A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Hawk Tuah： From Harmless Meme to Right Wing Symbol

00:00:00.000 This was the intro line that I workshopped. Tell me what you think.

00:00:03.940 I don't usually involve myself in heterosexual mess, but when I do, there better be an onomatopoeia for oral sex involved. 0.99

00:00:13.620 Is that decent? 0.99

00:00:15.600 That's funny. That's good.

00:00:22.220 Hello, hello, and welcome back to A Bit Fruity. I'm Matt Bernstein, and I'm so happy that you're here.

00:00:28.320 how do you introduce someone who needs no introduction well a few weeks ago a tan thin

00:00:36.540 blonde white girl went viral when she was interviewed in a person on the street style

00:00:41.300 tiktok where she was asked by a male interviewer what she does to make a man go crazy in bed 0.55

00:00:48.100 she said oh you gotta give him that huck too and spit on that thing you get me she has since become 1.00

00:00:55.160 completely inescapable in a way that has some people scratching their heads. Others buying 0.99

00:01:00.900 merchandise at beach boardwalks across America that say Hawk Tua for President 2024. Many men

00:01:08.580 in her inbox asking when she's starting in OnlyFans. Paparazzi staked outside of her home

00:01:14.500 that she shares with her grandma in Tennessee. Republicans declaring her a mascot for Trump's

00:01:20.080 presidential campaign and has left many still very, very angry. Today, we are going to be

00:01:27.840 talking about the woman, the myth, the legend that is the Hawk Tua girl. Hawk Tua, if it's

00:01:34.780 not clear, being the onomatopoeia for spitting on a dick during blowjob. Hawk Tua. We're going 1.00

00:01:40.880 to be talking about her, but we're also going to crack open some internet history and cultural

00:01:44.800 lore that set the stage for a human being to go viral in this way. We're going to be

00:01:49.580 talking about Alex from Target. Damn Daniel. Ain't nobody got time for that. And yes, Ellen 0.99

00:01:56.220 DeGeneres. We're also going to talk about who gets to capitalize on their viral moments and

00:02:01.600 who gets exploited and forgotten. We're going to talk about the trope of being famous for being

00:02:06.700 famous, the rights obsession with unsuspecting mascots. And yes, I do have a section of my

00:02:13.320 outline called In Defense of Hawk Tua. So prepare for that as well. Before we get into the episode,

00:02:19.000 If you would like to support this show or want more of the show, you can get that over on Patreon.

00:02:26.260 This summer over on Patreon, I am working on a multi-part series on Bye Sister, the late 2010s heterosexual trickery, vitamin gummy, YouTube beauty, James Charles Tati Westbrook scandal with our friend and influencer expert Kat Tenbarge.

00:02:44.220 Part two of that is out now, where we dissect the events of James Charles' vitamin gummy betrayal of his former best friend.

00:02:53.520 And also, we get to the bottom of whether or not it's possible to trick a straight man into thinking that they're gay.

00:02:59.660 The question remains unanswered.

00:03:01.800 But for now, let's get into Huck Tua.

00:03:05.600 Today, we are once again joined by the prolific Taylor Lorenz.

00:03:11.060 Taylor is a tech reporter at the Washington Post.

00:03:14.440 She has for years been documenting social media and how we use it.

00:03:19.280 She is the author of the new book, Extremely Online,

00:03:22.180 The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet.

00:03:25.360 And she has a new podcast called Power User, which she certainly is one.

00:03:30.200 So if you like themes where we dissect the internet and what's going on in it 0.57

00:03:35.340 and all the weird shit that happens and how it affects us all,

00:03:38.160 you'd probably enjoy listening to our podcast. Taylor Lorenz, welcome to the show. 0.97

00:03:43.780 Thanks for having me.

00:03:44.940 We did just spend like an hour before we hit the record button talking about Katy Perry's

00:03:49.700 new single and our complex feelings about it. So maybe something on that to come. But for now,

00:03:56.840 when did you first become aware of Hawk Tua?

00:04:01.240 I think I saw the video on TikTok or Instagram. It was just getting re-shared. And I saw the

00:04:07.020 raw video and i have to say it didn't really stand out to me i was like oh one of those other

00:04:10.880 videos and then it was like shortly after it i mean it just like blew up it was like you know

00:04:15.460 when you see something and then you suddenly see like all this discourse about it i have to say i

00:04:19.680 did not see the original video like before it all blew up like i so i first witnessed hawk to uh

00:04:27.660 i can't believe we're about to talk about this for 90 minutes but we are and there's there's good

00:04:32.240 stuff here i promise i was scrolling on twitter on june 23rd and there was this tweet that was

00:04:39.840 making the rounds by the tens of thousands some right-wing political influencer tweeted a picture

00:04:45.580 of this tan young blonde woman smiling and wrote omg the lgbtq crowd is mad because the hawk to a 0.96

00:04:56.280 girl is stealing their attention during pride month. Now, I am, you know, as the title of

00:05:03.180 Taylor's book goes, I am extremely online. I did not know who the hell this person was.

00:05:08.480 I thought Hawk Tua was her name. When I first read this tweet, I didn't know I had no context

00:05:13.460 for the video. I clapped back because I was like, this is silly. Why? Why are the LGBTQs being pitted 0.91

00:05:19.840 against this random white woman who I've never seen in my life her attention during June.

00:05:24.240 And so I wrote, the LGBTQ crowd does not know who this is. 0.68

00:05:27.980 And we are listening to Chapel Road.

00:05:29.460 In the replies, people started sending me the video of this girl describing how she 1.00

00:05:33.700 likes to spit on a dick during a blowjob, Haktua. 1.00

00:05:37.840 And I thought she was lovely. 1.00

00:05:39.260 And I didn't understand why I was being pitted against her for Pride Month attention.

00:05:44.180 I remember seeing that tweet, too.

00:05:45.900 But I think that that first tweet that you're talking about ended up sort of defining the

00:05:50.620 discourse around Haktua.

00:05:52.340 It became extremely political.

00:05:54.240 It was politicized immediately.

00:05:56.300 How does this random girl who's like partying in Nashville one night and talking about how she likes to give head become a mascot for like Donald Trump's campaign? 1.00

00:06:07.160 Well, the Internet works in funny ways. 0.67

00:06:09.020 So let's work backwards a little bit.

00:06:11.300 And who is Hawk Tua?

00:06:13.920 I've done my research. 0.99

00:06:15.420 She's a 21 year old girl named Haley Welch.

00:06:18.260 She lives in a town called Belfast, Tennessee.

00:06:21.020 Belfast, Tennessee is a town of 800 people.

00:06:23.940 She's lived there her whole life with her grandmother.

00:06:27.140 And until recently, she worked at a bedspring factory, where in an interview, she said that

00:06:33.340 she would wake up at 2 a.m. every day to go to work, which I don't know how bedspring

00:06:37.960 factories operate, but I guess you have to wake up at 2 a.m. to get to them.

00:06:41.780 She describes herself as like a, you know, small town, very Southern girl.

00:06:45.740 She has a deep Southern accent.

00:06:48.460 She has never had social media prior to this blowing up, which I think is interesting

00:06:53.780 because she clearly never had any like entertainment or influencer aspirations. And that feels notable

00:06:59.460 because now it's like people know that these viral moments can lead to careers. And it feels like

00:07:04.900 now that's something that people like consciously aspire to. Notably, she had never been on an

00:07:09.820 airplane, though I assume by the time this goes up, she will be on one to Los Angeles.

00:07:14.920 The Fateful Night. On June 9th, Hayley Welch, now known as the Hawk Tua Girl, was attending the

00:07:20.660 Country Music Association Fest, the CMA Fest in Nashville. And she was, you know, getting drunk

00:07:27.020 in the streets with her friend when a man on the street type TikToker, you know, there's people who

00:07:33.320 like run up to you in public parks with microphones and they're like, what color is your bedroom?

00:07:38.480 What do you think about Israel? And everything in between. Asked her for her tips on making a man

00:07:43.600 go crazy in bed. Can we talk for a second about the epidemic of street TikTokers? 1.00

00:07:49.060 It's such a plague. I feel like it's completely taken over and you cannot walk the streets in certain areas of West Hollywood or New York or other major cities without these people. Atlanta, they're all over Atlanta. 1.00

00:08:01.380 they're everywhere and i'm listen like i it's i like don't even go to washington square park

00:08:06.960 anymore in new york city because it's like there's literally just 10 people with microphones and like

00:08:10.880 a small camera crew milling around being like should you know if if gender equality then should 0.99

00:08:16.400 women be splitting the bill it's it's just like the most annoying gays on her thought daughter 0.68

00:08:20.680 gays on her thought daughter like both i don't know my hot take is as a content as a content 0.84

00:08:27.040 computer ways off. I'm not trying to gatekeep content creation, but I just think it's like 0.82

00:08:30.800 a lazy form of content. It is the laziest form of content. I want to gatekeep it because

00:08:37.000 they're exploiting strangers for content all day and asking inflammatory questions. What are you

00:08:43.620 adding to the world? I'm not talking about the side talk guys or whatever, people that I think

00:08:49.040 are funny and creative and doing this years ago. It's this more recent plague of people that

00:08:55.780 they're just kind of assholes you know like they're not respectful of especially when people 0.99

00:09:00.240 want their privacy they like you know they're kind of trolls they're total trolls and whenever 0.99

00:09:04.440 i see a video just in this style and because of the part of the internet that i'm on it's usually

00:09:08.860 like political in like in nature like i've seen a lot of these people and it's frankly oftentimes

00:09:14.040 like zionist man on the street reporter trolling college students like what does free palestine

00:09:19.700 actually mean and every and they do numbers like that kind of content is so deceptive and you can

00:09:25.080 edit it to you know come out any way you wanted to and it's like anytime i see that type of content

00:09:29.580 gaining traction i'm like no we have to be above this i guess this is just the content ecosystem 0.97

00:09:35.440 which in which we all live for better or for worse and um hayley welch would soon find out that she'd

00:09:42.020 become the center of that content ecosystem so this guy asked her what's one move in bed that 1.00

00:09:46.880 makes a man go crazy every time oh you gotta give him that hawk too and spit on that thing

00:09:52.000 and the rest is history the funny thing too with that video is that if you keep watching it you

00:09:57.380 hear her go if i see this in my for you page i'm gonna cry and it's like i think she's seen herself

00:10:03.120 on the page more than once at this point on june 27th 18 days later hayley welch quit her job at

00:10:10.080 the bedspring factory which i'm really proud of her for she no longer has to wake up at 2am to

00:10:14.340 go work at a bedspring factory she has since hired management and a pr team she set up a merch store

00:10:21.640 under a website called 16minutes.life which is so funny to me because it's a play on 15 minutes of 0.76

00:10:28.320 fame and she's like no i'm having my 16 minutes which i think is fucking brilliant she you know

00:10:34.180 the merch it gets interesting the merch is uh it says hawk to a 24 like a presidential campaign 0.81

00:10:40.160 and it uh is in the same graphic design as the reagan bush 84 slogan which a lot of her merch

00:10:48.360 is like this kind of like republican america coded stuff sales have allegedly surpassed sixty 0.54

00:10:54.780 thousand dollars she has started making like club and party appearances and apparently her fee for

00:11:01.060 that is thirty thousand dollars she went on stage with zach bryant who's one of the biggest country

00:11:06.200 stars of our time uh sang with him yelled hawk tua into the microphone which i also saw a video

00:11:12.760 of this she just goes up to the microphone and she yells and the caption attached to the video

00:11:26.900 when i saw it online was from you know ostensibly another gay person and they just wrote there's a

00:11:33.260 whole world out there that we don't even know about which is how i feel about this like i don't

00:11:39.000 know can you speak to the segregated internets a little bit i was very involved in a sorority

00:11:43.420 in college and i went to a big state school and yeah this is very like that internet like barstool

00:11:51.260 internet right totally and you know i went to school out west in colorado not um in the south

00:11:57.480 but i feel like it's very like southern culture too kind of wrapped in into it yeah yeah i mean

00:12:03.180 it's very white i do feel like we have to define the part of this the part of the internet that

00:12:07.780 this initially took over before it arrived at my like you know gay doorstep essentially it's it's 0.59

00:12:13.700 very white it's like people in their 20s and 30s it's like barstool it's call her daddy it's i 0.59

00:12:20.860 don't know i saw it described online by max reed as the zinternet zin z-y-n being like uh like

00:12:28.960 tobacco gum or something like nicotine like chewable nicotine or something please tell me

00:12:32.580 at least know about zin i don't really know about zin matt i know zin is like the thing zin is like

00:12:39.640 okay so back in the day all of the like frat guys had dip and then now they're all obsessed with

00:12:44.200 zin zin is like nicotine and they're all completely addicted to it and they're just like it's just

00:12:48.560 like chewing tobacco no it's no it's it it's nicotine it's not tobacco it's nicotine it's 0.96

00:12:54.540 just nicotine oh everyone listening to this is gonna think i'm so stupid guys i do i do acrylic 0.86

00:12:59.920 nails and britney spears i don't know about they're the pouches it's an oral pouch what does 1.00

00:13:04.760 that mean i just have friends that like cannot keep this shit out of their mouth oh it's just 0.96

00:13:08.940 a nicotine pouch and it contains a lot more nicotine i guess than other pouches so people 0.99

00:13:13.940 really like it but it's nicotine it gives you like a buzz you know like the head rush kind of

00:13:19.440 like it's like you know when you have a cigarette or whatever you know how it like so people will

00:13:22.760 just like they get addicted to zin and it's like a big thing in like frat culture and like finance 0.51

00:13:27.820 bro culture so yeah so she's appealing to the zinternet which is mostly white people 20s and 0.94

00:13:33.420 30s predominantly male uh but some women i would say it's women i would say that there's a female

00:13:38.760 side of it which is the call her daddy kind of like sorority girl it feels like everyone who

00:13:44.540 was like in sororities a few years ago and has since like graduated and is now like an adult on

00:13:48.960 the internet yes and they're like a project manager somewhere they've got their random job

00:13:53.580 and their job is certainly not their identity.

00:13:55.560 And, you know, they have fun

00:13:56.980 and they watch the game

00:13:58.020 and they go out partying.

00:14:00.760 And they also, it's kind of a weird,

00:14:02.980 I mean, the barstool world is also really,

00:14:05.080 it is kind of adjacent to like reality TV.

00:14:08.140 Do you watch Summer House?

00:14:09.400 No, sorry.

00:14:10.420 I shouldn't have said it like that. 0.97

00:14:11.540 I just don't know what the fuck any of this is. 0.98

00:14:14.240 Right, so she's, this part of the internet, 0.98

00:14:16.660 which has become huge,

00:14:18.420 the extended barstool universe is enormous.

00:14:21.160 so she's capturing the hearts of millennial white nicotine pouch chewing america essentially 1.00

00:14:28.240 things just explode from there there are paparazzi staked outside of her and her grandma's house 1.00

00:14:33.420 she's in talks according to tmz for a reality show about her life she's charging these five

00:14:39.380 figure appearance fees she's said of herself i'm nobody special i'm just a small town girl

00:14:45.520 i want to contextualize this a little bit because i feel like looking at like the arc of

00:14:50.120 influencer history and the history of like viral phenomena on the internet makes it make more sense 0.99

00:14:56.780 that a drunk girl who talked about giving head on the streets of Nashville to some random TikTok

00:15:02.620 guy with a microphone and is now making six figures by the end of the year as a result.

00:15:07.220 It makes more sense if you put it into context. So Twitter user Vanilla Opinions wrote,

00:15:12.180 this feels like something that would happen in 2011. And I feel like that's incredibly true.

00:15:17.000 I want to ask you, I feel like viral human being is a genre.

00:15:22.580 Can you tell me where like the viral humans started?

00:15:26.160 The second half of the 2000s were kind of defined by this era where you would have these YouTube videos that went viral, usually with people in them.

00:15:32.920 So it would be like Charlie bit my finger, right?

00:15:35.040 Or Tay Zonday, the chocolate rain guy.

00:15:38.240 Like you would have these people kind of blow up either for being in a funny video, the bed intruder guy.

00:15:44.480 And they would kind of get fame.

00:15:46.480 it wasn't really it was internet fame at the time it wasn't mainstream like the internet

00:15:50.540 world hadn't merged with the mainstream world so they were kind of like internet stars the

00:15:55.560 double rainbow guy oh it's a double rainbow i wrote his obituary for the new york times yeah

00:16:01.660 he was it was a lot of people i know unfortunately passed away but it was a lot of people like that

00:16:05.600 you know that kind of like blew up because of a single piece of content that was getting

00:16:09.340 manually shared through links when i was like researching for this episode i was looking at

00:16:14.600 some of these people. Two of them that I made note of, one was the bed intruder guy whose name

00:16:19.900 was Antoine Dodson. And he was the guy who was like, hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your

00:16:24.300 kids, hide your wife. So Antoine Dodson was this young guy and his sister allegedly had her home

00:16:40.220 broken into and a man attempted to rape her the man who broke into her home attempted to rape her

00:16:45.440 and so this guy Antoine Dodson was then filmed on like the local news and he was like there's a guy

00:16:53.040 going around you have to protect yourself and he said the famous words hide your kids hide your

00:16:59.460 wife this went super viral because he was like it basically went viral because it was African

00:17:06.180 American vernacular English which was a lot of the humor and a lot of these early viral moments

00:17:11.020 I feel it was like white people consuming I'm gonna get so SJW so quickly but it really does

00:17:17.600 feel like a lot of the early examples which the other one I have written down was the Kimberly 0.53

00:17:21.780 Wilkins ain't nobody got time for that a lot of this was just like white people consuming 0.59

00:17:26.920 black suffering and also like AAVE in ways that came across as comical yeah I mean I think it 0.83

00:17:34.000 was a mix of a lot of different content that was certainly a huge part of it yeah there was also

00:17:39.300 like keyboard cat guy or you know like there was also just like these random characters but

00:17:44.920 in terms of who made who was made like an internet star it was a lot of black people it was a lot of 0.73

00:17:49.800 black people who never really saw a dime for the most part no so Antoine Dodson like is so crazy

00:17:58.260 looking back on it because this was like this was the aftermath of an attempt of an attempted break 0.98

00:18:03.260 in and rape and then it turned into like hide your kids hide your wife like auto-tune remix which was

00:18:08.080 a lot of youtube humor back in the day it was just a lot of like remixing songs which is part of why

00:18:13.760 the hawk tua thing which has also been remixed into a song feels so 2010 but antoine dodson like

00:18:19.520 tried to capitalize a little bit off of this flash in the pan viral moment and nothing really

00:18:26.380 happened like nothing really happened well there was no infrastructure to monetize back then at

00:18:31.940 all right i mean it had not been built people looked down on anyone attempting to make money

00:18:37.200 you were like really villainized and attacked like and the e-commerce infrastructure wasn't there you

00:18:43.460 couldn't spin up a merch site we didn't have shopify shops that you can do overnight and

00:18:48.440 like the internet was so immature even if you wanted to do stuff like that the platforms weren't

00:18:54.180 there to do that right so it was really hard like there was still it was still a sort of environment

00:18:58.860 very dominated by gatekeepers right well but simultaneously like these people were creating

00:19:03.900 culture nonetheless and the culture that they were creating you know ain't nobody got time for that

00:19:09.080 hide your kids hide your wife like these were co-opted by brands who did make money of course

00:19:13.940 from the culture and that's what was the case for years i mean i i don't even think that that

00:19:19.780 really changed in a meaningful way really until 2020 when you started to have public conversations

00:19:25.880 around credit online but these people also they rose really quickly and then they fell really

00:19:30.520 quickly and it was sort of like you have this it's like ladder that you would go on and of

00:19:34.420 course the top of the ladder is an appearance on the ellen show and then that's it that's peak

00:19:39.120 like that's you made it i just want to mention kimberly wilkins for a second she was this woman

00:19:43.380 a black woman who she escaped from a fire in her apartment complex and she was describing like the

00:19:50.040 smoke and like coughing and stuff and she was like well i woke up to go get me a cold pop

00:19:55.220 and then i thought somebody was barbecuing i said oh lord jesus it's a fart then i ran out i didn't

00:20:03.340 grab no shoes or nothing jesus i ran for my life and then the smoke got me i got bronchitis

00:20:11.100 ain't nobody got time for that if you were alive during 2010 or whatever which

00:20:17.060 it's wild oh my god i'm gonna sound old but it's wild that you could be listening to this podcast

00:20:21.480 and not have been alive in 2010 but if you were there uh this was you could not escape ain't

00:20:26.640 nobody got time for that kimberly wilkins she made a few tv appearances she did like a couple 0.68

00:20:31.860 like local tv commercials she had a cameo in a tyler perry movie she had tried to start a barbecue 0.99

00:20:39.000 sauce company but it didn't work out and she also tried to like sue people who were capitalizing off

00:20:45.180 of her shtick to no avail basically it's just it's clear that like some of these people were like

00:20:50.620 in the early aughts wanted to capitalize off of their viral moments and the fact that they became

00:20:56.040 these overnight celebrities but what's unclear is if they ever did successfully yeah there's

00:21:01.740 actually a good episode of this podcast the 16th minute uh by jamie loftus who interviews people

00:21:07.820 kind of like after she she has a two-part series on antoine dodson um and sort of like what happened

00:21:13.400 and the aftermath. I think, I mean, I wrote a lot about Tay Zonday back in this era to the

00:21:18.180 chocolate rain guy. He was like one of, he was really one of the first YouTube stars. He,

00:21:22.820 the chocolate rain was like one of the most early viral videos. It was this song that he was

00:21:28.100 singing. The song was actually about systemic racism, although nobody even got that. And he

00:21:39.940 talked about his attempts to capitalize on it you know that he gave away that song for free

00:21:44.100 because he didn't know and there was like no sense of like digital ownership digital rights

00:21:49.000 so i mean antoine came a couple years after that but there was no even if you wanted to do these

00:21:54.400 things you would have had to get like management you know and then comes mid-2010s the ellen show

00:22:00.500 the ellen show obviously existed before the mid-2010s but it was it was in the mid-2010s

00:22:06.020 that Ellen started featuring people who went viral for whatever odd reason, like the ones

00:22:10.120 we're describing. So do you want to describe like that was such a surreal thing? I would say it was

00:22:15.040 like, I feel like she started around 2013. You know, she started leaning into kind of whatever

00:22:22.620 was the big viral thing online. I would say the early part of the 2010s, Ellen correctly realized

00:22:28.500 or her producers rather that getting these people from the internet to talk on like a mainstream

00:22:34.080 platform would get a lot of attention at this time pretty much the entire rest of the mainstream

00:22:39.040 media was ignoring viral fame and internet fame and it was like a joke and maybe they'd write an

00:22:43.500 article and embed the youtube video but like they weren't really taking these people seriously

00:22:47.480 not that ellen ever took them that seriously but ellen started to have these people on it was

00:22:52.560 some early youtube people but really vine is when she sort of like started to like hit her stride

00:22:57.400 and then it was like Alex from Target damn Daniel people from the memes like you went viral that was

00:23:04.500 you know that was like the peak of your journey I mean it became a thing of like oh if you start

00:23:08.820 if you got like 100 likes on something people would be like are you ready for the Ellen call

00:23:12.780 you know it's really crazy Matt when the Ellen show was ending before it ended I wanted to write

00:23:18.140 this big piece about how it was the peak of the peak of internet fame and her producers I ended

00:23:24.260 up talking to some people about it we're supposed to schedule interviews and then they like completely

00:23:28.120 ghosted me and i think it was because all of the controversy stuff was coming out about her 0.99

00:23:32.880 basically but allegations of toxic workplace you just can't do that because of woke some producer 1.00

00:23:37.740 there recognized this formula because the clips would go very viral on youtube too she would get

00:23:43.740 this interview of the person and that would that would travel on youtube well that's the thing it

00:23:48.420 was like she would find the most viral thing and then she would make it go 10 times more viral

00:23:53.060 Well, she would bring it to like the mainstream adult audience.

00:23:57.060 Right. Right. And the reason I think that this doesn't really work anymore, because even I mean, Ellen was still going until a few years ago.

00:24:03.200 But even by the time Ellen had ended, this segment didn't really work the same way anymore because you don't need mainstream media validation anymore to like skyrocket to fame.

00:24:14.880 Like you can do that just online.

00:24:16.500 Right. It's not even validation. It's that the media used to be an intermediary between the

00:24:21.560 internet and mainstream audiences. This is why something like the dress would also never happen.

00:24:26.740 The dress was this post on Tumblr, right? Remember in 2015, the dress was this like the blue,

00:24:34.560 was it blue and white? Was it black and gold? It was a photo of a dress that was shared on Tumblr.

00:24:37.800 It went super viral on Tumblr, but it wasn't until a BuzzFeed editor took it and put it on

00:24:44.300 buzzfeed.com that it like blew up the internet you needed that intermediary to reach the masses now

00:24:50.740 if that happened today it would just be the original post like that content would just there

00:24:54.960 is no like intermediary basically and i think ellen that's why we didn't need ellen also the

00:25:00.080 internet's not a monoculture anymore the way it was in the mid-2010s what's so interesting again

00:25:05.220 in like taking notes for this episode i'm really just interested in relation to like 0.97

00:25:09.520 hok tua and like how this girl is blowing up and making so much money so quickly i was looking at

00:25:14.900 this like roster of all these other people who similar things happen to who they shot up to like 0.85

00:25:19.760 such unimaginable amounts of fame overnight from really young ages for really stupid reasons and i

00:25:25.380 was like looking at basically what happened to all of them and like what happened to the people who

00:25:29.480 went on ellen so do you remember alex from target what do you remember from alex what okay this is 0.81

00:25:35.320 something that it's like you think it's dumb making a fellatio joke and going famous imagine

00:25:40.520 you're just doing nothing he was like working checkout yeah yeah who is alex from target alex 0.88

00:25:46.840 from target was this young guy who was working at target and somebody took a picture of him

00:25:52.440 it was shared to twitter it kind of just blew up basically he blew up for being like a hot

00:25:57.580 generic hot guy yeah do you know how old he was oh god i'm scared to think of that because

00:26:02.720 he was young do you remember how sexualized everything was like the conversation around it

00:26:07.980 yes yes because well i will say though that his audience was a lot of it was a lot of like tween

00:26:13.600 girls it was like he was very much like that was the like mag con you know nash greer cam dallas

00:26:21.180 like era of the internet but how old i would say maybe 15 16 yeah he was 16 16 yeah he was 16 he

00:26:28.460 was a high school student and he had a part-time job at target yeah someone just uploaded a photo

00:26:33.100 of him like bagging their groceries essentially and i remember distinctly i remember seeing the

00:26:40.660 photo first of all being like wow he's so cute and we were the same age i remember like refreshing

00:26:46.300 his instagram that day and it was like every second you refreshed it went up by a thousand

00:26:51.280 followers. Like I had never in my life seen someone skyrocket like that, especially for no

00:26:58.420 reason. And it made even less sense then because we did not have a history of this happening. Not

00:27:02.180 really. Like I think that we were starting to see random people blowing up from these viral

00:27:07.560 moments. I think he was one of the first where there was just it was almost nonsensical. Like

00:27:12.080 it's not like he really did anything. He quite literally did nothing. He was working his part

00:27:16.880 time job at target but so he balloons to over a million followers on instagram and over half a

00:27:22.820 million on twitter of course he gets the ellen call and i was watching this clip last night of

00:27:27.600 him on ellen and it's so interesting because i mean i'm sure adults knew this at the time but

00:27:31.960 like looking back on it it's like he was a little boy and he's sitting there like fidgeting and

00:27:37.700 she's like so how does it feel to become famous and he's like i don't know i was just packing my

00:27:42.360 grocery you know so what ended up happening with him is so he dropped out of school almost

00:27:47.720 immediately because there were paparazzi waiting outside of his high school and you know like

00:27:53.840 girls would like swarm him at the mall because 15 years ago you know that's what you did after

00:27:58.740 school I think I have a longing to be older than I am like back when I was in school but um so he

00:28:06.020 was homeschooled and then he for he moved to LA because he immediately got this management team

00:28:11.740 around him, who was like, you have to move to LA, you have to start doing Instagram, you have to,

00:28:16.680 you know, he like went on tour. He went on DigiTour, which do you remember what that was?

00:28:22.140 Of course, I remember DigiTour. I know Meredith who started it.

00:28:25.260 Because I think it's confusing now to imagine that there were just like, there was a time in

00:28:29.180 the 2010s where it was just like traveling bands of like, of basically 15 year old boy influencers

00:28:34.320 who would like go meet screaming crowds. Yeah, I mean, there was this era in the really early

00:28:39.680 and mid 2010s that was defined by touring because you couldn't make money there was no way to really

00:28:45.920 monetize very quickly on the internet again the e-commerce world had not progressed as quickly

00:28:52.080 merch was still evolving it wasn't this thing that you could turn around as fast and so people

00:28:56.460 to make money would go on tour and so you had mag con was one of the original tours meet and greet

00:29:03.380 conference i had the biggest crush on cameron dallas matt when i worked at people magazine

00:29:08.580 some fan account had posted that cameron dallas was coming which he was he came up for an interview

00:29:14.180 they had to get security because so many girls showed up downstairs trying to get into the time

00:29:18.680 inc offices it was a really crazy moment in influencer culture which i don't even think

00:29:24.500 they were called influencers yet no they were called well at the time there was no language

00:29:28.860 for it so people were associated with their platforms they were called viners like vine

00:29:33.280 stars right where is Alex from Target now he works for UPS he loads UPS trucks in the morning

00:29:40.580 I was reading speaking of people magazine I was reading an interview that he did with them in the

00:29:46.380 last few months actually he totally dropped off the face of the internet a few years ago and he

00:29:52.580 basically just described how he like again as like a teenager after he went viral for being hot while

00:29:58.640 bagging groceries a bunch of managers got around him bled him dry for money and he never wanted to 0.93

00:30:06.720 do all of the influencer shit he he didn't care he said he tried youtube and he hated it he tried 0.94

00:30:11.900 instagram and he hated it he did touring and he hated it and he was like i just i don't want this 0.98

00:30:17.060 and it's funny because i remember anger then from people being like well that why does that have to

00:30:22.060 be him it could be anyone and it's true there was a lot of jealousy that he had like skyrocketed to

00:30:26.100 fame for no reason but ultimately it was just and he said like he was like yes i make a lot less

00:30:31.060 money piling packages for ups and i am so much happier i think it's so interesting that people

00:30:38.000 can't really understand when people don't want fame i think that fame in america everyone in

00:30:46.360 america wants like money or fame and like money and fame are kind of like so tightly wound i think

00:30:51.120 just in american culture like this notion of like you're famous and you're wealthy or whatever

00:30:55.920 And like, I just think it's so funny when these people come out that are like, actually, this is terrible or I want to drop out of it. There's always this fascination. And it's like, why, you know, like, why wouldn't you want this thing that everyone is supposed to inherently want? And it's like, because it's terrible. It's actually the reality of it is terrible, especially for someone like that, where it's like truly zero to 60. And you have this whole secondary industry of exploitative people that crop up around you.

00:31:20.260 yeah and i mean there were a number of examples of this on ellen she had the damn daniel damn 0.99

00:31:26.180 daniel that's fucking iconic those kids um but they also like the boys involved in the damn daniel 0.98

00:31:32.600 video also uh you know flashed in the pan but ultimately retreated from the spotlight didn't 0.98

00:31:37.320 want it anymore and then you know you had the people who ellen did provide a stepping stone

00:31:42.360 to like unimaginable fame like james charles like james charles was an ellen kid which i feel like

00:31:47.680 a lot of people don't realize i didn't realize that he was at ellen because he went on was that

00:31:51.780 when he went viral for his like makeup stuff it was the it was the yearbook photo yes oh the yearbook

00:31:55.800 photo yes of course yes oh my gosh james hello james charles was literally hawk tua a long time

00:32:01.100 ago yes james i totally forgot about that james charles got famous i love talking about james

00:32:06.780 charles lord that's why i'm doing it on patreon all summer james charles got famous because he

00:32:11.880 was in high school and he took his yearbook photo and then he got them back and he didn't like it

00:32:17.060 And so he went and he was like, I want to do a retake, but I'm going to bring a ring light to my yearbook photo and I'm going to like beat my face to the gods.

00:32:25.740 And it was, you know, it was very like mid 2010s, full beat, like painted on eyebrows.

00:32:30.540 He had his like man bun, which was also kind of the thing then.

00:32:33.800 And he had this like crazy, like face tuned beyond belief yearbook photo with the ring light that blew up on the Internet. 0.73

00:32:40.340 And then it blew up even further because Ellen was like, you're crazy for doing this. 0.65

00:32:44.340 We have to get you on the show.

00:32:45.260 and he went on Ellen and then he became like the first cover girl boy. And that was his initial

00:32:49.880 skyrocketing to fame. You know, it turned out obviously that the yearbook photo ring light

00:32:55.340 thing was actually fake and it was just a photo shoot that he did in his house. But that's how

00:32:59.280 he got started. And for him, it was, you know, Ellen turned out to be a stepping stone towards

00:33:03.480 this, you know, enormously successful career. Totally just forgot about this. I think because

00:33:08.440 James went on to have so much lore and so many other viral moments that you forget his origin

00:33:13.580 story. I would like to take a quick, quick break from the show to give a shout out to the sponsor

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00:34:31.700 to go to rocketmoney.com slash fruity. That's rocketmoney.com slash fruity. Now let's get back

00:34:39.200 to the show that was as far as i had about like the history of like viral people do you want to

00:34:46.620 bridge the gap from like ellen to like now on like tiktok how how people make these careers

00:34:51.700 i'll tell you the moment that i think all of this changed i think 2020 hit and everything

00:34:56.740 on the internet kind of fractured like first of all 2020 was a year that forced like pretty much

00:35:02.540 every holdout online everyone became super online and that was a year that like internet culture

00:35:08.280 truly became mainstream culture because there was no like IRL culture. 0.99

00:35:12.600 I know we were all making that fucking whipped coffee. 0.96

00:35:15.900 That was also the year that TikTok broke out and went mainstream and became this new platform. 0.98

00:35:20.660 And no one manufactures fame faster than TikTok.

00:35:23.360 And so I think we went from having this sort of like internet main character in the 2010s

00:35:29.080 to having this much more fractured internet with much faster cycles of virality

00:35:33.960 and not needing the mainstream media anymore

00:35:37.420 and shows like Ellen to kind of cement these people. 1.00

00:35:40.060 Like Charli D'Amelio, she blew up 0.99

00:35:42.640 without the help of, you know, like the media really.

00:35:46.880 Like she was viral before even the first piece

00:35:49.380 was written about her.

00:35:50.520 Like she had already sort of hit a level of mainstream.

00:35:52.960 Charli D'Amelio is another person

00:35:54.540 who I think I could talk for so long about.

00:35:57.920 Not really because of Charli D'Amelio,

00:36:00.180 because I mean, you're right.

00:36:01.860 I mean, it was early TikTok in 2020.

00:36:04.420 There was a whole crop of these people.

00:36:06.160 Charlie D'Amelio, her sister, Addison Rae, this like whole friend group that built around

00:36:10.920 them.

00:36:11.100 The Hype House.

00:36:11.460 The Hype House, Noah Beck, Bryce Hall, like all these people.

00:36:14.740 Sway Boys.

00:36:15.180 Oh, the Sway.

00:36:16.120 There were like obviously like executives at TikTok and then all of these talent agencies

00:36:21.000 too who were like, okay, we're going to manufacture these people into celebrities.

00:36:24.560 And the D'Amelio sisters did eventually go on Ellen, but it wasn't for like a while after.

00:36:29.480 like she was already right repped by UTA and all I totally forgot that they went on Ellen because

00:36:35.440 it didn't even matter anymore it didn't matter and it was too late and at that point it was like

00:36:39.280 an afterthought and I think that's what was the difference of 2020 and I also think it's like

00:36:43.760 even in 2020 when we think of like the hype house on the internet and stuff like even then that was

00:36:48.700 still more of an internet monoculture than we have now like there's so few things I think that's why

00:36:53.600 things like the baby gronk rizzed up livy dunn or whatever go so what did you just what just came

00:36:59.640 out of your mouth wait don't you remember the baby the baby gronk the hoopify video baby gronk

00:37:05.160 rizzing up livy dunn none of these words are in the bible matt oh my god this is okay this is also

00:37:10.880 like sports universe i know there's a very i know who livy dunn is she's a gymnast but i know her

00:37:17.360 because i watch gymnastics wait oh my god this is so funny there's an nbc article who is baby

00:37:23.020 Gronk. Did Libby riz him up? And what does any of this mean? Baby Gronk is a young football player.

00:37:30.760 He's like nine years old. His dad has turned him into a social media star. He did a collaboration

00:37:35.680 with Libby Dunn, the LSU gymnast. And there's this guy who produces these TikToks under the

00:37:40.860 name Hoopify. And they're kind of like parody level, like sports commentary. And he made a

00:37:46.580 video about Baby Gronk rizzing up Libby Dunn. And it went super viral. But this is my point,

00:37:52.080 matt is that there is no mono there is no one internet these people are huge stars in their

00:37:57.600 own right and like libby dunn is like a major celebrity in like the sports like i mean she's

00:38:02.640 barstool adjacent too is this is this like the like charlie xcx versace boots the house down

00:38:09.160 snatch my wig for straight people maybe like i don't know what's coming out of your mouth right

00:38:16.180 now but i'm happy for all of them but it's like i just think the internet is so fractured there's

00:38:21.580 so many people that are so huge or relevant or viral in their certain niches and i think that's

00:38:28.460 like what happened with the hawk to a girl like i think she went super viral in this niche and

00:38:35.280 then suddenly she broke through in this mainstream way that we really haven't seen in a minute i mean

00:38:41.600 maybe alex earl too like you have the tiktok stars but she blew up from a viral video not a tiktok

00:38:46.640 i mean i guess it was a tiktok she blew up like she blew up not from content that she herself

00:38:50.480 created i think people know who the hawk to a girl is because she got plugged into the like

00:38:55.300 barstool infrastructure basically immediately and i think when you get plugged into that like

00:39:00.420 mainstream sort of like bro culture like you i mean i think alex earl did too to an extent

00:39:07.200 yeah and i do feel now is the time where we we're gonna get into the politics of all of this

00:39:14.160 in a moment i do feel we have to address one of the elephants in the room with all of this which

00:39:20.400 is if you look at the online conversation around really any of these people right now it's about

00:39:26.240 but i saw this a lot about alex earl and also bobby althoff the um the podcaster who like

00:39:33.100 mostly interviews black rappers in a really monotone voice um she's like well why do you

00:39:39.780 like making music and i think one of the things that comes up a lot with these people is this 0.91

00:39:46.960 idea of rewarding white mediocrity. Well, I think that's a common theme throughout these

00:39:52.500 internet stars, right? It's like, or people that go viral. And it's not to say that they have no

00:39:57.760 talent or, you know, Alex Earl doesn't work hard or whatever in her own right. It's this, like you

00:40:04.160 said, it's a white mediocrity and it's a lot of cisgender, beautiful white women or beautiful white 0.78

00:40:10.360 men that are young and attractive in extremely conventional ways and ultimately are pretty 0.65

00:40:16.400 conventional people too. They're not going to challenge power. They're not radical. They're

00:40:21.240 not outside our existing understanding of gender. They're very mainstream. And I think that's also

00:40:29.640 why they're so quickly adopted by the right and platformed by the right. Because like you mentioned

00:40:34.460 in the beginning with that tweet, it's like, well, this is a reaction. These are the people

00:40:37.700 that we want to become famous, right? These generic sort of paper thin people that ultimately

00:40:43.060 don't challenge the status quo yeah i mean again just i am terminally online but i'm terminally

00:40:48.600 online in an enormously different way than anything approaching the barstool extended

00:40:53.600 universe and like for me i don't know you put hawk tua and alex earl and alex cooper that's

00:41:01.540 the call her daddy one alex cooper in a lineup these are all beautiful and i'm sure they're all 0.96

00:41:06.520 lovely but like they are thin blonde women with spray tans you know you see a pattern with who

00:41:12.780 is allowed into this like well it's also like it's the sydney sweeney is the death of woke

00:41:18.420 thing oh yeah i did make a patreon episode about that it's yes the right sees a like beautiful

00:41:24.660 white like conventionally beautiful white blonde woman get famous and they're like wokeness is

00:41:29.560 ended finally you know and it's like what are you talking about i think also like you know in terms

00:41:35.420 of who's going to get brand deals and who can be sort of slotted into the existing internet

00:41:39.560 entertainment complex, you're going to see these sort of generic white people because that's who 0.57

00:41:45.940 remains most monetizable in our society. That's who remains most aspirational. For instance, 0.87

00:41:52.280 when Antoine Dodson blows up, he's not seen as an aspirational, funny, relatable figure. He's not

00:41:57.420 going to get a L'Oreal brand deal or whatever. These big time companies, when an attractive,

00:42:03.540 thin, white, blonde girl goes viral, brands are like, oh, great. Let's start sending her products. 1.00

00:42:09.360 let's start working with her let's start paying her to show up at clubs and do appearances like 1.00

00:42:13.900 if she was fat if she was queer if she was literally anything but what she is she would 1.00

00:42:18.860 not be getting access to those opportunities she wouldn't be able to monetize the way that she could 0.99

00:42:23.520 she is right and tell me if you think this is accurate but it's like there's a level of like

00:42:27.740 spontaneity and like you know democracy and how these people go viral and yes they are

00:42:32.860 propped up by like people like us just users of the internet who find them and find them funny

00:42:38.200 or find their viral moment funny and share them.

00:42:40.080 And that's, you know, that's democratic.

00:42:41.580 But they're also held up by, very quickly,

00:42:44.660 by management teams and brands and podcasting networks.

00:42:49.320 And those are people who decide

00:42:50.580 if these people are worth cashing in on or not.

00:42:53.320 And the people who they decide to prop up,

00:42:55.300 those are decisions that are made.

00:42:57.200 Like whether or not a PR team who establishes

00:43:00.220 that an up-and-coming content creator

00:43:01.920 can have a $25,000 appearance fee,

00:43:04.880 like they're choosing who they're gonna work with.

00:43:07.060 Exactly.

00:43:07.820 And it is not coincidental that they all look exactly the same.

00:43:12.680 Of course not, because that has been the sort of like ideal of beauty in America for a very

00:43:17.420 long time.

00:43:18.260 And like aspirational beauty is like, yeah, this girl next door, the beautiful, thin,

00:43:22.980 perfect 21-year-old down-home girl that isn't going to think too hard and just wants to

00:43:28.480 have a good time.

00:43:29.480 I remember when I saw Charli D'Amelio like blowing up and she was 15 when the whole TikTok

00:43:37.900 thing started. Charli D'Amelio, if you living under a rock, she she's kind of became the face

00:43:43.360 of TikTok very quickly for making these dance videos that now everyone associates with TikTok.

00:43:48.880 But she got over like 100 million TikTok followers. Her, you know, her family has a

00:43:54.980 a reality show that's been airing for multiple seasons on hulu they've all built brands around

00:43:59.560 themselves including her failed republican politician father mark and i just remember 0.85

00:44:04.640 hearing her like speak in interviews for the first and she's you know thin and white and very pretty

00:44:09.480 and i just remember like hearing her speak in interviews for the first time where you know

00:44:13.060 she wasn't lip-syncing over a song and i was just like does she does she want to be here right now

00:44:17.880 or are a lot of people making a lot of money off of her including and this is the feel like the

00:44:23.560 thing I feel impassioned about when it comes to charlie d'amelio but like her parents her parents

00:44:28.800 built brands around her like haphazard fame which I always just felt really uncomfortable with I

00:44:35.660 mean I think she's another one that she was at least like in dance which is I would say

00:44:40.220 entertainment adjacent and yeah she's an excellent dancer I yeah I think in that situation the family

00:44:46.360 and same with with Addison Rae it's like you had this like family that also was seeking fame and

00:44:51.840 and all of that and i actually i think charlie and dixie are very sweet and i think ultimately

00:44:57.240 like the kardashians i mean they're sort of like their original famous family right and you have

00:45:02.520 all these other sort of families trying to follow in the footsteps and i mean that's what they got

00:45:06.140 a lot of criticism for that i think it was the season one of their reality show and when dixie

00:45:10.480 or charlie is saying like we don't want to do this like people were like oh you seem ungrateful

00:45:14.880 or whatever right which is the biggest sin yeah but it's like it's like take me back to high school

00:45:19.340 That that was the same year that I did my story on Julia Harmon, the girl who made the renegade dance. And that was like right before COVID started. But it was like, just that was when you started to have a lot of these conversations around credit and around virality and who gets the brand deals and who gets the sponsorships and who, who's sort of like ushered into the Hollywood world.

00:45:40.820 And a lot of them were white dancers who were ushered in off the backs of like dances that were created by these black creators who do not see a fraction of the success. Right. 0.76

00:45:50.480 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think people started to recognize finally, you know, like there was that like reckoning.

00:45:56.120 It's just that that doesn't it's it's not a TikTok problem.

00:45:58.960 And it was framed as this TikTok problem of like and it's like, no, this is just systemic racism.

00:46:03.560 Like this, this is how it is in every aspect of our media and culture and entertainment and framing it as a TikTok problem. I think ultimately, I don't think it really did as much to kind of fix the broader issue.

00:46:18.720 I think there are really valid reasons to be critical when someone like Hawk Tua immediately skyrockets to this like level of fame and wealth and attention that she has, like, you know, some of the things we've been talking about.

00:46:29.700 But then there's also, and I just had to put this in my outline because I cannot stop thinking about it, is like the misogyny involved in all of this.

00:46:39.180 And it's like, speaking of the Kardashians, like, I don't know, Hawk to a Girl is just the latest in a long line of women who become famous for a number of reasons, but who get lumped in this famous for being famous pejorative, which it is a pejorative when people say that it's like, you know, Paris Hilton famous for being famous and like.

00:46:56.500 And that was never true, by the way. They were never famous for being famous. They were always

00:47:01.620 famous for entertaining people primarily online. I mean, with Kim Kardashian, also, she was a

00:47:07.140 reality star. I mean, Paris Hilton was a reality star. That is entertainment. I think now we

00:47:12.420 recognize reality TV as a valid form of entertainment. But because it was a more

00:47:16.580 accessible level of fame than traditional scripted TV, people were just like, oh,

00:47:22.180 they're famous for nothing. Now we recognize actually minting a good reality star, that is

00:47:28.060 its own skill and type of fame. And we recognize it as valuable, but we didn't recognize it as

00:47:34.920 valuable. And then when Kim blew up on the internet, we also didn't recognize internet

00:47:38.520 fame as valuable. Oh my God. It was just like, oh, so what? So she gets her tits out and she 1.00

00:47:42.980 takes selfies. Exactly. I wrote this piece last year about the 10th anniversary of selfie being 1.00

00:47:47.780 word of the year and I went back and looked at the media coverage of selfies oh my god you would 0.98

00:47:54.340 have thought that the world was ending yes it was like how dare women put themselves in a photo 0.92

00:48:01.220 they are narcissistic and anyone who takes selfies is a narcissistic psychopath oh my god I remember

00:48:06.460 that so well it was like there was a literal like cultural moral panic around selfies yes like 0.97

00:48:11.540 Like there was news.

00:48:12.840 Barack Obama took a selfie and there it was news articles all over.

00:48:17.280 It was like so unprofessional.

00:48:19.920 How could he be president? 1.00

00:48:21.440 It's so fucking stupid. 1.00

00:48:23.020 But it just shows like, I mean, I wrote about this too, but like so much online behavior, 1.00

00:48:28.180 especially selfies is pioneered by young girls, teen girls specifically.

00:48:32.200 And with selfies, it was the first time a lot of women were sort of like putting themselves

00:48:35.580 and in their photos and that was and sharing themselves on the internet. 1.00

00:48:40.680 And that was seen as like gauche and like attention.

00:48:43.320 I mean, this is also like in the 2000s 0.92

00:48:45.780 when we just called all these people like attention whores. 0.93

00:48:48.620 Yeah. 0.97

00:48:49.260 That was like how they were referring 0.84

00:48:50.820 to like mainstream female YouTubers. 1.00

00:48:53.900 Yeah. 1.00

00:48:54.440 In like news articles and stuff.

00:48:56.520 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:48:57.480 Fame balls, fame whores. 1.00

00:48:58.940 Fame whores. 1.00

00:48:59.880 It's such deeply misogynistic language. 1.00

00:49:03.340 Attention whore, 0.99

00:49:03.860 which I think now is such a glamorous label. 0.99

00:49:06.360 Now, yeah.

00:49:07.120 Well, now it's kind of funny.

00:49:08.660 Whatever the Kardashians come up,

00:49:10.680 I get so frustrated because there are so many amazing reasons to complain and critique and

00:49:18.640 even hate the Kardashians. Kim Kardashian is a slave labor hustling queen of a fast fashion 0.95

00:49:25.800 empire billionaire. And when you ask the average American why they hate her, it's because she had 1.00

00:49:33.520 a sex tape and because she poses naked on Instagram. It's like, are you kidding? There is 0.99

00:49:38.400 so much to work with here. And the thing that you fixate on is a woman's sexuality. I hate to 1.00

00:49:45.360 girlboss feminism on behalf of Kim Kardashian, but sometimes I have to do it. Well, I mean,

00:49:50.900 look, unfortunately, famous, rich, billionaire women can also be victims of misogyny. That 1.00

00:49:56.760 doesn't mean that we should defend all of the other evil shit that they do. But misogyny is 0.99

00:50:01.940 real and it does come for specific types of women and I think especially women that are putting

00:50:09.100 themselves out there in that way and I mean I totally agree with you on Kim and I would not 0.99

00:50:13.240 defend her on many levels but she did sort of pioneer a lot of influencer culture which

00:50:17.860 ultimately I think people have very misogynistic views of like you can hate her for a lot of things

00:50:23.580 but taking selfies and posting herself and expressing herself online I think is it's not

00:50:27.920 the most constructive but it's interesting that the only ways that they've started to take her

00:50:33.300 seriously and i was at i spoke at the same conference as her um a few months ago in germany 1.00

00:50:37.500 is through the money that she makes it's like it's like listen i don't like this slut you know 1.00

00:50:43.720 but she's making lots of money it's the same way they talk about like successful women on only 1.00

00:50:47.360 fans it's like listen you know like totally i don't agree but because this is america and we

00:50:52.420 value money above all else you have to convey a certain level of respect to people that are

00:50:58.400 multi-millionaires or billionaires and that's why like these women they're always going to be seen 0.80

00:51:03.100 through the lens of misogyny but they command a certain level of power in these male-dominated 1.00

00:51:08.360 spaces because of the money that they generate totally and so huck to a girl who i will bring

00:51:14.620 everything back to i think for the rest of my life is is also being subject to like both valid 1.00

00:51:20.680 critique about her skyrocketing to fame for virtually nothing but also crazy misogyny as 1.00

00:51:26.440 you can imagine compounded by the fact that the joke that she made that made her viral was sexual

00:51:31.480 and so you know if there's misogyny happening online uh andrew tate will always be at the crime

00:51:37.220 scene and i do have a tweet from him here andrew tate wrote america would be a serious country if

00:51:44.200 young blonde country girls went viral for their knowledge of the bible as opposed to how they 0.99

00:51:48.940 suck random men's cocks but america is not a serious country and it's like okay first of all 0.99

00:51:53.980 especially ironic coming from andrew tate but there's a lot of this like she's getting famous 1.00

00:51:59.200 for talking about spitting on a dick i think that people to your point like i think people mistake

00:52:04.780 their anger at like systems that make people famous and like sis i mean i don't think andrew 0.59

00:52:10.520 tate is necessarily concerned with systemic racism but like i think a lot of people providing more

00:52:14.860 valid critiques are and i do think that sometimes these criticisms that are ultimately at systems

00:52:22.980 or should be aimed at systems are taken out on individuals hayley welch a hawk to a girl has

00:52:30.200 since made an instagram that now has 1.4 million followers and steadily rising surely will be higher

00:52:35.340 by the time this goes out and all of the comments are like like this comment if you think we made 0.99

00:52:40.560 the wrong girl famous and you'll go famous for anything even just talking about sucking dick and 0.99

00:52:45.600 like you know all this stuff and it's like i understand that like america is a capitalist 0.99

00:52:50.900 hellscape and like the idea that someone could make a lot of money for effectively no reason

00:52:55.240 betrays our sense of like having to work for it and suffer for it and hustle more than she has

00:53:00.620 or whatever just ignoring the fact that she's spent her life so far waking up at 2 a.m to work

00:53:05.360 in a bedspring factory but it's also just like you're mad at systems maybe correctly so but

00:53:10.900 like leave hayley welch alone i think it's a mistake to think that she went famous just for

00:53:15.700 the hawk tua like i think that is a viral like that is a term that's now viral in a way that

00:53:22.760 like on fleek goes right you know like these terms go viral but also i think she has a charisma to

00:53:27.920 her totally that is ultimately what what captivated people because somebody else could have said the

00:53:32.920 same words as her and it wouldn't have gone viral and so i think like the opportunity there is like

00:53:39.000 i i could see her being part of the like podcast reality tv world or something you know what i mean

00:53:46.180 my hot take is i think she will totally have success and i've seen these people like kind

00:53:52.040 of like hand ring about like just let her be a meme let it die and like sure whatever but

00:53:56.620 obviously that's not happening i think as far as like viral memes go i think she totally has the 0.98

00:54:02.420 personality. I think she has the charisma. I think she has the accent. I think she'll do great. And 1.00

00:54:06.740 I think she wants it. Like, that's the thing at the end of the day is like, she's talking about

00:54:11.040 wanting to go on more podcasts. And she's like, doing these interviews at like her house with

00:54:15.280 her grandma, like, for what it's worth, unpopular, though it may be, I'm rooting for you, Haley

00:54:20.760 Welch. Famous last words. Yeah, they're gonna burn me at the stake. Well, I mean, I don't I'm

00:54:27.200 not I would say I'm not rooting against her. I think we should be careful who we give a platform

00:54:32.280 to. And that's concerning because I could also see her getting very sucked into the right wing 0.99

00:54:37.580 ecosystem. And again, the barstool ecosystem, which does, you know, skew politically in certain 1.00

00:54:43.860 ways. But I think she's ultimately harmless. Now, if she just goes and becomes a reality TV person

00:54:48.700 and, you know, goes on reality podcast, you know, like she could just be a totally harmless,

00:54:53.760 like entertainment person. And I'm rooting for that. But you just never know how people are

00:54:58.520 gonna you're right and we have arrived at that part in the outline so uh you know i probably

00:55:04.760 wouldn't be making a podcast about this uh a hawk to a girl if not for what we're about to talk about

00:55:10.960 this is really the elephant in the room the literal elephant in the room republican symbol

00:55:14.680 elephant in the room that was good that was funny thank you thank you uh as soon as the hawk to a

00:55:20.740 video went viral literally as soon as it went viral the online right began commodifying hawk

00:55:27.540 Tua as a political symbol, as a right-wing political symbol. Someone posted a picture

00:55:32.240 on Twitter from a Trump rally in Virginia that I am going to send you and have you describe.

00:55:38.620 Oh, God. I hate this. So we're looking at a tweet from, I'm assuming some sort of political

00:55:47.800 reporter covering the Trump rally in Virginia, and it's two old men. One looks significantly

00:55:53.360 older than the other but they both have like big beards they're both wearing khaki shorts

00:55:58.020 those sunglasses and hats i mean they just look like you know that um meme of like you said

00:56:04.160 something wrong on the internet and it's all the profile pictures of like the men with the

00:56:07.420 sunglasses and stuff like that's what these two guys look like yeah um one has a trump hat on the

00:56:13.420 other one has a uh hat that says dirty hands clean money and they're both wearing they're both

00:56:19.860 wearing these black t-shirts with trump in front of the american flag that says hawk to a spit on

00:56:26.340 that thing i think it's interesting especially because of donald trump like the the image in

00:56:31.840 this video almost makes it sound like donald trump is saying hawk to a spit on that thing like to a

00:56:37.080 woman or something i don't know i think it just shows how this meme has been co-opted i think

00:56:41.380 it's also interesting because like so much of donald trump's brand is misogyny and they'll like 1.00

00:56:46.400 grab them by the pussy type shit that he's known for yeah it's just been co-opted into this right 0.99

00:56:52.640 wing meme i read something from a woman named andrea catherine another one of these like right 1.00

00:56:57.960 wing people she wrote hear me out the hawk to a girl fundamentally expressed conservative values

00:57:03.600 a woman pleasing a man in a heterosexual relationship not being bitter towards men 0.99

00:57:08.740 that's why she resonated with so many people i think it's so funny the idea that like blowjobs 0.96

00:57:14.400 are like heterosexual i mean i have given many blowjobs and none of them have been heterosexual 0.95

00:57:22.960 let me just say that i have i have hawk to it it's been the furthest thing from from heterosexual 0.98

00:57:28.500 i can assure you that this is like such galaxy brain like how yeah how can we make this sound

00:57:34.000 trad i mean that was how she entered my life was this like viral tweet that was like hawk too is 0.73

00:57:40.960 taking over pride month and the lgbt's are pissed meanwhile not a single gay person i have ever knew

00:57:47.140 was like can you believe that hawk 2 was taking over pride month like this wasn't a thing it was 0.86

00:57:52.640 so manufactured also like if anything she can be enjoyed by gay or straight people well why do you

00:57:59.340 think she was co-opted immediately by the right i mean i have my own ideas but i'd like to hear

00:58:04.280 yours i think she's southern she's white she represents this again it's like the barstool

00:58:09.380 internet there's internet it's the down-home generic not thinking too hard not challenging

00:58:15.120 the status quo you know just a hard-working next door girl next door american you know like that's

00:58:20.640 sort of like the vibe i think the right has always seized on that those sort of parts of culture

00:58:25.880 yeah i think they also just hate gay culture and so anytime a straight person goes viral that

00:58:31.260 doesn't seem you know woke in some way they can co-opt her i think if she had if she had pink hair

00:58:36.920 or I don't know like presented slightly less gender conforming or something right like they

00:58:42.500 would never adopt her it's it's very much like her look and her aesthetic and her sort of demeanor

00:58:47.120 that they want I think she's being received like okay have you read or seen Gone Girl of course

00:58:52.640 yeah you know the monologue about like I'm the cool girl yes like yes she's seen as she's seen

00:58:58.180 as that which the monologue if you haven't read it it's it's basically like Amy Dunn in Gone Girl

00:59:02.740 being like for years i pretended to be the cool girl like i always gave sex and never needed

00:59:08.940 pleasure i never argued i was always there to serve a man and like i think they've constructed

00:59:14.400 around hawk to a girl like this entire identity where she just like loves like giving head and

00:59:19.640 like being pretty yes and that appeals a lot to conservative heterosexual men and it's like she's

00:59:26.740 kind of that fun college girl right that they love two-dimensional two-dimensional and not

00:59:34.300 giving her agency totally and of course she isn't two-dimensional she is a human being but the only

00:59:39.640 insight we have into her is this like one moment where she's talking about like enjoying giving

00:59:43.760 head the one thing that made me want to jump out of a window was rolling stone calling her gen z's

00:59:48.660 dolly parton yeah they're yeah insane i just feel like there's there's so much projection

00:59:54.740 growing going on right now not just in conservative world but in the media it's like how can we what

01:00:00.660 boxes can we stick this girl into and how can we sort of like place her and make her into something

01:00:07.360 you know that explains why we should care about it's like everything has to be and this is like

01:00:12.520 a lot of what i just talked about on this podcast in general but it's like everything has to be fit

01:00:16.760 into the culture war like it can't just be like a girl got drunk at a country music thing and like

01:00:21.920 said like a funny fellatio joke to a tiktoker it's like where does she fit into the election

01:00:27.560 why what does she think about donald yeah well and so did you see what she said on the podcast

01:00:33.520 about donald trump well she said that she wouldn't she said she wouldn't hawk tua on donald trump

01:00:38.420 but then she later clarified that the only reason is because he's old and she doesn't like old guys

01:00:45.060 Right. So as she is like exploding in conservative circles for some reason, she goes on this podcast before the Zach Bryan show, and they're basically playing like smasher pass. But the version of it that they did was like, would you hawk to this guy or no? Like, would you give this guy head? And they asked her if she would hawk to Donald Trump. And she said, absolutely not.

01:01:08.740 When she said that she would not huck to a Donald Trump, this was read by many as like

01:01:14.380 an endorsement of Joe Biden, which is just how crazy things have gotten online.

01:01:20.120 I think that's why she backtracked, too, because I think she I think she suddenly started to

01:01:23.340 get a lot of heat.

01:01:24.620 And also, this is now her new fan base.

01:01:26.420 And I think she's immediately like, oh, well, I didn't I didn't I just meant like he's old.

01:01:31.200 So like, I don't do old guys like, you know, like trying to like depoliticize it. 0.72

01:01:35.980 Totally. 1.00

01:01:36.200 Which it was never political in the first place.

01:01:38.320 It was never politicized in the beginning.

01:01:40.160 Can I send you a tweet to read?

01:01:42.160 Oh, God.

01:01:42.940 So this is a tweet from Laura Loomer, who is a far right wing activist who has worked with Trump formally.

01:01:50.540 She was banned from like every social media platform.

01:01:53.480 She was also, interestingly, banned from a number of food delivery apps for violating nondiscrimination rules.

01:02:01.840 So, you know.

01:02:02.640 Well, here she is now saying the degenerate hawk to a girl is anti-Trump. In her first video since

01:02:10.040 going viral, she was asked about Donald Trump. She said, it's a no from me. Stop giving her

01:02:14.800 attention. It's actually funny because Laura Loomer has terrible instincts on this stuff 0.99

01:02:19.460 because it doesn't really matter if she supports Trump or not. They're going to co-opt her no 0.99

01:02:24.440 matter what. And she can be successfully co-opted. She would have to be so overly leftist and woke 1.00

01:02:29.700 for them to not treat her like and i think also again this is why she's backtracking i actually 0.98

01:02:35.460 don't think she's super political she doesn't seem super political generally i don't think she 1.00

01:02:39.980 gives a shit and also this context it's a no for me she's talking about whether she would suck his 0.99

01:02:45.120 dick so so i want to send you also the follow-up to this to have you read because there's a yet 1.00

01:02:51.900 another cameo in this twitter exchange that blew my fucking brain oh my god okay billionaire hedge 0.98

01:02:58.840 fund founder bill ackman why the fuck this is so like the funniest thing about twitter is just like 1.00

01:03:04.680 these rich people on there it's like why the fuck are you on here you have a billion dollars laura 0.98

01:03:09.040 you got this one wrong that was not the question she was asked and i don't think you can determine 1.00

01:03:13.120 her politics from this clip you might want to review it again he's right laura loomer sucks 0.95

01:03:18.120 because she made me agree with bill ackman on something she says i stand corrected bill ackman 1.00

01:03:22.900 upon further review it turns out she was only talking about whether she would perform fellatio 0.89

01:03:27.080 on president trump rare bill ackman w i just think this actually shows how laura is i mean 0.99

01:03:34.620 laura's dumb anyway but it's like in the right again the right wing doesn't need her to come

01:03:38.740 out in support of donald trump for her to be co-opted by the right right as long as she doesn't 0.99

01:03:43.640 say like trans rights or something they're gonna be like she's our girl she's blonde and she loves

01:03:48.080 giving head which is also funny because it's just like the right can't decide if it is pro or anti

01:03:55.900 sex like it's like fun loving and like anything like overt display or or you know signals of

01:04:02.500 heterosexual sex are in this way like right wing coded but then at the same time like this is the

01:04:07.980 party that is trying to effectively outlaw recreational sex and so the whole thing is just 0.77

01:04:12.740 so like funny there's just so many contradictions what's what's insane too though okay this is the

01:04:18.220 last tweet that i'm sending you but what's what's insane too is that like when she said that she

01:04:23.960 wouldn't give donald trump head on this podcast there were some democrats who were also like see

01:04:29.440 hawk to a girl is ours and it's like everyone wants their piece of the pie so i'm sending you

01:04:35.220 one more oh god okay so this account biden's wins which is just a crazy biden apologist account

01:04:43.500 says breaking the hawk to a girl just absolutely demolished donald trump saying it's a no-go for

01:04:50.280 her retweet to make sure all americans know gen z is speaking out against donald trump and his

01:04:55.920 radical agenda okay she said nothing of the sort nothing of nothing any of these people are saying

01:05:01.960 took place she said i would not literally spit on only because he's old she later said like it's

01:05:08.800 like it's just disgusting to see this happen i hate it i hate this i hate that this is like what

01:05:13.800 our political system is driven by these days the whole situation reminded me in a way of do you

01:05:21.100 remember last year the rich men north of richmond song yes same it was kind of the same thing so

01:05:27.760 last august this guy called oliver anthony released a song you may remember it called rich

01:05:35.420 men north of richmond which was kind of this like brutal working class call to arms he was just like

01:05:43.200 singing in this like kind of really harsh raspy voice about like the centralization of political 0.98

01:05:48.000 power and inflation he was saying like your dollar ain't shit and taxes being too high for the 0.98

01:05:54.320 working class which was all good and fine but then he all he was like kind of punching in every 0.98

01:05:59.520 direction with the lyrics to this song because he also was complaining about quote obese people

01:06:04.740 milking welfare and so it's like he was like punching up at the establishment but then he

01:06:08.940 was also punching down at people he perceived as like I don't know it was kind of like the

01:06:12.420 whole welfare queen joke if he was like angry that poor people were sucking resources from the

01:06:17.340 country or something. And this immediately became like an anthem for the right. So much so that on

01:06:25.560 the Fox News hosted Republican primary debate, it was played. And then the candidates, including

01:06:31.940 Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, billionaire, were asked, why do you think the song is resonating

01:06:37.480 so much? At which point, Oliver Anthony, the singer of the song. Didn't he say like, I don't

01:06:42.100 really fuck with any yeah he he exactly he he made this video and he was like just to be clear 0.98

01:06:47.420 my song is criticizing republican politicians as much as it is democrats and he was like i don't 0.99

01:06:52.860 like biden or trump or any of these people and he got dropped so fast and that was the last we heard

01:06:58.960 of him the right generally they they have been able to capitalize i mean this is just trumpism

01:07:04.240 on this like populist message while also not doing anything like you know like not actually

01:07:10.720 like living up to it like these are like billionaires right running the political

01:07:14.760 establishment on both sides but it's just interesting how like any all of these like

01:07:18.880 populist like working class songs or working class people or like you know hailey like waking

01:07:23.540 up at 2 a.m to go to the factory it's like that is sort of like republican coded even though

01:07:27.980 republicans are like their policies are not helping those people necessarily like get a leg up

01:07:33.680 totally i mean it's i think we talked about this in the episode that we did about ollie london but

01:07:38.120 it's like, to me, Trump's biggest grift has been like his appeal to populism and his appeal to

01:07:44.440 middle America. And everybody knows it's not true, but how he kind of like leans into the idea of

01:07:49.620 rags to riches, even though he like grew up shitting gold. But it's like populism remains

01:07:53.840 very popular. That's also what drove Bernie Sanders success and RFK right now. Like young

01:07:58.640 people are mad at the system. And that message of hating on both parties actually resonates well

01:08:04.280 with young people but it's it's really only the right that is like speaking not even with young

01:08:09.180 people with people of all ages especially like everyone hates this capitalist hellscape that we 0.61

01:08:13.480 live in that only benefits billionaires you know like unless you're like a bootlicker you recognize

01:08:18.080 that the system sucks and both political parties are responsible for upholding it i just feel like

01:08:23.220 they're both like warring over like who can we like co-opt for our own cause and no one's doing 0.89

01:08:28.180 anything to like fix any of the systemic issues or help i also feel like there's a desperation to

01:08:32.640 like tap the young vote because yeah obviously like i mean young people tend to be way more

01:08:37.460 progressive but are disillusioned with like this kind of like hell of the democrat party

01:08:42.320 as it stands right now and i think like vying for young people's vote is just manifesting in

01:08:48.760 increasingly bizarre ways yes also it's like the dnc tweeting like h-o-t-t-o go vote yes it's like 0.99

01:08:57.920 yes the dnc tweeting like h-o-t-t-o to the polls you know it's like it's like shut the fuck up you 0.99

01:09:04.700 guys just declared like transgender minor care like illegal recently you know like whatever 0.99

01:09:10.040 biden did like it's just it's just like pandering on all sides and i think that the right is just

01:09:15.960 better at that pandering like they're better at like messaging and co-opting these people and

01:09:20.540 building this online universe to support their sort of political ideology in a way that like

01:09:26.580 the left doesn't have well the left has it but like liberals like mainstream liberals are just 0.95

01:09:30.960 posting shit like the biden wins account you know yeah i don't know what is the solution for the 0.99

01:09:38.080 left like do we have to just do this better than the barstool people like where now well there is 0.99

01:09:42.900 no like leftist barstools like there is no like leftist media infrastructure like she can be 1.00

01:09:48.680 plugged into this entire right-wing media infrastructure that is very reality tv adjacent 1.00

01:09:53.800 that is very pop culture adjacent because it exists nothing like that exists on the left 0.61

01:09:58.540 we just have like gay twitter we have stan twitter yeah there's stan twitter which is left is coded 0.85

01:10:03.440 but we gotta we gotta plug hawk tua into stan twitter i guess that's my job the gays should 0.86

01:10:08.140 have co-opted her before the republicans yeah you're right she should have been on a pride 0.74

01:10:13.260 yeah mac cosmetics we need to tap hawk to it for the viva glam campaign

01:10:19.960 this could all be prevented yeah if there's anything i've taken from this it's that we need to 0.50

01:10:26.820 find hawk to his newly hired pr team and uh get her on video saying trans rights i do think it'll

01:10:34.520 be interesting to see like you're saying like she does have this charisma and i do think even just

01:10:39.620 it seems like she's friendly with you know Brianna from the bar like from Plan Brie and

01:10:45.060 it seems like I could see her being on a reality show I don't know that she needs her own reality

01:10:49.780 show but I could see her going on something I don't know I will say with the amount of people

01:10:55.500 we've seen she does definitely seem hungry for something in her career and like like we said

01:11:02.080 earlier like I'm rooting for that but something that you and I talk about all the time is the

01:11:07.380 level of success we've seen people find in that uh venture on explicitly right-wing media and so

01:11:15.500 i guess i'm just really hoping that that doesn't happen to her don't get red-pilled

01:11:19.820 hawk to a girl hawk to a girl if you're out there and listening to the a bit fruity podcast please

01:11:25.120 don't get red-pilled say gay rights taylor thank you so much for being here today thank you for um 0.84

01:11:33.880 sorry I need to think before I speak I love your brat nails thank you so much

01:11:37.880 they're so spiky I saw I think you posted them somewhere and I was like oh my god I know I'm

01:11:43.580 ripping holes in my sheets it's bad Taylor thank you so much for once again joining us on the show

01:11:49.520 it is always such a pleasure to talk to you about the internet where can people find more of you

01:11:54.220 support your work hear more of your hot takes about the internet subscribe to my youtube channel

01:11:59.540 please oh yeah yeah i have a podcast called power user it's like an online culture podcast

01:12:04.820 talk about all this and more if you have made it this far then i hope you enjoyed today's episode

01:12:11.360 we went a little more light-hearted today there's so much shit in the world and frankly i just

01:12:16.660 wanted to do an episode about the hawk to a girl and i found that there was enough of a political

01:12:21.660 reason to do so where it made sense for this podcast so i hope you enjoyed if you once again

01:12:26.480 If you'd like more of the show, you can subscribe to the Patreon.

01:12:29.500 I'd love to have you over there.

01:12:31.120 And in place of my usual sign-off, which is stay fruity, I'm just going to say, I love

01:12:37.880 you.

01:12:38.440 I will see you next time. 1.00

01:12:39.580 And until then, spit on that thing.

01:12:46.620 It was good, right?

01:12:49.000 It was great.

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - July 17, 2024

Hawk Tuah： From Harmless Meme to Right Wing Symbol

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