Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at B.U. Questrom School of Business. In a recent episode, the show explores how artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare and what that means for patients, providers, and the business of care. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode. Producer Grace Tatter. Host Ben Brak Johnson. I think that's Ben Lafroman Johnson to you. Nice. I'm excited for this story that you have today. Thank you for bringing it. Yeah, well, clearly you've gotten a head start on all of this, but I do indeed have a story. I think we all wish we could do in our lives, which is taking a terrible experience and making something meaningful or even delicious out of it. You know, lemons into lemonade or pound cake, lemon pound cake, if you catch my drift. Yeah, let's pound this episode out. Let's pound it out. Let's pound it out. Let's pound it out. Okay, so this story starts back in 2000 with the song because I got high. I remember when this song came out. I remember when this song came out. I remember when this song came out. Grace, why don't you sing along? Come on. I've gotten... This is... Come on, Grace. I think I've gotten... I've sung once on Endless Threads. It's a high bar to give you the same. Yeah, you gotta like... No, but you gotta... We gotta lower the bar. All right. So you remember. So we both know this song. I remember this came out when I was in college and I do remember a very close friend of mine, Joe, being very into this song. And I was like pretty not into this song. Like I was like this... It felt adolescent to me. Whereas like I was like, no, I'm just listening to like the shins and modest mouse right now. You know what I mean? Yeah. I... This song came out... I was quite young when it came out, but the first time I heard it was in middle school. It was a big hit on my middle school bus. And I think that perhaps speaks to the adolescent tone. And yeah, we thought this song was hilarious. And I still... I still chuckle. But it was also an early viral internet bop. It was... A lot of people distributed it through Napster. That was... Oh. Yeah. And the song I do think just like was an instant meme, has so much meme potential. What do you think makes it so memeable? I think the reason that the song is popular is it sort of wisely connects to this kind of self-deprecating idea, right? Which is like... I would have been a productive member of society, but I got high. And there's something that's both... You can kind of brag about it and also make fun of yourself about it at the same time. I don't know. That would be my guess. It's just a very distilled idea. Yeah. It's potent. Yeah. I could do that. That wasn't even one of my theories, but I do think it's probably relatable. I actually was listening to an interview of Aferman talk about this, and he talks about how this song actually came out of a lot of pain. And I think maybe he's referring to shame of self-sabotage, that he was going to go to class, but then he got high. And that might be a relatable feeling. But I also think my theories are... It's funny, like we said. It's structure is very easy to parody. I was ex, but then I got ex. So I think that helps with the meme ability, because I've definitely seen parodies of this throughout the years. Since the song first came out. And it's catchy. It's like I've had it stuck in my head all week, personally. And it's dank. That's the other thing. It's just super dank. Exactly. Okay. So fast forward nearly three decades, and Aferman is having another viral internet moment. Yes. This one starts in 2022. Officers from the Sheriff's Department in Adams County, Ohio, raided Aferman's house. According to their search warrant, they were looking for evidence of drugs, drug trafficking, and kidnapping. Why? So the warrant claims that they had probable cause that drugs were on the property, and of kidnapping and trafficking. But it doesn't list any specific evidence. And Aferman has said that those claims were totally baseless. Indeed, the officers didn't find any drugs, or anything else illegal in his house. Aferman was never charged with anything. And this raid was extremely upsetting. He wasn't home at the time, but his children and wife were. The officers broke down their door, came in with guns, and went through seemingly the entire house. They were opening CD cases. They were going through all of Aferman's suit pockets. And we know this because his wife was able to film some of the search with her cell phone. And the family also had a security camera system in place. So, like I said, this was pretty upsetting. Aferman said it was traumatizing to his children, in particular. He also suspected racism was involved. So he quickly started putting this footage on social media. And he's a funny guy. So he said that he turned his pain into humor with Because I Got High. Same thing with this. He's very quickly making jokes about this raid. So I'm going to send you an Instagram post and first I want you to describe the visuals. So like what do we see? Okay. Like the camera angle, that kind of thing. Oh my God. So this is like surveillance footage inside his house with the cops in. One of the police, they all have bulletproof vests. One of them has one of those like, oh my God, it's like a crowd control shield. They're walking through this kitchen. But also like interesting, but also like interestingly, there's a finger. It's like a recording of something on a screen. And there's a finger pointing around the screen. There's a cake on the table with a nice inside of a nice little glass cake case. As these officers are kind of like walking through the kitchen. So yeah, Aferman is like filming himself pointing out things in the footage. That's why we see his finger. But the footage itself is like from high up, kind of looking down in the kitchen. It looks like probably it was from security camera footage that they had in their house. And now I want you to listen to the audio. Okay. Now watch the physically challenged officer come in here. He's going to take a double take on the pound cake. Look at the pound cake. He's going to, he want to shoot me here. He's going to lift the pound cake. And he, hey man, that pound cake. He didn't know where to shoot. I cut him a slice of that lemon pound cake. He backed up. He wants me to have a pound cake, buddy. So you had noted the lemon pound cake. The hot I would say is the hero of this video. And I guess we do kind of see the officer. He like looks at the cake pauses. I mean, he doesn't so much as like reach out for the cake. Afferman is definitely doing some creative interpretation. But yes, he does clearly double takes the cake, which who among us, if you will, but he double takes the cake. And he, and then he moves on, but he doesn't take his hands off his weapon. That's true. Yeah. Afferman makes lots of videos about this and eventually releases an album with songs about this incident. One of the songs is fittingly called lemon pound cake. Oh boy. Wow. Pound cake. Wow. A bop. Yeah. It's another bop. Before I got high before it. And do you know the actual song this is based off of, by the way? Oh, you know what? I just learned this. It's under the boardwalk by the drifters. Under the boardwalk. There's also a second song called Will You Help Me Repair My Door? Will you help me repair my gate and door? I think it's a catchy melody. I think both of these songs are very catchy, very funny. And they also did well on social media. And to promote these songs, Afferman talked a lot about the officers who rated his house, who were in the music videos for this song. And he even made merch about the officer who paused by the pound cake, whom he first was officer pound cake. Officer pound cake, of course he does. Yes. But Afferman, he sells these desserts. He releases this album. I think he even sold the door that the officers broke down, or at least he posted about selling it on Instagram. And this all happens in 2022. The raid and a lot of the content that he produces about it. And Afferman recognizes that very quickly, he's taken a scary traumatizing incident, and he's made money off of it. You know, as we said, he's taken lemons and made lemon pound cake. No, boy. But the officers involved are not happy. They're response in a minute. So, Nord's, I mean, nerds. Or do we in fact mean, Nord's? We do. If you're a nerd like us, you probably know about Nord VPN. The company has 9,000 servers across 130 countries. And you can use one of the fastest VPNs out of the world. And you can use one of the fastest VPNs that you can use to make your own music videos. You can use one of the fastest VPNs out there with a single click of a mouse. You don't even have to be an iOS user. You could be an Android like Ben. Whatever operating system you use to get Nordy, you can use Nord VPN for sports or entertainment, or for privacy protections, covering 10 devices across your whole household. Nord VPN has your back. And they don't track you online. To get the best discount off your Nord VPN plan, you can go to NordVPN.com slash endless. Our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money back guarantee. Again, that is NordVPN.com slash endless. And the link is also in our show notes. Bye, Nords. Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. AI is rapidly entering Hollywood from visual effects to script development. But even the most advanced tools still rely on human expertise. I think being able to correct AI comes from a knowledge of what it should look like or how it needs to function within the pipeline. Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast For a preview of a recent episode, exploring whether AI is transforming or threatening creative work. I'm Dean Rosk, Senior Producer for WBUR Podcasts. For the last two years, I've been dodging cyclones and robot wolves all while juggling the fate of our planet. Our new series for families, The Midnight Rebellion, transports you to the not so distant future altered by climate change. The good news? The choices you make can turn back the clock. So this Earth Day, discover your next great uncharted adventure wherever you listen. So the Adams County Sheriff's Office raids Afromans house in 2022. He starts making content about it pretty much immediately. Then in March of 2023, four of the officers who raided Afromans house sue him for defamation. They accuse him of using their images for commercial purposes like selling that t-shirt. That seems accurate. Yeah. And they said they suffered humiliation, ridicule, mental distress, embarrassment and loss of reputation as a result of Afromans content about the raid. Also, not necessarily wrong in some ways. Yeah, this would not probably not be good for their reputation as law officers to be referred to, for instance, as officer pancake because you looked at the pancake twice. Okay. Totally. Yeah. So they asked for $3.9 million in damages and for the content to be removed from the internet. The trial didn't take place until March of this year. But the primary questions that juries had to decide was not so much whether this was humiliating to the officers. It was whether or not Afromans music and social media content about the raid counted as protected speech. Does the First Amendment apply here? Okay. So throughout the trial, lawyers read many of Afromans' posts about the officers word for word, including one in which he claimed that one of the officers, Brian Newland, is a pedophile, which Newland, let's be clear, totally denies. Newland testified that he was actually forced to quit his quote unquote dream job with the sheriff's office due to Afromans' social media posts. And then there's another officer, Lisa Phillips, who cried in court after they showed a video of Afroman mocking her for having a low voice. Afroman also claimed that she has sex with women and has male genitalia, which she says is not true. Afroman, for his part, was completely unfazed when he was asked about Phillips' emotional reaction to his creative work. You knew she was upset? Just like she knew I was upset when she was standing in front of my kids with AR-15, with her hand around the trigger ready to shoot me. Just like she knew I was upset when she cut my cameras, but I'm not a person she is. So I'm sorry for being a victim. Let's talk about the predators. So, Afroman's line, this whole trial, is like, if y'all hadn't raided my house, none of this would have happened. And Afroman's lawyers weren't trying to make the case that these posts were true, right? They were arguing that the public knows not to take rap songs and a lot of comedy literally. His lawyer cited Cardi B's wop as an example of this, except he called her Carly B, which was funny. Interesting. On Wednesday, March 18th, jury ruled in Afroman's favor on all counts after six hours of deliberation. They said that the speech was totally protected by the First Amendment. He can keep making these songs without these raids. He doesn't have to take any of them down, and he doesn't have to pay the officers anything. Is that it? It's like, case closed? We're done? Yeah, the case is closed. But it certainly lives on on social media. The trial particularly was everywhere. And once again, I have theories about what made because I got high such good early internet fodder. I have some theories about why clips from this trial went so viral. Do you have any or do you want me to go into that mine? I'm interested in yours. I mean, I guess during the trial, he also wore this American flag suit, he likes his drip, clearly. But I found the kind of trial footage that I was seeing to be thought provoking. And he says, I'm sorry for being the victim. Let's talk about the predators. He is very confident in the arguments that he is making. And it's rare, I find, that you see someone who, at least in their previous public facing existence, was, I sort of read as silly and ridiculous, is literally you see them on the stand being quite thought provoking in what they have to say about freedom of speech and where we should be directing our ire when it comes to this kind of thing. Totally. These videos and the verdict kind of offer this moment of catharsis. This was a traumatic event for Afro Man. And the top comments on these videos tend to agree with him that the officers used excessive force in the situation, that there was no reason for them to break down the door, coming guns blazing, especially since there were kids in the house. And by making content about the raid, they feel that Afro Man held the Sheriff's Department accountable, and that his victory in court was a triumph of justice. Obviously, something that we need to acknowledge here is that Afro Man, you may be shocked to learn, is a Black man. And there's a whole lot to say about, you know, the way that our law enforcement apparatus in this country treats people of color when it comes to suspicion of possession of drugs. And that's a whole other layer here, obviously, to all of this. And I will say, Grace, that when I first started seeing this stuff pop off, it was in the r slash Black people subreddit. So I think in some ways I was seeing this, at least ostensibly, obviously, Reddit's anonymous. We don't know who's hanging out in there, who's not. But I was seeing this conversation go viral in communities that ostensibly were communities for people of color on Reddit, which I think is also interesting here. Yeah, a lot of people were celebrating him in the trial, and then we're certainly celebrating his victory and the fact that he did not have to pay these officers $3.9 million and the Streisand effect, which we've talked about before, and which by trying to sue Afro Man and making him take down this content, he actually drew way more eyeballs to it. So like the top comment on Lemon Pound Cake on YouTube is, I'd like to thank the Adam County Sheriff's Department for introducing me to this song. Hmm. I mean, what do you think about all of this? Yeah, I think it's a really interesting, I do think it raises a lot of interesting questions about the First Amendment, about policing. I also think it demonstrates that Afro Man is a very skilled entertainer who has understood, he's a one hit wonder in some ways, but like he's consistently understood how to get people's attention, how to keep people's attention and like props to him for that. Yeah, I agree. What's the suite that you would like to be forever associated with involving a nickname? Oh man. Oh man. If people start wanting to call me podcast producer, ice cream cone, totally fine by me. That's a great connotation. I have no shame. I like it. How about you? Yeah, I'm trying to think like I love a doughnut, like I'm just a sucker for a doughnut. So like, you know, Donuts Johnson would be fine with me. I'll submit that to the, if it please the court, Donuts Johnson will be the thing that I would accept. Also, if folks have their own suite based nicknames that they'd like to submit for consideration, please send them on in. And let's thread it WBOR.org. By the way, yes, Afro Man is still getting lemon pound cake from his lemon. Streams of his catalog were up 500% the week following the verdict, according to billboard. Endless threat is a production of WBOR in Boston. This episode was produced by Kalyani Saxena and Grace Tatter and hosted by me, Ben Brock Johnson. And me, Grace Tatter. It was edited by Meg Kramer. Mix and sound design by Marquise Neal. The rest of our team is Amory Siebertson, Dean Russell, Chiosna, Bernadot, Emily Jankowski, our production manager, Paul Vicus, and our managing producer, Summit to Joshi. Endless threat is a podcast about the blurred lines between getting high and getting justice. Nice. Have an unsolved mystery and untold history or another wild story from the internet you want us to tell? You can email us. And if you want to send us a pound cake t-shirt from Afro Man, or a pound cake. Yeah, we'll take pound cake too. We'll take it all. Just send us an email. Endlessthread at WBOR.org. Kpop Demon Hunters is a movie that came out last year in the animation industry. It was focused in on Kpop and it was a kind of fantasy project. And a lot of people did not think that it would do well because it focused on something that is a cultural phenomenon among the Asian audience. And a lot of people who had no exposure to Kpop previously sort of dismissed it as a niche ethnic phenomenon. But obviously Kpop Demon Hunters is now one of the most streamed movies on Netflix. It did extremely well. And anyone who has experienced the Kpop phenomenon knows that it is an extremely passionate and gigantic fan base. And I think a huge focus of the last 15, 20 years has been about elevating films and projects that have not been done before. And I don't see that happening if AI is the one making these decisions. And then kind of in a similar note, when you think about the role of the junior executive or the intern or the assistant who is doing the script coverage, most of the time that is the first entry level position that someone is working in the industry. And unless you have extremely good connections, the chances of breaking into the industry without working one of those jobs are very low. So if we're looking at a future where jobs like that don't exist or jobs like that are hired at a lower rate than they used to, what is the entry point for people of color into the industry? What is the entry point for disabled people into the industry? What is the entry point for anyone who does not come from the ruling class?
