WEBVTT - Part Five: Is Oprah Winfrey a Bastard? 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:09.360 Also media Welcome Back to Bastards the Behind podcast Robert 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.520 Evans A. Uh, your brain will put that together in 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.720 the right order. Or maybe that only works with written words. 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.600 Maybe maybe it just sounds like I had a stroke. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:19.360 I don't know. 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:22.720 Let's ask our guest today, Uh, bridget Todd andrew T, 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:27.280 does it sound like I had a stroke? Always as 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.920 a longtime friend of mine, Bridget that really that really 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:30.920 helps as. 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:32.040 A longtime friend of mine. 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:32.720 Thank you. 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.479 Actually, pretty co here, that felt just like like lag. 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:39.519 It didn't feel like you were having a stroke. It 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.199 just felt like there's just some bit of a transmission problem. 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:44.320 But it's fine. 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:46.720 It's really your parent. You would be like, let's put 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:49.159 an eye on it. He doesn't, let's keep it. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.839 Maybe we need to take the keys away though. Yeah, yeah, 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.720 they shouldn't be driving that car anymore. We got to 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.400 get the f one fifty away from Grandpa. He's gotta 0:00:58.440 --> 0:00:59.959 go right through a fucking farmer's mark. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:00.320 Kids. 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.039 Oh shit, it just occurred to me actually because I 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:07.240 met you both right around the same time, and like 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.319 mid twenty eighteen to late twenty eighteen, it's been like 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:16.680 six years that we've we've all been buddies. We should 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:18.920 go to Vegas, to Vegas to meet you. 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:20.120 Was it twenty sixteen? 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.600 I think I think I've known Sophie, but I think 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:25.880 I met you Sophie before I met Robert. 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.040 Robert and I we went to a like you went 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.520 to a Nazi team in DC. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:35.039 That was a great weekend. 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.440 Boy, I remember, no, because I'm the one that was like, no, Robert, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:41.200 you're going to d See. 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:43.640 You have to hit a bridget Uh huh. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:46.399 Yeah, we had a great Time's great. 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:51.920 Yeah, there'll be opportunities to go to Nazi marches in DC. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.040 Ample I'm sure that's coming before. 0:01:55.400 --> 0:02:00.440 Friend, I don't Yeah, that's a subject for a day. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.080 I will say. I gotta I gotta give a shout 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.400 out because as we're talking right now, the US Marines 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:12.040 have entered the California Mexico border, and there's footage of 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.040 them with V twenty two Ospreys. So we are we 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.720 are just hours away from the first time of V 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.239 to twenty two osprey wipes out a squad of Marines 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.679 on US soil. Yet again. If you're not aware, these 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.320 are aircraft that exist almost entirely to kill United States 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.959 Marines that the Marine Corps continues to use for reasons 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.440 that make complete sense if you know a lot about 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.799 the US Marine Corps. So I'm very happy to say 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.760 that we're about to be suffering severe casualties in a 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.560 war without anyone to fight but our own aircraft. 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:46.520 The reason we'll use them is because they make the 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:48.079 coolest Gi Joe toys. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.600 They look awesome, they're so cool looking, and it's just 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.200 they're just death traps. They're just honorable death traps. Like, 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.919 if you actually care, you would do more reducing American 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.480 mentalities abroad. Stopping the V twenty two osprey then wiping 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:04.640 out isis. 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.600 It's it's just it's like a it's a drop ship, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.400 but with it's like a helicopter with like twice as 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:13.440 many points of failure. 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:16.000 Yeah, hell yeah, yeah yeah. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.400 It's it's like, what if you know how helicopters are 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.480 absolute death traps? What if we made it twice as 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:21.880 much of. 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:22.560 A death trap. 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:27.080 Yeah, speaking of getting lots of people killed, y'all ready 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:28.400 to get back to Oprah. 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:28.960 Wow? 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:31.240 Wow, what a transition. 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:37.960 We're gonna get sued. 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:43.040 We're gonna get You're gonna get sued. You're gonna get sued. 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.320 Once again, I checked under my chair and there was 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:47.240 nothing there. 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.600 No, this is I gotta say. People online were like, oh, 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.440 only a matter of time before Oprah sues them. There's 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:58.160 We've had not to mention anybody litigious subjects in the past. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:02.720 We are so far on Oprah's radar, Like again, this 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.760 is the only people who have ever been more famous 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.960 than her are certain pharaohs and Greek gods, like she 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.480 does not give a shit about this podcast. 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.000 People who. 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.600 So kind of pivoting off of that statement. I do 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:20.960 suspect some of the young'ins in our audience may be 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.279 incredulous in me crediting Oprah with so much influence in 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.280 trends that today seem like just like massive societal swings, 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.040 stuff that's too big for one person to have incited. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.520 And I have to assure you Oprah really was that influential. 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.120 There is, in fact, a direct line from Oprah to 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.840 the sort of media that utterly dominates the digital attention 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.640 spans of people today, particularly gen Z kids. Right, if 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:45.920 you spend any time looking at surveys of what gen 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.920 Z claims to look for and value in media figures 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.040 that they follow, you'll come upon one word over and 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:57.680 over authenticity. Now, I'm not saying they actually like authentic 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:02.600 media figures, because authenticity is a costume that media figures 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:07.080 put on. Nobody is really authentic, right, like, because that's 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:09.839 just not the way the media works. 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:10.120 You know. 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:11.920 It's all some sort of dress up, it's all some 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:14.560 sort of glamor. But it's the ability to play at 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:16.640 being authentic. And I want to quote now from a 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.640 twenty twenty four study by the NIH surveying the media 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.760 diet and preference of gen Z viewers. Quote, the qualities 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.000 that young people wish to find in media, especially on 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:29.800 social media, revolve primarily upon spontaneity and authenticity. Quote, nobody 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:31.599 has a perfect life. I would like to see a 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:33.800 real life that does not come from social media or 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.920 reality shows. And this is them, quoting a female gen 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.159 Z surveyed person. They seek a life without filters, much 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:43.960 like what is portrayed by influencers like Emily Polini, who, 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.039 despite having acne, chooses to show herself without filters and 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.200 accepts herself as she is. And I'm not saying anything 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.240 about that specific influencer, but like that's the idea, right that, 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.800 like gen Z, they're moving away from like the super 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:01.720 airbrushed and touched up, you know, marketed like celebrities of 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:04.680 the past, which is again not true. There's more ability 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.440 to fill to yourself than ever before thanks to social media. 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.880 But that's the impression that people think that they want, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:15.560 and that impression really gets started. Authenticity becomes a virtue 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.280 for media figures in the age of Oprah More than 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:23.240 any other single person. She sparks the shift towards relatable, 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:27.760 authentic media influencers who deliberately sought to inculcate and feed 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:32.479 a parasocial relationship with their audiences. Oprah did this in 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.839 part by being open about stuff like her struggles with 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.440 weight loss, which made people think, oh, she's dealing with 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:39.200 the same shit. I am right, she is the same 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.320 kind of person I am. This is like she I 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.160 like her because she's authentic, and that cuts out a lot, 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.560 including the fact that, like Wilbrah has billions of dollars 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.400 and enough money to hire personal chefs and personal trainers 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.520 and take all of the different rich people drugs that 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.159 make it a lot easier to lose weight and whatnot 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:03.240 and stay youthful. Right, But again, its perception, it's really. 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:08.400 Like pretty impressive, how easily, Like everyone is fooled. I 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:14.920 think by this, Like, like the difference between authentic and authenticism. 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:19.320 Is, like it seems big to me. Maybe am I 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:23.040 just an idiot? Like I'm just like this is still 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:24.280 very fake, guys. 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:27.560 No, I think there's a degree to which I mean, 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.160 you're right for TV, Andrew, Like you're in media, like Bridget, Like, 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.920 We're all in media, so we all have experiences of 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.720 like this is the product that people say is authentic, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.200 and we are aware of the degree of work that 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.600 goes into the background of like make I mean, part 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:46.320 of why I have the attitude I have on this 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.360 is that, like I have the life experience of turning 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.840 myself into a public figure and deliberately figuring out, like 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.720 which aspects of my personality are more relatable and marketable 0:07:56.800 --> 0:07:59.240 to an audience. That's a thing that I did. It's 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:01.680 part of my bisiness, right, But I. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.800 Would just argue that like every child I know with 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:08.000 a phone knows the difference between use this pick not 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:13.560 this pick right, which is the exact same thing like this, say. 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.120 You also like everyone sees some like you know the 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:19.400 person well, I like that they're honest. I like that 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:21.840 they you know, they seem like a really honest person's like, well, 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.560 but you're you are seeing what they've curated, you know, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.920 And I'm not even making a moral judgment about it. Right, 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:30.920 it's not bad. As a public figure, you have to 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:35.080 curate yourself, right, Like one thing, you go insane. If 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.280 you don't have a part of you that's actually like 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:41.400 your private human person, you will lose your mind. Right. 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.839 We see this in certain public figures that happen to 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:46.040 be the richest man on earth. 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.520 Right, I wasn't. 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.800 Even thinking about that, but yes, not even that. 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.040 But just like, like the alternative would be a what 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:59.160 three sixty spherical constant surveillance, which is believe a form 0:08:59.240 --> 0:08:59.760 of torture. 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.320 It's a form of torture. And also how a number 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.400 of people, a number of people get rich at least 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.640 doing that for limited periods of time. Right, what is 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:10.920 like a lot of the streaming ecosystem is I have 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.600 for four hours a day, I make a panopticon in 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.400 my gaming chair, right, Like that is one of the 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.119 most profitable forms of entertainment on the planet right now. 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.440 And I think when the because the alternative is like 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.760 airbrushed and perfect and unattainable visions of people, especially for youth. 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.520 I can understand why maybe deep down, you know, it's 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.679 it's like manufactured authenticity in scare quotes. But because the 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.360 alternative is so clearly manufactured, it's easy to think, like, well, 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:41.640 this at least feels a little more authentic, even if 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:42.280 it's bullshit. 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.600 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know, it may feel like 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.760 especially because of how universal that that kind of talk 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:54.080 about I like authentic, you know people in my media, 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:56.240 is that it may it may feel like a thing 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:58.640 that people have always wanted, but it really is not. 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.920 I mean again, if you remember the nineties, that was 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.480 not like people were obsessed with guys like Tom Cruise, 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.040 and the last thing anyone would ever say about Tom 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.840 Cruise is like that man is authentic, right, Like no, 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.280 Tom Cruise is like a fucking like a mirror that 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:19.080 we project onto you know. But he's like his his 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.960 his popularity came from his fundamental emptiness, right, And like 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:27.280 Arnold Schwarzenegger was a guy who was like actively created 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:29.880 during the period of time that he was like in 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.560 the public eye. If you look at early Arnold and 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.000 you know, to the point where he kind of figured 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:37.120 out who he was as a human being, Like, this 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.920 is not the way we thought about celebrities the entire 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.880 time that that has been a concept in like our culture, 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.640 and Oprah plays a huge role in this stuff. Reality 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:52.600 TV is in many ways downstream from Oprah. TikTok is 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:58.280 downstream from Oprah, and the Trump presidency is downstream from Oprah. Now, 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:02.040 I'm not saying Opra is to blame for this. I'm 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:06.559 saying is downstream from right in that I'm saying the 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:11.360 things that she did helped prepare the culture for that. 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.680 That's not implying a sort of moral responsibility for Donald Trump, 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:17.839 a guy she doesn't like and didn't want to be 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.079 the president. It's saying that the changes that she helped 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.040 rat in our culture were part of why we are 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.840 where we are today, right, And you can just see 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:28.960 that at the level of influence. This is a person 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.160 who at her peak thirty forty million people are tuning 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:36.880 into her show. Like the degree to which she has 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:42.679 changed the composition of our cultural soil can't be overstated. 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.079 And I hope that people can like take what I'm 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:48.560 saying without it being like Robert saying we should blame 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:50.800 Oprah for Trump. I really don't think that's the case. 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.000 I'm just saying part of why people like Trump is 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.840 his authenticity quote unquote. You listen to his supporters, that's 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.480 what they will say, and that being a huge virtue. 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.520 Oprah isn't the only person who started it or the 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.880 only person who led to that being the way that 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.280 it is, but Oprah being Oprah was a massive part 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:12.839 of why that shift occurred. Yeah. 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.480 I also think something that she does so well that 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:17.960 has really been made clear from the last few episodes 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:21.600 is that idea of the personal being the political, like yes, 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.120 really being able to blend those things in this way 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.520 that's just irresistible and like it's the reason why her 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.920 audience was getting up and sharing like their sexual assault 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.760 stories without even really being prompted, like me too, before 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.160 me too, with me too, you know, like this idea 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.400 of really being able to blend those ideas in a 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.840 way that make people want to connect and engage. 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.960 Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's a great way to point. 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.080 And it's also weird that you make that comment about 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.440 the personal being political because we're about to we're about 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.520 to read a quote that's right along those lines. So 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.800 in nineteen ninety eight, Jet magazine defined Oprah the word 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.960 as a verb meaning to engage in persistent, intimate questioning 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:03.000 with the intention of obtaining a confession. Now, a good 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:05.439 example of how pushy she got with this and this 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:09.560 is I tried to find this clip every A lot 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.520 of the bad Oprah clips that have gone viral have 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:14.760 been purged from the internet, as we'll talk about. But 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.880 in two thousand and four, Oprah has the Olsen Twins 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.319 on her show as guests. Now at this point they 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.280 are both seventeen years old. If you are on the 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:25.400 younger side and you do not recall it, or you 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.520 recall the Olsen Twins as you know adult movie stars, 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.840 which they are today, let me kind of walk you 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.000 through who the Olsen Twins are Culturally. These were two 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.040 of alongside mcaulay coch and probably the two like two 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:41.680 like of the three or four biggest child stars this 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.000 country's ever had. Right, they are famous from the point 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:48.160 that they are very little kids and they are famous, 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.040 and this is kind of unusual. The entire time that 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.400 their children effectively, this is not a thing where like 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.400 they're in one big movie and then they kind of 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.880 drop out of cultural awareness, like you know, Jake Lloyd 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.960 or someone like that. They are in full house and 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.640 they remain in movies that are very stuff like The 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.480 Parent Trap all the way up until they are adults. 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.959 And some of this is just you know, people like them. 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.559 They're they're good child actors. But also there's a lot 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.800 of like very creepy pedophile stuff in here. A significant number, 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:21.720 a shocking number of adult men will openly admit to 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.200 keeping track of the when the Olsen twins are turning eighteen. 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.320 This was a big deal on the Internet in the 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:32.000 early ads. It is as gross as it sounds, but 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.520 it was not a fringe thing, Like I am telling 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:36.680 you right now. This was not a tiny number of 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.760 weirdo pedophiles. A lot of men were willing to put 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:44.600 their names to keeping track of that. Ew yes, you. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.760 What fucked up time to the old young woman on 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.040 the internet, Like the internet all came of age. 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.200 And yeah, it's good to remember that as we talked 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:57.400 about how bad it's gotten that like yeah, well and 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:04.160 great back in two thousand and four, God, yeah, it was. 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.400 Like this trend that's going around on TikTok right now. 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.680 But it's like it's like, oh, you're so beautiful. And 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:11.760 then it's like thanks, and then you list something that 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.400 you grew up with that made you the way that 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.400 you are, and it's like, this is exactly what that is. 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.960 It's like, oh, your superpoints, Like thanks. 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.360 I grew up in the error where grown men tracked 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:23.240 told the Olsen twins. 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.120 Were yeah again, my god. 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:28.120 We talked about thought crime. 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:28.840 Little joke. 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.240 I'm generally against thought crimes. All of those men should 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:33.000 have been arrested. 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:33.640 All that. 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.360 So, as a result of all this, the bodies in 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:41.760 the weight loss were gain of the Olsen twins became 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.760 regular fodder for tabloids. It should not be shocking. I 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:49.280 think both of them developed eating disorders, not really surprising. 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.920 So during their interview with Oprah, this comes up, and 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.760 the interview starts with some pretty anodyne stuff. Part one 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.760 you can still find unedited online, and they're talking about 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.440 like who's messier, and they're in terms of keeping their 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.240 room clean, what's their allowance that their dad gives them, 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.280 et cetera. Later on in the interview, though, Oprah starts 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.800 to probe the two about tabloid rumors that they had 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:14.680 and eating that one or both of them suffered from 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.520 an eating disorder, saying, quote, I know a new rumor 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:20.360 that's recently surfaced has really upset you, right, you know, 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:24.680 the one about eating. The girls get visibly uncomfortable, and 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:29.000 Ashley immediately tries to shut the topic down. She replies, yeah, 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.040 you know, people are gonna write what they're gonna write. 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:32.760 We try not to read the good or the bad 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:35.200 because it just comes with the territory. Either you too fat, 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.240 too skinny, and people are just gonna write what they 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.880 And then Oprah interrupts her, asking what size are you? 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:46.160 By the way, now, Oprah, you have dealt with some 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:50.080 of the most unhinged fucking obsession with your body weight 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.640 that like we've tried, we were I think quite sympathetic 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.840 of in previous episodes. You should know that's fucked up. 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.240 She's seventeen, God damn it. 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.800 Like, oh, what's gosh? I mean not to like I. 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.080 Know you've already you've probably talked about this when you 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.760 did his episode, but like doctor Phil taking teenagers up 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.000 on stage and like asking if they had preston plants, 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:16.840 Like right, this was like yeah, kus, what was okay? 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.200 On like mainstream daytime television when. 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.479 We talk about modern social media being downstream from this. 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.000 Think of all of the different parents who we now 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.800 know were like who got famous as like mommy bloggers, 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.680 or like I've got a YouTube channel featuring my kids 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.520 and their development and it comes out three four, five, 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.400 six years later. Oh, that was an incredibly abusive situation 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.400 where they were basically turning their kids, like mining their 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.520 children for money and deeply psychologically and often physically abusing 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:47.480 them to make them more profitable. 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.400 Right, I mean, speaking of thought crime the Internet. 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.080 One of the Internet's sort of positive things is at 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:54.280 least there's a paper. 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.520 Trail for all this shit. Yeah, yeah, Jesus Christ, Yeah, you. 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.679 Know what's crazy you were saying. So that part of 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.960 the clip is scrubbed from the Internet. Where Oprah asks 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:05.359 their size. 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.480 It is very hard to find. So I want to finish, 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.000 finish the scene. Oh sorry, So the girls respond after 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.840 Oprah interrupts them to ask their size, like, well, like, 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.960 you know, we're celebrities. We get our clothing tailored, Like 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:17.960 I don't know what my size is, right, I don't 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.639 like good with store and buy clothes, right, And Oprah responds, 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:24.359 that's so interesting. I'm obsessed with size and You're like, 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:28.439 I really don't know, there's a lot there. I don't know, 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:31.560 I don't know, I don't know, Like you put a 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.720 team of psychiatrists on that that two sentences. 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.159 It was more just what I was trying to what 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:40.080 I was curious about, was like because in the last episode, 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.760 we watched a clip of Joan Rivers doing a version 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.359 of this to Oprah, right and. 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:48.920 On misery demand, it builds up like a coastal shelf. 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:54.679 Yeah, it's like it's it is wild too for Oprah 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.719 to have been upset by the Joe Rivers version of this, 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.480 And then I mean, it's not surprising, but it is 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:04.760 really like remarkably un self aware or on empathetic. 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.760 When we talked about how much she regrets her wagon 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.040 full of Fat incident, I really think that what she 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:14.560 regrets is making like a lot of speculation about her weight. Personally, 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:16.840 I don't think she has any problem with the way 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.960 that she has foisted that same level of scrutiny about 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.920 weight onto others. I think that she is perfectly fine. 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:25.600 And if that's complacent in that dynamic that has been 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:27.480 so unhealthy for so many people. 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.760 Yeah, I would agree one hundred percent Bridget. Now, as 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.360 we talked to I talked about a bit ago with you, Andrew, 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:36.760 we're not watching this clip. I would have preferred to 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.760 play it, because it's been pretty well expunged from the internet. 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:40.879 Now. 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.119 I'm not going to say I did not spend hours 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.000 on this, but I spent a good like twenty minutes 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.000 or so trying to find this clip, and all that 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:50.679 I was able to get are like viral clips on 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.120 TikTok that are heavily edited because a couple of years ago, 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:58.119 this particular chunk of the interview went kind of viral 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.160 on TikTok because people have been one of the things 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.000 that's been happening over the last two years or so 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:07.840 on social media TikTok primarily but not exclusively, is people 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.760 have been like kind of relitigating some of Oprah's worst moments, 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.280 and she has been receiving some criticism. So this went 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:17.360 viral and people were like, rightfully, this is pretty fucked up. 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:22.040 As a consequence, though, damn near every pure clip I 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.359 have not been able to find a pure, unedited clip 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.440 of this moment. I'm able to find TikTok videos where 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.520 the audio is overlaid with some shitty AI voice or 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:34.120 asshole narrating that like makes me want to nuke every 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.359 data center on Earth. Like the way these things are 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:38.600 like edited and put together, and like the whole screen 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:40.760 is covered with text, and I just hate it. I 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.000 hate the way this stuff looks, and I haven't found 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:44.800 a clean clip of it, That's what I'm saying. And 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.360 that's often the case with some of Oprah's like worst moments. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:50.880 You know, a lot of this stuff has been purged, 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.280 and because most of her stuff was on daytime TV 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:55.800 in the eighties and nineties, a lot of it is 0:20:55.840 --> 0:21:01.240 effectively lost media for our purposes. Anyway, I just found 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:01.920 that interesting. 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:06.200 There's someone's parents have this on VHS somewhere. Next time 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.960 you're a home for anie holiday. Check the tapes. 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.879 Yes, probably my late mother, because she did tape Oprah's 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:13.320 and she. 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:14.720 Would watch them on VHS. 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.120 I have so many, like burned in my memory clips 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.080 of Oprah being not great, but like I probably could 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.240 not find them, like I think. Nathan Lane has talked 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:27.520 about how when him and the late Robin Williams were 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:30.520 on the show, Oprah was really grilling him about his 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:33.320 sexuality and that luckily Robin Williams stepped in to make 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:35.080 a joke out of it and take the heat off 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:37.320 of him because he wasn't out. She did the same 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:40.040 thing to Dennis Rodman, like she really when it came 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:44.080 to men and their sexuality, she did some like I 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:45.720 think we would look at back at some of those clips, 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:48.040 the way that she was grilling these people and think like, well, 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.800 that really wasn't cool. But all of those clips are 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:51.919 so difficult to find. 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:56.320 Yeah, yeah, I mean I think it's a little bit 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:58.919 too speaking of the political that like, because she's a 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:03.359 black woman, make assumptions of what her like politics and 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.960 values are that don't have to be true. And we 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.760 see this in like the actual questions and like her 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:14.800 the editorialslan, which is like, fine, she's obviously allowed to 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.159 have those opinions, but it's I think there's there's a 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.400 big like we build up as a culture, like who 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.600 we think Oprah ought to be, and the bastardy happens 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:26.560 in the difference between those two things. 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.960 Yeah, that's I think actually a very good way of 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.480 talking about it. Andrew also shout out to the late 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:39.239 Robin Williams. You do like moments like this, do like 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.480 reveal character on behalf of some people, and it's always 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:45.240 nice to get like, Okay, he was a really nice man. 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:46.440 That's good. 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:50.000 I rewatched Goodwill Hunting. I think I may have been 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:52.240 for the first time. I had like vague memories of it, 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.760 and that like scene where he's hugging Matt Damon, I 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:56.879 just had the thought, like, God, damn, there's not a 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:59.199 problem in my life that wouldn't be fixed with a 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.040 good Robin Williams hug. Like that man looked like he 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:09.000 gave great hugs anyway. Yeah, Rip, we've probably talked about 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:12.280 Oprah more. Around the same time Jet Magazine made Oprah 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:15.640 a verb, the Wall Street Journal introduced the term oprah 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:19.000 Fication in order to complain that political discourse in the 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:21.480 country had become And this is what you had mentioned, Bridge, 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:25.160 This is what you had mentioned, Bridget public confession as 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:29.800 a form of therapy, Right, So great minds. Well, actually, 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:31.879 I think you're considerably a better mind than anyone at 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:33.760 the Wall Street Journal. But you guys had the same 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:39.879 basic take. And this is kind of noteworthy because therapy 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.560 is at the core of Oprah's appeal and the growth 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:46.120 in our understanding of not just the value of therapy, 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:48.960 which I think is generally good, but in the use 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:53.080 of like therapy speak in everyday life, and to some 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:56.639 extent the I think massive overuse of therapy speak at 0:23:56.680 --> 0:24:00.439 everyday life, this is very much tied to OPRAH. And 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:03.239 the way in which therapy is tied to OPRAH is 0:24:03.240 --> 0:24:08.119 not actual clinical therapy, which is of course potentially extremely 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.879 valuable for people, but a simulacrum of therapy, one that 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:16.040 apes the definitions in terms used by clinicians and often 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:20.000 apes actual clinical expertise by bringing in oaths like doctor 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:24.280 phil who are in no way actually doing good therapy, 0:24:24.280 --> 0:24:26.840 and in fact are doing things that the ethics of 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:32.159 the discipline condemn pretty strongly, but are doing it in 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:35.240 such a way that people believe this is what therapy, 0:24:35.280 --> 0:24:38.439 This is medical work, right, This is somebody actually like 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:41.840 functioning as a mental health clinician, and I think that 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:45.520 does so in a way. Again, a lot of the way, 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.000 a lot of dialogue of discourse on like Twitter, is 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:55.359 downstream from this, this birth of understand that there's a 0:24:55.480 --> 0:24:59.240 value in like talking about mental health in a clinical way. 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:02.200 But also none of us are clinicians, and none of 0:25:02.280 --> 0:25:05.199 us are doing it right, and so we're like medicalizing 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:08.520 shit in ways that are in a lot of instances 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:12.600 deeply toxic and damaging to people. A lot of that 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:14.040 is tied directly to. 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:18.280 Oprah spoken like a true gas lighting narcissist Rber. 0:25:18.880 --> 0:25:19.600 Yes, thank you. 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:22.960 If you ever want to like win an argument in 0:25:23.000 --> 0:25:25.439 a certain kind of group house, if like you know 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:27.840 what I'm talking about, just to be like, he's gaslighting 0:25:27.880 --> 0:25:30.600 me into taking up the garbage, Yes, you'll win. 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:34.520 Yes, I'm being abused into doing the dishes effect. 0:25:34.520 --> 0:25:38.320 It's also even in the absence of the like perversions 0:25:38.359 --> 0:25:41.119 of it, just the simple act of doing it in 0:25:41.280 --> 0:25:45.159 public or as a performance, even if it were otherwise 0:25:45.240 --> 0:25:47.000 largely fine, which it isn't. 0:25:47.560 --> 0:25:52.000 I just I always think back to this happens every 0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:54.520 so often. There's one like six months ago, tens of 0:25:54.560 --> 0:25:56.680 thousands of people like liking and sharing it. If someone 0:25:56.720 --> 0:25:59.440 being like, you know, people with ADHD have no sense 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:03.600 of object permanence, Yes they do, man, that's not that's 0:26:03.600 --> 0:26:07.560 not five year olds have object permanence, bro, that is 0:26:07.600 --> 0:26:10.760 not ADHD. You are you are in an attempt to 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:14.440 bring up to create create empathy for people suffering from 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:19.359 severe ADHD. You are like dehumanizing them, like this is 0:26:19.440 --> 0:26:20.600 actually quite bad. 0:26:21.840 --> 0:26:27.080 Oh my god, that's like that's like medieval like Layman's 0:26:27.200 --> 0:26:30.119 understanding of the world, Like that's just like burn the 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:30.800 Witch type. 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:31.920 Yeah, yeah, we're back. 0:26:32.480 --> 0:26:34.520 Can we stop? Can we stop with some of this? 0:26:35.080 --> 0:26:38.199 I saw someone that said people that have ADHD can 0:26:38.240 --> 0:26:40.920 never pick a Halloween costume because there's too many choices, 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:43.080 and then the reply on Twitter was like. 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:44.679 Damn, can't you all do anything? 0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:49.399 Yeah again, my life is filled with and I have 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:54.760 like ADHD. The stuff people say about it online just 0:26:54.800 --> 0:26:57.359 feels like someone talking about aliens. I don't mean to 0:26:57.359 --> 0:26:58.640 like harp on it so much, but this is one 0:26:58.680 --> 0:27:02.000 I have like so much personal experience with that, Like 0:27:02.400 --> 0:27:05.280 I really and I don't want to get like lost 0:27:05.280 --> 0:27:09.919 down a rabbit hole here. But there's a very complicated 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:13.439 issue in it's good for people do have an understanding 0:27:13.520 --> 0:27:17.560 of mental health and do have an understanding of like therapy, 0:27:17.680 --> 0:27:21.960 and there are there's value in that some of that 0:27:22.359 --> 0:27:24.960 those discussions becoming more a part of like common parlance. 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.840 And also it can be very very toxic because people 0:27:29.119 --> 0:27:33.720 use it and weaponize it to an extent, and a 0:27:33.760 --> 0:27:36.680 lot of the irresponsibility that we see now kind of 0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:38.840 reflected down in social media and the way people talk 0:27:38.840 --> 0:27:42.399 about this stuff really gets launched by doctor Phil on 0:27:42.440 --> 0:27:45.120 the Oprah Winfrey Show. Right where you are you are 0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:51.480 using actual clinical psychology as a costume as opposed to 0:27:51.680 --> 0:27:54.359 as a way to actually help people, Like you are 0:27:54.480 --> 0:27:57.800 dressing that way so you can say whatever and do whatever, 0:27:59.080 --> 0:28:02.080 you know, and in this case, it was for entertainment purposes, right, 0:28:03.240 --> 0:28:05.600 And a lot of this ties in directly to the 0:28:05.640 --> 0:28:08.159 self help movement. You know, this is and this is 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:10.760 I think a toxic thing for therapy, right, because therapy 0:28:10.800 --> 0:28:14.560 should not be a thing that you do instead of 0:28:14.720 --> 0:28:17.800 helping other people and trying to better the world. And 0:28:17.840 --> 0:28:20.960 that's kind of the message of a great deal of 0:28:21.040 --> 0:28:24.480 like the way in which therapy is discussed on the 0:28:24.520 --> 0:28:27.000 Oprah Winfrey Show. And you even see stuff like Jordan 0:28:27.040 --> 0:28:29.600 Peterson saying like you can't fix the world until you've 0:28:29.600 --> 0:28:34.240 fixed yourself, which is simply untrue. And this ties into this, 0:28:34.240 --> 0:28:38.080 this kind of American civil religion of self help. If 0:28:38.080 --> 0:28:40.320 you remember the Woody Guthrie episodes, we talked about how 0:28:40.400 --> 0:28:42.920 during the Great Depression, starving farmers and their kids were 0:28:42.960 --> 0:28:46.440 listening to prototypes of Norman Vincent Norman Vincent Peel's The 0:28:46.560 --> 0:28:50.120 Power of Positive Thinking, right, which is basically this shares 0:28:50.200 --> 0:28:53.440 DNA with Prosperity Gospel, stuff with the Secret and mary 0:28:53.440 --> 0:28:55.800 Anne Williamson. The core of it is this idea that 0:28:56.800 --> 0:29:01.080 like attracts like. So if your negative thing, that's what's 0:29:01.160 --> 0:29:03.760 bringing bad things to you. And if you want to 0:29:03.800 --> 0:29:07.280 be wealthy, you have to think like a wealthy person, right, 0:29:07.320 --> 0:29:09.520 And you know some of the ways in which this 0:29:09.640 --> 0:29:12.040 gets passed down, like Prosperity Gospel, if you want to 0:29:12.040 --> 0:29:14.320 be wealthy, you need to give money. You don't have 0:29:14.480 --> 0:29:16.880 go into debt to give money to God, and then 0:29:16.920 --> 0:29:19.640 that kind of thinking will attract wealth towards you. 0:29:19.800 --> 0:29:19.960 Right. 0:29:21.080 --> 0:29:24.120 Alternatively, if you put down five thousand dollars for this 0:29:24.240 --> 0:29:28.120 seminar on how to like automatically generate books and put 0:29:28.120 --> 0:29:30.719 them on Amazon, you know, in order to make money 0:29:30.920 --> 0:29:33.360 that will attract wealth back too. You have to make 0:29:33.400 --> 0:29:36.160 the universe needs to see you make a sacrifice in 0:29:36.240 --> 0:29:38.840 order to know that you're serious about this before you 0:29:38.880 --> 0:29:42.000 can start attracting the money. Right, All of this stuff 0:29:42.640 --> 0:29:45.640 is it doesn't start obviously, again, as we talked about, 0:29:45.640 --> 0:29:48.560 this has been going on since like the early nineteen hundreds. 0:29:48.560 --> 0:29:51.560 It doesn't start with Oprah, but by bringing on mary 0:29:51.560 --> 0:29:54.520 Anne Williamson and then by pushing later the secret, she 0:29:54.840 --> 0:29:58.600 supercharges this shit, and she supercharges it at the same 0:29:58.640 --> 0:30:02.320 time as she is continually on the show pushing this, 0:30:03.880 --> 0:30:08.400 pushing therapy and a specific attitude towards therapy, right, which 0:30:09.040 --> 0:30:11.040 the overall thing you're supposed to take away from this 0:30:11.160 --> 0:30:14.280 is you can fix every problem in your life by 0:30:14.400 --> 0:30:19.000 changing your attitude. Now, that is simply untrue. Right, there 0:30:19.040 --> 0:30:26.080 are social problems and issues that affect people's ability to 0:30:26.200 --> 0:30:28.760 be happy, that are rooted in politics, that are rooted 0:30:28.800 --> 0:30:30.960 in history, that are rooted in things you have no 0:30:31.160 --> 0:30:34.560 control over. And it is true obviously your own attitude, 0:30:34.880 --> 0:30:37.440 you know, can matter a lot, and your resilience. But 0:30:37.920 --> 0:30:41.400 there's this big thesis of like every problem can be 0:30:41.520 --> 0:30:44.760 fixed by altering your attitude. You can even change the 0:30:44.800 --> 0:30:48.520 way the universe works by altering your attitude. That gets 0:30:48.560 --> 0:30:54.000 wrapped up in the kind of pro therapy ethos being 0:30:54.000 --> 0:30:57.560 pushed with Oprah in a way that warps what therapy is. 0:30:57.960 --> 0:31:02.000 And yeah, it's just it's it's it's complicated, but I 0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:04.000 think very profoundly toxic. 0:31:04.840 --> 0:31:10.960 Yeah, it turns therapy into like telekinesis magic. Yes, yeah, 0:31:11.240 --> 0:31:14.560 at at sort of best where it's just like and 0:31:15.400 --> 0:31:17.520 I guess to me, it's like all this shit, it's like, 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:22.440 do you never consider the counter factual of any of this? 0:31:22.920 --> 0:31:28.080 Like just like, oh, sorry kid, sorry about all your cancer. 0:31:28.200 --> 0:31:30.840 You should have had a better attitude. 0:31:30.880 --> 0:31:35.080 Like it's so fucking disgusting when you think about any 0:31:35.120 --> 0:31:39.239 failure case of this, and it's, oh, I don't know, 0:31:39.520 --> 0:31:41.400 it's so hard to argue against, but it's just like 0:31:41.440 --> 0:31:43.080 you're it's so gross for that reason. 0:31:43.080 --> 0:31:48.000 To me, Well, I actually think like it's incredibly like 0:31:48.080 --> 0:31:50.600 it's I completely it's like gross. It stocks like I 0:31:50.600 --> 0:31:55.160 completely agree, but it's also so enticing, right, Like I 0:31:55.200 --> 0:31:58.680 am some like I'll give myself as an example. I've 0:31:58.680 --> 0:32:01.640 been a little down the dumps, shall we say, since 0:32:01.800 --> 0:32:05.840 January twentieth, and you know, I like, you can feel 0:32:06.000 --> 0:32:09.080 very out of control and there's so much happening that 0:32:09.120 --> 0:32:12.080 I really can't control. Somebody coming in and saying, actually, 0:32:12.120 --> 0:32:14.640 you can control it, don't be afraid because it's all 0:32:14.680 --> 0:32:16.440 it's all in your head. And if you just did X, 0:32:16.560 --> 0:32:18.560 Y Z or got right in this way you can 0:32:18.720 --> 0:32:22.400 control it. That is so intoxicating, and especially as people 0:32:22.440 --> 0:32:26.040 feel out of control. Like I get why people like 0:32:26.120 --> 0:32:28.240 Oprah turned to this because it works. And I have 0:32:28.280 --> 0:32:29.920 to say, like, I get why it works. I get 0:32:29.960 --> 0:32:31.240 why it's effective. 0:32:31.240 --> 0:32:33.480 Well, because because there's like a germ of truth, like 0:32:33.520 --> 0:32:36.720 speaking of like Jordan Peterson. I did have a moment 0:32:36.720 --> 0:32:38.960 where I was like, you know, most of these boys 0:32:39.000 --> 0:32:41.320 that listen to him really could clean their room. 0:32:41.240 --> 0:32:45.400 More like and that would sensuably improve their. 0:32:45.280 --> 0:32:47.520 Lives, and then getting might help. 0:32:47.760 --> 0:32:51.760 Yeah, but then once once the little amount of information 0:32:52.720 --> 0:32:56.400 like actual of value that they've imparted has paid off, 0:32:56.680 --> 0:32:59.000 everything subsequent to that is complete bullshit. 0:32:59.600 --> 0:33:02.320 And it's just like the line of like how valuable 0:33:02.400 --> 0:33:03.360 this is is. 0:33:05.160 --> 0:33:07.959 But it's such a like even as we're talking, you 0:33:08.000 --> 0:33:10.080 see how you lose this argument because it's like. 0:33:10.640 --> 0:33:13.320 Well, okay, some of this works, but like not all 0:33:13.400 --> 0:33:15.280 of it, but I can't prove that none of it works, 0:33:15.280 --> 0:33:17.360 and no, da dah, and you just you become a 0:33:17.440 --> 0:33:20.160 dithering idiot in the face of all you have to 0:33:20.200 --> 0:33:21.200 do is be positive. 0:33:21.640 --> 0:33:24.640 Yeah, like a simple lie is always going to be 0:33:24.680 --> 0:33:27.200 better than a laborious. 0:33:26.640 --> 0:33:31.360 Refutation yeah, yeah, I think that's right, and I think fundamentally, 0:33:32.360 --> 0:33:34.720 you know, part of what's so poisonous here is that 0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:38.720 it's taking therapy and it's turning it into magic, right that, 0:33:38.840 --> 0:33:41.240 like this is a thing you can magically fix and 0:33:41.280 --> 0:33:44.520 have a breakthrough in twenty five minutes sitting on a 0:33:44.560 --> 0:33:46.680 couch in front of an audience with doctor Phil. Like 0:33:46.720 --> 0:33:49.920 that's the way therapy works. And also that's the way 0:33:49.960 --> 0:33:52.360 fixing the world works. Is if you change your attitude, 0:33:52.400 --> 0:33:53.760 all of these good things will come to you. You 0:33:53.760 --> 0:33:56.240 don't have to worry about dealing with structural problems in 0:33:56.640 --> 0:33:59.400 legislation and the government and all of this shit, like 0:33:59.440 --> 0:34:02.400 it's just you when in reality, therapy and making the 0:34:02.400 --> 0:34:06.400 world better work the same way, which is slowly doing 0:34:06.600 --> 0:34:12.080 laborious work consistently over long periods of time. Right, Yes, 0:34:12.160 --> 0:34:13.440 that's the problem. 0:34:13.560 --> 0:34:13.759 You know. 0:34:14.200 --> 0:34:16.160 It's like that episode of Rick and Morty when Rick 0:34:16.320 --> 0:34:18.560 goes to therapy and the therapist is like, I get 0:34:18.560 --> 0:34:20.880 that this is like flossing for you, and it's like 0:34:21.000 --> 0:34:23.120 not exciting and it doesn't happen all at once and 0:34:23.160 --> 0:34:26.319 it's just boring maintenance. But like that's the trick, Like 0:34:26.360 --> 0:34:28.359 that's the magic is you do it a lot, and 0:34:28.400 --> 0:34:31.239 you get small gains and maybe over the course of 0:34:31.280 --> 0:34:34.680 years you feel a little bit better consistently and like tada, 0:34:34.760 --> 0:34:36.040 Like people do. 0:34:36.000 --> 0:34:38.200 Want that magic solution in that magic bullet. 0:34:38.200 --> 0:34:41.160 I get why that's really enticing, but that's just not 0:34:41.239 --> 0:34:41.960 the way it works. 0:34:42.160 --> 0:34:44.000 And I think this is as someone who was in 0:34:44.040 --> 0:34:47.000 psychedelic delic culture fifteen years ago. This was one of 0:34:47.040 --> 0:34:50.440 the issues that we had with it, which is psychedelics, 0:34:50.440 --> 0:34:56.440 particularly LSD mushrooms MDMA have massive potential as ais therapeutic aids, 0:34:56.920 --> 0:34:59.680 but they aren't magic, and there's a degree to which 0:34:59.760 --> 0:35:03.400 people treated them both as magic and also as inherently positive. 0:35:03.760 --> 0:35:07.080 At this point, I have gone through enough self described 0:35:07.160 --> 0:35:11.359 radicalization journeys by nazis who credited it to an LSD trip. 0:35:11.440 --> 0:35:14.719 I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, this is a 0:35:14.800 --> 0:35:17.080 knife what cuts both ways? My friends. 0:35:17.600 --> 0:35:23.440 Yeah, it's just a big old scramble and you just wish, 0:35:23.760 --> 0:35:26.279 Yeah it works. And also it's such a it's such 0:35:26.280 --> 0:35:30.000 a like insidious grift because it's so easy. Then when 0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:33.400 it doesn't work, for you to point out that you 0:35:33.440 --> 0:35:35.640 didn't magic hard enough in various ways. 0:35:35.960 --> 0:35:38.399 Yeah, when your kid actually dies of the cancer they 0:35:38.440 --> 0:35:40.960 had because their vibes were off. You can just be like, no, 0:35:41.080 --> 0:35:42.960 you didn't want it, he didn't want to live enough, 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:45.920 or whatever. It's never the huckster's fault. 0:35:46.480 --> 0:35:47.080 Yeah. 0:35:47.239 --> 0:35:50.920 Now, speaking of your children dying, they never will if 0:35:50.960 --> 0:35:54.279 you purchase the products and services that are advertised on 0:35:54.320 --> 0:35:57.120 this on this podcast, it's the only way to keep 0:35:57.120 --> 0:36:06.920 your family safe. Probably we're back. So In her book 0:36:07.000 --> 0:36:10.040 The Age of Oprah, Jenny's Peck quotes a history of 0:36:10.040 --> 0:36:14.160 psychotherapy by Philip Cushman. He wrote in nineteen ninety five, quote, 0:36:14.200 --> 0:36:18.160 every era has a particular configuration of self illness healer technology. 0:36:18.360 --> 0:36:23.000 They are a kind of cultural package. They are interrelated, intertwined, interpenetrating. 0:36:23.239 --> 0:36:25.560 So when we study a particular illness, we are also 0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:28.400 studying the conditions that shape and define that illness and 0:36:28.440 --> 0:36:31.759 the sociopolitical impact of those who are responsible for healing it. 0:36:32.560 --> 0:36:37.400 Janis continues, Winfrey's identification is a spiritual healer. Her diagnosis 0:36:37.440 --> 0:36:40.000 of what ails us, and her prescribed cure are rooted 0:36:40.160 --> 0:36:43.560 historically in the therapeutic enterprise that emerged in the nineteenth 0:36:43.560 --> 0:36:46.600 century and was fully institutionalized in the United States by 0:36:46.600 --> 0:36:50.440 the mid twentieth century. Debbie Epstein and Deborah Steinberg suggest 0:36:50.480 --> 0:36:53.239 that the centrality of therapeutic discourse to the framing of 0:36:53.239 --> 0:36:56.799 the Oprah Winfrey Show issues from the increasing ubiquity of 0:36:56.840 --> 0:37:00.520 therapy as a language of self and interpersonal relationship, and 0:37:00.600 --> 0:37:04.080 even as a way of life. Winfrey's media enterprise draws 0:37:04.080 --> 0:37:06.200 heavily on a self help model of therapy, with its 0:37:06.239 --> 0:37:10.080 peculiarly American belief that the individual's power to initiate a 0:37:10.160 --> 0:37:13.840 renaissance of self, of nation, of other. This promise of 0:37:13.880 --> 0:37:17.200 individual efficacy and liberation is the ground upon which Winfrey's 0:37:17.200 --> 0:37:19.960 stakes are claimed to empower her followers. It is also 0:37:20.000 --> 0:37:23.399 the basis of observers claims that she is an inspirational phenomenon, 0:37:23.640 --> 0:37:26.440 a public leader, and quote almost a religion. 0:37:27.760 --> 0:37:30.560 Yeah, yeah, you know, as we're talking, I just had 0:37:30.560 --> 0:37:35.040 the realization that, like what kind of what Oprah offers 0:37:35.120 --> 0:37:39.040 is kind of like those like right wing pregnancy crisis centers. 0:37:39.760 --> 0:37:41.080 They're like abortion. 0:37:40.800 --> 0:37:45.080 Clinics, because it's like it's a simulacrum of the thing 0:37:45.200 --> 0:37:46.680 that you actually need. 0:37:48.200 --> 0:37:51.040 And it just serves these horrible ends. 0:37:51.560 --> 0:37:55.719 Like yeah, I guess those are at least directed and 0:37:55.800 --> 0:38:00.279 intentional and full of lies and throughout all the I 0:38:00.280 --> 0:38:03.640 will say, the thing that is like still kind of 0:38:03.640 --> 0:38:07.200 there is like it doesn't it still doesn't seem like 0:38:07.280 --> 0:38:11.360 Oprah is being intentionally eve or anyway. There's enough plausible 0:38:11.360 --> 0:38:12.479 deniability here. 0:38:12.520 --> 0:38:14.560 Oh yeah, yeah, I mean there's a ton of it, 0:38:14.680 --> 0:38:17.520 and like it's important not to as we kind of 0:38:17.560 --> 0:38:22.960 litigate bastardism like this is this is not an attempt 0:38:22.960 --> 0:38:26.200 by Oprah to shift the culture. This is just sort of, 0:38:26.239 --> 0:38:28.759 I think a mix of what she really believes, she 0:38:28.960 --> 0:38:32.560 really feels like personally, she had so much stacked against her, 0:38:32.760 --> 0:38:35.960 it was her attitude that allowed her to be successful, right, 0:38:36.320 --> 0:38:39.040 whereas the reality is, I mean, among other things, Oprah 0:38:39.040 --> 0:38:41.399 has said like she was an affirmative action higher that 0:38:41.520 --> 0:38:44.560 those programs and policies function the way they were supposed to, 0:38:44.840 --> 0:38:46.920 which was a person who maybe wouldn't have gotten that 0:38:47.000 --> 0:38:50.799 opportunity because of racism, got some opportunities that she proved 0:38:50.840 --> 0:38:53.560 to be excellently suited for. In addition to that, she 0:38:53.680 --> 0:38:57.520 had the fortune of like having a father who chose 0:38:57.760 --> 0:39:00.759 to be her father, did not actually have to take 0:39:00.800 --> 0:39:03.719 that role upon himself, and provided her with a lot 0:39:03.760 --> 0:39:07.000 of resources she otherwise wouldn't have had. And like, it's 0:39:07.000 --> 0:39:09.560 not just it wasn't just her attitude that led to 0:39:09.600 --> 0:39:11.880 her success, right, you know, as in this is the 0:39:11.880 --> 0:39:12.880 case for everybody. 0:39:13.000 --> 0:39:14.560 Right, But even even. 0:39:14.360 --> 0:39:18.680 While you're describing like like among her peers, she at 0:39:18.719 --> 0:39:22.839 least will acknowledge things like affirmative action, whereas like like 0:39:23.040 --> 0:39:26.600 every single billionaire you know, got to where they are 0:39:27.280 --> 0:39:33.919 with immense like moments of chance. They high they hire 0:39:34.000 --> 0:39:40.600 rolled many times in a row, and like the overarching 0:39:40.960 --> 0:39:46.400 like common commonality between most of them is they believe 0:39:46.800 --> 0:39:50.080 that none of that was chance. Yeah, over at least 0:39:50.080 --> 0:39:54.239 has a little bit of like like still least some millionaire. 0:39:54.560 --> 0:39:59.440 Absolutely. So there's an interesting bit about because I think 0:39:59.480 --> 0:40:01.920 it is important. The degree to which she was talked 0:40:01.960 --> 0:40:05.160 about as like a religious figure is kind of significant. 0:40:05.200 --> 0:40:07.920 And to kind of make that case, there's a chunk 0:40:07.960 --> 0:40:10.280 in the age of Oprah that talks about an expensive 0:40:10.320 --> 0:40:12.440 self help speaking to her when Free launched in the 0:40:12.480 --> 0:40:15.960 early two thousands, the Personal Growth Summit, And through that 0:40:16.040 --> 0:40:18.440 I found a review of the Personal Growth Summit in 0:40:18.480 --> 0:40:21.920 the La Times, which is a real newspaper that was 0:40:22.000 --> 0:40:25.200 purportedly reputable at least in that era. This is what 0:40:25.680 --> 0:40:29.000 this is the reviewer. A prophet walks among us, and 0:40:29.040 --> 0:40:31.520 her name is Oprah. You know her as a television 0:40:31.520 --> 0:40:33.840 talk show host, one of the most popular, successful, and 0:40:33.880 --> 0:40:36.600 recognizable women of our time. But make no mistake, she 0:40:36.719 --> 0:40:39.720 is also a healer, sent to earth to spread the word. 0:40:40.040 --> 0:40:42.720 Perhaps it is only fitting that a twenty first century 0:40:42.760 --> 0:40:45.360 wise man is a woman and that her chief medium 0:40:45.400 --> 0:40:48.359 is electronic Buddha might have taken to the airwaves had 0:40:48.360 --> 0:40:51.640 they been available. Gifted with a profound moral insight an 0:40:51.640 --> 0:40:54.920 exceptional rapport with her followers, Oprah Winfrey has grown from 0:40:54.960 --> 0:40:58.239 a masterful communicator into an inspirational phenomenon. 0:41:00.320 --> 0:41:02.399 I need to know who wrote that and where they 0:41:02.400 --> 0:41:02.839 are now. 0:41:03.800 --> 0:41:10.919 I could pull that up absolutely. Yeah, let's check this out. 0:41:11.600 --> 0:41:15.360 Flocking to the Church of Oprah June twenty fifth, two thousand, 0:41:15.719 --> 0:41:19.360 Times staff writer. They took a name on it, Ah, 0:41:19.560 --> 0:41:20.359 you sons a bit. 0:41:20.600 --> 0:41:23.000 You know, It's like somebody was embarrassed by that, and 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:23.640 it was like, look at that. 0:41:23.760 --> 0:41:28.359 Yeah, I can't have this detention to me done that now. 0:41:28.400 --> 0:41:30.600 One thing that's really interesting to me about Oprah is 0:41:30.600 --> 0:41:33.120 that she demonstrates how quickly the worm can turn for 0:41:33.200 --> 0:41:36.080 a celebrity once they leave the public eye. Because like 0:41:36.080 --> 0:41:39.200 twenty eleven, I think is Winner Show stops being on 0:41:39.239 --> 0:41:42.880 the air as a daily thing, and QAnon starts about 0:41:42.880 --> 0:41:46.640 a decade later. Right, so she is. She stops being 0:41:46.719 --> 0:41:51.840 a daily figure for most Americans about a decade before QAnon. 0:41:52.200 --> 0:41:55.080 And yet in twenty twenty, a sizeable chunk of the 0:41:55.160 --> 0:41:58.280 QAnon movement starts spreading rumors that Oprah has been secretly 0:41:58.400 --> 0:42:01.840 arrested for sex trafficking. Now, this is obviously untrue, but 0:42:01.920 --> 0:42:04.680 there are some things that fuel the allegations. One of 0:42:04.719 --> 0:42:08.239 them is Oprah's long standing professional relationships with two men 0:42:08.280 --> 0:42:12.160 who have definitely did sex trafficking, Harvey Weinstein and our 0:42:12.200 --> 0:42:15.840 old friend p Diddy. Now, for Weinstein's case, there is 0:42:15.880 --> 0:42:18.359 a photo of Oprah kissing Weinstein on the cheek, which 0:42:18.400 --> 0:42:21.480 you can find without much effort. I have found zero 0:42:21.640 --> 0:42:26.200 solid information that implies anything beyond a professional relationship between Oprah, 0:42:26.280 --> 0:42:30.760 who stars in one movie produced by his company, and Weinstein. However, 0:42:30.840 --> 0:42:34.480 there have been allegations made by other celebrities. I should 0:42:34.520 --> 0:42:37.560 note that when interviewed about Weinstein by Gwyneth Paltrow, Oprah 0:42:37.600 --> 0:42:39.759 said what I knew about Harvey was that Harvey was 0:42:39.800 --> 0:42:42.200 a bully and that if Harvey's on the phone, you go, God, 0:42:42.480 --> 0:42:44.080 you don't want to take the call because you're going 0:42:44.120 --> 0:42:47.920 to get bullied in some way. That is probably true 0:42:48.000 --> 0:42:50.440 in that a lot of people talk about a lot 0:42:50.440 --> 0:42:53.000 of people who worked with Harvey talked about him that way. 0:42:53.200 --> 0:42:57.520 He's kind of the archetypal dick producer. That said. People 0:42:57.560 --> 0:43:02.200 have alleged that Oprah knew more was aware of a 0:43:02.280 --> 0:43:06.640 lot of the illegal, bad stuff Weinstein was doing. I 0:43:06.680 --> 0:43:10.200 think that's also very likely. A great deal of people 0:43:10.320 --> 0:43:14.040 in Hollywood knew something, and someone as powerful as Oprah 0:43:14.480 --> 0:43:19.680 was probably to some extent aware of Weinstein's problematic behavior. Now, 0:43:19.719 --> 0:43:22.960 that does not mean she was directly enabling or helping 0:43:23.000 --> 0:43:25.640 to hide it. It's just the kind of gross thing 0:43:25.719 --> 0:43:28.600 that a lot of people in the industry did, right. 0:43:28.680 --> 0:43:32.359 I mean, Seth MacFarlane is like came out and made 0:43:32.360 --> 0:43:35.480 some joke about Weinstein during one awards ceremony or the other. 0:43:35.560 --> 0:43:38.680 That was like a big deal because everyone was aware 0:43:38.719 --> 0:43:41.000 of the fact that Harvey was, you know, maybe not 0:43:41.080 --> 0:43:42.680 certainly not the extent of what he was doing, but 0:43:42.719 --> 0:43:45.239 everyone knew He's not a safe guy to leave a 0:43:45.280 --> 0:43:47.920 young woman alone with right to the extent that, like, 0:43:48.239 --> 0:43:50.520 someone would make a joke about that, and I think 0:43:50.520 --> 0:43:54.440 it was the Oscars, the Emmys or whatever, and people 0:43:54.560 --> 0:43:57.080 got it because he was that much of a famous creep. 0:43:58.800 --> 0:44:00.759 And in the case of Rose mcgo and, who called 0:44:00.800 --> 0:44:03.120 Winfrey as fake as they come as a result of 0:44:03.120 --> 0:44:07.000 her condemning Weinstein, her issue with Oprah comes from the 0:44:07.040 --> 0:44:09.479 fact that Oprah had been set to produce a movie 0:44:09.520 --> 0:44:13.480 about famed sex abuser Russell Simmons, and then resigned from 0:44:13.520 --> 0:44:18.319 producing that movie. Oprah claims she had creative differences. I'm 0:44:18.360 --> 0:44:21.600 not interested in litigating that, in part because that's all 0:44:21.640 --> 0:44:25.080 I can find on the matter, and that's not conclusive. 0:44:25.120 --> 0:44:26.960 There's a lot of reasons why you would drop out 0:44:27.000 --> 0:44:29.920 of producing a movie that doesn't really count as like 0:44:30.280 --> 0:44:32.400 you're trying to cover it up. I'm vun any evidence 0:44:32.480 --> 0:44:35.439 she tried to stop the thing from being made, right, 0:44:36.160 --> 0:44:38.359 Rose is not the only celebrity who was alleged that 0:44:38.360 --> 0:44:42.280 Oprah knew more about Weinstein than she let On Seal 0:44:42.680 --> 0:44:45.040 came out the guy who wrote Kiss from a Rose 0:44:45.120 --> 0:44:47.520 and has made allegations that basically, you knew a lot 0:44:47.600 --> 0:44:51.920 more than you're saying. Again, this may be true. Seal 0:44:52.000 --> 0:44:55.080 has also been accused of and investigated for sexual battery. 0:44:55.280 --> 0:44:59.759 So yeah, you know, I don't know where we want 0:44:59.760 --> 0:45:00.520 to go there. 0:45:01.080 --> 0:45:05.160 I mean it is sort of that like not mud slinging, 0:45:05.239 --> 0:45:09.359 because it's factual. That's like, I mean again, you're we're 0:45:09.440 --> 0:45:12.719 barely past the era of or not even we're still 0:45:12.719 --> 0:45:16.600 within the era of men on the internet being like 0:45:17.280 --> 0:45:20.480 oh I can't wait t other you know xyz like 0:45:20.680 --> 0:45:25.000 young Woman as eighteen. I It's it's a little bit 0:45:25.040 --> 0:45:28.080 of that, like this ship was definitely happening, by the way, 0:45:28.239 --> 0:45:32.799 definitely is happening, and there's whispers about it, but like 0:45:33.000 --> 0:45:33.560 you kind. 0:45:33.440 --> 0:45:36.360 Of just like there's there's a limit to what you 0:45:36.400 --> 0:45:36.879 can do. 0:45:37.080 --> 0:45:40.359 So like, yeah, it's that kind of thing where like 0:45:40.640 --> 0:45:45.680 every time, like like Democrats go after Republicans and they're like, oh, 0:45:45.800 --> 0:45:48.640 you wouldn't want this turn back on you, like, oh, 0:45:48.719 --> 0:45:51.520 we're gonna we're gonna go after your heroes, and it's 0:45:51.560 --> 0:45:54.200 like truly, like yes, they're all fucking horrible people. Get 0:45:54.239 --> 0:45:58.560 them all out of there. If you've done crime, I 0:45:58.640 --> 0:46:01.560 don't care what political party or like who you are 0:46:01.640 --> 0:46:02.280 in the culture. 0:46:02.920 --> 0:46:06.160 This does, though there's also a murkier aspect of it, 0:46:06.239 --> 0:46:10.799 where again, when we say Oprah probably knew something about Weinstein, 0:46:10.840 --> 0:46:15.160 I'm not saying Oprah new Weinstein had committed a litany 0:46:15.280 --> 0:46:18.799 of felonies. Oprah new he's kind of like he's like, 0:46:18.880 --> 0:46:21.520 he'll sexually harass you, he'll make gross comments. You know, 0:46:21.600 --> 0:46:22.279 he might like. 0:46:23.560 --> 0:46:25.800 Or it's like Hollywood in that, like, yeah, you heard 0:46:25.840 --> 0:46:26.680 a bunch of stuff. 0:46:26.760 --> 0:46:31.440 You don't have evidence, and like you can there's legal 0:46:31.480 --> 0:46:35.360 consequences for just like accusing someone to powerful and wealthy 0:46:35.400 --> 0:46:39.120 without those evidence, yea of like being a sex offender. 0:46:39.239 --> 0:46:41.760 Like and this is the kind of thing where it's like, Okay, 0:46:41.760 --> 0:46:46.279 so we're attacking Oprah for stuff like her involvement in Weinstein. 0:46:46.680 --> 0:46:50.759 I don't know how extensive it was. Everyone kind of 0:46:50.840 --> 0:46:54.800 involved in the mud slinging has ulterior motives and it's weird. 0:46:55.360 --> 0:46:57.759 What I can prove is that Weinstein and Oprah worked 0:46:57.800 --> 0:47:00.960 together at some point and that likewise, Oprah went to 0:47:01.040 --> 0:47:03.880 a number of Ditty's parties. And these are specifically the 0:47:03.960 --> 0:47:07.440 white parties, right, the ones that were not exclusively devoted 0:47:07.440 --> 0:47:10.800 to sex crimes. So I part of the issue is 0:47:10.800 --> 0:47:15.200 that these two are both very famous people and in 0:47:15.239 --> 0:47:18.479 the industry Oprah was in, and so obviously she had 0:47:18.719 --> 0:47:22.880 personal and professional connections to them. But again, when it 0:47:22.920 --> 0:47:26.600 comes to actual crimes, there is zero evidence of Oprah 0:47:26.640 --> 0:47:31.200 directly enabling or directly covering up either of those men's crimes. 0:47:31.400 --> 0:47:35.279 That evidence does not exist, and from what I've seen, 0:47:35.280 --> 0:47:37.960 it looks like she's probably guilty of the same thing 0:47:38.080 --> 0:47:40.200 most people at her level in Hollywood are, which is 0:47:40.200 --> 0:47:42.319 being like that guy seems fucked up. I'm just not 0:47:42.360 --> 0:47:43.200 going to get too close. 0:47:44.239 --> 0:47:46.319 Yeah, I do want to give a plug to the 0:47:46.360 --> 0:47:48.759 documentary that she pulled out of, because it did end 0:47:48.800 --> 0:47:49.600 up getting produced. 0:47:49.600 --> 0:47:51.720 It's called on the Record. It tells. 0:47:51.800 --> 0:47:55.040 It features Drew Dixon, who is this like very iconic 0:47:55.120 --> 0:47:58.440 hip hop producer who her entire career was almost derailed 0:47:58.480 --> 0:48:03.360 because of people like Russells, and so, yeah, I also 0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:05.520 agree that I think that when it comes to Oprah 0:48:05.600 --> 0:48:08.960 and these powerful men, I think that like that, I 0:48:09.040 --> 0:48:13.359 understand why it lends itself to conspiracy theories. Because powerful, rich, 0:48:13.440 --> 0:48:16.759 famous people know each other, they work together, they're photographed 0:48:16.760 --> 0:48:20.640 with each other like that doesn't mean that some that 0:48:20.920 --> 0:48:23.840 doesn't mean that Oprah like had a direct hand in 0:48:24.040 --> 0:48:27.400 enabling Weinstein's sex crimes, but like, like, that's just how 0:48:27.400 --> 0:48:27.800 it works. 0:48:28.280 --> 0:48:31.920 Weinstein wouldn't need her for that, right, There's no line 0:48:32.400 --> 0:48:35.560 between the women that he abused and like Oprah unlike. 0:48:35.760 --> 0:48:40.319 For examples, we'll talk about Oprah told women John of 0:48:40.400 --> 0:48:42.920 God was a safe guy to fly to fucking Brazil 0:48:43.000 --> 0:48:45.239 and get treated by and a number of women got 0:48:45.280 --> 0:48:48.160 raped because they took the advice of the Oprah Winfrey 0:48:48.200 --> 0:48:51.560 show endorsing this man. That is something that she should 0:48:51.560 --> 0:48:54.200 be held accountable for. I just don't have any evidence 0:48:54.320 --> 0:48:57.400 that she's done anything in the Weinstein case or in 0:48:57.400 --> 0:49:00.360 the p Didty case. Now, the most bullshit thing she 0:49:00.400 --> 0:49:03.560 gets accused of by the QAnon types is involvement with 0:49:03.680 --> 0:49:08.480 Jeffrey Epstein. If you google Oprah Winfrey Epstein, you will 0:49:08.520 --> 0:49:12.400 also come across this. Randomly. You will find articles and 0:49:12.560 --> 0:49:17.240 viral tweets and tiktoks, all of which have some variation 0:49:17.320 --> 0:49:20.320 of the sentence Oprah Winfrey mentioned five times and files 0:49:20.360 --> 0:49:25.080 related to the Epstein case. That sounds bad, right, Let's 0:49:25.120 --> 0:49:29.759 look into what that means. So one of the things 0:49:29.800 --> 0:49:31.480 that turned me onto this was a viral post on 0:49:31.520 --> 0:49:34.400 Facebook with the title justin Oprah has been revealed as 0:49:34.400 --> 0:49:37.839 a client on the Epstein list, capitalizing the first letter 0:49:37.880 --> 0:49:41.399 of each of those words, what's your reaction and that's 0:49:41.440 --> 0:49:45.040 complete bullshit. Oprah's name shows up five times in documents 0:49:45.080 --> 0:49:48.600 for the Epstein case. The first two times are because 0:49:48.640 --> 0:49:53.400 the files include screenshots of articles, one from Radar Online 0:49:53.440 --> 0:49:57.040 and one from the Daily Mail. Those articles in the 0:49:57.040 --> 0:50:00.680 bottom of them have a suggested other re You know 0:50:00.719 --> 0:50:03.000 how articles work. You finish an article will say, hey, 0:50:03.080 --> 0:50:05.560 you might be interested in this article on a different topic. 0:50:06.239 --> 0:50:10.520 Those articles that were suggested by the articles relevant to 0:50:10.560 --> 0:50:14.839 the Epstein trial mentioned Oprah. That's two of the five mentions, right, 0:50:15.280 --> 0:50:18.400 is something completely unrelated to the case that just because 0:50:18.440 --> 0:50:22.520 somebody fucking screen grabbed the whole page, Oprah's name winds 0:50:22.600 --> 0:50:25.640 up on it. The other three times come from emails 0:50:25.719 --> 0:50:29.000 introduced as evidence, where a journalist working with one of 0:50:29.000 --> 0:50:33.080 Epstein's accusers on a book tells a book agent, I 0:50:33.160 --> 0:50:36.959 think this book will sell well to Oprah's audience. Now, 0:50:39.320 --> 0:50:42.040 if you're keeping track, what does that mean? Which means 0:50:42.040 --> 0:50:44.080 Oprah has nothing to fucking do with Jeffrey Epstein. 0:50:44.480 --> 0:50:48.040 I mean the other just like heuristic way to look 0:50:48.080 --> 0:50:51.040 at it is if these fox had concrete evidence on 0:50:51.120 --> 0:50:54.360 a black woman, you sure as fuck we would know 0:50:54.440 --> 0:50:54.920 about it. 0:50:55.160 --> 0:50:57.799 Yes, oh my god, would you get the pictures that'd 0:50:57.800 --> 0:51:00.920 be screenshots or be emails tie wise whole works. 0:51:01.040 --> 0:51:04.000 Like there would there'd be no need for insinuation if 0:51:04.040 --> 0:51:05.320 any evidence existed. 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:08.439 It's this way a question. So yeah, yeah, what. 0:51:08.480 --> 0:51:12.920 Like when so there are documented connections with Oprah and 0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:15.440 like men who turned out to be creeps who were 0:51:15.800 --> 0:51:16.480 safe to be around. 0:51:16.560 --> 0:51:18.160 Yeah, you can see, and she's there's a picture of 0:51:18.160 --> 0:51:19.799 her kissing Weinstein on the neck, you know. 0:51:19.920 --> 0:51:23.280 But like, why do you think people obsess about these 0:51:23.600 --> 0:51:26.480 bullshit claims about her connection to people like Epstein when 0:51:26.520 --> 0:51:29.600 there are documented connections between her and people who were 0:51:29.719 --> 0:51:32.640 back like genuinely, Like that is a smoking gun where 0:51:32.640 --> 0:51:34.440 she said this guy was safe and endorsed him and 0:51:34.480 --> 0:51:36.640 then he wasn't. Like why do people focus so much 0:51:36.680 --> 0:51:37.640 on the ones that are bullshit? 0:51:37.840 --> 0:51:40.160 Because the people who hate Oprah and are making stuff 0:51:40.239 --> 0:51:42.759 up about her primarily hate her because she is a 0:51:42.800 --> 0:51:45.399 liberal figure and the celebrity is the same reason they're 0:51:45.400 --> 0:51:48.960 going after like Tom Hanks, right, because he was pro vaccine. 0:51:49.600 --> 0:51:52.720 The other thing is the stuff she's done that's bad 0:51:53.040 --> 0:51:57.239 is stuff they do in love and don't think is bad, right, Yeah, 0:51:57.480 --> 0:52:00.840 you know, like that's that's that's what it's why when 0:52:00.920 --> 0:52:03.680 people talk about the problem of child sex abuse in 0:52:03.760 --> 0:52:07.640 child sex trafficking, they obsessed with this largely fanciful idea 0:52:07.680 --> 0:52:10.240 of like three and four year olds being trafficked around 0:52:10.239 --> 0:52:12.920 the world in large numbers and abducted from their fucking 0:52:12.920 --> 0:52:16.000 white families, which is not really the issue. The issue 0:52:16.040 --> 0:52:20.640 is primarily a dope men related to sixteen and seventeen 0:52:20.680 --> 0:52:23.880 and fifteen year old girls molesting them, you know. And 0:52:24.040 --> 0:52:25.800 part of why they don't like to do that is 0:52:25.840 --> 0:52:27.800 that an awful lot of the guys who obsessed with 0:52:27.960 --> 0:52:30.600 shoot your local pedophile, think it would be fine if 0:52:30.640 --> 0:52:32.759 they married a sixteen year old as long as you know, 0:52:32.840 --> 0:52:34.480 they did it in the church and their parents were 0:52:34.520 --> 0:52:36.480 okay with it. Yeah, that's why, you know. 0:52:36.560 --> 0:52:38.759 Well, and then also the other big portion of it 0:52:38.840 --> 0:52:40.560 is in the fucking church. 0:52:40.360 --> 0:52:43.359 Itself right right where you can marry fourteen year olds 0:52:43.400 --> 0:52:45.319 in a lot of US states as long as you 0:52:45.400 --> 0:52:48.640 do it, you know, through God and their parents. Anyway, 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:50.399 we don't need to make that the subject every time 0:52:50.440 --> 0:52:53.680 we talk about this shit. But I think when it 0:52:53.680 --> 0:52:56.160 comes to like properly criticizing here, one thing you have 0:52:56.200 --> 0:52:58.320 to note is that Oprah has made child abuse and 0:52:58.400 --> 0:53:02.440 child sex abuse constant sess of focuses with her fundraising activities. 0:53:02.880 --> 0:53:06.040 She has done harm through spreading misinformation about child abuse, 0:53:06.360 --> 0:53:08.640 but she's not a sex criminal. This is something she 0:53:08.719 --> 0:53:11.640 puts a lot of. She very much actively has tried 0:53:11.680 --> 0:53:15.279 to reduce again in imperfect ways, but she's put her 0:53:15.320 --> 0:53:17.759 money where her mouth is a lot. And one of 0:53:17.760 --> 0:53:21.319 the things she is really consistently puts effort into is 0:53:21.400 --> 0:53:26.560 trying to help underprivileged, at risk kids. And again, this 0:53:26.719 --> 0:53:29.960 is always a mixed bag. And this brings me to 0:53:30.000 --> 0:53:33.640 the story of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls 0:53:33.840 --> 0:53:36.480 or OWLAG as we're going to be calling it, Bridget, 0:53:36.560 --> 0:53:38.799 you were excited to get into this topic. What have 0:53:38.880 --> 0:53:42.200 you heard of our LAG? This is our South African school. 0:53:42.400 --> 0:53:45.040 I remember it very clearly because my mother and my 0:53:45.120 --> 0:53:47.839 grandmother and I watched these episodes like it was a 0:53:47.880 --> 0:53:51.640 special family event to get together and watch Oprah in Africa, 0:53:51.719 --> 0:53:54.160 Like y'all, this was a big deal. 0:53:54.440 --> 0:53:55.480 I remember this again. 0:53:55.360 --> 0:53:58.680 Was yesterday, Yeah, yeah, and it was you know, this 0:53:58.800 --> 0:54:01.640 starts it open. The school opens in January of two 0:54:01.680 --> 0:54:04.719 thousand and seven. It is inspired the year before. She's 0:54:04.800 --> 0:54:07.400 vacationing in South Africa. She's hanging out with Nelson Mandela, 0:54:07.480 --> 0:54:09.600 because when you're Oprah, you get to hang out with 0:54:09.680 --> 0:54:14.120 Nelson Mandela, and she decides on the spot to while 0:54:14.120 --> 0:54:16.400 they're talking and like looking, you know, going through she's 0:54:16.400 --> 0:54:18.680 seeing the poverty of a lot of the poorest South 0:54:18.680 --> 0:54:20.719 African children. She decides on the spot, I'm going to 0:54:20.760 --> 0:54:25.640 create a school for very bright and very poor South 0:54:25.640 --> 0:54:27.600 African kids. These are kids who are at the top 0:54:27.680 --> 0:54:30.400 of their public schools in terms of test scores and 0:54:30.480 --> 0:54:32.640 come from households that make less than nine hundred and 0:54:32.719 --> 0:54:37.440 fifty dollars a month. Right now, the project is instantly 0:54:37.640 --> 0:54:40.759 controversial among the wealthy neighborhood where the school is built. 0:54:40.880 --> 0:54:42.719 They do not like that a bunch of poor black 0:54:42.760 --> 0:54:44.920 girls are going to be going to school in this 0:54:45.040 --> 0:54:49.920 largely white neighborhood. The administration is deluged with complaints. Neighbors 0:54:50.000 --> 0:54:53.279 begin staking out the school during recess, watching the few 0:54:53.320 --> 0:54:56.280 girls in this white neighborhood as they play soccer, Oprah 0:54:56.360 --> 0:54:58.840 has the school put up hedges to block the field 0:54:58.920 --> 0:55:01.239 from view. And so as we talk about the things 0:55:01.280 --> 0:55:03.880 that are criticizable about this venture, I don't want to 0:55:03.880 --> 0:55:06.439 lose the fact that like she is really pissing off 0:55:06.480 --> 0:55:09.480 a lot of South African racists, which again are the 0:55:09.480 --> 0:55:13.799 most racist racists, Like we're we're If we're ranking the 0:55:13.960 --> 0:55:17.640 racist the very top of that pyramid is South African racists. 0:55:17.800 --> 0:55:25.000 No one's ever been better. Speaking of South Africa, I'm 0:55:25.040 --> 0:55:32.520 fairly certain none of our sponsors are based in South Africa. 0:55:34.880 --> 0:55:38.680 We're back, Apartheid's not around anymore. So I guess we 0:55:38.680 --> 0:55:41.400 probably shouldn't have a blanket band on South African sponsors. 0:55:42.760 --> 0:55:48.040 But you know, uh, those guys are still doing I 0:55:48.239 --> 0:55:51.600 would say, whoever the sponsor, is high chance some South 0:55:51.640 --> 0:55:54.719 African racist has a stake in that company. 0:55:54.840 --> 0:55:57.160 There's a very good old British song. I've never met 0:55:57.200 --> 0:56:00.719 a nice South African that gets into gets into some 0:56:00.800 --> 0:56:06.480 of these issues. So Oprah is incredibly integral to the 0:56:06.520 --> 0:56:09.520 design of this school. She is not just This is 0:56:09.560 --> 0:56:12.520 not just a case for good and for ill. Oprah 0:56:12.560 --> 0:56:15.040 is not just somebody who throws money at a problem 0:56:15.120 --> 0:56:17.759 to have her name attached to it. This is a 0:56:17.880 --> 0:56:21.239 personal focus, and she pours hundreds of hours of her 0:56:21.280 --> 0:56:24.480 own personal labor into making this school. I want to 0:56:24.560 --> 0:56:27.600 quote from an article on Forbes. Winfrey severed ties with 0:56:27.680 --> 0:56:29.640 the state and decided to go it alone, hiring the 0:56:29.760 --> 0:56:34.320 architects behind Johannesburg's favorite famous apartheid museum. She donned Jean's 0:56:34.320 --> 0:56:36.760 in a hard hat and oversaw every aspect of construction. 0:56:36.880 --> 0:56:39.040 She thought of the little things. The tubs of umbrellas 0:56:39.040 --> 0:56:42.240 outside each building for use during South Africa's rainy season, 0:56:42.239 --> 0:56:45.280 when it pours almost NonStop for forty days. They're green, 0:56:45.400 --> 0:56:48.360 her favorite color, to match the girl's uniforms. At the 0:56:48.360 --> 0:56:51.400 school's first convocation, Winfrey took the stage to address the 0:56:51.440 --> 0:56:54.200 girls and their relatives, bust in from across South Africa. 0:56:54.520 --> 0:56:56.920 For many years, people always ask me why didn't I 0:56:57.000 --> 0:57:02.239 have children, she told the crowd. Now I know, and 0:57:02.520 --> 0:57:06.080 you know that's largely good. But you can also see 0:57:06.320 --> 0:57:10.640 a little weird, although again in like a very like 0:57:10.840 --> 0:57:15.399 sympathetic way. Oprah is, by this person point, very rich, 0:57:15.560 --> 0:57:20.360 and being very rich also means you're coming increasingly unhinged 0:57:20.440 --> 0:57:23.120 as you age. Some of the evidence for that is 0:57:23.120 --> 0:57:26.440 that in addition to the stuff that is pretty like fine, right, 0:57:26.600 --> 0:57:30.320 like okay, yeah, I give them green umbrellas because that's 0:57:30.320 --> 0:57:32.600 your favorite color. Whatever you're paying for it, that's your right. 0:57:33.280 --> 0:57:36.240 During like the big opening event for the school, because 0:57:36.240 --> 0:57:38.760 they're having a bunch of celebrities Nelson Mandela and like 0:57:38.840 --> 0:57:42.280 Diane Sawyer are showing up, she has the groundskeeper because 0:57:42.280 --> 0:57:45.000 it's during the dry season, she has the groundskeepers paint 0:57:45.040 --> 0:57:51.360 the yellow grass green, which is again not evil, just 0:57:51.480 --> 0:57:53.040 kind of like, oh yeah, that's the kind of thing 0:57:53.080 --> 0:57:54.680 you get to do and you have Oprah money. 0:57:54.840 --> 0:57:57.320 Yeah, and the kind of thing you worry about. 0:57:57.480 --> 0:58:00.760 It's just like, I guess, yeah, this school's not going 0:58:00.800 --> 0:58:03.560 to look good enough if the grass is yellow. Now, 0:58:03.680 --> 0:58:06.200 Oprah has to date spent more than one hundred million 0:58:06.280 --> 0:58:08.360 dollars on both the school. This is initially I think 0:58:08.440 --> 0:58:10.520 supposed to be like a six million dollar project. It 0:58:10.520 --> 0:58:12.800 balloons to forty million. And again she's paid over like 0:58:12.800 --> 0:58:15.120 one hundred million at this point. So for one thing 0:58:15.200 --> 0:58:19.360 you cannot Faulter for is dedication. This is not something 0:58:19.440 --> 0:58:22.520 she is casual about. This is not something where she 0:58:22.600 --> 0:58:24.640 was just kind of like siphoning some money off for 0:58:24.680 --> 0:58:28.080 a tax break. She's personally involved in this. And this 0:58:28.200 --> 0:58:31.400 school has provided an excellent education for a lot of 0:58:31.640 --> 0:58:33.880 I think a couple hundred girls have graduated at this point. 0:58:34.240 --> 0:58:37.200 And Winfrey is also committed to pay for the secondary 0:58:37.480 --> 0:58:39.960 education of any girl who graduates from this school, which 0:58:39.960 --> 0:58:41.520 is where a lot of the cost comes from. She's 0:58:41.560 --> 0:58:44.360 not just paying for this school, She's paying for these 0:58:44.400 --> 0:58:47.080 kids to go to college. And in fact, recently the 0:58:47.120 --> 0:58:49.880 first of these girls received a PhD. Oprah showed up 0:58:49.960 --> 0:58:53.600 at her graduation ceremony. And this is good. This is, 0:58:54.160 --> 0:58:58.280 broadly speaking, a thing that has done good. There are 0:58:58.560 --> 0:59:01.640 valid criticisms of it, like the fact that Oprah's focus 0:59:01.680 --> 0:59:04.000 on luxury means that this one school, which again has 0:59:04.040 --> 0:59:07.320 only graduated a couple hundred girls, could have paid for 0:59:07.640 --> 0:59:11.400 a lot more schools that had a similar educational quality, 0:59:11.720 --> 0:59:14.240 if not for some of the expensive things that are 0:59:14.320 --> 0:59:18.440 largely a result of Oprah's sort of focuses. An article 0:59:18.480 --> 0:59:20.920 on the school in Reuter's Notes, Action Aid, a global 0:59:20.960 --> 0:59:24.000 development group, said the school exposes the stark disparities in 0:59:24.080 --> 0:59:27.200 South Africa's education system, still haunted by the legacy of 0:59:27.240 --> 0:59:30.000 apartheid and as an insult to millions of poor children 0:59:30.080 --> 0:59:33.760 worldwide wanting a decent education, and that is harsh. But 0:59:33.880 --> 0:59:36.640 there's a segment from Forbes Africa, based on an interview 0:59:36.640 --> 0:59:39.600 with Sam Blake, the director of operations, that does kind 0:59:39.600 --> 0:59:42.560 of back that up quote. Why were the girls sleeping 0:59:42.560 --> 0:59:45.880 on two hundred threadcount sheets? Why were there chandeliers hanging 0:59:45.920 --> 0:59:49.320 from the library ceiling and brightly colored mosaic tile pillars 0:59:49.360 --> 0:59:52.560 outside of the cafeteria. Blake grimaces when he's reminded of 0:59:52.560 --> 0:59:55.520 those early articles when you walk into a beautiful place, 0:59:55.560 --> 1:00:00.240 you think better of yourself. He explains, simply, again, I 1:00:00.240 --> 1:00:01.720 don't know that you would call I don't think it 1:00:01.760 --> 1:00:03.960 would be right to call that evil, but it is like, 1:00:04.480 --> 1:00:06.960 this is what you get when you have a very 1:00:07.000 --> 1:00:10.000 serious problem and somebody who is not an expert on 1:00:10.320 --> 1:00:14.240 education but has several billion dollars goes in to fix it. 1:00:14.320 --> 1:00:17.920 Is you can sometimes get a good thing to happen. 1:00:17.960 --> 1:00:19.600 And I think overall, this school is a good thing, 1:00:19.640 --> 1:00:22.120 but it's so much more expensive than it needs to be, 1:00:22.160 --> 1:00:24.320 and a lot more girls could be helped if, for example, 1:00:24.800 --> 1:00:30.760 that money had been like. 1:00:29.440 --> 1:00:32.960 Like if overpaid correct taxes and then went into the 1:00:33.320 --> 1:00:34.760 education system. 1:00:34.920 --> 1:00:36.720 And since she's not South Africa, I didn't. More to 1:00:36.720 --> 1:00:38.560 the point of that money, if that one hundred million 1:00:38.640 --> 1:00:42.400 had been handed to a group of actual education experts 1:00:42.400 --> 1:00:45.480 in order to build a system to improve educational quality 1:00:45.480 --> 1:00:47.920 for underprivileged Kitchen, South Africa, probably would have helped a 1:00:47.960 --> 1:00:52.040 lot more kids, right, And that's that's not bastardism, right, 1:00:52.120 --> 1:00:54.960 anymore than you're not a bastard if you ordered takeout 1:00:55.040 --> 1:00:58.360 last night. That's like a waste of money, right, But 1:00:58.480 --> 1:01:00.960 like it helps kids. It's just an it's an example 1:01:01.000 --> 1:01:04.400 of like what's problematic about even good billionaire charity. 1:01:04.600 --> 1:01:07.560 Yeah, it's the same reason like Batman is a bastard 1:01:07.600 --> 1:01:11.640 because batmanning is by far the least effective use of 1:01:11.680 --> 1:01:18.120 your billions to keep crime down. Yeah, Like it's vanity 1:01:18.200 --> 1:01:21.439 and it's it's just like it's not bastardy, but it's 1:01:21.480 --> 1:01:22.200 like come. 1:01:22.000 --> 1:01:26.080 On evidence of like, yeah, we really ought to just 1:01:26.160 --> 1:01:27.960 tax these people a hell of a lot more so 1:01:28.000 --> 1:01:33.320 they can't exist as billionaires. But anyway, moving on, when 1:01:33.320 --> 1:01:35.560 it comes to this school, what's it's most famous for 1:01:35.720 --> 1:01:39.000 outside of South Africa is the allegations that have come 1:01:39.040 --> 1:01:43.560 out from within it that are problematic and those Yeah, 1:01:43.720 --> 1:01:46.280 I'm just going to list what's happened. So, within months 1:01:46.320 --> 1:01:49.400 of the school opening, there were allegations that the matron 1:01:49.440 --> 1:01:52.880 of the dormitory of the dormitories for the kids, tiny 1:01:53.000 --> 1:01:56.960 Macoppo is her name, had attempted to kiss and fondle 1:01:57.040 --> 1:02:00.720 as many as six teenaged girls at the academy. Now, 1:02:00.760 --> 1:02:03.160 Oprah acted very quickly, as far as I can tell, 1:02:03.200 --> 1:02:06.160 as soon as evidence came out. There are allegations that 1:02:06.200 --> 1:02:08.520 she tried to hide it before it came out. I 1:02:08.560 --> 1:02:12.080 haven't seen anything that actually backs those up. Like what 1:02:12.120 --> 1:02:15.600 I have seen looks like she acted as quickly as possible. 1:02:16.400 --> 1:02:18.320 Who knows if there's stuff that I'm not you know 1:02:18.320 --> 1:02:21.320 that's not public, but that just seems to be people 1:02:21.880 --> 1:02:25.040 at this point kind of talking shit. She acts very quickly, 1:02:25.080 --> 1:02:29.640 She fires Macopo. I should also say Macopo is tried 1:02:29.720 --> 1:02:33.840 and is found not guilty three years later. So again 1:02:33.880 --> 1:02:36.240 I can't say I'm not going to do the Oprah 1:02:36.240 --> 1:02:37.600 thing and say she definitely did it. 1:02:37.600 --> 1:02:38.000 I don't know. 1:02:38.000 --> 1:02:39.320 I'm not an expert on this case. 1:02:39.400 --> 1:02:39.560 Right. 1:02:39.960 --> 1:02:42.880 The incident does, however, leave a stain on the school 1:02:42.920 --> 1:02:45.720 that deepens in early two thousand and nine when seven 1:02:45.760 --> 1:02:49.240 students are expelled for bad behavior that includes sexual harassment 1:02:49.280 --> 1:02:52.440 of classmates. And around the same time, a seventeen year 1:02:52.480 --> 1:02:55.000 old student is found with a dead infant child in 1:02:55.040 --> 1:02:59.880 her handbag. Yeah, and this is like I think she 1:03:00.520 --> 1:03:05.040 had a stillbirth or something like that. Like this is 1:03:05.080 --> 1:03:07.120 a case of like somebody who gets pregnant very young, 1:03:07.160 --> 1:03:10.720 and like the baby doesn't make it. And these are 1:03:11.080 --> 1:03:12.720 all of this stuff. The fact that you have a 1:03:12.720 --> 1:03:15.160 bunch of the kids there who are abusing other kids. 1:03:15.560 --> 1:03:17.720 This has and the fact that there's these allegations from 1:03:17.800 --> 1:03:21.040 this teacher, this has led to accusations. And you'll get 1:03:21.040 --> 1:03:22.960 this a lot. And like the QAnon side of things 1:03:23.200 --> 1:03:26.240 that Oprah started like a sex abuse factory to molest 1:03:26.320 --> 1:03:29.040 kids in South Africa. And as a guy who has 1:03:29.080 --> 1:03:32.960 told stories about schools that were sex abuse factories for 1:03:33.040 --> 1:03:36.760 the express purpose of allowing certain people to lest children, 1:03:36.760 --> 1:03:39.479 I have to tell you that's not what's happening here. 1:03:39.920 --> 1:03:42.720 Our lag is a school for underprivileged kids living in 1:03:42.760 --> 1:03:46.160 a country where the deepest poverty is unimaginable to most Americans. 1:03:46.400 --> 1:03:48.880 As Winfrey herself said, by the time a girl gets 1:03:48.880 --> 1:03:51.440 to my school, normally she suffered on average six major 1:03:51.480 --> 1:03:54.760 life traumas they've lost a parent or both parents, multiple accidents, 1:03:54.800 --> 1:03:58.160 death in your family, aides, rape, sexual molestation, all of it. 1:03:58.320 --> 1:04:03.560 Unimaginable things have happened. Creating an institution where these students 1:04:03.640 --> 1:04:05.960 are taken in away from their families. I should note 1:04:06.000 --> 1:04:11.240 you supported and asked to live together is a huge, messy, 1:04:11.800 --> 1:04:17.920 complicated thing. There's no way stuff like this wouldn't happen 1:04:18.000 --> 1:04:20.400 to some extent. So what you have to judge the 1:04:20.440 --> 1:04:23.480 school on is did they set up guard rails to 1:04:23.600 --> 1:04:26.400 make it possible to report this stuff to make it 1:04:26.520 --> 1:04:30.640 less likely? And did they act quickly when evidence came out? 1:04:31.000 --> 1:04:34.600 And as far as I can tell more or less, yeah, 1:04:35.160 --> 1:04:37.840 again there's some critiques there. It certainly was not a 1:04:38.080 --> 1:04:42.000 set up perfectly, but like generally, yeah, it seems to 1:04:42.040 --> 1:04:42.840 be the case. 1:04:43.160 --> 1:04:45.160 Well, this is exactly why I think the point that 1:04:45.200 --> 1:04:47.720 you two are making a moment ago is so salient, 1:04:47.800 --> 1:04:50.200 because I don't think that Oprah should have been involved 1:04:50.200 --> 1:04:51.880 in a school like this to begin with. I think 1:04:51.920 --> 1:04:56.240 it is fundamental criticism, like you cannot take extremely at 1:04:56.360 --> 1:05:00.280 risk girls who have been living in extreme poverty. Doesn't 1:05:00.320 --> 1:05:02.280 matter how nice the sheets are or how the chande 1:05:02.280 --> 1:05:04.080 of leers are. These are going to be girls who 1:05:04.160 --> 1:05:07.000 probably have problems, and it's like, of course, this is 1:05:07.000 --> 1:05:08.800 the kind of thing is going to happen when they're all, 1:05:09.000 --> 1:05:11.000 you know, taken away from their support systems and their 1:05:11.040 --> 1:05:11.880 families and all of that. 1:05:12.200 --> 1:05:14.400 I think it's the pinnacle. 1:05:13.960 --> 1:05:17.040 Of nsists, narcissism in vanity to be like, oh, well, 1:05:17.080 --> 1:05:20.680 certainly my money can foster an environment of safety for 1:05:20.760 --> 1:05:22.960 these girls. If you care so much, just give the 1:05:23.040 --> 1:05:25.240 money to people who know what they're doing, who are 1:05:25.240 --> 1:05:26.120 already doing this. 1:05:26.360 --> 1:05:28.520 Don't try to set up a school with your name 1:05:28.600 --> 1:05:28.880 on it. 1:05:28.960 --> 1:05:31.479 Like it's It's one of my biggest pet peeves, people 1:05:31.560 --> 1:05:33.640 who think like, oh, I've got money and my heart's 1:05:33.640 --> 1:05:36.320 in the right place, so I'll start my own nonprofit 1:05:36.360 --> 1:05:38.480 and it'll be it'll be in my image, and it's like, no, 1:05:39.560 --> 1:05:40.480 people have been doing this. 1:05:40.640 --> 1:05:41.640 People know what they're doing. 1:05:41.720 --> 1:05:44.720 There are people who specialize in working with at risk youth. 1:05:45.040 --> 1:05:46.920 Give the money to them, like, don't do it on 1:05:46.960 --> 1:05:48.000 your own for. 1:05:48.480 --> 1:05:51.760 All, like the like the billionaire classes railing against the 1:05:51.760 --> 1:05:58.400 inefficiencies of bureaucracy, like their own vanity and hubris is 1:05:58.560 --> 1:06:02.240 so much more wasteful, disgusting and damaging, and there's no 1:06:02.320 --> 1:06:04.000 way to make them see it. I mean, part of 1:06:04.000 --> 1:06:06.840 what like is here, it's like there's because I was 1:06:06.840 --> 1:06:08.920 going I was almost going to say, like, you know, 1:06:09.680 --> 1:06:13.400 what is the comparison you know, between what happened at 1:06:13.440 --> 1:06:17.720 the Oprah Academy and a baseline when you realize there 1:06:17.760 --> 1:06:20.280 is no baseline, there's nothing to compare this to, Like 1:06:20.800 --> 1:06:23.920 nothing like this exists for a good reason. 1:06:24.280 --> 1:06:24.480 Yep. 1:06:24.520 --> 1:06:28.160 And I really there is a thing this needs to 1:06:28.160 --> 1:06:31.920 be studied. Wealthy people trying to open schools like Kanye 1:06:31.960 --> 1:06:33.600 West doing it like there's something. 1:06:33.600 --> 1:06:33.800 I mean. 1:06:33.840 --> 1:06:36.360 I say this as a former educator where when you 1:06:36.440 --> 1:06:38.720 are an educator, everybody thinks. 1:06:38.560 --> 1:06:40.640 They know how to do your job better than you. 1:06:40.720 --> 1:06:42.880 People who have never been in a classroom before, people 1:06:42.880 --> 1:06:45.360 who have never been involved in education before, somehow are all, 1:06:45.640 --> 1:06:48.360 you know, know exactly what to do. There's something about 1:06:48.440 --> 1:06:51.960 education that I think makes rich people who got successful 1:06:52.000 --> 1:06:54.280 in one lane feel like they could open a school 1:06:54.360 --> 1:06:55.640 or they know how to do it. 1:06:55.640 --> 1:06:56.720 It's very frustrating. 1:06:57.120 --> 1:07:00.320 Well because it's partially my guess is that like everyone's like, well, 1:07:00.360 --> 1:07:02.760 I've been to school, I've been a scuted before. 1:07:04.960 --> 1:07:07.280 Well that's really where a lot of this comes from 1:07:07.280 --> 1:07:11.880 with Oprah, where it's like, you, I had a lot 1:07:11.880 --> 1:07:15.560 of trauma as a kid. I was abused and like, 1:07:16.000 --> 1:07:18.200 but also very smart and I got an opportunity and 1:07:18.240 --> 1:07:22.120 so I succeeded. So I know how other smart kids 1:07:22.440 --> 1:07:25.120 that are suffering in like difficult circumstances, I know what 1:07:25.160 --> 1:07:29.360 they need and like, no, every kid's different, Oprah. Like, 1:07:29.520 --> 1:07:33.000 and also, you don't fully understand all of the things 1:07:33.080 --> 1:07:35.720 that helped you because you weren't one of the You 1:07:35.760 --> 1:07:39.560 weren't your dad, right, Like there's things that just like 1:07:39.640 --> 1:07:42.040 all of us, we all and this is part of 1:07:42.080 --> 1:07:44.600 the process of like reconciling, oh, my parents did this 1:07:44.640 --> 1:07:47.480 stuff that was fucked up and also realizing, oh my god, 1:07:47.520 --> 1:07:50.080 I never realized my parents did this thing that was 1:07:50.120 --> 1:07:53.760 like absolutely crucial in me turning out like having these 1:07:53.800 --> 1:07:56.560 positive traits that must have been really hard for them. 1:07:56.840 --> 1:07:59.400 That's just like, yeah, we're. 1:07:59.280 --> 1:08:01.280 How difficult it is, Like, oh, I was fucked up 1:08:01.280 --> 1:08:04.120 by this, but like you're not aware of the choice 1:08:04.440 --> 1:08:07.600 that had to be made. Like yeah, it's a little 1:08:07.600 --> 1:08:10.880 bit like being like, oh, I've eaten at a restaurant before, 1:08:10.960 --> 1:08:12.720 therefore I can be a chef, Like. 1:08:12.920 --> 1:08:16.839 Right, a far, it's just more complicated than that, okay, 1:08:17.320 --> 1:08:19.800 And like this should not have been your gig. You know, 1:08:19.840 --> 1:08:21.840 every now and then you get one of these. Really, 1:08:21.880 --> 1:08:24.519 the only time it's worked is like James Cameron becoming 1:08:24.520 --> 1:08:29.559 a deep sea explorer. But nearly every other time. I 1:08:29.600 --> 1:08:32.040 guess she is second because at least the school is 1:08:32.040 --> 1:08:32.879 a good school. 1:08:32.960 --> 1:08:37.080 But and having I remember so viscerally watching the Oprah 1:08:37.080 --> 1:08:41.080 and Africa specials and again like I want to give 1:08:41.080 --> 1:08:43.720 her grace because I get it right, Like it's like 1:08:44.160 --> 1:08:49.160 the most beautiful, precocious little girls in green uniforms and 1:08:49.240 --> 1:08:52.840 like smiling ear to ear, and it shot with that 1:08:52.920 --> 1:08:56.120 like that like filter on it that everything looks kind 1:08:56.120 --> 1:08:56.840 of like you know what. 1:08:56.920 --> 1:09:00.000 The like glazy filter. It was beautiful. 1:09:00.040 --> 1:09:04.040 I remember crying, like I get why this is more, 1:09:05.280 --> 1:09:07.759 why she would rather do this than just send money 1:09:07.800 --> 1:09:09.240 to somebody who's already doing it. 1:09:09.240 --> 1:09:10.040 But it goes back to. 1:09:10.000 --> 1:09:13.120 That idea of like the the thing that is boring 1:09:13.479 --> 1:09:15.920 and the kind of like commonplace isn't what you want? 1:09:16.000 --> 1:09:19.200 You want your name on a school girls in uniforms 1:09:19.240 --> 1:09:21.559 lined up, smiling from ear to ear, like that's the 1:09:21.600 --> 1:09:23.080 thing that gives you the warm fuzzies. 1:09:23.439 --> 1:09:23.679 Yeah. 1:09:23.680 --> 1:09:27.439 Well, and also, it's like making one perfect school is 1:09:27.880 --> 1:09:31.160 something you can do, making a dozen pretty good. 1:09:31.280 --> 1:09:33.879 Fixing the system is a lot harder. 1:09:34.360 --> 1:09:36.960 No. I mean, it's like when I started my summer 1:09:37.000 --> 1:09:39.599 camp to teach kids how to blow up trains and 1:09:39.760 --> 1:09:44.679 effectively conduct counterance or insurgent operations. I wanted to teach them, 1:09:44.760 --> 1:09:47.599 but I had to eventually accept that, like, look, I'm 1:09:47.640 --> 1:09:50.680 not an expert educator, which is why I trained a 1:09:51.160 --> 1:09:54.519 LLM on Lawrence of Arabia's books Seven Pillars of Wisdom. 1:09:54.880 --> 1:09:57.519 And I've just let that loose on the kids. You know, now, 1:09:57.560 --> 1:10:01.040 this AI is teaching them everything, and it's go wanna be. 1:10:00.960 --> 1:10:04.160 Fine, Robert, stop trying to recruit for your boy army. 1:10:05.040 --> 1:10:08.479 They're not all boys, said, there's a lot of girls 1:10:08.479 --> 1:10:12.320 not buyinary kids. Look, we don't discriminate as long as 1:10:12.360 --> 1:10:16.599 you're willing to man what wrap it up, If. 1:10:16.520 --> 1:10:18.840 Your fingers are nimble enough to get into the little 1:10:18.840 --> 1:10:20.439 grenade pins your. 1:10:20.240 --> 1:10:23.400 Fingers, if you know how to mix gel ignite, I 1:10:23.400 --> 1:10:25.880 don't care about anything else. Just like the no, okay, 1:10:25.880 --> 1:10:27.400 we should probably stop at this point. 1:10:27.320 --> 1:10:28.719 Now, Anderson says stop. 1:10:28.800 --> 1:10:30.479 Also, are you preparing to. 1:10:30.439 --> 1:10:32.360 Wrap the part? God willing? 1:10:32.800 --> 1:10:33.080 Great? 1:10:33.160 --> 1:10:35.920 So? There are some valid complaints about the school. Parents 1:10:35.920 --> 1:10:38.280 of voice frustration that their time to see their children 1:10:38.400 --> 1:10:41.400 is unfairly curtailed. Restrictive rules for kids have been compared 1:10:41.439 --> 1:10:44.320 by some to some as prison like an article for 1:10:44.360 --> 1:10:46.920 the Atlanta Black Star notes. There's also the recent firing 1:10:46.920 --> 1:10:49.599 of the former head of operations, Simon Metiko after one 1:10:49.680 --> 1:10:52.479 year was reported in December of twenty twenty three. Court 1:10:52.520 --> 1:10:56.280 documents reveal complaints about abuse of authority, intimidation and victimization, 1:10:56.400 --> 1:10:59.160 as well as the mistreatment of learners. Mitiko alleges he 1:10:59.200 --> 1:11:02.280 was fired for his performance during private arbitration at the school. 1:11:02.560 --> 1:11:06.160 Further investigation found other employees who voiced their difficulty with management. 1:11:06.200 --> 1:11:08.880 Once said, working under pressure, threats, and other issues, we 1:11:08.880 --> 1:11:11.160 don't discuss issues with our management as we fear we 1:11:11.200 --> 1:11:13.559 will lose our jobs as we are not given clarity 1:11:13.640 --> 1:11:16.519 or relevant answers. Another said, our lag used to be 1:11:16.560 --> 1:11:19.000 a place where one contributed more than required because there 1:11:19.040 --> 1:11:22.120 was a culture of working together, listening and respecting professional 1:11:22.120 --> 1:11:24.959 opinions that has changed. There is a culture of distrust 1:11:24.960 --> 1:11:29.679 and fear, and I don't know the perfect reality here, 1:11:29.720 --> 1:11:33.439 but again I think we've we've litigated this more than enough. 1:11:35.479 --> 1:11:38.240 The broader problem here is that like the issue of 1:11:38.320 --> 1:11:41.599 rich people launching into crusades to fix major problems without 1:11:41.640 --> 1:11:45.799 knowing much about them, you know, And that's an issue, 1:11:45.880 --> 1:11:48.120 you know, that goes right to the top of this country. 1:11:48.120 --> 1:11:51.320 And probably the best example of OPRAH contributing to this 1:11:51.360 --> 1:11:53.479 in a really toxic way, because our lag at least 1:11:53.479 --> 1:11:55.280 has given a lot, you know, a couple hundred kids 1:11:55.320 --> 1:11:58.639 of very good education. Probably the best example of her 1:11:58.680 --> 1:12:02.200 diving into something she was not really competent to handle 1:12:02.479 --> 1:12:05.680 that had a toxic, toxic knock on effects is her 1:12:05.720 --> 1:12:11.200 support of orphanages in Haiti. There's one specific orphanage that 1:12:11.240 --> 1:12:14.320 she's devoted a massive amount of attention and money towards, 1:12:14.680 --> 1:12:16.519 and this is an orphanage that was started by an 1:12:16.520 --> 1:12:19.400 American family to protect and shelter some of Haiti's hundreds 1:12:19.400 --> 1:12:24.240 of thousands of orphaned kids after a massive earthquake. Oprah 1:12:24.280 --> 1:12:28.080 has repeatedly highlighted and supported the work of missionaries operating 1:12:28.120 --> 1:12:31.840 adoption services to help these orphaned kids get connected to 1:12:31.840 --> 1:12:34.160 people who will adopt them and bring them over, generally 1:12:34.200 --> 1:12:39.479 to the United States. That sounds great, unproblematic. What could 1:12:39.479 --> 1:12:43.559 be bad about supporting an orphanage. This is where we 1:12:43.600 --> 1:12:46.960 get to talk about the problems with the international adoption industry, 1:12:47.000 --> 1:12:50.200 And largely the problems of the international adoption industry is 1:12:50.240 --> 1:12:54.920 that it is an industry that profits off of facilitating 1:12:55.000 --> 1:12:58.160 the adoption of, in this case, poor black children by 1:12:58.200 --> 1:13:01.400 white foreigners with money, in many cases, who are more 1:13:01.439 --> 1:13:04.360 interested in converting the child to their specific brand of 1:13:04.439 --> 1:13:07.840 Christianity or showing the child off to their friends than 1:13:08.000 --> 1:13:12.639 raising a traumatized child. Now, to make this even worse, many, 1:13:12.680 --> 1:13:18.240 if not most, of these orphans aren't actual orphans. Yes, 1:13:18.720 --> 1:13:21.400 after the twenty ten earthquake in Haiti, the number of 1:13:21.479 --> 1:13:23.920 orphanages in the country more than doubled from two hundred 1:13:23.920 --> 1:13:26.439 to seven hundred and fifty two by twenty thirteen. Now, 1:13:26.439 --> 1:13:28.400 Oprah was just one of the mint of the media 1:13:28.400 --> 1:13:33.520 figures making documentaries about these generally operated by foreigners orphanages. 1:13:33.920 --> 1:13:36.479 And really it's one of these like these heroic white 1:13:36.479 --> 1:13:39.960 missions coming to this dangerous place and like really risking 1:13:40.000 --> 1:13:45.000 themselves in order to help these poor, underprivileged kids. Oprah 1:13:45.040 --> 1:13:47.160 is again not the only person doing this, but her 1:13:47.160 --> 1:13:50.360 sheer popularity gives her an outsized role in making this 1:13:50.680 --> 1:13:54.760 a popular cause. At least thirty thousand children wound up 1:13:54.800 --> 1:13:59.040 in Haitian orphanages, and about eighty percent of those thirty 1:13:59.080 --> 1:14:03.320 thousand kids one living parent at least from CNN quote. 1:14:03.560 --> 1:14:06.400 Unable to sustain their children's well being, these parents are 1:14:06.439 --> 1:14:09.559 persuaded to relinquish them to privately run orphanages that promise 1:14:09.600 --> 1:14:13.040 that children will receive shelter, food, and education. This is 1:14:13.120 --> 1:14:16.160 often not the outcome. Instead, the children living in Hades 1:14:16.240 --> 1:14:20.960 orphanages face exploitation and trafficking unintentionally funded by foreign donors. 1:14:22.280 --> 1:14:25.839 Jamie Vernalde of Lumos and GEO, advocating for the institution 1:14:25.960 --> 1:14:30.040 of the Institutionalization of Children, says this this orphanage business, 1:14:30.040 --> 1:14:33.280 where orphanages are established and recruit children to raise donations 1:14:33.280 --> 1:14:37.000 from foreigners, is becoming increasingly recognized globally as a form 1:14:37.040 --> 1:14:43.200 of trafficking. These Haitian orphanages employ people called child finders, 1:14:43.479 --> 1:14:48.080 who seek out struggling families and bribe them for their children. 1:14:48.160 --> 1:14:51.639 The going rate is around seventy five dollars. The money 1:14:51.680 --> 1:14:55.120 to pay these child finders to bribe families for their 1:14:55.200 --> 1:14:58.360 kids comes from the one hundred million dollars a year 1:14:58.479 --> 1:15:02.360 in mostly faith based donating sent to these orphanages. This 1:15:02.560 --> 1:15:05.240 is a much larger issue than Oprah, but she plays 1:15:05.280 --> 1:15:07.719 a significant role in it, and this whole period of time, 1:15:08.040 --> 1:15:11.000 she's running all of these tiery stories praising missionaries who 1:15:11.000 --> 1:15:14.479 take children away from Haiti, and actively defends a system 1:15:14.520 --> 1:15:17.280 that is desperately broken. A good example of this comes 1:15:17.280 --> 1:15:20.360 in February of twenty ten, a group of ten Baptists, 1:15:20.400 --> 1:15:23.240 mostly from Idaho, were arrested in Haiti with thirty three 1:15:23.320 --> 1:15:27.200 children who were absolutely not related to them. When confronted 1:15:27.240 --> 1:15:30.200 by authorities, these Baptists assured them the kids were all 1:15:30.320 --> 1:15:32.920 orphans being taken to loving homes in the United States. 1:15:33.200 --> 1:15:35.559 The Haitian authorities looked into this for three seconds and 1:15:35.600 --> 1:15:38.600 realized no, they had no permission to be doing this, 1:15:38.880 --> 1:15:41.040 and also a lot of those children were in fact 1:15:41.439 --> 1:15:45.040 not orphans. Here's how CNN describes the way those kids 1:15:45.080 --> 1:15:47.600 wound up in the care of missionaries. Most of the 1:15:47.680 --> 1:15:51.040 children appear to be from cabellas parents there told the 1:15:51.040 --> 1:15:54.080 Associated Press they had surrendered their children on January twenty eighth, 1:15:54.160 --> 1:15:56.920 two days after, a local orphanage worker, acting on behalf 1:15:57.000 --> 1:16:00.280 of the Baptists, convened nearly the entire village of about 1:16:00.280 --> 1:16:02.320 five hundred people in a dirt soccer pitch to present 1:16:02.360 --> 1:16:05.559 the Americans offer. The orphanage worker, Isaac Adrian, said he 1:16:05.600 --> 1:16:07.880 told the villagers their children would be educated at a 1:16:07.880 --> 1:16:10.599 home in the Dominican Republic so that they might eventually 1:16:10.600 --> 1:16:13.360 return to take care of their families. Many parents jumped 1:16:13.400 --> 1:16:15.519 at the offer. The village school had collapsed and their 1:16:15.520 --> 1:16:19.479 homes were destroyed at Haites's catastrophic January twelfth quake. They 1:16:19.520 --> 1:16:21.519 had no money to feed the children. They said. 1:16:23.720 --> 1:16:27.559 It's truly like you know, you said it earlier, but 1:16:27.640 --> 1:16:31.599 it's like they're looking for child trafficking here. 1:16:31.640 --> 1:16:33.920 It is. They just don't like it because it's Christians. 1:16:34.120 --> 1:16:37.439 Yeah, yeah, because this is the child trafficking. Now. It 1:16:37.520 --> 1:16:41.479 is unclear to me how much the American missionaries and 1:16:41.479 --> 1:16:45.439 their leader, Laura Silsby knew about what the Haitian parents 1:16:45.479 --> 1:16:49.000 had been told. Laura had met the childfinder who got 1:16:49.000 --> 1:16:53.400 them these kids two days earlier and it's possible he 1:16:53.439 --> 1:16:56.480 did the bulk of the lying. When questioned by authorities 1:16:56.479 --> 1:16:59.160 in the newsletter, Silsby and the missionaries insisted the kids 1:16:59.240 --> 1:17:02.040 had all been handed over by distant relatives who were 1:17:02.080 --> 1:17:05.400 frightened the kids might starve to death. Now that's their 1:17:05.479 --> 1:17:09.320 side of events. The childfinder Adrian, for his part, says 1:17:09.640 --> 1:17:12.680 he had no idea that the entire point Silsby and 1:17:12.720 --> 1:17:15.880 the Americans were in eighty four was to take children 1:17:15.960 --> 1:17:18.320 back to the United States. He thought they were trying 1:17:18.320 --> 1:17:20.519 to take them to an orphanage in the Dominican where 1:17:20.560 --> 1:17:22.880 their families would still have access to them and be 1:17:22.960 --> 1:17:25.040 able to get them back at some point when conditions 1:17:25.040 --> 1:17:27.400 were better. And I tend to think he may be 1:17:27.479 --> 1:17:29.720 the one telling the truth because of lines like this 1:17:29.880 --> 1:17:33.040 from that IP article. The parents of four children taken 1:17:33.080 --> 1:17:36.760 by Silsby said the Americans took down contact information for 1:17:36.840 --> 1:17:39.360 all the families and assured them that a relative would 1:17:39.360 --> 1:17:41.639 be able to visit them in the Dominican Republic. So again, 1:17:42.240 --> 1:17:45.479 when questioned by authorities, Silsby and the missionaries are like, oh, 1:17:45.560 --> 1:17:48.519 distant relatives handed them over because obviously they don't have parents. 1:17:48.840 --> 1:17:51.800 When questioned, the parents say no, no, no, like they 1:17:51.840 --> 1:17:54.400 gave us. They took our contact info and said would 1:17:54.439 --> 1:17:56.240 be able to visit their kids. They were just going 1:17:56.280 --> 1:17:59.760 over the Dominican Republic. So if that's true, this really 1:17:59.760 --> 1:18:03.640 doesn't sound like child theft. On behalf of the missionaries 1:18:03.680 --> 1:18:06.519 and Silsby. Now I'm going to spoil the end and 1:18:06.560 --> 1:18:10.280 say everybody but Silsby gets off scott free, although thankfully 1:18:10.360 --> 1:18:14.519 not with the kids. Silsby did due time in Haitian jail, 1:18:14.520 --> 1:18:17.240 but it was essentially knocked down to like a misdemeanor basically, 1:18:17.479 --> 1:18:21.240 even though the evidence I think might suggest something more nefarious. 1:18:21.840 --> 1:18:25.160 NPR dug into Laura Silsby and described her in an 1:18:25.240 --> 1:18:28.240 article as a woman who found arguably a woman who 1:18:28.360 --> 1:18:32.519 arguably found a lot of society's rules optional. Silsby live 1:18:32.720 --> 1:18:35.280 both in interviews and to the Haitian government about having 1:18:35.280 --> 1:18:39.280 proper paperwork. Back home, she ran a personal shopping internet business, 1:18:39.280 --> 1:18:42.519 and it was being actively pursued by creditors for failing 1:18:42.560 --> 1:18:45.479 to pay her employees or any of the other people 1:18:45.560 --> 1:18:48.640 she owed money. Despite this, Silsby convinced her church that 1:18:48.720 --> 1:18:51.040 she was in the process of putting together a shagra 1:18:51.240 --> 1:18:54.479 law in Idaho for the lucky Haitian kids she was 1:18:54.520 --> 1:18:57.599 about to rescue. The Wall Street Journal rights quote. Miss 1:18:57.680 --> 1:19:00.400 Silsby and miss Coulter traveled into Dominican report Public and 1:19:00.439 --> 1:19:03.240 Haiti last July, late and late last year. They were 1:19:03.439 --> 1:19:06.479 laying the groundwork then for opening an orphanage, said mel Coulter, 1:19:06.640 --> 1:19:09.760 Miss Colter's father. They coordinated with people who they thought 1:19:09.800 --> 1:19:13.479 were handling necessary details and running interference for them, he said. 1:19:13.720 --> 1:19:16.520 So they thought they had everything they needed in documentation. 1:19:16.680 --> 1:19:20.080 Mister Colter said Miss Silsby had an equally grand ambition 1:19:20.160 --> 1:19:22.759 greatered a home. According to a local builder, the Idaho 1:19:22.800 --> 1:19:26.040 plan called for a multimillion dollar complex for runaway children 1:19:26.040 --> 1:19:28.880 on a forty acre lot in Kuna County, Idaho. According 1:19:28.920 --> 1:19:31.960 to Eric Evans, owner of Evans Construction in Meridian, Miss 1:19:32.040 --> 1:19:34.120 Silsby told him it would have an indoor swimming pool, 1:19:34.160 --> 1:19:37.000 tennis courts, and dormitories for the children, said mister Evans, 1:19:37.160 --> 1:19:39.759 adding that she had discussed having him build the project. 1:19:39.920 --> 1:19:42.160 Miss Silsby's mother said that she had never heard of 1:19:42.200 --> 1:19:43.040 any such plan. 1:19:44.360 --> 1:19:44.639 Oof. 1:19:45.439 --> 1:19:47.000 I have to say as someone who grew up in 1:19:47.000 --> 1:19:49.240 the church, so I can say this, Yeah, you can 1:19:49.320 --> 1:19:54.520 get like church folk to hand over money and believe anything. 1:19:54.640 --> 1:19:57.240 Like if you're like I. 1:19:56.439 --> 1:19:59.880 OO now to get back to where Oprah is in. 1:20:00.240 --> 1:20:02.720 I'm not reading this for no reason. Oprah and her 1:20:02.760 --> 1:20:06.040 website and o magazine, Oprah goes to bat for these 1:20:06.080 --> 1:20:12.120 specific missionaries, writing having very sympathetic articles written, doing features 1:20:12.160 --> 1:20:14.599 on how these people are. They're just trying to help. 1:20:14.760 --> 1:20:17.400 They got caught up in this corrupt government and it's 1:20:17.520 --> 1:20:20.479 just a big misunderstanding. But like, these people are really 1:20:20.520 --> 1:20:25.000 good people trying to help, you know. Here's a quote 1:20:25.040 --> 1:20:27.800 from Oprah's write up. The oprah dot com write up 1:20:27.840 --> 1:20:30.599 I should say Jim said he traveled with his group 1:20:30.640 --> 1:20:34.000 to a number of orphanages around Porta Prince. During those visits, 1:20:34.080 --> 1:20:36.040 Jim says they were introduced to children who were said 1:20:36.080 --> 1:20:38.280 to have no home or parents to go home to. 1:20:38.760 --> 1:20:41.320 He says, one of the orphanage directors asked if they 1:20:41.360 --> 1:20:43.679 could take the children to try to help them. As 1:20:43.680 --> 1:20:45.840 we got their name and birth dates, we wrote those 1:20:45.920 --> 1:20:48.080 down and they got on our bus and we started 1:20:48.120 --> 1:20:50.920 taking care of them, basically, he says. The plan, he says, 1:20:51.040 --> 1:20:53.120 was to take the children to a restored hotel in 1:20:53.160 --> 1:20:56.320 the Dominican Republic that had been set up as an orphanage. Now, 1:20:56.840 --> 1:20:59.719 maybe Jim is unaware, but as we know from Salesby's account, 1:21:00.000 --> 1:21:01.960 he was not planning to take these kids to the 1:21:01.960 --> 1:21:05.280 Dominican Republic. And also a lot of the parents say no, 1:21:05.320 --> 1:21:07.680 it wasn't an orphanage director that handed them over. They 1:21:07.720 --> 1:21:10.880 got them from us, right. The closest we get to 1:21:10.920 --> 1:21:13.360 scrutiny of any of this and that oprah dot com 1:21:13.439 --> 1:21:16.720 article is this paragraph. Since the story broke, there have 1:21:16.720 --> 1:21:19.759 been allegations in the media that the group leader, Laura Silsby, 1:21:19.920 --> 1:21:22.639 intended to make a profit on the children by charging 1:21:22.720 --> 1:21:25.360 large fees to get them placed. Jim says he doesn't 1:21:25.360 --> 1:21:26.519 know anything about those. 1:21:26.360 --> 1:21:27.760 Class all be. 1:21:31.000 --> 1:21:31.960 Open and shutcase. 1:21:32.040 --> 1:21:36.360 That open and shutcase. And I know Sophie's fuming right 1:21:36.400 --> 1:21:38.559 now because this has gone very long. But that is 1:21:38.600 --> 1:21:40.400 the end of the episode. I just felt we had to, 1:21:40.680 --> 1:21:43.880 we really had to end this one on the Haitian orphanageists. 1:21:45.560 --> 1:21:48.599 Yeah, oh, Oprah, why'd you get mixed up with these people? 1:21:49.320 --> 1:21:49.759 Why? 1:21:49.920 --> 1:21:52.800 Indeed, and we have we have one more part left, 1:21:52.800 --> 1:21:53.960 don't we, Robert. 1:21:54.200 --> 1:21:56.960 We suare do we have a sixth partner? There are 1:21:57.120 --> 1:22:00.559 still ten pages left in the script, which has finally 1:22:00.600 --> 1:22:05.320 come down to twenty four and sixty eight words. 1:22:05.479 --> 1:22:06.360 That's like a novel. 1:22:06.920 --> 1:22:09.200 It's half of what is generally considered to be the 1:22:09.280 --> 1:22:12.160 length of like a book. Right, fifty thousand is like 1:22:12.360 --> 1:22:15.000 kind of the cutoff. Now that said, I don't want 1:22:15.000 --> 1:22:16.640 to make it out to like I wrote half of 1:22:16.680 --> 1:22:20.479 a nonfiction book. Here, I'm taking other people's original reporting 1:22:20.560 --> 1:22:23.680 and like chopping it up and you know, remixing it. 1:22:24.040 --> 1:22:26.360 That's That's what a lot of this is is. Oh, 1:22:26.400 --> 1:22:28.920 here's three different accounts of this thing. Well, I'm going 1:22:28.960 --> 1:22:31.680 to tell you the similarities and the differences between them. 1:22:31.680 --> 1:22:34.800 Here's different attitudes these different people have about stuff. Right, 1:22:34.840 --> 1:22:37.600 Like I'm not doing I didn't go to Portaprince. I 1:22:37.640 --> 1:22:40.320 didn't do the original reporting on this kind of stuff. 1:22:41.800 --> 1:22:44.840 But this is one of the longest scripts we've ever done. 1:22:44.920 --> 1:22:46.400 This is a Kissinger linked script. 1:22:49.560 --> 1:22:50.280 It's wild. 1:22:50.760 --> 1:22:54.040 Oh I feel him. Oh, I'm honored to be part 1:22:54.120 --> 1:22:55.720 of this like mega episode. 1:22:56.560 --> 1:23:00.519 This really is just I mean, at least now we're 1:23:00.560 --> 1:23:04.400 really getting into like having having gotten the early biography 1:23:04.439 --> 1:23:11.480 out of the way. It's like, Oh, Jesus Christ okay, yeah, yeah. 1:23:10.200 --> 1:23:12.240 This is the behind the Bastards I'm used to. 1:23:13.080 --> 1:23:16.040 I still think it has like like I don't know, 1:23:16.080 --> 1:23:17.559 I find it's so weird. 1:23:17.600 --> 1:23:18.920 I find myself rooting for her. 1:23:18.920 --> 1:23:20.880 I when I hear the thing about like the Haiti thing, 1:23:20.920 --> 1:23:23.280 I'm like, damn, I was rooting for you, Oprah. I 1:23:23.320 --> 1:23:25.479 wanted to be the voice of like no, guys, it's 1:23:25.520 --> 1:23:26.919 really complex and nuanced. 1:23:27.000 --> 1:23:29.280 But here's it like that and it's hard to say that. 1:23:30.000 --> 1:23:32.559 Yeah, yep, all. 1:23:32.520 --> 1:23:35.320 Right everybody, Well this has been behind the Bastards. You 1:23:35.360 --> 1:23:37.519 guys want to plug your pluggables before we roll out here? 1:23:38.920 --> 1:23:39.519 Uh yeah. 1:23:39.640 --> 1:23:42.320 You can listen to my podcast on iHeartRadio called There 1:23:42.320 --> 1:23:44.559 Are No Girls on the Internet. Check it out, and 1:23:44.640 --> 1:23:46.559 you can follow me on Instagram at bridge in rendc 1:23:47.240 --> 1:23:47.639 mm hmm. 1:23:48.320 --> 1:23:49.880 My podcast is Joseus Racist. 1:23:49.960 --> 1:23:50.280 I don't know. 1:23:50.320 --> 1:23:52.840 Do whatever you want. People have been finding me on 1:23:52.880 --> 1:23:54.920 Blue Sky. It's nice. 1:23:55.439 --> 1:23:58.040 Find Andrew on Blue Sky. You know, stop him a 1:23:58.040 --> 1:24:00.559 little bit, send him pictures of your food and see 1:24:00.560 --> 1:24:02.200 if he'll send you pictures of his food. 1:24:02.840 --> 1:24:03.640 They did. 1:24:04.000 --> 1:24:06.600 Oh well, that might have been off a Daily's like 1:24:06.760 --> 1:24:09.559 iced appearance, but definitely someone did excellent. 1:24:10.280 --> 1:24:13.920 All right, everybody got out. I Love You. 1:24:17.080 --> 1:24:19.799 Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. 1:24:20.160 --> 1:24:23.440 For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia 1:24:23.600 --> 1:24:26.800 dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 1:24:26.880 --> 1:24:30.040 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the 1:24:30.040 --> 1:24:34.120 Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday 1:24:34.240 --> 1:24:37.879 and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash 1:24:38.080 --> 1:24:39.800 at Behind the Bastards