What happens when a Harvard student ditches her iPhone, adopts three “dumbphones,” and inspires a nationwide movement to scroll less and think more? Welcome to the age of Appstinence.

In this episode of Dumbify, host David Carson digs into the absurdly brilliant rise of digital downgrade culture. You’ll meet Gabriella Wynne, the flip-phone-wielding ringleader of a growing student rebellion that’s swapping screen addiction for silence, solitude, and something terrifyingly rare: original thought.

Carson takes you from the brains of bored teenagers to the brains of neuroscientists, connecting slot machine psychology to scroll fatigue, and showing how tiny acts of digital inconvenience can unlock massive creative freedom. You’ll learn about the Light Phone (which doesn’t even have Siri — she’d have a panic attack) and why more people are paying $599 to not download another app. You’ll even get Carson’s “Ladder of Inconvenience” — a step-by-step plan to dumb down your phone without burning your life to the ground.

If you've ever reached for your phone during a funeral, or caught yourself swiping at a photograph, this episode is for you.

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Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.

David Carson dives into the shadowy underworld of what he calls anti-memes: ideas so weird, tender, or raw they resist being shared. They don’t trend, they don’t scale, and they sure as hell don’t come with a LinkedIn-approved success story. These are the whispers in your group chats, the half-formed thoughts that haunt your shower, the notes you label “Too Weird to Try.”

Through stories that range from rogue pumpkins to reverse piñatas, daylight savings rants to Greta Thunberg’s awkward brilliance, we explore why the best ideas often start out sounding cringey—and how “cringe” might just be creativity’s immune system.

Oh, and there’s a word of the day that sounds fake but isn’t.

By the end, you might not go viral, but you will want to start a group chat called “Weirdos Only.”

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Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.

In this episode of Dumbify, David Carson explores the magnificently dumb—and disturbingly genius—world of Fake My Run, a website that generates completely fake, wildly convincing workout data. But this isn’t just a prank. It’s a philosophical takedown of fitness culture itself.

Created by 26-year-old Dutch developer Arthur Buffard, Fake My Run lets you “exercise” from the comfort of your couch while racking up imaginary marathons through Antarctica. It’s funny… until you realize it’s also true. Because in a world where people pay strangers (Strava mules!) to run on their behalf for social clout, what even counts as real anymore?

Arthur didn’t build an app—he performed a reductio ad absurdum, pushing fitness culture to its most ridiculous extreme and holding up a mirror. The reflection? A species more obsessed with posting their run than running it. David follows this thread to its wild conclusion—and even runs a weeklong social experiment of his own.

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Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.

Host David Carson dives into the beautifully bizarre brain of Richard Feynman—Nobel laureate, safecracker, bongo enthusiast, and the poster child for thinking dumb on purpose. From poking government safes with a stick to interrogating the color of the sky, Feynman never confused sounding smart with being curious.

You’ll hear how a cafeteria prank led to a Nobel-winning quantum theory, how Feynman prank-unlocked top-secret safes at Los Alamos, and why he once forced a class of elite students into a courtyard to stare at the sky until someone could actually explain why it was blue.

This isn’t physics. It’s philosophy in flip-flops.

Whether you love science or haven’t passed math since 10th grade, this episode will leave you laughing, wondering, and maybe even wobbling like that plate.

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Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.

What do alien abduction insurance, canned Canadian air, and paying $5 for absolutely nothing have in common?

They’re all best-selling business ideas.

In this gloriously dumb—and secretly brilliant—episode of Dumbify, host David Carson dives headfirst into the underground economy of “profitable emptiness”: a world where useless products, theoretical services, and absurd experiences are packaged so well, people happily throw money at them.

Meet Mike St. Lawrence, who’s sold over 30,000 alien abduction policies since 1987—complete with psychiatric care and sarcasm coverage. Then there’s the Canadian duo behind Vitality Air, who started bottling fresh mountain air as a joke… until it became a hot commodity in Beijing. And don’t forget Cards Against Humanity, who made $71,000 in a single day by selling nothing. Literally. Nothing.

But this isn’t just about gag gifts. It’s about human psychology. It’s about narrative surplus—the idea that in a hyper-optimized world, the real currency isn’t utility… it’s story. You’re not buying protection from aliens. You’re buying the right to be the most interesting person at a party.

By the end, you’ll question everything you thought you knew about value, worthlessness, and why we buy anything at all.

Sign up for the Dumbify newsletter: https://www.david-carson.com/

Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.

What if the secret to unlocking your smartest ideas… was to think dumber?

In this kick-off episode of Dumbify, host David Carson takes you behind the curtain of his wildly successful career building multimillion-dollar companies and advising brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, and IKEA—not by following the rules, but by breaking them in the smartest dumb ways possible.

Carson makes the case that the world’s most powerful ideas didn’t start in boardrooms or brainstorming decks. They started as weird gut instincts—strange, dumb thoughts that almost no one had the courage to say out loud. Airbnb? Dumb. The smiley face? Dumb. Everything Bagel seasoning? Deliciously dumb. But they worked. And in this episode, you’ll find out why.

Through stories, insights, and a healthy dose of irreverence, Carson introduces “The Dumbify Loop,” a repeatable process for tapping into the part of your brain that’s been trained to shut up—the part that questions norms, says the obvious, and follows the ridiculous… all the way to breakthrough.

You’ll laugh. You’ll cringe. You’ll question everything you learned in school.

This is more than a podcast—it’s a rebellion against performative intelligence and a permission slip to try the idea that sounds just dumb enough to work.

Whether you’re building a business, teaching a class, or trying to solve a problem everyone else has given up on, this episode gives you the tools (and the guts) to finally say the thing you’ve been keeping quiet.

Get smarter by thinking dumber. Hit play.

Sign up for the Dumbify newsletter: https://www.david-carson.com/

Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.

This Episode Is So Boring… You’ll Love It

In this episode of Dumbify, David Carson makes a passionate case for doing… absolutely nothing. No hustle, no hacks—just raw, unfiltered boredom. The kind that makes you narrate cereal boxes in a British accent or build a trebuchet out of takeout chopsticks. The kind that makes your brain go, “Shhh… I’m building something.”

With a brain scan’s worth of science, a fruit basket for Mexico, and a cast of bored geniuses, David invites you into the underrated brilliance of zoning out. You’ll meet the Default Mode Network—your brain’s backstage jazz band—and learn why it only comes alive when the spotlight’s off. You’ll discover how woolgathering (yes, that’s your Dumb Word of the Day) can spark revolutions in underwear design, wizard fiction, and hip-hop musicals.

From ancient bathtubs to delayed trains to Atlanta traffic jams, this episode makes one bold claim: your next big idea is probably hiding behind your boredom.

So put down the productivity apps. Stare at a wall. Let your brain throw a rave without adult supervision. Because sometimes doing nothing is how you find everything.

Sign up for the Dumbify newsletter: https://www.david-carson.com/

Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.

Bride or Die: The Billion-Dollar Glitter Bomb You Didn’t See Coming.

One minute it’s a night out with the girls. The next, it’s a $1,300-per-person, four-day rhinestone retreat with cowboy hats, inflatable penises, and a laminated itinerary that would make NASA jealous.

In this episode of Dumbify, David Carson crashes headfirst into the bachelorette party industrial complex — a glitter-powered ecosystem of chaos, capitalism, and choreographed group joy. What began as one last hoorah before marriage has become a booming billion dollar economy with bedazzled merch, concierge services, Airbnb balloon installations, and Etsy empires run by people who once just wanted to Venmo their brunch money and go home.

You’ll hear the story of how a novelty straw side hustle became a full-fledged empire, why group outfits trigger oxytocin, and how some genius figured out how to rent the same Airbnb twice — once for lodging, and once for Instagram decor.

So pour a mimosa. Put on your “Bride Tribe” slides. And join us in celebrating the most extra, most unnecessary, most profitable party model in modern America.

Sign up for the Dumbify newsletter: https://www.david-carson.com/

Dumbify celebrates ideas so weird, wrong, or wildly impractical… they just might be brilliant. Hosted by David Carson, a serial entrepreneur behind multiple hundred-million-dollar companies and the go-to secret weapon for companies looking to unlock new markets through unconventional thinking. Dumbify dives into the messy, counter-intuitive side of creativity — the “dumb” ideas that built empires, broke rules, and ended up changing everything.