Speaker 1: Cool Zon Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could happen here. It is continuing to
Speaker 2: happen stonks, but we will discuss the stonks probably late
Speaker 2: later this week. This episode's going to be much more
Speaker 2: fun because I am I am pleased to have returning
Speaker 2: to the show Elle Yeerman, writer, comedian and creator and
Speaker 2: host of Going Down with Elle Yeerman, a trans political
Speaker 2: comedy news show. As well as joining us here is
Speaker 2: teen Vogue's news and politics editor Lex mcminnimon.
Speaker 3: Welcome both of you.
Speaker 2: Hi, Hi, Thanks, So we're going to be talking about
Speaker 2: the recent teen Vogue special issue cover story on Vivian Wilson,
Speaker 2: the estranged daughter of Elon musk Ella. You put together
Speaker 2: a fantastic piece last month, and this is what we're
Speaker 2: going to discuss. How this article came together, that viral
Speaker 2: photo shoot in Japan, which is fantastic. All the styling
Speaker 2: in that was lovely. But I think this this particular
Speaker 2: piece was really relevant for like trans people and also
Speaker 2: relevant because of the way like global politics has been
Speaker 2: uh shaken up by a few specific people, and focusing
Speaker 2: in on Vivian I think was really special. So I
Speaker 2: guess I would first like to hear about like yeah,
Speaker 2: like the broad strokes of how this first came together
Speaker 2: from our perspective.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know that like everyone is aware
Speaker 4: of this, and certainly I don't know that all of
Speaker 4: my friends in our various trans subcultures know this. But
Speaker 4: at Tiemvigue, we've been covering like trans politics and trans
Speaker 4: rites for a long time, like far before I got here,
Speaker 4: but I've been here for almost four years, and it's
Speaker 4: been a pretty big part of my beat, in part
Speaker 4: because of it being like a very unavoidable thing within
Speaker 4: following like US state legislatures and then obviously like at
Speaker 4: the federal level, which has only intensified more and more
Speaker 4: in the last year.
Speaker 1: And so that's like one aspect of it.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, we love young people that
Speaker 4: shit post, and so Vivian had been on our radar
Speaker 4: for a while totally. I also think people are maybe
Speaker 4: more aware of this whole, like Comrade teen vogue vibe
Speaker 4: of like we're really interested in talking to people that
Speaker 4: have a clear political leaning, that have like a sense
Speaker 4: of how they see themselves in the world in a
Speaker 4: political context, And Vivian sort of came right out the
Speaker 4: gate as someone who was really eager to share her
Speaker 4: thoughts on these things. So from last summer, like within
Speaker 4: like a month of when Vivian was kind of introduced
Speaker 4: to the world through her father talking about her on
Speaker 4: Jordan Peterson's podcast, we were trying to get in touch
Speaker 4: with her and with something I was talking a lot
Speaker 4: about within the office, and we didn't really know what
Speaker 4: to do because she was just kind of she just
Speaker 4: kind of emerged from from nowhere onto the internet. And
Speaker 4: so I had been talking about it a lot, including
Speaker 4: with Ella because we talk a lot. And so Ella
Speaker 4: find eventually revealed like, oh, that's UMPHI I am utuals
Speaker 4: with Vivian.
Speaker 1: You you did? I mean, are you threads? Mfies?
Speaker 5: What are you Instagram?
Speaker 3: Instagram?
Speaker 5: I would never use threads my god.
Speaker 4: So over to you. That's my that's my Teen Vogue intro.
Speaker 4: But Ella, if you want to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, because yeah, I am interested in contacting Vivian
Speaker 2: because she was certainly getting like an unhinged number of
Speaker 2: media requests starting last summer.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's that's true, right, So she did that one
Speaker 6: NBC interview after after Elon went on Peterson and I
Speaker 6: do not work at teen Vogue, but lex and I
Speaker 6: know each other because you're contractually obligated to know everyone
Speaker 6: else who's part of the you know, deep state illuminati
Speaker 6: doing trans politics online club.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say trans people club, deep State.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the pronoun Council exactly.
Speaker 3: We're all established members.
Speaker 6: Right, we swear allegiance once a year. There's a whole ritual,
Speaker 6: don't don't worry about it. So when I got in
Speaker 6: touch with Vivian last fall, which I got in touch
Speaker 6: with her initially to see if she would come on
Speaker 6: going Down, and I reached out to her and I said,
Speaker 6: do you want to come on my live comedy show?
Speaker 6: And she said no, I'm actually not sure live comedy
Speaker 6: is for me. I'm a little worried I'm not funny enough.
Speaker 6: And since then she has changed her mind. She's told
Speaker 6: me repeatedly that she regrets saying that to me, that
Speaker 6: she has decided she actually is funnier than everyone else alive,
Speaker 6: all of the things that a prolific twenty year old
Speaker 6: poster might say.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: But so I got in touch with her and then
Speaker 6: she said no, and I was like, okay, well, at
Speaker 6: least I have this mutual now. And then a few
Speaker 6: months later I mentioned to Alex that I gotten in
Speaker 6: touch with her, and Lex said, okay, so she doesn't
Speaker 6: want to do a live comedy show that nobody that
Speaker 6: nobody knows about.
Speaker 1: Does not want to do a live comedy show.
Speaker 6: What if instead we did a really fancy photo shoot
Speaker 6: and put her in teen Vogue, a legacy journalism magazine.
Speaker 6: And I said, honestly, I think that's a better sales pitch,
Speaker 6: and it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it is really compelling. I mean that the
Speaker 2: photo shoot pulls a whole bunch of people in. It's
Speaker 2: certainly if I was a Vivian's positioned, that would be
Speaker 2: interesting to me. And it does help spread around like,
Speaker 2: like so much of the piece is talking about like
Speaker 2: the struggles of living as a young trans person in America,
Speaker 2: and the fact that you can use a teen Vogue
Speaker 2: photo shoot to like spread writing about that around the
Speaker 2: internet is like super super useful.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I just want to like second what
Speaker 6: Lex has to say. I think the work teen Vogue
Speaker 6: has been doing is really important. Like so many I mean, Garrison,
Speaker 6: you know, like so much trans media is like independently
Speaker 6: distributed and like dhy and I love us for that,
Speaker 6: but it is always really heartening to see like mainstream
Speaker 6: media institutions uplift trans voices the way teen Vogue has
Speaker 6: been doing.
Speaker 4: And it's also like Conde Nast as an institution, which
Speaker 4: is like teen Vogue's parent company, is only one of
Speaker 4: multiple media conglomerates that will very proudly like use trans
Speaker 4: people in a representative way, like and like sell magazine
Speaker 4: covers with trans people on it, like you you could
Speaker 4: of Hunter Shaffer, for example, she'd been on the cover
Speaker 4: of several vogues. But at the same time, Hunter Shaffer
Speaker 4: also received a misgendering passport after the Trump admints. So like,
Speaker 4: I think that if legacy media is unwilling to connect
Speaker 4: the dots between like profiting off of like the aesthetics
Speaker 4: of trans people but not actually like talking about the
Speaker 4: political underpinnings of like why trans people are even able
Speaker 4: to be visible at this time and like what the
Speaker 4: you know trapdoors TERMALIGNE calls it of trans visibility means,
Speaker 4: then it's like why you didn't do this work in
Speaker 4: the first place. So Vivian was like a really great
Speaker 4: opportunity for us to like build on, like we've done
Speaker 4: several photo shoots, particularly with trans Wombia and transgirls at
Speaker 4: teen vague because we like feel very strongly, and Ellen
Speaker 4: makes this point in the piece that like the way
Speaker 4: that transm people are like objectified and commodified, and also
Speaker 4: like the target of such extreme vitrial is something it
Speaker 4: feels really important to take a stand against. It just
Speaker 4: felt like doing this with Vivian, who's so high profile
Speaker 4: but also hadn't had the opportunity yet to take control
Speaker 4: of her own narrative in the public eye, and with
Speaker 4: this being her second ever for a separate photo shoot,
Speaker 4: like it just felt like a really big opportunity that
Speaker 4: was worth using as a big swing, you know.
Speaker 2: No, like she is at like this center of this
Speaker 2: like matrix of trans commodification in so many ways, Like
Speaker 2: like this this special issue is the first time Vivian
Speaker 2: was really like framed as the subject matter of like
Speaker 2: any piece and like framed as her own person. For
Speaker 2: the entirety of her adult life, she's been used as
Speaker 2: this rhetorical object, like both by her dad, but as
Speaker 2: well as like by people on the left who's like
Speaker 2: objectified Vivian to use her as a bludgeon against her father.
Speaker 2: And yeah, like people are very willing to like commodify
Speaker 2: or use use trans people in certain ways, but but
Speaker 2: to have like trans people writing about other trans people
Speaker 2: in a way that frames them as a subject matter
Speaker 2: is so important.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think Vivian one of the things
Speaker 6: that drew me to the story in the first place
Speaker 6: is that Vivian's sort of case is such an interesting
Speaker 6: microcosm of the transfom experience as a whole. Yeah, she's
Speaker 6: incredibly talked out for something that is not her fault
Speaker 6: and not under her control at all, in the same
Speaker 6: way that right now on the national stage, like transfemininity
Speaker 6: and transits at large, but specifically transfemininity is the like
Speaker 6: problem to be spoken about, especially conservatives like Butler calls
Speaker 6: it a phantasm like gender nonsense.
Speaker 5: I read that book, you have my copy. I think
Speaker 5: I'm almost certain I do that.
Speaker 3: That makes sense.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that makes certainly.
Speaker 3: That's the trouble with gender, right, gender trouble.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, No, that's the original book.
Speaker 1: It's she was afraid of gender. Thank you very much.
Speaker 6: I have your book, but I haven't looked at it
Speaker 6: in a long time except for to remember the word phantasm,
Speaker 6: and so, yeah, I totally agree with what like said
Speaker 6: of it's really exciting to sort of like take her
Speaker 6: out of being used as a prop and give her
Speaker 6: own voice back. I think one of the most exciting
Speaker 6: moments in the piece to me is the moment where
Speaker 6: I ask her about sort of the allegations that Elan
Speaker 6: like shifted right word because of her, and she pushes
Speaker 6: back against sort of that narrative very strongly, And I
Speaker 6: think that is the way we've seen her being used
Speaker 6: both on the left and the rights as sort of
Speaker 6: a this is why he's doing this. It's clearly the
Speaker 6: fact that he has this twenty year old trans girl
Speaker 6: and she's like, actually, that's a crazy thing to say
Speaker 6: about it about a twenty year old well.
Speaker 2: And especially to like counter the narrative of her life
Speaker 2: that's been driven by Walter Isaacson's twenty twenty three biography,
Speaker 2: which is like so hostile and to have like a prominent,
Speaker 2: like a prominent biography like that, like trying to make
Speaker 2: a narrative out of out of your existence, and it
Speaker 2: was something you have like no like input, in no control,
Speaker 2: and it's like so demeaning. It's also like a very
Speaker 2: like you know, trans misogyny moment as well, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it is interesting how much of like Vivian is so relatable, Like,
Speaker 2: like a lot of trans people have, shall I say,
Speaker 2: challenging relationships with their parents, maybe not to this extreme,
Speaker 2: but but sometimes frankly right, like there's a lot of
Speaker 2: people are forced to cut off contact with their family.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I've just been thinking a lot about this because,
Speaker 4: you know, Trump released yet another executive order. I think
Speaker 4: that this one was today basically trying to codify allowing
Speaker 4: trans youth to access gender affirming care as abuse quote unquote,
Speaker 4: which is like something that the Republican Party has been
Speaker 4: flagging for months that they were going to do at
Speaker 4: the federal level as well. It has already shown up
Speaker 4: in the rhetoric around trans youth healthcare, which obviously is
Speaker 4: going to be used as justification for targeting trans adults
Speaker 4: access to health care and something that you know, I'm
Speaker 4: the only transperson on my team. Something that kept coming
Speaker 4: up in Vivian's story was that it was almost like
Speaker 4: anyone could relate to this, because anyone can relate to
Speaker 4: having like a shitty parent, an abusive parent, like a
Speaker 4: bad dad, whatever. And so I think there's an extent
Speaker 4: to which the story has like a lot of value
Speaker 4: in like forcing SIS people to really be confronted with
Speaker 4: the fact that like how trans youth are treated like
Speaker 4: objectively is like abusive. And it's not the access to
Speaker 4: healthcare that is the abuse. It's like the way that
Speaker 4: they're dismissed. It's the way they're belittled. It's the way
Speaker 4: they can't even be like trusting their own parents to
Speaker 4: be looking out for them, and to the extent that
Speaker 4: they have to push themselves out into the world to
Speaker 4: clarify that point. So like that's one aspect of it.
Speaker 4: I totally agree with what you were both saying that
Speaker 4: it is like a microcosm of the trans experience. But
Speaker 4: I do think there's like this other valance for like
Speaker 4: allowing her to like control how this is being perceived
Speaker 4: or received sort of by CIS media and like SIS
Speaker 4: like the CIS political spirit, which is like how trans
Speaker 4: people are just getting shoved into that over and over
Speaker 4: and over again with very little context, felt like a
Speaker 4: really valuable thing to be able to do, given how
Speaker 4: like frankly, so much of my coverage right now just
Speaker 4: feels like it's like trying to raise attention to the
Speaker 4: fact that like these are kids, these are young people.
Speaker 4: Like everyone should be able to relate to a young
Speaker 4: person saying, like I have a bad parent and that
Speaker 4: sucks and is a formative thing for me, Like that
Speaker 4: is something that like other children are afforded the ability
Speaker 4: to do, and like we just don't let trans kids
Speaker 4: like have that as something that's part of their truth
Speaker 4: when it's such a key part of like growing up
Speaker 4: trans in a hostile household.
Speaker 2: And something like Vivian talked about at length, is like,
Speaker 2: as someone who did transition as a minor, there's all
Speaker 2: this like villainization around whether that's whether that's puberty suppressing hormones,
Speaker 2: whether that's having HRT, and how like the landscape that
Speaker 2: like me, like her Ella and like a lot of
Speaker 2: people that our age like came out of is not
Speaker 2: going to exist for the next generation of like trans kids,
Speaker 2: or at least it's going to be very different, and
Speaker 2: we need to do everything we can to stop it
Speaker 2: from being as bad is what it looks like it's
Speaker 2: going to be. And Vivian like talked about this at length,
Speaker 2: and the peace with the restriction of puberty blockers, all
Speaker 2: this stuff in schools and this complete demonization of not
Speaker 2: just the healthcare but also like the people like trans
Speaker 2: kids as his own demon of America's that's like invading
Speaker 2: or is like threatening.
Speaker 3: So I think it is.
Speaker 2: Really cool a Vivian do talk about that at length
Speaker 2: in the special teen Vogue Cool Photo Shoot article.
Speaker 6: I will say, I think, yeah, I think it's so
Speaker 6: important that that's talked about, and I'm glad she did.
Speaker 6: I'm also really glad as someone who covers like trans
Speaker 6: politics and news all the time, it was such a
Speaker 6: breath of fresh air to be able to frame this
Speaker 6: piece as like a look into what like the joy
Speaker 6: of transition looks like and looking at like, yeah, Howard,
Speaker 6: transition has brought her closer to the life she wants
Speaker 6: to be living. And I'm not that old, but like
Speaker 6: talking to someone who's a few years younger than me
Speaker 6: and who transitioned at an earlier stage in life gave
Speaker 6: me like such a beautiful vision of what the future
Speaker 6: could look like if we if we fix some of
Speaker 6: the bullshit that's going on these days. All Right, I'm
Speaker 6: being clowned on in the chat. I'm not that much
Speaker 6: older than Vivian, is what I meant. And now I'm
Speaker 6: peaking my microphone and the podcast gonna sound terrible, but
Speaker 6: what you said, I'm not that much older than Vivian,
Speaker 6: but she started transitioning at a much younger stage of
Speaker 6: life than me, and to see like what that has
Speaker 6: done for her, and like the way, I don't know,
Speaker 6: it was just really beautiful to talk to like a
Speaker 6: twenty year old girl and be like, oh, you're like trands.
Speaker 6: But it's like it's like not actually that big of
Speaker 6: a deal, and it like it also.
Speaker 4: Like confirms a thing that like, I mean, I made
Speaker 4: a joke about this earlier with like we love young
Speaker 4: people that ship post, but like I think so much
Speaker 4: of liberal and right wing talking points about like young
Speaker 4: people in general like sees them as so humorless, like
Speaker 4: they are like cancel culture, meaning like are nonsense, whereas
Speaker 4: Vivian is so funny. Like we actually struggled to cut
Speaker 4: jokes out of the piece, like Ellen and Ellen could
Speaker 4: tell you we went back and forth for hours about
Speaker 4: so many jokes that did not and just one liner
Speaker 4: is like she's so quickie and so like so funny.
Speaker 4: She's extremely funny.
Speaker 3: A very dense style of humor, as in.
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of there's a lot packed in
Speaker 2: like almost every other sentence.
Speaker 6: Alex and I are both some of the fastest talking
Speaker 6: people I know, and I I would put Vivian in
Speaker 6: that same group of people who can keep up with
Speaker 6: us or out talk me.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: That comes across in the writing too, like the way
Speaker 2: that the interview is transcribed. You can read that pace
Speaker 2: into the piece.
Speaker 5: She's awesome.
Speaker 6: So much of our editing was just like sort of
Speaker 6: taking out yeah, like little jokes, or like she's twenty
Speaker 6: so she is swearing all the time, or dude, the
Speaker 6: amount of cursing I much love.
Speaker 1: But also that was the editing process for this.
Speaker 4: Was much less like stress and we're just like how
Speaker 4: many f bombs are we keeping today? Hearthand emojis.
Speaker 6: The way edits goes is you send in a piece
Speaker 6: and the editors give you like change some stuff, and
Speaker 6: then I get to look at a new draft and
Speaker 6: I could be like, hey, why do you change that?
Speaker 6: And then we go back and forth over and over
Speaker 6: again until eventually it's not up to me anymore. But
Speaker 6: at one point I did have to I did have
Speaker 6: to say, actually, femboy is one word correct. It's different
Speaker 6: from fem space boy and space She meant something specific,
Speaker 6: and I felt really like I was bringing.
Speaker 4: I'd like to verify I was not involved in the
Speaker 4: grammatical edit of that. There were multiple editors who was hands.
Speaker 3: That as a subject matter expert of.
Speaker 1: What can I say?
Speaker 6: And can excuse me? Kande nasked, theemboy means something.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: I am so happy that you have someone like Vivian
Speaker 2: who's able to appreciate drag way more than what I'm
Speaker 2: ever like able to even though I can like appreciate
Speaker 2: it like on like a conceptual level. Having this like complete,
Speaker 2: sincere like engrossment in it is so is so thrilling
Speaker 2: because a significant portion of this piece is talking about
Speaker 2: how much Vivian loves drag.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, and and so much.
Speaker 4: Ellen knows nothing about drag also, so that was like
Speaker 4: a really good combo for all of us.
Speaker 5: That was I. I Yeah.
Speaker 6: I sat down with her and we started talking him
Speaker 6: very very quickly. She brought up RuPaul's drag Race, and
Speaker 6: I would just like she kept calling it RPDR, which
Speaker 6: I'm pretty sure I've told my sources, Garrison, is that
Speaker 6: something you call drag race?
Speaker 5: Have you heard RPDR?
Speaker 1: So it out loud.
Speaker 3: I've never heard this.
Speaker 1: No, okay, okay, whatever.
Speaker 4: What I'm want, what I'm here to say is as
Speaker 4: someone who actually watches drag Race, Ella, that is actually
Speaker 4: not that uncommon to refer to it that way. But
Speaker 4: you know, we had two different roles as the two
Speaker 4: trans people whose brains were wiped by the story. Ella's
Speaker 4: job was to actually write the Peace of Mind was
Speaker 4: to interface with Viviana.
Speaker 5: About drag Race.
Speaker 4: So clearly it all came together the way it was
Speaker 4: supposed to.
Speaker 6: I get at the very end of our first call,
Speaker 6: I said, you, is there anything else you want to say?
Speaker 6: And she talked to me for another fifteen minutes about
Speaker 6: about drag Race, specifically.
Speaker 3: Classic Rules, A Classic Rules.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like I know, I'm I like sort of meant
Speaker 6: about your dad or about like any of the important things.
Speaker 6: We talked about this that you're like, No, so in
Speaker 6: season fifteen of drag Race, that rules.
Speaker 1: That's so cool, She's the best.
Speaker 2: But no, I it's it's so funny that you you
Speaker 2: you talk about how like there's this there's this caricature
Speaker 2: of like humorless trans people, which is very funny because
Speaker 2: like all of like the biggest shit posters online right
Speaker 2: now are mostly trans women. The trans comedy scene is huge,
Speaker 2: and like this is something that Ivian talks about, like
Speaker 2: spending the COVID lockdown and like online queer communities and
Speaker 2: how how like the the like drama and like conflict
Speaker 2: in those spaces trains you for how to be like
Speaker 2: relief like funny and snappy. How fighting with with like
Speaker 2: like fellow queer teenagers like like prepared you for for
Speaker 2: that which has like certainly been like my experience.
Speaker 6: I mean, there's a reason you can sort of tell,
Speaker 6: and I'm sure this applies to beyond trans people, but
Speaker 6: you can sort of tell which social media you grew
Speaker 6: up on, like were if you were a totally Tumbler
Speaker 6: teen or a Reddit teen or a four chanteen. You
Speaker 6: can tell because your style of fighting and making jokes changes,
Speaker 6: because it's it's it's such a deeply formative part of it.
Speaker 6: And I I don't know what online forums the right
Speaker 6: we're on growing up, but they were the wrong ones.
Speaker 3: Well a lot of four Chan as well.
Speaker 5: Sure, just the not funny parts not funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I'm still trying to untrain my like defensive way
Speaker 2: of writing that I learned on Twitter because it's a
Speaker 2: horrible style where hor have.
Speaker 6: To like have like twelve prefaces exactly. Yeah, yeah, you're
Speaker 6: article one. I am not a racist.
Speaker 2: Waffle pancaking the entire time, which is it's weird because
Speaker 2: like it's like Twitter does have its own style of humor,
Speaker 2: which I also like, also like picked up on, but
Speaker 2: it also has that defensive style of writing, which which
Speaker 2: needs to get untrained. But it is, you know, a work,
Speaker 2: a work in progress.
Speaker 6: I think it's downstream of Tumblr. I read to remain
Speaker 6: strong on my stance that the Tumblr porn band ruined
Speaker 6: the Internet.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2: I guess I'd like to talk a little bit more
Speaker 2: about like the structure of the piece and how it
Speaker 2: succeeded so much in putting Vivian as a subject right,
Speaker 2: because like the first half is written in more of
Speaker 2: like a traditional like article format to give context and
Speaker 2: frame Vivian as like a person, but then halfway through
Speaker 2: it switches to like a back and forth interview, which
Speaker 2: allows Vivian to just speak for herself. And I think
Speaker 2: having both of those and not just one or the other,
Speaker 2: strengthens the piece entirely, and strengthens like being able to
Speaker 2: see Vivian as a complete person because like as I'm
Speaker 2: as I'm getting the context like for her life and
Speaker 2: the political situation in the first half, then I get
Speaker 2: to see how much she reminds me of like regular
Speaker 2: twenty something trans girls and you know, like half of
Speaker 2: the friends I have. Though I do disagree on team Peta.
Speaker 2: Pete's a bitch boy. It's team Gale all the way.
Speaker 5: Thanks Contrary.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, I'm excited that we
Speaker 2: agree on this, but those those sorts of like offhand
Speaker 2: comments and like there's other things that like give you
Speaker 2: like a you know, a view into into this person.
Speaker 2: It's so useful to have, like you know, like at
Speaker 2: least fIF fifty percent of the piece be this like
Speaker 2: just straight interview.
Speaker 4: We unsurprisingly talked a lot about how we were going
Speaker 4: to structure this piece and partially landed on Q and
Speaker 4: A format for like we knew this was going to
Speaker 4: be a behemoth, like no matter how we tackled it,
Speaker 4: given the subject matter and then ultimately how long the
Speaker 4: transcript was, and you know, just like it. There were
Speaker 4: many aspects of this that like we were like, okay,
Speaker 4: how do we how do we do this in a
Speaker 4: way that's going to read well to people, because something
Speaker 4: we also think about a lot is like accessibility, Like
Speaker 4: young people famously hate reading now, but we wanted this
Speaker 4: to actually be something that like a young person could
Speaker 4: sit down, dash through, still get some like you know,
Speaker 4: historical political context out of and still come away being
Speaker 4: like Haha, team Peta, team Gail or whatever the hell
Speaker 4: right and so and.
Speaker 2: Maybe have like subway surfers on like another phone at
Speaker 2: the same time.
Speaker 4: Exactly, yes, exactly exactly, And then I would say the
Speaker 4: I want Ella to talk about the transcript and like
Speaker 4: interview stuff, but like the intro I think is probably
Speaker 4: where I spent the most of my time editing this piece,
Speaker 4: and like adding stuff and a lot of adding stuff.
Speaker 4: It ballooned like we wanted this to be luch shorter
Speaker 4: than it was, and then it just kept feeling like
Speaker 4: there were more pieces to really tie it together. But
Speaker 4: I would say, like, the reason that was the case
Speaker 4: is because it was a really hard line to walk
Speaker 4: to acknowledge that like people would be clicking on this
Speaker 4: in part because of Elon, but that we wanted to
Speaker 4: like trick them into coming for Elon, but staying for Vivian, yeah, like.
Speaker 2: It's it's not about Elon nor like yeah, should it be?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Right, and so like when like Ellen and I had
Speaker 4: a zoom with Vivian and what November was the first one?
Speaker 1: Or was that? I think?
Speaker 4: So yeah November December to just like so she could
Speaker 4: kind of get our vibe and just kind of suss
Speaker 4: out if she was willing to consider this at all.
Speaker 4: And one of the earliest things she said was like,
Speaker 4: I don't really want to talk about him. I don't
Speaker 4: want this to be about him, And we were really
Speaker 4: downe for that, like we don't think that her story
Speaker 4: is about him. Ultimately, it felt really important, and it
Speaker 4: was also challenging to make sure that we felt like
Speaker 4: people were coming away with it from this without like
Speaker 4: a garbled interpretation of what the stakes were for her
Speaker 4: to be coming forward like we wanted it to be,
Speaker 4: especially right now while so much of mainstream media is
Speaker 4: really fumbling their coverage of like politics at this moment,
Speaker 4: it felt really important to be.
Speaker 3: Like trans politics, especially.
Speaker 4: Especially and then also just like all of it, So
Speaker 4: like all of it and then especially trans politics, we
Speaker 4: just really wanted the intro to be like as strong
Speaker 4: and also like informative, and also like kind of funny,
Speaker 4: and also like just all the things because and I
Speaker 4: would say that probably took the most time.
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong, but.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I think the intro started off as
Speaker 6: probably an eighth of the piece, and yeah, now is
Speaker 6: closer to a half of the piece.
Speaker 5: And there were so many hands on it. I wrote like.
Speaker 6: Sort of a very loose like skeleton of what that
Speaker 6: intro ended up being.
Speaker 1: And I would say, like, it wasn't that many people
Speaker 1: outing text. It was mostly means, it.
Speaker 5: Was mostly legs.
Speaker 6: But part of that is because I mean everything like said,
Speaker 6: but also that Musk is currently a high level government
Speaker 6: official and is in the news all the time. I mean,
Speaker 6: when we started writing the intro said that Musk had
Speaker 6: thirteen children, and then we had to update that twice.
Speaker 3: New kid just dropped. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Over the edit process, things wouldn't stop happening. And then
Speaker 6: also Vivian wouldn't stop posting, which was a little bit frustrating.
Speaker 5: At one point I had to DM or I said, hey,
Speaker 5: if you.
Speaker 6: Get any more information, can you please just tell me
Speaker 6: and not post it on threads?
Speaker 5: And she said, oh, totally.
Speaker 3: That girl is a poster post had hard for.
Speaker 6: Sure, But yeah, I mean, I think I really love
Speaker 6: the balance the piece found it in the end. Early on,
Speaker 6: when we were talking about structure, I think I pushed
Speaker 6: for more of a standard profile, mostly because you know,
Speaker 6: then I get to show off my writing scales more
Speaker 6: and I liked to write. But after talking to Vivian,
Speaker 6: even after our early pre interview, but certainly after the
Speaker 6: full interview where I sat with her for a very
Speaker 6: long time over zoom in a fourteen hour time difference,
Speaker 6: I immediate it was like, no, if I write this out,
Speaker 6: it's going to be mostly dialogue anyway, because her voice
Speaker 6: she has, she's so voicy, and it's so fun to
Speaker 6: keep it in that voice.
Speaker 3: She's a very very distinctive voice.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, and so do you, Ella, And so like
Speaker 4: it's like that's really the strength of the piece in
Speaker 4: so many ways, is that like people come away with it.
Speaker 4: It doesn't feel like you're in the background or like
Speaker 4: hiding behind something when you're writing this piece, Like it
Speaker 4: very much feels like the success of it is because.
Speaker 1: You are a part of it.
Speaker 4: And The New York Times reported that this was Ella's
Speaker 4: first che lance article. So I just wanted to add
Speaker 4: that you know, Ella kind of did her did her
Speaker 4: big one with her first article.
Speaker 5: Thanks all.
Speaker 6: This is now everything I've read a big one. The
Speaker 6: next fifteen years will be underwhelming.
Speaker 3: It's all downstream from here.
Speaker 6: Woo, it's not true, Baron Trump, I'm coming for you.
Speaker 2: You're gonna re enroll at NYU exactly.
Speaker 5: They'll never see me coming.
Speaker 2: I am waiting for him to get fixed by like
Speaker 2: a bisexual she they it's gotta happen, right, No, I
Speaker 2: don't think something.
Speaker 6: I don't know Obama was like into a bisexual she
Speaker 6: they and he's still yeah, bombed the Middle East or whatever.
Speaker 2: But no, like like mainstream coverage is just completely failure
Speaker 2: and trans people right now. I got so mad at
Speaker 2: a Washington Post article yesterday that I that I skeedd
Speaker 2: about it, something I never do.
Speaker 1: Was it the sports one yes playing.
Speaker 2: After President Donald Trump band transgender girls from competing in
Speaker 2: girls sports, of Virginia high schooler joins the boys team.
Speaker 2: She wasn't gonna let the President's executive order stop her.
Speaker 2: Framed is like a feel good story, fucking infuriating and it's.
Speaker 4: So like transparent like and I again I feel like
Speaker 4: I keep.
Speaker 1: Bringing the system into the space. I'm really sorry.
Speaker 4: One of my like cist colleagues was like, this is disgusting.
Speaker 4: Why did they write this like a feel good story?
Speaker 4: And it's like, my thing is is if if anyone
Speaker 4: with some amount of criticals thinking skills can see exactly
Speaker 4: through what you're doing, why even do it? Like it's
Speaker 4: so transparent like the way that that story was.
Speaker 1: Written, because it gets clicked.
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess you know what got clicks was Vivian.
Speaker 4: So I actually don't know about that.
Speaker 5: That's true and say that and say that, and I
Speaker 5: did and I will.
Speaker 2: Do you want to talk about the length of the
Speaker 2: transcript because I am curious how long Vivian talked for?
Speaker 5: Am I am I allowed to say that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I think I'm legally say can we explain why.
Speaker 1: When we're not recording, I can explain why?
Speaker 6: Okay, I think I got to say most of what
Speaker 6: I want to say. I mean, I think Vivian's just
Speaker 6: like a delightful person and I'm really excited for her
Speaker 6: that she gets her moment in the spotlight and that
Speaker 6: hopefully this like helps her build herself as a public
Speaker 6: figure outside of and away from Elon Musk and she
Speaker 6: has all of these aspirations to perform and model, and
Speaker 6: I hope she gets to do Her and a Winter
Speaker 6: Drag one day soon.
Speaker 3: I love that movie.
Speaker 2: It's a great movie. Hi and a Windsor Lex. Do
Speaker 2: you want to plug your little outlet?
Speaker 3: What was this teen Vogue?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't know if anyone's heard.
Speaker 4: Actually so frequently people haven't heard of it, so it's
Speaker 4: actually fine.
Speaker 1: Yes, you can find us at teen vogue dot com.
Speaker 4: We have no paywall, we have a fact checking department.
Speaker 4: Most of mainstream media is not doing it like us,
Speaker 4: if you consider those two points.
Speaker 2: So yeah, labor politics, especially teen Vogue's been phenomenal the
Speaker 2: past like eight years.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 6: So true.
Speaker 4: If you love Kim Kelly, she is our labor columnist,
Speaker 4: so comes through. I also do some of our labor coverage,
Speaker 4: but like definitely not today than Kim does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm on the things. I'm on the socials. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's all I had. Little Ella.
Speaker 3: Where can people find you on the worldwide Web?
Speaker 6: I'm on on Instagram and actually everything app as Ella
Speaker 6: Yurman or Ella dot Yeerman on Instagram.
Speaker 2: We're gonna get you on Blue Sky. One of these
Speaker 2: days we can fix the vibes.
Speaker 6: I'm on Blue Sky. I just forget about to do it,
Speaker 6: can we? I suffered through twenty twelve Tumbler once. I
Speaker 6: don't need to do it again.
Speaker 4: That is so not the vibe. I wish it were.
Speaker 4: But it's not a clue.
Speaker 3: Scot No, it's more twenty nineteen Twitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 6: You can also find my show at going Down TV
Speaker 6: on Instagram, Going Down the Show on YouTube, Going Down
Speaker 6: Show on Patreon.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I make a transgender daily show. You
Speaker 5: guys know about it.
Speaker 3: New studio looks great.
Speaker 6: It's so fun. We got to get you on there.
Speaker 6: We got to get you to come hang out.
Speaker 2: Okay, well I will. I will be in town shortly
Speaker 2: so hell yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh fun.
Speaker 4: I go to the taping so I can crash. That'll
Speaker 4: be fun. You should do it. Hell yeah, we did,
Speaker 4: we do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, We're done.
Speaker 7: It could happen.
Speaker 3: Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 7: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 7: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out from the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 7: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 7: now find sources for it could happen here, listed directly
Speaker 7: in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.