May 31, 2022 • 41 mins
Anna and Kyle continue the side investigation into fear by seeing what happens when Kyle gets cancelled. To ensure the cancellation takes, Kyle is forced to do something really risky: Tweet biting commentary regarding the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap. Will this end her life? Will her tweets get seen by the wrong person?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
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
(00:23):
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 mystery, 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
(00:45):
sniff around. We are the the truth Hounds. Previously on
Truth Hounds, my literal worth a here is to be canceled.
We would help Kyle overcome her fear of getting canceled.
(01:10):
I've written to think pieces about the men that did
the thing. You know, after the cancelation you do a
hard pit a to, all right, and this is the
place that cancel make human detritus. That's what I feel like.
If you were getting canceled, chances are you were on Twitter.
But what would Kyle tweet about? And then something happened? Hello, Hey, Kyle, Hi, yeah,
(01:48):
are you Are you busy? Um? A little bit? Why
what's up? Okay? Something just went down at the Oscars. Okay, okay,
I have to tell you about it. Okay, Well I'll
be right there. No, no, no, actually we shouldn't. Um,
we should just probably lay low. Um, do you want
(02:11):
to I'll come to you. Okay, Well i'll see you'll
be ready, yeah, yeah, I'll come yeah yeah yeah. Right
when you last left us, we were trying to figure
out how to cancel me. We knew it should probably
(02:33):
be a series of tweets about something topical. We had
a really hard time coming up with something because our
brains just didn't really work like that. Anna insisted that
we skipped the beach this week and meet immediately at
her house. There. She told me the news. Will Smith
(02:56):
takes a swing at Chris Rock on stage at the Oscar.
It all went down after Chris made crack and 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. Episode seven, Kyle gets canceled, Part two. The
(03:26):
news about the Will Smith slap broke the internet and
people were really upset about it. On both sides, it
seemed to be a truly divisive issue. It seemed like
to have any opinion about it was putting you at
risk of upsetting someone. And that's when we had an idea.
(03:49):
I would have a strong opinion about the slap, make
it known in tweet form, and that would for sure
get me canceled. So we finally had a plan. We
would get Kyle to fire off a few tweets about
(04:11):
the slab and that would for sure get her canceled.
But what kinds of things would she tweet? The truth was,
neither Kyle nor I were particularly skilled a topical humor.
I mean, if you needed a joke about a cute
pig getting kidnapped by a friendly family of crows, hey,
(04:33):
I'll have a packet written for you called murder. She
point by end of the day. But this was not
that we needed her to be thinking quick, mean and
current like a real stand up comic. Have you ever
seen those guys? Something will happen that day, and no lie,
(04:56):
by the time they hit the stage later that night,
they'll have a two to three minutes to say about it.
Damn they were good, these guys. I honestly didn't think
that I could do that. But maybe we could find someone,
you know, a real stand up comic, and maybe they
(05:19):
could help, you know, give me some pointers, or they
could write the jokes, or maybe they could do the tweeting,
or hey, maybe they could even use their own account
and tweet and they're the one that gets canceled. Kyle,
you are getting canceled. You're not getting out of this,
but you know what you are right? Maybe we should
(05:42):
hire someone to write the tweets? Fine, but Anna, can
I say something? Of course? What is it? Um? I
really don't want to do this, And onward we marched,
are you even listening to me? This was a great
starting point. The updated plan. We would find a real
(06:09):
stand up comedian who does topical material and hire them
to write us some tweets about the slap so that
Kyle would in turn get canceled. I spent the week
researching the local comedy scene. Who was performing where, who
was up and coming, who showed a lot of promise?
(06:32):
And I landed upon someone who would be perfect. I
saw that they were performing soon, so I called up
the theater gave them my credit card information over the phone,
and asked them to rope us off two of their
finest seats right there in the front, so that Kyle
(06:55):
and I wouldn't miss a thing. M And when that said,
are you ready to get the shot? Put your heads
together for your motherfucking horse now homed, motherfucking Windberg in
the house. Yeah, thank you. My grandma died. She did.
(07:29):
His name was a Hommed Winberg. And he was awesome,
and not that it was about this. And he was gorgeous,
fiery red hair, a shade of red that was so
bright that it could light up any night. Like if
(07:54):
you were on a quest where you had to travel
by foot by night, you could put him and to
the front of the quest. He would instantly provide light
for the rest of the pack following suit. But if
you caught wind of the enemy approaching, you would need
to immediately tackle him to the ground and cover him
(08:17):
with sheets of burlap lest the enemy see his light
and know your location. Worth beginning to show, my grandma
did die this year. It wasn't COVID. It wasn't COVID,
(08:39):
thank god, it was. It was a vaccine. This guy
was good. As soon as he was done, we left
our front row seats and rushed backstage to meet him. Hey, hey,
(09:01):
that was really good. Thanks, I'm Hannah, nice to meet you. Yeah,
you were great. And we actually we're wondering, Um, we're
looking for a very kind of specific type of comic
who is great at crafting jokes. We're kind of like
(09:23):
a job. I think we're looking for maybe like seven
tweets seven seven tweets to get canceled yet okay, and
like they can be offensive or like should be okay,
everything can maybe be good. I know, you tell us,
because that seems only the comedy works is that should
be about some type of card that if we're talking
about you want me to write seven tweets about the
(09:45):
Chris Rock thing for you for free? Yeah? Yeah. He
seemed to be on board, but before putting the keys
into the ignition room room, he had one more question
for us. Will this get back to me in any way? Like,
(10:05):
are you gonna credit me for the offensive? No? Not
at home. We could see it in his eyes, Ahamed,
just like the rest of us, was scared of getting canceled.
We assured him the only person here who would be
getting canceled it was going to be Kyle Um Hannah
(10:29):
and onward we marched. A couple of days went by
before a Hammed delivered the goods, well some of the goods. Honestly,
the process wasn't as seamless as one would hope. I
thought he would kind of deliver the tweets typed on
a master document sealed in a Manila envelope placed on
(10:50):
our desk by end of day Sunday, But it honestly
seemed like he forgot he had agreed to do this
and even meeting us in the first place. So after
much prodding via text, he finally started slowly texting as
the tweets one at a time, at really weird times too.
(11:15):
Sometimes I would be a target and I would get
one of his text and be like, oh my god,
Oh my god. I hope nobody saw that anyway. As
the text slowly started coming in, it was my job
to start tweeting from my account, and I got to
be honest, it was hard. Listen for yourself. I am
(11:38):
about to uh tweet out my first tweet. Um that
is going to get me canceled, and I'm really nervous. Um.
I believe my last tweet was in like two thousand seventeen,
so he yeah, and I'm also just scared about getting canceled.
(12:03):
So there's that. But before I could even get that
first tweet out, I immediately encountered a hurdle. I don't
even know how to send out this tweet. So I've
been on here just trying to figure it out. I
can't even figure out how to even tweet this. Shoot.
(12:32):
I might have to call Hannah. Okay, hello him. Sorry.
I know you think I'm probably going to be joking
right now, but I literally can't figure out how to tweak. Oh,
I just you know what. I'm so stutie. I see it.
(12:54):
Finally it's the big BLUs signac. Oh gosh, you're adding
looking and go adding something to the world. That's so
fun the world is. I guess we can tell me
the tweet. Yeah, hold on, let me just okay, So
here's the tweet. I said. I'm right, Will Smith could
(13:18):
smack me. I wouldn't mind winky phase hashtag the smack,
which is actually a hashtag that exists. So I'm not
the first one. They're not the first one. No, I
think there's no doubt in my mind that you're not
the free person to tweet about the smack. Okay, I
think you're adding to a very sizable pool of discourse. Okay, Um,
(13:42):
you are kind of cornering a pretty interesting um take
on it. I think you're I mean, I do think
you're in the right path. Um, how do you feel.
I'm definitely nervous. I'm wondering if I should add, like
a little bit of my own signature or no. I
(14:04):
guess not because it's not I don't think so. Yeah.
I think as little of your own signature as possible. Okay,
you know, no offense, but your signature wasn't really working. Yeah, yeah, okay,
I just tweeted it. God, keep in mind this is
(14:26):
just the first step and not home campaign. And yeah,
I'm right there with you, and it's okay. I know
(14:48):
things are getting really good, but we have to take
a break for some ads. And the ad break is over.
Back to it. Before I got off the phone with Anna,
she dropped one last bomb on me. I want you
(15:08):
to know that I might not like it, oh God,
but I will probably interact with it. Oh God. I
just don't be offended when I don't like it. Oh
my god, I'm gonna get canceled. Anna was talking about
not clicking like on my tweet. We all know that
(15:29):
when someone clicks like on your tweet, they're attaching an
endorsement to you. They're saying I'm with her. So this
was really hard to take. My tweet had been live
for less than a minute now, and Anna was already
(15:50):
distancing herself from me. I mean, this person was my rock.
If she wasn't going to stand beside me, who would.
She wished me luck and hung up. Okay, well, good luck, okay.
By my initial feeling was that this wasn't a good idea,
(16:19):
and my initial feeling was starting to feel right after
launching the first tweet, I was starting to spiral. Um.
I literally feel like I'm having an anxiety attack. Um
tweeting out that tweet. I just it's just crazy because
(16:46):
I haven't tweeted since two thousand four. Yeah, you really
are spiraling because you're lying. I corrected myself are two
thousand seventeen. And then all of a sudden, I come
out of the woodwork and I'm saying, um, my piece
(17:09):
about the Will Smith slap. I just I god, I wow,
I don't know what to say. Despite my feelings of anxiety,
I stuck to the plan and fired off a few
more tweets. They were he got into one little fight
(17:36):
in Hollywood, got scared dot dot dot, I am legend.
Yes you are, sir for smacking Chris Rock And finally
the last tweet more like the pursuit of slappiness. So
(17:56):
the tweets had been tweeted, and nightfall came. You know,
a lot of cancelations actually happen overnight. The person wakes
up in the morning. Their phone is set ablaze with notifications,
family members demanding answers, complete strangers threatening your life. Wait,
(18:23):
where are you recording this right now? Um? I am
just somewhere. Don't don't worry about him. Any night came
and it went and at last, oh it was morning.
(18:45):
Are you distancing yourself from me? Because it feels like
that's why you're not here recording this. No, no, no,
I'm cool anyway, so is written here it was morning. Um,
(19:10):
I woke up this morning and I think I got
gained two new followers. And weirdly, it seems like people
really like in the Pursuit of slappiness and just I
don't get it. Strangely, Kyle's tweets, we're actually generating a
(19:34):
positive response. Is this what Megan was warning us about
increased fanfare? But I thought that part was supposed to
happen after the cancelation, we decided it was too early
to make a call either way and to stick with
the plan for now. A couple of days went by,
(19:56):
and then Kyle was about to fire off a tweet
that felt too controversial for her. You're you're sitting, okay,
so tell me the tweet again. Okay. So the tweet is, um,
hold on. It says why didn't he slapped the rock instead?
(20:19):
Question mark? We could have finally smelled what he was cooking?
Dot dot dot A dead Will Smith. Yeah. I just
don't feel comfortable saying a dead Will Smith. I think
that that's actually that's messed up. Why do you think
it's messed up? Because you should never imply someone's dead.
(20:41):
I think if you apply someone's dead, it's like that's
just like really offensive. Like if someone if I saw
a tweet and it said, like, oh, what's in there?
A dead Kyle Mazzono, I would freak out. I think
that if someone were like it depends depends on the
(21:01):
context of the tweet. If the if it's like I
want you dead Kyle the Zone. Oh if that's kind
of the underlying message, then yes, Like to me, what
you're saying, a dead Will Smith seems like you know
when in Aaron Carter's Aaron's Party, come get It, the
(21:21):
parents find out that he had a party, and he's like,
I'll be dead if my parents find out I had
a party. You know what I'm saying, it's dead in
like that context more than it is like I will
physically kill Will Smith. Well, then I think it's a
figure of speech that's like I'm toast. The way that
I'm reading reading it is like you are literally putting
an emphasis on that in a way that's not what
(21:44):
the tweet says to me. Yeah, I just I don't know. Yeah,
it's just this one is like kind of stressing me out.
I don't really want to do it. Well, I think
that's the reason why you should do it, because the
other ones have not been effective. Frankly, I mean, I'm
sorry to be I don't want to be, but I
doesn't have a feeling I'm going to tweet it and
(22:06):
then behind my back you're going to respond to it
and be like I haven't done anything behind your back.
Anna just wasn't getting it. I mean, let's be honest,
she wasn't the one putting herself on the line. This
(22:26):
whole process of me getting canceled was really starting to
scare me. If people didn't like my latest take on
the Will Smith slap, my life could really be over.
Say goodbye to this podcast, to my friends, to my family,
but to my basketball team. Seriously, I might never dribble
(22:49):
on a court again. Despite wanting to quit this sick
little experiment right then and there, Anna wouldn't let me.
We had to finished this investigation, even if it meant
burning my life to the ground. Why are you giving
me attitude? I'm not giving you attitude. Give me attitude
(23:09):
right down, the one who's sucking putting themselves on the line. Okay, sorry,
I don't. It's not about us or whatever. I know.
So I feeling I'm really putting myself on the line here,
and I'm freaking out. I love you, but I just
said this is really it's it's I'm putting myself at risk.
(23:29):
So I just understand, like, shit, you know what, I'm
not in your shoes. I'm kind of I'm tweeting it
this was really starting to wear on us. Okay, but
where are you recording this? By the way, we had
(23:51):
to keep going. We still hadn't received the reaction we
were looking for. But honestly, this was tough because a
Hamed's tweets they ran out and now we were kind
(24:12):
of on our own. Um No, actually, Kyle, Kyle was
on her own. After that blowout in the car, I
just kind of backed off. I had a feeling if
she did it on her own, it would just kind
of work itself out. I took a step back and
(24:33):
thought about the other stuff. Deep macromy what's he doing anyway? Meanwhile, Kyle,
she continued to tweet into the void. It had been
(24:56):
six weeks since this process had started, and we had
launched I's cancelation campaign six weeks and who could forget
her first tweet tweeted by the way at PM, will
Smith get smacked me? I wouldn't mind winky phase hashtag
(25:19):
the smack. I really hope you understand the gravity of
how long we were doing this for. Remember, Kyle had
started tweeting about the infamous slap a week after it
had happened, and now it was six weeks after that
(25:41):
sort of bring you up to speed. It had been
seven weeks total since the slap had actually occurred, and
she was still tweeting about it even when I wasn't around.
Something occurred to me, I didn't need a Hammeds jokes.
(26:03):
I didn't even need Anna's support. Up until this point,
I'd been pouting in the corner. And what I didn't
realize was that that corner was on a stage and
there was a spotlight shining right on me, and all
(26:28):
I had to do was walk right into it. Continuously
tweeting about the Will Smith slap had people talking, and
there was no doubt about it that all eyes were
on me. There was no way I wasn't going to
(26:48):
take advantage of this moment. And plus I had an
amazing premise in mind. My last tweets weren't going to
get me and sold. They We're going to make me
go viral. People all around the world will be talking
(27:14):
about my tweet, liking my tweet, retweeting my tweet. Honestly,
at this point, the thing I could really imagine Kyle
getting canceled for was the inability to let it go.
In Layman's terms, Kyle, I think she was about to
(27:36):
get canceled for being thirsty and now an AD break.
The ad break is over. Mm. One day, Kyle finally
(28:03):
checked in with me. She assured me that this was it.
She was about to tweet her last tweet. I did
my nightskin routine and ran over to Twitter. What I
saw it was frankly unbelievable. What I saw was my
(28:25):
friend being so thirsty that she basically was at the
bottom of a well that had run dry on all fours,
linking the ground. M hmm, it's um gleven p M.
And I think this is the last thing that Kyle's
(28:47):
going to tweet on the subject. And I just what
I saw was Kyle posting a link to an Instagram video. Now,
let me be clear, it wasn't a tweet with an
embedded video in it, which you could view right there,
(29:07):
and then it was a tweet that was a link
to an Instagram post. When you click the link, it
wouldn't automatically open in the Instagram app. No, it would
instead open in a new Safari window. But even that
(29:29):
didn't take you to the Instagram post. It would take
you to the Instagram homepage, where you needed to re
enter your Instagram credentials. Hey, I'm not re entering my
Instagram credentials on some luc Safari window. This could be
a virus. I could get hacked, Kyle. This was a
(29:56):
bad look. But okay, putting all of that aside for
a second, this was what the video was. Some self
proclaimed DJ stood in front of his computer screen and
played a song mash up that he made of the
now famous Will Smith call to action keep my Wife's
(30:19):
Name out of your mouth, but the theme song of
the Fresh Prince of bel Air smashed into there, all
of that over a dub step beat. The whole thing
was um, you know fine. So that was what she
had posted, but it didn't stop there. No, remember how
(30:46):
I said that Kyle was frankly thirsty. Well, in true
thirsty fashion, she tweeted about this link three separate times,
three separate tweets. And before you say, oh, but Anna,
(31:06):
let's be fair. You know, maybe she accidentally hit send
tweet three times. No, you wish she tweeted slightly different
things alongside every blink. She definitely did this three times intentionally,
(31:28):
you know what. Don't help her. She needs to learn. Okay,
so she's posted this, what happened with the slab. She
posted it three separate times, three separate tweets, along with
the video link, which was the same. Every single time,
(31:50):
she added a slightly different tweet referencing the slab. The
first one said okay, one little fight dot dot dot.
I scrolled through the other two the fight heard across
the world dot dot dot, and finally, the pea stillar resistance.
(32:13):
She tweeted keep your name out of my mouth, which
is it's so unpredictable, frankly, because it's keep my my
wife's name out of your mouth. But she's going keep
your name out of my mouth. And she's tweeted this
(32:38):
because the first tweet was twenty three minutes ago, then
twenty minutes ago, and then seventeen minutes ago, and I
guess this is the note she's going out on, and
I just find it so interesting again, keep your name,
(32:59):
so she's she's positioning herself like she's like she's Will
Smith here, and she's going, okay, Chris Rock, keep your
name out of my mouth, which is such an interesting
(33:20):
twist on the premise. I don't know if this was
enough for a cancelation, but I'll tell you what it
was enough for the absolute rock bottom. I knew we
had to put her out of her misery quick. I
(33:40):
forced myself to go to sleep, woke up and got
in touch with Megan. After all of that was done,
I invited Kyle to come over. It's live. What's okay?
Go to your Twitter? All right? How are you? I
(34:07):
can't read Read this in the pocket? I can't do
you have it to read it for you? Read this
in the red Read this in the room with all
my staffed up writer friends. Consensus, this is the level
of desperate pandering. I'm going to be very clear about
what happened. Megan selected a tweet of mine, the one
(34:30):
you've already heard so much about keep your name out
of my mouth, and she quote retweeted it, adding a
note of cancelation, which read read this in the room
with all my staffed up writer friends. Consensus says this
level of desperate pandering play acting as comedy is simply pathetic.
(34:56):
I promised this young writer I would signal booster, but
bybe learn when to walk away from the quote unquote Joe.
I can't. I feel so overwhelmed. I can't. She has
to delete it. She has to delete the notes, She's
(35:20):
not deleting this. Now that the cancelation tweet was in
place and people were seeing it, it was my turn
to go live with my notes app apology. The one
thing we knew about cancelations for sure was that they
were immediately followed by a notes ap apology. Now, this
(35:41):
notes ap apology could come from the canceled person themselves,
but it could also come from someone close to them,
and if it's the latter, the apology would probably include
an attempt to distance themselves from the canceled person. So
I did at Here's what I wrote. I've seen the messages,
(36:08):
quote me, tweets, the lack of likes. I want to
get ahead of what's coming and voice my criticism of
what has been going on for years now. Kyle A
Mazono has been my frequent collaborator, but beyond that, I
honestly can't even say that I know her that well.
(36:31):
Certainly we've been on a couple of the same shows,
but I would hardly say that our names are synonymous
with one another's. Her actions do not in any way
reflect mine. I will say I have tried, as I
would with literally anyone in the way that if I
saw a complete stranger in the street fall down into
(36:52):
a puddle, I would try to pick them up, just
like any good person would in that exact way. I
have been there for her. But again, other than that,
I don't even know her. I'm happy to say I'm
working on tons of my own stuff and look out
(37:13):
for me because here I come solo style as I
have always been. So nothing new there, peace and love,
just anna. Okay, so my apology is live, and I
(37:35):
guess I'm just going to leave your house. Just where
are you gonna go? I've been canceled, so I'm gonna leave.
You know, I think you should stay because I don't
think you can go anywhere. I'm gonna go to my
house where I should stay by myself. I don't even
think he could be there right now. I think you
should let it cool off. Kyle was kind of been consolable,
(38:00):
kind of inconsolable. My whole life was ruined. Think about it.
People out there in the Twitter verse were actually thinking
that I Kyle was obsessed with the will Smith slap.
They were sitting at home thinking, Ah, Kyle really thinks
that the pursuit of slappiness is a funny joke. She
(38:23):
really can't let this thing go. Huh. Remember I hadn't
tweeted since two thousand and seventeen. People were thinking I
climbed out of my hole to talk about will Smith
weeks later after the actual event. Nothing could have prepared
me for being canceled, for being thirsty. I should have
(38:48):
seen it coming. I shouldn't have let those final tweets
get to my head. I honestly felt like a loser.
You guys, the listeners, I feel like a loser. Are
you guys turning your backs on me? As I speak? Figures?
(39:11):
This was definitely one of those investigations where it wasn't
about the destination at all. It was entirely about the journey,
because the fact of the matter was that this was
a journey. Sure, this was the death of Kyle's fear
(39:36):
of getting canceled. But remember, death is not the end.
Death is just the opportunity for rebirth. Wait, isn't that
exactly what Megan had said? A lot of people are
standing death, but I'm going to tell you death is
not yet. Death is just the opportunity of full rebirth. Wow,
(40:01):
now it was all starting to make sense. I don't
know if it's making sense. I feel horrible, Kyle, my friend.
What I'm saying is this was just a stepping stone
to something bigger. Don't you get it. We still have
(40:22):
a big fear to conquer beat macromy We feared him,
and yet we couldn't look away. We still need to
figure out why. So this is just one door in
a longer hallway, ultimately leading us to fear the capital
(40:45):
f Okay, but why did it have to involve me
getting canceled? Because, Kyle, when you're not bound down by fear,
you're weightless enough to fly. Ye. Hey, if you like
(41:06):
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the truth Hounds to participate in our investigations and see
(41:29):
behind the scenes footage and bonus juicy content. Truth Hounds
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
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Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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
(00:23):
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 mystery, 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
(00:45):
sniff around. We are the the truth Hounds. Previously on
Truth Hounds, my literal worth a here is to be canceled.
We would help Kyle overcome her fear of getting canceled.
(01:10):
I've written to think pieces about the men that did
the thing. You know, after the cancelation you do a
hard pit a to, all right, and this is the
place that cancel make human detritus. That's what I feel like.
If you were getting canceled, chances are you were on Twitter.
But what would Kyle tweet about? And then something happened? Hello, Hey, Kyle, Hi, yeah,
(01:48):
are you Are you busy? Um? A little bit? Why
what's up? Okay? Something just went down at the Oscars. Okay, okay,
I have to tell you about it. Okay, Well I'll
be right there. No, no, no, actually we shouldn't. Um,
we should just probably lay low. Um, do you want
(02:11):
to I'll come to you. Okay, Well i'll see you'll
be ready, yeah, yeah, I'll come yeah yeah yeah. Right
when you last left us, we were trying to figure
out how to cancel me. We knew it should probably
(02:33):
be a series of tweets about something topical. We had
a really hard time coming up with something because our
brains just didn't really work like that. Anna insisted that
we skipped the beach this week and meet immediately at
her house. There. She told me the news. Will Smith
(02:56):
takes a swing at Chris Rock on stage at the Oscar.
It all went down after Chris made crack and 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. Episode seven, Kyle gets canceled, Part two. The
(03:26):
news about the Will Smith slap broke the internet and
people were really upset about it. On both sides, it
seemed to be a truly divisive issue. It seemed like
to have any opinion about it was putting you at
risk of upsetting someone. And that's when we had an idea.
(03:49):
I would have a strong opinion about the slap, make
it known in tweet form, and that would for sure
get me canceled. So we finally had a plan. We
would get Kyle to fire off a few tweets about
(04:11):
the slab and that would for sure get her canceled.
But what kinds of things would she tweet? The truth was,
neither Kyle nor I were particularly skilled a topical humor.
I mean, if you needed a joke about a cute
pig getting kidnapped by a friendly family of crows, hey,
(04:33):
I'll have a packet written for you called murder. She
point by end of the day. But this was not
that we needed her to be thinking quick, mean and
current like a real stand up comic. Have you ever
seen those guys? Something will happen that day, and no lie,
(04:56):
by the time they hit the stage later that night,
they'll have a two to three minutes to say about it.
Damn they were good, these guys. I honestly didn't think
that I could do that. But maybe we could find someone,
you know, a real stand up comic, and maybe they
(05:19):
could help, you know, give me some pointers, or they
could write the jokes, or maybe they could do the tweeting,
or hey, maybe they could even use their own account
and tweet and they're the one that gets canceled. Kyle,
you are getting canceled. You're not getting out of this,
but you know what you are right? Maybe we should
(05:42):
hire someone to write the tweets? Fine, but Anna, can
I say something? Of course? What is it? Um? I
really don't want to do this, And onward we marched,
are you even listening to me? This was a great
starting point. The updated plan. We would find a real
(06:09):
stand up comedian who does topical material and hire them
to write us some tweets about the slap so that
Kyle would in turn get canceled. I spent the week
researching the local comedy scene. Who was performing where, who
was up and coming, who showed a lot of promise?
(06:32):
And I landed upon someone who would be perfect. I
saw that they were performing soon, so I called up
the theater gave them my credit card information over the phone,
and asked them to rope us off two of their
finest seats right there in the front, so that Kyle
(06:55):
and I wouldn't miss a thing. M And when that said,
are you ready to get the shot? Put your heads
together for your motherfucking horse now homed, motherfucking Windberg in
the house. Yeah, thank you. My grandma died. She did.
(07:29):
His name was a Hommed Winberg. And he was awesome,
and not that it was about this. And he was gorgeous,
fiery red hair, a shade of red that was so
bright that it could light up any night. Like if
(07:54):
you were on a quest where you had to travel
by foot by night, you could put him and to
the front of the quest. He would instantly provide light
for the rest of the pack following suit. But if
you caught wind of the enemy approaching, you would need
to immediately tackle him to the ground and cover him
(08:17):
with sheets of burlap lest the enemy see his light
and know your location. Worth beginning to show, my grandma
did die this year. It wasn't COVID. It wasn't COVID,
(08:39):
thank god, it was. It was a vaccine. This guy
was good. As soon as he was done, we left
our front row seats and rushed backstage to meet him. Hey, hey,
(09:01):
that was really good. Thanks, I'm Hannah, nice to meet you. Yeah,
you were great. And we actually we're wondering, Um, we're
looking for a very kind of specific type of comic
who is great at crafting jokes. We're kind of like
(09:23):
a job. I think we're looking for maybe like seven
tweets seven seven tweets to get canceled yet okay, and
like they can be offensive or like should be okay,
everything can maybe be good. I know, you tell us,
because that seems only the comedy works is that should
be about some type of card that if we're talking
about you want me to write seven tweets about the
(09:45):
Chris Rock thing for you for free? Yeah? Yeah. He
seemed to be on board, but before putting the keys
into the ignition room room, he had one more question
for us. Will this get back to me in any way? Like,
(10:05):
are you gonna credit me for the offensive? No? Not
at home. We could see it in his eyes, Ahamed,
just like the rest of us, was scared of getting canceled.
We assured him the only person here who would be
getting canceled it was going to be Kyle Um Hannah
(10:29):
and onward we marched. A couple of days went by
before a Hammed delivered the goods, well some of the goods. Honestly,
the process wasn't as seamless as one would hope. I
thought he would kind of deliver the tweets typed on
a master document sealed in a Manila envelope placed on
(10:50):
our desk by end of day Sunday, But it honestly
seemed like he forgot he had agreed to do this
and even meeting us in the first place. So after
much prodding via text, he finally started slowly texting as
the tweets one at a time, at really weird times too.
(11:15):
Sometimes I would be a target and I would get
one of his text and be like, oh my god,
Oh my god. I hope nobody saw that anyway. As
the text slowly started coming in, it was my job
to start tweeting from my account, and I got to
be honest, it was hard. Listen for yourself. I am
(11:38):
about to uh tweet out my first tweet. Um that
is going to get me canceled, and I'm really nervous. Um.
I believe my last tweet was in like two thousand seventeen,
so he yeah, and I'm also just scared about getting canceled.
(12:03):
So there's that. But before I could even get that
first tweet out, I immediately encountered a hurdle. I don't
even know how to send out this tweet. So I've
been on here just trying to figure it out. I
can't even figure out how to even tweet this. Shoot.
(12:32):
I might have to call Hannah. Okay, hello him. Sorry.
I know you think I'm probably going to be joking
right now, but I literally can't figure out how to tweak. Oh,
I just you know what. I'm so stutie. I see it.
(12:54):
Finally it's the big BLUs signac. Oh gosh, you're adding
looking and go adding something to the world. That's so
fun the world is. I guess we can tell me
the tweet. Yeah, hold on, let me just okay, So
here's the tweet. I said. I'm right, Will Smith could
(13:18):
smack me. I wouldn't mind winky phase hashtag the smack,
which is actually a hashtag that exists. So I'm not
the first one. They're not the first one. No, I
think there's no doubt in my mind that you're not
the free person to tweet about the smack. Okay, I
think you're adding to a very sizable pool of discourse. Okay, Um,
(13:42):
you are kind of cornering a pretty interesting um take
on it. I think you're I mean, I do think
you're in the right path. Um, how do you feel.
I'm definitely nervous. I'm wondering if I should add, like
a little bit of my own signature or no. I
(14:04):
guess not because it's not I don't think so. Yeah.
I think as little of your own signature as possible. Okay,
you know, no offense, but your signature wasn't really working. Yeah, yeah, okay,
I just tweeted it. God, keep in mind this is
(14:26):
just the first step and not home campaign. And yeah,
I'm right there with you, and it's okay. I know
(14:48):
things are getting really good, but we have to take
a break for some ads. And the ad break is over.
Back to it. Before I got off the phone with Anna,
she dropped one last bomb on me. I want you
(15:08):
to know that I might not like it, oh God,
but I will probably interact with it. Oh God. I
just don't be offended when I don't like it. Oh
my god, I'm gonna get canceled. Anna was talking about
not clicking like on my tweet. We all know that
(15:29):
when someone clicks like on your tweet, they're attaching an
endorsement to you. They're saying I'm with her. So this
was really hard to take. My tweet had been live
for less than a minute now, and Anna was already
(15:50):
distancing herself from me. I mean, this person was my rock.
If she wasn't going to stand beside me, who would.
She wished me luck and hung up. Okay, well, good luck, okay.
By my initial feeling was that this wasn't a good idea,
(16:19):
and my initial feeling was starting to feel right after
launching the first tweet, I was starting to spiral. Um.
I literally feel like I'm having an anxiety attack. Um
tweeting out that tweet. I just it's just crazy because
(16:46):
I haven't tweeted since two thousand four. Yeah, you really
are spiraling because you're lying. I corrected myself are two
thousand seventeen. And then all of a sudden, I come
out of the woodwork and I'm saying, um, my piece
(17:09):
about the Will Smith slap. I just I god, I wow,
I don't know what to say. Despite my feelings of anxiety,
I stuck to the plan and fired off a few
more tweets. They were he got into one little fight
(17:36):
in Hollywood, got scared dot dot dot, I am legend.
Yes you are, sir for smacking Chris Rock And finally
the last tweet more like the pursuit of slappiness. So
(17:56):
the tweets had been tweeted, and nightfall came. You know,
a lot of cancelations actually happen overnight. The person wakes
up in the morning. Their phone is set ablaze with notifications,
family members demanding answers, complete strangers threatening your life. Wait,
(18:23):
where are you recording this right now? Um? I am
just somewhere. Don't don't worry about him. Any night came
and it went and at last, oh it was morning.
(18:45):
Are you distancing yourself from me? Because it feels like
that's why you're not here recording this. No, no, no,
I'm cool anyway, so is written here it was morning. Um,
(19:10):
I woke up this morning and I think I got
gained two new followers. And weirdly, it seems like people
really like in the Pursuit of slappiness and just I
don't get it. Strangely, Kyle's tweets, we're actually generating a
(19:34):
positive response. Is this what Megan was warning us about
increased fanfare? But I thought that part was supposed to
happen after the cancelation, we decided it was too early
to make a call either way and to stick with
the plan for now. A couple of days went by,
(19:56):
and then Kyle was about to fire off a tweet
that felt too controversial for her. You're you're sitting, okay,
so tell me the tweet again. Okay. So the tweet is, um,
hold on. It says why didn't he slapped the rock instead?
(20:19):
Question mark? We could have finally smelled what he was cooking?
Dot dot dot A dead Will Smith. Yeah. I just
don't feel comfortable saying a dead Will Smith. I think
that that's actually that's messed up. Why do you think
it's messed up? Because you should never imply someone's dead.
(20:41):
I think if you apply someone's dead, it's like that's
just like really offensive. Like if someone if I saw
a tweet and it said, like, oh, what's in there?
A dead Kyle Mazzono, I would freak out. I think
that if someone were like it depends depends on the
(21:01):
context of the tweet. If the if it's like I
want you dead Kyle the Zone. Oh if that's kind
of the underlying message, then yes, Like to me, what
you're saying, a dead Will Smith seems like you know
when in Aaron Carter's Aaron's Party, come get It, the
(21:21):
parents find out that he had a party, and he's like,
I'll be dead if my parents find out I had
a party. You know what I'm saying, it's dead in
like that context more than it is like I will
physically kill Will Smith. Well, then I think it's a
figure of speech that's like I'm toast. The way that
I'm reading reading it is like you are literally putting
an emphasis on that in a way that's not what
(21:44):
the tweet says to me. Yeah, I just I don't know. Yeah,
it's just this one is like kind of stressing me out.
I don't really want to do it. Well, I think
that's the reason why you should do it, because the
other ones have not been effective. Frankly, I mean, I'm
sorry to be I don't want to be, but I
doesn't have a feeling I'm going to tweet it and
(22:06):
then behind my back you're going to respond to it
and be like I haven't done anything behind your back.
Anna just wasn't getting it. I mean, let's be honest,
she wasn't the one putting herself on the line. This
(22:26):
whole process of me getting canceled was really starting to
scare me. If people didn't like my latest take on
the Will Smith slap, my life could really be over.
Say goodbye to this podcast, to my friends, to my family,
but to my basketball team. Seriously, I might never dribble
(22:49):
on a court again. Despite wanting to quit this sick
little experiment right then and there, Anna wouldn't let me.
We had to finished this investigation, even if it meant
burning my life to the ground. Why are you giving
me attitude? I'm not giving you attitude. Give me attitude
(23:09):
right down, the one who's sucking putting themselves on the line. Okay, sorry,
I don't. It's not about us or whatever. I know.
So I feeling I'm really putting myself on the line here,
and I'm freaking out. I love you, but I just
said this is really it's it's I'm putting myself at risk.
(23:29):
So I just understand, like, shit, you know what, I'm
not in your shoes. I'm kind of I'm tweeting it
this was really starting to wear on us. Okay, but
where are you recording this? By the way, we had
(23:51):
to keep going. We still hadn't received the reaction we
were looking for. But honestly, this was tough because a
Hamed's tweets they ran out and now we were kind
(24:12):
of on our own. Um No, actually, Kyle, Kyle was
on her own. After that blowout in the car, I
just kind of backed off. I had a feeling if
she did it on her own, it would just kind
of work itself out. I took a step back and
(24:33):
thought about the other stuff. Deep macromy what's he doing anyway? Meanwhile, Kyle,
she continued to tweet into the void. It had been
(24:56):
six weeks since this process had started, and we had
launched I's cancelation campaign six weeks and who could forget
her first tweet tweeted by the way at PM, will
Smith get smacked me? I wouldn't mind winky phase hashtag
(25:19):
the smack. I really hope you understand the gravity of
how long we were doing this for. Remember, Kyle had
started tweeting about the infamous slap a week after it
had happened, and now it was six weeks after that
(25:41):
sort of bring you up to speed. It had been
seven weeks total since the slap had actually occurred, and
she was still tweeting about it even when I wasn't around.
Something occurred to me, I didn't need a Hammeds jokes.
(26:03):
I didn't even need Anna's support. Up until this point,
I'd been pouting in the corner. And what I didn't
realize was that that corner was on a stage and
there was a spotlight shining right on me, and all
(26:28):
I had to do was walk right into it. Continuously
tweeting about the Will Smith slap had people talking, and
there was no doubt about it that all eyes were
on me. There was no way I wasn't going to
(26:48):
take advantage of this moment. And plus I had an
amazing premise in mind. My last tweets weren't going to
get me and sold. They We're going to make me
go viral. People all around the world will be talking
(27:14):
about my tweet, liking my tweet, retweeting my tweet. Honestly,
at this point, the thing I could really imagine Kyle
getting canceled for was the inability to let it go.
In Layman's terms, Kyle, I think she was about to
(27:36):
get canceled for being thirsty and now an AD break.
The ad break is over. Mm. One day, Kyle finally
(28:03):
checked in with me. She assured me that this was it.
She was about to tweet her last tweet. I did
my nightskin routine and ran over to Twitter. What I
saw it was frankly unbelievable. What I saw was my
(28:25):
friend being so thirsty that she basically was at the
bottom of a well that had run dry on all fours,
linking the ground. M hmm, it's um gleven p M.
And I think this is the last thing that Kyle's
(28:47):
going to tweet on the subject. And I just what
I saw was Kyle posting a link to an Instagram video. Now,
let me be clear, it wasn't a tweet with an
embedded video in it, which you could view right there,
(29:07):
and then it was a tweet that was a link
to an Instagram post. When you click the link, it
wouldn't automatically open in the Instagram app. No, it would
instead open in a new Safari window. But even that
(29:29):
didn't take you to the Instagram post. It would take
you to the Instagram homepage, where you needed to re
enter your Instagram credentials. Hey, I'm not re entering my
Instagram credentials on some luc Safari window. This could be
a virus. I could get hacked, Kyle. This was a
(29:56):
bad look. But okay, putting all of that aside for
a second, this was what the video was. Some self
proclaimed DJ stood in front of his computer screen and
played a song mash up that he made of the
now famous Will Smith call to action keep my Wife's
(30:19):
Name out of your mouth, but the theme song of
the Fresh Prince of bel Air smashed into there, all
of that over a dub step beat. The whole thing
was um, you know fine. So that was what she
had posted, but it didn't stop there. No, remember how
(30:46):
I said that Kyle was frankly thirsty. Well, in true
thirsty fashion, she tweeted about this link three separate times,
three separate tweets. And before you say, oh, but Anna,
(31:06):
let's be fair. You know, maybe she accidentally hit send
tweet three times. No, you wish she tweeted slightly different
things alongside every blink. She definitely did this three times intentionally,
(31:28):
you know what. Don't help her. She needs to learn. Okay,
so she's posted this, what happened with the slab. She
posted it three separate times, three separate tweets, along with
the video link, which was the same. Every single time,
(31:50):
she added a slightly different tweet referencing the slab. The
first one said okay, one little fight dot dot dot.
I scrolled through the other two the fight heard across
the world dot dot dot, and finally, the pea stillar resistance.
(32:13):
She tweeted keep your name out of my mouth, which
is it's so unpredictable, frankly, because it's keep my my
wife's name out of your mouth. But she's going keep
your name out of my mouth. And she's tweeted this
(32:38):
because the first tweet was twenty three minutes ago, then
twenty minutes ago, and then seventeen minutes ago, and I
guess this is the note she's going out on, and
I just find it so interesting again, keep your name,
(32:59):
so she's she's positioning herself like she's like she's Will
Smith here, and she's going, okay, Chris Rock, keep your
name out of my mouth, which is such an interesting
(33:20):
twist on the premise. I don't know if this was
enough for a cancelation, but I'll tell you what it
was enough for the absolute rock bottom. I knew we
had to put her out of her misery quick. I
(33:40):
forced myself to go to sleep, woke up and got
in touch with Megan. After all of that was done,
I invited Kyle to come over. It's live. What's okay?
Go to your Twitter? All right? How are you? I
(34:07):
can't read Read this in the pocket? I can't do
you have it to read it for you? Read this
in the red Read this in the room with all
my staffed up writer friends. Consensus, this is the level
of desperate pandering. I'm going to be very clear about
what happened. Megan selected a tweet of mine, the one
(34:30):
you've already heard so much about keep your name out
of my mouth, and she quote retweeted it, adding a
note of cancelation, which read read this in the room
with all my staffed up writer friends. Consensus says this
level of desperate pandering play acting as comedy is simply pathetic.
(34:56):
I promised this young writer I would signal booster, but
bybe learn when to walk away from the quote unquote Joe.
I can't. I feel so overwhelmed. I can't. She has
to delete it. She has to delete the notes, She's
(35:20):
not deleting this. Now that the cancelation tweet was in
place and people were seeing it, it was my turn
to go live with my notes app apology. The one
thing we knew about cancelations for sure was that they
were immediately followed by a notes ap apology. Now, this
(35:41):
notes ap apology could come from the canceled person themselves,
but it could also come from someone close to them,
and if it's the latter, the apology would probably include
an attempt to distance themselves from the canceled person. So
I did at Here's what I wrote. I've seen the messages,
(36:08):
quote me, tweets, the lack of likes. I want to
get ahead of what's coming and voice my criticism of
what has been going on for years now. Kyle A
Mazono has been my frequent collaborator, but beyond that, I
honestly can't even say that I know her that well.
(36:31):
Certainly we've been on a couple of the same shows,
but I would hardly say that our names are synonymous
with one another's. Her actions do not in any way
reflect mine. I will say I have tried, as I
would with literally anyone in the way that if I
saw a complete stranger in the street fall down into
(36:52):
a puddle, I would try to pick them up, just
like any good person would in that exact way. I
have been there for her. But again, other than that,
I don't even know her. I'm happy to say I'm
working on tons of my own stuff and look out
(37:13):
for me because here I come solo style as I
have always been. So nothing new there, peace and love,
just anna. Okay, so my apology is live, and I
(37:35):
guess I'm just going to leave your house. Just where
are you gonna go? I've been canceled, so I'm gonna leave.
You know, I think you should stay because I don't
think you can go anywhere. I'm gonna go to my
house where I should stay by myself. I don't even
think he could be there right now. I think you
should let it cool off. Kyle was kind of been consolable,
(38:00):
kind of inconsolable. My whole life was ruined. Think about it.
People out there in the Twitter verse were actually thinking
that I Kyle was obsessed with the will Smith slap.
They were sitting at home thinking, Ah, Kyle really thinks
that the pursuit of slappiness is a funny joke. She
(38:23):
really can't let this thing go. Huh. Remember I hadn't
tweeted since two thousand and seventeen. People were thinking I
climbed out of my hole to talk about will Smith
weeks later after the actual event. Nothing could have prepared
me for being canceled, for being thirsty. I should have
(38:48):
seen it coming. I shouldn't have let those final tweets
get to my head. I honestly felt like a loser.
You guys, the listeners, I feel like a loser. Are
you guys turning your backs on me? As I speak? Figures?
(39:11):
This was definitely one of those investigations where it wasn't
about the destination at all. It was entirely about the journey,
because the fact of the matter was that this was
a journey. Sure, this was the death of Kyle's fear
(39:36):
of getting canceled. But remember, death is not the end.
Death is just the opportunity for rebirth. Wait, isn't that
exactly what Megan had said? A lot of people are
standing death, but I'm going to tell you death is
not yet. Death is just the opportunity of full rebirth. Wow,
(40:01):
now it was all starting to make sense. I don't
know if it's making sense. I feel horrible, Kyle, my friend.
What I'm saying is this was just a stepping stone
to something bigger. Don't you get it. We still have
(40:22):
a big fear to conquer beat macromy We feared him,
and yet we couldn't look away. We still need to
figure out why. So this is just one door in
a longer hallway, ultimately leading us to fear the capital
(40:45):
f Okay, but why did it have to involve me
getting canceled? Because, Kyle, when you're not bound down by fear,
you're weightless enough to fly. Ye. Hey, if you like
(41:06):
The 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 Hounds to participate in our investigations and see
(41:29):
behind the scenes footage and bonus juicy content. Truth Hounds
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
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