Before we get started, we wanna remind you that we have the Bleak Creek conversations coming up at the end of October, the beginning of November. It’s a live show, it’s very special. We’re gonna be there for it. And then a very special special Bleak Creek conversation on Sunday, November third in Los Angeles where you can meet and greet some of the Mythical crew members including Cotton Candy Randy and more and then of course we’ve got some more tour stops. The regular live in concert tour at the end of November. All the details for that are at RhettAndLinkLive.com. Visit, you know what. It doesn’t take a commitment to go to RhettAndLinkLive.com. Just check it out, see where we’re gon’ be. Tell people who you know in the area or show up. We’ll make it special, we promise. We will. Now on with the biscuit. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Rhett. And I’m Link, survivor of a pyramid scheme. Whenever I introduce myself now, that’s what I’m gonna add. ‘Cause that’s what I wanna be known as. Okay. The guy who escaped a pyramid scheme. Are you gonna skip over the thing that we say at the beginning of every podcast? This week at the round table of dim lighting, we’re gonna answer the question, how did I, Link, the guy who escaped a pyramid scheme, escape a pyramid scheme? Okay, you’ve got me. I’ve clicked. You wouldn’t be able to hear anything unless you would have somehow– Right. Clicked play in some place. So we’re gonna explore that question and these are, we’re gonna explore that via a question that we received from a Mythical Beast and some other questions that we received. We’re gonna give our best, we’re putting our advice hats on. We’re gonna be talking about multi-level marketing, our personal experiences with that. We might work up some ire. We might get angry, or we might get happy. We might laugh, we might cry. I think– Might offend somebody. I think you might get angry. I don’t think it’s about us getting angry, I think some people will feel attacked. You know, but that will be unintentional if that happens. Before we get into those questions, I do wanna say we got a lot to be excited about around here. Seems like every single year, at the end of the year, starting around October– October’s a– Things get busy for the Rhettster and the Linkster. A Mythical month, you know? We always got things happening in the month of October. October 11th, your birthday. My birthday, but we got of course our novel, “The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek” coming out on October 29th and the Bleak Creek conversations and all that that goes along with that, but we’re doing something very, very special. We are celebrating with a Carolina classic. We’re gonna throw a big pig pickin’ party here at the Mythical studio. We’re calling it the Bleak Creek Barbecue Bonanza and two very special guests and their guests will be chosen at random and here’s how we’re gonna do that. And flown to Los Angeles to have the pig pickin’ with us. Yeah and here’s how we’re gonna do that, so if you pre-ordered the novel at any time in the past or you pre-order the novel now, or you got a ticket to Bleak Creek conversations, you go over to BleakCreek.com, you enter that proof of purchase, you can enter, each proof of purchase for a book counts once but you can buy as many books as you want and enter for yourself, you just can’t keep putting the same one back in over and over again. And then we’re gonna randomly select two of those people. And we have to say, for legal purposes, no purchase necessary to enter. Void where prohibited and full details on the website. But in a not legal sense– BleakCreek.com. We are super excited about that and we’re gonna do it as authentically as we possibly can, like a whole hog– If anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing with pig. I mean the, and there’s a very– Well that’s, I don’t know. I can’t stand by that statement. Anything worth doing is worth doing with a pig picking. Okay good. Pig pickin’, which is the scene of the opening chapter of “Lost Causes of Bleak Creek” is a pig pickin’. Yeah and it’s also what we have used to signify big moments in our lives at least growing up, so we’re like why don’t we bring this to LA? Can’t you do a pig pickin’ in LA? Let’s figure out how and let’s bring some Mythical Beasts out. Pre-order the book, it’s good for everybody. You wanna go ahead and get into one of these questions though? Yeah, after the break we’ll get into the multi-level marketing but I wanna give, we have a question about showers and it’s a good occasion for me to give an update on your shower advice from last week ’cause I did take it. But let’s read– Okay. The question. This question comes from @fallingstargirl. My boyfriend leaves the shower curtain open after he takes a shower, it drives me nuts. I don’t like the inside of my shower being exposed. Plus, I spent good money on the curtain to complete my bathroom decor. What you guys think of this? So he leaves the shower open but the curtain, I would call that meaning the curtain is scrunched. It’s closed up on itself but which leaves the shower open. We all know what’s happening here. I don’t think anyone needed that clarification. Well, you know. But I know your brain works in a strange way so– I needed it. It’s fine that you said it out loud. I mean I’m feeling your pain ’cause if you leave a shower curtain scrunched up, it starts to get that pink stuff on it. How on earth, of all the things that could grow, even in a damp, shower-like environment, how could it turn a shower curtain pink? Do you know what I’m talking about? I think that might be from you and your family. My family doesn’t generate pink mold. You’ve never seen a pink residue on a shower curtain? I’ve seen– Growing up– I’ve seen like a– I remember seeing it a lot. A gray, maybe like a brown mildew of some kind. But pink? That might’ve been something else, that could have been an alien. Or I distinctly remember we had like, you know, you got the decorative shower curtain, which might be made of fabric or something but then you got the plastic shower curtain on the inside which you know, keeps all the moisture in. And that thing became pink at the bottom. And slimy probably. And slimy. Well thankfully, I currently– It might have been because of the pyramid scheme. I currently do not have to deal with a shower curtain because our shower has a door and actually the last, every house I’ve ever lived in in California has had a shower door and not a shower curtain. Must be because of the earthquakes. You don’t want that curtain wrapping around you during a big one. You don’t have a bathtub with a shower in it. That’s really when you know you gotta have a shower curtain when you’re taking a shower in a bathtub. But I know growing up– Which is how I grew up. My brother and I had the traditional bathtub with a shower in it and I know that we kept that thing open all the time ’cause it was just a boys’ bathroom. And I know my mom would come in there after she cleaned things up and like close it again and then we would just open it again ’cause like why? Yeah I feel your pain. I don’t know how you motivate your boyfriend because it’s one of those things that like there’s so many things that I care about, you know, it’s like I go in after my kids and I turn off the lights and I close their drawers and I pick up their clothes and towels off the floor. I cannot get my sons to pick up the towel. I’ll single out Lincoln, I can’t get him to pick up the towel off the floor or like the clothes that he took off before he got in the shower and I’ve tried all types of things and I have not succeeded. I don’t know how to do it and– You know how it’s gonna stop? Just don’t go in there. When they move out. And then they begin managing themselves. I know but she doesn’t just want her boyfriend to move out, she wants to have some sort of hope. I just wish I had a simple solution. I mean it’s the right thing to do not just for decorative purposes but also for sanitary purposes. Maybe if you take a microscopic image of that slimy stuff that he’s helping to create, it’s kinda like when you look under your fingernails, the stuff under your fingernails under a microscope, you won’t bite your fingernails anymore. Well what if, I mean, when did you recently, when did you recently show me videos of, was this a Mythical Society thing? Where you showed me videos of you going around your kids– Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s right. I tried, I got so frustrated going behind him and turning off the lights and picking up all the stuff that I would video me doing all of it and then send him the video. But the key point you’re leaving out is you would make disgruntled sounds without speaking. You would just communicate like the way that humans communicated before we had words. I was grunting. Well the second– And you were grunting your disgust and your disappointment. Well the second video, I kept saying why? Why? Why? Why? Why, why are these underwear in the sink? Why? Why? Why? Why, why? I think you should stick with the– Why? Stick with the grunts, man. Don’t resort to language because you’re trying to connect with a deeper part of their brain, like the impulsive part of their brain that is, we’re not talking about the neocortex at this point, right? You’re trying to get down into the instinctive parts of the brain to change deeply rooted behaviors, so I think that what @fallingstargirl could do is she could video herself, first of all, get a closeup of the wrinkled up shower curtain and hopefully some mold, even if you need– Oh you like my idea, that’s good. Even if you need to add a little mold to get some kind of culture started there, and you get a closeup of that and you make a , whatever your disgruntled sound is, and then you have yourself opening the shower curtain. Again, you’re not saying anything, you’re not confronting them in the moment. You’re not confronting them when he’s at the house. You just send him these videos and you do it every single day. Eventually, he’s going to get tired of seeing these videos and then he’ll start, it’ll change his behavior. I did it two days in a row and then, my kids just kinda, they laugh at me. It just wasn’t that effective. It’s so much easier, first of all, she’s dealing with an adult man. And I’m not, what are you saying? You’re dealing with– Oh. You’re dealing with children. And also, you’re, what you’re doing is intruding in some respects on their space. I know you’re their dad but you’re going into their personal, personal area and doing like a controlling dad kinda thing. Yeah. This is the shower that they share. So you know, I feel like this is a slightly different territory but I think your technique is sound. I just think she needs to take, you need to stop your technique and– Give it to her. Transfer it to @fallingstargirl and she needs to do it on a regular basis and I think it will impact the behavior of the boyfriend. I think something really embarrassing needs to be inside the shower that he’s gonna want to hide by closing the curtain. Like– A picture of him naked. Yeah. Even when he’s not in the shower naked, he’s always in the shower naked. ‘Cause you know when he’s inside the shower naked, he closes it ’cause he doesn’t wanna expose himself. Right. But if you take a picture and then go to like, what is that bighead.com is a place you can get things blown up to paste onto the wall? Not a sponsor. Not a sponsor. I don’t even know if that’s it but– I think that is it. Take a picture with a high res camera. When you blow things up, you want it to be, you want the detail to be there and then you just vinyl paste him on the inside of the shower. Now you’re gonna have to deal with that when you take a shower but he will, I guaran-damn-tee you he will close that shower curtain from here on out. Forget about the videos. Or you could just use permanent marker and just write his secrets inside of the shower. Eh, not as fun though. Yeah. Speaking of get in the shower– I wanna hear your update, but what is it? Fathead. Fathead.com, again, still not a sponsor. Not bighead, Fathead. I wanna hear your update but this does remind me ’cause I wanna ask if you remember this when you were in England. I noticed it in Scotland but then when we got to England, until we got to the London hotel, which had a normal walk-in shower with a door, every single shower that I used in the UK, no shower curtain and I’m talking bathtub with shower built in so traditional. Mm-hmm. But there is a glass door that is on a swivel that only goes half-way down the bathtub. So did you see this? I saw it in five different places. So there’s a bathtub and then there’s like a plexiglass wall built above the bathtub that then– Only goes, it goes from like, you got the shower head coming out of the wall– Oh yeah yeah. And coming from that wall, you have– It comes out three quarters. It comes out half. 50% of the way. Okay. Not three quarters. And so– So then, yeah, so when you’re standing in the tub taking a shower, all the water, and you’re standing in the middle of the tub, that’s where the plexiglass ends and the water bounces off of you. It’s assuming that no water goes past you. If the water passes you which– If it hits the top. I mean listen, I’m an American and I guess I shower in a particular American way because what I found is that and my dad and my mom and my brother and my sister-in-law and my wife and everybody that was with me was like we’re getting water– Water everywhere. All over the floor. When we went to London, we had the same thing, yeah. What is it? What are we doing wrong or what are they doing wrong? Because this is not a good design. How is this a good design? Yeah I mean water’s all over the floor. It did happen to me in the Airbnb that we were staying in. What are we missing? Could you just #EarBiscuits explain that to us– Yeah I don’t know. On the internet because I don’t know if you guys wear like a large sponge while you shower that absorbs all the excess water. I don’t know how you overcome this. They’re like constantly trying to block all of the water and bounce it back into the– I don’t wanna be thinking about that when I’m showering. It’s high pressure. Well low pressure in some places. Well if it’s low pressure that helps. But it’s a high pressure situation. Yeah right. Anxiety. I have a door on my shower. Not a shower curtain. That fully seals? Oh yeah but the thing that I’ll do is when I get out of the shower, I annoy Christy because I leave the door open so that all of the moisture inside of the shower can dissipate more quickly than if you close, if you seal it back up and then it just stays wet and I think that’s when you start to produce, bacteria starts to grow and– Mold. I fear that pink slime. I’ve noticed. But then Christy has told me a couple of times that it’s a totally clear glass door that when I leave it open, she’s ran into it a couple of times. So now I have to just leave it cracked a little bit. Just leave a little gap in it. You think about a lot of other things than the things that I think about. I know, I’m gonna die young. I’m gonna die young, man, but I’ve thought so hard. I’ve never thought about this particular thing. I just get out of the shower. I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you what happens. Well this morning and yesterday morning, and for, well, hang on a minute, yeah. Well I’ve tried it a few times. I’ve tried your advice, okay. Stare down. I get in the shower, I look out the window. On the previous podcast you told me, “Don’t try to hide from your neighbor “when he’s driving into work, leaving his, “just give him, assert your dominance.” Right. I’m lathering up and here he comes gettin’ in his car. He’s facing me, he’s sitting in the driver’s seat, before he puts it in reverse and looks behind him. I’m like oh gosh, this is it. Yep. And I instinctively started hunching. I was like come on Link, pull it together. Yeah, moment of truth. Be dominant. And I was actually washing my face at the time so I had to stop so I could stare at him so my forehead was lathered up. Okay, this is changing everything. I got a lathered up forehead. I don’t know, I don’t know. I’d already done the shampoo so it was, I had a low lather right at the brow. Okay. And I’m just looking at the guy, hoping that he does not look at me. But he’s not close enough that I could immediately tell, you know with the reflection on the windshield and everything and I’m like, just hold your ground. Maybe he’ll put it in reverse and take off. Right. I can tell he put it in reverse and then he’s like gonna look over his shoulder and apparently, he wasn’t looking at me until he started to look over his shoulder– Uh-huh. To back up and I notice, he started to turn, then boop, he looked back, he had noticed something. Right. Me. Yeah. Naked bathing man neighbor asserting his dominance. With a light lather. On his forehead. He saw me, he definitely saw me. Uh-huh. And I just, I– You held your ground? I, ooh, I flinched. Oh gosh. But I didn’t duck, I didn’t like– You flinched? Buh and like fall down. I flinched and then I, I don’t even think he picked up on the flinch and then I just looked at him and he like, he looked at me, man and then he put it in reverse and he took off. Can I see what the stare is that you’re making? It’s a long way, it’s like picture suds on my forehead and I’m– ‘Cause I’m realizing that my advice could backfire at this point. I was washing my face. Because if you’re– I have a special face brush. Because– I’m washing my, I’m doing it! Okay. Look at me. All right. I’m washing my forehead with the face brush. I got a special brush for my face, it’s round, I go in a circular pattern like my mom taught me back when I used to use her Noxzema. She’s like “this is how you don’t get zits, son, “wash your face in a circular pattern.” So I have my own face brush and I’m doing that and then all of a sudden I see him, I see him, oh there he is, and I like, I lower the face brush and I just, this, this is what I did. That’s the look? Yeah, don’t blame it on the look. He couldn’t see the details. Well, I guess. He knew I was looking at him, I do know that. You should’ve practiced, because that look can be misinterpreted as you’re interested. Oh. What, no it doesn’t, I’m just looking, I’m just. I mean, you’re in your shower though, think about it for a second. It’s gotta be intimidating, almost like Children of the Corn. Like lowering the eyebrows? It just can’t seem– Here’s the thing– In the least bit seductive. Nothing that you’re gonna say now is helpful because it’s too freaking late. The next day after that, I’m taking a shower and I’m like oh yeah, the stare down, and I look out there, the car’s gone. Oh, you won. He leaves at a different time now. He leaves at a different time. Yeah, you did it, man, you did it. You forced his hand. Yeah, he goes to work earlier. Yeah, he’s like I’m not gonna deal with this. He probably was like, man, he takes a shower the same time every day. And he’s finally stared me down. I think he wants more from the relationship. Either way, you’ve won. No, he’s thinking that about me. He thinks I want more from the relationship than the neighborly banter. He wants to move beyond it, so now he’s gotta avoid. All I’m saying is– When I see him at the mailbox, I don’t know what I’m gonna do. That’s a different, that’s a completely different MO at that point. Act like nothing happened. Yeah, yeah, that’s friendly neighbor situation. That’s like hey man, how you doing, how you been? Hey, hey. I haven’t been looking at you from my shower. Haven’t seen you in a while, while I’m in my shower naked, lathering myself up. That’s a different Link. That’s the, again that’s the Link that needs to be brought out in case of emergencies, not the everyday friendly Link, you know, business as usual Link. So mission accomplished then, huh? Yeah, that’s very awesome. Okay, cool. We’ve got more questions, but first we’re going to promote something, I don’t know, what is it, are we gonna promote the website and the store and the things that you can buy at the store, Kiko, or is there something else? Let’s say Mythical.com. Mythical.com. There’s so much you can browse. We just keep putting new stuff up there. It’s fun. It’s becoming like a online– Mall. Shopping mall. It’s just like– A mini mall. Yeah, that’s what it’s becoming. I mean, I love it. I go on there and just scroll through it. We’ve got gift certificates over there, because there’s so many options at this point, it’s almost like Amazon. What am I gonna get you from Amazon? I’m gonna get you the ability to get whatever you want from Amazon in a gift card. Well, if you have an Amazon gift card, you can go to our Amazon store, Amazon.com/Mythical. That’s true, I mean, we’ve got all the bases covered. That’s what we specialize in. We put, listen, you need to keep wearing stuff, you need to keep it fresh, so we’re gonna keep designing stuff and it’s gonna be fresh. Yeah, and we’re gonna make sure– We’ve got a great team designing crap. We’re gonna make sure that you don’t look like you shop at one place, that’s why it’s always a little bit different. Everything’s a little bit different. Where’d you get that? Oh, I got it at the same place, I got it at Mythical.com. Exclusively. But it’s different, isn’t it? And you’re different. There’s something different about you. You’re cool, and that’s why you shop at Mythical.com. I’m different, yeah I’m different. All right. How about another question? You want ask it? Um, sure, sure, this gets into the pyramid scheme stuff. Oh gosh, go on. @Sneakynin asks, a friend, put that down. A friend has been brainwashed by an MLM scheme. Well tell us how you really feel about it. She’s been roped into all the feel-good seminars and is losing money. She’s become a bad friend because, all caps, everything comes back to the MLM message. You joked about it in your song “Friends ‘Til the End,” but how would you handle this situation? We talked about our opinions on MLMs before. But we about to go back to the whale. And, can I, I mean I know you have a story. I just have a life experience. You have an anecdote. I want to say a couple of things. First of all, I know some of you listening are involved in MLMs. And let’s be specific, it could be Amway, it could be Herbalife, it could be Herbal Life, it could be Mary Kay, it could be, what’s the one, what’s the one we make fun of in the song? Uh, LuLaRoe. LuLaRoe. LuLaRoe? That’s it, with the leggings, is that it? Leggings. But she had to go when she joined LuLaRoe, yeah. Pampered Chef I think does this. Still around, huh? So let me say– Tupperware parties from back in the day. I’ll say a couple of things. We use the term pyramid scheme in the question at the top and possibly in the title of this video, I don’t know, um. Let me just say first of all, pyramid schemes and MLMs are not the same thing, and people who are in MLMs are very offended by being called a pyramid scheme, and so I want to recognize that right off the bat, that pyramid schemes are illegal, right? It’s a scam. They might be better described as a pyramid scam, and usually in a pyramid scheme, there’s actually no quality product or product at all in it. You get paid for recruiting, and it’s kind of this circular, well it’s actually a pyramid, but it’s all based on deception, and it’s recognized as illegal from the Federal Trade Commission, whereas an MLM, all multilevel marketing, I’m not even gonna use the scheme, a multilevel marketing company usually has a viable product that is being sold and can be sold to someone who’s not a member of the thing, but people get commissions on sales and also people are encouraged to recruit. Recruit other people to sell, and like the multilevels to the marketing, which could be likened if you were to draw it as a pyramid is an aspect of it, because it’s, you’re not just selling something, but you’re trying to get people to sell things underneath you so that when they sell, you get, not only do they get a commission, but you get a commission off of their sales. And then that continues to go up. That may not happen in every one of these. That goes up the– The pyramid? Up the levels, yeah, and the pyramid gets, the levels, there are less people as you go up, until it goes up to one person who’s in charge. But the product that’s being sold is not a scam, right? In a reputable MLM, which I think all the ones that we just mentioned are presumably reputable. They’re legal, yes. But the thing that we want to talk about is specifically what being a part of one does to your friendships and relationships, because it does, especially if not managed properly, change the dynamic. Yeah, and as an outsider sneaking in, a friend of someone who’s inside of this thing, her experience is pretty common. You know, she has a negative view of what her friend being involved in the MLM because of the way it’s impacting their relationship. She’s a bad friend because it always comes back to her either, to the MLM message, which is hey, you should buy these products from me, or hey, you should also sell these products. There’s an, a lot of people get involved, they don’t have, they’re looking for a very flexible job, they’re looking for something that– You can do from home. You can do from home, you can set your own hours, and there’s a promise of being very lucrative. Side story, when I worked at IBM, there was a stint where my boss on the side was involved in an MLM, and the only reason I knew this was because one day, he asked me to go to lunch with him. Uh-oh. He had never asked me to go to lunch with him before. I mean, I go to meetings and he’s there, and like we have sometimes we have a meeting in his office where like, you know, I would be held accountable to the stuff I was supposed to be working on, but I’d never just go to lunch with the guy. He was a nice enough guy. We go to lunch at like the, some restaurant around the IBM campus. Yeah. And we get our food and we sit down. And you’re like what is about to happen? All of a sudden, no, I’m like okay, we’re just getting lunch, hey, this is a good opportunity. Oh, you thought it was just lunch. Thought it was just lunch. It’s never just lunch, Link. Well get this, dude, all of a sudden, he pulls out of his briefcase. Oh, he has a briefcase. He had like a, like a, um, a wedge, like a cardboard wedge. He puts it on the table, it’s just made of cardboard. Did he want you to sit on it? It was a pyramid. No. Well, it was a, it was a wedge, and then– It was a presentation tool? Yes, he pulled out a spiral-bound, landscape-oriented notepad, and then he, a flip freakin’ book, and he starts to open up the flip book and he puts it on the thing and he was like, you know, I just wanted to tell you about an opportunity for you to be your own boss and make some extra money on the side. Red flag. As I’ve been doing, and I’m like– This is before laptops apparently. And I’m like hold on, this is my freakin’ what? We worked for a company that made laptops. Dude had a spiral-bound wedge. You gotta admit there’s more drama in it though, because he has to break out the stand before you break out the notebook. I started sweating, I’m like the heck? Is he assembling a cardboard weapon? Do I need to leave before it becomes fully functional? At least we were in public. It wasn’t like this was a clandestine, it’s like come to my garage, you know? Which I think being in public makes it all the more embarrassing, because anyone who sees you knows that you’re now on the receiving end of an MLM presentation. And we both, I’m sure you’ve seen it, I’ve seen people having to endure what I was enduring. Get this, dude, I’ll never forget it. Okay dude. The first slide, man, when he flipped it over, the first slide was– A stock image. Yes, a stock image– Of humans. Of a sports car. Oh, ooh no, a red one, convertible? It was a red sports car, yeah. This could be yours. Would you like to drive this, slick? And he had this, I mean, it’s not like, the dude had people skills in normal life, but something made him like, he became this weird android and he was like, do you like fancy cars, and I’m like– No, close that book. Honestly, I was like uh. Have you seen my car? I’m not really, I’m not really, no, I’m not really into sports cars. I’ve never really gotten that. Is there a pickup picture that you can paste over this one? You know what, that’s what you can do with the notebook. I drove a non-extended cab Tacoma at the time. I remember that. I could barely, I had to get in it sideways. I had to put my legs over your lap in order to ride with you. You did. I told him I wasn’t into cars and then he’s like, he’s unfazed, he’s like and he flips over– How about women? It was a mansion. Oh. It a freakin’ picture of a mansion. How about big houses? You were like well actually no, it’s a lot to clean. There’s a lot of showers that have to be closed. A lot of potential for pink slime to crop up. I prefer a, have you heard of a tiny house? Of course, that was before tiny houses. Why are you crying? You think you’re so funny? Rhett thinks he’s so funny right now, and you are funny. Yeah yeah yeah. But you’re not so funny to make yourself cry. Yeah well, I mean, that was– Did you rub your eye or are you crying? I feel like I was funny, I feel like I’ve been funny for like three times in a row. Yeah, yeah, you’re really, you really need to start weeping. So I’m like uh, you know, Christy and I just got married, you know this, and we’re house-sitting for a couple. I mean, yeah, I would like a big house some day, but I’m not really into that. Wow, what does he got on the next page? So he’s like and he’s like well what about, and I don’t remember what the picture was, but there was a picture. What a weird way to, they didn’t he say “do you want more money?” I mean, because most people would be like yes. Why you gotta attach monetary value to anticipating what I’m gonna like? I know, it’s so weird. He flips it over and now he’s hitting me with would you like to give more to charity? Oh, yeah. I was like oh okay, so are you about to present a charity? No, he’s about to present a multilevel marketing campaign, so if I join, he makes more money. You can give more to charity. No, so that he can get that house and that car, man. Yeah. But he’s guilting me with charity, what am I supposed to say? No, I’m not really interested in giving more to charity. I think it’s a choose your own adventure thing. He probably wasn’t just going to the next page, because I think they teach you in the presentation, they’re like– You think it’s like a 911 flip book? When you meet someone who is not into material things, go to charity. Yeah. And then if they don’t like charity, you would probably end the meeting. Let me tell you something, brother, he didn’t skip a slide. Okay. So this is to catch everybody, and that’s how it’s designed, he’s going on the script, and it was so uncomfortable. And it’s wasn’t fair, you know, it makes me angry even now because this dude’s my boss. I mean, it’s like, I’m not supposed, you know, it’s not appropriate. You felt pressured. Yeah, it’s like, you can’t– You could’ve easily felt pressured. Yeah, you have power over me as my boss, and now I’ve got to, what, I gotta start, and please train me how to go up to strangers in the magazine section of Barnes & Noble. That’s happened to me twice, by the way. It has, right? At Barnes & Noble in North Carolina, that happened where people, they started conversations with me in like the coffee shop section, and I was like this guy’s being friendly and it was that, it was MLM stuff. It’s not worth it to be that person because you have to, you get to a point where you gotta sell your wars, and again, I cannot remember what company he was with or what he was selling, but you get to a point where you’re either going up to strangers, you’re being weird to strangers in Borders book shop back in the day, or you’re hitting up your friends and relatives, and every time you’re talking to them, and there’s a whole Facebook component to it now. Well that’s what happens, that is what has, and I’m not really on Facebook, and my wife isn’t really anymore, but she was for many years, and that’s what would happen. You would have someone who you haven’t spoken with since high school. Yeah. Who reaches out and asks a question and you’re like . Hey how, I haven’t spoken to you in a long time, how are you doing? And then you respond to them and they’re like “I couldn’t help but notice,” I’m gonna find some segue into talking about how you need this particular product and it’s like, I don’t feel like we have to explain why that seems kinda just dirty and deceptive. I understand that, listen, I get it, we sell things all the time, we just tried to sell you some stuff at Mythical.com, but I think that we’re being pretty straightforward with like okay, yeah, we sell merch, go to the store and buy it if you want to, but I don’t try to sell my merch directly to my friends that I have relationships with, and also I’m not trying to then get them to sell it, because I just don’t want my friendships to be defined by that. It just, I know how it makes me feel, I know how you felt in that situation, and I know how it makes me feel when I feel like someone is trying to enter into a transactional relationship with me, and listen, coming from two people who live in Los Angeles, which is the most transactional town on the place of the fanet. The face of the planet, any time that you begin to sense that someone is investing their time into you because of what you can do for them financially, it just feels bad, man. Icky, icky. And which you join an MLM, you are, now in sure there’s people, obviously, humans tend to rationalize things, so I’m sure there’s people who listen who right now, and first of all, if you’re benefiting from it financially or you’ve moved way up into the organization, there’s absolutely nothing I can say that’s going to change your mind, because you’re going to deflect anything that we say that makes you feel uncomfortable because you’ve got confirmation bias, you want to continue to confirm the fact that you’re in this thing and make it okay, and that’s fine, I’m not trying to take you out of it. I think what we’re talking to is, we’re actually talking to, what was her name? @Sneakynin, and how you deal with someone who’s in it. So we’re not talking to the person who’s in it, that’s your deal, but if you’ve got a friend who’s in it, I just think the short answer is you have to be honest. Because the alterative is just saying “I’m not gonna be your friend anymore.” Have a boundary conversation. Listen, I’m not comfortable with lacing our friendship with ulterior motives, you know? I don’t know questioning whether you want me to buy something or help you sell things. And then I think there’s probably a lot of people who after they hear that from a friend will be like oh, I’m sorry, if that’s the way you feel, our friendship will have absolutely nothing to do with my involvement with this thing, and I’ll never talk about it, you feel no pressure from me. At that point, sure, you could have a healthy friendship, and I’m sure that’s how people who have found a way to maintain healthy friendships manage their relationships, but the moment you cross that line, you just have to think, with any potential friend that you have, the moment that you make it about the MLM, there’s really no going back. Unless the person is just gonna be super honest with you and you’re gonna overcome this confidently. It puts the other person in the difficult situation that @Sneakynin is in, that now they have to be the one to like have this awkward conversation with you when this is really all your doing. Yeah. You know, it’s like you’ve put them in an awkward position and you can rationalize it and say “well they’ll tell me,” but it’s extremely difficult to tell somebody these things. It’s almost as difficult as staring at your neighbor while naked and bathing. Right, but sometimes you have to do these things. And good things do happen, but you gotta get over that hump. Right. And you know, maybe I’m conflating things here, but I remember early on in our marriage, Christy would be invited to a lot of parties. That’s the way a lot of them start. Because what they’ll do is, it’ll be for like selling kitchenware, or I remember as a kid, me and Mom and Jimmy and Emmy, the four of us went to this like party where they got all these fancy pots and pans, and they’re talking about the pots and pans for so long, we were invited to a dinner party. Where’s the dinner? There was no dinner, it was just pots and pans. Now they were cooking a bunch of stuff, but we weren’t allowed to eat it. Three hours after we thought we would have been eating, we’re freaking starving. You’re looking at empty things that could have food in them. They started making dinner and then it’s just like, by the time we got the meal, it was the best thing I’d ever eaten, because I was about to die of starvation. It was like 10 o’clock at night. Well they wear you down so you’re like sure, whatever, I’ll join, give me the dag gum spaghetti. And yeah, I was like, you start to become like, your brain became mush, and by the end of it, It’s like a police interrogation. Yeah, we’re buying the pots and pans. Keep them hungry. And Jimmy are buying them because the food tasted so good, it was just like, but basically we were just, had survived a near death experience. It’s like oh my god, thank you for these pots and pans, we gotta bring this home. And there’s these freakin’ jewelry parties, and when Christy and I, especially earlier on in our marriage, we were on a tight budget, and I remember, you know me, I’m very frugal. Hm, really? And it would just get my goat when Christy would come back from these parties with her friends and everyone would have been highly pressured to– I had to buy something. Had to buy something. Or else. And if I bought enough, then So-and-So who hosted the party, you know she’s not doing well financially, so it’s like– I think those young couples are really, really susceptible to this because again– If I bought more, it would help her, and then I’m like “but we don’t have the money for this.” You were guilted into buying things, but because of group think. Yeah, it’s that kind of like couples in their 20s, it’s like, that’s where a lot of it gets started because you’re all trying to figure out a way to make more money, I understand the motivation, and you’re like we gotta find something else, we gotta supplement what we got going on, and I’m not saying that just across the board, there’s not a healthy way for this type of company to exist where you’re kinda using word of mouth and different, because listen, there’s all kinds of ways to sell people on something, I think it’s the fact that the main avenue through which these things work is through friendships. And you can’t just say “hey, don’t do this,” because what I would say is “don’t do this with friendships that you value,” because if they said that at the big feel-good seminar that you go to, then who, only try this with people who you don’t really care about the friendship. Well that’s not gonna work, because those people don’t trust you as much. And let’s get in, yeah, they build an entire social construct and an identity structure around being involved in the MLM. And again, this goes back to my escape as a kid and our family. Now um, my stepdad at the time, Jimmy, he was, he was a drafter, what’s it called when you, he wasn’t an architect but he did draft, you know, he was a drafter. A draftsman. Draftsman in the big city of Raleigh. He’d go up there and he’d like, he would draft all these plans, and it was a cool freakin’ job. I remember going in there and seeing everything he was drawing, it was amazing. I don’t remember what happened to that job, but maybe he was unhappy, maybe, I can’t remember why he stopped doing that, but then there was a period where it was like okay, now he’s a plumber, you know? Which is amazing, I mean, the dude went and, he knew another trade or he figured it out and he was, as far as I can remember, doing pretty well, but apparently not well enough to not do other things. Like I remember he was also for a while he was selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Rainbows. Not Rainbow, he was selling Kirby, Kirby vacuum cleaners. Like heavy-ass vacuum cleaners, I’m talking like a 50-pound, solid metal. Water-based, they’re all water-based. No, Rainbow is water-based, but the Kirby was just, it was like– Just heavy? It was like steel. Kirby, just heavy. Just heavy, no water involved. Now, in door-to-door salesman, that, I mean, that’s um, that might make people feel uncomfortable, but that’s not sacrificing friendships. I don’t understand door-to-door salesmen. I respect the fact that to support his family, he was doing, he was exploring many options to pull it together, and you know, selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door cannot be an easy job. You know, and there’s a lot of pressure involved in that, like going, just knocking on people’s doors and then finding yourself in their house vacuuming? You know, and trying to sell them this really expensive vacuum cleaner. I mean, it’s a lot more expensive than the ones that you can buy at K-Mart or Sky City at the time. But it’s not as heavy. I mean, those are not as heavy. And you know, there are, there’s not as much of that going on, the Cutco Knives thing is still happening. In the first year of marriage, Christy and I bought a whole wad of Cutco knives, which by the way, we still use. You can’t go up to people’s doors in general, and now you can make appointments for selling things, but you can’t just go up to people’s doors, not anymore, man. My point is, you know, I don’t want to over-criticize my ex-stepdad Jimmy for getting involved in the MLM that he did, because he was trying lots of things to pull it together for the fam, you know, so I give him credit for that, but we found ourselves involved in, he became an insurance salesman. So again, mostly by appointments and referrals, he was meeting with people to sell term life insurance through what was called A.L. Williams at the time, now it’s called Primerica, and if you look on Wikipedia, I just wanted to verify that it was a multilevel marketing organization. Yeah. It actually also says in the Wikipedia that a few years back, Forbes ranked it in the top 50 most trusted I think it was insurance companies. Well, and again, that goes back to what we talked about before, regardless of the marketing methods, it is a good product, that’s what that is saying, right? Again, it doesn’t mean that the product is bad. Right. And I used to think that. I used to think that there must be something wrong with this product if it has to be sold in this high-pressure way, versus just being on the shelf with other products, but no, it’s just a different way to do it, so it doesn’t mean– Which is very– It could be great insurance is all I’m saying. Especially when it comes to something like sports drinks and supplements or cleaners, like with Amway, it’s like well I can just go to Target, you know? It’s like why do I have to be, why do I have to experience this higher pressure in my home or sales pitch for something that I can just get off of a shelf? And the reason why is because, you know, the prices are higher for something that you could get off Amazon, but again, they’re trying to work the margins because, and they’re also trying to get you to sell it. So the system generates money for I guess the people at the top, but the fact of the matter is, a lot of people who get involved in these things, they just fizzle out, but there’s a whole world built around it where you show up at conventions and you start to feel good about it. As a kid, I knew who this guy A.L. Williams was, it was like man, he started this company, here’s his success story. Jimmy really bought into it. We went down to Boca Raton, Florida. Wow. And there was this like really fancy hotels and they were all pink like the slime in my shower. And I was like wow, this is amazing. It was one of the first times we’d been on vacation as a family. Right. But he had to go to all these pep talks, seminars, and oh if we’re really lucky, you could get to see A.L. Williams himself. Mm-hmm. At one of these things, he was like a celebrity to these people. They were like okay, you gotta say through Sunday but we’ll have a church service for any of you who want to go to that, and it like became this little community of like– Well again, a lot of times, some sort of faith component gets inserted into this because it begins to permeate so many aspects of your life and your relationships, so why not add that component? Because all that does is generate even more community feel. It makes you feel good about what, yeah. You’re part of a family. You’re a part of this thing, and it, but it starts, even at that young age, I was like, I remember things that now I interpret as just, I felt weird as a kid because it’s like, I mean, cultish is a strong word, but it has a little bit of that vibe where it’s like– Well I don’t know, any time, I always get really uncomfortable when people start trying to combine faith with consumerism. Like that seems like a real special kind of not good, you know? And I’m not saying they were doing like church services and touting their insurance within it, but they’re tying their message together. They’re tying the two together. Like we are so good, we’re good for you and we’re good for people that we’re doing these type of things, and you know, there’s usually someone or groups of people with success stories that are tremendous, they’re like gifted motivational speakers. So they sell all this hope just like the flip book with the mansions and the cars and stuff, and it’s like. Yeah. You know, if you’re down on your luck or if you don’t have direction, and you need some, you need to scratch it together. You get everything, you get a community, you get to make a living, you get, there’s no doubt that this is an attracting thing to a lot of people, that’s why so many of them are super successful. And so then it becomes this odd, evangelistic component of going back to the people that you’re trying to sell and you’re no longer selling them a product, you’re selling them a lifestyle of either being rich or being happy. You know, it’s like you start to take that out, that energy out to people, but when those people have nothing to do with the thing, the first thing they experience is just this is freakin’ weird. Well because most– Because it is. Most people are able to pick up on an agenda, and for good reason, we don’t like it when we feel like someone’s actions are motivated by an agenda that we don’t quite yet know what it is. When you send me a message on Facebook, I sense that there’s an agenda, but you’re not sharing that with me. When you invite me out to lunch, seems a little bit weird, there’s some sort of agenda, but I won’t find out until you break out the weird presentational booklet, and that’s just not a healthy way to navigate friendships. Friendships and relationships are difficult as it is. When you bring this other layer of agenda into it, it’s going to make things more complex, and you cannot blame someone for having a problem with it and being like “I don’t want to be your friend anymore” or I definitely don’t want our friendship to be characterized by this. So for us, I mean, I only remember going to that one seminar that was a vacation where it was like, we didn’t get to do a whole lot of vacation, because it was like I had to stand outside of these meetings that they were having. Yeah, it wasn’t very fun. It was quite a downer. You didn’t see much of Boca or Raton. I remember that Jimmy had an office that had a whole slew of paperwork, and then you know, stuff he was trying to get off the ground associated with this thing. There would be some people that he would get to like work underneath him, but I don’t recall any of that really taking hold. I remember there were certain people that he seemed to idolize within the, higher-ups within the organization that were like okay, the guy who brought me in, the guy who brought him in, the guy who brought him in, I’m actually gonna get to meet today. And it was just like, this weirdness, you know, that was like, how did it end for us? I don’t, well I think to put it simply, they got, Mom and him got a divorce and we moved out. That’s how it ended for you. But I don’t think it had anything to do with the involvement, A.L. Williams or Primerica, whatever it’s called now, did not have anything to do with their divorce or little breakup, I think it was totally separate, and I just think it simply fizzled out. After a while of it not working, a couple of years, it’s just like this isn’t working for me. You gotta buy in. What am I doing? You gotta buy in fully, and those who do buy in can experience a lot of success. You can get that car and that house, there’s just a lot that comes along with it. So my language is a little overblown that we escaped as if it were a cult, but I do feel like it was, I mean we were, when you go into that pink hotel and you’re going to all the seminars, you’re bought in, we were definitely bought in for a little while. But you made it out. But we made it out. And now you know how we feel about it, but I think that the answer for @Sneakynin is you just, you have to be honest, you gotta say “I don’t want our relationship “to be characterized by this,” if you can bring yourself to that, otherwise you’re just gonna sort of, the relationship will probably just dwindle. My summary critique of it is if it’s more about recruiting people to do something that you are also doing instead of the product itself, if you can’t just isolate the product on the open market and give it an honest comparison and it wins, then you shouldn’t believe in the product enough to pour your whole life in and change your whole lifestyle around it. I mean, it’s a bunch of smoke and mirrors, it’s selling a bunch of false hope. Boil it down to the product and make an honest assessment of it. Do you have to have these vitamins and this energy drink and are you drinking their Kool-Aid? Or should you actually just compare it to Kool-Aid? Is there a Kool-Aid one? Because I might join that one. Cool-Aid with a C, like they went uncreative. Well we took a long time on that one, so let’s– It matters. Let’s answer another one here, from Rachel Daniels, which this was is, boy this hits so close to home for me. What is the best way to sign off an email? I always say “thanks” but what about best or regards? How do I know what’s appropriate? I have thought about this so thoroughly. Now, I’ll just start by giving what my practice is, and I feel stupid about this, okay, I just feel dumb. What I do is “thanks!” with an exclamation point, and I do it, that’s what I do almost always, even though if I’m not thanking you for anything. Sometimes I won’t do an exclamation point if I feel especially like, I’m really, there’s nothing I’m thankful for at all, so I guess I’m thanking you for reading to this point? I too, if I’m going to, sometimes I’ll just sign it “Link.” And then, the third alternative is just “Rhett,” there’s nothing and then I feel like I’m being cold, I’m not being warm, I’ll do that in a reply or a chain at that point or I might actually just drop my signature, they know where it comes from. In one sense, it’s like when my dad puts “love Dad” on a text, it’s like Dad, I know where, I see that it’s coming from you. Emails work the same way, do we really have to have a signature? The from is at the top, why put it at the bottom? Now my default is to say “thanks,” comma, and then put “Link” underneath. I’ve probably done that. And I’m just, in terms of what I’m thanking them for, I’m thanking them for taking the time to get that far in the email, to actually read it. It’s not about the content of the email, it’s that okay, apparently you’ve read it to this point. But sometimes you are thanking them for something, so what if you are thanking them for something? Do you say “thanks for that,” and then you’re like “thanks for reading the email.” Do you double up? No. Or is it just an all-purpose thanks. No. Because that’s confusing. Have you tried best or kind regards or sincerely? Sincerely sounds like a letter, not an email. I have friends who use best, and lots of people that I respect use best, and I think the only reason I can’t use best is that it’s such a foreign thing to the way that I think and speak, and like no one said “best” growing up. It would be, it’s like when all of a sudden, somebody says “I want you to call me Ricky “instead of Richard,” like, why? You know, I can’t start using best, what is he trying to prove? It almost feels like at the end of your email, you would sign like, James McLaughlin. It’s not that it’s false, but it’s not what you go by. That’s also my middle name and my last name. I know. I’m just saying it wouldn’t be false, but it would be a little weird, a little improper. Or R.J. R.J.? Yeah, I do feel like saying “best” is that weird, because my criteria for the tone of my emails is if I was standing beside you as you read this and I was reading it out lout to you– Would I have said “best?” Is it something I would have said? Definitely wouldn’t say “regards.” Yeah, it’s, it’s, but I think the flip side of this, because I’m on your side, but the flip side is we are pointing out the lost art of the written letter. Lando’s teacher invites people to, friends and family members to write letters addressed to the kid in the class through the school, because she wants to teach kids the lost art of letter-writing, and whenever kids get a letter, she’s like they’re so excited. Okay, it’s letter time, some people have got letters. A parent can write a letter, like outside the school, or like a grandparent or? Yeah, yeah. And just, okay, got it. I’ve been writing your kids for years. Okay, good, best. It is the best. But then she said “what they don’t know is if they do “get a letter, then I make them write a letter back “and they have to learn what that’s like.” I think that we’re applying this colloquial conversational criteria to email signatures because we don’t appreciate the fact, there’s nothing wrong with the formality of a letter, and I think best, I mean, you hated sincerely, but is it just gone or is it something that we should try to embrace and open up to as an answer to this question? Sincerely, Link. Well you know, I feel like sometimes, and I think this applies to texts as well. If you were to write “thanks” period at the end of your email. Uh-huh. It would send a little bit of a shudder through someone, like oh, whoa, what did I do wrong? I gotta reread this email. Because of the period? The period. Yeah? And I don’t, I track with what you’re saying, but I feel like trying to somehow recapture the essence of letter-writing and put that back into emails, we’re beyond that. It’s gone. First of all, I don’t think that our kids use email, I think email is becoming almost exclusively a business thing, and because the way that it keeps the threads together and you can group things and it’s the kind of way, when you need to communicate about something business-ish or businesslike, you need to communicate in that way, and then some people are, I don’t really know what the criteria is for me deciding to send a Slack message to someone here at work or to send an email, but I will say that I often, because you can just as easily create– A group? A group in the same way that you can create a group on email. What I’m getting at is I don’t know what the application for this will be, because I think that all the emails that I send at this point are either I’m trying, look all right I’m gonna have this thing at my house and I don’t want to go through the formality of creating an e-vite for it or something like that, it’s just like hey, I’m sending you information, and then what do I say at the end of it? If it’s to a bunch of friends, I’ll sign off in some way that’s just supposed to be fun and cute and funny, but I don’t have a default. For me this is what do I say when I send a business email? And I know that if I just transition completely to best, it would be like hm, okay, he’s got his, he’s buttoned up. There’s something cool about best though, because it’s says no matter– Maybe it’s the best response. I hated it when we first started talking about it, but just hear me out. Any written word is open to so much misinterpretation, you know, and it burdens me that so many things happen over text or email that with a simple face-to-face conversation or even a phone call, crises would have been averted left and right, misinterpretation, feelings being hurt, you know, restless nights of analyzation of what did he mean? Is so-and-so upset, there was a period at the end of the thanks, you know? You know, the simple four-letter word. You think best is gonna solve this? Best really captures, no matter what you think or might have read between the lines or have interpreted from what I’ve written, just know that my intentions were good. I only meant the best. Okay let’s examine a test case because I don’t agree with you on this, because if I write you an email and the last sentence in the email is “and that’s why I think you’re an ass.” Mm-hmm. Best. That’s like gosh. You know what I’m saying? That doesn’t work, that’s condescending at that point. First of all, when I did get that email from you, I didn’t even notice the closing. Yeah because I said “thanks!” With an exclamation point because I do it out of habit. I’m just trying to give it its best shot, because I do think it’s a problem. I don’t think there’s an answer, and I hate to be, I hate to say that. If there was an ending that could do what best is trying to do, I would be all for it, but I think we’re so self-aware and we’re so judgemental as people that like, we always, it’s like well that’s weird, that’s pretentious, it’s not something you would say, so why type it? Like regards, yeah. Yeah, it’s like get off your high horse, or get in the real world. We’re just communicating here, be normal. How about just something like– Like what are you, in an MLM or something? And here’s the thing, at this point, I don’t think you, this isn’t the situation where you can invent a new phrase because then you’re just weird. Like if I was just like you know what I’m gonna do? When I get done with an email, I’m just gonna be like “yup, Rhett.” You know what I’m saying? Quirkles, Link. It’s almost like– Quirkle time. ‘Cause yep would work, because it would be like, you know how like, okay– That’s how my dad– Because I also, I’m the guy that usually, if I’m not too busy, I read through the email that I just typed to make sure that it doesn’t say something crazy, and so I read back through it and then I’m like “yep, send,” you know? It’s what you actually said. Yep, that’s what I meant to say, Rhett, signature, gone. Why don’t you just type “okay, sending now, pressing send.” How about “this message has been “approved by Rhett McLaughlin.” My gosh, that’s stupid. Eh, that feels just, yeah, it would have to be an automatic signature or something. That’s like a dad joke, whose kids decided not to talk to him five years ago, you know? What about “sent from my phone?” Because that still is the automatic signature on my emails on my phone. Get rid of that crap. That is done, people, sent from my phone is just an excuse for not re-reading the email or not taking the time to write, I mean, just, no one cares about email. Don’t apologize for something you don’t know if you said or not. I’ve gotten so close to taking sent from my phone, first of all, it used to say like “sent from my iPhone.” You’re right, because that was a default. And that felt pretty pretentious, I have an iPhone. Now mine just says “sent from my phone,” and the reason that I have not taken it out of there is because auto-correct, man. Sometimes your phone will do something that you’re keyboard would never do, and so it’s just like did he just, does he want me to kill the whale? I don’t have– Or does he want me to save the whale? I don’t have anything, I just tested myself, there’s nothing, I don’t have a signature. Oh my phone I don’t even have a signature. On my work stuff I have a signature. Yeah but, and I understand like we’ve got a lot of people here who have signatures. I’m sorry, I’m just deleting emails now, I gotta clean that mailbox. You know you’ve got the Mythical Entertainment, you know, logo and you’ve got your title and you’ve got your contact information, I think that’s important depending on, you know, what your job is. Here’s what I think it should be. But that’s not a signature. Well here’s what– No that’s a signature, that’s not, what do you call it, what is the? Sign-off. Sign-off. I think the sign-off, here’s my proposed solution. Salutation? That’s the opening, hello. What is the correct letter term for that though? See, we’ve lost all this. You should know this, this the kind of thing that you would remember from school. I’ll need to ask Lando’s teacher. The closing of a letter is called the? The de-salutation. Desalinization. I don’t know what it’s called, but this is what I think it should be. I think when you read back through your email, you get in the rhythm of hey, I’m reading this, I’m thinking, I’m putting my mind in the head space of the person who’s receiving this, I’m reading back through it to make sure nothing dumb is in there, and then when I get to the bottom, having gotten the momentum of just reading back through it– When you get to the, what do you call it? Valediction or complimentary close. Complimentary closer, closing. Complimentary closing, I’ll remember that. The valediction. I was the valedictorian at my high school class. You read back through it and you’re like getting the vibe, putting yourself in their shoes, and then you just, whatever you feel like you would have said if you would have given that as a speech, you say it at that point. Thanks, yup, hitting send now. You’re 100% right. And just whatever you feel is added on. It’s never the same, sometimes it might be best. Sometimes it might be a middle finger emoji, do they make that? Yeah. Yeah, that. Jenna is adamantly nodding yes. Is that your complimentary closing? The middle finger? The middle finger emoji? What is yours? I mean, you’re our assistant, you communicate on our behalf, what is your closing? It depends. It depends on who I’m talking to and– You know what time it is. It’s a lot of times thanks with an exclamation point. Thanks, exclamation point. The last email she sent to us was thanks with an exclamation point. Oh yeah, I always send exclamations to you all. You are usually asking us to do something though. Yes. Our job is more about you asking us to do things than us asking you to do things. Thanks exclamation point is more like, in anticipation of your compliance, I am thanking you. Right, here’s all the things that you guys should be doing that I’ve asked you about. Thanks for trying. I think you just need to– I think that works, I think you’re doing great. But if you don’t put anything, you are a jerk. It either, you might be seen as a jerk. Well– He just signed Rhett. He didn’t even take the time to put a complimentary closing. Every time somebody does that though, I respect them though. I said what I wanted to say, and I just want you to remember who said it. It’s a power play, it’s like staring at someone from your shower. See, I don’t need more power, I’ve got so much. Wonder if it was just the staring eyes emoji? Can it just translate into an email? I’m always watching. Is there a showering naked? I’ll be watching you. I don’t know that we’ve helped in this one, but we gotta stop. I’ll never delete this, I’m keeping a record of this, Rhett. #EarBiscuits, give us your complimentary closing and why it’s the best if you don’t think it’s best. We tried so hard to get to give you what you needed, to give you an answer. Sorry Rachel Daniels. Link went out there, you believe so hard in best, but I dismantled it very quickly, and now we’re left with it’s what you make it, man. All the best. Always the best. Always! Always, always. That’s a bit too love letter-ish. How about all way? All the way. Best all the way. Uh, okay, I don’t think we’ve helped. I think love, you know? The word could use a little bit more love. I say love to my mom if I sent her an email. What about for a whole month, every email you send, no matter to who it is– Has to be love? It’s just love. Sounds like a David Dobrik bet, it’s like, you know? Okay, you don’t want to, okay, then maybe it would be good then. Right, yeah, maybe we’ll get views. Love. I don’t think David Dobrik would do an email prank. I think that really shows how old we are. #EarBiscuits, let us know what you think about all the stuff. Do you have a rec? If you want to defend MLM, go for it. My recommendation I’ll keep it quick is Ken Burns’s “Country Music,” I’ve been watching that, you know, every episode is, I think there’s eight of them, it’s a documentary on the meticulous development of the amazing and best, I wouldn’t say best genre, I can’t say that, I was just trying to work best in, but I’m very fond of the genre. One of the better genres. Country music, lots of Merle Haggard, one of his last interviews before his death. It was tough to watch the first episode because I was, you know, since he’s passed, but it’s cool to see him, he’s got that gleam in his eye. How many hours of a commitment is this? Probably 16 to 18. Oh, yeah. So that’s my recommendation, go to PBS.org, look for your local listing. If you want to stream it and they’re not shown anymore, you have to give them a little donation, but hey, it’s worth it. Ken Burns was thinking about watch time before YouTube. Yeah, he was. The king of watch time. We’ll speak at you next week. Thanks for hanging out, and if we offended you, you know what, just introspect a little bit. Yeah, I’ll meet you at the Barnes & Noble in the coffee shop, I’ll be the one with a cardboard prop-up for my presentation. To watch more Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. If you prefer to listen to this podcast, it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for being your mythical best.