Depresh Mode Comes to the Ubiquitous Screen
You can't escape us! Unless you make the slightest effort!
Hello! I’m going to try something new next week, the day after the show launches. That happens on Monday so this will be on Tuesday.
The Depresh Mode Debrief is a quick chat about the episode that had dropped the day before. So the show comes out, you have a day to listen, then hang out with me where I’ll talk about the show you just heard, share thoughts and notes, and talk a little about how a big pile of taped conversations becomes a show. I’ll also take your questions about the guest, the show, and the issues raised in it.
The DMD happens on YouTube Live. And if the whole thing turns into a fiasco, I’ll simply stop doing it because in a world of constantly available free media, nothing matters anymore, I ate blocks for breakfast, I wear shoes on my hands, tra la la I can’t hear you. If it’s popular and feasible, I’ll keep doing it. MAN, I DO NOT KNOW WHICH IT WILL BE YET.
Okay, so I’ve scheduled one at 1pm central on Tuesday the 30th to talk about episode 1 with Patton Oswalt. And because we’re dropping TWO episodes on launch day, I’ve scheduled ANOTHER one on the same day at 2pm central to talk about the episode 2 with Kelsey Darragh. I don’t know what time that translates to in your particular time zone because that would be MATHEMATICS and I do not reside in that zone.
Of note: those guests will not be there for the debrief. They were already kind enough to be interviewed in the first place, let’s not drag them through their own lives again, it’s not like we’re dating and hitting a rough patch.
So! Maybe this will be a one-day deal and I’ll never do it again and it’ll be just to celebrate the launch OR! this is the dawning of a whole new thing!
You know what’s fun? Potentially creating an indefinite series of obligations for yourself!
Hello, I’m going to be worried and perhaps a bit cynical ABOUT A BUSINESS. The tech startup Ginger announced another 100 million dollars, which is a lot of dollars, in venture capital money. Ginger connects people with “mental health coaches” and lets them schedule video visits with therapists.
Right off: what the f is a mental health coach? This is from their terms of service:
Tele-coaching, which uses unlicensed personnel with the applicable educational degrees to provide such coaching, and otherwise help you clarify and understand a problem or need for change or improvement; this Teleservice is NOT INTENDED TO, NOR DOES IT, PROVIDE CLINICAL COUNSELING OR THERAPY, MEDICAL ADVICE, DIAGNOSIS, OR MEDICAL TREATMENT. While this Teleservice may be provided by a licensed medical provider such as G.io Medical, coaching is not a licensed or regulated service and does not require licensed professionals.
“Applicable educational degrees.” ??
The big business wrinkle here is that companies can hire Ginger as a resource for their employees. A perk. So if you’re running a company and an employee is having difficulty, it then becomes incumbent upon that employee to use an app to take care of the problem and get back to work.
Ginger has added about 300 new clients in the last year, CEO Russell Glass wrote in an emailed statement. Some of its users include Delta Airlines, Domino’s and Sephora.
ACCESS TO MORE MENTAL HEALTH ASSISTANCE IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA. But! This model lets companies buy their way out of looking at themselves as being potentially culpable for why that employee is so screwed up in the first place. It lets toxic workplaces and managers off the hook and leverage their financial power. It’s fucked up.
Our third episode this season is going to be about burnout in the workplace, which was a huge problem before covid and a really terrifyingly common one during. And will be after. Because people are being exploited. I’m not saying companies that use Ginger are always this way but it’s a really great option if you have a pile of blood money from your exploited workers. Also, how much of your contact with a mental health professional is visible to your employer? Yikes.
Here are some Gingers I trust more.
I’ve been giving myself a break. Instead of explaining it myself, I’ve been linking to articles that explain why “mental illness” is a cruel and stupid way to explain mass shootings.
The 21-year-old suspect arrested in the rampage, the second in a week, was almost immediately described by family members as paranoid and antisocial. And on Thursday, his defense attorney asked for a mental health assessment "to address his mental illness."
Take it away, other people!
"There's no psychotic illness whose symptom is shooting other people," said Dr. Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University.
"People are searching for explanations for behavior they don't understand. It's easy to put a label like mental illness on behavior that frankly seems just beyond the pale," said Angela Kimball, national director for advocacy and public policy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
"Mental illness alone is not a predictor of violence," Kimball said. "If mental illness were a cause, we would be seeing proportionally so many more mass shootings."
Metzl pointed to an "intermeshing" of factors, rather than one simple cause.
Things such as access to guns, family dynamics, past behavior, racism and misogyny are much more likely to be determinants of who commits a mass shooting, Metzl said. According to the FBI report, active shooters on average displayed four to five concerning behaviors that others observed before the shooting. Among them are threats or confrontation, anger or physical aggression.
In many cases, shooters are young and male. "We don't look to why that is or how that's come about," Gionfriddo said. "We don't seem to want to ask those questions and how our policies decisions in this country may have moved us in a direction that has allowed things like that to continue or to fester."
The voice trick this teenager does is neat but what’s even better is seeing her delight in discovering a neat trick.
via kottke
