HQ Trivia: Gone in a Glitch with Karen Chee & Alice Wetterlund | 11

The Big Flop

Wondery

Society & Culture, Comedy, Business

4.6 • 884 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2023

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

HQ Trivia was the revolutionary gameshow app that briefly took over the world. Millions of people across the globe tuned in for the chance win money from host and resident "Quiz Daddy", Scott Rogowsky. However, not even celebrity guests like Dwayne Johnson could save HQ from its ultimate demise: a secretly twisted workplace environment full of lies, drugs, harassment and…salad controversies?! Comedians Alice Wetterlund (Silicon Valley, Resident Alien) and Karen Chee (Late Night with Seth Meyers) join Misha to chronicle the stunning, quizzical crash of HQ Trivia.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wonderie Plus subscribers can listen to the Big Flop early and ad-free.
0:05.3	Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:15.0	Ever thought your boss might be a sociopath?
0:22.4	Have you ever wished you could say it to his face?
0:25.0	How about to the entire world?
0:28.0	Well, in 2020, that's exactly what comedian Scott Rogowski does on Twitter.
0:33.8	He tells the world that his former boss, Russ Yusipov, is a clinical sociopath.
0:40.9	Raghowski spent years working as the host for Yusupov's viral trivia app, HQ.
0:48.6	He built a cult following, but he wasn't able to save HQ. And for Raghowski, HQ's last chapter was his
0:57.2	last straw. In the tweet, he says the app was poisoned by a lethal cocktail of incompetence,
1:04.8	arrogance, short-sightedness, and sociopathic delusion. It's an epic call-out. And as the world watches, jamming fistfuls of
1:13.6	popcorn into their mouths, Yusipov responds to Raghowski with one single petty word.
1:21.1	Hugs. How did they get here to this virtual showdown over the virtual ashes of a once viral trivia app.
1:29.9	It's the final chapter in a saga that started as literal fun in games and ends in one big
1:37.4	public flop and a very sloppy, floppy, final show.
1:48.7	Music Very sloppy, floppy final show. First of all, it's just the allure of trivia, which has been around since the early radio days,
1:52.7	and the allure of winning money.
1:54.2	It's always popular.
1:55.2	You know, you're doing this thing.
1:56.5	It becomes super popular.
1:58.1	You're recognized everywhere and all that.
1:59.8	And then it doesn't last forever.
	...

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