Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Ungoss Creative, I'm Bridge Todd and this
Speaker 1: is there are No Girls on the Internet. So, Mike,
Speaker 1: when we were talking about what I wanted to do
Speaker 1: for the episode this week, I was thinking like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think I want to talk about.
Speaker 2: The presidential debate.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch it live to see if anything comes
Speaker 1: up from.
Speaker 2: It, and you actually early on were like, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know if that's what you're gonna want to talk about.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's what listeners are going to
Speaker 1: want to hear about.
Speaker 2: I don't know if the if the mood.
Speaker 1: Is going to want to hear more commentary on that.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was like, oh, I wonder why
Speaker 1: this is his position. Now I'm realizing you were one
Speaker 1: hundred percent correct.
Speaker 3: Okay, well I'll take it. Yeah. I mean, by all
Speaker 3: means we can talk about the presidential debate, but I
Speaker 3: don't know. There's just so much coverage of it and
Speaker 3: so many people sharing their opinions about it. You know,
Speaker 3: your opinions are good and you have great takes on it,
Speaker 3: but I don't know. It seems like listeners can find
Speaker 3: that anywhere they you know, if it doesn't really have
Speaker 3: a whole lot of immediate tanguity relevance, maybe we could
Speaker 3: talk about something else to give people some options of
Speaker 3: something else to listen to.
Speaker 1: So I am very much avoiding presidential debate coverage. Instead,
Speaker 1: let's talk about something totally unrelated to take my and
Speaker 1: possibly you person listening your mind off of it.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about other people's mess.
Speaker 1: So we have talked on the podcast before about this
Speaker 1: dynamic where it feels like in our current digital media climate,
Speaker 1: surveillance is everywhere. Yes, I'm definitely talking about big tech
Speaker 1: surveillance of what we're all doing online, all of our data,
Speaker 1: but also individuals keeping tabs on the behavior of others,
Speaker 1: whether or not they want to or consent to being
Speaker 1: surveilled in that way. I think social media invites us
Speaker 1: to build a world off of the behavior of strangers
Speaker 1: to suit our needs.
Speaker 2: All it takes is one little glimpse, one little peak.
Speaker 1: Into the lives of a stranger, and suddenly everybody is
Speaker 1: building a world around what kind of person they think
Speaker 1: this person is, you know, casting characters, becoming very personally
Speaker 1: involved or invested, tracking down information, smoothing information about them,
Speaker 1: and I think that we have a climate that is
Speaker 1: brought to us by social media where people forget that
Speaker 1: people are people who deserve privacy, Like just because you
Speaker 1: said one little thing that happened to go viral, or
Speaker 1: just because somebody maybe happened to see you possibly maybe
Speaker 1: cheating on your wife on a plane. Now millions of
Speaker 1: people are involved in your business and your marriage. We've
Speaker 1: kind of talked about this on the show before, but
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of new instances that have come
Speaker 1: up lately that I think really speak to what I'm describing.
Speaker 1: I want to talk them and talk through what they
Speaker 1: might say about our culture. Quick heads up that all
Speaker 1: of these instances are kind of sexual in nature, So
Speaker 1: if you're listening with your kids in the car or something,
Speaker 1: just know that it's not an explicit episode, but we
Speaker 1: are talking about sexual topics a little bit. So one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I'm excited to talk to you
Speaker 1: about this, Mike, is because I have a pretty good
Speaker 1: sense of your algorithms and like what kind of things
Speaker 1: come up on your personal feed and what pockets of
Speaker 1: the Internet you're in, and what pockets are the Internet.
Speaker 1: I'm a thousand percent sure you have no idea. So
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you, have you ever heard of this?
Speaker 1: Next person, I already know the answer is no, and
Speaker 1: I'm excited that the answer is no. But I'll just
Speaker 1: ask you anyway, even though I know when I say
Speaker 1: the phrase hawk to you girl, does that mean anything
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 3: Uh? It does not. It looks like perhaps it's Hawaiian.
Speaker 3: It means nothing to me.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So the young woman that the Internet has dubbed hawk
Speaker 1: Girl is Haley Welsh. She's a young woman living in
Speaker 1: Tennessee and she's walking around one night and she gets
Speaker 1: stopped for one of those like man on the street interviews,
Speaker 1: you know where a guy with a camera and a
Speaker 1: microphone is like putting a phone in your face.
Speaker 2: Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure makes free great content.
Speaker 1: By the way, if anyone ever approaches you with a
Speaker 1: microphone and a camera on the street in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: my advice is to run. My advice is to give
Speaker 1: them the Tanya Harding no comment. I'll get into why
Speaker 1: exactly that is, but my advice is to not engage.
Speaker 2: So it is for a.
Speaker 1: Nashville street show called Tim and d TV. It's an
Speaker 1: interview series where these two guys Tim and d interview
Speaker 1: like drunk people leaving bars and nightclubs on the street
Speaker 1: in Nashville and they ask them for like wild and
Speaker 1: crazy stories. So they ask this young woman, Haley for
Speaker 1: a sex tip to make men go crazy in bed,
Speaker 1: and her tip is more or less that you can
Speaker 1: use spit as lubricant during oral sex. Solid advice. Ten
Speaker 1: out of ten love that advice. However, when Haley is
Speaker 1: sort of delivering this tip, she puts her own kind
Speaker 1: of enthusiastic spin on it. She says, you gotta give
Speaker 1: them that quak tah' I'm not like giving it the
Speaker 1: gravi toss that she gives it because it would involve
Speaker 1: making like deep throat noises. And I think that's if
Speaker 1: someone's listening to headphones, that's like the grossest thing you
Speaker 1: can hear, not in like a sex shame you way,
Speaker 1: but in a it does it sound good in the
Speaker 1: ears kind of way when you're wearing headphones, So it
Speaker 1: needs to be seen to be understood if you haven't
Speaker 1: seen it. But she's essentially giving an enthusiastic portrayal of
Speaker 1: what it sounds and looks like to hawk up spit
Speaker 1: from one's throat.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: You've described it accurately so that I'm able to recreate
Speaker 3: a picture in my head of this video. I can't
Speaker 3: say it makes a lot of sense, but yeah, I
Speaker 3: know what you're saying.
Speaker 1: She says that one sentence, I got to give them
Speaker 1: that hawk tu ya, everybody goes wild, instant virality. They
Speaker 1: start calling her talk to you girl, basically based on
Speaker 1: the sound that she made when answering this question.
Speaker 2: What's one move in bed that makes a man go crazy?
Speaker 4: Every time you get in that hawk?
Speaker 2: Dude spit on that night?
Speaker 1: There are millions of memes over the last week. The
Speaker 1: clip goes megaviral. It is referenced by Joe Rogan, Howard Stern,
Speaker 1: a Phillies baseball team player Bryce Harper. So I am
Speaker 1: deeply curious as to why this like short moment from
Speaker 1: a Nashville Street TV show took off.
Speaker 2: Globally like it did.
Speaker 1: I don't think that we have had a big, true,
Speaker 1: meaningful like all caps viral moment in a long time.
Speaker 1: Do you remember back in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: you know we're like these, You would have these moments
Speaker 1: that were very small that would go super viral. Like again,
Speaker 1: I know you don't remember any of these because we
Speaker 1: were not in the same pockets of the Internet. You're
Speaker 1: probably like in a tent camping somewhere. But Damn Daniel
Speaker 1: back at it again with the White Kicks.
Speaker 2: Does that mean anything to you?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Of course, who could forget that classic video?
Speaker 1: Well, that was just a video taken in like a
Speaker 1: high school where this student would film his friend Daniel's
Speaker 1: outfits and shoes every day. And I guess he had
Speaker 1: a nice style, but it wasn't anything like I mean,
Speaker 1: it was nice, but it wasn't anything to write home about,
Speaker 1: and so he would be like, Damn Daniel beck at
Speaker 1: it again with the White Kicks.
Speaker 2: Went totally viral.
Speaker 1: These kids were on the Ellen Show like it was
Speaker 1: like when I say it was like a huge moment,
Speaker 1: it was a huge moment. Like I genuinely cannot think
Speaker 1: of a time more recently where somebody has had this
Speaker 1: level of instant Internet fame from just one small thing
Speaker 1: that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: In like circa twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: I think part of it is because of algorithms and
Speaker 1: the rise of algorithm feeds. Like, we are much more
Speaker 1: siloed online these days, and so you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that I am seeing all over my curated
Speaker 1: for you page, it's very different than the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that you, Mike are seeing and you're curated for
Speaker 1: you feed. Right, Like, we could live in completely different
Speaker 1: corners of the Internet where never the too shall meet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think we might, am I remembering correctly
Speaker 3: that at least as of a few years ago, there
Speaker 3: is a small industry of PR media consultants who would
Speaker 3: create viral videos for you. They like studied the science
Speaker 3: of making things go viral, and so you know, they
Speaker 3: would basically like apply a formula to try to make
Speaker 3: videos go super viral in this way that previously had
Speaker 3: been somewhat organic.
Speaker 1: I would argue that what kind of rose up and
Speaker 1: took that space that you're describing is the sort of
Speaker 1: fake viral video. The video that is hired actors playing
Speaker 1: out a skit for and there's a script that they
Speaker 1: know what their parts are, and then that video is
Speaker 1: sold to us the public as the real thing. Right,
Speaker 1: So when you watch these video on social media where
Speaker 1: it's like a fight on a plane and you're like,
Speaker 1: you look at the background and you're like, what plane
Speaker 1: do you know that uses those LED light strips you
Speaker 1: can buy off an Amazon? No planes use that. This
Speaker 1: isn't really a plane, this is a set. I've seen
Speaker 1: one where it purports to show like a fed up
Speaker 1: mom telling off a trans teacher to advocate for her kid,
Speaker 1: and then another video where the woman who was playing
Speaker 1: the mom is now the teacher and it's like teacher
Speaker 1: gets cursed out by mom. I would say that what
Speaker 1: has taken the place of the sort of we can
Speaker 1: tell you how to go viral industry is the we
Speaker 1: make fake videos and live to the viewers about what.
Speaker 2: They are seeing to go viral. That's like the new thing.
Speaker 3: I would say, so so many different people with different
Speaker 3: types of agendas. Displacing organic viral moments could unite people, or.
Speaker 1: At least unite people in distracting them from maybe things
Speaker 1: happening in national politics that.
Speaker 2: They want a little bit of a break from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's mean, if there's any common experience
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four in America that we all could use
Speaker 3: a goddamn break.
Speaker 1: And it reminds me of another kind of viral video
Speaker 1: of yesteryear, and that was Chewbacca Mom. You're a Star
Speaker 1: Wars nerd, so you actually might remember Chewbaca mom. Do
Speaker 1: you remember her?
Speaker 3: I'm trying.
Speaker 2: There's not much to it.
Speaker 1: Basically, she was a woman who bought a Chewbacca Halloween
Speaker 1: mask and you it's a mask where you open the
Speaker 1: mouth and it makes a Chewbacca noise. And she puts
Speaker 1: it on. She's in her car and she just thinks
Speaker 1: it's the best. She's like just like laughing hysterically at
Speaker 1: this mask. That's really it. So this video also went superviral.
Speaker 1: This was May of twenty sixteen, and I often think
Speaker 1: back to Chewbacca Mom and why that went so viral,
Speaker 1: And I had to think back to, like, well, what
Speaker 1: was going on in May of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: This was when Trump had become the GOP nominee.
Speaker 1: It was like Ted Cruz I think, was the last
Speaker 1: hold out and he dropped out in May of twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: until it was like, oh it's Trump. There was a
Speaker 1: lot happening with racial justice. The officers who killed Freddie
Speaker 1: Gray and Baltimore were not convicted, and you had the
Speaker 1: rise of the all right really becoming a thing. This
Speaker 1: is around the time where people like Milo Yanapolis, who
Speaker 1: we've talked about on the show before, were coordinating harassment
Speaker 1: campaigns of women around things like the all women Ghostbusters
Speaker 1: reboot right and so I remember distinctively that time on
Speaker 1: the Internet as feeling like not just bad, not just toxic,
Speaker 1: but like bad bad, Like the vibes were not good.
Speaker 1: And I think that in these times when everything feels
Speaker 1: heightened and charged and really difficult online, we will always
Speaker 1: seize on any little thing that brings us out of that,
Speaker 1: even for a moment, even if it's silly, to be honest,
Speaker 1: kind of like what I'm doing right now, like leaning
Speaker 1: into pop culture viral internet moments to avoid thinking about
Speaker 1: national politics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2: So let's go back to talk to you girl.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start calling her HT girl because it's a
Speaker 1: mouthful to say, no pun intended, but appreciated. So girl
Speaker 1: is really capitalizing on her viral moment, which honestly good
Speaker 1: for her.
Speaker 2: I think that is great and savvy.
Speaker 1: There were people saying that she signed a deal with UTA,
Speaker 1: which is not true. UTA has confirmed they don't have
Speaker 1: a deal and the works with her there was even
Speaker 1: a rumor that she had been fired from her job
Speaker 1: teaching at Epstein Preschool.
Speaker 2: That's also not true. That was a parody new.
Speaker 1: Site that fooled people online, So no truth to that.
Speaker 1: She does not have a UTA deal, but she is
Speaker 1: being managed by Jason Petite, a Marshall County native who
Speaker 1: has known HT for many years. So he did an
Speaker 1: interview with Rolling Stone and said that a day or
Speaker 1: two after the video started going viral, he reached out
Speaker 1: to her because he was like, Yo, you need to
Speaker 1: monetize this brand. So they are now making merch with
Speaker 1: hactwah on it. They've got hats, they've got shirts. My
Speaker 1: whole thing is like, I'm so curious how they settled
Speaker 1: on a spelling of this because I've smelled that multiple
Speaker 1: different ways. I've seen it smelled multiple different ways. I'm curious,
Speaker 1: like how they decided like, Okay, no, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: hawk Tuia. It's gonna be spelled this way. That's gonna
Speaker 1: be the branding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would have been an interesting discussion, like a
Speaker 3: you're gonna do hats, they're gonna do bibs, they're gonna
Speaker 3: do handkerchiefs. Other adult accessories, so many options. They sorted
Speaker 3: that out in just a couple of days. Huh, that's
Speaker 3: pretty impressive. Good for her for capitalizing on this. What
Speaker 3: sounds like she was just drunk on her way home
Speaker 3: from the bar.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this has been viral for less than two weeks.
Speaker 1: In that time, how much money do you think that
Speaker 1: she has made on March to date.
Speaker 3: Let's say thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Sixty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Good for her sell those hats.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. And also, by the way, not
Speaker 1: for nothing, Christmas is coming up.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying, but a Tangoti dot com slash hawk
Speaker 3: twaw for a discount code you can't Actually that doesn't exist.
Speaker 4: I just made that up. Let's take a quick break
Speaker 4: at her back.
Speaker 1: So the person who reached out to become her manager
Speaker 1: and help her with these licensing deals with the hats
Speaker 1: and the shirts really pointed out that he wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that some of the money from this viral
Speaker 1: moment went back into her pocket, which is why they're
Speaker 1: doing the merchandising, he told Rolling Stone. Of course, she
Speaker 1: hasn't gotten a dime from the first viral video that
Speaker 1: went out. Nobody was asking permission for her to do
Speaker 1: nothing neither. I just wanted her to get some of
Speaker 1: the profit from this deal. It does kind of sound
Speaker 1: like she is getting a percentage of the profits from
Speaker 1: the merchandising. He declined to share exactly what percentage goes
Speaker 1: directly to her, but he says that he suggested to
Speaker 1: her that she trademarked the phrase and that she's talking
Speaker 1: to a lawyer about it. So again, I am just
Speaker 1: purely glad that she is getting her coin because as
Speaker 1: we know, as we've talked about on the show, oftentimes
Speaker 1: people who are these viral sensations do not see a dime,
Speaker 1: whereas other people make money from their whatever viral phrase
Speaker 1: or viral thing they do, and they don't see a dime,
Speaker 1: especially if they're black. Right, if that is a common thing,
Speaker 1: where you know, the woman who was sitting in her
Speaker 1: car and was like eyebrows on fleek didn't see money
Speaker 1: from that.
Speaker 2: That's kind of changed a little bit because.
Speaker 1: She's gotten a few like brand deals later on, But
Speaker 1: in the beginning, everybody was making money off of that
Speaker 1: except for her. But even though HT is making some
Speaker 1: money off of this, it doesn't sound like it is
Speaker 1: all like roses and rainbows. People early on were deeply
Speaker 1: trying to track her down.
Speaker 2: She was docked.
Speaker 1: They were finding her social media accounts, which she then deleted,
Speaker 1: and people were trying to track down where she worked.
Speaker 2: She might be a bartender, according to Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1: Her manager says Welsh, who did not respond to Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone's request for an interview, is overwhelmed by the attention,
Speaker 1: and she has requested that he not share any personal
Speaker 1: details about her or feature her face on the merchandise.
Speaker 1: He says, there are some crazy people in the world
Speaker 1: who have reached out to her. She's probably one of
Speaker 1: the most well known people in the world at this point,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if she's embraced it. So to me,
Speaker 1: that doesn't sound like something that is necessarily the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that somebody was like looking for welcoming, right,
Speaker 1: Like maybe when you were drunk you were like, oh,
Speaker 1: talking to these guys for their street show.
Speaker 2: Why not? But like, who could have predicted the way
Speaker 2: that it would have taken off.
Speaker 1: So again, I'm happy that she was able to monetize this,
Speaker 1: but as this is all happening, The Daily Dot reports
Speaker 1: that she's kind of been intentionally laying low, going back
Speaker 1: to a rural community in Tennessee. So I guess my
Speaker 1: point is is that I'm happy that she's able to
Speaker 1: make money. But one person being asked a question maybe
Speaker 1: when they were drunk after a night out, is not
Speaker 1: expecting this level of scrutiny and attention for sale one
Speaker 1: sentence about oral sex on camera for this show. And
Speaker 1: this is why I say, like, if somebody comes up
Speaker 1: to you with a camera and a mic in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, nothing good can come of it.
Speaker 2: Mate. Nor Evans of the news outlet As wrote a.
Speaker 1: Piece called hak Tu Yeah Girl and Other Street interview
Speaker 1: subjects who go viral? What legal rights do they have
Speaker 1: and the content they appear in? And the answer is
Speaker 1: really none. She talks about how these videos that sometimes
Speaker 1: do go viral will feature young people, usually walking around
Speaker 1: town after.
Speaker 2: A night out.
Speaker 1: She writes, with a few beers in their blood, they
Speaker 1: might even say things they regret, especially when they're offhand.
Speaker 1: Comments begin a conversation online that put a huge spotlight
Speaker 1: on their life that can feel invasive and overwhelming. And
Speaker 1: another good point to know about this kind of content
Speaker 1: is that if you agree to be on a video
Speaker 1: like this, and then you change your mind about what
Speaker 1: you said after somebody shoved a camera in your face
Speaker 1: that when you were drunk leaving a bar, you don't
Speaker 1: have a ton of recourse, like you likely cannot get
Speaker 1: that content taken down even if you ask. Ultimately, my
Speaker 1: biggest issue with these kinds of man on the street
Speaker 1: videos is that anybody, anybody can get a camera and
Speaker 1: a mic to do this. Right when we were talking
Speaker 1: about the college campus protests, you saw young people declining
Speaker 1: to give interviews, not just to traditional media, but also
Speaker 1: to just sort of like person with a camera who
Speaker 1: I have no idea who this person is. A lot
Speaker 1: of people were kind of chastising these youth, being like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: how do they expect to get their message out if
Speaker 1: they're not giving interviews, But actually they were being really
Speaker 1: smart because if you have not vetted who this person is,
Speaker 1: they could be literally anybody with any kind of agenda.
Speaker 1: You have no idea, and so if you are trying
Speaker 1: to put a curated message out into the world, you
Speaker 1: should not be talking to a rando just putting a
Speaker 1: camera in your face.
Speaker 2: You don't even know their name.
Speaker 1: They could be anybody as mat Nor Evans puts it
Speaker 1: in her piece, With traditional media, there is an expectation
Speaker 1: that the interviewer is acting in good faith and when
Speaker 1: speaking to an ordinary person, to present them in a
Speaker 1: neutral but respectful light. The street style interviews don't always
Speaker 1: follow the same principles, and that all is captured in
Speaker 1: these viral moments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's such a good point that, you know, people
Speaker 3: taking part in some sort of interview when they're they've
Speaker 3: been drinking, or they're out on the street. It is
Speaker 3: always a risk that anything you say to a camera
Speaker 3: is going to appear on the Internet and be there forever.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think it's particularly fraught in the
Speaker 3: particular context that HT girl got caught in of, you know,
Speaker 3: at night, out on the street in front of a
Speaker 3: bunch of bars, it is appropriate to talk with other
Speaker 3: adults about sexual stuff, but then that same video played
Speaker 3: on everybody's TikTok algorithm in the middle of the day
Speaker 3: to like kids at school or like your parents, just
Speaker 3: people who are not in that context where it's no
Speaker 3: longer appropriate. Yeah, that's gotta feel really crummy. And I
Speaker 3: can see how she would feel overwhelmed and wanting to
Speaker 3: hide from it.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, that is like, really my issue with this style
Speaker 1: of interview. The subject has no idea how it will
Speaker 1: be used. They have no control over how it will
Speaker 1: be used, and whatever framing is projected onto it after
Speaker 1: the facts, they just have no control over that. And
Speaker 1: I think that by definition, by nature, that is at
Speaker 1: its heart exploitative, because it's not like ht girl sees
Speaker 1: any money from the millions of views and all the
Speaker 1: attention that that channel got from her vulnerable moment. You know,
Speaker 1: if she wants to capitalize off that, she is sort
Speaker 1: of forced to do a merchandising deal if she wants
Speaker 1: to make money from that.
Speaker 2: And I think that we.
Speaker 1: Should really be thinking about the ways that these viral
Speaker 1: moments kind of force people into a limelight. I would argue,
Speaker 1: this is my opinion that like, if you've been drinking
Speaker 1: and you are caught in one of those moments, you can't.
Speaker 4: You can't.
Speaker 1: You're not fully consenting to everything that comes next. Sure,
Speaker 1: she you know, when they put a camera in her face,
Speaker 1: she answered into the interview, But who could have ever
Speaker 1: imagined the way it would go viral, the way it
Speaker 1: would blow up. And so by nature, I feel like
Speaker 1: it's a little bit exploitative, and we should be talking
Speaker 1: about that side of viral moments, not just how funny
Speaker 1: they are, how pop culture zeitgeisty.
Speaker 2: They are whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and also the people who like dosed her and
Speaker 3: we're trying to find her job, like why like what
Speaker 3: if those people did something else with their time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you go on Twitter, you have all of
Speaker 1: these people. I think a lot of them are bots,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, purporting to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I found her only fans, or like, there was video
Speaker 1: that I believe to be AI generated but don't quote
Speaker 1: me on that, implying that they have found like uncensored
Speaker 1: content of her online. It just really speaks to this
Speaker 1: this cottage industry that is so common in our current
Speaker 1: digital media climate, where when a woman kind of gets
Speaker 1: a moment of stardom already, you have people who are
Speaker 1: like in the woodwork trying to capitalize on that, trying
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, you know, how can I make
Speaker 1: a pickfuck? How can I get a little engagement from
Speaker 1: that too? And I think there's never been an easier
Speaker 1: time to do that than right now.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so interesting. I didn't appreciate that aspect of it,
Speaker 3: But it makes sense. I was thinking that these were
Speaker 3: like moral skulls who were trying to sex shame her,
Speaker 3: but it actually makes more sense that it's like bots
Speaker 3: and scams.
Speaker 1: It's bots and scams, like bots and scams twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Don't give your credit card information to anybody. Somebody puts
Speaker 1: her cam on your face, pull your hoody up.
Speaker 2: And walk away. Just stay inside, Just stay inside.
Speaker 1: So all of this leads me to a semi related
Speaker 1: but not actually related incident, and I'm calling that the
Speaker 1: ESPN ice cream incident. This one is actually really simple.
Speaker 1: Two women go to a baseball game. They eat ice
Speaker 1: cream cones. That's really it.
Speaker 2: Story over, end of sentence period.
Speaker 1: Well not exactly, because ESPN decided to do a twenty
Speaker 1: second segment that is just a close up of these
Speaker 1: two young women eating ice cream, and they obviously don't
Speaker 1: know they're.
Speaker 2: Being filmed like this.
Speaker 1: They don't they like that it's obvious that they don't
Speaker 1: know that it's like a zooming in on their face
Speaker 1: and on their mouths as they eat this ice cream
Speaker 1: with commentary. The commentators are doing play by play commentary
Speaker 1: of their ice cream looking the commentator is like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta lick that liquid before it melts the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want to pile on, but you
Speaker 2: get the drift.
Speaker 1: The video is published a TikTok and it honestly does
Speaker 1: not take a genius to imagine what kind of comments
Speaker 1: people are leaving on this video of two young women
Speaker 1: eating ice cream. TikTok users start comparing the two young
Speaker 1: women to h t Girl, including one named Corey Cadell,
Speaker 1: who goes by airboats of Oklahoma saying I think hawk
Speaker 1: twas about to get replaced. His video saying that got
Speaker 1: over two hundred thousand views before he deleted his account
Speaker 1: because one of the women in the video actually called
Speaker 1: him out on TikTok. So one of the women who
Speaker 1: was videoed eating ice cream at this baseball game spoke
Speaker 1: up on TikTok. She said it was just a twenty
Speaker 1: second segment of just eating ice cream or licking our
Speaker 1: ice cream, And he said, twenty seconds dedicated with commentary
Speaker 1: to just us eating our ice cream. We all knew
Speaker 1: what direction that video was going to head it and
Speaker 1: lo and behold, the creeps of TikTok got ahold of it.
Speaker 1: Because we woke up getting compared to the hawk twag girl,
Speaker 1: which no shade to her.
Speaker 2: Girl do whatever.
Speaker 1: So I want to double click on that because I
Speaker 1: don't think that she's trying to shame HT girl for
Speaker 1: her viral moment, but just saying, like, what did her
Speaker 1: viral moment had to do with me? I have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with that other than I ate, other than like,
Speaker 1: I'm a woman existing in public as well, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's important that none of this is to sex.
Speaker 2: Shame HT Girl, who actually gave very good oral sex advice.
Speaker 2: But the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Is just kind of gross, and I think it confirms
Speaker 1: that women are considered fair game to have our behavior scrutinized,
Speaker 1: surveiled and sexualized, even if we are not doing anything
Speaker 1: inherently sexual. Yes, HT Girl decided to chime in for
Speaker 1: that interview about oral sex, but even then, I don't
Speaker 1: think it means that people should be able to comb
Speaker 1: through her social media for her personal information and like
Speaker 1: try to find out where she.
Speaker 2: Works and all of that.
Speaker 1: And the women at the baseball game, we're just eating
Speaker 1: ice cream. Their only association with HT girl is that
Speaker 1: they were all young women in public but that is
Speaker 1: all it takes for somebody to decide that you are
Speaker 1: fair game to be sexualized, even if you don't want
Speaker 1: to be so. Annie, one of the women who was
Speaker 1: eating ice cream on ESPN, said, it is beyond evidence
Speaker 1: that women are not welcome in the sports world. We
Speaker 1: just wanted to enjoy a baseball game and it was
Speaker 1: one hundred degrees, so God forbid, be some ice cream.
Speaker 1: It's like, we can't just sit and eat our food
Speaker 1: in peace. And I really feel for Annie because she
Speaker 1: says that at first she was kind of excited to
Speaker 1: be to have this on camera moment because she's getting
Speaker 1: texts from her friends who were like, hey, we see
Speaker 1: you on TV.
Speaker 2: But then she.
Speaker 1: Says, but what's not a fun thing is to get
Speaker 1: text messages from other friends of disgusting people making tiktoks
Speaker 1: about you. There are so many comments just like this
Speaker 1: one talking about ESPN does this every year. They always
Speaker 1: pan it on a woman doing it. And it's true
Speaker 1: because what is fun You're than a woman? Licking an
Speaker 1: ice cream cone or eating a hot dog are something
Speaker 1: that can be overtly sexualized. And I think that she's
Speaker 1: right that it really is about a deeper hostility to
Speaker 1: women in spaces that are traditionally considered as like male dominated.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of this other instance. It happened a
Speaker 1: few years ago where I think it was a sorority.
Speaker 2: So it was a group of.
Speaker 1: Young women at a baseball game and there was a
Speaker 1: moment where they all had their phones up and they
Speaker 1: were all taking selfies of themselves, like posing, doing little
Speaker 1: selfies whatever. There was a video that like zoomed in
Speaker 1: on them, and the commentator was making it seem like
Speaker 1: these girls were really vapid. He was like, Oh, look
Speaker 1: at these girls, like trying to get the perfect self
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. Really I think leaning on some negative
Speaker 1: misogynistic tropes about women.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: What he didn't say is that at the stadium, that
Speaker 1: moment actually was a selfy moment. So like on the JumboTron,
Speaker 1: it was like, let's have a five second selfie moment,
Speaker 1: and so the JumboTron instructed the entire stadium to spend
Speaker 1: minute getting selfies, and those women were doing exactly that,
Speaker 1: and to make it seem like they specifically were doing
Speaker 1: something that was like vapid just really put this misogynisticchine
Speaker 1: on them doing totally normal behavior that in fact, the
Speaker 1: baseball stadium asked them to do. And so I remember
Speaker 1: these sorority women. They really had an eloquent clap back.
Speaker 1: They were like, Oh, we were doing exactly what we
Speaker 1: were instructed to do by the stadium. And if we're
Speaker 1: so vapid, how come our sorority is actually has this
Speaker 1: like massive service focus and like we do community service
Speaker 1: projects all the goddamn time. So like this negative attitude
Speaker 1: that the commentators had projected on it, they really did
Speaker 1: a great job is exposing, like, yeah, it's just misogyny.
Speaker 1: It's just hostility to women in male dominated spaces. Like
Speaker 1: if I am not here to be sexually titillating you
Speaker 1: by my public presence in this space, I am here
Speaker 1: to be your punching bag for whatever misogynistic tropes you
Speaker 1: feel like throwing out this day.
Speaker 2: So I don't go to a ton of supporting events.
Speaker 1: But apparently when you were sitting behind the dugout, like
Speaker 1: these two young women eating ice cream on ESPN were,
Speaker 1: there was always like a higher potential for being on camera,
Speaker 1: but it was a very different thing.
Speaker 2: Like being zoomed in on while licking an.
Speaker 1: Ice cream cone the site Awful Announcing, which I did
Speaker 1: not know that that a media entity existed to critical
Speaker 1: analysis of sports announcing, but I'm glad it exists. They
Speaker 1: also pointed out something which is that they say also
Speaker 1: bizarre was the fact that the same broadcast briefly focused
Speaker 1: on a woman eating a lollipop less than twenty minutes
Speaker 1: after the ice cream incident. ESPN switched off the woman
Speaker 1: eating a lollipop after about three seconds, but not before
Speaker 1: the camera intentionally put her in focus.
Speaker 4: Weird.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, that's.
Speaker 3: Weird, right, Yeah, I mean I feel like whoever was
Speaker 3: directing the videography that day really had something on their mind.
Speaker 1: I mean, you come to watch a baseball game and
Speaker 1: it turns into a who's licking?
Speaker 4: What? A thon?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Seriously, I feel like you or I don't remember
Speaker 3: if you were quoting Annie, really nailed it by you know,
Speaker 3: it's just an opportunity for casual misogyny and sexualization, which
Speaker 3: I guess in the repertoire of this videographer maybe lots
Speaker 3: of sports people who are, like, you know, directing where
Speaker 3: the camera goes to. I feel like they're always looking
Speaker 3: for something interesting to put on screen. Like oh, a
Speaker 3: cute baby, or like a guy eating a messy hot
Speaker 3: dog or a guy dancing or something. And it's unfortunate
Speaker 3: that casual misogyny and non consensual sexualization are in that
Speaker 3: same mix of like fun tropes to put on the JumboTron.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, well said.
Speaker 5: More after a quick break, get right back into it.
Speaker 1: And again the way that some of the people, not
Speaker 1: the announcers, because the announcers were not the ones comparing
Speaker 1: her to HT girl, but the way that commentators on TikTok,
Speaker 1: like that guy who deleted his account after being called
Speaker 1: out by one of these young women, The way that
Speaker 1: they engage in this sexual fantasy world building, right, using
Speaker 1: this twenty second video of women doing something totally humdrum
Speaker 1: to build out this sexualized fantasy world around these women
Speaker 1: what they might be like sexually based on like a
Speaker 1: twenty second clip of them mining their business.
Speaker 2: You know, it's all world building.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we might really go out of our way
Speaker 3: to be super generous to ESPN and the people who
Speaker 3: made this choice to put those women on there on
Speaker 3: the screen, Like maybe twenty years ago that would have
Speaker 3: hit one way, like still not great, but maybe not
Speaker 3: like the worst thing. But in this new cond that
Speaker 3: we live in where something like that is going to
Speaker 3: end up on the Internet, and even the most subtle,
Speaker 3: non overt wink to sexualization once it gets on the
Speaker 3: Internet is fodder for this sexual fantasy world building that
Speaker 3: you're describing and opens the people up to a level
Speaker 3: of scrutiny that far exceeds what might have been possible,
Speaker 3: you know, twenty years ago during a television broadcast of
Speaker 3: a game.
Speaker 1: This is kind of unrelated, but that's actually how creeps
Speaker 1: circumvent AI guardrails to create sexualized, non consensual deep thinks.
Speaker 1: So when those AI deep fix of Taylor Swift, which
Speaker 1: depicted her at a sporting event, when those were going viral,
Speaker 1: the way that creeps generated them, because you can't just
Speaker 1: go onto an AI image generator and say, like, show
Speaker 1: me a depiction of a famous person doing a sex act.
Speaker 1: What they did was they said, like, show me an
Speaker 1: image of Taylor Swift eating a hot dog or eating
Speaker 1: an ice cream, doing something that would look kind of
Speaker 1: sexual if you doctored it. And then and so they
Speaker 1: were getting those images that would depict an image of
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift doing something a certain kind of way you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, and then edit those images to
Speaker 1: make them look more sexual. So it's interesting to me
Speaker 1: how whether or not it's using AI or it's just
Speaker 1: like this is an image of a woman eating a
Speaker 1: hot dog or an ice cream. Creeps are going to
Speaker 1: do some sexual world building around that regardless. And that
Speaker 1: world bringing really brings me to the last instance that
Speaker 1: I want to talk about, which happened on a plane.
Speaker 1: So a woman on TikTok named Caroline Renette posted a
Speaker 1: TikTok of a man talking to a woman with the
Speaker 1: caption if this man is your husband flying at United
Speaker 1: Airlines flight twenty one to forty from Houston to New York,
Speaker 1: He's probably going to be staying with Katie tonight.
Speaker 2: She says.
Speaker 1: This man met a woman at the airport bar, convinced
Speaker 1: her to change seats with somebody else on the plane
Speaker 1: so they could spend the flight drinking together. Apparently they
Speaker 1: were going on and on talking about his job. His
Speaker 1: eight year old daughter. Renette says, I wouldn't have known
Speaker 1: this man married had he not been marrying his wedding ring.
Speaker 2: Do your thing.
Speaker 1: TikTok pashtag by the wife less than twenty four hours
Speaker 1: goes by Internet flutes got everybody, They got the man,
Speaker 1: they got the woman. Everybody involved has been identified. They
Speaker 1: tagged the woman's TikTok account, posted details about when the
Speaker 1: guy's plane landed, shared photos of the couple, their family,
Speaker 1: and other people were actually suggesting that they do the
Speaker 1: same for the woman, Katie, who allegedly was the woman
Speaker 1: this guy was talking to. So I gotta say this.
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of people cheering this whole thing on, right,
Speaker 1: But I think we got to keep it real about
Speaker 1: content like this. I don't think that the people who
Speaker 1: make this kind of content are just trying to be
Speaker 1: like girls girls giving a girl a heads up, you know,
Speaker 1: out of the goodness of their heart. Maybe that's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a part of it, but let us
Speaker 1: be real. These people are making content. They are trying
Speaker 1: to get engagement. This is something that is tailor made
Speaker 1: to get people buzzing and engaged in with that online.
Speaker 1: That is what they are seeking. They are inviting strangers
Speaker 1: into the dramas and the real lives of other people
Speaker 1: completely uninvited. These people are not characters in some fan fiction.
Speaker 1: They are actual human beings who have jobs, and kids
Speaker 1: and communities. It would be one thing if Reneed had
Speaker 1: tried to find this woman and like DMD her, but
Speaker 1: inviting the entire internet millions of strangers into it is
Speaker 1: a totally different thing.
Speaker 2: The cut put it really.
Speaker 1: Well, they write, Renette's video makes certain assumptions that plain
Speaker 1: guy is in a monogamous marriage, that his wife would
Speaker 1: be grateful to see his behavior publicly exposed, and that
Speaker 1: such a transgression warrant strangers posting her personal information online.
Speaker 1: But at a time when ethical non monogamy and polyamory
Speaker 1: are on the rise, not every fort with a wedding
Speaker 1: rings crossing a line. We don't know what rules a
Speaker 1: plain guy and his abide by on their personal lives. Besides,
Speaker 1: if Rened really cared about this woman's well being, why
Speaker 1: not track her down and send her a private DM Instead?
Speaker 1: The video strips of plain Guy's wife of any agency,
Speaker 1: reducing her to a homogram onto which people can project
Speaker 1: their own baggage. While an online sisterhood has formed around
Speaker 1: the wife, it's unclear whether she wants that camaraderie. She
Speaker 1: hasn't recorded her own video expressing gratitude toward Reneed and
Speaker 1: the Internet slouths or responding to any of the comments
Speaker 1: who have tagged her. Instead, she's been silent, her TikTok
Speaker 1: account set to private.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a terrible experience for her. I totally agree
Speaker 3: with that this is way out of line.
Speaker 1: And I think it comes down to people like projecting
Speaker 1: themselves into this situation. And I think because this particular
Speaker 1: situation involves morality, cheating, and sex, it makes it easier
Speaker 1: for people to weigh in on I guess, or juicier
Speaker 1: for people to weigh in.
Speaker 2: I guess I should say yes.
Speaker 3: And you know that piece from the cut noted that
Speaker 3: it reduces the agency of the wife to like a
Speaker 3: non actor. She has no agency in this story. So
Speaker 3: this whole narrative is also building on misogyny and the
Speaker 3: idea of her as like a dutiful wife left at
Speaker 3: home while her cheating husband is out living it up
Speaker 3: in the world. It just really smacks of those same
Speaker 3: tropes and I think requires them exactly.
Speaker 1: And you know, I have been cheated on myself. I
Speaker 1: know that it's a charged space, to say the least.
Speaker 1: And I think that what we're seeing is a lot
Speaker 1: of people projecting their own feelings and their own situations.
Speaker 2: On the people that they've ever met.
Speaker 1: And again, that is that flattens out this wife into
Speaker 1: just something to hang your projections onto.
Speaker 2: And she's a human being, not to mention a fucking stranger.
Speaker 3: She would probably prefer to not be the subject of
Speaker 3: national discourse about how her husband is cheating on her.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And you know, there were a lot of comments
Speaker 1: on TikTok being like, oh, I wish that when my
Speaker 1: partner was cheating, that somebody had done this for me
Speaker 1: kind of thinking, is that do you really wish that?
Speaker 2: Do you really wish.
Speaker 1: That millions and millions of people would know every aspect
Speaker 1: of your of your personal business with your husband, not
Speaker 1: to mention your job, your boss, your coworkers, your family
Speaker 1: and all have an opinion on it, Like, really think
Speaker 1: about what you're saying. Is that actually what you wish
Speaker 1: somebody would do? Probably not right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And do you want to have a conversation with
Speaker 3: your eight year old daughter about it.
Speaker 1: When somebody brings it up to her at school like, oh,
Speaker 1: because people were digging into their families, so it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I saw a picture of you and your dad on TikTok.
Speaker 1: Herd's cheating on your mom on a plane, Like, is
Speaker 1: that really? Is that really what you wishould happen?
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like you mentioned, this has nothing to do
Speaker 3: with Rennet, the woman who made the video trying to
Speaker 3: genuinely help out the woman who is allegedly being cheated on,
Speaker 3: and it's just all about her getting clicked for herself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's possible there is some
Speaker 1: aspect of her that is like I hate cheaters, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But I think that we gotta be real
Speaker 1: that we're not like this idea that it is a
Speaker 1: digital sisterhood. I just really reject that. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that is what's really going on here. You know,
Speaker 1: it really doesn't sit right with me because, you know what,
Speaker 1: my sister wouldn't do. My sister probably wouldn't publicly blow
Speaker 1: up my life in a way that now everybody, my
Speaker 1: whole community and a bunch of strangers now get to
Speaker 1: have an opinion on it.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of in a corporate office when you're
Speaker 3: sitting down for like an all staff meeting and the
Speaker 3: CEO is going on and on about how we're all
Speaker 3: a family, and it's like we're not a family. People
Speaker 3: get fired from this company all the time, like and
Speaker 3: that's fine, it's a workplace, but it's not a family.
Speaker 3: This idea of a digital sisterhood feels very much like that,
Speaker 3: where like, oh, we're all sisters here unless you screw up,
Speaker 3: and then you're gonna be on like the outs, the
Speaker 3: receiving end of all this negative attention because actually it's
Speaker 3: not about solidarity or sisterly feelings at all.
Speaker 1: Well, I would actually argue that it's not about sisterly
Speaker 1: feelings and it's really about individual come upance.
Speaker 2: And like, I think that.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of people who have gotten involved
Speaker 1: in this narrative. They are at once the sluts who
Speaker 1: have like assigned characters out of these strangers that they
Speaker 1: don't even know, and then they have projected this jilted
Speaker 1: wife story onto this situation while also kind of recasting
Speaker 1: themselves as the jilted wife.
Speaker 2: So I think it's a lot of people who are
Speaker 2: like I have been cheated on.
Speaker 1: It sucks, I want to kind of get my vengeance
Speaker 1: by playing that out in the lives of these strangers.
Speaker 1: And it really reminded me of this research paper that
Speaker 1: came out in twenty twenty called TikTok and the Algorithmized Self,
Speaker 1: where the researchers basically argue that TikTok is unique from
Speaker 1: other social media platforms because it is less about connecting
Speaker 1: with a network of friends and more a site built
Speaker 1: on quote a public performance heavily built on interpersonal engagement
Speaker 1: while creating content for an algorithm. And so essentially it's
Speaker 1: this like big digital sandbox that invites make belief. They write,
Speaker 1: the unplanned back and forth motion between creators makes the
Speaker 1: app an incredible social playground. TikTok users play and perform
Speaker 1: in simulated characters and setting. The video app is an
Speaker 1: escape from reality. So basically all of these people are
Speaker 1: using these strangers and their lives to play out little
Speaker 1: dramas that they also get to be very invested in.
Speaker 1: And I think it's even juicier because who doesn't like
Speaker 1: getting to be the morality police around it? To get
Speaker 1: to like really moralize and scrutinize and judge.
Speaker 2: The behavior of people you don't even know.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves that, Like, it's the that's like the basis
Speaker 1: of so much on the Internet, And so I understand
Speaker 1: why it's kind of irresistible, but also people need to
Speaker 1: understand that this is real people's lives that they're dealing with,
Speaker 1: people who don't even know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if people could just like
Speaker 3: the privacy of consenting adults.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't it be nice?
Speaker 1: So the whole situation reminded me of this phenomenon that
Speaker 1: we've talked about on the podcast before that. Doctor Jenna Drinton,
Speaker 1: Associate Professor of Marketing in the Quinlan School of Business
Speaker 1: at Loyal University Chicago who studies social media behavior, dubbed
Speaker 1: the TikTok tabloid, in which we are all players and
Speaker 1: characters in a tabloid magazine. Because of TikTok, she writes,
Speaker 1: users collectively manufacture and dramatized stories like an investigative gossip reel.
Speaker 1: Traditional tabloids place the lurid limelight on celebrities and public figures,
Speaker 1: but the TikTok tabloids target everyday people, you know. Doctor
Speaker 1: Denton points out how all of these devices like oh,
Speaker 1: we're having a Part two and having going to be cliphangers,
Speaker 1: all of this is sort of these dangling of tantalizing
Speaker 1: bits of stories where it really invites the listener or
Speaker 1: the watcher to like continue to give their engagement and
Speaker 1: to follow along and get involved. And of course, the
Speaker 1: more of this content that we consume, the more we
Speaker 1: are training algorithm.
Speaker 2: That is the kind of content that we want to
Speaker 2: see and engage with. You know.
Speaker 1: It's this constant cycle that I really deeply.
Speaker 2: Think we need to be moving away from.
Speaker 1: And to me, it all comes down to consent, right Like,
Speaker 1: HT girl might have volunteered to have that moment on
Speaker 1: the street, But first of all, was she sober? Because
Speaker 1: I feel like you can't really consent to something if
Speaker 1: you're drinking. Could she even fully consent to what actually
Speaker 1: ended up happening with it blowing up the way that
Speaker 1: it did. You know, I'm curious to hear other folks'
Speaker 1: opinions about that, but I would argue no, you know,
Speaker 1: by buying a ticket behind the dugout at a baseball
Speaker 1: game and then eating an ice cream cone, these women
Speaker 1: on ESPN did not consent to getting a flood of
Speaker 1: sexualized messages on social media, you know. And the woman
Speaker 1: whose husband was taking a flight talking to another woman
Speaker 1: on that fight certainly did not consent to having strangers
Speaker 1: publicly invite themselves into her marriage. And you know, the
Speaker 1: Internet has connected us in new ways that we never
Speaker 1: dreamed possible.
Speaker 2: But I will die on.
Speaker 1: The till maybe we all should be okay with just
Speaker 1: knowing a little bit less about each other. Got a
Speaker 1: story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want
Speaker 1: to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at
Speaker 1: tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's
Speaker 1: episode at tenggody dot com. There Are No Girls on
Speaker 1: the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative Jonathan Strickland is our
Speaker 1: executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Speaker 1: Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
Speaker 1: If you want to help us grow, rate and.
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