Speaker 1: It's ten forty six pm at the chairs and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Nightcall. Hello, and welcome to Nightcall, a podcast
Speaker 1: for artist Tope in reality. My name is Emily Rashida
Speaker 1: and with me on the other line is Molly Lambert
Speaker 1: and joining us this week, we have our producer Joel
Speaker 1: because Test is out, so he sitting in the virtual
Speaker 1: third seat. Yes, so we wanted to kick things off
Speaker 1: with a night email that we got from a listener
Speaker 1: regarding our episode a couple of weeks back. This emails
Speaker 1: from Kathleen. Kathleen writes, I was really hoping you guys
Speaker 1: would address the Launa del Rey conversation from a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago on this week's pod, but no, dice. I've
Speaker 1: listened to the podcast from almost the beginning and I
Speaker 1: like it a lot, but the law of conversation did
Speaker 1: not sit well with me at all. I know that you,
Speaker 1: particularly Test, said that Lana was problematic for her posts
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago throwing black women under the bus
Speaker 1: and subsequent non apologies, but the way the conversation happened
Speaker 1: made it sound like you are completely giving her a
Speaker 1: pass for this behavior and essentially saying she's not smart.
Speaker 1: Enough to realize how bad she sucked up. She's thirty
Speaker 1: four years old. There's truly no excuse for her behavior,
Speaker 1: no pretending that, oh, she didn't really mean to only
Speaker 1: call out black artists, not to mention that she dated
Speaker 1: a cop for an extended amount of time, and her
Speaker 1: name is an effort to exoticize herself. I was genuinely
Speaker 1: floored by the conversation, especially since you've all been pretty
Speaker 1: vocal about racial justice and police abolition since the protests started.
Speaker 1: I didn't even really want to listen to this week's episode,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to see if you guys discussed this conversation.
Speaker 1: I hope you will in the future. Again, I've listened
Speaker 1: to the show for a while now, but from one
Speaker 1: white but Latina woman to you all, the optics were bad.
Speaker 1: So first off, I want to say that we say
Speaker 1: this after every night email a nightcall, but we really
Speaker 1: appreciate this night email. Um. I think you know, we
Speaker 1: don't have a whole lot of uh. I don't know,
Speaker 1: negative feedback, like you know, people calling us out for
Speaker 1: things a lot, and when we do get it, it
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I like being held accountable for
Speaker 1: the stuff that we say on the show, it's like,
Speaker 1: I feel like a great about of respect for a
Speaker 1: night call listeners. So when we get stuff like this,
Speaker 1: it makes me like really want to think about what
Speaker 1: we're saying on air. Yes, thank you listeners for holding
Speaker 1: us accountable, because we sunk up sometimes and we're definitely
Speaker 1: being very cavalier in that segment. And Emily was saying
Speaker 1: that was maybe like three days before the protests started. Um,
Speaker 1: so we definitely are in a time where pop culture
Speaker 1: is not divorced from reality. These two things are in
Speaker 1: fact the same thing, and celebrities are not the people
Speaker 1: anyone needs to be listening to primarily right now, especially
Speaker 1: not Laana del Ray. I'm going to say, like as
Speaker 1: a as a fan of hers, like I just don't
Speaker 1: like and I think that she's proven to be, like
Speaker 1: other artists have stepped up to be way more essential
Speaker 1: people to follow and to listen to. If you're going
Speaker 1: to listen to a celebrity about what's going on right
Speaker 1: now in the country, um and police abolition and everything else.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, Laana del Ray had to be told
Speaker 1: to take down a photo of protesters a couple of
Speaker 1: days later, Like it's very clear she does not care.
Speaker 1: It is not actively a part of any sort of
Speaker 1: activism moment. Yeah. I think also with this conversation which
Speaker 1: I had gone back and listened to us um talking,
Speaker 1: I think it was maybe before we got this email. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like a week before we got this email.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, I was listening back to this conversation
Speaker 1: and thinking about it and what I know that we
Speaker 1: got into it kind of accidentally. We hadn't actually planned
Speaker 1: on talking about Londa Delray that week, and then we
Speaker 1: did anyway because it's like interesting and we all wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about it. But um, it's very interesting to
Speaker 1: look at our conversation then to look at other writing
Speaker 1: and other conversations that were had about that, and again
Speaker 1: like three days before George Floyd was murdered, and um,
Speaker 1: how much we kind of took that in as an
Speaker 1: internet happening and kind of like a symptom of quarantine
Speaker 1: cabin fever and people just feeling powerless and wanting to
Speaker 1: just wanting to cancel somebody because like, what are we
Speaker 1: gonna do? We're all stuck inside. But I think like
Speaker 1: in a way it's like we got to see very
Speaker 1: very quickly after that that energy and that frustration with
Speaker 1: the status quo being used in like a very like
Speaker 1: a bigger way, and like, I think, a more impactful
Speaker 1: way than individual celebrity callouts, which I think are also
Speaker 1: like a function of the culture and like something that
Speaker 1: is like part of a healthy you know, dialogue between
Speaker 1: people who consume art and artists. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: I think it's like, I think that the change that
Speaker 1: you saw in what was happening online from that week
Speaker 1: to the next was really really fascinating and I think
Speaker 1: positive overall. What do you what do you guys think? Um?
Speaker 1: I was going to say, I feel like the cancelations
Speaker 1: didn't stop either, but then we got to get bond up,
Speaker 1: the bond appetite stuff, which was also like very vindicating
Speaker 1: and good, you know, and necessary. Yeah, even though it
Speaker 1: was a largely online occurrence, it did feel like it
Speaker 1: was like the conversation moved from being outward facing to
Speaker 1: being sort of like inward facing for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you guys a question, Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: guys feel like you gave one a del rate a pass? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think I was trying to say, like, we
Speaker 1: give her a pass I think I was trying to say, like,
Speaker 1: if if you like didn't stop giving her a pass,
Speaker 1: like the first time she fucked up, you probably have
Speaker 1: stopped like paying attention. I mean, not that you stopped
Speaker 1: paying attention to like her funk ups, but that it's
Speaker 1: like liking Woody Allen or something. You're like, no, I
Speaker 1: know there's no actual, like legitimate excuse for this, but
Speaker 1: you know it's sentimental or something. You know, it's I
Speaker 1: will say, like I think I will cop up to
Speaker 1: giving her a pass. And I also I think I
Speaker 1: said something like the fact that she's naive, like it's
Speaker 1: it was very naive of her to frame this conversation
Speaker 1: and to list a bunch of non white artists and
Speaker 1: to then beat Ariana Grande and yeah, yeah and Ariana Grande,
Speaker 1: and like a lot of people were like, she maybe
Speaker 1: didn't know that Ariana Grande is white because Ariana Grande
Speaker 1: like obscures her own race. Fake tann with a whole
Speaker 1: other conversation. But I think the appropriation conversation, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's what I was just saying. It's like
Speaker 1: it's found appropriation, is like foundational Tolana del Rey, So
Speaker 1: you know she she's super problematic as a human being,
Speaker 1: but yeah, do you give somebody a pass if you
Speaker 1: like the music enough? Feels like a more pressing issue
Speaker 1: right now. Well, this has been a conversation that's been
Speaker 1: happening forever, Like you said about Woody Allen about Roman Polanski,
Speaker 1: like a bunch of different artists that you know are
Speaker 1: problematic and like, and then there's such a wide range
Speaker 1: of like what constitutes being problematic too, Like I think
Speaker 1: the mistake I made personally was being like, well, like
Speaker 1: she's bad, but like, she's not as bad as Joni
Speaker 1: Mitchell who did blackface, and it's like obviously still very
Speaker 1: much in the cannon, and like people don't talk about
Speaker 1: that as a factor, and like why she should be canceled.
Speaker 1: Although I feel free to cancel Joni Mitchell for that,
Speaker 1: it's in saying she got away with it um at all.
Speaker 1: And I think, uh, you can't do the sa adding
Speaker 1: scale of you know, this isn't as bad as as
Speaker 1: Roman Polanski, because there's a lot of people do stuff
Speaker 1: that's bad in a microaggressive like a lot of things
Speaker 1: that are in as bad as Roman Polanski at the
Speaker 1: same time, and there's a lot of things that are
Speaker 1: in as bad as r Kelly, and I think like
Speaker 1: we're seeing the collapse of, like hopefully we're seeing the
Speaker 1: collapse of white feminism at the same time as like
Speaker 1: the Girl Bosses are all like sucking up really bad
Speaker 1: and like you know, getting called out for being racist
Speaker 1: because they're all like horrible white women, and then doing
Speaker 1: this thing where they're like, now, I'm going to give
Speaker 1: the company to like a more diverse staff and they
Speaker 1: can deal with like all the mess I left, which
Speaker 1: is also really fucked up, you know, like I abdicate responsibility.
Speaker 1: You guys deal with it and like fix all the
Speaker 1: problems that we have. Well, I just was going to
Speaker 1: get back to Joe World's original question on whether or
Speaker 1: not we gave Lana a pass, and like I was,
Speaker 1: I was saying that, like I think that I did
Speaker 1: as I said. I also think that this is kind
Speaker 1: of part of something that maybe isn't the most like
Speaker 1: I don't know. I I just in general think that
Speaker 1: a lot of celebrities are really stupid, including one who's
Speaker 1: whose art I like, And I am more interested in
Speaker 1: the dismantling of like centering their opinions about things at all.
Speaker 1: And I think when I am a fan of somebody
Speaker 1: like Laana del Ray who constantly is putting her foot
Speaker 1: in her mouth and doing stupid ship, dating a cop,
Speaker 1: dating a cop for this, um, this live p D
Speaker 1: show that just got canceled for for for murdering a
Speaker 1: black man on camera or allegedly um. But I think
Speaker 1: that I then have to do the mental work of like, well,
Speaker 1: how important is this person to me? Like how and
Speaker 1: how much status do I give them in my estimation
Speaker 1: of the world. And you know, I'm not playing Laana
Speaker 1: del Ray records right now. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: never will again. But it's just like I don't, I'm not,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't care about her right now, even
Speaker 1: if somebody who's liked her music. You know, I was
Speaker 1: just trying to situate her doing some racist ship in
Speaker 1: the greater landscape of like musicians, a lot of famous
Speaker 1: and and good musicians are fucked up people who have
Speaker 1: done a lot of fucked up ship. Obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of directors too. I personally don't feel like there's anything
Speaker 1: to be accomplished by like taking those people out of
Speaker 1: my iTunes. I just feel like that's like you know,
Speaker 1: I don't go out of my way, like I'm not
Speaker 1: a Morrissey person, and I never have been, you know,
Speaker 1: But I know Morrissey is another one of those people
Speaker 1: where it's like he's uncancellable even though he's like super
Speaker 1: openly racist. Um, people's sentimentality or nostalgia for him like
Speaker 1: overpowers whatever consciousness of that you know, would stop them
Speaker 1: from seeing him on tour. But I do think, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe we're talking about also it's like there's
Speaker 1: a limited amount of funds in the attention economy, but
Speaker 1: also in the real economy. There's so much to like
Speaker 1: break down here because like, on the one hand, I
Speaker 1: feel like Lana is the type of celebrity type of
Speaker 1: person like wafy white girl who a lot of people
Speaker 1: perceive as being not intelligent and therefore don't take anything
Speaker 1: she has to say seriously, like period, and it's very
Speaker 1: easy to brush off and be like, oh, there's Lana
Speaker 1: again being wild. I think Lana does have like a
Speaker 1: like a sizeable audience of like young, impressionable white women,
Speaker 1: and I feel like when we call Laana out, we
Speaker 1: can inform those girls in a way that is sometimes
Speaker 1: uh not on their timeline. You know, they may not
Speaker 1: even know who like Brianna Taylor is or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And I think the other conversation is like when do you, like,
Speaker 1: do you separate the artist from the crime or the
Speaker 1: the mentality, and like what's that line? And like, for me,
Speaker 1: that line is like R Kelly is a pretty hard
Speaker 1: line my job, or like a lot of your songs
Speaker 1: are about like the creepy, awful things you've done, and
Speaker 1: so when I hear it, it like sense hills up
Speaker 1: my spine and I don't want to hear and it
Speaker 1: thing I certainly don't want to give them in any
Speaker 1: kind of money, Like Lana, It's kind of hard because
Speaker 1: it seems like, girl, this could easily be your aesthetic
Speaker 1: in a way where you're actually doing like positive things,
Speaker 1: and it's frustrating to me that you're like, I'm hippie,
Speaker 1: like sixties love childlike out here like just loving people
Speaker 1: and being radical. And then it's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: you're dating a cop, and on top of that, like
Speaker 1: you don't know not to show faces on your huge platform.
Speaker 1: It's hard to want to support that or or even
Speaker 1: be like, oh yeah, summertime, which is my jam I
Speaker 1: can't even front like I love a said, like let's
Speaker 1: go outside and smoke and date terrible men like very
Speaker 1: It's like a deep l a aesthetic totally shake. But
Speaker 1: it's just like I don't know if I want to
Speaker 1: hear it right now. I feel you, and I feel
Speaker 1: like the other deep la Is Dick is like a
Speaker 1: superficial hippie white woman who you know, well like a
Speaker 1: lot of like they all in West Hollywood. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that thing, you know, where the hippie aesthetic has become
Speaker 1: so divorced from the actual like politics of hippie doom,
Speaker 1: which um are an actual having a set you know.
Speaker 1: And there are people who argue that, like the Tenants.
Speaker 1: I read a conspiracy theory that was that acid was
Speaker 1: invented by the CIA so that hippies would stop doing
Speaker 1: protests and just like sit around self contemplating. Not a
Speaker 1: bad theory, definitely not true, does not track, but good theory.
Speaker 1: You know, Timothy Larry was at Harvard. It's a good
Speaker 1: theory because it does account for this sort of like
Speaker 1: you know, what happened between the Chicago Convention and you
Speaker 1: know the seventies that made people sort of stopped the
Speaker 1: outward facing protesting activism part of being a hippie, and
Speaker 1: it just became this other thing. Um. Obviously, now we're
Speaker 1: seeing a moment where like it's coming back in this way,
Speaker 1: this totally organic way where people who never lived through
Speaker 1: any of these other moments, you know, kids who weren't
Speaker 1: even alive for the ninety two uprisings in l A,
Speaker 1: but who know like instinctively that you know this is
Speaker 1: this is what needs to happen right now. It's just, um,
Speaker 1: it feels like, I don't know. I think. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, it's like I'm I'm happy when those people
Speaker 1: are like I'm going to educate myself rather than just
Speaker 1: being like I'm going to double down on being racist
Speaker 1: and ignorant. As somebody who has followed Lana for a
Speaker 1: long time, this isn't her first breash with this sort
Speaker 1: of controversy. And I mean there's like the time and
Speaker 1: she was doubling down on playing a festival in Israel
Speaker 1: and then like, and you can hear it both in
Speaker 1: her public statements that she has made and then in
Speaker 1: her music itself she has made reference to this, like
Speaker 1: this idea of like, oh well, my contribution to the
Speaker 1: suffering and injustice in the world is going to be
Speaker 1: to like sing my songs about being sad and in love.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that she should necessarily stop doing that,
Speaker 1: but I think it's it's a very common celebrity, especially
Speaker 1: white celebrity thing, to be like this is gonna be
Speaker 1: what solves what like brings about world peace or something.
Speaker 1: And and I think it's again super naive of her
Speaker 1: um and and you see her and she that's the
Speaker 1: doubling down that that that happened. I think after we
Speaker 1: had our conversation, like the double triple down on this
Speaker 1: is just she doubled down again by being like why
Speaker 1: can fka Twigs do it? And I can't, And everybody
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, you're not bring up. I
Speaker 1: feel like you even on Twitter like before that, you
Speaker 1: were like like the obvious, like like like ifk Twigs
Speaker 1: is like somebody who's like a good example of like
Speaker 1: like you know, a kind of corollary a lot, And
Speaker 1: then she like went and called her out too, and
Speaker 1: it was like so little heard, but he was like
Speaker 1: k Twigs is like a classically trained dancer who like technician, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like what she does on the poll is different than
Speaker 1: what you do on the poll for like a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons. And to be like, why is it different
Speaker 1: and to think that it is like not benefiting you,
Speaker 1: um is crazy. I was happy that Kailani called Laana
Speaker 1: out about because it wasn't just that she posted protester.
Speaker 1: She posted looting and people were like, don't post this
Speaker 1: is like your aesthetic, Like this is you know, these
Speaker 1: are real people. You could get them in trouble um.
Speaker 1: And Kailani was like, you have to stop, and she
Speaker 1: took it down. And yeah, I was thinking about Kailani
Speaker 1: again because I love Kailani and I was like, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be Kailani's job to have to tell Laana not
Speaker 1: to do that, you know. But just also the way
Speaker 1: that Lanie know, the fact that Lana is like a
Speaker 1: thirty four year old woman who's still sort of like
Speaker 1: a girl child, uh presenting, and you know, Kelowny is
Speaker 1: like twenty five and has lived the life, you know,
Speaker 1: and definitely gets treated as being like, you know, an adult.
Speaker 1: It's it's just like it's the the larger framework of
Speaker 1: racism in the music industry that allows fragile white women
Speaker 1: to get away with making themselves the victims. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't want to align ourselves with that connounce not
Speaker 1: what this podcast is about. I yeah, I mean I definitely.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a thing too where it's like,
Speaker 1: after I watched the Michael Jackson documentary, I couldn't hear
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson song without having that same like chill up,
Speaker 1: my spine is up. I never need to hear this again.
Speaker 1: And then eventually it's just like you know, after the
Speaker 1: initial exposure, you kind of get you see it again,
Speaker 1: and that's bad. I think it's also just part of
Speaker 1: living in the world. I think when when we're having
Speaker 1: these isolated conversations about things that artists have done or
Speaker 1: or any kind of public figure has done. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: the initial shock of it is real and visceral. In
Speaker 1: many cases, like even in the case of the law
Speaker 1: adul Ray thing, like I was like, come on, when
Speaker 1: I was watching that third video of hers, was like
Speaker 1: what And it's this feeling of like it's like, this
Speaker 1: is why it shouldn't be this way, because it's like,
Speaker 1: this is my friend who's sucking up in public and
Speaker 1: it's fucked up that like I identify it like that
Speaker 1: where I'm like, what are you doing? Like, um, that's
Speaker 1: this is like the thing that I want to eradicate
Speaker 1: from my mentality. It's like thinking of somebody like alt
Speaker 1: Adulray is my friend, but um, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Don't you feel like it's just like an interviewer you
Speaker 1: got you don't think of. I mean you know that
Speaker 1: they're not really your friend, They're just like a stranger.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you're the person who's who's interviewed LT
Speaker 1: have me. I don't know. I mean I I have
Speaker 1: that with some people for sure. But there's also you know,
Speaker 1: there's a they're living in a markedly different reality for me,
Speaker 1: and I think especially somebody like Lana is not that
Speaker 1: tuned into what's going on, and she's not following threads
Speaker 1: on you know, um, how to protect yourself from the
Speaker 1: um surveillance state and stuff when you're able. I have
Speaker 1: seen so many Silver Lake moms getting like so hilariously
Speaker 1: militant all of a sudden, and I, for one, and
Speaker 1: for it, I think it's fine. You know, like everyone's
Speaker 1: board their home with their families. Like read about the
Speaker 1: government murdering the Black Panthers like some co intel pro yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like I think it's like the instinct is
Speaker 1: just to like make fun of that. It's obviously my
Speaker 1: instinct to make fun of that, even as like, you know,
Speaker 1: a white lady. But it's better than airying your head
Speaker 1: in the sand and pretend it's not going on anymore.
Speaker 1: And I do think that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: getting like radicalized in real time, and that is good.
Speaker 1: You know, some people that were more center before COVID
Speaker 1: and before the protests I am seeing move in a
Speaker 1: sort of more like radical direction towards police abolition, and
Speaker 1: that seems cool and unprecedented. It's getting it's getting reasonable,
Speaker 1: it's getting more and more normalized. I would not say
Speaker 1: it's like fully normalized yet, but like I understand that
Speaker 1: people who are like I've been here all along, where
Speaker 1: the funk were? You? You know. It's but I think
Speaker 1: that also just happens in in activism circles, where it's
Speaker 1: like everybody like gets really excited to join, and then
Speaker 1: you get burned out, and then you get excited again,
Speaker 1: and then new people join and they're so excited and
Speaker 1: you helped them in you know, like it's not Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think like just to to to pivot slightly and
Speaker 1: going off of this this night email about Lana like
Speaker 1: and what we want to do as a show going forward,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we don't want to be those
Speaker 1: sorts of people with their head in the sand about this,
Speaker 1: and we want to be as informed and as possible
Speaker 1: when we're talking about our dystopian reality, and also also
Speaker 1: like the very hopeful and optimistic things that we see
Speaker 1: happening in our world right now as well, Like we're
Speaker 1: not edge lords and we're not cynics. So I think
Speaker 1: we definitely just want to do better and be better,
Speaker 1: and we welcome more feedback about that as well as
Speaker 1: just things you'd like to see us cover and UH
Speaker 1: guests you'd like us to have on that maybe aren't
Speaker 1: celebrity focused or pop culture focused, although we are going
Speaker 1: to have a great interview later in the show about
Speaker 1: celebrities and pop culture, but I think it's it's worth
Speaker 1: your time. But yeah, we we took a week off
Speaker 1: and we've just been doing a lot of thinking between
Speaker 1: the three of us with Joel's help. I ups to
Speaker 1: Joel about um, how to just be UH a more
Speaker 1: thoughtful and responsible show and still fully nightcall as we
Speaker 1: go forward. So as we've announced we're not doing our
Speaker 1: theme months anymore, we're going to kind of get into
Speaker 1: some different um timely slash relevant subjects right now and
Speaker 1: also just try to like own up to our own
Speaker 1: shortcomings and limitations in perspective and and and try to
Speaker 1: do the best we can to to learn and be
Speaker 1: better as two and a half white ladies talking about
Speaker 1: occasionally current events and pop culture. So yeah, we just
Speaker 1: want to be super honest with our listeners and we
Speaker 1: want to be held accountable by you feedback like this.
Speaker 1: Uh so yeah, a long way of saying thank you
Speaker 1: night called listeners. We're excited about the journey ahead, and
Speaker 1: thanks for sticking with us. Yeah, and thanks Kathleen for
Speaker 1: hopefully tuning back in because we we we love our listeners.
Speaker 1: We want them to love us back. Even though we
Speaker 1: just talked about how para social relationships aren't real, these
Speaker 1: ones are. We want to be the boy band of
Speaker 1: your dreams. We want to be your bias. Um. All right,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we're gonna enter the chairs. Hey, my name
Speaker 1: is Molly. Um, I'm just polling in about autonomous zones.
Speaker 1: I briefly was part of an autonomous community in London
Speaker 1: during the Occupy UM protest. We took over a whole
Speaker 1: lock in Mayfair. Um, and we would just cook and
Speaker 1: share things and read and did everything my candle light. Um.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, sot took ten life experiences. I was
Speaker 1: like servent seen at the time. Um. Yeah, so sol
Speaker 1: Arthy Forever Black Lives Mother, Tom the police, thank you
Speaker 1: for the call. We had put out a request for
Speaker 1: calls on our Twitter at Night call pod to talk
Speaker 1: about autonomous zones because this is whom we have seen
Speaker 1: in the news this week. Seattle now has an autonomous
Speaker 1: zone called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone or the CHAZ,
Speaker 1: also known as Free Capitol Hill, which came together on
Speaker 1: June nine. Basically started to come together when the Seattle
Speaker 1: Police Department UH seated UH several blocks around the East
Speaker 1: Princinct Police Station and UH in Seattle and the Capitol
Speaker 1: Hill neighborhood, a neighborhood I used to live very close
Speaker 1: to and I'm very familiar with. So this has all
Speaker 1: been kind of like I've been very glued to this
Speaker 1: this week. Um, but this is uh, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a phenomenon and a and A. And there's been a
Speaker 1: long tradition of autonomous zones and things like autonomous zones
Speaker 1: that have gone on for years, and I kind of
Speaker 1: got really into looking into them and deep diving on
Speaker 1: what an autonomous zone is and what an autonomous zone does,
Speaker 1: and just like all the different offshoots of things that
Speaker 1: come out of the culture of autonomous zone. So, um,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to chat about that today. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: there's there are a lot of things that kind of
Speaker 1: can be seen as as precursors to what we now
Speaker 1: think of as um the kind of modern or contemporary
Speaker 1: autonomous zone. I think the Paris Commune is probably like
Speaker 1: the first example of like a modern autonomous zone, which
Speaker 1: was a Marxist commune that was formed for about two
Speaker 1: months in Paris in eighteen seventy one. UH. And there's
Speaker 1: actually a long French tradition of these sorts of UH
Speaker 1: basically encampments on land as a as a form of
Speaker 1: resistance to law enforcement or the government. UM. And in
Speaker 1: France they're called z A D s Z A Day's
Speaker 1: UH zona the Fons with which um, yeah, the most
Speaker 1: famous is still running now. It's the z I D
Speaker 1: of the Notre Dame de Land, where there has been
Speaker 1: an airport that has been planned to be built now
Speaker 1: for multiple decades. And commune basically came together of people
Speaker 1: who had been displaced from the rural communities and farmland
Speaker 1: in the area UM and they basically came together to
Speaker 1: form this network of UH kind of sites across this
Speaker 1: very very large swath of land in the Loire region
Speaker 1: of France UM and they have resisted multiple attempts at
Speaker 1: eviction one as recently as UM eighteen and are still
Speaker 1: there and are I think now working on having their
Speaker 1: UM having having their their sites legalized UM. So that
Speaker 1: that's like kind of a thing that can happen with
Speaker 1: some of these more long term UM autonomous zones. Freetown,
Speaker 1: Christiana and Copenhagen is like another another example of that
Speaker 1: which is now kind of really I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have observed it have seen it as
Speaker 1: more of like a kind of tourist trap now than
Speaker 1: an actual political site. But it is still is something
Speaker 1: that's recognized by the Danish government as like being outside
Speaker 1: of UM the country. So I think American people are
Speaker 1: probably most familiar with this sort of thing happening with
Speaker 1: the occupy movement and UM mostly and Zuccati Park in
Speaker 1: New York UM, and these have all been temporary sites
Speaker 1: and and kind of like extended extended protests temporary sites.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing that I find kind of
Speaker 1: um that I think doesn't get across a lot with
Speaker 1: these sorts of things is that, like a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are kind of making fun of the chats
Speaker 1: now are saying like, oh, so, what's going to happen
Speaker 1: when you you guys have to like get plumbing or
Speaker 1: like you know, you're talking about infrastructure and long term
Speaker 1: planning for this sort of thing. And a lot of
Speaker 1: the value I think in setting up something like free
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill is that it's temporary, Like the it is
Speaker 1: a it is a temporary utopia basically, And I think
Speaker 1: that's been a lot of the theory around this sort
Speaker 1: of action has been an opportunity not intended to be
Speaker 1: long term. You're not setting up a new society. You're
Speaker 1: temporarily suspending society in order to create an environment for
Speaker 1: new ideas and new ways of doing things, which I
Speaker 1: think like you've seen happening if you've been following the
Speaker 1: stuff that's been happening in Capitol hill. Um, that's been
Speaker 1: that's been kind of going on already. They've they're they've
Speaker 1: had some law enforcement issues and they had to figure
Speaker 1: out how to get people to you know, kind of
Speaker 1: adhere to the community a loosely defined set of community guidelines. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's just the sort of site for experimentation, which um, okay,
Speaker 1: But I want to remake society. Why can't remake society?
Speaker 1: There are plenty of places where they've done long term
Speaker 1: remaking sens. I mean the z and and Frances as
Speaker 1: uh keep saying, Zaddie, Like that's a great example of
Speaker 1: of a really long term project that is now kind
Speaker 1: of after multiple failures to overthrow it is like kind
Speaker 1: of having legitimacy is like a long term occupation. It's
Speaker 1: this like, um, when libertarians start militias, but like for
Speaker 1: good yeah kind of. I mean like like, wasn't there
Speaker 1: something like this on a right wing thing recently where
Speaker 1: there was like you know, kind of a weapon stockpile
Speaker 1: were in in the Pacific Northwest also where it seems
Speaker 1: like all of this stuff happens. It's always a Pacific
Speaker 1: Northwest free cascadia, like the Yeah, that's like I don't
Speaker 1: know so much about the more libertarian end of it.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of these kind of more anarchists, uh,
Speaker 1: kind of these these movements that have more of an
Speaker 1: anarchist skew to them or Marxist skew to them, are
Speaker 1: really more about like not like basically the absence of
Speaker 1: society rather than a presence of like a militarization or
Speaker 1: presence of guns. There was a lot of like rumors
Speaker 1: going around in the chairs of like people, you know,
Speaker 1: they're being warlords and it being like mad Max. But
Speaker 1: I think that when you look at people who are
Speaker 1: actually there on the ground, it's been mostly just like
Speaker 1: Raining the Thirteenth, the even do Verne documentary and like um,
Speaker 1: you know for me, food co ops and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's just been about like meeting people's basic needs. So
Speaker 1: it's college, it's free college. It's like a it's like
Speaker 1: a it's like a functional piece of performance art, right
Speaker 1: like yeah, like in in this context, in the context
Speaker 1: of something. And we'll see what long term happens with
Speaker 1: the chairs. I mean. The other misunderstanding about it right
Speaker 1: now is that it's like a hostile takeover of a
Speaker 1: police station. But the Seattle Police department basically seated this area.
Speaker 1: As I said before to the to them, what I
Speaker 1: understood it as is that the Seattle police seated this base. UM.
Speaker 1: And they assumed that it was going to get like
Speaker 1: burnt down. There's like leaving it as as bait for
Speaker 1: protesters to burn it down, And instead of burning it down,
Speaker 1: they took it over and made it a community center. UM. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: My my mom was part of an act in in
Speaker 1: the seventies in Boston where UM, women took over a
Speaker 1: building that was in UM, a poor black neighborhood in Boston,
Speaker 1: and that Harvard was going to buy and turn into
Speaker 1: some Harvard building. UM. And it's sort of like brought
Speaker 1: together just all the threads of civil rights stuff in
Speaker 1: Boston at this one moment UM, and they took over
Speaker 1: a They took over the building for like two weeks UM.
Speaker 1: But their demand was to have a women's health center.
Speaker 1: So they were like, we're turning this into a women's
Speaker 1: health education center until you know, until you give us
Speaker 1: a place to do that. UM. And I spoke to
Speaker 1: some of those activists too, I like interviewed them for
Speaker 1: something that never actually ran UM, you know where I said,
Speaker 1: like do you think we could do more stuff like this,
Speaker 1: Like how do we do stuff like this now? You know?
Speaker 1: And she said, I don't know if you can anymore
Speaker 1: with the militarization of the police. And she also said
Speaker 1: that the reason they weren't, you know, all sort of
Speaker 1: the reason the police didn't come for them immediately was
Speaker 1: because of the optics and because it was like, you
Speaker 1: know a lot of a lot of white women and children,
Speaker 1: um in this building. And she said, you know, I
Speaker 1: absolutely don't think that that would happen. Um if this
Speaker 1: had been like a you know, a militant black feminist group,
Speaker 1: they would have just the police would have just come
Speaker 1: in and rated it immediately. So, yeah, it's interesting to
Speaker 1: think about, like how can we Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just like everything's been governed so along by the
Speaker 1: worst people in the world. What if, um, what if
Speaker 1: we could take back the streets from from fascism. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that like short term actions like that are
Speaker 1: like there's a huge use for them, Like even if
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily result in their um the ends that
Speaker 1: they have stated that they're requesting, Like, I think that
Speaker 1: it's the ruption that counts. Like that at least like
Speaker 1: for the people who are doing it. The disruption, it
Speaker 1: is sort of half of the statement being made. Um,
Speaker 1: totally And at this thing, my mom was part of
Speaker 1: the documentary about it is called Left on Parole, and
Speaker 1: I really recommend it. It's a great documentary. The Women's
Speaker 1: Health Center is still there. Um, that's great. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think having demands is key. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: there was a list of demands that the Capitol Hill,
Speaker 1: a ton of a Zona has um has posted it.
Speaker 1: There's a medium post um and they're like they are
Speaker 1: I would say reasonable and radical demands there include and
Speaker 1: they're very very granular, they're very in depth. Like a
Speaker 1: lot of them involved going back and reopening cases of
Speaker 1: people who were who are in prison for marijuana possession
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, and like you know, re examining
Speaker 1: sentences for for people Like this is far reaching stuff
Speaker 1: the they're asking for, um, And I think like being
Speaker 1: able to have that document conjoined with the fact that
Speaker 1: everybody is watching Capitol Hill right now like that can
Speaker 1: send a very powerful message. And I feel like I
Speaker 1: have no idea, like I could not prognosticate the success
Speaker 1: of any of this, but I feel like it's the
Speaker 1: visibility of it is like I've definitely seen a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are like rooting for it to fail
Speaker 1: because they're synext you know, and well and because it's
Speaker 1: very threatening, like in the same way that people root
Speaker 1: for anything that's not capitalism to fail, Like it's very threatening.
Speaker 1: I think there's also some legitimate critiques of it. I've
Speaker 1: seen some people saying it's like, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of white anarchists and that, um. Some people think it's
Speaker 1: sort of like a burning man, like you know, LARPing,
Speaker 1: the end of society kind of thing. Um, But I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's true. I don't know that much
Speaker 1: about it. Emily, you're at the jazz experts. Well, there's
Speaker 1: a long history of white anarchy in Seattle, and there's
Speaker 1: also a pretty low I don't necessarily think it's an
Speaker 1: accident that, like, you know, the the black populations. Seattle
Speaker 1: has a relatively low black population for American cities, and
Speaker 1: and when you look at pictures of people on the
Speaker 1: ground at the chairs, it is a largely white group
Speaker 1: of people. Although you know, it's it's more diverse than
Speaker 1: I would say Capitol Hill is regularly uh So that's
Speaker 1: an improvement, right, and the Pacific Northwest UM is very
Speaker 1: white because that is on purpose. They were formed as
Speaker 1: like a racist colony. So it is interesting to think about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just it seems like a place where a lot of
Speaker 1: like white supremacist militia type groups spring up. Um, but
Speaker 1: also things that are on the total opposite end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum, like the you know w t O protests
Speaker 1: in Seattle. Yeah yeah, but some of some of the
Speaker 1: you know, the people making fun of it for being
Speaker 1: like extremely Seattle. It's pretty Seattle, it is, and and
Speaker 1: and I think that that's like a there's pluses and
Speaker 1: minuses to that, right, Like the first time I ever
Speaker 1: encountered like alternate pronouns was in Seattle. I'd never I'd
Speaker 1: never spoken to any of that, It's it's anybody about
Speaker 1: that or been exposed to that at all. Like, I
Speaker 1: think that Seattle can often be like at the forefront,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of the stuff. And also
Speaker 1: you know, have big blind spots in terms of like
Speaker 1: who's actually living in Seattle. But um, but I think
Speaker 1: you know, it's you know, it's all a mixed bag.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I'm glad that you brought up Bernie Man,
Speaker 1: because Bernie Man is not not connected to autonomous zone
Speaker 1: movements in the past, and Burning Man is like it's
Speaker 1: extremely white and it costs a lot of money at
Speaker 1: this point, so at this point, yeah, I mean so there.
Speaker 1: So Bernie Man came out of UM, out of a
Speaker 1: group called the Cacophony Society, which is from the Bay
Speaker 1: Area of course, um, the same group that incidentally also
Speaker 1: brought you what we now know is Santa CON. So
Speaker 1: if you really hate Burnie Man and Santa CN, you
Speaker 1: have one organization to blame for it. But they were,
Speaker 1: you know, they were kind of like a dadaist um
Speaker 1: culture Jammie type group that came out of a lot
Speaker 1: of this theory of autonomous zones and like temporarily suspending society,
Speaker 1: I mean the other there's like very dicey history to
Speaker 1: all of this, right because like the one of the
Speaker 1: biggest like foundational anarchist text on this is called the
Speaker 1: Temporary Autonomous Zone UM by Hakim Bay a k a.
Speaker 1: Peter Lambard Wilson, who like huge, huge disclaimer is like
Speaker 1: a very loud and proud advocate of pedophilia. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so and like and it's a part of the theorization
Speaker 1: around this as like a libertarian just like a living
Speaker 1: outside of society. Yeah, as like as a guy living
Speaker 1: an upstate New York on a trust fund because he
Speaker 1: comes from like sugar money. Like it's crazy, Like, um,
Speaker 1: he's like, you know, he was one of these guys
Speaker 1: who went to India and like himself. Um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean things like that. That's the thing too, is it's
Speaker 1: like it does feel like it takes a certain amount
Speaker 1: of privilege to decide that you can just eject yourself
Speaker 1: from society, and most people do not have that privilege.
Speaker 1: And sometimes when you see, like, you know, a white
Speaker 1: person with green dreads being like, we can all live
Speaker 1: on the barter system just like we do it burning man,
Speaker 1: it feels out of touch with reality. Not because we
Speaker 1: don't want to live on the barter system, but just
Speaker 1: because again it's like I'm curious, like if something like
Speaker 1: this had happened in like Oakland, you know, just having
Speaker 1: seen what happened with the Moms for housing stuff recently,
Speaker 1: where you know, groups of unhoused women were taking over
Speaker 1: houses in Oakland and also in Los Angeles, there was
Speaker 1: a a movement in solidarity with that, you know, and
Speaker 1: the highway patrol showed up immediately with like a million
Speaker 1: cars and you know, end up just been sitting outside
Speaker 1: these houses where people are now you know, occupying peacefullies
Speaker 1: or empty houses owned by the city. Just you see,
Speaker 1: like when they really perceive something to be a threat
Speaker 1: to the to the order and to property, um, they
Speaker 1: are not shy about coming in to funk it up. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I just wanted to go back to
Speaker 1: the temperate Autonomous NWNE for a second, because I like,
Speaker 1: I mean it's like a it's like very readily available
Speaker 1: and still highly like highly influential, and a ton of
Speaker 1: pedophilia advocacy is like woven into it. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: like a thing that a lot of people kind of
Speaker 1: turn a blind eye too as well, or like they
Speaker 1: kind of cherrypick from it, which I don't think is
Speaker 1: like impossible to do. Like there's some kind of like
Speaker 1: very interesting ideas in it, but a lot of them
Speaker 1: are kind of in his context used to be like yes,
Speaker 1: experiment like no laws, like we can funk kids. Like
Speaker 1: that's sort of the and has this very kind of
Speaker 1: peculiar angle to it that I think could easily be
Speaker 1: taken out of it. But I think I think it's
Speaker 1: just something to keep an eye on that the people
Speaker 1: who like are often advocating for this sort of culture
Speaker 1: jamming activity for um, you know, like the creating these
Speaker 1: undefined spaces where anything can happen. When it comes from
Speaker 1: a certain kind of person, it can start to sound
Speaker 1: like and I don't want to overuse this word, but
Speaker 1: like it can sound rapey, Like that sounds like the
Speaker 1: environment of like, oh, there are no rules, I can
Speaker 1: do whatever I want. And there were cases of like
Speaker 1: sexual violence and stuff at some of the occupy sites
Speaker 1: and stuff like that that you know, so that's just
Speaker 1: something to impressia. I think that's also just a hazard
Speaker 1: of all commune totally, and it's a hazard of being
Speaker 1: in the world also. I just think that, like, but
Speaker 1: it's also it's like it comes as more of a
Speaker 1: shock when it when it happens in the world that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be the utopian world. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, failed communes and utopias that you
Speaker 1: can look to, and I don't think that the fact
Speaker 1: that they failed means that you shouldn't take lessons from
Speaker 1: them exactly. Yeah, I think I think that's the right.
Speaker 1: Like it's very easy to over romanticize this stuff, especially
Speaker 1: as it's happening right now and everybody's getting their Chaz
Speaker 1: jokes off. But like there's there's value in this kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and it can also go sideways, like these
Speaker 1: are all human beings who are doing this stuff. This
Speaker 1: isn't and it's an imperfect process and that that's the
Speaker 1: whole point of it. It's like an attempt to rethink
Speaker 1: how this society could work. And and so like there
Speaker 1: is a huge, huge area where people can funk up.
Speaker 1: Uh and and and you know, unwise decisions can be
Speaker 1: made and things that put people in danger like that
Speaker 1: can all happen. Um. So I think that's important to
Speaker 1: keep in mind as this sort of unfold. And like
Speaker 1: by the time this episode comes out, who knows well
Speaker 1: what will be happening. I've been trying to stay like
Speaker 1: as up todate as possible before we record it, just
Speaker 1: so that like I don't know, that's hopefully like nothing
Speaker 1: horrible happens on Capitol Hill, um Like, And I don't
Speaker 1: mean to laugh why I'm saying that. I truly mean that,
Speaker 1: Like I wish them the best. I hope that the
Speaker 1: experiment goes well and everybody learns from it, but like
Speaker 1: who knows, Like that, that's the whole point. Who knows
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. So you're saying, we're going to
Speaker 1: build a new society at sea, Yeah, on top of
Speaker 1: all the Confederate monuments that have that have been gathering
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the ocean. But yeah, I uh,
Speaker 1: I think this stuff is all super interesting to look into,
Speaker 1: both because of the real political power that can have
Speaker 1: in certain cases, like especially in the cases in France,
Speaker 1: and like the overlap that it has with rave culture
Speaker 1: and with like kind of party culture and counterculture and
Speaker 1: all of that. Like that. I've been thinking so much
Speaker 1: about the cave raves because I've seen so many things
Speaker 1: since the protests started that gave me like cave rave
Speaker 1: vibes in a great way. Um, particularly the Detroit protests
Speaker 1: from there, just like playing incredible house music during the protests. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing about that was people were posting to
Speaker 1: be like Detroit as the whole of techno, and then
Speaker 1: all these people under the post like that's not techno,
Speaker 1: it's house. It's like yes, um, but yeah, that's that
Speaker 1: stuff is great. People are going to fuck up, Um,
Speaker 1: and just because people are going to suck up doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that these things aren't valuable to t And I
Speaker 1: think also as long and and I keep watching it
Speaker 1: for this reason also, like like I would hope that
Speaker 1: the Capital Hill Autonomous Own continues to keep Black lives
Speaker 1: Matter at the center of its purpose because it is
Speaker 1: such a white kind of I mean comparatively. Um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of white people there, and a lot of
Speaker 1: white people who are kind of being the loudest about
Speaker 1: what's going on there, and so I would really hope
Speaker 1: that they stay on message there. That's my opinion from
Speaker 1: all the way down here in Los Angeles. And you
Speaker 1: know that Seattle doesn't give a funk about what Los
Speaker 1: Angeles thinks. Hey, you you count as Seattle. I'm I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: I claim Seattle. I claim Iris City. Uh yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: So I I just thought that was an interesting thing
Speaker 1: to look into. And I have a feeling I saw
Speaker 1: some stuff happening in Portland. You know, it's I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a coincidence, and it's been in Seattle in Portland,
Speaker 1: but I think like there's going to be more of
Speaker 1: this and I keep picturing it is like one of
Speaker 1: the Sonic the Hedgehog zones, because those are all called
Speaker 1: like the Casino Zone and stuff like that. So I
Speaker 1: keep imagining that. Um. I have a proposition for Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I think we should take over the Britney Spears the
Speaker 1: Zone Museum and make that the Zone zone. Somebody like
Speaker 1: that was one of the first big things to get tagged.
Speaker 1: I feel like, oh so good. I drove past it
Speaker 1: to see if it was still there, but it's not.
Speaker 1: Somebody tagged smash White Supremacy on the Britney Spears on
Speaker 1: the bright pink wall of the Britney Spears pop up.
Speaker 1: It was pretty incredible. Even when I was reviewing it
Speaker 1: before in the before times, I thought like this was
Speaker 1: like an empty kmart and I was like, this could
Speaker 1: so easily be turned into housing. The fact that it's
Speaker 1: being used for this instead of that is crazy. There
Speaker 1: have also just been tons of condos that have gone
Speaker 1: up because construction hasn't halted in the middle of COVID,
Speaker 1: so there's lots of new spaces out there, like even
Speaker 1: and as of like two months ago, there's um. The
Speaker 1: thing that excites me even more than the autonomous zone,
Speaker 1: because I think the autonomous zone is cool. Um. But
Speaker 1: the thing I'm the most excited about is the Minneapolis
Speaker 1: hotel that you know is being used to house people. Now, Um,
Speaker 1: that's something we've been trying to do in l A too,
Speaker 1: is to try and get people housed in all these
Speaker 1: empty buildings. Um. That to me is like, you know,
Speaker 1: something we should all be pushing for. That would really
Speaker 1: be like a radical transformation of the cities and the
Speaker 1: way that they deal with their issues. The homeless count
Speaker 1: just came out last night at midnight. Homelessness in l
Speaker 1: A went up by like um. And so obviously just
Speaker 1: like adding more money to the police budget, continuing to
Speaker 1: militarize the police into harass on housed people hasn't worked ever, um.
Speaker 1: And just to get people to see that like housing
Speaker 1: people is the best for the best idea for everybody,
Speaker 1: you know, for everyone involved, especially during a pandemic. It's
Speaker 1: just all the ways that it's like coming out that
Speaker 1: it's like, well, society is interdependent actually, and nobody can
Speaker 1: actually like reject themselves from society because we all need
Speaker 1: each other. Um, and that's great. Well, We're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break. When we come back, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: joined by Maria Sherman to talk about K pop, k
Speaker 1: pop stand Twitter, and how k pop stand Twitter took
Speaker 1: on the police in a very unlikely but welcome tourn
Speaker 1: of events, So stay tuned for that. Welcome back to Nightcall,
Speaker 1: we are now joined by Maria Sherman. She's a senior
Speaker 1: writer at Jezebel and author of the new book Larger
Speaker 1: Than Life, a history of boy bands from New Kids
Speaker 1: on the Block to BTS, and she's here to talk
Speaker 1: to us about the recent radicalization of stand Twitter, particularly
Speaker 1: k pop stand Twitter, which I think has been like
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting sub stories of the recent
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter movement, the recent wave of black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter movements that have been happening. Uh so, yeah, welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, Maria. I'm so glad to have you here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. Um. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: talk about my favorite subjects, but also one that scares
Speaker 1: me a little bit. I hope I do K pop
Speaker 1: fans proud today. Yeah. I think that it's Uh, we
Speaker 1: were talking a little before we recorded. It's like such
Speaker 1: a it's such a vast universe. The K pop stand
Speaker 1: army thing, and it's something that like I think up
Speaker 1: until a couple of weeks ago, you would just be
Speaker 1: you know, browsing Twitter, usually Twitter. I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that the sixists on other um social media platforms as well,
Speaker 1: but Twitter is the one I'm at least most used,
Speaker 1: like most have most experienced with this with and you
Speaker 1: would just be like in a random threat or looking
Speaker 1: at the responses in it, and a ocasionally there would
Speaker 1: just be a zillion gifts of various K pop stars
Speaker 1: doing choreography, and it kind of just it almost feels
Speaker 1: like kind of just like a nonsense bombing in in
Speaker 1: that in that context, especially if you don't really know
Speaker 1: any stand more thing, if you just happen into it,
Speaker 1: it's like if you don't know the lingo, it can
Speaker 1: be a little impenetrable. Yeah, And there's so many K
Speaker 1: pop groups, so it's like it's not you know, it
Speaker 1: can appear monolithic from the outside, but there are all
Speaker 1: these factions and like I started seeing the little subscript
Speaker 1: seven over people's names, and I realized that that was
Speaker 1: like that's a BTS thing, right, yea yeah. Um, So
Speaker 1: it's just been like kind of interesting to see this
Speaker 1: thing that's been a feature of Twitter for a long
Speaker 1: time now become politicized in a more mainstream way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm happy you qualified as as a mainstream wings. I
Speaker 1: think UM for some reason, even though this has been
Speaker 1: like nothing but pretty positive press for K pop stands
Speaker 1: in general, that they have like taken an active participatory
Speaker 1: role in in Black Lives Matter, UM, is that they
Speaker 1: think that they've been seen as just sort of like
Speaker 1: another hysterical fan army as opposed to like a group
Speaker 1: of very organized UM organized stands who often have political
Speaker 1: opinions and participate in like charity and activism and everything.
Speaker 1: But this this did feel different because it felt like
Speaker 1: bigger than before UM stand armies that would normally be
Speaker 1: competitive with one another, we're coming together, which is like
Speaker 1: shocking UM and and like it felt like they put
Speaker 1: the competition aside for for the good of the world,
Speaker 1: which is great. Can you explain what they've been doing,
Speaker 1: UM with just like bombarding the fan cams to people
Speaker 1: and on hashtags? Yeah. UM. So the reason we're sort
Speaker 1: of talking about them today is m At the end
Speaker 1: of May, Dallas Police Department launched this app where they
Speaker 1: asked civilians essentially to share and I think the quote
Speaker 1: was illegal activity at protests and K pop stands. I know,
Speaker 1: in particular a lot of like bts there's stand dumb.
Speaker 1: I guess army saw this and we're like, no, let's
Speaker 1: bombardo with fan cams and crash the app. Um. And
Speaker 1: before it even crashed, which was very quickly, you think,
Speaker 1: within a couple of hours, as very very bigos. They
Speaker 1: also they went on the Apple app store and and
Speaker 1: gave the Apple one star rating. So it's like completely devastated,
Speaker 1: and it was like you can't find this, but if
Speaker 1: you did, you would just see like really beautiful images
Speaker 1: of like junk cook It's like um. And then like
Speaker 1: the following day, m Grand Rapids Police Department did the
Speaker 1: same thing. I'm not really sure why. If anybody was online,
Speaker 1: they probably would have noticed that they were going to
Speaker 1: overwhelm their app as well, and it crashed. And then um, simultaneously,
Speaker 1: when a racist hashtag started cropping up like white Lives Matter,
Speaker 1: white out Wednesday in response to blackout Tuesday, UM, all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff started happening. Fans did the same thing.
Speaker 1: They started blasting their fan camps and memes what's the
Speaker 1: fan cam? Yeah, I realized I probably probably should have
Speaker 1: started there. Um, So a fan cam um as an
Speaker 1: internet neologism I think now is just sort of like
Speaker 1: a video of a celebrity you like, like I see
Speaker 1: them a lot now referred to like as just really
Speaker 1: like sexy videos of Timothy Shellomy, which is not their
Speaker 1: original definition in the purest sense. Um, it's like um
Speaker 1: live performance or like an award show reaction, where a
Speaker 1: fan has filmed one member for the entirety of the performance,
Speaker 1: So even when they're not dancing or singing or rapping,
Speaker 1: or still watching your favorite or your bias as they're
Speaker 1: called in k pop, and they're like so popular. Even
Speaker 1: Korean television networks will film their own high death versions
Speaker 1: of this and put them on YouTube and they'll get
Speaker 1: like tens of millions of views. Um. It's it's really fascinating,
Speaker 1: fascinating fan behavior. I did not know that that's what
Speaker 1: a fan cam was because I just thought it was
Speaker 1: just like I didn't know it was called a cam
Speaker 1: because to me, it just felt like a fan edit. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's so interesting that it's just like like if
Speaker 1: you have a multi cam broadcast of a concert. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's going to be one that's always on your fave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask. I mean, I think this is
Speaker 1: such an interesting development. Um, but specifically, you know, K
Speaker 1: pop has had a lot of issues with racism. UM.
Speaker 1: So I was totally a little surprised by this because
Speaker 1: I didn't think of K pop as being sort of
Speaker 1: like the most progressive or inclusive necessarily fandom. Um. A
Speaker 1: lot of the K pop stars have gotten in trouble
Speaker 1: for doing, you know, racist stuff, for being ignorant about
Speaker 1: stuff like black lives matter. So I'm curious, what what
Speaker 1: do you think, um, this says about the K pop fandom.
Speaker 1: I was just going to add, there's also like, in
Speaker 1: addition to that, In addition to the behavior of specific
Speaker 1: CAPE pop stars, there's also been a lot of writing
Speaker 1: I think about how indebted especially I don't think that
Speaker 1: it's always been quite as much as it is now.
Speaker 1: I think this has been gradual over the years, how
Speaker 1: indebted K pop the music itself has been, UM to
Speaker 1: black music, to hip hop, into R and B all
Speaker 1: boy bands, you know, from the mold of new addition,
Speaker 1: so I think that is just like part of the
Speaker 1: DNA of boy bands, and it's interesting to see it's
Speaker 1: sort of so divorced from the source material like it
Speaker 1: is in K pop, where some of it is like
Speaker 1: you know, in interpreting, like the in sync assimilation of
Speaker 1: black culture. It's like several levels removed from the original thing,
Speaker 1: but it's obviously still still there. And yeah, I know
Speaker 1: there's been issues with some of the individual stars. Do
Speaker 1: you have any K pop bands responded to this that
Speaker 1: the K pop stands are doing this in America? It's
Speaker 1: it's interesting because everything is sort of like specific to
Speaker 1: the kind of artist. And what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is after all of this started happening, you get BTS
Speaker 1: is company big hit donating one million dollars to Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter, But that happens two weeks or so, or
Speaker 1: maybe like a week and a half after K pop
Speaker 1: stands are already doing all of this like online activism.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like the artist is subject to
Speaker 1: whatever the political position is of their stand army because
Speaker 1: obviously they benefit as from them as as consumers, so
Speaker 1: they want to like sort of reflect their interest to
Speaker 1: continue to have their loyalty and support. It's really interesting
Speaker 1: with K pop. I think they have more direct control
Speaker 1: they like participate in like what a lot of their
Speaker 1: favorite artists do. However, UM, the thing about music specifically
Speaker 1: like K pop obviously pulls from like hip hop and
Speaker 1: R and B and also like in New Jack Swing,
Speaker 1: which I think boy Bend's like Molly was saying, I've
Speaker 1: done historically, UM, only a few artists have actually said
Speaker 1: anything about that borrowing, and some of them UM said,
Speaker 1: so it seems like probably because they had some sort
Speaker 1: of fan pressure to do so, like I know BTS,
Speaker 1: UM like their comment on on Black Lives Matter, like
Speaker 1: included the hashtag and said that they didn't condone violence,
Speaker 1: but an artist like c l from twenty one so
Speaker 1: like a previous generation of K pop. UM specifically mentioned
Speaker 1: that a lot of her music and a lot of
Speaker 1: K pop comes from black music, like like all popular music. UM.
Speaker 1: I also want to qualify that while we're talking about
Speaker 1: all the wonderful things that K pop fans have done
Speaker 1: and sort of vocalized their supported Black Lives Matter, some
Speaker 1: of it is really specific to UM the success of
Speaker 1: the artist as well. Like the day after the A
Speaker 1: like destroyed this really ridiculous UM Dallas app I read
Speaker 1: about a new girl group called Secret Number, where one
Speaker 1: of the members had her Instagram and SoundCloud taken down
Speaker 1: because she posted about Black Lives Matter on her Instagram story.
Speaker 1: And the belief there's because it was a new group,
Speaker 1: they didn't have the sort of fandom that could support
Speaker 1: a political statement. I'm curious too about the labels, whether
Speaker 1: the labels are sanctioning this, because we're seeing it kind
Speaker 1: of go into directions with companies where it's like half
Speaker 1: of them are like, we have to put out a statement,
Speaker 1: you know, a sort of corporate pro black Lives Matter statement,
Speaker 1: and then you have things like you know, Starbucks a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago being like nobody can wear any
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter gear whatsoever. So I was a little
Speaker 1: surprised that K pop, which is not necessarily you know,
Speaker 1: which is known for like the labels having such a
Speaker 1: tight hold on the artists and sort of controlling their images,
Speaker 1: that they would let them express uh support for Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter because it could be divisive to fans, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that, like it's it's also interesting in
Speaker 1: the case of BTS, and I used them as the
Speaker 1: example because I think that's who most people are most
Speaker 1: familiar with. At least in America. UM. A week or
Speaker 1: so before all this happened, Sugar, one of the rappers
Speaker 1: in BTS, released a song that used a Jim Jones sample. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I followed, did you see this? Yeah? And and and
Speaker 1: that became like a really big, sort of contentious, divisive
Speaker 1: thing within that army because some people were like, how
Speaker 1: does Sugar not know about the Jonestown massacre that killed
Speaker 1: hundreds of black people. Yeah, let's clarify that it's Jim Jones,
Speaker 1: the cult leader, not the rapper. Yeah. Sorry, yeah, that
Speaker 1: that would be that would be helpful. Well, that was
Speaker 1: my first thought was I was like, oh, he sampled
Speaker 1: Jim Jones, like from dip side. And then no, it
Speaker 1: was not that right, And that was that was interesting
Speaker 1: to follow because it did seem like there was division
Speaker 1: within um BTSs army, which kind of speaks to, uh,
Speaker 1: what Emily was saying earlier about this not CAPOP not
Speaker 1: being the sort of monolithic thing, because you'd have like
Speaker 1: fans of color saying, how did he not know this?
Speaker 1: Or why didn't anybody do like the bare minimum research
Speaker 1: to figure out where the sample came from. And then
Speaker 1: some stands were like, oh, but he didn't know, like
Speaker 1: this is not like his like knowledge base, and then
Speaker 1: other fans are saying, how could you even question his artistry?
Speaker 1: Like how day you're a fake fan for even making
Speaker 1: any sort of criticism. And then it seems as though
Speaker 1: like the fans are most critical or probably the most vocal,
Speaker 1: or at least they one out because within a week
Speaker 1: um bts released this statement that gets disseminated and translated
Speaker 1: because k pop is global, essentially saying they didn't know
Speaker 1: the origins of the sample and they're sorry. Um And
Speaker 1: then of course it is also like the timing of
Speaker 1: that seems a little like coincident. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to put my tin hat on, but like
Speaker 1: that also this is the place to put on Today's
Speaker 1: allowed inside here. Great. Well yeah, well, it seems like
Speaker 1: that statement came out I believe on May thirty, again
Speaker 1: was the day that the Dallas app came up. So
Speaker 1: it's very it very much seems like, okay, now we're
Speaker 1: going to start actively doing something about this. Around the
Speaker 1: time that K pop stands have taken it upon themselves
Speaker 1: to do stuff, this is slightly parallel to that. But
Speaker 1: I want your opinion as a scholar on boy bands,
Speaker 1: and I want your honest opinion, and this is not
Speaker 1: very poptimistic of me, but like, how much artistic control
Speaker 1: does any K pop artists actually have over their music? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting question because I like, to be completely honest,
Speaker 1: I think that is obscured, and I think it's like
Speaker 1: purposefully obscured. Um though, Like I just watched BTSs docuseries
Speaker 1: on their social media app wea Verse, and it shows
Speaker 1: them writing their solo songs like together, but also it's
Speaker 1: it seems to be their brainchild. Um. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: it's really like that's that's so opaque, and I for
Speaker 1: a good reason, I think, Yeah, and that's not limited
Speaker 1: to K pop obviously. I think it's interesting to see
Speaker 1: the stars in America who do have enough control and
Speaker 1: clout to sort of make the statements themselves. I've just
Speaker 1: been surprised by, you know, the pop fandom, like rushing
Speaker 1: in to be part of this, because it does feel
Speaker 1: like the good cyberpunk universe, where it's like we're using
Speaker 1: idolization for something positive. Yeah, Like this is when when
Speaker 1: I first reached out to you, Maria, I was trying
Speaker 1: to find this tweet that I remember seeing and I
Speaker 1: did find what I was thinking of, and it had
Speaker 1: come out just days, like less than a week before
Speaker 1: the protests really started, after George George Floyd's murder, and
Speaker 1: it was it was it was actually about the Barbs.
Speaker 1: I had thought that it was about K Pops dance
Speaker 1: when it was at the Barbs, and it was. It
Speaker 1: came from a Marxist twink. Um. Uh, if we took
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos into saying something negative about Nicki Minaj, the
Speaker 1: Barbs would have the revolution done by at least October. Um.
Speaker 1: This was from yeah and then and then down the threat.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of responses that that we're both
Speaker 1: Like a lot of them were just like no, like
Speaker 1: like imagine fandom Twitter, you know, caring about anything outside
Speaker 1: of their faves, like a lot of skepticism and some
Speaker 1: people who are like oh yeah, like they are a
Speaker 1: force to be reckoned with, like you know, or it's close,
Speaker 1: it's happening soon. Like I feel like people say that
Speaker 1: they send something in the water that like standhum twitt
Speaker 1: stand on Twitter in general was getting organized to do
Speaker 1: this sort of thing. Did you sense that at all
Speaker 1: before all of this really started happening. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's funny because I think maybe I've just like been
Speaker 1: in it for so long that my gut reaction is like,
Speaker 1: this is just classic marginalization of like pop fans and
Speaker 1: how dare they? Because I remember, like even five years ago,
Speaker 1: there was a like a one direction meme construction that
Speaker 1: was I joined Twitter because of one direction, and now
Speaker 1: I'm a communist or like, and now I'm dedicated to
Speaker 1: abolishing ice or something. So they're definitely like factions within
Speaker 1: like stand armies that have always been like dedicated and radicalized. Um,
Speaker 1: and and that pops up, that crops up in different ways.
Speaker 1: I think this feels different just because it is something
Speaker 1: that I don't It seems like more people are becoming radicalized,
Speaker 1: and of course that is mirrored in in K pop
Speaker 1: stand um specifically. UM. I also think that like, if
Speaker 1: you were to ask a K pop fan how they
Speaker 1: feel about it, I'm sure that they would say it's
Speaker 1: not that like music or the fan army radicalize them,
Speaker 1: but that they're trying to radicalize the fan army, and
Speaker 1: like slowly but surely that's having effect, as as we
Speaker 1: saw a couple of weeks ago, and continue to see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was that quote from UM. Caitl An Tiffany at
Speaker 1: The Atlantic wrote a piece that um it was also
Speaker 1: about this whole thing, and there was a quote from
Speaker 1: a stand on it that said, the phantom has been moving,
Speaker 1: the phantom has been donating, the fans have been protesting. Um,
Speaker 1: then the groups have shown support. The fandom paved the
Speaker 1: way for the groups, which I thought was really interesting.
Speaker 1: Like I and and that feels kind of new. That
Speaker 1: feels like a new approach to fandom. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I feel like you've seen individual examples of it. The
Speaker 1: one that I was thinking about was the Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: stand who was like, oh, I just got out of
Speaker 1: jail because I wouldn't join the I d F, which
Speaker 1: was a big one where she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: by reputation, by reputation, Free Palestine. Yeah. So I think
Speaker 1: it's also you know what you were saying, It's like
Speaker 1: people just kind of underestimate pop fandoms because they tend
Speaker 1: to be young and email generally. But obviously, like young
Speaker 1: people are behind a lot of this stuff, so it
Speaker 1: makes sense that they would also be you know, crossing
Speaker 1: the streams. Yeah, I like my focus is typically more
Speaker 1: on boy bands, and just like even in the life
Speaker 1: performance arena, it's been interesting to see the shift of
Speaker 1: like fans getting some of their political opinions or like
Speaker 1: socio political opinions, I should say from the artists that
Speaker 1: they're obsessed with versus fans placing pressure on the artist
Speaker 1: to like speak out um and I think they're They're
Speaker 1: probably a lot of factors for that, and maybe like
Speaker 1: a sociologist would do a better job, or like an
Speaker 1: ether musicologist, But but I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: is just because like younger people now are are just
Speaker 1: more invested in being like over and involved in activism,
Speaker 1: and it seems like you have to take a stand
Speaker 1: in some direction at this point, which is very different
Speaker 1: from every boy band of the past that I can
Speaker 1: think of, who always had a very squeaky clean sort
Speaker 1: of no conflict, like just definitely not wanting any conflict
Speaker 1: about anything, which is you know, I feel like if
Speaker 1: I think back to like in Sync and Backstreet Boys
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, like I can't think of a
Speaker 1: single political opinion any of those people held, you know,
Speaker 1: or any just they didn't even have any, Like it's
Speaker 1: like Disneyland territory. It's like, this is barely about your entertainment,
Speaker 1: and we're going to depoliticize it, even though in doing
Speaker 1: that we are actually it is a political statement to
Speaker 1: say that these things don't exist here. I mean even
Speaker 1: those bands are even from Orlando or mean like that, Well,
Speaker 1: like entertainment first, reality doesn't exist here, no, totally, and
Speaker 1: like they obviously are political and new addition was like
Speaker 1: a bunch of teenagers from a Boston housing project. I believe. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's not like, you know, those things don't play
Speaker 1: into uh, these groups and their fandoms. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised by the turn Pap has taken. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: stoked on it. I was, you know, I've been surprised
Speaker 1: by things. I was genuinely surprised that Taylor Swift like
Speaker 1: said black lives matter, because it's been so hard to
Speaker 1: get like a real statement on anything out of her.
Speaker 1: So the fact that she was like I have to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I can't do the like let's all be
Speaker 1: peaceful and like everyone joined together in love thing. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: you have to say what side you fall on of
Speaker 1: this culture war. I feel like the bar is getting
Speaker 1: raised every day almost of like what we expect from
Speaker 1: our faves. I'm not necessarily saying who my faves are personally,
Speaker 1: but like, um, you know, like how different is Taylor Swift,
Speaker 1: for example, saying black Lives Matter than like Chase Bank
Speaker 1: saying we're all going to come together in this time
Speaker 1: of crisis, you know, Like like I and I think
Speaker 1: like money is obviously a factor, and the fact that
Speaker 1: Big Hit bts Is Management company did donate a million
Speaker 1: too black Lives Matter, which is like I feel like,
Speaker 1: probably a very very small affection of money, but still
Speaker 1: it's like a statement at least, Like I feel like
Speaker 1: these these fan movements are also mobilizing to demand more,
Speaker 1: like in a very not just in a tweet the
Speaker 1: right thing, uh type way, but like do something like
Speaker 1: put some action behind your words and your stance. It
Speaker 1: feels it feels very late sixties to me also in
Speaker 1: that like once it became clear that this was like
Speaker 1: the popular stance to have, then everybody started jumping on.
Speaker 1: Like there's definitely a lot of bandwagoning from you know,
Speaker 1: pop culture things and corporations, and I think it's because
Speaker 1: they do think like this is what the young people
Speaker 1: are into and what they want, and if we want
Speaker 1: to like sell them stuff, we have to sell it
Speaker 1: to them on their terms. Yeah, slowly, And I will
Speaker 1: say that there has been like some skepticism and I
Speaker 1: don't know how much of this has been sort of
Speaker 1: written about because it's just kind of nice to focus
Speaker 1: on like K pop radicalizing. Um, but a lot of fans,
Speaker 1: especially fans of color, have been sort of critical of
Speaker 1: the movement because it seems like it was like, after
Speaker 1: overtaking hashtag slowly but surely, it just seems like fan
Speaker 1: armies were starting to compete with one another to get
Speaker 1: to the top of the hashtag and it became less
Speaker 1: about what they were actually doing. And then of course
Speaker 1: with the like sugar Jim Jones sample, there's like dosing
Speaker 1: of some fans of color who were saying this was wrong. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there's definitely, like I think within any fan army
Speaker 1: there is like probably an element of anti blackness and racism.
Speaker 1: But it's just it's it's really it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: think of it as earth. It's really unfortunate to think
Speaker 1: about it in this case, because it does seem like
Speaker 1: anti blackness is so prevalent everywhere. It seems like kay
Speaker 1: pop was doing a good thing, and yet it's like
Speaker 1: a can you practice what you preach sort of deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I this is I think this is the thing that's
Speaker 1: the most inscrutable about this thing, which on its surface
Speaker 1: does feel like overall a positive development is that, like
Speaker 1: I anytime I have gotten in deep into what's going
Speaker 1: on in K pop stand culture or like you know,
Speaker 1: gone onto the gossip blogs and stuff like that, the
Speaker 1: level of toxicity among fans they're often just feels like
Speaker 1: in a stratosphere that like me, as an American consumer
Speaker 1: of pop culture, can scarcely even wrap my head around UM.
Speaker 1: And this can have to do with race, it can
Speaker 1: have to do with UM like body image, UM. People
Speaker 1: just shaming people for looks UM, just like like dairy
Speaker 1: very naice and stuff. There have obviously been a lot
Speaker 1: of suicides within UM K pop groups and K pop stars,
Speaker 1: and so I'm trying to like hold these two things
Speaker 1: to other in my mind at the same time that
Speaker 1: that a fan army that often can be mobilized to
Speaker 1: do I think a lot of kind of despicable stuff
Speaker 1: online could also be mobilized to support something as positive
Speaker 1: as black Lives Matter, and like how I just wonder
Speaker 1: when you're in the middle of that group, what how
Speaker 1: you reckon those two things? Like how do how do
Speaker 1: you balance those two things? Um? And I don't know
Speaker 1: if you have the answer to that, but I just
Speaker 1: like I've been thinking about yeah, I And I also
Speaker 1: like I get really frustrated because I think so much,
Speaker 1: especially like Western media when we discuss K pop, is
Speaker 1: so often focused on the negative. So this felt like, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's so nice. That's like they're recognizing like these wonderful
Speaker 1: mobilization efforts from K pop and they have done good. Um.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about in preparation for this conversation. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a time I guess it was a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago now that uh BTSs Army like raised something
Speaker 1: like almost forty meals for kids are like kids in
Speaker 1: poverty in the UK because there was a children's charity
Speaker 1: James Cordon supported and it had nothing to do with BTS.
Speaker 1: They were just like, James Cordon is always so nice
Speaker 1: to BTS, so like, why don't we do this? And
Speaker 1: now they're like and there's so many like gestures like
Speaker 1: that that happened all the time, there's like, um, yesterday
Speaker 1: even UM I follow I started following this Twitter account
Speaker 1: called one in Army where UM a group of BTS
Speaker 1: fans come together and they organized a charity, like each
Speaker 1: month they support a new cause. And it's just like
Speaker 1: they're all these really wonderful things, and yet there's an
Speaker 1: incredible dark side that is sort of like very much
Speaker 1: worth discussing. Uh, And I don't know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: also strange that these fans are confronting it now. And
Speaker 1: like I think back to like end Sync at backstree Points,
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about what lou Perlman was doing to them.
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about like being exploited financially and allegedly
Speaker 1: sexually and all these things. And yet like k pop
Speaker 1: vand's confront the sort of dark side and and all
Speaker 1: of these great moments of activism at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's got to be like a lot of cognitive dissonance
Speaker 1: I even experience. It seems like it's also the way
Speaker 1: that any group on the Internet is sort of a
Speaker 1: microcosm of the whole Internet. You know, It's like it
Speaker 1: kind of doesn't matter what the group is about. It
Speaker 1: just eventually there will be a schism along some line
Speaker 1: in a message board of any kind. So it's interesting
Speaker 1: to see people mobilizing for something good. But it also
Speaker 1: seems like this thing that's been happening a lot right now,
Speaker 1: which is like groups that traditionally fight each other being like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, if we team up and fight like
Speaker 1: the really bad guy, the actual bad actors instead of
Speaker 1: just like arguing about like my faith versus your faith,
Speaker 1: we can like use that to also take down a
Speaker 1: police department. Uh, that feels new. I'm I'm holding out
Speaker 1: for I'm holding out for the Amazon basis takedown. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm waiting for the K pop stands to to
Speaker 1: completely dismantle am is on like Anonymous coming Together Toto
Speaker 1: or whatever, just to see like the swarm assemble. Because yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like you normally, normally people talk about when it's
Speaker 1: when it happens, and it's it's bad or it's like overwhelming,
Speaker 1: or people get ducks, or people get bullied because they
Speaker 1: insulted somebody's faith. But again, it's like, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't want to mess with people after your faith has
Speaker 1: been insulted. They overwhelm you with fan camps, Maria, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask um you just one question, unrelatedly but
Speaker 1: still on the boy band topic. Um, who do you
Speaker 1: think is the horniest boy band of all time? Oh
Speaker 1: my wow? No one's ever asked me this before, and
Speaker 1: I wish I had an answer ready to go. It's
Speaker 1: also like it, do you have an answer ready to go?
Speaker 1: And maybe that I'll start jogging because I'm thinking there's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. The Wanted had the like come joke
Speaker 1: in their un hit. I love that song like one
Speaker 1: of my favorite boy band songs of all times. Really wow,
Speaker 1: that's not the reaction I was expecting and so I
Speaker 1: truly love it. It's great. Liquid Dreams by Otown another
Speaker 1: song about ejaculating, Yeah, Otown. Otown was definitely into getting down,
Speaker 1: even like on making the band there they had girls
Speaker 1: over all the time, which is not very boy band like.
Speaker 1: It's not very chaste of them, right, Granted they didn't
Speaker 1: do much. I'll tell you who I really liked it
Speaker 1: was pretty ricky Um then humping video that was my
Speaker 1: all time favorite just boy band and and just like
Speaker 1: very very good boy bands are such a safe space
Speaker 1: for like teen horny nous y, which is not a crime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it, even like the Jonas Brothers. Like I
Speaker 1: followed the Jonas Brothers really intensely because I was like
Speaker 1: out of college and depressed and was like, we're going
Speaker 1: to dive into this weird fandom because that was when
Speaker 1: people started posting all these like incredibly filthy memes about
Speaker 1: their faves. You know. I was like, Wow, these are
Speaker 1: like sixteen year old girls and they're being like, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to lick the whatever off Nick Jonas um
Speaker 1: and and how opposite of their purity ring wearing abstinate
Speaker 1: pledge signing. But that's always like the Osmond's too, there's
Speaker 1: always like that wholesome, you know, horny critical reinterpretation. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you got your promised rings, but like this is what
Speaker 1: it means to me. And also they turned into total
Speaker 1: thoughts when they exited Disney, so you took the ring
Speaker 1: off and then they were like let's talk about S
Speaker 1: and M and you know what, blessed for it. And
Speaker 1: I was very interested in the that whole phase of
Speaker 1: like the purity ring virginal marketing. But then also there
Speaker 1: was like all this gossip about like these people are
Speaker 1: kissing each other because they're horny teenagers on a Disney
Speaker 1: tour of course, and of course they were. It would
Speaker 1: be weird if Yeah, Maria, do you have a favorite
Speaker 1: K pop star? Who's who would your fan camp be of? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh um in in bts Land, I'm a gin stand
Speaker 1: now And like that kind of was because of this
Speaker 1: like new docuseries I watched. I just feel like he's
Speaker 1: just so pure of heart and I never really considered him.
Speaker 1: But also I'm like not loyal. Mind change changes like
Speaker 1: every day. I don't know. I was like that way
Speaker 1: with one direction too until like I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1: Maybe Liam Payne said something upsetting that that was all
Speaker 1: about Harry Styles. I don't know. Um, yeah, I love
Speaker 1: a group, I'm not. My bias is really all over
Speaker 1: the place. That's good that as a as a journalist
Speaker 1: should be. Thank you very much, very objective here. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Um, Maria Sherman.
Speaker 1: You are on Jezebel. As we mentioned earlier, you've got
Speaker 1: a new book, Larger Than Life, which is available wherever
Speaker 1: books are sold. Um, and where can people find you
Speaker 1: on the probably Twitter world? Be talking about things relevant
Speaker 1: to this conversation and that is just at Maria Scherm. Cool.
Speaker 1: We'll give Maria follow check out her book. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna check out the book now, I'll send you one.
Speaker 1: I want you guys to have it. Yeah, oh that
Speaker 1: would be awesome. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to Night Call as always. Give us a night call
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Speaker 1: And uh, that does it for us this week. We'll
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Speaker 1: out there. Black Lives Matter. Defund the police