May 24, 2022 • 40 mins
While the Beep Macrame investigation simmers on the back burner, Anna and Kyle decide to investigate a different branch of fear: cancel culture. When Kyle expresses a fear of being canceled, Anna suggests they face it, head on. Will this investigation go too far? Will Kyle be able to leave her house ever again?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Truth Hounds, a production of My Heart Radio.
I'm Anna and I've been unemployed for two years now,
so I really have nothing going on. And I'm Kyle
and in middle school I received the ward most Enthusiastic
to learn. So that makes me pretty special. And that
(00:21):
is what makes us the perfect investigative duo. We are
two friends who love each other very much. But what
we love even more is getting to the bottom of mysteries.
All mysteries, sure, but small mysteries specifically. Trust me, No
mystery is too small. No, no, no, Why don't you
trust me when I tell you we are ready to
(00:43):
sniff around. We are the the Truth Hounds. Hello, Hey, Kyle, Hey,
it's Anna. Oh hey, Hi? Are you busy? Um a
(01:04):
little bit? What's up? Um? I have a surprise for you.
Um about Beat mcarmy. No, wait are you? Are you
the grocery store? No, there's just a truck outside. Oh.
I thought you were gonna checkout line. I was gonna say,
(01:24):
pick me up kombucha, But no, it's I have a surprise.
It's not about Beat macromy but it but it is
a surprise. I'll be right there. Hi, Hi, Kyle, how
(01:45):
are you. I'm okay. How are you doing I'm okay. Yeah,
I just wanted to say that. Okay, I've been doing
a lot of thinking and I know that it's really
frustrating and sad that we had to put a maybe temporary,
maybe permanent, who knows, pause, stop on the beat macromy investigation.
(02:10):
But I really wanted us to have some fun, and
so I know you love surprises. I bought us two tickets.
I'm so excited to tell you, okay. I bought us
two tickets to Madison Square Garden in New York and
y See to go see. Oh that sounds so great. Wait,
(02:41):
what are you doing? That sounds great? I feel like, okay,
you're saying the words. That sounds great, but that very
sounds Why are you stepping away? Where are you looking?
Two tickets? No? I I heard it at Madison's heard
(03:07):
and that sounds great. I don't believe. What are you doing?
What's going on? Okay? I guess you're like, so it
was canceled, like the show's canceled. No no, no, no,
no was canceled. Wait wait whispering, I can't hear you
(03:30):
over the waves. Yeah, I was canceled. Wait like canceled, handled, canceled?
What did it? What did you do? I don't think Wait,
why did he get no? No No? No? Hang on? Why
did he get canceled? Okay, it was canceled? Because what? Uh?
(03:55):
I don't know? Do you don't repeat that part? How
do they know? How do they know? I hang on before?
But how do you? How do they? How do they know?
Because I feel gross? Why did you make me say that? God?
Don't I don't think we can go. I don't think
(04:17):
we should be caught. No, we could be caught. I'm
obviously not. No, I didn't. I didn't know. I was
taking a phone sabbatical. And to be honest, actually my
literal worst night here is to be canceled. Your worst
fear is to be or do you even be canceled for?
(04:38):
I don't know. It could be anything, what do you
I could be walking and someone could be like, why
are you walking like that? Your worst fear? Yeah? Does
that sound a little bit irrational? Oh? No, it's like
I feel like people would get canceled. They're generally are
doing bad. So you're wearing those shoes? Do you feel like, Yeah,
(05:00):
that's literally a fear of yours. My top biggest fear.
I mean, it's irrational, for sure, but it's but it's like,
it's my fear. I've been reading a little bit about
exposure therapy. Okay, this is crazy, But since we can't
(05:21):
do the other investigation, what do you think about if
to face your fear you get canceled. We're going to
cancel you That that sounds horrible, would but you'll do it.
Then you'll see maybe it's not so bad. If it's
(05:42):
literally your worst fear and you're saying you can't go
to the grocery store, you can't walk freely. Yeah, that
sounds I don't think that sounds like a great idea.
Episode six, Kyle gets canceled. So we came up with
(06:06):
a plan. While our investigation to beat backermy Similard on
the back burner, we would continue our larger investigation into
the subject of fear, only this time we would focus
on a different branch of that subject. We would help
(06:27):
Kyle overcome her fear of getting canceled. Hey, who knows,
maybe by doing so, we would actually put ourselves into
a better position for when we finally do face our
fear of beat macromy when that faithful day finally comes.
(06:48):
But don't worry, guys, we'll get there. Since neither Kyle
nor I had experienced getting canceled, we were kind of
in the dark. So I reached out to someone who
I knew had a bit of expertise on the subject.
Her name is Megan, And if that sounds familiar, that's
(07:10):
because it is. By this point, you're well familiar with her.
She was basically a part of our family. Play the clip.
Hey Megan, all I care about his mind? Getting my nuts?
We gave Megan a call. Hey, how's it going. It's good? Um,
(07:36):
we really missed you since last season. Actually, yeah, I
mean I've you know, I've had a lot of balls
in the yar. I been while working on a lot
of exciting projects that are gonna be coming up in
the near future. So I've been a little busy, but
I've absolutely missed you too. Wow. Did she just say
what I think she just said? Kyle, I have no
(08:00):
way of answering that question. You are a journalist who
has been kind of in the in the world of
of cancelation. I'm written to think pieces about the amend
that did the things. You know, any questions, what's up?
(08:23):
We're looking to get Kyle canceled, basically, is the short
end of it. And she's and I am too, really scared.
So I guess we're kind of wondering if you could
tell us what we needed to tread lightly. I mean,
(08:47):
this was a sensitive subject. The truth was even Megan,
someone who had made a career out of speaking truth
to power, was herself afraid of getting canceled. I don't
want to say anything that's gonna get me canceled. I
(09:09):
you know, like everyone else, I'm terrified. Megan wasted no
time and immediately started brainstorming. I don't know the extent
to which Kyle feels comfortable being a sex past. I
know what a sex past. You said this would be safe.
(09:32):
First of all, I didn't say that, But anyway, let's
just hear her out. If you want to say something
derogatory about a race, you are not. Megan's ideas about
(09:52):
how to get Kyle canceled they were a little out there.
I was trying to help my friends safely face her fear,
not ruin her life. Instead, I decided to use this
opportunity to find out about the aftermath of the cancelation.
We encouraged Megan to talk about that. I mean, you've
(10:17):
seen maybe the fallout, right, so what? Um? Which, yeah,
I guess like what. I'm sorry that I'm not asking
specific questions. I just the world is so scary to me.
You don't want to say the wrong thing in this
so right, Well, I would say closet cancelation. What happens is,
you know, you you take a little time on the bench,
(10:39):
cool your heels a little bit. Yeah, let the discourse happen,
and then about maybe one to two weeks two months
after the cancelation, you do a hard pivot to all right,
and then you start getting a hundred thousand dollars a
month on the Patreon. Do you have a Patreon yet? Uh? No? Okay,
(11:01):
you're gonna wanna in between the cancelation and you re
emerging like a phoenix from the ashes. I'm gonna need
you to create a patroon. I'm gonna need you to
move to Austin, Texas. I'm going to start a podcast. Okay,
I think I was following. Okay, so I'm gonna need
you to do another. Say okay, Kyle, I don't want
(11:24):
to do a second podcast. I like this one. I
honestly think that we have something here that is very special. Hey,
let's stay positive and here are out. Um. Okay, I'm
writing this so you're gonna have an entirely new fan base.
Now wait a minute, I don't want a new fan base.
(11:48):
I love you guys, the listeners, you with your beanie,
and you are one young fan what are you twelve?
And even you the guy who is my birthday twin.
I love all you guys. Honestly, this conversation was turning
out to not be very helpful. We were a bit lost,
(12:11):
and Megan just took off on our own. It was
kind of like leaving two furbies alone in a room.
They just keep going on and on and on. Kind
of just left her alone and listen to her. Let
it rip. They're looking for a warrior like yourself. I
(12:32):
assure you that so long as you are an entity
that is able to generate wealth in our capitalistic society. Um,
there never really is cancelation. There's only it's almost like death. Okay,
death is not the end, Okay, we there there's a
future beyond death. A lot of people are scared of death,
(12:52):
but I'm here to tell you death is not the end. Okay,
death is just the opportunity for rebirth and reverse this
what I'm saying. Then you make Megan's final words were
actually reassured. Just make it, just just just make it explosive,
you know, and I'll have I'll signal boosted bingo, Megan
(13:16):
would signal boost it. Anna, that doesn't sound good. No,
it sounds great. I know things are getting really good,
but we have to take a break for some ads,
(13:38):
and the ad break is over. Back to it. We
got off the phone with Megan and reflected, m hm.
Talking to her didn't exactly show us what to do
(13:58):
to get canceled, but it did get us thinking about
what it might be like to get canceled. The problem was, however,
that Megan had traditionally been the cancel ern so her
ideas about what would happen in the aftermath they were
a bit speculative. We thought about it. Maybe it would
(14:22):
be a good idea to talk to someone who had
actually gone through it, someone who had been canceled and
lived to tell the tale, Anna, I honestly have a
terrible feeling about this. I feel terrible about giving air
time to someone who has been canceled. That in and
(14:44):
of itself could get us canceled. I hate this episode.
You're treating me like a little science experiment, and you're
the mad scientist. Kyle. What do we your graduated cylinder.
It's gonna be okay. Hey, Now, as Kyle had mentioned,
this was a bit of a tricky situation. Of course,
(15:07):
I knew it would be morally irresponsible and reprehensible to
give a platform to someone who had done something terrible.
I mean, I'm not about to call up Hitler and
see if he wants to meet up at Cafesito Organico
so that I could pick his brain about his craft sometime.
You know, I'm talking about a low level cancelation. A
low level cancelation like what Kyle. I don't know yet,
(15:33):
but I'll figure it out. And then I figured it out.
We would talk to Joe. Let's just say that Joe's
story it was interesting. We'll let him fill you in.
(15:58):
My name is Joe. I'm under the marquee of the
New Beverly Cinema right now on Beverly Boulevard and in Hollywood, California,
and this is the place that canceled me. We let
Joe tell us his story. They put out a calendar
(16:19):
every month that has a list of all their movies,
and a lot of times it's a bunch of movies
that I've never heard of before. And they're fun. It's fun.
They have fun titles, funny names, and I think that's funny. Uh.
And so what I did was I made up fake
movies and made little pictures of movie posters and I
put them on there instead. I showed it to my wife,
(16:43):
I said to check this out, and she said, this
is this is very very good. She loved it, and
she said, put this on Twitter. The tweet was off
to a kind of slow start. A couple of people
liked it. Okay, okay, it's doing numbers. It's doing you know,
we're in the we're in the teams, two dozens. They
(17:09):
get a little bit better to kind of break out
of my my bubble, all right, some people are more
and more and more people seeing it, a little more retweets.
You can probably guess what happened next. The tweet blew
up and it was awesome and Joe was loving every
(17:34):
moment of the ride. But little did he know in
that exact moment when he felt on top of the world,
his tweet with the fake calendar was being seen by
the wrong pair of eyes, and the next thing he
(17:58):
knew he was locked by the New Beverly Cinema Twitter account.
But the thing is, he didn't even know it was happening.
I didn't notice I was blocked by the New Beverly
Cinema until maybe months later, when I tried to look
(18:18):
at their schedule and I couldn't see it. It made
me think about a tsunami bomb, how it's so big
but you might not feel to impact right away. Gosh,
it really makes you think. This was a rare opportunity
to hear what it was like to be canceled. We
(18:40):
heard Joe out. It makes me feel small, casting looks
of judgment, sometimes aggression, um, other times just ignoring me.
And that's what it is day to day. It is
just you are cast off um, human detritus. That's what
(19:03):
I feel like. It's this is really hard to talk about.
I did. I did not expect it to be this
sord to talk about. It hurts. And then we got
to the uncomfortable part what this cancelation meant for Joe's life.
(19:25):
Practically speaking, I'll either come here or I'll call people
and say, please read this month's calendar. Yeah, I have
to have it read to me. Huh. Okay, well that
did sound inconvenient, but not exactly what we were looking for.
(19:51):
We let Joe keep talking because we were sure he
would get to the part where he was banned from
the theater or something. Um, you know, it's still can
come here and see move what because I don't think
they know who I am. Okay, that's really interesting. I
(20:13):
was definitely taken aback by this, but Joe seemed upset,
so I tried to be there for him. I just
gotta keep calling. Thanks. Thanks, I mean Joe, thank you
so much. Thank you for well, thanks for letting me
at least let me speak here. And I appreciated that.
I really do. We said our goodbyes to Joe and
(20:34):
thought about what we had learned Between what Megan told
us about moving to Austin and Joe still being able
to see movies four or five times a week getting canceled.
He really didn't seem that bad. But that was actually
(20:57):
good news because now I would have an easier time
convincing Kyle to go for it. And by go for it,
I mean getting canceled. All right, I hear you. Maybe
getting canceled wouldn't be so bad. But Anna, what exactly
(21:21):
was I getting canceled for? And keep in mind, I
don't want to be a sex best It's always really
nice when Kyle learns a new term and then tries
to take it out for a spin as much as possible. Anyway,
there was a point to her question, what would she
(21:42):
get canceled for? We thought about it for a while,
and we'll level with you, this was a tough one.
We knew that whatever it was, it couldn't be too
bad because, let's be real, that could jeopardize the podcast.
(22:04):
You guys, the listeners a twelve year old fan. Our
producers are sound Guy Roman, the beach My Crushed Chris.
All of these things, they could be taken away from
us in a heartbeat if we went too far with
this cancelation. We thought about the types of things that
(22:28):
get people canceled. One kind of stood out naturally doing
an impression. We talked about it. What constitutes a mean
cancellable impression of someone? That it has to be someone
I think that is fundamentally different from you. Yeah, I
(22:52):
think it. I think it's often when you present a
caricature of a person, and that's sort of what makes
it offensive is because you're not taking in all of
their um, your equalities, and the things that make them special.
You're kind of painting broad strokes. So I would say, then,
(23:17):
then in this sense, it's like it should be something
that you actually don't know a lot about. Interesting. I
know you, you're you're sweetie, and so you'll end up
painting with the colors of a humane bush for every color,
absolutely every color invited and celebrated. But if we choose
(23:40):
we choose a type of person who I don't know
a lot about. Yes, um, you, we're removing your safety net.
You don't know. Yeah, what what we're going to see
is actually just something very ignorant. Absolutely, okay, absolutely, that's
really good. Yes, okay, that's really good. So, so you're
going to do an impression of a caricature of a
(24:02):
person or a type of person, and it's going to
be ignorant. I think. So, yeah, bingo, we decided that
I would do an impression of someone irish. I don't
want to sound like an ignorant ass, but I really
(24:22):
didn't know a lot about the Irish people. What were
they really doing over there? No one could say so, Yes,
doing an impression of the Irish it is. But before
unrolling the red carpet to the world and letting this
impression strut its stuff, man we here, man here, we
(24:48):
wanted to take it out for a test drive, making
sure it was in that sweet spot of offensive but
not so offensive that we lose everything, including you guys,
the listen and now an ad break. The ad break
(25:18):
is over. When it came to testing things out, we
had the perfect group of people are late people focus
group from season one, whom we always gathered via Zoo.
I am a late person. I am a late person.
(25:40):
I am a late person. I am a late person,
and I am a late person at my core, with
every fiber of my being. In case you don't remember,
we had originally gathered a group of string years that
made up our focus group. These people were absolute rock stars,
(26:06):
and they were always a great sounding board for our
new and sometimes controversial ideas. The only problem with them
was well they were sometimes late. Okay, so obviously it
is twelve two. The meeting was set for twelve so,
(26:31):
needless to say, something's never change. I think you know
five minutes is yeah, okay, so should we should start
at twelve o five late? People never learn no offense.
Since it had been about a year since we had
(26:51):
last spoken to them, we asked everyone to go around
and give us an update read their lateness, and in
order to maintain the order, we reinstated the original rule
of begetting your turn by saying either to jump off
that or just to pivot off that. Hi, my name
(27:14):
is Heather, and I would have to say that I
am more late than I was the prior year because
I have a lot more obligations now and I have
to deal with traffic again. So um, just to pivot
(27:34):
off that. Um, I'm Chris. My last year has been
just an absolute roller coaster, and I think I'm about
as late as I was before, and not much has
really changed in that. Hi Chris, God, I'm so awkward. Anna,
(28:03):
It's okay, just to jump off that. Um, I'm Dylan Blow.
I think now I'm I'm more on time. I've had
to you know, I had to get a job, and
now i'm you know, I'm I'm subject to make sure
(28:24):
i'm I'm punctual. So I think I think there's been
a bit of an art for me and that now
I'm I'm less late. We wasted no time. Kyle left
the room and I readied the group for what they
were about to see, and if I'm being honest, I
readied myself as well. So we really appreciate you coming
(28:48):
here today. We're now going to show you something and
really make sure you listen to what you feared, and
then we're gonna ask you some follow up questions to
take it away. I'm from Ireland and I my grandfa
I grandparts. It's potatoes for a living and later opened
(29:16):
the business for friend friend's There's honestly nothing more that
I need to add. I think the clip really speaks
for itself. I would just like to note that when
Kyle delivered her impression, she was wearing a beanie. Before
she delivered her impression, she was not wearing a beanie.
(29:40):
I thought that was very interesting. I said it before,
and I'll go ahead and say it again. Kyle's one
of the most interesting women in the world. And potatos
because that's where our family. What did they win? I
think that did not I don't think you can do
(30:01):
it again. Um. We then opened it up to our
late people focus group, what did they think about Kyle's impression,
because we needed to know for sure that this was
enough to get her canceled. I mean, as Kyle's friend,
I gotta say I can't just have her doing that
(30:23):
for nothing. Okay, thank you so much for watching that.
So our question to you is, uh, first and foremost
and most simply, we want to know what you just
(30:44):
saw and heard was offensive. So let's go around and
order simple yes or no for now. Um. And just
to pivot off that, that system is someone place, UM,
go ahead, they didn't hold back, Just to pivot off that.
(31:05):
I think what I just saw and heard was a
bit of a cultural melonge roller coaster that I felt
slightly appropriated. Um, I I would wasn't totally unoffended. I
would be concerned about others around me being affected. Let's
(31:26):
say that, UM, just to jump off of that, I yeah,
I just it was so strange. I do relate to
what my previous participant said about wondering if people around
me would be offended. But that's assuming that they, you know,
(31:47):
weren't as confused as I am about the sort of strange,
vulgar display that we were just witnessed too, So thanks,
just just a pop up off that I didn't feel offended.
(32:08):
I thought the choice of of wearing a beanie to
portray being Irish was a strong choice, and the commitment
to I guess you'd call it the trill of the
Boys was I think there was a lot of intentionality there.
(32:35):
Ah yeah, huh. It seemed like Kyle's impression actually had
left people more confused than offended. Plus one guy loved
Kyle's choice of wearing a beanie. He thought it added
to the performance. Before we excuse the group, I had
(32:57):
one last question for them. We are in the process
of trying to get Kyle canceled, and so we're work
shopping a few ways that that might happen, and so
this is UM. It's a work in progress. Does anyone
have the suggestions for UM other ways to get Kyle canceled?
(33:19):
I was thinking maybe UM committing hard on on like
social media or Twitter, just just building building a universe
of this being Kyle's indignant truth to share, doubling down
and just being real unlikable I think is a good
(33:45):
way to go ahead and get a canceled. Now, that
was interesting. Dylan proposed that we could use Twitter as
a venue for this undertaking. Thinking about it some more,
Twitter was actually the battleground for a lot of cancelations.
Oh like Joe. But if the Late People focus group
(34:07):
had shown us anything, it was that Kyle's take on
Irish people. He was not going to do it. Are
Late People focused group participants left and I pulled Kyle aside. Okay,
(34:28):
that didn't really work. I feel like your heart wasn't
you know. Well, I mean, I really was trying to
do the impression. But you know what I think it is.
I think it's I think it's that I don't know
if you know this about me, but my name is
Irish Zono, No, Kyle, I'm sorry. Irish. Kyle is Irishes
(34:57):
and I believe it means some kind of like two
river streams or something. Anyway, Um, my name, it means
two river streams. Well money just googling it, Kyle name. Yeah,
it means a narrow a sound, or a straight I
like that. Also, people have asked, um, is Kyle a
(35:18):
good name? Is Kyle a weird name? It's kind of
weird name? Um? Okay, So okay, so you're saying that
your name is Gaelic. Yeah, my name is my name
is Gaelic, and so is Gaelic the same as Irish. Truly,
I'm just curious. I think Scottish and Irish things kind
(35:42):
of big kind there a lot of we don't really
the same way back one place in our points absolutely,
um but basically that and I also do love potatoes,
and so I think that's what was hard about it
and why the impression didn't work is because I actually
think that being Irish is a part of me, and
(36:04):
there's actually more than I thought that I knew about. Interesting,
you're too close to the sword coming from within? Yeah,
I think they go back to the drawing board. Damn
drawing board. My heart wasn't in it. Because I myself
was connected to the Irish people. It made it impossible
(36:30):
to have the kind of distance necessary to make that
kind of crude observation we were looking to make. Plus,
Irishness wasn't really an evergreen subject. It seemed like to
get canceled, your finger had to be on the polls.
It had to feel more current than this. The one
(36:54):
good thing that came out of this meeting of the
minds was that one of our late people focus group
participants had given us a really great tip. Twitter was
a good place to get canceled. No, it was the
place to get canceled, from politicians to comedians, two authors,
(37:18):
to that guy whose name you don't even know in
your office. What did he do? Kyle, you don't even
want to know. If you were getting canceled, chances are
you were on Twitter. But what would Kyle tweet about? Honestly,
(37:41):
Kyle hadn't even tweeted since two thousand seventeen. Her Twitter,
it's like the Australian countryside, barren, with gusts of wind
passing by, ever so often, carrying with them a vague
murmur of life. Kyle stamped on a flyer for Mars
(38:02):
Showman studio sitting admission. He's fifteen dollars doors at seven thirty,
but the show starts at eight fifteen. Inexplicably thought of that.
So yeah, it had been a while since she had
personally tweeted, But I thought this was actually great because
(38:28):
maybe it would make more of an impact, and maybe,
just maybe we were about to be looking at a
canceled woman, and then something happened. Will Smith takes a
(38:53):
swing at Chris Rock on stage. At the Oscars. It
all went down after Chris made a crack at Will's wife,
Will Smith, striking him in the face. Overnight, Chris Rock
breaking his silence in the wake of the Will Smith
Oscar slap to be continued. Hey, if you like The
(39:22):
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(39:42):
Hounds to participate in our investigations and see behind the
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Welcome to Truth Hounds, a production of My Heart Radio.
I'm Anna and I've been unemployed for two years now,
so I really have nothing going on. And I'm Kyle
and in middle school I received the ward most Enthusiastic
to learn. So that makes me pretty special. And that
(00:21):
is what makes us the perfect investigative duo. We are
two friends who love each other very much. But what
we love even more is getting to the bottom of mysteries.
All mysteries, sure, but small mysteries specifically. Trust me, No
mystery is too small. No, no, no, Why don't you
trust me when I tell you we are ready to
(00:43):
sniff around. We are the the Truth Hounds. Hello, Hey, Kyle, Hey,
it's Anna. Oh hey, Hi? Are you busy? Um a
(01:04):
little bit? What's up? Um? I have a surprise for you.
Um about Beat mcarmy. No, wait are you? Are you
the grocery store? No, there's just a truck outside. Oh.
I thought you were gonna checkout line. I was gonna say,
(01:24):
pick me up kombucha, But no, it's I have a surprise.
It's not about Beat macromy but it but it is
a surprise. I'll be right there. Hi, Hi, Kyle, how
(01:45):
are you. I'm okay. How are you doing I'm okay. Yeah,
I just wanted to say that. Okay, I've been doing
a lot of thinking and I know that it's really
frustrating and sad that we had to put a maybe temporary,
maybe permanent, who knows, pause, stop on the beat macromy investigation.
(02:10):
But I really wanted us to have some fun, and
so I know you love surprises. I bought us two tickets.
I'm so excited to tell you, okay. I bought us
two tickets to Madison Square Garden in New York and
y See to go see. Oh that sounds so great. Wait,
(02:41):
what are you doing? That sounds great? I feel like, okay,
you're saying the words. That sounds great, but that very
sounds Why are you stepping away? Where are you looking?
Two tickets? No? I I heard it at Madison's heard
(03:07):
and that sounds great. I don't believe. What are you doing?
What's going on? Okay? I guess you're like, so it
was canceled, like the show's canceled. No no, no, no,
no was canceled. Wait wait whispering, I can't hear you
(03:30):
over the waves. Yeah, I was canceled. Wait like canceled, handled, canceled?
What did it? What did you do? I don't think Wait,
why did he get no? No No? No? Hang on? Why
did he get canceled? Okay, it was canceled? Because what? Uh?
(03:55):
I don't know? Do you don't repeat that part? How
do they know? How do they know? I hang on before?
But how do you? How do they? How do they know?
Because I feel gross? Why did you make me say that? God?
Don't I don't think we can go. I don't think
(04:17):
we should be caught. No, we could be caught. I'm
obviously not. No, I didn't. I didn't know. I was
taking a phone sabbatical. And to be honest, actually my
literal worst night here is to be canceled. Your worst
fear is to be or do you even be canceled for?
(04:38):
I don't know. It could be anything, what do you
I could be walking and someone could be like, why
are you walking like that? Your worst fear? Yeah? Does
that sound a little bit irrational? Oh? No, it's like
I feel like people would get canceled. They're generally are
doing bad. So you're wearing those shoes? Do you feel like, Yeah,
(05:00):
that's literally a fear of yours. My top biggest fear.
I mean, it's irrational, for sure, but it's but it's like,
it's my fear. I've been reading a little bit about
exposure therapy. Okay, this is crazy, But since we can't
(05:21):
do the other investigation, what do you think about if
to face your fear you get canceled. We're going to
cancel you That that sounds horrible, would but you'll do it.
Then you'll see maybe it's not so bad. If it's
(05:42):
literally your worst fear and you're saying you can't go
to the grocery store, you can't walk freely. Yeah, that
sounds I don't think that sounds like a great idea.
Episode six, Kyle gets canceled. So we came up with
(06:06):
a plan. While our investigation to beat backermy Similard on
the back burner, we would continue our larger investigation into
the subject of fear, only this time we would focus
on a different branch of that subject. We would help
(06:27):
Kyle overcome her fear of getting canceled. Hey, who knows,
maybe by doing so, we would actually put ourselves into
a better position for when we finally do face our
fear of beat macromy when that faithful day finally comes.
(06:48):
But don't worry, guys, we'll get there. Since neither Kyle
nor I had experienced getting canceled, we were kind of
in the dark. So I reached out to someone who
I knew had a bit of expertise on the subject.
Her name is Megan, And if that sounds familiar, that's
(07:10):
because it is. By this point, you're well familiar with her.
She was basically a part of our family. Play the clip.
Hey Megan, all I care about his mind? Getting my nuts?
We gave Megan a call. Hey, how's it going. It's good? Um,
(07:36):
we really missed you since last season. Actually, yeah, I
mean I've you know, I've had a lot of balls
in the yar. I been while working on a lot
of exciting projects that are gonna be coming up in
the near future. So I've been a little busy, but
I've absolutely missed you too. Wow. Did she just say
what I think she just said? Kyle, I have no
(08:00):
way of answering that question. You are a journalist who
has been kind of in the in the world of
of cancelation. I'm written to think pieces about the amend
that did the things. You know, any questions, what's up?
(08:23):
We're looking to get Kyle canceled, basically, is the short
end of it. And she's and I am too, really scared.
So I guess we're kind of wondering if you could
tell us what we needed to tread lightly. I mean,
(08:47):
this was a sensitive subject. The truth was even Megan,
someone who had made a career out of speaking truth
to power, was herself afraid of getting canceled. I don't
want to say anything that's gonna get me canceled. I
(09:09):
you know, like everyone else, I'm terrified. Megan wasted no
time and immediately started brainstorming. I don't know the extent
to which Kyle feels comfortable being a sex past. I
know what a sex past. You said this would be safe.
(09:32):
First of all, I didn't say that, But anyway, let's
just hear her out. If you want to say something
derogatory about a race, you are not. Megan's ideas about
(09:52):
how to get Kyle canceled they were a little out there.
I was trying to help my friends safely face her fear,
not ruin her life. Instead, I decided to use this
opportunity to find out about the aftermath of the cancelation.
We encouraged Megan to talk about that. I mean, you've
(10:17):
seen maybe the fallout, right, so what? Um? Which, yeah,
I guess like what. I'm sorry that I'm not asking
specific questions. I just the world is so scary to me.
You don't want to say the wrong thing in this
so right, Well, I would say closet cancelation. What happens is,
you know, you you take a little time on the bench,
(10:39):
cool your heels a little bit. Yeah, let the discourse happen,
and then about maybe one to two weeks two months
after the cancelation, you do a hard pivot to all right,
and then you start getting a hundred thousand dollars a
month on the Patreon. Do you have a Patreon yet? Uh? No? Okay,
(11:01):
you're gonna wanna in between the cancelation and you re
emerging like a phoenix from the ashes. I'm gonna need
you to create a patroon. I'm gonna need you to
move to Austin, Texas. I'm going to start a podcast. Okay,
I think I was following. Okay, so I'm gonna need
you to do another. Say okay, Kyle, I don't want
(11:24):
to do a second podcast. I like this one. I
honestly think that we have something here that is very special. Hey,
let's stay positive and here are out. Um. Okay, I'm
writing this so you're gonna have an entirely new fan base.
Now wait a minute, I don't want a new fan base.
(11:48):
I love you guys, the listeners, you with your beanie,
and you are one young fan what are you twelve?
And even you the guy who is my birthday twin.
I love all you guys. Honestly, this conversation was turning
out to not be very helpful. We were a bit lost,
(12:11):
and Megan just took off on our own. It was
kind of like leaving two furbies alone in a room.
They just keep going on and on and on. Kind
of just left her alone and listen to her. Let
it rip. They're looking for a warrior like yourself. I
(12:32):
assure you that so long as you are an entity
that is able to generate wealth in our capitalistic society. Um,
there never really is cancelation. There's only it's almost like death. Okay,
death is not the end, Okay, we there there's a
future beyond death. A lot of people are scared of death,
(12:52):
but I'm here to tell you death is not the end. Okay,
death is just the opportunity for rebirth and reverse this
what I'm saying. Then you make Megan's final words were
actually reassured. Just make it, just just just make it explosive,
you know, and I'll have I'll signal boosted bingo, Megan
(13:16):
would signal boost it. Anna, that doesn't sound good. No,
it sounds great. I know things are getting really good,
but we have to take a break for some ads,
(13:38):
and the ad break is over. Back to it. We
got off the phone with Megan and reflected, m hm.
Talking to her didn't exactly show us what to do
(13:58):
to get canceled, but it did get us thinking about
what it might be like to get canceled. The problem was, however,
that Megan had traditionally been the cancel ern so her
ideas about what would happen in the aftermath they were
a bit speculative. We thought about it. Maybe it would
(14:22):
be a good idea to talk to someone who had
actually gone through it, someone who had been canceled and
lived to tell the tale, Anna, I honestly have a
terrible feeling about this. I feel terrible about giving air
time to someone who has been canceled. That in and
(14:44):
of itself could get us canceled. I hate this episode.
You're treating me like a little science experiment, and you're
the mad scientist. Kyle. What do we your graduated cylinder.
It's gonna be okay. Hey, Now, as Kyle had mentioned,
this was a bit of a tricky situation. Of course,
(15:07):
I knew it would be morally irresponsible and reprehensible to
give a platform to someone who had done something terrible.
I mean, I'm not about to call up Hitler and
see if he wants to meet up at Cafesito Organico
so that I could pick his brain about his craft sometime.
You know, I'm talking about a low level cancelation. A
low level cancelation like what Kyle. I don't know yet,
(15:33):
but I'll figure it out. And then I figured it out.
We would talk to Joe. Let's just say that Joe's
story it was interesting. We'll let him fill you in.
(15:58):
My name is Joe. I'm under the marquee of the
New Beverly Cinema right now on Beverly Boulevard and in Hollywood, California,
and this is the place that canceled me. We let
Joe tell us his story. They put out a calendar
(16:19):
every month that has a list of all their movies,
and a lot of times it's a bunch of movies
that I've never heard of before. And they're fun. It's fun.
They have fun titles, funny names, and I think that's funny. Uh.
And so what I did was I made up fake
movies and made little pictures of movie posters and I
put them on there instead. I showed it to my wife,
(16:43):
I said to check this out, and she said, this
is this is very very good. She loved it, and
she said, put this on Twitter. The tweet was off
to a kind of slow start. A couple of people
liked it. Okay, okay, it's doing numbers. It's doing you know,
we're in the we're in the teams, two dozens. They
(17:09):
get a little bit better to kind of break out
of my my bubble, all right, some people are more
and more and more people seeing it, a little more retweets.
You can probably guess what happened next. The tweet blew
up and it was awesome and Joe was loving every
(17:34):
moment of the ride. But little did he know in
that exact moment when he felt on top of the world,
his tweet with the fake calendar was being seen by
the wrong pair of eyes, and the next thing he
(17:58):
knew he was locked by the New Beverly Cinema Twitter account.
But the thing is, he didn't even know it was happening.
I didn't notice I was blocked by the New Beverly
Cinema until maybe months later, when I tried to look
(18:18):
at their schedule and I couldn't see it. It made
me think about a tsunami bomb, how it's so big
but you might not feel to impact right away. Gosh,
it really makes you think. This was a rare opportunity
to hear what it was like to be canceled. We
(18:40):
heard Joe out. It makes me feel small, casting looks
of judgment, sometimes aggression, um, other times just ignoring me.
And that's what it is day to day. It is
just you are cast off um, human detritus. That's what
(19:03):
I feel like. It's this is really hard to talk about.
I did. I did not expect it to be this
sord to talk about. It hurts. And then we got
to the uncomfortable part what this cancelation meant for Joe's life.
(19:25):
Practically speaking, I'll either come here or I'll call people
and say, please read this month's calendar. Yeah, I have
to have it read to me. Huh. Okay, well that
did sound inconvenient, but not exactly what we were looking for.
(19:51):
We let Joe keep talking because we were sure he
would get to the part where he was banned from
the theater or something. Um, you know, it's still can
come here and see move what because I don't think
they know who I am. Okay, that's really interesting. I
(20:13):
was definitely taken aback by this, but Joe seemed upset,
so I tried to be there for him. I just
gotta keep calling. Thanks. Thanks, I mean Joe, thank you
so much. Thank you for well, thanks for letting me
at least let me speak here. And I appreciated that.
I really do. We said our goodbyes to Joe and
(20:34):
thought about what we had learned Between what Megan told
us about moving to Austin and Joe still being able
to see movies four or five times a week getting canceled.
He really didn't seem that bad. But that was actually
(20:57):
good news because now I would have an easier time
convincing Kyle to go for it. And by go for it,
I mean getting canceled. All right, I hear you. Maybe
getting canceled wouldn't be so bad. But Anna, what exactly
(21:21):
was I getting canceled for? And keep in mind, I
don't want to be a sex best It's always really
nice when Kyle learns a new term and then tries
to take it out for a spin as much as possible. Anyway,
there was a point to her question, what would she
(21:42):
get canceled for? We thought about it for a while,
and we'll level with you, this was a tough one.
We knew that whatever it was, it couldn't be too
bad because, let's be real, that could jeopardize the podcast.
(22:04):
You guys, the listeners a twelve year old fan. Our
producers are sound Guy Roman, the beach My Crushed Chris.
All of these things, they could be taken away from
us in a heartbeat if we went too far with
this cancelation. We thought about the types of things that
(22:28):
get people canceled. One kind of stood out naturally doing
an impression. We talked about it. What constitutes a mean
cancellable impression of someone? That it has to be someone
I think that is fundamentally different from you. Yeah, I
(22:52):
think it. I think it's often when you present a
caricature of a person, and that's sort of what makes
it offensive is because you're not taking in all of
their um, your equalities, and the things that make them special.
You're kind of painting broad strokes. So I would say, then,
(23:17):
then in this sense, it's like it should be something
that you actually don't know a lot about. Interesting. I
know you, you're you're sweetie, and so you'll end up
painting with the colors of a humane bush for every color,
absolutely every color invited and celebrated. But if we choose
(23:40):
we choose a type of person who I don't know
a lot about. Yes, um, you, we're removing your safety net.
You don't know. Yeah, what what we're going to see
is actually just something very ignorant. Absolutely, okay, absolutely, that's
really good. Yes, okay, that's really good. So, so you're
going to do an impression of a caricature of a
(24:02):
person or a type of person, and it's going to
be ignorant. I think. So, yeah, bingo, we decided that
I would do an impression of someone irish. I don't
want to sound like an ignorant ass, but I really
(24:22):
didn't know a lot about the Irish people. What were
they really doing over there? No one could say so, Yes,
doing an impression of the Irish it is. But before
unrolling the red carpet to the world and letting this
impression strut its stuff, man we here, man here, we
(24:48):
wanted to take it out for a test drive, making
sure it was in that sweet spot of offensive but
not so offensive that we lose everything, including you guys,
the listen and now an ad break. The ad break
(25:18):
is over. When it came to testing things out, we
had the perfect group of people are late people focus
group from season one, whom we always gathered via Zoo.
I am a late person. I am a late person.
(25:40):
I am a late person. I am a late person,
and I am a late person at my core, with
every fiber of my being. In case you don't remember,
we had originally gathered a group of string years that
made up our focus group. These people were absolute rock stars,
(26:06):
and they were always a great sounding board for our
new and sometimes controversial ideas. The only problem with them
was well they were sometimes late. Okay, so obviously it
is twelve two. The meeting was set for twelve so,
(26:31):
needless to say, something's never change. I think you know
five minutes is yeah, okay, so should we should start
at twelve o five late? People never learn no offense.
Since it had been about a year since we had
(26:51):
last spoken to them, we asked everyone to go around
and give us an update read their lateness, and in
order to maintain the order, we reinstated the original rule
of begetting your turn by saying either to jump off
that or just to pivot off that. Hi, my name
(27:14):
is Heather, and I would have to say that I
am more late than I was the prior year because
I have a lot more obligations now and I have
to deal with traffic again. So um, just to pivot
(27:34):
off that. Um, I'm Chris. My last year has been
just an absolute roller coaster, and I think I'm about
as late as I was before, and not much has
really changed in that. Hi Chris, God, I'm so awkward. Anna,
(28:03):
It's okay, just to jump off that. Um, I'm Dylan Blow.
I think now I'm I'm more on time. I've had
to you know, I had to get a job, and
now i'm you know, I'm I'm subject to make sure
(28:24):
i'm I'm punctual. So I think I think there's been
a bit of an art for me and that now
I'm I'm less late. We wasted no time. Kyle left
the room and I readied the group for what they
were about to see, and if I'm being honest, I
readied myself as well. So we really appreciate you coming
(28:48):
here today. We're now going to show you something and
really make sure you listen to what you feared, and
then we're gonna ask you some follow up questions to
take it away. I'm from Ireland and I my grandfa
I grandparts. It's potatoes for a living and later opened
(29:16):
the business for friend friend's There's honestly nothing more that
I need to add. I think the clip really speaks
for itself. I would just like to note that when
Kyle delivered her impression, she was wearing a beanie. Before
she delivered her impression, she was not wearing a beanie.
(29:40):
I thought that was very interesting. I said it before,
and I'll go ahead and say it again. Kyle's one
of the most interesting women in the world. And potatos
because that's where our family. What did they win? I
think that did not I don't think you can do
(30:01):
it again. Um. We then opened it up to our
late people focus group, what did they think about Kyle's impression,
because we needed to know for sure that this was
enough to get her canceled. I mean, as Kyle's friend,
I gotta say I can't just have her doing that
(30:23):
for nothing. Okay, thank you so much for watching that.
So our question to you is, uh, first and foremost
and most simply, we want to know what you just
(30:44):
saw and heard was offensive. So let's go around and
order simple yes or no for now. Um. And just
to pivot off that, that system is someone place, UM,
go ahead, they didn't hold back, Just to pivot off that.
(31:05):
I think what I just saw and heard was a
bit of a cultural melonge roller coaster that I felt
slightly appropriated. Um, I I would wasn't totally unoffended. I
would be concerned about others around me being affected. Let's
(31:26):
say that, UM, just to jump off of that, I yeah,
I just it was so strange. I do relate to
what my previous participant said about wondering if people around
me would be offended. But that's assuming that they, you know,
(31:47):
weren't as confused as I am about the sort of strange,
vulgar display that we were just witnessed too, So thanks,
just just a pop up off that I didn't feel offended.
(32:08):
I thought the choice of of wearing a beanie to
portray being Irish was a strong choice, and the commitment
to I guess you'd call it the trill of the
Boys was I think there was a lot of intentionality there.
(32:35):
Ah yeah, huh. It seemed like Kyle's impression actually had
left people more confused than offended. Plus one guy loved
Kyle's choice of wearing a beanie. He thought it added
to the performance. Before we excuse the group, I had
(32:57):
one last question for them. We are in the process
of trying to get Kyle canceled, and so we're work
shopping a few ways that that might happen, and so
this is UM. It's a work in progress. Does anyone
have the suggestions for UM other ways to get Kyle canceled?
(33:19):
I was thinking maybe UM committing hard on on like
social media or Twitter, just just building building a universe
of this being Kyle's indignant truth to share, doubling down
and just being real unlikable I think is a good
(33:45):
way to go ahead and get a canceled. Now, that
was interesting. Dylan proposed that we could use Twitter as
a venue for this undertaking. Thinking about it some more,
Twitter was actually the battleground for a lot of cancelations.
Oh like Joe. But if the Late People focus group
(34:07):
had shown us anything, it was that Kyle's take on
Irish people. He was not going to do it. Are
Late People focused group participants left and I pulled Kyle aside. Okay,
(34:28):
that didn't really work. I feel like your heart wasn't
you know. Well, I mean, I really was trying to
do the impression. But you know what I think it is.
I think it's I think it's that I don't know
if you know this about me, but my name is
Irish Zono, No, Kyle, I'm sorry. Irish. Kyle is Irishes
(34:57):
and I believe it means some kind of like two
river streams or something. Anyway, Um, my name, it means
two river streams. Well money just googling it, Kyle name. Yeah,
it means a narrow a sound, or a straight I
like that. Also, people have asked, um, is Kyle a
(35:18):
good name? Is Kyle a weird name? It's kind of
weird name? Um? Okay, So okay, so you're saying that
your name is Gaelic. Yeah, my name is my name
is Gaelic, and so is Gaelic the same as Irish. Truly,
I'm just curious. I think Scottish and Irish things kind
(35:42):
of big kind there a lot of we don't really
the same way back one place in our points absolutely,
um but basically that and I also do love potatoes,
and so I think that's what was hard about it
and why the impression didn't work is because I actually
think that being Irish is a part of me, and
(36:04):
there's actually more than I thought that I knew about. Interesting,
you're too close to the sword coming from within? Yeah,
I think they go back to the drawing board. Damn
drawing board. My heart wasn't in it. Because I myself
was connected to the Irish people. It made it impossible
(36:30):
to have the kind of distance necessary to make that
kind of crude observation we were looking to make. Plus,
Irishness wasn't really an evergreen subject. It seemed like to
get canceled, your finger had to be on the polls.
It had to feel more current than this. The one
(36:54):
good thing that came out of this meeting of the
minds was that one of our late people focus group
participants had given us a really great tip. Twitter was
a good place to get canceled. No, it was the
place to get canceled, from politicians to comedians, two authors,
(37:18):
to that guy whose name you don't even know in
your office. What did he do? Kyle, you don't even
want to know. If you were getting canceled, chances are
you were on Twitter. But what would Kyle tweet about? Honestly,
(37:41):
Kyle hadn't even tweeted since two thousand seventeen. Her Twitter,
it's like the Australian countryside, barren, with gusts of wind
passing by, ever so often, carrying with them a vague
murmur of life. Kyle stamped on a flyer for Mars
(38:02):
Showman studio sitting admission. He's fifteen dollars doors at seven thirty,
but the show starts at eight fifteen. Inexplicably thought of that.
So yeah, it had been a while since she had
personally tweeted, But I thought this was actually great because
(38:28):
maybe it would make more of an impact, and maybe,
just maybe we were about to be looking at a
canceled woman, and then something happened. Will Smith takes a
(38:53):
swing at Chris Rock on stage. At the Oscars. It
all went down after Chris made a crack at Will's wife,
Will Smith, striking him in the face. Overnight, Chris Rock
breaking his silence in the wake of the Will Smith
Oscar slap to be continued. Hey, if you like The
(39:22):
Truth Hounds, please subscribe to us and leave us a
five star review. Seriously, it would really help us. And honestly,
you gotta start earning your keep around here. And as
soon as you're done earning your keep, follow us on
Instagram at truth Hounds and on Twitter at the truth
(39:42):
Hounds to participate in our investigations and see behind the
scenes footage and bonus juicy content. Truth Hounds is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
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