Speaker 1: It's Goblin Mode. Welcome to it could happen here a
Speaker 1: podcast that is today in Goblin Mode. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: what it's about. You've heard to say it like about
Speaker 1: twenty million times. But yeah, I'm your host, Christopher Wong
Speaker 1: and uh with me today we have Juniper, who is
Speaker 1: a really twitter ship post extraordinary extraordinaire, on to discuss language, media, culture,
Speaker 1: of the nature of reality, and Goblin Mode. Junifer, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Hiy, how's it going. It's going good.
Speaker 1: It's going much better since Goblin Mode ceased control of
Speaker 1: the world. We are now living in the age of
Speaker 1: Goblin Mode. And Drew marsh said this morning, apparently it's
Speaker 1: quite a time. I didn't realize just posting with like
Speaker 1: just posting an influence so much around me. I guess
Speaker 1: it's been an interesting time for sure. Yeah. So, so
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you about sort of the
Speaker 1: absurdity that is goblin Mode. Um. And I want to
Speaker 1: hold off on talking about what goblin Mode like is
Speaker 1: or isn't for a bit because I think that's actually,
Speaker 1: weirdly the less interesting part. And I want to start
Speaker 1: with instead the story of how goblin Mode became like
Speaker 1: a thing and why I am reading. I keep I
Speaker 1: keep like, every every time I look for more Goblin
Speaker 1: mode headlines, there's more Goblin mode headlines like the I
Speaker 1: think my favorite so far is from Bloomberg. It's a dieselent.
Speaker 1: Diesel prices have gone goblin mode. Forget crude oil. This
Speaker 1: could be the real energy emergency. Yeah, that that is
Speaker 1: by far one of my favorites to uh. The full
Speaker 1: headline too, if you search for that one is it's
Speaker 1: what you said, but then it adds on thanks to
Speaker 1: the Ukraine War, an official Bloilberg headline with goblin mode
Speaker 1: and the Ukraine words. I gotta that's just part of
Speaker 1: my favorite one. Amazing. The other part of three that's
Speaker 1: extremely funny is that so the people who are doing
Speaker 1: these articles keep getting asked someone, and someone's asking like
Speaker 1: an intern to find a picture of a goblin, and
Speaker 1: they keep posting pictures of orcs, which is like enormously
Speaker 1: funny to me. Okay, so I'm not sure what they're
Speaker 1: searching to get those. Yeah, I don't know. It's really incredible. Okay,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess that should So we should start
Speaker 1: from the beginning of this story, which is, yeah, can
Speaker 1: you talk about your ship post and uh what you
Speaker 1: were thinking at the time when you made a ship
Speaker 1: post that randomly like has has had months long ripple
Speaker 1: effects on the world. Sure, I think you're right though,
Speaker 1: like the post itself, and that's like the least interesting
Speaker 1: part of all of goblin mode in my opinion as well,
Speaker 1: Like just seeing the ripple effect is what's been super
Speaker 1: interesting and really funny to me. But um sure yeah,
Speaker 1: but the post um basically, I think it was like
Speaker 1: the day that um what Kanye West and Julia Fox,
Speaker 1: which there's a quick note, I've never heard of Julia
Speaker 1: Fox before any of this. So I like sometimes if,
Speaker 1: like you know, Twitter is all talking about one thing,
Speaker 1: the most recent thing being like the Will Smith slap,
Speaker 1: like everyone's talking about that. So whenever like some like
Speaker 1: big event like that is happening and everyone's posting about it,
Speaker 1: I try to like think of some creative different posts
Speaker 1: I can do, you know, just to get in on
Speaker 1: the the discourse or whatever you wanna call it. So
Speaker 1: I just I really don't know what compelled me to
Speaker 1: make a fake headline, but basically, I just I just
Speaker 1: decided to search. I think I was driving home from work,
Speaker 1: and I just decided to search like Kanye West Julia Fox,
Speaker 1: and I just found the first headline and I just
Speaker 1: edited it to say, um, Kanye West doesn't like it
Speaker 1: when Julia Fox goes gobline basically, and that's why they
Speaker 1: broke that was that was the whole lessence of the
Speaker 1: of the post itself. Um, And I really didn't think
Speaker 1: too deeply about it beyond just making the post, and
Speaker 1: it just it caught fire with like I guess what
Speaker 1: we would probably call normal normal Twitter, like people that
Speaker 1: aren't even like necessarily leftists or anything like us. Um,
Speaker 1: it just really caught a hold with the whole of
Speaker 1: Twitter and pretty much like most of the people that
Speaker 1: saw it. You can you can go back and check
Speaker 1: the replies. Most people think it's real at the time
Speaker 1: and replying about all things it's real, and no one,
Speaker 1: like hardly anyone verified it. It was like kind of
Speaker 1: insane to see, Yeah, yeah, I think it's funny because again,
Speaker 1: like you could very you could you could just google
Speaker 1: this right, like you can just google it and it
Speaker 1: would be like, oh wait, ho on, this isn't real,
Speaker 1: But like no one did that, and it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you could have just easily searched the main part
Speaker 1: of the headline, like Kanye West to Julia Fox. It
Speaker 1: was literally the second or third headline you could have
Speaker 1: found the same website, the same author, but seeing that
Speaker 1: it wasn't the correct headline. Although that does remind me
Speaker 1: when there was the initial article about my post um,
Speaker 1: I forget who wrote it. At this point, I think, yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, it was the focus they they they for
Speaker 1: some reason, it made the assumption when they decided when
Speaker 1: they decided to talk about my tweet that the website,
Speaker 1: like the headline that I made made up the original
Speaker 1: website like edited that part out. So they thought that
Speaker 1: my headline was real, but it was just ed and
Speaker 1: taken away. And so that also affected what some people
Speaker 1: thought about it too, Like they thought a lot of
Speaker 1: people thought it was really real. That's that's what's insane
Speaker 1: to me about this. Yeah, and like you and like
Speaker 1: like Vogue like picked this up. This was just like
Speaker 1: a thing that that like everyone has real. Everyone was
Speaker 1: just reporting on it as news and there's so much
Speaker 1: like there's so much like incredible stuff about this like
Speaker 1: part of it. You know, So what if the articles
Speaker 1: that that gets published about this like after, so like
Speaker 1: there's this initial period where everyone is running around going like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it was goblin mode, and then Julia
Speaker 1: Fox has to make a statement that's like no, there
Speaker 1: was no goblin Mode. No one said this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's That's the interesting about like the evolution of goblin Mode,
Speaker 1: like stemming from my post specifically, is at first the
Speaker 1: coverage was talking about whether my post was real or
Speaker 1: fake and talking about that aspect of it. But as
Speaker 1: time has gone on, it's kind of evolved away from that,
Speaker 1: Like you you won't see any goblin Mode article talk
Speaker 1: about the original like Julia fox tweet that jump started
Speaker 1: this whole thing anymore. It's kind of like shifted away
Speaker 1: from that initial, that initial post, which I found really
Speaker 1: interesting that that's what sustaining this. I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: wanted to read a uh, I wanted to read a
Speaker 1: passage from one of the art I don't know why
Speaker 1: I'm calling it a passage. It's just like a sentence,
Speaker 1: but read part of one of the articles that that
Speaker 1: came from up from the the initial search, which is
Speaker 1: from the streetwear company called high Snobby. Don't tell me
Speaker 1: if I'm like pronouncing that wrong. Uh, well, okay, that's
Speaker 1: not not your Twitter. If I'm pronouncing that wrong, My
Speaker 1: Twitter is at I right, okay, yell there, Um yeah,
Speaker 1: but I want I want to read this quote because
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting. So the article, they have this
Speaker 1: whole thing that's like, Okay, they get to the denial,
Speaker 1: they post your tweet about like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: can't believe Julia Fox had to respond to this, and
Speaker 1: then they say, I'm not saying Fox was lying, but
Speaker 1: wearing a borderline not suited for work dress, a purse
Speaker 1: trimmed and human DNA and d I y I make
Speaker 1: up to an Oscar's after party. Is goblin mode to
Speaker 1: a t? And I think this brings up an interesting question,
Speaker 1: which is to what extent was goblin mode real in
Speaker 1: the first place before You're sort of mean to went
Speaker 1: went viral? So like the phrase itself, you mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like what part of the phrase existed before my post? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I think it was also like, what what were
Speaker 1: you thinking, Like did you have like a conception of
Speaker 1: what goblin mode like was before you made the post?
Speaker 1: So so the only thing I had in my mind
Speaker 1: at that point. Um, it's it stems from specifically um,
Speaker 1: do you do you know the user on Twitter hottie pants?
Speaker 1: Do you happen to know that guy? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Now he goes by I think his ad is like
Speaker 1: punished Pants or something like that. But anyways, he around
Speaker 1: that time, he was posting a lot about like goblins.
Speaker 1: He was He would post a lot about like goblin
Speaker 1: time and like it's oh, it's Goblin time, and he
Speaker 1: would just make like a bunch of just like posts
Speaker 1: like that. So goblins were on my mind at that point.
Speaker 1: And then I forget his user name, but his um
Speaker 1: I think his user name is um uncontrolled. I forget
Speaker 1: his user I'll have to tell you afterwards or something.
Speaker 1: I don't remember off the top of my head, but
Speaker 1: he he made a post that went viral, uh, something
Speaker 1: to the effect of like um, your honor, UM. I
Speaker 1: was going goblin mode at that time, you know that
Speaker 1: format that's like you're in court excuses like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: going goblin mode. It really in my head, that's really
Speaker 1: the only reference I had, So I didn't make up
Speaker 1: the phrase. A lot of people think I made up
Speaker 1: the phrase goblin mode, which I definitely did not. UM,
Speaker 1: But I think just there was a lot of people
Speaker 1: posting about goblins around that time, like early in mid March,
Speaker 1: and I just in my mind, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just gonna say Goblin Mode on this
Speaker 1: this ship post on Fox. I don't I really don't
Speaker 1: know why. It's just the first thing that popped in
Speaker 1: my head. And whenever something pops in my head, like
Speaker 1: a tweet idea, and I laughed myself, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I should post it. I don't know, and it seemed
Speaker 1: to work. Did you end up? So one of the
Speaker 1: things one of the things I think is really interesting
Speaker 1: is that, right, So okay, so you have you have
Speaker 1: your first wave of like it's the Goblin Mode thing,
Speaker 1: and then you have your second wave articles that are
Speaker 1: trying to explain what goblin Mode is. And I was
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you'd see if you'd actually even
Speaker 1: seen the post. I just liked link to the chat um.
Speaker 1: There was like, like the thing I'd seen from goblin
Speaker 1: Mode before this, like all started, was this like Reddit
Speaker 1: was someone on Twitter had a tweet that went viral
Speaker 1: about goblin Mode and it was about just like someone
Speaker 1: It was about this Reddit post of like someone creeping
Speaker 1: around their house and pretending and acting like a goblin. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: So I didn't see that until I made my post,
Speaker 1: like in my initial because I think someone linked it
Speaker 1: under my post and I was like, oh, Ship, this
Speaker 1: is just like a thing, Like this is actually like
Speaker 1: a thing. And then I started popping off more because
Speaker 1: people saw that reply. I'm real like, oh Ship, this
Speaker 1: is like actually a thing. And to my surprise, that
Speaker 1: likely worked out for me, Like everything kind of just
Speaker 1: came together and a really insane fashion. Oh that's another
Speaker 1: tweet to the one that you linked. That's when I
Speaker 1: was going, That's when I was in goblin one that
Speaker 1: came before my tweet too. Yeah, had you had you
Speaker 1: seen that one before you made it? I follow her,
Speaker 1: I followed Telgore. I might have seen it. I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I remember the other one I was resferencing before. Um,
Speaker 1: I might have seen this one now, Yeah, like I
Speaker 1: I think like that. That was what was interesting to
Speaker 1: me about this was that, like the moment it went viral,
Speaker 1: there was this whole sort of like attempt because there
Speaker 1: was an attempt to figure out what it is, and
Speaker 1: then there was an attempt to like back project a
Speaker 1: history on it, and so you get a lot of
Speaker 1: these articles and you get a lot of people like
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I would talk to people about
Speaker 1: this and they would like, you know, okay, so they
Speaker 1: do this thing where it's like okay, so they go
Speaker 1: to know your meme, they look at the Google trends,
Speaker 1: and then like the people sort of like, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: Like there was an urban Dictionary thing from like two
Speaker 1: thousand nine that was like a completely like a weird
Speaker 1: sex thing. It was like completely unrelated to this, but
Speaker 1: it was interesting to me the way that people like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have this thing that goes viral, right, and
Speaker 1: like you're just sucking around like there's no act, like
Speaker 1: it's just sounds cool. But then like yeah, there's an
Speaker 1: extent to which it becomes this like you know, it
Speaker 1: gets into the sort of like viralty machine. And so
Speaker 1: you have all these journalists who like have to cover
Speaker 1: it right because like, you know, the other way the
Speaker 1: journalism boddle works is okay, so you have this trend, right,
Speaker 1: people can see it trending. You see something on Twitter,
Speaker 1: you do like four sets of Googles, and you write
Speaker 1: an article about it, and it's like, well, okay, because
Speaker 1: they're trying, you're trying to capitalize on on the clicks
Speaker 1: as fast as possible. So when someone googles what is
Speaker 1: goblin mode, it's like, Okay, your thing comes up. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting because it's like it's like they have to
Speaker 1: fill the content in because there isn't any Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what it was interesting about the specific that first one,
Speaker 1: the focus article, it was just a lot of like
Speaker 1: filling in where there was really nothing. Yeah, that's what's
Speaker 1: interesting about that. Yeah. And then and then like after that,
Speaker 1: like all the other articles are like you get to
Speaker 1: see this proliferation of how the media works where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you have the initial article, the initial article google
Speaker 1: some stuff and it's basically just making it up because
Speaker 1: they're they're trying to like give coherence or like give
Speaker 1: am meeting to an empty signifier. And then after that,
Speaker 1: it's like all of the other articles are just copying
Speaker 1: off of the first article, and you get this like
Speaker 1: Ora Boris of like everyone just is repeating the same
Speaker 1: thing over and over again, and none of them seem
Speaker 1: to understand that, like it was not that the thing
Speaker 1: that they originally talking about was just kind of like
Speaker 1: that's really all it was, and it's it is interesting
Speaker 1: to see how it is just able to proliferate off
Speaker 1: of as you as you were saying, they just google
Speaker 1: search urban, they find an urban dictionary and it's like
Speaker 1: my article urban diction. There is a good source. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like I think this this is I mean I
Speaker 1: think there's there's like a few interesting things here, one
Speaker 1: of which is about how yeah, like I had this before,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not sure if I actually talked about this
Speaker 1: on the show. So the day of the Atlantis shooting,
Speaker 1: Garrison and I spent a lot of time trying to
Speaker 1: like track down the shooter and there was there was
Speaker 1: this like fake Facebook post that was going around and
Speaker 1: you know, Garrison I had spent like a lot of
Speaker 1: time looking for this guy and okay, well we realized
Speaker 1: that this guy just doesn't have a Facebook, right, and
Speaker 1: so we were like so like I was like look
Speaker 1: at this, Like I saw his fake Facebook post. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is fake. And then like a
Speaker 1: bunch of a bunch of like a bunch of like
Speaker 1: actual journalists like found you know people because journalists have
Speaker 1: been passing around the fake Facebook post as like this
Speaker 1: is a post alleged to be a thing. And then
Speaker 1: and then suddenly they were like, oh hey this is fake.
Speaker 1: Hey you can see all these things like oh look,
Speaker 1: it's like uh, you know, like there was like the
Speaker 1: it was pretty clear of it. His face had been
Speaker 1: copied and pasted into like a thing that's it was
Speaker 1: supposed to look like a Facebook post because there was
Speaker 1: all these like minor details about that, which is wrong,
Speaker 1: and it was like, okay, so this isn't real. But
Speaker 1: the media cycle of it was like all of these
Speaker 1: people I saw my Twitter post that was like this
Speaker 1: is fake, and then they just wrote a story off
Speaker 1: of it and like never mentioned that that that they
Speaker 1: literally got it from like me fucking around on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Like it's like and it's like and it's like you
Speaker 1: look at this stuff. And the extent to which these
Speaker 1: people are just like these people who are journalist, who
Speaker 1: are you know, supposed to people journalists are just like
Speaker 1: woefully unprepared. Even people even who people who are extremely
Speaker 1: online like winds up being woefully unprepared to deal with
Speaker 1: like anything like that. They're woefully unprepared to deal with
Speaker 1: anything of any complexity or deal or like figure out
Speaker 1: that they're being like hoaxed. Yeah, yeah, no, you're you're
Speaker 1: you're really right about that. I mean, I mean I
Speaker 1: think this it's I don't know what I would call
Speaker 1: this phenomena, but there's definitely something there where it's like
Speaker 1: they we'll see something like I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is about specifically Twitter that like I
Speaker 1: feel like that's where a lot of people get news
Speaker 1: just in general. But I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: journalists just assume anything that they see. Maybe I'm over generalizing,
Speaker 1: but if they see something on Twitter, even if it's
Speaker 1: like a joke, like they'll just assume it's real or something.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not entirely sure. Like it's super easy
Speaker 1: to make a fake post. I do it all the time.
Speaker 1: I make all sorts of like fake fake things. Most
Speaker 1: of them are more obvious than Goblin But I guess,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that they're I don't want to
Speaker 1: say journalists are too trusting. Yeah. Well, and I will say,
Speaker 1: like there are times where it's genuine, Like when when
Speaker 1: you first started posting the headlines of like the actual
Speaker 1: Twitter articles that were about Goblin mode, I like I
Speaker 1: didn't do about it. Looking too, because I just assume
Speaker 1: they were fake. Yeah, lot of people told me, like,
Speaker 1: I think specifically, the the one that like most of
Speaker 1: my followers realized that they weren't fake anymore was the
Speaker 1: one that was like, um as a disabled uh woman,
Speaker 1: goblin mode. This goblin mode trend is really problematic, and
Speaker 1: people people decided to look that one up and we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's real. And then everyone was like, wait, we're all
Speaker 1: these other ones that you were posting real and I'm
Speaker 1: like they were all real, Julia Fox one real. It
Speaker 1: was different. Agencies have been all these news organizations have
Speaker 1: been writing all this insane shit about nothing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's there's you know, I mean, I think that this
Speaker 1: one is funny just because like yeah, I mean like
Speaker 1: it's goblin mode, right, like it's it's it's it's just funny,
Speaker 1: like there's no like yeah. But but I mean I
Speaker 1: think that there's an interesting thing that happens with with
Speaker 1: the specifically the disabilities one, because the disabilities one isn't
Speaker 1: like it's basically about something completely different that the Goblin
Speaker 1: Mode things spawned, which is that like, like the the
Speaker 1: other thing that happened with Goblin Mode was that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so people saw a goblin mode and then physicularly on
Speaker 1: like TikTok Um. I don't I don't know if they
Speaker 1: knew where it came from, but like people like people
Speaker 1: turns goblin mode into an actual thing, where like it
Speaker 1: became this thing about like I like, I think I
Speaker 1: think this is also influenced by like some of the
Speaker 1: like ship post answers that you gave the media people
Speaker 1: that were like goblin boe could be whatever you want.
Speaker 1: It's when you aren't awake of the pedel or like
Speaker 1: you're not doing your makeup in the pandemic or whatever
Speaker 1: like yeah, but but but it's interesting field like that.
Speaker 1: I really don't know if the TikTok's thing came before
Speaker 1: or after. I really I think it's after. Yeah, from
Speaker 1: what I've seen, it's it seems like it actually became
Speaker 1: a thing after. And that was really interesting to me too,
Speaker 1: because it was like it's this way in which, like
Speaker 1: you know, okay, so you start running into these sort
Speaker 1: of like fundamental problems about the nature of reality where
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, so we made this thing that is fake, right,
Speaker 1: but then it became real because enough enough people believed
Speaker 1: it was real that it turned into a thing that
Speaker 1: people actually use to describe stuff, and then you know
Speaker 1: that that's how you get to like you get a
Speaker 1: bunch of people complaining about how like there was an
Speaker 1: article that was like the great resignation and going goblin
Speaker 1: mode or like the two great threats to employers is
Speaker 1: they try to force people back to work, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's like the goblin mode, like self manifested into reality.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like a lot of journalists are saying,
Speaker 1: like people being lazy and like, you know how the
Speaker 1: whole meme of like oh, no one wants to work anymore.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people are trying to
Speaker 1: like attributing like oh, not wanting to work and being
Speaker 1: lazy to goblin mode. And it's it's self manifested through
Speaker 1: the media or TikTok or whatever whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: I actually don't know, but it's it's become a thing
Speaker 1: now and in a really strange way. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think I think this is like this is an
Speaker 1: interesting way of looking like, you know, like this was
Speaker 1: the whole sort of like like in in terms of
Speaker 1: like okay, insofar as posting can actually affect reality, which
Speaker 1: it can, but not as much as people seem to
Speaker 1: think like there are there are there are people who
Speaker 1: like seem to think that like the three letter agencies
Speaker 1: care what they post on Twitter, which is like it's
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, hold on, hold on. If if
Speaker 1: we post correctly interventions, it won't happen. It's like if
Speaker 1: you seen the c I A like like like there's
Speaker 1: there's this whole thing where it's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean this, it's okay, this this is gonna be the
Speaker 1: like someone's gonna pull this out of context and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: look at I do Chris is but like you know,
Speaker 1: like this is this is kind of what happened with Trump,
Speaker 1: which like this is this isn't like what the meme
Speaker 1: magic was like if you just mean something long enough,
Speaker 1: you can kind of turn it into reality by just
Speaker 1: sort of convincing enough people that it's real that it
Speaker 1: and and you know and once you've done that, like
Speaker 1: you you have effectively made the thing real. Right. It
Speaker 1: was interesting about this one is is just like it's
Speaker 1: like a lot of people like do that on purpose, right,
Speaker 1: Like this is how this is like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of propaganda stuff that works like this or like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is like what the meme like before Chan Trump
Speaker 1: bullshit was like you just just like completely like as
Speaker 1: a joke on accidents. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't attend this.
Speaker 1: I just mean I just wanted to make a one
Speaker 1: off joke. Yeah I didn't think that would happen. But
Speaker 1: you're you're you're totally right about the whole Like I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much like the Trump magic was
Speaker 1: really a self manifestation of him kind of just winning
Speaker 1: the election and becoming popular with a certain people. But
Speaker 1: it definitely feels like like that self manifestation of like
Speaker 1: posting to a certain extent really can become real if
Speaker 1: it's just like hits a certain site, guyst of some
Speaker 1: sort and like they just didn't. I think a crucial
Speaker 1: part of it is it needs to get picked up
Speaker 1: by the media and taken seriously by journalists specifically, because
Speaker 1: the thing that really, uh, I feel like broke the
Speaker 1: camel's back for Goblin about specifically was the first journalist
Speaker 1: that reached out to me because she she wanted to
Speaker 1: interview me about the whole, the whole experience like and
Speaker 1: her coverage of it was about the whole fake main thing,
Speaker 1: and then how it became sort of a thing in
Speaker 1: that aspect um, and then um from there, they all
Speaker 1: a lot of different journalists and websites referred back to
Speaker 1: that article, and now it seems to be the one
Speaker 1: that everyone's referring to now is the Guardian article about
Speaker 1: it that seems to be like a media's favorite piece
Speaker 1: about it, which is the one that talks more about
Speaker 1: it being like a lifestyle trend. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where it really went off, is when like some people
Speaker 1: took in the TikTok aspect of it and kind of
Speaker 1: manifested it that way. I think it's a couple of
Speaker 1: interesting political consequences of this, one of which is that like,
Speaker 1: like Twitter as a platform isn't really I mean, since
Speaker 1: Trump got banned, it's kind of like it hasn't really
Speaker 1: been where most like stuff is happening, like TikTok is exploding.
Speaker 1: I mean, you still like the boomers on Facebook. Like
Speaker 1: it hasn't like it hasn't been the sort of like
Speaker 1: driving force of politics that normally is. But the one
Speaker 1: thing that it has is that all of the journalists
Speaker 1: are still on there, and that means that like yeah,
Speaker 1: like there's all these weird political concequences. Were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can sort of like like you can just sort
Speaker 1: of will things into existence by convincing journalists that it's real.
Speaker 1: And that's I think really scary in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways for because you know, like the people who are
Speaker 1: really really good at the sort of manipulation or right
Speaker 1: wingers and right wingers could have sort of like like
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I people are probably mad about
Speaker 1: me for this, but like one of the things that
Speaker 1: I remember from like God was just two dozen sixteen.
Speaker 1: It was like there was this whole discourse about like, uh,
Speaker 1: like there's a bunch of like all a bunch of
Speaker 1: people are really mad about like there being a black
Speaker 1: storm Trooper and Star Wars, yeah, the whole Yeah that's
Speaker 1: interesting about it was like yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: that was just yeah, yeah, there there. There's the thing
Speaker 1: that was interesting about it was like so I know
Speaker 1: people who like who like looked into it beforehand, and
Speaker 1: it was like the only people who were talking about
Speaker 1: this it was like people who were confused because they
Speaker 1: thought that stormtroopers were all clones and we're like wait,
Speaker 1: why wait and then and the other thing there are
Speaker 1: other group of people who were mad about this was
Speaker 1: storm Front, and store Front was able to like turn
Speaker 1: this into like like a discourse, like they able to
Speaker 1: they were ably convinced journalists like this was a real
Speaker 1: thing that like a significant number people are mad about,
Speaker 1: and then it like actually turned into a thing that
Speaker 1: a significant number of people are mad about. Because you
Speaker 1: can sort of just like like you you can start
Speaker 1: these like panics and like this is one of the
Speaker 1: things we're talking about in our trans episodes were like,
Speaker 1: you know, a fairly small network of well funded people
Speaker 1: can cause like enormous swass of the US you just
Speaker 1: lose their ship and get extremely violent and get like
Speaker 1: you know, and and and the specific thing they're mad
Speaker 1: about changes like pretty frequently. But you can just sort
Speaker 1: of like if if you're able to manipulate the media
Speaker 1: well enough and you you know that there's other ways
Speaker 1: to do is like you know, you could do it
Speaker 1: by like weird memes. You can do it by you know,
Speaker 1: being the cops, or just like having press releases that
Speaker 1: you send out you can have you can do it
Speaker 1: through like these sort of like astro turf, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know, you have like an astro turf intellectual like
Speaker 1: what's his name, markat Ufo, But it's it's it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me that like they all seem to work, like
Speaker 1: the pathway through it all seems to be very similar.
Speaker 1: Which is what you do is you convince a bunch
Speaker 1: of media people or something is real, and then once
Speaker 1: once they start taking it seriously, it sort of manifests
Speaker 1: itself into reality. Yeah, I know that, that is what
Speaker 1: I realized what was happening, Like I one of my
Speaker 1: initial points that I was trying to make after um
Speaker 1: the whole goblin thing. After the first article came out,
Speaker 1: I was like, it really made me realized, like how
Speaker 1: potent fake I hate saying this phrase just because it's
Speaker 1: become such like a nothing sort of phrase, but like
Speaker 1: fake news, how how easy it is to just like
Speaker 1: what if instead of goblin mode? I decided like, let's
Speaker 1: say I'm like a crazy right winger and I had
Speaker 1: this weird sgeist moments causing a panic about like trans people,
Speaker 1: and I made like a fake tweet like that you
Speaker 1: would we see that happened all the time, like trans
Speaker 1: people pee. A lot of people hate us um, and
Speaker 1: it would be super easy. Put it in the right community. Um,
Speaker 1: make this fake tweet or a fake headline, and people
Speaker 1: right wing or specifically will go wild and it'll really
Speaker 1: influence the discourse. I mean, look at the current I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's kind of over now. But the last
Speaker 1: it was last week the swimmer, the trans swimmer, that
Speaker 1: was the women's competition. I mean, the amount of vitriol
Speaker 1: that was able to be created over that, just like
Speaker 1: imagine what like as you had like a well funded,
Speaker 1: tight network of um but I don't know, but for
Speaker 1: lack of a better phrase, like fake news creators just
Speaker 1: all they need to do is put something out on Facebook,
Speaker 1: the boomers see it, and then it's over. What One
Speaker 1: of the things I learned about, like well, I was
Speaker 1: doing research for Weirdly an episode about Reverend Moon, was
Speaker 1: that like people figured so this is sort of like
Speaker 1: this is like how the Republicans came to power, Like
Speaker 1: that they figured out you could do shoot like this
Speaker 1: and like rubber Fugieri like in like in like the
Speaker 1: sixties figured out that like if you just if you
Speaker 1: sent like you could just send letters to like they work.
Speaker 1: I guess there were't even boomers up if you just
Speaker 1: send letters to old people that would say stuff like
Speaker 1: a planned parenthood is harvesting baby fetuses. You could just
Speaker 1: get the really mad and it's like and it's funny
Speaker 1: because you know in the cities, like he's he's doing
Speaker 1: this like by mail, right, like he is mailing you
Speaker 1: a chain letter. It's just stuff. Yeah, it became just
Speaker 1: like a product amount. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's weird because you can watch them invent this
Speaker 1: and then it's like, oh, yeah, this guy was funded
Speaker 1: by like a weird cult guy who was trying to
Speaker 1: take over the world, who was being backed by the
Speaker 1: Korean CIA, and it's like, I don't know, it gets
Speaker 1: into this, Yeah, it all sort of comes back into
Speaker 1: this weird thing where yeah, I mean I like one
Speaker 1: of one of the the sort political transformations I've had
Speaker 1: since I started working here was like I didn't take
Speaker 1: like it's sort of a similar to what you were saying,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't take the like weaponized unreality like fake
Speaker 1: new stuff like that seriously. And then it was like
Speaker 1: you cover it every day and it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: like the like the weird like like watching like four Chan,
Speaker 1: like invents the I A shouly don't know if it's
Speaker 1: Portune was one of watching like just weird right wing
Speaker 1: like message boards invents like the Ukrainian bio lab thing,
Speaker 1: which like Grant Meanwall Now tweets about and like like
Speaker 1: like like the official state media of Russia and China
Speaker 1: are like talking about these bio labs and it's like
Speaker 1: it's turned into this weird like like thing where like yeah,
Speaker 1: like actual countries with like nuclear weapons are like basically
Speaker 1: using ship posters as like as like a way to
Speaker 1: do propaganda. Is it's just like really weird. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's this really weird and incredibly disturbing media space
Speaker 1: to live in. Yeah, it's it's like a it's a
Speaker 1: weird synthesis of ship posters just posting online to like
Speaker 1: whatever audience and I guess like media of some sort
Speaker 1: and not maybe not like um in the in the
Speaker 1: case with the biolab, I don't know too much about that,
Speaker 1: especially cause I'm black by Gun Greenwald, so I don't
Speaker 1: see a lot of stuff. Yeah, but yeah, no, it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting how how kind of interlocked there and and
Speaker 1: to your point about the earlier about the whole Trump
Speaker 1: made magic thing. Like I I didn't take that too
Speaker 1: seriously at the time, Like inten I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: all these silly right wingers making these means like this
Speaker 1: isn't gonna do anything. Like I I don't, I truly
Speaker 1: don't know if it really had an effect, but I
Speaker 1: mean it's we can't really ignore the power of that.
Speaker 1: Just simply manifesting something, even if it's artificial, can actually
Speaker 1: have a hole on certain people. Um as you were
Speaker 1: saying with the mailing letters. I mean, if you just
Speaker 1: say enough, if you say something enough to the right
Speaker 1: type of person, they'll just believe it. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's not hard to lie to people as horrible as
Speaker 1: those to say. It's really not that hard to lie
Speaker 1: to people. Yeah, Like, I mean that's the whole sort
Speaker 1: of like everyone yelling groomer like constantly about trans people.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, they just lied over and over again.
Speaker 1: And like half the people who were like saying this
Speaker 1: stuff are actually pedophiles And it doesn't matter because you know,
Speaker 1: if you just like do this ship over and over again,
Speaker 1: you get these you get just get these like hate bobs,
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, no, the right wing right wing or
Speaker 1: specifically are phenomenal creating hate mobs. Yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: incredible to witness. It's it's really scary, but it's it's
Speaker 1: an incredible thing to see. There's not really an equivalent,
Speaker 1: i would say, on the left in the way that
Speaker 1: um even maybe in liberals there's an equivalent, but like
Speaker 1: on the on the left, there's not really like an
Speaker 1: equivalent to like some like a mob in that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's you know, like, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: always an extent to which like these stuff, the stuff
Speaker 1: has like material constraints, Like you know, I thought to
Speaker 1: talk about like constantly on this show, the fact that
Speaker 1: like this is like this is the stuff that the
Speaker 1: de cons believed and then they ran into the material
Speaker 1: constraints of the Iraq War and the entire project imploded.
Speaker 1: And like, I mean, I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why this is easier for the right is that like
Speaker 1: there's the there there's a there's a there's there's a
Speaker 1: there's always a political base for them that is there
Speaker 1: that they can access fairly easily, which is okay, they
Speaker 1: may they have access to like you know, that they
Speaker 1: have access to like a vast swath of petit bars wall.
Speaker 1: They have access to a bunch of white business owners.
Speaker 1: They have access to like this sort of like this
Speaker 1: like white professional class, they have access to the sort
Speaker 1: of like white gentry e class, and like those people
Speaker 1: can very easily be sort of like whipped into a
Speaker 1: frothing rage, and like part of it is because like
Speaker 1: that that's essentially that's just what they' that's what their
Speaker 1: class interest is. That's what they're sort of like like
Speaker 1: their status of the racial hierarchy like brings them to
Speaker 1: do already. And you could sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: if you just shovel a bit of coal on it,
Speaker 1: you can you can make the fire go absolutely. And
Speaker 1: I mean it's talked about a lot, I'm sure, but
Speaker 1: like the one thing that is really powerful is Fox News. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Fox News will pick up literally anything like I saw
Speaker 1: I saw post on Twitter just the other day, screenshot
Speaker 1: or just just a picture of Fox News and they
Speaker 1: cited the libs of TikTok Twitter account talking about school classrooms.
Speaker 1: It's like, what is that like not like the right
Speaker 1: wingers will just take the source of a random Twitter
Speaker 1: user that has a take takes messages from random people
Speaker 1: that message them and then that's their news like that
Speaker 1: just to to to to to be fair to Fox News,
Speaker 1: which is not a thing I will ever say again, Uh,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't. It wouldn't surprise me if that whole thing,
Speaker 1: like because so the I don't know if you saw
Speaker 1: this the Lives of TikTok person is like, is that
Speaker 1: that thing is run by an old Bush administration person?
Speaker 1: Really I did not know that. Yeah, so it wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, Okay, like there there there's probably a three
Speaker 1: and four chance that they just saw someone who's like
Speaker 1: trying to own the libs on TikTok. But there's like
Speaker 1: a one in four chance that like all the old
Speaker 1: like Bush network people like know each other and that's
Speaker 1: why they're promoting it. That's that's a good point. That's
Speaker 1: a good point. I mean they have to know that.
Speaker 1: Well maybe I don't know, Like it's it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where it's like it becomes I don't know,
Speaker 1: it becomes really difficult to to know the extent to
Speaker 1: which the beliefs. Yeah, well how organized they are into
Speaker 1: the extent to which they believe what they're saying. Because
Speaker 1: part of that like that becomes like you know, if if,
Speaker 1: if you know who's behind that, it becomes easier to
Speaker 1: sort of be like, oh yeah, we're just sort of
Speaker 1: playing a game. But it could also just be like, now,
Speaker 1: this is this is content that we like, uh, we
Speaker 1: were all too lazy to go or just message the
Speaker 1: person to see who they are, Like I mean they
Speaker 1: had the specifically in this case, the lives of TikTok Lady.
Speaker 1: They had her like on TALX news ones talking oh
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, referenced her multiple times, so they have to
Speaker 1: know her. Yea, yeah, yeah, that that's that. That's another
Speaker 1: technique that they do a lot, which that they take
Speaker 1: someone who is like you know, like a like an
Speaker 1: old part, like who's literally a Republican operative, right, and
Speaker 1: just laundered them as an actress. Actually, the funny part
Speaker 1: is you see, like like the New York Times and
Speaker 1: Ship like all the main street outlets do the same
Speaker 1: thing to you where it's like, yeah, well, well, like
Speaker 1: any time you see an article that is like I
Speaker 1: was a Democratic voter, but I'm going to vote for
Speaker 1: the Republicans, nine times out of ten, that person is
Speaker 1: a Republican operative. And if you google their name and
Speaker 1: look hard enough, you can just find it. And it's
Speaker 1: like and that's the only thing. Yeah, That's another thing,
Speaker 1: was like I don't know whether they whether they're just
Speaker 1: lazy and don't check, or whether they're just sort of
Speaker 1: like doing this kind of like I don't know that
Speaker 1: what what what? Whether whether they're doing this on purpose,
Speaker 1: because I mean that, you know, that's that's the thing
Speaker 1: with journalism, Like it's it's difficult to like, when someone
Speaker 1: screws something up, it's it's difficult to determine a lot
Speaker 1: of times whether it's malice or whether it's they're just
Speaker 1: the only research they did was they googled something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like in the realblem that we're talking about
Speaker 1: right now, it's like right wingers, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it Obviously it's pretty malicious a lot of the
Speaker 1: time at least, But in terms of like the whole
Speaker 1: goblin mode situation where that that stemmed off just from
Speaker 1: like random like Guardian whatever articles, I think I think
Speaker 1: that was just more of like, oh, let's kind of
Speaker 1: trying to explain this thing that is apparently now a
Speaker 1: trend and we're manifesting it in real time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: do think there's like a distinction between that ex I
Speaker 1: feel there's no like like with the goblin mode, there's
Speaker 1: there's no nefarious aspect of it, but that like technique
Speaker 1: can be used in a very nefarious way, and I
Speaker 1: think that manifests in the most easy to waste, easiest
Speaker 1: to see ways in right wing media. Yeah, I do
Speaker 1: want to also mention that, like, yeah, I I think
Speaker 1: I said briefly, like the people who do this the
Speaker 1: most often are cops, Like the cops, and if if
Speaker 1: you see a story about the police in the mainstap
Speaker 1: of newspaper and you see the same story in another paper,
Speaker 1: it's because they're basically printing a press release. And you know,
Speaker 1: I mean this this gets used to like launder just
Speaker 1: straight up police lies about shootings they manufactured, like the
Speaker 1: entire crime wave thing, like the whole thing about people
Speaker 1: taking boxes off of trains. It's like, yeah, you look
Speaker 1: into it and it's like, yeah, there's these like there's
Speaker 1: sort of like shadowy police networks of people who are
Speaker 1: basically running I mean, they have enormous budgets to do
Speaker 1: this too, Like they have these enormous um like departmental
Speaker 1: like public outreach budgets and those public outreach budgets are
Speaker 1: basically them running information ops on us, which is incredibly fun.
Speaker 1: You know that that is absolutely like a real phenomena.
Speaker 1: I don't know too much about it specifically in cops,
Speaker 1: but I know, I know the White House does that
Speaker 1: all the time, where it's like, oh, there's a White
Speaker 1: House leap and it's like, oh, no, they wanted people
Speaker 1: to see this. This is entirely intentional. Yeah, they try
Speaker 1: a balloon stuff a lot, and that's I don't know,
Speaker 1: and like that this is this is goblin mode, is
Speaker 1: like the fun version of looking at how all this
Speaker 1: stuff works. But this stuff happens with stuff that is
Speaker 1: extremely deadly and has real world consequences, and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's something we need to be thinking about and
Speaker 1: trying to I don't know if used for good is
Speaker 1: the right thing, but like it's something that we need
Speaker 1: to be really conscious of as we're dealing with, you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of fascists trying to murder everyone. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean that that's been the most interesting thing about this
Speaker 1: to me is watching Like I hate calling it this,
Speaker 1: but just for lack of a better word, kind of
Speaker 1: like goblin mode is like being manufactured, like manufacturing consent
Speaker 1: in real time, like from the genesis of my post,
Speaker 1: watching it in real time, seeing all these articles come
Speaker 1: out and kind of all time to each other and
Speaker 1: refer back to each other. It's been it's been kind
Speaker 1: of eye opening about this topic that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of leftists kind of know a lot about, Like
Speaker 1: in terms of like media manipulation. You're it's you're right
Speaker 1: when you said it's like the fun version of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it has been the fun version of it. But
Speaker 1: deep down it's like, oh, this is kind of like
Speaker 1: how they did like they this might be dramatic, but
Speaker 1: like how they did the Iraq War in real time,
Speaker 1: Like this is on some level, it's very similar strategy,
Speaker 1: like media strategy. And I think, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I think there's specifically goblamode. I think there's because because
Speaker 1: like the Iraq War, there's a lot of just malice
Speaker 1: there and but but in this one, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like that, you know, not all of the media, like
Speaker 1: all of them, Like Okay, in order for something that's
Speaker 1: completely fake to get traction, it doesn't require everyone involved
Speaker 1: being malicious. What it requires is one person saying a thing,
Speaker 1: and then a bunch of journalists being too lazy to
Speaker 1: actually look into something and then just you know, basically
Speaker 1: reprinting the article but like rewriting a few things, which
Speaker 1: happens constantly, and yeah, and and that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the thing I think that's scary about that is it
Speaker 1: reduces the number of actors who actually have to be
Speaker 1: involved in a thing for it to just sort of
Speaker 1: like take off like this, which yeah, like and I
Speaker 1: think like there's there's an extent to which okay, like
Speaker 1: it rocks, Like something on that scale is pretty rare
Speaker 1: because it requires, like in an enormous amount of buying
Speaker 1: from a lot of people. But there's lots of small
Speaker 1: examples of this stuff that just happens sort of constantly
Speaker 1: and that stuff like yeah, I mean, you know, as
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, like that, that that kind of
Speaker 1: thing with small numbers of actors and then people just
Speaker 1: sort of lazily reprinting articles like that stuff, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the best example of this is currently, at
Speaker 1: least just in my mind because I am trans the
Speaker 1: the whole trans planic that's happening right now. I think
Speaker 1: that's a really good example of it. It's just where
Speaker 1: like some website will print this certain thing and then
Speaker 1: it becomes a hysterical panic. Yeah, there's talking about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I think that's the most recent example that was
Speaker 1: that spa where it was like some person claimed like
Speaker 1: made it made a bunch of claims where they were
Speaker 1: like they might have seen a trans person maybe, and
Speaker 1: it turned into just like literally mobs showing up at
Speaker 1: this spa, like anti transbobs, just like a bunch of
Speaker 1: fascists showing up a bunch of like like yeah, and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Yeah. That that affects reality. Yeah, people,
Speaker 1: that really affects people. Yeah. And and like the the
Speaker 1: the other one, the other one that that we've talked
Speaker 1: about in the trans episodes is people to people are
Speaker 1: starting to do this kind of stuff with gender clinics,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, yeah, and it's like yeah, like
Speaker 1: that that's only a matter of time before they start
Speaker 1: killing people. Like yeah, that is that is the same. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The media can easily whip someone into frenzy to do that.
Speaker 1: I mean we've seen that in the past with I think,
Speaker 1: as you referenced before, like the whole like abortion whole,
Speaker 1: like in the nineties and the early two thousands, the
Speaker 1: whole abortion panic. Yeah, I mean we saw we saw
Speaker 1: people die over stuff like that. Yeah, the bombings, like
Speaker 1: and you know, and the other thing is that like
Speaker 1: they're winning, like they are on the verge of after
Speaker 1: this like half a century long battle, like they are
Speaker 1: on the verge of our turning ro he weighed. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know that. And that's I think a really
Speaker 1: grim thing for the left where it's like, like, what
Speaker 1: one of the asymmetries here is that like if a
Speaker 1: leftist like assassinated the head of Ice right like they were,
Speaker 1: like I would be in prison in like a day
Speaker 1: and a half. There'd be like fifteen people who be
Speaker 1: shot in police raids, like yeah, be you know, but
Speaker 1: like when when the right wing just like it do terrorism,
Speaker 1: like just murders abortional writers, it works. And that's a
Speaker 1: really grim asymmetry, but it's sort of the reality of
Speaker 1: the situation that brand right. And Yeah, that reminds me
Speaker 1: of the This is a while ago. This was during
Speaker 1: the Black Lives Matter protests. I don't even remember why
Speaker 1: he was on the um fed's radar, but there was
Speaker 1: the dude I think in Portland's and there was like
Speaker 1: a there was like a raid and they just shot
Speaker 1: the dude in the remember that, Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it happened again in Uh Yeah, they murdered him. And
Speaker 1: then like it happened again with Winston Smith in uh
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis where like the like the cops were mad
Speaker 1: at him because he was like he was one of
Speaker 1: the leaders of that's happening in Minneapolis and they just
Speaker 1: walked up and shot him. Yeah and yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it is a really bleak look at you know,
Speaker 1: how this country actually works, which is not really what
Speaker 1: I expected this episode to be. I just like, we'll
Speaker 1: do a fun episode about Goblin Bode and now it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was the state just assassinating people and they're gonna
Speaker 1: keep doing it. And also they're gonna like to start
Speaker 1: bombing abortion well, I mean to keep bombing abortion clinics
Speaker 1: and start bombing gender clinics, and it's like that doesn't
Speaker 1: actually happen, but but yeah, I think it was. Our
Speaker 1: point was that it was like we've seen that happen
Speaker 1: in the past. Yeah, of the reactionary media fueling the
Speaker 1: hysteria through it doesn't even matter if it's real or
Speaker 1: fake stories. That's that's the main issue, is it can
Speaker 1: be totally fake and it'll it'll just fuel hysterics against anyone,
Speaker 1: any any target. Yeah, that's just like yeah, like what
Speaker 1: the we should probably close out. But like the one
Speaker 1: that's been fun for me, and by fun, I mean
Speaker 1: dear God, has been the fucking the Hunt biolab ship,
Speaker 1: which was like literally like like literally this this was
Speaker 1: this like literally this whole thing was a sie up
Speaker 1: by Steve Bannett who was like, this is how we
Speaker 1: can have Trump win the election by by by uniting
Speaker 1: everyone in like anti Asian hate, and like it worked,
Speaker 1: Like well, I mean, okay, he lost the election, but
Speaker 1: like you know, all like eventually this is this just
Speaker 1: like completely crank, like absolutely batship. All the people who
Speaker 1: are advocating for it are like like they like they're
Speaker 1: like mushroom scientists or they're like people who like you know,
Speaker 1: like like they're they're like weird. I ever met In Truthers.
Speaker 1: Like all these people, you know, like were were legitimized
Speaker 1: by the media and like that had that had an
Speaker 1: enormous impact on the last sort of two years of
Speaker 1: anti Asian violence. Like that's like that that's the thing
Speaker 1: that to get as bad as it did. And again,
Speaker 1: it is just completely fake. There's nothing it's it's that
Speaker 1: they're just they're just you know, like a bunch of
Speaker 1: fascists made up a lie about a plague so that
Speaker 1: they could try to win an election by like murdering
Speaker 1: Asian people. And yeah, and it's it's That's interesting thing
Speaker 1: is that if you look at um, like was about like, oh,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about China? Like you go back
Speaker 1: even just four years ago, most people were like, I
Speaker 1: don't have exact numbers on my head, um, but most
Speaker 1: people it was like maybe split like oh, like China
Speaker 1: is kind of scary, or like China's okay, but like
Speaker 1: most Americans at this point, even like a lot of
Speaker 1: liberals do not like China. Like it's like even the
Speaker 1: rest like China. It's like it was just manifested through
Speaker 1: the whole maybe not all through the whole Buhanu lab
Speaker 1: but just the last few years and years of both
Speaker 1: Biden's government and Trump's government ratcheting hard against um China,
Speaker 1: and just like anti China or even anti Chinese like
Speaker 1: people sentiments. Yeah, there's there's an interesting thing there too,
Speaker 1: where it's like, okay, so for the first about so
Speaker 1: that this pivot starts when which when Trump starts a
Speaker 1: trade war, right, and there's this interesting thing where it's
Speaker 1: like for the first about two years of it, it
Speaker 1: was like the views about China were changing, but the
Speaker 1: actual level of anti Asian violence wasn't doing much. But
Speaker 1: then when COVID hit, it was like you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was it was kind of like an abstract thing, right,
Speaker 1: it was like, okay, well we don't like China, but
Speaker 1: like there was nothing that there wasn't like a super
Speaker 1: strong like the thing you could point to to directly
Speaker 1: tie it to Asian people. And then the moment the
Speaker 1: moment the pandemic started, and then the moment that like
Speaker 1: Wuhan ship started, it was like suddenly there was like
Speaker 1: a concrete thing that you could point to, and it
Speaker 1: was that was like, hey, look it's the Chinese people.
Speaker 1: The they're they're they're they're spreading the plague, they benefactured
Speaker 1: the plague. The lab is because they're dirty, and like
Speaker 1: the moment became that was when everything just like all
Speaker 1: the attack skyrocketed like that. That's that's that's when like
Speaker 1: everything just sort of like really like kicked off and
Speaker 1: that was hysterics. That was like the target and hysteria
Speaker 1: of I would say, yeah, yeah, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: the fun thing I'm bracing for is like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: looks like it's gonna be the Democrat strategy two as
Speaker 1: well Republican strategy, and it's like, oh, hey, more of
Speaker 1: us are gonna die. This is gonna be fun. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of scary. Yeah, this just started out as
Speaker 1: a fun episode. But yeah, it's how God was fun,
Speaker 1: so I guess it was still a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything else that you want to say
Speaker 1: or do you want to tell people where to find you? Um?
Speaker 1: I don't really have anything to say necessarily. All I
Speaker 1: really do on the internet, at least, like my my
Speaker 1: whole interimnet in a private presence right now is just
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Um. If you want to follow me, it's
Speaker 1: um at mell mell meu. UM. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you'll have like that linked or anything. It's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to spell with the last the whole MEU it's
Speaker 1: i'm eu w. But that's really all I have is
Speaker 1: just my Twitter. Yeah, that's all that's all I really
Speaker 1: do online. I mean, it is extremely funny, and every
Speaker 1: once in a while you create Goblin Mode as an
Speaker 1: actual thing, which is Yeah, it's fun. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: a good time on Twitter people. People complain about that
Speaker 1: website a lot, but yeah, since I joined it, like
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen or whatever, I haven't looked back. It's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. I've got a lot of cool people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've known of you for a while, but it's nice
Speaker 1: to actually talk to you. You too, Yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a good time. Yeah, So go Goblin Mode.
Speaker 1: Don't let the fascist murder trans people. Uh yeah, this
Speaker 1: this is maybe it could happen here. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Instagram at happen here pot Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: have fun, find cool trinkets suppressed the turfs gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta have the trinkets. You gotta find the That's what
Speaker 1: goblin modes all about, getting trinkets. That's right, all right,
Speaker 1: the bio folks. It could happen here. As a production
Speaker 1: of cool Zone Media. Or more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources
Speaker 1: for it could happen here. Updated monthly at cool Zone
Speaker 1: Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.