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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Hi everybody, Jamie here again reminding you

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Speaker 1: that if you're in the Los Angeles area, I am

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Speaker 1: taping my very first special called The Tiny Man Is

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Speaker 1: Trying to Kill Me on December fourth. There are two shows.

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Speaker 1: The first one is basically sold out, but there are

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Speaker 1: still tickets available to the nine point thirty. I have

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Speaker 1: the link in the description and I hope to see

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Speaker 1: you there. Enjoy the episode. Early twenty twenty one is

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Speaker 1: the time many of us have complete memory holes for,

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Speaker 1: and not without good reason. In the US, COVID was

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Speaker 1: still ravaging the country after the spread of the virus

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Speaker 1: had been repeatedly sabotaged by conspiracy theorists in and outside

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Speaker 1: of the government. Lockdown restrictions were reaching the year mark

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Speaker 1: after an extremely contentious election where COVID missed the opportunity

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Speaker 1: to do the first and only funny thing it could do,

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Speaker 1: which was killed Donald Trump. There was something that happened

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Speaker 1: on January sixth of this year, but I can't quite

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Speaker 1: recall what it was. It was a bad time, and

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Speaker 1: collectively I don't know that we really remember it. There's

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Speaker 1: some science behind this complicated issue, but the short story

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Speaker 1: is that your brain can protect you from a traumatic

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Speaker 1: memory or event or period of time. You know, when

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Speaker 1: you're listening to this set, the moment it comes out,

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Speaker 1: you probably won't remember this time very well if you

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Speaker 1: live in the US soon either because for most people

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Speaker 1: and surely to different degrees depending on what your day

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Speaker 1: to day was like during COVID and if anyone in

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Speaker 1: your life was personally affected, this was a terrifying time.

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Speaker 1: Add this to Black Lives Matter demonstrations being met with

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Speaker 1: violent reprisal from police forces and no vaccine in sight

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Speaker 1: until the very end of twenty twenty, with a long

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Speaker 1: line before it got to non essential workers, and by

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Speaker 1: early twenty twenty one, a lot of people were reaching

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Speaker 1: the ends of their ropes. Really think about where you

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Speaker 1: were at around this time. I had it comparatively easy.

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Speaker 1: Podcasting is not essential work, if you can believe it.

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Speaker 1: And even still, by the top of twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: I was a fucking wreck. I was terrified for my

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Speaker 1: immunocompromised parents across the country. I was trying to get

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Speaker 1: out of the house to do outreach work and I'd

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Speaker 1: gotten arrested at a protest in front of Eric Garcetti's house. Whoops,

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Speaker 1: and I'd do it again. The lockdown era was horrendous

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Speaker 1: for Americans' mental health. There's extensive reporting on how anxiety, PTSD,

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Speaker 1: and depression increased tremendously during that year and into today.

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Speaker 1: I don't think anyone could look back at their social

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Speaker 1: media at this time and think, Wow, I was hanging

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Speaker 1: in pretty well then, And if you can, you are

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Speaker 1: the fucking weirdo. It was an age where people were

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Speaker 1: knowingly or unknowingly posting their l's every single day, NonStop,

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Speaker 1: because unless you were an essential worker, what the fuck

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Speaker 1: else was there to do? But one L posted during

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Speaker 1: this time made Internet history, bringing people together collectively to

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Speaker 1: say oh my God in a way that was not

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Speaker 1: centered on a global catastrophe. Of course, plenty of commenters

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Speaker 1: took it too far immediately, but for a single moment

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Speaker 1: on February third, twenty twenty one, all of TikTok wasn't

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Speaker 1: focused on COVID disinformation or insurrection analysis or sorry, objectively

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Speaker 1: bad mental health content. No, we were all talking about

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Speaker 1: gorilla glue.

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Speaker 2: Hey, y'all, But those of y'all don't know me, know,

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Speaker 2: my hair has been like this for about a month now.

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Speaker 2: It's not much choice. No, it's not much choice.

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Speaker 1: Tessaka Brown, the woman who used gorilla glue in her hair.

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Speaker 1: Your sixteenth Minute starts now, Joys sixt Welcome back to

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Speaker 1: sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take a look at

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Speaker 1: the Internet. Main characters talk to them about how their

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Speaker 1: moment affected them and what it says about us and

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Speaker 1: the Internet. My name is Jamie Loftus, and today my

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Speaker 1: phone connected to an ex boyfriend's WiFi when I was

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Speaker 1: walking by in a neighborhood I didn't know he lived in.

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Speaker 1: Guess he moved. And today we're talking about the infamous

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Speaker 1: early twenty twenty one gorilla glue hair incident. And look,

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Speaker 1: I've already ptsd'd you by bringing up the later days

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Speaker 1: of the pandemic, and you don't deserve it right now,

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Speaker 1: but bear with me. I really want you to dig

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Speaker 1: into your sad little brain and pull out where you

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Speaker 1: were at in early twenty twenty one. Because today's subject

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Speaker 1: Tessaga Brown, and yes we got the interview. Baby was

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Speaker 1: in the same position as everyone was in the world,

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Speaker 1: only she was having to run a full time daycare

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Speaker 1: called Tessica's Little Angels in the middle of COVID for

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Speaker 1: folks in her neighborhood who still had to work. Plus

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Speaker 1: she was the mother of five. We were all at

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Speaker 1: the end of our rope. But as you'll see, Tessica

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Speaker 1: didn't get very much grace in the moment or in

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Speaker 1: the public's memory. So let's go back to the dark place.

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Speaker 1: Come with me if you dare to. February twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump's second impeachment trial raged on in Washington, d c.

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Speaker 1: Fat lot of fucking good that did. Meanwhile, the US

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Speaker 1: reached a five hundred thousand person death toll to COVID,

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Speaker 1: and in Violet, Louisiana, Tessica Brown ran out of got

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Speaker 1: to be blasting freeze spray and needed a quick solution.

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Speaker 1: Was what she did. The smartest decision of anyone's life. No,

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Speaker 1: but hear her out. It's February second, twenty twenty one.

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Speaker 1: Tessca has a lot of stuff going on in her

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Speaker 1: personal life, which she references in our interview, and there

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Speaker 1: is a lot going on in the big disgusting world.

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Speaker 1: She is a lifelong Louisiana resident, a place where COVID

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Speaker 1: had affected about half a million reported people since twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: before vaccines were made widely available. In fact, this whole

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Speaker 1: thing happens two days before vaccines were made available to

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Speaker 1: people sixty five and over in Louisiana and the States.

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Speaker 1: Relationship to vaccines is complicated regardless. Sometime in early January,

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Speaker 1: Tesska mistakenly sprayed gorilla glue into her hair out of

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Speaker 1: running out of got to be and the next month

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Speaker 1: was rough. Gorilla glue if you don't know, and you

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Speaker 1: really should, is no joke.

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Speaker 3: So this guy I thought he could lick the glue off. Basically,

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Speaker 3: he took some gorilla glue and he put it on

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Speaker 3: the edges of this cup and then put it on

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Speaker 3: his face. And he thought he could lick the glue

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Speaker 3: off and get this cup off of his phase. Well,

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Speaker 3: that didn't really work out very well for him.

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Speaker 1: It's a super glue that's been on the market since

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Speaker 1: the nineties, eventually prompting the phrase gorilla grip, which has

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Speaker 1: been a term of inspiration among Keagel's TikTok for years.

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Speaker 1: And I refused to expand on that sentence. You can

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Speaker 1: do your own research, but super glue existed in general

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Speaker 1: since the nineteen forties. Because yes, as every episode of

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Speaker 1: sixteenth Minute inevitably leads to super glue. Say it with

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Speaker 1: me is the product of colonialism and warmongering. We don't

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Speaker 1: need to talk about it, but hey, let's talk about

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Speaker 1: it for a second. Switch the music a little, let's

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Speaker 1: make this fun. Super glue was discovered by an inventor

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Speaker 1: named doctor Harry Wesley at kodak as in the Photography

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Speaker 1: Company during World War Two while pitching in to make

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Speaker 1: new gun sights for Allied forces. He didn't end up

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Speaker 1: trademarking the material until the nineteen fifties, but by that

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Speaker 1: time it had taken on any number of practical and

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Speaker 1: frankly horrifying uses over the years. The Military Times reported

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Speaker 1: that Wesley's invention was later used as a liquid bandage

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Speaker 1: on soldiers in the Vietnam War in order to stem

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Speaker 1: bleeding until someone with an open wound could get to

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Speaker 1: a military hospital. Really think about that gross, But it

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Speaker 1: did sort of work and was later tweaked into what's

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Speaker 1: now known as actual liquid bandages like derma bond and

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Speaker 1: trauma seal. And if you had a liquid bandage fanatic

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Speaker 1: like my mom, you will know that these products really

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Speaker 1: hurt on sensitive skin because while effective, these extreme adhesives

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Speaker 1: are not comfortable with that in mind. Enter Tessica, who

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Speaker 1: at forty had the expected social media for a person

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Speaker 1: of that demographic at that time. What I'm saying is

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Speaker 1: she was a Facebook mom, and she promoted her business

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Speaker 1: and shared family photos and live streams primarily there and

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Speaker 1: on Instagram, and she posted a lot, but her audience

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Speaker 1: was fairly limited. From what I could find. She mainly

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Speaker 1: stuck to the Zuckerberg products Facebook and Instagram, where she had,

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Speaker 1: as she tells me, only a few thousand followers at

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Speaker 1: the time of the gorilla clue incident. Fast forward to

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Speaker 1: the day she sprayed the glue. It did not go well,

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Speaker 1: but at first, as with any major l Tessica kept

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Speaker 1: it to herself, not even telling her mother or sister

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Speaker 1: at first. Days later, not only was it not coming out,

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Speaker 1: her scalp was starting to hurt and it was feeling

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Speaker 1: like it was constricting. She tried everything to try to

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Speaker 1: slow this effect, googne, rubbing alcohol, coconut oil, tea tree oil,

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Speaker 1: you name it. But it became clear that this may

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Speaker 1: not be a google able problem. So she swallowed her

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Speaker 1: pride and she reached out to the women in her

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Speaker 1: life her mother, her sister, her daughters, but that didn't

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Speaker 1: do much either, until, according to Tessica, one of her

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Speaker 1: daughters said, hey, maybe someone on TikTok will know what

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Speaker 1: to do. Yes, this is a TikTok story, and per Tessica,

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Speaker 1: she has no idea how or why this particular TikTok

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Speaker 1: went viral because prior to the gorilla glue story, Tessica

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Speaker 1: had only used TikTok twice two posts. One was of

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Speaker 1: her daughter in late twenty twenty day while wearing a

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Speaker 1: face mask, and the other was Taska herself lip syncing

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Speaker 1: to a cover of Countdown by Beyonce. You know the

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Speaker 1: song you Weren't Born Yesterday?

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Speaker 4: Mom?

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Speaker 1: Content right? And then Tessica's daughter, a true kid of

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Speaker 1: the COVID era, says, hey, Mom, maybe people on TikTok

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Speaker 1: will find you and have some ideas on how to

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Speaker 1: get the glue out. Because not only had TikTok experienced

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Speaker 1: tremendous growth during COVID lockdown, particularly with people her kid's age,

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Speaker 1: it had also become notorious for becoming a place of

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Speaker 1: hyper niche discussion. And so Tesska does with the self

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Speaker 1: assurance of a consistent poster, just not a TikTok poster.

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Speaker 1: So she's in her bathroom filming on her phone and

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Speaker 1: a hot pink hoodie with full makeup and a long braid,

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Speaker 1: and as in all her posts, Tesca looks great. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: there is something clearly going on with her hair. It's

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Speaker 1: you know, it's super glued to her head. Here's the

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Speaker 1: fifty nine seconds that made her famous.

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Speaker 2: Hey, y'all, but those of y'all that knew me know,

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Speaker 2: my hair has been like this sub about a month now.

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Speaker 2: It's not much choice. No, it's not much choice. When

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Speaker 2: I do my hair, I like to, you know, finish

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Speaker 2: it off with the little got to be glue spree,

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Speaker 2: you know, just to keep it in face. Well, I

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Speaker 2: didn't have any more got to be blue spas, so

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Speaker 2: I used this gorilla glue spree.

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Speaker 5: Bad, bad, bad idea. Y'all. Look my hair. It don't move.

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Speaker 5: You get what I'm telling you. It don't move.

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Speaker 2: I've washed my hair fifteen times and it don't move.

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Speaker 2: Stiff Well, who my hair?

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Speaker 5: So I'm gonna tell y'all like.

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Speaker 2: This, if you ever ever run out of got to

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Speaker 2: be golose spring, don't ever ever use this so.

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Speaker 1: That clicking noise is the sound of Tessica's nails on

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Speaker 1: her own scalp. And this post does go viral on

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Speaker 1: TikTok basically immediately. Tessica says she posted it before bed

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Speaker 1: with no hashtags. TikTok doesn't really respond to that as much.

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Speaker 1: It's just captioned stiff ware my hair, which is a

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Speaker 1: reference to a meme where a black mom and her

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Speaker 1: daughter are joking around in a car while the daughter

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Speaker 1: is wearing a new wig. Maybe you've seen.

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Speaker 2: It right back on Ooh no bam, Yes, yes, ooh

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Speaker 2: ooh stiff wall stiff whia.

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Speaker 1: If you haven't, go watch it. And Tessica has definitely

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Speaker 1: seen this because she's pretty online and for all intents

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Speaker 1: and purposes, she's just a normal person posting a weird,

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Speaker 1: kind of stressful TikTok. But when she wakes up the

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Speaker 1: morning after posting blues still in her hair, her TikTok

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Speaker 1: account has gone nuts. She has officially been sucked into

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Speaker 1: the algorithmic vortex. And she asked herself fucking how well.

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Speaker 1: As we've discussed on the show before, that's kind of

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Speaker 1: the whole question with TikTok. Most if not all social

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Speaker 1: media algorithms are completely diabolical by nature. And again, if

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Speaker 1: you want to know more about that, I will shout

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Speaker 1: out friend of the show, Max Fisher's book The Chaos Machine,

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Speaker 1: which breaks down how algorithms have increasingly informed how we

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Speaker 1: consume news and ourselves in the space of the last decade.

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Speaker 1: The section where he unpacks a period of time leading

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Speaker 1: up to the twenty sixteen election where the top brasset

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Speaker 1: YouTube just let the algorithm run itself lives rent free

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Speaker 1: in my mind forever. The point is the way that

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Speaker 1: algorithms function remains very opaque to this day, something that

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Speaker 1: seems like should maybe not be allowed, given the fact

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Speaker 1: that these algorithms have disproportionate influence on how we receive

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Speaker 1: information and often disinformation. And in case you're not aware,

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Speaker 1: there's a bit of an infinity saga with TikTok and disinformation,

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Speaker 1: with the platform itself repeatedly vowing that they are definitely

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Speaker 1: taking steps internally to combat disinformation as recently as this

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Speaker 1: past fall, although I will say I have some doubt

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Speaker 1: on how effective that's been. I don't really know what

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Speaker 1: this kind of announcement does to imply TikTok's accountability. It

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Speaker 1: seems more kind of like they're passing the buck to

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Speaker 1: their users. Take a listen.

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Speaker 6: If you try to share content within unfair verified claim,

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Speaker 6: we may also ask you to reconsider before sharing, especially

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Speaker 6: during emergencies and unfolding events. This helps prevent the spread

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Speaker 6: of misinformation. You should still think critically about content that's

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Speaker 6: not labeled as unverified and report potential harmful misinformation so

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Speaker 6: our safety teams can assess it.

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Speaker 1: Okay TikTok give us less. A twenty twenty two report

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Speaker 1: from NewsGuard indicated that when it came to hot button

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Speaker 1: issues like vaccines, election information, and even things as specific

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Speaker 1: as the January sixth insurrection, around one in five TikTok

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Speaker 1: posts contained disinformation of some kind. So let's hope a

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Speaker 1: commitment to combating disinformation is true. Because TikTok has a

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Speaker 1: very strong influence on Internet users. Right now, it is

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Speaker 1: by far the most addictive platform, with the Digital twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four Global Review Report estimating that the average user

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Speaker 1: clocks in around thirty four hours of TikTok use a month.

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Speaker 1: That's followed by YouTube at twenty eight hours and Facebook

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Speaker 1: at almost twenty Its base is also young in comparison

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Speaker 1: to other platforms. Over half of TikTok users are teenagers,

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Speaker 1: and eighty percent of users say they primarily use the

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Speaker 1: platform to find something entertaining. And if you've ever used it,

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Speaker 1: the TikTok algorithm is good at figuring out what you

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Speaker 1: specifically will find entertaining. Here's what's in my algorithm on

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Speaker 1: TikTok right now, because making this show has destroyed all

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Speaker 1: of my algorithms, thank you so much. And the fact

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Speaker 1: that someone called me the buffalos fairy godmother because I've

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Speaker 1: been telling people where to get their sameless songs so they're.

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Speaker 2: Not with you.

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Speaker 4: I'm sorry.

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Speaker 5: What did you guess?

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Speaker 7: See that video of that girl who started crying because

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Speaker 7: she started chewing remineralizing chewing gum in her cavities.

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Speaker 5: Lily went away.

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Speaker 1: I heard talk. He's trying to do livestream. It's flopping.

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Speaker 1: But for the sake of this story, we're talking about

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Speaker 1: the TikTok algorithm in twenty twenty one, specifically, an algorithm

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Speaker 1: we can assume is somewhat different from the crack that

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Speaker 1: they're putting in the TikTok algorithm today. And here's what

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Speaker 1: we knew at the time, according to a report from

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Speaker 1: The New York Times Ben Smith at the end of

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Speaker 1: that year. The report reviewed internally leaked documents from the

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Speaker 1: China based company called TikTok Algo one oh one, which

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Speaker 1: stated the four core tenants of the app at the

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Speaker 1: time were user value, long term user value, creator value,

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Speaker 1: and platform value. And it is worth mentioning that TikTok's

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Speaker 1: being a non American company does affect how it's discussed

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Speaker 1: in Western media. Enough time to unpack it fully, but

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Speaker 1: suffice it to say, yes, social media and big tech

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Speaker 1: are quite evil, but they're nothing next to Senator Tom Cotton.

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Speaker 1: Here's Senator Tom Cotton talking to TikTok's CEO, Showsey Chew

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Speaker 1: in January twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 8: So you said, today, as you often say, that you

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Speaker 8: live in Singapore of what nation? Are you a citizen

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Speaker 8: Singapore is? Are you a citizen of any other nation? No, Senator,

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Speaker 8: Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship? Senator, I serve

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Speaker 8: my nation in Singapore.

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Speaker 9: No, I did not.

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Speaker 8: Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party, Senata,

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Speaker 8: I'm Singaporean?

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Speaker 1: No? Wow, So much more of this to look forward

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Speaker 1: to in the next four years. Really cool the app's

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Speaker 1: ultimate goal in twenty twenty one at the time of

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Speaker 1: the Tessica Brown post features a term we've also heard

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Speaker 1: in the story of YouTube or getting as many users

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Speaker 1: as possible to spend as much time as possible on TikTok,

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Speaker 1: and this almost always leads to the algorithm pushing content

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Speaker 1: that is manipulative in some way. This Times report detailed

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Speaker 1: a tendency for TikTok to focus on quote unquote sad

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Speaker 1: content to get people to keep watching, and even provides

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Speaker 1: a little equation that details how it ranked which posts

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Speaker 1: to boost, relating to likes, plays, comments, and time watched.

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Speaker 1: It goes on to detail the ways in which TikTok

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Speaker 1: aims to keep people engaged by recommending similar but not

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Speaker 1: too similar content in order to avoid boredom. Again, this

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Speaker 1: is an echo of the YouTube algorithm story that can

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Speaker 1: and has led to users getting coaxed into increasingly extreme content.

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Speaker 1: With these qualifiers in mind, it's not super surprising that

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Speaker 1: Tessica Brown's video performed well within TikTok's outcome rhythm. The

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Speaker 1: video is kind of long, you're definitely not sure how

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Speaker 1: it's gonna end. The subject is sad and upset and

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Speaker 1: even now. Tessica says in our interview that she understands

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Speaker 1: that in some sick way, it could be entertaining to

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Speaker 1: watch her struggle, or at very least you can't look away.

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Speaker 1: And when Tessica's TikTok went live under her.

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Speaker 4: Username I'm underscore d underscore old Lady, pretty funny, viewers

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Speaker 4: could not look away, which prompted a very polarized comment

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Speaker 4: section hit the music, Why why why would you do that?

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Speaker 1: Girl? You're lucky it didn't get in your eyes, ears hands?

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Speaker 1: What the fuck is wrong with you? This better blow

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Speaker 1: the fuck up?

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Speaker 9: Because dam I'm sorry girl.

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Speaker 1: Girl, I'm so sorry, but this is so funny.

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Speaker 6: Baby oil, googn dawn dish, soap and nail polish remover

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Speaker 6: last resort.

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Speaker 1: Girl, please update us.

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Speaker 6: This is literally a plot of a Victorious episode.

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Speaker 9: Baby, you made a helmet. You could survive an actual

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Speaker 9: disaster when in Nabrica. Never hear unstoppable.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Hopefully I'm not the only person that wanted to

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Speaker 1: fact check that next to last comment. Was there an

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Speaker 1: episode of Nickelodeon's early twenty tens tween show Victorious. About

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Speaker 1: this subject. What is this for?

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Speaker 2: Oh that's glue?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but why is it with your makeup supplies?

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Speaker 2: What's the problem.

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Speaker 1: This is grizzly glue. It's like an industrial cement.

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Speaker 9: Hey, cat, tell me you didn't use this on Tory's face?

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Speaker 4: Uh?

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Speaker 1: Yes? Indeed, this was a Victorious episode from twenty ten

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Speaker 1: in which a character played by one Ariana Grande super

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Speaker 1: glues a monster mask to Victoria Justice's face. I love culture,

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Speaker 1: but it's here where the gorilla glue story splits in

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Speaker 1: two because Tessica has become a main character off of

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Speaker 1: her third TikTok. Ever, and as she hints at in

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Speaker 1: the post, she's also starting to be in a lot

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Speaker 1: of physical pain from a month's worth of ever constructing

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Speaker 1: super glue. I'll let Tesska share the more specific details

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Speaker 1: in our interview, but this Burt and what the TikTok

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Speaker 1: comments on this ever growing post. At present, it sits

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Speaker 1: around fifty six million views. Confirmed was that she seemed

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Speaker 1: to have tried everything that was possible to do from

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Speaker 1: home in the month the glue had been in her hair,

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Speaker 1: but still she kept trying. The next day, Tessika posted

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Speaker 1: a TikTok of her squeezing a hand full of panteen

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Speaker 1: into her palm, rubbed it into her hair, and showed

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Speaker 1: that where there would normally be a leather, nothing happened.

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Speaker 2: Like this is the life that I guess I'm.

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Speaker 5: Happy to live.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, noo, noop No.

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Speaker 1: This is a hard clip to watch. She's close to

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Speaker 1: tears here and you can hear the business of her

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Speaker 1: household continuing just outside of the bathroom. Later that day,

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Speaker 1: Tessca posted again, acknowledging how viral her first post had gone.

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Speaker 1: While continuing to ask for help. She writes, thanks for

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Speaker 1: you guys encouraging and ideas to get rid of this

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Speaker 1: forever ponytail. I will try some today when I get

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Speaker 1: off from work, and I will keep you guys posted.

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Speaker 1: By the way, if you see me walking around with

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Speaker 1: a headscarf, just mind your business. Well, so from the jump,

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Speaker 1: Tessca had a good sense of humor about the incident,

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Speaker 1: even as the pain and the mocking comments continued to

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Speaker 1: roll in.

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Speaker 6: You are the reason items have instructions.

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Speaker 9: Call Gorilla Glue customer service after they stop laughing.

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Speaker 5: They may give you a commercial deal.

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Speaker 1: But it's clear that as time goes on, Tessca was

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Speaker 1: becoming increasingly desperate updating her increasing online following on solutions

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Speaker 1: that hadn't worked, until finally, on February sixth, she checked

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Speaker 1: into the Saint Bernard Parish Hospital nearby to seek professional help,

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Speaker 1: and after that visit, she wasn't much better off. The

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Speaker 1: hospital estimated that using acetone and sterile water would make

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Speaker 1: the whole process take about twenty hours, and Tessica opted

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Speaker 1: to go home and continued to work at it with

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Speaker 1: her sister instead. Once back home, video footage shows Tesska

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00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: panicked and completely beside herself as her sister used actone

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Speaker 1: wipes from the hospital to try and loosen the glues hold.

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Speaker 1: But it's worth mentioning Tessica does lean into posting updates

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Speaker 1: on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram immediately. There's not really a

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Speaker 1: time where she's rejecting the attention. And this isn't a criticism.

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Speaker 1: It actually reminds me quite a bit of our Ken

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Speaker 1: Bone episode. He was very baffled when he became a star,

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00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,159
Speaker 1: but you never really saw him resisting it. But of

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00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: course the difference between these stories is significant. Tessica was

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Speaker 1: in many cases being openly mocked instead of celebrated like Ken.

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Speaker 1: She is also a black woman and subject to all

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Speaker 1: of the misogynir that comes with that. But it does

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Speaker 1: feel worth mentioning that she doesn't really resist the attention

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Speaker 1: around this story. What she does resist is people and

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Speaker 1: the press misrepresenting who she is and what really happened.

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Speaker 1: So Tessica has become a TikTok main character quite literally overnight,

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Speaker 1: and mainstream media is pretty quick to catch on to

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Speaker 1: this story. I think in part because media was generally

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Speaker 1: faster to catch on to online stories in general during

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Speaker 1: lockdown because of the intensity of eyes on TikTok. At

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Speaker 1: the time, we're seeing headlines.

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Speaker 6: Like woman's gorilla glue hair style on TikTok has everyone baffled.

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Speaker 9: Tessica Brown is not just the gorilla glue girl. Her

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Speaker 9: message to.

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Speaker 6: The internet Gorilla Glue said, it's sorry to hear about

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Speaker 6: the woman who accidentally glued her hair in place.

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Speaker 9: The undeniable hold of the gorilla glue girl, and what

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Speaker 9: it says about the empathy of the internet.

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Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Tessica's support system was not satisfied with the options

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Speaker 1: that the hospital was offering. We talk about that more

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00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:02,479
Speaker 1: in our interview and on Sunday, February seventh, the family

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Speaker 1: starts a GoFundMe for Tessica in the hopes of getting

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Speaker 1: money for an actual solution. The goal for the fundraiser

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00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: was only fifteen hundred dollars, but because of the number

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00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: of eyes on the story, the account quickly surged to

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Speaker 1: over twenty three thousand dollars, and of course, Gorilla Glue

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00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: couldn't resist getting in on the free pr Once Tessica

432
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: had returned from the hospital. On February eighth, the company

433
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: tweeted the quote.

434
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 6: We are very sorry to hear about the unfortunate incident

435
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 6: that Miss Brown experienced using our spray adhesive on her hair.

436
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 6: We are glad to see in her recent video that

437
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 6: Miss Brown has received medical treatment from her local medical

438
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 6: facility and wish her the best.

439
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: However, Gorilla Glue stood their ground, saying in the same

440
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: post that it was not you know, intended for hair,

441
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: but I was heartened to see that the comments around

442
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: this post Moss are pretty firmly on Tesska's side. Commenters

443
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: suggested that Gorilla Glue should just donate money to Tessica

444
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: to show good faith. Some mention that the spray does not,

445
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: in fact explicitly say it shouldn't be used on hair,

446
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: and others warned that Tesska very well may have a

447
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: good lawsuit on her hand, even comparing it to the

448
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 1: McDonald's Hot Coffee lawsuit of nineteen ninety four. I'd recommend

449
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: the You're Wrong About episode on that topic if you

450
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 1: don't know more about that lawsuit. And there were rumors

451
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,719
Speaker 1: that Tessica planned to sue gorilla glue that were mentioned

452
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 1: in a couple of news sources, but Tesska says that

453
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: this was never true or a plan of hers, and

454
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: to be fair, she was a little busy to be

455
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 1: organizing a lawsuit at this time to split between trying

456
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 1: to get this very painful problem figured out and documenting

457
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: that process and posting it online. And that appears to

458
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: be it. So checking in. It's been nearly a week

459
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: since Tessaka went public with her saga, and still nothing

460
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: has been figured out except that the Internet was wrapped

461
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,719
Speaker 1: with attention as vaccines continued to be disseminated across the world.

462
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: And I'm not joking. Benjamin nettan Yahoo was on court

463
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: for a bribery charge. Time is a flat circle and

464
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: you'll notice from what we've even discussed so far, there

465
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: is a pretty wide range of reactions to Tesska's story,

466
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: and I think that this is because you can easily

467
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: trace a wide range of diversity in the race, age,

468
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: and gender of accounts that are replying to support her

469
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: or not. By the time Tessco went to the hospital,

470
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: prominent figures had begun commenting on her situation as well,

471
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: including Chance the Rapper, and more relevantly to what I'm

472
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 1: trying to talk about, Sunny Houston of The View, who

473
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: tweeted the following.

474
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 9: So many are being dismissive of hashtag gorilla glue girl

475
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 9: given the history of how black women are targeted and

476
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 9: still battle the pervasive belief that our natural hair is unprofessional, unkempt,

477
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 9: and in some way a statement please show her some

478
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 9: grace and understanding.

479
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: Tessica's story is tied into the historical relationship with Black

480
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 1: women and their hair, a topic that has been spoken

481
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: on extensively over the years. Some major examples are the

482
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine documentary Good Hair, hosted by Chris

483
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: Rock and the Oscar winning short film and best selling

484
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: children's book Hair Love by Matthew cherry, just to name

485
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: a few. My name is Ziri, and I have hair

486
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: that has a mind of its own.

487
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 2: It kinks, coils, and curls every which way.

488
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: But I'll link more resources in the description as well.

489
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: And Tessica's story is one of the iconic main character

490
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: moments that revolves around black hair. So many of the

491
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: top comments come from black users on TikTok. Of course,

492
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: plenty of these users are teasing Tessica and are baffled

493
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: at the choice in using gorilla glue in the media.

494
00:32:55,320 --> 00:33:00,120
Speaker 1: Clap back at Tessica specifically reeks of misogynir and this

495
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: was thankfully called attention to although not with the same

496
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 1: frequency as the click baity you won't believe what happened,

497
00:33:07,600 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: how embarrassing style of post not by a long shot.

498
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: But these essays do exist.

499
00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 2: I do exist.

500
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: This is from a February eighth, twenty twenty one piece

501
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 1: from Essence by Candice Benbo.

502
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 9: Perhaps all this history is what joined so many of

503
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 9: our hearts to Tessica's plight. We may have never had

504
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 9: an industrial product for styling purposes, but we've done things

505
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 9: to our hair and to ourselves we wished we hadn't

506
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 9: We were endeared to her because we know what it's

507
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 9: like to be judged by the biggest mistake you've ever

508
00:33:36,720 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 9: made and not to be given the compassion and empathy

509
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 9: necessary to move through its implications. All across social media,

510
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 9: there are scores of people suggesting Tessica is attention seeking

511
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 9: and deserves whatever she gets. She should have known better.

512
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 9: In a world where hacks are celebrated and people become

513
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 9: Internet sensations overnight for discovering new uses for old products,

514
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 9: Tessica is villainized because her attempt resulted in failure. Why

515
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 9: is it so easy to dehumanize black women when we

516
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:08,240
Speaker 9: make mistakes? Why must compassion for us be measured and mediated?

517
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 9: How different would the response to Tessica be if she

518
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 9: were white.

519
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: We don't have to wonder.

520
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 9: Too long about the answers to these questions. We know

521
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 9: them already. We know Black girls and women have to

522
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 9: be perfect. There is no room for error, and when

523
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:25,040
Speaker 9: we mess up, we know it was nobody's fault but

524
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 9: our own. And we know we live in communities that

525
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 9: won't let us forget it either.

526
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, a lot of what Candice is describing here,

527
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: the quickness to demonize and shame. Tasaka Brown does bear

528
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: out a number of times in the days that followed,

529
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: and I also want to mention that, yes, many people

530
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: did accuse Tessica of spraying gorilla glue in her hair

531
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 1: just for attention and just to go viral, which I

532
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 1: think is pretty clearly not true, but also speaks to

533
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: the Internet brain of what we are can addition to

534
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 1: believe people will do for attention, including hurt themselves. Right

535
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: moving on, another piece from the King County Hazardous Waste

536
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:10,719
Speaker 1: Management Program adds to this.

537
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:14,720
Speaker 6: While most would never dream of putting gorilla glue anywhere

538
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 6: near their body, sometimes black women need to venture outside

539
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 6: the hair care aisle to find products that work. Castor oil,

540
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 6: olive oil, mayonnaise, and superglue are all used for hair

541
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:31,320
Speaker 6: styling purposes. Also, many products marketed exclusively for black women

542
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:36,840
Speaker 6: include chemical based products like hair relaxers, texturizers, and bonding glues.

543
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 6: Research over the years has shown there are fewer non

544
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 6: toxic options in black hair products than there are in

545
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 6: those marketed to the general public. Although understudied, there's growing

546
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 6: evidence that a high number of products marketed for black

547
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 6: hair care contain known harmful chemicals linked to cancer, reproductive problems,

548
00:35:56,320 --> 00:36:02,399
Speaker 6: hormone disruption, asthma, and other adverse health effect.

549
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:04,879
Speaker 1: In the coming weeks, Tessaca Brown would be very forthcoming

550
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:09,359
Speaker 1: about how a cultural emphasis on whiteness factored into how

551
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 1: she had felt about her own hair in the past.

552
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 1: Later in February, she reflected on her early life, telling

553
00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: ABC Chicago about her experience in middle school, she said, I.

554
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,880
Speaker 9: Thought, if you have another flaw, if your hair is together,

555
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 9: you know you look better. If I can't do nothing else,

556
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 9: I'm gonna make sure my hair is on point. This

557
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 9: has been a problem for me for a long time.

558
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 9: If I wouldn't have cared so much about my hair,

559
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 9: I wouldn't be going through this right now.

560
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 1: So again, it is really overly simplistic who characterized Tessica's

561
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 1: action as beyond the pale ridiculous. Even if, like Tessica

562
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: says now, she's embarrassed by making the mistake, it's a

563
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,640
Speaker 1: decision that exists in a far larger context, one that

564
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: ranges from historical racism and misogyny to the fact that

565
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: she was working full time during a pandemic and was

566
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: likely just as burned out as anybody was. It was

567
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:08,239
Speaker 1: a mistake, but as the days continued, people didn't seem

568
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 1: to get tired of making fun of her. As the

569
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: situation reached its peak, on Monday, February ninth, Pessica gave

570
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: her first interview to Kiss ninety two to five in Toronto,

571
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: saying that she was waiting to shave her head as

572
00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: a last resort and felt quote some type of way

573
00:37:24,440 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: unquote above people making fun of her fair enough. On Tuesday,

574
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: things really kick up behind the scenes, and unbeknownst to

575
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: the public at the time, Tessica had been reached out

576
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: to by manager Gina Rodriguez. Not that one. This Gina

577
00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: Rodriguez is a reality and viral star manager, including a

578
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: number of names. You know some of the Real Housewives,

579
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 1: Mama June of Here Comes Honey Booboo, Scott Dissick of

580
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:55,720
Speaker 1: the Kardashians, Tory Spelling, the Ocean, Spray skateboard guy, Nathan

581
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 1: appadaka Gina Rodriguez answer my email, I want to talk

582
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 1: to him. The list goes on right, and when Gina

583
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,080
Speaker 1: heard about Tessica's story, she both seemed to see a

584
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: person who needed help and a potential business opportunity. Rodriguez

585
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 1: got in touch with Tessica to connect her with a

586
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,760
Speaker 1: plastic surgeon who she knew in La One, who claimed

587
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: that he had the ability to save her hair and

588
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: would do the procedure in Beverly Hills for free. Enter

589
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: doctor Michael Obang, who has over twenty years of experience

590
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: in the industry, and finally it seemed like Tessica had

591
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:37,080
Speaker 1: a solution. She announced she was heading out to Beverly

592
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: Hills in an emotional interview with Entertainment Tonight that same day.

593
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 2: I'm not that person y'all trying to meet me out today.

594
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:47,839
Speaker 2: I'm not that person. I'm not this whole gorilla blue girl.

595
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 2: My name is Tessica Brown.

596
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:49,640
Speaker 5: Call me.

597
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:51,919
Speaker 2: How's old theology know exactly who I am?

598
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: And on Wednesday, February tenth, Tessica Brown arrived in a

599
00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:59,759
Speaker 1: red hoodie in a mask to Lax where there was

600
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: and I'm not joking, literal paparazzi waiting for her as

601
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: she headed out to doctor Oban's office. This story was big.

602
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 1: The procedure was done that evening, and while Tesska recovered,

603
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 1: the good doctor got a little prn by giving CBS

604
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 1: Los Angeles an update.

605
00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 6: Tessica is doing well. She's awake, the haircrew is doing

606
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 6: her hair.

607
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: This interview also revealed maybe one of the most impressive

608
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 1: things I've ever heard, which is that doctor Obeng literally

609
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: created a new chemical product to remove the gorilla glue

610
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: and it was successful. He invented a whole new thing,

611
00:39:38,640 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: and TMZ classy as ever, filmed and posted the whole procedure.

612
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 8: If you feel anything, if it's too uncomfortable, let me know.

613
00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: We can get you more payments, okay, which is a

614
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:52,240
Speaker 1: potential insight into why this twelve five hundred dollars procedure

615
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: was done for free. Look, I'll be honest, I could

616
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: not bring myself to watch the video of the procedure.

617
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: I'm too squeamish. But the final procedure is said to

618
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,040
Speaker 1: have taken four hours while Tesska was under a light

619
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: anesthetic for the la times. Doctor Obank's potion was a

620
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 1: combination of medical adhesive remover, alo vera, olive oil and

621
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: actone mixed in a way to prevent harm to her scalp.

622
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,319
Speaker 1: The healing process was estimated to be about two or

623
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 1: three months, and thank god it worked. And yes, of course,

624
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: doctor Obank mentioned he was considering selling the product in

625
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 1: the future put a pin in that. So finally, a

626
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: week after this whole TikTok Soga began, and over a

627
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:38,319
Speaker 1: month after the glue had been put in her hair

628
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 1: in the first place, Tessica's head was gorilla glue free,

629
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: and now she was Internet famous, complete with an entertainment

630
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: manager and a full blown press tour that ranged from

631
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 1: network TV to more prominently forever growing social media feeds.

632
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,840
Speaker 1: She was liberated from the glue with Rodriguez signed Heesseca

633
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: Brown showed no signs of slowing down. She launched an

634
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:10,839
Speaker 1: official merch site on February twelfth, featuring her image from

635
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 1: the viral TikTok with the caption bonded for life. Pretty

636
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:18,439
Speaker 1: good and Sure people clowned on her for printing merch

637
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: over a one social media moment, but people were watching

638
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: and buying the stuff, with an estimated million and a

639
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: half social media posts about the gorilla glue incident by

640
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: the middle of this month, and like William Hung and

641
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 1: Ken Bone before her, Heessecka Brown even broke through to

642
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: appear in a middling SNL sketch on February fourteenth.

643
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,399
Speaker 10: So it happened, So you your worst night, Miss.

644
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:48,720
Speaker 7: We've all been there. You ran out a half product

645
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 7: and you used Gorilla blue instead, and it turned.

646
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,360
Speaker 10: Your beautiful lush's made into a hard candy sheep.

647
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:03,400
Speaker 1: That's Keenan Thompson and Regina King. Not shabby. And throughout

648
00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:07,440
Speaker 1: this time, Pessica was adamant about who she is, and

649
00:42:07,520 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: to me, it's admirable how she continued to remind reporters

650
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 1: and online randos that she didn't appreciate being called the

651
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 1: Gorilla Glue girl, and that her plan was to forge

652
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: ahead with her business and the dance team that she

653
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 1: had coached her daughters on before this incident. In a

654
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:28,320
Speaker 1: profile of her from Vox by Melinda Facuade on February nineteenth,

655
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 1: Pessica said.

656
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 9: Clout is something I will never chase. I promise you.

657
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 9: The dance team was in a commercial, they were in newspapers,

658
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 9: they were in a magazine. That's enough clout for me.

659
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 9: I don't need all of this because this was just

660
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 9: lay way too much, and truly, who would want to

661
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 9: go through that pain I went through for clout?

662
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:51,360
Speaker 1: Again, this is Tessica having to stave off the accusations

663
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: that she had done the whole very painful ordeal for attention.

664
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: But the Internet couldn't let go of the gorilla glue moment.

665
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: There were, from what I could find, at least two

666
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 1: copycats who were ostensibly trying to like bust the idea

667
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 1: that super glue could have caused this much damage to

668
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: Tessica Brown's hair and life. And the results, drum roll.

669
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:31,839
Speaker 1: Both of these MythBusters went to the hospital. Great job, guys, mythbusted. Look,

670
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: if you know anything about the Internet, this is nothing new.

671
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: Social media has always been a place where random challenges

672
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: that could possibly kill you rule the algorithm. Examples in

673
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 1: the early twenty tens the Cinnamon challenge, where someone puts

674
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: a spoonful of uncut ground cinnamon into their mouth with

675
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:54,399
Speaker 1: no water. All right, so here's the cinnamon, all right,

676
00:43:55,520 --> 00:44:05,840
Speaker 1: all right, here'll go. Or how about the tide pod challenge,

677
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: which was a twenty seventeen eighteen social media craze where

678
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: users were mainlining laundry pods because they were colorful. I

679
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: don't know, I have no insight. People died eating. Those

680
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 1: eight deaths were associated with ingestion of the packets, two

681
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 1: children under one year old and six in adults with

682
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 1: the history of dementia. This will never stop, and as

683
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 1: disinformation gets worse, I think we'll see these kinds of

684
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 1: things get more dangerous. But the copycats going to the

685
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 1: hospital is just another way that Tessica brown saga continued

686
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: kind of much longer than your average social media main character.

687
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 1: For some expected reasons. Pessica was willing to engage with

688
00:44:49,080 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: the story, and it was also a rare social media

689
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: moment that continued to develop as the days passed. I

690
00:44:55,800 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 1: remember observing this story you would want to check in

691
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 1: on how she was doing. All of the commenters are

692
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 1: wanting updates, wanting to know that she's okay. But once

693
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: the procedure with doctor Obang was complete, of course, things

694
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: began to sort of die down. But by this point

695
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: Tessica had a following. It was this weird mistake that

696
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:19,759
Speaker 1: brought her to prominence. But Tessica is funny, she's attractive,

697
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 1: and she was interested in continuing to post and see

698
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: how this fluke could potentially improve her quality of life.

699
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: And it really seems to have a few quick things.

700
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:33,440
Speaker 1: So there has been some speculation about how the money

701
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 1: from Tessica's GoFundMe was dispersed after she received the hair

702
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:40,800
Speaker 1: procedure from doctor Obang for free. This is a report

703
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 1: from the New York Post, so take it with a

704
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 1: heavy grade of salt, but they stated that the GoFundMe

705
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: had been put under investigation by the platform when Tesska

706
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: announced that she would be donating at twenty three thousand

707
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: dollars raised in the early days of the gorilla glue

708
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:59,359
Speaker 1: panic to local families and other causes. And to be clear,

709
00:45:59,400 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that she did give a chunk of

710
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:04,399
Speaker 1: that money, in the form of one thousand dollars big

711
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 1: checks to local families in Louisiana in need, and she

712
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: says to have donated the rest to doctor Obing's nonprofit

713
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 1: Restore Worldwide, Incorporated, to support his ongoing effort to provide complimentary,

714
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:22,840
Speaker 1: reconstructive surgery to people in need abroad. Moving into late February,

715
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,320
Speaker 1: still less than a month after her viral fame began,

716
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 1: Pessica became a news item again after returning to doctor

717
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,799
Speaker 1: Obing for a follow up about her hair procedure, which

718
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 1: it turns out was also a consultation for additional work

719
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,799
Speaker 1: with the doctor, including a breast lift, implants and some

720
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: liposection per the New York Post at the time. There

721
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: were lumps detected in Tessica's breast in these early consultations,

722
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 1: which were thankfully removed and she announced were benign. And

723
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 1: from there she moved ahead with the procedures, also including

724
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 1: some complimentary dental work from another provider in the LA area.

725
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 1: And so accusations lingered in her comments section that these

726
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 1: procedures were where the remaining go fundme money actually went,

727
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 1: but there is no proof to show things went one

728
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: way or another. But now with manager Gina Rodriguez at

729
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 1: her side, Pasica continued to forge ahead. And can you

730
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:27,240
Speaker 1: guess what she did next. That's right, Pessica Brown released

731
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: a hair care product named Forever Hair just a couple

732
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: months later in June twenty twenty one. And yes, the

733
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:38,040
Speaker 1: comments to this are what you'd expect. Now, it might

734
00:47:38,080 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 1: be gorilla glue in it, lol, get the bag, sis,

735
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,439
Speaker 1: et cetera, and on and on, but this product got

736
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 1: press and I can understand why people would be curious

737
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,719
Speaker 1: about it. At launch, Forever Hair sold to products an

738
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 1: eighteen dollars growth stimulating oil and a fourteen dollars Forever

739
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,440
Speaker 1: Hold spray. And while these products didn't stick around on

740
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:03,320
Speaker 1: the market, they did sell out, another testament to Tessica

741
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: Brown's staying power and the work taking place on her

742
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:09,439
Speaker 1: management side. And before twenty twenty one was over, she'd

743
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: gone viral two more times, once for trying to dye

744
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 1: her graze before her scalp was healed enough to handle

745
00:48:15,160 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: more chemicals.

746
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:18,480
Speaker 5: I decided that I was going to win my real hair.

747
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:20,120
Speaker 2: But when I looked at it, you know, I had

748
00:48:20,120 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 2: a gray hair here, a gray head there, So me

749
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 2: thinking that my hair is strong enough to say chemicals, dude, No.

750
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:29,240
Speaker 5: It wasn't.

751
00:48:30,320 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 1: And another time for doing what at least two other

752
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: sixteenth minute subjects have done in the past by my math.

753
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: Hasska made a play at a music career when she

754
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:41,759
Speaker 1: released a rap single in November twenty twenty one.

755
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:43,839
Speaker 2: Almost went in a panic when I ran out, I

756
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 2: got I had a problem. I had the US Gorilla

757
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 2: Glucius assaulted over with Psilka the South Shot. I watched

758
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 2: it with everything I could think of, but nothing was

759
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:50,880
Speaker 2: making progress.

760
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,320
Speaker 1: I was stopping with to do It's fun whatever. And

761
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:57,680
Speaker 1: through twenty twenty two, Pessica continued to post regularly to

762
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 1: her platforms while continuing her business Yes, and in early

763
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, she made it all the way to

764
00:49:03,719 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: cable TV and appeared on a season of the Food

765
00:49:06,719 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 1: Network competition Worse Cooks in America after auditioning, I'm Tessaca Brown.

766
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:14,400
Speaker 2: I'm a daycare provider from Valla, Louisiana.

767
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 5: What are you famous for?

768
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 2: Already at a handsbress break over loo glue my house?

769
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:22,879
Speaker 9: Oh your gorilla, my help?

770
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 5: It don't move in these days.

771
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 1: Almost four years later, Tessca Brown's life is pretty similar

772
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:31,879
Speaker 1: to what it was when she first became a viral star.

773
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: She still runs her daycare, she's had another child's and

774
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: by her account, she's now in a much happier relationship

775
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:42,239
Speaker 1: than she was at the time. The difference of four

776
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 1: years mainly is that she also has millions of eyes

777
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:51,719
Speaker 1: on her lifestyle content across platforms, mostly Instagram and now

778
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: a facet of her life TikTok and when we come back,

779
00:49:56,080 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 1: I speak exclusively with Tessica Brown herself. Welcome back to

780
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:18,440
Speaker 1: sixteenth Minute. My name's Jamie Loftus and I just started

781
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: taking EIGHTYHD medication. I feel like half of my body

782
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:26,280
Speaker 1: is underground and the other half is forty feet above

783
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: sea level? Is that how the human experience is supposed

784
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:34,280
Speaker 1: to feel? Please discuss on the Reddit board. And today

785
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 1: we are revisiting the twenty twenty one saga of Tessica

786
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 1: Brown getting gorilla glue in her hair. As you've heard,

787
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:46,240
Speaker 1: this story was wild and continued to stretch on. Tessica

788
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: is still active on Instagram and TikTok to this day,

789
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:52,800
Speaker 1: and she recently switched management teams to continue expanding on

790
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:56,399
Speaker 1: what she can do with her story and her online fame.

791
00:50:57,160 --> 00:50:59,200
Speaker 1: But now that it's been nearly four years since the

792
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 1: original event, I wanted to hear Tasaka's story in her

793
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:05,319
Speaker 1: own words, and thankfully she was generous enough to give

794
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: us some of her time. So, without further ado, here's

795
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: my talk with Tasaka Brown.

796
00:51:10,160 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 4: Hi.

797
00:51:10,360 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 5: My name is Tessaka Brown.

798
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,400
Speaker 2: I'm forty three years old and I'm from Saint Fanol Parish,

799
00:51:15,520 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 2: New Orleans, Louisiana.

800
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: I want to start by talking about your life a

801
00:51:21,719 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: little bit. Where are you from, how did you grow up?

802
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: I want to know a little bit more about you

803
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: prior to this moment.

804
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:31,959
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm from Louisiana, but I'm from like a little

805
00:51:32,000 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 2: small town right outside of New Orleans. It's called Saintanov Parish.

806
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 2: If you had to raise the children anyway, this will

807
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 2: be the place I'll go. I have five sisters, well,

808
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 2: four sisters, two brothers. I have five kids. I've been

809
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 2: on my day camp for ten years now. I had

810
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,480
Speaker 2: a dance team when the glue thing first happened. I

811
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 2: made the dance team for my girls.

812
00:51:54,880 --> 00:51:55,080
Speaker 8: Cool.

813
00:51:55,160 --> 00:51:56,359
Speaker 1: Are you still running the daycare now?

814
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:56,879
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am.

815
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:00,439
Speaker 1: Yes, amazing because you were in your late thirties early

816
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: forties when this happened, and I talked to people with

817
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:05,840
Speaker 1: such a wide age range for this show. What was

818
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:10,520
Speaker 1: your relationship with the internet, like at the time that

819
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:12,360
Speaker 1: this happened, did you post a lot? Yeah? What was

820
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:13,520
Speaker 1: your relationship with the internet?

821
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:16,520
Speaker 5: I had one video on TikTok, only one.

822
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:20,520
Speaker 2: I used to go live a lot on Facebook, Like

823
00:52:20,640 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 2: Facebook was my thing, you know, because my kids was like,

824
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:25,880
Speaker 2: you know, this is where you belong on Facebook? I

825
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 2: guess because you know, Yeah, that's so I heard. I

826
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:31,360
Speaker 2: did a lot of posts, right right. I did a

827
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:33,719
Speaker 2: lot of posting on Instagram, and like I said, I

828
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 2: went live a lot on Facebook, but only had one

829
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 2: video on TikTok.

830
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 5: I had like a little singing my intro to TikTok.

831
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,719
Speaker 5: That was the one video. Then came the Girl in Glub.

832
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 1: You'd been using Facebook and Instagram for a long time.

833
00:52:48,520 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 1: Did you have audiences sort of like outside of your

834
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: general family or circle or was it?

835
00:52:55,239 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 5: Okay, yes, I had.

836
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 2: I had on Instagram. I had like I want to say,

837
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 2: like ten thousand five. And I feel like that was

838
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:04,239
Speaker 2: because like I have the daycare, and we do I

839
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:05,760
Speaker 2: do prom for the daycare.

840
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 7: I do.

841
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:09,520
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, I do. I have pictures if you want see.

842
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 2: I do parades every year, and I feel like I

843
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 2: got a lot of followers doing that.

844
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:16,759
Speaker 1: Like especially when you're a small business owner figuring out

845
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 1: how to make social media like kind of work for you.

846
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 1: So you had some idea of like how to make

847
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 1: social media work for you?

848
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 2: Okay, right, yeah, now always to the point where I

849
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:28,959
Speaker 2: post something. Now I'm looking to see how many people

850
00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:32,720
Speaker 2: watched it, who come in. Yeah, it's totally different from before.

851
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:35,520
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. I'm very excited to talk about that

852
00:53:35,719 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: sort of shift. But first, of course, we got to

853
00:53:39,239 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: go through the day itself. So I've seen the original

854
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: series of videos many times, what motivated you to post

855
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:51,920
Speaker 1: this to TikTok, specifically my little girl, my daughter. So

856
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,320
Speaker 1: she suggested, like, well, maybe someone here will know what

857
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:54,600
Speaker 1: to do.

858
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the thing is, I kept saying, you know,

859
00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 2: I don't know what else do? I don't know because

860
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,479
Speaker 2: I was scared even tell them Mama, because I figured

861
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:02,880
Speaker 2: she was gonna come over here, you know, slap me

862
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 2: in my head. You know, you shouldn't have did that.

863
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:07,759
Speaker 2: So that's why I didn't want call her. But when

864
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 2: it got to the point where the ponytail just kept

865
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:14,320
Speaker 2: getting tighter and tighter, it felt like my skelp you

866
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:17,440
Speaker 2: know when your ladies fall asleep. Yeah, that's what it

867
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 2: felt like inside my head, like just tingling, yeah, just

868
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:22,160
Speaker 2: singing all the time. So I'm like, you know what,

869
00:54:22,239 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 2: I have to call her mama, And we like to

870
00:54:23,640 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 2: call mama doctor Quinn medicine woman because she know pretty

871
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:29,800
Speaker 2: much how to do. No matter what you say, this

872
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 2: lady could tell you exactly what to do and how

873
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:34,200
Speaker 2: to get rid of it. So she came and we

874
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 2: did a whole bunch of stuff, and it's before the

875
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:40,920
Speaker 2: TikTok gotcha, and absolutely nothing worked. Nothing, nothing she did

876
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 2: work and I knew if my mama didn't know, I

877
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:44,959
Speaker 2: have to go you know, social media. So my baby

878
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:47,800
Speaker 2: was like, MA put it on TikTok. Yeah, and I'm like,

879
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:49,800
Speaker 2: I only have like one video on TikTok. She said, MA,

880
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:50,840
Speaker 2: put it on TikTok.

881
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:52,040
Speaker 5: So I put it on.

882
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:55,080
Speaker 2: TikTok that night, and I'm thinking, I'm guessing like nine

883
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 2: o'clock at night, I put it on TikTok. Got up

884
00:54:57,680 --> 00:54:59,720
Speaker 2: the next morning, you know, getting my children ready for school.

885
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:02,000
Speaker 2: Girl jumps up because I wake them up. I go

886
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 2: to the doors and I start waking everybody up. So

887
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 2: the oldest one after she got up, you know, she

888
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 2: check her phone before she even get up and rushed

889
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:12,080
Speaker 2: her teeth. Yeah, she she come running and I'm like,

890
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:14,760
Speaker 2: what's drowm Ma? You got over a Meetian followers?

891
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:16,280
Speaker 5: Girl? You going viral?

892
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:19,600
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, wait, did somebody say you know how

893
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:20,719
Speaker 2: I could get it off mine?

894
00:55:20,719 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 5: You word but the wrong thing.

895
00:55:21,800 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know what, dude, I need somebody to

896
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:25,760
Speaker 2: help me get this off. She was word with the numbers.

897
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:28,160
Speaker 2: I'm trying to, you know, get this off or whatever.

898
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:28,919
Speaker 1: Yeah.

899
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:34,000
Speaker 5: So yeah, I started going through the comments. Oh my god, those.

900
00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was this first wave of comments like listen.

901
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:41,320
Speaker 2: I promise you I knew it was going to be

902
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 2: like people around here, that's gonna be like, oh, you

903
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:48,479
Speaker 2: know that was stupid or that was dumb. I didn't

904
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 2: think for one second the world was gonna you know

905
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:52,440
Speaker 2: what I'm.

906
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 5: Saying, yea.

907
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:56,960
Speaker 2: And it got to the point where they telling me,

908
00:55:57,120 --> 00:55:58,239
Speaker 2: you know, of course I'm dumb.

909
00:55:58,800 --> 00:55:59,600
Speaker 5: That was stupid.

910
00:55:59,800 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 2: And then letters started coming to the house. I literally

911
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:06,200
Speaker 2: got a letter to the house. And the thing is

912
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 2: they had my they had my address because of course

913
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:09,720
Speaker 2: I have the daycare.

914
00:56:09,800 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 5: So everything was and I.

915
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:13,439
Speaker 2: Didn't think again, I didn't think that there was ann

916
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:15,080
Speaker 2: do like it did, because I probably would have took

917
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 2: all that off first. But I just thought, you know,

918
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:20,680
Speaker 2: it's gonna be people around here. They started sending me stuff.

919
00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:24,319
Speaker 2: They was called the phone. The phone was just ridiculous.

920
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:26,319
Speaker 2: I ended up taking my phone and through my phone,

921
00:56:26,320 --> 00:56:29,279
Speaker 2: I'm not answering absolutely nobody else because again my phone

922
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 2: numb was on social media, so I mean, they called

923
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 2: you stupid, soon answer the phone, you dumb like it

924
00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:35,719
Speaker 2: was bad.

925
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:38,239
Speaker 5: And then the letter, when the letter came, it was.

926
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:44,000
Speaker 2: They drew me right, yeah, with my head cut off

927
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:44,680
Speaker 2: with I'm.

928
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:45,440
Speaker 5: Holding it like this.

929
00:56:45,920 --> 00:56:46,680
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

930
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,320
Speaker 5: It was some bad, bad people, it was.

931
00:56:50,280 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 2: And the thing is, you know, like sometimes you think

932
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:55,560
Speaker 2: like people think this stuff, but for you to really

933
00:56:55,640 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 2: say this stuff and do this stuff, I thought it

934
00:56:57,239 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 2: was completely a line because I can say a lot

935
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:02,239
Speaker 2: of stuff on social media, but I don't I would

936
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:04,640
Speaker 2: send it in a text message to my sisters.

937
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:05,319
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying.

938
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:08,360
Speaker 2: I'm never gonna post that that was really really hurtful,

939
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:12,160
Speaker 2: and don't say like maybe three days after it happened,

940
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:13,880
Speaker 2: dragged me for two weeks.

941
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:17,720
Speaker 5: She called me a nothing girl. She didn't put this in.

942
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,160
Speaker 5: I hate they kept saying I was cloud chased. So

943
00:57:20,200 --> 00:57:22,800
Speaker 5: let me tell you that. Man, if anybody that really

944
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 5: know me, I don't like to be embarrassed.

945
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 2: I hate being embarrassed if I'm outside, and I hate

946
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 2: being embarrassed.

947
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 5: So that me doing that.

948
00:57:33,360 --> 00:57:35,240
Speaker 2: Trust me, I wouldn't did it if I If I

949
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 2: had knew, I would have just probably died in my

950
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 2: head like that. I would have never put it, I

951
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:42,959
Speaker 2: promise you, which is so unfair.

952
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:46,280
Speaker 1: I mean, I totally hear you. And part of what

953
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 1: kind of confuses me about people's reactions. I mean, people

954
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 1: are just out of their mind and always looking for

955
00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:54,200
Speaker 1: someone to be cruel to. I mean, I feel like

956
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:56,880
Speaker 1: that's rule number one of the Internet. I've been so

957
00:57:57,080 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 1: confused about how the TikTok algorithm works. I feel like

958
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 1: everyone is just erasing the fact that you weren't trying

959
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:06,160
Speaker 1: to reach anyone outside of like your general area. But

960
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: because no one knows how the TikTok algorithm works, it

961
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 1: just got sucked up and like regurgitated to everybody. And

962
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 1: how was that your fault?

963
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 5: It was bad.

964
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:17,919
Speaker 1: I mean I want to go back to those first

965
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 1: couple of days as well, because I mean, just going

966
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 1: back through the story, it seems like you're not only

967
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:27,520
Speaker 1: dealing with suddenly the eyeballs and attention of millions of people,

968
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:31,800
Speaker 1: but you're also still dealing with the physical problem. So

969
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 1: how do you manage those first couple of days where

970
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:37,440
Speaker 1: there's like two really stressful things going on.

971
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:40,800
Speaker 2: We started looking at some of the comments and they

972
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:44,840
Speaker 2: were saying, well, use this, use that, use this, So

973
00:58:45,040 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 2: now glogle be going acetone the stuff I started using Now,

974
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:53,919
Speaker 2: of course it was pretty you know, as I'm trying

975
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:56,600
Speaker 2: to keep getting off myself. But now I'm following what

976
00:58:56,720 --> 00:58:59,320
Speaker 2: they're telling me. So now I got cotton bowls stuck

977
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 2: to it. The inside is it's not just tingling is burning.

978
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:08,520
Speaker 2: That first day, Judy, Judy called me and that's from

979
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 2: Colleida School.

980
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:10,920
Speaker 1: Did you just find the TikTok?

981
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 5: Yeah?

982
00:59:12,400 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she of course again my number was on it.

983
00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 2: She said, oh, well, I'm about to send you a

984
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:16,960
Speaker 2: bunch of stuff.

985
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:19,560
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you. You know it's something that's gonna being there,

986
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:20,400
Speaker 5: you know, get it off.

987
00:59:20,960 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh no, this is to grow you have back. Well,

988
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:26,240
Speaker 2: we're still trying to get it off at this point.

989
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 2: So my sister was like, you know what, like when

990
00:59:29,160 --> 00:59:31,479
Speaker 2: it all started, she said, you know what, You're gonna

991
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:33,640
Speaker 2: have to have surgery, you know what I'm saying to

992
00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 2: get this off. Like, dude, nobody gonna give me surgery,

993
00:59:37,240 --> 00:59:40,360
Speaker 2: you know, to get this off. So now she's answering

994
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 2: my phone. She gave me the lady Gina, a lady

995
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:45,880
Speaker 2: named Jane. She said, call on him on the side.

996
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:47,240
Speaker 2: I ended up calling Gina next.

997
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 5: Morning and.

998
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:53,080
Speaker 2: Eventual, but I'm still wondering, like when is somebody gonna

999
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:55,320
Speaker 2: tell me, you know, like what I can do? You

1000
00:59:55,360 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, everybody's trying to tell me what

1001
00:59:57,080 --> 00:59:58,480
Speaker 2: they can do for me and what they can get,

1002
00:59:58,520 --> 00:59:59,920
Speaker 2: but I'm still have a headache.

1003
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:03,439
Speaker 5: My head is burning now, like it's just nobody's telling

1004
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:03,840
Speaker 5: me what to do.

1005
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 2: So she called me back and said, well, I talked

1006
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 2: to a doctor and the doctor said he could take

1007
01:00:09,280 --> 01:00:10,960
Speaker 2: it off, and not only can he take it off,

1008
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 2: you're gonna take it off for free. Three days later,

1009
01:00:13,240 --> 01:00:15,680
Speaker 2: I was in Los Angeles, and.

1010
01:00:15,760 --> 01:00:18,120
Speaker 1: So is this all happening in less than a week?

1011
01:00:18,280 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 5: Kind of less than a week?

1012
01:00:19,920 --> 01:00:20,160
Speaker 1: Wow?

1013
01:00:20,360 --> 01:00:22,200
Speaker 5: Okay, I was in Los Angeles.

1014
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 2: What he did when she first called him, he thought

1015
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 2: it was a joke until she was like, no, I'm

1016
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:28,640
Speaker 2: really really serious. So he went and bought a can

1017
01:00:28,680 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 2: of gorilla glue and he sprayed it on a mannequin head.

1018
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:33,640
Speaker 2: So he went to putting all kinds of stuff together

1019
01:00:34,320 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 2: to see if you could take it out, and whatever

1020
01:00:36,360 --> 01:00:39,320
Speaker 2: he put together, he was able to take it out

1021
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 2: the mannequan head, and they flew me out there, and

1022
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:43,920
Speaker 2: I tell you, they flew me out there. It took

1023
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:46,160
Speaker 2: four hours for the surgery, and when I woke up,

1024
01:00:46,400 --> 01:00:48,920
Speaker 2: I was able to Oh my god, I promise you.

1025
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:53,240
Speaker 1: I'm trying to wrap my head around what a crazy

1026
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:56,320
Speaker 1: week that is for you. You start, I mean because

1027
01:00:56,360 --> 01:00:58,520
Speaker 1: the day, the day you posted the TikTok, it was

1028
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:01,280
Speaker 1: just a normal work day, right, you Right? And then

1029
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:04,720
Speaker 1: a week later you're in Beverly Hills getting a surgery

1030
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:05,960
Speaker 1: that was developed just for you.

1031
01:01:06,400 --> 01:01:09,480
Speaker 2: Like even my parents that were coming to the door,

1032
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:11,960
Speaker 2: they was like, oh girl, I just thought you liked

1033
01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 2: that hairstyle, like nobody nobody knew why it was like that.

1034
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:16,960
Speaker 5: But that long?

1035
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 1: How long was your hair stuck before you posted to TikTok?

1036
01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 5: Over thirty days? Okay, old the thirty days.

1037
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:28,200
Speaker 2: And it's just like it, just like I said it,

1038
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:32,440
Speaker 2: just the ponytail thing is just kept getting tighter and

1039
01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 2: it was tangling in the inside, and it got to

1040
01:01:36,800 --> 01:01:38,240
Speaker 2: the point where I just couldn't do it any more.

1041
01:01:38,280 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 2: I'm taking a vlpms like I'm eating M and m's.

1042
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:46,000
Speaker 1: When this starts to go viral, When you start to

1043
01:01:46,040 --> 01:01:49,000
Speaker 1: get this like absurd amount of attention that no one

1044
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: could be prepared for it, much less with their scalp

1045
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:53,360
Speaker 1: on fire, How did your family and friends react, How

1046
01:01:53,400 --> 01:01:55,200
Speaker 1: did they come together for you? I think it's very

1047
01:01:55,280 --> 01:01:58,320
Speaker 1: funny like the generation gap of your daughter being like

1048
01:01:58,480 --> 01:01:59,200
Speaker 1: the numbers.

1049
01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:01,520
Speaker 2: Oh no, well, listen, my sisters was like that too.

1050
01:02:01,880 --> 01:02:03,360
Speaker 2: My mama was the only one that sat there and

1051
01:02:03,400 --> 01:02:06,560
Speaker 2: cried with me. My little sister, she was there with

1052
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:10,680
Speaker 2: me through the whole thing. I'm talking from coming from

1053
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:12,680
Speaker 2: the hospital because you know, I ended up going to

1054
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:15,480
Speaker 2: the emergency room because after they was telling me all

1055
01:02:15,520 --> 01:02:17,960
Speaker 2: the stuff they use, this is when it got beyond

1056
01:02:18,160 --> 01:02:19,920
Speaker 2: I can't even take it in the moment. I went

1057
01:02:19,960 --> 01:02:22,920
Speaker 2: to the emergency room and the lady was like, oh,

1058
01:02:23,040 --> 01:02:23,720
Speaker 2: I just seen you.

1059
01:02:24,040 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 5: She just seen me on TikTok. Oh my god.

1060
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:30,000
Speaker 2: So she get me in and she she has this

1061
01:02:30,240 --> 01:02:33,200
Speaker 2: act tone stuff and she's trying to get it out.

1062
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:35,600
Speaker 2: So it's took the point where I'm going to be

1063
01:02:35,640 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 2: in this hospital. So it's either me being in the

1064
01:02:37,720 --> 01:02:39,280
Speaker 2: hospital all this time and end up having a heart

1065
01:02:39,320 --> 01:02:41,680
Speaker 2: attack because as she's taking the stuff off, it's burning

1066
01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:44,640
Speaker 2: so bad to my pressure kept going up. It was

1067
01:02:44,760 --> 01:02:47,440
Speaker 2: so I asked her, can she give me the stuff

1068
01:02:47,680 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 2: and then I could go home and do it, and

1069
01:02:49,720 --> 01:02:51,520
Speaker 2: then you know, my sister and Mama they could take

1070
01:02:51,560 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 2: their time and you know, do it some at a time,

1071
01:02:54,640 --> 01:02:56,600
Speaker 2: but it was just burning so much. And then like

1072
01:02:56,760 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 2: the next day, that's when Gina told me about doctor.

1073
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:03,000
Speaker 2: So we just stopped and just waited to go out there.

1074
01:03:03,440 --> 01:03:06,560
Speaker 2: Right before that, my sister started. My little baby said

1075
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 2: she started the goal fundme because she was like, you know,

1076
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:12,760
Speaker 2: you're gonna need surgery. Then she said, once she's gonna

1077
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:15,360
Speaker 2: be bold, you're gonna need wigs. And if anybody know,

1078
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:18,160
Speaker 2: these wigs not cheap these days. So she started to

1079
01:03:18,200 --> 01:03:19,880
Speaker 2: go fund me and I think she put it for

1080
01:03:20,280 --> 01:03:22,800
Speaker 2: I think it was like five thousand dollars she put

1081
01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 2: for the goal fundme.

1082
01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 5: The goal fund Me raised twenty six thousand dollars. Wow.

1083
01:03:27,640 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 2: Then they started saying that I'm suing Gorilla Glue. Now people, oh,

1084
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:34,600
Speaker 2: they want their money back from the goal fundme. And

1085
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:37,720
Speaker 2: this is when people went crazy.

1086
01:03:37,680 --> 01:03:42,520
Speaker 1: On Wait, can you just where did that rumor come from?

1087
01:03:42,600 --> 01:03:43,360
Speaker 5: I don't even know.

1088
01:03:43,880 --> 01:03:46,680
Speaker 2: I don't even know because listen when this happened, when

1089
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:50,600
Speaker 2: I seen the numbers and every everybody was talking about it,

1090
01:03:50,760 --> 01:03:54,840
Speaker 2: I emailed girla Glue myself and I told them I'm

1091
01:03:54,920 --> 01:03:57,880
Speaker 2: sorry for all of this, you know attention, I love

1092
01:03:57,960 --> 01:03:58,640
Speaker 2: y'all products.

1093
01:03:58,720 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 5: I'm sorry and that was it.

1094
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:04,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super any bad. Yeah you didn't know that.

1095
01:04:04,080 --> 01:04:05,560
Speaker 5: Yeah, because I didn't want that. I didn't want that.

1096
01:04:05,840 --> 01:04:07,840
Speaker 2: I didn't want that, and I didn't want no negative stuff.

1097
01:04:08,040 --> 01:04:10,480
Speaker 2: But then gorilla glue and seeing something like, you know,

1098
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:13,520
Speaker 2: just a bunch of pre publicity. Everybody was buying it

1099
01:04:13,600 --> 01:04:14,600
Speaker 2: just to make these videos.

1100
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:17,360
Speaker 1: So this rumor came up that you were suing gorilla

1101
01:04:17,400 --> 01:04:21,000
Speaker 1: glue and then people got upset. How did that play out?

1102
01:04:21,560 --> 01:04:24,080
Speaker 2: Uh, this is I did it on purpose, just the

1103
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:26,640
Speaker 2: super gorilla glue. And here's the thing again, I have

1104
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:30,040
Speaker 2: a daycap. I've been having this daycap for ten years. Yeah,

1105
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:33,000
Speaker 2: I'm okay, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I didn't

1106
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:35,520
Speaker 2: need I felt like I'm gonna say this. I felt

1107
01:04:35,560 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 2: like with the whole daycap, I was doing way better

1108
01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 2: in life before this happened.

1109
01:04:40,320 --> 01:04:42,960
Speaker 1: I understand why no one trusts anyone on the internet,

1110
01:04:43,040 --> 01:04:47,160
Speaker 1: but it's so obvious you didn't post a lot to TikTok.

1111
01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 1: You have a whole life and you can't control what

1112
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:55,120
Speaker 1: goes viral on TikTok. Like it seems completely random. How

1113
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,440
Speaker 1: How does where do things land? With the with the

1114
01:04:57,560 --> 01:04:59,240
Speaker 1: gofund me in the longer term.

1115
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:02,080
Speaker 2: Okay, with the GoFundMe, I ended up taking it down

1116
01:05:02,800 --> 01:05:05,680
Speaker 2: and because I even had to make it do a

1117
01:05:05,760 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 2: whole appeal because they messaging the go fund me people,

1118
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:12,000
Speaker 2: so we had to do a whole appeal. And then

1119
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:15,160
Speaker 2: when he sent this to me three thousand of the dollars,

1120
01:05:16,240 --> 01:05:20,560
Speaker 2: I came back home and I gave three different families

1121
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:23,360
Speaker 2: one thousand dollars. And then with the rest of it,

1122
01:05:23,480 --> 01:05:25,840
Speaker 2: I gave the doctor obain because he did the surgeon

1123
01:05:25,880 --> 01:05:28,360
Speaker 2: for me for free. He did the surgeon for free,

1124
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:31,040
Speaker 2: and then he goes to Africa. He goes all kind

1125
01:05:31,080 --> 01:05:33,560
Speaker 2: of plaghana, He goes everywhere, and he do all of

1126
01:05:33,600 --> 01:05:35,480
Speaker 2: these surgeons for you know, like the baby with the

1127
01:05:35,520 --> 01:05:38,000
Speaker 2: klep lips, and he really do like all kinds of

1128
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:40,640
Speaker 2: free surgeries. So I felt like, if I give this

1129
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:42,920
Speaker 2: to him, that can help him help a lot of

1130
01:05:43,000 --> 01:05:46,439
Speaker 2: more people. Then they told me, oh, that was dumb.

1131
01:05:46,640 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 2: You should have never gave them money. Like nothing I did,

1132
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:51,439
Speaker 2: nothing I did was okay. Everything I did was wrong.

1133
01:05:51,720 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 2: They fussed at me for doing the go fundme, they fussed.

1134
01:05:55,120 --> 01:05:58,000
Speaker 5: At me from giving it away. It was just nothing.

1135
01:05:58,120 --> 01:05:59,160
Speaker 5: Absolutely nothing I did.

1136
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:01,120
Speaker 1: It was Okay, we'll be right back with more of

1137
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:20,080
Speaker 1: my talk with TESSAA Brown. Welcome back to sixteenth minute.

1138
01:06:20,240 --> 01:06:23,280
Speaker 1: I never used chat GPT because I'm ethically opposed to

1139
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:26,200
Speaker 1: it and it scared me. However, last night I was

1140
01:06:26,240 --> 01:06:28,920
Speaker 1: missing my dad, and so I went on chat GPT

1141
01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:33,360
Speaker 1: and I asked chat GPT who was Mike Loftis, hoping

1142
01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:38,280
Speaker 1: to read something like nice about my dad and folks.

1143
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:42,960
Speaker 1: Chat GPT told me Mike Loftus was comedian and podcaster

1144
01:06:43,160 --> 01:06:49,080
Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus's ex boyfriend or ex partner. So I dated

1145
01:06:49,160 --> 01:06:52,200
Speaker 1: my dead dad according to the scary computer love that

1146
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:56,000
Speaker 1: that's what the historical register will show. And here's the

1147
01:06:56,080 --> 01:06:59,880
Speaker 1: rest of my conversation with Tessaca Brown. So you go

1148
01:07:00,040 --> 01:07:03,840
Speaker 1: go to LA. Thankfully you're able to get this resolved.

1149
01:07:04,680 --> 01:07:06,880
Speaker 1: I guess before because I want to talk about how

1150
01:07:06,920 --> 01:07:10,200
Speaker 1: the management stuff sort of came together originally. But I

1151
01:07:10,280 --> 01:07:13,080
Speaker 1: do want to talk about there were also some copycats.

1152
01:07:13,560 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 1: How did that come to what?

1153
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,560
Speaker 2: Okay, the girl with the purple hair, boy, I don't

1154
01:07:19,560 --> 01:07:20,840
Speaker 2: know if it was a girl, but I'm sorry, I

1155
01:07:20,840 --> 01:07:23,440
Speaker 2: don't know, but that person did it. They didn't do

1156
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:25,920
Speaker 2: her as nearly as bad as they did me, and

1157
01:07:26,120 --> 01:07:28,880
Speaker 2: she was trying to prove a point that oh, you

1158
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:31,200
Speaker 2: can put this on the ticket right off, and she

1159
01:07:31,400 --> 01:07:33,920
Speaker 2: ended up in hospital. Then it was another man that

1160
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:36,800
Speaker 2: put gorilla glue on a cup. He had to get

1161
01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:38,919
Speaker 2: the top of his lip cut off. I'm telling y'all,

1162
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:42,720
Speaker 2: don't do this, like this is serious, right, They like

1163
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:45,280
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't get that at all, But nobody

1164
01:07:45,520 --> 01:07:48,120
Speaker 2: said nothing about them talking about me like I was

1165
01:07:48,160 --> 01:07:49,040
Speaker 2: the dumb one.

1166
01:07:49,320 --> 01:07:51,320
Speaker 1: You have that stuff. And then there's also, I mean,

1167
01:07:51,480 --> 01:07:54,360
Speaker 1: the media starts to pick up on this, How did

1168
01:07:54,520 --> 01:07:57,440
Speaker 1: you manage that? How did you decide who to engage

1169
01:07:57,480 --> 01:08:00,440
Speaker 1: with or who not to all, well, you're with this

1170
01:08:00,560 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 1: medical emergency.

1171
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:06,200
Speaker 2: I talked with Jess hilarious, okay, I like talk with

1172
01:08:06,320 --> 01:08:07,880
Speaker 2: her on the phone and his thing. I've been loving

1173
01:08:07,960 --> 01:08:11,280
Speaker 2: her since long time ago, and when I seen that

1174
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:13,040
Speaker 2: she was calling me, I was scared to answer because

1175
01:08:13,040 --> 01:08:15,280
Speaker 2: I know she's a comedian, so I feel like you're

1176
01:08:15,280 --> 01:08:18,759
Speaker 2: going to be like, you know, But she was like test, babe,

1177
01:08:18,960 --> 01:08:21,799
Speaker 2: you know what's going on. And I've told her what happened,

1178
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:23,240
Speaker 2: and she was like, I'm so sorry.

1179
01:08:23,320 --> 01:08:25,240
Speaker 5: That made me. The love for I had for her

1180
01:08:25,360 --> 01:08:26,599
Speaker 5: win a thousand plus.

1181
01:08:27,000 --> 01:08:29,000
Speaker 2: It was a lot of people like saying, you know

1182
01:08:29,560 --> 01:08:32,479
Speaker 2: it's gonna be okay, you know you're gonna get through this.

1183
01:08:32,720 --> 01:08:35,559
Speaker 1: But then it was those other ones you specifically mentioned

1184
01:08:35,680 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: the Wendy Williams coverage. As those things come through, how

1185
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:41,800
Speaker 1: do you take that in stride? How does that affect you?

1186
01:08:42,400 --> 01:08:45,439
Speaker 2: Before Wendy would said everything, she was saying, I love Wendy,

1187
01:08:45,680 --> 01:08:47,080
Speaker 2: you know me and mind watching Windy.

1188
01:08:46,920 --> 01:08:48,240
Speaker 5: All the time, like you know how you doing all

1189
01:08:48,280 --> 01:08:48,559
Speaker 5: the time.

1190
01:08:48,720 --> 01:08:52,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what happened was as she just kept every

1191
01:08:52,640 --> 01:08:57,000
Speaker 2: day this later had my picture on her screen, my

1192
01:08:57,120 --> 01:08:59,760
Speaker 2: mama called the show and she played it on a show.

1193
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:02,200
Speaker 5: She played it. My mama called this show and say, Wendy,

1194
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 5: my baby made a mistake. You know, I love you.

1195
01:09:04,880 --> 01:09:06,920
Speaker 5: My baby made a mistake. Can you please cut us

1196
01:09:06,920 --> 01:09:07,360
Speaker 5: some slack?

1197
01:09:07,760 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 2: And then after that she bought a bunch of shirts

1198
01:09:10,360 --> 01:09:11,719
Speaker 2: for everybody that was in an audience.

1199
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:14,240
Speaker 5: I said, I don't like her, but you know okay.

1200
01:09:14,000 --> 01:09:17,280
Speaker 1: So I want to take you back to LA. You've

1201
01:09:17,439 --> 01:09:21,680
Speaker 1: gotten this surgery done successfully, you can finally think a

1202
01:09:21,720 --> 01:09:25,719
Speaker 1: little clear more clearly, and you've been connected with Gina.

1203
01:09:26,120 --> 01:09:29,000
Speaker 1: So how does how does that relationship come together. And

1204
01:09:29,080 --> 01:09:31,120
Speaker 1: how did you decide to be like I need a

1205
01:09:31,200 --> 01:09:33,479
Speaker 1: manager to to sort of navigate this time.

1206
01:09:33,880 --> 01:09:36,960
Speaker 2: Well, she called me, like I said, and I called

1207
01:09:36,960 --> 01:09:38,320
Speaker 2: her the next day and she was like, you know,

1208
01:09:39,120 --> 01:09:39,840
Speaker 2: this is big.

1209
01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:42,040
Speaker 5: I know you're trying to get it off, and but

1210
01:09:42,280 --> 01:09:45,040
Speaker 5: this is big. I can do this and I can

1211
01:09:45,160 --> 01:09:45,439
Speaker 5: do that.

1212
01:09:46,760 --> 01:09:48,800
Speaker 1: What kind of things she.

1213
01:09:48,960 --> 01:09:52,320
Speaker 5: Was honey, booboos, manager, I know a lot of people.

1214
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:53,960
Speaker 5: You know, I can get it.

1215
01:09:54,200 --> 01:09:54,360
Speaker 3: You know.

1216
01:09:54,439 --> 01:09:56,000
Speaker 5: She told me like she can find somebody.

1217
01:09:56,040 --> 01:09:57,479
Speaker 2: I didn't know she really gonna find somebody, but she

1218
01:09:57,560 --> 01:10:00,040
Speaker 2: was saying she could find somebody and she can and

1219
01:10:00,080 --> 01:10:01,120
Speaker 2: helped me through this whole thing.

1220
01:10:01,960 --> 01:10:03,559
Speaker 5: And that was it. It was a lot of people

1221
01:10:03,560 --> 01:10:03,920
Speaker 5: wanted to.

1222
01:10:03,920 --> 01:10:08,000
Speaker 2: Do interviews and I didn't, you know, know what to

1223
01:10:08,120 --> 01:10:11,040
Speaker 2: do or how to So she set up like she

1224
01:10:11,080 --> 01:10:13,000
Speaker 2: would send me a whole like layout, you have an

1225
01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:15,120
Speaker 2: interview at this time, interview at this time, interview at

1226
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:15,439
Speaker 2: this time.

1227
01:10:16,040 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 5: How do all the interviews?

1228
01:10:16,960 --> 01:10:17,160
Speaker 4: Call it?

1229
01:10:17,200 --> 01:10:17,880
Speaker 5: Lot a noise done?

1230
01:10:17,920 --> 01:10:20,200
Speaker 2: Get ready for the next one. And like I said,

1231
01:10:20,360 --> 01:10:22,880
Speaker 2: the biggest thing I didn't care about the interviews. The

1232
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:26,519
Speaker 2: biggest thing she did for me was finding doctbang because that's.

1233
01:10:26,400 --> 01:10:27,200
Speaker 1: Like life changing.

1234
01:10:28,080 --> 01:10:28,400
Speaker 5: It was.

1235
01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:30,400
Speaker 1: This is something I've talked with a lot of people

1236
01:10:30,520 --> 01:10:33,639
Speaker 1: about in the past of you know, going from your

1237
01:10:33,720 --> 01:10:36,280
Speaker 1: everyday life to all of a sudden having a spreadsheet

1238
01:10:36,320 --> 01:10:39,280
Speaker 1: of like, here are my interviews for the day. What

1239
01:10:39,439 --> 01:10:42,360
Speaker 1: does that change like where all of a sudden you're

1240
01:10:42,479 --> 01:10:44,320
Speaker 1: like a public figure overnight.

1241
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:47,800
Speaker 2: But let me tell you the thing was, I feel like,

1242
01:10:48,120 --> 01:10:51,200
Speaker 2: if I can do all those interviews over now, it

1243
01:10:51,240 --> 01:10:53,360
Speaker 2: would be better because every interview I was doing, I was.

1244
01:10:53,360 --> 01:10:55,280
Speaker 5: Crying, like ugly crying every interview.

1245
01:10:55,600 --> 01:10:57,320
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they asked me questions, and I mean, you know,

1246
01:10:57,400 --> 01:10:59,800
Speaker 2: it's just it had just happened. I'm ugly crying on

1247
01:10:59,880 --> 01:11:00,479
Speaker 2: it re interview.

1248
01:11:00,800 --> 01:11:02,479
Speaker 5: Listen. I lost twenty pounds and everything.

1249
01:11:02,840 --> 01:11:03,639
Speaker 8: It was bad.

1250
01:11:04,600 --> 01:11:06,000
Speaker 5: It was, it was really really bad.

1251
01:11:06,120 --> 01:11:08,920
Speaker 2: And then like two weeks after we got the glue off,

1252
01:11:09,400 --> 01:11:09,680
Speaker 2: you know, he.

1253
01:11:09,720 --> 01:11:10,519
Speaker 5: Gave me these.

1254
01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:16,800
Speaker 1: Oh really, mm hmm, wait what walk me through that?

1255
01:11:17,400 --> 01:11:20,479
Speaker 2: He did a mommy makeover two weeks later, and you know,

1256
01:11:20,600 --> 01:11:23,679
Speaker 2: since I since I've been through so much, he was saying,

1257
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:26,759
Speaker 2: i'mna do your mommy makeover. So he gave me breasting

1258
01:11:26,840 --> 01:11:29,599
Speaker 2: plants and he did a he did lightful suction.

1259
01:11:29,479 --> 01:11:30,040
Speaker 5: On my stomach.

1260
01:11:30,560 --> 01:11:35,040
Speaker 1: Wait the doctor who did the same doctor. Yes, wait

1261
01:11:35,240 --> 01:11:37,800
Speaker 1: hold on, so wait do you ended up? Do you

1262
01:11:37,840 --> 01:11:41,040
Speaker 1: stay in LA for a little while after after after

1263
01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:41,840
Speaker 1: the glue thing?

1264
01:11:42,479 --> 01:11:44,040
Speaker 2: I think I stayed for like two days and then

1265
01:11:44,080 --> 01:11:46,760
Speaker 2: we came back home. Two weeks later we went back.

1266
01:11:46,960 --> 01:11:50,120
Speaker 1: You flew you flew out to UH to get implants

1267
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:50,719
Speaker 1: and what else.

1268
01:11:51,560 --> 01:11:54,400
Speaker 5: A tummy tuck and then they gave me the dose.

1269
01:11:55,400 --> 01:11:58,680
Speaker 1: Wow, So like this is okay, this is like the

1270
01:11:58,800 --> 01:12:03,400
Speaker 1: craziest month every So you go back to LA, you

1271
01:12:03,439 --> 01:12:07,479
Speaker 1: have these procedures done. What happens then, because now it's

1272
01:12:07,520 --> 01:12:11,480
Speaker 1: like if like you like became a social media star overnight.

1273
01:12:11,800 --> 01:12:14,599
Speaker 1: You go through this first wave of interviews where I think,

1274
01:12:14,760 --> 01:12:17,640
Speaker 1: very understandably you're very emotional. I'm always curious about that

1275
01:12:17,760 --> 01:12:20,920
Speaker 1: turning point of like, Okay, now that the immediate huge

1276
01:12:21,000 --> 01:12:25,000
Speaker 1: moment is over, what am I going to do now?

1277
01:12:25,240 --> 01:12:28,799
Speaker 1: How much do I want to engage with this moving forward?

1278
01:12:29,439 --> 01:12:29,639
Speaker 5: Well?

1279
01:12:30,200 --> 01:12:34,439
Speaker 2: What happened was I went to LA for something. I

1280
01:12:34,479 --> 01:12:36,960
Speaker 2: don't know why I was going, but I was going

1281
01:12:37,080 --> 01:12:39,600
Speaker 2: for something else. Right, I get off the plane and

1282
01:12:39,720 --> 01:12:41,920
Speaker 2: my phone it's messages out of missed all kind of

1283
01:12:42,320 --> 01:12:44,080
Speaker 2: so I called them I'm like, what's going on? You

1284
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:46,120
Speaker 2: need to talk to your daughters and talk to them now,

1285
01:12:46,960 --> 01:12:49,280
Speaker 2: Well what is going on? The teacher came to one

1286
01:12:49,320 --> 01:12:51,840
Speaker 2: of my children and say, oh, we're so sorry for

1287
01:12:51,960 --> 01:12:55,439
Speaker 2: y'all lost. So they're thinking I went on this plane

1288
01:12:56,240 --> 01:12:59,840
Speaker 2: and a plane crashed. The internet SAIDA died. It was,

1289
01:13:00,400 --> 01:13:03,200
Speaker 2: it was listen, it was everywhere. So now it got

1290
01:13:03,240 --> 01:13:04,000
Speaker 2: to the point where.

1291
01:13:04,680 --> 01:13:05,320
Speaker 5: I'm on Live.

1292
01:13:05,600 --> 01:13:07,800
Speaker 2: Oh I thought you died, And still to today, I

1293
01:13:07,840 --> 01:13:10,439
Speaker 2: can get a Live and somebody's gonna say, oh, they

1294
01:13:10,520 --> 01:13:11,520
Speaker 2: told me you passed.

1295
01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:14,439
Speaker 5: Away, like they literally killed me. So then a lot

1296
01:13:14,479 --> 01:13:15,640
Speaker 5: of stuff started dying off.

1297
01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:18,720
Speaker 1: And so how long after the original incident was this?

1298
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:21,599
Speaker 5: Oh this happened maybe with a month after I died.

1299
01:13:21,880 --> 01:13:29,120
Speaker 1: So gorilla glue incident, surgery interviews that implants dead dead.

1300
01:13:29,800 --> 01:13:31,880
Speaker 2: Like I said, all right, so if you know, if

1301
01:13:31,960 --> 01:13:35,320
Speaker 2: anybody that really really know me know me in this situation,

1302
01:13:35,439 --> 01:13:37,600
Speaker 2: I always try to make it as a joke. I

1303
01:13:37,720 --> 01:13:41,280
Speaker 2: always try to make light of any situation, just like

1304
01:13:41,360 --> 01:13:44,280
Speaker 2: I tell people now right now, if I watched the video,

1305
01:13:44,800 --> 01:13:47,320
Speaker 2: I understand why people thought it was funny. I understand

1306
01:13:47,360 --> 01:13:49,680
Speaker 2: why people thought it was a joke because you know

1307
01:13:49,760 --> 01:13:53,520
Speaker 2: what that was stupid that was done. But I understand

1308
01:13:53,640 --> 01:13:55,960
Speaker 2: now why people thought it was funny. I didn't understand

1309
01:13:56,000 --> 01:13:59,960
Speaker 2: then because I was so angry. Sure, but I understand now.

1310
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:01,000
Speaker 2: I already thought it was funny.

1311
01:14:01,240 --> 01:14:05,000
Speaker 1: You had you started developing a hair product from there? Yes,

1312
01:14:05,439 --> 01:14:07,240
Speaker 1: how did that come about? What was that process?

1313
01:14:07,479 --> 01:14:07,519
Speaker 4: Like?

1314
01:14:08,000 --> 01:14:10,080
Speaker 2: Like I said, doctor Bang put some stuff together and

1315
01:14:10,240 --> 01:14:12,960
Speaker 2: my hair like all the little ball spots that I had,

1316
01:14:13,360 --> 01:14:16,200
Speaker 2: I had like ball spots here, but I still had

1317
01:14:16,280 --> 01:14:19,360
Speaker 2: some hair. But I went got it cut like shorter

1318
01:14:19,479 --> 01:14:22,160
Speaker 2: than after I first had the surgery. The stuff that he,

1319
01:14:22,720 --> 01:14:25,519
Speaker 2: you know, had my head growing with, we bottled it up.

1320
01:14:25,920 --> 01:14:27,280
Speaker 2: Now I was scared, Don't get me wrong. I was

1321
01:14:27,280 --> 01:14:29,599
Speaker 2: scared to put it up because all I'm thinking, if

1322
01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:31,559
Speaker 2: I was somebody, why would I want to buy something

1323
01:14:31,920 --> 01:14:33,200
Speaker 2: for my hair from up?

1324
01:14:33,360 --> 01:14:33,960
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying.

1325
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:38,559
Speaker 2: That first date, I made seventy thousand. I didn't make

1326
01:14:38,680 --> 01:14:40,960
Speaker 2: you all, not me personally, but yeah, I had to

1327
01:14:41,000 --> 01:14:43,040
Speaker 2: split it with, you know, the people that was putting

1328
01:14:43,080 --> 01:14:46,559
Speaker 2: it together, the manager seventy thousand dollars in the first day.

1329
01:14:46,760 --> 01:14:50,439
Speaker 2: And then we added edge control, we added some hair spray.

1330
01:14:51,000 --> 01:14:53,679
Speaker 2: But what happened with that demand was too much because

1331
01:14:53,680 --> 01:14:55,320
Speaker 2: the people that I was doing it was like, you know,

1332
01:14:55,479 --> 01:14:56,840
Speaker 2: like a little there weren't no.

1333
01:14:57,000 --> 01:14:58,240
Speaker 5: Big time company.

1334
01:14:58,560 --> 01:15:01,200
Speaker 2: The demand couldn't keep up with what they was doing,

1335
01:15:01,520 --> 01:15:03,240
Speaker 2: and we couldn't find nobody else to do it. So

1336
01:15:03,600 --> 01:15:05,400
Speaker 2: that was a man. That was it. It was going

1337
01:15:05,439 --> 01:15:08,120
Speaker 2: after that, and everybody keeps saying, when are you bringing

1338
01:15:08,120 --> 01:15:10,479
Speaker 2: them back? Because the thing is they worked. You know

1339
01:15:10,520 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 2: how people be like, oh, I'm using this, you know,

1340
01:15:12,360 --> 01:15:13,560
Speaker 2: just so I can get people to buy it.

1341
01:15:13,960 --> 01:15:14,160
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1342
01:15:14,320 --> 01:15:16,160
Speaker 2: It really he really grew from there.

1343
01:15:16,320 --> 01:15:18,160
Speaker 1: I mean because at this point we're kind of like

1344
01:15:18,320 --> 01:15:21,799
Speaker 1: a few months out for me original you mentioned earlier,

1345
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:26,599
Speaker 1: like your attitude towards social media changed significantly. What does

1346
01:15:26,640 --> 01:15:30,400
Speaker 1: that mean interacting with social media after this first wave

1347
01:15:30,520 --> 01:15:31,799
Speaker 1: of craziness had passed.

1348
01:15:32,240 --> 01:15:35,760
Speaker 2: Before the craziness it was, you know, like I said,

1349
01:15:35,800 --> 01:15:37,840
Speaker 2: go on live talk about a football game.

1350
01:15:38,560 --> 01:15:40,000
Speaker 5: I'm just at the poke with my kids. We just

1351
01:15:40,120 --> 01:15:42,840
Speaker 5: you know, live whatever. Now I'm on live.

1352
01:15:43,280 --> 01:15:45,960
Speaker 2: Hey, y'all, tap the screen, share the live Let's get

1353
01:15:46,000 --> 01:15:46,439
Speaker 2: these number.

1354
01:15:46,800 --> 01:15:48,240
Speaker 5: Why am I doing all this? You know what I'm saying?

1355
01:15:49,720 --> 01:15:52,240
Speaker 2: I post a video every five minutes. I go back

1356
01:15:52,280 --> 01:15:55,000
Speaker 2: to see how many views I shouldn't be doing it,

1357
01:15:55,320 --> 01:15:58,479
Speaker 2: Like I feel like that's crazy. I have never worried

1358
01:15:58,520 --> 01:15:59,400
Speaker 2: about numbers before.

1359
01:16:00,080 --> 01:16:00,640
Speaker 5: It changed you.

1360
01:16:01,040 --> 01:16:03,720
Speaker 2: It changes you, It really changes you. I try to

1361
01:16:03,800 --> 01:16:06,920
Speaker 2: keep my hair done now. Once upon a time, baby,

1362
01:16:07,000 --> 01:16:09,080
Speaker 2: I would get on social media and just like yo,

1363
01:16:09,520 --> 01:16:10,400
Speaker 2: you know whatever, whatever.

1364
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:13,920
Speaker 5: But now I have to make sure my lashes is done.

1365
01:16:13,920 --> 01:16:16,280
Speaker 2: I got to make sure because at this point, because

1366
01:16:16,280 --> 01:16:18,800
Speaker 2: I have a couple of videos after that that went viral.

1367
01:16:19,080 --> 01:16:20,560
Speaker 2: So now I'm like, oh, well, I don't know what

1368
01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:23,000
Speaker 2: video and go viral. So I got to try to

1369
01:16:23,040 --> 01:16:26,200
Speaker 2: make myself presentable. Like even my children, they'll come show

1370
01:16:26,240 --> 01:16:28,160
Speaker 2: me now it's you know, at first it was they

1371
01:16:28,200 --> 01:16:30,960
Speaker 2: were just posting stuff. Now let me see this, bring

1372
01:16:31,080 --> 01:16:32,679
Speaker 2: me this phone, let me see this video.

1373
01:16:33,000 --> 01:16:35,320
Speaker 5: I need to see what's in the background. I need

1374
01:16:35,360 --> 01:16:36,599
Speaker 5: to see if anything on the floor.

1375
01:16:36,920 --> 01:16:38,679
Speaker 2: It's draining. I'm gonna tell you that it's draining.

1376
01:16:39,000 --> 01:16:40,640
Speaker 1: It sounds like the kind of thing that once it

1377
01:16:40,960 --> 01:16:44,680
Speaker 1: starts like, you don't you don't really go back right now.

1378
01:16:46,040 --> 01:16:48,640
Speaker 2: Some people, if they do, you know, God bless them.

1379
01:16:49,160 --> 01:16:51,760
Speaker 2: But I would have never thought this is how I

1380
01:16:51,800 --> 01:16:52,840
Speaker 2: would be when it comes.

1381
01:16:52,720 --> 01:16:55,360
Speaker 5: To social media at this point. Now, don't get me wrong.

1382
01:16:55,400 --> 01:16:58,080
Speaker 2: I still post like me and my kids dancing like

1383
01:16:58,160 --> 01:16:59,760
Speaker 2: you know, just you know, little cute things.

1384
01:17:00,160 --> 01:17:02,760
Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't post nothing. Oh well, let's do this

1385
01:17:02,800 --> 01:17:04,519
Speaker 5: because it's gonna go viral. I don't do that.

1386
01:17:04,880 --> 01:17:08,120
Speaker 1: The answer is either like quit or you have to

1387
01:17:08,200 --> 01:17:10,719
Speaker 1: totally like go with it, like get off altogether.

1388
01:17:10,720 --> 01:17:13,120
Speaker 5: Because you know what's another bad thing? Don't recomments?

1389
01:17:13,120 --> 01:17:15,160
Speaker 2: That what every ready keeps telling me, stop reading a comments,

1390
01:17:15,160 --> 01:17:17,920
Speaker 2: stop reading the comments. Of course me reading the comments

1391
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:20,960
Speaker 2: crying of the crime, because God them people in those comments.

1392
01:17:21,400 --> 01:17:23,240
Speaker 2: My thing is because this is a lot of stuff

1393
01:17:23,400 --> 01:17:25,200
Speaker 2: that I see that I could go make a comment on,

1394
01:17:25,360 --> 01:17:27,600
Speaker 2: but I wouldn't make a comment. I'll screenshot it and

1395
01:17:27,720 --> 01:17:29,639
Speaker 2: make the comment and send it in my sister's group.

1396
01:17:30,120 --> 01:17:32,880
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna go on social media. Another thing is

1397
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:36,080
Speaker 2: if I wasn't as strong as I feel like I am,

1398
01:17:36,800 --> 01:17:40,200
Speaker 2: I would have underlived myself a long time ago. This

1399
01:17:40,439 --> 01:17:41,680
Speaker 2: is how bad it was.

1400
01:17:43,000 --> 01:17:43,800
Speaker 5: This is how bad it was.

1401
01:17:44,479 --> 01:17:46,719
Speaker 2: And one boy he ended up coming in my inbox

1402
01:17:47,040 --> 01:17:50,040
Speaker 2: and he was like, I'm so sorry, miss Tessaka, but

1403
01:17:50,240 --> 01:17:51,600
Speaker 2: I'm in this troll.

1404
01:17:51,439 --> 01:17:54,639
Speaker 5: Group and we go around and we just troll people,

1405
01:17:55,360 --> 01:17:57,800
Speaker 5: and I'm sorry, this happened to you this.

1406
01:17:58,240 --> 01:18:00,800
Speaker 2: I blocked them because you're not gonna play me, you know,

1407
01:18:00,960 --> 01:18:02,920
Speaker 2: in my face over here and then try to come

1408
01:18:03,080 --> 01:18:04,559
Speaker 2: in my inbox and tell me you're sorry.

1409
01:18:04,760 --> 01:18:06,760
Speaker 5: So I ended up bl I saw it blocking. Listen.

1410
01:18:06,800 --> 01:18:09,880
Speaker 2: I think I hit like a thousands of people that's blocked.

1411
01:18:10,080 --> 01:18:12,400
Speaker 2: And one of my sons was like, no, you don't

1412
01:18:12,400 --> 01:18:15,479
Speaker 2: block nobody. You know, any engagement is.

1413
01:18:15,640 --> 01:18:17,560
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, no, I'm blocking you.

1414
01:18:17,880 --> 01:18:20,200
Speaker 2: It's to the point where when I look on social media,

1415
01:18:20,320 --> 01:18:22,919
Speaker 2: unless I'm like, when I look on social media, the comments,

1416
01:18:23,400 --> 01:18:24,400
Speaker 2: I would think everybody in the.

1417
01:18:24,439 --> 01:18:26,160
Speaker 5: Road just loved me, But no, I had my son.

1418
01:18:26,360 --> 01:18:27,840
Speaker 2: He's on it and he's just taking off all the

1419
01:18:27,880 --> 01:18:29,960
Speaker 2: bad ones before before I can see him.

1420
01:18:30,080 --> 01:18:33,160
Speaker 1: I think it's so cool and also just like from

1421
01:18:33,240 --> 01:18:36,680
Speaker 1: a like internet culture perspective, interesting that your kids are

1422
01:18:36,720 --> 01:18:39,479
Speaker 1: helping you navigate this too, because they, you know, were

1423
01:18:39,600 --> 01:18:41,800
Speaker 1: like born with phones in their hands. I'm assuming yeah,

1424
01:18:41,960 --> 01:18:44,840
Speaker 1: just because of like the generational difference, How did they

1425
01:18:45,000 --> 01:18:47,599
Speaker 1: sort of help you through this moment? Was there anything

1426
01:18:47,720 --> 01:18:51,000
Speaker 1: where their feelings about what you should do or how

1427
01:18:51,040 --> 01:18:52,840
Speaker 1: you should interact with social media was different?

1428
01:18:53,560 --> 01:18:55,800
Speaker 2: Okay, this was the week I didn't even have it

1429
01:18:55,880 --> 01:18:58,040
Speaker 2: off my head yet. When this first happened, there was

1430
01:18:58,080 --> 01:19:00,839
Speaker 2: a picture going around with a lady like with pieces

1431
01:19:00,880 --> 01:19:03,439
Speaker 2: of hair like everywhere, and of course they say that

1432
01:19:03,560 --> 01:19:03,680
Speaker 2: was me.

1433
01:19:04,080 --> 01:19:06,720
Speaker 5: So I let them know, Hey, you know, y'all know

1434
01:19:06,840 --> 01:19:08,559
Speaker 5: that's not me. Look at my head. You know it's

1435
01:19:08,560 --> 01:19:10,920
Speaker 5: still here, y'all know that's not me. Go to school.

1436
01:19:11,120 --> 01:19:14,600
Speaker 2: Nobody told them about that. But they started singing the

1437
01:19:14,720 --> 01:19:18,599
Speaker 2: Gorilla Blue Girl's song. So my baby came home crying.

1438
01:19:18,680 --> 01:19:20,840
Speaker 2: I just let her know, Hey, you know what you do,

1439
01:19:21,439 --> 01:19:23,439
Speaker 2: learn the song and next time they sing it, y'all

1440
01:19:23,520 --> 01:19:27,160
Speaker 2: singing with them. But then I'm trying to encourage them.

1441
01:19:27,640 --> 01:19:29,400
Speaker 2: And now go in the bathroom and I'll start crying

1442
01:19:29,439 --> 01:19:33,240
Speaker 2: because it's like because I put them, you know, I

1443
01:19:33,280 --> 01:19:35,080
Speaker 2: would go cry because you know, I felt like I

1444
01:19:35,320 --> 01:19:37,640
Speaker 2: put them in that situation and I didn't want my

1445
01:19:37,720 --> 01:19:40,200
Speaker 2: children to be bullied behind something you know that I did.

1446
01:19:40,560 --> 01:19:41,519
Speaker 5: But those same.

1447
01:19:41,400 --> 01:19:44,719
Speaker 2: Friends, yea, now it's like, oh my god, it's miss Tessica.

1448
01:19:44,800 --> 01:19:45,719
Speaker 5: They won't take pictures.

1449
01:19:45,760 --> 01:19:48,560
Speaker 1: It seems like, I mean, a lot has changed, and

1450
01:19:48,600 --> 01:19:50,760
Speaker 1: also not a lot has changed, right? Has your day

1451
01:19:50,800 --> 01:19:53,759
Speaker 1: to day shifted that much since the whole ordeal.

1452
01:19:54,560 --> 01:19:56,200
Speaker 2: No, I still get up at five thirty in the

1453
01:19:56,280 --> 01:19:59,439
Speaker 2: morning do my daycare. On a Saturday, I try to

1454
01:19:59,439 --> 01:20:01,080
Speaker 2: put a bunch of videos together so I can have,

1455
01:20:01,280 --> 01:20:03,320
Speaker 2: you know, stuff to post during the week. When it's

1456
01:20:03,360 --> 01:20:05,280
Speaker 2: time for the dance team to do anything, we still

1457
01:20:05,320 --> 01:20:08,080
Speaker 2: have practice. No, it's pretty much the same thing, except

1458
01:20:08,160 --> 01:20:09,519
Speaker 2: for anywhere I.

1459
01:20:09,560 --> 01:20:10,920
Speaker 5: Go, No matter where it is.

1460
01:20:11,400 --> 01:20:15,320
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I went to Angola to go see

1461
01:20:15,320 --> 01:20:17,760
Speaker 2: my uncle. Like, now I think all of that stuff

1462
01:20:17,840 --> 01:20:19,680
Speaker 2: is cute, like when people call me a girl, little girl,

1463
01:20:19,680 --> 01:20:22,040
Speaker 2: and now it's like, hey. At first, I kept saying

1464
01:20:22,040 --> 01:20:24,439
Speaker 2: my name is Tessica. I cried so much, my name

1465
01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:26,640
Speaker 2: is Tessca. But now it's like whatever, I'm gonna go

1466
01:20:26,640 --> 01:20:27,439
Speaker 2: ahead on and run with it.

1467
01:20:27,680 --> 01:20:31,479
Speaker 1: What motivates you to maintain this relationship with social media?

1468
01:20:32,479 --> 01:20:35,240
Speaker 2: Those little girls, my little girls, and it's a lot.

1469
01:20:35,760 --> 01:20:38,320
Speaker 2: Listen in between all of this, I promise you it's

1470
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:42,000
Speaker 2: so much. But next month we start shooting the movie

1471
01:20:42,360 --> 01:20:43,360
Speaker 2: about what happened?

1472
01:20:44,240 --> 01:20:46,200
Speaker 1: Well, wait, how did that come about?

1473
01:20:46,800 --> 01:20:50,840
Speaker 2: It's his name is Elvin Gray. He's a director that

1474
01:20:51,720 --> 01:20:54,720
Speaker 2: usually well he just posts. He makes movies about people

1475
01:20:54,760 --> 01:20:57,600
Speaker 2: that went viral. This movie I'm going to.

1476
01:20:57,600 --> 01:20:58,080
Speaker 5: Be in it.

1477
01:20:58,320 --> 01:21:00,439
Speaker 2: Like the other movies that he make pretty much just

1478
01:21:00,439 --> 01:21:02,880
Speaker 2: taking stuff from TikTok seeing how it went. Oh, you

1479
01:21:02,920 --> 01:21:05,640
Speaker 2: takeing stuff from the headlines. But with this one he

1480
01:21:05,800 --> 01:21:07,960
Speaker 2: has all the information from me.

1481
01:21:08,280 --> 01:21:10,479
Speaker 1: So is that going to be made like you're acting

1482
01:21:10,600 --> 01:21:11,719
Speaker 1: in it or is it documentary?

1483
01:21:11,840 --> 01:21:13,200
Speaker 5: I will be in it. I will be in it.

1484
01:21:13,640 --> 01:21:16,080
Speaker 2: I will be playing myself. Yeah, they're gonna see. They're

1485
01:21:16,120 --> 01:21:19,840
Speaker 2: gonna see, like what happened right before I put this

1486
01:21:19,920 --> 01:21:21,880
Speaker 2: glue in my head? Well, if I was a normal

1487
01:21:22,080 --> 01:21:25,519
Speaker 2: human being that bullied me, I would be like, oh

1488
01:21:25,560 --> 01:21:27,800
Speaker 2: my god, this girl was really going through a lot,

1489
01:21:28,240 --> 01:21:31,320
Speaker 2: and we just put more People have no clue what

1490
01:21:31,479 --> 01:21:33,920
Speaker 2: I was going through, like in the house by myself

1491
01:21:34,160 --> 01:21:38,120
Speaker 2: before this glue thing, Like yeah, the day this glue

1492
01:21:38,160 --> 01:21:40,240
Speaker 2: thing happened, right, But they'll be able to see it

1493
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:40,679
Speaker 2: in the movie.

1494
01:21:40,840 --> 01:21:44,080
Speaker 1: Outside of that, what is next for you? Do you

1495
01:21:44,240 --> 01:21:46,920
Speaker 1: have like bigger social media aspirations or is it just

1496
01:21:47,000 --> 01:21:49,519
Speaker 1: sort of maintaining your normal life.

1497
01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:52,720
Speaker 2: Well, I have a new manager now, and I was

1498
01:21:52,800 --> 01:21:54,600
Speaker 2: telling him that, you know, I wanted to do a

1499
01:21:54,640 --> 01:21:56,600
Speaker 2: swim suit line. It's a couple of things that I

1500
01:21:56,760 --> 01:21:59,360
Speaker 2: want to do because like even when this first happened,

1501
01:22:00,320 --> 01:22:02,040
Speaker 2: was like, girl, you have to leave that daycare, loon.

1502
01:22:02,280 --> 01:22:04,400
Speaker 2: This is what I've always wanted to do. I worked

1503
01:22:04,400 --> 01:22:07,719
Speaker 2: at a daycare for seven years before Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane

1504
01:22:07,760 --> 01:22:11,160
Speaker 2: Katrina came and we was, you know, displaced for like

1505
01:22:11,280 --> 01:22:14,400
Speaker 2: two years. We came back and I seen that things

1506
01:22:14,479 --> 01:22:16,720
Speaker 2: were happening around here. I ended up getting a job,

1507
01:22:16,880 --> 01:22:17,519
Speaker 2: ended up quitting.

1508
01:22:17,880 --> 01:22:18,680
Speaker 5: But this is what I love.

1509
01:22:18,720 --> 01:22:21,439
Speaker 2: I would never I don't care what happens. I will

1510
01:22:21,600 --> 01:22:23,560
Speaker 2: never ever let this daycare go.

1511
01:22:24,000 --> 01:22:28,200
Speaker 1: My final question is just sort of reflecting on these

1512
01:22:28,360 --> 01:22:30,439
Speaker 1: like last couple of years at this point, and the

1513
01:22:30,800 --> 01:22:35,240
Speaker 1: emotional and also like life changing dirty you have been

1514
01:22:35,320 --> 01:22:37,760
Speaker 1: on when you reflect on it now, would you do

1515
01:22:37,840 --> 01:22:40,720
Speaker 1: anything differently? And was there anything that really sort of

1516
01:22:40,840 --> 01:22:41,479
Speaker 1: surprised you?

1517
01:22:41,720 --> 01:22:45,719
Speaker 2: Okay, so as far as would I change anything, promise

1518
01:22:45,840 --> 01:22:47,439
Speaker 2: you wouldn't never used the.

1519
01:22:47,439 --> 01:22:50,920
Speaker 1: Girl, Well yeah, never, wouldn't.

1520
01:22:50,600 --> 01:22:52,439
Speaker 2: Have never, and then everything I'll just be, you know,

1521
01:22:52,520 --> 01:22:55,599
Speaker 2: still normal. Yeah, but I think that's the biggest thing.

1522
01:22:55,640 --> 01:22:58,240
Speaker 5: Look, don't use it. If you don't have it, go

1523
01:22:58,439 --> 01:23:01,040
Speaker 5: get it. If you can't get it, go without it.

1524
01:23:01,280 --> 01:23:01,560
Speaker 5: That's it.

1525
01:23:02,479 --> 01:23:04,960
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Tessica for her time and

1526
01:23:05,080 --> 01:23:08,400
Speaker 1: her insight and keep your eyes peeled for her upcoming projects.

1527
01:23:08,920 --> 01:23:11,800
Speaker 1: You can follow her on Instagram or TikTok at. I'm

1528
01:23:12,040 --> 01:23:16,519
Speaker 1: underscore d underscore Old Lady, and if nothing else, I

1529
01:23:16,600 --> 01:23:18,640
Speaker 1: hope this is the kind of sixteenth minute story that

1530
01:23:18,800 --> 01:23:23,240
Speaker 1: reminds you that people are people first. If you had

1531
01:23:23,280 --> 01:23:26,519
Speaker 1: been stressed enough to post an egregious l this could

1532
01:23:26,680 --> 01:23:30,360
Speaker 1: have been you. So have some grace. And when it

1533
01:23:30,479 --> 01:23:35,400
Speaker 1: comes to capitalizing on these random internet moments, again, consider

1534
01:23:35,479 --> 01:23:39,840
Speaker 1: who that capitalizing is supporting. If it's an already rich

1535
01:23:39,920 --> 01:23:43,000
Speaker 1: person exploiting followers to become richer, because there are Mormons

1536
01:23:43,040 --> 01:23:46,240
Speaker 1: who took PPP loans to Buya Chanelle purses, get them

1537
01:23:46,960 --> 01:23:50,360
Speaker 1: check the list of episodes. But if they're capitalizing on

1538
01:23:50,439 --> 01:23:53,160
Speaker 1: their moment to keep getting by with joy and aren't

1539
01:23:53,200 --> 01:23:58,800
Speaker 1: hurting anyone, chill out. Tessica's awesome. Thanks for listening and

1540
01:23:58,960 --> 01:24:01,559
Speaker 1: for your moment of fun. Here's some more Regina King

1541
01:24:01,680 --> 01:24:05,240
Speaker 1: as tessaka brown by Beat.

1542
01:24:05,760 --> 01:24:08,800
Speaker 10: Every day, as many as one people fall victim to

1543
01:24:08,920 --> 01:24:11,360
Speaker 10: use the gorilla glue in place of a beauty product,

1544
01:24:11,720 --> 01:24:13,320
Speaker 10: and they deserve compensation.

1545
01:24:13,680 --> 01:24:16,880
Speaker 7: We all do. You should not have to go through

1546
01:24:16,960 --> 01:24:20,040
Speaker 7: life with hand like a lego man. Because one time

1547
01:24:20,160 --> 01:24:23,720
Speaker 7: you use gorilla glue instead of that's way of Greece, we.

1548
01:24:24,040 --> 01:24:27,479
Speaker 5: Will get you moneys for gorilla glue or the next.

1549
01:24:27,360 --> 01:24:30,840
Speaker 7: Best Thing, a lifetime supply of gorilla glue.

1550
01:24:35,600 --> 01:24:39,200
Speaker 1: Sixteenth Minute as a production of fol Zone Media and iHeartRadio.

1551
01:24:39,720 --> 01:24:43,040
Speaker 1: It is written, hosted, and produced by me Jamie Lostis.

1552
01:24:43,240 --> 01:24:46,960
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Sophia Lickterman and Robert Evans. Denas

1553
01:24:46,960 --> 01:24:50,599
Speaker 1: and Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.

1554
01:24:51,200 --> 01:24:55,000
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is

1555
01:24:55,040 --> 01:24:58,040
Speaker 1: from Grant Crater and Pet. Shout outs to our dog

1556
01:24:58,120 --> 01:25:01,120
Speaker 1: producer Anderson. My Kat's for you, Casper and my pet

1557
01:25:01,240 --> 01:25:06,200
Speaker 1: rock Bird. You will outlive us all. Bye m