The Worst of All Possible Worlds

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Audrey and Dono (Radio Free Tote Bag, No I’m Listening) join the lads on some wacky adventures with Pomni and Co. as they cover Gooseworx’s indie animation megahit: The Amazing Digital Circus. Topics include the origins of Gooseworx, the hugbox of Tumblr, and what it means to find meaning in a world where a sentient mouth can absolutely ruin your life.

Donovan Eyre: Twitch // Bluesky // Instagram // SoundCloud

Audrey: Twitch // Bluesky

Radio Free Tote Bag: A weekly relationship advice podcast hosted by Audrey and Donovan.

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Media Referenced in this Episode:

• The Amazing Digital Circus. Dir. Gooseworx. 2023-2026
• How to Attract the Wrong Audience by The Ludo Mancer
• Is this LOST? By Door Monster
• I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Elison
• “‘The Amazing Digital Circus’ Team Talk the Making of a Viral Hit” by Dani Di Placido. Forbes. December 22nd, 2023.

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Interstitial: “The Disappearing Guy Presents: ‘Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time!‘: A Treatise on the Ephemeral Nature of Being and The Unknowability of a Finite Universe Speeding Hastily towards its Demise: A Rootin’-Tootin’ Fantasia on Mannequin Themes Featuring Text from William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’” // Written by A.J. Ditty // feat. A.J. Ditty as “Announcer” and Donovan Eyre as “Disappearing Guy”

Credits:

• Episode Edited by: Brian Alford
• Interstitial Edited by: A.J. Ditty
• Produced by Josh Boerman, A.J. Ditty, and Brian Alford.

This podcast was recorded under a SAG-AFTRA Agreement.

Mike Isaac is a long-time technology writer who has been Technology Correspondent at the New York Times since June 2014. During that time he’s covered a variety of technology companies, including OpenAI, SpaceX, Anthropic, Apple, and Uber, which he published a book about in 2019 called Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. But the bulk of his recent reporting has been about Meta, the company that owns Facebook. Last week Josh interviewed Mike about what exactly is going on over there, what prompted Meta to make such a big bet on a VR metaverse, and what—from wearable smart glasses to prediction markets—we can expect Mark Zuckerberg to do next.

MIKE ISAAC: Bluesky / Instagram

• Buy Mike's book Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber

WANT MORE TWOAPW? Get access to our full back catalogue of premium/bonus episodes by subscribing for $5/month at Patreon.com/worstofall! Relevant back catalog episodes include:

• 245 - Meta Horizons and the Death of the Metaverse
• 176 - The Social Network
• 146 - Shrimp Jesus and the Death of Facebook

Despite everything, it’s still us.

Want more TWOAPW? Get access to our full back catalogue of premium/bonus episodes by subscribing for $5/month at Patreon.com/worstofall!

Hollis Beck: Website

Media Referenced in this Episode:

• Undertale. Toby Fox. 2015.
• “What the Internet did to Untertale” by Super Eyepatch Wolf. 2020.
• Game Informer’s Interview with Toby Fox.
• Retrospective on Untertale’s Popularity by Toby Fox.

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Interstitial: “Everybody Comes to Grillby’s” // Written by A.J. Ditty // feat. David Armstrong as “Grillby”, Brian Alford as “Papyrus”, A.J. Ditty as “Sans/Aaron/Napstablook”, Josh Boerman as “Flowey”, and Hollis Beck as “Undyne/Alphys/Temmie” // Music from the Undertale Soundtrack by Toby Fox

This podcast was recorded under a SAG-AFTRA Agreement.

Ben Collins is CEO of The Onion, the satirical newspaper that bills itself as America's Finest News Source. In 2024, Collins announced that The Onion had acquired Infowars, the longtime flagship brand of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, at bankruptcy auction. However, thanks to a series of higher court stays, the Infowars name remains in legal limbo. This month, The Onion relaunched "Real Infowars" at theonion.info as part of a broader strategy to pressure the courts into unblocking the deal. Josh sat down with Ben Collins to learn about the history of the case, the legal roadblocks that remain in their way, and the longer-term plans to build a comedy network using the brand as a flagship logo.

THIS IS A PREVIEW. FOR THE FULL EPISODE, GO TO Patreon.com/worstofall

The lads waltz with potatoes up and down the produce aisle as they begin their coverage of Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki’s seminal Christian children’s video series: Veggietales. Topics include Vischer’s Disney-esque upbringing, the horrors of divorce, and what it means to advocate for the importance of silliness for silliness’ sake.

Media Referenced in the Episode:

• Veggietales. Big Idea Productions.
  • #1: “Where’s God when I’m S-Scared?”
  • #2: “God Wants Me to Forgive!?!”
  • #4: “Rack, Shack, and Benny”
• All 1990s Veggietales Commentaries
• “Big Idea Productions: A Success Story Anyone Can Believe In” by Rick DeMott. Animation World Network. October 4th, 2002.
• Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables by Phil Vischer. Thomas Nelson Incorporated. 2008.
• Original “Where’s God When I’m S-Scared?”
• “One Cool Cucumber” by Chicago Tribune. October 2nd, 1998.

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Interstitial: “Oh No, What’s It Gonna Be?” // Music by Kevin Heinecke // Lyrics by A.J. Ditty // feat. A.J. Ditty as “Marshall”, Brian Alford as “Paul”, Josh Boerman as “Phil”, and Eleanor Philips as “Narrator”.

This podcast was recorded under a SAG-AFTRA Agreement.

The lads dive right into the heart of NOVACOM as they return to Odyssey for further adventures in franchising, gang warfare, and the terrifying video game that makes you old: Gloobers. Topics include the “evils” of VR, the inescapable childhood of the Boomer, and the vital importance of gloobin’ it with your buds.

Want more TWOAPW? Get access to our full back catalogue of premium/bonus episodes by subscribing for $5/month at Patreon.com/worstofall!

Media Referenced in this Episode:

• Adventures in Odyssey
  • #455: “Best Laid Plans”
  • #462: The W.E.
  • #463: Green Eyes and Yellow Tulips
  • #415: Gloobers!
• The Dobson Newsletters
  • November 1998
  • November 2000
  • February 2001
• The Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast #66

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Interstitial: “Sister Location” // Written by A.J. Ditty // feat. Josh Boerman as “Timmy ‘Taxman’ Thompson”, A.J. Ditty as “Estragon Estragonov/Phoebear/Melvin Mulligan”, and Brian Alford as “John/Alistair Adelman” // Music: “The Chain (Violin Cover) by Steve Bingham

THIS IS A PREVIEW. FOR THE FULL EPISODE, GO TO Patreon.com/worstofall

 

We’re not throwing away our shot.

 

 

 

Media Referenced in this Episode:

• Hamilton. Dir. Thomas Kail. Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. 2015.
• “Alexander Hamilton, the Wrong Founder” by William Hogeland. The Nation. June 16th, 2026.
• “Disaster Act” by Shellyne Rodriguez, Iris Dipni and Comité Por La Defensa Antillana. The New Inquiry. September 11th, 2019.
• “Father's Day with Luis and Lin-Manuel Miranda: Joy, Hustle, and Building a Legacy” by Ana Navarro. Bleep! With Ana Navarro. June 22, 2026.
• “Hamilton’s America”. PBS.
• “Hamilton and the Death of the Obama Era” by Alexander Avila.
• “'Hamilton' Arrives In Puerto Rico, Bringing A Bit Of Controversy With It” by Adrian Florido. NPR. January 11th, 2019.
• Puerto Rico: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
• “The Mixed Reception of the 'Hamilton' Premiere in Puerto Rico” by Daniel Pollack-Pelzner. The Atlantic. January 18th, 2019.
• Siempre, Luis. Dir John Antonio James. 2020
• Black Actors Dress Up like Slave Traders…and It’s Not Halloween - ISHMAEL REED

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Interstitial: “Princess Track” // Music by Lin-Manuel Miranda // Lyrics by Dr. Samuel Bultch, D.D.S. // feat. Josh Boerman, Eleanor Philips, and Anne Boerman as “Ensemble” and A.J. Ditty as “Dr. Samuel Bultch, D.D.S.”

November Kelly (Kill James Bond!; No Gods No Mayors; Trashfuture; Well There’s Your Problem; Be Gay Solve Crimes) enrolls the lads in the 00 program as they cover IO Interactive’s 2026 spy-fest: 007: First Light. Topics include the origins of IO, the importance of fluted windows, and what it means to try to maintain a modern franchise featuring nothing but a stupid policeman.

November Kelly: Website // Bluesky

Kill James Bond! is a comedy film review/ pop culture commentary podcast about the portrayal of masculinity in cinema. November Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon have watched Bond movies, War on Terror movies, Eurospy movies, and now they take on their biggest task yet: Heist Movies. What can Heat, Oceans’ 11, and the Fast and Furious movies teach us about how masculinity was imagined by the people who created them? What does that say about Society? Free episodes are released every fortnight on all major podcast platforms and bonus episodes are released for supporters on Patreon on the interstitial weeks.

• Website // Patreon
• Listen on Apple Podcasts // Spotify

Trashfuture is a podcast about business success and making yourself smarter with the continued psychic trauma of capitalism.

• Website // Patreon
• Listen on Apple Podcasts // Spotify

Well There’s Your Problem is a podcast about engineering disasters and systemic failures, from a leftist perspective, with jokes.

• Youtube // Instagram // Patreon
• Listen on Apple Podcasts // Spotify

No Gods No Mayors: Municipal government: a trap that catches those too incompetent, too corrupt, too strange even for national politics. And the greatest of these, the mayor - the highest political office one can hope to reach with a truly oppositional personality or a crack addiction. Mattie Lubchansky, Riley Quinn and November Kelly are teaming up to make a podcast investigating these mayors. From petty Bonapartes to flagrant mafiosi, these are their stories.

• Spotify // Apple Podcasts // RSS Feed

Be Gay, Solve Crimes: Join Mia Mulder, November Kelly, and their local librarian Lucy as they investigate pop-culture copaganda and solve the mystery of why they wanted to become detectives before they transitioned.

• Spotify // Apple Podcasts // Patreon

Media Referenced in the Episode:

• 007: First Light. IO Interactive. 2026.
• “007 First Light Dev IO Interactive Says It’s Now Sold 3 Million Copies, Tracking ‘Well Above Our Forecasts at This Point’” by Wesley Yin-Poole and Simon Cardy. June 6th, 2026.
• "I've been MANIFESTING this!" 007 First Light's Patrick Gibson REVEALS James Bond casting process by Radio Times Gaming.
• Jonas Eneroth’s Profile. Moby Games.
• “Long-awaited James Bond game shows how big games have become” by Julie Wurtz and Jesper Dein. Dr.Dk. May 26th, 2026.
• “The Making of: Hitman: Codename 47” by Edward Love. Retro Gamer. May 17th, 2018.

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Interstitial: “Untitled Bond Movie 2026” // Written by A.J. Ditty // feat. Josh Boerman as “Announcer”, Brian Alford as “Q”, A.J. Ditty as “M/Salazar”, Eleanor Philips as “Moneypenny/Norah”, and introducing Devon as “James Bond”.

THIS IS A PREVIEW. FOR THE FULL EPISODE, GO TO Patreon.com/worstofall

Mark Zuckerberg spent seven years and $80 billion attempting to build Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality "metaverse" that peaked at around 200,000 monthly users in October 2022. After years of decay, Horizon froze the creation of new worlds in VR this week, shifting the platform's focus back to mobile and marking the effective end of Meta's virtual reality ambitions. This week, the lads perform an autopsy on both Horizon Worlds and Mark Zuckerberg's dream of the metaverse more broadly, discovering how a platform built on the vision of a revolutionary gaming headset eventually gave way to a world solely inhabited by dozens of eight-year-olds screaming slurs in 360 degrees of immersive 3D.

Media Referenced in this Episode:

• Meta Horizons Worlds for Oculus Quest, including the following worlds:
  • “Horizon Central”
  • “Bobber Bay Fishing”
  • “NBA Arena”
  • “Coldplay Music of the Spheres World Tour”
  • “METDONALD’S”
  • “Pizza Kitchen”
  • “Bad Roommates UPDATED!”
• “I Spent A Week Alone In The Metaverse” by Jarvis Johnson (August 1, 2023)
• Kickstarter campaign for Oculus Rift
• Oculus VR profile on Crunchbase
• “Happy Go Luckey: Meet the 20-year-old creator of Oculus Rift” by Robert Purchase (Eurogamer, July 11, 2013)
• “John Carmack's former employer claims he stole tech for Oculus VR when he left” by Ben Gilbert (Engadget, May 1, 2014)
• “Palmer Luckey: The Facebook Near-Billionaire Secretly Funding Trump’s Meme Machine” by Ben Collins and Gideon Resnick (The Daily Beast, September 22, 2016)
• Palmer Luckey’s post about Nimble American on Facebook (September 23, 2016)
• “Palmer Luckey distances himself from Nimble America group” by Matt Kamen (Wired, September 26, 2016)
• “Facebook launches beta of Spaces, its goofy and fun social VR platform” by Lucas Matney (TechCrunch, April 18, 2017)
• The Mark Zuckerberg/Sweet Baby Ray’s edit
• “Zuckerberg blasted for tone-deaf 'magical' VR tour of Puerto Rico” from CNET News (October 10, 2017)
• Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Flatiron Books, 2025)
• “Introducing Oculus Quest” from Meta Developers (February 13, 2019)
• “Oculus Quest Basics Tutorial” from Meta Quest (May 20, 2019)
• “Everything revealed at Facebook's Oculus Horizon presentation” from CNET Highlights (September 25, 2019)
• “Building the Tools to Power the Future of Work” press release from Facebook (May 21, 2020)
• “Growth At Any Cost: Top Facebook Executive Defended Data Collection In 2016 Memo — And Warned That Facebook Could Get People Killed” by Ryan Mac, Charlie Warzel, and Alex Kantrowitz (BuzzFeed News, March 29, 2018)
• “Zuckerberg Says He Strongly Disagrees With “The Ugly” Memo By Top Facebook Exec” by Jim Dalrymple II (BuzzFeed News, March 29, 2018)
• “Facebook Horizon | New Worlds in the Making” from Meta Quest (August 27, 2020)
• “Facebook launches ‘Horizon Workrooms.’ Here's how it works” from CBS Mornings (August 19, 2021)
• “The Metaverse and How We'll Build It Together -- Connect 2021” from Meta (October 28, 2021)
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook post announcing Horizon Worlds launching in France and Spain
• Announcement that legs are coming soon
• Footage of Meta Connect 2024 in Horizon Worlds
• “What Went Wrong With Horizon Worlds? Former Meta Devs Share Surprising Insights -- And a Solution to Still Save It” by Wagner James Au (March 12, 2025; archived from the original on March 16, 2025)
• “Eli Roth Brings His Brand of Horror to Meta Horizon Worlds + Meta Quest TV” Meta press release (October 14, 2022)
• “Why The Metaverse Was Doomed From The Start” by The Art of Storytelling (March 27, 2026)
• “Zuck Never Understood the Metaverse” by The Morbid Zoo (April 4, 2026)
• “How Did the Metaverse Fail So Badly?” by Patrick Boyle (April 12, 2026)
• “What does Meta actually do now?” by Good Work (May 8, 2026)
• “Meta burned $19 billion on VR last year, and 2026 won’t be any better” by Lucas Ropek (TechCrunch, January 28, 2026)
• Announcement from Meta that Spark will be shutting down in January 2025
• “Meta is closing down its VR meeting rooms as part of its wider cull” by Mariella Moon (Engadget, January 16, 2026)
• “Meta Lays Off 8,000 Employees, as A.I. Casualties Mount” by Eli Tan, Kalley Huang, and Mike Isaac (The New York Times, May 19, 2026)
• “Backrooms uses the bluntest of metaphors to capture a uniquely Gen Z fear” by Joshua Rivera (The A.V. Club, June 5th, 2026)

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Interstitial: “Connect Keynote Address 2026” // Written by A.J. Ditty // feat. Brian Alford as “Zucks”

maia arson crimew joins the lads for a gruesome game of Slayer and a quick round of Society as they cover the rich text of toxic masculinity that is Neveldine/Taylor’s 2009 murderfest: Gamer. Topics include Michael C. Hall’s puppet moves, the film’s deep fear of penises, and what it means to live in a world where tech billionaires want to control your every thought.

maia arson crimew: Website // Bluesky

Want more TWOAPW? Get access to our full back catalogue of premium/bonus episodes by subscribing for $5/month at Patreon.com/worstofall!

Media Referenced in this Episode:

• Gamer. Neveldine/Taylor. 2009.

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Interstitial: “Ken Castle’s Crazy Kart” // Written and Performed by A.J. Ditty