00:02:13.780And every once in a while, I kind of go through my own like sort of bot purging, whatever, right?
00:02:20.020But definitely I first I saw a complete surge of like porn bots and then a complete surge of like these like anybody that's got like an American flag and Patriot in their bio.
00:02:33.720Like I just had a surge of that. And I was like, why are y'all here? Right.
00:02:37.940And then. Yeah. And then I just started like just a handful a day, you know what I'm saying?
00:02:43.500so I'm down like 500 followers which is fine but it was more like dude I used to lose followers
00:02:49.560because of like what I said not just like out of nowhere like what is this about I wish I could
00:02:55.720earn my losing you know I'm saying but definitely like I haven't seen a lot of the like uptick in
00:03:02.080like hate and like vitriol I guess because I was already a public figure so I feel like I already
00:03:08.100seen like I've already went through my fair share of that you know I'm saying so to me I'm like oh
00:03:12.720like when they talk about like crime wave i'm like crime is not up i lived through la in the 90s
00:03:17.960this is fine right so um so for me i'm like oh baby this ain't nothing but i will say
00:03:24.360i have enjoyed all the like fake or the the twitter blue stuff yeah and like people like
00:03:33.600paying for their verification and creating trolls and then realizing now you could click it and it0.94
00:03:39.140could say like nah this fool's actually verified or be like nah that fool paid for it you know0.93
00:03:45.060but generally like it's it's kind of been except for just the losing of followers like for me0.92
00:03:49.900personally it's kind of been the same yeah yeah it's been it's been it's such a weird spot that
00:03:56.400we're in i completely agree with you i've been seeing an uptick in porn and crypto scams one of
00:04:03.500My favorite podcaster is Lacey got was was hit by like a crypto scammer.
00:04:07.740And I think we're in this no man's land right now where scams and pranks and trolls have, I think, really been empowered and emboldened.
00:04:18.660And I don't necessarily see Elon Musk taking it seriously.
00:04:22.320And I think it's a it's a real problem.
00:04:23.960I think it can really, you know, open up the platform to be misused.
00:04:27.540he definitely has the like the way the way I've been looking thinking about is like0.92
00:04:31.860this fool is still a seventh grader right and being like I can jump off that roof0.97
00:04:38.200and then like all the homies being like bro you don't have to jump off the roof all right it's1.00
00:04:42.860cool like I don't know why you feel like you gotta do that no I could do it and then homies1.00
00:04:46.660are like all right do it you know what I'm saying now this fool climbed on the roof and it's like1.00
00:04:51.100oh shit nigga okay do it like you gonna if you gonna do it do it you know i'm saying and him0.99
00:04:57.740realizing like i immediately read it's it's ron burgundy jumping into the bear trap you know i'm0.99
00:05:03.080saying and being like i immediately regret this decision and to me it's like i will say my twitter
00:05:08.760experience maybe not my personal one but my like as a user have been the scams have been so funny
00:05:15.400to me like seeing people like all the other fake elon musk like accounts the fake lebron james
00:05:21.420account and just and wondering how like i think we talked about this before on the episode we had
00:05:27.080politics like if you would just take like an extra second to like once you see the name and
00:05:34.780the check and then just read the person's app mention their actual handle and you're like oh
00:05:40.460this is a joke you know and just or like it'll be it was like lebron james with a z at the end so
00:05:46.460i'm like that's clearly not lebron james but people don't do that though yeah take the time
00:05:50.620to do that yeah and i think where we're at right now is the funny stories are what are getting
00:05:58.000press right now yeah but i only know the funny ones yeah right and that's what's that's what's
00:06:03.060you know, forward-facing, but in reality, like, clearly security and safety are not
00:06:08.860Elon's priority, and as we know from this show, the people that are going to be affected1.00
00:06:15.120from this most are marginalized people, and that shit sucks, and Elon sucks.1.00
00:06:20.980And that's the, yeah, that's that intersection, man, right?1.00
00:06:24.280Like you said, it's like, obviously, the show is about the experience of, like, marginalized,
00:06:29.500you know specifically women of color and it's like of course i'm marginalized but i'm also
00:06:34.020not a woman of color so i'm gonna have a different experience and i think that yeah like that that
00:06:39.780it's important that you know that's why i'm glad this show's happening you know i mean because
00:06:44.580it's important to like so yeah the timeliness of this show yes it's perfect yeah this may not be
00:06:50.740my experience yeah this may not be my experience because i'm definitely like a lot of the stuff
00:06:55.740that I did like even you know surviving my upbringing was like I was very good at staying
00:07:00.340out of stuff like I'm like yo I just don't I just stay out of it unless I need to be in it you know
00:07:04.940I'm saying until like you know somebody turns turns to me like even like you know to carry the1.00
00:07:11.800metaphor like you know if it's a if it's a if it's a woman of color like I'm gonna stay out of it0.94
00:07:17.360until she looks at me like hey you gonna say something it's like all right I'm gonna go break1.00
00:07:22.680this nigga's jaw like just you i'm not gonna move until you tell me you know i'm saying like if you1.00
00:07:27.260tell me then let's go but if not i'm like oh she got it you know i'm saying like i stand like i'm1.00
00:07:32.080usually not worried like oh she got it she finna drag y'all you know and and for me it's like i'm
00:07:37.200i'm ready for the show which is what what which i love about this leslie jones episode because
00:07:42.180i i don't know if we're not supposed to reveal that yet but like i was like in that host i
00:07:48.260remember that saga and i was like yeah i was like she dragging them and it was funny to me about it
00:07:53.980i remember how it was weird and random to me where i was like i don't know when it started0.54
00:08:00.960like how odd it started or why her i was like the fuck did she do like why are y'all this seems so
00:08:08.200it seems so out of nowhere to me like this is so random and but i i also knew she was very funny0.90
00:09:38.880So you have all of these, like, largely white dudes who are frustrated and angry that they feel like they're being kind of threatened in these spaces.
00:09:47.960Just the idea of, like, someone who's not a white dude entering these spaces and existing in these spaces.
00:09:52.880And so, enter one of our major players for this conversation, Steve Bannon.
00:10:41.580So you might be thinking, why did Steve Bannon, like, why was he mixed up with all of these male gamers?
00:10:47.520Well, it's because he saw the power of these gamers firsthand himself.
00:10:51.400Before Bannon was in the Trump White House or possibly maybe going to jail, he was a successful Wall Street dude.
00:10:59.060In 2005, Steve Bannon hooked up with a Hong Kong-based startup called Internet Gaming Entertainment, or IGE.
00:11:06.240IGE was this company that was making millions and millions of dollars through selling virtual goods for real money within video games like EverQuest or World of Warcraft.
00:11:55.020And especially at that time, I'm like, I mean, the beat starts, I tell you what machine they used, what side chain compression, where this rapper from, you know, other side project.
00:12:07.800I was so deep into a niche already that I was like, man, I ain't got time to learn no other.
00:12:11.300Yeah, you don't need another rabbit hole to immerse yourself in.
00:12:16.040So essentially what this company, IGE, was doing is selling these like in-game capes or wands or tokens that would allow players to pay real money to immediately level up within the game rather than having to work their way up to a certain level.
00:12:30.800So if you ever played games that involve levels, some people, you know, if you have money to spare but not a lot of time, you might pay to just like enter the game at a higher level.
00:12:42.940IGE was not the first company to do this.
00:12:45.040It's actually a common practice called gold farming, where low-paid workers in places like China will play these games like World of Warcraft for hours to acquire what they call gold or currency within the game and then sell it to other players.
00:12:59.400So the problem with this is that it's not totally – at the time, it was not totally legal.
00:13:05.480It was actually prohibited by the companies that make the games.
00:13:08.780And so it was sort of in this legal gray area.
00:13:11.060And Steve Bannon came on to IGE to try to turn this from a practice that existed in a legal gray area to really legitimize it by selling the companies that made these video games on the idea that players would be willing to spend real money to level up in their gameplay in this way.0.99
00:13:31.700I know we're talking about gaming and video games, but this shit was big business.0.83
00:13:36.720Bannum got Goldman Sachs to invest $10 million in the company IGE.0.98
00:13:42.580Nah, I'm like, this is the type of stuff that also turned me off with video games.
00:13:47.140I was like, wait, I need to buy this sword?
00:17:10.880They, you know, ended up delivering another big blow to IGE's business.
00:17:16.060World of Warcraft users actually sued IGE.
00:17:19.320In 2007, a gamer in Florida lodged a class action lawsuit against IGE.
00:17:23.820And according to the Washington Post, the lawsuit alleged that IGE had received tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, selling World of Warcraft virtual property or currency generated by cheap labor in third world countries.
00:17:37.820So, you know, and like what's interesting about this is that IGE settled that lawsuit.
00:17:44.380And as part of that settlement, they promised not to sell virtual currency in World of Warcraft for five years.
00:17:51.800Bannon then becomes the CEO of IGE in 2007.
00:17:55.660He moves the company kind of away from this gold farming scheme to focus on things like gaming chat rooms and gaming websites, some of which he had acquired during this like gold farming operation.
00:18:07.080In these chat rooms, full of gamers, full of people who are passionate about gaming, they were super, super vocal about how much they hated IGE's pay-to-play schemes.
00:18:18.700You know, they were – something to know about gamers is that they kind of consider themselves to be kind of, I guess, values-based.
00:18:27.040You know, they felt that it was unfair and that, like, this scheme went against what they saw as the egalitarian spirit of gameplay.
00:18:36.420They used these websites that Bannon was running to organize and to pressure companies who were operating these games not to partner with IGE.
00:18:48.060He saw the ways that these gamers hated pay to play.
00:18:51.040They were successful in rallying each other to keep, you know, gold farming out of their games.
00:18:56.320He saw firsthand that gamers were this big, powerful, passionate community that would really dig in around an issue that they felt highlighted their shared values.
00:19:07.200In a book called The Devil's Bargain by journalist Joshua Green about the rise of Bannon in Trump's presidency, Bannon said, these guys, these rootless white males had monster power.
00:19:17.900So he definitely early on was like, wait, these gamers, they're serious.
00:19:22.260Yo, this is like two things I'd camp on.
00:19:24.680One is like, I still don't understand the five-year number where it's like, we'll stop selling for five years.
00:20:11.960But that is such a – oh, so that's such a good analogy for where this conversation goes because it's so true how you can take this disaffected group and really successfully radicalize them and turn them against a common enemy, even if it's not necessarily a common enemy that they had before all of this.
00:20:30.760No, you just turn them into stormtroopers.
00:20:37.040And so Bannon takes over at Breitbart News in 2012.
00:20:39.720If you don't know what Breitbart News is, it's an extremist right-wing media site that Steve Bannon himself once declared as, quote, the platform for the alt-right.
00:20:47.600And I really have to give it to Steve Bannon here because he's very savvy.
00:20:51.920He sees the potential in building out Breitbart into this digitally savvy, plugged-in outlet with a young audience base.
00:20:59.660And he also sees huge potential in marrying what he learned during his time running gaming chat rooms with IGE with this toxic white supremacist ideology.
00:21:09.720He's like, wait a minute, if I combine these things, my power, like, this will be very powerful.
00:22:12.140The website that Milo founded called The Colonel was actually acquired by the tech website The Daily Dot.
00:22:17.540So he actually did have some like bona fides in actual tech journalism.
00:22:23.460However, when he got to Breitbart, I think that calling the stuff that he was writing tech is a little generous because it's all kind of framed as these conversations.
00:22:37.260And so all the articles that he writes on Breitbart on this tech vertical are not really about tech in so much as they're about all of these different ways that white men are being pushed out of technology and video games and culture, which is just nonsense.0.91
00:22:51.140Like every article is about, you know, making fun of feminists or women or fat people.0.75
00:22:59.120But I guess, like, that's the kind of tech storytelling that Milo and Steve Bannon were interested in because they know this is going to get these young white males riled up.
00:27:29.000So Trump, he doesn't care about ethics in gaming journalism or gaming or any of that, but he does often attack the crooked media.
00:27:37.040He does talk about jailing journalists.
00:27:38.720So you can sort of see how these grievances that these gamers had are kind of being stoked and then replaced by these other political grievances.
00:27:59.000And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.
00:28:03.720So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.
00:28:06.660Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.
00:28:10.880Think podcasting can help your business?
00:28:21.460If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:28:26.440This 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.
00:28:39.860I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:28:46.840I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:28:50.100from best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments
00:28:55.000nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling
00:29:01.540characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart
00:29:06.820pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much
00:29:11.580you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever
00:29:18.040you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held
00:29:25.440captive for nine months. I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what
00:29:31.900should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember
00:29:38.260this low taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week I'm with0.97
00:29:47.120survivors who lived through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going
00:29:53.940to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and I just started
00:30:00.640screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories
00:30:07.360about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:30:12.720Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:25.500Let's take a look at some of Milo's writing from Breitbart.
00:30:28.000In 2014, right after Gamergate, he wrote, quote,0.92
00:30:31.340It's easy to mock video gamers as dorky loners in yellowing underpants.0.81
00:30:35.460Indeed, in previous columns, I've done it myself.0.99
00:30:37.700But the more you learn about the latest scandal in the games industry, the more you start to sympathize with the frustrated male stereotype because an army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners abetted by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers are terrorizing the entire community, lying, bullying, and manipulating their way around the internet for profit and attention.
00:30:59.420So you can sort of see how like he is able to stoke these concerns and then politicize them in like a very particular way.
00:31:07.200He goes on to say, quote, gamers should concentrate on the very real concerns they have had for a decade with a press that swamped with the discredited far left ideology and unintelligent, poorly trained writers refuses to tell basic truths.
00:31:22.200so you can sort of see how even if you were a video gamer who had some grievances with the
00:31:27.700gaming space what he's saying is like you're mad about gaming and also the far left and also
00:31:33.780democrats and also the media what a first of all what a great writer which is what part is what
00:31:39.540sucks about it's like man he's actually a good writer but like but yeah that move of like man
00:31:45.460it's like it to me it's like man i spot a hustle from a mile away when somebody's like y'all that's
00:31:50.740crazy man how they how they make fun of y'all like you know what yeah dude they do be making
00:31:54.960fun of us may just think you just you know you just know nothing this and this and this and you
00:31:58.700know them you know you're trying to open up the book you want to talk about the game they talk
00:32:01.840about something else it's like yeah man i just like i'm more interested in the game and it's
00:32:05.100like yeah it's because you know and we know we hate the woke left that be doing that to you
00:32:08.940and you're like wait wait a minute wait that's what we mad about like okay yeah that's what
00:32:16.260that's what we mad about and i and like i guess i'm just putting myself in the shoes of a person
00:33:18.680But it's also about, you know, hating leftists and the media and institutions and telling these people, like, you are being bullied and ignored and attacked by the culture.
00:33:28.680And it really creates the situation where these spaces, you know, gaming, culture, film, are turned into a battlefield, whereby Milo is kind of selling these men on the idea that resisting kind of social justice warriors and taking back video games and taking back tech spaces and taking back film is a kind of activism in and of itself.
00:33:50.720yeah yeah you're speaking their language but in a weird way and then twisting the same words and
00:33:56.500to mean something else and all of a sudden it's like now we're so far down the road it's like
00:34:00.860well now i'm here i guess i do believe this stuff man that yeah this is so sinister dude like
00:34:05.800and again it's like first of all these kids ain't victims number one you know i'm saying
00:34:10.340and they are you know what i mean uh they've been weaponized you know i'm saying but it's like
00:34:15.640i i my my brain goes to a place to where it's like i don't know if you had the sort of like
00:34:23.820sociocultural just societal engineering and experiences to know when you being swindled0.68
00:34:32.120you know i'm saying to be able to step back and be like hold up man speak for yourself homie that0.98
00:34:36.700look that's that shit you own that's not what i'm on like you know i'm saying like i and and0.98
00:34:41.640i feel like that whether i don't know street smarts whatever it is it's just like i i know0.99
00:34:47.320how to be like hold up now speak for yourself now you know i'm saying like wait nah homie that's not
00:34:52.320why i'm here you know i'm saying like i mean i like the game but like no that's not why i'm here
00:34:58.780you know i'm saying like walk in the club hey it's a dope club right hey you like this music0.97
00:35:01.860yeah nigga we finna get fucked up good you know i'm saying hey we're gonna smash a thousand girls0.99
00:35:06.260tonight it's like whoa whoa whoa wait a minute whoa i'm just you know i'm saying like i'm gonna1.00
00:35:11.680get a little bit of henny and listen to some music like you that shit you own that's your0.98
00:35:17.180that's your problem you know i'm saying but like i maybe it's i'm like and i'm i'm trying to say0.99
00:35:22.360like maybe they didn't have that experience you know i'm saying to be able to like know
00:35:26.740when this is happening to you to stop and be like hold up because like that wait no that's you you
00:35:32.580speak for yourself, homie. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's such a good point. I think0.99
00:35:37.660it's very easy to get sucked in when someone is flat, is like flattering you, telling you that
00:35:46.700you are, you know, you have values that other people don't have. Yeah. And you don't only want
00:35:52.440getting it. Yeah. Or you don't only want saying it. Nobody else is validating you. Yeah, exactly.
00:35:57.280And I think it speaks to the sort of intoxicating power of feeling seen.
00:36:01.940I think that Trump also utilizes this very well of when you take people who, you know, genuine or not, feel unseen, feel unheard, whether or not that actually is true.0.61
00:36:13.160Because I would argue that, like, he did that with white people.0.64
00:36:16.740And it's like, well, what society are you living in where white people are, like, unseen and unheard, not the one that I'm living in?0.61
00:36:21.400Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Yeah.0.98
00:36:22.920Right, but the power, I think that when you take people who feel unseen, whether they really are or not, and make them feel seen, I think that can be a really intoxicating thing.
00:36:48.220You know, Milo and Steve Bannon have made it so that taking back these spaces, taking back video games and movies and all of that, that feels like a form of activism.
00:36:59.020So if folks don't know who Leslie Jones is, first of all, you should because she's hysterical.
00:37:36.100and she you know she bounced around majors and her majors included accounting pre-law and computer0.86
00:37:43.740science and so i don't know i wanted to include that because i think it speaks to the kind of
00:37:48.720dynamic person she is interesting yeah she's actually very interesting yeah yeah back in the0.74
00:37:55.100like 2010s leslie jones was sort of one of those kind of i guess i'll say good at twitter celebrities1.00
00:38:03.100Right. Like she was one of those celebrities that when she tweeted, people paid attention and she generated a lot of goodwill for the platform and really showed like how the platform could be used in these fun and new ways.
00:38:14.660During the 2016 Olympics, she was known for live tweeting the events and like posting her reactions.
00:38:19.940And everybody loved this. Huffington Post wrote an article called it saying watching Leslie Jones watch the Olympics is better than the actual Olympics.
00:38:27.980so like she was beloved yeah yeah i followed her because she was yeah because of that i was like
00:38:34.160that was when live tweeting was something that we enjoyed you know what i'm saying so i'm like dude
00:38:38.520she's the best at it because i'll be like um yeah i'm watching it felt like he was like at a barbecue
00:38:42.620with her you know it was so fun yeah so in short leslie is just doing her thing minding her business0.62
00:38:50.340minding her own damn business and everyone loves her right like she's everyone loves her so it's0.96
00:38:55.920It's not like she's, like, doing anything wrong other than existing and minding her business.0.98
00:39:01.500In 2016, director Paul Fagg announced that he's going to be directing a reboot of the movie Ghostbusters.
00:39:45.060And the Ghostbusters trailer, when you compare it to other disliked videos on the platform, it's remarkable in that it has a high ratio of dislikes.
00:39:55.140The trailer had 507,610 dislikes on just 28.7 million views.
00:40:01.780So that's a staggering 56 to 1 ratio in terms of dislikes per view.
00:40:06.300So you kind of get a sense that like, it's not just that people are disliking it, they are disliking it at a highly disproportionate rate compared to other videos that people don't like. This is not an organic thing. People are definitely gamifying, hate watching the trailer by vote brigating.
00:40:22.680This could honestly be its own episode, but PBS did a really interesting interview with the Daily Dots managing editor Austin Powell, who describes vote brigading as overwhelming and manipulating rather rudimentary online systems to influence or disrupt public perception.
00:40:37.720So basically, places like Reddit and 4chan and other alt-right circles that are aggressively masculine were really downvoting anything that had a viewpoint that could be linked to, like, their ideology.
00:40:50.700And so because of the way that these platforms exist, it's not always easy to say, you know, where is this where is this inorganic hate coming from?
00:40:59.800You can't always tell the source, but the numbers make it clear that this is not, you know, less more people are disliking this video than are watching the video.
00:41:08.720So something weird is going on with how people are responding to it.
00:41:11.680yeah there's definitely like the the knee jerk like where all these weirdos come in of like
00:41:19.260when you just slightly change something that doesn't remind them of the nostalgia that they're
00:41:25.020from it's like oh sucks you ruined it you know so like yeah people arguing that like middle earth0.97
00:41:30.960shouldn't have black people like what what the middle earth's not a real place number one you0.98
00:41:36.280I'm saying and then who I forget homeboy but he's the he's the one that like makes me laugh the most1.00
00:41:41.600homies like well scientifically speaking you know a mermaid would not have black skin because she'd1.00
00:41:49.100live on the bottom of them like did you just start this sentence about a mermaid with scientifically0.95
00:41:52.880speaking I believe that was Ben Shapiro who was really you know it's so funny these people are
00:41:58.100like like oh snowflakes blah blah blah and then it's like a black mermaid and they lose their mind
00:42:05.180It's like, yeah, but we're the ones, but we're the ones fragile, right?
00:43:54.760more Americans listen to podcasts than
00:43:57.020ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster,
00:44:01.800iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to,
00:44:05.920they'll hear your message. Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across
00:44:10.380broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business? Think iHeart. Streaming, radio,
00:44:15.700and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartAdvertising.com. That's iHeartAdvertising.com.
00:44:21.420when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent
00:44:29.280my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart
00:44:35.320and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying
00:44:42.960shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable
00:44:50.440I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.0.89
00:44:54.900I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:45:02.520They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:45:06.420But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:45:09.880They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:45:13.000Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:45:21.940If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:45:27.880This 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.
00:45:40.360I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:45:47.460I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:45:51.060From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:45:57.020It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
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00:48:52.500they're completely drowned out and people who you know just want to talk about this movie on its
00:48:58.060merits they are also drowned out and yeah you know it creates this thing where the conversation
00:49:03.580turns into this highly charged proxy for culture wars yeah i think i remember i think it was
00:49:07.940roxanne gay tweeted like i'm gonna buy a hundred tickets to this movie because just to support it
00:49:12.960because it's being attacked and it creates a situation where just supporting or not supporting
00:49:17.960a movie is seen as a kind of activism or a statement which i just hate so much yeah that's
00:49:23.740the yeah so like that yeah getting it i remember i remember all this happening and i remember being
00:49:28.420like again like fam it's it's a movie like it's a movie about catching ghosts
00:49:35.540with like ectoplasm like y'all like we what are we talking about like and it okay like i'm just
00:49:45.860like yeah i'm like i just want to see it because i think they i think they funny like i think all
00:49:50.720four of those women are funny you know i'm saying and ghostbusters was funny because all four of
00:49:55.440those dudes were funny that's the only reason like i'm and i was a baby and bobby brown was
00:50:01.220in ghostbusters too so i wanted to see it so i'm like i don't understand this when i'm like when
00:50:08.000last time you talked about ghostbusters before you heard that this was coming like you don't0.97
00:50:12.520Well, you got paraphernalia, you got some, you got some like hidden room in here where you got, where does this shit mean that much to you?0.99
00:50:17.980Like, you don't even care that much.0.99
00:50:28.740And it's like, and even on top of that, I'm like, because, okay, not only do she like, you know, she's the, you know, she's a part of the season, their food club.
00:50:40.580you know i'm saying who actually washed their legs you know i'm saying like not only is she a part of
00:50:45.160that but at the same time like okay i'm sorry she don't look like carrie washington right i'm saying
00:50:50.860she don't you know i'm saying so she don't look like beyonce because i'm like okay she look like
00:50:54.820beyonce would this be a whole dip would this be a different situation you feel me like and that to
00:50:59.420me was like even more infuriating as to like why y'all going after her because i it's like i already
00:51:05.220know why you're going after her but now i now really know why you're going after her yeah it's
00:51:09.720You put that so well, and we'll get to it later, but she acknowledges this.0.78
00:51:15.080I feel like when these attacks happened, because when you attack black women,
00:51:21.460you don't want to be the person who is talking about it,0.91
00:51:25.340what is happening publicly or loudly or vocally, right?
00:51:29.360Because that creates a situation where it's like, oh, well, maybe she was being aggressive.
00:51:34.360It's just so hard to talk about these things.
00:51:36.380And so often, even like, I think that as a society, we're more comfortable talking about racism against black folks.
00:51:46.340I think the conversation that can be not, we're not super comfortable with it, but like, I think that we're more comfortable with that than the conversation of like, it's also because I'm a black woman who has dark skin.
00:51:57.080So I think it's, I think it's not just racism, it's colorism as well.
00:52:00.480And I think that that conversation is like harder to have and people are less willing to have that conversation openly.
00:52:07.420Absolutely. And just doesn't fit like traditional beauty standards.
00:52:11.360Exactly. Because like Lupita's dark.0.91
00:54:13.940She got, like, a few critical tweets about Ghostbusters that were pretty run-of-the-mill.
00:54:19.920People saying, like, oh, I didn't like this movie.
00:54:21.920i didn't think you were funny there's a black woman who tells her i thought that sherry shepherd
00:54:26.540or lonnie love would have been better at this movie than you were so like not not nice but0.98
00:54:31.440they're not you know it's just like to be expected yeah it's public figure shit yeah you're gonna get0.87
00:54:35.520those yeah exactly so like they're all within the scope of like what you would expect if you're a
00:54:40.700public figure who's put out a movie um and it's not it's not like leslie jones is falling apart
00:54:45.340and wizarding at this criticism she's engaging with it she's replying like she's it's fine
00:54:50.160And then Milo retweets Leslie complaining about people not liking the movie.
00:54:55.100He retweets it with, if at first you don't succeed because your work is terrible, play the victim.0.99
00:55:00.420Everyone gets hate mail for fuck's sake.0.97
00:55:02.600He follows it up with, Ghostbusters is doing so badly that they've employed Leslie Jones to play the victim on Twitter.0.99
00:55:08.700And this is all a real callback to his style of writing on Breitbart that he spent years beating the drum around this idea that it is men who are being oppressed by women and that women play the victim for attention or for clout.
00:55:23.480And when they do, the corrupt, biased media rewards them from it.
00:55:27.480And he's been spending all of his time beating that drum and seeding that as a narrative in his writing to these disaffected men that he's been courting.
00:55:37.020And talking about how this sort of goes against the idea of, quote, meritocracy that Milo has spent so long telling gamers that they value more than others.
00:56:06.200When she blocks him, Milo tweets rejected by another black dude and shows the screenshot of the block screen.
00:56:14.920So at this point, the tenor of the criticism clearly changes.
00:56:18.700It goes from run-of-the-mill, like, I don't like this movie, to things like her website being hacked and having pictures of her driver's license and passports published to her website.
01:02:19.520And so one of the questions that people ask a lot in this conversation was, did Milo actually lead the charge of harassment against Jones?
01:02:27.620And this is a little bit of a tricky situation because it's another hallmark of online harassment where users that have these big platforms, they don't come right out and say, attack this person, because that would clearly violate Twitter's rules against coordinated harassment.
01:02:41.240So it's very like wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
01:04:14.020She's exactly right that it's so cowardly.
01:04:15.740Yeah. And she was like, y'all ain't even got photos on your profile. I was like, yeah. During that season, yeah, when you just had the little black and white circle shadow, that was definitely the situation when like, man, you ain't even got an Abby, bro. Like, I'm good.
01:04:33.000So eventually, Leslie Jones takes a pause from Twitter.
01:04:36.040She says, I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart.
01:04:39.180All of this because I did a movie.0.99
01:04:40.640You can hate the movie, but the shit I got today is wrong.0.99
01:04:43.620And eventually, Jack Dorsey, who then was the CEO of Twitter, personally got involved.0.99
01:04:48.360He met with Leslie about the harassment, and Twitter permanently banned Milo from the platform as a result.
01:04:54.200In a statement, Twitter said, people should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter,
01:04:58.440but no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online
01:05:01.260and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging
01:05:03.580in targeted harassment or abuse of others.
01:05:06.080This actually ended up kickstarting a wave of Twitter
01:05:09.640sort of cracking down on like white supremacist
01:05:12.680alt-right Twitter users in November of 2016.
01:15:04.640and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
01:15:10.440I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
01:15:14.060Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
01:15:21.580These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
01:15:25.420Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:15:33.060If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
01:15:38.760Pro 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.
01:15:47.420Each 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.