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Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Almost fourteen years ago, a court deemed pop icon Britney
Speaker 1: Spears unable to take care of herself, placing her in
Speaker 1: a conservatorship that stripped her up control of nearly every
Speaker 1: aspect of her life, including her finances, her ability to
Speaker 1: drive a car, or use an a t M, or
Speaker 1: make decisions about her own body. Last month, a judge
Speaker 1: rule to end that conservatorship that Brittany and her fans
Speaker 1: have long maintained was abusive and traumatic. Brittany spoke up
Speaker 1: against the conservatorship to a judge. Here's what she had
Speaker 1: to say, I truly believe this conservatorship is abusive and
Speaker 1: that we can sit here all day and say, oh,
Speaker 1: conservatorships are here to help people. Britney's released from the
Speaker 1: conservatorship was sparked in part by the Free Brittany movement,
Speaker 1: spearheaded by Britney supervan Megan Radford. The movement began in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine and aimed to draw attention to the
Speaker 1: singer's conservatorship. Largely organized online, the movement was made up
Speaker 1: of fans and advocates from all over the world pushing
Speaker 1: to end what they said was a predatory conservatorship, including
Speaker 1: a change dot org petition for Britney's right to hire
Speaker 1: her own lawyer that got over two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thou signatures. In Brittany's first Instagram post after her conservatorship
Speaker 1: was voided, she wrote, the Free Brittany movement, you guys rock. Honestly,
Speaker 1: my voice was muted and threatened for so long and
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to speak up or say anything. I
Speaker 1: honestly think you guys saved my life in a way.
Speaker 1: But even though Free Brittany was a pretty successful movement
Speaker 1: largely organized online, it hasn't really gotten the same kind
Speaker 1: of attention as other online movements. I sat down with
Speaker 1: Melissa Ryan, friend of the show, online organizing expert and
Speaker 1: CEO and editor of Control all Right to lead a
Speaker 1: popular newsletter dissecting culture, extremism, technology and the Internet. The Melissa,
Speaker 1: you have been covering and following the Free Britney movement
Speaker 1: for a while, and I think that you have been
Speaker 1: covering it with a seriousness that I think it took
Speaker 1: a while for other folks to get to what initially
Speaker 1: attracted you to to this movement, Like, why were you
Speaker 1: following it so seriously? Well? I started, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I was aware of it for a while, and
Speaker 1: I thought of it just sort of like, oh, a
Speaker 1: thing that music fans are doing and is somewhat interesting.
Speaker 1: But the New York Times documentary was really it was
Speaker 1: staggering to me both that this had been going on
Speaker 1: so long that they were able to get folks on,
Speaker 1: so many folks on the record, but also that this
Speaker 1: online movement had been growing and building for some time
Speaker 1: and wasn't necessarily being taken seriously. Um and there was
Speaker 1: you know, they were clearly able to generate a lot
Speaker 1: of press stories. They were getting attention from other celebrities,
Speaker 1: but there just wasn't much sort of conversation among the
Speaker 1: serious people who love to talk about digital and tech things. Um.
Speaker 1: And then when Spears did her first testimony in court,
Speaker 1: a couple of things became obvious. One was her fans
Speaker 1: had clearly you know, this movement and her fans had
Speaker 1: clearly been part of what gave her the courage to
Speaker 1: speak up, uh and to demand to be heard in
Speaker 1: a public forum. But too that the organizing had had worked. Uh,
Speaker 1: that these folks, you know, whatever they were trying to get,
Speaker 1: they had they had scored just a huge win because
Speaker 1: none of this I think would have happened without their
Speaker 1: years and years of of rallying online. Um. And still
Speaker 1: they were sort of treated in the press like, oh,
Speaker 1: these conspiracy theorist fans or these folks that have you know,
Speaker 1: no life, And it was very disconcerting because, uh, this
Speaker 1: was a huge win. I mean, you and I both
Speaker 1: work in politics. You don't get wins like this like
Speaker 1: they got. Absolutely. I mean I really kind of see
Speaker 1: it as one of those classic stories that we cover
Speaker 1: a lot on this show. Or at first, people are
Speaker 1: dismissed as you know, Oh they're crazy, they don't know
Speaker 1: what they're talking about, all of that, and then they're
Speaker 1: kind of proven, right, um. And I feel like the
Speaker 1: Free Britney movement is one of those stories where the
Speaker 1: most vocal folks were dismissed. Why do you think that is? Like,
Speaker 1: why was it so easy to discount these people? I
Speaker 1: think because a lot of her fans were women, and
Speaker 1: I think because a lot of her fans were lgbt
Speaker 1: Q um, and I think there was the perception that
Speaker 1: a lot of them were very young, because we think
Speaker 1: of music fans being young. Although you know Brittany, Brittany
Speaker 1: is forty now where I think she turned forty last week,
Speaker 1: so and stands to reason that her fans are probably
Speaker 1: not as you know. I doubt there are many teenagers
Speaker 1: that are listening to to Britney Spears, except in the
Speaker 1: context of like their parents nine D Station. Maybe I
Speaker 1: could be wrong. I do think there's this perception that
Speaker 1: the people who who are rallying around her and who
Speaker 1: are really intensely interested in her are just teeny boppers online.
Speaker 1: And I think that speaks to how we belittle and
Speaker 1: cast aside people who are marginalized as you know, just
Speaker 1: teenagers online or just a bunch of women collecting online
Speaker 1: as opposed to this movement that really was lifting up
Speaker 1: questions about you know, disability justice, reproductive justice. I see
Speaker 1: this story as hitting so many intersections of the work
Speaker 1: that you and I do as progressive organizers, you know,
Speaker 1: lifting up you know, if somebody like Britney Spears can
Speaker 1: be mistreated in this way, what does that say for
Speaker 1: other people who might have disabilities? What is it say
Speaker 1: for other folks who want body autonomy and control over
Speaker 1: the reproductive choices? Um? You know that that the second
Speaker 1: New York Times documentary that came out about Britney Spears, Um,
Speaker 1: for me, was a real tech story about the surveillance
Speaker 1: apparatus that controlled her in her home. You know, I
Speaker 1: think it's really fascinating how it took kind of a
Speaker 1: while for folks to get on board with talking about
Speaker 1: this story, um in a way that really highlighted those
Speaker 1: important issues. Yeah. I think it would be interesting to
Speaker 1: dig into how folks who participated in this at various levels,
Speaker 1: how her story resonated with them, whether it was the
Speaker 1: conservative ship angle, whether it was the reproductive freedom angle,
Speaker 1: whether it was the way that women so often get dismissed,
Speaker 1: or there's when women get so much, you know, access
Speaker 1: to capital and power, they're almost always efforts to try
Speaker 1: to take it away from them. Because I am guessing
Speaker 1: for a lot of folks, it's not just that they
Speaker 1: like Britney Spears music, but they saw something over they
Speaker 1: related to something that was happening. In twenty nineteen, Britney's Graham,
Speaker 1: a podcast dedicated to deep dives and close readings into
Speaker 1: Britney Spears instagram posts, received a voicemail from a pair
Speaker 1: legal who said he was connected to Britney's Conservatorship. According
Speaker 1: to him, Britney was forced into a mental health facility
Speaker 1: against her will. This created a firestorm of new support
Speaker 1: for ending the conservatorship. These you know, women who had
Speaker 1: started this podcast devoted to to Britney's Instagram, which I
Speaker 1: totally get. I now follow Britney's Instagram and I love
Speaker 1: that it's like a combination of her dancing and middle
Speaker 1: aged mom memes. I I don't know, I just I
Speaker 1: spend so much time on Britney's Instagram. Now it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Just if we're gonna have that little tangent like I
Speaker 1: wish I had known about it years ago. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know, and that they were you know, because they
Speaker 1: had this podcast. You know, someone trusted them enough to
Speaker 1: to leave them this voice meal saying you know, I
Speaker 1: used to work for this law firm and something that's
Speaker 1: happening to her isn't right. Um. And just that they
Speaker 1: were able to build that much trust with people who
Speaker 1: were in her orbit just by you know, being fans
Speaker 1: and the content they were creating. It's fascinating to me,
Speaker 1: it really is. And I'm I've been following her on
Speaker 1: Instagram for a while and I love it. I love
Speaker 1: her spinning dance moves, love it. And even after the
Speaker 1: conservatorship has been lifted, just she's using her Instagram to
Speaker 1: document these little things that I take for granted, like
Speaker 1: that she made a post about getting to have an
Speaker 1: iPad and how that how free that made her feel.
Speaker 1: And I think I think it does an interesting job
Speaker 1: of illustrating what, you know, what the abuse of people
Speaker 1: who have disabilities can look like, where it's like the
Speaker 1: little things that she didn't get to have access to,
Speaker 1: didn't get to just be able to be on her iPad.
Speaker 1: And I think you can really put a a face
Speaker 1: or an image on these issues or withdraw cash from
Speaker 1: an a t M. That was one of them where
Speaker 1: she talked about being able to get from an A
Speaker 1: t M. And it's just sort of you're so happy
Speaker 1: that she has that now, but it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: thirteen years of not being able to live as an
Speaker 1: adult while you were earning the money to pay all
Speaker 1: of your captors. Let's hit quick break out her. Back
Speaker 1: in the final days of Britney Spears's conservatorship, something strange
Speaker 1: started to happen. Extremist right wing lawmakers like Florida Congressional
Speaker 1: Representative Matt gets started speaking out on her behalf. Matt
Speaker 1: gets Pull, in the middle of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation,
Speaker 1: spoke at an in person Free Brittany rally. I really
Speaker 1: didn't understand what was happening, but Melissa says, extremists co
Speaker 1: opting cultural moments for their own agendas is nothing new.
Speaker 1: One of the things that you really did a nice
Speaker 1: job of pointing out is this weird thing that happened
Speaker 1: where at the height of the Free Britney movement, when
Speaker 1: there was all this momentum, we saw all of these
Speaker 1: right wing far right extremists and trolls. I guess I
Speaker 1: would say co opting it. There was this time where
Speaker 1: Matt gets was speaking at a Free Brittany rally and rally,
Speaker 1: what do you like, what do you think was going
Speaker 1: on with that? Like? What was happening? That was something
Speaker 1: I were seeing that in my new speed and being
Speaker 1: like my brain can't even comprehend what this is. I
Speaker 1: need to just move on, Like what what was that?
Speaker 1: I mean? I think I tend to think of Matt
Speaker 1: Gates as a professional troll and sometime as congressman, Like
Speaker 1: once in a while he shows up to work at Congress,
Speaker 1: but most of the time he seems to be like
Speaker 1: where can I get the most attention for myself? Which
Speaker 1: is why he like goes to Wyoming to campaign against
Speaker 1: wiz Cheney and uh, you know, the Free Brittany rally.
Speaker 1: And so I think he just saw a moment and
Speaker 1: was like, how can I exploit it to get attention
Speaker 1: for myself? Um? And I think more broadly, that's sort
Speaker 1: of what the far right does. They don't really build culture.
Speaker 1: They steal culture. Um. You know. It's like you see
Speaker 1: they try to appropriate everything from Peppe the Frog from
Speaker 1: you see them with Karen and with free Brittany, they
Speaker 1: saw an opportunity. Um. And one of the most amusing
Speaker 1: things to me was when her her lawyer, Um, we
Speaker 1: should definitely talk about the lawyer too, because that guy
Speaker 1: just looks like Atticus Finch, Like they just pulled him
Speaker 1: out of Central Casting. But when her lawyer was talking
Speaker 1: after the conservatorship ended, and he very specifically said, everyone
Speaker 1: from the far right to the left is supporting Brittany now.
Speaker 1: And I do appreciate how her lawyer like took advantage
Speaker 1: of the fact that, you know, everybody and their mother
Speaker 1: was sort of glomming onto his client. Yeah. Do you
Speaker 1: do you think that we're gonna see more of that
Speaker 1: kind of thing? Like? Is that? Is that a common
Speaker 1: tactic of extremists just whatever conversation is happening. How can
Speaker 1: I jump into that conversation and co opted for my own,
Speaker 1: you know, my own fucked up agenda. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you see it a lot. And again, like they're these folks,
Speaker 1: especially ones who are elected too. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm especially obsessed with like these extremists who have managed
Speaker 1: to get themselves elected to office. They don't really have
Speaker 1: any interest in serving their constituencies. They really are like
Speaker 1: constantly auditioning for Fox News for Trump to try to
Speaker 1: create viral moments for themselves. So, you know, I think
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green was another one who all of a
Speaker 1: sudden cared about free Brittany. Um. There was a congressman
Speaker 1: in South Carolina who did um a free Brittney bill
Speaker 1: about reproductive about not being able to force someone to
Speaker 1: have birth control, probably not realizing that, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, dude, you're so close so clothes,
Speaker 1: you have no idea. Um, But yeah, I mean you're
Speaker 1: gonna see a lot of that with pop culture molds,
Speaker 1: and we've been seeing it. I mean, how many movies
Speaker 1: that star women and people of color have the right
Speaker 1: freaked out about? Um? You know you see that with
Speaker 1: with so much culture, and again, like they're they're too
Speaker 1: lazy and too not creative to create their own cultures,
Speaker 1: so when it comes to culture, like they're always going
Speaker 1: to try to steal it. Yeah. That's something I've really
Speaker 1: been stuck on, is the way that pop culture and
Speaker 1: things that we used to think of as like you know, diversions,
Speaker 1: how that is kind of become a new battle because
Speaker 1: I won't say new battlefield, but just another battlefield to
Speaker 1: have these wars play out on and then to have
Speaker 1: people try to make a name for themselves. Like I
Speaker 1: think about the whole controversy around the movie Cuties, things
Speaker 1: like that, where we're no longer having conversations about the film,
Speaker 1: the art, whatever. It's just a proxy for people to
Speaker 1: co opt this conversation and to make sure that the
Speaker 1: only chatter around it is in bad. I think there's
Speaker 1: such an anger on the right because culturally, you know,
Speaker 1: politically and in terms of raw political power, they are winning.
Speaker 1: They're winning big time. I don't think there would be
Speaker 1: any debate there. But in terms of pop culture they're losing,
Speaker 1: I think, worse than they've ever lost. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you look at uh, you know, all of these entertainment conglomerates,
Speaker 1: they're working hard to have more diverse voices. You're seeing
Speaker 1: more writers of color, more casts of color. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not where we need to be, but it's certainly
Speaker 1: better than you know, when you and I were young people,
Speaker 1: and they're just not able to create the same sort
Speaker 1: of pop culture moments the way that they have been
Speaker 1: with like if you think back to like the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl with jannat Jackson, if you think the things that
Speaker 1: the Parent Television Council would get upset about, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just very hard to get folks to care. And
Speaker 1: corporate America has figured out, for better or worse, there's
Speaker 1: good and bad to this, but they have figured out
Speaker 1: that more diversity and more inclusion makes them more money
Speaker 1: because they're reaching more audiences. So the right is just
Speaker 1: not going to have that mass media power that they
Speaker 1: have been used to having, and they don't have the
Speaker 1: ability to influence conversation through mass media the way they
Speaker 1: have in the past. That's such an interesting point. I
Speaker 1: could see a lot of folks on the right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that the that the understandable reaction to that is rage, Like, like,
Speaker 1: I don't have the influence in this space I used to,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to rail against it or co opted
Speaker 1: if I can. It's it's all so disingenuous, and it's like,
Speaker 1: as you said, it's not it's not creating culture. It's
Speaker 1: not it's not creating culture to co opt another movement.
Speaker 1: It's not creating culture to you know, turn a piece
Speaker 1: of film or a piece of art or a television
Speaker 1: show into a proxy war for your you know, rage
Speaker 1: to play out in It's it's in the absence of
Speaker 1: creating culture. I feel this is all they have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of sad when you put it that way. It
Speaker 1: is sad, and I actually don't think we recognize enough
Speaker 1: just how badly the right is losing the culture war.
Speaker 1: And again it's because they have so much power politically.
Speaker 1: But it's an interesting disconnect and it'll be interesting to
Speaker 1: see how it plays out. Yeah. So, I guess one
Speaker 1: of my last questions for you is, as an online
Speaker 1: organizer and somebody who cares about the Internet, are there
Speaker 1: takeaways that you see that we can glean from this?
Speaker 1: You know? Pretty I would say successful Free Brittany online
Speaker 1: organizing moment. Yeah. I mean, I think you can't underestimate
Speaker 1: the power of Internet movements to create not just political
Speaker 1: but cultural change. UM. I think, Yeah, what we've we
Speaker 1: talked about how we're going to continue to see the
Speaker 1: right like try and fail to co opt things like this. Um.
Speaker 1: But mostly I just hope that I want to see
Speaker 1: what these folks who are involved in Free Brittany do next.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of talk when I've seen quotes
Speaker 1: in the press of we're going to get more involved
Speaker 1: in getting the conservatorship law changed and reproductive rights. So
Speaker 1: it'll it'll be interesting to see what the hard core
Speaker 1: folks do around it, UM. And then I'm also I'm
Speaker 1: kind of interested to you know, Britney spears as someone
Speaker 1: who has had a career of not being political, like
Speaker 1: I think you know, she's from a red state. She
Speaker 1: uh is very careful I think, and how always and
Speaker 1: how she talks about politics and and and issues like,
Speaker 1: I think she's been very smart about that in her career.
Speaker 1: So it'll be interesting to see what she ends up
Speaker 1: doing if she wants to be UM an advocate for
Speaker 1: disability rights or for women's right. She may not want to,
Speaker 1: and by the way, she has every right to just
Speaker 1: live her life and not be the leader of a movement,
Speaker 1: but if she wants to do more with it, she
Speaker 1: clearly has a community that's ready to engage with her,
Speaker 1: so that'll be interesting as well. Yeah, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: really interesting to see. And I'm with you. I think
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people that if there's one thing
Speaker 1: I believe in, it is the power of women and
Speaker 1: LGBTQ folks and people of color who are fired up
Speaker 1: and have access to the Internet and social media, like
Speaker 1: big things are possible. Things. I never there's so many
Speaker 1: things in a million years I would have never thought
Speaker 1: I would see. But because somebody had the Internet, they
Speaker 1: were able to make it happen. If somebody had the
Speaker 1: Internet and a voice. And I think this is a
Speaker 1: great example full of the power of that. And you know,
Speaker 1: especially now when we're all kind of living our lives
Speaker 1: online more and more because of COVID, I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be an exciting time to see how that bears out. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: where can folks keep up with all the amazing work
Speaker 1: that you're doing. Melissa's sure well, I am on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Melissa Ryan. Um. I also have uh my newsletter
Speaker 1: control all Right Delete, which is free and comes out
Speaker 1: every Sunday. You can either find that in my Twitter
Speaker 1: bio or you can go to control all Right Delete
Speaker 1: dot com. Control Alright Delete is the most I mean,
Speaker 1: I get so many newsletters, it's like the most useful newsletter.
Speaker 1: It's like, if I want to know what's happening on
Speaker 1: the Internet, and like what I should know, it's the
Speaker 1: most useful newsletter, so folks should definitely sign up. I
Speaker 1: mean so much, especially coming from you. That's awesome. Got
Speaker 1: a story about an interesting thing in tech? I just
Speaker 1: want to say hi. You can be just at Hello
Speaker 1: at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts today's
Speaker 1: episode at godi dot com. There Are No Girls on
Speaker 1: the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as
Speaker 1: our executive producer, Terry Harrison as our producer, and sound engineer.
Speaker 1: Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
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