September 5, 2022 • 16 mins
It's time to dive back into the virtual listener mailbox! Topics include phone games, misogyny, makeovers, student debt, trauma, and Star Wars.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephan
never told your production of iHeart Radio, and today we
have a listener of Maile episode for you. Some really
fantastic ones that were excited to share. As always, thank you,
(00:26):
thank you, thank you so much for taking the time
to send these things, because we love them and we
really appreciate it. Yes we do. And we're gonna start
off with Jennifer because I feel like she hears my
heart with this email. I really do. She wrote in
your episode about story game apps, you explored the ginger options.
I think as usual, great episode of points. Thank you
(00:47):
very much. My experience with a certain type of those
games is maybe tangentital, but it left the lasting impression.
L O L. I thought i'd share. I never did
download any of these, but I remember the advertising blizz
for for sure. I was playing a lot of word Blitz,
a Boggle style game and about the only game on
Facebook I played years ago. I was addicted to Candy
Crush and the one where you own a zoo and
(01:07):
collect animals. I don't remember this one, she continues on.
I play Animal Crossing too currently. Maybe it's a kid's game.
I don't know it's cute. It's not a kid's game.
It's not a kid's game. It's still that little quick
and she says, I like it. I'm forty four, right
here with you, right here with you, Jennifer. So she continues,
it was probably two, though the year is kind of fuzzy,
(01:27):
and every ad that came up was one of those
choose your own adventure style things with a woman and
a ridiculous, somewhat misogynist a crisis over the one where
there's a guy and his wife and he wants to
cross the river, or there's pipe filling up with water
and you have to close the valves to make water
flow instead of green gunk, or the kitchen one where
stuff is breaking and you have three options like wrench, fire, extinguisher,
(01:47):
water hose, choosing the wrong order maybe burns everything down.
And in the ads they never take you through the
best path. Of course, I get it. Yeah, that's just
part of the reason it gives me. Is it that hard?
Isn't this hard new? Even I get the impulse to
just download it already to do the better outcome and
help those pitiful characters. It's kind of frustrating to watch
(02:08):
and some more misogynistics, but I'm definitely not here to
judge anyone who enjoys them liking and enjoying things. It's
complicated and we like what we like. Agreed. Also, no
hate for the story games. I love to choose your
own adventure books as a kid in the similar Commodore
Succeed board game a pirate adventure where the product was
always what do you want to do now? And you say,
go window or pick up bottle and you'd go on
(02:31):
a wild adventure hunting for treasure, which was sort of
along these lines. Yes, the genre. I wanted to ask
if you've seen or was in fact that what you're
talking about was the ones where the rather generic names.
I've been having trouble googling, and I haven't seen this
as in a while. Uh, like I just imagined it.
They're usually called choose your story, or makeover or story
just sort of not very descriptive words that don't bring
(02:52):
up the images so I can ask us about it.
You may have mentioned one of them, but yours for
sure sounded different or better than ones I've seen. Advertise,
I did find a few with similar graphics to what
I remember, and attached screenshots is always the woman in
some distress because she by her facial expression, I thinks
she looks ugly and needs to fix it to please
a man, or to go somewhere. Fancy the sequences they
(03:14):
take you through while interrupting my word game, we're always horrendous.
I'm willing to concede that they might not all be
like this, that it's just advertising tactics. She got harry
legs and armpits. There's a big green cloud around her.
I guess to say she stinks. She's wearing tattered clothing,
her hairs are right, et cetera. It tells you your
boyfriend is coming. You have to be ready. You're giving
(03:36):
three options, like a razor, soap, and something else. The
simulation chooses razor, and it shaves a reverse mohawk down
the middle of her head, and she cries. So the
slick suited up guy pulls up in the sports car,
looks disgusted at her, and drives away, leaving her in tears.
Then you were invited to download L O L. I
get that marketing employe, you can do better for her
is tempting, but the barrage of similar games marketed at
(03:57):
a time, we were inside a lot and I was
asking myself a lot of things, For instance, who am
I shaving my legs for me? Or the patriarchy just
left a bad taste in my mouth at the time,
I think I see so few references to it that
a reference to these games on Twitter recently really caught
my eye. Maybe there's an article in the thread too,
but I feel like there should have been more chatter
about the possible misogyny. I don't know. Maybe no one
(04:20):
else was hitting the word blitz games as much as
I was during the pandemic. I don't know. Only my
husband among people I know, understood the reference. But now
because of that Twitter screenshot of the game where the
options for the woman are fixed a window or get
more bald, my husband, I just yelled more bald when
all the chances to something we have to decide all
suck equally badly. Yes, So, yes, I know exactly what
(04:42):
you're talking about, Jennifer, because I did get this makeover
game and I deleted it because it was obnoxious. But
it's like Match three games, and then after you build
up enough stars or points or whatever whatnot, you can
do a makeover. The one you're talking about has changed
their recent tactics because before when I downloaded it, it
was literally like, we need to fix up this shop.
(05:04):
She needs to sell to the customers. Let's get her ready.
And I was like, what is this And it was
always the I'm burning down the kitchen and I was like, no,
it can't be that hard. They got me, they got me,
But these have gotten worse where they are. Yes, they're
always thinking. You always choose the wrong outfits, and it's
always because the husband left you for another woman who
(05:25):
is so much hotter, and he literally pushes you aside.
It is awful. There's another game, but I haven't seen
I haven't played it, but like it's similar to this
where apparently, in order for this dude to get his fortune,
he has this very ugly girl quote unquote, and it's
literally she has facial hair and stinks and so you
(05:46):
can't fix that. There's no way to fix that. And
by the way, why do we need to fix that
for any of this? And what is the scenario in general?
And he's like, oh, you're so ugly, I have had
to leave you. He actually says that in the ad,
there's a lot and yes, as in fact, the Lily's
Garden that told you about that I love for a minute,
and I think Jennifer might understand they use that tactic
for a second, and I was like, wait, what where
the main character who is with this dude leaves her
(06:09):
for her uh, for the neighbor, which is not a
scenario in the game whatsoever. It never comes out. That's
never been a thing. So these Yeah, we definitely had
talked about Jennifer previously, how these as are doing something
new by doing literally a click baity story plot that
has nothing to do with the game, and this is
(06:29):
similar to that. Yeah, I mean that's I would love
to come back and talk about this more in depth,
because when I was reading this message, I would be like,
what she stinks and she has to shave her legs
and this is the game was It is so bad
because one of them is like, if you shave, if
you pick the wrong thing to shave her with, yeas
(06:51):
you shave your head. And I'm like what And I'm
going to say it's a little racist. I'm putting that
out there because a lot of the times the women
have long dreaded hair. But it's you know what I mean.
Like it's supposed to be dirty quote unquote, and I'm
like this still some white nonsense. This feels like some
white nonsense right here. Well, thanks for bringing this. I
(07:12):
I never Thismantha clearly has with you and I need
to talk. I think you guys are on the same
waveleng but I would love to come back and talk
about this. That's interesting. Um Kate wrote a few years back.
I heard the advice of saying I'm fine versus it's fine,
as by saying it's fine, you're dismissing the trauma as
not important. Uh and okay. The change of language, too,
(07:35):
I'm fine, shifts the narrative to you being okay without
undermining the trauma you've experienced. It really helps me shift
my thinking as women are taught to underplay their trauma
and make everyone else comfortable, even at their own detriment.
This language shift has also helped me stop this people pleasing.
I've emailed you a couple of times before, one about
Pooh and another about horror movies, as I love them
the movies not who. I have a ticket to see Bodies, Bodies,
(07:56):
Bodies and a Welsh horror movie called Feast. I'm also
going to a British horror film festival called fright Fest,
which is this weekend. Well, that sounds great, that all
sounds fun. I'm assuming it's in Britain, but I could
be wrong. I guess I couldn't assume. But this was
in response to something I said in the Happy Hour
where I thought my dad, the ghost of my dad
(08:17):
was haunting me, where I was like, it's fine, is
sign's fine? So this is this is good advice because
essentially that's what I meant. I'm fine. It's hard I
say it in that way that indicates I'm not, but
I mostly at my promise. Mm hmmm. So thank you
for that message, Helena wrote, I wanted to send another
(08:51):
raving fan letter on your recent episode of women and
student Debt. It spoke so much to me. I'm a
bit closer to Annie and age. So my collection of
student debt started a while ago. When I graduated in
two thousand five, I was only seventeen thousand dollars away
from four years at a private institution. What made my
debt bloom was that I had to go back for
a master's degree, not once, but twice. I wound up
(09:12):
with nearly eighty thousand dollars. I finished the first one
in two thousand eight, right before the economic crash, and
when that happened, I couldn't find work at all. I
couldn't even get a part time a retail gig because
they would look at my education and say, oh, you're
not going to stick around, So I couldn't find employment
to even make payments. When I finished the second masters,
inten it still took two full years to find a
(09:33):
job in my field. The really awful part with that
is that the job I did eventually get was only
part time at the time I was hired, and took
three years before I became a full time employee, and
only paid me at a rate that reflected the bachelor's degree,
not two masters. Of course, it's still more money than
I've ever made in my life, but I can't live
by myself, and I couldn't start saving for retirement until
I was thirty five. My only shining light in this
(09:56):
has been that all of my debt has been in
federal loans, so I have definitely been able to enjoy
the pay as you earn and the working in a
field that qualifies for the loan forgiveness. Program, if that
will even exist after I've made twenty payments. It's frustrating
to realize that I have carried this debt since I
was twenty two, but I couldn't even start to make
payments until I was thirty five, and it's supposed to
(10:16):
be forgiven after ten years of consistent payments. Maybe I've
definitely taken advantage of the break offered by the pandemic pause. However,
if I had ever refinanced my loans for a lower
interest rate, they would have become private loans and I
would have had to still make payments. Two other things
that have happened during this pause that have driven me
absolutely crazy, one of which is the sheer level of
(10:38):
uncertainty and misinformation I've been getting from the company that
owned my loans fed Loan in this case, I called
three different times at different points during this pause and
received different answers as to what was being covered in
the pause. One person told me that the pause would
pause the interest rate, the payment itself wouldn't be collected,
but that it would still count towards the loan forgiveness
(10:59):
program in terms of aim it. So they suggested that
the months where I was paused and not making a
payment would still be counted at the end toward my loan.
This doesn't make sense, but this is what I was told.
My loan was also sold during this pause, and I've
heard almost nothing from the new lender. I still don't
know what is going on with it. Mostly I'm using
(11:19):
the pause to be able to save money and even
look into getting a car and starting up a college
savings program for my niece. Once this whole thing ends,
I don't know what I'm going to do, so thank
you so much for covering this topic. I work in
a higher education and really wonder about the damage that's
being done to young people, especially women of color, when
it comes to loans. I'm even more concerned about the
graduate education because really, once you get past that bachelor's
(11:42):
there's very little in terms of postgraduate funding other than loans.
It's a vicious cycle, right um, And I'm right with you, Elena,
Like I did this. My loan was exactly the same
as yours where it came from fed Lows. It got sold.
I don't know what is happening. It just went away.
It just went away for like a year, and I
was like, where do I even access this. How did
(12:02):
this go? And of course the FED loan is a
conversation about how the fact that they could not make
a deal with the federal government, so therefore they decided
to just distribute all of the uh the different loans out,
which happens a lot, which I'm finding out with my
house UH payments as it's been sold three times already
and I've only had it for three months, y'all three months?
(12:23):
Like this doesn't make sense. I don't quite understand it.
I got panic moments because I was like, wait, did
they said that there was no interest? But wait, are
they saying there's no interest right now? Or have they
been counting the interest where much like with all this
stuff that was happening with rentals, they're like, you can't
penalize renters, they can't pay it, blah blah blah. But
when it came back they suddenly had an interest rates
that said, oh, but we were keeping tabs of it
and this is how much you owe an interest um
(12:45):
and then backtracking it. So there's no promise that that's
not going to happen. As we know, there is some
forgiveness happening, but it seems minimal in comparison to who
is helping. This is where we were talking about. This
is structural racism because it's only really helps people of
higher status anyway, because when we see the people who
take out that amount of loans ten to twenty is
most likely going to be in the white community, Asian
(13:07):
communities actually too, So it's very obvious that it's not
helping people of color. Is not helping everyone is helping
a certain amount of people, of course, not something is
better than nothing. To get that as one of those
who are like, Okay, well at least I get it,
I guess to a certain extent that does talk about
that bigger conversation. And then, yeah, graduate programs are expensive, expensive,
(13:30):
and if you're in a work field like teaching or
social work, it's not it's almost not worth it, but
you have to have it because your degree seems so
without the master's level. Yeah, and I'm really glad you
brought up this point in this this letter, because um,
I had a friend once who told me like, essentially
she was going to stop short of getting her masters
(13:53):
because she knew she wouldn't be able to find as
many jobs because people didn't want to pay for her
having the masters, but she still needed the experience, which
I was like, that's that's ridiculous, shady. This whole process
is shady for sure, and feels like that that are
specialized by marginalized communities do require it more so than others.
Is a thing. It's a thing. We'll come back to it.
(14:16):
But moving on, Maureen wrote, I was so excited to
see your episode on Rogue one in my feed. That's
my favorite Star Wars movie and one of my two
current fandoms that I write fan fic for. Samantha will
be happy to know that Everybody Lives and Nobody Dies
is the most popular tag for the fandom, and in fact,
Rogue one is the third highest fandom with a tag
(14:37):
on AO three. I do appreciate this, thank you. Basically,
everyone finished the movie and went so the last ten
minutes didn't happen, right right, agreed. Everyone also went to
in Bays are Totally married, which I love that too. Anyway,
I enjoyed hearing your thoughts, especially Samantha screaming I don't
I was a friend of me because I was having
(14:59):
a marine. It's front of these love the show and
keep it up. Yes, well I do appreciate that no
one dies in the Fani thank you for that. But
I feel like this could be the beginning of a
friend of the situation. I love that it's the third
highest fandom with that tag that I mean, that makes sense.
I wanted to include this one. I we mentioned it
before in past episodes because people did get a kick
(15:19):
out of you your sufferings. Metho still not happy, but
Roguan is in theater is back in theaters right now
because the show and Or is coming out that is related. Uh,
and it just broke a record where it became. It
is now in the top ten all time releases of
IMAX movies. So hey, hey, you may not like it,
(15:42):
but that's I will not be there. I immediately sent
you a text and was like, you're going to be
first in line, right silence exactly, Yes. Well, thanks so
much to all of the listeners who have written to
us uh in this message. Thank you for letting us
read your letters and it to everyone who has written
as and we love getting these messages. So if you
(16:04):
would like to write to us, you can. Our email
is Steffania mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at bomb Stuff podcast or
Instagram and Stuff I Never told You. Thanks as always
to our super producer Christina, thank you, and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I Never Told you the protection
of iHeart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio,
you can visit the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephan
never told your production of iHeart Radio, and today we
have a listener of Maile episode for you. Some really
fantastic ones that were excited to share. As always, thank you,
(00:26):
thank you, thank you so much for taking the time
to send these things, because we love them and we
really appreciate it. Yes we do. And we're gonna start
off with Jennifer because I feel like she hears my
heart with this email. I really do. She wrote in
your episode about story game apps, you explored the ginger options.
I think as usual, great episode of points. Thank you
(00:47):
very much. My experience with a certain type of those
games is maybe tangentital, but it left the lasting impression.
L O L. I thought i'd share. I never did
download any of these, but I remember the advertising blizz
for for sure. I was playing a lot of word Blitz,
a Boggle style game and about the only game on
Facebook I played years ago. I was addicted to Candy
Crush and the one where you own a zoo and
(01:07):
collect animals. I don't remember this one, she continues on.
I play Animal Crossing too currently. Maybe it's a kid's game.
I don't know it's cute. It's not a kid's game.
It's not a kid's game. It's still that little quick
and she says, I like it. I'm forty four, right
here with you, right here with you, Jennifer. So she continues,
it was probably two, though the year is kind of fuzzy,
(01:27):
and every ad that came up was one of those
choose your own adventure style things with a woman and
a ridiculous, somewhat misogynist a crisis over the one where
there's a guy and his wife and he wants to
cross the river, or there's pipe filling up with water
and you have to close the valves to make water
flow instead of green gunk, or the kitchen one where
stuff is breaking and you have three options like wrench, fire, extinguisher,
(01:47):
water hose, choosing the wrong order maybe burns everything down.
And in the ads they never take you through the
best path. Of course, I get it. Yeah, that's just
part of the reason it gives me. Is it that hard?
Isn't this hard new? Even I get the impulse to
just download it already to do the better outcome and
help those pitiful characters. It's kind of frustrating to watch
(02:08):
and some more misogynistics, but I'm definitely not here to
judge anyone who enjoys them liking and enjoying things. It's
complicated and we like what we like. Agreed. Also, no
hate for the story games. I love to choose your
own adventure books as a kid in the similar Commodore
Succeed board game a pirate adventure where the product was
always what do you want to do now? And you say,
go window or pick up bottle and you'd go on
(02:31):
a wild adventure hunting for treasure, which was sort of
along these lines. Yes, the genre. I wanted to ask
if you've seen or was in fact that what you're
talking about was the ones where the rather generic names.
I've been having trouble googling, and I haven't seen this
as in a while. Uh, like I just imagined it.
They're usually called choose your story, or makeover or story
just sort of not very descriptive words that don't bring
(02:52):
up the images so I can ask us about it.
You may have mentioned one of them, but yours for
sure sounded different or better than ones I've seen. Advertise,
I did find a few with similar graphics to what
I remember, and attached screenshots is always the woman in
some distress because she by her facial expression, I thinks
she looks ugly and needs to fix it to please
a man, or to go somewhere. Fancy the sequences they
(03:14):
take you through while interrupting my word game, we're always horrendous.
I'm willing to concede that they might not all be
like this, that it's just advertising tactics. She got harry
legs and armpits. There's a big green cloud around her.
I guess to say she stinks. She's wearing tattered clothing,
her hairs are right, et cetera. It tells you your
boyfriend is coming. You have to be ready. You're giving
(03:36):
three options, like a razor, soap, and something else. The
simulation chooses razor, and it shaves a reverse mohawk down
the middle of her head, and she cries. So the
slick suited up guy pulls up in the sports car,
looks disgusted at her, and drives away, leaving her in tears.
Then you were invited to download L O L. I
get that marketing employe, you can do better for her
is tempting, but the barrage of similar games marketed at
(03:57):
a time, we were inside a lot and I was
asking myself a lot of things, For instance, who am
I shaving my legs for me? Or the patriarchy just
left a bad taste in my mouth at the time,
I think I see so few references to it that
a reference to these games on Twitter recently really caught
my eye. Maybe there's an article in the thread too,
but I feel like there should have been more chatter
about the possible misogyny. I don't know. Maybe no one
(04:20):
else was hitting the word blitz games as much as
I was during the pandemic. I don't know. Only my
husband among people I know, understood the reference. But now
because of that Twitter screenshot of the game where the
options for the woman are fixed a window or get
more bald, my husband, I just yelled more bald when
all the chances to something we have to decide all
suck equally badly. Yes, So, yes, I know exactly what
(04:42):
you're talking about, Jennifer, because I did get this makeover
game and I deleted it because it was obnoxious. But
it's like Match three games, and then after you build
up enough stars or points or whatever whatnot, you can
do a makeover. The one you're talking about has changed
their recent tactics because before when I downloaded it, it
was literally like, we need to fix up this shop.
(05:04):
She needs to sell to the customers. Let's get her ready.
And I was like, what is this And it was
always the I'm burning down the kitchen and I was like, no,
it can't be that hard. They got me, they got me,
But these have gotten worse where they are. Yes, they're
always thinking. You always choose the wrong outfits, and it's
always because the husband left you for another woman who
(05:25):
is so much hotter, and he literally pushes you aside.
It is awful. There's another game, but I haven't seen
I haven't played it, but like it's similar to this
where apparently, in order for this dude to get his fortune,
he has this very ugly girl quote unquote, and it's
literally she has facial hair and stinks and so you
(05:46):
can't fix that. There's no way to fix that. And
by the way, why do we need to fix that
for any of this? And what is the scenario in general?
And he's like, oh, you're so ugly, I have had
to leave you. He actually says that in the ad,
there's a lot and yes, as in fact, the Lily's
Garden that told you about that I love for a minute,
and I think Jennifer might understand they use that tactic
for a second, and I was like, wait, what where
the main character who is with this dude leaves her
(06:09):
for her uh, for the neighbor, which is not a
scenario in the game whatsoever. It never comes out. That's
never been a thing. So these Yeah, we definitely had
talked about Jennifer previously, how these as are doing something
new by doing literally a click baity story plot that
has nothing to do with the game, and this is
(06:29):
similar to that. Yeah, I mean that's I would love
to come back and talk about this more in depth,
because when I was reading this message, I would be like,
what she stinks and she has to shave her legs
and this is the game was It is so bad
because one of them is like, if you shave, if
you pick the wrong thing to shave her with, yeas
(06:51):
you shave your head. And I'm like what And I'm
going to say it's a little racist. I'm putting that
out there because a lot of the times the women
have long dreaded hair. But it's you know what I mean.
Like it's supposed to be dirty quote unquote, and I'm
like this still some white nonsense. This feels like some
white nonsense right here. Well, thanks for bringing this. I
(07:12):
I never Thismantha clearly has with you and I need
to talk. I think you guys are on the same
waveleng but I would love to come back and talk
about this. That's interesting. Um Kate wrote a few years back.
I heard the advice of saying I'm fine versus it's fine,
as by saying it's fine, you're dismissing the trauma as
not important. Uh and okay. The change of language, too,
(07:35):
I'm fine, shifts the narrative to you being okay without
undermining the trauma you've experienced. It really helps me shift
my thinking as women are taught to underplay their trauma
and make everyone else comfortable, even at their own detriment.
This language shift has also helped me stop this people pleasing.
I've emailed you a couple of times before, one about
Pooh and another about horror movies, as I love them
the movies not who. I have a ticket to see Bodies, Bodies,
(07:56):
Bodies and a Welsh horror movie called Feast. I'm also
going to a British horror film festival called fright Fest,
which is this weekend. Well, that sounds great, that all
sounds fun. I'm assuming it's in Britain, but I could
be wrong. I guess I couldn't assume. But this was
in response to something I said in the Happy Hour
where I thought my dad, the ghost of my dad
(08:17):
was haunting me, where I was like, it's fine, is
sign's fine? So this is this is good advice because
essentially that's what I meant. I'm fine. It's hard I
say it in that way that indicates I'm not, but
I mostly at my promise. Mm hmmm. So thank you
for that message, Helena wrote, I wanted to send another
(08:51):
raving fan letter on your recent episode of women and
student Debt. It spoke so much to me. I'm a
bit closer to Annie and age. So my collection of
student debt started a while ago. When I graduated in
two thousand five, I was only seventeen thousand dollars away
from four years at a private institution. What made my
debt bloom was that I had to go back for
a master's degree, not once, but twice. I wound up
(09:12):
with nearly eighty thousand dollars. I finished the first one
in two thousand eight, right before the economic crash, and
when that happened, I couldn't find work at all. I
couldn't even get a part time a retail gig because
they would look at my education and say, oh, you're
not going to stick around, So I couldn't find employment
to even make payments. When I finished the second masters,
inten it still took two full years to find a
(09:33):
job in my field. The really awful part with that
is that the job I did eventually get was only
part time at the time I was hired, and took
three years before I became a full time employee, and
only paid me at a rate that reflected the bachelor's degree,
not two masters. Of course, it's still more money than
I've ever made in my life, but I can't live
by myself, and I couldn't start saving for retirement until
I was thirty five. My only shining light in this
(09:56):
has been that all of my debt has been in
federal loans, so I have definitely been able to enjoy
the pay as you earn and the working in a
field that qualifies for the loan forgiveness. Program, if that
will even exist after I've made twenty payments. It's frustrating
to realize that I have carried this debt since I
was twenty two, but I couldn't even start to make
payments until I was thirty five, and it's supposed to
(10:16):
be forgiven after ten years of consistent payments. Maybe I've
definitely taken advantage of the break offered by the pandemic pause. However,
if I had ever refinanced my loans for a lower
interest rate, they would have become private loans and I
would have had to still make payments. Two other things
that have happened during this pause that have driven me
absolutely crazy, one of which is the sheer level of
(10:38):
uncertainty and misinformation I've been getting from the company that
owned my loans fed Loan in this case, I called
three different times at different points during this pause and
received different answers as to what was being covered in
the pause. One person told me that the pause would
pause the interest rate, the payment itself wouldn't be collected,
but that it would still count towards the loan forgiveness
(10:59):
program in terms of aim it. So they suggested that
the months where I was paused and not making a
payment would still be counted at the end toward my loan.
This doesn't make sense, but this is what I was told.
My loan was also sold during this pause, and I've
heard almost nothing from the new lender. I still don't
know what is going on with it. Mostly I'm using
(11:19):
the pause to be able to save money and even
look into getting a car and starting up a college
savings program for my niece. Once this whole thing ends,
I don't know what I'm going to do, so thank
you so much for covering this topic. I work in
a higher education and really wonder about the damage that's
being done to young people, especially women of color, when
it comes to loans. I'm even more concerned about the
graduate education because really, once you get past that bachelor's
(11:42):
there's very little in terms of postgraduate funding other than loans.
It's a vicious cycle, right um, And I'm right with you, Elena,
Like I did this. My loan was exactly the same
as yours where it came from fed Lows. It got sold.
I don't know what is happening. It just went away.
It just went away for like a year, and I
was like, where do I even access this. How did
(12:02):
this go? And of course the FED loan is a
conversation about how the fact that they could not make
a deal with the federal government, so therefore they decided
to just distribute all of the uh the different loans out,
which happens a lot, which I'm finding out with my
house UH payments as it's been sold three times already
and I've only had it for three months, y'all three months?
(12:23):
Like this doesn't make sense. I don't quite understand it.
I got panic moments because I was like, wait, did
they said that there was no interest? But wait, are
they saying there's no interest right now? Or have they
been counting the interest where much like with all this
stuff that was happening with rentals, they're like, you can't
penalize renters, they can't pay it, blah blah blah. But
when it came back they suddenly had an interest rates
that said, oh, but we were keeping tabs of it
and this is how much you owe an interest um
(12:45):
and then backtracking it. So there's no promise that that's
not going to happen. As we know, there is some
forgiveness happening, but it seems minimal in comparison to who
is helping. This is where we were talking about. This
is structural racism because it's only really helps people of
higher status anyway, because when we see the people who
take out that amount of loans ten to twenty is
most likely going to be in the white community, Asian
(13:07):
communities actually too, So it's very obvious that it's not
helping people of color. Is not helping everyone is helping
a certain amount of people, of course, not something is
better than nothing. To get that as one of those
who are like, Okay, well at least I get it,
I guess to a certain extent that does talk about
that bigger conversation. And then, yeah, graduate programs are expensive, expensive,
(13:30):
and if you're in a work field like teaching or
social work, it's not it's almost not worth it, but
you have to have it because your degree seems so
without the master's level. Yeah, and I'm really glad you
brought up this point in this this letter, because um,
I had a friend once who told me like, essentially
she was going to stop short of getting her masters
(13:53):
because she knew she wouldn't be able to find as
many jobs because people didn't want to pay for her
having the masters, but she still needed the experience, which
I was like, that's that's ridiculous, shady. This whole process
is shady for sure, and feels like that that are
specialized by marginalized communities do require it more so than others.
Is a thing. It's a thing. We'll come back to it.
(14:16):
But moving on, Maureen wrote, I was so excited to
see your episode on Rogue one in my feed. That's
my favorite Star Wars movie and one of my two
current fandoms that I write fan fic for. Samantha will
be happy to know that Everybody Lives and Nobody Dies
is the most popular tag for the fandom, and in fact,
Rogue one is the third highest fandom with a tag
(14:37):
on AO three. I do appreciate this, thank you. Basically,
everyone finished the movie and went so the last ten
minutes didn't happen, right right, agreed. Everyone also went to
in Bays are Totally married, which I love that too. Anyway,
I enjoyed hearing your thoughts, especially Samantha screaming I don't
I was a friend of me because I was having
(14:59):
a marine. It's front of these love the show and
keep it up. Yes, well I do appreciate that no
one dies in the Fani thank you for that. But
I feel like this could be the beginning of a
friend of the situation. I love that it's the third
highest fandom with that tag that I mean, that makes sense.
I wanted to include this one. I we mentioned it
before in past episodes because people did get a kick
(15:19):
out of you your sufferings. Metho still not happy, but
Roguan is in theater is back in theaters right now
because the show and Or is coming out that is related. Uh,
and it just broke a record where it became. It
is now in the top ten all time releases of
IMAX movies. So hey, hey, you may not like it,
(15:42):
but that's I will not be there. I immediately sent
you a text and was like, you're going to be
first in line, right silence exactly, Yes. Well, thanks so
much to all of the listeners who have written to
us uh in this message. Thank you for letting us
read your letters and it to everyone who has written
as and we love getting these messages. So if you
(16:04):
would like to write to us, you can. Our email
is Steffania mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at bomb Stuff podcast or
Instagram and Stuff I Never told You. Thanks as always
to our super producer Christina, thank you, and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I Never Told you the protection
of iHeart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio,
you can visit the heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows
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