00:02:41.780and have an intense parasocial bond with her.
00:02:44.460um so as you said this is just a terrible story basically um her son trig her three-year-old son
00:02:53.680had a drowning incident and um he passed away a few days later um obviously a terrible tragedy
00:03:02.580i think what really struck me was the intense parasocial reaction to both the possibility
00:03:11.480because there were rumors that this had happened to him and they weren't confirmed for a few days
00:03:17.720and people just kind of like lost their minds. And yeah, I can get into that, but that's what
00:03:23.760happened. Yeah. No, I mean, a tragedy. It's every parent's worst nightmare. And then also news
00:03:34.200that was happening kind of in real time playing out on social media. So the child was unconscious
00:03:44.520when he was pulled from the backyard pool and he died six days later. How was this playing out
00:03:52.100online? What were you seeing? Yeah. So Emily lives in Arizona and on Arizona local news,
00:04:00.280the drowning was reported and the outside the exterior of her house was shown on the news on
00:04:06.840just like local broadcast news people saw that and immediately recognized the house from her
00:04:13.120tiktok content and they were like oh my god this is emily there were like all these rumors and
00:04:18.000the news had said it was a three-year-old boy she has a three-year-old son so it was like pretty
00:04:23.220intense right away. And I think I mean, people are literally like zooming into the news, the piece
00:04:31.620from the news and comparing it to like Zillow screenshots of like her house and like zooming
00:04:37.100into like her old TikTok videos and trying to show like, look, this is the house. And like you
00:04:41.300can tell by this and like, you know, doing like big red circles and zooming in. And like it was
00:04:45.920like so intense. I mean, people were stalking like the Arizona death certificates to see if
00:04:52.220the death certificate had been posted i mean the level of parasociality i don't know if that's a
00:04:59.060word but it was i don't i don't know if parasociality is a word but it is now and you
00:05:04.980just coined it my friend and it should be but like i mean people were losing their minds and
00:05:11.540like they were pointing to the fact that like emily hadn't posted and none of her friends who
00:05:16.460are also big time influencers they hadn't posted and um there were just like they were compiling
00:05:22.560all this evidence that the boy who had drowned was in fact her son and it was so bleak to me
00:05:30.700to for this like parasocial bond to be used to prove the drowning death of a three-year-old
00:05:38.180i mean there's so much to dissect here and one it's not even like there were headlines that said
00:05:46.020influencer's child drowned at this point, right? This was a child had drowned, and then suddenly
00:05:52.700you have an audience who's trying to out the grieving mother, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:01.760It also reminds me in so many ways of what happens when a tragedy strikes a celebrity,
00:06:08.120right i'm getting flashbacks to matthew perry's death when all of a sudden people are stalking
00:06:17.420the coroner's office um and his family but influencers are celebrities now right
00:06:24.080yeah they are and that's kind of um with the story that i wrote for rolling stone i was asking
00:06:30.800professors who study parasocial relationships like were they surprised and they were like we're not
00:06:36.520surprised at all this like influencers become so successful by creating and nurturing these
00:06:43.260parasocial bonds but i think what really surprised me and perhaps i shouldn't have been surprised
00:06:48.160and it seems kind of naive now but it seems like there was no there was still the expectation of
00:06:54.980that parasocial access even in the midst of an unimaginable tragedy like i just could i i just
00:07:02.940couldn't understand how people couldn't just stop making videos about it and stop like stalking all
00:07:07.980these government websites to prove that this terrible thing happened like it was like i don't
00:07:12.700know talk to me a little bit about parasociality your new word and actually before you do that i
00:07:19.720do want to give you some kudos because i don't think we give each other kudos in the world
00:07:23.500enough the reporting you're doing on influencer culture for rolling stone is some of the best
00:07:28.480reporting that's out there right now. And you're doing such a great deep dive into this world that
00:07:34.520I want you to know that you're doing really great work. So thank you. Thank you. So explain
00:07:40.760a parasocial relationship for people that might not have heard the word. What does it mean to
00:07:46.140have a parasocial relationship with an influencer? Yeah. So parasocial relationship is basically a
00:07:51.620one-way relationship where one party the fan is putting in a lot of time and effort and feels
00:07:58.600really close to this person and it used to be with like celebrities and actors but now it is
00:08:04.020with influencers because influencers are celebrities um and it's also with their
00:08:08.740children so people felt this intense parasocial um bond to the boy trig and through his mother's
00:08:17.560content yeah yeah and so followers are piecing together this mystery the news has finally
00:08:26.740officially broke that it was indeed this woman and her son trig what have the comments been like
00:08:35.900i mean are people are people trying to grieve alongside her and has she been blamed in any way
00:08:42.260Because as we know, mothers are typically shamed online when anything happens to their children.
00:08:51.040Right. So to me, the reactions have kind of fallen into like two categories.
00:08:56.000So one is this intense grief for Trigg.
00:08:59.920And I mean, people are posting videos of themselves like sobbing and they're posting like montages that they're creating that they've made from videos that Emily has posted of her son.
00:09:12.260and they're like setting it to like this terribly sad music and it's just like almost like a
00:09:17.140memorial like there's so there's like this memorializing like grief and then a memorial
00:09:22.100for a child that they don't know right right okay yeah um and i don't i don't mean to laugh
00:09:30.880about it but it is well in the same way i gotta say i'm gonna throw this out there
00:09:34.520that when we would when I worked at celebrity magazines celebrity death covers were the top
00:09:42.540selling issues of the year people love or if you think about when someone passes away
00:09:48.300and you just have that onslaught of social media rip posts and grief communal grieving in parasocial
00:09:56.700ways is is definitely not new but I am finding something a little disturbing about posting
00:10:03.900memorial videos of a child you've never met. I think you're right that the level and the
00:10:11.000intensity is what has been really surprising to me. I don't think I've seen anything like this
00:10:17.540before. And I think that also speaks to this idea that we have stronger parasocial relationships
00:10:23.880with mom influencers and with their kids than we do with other influencers, just because it's such
00:10:28.700an intimate space you know like followers watched emily you know they watched her find out she was
00:10:34.640pregnant they watched her birth video they watched her kid grow up so they really do feel like they
00:10:39.880like love him and know him but i mean that's the thing is like that's the lie of the parasocial
00:10:44.520relationship is like it makes us feel like we know these people but we don't know him and he is not
00:10:49.980And it's just, I think it's very strange to watch how this death has become, like it, people think it belongs to them in a way that it truly only belongs to his family.
00:11:03.640right but and i'm just i'm gonna drop the butt bomb here when you're posting so much of your
00:11:12.100child life online then how responsible are you for the fact that people feel this way
00:11:20.440yeah i think i mean i think it makes sense that people feel this way because like you said like
00:11:27.260that's the that's the influencer relationship right is like they are so successful because
00:11:32.560they can make us feel connected to them i think the intensity and the like searching the government
00:11:40.580websites for like death certificates and stuff was really troubling to me all of this is is very
00:11:48.080troubling to me what were some of the other camps of commenters yeah so it was basically there was
00:11:55.020like the grief side and then there was the blame side so um on the blame side you know people are
00:12:02.040again zooming into old videos and trying to prove that the family did or didn't have a certain
00:12:08.220safety mechanism or that they you know they're trying to find old posts about when the boy
00:12:14.440might have started swim lessons or oh god oh god oh joe it's so bleak it's so bleak and it's like
00:12:23.340i it's actually like kind of difficult to talk about because it's so troubling
00:12:28.620um you know there's all these unsubstantiated rumors that people keep repeating about oh well
00:12:35.480they didn't want a pool fence because it wasn't like aesthetically pleasing which is just like
00:12:39.880first of all there's no evidence of that but of course it feeds into the worst things that people
00:12:44.720want to believe about influencers and honestly like i've been quite troubled that like i wrote
00:12:50.060this story and i put it out on tiktok and i put it out on youtube and some of the comments have
00:12:54.500And like, well, basically saying, like, I don't feel bad for her because she like put her kid all over the Internet, whatever.
00:13:02.060And I'm like, that's that's incredibly monstrous to say that, like, just because you don't agree with someone like choosing to be an influencer that they don't that that you can't feel sympathy for this terrible lot.
00:13:16.680It's just like it's actually really been troubling to me.
00:13:19.760It is troubling. And I think about this even personally.
00:13:24.500I mean, because I talk a lot and write a lot about how my kids are feral, right, and how I'm not a type A parent.
00:13:34.020And I fear, I'm like, oh my gosh, if something, God forbid, ever happened to my children, and I don't have millions of followers, but would people be like, well, she did say she's like not the best mom, right?
00:13:45.220Like, would everything I've ever talked about with parenting then be dissected? And essentially, would I be tried in the court of public opinion for every offhand comment I've ever made about how, you know, we don't over-parent my third baby and we feed her scraps from the dinner table?
00:14:04.760I, if you're really asking me that question, my answer is yes.
00:14:08.040Yes, and you're right. You're completely right. It's all terrifying. I want to take a quick break. And when we get back, I want to talk about what impact has this had. I mean, it's a thing that just happened. But is it making some people reconsider what they share about their kids online? Because they don't want to be tried in that court of public opinion.
00:14:38.040Before you knew what a stock was, you traded snacks, cards, turns.
00:14:43.540That instinct to trade didn't disappear.
00:15:04.340I mean, you also write a lot about parenting and you're a relatively new mom. To seeing her audience react like this, does it make you not want to share anything about your child online? And are other parents saying, whoa, OK, like this is making me not want to share anything?
00:15:21.200yeah it definitely makes me feel like like i don't i don't i don't like post about my daughter
00:15:28.440online i don't even really like say her name or like her birthday or i haven't posted her face and
00:15:33.800that is by design and it's i don't know it's just this like very intense like protective feeling
00:15:38.920that i have and this is kind of solidifying that for me that like i don't want her to belong to
00:15:46.400other people and I don't want people to feel that she belongs to them because in his tragic death
00:15:52.400it's very clear how many people feel that this boy belongs to them and it's really troubling to me
00:15:59.720and I've seen other mom influencers say I saw a couple posts on on TikTok that were like is anyone
00:16:07.200else rethinking how much they share of their life what now that they're seeing how Emily Kaiser is
00:16:12.200just being ripped to shreds, like for this obviously terrible accident. And so I actually
00:16:18.560talked to a mom influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok who told me
00:16:23.160that she wants to get off of TikTok because of how intense the parasocial reaction has been.
00:16:28.380And she said, it's just not worth like the money that you can make. It's not worth your piece
00:16:33.240because if something goes wrong in your life, everyone will rip you to shreds.
00:16:37.480yeah i mean and again we've seen this we see it with celebrities we see it more with female
00:16:44.140celebrities than we do with male celebrities and frankly it's often women attacking the other women
00:16:50.380and mothers attacking other mothers are you seeing this i mean i i see mothers attacking other
00:16:57.940mothers online so much more than i see men attacking mothers online i do think there is
00:17:06.120a lot of well if she had done this then this wouldn't have happened and if you know this is
00:17:11.920what I do to make sure that this would never happen to me and I just think like that's so
00:17:16.100like I mean how could you like say something like that when someone's going through the worst
00:17:20.440possible thing that could ever happen to someone and also like this is the thing about the
00:17:25.420parasocial relationship is like people think that they know what happened but like you don't know
00:17:29.880what happened and also you don't need to know what happened it's not your business but it feels like
00:17:34.900your business because you've invested all these years and these views and you know whatever into
00:17:41.260Emily so you feel like she owes you something well exactly and you know that relationship is
00:17:48.740very intimate and influencers do share more and more of their lives in order to create a relationship
00:17:58.120where they can sell you things okay they want you to trust them that is the business model here it's
00:18:03.660just how it works and we we should be really open and honest about that but then you do have to
00:18:10.080consider how much of yourself and how much of your children you're actually selling
00:18:15.300it's i i really think i don't know it's too early to tell but i do think this will be a moment for
00:18:23.480some creators to look around and think i don't know if this if this calculation is still falling
00:19:11.320So it's not even just the fault of some of the commenters, but because this is attention grabbing and Meta and TikTok know that things like this grab attention, they're going to keep pushing it out to people and they're going to stoke that outrage.
00:19:26.720totally it's really interesting because i i didn't follow emily i've never even heard her
00:19:33.260name before okay i didn't even know who she was yeah and it isn't that it's so interesting and
00:19:39.220every time i'm on tiktok now honestly like every third or fourth video is an old video of hers that
00:19:46.780the algorithm is pushing to me and all the comments are just like oh my god if only she
00:19:52.020had known or like oh my god like mourning it's just like this very strange thing but it's like
00:19:57.340the algorithm sees that she's getting so much engagement and they're pushing her content
00:20:02.160yeah and they're going to push the content that's attacking her as well which then just creates this
00:20:07.560vicious cycle of blame and shame which just has no place in the days right after a child dies
00:20:17.480especially when there's no evidence of any wrongdoing on a parent's part. Drowning is
00:20:23.760something that happens. It is a terrible, terrible tragedy. But the police have not released
00:20:32.080official cause of death yet. And trying this woman who is a grieving mother in the court of0.80
00:20:37.920public opinion i mean it just adds insult to injury in the worst possible way yeah it's uh
00:20:47.100i don't know i feel like nothing really usually surprises me anymore in this reporting and this
00:20:52.240i've been i've really been just surprised by the depth of the intense intense reaction that people
00:20:59.640are having well the intense reaction to also be a citizen journalist right to to be like i'm the
00:21:10.020person that's going to crack this code i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna investigate the lock or lack of
00:21:16.060a lock um it almost you wonder if it's giving people a small dose of their own level of celebrity
00:21:25.540as well to insert themselves into this terrible story totally i mean people are gaining followers
00:21:33.040people are making money people are you know making making their own name for themselves off of this
00:21:38.800and um you know it's just it's one of those obviously the entire thing is just like a terrible
00:21:45.680terrible story and then the the way that the algorithm and influencers and viewers have
00:21:53.240perpetuated it is really depressing me in a way that i like can't even understand for tessa is
00:22:00.720this the thing that's gonna finally get us both off the internet probably not because we have to
00:22:04.960sell our books i know i know there's so much work to still be done girl there's so much work to still
00:22:10.180be done but i mean it has made me stop and think and my heart goes out to this family um because
00:22:18.340yeah again we also we see the clickbait all the time online this is how the internet works
00:22:25.040but when it involves a child that's when it gives me gives me so much more pause and makes me step
00:22:32.420back and i thought about this too a lot when we were covering celebrities children you know a lot
00:22:38.160of outlets did ban pictures um of celebrities children from paparazzi for a while while i was
00:22:44.720reporting and then but of course there were then the celebrities who still continue to sell pictures
00:22:50.200of their newborn babies and children uh you know creating this whole kind of web of complicity who
00:22:56.880is benefiting from all of this and it's a thing that we should all constantly be considering but
00:23:03.540maybe not in the days after a child dies no i think it's not it's just not the time and i don't
00:23:11.320know why that isn't more clear has to be sure has any has anyone from her family come out and said
00:23:19.900guys just let us please let us have our piece or and have and her account is still live right
00:23:27.340yeah there haven't been any um public statements or comments from her or her team or her family
00:23:33.940um her instagram comments are turned off but her tiktok comments are on and people are just
00:23:39.220you know doing their thing and it's still going i appreciate you as always
00:23:45.260and hopefully next time we talk it'll be a cheerier subject yeah we can only hope