Karoline Leavit’s lip filler in Vanity Fair; Man Arrested for Charlie Kirk Meme; Heated Rivalry; WaPo AI slop – NEWS ROUNDUP - There Are No Girls on the Internet

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Welcome to
There No Girls on the Internet. Where we were the
intersection of technology, social media and identity. And this is

(00:24):
another installment of our weekly news roundup where we dig
into all the stories that you might have missed on
the Internet so you don't have to. I cannot wait
to talk to you about that Vanity Fair article and spread.
All I can really say is wolf, let's talk about it.
First of all, did you see it? Did you see
the Fanity Fair of spread and accompanying article.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I did, and I was blown away by both of them.
The article and the stuff that Susie Wilds was saying
was wild. I don't know how that happened. And then
also so like seemingly separately, those photos were also uh.
I don't even know what the adjective is, like disturbing.

(01:09):
I guess uh. I can't imagine that any of the
subjects of those photos were happy with what they saw.
What were your thoughts about it?

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Before I even get into the photos, because that's really
what I want to talk about the fact that Susie
Wiles said, I mean some of the things that she
said about Elon Musk. He's an avow ketamine user who
sleeps in a sleeping bag in the executive office building
adjacent to the White House. You know, he's an ad duck,
he's not helpful, this and that, and then her saying
I never said that. I would never say that about

(01:41):
Elon Musk. I don't know if he uses drugs, and
then Vendi Fair being like, oh, really, because we got
it on tape. Here's a recording of you saying it.
I reject the idea that somebody who is as seasoned
as Susie Wiles would not know that this would be recorded. Like,
my understanding is that this profile was almost a year

(02:03):
in the making, eleven months. I have to imagine that
she is thinking that they have some sort of backup
to confirm what they've said. So her just quickly going
to disavow and distance herself from those words was really
I'm not even sure what to make it. And I've
heard different takes from different political and media insiders, but
to this day, I'm not sure what that was.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, and you and I talked about it. Because she
didn't just have unhelpful things to say about Elon muskause
she talked about a lot of people, including Jade Vance.
You know, she had some unflattering things to say about
him and other people in the administration. And once the
story came out, like you said, she seemed to try

(02:48):
to deny some of it, and then that didn't work
because they had recordings. And then she made a big
deal about like there is additional context and things were
taken out of context, like really trying to distance herself
from things that seemed like they were direct quotes from her.
And it's really puzzling, like how she, as someone who

(03:11):
has been in politics and not just politics are Chason,
but like bare knuckles knees deep in politics for decades,
How she could let this happen is really baffling. My
personal theory is that it's hubris, and it's just like

(03:32):
from being in the White House with Trump in a
culture of sycophancy and flattery, it like poisoned her mind
and she let her guard down around this reporter. I guess,
I don't know. It's a little hard to believe, but
the whole thing is difficult to believe.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, and let's talk about the photos. My favorite comparison
that I've seen about the photo is I know you
don't watch this show, but the episode of Sex in
the City, when Carrie is out all night hanging out
and partying with her friends. The day before she's meant
to be at New York Mag to put you to
cover photo and she it shows up late to the shoot.

(04:15):
She's hungover, she has a phot onto makeup, and so
she's sitting for what she has told or do just
test shots that they're not gonna use. But then she
sees the cover and she thought the cover was gonna
say single and fabulous exclamation point. But the photo they
use on the cover is hideous and it says single
and fabulous question mark. That is the only comparison that

(04:35):
I can make here.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
That's a good comparison. I have not seen that show,
But man, what a difference punctuation can make.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Huh. Seriously, So nobody's photos in this thing looks look good.
Everybody looks bad. I think Rubio. There's a photo of
Rubio that you clearly understand that the argument being made,
the visual argument being made by the by the photos,
the way that they're staged. It's not just that the
people in them don't look good, which they don't. It

(05:08):
is a set of photos that is clearly making a
claim and an argument about the lack of leadership in
the White House, like staging someone where they're sitting next
there they're standing defiant next to an empty chair, but
the chair is posed in such a way where the
eye goes right to the empty chair, and it just

(05:28):
really makes it. It just you, you cannot look at
these pictures and not instantly get the point that they
are trying to make visually, I guess they'll put it
that way, like there are all these stances meant to
telegraph leadership, yet there's visible chords plugged in behind them
and like mismatched, a skew lampshades right beside them. Just
really nobody looks good here.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
That photo of Rubio that you mentioned, the angles are
strange and like he's not a tall guy. I'm not
a tall guy either, but like he's a pretty short
guy on a team with like a bunch of big
tall guys who are into being tall, I guess, and

(06:11):
the angles make him look extra short and he's like
looking down. It is it's almost like a disturbing photo
to look at. It is like a portrait of dejection
or something. I don't even know. It's like an artful photo.
It's like it's shot through a fun house mirror lens

(06:33):
or something.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
So the photo that really everybody is talking about is
the one of Caroline Lovett. It is a lot of
the photos are taken with this super close up stand
so like very very close. Nobody looks good into pictures
like that, so nobody looks good. But one of the
pieces of her photo that's really been making the rounds
online is the fact that it's so close up that

(06:57):
you can see around her lips. What are I think,
pretty clearly injection sites like she gets flip fillers. I
want to be careful with what I have to say here.
First of all, I don't begrudge anybody getting filler any
kind of cosmetic procedure, plastic surgery. I don't want anybody
thinking that I'm shaming people who opt to get that

(07:19):
kind of stuff done. I think it's great. I'm happy
that we live in a time where people have those
kinds of choices available to them. However, I have been
frankly sort of surprised by how many people and especially
women are like rushing to defend that Caroline lead it.
I completely get it. I think that it's a totally

(07:40):
gendered thing where women are more likely to be dragged
for their looks, for aging for our weight, especially professional women.
It is absolutely a gendered thing, and I don't think
it's like good when we live in a culture that
shames women for these things. But I do wonder if
we've kind of lost the forest for the trees of

(08:04):
when we just blanket say no one is allowed to
talk about the looks and physical features of anybody else, right.
I think that, you know, I've seen a lot of
women say, oh, well, it's anti feminists to talk about
injection sites around her lips in this photo that were visible,
and I'm just not so sure about that. I think
it's I mean, it's something that came up in our

(08:24):
episode around Taylor Swift. I think that we sort of
it's very kind of easy to rebrand feminism as feminism
is never saying a means thing to a woman, and
that's not really what it's about.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
I think.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
So this is my opinion. I get that it might
be unpopular, and I genuinely want feedback. I want to
hear what people think, but one I think for the
vast majority of people, not everyone, but for most people,
cosmetic procedures are voluntary. On another podcast that I'm the
co host of, Citycast DC, all about sort of what's
happening in DC, we did a whole episode about the

(09:03):
rise of what we call mar Lago face in DC.
How people who are are part of Trump's world, both
men and women, are getting specific types of plastic surgery
because that's what everybody in Trump world looks like, right.
So men are getting jaw implants and chin implants to
give them more sort of square jawlines. Women are getting

(09:25):
facelifts and getting stuffed under their eyebrows and lips. And
you know, there was a time where plastic surgery was
something that you would want to look natural, and you
would want people to look at you and think, you know,
maybe you didn't get plastic surgery. But that's not These
people are intentionally doing a different thing. You know, if
you look at people like Matt Gates, like, there are
people who when you look at them, the first thing

(09:47):
you see is that, oh, you've had plastic surgery, right,
And so I think for me, when we're talking about
voluntary cosmetic procedures. In my opinion, that's very different than
something like a physical feature that somebody can't control, right,
their race, their height, their weight, all different kinds of
things where it's like, oh, you're born this way, you

(10:08):
can't control it. It's how you are to me leave it.
Going to a METSPA and getting lip injections and paying
for them, that's not something she can't control. Quite the opposite,
that's a voluntary procedure that she paid for. And I think,
especially when you layer that into what I was just
talking about, the way that specific physical attributes have been

(10:29):
weaponized and prized and explicitly talked about by this administration
in the way that they are making policy decisions and
deciding who gets to be involved in policy decisions, I
think that's worth talking about. I also think these are
people who believe in like their racial and genetic superiority
above the racial and genetic superiority of other people people

(10:52):
like me, right, and so that being part of their
ideological framework, I think the way that they physically present
and the choices that they make around their physical presentation
is a fair game to be part of that conversation.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
You make a compelling point. Bridget These people talk about
people's physical appearances all the time.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
You made a great point before we started recording that
Trump has explicitly said things like, oh, I want my
cabinet to look straight out of Central Casting, and things
like this. The administration very explicitly is using physicality and
the way people look and cosmetic procedures in a certain

(11:36):
kind of way. And I just I don't think that
anybody should be shamed for the way that they look. However,
I do think that, you know, in an administration that
has talked about this in this way, I think it's
it behooves us to look at that. And I obviously
don't love tearing into a woman for her looks a move,
by the way, leave it herself defended when Trump called

(11:58):
a female journalist a pit But I just think that
when we blanket say, talking about someone's cosmetic procedures is
not fair game, we're not allowed to talk about any
of the other stuff that directly ties into how our
country is being run by whom.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, it's a good point, and it's it is a
complicated thing. You know. As a man, I'm pretty I've
gotten the memo that I shouldn't be commenting on women
in politics looks. But you make a great point that

(12:34):
like they have brought this into the conversation. Trump brings
it up all the time. A lot of maga types,
like you said, are into like racial superiority, racial comparisons. Ah,
you know, it's they've brought it into the conversation, and

(12:55):
it's it's a tricky thing because, like I certainly wouldn't
want the bar for the conversation to be set by
Donald Trump, who is like one of the worst humans
I've personally ever known about existing. But like Caroline Leavitt
is carrying water for him every day and like you said,

(13:19):
backing him up. When he calls reporters pigs or disparages
other reporters, it's often reporters, and it's often black women reporters,
and so they've made appearance part of the conversation.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Right. When asked about calling a female journalist a pig,
Lebrett said, oh, well, I think that we all know
that Trump calls it like it is, he calls it
like he sees it, He tells the truth, and it's like, okay,
So if that's the case, we can't tell the truth
about the fact that you've got visible injection sites visible
in this image. And I will say this is just
an aside part of my beef with it is a

(14:00):
makeup choice, because if you have injection sites and you're
getting a photo taken, why are they wearing translucent lip
gloss where a Matt Dark Live. That was my big
and we've already had confirmation that each of the subjects
they did their own styling, costuming, and makeup, So it
wasn't like Vanity Fair put her in a translucent lip
gloss and had her looking crazy with those injection sites

(14:21):
showing that was her choice.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
And it's also not like they went into photograph her
in her office in the back of the White House
or something. It's like her job is to be up
on the podium talking to the press every day. She's,
you know, arguably one of the most photographed people in

(14:44):
the government, and the idea that someone taking a photo
of her would be inappropriate or unethical And I'm not
even sure what the complaint is. I guess unethical is
the complaint that, like the the photographer shouldn't have taken
that photo, or I guess you were telling you were

(15:05):
showing me some discourse online that people were suggesting that
the photographer should have airbrushed it or like used photoshop
for AI to hide those injection sites, right, And that
seems ridiculous to think that a photographer for an independent

(15:28):
journalistic outfit is going to touch up photos to hide
what is real and instead present a fantastical presentation to
their readers. Like that doesn't sound like good journalism.

Speaker 1 (15:44):
So the photographer, Christopher Anderson answered exactly that. In an
interview with Shane O'Neil from The Post, O'Neil asked Anderson
for his response to people who thought the photos were unfair,
specifically mentioning the photo of Leave It and quote what
appeared to be injection Sitesson said, I didn't put the
injection sites on her. People seem to be shocked that
I didn't use photoshop to retouch out blemishes and her

(16:07):
injection marks. I find it shocking that someone would expect
me to retouch those things. That's the makeup that Leave
It puts on. Those are the injections she gave herself.
If they show up in a photo, what do you
want me to say? Which I have to say iconic
if you can see them. They were there. She put
them there. I didn't tell them to put them there.
What do you want from me? So he goes on
to say, Vanity Fair is a magazine that has its

(16:29):
feet in two worlds, right, one is the journalism world,
and one is the celebrity entertainment machine. Obviously, celebrity portraits
on the cover of Vanity Fair are not really about
journalism in the way that you and I think about journalism.
But then there's the other side of Vanity Fair, which
is real journalism. I'm surprised that a journalist would even
need to ask me the question of why didn't I
retouch out the blemishes, because if I had, that would

(16:52):
be a lie. I would be hiding the truth of
what I saw there. And that is exactly what you're
saying that, you know. I think people maybe forget that
photojournalists are journalists, and why he's not a kinsanyerak photographer.
He's not a glamour shot photographer. It is not his
job to make her look her best. It is his

(17:13):
job to visually communicate the truth that was in that room,
which I think he did quite well.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Frankly, Yeah, I mean, clearly, it is the truth really
clearly her lips do have those many regular injection sites
along them. It's it's a disturbing photo, honestly, it's I mean,
you know, I guess you let off this segment saying
that people should feel free to get whatever cosmetic surgery

(17:40):
they want, and certainly they should, you know, but like
she didn't look good in that photo, kind of kind
of wonder about the choice.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
Well, that's what I'm saying. I think the fact that
so many people who are in Trump's orbit make cosmetic
procedure choices that come off this way is worth talking about.
And just a day ago, the House passed a bill
criminalizing gender affirming care for miners, and I cannot not
see these things as related. Lip injections are gender affirming care.

(18:10):
I avail myself of gender affirming care. I'm sure plenty
of our listeners avail themselves of gender affirming care. People
in the Trump administration talk about the gender affirming care
that they make use of all the time, right, And
so I'm not going to play this game where we
don't talk about the fact that leave it is getting
lip injections as she should if that's her choice, while

(18:31):
making it so that miners, some of the most marginalized
and vulnerable among us cannot avail themselves of the gender
affirming care that they need, and let's not forget when
we're talking about transuse, oftentimes that care is life saving.
It is critical. And I think then expecting a dynamic
where the gender affirming care of others is endlessly scrutinized,

(18:54):
endlessly weaponized, but theirs it's not polite to even bring
up I won't have it. I won't have it. That's
not a dynamics that I think is one that will
serve us well. So while I understand where books are
coming from when they say it's not good to talk
about about her injections and her looks and all of that,
I totally get it. I think, ultimately, if you follow
that thread, while they are doing the exact same thing

(19:17):
to the most marginalized and vulnerable among us, they are
creating a dynamic where it's uncivilized for us to give
them any scrutiny. And the scrutiny they're getting is sorry,
your injection sites are visible on this photograph and vanity
fair like that. That's not even a criticism, it's just truth.
It's just reality. Of what's happening per our eyes. Yeah, yeah,

(19:38):
it reminds me. I know, I told you about this.
I read this anecdote that Trump regularly will use scotch
tape to tape the small end to the big end
of his neckties, and then I googled it. Y'all, if
you google it, there's there's photographic evidence that he does,
in fact do this. I think there is something about
the idea when somebody who you're being told is like
a genius, is genetically superior all of these things, shows

(20:01):
up with their necktie scotch tape together in the White House,
and then it's like a test of whether or not
you're gonna say anything, or whether or not you're gonna
laugh at them, or whether or not you're gonna be like,
get a load of this guy. Like that's what I
feel like. We're asked. We're being asked to do. You
know what I'm saying, And I can't. There is nobody
in this world that I could see who I'm being
told is very important and more important than me and

(20:23):
smarter than me, if they showed up with their necktie
scotch tape together, that I would not be like, you
look you look like a moron right now? Do you
not see how you look?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
That's so comical, just picturing like, actually, I don't even
have to picture it. Yeah, I could pull up the photos.
There they are. He's got tape holding his tie to itself.
It's it's like something a childish buffoon would do, or
rather a buffoonish child.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Yes, I just wanted to quickly mention a couple two
more things about the photographer who took these photos. So
he of all the people that he photographed, that Steven
Miller was sort of the most concerned about how he
was going to look. And he says that when they
were finished, Miller came up to me and said, you know,
you have a lot of power on the discretion you
used to be kind to someone in your photographs. Anderson recalled,
and I look at him and I said, you know

(21:15):
you do too. I don't know how much he related
to that. Anderson added, which I feel like says so
much that it's like I have power and how I
relate somebody in photography. So do you you have a
lot of power and discretion to be kind And the
fact that that was apparently lost on Stephen Miller, not

(21:36):
for nothing. He looks ghoulish in his.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
Who nos, Yeah, but we knew that. I mean, of
course he's gonna look like a gool. He is a ghoul.
He regularly feasts on human flesh to nourish the dark
cravings within him. I mean, that's just that's just the
kind of guy Stephen Miller is, So of course he's
going to look awful.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
I don't really have a seamless transition, but I just
came across this anecdote from Threads about the photographer who
took those pictures, and it really struck me. It's might
have to share. I found this from Derek guy who
you might know as Die Workwear on threads or on
social media. He says, in twenty twenty forty four Haitian
refugees boarded a small handmade boat they called Believe in

(22:20):
God and tried to set sail for the US. Somewhere
along the journey, the boat began to sink, but they
were rescued by the US Coast Guard. Toward the end,
some of the men were so dehydrated that they drifted
in and out of consciousness, unable to stand on that
boat was a magnum photographer Christopher Anderson, who twenty five
years later took a photo of Stephen Miller for Vanity Fair.

(22:40):
Andrewson took the photos in the final moments, when everyone
on the boat thought they were going to die. This
is what he had to say about that experience. Quote.
A couple of days into our journey, the boat began
to sink. We were doomed, and we knew it. We
started saying goodbye to one another. Strangely, it was quite
calm on the boat. There was not much to do
except resign oneself to the inevitability of it all. Up

(23:01):
to that point, I had not taken many pictures. Everyone
on the boat knew I was a photographer, but it
somehow had not felt right. It's difficult to explain. But
as the boat sank, David, the Haitian whom I'd followed
on this journey, said to me, Chris, you better start
making pictures. We only have an hour to live, and so,
without much thought, I began making pictures. We were saved

(23:21):
at the last moment by a US Coast Guard cutter.
That happened upon us, but that's another story. Much later
on back home safe, I've reflected on this question why
make pictures that no one will ever see. The only
explanation for me was that the act of photographing had
more to do with the explaining of the world to
myself than explaining something to someone else. The pictures were

(23:41):
about communicating something about my experience, not about reporting literal information.
This will be the single most transformative moment of my
photographic life.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
Some pretty deep thoughts about photography.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
I just wanted to share that because I think, especially
in the age of photoshop and air rushing an AI
and manicured images, it's just a good reminder of the
power of photographs and why we take photographs. And I
think the fact that these Vanity fair images got they

(24:14):
just they really struck a nerve and really struck a
cord with people, just shows how powerful they are and
the importance of having oppressed. It's not going to be afraid,
that's going to be fearless and not feel like they
have to communicate a lie when it's a medium about
communicating some larger truth, even if not in a literal sense.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, I love that, you know, thinking about photography, and
I guess journalism writ large, but specifically photography as a
tool for understanding the world and communicating truth. It's kind

(24:55):
of beautiful.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Let's take a quick break at our back.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
While on the flip side of the possible authenticity of media.
Let's talk about what's happening at my hometown paper, the
Washington Post, owned by Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos, because they
are really continuing their race to the bottom, and this
time it's their podcasts. So semo four has this juicy
report into what The Post is calling their quote, personalized

(25:40):
AI podcasts. Earlier this week, the Post that they were
rolling out these personalized AI generated podcasts for their mobile app.
The idea here is that using AI, listeners could pick
their preferred topics and their preferred AI hosts and sort
of make their own podcasts. Quote, they could shape their
own briefing, select their topics at their length, pick their

(26:00):
and soon even ask questions using ask the Post AI technology.
And how is that going for the Post? In the
words of Derinda Medley from Real Housewives of New York,
can you guess.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Not well, bitch, Not well, bitch?

Speaker 1 (26:16):
This is from Semophor. Less than forty eight hours since
the product was released, people within the Post have flagged
what four sources described as multiple mistakes in personalized podcasts.
The errors have ranged from relatively minor pronunciation guests to
significant changes to story content like misattributing or inventing quotes
and inserting commentary such as interpreting a source's quotes as

(26:38):
the paper's position on an issue, even that journalists from
within the paper are cringing about this. According to four
people familiar with the situation, the errors have alarmed senior
newsroom leaders, who have acknowledged in their internal Slack channel
that the product's output is not living up to the
papers standards. In a message to other staffer shared with Semaphor,

(26:59):
head of Standard Karen Pincero, wrote that the errors have
been frustrating for us all. It is truly astonishing that
this was ever allowed to go forward at all. One
Post editor wrote on Flack. Never would I have imagined
that the Post would deliberately warp its own journalism and
then push these errors out to our audience at scale,
and just days after the White House put up a
site dedicated to attacking journalists, most notably our own, including

(27:22):
for stories with corrections or editors notes attached. If we
were serious, we would pull this tool immediately. Yeah, pretty
big l for the Post and just being in the
podcast sort of media game. I do know that The
Post has really been trying to compete with other papers

(27:42):
comparable size and stature when it comes to audio in particular,
Like if you think about The New York Times, the
Daily is one of the most important podcasts around, Like
it's one of the biggest, if not the biggest podcast
in the world. It's the podcast that a lot of
people start their day with. Wall Street Journal has a
really respected podcast division. The Post just it seems like
they're really struggling to get it right.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, and I feel like trust in the Post is
pretty low these days. It's just like one story after
another diminishing their credibility honestly, Like, I know that they
have a lot of really good journalists who work there
in the news department still, and I feel for them,
But every story that comes out about their editorial department

(28:25):
is awful. And now there's this story about them pushing
AI slop that is not accurate. It's it's you bring
up a good point that, like, why do their competitors
have these really powerful, widely listens to audio products and

(28:49):
the Post doesn't. It feels like they're frankly like on
the wrong track. I guess, I don't know. They're probably
not taking like strategic business decisions from us, but like
it's just one l after another.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah, I mean, I can sort of give you my
sense of what might be happening here. I just don't
think it's a really it's not a kill time in
media or journalism more broadly. And I want to be
super clear that I know personally and work with and
love many, many, many of the journalists at the Post.
They have great reputations. This is not anything against them.

(29:30):
It is the decision makers, it's the higher ups. It's
people like Jeffrey Bezos. I would argue that I don't
think that he had any real interest in being in
the newspaper game at all. I think that he bought
that paper to buy influence and to buy Trump's ear
And I don't think he cares that it's losing money.
I don't think he cares that it's putting out error
and lie riddled AI and generated podcasts, but are on

(29:51):
embarrassment that they're stellar journalists then have to answer for right,
because you don't want to be a great journalist at
a that's putting out lies via AI generated podcast that's
so embarrassing, and so I think it really is a
leadership culture problem. I also think when you think about
you know, it came up in the episode that we

(30:12):
did with Karen Aatia, the last remaining black columnist at
The Post who was pushed out after Charlie Kirk's death,
I would say, like, completely unairly. I think that it's
a problem where when you have a culture that nobody
wants to be part of work for people who are
smart or dedicated, or hard working or forward thinking or
innovative are pushed out. I think this is what you're

(30:34):
left over with, right Like the former editor at The Post,
Sally Busby, she was apparently working on a lot of
early stage audio concepts before she was pushed out of
the paper in twenty twenty four. I think like this
is what happens when you push out the good people
who actually want to make good stuff. You have to
turn to AI podcasts full of errors and lies. But

(30:55):
it's such short sided leadership to not see how that's
so much worse It would be better to not have
a podcast.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
In my opinion, yeah, it has the feel of leadership.
Viewing this as like news flavored content without recognizing the
special considerations that the journalism needs to adhere to to

(31:22):
make sure that readers and listeners trust it.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
I mean we've talked about this, that audio is supposed
to build trust and intimacy. I think Pew did a
study that found that people who get information from podcasts
have a higher expectation that that information will be accurate
and true versus other kinds of digital content. So the
content and the media they're getting on social media, they

(31:48):
don't have a high expectation that that will be accurate,
but when it comes to podcasts, they do, right. And
so if the post is just handing over that trust
to AI so that it can invent quotes and make
up eyes, it's really a problem. And I think that's
what happens when experienced editors are like, nah, I don't
want I don't want to be involved in this. I

(32:09):
also think there's an element here of news versus tech products.
Uh Cmophore had this little bit of reporting that I
found very interesting about the tensions that have arisen between
the newsroom division and its product division. Right, and so
the perspective from some of the Post product team is
that AI podcasts, even if they have errors, that just

(32:29):
represents a normal part of the rollout of features that
are still being tested, and unsurprisingly the journalists at that
newsroom feel otherwise.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
That is really interesting and I could totally see see
that playing out, you know, for a newspaper that is
owned by Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, which famously
works with some employees like really hard and is you know,

(32:59):
very folks on metrics. That works great. If you're running
a company that delivers products to people, and you know,
you make a few errors and some people, you know,
zero point zero one percent of people don't get their
packages on time, it's not that big a deal. But

(33:22):
with a newspaper in journalism, the math is very different
because when you lose trust, it is really difficult to
gain back. Yeah, absolutely true. Side note.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
Cmophore also did report as part of the story that
The Post was eyeing Larry Summers to be one of
their podcast hosts for a while, but that deal fell apart.
This was obviously before the emails unsurfaced about Summer's connection
with Epstein. Boy. Part of me is like, I don't
know if that was a decision to not go with
Larry summers as a podcast host or if that just

(33:57):
like didn't work out. But that kind of is like
a little bit of a saving grace that they didn't
have to pull that podcast down.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah, I guess they dashed a bullet there.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, it's curious. And it's also curious that like, he
is a pretty big name, so they presumably would have
had to pay him, as opposed to these AI podcasts, which,
like you know, they're probably paying the engineers who work
on it, but they don't have to pay a host.
And I wonder if that's part of it here too,

(34:29):
just trying to turn the screws and do things on
the cheap, maybe question mark.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
I know I'm biased, but throwing a few bucks at
a human host might be worth it if it's going
to save you from this level of embarrassment on paper.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Yeah, human hosts wouldn't make these sorts of errors that
you listed off of misattributing the a quote from a
source as the official position of the paper, Like that's
a pretty elementary mistake that a human host probably would
not make. You would hope, you would.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Hope anyone who has listened to this pod will probably
not be surprised to hear this that Meta is targeting
accounts related to abortion providers and queer identity. We did
a whole episode about the scale of this kind of thing,
where Meta shadow bands or takes down or restricts content
from accounts that provide medically accurate information about things like abortion,

(35:26):
even in places where abortion is perfectly legal. But now
The Guardian has a new report from the organization Repro
Uncensored that shows it is still an ongoing and escalating
issue with Meta. So Repro un Censored they track digital
censorship against movements focus on gender health and justice, and
they said that they have tracked two hundred and ten
incidents of account removals and severe restrictions affecting these kinds

(35:50):
of groups in the last year, compared with just eighty
one last year, So this does seem like an escalating problem.
Meta has removed or restricted dozens of accounts belong to
abortion access providers, queer groups and reproductive health organizations in
the past week, in what these campaigners call, quote one
of the biggest waves of censorship on Meta in years.

(36:11):
The takedowns and restrictions that they looked at started in
October and targeted the Facebook Instagram and WhatsApp accounts of
more than fifty organizations worldwide, some of which serve tens
of thousands of people. Now, many of these groups are
in Europe or the UK. However, bands also effective groups
serving women in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

(36:31):
So given what we talked about in our previous episode
about this, it does seem that this is an escalating
pattern with Meta. In this latest purge, it blocked abortion
hotlines and countries where abortion is perfectly legal, banned queer
and sex positive accounts in Europe, and removed posts that
even had non explicit cartoon depictions of nudity. I saw

(36:52):
one of the images that it removed. The post was
just a cartoon image of two naked people from behind
holding hands, and it would only the only nudity that
would have been shown is butts. However, the image, the
cartoon image has hearts over the butt, so it's like,
you can't there's not even really any nudity. That was

(37:12):
the kind of image that Facebook said don't, Oh, that's
got to come down.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
So this is like two different types of censorship, right,
Like there's censorship of anything related to nudity. In what
seems like a pretty prudish way. But then also censorship
of conversation about abortion and other reproductive services, which, uh,

(37:39):
it's weird that that gets linked up with censorship of nudity.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, it is weird, And I think it just goes
to show how much tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, how
much power they have and determining what is the kind
of thing that needs to be censored and like who's
whose sexuality, whose gender issues whatever are oh hay and allowed,
and whose need to be taken down and centsored from
the platform. But they just like really have all the

(38:05):
power there. Martha de Moratu, the executive director of repro
and Censored, told The Guardian. Within the last year, especially
since this new US presidency, we have seen a definitive
increase in accounts being taken down, not only in the
US but worldwide as a ripple effect. This has been,
to my knowledge, at least one of the biggest waves
of censorship we are seeing. So I want to make
sure that people get what I'm saying here, because keep

(38:28):
this in mind. If we are talking about organizations that
are abortion providers or help connect people who meet abortions
with abortion services, social media is a key way that
people are able to get access to information about something
that is not only life saving and critical, but also
time sensitive. Arbitrary takedowns like this threatened the ability of

(38:49):
these kind of providers to do their jobs, which is critical.
And you know something else that they said, and the
piece is that Meta is a company that is historically
not easy to work with. They will take down accounts
that have not broken any of Meta's rules. They will
take down accounts that are not breaking in the law,
and then they won't be transparent or clear on what
the thing was that got that account removed, or what

(39:11):
to do next or how to appeal. So really, if
you don't know somebody who works at Meta, if you
don't have a friend or a cousin that works there,
you might just be out of luck. There's one organization
that they talk about from the Netherlands called Women Help Women,
which is a nonprofit offering information about abortion to women worldwide,
including in Brazil, the Philippines and Poland. It feels about
one hundred and fifty thousand emails from women each year,

(39:33):
says the executive director, Kinga Jalinska. Women Help Women has
been on Facebook for eleven years, and they said that
while their account has been suspended before, this time around
it was outright banded. Kinga, the executive director, said this
band could be life threatening and push people who need
abortion care toward dangerous, less reliable information sources. And the

(39:54):
frustrating thing is that Meta doesn't even really tell people
what they've done to get banned. A message from Me
to the group, dated November thirteenth said that its page
does not follow our community standards on prescription drugs, adding
we know this is disappointing, but we want to keep
Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone. The report then says
that the providers who are impacted have to go into

(40:14):
meetings with Meta. I've personally been at meetings like this
and they are basically useless. This is from The Guardian.
Meta has come under criticism after a leaked email showed
a consultant inviting reproductive health organizations to a private briefing
about problems with Meta's content moderation, while explicitly saying the
meeting was not a place to criticize the company or

(40:35):
suggest any policy changes. Critics say these closed door sessions
reinforce a power imbalance where big techicides which voices are
heard and which are silenced. I can personally confirm my
own experience in these meetings, and Meta is exactly what's
going on, and it speaks to what I was saying earlier,
where Meta is the sole arbiter of whose voices are

(40:58):
allowed to persist on the platform and who are silence,
and they don't feel they need to give anybody transparency
around that.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
I'm really reminded of the segment we just covered about
the Washington Post, where there's just a real sense of
them like not realizing or not acknowledging the responsibility that
they have as a big platform where so many people
get information that is of critical importance to like their health,

(41:28):
their financial well being, so many areas of their life.
They're just like not concerned with making arbitrary decisions that
prevent people from getting that information. You know, in Meta's case,
they just want the clicks. I think.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Let me tell you how not concerned they are. They
told one organization that was impacted that they should leave
Meta altogether and start a mailing list and that their
bands would probably continue. Now Meta deny sending that email,
but imagine telling an organization doing critical life saving work
connecting people who need abortions with abortion care. But you've

(42:07):
built up an audience for years and years, just start
a mailing list like these are not serious people.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
No, they're certainly not taking the concerns of these organizations seriously,
which is pretty offensive really because if you like, I
don't know any of these organizations, but I feel like
I've known people at similar organizations who've done this kind
of work, and people involved in nonprofits that serve people.

(42:40):
They're not getting rich out there, They're trying to help people.
And it is really disappointing but not at all surprising
to read a report like this about Meta just not
being at all concerned about getting in the way of
their work.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
And as someone who has followed this kind of thing
for a while, away weird thing that Meta loves to
do is say that they do allow posts about abortion
on their platform as long as those posts don't break
the rules, But then they take down accounts that are
not breaking the rules, and they don't even say why
because according to Meta, even they agree that some of
these accounts are taken down by mistake because when repro

(43:19):
uncensored flagged some of the accounts that they said were
taken down that should not have been. Meta said that
more than half of the accounts flagged by repro and
censored have been reinstated, including Women Help Women, which Facebook
said was taken down an error. So basically, you know,
they like to say, on the one hand, oh, we
allow posts about abortion, why were these posts about abortion

(43:42):
taken down? Even though they don't violate our policies. That
was a mistake. It's been reinstated. But if that mistake happens,
there is no transparency around why it was taken down
unless there's some sort of uproar, unless somebody flags it
for them. And then two, it's incredibly difficult to appeal it.
And so even if these are a miss it's not
a mistake that can be easily rectified If there's no clear,

(44:04):
transparent appeal process, it just seems like Meta doesn't actually
really care. And I think, you know, whether it's a
mistake or an error or whatever, the impact really is
the same that these platforms have total control over these
digital public spaces arbitrarily, and that ends up silencing abortion
providers and queer organizations and really put people at risk

(44:26):
from being able to access time sensitive light saving information,
and I think having a system where there's no transparency,
there's no functioning appeal process. I don't think these are glitches.
I think that they are structural problems that are built in,
and it's vulnerable people who are paying the price. More.

(44:48):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it. Okay, So, Mike,
do you remember back when Charlie Kirk was murdered and

(45:09):
we talked all about the wave of crackdowns on free
speech and expression that followed.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Oh yeah, I mean I feel like we're still living
through the repercussions of that crackdown on speech.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Well, let me tell you so. Back when Charlie Kirk
was first murdered, Larry Bushart, who was a sixty one
year old former cop, posted a meme on the Facebook
group What's Happening in Perry County, Tennessee. He posted this
meme on a thread about a visual for Charlie Kirk. So,
the meme shows a picture of Donald Trump saying quote,
we should just get over it, which depicted Trump saying

(45:49):
this about a school shooting at Perry High School, which
is a direct quote he actually did say that. Bush
Art included that image with a comment that said this
seems relevant today. Dot dot dot. That is literally all
it took to land Larry in prison for thirty seven
days because he was unable to make his two million

(46:11):
dollar bail. He got out of prison in late October.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Wow, that escalated quickly. Wait, so what was he arrested for?

Speaker 1 (46:24):
According to the intercept, that post got the attention of
the Perry County Sheriff, Nick Wems, who I should add
had mourned Kirk's passing on his own personal Facebook page.
This is from ours Tetnica. Supposedly, Weens's decision to go
after Buschhart wasn't due to his political views, but to
receiving messages from parents who misread Buschard's post as possibly

(46:47):
threatening an attack on the local Perry County High School.
To pressure Buschart to remove the post, Weings contacted the
Lexingon Police department to find Buschart. That led to Larry's
arrest and his transfer to Perry p jail. So Weims,
the sheriff justified the arrest by claiming that Buschart posting
this meme on Facebook represented a true threat, since quote

(47:10):
investigators believed that Buschart was fully aware the fear his
post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within
the community, The Tennessean reported, But as the intercept points out,
there was no evidence of any kind of hysteria. There
weren't even any comments on the meme that suggested that
anybody thought it was anything resembling a threat. And that's

(47:31):
when people started to look a little bit closer at
this sheriff's story. Probably the most suspicious thing here is
that weems The sheriff claims that Buschart had callously refused
to take down his post even after law enforcement told
him that people were scared that he was threatening a
school shooting. They actually the local news has bodycam footage
of his arrest. The footage clearly shows that the arresting

(47:55):
officer did not understand why the Perry County sheriff had
taken issue with Buschart's Facebook post. He says, so, I'm
just going to be completely honest with you. I really
have no idea what they are talking about. He he
just called me and there was some concerning post that
was made. Bushart clarified that it was likely his Facebook post,
laughing at the notion that somebody called the cops to

(48:16):
report his meme. The officer then told busch Art that
he wasn't exactly sure what Facebook posts that you're referring to,
but they said something about insinuating violence. Bushart said, no,
it wasn't and confirming that he wasn't going to take
it down. The arresting officer declined to even glance at
the Facebook post and told Buschhart quote, I don't care.
This ain't got nothing to do with me now. None

(48:39):
of this indifference kept to this officer from taking him
into custody and booking him where he was charged under
a state law passed in July twenty twenty fours that
makes it a Class E felony to make any kind
of threat against schools. This is reporting from the Tennessee in.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Wow, they're really like making a meal out of this
threat against the school thing, which seems to be completely
made up, Like this just seems to be Is this
a new thing that cops make up when they want
to arrest somebody like, oh, he was threatening to school.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Well, here's how we know it was made up, because
the sheriff later admitted to the local news new Channel
five that quote, investigators knew the meme was not about
Perry County High School and still arrested him anyway, supposedly
hoping to quote quell the fears of people in the
community who misrepresented it. Apparently that was as close as

(49:29):
the sheriff came to basically admitting that the intention was
to censor the post. So now Larry Buschhard is out
of prison, he has lost his post retirement job, and
now he is suing the police department. Now, the department
said that he had to be arrested because this post
caused all this mass hysteria from people who were worried

(49:50):
they were misinterpreting this post as a threat of violence
against Perry High School with this meme. But his lawsuit
notes that none of the commenters on the Facebook thread
and left any kind of comment indicating that this meme
was being taken as threatening some sort of violent act
at a school, and so far, no public records show
any concerned citizens who were flagging the meme as violating

(50:13):
any laws protecting schools. Our question of the school district
turned up no records, and so far police have not
produced any evidence of this mass hysteria that they said
was the reason that he had to be arrested. This
is all according to Larry Buschard's lawsuit. Instead, what they
say is actually going on is a sheriff who we
know posted a tribute to Kirk on his own personal

(50:34):
Facebook page, was just using his capacity as sheriff to
arrest Larry over a meme that he didn't like about Trump.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Yeah, that seems to be what's going on. You know,
this mass hysteria that the sheriff keeps talking about. I
feel like you needed Like the term nesisteria implies a
lot of people. If you had to guess, how many
people did you say live in Perry County, Tennessee?

Speaker 1 (50:58):
Oh god, I will.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
How do you know, Well, I just looked it up
while you were reading that segment. In twenty twenty three,
there were eighty five hundred people in Perry County, Tennessee. So, like,
I feel this whole story is like these two guys
know each other for one thing, Like the sheriff knows
this cop. This is not their first time talking. The
arresting officer knows both of them. Yeah, I am so

(51:25):
sure that. Like, this story is so much juicier and
more interesting, just like the small town dynamics that are
at play here. I feel like we are just scratching
the surface of this story. And as somebody who grew

(51:45):
up in a small town, I really feel for Bouchard,
the guy who got arrested here, who it seems like
acted perfectly within his rights to make some political speech
that does not seem like it was threatening anyone, and
then has to go through this whole radiar role of

(52:07):
spending thirty seven days in jail, which probably was not
super fun for him as an ex cop, right Like
I I couldn't say, but my understanding is that like X,
cops don't have a great time when they're in jail,
especially like older guys who you know, he was retired.
But I gotta say good on him for standing his

(52:27):
ground for the First Amendment against this extremely anti American censorship.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
I'm so glad that you brought the context of someone
who grew up in a small town. Side note, do
you remember that time that we were in a small
town and there was somebody who was from the town
and we were we watched like someone go riding by
in their car and they said, Oh, that's that teenager
who's always up and down Main Street in his hot rod.
And I was like, wow, this guy knew exactly who

(52:55):
that was just from the make and model of their
car and how they were driving, and you were like,
welcome to a small town. Welcome to a small town.
Like you know, you have it, you have specific nemesis
and their car and you know it just by the
sound of it.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Yeah, you you know everyone who lives in the town,
because there's just not a lot of you. It's a
different way to live.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
So this you are right that the story does get
kind of wilder. And I'm sure there's juicy stuff that
we don't even know because according to his lawsuit, Larry
says that the sheriff colluded with another investigator to be
able to arrest Larry. To get Larry jailed, Wems allegedly
collaborated with an investigator, Jason Morrow, to emit a key
detail from the Affiday that served as the entire basis

(53:39):
of his arrest. Moro supposedly left out the fact that
the meme referred to a twenty twenty four school shooting,
allegedly helping Wems manufacture probable cause. Including that detail would
have made Larry's arrest less likely. As a reviewing magistrate
who was a non lawyer who has no legal education
would have possibly understood that they were just trying to
arrest Larry for protected speech. His complaint reads, so shout

(54:03):
out to Larry, like you said, for standing up for
free speech. Larry's legal teams got in touch with us
and they send us a press release where it has
this quote from Larry says, I spent over three decades
in law enforcement and have the utmost respect for the law.
But I also know my rights. I know that's right,
and I was arrested for nothing more than refusing to
be bullied into censorship his legal team. One of his

(54:28):
attorneys for his legal team, Fire attorney David Ribbin, says,
this lawsuit goes way beyond Larry. It's about making sure
police everywhere understand that they cannot punish or intimidate people
for sharing controversial opinions online. Law enforcement across the country
should be on notice respect the First Amendment or prepare
to face the consequences. And another one of his attorneys
from Fire, which is the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said,

(54:51):
if the police can come to your door in the
middle of the night and put you behind bars based
on nothing more than an entirely false and contrived interpretation
of a Facebook post, No one's First Amendment rights are safe.
And I really agree with that that it's really not
just about Larry or this post. It's about whether or
not a sheriff who likes Charlie Kirk can take umbrage

(55:11):
with your perfectly legally protected Facebook post and come arrest
you for.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
A month, totally, And that was the whole Such a
big part of the fallout from Charlie Kirk's murder was
the right you know, in my opinion, really overstepping in
trying to use it as an opportunity to shut down
any speech that they didn't like. And I'm really grateful

(55:41):
to Larry, who I don't know, for standing up and
you know, not backing down here. I hope that sheriff
like faces some sort of consequences for this. What I
think is unfortunate and more likely is that he probably won't,

(56:02):
and instead Larry will win his lawsuit and the taxpayers
of that county will be on the hook to pay
for that sheriff's illegal actions of arresting somebody who said
something that he didn't like.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
I fear that you are right.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
More.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it okay,
so really quickly, I just started watching this show he did, Rivalry,

(56:49):
and I wanted to talk about it because as I
know that, you know, a while back, I was part
of a team trying to pitch a documentary project and
it was unsuccessful, but that is still very much a
goal of mine. It's my dream to produce a documentary project.
I met with all of the big streamers, and even
though it did not result in a project being greenlit,
it was super interesting and it was a process in

(57:09):
which I learned a ton And one of the things
I learned is that there is a rising interest in
movies and shows that people can watch essentially while they
do something else, essentially be on their phone. Weirdly, I
will sort of say, this kind of works for the
medium that I'm interested in making. You know, documentary might
kind of work without having to visually see what's happening

(57:31):
on screen. But apparently this also goes for non documentary projects.
So like fictional television and movie projects too, justice assumption
that people are not going to be paying close attention
to whatever this thing is that they're watching. They might
not even be watching what's happening on screen, So make
projects that work for people who are watching them distracted.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Just really embrace the ad D brain that all of
us have that is being actively cultivated by social media.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Have you ever seen that thing where it's the movie Oppenheimer,
but in one corner it's got like somebody playing Mario Karr,
Like all the different kind of distracting things that some
people might need to focus on the screen just to
keep them locked in. In En Plus one magazine, film
writer William Tavlin said the exact same thing that screenwriters

(58:21):
who worked for Netflix told him that a common note
that they were given by the company's executives was have
this character announce what they're doing so that the viewers
who have this program on in the background can follow along.
So if a character is like writing a text message,
even if what they're writing is being shown on the screen,
have them say out loud what that message says. I

(58:41):
actually hate this kind of exposition. And when I'm watching
something where I know that they're doing now, or they're
they're saying something out loud that you wouldn't ordinarily say
out loud, it just is very distracting to me. I
hate it.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Oh, it's so clunky. I always notice it, or at
least I feel like I do, and I always hate it.
It like takes the the axiom show me, don't tell me,
and just completely inverts it, and it's like, Nah, don't
even bother with showing. Just tell. Everything must be told,
Just tell, just tell.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
I mean, I do have a whole slate of stuff
that I have on my Hulu or whatever that I
I do kind of treat as background. You know, a
lot of Bravo content that I've that it's sort of
comfort viewing. I'll put it on the iPad while I
clean my apartment or do laundry or do kind of
like work that you can do half paying attention, like

(59:38):
menial tasks. So I'm not above this, but for an
actual show that you're watching for the first time, I'm
the kind of person who I like to be locked
in for the most part. So this piece and slash
film is breaking down Heated Rivalry, which I don't know
if I don't know if you have been watching it,
but it's this hockey romance, and the piece is really
fascinating to me because it says that Heated Rivalry is

(01:00:01):
essentially fucking this trend by being a show that rewards
people carefully watching what's happening on screen, and it's working
because it's actually super popular. So He and Rivalry is
like this steamy hockey romance where two major league hockey
stars have a sports rivalry but also a lot of

(01:00:22):
kind a sexy tension. This is from Slash Film. When
Isla realizes Shane has forgotten his water bottle, he silently
offers his own. Isla dangles the bottle in front of Shane,
letting their fingers graze in a way that appears to
be anything but accidental. Shane tips the water into his
mouth without letting the bottle touch his lips, and Ila

(01:00:42):
watches him, absorbing every subtle tick more Isla mouths barely audible,
and Shane obeys instantly. The camera catches the moment just
above Shane's arm, half of Eylah's face lit by the
white of Shane's long sleeved t shirt. His whispered command
lies in plain sight for anyone not glued to their phone.
So a lot of the sort of steamy stuff that's

(01:01:06):
happening you really have to be paying attention to see.
There's also all kinds of like micro expressions and like
lingering looks and text messages that are typed and shown
on screen but not vocally narrated. So all of the
hallmarks of steamy will they won't they? Romance? You have
to see it to really appreciate what's going on. You
wouldn't fully get it if you were on your phone

(01:01:27):
or like do like doing your laundry or something.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
That's interesting, And it's interesting with the subjects matter too,
where I haven't been watching the show, but I do
enjoy hockey, and I feel like two players who had
sexual tension between them would probably feel pressure to not

(01:01:50):
be super overt about being loud and noticeable about that
on the ice, and so I wonder I like the
fact that the viewer of the show needs to like
pay close attention to note these things, otherwise they would
be missed if it creates a similar vibe to what's

(01:02:12):
going on between the characters.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Yes, as you know, one of my favorite themes in
film and media generally like books as well, is homo
erotic undertones and homo erotic tension. And it's not it's
not a homo erotic undertone if it's like I am
putting my hand on your sigh now, I'm moving the
hand up now like it's it's it's it doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
The same way, you know, looking at you, Saltburn.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Yeah, I love that you that you referenced that, because
actually our producer Joey, we had a whole conversation about
this before I had seen it. And my favorite ever movie,
I guess is the talented mister Ripley. And the reason
why I like it is because it's so subtle, right,
like subtle looks of like like lingering lingering looks and
things like that. I love the subtlety. Saltburn is like, Okay,

(01:03:00):
I'm struggling here because I can't think of anything that's
not a spoiler or like really graphic. Just trust me
what I say. There's not a lot of subtly in
the movie, Saltburn.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
It's a fun movie, but they're just they're just not
doing that. You know, you you could be on your
phone and uh and you wouldn't miss anything, you know,
you would you would know what's going on.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Slash film Rights. A distressing trend in American streaming is
the popularization of what Netflix calls casual viewing, or the
idea that shows and movies need to be crafted with
the understanding that people aren't actually watching. It's a creatively
bankrupt approach to storytelling that allows the most disinterested people
to become the arbors of what is prioritized by the

(01:03:41):
biggest streaming platform in the world. It's a uniquely American approach,
placing more value on the capitalistic benefits of capitulating to
laziness rather than what's best for the story. I like
that dig at Americans because I believe Heated Rivalry is
a Canadian production. So I guess the Canadians are like, oh,
we want to pay attention to our.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
Meat, especially if it's about hockey.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
Yes, that actually makes a lot of sense. They go
on to say that it's arguably a natural consequence of
what happens when engagement numbers are the only thing that matters.
So if you've got two people who watch Netflix, one
who likes to really focus on what they're watching and
another who likes to leave their TV on auto play
all day while they're doing chores around the house, of
course that second person is going to have higher engagement numbers.

(01:04:23):
They're streaming for many hours every day, which makes a
lot of sense. And you know, I watched a lot
of movies, and I definitely like to watch movies that
you have to really pay attention to. I remember you
and I and I don't want to put you on
the spot, but do you remember when we watched the
science fiction thriller Coherence and I was like, Okay, it's

(01:04:43):
a really good movie, but it is a film that
rewards careful viewing and you were like, Okay, better get
fucked up before we watch.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
I've since rewatched and you were correct. It does reward
careful viewing.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for thank you for
another chance, because if you were like not paying attention
to you would be so confused.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Yeah, and it just wouldn't be a very good movie
at all. And I guess I'm now I'm like, here's
what would be an example of a good movie or show.
I feel this casual viewing trend is more about like
series than movies, but like, is there one that would
be good that does this very overtu you know, announcing

(01:05:30):
everything that is happening, like telegraphing it Because I think
about shows like The Office, for example, is something that
people stream a lot. I think it's like one of
the most streamed shows ever and you know, I personally
know multiple people who will just put it on for hours,

(01:05:51):
but they are like in that show, it's it's not
like super complicated what's going on, but there are lots
of little joe that you will miss if you're not
paying attention. And it's okay for that show because you
can miss the little jokes but still understand what's going
on in the episode. But they are there to pull

(01:06:12):
you in. And you know, I would I have to
feel like I probably wouldn't be very interested in a
show that it didn't try to do that. Does that
make any sense?

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
It makes sense, And I actually can't think of any
shows that I watch that do it. All of the
shows that I that I do watch while I'm doing
something else, the reason I'm able to do that is
not because they're announcing what they're doing. I've I've just
seen them a hundred times. I've seen every episode of
the Office one hundred times. I've seen every episode of
Real Housewives of New York one hundred times. I'm not
watching it to really pay attention. I don't even really

(01:06:46):
know why I'm watching it out that I'm saying it
out loud. I don't know I don't know why doing
chores is better with a glass of wine and the
iPad playing a show that you've seen one hundred times.
If anybody knows the science of why that is, I
don't know why, but it is. It just is. It's
just better.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
You know, There's this a really interesting question in human
preference is when we want novelty and when we want familiarity.
It's not as like cut and dry as you might think.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
I believe this. I believe this.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Yeah, so I guess not really any sort of answer
for you, but you know, interesting thing to think about.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Well, Mike, thank you for being here as always. Where
can folks keep up with us?

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Well, people can keep up with us on social media,
but they can also listen to the mail bag episodes
that we're going to be publishing next week over the holidays.
We are finally doing Those people who emailed in your
stickers are in the mail This includes our friends in
Canada and Europe. It was interesting about twenty five percent

(01:07:50):
of the people who emailed in were outside the US,
which matches the distribution of who listens to the show.
So we love you guys, We appreciate you listening. So
you get stickers too, No problem. Yeah, I'm really excited
to do these mailbag episodes. We've been making the show
for five years. We've never done one of these episodes before.

(01:08:11):
I'm a little nervous. Are you nervous?

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
I am nervous, mostly because that questions we got are
like genuinely thoughtful, good questions. I thought people were gonna
be you know, I don't know what I'm expecting, but
people gave us very good questions, and now I feel
a slight pressure to perform, so we'll see be kind.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Yeah, I think it'll be good. We're gonna do. We
got somebody that we're gonna break it up into two episodes,
one with just me and you and then another one
where we're gonna bring Joey in because a lot of
people had questions for Joey as well, so we've got
that coming up. And other than that, we've got our
usual social channels Instagram and TikTok at, Bridget Marie in DC,

(01:08:51):
YouTube and blue Sky. There are no girls on the
internet easy to find, and you can always email us
hello at Tango Doe dot com and you can leave
comments on Spotify. People have been doing that. We appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
I read every single one personally.

Speaker 2 (01:09:09):
She does and sometimes takes them personally.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
That's true. I mean I do, But y'all will ever
hear about it. Got a story about an interesting thing
in tech, or just want to say hi? You can
read us at Hello at tegody dot com. You can
also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com.
There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
me Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative.

(01:09:36):
Jonathan Stricklet as our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our
producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer.
Edited by Joey pat I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If
you want to help us grow, rate and review us
on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Oh no, he will wad

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