00:00:38.460and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:43.680I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:00:47.300Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,
00:00:51.020abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:00:54.640These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:00:58.720Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app,
00:01:03.280Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:07.040I really, really need to tell people to tune this noise out and live lives for themselves
00:01:13.180because that's finally a place of peace that I've come to and I've worked really hard for,
00:01:19.100and people are trying to take that peace away from me.
00:01:24.640There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:38.640I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:44.100If you don't get married and have kids, you're going to wind up old, sad, and alone, surrounded by nothing but cats.
00:01:51.000It sounds like an attitude right out of the 1950s, right?
00:01:54.160But lately, I've noticed an uptick in social media content
00:01:58.080pretty much telling young women that if you're not on your way to marriage and parenthood in your 20s,
00:02:02.920you're doing life wrong and you're going to regret it.
00:02:05.860Now, not only is this attitude completely heteronormative,
00:02:09.260but it's incredibly limiting in so many other ways, too.
00:02:12.620The truth is, people live all kinds of dynamic, full, interesting lives
00:02:16.900with partners, without partners, between partners, with multiple partners, with kids, without kids.
00:02:21.360And when the host of the Pretty Much Done podcast, Julia Mazur, took to TikTok to share a wholesome recap of her weekend as a single woman without kids, right-wing extremists viciously attacked her online for it.
00:02:34.880But Julia is not living her life for the Matt Walshes of the world. She's living her life for her.
00:02:41.740So my name is Julia Mazur. I am the host of Pretty Much Done podcast.
00:02:47.080So first of all, I really have to start with just you. You went through something that I thought was pretty intense. How are you doing? How have you been taking care of yourself in this time of intensity online?
00:02:59.220yeah definitely a unique experience never experienced anything like it I think the
00:03:04.700one thing that I would say that it flashed for me is being bullied in like elementary and middle
00:03:10.000school for my weight so it definitely brought up feelings of that bullying I didn't know that we
00:03:16.200still do that at 30 but apparently we do I'm doing well all things considered I feel really
00:03:21.820lucky that the past three years for me have been like years of you know working on myself worth
00:03:28.580in therapy and figuring out who I am. And I feel like this happened at a place where I was able
00:03:34.480to handle it as best as I could ever handle it. So doing well, all things considered.
00:03:39.660I'm so thrilled to hear that. And that's such a good point that whenever I think about people who
00:03:43.960are, you know, being harassed or facing like, you know, a torrent of negativity online, I, you know,
00:03:51.840I'm, I don't wish it on anybody. However, if it happened to somebody who hadn't done that self
00:03:57.260work, hadn't been to therapy, didn't feel so solid, didn't have a community of folks
00:04:01.300around them, didn't have all of those things, the story might be very different.
00:04:14.060It had to be Julia who could tackle this because, yeah, I was able to, and I had this amazing1.00
00:04:22.240support system around me. And then a support system rallied around me as a result. But yeah,0.51
00:04:28.500I almost think it had to be me who had done the work for so long.
00:04:33.200I'm so happy that you were in a place to do that work so that this didn't happen at a time when
00:04:38.400you didn't feel so solid. I know that you're someone who really shares a lot of yourself
00:04:42.960digitally with the world through your amazing podcast, Pretty Much Done, through social media.
00:04:48.020What drives you to do that? Why is that something that's part of how you show up to the world?
00:04:52.240Yeah, I think some context into me and how I grew up would be helpful here. So I grew up in a Russian Jewish household. And growing up, a lot of the emphasis placed on me was get married, have kids. And, you know, that's kind of the goal to try and achieve.
00:05:09.020And so for so long of my life, I found myself trying to achieve that goal, trying to date people in order to feel valued by not only like my cultural society, but like society in general. And I thought that that only existed in the Russian Jewish society. And I knew that there are other cultures who experienced those same things.
00:05:30.280But now realizing the rhetoric that was kind of echoed through the online bullying that that happens in society in general, like the emphasis was placed on women getting married and having kids. And so I found myself in kind of these like, you know, not so great relationships.
00:05:49.400they were kind of lackluster and feeling like unfulfilled and realizing that I was settling
00:05:54.760in order to appease other people and prove my value. And so I've really felt passionate about
00:06:01.820starting my podcast because I realized that the only way that we're going to feel fulfilled and
00:06:06.760find the right partner for ourselves is to feel fulfilled within ourselves and feel whole within
00:06:11.420ourselves. And so that's kind of what took me on my self-love journey, my spirituality journey,
00:06:16.000my journey with therapy and self-love. And I was like, I need to tell people about this because
00:06:20.400so many people around me are settling for these whatever relationships because society is telling
00:06:26.160us that we need to get married and have kids before 30. And if you're still single, you're
00:06:30.320a spinster at 30 and you love cats and you're going to live with a bunch of cats. So I just
00:06:37.280really wanted people to feel like they were less alone with me sharing those same vulnerabilities.
00:06:44.860That's why I love your podcast is that, you know, when I was single, my story is very similar to yours.
00:06:51.920I really got caught up in relationships that looked good on paper or that, like, checked a box.
00:06:57.720And eventually I had to step back and realize that I was sort of terrified of being alone and that it didn't matter who I was with if I wasn't kind of set with myself, right with myself, that nothing would ever really feel right.
00:07:10.160And so I had to go through a process of getting to know myself and being alone and being okay with that and really getting to know myself.
00:07:18.400And I just don't think that we are taught to do that.0.62
00:07:23.380You know, nobody gets a big party or like a bunch of gifts for not marrying the wrong person or for like kicking ass at therapy or whatever.
00:07:33.040We get big gifts for like getting engaged, right?
00:07:36.280And so I just don't think we live in a culture that tells people that you're enough and, you know, the milestones on that journey to getting to know who you are, those should be celebrated, too, because those are really important.
00:07:48.020Yeah, absolutely. I always remembered, like, if I had a plus one at a wedding, I felt like, oh, thank God, this like sigh of relief because I was, you know, I wouldn't have to face the chorus of people being like, you're next or when are you going to find someone or something like that.
00:08:06.220And so I totally agree with you. And something that's been top of mind for me is that I'm getting called a spinster through these online trolls and these bullies. But a man at 30 is getting called a bachelor. Like, why is that happening? So that's just something that's been crossing my mind.
00:08:24.840Oh, there are all kinds of, like, I would argue deeply gendered double standards about being single as a young person. Like, there's nobody who sees a guy in his 30s making a—if a guy in his 30s made a TikTok about his life as a single guy, like, going, I don't know, whatever single guys do, you know, going to the big game, whatever, whatever, no one will be like, oh, that's so depressing. He doesn't realize how empty his life is.
00:08:50.640Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. It's terrible. Some of the people that came to my defense were making that point of they would be telling a guy at 30 who is, you know, going to play golf or having a lazy Saturday, like, you rock, you go. And for me, it's like your eggs are sand and you're going to live alone for the rest of your life.
00:09:12.280Last month, Julia posted a video to TikTok just describing her weekend.
00:09:16.600This is how I spent my Saturday as a 29-year-old single woman who doesn't have kids running around, she said.
00:09:21.800She had gone out for a fun night seeing Beyonce the night before
00:09:24.940and was describing spending a quiet, pleasant day catching up on sleep,
00:09:29.200watching her favorite shows, and trying out a new recipe.
00:09:32.380Sometimes I feel like I'm behind in life, but days like this make me appreciate my situation, she muses.
00:09:38.260So when you posted that TikTok about your weekend, that sounded awesome, by the way,
00:09:43.400you had gone to Beyonce, you were sleeping in, you were making shakshuka.
00:09:47.620When you posted it, what did you think the reaction was going to be?
00:09:51.140Yeah, so I like the intent behind posting it.
00:09:54.420Sometimes I'll wake up in the mornings and, you know, like as a single girl,
00:09:57.180my sister, like sometimes I can't FaceTime her because at 10, she's at like soccer practice.
00:14:11.580People were even telling Julia that the only way that she would ever have kids0.96
00:14:15.020is if she were sexually assaulted.0.91
00:14:17.480In our current social media landscape, it could be anything that gets someone,
00:14:21.680especially someone from a traditionally marginalized background or identity,
00:14:25.300piled on online with hates, threats, and harassment.
00:14:28.580This is something I hear a lot from people who have gone through this kind of harassment,
00:14:32.680that it's easy to think the targets must have done something to deserve it,
00:14:36.260But you really don't have to do anything wrong for somebody like Matt Walsh to decide to send two million people your way to pile on with hate.
00:14:44.540And that's exactly what happened to Julia.
00:14:46.780I can't, like, speak for these people and their mentality because I don't know what it was really that irked them.
00:14:53.580But I, all I know is, like, I don't want to wallow in self-pity.
00:14:58.740Because I have been that girl dating from that kind of like desperation of please come save me. And so if they want me to be miserable, let me tell you like that was a really miserable existence. So I don't know what they wanted from me and what riled them up so much. I almost think that they got riled up by Matt Walsh.
00:15:22.120Like, I think that they were like, he says that this is, you know, she's stupid and depressed, so we're going to go along with that.0.99
00:15:29.600I almost think that that's what it took for them to be so angry.0.88
00:15:32.420I feel like I saw the comments and the reaction to the video in real time go from, like, supportive, like, thank you for making me feel so seen.
00:15:41.060Thank you for reminding me to be gentle with myself and reminding me to be appreciative with my, like, what I have, to Matt Walsh and folks on Twitter posting about it.
00:15:50.760And then there's this being this like very clear shift.
00:15:54.480Did you see the same thing where like it was like it made it to the wrong side of the Internet and then the reaction completely changed?
00:16:10.680And then Sunday I woke up and people started to attack and it almost felt like this wave.
00:16:16.680i i kind of tell people like it feels like a like 500 people came into your house and started
00:16:22.340punching you like it was very scary um and and someone commented saying you know like matt walsh
00:16:29.080posted this on his uh twitter and i had 7 000 tiktok followers at the time this man has 2.4
00:16:36.100million followers on twitter so the playing field was vastly different and it was really really
00:16:42.740scary. And when it happened, I got scared and I deleted TikTok, like not my profile, but just the
00:16:50.000app from my phone because I had never experienced anything like it. Feeling like a bunch of people
00:16:55.220are just like punching you over and over again and attacking you is really scary. And I kind of
00:17:00.420just went like dark and I had plans with my cousin and a friend to go to the beach. We went to the
00:17:06.400beach. You know, I've done my like, I know my rituals of now like I meditate, I journal, I like
00:17:12.440go places that make me happy. I was like trying to really hone in on those things. But it was
00:17:17.720really scary. And I was having friends text who have Twitter. I didn't have Twitter at the time
00:17:22.360who have Twitter followings and are on Twitter and said, like, don't stay off. Don't look at
00:17:28.600the comments. Are you OK? And checking in. I am glad that you're somebody who has like a good
00:17:34.520support system and that people like billionaire Mark Cuban were sticking up for you. I'm glad that
00:17:40.240you seem to be pretty in touch with having a practice of how to get back centered when you're
00:17:44.780going through something so tough and so scary. Even though, to be clear, you should not have to
00:17:49.920have like a toolkit to deal with that kind of completely unacceptable behavior from strangers
00:17:55.520online who attack you because they have been sent there by somebody like Matt Walsh with this huge,
00:18:01.640massive online platform that he is using to harass somebody who didn't do anything at all.
00:18:06.920I agree. I totally agree. And thank God I'm someone who had done the work because there
00:18:13.360aren't a lot of people who even have access to doing the same works that I was able to do.
00:18:19.300And that, you know, I handled it as best as I could with grace. I had this community,
00:18:24.800but I was still on my couch crying. Like there are some really awful things that people had said.
00:18:30.060There were talks about how, like, the only way I'd have a kid is if I was sexually assaulted by someone, you know, calling me that I look 40.
00:18:40.380Now I'm like, do I need, like, filler under my eyes?
00:18:43.440Like, I am kind of spiraling in certain ways, and it's really scary to see how hateful people can be on the internet.
00:18:50.840I don't know about you, but I've never been someone who stops to say something mean to someone.
00:18:55.820I just, I think that this, that social media allows people the ability to act like these, that people aren't humans who put themselves out there and say, like, people are talking about me as if I'm not reading it. They're like, she looks like this or she's this. And I'm like, this is my profile that you're commenting on. I see this. And it's awful. It's really awful.
00:19:18.320I don't know if this is weird to say, like the thing about people being like, oh, like she's this, she's that. You have a like dope life. Like you seem like somebody who has a life that is very full of a lot of good things. You have the kind of life that people wish for, the kind of life that people like are manifesting for themselves.
00:19:35.540And it is truly watching people try to make you think that your life is worthless and has no value because you don't have a husband and don't have kids is truly the gymnastics involved because it's like, yeah, you actually are out here living a pretty full, lovely life.
00:19:53.760And then people trying to like gaslight you into like questioning whether or not that's the case.
00:19:58.480But you know that your life feels good for you.
00:20:00.560You know, it's like it's like how is Matt Wash, somebody who's never even met you, going to try to convince you that your life is less than when you this is a life that you've manifested for yourself?
00:20:09.320yeah and it almost makes me feel so much more certain of the message that i'm trying to have
00:20:15.800come across with my social media and on my podcast because i'm like i spent you know my 20s kind of
00:20:22.700telling people around me like my parents my grandparents like i don't want to settle in
00:20:28.460relationships and like i really want to figure myself out before i find that person and have
00:20:32.360that family. And then 2.4 million people started attacking me and I'm like, God, this so exists
00:20:39.420that I really, really need to tell people to tune this noise out and live lives for themselves
00:20:45.300because that's finally where a place of peace that I've come to and I've worked really hard for
00:20:50.980and people are trying to take that peace away from me. I have to say like, just this idea that
00:20:57.080if you are in your 20s and you're not married and you don't have kids that like you're so behind0.95
00:21:03.080that is so fucking crazy like I can't even like there's no other way to even really put it like0.80
00:21:08.280when you're in your 20s you're so young you have so much of your life ahead of you you have so much0.99
00:21:13.500getting to know yourself and getting to know what you want what you don't want like do you want to
00:21:18.240be in a relationship what kind of relationship do you want like had I gotten married when I was in
00:21:22.960my 20s for sure I would be divorced no question about it because I just didn't know who I was I
00:21:27.480wasn't I wasn't like I didn't know myself enough and so I almost feel like we're pushing young0.66
00:21:34.060people into this box this is like oh well you need to be married with kids because society says so
00:21:40.840or Matt Walsh says so or whoever says so not because it's something that's going to be good
00:21:44.820for you or something that you want or even going to be something that endures because I don't know
00:21:49.540I just think that coming to think, like, what's the rush to force people into this life that might not even be right for them yet?
00:21:58.600Candace Owen did an entire segment about Julia on the podcast Whatever.
00:22:02.780We actually talked about that specific podcast in our episode Breaking Down the Network of Manosphere Podcasts.1.00
00:22:08.340Candace said that nobody should ever marry Julia because she's so selfish and doesn't do anything for her community.0.98
00:22:15.400Never mind the fact that how would Candace Owen know what Julia does with and for her community1.00
00:22:20.080from one 90-second TikTok about how she spent one weekend?
00:22:24.220But something about that word that Candace used, selfish, really struck me.1.00
00:22:43.520She called me a selfish bitch. She's called me selfish for not having kids and not giving back to my community. She doesn't know what I do for my community, but she started to call me selfish. And what I think is selfish is like not knowing yourself and potentially having children at that point. So you can tell Matt Walsh that you're more valuable in society. I think that would be selfish.1.00
00:23:04.500That's such a good point. And that like also selfish. I don't know. I really have a when you said that word, I really like I almost a bristle because I just think that we tell women that if you're living for yourself, if you are any kind of exploration is self-exploration is like narcissistic or navel gazing.
00:23:25.900If you are living for yourself, centering yourself, automatically you are selfish.0.96
00:23:33.440I guess I feel like the existence of being a woman sometimes is this expectation that we will always be living for someone that is not ourselves.
00:23:40.580And if we live for ourselves, then we're automatically doing something wrong that is selfish.
00:24:01.560I'm not a mom, but I would imagine logically you just can't be as selfish.
00:24:05.940But in this period of time where you don't have that, you don't have those same responsibilities
00:24:11.600of having kids or having a partner, what else would you do but focus on yourself?
00:24:18.220I want to hone in on the relationship with myself, love myself to a point where nobody
00:24:24.860can kind of take that away from me. I don't know what else I should be doing. There are things that
00:24:30.760I enjoy doing. And I do give back to my community. I do spend time with my family. But I want to
00:24:37.120prioritize myself as well. Well, that's the most long-term relationship you're going to have in
00:24:44.140life is the one. Who else would you be prioritizing? And I think that, yeah, we just tell
00:24:51.140women that your validation needs to come from someone externally, right? Like it can't come0.98
00:24:57.340from within. And I think you're someone for whom I think that your validation is self-validation.
00:25:02.720Like it comes from within and like Matt Walsh or Candace Owen can't take that away. And I think
00:25:06.960that's part of what freaks them out is that when you have validation that is motivated from within,
00:25:12.960nobody can disturb that because it's something that you bring to yourself.
00:25:16.580Yeah. And I and I'm so like my therapist would be so proud because I've worked three years to get to that point. I you know, I was someone who struggled with my weight growing up at my heaviest weight. I was over 200 pounds and I needed so much constant validation from other people. I found myself dating to validate myself. So finally, I've worked so freaking hard to get to this point. And it was a hard journey. But like, loving yourself is so much easier than hating yourself.
00:25:45.500And you can't control how other people are going to react to you.
00:25:50.420And I learned in this process, but you can control how you react to yourself.
00:25:54.880That's the only person's, you know, actions that you can control.
00:25:59.140Loving yourself is so much easier than hating yourself.
00:26:01.800There are so many times I have needed to hear that reminder.
00:26:04.800And I just really want to change the narrative around what we tell people, especially young women, because it is a good thing to be gentle with yourself and love yourself and be curious about yourself.
00:26:14.700The relationship that you have with yourself should be one that is loving and complex, not one where you have your own bully as a running monologue in your head.
00:26:23.080I'm just really sick of this idea that we tell folks that hating yourself and putting yourself down by default is a normal part of being a woman because it's not.
00:26:32.240And we should be getting our validation from within, you know, certainly not from strangers on the Internet.
00:27:44.460If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:27:50.420This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,
00:27:56.820pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:28:02.860I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:28:09.980I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:28:13.500From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:28:19.520It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:28:26.980Whether 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.
00:28:36.580Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:28:51.160completely anecdotally i've seen a lot of social media content that seems geared towards scaring
00:28:57.760young people especially women into marriage and even beyond social media tim scott republican
00:29:04.100senator from south carolina who is currently running for president just told a church full
00:29:08.520of people during a campaign stop that the best way to escape poverty was to get married and have
00:29:13.280kids he's single with no kids by the way julia hasn't seen that same wave of content aimed at
00:29:19.180scaring people into marriage that I've seen. But she says you don't even really need to see it on
00:29:23.520social media specifically to see the ways that we're all immersed in that attitude.
00:29:28.660Have you noticed this uptick in content like that on social media?
00:29:33.240It's so interesting because I got this same question when I was doing the Rolling Stone
00:29:37.980interview, and I haven't. Maybe my algorithm knows. She's endured enough in her life
00:29:45.840that we're going to spare her from this content. However, I did just get berated in my comments. So
00:29:52.560I didn't see the content, but I did see the content via comments. I haven't personally,
00:29:59.160but I grew up with it. So I have seen that. And listen, we all grew up on Disney movies that said
00:30:06.560that if you find your Prince Charming, you will live happily ever after. That content was ingrained
00:30:11.780in me you know early on I haven't seen that content but I'm sure it exists and if it's how
00:30:18.380if it's like if you you don't need to see the content if you like grew up immersed in it you
00:30:22.780know like it's everywhere it's in all the media um yeah I also had kind of a traditional upbringing
00:30:28.060and the same kind of vibe of yeah like this is this is the ultimate this is the end of your
00:30:34.980chapter is getting married like how many of those Disney movies end with there's a wedding and
00:30:39.820happily ever after. And like, that's the end of her story. Her story ends there when she gets the
00:30:45.120prince. Yeah, I talked about this with someone on my podcast. I was like, we need like a sequel of
00:30:51.140like, what happened to her after? Like, is she divorced? Is she an alcoholic? Like, what's going
00:30:56.760on with the princess? Yeah, like she got divorced and then like started a business. And now she's1.00
00:31:02.340like, that's not the end. But I grew up thinking that like, once you got married, that was it. And
00:31:07.600And again, if you're telling young women who were in their 20s that they need to be getting married and that's the end of their story, there is so much left to be written in their story.
00:31:15.960And I don't want people to think that, like, the end-all be-all is a marriage because there's just so much more to life, you know?
00:31:22.500Even if you don't get married, like, I don't know if you want to be married or want to have kids, but, like, even if you decide that's not for you, that doesn't mean that you don't get to have a life that is full of joy and experiences.
00:31:34.080And like, yeah, there's just so many different ways to live life.
00:31:37.960I hate that we're selling this very narrow understanding of what makes a life to a generation0.99
00:32:23.480Like, you really know what's right for you.
00:32:26.200And my through line is like, just drown out the noise and figure that out.
00:32:30.320And that's your journey to figure out.
00:32:32.200Yeah, I, oof. That's, whenever younger people ask me for advice, that's, it's some version of that that I say is like really try to hone in on is that you got to live your life for you and your life's work is figuring out what that is that's going to make you happy. Not your parents, not society, not Matt fucking Walsh of all people, like for you because you're the one who wants to live it, right?
00:32:53.200Like, I cannot tell you the laundry list of things I tried to make work for me because I wanted to impress my parents or make them proud.0.95
00:33:01.200And it's like, I know they're going to be disappointed if I drop out of grad school, but, like, they're not the ones who have to be in the classes miserable day in and day out.
00:33:10.440Like, I guess, do you have any advice for people who want to, like, figure out what they want their life to be like and how they get to a life that is a little bit more aligned with what they actually want?
00:33:23.740Yeah, this one is like a little bit more granular, but I this is my first advice that I tell people
00:33:29.400that is so accessible. And it's to start journaling because your subconscious knows
00:33:35.220all the truths. And when you put it out pen to paper, it's telling you where you want to go and
00:33:41.220what you want to be. And like, I think, you know, whenever my friends tell me like they want a
00:33:46.000career change, I'm like, you know, like, what do you want to change it to? They're like, I don't
00:33:49.620know. And I'm like, write down what your perfect day looks like. Like when you wake up in the
00:33:53.940morning, what are you doing? And if you spit it out pen to paper, usually you're going to get
00:33:59.680there. And the dreams like almost scare you so much, but let them scare you. Go do it.
00:34:05.500This is my favorite advice. You have no idea. People who listen to the show might not know
00:34:09.180how much into like, woo woo, manifesting spirituality I am. But I start every day
00:34:14.700with journaling and you really you'll look back and be like like what you want becomes clear like
00:34:21.100you it's in you and then you see it on the page and you're like oh it's really clear to me that
00:34:24.980I don't like this or that I do want this you know it's also helped me just be more like navigate
00:34:31.000the world with more confidence like if I if somebody if I'm like oh was that really so bad
00:34:35.360what that person said to me I go back and read it and I'm like no I was correct in my in the way
00:34:39.440that I felt like it almost is like it really allows you to just show up to your life with a
00:34:46.360lot more insight into what's going on with you that is it's so powerful so journaling I think
00:34:51.940is a really really good tip it doesn't cost any money you can start it today start it where you
00:34:57.200are you could just start you will you will definitely see a change like that's such a good
00:35:01.040good tip yeah and don't you love looking back at your old journal entries and like you're like
00:35:06.000oh I'm so confused about this and then you're like oh my god what was I confused about or like
00:35:10.900look how much I've improved like I love looking at it as a timeline of like you were worried about
00:35:16.180that wait until you see the new problems like I'm sure that you know two years ago me who was worried
00:35:21.860about like breaking up with her boyfriend would be like wait now you're worried about like Matt
00:35:25.500Walsh and Mark Cuban came to your defense what I don't I Julia a few years ago probably could not
00:35:33.240even imagine what Julia today in 2023 is going through and dealing with. Life is just so
00:35:40.820interesting. Yeah, for sure. Something that I love about your work is how you really do a good job
00:35:46.140of celebrating kind of like where you are and what your life is like. And I think that is so
00:35:50.180important. I think it is important for especially single women to make content that really takes
00:35:56.000away that stigma that's like, you're meant to be surrounded by cats, even though I'm surrounded by
00:36:01.020cats by choice, but like really just like appreciating your life. And so one of my
00:36:06.760favorite things when I was single was having a ton of time to myself to pour into my creative
00:36:12.180work. Like I was never more, you know, creative and never more accomplished and like all of that.
00:36:18.840I just had so much time to focus toward my own project. So that was something I loved being
00:36:23.200about single. What is your favorite part of your life as a single gal? Yeah, I love that you can0.93
00:36:30.260do with your time what you want to do. And I think it's like similar to what you're saying.
00:36:35.660You know, usually when you're in a relationship, I was just in a long distance relationship not
00:36:39.700too long ago. I kind of had to consider our schedules and figure that out. Now it's like,
00:36:45.520my schedule is mine. And so if I want to, I don't know, go to like a pickup and I'm moving to Austin
00:36:52.200next month, if I want to pick up and move to Austin, I can do that. Because really, like,
00:36:56.720this is the time where I'm able to take risks and I don't have those same attachments and I can grow
00:37:02.040as a person. I love singledom for that reason. Like you grow the most as a single person than
00:37:08.920in a relationship I've found. And so I really enjoy getting to do what I want with my time
00:37:15.180and make time for the things that are important to me and spend time with the people who are
00:37:20.400important to me and really like hone in on those relationships. I feel like you can appreciate
00:37:25.820your relationships differently. My brother just had his first child, so I'm an auntie.
00:37:32.180Congrats. Thank you. But I feel like if I had children, I would be a less good aunt to my
00:37:39.580niece, right? Because I don't have kids, I can drop everything and go see her, right? Because
00:37:45.420I don't have kids, when I see her, it is not just like I'm exhausted from raising my own kids. I
00:37:51.200I almost feel like it allows for me to be appreciate what the people who are in my life in a different way.
00:37:57.400And so that's something else that's like I find kind of nice about, you know, not having children.
00:38:04.040I agree. I know I'm an aunt as well, and it's the best.
00:38:07.700I mean, I my sister won't enjoy this, but I say like it's the best because like I can just like give the hard parts.
00:38:12.480It's like my sister takes it on, but I get to do all the fun stuff.
00:38:16.260So I read an interesting piece in the National Review, which is a pretty conservative outlet about how what happened to you really made conservatives and like extremist folks look bad because it was just ganging up on somebody who didn't do anything wrong.
00:38:29.080They do sort of imply in the piece that like it sounds like Julia knows that being single with no kids is not ideal, which obviously I do not agree with.
00:38:37.340But do you think the tide is sort of turning on this kind of, you know, harassment and like ganging up on people that people are going to realize that like this is not a way to, one, just change hearts and minds if that's what you're trying to do.
00:38:51.920But two, just not a good way to relate to the world, that if somebody isn't bothering you, they're just living their life, ganging up on them, especially when you have lots and lots of followers, is not a good way to live.
00:39:04.020i hope so um but i saw this video that someone made he was like a right-wing political guy and
00:39:13.460he said listen like if if you if the right is trying to get people to come to our side and
00:39:19.860we're trying to get younger voters to come to our side this is not the way to do it and i was like0.98
00:39:24.800yeah totally like berate he was like berating her and calling her stupid and depressed it's like not0.98
00:39:30.900the way we're going to get voters to turn to turn to the right. And so I realized like throughout0.98
00:39:36.520this whole ordeal, how divided both sides are. And I think that just like, what I learned is,
00:39:43.640listen, I know I'm putting myself on the internet, I understand what comes with it, you get you get
00:39:48.760mean comments. But the hate and like vitriol that was like happening, saying I should be sexually
00:39:54.760assaulted, like, you know, threatening me like that, I can't, I can't understand. I just will
00:40:01.360never understand it. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I am with you 100% about that. Like, even, like,
00:40:08.600even if you were someone who was like making like trollish videos, hateful videos, which obviously
00:40:14.180you weren't, I would still say like, well, you don't need to like threatening someone and bringing
00:40:18.260up, you know, sexual assault. That's, there's never, there's like, that's never okay. There's
00:40:22.680never, there's never a reason for that. But yeah, like if, if truly somebody thought that you were
00:40:28.920really making a like grave mistake with your life or something like that, the way to get you to0.99
00:40:34.460reconsider would not be to call you stupid, would not be to gang up on you, would not be to be so1.00
00:40:38.880horrible. And so, yeah, all of that is to say, like, I, I think your situation really shows how0.99
00:40:46.020intense and how like incendiary conversations online have gotten that someone could just wake
00:40:51.760up and be like, oh, enjoying my lovely day, and that the reaction can be so intensely hateful.
00:40:58.580Thanks to the way social media platforms like Twitter are currently run,0.98
00:41:02.360Matt Walsh potentially made a lot of money from calling Julia stupid and depressed.0.96
00:41:07.100And it's far from the first time that Matt and people like him have done this.0.95
00:41:11.440They do it to trans and queer youth a lot, people who might not have the same kind of
00:41:15.820support system that Julia has. Do we really want a social media landscape where people
00:41:20.820are incentivized to engage in this kind of pointless cruelty because it makes them money?
00:41:26.060I think something that's interesting that I don't know that Matt Walsh's followers are fully aware
00:41:31.500of, but like my tweet got 30 million impressions. Matt's getting a payout on X. So like I understand
00:41:38.620that this has become the way that he, you know, makes his income. I can't relate to tearing people
00:41:43.980down as making your income, but like you guys are only filling his pockets. And like at the end of
00:41:49.360the day when you're threatening me with sexual assault, what are you doing it for? What is your
00:41:56.700kind of impetus for doing this? That's such a good point. And I think with Matt Walsh,
00:42:01.740I worry that the way that social media algorithms work is that it's going to incentivize other
00:42:07.700people to be like, well, who else can I find who's just minding their business and living their
00:42:12.060lives, who I can target to make money? I firmly believe that these people are
00:42:19.340grifters who are lining their pockets through spreading harm to others. I see why they do it.
00:42:24.720I don't really get why other people like help them and pile on. I don't know what they're
00:42:28.760getting out of it. But yeah, that's such a good point. Yeah, I think it was like two days later
00:42:33.860that Emily Ratajkowski was his new victim, who is like beautiful and wonderful and like well-spoken.
00:42:39.420I'm like, he knows he placed his audience. I mean, it almost sounds like he just really
00:42:44.760hates women like that's really what it comes down to like who's gonna be my next like pretty woman0.96
00:42:50.920to take down a peg for no reason yeah yeah he also hates trans people he really like he's it's it's0.92
00:42:59.460crazy yeah it makes me sad that we have amplified people who their whole thing is hate like just
00:43:05.240who do you hate who's you know and I guess it's so funny because you said like I can't relate to
00:43:11.160somebody who makes money this way because you have a real job you are someone who has like
00:43:15.640a good career and like good creative projects like that's what i'm saying is like you're you're
00:43:20.460you're you're fine you're like living your best life and the kind of person who behaves in this
00:43:25.820way obviously this person is not happy if i if i had to choose whose life i'd rather have
00:43:31.300somebody who went to beyonce and then made shakshuka and had a great day or somebody who
00:43:36.440spent their day berating a stranger. I think it's clear which one I'd rather choose.
00:43:42.400Well, thank you. If you're ever in LA or if you're in Austin, we'll make shakshuka together.