Candace Owens Wants You to Think She’s Changed. She Hasn’t.

What is behind Candace Owens’ rebrand? Bridget explains Owens’ new playbook to Anney and Sam over at the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is there Are No Girls on the Internet.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
We need to.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Talk about Candace Owens because and I can't believe I'm
saying this is she kind of making a little bit.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Of sense now.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
So last week on her podcast, Candace called out President
Donald Trump. She criticized Trump's attacks on Harvard University, saying
I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be
rooting for our university over Donald J. Trump and his administration.
But I don't recognize this administration right now. I don't
recognize what's happening. So at face value, it sounds like

(00:45):
she's kind of defending free speech. And yeah, you might
be wondering, am I actually agreeing with Candace Owens a
little bit? But hold up, don't get too comfortable, because
this is not a change of heart for Candace Owens.
It's a strategy Candace Owens, I think, is rebranding, and
like always, she's using things like outrage and celebrity scandal

(01:06):
to do it. In this episode, I dive into how
Candace Owens is leveraging lawsuits like the one involving Blake
Lively and Justin Buldani In the fallout of the film,
it starts with us to package her politics for a softer,
maybe less familiar audience. It's the same noxious content, just
with a new code of paint. I broke down her
playbook to my friends Samantha and Andy over at the

(01:28):
podcast stuff Mom never.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Told you.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
We are talking about the one the only Candace Owens
speaking of villains, have my kidding, We'll see so like
I should say, upcot like I am weirdly fascinated with her.
What do you all have thoughts? She's somebody who who's
on your radar? What is your experience, what are your
experiences with Candace Owens?

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Or do you have any.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
Uh minor negative? Negative?

Speaker 5 (02:02):
But I most of most stuff I know is more recent,
and I didn't know a lot of what I know
we're going.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
To talk about in here.

Speaker 5 (02:12):
But I will say generally she's someone I'm very aware
of and that have a lot of negative associations with.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I will say, yes, I do know of her.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
One of the things that I immediately put me on
high alert is that she is one person that my
racist Trump supporting backwards brother has used as a token
in saying, see, we love black people.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Oh that is like that that has probably been the
experience of so many folks listening. And I guess what
I want to talk about today might actually answer why.
That is because she is someone that people in my
life have like cited or mentioned or like, oh I
saw I saw Candace Owens talking about this, and I'm like, what,
Like why are you watching Candace own where listening to

(03:00):
her podcast? So like I am like weirdly fascinated by her.
She is somebody who has a legitimately fascinating story and
like where like from where she started to where she
wound up, I just find deeply interesting. I don't want
to focus too much on her like personal background, but
there are some pieces of her early story that I

(03:22):
do think are important context for like understanding who she
is and sort of the role she has gone on.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
To occupy in the world.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
So, Owen's grew up in Stanford, Connecticut, and while she
was a high school student there, she was like racially
harassed in a pretty gnarly way. A classmate left her
a racist death threat on her voicemail that ended up
turning into like a pretty serious local scandal because it
turned out the person her classmate that left that voicemail

(03:50):
did so in a group of students that included the
son of the then mayor and future Democratic governor of Connecticut,
Daniel Maloy. So it got it was really really up
into like a little bit of a scandal. Kendace got
lots of support from the local chapter of Racial Justice
Organizations at the NAACP, and our family ended up suing
the Stanford Board of Education in federal court for failing

(04:12):
to protect her rights, which resulted in a thirty seven,
five hundred dollars settlement. After that, she goes on to
study journalism at University of Rhode Island before dropping out.
So this is really the part of her story where
I have to be honest. I see some parallels between
me and her. You know, we're both black women who

(04:32):
were sort of early adopters of the Internet to talk
about things like race and culture and politics like me.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
For her, that seems to have.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Manifested in a lot of like low hanging fruit posts
about you know, politics, like dumb jokes, like you know,
the early days of blogging about politics online, it really
was dumb jokes was like and like stupid memes were
the lifeblood of that. And so in twenty fifteen she

(05:01):
was writing blogs making fun of Trump's penis size to
give you a sense of the kind of thing that
she was writing about, which honestly is something I would I.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Wasn't doing that, but I could see myself.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Doing it great.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
I would definitely chuckle yeah if I saw it.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
So some people might be surprised to know that Candice
actually started her career as like a public intellectual or
republic opinion have or commentator or whatever you want to
call it, as a leftist, like a progressive. In twenty fifteen,
she was writing this blog called Degree one point eighty
where she wrote pieces criticizing conservative Republicans, writing about quote

(05:39):
the back crazy antics of the Republican tea Party. Something
that she wrote in her blog was quote the good
news is they will eventually die off peacefully in their sleep,
we hope, and then we can get right on with
the obvious social change that needs to happen immediately. So
you really get a sense of her as someone who
was just like young Obama era progressive using the early Internet,

(06:02):
blogging and things like that to really put her voice,
in her perspective into the world again.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Something that I, frankly I can really see myself in.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Is it surprising? It is, I guess her origins just
I just knew as you came out swinging on the
opposite end.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, well, what's interesting about that, and I can definitely
speak from my own experience here, is that I connected
with a lot of her early writing when she was
still sort of like writing about the tea party and
blah blah blah, but certainly nobody knew who, Like she
wasn't like a known voice or a no name right
And I do think it speaks to the fact that,

(06:40):
like when she switched up her ideology and her perspective
and what she was talking about, she got so much
more attention. Like I like, as a black woman leftist
who talks about you know, lefty stuff on the internet,
where are a diamad dozen, nobody is really paying that
much attention. But when you when you do the switch up,
you really become a much bigger name, and you get

(07:02):
a lot more attention and a lot more engagement. And
I think it's a lot more lucrative to be a
black woman right winger than it is to be a
black woman leftist.

Speaker 4 (07:22):
I was actually reading about this recently.

Speaker 5 (07:25):
Is the shadow of gamer Gate when it comes to
the Internet, and how it looks today and how it's
still like the impacts, just the fallout of it is
still here.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
And that was a part of candice own story.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
Oh yes, so I am like you Annie, gamer Gate
and everything surrounding it is my Roman empire. It is
the thing that keeps me up. And I did a
whole series with cool Zone Media about how gamer Gate
and just general harassment against women and women of color
and minoritize people. You could draw a direct line from

(08:07):
that to like our political and social climate today, Like
this is the stuff that I am like making a
stringboard abad and being like and then this happened, and
then that happened, and then ten years later this happened,
Like this is my white whale. And Candace Owens was
really like, this was a gamer Gate was really sort
of like, well mean, she describes it as like a
radicalizing moment for her. So in twenty sixteen, when Gamergate

(08:29):
was in full swing, Owens launched a Kickstarter for a
project she called Social Autopsy, which she described as a
way to catalog the abuses of trolls and cyberbullies online.
The Kickstarter for this project is still up today. Here's
a little taste of Owen's describing it in her own words.

Speaker 6 (08:47):
It takes a nanosecond, a mere push of a button,
to share our ideas, opinions, and emotions across the world instantly.
But for every cat meme, your best friend tweets at you,
every I miss you comment, your grandma leaves on your
Facebook wall, there are literally thousands of instances of hate
speech being circulated online because when communication happens through a screen,

(09:11):
and when moments are experienced through relents, a terrifying extraction
takes place.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
The age of.

Speaker 6 (09:17):
Technology and social media has slowly disintegrated individual accountability, the
consequences of which are devastating.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
So that should give you a little bit of an
idea of what I mean.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
It's interesting because it really feels like a time capsule
from a different time, you know, Like hearing Candice Owens
talk about how bad things like hate speech are and
how it's dividing us is like just very interesting.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, throw off, Like like wait what same persons?

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Okay, No, So the plan for Social Autopsy was basically
it was a project meant to like de anonymize online
common and then connect them with their real life names
and then real life employers. And it's funny because this
is still an argument that people make when they want
to restrict the Internet today, that like all the problems

(10:11):
that happen on the Internet, from harassment to child exploitation material,
all of that could all be solved if you needed,
like your government ID to access the Internet. And so
it's funny how these ideas, there are people pushing that
concept today and even I mean, like some people who
are well meaning but in my opinion, incorrect, are still
pushing that idea. And so it's funny how some of

(10:32):
these ideas never really die. They're just recycled. Like Cannonce
Owen's was talking about this in twenty sixteen, and here
we are in twenty twenty five, still talking about it.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yes, yes we are.

Speaker 5 (10:45):
But oh my goodness, speaking of things, we're still talking
about Another thing we've talked about a lot on this show.
Another thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is
the radicalization that can happened online. And Candace Owens kind
of talks about this. This is sort of her experience

(11:09):
with Gagate.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
So when she exactly that, So when she came out
with Social Autopsy, pretty much everybody hated it right, like
it was like a universal digital boo or like thumbs down.
And one of the people who was like really not
into this idea was Zoe Quinn, whose name you might
know if you know about Gamergate, because she was someone
who was pretty viciously attacked in Gamergate. So after all

(11:32):
of the backlash from this project that Candace tried to
put out into the world via Kickstarter, she herself was
doxed and harassed, and Candace actually blamed Zoe Quinn and
other feminists for this harassment and started saying so publicly,
you can probably guess who.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
Loved this and like seized on it.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
That's right, people like Miloianapolis, people who were promoters of
Gamergate and like doing the harassment of Gamergate really hyped
up Owens's that, Yeah, it's the feminists who are the
ones who were doing the actual online harassment, not you know,
these gamer bros and like right wingers. It's actually feminists
who are the bad guys here. And this event Owen's

(12:13):
credits with her turn from progressive to being what she
calls a red pilled radical. She says, quote, I became
a conservative overnight. I realized that liberals were actually the racists.
Liberals were actually the trolls, and so Annie, you're exactly
right that. Like, she describes this as like an overnight
turning point of her going from being a progressive who

(12:36):
was collaborating with the NAACP and writing about how awful
Republicans and Trump and the Tea Party Republicans were to
like overnight waking up and being like, no, it is
liberals who are the real enemy.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
I have so many thoughts because I don't I was
not a part of the gamergate world. Like I did
not understand what was happening out there in the internets
because I was case managing and like groveling in my
own like everything's worse. But like her being dogs and
all this, because I'm sure just as many like people

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

Speaker 1 (13:36):
So my understanding is that, like and if folks listening
are like I was there. Remember, as far as I know,
this was like feminists having good faith disagreement with Candace's project,
and then Candace probably pumped up by some of these
like right wing bro gamer guys who were behind a
lot of this harassment and like we have all the

(13:57):
receipts for that, probably pumped up by some of them
just like just like assumed that these feminists were the
ones behind it. So like, as far as I know,
she this was not a documented thing. But you know, certainly,
like like I was, I was like pretty in.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
The mix on the internet in these days.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Certainly this feud between Candace Owens and feminists like Zoquinn
about Gamergate was something that like got her name into
the conversation in a way that I don't think it
had been before.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
And for a lot of attention seekers. Not that she
is I don't know this person. I don't know Candas
Owens in real life. But if this is what we're seeing,
negative tension is just as good as Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:39):
So it's so interesting that you say this because She's
not someone that I would take at her word. I
guess I'll put it that way, Like, I don't know
how reliable of a narrator she is. However, when she
says like, oh, overnight, I realized that feminists were the
real enemy, and the people that I should be allying
myself were people like mylo Ayanapolis, I don't think that
she's outright lying, but I I think that what she's

(15:00):
saying is probably a lot closer to what you've just said, Sam,
that like what she realized was like, when I was
just a feminist online, I didn't get a lot of attention.
But when I started publicly beefing with these other feminists,
I was getting a lot of attention. These these right
wing extremist types like Miloganopolis, who had huge platforms, started

(15:23):
paying me more attention and giving me more support, giving
me more engagement. And like, I think, I think there's
something to this idea that Like, I wouldn't necessarily say
that she.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Changed her ideological ideas.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
I think that what she realized was like, oh, if
I align myself with people on the right, that comes
with attention. Again, this is just my opinion. I don't
know her, but that's my sense. I like, I don't
think that she's outright misrepresenting this shift, but I think
it's not necessarily about an ideology so much as it
is like, oh, like public spats and rage bait and

(16:00):
like spectacle gets me engagement and attention, and that can
translate to dollars outright, I can play this game. That's
that's my sense of what's going on here.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
I mean, it sounds like she was finding a brand,
and we like, she is a brand, whether or not
we want to admit that's the case, but she is
a brand, and she's starting to hone in on this brand,
and she's going to go for what gives her the
most uh success.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Yeah, and this was successful.

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Like once she starts doing this, you know, and she
starts promoting right wing viewpoints on YouTube. She had a
YouTube channel called red Pill Black, which, like I gotta say,
is actually like a pretty good name. I credit where
credit is due. It's like, I get I like that branding.
She catches the attention of Charlie Kirk, who founded Turning
Points USA, just like big right wing media entity.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
And he hires her.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
So at this point, Candice goes from like a little
no name blogger blogging about lefty politics that nobody's ever
heard of, to like making huge viral videos that are
getting so much attention, where she's doing things like dismissing
the twenty seventeen White Supremacists Unite the Right rally in
Charlottesville that left Heather Higher dead. Alex Jones invites her

(17:18):
to co host some of his Info Wars shows, and
again like, keep in mind these I know they seem
like fringe media entities, and in some ways they are,
but they get so many viewers, like Alex Jones at
his height was getting tons and tons and tons of eyeballs.
She starts doing stints on Fox News, so like that's

(17:38):
a little more mainstream than Info Wars, right, And in
twenty twenty one she joined The Daily Wire with a
ton of fanfare, like this was a huge deal.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
She ends up moving to Nashville, and when she.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Does that, the state even introduces House Joint Resolution three fifty,
a resolution in the Tennessee government to congratulate Candae Owens,
a relocate hating to Tennessee for work at the Daily Wire.
That reads quote whereas miss Owens has earned the admiration
and respect of millions of Americans through her activism and
support of President Trump as a black woman, and her

(18:11):
perceptive criticism of creeping socialism and leftist political tyranny.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Imagine moving to Nashville, and.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
It's such a big deal that, like the government of
Nashville makes it an official like proclamation in Tennessee government.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
And if she steps outside of downtown Nashville, she's gonna
get threatened for sure. Oh I feel threatened outside. I
feel threatened in a lot of places. But like, yeah, so,
and as a person who was the only Asian person
in the crowd, the tokenism is so loud.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah, I mean that proclamation, like, oh, like we're proclaiming
that she's great because she's a black woman who likes Trump.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
I mean, add to things like this is one of
the reasons.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Why I think a lot about Candace Owens is like
a kind of seductive quality that can come with being
a person of color who is being uplifted as like
some special thing, right, some special one. And it's it's
such a trap because I don't want to be anybody's token, right,

(19:24):
I don't want to be anybody's like, oh, like, this
is a black woman who's doing x y Z, but
I understand the seductive lure of that, and so like,
I don't know, I guess I almost sort of see
Candace Owens as like a fun house mirror version of myself,
Like if I, like, if I were someone who was

(19:45):
really moved or swayed by being uplifted because of these
things that make me tokenizable. I can sort of see
liking this, and so I sort of see a lot
of like of my shadow self and Candice Owens.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
I guess I should say, does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (20:03):
No? Yes, No, I think I understand that because like
my younger self, my younger self seeking desperately to be white,
seeming to be accepted by white people. So when I
in high school not understanding the depth and depravity of
white supremacy and how dark it is, like sitting there arguing, no,
not arguing, but agreeing with my and racist brother about

(20:25):
this fact. Yes, affirmative action is so awful. I want
to earn it. I don't want to be, you know,
given special treatment because of my race. And that's not
the case at all, that's not the conversation at all,
But because of what I've been fed, and the minute
I said that he's like, see, she knows she's Asian,
Like he literally said that out loud, and being so
proud of me for understanding white supremacy, like in like

(20:47):
in that way, but wanting to like liking that moment.
Now look back with Shane, But at that moment, I
was like, yes, I'm one of you, Yes, exactly as you.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
It's so seductive and if you like, I was the
exact same when I was younger, Like, and it's like
nobody likes feeling excluded or like the other, or like
they don't belong.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
And so in those glimmers where you where you do
feel like.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Someone is saying like, see, it feels good, And I
think it's it's like doing the work of training yourself
to really see those moments for what they are and
not like being pulled into the good feelings of like
well this I'm getting feedback from my brother that's making
me feel accepted and that he sees me and whatever whatever.

(21:31):
But like, you know, you really have to do the
work to be like, well, is this actually what I
want to be seen for?

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Like you know, right, I don't want to agree with you,
now I understand what I'm agree with and this is
completely wrong. I'm against humanity. What if Candice Owens is

(21:56):
pulling the best grift of all time and just taking
all the Conservative money, Like if that was the end
story to this, I'm like, if anybody deserves the Republican
Conservative money as a black woman, So I can't really
I hear that right, like this is smart. I mean
it's not smart. It's like it feels like a betrayal.

(22:17):
But for her on her individual level coming in and
being token to being all these multi million dollar shows.
Because you know, we know that Alex Jones made a
lot of money from his hatred. We know that, we've
seen it, he talks about it, we know Charlie Kirk
as well. Her coming in and taking their money is
kind of like, you know, I don't hate it for you,

(22:39):
like I hate what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, So I used to think, and again, this is
my opinion. I don't know her like that or anything,
but like I used to think, like, certainly she's playing
these people.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
She doesn't believe this. Now I don't know.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Now I think she's like a true believer. But like
maybe I go back and forth and again it's one
of those things that one of those reasons why I
find her so deeply fascinating, right because like, like as
a black woman, I am tempted to like project like, well,
certainly this is some sort of a I mean, it
is a.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Grift, don't get me wrong.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
And it's like for sure a grift like she grifted,
can't confirm, but like I it really made it really
prompts me to look back at myself to be like, well,
why am I like why like am I low key
rooting for her?

Speaker 3 (23:25):
Like what is this?

Speaker 6 (23:26):
Right?

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Right?

Speaker 2 (23:28):
Like you're the like you're not my favorite, but you're
not the worst worst exactly to get out where you
are in this in the spectrum. But you know, on
top of all of that, as we were talking about
in Nashville, being like if you go outside of the city,
escape and no people don't know you, you're not going to
get this love that you think you're getting from this
very uh again white supremacist patriarch that you are representing

(23:53):
and are trying to play for like all these things,
eventually they're gonna turn on you.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Well that actually happened in her story. So you know,
when she's working at Daily Wire, you're thinking, like, you know,
she's got this huge gig probably making a ton of money,
should be smooth sailing, but there is a huge, messy
public fallout just a few years later. So she's working
at Daily Wire. Last year there was this public friction

(24:19):
between Candace and Ben Shapiro, one of the founders of
Daily Wire, the network that Candace had used to be on.
Now it's not one hundred percent clear exactly what caused
attention between the two, but at least publicly there it
seemed to be some kind of a reaction to the
situation in Gaza. Ben Shapiro is Jewish, and Owens has
said a lot of anti Semitic stuff, Like even before

(24:40):
October seventh, she was going hard, doing things like defending
Kanye West, but things really seemed to kick into high
gear with her anti semitism on October seventh. Now it
is important to make a distinction here that she's not
like criticizing the actions of the Israeli state.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
She is getting into stuff like blood libel.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Conspira theories, which is this anti Semitic conspiracy theory that
Jewish people drink blood for power, and like other deep
deep conspiracy theories. Right, like she said that Judaism was
a quote pedophile centric religion that believes in demons and
child sacrifice, and that people are waking up to the
fact that pedophiles are in power. So she is saying

(25:21):
some like truly out of pocket, wild stuff, and then
things start taking kind of a bent toward her employer.
She wrote on Twitter quote, no one can serve two masters.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
You cannot serve both God.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
And money, to which Ben Shapiro Comma her boss, replies, Candace,
if you feel that taking money from the Daily Wire
somehow comes between you and God, by all means quit Now.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
I gotta say, like, I don't find myself.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Agreeing with Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro much, but I
kind of thought Ben Shapiro kind of has a point here,
Like this is her boss and she's publicly getting into
sebbats with him on Twitter.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Not a good book.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
Could have maybe done that a little bit more privately, Yeah, like.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
Sit an email.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
But like that's the thing about Canvas is like Canus
wouldn't be Candace if she didn't if she did if
she did this privately, Cannus wouldn't be Candace if she
avoided this. Like her career got a jumpstart from spectacle
on Twitter, So like she that is something that is
like her bread and butter is like spectacle on social media.
So it gets absolutely messy as hell, and it's all public.

(26:37):
Owens claimed that Ben Shapiro had quote been acting unprofessional
and emotionally unhinged for weeks now and said that Shapiro
crossed a certain line. When you come for scripture and
read yourself into it, I will not tolerate it.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
She goes on Tucker.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Carlson Show, saying that Ben Shapiro was attacking her using
ad hominem attacks. She then tweets that she wants her
and Ben Shapiro to sit down and have a discussion
moderated by this podcaster, Patrick Bett Davide. Ben Shapiro was
having none of this, and again I can't say that
I blame him. Like challenging your boss to a debate,

(27:13):
a public debate on Twitter, it's just like not a
good look. So when she was like debate me, bro,
Ben Shapiro tweeted, Candice, I can see why you'd want
to hide behind a moderator, particularly one who said we
should rename our company. Quote the Daily Jewish Wire just yesterday,
no one on one Monday at five pm. We can
sit down and have a healthy debate like adults and

(27:34):
will live stream it on x and YouTube.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Take it or leave it.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
So they're really going back and forth, and I gotta
give a little side note here for what it's worth.
This is just like my personal opinion as somebody who
has been around the block and worked in the media
for a really long time. The reason I am not
saying that the actual root of their disagreement was Israel
or Judaism like one hundred percent, is because I just

(28:00):
smell some kind of a contractual dispute here. Something about
the way that they are going back and forth reads
to me like Owens maybe had like an inflexible, ironclad
contract that maybe she felt like she could make more
money on her own and that she had to get
out of this contract or vice versa.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Maybe Daily Wire wanted her out.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Something about the intensity of the public escalation with her
boss just suggests to me that something else might have
been going on. Again, this is just my sense. I
don't have any inside information. It just seems like a
lot to be doing. It just seems like a lot
to be doing. But again, this is Cannice Owens we're
talking about the very definition of doing the most on

(28:40):
social media.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
But that's just my sense.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
I feel like it's one again once like the fact
that they work so hard on like the conservative right
wing side that knowing that one person being Jewish and
the other person being a black woman. I'm like, they're
not on your side, Like no, they just are just
like wanting you to find it out. This is what
they want so that they can obtain more power. But

(29:04):
you two, I mean, it's just it's just is it ironic,
I don't know or is it just Sam?

Speaker 1 (29:11):
I was like watching this like you know, like like
I was like let him fight, like I was my love,
and every minute was like faving every tweet reading like
you know how it used to be on Twitter you
could like go to like show show more to see,
like like to start from the beginning.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
I was eating it up.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
And again like obviously Kennis has hit on something because
like these this public spectacle, these public spats, even with
her employer.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
They do generate engagement.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Like she's she's she's not new to this, She's true
to this, Like she's been using this kind of thing
to get negative attention to boost herself for a very
long time, and she's very good at it.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
So the seems to be like.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
The red line here was when Rabbi Schmooley Botice criticized
Owen's for her defenses of kind a west. Owens then
like to tweet, asking the rabbi if he was quote
drunk on Jewish blood again. A few days later, Daily
Wire and Candace Owens officially ended her their relationship, with
Owen's tweeting, the rumors are true. I am finally free.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Just there's so many things that I like, there's so
many things to this level of conversation that yes, it is.
It's just like the song of Francesco Ramsey did with
like that lepers or do you know like they didn't
think that, you know? And I'm like yeah. But at
the same time, with the way she ended, it does
sound like it was a whole play to get out.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
I just I mean, like I don't know, but like.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
She had to, Like there is no way that Candace
did not think that, like she was putting her job
at risk, right, So I just do not buy that.
She was like I'm gonna be I just these are
my convictions and I can just say what I want
and it's free speech and it'll be fine. There is
no way, like I just if anybody listening has the

(31:11):
real tea. I just can sense there's something else here
and it just it just it gives contract dispute to me,
That's all I'll say. So this is where the story
gets interesting to me, because she kind of fell off
of my radar after this.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
I was like, Oh, I guess she's out at Bailey Wire.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Hadn't really heard much from her. I guess she's like
doing her thing. And it wasn't until I was trying
to make sense of the dispute between these two Hollywood
A listers, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, that she popped
up on my radar again. So I gotta give a
big PSA. This is not meant to be a definitive

(31:47):
breakdown of what is happening with Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively,
which probably could be like its own episode. It is
not a situation that I have followed super closely, so
I am like not the right person to dig in
on all of that.

Speaker 3 (31:59):
I don't have any kind of like take or anything like.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Like like it's just it's not it's not a situation
that I am super read in on because it's a
little bit like complicated and I can't quite follow it.
But that dynamic where I'm like, oh, I don't really
know what's going on, but I'm sort of like casually
trying to find out. That is actually how Candice Owens
got back on my radar. So do you do you
all know what's happening between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's

(32:22):
is something that's like bet On Yell's radar.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
It's been against my will.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
YEA.

Speaker 5 (32:27):
Literally today I was like, thank god, I haven't heard
anything about Blake Lively and Justin Baldonia.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
And then you see the outline, So.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Here we go. Everything I've learned about it has been
against my will.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
I'm like, why, it's like what, like it's just like
not something I don't know, It's just like not.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
I mean in the end, like because you were trying
to compare it to the Johnny dipp amber Herd case,
which I'm like, yo, back off. There's so many things
that the implication of that alone makes me think I
don't want to take this seriously because it's not to
that level. We have this conversation because like we spoke
very quickly before it blew up to this, like the

(33:07):
very beginning of the conflict, mainly talking about how domestic
violence victims and survivors really were offended by the way
that the movie, which is the center of this controversy
was portrayed, and then the how the ad marketing went
for and like made it all girly, these good times,
all these things that they were, like this is really

(33:28):
kind of offensive, Like this language of this entire language
of sometimes it's very serious that people have taken very
personally and have like a lot of familiarity with and
trauma with. And then it felt like flat, especially like
with how it is now, especially because it's no longer

(33:48):
about the movie, no, but like's it was. We took
a small take on that and why romanticizing domestic violence
is such a such a problem in Hollywood and just
in our environment in general. But like this was way
before everything happened, and the back and forth and back
and forth. I will say, there's a lot of disdain

(34:13):
for Blake's lively on Ye yes again, I did not
choose this.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Okay, so it's so funny that you say this. I
have experienced the exact same thing.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
So so if.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Folks don't know what we're talking about, if you aren't
like Annie blissfully unaware of like what is going on,
It's it's a situation. It's like a little bit complicated,
and it's ongoing, but it's actually like a pretty interesting story,
and it does include a lot of things that I
am interested in, like how celebrities use.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Social media, how easily social media.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Platforms can be like weaponized for or against a specific person.
Email correspondence where people make themselves look terrible in writing
because they currently do not expect these emails to be
like in a deposition or in the New York Times.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
That is my personal favorite.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Thing nothing when whenever it's like, oh we have the emails,
I'm like, I'm gonna read every single one of them, Like,
please continue to put your wrongdoings in emails and in
writing so that I can read them later in a deposition.
So I do think that folks should like if that
seems like the kind of a situation that you are
interested in, Like it is, it is a meaty situation,

(35:15):
so like definitely listen to podcasts about it or whatever.
But for our purposes, a quick and dirty. Summary of
what's going on is that Blake Lively and Justin Buldoni
were in a movie adaptation of the popular Colleen Hoover
novel called It Starts with Us. In December, Lively filed
a legal complaint against Bouldannie, accusing him of sexual harassment
and starting a sneer campaign against her. Now he strongly

(35:38):
denies that and has sued. In response, both camps are
releasing information like text messages and emails and like videos
and voicemails to make each other look bad. So the
case has turned, I mean kind of similar to the
Johnny Depp Amber Herd thing. It's one of those situations
that has turned into like an ink block test that
changes depending on what version of the story that you buy.

(35:59):
Inion one, Blake Lively was being sexually harassed on set
by this like fake feminist male ally.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
Who was actually an abuser.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
In version two, Blake Lively is like this egomaniac who
is using her star power and like a list celebrity
network like her husband Ryan Reynolds from those Deadpool movies,
to control the narrative around her being a nightmare on
set and steamrolling everybody.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Else on this project.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
So Sam like you kind of similar to the Johnny
Depp and Amber Heard thing.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
In some ways, I think, depending on.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
What silos of the Internet you are in, you might
be be algorithmically being given the idea that the public
sentiment leans one way or another, like on TikTok.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
For whatever reason, my.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
TikTok algorithm thinks I hate Blake Lively and that I
want to see like lots of videos like pouring over
every nuance in the ways in which she is.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
A fraud, which is not true.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
She's not someone who like I spend really any time
at all thinking about. But it's interest that like the
algorithm thinks, like, oh, this is somebody who hates Blake Lively.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Right, I agree. For some reason, I am getting all
of the tea on all the awful things that Blake
Lively is and all the people who hate her and
why they hate her, and I'm like, I have never once.
I don't know if I've ever seen a Blake Lively movie.
I don't think I have.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
If I one of the Traveling Pants, no, okay, that's
usually the one people know like that or I will
say say whatever you want to about like Lively the
movie A simple favor slaps.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
She's great in that.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Did you get the tea on how much they hate
each other?

Speaker 3 (37:34):
On that? Why?

Speaker 2 (37:36):
That's what on my fee do.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
I did say? I did see an interview where who
is the hair coastar in that inn? A Kendrick right
and A Kendrick were they asking her about Blake Lively.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
She does have a very weird response.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
They hate each other, and that's that's what I've understood.
That's what they're telling me because they don't ever show
up together on the red carpet. So when I say,
my feed really feeds to the fact that I must
hate Blake Lively when I don't know this person, And
I'm like, I like, not that I know any celebrity
like that, but I'm like, but I never at one

(38:08):
point have I looked her up or like, she's not
on my feet. I don't look around on my like searchus.
I guess the one time it was for the It
ends with us. Damn it. Every time I research something
for the show, it messes me up. But anyway, yeah,
but yeah, no, that is I'm I'm like, I guess
we really don't trust Blake Lively. We being a TikTok yeah,

(38:33):
my TikTok the.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Same as you.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Like, I was trying to get to the bottom of
like what was going on with this this Justin and
Blake thing. And one of my cousins, who I would
like lovingly describe as a normy and that she's not
like super online, She's not you know, deep in the
depths of like extremism or anything like that, Like the
way that I am my cousin is like, Oh, there's
this black girl journalist who has really been following the

(38:56):
story and breaking it down.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
We will tag you so you can figure out what's
going on. And that journalist was Candace Owens.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
And I was like, what, like what, Like I could
not believe that my cousins who were like not at
all in like, they are not people who are like
pouring over the minutia of what's happening on the Internet
and extremism the way that I am, like, they're pretty
offline whatever.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Like I was like, how did.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
You even get Candace Owens on your radar to be
like listening to her podcast or watching her YouTube?

Speaker 3 (39:29):
And the reason is because she has introduced herself to a.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Brand new subset of listeners and audience by covering this
Blake Lively thing, so her coverage very clearly takes an
anti Blake stance, as The Cut put it in a
piece called Candace Owens has gone mainstream quote. The right
wing commentator's coverage of the Blake Lively Justin Boldoney case

(39:53):
has reached millions of viewers. Owen's podcast was hours and
hours of analysis of the case, deep dives into court,
finally tabloid news stories, even Ryan Reynolds's recent appearance on
Saturday Night Lives fiftieth anniversary special. She's really been able
to go in and pinpoint discrepancies in some of the
things Blake Lively I said, rather than having.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Us go through it on our own.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
When listener says, though she recognizes that Owens seems to
have a pro Bowl Donni bias, she doesn't care. Candace
is urging us to look past the fact that this
is not a feminist issue at all, that it's about
getting justice for whoever is being wrong.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
She's uniting the left and the right. So, I mean,
it's just like it is.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
I mean, on the one hand, it seems surprising that
this like celebrity story would be the thing that would
galvanize an audience of mostly women and introduce Candace Owen's
and who she is and her ideologies and all of
that to a new audience. But on the other hand,
like that's pretty much exactly what they do. That what
they did at the Daily Wire, Like nobody was more

(40:57):
obsessed with celebrity than people like Ben Shapiro.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
They loved like.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Taking down woke Disney, Woke Star Wars, like you had
had a big few with Meg thee Stallion Beyonce. Like
just because it's negative doesn't mean it's not sandom. It's
just like going in the other direction.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
Right, Actually, we knew we need to say he had
a one sided being with him because they did not.
Like it just makes me laugh, you know, the other
part of this was as much as my algorithm wants

(41:33):
to show me all the anti Lively stuff as well
as all of the controversy, because yes, I would get
updates about the SNL thing about how everybody snubbed Brian Reynolds.
It's like did they okay? But like, interestingly I did
get content not from Candis Owans but other creators reminding
me and everybody listening that Candis Owans is a right

(41:55):
winged fanatic and that they need to be wary of
the information she's giving about this specific case.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Yes, so I think that's like why I wanted to
make this episode, just as a general reminder of who
Candice Owens is, and like we all love celebrity gossip.
I know I do, but like, let's just remember who
she is and the source, and like she might want
to rebrand herself, but let's just keep it at the front,
forefront of our minds who she is and what she's about,

(42:23):
And like, she really has exploded in popularity from this coverage.
You know, it's been attracting a lot more viewers beyond
her normal right wing extremist space. Like you were saying, Sam,
it's like normans like my cousins, my cousins, who might
not have any idea who she is. They just think
she's an entertainment journalist. All of this has meant explosive
growth and engagement for Owen's Here's how The Cut put

(42:43):
it in that piece. Since Owen started covering the Lively
Baldoni case, her YouTube channel has exploded in popularity, allowing
her to attract a much larger fan base than the
audience of hardcore conservatives, she is a mass over the years,
each episode about Lively and Baldani racks up at least
one point five million views. In the past month alone,
Owens has a mass more than four hundred and fifty

(43:03):
thousand new subscribers on YouTube, and her total video views
have quadrupled since this time last year, according to data
from the analytics platform social Blade. Over the past three months,
her audience on YouTube has also started skewing sixty five
percent female, according to data provided by a spokesperson, a
market shift from her past fan base. So this has
all been great news for Owens and where her audience

(43:25):
used to be like men, you know, like probably like
your brother right, like like right wing men. By covering
this story, she's really interacting a lot of women.

Speaker 5 (43:36):
Oh my stomach kind of hurts. It is really interesting
that this came in with gamer Gate as well, because,
like we were saying, Gamergate was such a mess, and
there were so many men who would be like, see
this woman agrees with me, and I hate it because

(44:00):
sometimes I'm like why, I just want to have a
conversation about why I don't like this game, and now
you've made it into this woman agrees with me, and
now you're using it to attract more women to be like, see,
if we're on the we are correct and you are wrong.

Speaker 4 (44:20):
And so when you see things like this.

Speaker 5 (44:23):
Where she started out with mostly men and then she's
attracting like all of these women, I feel like it's
worth asking why do you think this took off for her?

Speaker 1 (44:38):
This story so one, I will say that like Camus
actually is pretty interesting to listen to, Like I don't
agree with what she's saying, but she does, Like even
when she was a progressive blogger, she does have like
a point of view and a clear voice, and I
think that really comes through in her coverage.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Of Blake Lively.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
You know, she has this way of speaking that signals
to you like, oh, this person is really breaking it down.
It's the same reason why things on TikTok, things like
story time or like I'm spilling the tea really holds
people's attention.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
I think that Candice really does know how to do that. One.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
I think the second kind of gets at what you
were saying Annie, that we just love misogyny, and I
think if that massogyny can be laced with a threat
of conspiracy, it's even better, Right, like social media platforms
are always going to amplify things like misogyny or massogynore
racism or transphobia. I think all of that is just

(45:34):
baked into what it means to show up on social media.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
And I think Owen's really, in.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
A savvy way, takes that a step further by breaking
all of this down, like she's explaining a conspiracy, right,
So it's not so she's not just saying like, here's
my take on Blake Lively, or here's what's going on
with the Blake Lively case, or you know, here's why
even like here's why I don't like Blake Lively. She
has this tinge of like she uncovering this dark truth

(46:02):
about this successful woman to take her down.

Speaker 3 (46:05):
Like, of course that's going to take off. People love that.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
So the fact that she's not just giving information about
Blake Lively, she's doing it in this way that's like,
let's go back through fifteen years of footage of her
speaking and dive through the minutia of everything that she's
said on camera to highlight the discrepancies, to show what
a dark, twisted person she is.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
Like, of course people are gonna love that.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
And I think that One of the reasons why people
like conspiracy theories is that it really does allow for
like fantasy and world building to become part of this coverage,
right Like Canvas's coverage of Blake Lively is wild because
she is a truly wild person. And so if you're
someone who was just like wants to get the brain
rush of like going down a deep rabbit hole, whether

(46:49):
or not it's true or whether or not it's like
made up, that's.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Gonna be enticing for you.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
You know, as Owens herself puts it, she does not
follow a quote traditional style of reporting.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
That's putting it pretty light lightly.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
She will amplify rumors, right like she once even read
a letter that she said was from Ryan Reynolds' acting
coach from when he was twelve years old, and that
acting coach allegedly said Ryan Reynolds was obnoxious as a
twelve year old. Like there are side characters and stuff
like she really fleshes out this world of what she's saying.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Is it real, is it accurate? Who cares?

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Of course people are coming to hear that tea on
a story they're invested in, right.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
I feel like though, like this is definitely in her
alley in her Willhouse, in that this fees into the
Hollywood demon's kind of trope as well as like her
response to the Me Too movement, I know, like she
was definitely anti feminist in that movement as well, Like
this kind of all fees into that perfectly for her.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Yes, So I think that's another reason why this has
taken off, because I think that, like, there is something
inherently inviting about the power of like taking a contrarian
stance on something like after Me Too, lots of women
got engagement by taking a contrarian stance. Ironically, Blake Lively
praised both Woody Island and Harvey Weinstein. That last one

(48:12):
is going to be interesting to note for later. So
I think there is this attitude where like going against convention.
You know, if if there's a convention that says we
automatically got to support the woman in any situation, it
probably makes people who are turning to Owen's as coverage
and her breakdowns feel like the free thinkers who are
going against the grain and like willing to take an
unpopular opinion which feels good, Like it feels good to

(48:36):
think of yourself in that way, which then obviously connects
to some of her more like odious stances about trans
people and women and Jewish people, like if you can
get people introduced to the idea that it's like good
to take an unpopular opinion when you're talking about a
celebrity that people don't like, imagine how then you can

(48:57):
walk them down to be like it isn't And also
don't you not like trans people? And also don't you
think women should not have jobs? And also don't you
not like Jewish people? Like it's like kind of all
coming from the same place.

Speaker 5 (49:06):
Yeah, okay, so she's very engaging and she it's sort
of like, you know, here's some celebrity gossip. Let me
give you this conspiracy theory, and also kind of this
hate on the side. Right, But it's been very successful.
But has has the new audience changed her stances at all?

Speaker 3 (49:33):
That's a great question.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
According to Owen's she has not really changed her views
despite her rebrand. She says, in terms of my perspective,
I haven't changed anything. I've been anti me too since
long before it was cool. When it comes to the
which like, oh, what as like feminist media makers? Do

(49:56):
you think like I just I'm so curious about that
take of like, first of all, just the assumption that
like it's cool to be anti me too right now.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
I just have a lot of questions.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
This is definitely the whole like red pill level of
women trying to be the I hate this storter, but
like the pick me like you were, like I it's
now cool because the boys like me like it. It
doesn't want it sounds like most women who have been
through these processes or her survivors would never say like

(50:27):
the level people. I'm not even just like survivors people
with conscious like like that in general, that's not a
that's not a statement you want. That's not a winning statement.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
It's not that's a good way to put it. It's
not a winning statement. And when it comes to the
success of the content that she's made around Blake Lively,
Canda says that she thinks her new fans, especially the
ones coming from the left, have quote just kind of
gotten wise to the fact that maybe women lie just
like men, and you can do you want to know
what her next big shoe is going to be like

(51:01):
after she moves on from Blake Lively, She's already signaled
to what it is?

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Oh really, because we're still in the middle of this.
The lawsuit hasn't been settled, but okay, what is.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
But she's already looking, I mean like it's not gonna
last forever. She's already had a sense of like where
she's going next, her next bigo. She was going to
be championing Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced filmmaker that really did
kickstart the Me Too movement. She's been interviewing him by
phone since twenty twenty two. Here's how the Hollywood Reporter

(51:31):
explains it. Candas's takeaway is that while Harvey Weinstein is
an a moral man, he's also a victim of the
justice system. Owens, a long time and persistent critic of
the Me Too movement, of which Harvey, of which the
Harvey Weinstein saga served as the watershed, noted that quote,
I've always had faith in our court system, and now
that's beginning to change. Now I'm wondering if our courtrooms

(51:53):
have been politicized. I love that it's Harvey Weinstein being convicted.
That She's like, are the it's not on the money.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
I no, I'm sure there's some of them serial killers
that she should represent as much like this is okay
to be fair, she has has she has her fingers
on the pulse in that knowing this is gonna drive
up attention, like she is gonna get the publicity that

(52:25):
she wants with that, Like how bigger could you go
outside of being like I'm gonna go dig up Hitler
and interview him and tell him I miss him like that.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
That's yeah, No, I mean she she agrees with you.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
She said that she's putting out a series called Harvey Speaks,
and when asked about it, she said, quote.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
It will explode the world. That's a direct quote.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Oh my gosh, she's a businesswoman for sure.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Yeah, we all have that to look forward to. I
mean again, like.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
He's sad, like I cannot deny that this is smart,
Like I don't.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
I don't agree with it.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
I don't think it's good. I don't think it's good
for the world. But like, I think she has her
finger on the pulse of what is actually going to
be projects to put out that will capture people's attention
for better or for worse.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
And I think she's really got something. She's like cracked
into something.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
Yeah, for better or worse. Indeed, she has.

Speaker 5 (53:30):
And you know, every time we talk to you, Bridget,
we always talk about how the algorithms and so many
of our social media pushes this content up and how
we engage in it.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
So she's figured it out. She's figured that out.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
I think you're exactly right, And I think, like that's
the So what of this story is that? You know,
Candice has so many other things going on, Like she's
pivoting into other kinds of pro she's branding out into
doing a book club for paying subscribers and a fitness program,
and I think that I do I believe her when
she says that she's not like rebranding. I think rather

(54:10):
she is trying to rebrand her followers. These new followers,
many of whom are just like women who are interested
in this scandal. I believe that the point is for
them to be walked down a pipeline that includes her
other extremist attitudes, really using this Blake Lively celebrity scandal
as the hook. And I think because celebrity stories, especially

(54:30):
ones that involve women, are so often just like considered fluff.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
So a lot of people who care.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
About like extremist content or ideology might not be paying
that much attention to hell, these stories that you might
see on US Weekly are tapping into those ideologies and
un leading those ideologies on a brand new audience. And
so I think that's especially concerning when you're talking about
things like celebrity, because you know, when I'm reading celebrity
scandals or like reading US Weekly, I might not be

(54:58):
primed to have my like BS detector on and up
because it just is, like you think of it as
a less charge space.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
And so I think that it really can be.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
More dangerous because it lends itself to people being more
susceptible to ideological content they might not be expecting without
even realizing it.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
And like, I think it's very easy for Candace Owens to.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
Go from like saying Blake Lively is lying to like
women lie to women can't be trusted to, like women
should not have jobs, which I'm not just like pulling
that out of nowhere. That is a stance that Candace
Owens has explicitly advocated for that women should not have employment,
they cannot be trusted with work, despite herself obviously being
a working woman. So like, basically you just can't trust

(55:39):
her she's not someone that you can trust. Don't let
her rebrand as a celebrity journalist. Fool you if somebody
tags you in a video of hers, to.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
Be like, oh, she's really breaking it down.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
Just remember that she is trying to soften what it
is that she advocates for and believes in, and like.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
We shouldn't let her do that.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
We should really remember who who she is and what
she's about, because she's made it very clear, right.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
I mean, she's definitely on the same lines of what
we've seen as a new generation talking about young men
on podcasts and how they've been able to influence young men,
like this is coming in as influencing young women. I mean,
just today, I'm seeing a lot of content about how
young the younger generations are talking are being red pilled,
as they would say, which is fitting here, and things

(56:26):
like the soft life content being a beginning for a
lot of young women not realizing that getting that kind
of brand. We've talked about that with like self care,
we've talked about that with yoga and the clean, clean
lifestyle type of thing. How that easily becomes a pipeline
for the conservative right wing community. And this is kind

(56:47):
of that big stoy, except that we see her branding
and we know who she is. But if you don't
know from the jump her stance, this is definitely a
worrisome tactic because we know things like true crime and
celebrity gossip, like it's geared towards young women, it's geared
towards women in general, and they also spend a lot
of money and they spend a lot of time in it,

(57:08):
investigating and taking part of it. So it's really worriesomeing
like it is comical. As we were talking at the beginning,
like what is this to very concerning and understanding that
when we let this stuff go, like you were saying,
like this is fluff content, but in actuality is feeding
into a conservative ideal that becomes mainstream and it's usually
really dangerous.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
So when people are like, oh, I just want to
listen to my true crime podcast, I don't want to
get political, or I just want to read about celebrities,
I don't want to get political, I hate to break
it to you. All of that stuff is political. All
that is all political, and like it is, it can
be harnessed to shift attitudes of people who are being like, oh,
this is not political into more extremest ways of thinking.

(57:50):
And so if you are a savvy consumer of media,
or a savvy consumer of anything, whether it's true crime
content or celebrity content, or yoga or wellness content or
any of that, we've really got to be primed and
thinking about the ways as content can be so easily
weaponized to spread a.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
Certain ideology that we might not want to get mixed
up in.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (58:11):
Oh every time you come here, Bridget, I'm like, we
have fifteen million other.

Speaker 4 (58:16):
Topics we need to talk about.

Speaker 5 (58:21):
But thank you, thank you as always for coming on
and taking the time.

Speaker 4 (58:25):
We love to have you. Where can the good listeners
find you?

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Well, you can listen to my podcast on iHeartRadio called
their Artal Girls.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
On the internet.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
You can check me out on Instagram at Bridget Marie
in DC and uh yeah, we'd love to hang out there.

Speaker 4 (58:40):
Yes, and go do that listeners. If you haven't already
you can find us. You can email us at Hello
Stuff iever told you dot com. You can find us
on Blue Sky at momsuff podcast, or in Instagram and
TikTok at stuff we Never told you for Also on YouTube,
we have a tea public store, and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always to our super producer Costini or Executiveducer and

(59:00):
a contributor Joey.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (59:02):
Thanks to you for listening. Stuff one never told me
his production by heart Radio.

Speaker 5 (59:04):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app Apple Podcast wherever you listen
to your favorite ship