Episode Notes
Alyssa Bereznak is a staff writer for theringer.com. She covers tech and culture, with a focus on media, celebrity, and how the internet is changing our lives. All these interests came together in a podcast she recently hosted and reported for The Ringer about a trivia app for your smartphone that aimed to do nothing less than change the future of television.
As you’d probably guess, it didn’t quite get there. Alyssa’s podcast, “Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia,” tells that story while delving into the workings of our attention economy across eight compelling and insightful episodes.
She and host Ted Fox started their conversation with HQ Trivia, its meteoric rise to daily must-watch status for millions of people, and what was on the other side of that peak. That then led to them discussing the experience of making a podcast during the pandemic and other elements of our current media and internet landscape, including what happens at The Ringer when one of the biggest musicians in the world announces out of nowhere she has a new album coming that day at midnight.
And we promise you, Alyssa’s tweet-length review of Taylor Swift’s folklore is not one to be missed.
LINKS
- Alyssa’s Podcast: “Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia”
- Alyssa’s Writing for The Ringer
Episode Transcript
*Note: We do our best to make these transcripts as accurate as we can. That said, if you want to quote from one of our episodes, particularly the words of our guests, please listen to the audio whenever possible. Thanks.
Ted Fox 0:00
(voiceover) From the University of Notre Dame, this is With a Side of Knowledge. I'm your host, Ted Fox. Before the pandemic, we were the show that invited scholars, makers, and professionals out to brunch for informal conversations about their work. And we look forward to being that show again one day. But for now, we're recording remotely to maintain physical distancing. If you like what you hear, you can leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Thanks for stopping by.
Alyssa Bereznak is a staff writer for theringer.com. She covers tech and culture, with a focus on media, celebrity, and how the internet is changing our lives. All these interests came together in a podcast she recently hosted and reported for The Ringer about a trivia app for your smartphone that aimed to do nothing less than change the future of television. As you'd probably guess, it didn't quite get there. Alyssa's podcast, "Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia," tells that story while delving into the workings of our attention economy across eight compelling and insightful episodes. We started our conversation with HQ trivia, its meteoric rise to daily must-watch status for millions of people, and what was on the other side of that peak. That then led us to discussing the experience of making a podcast during the pandemic and other elements of our current media and internet landscape, including what happens at The Ringer when one of the biggest musicians in the world announces out of nowhere she has a new album coming that day at midnight. And I promise you, Alyssa's tweet-length review of Taylor Swift's "folklore" is not one to be missed. (end voiceover)
Alyssa Bereznak, welcome to With a Side of Knowledge.
Alyssa Bereznak 1:54
Thanks for having me.
Ted Fox 1:56
So the podcast you just reported and hosted for The Ringer, "Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia," I'm one of those people that before I listened to the show, I had what you'd probably call a passing familiarity with what HQ Trivia was--and I guess still kind of is, right? In a way? People need to listen to your podcast if they want to get the whole story, but how would you describe HQ at its peak, what it was?
Alyssa Bereznak 2:23
It was a live game show where people could win thousands of dollars potentially. It was interactive. It was beamed to everyone's home through a smartphone. And it was a giant fad for a little bit--like, people loved it, they would stop, it would air at 3:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Eastern time every day for a little bit, and people were interrupting their workdays and their lives, you know, their dinners, just to get on this app. It really was a moment of community on the internet.
Ted Fox 2:57
And when we talk about ... I mean, just to kind of give people a sense of the timeline, did it start in 2017?
Alyssa Bereznak 3:03
Yes, exactly.
Ted Fox 3:04
(laughing) And now we're looking back at it in 2020, so this wasn't a long moment.
Alyssa Bereznak 3:09
That's how time moves now, especially in the startup industry, and especially when it comes to internet fads, right?
Ted Fox 3:15
Right, right. One of the things I loved in the first episode, you used a clip from The Ringer offices of people playing HQ. What was your own experience with it like? Because I thought you did a good job of kind of drawing on and painting a picture of, No, really at 3:00 and 9:00 every day, for people who played this, this was a really big deal.
Alyssa Bereznak 3:36
Yeah, definitely. I think especially in cities, places where there's office culture, and people are, you know, there's already a kind of community, and people have a lot of opportunities after work to spend time together at bars. You know, when you're in New York, after work, you just go to a bar, and you hang out with your friends. And it's possible that you could end up playing this game together. But for us at work, I mean, I was based in Brooklyn then, I'm in LA now, we would interrupt our day, and we would, like, talk about it on Slack. I mean, for a while, we had a random Slack channel that was basically just dedicated to what was happening on HQ and who got which question. But we would kind of prep five minutes before, and then we would all sit in a circle, like in our chairs with our phones out, and sort of confer on each question like, What's the answer to this one, is it A, B, or C? And then, like, one by one, we would all get out except for my colleague, Roger, who was, like, a trivia genius. I mean, he still is and ended up making so much money on HQ. But yeah, the clip that I shared, I wasn't even in the LA office then. But I was kind of asking around to see if anyone had, like, a good moment because oftentimes when things got down to the wire and you were still in around the 12th question, everyone's nerves would get really intense, and people would just be, like, spinning around and screaming. And yeah, a couple of my colleagues were definitely doing that and interrupted the recording of a Chris Ryan podcast. (laughs) So that was fun.
Ted Fox 5:19
Well and there's that--and it's not someone at The Ringer--but there's also that clip you use of the woman just completely going crazy. And you play the clip of it, and it's: She won 11 dollars. And it's just, like, clearly this was about a lot more than the money to people.
Alyssa Bereznak 5:33
Completely. I mean, there's just such a thrill of not only winning in front of a bunch of people, but playing it with everyone. You saw the little number of people in the top left-hand corner of the screen every game, and once it was, like, really climbing and getting into the millions, you felt like you were part of an event.
Ted Fox 5:54
I'm glad you brought that up because there was a line that you had that--I mean, I thought it captured the internet really well. You said, "Every day on the internet is kind of like walking down the Las Vegas Strip." Because there's all these things coming from all these different directions that all want your attention all at the same time. And there's this really kind of small subset--using the word "viral" these days feels like an odd thing, but that's the word that we, you know, something "goes viral," [it] captures a whole bunch of people's attention. But you pointed out that, you know, HQ kind of seemed to travel a different kind of path towards virality. And ultimately, you know, it's a 100-million-dollar valuation. Can you explain a little bit more why you feel like HQ got so popular so fast?
Alyssa Bereznak 6:40
It was, first of all, designed to go viral because of that number in the top left-hand corner. Just being a company that tracks your stats in such a public way and projects them to everyone is in itself a way to draw more people; people are excited about a thing that other people are doing. That's sort of the point of virality. But at the same time, like right around the same time they were getting big, they had a huge media snafu. And it drew a lot of attention, a lot of media attention that got them a lot of exposure. But it did sort of set them up as, like, this problematic startup, this hot but problematic startup that everyone needed to watch. And so that was part of it. It was representative of this new kind of startup that becomes a darling immediately and all of a sudden has to live up to these really high expectations about what they're going to accomplish. You know, like, if they're hitting millions of users within the first year of their company, then they need to think bigger. They need to think about how they're going to get to like 5 million or, you know--I mean, Silicon Valley sort of has a quenchless thirst when it comes to that kind of thing, like, reaching certain goalposts and numbers. I mean, look at Facebook, all these years, they still want to grow, they still want to expand their reach.
Ted Fox 8:14
I always remember, you know, that scene--how true to life it was or not--but from The Social Network when they're sitting there and they're counting, I think it was the one millionth user, I think, when they're counting down to that, and just that idea of, Alright, this is a thing, and exactly like you said, it's quenchless. Well, it's not enough to be this thing--what is the thing that we're going to be next, and how do we keep growing towards that?
Alyssa Bereznak 8:38
Yeah, and in a way that's, you know, modern capitalism. Like, I think that every company has an element of that, especially publicly traded ones. I think it's just now that we're trying to examine the other purposes that major companies with a lot of money can play in our society, like supporting workers and things like that.
Ted Fox 8:59
So HQ--we just used kind of the Facebook example there--HQ is not Facebook; it got popular so fast, until it wasn't. Is HQ in some ways kind of like an allegory for kind of what happens on the internet, of things are there and then they're gone because people's attention moves on? How do you--do you see it as a cautionary tale? How do you see it in kind of the bigger, I guess, ecosystem of what the internet is?
Alyssa Bereznak 9:30
Yeah, I would say it's definitely a cautionary tale. And I would say it's also just a really interesting specimen of our attention economy. It's something that could never exist without it but also sort of died because of that. And to be clear, the game is still online. It's not what it used to be, and some might call it--like it's a new zombie stage, as we often see digital media companies in. But yeah, it's a cautionary tale because the attention economy--it doesn't really have an attention span. It jumps around really quickly.
Ted Fox 10:10
And I mean, you cover internet culture and tech culture; when you say "attention economy," what specifically are you--is it the quest for likes and retweets? Is it more than that? What is it exactly?
Alyssa Bereznak 10:23
Yeah, exactly, this endless quest for engagement--engagement and approval and doing the right numbers on the internet. It's really hard to do that, it's really hard to stay relevant online because people just don't have the attention spans for that. And like I said, it's walking down the Las Vegas Strip. There's so many companies that are putting their all into trying to get the attention of a person and keep them in their app. And when you dedicate the greatest minds of a generation to creating algorithms to help with that (laughs), that's when you, like, really get in a lot of trouble. Like, I think that it's definitely affecting us in ways that we can't quite put our finger on. So I thought that, especially this in terms of thinking about HQ and how Silicon Valley works, they were also given this hundred-million-dollar valuation because of the engagement they were able to get without actually proving that they could be a business. And that was really fascinating to me that Silicon Valley--I mean, there are lots of examples of this, and it's almost become a sport of technology journalists to sort of call them early. But I really do think that in this case, they were set up for failure because their giant selling point was that number in the top left corner of their screen.
Ted Fox 11:45
Right. In the course of you reporting the podcast, one thing that struck me is that we heard some people you interviewed say that the idea behind HQ or what it was, it wasn't just a trivia app--it was going to redefine television in the way we consume that kind of content. And on the one hand, that sounds kind of ridiculous now, but on the other hand, I'm wondering if you see echoes of it in something like Quibi, whose model is television-quality content designed to consume in like eight or nine minutes on your phone?
Alyssa Bereznak 12:22
Yeah, it's funny you mention Quibi because at the end of the series, when I was asking my beloved "Boom/Bust" listeners, my BBs ... (laughs)
Ted Fox 12:33
Like your H-Cuties, right? (laughs)
Alyssa Bereznak 12:34
Yeah, they're my BBs. When I was asking them, like, What would you like for a season two, what should I do next? I got a lot of suggestions for Quibi. I mean, I think Quibi is actually somewhat different from HQ in the sense that the ideas for Quibi were born from people who might not necessarily understand the internet. So they didn't actually start with the idea that--or they didn't actually start with a bunch of users, they just decided our attention spans are short now, so let's make content that sort of aligns with that. But I think the issue with them is that they didn't actually have proven test cases of this, and it seems like so much money to spend on something that's so short. I think that's an important thing to remember, too: People on the internet, when things go viral, it doesn't matter the quality, the camera quality or anything like that. I mean, it's about whether or not you get a quick emotion from it. And it's not too complicated. I mean, that can be a bad thing. But when it's like something funny that a dog is doing, it's the greatest thing ever. You watch it three times in a row, and you're like, I feel wonderful, that's a hit of dopamine. So I think, like, that is one of the reasons why it's confusing why Quibi exists. I don't know if it needs to exist. I think it was kind of a cynical vision of what our attention economy has become without quite understanding that people in the world still like quality entertainment, and they still like quality things, especially because these Quibi shows--you know, I think there's talk about making them interactive and making them adjust to the medium of a phone. But in the end, it's like, We're good. We've got TikTok, we have Twitter, these are the places where we're finding funny things that don't cost any money. They're just organic. And authenticity is definitely part of that. You want to not feel like it's too forced.
Ted Fox 14:38
It seemed like if I was listening right that you had all or most of the interviews for the show done before quarantine, but that you ended up making a lot of the show once you were in quarantine. How was that experience of making a podcast during a pandemic for you?
Alyssa Bereznak 14:52
You know, it was actually very soothing. It was great to have a sense of focus in a moment where everyone was panicking and didn't really know what to do with themselves. Like, I was able to pay attention to all the chaos happening in our world. And, you know, it was still very hard; this pandemic hasn't been easy for anyone. But I was really grateful that I had a project and a purpose every day.
Ted Fox 15:18
Yeah.
Alyssa Bereznak 15:18
It was like, This is a thing that needs to be made, and meeting and working with my producers and my editor was really nice. It was great to, like, see them every day and have that exchange, and in a way that took sort of the place of regular workplace interaction or even not seeing my friends. Because the beginning, I'm sure like you, you know, no one was going out, everyone is being extremely confined. But you know, there were, like, lots of sort of ridiculous things that we didn't take into account, like they had to get me set up with my audio equipment here. And one day I ran out of batteries on my recorder and realized I didn't have any more, and so we're like, Okay, well that's gonna take a little bit. Or there was a heat wave in LA around that time, and there were days where we had to, like, schedule when I was going to do it because I was doing it in my closet, which is not a walk-in closet, it's just a large closet, and it was uncomfortable. I had to get, like, a special pillow to put beneath my back. And it got really hot, like I couldn't breathe at certain points. And so, I mean, maybe someone can detect this, but there was probably a little bit of tape in there of me, like, gasping for air as I'm explaining the downfall of HQ. (both laugh) It was an experience. And in fact, I've been joking to people that I have post-podcast depression, kind of like postpartum depression because I need a new baby to focus on.
Ted Fox 16:49
I was gonna say, do you know what your next project is yet, or you're still kind of in that maybe more of a writing phase right now or ...
Alyssa Bereznak 16:56
Yeah, we're in the brainstorming phase. You know, we got a lot of feedback from fans of the show, and I'm just really grateful for the sort of outpouring of support. I never expected that, and it's been really wonderful to hear that this story spoke to people. So I'm just trying to make sure that I find something that speaks to people but also touches on a different topic. Quibi has been suggested, MoviePass has been suggested. We're still in the brainstorming phase, but I think we'll be kicking off something new soon. And, you know, it could be a season two of "Boom/Bust," but it could be something else. We don't want to feel confined to the idea of the rise and fall of something.
Ted Fox 17:37
Sure.
Alyssa Bereznak 17:39
Or you could think about "Boom/Bust" in a different sort of frame, like putting it on a sports team or something. That's not for me. (both laugh) I'm just now learning about the NBA despite my workplace. But I am just really excited to be able to tell dynamic stories where the characters can come to life. As someone who's written features for most of her career, it was so gratifying to let listeners hear the characters themselves, get an idea of what the stakes were, and kind of make judgment calls about who was reliable, where each person fell in their vision of morality, of doing the right thing in the situation. And that's one of my favorite things, has been talking to people and hearing that they have different opinions than I did. And I was able to sort of present it to them where they could make their own decision.
Ted Fox 18:30
Yeah, well, we'll definitely put the link to the show in the episode notes. It's an eight-episode run, and I think, you know, if you're listening to this and enjoying it, you'll definitely enjoy the podcast. I did want to ask you some about your writing, as well, because you are a great writer and write features for The Ringer.
Alyssa Bereznak 18:48
Thank you.
Ted Fox 18:49
And you recently had a piece on there that, it had a throughline to this, you know, conversation about internet culture. It was about how kids and teenagers are using social platforms like TikTok to manage their images in ways that child and teen stars of the past couldn't do--including using those platforms to become famous in the first place in a way that, you know, before there was kind of this casting director that always had to be the gatekeeper of, Oh, are you going to become famous or not? And now even if the camera is just on your iPhone, like, that could be a path to really building a following online. How do you think that affects both the kid who's becoming famous and the audience who's consuming that fame?
Alyssa Bereznak 19:36
Yeah, I mean, I think there was a really interesting study that was done a year or two ago about just surveying teens and asking them what they would want to be, and one of the questions [was], Do you want to be an astronaut? And then another question was like, Would you like to be a YouTube star? And like overwhelmingly, kids from the US and the UK chose YouTube star over astronaut. And I've just thought about that for a while. I think our lives are so digital now that in a way, our digital identities are sometimes stronger than our own sense of self. I think because there are all these best practices that you put into creating a strong personal brand that can, you know, benefit you monetarily, you're not actually putting the same amount of resources into strengthening who you are and your own emotional truths and things like that.
And so I think in some ways, it's very empowering. I mentioned specifically with young, sort of child actors or child stars that this is a moment where they can actually take control of their narrative in a way that they wouldn't be able to before. I think we saw a lot of tragic cases with child stars who really couldn't handle the fame because the media took whatever misstep they did and ran with it. But now it's like at the very least, they're making money off of their missteps. Like, they might still be partying during the coronavirus, but that footage is on their phone, and they're getting dragged on it, but that's also bringing engagement to their accounts. So I think it's a really interesting dynamic because also, bad behavior is rewarded. I think child stars especially sometimes couldn't help their bad behavior in the beginning, but they were so rewarded for it in the gossip tabloids, and now we're in a much more accelerated version of that. I find it really fascinating because it scares me. I myself have sort of fallen into this idea that my personal brand could replace who I am or stand in for who I am. When that's a question that I think human beings need to be asking themselves every single day, Who I am, what do I want, what are the emotional tools I need to confront my life in real life? (laughs)
Ted Fox 22:04
Right.
Alyssa Bereznak 22:05
And that is a theme that is strong throughout all of my work. I am really fascinated with celebrity and identity and the idea of our digital selves.
Ted Fox 22:16
Well I mean, speaking of celebrity and identity and brands, this isn't--I mean, it's not directly internet culture, but certainly supported by it--Taylor Swift. She recently dropped a new album, "folklore," that she announced, what, like 18 hours before it went out?
Alyssa Bereznak 22:34
Yeah.
Ted Fox 22:35
It was certainly breaking news in my house. And you were one of The Ringer staff members called on to contribute to the site's exit survey about the album. Your tweet-length review was great, so I want to read it here. It was: "Summer has been canceled. If you need me I will be making pumpkin pie and carving my and my cat's initials into the base of a giant redwood tree in an oversized sweater." Which was fabulous. So you said that--I I feel like there's countless podcasts devoted to Taylor Swift and branding and image and how, you know, how you manage these things--but I wanted to ask you, you said you felt like it was the best album that she's ever made, which in the case of someone as prolific and as popular as her, it's a significant statement to make. Why did you feel that way about "folklore"? And I've heard it so many times in my house, I'm not saying I disagree at all. I just, I'm curious why it resonated that much with you.
Alyssa Bereznak 23:28
I think during the pandemic, I've had a lot of days that feel like the Sunday scaries even though it's not Sunday. (laughs) And because I've just had so much time to reflect on my entire life, that's, you know, when you have this much time alone ... I'm living alone, my roommate has a condition that would make her very vulnerable to the disease, so she's not here right now. And I've been thinking about all my life choices--like, I've been really in my feelings. And you know, I think Taylor Swift is an interesting person in the context of celebrity and identity. Her recent documentary, "Miss Americana," came out on Netflix, and that kind of explained some of the moments that I was really disappointed in her, you know, but she was also going through her own stuff, there was always more context. And that's a great reminder, when you're thinking about celebrity or identity, there's always more context, and the person is usually doing the best they can. But I thought that her album was the best album because it felt the most authentic. Like, to me, she's always been a storyteller. Her strength is in the lyrics and the writing and the tapestries she weaves that are really complicated with the imagery of her lives and how that's sort of assigned subtly to different lovers or different stages. And this was pure storytelling. It was like all the pop stuff stripped away. I mean, don't get me wrong, "1989" was a very important album for me, but it was a perfect, like, early 20s sort of vision for pop that will not be forgotten in my mind. And I found it really great. But I thought "folklore" was really authentic. And I just really appreciate the change from the more effusive, sort of bubblegum pop to something more reflective, especially when we're all stuck at home right now.
Ted Fox 25:22
So when there's breaking pop culture news like that--because this really, I mean, this was, my wife came into my office that morning was like, Oh my, what happened while I was asleep? She's coming out with a new album tonight? How is this happening? How does that work at a place like The Ringer? Is that an all-hands-on-deck, give-me-your-best-take email or Slack? Or how do all of you get selected then to kind of contribute? Because the exit survey model is very cool. It's a lot of different people kind of contributing their thoughts within the first, you know, 24 hours or whatever it is. How does that all come together?
Alyssa Bereznak 25:55
Yeah, I mean, you probably have to ask my editors for the true behind-the-scenes version because I'm just the person who's pinged to be like, Oh, you're gonna participate, right? I mean, I've been working at The Ringer for over four years now. Generally, you can tell what gets people excited at The Ringer Slack. Like, if a lot of people respond to the news--you know, someone drops a link, and then other people have opinions about it. And then like 20 minutes later, one of the editors comes around and it's like, We're doing an exit survey. So sometimes it's driven by our own internal conversations. And sometimes it's just like, Okay, well, if it's as big as a surprise Taylor Swift album, like, there's obviously going to be an exit survey. I've written about Taylor Swift a little bit. I've been a fan for a long time. So Andrew Gruttadaro was like, Of course you're gonna contribute to this, right? And even though I had the day off the day it was due, I did it in the morning because I cared enough. (laughs) But yeah, it's kind of fun. I mean, that's the point of The Ringer, right? Like, it's sort of water-cooley, in that sense that if something happens on the internet, we're going to reply to it. And at this point, I don't know if anyone has truly hyperventilated over something breaking because we're all, like, harried journalists who just expect that the stuff is not gonna be announced. You know, we've lived through Beyonce album drops with no warning. Like, we know what's up. (laughs)
Ted Fox 27:17
Well, you can read her on The Ringer. There's a great piece you did earlier this summer about the bail bond industry, which was really enlightening. And people, you know, can check that out. And of course, the podcast is "Boom/Bust: The Rise and Fall of HQ Trivia." Alyssa Bereznak, thank you so much for making the time to talk to me. I really do appreciate it.
Alyssa Bereznak 27:37
Thank you for having me, Ted. It was really fun.
Ted Fox 27:40
With a Side of Knowledge is a production of the Office of the Provost at the University of Notre Dame. Our website is withasideofpod.nd.edu.