June 28, 2024 • 43 mins
What’s the Deal With ‘Hawk Tuah’ Girl? https://www.thecut.com/article/hawk-tuah-girl-viral-tiktok-video-explained.html
Exposing Cheaters Isn’t Always a Flex https://www.thecut.com/article/man-cheating-on-flight-tiktok.html
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Ungoss Creative, I'm Bridge Todd and this
is there are No Girls on the Internet. So, Mike,
when we were talking about what I wanted to do
for the episode this week, I was thinking like, oh,
I think I want to talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The presidential debate.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm gonna watch it live to see if anything comes
up from.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It, and you actually early on were like, I don't.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Know if that's what you're gonna want to talk about.
I don't know if that's what listeners are going to
want to hear about.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I don't know if the if the mood.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Is going to want to hear more commentary on that.
At the time, I was like, oh, I wonder why
this is his position. Now I'm realizing you were one
hundred percent correct.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Okay, well I'll take it. Yeah. I mean, by all
means we can talk about the presidential debate, but I
don't know. There's just so much coverage of it and
so many people sharing their opinions about it. You know,
your opinions are good and you have great takes on it,
but I don't know. It seems like listeners can find
(01:12):
that anywhere they you know, if it doesn't really have
a whole lot of immediate tanguity relevance, maybe we could
talk about something else to give people some options of
something else to listen to.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So I am very much avoiding presidential debate coverage. Instead,
let's talk about something totally unrelated to take my and
possibly you person listening your mind off of it.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So let's talk about other people's mess.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So we have talked on the podcast before about this
dynamic where it feels like in our current digital media climate,
surveillance is everywhere. Yes, I'm definitely talking about big tech
surveillance of what we're all doing online, all of our data,
but also individuals keeping tabs on the behavior of others,
whether or not they want to or consent to being
(02:00):
surveilled in that way. I think social media invites us
to build a world off of the behavior of strangers
to suit our needs.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
All it takes is one little glimpse, one little peak.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Into the lives of a stranger, and suddenly everybody is
building a world around what kind of person they think
this person is, you know, casting characters, becoming very personally
involved or invested, tracking down information, smoothing information about them,
and I think that we have a climate that is
brought to us by social media where people forget that
(02:35):
people are people who deserve privacy, Like just because you
said one little thing that happened to go viral, or
just because somebody maybe happened to see you possibly maybe
cheating on your wife on a plane. Now millions of
people are involved in your business and your marriage. We've
kind of talked about this on the show before, but
we've got a couple of new instances that have come
(02:55):
up lately that I think really speak to what I'm describing.
I want to talk them and talk through what they
might say about our culture. Quick heads up that all
of these instances are kind of sexual in nature, So
if you're listening with your kids in the car or something,
just know that it's not an explicit episode, but we
are talking about sexual topics a little bit. So one
(03:19):
of the reasons why I'm excited to talk to you
about this, Mike, is because I have a pretty good
sense of your algorithms and like what kind of things
come up on your personal feed and what pockets of
the Internet you're in, and what pockets are the Internet.
I'm a thousand percent sure you have no idea. So
I was gonna ask you, have you ever heard of this?
Next person, I already know the answer is no, and
(03:41):
I'm excited that the answer is no. But I'll just
ask you anyway, even though I know when I say
the phrase hawk to you girl, does that mean anything
to you?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Uh? It does not. It looks like perhaps it's Hawaiian.
It means nothing to me.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
So the young woman that the Internet has dubbed hawk
Girl is Haley Welsh. She's a young woman living in
Tennessee and she's walking around one night and she gets
stopped for one of those like man on the street interviews,
you know where a guy with a camera and a
microphone is like putting a phone in your face.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah? Sure makes free great content.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
By the way, if anyone ever approaches you with a
microphone and a camera on the street in twenty twenty four,
my advice is to run. My advice is to give
them the Tanya Harding no comment. I'll get into why
exactly that is, but my advice is to not engage.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So it is for a.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Nashville street show called Tim and d TV. It's an
interview series where these two guys Tim and d interview
like drunk people leaving bars and nightclubs on the street
in Nashville and they ask them for like wild and
crazy stories. So they ask this young woman, Haley for
a sex tip to make men go crazy in bed,
and her tip is more or less that you can
(04:57):
use spit as lubricant during oral sex. Solid advice. Ten
out of ten love that advice. However, when Haley is
sort of delivering this tip, she puts her own kind
of enthusiastic spin on it. She says, you gotta give
them that quak tah' I'm not like giving it the
gravi toss that she gives it because it would involve
(05:19):
making like deep throat noises. And I think that's if
someone's listening to headphones, that's like the grossest thing you
can hear, not in like a sex shame you way,
but in a it does it sound good in the
ears kind of way when you're wearing headphones, So it
needs to be seen to be understood if you haven't
seen it. But she's essentially giving an enthusiastic portrayal of
(05:41):
what it sounds and looks like to hawk up spit
from one's throat.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You've described it accurately so that I'm able to recreate
a picture in my head of this video. I can't
say it makes a lot of sense, but yeah, I
know what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
She says that one sentence, I got to give them
that hawk tu ya, everybody goes wild, instant virality. They
start calling her talk to you girl, basically based on
the sound that she made when answering this question.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What's one move in bed that makes a man go crazy?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Every time you get in that hawk?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Dude spit on that night?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
There are millions of memes over the last week. The
clip goes megaviral. It is referenced by Joe Rogan, Howard Stern,
a Phillies baseball team player Bryce Harper. So I am
deeply curious as to why this like short moment from
a Nashville Street TV show took off.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Globally like it did.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I don't think that we have had a big, true,
meaningful like all caps viral moment in a long time.
Do you remember back in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
you know we're like these, You would have these moments
that were very small that would go super viral. Like again,
I know you don't remember any of these because we
were not in the same pockets of the Internet. You're
probably like in a tent camping somewhere. But Damn Daniel
(07:02):
back at it again with the White Kicks.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Does that mean anything to you?
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Of course, who could forget that classic video?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Well, that was just a video taken in like a
high school where this student would film his friend Daniel's
outfits and shoes every day. And I guess he had
a nice style, but it wasn't anything like I mean,
it was nice, but it wasn't anything to write home about,
and so he would be like, Damn Daniel beck at
it again with the White Kicks.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Went totally viral.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
These kids were on the Ellen Show like it was
like when I say it was like a huge moment,
it was a huge moment. Like I genuinely cannot think
of a time more recently where somebody has had this
level of instant Internet fame from just one small thing
that didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
In like circa twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I think part of it is because of algorithms and
the rise of algorithm feeds. Like, we are much more
siloed online these days, and so you know, the kind
of thing that I am seeing all over my curated
for you page, it's very different than the kind of
thing that you, Mike are seeing and you're curated for
you feed. Right, Like, we could live in completely different
corners of the Internet where never the too shall meet.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, and I think we might, am I remembering correctly
that at least as of a few years ago, there
is a small industry of PR media consultants who would
create viral videos for you. They like studied the science
of making things go viral, and so you know, they
would basically like apply a formula to try to make
(08:32):
videos go super viral in this way that previously had
been somewhat organic.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I would argue that what kind of rose up and
took that space that you're describing is the sort of
fake viral video. The video that is hired actors playing
out a skit for and there's a script that they
know what their parts are, and then that video is
sold to us the public as the real thing. Right,
(08:58):
So when you watch these video on social media where
it's like a fight on a plane and you're like,
you look at the background and you're like, what plane
do you know that uses those LED light strips you
can buy off an Amazon? No planes use that. This
isn't really a plane, this is a set. I've seen
one where it purports to show like a fed up
mom telling off a trans teacher to advocate for her kid,
(09:19):
and then another video where the woman who was playing
the mom is now the teacher and it's like teacher
gets cursed out by mom. I would say that what
has taken the place of the sort of we can
tell you how to go viral industry is the we
make fake videos and live to the viewers about what.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
They are seeing to go viral. That's like the new thing.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
I would say, so so many different people with different
types of agendas. Displacing organic viral moments could unite people, or.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
At least unite people in distracting them from maybe things
happening in national politics that.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
They want a little bit of a break from.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah, I mean, that's mean, if there's any common experience
twenty twenty four in America that we all could use
a goddamn break.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And it reminds me of another kind of viral video
of yesteryear, and that was Chewbacca Mom. You're a Star
Wars nerd, so you actually might remember Chewbaca mom. Do
you remember her?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
There's not much to it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Basically, she was a woman who bought a Chewbacca Halloween
mask and you it's a mask where you open the
mouth and it makes a Chewbacca noise. And she puts
it on. She's in her car and she just thinks
it's the best. She's like just like laughing hysterically at
this mask. That's really it. So this video also went superviral.
This was May of twenty sixteen, and I often think
(10:39):
back to Chewbacca Mom and why that went so viral,
And I had to think back to, like, well, what
was going on in May of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
This was when Trump had become the GOP nominee.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
It was like Ted Cruz I think, was the last
hold out and he dropped out in May of twenty sixteen,
until it was like, oh it's Trump. There was a
lot happening with racial justice. The officers who killed Freddie
Gray and Baltimore were not convicted, and you had the
rise of the all right really becoming a thing. This
is around the time where people like Milo Yanapolis, who
we've talked about on the show before, were coordinating harassment
(11:13):
campaigns of women around things like the all women Ghostbusters
reboot right and so I remember distinctively that time on
the Internet as feeling like not just bad, not just toxic,
but like bad bad, Like the vibes were not good.
And I think that in these times when everything feels
(11:33):
heightened and charged and really difficult online, we will always
seize on any little thing that brings us out of that,
even for a moment, even if it's silly, to be honest,
kind of like what I'm doing right now, like leaning
into pop culture viral internet moments to avoid thinking about
national politics.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So let's go back to talk to you girl.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I'm gonna start calling her HT girl because it's a
mouthful to say, no pun intended, but appreciated. So girl
is really capitalizing on her viral moment, which honestly good
for her.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I think that is great and savvy.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
There were people saying that she signed a deal with UTA,
which is not true. UTA has confirmed they don't have
a deal and the works with her there was even
a rumor that she had been fired from her job
teaching at Epstein Preschool.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
That's also not true. That was a parody new.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Site that fooled people online, So no truth to that.
She does not have a UTA deal, but she is
being managed by Jason Petite, a Marshall County native who
has known HT for many years. So he did an
interview with Rolling Stone and said that a day or
two after the video started going viral, he reached out
to her because he was like, Yo, you need to
monetize this brand. So they are now making merch with
(12:47):
hactwah on it. They've got hats, they've got shirts. My
whole thing is like, I'm so curious how they settled
on a spelling of this because I've smelled that multiple
different ways. I've seen it smelled multiple different ways. I'm curious,
like how they decided like, Okay, no, it's gonna be
hawk Tuia. It's gonna be spelled this way. That's gonna
be the branding.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, that would have been an interesting discussion, like a
you're gonna do hats, they're gonna do bibs, they're gonna
do handkerchiefs. Other adult accessories, so many options. They sorted
that out in just a couple of days. Huh, that's
pretty impressive. Good for her for capitalizing on this. What
sounds like she was just drunk on her way home
from the bar.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Okay, so this has been viral for less than two weeks.
In that time, how much money do you think that
she has made on March to date.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Let's say thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Sixty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Good for her sell those hats.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
That's what I'm saying. And also, by the way, not
for nothing, Christmas is coming up.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I'm just saying, but a Tangoti dot com slash hawk
twaw for a discount code you can't Actually that doesn't exist.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
I just made that up. Let's take a quick break
at her back.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
So the person who reached out to become her manager
and help her with these licensing deals with the hats
and the shirts really pointed out that he wanted to
make sure that some of the money from this viral
moment went back into her pocket, which is why they're
doing the merchandising, he told Rolling Stone. Of course, she
hasn't gotten a dime from the first viral video that
went out. Nobody was asking permission for her to do
(14:41):
nothing neither. I just wanted her to get some of
the profit from this deal. It does kind of sound
like she is getting a percentage of the profits from
the merchandising. He declined to share exactly what percentage goes
directly to her, but he says that he suggested to
her that she trademarked the phrase and that she's talking
to a lawyer about it. So again, I am just
(15:02):
purely glad that she is getting her coin because as
we know, as we've talked about on the show, oftentimes
people who are these viral sensations do not see a dime,
whereas other people make money from their whatever viral phrase
or viral thing they do, and they don't see a dime,
especially if they're black. Right, if that is a common thing,
(15:22):
where you know, the woman who was sitting in her
car and was like eyebrows on fleek didn't see money
from that.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
That's kind of changed a little bit because.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
She's gotten a few like brand deals later on, But
in the beginning, everybody was making money off of that
except for her. But even though HT is making some
money off of this, it doesn't sound like it is
all like roses and rainbows. People early on were deeply
trying to track her down.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
She was docked.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
They were finding her social media accounts, which she then deleted,
and people were trying to track down where she worked.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
She might be a bartender, according to Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Her manager says Welsh, who did not respond to Rolling
Stone's request for an interview, is overwhelmed by the attention,
and she has requested that he not share any personal
details about her or feature her face on the merchandise.
He says, there are some crazy people in the world
who have reached out to her. She's probably one of
the most well known people in the world at this point,
but I don't know if she's embraced it. So to me,
(16:21):
that doesn't sound like something that is necessarily the kind
of thing that somebody was like looking for welcoming, right,
Like maybe when you were drunk you were like, oh,
talking to these guys for their street show.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Why not? But like, who could have predicted the way
that it would have taken off.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So again, I'm happy that she was able to monetize this,
but as this is all happening, The Daily Dot reports
that she's kind of been intentionally laying low, going back
to a rural community in Tennessee. So I guess my
point is is that I'm happy that she's able to
make money. But one person being asked a question maybe
when they were drunk after a night out, is not
(16:56):
expecting this level of scrutiny and attention for sale one
sentence about oral sex on camera for this show. And
this is why I say, like, if somebody comes up
to you with a camera and a mic in twenty
twenty four, nothing good can come of it.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Mate. Nor Evans of the news outlet As wrote a.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Piece called hak Tu Yeah Girl and Other Street interview
subjects who go viral? What legal rights do they have
and the content they appear in? And the answer is
really none. She talks about how these videos that sometimes
do go viral will feature young people, usually walking around
town after.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
A night out.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
She writes, with a few beers in their blood, they
might even say things they regret, especially when they're offhand.
Comments begin a conversation online that put a huge spotlight
on their life that can feel invasive and overwhelming. And
another good point to know about this kind of content
is that if you agree to be on a video
like this, and then you change your mind about what
you said after somebody shoved a camera in your face
(17:52):
that when you were drunk leaving a bar, you don't
have a ton of recourse, like you likely cannot get
that content taken down even if you ask. Ultimately, my
biggest issue with these kinds of man on the street
videos is that anybody, anybody can get a camera and
a mic to do this. Right when we were talking
about the college campus protests, you saw young people declining
(18:14):
to give interviews, not just to traditional media, but also
to just sort of like person with a camera who
I have no idea who this person is. A lot
of people were kind of chastising these youth, being like, oh, well,
how do they expect to get their message out if
they're not giving interviews, But actually they were being really
smart because if you have not vetted who this person is,
(18:34):
they could be literally anybody with any kind of agenda.
You have no idea, and so if you are trying
to put a curated message out into the world, you
should not be talking to a rando just putting a
camera in your face.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
You don't even know their name.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
They could be anybody as mat Nor Evans puts it
in her piece, With traditional media, there is an expectation
that the interviewer is acting in good faith and when
speaking to an ordinary person, to present them in a
neutral but respectful light. The street style interviews don't always
follow the same principles, and that all is captured in
these viral moments.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, that's such a good point that, you know, people
taking part in some sort of interview when they're they've
been drinking, or they're out on the street. It is
always a risk that anything you say to a camera
is going to appear on the Internet and be there forever.
And you know, I think it's particularly fraught in the
particular context that HT girl got caught in of, you know,
(19:29):
at night, out on the street in front of a
bunch of bars, it is appropriate to talk with other
adults about sexual stuff, but then that same video played
on everybody's TikTok algorithm in the middle of the day
to like kids at school or like your parents, just
people who are not in that context where it's no
(19:50):
longer appropriate. Yeah, that's gotta feel really crummy. And I
can see how she would feel overwhelmed and wanting to
hide from it.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Ultimately, that is like, really my issue with this style
of interview. The subject has no idea how it will
be used. They have no control over how it will
be used, and whatever framing is projected onto it after
the facts, they just have no control over that. And
I think that by definition, by nature, that is at
its heart exploitative, because it's not like ht girl sees
any money from the millions of views and all the
(20:22):
attention that that channel got from her vulnerable moment. You know,
if she wants to capitalize off that, she is sort
of forced to do a merchandising deal if she wants
to make money from that.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And I think that we.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Should really be thinking about the ways that these viral
moments kind of force people into a limelight. I would argue,
this is my opinion that like, if you've been drinking
and you are caught in one of those moments, you can't.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
You can't.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
You're not fully consenting to everything that comes next. Sure,
she you know, when they put a camera in her face,
she answered into the interview, But who could have ever
imagined the way it would go viral, the way it
would blow up. And so by nature, I feel like
it's a little bit exploitative, and we should be talking
about that side of viral moments, not just how funny
they are, how pop culture zeitgeisty.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
They are whatever.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah, and also the people who like dosed her and
we're trying to find her job, like why like what
if those people did something else with their time?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, if you go on Twitter, you have all of
these people. I think a lot of them are bots,
to be honest with you, purporting to be like, oh,
I found her only fans, or like, there was video
that I believe to be AI generated but don't quote
me on that, implying that they have found like uncensored
content of her online. It just really speaks to this
(21:39):
this cottage industry that is so common in our current
digital media climate, where when a woman kind of gets
a moment of stardom already, you have people who are
like in the woodwork trying to capitalize on that, trying
to be like, oh, you know, how can I make
a pickfuck? How can I get a little engagement from
that too? And I think there's never been an easier
(21:59):
time to do that than right now.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Oh that's so interesting. I didn't appreciate that aspect of it,
But it makes sense. I was thinking that these were
like moral skulls who were trying to sex shame her,
but it actually makes more sense that it's like bots
and scams.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's bots and scams, like bots and scams twenty twenty four.
Don't give your credit card information to anybody. Somebody puts
her cam on your face, pull your hoody up.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And walk away. Just stay inside, Just stay inside.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So all of this leads me to a semi related
but not actually related incident, and I'm calling that the
ESPN ice cream incident. This one is actually really simple.
Two women go to a baseball game. They eat ice
cream cones. That's really it.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Story over, end of sentence period.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Well not exactly, because ESPN decided to do a twenty
second segment that is just a close up of these
two young women eating ice cream, and they obviously don't
know they're.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Being filmed like this.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
They don't they like that it's obvious that they don't
know that it's like a zooming in on their face
and on their mouths as they eat this ice cream
with commentary. The commentators are doing play by play commentary
of their ice cream looking the commentator is like, oh, yeah,
you gotta lick that liquid before it melts the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I mean, I don't want to pile on, but you
get the drift.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
The video is published a TikTok and it honestly does
not take a genius to imagine what kind of comments
people are leaving on this video of two young women
eating ice cream. TikTok users start comparing the two young
women to h t Girl, including one named Corey Cadell,
who goes by airboats of Oklahoma saying I think hawk
twas about to get replaced. His video saying that got
(23:44):
over two hundred thousand views before he deleted his account
because one of the women in the video actually called
him out on TikTok. So one of the women who
was videoed eating ice cream at this baseball game spoke
up on TikTok. She said it was just a twenty
second segment of just eating ice cream or licking our
ice cream, And he said, twenty seconds dedicated with commentary
(24:04):
to just us eating our ice cream. We all knew
what direction that video was going to head it and
lo and behold, the creeps of TikTok got ahold of it.
Because we woke up getting compared to the hawk twag girl,
which no shade to her.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Girl do whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So I want to double click on that because I
don't think that she's trying to shame HT girl for
her viral moment, but just saying, like, what did her
viral moment had to do with me? I have nothing
to do with that other than I ate, other than like,
I'm a woman existing in public as well, and so yeah,
I think it's important that none of this is to sex.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Shame HT Girl, who actually gave very good oral sex advice.
But the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Is just kind of gross, and I think it confirms
that women are considered fair game to have our behavior scrutinized,
surveiled and sexualized, even if we are not doing anything
inherently sexual. Yes, HT Girl decided to chime in for
that interview about oral sex, but even then, I don't
think it means that people should be able to comb
through her social media for her personal information and like
(25:01):
try to find out where she.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Works and all of that.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And the women at the baseball game, we're just eating
ice cream. Their only association with HT girl is that
they were all young women in public but that is
all it takes for somebody to decide that you are
fair game to be sexualized, even if you don't want
to be so. Annie, one of the women who was
eating ice cream on ESPN, said, it is beyond evidence
that women are not welcome in the sports world. We
(25:25):
just wanted to enjoy a baseball game and it was
one hundred degrees, so God forbid, be some ice cream.
It's like, we can't just sit and eat our food
in peace. And I really feel for Annie because she
says that at first she was kind of excited to
be to have this on camera moment because she's getting
texts from her friends who were like, hey, we see
you on TV.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
But then she.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Says, but what's not a fun thing is to get
text messages from other friends of disgusting people making tiktoks
about you. There are so many comments just like this
one talking about ESPN does this every year. They always
pan it on a woman doing it. And it's true
because what is fun You're than a woman? Licking an
ice cream cone or eating a hot dog are something
that can be overtly sexualized. And I think that she's
(26:03):
right that it really is about a deeper hostility to
women in spaces that are traditionally considered as like male dominated.
It reminds me of this other instance. It happened a
few years ago where I think it was a sorority.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So it was a group of.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Young women at a baseball game and there was a
moment where they all had their phones up and they
were all taking selfies of themselves, like posing, doing little
selfies whatever. There was a video that like zoomed in
on them, and the commentator was making it seem like
these girls were really vapid. He was like, Oh, look
at these girls, like trying to get the perfect self
(26:38):
blah blah blah. Really I think leaning on some negative
misogynistic tropes about women.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
What he didn't say is that at the stadium, that
moment actually was a selfy moment. So like on the JumboTron,
it was like, let's have a five second selfie moment,
and so the JumboTron instructed the entire stadium to spend
minute getting selfies, and those women were doing exactly that,
and to make it seem like they specifically were doing
(27:07):
something that was like vapid just really put this misogynisticchine
on them doing totally normal behavior that in fact, the
baseball stadium asked them to do. And so I remember
these sorority women. They really had an eloquent clap back.
They were like, Oh, we were doing exactly what we
were instructed to do by the stadium. And if we're
so vapid, how come our sorority is actually has this
(27:30):
like massive service focus and like we do community service
projects all the goddamn time. So like this negative attitude
that the commentators had projected on it, they really did
a great job is exposing, like, yeah, it's just misogyny.
It's just hostility to women in male dominated spaces. Like
if I am not here to be sexually titillating you
by my public presence in this space, I am here
(27:51):
to be your punching bag for whatever misogynistic tropes you
feel like throwing out this day.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So I don't go to a ton of supporting events.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
But apparently when you were sitting behind the dugout, like
these two young women eating ice cream on ESPN were,
there was always like a higher potential for being on camera,
but it was a very different thing.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Like being zoomed in on while licking an.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Ice cream cone the site Awful Announcing, which I did
not know that that a media entity existed to critical
analysis of sports announcing, but I'm glad it exists. They
also pointed out something which is that they say also
bizarre was the fact that the same broadcast briefly focused
on a woman eating a lollipop less than twenty minutes
(28:35):
after the ice cream incident. ESPN switched off the woman
eating a lollipop after about three seconds, but not before
the camera intentionally put her in focus.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Weird.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I'm sorry, that's.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Weird, right, Yeah, I mean I feel like whoever was
directing the videography that day really had something on their mind.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
I mean, you come to watch a baseball game and
it turns into a who's licking?
Speaker 4 (28:57):
What? A thon?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah? Seriously, I feel like you or I don't remember
if you were quoting Annie, really nailed it by you know,
it's just an opportunity for casual misogyny and sexualization, which
I guess in the repertoire of this videographer maybe lots
of sports people who are, like, you know, directing where
the camera goes to. I feel like they're always looking
(29:22):
for something interesting to put on screen. Like oh, a
cute baby, or like a guy eating a messy hot
dog or a guy dancing or something. And it's unfortunate
that casual misogyny and non consensual sexualization are in that
same mix of like fun tropes to put on the JumboTron.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, yes, well said.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
More after a quick break, get right back into it.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And again the way that some of the people, not
the announcers, because the announcers were not the ones comparing
her to HT girl, but the way that commentators on TikTok,
like that guy who deleted his account after being called
out by one of these young women, The way that
they engage in this sexual fantasy world building, right, using
this twenty second video of women doing something totally humdrum
(30:25):
to build out this sexualized fantasy world around these women
what they might be like sexually based on like a
twenty second clip of them mining their business.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
You know, it's all world building.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, and we might really go out of our way
to be super generous to ESPN and the people who
made this choice to put those women on there on
the screen, Like maybe twenty years ago that would have
hit one way, like still not great, but maybe not
(30:57):
like the worst thing. But in this new cond that
we live in where something like that is going to
end up on the Internet, and even the most subtle,
non overt wink to sexualization once it gets on the
Internet is fodder for this sexual fantasy world building that
you're describing and opens the people up to a level
(31:18):
of scrutiny that far exceeds what might have been possible,
you know, twenty years ago during a television broadcast of
a game.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
This is kind of unrelated, but that's actually how creeps
circumvent AI guardrails to create sexualized, non consensual deep thinks.
So when those AI deep fix of Taylor Swift, which
depicted her at a sporting event, when those were going viral,
the way that creeps generated them, because you can't just
(31:48):
go onto an AI image generator and say, like, show
me a depiction of a famous person doing a sex act.
What they did was they said, like, show me an
image of Taylor Swift eating a hot dog or eating
an ice cream, doing something that would look kind of
sexual if you doctored it. And then and so they
were getting those images that would depict an image of
Taylor Swift doing something a certain kind of way you
(32:09):
know what I'm saying, and then edit those images to
make them look more sexual. So it's interesting to me
how whether or not it's using AI or it's just
like this is an image of a woman eating a
hot dog or an ice cream. Creeps are going to
do some sexual world building around that regardless. And that
world bringing really brings me to the last instance that
I want to talk about, which happened on a plane.
(32:31):
So a woman on TikTok named Caroline Renette posted a
TikTok of a man talking to a woman with the
caption if this man is your husband flying at United
Airlines flight twenty one to forty from Houston to New York,
He's probably going to be staying with Katie tonight.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
She says.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
This man met a woman at the airport bar, convinced
her to change seats with somebody else on the plane
so they could spend the flight drinking together. Apparently they
were going on and on talking about his job. His
eight year old daughter. Renette says, I wouldn't have known
this man married had he not been marrying his wedding ring.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Do your thing.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
TikTok pashtag by the wife less than twenty four hours
goes by Internet flutes got everybody, They got the man,
they got the woman. Everybody involved has been identified. They
tagged the woman's TikTok account, posted details about when the
guy's plane landed, shared photos of the couple, their family,
and other people were actually suggesting that they do the
(33:24):
same for the woman, Katie, who allegedly was the woman
this guy was talking to. So I gotta say this.
I saw a lot of people cheering this whole thing on, right,
But I think we got to keep it real about
content like this. I don't think that the people who
make this kind of content are just trying to be
like girls girls giving a girl a heads up, you know,
(33:46):
out of the goodness of their heart. Maybe that's a
little bit of a part of it, but let us
be real. These people are making content. They are trying
to get engagement. This is something that is tailor made
to get people buzzing and engaged in with that online.
That is what they are seeking. They are inviting strangers
into the dramas and the real lives of other people
(34:07):
completely uninvited. These people are not characters in some fan fiction.
They are actual human beings who have jobs, and kids
and communities. It would be one thing if Reneed had
tried to find this woman and like DMD her, but
inviting the entire internet millions of strangers into it is
a totally different thing.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
The cut put it really.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Well, they write, Renette's video makes certain assumptions that plain
guy is in a monogamous marriage, that his wife would
be grateful to see his behavior publicly exposed, and that
such a transgression warrant strangers posting her personal information online.
But at a time when ethical non monogamy and polyamory
are on the rise, not every fort with a wedding
rings crossing a line. We don't know what rules a
(34:49):
plain guy and his abide by on their personal lives. Besides,
if Rened really cared about this woman's well being, why
not track her down and send her a private DM Instead?
The video strips of plain Guy's wife of any agency,
reducing her to a homogram onto which people can project
their own baggage. While an online sisterhood has formed around
the wife, it's unclear whether she wants that camaraderie. She
(35:12):
hasn't recorded her own video expressing gratitude toward Reneed and
the Internet slouths or responding to any of the comments
who have tagged her. Instead, she's been silent, her TikTok
account set to private.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, what a terrible experience for her. I totally agree
with that this is way out of line.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
And I think it comes down to people like projecting
themselves into this situation. And I think because this particular
situation involves morality, cheating, and sex, it makes it easier
for people to weigh in on I guess, or juicier
for people to weigh in.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I guess I should say yes.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
And you know that piece from the cut noted that
it reduces the agency of the wife to like a
non actor. She has no agency in this story. So
this whole narrative is also building on misogyny and the
idea of her as like a dutiful wife left at
(36:13):
home while her cheating husband is out living it up
in the world. It just really smacks of those same
tropes and I think requires them exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
And you know, I have been cheated on myself. I
know that it's a charged space, to say the least.
And I think that what we're seeing is a lot
of people projecting their own feelings and their own situations.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
On the people that they've ever met.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
And again, that is that flattens out this wife into
just something to hang your projections onto.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And she's a human being, not to mention a fucking stranger.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
She would probably prefer to not be the subject of
national discourse about how her husband is cheating on her.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Absolutely, And you know, there were a lot of comments
on TikTok being like, oh, I wish that when my
partner was cheating, that somebody had done this for me
kind of thinking, is that do you really wish that?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Do you really wish.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
That millions and millions of people would know every aspect
of your of your personal business with your husband, not
to mention your job, your boss, your coworkers, your family
and all have an opinion on it, Like, really think
about what you're saying. Is that actually what you wish
somebody would do? Probably not right?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yeah, And do you want to have a conversation with
your eight year old daughter about it.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
When somebody brings it up to her at school like, oh,
because people were digging into their families, so it's like, oh,
I saw a picture of you and your dad on TikTok.
Herd's cheating on your mom on a plane, Like, is
that really? Is that really what you wishould happen?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Yeah, And like you mentioned, this has nothing to do
with Rennet, the woman who made the video trying to
genuinely help out the woman who is allegedly being cheated on,
and it's just all about her getting clicked for herself.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's possible there is some
aspect of her that is like I hate cheaters, blah
blah blah. But I think that we gotta be real
that we're not like this idea that it is a
digital sisterhood. I just really reject that. I don't think
that that is what's really going on here. You know,
it really doesn't sit right with me because, you know what,
(38:23):
my sister wouldn't do. My sister probably wouldn't publicly blow
up my life in a way that now everybody, my
whole community and a bunch of strangers now get to
have an opinion on it.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
It reminds me of in a corporate office when you're
sitting down for like an all staff meeting and the
CEO is going on and on about how we're all
a family, and it's like we're not a family. People
get fired from this company all the time, like and
that's fine, it's a workplace, but it's not a family.
This idea of a digital sisterhood feels very much like that,
(38:53):
where like, oh, we're all sisters here unless you screw up,
and then you're gonna be on like the outs, the
receiving end of all this negative attention because actually it's
not about solidarity or sisterly feelings at all.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Well, I would actually argue that it's not about sisterly
feelings and it's really about individual come upance.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
And like, I think that.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I've seen a lot of people who have gotten involved
in this narrative. They are at once the sluts who
have like assigned characters out of these strangers that they
don't even know, and then they have projected this jilted
wife story onto this situation while also kind of recasting
themselves as the jilted wife.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
So I think it's a lot of people who are
like I have been cheated on.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
It sucks, I want to kind of get my vengeance
by playing that out in the lives of these strangers.
And it really reminded me of this research paper that
came out in twenty twenty called TikTok and the Algorithmized Self,
where the researchers basically argue that TikTok is unique from
other social media platforms because it is less about connecting
with a network of friends and more a site built
(40:01):
on quote a public performance heavily built on interpersonal engagement
while creating content for an algorithm. And so essentially it's
this like big digital sandbox that invites make belief. They write,
the unplanned back and forth motion between creators makes the
app an incredible social playground. TikTok users play and perform
in simulated characters and setting. The video app is an
(40:23):
escape from reality. So basically all of these people are
using these strangers and their lives to play out little
dramas that they also get to be very invested in.
And I think it's even juicier because who doesn't like
getting to be the morality police around it? To get
to like really moralize and scrutinize and judge.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
The behavior of people you don't even know.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Everybody loves that, Like, it's the that's like the basis
of so much on the Internet, And so I understand
why it's kind of irresistible, but also people need to
understand that this is real people's lives that they're dealing with,
people who don't even know.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if people could just like
the privacy of consenting adults.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Wouldn't it be nice?
Speaker 1 (41:04):
So the whole situation reminded me of this phenomenon that
we've talked about on the podcast before that. Doctor Jenna Drinton,
Associate Professor of Marketing in the Quinlan School of Business
at Loyal University Chicago who studies social media behavior, dubbed
the TikTok tabloid, in which we are all players and
characters in a tabloid magazine. Because of TikTok, she writes,
(41:24):
users collectively manufacture and dramatized stories like an investigative gossip reel.
Traditional tabloids place the lurid limelight on celebrities and public figures,
but the TikTok tabloids target everyday people, you know. Doctor
Denton points out how all of these devices like oh,
we're having a Part two and having going to be cliphangers,
all of this is sort of these dangling of tantalizing
(41:47):
bits of stories where it really invites the listener or
the watcher to like continue to give their engagement and
to follow along and get involved. And of course, the
more of this content that we consume, the more we
are training algorithm.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
That is the kind of content that we want to
see and engage with. You know.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
It's this constant cycle that I really deeply.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Think we need to be moving away from.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
And to me, it all comes down to consent, right Like,
HT girl might have volunteered to have that moment on
the street, But first of all, was she sober? Because
I feel like you can't really consent to something if
you're drinking. Could she even fully consent to what actually
ended up happening with it blowing up the way that
it did. You know, I'm curious to hear other folks'
opinions about that, but I would argue no, you know,
(42:31):
by buying a ticket behind the dugout at a baseball
game and then eating an ice cream cone, these women
on ESPN did not consent to getting a flood of
sexualized messages on social media, you know. And the woman
whose husband was taking a flight talking to another woman
on that fight certainly did not consent to having strangers
publicly invite themselves into her marriage. And you know, the
(42:52):
Internet has connected us in new ways that we never
dreamed possible.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
But I will die on.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
The till maybe we all should be okay with just
knowing a little bit less about each other. Got a
story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want
to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at
tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's
episode at tenggody dot com. There Are No Girls on
the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a
(43:19):
production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative Jonathan Strickland is our
executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
If you want to help us grow, rate and.
Speaker 4 (43:32):
Review us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Ungoss Creative, I'm Bridge Todd and this
is there are No Girls on the Internet. So, Mike,
when we were talking about what I wanted to do
for the episode this week, I was thinking like, oh,
I think I want to talk about.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
The presidential debate.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm gonna watch it live to see if anything comes
up from.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
It, and you actually early on were like, I don't.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Know if that's what you're gonna want to talk about.
I don't know if that's what listeners are going to
want to hear about.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I don't know if the if the mood.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Is going to want to hear more commentary on that.
At the time, I was like, oh, I wonder why
this is his position. Now I'm realizing you were one
hundred percent correct.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Okay, well I'll take it. Yeah. I mean, by all
means we can talk about the presidential debate, but I
don't know. There's just so much coverage of it and
so many people sharing their opinions about it. You know,
your opinions are good and you have great takes on it,
but I don't know. It seems like listeners can find
(01:12):
that anywhere they you know, if it doesn't really have
a whole lot of immediate tanguity relevance, maybe we could
talk about something else to give people some options of
something else to listen to.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So I am very much avoiding presidential debate coverage. Instead,
let's talk about something totally unrelated to take my and
possibly you person listening your mind off of it.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
So let's talk about other people's mess.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So we have talked on the podcast before about this
dynamic where it feels like in our current digital media climate,
surveillance is everywhere. Yes, I'm definitely talking about big tech
surveillance of what we're all doing online, all of our data,
but also individuals keeping tabs on the behavior of others,
whether or not they want to or consent to being
(02:00):
surveilled in that way. I think social media invites us
to build a world off of the behavior of strangers
to suit our needs.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
All it takes is one little glimpse, one little peak.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Into the lives of a stranger, and suddenly everybody is
building a world around what kind of person they think
this person is, you know, casting characters, becoming very personally
involved or invested, tracking down information, smoothing information about them,
and I think that we have a climate that is
brought to us by social media where people forget that
(02:35):
people are people who deserve privacy, Like just because you
said one little thing that happened to go viral, or
just because somebody maybe happened to see you possibly maybe
cheating on your wife on a plane. Now millions of
people are involved in your business and your marriage. We've
kind of talked about this on the show before, but
we've got a couple of new instances that have come
(02:55):
up lately that I think really speak to what I'm describing.
I want to talk them and talk through what they
might say about our culture. Quick heads up that all
of these instances are kind of sexual in nature, So
if you're listening with your kids in the car or something,
just know that it's not an explicit episode, but we
are talking about sexual topics a little bit. So one
(03:19):
of the reasons why I'm excited to talk to you
about this, Mike, is because I have a pretty good
sense of your algorithms and like what kind of things
come up on your personal feed and what pockets of
the Internet you're in, and what pockets are the Internet.
I'm a thousand percent sure you have no idea. So
I was gonna ask you, have you ever heard of this?
Next person, I already know the answer is no, and
(03:41):
I'm excited that the answer is no. But I'll just
ask you anyway, even though I know when I say
the phrase hawk to you girl, does that mean anything
to you?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Uh? It does not. It looks like perhaps it's Hawaiian.
It means nothing to me.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
So the young woman that the Internet has dubbed hawk
Girl is Haley Welsh. She's a young woman living in
Tennessee and she's walking around one night and she gets
stopped for one of those like man on the street interviews,
you know where a guy with a camera and a
microphone is like putting a phone in your face.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah? Sure makes free great content.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
By the way, if anyone ever approaches you with a
microphone and a camera on the street in twenty twenty four,
my advice is to run. My advice is to give
them the Tanya Harding no comment. I'll get into why
exactly that is, but my advice is to not engage.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So it is for a.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Nashville street show called Tim and d TV. It's an
interview series where these two guys Tim and d interview
like drunk people leaving bars and nightclubs on the street
in Nashville and they ask them for like wild and
crazy stories. So they ask this young woman, Haley for
a sex tip to make men go crazy in bed,
and her tip is more or less that you can
(04:57):
use spit as lubricant during oral sex. Solid advice. Ten
out of ten love that advice. However, when Haley is
sort of delivering this tip, she puts her own kind
of enthusiastic spin on it. She says, you gotta give
them that quak tah' I'm not like giving it the
gravi toss that she gives it because it would involve
(05:19):
making like deep throat noises. And I think that's if
someone's listening to headphones, that's like the grossest thing you
can hear, not in like a sex shame you way,
but in a it does it sound good in the
ears kind of way when you're wearing headphones, So it
needs to be seen to be understood if you haven't
seen it. But she's essentially giving an enthusiastic portrayal of
(05:41):
what it sounds and looks like to hawk up spit
from one's throat.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (05:47):
You've described it accurately so that I'm able to recreate
a picture in my head of this video. I can't
say it makes a lot of sense, but yeah, I
know what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
She says that one sentence, I got to give them
that hawk tu ya, everybody goes wild, instant virality. They
start calling her talk to you girl, basically based on
the sound that she made when answering this question.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
What's one move in bed that makes a man go crazy?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Every time you get in that hawk?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Dude spit on that night?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
There are millions of memes over the last week. The
clip goes megaviral. It is referenced by Joe Rogan, Howard Stern,
a Phillies baseball team player Bryce Harper. So I am
deeply curious as to why this like short moment from
a Nashville Street TV show took off.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Globally like it did.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
I don't think that we have had a big, true,
meaningful like all caps viral moment in a long time.
Do you remember back in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
you know we're like these, You would have these moments
that were very small that would go super viral. Like again,
I know you don't remember any of these because we
were not in the same pockets of the Internet. You're
probably like in a tent camping somewhere. But Damn Daniel
(07:02):
back at it again with the White Kicks.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Does that mean anything to you?
Speaker 5 (07:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Of course, who could forget that classic video?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Well, that was just a video taken in like a
high school where this student would film his friend Daniel's
outfits and shoes every day. And I guess he had
a nice style, but it wasn't anything like I mean,
it was nice, but it wasn't anything to write home about,
and so he would be like, Damn Daniel beck at
it again with the White Kicks.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Went totally viral.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
These kids were on the Ellen Show like it was
like when I say it was like a huge moment,
it was a huge moment. Like I genuinely cannot think
of a time more recently where somebody has had this
level of instant Internet fame from just one small thing
that didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
In like circa twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
I think part of it is because of algorithms and
the rise of algorithm feeds. Like, we are much more
siloed online these days, and so you know, the kind
of thing that I am seeing all over my curated
for you page, it's very different than the kind of
thing that you, Mike are seeing and you're curated for
you feed. Right, Like, we could live in completely different
corners of the Internet where never the too shall meet.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, and I think we might, am I remembering correctly
that at least as of a few years ago, there
is a small industry of PR media consultants who would
create viral videos for you. They like studied the science
of making things go viral, and so you know, they
would basically like apply a formula to try to make
(08:32):
videos go super viral in this way that previously had
been somewhat organic.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I would argue that what kind of rose up and
took that space that you're describing is the sort of
fake viral video. The video that is hired actors playing
out a skit for and there's a script that they
know what their parts are, and then that video is
sold to us the public as the real thing. Right,
(08:58):
So when you watch these video on social media where
it's like a fight on a plane and you're like,
you look at the background and you're like, what plane
do you know that uses those LED light strips you
can buy off an Amazon? No planes use that. This
isn't really a plane, this is a set. I've seen
one where it purports to show like a fed up
mom telling off a trans teacher to advocate for her kid,
(09:19):
and then another video where the woman who was playing
the mom is now the teacher and it's like teacher
gets cursed out by mom. I would say that what
has taken the place of the sort of we can
tell you how to go viral industry is the we
make fake videos and live to the viewers about what.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
They are seeing to go viral. That's like the new thing.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
I would say, so so many different people with different
types of agendas. Displacing organic viral moments could unite people, or.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
At least unite people in distracting them from maybe things
happening in national politics that.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
They want a little bit of a break from.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah, I mean, that's mean, if there's any common experience
twenty twenty four in America that we all could use
a goddamn break.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And it reminds me of another kind of viral video
of yesteryear, and that was Chewbacca Mom. You're a Star
Wars nerd, so you actually might remember Chewbaca mom. Do
you remember her?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I'm trying.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
There's not much to it.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Basically, she was a woman who bought a Chewbacca Halloween
mask and you it's a mask where you open the
mouth and it makes a Chewbacca noise. And she puts
it on. She's in her car and she just thinks
it's the best. She's like just like laughing hysterically at
this mask. That's really it. So this video also went superviral.
This was May of twenty sixteen, and I often think
(10:39):
back to Chewbacca Mom and why that went so viral,
And I had to think back to, like, well, what
was going on in May of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
This was when Trump had become the GOP nominee.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
It was like Ted Cruz I think, was the last
hold out and he dropped out in May of twenty sixteen,
until it was like, oh it's Trump. There was a
lot happening with racial justice. The officers who killed Freddie
Gray and Baltimore were not convicted, and you had the
rise of the all right really becoming a thing. This
is around the time where people like Milo Yanapolis, who
we've talked about on the show before, were coordinating harassment
(11:13):
campaigns of women around things like the all women Ghostbusters
reboot right and so I remember distinctively that time on
the Internet as feeling like not just bad, not just toxic,
but like bad bad, Like the vibes were not good.
And I think that in these times when everything feels
(11:33):
heightened and charged and really difficult online, we will always
seize on any little thing that brings us out of that,
even for a moment, even if it's silly, to be honest,
kind of like what I'm doing right now, like leaning
into pop culture viral internet moments to avoid thinking about
national politics.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So let's go back to talk to you girl.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I'm gonna start calling her HT girl because it's a
mouthful to say, no pun intended, but appreciated. So girl
is really capitalizing on her viral moment, which honestly good
for her.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
I think that is great and savvy.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
There were people saying that she signed a deal with UTA,
which is not true. UTA has confirmed they don't have
a deal and the works with her there was even
a rumor that she had been fired from her job
teaching at Epstein Preschool.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
That's also not true. That was a parody new.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Site that fooled people online, So no truth to that.
She does not have a UTA deal, but she is
being managed by Jason Petite, a Marshall County native who
has known HT for many years. So he did an
interview with Rolling Stone and said that a day or
two after the video started going viral, he reached out
to her because he was like, Yo, you need to
monetize this brand. So they are now making merch with
(12:47):
hactwah on it. They've got hats, they've got shirts. My
whole thing is like, I'm so curious how they settled
on a spelling of this because I've smelled that multiple
different ways. I've seen it smelled multiple different ways. I'm curious,
like how they decided like, Okay, no, it's gonna be
hawk Tuia. It's gonna be spelled this way. That's gonna
be the branding.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, that would have been an interesting discussion, like a
you're gonna do hats, they're gonna do bibs, they're gonna
do handkerchiefs. Other adult accessories, so many options. They sorted
that out in just a couple of days. Huh, that's
pretty impressive. Good for her for capitalizing on this. What
sounds like she was just drunk on her way home
from the bar.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Okay, so this has been viral for less than two weeks.
In that time, how much money do you think that
she has made on March to date.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Let's say thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Sixty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
Good for her sell those hats.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
That's what I'm saying. And also, by the way, not
for nothing, Christmas is coming up.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I'm just saying, but a Tangoti dot com slash hawk
twaw for a discount code you can't Actually that doesn't exist.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
I just made that up. Let's take a quick break
at her back.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
So the person who reached out to become her manager
and help her with these licensing deals with the hats
and the shirts really pointed out that he wanted to
make sure that some of the money from this viral
moment went back into her pocket, which is why they're
doing the merchandising, he told Rolling Stone. Of course, she
hasn't gotten a dime from the first viral video that
went out. Nobody was asking permission for her to do
(14:41):
nothing neither. I just wanted her to get some of
the profit from this deal. It does kind of sound
like she is getting a percentage of the profits from
the merchandising. He declined to share exactly what percentage goes
directly to her, but he says that he suggested to
her that she trademarked the phrase and that she's talking
to a lawyer about it. So again, I am just
(15:02):
purely glad that she is getting her coin because as
we know, as we've talked about on the show, oftentimes
people who are these viral sensations do not see a dime,
whereas other people make money from their whatever viral phrase
or viral thing they do, and they don't see a dime,
especially if they're black. Right, if that is a common thing,
(15:22):
where you know, the woman who was sitting in her
car and was like eyebrows on fleek didn't see money
from that.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
That's kind of changed a little bit because.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
She's gotten a few like brand deals later on, But
in the beginning, everybody was making money off of that
except for her. But even though HT is making some
money off of this, it doesn't sound like it is
all like roses and rainbows. People early on were deeply
trying to track her down.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
She was docked.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
They were finding her social media accounts, which she then deleted,
and people were trying to track down where she worked.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
She might be a bartender, according to Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Her manager says Welsh, who did not respond to Rolling
Stone's request for an interview, is overwhelmed by the attention,
and she has requested that he not share any personal
details about her or feature her face on the merchandise.
He says, there are some crazy people in the world
who have reached out to her. She's probably one of
the most well known people in the world at this point,
but I don't know if she's embraced it. So to me,
(16:21):
that doesn't sound like something that is necessarily the kind
of thing that somebody was like looking for welcoming, right,
Like maybe when you were drunk you were like, oh,
talking to these guys for their street show.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Why not? But like, who could have predicted the way
that it would have taken off.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So again, I'm happy that she was able to monetize this,
but as this is all happening, The Daily Dot reports
that she's kind of been intentionally laying low, going back
to a rural community in Tennessee. So I guess my
point is is that I'm happy that she's able to
make money. But one person being asked a question maybe
when they were drunk after a night out, is not
(16:56):
expecting this level of scrutiny and attention for sale one
sentence about oral sex on camera for this show. And
this is why I say, like, if somebody comes up
to you with a camera and a mic in twenty
twenty four, nothing good can come of it.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Mate. Nor Evans of the news outlet As wrote a.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Piece called hak Tu Yeah Girl and Other Street interview
subjects who go viral? What legal rights do they have
and the content they appear in? And the answer is
really none. She talks about how these videos that sometimes
do go viral will feature young people, usually walking around
town after.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
A night out.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
She writes, with a few beers in their blood, they
might even say things they regret, especially when they're offhand.
Comments begin a conversation online that put a huge spotlight
on their life that can feel invasive and overwhelming. And
another good point to know about this kind of content
is that if you agree to be on a video
like this, and then you change your mind about what
you said after somebody shoved a camera in your face
(17:52):
that when you were drunk leaving a bar, you don't
have a ton of recourse, like you likely cannot get
that content taken down even if you ask. Ultimately, my
biggest issue with these kinds of man on the street
videos is that anybody, anybody can get a camera and
a mic to do this. Right when we were talking
about the college campus protests, you saw young people declining
(18:14):
to give interviews, not just to traditional media, but also
to just sort of like person with a camera who
I have no idea who this person is. A lot
of people were kind of chastising these youth, being like, oh, well,
how do they expect to get their message out if
they're not giving interviews, But actually they were being really
smart because if you have not vetted who this person is,
(18:34):
they could be literally anybody with any kind of agenda.
You have no idea, and so if you are trying
to put a curated message out into the world, you
should not be talking to a rando just putting a
camera in your face.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
You don't even know their name.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
They could be anybody as mat Nor Evans puts it
in her piece, With traditional media, there is an expectation
that the interviewer is acting in good faith and when
speaking to an ordinary person, to present them in a
neutral but respectful light. The street style interviews don't always
follow the same principles, and that all is captured in
these viral moments.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, that's such a good point that, you know, people
taking part in some sort of interview when they're they've
been drinking, or they're out on the street. It is
always a risk that anything you say to a camera
is going to appear on the Internet and be there forever.
And you know, I think it's particularly fraught in the
particular context that HT girl got caught in of, you know,
(19:29):
at night, out on the street in front of a
bunch of bars, it is appropriate to talk with other
adults about sexual stuff, but then that same video played
on everybody's TikTok algorithm in the middle of the day
to like kids at school or like your parents, just
people who are not in that context where it's no
(19:50):
longer appropriate. Yeah, that's gotta feel really crummy. And I
can see how she would feel overwhelmed and wanting to
hide from it.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Ultimately, that is like, really my issue with this style
of interview. The subject has no idea how it will
be used. They have no control over how it will
be used, and whatever framing is projected onto it after
the facts, they just have no control over that. And
I think that by definition, by nature, that is at
its heart exploitative, because it's not like ht girl sees
any money from the millions of views and all the
(20:22):
attention that that channel got from her vulnerable moment. You know,
if she wants to capitalize off that, she is sort
of forced to do a merchandising deal if she wants
to make money from that.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And I think that we.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Should really be thinking about the ways that these viral
moments kind of force people into a limelight. I would argue,
this is my opinion that like, if you've been drinking
and you are caught in one of those moments, you can't.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
You can't.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
You're not fully consenting to everything that comes next. Sure,
she you know, when they put a camera in her face,
she answered into the interview, But who could have ever
imagined the way it would go viral, the way it
would blow up. And so by nature, I feel like
it's a little bit exploitative, and we should be talking
about that side of viral moments, not just how funny
they are, how pop culture zeitgeisty.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
They are whatever.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Yeah, and also the people who like dosed her and
we're trying to find her job, like why like what
if those people did something else with their time?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, if you go on Twitter, you have all of
these people. I think a lot of them are bots,
to be honest with you, purporting to be like, oh,
I found her only fans, or like, there was video
that I believe to be AI generated but don't quote
me on that, implying that they have found like uncensored
content of her online. It just really speaks to this
(21:39):
this cottage industry that is so common in our current
digital media climate, where when a woman kind of gets
a moment of stardom already, you have people who are
like in the woodwork trying to capitalize on that, trying
to be like, oh, you know, how can I make
a pickfuck? How can I get a little engagement from
that too? And I think there's never been an easier
(21:59):
time to do that than right now.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Oh that's so interesting. I didn't appreciate that aspect of it,
But it makes sense. I was thinking that these were
like moral skulls who were trying to sex shame her,
but it actually makes more sense that it's like bots
and scams.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's bots and scams, like bots and scams twenty twenty four.
Don't give your credit card information to anybody. Somebody puts
her cam on your face, pull your hoody up.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
And walk away. Just stay inside, Just stay inside.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So all of this leads me to a semi related
but not actually related incident, and I'm calling that the
ESPN ice cream incident. This one is actually really simple.
Two women go to a baseball game. They eat ice
cream cones. That's really it.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Story over, end of sentence period.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Well not exactly, because ESPN decided to do a twenty
second segment that is just a close up of these
two young women eating ice cream, and they obviously don't
know they're.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Being filmed like this.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
They don't they like that it's obvious that they don't
know that it's like a zooming in on their face
and on their mouths as they eat this ice cream
with commentary. The commentators are doing play by play commentary
of their ice cream looking the commentator is like, oh, yeah,
you gotta lick that liquid before it melts the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I mean, I don't want to pile on, but you
get the drift.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
The video is published a TikTok and it honestly does
not take a genius to imagine what kind of comments
people are leaving on this video of two young women
eating ice cream. TikTok users start comparing the two young
women to h t Girl, including one named Corey Cadell,
who goes by airboats of Oklahoma saying I think hawk
twas about to get replaced. His video saying that got
(23:44):
over two hundred thousand views before he deleted his account
because one of the women in the video actually called
him out on TikTok. So one of the women who
was videoed eating ice cream at this baseball game spoke
up on TikTok. She said it was just a twenty
second segment of just eating ice cream or licking our
ice cream, And he said, twenty seconds dedicated with commentary
(24:04):
to just us eating our ice cream. We all knew
what direction that video was going to head it and
lo and behold, the creeps of TikTok got ahold of it.
Because we woke up getting compared to the hawk twag girl,
which no shade to her.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Girl do whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So I want to double click on that because I
don't think that she's trying to shame HT girl for
her viral moment, but just saying, like, what did her
viral moment had to do with me? I have nothing
to do with that other than I ate, other than like,
I'm a woman existing in public as well, and so yeah,
I think it's important that none of this is to sex.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Shame HT Girl, who actually gave very good oral sex advice.
But the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Is just kind of gross, and I think it confirms
that women are considered fair game to have our behavior scrutinized,
surveiled and sexualized, even if we are not doing anything
inherently sexual. Yes, HT Girl decided to chime in for
that interview about oral sex, but even then, I don't
think it means that people should be able to comb
through her social media for her personal information and like
(25:01):
try to find out where she.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Works and all of that.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
And the women at the baseball game, we're just eating
ice cream. Their only association with HT girl is that
they were all young women in public but that is
all it takes for somebody to decide that you are
fair game to be sexualized, even if you don't want
to be so. Annie, one of the women who was
eating ice cream on ESPN, said, it is beyond evidence
that women are not welcome in the sports world. We
(25:25):
just wanted to enjoy a baseball game and it was
one hundred degrees, so God forbid, be some ice cream.
It's like, we can't just sit and eat our food
in peace. And I really feel for Annie because she
says that at first she was kind of excited to
be to have this on camera moment because she's getting
texts from her friends who were like, hey, we see
you on TV.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
But then she.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Says, but what's not a fun thing is to get
text messages from other friends of disgusting people making tiktoks
about you. There are so many comments just like this
one talking about ESPN does this every year. They always
pan it on a woman doing it. And it's true
because what is fun You're than a woman? Licking an
ice cream cone or eating a hot dog are something
that can be overtly sexualized. And I think that she's
(26:03):
right that it really is about a deeper hostility to
women in spaces that are traditionally considered as like male dominated.
It reminds me of this other instance. It happened a
few years ago where I think it was a sorority.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So it was a group of.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Young women at a baseball game and there was a
moment where they all had their phones up and they
were all taking selfies of themselves, like posing, doing little
selfies whatever. There was a video that like zoomed in
on them, and the commentator was making it seem like
these girls were really vapid. He was like, Oh, look
at these girls, like trying to get the perfect self
(26:38):
blah blah blah. Really I think leaning on some negative
misogynistic tropes about women.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
What he didn't say is that at the stadium, that
moment actually was a selfy moment. So like on the JumboTron,
it was like, let's have a five second selfie moment,
and so the JumboTron instructed the entire stadium to spend
minute getting selfies, and those women were doing exactly that,
and to make it seem like they specifically were doing
(27:07):
something that was like vapid just really put this misogynisticchine
on them doing totally normal behavior that in fact, the
baseball stadium asked them to do. And so I remember
these sorority women. They really had an eloquent clap back.
They were like, Oh, we were doing exactly what we
were instructed to do by the stadium. And if we're
so vapid, how come our sorority is actually has this
(27:30):
like massive service focus and like we do community service
projects all the goddamn time. So like this negative attitude
that the commentators had projected on it, they really did
a great job is exposing, like, yeah, it's just misogyny.
It's just hostility to women in male dominated spaces. Like
if I am not here to be sexually titillating you
by my public presence in this space, I am here
(27:51):
to be your punching bag for whatever misogynistic tropes you
feel like throwing out this day.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
So I don't go to a ton of supporting events.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
But apparently when you were sitting behind the dugout, like
these two young women eating ice cream on ESPN were,
there was always like a higher potential for being on camera,
but it was a very different thing.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Like being zoomed in on while licking an.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Ice cream cone the site Awful Announcing, which I did
not know that that a media entity existed to critical
analysis of sports announcing, but I'm glad it exists. They
also pointed out something which is that they say also
bizarre was the fact that the same broadcast briefly focused
on a woman eating a lollipop less than twenty minutes
(28:35):
after the ice cream incident. ESPN switched off the woman
eating a lollipop after about three seconds, but not before
the camera intentionally put her in focus.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Weird.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I'm sorry, that's.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Weird, right, Yeah, I mean I feel like whoever was
directing the videography that day really had something on their mind.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
I mean, you come to watch a baseball game and
it turns into a who's licking?
Speaker 4 (28:57):
What? A thon?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah? Seriously, I feel like you or I don't remember
if you were quoting Annie, really nailed it by you know,
it's just an opportunity for casual misogyny and sexualization, which
I guess in the repertoire of this videographer maybe lots
of sports people who are, like, you know, directing where
the camera goes to. I feel like they're always looking
(29:22):
for something interesting to put on screen. Like oh, a
cute baby, or like a guy eating a messy hot
dog or a guy dancing or something. And it's unfortunate
that casual misogyny and non consensual sexualization are in that
same mix of like fun tropes to put on the JumboTron.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Yes, yes, well said.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
More after a quick break, get right back into it.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And again the way that some of the people, not
the announcers, because the announcers were not the ones comparing
her to HT girl, but the way that commentators on TikTok,
like that guy who deleted his account after being called
out by one of these young women, The way that
they engage in this sexual fantasy world building, right, using
this twenty second video of women doing something totally humdrum
(30:25):
to build out this sexualized fantasy world around these women
what they might be like sexually based on like a
twenty second clip of them mining their business.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
You know, it's all world building.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, and we might really go out of our way
to be super generous to ESPN and the people who
made this choice to put those women on there on
the screen, Like maybe twenty years ago that would have
hit one way, like still not great, but maybe not
(30:57):
like the worst thing. But in this new cond that
we live in where something like that is going to
end up on the Internet, and even the most subtle,
non overt wink to sexualization once it gets on the
Internet is fodder for this sexual fantasy world building that
you're describing and opens the people up to a level
(31:18):
of scrutiny that far exceeds what might have been possible,
you know, twenty years ago during a television broadcast of
a game.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
This is kind of unrelated, but that's actually how creeps
circumvent AI guardrails to create sexualized, non consensual deep thinks.
So when those AI deep fix of Taylor Swift, which
depicted her at a sporting event, when those were going viral,
the way that creeps generated them, because you can't just
(31:48):
go onto an AI image generator and say, like, show
me a depiction of a famous person doing a sex act.
What they did was they said, like, show me an
image of Taylor Swift eating a hot dog or eating
an ice cream, doing something that would look kind of
sexual if you doctored it. And then and so they
were getting those images that would depict an image of
Taylor Swift doing something a certain kind of way you
(32:09):
know what I'm saying, and then edit those images to
make them look more sexual. So it's interesting to me
how whether or not it's using AI or it's just
like this is an image of a woman eating a
hot dog or an ice cream. Creeps are going to
do some sexual world building around that regardless. And that
world bringing really brings me to the last instance that
I want to talk about, which happened on a plane.
(32:31):
So a woman on TikTok named Caroline Renette posted a
TikTok of a man talking to a woman with the
caption if this man is your husband flying at United
Airlines flight twenty one to forty from Houston to New York,
He's probably going to be staying with Katie tonight.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
She says.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
This man met a woman at the airport bar, convinced
her to change seats with somebody else on the plane
so they could spend the flight drinking together. Apparently they
were going on and on talking about his job. His
eight year old daughter. Renette says, I wouldn't have known
this man married had he not been marrying his wedding ring.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Do your thing.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
TikTok pashtag by the wife less than twenty four hours
goes by Internet flutes got everybody, They got the man,
they got the woman. Everybody involved has been identified. They
tagged the woman's TikTok account, posted details about when the
guy's plane landed, shared photos of the couple, their family,
and other people were actually suggesting that they do the
(33:24):
same for the woman, Katie, who allegedly was the woman
this guy was talking to. So I gotta say this.
I saw a lot of people cheering this whole thing on, right,
But I think we got to keep it real about
content like this. I don't think that the people who
make this kind of content are just trying to be
like girls girls giving a girl a heads up, you know,
(33:46):
out of the goodness of their heart. Maybe that's a
little bit of a part of it, but let us
be real. These people are making content. They are trying
to get engagement. This is something that is tailor made
to get people buzzing and engaged in with that online.
That is what they are seeking. They are inviting strangers
into the dramas and the real lives of other people
(34:07):
completely uninvited. These people are not characters in some fan fiction.
They are actual human beings who have jobs, and kids
and communities. It would be one thing if Reneed had
tried to find this woman and like DMD her, but
inviting the entire internet millions of strangers into it is
a totally different thing.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
The cut put it really.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Well, they write, Renette's video makes certain assumptions that plain
guy is in a monogamous marriage, that his wife would
be grateful to see his behavior publicly exposed, and that
such a transgression warrant strangers posting her personal information online.
But at a time when ethical non monogamy and polyamory
are on the rise, not every fort with a wedding
rings crossing a line. We don't know what rules a
(34:49):
plain guy and his abide by on their personal lives. Besides,
if Rened really cared about this woman's well being, why
not track her down and send her a private DM Instead?
The video strips of plain Guy's wife of any agency,
reducing her to a homogram onto which people can project
their own baggage. While an online sisterhood has formed around
the wife, it's unclear whether she wants that camaraderie. She
(35:12):
hasn't recorded her own video expressing gratitude toward Reneed and
the Internet slouths or responding to any of the comments
who have tagged her. Instead, she's been silent, her TikTok
account set to private.
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Yeah, what a terrible experience for her. I totally agree
with that this is way out of line.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
And I think it comes down to people like projecting
themselves into this situation. And I think because this particular
situation involves morality, cheating, and sex, it makes it easier
for people to weigh in on I guess, or juicier
for people to weigh in.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I guess I should say yes.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
And you know that piece from the cut noted that
it reduces the agency of the wife to like a
non actor. She has no agency in this story. So
this whole narrative is also building on misogyny and the
idea of her as like a dutiful wife left at
(36:13):
home while her cheating husband is out living it up
in the world. It just really smacks of those same
tropes and I think requires them exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
And you know, I have been cheated on myself. I
know that it's a charged space, to say the least.
And I think that what we're seeing is a lot
of people projecting their own feelings and their own situations.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
On the people that they've ever met.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
And again, that is that flattens out this wife into
just something to hang your projections onto.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
And she's a human being, not to mention a fucking stranger.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
She would probably prefer to not be the subject of
national discourse about how her husband is cheating on her.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Absolutely, And you know, there were a lot of comments
on TikTok being like, oh, I wish that when my
partner was cheating, that somebody had done this for me
kind of thinking, is that do you really wish that?
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Do you really wish.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
That millions and millions of people would know every aspect
of your of your personal business with your husband, not
to mention your job, your boss, your coworkers, your family
and all have an opinion on it, Like, really think
about what you're saying. Is that actually what you wish
somebody would do? Probably not right?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yeah, And do you want to have a conversation with
your eight year old daughter about it.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
When somebody brings it up to her at school like, oh,
because people were digging into their families, so it's like, oh,
I saw a picture of you and your dad on TikTok.
Herd's cheating on your mom on a plane, Like, is
that really? Is that really what you wishould happen?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Probably not.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Yeah, And like you mentioned, this has nothing to do
with Rennet, the woman who made the video trying to
genuinely help out the woman who is allegedly being cheated on,
and it's just all about her getting clicked for herself.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's possible there is some
aspect of her that is like I hate cheaters, blah
blah blah. But I think that we gotta be real
that we're not like this idea that it is a
digital sisterhood. I just really reject that. I don't think
that that is what's really going on here. You know,
it really doesn't sit right with me because, you know what,
(38:23):
my sister wouldn't do. My sister probably wouldn't publicly blow
up my life in a way that now everybody, my
whole community and a bunch of strangers now get to
have an opinion on it.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
It reminds me of in a corporate office when you're
sitting down for like an all staff meeting and the
CEO is going on and on about how we're all
a family, and it's like we're not a family. People
get fired from this company all the time, like and
that's fine, it's a workplace, but it's not a family.
This idea of a digital sisterhood feels very much like that,
(38:53):
where like, oh, we're all sisters here unless you screw up,
and then you're gonna be on like the outs, the
receiving end of all this negative attention because actually it's
not about solidarity or sisterly feelings at all.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Well, I would actually argue that it's not about sisterly
feelings and it's really about individual come upance.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
And like, I think that.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I've seen a lot of people who have gotten involved
in this narrative. They are at once the sluts who
have like assigned characters out of these strangers that they
don't even know, and then they have projected this jilted
wife story onto this situation while also kind of recasting
themselves as the jilted wife.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
So I think it's a lot of people who are
like I have been cheated on.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
It sucks, I want to kind of get my vengeance
by playing that out in the lives of these strangers.
And it really reminded me of this research paper that
came out in twenty twenty called TikTok and the Algorithmized Self,
where the researchers basically argue that TikTok is unique from
other social media platforms because it is less about connecting
with a network of friends and more a site built
(40:01):
on quote a public performance heavily built on interpersonal engagement
while creating content for an algorithm. And so essentially it's
this like big digital sandbox that invites make belief. They write,
the unplanned back and forth motion between creators makes the
app an incredible social playground. TikTok users play and perform
in simulated characters and setting. The video app is an
(40:23):
escape from reality. So basically all of these people are
using these strangers and their lives to play out little
dramas that they also get to be very invested in.
And I think it's even juicier because who doesn't like
getting to be the morality police around it? To get
to like really moralize and scrutinize and judge.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
The behavior of people you don't even know.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Everybody loves that, Like, it's the that's like the basis
of so much on the Internet, And so I understand
why it's kind of irresistible, but also people need to
understand that this is real people's lives that they're dealing with,
people who don't even know.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if people could just like
the privacy of consenting adults.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Wouldn't it be nice?
Speaker 1 (41:04):
So the whole situation reminded me of this phenomenon that
we've talked about on the podcast before that. Doctor Jenna Drinton,
Associate Professor of Marketing in the Quinlan School of Business
at Loyal University Chicago who studies social media behavior, dubbed
the TikTok tabloid, in which we are all players and
characters in a tabloid magazine. Because of TikTok, she writes,
(41:24):
users collectively manufacture and dramatized stories like an investigative gossip reel.
Traditional tabloids place the lurid limelight on celebrities and public figures,
but the TikTok tabloids target everyday people, you know. Doctor
Denton points out how all of these devices like oh,
we're having a Part two and having going to be cliphangers,
all of this is sort of these dangling of tantalizing
(41:47):
bits of stories where it really invites the listener or
the watcher to like continue to give their engagement and
to follow along and get involved. And of course, the
more of this content that we consume, the more we
are training algorithm.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
That is the kind of content that we want to
see and engage with. You know.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
It's this constant cycle that I really deeply.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
Think we need to be moving away from.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
And to me, it all comes down to consent, right Like,
HT girl might have volunteered to have that moment on
the street, But first of all, was she sober? Because
I feel like you can't really consent to something if
you're drinking. Could she even fully consent to what actually
ended up happening with it blowing up the way that
it did. You know, I'm curious to hear other folks'
opinions about that, but I would argue no, you know,
(42:31):
by buying a ticket behind the dugout at a baseball
game and then eating an ice cream cone, these women
on ESPN did not consent to getting a flood of
sexualized messages on social media, you know. And the woman
whose husband was taking a flight talking to another woman
on that fight certainly did not consent to having strangers
publicly invite themselves into her marriage. And you know, the
(42:52):
Internet has connected us in new ways that we never
dreamed possible.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
But I will die on.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
The till maybe we all should be okay with just
knowing a little bit less about each other. Got a
story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want
to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at
tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's
episode at tenggody dot com. There Are No Girls on
the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a
(43:19):
production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative Jonathan Strickland is our
executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
If you want to help us grow, rate and.
Speaker 4 (43:32):
Review us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
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