00:00:53.240and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:58.760I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:01:02.380Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:01:09.920These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:01:13.740Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:21.360If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:01:27.100Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:01:35.740Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.
00:04:05.860Parker grappled with Ashley's apology and asks,
00:04:08.260if someone expresses regret for their past harmful behavior, shouldn't we be listening?
00:04:14.140I have been following your work for a while. I mean, I don't mean this in a creepy way.
00:04:18.780I feel like you have really been on the cutting edge of a lot of stuff, like, you know,
00:04:23.980leaving a larger outlet and doing your own thing. I feel like you were one of the first writers I
00:04:28.720really saw in that space. Yeah, you know, because it was 2021 when I made the move,
00:04:36.820Because before writing The Present Age, I was the editor-at-large, I was trying to remember the title, editor-at-large of Media Matters for America, which was this, for those who don't know, it's this progressive media watchdog group, which basically involved a lot of watching Fox News and reading Breitbart and basically stewing in the right-wing media ecosystem.
00:05:05.240So all of the things that would make you sad and angry, I was there to watch and read them.
00:05:15.000And so when I left Media Matters in 2021 to start my own thing, it was kind of scary.
00:05:25.760But it also kind of opened up the open opened up for the ability for me to kind of write about a little bit whatever I want, not necessarily stay super focused on right wing media, like being able to to to talk about things that are happening in culture, tech, journalism, politics, whatever it may be, and not having to tie it back to.
00:05:51.200And here's what Fox News had to say or something like that was was really freeing.
00:05:57.740I can only imagine. And you really are somebody that really threads the needle of all those different things you were talking about.
00:06:03.840Media, tech, politics, social issues, culture so well in the piece that you wrote about Ashley St.
00:06:10.240Claire. I feel like that is a great example of what I mean in the piece.
00:06:14.860I love the framing that you use because you describe it as this engagement machine that you in your own career spent a lot of time writing about, identifying and breaking it down where conservative media figures are able to really just deploy anti-trans rhetoric for clout and cash.
00:06:38.700Sure. So so basically, I mean, we all know that since since Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022, he's he's kind of molded it into his own his own nightmare factory that is just an algorithm that is based entirely on what he wants to see.
00:06:59.580But even before that, outrage has always done really well on the Internet.
00:07:06.020Divisiveness, you know, that's why when people post on, you know, social media and they want engagement, they'll say unpopular opinion and then just share their opinion instead of just saying what their opinion is.
00:07:19.520Like they say unpopular opinion because they want people to be like, well, I disagree with this, so I'm going to engage with it.
00:07:26.760You know, those are harmless things generally. But in the right-wing media ecosystem, you know, these sorts of things can really influence policy and public opinion.
00:07:46.380And I think over the past five to probably five, seven years or so, their work trying to demonize trans people, you know, by either by pointing to, you know, edge cases of, you know, people being inappropriate or like seeking out people who commit crimes and being like, this is what, you know, this is what all trans people are like.
00:08:12.540And highlighting that, you know, has really hurt public perception of trans people. And it's not a new thing. You know, Breitbart, for instance, the right wing publication, used to have a tab on its website that was just black crime. And it was just crime committed by black people.
00:08:35.440And that was the whole thing. The whole purpose of that, to see a feed of this, is to try to get you to think this whole group, something's wrong with this group of people. And that's what they do to trans people. And that's what they do to, you know, you see these social media attacks going out, you know, currently happening to Somalis in Minnesota, you know, or Haitians in Ohio before the 2024 election.0.99
00:09:04.440where, you know, they would just kind of come out there and throw out something that was obviously false.
00:09:09.920You know, they're eating pets, stuff like that, where it's meant to smear an entire group, you know, whether it's built on facts or not.
00:09:19.080And so the thing with the Ashley St. Clair story, which I can, should I explain it real quick?
00:09:28.560So basically, Ashley St. Clair is a conservative influencer, and she had also she had a baby with Elon Musk in 2024, which he has a lot of babies.
00:09:42.460So she's also the author of an anti-trans children's book called Elephants Are Not Birds.
00:09:48.020Yes. Earlier this month, Musk's AI chatbot Grok was used to generate sexualized images of her in addition to like a bunch of women and children, including some based on photos from when she was 14.
00:10:06.440When she complained about this, the platform stripped her of her blue verification badge, demonetized her account and took away all the premium features. Then, you know, after that, she posted an apology for her past anti-trans rhetoric and acknowledged Musk's trans daughter Vivian as her son's sister.
00:10:28.160So Musk responds to this by announcing that he's filing for full custody, claiming he wants, claiming that Ashley wants to transition their one year old, which she never said anything like that.
00:10:40.660But that's that's kind of the story at play. And it's been really interesting because for so long, she, you know, she benefited from this from this system.
00:10:49.240You know, she got her start at Turning Point USA with Charlie Kirk's organization and but was dropped in 2019 after she was photographed at a dinner with white nationalists.
00:11:00.080So it's like she was really deep in this conservative media ecosystem.
00:11:07.900But what I decided to write about was how, as a trans person, as someone who's watched a lot of really awful things said about trans people, and who was very aware of elephants are not birds when it came out, I saw that.
00:11:31.100And someone asked me, like, what do you what do you think of, you know, what do you think of her apology, her her walking, walking back some of the things she said about trans people?
00:11:42.280On X, Ashley St. Clair seems to contend with her past behavior.
00:11:47.440When asked how she now feels about trans people after having engaged in such blatant transphobia, she said, quote,
00:11:54.500I feel immense guilt for my role, and even more guilt that things I said in the past
00:11:59.900may have caused my son's sister more pain. Referring to Elon's daughter Vivian, who is trans.
00:12:06.340I don't really know how to make amends for many of these things, but I have been trying incredibly
00:12:11.260hard privately to learn and advocate for those within the trans community that I've heard.
00:12:16.140I also haven't said much on this because I have gone back and forth over whether my voice would
00:12:20.540be helpful on this issue since it will be framed as disingenuous or just turning because I am
00:12:25.860scorned. Even this reply will become right-wing hysteria. But yeah, I am sorry. Let me know how
00:12:32.800I can help. Parker really thought hard about Ashley's apology. My initial reaction reading
00:12:40.860that was, you know, kind of like there are two ways to go about this. You can either view that
00:12:48.440as like well this person has been horrible about trans issues why should i trust them
00:12:53.700how do i know they're sincere uh and how do i know that they'll do the right thing or whatever
00:13:01.460but i wanted to kind of force myself to to really think about this to be like
00:13:08.240things are bad for trans people right now isn't it good that someone even if it's only because
00:13:15.380elon musk took away their uh blue check mark and demonetize them you know isn't it still a good
00:13:22.320thing if someone comes around on this issue and was like you know what i realized that it was
00:13:26.620it was a bit much maybe i need to kind of walk that back you know it's one of those things that
00:13:32.160i want to encourage more people to to take that approach to to to feel like they can
00:13:40.900change on an issue and people won't bite bite their heads off. And, you know, because it's
00:13:47.300it's not fun getting yelled at on the Internet. And, you know, I've I've learned that over the
00:13:53.820years. Did you ever think you'd see the day where you find yourself acknowledging the apology of
00:13:58.660somebody with a history like Ashley St. Clair's? Having to write something sympathetic about
00:14:03.460someone who wrote elephants are not birds. You know, it was it was a little hard, you know,
00:14:07.580But I had to sit with it. But I kept coming back to this question, like, what do I actually want?
00:14:12.440Do I want to punish people who used to hold bad views or do I want fewer people to hold bad views?
00:14:17.520So if it's the latter, I have to leave room for people to change.
00:15:55.460Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:15:59.640I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:16:04.100I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:16:11.720They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:16:15.640But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:16:19.080They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:16:22.200Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:16:31.160If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:16:37.080This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:16:49.560I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:16:56.680I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. So obsessed.
00:17:00.260From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:17:06.200It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:17:13.680Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:17:23.280Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:17:37.060one of the points that you make in the piece is taking it back to this concept of the machine
00:17:43.840you write you're valuable as long as you're producing content that feeds the outrage cycle
00:17:48.480the moment you deviate the moment you express doubt or empathy or heaven forbid an apology
00:17:52.940you become the content the same people who cheered your attacks on trans kids
00:17:57.000will turn those same weapons on you and even in what she wrote saint claire seems very aware of
00:18:02.920that reality herself. She says, oh, as soon as I say anything, this is going to feed the right-wing0.58
00:18:07.040outrage machine. And by golly, she was right. Well, yeah. I mean, there's one example of this
00:18:13.440that comes to mind. It was probably back in, I'd say, somewhere in 2017, 2018, somewhere
00:18:23.320during Trump's first term. Tommy Lahren, the right-wing commentator, she went on The View
00:18:32.440And while on The View, she mentioned that she's personally pro-choice.
00:18:38.400And afterwards, she got, like, the entire right-wing apparatus kind of came at her.
00:18:47.560She got fired from her job at The Blaze, a conservative outlet.
00:18:54.600People were like, I'm no longer going to support you.
00:18:57.520And she kind of had to disappear for a little bit before, you know, all she all she did was she just kind of stopped talking about abortion as a whole and kept giving Fox News what they wanted because she she went on to work for Fox News.
00:19:12.820Like she's still really conservative and she says a lot of things that I strongly disagree with and I think are bigoted. But it was really interesting to watch what happened when she stepped just a little bit outside of what they were comfortable with.
00:19:27.820Like she was just saying her personal position was that she's pro-choice. Like she still supported all the anti-choice politicians. But it wasn't enough that it wasn't enough that she supported those politicians and their policies, but that she had to personally buy into what they were saying and not speak out against it in any way.
00:19:49.000You know, people criticize the left a lot for being like, oh, you the left is so, so stuck on, you know, having everyone needs to have the right positions and everyone needs to have, you know, stand stand for the right things.
00:20:04.140There's no there's no diversity of thought on the left, but it's just like there absolutely is.
00:20:11.140On the right, it's it's restrictive is, you know, so I don't know.
00:20:16.480And part of me looks at that and I see people who are so committed to transphobia or things like that. And oftentimes I will wonder, doesn't this get old after a while for them? Don't they want to evolve or just sort of be done with this?
00:20:32.440And I wonder if this fear of themselves becoming content for the machine might keep people who otherwise might evolve or move on or, like, be ready for just a different conversation for themselves kind of locked in to this level of outrage all the time.
00:20:47.780Yeah, I mean, you have to keep the thing about the outrage machine is that you have to keep one upping yourself.
00:20:55.760And you'll see this with creators all the time.
00:21:01.520Nick Fuentes he's he's a great example of this as someone who he I mean he's he's very racist
00:21:10.380he's he's a white nationalist he's popular on the right and watching his career over over the past
00:21:20.880six or seven years as well has been really interesting because he's had to keep one-upping
00:21:27.120himself and taking increasingly more extreme positions, you know, to the point where now
00:21:34.480it's just him saying things just to kind of shock people. He was saying Jeffrey Epstein was actually
00:21:40.480really cool. And he's he's he's supported Hitler. And he's he's he says all of these things that are0.76
00:21:47.200just complete, completely outrageous. But it's his brand. And it's what the people who give him
00:21:55.260money that the pay his bills want him to say and if he stopped saying it if if he had this moment
00:22:03.320of clarity and he said you know what i've been a horrible racist terrible bigot my entire
00:22:10.360professional life i need to fix that every like all of his followers would turn on him instantly
00:22:16.780and to some extent it's like i understand that sort of audience capture where you you build an
00:22:24.920audience who expect something of you and if you start to give them something different
00:22:28.300you can't really be surprised when when your your audience stops paying or stops reading or
00:22:36.000listening to you or watching you um like if uh if tomorrow i decided to turn the present age into
00:22:43.420a uh a baseball blog uh which i love baseball uh but i feel like if i wrote about nothing but
00:22:53.240baseball, I would lose a lot of the people who read my work because I write about politics and
00:23:00.080media and, you know, and culture in a way that they benefit from or they they can can connect
00:23:11.180with. So it's it's one of those things where it's like I do understand feeling sort of trapped by
00:23:47.020uh sneko and like a few other right-wing content creators like they were at like a club in miami
00:23:55.320listening to one of the like the hitler song that kanye west made and they were doing like there
00:24:02.220was videos of them doing like the like hitler salutes and stuff like that and it's just like
00:24:07.240how do you get how do you get to that point you know to where you're like this is not only
00:24:12.100something i'm going to do but i'm going to film myself doing this and put it on the internet
00:24:16.920for literally like that's the type of thing that I feel like 10 years ago people would have been
00:24:22.160trying trying their hardest to hide from the internet right posting it themselves but this
00:24:27.200is kind of what happens with this machine it it takes it takes you and it and it keeps prodding
00:24:33.940you to to be more extreme and I was just really shocked to see someone take the opposite side of
00:24:41.940that. You know, I'm sure that Ashley Sinclair, like, there's no money to be made on being someone0.95
00:24:51.600who supports trans people. Like, there's no money, there's no fame to come from this. You know,
00:24:58.600the opposite is true. There's a lot of money that's to be made for being transphobic. You
00:25:03.700know, you can be Riley Gaines and make like $400,000 a year for coming in fifth place in a
00:25:09.480swim meet uh so it's it's one of those things where it's like there's when when someone does
00:25:14.760the right thing despite there being financial incentives to do the opposite I feel like it's
00:25:20.380worth calling out and being like cool I hope more people are like this and that's what I tried to do
00:25:25.920I for a side note I was just thinking of that video of them out at that club it didn't even
00:25:31.460look like a good time that was the other thing I was like this doesn't even seem like a fun night
00:25:35.200out to me no like i i mean maybe maybe i'm just getting old but i i watch that i'm just like this
00:25:43.700this just doesn't seem fun like they're they're putting on a performance basically you know and
00:25:52.000and it's just like i wouldn't ever want i don't know i i it's it's hard to put myself in that
00:25:59.380in that headspace like i can't imagine being like time to film my content in the club
00:26:05.480no matter what no matter what the content is same same same and to your point about sort of
00:26:13.080turning the lens on people who are showing that they're able to evolve i like that in your piece
00:26:18.900you go out of your way to be like listen i'm not saying she deserves a medal for get for getting
00:26:22.540here but you know when i first started reading about ashley st claire and her apology i was like
00:26:29.120well would she be doing this if she weren't scorned by musk if like musk was continuing to
00:26:35.300like give her money for the kid and was like treating her well would we be having this
00:26:39.040conversation and you were like ultimately people change their minds for all kinds of different
00:26:44.140reasons like sometimes it's because you saw what they that that person has turned their behavior
00:26:48.120on you it doesn't feel so good it might not be the world's most noble path to empathy but it is
00:26:53.420a path can you tell me more about about how you got there so so i've been thinking about times on
00:26:59.880like here's an example of uh something that happened to me recently i i so i usually for
00:27:10.700social media these days i use blue sky uh that's just where i'm like most comfortable posting
00:27:16.460stuff about my life my days you know whatever whatever i'm doing uh a few weeks back
00:27:23.120I had a situation where I upset a bunch of people on Blue Sky because I made like there
00:27:31.320there was someone on Twitter who made a a mod for the game Animal Crossing where it took one of the
00:27:38.660cartoon characters who's a dog and it gave her like an hourglass figure and I saw this and I was
00:27:45.140like this is just kind of ridiculous and I was like why would someone make this this is this is
00:27:49.660very silly and so i posted on blue sky and i just wrote why though and people were like why are you
00:27:56.700questioning why someone would make this do you hate furries and i was like furries what does0.63
00:28:02.720this have to do with furries and they're like well it's a dog and and the person who made made the
00:28:08.660mod is apparently a furry and it's like i didn't know any of that but i had people yelling at me
00:28:14.980And we're very angry about this in my mentions.
00:28:18.740And there did come a point where I was like, my instinct was to be like, you know what?
00:28:26.960I didn't have anything against furries, but maybe now I do.
00:28:30.640Like, that was that thought that was in there.
00:28:32.520And I'm like, that's not a good thought.
00:28:33.980My opinion about a group, whether I understand that group, whether I don't understand that group or not,
00:28:41.360should not be determined by how someone talks to me on the internet but at the same time i think
00:28:48.160it's important to understand that people do react to how others respond to them and if the response
00:28:56.340from all all trans people to her you know apology which you know seems hard seems like it was
00:29:05.320heartfelt like seems like she mean means it uh you know if if every response from a trans person0.96
00:29:12.020was like you you know no we don't forgive you you're you're terrible you're horrible like0.83
00:29:17.480there were there's no incentive to actually change and so i i i tried to look at it from that that
00:29:28.640point of view and it was helpful i think that it was right after the the thing where i had people
00:29:32.940piling on me on blue sky um but you know it's and i've also seen i've also seen many people
00:29:42.640uh do something where they'll say something sort of insensitive about trans people0.81
00:29:49.260and a bunch of trans people will then respond to them online and say like you're horrible1.00
00:29:58.180You're terrible. This is bigoted. And they might have meant, well, maybe they didn't mean well.1.00
00:30:05.260Maybe they're just kind of like they don't really have an opinion, but they said something kind of kind of sloppy.
00:30:12.860And I've watched as people have gone from being like, I'm just trying to be, you know, I'm just trying to interact with the world and and understand what's going on.
00:30:22.900And I don't really have any strong opinions on this topic.0.64
00:30:25.400I've watched people go from that to being like hardcore committed anti-trans advocates because they're like trans people annoyed me online one day.
00:30:35.660And like and it radicalized me to be more extreme, you know, like that.
00:30:42.780I've seen that happen. And while it's it's one of those things where it's like I don't it's not that I want to like coddle people who have bad opinions.
00:30:52.240But sometimes I think the like jump, jumping at someone's throat might not be the best, best approach, you know, but especially when someone is apologizing.
00:31:06.260Yeah. So it's one of those things that it's just like, you know, is was her apology sincere?
00:31:10.820Maybe it is. I don't know what's in her heart. I'm not going to pretend I do.
00:31:14.860But I think the question of sincerity is less important than people assume.
00:33:23.240Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.0.98
00:33:27.660I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:33:32.120I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:33:39.180They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:33:43.640But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:33:47.080They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:33:50.720Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:33:59.160If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:34:05.100This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:34:17.580I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:34:24.680I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:34:27.820From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:34:34.220It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:34:42.140Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:34:51.300Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:35:07.360I'm curious, what has the reaction been like to your piece?
00:35:10.980You know, it's been kind of like mostly positive.
00:35:15.040Mostly like I've had people saying that that piece made them feel hopeful
00:35:23.000because it's it is helpful to see like some some people who seemed so lost in the anti-trans
00:35:31.160uh you know environment like pulling back from that you know um and i've i've seen some you
00:35:41.240know gotten gotten some like messages from especially from like a few other trans people
00:35:45.940who are just like you know what i see what you wrote and while i i understand it i don't
00:35:52.040necessarily agree because, you know, it's one of those things like, oh, are we supposed to
00:35:57.940give a medal to every person who was horrible and is now less horrible? It's like, no,
00:36:04.240not. And I make a point of saying that, of saying like, no, you're not getting like a parade.
00:36:10.640But if you want to be less terrible about this issue and hopefully other issues,
00:36:17.080She's also I watched an interview with her where she talked about how her her views on immigration have also changed where she's like, I used to be very, you know, very hard line on immigration.
00:36:30.200And she's kind of shifted over over the course of the past few years.
00:36:34.720So, you know, hopefully these things are, you know, these things are real, but we will see.
00:36:42.020here's where i have to admit that my initial reaction to ashley st claire's issues
00:36:48.060was an eye roll this was before she was making any kind of public amends for her behavior0.85
00:36:53.980it was an article i saw in the daily mail where she was talking about selling her tesla
00:36:58.960after she said that musk was financially retaliating against her son with a whopping
00:37:03.82060 cut that elon had made to their son's child support now at the time i remember thinking what
00:37:11.260exactly did she expect? There is more than enough of a public record of how Musk treats the women0.97
00:37:17.340in his life, especially the ones who have his children. So we're meant to be sympathetic to
00:37:22.140her that this didn't work out? Give me a break, I thought. Her interpersonal drama is her problem
00:37:28.260and she brought it on herself. But thinking about it further, I realized I was giving Musk exactly
00:37:34.020what he wants. Because this is not just an isolated interpersonal thing with Musk. It
00:37:39.860encapsulates exactly how his interpersonal behavior ends up playing out in ways that
00:37:44.760ultimately harm the public. And to just relegate them to, quote, his private life,
00:37:50.120misses the ways that he's terrorizing people, women and trans folks, both privately and publicly
00:37:56.120in ways that are linked. Your piece, in some ways, kind of put me personally in my place
00:38:04.300in a sort of way, because when I was first reading about Ashley, when I first heard about
00:38:08.420Ashley St. Clair sort of like speaking up about Musk, she was doing a little thing where she was
00:38:14.120selling her Tesla because she said, oh, Elon is not, you know, supporting me. And I had, I had
00:38:20.140such a bitchy reaction. I was like, well, what the hell did she expect to getting mixed up with1.00
00:38:26.380Elon Musk? I'm supposed to be sympathetic to this person. Like, what did she expect?
00:38:30.080And I, when I read your piece, I, it really made me question what that reaction was about. I'm
00:38:37.320with you I'm not saying that she deserves a medal but you know I think I was really quick to say
00:38:44.420the way that Elon Musk is treating this person and her child is not my business nothing to do
00:38:50.440with me she brought it on herself and I think it looking at what he's actually doing you know
00:38:57.200allowing his chatbot to make these images of her which are really inappropriate and sexualizing
00:39:02.580without her consent and we know that's not just Ashley this is happening to women and girls0.55
00:39:06.580in mass on X at a rate of one non-consensual sexualized image a minute, this court strategy1.00
00:39:13.880probably of like spending down the amount of money that she has to fight him in court.0.99
00:39:19.520Like these are not personal issues. These are these are kind of microcasms of how he does
00:39:24.020business. Yeah. I was like, why am I so unwilling to deal with that? Because I don't like this
00:39:29.280person. You know what I mean? I don't know if that makes sense. Oh, no, absolutely. And and
00:39:33.080Yeah. I mean, the way that he exerts power is by, you know, he'll he'll sue someone and then whether or not it's a legitimate lawsuit that he's filing, he has infinite money and the people that he's suing don't.
00:39:49.180And that's how, back to Media Matters, where I used to work, Media Matters reported on, after Musk took over Twitter and he started changing the algorithm, there were some instances where there were pro-Nazi comments that were showing up next to ads, which typically brands don't like that.
00:40:14.480And so Media Matters published a piece where they were like, check out these instances of, you know, here's a pro-Nazi post and here's the Apple ad that's above, you know, like, and so all these advertisers left.
00:40:30.340And then Elon Musk sued Media Matters for reporting on that, saying that they cost him advertisers, which they probably did.
00:40:39.540But at the same time, it was because they were doing reporting and it was honest reporting.
00:40:43.780We actually did a deep dive into Elon Musk's court strategy in his attacks on Media Matters, which we'll put in the show notes.
00:40:51.280He doesn't care. He knows that he can just wear them down and push them into debt.
00:40:58.460And they ended up having to lay off a bunch of people, which was really sad.
00:41:03.720um a there are a lot of people who you know probably a couple dozen people who lost their
00:41:10.840jobs because media matters has to get real lean to fight this lawsuit and not actually focus on
00:41:18.140its mission uh and so like so seeing that and seeing him him do that like i think it's important
00:41:25.800to understand that it's just like what he's doing is evil yeah and you know but at this at the same
00:41:31.960time I think that there's right now like we kind of live in this world where I've noticed there are
00:41:42.280a lot of times where people online will see some see some tragedy befall someone who they would
00:41:51.220disagree with you know a flood in a red state for instance something like that and people will go
00:41:58.860Well, that's what you get for for voting for whatever. And, you know, or, you know, natural disaster or the job market screwed up because of a policy that they supported. And people just are like, well, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, FAFO, you know, like that sort of approach.
00:42:22.280And I don't know, it all just feels kind of mean and pointless, you know, because like someone may have voted for Trump.0.99
00:42:37.820I still don't think that that means they deserve for their house to burn down or, you know, something something like that.
00:42:44.400Um, someone may have said, you know, may have taken some really horrible anti-trans, racist, anti-immigration points of view stances, but I still don't think that they should be crushed by Elon Musk or have their child taken away or, um, or any of this stuff.
00:43:12.900Like, I think it's important that we all kind of push for the type of world that we want it to be, you know, that we want to live in.
00:43:23.240And sometimes, you know, I think it's it can be difficult to try to find empathy when a when reacting in anger or frustration or, you know, just, you know, happiness, even, you know, if you're if you're if someone feels happy that someone else has experienced something bad.
00:43:47.460It's like, that's way easier than extending empathy and being like, oh, wow, that must really suck. So I don't know. It's and it's not on me. Like, I can only speak for myself. And, you know, and that's all I tried to do. And in that piece I wrote was just like, this is how I feel. And I'm not gonna say as someone's wrong, if they see her apology, and they're like, no, I don't buy it.
00:44:14.660um like that's that's fine that's that's a legitimate position i think but i i i wanted
00:44:23.360to push myself out of my comfort zone a little bit and be like yes here's this person who wrote
00:44:28.600this anti-trans book that was really mean-spirited for and it's a children's book uh i think i'm
00:44:38.200gonna challenge myself to try to be like cool good for good for her i hope she sticks with it
00:44:44.540if she doesn't i won't exactly be surprised but i can at least say that i extended some empathy
00:44:52.760here you know yeah i i've really been i really identify with what you're saying i've been on a
00:44:58.720personal journey of trying to exercise my or just keep keep exercising my empathy muscle and it was
00:45:06.040because of exactly what you just described our current situation is not great it's not great for
00:45:11.940if you are any kind of a marginalized or like minoritized person if you're trans queer black0.98
00:45:17.320a woman but really i think we're all in a fucking going to hell in a handbasket it's not we're not0.99
00:45:23.760having a good time and i realized i was i was catching myself it was like the voice in my head0.98
00:45:31.580was no longer connected to my own humanity and it's like i ultimately people who are trump voters
00:45:37.540or people who are like transphobic and horrible and bigoted,
00:46:04.580You know, because that's also the thing about, like, how we interact with the world now. We're exposed to so many people's opinions about literally everything. And not only that, but you can go on Twitter and you can search for a topic and specifically seek out opinions that will make you mad.
00:46:27.180Like, there is an unending well of rage on the internet, like that you can just, you can always find something to be angry about.
00:46:40.400And I just, I really for a long time struggled with how to take in all of this stuff that I find insulting or hurtful or offensive.
00:46:56.760And I think part of it might be that because of the background I have at Media Matters where the primary news sources that I would consult were the right wing news sources that were like straight up anti-trans, trans people don't exist, saying that trans people mutilate themselves.
00:47:19.580Like all of these really intense things.
00:47:24.540And the funny thing is there would still be people who are just like, oh, you don't want to hear the point of view of someone who disagrees with you.
00:47:40.200And it's like, no, the silo I've built is very much out.
00:47:44.260It's like I am living in someone else's silo and it is not fun, you know, but I think that that kind of primed me to when I stopped working at Media Matters to try to shift how I think about other random people on the Internet.
00:48:03.400You know, if someone's on TV, you know, like, I think it's fair to be like, I am angry at this elected politician who has implemented a policy that I think is harming people.
00:48:20.440Because those politicians absolutely exist. And it's good to good to be upset about those politicians because that sort of frustration and anger can be used for positive things.
00:48:34.420You can, you know, you can call your member of Congress, you can, you know, do do all sorts of things. But when it comes to like, just seeing regular people online, even ones who have horrible views on things, I think it was important to just kind of accept that it's just like, you know what, they're not worth getting angry about.
00:49:01.080Like, you don't have to be like, what they're doing is great and I'm happy about it.
00:49:05.740But I think it's important to not get consumed with the thoughts of a random person on the internet who may or may not believe what they're saying, but is just posting to maybe get, you know, a rise out of some people.
00:50:58.060Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:51:02.580I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:51:07.160I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:51:14.600They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:51:18.560But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:51:22.000They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:51:25.140Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:51:34.080If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:51:40.020This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:51:52.500I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:51:59.600I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed, so obsessed.
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00:52:40.860well speaking of people who post to get a rise out of people let's talk about like
00:52:46.960who i consider to be the ultimate the world's ultimate troll elon musk um you know we talked
00:52:53.040about this on the show but when back when elon musk first decided to buy twitter was first talking
00:52:58.360about it per like court filings the the reason why was really rooted in transphobia like explicitly
00:53:05.480And this is not me saying this. It's like part of the public record. And I did not often see this reported that, you know, people talked about it like a tech leader business decision kind of thing when they were reporting on it. But they didn't they didn't talk about this like known thing that this decision was rooted in. Why do you think that is?
00:53:24.960Well, I think part of it is that, like, I mean, going back to like before Musk bought Twitter even, there would be like New York Times articles where people would say, there was one that asked the question like, has Musk revealed himself as a conservative?
00:53:47.440And I would make the argument that he was like, his politics are completely unknowable. And it's like, no, they're pretty knowable. I mean, I think that one of the reasons that the anti-trans stuff kind of got lost in it is that the people in positions of influence and power at news organizations like the New York Times, Washington Post, I think that they're just kind of indifferent.
00:54:17.440to trans people at best you know it's it's one of those one of those things where they very very
00:54:24.640clearly view being anti-trans as a completely valid viewpoint that that shouldn't negatively
00:54:32.640affect someone um and they kind of kind of just go well that's his view and that's fine it's it's
00:54:41.460It's one of those things that it's frustrating as a trans person who used to be on Twitter all the time, who I would post something, it would be shared thousands of times, it would have a bunch of likes, it would have so many replies from people.
00:55:01.620Yeah, like I like to be like back in the day, you know, back in the day, there was there was one one time where the official Twitter like account interviewed Chrissy Teigen, who was also very, very famous on Twitter, in addition to being famous in real life, where they asked her, like, if Twitter was a party, who would you invite?
00:55:26.860And she said my name on there. Oh, my God. I was like, oh, my God, that's so crazy.
00:55:31.620So, yeah, so it was like Twitter was great.
00:55:35.120And he took it over to pretty much strip away everything that I liked about it.0.51
00:55:42.780When Twitter implemented a rule against misgendering and dead naming trans people, you know, it in terms of targeted harassment, like that was it was one of those rules where I made the argument.
00:55:59.160I wrote a piece for the New York Times at the time that was like, yeah, putting in this, putting this rule in place could allow us to have more open, more, you know, thoughtful conversations about trans people and real areas of contention.
00:56:20.080I think, you know, and the examples I used, I was just like, yeah, if someone has, you know, there's a discussion to be had about, you know, trans people in sports.
00:56:31.400There's a discussion to be had about, you know, what kind of health care people should be able to receive and when.
00:56:40.540And we can discuss, you know, all those things.0.97
00:56:43.200But if we're going to start with like just repeating over and over, you know, I don't think trans people are real or I'm going to scream at you and call you, you know, I'm going to call you a man and I'm just going to yell at you on the Internet.
00:56:57.900It's like all that does is that that pushes trans people out of the conversation entirely because it's not fun to get harassed on the Internet.
00:57:07.460that um and people it was it was really frustrating that people would take that
00:57:15.400you know what what musk was implementing which was like getting rid of all those rules and just
00:57:22.360letting it be kind of open season on trans people he even made it where if you if you say the word
00:57:28.360cis or cisgender like it doesn't show up for anyone on on twitter it it gets labeled as being
00:57:36.220being hateful, um, and can't be retweeted by anyone. So it's, it's one of those things where
00:57:42.240he like clearly was rigging it against trans people, making it hard to have conversations
00:57:48.460on there. And eventually most trans people just kind of left Twitter because it wasn't,
00:57:53.700it wasn't productive. It wasn't helpful. And it, it just fed you all of the worst things1.00
00:58:00.520possible you know it became uh the platform became libs of tiktok basically that was kind of it
00:58:07.380and that shut down speech that made that made speech on twitter less free than it was before
00:58:16.020because if you have people who feel like they can't participate in the conversation because of
00:58:22.860the uh the toxic environment that you've created like you're not having an open dialogue it's not
00:58:30.140the town square it's just it's just an anti-trans platform and it's designed to spread anti-trans
00:58:38.260content and push actual trans people off of the off of it and you know he he does does this with
00:58:46.060any issue he cares about and he tweaks the algorithm he you know his his grok chat bot has
00:58:53.820has been uh lobotomized and and retrained using grokipedia uh so that it no longer will respond
00:59:03.180to questions about trans people using like what is said on wikipedia but instead goes with this
00:59:09.180anti-trans page that's been like written up on the grokipedia site so it will it parrots back
00:59:16.680what elon musk believes as though it's like a fact um but you know it's his belief and he
00:59:22.660He's more than welcome to have his beliefs, but at the same time, it's kind of like watching him trying to tweak it to get the responses that he wants specifically is kind of evil.
00:59:35.440But, you know, that's what he's doing.
00:59:37.860And that's what he bought right from the start.
00:59:39.520It was like, this is a political project.
00:59:41.640He's doing it to try to mainstream his thoughts as though they're the public's thoughts.
00:59:47.580And, you know, there was that day where Grok wouldn't stop talking about white genocide in South Africa. You'd ask a question about football and it'd be like, yeah, here's the response.
01:00:04.480And then also, did you know that currently in South Africa, you know, white people are fleeing and, you know, like all this stuff that was just like a weird conspiracy theory was just baked into Grok at that point.
01:00:17.460And so I think it's important that people realize that that these, you know, these these tech billionaires, you know, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, you know, those guys like they they own the platforms in part so they can assert their political views on the rest of the world.
01:00:37.360And it's definitely worth keeping in mind because I think a lot of people will be like, well, no, Elon is for free speech, even though like once a week he'll post something saying that like a teacher teaching that America isn't the greatest should be tried with treason and murdered.0.85
01:00:57.480Like he'll say something completely, completely ridiculous like that.
01:01:01.240But, you know, which is very not free speech.0.77
01:01:04.160in your piece you end it by talking about you know if ashley wants to keep talking about this
01:01:11.600and like wants to actually know like what it is she can do now to sort of make amends for her
01:01:17.180previous you know transphobia it looks like continuing to talk right it looks like talking
01:01:22.220about how you went from publishing a transphobic kids book to then using the correct pronouns for
01:01:28.540your kid sister right like because people like you and people like me we're probably we're probably
01:01:34.720not going to be the ones to change people's minds but she might yeah well exactly and that's that's
01:01:40.740kind of the the thing like there are times where i'll think to myself like i can't you know like0.94
01:01:49.280i will think to myself that like oh wow it would be helpful if someone who wasn't trans
01:01:58.060could make this argument in trans people's favor you know this that sort of thing like there will
01:02:03.920be times where i know that there's a immediately because i because i'm trans if i if i say something
01:02:13.040like oh actually and you know clarify some some misinformation that i see uh like there will be
01:02:20.760people who go well you you clearly have uh have an agenda here because of who you are and i can't
01:02:28.880take this at face value but if you have someone who was anti-trans who who had changed their views
01:02:37.900like yeah i i think that like they have a better chance of getting through to people who view
01:02:43.540trans people with suspicion you know at minimum and uh you know who could kind of be like yeah
01:02:50.020It is it is a little strange that we're focused, you know, we're obsessed with this, like one percent of the population and constantly talking about ways to try to push them out of public life.0.98
01:03:00.700Why are we doing that? And like asking people to kind of consider the, you know, why people in, you know, positions of power in the country want to keep having that conversation instead of tackling, you know, dealing with affordability or, you know, talking about, you know, dealing with climate change.
01:03:27.760or any of these like real problems that that affects people in real ways affect all of us
01:03:34.680affect a lot of people you know they'd rather just say no no no you should focus on this group
01:03:39.780because this group is uh is harming you in ways that we can't really we can't really specify but
01:03:46.620we're just going to keep talking about them in this scary sort of way you know like that's
01:03:51.280that's kind of the the reality you know so it's it's helpful i think for there to be people who
01:03:57.600are like yeah i used to buy into all that stuff but i don't anymore and here's why so it's like
01:04:03.320yeah if she wants to keep talking about this i think that would be great um just just be honest
01:04:10.920she and and i don't one thing i want to make clear is like i think that there is definitely
01:04:17.660a spot that exists between being like hardcore anti-trans and someone who will like
01:04:27.240shout out like slogans and you know things like you know like saying like trans women are women
01:04:35.280like that's more of a slogan than anything that has to do with politics like it's not it's not
01:04:41.100particularly important to me if if a politician sees trans women as actually women or trans men
01:04:48.400as actually men like i i would obviously like i i think more people should view view trans people
01:04:56.140as who we say we are, but at the same time, it's like, I'm mostly concerned about like the efforts
01:05:01.640to restrict, you know, access to healthcare or non-discrimination protections in work and in
01:05:12.240public accommodations and, you know, just being able to live lives. And like, I don't need someone
01:05:17.760to completely buy in and, you know, buy into like everything that every trans person says.
01:05:23.380So I think it's important having people out there who maybe aren't entirely super on board, but maybe just like have been like a single trans person came into my life and it made me rethink how I view all of this.
01:05:39.720You know, it made me it humanized the issue for me, because I think that that's that's a big, big thing.
01:05:46.100That's, you know, part of the reason that gay rights advanced as quickly as they did is more people started to meet know someone who was gay and trans trans rights.
01:05:57.580You know, the people who support trans rights the most are people who know a trans person.
01:06:02.520And so it's more difficult for trans people because we're such a small portion of the population.
01:06:07.940And plus, you don't necessarily know if every single person that you're talking to who is trans, whether they're trans, you know, because not everyone walks around and announces it everywhere they go.
01:06:21.800So it's one of those things that it's going to be difficult to kind of fight back against a lot of the anti-trans stuff that's happening now.
01:06:33.180And really, I think that we can just kind of use all the help we can get.
01:06:37.200So she wants to keep talking about this and wants to, you know, explain how she got from one point of view to another.
01:06:44.540Like, I think that's good and that's helpful.
01:06:46.740And, you know, more credit to her if she does.
01:06:49.400And if she doesn't, that's still that's still fine.
01:06:52.160She tried to make amends for, you know, her past positions.
01:06:56.160And all she can do is try to do better moving forward.
01:07:00.000Parker you're you're such a thoughtful person I really just like really appreciate the way
01:07:06.520you see the world well thank you I I mean I I I try you know like because I've I've sat there
01:07:15.620with holding my phone in my hand it's so angry that I'm shaking you know like I've had that and
01:07:21.720it's, you know, it's just, it's, it's not healthy. You know, I, I, I still find myself doing that
01:07:30.540sometimes. I'll see something that's, that's, that's annoying or frustrating, or I think is
01:07:35.580unfair. And my reaction will be like, I should yell at this guy in this comment. But like,
01:07:41.840I'm, I'm, I'm trying not to do that as much just, just because I, I think if I keep getting mad
01:07:48.460about every person who has spoken ill of trans people
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01:08:47.340If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
01:08:53.580Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
01:09:02.240Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.