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Speaker 1: Cool Media. Hello sixteenth minute listeners. It's Jamie just saying

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Speaker 1: really quick at the top that a show that is

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Speaker 1: my honor to produce on the iHeartRadio network. We the

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Speaker 1: Unhoused has been nominated for a webby and we need

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Speaker 1: your help. If you haven't listened to the show before,

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Speaker 1: first of all, I highly recommend you do. But it

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Speaker 1: is a show that began in twenty nineteen. It's created, hosted,

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Speaker 1: and reported by the wonderful Theo Henderson. He began the

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Speaker 1: podcast while living on the streets of LA and it's

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Speaker 1: grown significantly during that time, but remains the only podcast

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Speaker 1: that tells stories that affect the unhoused and tells the

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Speaker 1: stories of the unhoused while continuing to center their own

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Speaker 1: perspectives and experiences. We've been nominated in a web category

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Speaker 1: and we need your help. If you click the link

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Speaker 1: in the description, it goes directly to our category. It's

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Speaker 1: literally two clicks. It's a tight race, so I would

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Speaker 1: really appreciate it if you both gave us a vote

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Speaker 1: and also checked out the show. You can do both

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Speaker 1: at the link and the description and Inhale deeply Baby.

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Speaker 1: Here is our doctor Ali Luke's episode if you were

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Speaker 1: to give up any of your five senses, which would

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Speaker 1: it be, statistically one in two of you just decided

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Speaker 1: probably my sense of smell. And I am honestly with

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Speaker 1: you there. I think I had a roommate once who

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Speaker 1: truly did not have a sense of smell, or a

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Speaker 1: very dull sense of smell. Maybe he was lying now

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Speaker 1: that I'm saying it out loud. Either way, the place

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Speaker 1: smelled terrible and it made my life a living nightmare.

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Speaker 1: And it turns out that a lot of the reason

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Speaker 1: why you might have been so quick to forfeit your

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Speaker 1: sense of smell might have something to do with an

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Speaker 1: extremely powerful myth that humans have a very sense of

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Speaker 1: smell compared to other mammals. And to be clear, what

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Speaker 1: may be clear, this is a myth that I believed

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Speaker 1: until like six days ago, but that is not actually true.

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Speaker 1: According to a twenty seven research paper from Rutgers University

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Speaker 1: professor John McGann, as, it turns out, humans have a

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Speaker 1: sense of smell that is arguably as acute as mammals

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Speaker 1: that we think have a keener sense of smell than

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Speaker 1: we do. And while his numbers are generally thought to

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Speaker 1: be overstated, McGann published in twenty seventeen that we can

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Speaker 1: identify close to one trillion separate sense as opposed to

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Speaker 1: the ten thousand that's commonly cited, and to introduce a

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Speaker 1: returning villain from our last series. Part of the reason

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Speaker 1: that this misconception around smell has become ingrained in our

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Speaker 1: consciousness is because of one Sigmund Freud. Professor McGann said

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Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 2: It has been a long cultural belief that in order

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Speaker 2: to be a reasonable or rational person, you could not

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Speaker 2: be dominated by a sense of smell. Smell was linked

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Speaker 2: to earthly animalistic tendencies, and.

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Speaker 1: Since twenty seventeen it has been debunked that we can

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Speaker 1: discern a trillion smells. But this is just another piece

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Speaker 1: of evidence that this area of humankind is wildly under explored.

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Speaker 1: There have since been numerous attempts to identify with more

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Speaker 1: specificity where exactly humans stand in the mammal smelling hierarchy.

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Speaker 1: But as more time and funding has been put into

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Speaker 1: this line of study, it's become clear that our species

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Speaker 1: reputation as bad smellers is definitely false and possibly a

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Speaker 1: misguided way to make us feel better than the other

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Speaker 1: mammalian girls. Basically, a de emphasis on smell seems to

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Speaker 1: be part of how humans have been propped up to

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Speaker 1: be better than other species. In reality, that's not just

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Speaker 1: far from the truth, but we rely on our sense

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Speaker 1: of smell far more than we seem to realize. For

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Speaker 1: the last week or so, I've been reading a book

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Speaker 1: called Smells, A Cultural History of odors in Early modern

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Speaker 1: Times by French writer Robert Mushambled. Definitely got that wrong,

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Speaker 1: and with all due respect to the author, most of

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Speaker 1: this book PARPs on the history of people being obsessed

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Speaker 1: with the smell of their own parts and whether they

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Speaker 1: or their spouse's pussy is stinky or not. And if

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Speaker 1: this is something you think about a lot, I guess

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Speaker 1: I recommend the book. But within this book I genuinely

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Speaker 1: learned a lot about the fundamentals of smell that I

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Speaker 1: had completely misunderstood or have been miseducated on. Heard the

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Speaker 1: author smell is just as much, if not more, connected

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Speaker 1: to learned experience as it is to natural instinct, and

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Speaker 1: he argues it's the only one of our senses to

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Speaker 1: be truly learned. It's also been speculated that our sense

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Speaker 1: of taste heavily relies on our sense of smell that

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Speaker 1: influences the smells that we're drawn to or gain pleasure by,

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Speaker 1: and has a hand in explaining why the smells we

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Speaker 1: find pleasant can be so different, and whether you believe

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Speaker 1: in horny pheromone sense or not, it influences the smells

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Speaker 1: that we're repulsed by as well. That is to say,

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Speaker 1: with enough convincing, your nose can and is trained to

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Speaker 1: distrust someone else by their smell. And while some of

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Speaker 1: you are shaking your heads until they fall off your neck,

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Speaker 1: there is an argument that there is really no such

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Speaker 1: thing as a bad smell. There are instead smells we

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Speaker 1: learn through experience to interpret as bad, whether this is

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Speaker 1: for social or survival purposes, and this can lead to

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Speaker 1: encouraging or helping to form any number of societally induced discriminations.

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Speaker 1: Linked to our sense of smell is a strong tradition

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Speaker 1: of classism, as well as racism and xenophobia. But for

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Speaker 1: the purposes of our guest today, I'm going to zone

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Speaker 1: in on one particular aspect of the socialized learning of smell,

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Speaker 1: how your nose can tell you to hate women, and

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Speaker 1: to be clear, the way that most texts about how

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Speaker 1: misogyny and the sense of smell are intertwined, and there's

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Speaker 1: not many define what a woman is is extremely myopic,

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Speaker 1: and by that I mean these texts generally define women

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Speaker 1: as people with wombs. I hope you don't need me

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Speaker 1: to tell you that a person with a womb does

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Speaker 1: not a woman make And if I do have to

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Speaker 1: explain that to you, how did you find my podcast

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Speaker 1: JK Rowling? Please turn it off? But in Mutchambled's work

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Speaker 1: in particular, we are trained to see women or as

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Speaker 1: the case may be, people with wombs, historically subjugated in

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Speaker 1: a few distinct ways by encouraging disgust or even inventing

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Speaker 1: smells around menstruation and a specifically.

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Speaker 2: I read somewhere that their periods attract bears. The bears

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Speaker 2: can smell the menstruation.

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Speaker 3: Hear the head bears.

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Speaker 2: Now you put in the whole station in.

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Speaker 1: Jeopardy basically in a heteronormative structure. Give me a horn

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Speaker 1: for the term heteronormative women that men were trained to

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Speaker 1: view as disgusting when it came to fucking or making

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Speaker 1: them wives. You know the deal. But interestingly, even the

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Speaker 1: quality is that men are conditioned to find desirable were

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Speaker 1: also sometimes dismissed based on their smell. Throughout time, there

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Speaker 1: have been associations with excess perfume in the West, categorized

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Speaker 1: as smelling slutty, and there's also been writings of rich

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Speaker 1: women's farts smelling better question mark and please don't get

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Speaker 1: me started, because I do not want to get into it.

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Speaker 1: But yes, there is a huge amount of weird poetry

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Speaker 1: going back five hundred years or more about how pussy

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Speaker 1: is stinky, but I like it. Shut up, I'm kidding.

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Speaker 1: If you listen to the end of the episode, I

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Speaker 1: will share one of these disgusting poems.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 1: Part of the reason we know so little about smell

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Speaker 1: at the Earth's advanced age, the author argues, is because

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Speaker 1: there is very little encouragement under capitalism to learn more

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Speaker 1: about smell. That is, there's not much money in this

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Speaker 1: line of study unless you're trying to identify what is

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Speaker 1: going to sell deodorant and candles, and so to this day,

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Speaker 1: getting funding for anything outside of what smells can sell

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Speaker 1: can be a real challenge in the modern age. Muchumbled

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Speaker 1: argues that our pushing smell aside as a powerful sense

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Speaker 1: is very intentional.

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Speaker 2: He writes, our deodorized world now offers a kind of

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Speaker 2: antidote to existential anguish as olfactory silence has developed in

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Speaker 2: parallel with the silence surrounding disease and death dating from

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Speaker 2: around the same time.

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Speaker 1: But there's no such thing as a deodorized society, whether

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Speaker 1: we're afraid of death or not. So much of the

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Speaker 1: way people have interpreted smell over time has been subjective,

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Speaker 1: depending on the way that they were encouraged to see, interpret,

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Speaker 1: and experience shitting and death mainly, among other things. And

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Speaker 1: the further back you go from modern medicine and plumbing,

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Speaker 1: the more crucial these lived connections become. Because while social

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Speaker 1: norms dictate the way that one interprets the scent of

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Speaker 1: a woman out a cheating.

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Speaker 2: Scent of a woman.

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Speaker 1: Should make you feel one way or another, it's had

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Speaker 1: varying results while remaining an intense fixation and subject of discussion.

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Speaker 1: Bliny the Elder, Yes, we're going back that far. Bliney

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Speaker 1: the Elder said that the scent of menstruating people just

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Speaker 1: their existence caused horses to have abortions. Really think about that, then. Paradoxically,

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Speaker 1: sixteenth century writer Marguerite de Navarre implied that infertile women's

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Speaker 1: butts smell better than fertile women. This type of speculation

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Speaker 1: spread misogyny and xenophobia at once, with a different author

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Speaker 1: from this same era saying, quote, the arsful of an

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Speaker 1: Italian woman could only be a sewer unquote, and I

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Speaker 1: took that personally. Menstruation has long been encouraged to be

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Speaker 1: seen as a site of terror and evil, Its connection

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Speaker 1: to implied life or deathmongered as a way to scare

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Speaker 1: dumbasses for centuries and counting, particularly in centuries where Western

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Speaker 1: religion reigned. This is from sixteenth century writer Lavinous Laminius.

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Speaker 2: Since women abound with excrement and emit ill smells because

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Speaker 2: of their periods, they make all things worse and spoil

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Speaker 2: than natural forces and innate qualities.

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Speaker 1: But don't worry, if you go through menopause, you still

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Speaker 1: smell fucking gross, and also you're old. From Erasmus is

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Speaker 1: fifteen eleven work in praise of folly.

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Speaker 2: Better sports tale is to see those decrepit old women.

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Speaker 2: That old age seems long since to have cut off

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Speaker 2: from the number of the living, those strolling corpses, those

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Speaker 2: stinking carcasses, which everywhere exhale a sepulchral odor, and yet

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Speaker 2: who cry at every moment. Nothing is sweeter than life.

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Speaker 1: So, if you're keeping score, if you menstruated, you stank

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Speaker 1: of the devil, but once you didn't menstruate, you stank

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Speaker 1: of a corpse. And this smell was directly connected in

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Speaker 1: both cases with Satan himself, whose period is gnarly, I'm sure.

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Speaker 1: And while there are countless examples that draw smell as

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Speaker 1: an indicator of character of where one should stand in

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Speaker 1: an enforced hierarchy, there's been shockingly little recognition that that's

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Speaker 1: what we're either doing, being subjected to, or both. But

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Speaker 1: if the last week of my life has been any indication,

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Speaker 1: it's the kind of thing you can't unsmell once you've

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Speaker 1: noticed it. We're subtly signaled on how to feel about

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Speaker 1: a character in media, written or otherwise all the time

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Speaker 1: based on how they smell. And I'm typing this while

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Speaker 1: I frantically apply perfume to my wrists out of self consciousness.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying let's stop showering. I'm saying that we

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Speaker 1: lead by our noses more than we think, and it's

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Speaker 1: something that it's going to take years to fully understand,

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Speaker 1: because not only is the present history of smell important

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Speaker 1: to our daily lives, there's a few crucial people in

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Speaker 1: this field arguing that it's just as crucial to the future.

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Speaker 1: And that brings us to today, a day where there is,

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Speaker 1: from what I can tell, more being written about the

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Speaker 1: cultural history of smell than ever, and they're there is

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Speaker 1: less public encouragement, particularly online, to engage with the humanities

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Speaker 1: in this way than in years prior. So keep your

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Speaker 1: nose down if you know this one already. But what

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Speaker 1: happens when a young woman celebrates her PhD on how

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Speaker 1: smell has been portrayed in literature to distinguish racial class

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Speaker 1: and gender prejudice a young queer woman at that on

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Speaker 1: the absolute cesspool once known as Twitter dot com. It

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Speaker 1: went really well, Doctor Allie Luke's aka the student who

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Speaker 1: went viral for her thesis paper on smell being too woke.

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Speaker 1: Your sixteenth minute starts now join Welcome back to sixteenth Minute,

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Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk to the Internet's main characters

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Speaker 1: see how their moment in the spotlight affected them and

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Speaker 1: what that says about us and the Internet. And this

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Speaker 1: week we are visiting a pretty recent story. One you

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Speaker 1: might have heard of the tale of doctor Ali Lukes,

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Speaker 1: who ended up on the wrong side of the Twitter

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Speaker 1: algorithm after committing the heinous crime of completing over a

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Speaker 1: decade's worth of higher education studying an underappreciated but critically

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Speaker 1: necessary intersection of science and the humanities. How dare she?

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Speaker 4: What?

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Speaker 1: An asshole? In all seriousness, I was very lucky to

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Speaker 1: get to speak with doctor Ali Lukes. She is wonderful

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Speaker 1: and this story in particular, I think has a lot

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Speaker 1: to say about where our relationship with the internet is

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Speaker 1: right now. So let's get into it. Come with me

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Speaker 1: if you dare to. November twenty twenty four. Very recent story,

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Speaker 1: to be sure, but in a world this completely dystopian,

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Speaker 1: it is worth putting ourselves in a moment online down

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Speaker 1: to the finest detail, because if you haven't noticed, it's

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Speaker 1: an exceptionally difficult time to be a student. The example

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Speaker 1: we're talking about today is Allie's one that is centered

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Speaker 1: on cyber attacks fueled by anti intellectualism, misogyny, and very

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Speaker 1: likely bots. But it's far from the only uphill battle

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Speaker 1: that students are facing right now. And while anti intellectualism

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Speaker 1: has taken many forms, on college campuses in the last

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Speaker 1: ten years, it makes the most sense to focus on

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Speaker 1: student advocacy for a free Palestine and student groups pushing

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Speaker 1: for university divestment from Israel. This mission expanded beyond Palestine

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Speaker 1: for many groups in the last year and a half,

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Speaker 1: and lists of demands put forward by students establishing encampments

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Speaker 1: to both protest and push back on their university. Empowering

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Speaker 1: other settler states has been critical. These groups also have

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Speaker 1: sought to protect the student and staff's rights of any

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Speaker 1: university to protest instead of This is.

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Speaker 4: The moment Tuff's University graduate student Rumesa Oster was arrested

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Speaker 4: and taken into federal custody. Doorbell camera footage obtained by

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Speaker 4: NBC News shows two plain clothes officers approaching the thirty

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Speaker 4: year old in Somerville outside of Boston. Os Turk at

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Speaker 4: first appears to back away before more agents approach.

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Speaker 1: This also comes with, to no one's surprise, a tremendous

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Speaker 1: amount of xenophobia and racism by the students who are

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Speaker 1: working within these spaces. There are countless examples of student

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Speaker 1: protesters being profiled by race, particularly Palestinian, other Middle Eastern

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Speaker 1: or black students. These students were and are characterized not

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Speaker 1: as anti genocide but as anti Semitic, even with the

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Speaker 1: large portion of student organizers being composed of young anti

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Speaker 1: Zionist Jewish students and groups. And you don't need me

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Speaker 1: to tell you that this profiling, censorship, and state violence

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Speaker 1: has only escalated since Trump re entered the White House.

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Speaker 1: But I digress. November twenty seventh, twenty twenty four, It's

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Speaker 1: been less than a month since Donald Trump was re

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Speaker 1: elected by America, this time without having to cheat his

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Speaker 1: way into it and promising any number of horrifying policies

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Speaker 1: before re entering office. As Joe Biden does his last

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Speaker 1: few laps in the Olympic sized pool of lukewarm ice

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Speaker 1: cream that he floated around in instead of doing anything.

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Speaker 1: It's one day before Hailey Welch aka the Hawk Tua

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Speaker 1: Girl will release what she does not yet know is

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Speaker 1: the final episode of Talk To for over six months

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Speaker 1: before the crypto scam she's become the face of is busted.

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Speaker 1: And it's a week before internet boyfriend Luigi Mangioni will

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Speaker 1: assassinate a healthcare executive after being the poat producer of

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Speaker 1: this very show. Robert Evans radicalized by pain.

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Speaker 5: This past week, legacy media and Lonely Cat owning true

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Speaker 5: crime podcast fans were obsessed with the mysterious man Dan

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Speaker 5: Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, even though there

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Speaker 5: was only just fuzzy surveillance footage, thirsty men and women

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Speaker 5: calling him things like socialist Daddy, putting him on a

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Speaker 5: pedalstal for literally a stranger in the back and then

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Speaker 5: running away from the authorities.

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Speaker 1: You tell, Ben. And even though it sounds counterintuitive that

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Speaker 1: with all this going on, with the rights of immigrants,

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Speaker 1: of trans people, of anyone who could need an abortion

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Speaker 1: on the chopping block again or still, the Internet found

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Speaker 1: some time and energy to bully a doctoral student for

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Speaker 1: finishing her thesis because woke while Ali Lukes, and that's

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Speaker 1: doctor Ali Lukes to you, was about twenty seven when

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Speaker 1: all of this happened, and could barely remember a time

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Speaker 1: before the Internet. She was not particularly logged in and

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Speaker 1: didn't really want to be like a lot of PhD students.

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Speaker 1: She's a book forward person, but she lives in a

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Speaker 1: society and did have social media accounts that she used

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Speaker 1: sparingly in order to keep in touch with friends and family,

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Speaker 1: as well as to make professional connections in a field

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Speaker 1: of study that was and is extremely specific and so.

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Speaker 1: On November twenty seventh, she posted to her Twitter slash

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Speaker 1: x account with the selfie of Ali and her now

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Speaker 1: professionally bound thesis. She wears a simple red sweater and smiles,

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Speaker 1: captioning the photo.

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Speaker 3: Thrilled to say, I passed my VIVA with no corrections

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Speaker 3: and an officially pH done.

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Speaker 1: Grad student LINGO don't worry about it, but what gets

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Speaker 1: people stirred up and through some opaque, algorithmically driven nightmare

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Speaker 1: pushed into the feeds of hundreds of thousands of blue

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Speaker 1: check AI Cryptonihilist Freaks is the title of the paper

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Speaker 1: she's written, an embossed gold text on the red leather cover.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Ali Lukes wrote her Cambridge University thesis on.

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Speaker 3: O factory ethics, the politics of smell and modern and

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Speaker 3: contemporary prose.

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Speaker 1: Smell and not just smell, but how smell has been

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Speaker 1: characterized in literature an obscure topic. Sure, social function not

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Speaker 1: immediately obvious. Fair Even Ali gets why the function of

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Speaker 1: her thesis paper might not be immediately obvious to those

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Speaker 1: out of the know, as she will explain in our interview.

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Speaker 1: But keep in mind she's not trying to get this

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Speaker 1: out to a general public. She only has a couple

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Speaker 1: hundred X followers at this time. Her last posts on

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Speaker 1: the platform before this were months apart. One was a

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Speaker 1: photo of the Cambridge campus that.

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Speaker 3: Read extremely fortunate that I get to teach in a

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Speaker 3: place as beautiful as this.

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Speaker 1: And the other was a photo of her on campus

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Speaker 1: from June of twenty twenty four, reading.

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Speaker 3: I submitted my PhD thesis today.

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Speaker 1: This was an account for her peers, professional and personal

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Speaker 1: people who would most likely understand the function of her

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Speaker 1: thesis paper because they were academics too. I'm reminded quite

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Speaker 1: a bit of the Coffee in the Garden with my

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Speaker 1: husband Saga when it comes to this story. It was

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Speaker 1: actually one of the first episode topics that we covered

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Speaker 1: on sixteenth Minute all the way last spring, in that

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Speaker 1: doctor Alli was definitely not trying to get this pieceis

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Speaker 1: announcement out to a larger audience. The only thing that

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Speaker 1: made it possible for it to go viral anyways, was

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Speaker 1: the fact that her account was a public one. Think

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Speaker 1: of the conventional ways that we would try to court

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Speaker 1: attention on social media if we wanted a post to

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Speaker 1: get outside of our followers. It's generally a game of

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Speaker 1: tagging right, add a hashtag tag the account of a

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Speaker 1: larger institution or another account in the hopes that they

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Speaker 1: will either engage with or repost it, And nothing like

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Speaker 1: that is happening here. What's happening is the twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: four Twitter slash x algorithm, one that, as we discussed

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Speaker 1: in our Hailey Welch Talk TUA series, is conditioned to

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Speaker 1: boost emotionally driven content and most importantly, elevate the replies

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Speaker 1: of paying subscribers. So the blue check freaks I was

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Speaker 1: referring to, and through this pay to play increasingly fascistic

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Speaker 1: platform that longtime users had been departing in the millions

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Speaker 1: and continue to now. Doctor Allie's inoffensive, celebratory post got

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Speaker 1: sucked into this algorithm and pulled in some of the

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Speaker 1: gnarliest Blue check comments ever generated by either a dumb

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Speaker 1: man or AI trained on a dumb man. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to tell. Sometimes. Buckle in.

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Speaker 2: For those wondering her PhD thesis per abstract is basically

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Speaker 2: on why it's racist and or classicist to not like

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Speaker 2: it when people exhibit body odors consistent with poor hygiene.

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Speaker 2: You would have spent your years better by getting married

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Speaker 2: and having children. Oh look, another woman getting a useless

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Speaker 2: degree that does nothing for the furtherance of society. Women

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Speaker 2: would rather spend years pursuing stupid degrees that won't fulfill

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Speaker 2: them over a family that actually will enjoy the debt,

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Speaker 2: since nothing you learned or produced will ever be of

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Speaker 2: any benefit to society. Adorable, but what can you do

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Speaker 2: with this? pH dick?

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Speaker 1: Okay, well done, boys. While the algorithm is the original

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Speaker 1: offender for driving harassment towards doctor Allie, her post was

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Speaker 1: further boosted in the algorithm when influential blue check accounts

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Speaker 1: began to quote tweet the post with random misogynist criticisms

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Speaker 1: of her. And while it took a few days, the

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Speaker 1: story does go viral in a way that crosses into

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Speaker 1: the mainstream press, which, as we've discussed, is pretty rare

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Speaker 1: these days, and doctor Allie is, for the most part

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Speaker 1: game to engage with the story going viral, and the

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Speaker 1: benefit here, it seems, for her, is that she knows

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Speaker 1: that what she does is niche, and she rightfully isn't

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Speaker 1: taking the horrific bad faith criticism around it very seriously.

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Speaker 1: Some headlines from the days that.

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Speaker 2: Followed why this Cambridge Grads PhD thesis on smelly people

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Speaker 2: is dividing the internet olfactory oppression.

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Speaker 1: They attacked her PhD. Now this smell expert is making

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Speaker 1: x her classroom.

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Speaker 2: In defense of writing a quirky thesis on the politics

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Speaker 2: of smell in modern literature.

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Speaker 1: The tone of most of this coverage is nothing really surprising,

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Speaker 1: and by that I mean so tremendously half cooked that

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Speaker 1: it makes you want to rip your head off. Here

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Speaker 1: is something from the New York Post.

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Speaker 2: The thesis states that olfactory discussed can result in a

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Speaker 2: person's rejection. Online critics needed smelling salts after reading what

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Speaker 2: they deemed to be woke sounding, academic gobbledygook.

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Speaker 1: And while very little of this coverage is outright hostile,

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Speaker 1: who doctor Ali Luke's very few I was able to

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Speaker 1: find seem to take the time to understand what her

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Speaker 1: thesis was actually about, which we will get into the

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Speaker 1: tone of So much of this criticism framed the topic

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Speaker 1: as Ali applying a system of ethics to how marginalized

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Speaker 1: people smell. But if you look at her abstract, which

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Speaker 1: she shares, she makes it clear that it is not

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Speaker 1: this simple. Instead, her paper is a look at how

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Speaker 1: smell has been presented in literature over time in order

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Speaker 1: to make a definitive statement about a marginalized person, and

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Speaker 1: what that definitive statement says about the author, the place,

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Speaker 1: and the social mores of the time in which it

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Speaker 1: was written. You can hate the premise if you want,

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Speaker 1: but taking a few seconds makes it clear that the

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Speaker 1: point of her paper is to build out a cultural

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Speaker 1: history of smell, the one sense that is still widely

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Speaker 1: under estimated and misunderstood. There is value to this, so

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Speaker 1: why can people not take it seriously? Here I want

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Speaker 1: to again bring up the twenty twenty two case of

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Speaker 1: the drinking coffee in the garden with my husband post

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Speaker 1: because their similarities and differences I think are pretty instructive

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Speaker 1: here as a refresher. If you haven't listened to this episode,

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Speaker 1: and you should. User Daisy Miller posted this simple statement

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Speaker 1: to her ten thousand or so followers on Twitter. My

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Speaker 1: husband and I wake.

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Speaker 3: Up every morning and bring our coffee out to our

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Speaker 3: garden and sit and talk for hours every morning and

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00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 3: never get sold, and we never run out of things

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Speaker 3: to talk to. Love him so much.

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Speaker 1: And as we unpacked in that episode, she got completely

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Speaker 1: demolished in the replies. With a few rounds of discourse

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Speaker 1: taking place, the tweet very quickly escaped its relatively small

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Speaker 1: intended audience of twenty something cottage core fans and made

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Speaker 1: its way into the uneneral cesspool, the most popular critique

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Speaker 1: at the time being that Daisy was bragging or being

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Speaker 1: insensitive to class by posting this. The first round of

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Speaker 1: discourse was backlash to Daisy herself. The second round of

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Speaker 1: discourse was backlash to the backlash, where thousands came to

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Speaker 1: Daisy's defense saying that this was an innocuous statement. And

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Speaker 1: finally there was some light coverage from places like BuzzFeed

437
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 1: and Page six before the whole story kind of petered out.

438
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:35,200
Speaker 1: Daisy did interact with the story at first, but only

439
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 1: for a short amount of time. She stayed positive, but

440
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: ultimately and rightfully seemed overwhelmed by the attention and migrated platforms.

441
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 1: This was in the fall of twenty twenty two, about

442
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: six months after Elon Musk bought Twitter as a joke

443
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 1: and then tried to save face by turning it into

444
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: a hub for fascist thought, and so a big similarity

445
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 1: between Daisy's story and doctor Ali Luke's story is that

446
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: these were posts made by women for a very specific audience,

447
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: but the criticism that they received was a result of

448
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 1: the algorithm pushing these posts into the feed of people

449
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: who would probably hate it, ostensibly because these people would

450
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: engage with it. And to be clear, this is requiring

451
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 1: some guesswork on my part because of all the secret

452
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: policy that Twitter has managed to accidentally leak over the

453
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: last couple of years, big scary algorithm changes do not

454
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 1: tend to be one of them. But on its face,

455
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: both of these examples are Elon era Twitter harassment stories,

456
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: where the machine has been calibrated to get women harassed

457
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: over nothing through no fault of their own. But there

458
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: are a few differences between these stories. In doctor Alli's case,

459
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four gave the Internet and Twitter too full

460
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: years to descend further into anti intellectualism, and in a

461
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 1: more concrete sense, the replies that got the most boost

462
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: in the algorithm were different from Daisy's experience, and that

463
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: is because of a very cursed program that was rolled

464
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: out in the month after Coffee in the Garden with

465
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: my husband in November twenty twenty two x premium formerly

466
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: known as Twitter Blue, where in previous years a blue

467
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: check beside your Twitter user name was free and the

468
00:30:31,560 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: result of being verified as a prominent person or brand

469
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: on the app. This new program allowed for as low

470
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: as eight bucks a month to receive this blue check

471
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: as a veneer of distinction, as well as ensuring that

472
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: if you replied to a tweet that your reply would

473
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: be boosted in the algorithm to show up before most

474
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: unpaid users, regardless of how popular your reply was. There

475
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: was a lot of contray over this program and continues

476
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 1: to be, but most of the Blue checks that I

477
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: followed back in the day on Twitter really just responded

478
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: by ceasing to use their account or just deleting it altogether.

479
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: And in this first round of discourse, attacks on doctor

480
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: Ali Luke's mainly came from this type of account, many

481
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 1: of which are speculated to be bots, and their responses

482
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: were amplified in the way that they couldn't have been

483
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: during Daisy Miller's moment of virality with Coffee in the Garden.

484
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: But the second round of engagement in these cases are

485
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: the same. Once Ali's tweet had gotten enough engagement, there

486
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: was an equally strong second round of discourse in support

487
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: of her thesis on smell, with many accounts replying with

488
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: encouragement and asking when her thesis would be available to read, which,

489
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: if you're curious, is unfortunately available still nowhere at the

490
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: time of this writing. But that didn't stop doctor Ali

491
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: from wanting people to un understand where she was coming

492
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: from while replying to as many people as she could,

493
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: which is no small task or a relatively offline person

494
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 1: who was suddenly exposed to millions of accounts. Ali replied

495
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: to the original, now wildly viral post with clarification on

496
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: what her thesis was actually about.

497
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 3: She writes, to be clear, this apptect was written for

498
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 3: experts within my discipline and field. It was not written

499
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 3: for a lay audience, and this is not how I

500
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 3: would communicate my ideas to the average person. Since there's

501
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 3: some confusion about the nature of my research, here is

502
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 3: the abstract from my PhD thesis, which I hope provide

503
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 3: more contexts for anyone interested in learning about my work.

504
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: She then posts, per abstract.

505
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 3: This thesis studies how literature registers the importance of olfactory discourse,

506
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:49,880
Speaker 3: the language of smell and the olfactory imagination it creates

507
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 3: and structuring our social world. The broad aim of this

508
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 3: thesis is to offer an intersectional and wide ranging study

509
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 3: of olfactory oppression by establishing the underlying logistics that facilitate

510
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 3: Smell's application and creating subverting gender, class, sexual, racial, and

511
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 3: species power structures. I focus largely on pros fiction from

512
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 3: the modern contemporary periods so as to trace the legacy

513
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 3: of olfactory prejudice in today and situate its contemporary relevance.

514
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: It goes on from there. I've linked it in the description,

515
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: and to be fair, this kind of paper is extremely

516
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: my shit, and I'm so glad that doctor ally has

517
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: cornered the market on talking about it. As I hope

518
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 1: I've established at this point, I think there is tremendous

519
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: value in seeing how something as both universal and understudied

520
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: as smell, something almost everybody deals with, has been represented

521
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: in the arts as a way of framing how we've

522
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: interpreted our relationship to it over a course of centuries.

523
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: But this would not be an opinion shared in a

524
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: void of anti intellectualism. As the humanities continue to be

525
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: de emphasized in the West, the idea that literary work

526
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: could be anything but a pastime and not contain actual

527
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: historical value or insight. Is not as commonly shared an

528
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: opinion as it once was. But another aspect that I

529
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 1: find interesting about how doctor Alli in twenty twenty four

530
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 1: and Daisy Miller in twenty twenty two respond to this

531
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 1: absolute torrential downpour of hate in the comments is how

532
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 1: they respond as individuals, because, unlike Daisy, doctor Ali engages

533
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: with her haters with a relatively and I think incredibly

534
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 1: even keel for weeks. Here's an example of her thoughtfully

535
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 1: engaging with an absolute shode as long as said chode

536
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: was expressing a thought that wasn't just outright misogyny. The

537
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: commenter writes.

538
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 2: We need a new prefix for people with academic PhDs.

539
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:56,280
Speaker 2: Doctor should mean something.

540
00:34:56,719 --> 00:35:00,319
Speaker 3: Doctor Ali replies, you know what, I don't disagree with this.

541
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 3: I certainly won't be putting up my hand if someone

542
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:04,760
Speaker 3: asks is there a doctor in here on a plane.

543
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:08,320
Speaker 1: The amount of times that doctor Alli Luke's shows genuine

544
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,719
Speaker 1: patients with clearly bad faith commenters like this blew my

545
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 1: mind and made me so glad that she's a teacher,

546
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: because that kind of superhuman patience does not come easily

547
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:23,279
Speaker 1: and she clearly had some practice with it, but that

548
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that these bad faith comments and even threats

549
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: didn't or couldn't affect her. It was a deeply stressful factor,

550
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: and I think the most extreme example she's shared is

551
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: this tweet about the fact that she needed to report

552
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:43,919
Speaker 1: a threat to the authorities on December one, twenty twenty four.

553
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: Alie writes, to be.

554
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 3: Clear, this is where I draw the line. This is

555
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 3: abhorred and illegal, and no one should ever have to

556
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 3: deal with this.

557
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 1: Attached is a screenshot of an email she received on

558
00:35:55,000 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: her academic email earlier that day, which reads and trigger warning.

559
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 2: You are the dumbest fucking bitch I have ever seen

560
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 2: on the Internet and the perfect example of literally everything

561
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 2: wrong with modern society. Imagine thinking you deserve taxpayer money

562
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:19,720
Speaker 2: for writing up that useless piece of shit thesis nobody

563
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:25,880
Speaker 2: will ever read vegan, feminist, and queer. Your dues to

564
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 2: society are many, and me and the boys will rape

565
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 2: them out of you.

566
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 1: When we read this. In our script meeting for this episode,

567
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:37,439
Speaker 1: our producer ian said that this was one of the

568
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: worst screeds he'd heard directed to anyone online. Ever, I

569
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 1: don't think you need me to remind you that this

570
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: was in response to an unpublished paper about smell in books.

571
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: There is no world where this is a rational response

572
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: to anything, but it's egregious here. This was not in

573
00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 1: response to a hot take. Virtually all of the harassment

574
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 1: doctor Ali was receiving was a result of violent projection

575
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: on a platform where hate speech and threats are increasingly

576
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 1: tolerated and inflammatory statements are boosted and even monetized. And

577
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: all doctor Ali had done is commit the cardinal contemporary

578
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: sin of being too woke. It's truly disgusting, and this

579
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: is how a person who kept her personal life offline

580
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 1: and posted almost never at all suddenly became an optimal

581
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: target for gendered and homophobic harassment. To her attackers, Ali

582
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: represented the exact kind of highly educated feminist intellectual that

583
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,359
Speaker 1: the right has delighted in threatening on social media and

584
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 1: in real life at increasing rates for the last decade

585
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: and then some. And while doctor Ali doesn't draw much

586
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 1: attention to this in subsequent press appearances, this is just

587
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:02,040
Speaker 1: as good as time as any to discuss the state

588
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: of online harassment, particularly because this story is such a

589
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 1: recent one. Because in one sense, yes, the old chestnuts

590
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 1: of online misogyny ring true here right. Being a woman online,

591
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: being non white online, being trans online can and often

592
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: is a fucking nightmare, particularly when you get pushed into

593
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 1: the wrong side of the algorithm. But if you've also

594
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: had the creeping feeling that this type of harassment has

595
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,640
Speaker 1: been getting worse in the last few years, you're far

596
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 1: from alone, and you're probably right. In recent years, there

597
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: has been a number of studies on how safe people

598
00:38:41,480 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: and marginalized people specifically felt online after reports of online

599
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: harassment had scaled up significantly. Sixteen percent of respondents told

600
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:53,720
Speaker 1: the Pew Research Center that they had been harassed online

601
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, a number that increased to twenty eight

602
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: percent by twenty twenty one. These numbers then increased dramatically

603
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: when narrowed to just speaking to women. The Worldwide Web

604
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 1: Foundation's twenty twenty study said that over half of women

605
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,759
Speaker 1: and girl respondents had been harassed online before, and that

606
00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:17,480
Speaker 1: eighty seven percent felt the problem was getting worse. This

607
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:22,040
Speaker 1: was before Elon bought Twitter, and this also scales up

608
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:25,719
Speaker 1: with a number of suicides among marginalized young people as

609
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 1: a result of cyberbullying in that same timeframe. So why

610
00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 1: is it getting worse? To say that the world is

611
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:38,319
Speaker 1: full of idiot bigots is true, but too simple to

612
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: be a full answer. It doesn't explain why, as time

613
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:45,640
Speaker 1: goes on we see people online being attacked over less

614
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:49,280
Speaker 1: and less. To say that that's because of Trump's reelection

615
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: would also be to miss the forest for the trees,

616
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,959
Speaker 1: because yes, his being in power does endorse and even

617
00:39:56,160 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 1: encourage more subjugation that is empowered by the government. But

618
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,520
Speaker 1: all of these numbers I just cited of increasing anxiety

619
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:08,919
Speaker 1: around online harassment were conducted during the Biden administration, as

620
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:13,320
Speaker 1: is the example of coffee in the garden with my husband. Okay,

621
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:17,839
Speaker 1: so maybe it's not entirely that. Like so many things

622
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,040
Speaker 1: about the contemporary Internet, I think a lot of this

623
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:26,320
Speaker 1: can be traced to algorithm driven timelines instead of the linear,

624
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: personally curated ones that first made apps like Twitter, Facebook,

625
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:35,800
Speaker 1: and on and on so successful today, where the famously

626
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: algorithm driven TikTok remains king among young users. This is

627
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:45,320
Speaker 1: true almost nowhere, meaning that as in both doctor Ali

628
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 1: and Daisy's cases, their harassment was the result of an

629
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: algorithm recognizing that pushing their post out to users who

630
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 1: either genuinely hated women academia or both, or were willing

631
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: to perform hating women and academia for cloud and personal

632
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 1: profit and pushing their content there. It's a kind of

633
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,680
Speaker 1: harassment that wouldn't have been possible ten years ago, and

634
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: one that makes the Internet a far less safe place

635
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: for everyone while making it more profitable for very few.

636
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: Are we sensing a familiar pattern here? No, Okay, my

637
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 1: soapbox just collapsed beneath my feet, but be serious. What's

638
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: happened here is that places like Twitter slash x have

639
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,839
Speaker 1: put a new, easy to use style of harassment in

640
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: front of its worst users and literally monetized it. Doctor

641
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 1: Ali Luke's getting messages like the one we read is

642
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:47,240
Speaker 1: completely horrifying and I hate how normal they've come to feel.

643
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,720
Speaker 1: And sure, reporting it is one of the very few

644
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: options victims of this type of harassment have at their disposal,

645
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: But like anything regarding threats of violence against women, police

646
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: are his store and expectedly dog shit at dealing with them.

647
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:09,319
Speaker 1: Doctor Alli did discuss how this harassment affected her in

648
00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: a couple interviews. Again, in a moment that we come

649
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 1: to see for all main characters, she had to decide

650
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 1: whether she was going to let this story go away

651
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: on its own by not engaging with it, or potentially

652
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:25,400
Speaker 1: extend the moment by participating, and she decides to go

653
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: for it, but in a very specific way that still

654
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 1: prioritizes her privacy. I think it's pretty cool. This is

655
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 1: why it's nice to add in sounds on the podcast.

656
00:42:37,480 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: I can tell you what's funny, and if you disagree,

657
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,800
Speaker 1: you hate women, she recently told Rolling Stone.

658
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 3: I didn't know that this was going to get out

659
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 3: of hand until probably forty eight hours in, when I

660
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 3: started to see a couple of quite vicious comments. I thought,

661
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 3: oh no, it's moving over to the wrong side of

662
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 3: the platform, and so it did.

663
00:42:55,719 --> 00:43:01,240
Speaker 1: So in the front facing media sense sense, doctor Allie

664
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: sticks to her guns, never apologizing to any of the

665
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 1: assholes who came after her, while still not sharing much

666
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:12,400
Speaker 1: about herself, as is her right. And this approach, she

667
00:43:12,480 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 1: seems to quickly figure out, is a chance to make

668
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: a very niche subject that she studies accessible to a

669
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: suddenly captive and supportive audience. Because after the rounds of

670
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: Twitter discourse died down and the blue checks moved on

671
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:32,320
Speaker 1: to harass the next person, Doctor Allie began posting regularly

672
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:36,239
Speaker 1: about smell in an attempt to answer good faith questions

673
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 1: and share more about what she was actually studying, and

674
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 1: her audience, presumably as under educated about smell as I

675
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 1: was and still am, stayed and were really interested in

676
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 1: what she had to say. Here are a few posts

677
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:53,400
Speaker 1: she made in the months that followed.

678
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 3: I just know I'm going to be the talk of

679
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:58,840
Speaker 3: the English faculty this week. Hi all, I couldn't be

680
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 3: more delighted that so many people pople have showed enthusiasm

681
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 3: towards my work, and I'd love to share more with

682
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 3: you as soon as I'm able, But right now my

683
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 3: first priority is my students. But still term time here,

684
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 3: and they deserve my time and attention in the context

685
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 3: of my thesis. Yes, in order to understand how authors

686
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:16,799
Speaker 3: useful factory messaging, we must recognize that smells linked to

687
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 3: different identity characteristics, for example, class race, in different ways,

688
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 3: and that sometimes these characteristics overlap. Treating complexity.

689
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: She began to do and is still doing, maybe the

690
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: most subversive thing you could do on Twitter right now,

691
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: something fucking useful, and it's worked. As of this writing,

692
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: her online audience has grown to over two hundred thousand

693
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 1: followers on Twitter, where she still bravely posts, ordinarily in

694
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: response to stories people send her regarding Smell and how

695
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: it's framed in contemporary media. By her account, the harassment

696
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 1: died down as soon as the blue checks moved on

697
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:02,760
Speaker 1: to their next victim, very likely when the algorithm stopped

698
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,879
Speaker 1: piping out her content to people who hated it once

699
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:11,320
Speaker 1: it started to produce diminishing returns. And while absolutely nothing

700
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 1: justifies the fear of receiving the kinds of threats that

701
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:20,279
Speaker 1: she did, Doctor Allie has decided to make lemonade. She's

702
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 1: got literary agents and with any luck, a book on

703
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,399
Speaker 1: the way soon. Fingers crossed, and when we come back,

704
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: doctor Ali Lukes tells us what the whole experience was

705
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:49,239
Speaker 1: like from her side of the keyboard. Welcome back to

706
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 1: sixteenth minute. I got pretty burnt out in the middle

707
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: of reading that book about Smell, and so I took

708
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 1: a break to watch Scream six and this actor named

709
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 1: Dermott mulroney is in it. And I know that he's

710
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,120
Speaker 1: a person who has been famous for a while, but

711
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: I'm never not completely taken aback when I see the

712
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 1: name Dermott mulroney. Like, your name is Dermott mulroney, I'm Dermott.

713
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 1: No it's not. And here is my interview with the

714
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: wonderful doctor Ali Lukex.

715
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 6: I'm doctor Ali Lukex. I'm currently a supervisor in English

716
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,800
Speaker 6: Literature at the University of Cambridge and I work on smell.

717
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 1: I've learned so much from you, but at what cost?

718
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:33,799
Speaker 1: And that's what we're here to discuss today. Were you

719
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: always into olfactory studies? How did you get there?

720
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,880
Speaker 6: I was not always into ol factory studies. I arrived

721
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 6: at olfactory studies during my undergrad degree. I did my

722
00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 6: undergraduate degree at the University of Exeter, which was fantastic.

723
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,760
Speaker 6: It gave me all of the things that I needed

724
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 6: to get going.

725
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:55,600
Speaker 1: What were you studying at English Literature?

726
00:46:55,680 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 6: So I did English literature undergrad English Issue in Modern

727
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:05,439
Speaker 6: Culture at UCL for my master's degree, and everyone called

728
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:09,279
Speaker 6: us the Issues students, which I felt was not very complementary.

729
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:14,600
Speaker 6: My work even at Exeter was relatively into disciplinary in

730
00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 6: that I was kind of given free reign to draw

731
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 6: on philosophy and sociology.

732
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:20,320
Speaker 1: In my work.

733
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,279
Speaker 6: But my master's degree was really my kind of first

734
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:26,440
Speaker 6: forra and cultural studies. By the time I was in

735
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 6: my second year of undergrad, I already had become infatuated

736
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 6: with smell studies, although I didn't even really know that

737
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 6: it was called smell studies back then.

738
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 1: I just knew that.

739
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,799
Speaker 6: I had noticed this really interesting thing about literature, which

740
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 6: was that in so many canonical texts, the texts that

741
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 6: were just set on our reading lists, smell was a

742
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 6: really fundamental part of how the authors were characterizing the

743
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:58,720
Speaker 6: figures in their books, both in positive and negative ways,

744
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 6: that smell was used as a kind of political agent

745
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:03,240
Speaker 6: in those books.

746
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:05,719
Speaker 1: You know better than anyone, I feel like, probably the

747
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:10,359
Speaker 1: least examined sense, or at least considered sense, it's always

748
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:11,880
Speaker 1: the one that I say I would give up.

749
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 6: And you're not alone. I very often, I very often

750
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,919
Speaker 6: do this thing with my students where I asked them

751
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:22,799
Speaker 6: to rank their senses according to their perceived value, and

752
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 6: smell is like almost universally ranked at the bottom and

753
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 6: sight at the top. And then we inevitably end up

754
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 6: talking about smell because I can't stop talking about it,

755
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 6: and then everyone else gets interested in it and they

756
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 6: start reevaluating their biases.

757
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: Taste suddenly found dead in a ditch. I mean, and

758
00:48:41,800 --> 00:48:45,919
Speaker 1: so you, over the course of higher education, you become

759
00:48:46,040 --> 00:48:49,560
Speaker 1: drawn to this very particular area of study. What existed

760
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: around this area of study, I honestly have no idea.

761
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:55,880
Speaker 6: When I was an undergraduate, smell Studies really had not

762
00:48:56,280 --> 00:49:00,720
Speaker 6: cohered into a stable field of study. I was drawing

763
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:03,919
Speaker 6: on simply what was out there and what I had

764
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,799
Speaker 6: access to, which was not everything. As it turned out,

765
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 6: I only realized that I'd been missing out on some

766
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 6: texts online when I got to Cambridge and suddenly had

767
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 6: access to basically everything. The first Smell Studies academic article

768
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:27,359
Speaker 6: I found was this article called What's This Smell? By

769
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 6: Hands Rendersbacker, and I thought that it was perhaps the

770
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 6: most unique and interesting piece of criticism I'd ever read,

771
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,840
Speaker 6: And I think that was really what got me hooked.

772
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 6: And it was kind of just freely available on academia

773
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:48,240
Speaker 6: dot edu, so that was great. I'm really a champion

774
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:53,359
Speaker 6: for free public access to resources. You know. I do

775
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 6: feel that it's a shame that my thesis is embargoed,

776
00:49:56,080 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 6: but it's also a necessity for now just to like

777
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,919
Speaker 6: protect my intellectual property until I can publish it. I'm

778
00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 6: really invested in making sure that academic work can be

779
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 6: translated for public audiences and is available to public audiences.

780
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:12,879
Speaker 6: So I thought that it was really cool that he'd

781
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:15,759
Speaker 6: put it up on this public website for everyone to

782
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 6: be able to access.

783
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,359
Speaker 1: What is your relationship with the internet like growing up

784
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: and into college sort of alongside your journey towards smell studies.

785
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 6: I have always been very bookish. Since I could read. Basically,

786
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 6: I have been bookish. So I spend a lot more

787
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 6: time reading than I do on the internet. Even now

788
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 6: that i'm you know that I've been spending so much

789
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:42,760
Speaker 6: time on the internet, I still read more than I

790
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:46,040
Speaker 6: look at my social media. I was born ninety seven,

791
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 6: so okay, I'm on the cusp of remembering a time

792
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 6: before we had, you know, an enormous computer in the house.

793
00:50:55,480 --> 00:51:00,359
Speaker 6: I was never really interested. I was just I would

794
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 6: rather read books, Like I grew up with audio books.

795
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:06,359
Speaker 6: On the daily. You could find me painting or drawing

796
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:09,280
Speaker 6: whilst listening to an audiobook. That is how I wanted

797
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:10,839
Speaker 6: to spend my time, and it's how I still want

798
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 6: to spend my time. Nothing has changed.

799
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 1: How long did it take to write this thesis? What

800
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:18,000
Speaker 1: was the process of researching it because I really want

801
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: to hit on what exactly this thesis is about, especially

802
00:51:21,719 --> 00:51:26,439
Speaker 1: to emphasize how wildly, bizarrely out of context it's taken.

803
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,600
Speaker 6: Later for me, it took three and a half years.

804
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:33,160
Speaker 6: That's pretty typical, I think for a British PhD, most

805
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 6: people take about four years. It's possible to get it

806
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 6: done in three, but not many people do it. So

807
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 6: I'm kind of smack bang in the middle of those

808
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 6: two polls. I had already developed this base of knowledge

809
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:48,840
Speaker 6: and smell studies over kind of over years of studying

810
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 6: it during my undergrad and my masters, but I was

811
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 6: studying it in usually historical contexts, so I kind of

812
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 6: purposefully left a gap the PhD where I would finally

813
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 6: get to talk about modern and contemporary literature. It turned

814
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:11,800
Speaker 6: out that like hardly anyone was doing that work. Certainly

815
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 6: no one was doing it in the way that I

816
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 6: wanted to do it. So I really had free reign,

817
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:21,040
Speaker 6: which was great, so exciting. Honestly, welcome to my world.

818
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 6: It has been the most amazing seven or eight years

819
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 6: of studying this thing. Almost everything I say is a

820
00:52:30,200 --> 00:52:35,320
Speaker 6: relatively new thing to people. It's so hard to happen

821
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 6: upon that kind of thing in academia. So the process

822
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 6: of writing the thesis, I knew the structure going into it.

823
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:45,719
Speaker 6: I knew that I wanted to structure it around identity

824
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 6: categories because I had noticed in my reading Smell related

825
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 6: to individual identity categories in quite distinct ways, but that

826
00:52:58,040 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 6: all of those identity categories were related, and that there

827
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 6: was this kind of collapsing and interesting overlaying of different

828
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 6: social meanings that Smell could take on in relation to

829
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 6: different identity categories. I wanted to write a thesis that

830
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:25,879
Speaker 6: really took each identity category seriously, but in which each

831
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 6: of the chapters spoke to one another, and then I

832
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 6: just read voraciously.

833
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: So you complete your thesis? When do you complete your thesis?

834
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 6: I completed my thesis in June twenty twenty four. I

835
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 6: think some people feel very ambivalently towards their PhD thesis

836
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:48,799
Speaker 6: and the process of writing a PhD. I am very

837
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 6: grateful that I never lost my enthusiasm for my subject

838
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 6: or for the study of literature. I feel just as

839
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:03,400
Speaker 6: enthused as when I started, if not more actually, because

840
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 6: the more you learn about smell, the more fascinating it is.

841
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:13,799
Speaker 1: Honestly, you have this beautiful, like bound version of your

842
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 1: thesis and you log on to formerly Twitter dot com.

843
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 1: How after when were you posting on this platform? What

844
00:54:21,040 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: was your like standing relationship with this platform on the day.

845
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 6: For a couple of years, I think a couple of

846
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 6: years preceding the incident, I think I posted once every

847
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 6: six months. I spent so little time on it that

848
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:42,399
Speaker 6: I had completely forgotten about the Musk takeover. I had

849
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:45,359
Speaker 6: no idea what it had become. It's never really been

850
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,319
Speaker 6: part of my personality. I don't think to be on

851
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:51,760
Speaker 6: social media very much, and I think Twitter is the same.

852
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 6: It's the same story on Twitter. And the reason that

853
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 6: I posted the photograph in the first place was because

854
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,799
Speaker 6: I kind of thought again, because I didn't realize that

855
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 6: the platform had changed and people had left, mostly that

856
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 6: my smell studies people and my literary studies people were

857
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:13,759
Speaker 6: still there and they might want to know that I'm

858
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 6: done because they might have like potential post top projects

859
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 6: that I could join. I did it for a reason.

860
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:25,280
Speaker 6: I didn't expect it to be met by an audience

861
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,319
Speaker 6: outside of the three hundred or so people that I

862
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:29,680
Speaker 6: followed on Twitter.

863
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 1: Which is normal, but you're not in a normal place.

864
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:37,920
Speaker 1: So walk me through this day, this series of days,

865
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:42,200
Speaker 1: what pace did things start taking off? And how are

866
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:43,560
Speaker 1: you feeling as that's happening.

867
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 6: So the post gained traction immediately, but initially it was

868
00:55:49,239 --> 00:55:52,839
Speaker 6: among lots of kind people who were just offering their

869
00:55:52,840 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 6: congratulations on my accomplishment. So that fact, even though I

870
00:55:57,320 --> 00:56:05,480
Speaker 6: was uncomfortable about the attention, felt fine, right. But then

871
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:10,280
Speaker 6: after about forty eight hours, I would say, I started

872
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 6: to notice some odd replies coming in, and then it

873
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:20,600
Speaker 6: was reposted by a couple of right wing accounts with

874
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 6: big followings, and at that point the comments started to

875
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 6: become extremely hostile, and those comments started gaining traction. So

876
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:34,720
Speaker 6: it wasn't just that it was the odd strange comment

877
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 6: that you could kind of report and ignore these comments

878
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 6: whilst it was bouncing around that hostile part of the platform.

879
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:49,040
Speaker 6: Those comments started shooting up to the top of the

880
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 6: kind of comments. They were gaining the most likes and

881
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:56,520
Speaker 6: completely They weren't by any means outweighing all of the

882
00:56:56,560 --> 00:57:01,840
Speaker 6: positive congratulatory comments, but they were the first that anyone

883
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:04,359
Speaker 6: would see when they looked at the post because they

884
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:05,120
Speaker 6: had the most.

885
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: Likes, prior to if you could remember the massive amplification

886
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:13,560
Speaker 1: through the right wing accounts, what were the weirder responses

887
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 1: you were getting and what were proportionally positive to negative

888
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 1: before these big accounts latched onto it.

889
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:23,160
Speaker 6: I do think that it was such a whirlwind that,

890
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:25,880
Speaker 6: even though in general I have quite a good memory

891
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:33,120
Speaker 6: from my own experiences, I would struggle the most outlandish

892
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 6: comments coming in, you know, the kind of the really

893
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:42,280
Speaker 6: long ones where someone's basically written an essay. And there

894
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:46,680
Speaker 6: was one where someone was like, your ancestors were fighting

895
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 6: mountain lions and you are disgracing them. I was like,

896
00:57:55,480 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 6: where do you Who.

897
00:57:57,000 --> 00:57:58,640
Speaker 1: Do you think I am? And where do you think

898
00:57:58,680 --> 00:57:59,120
Speaker 1: I live?

899
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:02,080
Speaker 6: As British as it.

900
00:58:02,040 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 1: Gets, Yeah, that is I found a pretty common anti

901
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 1: intellectual reply to almost anything. It's like your ancestors did

902
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:13,120
Speaker 1: something that matters and I hate you, and it's like, well,

903
00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 1: what are you doing? How did you manage that? And

904
00:58:17,880 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 1: how did it translate to your normal life?

905
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:27,480
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was pretty all consuming for the first week,

906
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:32,640
Speaker 6: if not longer. The replies were coming in way faster

907
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:35,320
Speaker 6: than I could read them, which was stressful because I

908
00:58:35,440 --> 00:58:38,480
Speaker 6: like to have the full picture, so I was not

909
00:58:38,640 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 6: sleeping in an attempt to keep up with the conversation.

910
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 6: I probably got about three hours of sleep every night

911
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 6: for about nine days, constantly refreshing the other thing is.

912
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 6: And this really reveals how kind of illiterate I am

913
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 6: on that platform. I didn't realize that you could check

914
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 6: quote tweets, so I would stumble upon quote tweets of

915
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:09,520
Speaker 6: that original tweet with like millions and millions of impressions.

916
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 6: Even as I thought I was doing quite a good

917
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 6: job of keeping up with the replies, I was still

918
00:59:14,120 --> 00:59:19,439
Speaker 6: missing them thousands and thousands of quote tweets. It wasn't

919
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:21,760
Speaker 6: that I was losing. It wasn't like it was keeping

920
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:24,640
Speaker 6: me up at night. I think mentally, I was really

921
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:28,800
Speaker 6: unscathed by this. I'm quite a difficult person to phase.

922
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:35,640
Speaker 6: Partly that's because the critiques were so ludicrous in so

923
00:59:35,760 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 6: many instances, and there was some valid skepticism. Don't get

924
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:42,400
Speaker 6: me wrong. I don't expect everyone to read the title

925
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:44,720
Speaker 6: The Politics of Smell and think, oh, yeah, of course,

926
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:48,120
Speaker 6: that's a really useful thing that we need in society.

927
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:52,280
Speaker 6: But I felt confident that provided I was given the

928
00:59:52,320 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 6: time and space, I would be able to win over

929
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 6: at least some of the people who were skeptical about

930
00:59:57,720 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 6: the value of the thesis. I didn't worry about critiques

931
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 6: of my work because you know, ultimately they only had

932
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:06,520
Speaker 6: the title of my thesis and the abstract, which was

933
01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 6: written and intended for an academic audience, and so I

934
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:15,080
Speaker 6: understood why some people were saying that it was kind

935
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 6: of obfuscating or it was inaccessible. I think that's a

936
01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:25,160
Speaker 6: fair critique of an academic abstract, almost any academic abstract,

937
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:27,800
Speaker 6: and it's not the way that I would convey my

938
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:31,600
Speaker 6: ideas to a general public. So nobody really had anything

939
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 6: else to say about the work. The work, you know what.

940
01:00:36,320 --> 01:00:38,720
Speaker 6: They were making assumptions about the work, but those assumptions

941
01:00:38,720 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 6: were false.

942
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:47,720
Speaker 1: So we'll be right back with more from doctor Alli.

943
01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:01,120
Speaker 1: Welcome back to sixteenth Minute. I bring lost an AMBI

944
01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:04,520
Speaker 1: podcast Award in Chicago last night. But the good news

945
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:07,560
Speaker 1: is that I lost to a great show. I've been

946
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:11,560
Speaker 1: listening to it all today. It's called Inheriting from LAist

947
01:01:11,760 --> 01:01:14,480
Speaker 1: and I think you'll really like it. It's linked in

948
01:01:14,560 --> 01:01:19,440
Speaker 1: the description and if you still respect my loser ass

949
01:01:19,920 --> 01:01:23,240
Speaker 1: here's the rest of my interview with doctor Ali Lukes.

950
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:27,960
Speaker 1: You engaged with people, even if they were, you know,

951
01:01:28,680 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 1: very clearly willfully misinterpreting what you're saying. You replied to

952
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:38,160
Speaker 1: a lot of people thoughtfully and patiently. What motivated you

953
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 1: to do that?

954
01:01:38,880 --> 01:01:43,720
Speaker 6: I think fundamentally, I have no interest in arguing with

955
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 6: people on the internet. It's not a good use of

956
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:50,320
Speaker 6: my time. Did, however, always intend to share my work

957
01:01:50,360 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 6: with a public audience. I always wanted to write a

958
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:57,240
Speaker 6: trade book. I always wanted to disseminate my ideas in

959
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:01,120
Speaker 6: a way that would be accessible to people, and I

960
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:05,280
Speaker 6: had been given an opportunity to do that in an

961
01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 6: unconventional way. Sure, but it was nevertheless an opportunity to

962
01:02:09,200 --> 01:02:12,880
Speaker 6: reach people and to kind of cut my teeth in

963
01:02:13,040 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 6: the world of public discourse. Because I do think there's

964
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 6: something to be said about the insulation of academia, the

965
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:23,000
Speaker 6: way that you know, we all talk to each other

966
01:02:23,120 --> 01:02:26,200
Speaker 6: and we're all kind of interested in our in our

967
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:29,480
Speaker 6: own niche little aspects of whatever it is that we're

968
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:33,000
Speaker 6: working on. It is easy, I think, in academia to

969
01:02:33,080 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 6: feel slightly separated from the real world in a way

970
01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:42,280
Speaker 6: that is I think distinct from the criticism of academia

971
01:02:42,280 --> 01:02:45,240
Speaker 6: that we're all kind of in ivory towers, and that

972
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:48,600
Speaker 6: we don't have any understanding of the real world in

973
01:02:48,680 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 6: terms of privilege. I think it's not sensible to make

974
01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:56,480
Speaker 6: assumptions about people online whether they're in academia or not.

975
01:02:56,840 --> 01:02:58,920
Speaker 6: We still have a long ways to go in terms

976
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:02,800
Speaker 6: of making academia equitable, in making sure that you know

977
01:03:03,080 --> 01:03:06,480
Speaker 6: everybody has access to those resources. But it's not possible

978
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:09,440
Speaker 6: to tell based on a picture of someone right what

979
01:03:09,520 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 6: their background is. My friends have told me since the

980
01:03:12,040 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 6: dawn of time that I'm quite a naive person and

981
01:03:17,480 --> 01:03:21,720
Speaker 6: that I'm probably too earnest for my own good, and

982
01:03:21,760 --> 01:03:24,600
Speaker 6: I think I probably bring that to my social media

983
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:27,439
Speaker 6: presence because I don't know how else to be. I've

984
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:31,840
Speaker 6: experienced people coming in with hostility or writing something that

985
01:03:32,080 --> 01:03:36,480
Speaker 6: is clearly quite combative, and provided you don't kind of

986
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:40,480
Speaker 6: stoop to their level, sometimes people will turn around. I

987
01:03:40,480 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 6: think the problem is online we forget that people are

988
01:03:45,200 --> 01:03:49,160
Speaker 6: real people. I think when I engage with people online,

989
01:03:49,240 --> 01:03:53,120
Speaker 6: I assume that everyone that I'm talking to is a

990
01:03:53,160 --> 01:03:56,440
Speaker 6: real person, probably even when they're a bot. The post

991
01:03:56,440 --> 01:03:59,320
Speaker 6: went viral towards the end of term, so I think

992
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:03,640
Speaker 6: I had a out a week of teaching left before

993
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:09,240
Speaker 6: the end of term. Most of my students mentioned it.

994
01:04:09,320 --> 01:04:15,160
Speaker 6: But honestly, that generation, they're implacable. They are so difficult

995
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:17,800
Speaker 6: to phase. They were just like, oh, I saw that

996
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:21,480
Speaker 6: you were on BBC News. What's that about? Yeah, And

997
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:23,760
Speaker 6: a couple of them, a couple of them were, you know,

998
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:27,680
Speaker 6: really worried. And one of them brought me a plant,

999
01:04:28,160 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 6: which is over there on my desk. Oh, that's so sweet,

1000
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:34,520
Speaker 6: and it was yeah. I mean, I love my students.

1001
01:04:34,520 --> 01:04:38,280
Speaker 6: I think they're wonderful, but they they truly do not care.

1002
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 6: They don't care at all about my personal life or

1003
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:44,880
Speaker 6: what I'm doing outside of teaching them. And that's great.

1004
01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:45,320
Speaker 6: I love that.

1005
01:04:45,480 --> 01:04:47,280
Speaker 1: Were you happy with the way that your story was

1006
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:51,680
Speaker 1: being framed in the media? How were you wanting to engage?

1007
01:04:52,440 --> 01:04:58,480
Speaker 6: This was probably the most chaotic period of my entire life,

1008
01:04:58,800 --> 01:05:02,760
Speaker 6: the sort of three or four days once the media

1009
01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 6: had caught wind of it and everybody wanted to have

1010
01:05:07,320 --> 01:05:11,640
Speaker 6: an interview, everybody wanted to comment, and trying to sift

1011
01:05:11,880 --> 01:05:16,360
Speaker 6: through like hundreds of emails every day. I was happy

1012
01:05:16,360 --> 01:05:21,240
Speaker 6: with the way that the media decided to report on this.

1013
01:05:21,760 --> 01:05:25,680
Speaker 6: The first British publication to report on it was the

1014
01:05:25,800 --> 01:05:30,000
Speaker 6: Daily Mail. And the Daily Mail they're known for being

1015
01:05:30,160 --> 01:05:37,360
Speaker 6: quite right wing. Their assessment of the situation was remarkably charitable.

1016
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 6: That they've done a couple of articles now and they've

1017
01:05:42,000 --> 01:05:45,640
Speaker 6: they've been really kind of glowing, and I'm still unsure

1018
01:05:45,640 --> 01:05:47,680
Speaker 6: as to how I've pulled that off.

1019
01:05:47,960 --> 01:05:51,000
Speaker 1: Did you feel pressure to be more online after this happened?

1020
01:05:51,680 --> 01:05:56,440
Speaker 6: I did feel pressure, but I also resisted the pressure.

1021
01:05:57,160 --> 01:06:02,560
Speaker 6: So I decided that I would only do it as

1022
01:06:02,600 --> 01:06:06,480
Speaker 6: long as I was having fun and as long as

1023
01:06:07,360 --> 01:06:11,840
Speaker 6: people were feeding back that they were learning something. I

1024
01:06:11,880 --> 01:06:14,240
Speaker 6: didn't want it. I didn't want it to just become

1025
01:06:14,320 --> 01:06:16,640
Speaker 6: like a running joke. I wanted it actually to be

1026
01:06:16,800 --> 01:06:22,400
Speaker 6: at least to some degree educational, because I think that's important.

1027
01:06:22,520 --> 01:06:25,240
Speaker 6: I also, you know, didn't want to let it kind

1028
01:06:25,240 --> 01:06:30,160
Speaker 6: of overshadow the things that I really want to invest

1029
01:06:30,280 --> 01:06:34,960
Speaker 6: my time in, which is teaching my students and writing.

1030
01:06:35,560 --> 01:06:38,080
Speaker 6: I think I've found a nice balance. I don't spend

1031
01:06:38,200 --> 01:06:40,479
Speaker 6: very much time on there at all.

1032
01:06:40,840 --> 01:06:44,120
Speaker 1: What would you like to do with this new audience,

1033
01:06:44,160 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 1: I mean, what would you like to sort of do

1034
01:06:46,520 --> 01:06:49,360
Speaker 1: moving forward? I am like I would love to read

1035
01:06:49,880 --> 01:06:55,200
Speaker 1: a book about smell theory from you. Oh well, I'm.

1036
01:06:55,080 --> 01:06:57,400
Speaker 6: Very pleased to hear that this is what it's all

1037
01:06:57,440 --> 01:07:01,440
Speaker 6: been leading up to for me, because although I really

1038
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:06,320
Speaker 6: enjoy explaining smell stuff to people on Twitter in a

1039
01:07:06,360 --> 01:07:09,160
Speaker 6: limited amount of characters, it's quite good for me actually

1040
01:07:09,240 --> 01:07:15,400
Speaker 6: to practice being really concise. I am a writer, and

1041
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:18,880
Speaker 6: I do think that my ideas are probably best conveyed

1042
01:07:18,960 --> 01:07:22,360
Speaker 6: in the form of like long form prose. So I

1043
01:07:22,400 --> 01:07:26,080
Speaker 6: think if people are interested in the ideas, then they're

1044
01:07:26,120 --> 01:07:27,920
Speaker 6: going to love the trade book.

1045
01:07:28,200 --> 01:07:34,439
Speaker 1: But now that there's sort of massive unexpected thing has happened. Yeah,

1046
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:40,160
Speaker 1: what is your takeaway? Ben From having survived the main

1047
01:07:40,240 --> 01:07:44,360
Speaker 1: character experience and been able to return to your normal life, I.

1048
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:47,240
Speaker 6: Have not returned to my normal life.

1049
01:07:47,480 --> 01:07:48,680
Speaker 1: Okay, say more about that.

1050
01:07:50,640 --> 01:07:54,880
Speaker 6: I that my normal life has been and gone, but

1051
01:07:55,000 --> 01:07:57,240
Speaker 6: not in a bad way. Not in a bad way,

1052
01:07:57,280 --> 01:08:00,480
Speaker 6: I mean, in many ways, this experience hasn't changed me.

1053
01:08:00,880 --> 01:08:05,640
Speaker 6: It hasn't changed my personality, It hasn't changed my perspective.

1054
01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:10,240
Speaker 6: It hasn't changed my perspective on the work or on

1055
01:08:10,440 --> 01:08:12,840
Speaker 6: what I want to do with it. It has slightly

1056
01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:19,400
Speaker 6: changed my perspective on some people who are wild. I

1057
01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:21,920
Speaker 6: didn't know that it was. I think I truly, I mean,

1058
01:08:22,040 --> 01:08:25,160
Speaker 6: I guess intellectually, I knew that it was possible for

1059
01:08:25,200 --> 01:08:31,360
Speaker 6: people to be so hostile and so combative towards something

1060
01:08:31,439 --> 01:08:36,679
Speaker 6: they don't understand. But it's a different thing knowing something

1061
01:08:36,960 --> 01:08:40,799
Speaker 6: is possible and experiencing it yourself. I do think, though,

1062
01:08:41,680 --> 01:08:44,559
Speaker 6: that perhaps some of that has to do with the

1063
01:08:44,560 --> 01:08:48,120
Speaker 6: fact that almost all of us have a sense of smell,

1064
01:08:48,960 --> 01:08:51,280
Speaker 6: and almost all of us have a whole lifetime of

1065
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:54,320
Speaker 6: experiences to draw on when we're talking about smell, and

1066
01:08:54,360 --> 01:08:56,400
Speaker 6: so we all kind of feel like we're experts in

1067
01:08:56,439 --> 01:08:59,759
Speaker 6: our own experience of smell. I can see why people

1068
01:09:00,280 --> 01:09:04,040
Speaker 6: feel maybe concerned about the idea that their sense of

1069
01:09:04,080 --> 01:09:06,640
Speaker 6: smell could be doing something that they're not aware of.

1070
01:09:06,720 --> 01:09:10,640
Speaker 6: I think I think that's maybe a little it's suspicious,

1071
01:09:10,840 --> 01:09:15,400
Speaker 6: and I can see why people would be worried about it.

1072
01:09:16,240 --> 01:09:18,519
Speaker 6: I don't I don't really see why people would react

1073
01:09:19,200 --> 01:09:21,600
Speaker 6: with quite the amount of vitriol that they did. But

1074
01:09:21,760 --> 01:09:25,439
Speaker 6: then again, I'm I'm not them, and I'm kind of

1075
01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:28,840
Speaker 6: happy with I'm certainly happy with that. I'm happy to

1076
01:09:28,920 --> 01:09:32,519
Speaker 6: accept that a whole variety of people exist in the world,

1077
01:09:34,560 --> 01:09:36,559
Speaker 6: and that has nothing to do with me or my work.

1078
01:09:36,920 --> 01:09:39,240
Speaker 1: What is next for this field of study? What would

1079
01:09:39,280 --> 01:09:40,879
Speaker 1: you like to see happen moving forward?

1080
01:09:41,280 --> 01:09:43,160
Speaker 6: Oh, this is I mean, this is a personal bias

1081
01:09:43,200 --> 01:09:45,960
Speaker 6: because this is what I want to do next. Please, yeah,

1082
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:47,720
Speaker 6: because I want to do it. That is That is

1083
01:09:47,760 --> 01:09:51,200
Speaker 6: how I feel. I mean, I mean, I'm already in

1084
01:09:51,200 --> 01:09:54,240
Speaker 6: the process of this. I'm developing a post doctoral project

1085
01:09:54,320 --> 01:09:58,200
Speaker 6: that would study the effects of smell disorders. I think

1086
01:09:58,680 --> 01:10:03,040
Speaker 6: this is like you know post well, we say post COVID,

1087
01:10:03,080 --> 01:10:06,080
Speaker 6: but that is a really contentious thing, especially in the

1088
01:10:06,200 --> 01:10:10,680
Speaker 6: US in comparison to the UK. But it's estimated that

1089
01:10:10,760 --> 01:10:15,320
Speaker 6: something like twenty seven million people still have long lasting

1090
01:10:15,479 --> 01:10:19,280
Speaker 6: damage to their sense of smell and their sense of

1091
01:10:19,280 --> 01:10:21,439
Speaker 6: taste because the sense of smell is up to ninety

1092
01:10:21,479 --> 01:10:26,120
Speaker 6: five percent. Well, it's flavor taste is separable. I'm going

1093
01:10:26,200 --> 01:10:31,880
Speaker 6: to get into a whole thing. It doesn't even matter.

1094
01:10:31,960 --> 01:10:34,240
Speaker 1: Really, don't get her start it, don't give her startled.

1095
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:41,640
Speaker 6: But there are globally so many people have been affected

1096
01:10:41,800 --> 01:10:47,280
Speaker 6: by smell disorders, and they are dramatically understudied. But the

1097
01:10:47,320 --> 01:10:54,840
Speaker 6: studies that we do have show that depression, anxiety, suicidality,

1098
01:10:56,360 --> 01:10:59,400
Speaker 6: weight loss, all of these things come in the wake

1099
01:10:59,439 --> 01:11:03,519
Speaker 6: of losing sense of smell. So I think a project

1100
01:11:03,560 --> 01:11:07,599
Speaker 6: that studies the effects of smell disorders would really help

1101
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:13,519
Speaker 6: to completely re evaluate the way that we think about

1102
01:11:13,600 --> 01:11:16,680
Speaker 6: smell and the way it contributes to our lives and

1103
01:11:16,760 --> 01:11:21,920
Speaker 6: our well being. Actually, so that's something that I hope

1104
01:11:21,960 --> 01:11:26,000
Speaker 6: is cooking. The other reason that studying smell disorders is

1105
01:11:26,040 --> 01:11:32,080
Speaker 6: really important is because evidence, recent evidence starting in about

1106
01:11:32,200 --> 01:11:36,639
Speaker 6: twenty twenty three, suggests that we're all losing our sense

1107
01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:40,920
Speaker 6: of smell, that the effects of pollution are causing us

1108
01:11:41,080 --> 01:11:44,280
Speaker 6: all to have a diminished sense of smell, and that

1109
01:11:44,800 --> 01:11:52,640
Speaker 6: is disproportionately affecting people from low income backgrounds and racialized communities,

1110
01:11:52,840 --> 01:11:56,160
Speaker 6: because those are the kinds of people who typically are

1111
01:11:56,240 --> 01:12:01,479
Speaker 6: situated around heavily polluting industrial where houses because they're cheap.

1112
01:12:02,520 --> 01:12:06,280
Speaker 6: Those houses are cheap, and that is a serious problem.

1113
01:12:06,439 --> 01:12:09,599
Speaker 6: It's a serious problem that really is own we're only

1114
01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:12,880
Speaker 6: just starting to talk about in the smell studies community,

1115
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:17,000
Speaker 6: let alone in the kind of broader public discourse.

1116
01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:19,840
Speaker 1: And I'm sure people have asked you this before. What

1117
01:12:20,160 --> 01:12:24,000
Speaker 1: is your favorite smell? What is the best smell to you?

1118
01:12:26,760 --> 01:12:29,640
Speaker 6: My go to answer now because people have asked me

1119
01:12:29,680 --> 01:12:30,320
Speaker 6: this and I've been.

1120
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:31,559
Speaker 1: I don't have to imagine.

1121
01:12:31,600 --> 01:12:38,720
Speaker 6: Yeah, is fresh garden sage like garden sage when you

1122
01:12:38,760 --> 01:12:42,840
Speaker 6: like tear up a leaf that smell is my favorite.

1123
01:12:43,200 --> 01:12:46,280
Speaker 1: Wow, you're literally out there touching grass, doing the thing

1124
01:12:46,439 --> 01:12:49,759
Speaker 1: that everyone's telling each other to do in the internet.

1125
01:12:50,160 --> 01:12:53,800
Speaker 6: I am obsessed with smell. There's this It's on. It's

1126
01:12:53,880 --> 01:12:59,080
Speaker 6: indubitable that I am obsessed with smell. I can't imagine

1127
01:12:59,320 --> 01:13:04,559
Speaker 6: that obsession waning, actually, partly because there's so much work

1128
01:13:04,560 --> 01:13:09,360
Speaker 6: to be done. Yeah, and it has been like notoriously

1129
01:13:09,400 --> 01:13:13,599
Speaker 6: difficult to get funding to do work on smell because

1130
01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:17,680
Speaker 6: it's not valued. And now that the tables are turning

1131
01:13:17,920 --> 01:13:22,360
Speaker 6: slightly and we're seeing more interest in sensory studies broadly

1132
01:13:22,840 --> 01:13:26,200
Speaker 6: in the academy, I do think that we're just going

1133
01:13:26,280 --> 01:13:29,760
Speaker 6: to keep seeing more and more interesting work about smell. So,

1134
01:13:30,280 --> 01:13:33,320
Speaker 6: you know, I would love to keep talking about smell,

1135
01:13:33,400 --> 01:13:37,320
Speaker 6: commentating on smell, bringing that work to public audiences. But

1136
01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:41,960
Speaker 6: I also think that there's work to be done in

1137
01:13:43,080 --> 01:13:48,160
Speaker 6: just advocating for and championing the value of the humanities

1138
01:13:49,560 --> 01:13:52,800
Speaker 6: and trying to get away from this idea that the

1139
01:13:52,920 --> 01:13:58,559
Speaker 6: humanities and the sciences are in competition, because I think

1140
01:13:58,880 --> 01:14:06,120
Speaker 6: my work certainly suggests that literally studies specifically, it's kind

1141
01:14:06,160 --> 01:14:11,120
Speaker 6: of open to reinvention in the process of new interdisciplinary

1142
01:14:11,200 --> 01:14:13,720
Speaker 6: encounters that I would I would love to be a

1143
01:14:13,760 --> 01:14:18,280
Speaker 6: small part of the story of trying to make the

1144
01:14:18,400 --> 01:14:23,680
Speaker 6: humanities cool again. I'm so grateful for my audience of

1145
01:14:23,720 --> 01:14:29,240
Speaker 6: people who are curious and interested in learning about things

1146
01:14:29,280 --> 01:14:32,839
Speaker 6: that they might not have encountered before. I don't think

1147
01:14:33,400 --> 01:14:39,200
Speaker 6: that people actually think the humanities are uncool. I mean

1148
01:14:39,320 --> 01:14:44,400
Speaker 6: some people do. I don't think that it's this kind

1149
01:14:44,439 --> 01:14:47,360
Speaker 6: of like received understanding of the value of the humanities.

1150
01:14:47,400 --> 01:14:50,880
Speaker 6: I don't think it's that pervasive in the US. I'm

1151
01:14:50,880 --> 01:14:53,360
Speaker 6: sure it's this. It's it's the same as in the UK.

1152
01:14:53,479 --> 01:14:59,000
Speaker 6: People are increasingly worried that they're not going to be

1153
01:14:59,080 --> 01:15:01,680
Speaker 6: able to get a job that will give them a

1154
01:15:01,800 --> 01:15:06,599
Speaker 6: life that is livable, and there's this kind of fear

1155
01:15:06,680 --> 01:15:11,080
Speaker 6: mongering surround surrounding the humanities that suggests that if people

1156
01:15:11,439 --> 01:15:14,360
Speaker 6: pursue degrees in the humanities, then that's not going to

1157
01:15:14,520 --> 01:15:18,000
Speaker 6: offer them employability at the end of it. And I

1158
01:15:18,040 --> 01:15:25,360
Speaker 6: actually think that that's statistically not true. I've looked at

1159
01:15:25,400 --> 01:15:28,880
Speaker 6: some of the reports about employability and it turns out

1160
01:15:29,320 --> 01:15:34,040
Speaker 6: that certainly in many sectors, English is more employable than

1161
01:15:34,120 --> 01:15:38,000
Speaker 6: something like physics. The way that we talk about things

1162
01:15:38,400 --> 01:15:44,519
Speaker 6: online really really matters. It can seriously obscure the reality

1163
01:15:44,560 --> 01:15:49,400
Speaker 6: of a situation. We kind of need people who are

1164
01:15:49,520 --> 01:15:55,280
Speaker 6: willing to go to bat for the humanities when they're

1165
01:15:55,840 --> 01:15:59,840
Speaker 6: in this kind of pressure cooker situation of being defunded

1166
01:16:00,520 --> 01:16:05,439
Speaker 6: and push to one side people who just simply don't

1167
01:16:05,479 --> 01:16:08,479
Speaker 6: understand the value of them control the conversation, and that

1168
01:16:08,520 --> 01:16:14,320
Speaker 6: in some ways does more damage than anything else because

1169
01:16:14,320 --> 01:16:16,719
Speaker 6: it puts people off. It puts people off even trying

1170
01:16:17,640 --> 01:16:22,400
Speaker 6: right right, You have teenagers thinking, oh, well, I absolutely

1171
01:16:22,479 --> 01:16:26,240
Speaker 6: love literature, but I don't think I can go and

1172
01:16:26,280 --> 01:16:29,240
Speaker 6: study it because you know, what's the point at the

1173
01:16:29,320 --> 01:16:30,600
Speaker 6: end of it, How is it going to get me

1174
01:16:30,640 --> 01:16:33,760
Speaker 6: a job? And I I like, realistically, I don't think

1175
01:16:33,800 --> 01:16:37,559
Speaker 6: that's a problem any more than it is for certain

1176
01:16:37,760 --> 01:16:41,400
Speaker 6: other disciplines that are outside of the humanities. And it's

1177
01:16:41,400 --> 01:16:43,719
Speaker 6: just stopping people from engaging in what they really would

1178
01:16:43,720 --> 01:16:45,600
Speaker 6: love to do, and that's problematic.

1179
01:16:46,240 --> 01:16:49,080
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for making time for this. I

1180
01:16:49,120 --> 01:16:50,120
Speaker 1: really appreciate it.

1181
01:16:50,120 --> 01:16:52,600
Speaker 6: It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you for asking me.

1182
01:16:53,040 --> 01:16:55,800
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to doctor Ali Lukes, who you can

1183
01:16:55,880 --> 01:16:58,680
Speaker 1: follow at the links in the description for when she

1184
01:16:58,880 --> 01:17:02,760
Speaker 1: has time to share her brilliance with you. I am

1185
01:17:03,000 --> 01:17:08,000
Speaker 1: so inspired by Ali's even headedness and commitment to her

1186
01:17:08,080 --> 01:17:12,720
Speaker 1: line of study, in particular her care in noting that

1187
01:17:12,800 --> 01:17:16,240
Speaker 1: a diminished sense of smell due to long COVID could

1188
01:17:16,280 --> 01:17:19,280
Speaker 1: stand to hurt a lot of people down the line,

1189
01:17:19,360 --> 01:17:24,400
Speaker 1: particularly those who live in frontline climate communities. I don't

1190
01:17:24,400 --> 01:17:27,519
Speaker 1: know about you, but that had certainly not occurred to me,

1191
01:17:28,120 --> 01:17:31,240
Speaker 1: but it makes a lot of sense. And as with

1192
01:17:31,400 --> 01:17:36,680
Speaker 1: so many marginalized people doing important, undervalued work, it is

1193
01:17:36,880 --> 01:17:42,280
Speaker 1: so frustrating that academics like Ali Luke's are always the

1194
01:17:42,360 --> 01:17:47,320
Speaker 1: first to absorb this absurd amount of vitriol from the

1195
01:17:47,360 --> 01:17:52,200
Speaker 1: worst faith people on the planet with Internet connections, and so,

1196
01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:57,200
Speaker 1: dear listener, I am hanging in for a book from Ali.

1197
01:17:57,439 --> 01:18:00,720
Speaker 1: I have a good feeling because whether those chodes on

1198
01:18:01,040 --> 01:18:04,679
Speaker 1: X believe it or not work like hers can really

1199
01:18:04,800 --> 01:18:10,599
Speaker 1: make a huge difference. Doctor Ali Lukes, Your sixteenth minute

1200
01:18:11,080 --> 01:18:15,879
Speaker 1: ends now.

1201
01:18:16,400 --> 01:18:19,080
Speaker 7: Sixteenth Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and

1202
01:18:19,160 --> 01:18:22,800
Speaker 7: iHeart Radio. It is written, hosted, and produced by me

1203
01:18:23,040 --> 01:18:27,120
Speaker 7: Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are Sophia Lechterman and Robert Evans.

1204
01:18:27,320 --> 01:18:31,439
Speaker 7: The amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.

1205
01:18:32,000 --> 01:18:35,840
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is

1206
01:18:35,880 --> 01:18:38,920
Speaker 1: from Brandt Crater and pet shout outs to our dog

1207
01:18:38,920 --> 01:18:42,479
Speaker 1: producer Anderson, my kat's flea Casper, and my pet rock Bird,

1208
01:18:42,600 --> 01:18:44,639
Speaker 1: who will outlive us all Bye.