May 20, 2025 • 59 mins
When news broke that Trump’s senior military leadership had used an unsecured group chat to share sensitive information, the consequences were more than political—they were personal. For Kendall Brown, content creator, digital strategist, and a military spouse, the scandal known as SignalGate hit home: her husband’s life was directly endangered by the breach in protocol.
Outraged, Kendall recorded a video of herself calling her senator’s office and demanding accountability. The clip went viral, drawing major media attention—and a wave of backlash. But while the threats and hate came in fast, Kendall, known for her sharp wit and thick skin, was more irritated by how unoriginal and not funny the trolls were.
In this candid and surprisingly funny conversation with Bridget, Kendall shares what it’s like to live with the real-life consequences of political negligence. They dive into her experience as a military spouse, the realities of online activism, and what many get wrong about military families.
Follow Kendall on TikTok: @kendallybrown
Read more: Military Wife Rips Hegseth for Risking ‘Husband’s Life’ in Viral Video – The Daily Beast
Follow Bridget across the internet:
IG @BridgetMarieInDC
TikTok @BridgetMarieInDC
YouTube: ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Internet is our best shot at holding these cowards accountable.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
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. Remember Signal Gate.
It's been a minute and a lot has happened. So
here's a quick refresher. The President's national security team got
(00:32):
caught using Signal, a private messaging app, to discuss sensitive
military operations, top tier secret stuff that should only really
be discussed on the Pentagon's ultra secure, billion dollar communication systems.
But instead of following protocol, Vice President j d Vance,
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseach, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz,
(00:53):
and others were chatting on Signal. Now, I want to
be clear, Signal the app did nothing wrong. We're huge
fans of the Signal app here at there are no
girls on the Internet. It's run by a nonprofit led
by Meredith Whittaker, who I deeply admire. This was user error,
plain and simple. So how did we even find out? Well,
it wasn't through a leak or a hack or a whistleblower. No, no,
(01:15):
no, no no. Someone accidentally added the editor in chief of
The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group chat, I have
to be honest. It's the kind of fat fingered mistake
I find kind of relatable personally, but I am not
handling national security. And it gets worse. After the scandal,
Waltz was photographed using an unofficial signal knockoff called TM signal,
(01:39):
made by a company called Telemessage, which was recently bought
by I kid you not a company called smarsh That's
a name that definitely inspires confidence. Now, unlike Signal, TM
signal stores messages on central servers insecurely, kind of the
opposite of signals. Whole thing. Since this story broke, hackers
(01:59):
have breached the servers multiple times. One hacker told four
l four media that Telebassage had not bothered to implement
basic digital security of practices, and that's the whole thing,
always with about fifteen minutes to break into. Now, this
is not just political drama. It's about real lives, like
those of America's three million service members, people like the
(02:20):
husband of my friend Kendall Brown, a digital strategist and
content creator. Service members can't always speak out, but Kendall can.
She makes it her business to use the Internet to
speak up for service members like her husband.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Weirdly, he in some ways I think he lives vicariously
through me online, that I'm able to say all of
this shit and he cannot. So I think in some
way like I've never made a video related to the
military without running it by him first, and I have
yet to make one that he doesn't agree with, So
(03:00):
in some ways I feel like I'm being his mouth
for him.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Beyond the logistics of what happened with Signal Gate, Kendall's
reaction went deeper. She was pissed off. Here's a little
of what Kendall had to say in her now viral
TikTok about Signal Gate.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
As someone whose husband is currently deployed in the Middle East,
not far from Yemen, I'm gonna warn you now this
is going to be the angriest fucking video I have
ever made in my entire life, because there are not
adequate words in the English language for me to fully
fucking communicate to you right now, how fucking furious I am.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I can only really describe the tone of that video
as like righteous, righteous anger, like very I don't know,
like yeah, it lit a fire in me, and I
do think that there's something about seeing a video like
that right now, where every day I am seeing content
that enrages me and it's easy to sort of get
(03:53):
numb to it, but something about your video really broke through.
So what was going through your mind? And when you
first saw this news about the signal chat?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Oh, I was big mad, Like I It was the
kind of mad where I feel like all thoughts left
my head entirely and it was just left with this
like buzzing noise.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
You know, a lot of the content that I post
online there is at least some amount of like forethought
to it. This was not one of those times. I
literally just got my phone started recording and immediately was
just honestly practically screaming into my phone, definitely yelling, almost
to the level of screaming, and just honestly it was
(04:44):
I just I was so mad. I had to get
it out there. And I knew that this is one
of those topics that the people in power get away
with this shit, specifically because they know the people most impacted.
Active duty service members literally cannot say anything publicly, and
(05:04):
so the overwhelming majority of Americans have no way of
connecting emotionally with the topic. And so you know, most democrats,
most leftists can look at the story and be like, yeah,
logically this is bad, but they can't feel the emotion
(05:24):
of how scary it is, how infuriating it is. And
I think it's really important for people to connect to
the emotions of it. I think that's one of our
biggest flaws on the left is that we get like
really absorbed into the like facts and we're going to
fact check you to death and somehow if we just
(05:45):
tell you enough facts, you're going to be on our side.
And that's just not how humans work. So yeah, I
try to show up emotionally in most of my content,
but especially when I'm talking about a subject that I
know most people just have no I mean most people
not only haven't served, they don't have a loved one
(06:09):
that like a close immediate loved one that has served.
And so there's just there's no way to connect to that.
And we live in a society where media has depicted
military service as this like romantic you know, oh, it's
(06:29):
the sacrifice and everyone that does it is so ready
to lay down their lives and just oh, and the
reality is like most of the people in the military
are just poor people that needed a path out of
poverty or out of whatever rural hellhole they were born in,
(06:51):
and like they just want to do their job and
go home at the end of the day. They're just
normal people.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I think even for people on the left, like I said,
it can just be really hard to connect to it emotionally.
So there have been times where I've recorded rants where
I haven't posted but because you know, I'll watch it
back and I'll be like, ooh, okay, I was a
little too far on that one. I need to like
bring it down a few notts. But this was not
one of those times.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Kendall's righteous anger struck a chord. Her video rapped up
over three million views and sparked headlines across the country
like military wife rips, hegsas for risking husband's life and
viral video.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
So I just went ahead and I was like, let's
do it. So I just went ahead and posted it.
And I genuinely I was expecting there to be people
that were angry about it. I wasn't expecting there to
be as much of a positive response to it that
there was. What was the response like, so on Twitter,
(07:59):
it was basically just immediately launched into like a week
and a half of thousands of people calling me fat essentially,
like that was the primary response is oh, well, you're
a fat bitch essentially, And then Instagram was a little
bit of both. I just got to the point where
(08:23):
I started oscillating back and forth between I'm not gonna
look at any of the comments, screw them. I said
what I said, and I'm just whatever. They can have
their feelings and I don't have to listen to them,
to then oscillating back to no, you know what, I
am going to read the comments and I'm going to
go in and I'm going to be mean back to
them because none of these motherfuckers know how to make
(08:43):
a funny insult. So I really for the first week
that's mostly what I was doing, just because it was
fun to me. And then weirdly on Instagram was first
of all, Instagram was like right in the middle in
terms of how people respond to it. But that was
also where I started hearing from a ton of military spouses,
(09:06):
a ton of active duty service members reaching out to
me and being like, oh my god, thank you, Like
we can't say this or we didn't know how to
say this, And so once I started getting those messages,
I didn't give a shit what they were saying on
Twitter at that point because like the people that responded
by telling me how repulsive they thought, I was, like,
(09:27):
they clearly have no idea what it's like for military families,
So who gives a shit about their opinions when the
actual military families are reaching out to me and saying
that they're grateful.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Military families cannot always be as outspoken as Kendall is,
but sometimes they are. Take what happened Back in February,
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a series of hardline changes,
banning trans people from joining the military, halting gender reforming
care for service members, and restricting certain books of the
Department of Defense schools. Soon after, during a what is
(10:00):
It to a US military base in Germany, he was
met with unexpected pushback. About two dozen military families, mostly
young people, gathered to make their voices heard. They booed, heckled,
and even chanted d Ei d ei, you know, basically
saying you, Pete Hegseth, are the dei higher? You know?
(10:21):
It has to be a real specific kind of dynamic
where if you are a service member or somebody close
to a service member, you can't always say your opinion
about things or you know, even if you are not
a service member yourself, if you're close to one that
comes with its own kind of baggage, that might be
very silencing. So in ways, do you feel like you're
(10:42):
able to sort of be the person who you know
explains the emotionality behind this situation for folks who sometimes
really can't.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, I think so. But I'm also honestly, I'm really
inspired by a So even like a lot of people
have been saying, like, oh, what you said, being willing
to say that and like take that risk is really brave,
But I was actually inspired by the bravery of there
(11:11):
was a group of middle school age kids who have
a parent that is active duty military and is stationed
in I want to say, it's Stuttered, Germany. It's one
of the German bases. And right at the very beginning
of like right after Pete Hegseth had been confirmed, he
(11:34):
went to this military base and not only was he
met by a couple a dozen active duty military families,
like when he was getting off the plane, they were
standing there protesting him and yelling at him about how
he has been attacking the concept of DEI. But also
(11:54):
when he visited the middle school that's on base, the
there was like a fifth grader that led a walkout
of all of the students in response to him.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It's impressive, for sure, but not without risk for service
members and their families. Speaking your mind comes at a
high cost.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I don't think people understand how big of a risk
you're taking as a military family member, especially when you're deployed,
when you're stationed overseas, because anything that you do on
base is held against your sponsors, so your active duty
service member. I have seen families get kicked off of
(12:38):
bite base housing entirely because of something their kid did. So, like,
you know, where I'm where we live, there was a kid.
Usually it's like, you know, shitty teenagers being shitty teenagers
and like vandalizing something, and if they figure out who
did it, that whole family has to move off of
base housing. So like it is very very serious. So
(13:00):
the fact that these kids were brave enough to do
that knowing that, like, the stakes are even higher when
you're at a base overseas because if you get kicked
out out of base housing on an overseas base, where
the fuck are you going to live? You know, and
we already know that these this is an administration that
(13:23):
is willing to strand people overseas, like they did to
a bunch of the US AID employees that were stationed overseas,
and then they were just like, well, not only are
we eliminating your job, We're also not going to pay
to fly you back, so have fun figuring out how
to get home from Sudan or wherever. So it was
(13:43):
a huge risk that they took, and so I was
very inspired by them, and I recognize that I'm in
a very fortunate spot this like weird intersection of you know,
I work in communications, so I have the ability to
(14:05):
put together an argument at a level that maybe not
a lot of people have been trained to be able
to do. I also, because I work in comms and
because I work in politics, I have from the very
beginning kept my digital online footprint separate from my husband,
so like, I don't have to worry about, oh God,
(14:28):
if I say something now, I have ten years of
posting about him constantly that they could connect me to.
And I'm really lucky that I have a partner that
is like, yeah, girl, go get them. You know, like
he understands that my career and my activism is really
(14:49):
important to me, and as long as I'm not just
blatantly setting out to ruin his career, he is very
accepting of the fact that, like, this is a calculated
risk that I am taking. So yeah, all that together,
I think just put me in a very fortunate spot
where I could be that mouthpiece to try and put
(15:13):
it in people's face. And yeah, as long as I'm
in this position and I can do that, I'm going
to continue to do that because I think the military
industrial complex has gotten away with a lot for a
really long time, and a huge part of that is
because the people with the most knowledge and ability to
(15:36):
push back on it are also the people who were
most often silenced.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
That silencing that you spoke to is so real for
so many issues, and I think the powers that be
kind of depend on the people who are closest to
the harm, who can speak to the harm most clearly
and saliently also being silent, and then the people who
can speak up fully. Putting myself in this camp are
some times really only able to do so from this
(16:02):
incredibly heady or logistical place, but they're speaking about something
that is deeply human and emotional at its core. Why
do you think it's so easy to sort of skip
over the human emotionality of these stories in favor of
things like facts and figures.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
That's a really good question. I think it's probably a
couple of factors, because it's certainly not just like the
things impacting military service members that we do that too, right, Like,
just look at like the entire conversation about Gaza, right Like,
we get really focused because it's we can't understand what
(16:37):
it's like to be living there. We can't, like, I
have no way of even trying to put myself into
that position. So it's just I think it's partially that
it's an easier leap in people's brains. I also think
that again, it is partially just a democratic and leftist
(17:01):
impulse that we always jump to the facts of the
case and the logistics, like we want to know everything,
and we're just if we can just get you to
see that you're being hypocrites, we can finally get you
to stop. So I think that's partially it. And I
also think that there's some element to it that is
(17:23):
the American people, I think have been groomed to do
that somewhat like it's beneficial to the Trump administration if
we skip over the emotion of it, because it's a
lot easier for the Press Secretary for the White House
to get up there and be snide and dismissive and
like mocking of reporters when they ask questions related to
(17:46):
the logistics. It's a lot harder for her to be
dismissive and snide if the emotion of it is put
in their face. And yeah, so I think the the
Trump administration wants us to do that. They've been grooming
us to do that. I also think that the media
(18:07):
is kind of complicit in it because when you have
a media that is so overwhelmingly a certain type of person,
a certain socioeconomic status of person, like, they can only
convey the emotion of the experiences that they understand themselves.
(18:27):
And there aren't a lot of service members or military
spouses that go on to become reporters, and so it's
just most of the media doesn't have the ability to
write about it in the same way that like most
of the media has no idea about how to write
about the emotion of Gaza or the emotion of being
(18:51):
an undocumented immigrant, and so they don't, and so we
get further groomed into not thinking about it or carrying
about it.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Let's take a quick break at our back. The invasion
of Iraq was my political awakening as a young person.
My favorite cousin had enlisted a few years earlier, and
(19:25):
when President Bush announced that we were going to war,
I honestly thought we had to stop it so that
he wouldn't be deployed. Eventually, he was deployed, but this
was also the beginning of my time online. I was
on message boards looking for protests, trying to find folks
who were organizing. Now these days, everybody says they were
against the Iraq war, but that's not how I remember it.
(19:46):
What I remember is that if you were anti war
like I was, people would say, oh, so you don't
support the troops. Support our troops kind of became this
slogan that basically meant you could not criticize US military
policy because if you did, you were somehow against the
very people risking their lives. That was two thousand and three. Today,
it feels like things have really changed. I feel like
(20:09):
there was a time, especially for the Republican Party, where
the troops were these like exalted people that you had
to support the troops. You could not question the troops,
just like you were saying this like massive hero narrative
that these are people who are risking their lives and
we have to do everything to support them, including not
questioning what the government is doing with regards to service members.
And today seeing Republican leaders be so flippant about those
(20:33):
very same service members when dismissing the fact that they
needlessly endangered their lives with signal gad that just a
few years ago we were saying were the most important
people that you had to support the troops, It just
really makes clear that maybe they didn't really give that
much of a shit about service members and their families.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, there's actually a specific moment in our history as
a country that I would point to as being the
moment where that shift started to happen, and it was
during a Republican primary debate for the presidential race in
(21:09):
two thousand and eight, somewhere around there. If anybody wants
to watch what I'm talking about, it's literally featured in
an episode. This is embarrassing to site, but it's also
featured in an episode of the Newsroom. So there's a
moment where they are, you know, they have questions that
are being asked by general like normal people, and they
(21:30):
have a soldier who is currently he was stationed, he
was deployed to either Afghanistan or Iraq like as he
was asking this question, they were video videoing him in
and he says, because this is when don't ask, don't
tell was still a thing, and so he says, you know,
I am a gay service member and all I want
(21:54):
to do is serve my country. Like I this is
very important to me. I want to continue to serve.
I want to continue to put my life on the line.
And of course this is when there was like active war,
so putting your life on the line like really had
weight to it at the moment at that time. And
you know, I want to know, are there any anyone
(22:17):
on this stage, any candidate that would be willing to
do away with don't ask, don't tell so that service
members like me don't have to hide who I am
in order to serve my country. And not a single
person on that stage responded with any empathy towards him
(22:38):
with any respect for his service, and the overwhelming majority
of the audience booed him.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
In twenty ten, when I was deployed to Iraq, I
had to lie about who I was because I'm a
gay soldier and I didn't want to lose my job.
My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you
intend to circumvent the progress that's been made for gay
and lesbian soldiers in the military.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Before he had even finished asking this question, the audience
was booing him. And I genuinely think that's the moment
when it started to shift. And I think that a
huge part of that shift is because the Republican Party
only wanted to focus on the emotional side of things
when they could be assured that military service members and
(23:28):
their families were a silent audience that they could tokenize
without any risk of them pushing back in the same
way that the Conservative Party still tokenize it, like talks
about like, oh, the unborn babies, and this is why
we're so you know, because they know unborn babies, like
literal zygotes cannot speak up and be like, hey, actually,
(23:51):
we do support women's right to choose, so uh, I
think that was part of it once they realized that,
like at any moment, if we invoke the military and
try to romanticize their service, somebody in that audience could
stand up and be like, you, motherfucker, how dare you
(24:13):
invoke our service when you are sending us to die?
You know, just like the guy that threw his shoes
at at George W. Bush. And that's why, you know.
In addition to my original signal Gate video I had,
I recorded myself when I called and talked to Senator
Mark Wayne Mullen's office since he's my senator, Kendall recorded
(24:38):
herself calling her Oklahoma Senator, Senator Mullens, and let's just
say her anger comes through loud and clear. Quick heads up,
there is a lot of strong language and what you're
about to hear. And so help me, God, if I
have to quit my fucking job to make sure that
I can drive to every fucking campaign and public event
that the senator has for the rest of his career,
(25:00):
I will make it my life's work to destroy his
career by making sure that every fucking Oklahoma knows how
few fucks he gave about my husband's life and the
lives of other active duty service members, But I do
want to make it very clear, and I hope that
you will take down this message and relay it to
the Senator to help encourage him to actually be a
(25:21):
man and make sure that I get a call set
up when I reach out to this scheduler. I want
you to let him know that if he doesn't reach
out to me, I'm recording every single time that I
have called his office and left a voicemailt or spoke
to an intern like you. I am recording all of
those and if I don't hear back from him, I
will be sending them to every possible newsroom, both in
(25:42):
Oklahoma and nationally, to let them know that the Senator
is too much of a coward to call back the
wife of one of the service members in his constituency
that was put at risk. And so help me God,
if I have to quit my fucking job to make
sure that I can drive to every fucking campaign and
public event that the Senator has for the rest of
(26:04):
his career, I will make it my life's work to
destroy his career by making sure that every fucking Oklahoma
knows how few fucks he gave about my husband's life.
And the lives of other active duty service members. If
I'd known that video was gonna go viral side note,
(26:25):
I would have cursed significantly less. I'm a little embarrassed
that I cursed this much on the phone to a
US senator's office, but I straight up said, like, I
don't care. If I have to quit my job and
make it my life's work to destroy Senator Mullen's career,
(26:45):
I will do it. I will drive to every fucking
campaign event he has for the rest of his life
and be in the audience and be there to remind
people of how few shits he gave about my husband's
life and about the lives of other service members.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And I.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Want not even just Republicans, I want all politicians to
have that fear at all times. I want them to
know at any moment if you tokenize someone, whether it's
over their military service, or do you're tokenizing DOCCA recipients
or whatever it is, I want them to know, at
any moment, someone could stand up in the audience and
(27:27):
remind everyone at your event of the actual humans behind
what you are talking about. And I think if we
could get politicians to feel that fear again on every topic.
I think politics in our country would look a lot different.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yes, make politicians afraid again. And this is why I
love your content, because, as you say on your TikTok,
you're telling the stories of men in power and reminding
you not to respect them, and showing people but the
layers of ways that they have screwed people that they
supposedly say they care about. They've not upheld, you know,
(28:08):
anything looking like accountability to the people that they have
been elected to serve. I don't know, I really appreciate
that about your content, that it's like about shifting our
understanding of like who works for who, who should be
afraid of who? I think that's the magic of the internet,
you know, Like, think about how many videos we've seen
over the years of constituents trying to confront their elected
(28:30):
official in Congress on any topic, whether it's military, health care, whatever,
and almost without fail, those clips end with that member
of Congress getting into the congressional member only elevator and
then the doors slowly sliding shut in front of their
face and protecting them from actually having to have that
(28:54):
hard conversation with their constituent. And I think the magic
of the Internet is that it can it can knock
those sliding elevator doors down. They can't run from their
constituents in the same way that they can in real life.
And obviously, you know, there's there's other ways that they
(29:17):
can dodge that. When it's the Internet, right, they can
just pretend that they don't see it or whatever.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
But I think that's where I'm trying to utilize my
content to prevent them from even being able to do that.
Like Mark Wayne Mullen cannot fucking pretend that he has
not seen my videos. And I know he can't pretend
that because there have been national reporters that have called
his office and asked him for comment on them. There's
(29:46):
not a chance in hell that man has not seen
every video I have ever made about him. And I
just I if I could that like snap my fingers
and have any wish come true. I would love to
(30:06):
be able to like dedicate significant portions of my time
and of my life to being able to train other
people on how to do what I'm doing right now.
Like I I don't want to be the one person
that's like seeing as like ooh, she's doing this thing,
you know, Like I want there to be so many
people doing the same exact thing that no one ever
(30:30):
again thinks that like what I'm doing is special or remarkable.
Like I if I could completely drive myself out of
a job as a content creator by getting enough people
other people to be doing the same thing, I would
because I really think that the internet is our best
(30:50):
shot at holding these cowards accountable.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into
it rather than just preaching to acquire. Kendall has an
entire series on how to talk the conservatives In a
digital climate that often prioritizes dunks and clapbacks. Kendall's taking
(31:21):
a different approach, using the Internet to have the kinds
of conversation that might actually change hearts and minds. It's
not about giving someone like me a quick dopamine fix
or a smug sense of superiority for her. It's about connection, persuasion,
and doing the harder work of actually reaching across divides.
I feel like you're able to occupy this very specific
(31:42):
lane where you're able to speak to people that might
not be there yet and train other people on how
they can do the same. Is that intentional with your
sort of content strategy here?
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yes, very much. So so, First of all, okay.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
So this gets.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Dangerously close to a topic that I could rant about
four hours. Uh, but I think genuinely one of the
most destructive things that has happened in content creation writ
large over the last several years, and one of the
most destructive things that TikTok specifically has groomed people into doing,
(32:20):
is is viewing political content as solely through the lens
of those like clap back videos that lots of people do,
right Like, I'm gonna find a conservative doing the dumbest
fucking video I can, and then I'm gonna take it,
and I'm gonna respond to them. I'm gonna be smug
(32:41):
and snide, and I'm gonna tell you why they are
the dumbest piece of shit ever. And then I'm gonna
get one hundred thousand likes on it. I'm gonna make
thousands of dollars. But have I moved the needle in
any way on any issue? No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
So I have to tell you this comes up on
the show like this, I am right there with you.
I feel like that kind of content has made our
entire discourse, especially online, so much worse. It's so harmful
and The thing that gets me about it is that
like it is so like it's like when you eat
(33:17):
a bunch of McDonald's and it tastes so good and
then it's so empty in the end, like it is
so hollow and shallow, but it's so like it scratches
an itch I wish I didn't have. And I think
I'm seeing the results of that writ large on our
on our social media discourse. Do you know what I mean? Like,
I'll just say yes, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, yeah, I mean. And that's the thing, like, when
I say this about this content, I am not in
any way judging people that consume that content, because hell,
I consume that content. There are times where I really
enjoy that content, you know, especially when we're in a
society where it can feel like you are just like
screaming into a void and being like how are not?
(34:00):
How are there so many people that think this is
normal in any way? So like watching somebody get put
in their place can feel satisfying, but first of all,
those people are not getting put in their place. Most
of the people being featured in those videos are thrilled
when they get featured in a leftist clapback video, because
(34:21):
all it does is drive up their engagement. These are
just dollar Tree brand, like store brand Tommy laurens in
the same way that Tommy Lauren used to intentionally piss
people off in order to increase her stardom. At least
she was like actually trying to reach, like you know,
(34:44):
actually being on television. These people are settling for like
I just want to get ten thousand views on my
TikTok video and make one hundred dollars off of it.
But like it's the same general process, right, and like
they just the two sides feed off of one another,
(35:04):
and it's just this like circular. I mean, it's honestly,
it's just and a digital and political human centipede. They're
just regurgitating the same shit into each other's mouth over
and over and over again. Like not to be too graphic,
but like that's what's happening.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
And so.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Not only does that content not move the needle, I
genuinely believe it pushes us further apart. It like increases
the divide, and then politicians respond to that widening divide
by panicking and being like, oh, well, now we have
to compromise on our values. So that we can like
(35:48):
chase after that other side that's moving further away from us.
And then you know, that's how you get politicians like
John Fetterman just out there calling himself the Democrat and
doing all the Republican things. And like, I genuinely believe,
we don't have to compromise on any of our values.
We just have to figure out how to talk about
(36:08):
our values in a way that appeals to a conservative
morality system. And so that's what I'm now focusing a
lot of my content on doing, is trying to help
people learn that. Like you know, I use the moral
foundation theory that Jonathan Hate came up with, where he said, like,
(36:30):
there's six different foundational blocks that people build their morality
off of, and people on the left tend to focus
on two of those six, people on the right tend
to focus on three of the six, and then the
sixth one both sides like. And so I think the
biggest issue we have with leftist messaging right now is
(36:51):
we're talking about these values in a way that appeals
to our morality system, not theirs. And we can talk
about it in a way that appeals to I mean,
like for example, immigration, like we're talking about it from
the perspective of, like this, you know, you have to
be fair. It is like horrific and unfair to think
(37:13):
about deporting a DACA recipient to a country that they
have never called home. They might not even speak about
the speak that language, you know. All and all of
that's true. All of that's true, And in a perfect world,
at least in my opinion, that would be enough to
convince people. But the reality is we don't live in
a perfect world, and there's fifty percent of the country
(37:34):
that doesn't give a shit that it's not fair. But
if we can talk about it from the perspective of
what that DACA recipient means to our country, like, you know,
they're big into patriotism, And if we can talk about
immigration from the perspective of, like, we are this incredible
nation that is welcoming these people in, Like these are
(37:56):
people that believe in our wors of life so strongly
that they just want to be a part of it,
you know, And if we can talk about those values
in that way, then we can actually start to like
narrow that divide a little bit and hopefully win some
(38:18):
of those people over, because unfortunately, talking at them endlessly
from our perspective, and especially creating videos where we're making
fun of them and like you know, making money off
of being snigged towards them. That's not going to pull
(38:38):
them in. That is not going to get them to
change their mind on anything.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Okay, if you're like me, this might be the moment
where you're thinking, why is it on me to change
these people's minds? Kendall gets that, she really does.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I understand the criticism that probably a lot of people
would have for my strategy by saying, like, you know,
these are people that have been super bigoted. They've been
so racist, they've been so homophobic and transphobic and all
of the phobics, Like I don't want to have to
be nice to them. I don't want to have to
(39:13):
do that labor. And I think that's totally fair for
people to say, particularly more than any other group of people.
I think black women one hundred percent get to say, like,
you know what, motherfuckers, the ninety two percent is tired,
so like, you do your jobs, We're gonna be doing
our thing. Fuck you. So like, I get that, But
(39:35):
any person on the left that has a skin tone
like mine, absolutely the fuck not like you don't get
to do what is fun or easy. Right now. We
have work to do to repair the shit that we
stood by as it got broken. And so I just
I want more people to start looking at their content.
(39:58):
More content creators and articulars start looking at their content
from the perspective of what impact is this actually having
beyond the check that I get from TikTok on the
fifteenth of every month. And I'm really really worried about
what's going to happen if more content creators don't start
(40:18):
doing that, because I get why they don't write like
my content where I'm talking about here's how to talk
to a conservative about universal healthcare or immigration or whatever.
It doesn't perform anywhere nearly as well as you know,
these clapback videos. It also doesn't perform nearly as well
(40:40):
as like my emotional videos that have gone viral. And so,
to use your metaphor of the McDonald's right, you eat
it and you don't feel satisfied. It is a little
bit of a chicken and egg situation where it's like, Okay,
we can keep telling these content creators to create more
(41:02):
useful content. We can keep telling McDonald's you need to
sell more vegetables. But if people keep going into McDonald's
and only buying the French fries, eventually McDonald's is gonna
be like, we can't do like you motherfucker said you
wanted vegetables, and then none of you bought vegetables, and
so we're going back to just selling French fries. And
(41:22):
I think that there is a responsibility on the side
of people who are consuming content to start really trying
to work against our own impulses that we've been groomed
to have to where like you know, hell, I have ADHD.
Anytime I see like a ten minute long video on TikTok,
(41:43):
I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
God, why are you left a minute? Shut up?
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Can you not tell me in like forty five seconds?
Come on, guys. But like, I'm really trying to fight
that impulse more often now because I recognize is if
I just scroll on I'm doing I'm being the person
standing outside of McDonald's yelling at them for not selling
me vegetables when I wasn't buying vegetables. And so I
(42:12):
think it has to be an effort on both sides
of the process, both the creation and the consumption and
I think if we don't fix it, uh, I don't
know where we'll be in a few years in our
country because right now the right is kicking our ass
(42:33):
online and we have to figure out a way to
fix it.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I've had a personal sort of quandary, you know, after
Trump was elected. I was really getting a lot of
shot in freud I say that word wrong from like
oh no, like I never thought the leopard was gonna
eat my faith and something about that those that content
was like clearly feeling a need for me. And then
(42:58):
someone was like, you know, you know, so I live
in DC, and when all when when federal workers were
all being fired and like targeted, people were saying like, oh,
a lot of those federal workers were Trump voters, and
so they're you know, they're getting what they asked for.
Maybe they didn't think it was going to be them.
And someone was like, you know, we kind of need
these people. Like if the people who are speaking up
and being like dang, I feel like I got, you know,
(43:19):
taken for a ride by Trump, somebody that I put
my faith in and my trusted and he turned on me.
I understand. Nobody understands the impulse to laugh at those
people more than me, and I'm sad to say that
I have, But at a certain point, don't we want
people who are able to see that they made a
mistake and are able to call out that like they
they were misled. I feel angry that these people abdicated
(43:43):
their responsibility to put effort into who they voted for
and be a thoughtful consumer of you know, American democracy,
but sort of just stroking my rage boner when when
they speak up about it isn't getting us anywhere? Don't
we kind of like like, isn't it sort of what
we want for them to be talking about, Like, oh, yeah,
I'm miss I was mislied. I got it wrong, right, yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Well, And the weird thing is is, honestly, I hate
to break it to other people on the left, we're
not always great at guessing which people were Trump supporters.
I can't even tell you how many leftists I've had
come into my comments, especially on Instagram and be like, well,
you got what you wanted, you got what you voted for,
(44:28):
so fuck you, And I'm like, uh, my friend, I
not only voted for Kamala Harris, I literally worked for
her campaign. I could not have been more kammala hair,
like pro kamala in this election cycle if I tried, right,
But like all they see is you're talking about the military.
You're married to somebody in the military, obviously you must
(44:50):
be on the right, And like that's bad because like
if you're being like if you're pushing me away as
somebody that's like dedicating my life to trying to win
things for our side of the aisle, how are people
that are actually on the right that are like conceding
that they messed up. How are they going to respond
(45:10):
to those kind of comments. You're only going to push
him back into the cult. But I will also say
I do understand like the need for that, Like I
can't even tell you how many Francesca Ramsey videos I've
watched of her with her ukulele singing about the leopards
eating their face. And so I get it, and I
(45:31):
think we can still have that content. It's just a
matter of making sure it's targeting the people that actually
deserve it and that aren't just everyday people. So like
I will watch every possible video of Dave Portnoy being
sad about losing twenty million dollars, Like, fuck that guy.
(45:54):
Fuck you, Dave Fortnoy, Like I don't feel sorry for him.
He deserves it, and like everyone should laugh at him
in the same way that like, there is not a
song in the world that you could set that video
of Richard Spencer getting punched in the head too, that
I wouldn't stop and watch it, like four times in
a row, every time forever, my favorite video. Like, but
(46:17):
there's a difference between Dave Portnoy and Richard Spencer and
like random single mom of three working, you know, as
an assistant manager at a rash dress for less and
living in a prefab trailer park. You know, like she
doesn't need to be mocked because ultimately she got tricked,
(46:42):
she got hoodwinked. That does not excuse whatever horrible shit
she has said or even continues to say to other
people online, particularly marginalized communities. But if she is coming
out and saying, hey, I screwed up. I realized I
(47:02):
screwed up when I went to get my groceries and
I found out my food stamps got cut off or whatever, Like,
we can have discussions with her later about her other
problematic shit that she's doing. But when she first says, hey, guys,
I think we screwed up. I think our response should
(47:23):
be yes, please welcome, welcome to our side. Now, how
can we help you go convince ten of your friends
that they also screwed up. Because it's not just about
making sure we don't push her back into the cult.
It's about recognizing that the people that are in her
(47:43):
life are going to listen to her all day long
and like, take that that is going to mean more
to them than you could show them every single video
I have ever made, and it's not going to convince
them as much as her talking to them. And so
we need to stop pushing people back into the cult,
(48:03):
and we need to start giving them the tools necessary
and empowering them to start being the pipeline out of
that for the people in their life. Like, there's a
reason why the alt right pipeline is so attractive to people.
It's because it's easy to go down and everyone's nice
(48:27):
to you along the way, and everyone like tells you
how smart you are for like getting into the pipeline
in the first place. So, like, we need to start
building the pipeline going the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
As someone who is so good at putting your opinions
out of the world using social media, even when there's
(49:03):
this like chilling effect to do so, even when you're like,
you know, dog biled for doing so. What keeps you
doing it? Like, what keeps you logging on and continuing
to put your ideas out there?
Speaker 1 (49:16):
I mean, part of it is Okay, this is going
to sound really weird, but I weirdly think having depression
has made it a lot easier to do this and
survive it, because I know I am at the end
of the day if I have to lay down and
(49:36):
close my eyes and go to sleep, and my options
are either I'm going to be thinking about the fact
that I said nothing, I did nothing, are were Our
democracy is sliding further into fascism. More people are being hurt,
more innocent people are being deported to an ill Salvadorian
concentration camp. Because I said nothing. That is a lot
(50:01):
harder for me to live with than if I do
say stuff. And when I lay down at night and
I close my eyes, the last thing that I'm thinking
about is how you know Steve zero four seven five
six on Twitter thinks that I'm a fat bitch like
I will sleep soundly knowing that Steve thinks I'm a
(50:22):
fat bitch. I will not sleep soundly knowing that I
did nothing and I said nothing and things got worse.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
When you go to sleep at night, what will prevent
you from getting a good night's sleep? And it's not
like writhing up shithead Steve zero five five six on Twitter.
It's actually doing something, saying something, speaking up.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Yeah. And on top of that, you know, like just
as a little added bonus for myself, Like you know,
as I'm doing this content, like the main videos that's
for everyone, the part I'm doing for me is when
I'm responding to those insults and being funnier than they
could ever possibly. That's the part that's just for me.
(51:06):
That's my little treat. And so the fact that I
get to go to sleep at night knowing that I
did something, I said something, and yeah, Steve thinks I'm
a fat bitch. But also Steve's going to sleep tonight
knowing that I made a very funny joke about his
bald spot and that's gonna eat at him. That's the like, Oh,
(51:28):
I sleep very well when I get to note because like,
oh my god, I the I think the thing that
blew my mind the most this entire experience has been
you know, tens of thousands of insults later, not a
single one of them has been funny. No, I'm a
deeply insultable person. I mean, Jesus Christ, I cut my
(51:52):
own bangs, y'all. My bangs look like shit. One hundred
percent of the time. They are uneven, and like you
could make a hundred jokes about that. That would be
so much funnier than just calling me a cow. So
I just, in the same way that I want the
(52:14):
left to get better at talking about our values and
winning people over, I just want conservatives to get funnier,
because Jesus Christ, if I'm gonna have to interact with you,
I at least want it to be funny. And I
can take a good insult as long as it's funny.
So please please just learn from me, develop the ability
(52:34):
to insult someone in a way that's funny.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Step your game up, Steve zero five six y four
on Twitter. Or if they really wanted to be smart,
they could hire you as a digital strategist. You would
write for them, The money you would go right into
your pocket, and then the insults would improve. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
I mean, I've thought about creating a TikTok series that's
like comedy one oh one for conservatives, because, like I mean,
it's it's not even their fault. Like when the best
example of conservative comedy that you have is like Stephen
Crowder and Greg Guttfeld, No, what if you're not funny?
Come on Jesus. So they're just regurgitating the things that
(53:15):
those two say, and it's like it wasn't funny when
they said it, it's extra not funny when y'all are
repeating it. So, just conservatives, if you're listening to this, please,
for the love of God, just please, please get better
at comedy. Speaking from the perspective of someone that's not
(53:36):
only a content creator but is also a digital strategist,
I think one of the things that the right did
during this last election cycle that the left did not
did not do enough of, and also did not do
nearly as well as the right is having a strategy
(54:03):
where non political content creators were getting content out to
their audiences about politics, whether that was them talking about
themselves or them just quietly reposting stuff from other people.
And I think that we need to accept the party
(54:32):
as a whole needs to accept. But also, like anyone
that cares about the direction of our country needs to accept,
there are only so many people who are going to
willingly watch explicitly political content. The reality is the majority
of people do not give a shit about political content,
will never watch it. And I think simultaneously, while yes
(54:59):
the part that the piece of the puzzle that I
am doing, I think is very important in training people
to talk to conservatives, I think equally important is empowering
content creators in radically different spaces, whether it's true crime
or makeup tutorials or muck bangs or whatever. I think
(55:21):
that the obstacles that we are facing are monumental enough
that just getting political content creators to do the right
thing and to say the right things and like, do
our part is not going to be enough. So if
you are a content creator of any type at all,
(55:45):
I would very much encourage you to try and figure
out what is the piece of this puzzle that I
can be playing. It doesn't have to look like creating
political content. And I would be happy if there's any
content creator that hears this, that wants to do that
and isn't sure how to please reach out to me,
I will help you figure out a way. And oh
(56:06):
my god, if you work for any political campaign on
the left at all, please make that a part of
your strategy. And if you need help figuring out how
to make that a part of your strategy, please reach
out to me, because, like I mean, as stupid as
it was, Trump's strategy of talking to like Aiden Ross
(56:29):
and the Pool Brothers and all of that, that was
a hugely influential into his win and we have to
do that or we are going to keep losing.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
So I can't tell you how many people that I've
interviewed from all different spectrums of like content or digital strategy,
who are all saying the left needs to be making
huge investments with content creators podcasters. I firmly like I
mean this, like literally, I think we have Trump in
office again because of podcasters. I think that podcasters shifted
(57:02):
the landscape of our political fabric and we need to
just like understand that and get on board. It's not
too late, but we have a lot of ground to
make up for, and now it's the time.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
Yes, oh yeah, we coasted for so long and this
is not even the only time that we've done this,
Like I mean, I've been doing digital strategy for long enough,
and I know you were also around and seeing this,
Like when digital first became a thing. Ooh, we were like,
we were confident. We were like, the Republicans are never
going to catch up with us. We are so much
(57:33):
better at the Internet than they are.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Oh, what a time to be alive.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
That was a great feeling. But it was not an
impulse that we should have listened to, because oh no,
we were so confident that we were at the front
of the pack that we just slowed down to a
leisurely stroll and they just ran right past us and
(57:57):
we caught up. And then the same thing is happening
now with like podcasts and things like that. So yeah,
I think you are right about podcasts. We have to
we just have to stop congratulating ourselves on how good
we are at certain things and start focusing on getting
better at the stuff that they are clearly kicking our
ass on.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi. You can reach us at
Hello at tangody 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 Toad.
It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(58:45):
bridget Toad. 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 1 (59:00):
Long They Well, Meppen, O Love and Well Lippen
The Internet is our best shot at holding these cowards accountable.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
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. Remember Signal Gate.
It's been a minute and a lot has happened. So
here's a quick refresher. The President's national security team got
(00:32):
caught using Signal, a private messaging app, to discuss sensitive
military operations, top tier secret stuff that should only really
be discussed on the Pentagon's ultra secure, billion dollar communication systems.
But instead of following protocol, Vice President j d Vance,
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseach, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz,
(00:53):
and others were chatting on Signal. Now, I want to
be clear, Signal the app did nothing wrong. We're huge
fans of the Signal app here at there are no
girls on the Internet. It's run by a nonprofit led
by Meredith Whittaker, who I deeply admire. This was user error,
plain and simple. So how did we even find out? Well,
it wasn't through a leak or a hack or a whistleblower. No, no,
(01:15):
no, no no. Someone accidentally added the editor in chief of
The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group chat, I have
to be honest. It's the kind of fat fingered mistake
I find kind of relatable personally, but I am not
handling national security. And it gets worse. After the scandal,
Waltz was photographed using an unofficial signal knockoff called TM signal,
(01:39):
made by a company called Telemessage, which was recently bought
by I kid you not a company called smarsh That's
a name that definitely inspires confidence. Now, unlike Signal, TM
signal stores messages on central servers insecurely, kind of the
opposite of signals. Whole thing. Since this story broke, hackers
(01:59):
have breached the servers multiple times. One hacker told four
l four media that Telebassage had not bothered to implement
basic digital security of practices, and that's the whole thing,
always with about fifteen minutes to break into. Now, this
is not just political drama. It's about real lives, like
those of America's three million service members, people like the
(02:20):
husband of my friend Kendall Brown, a digital strategist and
content creator. Service members can't always speak out, but Kendall can.
She makes it her business to use the Internet to
speak up for service members like her husband.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Weirdly, he in some ways I think he lives vicariously
through me online, that I'm able to say all of
this shit and he cannot. So I think in some
way like I've never made a video related to the
military without running it by him first, and I have
yet to make one that he doesn't agree with, So
(03:00):
in some ways I feel like I'm being his mouth
for him.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Beyond the logistics of what happened with Signal Gate, Kendall's
reaction went deeper. She was pissed off. Here's a little
of what Kendall had to say in her now viral
TikTok about Signal Gate.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
As someone whose husband is currently deployed in the Middle East,
not far from Yemen, I'm gonna warn you now this
is going to be the angriest fucking video I have
ever made in my entire life, because there are not
adequate words in the English language for me to fully
fucking communicate to you right now, how fucking furious I am.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I can only really describe the tone of that video
as like righteous, righteous anger, like very I don't know,
like yeah, it lit a fire in me, and I
do think that there's something about seeing a video like
that right now, where every day I am seeing content
that enrages me and it's easy to sort of get
(03:53):
numb to it, but something about your video really broke through.
So what was going through your mind? And when you
first saw this news about the signal chat?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Oh, I was big mad, Like I It was the
kind of mad where I feel like all thoughts left
my head entirely and it was just left with this
like buzzing noise.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
It was.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
You know, a lot of the content that I post
online there is at least some amount of like forethought
to it. This was not one of those times. I
literally just got my phone started recording and immediately was
just honestly practically screaming into my phone, definitely yelling, almost
to the level of screaming, and just honestly it was
(04:44):
I just I was so mad. I had to get
it out there. And I knew that this is one
of those topics that the people in power get away
with this shit, specifically because they know the people most impacted.
Active duty service members literally cannot say anything publicly, and
(05:04):
so the overwhelming majority of Americans have no way of
connecting emotionally with the topic. And so you know, most democrats,
most leftists can look at the story and be like, yeah,
logically this is bad, but they can't feel the emotion
(05:24):
of how scary it is, how infuriating it is. And
I think it's really important for people to connect to
the emotions of it. I think that's one of our
biggest flaws on the left is that we get like
really absorbed into the like facts and we're going to
fact check you to death and somehow if we just
(05:45):
tell you enough facts, you're going to be on our side.
And that's just not how humans work. So yeah, I
try to show up emotionally in most of my content,
but especially when I'm talking about a subject that I
know most people just have no I mean most people
not only haven't served, they don't have a loved one
(06:09):
that like a close immediate loved one that has served.
And so there's just there's no way to connect to that.
And we live in a society where media has depicted
military service as this like romantic you know, oh, it's
(06:29):
the sacrifice and everyone that does it is so ready
to lay down their lives and just oh, and the
reality is like most of the people in the military
are just poor people that needed a path out of
poverty or out of whatever rural hellhole they were born in,
(06:51):
and like they just want to do their job and
go home at the end of the day. They're just
normal people.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I think even for people on the left, like I said,
it can just be really hard to connect to it emotionally.
So there have been times where I've recorded rants where
I haven't posted but because you know, I'll watch it
back and I'll be like, ooh, okay, I was a
little too far on that one. I need to like
bring it down a few notts. But this was not
one of those times.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Kendall's righteous anger struck a chord. Her video rapped up
over three million views and sparked headlines across the country
like military wife rips, hegsas for risking husband's life and
viral video.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
So I just went ahead and I was like, let's
do it. So I just went ahead and posted it.
And I genuinely I was expecting there to be people
that were angry about it. I wasn't expecting there to
be as much of a positive response to it that
there was. What was the response like, so on Twitter,
(07:59):
it was basically just immediately launched into like a week
and a half of thousands of people calling me fat essentially,
like that was the primary response is oh, well, you're
a fat bitch essentially, And then Instagram was a little
bit of both. I just got to the point where
(08:23):
I started oscillating back and forth between I'm not gonna
look at any of the comments, screw them. I said
what I said, and I'm just whatever. They can have
their feelings and I don't have to listen to them,
to then oscillating back to no, you know what, I
am going to read the comments and I'm going to
go in and I'm going to be mean back to
them because none of these motherfuckers know how to make
(08:43):
a funny insult. So I really for the first week
that's mostly what I was doing, just because it was
fun to me. And then weirdly on Instagram was first
of all, Instagram was like right in the middle in
terms of how people respond to it. But that was
also where I started hearing from a ton of military spouses,
(09:06):
a ton of active duty service members reaching out to
me and being like, oh my god, thank you, Like
we can't say this or we didn't know how to
say this, And so once I started getting those messages,
I didn't give a shit what they were saying on
Twitter at that point because like the people that responded
by telling me how repulsive they thought, I was, like,
(09:27):
they clearly have no idea what it's like for military families,
So who gives a shit about their opinions when the
actual military families are reaching out to me and saying
that they're grateful.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Military families cannot always be as outspoken as Kendall is,
but sometimes they are. Take what happened Back in February,
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a series of hardline changes,
banning trans people from joining the military, halting gender reforming
care for service members, and restricting certain books of the
Department of Defense schools. Soon after, during a what is
(10:00):
It to a US military base in Germany, he was
met with unexpected pushback. About two dozen military families, mostly
young people, gathered to make their voices heard. They booed, heckled,
and even chanted d Ei d ei, you know, basically
saying you, Pete Hegseth, are the dei higher? You know?
(10:21):
It has to be a real specific kind of dynamic
where if you are a service member or somebody close
to a service member, you can't always say your opinion
about things or you know, even if you are not
a service member yourself, if you're close to one that
comes with its own kind of baggage, that might be
very silencing. So in ways, do you feel like you're
(10:42):
able to sort of be the person who you know
explains the emotionality behind this situation for folks who sometimes
really can't.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, I think so. But I'm also honestly, I'm really
inspired by a So even like a lot of people
have been saying, like, oh, what you said, being willing
to say that and like take that risk is really brave,
But I was actually inspired by the bravery of there
(11:11):
was a group of middle school age kids who have
a parent that is active duty military and is stationed
in I want to say, it's Stuttered, Germany. It's one
of the German bases. And right at the very beginning
of like right after Pete Hegseth had been confirmed, he
(11:34):
went to this military base and not only was he
met by a couple a dozen active duty military families,
like when he was getting off the plane, they were
standing there protesting him and yelling at him about how
he has been attacking the concept of DEI. But also
(11:54):
when he visited the middle school that's on base, the
there was like a fifth grader that led a walkout
of all of the students in response to him.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
It's impressive, for sure, but not without risk for service
members and their families. Speaking your mind comes at a
high cost.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I don't think people understand how big of a risk
you're taking as a military family member, especially when you're deployed,
when you're stationed overseas, because anything that you do on
base is held against your sponsors, so your active duty
service member. I have seen families get kicked off of
(12:38):
bite base housing entirely because of something their kid did. So, like,
you know, where I'm where we live, there was a kid.
Usually it's like, you know, shitty teenagers being shitty teenagers
and like vandalizing something, and if they figure out who
did it, that whole family has to move off of
base housing. So like it is very very serious. So
(13:00):
the fact that these kids were brave enough to do
that knowing that, like, the stakes are even higher when
you're at a base overseas because if you get kicked
out out of base housing on an overseas base, where
the fuck are you going to live? You know, and
we already know that these this is an administration that
(13:23):
is willing to strand people overseas, like they did to
a bunch of the US AID employees that were stationed overseas,
and then they were just like, well, not only are
we eliminating your job, We're also not going to pay
to fly you back, so have fun figuring out how
to get home from Sudan or wherever. So it was
(13:43):
a huge risk that they took, and so I was
very inspired by them, and I recognize that I'm in
a very fortunate spot this like weird intersection of you know,
I work in communications, so I have the ability to
(14:05):
put together an argument at a level that maybe not
a lot of people have been trained to be able
to do. I also, because I work in comms and
because I work in politics, I have from the very
beginning kept my digital online footprint separate from my husband,
so like, I don't have to worry about, oh God,
(14:28):
if I say something now, I have ten years of
posting about him constantly that they could connect me to.
And I'm really lucky that I have a partner that
is like, yeah, girl, go get them. You know, like
he understands that my career and my activism is really
(14:49):
important to me, and as long as I'm not just
blatantly setting out to ruin his career, he is very
accepting of the fact that, like, this is a calculated
risk that I am taking. So yeah, all that together,
I think just put me in a very fortunate spot
where I could be that mouthpiece to try and put
(15:13):
it in people's face. And yeah, as long as I'm
in this position and I can do that, I'm going
to continue to do that because I think the military
industrial complex has gotten away with a lot for a
really long time, and a huge part of that is
because the people with the most knowledge and ability to
(15:36):
push back on it are also the people who were
most often silenced.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
That silencing that you spoke to is so real for
so many issues, and I think the powers that be
kind of depend on the people who are closest to
the harm, who can speak to the harm most clearly
and saliently also being silent, and then the people who
can speak up fully. Putting myself in this camp are
some times really only able to do so from this
(16:02):
incredibly heady or logistical place, but they're speaking about something
that is deeply human and emotional at its core. Why
do you think it's so easy to sort of skip
over the human emotionality of these stories in favor of
things like facts and figures.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
That's a really good question. I think it's probably a
couple of factors, because it's certainly not just like the
things impacting military service members that we do that too, right, Like,
just look at like the entire conversation about Gaza, right Like,
we get really focused because it's we can't understand what
(16:37):
it's like to be living there. We can't, like, I
have no way of even trying to put myself into
that position. So it's just I think it's partially that
it's an easier leap in people's brains. I also think
that again, it is partially just a democratic and leftist
(17:01):
impulse that we always jump to the facts of the
case and the logistics, like we want to know everything,
and we're just if we can just get you to
see that you're being hypocrites, we can finally get you
to stop. So I think that's partially it. And I
also think that there's some element to it that is
(17:23):
the American people, I think have been groomed to do
that somewhat like it's beneficial to the Trump administration if
we skip over the emotion of it, because it's a
lot easier for the Press Secretary for the White House
to get up there and be snide and dismissive and
like mocking of reporters when they ask questions related to
(17:46):
the logistics. It's a lot harder for her to be
dismissive and snide if the emotion of it is put
in their face. And yeah, so I think the the
Trump administration wants us to do that. They've been grooming
us to do that. I also think that the media
(18:07):
is kind of complicit in it because when you have
a media that is so overwhelmingly a certain type of person,
a certain socioeconomic status of person, like, they can only
convey the emotion of the experiences that they understand themselves.
(18:27):
And there aren't a lot of service members or military
spouses that go on to become reporters, and so it's
just most of the media doesn't have the ability to
write about it in the same way that like most
of the media has no idea about how to write
about the emotion of Gaza or the emotion of being
(18:51):
an undocumented immigrant, and so they don't, and so we
get further groomed into not thinking about it or carrying
about it.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Let's take a quick break at our back. The invasion
of Iraq was my political awakening as a young person.
My favorite cousin had enlisted a few years earlier, and
(19:25):
when President Bush announced that we were going to war,
I honestly thought we had to stop it so that
he wouldn't be deployed. Eventually, he was deployed, but this
was also the beginning of my time online. I was
on message boards looking for protests, trying to find folks
who were organizing. Now these days, everybody says they were
against the Iraq war, but that's not how I remember it.
(19:46):
What I remember is that if you were anti war
like I was, people would say, oh, so you don't
support the troops. Support our troops kind of became this
slogan that basically meant you could not criticize US military
policy because if you did, you were somehow against the
very people risking their lives. That was two thousand and three. Today,
it feels like things have really changed. I feel like
(20:09):
there was a time, especially for the Republican Party, where
the troops were these like exalted people that you had
to support the troops. You could not question the troops,
just like you were saying this like massive hero narrative
that these are people who are risking their lives and
we have to do everything to support them, including not
questioning what the government is doing with regards to service members.
And today seeing Republican leaders be so flippant about those
(20:33):
very same service members when dismissing the fact that they
needlessly endangered their lives with signal gad that just a
few years ago we were saying were the most important
people that you had to support the troops, It just
really makes clear that maybe they didn't really give that
much of a shit about service members and their families.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Yeah, there's actually a specific moment in our history as
a country that I would point to as being the
moment where that shift started to happen, and it was
during a Republican primary debate for the presidential race in
(21:09):
two thousand and eight, somewhere around there. If anybody wants
to watch what I'm talking about, it's literally featured in
an episode. This is embarrassing to site, but it's also
featured in an episode of the Newsroom. So there's a
moment where they are, you know, they have questions that
are being asked by general like normal people, and they
(21:30):
have a soldier who is currently he was stationed, he
was deployed to either Afghanistan or Iraq like as he
was asking this question, they were video videoing him in
and he says, because this is when don't ask, don't
tell was still a thing, and so he says, you know,
I am a gay service member and all I want
(21:54):
to do is serve my country. Like I this is
very important to me. I want to continue to serve.
I want to continue to put my life on the line.
And of course this is when there was like active war,
so putting your life on the line like really had
weight to it at the moment at that time. And
you know, I want to know, are there any anyone
(22:17):
on this stage, any candidate that would be willing to
do away with don't ask, don't tell so that service
members like me don't have to hide who I am
in order to serve my country. And not a single
person on that stage responded with any empathy towards him
(22:38):
with any respect for his service, and the overwhelming majority
of the audience booed him.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
In twenty ten, when I was deployed to Iraq, I
had to lie about who I was because I'm a
gay soldier and I didn't want to lose my job.
My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you
intend to circumvent the progress that's been made for gay
and lesbian soldiers in the military.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Before he had even finished asking this question, the audience
was booing him. And I genuinely think that's the moment
when it started to shift. And I think that a
huge part of that shift is because the Republican Party
only wanted to focus on the emotional side of things
when they could be assured that military service members and
(23:28):
their families were a silent audience that they could tokenize
without any risk of them pushing back in the same
way that the Conservative Party still tokenize it, like talks
about like, oh, the unborn babies, and this is why
we're so you know, because they know unborn babies, like
literal zygotes cannot speak up and be like, hey, actually,
(23:51):
we do support women's right to choose, so uh, I
think that was part of it once they realized that,
like at any moment, if we invoke the military and
try to romanticize their service, somebody in that audience could
stand up and be like, you, motherfucker, how dare you
(24:13):
invoke our service when you are sending us to die?
You know, just like the guy that threw his shoes
at at George W. Bush. And that's why, you know.
In addition to my original signal Gate video I had,
I recorded myself when I called and talked to Senator
Mark Wayne Mullen's office since he's my senator, Kendall recorded
(24:38):
herself calling her Oklahoma Senator, Senator Mullens, and let's just
say her anger comes through loud and clear. Quick heads up,
there is a lot of strong language and what you're
about to hear. And so help me, God, if I
have to quit my fucking job to make sure that
I can drive to every fucking campaign and public event
that the senator has for the rest of his career,
(25:00):
I will make it my life's work to destroy his
career by making sure that every fucking Oklahoma knows how
few fucks he gave about my husband's life and the
lives of other active duty service members, But I do
want to make it very clear, and I hope that
you will take down this message and relay it to
the Senator to help encourage him to actually be a
(25:21):
man and make sure that I get a call set
up when I reach out to this scheduler. I want
you to let him know that if he doesn't reach
out to me, I'm recording every single time that I
have called his office and left a voicemailt or spoke
to an intern like you. I am recording all of
those and if I don't hear back from him, I
will be sending them to every possible newsroom, both in
(25:42):
Oklahoma and nationally, to let them know that the Senator
is too much of a coward to call back the
wife of one of the service members in his constituency
that was put at risk. And so help me God,
if I have to quit my fucking job to make
sure that I can drive to every fucking campaign and
public event that the Senator has for the rest of
(26:04):
his career, I will make it my life's work to
destroy his career by making sure that every fucking Oklahoma
knows how few fucks he gave about my husband's life.
And the lives of other active duty service members. If
I'd known that video was gonna go viral side note,
(26:25):
I would have cursed significantly less. I'm a little embarrassed
that I cursed this much on the phone to a
US senator's office, but I straight up said, like, I
don't care. If I have to quit my job and
make it my life's work to destroy Senator Mullen's career,
(26:45):
I will do it. I will drive to every fucking
campaign event he has for the rest of his life
and be in the audience and be there to remind
people of how few shits he gave about my husband's
life and about the lives of other service members.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And I.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Want not even just Republicans, I want all politicians to
have that fear at all times. I want them to
know at any moment if you tokenize someone, whether it's
over their military service, or do you're tokenizing DOCCA recipients
or whatever it is, I want them to know, at
any moment, someone could stand up in the audience and
(27:27):
remind everyone at your event of the actual humans behind
what you are talking about. And I think if we
could get politicians to feel that fear again on every topic.
I think politics in our country would look a lot different.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yes, make politicians afraid again. And this is why I
love your content, because, as you say on your TikTok,
you're telling the stories of men in power and reminding
you not to respect them, and showing people but the
layers of ways that they have screwed people that they
supposedly say they care about. They've not upheld, you know,
(28:08):
anything looking like accountability to the people that they have
been elected to serve. I don't know, I really appreciate
that about your content, that it's like about shifting our
understanding of like who works for who, who should be
afraid of who? I think that's the magic of the internet,
you know, Like, think about how many videos we've seen
over the years of constituents trying to confront their elected
(28:30):
official in Congress on any topic, whether it's military, health care, whatever,
and almost without fail, those clips end with that member
of Congress getting into the congressional member only elevator and
then the doors slowly sliding shut in front of their
face and protecting them from actually having to have that
(28:54):
hard conversation with their constituent. And I think the magic
of the Internet is that it can it can knock
those sliding elevator doors down. They can't run from their
constituents in the same way that they can in real life.
And obviously, you know, there's there's other ways that they
(29:17):
can dodge that. When it's the Internet, right, they can
just pretend that they don't see it or whatever.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
But I think that's where I'm trying to utilize my
content to prevent them from even being able to do that.
Like Mark Wayne Mullen cannot fucking pretend that he has
not seen my videos. And I know he can't pretend
that because there have been national reporters that have called
his office and asked him for comment on them. There's
(29:46):
not a chance in hell that man has not seen
every video I have ever made about him. And I
just I if I could that like snap my fingers
and have any wish come true. I would love to
(30:06):
be able to like dedicate significant portions of my time
and of my life to being able to train other
people on how to do what I'm doing right now.
Like I I don't want to be the one person
that's like seeing as like ooh, she's doing this thing,
you know, Like I want there to be so many
people doing the same exact thing that no one ever
(30:30):
again thinks that like what I'm doing is special or remarkable.
Like I if I could completely drive myself out of
a job as a content creator by getting enough people
other people to be doing the same thing, I would
because I really think that the internet is our best
(30:50):
shot at holding these cowards accountable.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into
it rather than just preaching to acquire. Kendall has an
entire series on how to talk the conservatives In a
digital climate that often prioritizes dunks and clapbacks. Kendall's taking
(31:21):
a different approach, using the Internet to have the kinds
of conversation that might actually change hearts and minds. It's
not about giving someone like me a quick dopamine fix
or a smug sense of superiority for her. It's about connection, persuasion,
and doing the harder work of actually reaching across divides.
I feel like you're able to occupy this very specific
(31:42):
lane where you're able to speak to people that might
not be there yet and train other people on how
they can do the same. Is that intentional with your
sort of content strategy here?
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yes, very much. So so, First of all, okay.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
So this gets.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
Dangerously close to a topic that I could rant about
four hours. Uh, but I think genuinely one of the
most destructive things that has happened in content creation writ
large over the last several years, and one of the
most destructive things that TikTok specifically has groomed people into doing,
(32:20):
is is viewing political content as solely through the lens
of those like clap back videos that lots of people do,
right Like, I'm gonna find a conservative doing the dumbest
fucking video I can, and then I'm gonna take it,
and I'm gonna respond to them. I'm gonna be smug
(32:41):
and snide, and I'm gonna tell you why they are
the dumbest piece of shit ever. And then I'm gonna
get one hundred thousand likes on it. I'm gonna make
thousands of dollars. But have I moved the needle in
any way on any issue? No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
So I have to tell you this comes up on
the show like this, I am right there with you.
I feel like that kind of content has made our
entire discourse, especially online, so much worse. It's so harmful
and The thing that gets me about it is that
like it is so like it's like when you eat
(33:17):
a bunch of McDonald's and it tastes so good and
then it's so empty in the end, like it is
so hollow and shallow, but it's so like it scratches
an itch I wish I didn't have. And I think
I'm seeing the results of that writ large on our
on our social media discourse. Do you know what I mean? Like,
I'll just say yes, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, yeah, I mean. And that's the thing, like, when
I say this about this content, I am not in
any way judging people that consume that content, because hell,
I consume that content. There are times where I really
enjoy that content, you know, especially when we're in a
society where it can feel like you are just like
screaming into a void and being like how are not?
(34:00):
How are there so many people that think this is
normal in any way? So like watching somebody get put
in their place can feel satisfying, but first of all,
those people are not getting put in their place. Most
of the people being featured in those videos are thrilled
when they get featured in a leftist clapback video, because
(34:21):
all it does is drive up their engagement. These are
just dollar Tree brand, like store brand Tommy laurens in
the same way that Tommy Lauren used to intentionally piss
people off in order to increase her stardom. At least
she was like actually trying to reach, like you know,
(34:44):
actually being on television. These people are settling for like
I just want to get ten thousand views on my
TikTok video and make one hundred dollars off of it.
But like it's the same general process, right, and like
they just the two sides feed off of one another,
(35:04):
and it's just this like circular. I mean, it's honestly,
it's just and a digital and political human centipede. They're
just regurgitating the same shit into each other's mouth over
and over and over again. Like not to be too graphic,
but like that's what's happening.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
And so.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Not only does that content not move the needle, I
genuinely believe it pushes us further apart. It like increases
the divide, and then politicians respond to that widening divide
by panicking and being like, oh, well, now we have
to compromise on our values. So that we can like
(35:48):
chase after that other side that's moving further away from us.
And then you know, that's how you get politicians like
John Fetterman just out there calling himself the Democrat and
doing all the Republican things. And like, I genuinely believe,
we don't have to compromise on any of our values.
We just have to figure out how to talk about
(36:08):
our values in a way that appeals to a conservative
morality system. And so that's what I'm now focusing a
lot of my content on doing, is trying to help
people learn that. Like you know, I use the moral
foundation theory that Jonathan Hate came up with, where he said, like,
(36:30):
there's six different foundational blocks that people build their morality
off of, and people on the left tend to focus
on two of those six, people on the right tend
to focus on three of the six, and then the
sixth one both sides like. And so I think the
biggest issue we have with leftist messaging right now is
(36:51):
we're talking about these values in a way that appeals
to our morality system, not theirs. And we can talk
about it in a way that appeals to I mean,
like for example, immigration, like we're talking about it from
the perspective of, like this, you know, you have to
be fair. It is like horrific and unfair to think
(37:13):
about deporting a DACA recipient to a country that they
have never called home. They might not even speak about
the speak that language, you know. All and all of
that's true. All of that's true, And in a perfect world,
at least in my opinion, that would be enough to
convince people. But the reality is we don't live in
a perfect world, and there's fifty percent of the country
(37:34):
that doesn't give a shit that it's not fair. But
if we can talk about it from the perspective of
what that DACA recipient means to our country, like, you know,
they're big into patriotism, And if we can talk about
immigration from the perspective of, like, we are this incredible
nation that is welcoming these people in, Like these are
(37:56):
people that believe in our wors of life so strongly
that they just want to be a part of it,
you know, And if we can talk about those values
in that way, then we can actually start to like
narrow that divide a little bit and hopefully win some
(38:18):
of those people over, because unfortunately, talking at them endlessly
from our perspective, and especially creating videos where we're making
fun of them and like you know, making money off
of being snigged towards them. That's not going to pull
(38:38):
them in. That is not going to get them to
change their mind on anything.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Okay, if you're like me, this might be the moment
where you're thinking, why is it on me to change
these people's minds? Kendall gets that, she really does.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I understand the criticism that probably a lot of people
would have for my strategy by saying, like, you know,
these are people that have been super bigoted. They've been
so racist, they've been so homophobic and transphobic and all
of the phobics, Like I don't want to have to
be nice to them. I don't want to have to
(39:13):
do that labor. And I think that's totally fair for
people to say, particularly more than any other group of people.
I think black women one hundred percent get to say, like,
you know what, motherfuckers, the ninety two percent is tired,
so like, you do your jobs, We're gonna be doing
our thing. Fuck you. So like, I get that, But
(39:35):
any person on the left that has a skin tone
like mine, absolutely the fuck not like you don't get
to do what is fun or easy. Right now. We
have work to do to repair the shit that we
stood by as it got broken. And so I just
I want more people to start looking at their content.
(39:58):
More content creators and articulars start looking at their content
from the perspective of what impact is this actually having
beyond the check that I get from TikTok on the
fifteenth of every month. And I'm really really worried about
what's going to happen if more content creators don't start
(40:18):
doing that, because I get why they don't write like
my content where I'm talking about here's how to talk
to a conservative about universal healthcare or immigration or whatever.
It doesn't perform anywhere nearly as well as you know,
these clapback videos. It also doesn't perform nearly as well
(40:40):
as like my emotional videos that have gone viral. And so,
to use your metaphor of the McDonald's right, you eat
it and you don't feel satisfied. It is a little
bit of a chicken and egg situation where it's like, Okay,
we can keep telling these content creators to create more
(41:02):
useful content. We can keep telling McDonald's you need to
sell more vegetables. But if people keep going into McDonald's
and only buying the French fries, eventually McDonald's is gonna
be like, we can't do like you motherfucker said you
wanted vegetables, and then none of you bought vegetables, and
so we're going back to just selling French fries. And
(41:22):
I think that there is a responsibility on the side
of people who are consuming content to start really trying
to work against our own impulses that we've been groomed
to have to where like you know, hell, I have ADHD.
Anytime I see like a ten minute long video on TikTok,
(41:43):
I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
God, why are you left a minute? Shut up?
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Can you not tell me in like forty five seconds?
Come on, guys. But like, I'm really trying to fight
that impulse more often now because I recognize is if
I just scroll on I'm doing I'm being the person
standing outside of McDonald's yelling at them for not selling
me vegetables when I wasn't buying vegetables. And so I
(42:12):
think it has to be an effort on both sides
of the process, both the creation and the consumption and
I think if we don't fix it, uh, I don't
know where we'll be in a few years in our
country because right now the right is kicking our ass
(42:33):
online and we have to figure out a way to
fix it.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I've had a personal sort of quandary, you know, after
Trump was elected. I was really getting a lot of
shot in freud I say that word wrong from like
oh no, like I never thought the leopard was gonna
eat my faith and something about that those that content
was like clearly feeling a need for me. And then
(42:58):
someone was like, you know, you know, so I live
in DC, and when all when when federal workers were
all being fired and like targeted, people were saying like, oh,
a lot of those federal workers were Trump voters, and
so they're you know, they're getting what they asked for.
Maybe they didn't think it was going to be them.
And someone was like, you know, we kind of need
these people. Like if the people who are speaking up
and being like dang, I feel like I got, you know,
(43:19):
taken for a ride by Trump, somebody that I put
my faith in and my trusted and he turned on me.
I understand. Nobody understands the impulse to laugh at those
people more than me, and I'm sad to say that
I have, But at a certain point, don't we want
people who are able to see that they made a
mistake and are able to call out that like they
they were misled. I feel angry that these people abdicated
(43:43):
their responsibility to put effort into who they voted for
and be a thoughtful consumer of you know, American democracy,
but sort of just stroking my rage boner when when
they speak up about it isn't getting us anywhere? Don't
we kind of like like, isn't it sort of what
we want for them to be talking about, Like, oh, yeah,
I'm miss I was mislied. I got it wrong, right, yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Well, And the weird thing is is, honestly, I hate
to break it to other people on the left, we're
not always great at guessing which people were Trump supporters.
I can't even tell you how many leftists I've had
come into my comments, especially on Instagram and be like, well,
you got what you wanted, you got what you voted for,
(44:28):
so fuck you, And I'm like, uh, my friend, I
not only voted for Kamala Harris, I literally worked for
her campaign. I could not have been more kammala hair,
like pro kamala in this election cycle if I tried, right,
But like all they see is you're talking about the military.
You're married to somebody in the military, obviously you must
(44:50):
be on the right, And like that's bad because like
if you're being like if you're pushing me away as
somebody that's like dedicating my life to trying to win
things for our side of the aisle, how are people
that are actually on the right that are like conceding
that they messed up. How are they going to respond
(45:10):
to those kind of comments. You're only going to push
him back into the cult. But I will also say
I do understand like the need for that, Like I
can't even tell you how many Francesca Ramsey videos I've
watched of her with her ukulele singing about the leopards
eating their face. And so I get it, and I
(45:31):
think we can still have that content. It's just a
matter of making sure it's targeting the people that actually
deserve it and that aren't just everyday people. So like
I will watch every possible video of Dave Portnoy being
sad about losing twenty million dollars, Like, fuck that guy.
(45:54):
Fuck you, Dave Fortnoy, Like I don't feel sorry for him.
He deserves it, and like everyone should laugh at him
in the same way that like, there is not a
song in the world that you could set that video
of Richard Spencer getting punched in the head too, that
I wouldn't stop and watch it, like four times in
a row, every time forever, my favorite video. Like, but
(46:17):
there's a difference between Dave Portnoy and Richard Spencer and
like random single mom of three working, you know, as
an assistant manager at a rash dress for less and
living in a prefab trailer park. You know, like she
doesn't need to be mocked because ultimately she got tricked,
(46:42):
she got hoodwinked. That does not excuse whatever horrible shit
she has said or even continues to say to other
people online, particularly marginalized communities. But if she is coming
out and saying, hey, I screwed up. I realized I
(47:02):
screwed up when I went to get my groceries and
I found out my food stamps got cut off or whatever, Like,
we can have discussions with her later about her other
problematic shit that she's doing. But when she first says, hey, guys,
I think we screwed up. I think our response should
(47:23):
be yes, please welcome, welcome to our side. Now, how
can we help you go convince ten of your friends
that they also screwed up. Because it's not just about
making sure we don't push her back into the cult.
It's about recognizing that the people that are in her
(47:43):
life are going to listen to her all day long
and like, take that that is going to mean more
to them than you could show them every single video
I have ever made, and it's not going to convince
them as much as her talking to them. And so
we need to stop pushing people back into the cult,
(48:03):
and we need to start giving them the tools necessary
and empowering them to start being the pipeline out of
that for the people in their life. Like, there's a
reason why the alt right pipeline is so attractive to people.
It's because it's easy to go down and everyone's nice
(48:27):
to you along the way, and everyone like tells you
how smart you are for like getting into the pipeline
in the first place. So, like, we need to start
building the pipeline going the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
As someone who is so good at putting your opinions
out of the world using social media, even when there's
(49:03):
this like chilling effect to do so, even when you're like,
you know, dog biled for doing so. What keeps you
doing it? Like, what keeps you logging on and continuing
to put your ideas out there?
Speaker 1 (49:16):
I mean, part of it is Okay, this is going
to sound really weird, but I weirdly think having depression
has made it a lot easier to do this and
survive it, because I know I am at the end
of the day if I have to lay down and
(49:36):
close my eyes and go to sleep, and my options
are either I'm going to be thinking about the fact
that I said nothing, I did nothing, are were Our
democracy is sliding further into fascism. More people are being hurt,
more innocent people are being deported to an ill Salvadorian
concentration camp. Because I said nothing. That is a lot
(50:01):
harder for me to live with than if I do
say stuff. And when I lay down at night and
I close my eyes, the last thing that I'm thinking
about is how you know Steve zero four seven five
six on Twitter thinks that I'm a fat bitch like
I will sleep soundly knowing that Steve thinks I'm a
(50:22):
fat bitch. I will not sleep soundly knowing that I
did nothing and I said nothing and things got worse.
Speaker 2 (50:30):
When you go to sleep at night, what will prevent
you from getting a good night's sleep? And it's not
like writhing up shithead Steve zero five five six on Twitter.
It's actually doing something, saying something, speaking up.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Yeah. And on top of that, you know, like just
as a little added bonus for myself, Like you know,
as I'm doing this content, like the main videos that's
for everyone, the part I'm doing for me is when
I'm responding to those insults and being funnier than they
could ever possibly. That's the part that's just for me.
(51:06):
That's my little treat. And so the fact that I
get to go to sleep at night knowing that I
did something, I said something, and yeah, Steve thinks I'm
a fat bitch. But also Steve's going to sleep tonight
knowing that I made a very funny joke about his
bald spot and that's gonna eat at him. That's the like, Oh,
(51:28):
I sleep very well when I get to note because like,
oh my god, I the I think the thing that
blew my mind the most this entire experience has been
you know, tens of thousands of insults later, not a
single one of them has been funny. No, I'm a
deeply insultable person. I mean, Jesus Christ, I cut my
(51:52):
own bangs, y'all. My bangs look like shit. One hundred
percent of the time. They are uneven, and like you
could make a hundred jokes about that. That would be
so much funnier than just calling me a cow. So
I just, in the same way that I want the
(52:14):
left to get better at talking about our values and
winning people over, I just want conservatives to get funnier,
because Jesus Christ, if I'm gonna have to interact with you,
I at least want it to be funny. And I
can take a good insult as long as it's funny.
So please please just learn from me, develop the ability
(52:34):
to insult someone in a way that's funny.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Step your game up, Steve zero five six y four
on Twitter. Or if they really wanted to be smart,
they could hire you as a digital strategist. You would
write for them, The money you would go right into
your pocket, and then the insults would improve. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
I mean, I've thought about creating a TikTok series that's
like comedy one oh one for conservatives, because, like I mean,
it's it's not even their fault. Like when the best
example of conservative comedy that you have is like Stephen
Crowder and Greg Guttfeld, No, what if you're not funny?
Come on Jesus. So they're just regurgitating the things that
(53:15):
those two say, and it's like it wasn't funny when
they said it, it's extra not funny when y'all are
repeating it. So, just conservatives, if you're listening to this, please,
for the love of God, just please, please get better
at comedy. Speaking from the perspective of someone that's not
(53:36):
only a content creator but is also a digital strategist,
I think one of the things that the right did
during this last election cycle that the left did not
did not do enough of, and also did not do
nearly as well as the right is having a strategy
(54:03):
where non political content creators were getting content out to
their audiences about politics, whether that was them talking about
themselves or them just quietly reposting stuff from other people.
And I think that we need to accept the party
(54:32):
as a whole needs to accept. But also, like anyone
that cares about the direction of our country needs to accept,
there are only so many people who are going to
willingly watch explicitly political content. The reality is the majority
of people do not give a shit about political content,
will never watch it. And I think simultaneously, while yes
(54:59):
the part that the piece of the puzzle that I
am doing, I think is very important in training people
to talk to conservatives, I think equally important is empowering
content creators in radically different spaces, whether it's true crime
or makeup tutorials or muck bangs or whatever. I think
(55:21):
that the obstacles that we are facing are monumental enough
that just getting political content creators to do the right
thing and to say the right things and like, do
our part is not going to be enough. So if
you are a content creator of any type at all,
(55:45):
I would very much encourage you to try and figure
out what is the piece of this puzzle that I
can be playing. It doesn't have to look like creating
political content. And I would be happy if there's any
content creator that hears this, that wants to do that
and isn't sure how to please reach out to me,
I will help you figure out a way. And oh
(56:06):
my god, if you work for any political campaign on
the left at all, please make that a part of
your strategy. And if you need help figuring out how
to make that a part of your strategy, please reach
out to me, because, like I mean, as stupid as
it was, Trump's strategy of talking to like Aiden Ross
(56:29):
and the Pool Brothers and all of that, that was
a hugely influential into his win and we have to
do that or we are going to keep losing.
Speaker 2 (56:38):
So I can't tell you how many people that I've
interviewed from all different spectrums of like content or digital strategy,
who are all saying the left needs to be making
huge investments with content creators podcasters. I firmly like I
mean this, like literally, I think we have Trump in
office again because of podcasters. I think that podcasters shifted
(57:02):
the landscape of our political fabric and we need to
just like understand that and get on board. It's not
too late, but we have a lot of ground to
make up for, and now it's the time.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
Yes, oh yeah, we coasted for so long and this
is not even the only time that we've done this,
Like I mean, I've been doing digital strategy for long enough,
and I know you were also around and seeing this,
Like when digital first became a thing. Ooh, we were like,
we were confident. We were like, the Republicans are never
going to catch up with us. We are so much
(57:33):
better at the Internet than they are.
Speaker 2 (57:34):
Oh, what a time to be alive.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
That was a great feeling. But it was not an
impulse that we should have listened to, because oh no,
we were so confident that we were at the front
of the pack that we just slowed down to a
leisurely stroll and they just ran right past us and
(57:57):
we caught up. And then the same thing is happening
now with like podcasts and things like that. So yeah,
I think you are right about podcasts. We have to
we just have to stop congratulating ourselves on how good
we are at certain things and start focusing on getting
better at the stuff that they are clearly kicking our
ass on.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi. You can reach us at
Hello at tangody 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 Toad.
It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
(58:45):
bridget Toad. 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 1 (59:00):
Long They Well, Meppen, O Love and Well Lippen
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