Speaker 1: Is that smarts. My name is Jamie Loftus, and you
Speaker 1: are listening to episode four of My Year in Mensa,
Speaker 1: the podcast that is about what the title of the
Speaker 1: podcast is. If this is your first time listening, this
Speaker 1: is the last episode, so you probably will want to
Speaker 1: go back to the beginning and start from there to
Speaker 1: understand everything that's going on. And for those of you
Speaker 1: that have been on this journey, welcome to the end.
Speaker 1: What will happen next? Will we ever reach any manner
Speaker 1: of conclusion? All things that we will be finding out today. So,
Speaker 1: since this is the last episode, I think I will
Speaker 1: go off on a tangent a little bit at the
Speaker 1: beginning and just say how nervous I am to release this.
Speaker 1: Because I am making a podcast about a very reactionary group.
Speaker 1: It stands to reason that there will be a reaction
Speaker 1: to the thing that I'm making. A criticism frequently thrown
Speaker 1: at me for writing about Mensa and now podding if
Speaker 1: you will, is that I'm doing it for reputation or
Speaker 1: financial gain. And you know, I'm glad that people find
Speaker 1: the writing and reporting interesting. In two critics of that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't really know what to say. I'm
Speaker 1: glad people find it interesting. It's interesting to me too.
Speaker 1: I've made a total, I believe, of four hundred dollars
Speaker 1: writing about MENSA. Yeah, I wrote four articles and made
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars per article, and then proceeded to spend
Speaker 1: way more than that in order to attend the MENSA gathering,
Speaker 1: to get lodging, to eat, to go to San Pedro,
Speaker 1: to have so many things, to pay member registration fees,
Speaker 1: which is almost a hundred dollars two times because I
Speaker 1: pad asked the year mark and I had to get
Speaker 1: I had to renew my membership. I also bought one
Speaker 1: of those brain pol t shirts to make myself laugh,
Speaker 1: but I guess that's more of a personal expense. All
Speaker 1: that to say, I don't I'm not. There's no money
Speaker 1: in this story. I don't even know if people want
Speaker 1: to hear it. I am trying to finish what I started.
Speaker 1: It started as something funny to me and then ended
Speaker 1: as this bizarre, sociological what the fuck is this? So
Speaker 1: that is why I'm doing this, as I want to
Speaker 1: understand what the funk this is, and as frustrated as
Speaker 1: it has made many menines towards me, it turns out
Speaker 1: there's a fair amount of people that are interested in
Speaker 1: what the funk this is who find it confusing. So
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. I mean, I am nervous
Speaker 1: to release this, but it's a pot. There's five hundred
Speaker 1: million podcasts, so many of which are about things weirder
Speaker 1: and worse than this, And so just going into this
Speaker 1: last one, if you've been listening the whole time, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. And uh and to to mencem who
Speaker 1: have been listening, I hope that you feel like I'm
Speaker 1: characterizing people fairly. I know that this is a biased account.
Speaker 1: It is my account, but I really did try. Nothing's
Speaker 1: going to be enough for everyone, but that's enough for me.
Speaker 1: And so with that, let us go to July six, nineteen.
Speaker 1: This is my third day of the MENSA Annual Gathering.
Speaker 1: Time Labs noise. Okay, So I'm at the hospitality cafeteria.
Speaker 1: It's two PM, and a man who is already very
Speaker 1: drunk is talking to the woman handing out drinks and
Speaker 1: he says, you know, no one wants to be the
Speaker 1: one to say it, but not all dictators have been bad.
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but Germany was one of them. Okay,
Speaker 1: And this man does not have the demeanor of someone
Speaker 1: who hates to say anything, and he disappears as quickly
Speaker 1: as he got there. I am fucking exhausted, And today
Speaker 1: is a particularly rough slate of daytime events from a
Speaker 1: thoughtful presentation and on a d h D famously featuring
Speaker 1: the quote a little a d h D can be
Speaker 1: charmingly quirky, A lot of a d h D can
Speaker 1: be a big, giant pain in your life. It was
Speaker 1: a good duck. Then there was the sparsely attended MENSA
Speaker 1: Awards ceremony and what feels like the millionth lukewarm cafeteria
Speaker 1: lunch served in hospitality. And at this point I'm subsisting
Speaker 1: mainly on the free peanut Eminem's, and so for old
Speaker 1: time's sake, I sit at the pet lover's lunch table
Speaker 1: again with mostly the same few people and a few
Speaker 1: of the same women, talk about their week and exchange
Speaker 1: pictures of their cats. I love it. I am unlucky
Speaker 1: enough to have accidentally sat next to yet another very
Speaker 1: drunk man. This guy's in his sixties and he's telling
Speaker 1: me he has some leftover steak in his hotel fridge
Speaker 1: that he loved to show me what When all of
Speaker 1: a sudden there's Katie once again wearing her Maga hat,
Speaker 1: and she's excited my best friend. She invites me over
Speaker 1: to her lunch table, the firehouse table that I described
Speaker 1: an episode one that has a cartoon of an owl
Speaker 1: with its head on fire to market. And it does
Speaker 1: feel weird to be relieved to see someone in a
Speaker 1: Maga hat. But this old drunk guy hitting on me
Speaker 1: to get stake that he admitted he didn't even buy
Speaker 1: is enough to get me to leave. And so the
Speaker 1: world is upside down, and Katie too, and myself are
Speaker 1: all sitting at the firehouse lunch table together. Katie says
Speaker 1: that there's a bar crawl going on later that night
Speaker 1: and that I should be in the lobby by six
Speaker 1: to go, and I agree to go and continue my afternoon.
Speaker 1: And sometime in the afternoon I see Mead Guy in
Speaker 1: the hallway. Meat guy, of course, because he is the
Speaker 1: guy who makes mead. He at this moment is dressed
Speaker 1: head to toe as a pirate and when he spots me,
Speaker 1: he literally jogs in the other direction, which is if
Speaker 1: a man in a full pirate suit hasn't literally run
Speaker 1: away from you? Are you even living? So this is
Speaker 1: the purest interaction I've had all week and in my life.
Speaker 1: And by early evening, the old drunken fascist is back
Speaker 1: at the hospitality bar. This time he's talking to a
Speaker 1: different bartender and he's holding out these fake three dollar
Speaker 1: bills he's printed that have these over edited caricatures of
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It just printed on a
Speaker 1: laser jet and willed into reality. And a man with
Speaker 1: a Hosier ribbon walks up to him and kind of jokes,
Speaker 1: and the old drunken fascist is laughing and laughing, and
Speaker 1: he says, only a Republican could joke about Democrats like this.
Speaker 1: He proceeds to tip the bartender with the forged bill
Speaker 1: of Hillary Clinton and then disappears for what I hope
Speaker 1: is forever. I know, this man sounds like a fever
Speaker 1: dream cartoon, but he's out there. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get through the day and I go to the next talk,
Speaker 1: which is called the Dysfunction of the American Political System.
Speaker 1: It's being given by a very tired looking professor, and
Speaker 1: the discourse is cringe e and offensive and terrible. There
Speaker 1: was a man who kept raising his hand to insist
Speaker 1: that slaves being counted as three five of a person
Speaker 1: is what ruined the American South, and the room gets
Speaker 1: very riled up at this, rightfully so, and apparently the
Speaker 1: speaker doesn't have really the historical knowledge to make a
Speaker 1: very strong argument against this clearly wrong point, and they
Speaker 1: get into this sparring match. Other people are jumping in
Speaker 1: to agree with him or loudly disagree with him, and finally,
Speaker 1: after about forty five minutes of this, people just start
Speaker 1: to leave. Every person of color and a few others
Speaker 1: of us. It's just too painful, and everyone leaves because
Speaker 1: in many ways that's where the country is, and also
Speaker 1: this is what this event is like. So once everyone's dispersed,
Speaker 1: I write down all the details of what happened. And
Speaker 1: while this is not the only racist thing I heard
Speaker 1: in Phoenix this weekend at the MENA Annual gathering, it
Speaker 1: feels very wrong that I am not at all surprised
Speaker 1: that there is some one willing to say something so
Speaker 1: horrible here, or that they refuse to engage with anyone
Speaker 1: in the room in a good faith way. People were
Speaker 1: offended and upset, but no one seemed surprised and in
Speaker 1: the midst of all this, I had missed the departure
Speaker 1: of the bar crawl. Oh no, such are this of
Speaker 1: setting talk completely falls apart. I head out to the
Speaker 1: front of the hotel to see if maybe the bar
Speaker 1: crawl is within my line of sight, when a man
Speaker 1: who's holding a few pieces of fruit appears behind me,
Speaker 1: and he says, you're the famous Jamie Loftus, and there's
Speaker 1: no point in telling him I'm not, so I asked
Speaker 1: him if he knows where the bar crawl was headed.
Speaker 1: He instead tells me his name is Kevin, and he's
Speaker 1: a twelve year MENSA member who was ousted from a
Speaker 1: local position by a young woman I've been in contact
Speaker 1: with before, who is another popular target of Firehouse and
Speaker 1: of Mensa at large. Kevin's handing the armful of fruit.
Speaker 1: He has two homeless people in the sweltering Phoenix heat.
Speaker 1: As we continue to talk, and at at this point
Speaker 1: someone asks me directly, am I going to be writing
Speaker 1: about this? And I don't really answer, but Kevin is
Speaker 1: kind and he points me in the direction of the
Speaker 1: bar crawl, saying he's going to a Diamondbacks game and
Speaker 1: he'll catch me another time. When I get to the bar,
Speaker 1: I see I've missed the drinking mentions except for one
Speaker 1: lone hoser at the entrance, and so I decide, you
Speaker 1: know what, maybe this is it. Maybe I have gotten
Speaker 1: to know Firehouse as well as I'm going to. I
Speaker 1: came here, I've spoken to at least a hundred people
Speaker 1: about how they feel about screenshots from nine months ago,
Speaker 1: and I am so ready to go home, but just
Speaker 1: in case, I messaged to to see whether he's on
Speaker 1: the bar crawl as well, and he says no, and
Speaker 1: we agree to meet at a ratan trivia event called
Speaker 1: Name that Movie so we can watch senior mentions loudly
Speaker 1: identify a litany of military movies that I've never heard of.
Speaker 1: It's already seven o'clock at night, and I'm considering going
Speaker 1: home for a nap when Two leans over and he
Speaker 1: points at a message on his phone and says it's
Speaker 1: from Katie. She's saying there at the Tilted Kilton to
Speaker 1: bring you. I peek over his shoulder to look at
Speaker 1: the message, and it does say the ladies would love
Speaker 1: to meet her. The sinking feeling of knowing I will
Speaker 1: go settles as the five thousand John Goodman movie clip
Speaker 1: plays on the name that movie screen and in a
Speaker 1: feudal act of resistance, I just say I can't, and
Speaker 1: he laughs because he knows that I will and I can,
Speaker 1: and he says, I know, but like and yeah, he
Speaker 1: finds this a little funny, because like it is a
Speaker 1: little funny in a wanting to die kind of way.
Speaker 1: But I'm about to go to Scottish Hooters to have
Speaker 1: my ass just handed to me for the three thousandth
Speaker 1: time in seventy two hours, for for no reason, for
Speaker 1: no reason, it just feels like self harm. At this point,
Speaker 1: I am exhausted, I look like garbage, and I volunteered
Speaker 1: to do this. So on our way over to Scottish Hooters,
Speaker 1: I asked too about why he participates in American Mensa
Speaker 1: firehouse so consistently when he knows everyone is just going
Speaker 1: to pile on him. A typical post from two would
Speaker 1: be a news item about something horrifically racist, sexist, classist
Speaker 1: happening in the country, captioned with a sarcastic sentence or
Speaker 1: two that are directly challenging the right leaning members of
Speaker 1: the group, asking them to defend their views against whatever
Speaker 1: story He's attached. I think of it as kind of
Speaker 1: trolling in the opposite direction. Two does what the rest
Speaker 1: of Firehouse does, but with a far left leaning view
Speaker 1: rather than the opposite. On the same day that we
Speaker 1: have this conversation, he posts a picture of Katie, him
Speaker 1: and myself that Katie insisted we take at lunch that day,
Speaker 1: with the caption Mensa's Finest and the photos themselves are
Speaker 1: another form of trolling. It's just another challenge for people
Speaker 1: to be annoyed and engaged with a rivalry that doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: And Two gets a little defensive at first and says,
Speaker 1: I don't really post that much, but eventually he agrees
Speaker 1: that he in fact does, and he admits it does
Speaker 1: give him kind of a dopamine hit of sorts. He says,
Speaker 1: I just have to find it funny and cites how
Speaker 1: comically opposite Katie's views are from his own. I don't know. Katie,
Speaker 1: Sam and the aforementioned girls who would love to meet
Speaker 1: me wave at Two and I from the entrance to
Speaker 1: the restaurant. Their table is covered in glasses and fried appetizers,
Speaker 1: and Katie hugs to an eye and once again declares
Speaker 1: us her best friends. I actually recognize the woman sitting
Speaker 1: beside her, who's friendly but more skeptical. She's a beach
Speaker 1: blonde in her forties. Who am going to call Megan
Speaker 1: who reminds me a lot of my Trump voting aunt
Speaker 1: who I can't get myself to break contact off with.
Speaker 1: And this meal ends up being one of the more
Speaker 1: productive and confusing few hours in my year in mensa
Speaker 1: name of the podcast, A meal with three drunk right
Speaker 1: wing women who genuinely want me to know where they're
Speaker 1: coming from, not because they liked me, but because they
Speaker 1: would like for me to write something nice about them.
Speaker 1: Of course that's just speculation. Megan says, I want to
Speaker 1: know what you're going to write. And as she says that,
Speaker 1: Mead guys still dressed as a pirate, and a few
Speaker 1: other people also dressed as pirates enter Scottish hooters. I
Speaker 1: guess I should say, to be fair that he was
Speaker 1: dressed as a pirate for reason there was some pirate
Speaker 1: related then. I don't know if he wasn't just eatn't
Speaker 1: just happen to be dressed as a pirate, but it
Speaker 1: was very he was dressed as a pirate. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I tell Megan. Honestly, I don't know what I'm
Speaker 1: going to write. One of the pirates interjects to ask
Speaker 1: me for a selfie, and I say no, I mean
Speaker 1: I came here. I'm gonna listen to Firehouse as I
Speaker 1: promised Katie and two and Amanda and Maggie and god
Speaker 1: knows how many others strangers that I would. And then
Speaker 1: I'm going home. But she disregards what I want because
Speaker 1: funk what I want, and she takes the selfie with
Speaker 1: the entire table. Anyways, somewhere there is a cursed image
Speaker 1: of me at Scottish Hooter with a bunch of mens
Speaker 1: and pirates, and I hate that for myself. But I'm
Speaker 1: helping myself to Katie's fried pickles appetizer as I talked
Speaker 1: with her and Megan, And for the first time since
Speaker 1: I got here, someone in Firehouse tells me about themselves
Speaker 1: instead of asking me how my a G is going.
Speaker 1: Who they are is, like many of the people in
Speaker 1: this very sticky story, more complicated than I could have
Speaker 1: imagined back in the Pasadena testing room a year ago.
Speaker 1: Here's a little bit about them. Megan is a married
Speaker 1: Canadian Conservative who joined MENSA when she realized her son
Speaker 1: is both very intelligent and struggling to fit in at school.
Speaker 1: She says her reason for joining was as a supportive
Speaker 1: mom looking for a way to make her son feel
Speaker 1: like a part of something. And once they signed up,
Speaker 1: a on came Firehouse and the secret Facebook group immediately
Speaker 1: became a big part of Megan's online life, and she
Speaker 1: recalls the group's schism that led to mensa Facebook groups
Speaker 1: being separated with moderated and unmoderated factions. In the first place,
Speaker 1: she hates socialized medicine, but she backs this thought up
Speaker 1: with an anecdote about how she was struggling to get
Speaker 1: the surgery she needed under this system for well over
Speaker 1: a year, which impeded her quality of life and ability
Speaker 1: to work and parent. She identifies as bisexual, libertarian and
Speaker 1: as the creator of the boob thread and if you
Speaker 1: don't know what the book that is by now, I
Speaker 1: honestly can't help you. You've got to go back. But
Speaker 1: she and Katie met on the Firehouse board several years
Speaker 1: ago and are self described ride or die ever since,
Speaker 1: and Megan talks a lot about her beliefs but doesn't
Speaker 1: like how she's pigeonholed with labels. She says, I'm not
Speaker 1: alt right, but I'm very right. Great, and then there's Katie.
Speaker 1: Katie is an American from the East Coast who voted
Speaker 1: for Obama in two thousand and eight, then became an
Speaker 1: increasingly intense conservative following the recession of the late two thousand's.
Speaker 1: She was raised in a poor, often difficult household and
Speaker 1: joined MENSA back in the mid nineties when an elementary
Speaker 1: school teacher noticed how well she was doing in school,
Speaker 1: especially on standardized tests. She originally found it useful to
Speaker 1: put MENSA on job resumes to supplement the college education.
Speaker 1: Her financial background made it impossible to get, and she
Speaker 1: became an increasingly more active member of Firehouse following Trump's election.
Speaker 1: She's married now, and in another twist, she's pro choice,
Speaker 1: but says she's not extreme and that babies shouldn't be
Speaker 1: aborted at nine months, which is not an argument I'm
Speaker 1: aware exists. She says that she's actually seen my stand
Speaker 1: up online and laughs when she remembers that she was
Speaker 1: piste off when she ended up kind of liking it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Watch my stand up on line. Anyways,
Speaker 1: Megan was the first person to welcome Katie to Firehouse,
Speaker 1: and this is the main time they get to spend
Speaker 1: together during the year. And while they're telling me this,
Speaker 1: Megan seems to be warming up to me a little
Speaker 1: bit too, but with more conditions than Katie. She really
Speaker 1: wants to know what and if I'm going to write,
Speaker 1: and I really don't have an answer for her. I
Speaker 1: feel everyone at the table slowly poking holes in my
Speaker 1: fragile bubble of remaining patients, and although I avowed to listen,
Speaker 1: I find myself speaking up more as the women move
Speaker 1: on from their life stories into their opinions on Firehouse
Speaker 1: Me and the last thing anyone wants to talk about
Speaker 1: the state of America. And anytime I do say something,
Speaker 1: they think my annoyance is very funny. Megan says this
Speaker 1: at one point when I get frustrated at a comment
Speaker 1: at the table, and I will remember it forever. You're
Speaker 1: confusing intelligence with education. So I'm getting worked up, and
Speaker 1: I'm most of the way through the fried pickles. Talking
Speaker 1: to Megan and Katie feels like some of the biggest
Speaker 1: contradictions I have ever encountered. Their pro gay rights, but
Speaker 1: they're anti fat people, they're sex positive, but they hate feminism.
Speaker 1: It's those mentioned contradictions that have it always, all the time,
Speaker 1: all over again. And of course, here I was at
Speaker 1: Scottish Hooters, realizing that there was more to the people
Speaker 1: flooding my comments in my life and anxiety. And yet
Speaker 1: I bet I've had sex with more girls than you.
Speaker 1: Megan says this to Too, who is a little too
Speaker 1: eager to fight back, he says, helping himself to one
Speaker 1: of her buffalo wings. And I'm on Megan's side for
Speaker 1: this one for a second, but then and you're having
Speaker 1: worse six with those man haters. Katie and Megan do
Speaker 1: not like feminists. They think that real men respect the
Speaker 1: women there with and that most of the discussion around
Speaker 1: current feminism amounts to whiney entitlement. They poke at two
Speaker 1: for self identifying as a feminist, and they say there's
Speaker 1: nothing less sexy than that. I'm not drinking at this meal,
Speaker 1: as I need every bit of self control fully with me.
Speaker 1: But the ladies at the table, the one who's having
Speaker 1: a conversation with Sam, the pianist who's arrived, is too
Speaker 1: drunk to really participate. They order one more round before
Speaker 1: the boob thread comes up again, Megan tells me that's
Speaker 1: one of my big issues, honestly telling people about the
Speaker 1: boob thread and the screenshots. As the meal continues, it
Speaker 1: gets increasingly tougher to keep the promise to hold my
Speaker 1: tongue and simply get to know the medicines. I have
Speaker 1: yet to spring to my own defense in any meaningful way,
Speaker 1: other than to repeat that I wasn't there to terrorize
Speaker 1: the group at nausea, and I believe it was the
Speaker 1: thousandth mention of the screenshots that tested me. Katie hears
Speaker 1: me out when I remind her that MENSA isn't the
Speaker 1: first heaping of online abuse I've received as an entertainer,
Speaker 1: and I feel that I need to take every threat seriously,
Speaker 1: particularly when I have had no action with the commenter
Speaker 1: at all. This seems to resonate with her, and she
Speaker 1: repeats that tone is difficult to understand online. Megan is
Speaker 1: still more leary of this logic, and she continues to
Speaker 1: push back, and this opens a discussion about past quote
Speaker 1: unquote problem members of the group, problem members being kind
Speaker 1: of this medicine buzz phrase I've been hearing all week.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was even a dealing with problem members
Speaker 1: session officially on the books, that I did not have
Speaker 1: the inner strength to attend, and also going would have
Speaker 1: sort of felt like trolling on my part. Anyways, this
Speaker 1: is what makes me break. I had assured to on
Speaker 1: the walkover that I had already made it three days
Speaker 1: without getting in an argument with anyone, and that I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to let any Scottish Hooters discourse be the
Speaker 1: thing that breaks me. And then Megan and Katie brought
Speaker 1: up white supremacy. We've had actual real racists in the
Speaker 1: group before. This is Megan, and she describes a Firehouse
Speaker 1: member who regularly posted racist screeds in the group. As
Speaker 1: she told it, the members found this too racist and
Speaker 1: would pile on him for his views, excoriate his arguments,
Speaker 1: and tried to make him feel as uncomfortable being a
Speaker 1: part of the group as possible. This, she explains, is
Speaker 1: why she thinks censorship is not a good tactic for
Speaker 1: any forum, her logic being otherwise, how would meant to
Speaker 1: know this person was racist at all? And I asked her, well,
Speaker 1: did anyone do anything about it? Did he get kicked
Speaker 1: out of mensa? And No? This same member somehow managed
Speaker 1: to get officially booked as an annual gathering speaker. His
Speaker 1: talk was on, per Megan, the Bell Curve, a controversial
Speaker 1: parentheses completely disproven book that is constantly cited to justify
Speaker 1: racist views. As Megan tells it, Firehouse members, including her,
Speaker 1: made a plan to show up at this guy's talk
Speaker 1: at the annual gathering and then mass walk out in
Speaker 1: the middle of it in order her to humiliate him.
Speaker 1: And she says that this worked and he was humiliated.
Speaker 1: And she concludes this story by saying he eventually left
Speaker 1: American ments of Firehouse after being blocked and humiliated enough times.
Speaker 1: She suggests that this and commenting to disagree with his
Speaker 1: racist posts instead of removing him or adding a no
Speaker 1: white supremacists welcome addition to the group's non policies, was
Speaker 1: potentially what prevented this member from becoming fully radicalized and
Speaker 1: taking part in a more violent group. And sure, he
Speaker 1: eventually left Firehouse after feeling unwelcome enough, but she felt
Speaker 1: that this experience had a role in changing him for
Speaker 1: the better. And if you could not follow the logic
Speaker 1: of that story, we are on the same page. I
Speaker 1: am not at all sure I understand what she's trying
Speaker 1: to say, and so I asked, but what did that accomplish?
Speaker 1: If he left the group, then didn't he probably just
Speaker 1: go continue to be a white supremacist somewhere else. My
Speaker 1: head is throbbing at this point, and I want to
Speaker 1: ask her what any of this has anything to do
Speaker 1: with what her argument against me specifically is, but she's
Speaker 1: not done speaking. So you see, problem members do leave
Speaker 1: the group if they know we don't support what they do,
Speaker 1: Katie says, drawing a direct line with how the group
Speaker 1: dealt with a white supremacist to how they dealt with
Speaker 1: a dealist comedian. And there has been a lot of
Speaker 1: false equivalence at this table tonight, but this one is
Speaker 1: too much. Two seems genuinely shocked, and he bursts into
Speaker 1: laughter at the comparison, while I am struggling to keep
Speaker 1: my head attached to my neck, and Two is like,
Speaker 1: and Katie kind of catches the comparison she just made
Speaker 1: and says, no, No, I didn't mean. I'm obviously not.
Speaker 1: We're just talking about problem members. She apologizes, and she
Speaker 1: tries to start the anecdote over, but I cannot take this.
Speaker 1: Sitting down at Scott Shooters anymore. So I choked down
Speaker 1: one last fried pickle, and against every better instinct in
Speaker 1: my very tired body, I fucking debate mensa. So stupid. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: because I made the critical mistake of debating my own
Speaker 1: reply guys, reply, women, reply people, I'll start with what
Speaker 1: they get me on the first is the satire itself.
Speaker 1: Megan articulated clearly that the group felt this was me
Speaker 1: punching down at a group of people who were misfits
Speaker 1: their entire lives and have finally found a community. She
Speaker 1: also thought I was a little too cutting towards my
Speaker 1: test proctor in the first piece, And okay, fair, I
Speaker 1: was bullying dorks, and I hadn't considered it from this
Speaker 1: point of view, even though I thought of it at
Speaker 1: the time as punching up to a group that paid
Speaker 1: a fee to declare their superiority over the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. So yes, that's a viewpoint that I hadn't
Speaker 1: considered point for mensa. Megan leans over to me at
Speaker 1: one point and says, you and I were able to
Speaker 1: fake it. I mean, we're unusual, but you're smart and
Speaker 1: you're pretty, and you're able to be around people and
Speaker 1: fake it. Not everyone in mensa is like that. First
Speaker 1: of all, thank you so much for calling me pretty.
Speaker 1: But Megan makes references to members of the group that
Speaker 1: are socially awkward and some who are on the spectrum,
Speaker 1: and others who identify as lifelong misfits. And she has
Speaker 1: this to say about the guy who issued the now
Speaker 1: infamous in group death threat. He's the nicest guy in
Speaker 1: the world in person, and that's how he jokes. And
Speaker 1: I asked, how was I supposed to know that threatening
Speaker 1: a stranger is how he jokes, and Megan says, I understand,
Speaker 1: but she continues to defend his right to do so.
Speaker 1: Another point they get me on is the group's impression
Speaker 1: that I was trying to get them doxed and attacked
Speaker 1: with my tweets, something that I have to be sympathetic too,
Speaker 1: because the same thing has happened to me, although with
Speaker 1: more explicit instructions to harass I was never asking anyone
Speaker 1: to find these people in aither them. If you're coming
Speaker 1: after my friends, I'm gonna block you, that simple. And
Speaker 1: the second you talked about the boob thread, I blocked
Speaker 1: you right away because I can't have people posting on
Speaker 1: that getting docs again I repeat to her that I
Speaker 1: didn't intend to docks people by posting screenshots that were
Speaker 1: insults and threats against me, and hadn't done so since
Speaker 1: those original tweets, And again I repeat that I felt
Speaker 1: that once threats, insults, hate speech come into the equation,
Speaker 1: the question of whether someone's identity should be protected becomes
Speaker 1: obscured for me. And again we disagree. So they closed
Speaker 1: the tab at Scottish Hooters and Megan and I continue
Speaker 1: to have a heated debate into the street, at one
Speaker 1: point getting so involved that we walked a half a
Speaker 1: block away from the main group in the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: And it's a respectful conversation for the most part, but
Speaker 1: it is very intense. She challenges me, if you felt
Speaker 1: so threatened, why didn't you report it to the police
Speaker 1: or Facebook? And I say, well, I talked to the
Speaker 1: organization that's in charge of Firehouse directly. I thought they
Speaker 1: might do something. And Megan shrugs at this, the implication
Speaker 1: being that since nothing was done, that's evidence that there
Speaker 1: was no harm done in the first place, and not
Speaker 1: just systemic not giving a fuck. The subject of our
Speaker 1: conversation switches to the unmoderated elements of Firehouse. Megan is,
Speaker 1: as expected, a fierce defender of the unmoderated nature of
Speaker 1: the group, repeating me, if you can't take the heat,
Speaker 1: get out of the kitchen, creed among people who have
Speaker 1: expressed frustration at the group's persistence. I don't believe in censorship,
Speaker 1: she repeats a number of times. So I pushed back
Speaker 1: and say, isn't having everyone in the group block one
Speaker 1: person censoring the group though? And at this point we
Speaker 1: are all standing in front of a theater complex. Katie
Speaker 1: is drunkenly humping a statue, and two is taking pictures
Speaker 1: of it, and Megan and I are still trained to
Speaker 1: have this conversation, and in another dimension, Two and Katie
Speaker 1: are soul mates. Weirdly, but in spite of or may
Speaker 1: me because of the humping, I continue the conversation with
Speaker 1: Megan and say, the way I see it, the threat
Speaker 1: is a threat, and saying that I should have to
Speaker 1: read into the tone or personal history of the person
Speaker 1: making a threat is kind of asking a lot. And
Speaker 1: Megan comes right back with, well, you didn't get to
Speaker 1: know us. Kitty is hanging from a statue, and I say,
Speaker 1: my introduction to this group was getting tagged and an insult.
Speaker 1: Why the funk would I want to know people in
Speaker 1: a group that would do that. And Megan considers this
Speaker 1: and says that is unfortunate. She then mentions a few
Speaker 1: strategies I could employ to have people in Firehouse begin
Speaker 1: to unblock me, including a public apology, a public vow
Speaker 1: to never release any manner of screenshot ever again with
Speaker 1: names blocked or not, and a number of other apologies
Speaker 1: I could make in order to participate in this community
Speaker 1: that many people have started to assume I am eager
Speaker 1: to reconcile with. And I say, besides, you guys are
Speaker 1: always talking about free spee when I was making jokes
Speaker 1: and being critical and trying to hold people accountable for
Speaker 1: shitty things they were saying. And at this point we
Speaker 1: have reached an impass and we were finally at the
Speaker 1: door of the Sheraton Grand for the final Mensa Official
Speaker 1: Great Gatsby nineteen twenties dance. Megan, Katie and the MAGA
Speaker 1: crew hugged me goodbye and say they'll see me at
Speaker 1: the dance. But I have no intention of staying more
Speaker 1: than like ten minutes. My head hurts and my legs hurt.
Speaker 1: And I'm dying of heat stroke, and I should not
Speaker 1: have come here too, who's a former journalist himself, seems
Speaker 1: just as drained by the dinner as I am, and
Speaker 1: says he might write something himself. The arguments Megan and
Speaker 1: Katie made defending their community felt just as contradictory as
Speaker 1: the people themselves. Firehouse was a haven for the socially awkward,
Speaker 1: but also a place for the socially awkward to threaten
Speaker 1: people freely. Firehouse was uncensored except for the people they
Speaker 1: didn't like, who would be censored to the point of
Speaker 1: complete silence to those in the group with influence. We
Speaker 1: go into the dance for a minute, and it's early hours.
Speaker 1: There's a few middle aged couples who danced to celebration
Speaker 1: in the center of the room, and a few immaculately
Speaker 1: dressed younger couples who are flocked around the photo booth.
Speaker 1: Two says, not much of a dance guy, and he
Speaker 1: looks down at like the basketball shorts he's wearing. I
Speaker 1: say me either, and have him snap a quick picture
Speaker 1: and get ready to leave. One of the couples in
Speaker 1: gen y who had brought me up to the firehouse,
Speaker 1: sweet my first night or there and there once again
Speaker 1: wearing matching outfits. You're coming into booth, aren't you, The
Speaker 1: guy who's close to my age asks, and he insists
Speaker 1: that we get a few shots of them with the
Speaker 1: oversized props in the booth. We leave the room, and
Speaker 1: my final confrontation of the evening follows me out of
Speaker 1: the ballroom and into the hallway. And this is Sarah,
Speaker 1: the girlfriend of the hoser who had spoken to the
Speaker 1: night my phone got Comma kaze. If you don't remember
Speaker 1: who that is, honestly no big deal. She was also
Speaker 1: the woman who had I thought the best points on
Speaker 1: abortion rights in the debate room that same day, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I am too tired for this level of nuance in
Speaker 1: a person at this point, And she says, are you leaving?
Speaker 1: Are you sure I can make sure your request gets
Speaker 1: straight to the DJ. She tells me that she really
Speaker 1: hops I had a good time and that I'll come
Speaker 1: back the next year. I hug to goodbye, go upstairs
Speaker 1: to get my final fist full of free M and m's,
Speaker 1: and finally, mercifully I go home. Some final thoughts on
Speaker 1: my year in mensa, both the podcast and the reality.
Speaker 1: So it was really fucking hard to arrive at anything
Speaker 1: conclusive about dare I say my year in mensa? Because
Speaker 1: there's a very silly, performative conclusion I could get to,
Speaker 1: or there's a more nuanced, kind of overly sympathetic conclusion
Speaker 1: I could get to, and I don't want to get
Speaker 1: to either, so I'm gonna do my best. I can't
Speaker 1: guarantee that my feelings won't change later an either way,
Speaker 1: you don't really have to care. Here's as close as
Speaker 1: I've gotten to conclusive thoughts. And actually I'm going to
Speaker 1: start with a quick appall a g because there is
Speaker 1: one apology that I feel I owe sincerely, and that
Speaker 1: is to the boob thread. As a militant feminist myself,
Speaker 1: it was rude and out of line for me to
Speaker 1: disclose the concept of the boob thread to the Internet
Speaker 1: at large and to boob thread members past and present.
Speaker 1: I regret my condescension and wish all boobs involved health
Speaker 1: and happiness. I'm sorry, boob Thread. I never wanted to
Speaker 1: feud with the boob thread because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, mensa boob thread and now some actual conclusions.
Speaker 1: So the last long form kind of story that I
Speaker 1: want to do is something I've seen before, and maybe
Speaker 1: you'll recognize it too. It kind of goes like, so
Speaker 1: I met these people who have absolutely terrible views on
Speaker 1: just about everything, and it turns out they're pretty nice.
Speaker 1: This happens weirdly a lot making largely toxic and bad
Speaker 1: groups seem very sympathetic, and that's not how I feel
Speaker 1: at all. And I feel just as opposed to the
Speaker 1: views of a lot of people in Firehouse as I
Speaker 1: have from the beginning over a year ago. Many of
Speaker 1: these views are actively harmful to people I love, and
Speaker 1: are oftentimes actively harmful to me. There's no number of
Speaker 1: pleasant civil conversations over fried pickles that can change that reality.
Speaker 1: I can't in good conscience participate in a community like that. Also,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to. And when I get back
Speaker 1: from the mental conference, it takes me about three days
Speaker 1: for me to sit down and actually start writing, and
Speaker 1: by that time, people have, through some divine intervention, started
Speaker 1: unblocking me on Firehouse. This appears to be connected to
Speaker 1: the goodwill of Katie, who had been defending me in
Speaker 1: the group in a number of long comments in Firehouse
Speaker 1: since the annual gathering ended. There's been one meme that
Speaker 1: I've been able to see, although I hear there's more,
Speaker 1: as well as a few discussions of how the group
Speaker 1: felt interactions with me had gone in person. And that
Speaker 1: picture of Katie and I from the mead party that
Speaker 1: has over three hundred comments talking about me one way
Speaker 1: or the other, and hey, I'm addicted to attention. Oh god,
Speaker 1: I'm going to describe the meme because it's an audio medium,
Speaker 1: but this is gonna sound so fucking lame describing a meme.
Speaker 1: It's the scene from the end of Dirty Dancing where
Speaker 1: she's Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze are all this is
Speaker 1: so embar okay, he's lifting her. She's like and so
Speaker 1: I'm Jennifer Gray and Katie's Patrick Swayzy. And then the
Speaker 1: bottom half of the meme, the description is still going
Speaker 1: is Jerry or bog and Susan sarandic or maybe it
Speaker 1: just looks like her and they're like you And that's
Speaker 1: labeled American Mens of Firehouse. That didn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a fine meme, I think, very specific,
Speaker 1: very niche really for about a hundred people. Anyways, one
Speaker 1: user comments, you're truly twisting the tale of the dragon
Speaker 1: by interacting with her at all, and he goes on
Speaker 1: to say that he ensured he was never physically near
Speaker 1: me for the entire gathering. And with every day that passes,
Speaker 1: it looks like I'm able to see more posts from
Speaker 1: more users as the great blocking slowly kind of disbands.
Speaker 1: The conversation around me has now changed and appears to
Speaker 1: be a little more split. Certain members feel that I
Speaker 1: am irredeemable after the perceived doxing and disclosure of the
Speaker 1: boob thread, and others are willing to as the narrative
Speaker 1: has been give me a second chance. It's been speculated
Speaker 1: that I will in my eventual writing on the topic.
Speaker 1: Quote explained that no one was actually threatening her life
Speaker 1: and that she gets it now. Unquote another comment, Realistically,
Speaker 1: if she were able to post an apology, the first
Speaker 1: thing that would happen is she'd probably get a stream
Speaker 1: of posts from people venting. Here's a more sympathetic one. Quote.
Speaker 1: Once I got to speak with her and understood her
Speaker 1: perspective and that it was an honest misunderstanding, I put
Speaker 1: my pitchfork down. Some more comments. We all want to
Speaker 1: be loved, understood, and appreciated. So good to see, and
Speaker 1: apology would go a long way, as it would demonstrate
Speaker 1: an understanding that she should not have done what she did.
Speaker 1: So far, it seems like she's just testing the boundaries
Speaker 1: of what she can get away with. And this was
Speaker 1: interesting to watch because I wasn't expecting any of the
Speaker 1: community to put the pitchfork down, and it was kind
Speaker 1: of heartening and really confusing, but still most of the
Speaker 1: conversation I can see, and as Katie continues to advocate
Speaker 1: on my behalf, what I can see has expanded is
Speaker 1: a request for a formal apology for screenshotting a number
Speaker 1: of insults and threats towards me without redacting names. Last October, Sam,
Speaker 1: who I got to know pretty well during the gathering,
Speaker 1: post the selfie he took of a freshly cried out
Speaker 1: me in the vestibule of the Sheraton on the first
Speaker 1: night of the gathering sort of collaged along with images
Speaker 1: of Winston Churchill, Steven Spielberg, Van Gogh and and I'm
Speaker 1: not getting Katie humping that statue. In the caption, he
Speaker 1: explained his own history with MENSA mental illness and his
Speaker 1: concern that the group is quote too worried about our
Speaker 1: image unquote, he writes, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: people in MENSA or MENSA Materials will do their ships
Speaker 1: and change the world, and it's fine we are labeled crazy.
Speaker 1: He continues, as for leaking your information using it as
Speaker 1: your business, Jamie Loftist, I'd not do it anymore if
Speaker 1: I were you. I'm sure someone in here eats eyeballs
Speaker 1: and you have beautiful eyes. Yes, another one of those
Speaker 1: hilarious jokes. And this post is generally kind, if a
Speaker 1: little weirdly threatening at the end. But I can't say
Speaker 1: I agree with Sam that MENSA is too worried about
Speaker 1: its image, because it absolutely should be worried about how
Speaker 1: it presents to other people. And the issues within high
Speaker 1: i Q groups go far deeper than the image projected
Speaker 1: at one conference in Phoenix. The issues are cooked right
Speaker 1: into the history of the organization itself and into the
Speaker 1: very idea of a society based on a single biased test.
Speaker 1: So listeners, obviously, I did not shut down Firehouse, and
Speaker 1: I didn't even successfully require that members of the Planets
Speaker 1: Premier High i Q Society do not threaten to kill
Speaker 1: each other. But I did meet them like they asked,
Speaker 1: and it made me think more about what the root
Speaker 1: cause of a group like this could be. And if
Speaker 1: you've been listening since the beginning, you've heard this before.
Speaker 1: MENSA has three stated purposes in its constitution quote to
Speaker 1: identify and foster human intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
Speaker 1: To encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence.
Speaker 1: And to provide a stimulating intellectual and social environment to
Speaker 1: its members. And after this year, I feel confident in
Speaker 1: saying that the group as a whole does not live
Speaker 1: up to these three tenants. The most active forum in
Speaker 1: the entire organization is essentially a four chand board. Seeing
Speaker 1: children who are being told from a very young age
Speaker 1: that they are fundamentally smarter and better than the kids
Speaker 1: around in a permanent, unchangeable way is deeply unsettling. The
Speaker 1: whole group is founded on the idea that taking one
Speaker 1: test makes you an unquestionable genius, a fact that has
Speaker 1: been repeatedly disproven and wasn't even the intent of the
Speaker 1: person who invented the i Q test in the first place.
Speaker 1: I think, and trust me, no one and MENSA gives
Speaker 1: a funk what I think. But I think that MENSA
Speaker 1: could possibly be salvaged as an organization if its leaders
Speaker 1: actually committed to this constitution above protecting communities with high
Speaker 1: social media engagement that they liked talking shit in, and
Speaker 1: instead considering how these communities got so shitty and toxic
Speaker 1: to begin with. The first and third tenants of this
Speaker 1: constitution feel connected. An emphasis or even a requirement for
Speaker 1: more community service and value to people who aren't in
Speaker 1: MENSA could yield a lot of positive growth and prioritizing
Speaker 1: healthier community options, and the physical safety of existing members
Speaker 1: would as well. But what really sticks with me is
Speaker 1: men says complete non commitment to its second tenant, to
Speaker 1: encourage research into the nature, characteristics, and uses of intelligence.
Speaker 1: Firehouse is a symptom of many things in the organization
Speaker 1: and in the country, but I believe the failure to
Speaker 1: uphold this promise and the insistence of hanging onto a
Speaker 1: toxic online community are very connected. Any organization that ascribes
Speaker 1: to a fixed i Q model cannot claim it's encouraging
Speaker 1: research into the uses of intelligence because its own requirement
Speaker 1: intentionally misunderstands the work of the man who created the
Speaker 1: i Q quotient to begin with, and resting on this
Speaker 1: assumption of superiority without any requirement to demonstrate things like
Speaker 1: learning effort or value to others is arrogant at best,
Speaker 1: dangerous at worst, and if you're wondering if you should join,
Speaker 1: it's way too slippery a slope to be worth participating in.
Speaker 1: The creator of the i Q test himself, Alfred Bennet,
Speaker 1: would not funk with it, So to literally no one's disappointment,
Speaker 1: I'm done with MENSA, I'm logging out of the goddamn group,
Speaker 1: and I would not recommend joining a group with a
Speaker 1: fixed intelligence model to anyone, especially kids. I do hope
Speaker 1: that the community, in real life and online and all
Speaker 1: the in between spaces are willing to look at themselves
Speaker 1: and consider what could be accomplished if doing literally anything
Speaker 1: else was treated with the same passion and intensity of
Speaker 1: protecting the right to threaten and harass people. Maybe with
Speaker 1: the right leadership, that might be possible. I hear some
Speaker 1: of these people are are pretty smart, and I understand
Speaker 1: that there's no overstating what a community can do for
Speaker 1: someone who, as many members described to me, felt like
Speaker 1: misfits in their everyday lives and want to feel that
Speaker 1: they belong somewhere. People who feel that they don't belong
Speaker 1: absolutely deserved community, but a society with murky gold whose
Speaker 1: selling point is superiority is not a healthy place to
Speaker 1: find it. And if you don't believe me, I invite
Speaker 1: you to google the recruitment techniques of of virtually any
Speaker 1: hate group or cult. Bottom line, if you can't reconcile
Speaker 1: the person you are online with a person you are
Speaker 1: in real life, something in your community has gone wrong.
Speaker 1: We've seen it happen more and more frequently, and even
Speaker 1: more politicized groups like eight chan. And while this large
Speaker 1: portion of MENSA isn't inciting violence, it is inciting politicized
Speaker 1: hate that many in the group members lives wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been aware of in real life. And I don't claim
Speaker 1: to be perfect in this separation. We've all got our
Speaker 1: ship to get through when it comes to separating your
Speaker 1: internet self from your real self. You know, no one's
Speaker 1: as happy as they perform that they are online and
Speaker 1: other things you've heard a million times, But to be
Speaker 1: unrecognizable to anyone you know and love is something to
Speaker 1: be reckoned with. One thing I did feel challenged by
Speaker 1: throughout the MENSA disaster was evaluating the satirical slutty character
Speaker 1: that wanted to take down MENSA with the person I
Speaker 1: actually am, who was then a person standing in a
Speaker 1: boiling hot hotel room of angry people from MENSA. And
Speaker 1: I'll admit claiming an online persona, even when it's part
Speaker 1: of my job, can be a delicate balance when others
Speaker 1: don't always know whether to take it at face value
Speaker 1: or not. What I know for sure is that I
Speaker 1: am never waking up at six am on a Sunday
Speaker 1: for a joke ever. Again, So to conclude, if your
Speaker 1: group is silencing people they don't agree with or like,
Speaker 1: you're not an unmoderated group. If you're a person who's
Speaker 1: loved one would not recognize who you are online, that's alarming.
Speaker 1: And if you've been told you're superior to other people
Speaker 1: forever no follow up or responsibility, that's laying in the
Speaker 1: groundwork for some serious, unchecked supremacy. And finally, I can't
Speaker 1: stress this enough. If you're ending a summit in Arizona
Speaker 1: during July, it's actually very fucking hot there, and you
Speaker 1: might not be as smart as you think you are.
Speaker 1: It is still kind of funny that I got in though.
Speaker 1: All Right, thank you for listening. Thank you to everyone
Speaker 1: who helped me put this together. Thank you to Sadie
Speaker 1: Dupuy who did our amazing theme song. Voices featured in
Speaker 1: this episode are Miles Gray on a hostne Caitlin Durante,
Speaker 1: Jaquis Neil, and Robert Evans. Thank you to my friends.
Speaker 1: I look forward to never talking with you about this again.
Speaker 1: I have a weekly podcast with Caitlin Durante called The
Speaker 1: Bechdel Cast. Feel free to listen to that Into Infinity.
Speaker 1: It comes out on Thursdays on my Heart Radio. You
Speaker 1: can follow me online at at Jamie loftus Help on Twitter,
Speaker 1: where I will never be posting a screenshot ever again,
Speaker 1: or at Jamie christ Superstar on Instagram. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: goodbye forever