SMNTY Classics: Who is Candace Owens?

Candace Owens has pivoted many times in her career, but some things have remained the same. Bridget Todd sheds light on her early career, some turning points, and how her brand can lead to radicalization in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
What this stuff?

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Never told? Your production of iHeartRadio. And we are so, so,
so so happy to be joined once again by the excellent,
the exemplary Bridgete Todd. Welcome back, bridget.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
Thank you for having me. Every time I come back
to hang out with you. All the intros that you
give are my favorite thing. They just leave me feeling
so pumped up.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Yes, I was worried I would stumble over exemplary, but
I think I think you did.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
You have that prepped ready to go, Like what are
the what are the descriptors that I have?

Speaker 3 (00:47):
I will admit sometimes I do it off the cuff
and sometimes I'm like, you know what, today I want
to really pull something out that I haven't used before.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Also, you know, you have to be thoughtful because it
has to be true. We don't li on this podcast,
not least nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Not purposely. Not purposely. No, bridget how have you been.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
Well as someone who lives in the District of Columbia,
that's always a loaded question. Yeah, it has been weird.
The vibes in DC are no one's having a good time,
but you know we're hanging in there. I think it's
been interesting the ways that people are coping and like
leading into community, leading into like what's happening in there

(01:34):
in there on their block, things like that. I think
people are really kind of focused on, like what's happening
at the local level to sort of distract from all
of the dread happening at the national level here in DC.
So it's been a lot. How are you all coping
feeling hanging in there?

Speaker 3 (01:50):
There's a lot of stress and anxiety, for sure. I
will say today I have had a fun distraction at
my friend's expense because her snake got out of it's
aquarium and she can't find snake, and so I've been

(02:11):
getting a lot of updates today about the search for
the snake, and that's given me a lot of fun distraction.
I do feel bad if you're listening, Katie, I'm really sorry.

Speaker 5 (02:25):
Did you say you can't find snake? She can't find
the snake And she said this has happened before. Last time.
It took her five days to find the snake.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
So the snake is out there, the snake is in
the house, and she's telling me like they can open
cabinets and they can do all these things, and I
was like, oh.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
My gosh, wait what that's what she told me.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
She's giving me a lot of fingers. I believe that
she would know, but I guess so. I've learned a
lot about snakes from her over the years. She also
had to like take the snick to a vet once
because it was overweight. So basically she had a diagram

(03:11):
she showed me and this was like she she was like,
this is how you can tell the snake is overwell,
so basically finding my distractions where I can, but very stressed.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
She has got to find that snake.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
It's probably I mean, like, if they can open cabinets,
what can't they do. It's probably doing her taxes and
she's gonna get audited.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Can you find the snake?

Speaker 3 (03:36):
I know, what could the snake be up to?

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Oh my gosh, that's a cartoon. I need to now.
I have an amazing idea. I'm so in this little glasses
and a little type.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Okay, little a visors and I don't know why it's
she maing it old timey, but.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
It is a a for a long time.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
How long do they live?

Speaker 4 (04:02):
I'm like so invested in the snake and in the
snake story.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Me too.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
This has been like my whole morning.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
They live alone.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
That she's had him for at least at least fifteen years,
I think. And she's big. Her name is Penny. Oh yeah,
and she's a really big snake. But I've been told
they can can they could really compress themselves into small shapes.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Right, Yeah, that's what I'm like. It's with outside of
the house. I wouldn't be surprised.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Are you all snake snake people?

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Like?

Speaker 4 (04:36):
Would you entertain having a snake in your home voluntarily?

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Hell?

Speaker 3 (04:39):
No, I had one as a kid.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
I do not know this about you.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Yeah, but it did escape. Actually, now that I.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Think about it, did you ever find it? No?

Speaker 3 (04:52):
I never. I never found it again.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, it might be one of those things where your
parents were like.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Oh, I actually I have suspect did that before? Actually?
And then my brother had a snake, but I had
a pet turtle. But my pet turtle ate his snake turtle.
Turtles don't mess around. I'm telling you.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
I had a pet fish that we kept in the
same I guess like terrarium as a turtle and the turtle.
One day we came and the fish fin had been
there was a nip out of it, and then one
day we.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Came and that the fish was just gone. We probably
should have removed it.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
This is a terrible I should never removed it after
that first nip, But I was like, what's going on
with this fish? It did not occur to me that
the turtle had a been snacking turtles.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
The villain here, Yeah, turtle.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
They don't mess around.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Watch.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Expected Franklin told us lies. But yeah, so I will say,
allergies have gotten me. I've been lamenting this for the
past week. So if I cough, I'm so sorry. I'm
trying not to do it on Mike. I'm trying also
not to sniffle on Mike. My voice is it's gotten better,

(06:06):
but it's still a little lower than the typical sound
from myself. But also we did get a victory here
in Georgia in which we tabled House Bill four forty one,
which is the Georgia Prenatal Equal Protections Act, and it
would have outright it was an outright abortion man with

(06:26):
no exceptions whatsoever. But the fact that that got that
wasn't even voted for because there were so many people
who were against it. Small victories, so we were celebrating
that here a lot of activists went and protested at
the state capitol. So you know, I feel like that
glimmer of hope is pushing us through.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, and like, honestly, take your w's where you can.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
It goes back to what I was.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
Saying earlier, like you have a little more control over
what happens locally. So like that's where you got to
focus your inturgy. I feel like right now, if you're
looking or something to do, that feels like you could
have an actual impact.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Right And the fact that that actually seemingly worked gives
us a little more inspiration as we keep finding because
you know, Georgia has a lot of work to do
that soils the country.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yeah, well it's quite a doozy of a topic, but
I'm really interested to learn more about it. So tell
us what are we talking about today?

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Okay, we're talking about the one, the only Candace Owens
speaking of villains? Am I kidding?

Speaker 4 (07:42):
We'll see, So, like I should say up top, like
I am weirdly fascinated with her.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
What do you all have thoughts? If she's somebody who
who is on your radar?

Speaker 4 (07:50):
What is your experience, what are your experiences with Candace
Owens or do you have any.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Minor negative, minor most negative? But I most of most
stuff I know is more recent, and I didn't know
a lot of what I know we're going to talk
about in here. But I will say generally, she's someone
I'm very aware of, and I have a lot of

(08:18):
negative associations with.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
I will say, yes, I do know of her.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
One of the things that I immediately put me on
high alert is that she is one person that my
racist Trump supporting backwards brother has used as a token
in saying, see, we love black people.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
Oh that is like that that has probably been the
experience of so many folks listening. And I guess what
I want to talk about today might actually answer why.
That is because she is someone that people in my
life have like cited or mentioned or like, oh I
saw I saw Candace Owens talking about this, and I'm like, what,
like why are you watching Candace owe Are you listening

(09:00):
to her podcast? So like I am like weirdly fascinated
by her. She is somebody who has a legitimately fascinating
story and like where like from where she started to where.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
She wound up?

Speaker 4 (09:13):
I just find deeply interesting. I don't want to focus
too much on her like personal background, but there are
some pieces of her early story that I do think
are important context for like understanding who she is and.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Sort of the role she has gone on to occupy
in the world.

Speaker 4 (09:29):
So Owens grew up in Stanford, Connecticut, and while she
was a high school student there, she was like racially
harassed in a pretty gnarly way. A classmate left her
a racist death threat on her voicemail that ended up
turning into like a pretty serious local scandal because it
turned out the person her classmate that left that voicemail

(09:50):
did so in a group of students that included the
son of the then mayor and future Democratic governor of Connecticut,
Daniel Maloy. So it got it was really really blown
up into like a little bit of a scandal. Kendicce
got lots of support from the local chapter of racial
justice organizations like the NAACP, and our family ended up
suing the Stanford Board of Education in federal court for

(10:11):
failing to protect her rights, which resulted in a thirty seven,
five hundred dollars settlement. After that, she goes on to
study journalism at University of Rhode Island before dropping out.
So this is really the part of her story where
I have to be honest, I see some parallels between
me and her. You know, we're both black women who

(10:32):
were sort of early adopters of the Internet to talk
about things like race and culture and politics.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Like me.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
For her, that seems to have manifested in a lot
of like low hanging fruit posts about you know, politics,
like dumb jokes, like you know, the early days of
blogging about politics online. It really was dumb jokes, was like,
and like stupid memes were the lifeblood of that. And

(11:00):
so in twenty fifteen, she was writing blogs making fun
of Trump's penis size to give you a sense of
the kind of thing that she was writing about, which
honestly is something I would I wasn't doing that, but
I could see myself doing it great.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
I would definitely chuckle yeah if I saw it.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
So some people might be surprised to know that Candice
actually started her career as a public intellectual or republic
opinion have or commentator or whatever you want to call it,
as a leftist, like a progressive.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
In twenty fifteen, she was writing.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
This blog called degree one eighty, where she wrote pieces
criticizing conservative Republicans, writing about quote the back crazy antics
of the Republican tea Party. Something that she wrote in
her blog was, quote the good news is they will
eventually die off peacefully in their sleep, we hope, and
then we can get right on with the obvious social

(11:52):
change that needs to happen immediately. So you really get
a sense of her as someone who was this like
young Obama era progressive using the early Internet, blogging and
things like that to really put her voice, in her
perspective into the world again, something that I, frankly I
can really see myself in.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Is it surprising it is? I guess it is her origins.
Just I just knew as you came out swinging on
the opposite end.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, well, what's interesting about that, and I can definitely
speak from my own experience here, is that I connected
with a lot of her early writing when she was
still sort of like writing about the tea Party and
blah blah blah, but certainly nobody knew who Like she
wasn't like a known voice or a no name, right,
And I do think it speaks to the fact that

(12:40):
like when she switched up her ideology and her perspective
and what she was talking about. She got so much
more attention. Like I like, as a black woman leftist
who talks about you know, lefty stuff on the internet,
we are a dim a dozen. Nobody is really paying
that much attention. But when you do the switch up,
you really become a much bigger name and you get

(13:02):
a lot more attention and a lot more engagement.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
And I think it's a lot more lucrative to be a.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Black woman right winger than it is to be a
black woman leaptist.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
I was actually reading about this recently. Is the shadow
of gamer Gate when it comes to the Internet and
how it looks today and how it's still like the impacts,
just the fallout of it is still here. And that

(13:42):
was a part of candice owned story.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
Oh yeah, so I am like you, Annie, gamer Gate
and everything surrounding it is my Roman empire. It is
the thing that keeps me up. And I did a
whole series with cool Zone Media about how gamer Gate
and just general harassment against women and women of color
and minoritize people. You could draw a direct line from

(14:07):
that to like our political and social climate today, like
this is the stuff that I am like making a
stringboard a bad and being like and then this happened,
and then that happened, and then ten years later this
happened like this is my white whale, and Candace Owens
was really like, this was a gamer Gate was really
sort of like well mean. She describes it as like
a radicalizing moment for her. So in twenty sixteen, when

(14:28):
Gamergate was in full swing, Owens launched a Kickstarter for
a project she called Social Autopsy, which she described as
a way to catalog the abuses of trolls and cyberbullies online.
The Kickstarter for this project is still up today. Here's
a little taste of Owen's describing it in her own words.

Speaker 6 (14:47):
It takes a nanosecond, a mere push of a button,
to share our ideas, opinions, and emotions across the world instantly.
But for every cat meme, your best friend tweets at
you were, for ever I miss you, comment, your grandma
leaves on your Facebook wall, there are literally thousands of
instances of hate speech being circulated online. Because when communication

(15:10):
happens through a screen, and when moments are experienced through relents,
a terrifying extraction takes place. The age of technology and
social media has slowly disintegrated individual accountability, the consequences of
which are devastating.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
So that should give you a little bit of an
idea of what I mean. It's interesting because it really
feels like a time capsule from a different time. You know,
Like hearing Candice Owens talk about how bad things like
hate speech are and how it's dividing us is like
just very interesting.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, throw off, Like like wait, what same parcels? Okay?

Speaker 4 (15:51):
No, So the plan for Social Autopsy was basically it
was a project meant to like de anonymize online commentation
and then connect them with their real life names and
then real life employers. And it's funny because this is
still an argument that people make when they want to
restrict the Internet today, that like, all the problems that
happen on the Internet, from harassment to child exploitation material,

(16:15):
all of that could all be solved if you needed,
like your government ID to access the Internet. And so
it's funny how these ideas there are people pushing that
concept today and even I mean, like some people who
are well meaning but in my opinion incorrect, are still
pushing that idea. And so It's funny how some of
these ideas never really die, they're just recycled, Like Cannece

(16:35):
Owens was talking about this in twenty sixteen, and here
we are in twenty twenty five, still talking about it.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Yes, yes we are, but oh my goodness, speaking of things,
we're still talking about. Another thing we've talked about a
lot on this show. Another thing I've been thinking about
a lot lately is the radicalization that can happen online.
And Candace Owens kind of talks about this. This is

(17:07):
sort of her experience.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
With Ygate, so when she exactly that.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
So when she came out with Social Autopsy, pretty much
everybody hated it right, like it was like a universal
digital boo or like thumbs down. And one of the
people who was like really not into this idea was
Zoe Quinn, whose name you might know if you know
about Gamergate, because she was someone who was pretty viciously
attacked in Gamergate. So after all of the backlash from

(17:34):
this project that Candace tried to put out into the
world via Kickstarter, she herself was doxed and harassed, and
Candace actually blamed Zoe Quinn and other feminists for this harassment.
And started saying so publicly. You can probably guess who
loved this and like.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Seized on it.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
That's right, people like Miloianapolis, people who were promoters of
gamergate and like doing the harassment of Gamergate really hyped
up Owens's claim that yeah, it's the feminists who are
the ones who were doing the actual online harassment, not
you know, these gamer bros and like right wingers. It's
actually feminists who are the bad guys here. And this

(18:12):
event Owen's credits with her turn from progressive to being
what she calls a red pilled radical. She says, quote,
I became a conservative overnight. I realized that liberals were
actually the racists. Liberals were actually the trolls, and so Annie,
you're exactly right that like, she describes this as like
an overnight turning point of her going from being a

(18:35):
progressive who was collaborating with the NAACP and writing about
how awful Republicans and Trump and the Tea Party Republicans were,
to like overnight waking up and being like, no, it
is liberals who are the real enemy.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
I have so many thoughts because I don't I was
not a part of the gamorgate world like I did
not understand what was happening out there in the internets
because I was case managing and like groveling in my
own like everything's worse, but like her being dogs and
all this, because I'm sure just as many like people

(19:13):
who were feminists and who were victims of gamer gait
and such, there were more probably jerks out there who
were like, no, we were definitely against this idea and
harassing her because they don't want their name out there,
which is what she was trying to do, right, So
but she just picked a group like no, it's definitely
after she got so much support totally.

Speaker 4 (19:36):
So my understanding is that like and if folks listening
are like I was there, Remember, as far as I know,
this was like feminists having good faith disagreement with Candace's project,
and then Candace probably pumped up by some of these
like right wing bro gamer guys who were behind a
lot of this harassment and like we have all the

(19:57):
receipts for that, probably pumped up by some of them
just like just like assumed that these feminists were the
ones behind it. So like, as far as I know,
she this was not a documented thing, but you know,
certainly like like I was, I was like.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Pretty in the mix on the internet in these days.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
Certainly this feud between Candace Owens and feminists like Zoquinn
about Gamergate was something that like got her name into
the conversation in a way that I don't think it
had been before and.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
For a lot of attention seekers. Not that she is
I don't know this person. I don't know Candas owns
in real life. But if this is what we're seeing,
negative Titchen is just as good as good. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:39):
So it's so interesting that you say this because she's
not someone that I would take at her word. I
guess I'll put it that way, Like I don't know
how reliable of a narrator she is. However, when she
says like, oh, overnight, I realized that feminists were the
real enemy, and the people that I should be allying
myself were people like Milo Yanapolis, I don't think that
she's outright lying, but I think that what she's saying

(21:00):
is probably a lot closer to what you've just said, Sam,
that like what she realized was like when I was
just a feminist online, I didn't get a lot of attention,
but when I started publicly beefing with these other feminists.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
I was getting a lot of attention.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
These these right wing extremist types like Miloganopolis, who had
huge platforms, started paying me more attention and giving me
more support, giving me more engagement, and like, I think,
I think there's something to this idea that Like, I
wouldn't necessarily say that she.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Changed her ideological ideas.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
I think that what she realized was like, oh, if
I align myself with people on the right, that comes
with attention.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Again, this is just my opinion. I don't know her,
but that's my sense.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
I like, I don't think that she's outright misrepresenting this shift,
but I think it's not necessarily about an ideology so
much as it is like, oh, pub public spats and
rage bait and like spectacle gets me engagement and attention,
and that can translate to dollars outright, I can play

(22:07):
this game. That's that's my sense of what's going on here.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
I mean, it sounds like she was finding a brand,
and we like, she is a brand, whether or not
we want to admit that's the case, but she is
a brand, and she's starting to hone in on this brand,
and she's going to go for what gives her the
most uh success.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yeah, and this was successful.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
Like once she starts doing this, you know, and she
starts promoting right wing viewpoints on YouTube. She had a
YouTube channel called red Pill Black, which, like I gotta say,
is actually like a pretty good name. I credit where
credit is due. It's like, I get I like that branding.
She catches the attention of Charlie Kirk, who founded Turning
Points USA, just like big right wing media entity, and

(22:55):
he hires her. So at this point, Candice goes from
like a little no blogger blogging about lefty politics that
nobody's ever heard of, to like making huge viral videos
that are getting so much attention, where she's doing things
like dismissing the twenty seventeen White Supremacists Unite the Right
rally in Charlottesville that left Heather Higher dead. Alex Jones

(23:17):
invites her to co host some of his Info Wars shows,
and again like, keep in mind these I know they
seem like fringe media entities, and in some ways they are,
but they get so many viewers, Like Alex Jones at
his height was getting tons and tons and tons of eyeballs.
She starts doing stints on Fox News, so like that's

(23:38):
a little more mainstream than info Wars, right, And in
twenty twenty one, she joined The Daily Wire with a
ton of fanfare, like this was a huge deal. She
ends up moving to Nashville, and when she does that,
the state even introduces House Joint Resolution three fifty, a
resolution in the Tennessee government to congratulate Candice Owens, a

(23:59):
relocated to Tennessee for work at the Daily Wire. That
reads quote whereas miss Owens has earned the admiration and
respect of millions of Americans through her activism and support
of President Trump as a black woman, and her perceptive
criticism of creeping socialism and leftist political tyranny. Imagine moving
to Nashville, and it's such a big deal that, like

(24:20):
the government of Nashville makes it an official like proclamation
in Tennessee government.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
And if she steps outside of downtown Nashville, she's gonna
get threatened for sure. Oh I feel threatened outside. I
felt threatened in a lot of places. But like, yeah, so,
and as a person who was the only Asian person
in the crowd, the tokenism is so loud.

Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yeah, I mean that proclamation Like, oh, like we're proclaiming
that she's great because she's a black woman who likes Trump.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Like I mean, ad to things like this is one
of the reasons.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
Why I think a lot about Candace Owens is like
a kind of seductive quality that can come with being
a person of color who is being uplifted as like
some special thing, right, some special one.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
And it's it's.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
Such a trap because I don't want to be anybody's token, right,
I don't want to be anybody's like, oh, like, this
is a black woman who's doing X y Z, But
I understand the seductive lure of that, and so like,
I don't know, I guess I almost sort of see
Candace Owens as like a fun house mirror version of myself,
Like if like I, like if I were someone who

(25:44):
was really moved or swayed by being uplifted because of
these things that make me tokenizable, I can.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Sort of see liking.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
This, And so I sort of see a lot of
like of my shadow self and Candae Owens.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
I guess I should say, does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (26:02):
I probably no, Yes, No, I think I understand because
like my younger self, my younger self seeking desperately to
be white seeming to be accepted by white people. So
when I in high school not understanding the depth and
depravity of white supremacy and how dark it is, like
sitting there arguing, no, not arguing, but agreeing with my

(26:24):
young racist brother about this, like, yes, affirmative action is
so awful. I want to earn it. I don't want
to be, you know, given special treatment because of my race.
And that's not the case at all, that's not the
conversation at all, but because of what I've been fed.
And the minute I said that, he's like, see she
knows she's Asian, Like he literally said that out loud,
and being so proud of me for understanding white supremacy,

(26:46):
like in like in that way, but wanting to like
liking that moment. Now look with Shane, But at that moment,
I was like, yes, I'm one of you, Yes, exactly
as you.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
It's so seductive and if you like, I was the
exact same way when I was younger, Like, and it's
like nobody likes feeling excluded or like the other, or
like they don't belong. And so in those glimmers where
you do feel like someone is saying like, see it
feels good, and I think it's it's like doing the

(27:16):
work of training yourself to really see those moments for
what they are and not like being pulled into the
good feelings of like well this I'm getting feedback from
my brother that's making me feel accepted and that he
sees me and whatever whatever. But like, you know, you
really have to do the work to be like, well,
is this actually what I want to be seen for?

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Like you know, right, I don't want to agree with
you now I understand what I'm agreeing with is this
is completely wrong. I against humanity. What if Candice Owens

(27:55):
is pulling the best grift of all time and just
taking all the Conservative money, Like if that was the
end story to this, I'm like, if anybody deserves the
Republican Conservative money as a black woman, so I can't
really I hear that, right, Like this is smart? I
mean it's not smart. It's like it feels like a betrayal,

(28:17):
but for her on her individual level coming in and
being token to being all these multi million dollar shows.
Because you know, we know that Alex Jones made a
lot of money from his hatred. We know that we've
seen it. He talks about it. We know Charlie Kirk
as well. Her coming in and taking their money's kind
of like, you know, I don't hate it for you,

(28:39):
like I hate what you're saying.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
Yeah, So I used to think, and again, this is
my opinion. I don't know her like that or anything,
but like I used to think, like, certainly she's playing
these people.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
She doesn't believe this. Now I don't know. Now I
think she's like a true believer.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
But like maybe I go back and forth and again
it's one of those things that one of those reasons
why I find her so deeply fascinating, right because like,
like as a black woman, I am tempted to like
project like, well, certainly this is some sort of a
I mean, it is a grift, don't get me wrong.
And it's like for sure a grift like she grifted,
can't confirm, but like I it really made it really

(29:19):
promised me to look back at myself to be like, well,
why am I like why am I low key rooting
for her?

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Like what is this?

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Right? Right?

Speaker 4 (29:27):
Right?

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Like you're the like you're not my favorite, but you're
not the worst worst exactly out where you are in
this in the spectrum, but you know, on top of
all of that, as we were talking about in Nashville,
being like, if you go outside of the city, escape
and no people don't know you, You're not going to
get this love that you think you're getting from this
very uh again, white supremacist patriarch that you are representing

(29:53):
and are trying to play for, Like all these things,
eventually they're gonna turn on you.

Speaker 4 (29:58):
Well, that actually happens in her story. So you know,
when she's working at Daily Wire, you're thinking, like, you know,
she's got this huge gig, probably making a ton of money,
should be smooth sailing, but there is a huge, messy
public fallout just a few years later.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
So she's working at Daily Wire.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
Last year there was this public friction between Candace and
Ben Shapiro, one of the founders of Daily Wire, the
network that Candace had used to be on.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
Now it's not one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
Clear exactly what caused attension between the two, but at
least publicly there it seemed to be some kind of
a reaction to the situation in Gaza. Ben Shapiro is Jewish,
and Owens has said a lot of anti Semitic stuff,
like even before October seventh, she was going hard doing
things like defending Kanye West, but things really seem to
kick into high gear with her anti semitism on October seventh.

(30:49):
Now it is important to make a distinction here that
she's not like criticizing the actions of the Israeli state.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
She is getting into stuff like blood libel.

Speaker 4 (30:59):
Conspiracy theories, which is this anti Semitic conspiracy theory that
Jewish people drink blood for power, and like other deep
deep conspiracy theories. Right like, she said that Judaism was
a quote pedophile centric religion that believes in demons and
child sacrifice, and that people are waking up to the
fact that pedophiles are in power. So she is saying

(31:21):
some like truly out of pocket wild stuff, and then
things start taking kind of a bent toward her employer.
She wrote on Twitter quote, no one can serve two masters.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
You cannot serve both God.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
And money, to which Ben Shapiro Comma her boss replies, Candace,
if you feel that taking money from the Daily Wire
somehow comes between you and God, by all means quit.
Now I gotta say, like, I don't find myself agreeing
with Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro much. But I kind

(31:56):
of thought Ben Shapiro kind of has a point here,
Like this is her boss and she's publicly getting into
sebbats with him on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Not a good look.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
Could have maybe maybe done that a little bit more privately, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Like sit an email.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
But like that's the thing about Canvas is like Canous
wouldn't be Candace if she didn't if she did if
she did this privately, Cannus wouldn't be Candace if she
avoided this. Like her career got a jumpstart from Spectacle
on Twitter, so like she that is something that is
like her bread and butter is like Spectacle on social media.
So it gets absolutely messy as hell and it's all public.

(32:37):
Owens claimed that Ben Shapiro had quote been acting unprofessional
and emotionally unhinged for weeks now and said that Shapiro
crossed a certain line. When you come for scripture and
read yourself into it, I will not tolerate it.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
She goes on Tucker.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Carlson Show, saying that Ben Shapiro was attacking her using
ad hominem attacks. She then tweets that she wants her
and Ben Shapiro to sit down and have a discussion
moderated by this podcaster Patrick Bette Deavide. Ben Shapiro was
having none of this, and again I can't say that
I blame him. Like challenging your boss to a debate,

(33:13):
a public debate on Twitter, it's just like not a
good look. So when she was like debate me, bro,
Ben Shapiro tweeted, Candice, I can see why you'd want
to hide behind a moderator, particularly one who said we
should rename our company. Quote the Daily Jewish Wire just yesterday,
no one on one Monday at five pm, we can
sit down and have a healthy debate like adults and

(33:34):
will live stream it on x and YouTube. Take it
or leave it. So they're really going back and forth.
And I gotta give a little side note here for
what it's worth. This is just like my personal opinion
as somebody who has been around the block and worked
in the media for a really long time.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
The reason I.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
Am not saying that the actual root of their disagreement
was Israel or Judaism like one hundred percent is because
I I just smell some kind of a contractual dispute here.
Something about the way that they are going back and
forth reads to me like Owens maybe had like an inflexible,

(34:11):
ironclad contract that maybe she felt like she could make
more money on her own and that she had to
get out of this contract or vice versa.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Maybe Daily Wire wanted her out.

Speaker 4 (34:19):
Something about the intensity of the public escalation with her
boss just suggests to me that something else might have
been going on. Again, this is just my sense. I
don't have any inside information. It just seems like a
lot to be doing. It just seems like a lot
to be doing. But again, this is Candice Owens. We're
talking about the very definition of doing the most on

(34:40):
social media.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
But that's just my sense.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
I feel like it's one again once, like the fact
that they work so hard on like the conservative right
wing side that knowing that one person being Jewish and
the other person being a black woman, I'm like, they're
not on your side, Like no, they just are just
like wanting you to find it out. This is what
they want so that they can obtain more power. But

(35:04):
you two, I mean, it's just it's just is it ironic,
I don't know, or is.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
It just sam I was like watching this like get
them like like I was like let him fight, Like
I was love.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
And every minute was like favoring every tweet, reading it
like you know how it used to be on Twitter.

Speaker 4 (35:22):
You could like go to like show more to see
like that, I need to start from the beginning. I
was eating it up and again, like, obviously Kennas has
hit on something because like these this public spectacle, these
public spats, even with her employer, they do generate engagement.
Like she's she's she's not new to this, she's true
to this, Like she's been using.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
This kind of thing to get negative attention.

Speaker 4 (35:47):
To boost herself for a very long time, and she's
very good at it.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
So the seems to be like.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
The red line here was when Rabbi Schmooley Botice criticized
Owen's for her defenses of Kanye West. Owens then liked
to tweet asking the rabbi if he was quote drunk
on Jewish blood again. A few days later, Daily Wire
and Candace Owens officially ended her their relationship, with Owen's tweeting,

(36:13):
the rumors are true.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
I am finally free.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Just there's so many things that I like, there's so
many things to this level of conversation that yes, it is.
It's just like the song of Francesca Ramsey did with
like that lepers or you know, like they didn't think that,
you know, And I'm like yeah, But at the same time,
with the way she ended, it does sound like it
was a whole play to get out.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
I just I mean, like I don't know, but like.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
She had to, Like, there is no way that Candace
did not think that, like she was putting her job
at risk, right, So I just do not buy that.
She was like, I'm gonna be I just these are
my convictions and I can just say what I want
and it's free speech and it'll be fine. There is
no way, Like I just if anybody listening has the

(37:11):
real tea, I just can sense there's something else here
and it just it just it gives contract dispute to me.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
That's all I'll say.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
So this is where the story gets interesting to me,
because she kind of fell off of my radar after this.
I was like, oh, I guess she's out at Bailey Wire.
Hadn't really heard much from her. I guess she's like
doing her thing. And it wasn't until I was trying
to make sense of the dispute between these two Hollywood
A listers Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni that she popped

(37:41):
up on my radar again, So I gotta give a
big PSA. This is not meant to be a definitive
breakdown of what is happening with Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively,
which probably could be like its own episode. It is
not a situation that I have followed super closely, so
I am like not the right person.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
To dig in on all of that. I don't have
any kind of like take or anything.

Speaker 4 (38:01):
Like like like it's it's not it's not a situation
that I am super read in on because it's a
little bit like complicated and I.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Can't quite follow it.

Speaker 4 (38:09):
But that dynamic where I'm like, oh, I don't really
know what's going on, but I'm sort of like casually
trying to find out. That is actually how Candice Owens
got back on my radar.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
So do you do?

Speaker 4 (38:19):
You all know what's happening between Blake Lively and Justin
Baldoni's is something that's like bet on y'all's radar.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
It's been against my will.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yeah, Literally today I was like, thank God, I haven't
heard anything about Blake Lively and Justin Baldonia and then
you see the outline.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
So here we go, Like everything I've learned about it
has been against my will. I'm like why, it's like what,
like it's just like not something I don't know, it's
just like not.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
I mean in the end, like because you were trying
to compare it to the Johnny dipp amber Herd case,
which I'm like, yo, back off. There's so many things
that the implication of that alone makes me think I
don't want to take this seriously because it's not to
that lifele We have this conversation because like we spoke
very quickly before it blew up to this, like the

(39:07):
very beginning of the conflict, mainly talking about how domestic
violence victims and survivors really were offended by the way
that the movie which is the center of this controversy
was portrayed, and then the how the ad marketing went
for it and like made it all girly, these good times,
all these things that then we were like, this is

(39:27):
really kind of offensive, Like this language of this entire
language of sometimes it is very serious that people have
taken very personally and have like a lot of familiarity
with and trauma with and then it felt like flat,
especially like with how it is now, especially because it's

(39:48):
no longer about the movie, no, but like it's it was.
We took a small take on that and why romanticizing
domestic violence is such a such a problem in Hollywood
and just in our environment in general. But like this
was way before everything happened, and the back and forth
and back and forth. I will say, there's a lot

(40:12):
of disdain for Blake's lively on Ye. Yes, again, I
did not choose this.

Speaker 4 (40:17):
Okay, So it's so funny that you say this. I
have experienced the exact same thing. So so if folks
don't know what we're talking about, if you aren't, like Annie.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Blissfully unaware of like what is going on, it's it's
a situation.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
It's like a little bit complicated, and it's ongoing. But
it's actually like a pretty interesting story, and it does
include a lot of things that I am interested in,
like how celebrities use social media, how easily social media
platforms can be like weaponized for or against a specific person.
Email correspondence where people make themselves look terrible in writing
because they currently do not expect these emails to be

(40:52):
like in a deposition or in the New York Times.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
That is my personal favorite thing.

Speaker 4 (40:56):
Nothing when whenever it's like, oh, we have the emails,
I'm like, I'm gonna read every single one of the like,
please continue to put your wrongdoings in emails and in
writing so that my notes can read them later in
a deposition. So I do think that folks should like
if that seems like the kind of situation that you
are interested in, Like it is. It is a meaty situation,
so like, definitely listen to podcasts about it or whatever.

(41:18):
But for our purposes, a quick and dirty summary of
what's going on is that Blake Lively and Justin Buldoni
we're in a movie adaptation of the popular Colleen Hoover
novel called It Starts with Us. In December, Lively filed
a legal complaint against Boldonni, accusing him of sexual harassment
and starting a sneer campaign against her. Now he strongly
denies that and has sued. In response, both camps are

(41:41):
releasing information like text messages and emails and like videos
and voicemails to make each other look bad. So the
case has turned I mean kind of similar to the
Johnny Depp Amber Herd thing. It's one of those situations
that has turned into like an ink block test. That
change is depending on what version of the story that
you buy. In version one, Blake Lively was being sexually

(42:02):
harassed on set by this like fake feminist male ally
who was actually an abuser. In version two, Blake Lively
is like this egomaniac who is using her star power
and like a list celebrity network like her husband Ryan
Reynolds from those Deadpool movies, to control the narrative around
her being a nightmare on set and steamrolling everybody else

(42:23):
on this project. So Sam like you kind of similar
to the Johnny Depp and Amber Herd thing in some ways,
I think, depending on what silos of the Internet you
are in, you might be be algorithmically being given the
idea that the public sentiment leans one way or another,
like on TikTok. For whatever reason, my TikTok algorithm thinks

(42:46):
I hate Blake Lively and that I want to see
like lots of videos like pouring over every nuance of
the ways in which she is a fraud, which is
not true. She's not someone who, like I spend really
any time at all thinking about but it's interesting that
the algorithm thinks like, oh, this is somebody who hates
Blake Lively.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Right, I agree For some reason, I am getting all
of the tea on all the awful things that Blake
Lively is and all the people who hate her and
why they hate her, And I'm like, I have never once.
I don't know if I've ever seen a Blake Lively movie.
I don't think I have.

Speaker 4 (43:20):
If I of the Traveling Pants, no, okay, that's usually
the one people know like that or I will say
say whatever you want to about Bla Lively the movie
A simple favor slaps.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
She's great in that.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Did you get the tea on how much they hate
each other?

Speaker 2 (43:34):
On that?

Speaker 4 (43:35):
What I did say, I did see an interview where
who is.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
The hair coastar in.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
That Anna Kendrick right and Kendrick were they asking.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
Her about Blake Live and she does have a very
weird response.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
They hate each other and that's that's what I'm understood.
That's what they're telling me because they don't ever show
up together on the red carpet. So when I say,
my feed really feeds to the fact that I must
hate Lively when I don't know this person and like, like,
not that I know any celebrity like that, but I'm like,
but I never, at one point have I looked her

(44:10):
up or like, she's not on my feet. I don't
look around all my like searches. I guess the one
time it was for the It ends with us. Damn it.
Every time I research something for the show, it messes
me up. But anyway, yeah, but yeah, no, that is
I'm I'm like, I guess we really don't trust Blake Lively.
We being a TikTok. Yeah, my TikTok the same as you. Like.

Speaker 4 (44:36):
I was trying to get to the bottom of like
what was going on with this this Justin and Blake
thing and one of my cousins who I would like
lovingly describe as a normy and that she's not like
super online, She's not you know, deep in the depths
of like extremism or anything like that. Like the way
that I am my cousin is like, oh, there's this
black girl journalist who has really been following the story

(44:56):
and breaking it down. We will tag you so you
can figure out what's going on. That journalist was Candace Owens,
And I.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Was like, what, like what Like, I could.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Not believe that my cousins who were like not at
all in like, they are not people who are like
pouring over the minutia of what's happening on the Internet
and extremism the way that I am, like, they're pretty
offline whatever.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Like I was like, how did.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
You even get Candace Owens on your radar to be
like listening to her podcast or watching her YouTube? And
the reason is because she has introduced herself to a
brand new subset of listeners and audience by covering this
Blake Lively thing. So her coverage very clearly takes an

(45:43):
anti Blake stance. As The Cut put it in a
piece called Candace Owens has gone mainstream quote, the right
wing commentator's coverage of the Blake Lively Justin Boldoney 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 appearance on Saturday

(46:03):
Night Lives fiftieth anniversary special. She's really been able to
go in and pinpoint discrepancies in some of the things
Blake Lively said.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Rather than having us go through it on our own.

Speaker 4 (46:13):
When listener says, though she recognizes that Owens seems to
have a pro bowl Donni bias, she doesn't care. Candace
is urging us to look past the fact that this
is not a feminist issue at all, that it's about
getting justice for whoever is being wrong.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
She's uniting the left and the right. So, I mean,
it's just like it is. I mean, on the one hand,
it seems.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
Surprising that this like celebrity story would be the thing
that like would galvanize an audience of mostly women and
introduce Candace Owen's on who she is and her ideologies
and all of that to a new audience. But on
the other hand, like that's pretty much exactly what they do.
That what they did at the Daily Wired, Like nobody
was more obsessed with celebrity than people like Ben Shapiro.

(46:59):
They loved taking down Woke Disney, Woke Star Wars, like
you had had a big few with Meg the Stallion Beyonce.
Like just because it's negative doesn't mean it's not sandom.
It's just like going in the other direction.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Right, Actually, we knew we need to say he had
a one sided beef because they did not, like.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
It just makes me laugh.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
You know, the other part of this was as much
as my algorithm wants to show me all the anti
Lively stuff as well as all of the controversy, because yes,
I would get updates about the SNL thing about how
everybody snubbed Brian Reynolds. I was like, did they okay?
But like, interestingly I did get content not from Candis Owans,

(47:50):
but other creators reminding me and everybody listening that Candice
Owans is a right winged fanatic and that they need
to be wary of the information she's giving about the
specific case.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
Yes, so I think that's like why I wanted to
make this episode just as a general reminder of who
Candice opens is, And like we all love celebrity gossip,
I know I do, but like, let's just remember who
she is and the source, and like she might want
to rebrand herself, but let's just keep it at the front,
forefront of our minds who she is and what she's about,

(48:22):
And like, she really has exploded in popularity from this coverage.
You know, it's been attracting a lot more viewers beyond
her normal right wing extremist basic you were saying Sam,
it's like Nor means like my cousins. My cousins who
might not have any idea who she is. They just
think she's an entertainment journalist. All of this has meant
explosive growth and engagement for Owen's Here's how The Cut

(48:43):
put it in that piece. Since Owen started covering the
Lively Baldoni 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 a mass over
the years, each episode about Lively and Baldani racks up
at least one point five million views. In the past
month alone, Owens has a mass more than four hundred

(49:03):
and fifty thousand new subscribers on YouTube, and her total
video views have quadrupled since this time last year, according
to data from the analytics platform social Blade. Over the
past three months, her audience on YouTube has also started
skewing sixty five percent female, according to data provided by
a spokesperson, a market shift from her past fan base.
So this has all been great news for Owens and

(49:24):
where her audience used to be like men, you know,
like probably like your brother right, like like right wing men.
By covering this story, she's really interacting a lot of women.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Oh my stomach kind of hurts. It is really interesting
that this came in with gamer Gate as well, because,
like we were saying, Gamergate was such a mess, and
there were so many men who would be like, see
this woman agrees with me, And I hate it because

(50:00):
sometimes I'm like, why can't I just want to have
a conversation about why I don't like this game? And
now you've made it into this woman agrees with me,
and now you're using it to attract more women to
be like, see if we're on the if we are
correct and you are wrong. And so when you see

(50:20):
things like this where she started out with mostly men
and then she's attracting like all of these women, I
feel like it's worth asking why do you think this
took off for her? This story?

Speaker 4 (50:40):
So one I will say that, like Camus actually is
pretty interesting to listen to, Like I don't agree with
what she's saying, but she does, Like even when she
was a progressive blogger, she does have like a point
of view and a clear voice, and I think that
really comes through in her coverage of Blake Lively. You know,
she has this way of speaking that signals to you like, oh,
this person who's really breaking it down. It's the same

(51:02):
reason why things on TikTok, things like story time or
like I'm spilling the tea really holds people's attention. I
think that Candice really does know how to do that one.
I think the second kind of gets at what you
were saying, Annie, that we just love misogyny. And I
think if that massogyny can be laced with a threat

(51:23):
of conspiracy, it's even better. Right, Like social media platforms
are always going to amplify things like misogyny or massogynore
racism or transphobia. I think all of that is just
baked into what it means to show up on social media.
And I think Owen's really, in a savvy way, takes
that a step further by breaking all of this down,

(51:44):
like she's explaining a conspiracy. Right, So it's not so
she's not just saying like, here's my take on Blake Lively,
or here's what's going on with the Blake Lively case,
or you know, here's why even like here's why I
don't like Blake Lively. She has this tinge of like
she's uncovering this dark truth about this successful woman to
take her down. Like, of course that's going to take off.

(52:07):
People love that. So the fact that she's not just
giving information about Blake Lively, she's doing it in this
way that's like, let's go back through fifteen years of
footage of her speaking and dive through the minutia of
everything that she's said on camera to highlight the discrepancies,
to show what a dark, twisted person she is.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Like, of course people are gonna love that. And I
think that one of the reasons why people.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
Like conspiracy theories is that it really does allow for
like fantasy and world building to become part of this coverage, right,
Like Candas's coverage of Blake Lively is wild because she
is a truly wild person. And so if you're someone
who was just like wants to get the brain rush
of like going down a deep rabbit hole, whether or
not it's true or whether or not it's like made up,

(52:52):
that's gonna be enticing for you.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
You know.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
As Owens herself puts it, she does not follow a
quote traditional style of reporting.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
That's putting it pretty lightly.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
She will amplify rumors, right like She once even read
a letter that she said was from Ryan Reynolds's acting
coach from when he was twelve years old, and that
acting coach allegedly said Ryan Reynolds was obnoxious as a
twelve year old. Like there are side characters and stuff,
Like she really fleshes out this world of.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
What she's saying. Is it real? Is it accurate? Who cares?

Speaker 4 (53:24):
Of course, people are coming to hear that tea on
a story they're invested in, right.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
I feel like though, like this is definitely in her alley,
in her willhouse, in that this fees into the Hollywood
demon's kind of trope as well as like her response
to the Me Too movement. I know, like she was
definitely anti feminist in that movement as well. Like this
kind of all fees into that perfectly for her.

Speaker 4 (53:50):
Yes, So I think that's another reason why this has
taken off, because I think that, like there is something
inherently inviting about the power of like making a contrarian
stance on something like after Me Too, lots of women
got engagement by taking a contrarian stance. Ironically, Blake Lively
praised both Woody Island and Harvey Weinstein that last one

(54:12):
is going to be interesting to note for later. So
I think there is this attitude where like going against convention.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
You know, if there's a convention.

Speaker 4 (54:20):
That says we automatically got to support the woman in
any situation, it probably makes people who are turning to
Owen's as coverage and her breakdowns feel like the free
thinkers who are going against the grain and like willing
to take an unpopular opinion which feels good, like it
feels good to think of yourself in that way, which
then could obviously connects to some of her more like
odious stances about trans people and women and Jewish people

(54:44):
like you, if you can get people introduced to the
idea that it's like good to take an unpopular opinion
when you're talking about a celebrity that people don't like,
imagine how then you can walk them down to be
like it isn't and also don't you not like trans
and also don't you think women should not have jobs?

Speaker 2 (55:01):
And also don't you not like Jewish people? Like It's
like kind of all coming from the same place.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
Yeah, okay, so she's very engaging and she it's sort
of like, you know, here's some celebrity gossip. Let me
give you this conspiracy theory and also kind of this
hate on the side. Right, But it's been very successful.
But has has the new audience changed her stances at all?

Speaker 2 (55:33):
That's a great question.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
According to Owens, she has not really changed her views
despite her rebrand. She says, in terms of my perspective,
I haven't changed anything. I've been anti me too since
long before it was cool. When it comes to the
which like oh as like feminist media makers, do you think,

(55:56):
like I just I'm so curious about that take of
likes of all just the assumption that like it's cool
to be anti.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Me too right now.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
I just have a lot of questions.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
This is definitely the whole like red pill level of
women trying to be the I hate this term, but
like the pick me like we're like I it's now
cool because the boys like me like it. It doesn't
want it sounds like most women who have been through
these processes or her survivors would never say like the

(56:27):
level people. I'm not even just like survivors, people with
conscious like like that in general, that's not a that's
not a statement you want that's not a winning statement.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
It's not that's a good way to put it. It's
not a winning statement.

Speaker 4 (56:42):
And when it comes to the success of the content
that she's made around Blake Lively, Kenda says that she
thinks her new fans, especially the ones coming from the left,
have quote just kind of gotten wise to the fact.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
That maybe women lie just like men.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
And do you Ken, do you want to know what
her next big issue is going to be like after
she moves on from Blake Lively, She's already signaled to
what it is.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Oh really, because we're still in the middle of this.
The lawsuit hasn't been settled, but okay what is?

Speaker 4 (57:09):
But she's already looking I mean like it's not gonna
last forever. She's already had a sense of like where
she's going next. Her next bigu she was going to
be championing Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced filmmaker that really did
kickstart the Me Too movement. She's been interviewing him by
phone since twenty twenty two. Here's how the Hollywood Reporter

(57:31):
explains it. Kndas's takeaway is that while Harvey Weinstein is
an immoral man, he's also a victim of the justice system. Owens,
a long time and persistent critic of the me too
movement of which Harvey, of which the Harvey Weinstein saga
served as the watershed, noted that quote, I've always had
faith in our court system, and now that's beginning to change.

(57:51):
Now I'm wondering if our courtrooms have been politicized.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
I love that.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
It's Harvey Weinstein being convicted that She's like, are the
core It's not on the money?

Speaker 1 (58:04):
I no, I'm sure there's some of the serial killers
that she should represent as much like this is okay
to be fair, she has has she has her fingers
on the pulse in that knowing this is gonna drive
up attention, like she is gonna get the publicity that

(58:25):
she wants with that, Like how bigger could you go
outside of being like I'm gonna go dig up Hitler
and interview him and tell him I miss him like that.
That's the yeah, you know, I.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Mean, she she agrees with you.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
She said that she's putting out a series called Harvey Speaks,
and when asked about it, she said, quote, it will
explode the world.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
That's a direct quote.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
She's a businesswoman for sure.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Yeah, we all have that to look forward to.

Speaker 4 (58:57):
I mean again, like she sad, like I cannot deny
that this is smart, Like I don't.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
I don't agree with it. I don't think it's good.
I don't think it's good for the world.

Speaker 4 (59:09):
But like, I think she has her finger on the
pulse of what is actually going to be projects to
put out that will capture people's attention, for.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Better or for worse. And I think she's really got something.
She's like cracked into something.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
Yeah, for better or worse. Indeed she has. And you know,
every time we talk to you, Bridget, we always talk
about how the algorithms and so many of our social
media pushes this content up and how we engage in it.
So she's figured it out. She's figured that out.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
I think you're exactly right.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
And I think, like that's the so what of this
story is that, you know, Candice has so many other
things going on, Like she's pivoting into other kinds of
program she's branding out into doing a book club for
paying subscribers and a fitness program, and I think that
I do I believe her when she says that she's
not like rebranding. I think rather she is trying to

(01:00:11):
rebrand her followers. These new followers, many of whom are
just like women, who are interested in this scandal. I
believe that the point is for them to be walked
down a pipeline that includes her other extremist attitudes, really
using this Blake Lively celebrity scandal as the hook. And
I think because celebrity stories, especially ones that involve women,

(01:00:31):
are so often just like considered fluff, so a lot
of people who care about like extremist content or ideology
might not be paying that much attention to hell, these
stories that you might see on US Weekly are tapping
into those ideologies and un leading those ideologies on a
brand new audience. And so I think that's especially concerning
when you're talking about things like celebrity, because you know what,

(01:00:53):
I'm reading celebrity scandals or like reading US Weekly, I
might not be primed to have my like BS detector
on and up because it just is, like you think
of it as a less charge space. And so I
think that it really can be more dangerous because it
lends itself to people being more susceptible to ideological content.
They might not be expecting without even realizing it. And like,

(01:01:16):
I think it's very easy for Candace Owens to go
from like saying Blake Lively is lying to like women
lie to, women can't be trusted to like women should
not have jobs, which I'm not just like pulling that
out of nowhere. That is a stance that Candace Owens
has explicitly advocated for, that women should not have employment,
they cannot be trusted with work, despite herself obviously being

(01:01:36):
a working woman. So like, basically, you just can't trust her.
She's not someone that you can trust. Don't let her
rebrand as a celebrity journalist fool you if somebody tags
you in a video of hers, to be like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
Oh, she's really breaking it down.

Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
Just remember that she is trying to soften what it
is that she advocates for and believes in, and like
we shouldn't let her do that. We should really remember
who she is and what she's about, because she's made
it very clear.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Right, I Mean, she's definitely on the same lines of
what we've seen as a new generation talking about young
men on podcasts and how they've been able to influence
young men, like this is coming in as influencing young women.
I mean, just today, I'm seeing a lot of content
about how young the younger generations are talking are being
red pilled as they would say, which is fitting here,

(01:02:25):
and things like the soft life content being a beginning
for a lot of young women not realizing that getting
that kind of brand. We've talked about that with like
self care, We've talked about that with yoga and the clean,
clean lifestyle type of thing. How that easily becomes a
pipeline for the conservative right wing community. And this is

(01:02:47):
kind of that big sway, except that we see her
branding and we know who she is, but if you
don't know from the jump her stance, this is definitely
a worrisome tactic because we know things like true crime
Time and celebrity gossip, like it's geared towards young women,
it's geared towards women in general, and they also spend
a lot of money and they spend a lot of

(01:03:07):
time in it, investigating and taking part of it. So
it's really worries something like it is comical, as we
were talking at the beginning, like what is this to
very concerning and understanding that when we let this stuff go,
like you were saying, like, this is fluff content, but
in actuality is feeding into a conservative ideal that becomes
mainstream and it's usually really dangerous.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
So when people are like, oh, I just want to
listen to my true crime podcast, I don't want to
get political, or.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
I just want to read about celebrities.

Speaker 4 (01:03:34):
I don't want to get political, I hate to break
it to you, all of that stuff is political.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
All that is all political, and like it is.

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
It can be harnessed to shift attitudes of people who
are being like, oh, this is not political into more
extremest ways of thinking. And so if you are a
savvy consumer of media, or a savvy consumer of anything,
whether it's true crime content or celebrity content, or yoga
or wellness content or any of that, we really got
to be primed and thinking about the ways as content

(01:04:03):
can be so easily weaponized to supread a certain ideology
that we might not want to get mixed up in.

Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Absolutely. Oh every time you come here, Bridget, I'm like,
we have fifteen million other topics we need to talk about.
But thank you, thank you as always for coming on
and taking the time. We love to have you. Where
can the good listeners find you well.

Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
You can listen to my podcast on iHeartRadio called There
Are No Girls on the Internet. You can check me
out on Instagram at bridget Marie in DC and uh yeah,
we'd love to hang out there.

Speaker 3 (01:04:40):
Yes and go do that listeners. If you haven't already,
you can find us. You can email us at Hello,
Stuffnever Told You dot com. You can find us on
Blue Sky at momstaff podcast, or in Instagram and TikTok
at stuff We Never Told You for also on YouTube.
We have a t public store, and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christine or executive duser
My and a contributor Joey. Thank you, Thanks to you

(01:05:02):
for listening. Stuff whe Never Told You is production by
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