Episode 20 - feat. Katie Goldin

Happy Thursday! MiLadyConfetti and HeyShadyLady are joined by Katie Goldin, Host of iHeart Radio's Creature Feature podcast! The gang covers all the bases - from parasites to metaverse to building back up after a major shift. Enjoy!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I love your new beautiful hair. By the way, I
meant to say that last last episode that this beautiful
bright yellow is so fun. Thank you. The color is
actually called sunflower, which is my favorite, my favorite flower. Yes, um, well,
how's everybody doing today? We're doing good. Last episode, she

(00:25):
was good last episode. I think she's going to be
a bit of a drama queen. Today we're starting out strong, right.
We have the most important host here, Katy. Um. Well,
welcome to Boss Level Podcast. Everybody, welcome back. I hope
you have had a nice July, um and it hasn't

(00:47):
been too hot where you are. We are here today
to interview the lovely Katie Golden h and evolutionary biologists
turned viral bird voice turned animal podcaster um joint the
she's joining us today on Boss Level. And you might
have seen her not realize that around Twitter. She is
the owner of the Twitter account birds Rights Activists, which

(01:10):
is uh. It's one of those things where you see
it go like a post go viral on your Twitter feed,
Um of a little bird, and it's in a very silly,
cute little voice. UM. And you probably didn't even realize
you were seeing Katie on your feed. But I bet
you've probably seen a bird rights activists post before at
least once if you're a Twitter user. Um And this
is the number one bird voice on Twitter, bringing you

(01:32):
all of the hot bird takes. And Katie's also the
host of an I Heart Radio podcast Creature feature showing
off the wonderful world of interesting animals and the similarities
we share with their lifestyle and behavior. Um and contributes
to the popular YouTube show Some More News. UM. So,
thank you so much for joining us today, Katie, how
are you doing good? Thank you so much. I've always

(01:56):
feel awkward being described as an evolutionary biologist because I
just I studied it in college along with psychology. So
I feel like if people think I'm out there like
Steve Irwin with a bunch of crocodiles. This scariest animal
I ever did an observational study of was squirrels. So

(02:18):
squirrels can be vicious, honestly, Yeah, especially like in the city.
So that's actually really valid. They were. They were assert
of assert of squirrels, which it doesn't seem like something
that should be scary, but you're when you're used to
an animal not being assertive like a squirrel, you think
they'll just scamper away when they see you, but then
they look you in the eye and then put their

(02:40):
little paw up to their eyeballs and then point at you.
It's like, oh, okay, you mean it. I think I
felt like I almost like I was going to get
jumped to buy squirrels in Central Park one time because like,
how dare I have my lunch you know what I
mean on the park bench and their presents. Yeah, so
I completely understand that fear. Have you ever interacted with

(03:02):
the ground squirrels? No, a, yeah, they're just like the
normal guys. Well, they're sort of ground squirrels as opposed
to like other like gray squirrels or uh more, tree
dwelling squirrels are found and ground colonies. They're kind of
like like the mirror cats of southern California. And they

(03:25):
are the most aggressive squirrels I've ever really had the
pleasure of knowing. Once I was on the beach and
there are a bunch of ground squirrels there. Nowhere is
safe from them, and they took Like I had a
box of crackers on the beach because I'm, you know,
very cool person, but like they took the box like

(03:46):
out of my ripped it out of my hands. I
was stunned. They know what they want and they're going
to get it rested. Um. So how did you how
did you get started with the birds right activist Twitter account?
I think that's my my most burning question. Yeah, how
this was like, oh god, was it like ten years ago?

(04:09):
Oh my god, I hate I hate the progression of time.
That's scary. Yeah, that's real. I'm trying to Yeah, so
I think initially, I mean I was I was always
sort of into um political issues on online on Twitter,

(04:30):
on the internet, and I was chatting with some like
fellow lefties online and we were making fun of it
was what it was like this copy paste text of
someone being very xenophobic, very anti immigrant, and they sent

(04:51):
and it was this, you know, rant by someone who
thought immigrants were taking down the US. So I changed
all the words in it from like immigrants to like
um squirrels, and from you know, a native native born
Americans like two birds, and changed into this xenophobic bird um.

(05:18):
And you know, they got to kick out of it.
Someone suggested like, oh, your bird needs to tweet because
I kind of kept this character up of this politically
how would you describe it, like a like a very
entitled politically bird that sort of is for birds rights,

(05:39):
but the rights of nothing else. So so yeah, I
just I made a Twitter account based on that little
gag I sent to some of my fellow lefty friends,
and uh, just kept kind of doing it. I enjoyed.
I always enjoy sort of imagining what an animal would

(06:00):
sound like. Of course, ever since I was little, when
I had pets, I would just like start talking as
if I am the pet, which I'm sure a lot
of people do, or I'm hoping a lot of people do.
Otherwise it's a little bit awkward for me to do it,
but you know, I still do that with my dogs.
So I love imagining what a little animal would say,
and then I have fun kind of I guess, thinking

(06:21):
about politics through that that way, having this bird make
fun of the state of politics, because it's it's hard to,
I think, consume a lot of politics without getting really
really cynical unless you have to humor about it, for sure. Yeah. Yeah,
and that kind of lets you, I don't know, in
some ways that lets you detach from them, but it

(06:42):
also kind of showcases the absolute absurdity of some of
the things that get said when you can translate it
into like the animal kingdom talking to each other and
that that makes me think of movies like Utopia and
stuff like that. Or ANTS I think is a better
example where it's just like showcasing the status quo and

(07:04):
and how everything works out and you're just like, oh
my god, I'm a little worker ants. No. Yeah, I
think it's easier. I think sometimes it's easier to confront
problems with humans when you have a cute little animal
doing it. It's it stings a little bit less when
it's like a cute little bird pointing out the terrible

(07:27):
flaws in our in our politics than when you have
to think about humans doing it. Yeah, exactly. Um. So
how about um getting started with your your podcast? Um?
And that was this podcast called Creature Feature. Yes, yes,
uh it. I really was so lucky to be able

(07:50):
to start that. I had always really admired podcasts because
I would listen to them when I was working, uh
job that I did not enjoy as much. This is
a long time ago, and I uh I really loved
the podcast that had an educational sort of focus but

(08:14):
was entertaining, was fun. Made me feel like I was
just kind of like someone was having a conversation with me.
Really got me through the drudgery of this old job
that I had, and I really, I really love that
kind of communication. So creature feature I talk about evolutionary biology,

(08:35):
which is uh my, one of my favorite subjects in
the world, and I try to make it relatable in
a way where like you don't feel so separated from nature.
Like if there's an animal doing something really interesting, it
sometimes is presented in this thing is completely separate from humanity,
Like there's humans and then animals out there doing their

(08:58):
own thing. But I like to present into it as
like they're they're kind of like us, you know, they
the kinds of foibles that we have, the sort of
awkward situation that humans get into, it's the same thing
with animals, and so the you know, like we are
very much Evolutionary biology is not this like distant, difficult
to comprehend thing. It's you know, we are also part

(09:21):
of it. And it's also really funny. Yeah, it's fun
for me too. Like I live up in the mountains,
so I do a lot of just like critter watching,
so we've got quite a few of them running around
out here, and currently we have a bunch of birdhouses
going on in the front porch. So it's been kind
of cool to see just how the birds. I don't know,
maybe I've turned into a bit of a bird watcher too,

(09:43):
but how the birds interact with you. So I live
up in North Carolina, so we've got a lot of
blue jays and cardinals and hummingbirds and little like little
finges and things like that. But um, watching the how
do you even put it? The hierarchy of maybe aggressive
tendencies of these birds and then seeing the different like
this this birdhouse was occupied. Yeah, this this literal pecking order,

(10:06):
this bird was occupying this birdhouse, this bird family and
then um next year is the exact same breed of
bird UM, but it's a new generation coming in. They
may or may not be related to the old ones.
But UM, it's cool. It's it's been very cool. And
I watch a lot of YouTube videos of people that
will mount cameras inside of like birdhouses they've constructed so
they can watch the entire like nesting process of um.

(10:29):
I've always been I've always been such a like an
animal freak. I was Animal Planet was my favorite channel.
Growing up, I wanted to be as that was my
first thing that I ever wanted to be as a
kid was a vet until I realized what it meant
to be a vet and the surgeries and the guts
of cute little puppies. Yeah, and I was like maybe yeah, yeah,

(10:51):
allergies no, sorry, but yeah, I developed a cat allergy,
which sucks. You've developed a cat allergy. Yeah, I got
my kiddie, you know, I believe I see. Yeah, and
the corner of your video the butt of the perpetrator.
It's mostly if I scratched them with my nails and

(11:12):
like if I like, I like touch my face with
the dander. Yeah, yeah, it's it's the Yeah, I think
it's like some of the dander, the some kind of yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm in the same way with Zuko. That's why I
can't let him on my face. They's locked out now
because I'm not going through that today. The pollen is

(11:35):
already bad enough. Let's not add cat to it. Yeah. Yeah.
When I moved I moved to Italy, and when I
first moved here, I had so many allergies and it's
just like I think, because it's new stuff that I'm
not used to, and so every every tree would just
like viciously attack me. Yeah. I was the same way

(11:57):
when I moved to California, because you are from moisture
from the East coast all the way over there, and
it's like dry and stuff. So I was like, oh,
this is this is different even for him. I moved
from the Piedmont of North Carolina up into the mountains
of North Carolina, and now I have to take a
daily allergy medicine because I was I was breathing so

(12:18):
poorly because allergies. And I mean when I'm living up
in that like the middle of a forest, so I'm
just surrounded by trees that I've never um maybe not
never because it's still North Carolina, but it's just an
abundance of plant and animal life now. So it's it's
like Mark Wahlberg movie, Oh my god. Yeah, yeah, I
was thinking about that movie the other day. I want

(12:38):
to rewatch it. I haven't seen it since it came
out or came out, and I'm very uh, I'm very curious.
I feel like people were super critical of it when
it came out. It was im Night Shamalan's first rated
art movie and it was a little like try hard
and edgy because he was, you know, he was like
if I'm going rated art right, because like the premise
of the movie was the plants or maybe should I

(12:59):
not spoil it? I don't think it had like I
don't think it had like ten seconds if you don't
want to spoil. But it's also like a ten or
fifteen year old movies, right, I lost respect for m
Night Shamalan. No, just right. No Avatar. I will never
forgive that. Not the not the Blue People Avatar, the

(13:22):
one based on the cartoon. Yeah, yeah, that cartoon was great,
but too much. I never watched the live action. Was
just like my kids like this, So I'm gonna remake
this and mispronounced the main character's name because I get
to do whatever I want because a mighty Hollywood producer.

(13:43):
Oh but yeah, The Happening is um a very interesting movie,
and it's to me, it's like based on like real nature,
like not maybe not maybe it's a little bit of
an exaggeration, but not really because they do it to bugs.
But it's basically the trees of the cited that humans
have gone too far or we at their motive is

(14:04):
never discussed, but the plants are starting to release. Um,
it is totally spoil spoils the whole movie now that
I think about it. So if you haven't seen it,
yeah you shouldn't. You should skip forward a little bit.
But um, everybody's I think it's similar to Um, there's
a movie that came out recently Sandra Bullock called Bird
Bird Box on Netflix. It's actually fairly similar to the

(14:26):
premise of that, where all of a sudden, everyone just
starts killing themselves randomly and no one can figure out
what's going on, and and it's very mysterious. Um. And
in m Night Shamalan it's related to two plants. Um.
But it there there's there's a tree that or maybe
it's a sport a mushroom. Um. And I've only seen

(14:47):
this on the internet dot com, so you know. But
it's a mushroom that will release a sport over a
colony of ants, and it will infect the ants, and
the ants will it basically like hijacks their their neurological
system and makes them or whatever their little brains are, um,
and makes them walk up to the highest point they
can get over there their little colony and stand there

(15:11):
until a stock grows out of their head um into
a new mushroom, and then it releases a new sport
and goes out over the whole colony. And then they
just continue to do that um over and over and over. Okay,
so you know the words as like I've only seen
this in passing on the internet here and there, but
it actually it can infect a number of insects, including ants,

(15:34):
including um, other arthropods, anything that it can get a hold.
And one of the creepy things about some of the
ones that infects ants is it causes them to uh
like kind of hijacks their brain and then causes them
to go over to a branch or twig, climb up

(15:57):
to the top and then grab onto it really hard
with its mandibles. And that way it basically gives the
fungal spores this great platform to sprout from the ant's
head and then release other spores. So it's like it's
not only bursting out of this poor little aunt, but

(16:18):
making the ant go to a prime real estate for
the court accepts to release its spores and cause another
disaster for another ant. That is terrifying. How did that
plant evolve to do that? How? And that is where
I'm like, I mean plant, I think plants are here
before us, like before any like like right there, before

(16:40):
any of the one cell organisms that evolved into two
animals and critters and stuff, it was plants that we're
doing at first. So I'm they're smarter than us. They're
smarter and whatever way that is, I don't know, more
sentient more. Um so yeah, um but let's let's let's

(17:01):
jump back into this after we hear a brief message
from our ads today or or add people. Okay, a great, great,
great introduction to ads. Welcome back. We're chatting with Katie
Golden and evolutionary biologists, and right now we're talking about

(17:22):
mushrooms that can take over your brain. Um, if you're
an ant, don't worry. But my life, every week this
podcast always turned into a topic like surrounded by horror.
This has happened, my god, Like in the past four weeks,
I goes into something horror. It makes me think of
the first episode UM with Kitty plays or she called
me a an adrenaline junkie and I was like, oh ship,

(17:44):
maybe I am where It's just I just I can't
help it. My brain always goes to like oh, the creepy,
the spooky, the I love started framing evolutionary biology in
terms of horror movies because so much of it is
and it's I mean, it's like it's beautiful and amazing,
but it's also really really messed up. And have you

(18:08):
seen Nope yet? I have, not only two. I'm going
to say, is I think you should? I excited might
actually go. I have not seen a movie in theater
since Stephen King's it came out like five six years
ago for maybe whenever it was, um, Nope is so
much better than that. I'm sure it is. This is

(18:28):
I'm sure. So. I was actually looking last night on
Google because I want to see I don't want it
to get spoiled for me. And it's not going to
hit streaming platforms for like forty five days from what
I was researching, so I don't know how they would
spoiled up. I saw a thread last night that started
going into like and I'm such a starting yes, I'm
such a like cinematic nerd that I'm like so curious
and uh. Jordan Peel tweeted a video of um of

(18:53):
like a weird old TV intro that has like a
chimpanzee and all of this kind of stuff. And I
was looking at that and I was like, hold up,
I don't want to know anything. I want to go
into this. So it was actually googling like showtimes for
it last night and I was like, am I going
to go to a movie theater? What? But but yeah,
so Katie know if I can't even I don't even

(19:15):
know if I can see it in the theaters here.
I have one theater because I'm in I'm in northern Italy.
There's one like one theater that plays movies with your
original English audio, and they I don't. I'm going to
have to keep checking to see if they have it there.
If not, I might complain to them. Yeah, I'll be like, hey,

(19:37):
get this. So Katie, what is one of your favorite
animal or nature facts or like tidbits? Oh? Man, there
are so many. I don't know if we want to
keep with the horror. Either really like um let me think,

(20:02):
I mean, I really like the Uh. There is this
parasite that uh infects the butts of ants. We're just
we're just talking about ants, uh, and so it causes
the ants but to um get larger. So it's it's

(20:26):
it's it's very small parasite. It goes into the ant,
but it uh it causes the ant but to swell,
turn red and look exactly like a berry, like a
ripe berry. And this causes the ant to be very
attractive to hungry birds who come in will eat the

(20:46):
ant and this parasite. Uh. The reason the parasite does
this is so that it gets inside the birds so
it can reproduce and uh continue it's uh life cycle.
It's actually very or to another parasite called the legal cloridium,
which infects uh the ice stalks of snails. I mean

(21:08):
it infects the whole snail and when the snail um,
when the snail accidentally ingests the local cloridium on a
leaf or something, uh, it forms these huge brood sacks
that go into the eye stalks of the snail and
kind of pulsate. They look like they kind of look

(21:29):
like rave lights like he's flashing. Uh. Oh gosh, it
would be and it would be like a creepy pasta
version of SpongeBob where Gary gets infected by this parasite
that causes his eye stalks to like, uh, they they
inflate really big and then they just have this like

(21:50):
undulating UH colors like strobe light kind of colors, and
then like this makes them very attractive to UH to birds.
And in addition to making its eyes stalks like flashing
sort of something that the bird wants to come and eat,
the poor snail is mind control to want to go

(22:11):
out of the protective foliage of the plants and up
towards the light, and that makes it that exposes it
to the birds. The bird eats the snail and then
this luco claridium continues its life cycle inside the bird
um mates reproduces, and then the bird poops out another
new uh sort of set of them, and then that

(22:32):
will be ingested by the snail. So on and so
forth until the universe dies. Yeah, we're just truly here.
But then but then it's so interesting to start look
to look at human nature and see like you can
describe a person as a parasite right or a leech
or mooch or like, it's so interesting to see, um,

(22:55):
how animals interact with each other, or the the bug
kingdom into the animal like the birds and the fish
and the all the way us to the mammals and
then see that play out in human dynamics. That's super
And that's one of my favorite, like favorite things to
do is just be like wow, you know, like we
have lots of phrases like a wolf in sheep's clothing,
Like we we compare human nature to it all the time, um,

(23:19):
without even thinking about it, Like we we call this
person is a predator. Like that's the type of words
we use for for for people to stay away from, right,
like which I feel like it's a little bit of
projection because I don't know. I think with a lot
of things that animals do, it's like that's fair, you're
just trying to survive. But then humans can sometimes take

(23:41):
it to a twisted degree. Well, we're conscious of what
we're doing at a certain level, I think as like
younger children, Um, there's but there's a certain level where
we become self aware and that's something that animals don't
really have so and and that's why, like I think
like the Jurassic Park, one of the most recent Jurassic
Park movie that came out, I think with like Chris

(24:01):
Pratt and the girl's red hair, um that they replaced
what's her face within Twilight, Um, nobody cares her she Okay,
so I forget her name, but she's the red haired,
curly vampire in Twilight, the main villainess of pretty much
the whole movie series, and they she's she's portrayed by

(24:26):
one actress for the first two or thres She lost
her contract because she messed up. She I go, I've
researched into it, and from what I could find, like
the Twilight company said that she had overbooked her schedule,
but she was like, I only had one small role
that I that was in no way, shape or form
like conflicting with the schedule. And then when I was
looking into it, the girl they replaced her with, which

(24:46):
is the red haired girl from the new Jurassic Park movie. Um.
I wish I knew their names. I'm sorry, but off
the top of my head, I don't. But um, she
had they had offered her this Dinah mcbrontosaurus dyno mcbron
to soaurus. Um. They had offered her the role um
in originally with the first Twilight movie, but she didn't

(25:06):
think the movie was like it was gonna be big enough.
And then like by the fourth she's coming and replaced
like the role so what it's what it seems like
to me allegedly, But what it seems like to me
is the movie series started really taking off, and then
they could afford the bigger name actress, and so they
finagled their way out of the contract with the other girl,
even though she was perfect for the role and she

(25:28):
was like playing anyway. That's a whole other aside. Don't
get me off on my Twilight sho I've been rewatching
this Twilight series recently. It's such a guilty pleasure for me.
But Victoria actress's name, Thank you Victoria. That even don
me that that's her. I'm like obsessed with the fact
that they tried to use an animatronic baby in one

(25:50):
of the I saw it trending recently on Twitter that
the cast of Twilight called that that the character his
name is Renett May for the baby, and the cast
was calling her Chuck as May, like Chucky or Chucky
something like that. That's freaking creepy looking, though, Like I

(26:12):
love I love animatronics. I kind of enjoy the feeling
of the Uncanny Valley. It's sort of like, I don't know,
it's it's sort of like how you like horror films
or something like getting that sense of Uncanny Valley is
like kind of fun, it's exhilarating. That's my hard limit though,
Like animatronic babies is a no. Yeah, yeah, you can.

(26:33):
You can go like and rent out the places, um,
Charlie's house and the Cullen's house. You can like airbnb
them and they have like cutouts of the whole cast
like throughout each location. That kind creepy, that's weird, Like
I'm putting those under the bed, Like now, I'm not
dealing with that. I don't need to see that. There

(26:54):
was a cardboard when I was in college. There was
a cardboard cut out of Edward Colin and staring like
that set up in the balcony, and I didn't realize
it was a cardboard cut out. So I would just
walk by this area and get this like kind of
bad feeling and look up and I'd see some guys
standing out on the balcony. It's like, oh, there's a

(27:15):
guy on the balcony. And then it was like a
few it took like a few weeks for me to
realize there was this pattern of the same guy on
the balcony and it was really starting to freak me.
Out and then when I like I got, I tried
to get real close because he wasn't moving, and yeah
it was they do stand still, good old at um.

(27:38):
So the original actress for Victoria was called Rochelle Rachelle
Lafev lafev Lafrev. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. She's
got a very pretty name, but I don't know how
to pronounce it. Um, and she it looks like it
is French. Yeah, um. And then she was replaced by
Bryce Dallas Howard, who was an absolutely phenomenal actress. And
I loved both of these women. Um. I just wish

(28:00):
they hadn't replaced the role in the last movie. You've
already gotten almost to the whole series. But um. Bryce
Dallas Howard played a main character in the Jurassic Park
movie the I think a Jurassic evolution, Jurassic Park evolution.
And this is where the government has like Jurassic Park
has already become like successful or whatever, and the government
is now coming in and wanting to weaponize the dinosaurs

(28:21):
of course, right, and so they start to try to
um like cross breed, genetically modify um. And they're adding
like alligator and rabbit and whatever, like little pieces of
ding it. I don't, I don't, I don't remember exactly
so they can multiply a quicker. I think that it
was like crocodile and there was a bunch of strange

(28:41):
animals and when all of their different traits combined, um,
it created this like meg t rex uh. And but
it was like a velocira with funny ears. Oh my gosh, okay,
bunny rabbits and I don't probably funnyless bite your head off.
Bunny was probably not in there to be fair, but

(29:02):
it was. It was a very strange combination of like
DNA that they had combined, and it turned into this
very lethal um beasts that also and this this is
where I wanted to go with what we were talking
about previous is uh. Animals don't kill for the fun
of it. They killed to either defend their territory. O

(29:23):
Katie looks like she do kill for the fun of it. Okay,
oh yeah, my cat zugo kills my do it. Dogs
will do it. Dolphins will do it sometimes there evil
dolphins are, Yeah, dolphins are I have I have been
awakened to the truth that dolphins are evil. Opins are

(29:46):
I mean It's funny because I would say they're similar
to us and that some of them, Yeah, I feel
like they have like a like a bigger brain than
we do, or more compart more spaces in their brains.
They have a large your brain. It doesn't mean they're
smarter than us, but they do have more brain matter. Um.

(30:07):
I think in the accipital lobe area. That in terms
of the like visual audio processing, which makes sense because
they use echolocation and so they devote a lot of
their brain towards that to create like a three D
map using echolocation. Okay, so generally speaking, animals don't kill
for fun. I still think that if I were pushing shove,

(30:29):
I would argue, with the exception of dolphins, dolphins are freaks.
But I think that cats are probably still acting on
an instinctual nature to like get food, right um or
I think that in same with dogs, Like we have
a dog that has killed a couple of possums and
stuff like that just kind of quote unquote for fun.
But um, it would eventually if he wasn't a hungry

(30:52):
if he was a hungry boy, instead of being well
fed every day, he would probably eat it. I think
it's just like the instinctual nature of it. So maybe
you could argue that's what some humans are doing. You
I don't know, this is where it because this is
where it's like the meat of it. But um saying
all murderers are just angry, Oh my god, you first.
But the dinosaur in Jurassic Jurassic Park Evolution or Durassic

(31:16):
World Evolution, whatever it was called, they are terrified of
it because it's just going through the park when it
is when it escapes inevitably as they all do, um
and just killing every dinosaur in its path. And they're like,
this is the first dinosaur that they've got on the
park that they're like, this isn't killing for food, it's
killing for the hunt. It's killing for the fun of it.

(31:37):
And um, that that makes me think of humans, where
humans I feel like are one of the few that
will just kill for the curiosity of it, like the
and and and the psychotic nous of it, the and
this is where we get like serial killers and all
of this kind of stuff. But then it comes into
that that nitty gritty Yeah, my cat will just kill

(31:59):
him house and then just hit it around with her
foot for a little bit and never do anything with it,
and it's like, why did you do that? My cat
would put on like a put on a show. She'd
do a little performance for me. She because we would
have we had these like glass pane doors, and so
she would come in front. She'd see me, make eye

(32:20):
contact with me, like you're seeing this right, and she'd
have a mouse or a lizard or some poor little
creature and just start tossing it in the air, and
like you know, blood and entrails would be flying around,
fling stuff around, although and like occasionally look at me
to make sure I was watching. She wanted me to see.

(32:43):
I guess, just like showing you how how you know,
important she is to the pack, and like, look look
at what I can do for you. Oh my god,
you if you were small. Yeah, I think it was
I think it was her trying to teach me how
to hunt like that. That is sort of a cat instincts,

(33:04):
like like you've never I've never seen you kill a mouse.
Let me show you how it's done. They exactly And
that's I mean, I think that's generally why cats will
bring you half dead things and like sometimes put it
like on your doorstep. Or even on your bed. Uh.
They think that by bringing you a half dead mouse

(33:26):
or animal, it's teaching you how to hunt, because that's
that's what they do with kittens. They would bring them
a half dead thing like hey, look I've almost killed this,
now you give it a shot. And cats like they
only meet out at humans and like like, so they
they've created a way to communicate with us. So yeah,
they're trying to They're trying to help us out. It's

(33:48):
a case of neotony, which is like when an animal
retains the traits of it's like a babyhood, I guess, yeah,
because kittens me o, yes that their mother's don't. Cats
don't generally now, but they do me at humans a
lot because basically it's like I am your baby forever
and they've learned stuff from us. But yeah, it is,

(34:13):
it is, really, it is very cute. I love I
love cats. I love how they have us wrapped around
their little little pause. Yeah. I also think, like with
the nature thing that you were kind of talking about,
because like humans killing for sport, I also think like
the ties into that is also capitalism. I think of
like indigenous like people's of you know, all over the world,

(34:35):
like who lived in harmony with nature? Who did things
did you know, with animals and stuff like that to
survive and didn't necessarily harm the environment? Um. And then
you know when you introduce you know, colonialism and capitalism
and all that stuff and you know, things around the world,
and that's when it becomes a thing about power, and
it becomes a thing about like survivability and when it

(34:57):
comes to money, um, resource especially Yeah, so yeah, is
it about resources. It's about money. And it's like I
think that's the thing that like kind of transformed that
versus like, you know, let's see what I can do.
Let's see if I can conquer this thing, um, And
it's like down, that's interesting. Please stop, I think about

(35:19):
I do actually like think about capitalism and these exploitative
structures in human society when I'm thinking about like evolutionary biology,
because there are a lot of like exploitative structures in
in biology where like I mean parasites. Parasitism is a
type of exploitation where you you know, there are a

(35:44):
variety of different types of parasites, but where you are
sort of using the resources of an animal and it's
hurting them. There are other types of symbiotic relationships. There's
like mutualism where you're both benefiting. There's a type where
like one benefits and the other isn't harmed, but they
don't benefit um. But then you know it's so it's

(36:05):
it is kind of I think that like you see
you see structures in nature that are some are sustainable
and some aren't in terms of like you when you
have populations that either prey on each other or one
that's like a parasite on the other population, it has
to be stable. So like the the predator or the

(36:28):
parasite can't be so powerful that they're actually wiping out
all of the host or the prey species, because then
the predator or the parasite is also going to go
extinct because they no longer have the source that they've
come to rely on. So they have to have it
at this level that it's like sustainable, it's still hurting

(36:49):
potentially their target. Although in some cases predators are actually
not necessarily a bad thing for the prey species, bad
for the individual who you know, get the but but
like when you actually take out keystone predator species like
wolves or coyotes or foxes, sometimes it can be really
bad for some of the prey species because when they

(37:11):
become overpopulated, disease can spread more easily, or they run
out of resources, and which you know is a problem.
So having these programs can actually be a good thing.
But it's everything is kind of like everything has to
balance out in nature, not because of justice or anything,
not not for any sort of like moral reason, but

(37:33):
just because it's not balanced out, which happens like in
evolutionary history. Of course, there's been a predator that's been
too successful, uh and then basically it's prey girl right exactly,
or like a parasite that you know no longer could
uh find its host because the host died out or something.

(37:55):
So these things have probably happened many times, but the
things that survive are the ones where you have the
sustainable system. And the reason I bringing this up in
terms of capitalism is I think of this kind of
like I see it as a very exploitative system. Uh,
and it has been for a while somewhat stable. Not

(38:17):
that's I'm not saying that's like a good thing. It's
been stable in terms of like it's been able to
exploit people without it without the balance being so thrown
off that, like you know, it also because it affects
a lot of marginalized people, especially back in brown and community.
So that's probably why I feel stable to somebody who

(38:37):
isn't a part of that, right exactly. So it's like
so it's not stab no, no, sorry, I don't I
don't mean to say at all. It's like stable isn't
like a good thing. It's like able to continue to
feed on people because the it's like this, I think
people get the sense that unless the status quo is

(39:00):
rapidly shifting, or what they perceived to be the status
quo is rapidly shifting away from them, that it is
that things are fine. But that's not true at all,
Like uh, you know, the like how what you mentioned.
Someone else may perceive the sas quote as being relatively
stable and changing, but it's not at all fine. It's
just fine from your perspective because you're privileged enough to

(39:22):
not see the effects of it. I mean it's I
mean it's in the same way like how so many
people haven't realized how bad things are getting with the
environment because you've been insulated from it. You're not in
a uh poorer area of the country or uh, or
from a country where you're you're actually getting the famine
effects of the environment. And so at a certain point,

(39:47):
you know, like I think, um, people have the sense
that capitalism isn't uh isn't as I guess dangerous as
I think it is because they because it has found
a way to like continue to um to operate to

(40:08):
like to put it in sort of like animal terms,
like to feed on people. But it doesn't disrupt the
system enough that people basically like in large enough numbers, uh,
you know, kind of no longer put up with it. Yeah,
because it's like the movie Ants again, like without the
working class of the Ants movie, the higher the top

(40:31):
class would have to do all the work themselves or whatever.
So why would they ever want to to to fully
like remove that population um or even And this is
I think about this this type of stuff a lot too.
Is it's um the transition of like what when I
think about like the Egyptian like the Egyptians and how

(40:53):
and and like what was that movie A Prince of
Egypt um where they had the enslaved population that that
were like whips and like forcing them to move all
of these giant blocks to create these Pyramids for according
to the movie. I don't know if that's historically accurate,
but I love the movies, so I'm going to consider it.
But backa music in it. It's phenomenal. That movie is
just absolutely gorgeous, one of my favorite movies. But um uh,

(41:18):
And then I think about American society, where we're no
longer like whips and whatnot, although that did happen in
our history. Now we all just willingly, the working class,
I'll just willingly does it for the sake of needing
the paycheck, the barely the barely the paycheck that's not
even paying, like full time work is not even paying.

(41:39):
But we do the work willingly. There's no more like
you could argue that we're forced into it because if
we don't, we're going to starve and lose our houses
and lose all of our stuff. I'd say it's a
form of coercion. It's a financial coercion. It's it's interesting
how that has has shifted from like a violent um
control to a maybe a mentally violent control. I don't

(42:01):
know how to phrase it other than that, but um
where it's it's I don't know. We we all put
the work uniform on without even thinking about it now
or the and speaking broadly is the working class. And
of course this is going to affect black and brown
people much more um than white. But this is this
is the crux, and I think we're going to see

(42:23):
I don't know, like I don't know, but we're we're
getting tom thinking about the metaverse now with like you know,
Mark Zuckerberg and all of this stuff. I was seeing
a threat about them still doing that. It's this this sory.
It gets this where my my adrenaline junkie creepy brain
comes out again. But I think about how this is
like the we're witnessing like late stage capitalism or whatever.

(42:43):
And I'm not like a super big brain on this stuff.
But I was seeing some some Twitter threads going around
recently discussing the metaverse and how a lot of layman's
are like normal or working class or the ants quote
unquote the normal ants, not the high upper ants like
are seeing are we don't even know what's going on
with the metaverse, but the word the higher class, the hierarchy,

(43:04):
the top, the big, the big brawny ants from the
Ants movie are like just like the effectively stage capitalism
what is about to shift with the way that we
have the Internet and digital life and um, all of
that kind of stuff, like like metaverse. The rich are
already buying up real estate in it. And it's like
we're thinking we're going to explore outer space, like go
to Mars, but it's not. It's like a virtual world

(43:26):
with VR and um oculus and whatever, like we're going
to be going into inner space, not to outer space,
and that's where the land is being brought up. We're
not gonna like my my brain gets really big on
this stuff really fast and then doesn't know what to
do with all of the information, and I just play
video games to cope. I think the rich could also

(43:48):
be just kind of dumb, like how they all bought
the board ape and f T. I think that those
I think those are some of the red I think
those are the dumb rich that have been manipulated by
the smart rich to think. And then I also think
that like like those super rich, um, but not like
in the elite class or whatever. The super rich, like

(44:09):
the I think that they're like influencers and so like
scientology does this a lot too. They're like if we
can if we can grab up this big celebrity um
and get them to showcase our product. They can convince
a larger number of people to do this as well.
And so if they can, if the people that are
producing the n f T s and profiting the most
off of them in crypto and all of that stuff,
can get bigger celebrities to buy a n f T

(44:30):
and use them like Eminem and Snoop Dogg just in
a music video with n f T s, then they're
being showcase to the larger population and we're like, wow,
it's so cool. And and look, it was an Eminem
and Snoop Dogg collab music video and it was full
it's really cool animation because it's like combining real world
with the animation and it's gorgeous. But it's the n

(44:51):
f T Crypto monkeys, And I'm like, come on, you
literally have video games that cost sixty dollars at game stop,
So if you want to have a virtual world, go
for that, right. Um. But if if now you're like,
oh my god, Snoop Dogg's so cool. I love Snoop
Dogg and he likes he likes eno f T, So
no I like enough T s because and that's the
that's influencers, right. Um So in some ways I think

(45:14):
some of these like bigger elite rich people are still
pawns in a bigger game and then what you know,
of course it's going to be money, but it's also
like the multi levels to this, yes, and marketing into
the marketing here we go. Yeah, um, I'm killing the

(45:36):
environment to do that. So half fun, half fun with
your fancy um theory. Um, that's like burning down acres
of the rainforest every you know, few etherorium you mine.
I don't know, God, it makes me so it's so stupid.
I'm turning into Listen, I would say on black Twitter.
When we saw that job Rule was involved, we were like,

(45:58):
we're good, fire firefest everybody. We're like, we're good, We're
not doing that. Um. I feel like I'm turning into
Charlie from whatever that show is where I've got my
conspiracy board in the background, and I'm like, it's always funny.
Thank you. Um, but let's let's take a moment here

(46:18):
to to let me get unsweaty me or overd from
our sponsors. Welcome back, everybody, we're chatting with Katie Golden.
We got a lot deeper than I thought we were
going to. I didn't I didn't know my brain was today.

(46:41):
Uh so, um, welcome back to the Boss Level podcast,
where um, sometimes we get often really really awesome and
strange tangents and I apologize to everyone. Sorry, sometimes I
can't control myself. Um, I've been researching O B S
for like four days straight for a like a guide.
I'm working on the Beginner's Guide to Obius, and I
s I just needed an escape from tech jargon for

(47:03):
a second. And y'all are the jumped into n F
T s. Yeah, y'all, y'all are the poor uh the
audience for me too. So I apologize. But let's let's
bring it back to Katie and and your journey as
what we call you a content creator. I know you
do a podcast. Is that is that how you would
define yourself as a content creator. I've never thought of

(47:26):
it that way. Sure, I don't know. I mean, like
I yeah, it's it's hard because like I do, I
guess I do two main things, which is the podcast,
and I write for Somewhere News, which is the political
YouTube show. So it's a little bit sometimes it seems strange, right,

(47:47):
Like one is evolutionary biology. They oh, there is politics,
and I mean I incorporate try to incorporate humor into both.
I guess I kind of see them. It's hard for
me not to engage in politics, and I guess I've
always been combining politics with my love for animals, like
the bird Twitter. But it's I guess it's like you see,

(48:09):
like politics basically has everything to do with everything, Like
the actions of politicians have a direct impact on our
lives and on every living creature on the planet. So
it's hard for me to not be intensely interested in
politics because I care about humanity and I care about
the environment, and so I guess I would, Yes, I would,

(48:35):
I would say content creator. It's and it's been a
real privilege for me to be able to do both
things like talk about politics but also talk about the
evolutionary biology, which you know, I mean, I'm in I'm
in love with evolutionary biology. I'm gonna it's complicated relationship
with VI. It's just so it's so important, I guess

(48:56):
to talk about. So you mentioned like earlier that you
before you know, going full dive I guess into content creation.
You were in a work situation where you just weren't
really feeling it. It wasn't the best. So how has
that transition been from like going to something that really
stuck in your life to something that like you're passionate about,

(49:16):
that you love to do and you know doing that
you know with work. Yeah, yeah, it's it was very
scary because with a job that with that job which
I it was not really my passion. Um, there's a
lot of sort of drudgery involved that was you know,
kind of depressing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean it's you know,

(49:39):
that's how you have to do it sometimes to make
rent um. But like it it was it was stable.
It was a stable job, and so leaving the stability
of that was very very scary. Um, and I felt
like I was making a huge mistake because I thought, okay,

(50:00):
this is a huge risk. I'm probably making a big,
big mistake. I would say the fact that I, uh,
you know, big admission. I was able to like live
with my parents for a few months while making this transition, Um,
that was a huge help. And I think I think
that is something really important to acknowledge, is that when

(50:21):
people say like to follow your dreams and to like
if you don't like the job you have, like to
quit your job. It's like, that's easy to say when
you have some like a safety net, like a financial
safety net like family or savings, very easy to say.
Whereas when you don't have that, it can that can
be a very like scary and dangerous decision to make.

(50:45):
And I don't think that's fair, Like it shouldn't be
just people who have a safety I mean, we should
all have safety nets so that we can pursue, um,
pursue our our dreams and our passions. I think, like
I think that I did uh to try to minimize
some of the risk in leaving that job. I did

(51:06):
wait until I had some indication that I there was
a viable career path. So um, in addition to like
accruing a following on Twitter, um, where I could you know,
you can like I could sell I really enjoyed making
like bumper stickers and art and stuff that you know,

(51:26):
I could sell it. It wasn't it wouldn't make like
a huge amount of money, but it was something where
it's like, okay, I can, um, I can independently make
some money. So like if I'm unable to find you know,
other career paths. I'm not gonna like drown. Um. And
I you know, I was able to reach out to,

(51:47):
you know, a comedy website UH called a cracked and
you had a writing job there and that was really
that was really fun. The people there were really wonderful, UM.
And it was so a wonderful learning experience to talk
to other people who were comedy writers. UM. And so
I think like that was that was an important like

(52:09):
being able to actually directly work with people who are
in the creative industry, you know, in the comedy comedy uh,
informational writing, you know industry, UM, was super valuable. Uh.
To be able to uh then kind of be able
to figure out my own like what I wanted to
do on my own, uh. And uh you know, we

(52:32):
of course I was somewhat forced to do that. We
were Gosh, I don't know how much of this I
can talk about. I think I can still get with
from a from a Yeah, but like you know, we
were we were all laid off. It was a bad
time in the in the industry because of uh, I
mean Mark Zuckerberg's fault. Probably I didn't say that anything,

(52:58):
Yes he did it, yeah, exactly, And I mean there
was this big implosion of a bunch of like, uh
websites and magazines and so it was it was a
that was also really tough because it felt like, you know,
you have this group of creative people that you work
with and you really enjoy their company and you feel

(53:18):
like you're you're part of this thing. And then when
that's kind of like you know, when that's uh, when
that's gone, it felt very like, um, well what am
I going to do? I'm you know, like maybe this
was not a good idea to like try to do
this very risky career. But then you know, I had

(53:39):
been interested in going into podcasting for a while um
and started like you know, uh, getting in touch with
people and making it making it happen like um, but
it did really help to have already had some connections
and like in terms of the like comedy writing, comedy

(54:00):
content production industry, so like that those kinds of things
really matter a lot. It's not necessarily fair, because there
are a lot of people who may have a wonderful
idea for a podcast and they're really talented, um, but
it can be hard to break into unless you you
have the contact information of someone you know who will
listen to you. Yeah, yeah, unless you just do like uh,

(54:22):
one of my many failed attempts at starting at my
own podcast and getting four or five episodes in and
then giving up on it, and then six months later
trying a new podcast but um and going through just
like YouTube and hoping hoping it hits the algorithms somewhere. Um,
but what was that? What you have to do though?

(54:42):
I think, and that's what I love about the Internet,
to be honest, is is the the well, I don't know,
it's sort of like the lottery sometimes, like, but the
ability to be able to pave your own path and
be an independent, um like business owner so to speak, uh,
with with what you're creating, um like, you can literally
start like rags the richest kind of situation. Like I

(55:05):
We've seen so many people started zero followers on YouTube
and now they're living in l A with a billion
dollars and you're like, God, I can't stand you. What
you were about billions not a billion millions? Um, probably
there's probably a few YouTubers so that there. Yeah, I'm
curious now, but um, what was it that I got
you into podcasting? Katie? I mean, I think I think

(55:29):
it was a long standing interest of mine, like I
had always enjoyed listening to them. Like I said, um,
it made me really happy. And I I like talking
about things, um, which you know. I like like when
I'm really interested in something like a topic like parasites
or something, I really enjoy explaining them. That's why on

(55:52):
my first date with my current husband, I was like
rambling on and on about parasites. Uh, and somehow like
you're married now, so for that that sounds the wedding.
The wedding vows was probably like you had me at
parasite love, you had me at talking about Ti Ganda.

(56:14):
I Uh, rat brain and causes it to be attracted
to cat urine. Yeah that's true. Oh my god, the
cat urine is and the cat's nearby, so that the
cat has something exactly they it causes like it's a

(56:35):
it's a very small, small micro organism that infects rats.
It's similar to the other ones I talked about earlier.
Affects rats. Brains causes like this lesion that confuses their
fear response with their let me say, more romantic response.
And a couple of friends like that. I'm just kidding.

(56:58):
Necessarily should be enough, and so uh, it is then
attracted to the smell of like cat urine to cats,
and so it will approach a cat and you know,
get eaten, and then this parasite, this Ti ganda can
then reproduce inside the cat's gut and then you know,

(57:19):
cat poops, rat investigates cat poop cycle starts again. Zuko
get out, Like, wait, we're talking about humans can be
infected by ti gandai. It's actually one of the reasons
I'm not supposed to handle catletter when you're pregnant otherwise.
I don't that the evidence that it has much of

(57:40):
an effect on humans is mixed, Like there are some
studies are like this, this may have like an effect
on the brain. There are others that are like I
don't know. The person just starts like they become very
attracted to catletter and they start carrying a little like
that has never been a little bit of cat letter
in their pocket everywhere they go. Yeah, I've heard like

(58:02):
murmurings on the Internet of people thinking that it's it's
maybe like they like quote unquote like cat Lady disease,
where it's like if you get that, that's why you
oh that I don't buy it. I would love to
read somebody's a very passionate research paper on that though,
whether it was true or not, I would love to
read someone try to try to argue that it was that.

(58:24):
That sounds very fascinating. Women from the age of sixty
who had five or more cats. That's going to be
me regardless. Don't lick your fingers after you clean your
cat's litter box and you'll be fine. No, I have
my I have I have I washed up right after. Yeah,

(58:45):
I use gloves. I'm such like, well, you have also
like research so much at this point that I'm sure like, like,
I don't know, maybe a bit of like germophobia comes
into it, because you know, what can like exist in
like animals. Honestly, isn't it also cat scratch? Isn't that
what cat scratch fever is too? It is a bacteria.

(59:05):
I think that gets like if a cat scratches you
deeply um, it is a bacteria that's on their paws.
I think I don't know if it's tiganda, but it's
definitely from Okay yucky, yeah zoogo get out. Yeah, I know,
like side eyeing toast. I'm like I don't know if
I much you is my roommate anymore. I like that
name for a cat, that Zica. That's a that's a

(59:26):
very apt name. Yeah, he acts just like the characters.
So we're getting there. We'll get the season four eventually,
Redemption arc Um. One of my favorite questions that we
ask people here is if you've had any big failures
along your career path that you've learned from and have

(59:46):
kind of helped shape you into who you are today. Nope,
all wins look at you. No, No, I'm kidding. Yeah,
of course, I mean, you know, I I would say,
like they're was. I don't know if it was like
a big venture that I did that like failed, But
it's more things like I mean, like there are plenty

(01:00:10):
of like websites and publications that I would like apply
to that I didn't get things like that. Um. But
there was like a period of time in my life
where I felt very lost and I felt like a
failure because I I mean, this was while I was
working that job that I did not care for, um
and uh it was uh, you know, this was before

(01:00:34):
I even kind of thought about moving into a more
creative field into writing comedy. Podcasting. I just assumed that
was not an option available to me, and I, um,
I felt very I guess, very like ashamed because I
felt like, you know, the unhappiness of my job made

(01:00:57):
me feel like I was personally like a failure, that
this unhappiness was a reflection of my my failure to
be more ambitious or you know, like and I think
it's also like comparing myself to my peers, like, oh, well,
there's this person who's like a doctor, and this person
who's like making way more money. And because these people

(01:01:18):
exist and I'm not a carbon copy of these people,
it must mean I'm a failure. Um. And so yeah,
I was. I was not not in like a happy
place with that. And I think, you know, it wasn't
getting out of that mindset. Wasn't like that actually came before.
I think, like switching careers, so like switching careers doesn't

(01:01:41):
necessarily fix that mindset. I think I think like that
was more like you know, going to therapy, trying to
make myself more healthy, both like physically and mentally, um,
going out more like sort of. I think also once
I realized that it was okay to acknowledge that like

(01:02:02):
work was stressing me out, and like some of the
people I worked with may not have been that nice,
and so like it was okay to feel that way.
It was okay to be upset and stressed out with work.
That didn't mean I was a failure. That just meant
that work was stressful and not always fun. Um. And
so like learning to kind of like, uh, you know,

(01:02:24):
like because when you have a boss that like brates
you or something, it's really easy to like think like, oh,
it's because I suck, and instead, you know, you change
your mindset to like, well, I'm boss, shouldn't be berating me.
That's a mean thing to do. Maybe they suck, maybe
it's not me. Um, And you know, like it's I'm
talking about something different from like criticism. Criticism is fine,

(01:02:46):
but like you know, you should if you're in a
job and someone's being mean to you, that's there's that, yeah, exactly. Um.
And so I think like working on my hobbies, I mean,
like that's why like with my Twitter account, like that
was a hobby of mine, writing these funny tweets, and
so like I invested more time in the things that

(01:03:08):
made me happy, my hobbies, my you know, writing, even
if I wasn't thinking about it in terms of making
your career change. Um. I think that is what helped
me get out of that slump where I felt like
I felt like a failure because I really don't like
when you try something and it doesn't work out, that's
not it's not really a failure. I mean like, it's

(01:03:31):
just you tried, like you actually did the thing right.
Like say you send in a job application and it
gets rejected. You didn't fail at applying to a job.
You applied to a job. They just you know, uh,
for whatever reason, Uh, you you were rejected. But that's
not that's not failure. I think it's much more of
a mindset where it's like, um, where you feel like

(01:03:56):
when you taken when the when the event surround in
your life are unsatisfactory, that means that you are a
failure or that you should not continue to try things
or continue to do the things that make you happy
like that, That That to me is the really dangerous thing. Um.
And yeah, in terms of uh, you know, let me think,

(01:04:21):
like in terms of creative endeavors that never really took
off where I had wished they took off. There was
a blog I did a long, long, time ago called
uh I think called like Hamblatcher Slubber uh where there's
you know that like magazine that advertises the weird gift

(01:04:41):
stuff like ham Atcher Schlimmer. I think it's called probably
dating myself, but like it was, it was a it
was like weird gifts. I mean it was like Sharper
image that that you know. It was like a catalog
that where they would like sell but they would sell

(01:05:02):
weird weird stuff like novelty giant drinking mug or like
a wine glass holder or um, like a neck massager
that was like a caller that you would wear. Um.
So my favorite thing to do is to take pictures
of these these things in the catalog and then like
write my own captions for them. So like the you know, uh,

(01:05:26):
like the neck massager thing was like explosive boyfriend caller
like to like you know, keep your boyfriend in line
or like um, you know. The there was like uh,
this litter box that was so high tech. It had
all these buttons and stuff and like it was like
it was like cat m r I machine like at

(01:05:48):
home m r I machine. I don't know, I don't
even know if it was that funny. I really enjoyed it. Um,
but you know it just never it never gained high acclaim.
So but be everyone else was wrong. Maybe it wasn't me.
I had um just pulled your Twitter account out because
I was, truthfully, I'm curious what your zodiac sign and

(01:06:10):
I was wondering if your birthday was listening on your Twitter,
I can just tell you I was so curious, what
is what is your astrology sign? It is it's Scorpio.
I would not have guessed that I was thinking because
you're so dreamy and imaginative and uh like you You're

(01:06:33):
You've mentioned several times in our conversation that you like
to imagine what it's like for this. You like to
imagine what it's like for that. You've got to Um,
I wonder if you've ever thought about writing stories like
uh or maybe like I mean, even like a children's
book with your knowledge of animals and like what these
animals are saying? And um. But as I was looking
at your Twitter, I've realized that I had you popped

(01:06:54):
up on my feet a couple of days ago because
you have a viral tweet about elephant shrews going around
right now, which are those really silly little mice with
the very long nose. Um. If you've ever you've probably
seen at least there's this video of an elephant shrew
that is singing I think, to a Fantom of the
Opera song. Um, but it's such a such a small

(01:07:19):
world here on the internet. I had just seen here
on my feet a couple of days ago, and here
we are having a conversation now. But um, yeah, it's
the best thing I've ever done in my life. Is this?
Uh is this big threat about elephant. I don't think
I'll ever top it. I don't think I'll ever be
more famous than that, and I have to accept that. Um,
but yeah, it's a It was elephant shrews, who are

(01:07:44):
amazing little animals. I'm actually releasing a podcast soon about them.
Actually we'll wait. I don't know when this is going
to be released, so it's either in the future, the past,
or the presence that there will be an elephant the
creature podcast. It'll be called something like the Elephant in
the Room that's not an elephant, and it is uh, yeah,

(01:08:06):
elephants shrews are are They're actually not shrews. Um, they're
not elephants, but they're actually more closely related to elephants
than they are to shrews. They're incredible little little animals.
They have this like very long nose that they can
move around and hinpoint prey, very very wiggly little snoop uh.

(01:08:32):
And they when they yawn, it like makes a ninety
degree angle upwards. Also cute. So I had to had
to inform the world of the elephant shrews yawning. A
lot of people loved it, and it's probably the best
thing I've ever done in my entire life. And I
think I peaked very important. But can you boop the snup?

(01:08:56):
I yeah, I wouldn't necessarily because these are wild animals.
But if I could have like a free paths right
like there, like I'd like to have a free pass
on um doing one unethical thing to an animal, like
it would be to boot these news because it just

(01:09:16):
it looks so pop they're very very cute. Um. So
looking back to when you first got started, or if
you could imagine um Katie as like a fifteen to
a seventeen year old and other people who in that
age range that are maybe wanting to pursue a similar
career path to you what kind of advice would you
give yourself at that time. Yeah, that's a really good question.

(01:09:40):
I think. I think it's important to balance your UM,
balanced your desired career path with like um, like the
ambitions that you have with some some practical things so
like because it can, especially if you're going into a

(01:10:02):
creative field, it could be very difficult. I mean, any
field has its difficulties, has its risks. So you know,
I think acquiring a few skills and being willing to
be flexible in your career path. Like if you have
your mindset on something UM like, say, so you really

(01:10:23):
want to start a podcast and that's your dream, I
wouldn't I would not say like, oh no, that's too hard,
it's too competitive. Uh it is. It's important to you
if it makes it you happy, like uh, do like
acquire the skills for that, Like I would say, you know,
there are a lot of different skills that you can
have with podcasting, your your hosting skills, research, writing, UM.

(01:10:46):
But also like you know, learning how how to record,
like how to use a microphone, how to use editing software,
so you know you can invest your time in that.
But I would also think about you know, learning learning
other things as well, like, uh, you know, have It's
okay to have something where you're really interested in it,

(01:11:07):
but if you make sure to pick up as many
skills as possible that you enjoy that are related to
this passion of yours, then you will you will have
a lot of options, a lot of things that you
can use. Therefore, when you when you encounter maybe some
turbulence in your career or uh, you know, layoffs that

(01:11:29):
happen or or anything like that, you'll you'll have things
other skills that are still related to your desired career
that you can use, uh to have some stability in
your life, so that you know, I just think it's
because it's you know, I think that it's really easy
to get discouraged when you put all of your hope

(01:11:50):
like on one outcome. Like I I'm like, say, you're
really really interested in like one job, and I've I've
gone through this a few times where like I would
have have like be applying to a job and think
like if I don't get this job, maybe I'm just
not like cut out for things, and it's like I
don't don't have that mindset um, you know you And
also like when you like learn things. When you learn things,

(01:12:12):
acquire skills, acquire knowledge, UM, that is always going to
be useful for you, even if it ends up not
being directly related to your career path, because just the
first of all, the process of learning is a skill
that you can develop, even if you learn something completely
unrelated to the thing that you end up eventually doing.

(01:12:33):
But also all of that knowledge may in fact come
in very useful to you. Like I went through kind
of a career arc where I was not using my
evolutionary biology and psychology education as much, but now I am,
and it's great. I wanted to ask you, um one
more question to dig into this because I've heard you

(01:12:55):
mentioned this a couple of times as well, But this
is something I think there's kind of like you things
I want to combine here because I struggle a lot
with comparing myself to my peers and not being able
to handle rejection very well, especially like because of the
I love. You just said the word competitive, and it
shifted something in my head where it's like obvious. It's
like so obvious, but it's like, yeah, content creation is

(01:13:17):
highly competitive, and I'm a very competitive person, So I
guess it's no surprise I ended up here, But I
never really just sat down and went, oh, I'm in
a competitive space constantly. UM. And this is why I'm
comparing myself to people is because I'm trying to, like,
you know, it's like Mario Kart, I gotta be in
first place, but I gotta watch out for that blue
shell the whole time. UM. But uh, it's UM, how

(01:13:39):
how you're talking a lot about a mindset mindset shift
as well, which I really like. So how have you
kind of shifted your mind away from comparing yourself to
your peers or the people around you, um, and and
being able to just surf over rejections when they come
up and not let them kind of control maybe your
internal narrative about about yourself and then um deflate you

(01:14:03):
and prevent you from continuing to try to do what
you're doing. Yeah. I mean that's a very hard thing
to do. And I'm going to be completely honest, I
have not. I'm not so like, UM enlightened that I
can completely stop comparing myself to others or that it
doesn't hurt when I encounter rejection, of course, I mean,

(01:14:25):
of course it's I don't I don't know what level
of like wizardry or meditation you have to be at
where rejection is not going to hurt. I think it
it's always going to hurt. Um. And it's I think
you're always going to compare yourself to your peers. I
think that's really natural, and it is when you're in

(01:14:46):
any kind of competitive space. Uh. I think it can
be psychologically really difficult. I think like some people, I think,
thrive on this feeling of competitiveness um, like they enjoy
it um. And for a lot of people, like you don't.
You don't really enjoy that feeling of having to compete
with others, um, but you still have to do it.

(01:15:09):
I would say I've gotten a lot better at handling
rejection and handling that that constant comparison to my peers,
not that it doesn't still hurt and have a psychological cost,
but it's it's how to like sort of identify those
feelings as they come up, like Okay, like I was

(01:15:32):
rejected from this thing, this really hurts, and then cutting
short the thought processes that will sometimes happen like well,
this is because I don't work hard enough, or this
is because I'm just not good enough. I'm not skilled enough. Um,
those kinds of like like those are very natural. You're
always going to kind of have those things pop up
whenever you encounter rejection, but they don't really they ultimately

(01:15:55):
don't help you. So when you notice yourself thinking these things,
like when you're thinking like I'm just not good enough,
this is why I was rejected, like like, look at
that feeling and go like, okay, yeah, of course I
would feel that way. I was just rejected. That sucks.
Doesn't mean it's true that I'm really not good enough. Um,
And it doesn't mean that feeling is helpful because like

(01:16:15):
thinking I'm not good enough doesn't make you better. It
doesn't improve yourself it uh, you know. So I think
it's not so much stopping those feelings from happening. They'll
unfortunately always happen when we encounter, you know, rejection or
when we're comparing ourselves to others. But if you are

(01:16:35):
able to identify those feelings and then kind of like
look at them and have compassion towards yourself as you're like,
imagine you're talking to someone else who's telling you this,
like I just got rejected from this job or this opportunity,
and I feel like, you know, I feel like I'm
just crap, Like I'm just not good enough. Like what
would you say to them to cheer them up, to
to boost them up? And it's someone like you respect

(01:16:57):
You're like, well, of course you're not. It's not that
you're you know, not good enough for something. They were
just looking for something slightly different. And if you're feeling
really bad, maybe you could, you know, like reach out
somewhere else, you know. So like, but use those things
and say them to yourself, because often we are so
hard on ourselves because we think, well, I'm not hurting

(01:17:17):
anyone because I'm just being mean to myself, and you know,
you're hurting yourself. So so you'll feel those feelings. That's normal,
it's okay allow yourself to feel those. But then also,
you know, think about them in a more constructive way.
Think about how you would talk to someone else who's
telling you that they're feeling bad or that they're not
good enough. Awesome. That's uh stuff, stuff I need to

(01:17:42):
think about every day. Um uh so, Katie, what do
you have coming up coming up in the pipes? Well,
you know, nothing, I don't think I have any new
projects coming out. I mean I have, like I said,
a podcast episode on Elephant Shrews. I don't know if
it's already out or it will be out. Still check

(01:18:03):
it out because I think it's a good one. Um.
But yeah, check out Creature feature. I do new podcasts
every week, um, new episodes. Uh and uh you know
so yeah. And then also I do right for Somewhere News.
It's a YouTube show, and I have Yeah, I have
some episodes that I'm writing that are that are in

(01:18:25):
the in the whole pipes that will be coming out. Um.
Yeah uh, and that is that is what I do. Also,
like you know, sometimes I draw stuff or tweet stuff,
so those are always things. Where can everybody find you
on social media? Yeah, Katie Golden on Twitter, that's k
A T I E G O L D I N.

(01:18:48):
Of course, pro Bird writes, I have not updated that
Twitter as much as I have in the past. Um,
but it's really something where I only want to tweet
from that when I'm really inspired, not just for tweeting
tweeting sake. Um. But yeah, awesome. Um. So I'm realizing

(01:19:08):
now that me and Confetti didn't even introduce ourselves at
the start. But you know, y'all know us. So I
am hey, shady lady, and uh, I don't really have
anything crazy coming up. I'm working on a beginner's guide
to O B S that's going to be a big
media YouTube tutorial series and a blog on my website. UM,
that's my major thing that I'm directing a lot of

(01:19:29):
my mental energy towards. Uh. So this conversation has been
a nice break in that that technical slug that I've
been working on. But UM, hey shady lady on all
social media, and how about you, Confetti, I am a
lady Confetti. Like I said, y'all know us. UM. In
the next UM, I would say maybe week or two,

(01:19:49):
I'll be launching my own podcast. More details to come. Um.
People have been asking me for this for years, congratulations years,
Like I just love to hear you talk and I'm like, oh,
that's nice, walks away. So I figured because I knew
I was getting that feedback. But if I do something,

(01:20:10):
I want to do it correctly. I want to do it,
you know, not half asking it. So now I feel
like I'm in the full ask position. So I'm going
to UM, so that's what I will be doing. I'm
very excited about it. Um, more details to come with that,
but um, in the meantime, I am a lady Confetti everywhere.
You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and all

(01:20:31):
the things. Um. Yeah, that's what I have going on
right now. That's exciting. Congratulations. Yeah. So when you were
giving that advice, I was like, yeah, my own advice.
So yeah, this has been the Boss Level podcast. And

(01:20:51):
y'all can't find the video format of this podcast on
YouTube if you look up a Boss Level Boss l
v L podcast. UM. And uh, if you're listening um
in the podcast form and y'all are feeling so inclined,
drop us a review on uh, you know, Spotify or
Apple podcast or wherever you're listening. It helps the show
out a lot. We'd really appreciate it. And um, you

(01:21:14):
are also welcome to join our discord as well, uh
and join the conversation or follow us on social media
at Boss Level Pod b O S s l v
L p O d um and yeah, thank you everyone
so much for listening. I hope you'll have a wonderful
rest of your week and we'll see you next week.
Was another episode. Hi everybody, Hi, Hi,