January 1, 2020 • 42 mins
Welcome to My Year in Mensa, episode three!
NOTE: ALL NAMES IN THIS PIECE HAVE BEEN CHANGED. This is a first-person account based on my own writing and experience within the group, and the rest is sourced below. If you have further questions, feel free to reach out at myyearinmensa@gmail.com.
Theme song by Sadie Dupuis (@sad13)
Featuring the voices of Miles Gray, Caitlin Durante, Jacquis Neal, Anna Hossnieh, Danl Goodman, Ify Nwadiwe, Dani Fernandez, Maggie Mae Fish, Shereen Lani-Younes, Isaac Taylor, and Jack O'Brien.
Music used in this episode:
"Through the Crystal" by Jeremy Blake: from the free YouTube Audio Library
"Absolutely Nothing" by Jeremy Blake: from the free YouTube Audio Library
"Lost and Found" by Jeremy Blake: from the free YouTube Audio Library
Sheldon Cooper Sexist Joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMQZuBytY4Q
"Unseen Horrors" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
"Pooka" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
"Scheming Weasel (faster version)" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
"Pixelland" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
All sources for this series can be found at: http://jamieloftusisinnocent.com/myyearinmensasources
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to episode three of My Year in Mensa, my
podcast about that exact topic, My Year in Mensa. So
if this is the first episode you're listening to, I
highly encourage you to go back to the beginning so
you know what the fun is going on. If you
choose to just jump in, I can't stop you. I
don't understand the logic behind it. So, if you're returning
(00:41):
the incredible, powerful cliffhanger, I left you on last episode,
in which I attended a party that was being thrown
by a secret Facebook group I r L and ended
up in this bizarre, low key physical altercation with a
stranger day one of the MENSA Convention. I add resolutely
did get drunken, cry, very messy, And we're just gonna
(01:03):
blaze on into episode three. Welcome you, smart bastards. We're
gonna go forward to July. This is day two of
my time at the MENSA annual gathering otherwise known and
I feel like I haven't hit on this hard enough.
It's called Men's Rising. Who knows. So I walked two
(01:26):
blocks from my airbnb to get to the nearest Ice
coffee and like sausage and cheese sandwich, and I completely
swept through my clothes getting there. I was aware that
Arizona was hot, but eight am needing to change your
clothes hot It's a bit much. So I get my
breakfast and then I lay in my Airbnb for a
full hour until I have to haul us back to
(01:47):
the Sheraton Grand Downtown and go to my first Mussie
event of the day, which is a talk called because
Science Is Funny The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon and you.
And honestly, it is well worth the walk to the Sheraton.
Their room is absolutely packed. There's over one mentions just
cracking up and reciting a deeply sexist scene from The
(02:09):
Big Bang Theory from memory? Did you like to hear
another reason why men are better than women? And the speaker,
who's a fan of the show, obviously spends most of
the time just rehashing the one time he was in
the live audience of a Big Bang Theory episode, and
they do take a sort of interesting look at how
they used actual science in the show. I cannot say
(02:31):
it enough. Men sins are not funny people. Oh you
hear women say? Is always have a salad? Where's my
lip gloss? I decided to skip out on some of
the things I was going to see, which include something
called dealing with Problem Members and atheist meeting, And instead
I meet my only friend at the conference, to who
(02:53):
I've known for less than twenty four hours, and we
go to a presentation being made about Jonestown by someone
who was there, and believe it or not, it is
the calmest I've felt since I got there. And it
is interesting that the mentions I encounter during the day
portion of this conference are far closer to what I
envisioned them to be when I first started writing about MENSA.
(03:14):
The one thing I always underestimated was the wide range
of class backgrounds that members are from, so as to say,
the MENSA founding elitist Australian assholes who have discussed in
past episodes Roland Barrel would not be pleased of the
range of class representation in the organization because he famously
said that MENSA should be quote an aristocracy of the
(03:35):
intellect unquote. He was a dick. But what I also
underestimated about MENSA was the wide array of prejudices that
people inside of this group would have, regardless of class.
For the most part, daytime mentions I'll call them are
older people that enjoy the talks of debates as well
as talking with other mentions in the hospitality room or
(03:56):
the cafeteria. There are moments when I am sitting in
hospital pality, usually alone, that this makes a lot of
sense to me, because even in a community that I
have found to be very exclusionary and troubling, still looks
and functions like a community, and it seems like plenty
of people who are there engaged with it in a
relatively healthy way. There's a lot of people here who
(04:17):
only see each other once a year at the annual gathering,
and there's no shortage of people who haven't seen each
other in years giving each other hugs and taking pictures
over the shitty cafeteria food that we've all been forced
to eat. So I'm just writing out my thoughts about
this at lunch, not feeling particularly watched for once. However,
this moment of introspection and of realizing that there's more
(04:40):
to this group than I gave credit for going in
is later posted about in the American Mensa Firehouse the
Secret Group, and the commenters are mentioning how they saw
Jamie sitting alone at the lunch table how sad and
pathetic must that be to see me alone like that
at mens arising so you know, multitudes but also not
(05:03):
And then I have to go back to my room
to prepare for the MENSA Gala dinner. It happens every year.
People get dressed to the nines. I wear what I
wore yesterday. Sorry, And you pay seventy five dollars to
have a piece of cheesecake and a piece of meat
with your fellow medicines and listen to Adam Savage bust
(05:23):
various myths for two hours. Of course, I have to
invest in a ticket to this event. I want to
know what the gala is like, and what I can
for sure say it has is the two things that
make me more anxious than anything in the world, which
is face to face confrontation and not knowing who to
sit with at an event. I'm able to push past
one of them pretty quickly and I find a table
(05:44):
with some older people at the far end of the ballroom.
I am feeling very insecure that I did not bring
a gown. People are dressed very nicely at this event,
and once I get there, I Facebook message to to
let them know that I found us a spot. I
start eating my salad very quickly. The food in the
cafeteria is bad, and before I can take it by
of food, another man appears beside me, to my right,
(06:07):
and he says I'm Michael, Mensa's head of marketing, and
he extends a firm clammy marketer's handshake to me and says,
would you like to come sit at our table? I
tell Michael, I can only do it if there's room
for my friend, because two is the closest thing I
have to a friend in the entire world here, and
Michael says, sorry, there's no room and he goes back
to the table. Then two finally shows up and he
(06:27):
asks me who I was just talking to. And while
I was very polite for the Mensa marketing team to
invite me to their table, you know, so it's a
little transparent. A very drunk mention who's come to our
sort of misfits table, leans in very close to tell
me where I should visit in Scotland and about the
various graphic novels he's been working on. He starts out
(06:50):
very condescending to me and then learns that I am
a TV writer and magically becomes less so, which I've
found is something that very cool, respectful people do. And
if someone else is walking home through to our table,
the drunk guy recognizes him and says, there he is,
and who is he pointing to? But Joey, the man
I met at a party last night who has led
(07:11):
the charge on online harassment. And I know I've been
told that he was an important person on the board
of American Ments Up, but even I underestimated exactly how
important his position was. According to the program, he's one
of the many sub chairs of the American Mensa Committee,
and he is dressed the part. Drunk guy and Joey
(07:31):
exchanged pleasantries, and Joey places a firm hand on my
shoulder and he says, everything going well, And I'm very uncomfortable,
And I say, yep, because as far as I know,
Joey still thinks I don't know who he is, because
he has blocked me so long ago that he can
just sort of treat me however he wants and I
(07:52):
won't be the wiser. And he says great, pats me
on the back, greets too as well, although he's repeatedly
harassed him online as well, And then he returns to
his officials only table at the front of the gala.
So Adam Savage is about to take the state bust
some myths as this year's big talk giver when Two
(08:12):
nudges me and points a few tables over and he
tells me that Katie is sitting there. But I can't
see Katie. All I can see is a make America
Great Again hat floating somewhere in the crowd, attached to
a petite woman's head, And Two says, you know who
she is already, and this time he's right. Katie is
one of the only people in Firehouse who I am
(08:33):
very familiar with. I was still blocked by her on Facebook,
but I knew her reputation as one of the most
outspoken Trump supporters in the group who was occasionally kicked
off Facebook altogether for posting offensive things that broke the
community guidelines. She held the Firehouse community in extremely high regard,
and after my most recent piece on the group, she
had commented on an Instagram post of mine saying the following,
(08:56):
let it be known that this comedian is a slimy
odd and this is just the first line. Here are
some select passages from that comment, which is from February,
and it genuinely has too long to repeat in its entirety.
So these are just some highlights. I'm not a fan
of people throwing others under the bus to further they're
already unfruitful and destined to fail career. You're the first
(09:21):
person ever that are unmoderated group has had to mass
block because you're shady and trying to ruin people's lives.
You're probably one of the geekiest, most unattractive people in
our organization, and attention seeking kunt who wants to fame
everyone acts stop fucking with my friends. Oh, and see
(09:41):
you in Phoenix. So that's the person we're talking about.
And she's a few tables away in her MAGA hat too.
In spite of getting into similar arguments with her, has
already voluntarily taken a few pictures with her and says
that she's been very nice to him and that I
should consider giving her a chance. And I don't understand
the need for pictures, but I tell him I'm happy
(10:02):
to talk with her if she wants to. Adam Savage
gives a lovely talk about the myths that he's busted,
and it truly does kind of feel like medicine to
hear someone talk about something other than how my a
g is going. So after he speaks, the gala ends,
which means it's once again party time, and in the
gen Y Suite that night, I have formally scrapped my
(10:24):
get black out drunk with the men since in order
to better relate with them portion of my annual gathering plan,
because look, I'm not Hunter Thompson. I am a tired lady,
and I'm nervous, and i am alone, and I can't
leave Phoenix for another thirty hours, so I'm not drinking tonight,
which is a challenge because it's toga night and the
only thing worse than being me at this party is
(10:45):
being me without a toga made out of stolen sheets
from the sheraton. Completely sober, black lights are illuminating me
tastefully well researched knots of many a mense in toga
you can't say they don't do their homework, and the
alcohol is flowing as heavy as the night before, But
I don't have sheets from the sheraton because I'm not
staying there, so I sort of just pray to remain
(11:06):
invisible for a few minutes while I get my bearings.
This time, I'm back with my friend who I wept
to for an hour the night before, Tall guy, and
there's a woman my age with a solo cup full
of Coke zero and we have a very pleasant conversation
for all of five minutes before what I already know
is going to happen happens. Someone from Firehouse approaches me
(11:27):
and asks me a weird question, Jamie, and I'm going
to call this guy Sam. He is a pianist who
immigrated to the US, and he had deemed me a
selfie he took of us from the previous night while
I was waiting for my uber outside the hotel and crying.
But he came up and he was like, you're Jamie, right,
Can I get a picture with you? And so I
(11:48):
wiped the tears from my eyes and honestly looked kind
of cute in the picture. Anyways, Sam has been nice
to me, but again he has that proud hoser badge,
and it's enough to sort of keep me at bay
a little bit for the moment it but he says,
good to see you again, how is your a g
Sam has opted out of the elaborate toga as well,
and he sort of just has like a white hand
(12:08):
towel draped over his neck to catch the black light,
and he offers me a hand towel too, And he
spends the next several minutes trying to convince me to
go back up to the Firehouse suite tonight, and I
hope understandably I express a little bit of nervousness at
going back upstairs to the fifth floor. But he doesn't
seem to understand why I feel this way, and he
asks me a number of times why you're not going
(12:31):
to get hurt. You're not, And I thank him, and
I politely turned him down again, and so he backs
off and recedes into the sea of genius togas. So
throughout this party, by my count, seven people with Firehouse
ribbons approached me throughout the fifteen minutes or so that
I'm standing at the party. Two of them say we
just wanted to meet you and shake your hand face
(12:52):
to face. Another group of three tell me that what
happened at the party the previous night was not cool.
A hoser who's visiting from Sweden asks to take a
selfie with me, which is a fairly common thing that
hosers asked for when encountering popular targets of the board
in real life. And I still can't really figure out
if this is an act of straight up trolling or
(13:13):
more of a white flag of like, look, we're just kidding.
In any case, I awkwardly decline. And this procession of
people who have refused to acknowledge me in the digital
space and look at me like an aquarium specimen in
real life is very bizarre, But I have to keep
in mind that I'm more or less doing the same
thing to them. A lot of the Firehouse people and
(13:33):
I spend time kind of circling each other and reach
no conclusions on first glance because nothing seems wrong with
the other person on site at least, and neither want
to be the first to tell the other that they
think the other is completely full of shit. So I've
come here to understand mentions better. But outside of a
few cautious conversations and a swipe to take my phone,
(13:56):
I'm really no closer to reaching any transformative conclusion on
the contradictory practices of Firehouse and the people inside of it.
Sam Way, It's about ten minutes before emerging again. This
time with a different woman from Firehouse, and he says,
very earnestly, please, there's a private party upstairs for Firehouse,
not the one from last night. Invite only. I'll bring
(14:18):
you up. It's okay. And as the saying goes, if
a mentone asks you to enter an unguarded hotel room
full of people with dubious intentions, three times you go.
But before we go to the invite only American Mensa
Firehouse secret party, we've got to kick it back to
October in California. And the reason I know that if
(14:44):
a menton asks you to do something thrice, you must
do it, it's because I have fallen for this exact
thing before. So, like five million billion news cycles ago,
when I was first reporting on Firehouse, to top elected
members of American MENSA reached doubt to offer what sounded
like a good faith discussion about their safety practices and
(15:04):
context for the group that I had become the latest
target of. And in the original email reaching out, the
MENSA employee mentioned no less than three times that I
had joined the organization as a joke, but he did
assure me that they were concerned about how I was
being treated regardless, So here's kind of a pull quote
from this first email. We take very seriously the safety
(15:26):
and security of our members, and now that you've joined
for laughs or no, that includes your safety. Thanks. But
this isn't for nothing. As we've discussed in past episodes
when we talk in October of last year, this concern
for safety is a big discussion at MENSA events because
considering the various allegations made surrounding the Indianapolis Annual Gathering
(15:50):
and the increasing skepticism about how carefully safety in an
in person capacity was treated by the organization, they were
on the offensive and MENSA officials were more sensitive to
this issue than usual, and it's warranted a public response.
A MENSA representative who I've met before, gave an interview
to Inverse in August of eighteen, and full disclosure, I
(16:13):
worked for Inverse in twenty sixteen and seventeen, but don't
know the writer who did this interview personally. But the
MENSA representative did this interview in August, right after the
Indianapolis Annual Gathering concluded, and here's what she had to say.
In this time, the hashtag me too, and being more
aware that respect for boundaries is important it's imperative that
(16:35):
these types of problems be reported immediately. So in October,
when we're exchanging these emails and a few hours away
from doing mushrooms for the first time, and I speak
to both members from like the cramped attic of someone
else's house, and at this time, the allegations about the
Indianapolis annual gathering are not ones I'm yet aware of.
(16:55):
But these two employees are very honest about what's going
on in the organization, and they explain that the issues
surrounding the ethics of Firehouse had been a subject of
internal discussion a number of times over the years. And
now three months into me writing about MENSA, a few
other female mentions had reached out to me discussing the
circumstances of their eventual departure from MENSA because of discomfort
(17:20):
or harassment that they had experienced in Firehouse specifically. And
so my main question for these reps in October was
why the organization would officially sponsor an unmoderated group that
at its core appeared to pose a threat to safety.
And I'm given the official history of the Firehouse schism
(17:41):
in MENSA because it's been a hot topic issue for
a number of years. So let's kick up some fairytale
music and start talking. Once upon a time, about five
years ago, there was one official American Mensa Facebook group
where mentions from all walks of life were free to
right whatever they pleased, because at this time, the assumption
(18:03):
was by the Mensa Committee that discussions would remain relatively civil,
and as the politics of America became more polarized, so
did the dynamics of this group, and members who were
only in the group for intellectual stimulation were concerned for
the many underage mensines who qualified for and occasionally participated
(18:24):
in the forum. So the secret Facebook groups of American
Mensa went full Korea and split into one group would
be moderated and one group would not be. The moderated
group is called American Mensa Hospitality, and the unmoderated group
is American Mensa Firehouse. An American Mensa Firehouse immediately because
(18:47):
the source of great contention in Mensa on the whole,
as well as immediately becoming the most active online community
in the organization by far. The moderated group is reserved
mostly for group updates and light political discussion. Five years later,
I'm told on the phone in October, Firehouse is still
(19:08):
a source of controversy, but the group was still around
because of its core community dynamics. The end nice story, right,
So that's the narrative I'm given, and I say on
the phone, I guess I just don't understand why the
official mens A group would be okay with people threatening
other members and not doing anything about it, because at
(19:30):
this time, I was still convinced that a cogent enough
argument and enough damning accounts about mass blockings and timidations
and threats would be enough for any reasonable organization to
get rid of or at least better protect their own members.
And it's here that I am surprised, because the argument
made to keep Firehouse active, endorsed, and unmoderated has remained
(19:52):
consistent from top mentions throughout my time there, and many
of the administrators in question are actually active Firehouse members themselves.
One of the employees on the phone, who I'm going
to call Amanda, explains that even though the tone of
Firehouse tends to be antagonistic, the community developed there takes
(20:13):
care of their own and you're not going to believe
this are very different in real life than they are online.
And in October, this is the first time I'm hearing this,
And on this call, Amanda shares an anecdote that is
repeated to me a number of times in the coming months,
and it goes like this. It concerns one of the
only consistently engaged left wing Firehouse members becoming ill, and
(20:37):
many of the right wing members who argue with him
online every day actually pitching in some of their own
money to alleviate his medical expenses on a go fund Me.
And Amanda tells me this same anecdote in person several
months later, and Katie Maga hat Girl shares a similar
story with me about the group at the annual gathering
in And this is one of the aspects of the
(21:00):
community that I find very fascinating, because that does speak
to their point. If you can argue with someone about
the need for gun control all day, every day, insulting
each other viciously, but then still donate to the other's
medical expenses go fund me, what does that say about
a community. It is a very bizarre dynamic that occasionally
(21:24):
these strange but positive things come out of. It's a
it's a strange anecdote and a strange tendency in a group,
and especially the first time I heard it kind of
gave me some some chilly, little grizzly food for thought,
But for the moment in October, the two mentions on
the phone assure me that discussions about Firehouse are ongoing
(21:46):
in the organization and that I will receive an update
on the status of the group once further discussions are had.
And at the time of this discussion, I've written two
columns about Mensa taking the test as a joke, gotten
a lot of backlash, and it seems like this call
might be the end of it all and could possibly
end with something useful, which to me would be some
(22:06):
protections for members who have felt ostracized by the community
previously and the perfect excuse for me to wash my
hands of the whole situation and kind of just move on.
And a few months later, I receive this follow up
email from Amanda which says the Communications community is honestly
still struggling with the Firehouse view, as it is popular
with so many members and a reason that they stay
(22:28):
a member. It is difficult to change, but it is
unpopular and a stigma to some other members, and the
reason they wish to leave. Amanda tops off the email
by saying the MENSA Committee hasn't come to a conclusion
regarding the group yet, but she invites me to the
Double Tree and San Pedro for the Southern California Regional
Gathering to discuss the matter in person if I want to,
(22:50):
and as my policy is to do whatever I meant
and asks me in an attempt to get to know them,
I accept this invitation, Amanda says in the email inviting me,
why you see what some of us are like in
real life? Gatherings can be a lot of fun, So
transition sound effect. It's February and I'm at the Double
(23:10):
Tree in San Pedro and I meet Amanda, and we're
not as I had assumed, having lunch at the hotel
or even really meeting in public at all. Amanda gives
me a big hug when we meet, and she leads
me instead to her hotel room, where two other women
are waiting at a table to speak with me over
water bottles and prepackaged cookies. It's very clear that this
(23:33):
meeting has been planned, but they're also busy as an event,
so all three women have a lot of work to
do at the gathering this weekend. So what results feels
like half open discussion, half mafio so confrontation. So while
the point of the meeting appears to be understanding where
I'm coming from, it's made clear to me fairly early
(23:54):
on that these powerful medicines have no intention of making
any alteration. Two American Mental Firehouse. One of the women
I'm sitting with is the same person who will later
help run the gen Y suite at the annual gathering.
She's in her thirties and she's rocking her very cute
baby and a carrier. And the other person there is
another long time member who I'm going to call Maggie,
(24:15):
and she is a tall, older woman with a day
job in I T And she wastes very little time
in telling me that she is one of the most
active members in Firehouse of all time. So we begin
by sort of rehashing how we got here and what
my current standing is in Firehouse. And at this point,
like we've discussed in past episodes, what I'm able to
(24:37):
see in this group had dwindled down to basically nothing.
I had already won the most blocked poll by a landslide,
and even discussions that had nothing to do with me,
were completely unavailable, and Maggie was quick to point out
that while she is a prominent member of the group,
she says that she does not subscribe to the blocking
and mass model of many of her peers, and I
(25:00):
say cool, thanks. So the four of us start to
really dig into the safety concerns of the annual gathering
in Indianapolis the previous year, and this is the first
time the inconsistencies I felt developed within the group's firm
online isn't real life philosophy kind of start to manifest
in person. So in the next hour and a half
(25:20):
I start to notice a couple different contradictions emerging. Amanda,
who is the woman I had spoken on the phone
in October, who holds a high position in MENSA. She's
deeply concerned by the safety allegations from Indianapolis and says
that the group is doing everything it can to ensure
security in the year's upcoming event in Phoenix. Immediately after
(25:42):
saying this, she also expresses some doubt that at least
one of the women who alleged that her drink was
drugged in Indianapolis was for certain a roofie, and that
it may have been the way the member's medication was
mixing with alcohol, and there was no actual Roofie. She
also mentioned being bothered by the way that conversations about
(26:02):
safety are conducted mostly in online groups instead of in
real life. She defends Firehouses community in a way I'm
beginning to grow alternatively confused by and used to, and
she argues its value to a lot of mentions and
again one of those contradictions. Amanda and Maggie are very
supportive of women having leadership roles and prominence within the
(26:25):
MENTA organization, but they're also just as quick to dismiss
the women's only MENTA Facebook groups as overly reactionary and
not worth participating in at all. Amanda says to me
at this meeting, there's a lot of badass women in
this group. Most of the most amazing people I've met
in this group have been women. The other thing Amanda
and Maggie share in common because the third gen y
(26:48):
woman doesn't speak up that much throughout the afternoon. The
other thing they have in common is a protectiveness of
Firehouse that I hadn't anticipated. While Maggie is a daily
participant of the group, it's clear that It has some
sentimental value to Amanda as well, and she literally pumps
her fist at one point when describing a previous thwarted
(27:08):
attempt to get the group shut down. The member who
threatened me directly, which you can hear in all its
glory in episode two. He's been spoken to officially and
won't be allowed to post things like that moving forward,
which is good, and I appreciate that someone was spoken
to and all of this, but that sort of feels
like a drop in the bucket to me, considering how
(27:30):
many people have spoken to this group's volatility in the past,
and it's frustrating to hear that the only way to
get the bare minimum taken was to inadvertently stir up
some bad press about the group. It doesn't make you
feel like they care about you, does it. At this time,
I had spoken to several people who had had terrible
experiences and tried to report them, and not even the
(27:52):
bare minimum that had been done for me was done
for them. So I bring these situations up. I recount
other members who have shared their bad experiences and lack
of feeling protected by the organization, and I met with
head Nods and they listen but no promises or real
expressions of interest in any actions are taken, and I
can say for sure now with the year's perspective, that
(28:14):
truly nothing was done. And this time I try to
adjust my approach a little to get some changes implemented.
Instead of the burn it down mentality that I went
towards the group with in October, I told them that
while I think the group is unhealthy and should not exist,
there should at very least be a single rule to
this unmoderated group that members cannot actively threaten one another.
(28:38):
So instead of doing away with a group altogether, just
don't say you'll kill each other. And this has heard
in the room in the general sense and then argued against.
Maggie is dominating the conversation from here on out, and
she explains that one of the members who was the
most aggressive to her in firehouse ended up looking after
her safety in real life at annual gatherings, and also
(29:00):
repeats the anecdotal go fund me stories that have succeeded
within the group. Phrases like really good guys is sort
of bandied about, and another plea that if I merely
met these people in real life, as I was meeting
with the three of them, I would understand and I
would be able to trust them. This conversation was very
confrontational and very frustrating for me, because maybe it's over
(29:23):
the top to suggest that this meeting was called in
an attempt to get me to stop writing about the
group altogether, operating under the assumption that putting a kind
face to a name would, as the prevalent logic is,
resolve every concern I'd ever had about MENSA to that point.
What I can say for sure is that this meeting
was not called to indicate any intended changes to protect
(29:46):
member safety, and in a lot of ways doubled down
on mensa's unwillingness to prioritize safety over online social engagement
that regularly broke Facebook community guidelines regarding hate speech and
put a number of members at risk. Folks, the meeting
was bad and resulted in nothing, but it was interesting
to hear an in real life defense of a group
(30:09):
like this, because if you were to look at this meeting,
you would see four normal looking women at a table
having a discussion. These interactions with comments sections and hearing
what their jobs are, what their interests are, and what
their lives are like outside of this group is something
that I think people should consider. More. That said, the
meeting was bad, but at one point in our conversation,
(30:32):
Maggie talked about her day job in I t and
she tells me that her co workers are by and large,
very intelligent people, and that she feels that most of
them could probably get into MENSA if they wanted. But
she laughs a little and says that she does not
encourage them to join, though, saying that she thinks they
might find the way she talks in firehouse versus how
(30:53):
she talks in real life to be jarring. And the
other two women are kind of laughing along as if
they agree and and what we do with that. So
I tell them that I appreciate their time and for
going out of their way to meet with me, and
I'm offered a light discount to come back to the
gathering later in the weekend, and we're talking about the
annual gathering as well. Phoenix comes up and it's here
(31:15):
that I first learned of the existence of the Firehouse suite.
Maggie tells me she swears to God she'll go with
me and protect me if I don't feel safe there
but that no one was going to do anything to
me and that they're not bad people. And I tell her, sure,
I'll think about it, and spoiler alert, Maggie will not
offer to protect me or communicate with me at the
(31:37):
annual gathering at all, most likely because I wrote about
this meeting and said what I felt then and still
feel now was the very bizarre intentions behind it. Also
worth mentioning while Maggie said she doesn't block people at
the beginning of the meeting, which after doing a light
fact checking after the meeting was over, I discovered was
completely untrue and that she's had me blocked for months.
(32:02):
I leave the hotel in San Pedro, I think about
the incredible weirdness of this group, and I impulsively put
my annual gathering tickets on a credit card, because when
a mens invites you to do something, you do it.
So let's go back to the party gang. It is July.
It is night too of my time at the MENSA
(32:24):
Annual Gathering, so so tonight I'm not drinking and walking
to the firehouse suites stone cold sober. I can now
with presence of mind, confirmed that the stairs I'm getting
from the hallways lined with Firehouse members are just as
unsettling as they were when I was four beers deep.
(32:46):
The people i'm with our Sam, tall guy and a
firehouse member I don't know, and they don't bring me
into the same cavernous suite as the night before this time,
and in fact, to Firehouse members loudly vocalize that they
do not want me to go into that room, and
it's a little panicked. They're like no, and their eyes
are you know, darting towards me, and Sam assures them
(33:07):
that we were headed to the room next door where
the invite only party is. So that's a sort of
alcohol taste testing that's taking place with invite only members
of Firehouse. So if you're keeping track, this is kind
of an exclusive group within an exclusive group within an
exclusive group. Doesn't make your head hurt at all. And
there's one older man whose messaged with me before, and
(33:28):
he's from near where I grew up, and he's the
only person in the hallway who seems happy to see me.
There's an older couple that grimaces and just kind of
shoves their way past me when they see my name tag.
So feeling very safe, Sam assures me that this party
is going to be fun. And we walk into a
single hotel room with about fifteen people or so just
squashed inside, well lit this time, and I'm not two
(33:51):
steps into the room before someone offers me a glass
of home brewed mead. Sam says, this is j V Loftus,
and he's looking between me and mead Guy expectantly, and
mead Guy understandably appears a little weirded out at the
forced nature of this meeting, and I'm right there with him,
so I kind of awkwardly say I'm all good on mead,
(34:13):
and before I can take another step, a full foot
below me appears Katie in her infamous Maga hat, and
even though she is a full foot shorter than me,
I'm very confident she could absolutely kick my ass. But
she says, hi, Jamie. She reaches up for a cautious
hug and I reciprocate. Sam continues to talk do you
know who this is? And he's kind of smiling between
(34:36):
the two of us, and Katie replies, Oh, I know
exactly who this is, and I mean, I would hope so,
given the extensive writing I'd seen her do. She first
is a little bit leary of my presence here at all,
but she relaxes after we talk for a minute about
and you will never believe this how my a g
is going. And from this conversation forward, she is extremely
(35:00):
kind to me, and bearing in mind what she's written
about me in the past, she really surprises me here.
I mean, I don't know what sort of discussion happened
in Firehouse regarding the bizarre debacle of the previous night
where my phone had been taken, but Katie seems equally
surprised that I am polite and I listened to her
and she warms up to me pretty quickly, and this
(35:21):
sounds very similar to her interactions with two. And I
have a little bit of whiplash from the suddenness of
this change and attitude towards me, because, yeah, my mannerisms
are subdued in real life compared to online, and my
insecurity and anxiety is more visible when in a physical
room full of commenters instead of a screens distance away.
(35:44):
But I'm not that different of a person. There's a
persona and that's part of my job as a comedian,
but it isn't the completely disparate experience that Firehouse members describe.
I would say most people aren't the exact same person
they present on line, but they're not the exact opposite
of who they present online, if that makes sense. But
(36:05):
it seems that Katie feels that my nervousness is interpreted
as an admission that I am not who I said
I was. And we walk deeper into the room and
the same kind of division surfaces in the room as
it had at the party the night before. So some
members are frowning and turning their backs to me to
continue their conversation unhindered by my gaze. Others kind of
(36:29):
look over with some curiosity, and Katie explains to me
that this party is an annual firehouse tradition where members
bring alcohol specific to their hometown and everyone samples it.
And after much are you drinking? Are you drinking? Are
you drinking? I just take a can of craft beer
or something and we keep talking. Things we talk about
include the East Coast, we're both from there, the annual gathering,
(36:53):
we're both currently there, and the choice conversation of the gathering,
and this podcast how your online persona did for from
your real life one. Because in this moment, I am
drinking beer with a woman in a maga hat who
has directly called me a slimy, fraud and unfunny cunt,
and is making good on the threat that she would
quote see me in Phoenix unquote. She SIPs on her
(37:15):
drink and tells me that she wasn't completely clear on
why people were upset with me before going after me
online at all. She explains, I see someone fucking with
my friends and says that some people in the group
interpreted her decision to post direct insults and threats to
my Instagram was over complicating the situation. She says, as
(37:37):
so many have before, that the people in Firehouse are
so different online than they are in real life, and
that she was surprised at how friendly I was in person.
I'm honestly surprised that she's friendly too, and try to
skirt agreeing with her assessment that presenting pleasant in person
and being a vindictive online troll with something inherently normal,
(37:57):
because I don't think that. Instead, I agree that the
tone of certain online writing can be difficult, and that
social media does obviously appear designed to encourage in fighting
and harassment that meeting in person usually doesn't. And still
I don't know that that's completely true, because after all,
half the room is treating me exactly the way they
(38:19):
would online. Backs turned whispering among each other physically, if
not digitally. Blocking me being brought up here was either
in olive branch or an act of trolling. I'm still
not sure which, And my presence here at all is
at least in part a result of the satire I'd
written on the group. Originally making a specific insult or
threat towards a specific stranger is really hard to view
(38:42):
as a misinterpretation of tone, because yes, we're being civil
to each other, and yes, I think that's an impressive
feat given our digital history, but how different are we really?
A few other women cautiously ask what maybe decided to
come back to firehouse after the previous night, and mead
guy returns. I tell Katie was curious to meet you,
and I'm glad I came. And this is mostly true,
(39:03):
And this time I take the fucking mead and meat
guy immediately comes back with you, drink the meat, you
put your name on the mead tag, and he hands
me a sharpie and a wooden tag to put my
initials on. I signed the meat tag, and I tell
Katie that I'm gonna head back down to the gen
Y suite because it's hot in here and I can
feel a lot of latent hostility. But before I go,
(39:25):
she says, let's take a pick together, girl, and I
am nervous, intimidated, and tall guy less enough to agree
this time. And this exact picture will be posted to
Firehouse a few days later with the caption this is
my new friend Jamie Loftus, spurring over three hundred comments
from members only, some of which I can see. Here's
(39:46):
a random assortment. The Swedish woman who I hadn't taken
a selfie with, says you got a picture with her?
She denied me that she owes the entire group and apology,
which would go a long way, I am O. My
personal opinion is that she somehow realizes that she sucked
up with a group of people that she really would
have enjoyed hanging with, but can't figure out how to
(40:07):
make things right. Hey, guys, she's actually really nice in person.
Whether it ends well or terribly, it's good to give
people a chance. Real life differs from online drama. This
is Katie writing in another comment, but on this night,
Katie says that she wants to join me at the
toga party downstairs, and so she, Sam and I leave
the private party and go out into the hallway. Again,
(40:29):
Katie keeps hugging me and assures other firehouse members that
I'm really nice, and she suggests that we go back
into the larger suite where I was the previous night.
She keeps saying, this is my new best friend. Jamie
loved us, really, seeming to enjoy the attention that embracing
the most hated member and mensa brought her. And again
I say I'd rather not go into the main firehouse suite,
(40:52):
and again older members of the group agree and say
that's not a good idea. One guy tells me there's
nothing in there you interested in, like there was like
a dead body in there. And a few tense interactions
with other hosers. Later, all I can see if Katie
are the glowing MAGA letters at the Toga party across
the room. And so I slip out of the hotel
(41:12):
around midnight. So yes, my first night was a nightmare
and my second night felt more like a Stepford wife
switch in the video I record on my computer back
at my Airbnb recabing the night, I say the phrase
I don't fucking no no less than twenty times, and
as I'm falling asleep in the ninety degree bedroom, it
(41:35):
occurs to me, I have not learned anything since I
got here, and I wake up to take one last
note and say, I actually think I've become stupider. So
there you go. That's episode three of my year in Mensa.
We have one part to go to really wrap up
(41:56):
this hillacious nightmare. Thank you so much for listening. If
you want to follow me online, you are welcome to
do so at Jamie Loft just Help on Twitter at
Jamie christ Superstar on Instagram. Thank you so much to
Sadie Dupui for writing the theme song to this podcast.
She's at sad thirteen on all platforms. And I want
to thank the following people for lending their voices to
(42:19):
Mensa this week for this episode. They are Isaac Taylor,
Anna Hosni, Sharine Lonny Unez, Daniel Goodman, Robert Evans, Sophie
Lichterman and Jaquis Neil. See you next time on my
Riam Mensa.
Welcome to episode three of My Year in Mensa, my
podcast about that exact topic, My Year in Mensa. So
if this is the first episode you're listening to, I
highly encourage you to go back to the beginning so
you know what the fun is going on. If you
choose to just jump in, I can't stop you. I
don't understand the logic behind it. So, if you're returning
(00:41):
the incredible, powerful cliffhanger, I left you on last episode,
in which I attended a party that was being thrown
by a secret Facebook group I r L and ended
up in this bizarre, low key physical altercation with a
stranger day one of the MENSA Convention. I add resolutely
did get drunken, cry, very messy, And we're just gonna
(01:03):
blaze on into episode three. Welcome you, smart bastards. We're
gonna go forward to July. This is day two of
my time at the MENSA annual gathering otherwise known and
I feel like I haven't hit on this hard enough.
It's called Men's Rising. Who knows. So I walked two
(01:26):
blocks from my airbnb to get to the nearest Ice
coffee and like sausage and cheese sandwich, and I completely
swept through my clothes getting there. I was aware that
Arizona was hot, but eight am needing to change your
clothes hot It's a bit much. So I get my
breakfast and then I lay in my Airbnb for a
full hour until I have to haul us back to
(01:47):
the Sheraton Grand Downtown and go to my first Mussie
event of the day, which is a talk called because
Science Is Funny The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon and you.
And honestly, it is well worth the walk to the Sheraton.
Their room is absolutely packed. There's over one mentions just
cracking up and reciting a deeply sexist scene from The
(02:09):
Big Bang Theory from memory? Did you like to hear
another reason why men are better than women? And the speaker,
who's a fan of the show, obviously spends most of
the time just rehashing the one time he was in
the live audience of a Big Bang Theory episode, and
they do take a sort of interesting look at how
they used actual science in the show. I cannot say
(02:31):
it enough. Men sins are not funny people. Oh you
hear women say? Is always have a salad? Where's my
lip gloss? I decided to skip out on some of
the things I was going to see, which include something
called dealing with Problem Members and atheist meeting, And instead
I meet my only friend at the conference, to who
(02:53):
I've known for less than twenty four hours, and we
go to a presentation being made about Jonestown by someone
who was there, and believe it or not, it is
the calmest I've felt since I got there. And it
is interesting that the mentions I encounter during the day
portion of this conference are far closer to what I
envisioned them to be when I first started writing about MENSA.
(03:14):
The one thing I always underestimated was the wide range
of class backgrounds that members are from, so as to say,
the MENSA founding elitist Australian assholes who have discussed in
past episodes Roland Barrel would not be pleased of the
range of class representation in the organization because he famously
said that MENSA should be quote an aristocracy of the
(03:35):
intellect unquote. He was a dick. But what I also
underestimated about MENSA was the wide array of prejudices that
people inside of this group would have, regardless of class.
For the most part, daytime mentions I'll call them are
older people that enjoy the talks of debates as well
as talking with other mentions in the hospitality room or
(03:56):
the cafeteria. There are moments when I am sitting in
hospital pality, usually alone, that this makes a lot of
sense to me, because even in a community that I
have found to be very exclusionary and troubling, still looks
and functions like a community, and it seems like plenty
of people who are there engaged with it in a
relatively healthy way. There's a lot of people here who
(04:17):
only see each other once a year at the annual gathering,
and there's no shortage of people who haven't seen each
other in years giving each other hugs and taking pictures
over the shitty cafeteria food that we've all been forced
to eat. So I'm just writing out my thoughts about
this at lunch, not feeling particularly watched for once. However,
this moment of introspection and of realizing that there's more
(04:40):
to this group than I gave credit for going in
is later posted about in the American Mensa Firehouse the
Secret Group, and the commenters are mentioning how they saw
Jamie sitting alone at the lunch table how sad and
pathetic must that be to see me alone like that
at mens arising so you know, multitudes but also not
(05:03):
And then I have to go back to my room
to prepare for the MENSA Gala dinner. It happens every year.
People get dressed to the nines. I wear what I
wore yesterday. Sorry, And you pay seventy five dollars to
have a piece of cheesecake and a piece of meat
with your fellow medicines and listen to Adam Savage bust
(05:23):
various myths for two hours. Of course, I have to
invest in a ticket to this event. I want to
know what the gala is like, and what I can
for sure say it has is the two things that
make me more anxious than anything in the world, which
is face to face confrontation and not knowing who to
sit with at an event. I'm able to push past
one of them pretty quickly and I find a table
(05:44):
with some older people at the far end of the ballroom.
I am feeling very insecure that I did not bring
a gown. People are dressed very nicely at this event,
and once I get there, I Facebook message to to
let them know that I found us a spot. I
start eating my salad very quickly. The food in the
cafeteria is bad, and before I can take it by
of food, another man appears beside me, to my right,
(06:07):
and he says I'm Michael, Mensa's head of marketing, and
he extends a firm clammy marketer's handshake to me and says,
would you like to come sit at our table? I
tell Michael, I can only do it if there's room
for my friend, because two is the closest thing I
have to a friend in the entire world here, and
Michael says, sorry, there's no room and he goes back
to the table. Then two finally shows up and he
(06:27):
asks me who I was just talking to. And while
I was very polite for the Mensa marketing team to
invite me to their table, you know, so it's a
little transparent. A very drunk mention who's come to our
sort of misfits table, leans in very close to tell
me where I should visit in Scotland and about the
various graphic novels he's been working on. He starts out
(06:50):
very condescending to me and then learns that I am
a TV writer and magically becomes less so, which I've
found is something that very cool, respectful people do. And
if someone else is walking home through to our table,
the drunk guy recognizes him and says, there he is,
and who is he pointing to? But Joey, the man
I met at a party last night who has led
(07:11):
the charge on online harassment. And I know I've been
told that he was an important person on the board
of American Ments Up, but even I underestimated exactly how
important his position was. According to the program, he's one
of the many sub chairs of the American Mensa Committee,
and he is dressed the part. Drunk guy and Joey
(07:31):
exchanged pleasantries, and Joey places a firm hand on my
shoulder and he says, everything going well, And I'm very uncomfortable,
And I say, yep, because as far as I know,
Joey still thinks I don't know who he is, because
he has blocked me so long ago that he can
just sort of treat me however he wants and I
(07:52):
won't be the wiser. And he says great, pats me
on the back, greets too as well, although he's repeatedly
harassed him online as well, And then he returns to
his officials only table at the front of the gala.
So Adam Savage is about to take the state bust
some myths as this year's big talk giver when Two
(08:12):
nudges me and points a few tables over and he
tells me that Katie is sitting there. But I can't
see Katie. All I can see is a make America
Great Again hat floating somewhere in the crowd, attached to
a petite woman's head, And Two says, you know who
she is already, and this time he's right. Katie is
one of the only people in Firehouse who I am
(08:33):
very familiar with. I was still blocked by her on Facebook,
but I knew her reputation as one of the most
outspoken Trump supporters in the group who was occasionally kicked
off Facebook altogether for posting offensive things that broke the
community guidelines. She held the Firehouse community in extremely high regard,
and after my most recent piece on the group, she
had commented on an Instagram post of mine saying the following,
(08:56):
let it be known that this comedian is a slimy
odd and this is just the first line. Here are
some select passages from that comment, which is from February,
and it genuinely has too long to repeat in its entirety.
So these are just some highlights. I'm not a fan
of people throwing others under the bus to further they're
already unfruitful and destined to fail career. You're the first
(09:21):
person ever that are unmoderated group has had to mass
block because you're shady and trying to ruin people's lives.
You're probably one of the geekiest, most unattractive people in
our organization, and attention seeking kunt who wants to fame
everyone acts stop fucking with my friends. Oh, and see
(09:41):
you in Phoenix. So that's the person we're talking about.
And she's a few tables away in her MAGA hat too.
In spite of getting into similar arguments with her, has
already voluntarily taken a few pictures with her and says
that she's been very nice to him and that I
should consider giving her a chance. And I don't understand
the need for pictures, but I tell him I'm happy
(10:02):
to talk with her if she wants to. Adam Savage
gives a lovely talk about the myths that he's busted,
and it truly does kind of feel like medicine to
hear someone talk about something other than how my a
g is going. So after he speaks, the gala ends,
which means it's once again party time, and in the
gen Y Suite that night, I have formally scrapped my
(10:24):
get black out drunk with the men since in order
to better relate with them portion of my annual gathering plan,
because look, I'm not Hunter Thompson. I am a tired lady,
and I'm nervous, and i am alone, and I can't
leave Phoenix for another thirty hours, so I'm not drinking tonight,
which is a challenge because it's toga night and the
only thing worse than being me at this party is
(10:45):
being me without a toga made out of stolen sheets
from the sheraton. Completely sober, black lights are illuminating me
tastefully well researched knots of many a mense in toga
you can't say they don't do their homework, and the
alcohol is flowing as heavy as the night before, But
I don't have sheets from the sheraton because I'm not
staying there, so I sort of just pray to remain
(11:06):
invisible for a few minutes while I get my bearings.
This time, I'm back with my friend who I wept
to for an hour the night before, Tall guy, and
there's a woman my age with a solo cup full
of Coke zero and we have a very pleasant conversation
for all of five minutes before what I already know
is going to happen happens. Someone from Firehouse approaches me
(11:27):
and asks me a weird question, Jamie, and I'm going
to call this guy Sam. He is a pianist who
immigrated to the US, and he had deemed me a
selfie he took of us from the previous night while
I was waiting for my uber outside the hotel and crying.
But he came up and he was like, you're Jamie, right,
Can I get a picture with you? And so I
(11:48):
wiped the tears from my eyes and honestly looked kind
of cute in the picture. Anyways, Sam has been nice
to me, but again he has that proud hoser badge,
and it's enough to sort of keep me at bay
a little bit for the moment it but he says,
good to see you again, how is your a g
Sam has opted out of the elaborate toga as well,
and he sort of just has like a white hand
(12:08):
towel draped over his neck to catch the black light,
and he offers me a hand towel too, And he
spends the next several minutes trying to convince me to
go back up to the Firehouse suite tonight, and I
hope understandably I express a little bit of nervousness at
going back upstairs to the fifth floor. But he doesn't
seem to understand why I feel this way, and he
asks me a number of times why you're not going
(12:31):
to get hurt. You're not, And I thank him, and
I politely turned him down again, and so he backs
off and recedes into the sea of genius togas. So
throughout this party, by my count, seven people with Firehouse
ribbons approached me throughout the fifteen minutes or so that
I'm standing at the party. Two of them say we
just wanted to meet you and shake your hand face
(12:52):
to face. Another group of three tell me that what
happened at the party the previous night was not cool.
A hoser who's visiting from Sweden asks to take a
selfie with me, which is a fairly common thing that
hosers asked for when encountering popular targets of the board
in real life. And I still can't really figure out
if this is an act of straight up trolling or
(13:13):
more of a white flag of like, look, we're just kidding.
In any case, I awkwardly decline. And this procession of
people who have refused to acknowledge me in the digital
space and look at me like an aquarium specimen in
real life is very bizarre, But I have to keep
in mind that I'm more or less doing the same
thing to them. A lot of the Firehouse people and
(13:33):
I spend time kind of circling each other and reach
no conclusions on first glance because nothing seems wrong with
the other person on site at least, and neither want
to be the first to tell the other that they
think the other is completely full of shit. So I've
come here to understand mentions better. But outside of a
few cautious conversations and a swipe to take my phone,
(13:56):
I'm really no closer to reaching any transformative conclusion on
the contradictory practices of Firehouse and the people inside of it.
Sam Way, It's about ten minutes before emerging again. This
time with a different woman from Firehouse, and he says,
very earnestly, please, there's a private party upstairs for Firehouse,
not the one from last night. Invite only. I'll bring
(14:18):
you up. It's okay. And as the saying goes, if
a mentone asks you to enter an unguarded hotel room
full of people with dubious intentions, three times you go.
But before we go to the invite only American Mensa
Firehouse secret party, we've got to kick it back to
October in California. And the reason I know that if
(14:44):
a menton asks you to do something thrice, you must
do it, it's because I have fallen for this exact
thing before. So, like five million billion news cycles ago,
when I was first reporting on Firehouse, to top elected
members of American MENSA reached doubt to offer what sounded
like a good faith discussion about their safety practices and
(15:04):
context for the group that I had become the latest
target of. And in the original email reaching out, the
MENSA employee mentioned no less than three times that I
had joined the organization as a joke, but he did
assure me that they were concerned about how I was
being treated regardless, So here's kind of a pull quote
from this first email. We take very seriously the safety
(15:26):
and security of our members, and now that you've joined
for laughs or no, that includes your safety. Thanks. But
this isn't for nothing. As we've discussed in past episodes
when we talk in October of last year, this concern
for safety is a big discussion at MENSA events because
considering the various allegations made surrounding the Indianapolis Annual Gathering
(15:50):
and the increasing skepticism about how carefully safety in an
in person capacity was treated by the organization, they were
on the offensive and MENSA officials were more sensitive to
this issue than usual, and it's warranted a public response.
A MENSA representative who I've met before, gave an interview
to Inverse in August of eighteen, and full disclosure, I
(16:13):
worked for Inverse in twenty sixteen and seventeen, but don't
know the writer who did this interview personally. But the
MENSA representative did this interview in August, right after the
Indianapolis Annual Gathering concluded, and here's what she had to say.
In this time, the hashtag me too, and being more
aware that respect for boundaries is important it's imperative that
(16:35):
these types of problems be reported immediately. So in October,
when we're exchanging these emails and a few hours away
from doing mushrooms for the first time, and I speak
to both members from like the cramped attic of someone
else's house, and at this time, the allegations about the
Indianapolis annual gathering are not ones I'm yet aware of.
(16:55):
But these two employees are very honest about what's going
on in the organization, and they explain that the issues
surrounding the ethics of Firehouse had been a subject of
internal discussion a number of times over the years. And
now three months into me writing about MENSA, a few
other female mentions had reached out to me discussing the
circumstances of their eventual departure from MENSA because of discomfort
(17:20):
or harassment that they had experienced in Firehouse specifically. And
so my main question for these reps in October was
why the organization would officially sponsor an unmoderated group that
at its core appeared to pose a threat to safety.
And I'm given the official history of the Firehouse schism
(17:41):
in MENSA because it's been a hot topic issue for
a number of years. So let's kick up some fairytale
music and start talking. Once upon a time, about five
years ago, there was one official American Mensa Facebook group
where mentions from all walks of life were free to
right whatever they pleased, because at this time, the assumption
(18:03):
was by the Mensa Committee that discussions would remain relatively civil,
and as the politics of America became more polarized, so
did the dynamics of this group, and members who were
only in the group for intellectual stimulation were concerned for
the many underage mensines who qualified for and occasionally participated
(18:24):
in the forum. So the secret Facebook groups of American
Mensa went full Korea and split into one group would
be moderated and one group would not be. The moderated
group is called American Mensa Hospitality, and the unmoderated group
is American Mensa Firehouse. An American Mensa Firehouse immediately because
(18:47):
the source of great contention in Mensa on the whole,
as well as immediately becoming the most active online community
in the organization by far. The moderated group is reserved
mostly for group updates and light political discussion. Five years later,
I'm told on the phone in October, Firehouse is still
(19:08):
a source of controversy, but the group was still around
because of its core community dynamics. The end nice story, right,
So that's the narrative I'm given, and I say on
the phone, I guess I just don't understand why the
official mens A group would be okay with people threatening
other members and not doing anything about it, because at
(19:30):
this time, I was still convinced that a cogent enough
argument and enough damning accounts about mass blockings and timidations
and threats would be enough for any reasonable organization to
get rid of or at least better protect their own members.
And it's here that I am surprised, because the argument
made to keep Firehouse active, endorsed, and unmoderated has remained
(19:52):
consistent from top mentions throughout my time there, and many
of the administrators in question are actually active Firehouse members themselves.
One of the employees on the phone, who I'm going
to call Amanda, explains that even though the tone of
Firehouse tends to be antagonistic, the community developed there takes
(20:13):
care of their own and you're not going to believe
this are very different in real life than they are online.
And in October, this is the first time I'm hearing this,
And on this call, Amanda shares an anecdote that is
repeated to me a number of times in the coming months,
and it goes like this. It concerns one of the
only consistently engaged left wing Firehouse members becoming ill, and
(20:37):
many of the right wing members who argue with him
online every day actually pitching in some of their own
money to alleviate his medical expenses on a go fund Me.
And Amanda tells me this same anecdote in person several
months later, and Katie Maga hat Girl shares a similar
story with me about the group at the annual gathering
in And this is one of the aspects of the
(21:00):
community that I find very fascinating, because that does speak
to their point. If you can argue with someone about
the need for gun control all day, every day, insulting
each other viciously, but then still donate to the other's
medical expenses go fund me, what does that say about
a community. It is a very bizarre dynamic that occasionally
(21:24):
these strange but positive things come out of. It's a
it's a strange anecdote and a strange tendency in a group,
and especially the first time I heard it kind of
gave me some some chilly, little grizzly food for thought,
But for the moment in October, the two mentions on
the phone assure me that discussions about Firehouse are ongoing
(21:46):
in the organization and that I will receive an update
on the status of the group once further discussions are had.
And at the time of this discussion, I've written two
columns about Mensa taking the test as a joke, gotten
a lot of backlash, and it seems like this call
might be the end of it all and could possibly
end with something useful, which to me would be some
(22:06):
protections for members who have felt ostracized by the community
previously and the perfect excuse for me to wash my
hands of the whole situation and kind of just move on.
And a few months later, I receive this follow up
email from Amanda which says the Communications community is honestly
still struggling with the Firehouse view, as it is popular
with so many members and a reason that they stay
(22:28):
a member. It is difficult to change, but it is
unpopular and a stigma to some other members, and the
reason they wish to leave. Amanda tops off the email
by saying the MENSA Committee hasn't come to a conclusion
regarding the group yet, but she invites me to the
Double Tree and San Pedro for the Southern California Regional
Gathering to discuss the matter in person if I want to,
(22:50):
and as my policy is to do whatever I meant
and asks me in an attempt to get to know them,
I accept this invitation, Amanda says in the email inviting me,
why you see what some of us are like in
real life? Gatherings can be a lot of fun, So
transition sound effect. It's February and I'm at the Double
(23:10):
Tree in San Pedro and I meet Amanda, and we're
not as I had assumed, having lunch at the hotel
or even really meeting in public at all. Amanda gives
me a big hug when we meet, and she leads
me instead to her hotel room, where two other women
are waiting at a table to speak with me over
water bottles and prepackaged cookies. It's very clear that this
(23:33):
meeting has been planned, but they're also busy as an event,
so all three women have a lot of work to
do at the gathering this weekend. So what results feels
like half open discussion, half mafio so confrontation. So while
the point of the meeting appears to be understanding where
I'm coming from, it's made clear to me fairly early
(23:54):
on that these powerful medicines have no intention of making
any alteration. Two American Mental Firehouse. One of the women
I'm sitting with is the same person who will later
help run the gen Y suite at the annual gathering.
She's in her thirties and she's rocking her very cute
baby and a carrier. And the other person there is
another long time member who I'm going to call Maggie,
(24:15):
and she is a tall, older woman with a day
job in I T And she wastes very little time
in telling me that she is one of the most
active members in Firehouse of all time. So we begin
by sort of rehashing how we got here and what
my current standing is in Firehouse. And at this point,
like we've discussed in past episodes, what I'm able to
(24:37):
see in this group had dwindled down to basically nothing.
I had already won the most blocked poll by a landslide,
and even discussions that had nothing to do with me,
were completely unavailable, and Maggie was quick to point out
that while she is a prominent member of the group,
she says that she does not subscribe to the blocking
and mass model of many of her peers, and I
(25:00):
say cool, thanks. So the four of us start to
really dig into the safety concerns of the annual gathering
in Indianapolis the previous year, and this is the first
time the inconsistencies I felt developed within the group's firm
online isn't real life philosophy kind of start to manifest
in person. So in the next hour and a half
(25:20):
I start to notice a couple different contradictions emerging. Amanda,
who is the woman I had spoken on the phone
in October, who holds a high position in MENSA. She's
deeply concerned by the safety allegations from Indianapolis and says
that the group is doing everything it can to ensure
security in the year's upcoming event in Phoenix. Immediately after
(25:42):
saying this, she also expresses some doubt that at least
one of the women who alleged that her drink was
drugged in Indianapolis was for certain a roofie, and that
it may have been the way the member's medication was
mixing with alcohol, and there was no actual Roofie. She
also mentioned being bothered by the way that conversations about
(26:02):
safety are conducted mostly in online groups instead of in
real life. She defends Firehouses community in a way I'm
beginning to grow alternatively confused by and used to, and
she argues its value to a lot of mentions and
again one of those contradictions. Amanda and Maggie are very
supportive of women having leadership roles and prominence within the
(26:25):
MENTA organization, but they're also just as quick to dismiss
the women's only MENTA Facebook groups as overly reactionary and
not worth participating in at all. Amanda says to me
at this meeting, there's a lot of badass women in
this group. Most of the most amazing people I've met
in this group have been women. The other thing Amanda
and Maggie share in common because the third gen y
(26:48):
woman doesn't speak up that much throughout the afternoon. The
other thing they have in common is a protectiveness of
Firehouse that I hadn't anticipated. While Maggie is a daily
participant of the group, it's clear that It has some
sentimental value to Amanda as well, and she literally pumps
her fist at one point when describing a previous thwarted
(27:08):
attempt to get the group shut down. The member who
threatened me directly, which you can hear in all its
glory in episode two. He's been spoken to officially and
won't be allowed to post things like that moving forward,
which is good, and I appreciate that someone was spoken
to and all of this, but that sort of feels
like a drop in the bucket to me, considering how
(27:30):
many people have spoken to this group's volatility in the past,
and it's frustrating to hear that the only way to
get the bare minimum taken was to inadvertently stir up
some bad press about the group. It doesn't make you
feel like they care about you, does it. At this time,
I had spoken to several people who had had terrible
experiences and tried to report them, and not even the
(27:52):
bare minimum that had been done for me was done
for them. So I bring these situations up. I recount
other members who have shared their bad experiences and lack
of feeling protected by the organization, and I met with
head Nods and they listen but no promises or real
expressions of interest in any actions are taken, and I
can say for sure now with the year's perspective, that
(28:14):
truly nothing was done. And this time I try to
adjust my approach a little to get some changes implemented.
Instead of the burn it down mentality that I went
towards the group with in October, I told them that
while I think the group is unhealthy and should not exist,
there should at very least be a single rule to
this unmoderated group that members cannot actively threaten one another.
(28:38):
So instead of doing away with a group altogether, just
don't say you'll kill each other. And this has heard
in the room in the general sense and then argued against.
Maggie is dominating the conversation from here on out, and
she explains that one of the members who was the
most aggressive to her in firehouse ended up looking after
her safety in real life at annual gatherings, and also
(29:00):
repeats the anecdotal go fund me stories that have succeeded
within the group. Phrases like really good guys is sort
of bandied about, and another plea that if I merely
met these people in real life, as I was meeting
with the three of them, I would understand and I
would be able to trust them. This conversation was very
confrontational and very frustrating for me, because maybe it's over
(29:23):
the top to suggest that this meeting was called in
an attempt to get me to stop writing about the
group altogether, operating under the assumption that putting a kind
face to a name would, as the prevalent logic is,
resolve every concern I'd ever had about MENSA to that point.
What I can say for sure is that this meeting
was not called to indicate any intended changes to protect
(29:46):
member safety, and in a lot of ways doubled down
on mensa's unwillingness to prioritize safety over online social engagement
that regularly broke Facebook community guidelines regarding hate speech and
put a number of members at risk. Folks, the meeting
was bad and resulted in nothing, but it was interesting
to hear an in real life defense of a group
(30:09):
like this, because if you were to look at this meeting,
you would see four normal looking women at a table
having a discussion. These interactions with comments sections and hearing
what their jobs are, what their interests are, and what
their lives are like outside of this group is something
that I think people should consider. More. That said, the
meeting was bad, but at one point in our conversation,
(30:32):
Maggie talked about her day job in I t and
she tells me that her co workers are by and large,
very intelligent people, and that she feels that most of
them could probably get into MENSA if they wanted. But
she laughs a little and says that she does not
encourage them to join, though, saying that she thinks they
might find the way she talks in firehouse versus how
(30:53):
she talks in real life to be jarring. And the
other two women are kind of laughing along as if
they agree and and what we do with that. So
I tell them that I appreciate their time and for
going out of their way to meet with me, and
I'm offered a light discount to come back to the
gathering later in the weekend, and we're talking about the
annual gathering as well. Phoenix comes up and it's here
(31:15):
that I first learned of the existence of the Firehouse suite.
Maggie tells me she swears to God she'll go with
me and protect me if I don't feel safe there
but that no one was going to do anything to
me and that they're not bad people. And I tell her, sure,
I'll think about it, and spoiler alert, Maggie will not
offer to protect me or communicate with me at the
(31:37):
annual gathering at all, most likely because I wrote about
this meeting and said what I felt then and still
feel now was the very bizarre intentions behind it. Also
worth mentioning while Maggie said she doesn't block people at
the beginning of the meeting, which after doing a light
fact checking after the meeting was over, I discovered was
completely untrue and that she's had me blocked for months.
(32:02):
I leave the hotel in San Pedro, I think about
the incredible weirdness of this group, and I impulsively put
my annual gathering tickets on a credit card, because when
a mens invites you to do something, you do it.
So let's go back to the party gang. It is July.
It is night too of my time at the MENSA
(32:24):
Annual Gathering, so so tonight I'm not drinking and walking
to the firehouse suites stone cold sober. I can now
with presence of mind, confirmed that the stairs I'm getting
from the hallways lined with Firehouse members are just as
unsettling as they were when I was four beers deep.
(32:46):
The people i'm with our Sam, tall guy and a
firehouse member I don't know, and they don't bring me
into the same cavernous suite as the night before this time,
and in fact, to Firehouse members loudly vocalize that they
do not want me to go into that room, and
it's a little panicked. They're like no, and their eyes
are you know, darting towards me, and Sam assures them
(33:07):
that we were headed to the room next door where
the invite only party is. So that's a sort of
alcohol taste testing that's taking place with invite only members
of Firehouse. So if you're keeping track, this is kind
of an exclusive group within an exclusive group within an
exclusive group. Doesn't make your head hurt at all. And
there's one older man whose messaged with me before, and
(33:28):
he's from near where I grew up, and he's the
only person in the hallway who seems happy to see me.
There's an older couple that grimaces and just kind of
shoves their way past me when they see my name tag.
So feeling very safe, Sam assures me that this party
is going to be fun. And we walk into a
single hotel room with about fifteen people or so just
squashed inside, well lit this time, and I'm not two
(33:51):
steps into the room before someone offers me a glass
of home brewed mead. Sam says, this is j V Loftus,
and he's looking between me and mead Guy expectantly, and
mead Guy understandably appears a little weirded out at the
forced nature of this meeting, and I'm right there with him,
so I kind of awkwardly say I'm all good on mead,
(34:13):
and before I can take another step, a full foot
below me appears Katie in her infamous Maga hat, and
even though she is a full foot shorter than me,
I'm very confident she could absolutely kick my ass. But
she says, hi, Jamie. She reaches up for a cautious
hug and I reciprocate. Sam continues to talk do you
know who this is? And he's kind of smiling between
(34:36):
the two of us, and Katie replies, Oh, I know
exactly who this is, and I mean, I would hope so,
given the extensive writing I'd seen her do. She first
is a little bit leary of my presence here at all,
but she relaxes after we talk for a minute about
and you will never believe this how my a g
is going. And from this conversation forward, she is extremely
(35:00):
kind to me, and bearing in mind what she's written
about me in the past, she really surprises me here.
I mean, I don't know what sort of discussion happened
in Firehouse regarding the bizarre debacle of the previous night
where my phone had been taken, but Katie seems equally
surprised that I am polite and I listened to her
and she warms up to me pretty quickly, and this
(35:21):
sounds very similar to her interactions with two. And I
have a little bit of whiplash from the suddenness of
this change and attitude towards me, because, yeah, my mannerisms
are subdued in real life compared to online, and my
insecurity and anxiety is more visible when in a physical
room full of commenters instead of a screens distance away.
(35:44):
But I'm not that different of a person. There's a
persona and that's part of my job as a comedian,
but it isn't the completely disparate experience that Firehouse members describe.
I would say most people aren't the exact same person
they present on line, but they're not the exact opposite
of who they present online, if that makes sense. But
(36:05):
it seems that Katie feels that my nervousness is interpreted
as an admission that I am not who I said
I was. And we walk deeper into the room and
the same kind of division surfaces in the room as
it had at the party the night before. So some
members are frowning and turning their backs to me to
continue their conversation unhindered by my gaze. Others kind of
(36:29):
look over with some curiosity, and Katie explains to me
that this party is an annual firehouse tradition where members
bring alcohol specific to their hometown and everyone samples it.
And after much are you drinking? Are you drinking? Are
you drinking? I just take a can of craft beer
or something and we keep talking. Things we talk about
include the East Coast, we're both from there, the annual gathering,
(36:53):
we're both currently there, and the choice conversation of the gathering,
and this podcast how your online persona did for from
your real life one. Because in this moment, I am
drinking beer with a woman in a maga hat who
has directly called me a slimy, fraud and unfunny cunt,
and is making good on the threat that she would
quote see me in Phoenix unquote. She SIPs on her
(37:15):
drink and tells me that she wasn't completely clear on
why people were upset with me before going after me
online at all. She explains, I see someone fucking with
my friends and says that some people in the group
interpreted her decision to post direct insults and threats to
my Instagram was over complicating the situation. She says, as
(37:37):
so many have before, that the people in Firehouse are
so different online than they are in real life, and
that she was surprised at how friendly I was in person.
I'm honestly surprised that she's friendly too, and try to
skirt agreeing with her assessment that presenting pleasant in person
and being a vindictive online troll with something inherently normal,
(37:57):
because I don't think that. Instead, I agree that the
tone of certain online writing can be difficult, and that
social media does obviously appear designed to encourage in fighting
and harassment that meeting in person usually doesn't. And still
I don't know that that's completely true, because after all,
half the room is treating me exactly the way they
(38:19):
would online. Backs turned whispering among each other physically, if
not digitally. Blocking me being brought up here was either
in olive branch or an act of trolling. I'm still
not sure which, And my presence here at all is
at least in part a result of the satire I'd
written on the group. Originally making a specific insult or
threat towards a specific stranger is really hard to view
(38:42):
as a misinterpretation of tone, because yes, we're being civil
to each other, and yes, I think that's an impressive
feat given our digital history, but how different are we really?
A few other women cautiously ask what maybe decided to
come back to firehouse after the previous night, and mead
guy returns. I tell Katie was curious to meet you,
and I'm glad I came. And this is mostly true,
(39:03):
And this time I take the fucking mead and meat
guy immediately comes back with you, drink the meat, you
put your name on the mead tag, and he hands
me a sharpie and a wooden tag to put my
initials on. I signed the meat tag, and I tell
Katie that I'm gonna head back down to the gen
Y suite because it's hot in here and I can
feel a lot of latent hostility. But before I go,
(39:25):
she says, let's take a pick together, girl, and I
am nervous, intimidated, and tall guy less enough to agree
this time. And this exact picture will be posted to
Firehouse a few days later with the caption this is
my new friend Jamie Loftus, spurring over three hundred comments
from members only, some of which I can see. Here's
(39:46):
a random assortment. The Swedish woman who I hadn't taken
a selfie with, says you got a picture with her?
She denied me that she owes the entire group and apology,
which would go a long way, I am O. My
personal opinion is that she somehow realizes that she sucked
up with a group of people that she really would
have enjoyed hanging with, but can't figure out how to
(40:07):
make things right. Hey, guys, she's actually really nice in person.
Whether it ends well or terribly, it's good to give
people a chance. Real life differs from online drama. This
is Katie writing in another comment, but on this night,
Katie says that she wants to join me at the
toga party downstairs, and so she, Sam and I leave
the private party and go out into the hallway. Again,
(40:29):
Katie keeps hugging me and assures other firehouse members that
I'm really nice, and she suggests that we go back
into the larger suite where I was the previous night.
She keeps saying, this is my new best friend. Jamie
loved us, really, seeming to enjoy the attention that embracing
the most hated member and mensa brought her. And again
I say I'd rather not go into the main firehouse suite,
(40:52):
and again older members of the group agree and say
that's not a good idea. One guy tells me there's
nothing in there you interested in, like there was like
a dead body in there. And a few tense interactions
with other hosers. Later, all I can see if Katie
are the glowing MAGA letters at the Toga party across
the room. And so I slip out of the hotel
(41:12):
around midnight. So yes, my first night was a nightmare
and my second night felt more like a Stepford wife
switch in the video I record on my computer back
at my Airbnb recabing the night, I say the phrase
I don't fucking no no less than twenty times, and
as I'm falling asleep in the ninety degree bedroom, it
(41:35):
occurs to me, I have not learned anything since I
got here, and I wake up to take one last
note and say, I actually think I've become stupider. So
there you go. That's episode three of my year in Mensa.
We have one part to go to really wrap up
(41:56):
this hillacious nightmare. Thank you so much for listening. If
you want to follow me online, you are welcome to
do so at Jamie Loft just Help on Twitter at
Jamie christ Superstar on Instagram. Thank you so much to
Sadie Dupui for writing the theme song to this podcast.
She's at sad thirteen on all platforms. And I want
to thank the following people for lending their voices to
(42:19):
Mensa this week for this episode. They are Isaac Taylor,
Anna Hosni, Sharine Lonny Unez, Daniel Goodman, Robert Evans, Sophie
Lichterman and Jaquis Neil. See you next time on my
Riam Mensa.
Host
Jamie Loftus
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