There Are No Girls on the Internet

If you’ve ever looked at your timeline and thought “there’s no way this is real,” you’re probably right. 

In this episode, Bridget and Mike speak to two data professionals about two recent reports from their companies that shed light on how bot networks attempt to hijack our online discourse: the Taylor Swift Nazi narrative after the release of Swift’s album Life of a Showgirl and the Cracke...

Did you see the narrative claiming Taylor Swift is a secret “trad wife Nazi” take off across social media? In this emergency episode, we break down a new report from analytics firm Gudea that examines how this discourse spread online, the role bot networks may have played, and what it reveals about misinformation, amplification, and the current internet ecosystem.

Stay tuned because we’ll hear from Gudea’s C...

In a psychology course at University of Oklahoma, junior Samantha Fulnecky was assigned to write a short essay responding to a research paper about social enforcement of gender typicality and children's mental health. Rather than engage with the assignment, she wrote a moralistic screed about demons and God's plan for women to be helpers, citing unspecified parts of "the Bible." Her paper received a zero, but she has become a cause...

In this week's news roundup, Bridget talks with Producer Mike about all the tech news you might have missed. TRIGGER WARNING: One story is about a misogynistic podcaster who says and does some disturbing stuff.

Sabrina Carpenter pushes back when the Trump admin uses one of her songs without permission in a hateful video. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/02/sabrina-carpenter-donald-trump-music-00672754

A violent misogynist got ...

The newly released Epstein emails offer a troubling look at the people who stayed in his orbit and the ways they interacted with him — including former Harvard president and influential public figure Larry Summers. You may not recognize his name immediately, but Summers has played a major role in shaping tech, academia, and government. We break down what the emails show, why they matter, and what they reveal about power netwo...

Many people know about the call to boycott Target, but don't understand why Target has been specifically singled out. So we're re-airing this interview to help get everyone on the same page. 

In 2020, Target loudly pledged to support Black creators and communities. Target spotlighted their products, and made headlines with its public commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. It was great PR for Target. But now, those pr...

It’s not every day Bridget gets to talk to one of her heroes! 

Soledad O’Brien has built her career on stories that hit hard and stick with you, winning multiple Emmys and Peabody awards along the way. Her work has inspired Bridget since she was a young girl, watching her coverage of the emerging Internet in the 1990s. 

In this wide-ranging interview, Soledad talks about her two new documentaries...

Bridget is joined by producer Joey Patt to cover the week's tech news that you might have missed. 

Meg Thee Stallion targeted by racist, sexist deepfakes: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/megan-thee-stallion-responds-sexually-explicit-deepfake-x-rcna156424

Trump Administration planning executive order preventing AI regulation by states: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/19/white-house-prepares-executive-order-to...

Andrew Tate is back in the news. ProPublica reports that the White House may have been secretly trying to help him evade sex trafficking charges. Tate is also back on Meta platforms, all while he’s suing Meta for $50 million.

Bridget revisits her conversation with Media Matters researcher Justin Horowitz to understand how Tate and the broader manosphere continue to exploit social media systems and harm us all.

Read Justin&rsq...

Christmas has come early for Bridget, because Joyce Carol Oates is beefing with Elon Musk on Twitter. Bridget explains to Producer Mike what it's about, why Joyce Carol Oates is one of her all-time problematic faves, and why Elon is now performatively demonstrating his commitment to literacy with insightful takes like "great movie" and ads declaring that he likes to read.

If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a commen...

Birth control is the latest battleground in a wave of online misinformation targeting young women — and doctors and reproductive health advocates are sounding the alarm about its impact.

But this isn’t your typical fearmongering about birth control coming from Bible-thumpers or conservative men in suits. This new wave is coming from wellness influencers — the ones in matching pastel workout sets — who are li...

It’s just turtles and scams all the way down.

Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/

‘You’re not rushing. You’re just ready:’ Parents say ChatGPT encouraged son to kill himself: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/06/us/openai-chatgpt-suicide-lawsuit-in...

Black women are leaving the workforce and it’s a warning sign for the entire economy. From media to tech, more than 300,000 Black women have left their jobs in the last year. What’s driving this exodus, and what does it reveal about the state of work in America? Bridget speaks with:

Anna Gifty, economist and author of the fascinating new book The Double Tax: How Women of Color Are Overcharged, and Underpaid, and 

s...

Happy Halloween, boys and ghouls! In this week's news roundup Bridget is recapping all the tech news stories you might have missed, so you don't have to.

Creeps in Meta Raybans are nonconsensually filming massage women in massage parlors: https://www.404media.co/metas-ray-ban-glasses-users-film-and-harass-massage-parlor-workers/

China implements a new law cracking down on influencers who spread misinformation. https://www.cnet.com/...

We all know the internet loves a viral story. But what happens when that story is about a real woman being harassed and the platforms that ostensibly should be protecting her instead punish her? That’s what happened to Livie, a DoorDash driver in New York State whose story is currently going viral on TikTok. Bridget breaks down what actually happened, why the story is drowning in misinformation and AI generated fake videos, a...

Digging into all the tech news you might have missed so you don't have to.

Tea App pulled from Apple's app store: https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/22/apple-confirms-it-pulled-controversial-dating-apps-tea-and-teaonher-from-the-app-store/

Spotify running anti-immigrant ads for ICE, bands and labels pull their content: https://www.stereogum.com/2317141/king-gizzard-the-lizard-wizard-remove-their-music-from-spotify-fuck-spotify/mus...

When Elon Musk took over X, a lot of us left the platform, searching for alternatives. One platform that gained attention is Bluesky. It looks a lot like Twitter, but it’s different. Bluesky is built on a decentralized system, and that decentralized nature has allowed powerful pockets of community to emerge. To date, Blacksky is the biggest and most successful effort to take advantage of Bluesky's decentralization. 

It's...

Welcome to the weekly News Roundup! Bridget recaps the week's tech stories that you might have missed.

Pop superstar apparently pulls controversial necklace after Nazi imagery backlash: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/10/pop-superstar-apparently-pulls-controversial-necklace-after-nazi-imagery-backlash.html

Here's Bridget's 2016 take on Taylor Swift: https://podcasts.apple.com/dk/podcast/smnty-classics-problematic-faves-taylor-s...

Taylor Swift is getting married. And on her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, she sounds over the moon about it. But online, everyone’s asking: Is Taylor Swift a “trad wife” now?

In this episode, Bridget dives into the rise of trad wife culture with author and journalist Jo Piazza, host of the podcast Under The Influence and author of the juicy new book about trad wives, Everyone Is Lying to You. They unpack what...