March 11, 2025 • 42 mins
Bridget Todd talks with Gare about how disgraced Daily Wire podcaster Candace Owens is using a celebrity scandal to rebrand her conservative politics for a normie audience.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Media. Welcome to it could happen here, the show
about Things Falling Apart. I'm Garrison Davis and I'm joined
today by a special guest host, Richard's Todd. Welcome back
to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ah, thank you so much for having me. I am
completely excited to be here. I am a listener of
the show, so it feels like getting to be on
a show that I actually freak out too often.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
And I'm very excited for you to be here because
you have a special report on one of the people
who I've been cyberstalking for years, and I'm very excited
to hear the details of what she's been up to
these past few weeks. I kind of know the rough
overview because again because of my cyberstalking, but I've not
(00:47):
done a deep dive the way you have, so I'm
very excited to hear an update on this on this character.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So it sounds like we are in a similar place
when it comes to this person, and this person is
none other than Candice Owens. First of all, what are
her thoughts on her? Because I am low key fascinated
with her. I follow her on social media, I watch
her videos like I am.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Like weirdly captivated by her.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I mean I've I've covered her mostly through her involvement
with Daily Wire. I've talked a little bit about kind
of how that'll fell apart, you know, like a year
and a half ago or so. I've talked a little
bit about her involvement in Turning Point USA with Charlie Kirk.
And she's just kind of been one of like these
like randomly, you know, like like orbiters of like the
online like right wing content sphere for like I don't know,
(01:34):
the past six years at least, and I typically focus
more on like you know, like the Ben Shapiro's, the
Matt Walsh's, you know, back in the day, the Stephen
Crowders and stuff. But Cannis was always just like around
and like she definitely like went after a different demographic
than what like my usual focuses, right, Like I'm focused
on like what's going on with straight white men, Like
(01:55):
why why are they like this? And who who is
targeting them? You know, and that's you know, that's like
the Matt Walsh, Stephen Crowder kind of angle. Like Candace
Owens has like a kind of a broader net that
she targets with her content, So like she's always kind
of come up as like a side character. I don't
think I've ever done like a distinct focus on her
before besides just you know whatever kind of crazy post
(02:16):
or like you know, anti trans or like very like
weird like racist rank that she goes on like every
once in a while.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, so there is so much to talk about when
it comes to Candace Owens. I'm sort of like you,
like I sort of saw her as a side character,
but only recently have I realized, like, oh, people in
my life are listening to Candace Owens and citing Candace
Owens and they have no idea any about her, anything
about her backstory.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, all the stuff that you that you were just
talking about.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
She's like reinvented herself like multiple times. And you know,
some people who mainly come at this from like the
anti fascist research perspective might not be aware of her
like latest rebrand, which is what I'm excited to hear
about today. Yes, I just remembered how she had that
whole event with Kanye when she did to her like
BLM documentary that was a whole other Candace era. Yeah
(03:04):
so much, My.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
God, I have to say I was like low key
embarrassed for her because like during her Kanye West era,
she was like, Kanye West designed the Katore outfits for
my Blexit movement, and Kanye West was like, no, I
fucking didn't, And like I was like, Oh, They're so
embarrassing that you like that, you like publicly aligned yourself
(03:25):
with Kanye West, only for him to basically like diss
you publicly right after yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And then come out as like an explicit neo Nazi
like two weeks later.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yes, yes, uh, Candace girl.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So I want to talk about her, like, I don't
want to spend too much time on her background, but
there are some pieces that I think like are good
for understanding kind of who she is, this chameleon figure
that she's been totally If there is not like a
behind the bastard's on her, do you know, if there is,
there should be If there's not not.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yet, Like similarly on Bastards, she's been one of one
of these like recurring characters. Oh my god, but she
she is had a distinct focus.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Robert Evans, get on it, because we need the Candace
Owens behind the bastard. So Candicce grew up in Stanford, Connecticut.
While she was a student there, she went through this
horrible sounding racial harassment. A classmate left her like this
racist death threat on her voicemail. That turned into like
a pretty serious local scandal because it turned out the
student who made that threat via voicemail.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Did so in a car with a group of.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Students that included the sun of the then mayor and
then future Democratic governor of Connecticut, Daniel molloy. So she
got tons of support from the local chapter of the NAACP,
and her family ended up suing the Stamford Board of
Education in federal court for failing to protect her rights,
resulting in a thirty seven thousand, five hundred dollars settlement.
(04:46):
She went on the studied journalism at University of Rhode
Island before dropping out.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
This is like the early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, this was like young like baby Candace high school
Candace before she was the Candace Owen that we you
know today. Yeah, so I sort of like almost see
a little bit of myself and where she got her
start like me. She was an early adopter of using
the Internet to talk about things like race and politics
like me. That also seemed to sort of manifest in
(05:15):
a lot of like low hanging fruit shit posts on
the early days of blogging, Like in twenty fifteen, she
was writing blogs making fun of Trump's penis size.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Sure, many such cases.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yes, many such cases.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So in twenty fifteen, Owens is running a blog called
Degree one eighty where she wrote pieces criticizing conservative Republicans,
writing about the quote that shit crazy antics of the
Republican tea Party. The good news is they will eventually
die off peacefully and in their sleep, we hope, and
then we can get right on with the obvious social
change that needs to happen immediately, she wrote on her blog.
(05:52):
So back then she was really someone who had like
a progressive point of view and was doing a lot
of public writing about what she was saying and experiencing
in politics at the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
No, this is something that I guess some people might
not know if they've only like become aware of her
through daily wires. Yeah, Like in the pre twenty sixteen
like BuzzFeed internet kind of sphere, she was just like
one of like these people who would yeah, have like
like you know, progressive like ish takes, criticize embarrassing like politicians,
and like overtly racist stuff happening, and then the degree
(06:27):
to which this this like heel turn happens is like
one of the most stark examples I've seen in like
a I don't know, I'm trying to think of it.
If there's like any like exact parallel, I don't know,
Like there's like certainly some like detransition, like a grifters.
There used to be like ex gay influencers or you
know this like like proto influencers kind of before influencers
(06:47):
were a thing, like ex gay speakers. But yeah, the
switch around on Candace from these blog posts is so concentrated.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So in her own words she describes it as happening,
Oh there you go.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, how it happened is like fascinating to me.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So in twenty sixteen, when Gamergate was in full swing,
Owen's launched a Kickstarter for a project called Social Autopsy,
which she described as a way to catalog the abuses
of trolls and cyberbullies. Fun fact that Kickstarter is still
up today. It is such a weird time capsule of
a different time. There's like a video of her speaking
earnestly about the need to like have the internet be
(07:26):
a like safer, more equitable landscape.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
It is nuts, like.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
People should go listen to her speaking about this project.
So the plan for this project was essentially that she
would create a way to de anonymize online commentators and
then connect them with like their real names and their
real life employers. And what's so funny is that, like
that is the very same argument that a lot of
(07:50):
people use, people who like want to restrict the open
Internet still use today that like problems on the Internet
online harassment and abuse would all be improved if only
everybody had to use their government idea and government names
to access the Internet. And so like it's very funny
that that idea it was bad then, and it didn't
really die, it was just recycled into today.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, I mean, like there's a version of this that happens,
or at least it kind of used to happen more
in regards to like anti fascist research, where like you're
like identify specific like extremely racist accounts or like explicit
neo Nazis and contact their employer in an attempt to
get to get them fired so they can focus on
getting a new job and supporting themselves rather than doing
(08:32):
racism online and in person, if especially if he's like,
you know, a member of like a group, whether that
be you know, the Proud Boys back in the day
or many many other groups, Patriot Prayer now, Patriot Front,
that sort of thing. It's funny how hated this tactic
is soon to be by people like Candice and the
Daily Wire people. But here she's advocating it herself exactly,
(08:54):
and they just like post Anita Sarkisian kind of content
like world.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, so pretty much everybody thought this was a bad idea,
including video game developer Zoe Quinn, who folks might remember
was kind of at the center of Gamergate and was
like viciously attacked. Owens was subsequently harassed and docs and
she blamed Zoe Quinn and other feminists for this and
said so publicly as you can probably guess, like people
(09:22):
like Milo Gyanopolis loved this.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
People who were promoters of.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Gamergate really hyped up Owens's claims that like, yes, feminists
were actually the ones doing all the online harassing.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Okay, I can see where this is going.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So this event is what Owen's credits with her turn
from progressive to quote becoming a red pilled radical. She says,
I became a conservative overnight. I realized that liberals were
actually the racists. Liberals were actually the trolls. She starts
promoting right wing viewpoints on her YouTube channel, calling herself
quote red pilled black, which I gotta say is like
(09:57):
pretty good branding.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Like I'm I'm mad at the branding there.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I was like, Okay, black woman talking about like right
wing stuff, red pill black.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I get it. I get it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, I'm interested to see how much how much the
checkbook was a consideration here? Oh yes, how much her
Kickstarter god versus how much she realized she could get
if she jumped on the other side of the content churn.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Well, she almost instantly gets noticed by Charlie Kirk, founder
of Turning Points USA Right, and he hires her almost immediately.
She starts cranking out these videos that really perform quite well,
that her videos really go viral. Videos where she's doing
things like dismissing the twenty seventeen White supremacist Unite the
Right rally in Charlottesville. Alex Jones gets her to co
(10:42):
host some of his info war shows. She's doing stints
on Fox News as a paid commentator, like business is
booming for Candice Owens from this turn.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, this is around when I became aware of her.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yes, in twenty twenty one, she joins up with the
Daily Wire. There was so much fanfare around them higher Candace,
like it was a big deal she moved to Nashville. Yeah,
fun fact, there was even a House joint resolution House
Joint Resolution three fifty, a resolution in the Tennessee government
to congratulate Candace Owens are relocating to Tennessee and for
(11:14):
her work at Daily Wired. That reads whereas Miss Owens
has earned the admiration and respect of millions of Americans
through her activism in support of President Trump as a
black woman and her perceptive criticism of creeping socialism and
leftist political tyranny.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Very cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, imagine it being like a joint resolution in your
local government when you move someplace.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
The Governor of Tennessee was like super excited when the
Daily Wire relocated their headquarters to Tennessee and brought in
all these people. Like there was there was like so
many like private dinners meetings. There was like a like
a number of resolutions welcoming the Daily Wire to Tennessee.
In this like twenty twenty one period as they were
just starting to like launch their own extreming service website,
(12:01):
which is why they recruited Candace is because they were
looking for content creators to fill out their slate.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So you would think that this should be like a
match made in heaven, right, smooth sailing. They need insidiary
content creators. She's an insidiary content creator. Should be a
match made in heaven. Perfect Not quite, because things end
in like this really messy public fallout just a few
years later. So I know that you've done episodes on
(12:27):
this from my perspective, and I would love to know
what you think. It's not one hundred percent clear what
went down, but the public friction between Candace Owens and
Ben Shapiro, one of the founders of Daily Wire, it
seemed to be like related to reactions around the situation
in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, totally so.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Ben Shapiro is Jewish and Owens, as we said, has
said and done like a lot of anti Semitic stuff,
like a lot and.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Like actual Adesemitic stuff like that people use that as
a way to like shut down like very very admirable,
like like like Propelstinian like activism. No, like Canda owns
just is anti semitic, and this it's like the same
thing with like Jackson Hinkel, and she made it like
an escalating series of anti semitic claims after October seventh,
(13:17):
which which slowly kind of like broke with the company
and ben like more and more and more of over
series of a few months. Yes, and it's it's it's
funny because like it also kind of mirrors this like
online fight she had with Stephen Crowder like a year
or so prior when Daily Wire was trying to recruit him,
and then she got informed about like how like abusive
(13:38):
he was to his wife, and then she went on
like a media blitz like against him as like as
he was in negotiations like with the Daily Wire. She's
like very willing to like stir shit up, like even
if it like goes against her own interests or the
interests of like whatever company she works for, Like she
is she is absolutely willing to like make like some
kind of like chaotic spectacle regardless of her own like
(13:59):
you know, financial security.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I guess yes, like she I'm so glad that you
mentioned that she is not afraid to get down and
dirty in public and I do think, like, you know,
as a black woman who works with a lot of
white men, I would imagine that she's probably thinking, like,
I have to have some kind of decorum. I don't
want anyone to say that I'm being a crazy black
woman or whatever.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
She's it seems like she has no such qualms.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Like she is like I will, I will make this
a public, messy fight, and I am not afraid to
make a genuine spectacle of myself. Yeah, and so it
is really important to note that, like, as you said,
she wasn't just like criticizing the Israeli States. She was
like getting into like blood lible and like deep conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, no, it was. There was some really nasty posts.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, Like one of the things that she said, she's
claimed that Judaism was quote a pedophile centric religion that
believes in demons and child sacrifice, and that she was
waking people up to the fact that pedophiles are in power, like.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Not great, not good, not good.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So, as you said, like this starts to become like
a public feud toward her employer. She wrote on Twitter,
no one can serve two masters, and ended her post
writing you cannot serve both God and money, which Ben Shapiro,
her boss, tweets like quote tweeted, oh my god, Like, Candice,
if you feel that taking money from the Daily Wire
(15:23):
somehow that comes between you and God, by all means quit,
Like messy is there.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's crazy that instead of having like a company meeting,
they were just doing this on Twitter dot com.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Oh my god, and my messy ass was eating it up.
I was like, keep fighting, let him fight.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Oh yeah, no, absolutely, I'm totally willing to like watch this,
watch this go down.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I do not want to get involved, right right right.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Owens like went on Tuck Her Carlson Show and said
that Ben Shapiro was quote acting unprofessional and emotionally unhinged
for weeks now. She said that Shapiro quote crossed a
certain line. When you come for scripture and read yourself
into it, I will not talk it.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Very cool.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, So, at one point, Owen's tweets that she wants
Ben Shapiro to have a public like debate with her,
moderated by podcaster Patrick Bett Davide.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Ben Shapiro was having none of this.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
He tweets, Candice, I can see why you'd want to
hide behind a moderator, particularly one who said we should
rename our company quote Daily Jewish Wire just yesterday, No
Jesus one on one Monday at five, we can sit
down and have a healthy debate like adult and will
live stream it on x and YouTube. Take it or
leave it as to the true reason why you didn't
respond to my offer to sit down with you and
(16:34):
discuss these issues publicly or privately back in February, I
have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Like, this is employer employee going at it on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I can't believe I'm taking Ben Shapiro's side here, not
just because he's Ben Shapiro, but also because he's an employer.
But it's a really it's a really tough situation here.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, I feel the same way, because, like, it's just
not a great look to have somebody that you just
hired to all this fanfare come actually like this on Twitter,
like and I think, I mean, this is just my opinion,
so like take that for what it's worth, just as
somebody who has worked in media and been around the block.
The reason why I'm not comfortable saying like their feud
was entirely based on Owens's anti Semitic comments and behavior
(17:16):
is that she just went so hard and so public
that something to me, I almost wonder if there was
like a contract dispute here, but like she was like, oh,
I can make more money on my own, totally gotta
get out of this contract or something, because like it
just doesn't smell right.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I mean, yeah, if she had like an inclination that
she could afford to lose his job because she might
make more money on her own, then yeah, absolutely that
would that would allow her to push this further than
what she might otherwise might. Like there's been a lot
of a lot of discussion in the right wing contents
fear about like the Daily Wires fairly restrictive contracts despite
still getting paid like tens of millions of dollars, there
(17:50):
is like restrictions on like what happens when you lose
monetization because the Daily Wires like a company trying to
make a profit, So totally, I think there could absolutely
be other financial stuff going on here. I think it's
more like an interlocking series of issues rather than just
one thing or another.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yes, So after Rabbi Shmooley Boteach criticized Owens for her
defenses of Kanye West. Owens liked to tweet asking Boteach
if he was quote drunk on Christian blood again.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
And I guess that was the final straw.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
A few days later, Daily Wire and Candace Owens ended
their relationship, with Owen's tweeting the rumors are true, I
am finally free.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So that's what happened with her and Daily Wire. So
where is she now? Well, this is where the story
gets interesting because I had not heard from Candace Owens
in a minute, and my reintroduction to her happened recently,
and when I was trying to make sense of the
dispute between two Hollywood A listers, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
So the issue between Blake and Justin it's a little
(19:03):
bit complicated and ongoing, but it's actually a pretty interesting
story that includes a lot of things that I enjoy,
like how celebrities use media and how social media platforms
can be weaponized for or against specific people. Email correspondence
where people make themselves look terrible in writing because they
do not expect those emails to be in a deposition
later like that is my favorite thing in the world, like,
(19:24):
please continue to put your wrongdoing in writing so that
my nosey ask can read it later and be like,
ooh messy. So I do encourage like folks to read
up on it because it does go beyond just like
two celebrities having a feud, but you don't really need
to know the specifics for our purposes. The quick and
dirty version is that Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni were
(19:45):
in a movie adaptation of the very popular novel by
Colleen Hoover called It Starts with Us. In December, Lively
filed a legal complaint against Baldoni, accusing him of sexual
harassment and starting a smear campaign against her. Baldoni strongly
denies that and has sued her and response, both camps
have released information like emails, text messages, and video that
attempting to make the other look bad.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
So it has kind of.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Turned into one of those ink blot tests that changes
depending on whose version you buy. Version one is that
Blake Lively was being sexually harassed on set by a
fake feminist ally who is actually an abusive man, or
version two that Blake Lively is an egomaniac who was
using her star power and a list celebrity network like
(20:29):
her husband Ryan Reynolds from Deadpool, to control the narrative
around her being a nightmare on set and steamrolling everybody
on this project. Cool, yes, and so it's what's interesting
about this to me is that it's one of those
stories where algorithmically it depends on what silo or what
pocket of the Internet you're at sure to determine, like,
(20:50):
what version of this story you're getting, Like much like
Johnny Dep's deformation Losses.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Sounds too much like the thing, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Exactly exactly, and so like for whatever reason, TikTok thinks
I hate Blake Lively and want to pour over every
nuance of how she is a fraud, right, like, but
someone else's TikTok might be like, no, Blake Lively, we
should be supporting her. Like. It's one of those situations
where just depending on where you are on the Internet,
you might get a very different impression of the public
(21:18):
sentiment leaning one brayer or another.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, yeah, this is all the types of things I
try to avoid learning about at almost all costs. So
I guess I need not you, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
So I was trying to get to the bottom of
it because I kept hearing about it, like everyone was
talking about it. So I'm talking to my cousins, who
I would lovingly describe as normies, and that they are
not super online.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
It's like they're not like you and me. They're not
like deep into the depths of extremism or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
No, they're not watching like the Daily Wire for fun
slash four works, yes, yea.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
And my cousins are like, oh my god, there is
this black girl journalist who has been following everything and
breaking it down. She has all the tea will tag you.
That journalist was Candace Owens. Okay, so all right, you
know Candace has been making so many videos off of this,
and like her coverage, if you, coverage in quotes, has
(22:12):
really taken off online. As The Cut put it in
a piece called Candace Owens has gone mainstream. They write,
the right wing commentator's coverage of the Blake Lively justin
Boldannie case has reached millions of viewers. Owen's podcast was
hours and hours of analysis of the case, deep dives
into court filings, tabloid news stories, even Ryan Reynolds's recent
SNL Fifthist anniversary special appearance.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
One listener said, she's really been.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Able to go in and pinpoint discrepancies and some of
the things Blake Lively ha said, rather than us having
to go through it on our own.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Ah. Of course it's the woman who's lying about being
sexually harassed. Of course.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
One listener of her podcast says she recognizes that Owens
seems to have a pro Boldanni bias, but she doesn't
care because quote, she's urging us to look past the
fact that this is not a feminist issue at all,
that it's about getting justice or whoever is being wronged here.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
She's uniting the left and the right. The right wing Women's.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Magazine also published a headline about this, saying how Candice
Owens is uniting conservatives and liberal with her it ends
with US coverage. So her coverage of this dispute has
really allowed her to attract a lot more viewers beyond
her like normal right wing extremist base, which has generally
been like a lot of white men like that who
(23:26):
was really listening to her content before when she was
with Daily Wire. Now she has really branched out. So
like normies like my cousins who have no idea who
Owens is, have no idea her background, her past, the
work that she has done, and just think like, oh,
she's a normal entertainment journalist, like digging and getting the dirt.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I know she's doing this like on her podcast. I
assume YouTube as well. She also just like trying to
like flood TikTok, trying to flood like Instagram reaches. Is
this kind of part of how she's trying to like
expand her reach.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
It is like she's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
And then she has her longer form podcast YouTube, but
then clips of her like you know, breaking down the
top lies or top inaccuracies and things that Blake Lively
has said. Those go super viral on social media. The
short clips yeah okay, and all of this has been
just gangbusters for her growth and engagement.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Here's how A cut put it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Since Owens started covering the Lively Baldani case, her YouTube
channel has exploded in popularity, allowing her to attract a
much larger fan base than the audience of hardcore conservatives
she is amassed over the years. Each episode about Lively
racks up at least one point five million views. In
the past month alone, Owen's has a masked more than
four hundred and fifty thousand new subscribers on YouTube, and
(24:40):
her total video views have quadrupled since this time last year.
This is according to data from the platforms Social Blade,
oh No. Over the past three months, her audience on
YouTube has almost started skewing sixty five percent female, according
to data provided by a spokesperson, a market shift from
her past fan base.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
So yeah, she's loading in popularity.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
She's everywhere, and now she's attracting like normy women who
are just coming in for this celebrity dispute.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, that's probably not gonna end well huh.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Well, I don't think it will end well.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
You know, I was like racking my brain trying to
figure out, like, why has this story taken off so
much for Owen's And there are a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I think this is like working for her. One.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I hate to say it, but she is actually genuinely
interesting to listen to. You know, when she was a
progressive voice online, she definitely was somebody who had a
point of view and a clear voice and a perspective,
and that really comes through when she's breaking down Blake
Lively in these videos. She has a way of speaking
that really makes you pay attention and signals to the listener,
(25:45):
like this person is really breaking it down. It's the
same reason why on TikTok or social media when someone
is like story time, we're like I'm about to tell
you all the details of something. Those videos always perform
very well on social media. And I think that Owens
is just very good at knowing how to hold somebody's
attention online.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Like I have to say it, sure.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I mean she's been doing the content churn for almost
a decade now, Like, yeah, you you do get good
at it on like a technical proficiency level.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Also, you know, we just love good old fashioned misogyny.
And if that misogyny can be laced with like a
conspiracy theory, oh, I.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Think that's it's even better.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
So, like I think that part of this is just
like social media platforms are always going to amplify misogyny.
I would argue that things like misogyny, transphobia, massage, noire,
or racism, all of that is like baked into the
experience of showing up online as a feature, not a bug.
And I think that Omens takes it even further because
she is breaking it down, like she's uncovering some conspiracy.
(26:50):
Like it's not just let's talk about about Blake Lively,
it's I'm uncovering the web of lies and I'm gonna
I'm gonna expose Blake Lively's dark truth, right, and so
like of course that's gonna take off.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And she does gain this element of authority because she's
a woman talking about this. It makes men feel better
about being misogynistic because a woman's telling them it's okay
to I mean, this is this is the same thing
that she was able to weaponize for all of her,
like like you know, anti Black Lives Matter stuff for
all of her, like like racism isn't real things. She
tries to use that to her advantage, mostly to make
(27:24):
like white members of her audience like feel good about
their own racism because a black woman told them it's
actually okay and like that that's been like a big
part of her career the past few years exactly that.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And I think like she really understands that the inviting
power of taking what you might think of as like
a contrarian stance on something like yeah, totally, like after
the Me Too movement, how many women got engagement by
taking a contrarian stance right, Like, I think going against
the conventional attitude that says like, oh, we have to
automatically support the woman in this in this dispute probably
(27:59):
make people tuning into Omens's breakdowns feel like they're like
free thinkers who are going against the grain, you know,
by taking an unpopular opinion, which I do think connects
to her more odious stances on things like trans people
and women and Jewish people.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
No, I mean, like you see the same thing with
like you know, like the gaze against groomers thing right
wing trans influencers de trans influencers. It's the same, like gambit,
and certainly I think like, yeah, like your identification of
her as like a professional contrarian is like very very
key to her success exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I also think like part of the reason why people
are attracted to conspiracy theories is that it allows for
like fantasy world building. And I mean I really see
the ways that she injects that into her coverage, even
the word coverage I put that in worlds because like
she is like a wild person to her coverage is
like also wild. She does not adhere to, as she
(28:53):
puts it, quote a traditional style.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Of reporting, you know, I'll take her word for that one,
you know what, I'll believe her on that single point.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, I believe her. I believe that. You know, she
amplifies rumors. And even once.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
She read a letter that she said that she got
from Blake Lively's husband, Ryan Reynolds, his acting coach when
he was twelve, and Tone Owens, his acting coach, said
that Ryan Reynolds was an obnoxious kid.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You know what, I also believe it.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I Oh, I have no trouble believing that. But like
her coverage, it includes like side.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Characters, Yeah, things that have no bearing on this whatsoever.
I mean, yeah, I feel like this, this focus on
like this, like conspiratorial ben is the same. She's using
the same tactics she did for her Black Lives Matter
documentary for like most of her political work. Like it.
It's she's using the same tactics over and over again,
and eventually she like reaches this like stress point or
this like threshold where she cannot see a path forward
(29:50):
or she can't see a way to surpass it, and
then she does a pivot. This happened with her progressive blog,
this happened even at the Daily Wire. She does not
she doesn't work with turning point us Sadie more and
like this this new pivot is learning. Hey, it's sup
super lucrative to be like a tabloid entertainment quote unquote journalist.
Very easy, super lucrative. And all of the tactics you
(30:11):
learned on the right wing media sphere work great here,
like all of this, like conspiratorial thinking really uh, a
disregard for like like facts and evidence works perfect for
this sort of like rumor based reporting, and it spreads
like crazy, And yeah, it spreads across political lines. You
don't you aren't just targeting the mega people or like
(30:31):
the far right. This this can be so much more
broad to like the giant audience of like you know,
quote unquote, like a political people go to these platforms
for a form of like of like escapism and entertainment
rather than just hearing about politics. Yet again, because that's
you know, very very tiring.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, and I think in my mind all of it
is sort of sort of connected. Like Ben Shapiro, nobody
cared more about celebrities or talked more about celebrities than
Ben Shapiro. He would love to be like, I don't
care what Hollywood is doing but he was obsessed with
like Beyonce and Meg the Stallion, Like it was just
like a negative obsession.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Like yeah, you know, anti fandom is still fandom.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
When you make video after video about how much you
don't like Meg thea Stallion in a kind of way,
you are a fan, just in the opposite direction. And
so I think that Candace Owens really took that and
learned how to perfect it because she is much I
think that she is much better at this than Ben
Shapiro is.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Like the evidence being that, like.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Her YouTube channel is exploding with people who probably would
never watch any any of Ben Shapiro's content.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
The big bummer for me is that the Daily Wires
first film, Lady Ballers left us on a cliffhanger with
Candace Owns and Matt Walsh sitting in a car talking
about how Matt Walsh planned this entire like plot of
the film as like as like some kind of scheme
or like social experiment, and you know, it was implied
(31:55):
there would be more, you know, it was like a
you know, like Avengers Nick Fury type post credits scene,
and now we're never gonna learn what Candice Owans and
Matt Walsh get up to now because she's left the company.
She's now doing her own thing. So now we just
have this dangling plot thread that's just gonna bug me forever,
Like what does the candae Owan's character at the end
of Lady Ballers do next. I'm gonna be thinking about
(32:17):
this for like years.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
America deserves closure, we deserve to know. Just putting that
out there, I think we do deserve closure.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I just think my closure is gonna be a little bit different.
I am.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I'm very fine having all of these plot threads wrapped
up quite quickly, but I do not see that in
the cards immediately.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
So in terms of where she's at now, like you know,
my question is like, has Owens has this kind of
like mainstream audience that she's been able to amass.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Has she changed her views? She is she trying to
do a rebrand or a pay it.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
In an interview, she said, in terms of my perspective,
I haven't changed anything. I've been anti METO since long
before it was cool.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Sure, I mean that can be true. It's also true
that she is getting better at propaganda and widening her footprint, which, yeah,
then once her audience gets bigger, she might be able
to slip in more things that I would find on
savory to a larger audience over time. But she also
might be content to keep growing that and be slightly
less off putting in the meantime. But no, like there's
(33:30):
also just a huge audience for like the anti woke backlash,
anti metwo stuff right now. Like that's kind of that's
kind of like the new mainstream Frankly, so I am
certain that she's going to try to continue to like
flex that and grow that in the in the next
few months years.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, so I agree with you. I believe Owens when
she says that, like her stances have not changed much. Yeah,
easy to be like, oh, well, she's pivoting to go
mainstream now that she has these like women in her
audience who are interested in celebrity. And honestly, you can
sort of see some of this in changes to her
physical appearance, Like she was sort of known for having
(34:06):
very severe hair, the joke being that she had alienated
herself so much from her fellow black people that like,
no black person was going to do her hair and
that's why it looks that way. But lately you've really
seen this like softening she's kind of going for like
a softer public look.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
She is pivoting to different kinds of programming.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
She's branched out into doing a book club for paying
subscribers and some kind of a fitness program.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
That makes sense. Yeah, totally, like the health Guru fitness
entertainment bubble. Yeah that's huge.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
That's such a good grift. She's gonna make so much money.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, yeah, she is.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
But I really.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Agree with you, gaire that, like, I think that these
new followers are certainly going to be walked down a
pipeline that includes her extremist attitude just using celebrity scandal
as a hook, because, like as you said, celebrity scandals
and celebrity stories are disconsidered fluff for a lot of people,
Like people who care about extremist content and ideology are
(35:03):
maybe not seeing that as a space that they need
to pay too close of attention to about these stories
that you might see on the cover of an US weekly.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
But these stories actually.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Can be used to tap into extremist ideologies and unleash
them in a whole new audience. I'm like, yeah, like
you were saying, if you are just like watching a
podcast because you're want to be entertained about a story
about two celebrities, you might not have your like bullshit
detector up to be like, wait, is this extremist content
because it's it's seen and treated as a less charge space,
(35:33):
and so you know that line of thinking that says
that you know, this is just fluff. It doesn't really matter.
What happens in celebrity news is not that it's incorrect.
It is dangerous because it lends itself to people being
more susceptible to it when extremist content is slipped in
without even really realizing it.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I mean, and like that relates even to like the
originator of this gamer gate stuff and the whole like
anti woke like media fandom content sphere right where so
much of like the anti book backlash has been built
on people complaining that Star Wars is two woke. Now,
there's too many women in movies, there's too many black
people in commercials, where do all the white people go,
(36:10):
There's too many gay people in TV, there's too many
trans people in TV, and like that is it is
definitely focused on by the rest of the Daily Wire goons,
and you can very easily pivot back to that sort
of cultural commentary after you're done talking about Blake Lively,
like this is this is a very small jump where
you're still talking about the entertainment industry, but with this
(36:32):
like anti woke framing of like, you know, why is
all these minorities here, why are they pushing transgenderism on kids?
You know, whether that be talking about you know, transactors
in the business, whether you be talking about you know,
like female lead or like diversity casting, like all all
that kind of stuff that especially Candice can use her
like contrarian position to speak on authority about talking about
(36:55):
why are you recasting these legacy characters to be people
of color? Or why is of a woman the lead
of this thing when it should be actually a man?
You know, just like very very basic stuff that's been
a part of like the YouTube slop for a decade now,
but it's still like still takes in a lot of
a lot of clips and it is it is a
lot of like the Daily Wire and like right wing
(37:17):
content still still does it's all this like weird like
culture war stuff. It's very very tightened with Hollywood. Like
you were saying about how like Ben Shapiro claims to
you know, like hate Hollywood. He's trying to build his
own alternative to it, but he can't stop talking about it,
like he can't stop complaining about Disney's snow White. And
I can see Candice doing like the exact same thing,
(37:38):
but now with like an honestly like a bigger, a bigger,
more like a political audience that's much more malleable and
can be shaped around these like larger cultural trends. When
you think about this like perception of this backlash against wokeness.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I absolutely think that's what we're gonna see.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
And I can tell you we can finish by I
can tell you about her next big pet issue, which is, yeah,
championing Harvey Weinstein, who she is no.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
No, no, So.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
She's been interviewing him since twenty twenty two, according to
The Hollywood Reporter. She explains, while he is quote an
immoral man, he is also.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Am a justice system, a victim, sure.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Victim, And she says, I've always had faith in our
court system, and now it's beginning to change. Now I'm
beginning to wonder if our courtrooms have been politicized. And
the thing that's made her think this is Harvey.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Weinstein it's wild.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
I mean, like Ben Shapiro is starting his own campaign
to free Derek Chauvin. I think there's gonna be a
lot of pressure on the courts right now. I mean
you're seeing that from like Elon and Trump as well.
I think undermining the authority of the court I think
is actually kind of part of this larger concerted issue
amongst the entirety of the right right now, because this
is like their biggest remaining roadblock to achieving their right
(38:51):
wing utopia is the court system. And I you know,
this may not be intentional on every person's part, like
Ben Shapiro and the zones aren't aren't like intentionally collaborating
on this, but they may be copying each other's trends.
And if they're seeing this this wider push across a
large amount of like the right wing content people to
put pressure on various aspects of the courts, including by
(39:14):
using like high profile cases like Harvey Weinstein or Derek Shulvin,
that's that's not a great sign. And I can I
can definitely see them trying to trying to do that
in conjunction. I guess yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I think we're going to see a lot more of it.
Candice has a series coming out called Harvey Speaks that
apparently tells his side of the story, So look out
for that. And I think that's the thing, like I
think with her content, Like when asked why it was
she thought that her Blake Lively stuff was really taking off,
she says that she believes her new fans on the
(39:47):
left quote have just kind of gotten whise to the
fact that maybe women lie just like men. And so
I just implore folks that, like, even if you think
that you're just like retaking in this content because you're
following fluffy celebrity news or whatever, it is so easy
to go from maybe women lie to maybe women can't
be trusted, or maybe women shouldn't work and have jobs,
(40:07):
a stance at Candace herself is actually advocated for, despite
very obviously being a working woman. And so I don't
think we should trust Candace Owens even if she does
this rebrand, Like, no, don't let her rebrand herself as
like just a celebrity investigative journalist.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Like she put all of these odious views.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Out into the world, and I don't want her to
be able to like soften it or you know, soften
what it is that she advocates for, what it is
that she believes in, if that is truly what she's
trying to do to just sort of like a mass
of more mainstream audience.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
So don't fall for it.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
If you're if you're getting tagged in Candace Owens videos,
just know what she actually is about.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
I mean, yeah, I think I think for our audience,
it's it's more likely that you'll have like family members
who are going to be finding this stuff. And you
should find a list of sources. Maybe this episode included,
but probably you know, you can find some articles as
well that think of some background on Candace's history and
previous beliefs, can pick and choose some of her most
(41:04):
like outrageous claims. So when your aunt sends you a
video about how Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are kidnapping
children or something, you can you can maybe inform Aunt
Judy that maybe you shouldn't listen to everything this Candice
Owan's character is saying.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, this Candice Owans might not be on the money,
might not be on the level. No, yeah, inform an
Auntie today, Yes that's right, and that's all I got.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
That's it. I don't know how. You usually end these episodes.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Usually by getting sad, but I don't know. This has
been been an an interesting dive into the life of
a woman with many, many careers, many a chameleon, many personalities,
a chameleon, a chameleon of contrarianism.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Oh, I like that. If I ever write a book
about her, that'll be the title.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Jesus Christ. Oh what a nightmare that would be. Man
scary Bridget Where can people find you online?
Speaker 2 (42:05):
You can find me on my podcast. There are our
girls on the internet on this network. iHeartRadio. I mean,
you can find me on Instagram at bridget Ran DC
or on Blue Sky at bridget Time.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Well, thank you so much, good luck in d C.
Thanks for holding holding the line out there as Elon
puts a kildozer through your entire city.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
We're doing our best.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
I would would love to talk again about a DC update.
Maybe maybe next time you come on the show. My God, yes, please,
there we go, Well we will, we will talk then goodbye, everybody.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
It could happen.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot
com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
You listen to podcasts can now find sources for it
could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Thanks for listening.
Cool Media. Welcome to it could happen here, the show
about Things Falling Apart. I'm Garrison Davis and I'm joined
today by a special guest host, Richard's Todd. Welcome back
to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Ah, thank you so much for having me. I am
completely excited to be here. I am a listener of
the show, so it feels like getting to be on
a show that I actually freak out too often.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
And I'm very excited for you to be here because
you have a special report on one of the people
who I've been cyberstalking for years, and I'm very excited
to hear the details of what she's been up to
these past few weeks. I kind of know the rough
overview because again because of my cyberstalking, but I've not
(00:47):
done a deep dive the way you have, so I'm
very excited to hear an update on this on this character.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
So it sounds like we are in a similar place
when it comes to this person, and this person is
none other than Candice Owens. First of all, what are
her thoughts on her? Because I am low key fascinated
with her. I follow her on social media, I watch
her videos like I am.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Like weirdly captivated by her.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I mean I've I've covered her mostly through her involvement
with Daily Wire. I've talked a little bit about kind
of how that'll fell apart, you know, like a year
and a half ago or so. I've talked a little
bit about her involvement in Turning Point USA with Charlie Kirk.
And she's just kind of been one of like these
like randomly, you know, like like orbiters of like the
online like right wing content sphere for like I don't know,
(01:34):
the past six years at least, and I typically focus
more on like you know, like the Ben Shapiro's, the
Matt Walsh's, you know, back in the day, the Stephen
Crowders and stuff. But Cannis was always just like around
and like she definitely like went after a different demographic
than what like my usual focuses, right, Like I'm focused
on like what's going on with straight white men, Like
(01:55):
why why are they like this? And who who is
targeting them? You know, and that's you know, that's like
the Matt Walsh, Stephen Crowder kind of angle. Like Candace
Owens has like a kind of a broader net that
she targets with her content, So like she's always kind
of come up as like a side character. I don't
think I've ever done like a distinct focus on her
before besides just you know whatever kind of crazy post
(02:16):
or like you know, anti trans or like very like
weird like racist rank that she goes on like every
once in a while.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yes, so there is so much to talk about when
it comes to Candace Owens. I'm sort of like you,
like I sort of saw her as a side character,
but only recently have I realized, like, oh, people in
my life are listening to Candace Owens and citing Candace
Owens and they have no idea any about her, anything
about her backstory.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, all the stuff that you that you were just
talking about.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
She's like reinvented herself like multiple times. And you know,
some people who mainly come at this from like the
anti fascist research perspective might not be aware of her
like latest rebrand, which is what I'm excited to hear
about today. Yes, I just remembered how she had that
whole event with Kanye when she did to her like
BLM documentary that was a whole other Candace era. Yeah
(03:04):
so much, My.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
God, I have to say I was like low key
embarrassed for her because like during her Kanye West era,
she was like, Kanye West designed the Katore outfits for
my Blexit movement, and Kanye West was like, no, I
fucking didn't, And like I was like, Oh, They're so
embarrassing that you like that, you like publicly aligned yourself
(03:25):
with Kanye West, only for him to basically like diss
you publicly right after yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And then come out as like an explicit neo Nazi
like two weeks later.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yes, yes, uh, Candace girl.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
So I want to talk about her, like, I don't
want to spend too much time on her background, but
there are some pieces that I think like are good
for understanding kind of who she is, this chameleon figure
that she's been totally If there is not like a
behind the bastard's on her, do you know, if there is,
there should be If there's not not.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yet, Like similarly on Bastards, she's been one of one
of these like recurring characters. Oh my god, but she
she is had a distinct focus.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Robert Evans, get on it, because we need the Candace
Owens behind the bastard. So Candicce grew up in Stanford, Connecticut.
While she was a student there, she went through this
horrible sounding racial harassment. A classmate left her like this
racist death threat on her voicemail. That turned into like
a pretty serious local scandal because it turned out the
student who made that threat via voicemail.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Did so in a car with a group of.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Students that included the sun of the then mayor and
then future Democratic governor of Connecticut, Daniel molloy. So she
got tons of support from the local chapter of the NAACP,
and her family ended up suing the Stamford Board of
Education in federal court for failing to protect her rights,
resulting in a thirty seven thousand, five hundred dollars settlement.
(04:46):
She went on the studied journalism at University of Rhode
Island before dropping out.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
This is like the early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yes, this was like young like baby Candace high school
Candace before she was the Candace Owen that we you
know today. Yeah, so I sort of like almost see
a little bit of myself and where she got her
start like me. She was an early adopter of using
the Internet to talk about things like race and politics
like me. That also seemed to sort of manifest in
(05:15):
a lot of like low hanging fruit shit posts on
the early days of blogging, Like in twenty fifteen, she
was writing blogs making fun of Trump's penis size.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Sure, many such cases.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yes, many such cases.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So in twenty fifteen, Owens is running a blog called
Degree one eighty where she wrote pieces criticizing conservative Republicans,
writing about the quote that shit crazy antics of the
Republican tea Party. The good news is they will eventually
die off peacefully and in their sleep, we hope, and
then we can get right on with the obvious social
change that needs to happen immediately, she wrote on her blog.
(05:52):
So back then she was really someone who had like
a progressive point of view and was doing a lot
of public writing about what she was saying and experiencing
in politics at the time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
No, this is something that I guess some people might
not know if they've only like become aware of her
through daily wires. Yeah, Like in the pre twenty sixteen
like BuzzFeed internet kind of sphere, she was just like
one of like these people who would yeah, have like
like you know, progressive like ish takes, criticize embarrassing like politicians,
and like overtly racist stuff happening, and then the degree
(06:27):
to which this this like heel turn happens is like
one of the most stark examples I've seen in like
a I don't know, I'm trying to think of it.
If there's like any like exact parallel, I don't know,
Like there's like certainly some like detransition, like a grifters.
There used to be like ex gay influencers or you
know this like like proto influencers kind of before influencers
(06:47):
were a thing, like ex gay speakers. But yeah, the
switch around on Candace from these blog posts is so concentrated.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So in her own words she describes it as happening,
Oh there you go.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, how it happened is like fascinating to me.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So in twenty sixteen, when Gamergate was in full swing,
Owen's launched a Kickstarter for a project called Social Autopsy,
which she described as a way to catalog the abuses
of trolls and cyberbullies. Fun fact that Kickstarter is still
up today. It is such a weird time capsule of
a different time. There's like a video of her speaking
earnestly about the need to like have the internet be
(07:26):
a like safer, more equitable landscape.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
It is nuts, like.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
People should go listen to her speaking about this project.
So the plan for this project was essentially that she
would create a way to de anonymize online commentators and
then connect them with like their real names and their
real life employers. And what's so funny is that, like
that is the very same argument that a lot of
(07:50):
people use, people who like want to restrict the open
Internet still use today that like problems on the Internet
online harassment and abuse would all be improved if only
everybody had to use their government idea and government names
to access the Internet. And so like it's very funny
that that idea it was bad then, and it didn't
really die, it was just recycled into today.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yeah, I mean, like there's a version of this that happens,
or at least it kind of used to happen more
in regards to like anti fascist research, where like you're
like identify specific like extremely racist accounts or like explicit
neo Nazis and contact their employer in an attempt to
get to get them fired so they can focus on
getting a new job and supporting themselves rather than doing
(08:32):
racism online and in person, if especially if he's like,
you know, a member of like a group, whether that
be you know, the Proud Boys back in the day
or many many other groups, Patriot Prayer now, Patriot Front,
that sort of thing. It's funny how hated this tactic
is soon to be by people like Candice and the
Daily Wire people. But here she's advocating it herself exactly,
(08:54):
and they just like post Anita Sarkisian kind of content
like world.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, so pretty much everybody thought this was a bad idea,
including video game developer Zoe Quinn, who folks might remember
was kind of at the center of Gamergate and was
like viciously attacked. Owens was subsequently harassed and docs and
she blamed Zoe Quinn and other feminists for this and
said so publicly as you can probably guess, like people
(09:22):
like Milo Gyanopolis loved this.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
People who were promoters of.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Gamergate really hyped up Owens's claims that like, yes, feminists
were actually the ones doing all the online harassing.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Okay, I can see where this is going.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So this event is what Owen's credits with her turn
from progressive to quote becoming a red pilled radical. She says,
I became a conservative overnight. I realized that liberals were
actually the racists. Liberals were actually the trolls. She starts
promoting right wing viewpoints on her YouTube channel, calling herself
quote red pilled black, which I gotta say is like
(09:57):
pretty good branding.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Like I'm I'm mad at the branding there.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I was like, Okay, black woman talking about like right
wing stuff, red pill black.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I get it. I get it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, I'm interested to see how much how much the
checkbook was a consideration here? Oh yes, how much her
Kickstarter god versus how much she realized she could get
if she jumped on the other side of the content churn.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Well, she almost instantly gets noticed by Charlie Kirk, founder
of Turning Points USA Right, and he hires her almost immediately.
She starts cranking out these videos that really perform quite well,
that her videos really go viral. Videos where she's doing
things like dismissing the twenty seventeen White supremacist Unite the
Right rally in Charlottesville. Alex Jones gets her to co
(10:42):
host some of his info war shows. She's doing stints
on Fox News as a paid commentator, like business is
booming for Candice Owens from this turn.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, this is around when I became aware of her.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yes, in twenty twenty one, she joins up with the
Daily Wire. There was so much fanfare around them higher Candace,
like it was a big deal she moved to Nashville. Yeah,
fun fact, there was even a House joint resolution House
Joint Resolution three fifty, a resolution in the Tennessee government
to congratulate Candace Owens are relocating to Tennessee and for
(11:14):
her work at Daily Wired. That reads whereas Miss Owens
has earned the admiration and respect of millions of Americans
through her activism in support of President Trump as a
black woman and her perceptive criticism of creeping socialism and
leftist political tyranny.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Very cool stuff.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, imagine it being like a joint resolution in your
local government when you move someplace.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
The Governor of Tennessee was like super excited when the
Daily Wire relocated their headquarters to Tennessee and brought in
all these people. Like there was there was like so
many like private dinners meetings. There was like a like
a number of resolutions welcoming the Daily Wire to Tennessee.
In this like twenty twenty one period as they were
just starting to like launch their own extreming service website,
(12:01):
which is why they recruited Candace is because they were
looking for content creators to fill out their slate.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
So you would think that this should be like a
match made in heaven, right, smooth sailing. They need insidiary
content creators. She's an insidiary content creator. Should be a
match made in heaven. Perfect Not quite, because things end
in like this really messy public fallout just a few
years later. So I know that you've done episodes on
(12:27):
this from my perspective, and I would love to know
what you think. It's not one hundred percent clear what
went down, but the public friction between Candace Owens and
Ben Shapiro, one of the founders of Daily Wire, it
seemed to be like related to reactions around the situation
in Gaza.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Yeah, totally so.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Ben Shapiro is Jewish and Owens, as we said, has
said and done like a lot of anti Semitic stuff,
like a lot and.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Like actual Adesemitic stuff like that people use that as
a way to like shut down like very very admirable,
like like like Propelstinian like activism. No, like Canda owns
just is anti semitic, and this it's like the same
thing with like Jackson Hinkel, and she made it like
an escalating series of anti semitic claims after October seventh,
(13:17):
which which slowly kind of like broke with the company
and ben like more and more and more of over
series of a few months. Yes, and it's it's it's
funny because like it also kind of mirrors this like
online fight she had with Stephen Crowder like a year
or so prior when Daily Wire was trying to recruit him,
and then she got informed about like how like abusive
(13:38):
he was to his wife, and then she went on
like a media blitz like against him as like as
he was in negotiations like with the Daily Wire. She's
like very willing to like stir shit up, like even
if it like goes against her own interests or the
interests of like whatever company she works for, Like she
is she is absolutely willing to like make like some
kind of like chaotic spectacle regardless of her own like
(13:59):
you know, financial security.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I guess yes, like she I'm so glad that you
mentioned that she is not afraid to get down and
dirty in public and I do think, like, you know,
as a black woman who works with a lot of
white men, I would imagine that she's probably thinking, like,
I have to have some kind of decorum. I don't
want anyone to say that I'm being a crazy black
woman or whatever.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
She's it seems like she has no such qualms.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Like she is like I will, I will make this
a public, messy fight, and I am not afraid to
make a genuine spectacle of myself. Yeah, and so it
is really important to note that, like, as you said,
she wasn't just like criticizing the Israeli States. She was
like getting into like blood lible and like deep conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah, no, it was. There was some really nasty posts.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, Like one of the things that she said, she's
claimed that Judaism was quote a pedophile centric religion that
believes in demons and child sacrifice, and that she was
waking people up to the fact that pedophiles are in power, like.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Not great, not good, not good.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
So, as you said, like this starts to become like
a public feud toward her employer. She wrote on Twitter,
no one can serve two masters, and ended her post
writing you cannot serve both God and money, which Ben Shapiro,
her boss, tweets like quote tweeted, oh my god, Like, Candice,
if you feel that taking money from the Daily Wire
(15:23):
somehow that comes between you and God, by all means quit,
Like messy is there.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's crazy that instead of having like a company meeting,
they were just doing this on Twitter dot com.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Oh my god, and my messy ass was eating it up.
I was like, keep fighting, let him fight.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Oh yeah, no, absolutely, I'm totally willing to like watch this,
watch this go down.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I do not want to get involved, right right right.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Owens like went on Tuck Her Carlson Show and said
that Ben Shapiro was quote acting unprofessional and emotionally unhinged
for weeks now. She said that Shapiro quote crossed a
certain line. When you come for scripture and read yourself
into it, I will not talk it.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Very cool.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah, So, at one point, Owen's tweets that she wants
Ben Shapiro to have a public like debate with her,
moderated by podcaster Patrick Bett Davide.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Ben Shapiro was having none of this.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
He tweets, Candice, I can see why you'd want to
hide behind a moderator, particularly one who said we should
rename our company quote Daily Jewish Wire just yesterday, No
Jesus one on one Monday at five, we can sit
down and have a healthy debate like adult and will
live stream it on x and YouTube. Take it or
leave it as to the true reason why you didn't
respond to my offer to sit down with you and
(16:34):
discuss these issues publicly or privately back in February, I
have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Like, this is employer employee going at it on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I can't believe I'm taking Ben Shapiro's side here, not
just because he's Ben Shapiro, but also because he's an employer.
But it's a really it's a really tough situation here.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, I feel the same way, because, like, it's just
not a great look to have somebody that you just
hired to all this fanfare come actually like this on Twitter,
like and I think, I mean, this is just my opinion,
so like take that for what it's worth, just as
somebody who has worked in media and been around the block.
The reason why I'm not comfortable saying like their feud
was entirely based on Owens's anti Semitic comments and behavior
(17:16):
is that she just went so hard and so public
that something to me, I almost wonder if there was
like a contract dispute here, but like she was like, oh,
I can make more money on my own, totally gotta
get out of this contract or something, because like it
just doesn't smell right.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I mean, yeah, if she had like an inclination that
she could afford to lose his job because she might
make more money on her own, then yeah, absolutely that
would that would allow her to push this further than
what she might otherwise might. Like there's been a lot
of a lot of discussion in the right wing contents
fear about like the Daily Wires fairly restrictive contracts despite
still getting paid like tens of millions of dollars, there
(17:50):
is like restrictions on like what happens when you lose
monetization because the Daily Wires like a company trying to
make a profit, So totally, I think there could absolutely
be other financial stuff going on here. I think it's
more like an interlocking series of issues rather than just
one thing or another.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yes, So after Rabbi Shmooley Boteach criticized Owens for her
defenses of Kanye West. Owens liked to tweet asking Boteach
if he was quote drunk on Christian blood again.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
And I guess that was the final straw.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
A few days later, Daily Wire and Candace Owens ended
their relationship, with Owen's tweeting the rumors are true, I
am finally free.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
So that's what happened with her and Daily Wire. So
where is she now? Well, this is where the story
gets interesting because I had not heard from Candace Owens
in a minute, and my reintroduction to her happened recently,
and when I was trying to make sense of the
dispute between two Hollywood A listers, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
So the issue between Blake and Justin it's a little
(19:03):
bit complicated and ongoing, but it's actually a pretty interesting
story that includes a lot of things that I enjoy,
like how celebrities use media and how social media platforms
can be weaponized for or against specific people. Email correspondence
where people make themselves look terrible in writing because they
do not expect those emails to be in a deposition
later like that is my favorite thing in the world, like,
(19:24):
please continue to put your wrongdoing in writing so that
my nosey ask can read it later and be like,
ooh messy. So I do encourage like folks to read
up on it because it does go beyond just like
two celebrities having a feud, but you don't really need
to know the specifics for our purposes. The quick and
dirty version is that Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni were
(19:45):
in a movie adaptation of the very popular novel by
Colleen Hoover called It Starts with Us. In December, Lively
filed a legal complaint against Baldoni, accusing him of sexual
harassment and starting a smear campaign against her. Baldoni strongly
denies that and has sued her and response, both camps
have released information like emails, text messages, and video that
attempting to make the other look bad.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
So it has kind of.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Turned into one of those ink blot tests that changes
depending on whose version you buy. Version one is that
Blake Lively was being sexually harassed on set by a
fake feminist ally who is actually an abusive man, or
version two that Blake Lively is an egomaniac who was
using her star power and a list celebrity network like
(20:29):
her husband Ryan Reynolds from Deadpool, to control the narrative
around her being a nightmare on set and steamrolling everybody
on this project. Cool, yes, and so it's what's interesting
about this to me is that it's one of those
stories where algorithmically it depends on what silo or what
pocket of the Internet you're at sure to determine, like,
(20:50):
what version of this story you're getting, Like much like
Johnny Dep's deformation Losses.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Sounds too much like the thing, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Exactly exactly, and so like for whatever reason, TikTok thinks
I hate Blake Lively and want to pour over every
nuance of how she is a fraud, right, like, but
someone else's TikTok might be like, no, Blake Lively, we
should be supporting her. Like. It's one of those situations
where just depending on where you are on the Internet,
you might get a very different impression of the public
(21:18):
sentiment leaning one brayer or another.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, yeah, this is all the types of things I
try to avoid learning about at almost all costs. So
I guess I need not you, you know.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
So I was trying to get to the bottom of
it because I kept hearing about it, like everyone was
talking about it. So I'm talking to my cousins, who
I would lovingly describe as normies, and that they are
not super online.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
It's like they're not like you and me. They're not
like deep into the depths of extremism or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
No, they're not watching like the Daily Wire for fun
slash four works, yes, yea.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
And my cousins are like, oh my god, there is
this black girl journalist who has been following everything and
breaking it down. She has all the tea will tag you.
That journalist was Candace Owens. Okay, so all right, you
know Candace has been making so many videos off of this,
and like her coverage, if you, coverage in quotes, has
(22:12):
really taken off online. As The Cut put it in
a piece called Candace Owens has gone mainstream. They write,
the right wing commentator's coverage of the Blake Lively justin
Boldannie case has reached millions of viewers. Owen's podcast was
hours and hours of analysis of the case, deep dives
into court filings, tabloid news stories, even Ryan Reynolds's recent
SNL Fifthist anniversary special appearance.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
One listener said, she's really been.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
Able to go in and pinpoint discrepancies and some of
the things Blake Lively ha said, rather than us having
to go through it on our own.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Ah. Of course it's the woman who's lying about being
sexually harassed. Of course.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
One listener of her podcast says she recognizes that Owens
seems to have a pro Boldanni bias, but she doesn't
care because quote, she's urging us to look past the
fact that this is not a feminist issue at all,
that it's about getting justice or whoever is being wronged here.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
She's uniting the left and the right. The right wing Women's.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Magazine also published a headline about this, saying how Candice
Owens is uniting conservatives and liberal with her it ends
with US coverage. So her coverage of this dispute has
really allowed her to attract a lot more viewers beyond
her like normal right wing extremist base, which has generally
been like a lot of white men like that who
(23:26):
was really listening to her content before when she was
with Daily Wire. Now she has really branched out. So
like normies like my cousins who have no idea who
Owens is, have no idea her background, her past, the
work that she has done, and just think like, oh,
she's a normal entertainment journalist, like digging and getting the dirt.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I know she's doing this like on her podcast. I
assume YouTube as well. She also just like trying to
like flood TikTok, trying to flood like Instagram reaches. Is
this kind of part of how she's trying to like
expand her reach.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
It is like she's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
And then she has her longer form podcast YouTube, but
then clips of her like you know, breaking down the
top lies or top inaccuracies and things that Blake Lively
has said. Those go super viral on social media. The
short clips yeah okay, and all of this has been
just gangbusters for her growth and engagement.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Here's how A cut put it.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Since Owens started covering the Lively Baldani case, her YouTube
channel has exploded in popularity, allowing her to attract a
much larger fan base than the audience of hardcore conservatives
she is amassed over the years. Each episode about Lively
racks up at least one point five million views. In
the past month alone, Owen's has a masked more than
four hundred and fifty thousand new subscribers on YouTube, and
(24:40):
her total video views have quadrupled since this time last year.
This is according to data from the platforms Social Blade,
oh No. Over the past three months, her audience on
YouTube has almost started skewing sixty five percent female, according
to data provided by a spokesperson, a market shift from
her past fan base.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
So yeah, she's loading in popularity.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
She's everywhere, and now she's attracting like normy women who
are just coming in for this celebrity dispute.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Yeah, that's probably not gonna end well huh.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Well, I don't think it will end well.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
You know, I was like racking my brain trying to
figure out, like, why has this story taken off so
much for Owen's And there are a couple of reasons.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I think this is like working for her. One.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
I hate to say it, but she is actually genuinely
interesting to listen to. You know, when she was a
progressive voice online, she definitely was somebody who had a
point of view and a clear voice and a perspective,
and that really comes through when she's breaking down Blake
Lively in these videos. She has a way of speaking
that really makes you pay attention and signals to the listener,
(25:45):
like this person is really breaking it down. It's the
same reason why on TikTok or social media when someone
is like story time, we're like I'm about to tell
you all the details of something. Those videos always perform
very well on social media. And I think that Owens
is just very good at knowing how to hold somebody's
attention online.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Like I have to say it, sure.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I mean she's been doing the content churn for almost
a decade now, Like, yeah, you you do get good
at it on like a technical proficiency level.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Also, you know, we just love good old fashioned misogyny.
And if that misogyny can be laced with like a
conspiracy theory, oh, I.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Think that's it's even better.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
So, like I think that part of this is just
like social media platforms are always going to amplify misogyny.
I would argue that things like misogyny, transphobia, massage, noire,
or racism, all of that is like baked into the
experience of showing up online as a feature, not a bug.
And I think that Omens takes it even further because
she is breaking it down, like she's uncovering some conspiracy.
(26:50):
Like it's not just let's talk about about Blake Lively,
it's I'm uncovering the web of lies and I'm gonna
I'm gonna expose Blake Lively's dark truth, right, and so
like of course that's gonna take off.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And she does gain this element of authority because she's
a woman talking about this. It makes men feel better
about being misogynistic because a woman's telling them it's okay
to I mean, this is this is the same thing
that she was able to weaponize for all of her,
like like you know, anti Black Lives Matter stuff for
all of her, like like racism isn't real things. She
tries to use that to her advantage, mostly to make
(27:24):
like white members of her audience like feel good about
their own racism because a black woman told them it's
actually okay and like that that's been like a big
part of her career the past few years exactly that.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And I think like she really understands that the inviting
power of taking what you might think of as like
a contrarian stance on something like yeah, totally, like after
the Me Too movement, how many women got engagement by
taking a contrarian stance right, Like, I think going against
the conventional attitude that says like, oh, we have to
automatically support the woman in this in this dispute probably
(27:59):
make people tuning into Omens's breakdowns feel like they're like
free thinkers who are going against the grain, you know,
by taking an unpopular opinion, which I do think connects
to her more odious stances on things like trans people
and women and Jewish people.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
No, I mean, like you see the same thing with
like you know, like the gaze against groomers thing right
wing trans influencers de trans influencers. It's the same, like gambit,
and certainly I think like, yeah, like your identification of
her as like a professional contrarian is like very very
key to her success exactly.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I also think like part of the reason why people
are attracted to conspiracy theories is that it allows for
like fantasy world building. And I mean I really see
the ways that she injects that into her coverage, even
the word coverage I put that in worlds because like
she is like a wild person to her coverage is
like also wild. She does not adhere to, as she
(28:53):
puts it, quote a traditional style.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Of reporting, you know, I'll take her word for that one,
you know what, I'll believe her on that single point.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, I believe her. I believe that. You know, she
amplifies rumors. And even once.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
She read a letter that she said that she got
from Blake Lively's husband, Ryan Reynolds, his acting coach when
he was twelve, and Tone Owens, his acting coach, said
that Ryan Reynolds was an obnoxious kid.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You know what, I also believe it.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I Oh, I have no trouble believing that. But like
her coverage, it includes like side.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Characters, Yeah, things that have no bearing on this whatsoever.
I mean, yeah, I feel like this, this focus on
like this, like conspiratorial ben is the same. She's using
the same tactics she did for her Black Lives Matter
documentary for like most of her political work. Like it.
It's she's using the same tactics over and over again,
and eventually she like reaches this like stress point or
this like threshold where she cannot see a path forward
(29:50):
or she can't see a way to surpass it, and
then she does a pivot. This happened with her progressive blog,
this happened even at the Daily Wire. She does not
she doesn't work with turning point us Sadie more and
like this this new pivot is learning. Hey, it's sup
super lucrative to be like a tabloid entertainment quote unquote journalist.
Very easy, super lucrative. And all of the tactics you
(30:11):
learned on the right wing media sphere work great here,
like all of this, like conspiratorial thinking really uh, a
disregard for like like facts and evidence works perfect for
this sort of like rumor based reporting, and it spreads
like crazy, And yeah, it spreads across political lines. You
don't you aren't just targeting the mega people or like
(30:31):
the far right. This this can be so much more
broad to like the giant audience of like you know,
quote unquote, like a political people go to these platforms
for a form of like of like escapism and entertainment
rather than just hearing about politics. Yet again, because that's
you know, very very tiring.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, and I think in my mind all of it
is sort of sort of connected. Like Ben Shapiro, nobody
cared more about celebrities or talked more about celebrities than
Ben Shapiro. He would love to be like, I don't
care what Hollywood is doing but he was obsessed with
like Beyonce and Meg the Stallion, Like it was just
like a negative obsession.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Like yeah, you know, anti fandom is still fandom.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
When you make video after video about how much you
don't like Meg thea Stallion in a kind of way,
you are a fan, just in the opposite direction. And
so I think that Candace Owens really took that and
learned how to perfect it because she is much I
think that she is much better at this than Ben
Shapiro is.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Like the evidence being that, like.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Her YouTube channel is exploding with people who probably would
never watch any any of Ben Shapiro's content.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
The big bummer for me is that the Daily Wires
first film, Lady Ballers left us on a cliffhanger with
Candace Owns and Matt Walsh sitting in a car talking
about how Matt Walsh planned this entire like plot of
the film as like as like some kind of scheme
or like social experiment, and you know, it was implied
(31:55):
there would be more, you know, it was like a
you know, like Avengers Nick Fury type post credits scene,
and now we're never gonna learn what Candice Owans and
Matt Walsh get up to now because she's left the company.
She's now doing her own thing. So now we just
have this dangling plot thread that's just gonna bug me forever,
Like what does the candae Owan's character at the end
of Lady Ballers do next. I'm gonna be thinking about
(32:17):
this for like years.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
America deserves closure, we deserve to know. Just putting that
out there, I think we do deserve closure.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
I just think my closure is gonna be a little bit different.
I am.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I'm very fine having all of these plot threads wrapped
up quite quickly, but I do not see that in
the cards immediately.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
So in terms of where she's at now, like you know,
my question is like, has Owens has this kind of
like mainstream audience that she's been able to amass.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Has she changed her views? She is she trying to
do a rebrand or a pay it.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
In an interview, she said, in terms of my perspective,
I haven't changed anything. I've been anti METO since long
before it was cool.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Sure, I mean that can be true. It's also true
that she is getting better at propaganda and widening her footprint, which, yeah,
then once her audience gets bigger, she might be able
to slip in more things that I would find on
savory to a larger audience over time. But she also
might be content to keep growing that and be slightly
less off putting in the meantime. But no, like there's
(33:30):
also just a huge audience for like the anti woke backlash,
anti metwo stuff right now. Like that's kind of that's
kind of like the new mainstream Frankly, so I am
certain that she's going to try to continue to like
flex that and grow that in the in the next
few months years.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, so I agree with you. I believe Owens when
she says that, like her stances have not changed much. Yeah,
easy to be like, oh, well, she's pivoting to go
mainstream now that she has these like women in her
audience who are interested in celebrity. And honestly, you can
sort of see some of this in changes to her
physical appearance, Like she was sort of known for having
(34:06):
very severe hair, the joke being that she had alienated
herself so much from her fellow black people that like,
no black person was going to do her hair and
that's why it looks that way. But lately you've really
seen this like softening she's kind of going for like
a softer public look.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
She is pivoting to different kinds of programming.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
She's branched out into doing a book club for paying
subscribers and some kind of a fitness program.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
That makes sense. Yeah, totally, like the health Guru fitness
entertainment bubble. Yeah that's huge.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
That's such a good grift. She's gonna make so much money.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, yeah, she is.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
But I really.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Agree with you, gaire that, like, I think that these
new followers are certainly going to be walked down a
pipeline that includes her extremist attitude just using celebrity scandal
as a hook, because, like as you said, celebrity scandals
and celebrity stories are disconsidered fluff for a lot of people,
Like people who care about extremist content and ideology are
(35:03):
maybe not seeing that as a space that they need
to pay too close of attention to about these stories
that you might see on the cover of an US weekly.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
But these stories actually.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Can be used to tap into extremist ideologies and unleash
them in a whole new audience. I'm like, yeah, like
you were saying, if you are just like watching a
podcast because you're want to be entertained about a story
about two celebrities, you might not have your like bullshit
detector up to be like, wait, is this extremist content
because it's it's seen and treated as a less charge space,
(35:33):
and so you know that line of thinking that says
that you know, this is just fluff. It doesn't really matter.
What happens in celebrity news is not that it's incorrect.
It is dangerous because it lends itself to people being
more susceptible to it when extremist content is slipped in
without even really realizing it.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I mean, and like that relates even to like the
originator of this gamer gate stuff and the whole like
anti woke like media fandom content sphere right where so
much of like the anti book backlash has been built
on people complaining that Star Wars is two woke. Now,
there's too many women in movies, there's too many black
people in commercials, where do all the white people go,
(36:10):
There's too many gay people in TV, there's too many
trans people in TV, and like that is it is
definitely focused on by the rest of the Daily Wire goons,
and you can very easily pivot back to that sort
of cultural commentary after you're done talking about Blake Lively,
like this is this is a very small jump where
you're still talking about the entertainment industry, but with this
(36:32):
like anti woke framing of like, you know, why is
all these minorities here, why are they pushing transgenderism on kids?
You know, whether that be talking about you know, transactors
in the business, whether you be talking about you know,
like female lead or like diversity casting, like all all
that kind of stuff that especially Candice can use her
like contrarian position to speak on authority about talking about
(36:55):
why are you recasting these legacy characters to be people
of color? Or why is of a woman the lead
of this thing when it should be actually a man?
You know, just like very very basic stuff that's been
a part of like the YouTube slop for a decade now,
but it's still like still takes in a lot of
a lot of clips and it is it is a
lot of like the Daily Wire and like right wing
(37:17):
content still still does it's all this like weird like
culture war stuff. It's very very tightened with Hollywood. Like
you were saying about how like Ben Shapiro claims to
you know, like hate Hollywood. He's trying to build his
own alternative to it, but he can't stop talking about it,
like he can't stop complaining about Disney's snow White. And
I can see Candice doing like the exact same thing,
(37:38):
but now with like an honestly like a bigger, a bigger,
more like a political audience that's much more malleable and
can be shaped around these like larger cultural trends. When
you think about this like perception of this backlash against wokeness.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I absolutely think that's what we're gonna see.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
And I can tell you we can finish by I
can tell you about her next big pet issue, which is, yeah,
championing Harvey Weinstein, who she is no.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
No, no, So.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
She's been interviewing him since twenty twenty two, according to
The Hollywood Reporter. She explains, while he is quote an
immoral man, he is also.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Am a justice system, a victim, sure.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Victim, And she says, I've always had faith in our
court system, and now it's beginning to change. Now I'm
beginning to wonder if our courtrooms have been politicized. And
the thing that's made her think this is Harvey.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Weinstein it's wild.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
I mean, like Ben Shapiro is starting his own campaign
to free Derek Chauvin. I think there's gonna be a
lot of pressure on the courts right now. I mean
you're seeing that from like Elon and Trump as well.
I think undermining the authority of the court I think
is actually kind of part of this larger concerted issue
amongst the entirety of the right right now, because this
is like their biggest remaining roadblock to achieving their right
(38:51):
wing utopia is the court system. And I you know,
this may not be intentional on every person's part, like
Ben Shapiro and the zones aren't aren't like intentionally collaborating
on this, but they may be copying each other's trends.
And if they're seeing this this wider push across a
large amount of like the right wing content people to
put pressure on various aspects of the courts, including by
(39:14):
using like high profile cases like Harvey Weinstein or Derek Shulvin,
that's that's not a great sign. And I can I
can definitely see them trying to trying to do that
in conjunction. I guess yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
I think we're going to see a lot more of it.
Candice has a series coming out called Harvey Speaks that
apparently tells his side of the story, So look out
for that. And I think that's the thing, like I
think with her content, Like when asked why it was
she thought that her Blake Lively stuff was really taking off,
she says that she believes her new fans on the
(39:47):
left quote have just kind of gotten whise to the
fact that maybe women lie just like men. And so
I just implore folks that, like, even if you think
that you're just like retaking in this content because you're
following fluffy celebrity news or whatever, it is so easy
to go from maybe women lie to maybe women can't
be trusted, or maybe women shouldn't work and have jobs,
(40:07):
a stance at Candace herself is actually advocated for, despite
very obviously being a working woman. And so I don't
think we should trust Candace Owens even if she does
this rebrand, Like, no, don't let her rebrand herself as
like just a celebrity investigative journalist.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Like she put all of these odious views.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Out into the world, and I don't want her to
be able to like soften it or you know, soften
what it is that she advocates for, what it is
that she believes in, if that is truly what she's
trying to do to just sort of like a mass
of more mainstream audience.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
So don't fall for it.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
If you're if you're getting tagged in Candace Owens videos,
just know what she actually is about.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
I mean, yeah, I think I think for our audience,
it's it's more likely that you'll have like family members
who are going to be finding this stuff. And you
should find a list of sources. Maybe this episode included,
but probably you know, you can find some articles as
well that think of some background on Candace's history and
previous beliefs, can pick and choose some of her most
(41:04):
like outrageous claims. So when your aunt sends you a
video about how Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are kidnapping
children or something, you can you can maybe inform Aunt
Judy that maybe you shouldn't listen to everything this Candice
Owan's character is saying.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, this Candice Owans might not be on the money,
might not be on the level. No, yeah, inform an
Auntie today, Yes that's right, and that's all I got.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
That's it. I don't know how. You usually end these episodes.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Usually by getting sad, but I don't know. This has
been been an an interesting dive into the life of
a woman with many, many careers, many a chameleon, many personalities,
a chameleon, a chameleon of contrarianism.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Oh, I like that. If I ever write a book
about her, that'll be the title.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Jesus Christ. Oh what a nightmare that would be. Man
scary Bridget Where can people find you online?
Speaker 2 (42:05):
You can find me on my podcast. There are our
girls on the internet on this network. iHeartRadio. I mean,
you can find me on Instagram at bridget Ran DC
or on Blue Sky at bridget Time.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Well, thank you so much, good luck in d C.
Thanks for holding holding the line out there as Elon
puts a kildozer through your entire city.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
We're doing our best.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
I would would love to talk again about a DC update.
Maybe maybe next time you come on the show. My God, yes, please,
there we go, Well we will, we will talk then goodbye, everybody.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
It could happen.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot
com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
You listen to podcasts can now find sources for it
could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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