There Are No Girls on the Internet - April 05, 2024


Pornification of women on Twitch; Baltimore bridge DEI conspiracy; Amazon just walk out stores flop; Ignore your boss’s emails – NEWS ROUNDUP

Topics
DEI mayor and Conspiracy Theorist frictionless checkout technology pornification of women on Twitch
Andrew Huberman is the internet’s favorite guru. Can we trust him？ - CONCLUSION The Rot Economy ft Robert Evans - Better Offline

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 1 minute

Words per minute

180.56

Word count

11,171

Sentence count

420

Harmful content

Misogyny

13

sentences flagged

Toxicity

22

sentences flagged

Hate speech

25

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
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00:00:34.940 I survived nine months in captivity,
00:00:38.460 and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:43.680 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:00:47.300 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,
00:00:51.020 abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:00:54.640 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:00:58.680 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:10.580 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:18.700 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:21.440 joey welcome back to the show it has been too long hey bridget so welcome to there are no girls
00:01:29.980 on the internet where we explore the intersection of identity tech social media and the internet
00:01:34.100 this is yet another installment of our weekly roundup of news from the internet y'all might
00:01:38.960 have missed and before we get too into it i should just say currently i am recording from
00:01:44.000 beautiful mazatlan mexico to be in the path of totality for the eclipse on april 8th uh the
00:01:50.340 place I'm staying in is right on the beach which is beautiful and fantastic but right outside my
00:01:55.440 window there is like fully a full band kind of roaming around playing for people on the beach
00:02:01.260 they're literally right outside of my window as we speak and so it is a festive good time I am the
00:02:07.760 only schmuck out here trying to like record a podcast in the middle of it so if you guys
00:02:11.460 so if y'all hear a little music or merriment in the background that is what's going on 0.93
00:02:17.000 Sounds truly so awful and difficult for you right now.
00:02:22.640 It's the worst.
00:02:24.900 So I have a weird question for you.
00:02:27.180 You are a little bit younger than me.
00:02:28.700 So this might be something that completely your generation missed out on.
00:02:32.760 Did your family ever have like a code word so that if somebody, like a friend of the
00:02:37.400 family had to pick you up when you were young, you would know like, oh, mom or whoever has
00:02:41.960 given this person permission to be picking me up from the mall or whatever.
00:02:45.540 Is this a phenomenon that you are familiar with at all?
00:02:48.800 Yes, I am familiar with it.
00:02:50.560 I definitely think I was kind of the end of that phenomenon because I remember my mom
00:02:55.540 bringing it up in conversation.
00:02:57.640 I don't think we ever actually came up with a word.
00:02:59.960 I think it was just a thing that we were like, we should do this.
00:03:02.360 That would be safe to do.
00:03:05.740 So I was reading about how more and more of these AI-enabled scams, where the scam is
00:03:12.340 using AI technology, somebody is spoofing the voice or in some recent cases, the actual video
00:03:19.940 image of a very convincing version of like your loved one. And that person says they are in
00:03:25.920 trouble. They've been kidnapped. They need money. And then the scam is you get a call from what you
00:03:30.820 think is your loved one, your family member, your sister, your daughter, whatever. And you're so
00:03:34.700 distraught that you send these strangers crypto. Meanwhile, your daughter or whatever is like
00:03:39.720 perfectly safe. I have been reading about how these scams are getting more and more sophisticated,
00:03:45.460 and I think it's time we bring back the family code word. So just like when you were young and
00:03:51.320 your mom would tell somebody like, oh, say blah, blah, blah, and that's going to be the phrase that
00:03:56.620 indicates that this person is safe and is actually authorized by your mom,
00:04:01.460 we might need to start having family and loved one code words so that if you get that call in
00:04:07.060 the middle of the night you can say what's our ai code word so i can make sure this is actually you
00:04:12.620 i like that yeah no i agree that stuff's freaky i i know my mom also still like has all of us on
00:04:22.040 the like find my phone thing like on your phone plan which honestly i know there's a lot of
00:04:28.760 downsides i'm usually against the kind of constant surveillance but uh you know it's also nice to be
00:04:35.280 right i mean people are if your mom gets a panicked call from joey in the middle of the night they can
00:04:42.700 be like oh they're not kidnapped they're in brooklyn where they always are where they ought
00:04:49.460 be i am a big fan of the code phrase and the code word in general i have a secret code word for if
00:04:58.320 so one of my like very closely held values is that when you ever get a feeling that's like
00:05:03.820 i'm i want to leave wherever i am for whatever reason you should just leave like no questions
00:05:09.040 asked and everybody who is in my little irl friend circle knows this about me and so i actually have
00:05:15.360 a code word or a code phrase that if i say that it means like it's time to gtfo immediately i'm a
00:05:22.340 big fan of the of the of the pre-agreed upon code phrase or code word i like that too yeah i think
00:05:29.360 especially i don't know definitely had that situation where usually i'm just like
00:05:33.200 so do you think you guys want to leave soon like i don't really ask like i'm gonna go through all
00:05:41.480 that there's nothing worse than really wanting to leave a situation that you're in but not being
00:05:48.060 able to speak freely about that want and so you just have to sort of be like yeah well
00:05:52.860 and like do a bunch of voice inflections and hope the other person picks up on it
00:05:56.480 Okay, so let's get into this. I wanted to talk about this, but it was a little close to home. And so I kind of like waited because I'm sort of like processing my feelings. So last week, the Francis Scott Bridge in Baltimore collapsed after a container ship collided with it. It was a huge tragedy.
00:06:15.160 I live in D.C., which is a little under an hour from Baltimore, so really big news here on the
00:06:20.540 mid-Atlantic region. Sadly, a group of six immigrant workers from Mexico, Guatemala, 1.00
00:06:26.020 El Salvador, and Honduras fell to their deaths in this tragedy. There was a really thoughtful
00:06:30.800 piece in CNN this week about how their deaths really should be sparking a conversation about
00:06:36.700 the need for more protection, specifically for foreign-born construction workers, which we'll
00:06:41.300 linked to in the show notes. I think it's really a must read all about how, just how little
00:06:45.980 protections and support our country offers these people who do so much for us. And so definitely
00:06:51.680 read that piece. It was really eye-opening to me. But I say this to say, I am really disgusted to see
00:06:58.440 how this tragedy has become just yet another thing to spread racist conspiracy theories about.
00:07:06.860 I'm sure I've said this a hundred times on the show now, but as awful as it was, Twitter before Elon Musk wasn't like all rainbows and sunshine.
00:07:15.540 I don't want to make it seem like that.
00:07:16.900 But it was a place where you could reasonably get updates in real time on breaking news or disasters or emergencies like this one.
00:07:25.720 So living in the area, I can tell you that like Twitter was simply not a place that you could go to to figure out what was going on in real time during an emergency.
00:07:34.840 And I guess I was just really feeling the loss of that platform as a way to really stay informed about things that are happening in your community, in your neighborhood, in your neck of the woods.
00:07:46.520 Yeah, definitely. I feel like with this story, the first kind of stories that I was hearing about it coming out were more like, oh, there are these conspiracy theories around this terrible thing that happened and not just like, oh, my God, this terrible thing happened.
00:08:02.340 And, like, just the rate of which the, like, conspiracy theories, like, became a part of the news cycle was very vast and very concerning.
00:08:14.020 Yes.
00:08:14.420 I mean, it pains me that conspiracy theories are the main thing that people are talking about, not labor protections, not the people who lost their lives, not how we can prevent this from happening again, not, you know, what's going to happen to that bridge, like the impacts.
00:08:28.780 And it just goes to show how conspiracy theories just take the oxygen out of the room. They completely shift the conversation. So the high number of things we absolutely should be talking about, we're not talking about that because we're too busy debunking all of this nonsense that people who have huge platforms are spreading.
00:08:46.920 So instead of Twitter being this place where you can figure out what's going on in real time, you have instead people with verified big platforms spreading lies and hate during an active life or death emergency.
00:09:00.660 You had suspected sex trafficker Andrew Tate saying that it was a cyber attack.
00:09:06.040 Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist, replying to Andrew Tate saying, oh, yeah, it looks deliberate to me, despite there being no indication that that is the case.
00:09:14.420 And can you guess what Utah State Rep Bill Lyman blamed this tragedy on?
00:09:21.760 I'm sure he had a very sane and normal answer that was totally, totally on track with what actually happened.
00:09:29.840 Yeah, he was talking about the need for more robust infrastructure in this country.
00:09:33.880 Oh, wait, no, sorry. I have that wrong.
00:09:35.860 He blamed DEI, of course, Black people.
00:09:38.800 He took to Twitter to say, this is what happens when you have governors who prioritize diversity over the well-being and security of citizens.
00:09:47.540 So this has sort of become the new party line that DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, can do anything.
00:09:56.520 It somehow caused this bridge to collapse. 0.71
00:09:58.760 I saw a thread that included seemingly just, like, pictures of Black people and Black women that they said were, like, loosely associated with the Port of Baltimore as the sort of smoking gun that DEI was to blame because, look, here are some pictures of the headshots of Black people who I am saying I am making a specious link to the Port of Baltimore, ergo, they are to blame for this tragedy.
00:10:25.140 And it also just really angers me to see how this has shifted on to Baltimore's mayor, Brandon Scott, who is like a young black man.
00:10:34.800 This very popular extremist Twitter account clipped a video of that mayor speaking at a presser with this caption.
00:10:42.560 This is Baltimore's DEI mayor commenting on the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.
00:10:47.780 How can someone be a DEI mayor?
00:10:49.680 like again it's like i feel like i am voting if not diversity equity and inclusion bridget you
00:10:59.900 know that's what i'm saying it's like do these people know how someone becomes a mayor you are
00:11:04.480 elected as the mayor you're not appointed you can't you can't like dei your way into being mayor
00:11:09.420 never mind the fact that this mayor of baltimore he was like he won by a landslide i think it was
00:11:15.580 like 70% of the vote. And also Baltimore is like 62% black. The residents of Baltimore are like
00:11:22.640 mostly black. So like this idea that somehow it's DEI, I just, I mean, it's, it's so obvious what 0.76
00:11:28.620 they really mean is like, they're saying DEI, but they mean it. What they're really saying is like,
00:11:34.520 it's a black mayor. Look at this black mayor messing everything up. So yeah, it's fairly 1.00
00:11:39.480 obvious that they, what they mean when they say DEI mayor is a black mayor and they probably
00:11:44.300 really mean a slur, but they can't come right out and say that. So they're just saying DEI instead
00:11:50.100 because they can't say what they actually want to say, which I think it's fairly obvious. But
00:11:53.700 I will say it is not all bad because in true Black folks on the internet fashion, 0.81
00:12:00.200 we have reclaimed this and made a joke out of it. Like if they are going to be using DEI as a pretty 1.00
00:12:06.680 obvious stand-in for the racist slur they wish they could openly call us, we may as well have
00:12:12.120 a little bit of fun with it, right? On Twitter, user Petty LuPone put it wonderfully, saying,
00:12:17.940 Black people have already reclaimed the word DEI. That's why I love us and this is why they hate us 1.00
00:12:23.140 because all jokes aside, resilience is our inheritance. Stay pressed bigots. And so now
00:12:28.760 you have Black folks on Twitter really using the word DEI the way that these bigots and extremists 0.95
00:12:34.960 are pretty obviously using it themselves. You have, pour a little out for the DEIs who ain't
00:12:40.380 here, or DEIs in Paris, DEIs with attitude. And this is honestly why I love us, because we will
00:12:47.580 always find a way to repackage someone else's nonsense and use it against them. I love this.
00:12:55.140 And not that long ago, I was actually on a flight where we had an all-Black flight crew,
00:13:00.640 like the captain was Black, the other captain, I guess there's two, was also Black. All the 0.93
00:13:06.420 flight attendants were black. And the captain got on the announcements before the flight and 0.96
00:13:12.300 introduced himself. He gave a very long introduction. He was like, I used to be in the
00:13:16.960 Air Force. I'm from Texas. I love Texas. And then before our flight took off, I kid you not,
00:13:23.600 he came out of the cockpit and shook the hand of every single person who was ready to take this
00:13:30.540 flight and introduced himself. And part of me was like, this has to have been a response to all of
00:13:37.440 the nonsense that people like Elon Musk are spewing about how black pilots or women pilots,
00:13:44.580 they only got there because of DEI or affirmative action. And if you get on a plane and see a black 0.98
00:13:49.780 pilot, you better pray to whatever your God is that you're going to make it because it's not 1.00
00:13:53.480 looking good. And it just really struck me how hard it is to just try to do your job
00:14:00.400 when all of this is out there in the climate, how hard it would be to be like a pilot
00:14:06.920 who is a Black person up against this cultural stereotype that you cannot do your job well 0.97
00:14:15.680 because of your identity and how fucked up it is that this pilot would have to go so above and 0.99
00:14:23.120 beyond to project this competence and to introduce himself and to be like, I'm a Black man. I've got 0.99
00:14:31.160 this. I have a background. I was in the Air Force, whatever, whatever, to demonstrate that he knows
00:14:36.740 what he's doing because of the bigotry and extremism of people like Elon Musk. I was just
00:14:41.640 watching that presser from the mayor of Baltimore having to deal with these people,
00:14:46.380 misconstrue his words simply because of his identity while he is actively dealing with a
00:14:52.400 life or death crisis in his community, it just really drove home what an unfair, messed up
00:14:59.660 dynamic this is. But this is what they want. I think this is like the trip of racism. You know,
00:15:04.680 it reminds me of this Toni Morrison quote, the function, the very serious function of racism
00:15:09.100 is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again,
00:15:13.760 your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend 20 years proving that you
00:15:17.760 do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly. So you have scientists working on the fact that
00:15:22.040 it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdom,
00:15:26.560 so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing. And I just
00:15:31.340 thought, gee, what if this mayor who was already dealing with something pretty heavy and pretty
00:15:35.500 complicated could just focus on that and not have to respond to extremists and racists and bigots 0.98
00:15:43.680 and grifters who are accusing him of, it's not even clear what other than being a Black person 0.92
00:15:48.940 and distracting him from this very important work that he needs to be doing work that happens to be 0.62
00:15:54.620 life or death yeah definitely it's the acronyms are the problem i think we need to stop calling
00:16:00.640 things like acronyms like first it was like crt yes we need we need long boring names that do not
00:16:08.820 easily lend themselves to act to like snappy acronyms that scare people that's what we need
00:16:13.340 to any kind of initiative this is my new plan any kind of initiative that we push going forward
00:16:17.440 We used to have a long, boring, complicated name that does not easily lend itself to a snappy acronym.
00:16:23.080 Exactly.
00:16:27.980 Let's take a quick break.
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00:18:26.820 And we're back.
00:18:30.180 Okay, so we have to talk about this Amazon update
00:18:32.980 because I feel like ever since Mike and I
00:18:35.900 did kind of a contentious episode on self-checkout,
00:18:39.720 which I still feel very strongly about,
00:18:41.940 Mike and I have kind of dropped it and come to a, I guess, a somewhat respectful, mutual pause on that debate.
00:18:53.620 I guess we'll call it that.
00:18:55.220 But I feel like ever since we talked about that.
00:18:56.920 Yeah, I still think I'm right.
00:18:58.840 He still thinks he's right.
00:18:59.980 We've just decided to table it for now.
00:19:02.260 Although maybe this is a good reminder.
00:19:03.580 I should kick that one back up again.
00:19:06.140 So ever since our somewhat contentious episode on self-checkout in retail stores, I feel
00:19:12.160 like we've kind of become the Shopping Technology Update podcast, which I'm actually okay with
00:19:16.860 because you know what?
00:19:17.520 It's one of those things where it's a way that everybody comes in contact with technology.
00:19:22.420 I feel like retail experiences demonstrate that technology really matters and the technology
00:19:28.060 decisions and policies really shape your everyday experiences.
00:19:31.080 And we have another update for y'all.
00:19:33.080 So you might have heard about Amazon retail grocery stores using technology that basically allows shoppers to just walk out of the store with their purchases as a kind of frictionless checkout as opposed to waiting in line.
00:19:46.000 Well, now Amazon is phasing that out, though they say that it will stick around in some UK markets and in some smaller like bodega stores in favor of what they are calling dash cart, which is sort of like a self-checkout device installed on the shopping cart.
00:20:01.340 So, Joey, have you ever used just walk out shopping tech or maybe at an Amazon Fresh or a Whole Foods, which we know Amazon owns Whole Foods?
00:20:10.860 I have not. I'm already somebody that, you know, is anxious about whether it looks like I'm stealing things or whatever in grocery stores to begin with.
00:20:22.080 So I am not somebody who does that.
00:20:25.660 Yes, we got so many emails from listeners saying the exact same thing that like, because of some part of their identity or some perceived part of their identity, they always are like, I know I'm going to get stopped. I know somebody's going to think like, I never do that because I know I don't want to have that interaction because of whatever thing someone is looking at me and thinking, oh, this person's stealing.
00:20:43.760 Which, for the record, like, I'm very white. I just have bad anxiety, which makes me think that I'm about to get in trouble, like, all the time. I am on the anti-self-checkout side of the debate, I will say.
00:20:59.180 Welcome to the right side of history, Joey.
00:21:01.780 Thank you. Thank you.
00:21:03.140 also look at us two little anxious anxious anxious two little anxious because i'm the same
00:21:11.060 way i feel i will just be sitting there and be like someone somewhere is upset with me i've done
00:21:16.040 something wrong to somebody i don't know exactly what but i just have this feeling like something
00:21:20.860 is amiss i'll just sit with this feeling forever and just quietly vibrate with anxiety here for no
00:21:25.800 real reason i saw like a tweet or something recently about like oh yeah i just like constantly
00:21:32.060 think that like i accidentally killed someone and just forgot about it or like something
00:21:37.220 that's how it feels i was like yeah i am the same i feel like there's a lot of us in like
00:21:44.220 the podcasting world um oh it's why you're a podcaster probably yeah yeah so amazon is phasing
00:21:51.020 out these frictionless checkout lines which people like me and joey would never even use in
00:21:55.380 the first place if you've never used those frictionless just walk out checkout lines
00:21:59.580 this is how amazon says they worked customers entered fresh stores using amazon one palm
00:22:05.220 recognition the app or a credit card amazon said that sensors cameras and deep learning tools
00:22:10.600 caught whatever items customers took off the shelf automatically charging them so you can just go
00:22:15.760 into the store pick up a bunch of stuff walk out and then you'll just be charged automatically on
00:22:19.840 your credit card so i remember i don't like it either i just i wouldn't i just would never feel
00:22:26.140 comfortable doing that why are they okay i think again listeners i am somebody who like i don't
00:22:31.540 even use like the facial recognition on my phone to like open my phone like i just don't i'm like
00:22:36.420 that's too many things watching me i don't this is gonna end badly but yeah well speaking of too
00:22:42.980 many things watching you so i remember when amazon first unveiled this technology and they were
00:22:47.700 talking about it like it was this cutting age space age ai technology come to find out it's
00:22:54.500 just humans watching humans shop. Just like in a regular grocery store, only the humans have been
00:23:01.500 moved off site and they just like watch you while you shop and charge you for whatever you pick up
00:23:07.400 and leave with. So as much as Amazon wanted to pretend like this was like space age, deep learning
00:23:12.400 tech, it's just humans, just like a regular store. According to a new report from The Information,
00:23:17.720 about 700 of every 1,000 just walkout sales had to be reviewed by Amazon's team in India
00:23:23.380 in 2022. Internally, Amazon wanted just 50 out of 1,000 sales to get a manual check.
00:23:29.680 So Amazon is kind of like vaguely disputing this. It's like they still want this technology that
00:23:35.160 they have obviously realized is a flop to be considered like cutting edge and effective,
00:23:40.300 even as they back away from its use. They're being a little bit cagey that the role that
00:23:44.320 human workers in India played in their just walkout system. The information says very clearly
00:23:50.020 that it was about a thousand workers in India who were watching people shop. But Amazon is
00:23:54.960 disputing that kind of vaguely, basically saying that the human workers were part of it, but they
00:23:59.600 were just sort of supporting the technology to do the work of checking people out. I don't really
00:24:04.720 believe what Amazon is saying. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed that it uses human
00:24:09.800 moderators, but declined to say how many people it employs in these roles, according to the
00:24:14.280 information. And I guess I say all of this to say that it does to me show how these technologies and
00:24:21.240 these use cases for things like AI and deep learning and all of that, a lot of it is just
00:24:25.960 ends up being smoke and mirrors that rely on humans, potentially humans who are like probably
00:24:31.560 not very well paid at that, to solve a problem that was never really a problem to begin with,
00:24:37.560 Right. Like it is like exploitation dressed up as tech innovation to me.
00:24:43.900 Right. It's just this is like the latest symptom of us just living in this weird tech dystopia where rather than using technology to make things easier for us, we're just going to like, I feel like the, you know, the powers that be that figure out these kind of whatever, like the people in the corporate systems that make the decisions to have these things happen.
00:25:05.460 they like are so obsessed with this like aesthetic of having us in this like Star Trek future where
00:25:11.740 everything is so automated and like whatever but like nobody wants to think about what the
00:25:16.880 root of those things are supposed to be which is just like helping us make our lives easier
00:25:21.080 and instead we get this and wow I don't know I it is so it's it's crazy how so many AI related
00:25:29.600 stories lately too I feel like the kind of the twist at the end is like oh it's still human
00:25:34.660 beings having to do most of the work or the labor or whatever it's you know I hope this is the end
00:25:40.700 of self-checkout okay wait this is the other thing though too because like the whole thing with
00:25:46.360 work or even even if you're going at like a grocery store doing self-checkout like if you
00:25:50.780 get anything with alcohol in it you need to like have somebody come over and like make sure you're
00:25:55.580 able to buy that there's certain things that like I always end up having some issue where they're
00:25:59.960 like no you accidentally pick something up and put it back down and now we're counting it as two
00:26:05.520 different things because it weighed different the second time like I don't like these things don't
00:26:10.840 work to begin with well I guess that's my thing is that I want to get to a place where when we
00:26:17.220 are being sold some sort of AI technology or tool that we're being told is going to make our lives
00:26:24.000 easier or more convenient or happier that we really do a little more work at looking behind
00:26:29.040 the curtain of how we are being told that it's going to work. And I would be willing to bet that
00:26:34.040 somewhere down the line are exploited humans. We get so many AI-related pitches for people to come
00:26:40.860 on the podcast and talk about their AI innovation. And so many of them, I'm like, I don't know about
00:26:46.000 this. Some of them are so scammy. And so, yeah, I want us to stop eating this up. When Amazon
00:26:52.500 says they're going to be unveiling some cool futuristic AI thing, really being willing to
00:26:58.640 look under the hood and really see how cool or how convenient or how good this thing is actually
00:27:02.660 going to be and not just like letting them sell it to us the way that they think it should be sold
00:27:07.700 yeah I definitely would recommend I think like looking at AI and like how AI is being used right
00:27:15.400 now as a labor issue and looking at how human labor plays into the whole kind of system of
00:27:22.440 whatever technology you know we're talking about at a given time I think that kind of really like
00:27:27.060 changes like changes the game and changes how you see the like effectiveness of this kind of
00:27:32.560 technology because again this is just another case of like it's not really saving time or money or
00:27:37.220 energy or anything it's just you know adding more surveillance measures and then needing the same
00:27:43.180 work exactly and it's funny that you say this because actually just today a bunch of artists
00:27:48.380 like 200 high-profile musicians including Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, REM, Nicki Minaj all
00:27:53.940 signed this letter basically saying exactly that, this letter issued by the Artists' Rights
00:27:58.480 Alliance, an advocacy group, which makes the demand that technology companies pledge to not
00:28:02.780 develop AI tools that replace human songwriters and artists. And so I think like you're exactly
00:28:09.260 right. When you think about this as a labor issue or an exploitation issue, it becomes really clear
00:28:14.300 tech companies and tech billionaires shouldn't be able to get richer from the exploitation of
00:28:19.400 humans and have us all applaud it and call it visionary. Speaking of tech being used to make
00:28:24.480 all of our lives just a little bit more miserable, have you ever had this experience where you're,
00:28:31.340 I mean, I guess we work together, so maybe you don't want to say. Maybe the email is coming from
00:28:35.000 me, and you're like, oh, I don't want to say that Bridget actually is the person who sends me these 0.96
00:28:38.940 annoying emails. But you know that feeling when you are trying to relax, it's after hours, and you get
00:28:43.280 like a Slack or a work email in the evening, and you feel like pressure to reply, even though it's
00:28:48.640 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m.?
00:28:50.600 Exactly, when it's almost 9 p.m.
00:28:52.740 on a Thursday night.
00:28:54.740 What are you trying to say, Joey?
00:28:57.420 For listeners, we are
00:28:58.660 recording at almost 9 p.m.
00:29:01.000 Joey's time.
00:29:03.220 Yes, I am not
00:29:04.740 in Mexico. 1.00
00:29:06.400 I don't have to deal with the mariachi 1.00
00:29:08.340 behind me. Fortunately, 0.99
00:29:10.900 I get to sit in quiet in my
00:29:12.660 Brooklyn apartment.
00:29:14.580 But no, yes,
00:29:16.840 I do
00:29:18.380 know this this feeling uh never from you of course but you know okay i will say i've had
00:29:25.520 to deal with this a couple of times uh in my in my professional career thank you for saying never
00:29:30.240 from me even though i suspect that's not 100 true well maybe we should move to california because
00:29:35.720 california is following places like spain and france by introducing ab 2751 which is being
00:29:42.220 called the right to disconnect proposition. Basically, it's in very early stages, but if it
00:29:48.180 were passed, it would require every California employer to lay out exactly what a person's hours
00:29:54.400 are and make sure that they are not required to respond to work-related communications outside of
00:30:00.140 those hours while they're off the clock. So time periods in which a salaried employee might have
00:30:05.300 to work longer hours would need to be explicitly laid out in their contract. There are exceptions
00:30:11.340 for like actual work emergencies.
00:30:13.860 So in case you're wondering how this would all be enforced,
00:30:16.220 well, this is from Engadget, who writes,
00:30:18.260 the Department of Labor would monitor adherence
00:30:20.220 and fine companies a minimum of $100 for wrongdoing,
00:30:24.260 whether that's forcing employees to be on Zoom, 0.57
00:30:26.300 their inbox, answering texts, or monitoring slacks 0.96
00:30:28.560 when they are not getting paid to do so. 0.98
00:30:31.100 I do think it's fitting that California,
00:30:33.220 which has created many of these technologies,
00:30:34.980 is also the state that introduces how we make it sustainable
00:30:37.840 and update our protections for the times we live in
00:30:40.260 and the world that we've created.
00:30:41.340 That is from California State Assemblyman Matt Haley, who introduced this legislation.
00:30:46.360 So as somebody who has been in that same position sometimes, or you have somebody who will not stop messaging you outside of work hours and just expects you to be online all the time, often unpaid, I actually like this.
00:30:59.300 What do you think of this legislation?
00:31:00.660 No, I agree.
00:31:01.480 I think this is really great.
00:31:03.020 I think especially, you know, in our current world where like a lot of people, myself included, and like YouTube, Bridget, like we all kind of work remotely.
00:31:13.280 So sometimes hours aren't as set in stone.
00:31:16.320 There aren't like, you know, people have been talking about this since the kind of beginning of the pandemic.
00:31:20.220 But like the sort of blurring the lines between our work life and our home life has also led to kind of a blurring of like, what is your work time?
00:31:30.140 What is your time that you're supposed to be doing your job?
00:31:32.200 more as you're just like kind of normal everyday life um so yeah i definitely think this is super
00:31:37.740 great and uh good on california for doing this hope it kind of spreads across the rest of the
00:31:45.220 of the country i mean i think i personally i am very invested in this issue in particular and
00:31:50.960 and uh i think it's super important uh i'm you know here at iheart i'm a part of our podcast
00:31:57.720 producers union and you know one of the issues we were working on is making sure that we have
00:32:03.880 some sort of like limitations you know boundaries in place so that people are working within you
00:32:09.300 know the normal workday hours and there's you compensation when people are expected to work
00:32:13.560 outside that because that does of course happen in in the podcast industry and a lot of other
00:32:17.340 industries specifically in media production but yeah i mean a theme of this episode so far has
00:32:25.020 been you know making sure that people are compensated and and and respected for their
00:32:30.700 own you know the labor that they're providing and i think this is another example of like
00:32:34.380 just making sure that uh as kind of the nature of work changes those expectations are also like
00:32:42.880 changing with that yes a hundred times yes absolutely um there's a really good episode
00:32:49.020 of the podcast you're wrong about with ann helen peterson the episode is called how email took
00:32:54.400 over the world. And I should say, I mean, this is a peek into my own psyche, but I have a really
00:33:01.860 hard time with professional communication. I hate email. My inbox is very difficult for me to keep
00:33:08.820 up with. It's something that brings me quite a bit of anxiety. And I could spend an hour not even
00:33:19.340 replying to an email, just stressing about it for no reason. If I allowed myself, I would spend
00:33:24.820 hours and hours and hours a day just thinking about my email inbox. And so that episode of
00:33:30.820 You're Wrong About really was the first time that I realized like, oh, work didn't always used to be
00:33:36.140 like this. There were actually very deliberate changes made in technology, particularly around
00:33:41.960 technology like Gmail, that led us all to be like, oh, well, you need to be answering your email
00:33:47.760 as soon as it comes in, no matter what time it is.
00:33:50.640 Like, there was a time where that was not the case.
00:33:52.880 If you're an older listener who was in the workforce
00:33:55.280 before all of these tech tools were ubiquitous,
00:33:57.880 you probably enjoyed a very different early work life
00:34:01.780 than somebody from my generation
00:34:03.540 who pretty much always had that expectation.
00:34:07.320 And it was the first time that I was like,
00:34:08.960 wait, maybe this is not actually how we are supposed to work.
00:34:13.380 Maybe the idea that I need to stop everything
00:34:16.700 no matter what I'm doing,
00:34:17.600 whether I'm on the clock or off, and respond to somebody's email or Slack or ping that I didn't
00:34:22.680 ask for, frankly, maybe that actually isn't the best way to get work done. So I definitely
00:34:27.020 recommend that episode. And I think this is good. I think this legislation really does get us closer
00:34:32.300 to the realities of what work looks like in 2024 and the labor protections and carve-outs that need
00:34:39.140 to be considered for working people in 2024. I will say one thing about this legislation that
00:34:44.820 concerns me is that they say they have a carve out for emergencies. I have worked a lot of
00:34:50.600 different places. And I can tell you that a lot of different people have different understandings
00:34:54.940 of what is or is not an emergency. And so I think that cannot be left up to workplaces or employers,
00:35:01.460 because I have definitely worked places where, you know, you've got that one person who like,
00:35:06.360 oh, everything is an emergency. And I'm like, baby, we work in marketing. Like, what are you
00:35:10.100 talking about? I'm not an air traffic controller. I'm a podcaster. What is this emergency? Like,
00:35:14.180 How big of an emergency could it be?
00:35:16.320 Exactly.
00:35:16.960 Like, nobody's going to die if the episode comes out an hour later.
00:35:23.040 Yes.
00:35:23.720 Because I hope not.
00:35:24.840 I'm truly sorry if anybody's life has been severely affected by the fact that it took me a little bit longer to edit than normal.
00:35:35.240 You don't know what's riding on this, Joey.
00:35:37.780 People's lives are on the line.
00:35:45.060 More after a quick break.
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00:36:36.720 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:36:43.040 This 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.
00:36:55.500 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
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00:37:41.820 Let's get right back into it.
00:37:44.960 Okay, so this is really interesting.
00:37:47.320 Are you on Twitch at all?
00:37:49.620 I'm not on Twitch, no.
00:37:50.700 For listeners who use the live streaming platform Twitch,
00:37:54.560 you might have noticed Twitch getting a little bit, for lack of a better word,
00:37:58.500 pornier.
00:37:59.820 Now a new study published in the Journal of Humanities and Social Science Communications
00:38:04.140 kind of confirms that. Researchers analyzed 2,000 live streams and found a pretty concerning trend
00:38:11.320 that women are more frequently and intensely self-sexualizing than men live streamers on 0.79
00:38:18.140 Twitch, hinting at a broader pattern that they call pornification in digital content to lure
00:38:24.220 audiences. The authors of the study told PsychPost, quote, this topic intrigued us due to the growing
00:38:30.440 popularity of live streaming platforms like Twitch TV and the public concern regarding
00:38:34.820 the sexualized culture that may arise in these environments, we wanted to explore how this
00:38:39.400 culture specifically manifests based on the gender of the streamers.
00:38:42.600 Our study aimed to shed light on the nature and extent of sexualized culture in deeply
00:38:46.660 masculinized environments such as live streaming platforms.
00:38:50.020 We examined how some streamers resort to the pornification of their content to attract
00:38:53.940 audiences and the potential implications for the perception and behavior of users, especially
00:38:58.780 teenagers who have yet to internalize their beliefs about sexuality. So basically, these
00:39:04.320 researchers evaluated live streams based on a combination of factors, including clothing,
00:39:09.120 exposed body parts, the focus of the image, posture, and behaviors that imply sexualization.
00:39:14.220 It sounds like their results were pretty clear. The results showed a clear gender disparity in
00:39:19.360 self-sexualization. While the platform boasted a number of male streamers overall, female streamers
00:39:25.500 were found to engage in self-sexualization to a much greater extent and intensity. Only two male 0.72
00:39:31.480 streamers out of the entire sample were categorized as hypersexual, compared to 389 female streamers.
00:39:38.760 Similarly, only five male streamers out of the entire sample were categorized as sexual,
00:39:43.660 compared to 190 female streamers. So what does this look like? How is it manifesting for these
00:39:49.380 streamers? Well, the researchers found that women streamers were more likely to wear revealing 0.99
00:39:53.340 clothing, focus the camera on their entire bodies as opposed to just their face, exhibit 0.95
00:39:57.960 behaviors or postures considered seductive or sexually explicit. 0.59
00:40:02.540 And in their findings, they underscore a notable difference in content presentation with female 0.74
00:40:07.660 streamers leveraging their physical appearance and sexuality to attract viewership. 0.93
00:40:13.000 In contrast, male streamers typically focus their streams on gaming prowess or conversations
00:40:18.700 or other non-sexualized content,
00:40:21.140 seldom employing their physical appearance
00:40:22.900 as the primary means of engagement.
00:40:25.560 Quote, while men focus their content on talking
00:40:27.960 or playing video games,
00:40:29.320 it was found that the majority of streamers
00:40:30.860 who used less clothing, simulated sexual acts, 0.94
00:40:33.600 or displayed suggestive poses were women.
00:40:37.160 So I don't spend a ton of time on Twitch.
00:40:39.440 I'm there a little bit, but not a lot.
00:40:41.000 But it is something that I guess I would say
00:40:43.400 that I've noticed a bit.
00:40:45.220 And I want to be clear that I think that everybody
00:40:47.620 should be able to decide and be in control of how they show up online and off. I also think that
00:40:53.580 it's worth noting that I think that historically, different kinds of traditionally marginalized
00:40:58.700 people have been sort of labeled sexualized or hypersexual just by showing up, whether they're
00:41:04.740 doing something sexual or not. Like I've heard on Instagram, a lot of people who have bigger bodies
00:41:09.820 are consistently having their content moderated as being sexually explicit, even if it's just like
00:41:15.800 them in a swimsuit, them existing, right? There's something about their body where
00:41:19.660 Instagram moderation has decided like, oh, this is hypersexual or this is sexually explicit.
00:41:25.100 That said, I think we have to be honest that we're in a digital climate where,
00:41:29.460 you know, things are really engagement-based, right? And so like getting eyeballs, getting
00:41:34.600 clicks, getting more subscribers, getting more listeners, getting more viewers, whatever,
00:41:38.620 that can be the difference between succeeding or not and financially succeeding or not, right?
00:41:43.280 And so it makes me wonder if it is really possible for women to be deciding for themselves in a meaningful way how they want to show up on these platforms, right? 0.54
00:41:53.580 Like, if the main way to compete if you are a woman on Twitch is self-sexualization, how much agency can these women streamers really be exercising in that dynamic? 0.76
00:42:05.360 Yeah, I totally agree. 0.70
00:42:07.420 I think also, and like I said, like, I personally, like, I'm not on Twitch a lot.
00:42:11.540 I have some friends that use it more.
00:42:13.180 it's not a big video game person but like I have seen on TikTok and Instagram and like a lot of
00:42:18.240 these other social media apps where the same sort of thing is happening particularly TikTok since
00:42:23.040 it's such a visual app and there are these also like streaming uh like the lives are kind of
00:42:28.840 essentially like lives are essentially the same as like streaming like I I feel like I'm seeing
00:42:34.080 that happen on there too and I'm seeing more of this conversation about I don't know something
00:42:39.880 that i see that i think always sort of concerns me is sometimes there's certain trends or um you
00:42:46.160 know things that they come across as kind of suggestive or like openly explicit and i'll see
00:42:52.820 like teenagers doing those trends and it's rough because and on one hand yeah i do think like
00:42:58.940 people should be allowed to show up online how they want to and i think in a lot of cases like
00:43:04.100 a lot of these people don't even necessarily realize like what if there's like an implication
00:43:08.440 or like yeah or or the really thinking through the whole like this is gonna be online now like
00:43:13.980 I don't know I've put stuff online that I've later regretted because I've been like oh maybe
00:43:18.000 that was it like whatever I don't know but um yeah it's it's definitely I think there is this
00:43:25.180 pressure on particularly young women to yeah to come across a certain way to do things that are
00:43:33.940 like a little bit more like yeah like in that kind of portification category and i wish there
00:43:40.480 was a way to have a conversation about that without demonizing the people who are doing it
00:43:45.520 and also like acknowledging that maybe it's not great for us like as a whole not great for like
00:43:52.120 the people doing it for the people like that are being pressured to act a certain way or dress a
00:43:56.880 certain way or whatever online all the time you really nailed how complex this issue is you know
00:44:02.960 your comments about tiktok remind me a couple months ago about the conversation around women
00:44:08.100 adult women on tiktok who were making non-player content oh my god live stream do you remember
00:44:14.800 that yes that was like through all of these lives and again i think like some of the people a lot of
00:44:21.260 people doing this were like adult women some people i think just because of the nature of
00:44:25.240 tiktok like a lot of teenagers end up getting a lot of followings on them sometimes it's like
00:44:29.180 people that i'm like i don't know if you should be doing that like i think you're going to i don't
00:44:33.720 know like it'll be younger people that'll come out and make certain npc comment content or whatever
00:44:38.600 or whatever sort of like trend it's hidden under it that a lot of times also just happen to be
00:44:44.260 related to like porn stuff or like weird fetish yeah it's always it is the you know the the catch
00:44:51.900 22 of being like a woman or somebody who's seen as a woman on the internet is like anything you
00:44:57.640 do is going to be seen as pornographic too is the other kind of side of it where like you know i feel
00:45:02.700 like you always like i'm always finding out about like oh actually this trend was a fetish thing or
00:45:07.960 this whatever this was a fetish thing whatever and it's like it's it's impossible to exist online
00:45:13.160 but yeah but at the same time there is definitely a pressure to to kind of fall into this this
00:45:20.540 pornification the sexualization or whatever yeah exactly so for folks who don't know what the npc
00:45:26.720 non-player character stuff is basically you had these people, mostly adults, acting like the
00:45:32.660 non-player characters in video games. And so they would be doing these repetitive motions and saying
00:45:38.280 these repetitive things. Like there's one woman who would say like, oh, oh, ice cream, yum, yum, 0.95
00:45:42.920 things like that. People, I think, rightly realize like, oh, this is like fetish content. It's like
00:45:48.520 sexual content. The people who were engaging in this were adults. But as you said, when you are
00:45:53.740 sharing an internet landscape with children, when you have children and young people and adults all
00:45:59.300 in one mixed bag of internet landscape community, you have adults who are consensually engaging in
00:46:05.980 what is kind of fetish content. Consensually, you have that becoming a trend. You have young
00:46:13.040 people who might not realize the implications of what they're doing or might not even recognize it
00:46:18.460 as sexualized or fetish content because a lot of that fetish content on social media is like
00:46:23.740 if I didn't really know, I maybe wouldn't know it's fetish content. And then you have young
00:46:29.420 people sometimes unwittingly engaging in what is fetish content on social media because of the
00:46:37.680 adults who were doing it consensually. And that's not a good dynamic either. And so it is very
00:46:42.040 complicated. But I agree, we need to start by asking the question about how we're all sharing
00:46:46.080 an internet together in a way that is not going to be harmful, in a way that is not going to lead
00:46:49.900 to people, particularly young people, feeling pressured into sexualizing themselves online
00:46:55.100 because, like, that's what they have been told is, like, what they should be doing.
00:46:58.900 And, you know, it is really tough, though.
00:47:00.720 Like, I was having a conversation about this with another podcaster about just how different
00:47:06.680 it is being on video versus being a podcaster, being mostly audio.
00:47:11.800 Like, it's a totally different beast.
00:47:13.660 I hate being on video.
00:47:15.460 I hate video content because showing up, like, visually is so different for me.
00:47:21.600 You know, I'm really comfortable being a disembodied voice in somebody's head or somebody's
00:47:26.180 ears.
00:47:26.660 But when I'm on video, I just find myself thinking, like, am I pretty?
00:47:31.280 Do I look like I'm trying too hard?
00:47:33.200 Am I not trying hard enough?
00:47:34.300 Like, I find it really distracting.
00:47:36.460 I've also found that pretty much, like, no matter what you do, how you show up, somebody's
00:47:41.840 going to find fault with it.
00:47:42.640 so just like do whatever you want because like either either way someone's gonna have a problem
00:47:46.380 with it so who cares yeah um quick call out to whoever on tiktok left a comment on one of my
00:47:51.620 videos one time saying that my voice was annoying i think about that all the time because again
00:47:57.100 i don't have a wonderful voice i talk for a living thank you bridget thank you um i i've
00:48:04.160 had enough people tell me that i i have a a nice voice so i you know but it you know what whoever
00:48:10.480 but i totally get that i think like especially i i am somebody who uses tiktok a lot and uses
00:48:16.280 like social uh visual social media platforms a lot and honestly it is something i think about
00:48:23.080 a lot and i think especially as somebody who like exists in the weird gender gray area of
00:48:28.840 a lot of people see my videos without context and like assume i'm a woman i still right have
00:48:35.960 that kind of attachment with that identity in some way this is disclaimer i have to say every
00:48:41.920 time i talk about gender i'm talking about how i see my own gender obviously this is not the same
00:48:45.600 for like every trans person but um i am constantly thinking about my appearance and how i'm seen and
00:48:51.720 i'm no i know that like certain things that i'll talk about people aren't going to take it as
00:48:55.520 seriously um if i don't look very well put together or or attract like conventionally
00:49:03.320 attractive I think especially because somebody who's like not traditionally feminine that I
00:49:08.240 especially know that but um yeah no it's it's it is stressful I think like again like I I I love
00:49:17.300 TikTok I love making social media like video content like that's just kind of a thing that
00:49:21.820 I do as a hobby but also like I've had to take breaks before just because like the stress of it
00:49:29.560 has like like I've talked to my therapist about this like where it's like I think just showing
00:49:33.640 up online and realizing how many eyes are on you and sometimes seeing just the like the number of
00:49:38.520 people that have seen a certain video or seen a post or whatever and realizing like like you're
00:49:43.220 a public facing person without really being a public figure or whatever and that can be really
00:49:49.360 really stressful um because yeah I mean we all we all like everybody deals with body image issues
00:49:55.740 and whatever. And like, I'm no different. Yeah. And I think that you're so right that basically,
00:50:01.720 if you are someone other than a cisgender man, people on the internet feel very comfortable
00:50:07.880 policing how you look, policing your voice, policing really everything about your physical
00:50:13.440 presentation. And it is exhausting. Like, you just wanted to make a stupid TikTok video. And
00:50:18.740 here you are thinking like, oh, is my voice this way? Is my hair this way? And was my makeup this
00:50:23.100 like it just is a lot and like it's a lot to deal with just to want to have a platform or build a
00:50:28.840 platform or put your thoughts out into the world you know definitely so it sounds like twitch might
00:50:34.600 actually be trying to do something to combat this pornification that these researchers found because
00:50:39.560 in late march twitch actually released a new rule banning quote content that focuses on intimate
00:50:46.260 body parts for a prolonged period of time verge reported that this move is without a doubt a
00:50:52.020 targeted response to a new twitch trend wherein streamers project gameplay onto green screened
00:50:59.220 parts of their body specifically their like breasts or their booty so i checked out one of
00:51:03.300 these streams and literally like it'll be a video game green screen projected onto a close-up of
00:51:09.420 somebody's booty cheeks uh verge reports that this specific trend was popularized by morgue pie 0.99
00:51:15.200 a creator known for pushing the boundaries of twitch's streaming policies she does pretty wild 1.00
00:51:20.040 stuff like she wore a green screen cutout shirt making her head and her chest the only part of 1.00
00:51:26.760 her body that a viewer could see this behavior would now be a bannable offense i don't know
00:51:31.140 maybe this is me being immature but i actually kind of loved this content like it feels like
00:51:35.960 it felt like camp to me which i liked and part of me is like if twitch is already full of horny do's
00:51:41.580 who only want to like objectify you and look at your body you may as well own it and have it be
00:51:46.460 like funny and kind of cheeky you know yeah no that i that sounds really funny actually
00:51:52.720 let's see this is and then that's that's the like double-edged sword of all this is like
00:51:56.840 i don't know i don't feel like the solution should be let's police people's bodies further
00:52:02.640 like this doesn't really seem to i don't know i'm not sure what the right answer is here though but
00:52:07.920 yeah that is that is kind of funny i i feel like there should be like a joke there about you know
00:52:14.220 the whole meme about like gen z can't watch like tv shows there has to be like people make fun of
00:52:19.600 the like tiktoks where like half the screen is a video game and then it's somebody and then it's
00:52:23.680 a clip from a tv show and there people will be like oh like i'm having like we're breaking up
00:52:29.560 but we're gen z and they'll like be holding up a phone that's playing a video game and then be
00:52:34.400 talking over it i i took a very long time to explain a tiktok trend but um i feel like there's
00:52:40.680 joke there about that totally i i love those videos you know so i'm with i'm with you like
00:52:47.700 i don't want to shame anybody and also morgue pie's video content seems hilarious to me so if
00:52:53.320 you are an adult and you want to be self-sexualizing yourself even if you want to be doing that because
00:52:58.420 you're going to get more money or more streams or more clicks or more engagement i say more power
00:53:02.580 to you like i am not someone who thinks that just because somebody is deciding to self-sexualize
00:53:07.240 online, that person can't also have interesting or smart things to say, not at all. I just don't
00:53:12.280 want there to be a dynamic where self-sexualization is the only way to get people to pay attention to
00:53:18.020 what you're saying, especially given how young Twitch's user base is. In 2022, almost half,
00:53:22.880 41% of Twitch's users were age 16 to 24. So it is like a very young user base. So like you,
00:53:29.780 I do think this is an important conversation and like a complicated one, but I think that we got
00:53:35.100 to get to a place where we're having conversations about what true body autonomy looks like online
00:53:41.840 outside of this like outside pressure to generate engagement what that truly looks like in spaces
00:53:48.620 like twitch definitely so before we end i did want to give a little andrew huberman update
00:53:55.440 we did a full a two-part deep dive into dr andrew huberman podcaster neuroscientist i won't say
00:54:03.920 disgraced neuroscientist, but like slightly besmirched neuroscientist, I guess I will say.
00:54:11.080 Thanks to everybody who listened and wrote in. I don't know why this continues to be something I
00:54:17.120 am fixated on. Honestly, we did two parts, two episodes on Huberman. I can honestly do three
00:54:21.940 more. I will not subject you listeners to that unless you're someone who's listening who wants
00:54:26.280 to talk more about it, in which case, let me know, email me. I have a ton more to say.
00:54:29.500 But in case you were wondering, Huberman has not really said anything about that bombshell New York mag piece.
00:54:36.860 However, I did notice that he has continued to post his content as normal.
00:54:42.140 I guess dude is going to be posting through it.
00:54:44.960 I understand.
00:54:45.640 I get it.
00:54:46.500 However, I did notice that he's been sneaking a like on comments on Instagram that say some version of like, just ignore the haters.
00:54:54.360 Who cares what they say?
00:54:55.680 So he's lurking.
00:54:56.980 He's out there.
00:54:57.740 We've seen it, Andrew.
00:54:58.520 We know you're in the comments lurking, getting your little social media dopamine via Instagram comments.
00:55:05.280 I mean, yeah, been there, man.
00:55:09.240 Who among us?
00:55:11.120 Who among us?
00:55:13.420 So we asked for folks who listened to Huberman's podcast or were fans of him in some iteration to write in and let us know what they thought.
00:55:20.460 And we got some very interesting responses.
00:55:22.000 I think this email really summed up nicely the experience of sort of being taken by Huberman's
00:55:27.840 work at first and sort of getting value out of it and then maybe realizing like maybe this isn't
00:55:32.940 on the F and up. This listener writes, I got into Huberman after he was a guest on a skateboarding
00:55:38.100 podcast in 2021. I really identified with having a similar background, getting into trouble as a
00:55:43.280 kid, having a rough family life at home, getting into skating and eventually finding healthy,
00:55:47.220 positive outlets. Cubes was my guy, right? I got a lot out of the deep dive episodes about ADHD,
00:55:53.360 sleep, and alcohol. It played a large part in cutting back excessive drinking I redeveloped
00:55:57.900 mid-pandemic. But I couldn't shake the ick feeling I got as the supplement ads became more prevalent,
00:56:03.400 bleeding into the conversations with his guest. Here he is talking for three hours about peer
00:56:07.580 reviewed research and experts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But his number one sponsor is
00:56:11.720 a supplement company he consults for. While I do take some supplements, I know full well they're an
00:56:16.440 unregulated industry, and whatever the label says is only a suggestion. So that was a whack red flag.
00:56:22.300 I was also noticing he didn't have many women on as guests, weird since the image he pushes is
00:56:26.840 educating people on holistic health while nearly ignoring half of the population. My skepticism
00:56:32.120 spiked when I saw he was on Joe Rogan, and then peaked when I saw he was on Jordan Peterson.
00:56:37.200 I thought Hughes was my guy, but it turns out he was just another manosphere grifter D-bag 0.55
00:56:42.160 who's just climbing the grift ladder i really bought into his whole not like other boys vibe 1.00
00:56:47.780 at first it's satisfying as f to see my suspicions confirmed fuck these grifters forever all the same 0.96
00:56:54.760 always have been and to this person thank you for writing this email i feel like this listener 0.97
00:57:01.000 really said what i was trying to say in two very long-winded podcast episodes in like a paragraph
00:57:06.600 ass yeah no definitely I totally agree with everything they've said um and like I think
00:57:12.620 this gets into like a really big part of it too which was what you were talking about like a lot
00:57:15.840 of people and it sounds like the the listener that wrote in this this email talked about like
00:57:20.900 a lot of us especially during you know the the the heights of the pandemic and lockdown like
00:57:27.000 really got into these sort of content creators um I've watched a lot of like you know I got really
00:57:34.460 into like a lot of little like tarot tiktok and stuff like that like over the like in the middle
00:57:38.560 of lockdown a lot of that too like you know i'm not gonna get into the whole like you know new
00:57:45.620 age alt-right pipeline stuff but you know i think we keep seeing more and more of these people that
00:57:50.100 have like gained these huge followings from things that seem innocent and and like they're trying to
00:57:56.480 help people live like more relaxed fuller healthier lives like we're seeing these people sort of show
00:58:02.600 their true colors now like over the past couple years and it can be really like disappointing
00:58:08.980 especially if like you know like the world is a fucking hard place to deal with and a lot of us 0.95
00:58:17.260 are just kind of looking for whatever help we can and it sucks to see somebody like this take 0.99
00:58:22.540 advantage of the fact that like so many of us are just like there's so much bullshit out there we 1.00
00:58:27.620 have to deal with on a day-to-day basis and yeah it's it's disappointing but yeah fuck these grifters 0.99
00:58:33.400 yes as this listener put it fuck these grifters all the same always has been well joey thank you 0.99
00:58:40.320 so much for helping us make sense of this news as always where can folks keep up with all the cool 0.98
00:58:45.360 non-grift stuff that you are up to i mean uh they're like there might be some grifts in there
00:58:50.920 I don't know no promises um but I I do I do try to avoid grifting when I can uh you can follow me
00:58:59.840 on instagram slash what remains of twitter at pat not pratt that's p-a-t-t-n-o-t-p-r-a-t-t uh
00:59:09.520 I still have yet to make up of the idea of the other twitter replacement things that have come
00:59:15.560 up yet. But TBD, we'll be there soon. But yeah, as always, Bridget, it's been a pleasure.
00:59:22.000 The pleasure is all mine. And thanks to all of you for listening. I will see you on the internet.
00:59:31.280 If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangoti.com
00:59:35.500 slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?
00:59:40.680 You can reach us at hello at tangoti.com. You can also find transcripts for today's
00:59:44.480 episode at tangody.com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.
00:59:49.100 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, edited by Joey Patt. Jonathan Strickland
00:59:54.400 is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our
00:59:59.280 contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on
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