Speaker 1: I'm Manny and this is Devin, and this is no
Speaker 1: such thing.
Speaker 2: The show where we settle our dawn arguments and yours
Speaker 2: by actually doing the research. On today's episode, how did
Speaker 2: we all hear that Sierra rumor?
Speaker 3: I No, there's no no such thing, no such thing,
Speaker 3: no such thank touch thank no touch thank.
Speaker 2: All Right, So today's episode is actually a collaboration with
Speaker 2: our friends over at Panic World, so we would be
Speaker 2: joined by Ryan and his producer Grant. It is about
Speaker 2: middle school conspiracy theories and rumors. Uh, we're gonna be
Speaker 2: talking about a time long long ago, So there's gonna
Speaker 2: be some language that is not up to date that
Speaker 2: we're gonna be referencing. For example, throughout this episode, we're
Speaker 2: gonna use the term hermathodite, which we're using at the
Speaker 2: time to refer to intersects people, which, if you do
Speaker 2: not know, are people who have sexual anatomy or reproductive
Speaker 2: organs or chromosome patterns that do not align with what
Speaker 2: we assume to be typical definitions for male or female.
Speaker 2: We're also going to be talking about this idea of
Speaker 2: people pretending to be a gender that they are not. Obviously,
Speaker 2: this is very outdated language, and we know that Trench
Speaker 2: people are not pretending to be something that they're not.
Speaker 2: I would like to say that that's outdated, but as
Speaker 2: we discuss in this episode, this is.
Speaker 1: Current day phenomenon. So let's get into it, all.
Speaker 4: Right, fellas, we are gathered here today to try and
Speaker 4: get to the bottom of something that we've been trying
Speaker 4: to get to the bottom of for a very long time. Now,
Speaker 4: just some quick text for the listeners. No, where did
Speaker 4: you go to middle school?
Speaker 5: Connecticut?
Speaker 4: In Connecticut and New Jersey?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 4: I went to middle school in Ohio? How about you, Ryan, Massachusetts?
Speaker 4: And despite the fact that we all went to different
Speaker 4: middle schools or high schools in different states, I'm willing
Speaker 4: to bet that we've all heard the same celebrity rumor.
Speaker 4: And then, you know, we all went to these schools
Speaker 4: in the early two thousands and so what was the
Speaker 4: biggest celebrity rumor at your school?
Speaker 2: Devin, I'm cheating a little bit because it's what the
Speaker 2: episode is about, but it's not.
Speaker 4: It's not a you know, we're talking to the listeners.
Speaker 2: It was that Sierra, the R and B singer was born.
Speaker 2: At the time we were saying she was born hermapthadite.
Speaker 1: Today we would say.
Speaker 2: In yes, and she apparently was on Oprah where she
Speaker 2: revealed this to the world.
Speaker 4: Does that sound familiar to you, guys.
Speaker 3: I've heard different versions of different celebrities with that thing.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, because there was also one for Lady Gaga.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: We would have been high school or college. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: it's come around a bunch.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Basically in middle school, the biggest celebrity rumor was that
Speaker 4: Sierra was what we were calling back then a hermaphrodite,
Speaker 4: or that she was trans And I've been personally fascinated
Speaker 4: by the fact that no matter where you went to
Speaker 4: middle school in the United States, you heard of this
Speaker 4: rumor or participated in the spreading of it. And the
Speaker 4: reason why I'm fascinated is because it was so early
Speaker 4: in social media kind of trajectory, or before social media.
Speaker 4: I think maybe I was on Zanga at the time,
Speaker 4: but we weren't really talking about, you know, celebrity rumors,
Speaker 4: and I really wanted to know where this rumor came
Speaker 4: from from and how it was able to spread across
Speaker 4: the country despite the fact that we weren't really online
Speaker 4: in the sense that we were today. But I think
Speaker 4: before we try to figure out where this rumor came from,
Speaker 4: it's important to kind of contextualize what was happening when
Speaker 4: the rumor started.
Speaker 7: So Sierra grew.
Speaker 4: Up in College Park, Atlanta. If you've ever listened to
Speaker 4: hip hop in the early two thousands, you'll recognize that
Speaker 4: neighborhood because it was yelled out in virtually every hip
Speaker 4: hop song.
Speaker 1: And it's getting best to me of course.
Speaker 4: And in high school she created a girls singing group
Speaker 4: called Hearsay with two of her friends. Uh they got
Speaker 4: so popular that she got a writing deal with Jazzy Fay.
Speaker 4: Together Jazzy Fans here wrote a few demos. One of
Speaker 4: those demos is what would Become One two Step, which
Speaker 4: is the hit single from her debut album, Goodies in
Speaker 4: two thousand and four, So Much, which featured Missy Elliott,
Speaker 4: a frequent collaborator of Sierra.
Speaker 2: I know you heard about a lot of greatam c
Speaker 2: but they ain't got nothing, no men because.
Speaker 4: Of Thattua and someone who also had rumors swirling about
Speaker 4: her sexuality at the time.
Speaker 3: Goodies.
Speaker 4: The album debuted at number three on Billboard's Top two hundred,
Speaker 4: and it was around this time that she also became
Speaker 4: a sex symbol. She released this single Goodies on the
Speaker 4: album Goodies, and I just want to play you guys
Speaker 4: some of the lyrics I bet you want the Goodies
Speaker 4: that you thought about it got you all hot and
Speaker 4: bothered mad because I talk around it. If you're looking
Speaker 4: for the goodies, keep on looking because they stay in
Speaker 4: the jars. Obviously, the song meaning is that, you know,
Speaker 4: everyone around her, people in the music industry, are incredibly
Speaker 4: thirsty for Sierra, and she's telling them that, you know,
Speaker 4: even though I'm young, like I know what I'm doing,
Speaker 4: it's not happening. Get over it. It's like common knowledge,
Speaker 4: I guess in American society, where like people will sometimes
Speaker 4: make up things about people who have rejected their advances,
Speaker 4: and I just I do wonder if that had a
Speaker 4: role to play in this rumor getting started.
Speaker 3: So we did an episode kind of about the like
Speaker 3: the entertainment world rumor mill and like how it's evolved now,
Speaker 3: like the Justin Baldoni stuff. And I have to assume that,
Speaker 3: like the new version where they're waging war with like
Speaker 3: troll accounts and stuff, is just a digital version of
Speaker 3: what was already happening. So like hearing this, which is
Speaker 3: the first time I've sort of heard this all put together,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't surprise me if she's writing what is effective,
Speaker 3: like a shady track about like predatory man in the industry,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden a rumor appears it she
Speaker 3: is intersector hermaphrodite that feels totally linked to me.
Speaker 4: And as of right now, I have no evidence, but
Speaker 4: I think it's interesting when like exactly what time this
Speaker 4: rumor started coming?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so and we looked at you know, went to
Speaker 2: classic Google trends, typed in Sierra Man to see when
Speaker 2: these rumors started. So there's basically nothing until December of
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, and then it starts to go
Speaker 2: up a little bit. January starts to go up a
Speaker 2: little bit more, and then by February of two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, it's when it hits its peak.
Speaker 3: Was there any kind of award buzz around goodies?
Speaker 4: She definitely was nominated for a bunch of the kind
Speaker 4: of classic awards. I'm not sure if she won any.
Speaker 3: I should look up computer because I'm wondering if like
Speaker 3: the peak is because of award season buzz or like
Speaker 3: I'm wondering, because when we've done sort of similar research,
Speaker 3: like there usually is like something that you can kind
Speaker 3: of point to be like maybe that's what caused it.
Speaker 3: That would be what my thought would be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it could be.
Speaker 2: So we looked into this, and in two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: Sharah was not up for any major awards, and the
Speaker 2: next year, so two thousand and six, she was nominated
Speaker 2: for and did end up winning one Grammy Award. So
Speaker 2: she was at a party in February of two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, a Vibe magazine party, and this is the
Speaker 2: quote that everyone sort of keeps going back to New
Speaker 2: York Daily News. Ask her about it, as far as
Speaker 2: I can tell, this the first time.
Speaker 1: YE ask her about it. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: A lot of people ask her directly about this. This
Speaker 2: is not like behind the scenes rumored. This is like, Sierra,
Speaker 2: are you a man? This is face to face though.
Speaker 4: And I guess we should mention that part of a
Speaker 4: big part of the rumor we heard was that she
Speaker 4: had actually addressed the rumors on the Oprah Show. There's
Speaker 4: a bit there's a Mandela effect thing happening where all
Speaker 4: the thoughts she had already addressed the rumors on Oprah,
Speaker 4: which never happened exactly.
Speaker 2: So Vibe ask her basically, what happens and Sierra's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's funny the rumors that I used to
Speaker 2: be a man. And she said, the funny thing about
Speaker 2: it is that people are saying I said this on Oprah.
Speaker 2: I've never been on Oprah. It's gonna take me a
Speaker 2: while to get on opraen right, Like I just started
Speaker 2: my career. Oprah's like a milestone. I'm not there yet.
Speaker 2: So I looked into this. You know, you can't just
Speaker 2: take Sierra's word for this. Has she ever been on
Speaker 2: Oprah by this point, she had not, but she was
Speaker 2: on Regis and Kelly.
Speaker 1: It'll make a television debut.
Speaker 5: Want to show with Sierra with goodies?
Speaker 2: Sierra, you got the TV guys back in the day,
Speaker 2: the air before Oprah's Voting Party special. So I'm like,
Speaker 2: maybe people were seeing the ads for you know how
Speaker 2: they would be like, all right, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I actually just googled this because I was curious
Speaker 3: if people were confusing it with another Oprah episode. And
Speaker 3: she did do an interesting episode in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2: Well she did actually in two thousand four. You was
Speaker 2: segment in August about trans children. Yeah, okay, none of
Speaker 2: the kids' names were Sierra. I did go through and
Speaker 2: to be like, all right, maybe is there some confusion here,
Speaker 2: But yeah, she did do it again in two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven. I don't know that that. In two thousand
Speaker 2: and four they were calling them trans. They were saying
Speaker 2: like gender identity, yeah.
Speaker 3: Issues.
Speaker 5: I'm sure that episode has aged great.
Speaker 3: I'm sure, yeah, everyone, and there's no reason to think
Speaker 3: about it anymore.
Speaker 2: She did a great job. So I feel like Oprah
Speaker 2: is the classic. Like if there's a rumor, you say
Speaker 2: that you heard it on Oprah. Growing up, there was
Speaker 2: another rumor that Tommy Hill figure was on Oprah and
Speaker 2: he told Oprah, I don't like black people wearing my clothes.
Speaker 3: I remember that.
Speaker 1: I remember this my mom, Like.
Speaker 2: I said, I was talking to my mom about this
Speaker 2: episode and she was like, oh, yeah, I remember. I
Speaker 2: literally stopped buying Tommy Hill Figure for like a year
Speaker 2: or two.
Speaker 3: There was a boycott.
Speaker 2: I remember, yeah, because we all heard that he was like,
Speaker 2: I don't like black people wearing my clothes.
Speaker 4: And it just never happened.
Speaker 3: No, why did he was on the show at all. Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm so fascinating because, like, clearly there is some sort
Speaker 3: of way that these things are spreading, because I definitely
Speaker 3: vividly remember up until just a second ago, I thought
Speaker 3: that that happened. No, So like how because it wouldn't
Speaker 3: have been the Internet, Like, I'm so fascinated.
Speaker 2: How were we because it wasn't like we saw something online,
Speaker 2: like hey, I saw on a Reddit thread, you know,
Speaker 2: Tommy Hill figure saying he doesn't like black.
Speaker 4: And there's no there's no reports of him ever saying
Speaker 4: that and in any kind of context.
Speaker 5: No, it would be crazy if he said it on right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: pretty amazing to Oprah, Yeah that would take anyway.
Speaker 3: The nineties were wild. But I don't know if that Yeah,
Speaker 3: how how would that have happened?
Speaker 2: So Snop's actually debunked this in February of two thousand
Speaker 2: and five. Sierra the Sierra Rumor their best as to
Speaker 2: why people think this is happening. It is because there's
Speaker 2: a random irishwoman named Sierra who had a blog about
Speaker 2: her transition, and they're saying, if you google Sierra at
Speaker 2: this time, this is one of the first things that
Speaker 2: pops up.
Speaker 1: So people are saying maybe that's the case. Right. So
Speaker 1: that's February.
Speaker 2: But in March, still circulating, we got the Herald News
Speaker 2: in New Jersey paper.
Speaker 1: There's an eighteen year old Charles.
Speaker 2: They're asking him, Charles' what's the craziest news story you
Speaker 2: heard recently?
Speaker 1: And he says that Sierra is a man. They printed this.
Speaker 5: That's a good column.
Speaker 2: It's one it was like get to know your neighbors
Speaker 2: segments and that's Charles's.
Speaker 1: Fun you know, news story night.
Speaker 4: I actually tried to track down Charles. We found him
Speaker 4: and I reached out sent him the photo and he
Speaker 4: did not respond.
Speaker 2: So we get our first sort of inkling here of
Speaker 2: maybe where this is coming from. So in March of
Speaker 2: two thousand and five, there's this chain letter that's going around.
Speaker 3: Remember chain letters, Yeah, of course they're very important on email.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on email. And it's a fake article from all
Speaker 2: Hip Hop. And the gist of the article is that
Speaker 2: Sierra goes on not Oprah but one O six in
Speaker 2: Park and.
Speaker 1: She says I am gay.
Speaker 8: And then.
Speaker 1: I'll read what it just says, because it's just crazy.
Speaker 2: Sierra's coming out as a lesbian would have been difficult
Speaker 2: on its own but also having to admit that she
Speaker 2: is really a he on national television was caused for
Speaker 2: celebration amongst the gay and lesbian community. No major pop
Speaker 2: star singer has ever come out as a transvestite to viewers,
Speaker 2: especifically after already releasing an album.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna ignore like all of the terms that
Speaker 3: they're using there because it's a mess. But it is
Speaker 3: fascinating to me that that is written as like an
Speaker 3: inspirational thing is basically what I like. That's someone made
Speaker 3: this up or misunderstood this. I'm imagining that this was
Speaker 3: probably shared like within like a black gay email community.
Speaker 3: That would be my guess. Yeah, I got a treasure
Speaker 3: trove that somebody sent me off, like old chain letters
Speaker 3: that I've been like looking at over the last few months,
Speaker 3: and it's really fascinating that like they are very similar
Speaker 3: to what you would see on Facebook now that they
Speaker 3: are written specifically for a group like either a list
Speaker 3: serve or like people who know each other. So it's
Speaker 3: interesting to me that like that rumor is being shared
Speaker 3: positively within some sort of in groups.
Speaker 1: That's cost for celebration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like it's not like they're not being mean a bad.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're completely confused on what's happening in every
Speaker 3: possible way. But it is interesting that it's like inspirational
Speaker 3: as a framing.
Speaker 2: So then that's you know, beginning of March, sort of
Speaker 2: mid March, Tierra goes I want in six in Park
Speaker 2: and this is the first time we for real, yeah,
Speaker 2: for real, it's time.
Speaker 1: So if there are any.
Speaker 4: Rumors anything that's going on with's the era, which there
Speaker 4: are on the internet and all of the message clear.
Speaker 1: Air right now.
Speaker 3: Let the people know what's going on.
Speaker 8: Any crazy anything, And you know, I gotta say, none
Speaker 8: of them bother me, but I just do it just
Speaker 8: to do it, because whatever, there's one thing about me
Speaker 8: being a man or something like that before I was
Speaker 8: something when I was born, I got a change, really
Speaker 8: amaphrodite or something like that.
Speaker 1: And they said that I went on Oprah and did it.
Speaker 8: And I'm like, okay, come on, now, you know if
Speaker 8: I was on Oprah, like I mean, it takes a
Speaker 8: while before that happens with somebody going to Oprah, you
Speaker 8: know what I mean, Like that's really big, so we
Speaker 8: know that didn't happen. If you can find it, though,
Speaker 8: I'll give you one hundred grand and find you around
Speaker 8: the water.
Speaker 1: And do everything for it, if taking and play it
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and then there's something else about me being a
Speaker 8: lesbian or something like that. I mean, it's so sad,
Speaker 8: and I'm sitting right here in the dressing It's like,
Speaker 8: it's so funny to me. And want I feel about
Speaker 8: in life is that the bigger and better things get
Speaker 8: for you, the more people try to bring you down.
Speaker 7: And that's just the way I sens the true.
Speaker 8: So I mean, that's not true.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3: It's not true.
Speaker 4: I watched One of six and park religiously back then, yeah,
Speaker 4: and being like, damn all my friends lied to me.
Speaker 7: Yea.
Speaker 4: I remember watching it just being like, what the hell
Speaker 4: was that all about?
Speaker 1: So this follows her for a little, you know that
Speaker 1: that wasn't the end of it. Of course.
Speaker 2: July two thousand and five, Entertainment Weekly is doing a
Speaker 2: write up and they kind of start the article talking about, Hey,
Speaker 2: the singer, the story goes was born intersexual and stay
Speaker 2: with us here recently out of herself as a lesbian,
Speaker 2: her mathedite on Oprah, and it's you know, basically her
Speaker 2: giving the line of like, no that's not true. Then
Speaker 2: a year later, so November of two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: in a Slam magazine article about Kingdom come the not
Speaker 2: Great jay Z album. Oh there's a review and out
Speaker 2: of no where the writer goes, and trust me, writing
Speaker 2: that last sentence hurt me just as much as when
Speaker 2: I heard that Sierra was allegedly her math that I
Speaker 2: thank god she isn't. This is you know, November two
Speaker 2: thousand and six.
Speaker 4: It was actually hard tracking this this writer down. I
Speaker 4: finally did no response as well response. I think people
Speaker 4: just don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: You know, we give him the opportunity to comment on
Speaker 2: what you said November and it's review. And then December
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, AP is doing a profile of
Speaker 2: her and they're still talking about it.
Speaker 3: Associated Press, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 2: The Associated Press. In December of two thousand and six.
Speaker 2: They say she just wants to have fun, she said,
Speaker 2: and that includes ignoring wild rumors that began circulating when
Speaker 2: she first made a name for herself. People were saying
Speaker 2: that she was dating Missy Elliott, who rapped on Sierra's
Speaker 2: number one.
Speaker 3: Hitber That I remember rumors that like Missy Elliot was
Speaker 3: grooming Sierra.
Speaker 1: Yes, I remember that.
Speaker 2: By two thousand and six, like interest for this was
Speaker 2: pretty down and it didn't really pick up until twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: which was when rumors started going around that Sierra and
Speaker 2: Future were expecting a kid, which makes sense why people
Speaker 2: would be like.
Speaker 3: Yes, sure.
Speaker 4: There was a moment I think in two thousand and
Speaker 4: six or seven where she released a song called like
Speaker 4: a Boy, so it.
Speaker 10: Sounds I.
Speaker 7: Could switch up the.
Speaker 4: Boat not a thing, and I think I remember being
Speaker 4: I thought, I remember thinking, oh, she's kind of poking
Speaker 4: fun at but it's really about like privilege, I think.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: So this comes up in one of these articles where
Speaker 2: you know, they're making all these innuendos about how people
Speaker 2: think she's a man, and that was it.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: That's kind of a trajectory of is Sierra really a man?
Speaker 2: And this has come up with Lady Gaga.
Speaker 3: Megan Fox, Megan Fox.
Speaker 2: It's like any sort of like sex symbol, yes, pop star,
Speaker 2: this like comes up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially like there seems to be some sort of
Speaker 3: connection between like a sex symbol who starts to figure
Speaker 3: out how to translate that into power and influence. Yes,
Speaker 3: like Lady gog in particular, like the claims that she
Speaker 3: was intersex or trans appeared like right as she is
Speaker 3: starting to kind of do whatever she wants. And that's why,
Speaker 3: like I tend to think there's some sort of like
Speaker 3: industry rumor mill yeah, that that comes out to like
Speaker 3: knock them down a peg when they start to like
Speaker 3: break off, And that would sort of make sense here too,
Speaker 3: Like she's blowing up and now she's like writing songs
Speaker 3: about how like you know, she's gonna do her own
Speaker 3: thing or whatever, and she's having a successful album and
Speaker 3: then those rumors appear like that. That doesn't seem like
Speaker 3: an accident.
Speaker 2: To me, And it makes sense that they go to
Speaker 2: the you know, the intersex or trans thing, right, because
Speaker 2: it's always like, oh, you were really into this person
Speaker 2: and now like something thing that like you know, something's
Speaker 2: happening that you didn't know what's happening. You've been fooled,
Speaker 2: you've been tricked. So like goes at this like insecurity
Speaker 2: that people have about like oh, no, I thought it
Speaker 2: was straight, but now I'm into this person who you're
Speaker 2: telling me is.
Speaker 3: She must be trained exactly. I mean, it's also just
Speaker 3: super hard to prove in fact, like yeah, we should
Speaker 3: mention like literally right now, Candice Owens is being sued
Speaker 3: by the president and his wife of France.
Speaker 10: Brigitte Macrone, wife of the French president Manuel Macrone, now
Speaker 10: says she's going to present scientific and photo evidence in
Speaker 10: court to prove her sex. This is part of the
Speaker 10: couple's court case here in the US, as they're suing
Speaker 10: the woman on the right side of your screen, conservative
Speaker 10: commentator Candice Owens for saying on her platforms Macrone was
Speaker 10: born male.
Speaker 3: So like that's how pervasive these sort of things come up.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was shocking to me going through this that
Speaker 2: so much of this was in like printed like actually.
Speaker 5: I was surprised by that.
Speaker 2: I thought it would be more just like blogs and
Speaker 2: of course there's people you know, it's a common blogs
Speaker 2: and stuff, but a lot of it was like actually
Speaker 2: printed in like you know, Chicago Tribune and like AP
Speaker 2: like real newspapers.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the assumption was that like no one
Speaker 3: would ever see it outside of Chicago. It's like it's
Speaker 3: not you know, we're very new into a world where
Speaker 3: we can see what people in Chicago are reading. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like that's kind of a crazy idea. Yeah, we could
Speaker 3: see what people in other countries are writing, like that's
Speaker 3: never been the case.
Speaker 2: All Right, we're gonna take a little break and then
Speaker 2: we're gonna hear about Ryan's favorite middle school conspiracy. So
Speaker 2: we had some pretty incredible responses to our shower episode.
Speaker 2: Some of you said the episode changed your lives. Carolyn
Speaker 2: wrote in saying, Hi, guys, I'm a white girl. We
Speaker 2: didn't actually wash her lights in the shower. Your dermatologist
Speaker 2: guest embarrassed the hell out of me, So now I
Speaker 2: take an extra ten seconds wash my legs. Great job, Carolyn,
Speaker 2: But some of you weren't convinced, like this listener who
Speaker 2: called in.
Speaker 6: I typically only shower once or twice a week, to
Speaker 6: be honest, and in the office two days a week.
Speaker 6: So Monday night I'll take a shower so that I'm
Speaker 6: clean for Tuesday. Wednesday, I'm fine. Thursday, I go back
Speaker 6: into the office, bill home, take another shower, and nobody
Speaker 6: has seen to complain to me. Maybe I'll shower on
Speaker 6: Friday before the weekend, but like, I don't really care.
Speaker 6: Nobody's ever pulled me aside, and like, hey, you.
Speaker 3: Stick, I don't know, man.
Speaker 6: Then then I think he has doing it too much,
Speaker 6: know what the dermatologist said, but I think you're going
Speaker 6: a little too much.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: You guys remember like the first time you ever heard
Speaker 3: about like drugs, like, oh yeah, my parents house. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: I also remember sort of like watching like a Dare presentation,
Speaker 3: being like should you just be telling us like how
Speaker 3: drugs were where to get them? But it's around this
Speaker 3: time I think that I first heard of what I've
Speaker 3: considered like the funniest, stupidest middle school rumor. I think
Speaker 3: it's endlessly funny. Have you guys ever heard of jenkam?
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 8: No.
Speaker 1: Vaguely, the word sounds familiar.
Speaker 3: Ab yeah, not the jeans, No, okay, that's jinko. So jenkam.
Speaker 3: I'm going to describe it to you and I hopefully
Speaker 3: you don't throw up. But there was a rumor in
Speaker 3: the late nineties, I want to say, mid to late nineties,
Speaker 3: early two thousands that you could get high by pooping
Speaker 3: and peeing in a bottle and then huffing it. And
Speaker 3: it became a massive moral panic for local news stations
Speaker 3: across the country, and it was called jenkam. And I
Speaker 3: remember like one I remember hearing about it, the idea
Speaker 3: of like two kids were found getting high on jenkom
Speaker 3: by the river or whatever, or like by the quarry,
Speaker 3: and like it was this thing that like, and I've
Speaker 3: talked to other people over the years who remember the
Speaker 3: Jenkom panic of the late nineties, And so we're gonna
Speaker 3: be talking about the Jenkom panic of the late nineties.
Speaker 3: And my producer, Grant, who's over there in his little cuckchair,
Speaker 3: he's going to show you a news clip all about jencom.
Speaker 11: Here is a shocking heads up for parents about teen
Speaker 11: drug use. One Florida Sheriff's Department warns there's a new
Speaker 11: way for your kids to get high and as Fox
Speaker 11: series Jack Miller reports, they're using raw sewage.
Speaker 7: The Washington Post, the Drugs Report, and Inside Edition are
Speaker 7: all talking about jenkom.
Speaker 1: It could be uh toxic in harmony.
Speaker 7: The bulletin describes jencom as gas produced by raw sewage
Speaker 7: that's allowed to ferment. Pictures show young people who appear
Speaker 7: to be breathing in jencom. When we mentioned this new
Speaker 7: concoction to people on the street here in Jacksonville, not
Speaker 7: only had they never heard of it before, but they
Speaker 7: said they didn't want to get anywhere near it.
Speaker 3: It sounds horrible. Yeah, I couldn't imagine doing something like that.
Speaker 3: That guy looks like the exact kind of guy that
Speaker 3: would do Jacob, and the fact that he's like, I
Speaker 3: don't want to touch it means it's not real. That's
Speaker 3: that's that's how you know, because that guy is like
Speaker 3: that guy looks like a bath salts guy, and he's like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to touch Jencob.
Speaker 2: Honestly, they need to find something better to do with
Speaker 2: her life, seriously, because.
Speaker 5: That's just insane.
Speaker 9: I can't imagine anybody doing something like that.
Speaker 5: Sounds pretty sick to me.
Speaker 7: Huh, okay, not anything you would ever consider.
Speaker 3: Never what are your thoughts?
Speaker 5: Here?
Speaker 3: Are your first reacted?
Speaker 4: Isn't Jencob essentially how the ninja turtles are created in
Speaker 4: this like the fumes from human from waste, that's disgusting.
Speaker 4: I don't think I've ever heard of this, so.
Speaker 3: You two, haven't you ever hearing? But what's the context
Speaker 3: you heard it in?
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think I heard. I don't think
Speaker 5: it permeated to the news where I was. I think
Speaker 5: I just heard it from some other kids. It must
Speaker 5: have been something like that.
Speaker 4: What I'm curious about is it was it a thing happening?
Speaker 4: Is are we talking about a trend here or like
Speaker 4: this it's a rumor of something that actually wasn't happening.
Speaker 3: Well, we're gonna get into that, but I would first
Speaker 3: sort of classify along with like all the other like
Speaker 3: get high on your own stories like smoking banana peals, or.
Speaker 4: They have a highlighter, highlighter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, So so let's let's let's run through it here.
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety five. According to Snopes, it's the first. The
Speaker 3: first documentation of Jenkim comes from an international newswire service
Speaker 3: in Luksaka, Zambia, and it reads, human excrement is scooped
Speaker 3: up from the edges of the sewer ponds in old
Speaker 3: cans of containers, which are covered with a polyurethane bag
Speaker 3: and left a steward froment for a week. The contents
Speaker 3: are then inhaled, and the result is a lung full
Speaker 3: of biogases and a powerful hit. Jencom Hoffers bury their
Speaker 3: entire face in the ghastly mask, gasping it all in
Speaker 3: Oh my God. And so we had talked earlier in
Speaker 3: the first half about how like one of the most
Speaker 3: interesting things about like the the late nineties and the
Speaker 3: two thousands is the move to being able to see
Speaker 3: all of the news for the first time. Like the
Speaker 3: news went from like a thing you saw on your TV,
Speaker 3: local affiliates or local newspaper, and then maybe you have
Speaker 3: a national newspaper, but online, all of a sudden, these
Speaker 3: articles are being uploaded. You saw the old screenshot of
Speaker 3: the Washington Post. There is that really what it used
Speaker 3: to look like?
Speaker 7: Ye?
Speaker 3: Yeah, these things looked ugly as hell. And you were
Speaker 3: also seeing the rise of websites like the Drug Report,
Speaker 3: which launches like in the mid to late nineties. Who
Speaker 3: are now aggregating this stuff because it's like no one
Speaker 3: kind of thought about it was an afterthought. Do you
Speaker 3: guys know about aeroid dot org? M okay, I love
Speaker 3: aeroid dot org. It is a website. It's essentially the
Speaker 3: Wikipedia of drugs, and it has a whole section called
Speaker 3: trip reports where people like take drugs and then write
Speaker 3: out like insane stories of it's a lot of people
Speaker 3: robot tripping in the bathrooms of taco bells across the country,
Speaker 3: and so they they like look into it and they
Speaker 3: say it's not gonna get you high, and they say,
Speaker 3: we have no knowledge about the accuracy of these reports,
Speaker 3: but it's certainly possible. The kids in Zambia thought it
Speaker 3: would be funny to make up a story for adult
Speaker 3: aid workers that they were inhaling the s who were
Speaker 3: gas to get high, which I think is like very possible.
Speaker 3: By the late nineties, the story is stuck around long
Speaker 3: enough to make it to the New York Times and
Speaker 3: the BBC, so the BBC rights jenkim is cheap, potent
Speaker 3: and very popular among the thousands of street children in Lutsaka.
Speaker 3: When they cannot afford glue or are too scared to
Speaker 3: steal petrol, these youngsters turn to Jenkam as a way
Speaker 3: of getting high. It lasts about an hour, says one user,
Speaker 3: sixteen year old Luke Mombande, who prefers Jenkam to other substances.
Speaker 3: With glue, I just hear voices in my head. But
Speaker 3: with jenkin I see visions, I see my mother who
Speaker 3: is dead, and I forget about the problems in my life.
Speaker 3: So I think there's a couple of things. One, I
Speaker 3: do believe that erowood users are absolute freaks enough to
Speaker 3: have tested it like they will test anything. I also
Speaker 3: think it's possible that there were nine or ten translation
Speaker 3: issues happening here. I also think that the BBC, especially
Speaker 3: in the late nineties, was looking for poverty porn, and
Speaker 3: there's like an entire genre of this. I think that
Speaker 3: there's also like a thread that takes this all the
Speaker 3: way to Crocodile. Do you remember that? So crocodile was
Speaker 3: a drug that was purportedly being used by Russians in
Speaker 3: the late two thousands, where they would mix gasoline and
Speaker 3: heroin and their skin would fall off.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Not only in the late nineties and two thousands, where
Speaker 3: people suddenly being able to see the news for the
Speaker 3: first time, they were creating blogs to write poorly about
Speaker 3: the rest of the world. So you had like I
Speaker 3: Love Africa dot com or whatever, and it's some white
Speaker 3: guy who has no idea was talking about and he's
Speaker 3: like blogging about his time as an aid worker there,
Speaker 3: or I Love Russia dot com and it's weird, crazy
Speaker 3: Russian story. So that's sort of the environment that this
Speaker 3: is taking place in. I guess, like, do you guys
Speaker 3: remember anything even similar to this in your in your
Speaker 3: early days on the Internet, like like weird news stories
Speaker 3: that would sort of fly by, or weird blogs like
Speaker 3: writing about this kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Well, I remember like the Marilyn Manson rumor that he
Speaker 4: like removed his his rib cage so that he could.
Speaker 3: Go down on himself. That was the big one in
Speaker 3: my middle.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But in terms of like these kind of like kind
Speaker 4: of fleeting drug related not not not a whole ton,
Speaker 4: I guess, like with Jencom, even though I'm sure it's
Speaker 4: made up to some degree, it does feel believable. I
Speaker 4: guess because of the because of the cost effectiveness. I
Speaker 4: suppose like it is free. I suppose you just made
Speaker 4: a model. Yeah, and if it's getting you, if it's
Speaker 4: supposedly getting you a better high, then you.
Speaker 3: Can see visions. You can see your dead mom in
Speaker 3: a vision with this one. But glue, you only hear stuff.
Speaker 3: I looked into this for the first time a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago, twenty fifteen. I was on a podcast
Speaker 3: I used to run with my friend Katie called Internet Explorer.
Speaker 3: We looked into it and we basically found that it
Speaker 3: was completely fake and largely a way to troll local
Speaker 3: police and local media. And Grant is going to show
Speaker 3: you an image that looks gross. Oh my god, it
Speaker 3: looks like a little boy sticking a straw into a
Speaker 3: bottle full of poop and pea.
Speaker 1: Which aren't you supposed to huf it? Why is he?
Speaker 3: But if you didn't know that and you just saw
Speaker 3: this imagery, be like, was there a glass bottle of
Speaker 3: you who like?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 11: Now?
Speaker 3: Okay, So this is a young man who went by
Speaker 3: Pickwick on the message board totsy dot com and he
Speaker 3: posted these photos of what appeared to be him huffing
Speaker 3: balloons full of poop and pea and bottles it with
Speaker 3: straws and stuff, And he wrote, Okay, today I set
Speaker 3: it up and put the bottle in the hot sun.
Speaker 3: My friend took pictures of all the steps. First I
Speaker 3: shpit in the battle, then I pissed in it. I
Speaker 3: took a balloon and I stretched it over the top
Speaker 3: to catch all the gases. Now wait a few days
Speaker 3: and hope the balloon fills up. Then he posts again, well,
Speaker 3: today I finally did it. I probably became the first
Speaker 3: person in America to huff his own shit gas. He
Speaker 3: then continues, after breathing in, I immediately felt that I
Speaker 3: was passing out. I did not even have time to
Speaker 3: spit before I became unconscious. When I woke up, my
Speaker 3: spittle had oozed out of my mouth down my chin.
Speaker 3: I asked my friend how long I was out for.
Speaker 3: He said about a minute, and that he had repeatedly
Speaker 3: tried to wake me up, but I would not wake up.
Speaker 3: After I was fully into the dream like state, visual
Speaker 3: hallucinations began to start. I had fleeting visions people who
Speaker 3: seemed completely random, like my second grade teacher. At the
Speaker 3: peak of my trip, I saw things like pillars and
Speaker 3: my lung that disappeared into shapes, and like, obviously he's
Speaker 3: making this up to see if can get people to
Speaker 3: huff their own shit. Yeah, Like, I think that is
Speaker 3: the way to think about this. What do you think
Speaker 3: happens next in this story? After now we have message
Speaker 3: board users trying to convince each other.
Speaker 9: To do this.
Speaker 3: What do you think happens next?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 4: Man, I imagine like a sizable amount of people try
Speaker 4: it and don't get high and realize they've been had.
Speaker 5: Someone has to get sick from actually trying it.
Speaker 3: So we don't have a ton of data on that,
Speaker 3: but what we do have is how it spreads to
Speaker 3: four chan next, and the idea is to send letters
Speaker 3: to your principle to get your principal to hire a
Speaker 3: DARE officer to then tell the kids at your school
Speaker 3: about Genish God. And so we have a massive wall
Speaker 3: of text here. I'm going to read some of it here.
Speaker 3: So you're supposed to email this to your school principle. Okay,
Speaker 3: so you're supposed to it, says Step one, email us
Speaker 3: to your principal. Step two, question mark, question mark, question mark,
Speaker 3: Step three profit. And what you're supposed to write is
Speaker 3: I am writing anonymous because I do not want my
Speaker 3: child to get in any trouble. But I need to
Speaker 3: alert you to something your students are doing that it
Speaker 3: is potentially very dangerous. Yesterday afternoon, I came home early
Speaker 3: to find my son and his friends getting high on
Speaker 3: something called jenkam, which they had which they say they
Speaker 3: heard about at school. This jenkam is the most disgusting
Speaker 3: thing I've ever heard of. And then I'm not going
Speaker 3: to describe how they describe how.
Speaker 6: To do it.
Speaker 3: And can you guess what happens once people started doing.
Speaker 1: This, Oh, the school, it's definitely took debate computer.
Speaker 3: Yes, this is from the Collier County Sheriff's Office Criminal
Speaker 3: Intelligence Bureau, and it is a drug bulletin about a
Speaker 3: new drug called jenkam.
Speaker 4: Oh they've got the image of the kid, and that's right,
Speaker 4: good for him.
Speaker 3: And this is actually very similar to a couple of
Speaker 3: bulletins we found passing around Mexico. Do you remember the
Speaker 3: Momo challenge.
Speaker 4: Momo challenge.
Speaker 3: It was like a disgusting statue that if you looked
Speaker 3: at it, it would like curse you on the internet.
Speaker 3: So it became like a huge mass panic that like
Speaker 3: children were committing suicide after seeing this statue of this
Speaker 3: evil chicken woman, and Mexican police were creating bulletins like
Speaker 3: that and passing them around as well. So like this
Speaker 3: is this is how far back this idea goes. And
Speaker 3: then of course the Washington Post they write about it,
Speaker 3: they fall for it, they take down the post. Oh,
Speaker 3: Fox News falls for it, and they write, we wouldn't
Speaker 3: classify it as a drug so much because it's faces
Speaker 3: and urine, says Garrison County as spokesman for the Drug
Speaker 3: Edforce and Administration in Washington. You pretty much you pretty
Speaker 3: much hit the at the bottom of the.
Speaker 1: Barrel if you experiment which fair.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and eventually Pickwick, the guy who does the pictures
Speaker 3: of him huffing the bottle, he admits that it's all
Speaker 3: fake and that what you've been looking at, don't worry
Speaker 3: is a mixture of nutella, water flour, and beer, and
Speaker 3: he wrote, I never inhaled any poop gas and got
Speaker 3: high off it. I have deleted the pictures, hopefully no
Speaker 3: weirdos save them on his computer. Yeah we did. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just don't want people to ever recognize me as
Speaker 3: the kid who have poop gas. Well, sorry, Bud, So.
Speaker 4: This is him feelings like some level of guilt that
Speaker 4: all of these places picked it up. I thought that
Speaker 4: was kind of the goal.
Speaker 3: I think it's a couple of things. One, I think
Speaker 3: we are at a really pivotal moment in the late
Speaker 3: ninety two thousands where the Internet is just getting big
Speaker 3: and no one really understands how big it's getting, and
Speaker 3: you have early message boards that are beginning to network
Speaker 3: with larger message boards. Four Chan comes around in like
Speaker 3: two thousand and three thousand and four, So like all
Speaker 3: of that stuff is starting, the media is probably doing
Speaker 3: a thing, and I'm trying to like think back to
Speaker 3: my time in that period like in Jay school, and
Speaker 3: I'm learning about it, and I believe what it was
Speaker 3: was like you had a newsroom. They'd write their stories
Speaker 3: and then they would just upload them online and forget
Speaker 3: about it. So they're all of a sudden getting viral
Speaker 3: traffic for the first time, and they're like the first
Speaker 3: big viral New York Times piece. I forget what it was.
Speaker 3: I looked it up years ago. I think happens in
Speaker 3: like two thousand and nine, when like they're like, whoa,
Speaker 3: this is like a big thing of traffic. So all
Speaker 3: of these stories are being passed around, no one's really
Speaker 3: paying attention, and these worlds are colliding. And I think,
Speaker 3: if I had to imagine this, pickquick kid was like,
Speaker 3: uh oh, you know, if you have pictures showing up
Speaker 3: in like a bulletin for like local law enforcement, who's
Speaker 3: like a whole other thing here, Like local law enforcement
Speaker 3: have been using the Internet in weird ways for twenty
Speaker 3: thirty years that no one really still to this day
Speaker 3: pays attention to. I think all these horses are just
Speaker 3: combining in ways where like people just weren't prepared for
Speaker 3: how viral it could go.
Speaker 4: It's interesting too, how the Sheriff's department handled this. I mean,
Speaker 4: on one hand, I wonder what is their responsibility, But
Speaker 4: on the other hand, it's like they didn't seem to
Speaker 4: do any kind of an investigation to see whether it
Speaker 4: was real or not before they put out this.
Speaker 5: They're trying to get ahead of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like that's all the sort of like
Speaker 2: kid panics, like they just react first and then try it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't even know if they ever
Speaker 1: try to, like you, if it's real.
Speaker 5: Well, like, Ryan, have you looked into like did you
Speaker 5: ever cover the tie pods thing?
Speaker 12: Teenagers appearing to eat laundry detergent pods and posting the
Speaker 12: pictures on social media. Photos showed the pods being used.
Speaker 12: It's pizza toppings or a bowl of them mixed with
Speaker 12: bleach for breakfast.
Speaker 5: That seems like the more modern corollary, and I'm curious
Speaker 5: how that.
Speaker 3: What we found was that the majority of tiepods being
Speaker 3: smoked or huffed or eaten or whatever were either from
Speaker 3: trolls or darker like there was a string of old
Speaker 3: people with dementia thinking they were candy and it was
Speaker 3: one of those things where it like bubbled up out
Speaker 3: of consumer reports and sort of took on a life
Speaker 3: of its own and no one really knew how to
Speaker 3: deal with it. A similar trajectory would be Nike will Chicken,
Speaker 3: Like the idea of that TikTok users are boy and
Speaker 3: Chicken and Nike, Well, which I did do eventually, by
Speaker 3: the way, it smells horrible, don't do it, but you
Speaker 3: can find that on our pages. But like it's another
Speaker 3: one where it's like the institutions don't know how to
Speaker 3: address the rumor without amplifying it. Yeah. Yeah, And so
Speaker 3: like one because you know, with journalists, like if local
Speaker 3: law enforcement have a press conference and like teenagers are
Speaker 3: huffing their own shit, the journalists is like, well, police today,
Speaker 3: So the teenagers are huffing their own shit, And nowhere
Speaker 3: in that in that interaction is anyone going, well, are
Speaker 3: they huffing their own shit? Yeah, And like that is
Speaker 3: kind of the story of almost all of American media.
Speaker 3: Like we're at in a kind of more serious twist
Speaker 3: on this, Like this is playing out right now with
Speaker 3: like ice raids and stuff, like local law enforcement will
Speaker 3: say something, or or a law enforcement agency or a
Speaker 3: government agency will say something, and journalists will just write
Speaker 3: down that they set it, and by the time that
Speaker 3: that travels there might be another journalists in the background
Speaker 3: going well is this real? Is this right? And people
Speaker 3: have already moved on, and like it can happen for
Speaker 3: silly stuff and it can happen for serious stuff.
Speaker 1: I thought about this with the ice rates stuff.
Speaker 2: But are making now these like crazy social media like
Speaker 2: videos that are like, yeah, it's like a movie and
Speaker 2: you're showing people's faces and I'm like, Okay, we don't
Speaker 2: know what these people have done at all. And now
Speaker 2: you're in some like hype reel for for ice right,
Speaker 2: and it's like you just took me out of my home.
Speaker 2: It's like what if there are no charges on this person.
Speaker 2: It's like it's already too far gone. Yeah, you're already well.
Speaker 3: I think that's the evolution of a story like Jenkin,
Speaker 3: which is like like, now the institutions have direct access
Speaker 3: to information channels. As we looked into more panics into
Speaker 3: the twenty tens, tide pods, for instance, you'll just start
Speaker 3: to see local fentanyl is a great example of this,
Speaker 3: where the law enforcement just have a Facebook page. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and he just posted the Facebook page like people are
Speaker 3: dying from like touching fentanyl and there's no journalists involved there.
Speaker 3: And the final evolution of that would be the the
Speaker 3: DHS doing like sizzle reels for ice raids where they
Speaker 3: don't need any media coverage. They can just transmit it directly.
Speaker 3: And that is a really weird world to live, because
Speaker 3: it wasn't that this one was good. I mean, the
Speaker 3: old world pretty is jenkin, but the new world, God
Speaker 3: knows what's happening. Yeah, you know, after the break, we're
Speaker 3: going to be talking about something that's already popped up today,
Speaker 3: which is Marilyn Manson trying to suck his own dick,
Speaker 3: which was the big rumor, probably the biggest rumor of
Speaker 3: my middle school. But we're going to talk about that
Speaker 3: right afterward from our sponsors, who are probably furious. Okay,
Speaker 3: So you guys had been wondering about the Marilyn Manson rumor,
Speaker 3: and we did a little digging into where this came from,
Speaker 3: and according to Hysteria mag the rumor began on the
Speaker 3: twenty seventh of November nineteen ninety four, which is actually
Speaker 3: kind of wild that like it has like an exact date. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Marilyn Manson was arrested after a show for violating the
Speaker 3: Adult Entertainment Code, and police arrested him after being under
Speaker 3: the impression that Manson had performed oral sex on a
Speaker 3: man while performing on stage, but as it turns out.
Speaker 1: He wasn't.
Speaker 3: Rather it was Jack Off Jill vocalist Jessica, who was
Speaker 3: apparently wearing a prosthetic penis at the gig, with Manson
Speaker 3: stimulating oral sex on the appendage. He was held for
Speaker 3: sixteen hours and then released without charge. And that I
Speaker 3: think the double confusion of that spread and turned into
Speaker 3: him sucking himself off, and then it was how would
Speaker 3: he suck himself off?
Speaker 4: And it was he got too ribsy, So people were
Speaker 4: trying to rationalize what they were they saw.
Speaker 3: Exactly, I do think so we live in a time
Speaker 3: of like peak rumors peak conspiracies. There's so many it's
Speaker 3: hard to pay attention. The really pernicious ones. All seemed
Speaker 3: to kind of touch on the idea of revealing someone
Speaker 3: being part of a subculture, something that we part of
Speaker 3: society that we don't pay attention to. Whether it's drug users,
Speaker 3: or it's trans people, are gay people's it's people who
Speaker 3: are considered like outside of the mainstream and like the
Speaker 3: really successful rumors seem to work when you claim that
Speaker 3: someone well known is actually part of that. And and
Speaker 3: and I think there's a kind of fear of the
Speaker 3: other required there. There's something like tantalizing, and it's hard
Speaker 3: to prove. It's hard to disprove on the other person.
Speaker 3: They can't they can say no, and you just don't
Speaker 3: believe them.
Speaker 4: It's funny should mention we actually spoke to an expert
Speaker 4: about rumors and why we attached to rumors, especially celebrity rumors,
Speaker 4: what we get out of them.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I spoke to Charlotte Debaker. She's a researcher
Speaker 5: out of Belgium, and her research focuses on gossip and
Speaker 5: rumors and kind of the historical and evolutionary purpose they
Speaker 5: have served for humans.
Speaker 9: Gossip became this system to vicariously learn from the experiences
Speaker 9: of other people, but it also became like a reputation
Speaker 9: mechanism to control free writers, people that were gonna take
Speaker 9: away benefits from you.
Speaker 5: And a lot of it's like survival. So it's like
Speaker 5: you learn, like, don't do this drug, it's gonna kill you.
Speaker 9: And you not only warn others like other animals will
Speaker 9: shout out these alarm calls when there's a dangerous animal
Speaker 9: or predator coming up. We humans start gossiping about be careful.
Speaker 9: You have to be careful about that person. And at
Speaker 9: the same time, because gossip has like multiple effects, it's
Speaker 9: also slendering the reputation of that person, So you're not
Speaker 9: only warning others about the potential danger, but at the
Speaker 9: same time you're also giving a punishment to the person
Speaker 9: that you're targeting by ruining their reputation.
Speaker 5: Then you build a community just based on talking about
Speaker 5: these other people, and then there's just like the parasocial element,
Speaker 5: which has only gotten more increased with time, where it's
Speaker 5: like we become so attached to these people and it's
Speaker 5: all we're talking about, you know, Britney Spears or Sierra
Speaker 5: or whoever, and it's obviously one sided.
Speaker 9: Our stone age minds are not designed by evolution to
Speaker 9: perceive these celebrities as no members of our real social network.
Speaker 9: So you see them, you start to feel emotional about them.
Speaker 9: Some you like very much, some you dislike very much,
Speaker 9: and then the mechanisms for why you gossip about real
Speaker 9: life people start to transmit to gossiping about these celebrities
Speaker 9: as well. You want to slender Taylor Swift versus Blake Lively,
Speaker 9: choose a camp and then you start to slender the
Speaker 9: one person and then praise the other one or vice versa.
Speaker 5: Then, of course, just the way they spread, it's like
Speaker 5: Sierra even answering dignifying these questions with like, well, no,
Speaker 5: of course, not only just feeds the fire, and that
Speaker 5: I think has even gotten worse in more recent times.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting to me, how like if you
Speaker 3: look at it on a timeline, like the the nineties
Speaker 3: are really bad for this stuff, and the two thousands
Speaker 3: still pretty bad, but like it's changing. And then it
Speaker 3: does kind of feel like between like twenty ten and
Speaker 3: like August twenty fourteen, the start of gamer Gate, there's
Speaker 3: a kind of a moment where it actually feels like
Speaker 3: things are getting better, Like information is kind of flowing
Speaker 3: at a speed where we can like say that's fake,
Speaker 3: that's not fake, Like media organizations are interested in debunking stuff.
Speaker 3: Debunking doesn't feel tied to a culture war thing yet, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then it flips and it gets progressively worse, and
Speaker 3: then after COVID it feels like we are basically back
Speaker 3: in the nineties again, and I think a lot of
Speaker 3: it has to do with like ephemorality, Like TikTok feels
Speaker 3: as ephemeral as nineties TV to me, where you will
Speaker 3: see a TikTok and you'll pass you by and you
Speaker 3: won't think about it, and then you'll just like be
Speaker 3: repeating some insane thing you heard and you won't be
Speaker 3: able to find it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're not referencing it directly, so it's like you're
Speaker 5: changing little things.
Speaker 3: It's Yeah, I even find myself because I use I
Speaker 3: use x still Twitter because it's like you can see
Speaker 3: all the bad people on there, and so it's great
Speaker 3: for my job. But I have found myself like accidentally
Speaker 3: absorbing through osmosis random stuff I'm seeing and then like
Speaker 3: saying it out loud to someone there and being like,
Speaker 3: what are you talking about. It's there's definitely something about
Speaker 3: like not being able to like catch stuff passing you by,
Speaker 3: like because like a rumor is effectively like someone just
Speaker 3: told you this thing and then it's in your head
Speaker 3: and you repeat it without really thinking, and like the
Speaker 3: Internet has sort of become that, you know, like it
Speaker 3: is just this rumor factory, which I do think to
Speaker 3: tie back to the thing at the top, like is
Speaker 3: being weaponized by you know, people in the entertainment industry
Speaker 3: who know that they can make Reddit accounts and they
Speaker 3: can make Instagram accounts and you know, flood the zone
Speaker 3: that way.
Speaker 1: Thank you to our friends Grant Irving and Ryan Broderick
Speaker 1: for working with us on this one. It was a
Speaker 1: weird one.
Speaker 2: If you want some more weird times about the Internet,
Speaker 2: check out their podcast Panic World.
Speaker 3: So if you want to follow me, you can find
Speaker 3: me as Ryan hays This on Blue Sky or Broadwick
Speaker 3: on x or Ryan Hayses on Instagram. Panic World is
Speaker 3: Panic World everywhere you'll find it. Just search type into
Speaker 3: Little Ai. It's a Panic World up great, so much fun. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's awesome.
Speaker 4: See it all together.
Speaker 2: No such thing as a production of Kaleidoscope Content. Our
Speaker 2: executive producers are Kate Osbourne and mangest Hatti Kudur. The
Speaker 2: show was created by Manny Fidel Nor Friedman and me
Speaker 2: Devin Joseph. The theme end credit song is by Manny
Speaker 2: mixing my Steve Bone. Audition of music for this episode
Speaker 2: by Zeno Atarelli. Our guest this week was Charlotte the
Speaker 2: Baker visit no such thing, not show to subscribe to
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Speaker 1: You got feedback for the boys, or you got a
Speaker 1: so you want us to answer.
Speaker 2: Email us at Man, email Adevin at gmail dot com,
Speaker 2: or if you're in the US, you can leave a
Speaker 2: voicemail for us at the number in our show notes.
Speaker 1: Sure to show with a friend and we'll see you
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Speaker 3: Week's such things