithms and that we were going to be recording this podcast, and she does not have Instagram. She does not have any social media, which, you know, is a challenge for our friendship.

I would love for her to have Instagram, but that's okay. I feel like we'd be closer if we could like each other's stories.

Yes, I I feel like, you know, due to my object permanence issues, it's really helpful for me as a friend if I just see your face a little bit every single day. I'll be like, that's right. That person. I like them. Anyway, um

for the record, in case that's bad. Object permanence is that bad even with people like, oh, I forgot about you entirely even though we just hung out yesterday.

Yes. That's just This is a neurodivergent accommodation. Um Anyway, she said that instead she pays for journalism, which is incredible What an adult thing to be doing.

She's like, yeah, I pay for the New York Times and I pay for whatever, and that's how I get my news.

I mean, you pay, you just end up paying the advertisers, and that's how you get

Instagram's free. No, it's the most expensive thing I own. I am paying with my data. It's the most expensive thing I own. Yeah, it was You remember when you're breastfeeding and you'd be like, yeah, I'm saving so much money on formula, but you're not because you're like up scrolling in the middle of the night like three times a night."

Add to cart. Add to cart. Formula fun, less expensive after all. It's like um when you order your groceries online, it's more expensive, but think about all the stuff you didn't just pick up and throw in your cart.

I really think that ordering your groceries online versus going is simply a matter of whether or not you enjoy doing it. This is not a This is not a financial decision.

Of whether or not you enjoy going to the grocery store. Yeah. Yeah, I like going to the grocery store.

I know you do, and so you do. But like I don't, so I don't. But I don't think it's like oh Sydney saves so much money cuz she by doing that. She does not.

No. And also you ever think like I get more seasonal goods. Yeah, I would think like sometimes I think to myself like what else would I pay someone $20 to do? You know, like there's SO MUCH.

LIKE FOR $20? The The algorithm, the way you get got at the grocery store is the end caps. That's the Instagram ads of

I feel like you're checking the end caps. You're like, "Can't wait to see what's OVER THERE."

TODAY? SYDNEY'S COMING. YEAH, sometimes they have an end cap that says an exciting seasonal treat. Sometimes it's a selection of random clearance items that are like

ones I do check. Yeah. Yesterday I went for a walk with my neighbor. We just like go for a walk down to Chipotle and get fountain Diet Cokes sometimes. And on the way back I was like, "You want to do my favorite activity? Go into this Duane Reade and we can just look at all the that's on clearance." And we did.

Like well, I just really wanted to come in here and touch everything. I did find a nice um serum that was $3 down from 23. So that was some nice dopamine for my brain. Boom. Got out of there.

I need some of that. I might leave the house today. Good. Go check out some end caps. That's Algor put those there for you.

Thanks, Al. Thanks, Al. Every time you add to cart from an ad now, just say, "Thanks, Al." Al's paying for this one.

It's like a write-off. Uh, all right. I've been hearing a lot about Reddit recently.

Oh. I know I know Reddit's been around since the dawn of time. but on your algorithm.

I'm not on the Reddit algorithm. I'm a little afraid of Reddit. It feels like very much the person that's like, I think this is something that um, AI's actually probably like the AI chatbot is probably taking over a bit and I think maybe, you know, it has been sourced, they say like a lot of what comes from Claude or ChatGPT when you ask a question is sourced from Reddit.

Yeah. But I have been one of the people that's like, if I have a question about something like uh, bougie resorts in Cancun, like I will search Reddit specifically for it.

Do you search Reddit? Because what I do is I Google bougie resorts in Cancun Reddit.

Yeah, that's what I do. And then I I don't even really know how to find stuff on Reddit.

They have a search bar, but I don't know why you would like if you are a Reddit user. So I don't This is where it gets interesting for me.

Mhm. And I have [clears throat] some commentary on it is Okay. I don't have a login to Reddit.

Yeah, I don't either. But I still have an algorithm. Really? So I'm sure that it's some kind of like

cookies. Yeah. algorithm tracking algo or something. So I still So part of what I want to talk about today is algorithms I have no business being on

Okay, great. or things I have no business being on. So one of them is that when I do go to Reddit, so when I go to Reddit, I will check like the um Cleveland subreddit. I like to like see what's going on in the city.

Okay. Um, that's probably actually like the main one that like I will go see like what's going on. I'm I'm discovering actually a lot about myself right now.

Is this therapy? I might be becoming more self-aware cuz I'm like, wait, what else do I like go there for? I don't. What I go there for is the rest of my algorithm. Which for some reason has me served the bald subreddit.

Oh. Which is just balding men asking whether or not it's time for them Oh. to shave their heads.

The entire Yes. And the answer is usually yes. Like almost always it's like you're already bald. Like you need like

Just embrace the horror. Just do it. But sometimes it's like, well, you might have a year left or well, if you always wear your hair in a man bun, like you can't really tell, you know, but like otherwise but I apparently spend a lot of time looking at this because I keep getting served.

I on my algo get a lot of content of men getting toupees. [clears throat] A lot of Instagram reels.

I actually think I've been there. There's like the toupee queen and she Yes. Yes. And you know, they look incredible. I am so happy that this has become a thing for men. Women have hair extensions, men should be able to get toupees. They look great now. They look great.

I wonder if the toupee algo has gotten me to the bald one. Got me to the bald one.

wondering if it was cuz all your hair fell out that one time. Oh. Oh, so I was like looking up minoxidil.

up like, can I take some supplements or something because my hair is falling out.

You're right. And then I got And then I like loved it. I like loved bald content.

I FOUND A COMMUNITY. ME AND THE BALD MEN. HEY GUYS, is it time for me to shave my head?

It's not. No. But the other other thing So, my husband Now Now, these are things that like now I'm like I I found myself here. I have no business being here, but now I'm here. Right? Like I'm not not like how do I get off? I'm like mostly like I Here I am.

So, my husband has been has started watching My daughter my middle daughter she told me that ASMR has to have sound. I don't know if that's true or not. I don't often have

Is that it is sound. Okay, so there's something else I said what is it when it's just you're just watching it. She said that's satisfying.

Oh. I don't know. This is like a Gen Alpha thing. She thinks that's satisfying.

I think I trust Marina's expertise in this area. too. I do too. She's got a lot to say. So my husband watches I can't even say it out loud. It's going to make me gag. He watches I'd be more okay with that because yes I think that's gross but also I get it. This I think is disgusting and I don't get it. It is dogs like pitbulls eating raw meat.

Uh-uh, no. No. No. No. Like it's something's wrong, right? No. No. No. On the other hand what I get right now and I'm so happy I'm here. I never wanted to leave is this like um I don't even really know what it is. It's this like silicone color mixing. And so there's like this machine

It's got to be but it's like this machine that they put um this like melty stuff through and then they start putting in different like dye colors and then you kind of like and then you kind of like guess what the final color is going to be.

Have you seen those videos that they'll like show you something in black and white and be like what does your intuition say the color is?

No. THAT SOUNDS GOOD. YEAH, SO THIS YOU LIKE WATCH it you like can see all the colors start to like blend together and then they cut it up and then they put it in a ball and then they put it back in the squishy machine.

Oh wow. awesome. But I was like I said to my daughter this is the ASMR I like and she's like it's just so stupid. There's no sound.

[snorts] Have you watched the rug cleaning videos? No, sounds amazing though. It's so good. They take these rugs that are just like disgusting. Like they were in a house that flooded kind of rugs that are like caked with dirt and they'll put them in like a white marble floor and then like pressure wash them and then carpet clean them and then pressure wash them again and flip it over and then roll it up until it's totally clean. So great.

Do they still throw it out after though? I don't know. so. I hope so. I hope so. What's the point? That's what In the comments of this like color mixing videos, everyone's like, "So what are you doing with that?" I'm like, "I'm pretty sure YOU'RE WATCHING IT."

LIKE WE THEY'RE ADVERTISING DOLLARS THAT THEY'RE MAKING right now. Right. They're making thousands of dollars of us watching it and then they're throwing it immediately in the garbage can.

You know, you We're talking about that you ended up in the bald algo that you didn't had no business being there. Although perhaps you did. Uh I'm there now. I've been We've [snorts] discussed before having people show up our content is served on their algorithm and they certainly did not belong there, which is usually when the sales people start being mean in the comments of my LinkedIn posts. I have seen a lot of Instagram creators recently like female Instagram creators be like, "I don't know what happened, but tens of thousands of men have started following me in the last 2 weeks and they are all leaving the most vile comments on my videos. So if you see this, please press all the buttons so I can get back on the girly algorithm because I don't want to be there."

You know, it's sad to say, but this kind of happened to our YouTube channel. I I see now and this is now going to go out there like, "Hey, I see you guys."

Yeah. I started looking at our followers and it was like a bunch of like I got to see you guys like a bunch of 60, 50 plus men.

I just wonder if they're real. Or is this just like bot farms? I did like change some settings around. So I I don't I mean I don't know how long it's going to be before we could just get our true ICP back. But like I'd rather have five I'd rather have five girly pops.

Unless you're going to kick click click around and get us to monetize this. Like watch the whole thing. If you're going to be here, watch the whole thing. I need more view hours. Yeah, it's like let it

Like if you're just going to follow for our like thumbnails, that ain't it. But if you're going to watch the whole video, you can stay.

Sure. Anyway, um so keep your commentary to yourself. So, um to make this a little bit more business specific, I would like to tell you something about HubSpot

Okay. This was shocking to me. This was truly a shocking moment. Um so, last week and I know this is coming out later in life.

Later in life. But, last week I went to inbound, previously known as inbound is the HubSpot conference. And it was my first time. Um if you know anything about HubSpot similar or different to maybe like the tools your business uses or if you don't use any tools because you're kindergarten teacher, hi, love you. They HubSpot has marketing platforms and they have sales platforms.

Yeah. And so, when I got there and even like on the trade show floor, it was actually very [clears throat] sales heavy, which for me that's just not like my algorithm. You know, like I'm in the marketing world or I'm in the makeup world or currently I'm getting so many advertisements for bathing suits because I'm planning a vacation. But, I met Leslie and I hung out with her friends that she's known for a long time from like her old life, her old sales life.

Yeah. And so, the first night that we were out, I met a bunch of people. Um they're all really great and they also, you know, Leslie herself is a little bit of a sales girly influencer.

Totally. So, I'm meeting these people and she at one point was like, "This is just so funny because you don't know who any of them are."

No. And I was like, "What do you mean?" Like And so, like we [snorts] um at one point we're talking to someone who I'm not going to specify, although maybe what I say will give them away.

[clears throat] So sweet, Leslie's known this person for a very, very long time.

Mhm. And we were talking for a while. Uh the three of us, maybe like half hour, like a long time.

Okay. And when we ended the conversation, I realized there was a line to talk to this person.

And I was like had no idea. I I I I was like no idea. And so he ends up connecting with me on LinkedIn afterwards and this man has 400,000 followers on LinkedIn.

For real? For the record, I did not know there were that many people on the platform.

Let alone enough that would want to follow one person on the world's worst social media platform.

And don't get me wrong, like he was so like he was so super I literally had no idea who he was. And I realized I talked I was talking to Ethan um our Ethan about this. Like I this was literal giving multiverse to me. Like

like I'm on LinkedIn every day. It's not something that I'm not Al Gore told them that this was a very important person. You're Al Gore. I did it was not on the radar.

Did not care. Like did not care. And I'm telling you that between like the let's say that I met Let's say that I met 10 famous sales people. I don't know.

Sure. Like their followings over a million. Like way over a million. And I had never I spent my life on this [snorts] stupid platform and no clue. Never seen him. Nice to meet you. I'm Lorin.

I have a weird agency. I have a podcast, too. And uh we're good. That's it. It was really weird to be like I this is a whole different universe that these people are from.

That's wild. There's something in there about politics in America, but we probably don't have time to talk about that.

YOU GET 5 MINUTES. GO. SAY SOMETHING about Zoran. You know, every time we say something about Zoran and I go I like go through the transcript to help create the show notes. It's like You may want to flag that this says Zoran. They're like Claude, we're good.

WHAT DID YOU THINK THAT IT SAID CLAUD? Uh no, I mean I think that's how everyone's algorithm is when it's serving political content. Like you're only getting the stuff that really heavily reinforces what you already believe or is like really inflammatory towards the other side. It's just like rage bait. And that's that's how elections get swayed, you know? It's scary. But uh like I get content all the time that's like I got this really funny one this morning that was like this is what uh my a day in the life of a New Yorker Turn off the sound on this.

A day in the life of a New Yorker according to my Fox News watching Florida family members. 7:00 a.m. I wake up and get stabbed. 8:00 a.m. I go to my corner bodega for a bacon, egg, and cheese. On the way, I get mugged. I have no way to pay for the sandwich, so I'm forced to steal it and then I stab the bodega owner so he won't tattle me.

Uh it's just this. Like you just get stabbed every hour. You're getting stabbed and then you go to your favorite place, which is Times Square where you get stabbed and then you go see Wicked the Musical.

Yeah. You know what though? I have to say one good thing is that I really think that our kids and my kids are 13. My older two are 13 and 11. They are actually very vigilant when it comes to content. Which makes me like Marina said something um the other day that was like oh she asked me if I had seen a flyer about something specific and I was like I don't know. Let me cut Let me like look for it. Because you know it was one of those posters that was like really yesified by AI.

Good for her. And for her to be like for her to just like Clock it. and say that and clock it. You know, it's like so much smarter than I hate to say like I I don't mean that the older generation is not as smart, but technically savvy. How do you

AI way more. Yeah. Whereas like our kids are are trying to kind of being raised to like identify what's real and what's not like in real time.

Yeah. So. Now that's what it's like to To in NEW YORK, SEE IF THE STREET SWEEPER'S GOING TO COME MAKE SOME NOISE. Who knows? Welcome to my ground floor, RENT STABILIZED APARTMENT.

YOU GOT cats everywhere outside. I can go out there and get stabbed. Good luck out there, little podcast.

Questions about this episode

What is "There Was a Line to Meet Him and I Had No Idea Who He Was" about?

In this episode of Pretty Funny Business, hosts Lauren and Sydney riff on the "algo-rhythm"—the idea that algorithms shape everyday life—with playful skepticism about who “invented” the algorithm. They mix pop culture jokes, behind-the-scenes banter, and a lighthearted debate about quality versus speed versus cost in both content creation and personal grooming. The conversation highlights how…

What is mentioned in this Pretty Funny Business episode?

15 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Bob Does Sports, LinkedIn, Kacey Musgraves, HubSpot, Migos, Lauren Aquilino. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "There Was a Line to Meet Him and I Had No Idea Who He Was"?

The episode runs 43 min; the transcript is about 8,563 words in 223 timestamped sections.

More from Pretty Funny Business

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated November 2, 2026.