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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Hello sixteenth minute listeners. Jamie here just

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Speaker 1: reminding you that if you're in the LA area, or

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Speaker 1: even if you're not, we're doing a big Bechdel Cast

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Speaker 1: celebration show that is my movie podcast that I co

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Speaker 1: host with Caitlin Dorante at Dynasty Typewriter right after the

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Speaker 1: Oscars on March second, at seven point thirty. It's going

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Speaker 1: to be a big show with all of our favorite

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Speaker 1: guests from the show and attendance. We're going to be

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Speaker 1: cosplaying as Oscar winners, We're going to be talking about

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Speaker 1: the ceremony, and we're just going to be doing stand

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Speaker 1: up and celebrating women in film. How about it? So

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Speaker 1: you can get tickets irl still if you are interested,

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Speaker 1: and if you're not in the area, we are also

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Speaker 1: selling streaming tickets that you can get at the link

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Speaker 1: in the description. See you there. Enjoy the episode. Name

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Speaker 1: a story about becoming famous as a kid that is normal.

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Speaker 1: You kind of can't like it's an abnormal state of affairs.

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Speaker 1: But we only really see a couple different kinds of

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Speaker 1: narratives that are centered around this kind of fame. The

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Speaker 1: first is this big breakout moment where a kid who

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Speaker 1: enjoys performing does so on a larger scale than most

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Speaker 1: kids could dream of. In a lot of cases, were

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Speaker 1: led to marvel at their media training. Wow, they're a

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Speaker 1: little adult. Macaulay Culkin comes to mind.

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Speaker 2: Did you want to go into the business or did

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Speaker 2: your mom and dad think it would be a good

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Speaker 2: thing for you?

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Speaker 3: How'd it happened?

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Speaker 4: Well, just kind of popped up, like my friend, well

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Speaker 4: she was a stage manager, so like.

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Speaker 3: At a Broadway show though, right or Broadway.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, or as the case may be. Wow, they're a

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Speaker 1: little sex object. Here is Natalie Portman reflecting on her

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Speaker 1: career as a kid.

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Speaker 5: Being sexualized as a child. I think took away from

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Speaker 5: my own sexuality because it made me afraid and it

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Speaker 5: made me feel like the way that I could be

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Speaker 5: safe was to be like, I'm conservative and I'm like

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Speaker 5: serious and you should respect me, and I'm smart and like,

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Speaker 5: don't look.

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Speaker 3: At me that way.

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Speaker 1: And then we get a variation on a few adult

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Speaker 1: narratives for former child stars. There's the where did they go? Narrative,

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Speaker 1: which is almost always answered by they're a person. They

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Speaker 1: have a normal life in their normal There's the kid

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Speaker 1: that moves seamlessly into stardom as an adult, occasionally referencing

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Speaker 1: the more uncomfortable parts of child stardom in interviews. There's

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Speaker 1: the most troubling outcome where a child star grows into

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Speaker 1: a very troubled adult for myriad reasons, whether it's the

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Speaker 1: lingering effects of financial or parental exploitation, abuse at the

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Speaker 1: hands of exploitative Hollywood types, or any mix of mental

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Speaker 1: health and substance abuse, issues that could happen to anybody

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Speaker 1: and can be exacerbated by the pressure of living so

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Speaker 1: publicly so young. Because while there are plenty of redemption

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Speaker 1: narratives on a longer timeline for stars like this, most

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Speaker 1: young celebrities who either struggle or are just normally rebellious

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Speaker 1: like kids are, are shamed in the moment, which is

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Speaker 1: never in the history of the world helped anybody. But

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Speaker 1: as time goes on, the nature of child stardom has

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Speaker 1: changed with entertainment mediums. A lot of the narratives that

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Speaker 1: I grew up with focused on kids that got their

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Speaker 1: start in film or TV, or may have been discovered

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Speaker 1: online and then made the transition to film and TV

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Speaker 1: and never looked back. So how did it happen?

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Speaker 5: Did someone call you and say hey, I saw your

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Speaker 5: song on YouTube.

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Speaker 1: Well, first basically.

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Speaker 6: I got this email from was it.

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Speaker 1: I think it was like Mari Povich.

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Speaker 7: Oh yeah, he wanted me on his show to do

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Speaker 7: this conversation, and my mom.

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Speaker 8: Was like no.

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Speaker 1: There was a whole generation of millennial and Gen Z

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Speaker 1: musicians who were discovered either on YouTube or SoundCloud, and

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Speaker 1: slowly you'd stop hearing stories about kids being discovered at

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Speaker 1: the mall and started hearing about them being found online.

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Speaker 1: And the ethics there are just as murky, if not

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Speaker 1: further complicated by that. But the pursuits here are pretty

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Speaker 1: consistent music, acting, occasionally dance. The exploitation has been terrifyingly consistent,

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Speaker 1: launching kids into a world that they and often their

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Speaker 1: families have no understanding of, and into a pretty exploitative

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Speaker 1: industry while they're really vulnerable. But when the Internet took over,

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Speaker 1: there was this new, separate group of kids who became

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Speaker 1: famous just because they did. Sure, some had posted something

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Speaker 1: online themselves, but in the internet is a void sense,

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Speaker 1: not in the sense that it was attempting to be

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Speaker 1: noticed or famous in any meaningful way. And in the

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Speaker 1: last few years we've started to hear from the now

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Speaker 1: adult former children. Surely there's an easier way to say

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Speaker 1: that who were turned into lifestyle content before they could

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Speaker 1: possibly consent to it. These young adults are the results

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Speaker 1: of family vlogs and reality TV, kids that don't have

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Speaker 1: performance aspirations, but who are conditioned to view their life

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Speaker 1: as a performance for others, even if things are remarkably

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Speaker 1: different for them when the cameras turn off.

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Speaker 9: Now, we're going to go to our GMA exclusive with

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Speaker 9: the eldest daughter of mom influencer Ruby Frankie, who pleaded

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Speaker 9: guilty to child abuse last year. Sherry Frankie is now

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Speaker 9: sharing her story in a new book, including allegations about

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Speaker 9: her mom's relationship with her former mentor.

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Speaker 1: But in the not too distant past, for some kids,

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Speaker 1: their fame online was out of the control of them,

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Speaker 1: their parents, and basically everybody. These are people whose old

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Speaker 1: home videos were up floated before a lot of people

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Speaker 1: understood what happened when viral fame came their way. A

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Speaker 1: prominent example is the parents of the Charlie Bitme kids

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Speaker 1: were not expecting or trying for their video to become

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Speaker 1: a global household topic, and in the case of some

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Speaker 1: early meme stars, the moment or image that goes viral

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Speaker 1: wasn't even uploaded by them, and in some cases was

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Speaker 1: a photo or video clip that was from years ago.

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Speaker 1: I jump right to the uh irma gird girl if

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Speaker 1: you were on the internet in twenty twelve. Here she

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Speaker 1: is telling BuzzFeed about how she learned this old image

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Speaker 1: had been posted of her. Years later.

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Speaker 8: I started getting messages from my mom wondering why my

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Speaker 8: photo was all over the internet and that there was

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Speaker 8: some kind of German writing on my photo and it

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Speaker 8: was all over and I was like, okay, Mom, I

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Speaker 8: know she does not know.

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Speaker 1: How the internet worked, so I just ignore.

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Speaker 3: But then I get a message.

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Speaker 8: From a friend from high school and she says, Hey,

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Speaker 8: just so you know that this other guy who went

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Speaker 8: to high school with is sharing that photo of you

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Speaker 8: all over Facebook.

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Speaker 10: And I did end up messaging him like.

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Speaker 8: Hey, I wouldn't mind if you just ask, but it's

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Speaker 8: a really stranger just doing this without my consent, Like

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Speaker 8: what's going on.

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Speaker 1: But no matter how one becomes famous, whether they're at

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Speaker 1: the Oscars or assigning booms to snack foods on TikTok,

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Speaker 1: there is this underlying expectation that no matter how fame

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Speaker 1: comes your way, you should probably want it right at

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Speaker 1: this point. To suggest you wouldn't want it can be

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Speaker 1: regarded as kind of weird or anomaly. I mean, we've

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Speaker 1: even talked about it on this show with Matt Pacerro

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Speaker 1: the Wicked Witch of the Eastborough. But there's something especially

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Speaker 1: bizarre to me when this logic is applied to kids

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Speaker 1: who have grown up online. It's such a cultural assumption

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Speaker 1: that everyone would want this, that it's treated as superhumanly

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Speaker 1: humble to not be Internet famous, and as bleak as

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Speaker 1: that can sound, it's not based on nothing. Tech understandably

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Speaker 1: has shifted kids' aspirations. Just think of all those beermongering

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Speaker 1: clickbait articles that say kids used to want to be teachers,

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Speaker 1: kids today want to be YouTubers. Should we kill them?

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Speaker 1: What I think does hold true is that a desire

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Speaker 1: to be prominent is assumed, especially somewhere like the US.

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Speaker 1: So what happens if you're a kid who becomes Internet

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Speaker 1: famous and you're kind of not into it. It was

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Speaker 1: a normal day in Mebane, North Carolina, in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and five when the Roth family smelled smoke. They walked

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Speaker 1: outside and saw a few blocks down there was a

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Speaker 1: house on fire. They panicked at first, but were soon

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Speaker 1: put at ease. The burn was a controlled one planned

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Speaker 1: by the local fire department, and the home had actually

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Speaker 1: been donated by a family that was hoping to clear

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Speaker 1: that plot of land. So Dave took his kids, Tristan

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Speaker 1: and Zoe over to watch the burn, along with a

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Speaker 1: few others in the neighborhood. And Dave was an amateur photographer,

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Speaker 1: so he brought his camera. There's actually a few photos

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Speaker 1: from this day that are memorable. Tristan was a huge

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Speaker 1: Harry Potter kid. It was two thousand and five, many

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Speaker 1: such cases, and he was dressed up as Harry basically

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Speaker 1: all the time. So a kid in a wizard costume

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Speaker 1: in front of a burning house pretty good, pretty weird.

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Speaker 1: But Zoe, who was only four at the time, was

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Speaker 1: operating on another level. She wasn't wearing a costume with

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Speaker 1: a pink T shirt and a sandy brown bob that

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Speaker 1: only a four year old girl could pull off, and

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Speaker 1: she was transfixed by the fire. Her dad told her

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Speaker 1: that no one was inside the house and it was okay,

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Speaker 1: But that's kind of a weird concept for a four

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Speaker 1: year old to wrap their head around, but after a while,

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Speaker 1: she seems to get it and cannot stop staring at

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Speaker 1: this fire. So when Dave tells her to turn around

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Speaker 1: so he can take a picture, Zoe just turns over

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Speaker 1: her shoulder and smiles in what she'll later describe as

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Speaker 1: my smile at the time, a close lipped smile with

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Speaker 1: her head felted slightly down. It's adorable, but as Zoe's

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Speaker 1: dad noticed at the time, it's also a little menacing.

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Speaker 1: And a few years later this image would inspire the

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Speaker 1: Internet because if you look at this picture, a four

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Speaker 1: year old girl smirking in front of a house on fire,

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Speaker 1: it kind of looks like she did it. But did

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Speaker 1: she want the fame that comes with being a viral star?

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Speaker 1: Well that's another story completely. Zoe Roth aka disaster Girl.

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Speaker 1: Your sixteenth minute starts now.

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Speaker 3: I'm not story.

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Speaker 1: Stay get to the moment.

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Speaker 3: Six six six.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take

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Speaker 1: a look at the Internet's main characters, see how their

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Speaker 1: viral moment affected them and what that moment says about

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Speaker 1: us and the Internet. I'm your host, Jamie Loftus, and

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Speaker 1: this week I am delivering a long requested episode of

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Speaker 1: this show and O g meme Girley Zoe Roth aka

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Speaker 1: Disaster Girl, And yes I did get the chance to

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Speaker 1: speak with Zoe and she is just so lovely. I

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Speaker 1: feel like a proud auntie talking to her. That interview

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Speaker 1: will be in a bit And she's a super unique

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Speaker 1: subject for this show because while she didn't have much

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Speaker 1: of an interest in parleying her virality into a career,

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Speaker 1: as we'll talk about, she was never really bumped by

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Speaker 1: everyone around her assuming that she would want to turn

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Speaker 1: the viral moment into a career. And that's probably because

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Speaker 1: she's the first guest I've spoken to on this show

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Speaker 1: that's a true died in the wool. Internet native expectations

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Speaker 1: that have baffled older guests who grew up with analog

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Speaker 1: technology are not bizarre or unfamiliar to her. Zoe went

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Speaker 1: viral at a very particular moment in Internet history before

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Speaker 1: she was fully forming memories and brings one of the

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Speaker 1: most interesting stories around fame and consent that I think

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Speaker 1: we've ever got, So return with me if you dare to.

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Speaker 1: January two thousand and seven, Irish becomes the twenty first

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Speaker 1: language officially recognized by the EU, not that they give

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Speaker 1: a shite what the EU thinks. President Bush. The Little

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Speaker 1: One says that the NSA has definitely stopped wiretapping American citizens,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of just like a funny little joke

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Speaker 1: he made. And nearly two years after Dave Roth took

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Speaker 1: a photo of his little girl watching a neighbor's house

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Speaker 1: burn down, the Internet discovered it too. Dave Roth had

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Speaker 1: always been interested in photography, and so like any dad

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Speaker 1: with a specific gadget based hobby, his kids quickly became

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Speaker 1: a part of it. And he wasn't an idiot. The

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Speaker 1: picture of Zoe, which he titled Firestarter, is a really

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Speaker 1: good one, but his ambitions for it at first were

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Speaker 1: fairly conventional. So bear with me and get ready to

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Speaker 1: hear some very very extinct website titles. Dave first uploads

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Speaker 1: Firestarter to something called Zoomer, which was a stock image

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Speaker 1: hosting service whose website now redirects to a scammy seeming

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Speaker 1: Gemstone site.

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Speaker 11: But today's going to be killed a day because we're

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Speaker 11: going to start to finally release Mark three. Zoomer Mark

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Speaker 11: three six months in the making, a work two winner

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Speaker 11: from Tenue features the ability to sell your photos of

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Speaker 11: stock and keep ninety percent of the sale, but.

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Speaker 1: The Firestarter photo doesn't get much traction there. Around the

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Speaker 1: time Zoe was heading into elementary school, her dad tried

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Speaker 1: submitting Firestarter to a second publication, this time a photo

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Speaker 1: publication called Jpeg Magazine.

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Speaker 3: Basically, these are really high quality magazines that feature one

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Speaker 3: subject matter per an issue, and they're pretty affordable too.

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Speaker 1: And Jpeg sees the potential in Dave's now two year

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Speaker 1: old image and they publish it in their February March

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Speaker 1: print issue in two thousand eight, the theme of which

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Speaker 1: was Emotion Captured. And I'll talk to Zoe about how

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Speaker 1: she felt seeing her photo in a magazine this young,

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Speaker 1: because yes, by this time she was sentient enough to

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Speaker 1: understand what was happening. But this is an Internet show,

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Speaker 1: and so of course it is online where fire Starter

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Speaker 1: starts to get a ton of attention. It was shared

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Speaker 1: on the jpeg blog in November two thousand and seven,

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Speaker 1: and before the time the image really took off quickly,

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Speaker 1: racking up over ninety five thousand views and in time

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Speaker 1: ran its way up to the outer reaches of the Internet.

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Speaker 1: And you know this old chestnut, the site that really

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Speaker 1: helped Firestarter, which would soon be rebranded as Disaster Girl,

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Speaker 1: Get Really Big was none other than BuzzFeed. On October

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Speaker 1: twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, over three years after

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Speaker 1: the original picture was taken, BuzzFeed writer Scott Lamb wrote

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Speaker 1: the following.

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Speaker 12: Is aster Girl. She loves starting fires, but this devilish

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Speaker 12: girl is responsible for other disasters too. Upload yours below.

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Speaker 1: This text was a tool that helped you meme the image,

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Speaker 1: so you could put Zoe's image over any background you

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Speaker 1: wanted and then add the primitive look that most memes

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Speaker 1: had in the two thousands, that static, customizable white text

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Speaker 1: where you could add your own caption and upload it

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Speaker 1: to the community. Hilarious examples include she asked me to

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Speaker 1: watch the oven. I asked her to watch her attitude.

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Speaker 1: My mother told others we had a happy, warm home.

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Speaker 1: Now she's not lying. Dark humor is like food. Not

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Speaker 1: everyone gets it. This kind of viral spread seems so

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Speaker 1: like Hallmark sassy magnet coded to me. Now, So to

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Speaker 1: put you in this time, let's take a step back

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Speaker 1: to Rember exactly what the internet was like in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight. The Internet of my unrequited horny youth.

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Speaker 1: Around the time this all happened. I was in high

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Speaker 1: school and desperately in love with a saxophone player who

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Speaker 1: had gone to college for the saxophone and eventually broke

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Speaker 1: up with me so he could have more time to

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Speaker 1: play the saxophone. This was the year of that really

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Speaker 1: bad shil above Indiana Jones movie of the first Obama election.

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Speaker 1: The year of low By flow Rider, the year the

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Speaker 1: app store launched, The year Netflix and Hulu started streaming online.

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Speaker 1: A world where the Jersey Shore was still a place

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Speaker 1: and not the most fascinating sociological study ever put on television,

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Speaker 1: but for our purposes. Two thousand and eight was a

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Speaker 1: time where social media was becoming more important, but it

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Speaker 1: still wasn't quite all important. My Space had recently capitulated

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Speaker 1: to Facebook as a social network of choice for young

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Speaker 1: people at the time. It's hyperstyleed HTML induced seizure backgrounds

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Speaker 1: replaced by the smooth land interface of Mark Zuckerberg, where

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Speaker 1: teenagers could send each other something called bumper stickers. Everyone

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Speaker 1: under twenty five is like, okay, Grandma, go to bed,

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Speaker 1: and we were obsessively checking each other's hyperlinked relationship statuses

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Speaker 1: like a sixteen year old with the gall to list

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Speaker 1: their status as it's complicated with someone else's hyperlinked government

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Speaker 1: name beside it. It was a nasty time, and social

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Speaker 1: media was one of the venues that the disaster girl

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Speaker 1: memes spread, but there were still plenty of places that

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Speaker 1: curated this viral content curated by humans. If you can

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Speaker 1: imagine before Zoe Roth's four year old face would make

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Speaker 1: it to your friend's Facebook page. BuzzFeed was a huge

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Speaker 1: viral aggregator in two thousand and seven, having just been

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Speaker 1: launched by Jonah Peretti two years before, and our having

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Speaker 1: gained the reputation for being a site of aggregated memes,

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Speaker 1: viral stories, and these gnarly personality quizzes which were inexplicably

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Speaker 1: meth to earnest millennial teenagers. I looked back at some

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Speaker 1: here my favorites.

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Speaker 12: Create a sampler platter, and we'll guess your age and height?

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Speaker 12: What percent nerdy are you? Can you spot the fuck boy?

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Speaker 12: We know the name of your next lover based on

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Speaker 12: the food you order from McDonald's. How stereotypically white are you?

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Speaker 1: No accounting for this? We should be embarrassed. There was

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Speaker 1: also cracked dot com, founded in two thousand and five.

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Speaker 1: By a guy I've never met before and who certainly

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Speaker 1: doesn't hold my livelihood in his very hands. Jack O'Brien,

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Speaker 1: who went on to hire some of the world's greatest writers, comedians,

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Speaker 1: and journalists who shall not be named no idea who

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Speaker 1: they are cracked was an edgier, funnier, more researched version

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Speaker 1: of the BuzzFeed model, and they did similar short form,

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Speaker 1: written and eventually video pieces. A Disaster Girl thrived on

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Speaker 1: both of these websites, and after Zoe's image first popped

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Speaker 1: up on BuzzFeed, she or I guess, disaster Girl became

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Speaker 1: an overnight sensation. The next day, BuzzFeed posted some of

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Speaker 1: the hits of the meme generator from the day before,

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Speaker 1: in which Zoe was photoshopped smirking in front of other

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Speaker 1: ostensible tragedies, so Zoe's smirking at the dinosaur's extinction, Zoe's

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Speaker 1: smirking in front of Jesus on the Cross, Zoe at

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Speaker 1: Lincoln's assassination, the Grassy Knoll, and some really in poor taste,

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Speaker 1: bone chilling Holocaust images. Today. This really to me, reeks,

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Speaker 1: of all of the tragedies that will happen in the world,

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Speaker 1: have already happened in this extremely naive and dare say

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Speaker 1: neo liberal way, Let's keep moving Jpeg magazine knew this

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Speaker 1: was the time to jump on the publicity train for

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Speaker 1: Disaster Girl and had an interview with Dave and Zoe

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Speaker 1: the next day, October twenty eighth. Here's that piece.

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Speaker 12: Disaster Girl is coming for you. Roth's photo has popped

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Speaker 12: up on a few bookmarking sites where you can upload

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Speaker 12: a Firestarter template to enter in your own background silly fun.

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Speaker 12: We recently spoke with Dave about his fifteen minutes. He

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Speaker 12: and Zoe the fire Starter herself are digging the photoshop

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Speaker 12: versions as well as the captions and our jazz that

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Speaker 12: the attention to the photo has gotten. Perhaps the lives of

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Speaker 12: a disaster Girl and her father are a bit more

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Speaker 12: fun and maybe even more mischievous than one would expect.

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Speaker 1: And off of this, Disaster Girl's lore spread across the

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Speaker 1: world wide Web to all the must click, pop up,

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Speaker 1: nightmare aggregate sites of the day, dig make your own

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Speaker 1: Disaster Girl background.

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Speaker 12: Ebom's World, Disaster Girl strikes again.

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Speaker 1: Best week ever Disaster Girl, thenew fail, Cracked dot Com.

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Speaker 12: Six images of kids two insane to be real that

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Speaker 12: really are.

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Speaker 1: Man, those headline formats really trigger my fighter flight response.

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Speaker 1: But people were just not getting sick of using the

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Speaker 1: disaster Girl meme. According to the All Knowing Know Your Meme,

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Speaker 1: Google search peaks for disaster Girl wouldn't hit until nearly

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Speaker 1: three years later, in May twenty eleven. And if this

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Speaker 1: image went viral today, there would be a terrifying, albeit

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Speaker 1: relatively clear pipeline for the roths to take license the image,

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Speaker 1: maybe get her on late night, start a branded social

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Speaker 1: media career, participate in I don't know a crypto scam.

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Speaker 1: All the waves of things that we'd see on the

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Speaker 1: Internet in the years to come from the Ellen pipeline.

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Speaker 4: If you haven't been hearing the words damn Daniel in

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Speaker 4: the last twenty four hours, you've not been on the internet.

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Speaker 4: Our first guests are two friends who posted a video

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Speaker 4: showing off some stylish clothes. In a matter of days,

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Speaker 4: it's been viewed over forty five million times.

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Speaker 1: Take a look to Hey, we wel just doing damage

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Speaker 1: control about the hawk coin scam to no avail just

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Speaker 1: a couple weeks ago.

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Speaker 7: I'm gonna start by saying thank you to all my

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Speaker 7: true fans and all the people that actually watch my

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Speaker 7: stuff and they keep up with me. We're trying to

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Speaker 7: sort out all the pieces and stuff to like get

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Speaker 7: all this figured out and make everything right. Oh my god,

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Speaker 7: I'm gonna cry.

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Speaker 1: But this was two thousand and seven and two thousand

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Speaker 1: and eight. It wasn't just the Roths that weren't sure

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Speaker 1: how to approach this moment with their now second grade daughter.

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Speaker 1: It was that no one would know how to approach

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Speaker 1: this moment. I'm not going to give you a full

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Speaker 1: history here, but the term meme was coined all the

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Speaker 1: way back in nineteen seventy six by Richard Dawkins, and

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Speaker 1: became associated with the Internet in nineteen ninety three. In

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Speaker 1: a piece by Mike Godwin in Wired, Internet memes were

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Speaker 1: revised to mean a pre existing image quote deliberately altered

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Speaker 1: by human creativity unquote in twenty thirteen, half a decade

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Speaker 1: after Disaster Girl became a popular image. So Zoe Ross

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Speaker 1: is unintentionally very early to the meme game. I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying she's the first. There were plenty of videos and

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Speaker 1: images like the Dancing Baby, Gary Brolsma's Newman Numa video, Lolcats, Rickrolling,

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Speaker 1: and my personal favorite will it blend videos that had

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Speaker 1: gone viral before her, but the two thousands still have

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Speaker 1: this reputation of being the wild West era of memes.

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Speaker 1: I want to focus on two thousand and seven here

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Speaker 1: because it was arguably the first year that some of

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Speaker 1: the most potent means to date entered our lives.

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Speaker 6: A brief preview, Lity, Some Stay Dry and the Pain

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Speaker 6: chok LITZI Gotta Cry the Best can.

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Speaker 1: Lay Ready Alone?

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Speaker 10: Please?

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Speaker 1: These all came out in two thousand and seven. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty wild, But I don't think that this was because

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Speaker 1: it was a particularly potent year for creativity. For context,

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Speaker 1: this is also the year that b Movie came out,

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Speaker 1: but it was a big year for increased success on

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Speaker 1: aggregate websites like BuzzFeed and cracked at a time when

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Speaker 1: social media and YouTube were becoming increasingly popular and easier

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Speaker 1: for people to add access, and some of the subjects

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Speaker 1: of these memes were able to parlay their fame into

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Speaker 1: sustained popularity through a combination of luck and early meme managers.

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Speaker 1: And the most successful meme manager maybe of all time,

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Speaker 1: is this guy named Ben Lashes. He didn't represent the

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Speaker 1: roths or the disaster Girl meme during its heyday because

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Speaker 1: the family didn't seek out management, as we'll get into,

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Speaker 1: but Ben Lashes does become a weirdly important player in

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Speaker 1: this story. So how do you become a prominent meme manager? Well,

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Speaker 1: he started as a musician in the two thousands.

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Speaker 2: Is so long.

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Speaker 13: Inside say success inside of mind.

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Speaker 1: I was seeing in the comments that this track came

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Speaker 1: for free on the Sony Ericsson brick phone in the

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Speaker 1: mid two thousands. Pretty sick. But after he left music behind,

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Speaker 1: Lashes pivoted to media in the late two thousands and

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Speaker 1: interviewed musicians for Spin dot com.

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Speaker 13: All right, folks, it's the biggest night in Hollywood. It's

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Speaker 13: being again Ben Lashes. You're ace reporter, stuck in traffic

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Speaker 13: at its rush hour the Hollywood Freeway one oh one North,

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Speaker 13: going to see Slash at Guitar Center in north Ridge.

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Speaker 1: And in two thousand and nine, he pivoted again and

436
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 1: made his first prominent meme discovery. You know him, you

437
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 1: love him Keyboard Cat And I'm not gonna harp on

438
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 1: this because it really should be its own episode. But

439
00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 1: not for nothing. The Keyboard Cat video, you've seen it.

440
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: It's a tabby cat and a Little Blue Shirt playing

441
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 1: the ones and twos. This video was shot in nineteen

442
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:44,640
Speaker 1: eighty four by a family friend of the Lashes, which

443
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: is how he knew about it in the first place.

444
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,399
Speaker 1: But the meme doesn't happen until two thousand and seven,

445
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: So think about that math. With regards to how long

446
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:58,480
Speaker 1: cats live, Keyboard Cat had, in fact died twenty years

447
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:06,160
Speaker 1: before he became famous. Rip de Fatso the cat, which

448
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,760
Speaker 1: begs the question how does a dead cat have a

449
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: manager and create new content? They recast Keyboard Cat after

450
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:16,920
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. They hired a similar looking cat

451
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 1: named Bento, who debuted in a video called Keyboard Cat

452
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: Reincarnated being a cat. Bento also died. Rip Bento, here's

453
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:31,120
Speaker 1: his owner.

454
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:35,160
Speaker 3: He had a big start and and it stayed big

455
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 3: all the way.

456
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:37,199
Speaker 14: He had quite a run and.

457
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 2: Well, he says there's a chance of a third Keyboard

458
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 2: Cat if he finds one with the right personality at

459
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 2: a shelter.

460
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: And we will get to that another day, but for context,

461
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: Ben Lashes describes his pivot from music to management like

462
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: this in an interview with Digital Trends in twenty thirteen.

463
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 12: I was the singer in a band called The lashes.

464
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 12: We started in age, got signed to an indie label,

465
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 12: then a major label. We rode the roller coaster of

466
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 12: success and failure in the music industry and all that

467
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 12: kind of stuff. I've always been really into the business

468
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 12: side of things, of marketing and hype and pop culture,

469
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 12: the way it works together. I'm really kind of a nerd.

470
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: And he had a knack for plucking out and effectively

471
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: promoting meme successes like Scumbag, Steve, the success Kid, the

472
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 1: ridiculously photogenic guy, Neon Cat, and Grumpy Cat very successful

473
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: in the cat market I've noticed, and Grumpy Cat has

474
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 1: in fact become his most successful client to date, in

475
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 1: spite of the fact that Grumpy Cat has been dead

476
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: for six years. Rip Tartar sauce the cat. But if

477
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: you remember the Grumpy Cat heyday, it genuinely was huge.

478
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: There was even this TV movie starring Aubrey Plaza as

479
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: Christmas Grumpy Cat. Don't get sappy on me it I forgot.

480
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 3: It's a lifetime movie.

481
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: All pets are off Cat.

482
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 6: Cat.

483
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: They don't even make paintball guns.

484
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 7: For the cats.

485
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: Fodrey Plaza brings the Internet sensation to life.

486
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 10: This is the best Christmas ever, go ahead ignore the

487
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 10: title of my movie Pluffie Cat's Worst Christmas.

488
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 15: Ever.

489
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: So, while it's not clear if Ben Lashes reached out

490
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 1: to the Roth family in the moment, he tends to

491
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: work with clients or I guess grieving pet owners to

492
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: make their memes their whole livelihood, hopefully to the tune

493
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars. But the Robs don't really seem

494
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 1: to want to do that in part, as we'll discuss,

495
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: because Zoe was a normal kid who wasn't into the

496
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: idea of being hyper exposed. From that same interview, here

497
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 1: is Ben Lash's philosophy of promotion.

498
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 12: Once it got to a point where there was a

499
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 12: foundation of stuff that we'd done, I'd become so immersed

500
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 12: in the meme world and thinking it was kind of

501
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 12: a wild West where certain companies would take images and

502
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 12: sell them and make t shirts, and everyone kind of

503
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 12: had this idea that once it hits the Internet, it's free.

504
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 12: I'm a huge fan of pop art, and the digital

505
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 12: memes that go around now are a social form that's

506
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 12: going to be studied four years to come, and it's

507
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 12: totally a new way of communicating with people. So I

508
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 12: love the art side of it, the sharing and the

509
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 12: mashing up. But I hate when the snakes get in

510
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 12: there and start making products and squatting on sites. It

511
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 12: just steals the fun out of it.

512
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 1: And again, I cannot overstate his success in this world.

513
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: While Tartar Sauce the Grumpy Cat passed away and to

514
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: my knowledge, had no use for human money, Ben Lashes

515
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: and the cat's owner, Tabitha Bundsen, made her the wealthiest

516
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: pet on earth, valued at an approximate ninety nine million dollars.

517
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 1: What labor episode forthcoming, probably so we'll come back to

518
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 1: Ben Lashes in a bit. But in the moment, Zoe

519
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: recalls in the late two thousands that her family didn't

520
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: really know how to and weren't particularly motivated to engage

521
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: with it, so life went on. Zoe grew up in

522
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: relative anonymity. There were some local people who knew, but luckily,

523
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: people rarely look like their four year old selves. For

524
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: long as she got older, she had an Internet presence

525
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: like any kid who came of age in the early

526
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: to mid twenty tens, but these profiles were just for

527
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: her friends and family, outside of occasional family photos that

528
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: her dad would post on the Flicker photo platform, the

529
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: public kind of lost track of Zoe, even though throughout

530
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: these years, the disaster Girl meme remained extremely popular, so

531
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 1: while she was still a kid, there was only one

532
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: time that the family engaged with monetizing Zoe's fame. In

533
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, when Zoe was in high school, they were

534
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: asked by a company called Fuck Jerry to have the

535
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 1: meme featured in a card game they were kickstarting, called,

536
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: and I hate to tell you this, what do you meme?

537
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 3: Do you like spicy memes?

538
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 10: Of course you do, That's why I Fucked Jared created.

539
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 3: What do you mean? What the cards? Chrisby?

540
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 10: The rules are simple, just like the memes that you

541
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:27,400
Speaker 10: see on Instagram. There are photos and there are captions.

542
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 12: Your job is to match the best caption with the photo.

543
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, Zoe's image is featured twice in

544
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 1: this trailer, and the game is what It sounds like

545
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 1: a ripoff of Cards against Humanity or Apples to Apples,

546
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: but with memes. The game quickly raised its ten thousand

547
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: dollars goal on Kickstarter and then some, and went on

548
00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: to haunt the impulse by area of urban outfitter stores

549
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: for years to come now if it sounds familiar, Fuck

550
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 1: Jerry is an Instagram account that was started by one

551
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: guy not named Jerry and then turned into a bunch

552
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: of guys not named Jerry. And those there aren't hard

553
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: numbers on the sales of what do You Mean? It

554
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: did very well. The games still exist today, and they

555
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: later partnered with big brands like SpongeBob, Friends, Seinfeld's, and

556
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: Tricia Patus to make other versions of the game, and

557
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: Zoe's image is featured prominently in the first run of

558
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,840
Speaker 1: the game, including an appearance on the back of the box,

559
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: and as we'll talk about in the interview, she says

560
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: that her family didn't really know what to ask for

561
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:40,800
Speaker 1: in terms of money here, so they were compensated, but

562
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,439
Speaker 1: not to the degree that it seems like the game

563
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: was successful, And in part that's because the Roths brokeer

564
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: this agreement with fuck Jerry without representation, and so they

565
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: seem to get ripped off because Fuck Jerry, if their

566
00:34:54,880 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: name and demeanor weren't a tip already are notorious rifters,

567
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: though to the family's credit, that wasn't well known at

568
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: this time. If you've heard the name FuG Jerry, before.

569
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: It's probably because of the Fire Festival.

570
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 16: We're going to turn now of that trouble for the

571
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 16: Fire Music Festival, hit with a class action lawsuit from

572
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 16: concert goers who spent thousands of dollars for what was

573
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 16: supposed to be a luxury weekend of food, art, and

574
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 16: music in the Bahamas, didn't turn out quite that way.

575
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 16: ABC's Gio Benitez in Miami with the details.

576
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 2: Good morning, Geo, Hey George, Good morning to you those

577
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 2: concertgoers coming here to Miami all week and long. The

578
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:33,760
Speaker 2: event's co founder, Joe Rule says it's not his fault,

579
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:35,240
Speaker 2: but that he's deeply sorry.

580
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 3: Ah.

581
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:36,640
Speaker 6: Yes.

582
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: Fire Festival the notorious twenty seventeen shit show where influencers

583
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,680
Speaker 1: paid thousands of dollars to attend a luxury concert on

584
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 1: an island that resulted in a Lord of the Fly

585
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 1: situation and leaving the founder in jail for fraud, and

586
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: this inspired two documentaries, one which was suspiciously produced by

587
00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: Fuck Jerry to.

588
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 10: Hudoc actually draws attention to this, not only bringing up

589
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:06,400
Speaker 10: the competing Netflix documentary, but also calling them out for

590
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 10: being co produced by none other than Jerry Media, the

591
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 10: company that did the advertising for Fire festival in the

592
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 10: first place. Remember how I said that the Netflix documentary

593
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 10: tended to have better looking footage. That's largely because it

594
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 10: looks like its old, unused advertising footage, which naturally Jerry

595
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 10: Media had access to.

596
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: As you just heard, there were two competing documentaries that

597
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 1: streamed about this nightmare situation around the same time, on

598
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: Netflix and Hulu respectively, one of which was produced by

599
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,800
Speaker 1: Fuck Jerry, who claimed to have been involved in the

600
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:46,280
Speaker 1: early promotion of the festival but left when things got sketchy.

601
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:50,320
Speaker 1: But on the Hulu doc they are directly implicated in

602
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 1: promoting and being aware of the scheme throughout, along with

603
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 1: the agreed upon villains of the story Billy McFarland and

604
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: jah Ruhle or maybe you for of them from the

605
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:06,320
Speaker 1: hashtag fuck fuck Jerry campaign of twenty nineteen, where prominent

606
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: comedians accused the company of stealing their jokes without credit

607
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: or compensation, either to use on the fuck Jerry Instagram

608
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,840
Speaker 1: or wait for it, in prompt cards for what do

609
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: you mean? These guys famously fucking suck, and they suck

610
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 1: even worse for screwing Zoe and her family over. But

611
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 1: whatever frustration that caused was short lived because outside of this,

612
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: particularly as Zoe came into her own and enrolled at

613
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: UNC Chapel Hill for college, she didn't seem to want

614
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: much to do with the meme. She popped up a

615
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 1: few years later at a BuzzFeed event called Internet Live

616
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:46,080
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, which was sort of a best of

617
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: of the Internet of the twenty tens. There were performances

618
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 1: from Lil nas X and Jojo Siua, The Damn Daniel

619
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: Guys were there, the Jersey Shore Girls, there was some

620
00:37:55,880 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 1: nine year old I've never heard of, and one of

621
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: the Internet's most noxious senior citizen, Jason Nash, and Zoe

622
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,960
Speaker 1: the Disaster Girl. She pops up again in late twenty twenties,

623
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: in the throes of the pandemic lockdown, in a very

624
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: successful BuzzFeed video series called I Accidentally Became a Meme.

625
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:18,399
Speaker 1: It's currently hovering around eight million views because for most

626
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 1: people this was their first time seeing Zoe speak, much

627
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 1: less speak as a full grown adult.

628
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 17: I Accidentally Became a meme, and this is that story.

629
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 17: My name is Zoe Roth, but you may know me

630
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 17: as Disaster Girl. This all started in two thousand.

631
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: And five, but even though she dipped her toe in

632
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:40,399
Speaker 1: engaging with Disaster Girl. In her young adulthood, she said

633
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: she viewed it as more of a fun fact about

634
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: her than a defining quality in her life. This is

635
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: from April twenty twenty one, during her senior year of college.

636
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 15: Yeah, honestly, I've thought about this so much, like why

637
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 15: it's so viral, why it comes back up every year,

638
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 15: because most of the memes that came out when mine

639
00:38:57,719 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 15: did two thousand and four, two thousand and five are

640
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 15: like dead memes, people don't use them anymore. But I

641
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 15: see mind recycled more often, and I think especially with

642
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 15: twenty twenty, because twenty twenty was just such a horrible

643
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 15: year for a lot of people. It was like the

644
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:11,719
Speaker 15: perfect meme for that because everything was on fire, nothing

645
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 15: was going right, like everybody was struggling with so many

646
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:16,760
Speaker 15: different things, it was like, and that meme is just chaos,

647
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 15: so perfect for twenty twenty eight.

648
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:22,720
Speaker 1: So by early twenty twenty one, Zoe is talking about

649
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: the meme more than she ever has publicly, and later

650
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 1: this month it becomes clear maybe why that was re

651
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 1: enter Ben Lash's late April twenty twenty one. Only since

652
00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: we last encountered him. He's gotten really into Is it

653
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: a heypop? Is it b Instagram infographics on tolerance or

654
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:49,480
Speaker 1: is it c an all but inevitable footnote in every

655
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:55,360
Speaker 1: story we talk about here crypto and NFTs, it is,

656
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: of course c. He was into crypto now and wanted

657
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:02,840
Speaker 1: to mint an fts and was very successful at this,

658
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:06,440
Speaker 1: I might add. So he combined this new passion with

659
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:10,320
Speaker 1: his past experience and meme representation of the twenty tens

660
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: and ends up teaming up with a number of meme

661
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 1: subjects like Zoe Like past guest of the show Lena

662
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 1: Morris aka Overly Attacked Girlfriend, as well as others like Padlock,

663
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: Brian success Kid, and Irma gard Girl, who all teamed

664
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: up with Lashes to sell their iconic memes as NFTs.

665
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: He told The New York Times that his clients had

666
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: cumulatively made over two million dollars in late April twenty

667
00:40:36,640 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: twenty one, and Zoe Rot's NFT was the top earner.

668
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: It sold for one hundred and eighty ether, which around

669
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: the time was half a million dollars. And if you're

670
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: a regular listener, you'll know we also talked about this

671
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: in our Lena Morris episode. I am not a fan

672
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: of NFTs, but the way that most have characterized this

673
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: decision to sell their meme as an NFT during this

674
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:07,600
Speaker 1: big pandemic era boom was because they had been previously

675
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: unable to control the Internet proliferation of their image, and

676
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 1: so this seemed like a chance to get compensated in

677
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,759
Speaker 1: some way for years of being out of control of

678
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: their own image. And that's a tricky thing to argue

679
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: with because how do you quantify that. Really there's no

680
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: direct answer, But I do understand the appeal of finally

681
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:35,280
Speaker 1: getting something out of this weird element that has haunted

682
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:39,239
Speaker 1: you your entire life, after growing up with people photoshopping

683
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: your image over Hitler rallies and getting screwed over by

684
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: the likes of Fuck Jerry. At the time, Zoe Roth

685
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 1: told The New York Times this people who are in

686
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: memes didn't really have a choice in it. The Internet

687
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: is big. Whether you're having a good experience or a

688
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: bad experience, you kind of just have to make the

689
00:41:57,560 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 1: most of it. Zoe and I talk more about that

690
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:04,320
Speaker 1: in the interview, including the heavy speculation of how she

691
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 1: used that money, But after the NFT sale, Zoe graduates

692
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 1: from school, and in a poetic turn, I think she

693
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: stumbles into a career in tech research analysis. So the

694
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:19,759
Speaker 1: kid who became a child meme is now the same

695
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:24,400
Speaker 1: person advising tech companies on how to grow their businesses. Honestly,

696
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly clear on what Zobe does, but I

697
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 1: know she's really smart. Sorry I can't get more specific.

698
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: I just write MP three's that will soon be considered

699
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:52,399
Speaker 1: thought crimes our talk when we come back. Welcome back

700
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: to sixteenth minute. Here's a thought I have never quite

701
00:42:55,719 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 1: mastered the late capitalism email initiation that something like, hey, guys,

702
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:06,760
Speaker 1: hope everything's well except the world is ending, but otherwise

703
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 1: hope everything's well. Like I don't know, I just like

704
00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:12,760
Speaker 1: don't want that kind of email coming from my dentist.

705
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: I don't know. If you're listening to this and there's

706
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: a protest for trans writes in your area, you should

707
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: fucking go. And here's my interview with the one the

708
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: Only disaster girl, Zoe Roth.

709
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm Zoe Roth.

710
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:27,880
Speaker 17: I'm most well known for a viral photo of me

711
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,239
Speaker 17: that was taken of me standing in front of a

712
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 17: burning house and smiling.

713
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,760
Speaker 1: I want to go through the beats of the story

714
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 1: very quickly to get the stuff out of the way

715
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 1: that everyone has questions about and then get into the

716
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 1: meat of this interview. Do you remember this day with

717
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: any clarity?

718
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:46,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do remember the day.

719
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 17: All I remember of it was looking in the windows

720
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 17: of the house and looking at things that were burning

721
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 17: and thinking.

722
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 3: Like, oh my god, this sucks, Like I wish I'm

723
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:57,280
Speaker 3: so glad this isn't my house.

724
00:43:57,400 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 17: We were two blocks down the road, and at the

725
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:01,720
Speaker 17: time we didn't know it was like a test fire,

726
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:05,240
Speaker 17: so it was planned and organized and it was totally safe,

727
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:05,879
Speaker 17: they say.

728
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 3: But all I remember was looking in the windows of

729
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 3: the house and being like, wow, that sucks.

730
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: I feel like the added context of it being a

731
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 1: planned burn, which I don't even think I realized was

732
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: a thing, completely changes the image.

733
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.

734
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 17: I had a friend reach out and she was like,

735
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 17: I'm so sorry if that was traumatizing to you, to

736
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 17: like watch a house burn down, and now this meme is.

737
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 3: All over the place.

738
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 17: I was like, Oh, it's really fine, Like it wasn't

739
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 17: traumatizing at the time, even though I didn't know that

740
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:33,800
Speaker 17: it was a planned burn.

741
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about how you grew

742
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 1: up where you grew up.

743
00:44:37,760 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 17: Yeah, so I grew up in mepin North Carolina, which

744
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 17: is right in the middle of the state. I have

745
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 17: an older brother.

746
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 3: I feel like I grew up.

747
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 17: I had a pretty average childhood, like I did sports,

748
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 17: I did running, I traveled a bit as a kid.

749
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:55,239
Speaker 3: But yeah, I feel like pretty average as far as

750
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 3: it comes.

751
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:58,240
Speaker 1: And you're four years old at the time this picture

752
00:44:58,360 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: was taken.

753
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 3: Yes, I was four, about to turn five.

754
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: Your dad enters the picture into a contest.

755
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:06,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, So my dad posted it.

756
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 17: It was either on Zoomer or flicker like all of

757
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 17: these old old like photo sharing early Instagram type apps,

758
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 17: and he submitted it to JPEG magazine, which was a

759
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:19,399
Speaker 17: physical and I guess they had an online magazine as well,

760
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 17: and that's as far as we know probably where it

761
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,840
Speaker 17: got picked up. So there was they had a submission

762
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,720
Speaker 17: of like Emotion. It was the Emotion series of the magazine.

763
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:31,800
Speaker 17: So he submitted it and it got printed. And I

764
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 17: was in second grade at the time, and they've emailed

765
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 17: us or they gave us the physical magazine.

766
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 3: I brought it to school. I was like, oh my god,

767
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 3: I'm so famous, Like to.

768
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 17: This day, that is the most famous I've ever felt

769
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 17: in second grade, like with this magazine of myself. But

770
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 17: they posted on the website as well, so we figure

771
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 17: that's probably where it got the traction.

772
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 3: And then from there, like my dad saw.

773
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 17: His coworkers like had it in their Cubic goals, and

774
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:55,800
Speaker 17: like my aunts and uncles would be like, oh, somebody

775
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 17: I know just posted this on Facebook.

776
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 3: Or I funny, and we're like what, like, I don't

777
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 3: know how that got there, Like wait, isn't this zoey?

778
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 3: Like why why do wait? Why is this photo on

779
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 3: my Facebook feed? And we're like, we have no idea.

780
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: That's really wild. I also just the very two thousands

781
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:17,200
Speaker 1: nis of a physical magazine called Jpeg Magazine. Yes, it's beautiful.

782
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 1: So you're not totally sure how the image went viral online.

783
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 3: I know we've always wondered. I'm like, maybe when I'm old,

784
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 3: I'll try to like track the provenance down.

785
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:28,720
Speaker 17: I'm like, it's probably just one person sent it somewhere

786
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:31,319
Speaker 17: else from there and it's like blown up, but we've

787
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 17: never known exactly where it took off from.

788
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 3: That's just my theory, the jpeg theory.

789
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: The sounds menacing, so you're in second grade when this

790
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: comes out, the feeling of like, oh my god, I'm famous,

791
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: I'm cool, I'm in a magazine. Do you remember that feeling?

792
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 1: Do you remember talking to other kids about it, like

793
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:50,320
Speaker 1: how do people react to it?

794
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 7: Yeah?

795
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 17: At the time, I mean jpeg was the coolest thing,

796
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 17: and then I think, no, your meme made a video

797
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 17: about it that same year, which is two thousand and eight.

798
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 17: So both of those was just like awesome. You know,

799
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 17: they were awesome for a few days, and then I

800
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 17: kind of forgot about it. It was mostly more interesting

801
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 17: when people would like send it to me on Instagram

802
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 17: or I Funny, or send me texts like oh my god,

803
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 17: I saw this and it has a million hits on

804
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 17: I Funny or like Twitter. And as a kid, it

805
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 17: was just like these sporadic interactions. I would have people

806
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:18,360
Speaker 17: who already knew me and saying like, oh look, I

807
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 17: saw this. This is crazy, and I'd be like, yeah,

808
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 17: that is crazy, and they're like, oh, so, what's the story.

809
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 17: I'm like, oh my gosh, I need a video record.

810
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 17: I needed like an audio thing I just send.

811
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 1: Out very early. And do you forming memories a part

812
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: of your life? What was your relationship with the Internet,

813
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,440
Speaker 1: like as I feel like I was.

814
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:39,280
Speaker 17: Very early on the Internet, like I got on Facebook

815
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 17: and like elementary school, which looking back, I was like,

816
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 17: that's probably not a great idea.

817
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 3: Like Instagram, as early as you could have it.

818
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 17: I was always kind of like looking to be on

819
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 17: these new platforms, and then anytime I was on a

820
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 17: new platform, I would end up seeing the meme and

821
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:54,720
Speaker 17: I was like, that's kind of funny.

822
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,480
Speaker 3: It's like following me wherever I'm going on the Internet.

823
00:47:57,520 --> 00:47:59,840
Speaker 17: But it definitely I feel like I was on the

824
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 17: It kind of grew up with me on the Internet.

825
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 3: As long as I've been on the Internet, it was

826
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:05,360
Speaker 3: there as well, like living.

827
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 17: Its own life. So that's always kind of an interesting thing.

828
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 17: When there's new platforms, it shows up there as well,

829
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 17: and I.

830
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:13,360
Speaker 1: Just kind of let it be What personalities were you

831
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: drawn to? What areas of the Internet.

832
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:17,120
Speaker 17: I feel like I was a big I mean initially

833
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 17: I loved I funny, and I've always been like on Instagram.

834
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 17: There's a lot of times growing up, like in high

835
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 17: school and in college, I was like, should I like

836
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:27,720
Speaker 17: make this my bit, Like should I make a YouTube channel?

837
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:30,520
Speaker 17: Like should I like figure out how to monetize this.

838
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 17: But I was just like, I don't really want to

839
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 17: be I never wanted it to be my whole thing,

840
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 17: Like I didn't want to build my life around it,

841
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 17: and so I kind of actively made that choice, like

842
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 17: when I was pretty young, like I'm going to go

843
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 17: to college, I'm going to get a career, Like this

844
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 17: is going to live on its own and I'm going

845
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 17: to do my own thing. But I've kind of, yeah,

846
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 17: I kind of try to like decenter it in my life,

847
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 17: and when it comes up, it comes up, and it's

848
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 17: like a fun little party conversation.

849
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 3: But that's kind of what I try to keep it up.

850
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:58,360
Speaker 1: I want to sort of get into the idea of

851
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 1: you know, your becoming this famous symbol. Did you experience

852
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: any internal or external pressure, like walk me through that decision?

853
00:49:09,000 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: And what were people around you sort of recommending or

854
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:12,719
Speaker 1: saying at the time.

855
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 17: Yeah, I think I always had friends that would be like, oh,

856
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:17,840
Speaker 17: it would be so cool if you do a YouTube channel,

857
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:20,520
Speaker 17: And there would be occasional times where I would go

858
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:22,359
Speaker 17: to a meme event and people would be like, oh,

859
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 17: what's your handle, what's your.

860
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 3: Channel, and like I don't, I'm not I don't really

861
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 3: have that. Me and some of the other memes.

862
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:30,359
Speaker 17: We all get in touch like every once in a while,

863
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 17: like when there's something going on, like when the NFT

864
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 17: thing happened and we're all like, what are you guys doing,

865
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 17: Like we hadn't really talked before that. But I've never

866
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:40,800
Speaker 17: felt like an internal pressure to do anything with it

867
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 17: or really externally like to me, this is like satisfying

868
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:47,239
Speaker 17: enough to do an occasional interview and like see it

869
00:49:47,280 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 17: every once in a while, and I've never felt like

870
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 17: I needed to do something more with.

871
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 3: It for purposes of like satisfying or like you know,

872
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 3: me or others.

873
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: And as you're getting older, you're realizing, like I don't

874
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: want to be a full time YouTuber just because technically

875
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: that is on offer. What were your interests? What was

876
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: sort of developing as you were becoming a person growing up?

877
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:13,320
Speaker 17: I spent my summers like working in Tahoe. I have

878
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 17: an uncle that has a restaurant there, so I'd go

879
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 17: to work in Tahoe. I was always working, like I

880
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 17: always had a job in high school. A big part

881
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 17: of my life growing up was speaking and learning Chinese.

882
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 17: So the school I went to in Chapel Hill was

883
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 17: an immersion Chinese school, so it was always like a

884
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 17: big part of my identity, like trying to figure out

885
00:50:31,080 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 17: how I could go to China, Like I ended up

886
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 17: studying abroad in China and high school, and that was

887
00:50:35,960 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 17: kind of like my focus, Like how can I like

888
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:41,919
Speaker 17: go to college for this, How can I like set

889
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 17: up my professional career around like Chinese and international relations?

890
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 17: Like that was really my focus as long as I

891
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 17: can remember, figuring out what did I wanted to do professionally, and.

892
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:53,800
Speaker 3: This just was never a part of that.

893
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that seems really farfield. That's so fascinating.

894
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 1: Did you become interested in Chinese culture because of the

895
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 1: immersion school? Yeah? How did that come about? That's really cool?

896
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 17: Yeah, I think it was just the immersion school, Like

897
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 17: it was kind of a pilot project that the school

898
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:11,320
Speaker 17: I went to in Chuckle Hill was working on. So

899
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 17: I was the first or second class, so we spent

900
00:51:14,280 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 17: half the day in Chinese and the other half in English,

901
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:17,800
Speaker 17: and I did it all the way through college.

902
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 3: So it's always just been something like.

903
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 17: I've always been like that's kind of cooler, Like everyone's like, oh,

904
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:23,080
Speaker 17: the meme, Like that's your fun fact.

905
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,400
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, okay, well there's other things too.

906
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: You're also yeah, like these nets that is cooler objectively,

907
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:30,400
Speaker 1: what did you go to school for?

908
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 17: So I ended up going to school for international relations

909
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:36,360
Speaker 17: and Chinese boats, so I kind of stuck with that.

910
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 17: And then my first job out of college I was

911
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 17: doing something similar, and then I pivoted over to doing

912
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 17: technology research. So that's what I do now, basically a

913
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:48,319
Speaker 17: technology journalist. So again like nothing related to what I've

914
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:50,480
Speaker 17: done in the past, and nothing related to the meme.

915
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 17: Everything is so like jumping around between different different things.

916
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:58,560
Speaker 1: You're becoming like this very interesting person with a wide

917
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: variety of interest, and there is just always this thing.

918
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: Was there any point growing up with this and then

919
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: being an adult with this and it's just it's going

920
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: to be there forever. Were there ever moments where it

921
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 1: was like frustrating or uncomfortable or like enough?

922
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 17: It's definitely there's times where it gets frustrating. I think

923
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 17: like a lot of people use it in ways that

924
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 17: I don't like condone.

925
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 3: Or agree with.

926
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 17: But pretty from an early age, I've kind of had

927
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 17: the mindset that I can't control, like how people are

928
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:28,319
Speaker 17: going to use it or.

929
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 3: How it's going to like travel across the internet.

930
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 17: So being like frustrated or irritated about it isn't going

931
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 17: to change the fact that I'm going to see it.

932
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:38,359
Speaker 17: I'm going to see like old interviews that I've done,

933
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:40,839
Speaker 17: like it's going to be there, and like that's kind

934
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 17: of how it's been. What frustrates me most now is like,

935
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 17: as I'm trying to build like a professional career and

936
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:48,200
Speaker 17: like obviously an identity out of this if you.

937
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:50,399
Speaker 3: Look me up, like that is the first thing that's

938
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:51,000
Speaker 3: going to show up.

939
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 17: Like if I wanted to get a new job, or

940
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 17: if I'm interviewing somebody and they want to see like,

941
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:56,880
Speaker 17: oh what does she write about? First, They're going to

942
00:52:56,920 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 17: see all this meme shit. Instead I'm like, oh mind there.

943
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 17: Wait then it's like, oh, well tell me the story,

944
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:03,360
Speaker 17: like wait, how old are you?

945
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:04,279
Speaker 3: Like how is this?

946
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:06,800
Speaker 17: And it kind of like overshadows, So it's more like

947
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 17: the digital privacy thing, like I'm like, oh my god,

948
00:53:09,520 --> 00:53:10,919
Speaker 17: I can't wait to get a new last name.

949
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 3: Like I can't wait till.

950
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 17: Because right now you can look up, you can find

951
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 17: out anything that you want to do vertty much about me,

952
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 17: which I think that is the thing that kind of

953
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 17: scares me the most, and it's like the biggest externality

954
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 17: about it.

955
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 1: Again, I think it's like an interesting conversation generationally that

956
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: because you grew up online, what's the point of getting

957
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: mad about it? It's an inevitability. When I talk to

958
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 1: people who are you know, like gen X or even older,

959
00:53:35,680 --> 00:53:38,400
Speaker 1: they're like, what the fuck? Why can't I get this

960
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 1: to go away?

961
00:53:39,480 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 12: Yeah?

962
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly because their relationship with the Internet is so different.

963
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 1: But just bizarre to have this thing that happened when

964
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: you were four years old come up at a job interview.

965
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:53,359
Speaker 17: Yes, it came up in this interview. The first time

966
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 17: I did like a webinar for my job, I was

967
00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 17: so nervous. I didn't sleep the night before, so nervous.

968
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 17: The first piece of feedback that comes in, wait are

969
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 17: you Zoe Roth? That's the meme, I'm like, oh my god,

970
00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:05,440
Speaker 17: I prepared all this stuff, like no questions about the

971
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 17: topics of like the webinar, just like wait are you her?

972
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 3: I'm like, look it up, like do I look like her? Like,

973
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:13,719
Speaker 3: let's not. I'm not engaging with this conversation right now.

974
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 1: Good for you, Like I think you are well within

975
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:17,400
Speaker 1: your rights to be like.

976
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:20,719
Speaker 3: Fuck off, yeah, look it up, Like I can't. I'm

977
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 3: always just like look up, tell me the story. I'm like,

978
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 3: look it up. I'm not telling you this story.

979
00:54:25,080 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 17: And it's like, honestly, when I meet people, like when

980
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 17: I make new friends, like I recently moved to Utah,

981
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:32,560
Speaker 17: I never tell anybody because they end up finding out,

982
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:34,360
Speaker 17: like they will find out on their own and they're like.

983
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:35,920
Speaker 3: Wait, what you didn't tell me about this? Like I

984
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 3: can't believe.

985
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 17: Recently, it was like the twenty year anniversary, so I

986
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 17: posted all these stories and a bunch of my friends

987
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:42,800
Speaker 17: in new chart are like wait what, like that's you? Like,

988
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:45,799
Speaker 17: why didn't you tell me? I'm like, well, I'll tell

989
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 17: you now, Like now you know I like that.

990
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: It's like, how dare you keep this?

991
00:54:50,480 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 3: Yeah?

992
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,759
Speaker 1: Exactly, answering secret I want to. Yeah, I mean talk

993
00:54:54,840 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 1: about first these like meme conventions and stuff like that,

994
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 1: which now feel kind of like this weird bygone era.

995
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:04,239
Speaker 1: How did appearances like that come together? And then what

996
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:05,280
Speaker 1: was that experience?

997
00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:05,440
Speaker 8: Like?

998
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 17: So, I honestly didn't have any like opportunities to travel

999
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:11,760
Speaker 17: or anything for this until I was in high school.

1000
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:14,360
Speaker 17: So I never ended up even going to like the convent,

1001
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:17,200
Speaker 17: like the Comic cons or whatever. The first like big

1002
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 17: event I did was actually hilarious. I was in Shanghai

1003
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:24,040
Speaker 17: for the summer as a summer camp counselor, like with kindergarteners,

1004
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:26,759
Speaker 17: like literally just like in the weeds with these like

1005
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 17: kindergarteners who didn't speak English, being a camp counselor, and

1006
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 17: BuzzFeed like emails me and they're like, hey, we're doing

1007
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 17: this event next week in New.

1008
00:55:34,239 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 3: York, like do you want to come?

1009
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:36,800
Speaker 17: And I was like, well, that would be great, but

1010
00:55:37,080 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 17: I'm in Shanghai, like and I have a job like

1011
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:41,000
Speaker 17: at the summer camp, so I need to get off

1012
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:42,600
Speaker 17: the summer camp and then you guys have to fly

1013
00:55:42,719 --> 00:55:44,280
Speaker 17: me back to New York and then back to Shanghai.

1014
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:45,800
Speaker 3: And they're like, okay, yeah, we can do that.

1015
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 17: So I need to explain to my boss like another

1016
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:50,880
Speaker 17: camp counselor, like, hey, so someone's offering to fly me

1017
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:51,600
Speaker 17: to New York.

1018
00:55:51,480 --> 00:55:53,360
Speaker 3: For the weekend, Like can I have Friday off so

1019
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 3: I can go and do that? Like with that be okay.

1020
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:59,040
Speaker 17: And so it was like the BuzzFeed Internet Awards or something,

1021
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:02,360
Speaker 17: and Jojo c like gave me and the Dan Daniels

1022
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:05,640
Speaker 17: kids like this like a meme trophy, which now I'm like,

1023
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:06,800
Speaker 17: where is my meme trophy?

1024
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:08,360
Speaker 3: Like I do wonder where that is. But that is

1025
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:10,879
Speaker 3: definitely That's probably the only event, like I think I've

1026
00:56:10,920 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 3: ever been to I.

1027
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: Have seen that picture and you're just like, Wow, what

1028
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:15,279
Speaker 1: a time, what a moment?

1029
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 17: Oh my god, I hate it. It was so uncomfortable.

1030
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 17: It was like walking out in front of all these people.

1031
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:22,080
Speaker 17: I was like, I'm never going to do something.

1032
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:22,439
Speaker 3: Like this again.

1033
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:26,279
Speaker 1: By that point, what it's been at least ten years, Yeah,

1034
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:29,719
Speaker 1: it's happened. If you're not interested in like performing, it

1035
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:31,080
Speaker 1: sounds uncomfortable.

1036
00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:34,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was definitely uncomfortable and like and everyone's like cheering.

1037
00:56:35,000 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 17: I'm like, I know, I could never be like an actual,

1038
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 17: like famous person, Like I do not like this level

1039
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 17: of like recognition.

1040
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:44,360
Speaker 1: Because I want to talk a little bit about the NFTs,

1041
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:46,719
Speaker 1: because I talked to Lena about that as well, this

1042
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:52,360
Speaker 1: idea of not having control over your own likeness, because

1043
00:56:53,080 --> 00:56:54,960
Speaker 1: this took off during a time where I feel like

1044
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:57,959
Speaker 1: that discussion basically didn't happen and no one was thinking

1045
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:01,640
Speaker 1: about like what is this gonna feel like in twenty years?

1046
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:02,359
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1047
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,719
Speaker 1: Is there a way to get control of this? Like

1048
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:07,239
Speaker 1: what are your options?

1049
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 3: We never like, we never like sat down as a family.

1050
00:57:10,239 --> 00:57:10,840
Speaker 3: We're like, what do we do?

1051
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:12,840
Speaker 17: How can we get this back? We've always known like

1052
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 17: you know, once it's out, the cats out of the bag.

1053
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 17: There was like like for a while we had a

1054
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 17: relationship with fuck Jerry who made that game?

1055
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:21,920
Speaker 3: What do you mean? And it was on the back

1056
00:57:21,960 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 3: of the box.

1057
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:25,560
Speaker 17: And that's probably like the biggest thing that happened, like

1058
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:28,000
Speaker 17: for the most part, besides the NFT because on the box,

1059
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 17: like on every box, you can spin it around in

1060
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 17: my photo, so anytime you're shopping in an urban or

1061
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 17: like at the airport, like, oh my god, where's me, Like,

1062
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:37,240
Speaker 17: let's go find Zoe. I'm in the I'm in the box.

1063
00:57:37,280 --> 00:57:38,840
Speaker 17: And we're like, this is just going to be probably

1064
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:40,520
Speaker 17: the biggest thing. And that was the first time we

1065
00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 17: ever got paid for us, so we're like, wow, we're

1066
00:57:42,160 --> 00:57:44,480
Speaker 17: so rich. Looking back, it was, Yeah, it was not

1067
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 17: a great deal. They were not great to work with.

1068
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 17: That is kind of like something that looking back on

1069
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 17: we're like, oh, we were not well informed on this negotiation.

1070
00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:55,919
Speaker 17: I think it was like twenty sixteen, so a full

1071
00:57:55,960 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 17: like ten to twelve years later, and we're like.

1072
00:57:57,480 --> 00:57:59,680
Speaker 3: Wow, this is so cool, Like finally we can get

1073
00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:00,320
Speaker 3: paid for this.

1074
00:58:00,520 --> 00:58:02,080
Speaker 17: Like before that, it was like, oh, my dad had

1075
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 17: a red bubble shop, but so did all these other

1076
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:06,680
Speaker 17: people that were just like stealing the photo and posting

1077
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:07,080
Speaker 17: their own.

1078
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 3: Like we're like, what are we going to do? Like

1079
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:11,000
Speaker 3: hey take this down? Like we didn't have lawyers, we

1080
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 3: didn't have a team. It was just like me and

1081
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:13,080
Speaker 3: my dad.

1082
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 17: So we're just like, well, every once in a while,

1083
00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:17,320
Speaker 17: like somebody would be like, oh, can I get an autograph?

1084
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 17: Like somehow they would find us on the internet, like, hey,

1085
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:20,440
Speaker 17: can I have an autograph?

1086
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 1: How did your like family feel about this as time

1087
00:58:24,120 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: went on, because it seems like the kind of thing

1088
00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:28,040
Speaker 1: where it's really cool at first, but then it keeps

1089
00:58:28,080 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: going and going and going.

1090
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:30,840
Speaker 3: I feel like it's mostly been me and my dad

1091
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 3: like managing all of it. Like he took the photo,

1092
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 3: I'm in it.

1093
00:58:33,840 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 17: My brother was there and there's pictures of him too,

1094
00:58:36,120 --> 00:58:37,680
Speaker 17: and we're always like, oh, it should have been him,

1095
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:39,840
Speaker 17: Like what are the odds? Like they were all posted

1096
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 17: in the same places, but like Tristan didn't get famous.

1097
00:58:42,440 --> 00:58:44,600
Speaker 17: I'm so sorry, Tristan. But me and my dad are

1098
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:47,400
Speaker 17: always the ones kind of like managing those conversations and

1099
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:50,240
Speaker 17: figuring out the opportunities when they're bigger, like we'll involve

1100
00:58:50,320 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 17: everybody and be like, oh, what do you guys think?

1101
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 17: But for the most part that I was like, oh,

1102
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 17: this is so cool, Like what a fun, cool little

1103
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 17: side gig for y'all.

1104
00:58:56,240 --> 00:58:59,640
Speaker 1: So you are able to capitalize it a little bit

1105
00:58:59,760 --> 00:59:03,440
Speaker 1: with the sport game is the next time that comes up.

1106
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:05,040
Speaker 1: For the NFTs.

1107
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:06,880
Speaker 3: It was very sporadic like it was.

1108
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 17: I would get a lot of like random interview requests

1109
00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:12,040
Speaker 17: from people. Sometimes I would do them, sometimes I wouldn't,

1110
00:59:12,120 --> 00:59:15,040
Speaker 17: But like big opportunity wise, it was it was like

1111
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:16,400
Speaker 17: the fuck Jerry game and then the.

1112
00:59:16,520 --> 00:59:18,640
Speaker 1: NFT because I talked about it with Lene as well.

1113
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 1: I don't know if you were in conversation with her directly,

1114
00:59:20,880 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 1: but she also mentioned She's like, yeah, we were all

1115
00:59:22,880 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 1: talking to each other trying to figure out, first of all,

1116
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 1: what this is, what we can accomplish by doing it?

1117
00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:29,880
Speaker 17: Yeah, yeah, exactly, So I'll paint the picture. It was

1118
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:33,080
Speaker 17: my last semester of college, so I'm like senior year,

1119
00:59:33,480 --> 00:59:34,680
Speaker 17: like I'm just gonna chill out.

1120
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 3: It's gonna be so.

1121
00:59:35,520 --> 00:59:38,160
Speaker 17: Fun, Like I've taken barely any classes. And I start

1122
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:39,840
Speaker 17: getting all these emails, which I'm also.

1123
00:59:39,720 --> 00:59:40,360
Speaker 3: Like, how do these people?

1124
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:42,600
Speaker 17: I guess my email is like pretty easy to guess,

1125
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:45,440
Speaker 17: but anyway, all these people start emailing me like you

1126
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 17: should make this token. It was all about this token,

1127
00:59:48,160 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 17: this fungible token, and I was like, what is this

1128
00:59:50,320 --> 00:59:52,080
Speaker 17: and I'm looking it up. It's all these like web

1129
00:59:52,200 --> 00:59:53,480
Speaker 17: three discourse.

1130
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:54,400
Speaker 3: I don't know what this is.

1131
00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:56,120
Speaker 17: And at this point it was just still me and

1132
00:59:56,200 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 17: my dad. So I think I like DMed Lena and

1133
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:01,720
Speaker 17: bad Luck Brian and maybe like the Success Kid. I

1134
01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 17: was like, are you guys like doing this? We had

1135
01:00:03,760 --> 01:00:05,240
Speaker 17: a few people reach out and like we'll sell it

1136
01:00:05,360 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 17: for you and we'll give you ten percent. I was like,

1137
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:11,040
Speaker 17: I'm not that's not really like giving Like I don't

1138
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:12,960
Speaker 17: think we're going to let that happen, right, And so

1139
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:14,880
Speaker 17: I talked to Baut like Brian, and he was like, yeah,

1140
01:00:14,920 --> 01:00:16,920
Speaker 17: you can like pretty much do it yourself, like you

1141
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 17: can if you want to. And then I reached out

1142
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:23,840
Speaker 17: to the Success Kid his mom laany manages that, and

1143
01:00:23,920 --> 01:00:25,640
Speaker 17: she's like, yeah, we have like a manager, like a

1144
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:28,400
Speaker 17: me manager and lawyer like combo that will like do

1145
01:00:28,520 --> 01:00:30,240
Speaker 17: this for you. And so I was like, oh, put

1146
01:00:30,280 --> 01:00:32,920
Speaker 17: me in contact with him. And so now that at

1147
01:00:32,960 --> 01:00:34,640
Speaker 17: that point, I was like, Okay, well we'll have this

1148
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 17: me manager and lawyer like set this all up. And

1149
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 17: then we're like, yeah, let's do it, like let's set

1150
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 17: up the NFT and see what happens.

1151
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: I mean, and then it was it seemed like it

1152
01:00:43,000 --> 01:00:44,000
Speaker 1: was really successful.

1153
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 17: Yeah, that day of my life was like, oh my god,

1154
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 17: I wish i'd like live streamed it for my own

1155
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:51,320
Speaker 17: personal because it was like a like an eBay bid,

1156
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:54,480
Speaker 17: so people are just like bidding on it every few hours,

1157
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:56,120
Speaker 17: and me and my dad were like, I'm only going

1158
01:00:56,200 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 17: to look every two hours. I'm only going to look

1159
01:00:57,680 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 17: every three hours, like I don't want and then we

1160
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 17: go to bed and we go wake up, and I

1161
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:02,680
Speaker 17: went to work that day, like I worked at a

1162
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 17: restaurant inside of a hotel, so all my coworkers knew

1163
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:08,800
Speaker 17: that I was like doing that, didn't know what it was. Like, Yeah,

1164
01:01:08,880 --> 01:01:12,479
Speaker 17: Zoe's selling like a something and like the bid keeps

1165
01:01:12,520 --> 01:01:14,600
Speaker 17: going up and I was like seating tables and taking

1166
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:16,880
Speaker 17: people back and it would go up in ethereum.

1167
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:19,160
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait, do the math how much ethereum is? Like,

1168
01:01:19,640 --> 01:01:21,720
Speaker 3: so that day was just yeah crazy.

1169
01:01:22,120 --> 01:01:24,920
Speaker 1: I was wondering if this was your like introduction to

1170
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 1: web three in blockchain, and what a weird introduction that

1171
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 1: must be. So when who works in tech now? Were

1172
01:01:29,960 --> 01:01:33,160
Speaker 1: you happy with sort of the management situation that ended

1173
01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:34,920
Speaker 1: up coming together, because it sounds like there were some

1174
01:01:35,080 --> 01:01:37,040
Speaker 1: scammy or people reaching out to you earlier.

1175
01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:39,440
Speaker 17: Yeah, in the end, it is really nice to have

1176
01:01:39,600 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 17: we still have the same like management team and they

1177
01:01:41,800 --> 01:01:43,960
Speaker 17: handle everything and then when we get a contract, Like

1178
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:46,120
Speaker 17: if we had this team when we got that contract

1179
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:48,120
Speaker 17: ten years ago for the game, like, it would not

1180
01:01:48,200 --> 01:01:50,640
Speaker 17: have happened like it did. So they can definitely like

1181
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:53,000
Speaker 17: do the negotiation and cut through the bullshit better than

1182
01:01:53,280 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 17: me and my dad that are just like, yep, this

1183
01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:56,800
Speaker 17: looks good enough to us, like I'm not reading the

1184
01:01:56,880 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 17: fine print, like, so we really like working with them.

1185
01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 1: Once the kind of tea happens, the auction closes, are

1186
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:04,959
Speaker 1: you still at work?

1187
01:02:05,080 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 3: Like?

1188
01:02:05,160 --> 01:02:06,080
Speaker 1: How does the rest of that day?

1189
01:02:06,160 --> 01:02:06,280
Speaker 6: Though?

1190
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:08,880
Speaker 17: So I did get to leave work early because everyone's like, oh,

1191
01:02:08,960 --> 01:02:10,680
Speaker 17: so you're quitting, like this is gonna shame.

1192
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:11,440
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I will.

1193
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:12,600
Speaker 17: And I came back to work and I say the

1194
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:14,480
Speaker 17: right pump, like I thought you like left the country

1195
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:17,640
Speaker 17: or something. I'm like no, like I'm still here. At first,

1196
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:18,960
Speaker 17: I was like, oh, I'm gonna buy a new car

1197
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:20,959
Speaker 17: with my money. I have like not touched that money,

1198
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 17: like it's still like sitting in like a crypto wallet.

1199
01:02:24,040 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 17: Like I'm not going to like go crazy and like

1200
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:28,320
Speaker 17: change my life about this. Like if I need this

1201
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 17: for like a house, like that's kind of my plan,

1202
01:02:30,520 --> 01:02:31,040
Speaker 17: Like oh okay.

1203
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:31,520
Speaker 3: I'll use it then.

1204
01:02:31,640 --> 01:02:33,600
Speaker 17: But all in all, like there was a lot of

1205
01:02:33,640 --> 01:02:36,440
Speaker 17: like media outreach like oh, like Good Morning America like

1206
01:02:36,520 --> 01:02:38,320
Speaker 17: New York Times, and I was like, I do not

1207
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:40,560
Speaker 17: I'm not going to be on Good Running America. Like

1208
01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:44,080
Speaker 17: I would rather die like emailing somebody from work like hey, no,

1209
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:45,720
Speaker 17: thank you, like thank you for the offer, But I

1210
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:48,640
Speaker 17: don't want to go do that. And so I was

1211
01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:50,880
Speaker 17: like after that same deal, I was like, I'm going

1212
01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:52,800
Speaker 17: to do one interview about this because I don't need

1213
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:54,480
Speaker 17: to talk to ten people and say the same thing.

1214
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:56,600
Speaker 3: And I decided to do my one interview, and that

1215
01:02:56,760 --> 01:02:56,960
Speaker 3: was that.

1216
01:02:57,320 --> 01:03:00,680
Speaker 1: That moment is so fascinating because even outside of like

1217
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:03,680
Speaker 1: the nft of it all, it is so interesting to

1218
01:03:03,760 --> 01:03:06,080
Speaker 1: me that it's like this is some sort of exchange

1219
01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 1: or like compensation for your likeness being outside of your

1220
01:03:10,480 --> 01:03:14,640
Speaker 1: control for twenty years. It feels like you should get

1221
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:19,040
Speaker 1: something for that having happened to you. But qualifying what

1222
01:03:19,240 --> 01:03:21,520
Speaker 1: it is is so hard to do.

1223
01:03:22,320 --> 01:03:24,320
Speaker 17: Yeah, it is challenging, and I feel like a lot

1224
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:26,800
Speaker 17: of people, like afterwards, people would ask me, like, oh,

1225
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:28,440
Speaker 17: do you feel like you finally have control over it?

1226
01:03:28,640 --> 01:03:30,640
Speaker 17: Like not really, like it's still going to do what

1227
01:03:30,720 --> 01:03:33,040
Speaker 17: it does, Like it didn't change the fact that anybody

1228
01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:35,000
Speaker 17: could use it however they wanted to, and people can

1229
01:03:35,040 --> 01:03:38,280
Speaker 17: still print shirts and people can make like horrifying text

1230
01:03:38,400 --> 01:03:38,880
Speaker 17: on top of it.

1231
01:03:39,000 --> 01:03:41,040
Speaker 3: Like, we still don't have control over it, but at

1232
01:03:41,160 --> 01:03:42,400
Speaker 3: least we finally got paid.

1233
01:03:43,040 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 1: Is that enough? Like what would be ideal? I guess

1234
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:47,960
Speaker 1: in that situation.

1235
01:03:48,400 --> 01:03:50,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, like what's enough? Like who owes

1236
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:51,080
Speaker 3: me what?

1237
01:03:51,280 --> 01:03:53,880
Speaker 17: Like everybody uses it and that's always been how it's been,

1238
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:56,920
Speaker 17: Like I've never thought that I deserved anything out of it,

1239
01:03:57,000 --> 01:03:58,440
Speaker 17: And that's kind of like you know, this could have

1240
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:00,600
Speaker 17: happened to anybody. The fact that that memes viral and

1241
01:04:00,680 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 17: it's still viral now like poof speed to this day.

1242
01:04:03,320 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 17: Like I didn't do anything unique for that to happen,

1243
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:08,440
Speaker 17: So I don't feel like I deserved anything out of it,

1244
01:04:08,520 --> 01:04:10,360
Speaker 17: which is why I've kind of like tried to build

1245
01:04:10,480 --> 01:04:12,840
Speaker 17: my life, you know, as it is around it, like

1246
01:04:12,920 --> 01:04:15,080
Speaker 17: I'll keep that on the side, and as it comes

1247
01:04:15,160 --> 01:04:18,000
Speaker 17: up and there's opportunities, I'll engage with that, but I

1248
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:20,560
Speaker 17: will keep doing my own like thing, getting a job,

1249
01:04:20,720 --> 01:04:23,760
Speaker 17: like having my life, because it's just kind of something.

1250
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:24,200
Speaker 3: That happened to me.

1251
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:28,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I'm like weirdly like proud of you

1252
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:32,479
Speaker 1: for doing that, because if everyone around you is like whoa,

1253
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:34,480
Speaker 1: you could like totally change your life.

1254
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:36,000
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah exactly.

1255
01:04:36,080 --> 01:04:37,520
Speaker 17: There was like a few times when I was super

1256
01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:40,360
Speaker 17: broken college, like Okay, how am I going to figure

1257
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 17: this out? And then of course, right before I graduate,

1258
01:04:42,400 --> 01:04:44,240
Speaker 17: we get the NFT money. I'm like, if I knew

1259
01:04:44,360 --> 01:04:46,720
Speaker 17: I wasn't going to be broke this whole time, Like, oh,

1260
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:49,000
Speaker 17: come on the fact that I happened right before my graduation,

1261
01:04:49,080 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 17: I was like, that's just the cherry on top of

1262
01:04:50,560 --> 01:04:53,480
Speaker 17: the cake. After being like working all these horrible jobs

1263
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:55,320
Speaker 17: in college, I'm like, oh, so the mean money was

1264
01:04:55,400 --> 01:04:56,160
Speaker 17: coming in the end.

1265
01:04:56,440 --> 01:04:56,840
Speaker 7: What are you.

1266
01:04:56,920 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 1: Excited about right now we're in and how are we

1267
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:04,560
Speaker 1: going to move this to page two of your Google results?

1268
01:05:04,960 --> 01:05:07,360
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Yeah, that's kind of like the burden

1269
01:05:07,440 --> 01:05:08,000
Speaker 3: of my life.

1270
01:05:08,080 --> 01:05:09,720
Speaker 17: I'm like, I need to figure out what I can

1271
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:11,880
Speaker 17: do that could pretend that could be bigger than this,

1272
01:05:12,160 --> 01:05:15,160
Speaker 17: Like could I ever do anything that would displace like

1273
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,160
Speaker 17: when you look me up that it's like auto fills

1274
01:05:18,240 --> 01:05:20,880
Speaker 17: like meme smiling disaster girl. Like I don't know if

1275
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:22,840
Speaker 17: that's and I don't know if that's like fair to

1276
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:25,560
Speaker 17: myself to be like thinking I need to do something

1277
01:05:25,600 --> 01:05:28,520
Speaker 17: bigger than something that I didn't really like having control over.

1278
01:05:28,400 --> 01:05:29,120
Speaker 3: In the first place.

1279
01:05:29,800 --> 01:05:33,360
Speaker 17: I think it's just generally like yeah, growing in my career,

1280
01:05:33,560 --> 01:05:35,720
Speaker 17: like I might go back to school, Like I just

1281
01:05:35,880 --> 01:05:37,760
Speaker 17: want people to know me, like for what I do

1282
01:05:37,880 --> 01:05:40,200
Speaker 17: at work, and like I like these you know this

1283
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:42,520
Speaker 17: niche I'm in, like these companies know me, and like

1284
01:05:42,600 --> 01:05:45,200
Speaker 17: these people know me. But I think just growing that

1285
01:05:45,440 --> 01:05:48,920
Speaker 17: and kind of keeping that trajectory on my career and

1286
01:05:49,120 --> 01:05:51,160
Speaker 17: you know, keeping this in the backseat.

1287
01:05:51,040 --> 01:05:53,920
Speaker 1: Right, and also like, like you're saying, is such a

1288
01:05:54,640 --> 01:05:58,080
Speaker 1: bizarrely specific burden to have put on you because who

1289
01:05:58,120 --> 01:05:59,440
Speaker 1: else has this problem?

1290
01:05:59,680 --> 01:06:02,240
Speaker 17: Yeah, exactly, Like we need like a meme support group

1291
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:04,080
Speaker 17: or something like we just need to get together for

1292
01:06:04,200 --> 01:06:06,280
Speaker 17: like a twenty four hour period, Like they're the only

1293
01:06:06,320 --> 01:06:08,240
Speaker 17: people that get it, Like there's like ten of us

1294
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:09,920
Speaker 17: that will like truly understand.

1295
01:06:10,360 --> 01:06:11,440
Speaker 3: And even like the way.

1296
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:13,920
Speaker 17: We've all navigated it has been so different, like it's

1297
01:06:14,040 --> 01:06:16,280
Speaker 17: not anything like you know, some people have leaned more

1298
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 17: into it, some have kept it more private. It's very

1299
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:21,040
Speaker 17: different when it happens. She was a kid and like, Okay,

1300
01:06:21,120 --> 01:06:22,560
Speaker 17: I can go to the grocery store, no one's going

1301
01:06:22,600 --> 01:06:25,000
Speaker 17: to recognize me. Like only once in my life have

1302
01:06:25,080 --> 01:06:26,480
Speaker 17: I ever been recognized in person.

1303
01:06:26,560 --> 01:06:27,600
Speaker 3: And it was like shocking.

1304
01:06:27,720 --> 01:06:29,280
Speaker 17: I was like I can't do this right now, Like

1305
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 17: I don't know how you know who I am, but

1306
01:06:31,600 --> 01:06:33,080
Speaker 17: this is not like my vibe.

1307
01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:33,640
Speaker 7: Yeah.

1308
01:06:33,680 --> 01:06:35,600
Speaker 3: I was like at a bar in Salt Lake City

1309
01:06:35,640 --> 01:06:37,680
Speaker 3: where I live, Someone's like, are you the girl? Are

1310
01:06:37,760 --> 01:06:39,720
Speaker 3: you the disaster girl? And I was like no, and

1311
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:42,080
Speaker 3: I just walked away like I don't know what you're

1312
01:06:42,120 --> 01:06:43,920
Speaker 3: talking about. I've never heard of that before.

1313
01:06:45,080 --> 01:06:47,560
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Zoe Roth. You can follow

1314
01:06:47,600 --> 01:06:49,640
Speaker 1: her at the link in the description, but I'm going

1315
01:06:49,720 --> 01:06:52,280
Speaker 1: to request that you don't bug her with the same

1316
01:06:52,440 --> 01:06:55,800
Speaker 1: three jokes She's been hearing for her entire sentient life,

1317
01:06:56,360 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 1: and I'm very, very grateful she took the time to talk.

1318
01:07:00,480 --> 01:07:03,640
Speaker 1: Something that really stuck with me about this interview is

1319
01:07:03,840 --> 01:07:07,800
Speaker 1: how regardless of someone's generation, there are still a million

1320
01:07:07,960 --> 01:07:11,080
Speaker 1: ways to relate to the Internet, and that that can

1321
01:07:11,200 --> 01:07:14,400
Speaker 1: be a good thing. Recently, I've seen discussions around gen

1322
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:18,480
Speaker 1: Z slip into some disdain after this same generation was

1323
01:07:18,560 --> 01:07:21,600
Speaker 1: being hailed as the kids who will save the world

1324
01:07:21,920 --> 01:07:25,880
Speaker 1: just a couple years ago, but with time the reputations

1325
01:07:26,000 --> 01:07:29,280
Speaker 1: of most generations sour, and gen Z has been more

1326
01:07:29,320 --> 01:07:33,520
Speaker 1: recently typecast as excessively nihilistic and addicted to their phones.

1327
01:07:34,200 --> 01:07:38,960
Speaker 1: I wonder why two recent subjects on this show, Zoe Roth,

1328
01:07:39,080 --> 01:07:42,040
Speaker 1: the Disaster Girl and Haley Welch be talked to a

1329
01:07:42,120 --> 01:07:45,439
Speaker 1: girl because we just love to call a main character girl.

1330
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:49,680
Speaker 1: Lady and wife are very close in age. Zoe was

1331
01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:53,120
Speaker 1: born around two thousand and Haley was born around two

1332
01:07:53,160 --> 01:07:56,680
Speaker 1: thousand and two. And they both became very famous online

1333
01:07:56,720 --> 01:07:59,920
Speaker 1: at times that they couldn't really consent to it. Zo

1334
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 1: he was just a kid, and Haley was drunk and

1335
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:05,960
Speaker 1: never formally agreed to her clip being aired. But their

1336
01:08:06,040 --> 01:08:10,480
Speaker 1: reactions to this virality couldn't be more different, with Zoe

1337
01:08:10,680 --> 01:08:13,920
Speaker 1: actively choosing to cash out once and otherwise stay the

1338
01:08:14,000 --> 01:08:17,200
Speaker 1: course and explore her other passions, while Haley tried to

1339
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:20,439
Speaker 1: reclaim her image through a series of sketchy cations and

1340
01:08:20,560 --> 01:08:25,120
Speaker 1: sketchy management. Everyone has a different relationship to the Internet,

1341
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:28,200
Speaker 1: and while it has something to do with generational trends,

1342
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:31,960
Speaker 1: not to mention that these stories happened seventeen years apart,

1343
01:08:32,720 --> 01:08:34,519
Speaker 1: I think it has just as much to do with

1344
01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:38,519
Speaker 1: the issues that always affect people, the level of familial

1345
01:08:38,600 --> 01:08:43,360
Speaker 1: stability and educational access people have, race, class ability, mental health,

1346
01:08:43,760 --> 01:08:46,960
Speaker 1: whether you think TikTok is really addictive or you're like

1347
01:08:47,120 --> 01:08:50,200
Speaker 1: me and think it's too loud. The list goes on,

1348
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:54,599
Speaker 1: and the Internet is programmed to respond to these factors

1349
01:08:54,640 --> 01:08:57,880
Speaker 1: about us. But there is a commonality to Internet natives

1350
01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:00,680
Speaker 1: that I've noticed, Like we talked about last week on

1351
01:09:00,760 --> 01:09:04,800
Speaker 1: The Backroom's episode, there has been this distinct change in

1352
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:07,479
Speaker 1: how someone who doesn't remember a world before the Internet

1353
01:09:07,920 --> 01:09:13,000
Speaker 1: approaches the phenomenon of becoming a main character. To younger people,

1354
01:09:13,640 --> 01:09:16,360
Speaker 1: this is just a fact of life, and whether you

1355
01:09:16,479 --> 01:09:20,000
Speaker 1: have any interest in becoming the main character, there's always

1356
01:09:20,040 --> 01:09:23,920
Speaker 1: a chance that one day you'll just be that. And

1357
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:27,839
Speaker 1: how will you handle it? Because it seems increasingly expected

1358
01:09:27,960 --> 01:09:30,920
Speaker 1: that if you don't want it, that doesn't really matter.

1359
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:34,120
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem easy. But I find a lot of

1360
01:09:34,200 --> 01:09:38,120
Speaker 1: comfort in seeing someone like Zoe who says fuck you,

1361
01:09:38,360 --> 01:09:43,840
Speaker 1: no thanks, Zoe Roth the disaster Girl. Your sixteenth minute

1362
01:09:44,040 --> 01:09:52,160
Speaker 1: ends now enjoy and for your moment of fun, question Mark,

1363
01:09:52,560 --> 01:09:55,160
Speaker 1: here's a clip of the most recent disaster girl trend.

1364
01:09:55,200 --> 01:09:58,519
Speaker 1: I was able to find some disgusting AI slop that

1365
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:13,719
Speaker 1: envisioned Zoe as a real child murderer. Sweet Dreams sixteenth

1366
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:16,840
Speaker 1: Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and iHeart Radio.

1367
01:10:17,400 --> 01:10:20,719
Speaker 1: It is written, posted, and produced by me Jamie Lostus.

1368
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:24,639
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Sophie Elekterman and Robert Evans Limas.

1369
01:10:24,680 --> 01:10:28,280
Speaker 14: Me Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor.

1370
01:10:28,880 --> 01:10:32,640
Speaker 14: Our theme song is by Sad thirteen. Voice acting is

1371
01:10:32,720 --> 01:10:34,919
Speaker 14: from a grant creator and pet.

1372
01:10:34,720 --> 01:10:38,160
Speaker 1: Shout outs to our dog producer Anderson, my kat's flea Casper,

1373
01:10:38,320 --> 01:10:41,280
Speaker 1: and my pet Rockberd, who will outlive us all. Bye.