This week, Mason and Sean discuss Roland Barthes' influential 1967 essay "The Death of the Author"—how it is misunderstood by the chronically online and how it is a useful and important in understanding the art that we consume.

We also discuss abandoning your heroes, parasocial relationships, songwriting and what it can tell us about the differences between Taylor Swift and Mitski, and remind you that—statistically—someone you love has purchased an album by Nickelback.

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Meaning What is a product of it's no sam studios

Created by Mason Hershenow

Produced by Sean Ang

Edited, scored, and mixed by Mason Hershenow

On today's episode, Mason and Sean talk about how the very same companies driving the "A.I." "revolution" are unravelling all aspects of life and culture. As you probably already guessed, we don't think it's a good thing. But, maybe there are legitimate uses? Maybe!?

We also discuss autocorrect, photographers on Threads, how Microsoft wants to buy Three Mile Island, and the fact that we need a fact checker/producer.

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Meaning What is a product of it's no sam studios

Created by Mason Hershenow

Produced by Sean Ang

Edited, scored, and mixed by Mason Hershenow

On today's episode, Mason and Sean continue the conversation about artificial "intelligence" by turning the eyes on the art world and all the ways that procedurally-generated slop is beginning to pollute modern culture.

We also discuss the difference between vocaloids and vtubers, our feelings about Woody Allen's movies, and why your five year old will never measure up to Felix González-Torrez.

And make sure to stick around during the commercial break for extra content!

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Meaning What is a product of it's no sam studios

Created by Mason Hershenow

Produced by Sean Ang and Lincoln Hershenow

Edited, scored, and mixed by Mason Hershenow

Today we are rightsizing the org with a returning guest: self-described lapsed-physicist John Matter. John joins us to discuss the rise of machine learning and artificial "intelegence", and why it's not much more than fancy math. We also discuss corpo speak, end-user agreements, and some fun trivia about the Enron Corpus.

You can find more of John (including his excellent cats) on Instagram.

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Meaning What is a product of it's no sam studios

Created by Mason Hershenow

Produced by Sean Ang

Edited, scored, and mixed by Mason Hershenow

Here it is, the final episode in our first mini series. Here we wrap up our discussion about media criticism, reaffirm our stance on Ronald Regan, and kick off Sean’s promissing political career as a classic American moderate. There is also discussion about Chuck Berry, Matchbox Twenty, and just how cool Mason wasn't in high school.

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Meaning What is a product of it's no sam studios

Created by Mason Hershenow

Produced by Sean Ang

Edited, scored, and mixed by Mason Hershenow

Mason went to a 9:45am showing of Deadpool & Wolverine a few days after this recording.

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Meaning What is a product of it's no sam studios

Created by Mason Hershenow

Produced by Sean Ang & Lincoln "Link" Hershenow

Edited, scored, and mixed by Mason Hershenow

In part two of our series on criticism, Mason and Sean discuss the world of popular music and how social media and internet culture is shaping what we listen to and the industry that produces it. There are a few tangents, but we get there in the end.

Everything is good and everyone behaves reasonably, especially hardcore fans on the internet.

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Meaning What is a product of it's no sam studios

Created by Mason Hershenow

Produced by Sean Ang

Edited, scored, and mixed by Mason Hershenow

We finally renewed ourselves for a third season, and we're kicking it off with a four-part series on criticism's place in the contemporary media landscape. In this first episode, Mason and Sean discuss how review culture—Yelp, Letterboxd, Amazon product reviews, etc.—has bled into culture writ large. Spoiler: the results aren't great consumers!

Meaning What is now available every other Thursday, wherever you get podcasts. Go tell somebody!

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Meaning What is a product of it's no sam studios

Created by Mason Hershenow

Produced by Sean Ang

Edited, scored, and mixed by Mason Hershenow