Maybe you’re intrigued by NFTs. (They can be pretty fun.) Maybe you’ve even felt the urge to buy a piece of digital art, only to give up once all the talk of wallets, blockchain transactions, gas fees, and digital ownership restrictions made the experience feel too daunting. And the NFT world is daunting! Especially for non-technical folks. Some companies are trying to make the acquisition process less onerous by selling NFT videos preinstalled in digital photo frames that you can buy, have shipped to you, and then display on your desk or wall next to your photos and other artworks.
This week, Lauren Goode takes us into this world of framed NFTs and the marketplaces that power them. She also tells us about the looping Steph Curry video currently brightening her kitchen counter.
Read Lauren’s story about framed NFT art. Listen to our episode last year on WTF is an NFT. Here’s that Infinite Objects Elon Musk NFT if your stomach can take it.
Lauren recommends mineral sunscreen. Mike recommends the casual mobile game Holedown.
Lauren Goode can be found on Twitter @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.
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Michael Calore: Lauren.
Lauren Goode: Mike.
Michael Calore: Lauren, how many NFTs do you own?
Lauren Goode: Zero. I own zero NFTs. I have an NFT, but I don't own it, just to make the whole NFT thing a little bit more complicated.
Michael Calore: Yeah. I'm kind of confused. I might need you to help me make sense of it.
Lauren Goode: Well, I think I have a new way to frame it for you.
Michael Calore: Oh, wonderful. Can't wait to hear all about it.
[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]
Michael Calore: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Calore. I'm a senior editor at WIRED.
Lauren Goode: I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: Today, we are talking about fancy digital photo frames, particularly the ones made to house NFTs. Maybe you've heard of NFTs.
Lauren Goode: Have we?
Michael Calore: We have. We call them non-fungible tokens here in the journalism business.
Lauren Goode: Ah, the proper name. Yes.
Michael Calore: NFTs are a way for artists and art collectors to buy and sell digital art online, and they've had kind of a remarkable rise and fall over the past year. For a while, NFTs were the domain of the crypto elite. You needed a crypto wallet and some knowledge of how to access Bitcoin or Ethereum to buy one, and you also needed to have some understanding of blockchain technology if you wanted to trade your NFTs or to show them off or to sell them. Now, some companies are trying to bring NFTs fully into the mainstream and make it as easy as possible to buy, own, and show off digital artworks. One of the ways they're doing that, which seems pretty frictionless, is a physical photo frame that's made just for displaying an NFT. Now, Lauren, you wrote about some of these NFT-specific frames this week. Can you do me a favor and frame-splain this to me?
Lauren Goode: Ooh, frame-splain it. I like that. So, I did write about this for WIRED this week, but I have been experimenting with these frames in some form or another since around February, and the thing is, the NFT market has gone through a lot of ups and downs since then, so it just became this story that I was chewing on and doing some reporting on over the course of many months, but I just kept holding off on really writing anything about it because I wasn't sure how the NFT market was going to ultimately shake out.
That said, this week, we ran the story. One of the companies that I focus on a lot in the story is called Infinite Objects, and their idea is to turn digital video loops into something that becomes frameable and therefore somewhat permanent and valuable and collectible. So we started off the podcast talking about photos, and we are, I think we're going to talk later on about how people can store and display their actual photos, because it's so important to so many people, but this particular company is focused on video loops, if that makes sense.
Michael Calore: Sure. So you go to Infinite Objects, and you buy something. What do you buy?
Lauren Goode: This is a good question, because they don't just sell NFT frames, although that's the thing that's been getting buzz lately. They also sell just art, digital art, graphic art, video art, framed, running on a loop that is not living on the blockchain in any way, so it's like non-NFT art. They have this whole business that's just for selling these goods that I liken to Spencer Gifts goods from circa 1994. Those of you who are older, like me and Mike, and spent some time in the mall in the '90s, you probably saw Spencer Gifts, and you would see these weird novelty things and lava lamps and things like that. Some of the Infinite Objects frames that are not NFTs kind of feel that way, but in other instances, they're allowing you to take an NFT piece of art that you bought on one of the NFT marketplaces out there, blockchain-based art, and have that displayed in one of the nice acrylic Infinite Objects frames, and then they ship it to you. Then, you put this frame on your counter like I did, and it's just playing on an endless loop.
Michael Calore: So, I've seen this frame that you have in your home.
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Michael Calore: It has an image on it of a sports personality on a loop.
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Michael Calore: Describe it.
Lauren Goode: I will take any opportunity I can to describe Steph Curry. Yes, Steph Curry, for those of you who do not know, NBA MVP, total all-star and star of our local team, the Golden State Warriors, incredible shooter, also has broken tons of records. In fact, I had the privilege this year of being at the game where he broke the record for steals, but my friends and I like to joke that he breaks the record for stealing hearts.
Michael Calore: Yes, he does.
Lauren Goode: So thank you for allowing me to go on a little tangent. Also, by the way, I sit in the nosebleeds, and his shooting is still incredible from that far away.
Michael Calore: Awesome.
Lauren Goode: So, yeah. If you'd go to this website, NBA Top Shot—which has been around for a while, right, it's the NBA's official marketplace for digital collectibles. They've really gotten into NFTs over the past year. So, you could go to NBA Top Shot and purchase an NFT that is like a highlight reel of a basketball player, and then you own that NFT. You would basically authenticate that on Infinite Objects' website, and then you would get that framed and sent to you.
Now, in this case, I don't own the Steph Curry NFT, because I had been chatting with Infinite Objects as well as other frame makers for a few months, trying to figure out what the story was here. As is standard in our job, sometimes companies will say, “Well, do you want to try this product for a while?” We accept loaners, and then eventually we send them back, or we sell them and give the money to a food bank. That's sort of how we maintain our ethical standards.
So, this company offered to send me an IO frame that had Steph Curry in it, Steph Curry Top Shot in it. That's the one that you've seen on my kitchen counter, but I don't actually own that, but what's interesting is if I go to the back of the frame, there's a QR code, and I can scan the QR code, and it takes me to the NBA Top Shot website, and I can actually see a digital trail of all of the people who either own some version of that NFT or have preowned it, and how much it's worth and what its top sale was, what its lowest sale was. It's a fascinating data trail.
Michael Calore: So, with this particular Steph Curry video loop, how much is it worth?
Lauren Goode: That's one of the things that's a little bit hard to get your head around. OK, so in art, let's say there's a Picasso or van Gogh, and that's the original, right, but then in college dorm rooms and West Elm living rooms across the country, you might see some kind of reprint of that art, and you know that is not the OG art. It's a reprint of it. NFTs can be somewhat similar in the sense that you buy this certificate that lives in the blockchain, indicating that you own some form of the original art, but it's not the only one in existence.
So, in the case of this Curry video print that I have, there's a first owner, a second owner, a third owner, right? You can sort of go down the chain, down the blockchain. Then, every time you go down the chain, it might decrease a little bit in value, but because it's digital, there can actually be replicas of it. So I think there are over a thousand out there available for sale through NBA Top Shot, and it's a little bit confusing because the top sale that I saw listed in this digital trail on the blockchain indicated that at some point, someone paid as much as $6,000, more than $6,000, for this Steph Curry video print.
More recently, it's been selling for as little as like $4.75, but that's also because that's not the first or the second or the third. It could be like hundreds or thousands down the line in terms of the art, and so the value is lessened. Also, the NFT market has been cratering in recent months, so that affects it as well. Then, if I were to go to the Infinite Objects website and take that video print that I either paid $6,000 or $4 for, depending on when I got in on it, and I wanted it printed, that would just cost $199 through the IO website.
Michael Calore: Oh, I see. OK.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. So, it's like the frame that is sitting on my kitchen counter that you have seen, and this is where the whole NFT art world gets really heady, that happens to be the first purchase, the first instance of it, because it belongs to Infinite Objects, and they were the first buyers of that Top Shot, and it's on loan to me. So that probably is worth a little bit more, but you could also theoretically go on the Top Shot site right now, buy the same Curry video print for less than a latte in San Francisco, have it printed, and have sort of a similar thing living on your counter. We just have to then do a little bit of forensics on the blockchain to figure out whose is valued at what and which is more valuable, even though we're having the same sort of display experience.
Michael Calore: So, about that dip in the NFT market: The person who paid $6,000 for this loop of Steph Curry shooting a three-pointer and then shimmying his shoulders and playing it up for the crowd, whoever paid $6,000 for that can probably still get $6,000 for that? Would it be difficult for them to get $6,000 if they wanted to sell it? Because it seems as though, even though the larger interest in NFTs has fallen off a cliff in the last couple of months, crypto people are still pretty bullish on it, right?
Lauren Goode: Oh, my gosh. They're so excited about it still.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. It really depends on who you talk to. So, all data points indicate right now that the NFT market has cratered in the past few months in particular. In June, Bloomberg reported that the JPG NFT Index, which is this relatively newly launched index tracking the NFT market, it was down more than 30 percent since it launched in April. OpenSea is a phrase that people in this community say and hear a lot. That's the world's biggest marketplace for NFTs. Sales volume has fallen like 75 percent this summer.
Then, I checked out this market tracker that's on Nonfungible.com that indicated that the number of individual NFT sales, like unit sales; the actual sales in US dollars; sales in the secondary market, so people reselling their NFT art; the number of active crypto wallets—all of those numbers have just plummeted in recent days, like over the past 30 days. And there was a lot of hype from celebrities back in February and March around the NFT market, who now have suddenly gone silent. I joked in my WIRED story, they've gone back to either promoting their shows on Apple TV+ or whatever, or they're on vacation, or they just maybe have lost interest in the NFT market.
So the NFT market has changed a lot, but when you do talk to people in the crypto world—and, in particular, I talked to Joe Saavedra, who is the CEO of Infinite Objects, I talked to Damian Medina, who's a crypto buyer and investor and also launched a frame company called Tokenframe—they frame stuff for thousands of dollars. They're still very, very excited. They think that the crypto market is inherently volatile. People who are in that market know it. They say they're kind of riding the wave, and they think that there's still going to be an upswing and that NFTs will survive whatever this latest downswing is.
Michael Calore: All right. Well, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll continue the conversation.
Lauren Goode: Sounds good.
[Break]
Lauren Goode: So, what say you, Mike? Have I convinced you to get an NFT frame?
Michael Calore: I do like this trend, because when NFTs first came out, it was like, OK, great. I just bought a JPEG or I bought like Nyan Cat, a GIF, right? What do I do with it? How do I show it off? To me, buying something to display it and then hanging that on your wall seems like a pretty nice thing because then you actually have a physical object. For people who have been collecting art for a long time, the digital representation of a non-physical object is a difficult concept to wrap your brain around when you talk about ownership, right?
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Michael Calore: So, being able to own a piece of hardware that displays this digital object is something that makes it a lot easier to grok for people, right?
Lauren Goode: Right. The way that Saavedra from Infinite Objects put it to me is, think of these frames as a physical twin of the virtual original. I was like, phew. My mind sort of exploded, but it is a good way to think about it, and aside from the monetary value or the resale value, part of the value of the experience is being able to show it to the people around you.
Michael Calore: So, like speaking of value, if I wanted to, I could buy a copy of the same Steph Curry-shooting-a-three-and-then-shaking-his-shoulders loop that you have in your fancy, super expensive NFT frame. I could buy a copy of that for under $5, and then I could go to Target and buy a digital photo frame for, I don't know, maybe $20, and load the loop that I bought onto that frame, and then set it up in my home and have basically the same thing that you have for a lot less money, right? Is there anything preventing me from doing that?
Lauren Goode: Well, if we're going to get really technical on the Gadget Lab podcast, I think you and I would have to discuss file formats and how you're going to display a video on a standard frame from Target. But what you're getting at, the answer to the question that you're getting at is yes, you could do that. You could take an NFT that … Let's say you had a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, and you were using that as your Twitter avatar. There's a way that you would have to connect your Twitter account to your crypto wallet and Ethereum in order to have that be your avatar. There's also a world in which you just literally screenshotted your own asset that you own, turned it into a JPEG, and shared it anywhere you wanted to.
Michael Calore: Right.
Lauren Goode: So, yeah. You could totally do that by buying a frame at Target. I think one of the frames that you and I have talked about that we both have and we've written about in WIRED is the Aura frame.
Michael Calore: Yes. It cost way more than $25, but the Aura frame is great.
Lauren Goode: Yeah, and that shows short video loops too.
Michael Calore: Yeah, you can load whatever content you want on it really, and it'll display it.
Lauren Goode: Right. So I guess if you're really into the idea of blockchain-based art and blockchain-based assets, and you want to jump through the hoops of the authentication process and buy one of these frames that specifically requires you to authenticate with your wallet and load the NFT that way, then sure. But the end result might not look that different from what you experience with the Aura frame.
Michael Calore: Right.
Lauren Goode: It raises the question of, what is the value of that art that you're experiencing? When you look at the photos on your Aura frame, or people come to your home and see them, what are we getting out of that experience?
Michael Calore: Yeah. I mean, it's obviously priceless, right?
Lauren Goode: Mm-hmm.
Michael Calore: It's sentimental. It's personal. It's a reflection of my life and the people that populate it. It's different than art, I think, right? If you're buying a piece of art and you're hanging it on the wall, it's a bunch of things. It's like your support for the artist, your support for this particular ecosystem like NFTs in general. You're bullish on NFT, so you want to buy an NFT so you can prop the market up. It's also a reflection of who you are and your taste and your own sensibilities. It turns your home into a different sort of vibe when you hang a piece of art on the wall, right?
Lauren Goode: Yeah, that's true.
Michael Calore: So, it's like there's all this stuff wrapped up in it that I think some of the discussions about NFTs, which can lean more towards speculation and people talking about scams and—
Lauren Goode: Oh, they're super hypey.
Michael Calore: Yeah. People concerned about value and really attaching value to objects, and I think there are a lot of people out there in the art world who would argue that that's not really what art is about. If you're talking about value and you're assigning value to pieces of art, that's more about patronage than it is about sort of conspicuous consumption or market speculation. You buy a piece of art because you want to see the artist continue to be an artist and continue producing art, right?
Lauren Goode: Mm-hmm.
Michael Calore: I'm giving them money to show them, like, “Hey, I like what you're doing. Keep doing it,” and I get this thing that I can hang in my home.
Lauren Goode: Mm-hmm. Yeah, which is a very different value proposition than just, here are the cute photos of my cat flashing on my Aura frame or relatives, or that time my friends and I went for a hike—
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: … which has its own value. It's just a different … It's a different proposition.
Michael Calore: Yeah. So, if I collect NFTs, if I went out and bought 16 of them back in the day and I want to show them off in my house, I can just go get an Aura frame and load all of these JPEGs or short videos onto the frame, and then just show them as they cycle through.
Lauren Goode: So, then you would have your personal photos interspersed with your super cool NFT art.
Michael Calore: No. I mean, yeah, I could, but I wouldn't do that.
Lauren Goode: You bring up a good point too, because Joe Saavedra from Infinite Objects, when I asked him about the cratering NFT market, he said something similar to what Damian Medina said, which is, like, we're going to ride this wave. We're still excited for things to come. This is still in its infancy, the whole world of NFTs. But he did say that with something like Top Shots, they're really trying to appeal to fans. That's not necessarily the kind of thing that they're selling to speculators. There're always going to be speculators. There are always going to be people who buy an asset and then just immediately try to flip it or after a period of time, try to flip it because they're just looking to make money off of it, but there's something about Top Shots, even if you only spend $5 on it and it never really increases in value, you might just love Stephen Curry that much that you're like, it's worth it for me to have this and to display this.
Michael Calore: Right. I think it's very much the same thing with people who buy NFTs from their favorite visual artists. There's visual artists they've been following for 10 years. The NFT trend hit, and they said, “Hey, I'm making NFTs now, and you can buy one for 400 bucks or whatever.” There's a lot of people, I'm sure, who bought one just because they collect the art that that person makes. Maybe they're already displaying it on their digital photo frame that's hanging on their wall.
Lauren Goode: Right, but then they're supporting the artist if they buy it through some blockchain-based marketplace.
Michael Calore: Yeah. Unlike a painting that an artist makes, I don't really own a physical object until I put it into a frame, which I think is interesting. But I can take that painting, and I can resell it for probably a lot more money than I could resell an NFT in a frame if I was a speculator, because it's the only version of it that exists in the world—whereas with the NFT there are copies. And yeah, there is a way to verify it on the blockchain, but it just doesn't feel as special.
Lauren Goode: Yeah, but then if you have the physical art, you have to maintain that and care for it and have it in a temperature-controlled environment. Then, when you sell it, you have to ship it. So there are upsides and downsides to either.
Michael Calore: Right. Right. Right.
Lauren Goode: I don't know. All of this kind of makes my head hurt. The idea of NFT frame makers trying to assign more value to NFTs by shipping them in physical frames—when they're also saying the inherent value lies in the fact that it's digital, is kind of like, phew.
Michael Calore: Yeah, seriously.
Lauren Goode: Like exploding-head emoji. Also, speaking of exploding-head emoji, did I tell you about the Elon Musk art?
Michael Calore: Oh, you need to talk about this.
Lauren Goode: Oh, good Lord.
Michael Calore: So, this is one of the things that's for sale on Infinite Objects right now.
Lauren Goode: Right. I should just say that Infinite Objects frames are relatively inexpensive compared to some of the others that I took a look at, like Tokenframes and LAGO Frames. Those get up into the thousands of dollars just for their frames, and then you display the NFT that you've purchased. Infinite Objects frames range from $79 to around $450 is the usual high end, but then there was one listed on the site … Of course, I went to their website. I went to the most expensive, and it was a $600 frame that contains this video art of Elon Musk, Grimes, and the baby named [unintelligible gibberish sounds].
Michael Calore: Yeah, X-25A?
Lauren Goode: Yes.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Did I say that properly?
Michael Calore: Yeah, I think you did. Yeah.
Lauren Goode: Thank you. It's the baby, and it's a really, really interesting interpretation of Elon and Grimes. They're sort of these half-human, half-avatar cartoonish characters. They've got glass bellies, and both of them have babies either in their bellies or outside, external from their bodies. There are these flashing words across the video, and Elon is holding a knife that's dripping neon green blood, and they've got chips in their brains. I can't even begin to tell you how trippy this is, but this was the most expensive item on Infinite Objects' website.
Michael Calore: Also the most interesting item I've seen.
Lauren Goode: I mean, I'm talking about it.
Michael Calore: Yeah. It's one of the most interesting things I've seen in the NFT art world, I must say.
Lauren Goode: Are you compelled? Do you want one?
Michael Calore: I mean, I keep coming back to this, but yes. Having something that is framed, that is displayed so you can stop while you're walking down the hallway and look at, makes NFTs much more appealing to me than just, I own this thing, and there's a record of it on the blockchain.
Lauren Goode: Yeah, that's a good point.
Michael Calore: It makes it tangible, right?
Lauren Goode: Right.
Michael Calore: Puts it on a pedestal. You put it on a pedestal, it becomes art.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. That added tangibility is so interesting. We should also note that the NFT space is rife with scams and fraud and people just taking forged copies of things too.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: I think that once again, proponents of NFT art are saying this is less likely to be forged because it exists in the blockchain, and we have some kind of certification for the fact that you own this, but the fact that the properties of it are digital just means it's probably a lot easier for someone to just grab something off the internet and display it. There's nothing stopping us. To your point earlier about, can I just load this thing up on my Aura frame, there's nothing stopping us from doing that.
Michael Calore: Right.
Lauren Goode: At least, in conversation, saying this is the art that I own, when in fact, there's no link to it on the chain.
Michael Calore: OK. So, before we break and go to recommendations, I have one last question for you.
Lauren Goode: OK.
Michael Calore: Where is this all going to be in a year?
Lauren Goode: Oh, no.
Michael Calore: Because a year ago, we could not have predicted that NFTs were going to be like hot shit, and then all of a sudden total shit, and now are sort of occupying this fun space between the art world and the technology world where people are still excited about them, but the hype has died down. So, now, it feels like it's got its own natural sort of ecosystem that's cruising along. What's going to happen over the next year, do you think?
Lauren Goode: Might I add that a year ago or so, we talked to our colleague Kate Knibbs about this topic on the WIRED Gadget Lab podcast, and I think that podcast episode really holds up quite well. So if people are looking for an explainer on NFTs, check that out in our feed. I kind of oscillate between two different ideas on this. One is that, and I write this in the story, just a quick sentence that says with NFT art, the thing that is new is not the art. The thing that is new is the exchange, the way it's being exchanged.
So, there's a part of me that believes that a year from now, we aren't necessarily talking about NFT art, but we are talking about the way that people are buying things and exchanging things or paying creators in a way that is blockchain-based. Maybe that's the fundamental underlying technology that persists as we enter this Web3 world, and all of this stuff is like sort of shaking out, right, or as we, I don't know, as crypto continues to exist in some form or another.
Then, there's the other side of that, which is that, actually, art is the thing that is everlasting, and art is the thing that … I mean, people buy art because it makes them feel some sense of immortality, right? That's why people create art, too, to leave their mark in the world. The thing that will persist is the art, and digital art is no less valuable in some cases than tangible art. The thing that will go away will be this crazy, hypey, buzzy NFT market, and this hyper-complicated way of buying things that right now doesn't make sense to the average consumer, right? Attaching your wallet and authenticating through a wallet and buying crypto and having the fluctuations of ether and all that.
So, I don't know which of those will be true. I'm not a good prognosticator, so I just don't … I have very hard time saying what that is, but I don't know. I mean, I don't have any NFTs. Maybe I don't even have any crypto. I think I have like a smidge of crypto through the Robinhood app or something that I bought once to experiment with it.
Michael Calore: Yeah. Every technology journalist owns like $10 worth of bitcoin because we had to buy it at some point for some story.
Lauren Goode: Right, right.
Michael Calore: For the last 10 years.
Lauren Goode: Yeah, whatever we can afford with our immense generational wealth as journalists. So, yeah, this is not … I have no vested interest in any of this, except for that I'm very curious to see how it goes. I can't even begin to say what it's going to look like in a year.
Michael Calore: All right. Well …
Lauren Goode: What do you think though?
Michael Calore: What do I think? I think total.
Lauren Goode: All right. You're in it to win it. You're into the ride.
Michael Calore: No, I mean, like I said earlier, I think it is valuable for artists to have a new way to sell their work, but at the same time, I think the artists who have gotten into it, the traditional artists who have gotten into NFTs maybe did not see the great inflation of their bank accounts that they were expecting based on the hype that got them into it. So, I think it's an experiment for them, and then there are people who are native digital artists or native crypto fanatics who are creating and trading NFTs, for whom this is just the new reality, but it's just another sliver of the art market. So I'm just excited to see how that evolves. It's not going away, I don't think, but it is definitely going to evolve and it's going to change.
Lauren Goode: I look forward to the next time I come to your house, seeing whatever NFT you've purchased.
Michael Calore: All right. This shirt actually is an NFT.
Lauren Goode: Wow.
Michael Calore: Yeah. I bought it on the blockchain.
Lauren Goode: Whoa, what's it called?
Michael Calore: It's called Shirt 1.0
Lauren Goode: That's so deep.
Michael Calore: Let's take a break, and when we come back, we'll do our recommendations.
Lauren Goode: None of them blockchain recommendations.
[Break]
Michael Calore: All right. This is the last part of our show, where we each talk about things that the listeners might enjoy. Lauren, you go first. What is your recommendation?
Lauren Goode: OK. Just to sound like a well-rounded human being, I have to say I'm reading two books right now, but I haven't finished them yet. So, I try not to recommend things before I finish them.
Michael Calore: Sure.
Lauren Goode: But I am reading the Anna Wintour biography.
Michael Calore: Ooh.
Lauren Goode: She's our boss, by the way.
Michael Calore: She's like our boss's boss's boss's boss.
Lauren Goode: She's like our Boss boss. Yeah.
Michael Calore: She runs editorial creative at Condé Nast.
Lauren Goode: Which is our parent company.
Michael Calore: Yes.
Lauren Goode: Yes. I've received one email directly from her once.
Michael Calore: Congratulations.
Lauren Goode: Thank you.
Michael Calore: So, is this book, is this a biography or an autobiography?
Lauren Goode: It's a biography.
Michael Calore: OK.
Lauren Goode: I'm enjoying it for what it's worth. I'm also reading Chrysta Bilton's Normal Family, which the subtitle is how she met and came to love her 35 siblings.
Michael Calore: Wow.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. There's a sperm donor story there. It might actually be, at this point, much more than 35 siblings. It's fascinating. It's really a great story, but I'll come back to those once I have finished those books. What I actually recommend is something very basic. It's mineral sunscreen. Yes. So, mineral sunscreen is different from chemical sunscreen, because chemical sunscreens use specific chemicals to create a kind of reaction in your skin and stop UV rays from penetrating.
Mineral sunscreen is also sometimes called physical sunscreen or a block, because it uses ingredients like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide that sort of sit on the top layer of your skin and protect you from the sun. Many dermatologists agree that mineral sunscreen is better for you than chemical sunscreen, because it is not filled with chemicals, right, which makes a lot of sense. Now, the reason why a lot of people don't like mineral sunscreen is because it makes your face ... like, it creates this cast on your face, right? It's pretty obvious that you're wearing it.
As someone who is a sometimes surfer, I have to say I don't care if there's a cast on my face. I'm not so vain that I'm like, “Oh no, I look sort of ghostlike or paler than usual because I'm wearing mineral sunscreen.” To me, it is worth it to have the added protection.
Michael Calore: Right.
Lauren Goode: Some people are a little more self-conscious about that. That's fine.
Michael Calore: It doesn't matter because when they photograph you on the giant wave, you'll be so small in the photo because the wave is so huge.
Lauren Goode: That's right. That's right.
Michael Calore: So people won't see your face.
Lauren Goode: Exactly. When I'm on the 70-foot wave in Nazare, Portugal, it's just like no one's really paying attention to my mineral sunscreen.
Michael Calore: Pinch zooming in.
Lauren Goode: Right.
Michael Calore: Your face looks kind of funny.
Lauren Goode: Right, but yeah, if you're looking for sunscreen this summer, now that it's August, I recommend checking out mineral sunscreens. I've been using one from Cerave. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly.
Michael Calore: OK.
Lauren Goode: Cerave, you can find it at most pharmacies, but it's a French brand. Use SPF 50. You're also supposed to reapply once every two to three hours. Don't forget to do that.
Michael Calore: I never reapply.
Lauren Goode: It's so easy to forget to reapply, but yeah. I recommend checking out mineral sunscreen, and that is the end of my tour as beauty influencer.
Michael Calore: Awesome.
Lauren Goode: What's your recommendation?
Michael Calore: I'm going to recommend a game.
Lauren Goode: OK.
Michael Calore: It's a mobile game. I go down these weird rabbit holes where I get completely addicted to a game, and then I don't play it for maybe a year, and then one day, I'm bored and looking at my phone, and I'm like, oh yeah, that game seemed like it was fun. This is one of those games. It's called Holedown. H-O-L-E-D-O-W-N. I think I recommended this before, but I'm recommending it again because I rediscovered it, and now I'm completely addicted to it. In fact, when deciding before recording this podcast whether or not this is going to be something that I was going to recommend, I played around just to remind myself of how great it was.
Lauren Goode: All for research.
Michael Calore: So, it's a game where you shoot balls at blocks to break the blocks, and each block has a number on it. The number on the block is the number of times you have to hit it with a ball. If it has a 12 on it, then you shoot 12 balls at it and it explodes. You have a finite number of balls, so there's some strategy involved. The balls also ricochet around, so you can hit one block and then it bounces off and hits another block. The goal is to mine for crystals. It's called Holedown because the game goes down the screen, so you're always drilling through these blocks by throwing balls at them. It's super fun. It's super cartoony. It's a casual game. Rounds last around 5 to 10 minutes each, so it's something that you can do while you're waiting in line at the post office.
Lauren Goode: Do people still do that? Wait in line of the post office?
Michael Calore: No, but that's the thing that every—
Lauren Goode: Yeah, right. Yeah.
Michael Calore: That's the trope that everybody uses when they're advertising casual games.
Lauren Goode: Waiting in line at the grocery store, right?
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: So, you did recommend this once before.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Lauren Goode: I'm watching a little demo of the game right now on the Holedown.com website, and it looks very addictive and fun.
Michael Calore: It is. It's also one of those games where the object is to clean the board. So if you have any obsessive tendencies about cleaning or about completing things, then it is total catnip.
Lauren Goode: How much does this cost?
Michael Calore: It's four bucks on the phone. You can get it on Android or iOS.
Lauren Goode: On their website, they have recommendations from The Verge, Kotaku, Polygon, and Macworld. I'm looking forward to them saying WIRED's Gadget Lab. If you have any sort of compulsive disorders, this is the game for you.
Michael Calore: If your brain is broken, you'll love Holedown.
Lauren Goode: If you need to clean your screen, you'll love Holedown. Well, that's delightful. Thank you. Also, I've been seeing some of the good stuff you've been reading on Goodreads.
Michael Calore: Oh yeah. Right. I'll have to recommend one of those books next week.
Lauren Goode: Yeah, because I stalk Mike's Goodreads for those of you who haven't been listening to our earlier podcasts. Mike is my only friend on Goodreads.
Michael Calore: Yeah. You're also my only friend on LinkedIn.
Lauren Goode: Really?
Michael Calore: No, I'm just kidding. All right. Well that is our show this week. Thank you all for listening. Lauren, thank you for joining us.
Lauren Goode: You're welcome.
Michael Calore: If you have any feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter. Just check the show notes. Our producer is Boone Ashworth as always.
Lauren Goode: The non-fungible Boone Ashworth.
Michael Calore: I'm going to frame him and hang him on the wall. We'll be back next week. Until then, goodbye.
[Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]
