Don't Praise The Machine (DPTM)

Alexander Holland & John Maloney
  • 4.3 (6)
  • Comedy
  • Updated Weekly

Al and John grew up together in the '90s. Now they live on opposite sides of the world, so once a week they log on to catch up and make sense of whatever the culture has done this time, laughing at each other along the way. The result is a funny, surreal trip through current culture, technology, trends and the mysteries of everyday life. What's it actually like to fall for an AI companion? Did Hilaria Baldwin really pretend to be Spanish? Why did movies used to explain their own plot with a rap over the credits? Get in touch at hello@dptm.org or find us on IG @dont_praise_the_machine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 3d ago

    Is YouTube the New Film School? Backrooms, Obsession & the Death of IP Slop

    Hollywood Is Out of Ideas. The Internet Kids Are Taking Over. Tom Cruise’s Digger is on track to lose around $245 million. In the same year, two horror films from people who started out on YouTube have made close to a billion dollars between them. The Backrooms cost $10 million, came from a 4chan photo of an empty furniture store, and has taken $400 million. Obsession cost $750,000 and has grossed over $500 million, the most ever for a film made on under a million. Alex and John look at how a generation raised online is getting films made without asking Hollywood first, why a meme nobody owns turns out to be great business, and whether this is cinema’s new 1970s or a short detour before the next He-Man reboot. Plus Chiwetel Ejiofor’s secret Love Actually sequel, and the question the film never answers: how come you can eat them? 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  2. Oct 12

    From Prosperity Gospel to Apocalypse Food Buckets: The Jim Bakker Story

    If you grew up leaving the TV on past midnight, you remember them. The stadium crowds with their hands in the air. The soft music. The man on stage who could heal your bad back, provided you called the number on screen. The death of Jim Bakker sent us back to late-night Channel 10 Australia, and we came out with a lot of questions. How did a guy with a puppet show become one of the most powerful men in American television? How did a Christian theme park with a water slide end up the third most popular in the country? And how did it all end with five years in prison and a second career selling buckets of freeze-dried food for the end times? Along the way we meet Aimee Semple McPherson, who did sermons on a motorcycle in the 1920s, Fulton Sheen, the bishop who beat Frank Sinatra in the ratings, and Oral Roberts, who told viewers God might take him if he didn’t hit his fundraising target. Then there’s Benny Hinn, whose healing technique Alex can still do from memory. We look at where televangelism lives now. Spoiler, it’s on YouTube, and the thumbnails are better than ours. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  3. Oct 5

    Your iPhone Killed Your Boredom And That's Why You're Sad

    In 1989, the ABC asked a group of Australian kids what they do when they're bored. The first answer was "I ring people." Imagine asking a kid that in 2026. Alex and John were born in 1982, which makes them part of the last generation that grew up properly bored. This week they look at what happened to boredom after the iPhone arrived in 2007, and why losing it might be part of why so many of us feel flat all the time. They get into the 2014 study where people chose to give themselves electric shocks rather than sit alone with their thoughts for a few minutes. They talk about how skater kids went from a parent's nightmare to a parent's dream, and how 90s slackers turned being bored into a look. Alex explains his phone-free "key walks" and three-hour runs with no headphones. John makes the case for treating phones at the dinner table like loud farting. If you know someone who can't get through a two-minute queue without their phone, send them this. Maybe don't tell them why. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  4. Sep 28

    Why Robots Can't Fix Your Sink (Yet)

    When you're 80, there's a decent chance a robot helps you out of the bath. At the recent World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, one robot ran the 100m faster than Usain Bolt and another couldn't work out how to stop. At a different event in China, dancing robot fell down the stairs mid-Billie Jean and got dragged offstage by the ankle, creating an instant viral moment. Right now they're still in gimmick territory but so was AI about five minutes ago. We get into why robots are built in our shape at all, why there's no "internet of movement" to teach one plumbing, whether it's okay to punch your robot butler, robot aged care, robot soldiers, and the urgent need for a robot plumber's crack. Laugh at Robots while you still can. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  5. Sep 21

    Australia Taxed Cigarettes Until Violent Gangs Undercut Them

    Australia taxed cigarettes until a legal pack cost around A$40. Gangs now smuggle in cheaper ones and shops sell them for about A$17. Rival crime groups fight over territory, and there have been more than 100 documented attacks on tobacconists, some carried out by teenagers hired to throw the firebomb. Alex and John trace how a legal drug ended up with a black market that looks a lot like the one for illegal drugs. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  6. Sep 14

    Everything the Raygun Documentary Conveniently Left Out

    Rachel "Raygun" Gunn is back, and this time she's brought a Netflix documentary with her. The boys watched all 72 minutes of Untold: Raygun Breaking Badly so you don't have to, and they've got thoughts. Redemption arc or re-writing history? You'll have to listen to find out. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  7. Sep 7

    Tupac's Murderer - Guilty After Bragging on YouTube

    After almost 30 years, someone has finally been convicted for the murder of Tupac Shakur, and the way it happened is stranger than any fan theory. Dwayne "Keefy D" Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder this week for supplying the gun and planning the shooting outside a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas in 1996. He was granted limited immunity back in 1998 for cooperating on an unrelated case, then spent the next two decades describing his role in the murder anyway, in interviews, on Vlad TV, and eventually in his own memoir. This week Alex and John (a lifelong Suge Knight defender since age 13) walk through the case: the profer agreement that didn't cover what Davis actually admitted to, the Suge Knight and P. Diddy conspiracy theories that dominated the story for decades, the Biggie/Tupac beef that set the whole thing in motion, and the strange economy of hip-hop YouTube channels like Vlad TV, where guests get paid tens of thousands of dollars to tell stories that can apparently also convict them of murder. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  8. Aug 31

    Ooshies Fever: The Supermarket Toy Turning Parents Feral

    Woolworths just ran one of the most successful marketing campaigns in Australian retail history. It was free, plastic, and aimed squarely at six-year-olds. This week Alex and John dig into Ooshies: the blind-bag Disney toys that took over Australian supermarkets, gave Woolworths' share price a boost, dented Coles', and turned primary school playgrounds into trading floors. We'll get into the psychology behind blind-bag toys (it's the same intermittent-reinforcement mechanism that makes slot machines addictive), the $30,000 rare-donkey eBay listing that wasn't quite what it seemed, and why it's parents, not kids, actually driving the spend. Send this one to the friend in your life who's currently a few hundred dollars deep chasing a rubber Wolverine. 🛎 Get bonus episodes, early episodes, and exclusive goodies while supporting DPTM! Patreon ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/dptm 💌 Sign up for John's famous weekly DPTM newsletter Click here ➡️ https://dptm.org/ 🔌 Connect with us! TikTok: ➡️ https://www.tiktok.com/@dontpraisethemachine Instagram ➡️ https://www.instagram.com/dont_praise_the_machine/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

See All (283)

4.3
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Al and John grew up together in the '90s. Now they live on opposite sides of the world, so once a week they log on to catch up and make sense of whatever the culture has done this time, laughing at each other along the way. The result is a funny, surreal trip through current culture, technology, trends and the mysteries of everyday life. What's it actually like to fall for an AI companion? Did Hilaria Baldwin really pretend to be Spanish? Why did movies used to explain their own plot with a rap over the credits? Get in touch at hello@dptm.org or find us on IG @dont_praise_the_machine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Alexander Holland & John Maloney
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    283
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Alexander Holland
  • Show Website
    Don't Praise The Machine (DPTM)

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