Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Internet Hate Machine. I am
Speaker 1: joined by my producer, Sophie Hey. Sophie heybrid It, and
Speaker 1: we are so excited to be joined today by our
Speaker 1: guests prop probably no PROP from his amazing podcast Hood
Speaker 1: Politics or his amazing coffee company. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being here. Dog. I can't wait to do this
Speaker 1: and just be physically outraged by all this stuff. Y'all
Speaker 1: gotta go through. Oh, you're about to be outraged. Before
Speaker 1: we get into it, I have to ask you tweeted
Speaker 1: about losing followers since must took over Twitter? What have you?
Speaker 1: What has it been like to be on Twitter since
Speaker 1: must took over? In your in your view, I mean honestly,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to get involved with
Speaker 1: the like I don't want to feed I don't want
Speaker 1: to feed it. So I was like, I honestly pulled
Speaker 1: the like, well let's see, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: let me let me see what it is, and every
Speaker 1: once in a while kind of go through my own
Speaker 1: like sort of bought purging whatever right. But definitely, at
Speaker 1: first I saw a complete surge of like porn bots,
Speaker 1: and then a complete surge of like these like anybody's
Speaker 1: got like an American flag and patriot in their bio.
Speaker 1: Like I just had a surge of that, and I
Speaker 1: was like, why are y'all here? Right? And then yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I just started like just handful of day,
Speaker 1: you know, saying. So I'm down like five followers, which
Speaker 1: is fine, but it was more like, dude, I used
Speaker 1: to lose followers because of like what I said, not
Speaker 1: just like out of nowhere, like what is this about?
Speaker 1: I wish I could earn my losing, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, But definitely like I haven't seen a lot
Speaker 1: of the like upticking like hate and like vitriol. I
Speaker 1: guess because I was already a public figure. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I've already seen like I already went through
Speaker 1: my fair share of that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So to me, I'm like, like when they talk about
Speaker 1: like crime wave, I'm like, crime is not up. I
Speaker 1: lived through l A in the nineties. This is fine, right,
Speaker 1: So so for me, I'm like, oh baby, just saying nothing.
Speaker 1: But I will say I have enjoyed all the like
Speaker 1: fake or the Twitter blue stuff and like people like
Speaker 1: paying for their verification and creating trolls and then realizing
Speaker 1: now you could click it and it could say like
Speaker 1: not this fool is actually verified, or be like not
Speaker 1: that food paid for it, you know, but generally like
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of been, except for just the losing
Speaker 1: of followers. Like for me personally, it's kind of in
Speaker 1: the same Yeah, yeah, it's been. It's been. It's such
Speaker 1: a weird spot that we're in. I completely agree with you.
Speaker 1: I've been seeing an uptick in horn and pytose scams.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite podcasters, Lazy Got was was hit
Speaker 1: by like a crypto scammer, and I think we're in
Speaker 1: this no man's land right now where scams and pranks
Speaker 1: and trolls have I think really been empowered and emboldened.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily see Elon Musk making it seriously, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a real problem. I think
Speaker 1: it can really you know, open up the platform to
Speaker 1: be mifused. He definitely has the like the way the
Speaker 1: way I've been linking thinking about it is like this
Speaker 1: fool is still a seventh grader, right and being like
Speaker 1: I can jump off that roof and then like all
Speaker 1: the homies being like, bro, you don't have to jump
Speaker 1: off the roof that it's cool, Like why you feel
Speaker 1: like you gotta do that? No, I could do it,
Speaker 1: And the homes are like, all right, do it. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Now that's full climbed on the
Speaker 1: roof and it's like, oh shit, niggie, okay, do it
Speaker 1: like you're gonna if you're gonna do it, do it,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, and him realizing like I
Speaker 1: immediately read it's it's it's Ron Burgundy jumping into the
Speaker 1: bear trap, you know what I'm saying, and being like,
Speaker 1: I immediately regret this decision. And to me, it's like
Speaker 1: I will say, my Twitter experience, maybe not my personal one,
Speaker 1: but my like as a user have been the scamps
Speaker 1: have been so funny to me, like seeing people like
Speaker 1: all the other fake Elon Musk like accounts, the fake
Speaker 1: Lebron James account and just and wondering how, Like I
Speaker 1: think we talked about this before in the episode we
Speaker 1: had with politics, Like if you would just take like
Speaker 1: an extra second to like once you see the name
Speaker 1: and the check and then just read the person's app
Speaker 1: mentioned their actual handle, and you're like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a joke, you know, and just or like it'll be
Speaker 1: it was like Lebron James with a Z at the end,
Speaker 1: So I'm like, that's clearly not Lebron James. But people
Speaker 1: don't do that though, time to do that. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think where we're at right now is the funny
Speaker 1: stories are what are getting pressed right now? Yeah, but right,
Speaker 1: and that's what's that's what's you know, forward facing. But
Speaker 1: in reality, like clearly security and safety or not priority.
Speaker 1: And as we know from the show, the people that
Speaker 1: are going to be affected from this most are marginalized people.
Speaker 1: And uh, that ship stuck and and that's the it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that intersection man, right, Like like you said, it's
Speaker 1: like like obviously this the show is about the experience
Speaker 1: of like marginalized you know, specifically women of color, and
Speaker 1: it's like of course on Mars List, but I'm also
Speaker 1: not a woman of color, so I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: different experience. And I think that, yeah, like that that
Speaker 1: it's important that you know, That's why I'm glad this
Speaker 1: show is happening, you know what I mean, because it's
Speaker 1: important to like, so yeah, it's perfect. Yeah, this may
Speaker 1: mean my experience, Yeah, this may gonna be my experience
Speaker 1: because I'm definitely like a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 1: I did, like even you know, surviving my upbringing was
Speaker 1: like I was very good at staying out of stuff.
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, yeah, I just don't. I just stay
Speaker 1: out of it unless I need to be in it,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, until like you know, somebody
Speaker 1: turns turns to me, like even like you know, to
Speaker 1: carry the metaphor like you know, if it's a if
Speaker 1: it's a if it's a woman of color, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stay out of it until she looks at me
Speaker 1: like hey, youn say something. It's like, right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: break this nigger's jaw, like just you, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: move until you tell me. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: if you tell me, then let's go. But if not,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, she got it, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like I stat like I'm usually not worried, like oh
Speaker 1: she got a she fing a drag y'all, you know.
Speaker 1: And and and for me, it's like I'm I'm ready
Speaker 1: for the show, which is what what which I love
Speaker 1: about this Leslie Jones episode because I don't know if
Speaker 1: we're not supposed to reveal that yet, but like I
Speaker 1: was like in that hole. I remember that saga and
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I was like she dragging them
Speaker 1: and it was funny. I remember how it was weird
Speaker 1: and random to me, where I was like I don't
Speaker 1: know when it started, like how all this started or
Speaker 1: why her. I was like did she do? Like why
Speaker 1: are y'all this seems so it seems so out of
Speaker 1: nowhere to me, like this is so random, and but
Speaker 1: I also knew she was very funny. And for me,
Speaker 1: I was like, she like, y'all picked on the wrong
Speaker 1: person because I'm like, she forn a drag, y'all. And
Speaker 1: to me, I was the fact that like she wasn't like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, Dave, Like why is everybody picking on me?
Speaker 1: She was like nigga, your mama got funny feet, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Like, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: fuck you your head pointy, and I'm like she's I
Speaker 1: was like to me, I was like, okay, y'all, look y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all to poked the bull, you got the wrong one.
Speaker 1: She not the one. And to me it was funny.
Speaker 1: Well what was funny was her the way that she
Speaker 1: was dragging them back. It wasn't funny what was happening
Speaker 1: to her. But her answers were like, we Leslie Jones
Speaker 1: is like one of the funniest people. She's one of
Speaker 1: the She's just there. And I was like, I understand
Speaker 1: what y'all problem with her is. She's hilarious, Like, but
Speaker 1: what what's the problem. Okay, this is a perfect segue.
Speaker 1: The problem this is her. I could not have set
Speaker 1: the segway up better. So let's get into it. Okay.
Speaker 1: So on the heels and our last few episodes, we
Speaker 1: were talking about gamer Gate and all of these tensions
Speaker 1: around marginalized folks. I guess I would say the perception
Speaker 1: that there invading these spaces that have been traditionally thought
Speaker 1: of as like very white and very well right video games, tech,
Speaker 1: and film. So you have all of these like largely
Speaker 1: white dudes who are frustrated and angry that they feel
Speaker 1: like they're being kind of threatened in these spaces. Just
Speaker 1: the idea of like someone who's on a white dude
Speaker 1: entering these spaces and thing in these spaces. And so
Speaker 1: enter one of our major players for this conversation, Steve Bannon.
Speaker 1: I know, all right, how this starts at Steve Bannon.
Speaker 1: It starts with Steve Bannon. We got, we got, we gotta.
Speaker 1: You're probably thinking, like we're talking about Leslie Jones, where
Speaker 1: I was trying at Steve Bannon. And it's because Steve
Speaker 1: Bannon was an early figure who really saw what a
Speaker 1: powerful force these frustrated, disaffected, you know, rangel threatened white
Speaker 1: guys could be and he thinks, Wow, we need to
Speaker 1: harness this and web and eyes and consolidate their political power.
Speaker 1: So it sounds a little bit about why that is.
Speaker 1: It's gonna get a little I'll breathe through this. It's
Speaker 1: gonna get a little bit technical. I'm gonna warrn folks,
Speaker 1: but I found this fascinating and if you let me,
Speaker 1: I feel like we need this part bridget Like I
Speaker 1: feel the entire technical timeline of this higher mess. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so let's do it. So you might be thinking, why
Speaker 1: did Steve Bannon, like, why was he mixed up with
Speaker 1: all of these male gamers. Well, it's because he saw
Speaker 1: the power of these gamers firsthand himself. Before Bannon was
Speaker 1: in the Trump White House or possibly maybe going to jail,
Speaker 1: he was a successful Wall Street dude. In two thousand five,
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon cooked up with a Hong Kong based startup
Speaker 1: called Internet Gaming Entertainment or i g i GE was
Speaker 1: his company that was making millions and millions of dollars
Speaker 1: through selling virtual goods for real money within video games
Speaker 1: like ever Test or World of Warcraft? Did you ever
Speaker 1: play any of those games? Bro? I Once, once the
Speaker 1: remotes went from like four to like eight, I was out,
Speaker 1: literally literally just assume the dad responds from Prop on
Speaker 1: certain things like getting at the getting When Prop is
Speaker 1: like Yama said, out of this, I was like, okay, dad,
Speaker 1: um yeah yeah, but yeah yeah, not for real. I
Speaker 1: was like yeah, this game like once, it was like
Speaker 1: you know, I checked out pretty early on because I
Speaker 1: was like, man, it's too much, and because it was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm already into so many niches, Like I'm already like,
Speaker 1: you know, neck deep in coffee, I'm neck deep in
Speaker 1: hip hop, and especially at that time, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: mean you the beat starts, I'll tell you what machine
Speaker 1: they used, what side chain compression? Where this rapper from
Speaker 1: you know, other side project. I was so deep into
Speaker 1: a niche already that I was like, man, I got
Speaker 1: time to learn it. Yeah, you don't need another rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I can't keep up dog. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So essentially what this company i g E. Was doing
Speaker 1: is selling these like in game capes or wands or
Speaker 1: tokens that would allow players to pay real money to
Speaker 1: immediately level up within the game, rather than having to
Speaker 1: work their way up to a certain level. So if
Speaker 1: you if you ever played games that involve levels, some people,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have money to spare but not
Speaker 1: a lot of time, you might pay to just like
Speaker 1: enter the game at a higher level. I G E.
Speaker 1: Was not the first company to do this. It's actually
Speaker 1: a common practice called gold farming, where low paid workers
Speaker 1: in places like China will play these games like World
Speaker 1: of Warcraft for hours to acquire what they call gold
Speaker 1: or currency within the game and then sell it to
Speaker 1: other players. So the problem with this is that it's
Speaker 1: not totally it was at the time, it was not
Speaker 1: totally legal. It was actually prohibited by the companies that
Speaker 1: make the games, and so it was sort of in
Speaker 1: this legal gray area. And Steve Bannon came on too
Speaker 1: I G E. To try to turn this from you know,
Speaker 1: a practice that existed in a legal gray area to
Speaker 1: really legitimize it by selling the companies that made these
Speaker 1: video games on the idea that players would be willing
Speaker 1: to spend like real money to level up in their
Speaker 1: game play in this way. Um, I know we're talking
Speaker 1: about like gaming and video games, but this ship was
Speaker 1: like big business bandoned that Holman Sex to invest ten
Speaker 1: million dollars in the company. I g e. No, I'm
Speaker 1: like this. This the type of stuff that like also
Speaker 1: turned me off with video games. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: I gotta I need to buy this sword. I'm good
Speaker 1: exactly like I have to spend my real money on
Speaker 1: a virtual sword. And the kind of game is this?
Speaker 1: The game don't come with what I need? I gotta
Speaker 1: buy this now, I'm good totally. I mean you're you're
Speaker 1: not alone in this. And so KA head as game
Speaker 1: game like what kind of what what out of the
Speaker 1: product can you buy and just comes not put together
Speaker 1: like with not every like what I don't have everything
Speaker 1: I need even though I bought it. Now I'm good anyway,
Speaker 1: going when you go to the i KA show room
Speaker 1: and you see the dresser I'll put the other and
Speaker 1: then you buy it and it comes in that flat
Speaker 1: box like, wait a minute, wait a minute, what is this?
Speaker 1: I bought a couch, what is this box? So Steve Bannon,
Speaker 1: he was really brought on to be the adult in
Speaker 1: the room in this video game company, right, he was
Speaker 1: gonna be the money man who was gonna get all
Speaker 1: this sweet sweet goldman SAX financing, and also get the
Speaker 1: companies that made video games on board with the idea
Speaker 1: that they should be in the business of selling this
Speaker 1: this this pay to play kind of scheme with gaming.
Speaker 1: His first big fish was a Blizzard. They make the
Speaker 1: game World of Warcraft and back in two thousand and five, Like,
Speaker 1: this was the game I was in college in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five, Like I played it a little bit
Speaker 1: because my then boyfriend whole a whole long story. But
Speaker 1: then boyfriend was obsessed with it, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: learn to play this game. So why can you know,
Speaker 1: connect with him. I'm not surprised that of all the
Speaker 1: video game companies to come into the story that it's
Speaker 1: Blizzard because Blizzard has Activision. Blizzard has so many lawsuits.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, many lawsuits. Yeah, so many, Like still
Speaker 1: like still this is still happening. This is like where
Speaker 1: you go to like a place, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: A whole bunch of laptops in your computers and you're
Speaker 1: playing World War crap. I remember walking in and being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm good, just like I'm just here for the coffee.
Speaker 1: But I'm not trying to hang out with you. I
Speaker 1: got coffee. I am sad to say that. You just
Speaker 1: described of an environment where I spent an inordinate amount
Speaker 1: of time in college, not because I particularly enjoyed it
Speaker 1: or wanted to be there, because I thought that's how
Speaker 1: you got like dudes to be interested in you. I'm
Speaker 1: really enjoying being at this Land party. I don't want
Speaker 1: to be home watching Real World and listening to my carry.
Speaker 1: I'm having a great time. I know it wasn't It
Speaker 1: wasn't hang with us, man, it wasn't great. You're come
Speaker 1: to this open Michael. So, Steve Bannon is his big
Speaker 1: fish as Blizzard. He's hoping that he can get these
Speaker 1: executives on board, and in fact it was quite the opposite.
Speaker 1: Blizzard executives were not on board with this idea of
Speaker 1: having users pay to level up within the games, and
Speaker 1: in May of two thousand and six, they actually cracked
Speaker 1: down on that scheme, calling it cheating, and they put
Speaker 1: out a press release saying that they had banned over
Speaker 1: thirty accounts on their games who were engaging in that practice.
Speaker 1: I G E and their suppliers suffered a huge loss
Speaker 1: after this crackdown. He was losing five thousand dollars a month,
Speaker 1: and so this was like a huge like they were
Speaker 1: hemorrhaging money because of this this crackdown. And something to
Speaker 1: know about gamers is that they really hated this pay
Speaker 1: to play scheme. Gamers got organized, they you know, ended
Speaker 1: up delivering another big blow to I g S business.
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft users actually sued I G E. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, a gamer in Florida lodged a
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit against I G E. M. According to
Speaker 1: The Washington Post, the lawsuit alleged that I G E
Speaker 1: had received tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars selling the World of Warcraft of virtual property
Speaker 1: or currency generated by cheap labor in third world countries. So,
Speaker 1: you know, and like what's interesting about this is that
Speaker 1: I G E settled that lawsuit, and as part of
Speaker 1: that settlement, they promised not to sell virtual currency in
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft for five years. Uh Bannon then becomes
Speaker 1: the CEO of I G E. In two thousand seven.
Speaker 1: He moves the company kind of away from this gold
Speaker 1: farming scheme to focus on things like gaming chat rooms
Speaker 1: and gaming websites, some of which he had acquired during
Speaker 1: this like gold farming operation. These in these chat rooms
Speaker 1: full of gamers, full of people who were passionate about gaming.
Speaker 1: They were super super vocal about how much they hated
Speaker 1: I G e. S pay to play schemes. You know,
Speaker 1: they were Something to know about gamers is that they
Speaker 1: kind of consider themselves to be kind of I guess
Speaker 1: values based, you know. They felt that it was unfair
Speaker 1: and that like this scheme went against what they saw
Speaker 1: is the egalitarian spirit of gameplay. They were fervent. They
Speaker 1: used these websites that Bannon was running to organize and
Speaker 1: the pressure companies who were operating these these games not
Speaker 1: to partner with I G. E. And Steve Bannon. He
Speaker 1: saw all of this. He saw the ways that these
Speaker 1: gamers hate and pay to play. They were successful in
Speaker 1: rallying each other to keep you know, gold farming out
Speaker 1: of their games. He saw firsthand that gamers were this big, powerful,
Speaker 1: passionate community that would really dig in around an issue
Speaker 1: that they felt highlighted their shared values. In a book
Speaker 1: called The Devil's Bargain by journalist Joshua Green about the
Speaker 1: rise of Bannon and Trump's presidency, Bannon said, these guys,
Speaker 1: these rootless white males, had monster power. So he definitely
Speaker 1: early on was like, wait, these gamers, they're serious, yo.
Speaker 1: This is like two things I camp on. One is
Speaker 1: like I still don't understand the five year number where
Speaker 1: it's like we'll stop selling for five years. It's like, no, fam, no,
Speaker 1: it's you can't do this. What do you mean Okay, well, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll chill for a little bit. Like, no, fam, you
Speaker 1: can't know. Okay, we'll chill. We'll chill, no problem. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, where did this five year number come from?
Speaker 1: That you just agree to stop doing something illegal just
Speaker 1: for five years. And then secondly, um, it's definitely like
Speaker 1: an interesting like things to witness, like the birth of
Speaker 1: a villain. It's like when you're like, oh, where this was?
Speaker 1: When this is like attack of the Clones. It's like
Speaker 1: when the sixth when the when the dark Side switches
Speaker 1: and all the clones become evil. Like I was like,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is it. You just turned them
Speaker 1: into stormtroopers. This is the moment. Oh my god. That's
Speaker 1: such a So that's such a good analogy for where
Speaker 1: this conversation goes, because it's so it's so true how
Speaker 1: you can take this disaffected group and really successfully radicalized
Speaker 1: them and turned them against a common enemy, even if
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily a common enemy that they had before
Speaker 1: all of that. No, you just turn them in stormtroopers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: such a such a good comparison. And so Bannon takes
Speaker 1: over at bright Burt News in twelve. If you don't
Speaker 1: know what Brightburt News is, it's an extremist right wing
Speaker 1: media site that Steve Bannon himself once declared as quote
Speaker 1: the platform for the alt right. And I really have
Speaker 1: to give it to Steve Bannon here because he's very savvy.
Speaker 1: He sees the potential in building out Bright Bart into
Speaker 1: this digitally savvy, plugged in outlet with a young audience base.
Speaker 1: And he also sees huge potential in marrying what he
Speaker 1: learned during his time running gaming chat rooms with i
Speaker 1: GE with this toxic white supremacist ideology. He's like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute. If I combine these things, my power like
Speaker 1: this will be very powerful, and he was right, yeah,
Speaker 1: he yeah. Another thing, like if I'm gonna give them
Speaker 1: any credit, is the fact that like he's not, He's
Speaker 1: very upfront of what he's doing. He's like, not easier,
Speaker 1: this is all right. These are white boys, and I
Speaker 1: can feed them racism and they'll make us they'll give
Speaker 1: us power. Ye, that's what I'm doing exactly. It's very
Speaker 1: open about it. But he's like, yeah, that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: So this is where another major player in the harassment
Speaker 1: of Leslie Jones emerges. Milo your novelist. We've talked about
Speaker 1: this a little bit, Sophie and I um. On October,
Speaker 1: ripe Bart launches a tech vertical that will focus on
Speaker 1: Internet culture and video games, and Steve Bannon recruits Milo
Speaker 1: to run it as tech editor. Most of the articles
Speaker 1: like It's funny because I when I was doing the
Speaker 1: research for this, I was like, what did Milo have
Speaker 1: to do with tech? But actually I was said, correct,
Speaker 1: he actually did have a background as a tech journalist
Speaker 1: before all of this. The website that Milo founded, called
Speaker 1: The Colonel, was actually acquired by the Tech website The
Speaker 1: Daily Dot, so he he actually did have some like
Speaker 1: bona fides in actual tech journalism. However, when he got
Speaker 1: to Bripe bart I think that's calling the stuff that
Speaker 1: he was writing tech is a little generous because it's
Speaker 1: all kind of framed as these conversations. It's all very reactionary, right,
Speaker 1: and so all the articles that he writes on Ripe
Speaker 1: bart On this tech article are not really about tech
Speaker 1: so insomuch as they're about all of these different ways
Speaker 1: that white men are being pushed out of technology and
Speaker 1: video games and culture, which is just nonsense. Like every
Speaker 1: article is about, you know, making fun of feminists or
Speaker 1: women or fat people. Like it's all very reactionary. But
Speaker 1: I guess like that's the kind of tech storytelling that
Speaker 1: that Milo and Steve Bannon were interested in because they
Speaker 1: know this is going to get these young white males
Speaker 1: round up at works. So Milo has a lot of
Speaker 1: appeal with exactly the kind of young men that Bannon
Speaker 1: is looking to port as a resource and weaponize. My
Speaker 1: loom is young, he's active online, and most importantly, he
Speaker 1: revels in being offensive and insulting people. And I have
Speaker 1: to say, just like a lot of gamers, like if
Speaker 1: you look like video games. I'm not saying all gamers
Speaker 1: do this by a wide margin, but that's certainly one
Speaker 1: of the cultural nuances of gaming, is like, you know,
Speaker 1: calling each other slurs and talking shit right like, and
Speaker 1: that's part of it. I could see like gamers being
Speaker 1: into him, but I don't think like Milo probably doesn't
Speaker 1: give a shit about gamers. I was like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I can't see him. Yeah, He's like exactly so you're
Speaker 1: you're exactly right, Mileo doesn't give a shit about gamers
Speaker 1: or any of this stuff. The same year that Milo
Speaker 1: starts up at right Bart, we see the rise of
Speaker 1: another big figure who loves being online and revels in
Speaker 1: being Can you guess who I'm talking about? Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: Trump announces his bid for presidency. The same year editor thanks, Hey,
Speaker 1: my my socials are I'm I'm done. I'm done. I'm not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Bannon told Joshua Green, the journalist who wrote that
Speaker 1: book about his rise, quote, I realized Milo could connect
Speaker 1: with these kids right away. You can activate that army
Speaker 1: they come in through gamer Gate or whatever else, and
Speaker 1: then they can get turned onto politics and Trump. So,
Speaker 1: as Sophie said, Milo does not give a ship about
Speaker 1: gamers or video games, and actually, early on in his
Speaker 1: career he sent a lot of time mocking video gamers
Speaker 1: and belittling them. But Milo does understand that gamers are
Speaker 1: an easily riled up, easily stoked audience, and that he
Speaker 1: can stoke their sense of victimization around things like gamber
Speaker 1: Gate or threats posed by like woke PC culture and
Speaker 1: basically get them on board for anything. I'm still trying
Speaker 1: to like figure out how they figured out to go
Speaker 1: from games to racism to voting Trump in the office
Speaker 1: that thread, although it's now in hindsight you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, but totally how did you?
Speaker 1: Because they saw white male rage and like mass because
Speaker 1: because I'm just like nerds, Yeah, I'm saying I like, like,
Speaker 1: you know, in the most like you know, if I'm
Speaker 1: going to be as basic as possible, I'm like, are
Speaker 1: you thinking like and the nerds is really riled up?
Speaker 1: I bet you they can make somebody president like how
Speaker 1: you Yes? Basically yes, yeah, And again I have to
Speaker 1: really give it to Steve Bannon because I don't think
Speaker 1: a lot of people that like who like it really
Speaker 1: does take a kind of savvy guy to see that.
Speaker 1: And so, as you said, you know, when you look
Speaker 1: at Milo's writing, it kind of becomes clear how he
Speaker 1: was doing this um dey not really being involved in
Speaker 1: gamer Gate. Milo writes about it constantly, and he really
Speaker 1: frames it as these PC leftist culture police attacking these poor,
Speaker 1: powerless gamers who don't have any social capital. But paradoxically,
Speaker 1: his writing also really flatters gamers in these like over
Speaker 1: the top ways. He writes constantly about how they are,
Speaker 1: you know, have this unchecked, unseen power that only he sees.
Speaker 1: I went back and read a functon of Milo's writing,
Speaker 1: which was not not so pleasant but not fun at all.
Speaker 1: But you really, the radicalization tactics are super clear. He
Speaker 1: speaks to their grievances of this audience and then connects
Speaker 1: those grievances to these big politicized boogeyman and tells them, Oh, Trump,
Speaker 1: who Milo refers to as Daddy pretty often. I know
Speaker 1: it's bad, it's bad. He tells them Trump is the
Speaker 1: answer to their disaffection. And you know, Trump probably doesn't
Speaker 1: give a ship about gaming or game journalists him. But
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like a mama's He didn't even know
Speaker 1: what does having Exactly yeah, anyway, exactly so Trump he
Speaker 1: doesn't care about ethics and gaming journalism or gaming or
Speaker 1: any of that, but he does often attack the you know,
Speaker 1: crooked media. He does talk about jailing journalists. So you
Speaker 1: can sort of see how these grievances that these gamers
Speaker 1: had are kind of being stoked and then replaced by
Speaker 1: these other political grievances. Let's take a look at him.
Speaker 1: Of Milo's writing from Ripe Art in twenty fourteen, right
Speaker 1: after a gamer Gate, he wrote quote, it's easy to
Speaker 1: mock video gamers as dorky loaners in yellowing underpants. Indeed,
Speaker 1: in previous columns, I've done it myself. But the more
Speaker 1: you learn about the latest scandal in the games industry,
Speaker 1: the more us heart to sympathize with the frustrated male stereotype,
Speaker 1: because an army of sociopathic feminist programmers and campaigners, abetted
Speaker 1: by achingly politically correct American tech bloggers, are terrorizing the
Speaker 1: entire community, lying, bullying, and manipulating their way around the
Speaker 1: Internet for profit and attention. So you can sort of
Speaker 1: see how like he is able to stoke these concerns
Speaker 1: and then politicize them in like a very particular way.
Speaker 1: He goes on to say, quote, gamers should concentrate on
Speaker 1: the very real concerns they have had for a decade
Speaker 1: with a press that swamped with the discredited far left
Speaker 1: ideology and unintelligent, poorly trained writers refuses to tell basic truths.
Speaker 1: So you can sort of see how even if you
Speaker 1: were a video gamer who had some grievances with the
Speaker 1: gaming space, what he's saying is like, you're mad about
Speaker 1: gaming and also the far left and also democrats and
Speaker 1: also what first of all, what a great writer, which
Speaker 1: is what part is what sucks about. It's like he's
Speaker 1: actually a good writer. But like, but yeah, that move
Speaker 1: of like man, it's like it's to me, it's like
Speaker 1: mass about a hustle from a mile away when somebody's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's crazy, man. How do they how do they make
Speaker 1: fun of y'all? Like, you know, yeah, Dode, they do
Speaker 1: be making fun of us. May think you just you know,
Speaker 1: you just know nothing. This and this and this and
Speaker 1: you know what, you know, you're trying to open up
Speaker 1: the book. You want to talk about the game. They're
Speaker 1: talking about something else. It's like yeah, man, like I'm
Speaker 1: more interested in the game, and it's like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: because you know, and we know we hate to woke
Speaker 1: left that be doing that to you. And you're like, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait, that's what we're mad about, Like okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what What's what we're mad about? And and like,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just putting myself in the shoes of
Speaker 1: a person who may it far off it is, but
Speaker 1: like that first few times you read it, you was like, what,
Speaker 1: that's what we're mad about, and then after a while
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's what we're mad about.
Speaker 1: It's that you know what I'm saying, because you started
Speaker 1: off with stuff that I actually am mad about, which
Speaker 1: is like yeah, man, exactly. Yeah. It's such an effective
Speaker 1: radicalization tactic. And honestly, Milo basically says as much in
Speaker 1: one PC Rights Women and you won't hear this anywhere
Speaker 1: else are screwing up the Internet for men by invading
Speaker 1: every space we have online and ruining it with their
Speaker 1: engine seeking and the needy, demanding, touchy feely form of
Speaker 1: modern feminism that quickly comes into conflict with men's natural
Speaker 1: tendency to be boisterous, confrontational and delightfully autistic. And so
Speaker 1: you really exactly what you said, prop he. He really
Speaker 1: is connecting these men in their feelings around gaming to
Speaker 1: be these broader political grievances. So it's not just about
Speaker 1: gaming journalism, even even that is like dubious, but it's
Speaker 1: also about you know, hating leftists and the media and
Speaker 1: institutions and telling these people like you are being bullied
Speaker 1: and ignored and attacked by the culture. And it really
Speaker 1: creates the situation where these spaces, you know, gaming culture
Speaker 1: film are turned into a battlefield like like a whereby
Speaker 1: Milo is kind of selling these men on the idea
Speaker 1: that resisting kind of social justice warriors and taking back
Speaker 1: video games and taking back tech spaces and taking that
Speaker 1: film is a kind of activism in and of itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're speaking their language but in a weird way and
Speaker 1: then twisting the same words and to mean something else.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, it's like, now we're so
Speaker 1: far down the road. It's like, well, now I'm here,
Speaker 1: I guess I do believe this stuff, man that Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is so sinister, dude, Like and again it's like,
Speaker 1: first of all, these kids ain't victims number one. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, And they are you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, they've been weaponized, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But it's like my my brain goes to a place
Speaker 1: to where it's like, I don't know if you had
Speaker 1: the sort of like socio cultural just societal engineering and
Speaker 1: experiences to know when you're being swindled, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, to be able to step back and be like,
Speaker 1: hold on, man, speak for yourself. Holmy, that I look,
Speaker 1: that's that ship. You won't. That's not what I'm all like,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like and and I feel
Speaker 1: like that whether I don't know street smarts, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: it's just like I know how to be like hold up, now,
Speaker 1: speak for yourself. You know what I'm saying, Like wait, nah, Holmie,
Speaker 1: that not why I'm here. You know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I like the game, but like, no, that's
Speaker 1: not why I'm here. You know what I'm saying. Like
Speaker 1: walking the club, it's done club right? You like this music? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been get funked up. Could you know what I'm saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna smash a thousand girls, and it's like whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, whoa. I'm just you know what I'm saying, Like, Man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a a little bit of honey and
Speaker 1: listen to some music like that ship you all, that's
Speaker 1: your that's your problem, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: like maybe it's I'm like and I'm I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: like maybe they didn't have that experience, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, to be able to like know when this
Speaker 1: is happening to you to stop and be like hold
Speaker 1: up because like that wait, no, that's you. You speak
Speaker 1: for yourself, homie, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: such a good point. I think it's very easy to
Speaker 1: get sucked in when someone is it's like flattering you,
Speaker 1: telling you that you are you know, you have values
Speaker 1: that other people don't have, and you don't anyone get Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you don't only want to say that nobody else
Speaker 1: is validating you exactly. And I think it speaks to
Speaker 1: this sort of intoxicating power of feeling seen. I think
Speaker 1: that also utilizes this very well of when you take
Speaker 1: people who you know genuine or not feel unseen, feel unheard,
Speaker 1: whether or not that that actually is true, because I
Speaker 1: would argue that, like he did that with white people,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, what society are you living in
Speaker 1: where white people are like unseen and unheard? Not a right,
Speaker 1: but but the power. I think that when you take
Speaker 1: people who feel unseen whether they really are not, and
Speaker 1: make them feel seen, I think that can be a
Speaker 1: really intoxicating thing. And if you don't, yeah, if you
Speaker 1: don't know what to look out for, you can really
Speaker 1: get people on board with stuff. I'm sorry to say
Speaker 1: that very easily. Yeah, So this is where Leslie Jones
Speaker 1: comes in. You know, Milo and Steve Bannon have have
Speaker 1: made it so that take back these spaces, taking back
Speaker 1: video games and movies and all of that. That is
Speaker 1: a that feels like a form of activism. So if
Speaker 1: folks don't know who Leslie Jones is, first of all,
Speaker 1: you should because she's hysterical. She is a comedian, probably
Speaker 1: best known for her time on Saturday Night Live. This
Speaker 1: is not really related to the story, but I just
Speaker 1: want to include it. Leslie Jones she has a very
Speaker 1: interesting educational background. She went to Chapman University on a
Speaker 1: basketball scholarship until the team's coach left to go to
Speaker 1: Colorado State, and she liked this coach so much that
Speaker 1: she followed him and transferred there. While yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's I don't know why. I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's that. She was like, oh, I'll just come with him.
Speaker 1: While she was at college, she worked as a DJ
Speaker 1: and R campus radio station and side notes. So today
Speaker 1: I liked that, and she, you know, she bounced around majors,
Speaker 1: and her majors included accounting, pre law, and computer science,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know, I wanted to include that
Speaker 1: because I think it speaks to the kind of dynamic person.
Speaker 1: She's actually interesting. Yeah. Back in the like, Leslie Jones
Speaker 1: was sort of one of those kind of I guess
Speaker 1: i'll say good at Twitter celebrities right, Like, she was
Speaker 1: one of those celebrities that when she tweeted, people paid attention,
Speaker 1: and she generated a lot of goodwill for the platform
Speaker 1: um and really showed like how the platform could be
Speaker 1: used in these fun and new ways. During the Olympics,
Speaker 1: she was known for live tweeting the events and like
Speaker 1: posting her reactions and everybody loved this. Hupping and post
Speaker 1: wrote an article call it saying watching Leslie Jones watched
Speaker 1: the Olympics is better than the actual Olympics, so she
Speaker 1: was beloved. Yeah, I followed her because she was Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because of that, I was like, that was when live
Speaker 1: tweeting was something that we enjoyed. So I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: she's the best at it, because I'll be like, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm watching It felt like he was like out of
Speaker 1: barbecue withter, you know, it was so fun. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: in short, Leslie is just doing her thing, minding her
Speaker 1: business and her own damn business, and everyone loves her, right,
Speaker 1: She's everyone loves her, So it's not like she's like
Speaker 1: doing anything wrong other than existing and minding her business.
Speaker 1: In director Paul Fage announced that he's going to be
Speaker 1: directing a reboot of the movie Ghostbusters. Sonny initially wanted
Speaker 1: to do a sequel, but Bill Murray wasn't interested and
Speaker 1: Harold Rames had passed away, so they ended up doing
Speaker 1: a reboot with four female leads, Kristin Wig, Melissa McCarthy,
Speaker 1: Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. Now, almost as soon as
Speaker 1: this is announced, there is backlash. The trailer for the
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters reboot became the most disliked trailer in the history
Speaker 1: of YouTube. The rate of dislike is remarkable. An article
Speaker 1: on screen Crush breaks it down how it ranked among
Speaker 1: other hated videos on YouTube. The number one hated video
Speaker 1: on YouTube at the time was Justin Bieber's video for
Speaker 1: the song Baby, which had six million thumbs down, and
Speaker 1: the Ghostbusters trailer. When you compare it to other disliked
Speaker 1: videos from the platform, it's remarkable in that it has
Speaker 1: a high ratio of dislikes. The trailer had five and
Speaker 1: seven thousand six dislikes on just twenty eight point seven
Speaker 1: million views, So that's a staggering fifty six to one
Speaker 1: ratio in terms of dislikes per view. So you kind
Speaker 1: of get a sense that, like, it's not just that
Speaker 1: people are disliking it, they are disliking it at a
Speaker 1: highly disproportionate rate compared to other videos that people don't like.
Speaker 1: This is not an organic thing. People are definitely gamifying
Speaker 1: hate watching the trailer by vote brigading. This could honestly
Speaker 1: be its own episode, but pbs that are really interesting.
Speaker 1: Interview with The Daily Dots managing editor Austin Powell, who
Speaker 1: describes vote brigading as overwhelming and manipulating rather rudimentary online
Speaker 1: systems to influence or disrupt public perception. So basically places
Speaker 1: like Reddit and four chan and other right circles are
Speaker 1: that are aggressively masculine. We're really down voting anything that
Speaker 1: had a viewpoint that could be linked to like their ideology.
Speaker 1: And so because of the way that these platforms exist,
Speaker 1: it's not always easy to say, you know, where is
Speaker 1: this Where is this inorganic hate coming from? You can't
Speaker 1: always tell the source, but the numbers make it clear
Speaker 1: that this is not you know less, more people are
Speaker 1: disliking this video than are watching the video, So something
Speaker 1: weird is going on with how people are responding to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's definitely like the knee jerk like where all these
Speaker 1: weirdos come in of like when you just slightly change
Speaker 1: something that doesn't remind them of the nostalgia that they're from,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh sucks, you ruined it. You know. So, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: people arguing that like Middle Earth shouldn't have black people,
Speaker 1: like what the Middle Art is not a real place?
Speaker 1: Number one, you know what I'm saying? And then who
Speaker 1: I forget homeboy, but he's he's the one that like
Speaker 1: makes me laugh the most homies, like, well, scientifically speaking,
Speaker 1: you know, a mermaid would not have a black skin
Speaker 1: because she lived on the bottom of them. Like did
Speaker 1: you just start this sentence about a mermaid with Scientifically speaking?
Speaker 1: I believe that was Ben Shapiro, who was really you know,
Speaker 1: it's so funny. These people are like like, oh, snowflakes,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and then it's like a black mermaid
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, but we're the ones. But we're
Speaker 1: the ones fragile, right, like we don't want okay word, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're we're the snowflakes. Yeah you're mad. Okay, you're
Speaker 1: mad that Game of Thrones got black people. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: and that's unrealistic, like the dragons Matt did the Like
Speaker 1: scientifically speaking, I was like, bro, I was supposed to
Speaker 1: take you serious. How can anyone take you serious after this?
Speaker 1: What is you mad about? So like, so I say
Speaker 1: that to say, okay, you've turned the Ghostbusters into girls.
Speaker 1: Well sucks just supposed to be Okay, It's like all right,
Speaker 1: you're all right, all right, let it go, okay stupid,
Speaker 1: Now go watch the movie because it's actually very funny
Speaker 1: and all four of those women are hilarious, and you
Speaker 1: know they're hilarious, Like, so like, relax, Okay, you got
Speaker 1: it out, you got it's not exactly what you remember. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Now, Now let's enjoy it.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought was going to happen. You know,
Speaker 1: I will never understand. So like with the Ghost, but
Speaker 1: with with any reboot, really it's not like they're making
Speaker 1: it illegal to own the original. So if you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was like very into the original, I don't like
Speaker 1: this reboot, that's fine. They're not there. You can still
Speaker 1: just watch the original. It's not going anywhere this because
Speaker 1: this because they've added a reboot or be make or
Speaker 1: they've made a Black Mermaid or whatever, nobody is forcing
Speaker 1: you to watch it. And you're the thing that you
Speaker 1: loved isn't going anywhere, Like what are you so upset about? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What's the And it's like, okay, what's your percentage of
Speaker 1: the shareholding of that movie? Right in the zero point
Speaker 1: zero zero? What the hell? You care? What's this doing
Speaker 1: for you? You know what I'm saying, Like, are you serious? Fan? You? You? You? You?
Speaker 1: You this route up over something you don't own all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and enters the chat next on this. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I hate I hate to say it, but you did
Speaker 1: not just put this man on my screen right now.
Speaker 1: Even Trump got in the mix. This is the weirdest video. Yeah,
Speaker 1: play that. It's the weirdest thing. Oh I see the
Speaker 1: hashtags already. Okay, they're remaking Indiana Jones without Harrison Ford.
Speaker 1: You can't do that, and now they're making Ghostbusters with
Speaker 1: only women. What's going on? It looked like somebody told
Speaker 1: him to say that. Why is he yelling? Why is
Speaker 1: he yelling? It's so weird? And the video stops where
Speaker 1: he's just like, what's going on? Time? They're remaking Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones without Harrison Ford. You can't do that, And now
Speaker 1: they're making Ghostbusters with only women. What's going on? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's so weird. So like, man, what the
Speaker 1: hell are you talking? What this is? That? Look, it's
Speaker 1: it's that same energy that like, I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: the same, but it's like you go go to like Budapest,
Speaker 1: Hawaii and be like, hey, where can we get a
Speaker 1: hot dog? It sucks hot dogs. It's like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: it's not exactly like the place you left. The hell
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Fam It's a different it's what
Speaker 1: percentage of what percentage of Indiana Jones do you own?
Speaker 1: It's so strange. So obviously Ghostbusters the reboot really tapped
Speaker 1: into all of these hot button issues around race and
Speaker 1: gender that movements like Gamergate had exposed and inflamed. And
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that not everybody didn't like Not everybody
Speaker 1: didn't like the reboot of Ghostbusters because it was like
Speaker 1: they were being anti woke. Some people thought the jokes
Speaker 1: were bad, some people thought it was you know, they
Speaker 1: didn't like that it was a remake. Some people didn't
Speaker 1: like Leslie Jones's character, some people just don't like reboots. Whatever.
Speaker 1: But the issue is that when bad actors and extremists
Speaker 1: hijacked these conversations because they want to grind a political acts,
Speaker 1: it creates a situation where waiting into it at all
Speaker 1: makes people feel like they have to pick sides because
Speaker 1: it becomes so charged, right, and so you either have
Speaker 1: to hate the movie for being like a woke PC
Speaker 1: remake or you feel like you need to defend it
Speaker 1: up against these like racist, sexist attacks. And so folks
Speaker 1: who are you know, maybe just want to like watch
Speaker 1: the movie and not necessarily have this kind of like
Speaker 1: a weighty opinion about it. They're completely drowned out. And
Speaker 1: people who you know, just want to talk about this
Speaker 1: movie on its merits, they are also drowned out, and
Speaker 1: you know, it creates this thing where the conversation turns
Speaker 1: into this highly charged proxy for culture wars. I think
Speaker 1: I remember. I think it was Roxanne Gay tweeted like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy a hundred tickets to this movie because
Speaker 1: just to support it, because it's being attacked, and it
Speaker 1: creates a situation where just supporting or not supporting a
Speaker 1: movie is seen as a kind of activism or a statement,
Speaker 1: which I just hate so much. Yeah that's the Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like that, yeah, getting it. I remember, I remember
Speaker 1: all this happening, and I remember being like again, like faminists,
Speaker 1: it's a movie, like it's a movie about catching ghosts
Speaker 1: with like eo plasm, Like y'all like we what are
Speaker 1: we talking about? Like in okay, Like I'm just like yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like I just want to see it because I
Speaker 1: think they I think they're funny, Like I think all
Speaker 1: four of those women are funny. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: And Ghostbusters was funny because all four of those dudes
Speaker 1: were funny. That's the only reason, Like I'm and I
Speaker 1: was a baby and Bobby Brown was in Ghostbusters too,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to see. So I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: understand this when I'm like, when the last time you
Speaker 1: talked about Ghostbusters before you heard that this was coming,
Speaker 1: Like you don't, well, you've gotten pared from now, you've
Speaker 1: got some. You got some like hitting the room in here,
Speaker 1: where you got where the ship mean that much? You like,
Speaker 1: you don't even care that much? Right, And it to me,
Speaker 1: it was like what you're probably gonna get to is
Speaker 1: like and why y'are singling out leslie so much? Like
Speaker 1: why you know exactly why you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And it's like and even on top of that, I'm like, because, Okay,
Speaker 1: not only do she like you know, she's the you know,
Speaker 1: she's uh part of the season their food club, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, who actually washed their legs? You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like, not only is she a
Speaker 1: part of that, but at the same time, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, she don't look like Carrie Washington. What I'm saying,
Speaker 1: she won't you know what I'm saying, So she don't
Speaker 1: look like Beyonce, because I'm like, okay, she looked like Beyonce.
Speaker 1: Would this be a whole day? Would this be a
Speaker 1: different situation? You feel me like? And that to me
Speaker 1: was like even more infuriating as to like why y'all
Speaker 1: going after her, because it's like, already know why you're
Speaker 1: going after but now now I really know why you're
Speaker 1: going after Yeah, you put that so well, and she
Speaker 1: will get to it later, but like she acknowledges this,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like when these attacks happened, because when
Speaker 1: you attack black women, you don't want to be the
Speaker 1: per sin who is talking about it, what is happening
Speaker 1: publicly or loudly or vocally, right, And so because that
Speaker 1: creates a situation where it's like, oh, well, maybe she
Speaker 1: was being aggressive, Like maybe she like it's just so
Speaker 1: hard to talk about these things and so often even
Speaker 1: like I think that as a society, we're more comfortable
Speaker 1: talking about racism against black folks. I think the conversation
Speaker 1: that can be not we're not super comfortable within I
Speaker 1: think that we're more comfortable with that than the conversation
Speaker 1: of like it's also because I'm a black woman who
Speaker 1: has dark skin, So I think it's I think it's
Speaker 1: not just racism, it's colorism as well. And I think
Speaker 1: that that conversation is like harder to have and people
Speaker 1: are less willing to have that conversation openly, absolutely and
Speaker 1: just doesn't fit like traditional beauty standards, even because like Loupete,
Speaker 1: Loupete is dark exactly, she's gorgeous, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, Okay, so there's a lot going on
Speaker 1: here that you're not willing to say. You feel me,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of unsaid stuff happening that we're really
Speaker 1: invested in just pretending is not happening well while we
Speaker 1: could all see it and feel it happening. So on Breitbart,
Speaker 1: Milo published a review of Ghostbusters, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a surprise to anyone that it's clear that this
Speaker 1: review is not just interested in getting into the merits
Speaker 1: of the film. A couple of standout lines. He writes,
Speaker 1: the spattering of negative and lukewarm reviews that are now
Speaker 1: piling up is brave for the leftist establishment media. These
Speaker 1: writers are risking being labeled as sexist bigots, A fate
Speaker 1: worse for a liberal than running out of Keen Waugh
Speaker 1: and hummus while your vegan boyfriend is staying over. I
Speaker 1: used to think he was a good writer ten minutes ago. Ian, Yeah, this,
Speaker 1: this review keep him for him, A little phoned in,
Speaker 1: a little um. He goes on to say, um. But
Speaker 1: most of the press realizes that whatever shreds of credibility
Speaker 1: it has left would be utterly lost by giving this
Speaker 1: film and unqualifiedly positive review. He singles out Leslie Jones's character, Patty.
Speaker 1: He says, Patty is the worst of the lot. The
Speaker 1: actress is spectacularly unappealing, even relative to the rest of
Speaker 1: the odious cast. But it's her flat as a pancake
Speaker 1: black styling. So I thought to have irritated the social
Speaker 1: justice warriors. I don't get offended by such things, but
Speaker 1: they should. And so all of the hate that is
Speaker 1: being directed at the film to all of the leads,
Speaker 1: it's so much worse for Leslie, and that is to
Speaker 1: be expected. The research is super clear that black women
Speaker 1: disproportionately are targeted for abuse online when compared to their
Speaker 1: white counterparts. Uh, and Leslie is is really getting it,
Speaker 1: like she's not like the rest of the folks in
Speaker 1: the film are not getting it as vocally as she is.
Speaker 1: Um and so Leslie Jones, you know, she is a
Speaker 1: Twitter super user, and so she that part of that
Speaker 1: is like replying to tweets, engaging with tweets. I remember
Speaker 1: seeing this unfold. She got like a few critical tweets
Speaker 1: about Ghostbusters that were pretty run of the mill, people
Speaker 1: saying like, oh, I didn't like this movie. I didn't
Speaker 1: think you were funny. There's a black woman who tells her,
Speaker 1: I thought that Sherry Shephard or Lonnie Love would have
Speaker 1: been better in this movie than you were. So like
Speaker 1: not not nice, but they're not, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: like to be expected exactly, Like they're all within the
Speaker 1: scope of like what you would expect if you're a
Speaker 1: public figure who's put out a movie. Um, and it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not like Leslie Jones is falling apart and wizering
Speaker 1: at this criticism. She's engaging with it. She's replying like
Speaker 1: she's it's fine. And then Milo retweets Leslie complaining about
Speaker 1: people not liking the movie. He retweets it with if
Speaker 1: at first you don't succeed because your work is terrible.
Speaker 1: Play the victim. Everyone gets hate mail for fox sake.
Speaker 1: He follows it up with Ghostbusters is doing so badly
Speaker 1: that they've employed Leslie Jones to play the victim on Twitter.
Speaker 1: And this is all a real callback to his style
Speaker 1: of writing on Breitbart that he spent years beating the
Speaker 1: drum around this idea that it is men who are
Speaker 1: being oppressed by women, and that women play the victim
Speaker 1: for attention or for cloud and when they do, the corrupt,
Speaker 1: biased media rewards them from it. And he's been spending
Speaker 1: all of his time like beating that drum and seating
Speaker 1: that as a narrative in his writing to these like
Speaker 1: disaffected men that he's been according and talking about how
Speaker 1: this sort of goes against the idea of quote meritocracy
Speaker 1: that Milo has been so long telling gamers that they
Speaker 1: value more than others. Oh my god, So it gets worse.
Speaker 1: Milo then retweets completely fake doctor tweets that appear to
Speaker 1: show Leslie saying racist and anti Semitic things. Um, these
Speaker 1: are not her, Like she's this is like several fake tweets.
Speaker 1: Then she blocks him. When she blocks him, Milo tweets
Speaker 1: rejected by another black dude and shows the screenshot of
Speaker 1: the block screen. So at this point the tenor of
Speaker 1: the criticism clearly changed, and it goes from run of
Speaker 1: the mill, like I don't like this movie. Two things
Speaker 1: like her website being hacked and having pictures of her
Speaker 1: driver's license and passports published to her website, ex iplicit
Speaker 1: personal photos of her that were stolen posted to her website,
Speaker 1: which by the way, is a sex crime um and
Speaker 1: then pictures of her on her website being like her
Speaker 1: head being replaced with the gorilla harambe. And so this
Speaker 1: is not criticism, you know, this is not It's too
Speaker 1: way too far. So she tweets, I have been called apes,
Speaker 1: sent pictures of asses, even got a picture with siemen
Speaker 1: on my face. I'm trying to figure out what human means.
Speaker 1: I'm out. I feel like I'm at a personal hell.
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything to deserve this. It's just too much.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be like this. So hurt right now. And
Speaker 1: so it's clear that when this was just run of
Speaker 1: the mill movie criticism, Leslie probably didn't like it, but
Speaker 1: she was engaging with it. And then Milo completely changed
Speaker 1: the tenor of those interactions by introducing these inflammatory racist,
Speaker 1: fake tweets and racializing the conversation. Ye see, this is
Speaker 1: the part that like, this is why maybe in the
Speaker 1: beginning I may have spoke out it because I didn't
Speaker 1: know the rest of this. I just saw her cracking
Speaker 1: jokes with people, you know what I'm saying, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, she's funny, dude, she got it. Like
Speaker 1: I don't remember the rest of audience. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: all this other stuff happened. Dang. So in the in
Speaker 1: the beginning, when it was just you know, I think
Speaker 1: Lonnie Love would be funnier like she like she was
Speaker 1: like clapping back, and it was it seemed like it
Speaker 1: was all in good fun. But the way that Milo
Speaker 1: entered the conversation and changed the tenor and like turned
Speaker 1: the temperature up and made it so racialized, all of
Speaker 1: that like back and forth that she was engaging in
Speaker 1: took a very different turn. And this is all outlined
Speaker 1: and a piece that Milo wrote on Breitbart where he
Speaker 1: essentially blames Leslie for her own harassment because she responded
Speaker 1: to it, and he frames what is happening as regular
Speaker 1: people not being able to criticize the elites. He writes,
Speaker 1: in the words of a man who thoroughly triggered Leslie
Speaker 1: Jones to express different opinions from the elite is the
Speaker 1: real sin in this story. But when you look back
Speaker 1: at his tweets, he's not expressing a different opinion than
Speaker 1: Leslie Jones. He's not like criticizing her skills as an actor.
Speaker 1: He's calling her a man and spreading doctor tweets that
Speaker 1: one of which purports to show her calling the executives
Speaker 1: at Sony the company, that she had just made a
Speaker 1: movie for a slur for Jewish people. Like, that's not
Speaker 1: a difference of opinion. That's a very different thing. And
Speaker 1: you know what's funny is that even per Milo's own
Speaker 1: rundown of the situation, he himself points out that Leslie
Speaker 1: was just fine when the conversation was just legitimately criticism.
Speaker 1: When the tenor of the conversation changed, she obviously like, like,
Speaker 1: that was a different situation. And so for all of
Speaker 1: his you know, going on and on about free speech,
Speaker 1: it was Milo who came in and stifled the legitimate
Speaker 1: criticism of the film. Leslie Jones had to pull down
Speaker 1: her website after it was hacked. She stopped tweeting after
Speaker 1: being harassed and you know, the actual critique that she
Speaker 1: had been engaging in was silenced because of it. So
Speaker 1: if anybody was like stifling the speech, it was Milo.
Speaker 1: Here is Leslie talking about it to Laverne Cox. What
Speaker 1: a blessing to have it come later in life, because
Speaker 1: I think about me when I think I wasn't ready
Speaker 1: as I thought, you know, when I moved to New York,
Speaker 1: necting that in a few years I would be a superstar.
Speaker 1: And what I understand about not having been ready, it's
Speaker 1: not even just doing the work of being an actor,
Speaker 1: but the fame part. Just dealing with the fame and
Speaker 1: for you when Ghostbusters happened and the trolling and people
Speaker 1: have to really know how specific that. Yeah, none of
Speaker 1: none of the other girls got trolled like I did.
Speaker 1: And I hate to say it like this, but it
Speaker 1: is was because I was a black woman, and I
Speaker 1: hate to say that. I think it's also that you're
Speaker 1: a dark skinned black woman. Yeah, yeah, I really hate
Speaker 1: to say that because it's truth. Though it's it's like
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like, I don't want this to
Speaker 1: be about that, but it was, and it was a shame.
Speaker 1: And the reason I say it all the time is
Speaker 1: because I think people need to hear this. I was
Speaker 1: getting videos of white people spitting on on my picture, um,
Speaker 1: hanging me, hanging my doll. They're gonna kill me, They're
Speaker 1: gonna find out where my family. They're gonna kill me
Speaker 1: and my family. They're spitting they would they would sending
Speaker 1: my pictures with where they jacked off on it. Like
Speaker 1: it was just horrible, horrible for a movie. And the
Speaker 1: reason that you that that I got cast, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: So my important thing was like everybody was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, ignore it block. No that I'm not gonna ignore.
Speaker 1: Accountability is what needs to be set in this society
Speaker 1: right now. Ya can't just do the people and think
Speaker 1: you could just get away with it because you wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that my face. You would not say that in
Speaker 1: my face, and I know you wouldn't because profile don't
Speaker 1: even have your picture on it has a cartoon. So
Speaker 1: you're coward and I'm gonna call you out. So I
Speaker 1: would take screenshots of everything that was sent to me
Speaker 1: and I would post it and I'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the type of that's coming to me. This
Speaker 1: is the type of community that y'all like, what's wrong
Speaker 1: with y'all. That's why I arrived for her. That's exactly
Speaker 1: it is. She's like, nah, I are you a coward?
Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna call you on it again. I So
Speaker 1: I was like, you messing with the wrong one. That's
Speaker 1: what That's what I thought about her. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're messing with the wrong one. She ain't gonna she
Speaker 1: ain't gonna let you'all like do her like this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And listening to her talk about it, I'm on the
Speaker 1: one hand, she should not have to go through at
Speaker 1: all at all. But on the other hand, I'm happy
Speaker 1: that she like the advice of like just ignore it,
Speaker 1: don't pay attention to them. I'm glad that she did
Speaker 1: not take that advice because there has to be accountability.
Speaker 1: There has to be accountability. Um. And So one of
Speaker 1: the questions that people ask a lot in this conversation
Speaker 1: was did Milo actually lead the charge of harassment against Jones?
Speaker 1: And this is a little bit of a tricky situation
Speaker 1: because it's another hallmark of online harassment where users that
Speaker 1: have these big platforms, they don't come right out and
Speaker 1: say attack this person, because that would clearly violate Twitter's
Speaker 1: rules against coordinated harassment. So it's very like wink wink,
Speaker 1: nudge nudge. Trump was also very good at this. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. Milo writes a scathing review about Ghostbusters where
Speaker 1: he singles out Leslie Jones specifically, he introduces racist, inflammatory
Speaker 1: attacks on her. He quote tweets her to his followers
Speaker 1: and says, this person is playing the victim for Cloud,
Speaker 1: and then he demonstrates that she blocked him so that
Speaker 1: he cannot continue harassing her. Um and he says this
Speaker 1: to his millions of followers, who he has ripped up
Speaker 1: into a frenzy. I would argue knowing that they will
Speaker 1: understand what they are being called to do. But it's
Speaker 1: so savvy because when people point out his role in this,
Speaker 1: he's able to be like, oh, they're lying about me.
Speaker 1: It's just another piece of evidence of this biased media.
Speaker 1: And I believe people like Milo they know exactly what
Speaker 1: they are doing. They are purposely amassing a following of
Speaker 1: a grief sycophants that they have inflamed, and then they
Speaker 1: point them out a specific target. Step back, let them
Speaker 1: attack this person. And then they say I had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it. Prove I had it. Where's the
Speaker 1: tweet or I told them to do this. I had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. God, yeah, that's the worst type. Man. Well,
Speaker 1: you could be like, what do you what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? What did I do? Okay, what did I do?
Speaker 1: You're like, bro, yeah, that kind of goes back to
Speaker 1: what we talked about before we started filming about oh boy,
Speaker 1: yeah it's and also I mean to yeh like it's
Speaker 1: like a like a I would have respected so much
Speaker 1: more of it. If you're gonna be about it, be
Speaker 1: about it, don't be about it. And then when you're
Speaker 1: called out and be like, I just know such thing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so cowardly, She's exactly right that it's
Speaker 1: so coward And she was like, y'all even y'all even
Speaker 1: got photos on your profile. I was like, yeah, yea,
Speaker 1: that's during that season. Yeah, when you just had the
Speaker 1: little black and white circle shadow. That was definitely the
Speaker 1: situation when like, man, he even got it. You don't
Speaker 1: even got an Abbey bro like I'm good. So eventually
Speaker 1: Leslie Jones takes a pause from Twitter. She says, I
Speaker 1: leave Twitter tonight with tears in a very sad heart.
Speaker 1: All of this because I did a movie. You can
Speaker 1: hate the movie, but the shift I got today is wrong.
Speaker 1: And eventually Jack Dorsey, who then was the CEO of Twitter,
Speaker 1: personally got involved. He met with Leslie about the harassment,
Speaker 1: and Twitter permanently banned Milo from the platform as a result.
Speaker 1: In a statement, Twitter said people should be able to
Speaker 1: express diverse opinions and believes on Twitter, but no one
Speaker 1: deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online and are
Speaker 1: rules promhibit inciting or engaging and targeted harassment or abuse
Speaker 1: of others. Um This actually ended up kick starting a
Speaker 1: wave of Twitter sort of cracking down on like white
Speaker 1: supremacist all right Twitter users. In November, they suspend Richard
Speaker 1: Spencer and other white supremacists figures, and they rolled out
Speaker 1: a series of action succurbed hate speech and abuse on
Speaker 1: the platform. Here's Leslie talking about the aftermath of how
Speaker 1: this all ended up. What's scary about the whole thing
Speaker 1: is that the insults didn't hurt me. Unfortunately, I'm used
Speaker 1: to the insults. That's unfortunate. But what scared me was
Speaker 1: the injustice of a gang of people jumping against you
Speaker 1: for such a sick cause. I mean, it was like, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, they just like everybody has an opinion and
Speaker 1: it all comes at you at one time, and their stay.
Speaker 1: They really believe in what they believe in, and it's
Speaker 1: so mean, Like it's so gross and mean and unnecessary.
Speaker 1: So it was just like one of those things of like, okay,
Speaker 1: so if I hadn't said anything, nobody would ever knew
Speaker 1: about this. And it was one of those things of like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know when I when I approached Facebook, day was
Speaker 1: on it. Twitter, I was on them. I was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: it's okay. It's like, that's my favorite restaurant. I love
Speaker 1: the food there. Three people just got shot in to me,
Speaker 1: y'all need to get scarity. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of really smart people at that company, and they really
Speaker 1: need to try to start sorting out not just how
Speaker 1: to protect people like you, but the people that don't
Speaker 1: have this public forum, because I think it happens to
Speaker 1: so many people. So it's definitely a good thing that
Speaker 1: Milo was kicked off the platform. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Leslie Jones is a wealthy celebrity. She was also like
Speaker 1: a Twitter super user, so it's not surprising that Jack
Speaker 1: Dorsey would step in and like personally meet with her
Speaker 1: about these experiences. But what about all the black women
Speaker 1: and girls who are not celebrities right, who have not
Speaker 1: personally been involved in like high engagement for the platform,
Speaker 1: who don't have the money to hire a digital security
Speaker 1: person to take down intimate photos if they're posted. I
Speaker 1: think that because people who are marginalized are the ones
Speaker 1: who are often targeted on social media platforms, they shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to be like rich, or famous or well connected
Speaker 1: to show up on these platforms. All different kinds of
Speaker 1: people who are attacked and harassed on social media platforms.
Speaker 1: Black folks, transpolkes, queer folks, sex workers, activists, doctors who
Speaker 1: perform abortions. These are the people who are being attacked
Speaker 1: and they deserved safety on these platforms, even if they
Speaker 1: are not celebrities. And that really brings us to today.
Speaker 1: You know, Elon Musk is already publicly signaling that these
Speaker 1: are the kinds of people responsible for these kinds of
Speaker 1: attacks he wants to bring back to the platforms. Last month,
Speaker 1: Jordan Peterson, which if you don't know who that is,
Speaker 1: listen to behind the Bastards. Yeah, good for you, but
Speaker 1: listen to behind the Bastards. He was kicked off of
Speaker 1: Twitter for intentionally mis gendering the actor Elliott Page, which
Speaker 1: is against Twitter's terms of service. His daughter tweeted last month, Uh,
Speaker 1: to Elon Musk, will you bring my dad back to
Speaker 1: the platform? Elon Must replied, anyone suspended for minor and
Speaker 1: dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail. And so
Speaker 1: think about all the people that represents Milo Peterson, folks
Speaker 1: like Gavin mckinnis, who was the founder of The Boys,
Speaker 1: Alex Jones, and Margie Taylor Green, all these people who
Speaker 1: were kicked off the platform. Musk is signaling that he
Speaker 1: might reinstate them. He very well might reinstate Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: In a text exchange between him and Twitter's former CEO,
Speaker 1: Must says, Oh, it would be great to unwind permanent
Speaker 1: bands except for spam accounts and those that advocate for violence.
Speaker 1: And at a conference, Musk said that he thought that
Speaker 1: banning Donald Trump was a mistake. Yeah, but it's so
Speaker 1: like it's so stupid, like out of his own mouth,
Speaker 1: except for bots and like people that stoke violence. I'm like,
Speaker 1: literally everybody they banned, we're stoking violence. Like what is
Speaker 1: you talking about? Like I don't understand. And that's what
Speaker 1: I mean by like again earlier, or I could jump
Speaker 1: off this roof. It's like, okay, go ahead and do it. Now.
Speaker 1: Now you see why none of us are jumping off
Speaker 1: this roof. Now you see why what happened, why we
Speaker 1: all climbed down the second time, because we realized when
Speaker 1: you up there, oh, it's not what it's not what
Speaker 1: you thought it was. So you're gonna have to walk
Speaker 1: all this ship back everything you're saying you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: And and it's funny to watch that happen in real time,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, you gotta walk all
Speaker 1: this ship back, so like and fam we try to
Speaker 1: tell you, like, no, bro, you don't want this smoke dog,
Speaker 1: you don't have you don't have to do it. You
Speaker 1: don't have to do it. Okay, go ahead, then you know,
Speaker 1: jump off the roof. It's such a good analogy. And
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing Elon Musk grapple with exactly those questions.
Speaker 1: You know, he called himself a free speech absolutist, and
Speaker 1: it's coming to see what pretty much every person who
Speaker 1: has ever run any social media platform that's see it
Speaker 1: is that it's really fucking hard, and it's involved, and
Speaker 1: you have to like really like consider a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: and you can't just do it on a whim. And
Speaker 1: so it's interesting to watch him realize this will accept
Speaker 1: for and then also and then maybe if y'all was
Speaker 1: doing it, but then if we want to advertisers, then yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be space. So you can't really say and
Speaker 1: then so yeah, but I'm an absolutist though, Okay, fab exactly,
Speaker 1: And so here's where we are now. You know, the
Speaker 1: question really becomes what are you going to allow on
Speaker 1: these platforms? Who has served when extremists are welcomed onto
Speaker 1: platforms that are allowed to harass and attack people who
Speaker 1: were just mining their business like Milo and his supporters did.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think for a lot of these
Speaker 1: these people in prop I think that you really clocked this.
Speaker 1: It's a grift. It is an engagement strategy. It is
Speaker 1: I am going to harass people on Twitter, get lots
Speaker 1: of engagement, and that is going to meeting that's going
Speaker 1: to be lucrative for me. And I don't think that
Speaker 1: platform should be incentivizing that kind of a dangerous grift. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have to end by saying you might be wondering, well,
Speaker 1: where is Milo. Now, while after being kicked off of Twitter,
Speaker 1: that was only one part of his downfall. It was
Speaker 1: not the Leslie Jones harassment campaign that killed off his career. Um,
Speaker 1: he kind of maintained golden boy status within the right
Speaker 1: until seen where he was slated to speak at Seapack
Speaker 1: and that a video surface of him, I guess like
Speaker 1: kind of endorsing pedophilia. This was a it's too far
Speaker 1: for the right. He was booted from the seat pack lineup,
Speaker 1: he lost a lucrative book deal, he resigned from Breitbart,
Speaker 1: and today he's broke. He doesn't have anywhere near the platform.
Speaker 1: And listen when I look when you send us this
Speaker 1: script and I scrolled down to the bottom and it
Speaker 1: said today Milo is broke. I was like, this is
Speaker 1: the greatest, this is the dopest last book. It never
Speaker 1: it never happens. Yeah, it rarely happens where somebody finally,
Speaker 1: like finally hits their downfall and you're like, all of
Speaker 1: my good home training says I shouldn't revel in your laws. However,
Speaker 1: this was like, no, you earned that. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. That's that you earned that, brother, You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying that's your ship sandwich that you put
Speaker 1: together yourself. So enjoy your ship sandwich. Enjoy it, bro,
Speaker 1: So thank you for being here today. It was a
Speaker 1: pleasure getting into this infurior in but enlightening conversation. Tell
Speaker 1: us about hood politics and do you know anyone where
Speaker 1: can get a good cup of coffee? Oh? I know
Speaker 1: a bunch of um so politics with prop also on
Speaker 1: cool Zone media. Uh. It's essentially like it's kind of evolved.
Speaker 1: I kind of like the way it's evolved. It's a
Speaker 1: started off as just like, oh, like there's these weird headlines,
Speaker 1: hot takes, like what are these people talking about? How
Speaker 1: do I how do I make sense of this? And
Speaker 1: just really wanting to help people tap into like their
Speaker 1: street knowledge to understand that that's just as legitimate as
Speaker 1: their book knowledge, you know what I'm saying. So just
Speaker 1: really helping you understand just the political landscape. But it's
Speaker 1: really evolved into like more than just politics. It's like sociology,
Speaker 1: cultural studies, history, economics, just essentially like I just want
Speaker 1: people to understand it. You know, you're smarter than you
Speaker 1: think you are, and these people are not smarter than you.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, So, you had a very
Speaker 1: relevant tweet that you posted in the last week where
Speaker 1: you you talked about how people voted for things that
Speaker 1: they that they didn't think they were voting for because
Speaker 1: they purposely try to confuse. Yeah, so that's yeah, Like
Speaker 1: that's that type of like I'm trying to give y'all
Speaker 1: game where it's like, you know, um, whether the tweet
Speaker 1: was like, hey, you know a lot of y'all voted
Speaker 1: yes on stuff that you meant no and voted no
Speaker 1: on stuff that you thought meant yes, and it's because
Speaker 1: they worded it wrong. So what I want to do
Speaker 1: is come in with her politics is be like, hey, honey,
Speaker 1: you're trying to hustle you that means yes, you know,
Speaker 1: and just being like hey, think about it. Like you know,
Speaker 1: when somebody was like, hey, you don't want dinner tonight
Speaker 1: foods being like no, yes, no, I no, I do
Speaker 1: want dinner. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, like, look,
Speaker 1: they're not smarter than you. It's the hustle. You just
Speaker 1: gotta like pay attention to the hustle. So yeah, the
Speaker 1: politics are prop Also, I do have my own cold brew.
Speaker 1: It's called Terraform Cold Brew. You go to Terraform coldbrew
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Speaker 1: it in the frieze, although it takes better if you
Speaker 1: keep it in the frieze. But yeah, Terraform coldbrew dot
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Speaker 1: in your book and the book is also called Terraform
Speaker 1: Collection of Poetry and Short Story. With the holidays coming up,
Speaker 1: I can't think of a better gift. You need to
Speaker 1: get Terraform coffee and Terraform book. That would that's compared
Speaker 1: book and coffee. It's a good. Yeah, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: thanks for being appreciated. This is help. Internet Hate Machine
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from cool Zone Media, check out our website cool zone
Speaker 1: media dot com or find us on the I Heart
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