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Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Tuesday, December thirtieth, and as

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Speaker 1: we wind down this twenty twenty five, it seemed that

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Speaker 1: this year was a year that being an influencer became

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Speaker 1: a deadly occupation. And with that, welcome to this episode

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Speaker 1: of Amy and TJ Robes. We have been talking about

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Speaker 1: this and doing an episode about this for probably months,

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Speaker 1: but you and I keep our eyes on a lot

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Speaker 1: of news, and it seems like there was a great

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Speaker 1: frequency of influencer deaths for various reasons.

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Speaker 2: Correct, and it felt like we were seeing an influencer death,

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Speaker 2: a tragic death, and a lot of them, younger folks

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Speaker 2: dying once a week.

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Speaker 3: And we just started noticing it.

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Speaker 2: And once we started noticing it, it actually became a

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Speaker 2: pattern that was hard to ignore.

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Speaker 3: And I started.

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Speaker 2: Googling and researching, and yeah, people are taking note this

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Speaker 2: was happening.

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Speaker 1: Then, you know, it's a good way to put it.

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Speaker 1: We weren't paying enough attention to until it became something

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Speaker 1: you couldn't ignore. It has become that, and so we're

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Speaker 1: here and we're talking about it, and actually, roll this

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Speaker 1: is such an important thing to point out. We have

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Speaker 1: actually been sitting on this full disclosure waiting to do

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Speaker 1: this story, and we didn't want to because, wow, it's

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Speaker 1: the end of the year, it's the holidays. It feels

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Speaker 1: like a dud. It feels like a downer of a story.

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Speaker 1: But the more we talked about it, this is such

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Speaker 1: an important thing to point out. This was a significant

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Speaker 1: year for death a deaths among influencers, and the reasons

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Speaker 1: for it of something we should all pay attention.

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Speaker 2: To, absolutely, because when you start thinking about it, when

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Speaker 2: you make your living trying to get attention and get

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Speaker 2: likes and get advertisers to then sponsor, you your constantly seeking validation.

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Speaker 2: You're constantly pushing the ball. You're trying to do things

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Speaker 2: maybe that you wouldn't normally do. You might be a

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Speaker 2: little bit more reckless in a sense to do something

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Speaker 2: that would get attention. You're also letting people know where

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Speaker 2: you are all the time, where you're not, you're live streaming.

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Speaker 2: And then people become obsessed with some of these influencers

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Speaker 2: of the debts we saw baby. It's sad, but many

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Speaker 2: of them were murdered because they had obsessive fans. But

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Speaker 2: people have these that's part of what their job is

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Speaker 2: to get connected to others, make people feel like you're

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Speaker 2: their friend. You're their cool friend that is going to

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Speaker 2: tell them how to eat, what to shop, where to go,

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Speaker 2: all of this. So there's just so much pressure. And

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Speaker 2: then the mental health aspect of it. You're constantly living

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Speaker 2: and breathing and you're paying your bills based on who

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Speaker 2: likes you. That can mess with a lot of folks.

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Speaker 1: I mean it should mess with I think most of us.

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Speaker 1: What you just described, I thinking down in my seat.

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Speaker 1: To have that weight, that life that you have to man.

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Speaker 1: The way you put it, you have to be validated daily,

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Speaker 1: constantly in order to make a living. That is scary

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Speaker 1: as hell. And so when you put in those terms right,

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Speaker 1: it looks all fun. Anybody can be an influencer now

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Speaker 1: and it looks like a good time. But roabes every

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Speaker 1: single person who is doing that, who was out there,

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Speaker 1: And that doesn't matter how successful. It takes a toll.

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Speaker 3: It has to it does. Even celebrities talk about it.

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Speaker 2: People who are at the top of their game and

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Speaker 2: the biggest names in Hollywood will tell you when they

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Speaker 2: read negative reviews, when they see the awful comments, it

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Speaker 2: affects them.

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Speaker 3: It affects all of us. We're human beings.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if you do this for a living,

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Speaker 2: if you put yourself in the spotlight for a living,

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Speaker 2: you still have feelings that can get hurt easily, even

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Speaker 2: by strangers. And especially when you're an influencer. You're seeking

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Speaker 2: that attention, You're seeking it likes. You need people to

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Speaker 2: like you.

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Speaker 1: Man. So yeah, I'm actually pausing road because we are.

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Speaker 1: And again, we were doing this in real time. We

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Speaker 1: didn't record this earlier. There's a big story going on

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Speaker 1: right now with Cardi B. You just mentioned even celebrities

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Speaker 1: talking about the toll that takes on them. She just

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Speaker 1: put out a whole video with it yesterday on Instagram,

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Speaker 1: really going on about you all. It's getting a little much,

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Speaker 1: it's getting too mean, and she did in her Cardi

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Speaker 1: B way, but she took a moment to say, you all,

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Speaker 1: I'm reading, I'm seeing it, I'm feeling it.

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Speaker 3: Please stop it. Yeah, please stop that. It's too much.

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Speaker 3: That mean is mean.

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Speaker 2: And so yes, some of these notable deaths we're talking

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Speaker 2: about our suicides because a lot of these folks, we

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Speaker 2: don't know all the answers, but they had loving a

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Speaker 2: lot of them were in loving relationships.

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Speaker 3: Some of them were mothers.

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Speaker 2: Some of them were you know, they had full lives

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Speaker 2: and just constantly putting yourself out there to be talked about, ridiculed,

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Speaker 2: commented on, you know. And the worst is you start

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Speaker 2: to build this following and you start to feel really good,

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Speaker 2: and you love the likes, and you love the good comments,

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Speaker 2: and you believe them and they make you they give

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Speaker 2: you your value, and then when all of the mean

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Speaker 2: ones come or you did something people didn't like, that

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Speaker 2: the opposite effect of that is devastating.

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Speaker 1: Where I learned that that you can't put too much

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Speaker 1: into the good comments you get, because then you have

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Speaker 1: to put so much value into the negative ones because

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Speaker 1: you're saying that the good people they're strangers to me too,

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Speaker 1: but they're validating me. They make me feel good, so

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Speaker 1: I believe them. But then you end up you have

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Speaker 1: to believe the negative and that's not a good way

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Speaker 1: to be bro. This is you know what you're describing

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Speaker 1: in waves now that I want to go take Sabine's

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Speaker 1: phone from her right now you're describe it in such

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Speaker 1: a way and she's about to turn thirteen where all

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Speaker 1: bets are off. Now, see she passes the tests on

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Speaker 1: all these these apps and whatnot, so it's it's terrifying,

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Speaker 1: but oh yes you have. And again we're not talking

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Speaker 1: about a handful necessarily of deaths, and it's hard to

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Speaker 1: keep an accurate count.

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Speaker 2: I actually don't have a full count because also some

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Speaker 2: of these were pretty notable deaths and.

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Speaker 3: They were international. It's not just here in the United States.

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Speaker 2: This is obviously you know, people know folks who are

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Speaker 2: influencers in countries all around the world, which is really

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Speaker 2: cool in a lot of ways. But it just shows

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Speaker 2: you how widespread this is. But I was just looking

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Speaker 2: at the different deaths. These are the notable ones. There

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Speaker 2: are so many more than this, babe. I think it

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Speaker 2: probably was more than one a week because we were

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Speaker 2: seeing the headlines. But I was just able to collect

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Speaker 2: some of the notable ones. One they really stood out,

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Speaker 2: and this actually was just sad I wanted to point

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Speaker 2: out because this one, I don't know, it touched me.

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Speaker 3: Haley Okola.

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Speaker 2: She was known as known as Nurse Haley. She was

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Speaker 2: a nursing influencer. She died at thirty three after giving birth.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's just, you know, you it's just and

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Speaker 2: people were along for it, and they were there and

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Speaker 2: in fertility issues, and she talked about it and everyone

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Speaker 2: followed her. So that's also devastating for the people who

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Speaker 2: are looking to her as someone who's encouraging them and

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Speaker 2: an inspiration to them. And then you see something tragic

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Speaker 2: like this that affects all of her followers. But then

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Speaker 2: you even had Alicia Bernie, she was a YouTuber. She

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Speaker 2: died at twenty four from a fatal asthma attack.

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Speaker 3: So it's like you start to see just I think.

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Speaker 2: In some moments when you have medical emergencies or medical issues,

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Speaker 2: it does raise awareness, but it's also scary as hell.

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Speaker 3: She was in Mexico on vacation.

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Speaker 2: She was actually a food influencer, and she dies of

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Speaker 2: an asthma attack. So it's just you start to see,

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Speaker 2: I don't know if she put herself into harm's way,

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Speaker 2: if she put herself in a situation where she could have.

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Speaker 1: Those are random, those are incident, those which are awful

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Speaker 1: for people who have these huge followings. But again to

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Speaker 1: your point, it does raise awareness that these people are

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Speaker 1: people pay attention correct right to these folks, but you

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Speaker 1: know those are that can happen anywhere. But man, it's

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Speaker 1: that that's as tragic as that is. I don't know, Robes,

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Speaker 1: it's I'm thinking about some of these others right that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about that you're about to get into. And

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Speaker 1: is it dangerous now to be an influencer because we

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Speaker 1: talked about think of all the professions we know about,

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Speaker 1: is it that are that many people dying in other professions?

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Speaker 1: Suicide and other professions. I don't know what the rate

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Speaker 1: could be. Are these just high profile, but it seems

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Speaker 1: there's a there's something going on in this community that

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Speaker 1: we need to pay attention.

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Speaker 3: Correct.

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Speaker 2: No, because if this many journalists were dying doing their job,

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Speaker 2: If this many doctors or lawyers, or celebrities, even actors,

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Speaker 2: if this many people were dying.

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Speaker 3: You know, for varying reasons, but because.

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Speaker 2: Of the job generally speaking, that would raise eyebrows. And

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Speaker 2: so you start to look at this and say, what

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Speaker 2: is the threat?

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Speaker 3: What is tying this all together?

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Speaker 2: Here are a few that will actually make a lot

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Speaker 2: of sense, and these are certainly tied together. So you've

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Speaker 2: got Valeria Masqua Marquez. She was a Mexican beauty girro.

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Speaker 2: She was shot and killed while she was doing a

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Speaker 2: TikTok live stream. So she accepted a package and it

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Speaker 2: was someone posing as a delivery man and he was

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Speaker 2: actually a gunman and he targeted her and killed her

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Speaker 2: on her live stream. Something happened very similarly in Colombia

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Speaker 2: with an influencer model on her live stream. Then you

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Speaker 2: also had Rodney Finley and his wife Tanisha. This made

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Speaker 2: a lot of headlines in Las Vegas. They were YouTubers.

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Speaker 2: They were fatally.

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Speaker 3: Shot by a fellow streamer who had a feud with him.

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Speaker 2: So it's just this, right, they're competing for likes, they're

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Speaker 2: competing for followers. There was a Venezuelan TikToker this year,

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Speaker 2: Jesus Sarmiento. He was on a live stream because he

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Speaker 2: denounced a gang a drug game, and so they found him.

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Speaker 2: They knew exactly where he was because he was live streaming.

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Speaker 2: He had said something negative about them, and he was

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Speaker 2: murdered there in New Jersey. This was a big one.

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Speaker 2: Christopher White, a New Jersey TikTok influencer, was tracked from

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Speaker 2: his live stream and murdered.

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Speaker 3: I mean this, I'm telling you, I have chills right now.

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Speaker 2: I just kept reading all of these folks who were

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Speaker 2: found by their assassins by their killers because they were

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Speaker 2: on a live stream. Bruna di Castro was stabbed to

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Speaker 2: death for rejecting romantic advances and he was on a

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Speaker 2: live stream.

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Speaker 3: It's just I mean she was on a live stream.

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Speaker 1: Where was that one?

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Speaker 3: I don't know where that was.

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Speaker 2: This was Bruna di Castro, so I think it was

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Speaker 2: somewhere in South America. Pakistani TikToker Sana Yusov killed by

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Speaker 2: a fan turned stalker for rejecting his friendship attempts and

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Speaker 2: he found her because she was live stream.

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Speaker 1: Wait a minute, o' say that again. Who was the

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Speaker 1: one that was killed? Was a man or woman?

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Speaker 3: It was a woman, sona.

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Speaker 2: She was killed by a fan turned stalker because she

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Speaker 2: rejected his friendship attempts, so he knew exactly where to

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Speaker 2: find them. So anyway, there are sadly and there are

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Speaker 2: some here in the States. This isn't just in a

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Speaker 2: scary country. This was New Jersey. This was Las Vegas.

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Speaker 2: So a lot of these folks unknowingly put themselves in

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Speaker 2: harm's way and put a target on their back because

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Speaker 2: they are live streaming, and anyone who they might have

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Speaker 2: rejected or who they might have upset, unknowingly by not

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Speaker 2: responding to them. They know exactly where to find them,

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Speaker 2: they know exactly where to target.

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Speaker 1: What should we understand now? This is the risk you

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Speaker 1: take in doing this job. And it seems bizarre to

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Speaker 1: think that something you can literally do by just sitting

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Speaker 1: on your couch is now a threat to your health.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think this needs to be heard. Parents

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Speaker 2: need to hear these numbers and these stories and these names,

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Speaker 2: and kids need to recognize. I think, yes, the kids

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Speaker 2: feel invincible. Isn't that what kids always feel like? Oh,

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Speaker 2: no one's gonna hurt me, No one's gonna it's not

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Speaker 2: gonna You always think it's crazy to see my daughter's

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Speaker 2: friends all know exactly where they are, they track them.

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Speaker 2: That we look at that as a potential threat or

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Speaker 2: as something scary.

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Speaker 3: Why do you want so many people knowing exactly where

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Speaker 3: you are?

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Speaker 2: But I don't think kids, and certainly these younger influencers,

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Speaker 2: understand how dangerous it is to let the world know

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Speaker 2: exactly where you are all the time.

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Speaker 1: As you're talking ish about some of those people, as

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Speaker 1: you're rejecting some of those people, right as you're engaging

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Speaker 1: sometimes with some of those people you are, it shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be right. I guess we should understand now it comes

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Speaker 1: with the territory, but it shouldn't be the case we

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Speaker 1: all understand. But I don't robes. I don't know this

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Speaker 1: is one I we talk about the stalker kind of

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Speaker 1: aspect of it. There the other side of it, the

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Speaker 1: other side, And I don't know. You've looked at more

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Speaker 1: of the cases than I have, And I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you have some kind of a breakdown or a

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Speaker 1: feeling that the majority of the deaths came from those

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Speaker 1: types of incidents of murder or suicide.

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Speaker 2: Suicides and a couple of them we can go over

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Speaker 2: are also just from folks taking massive risks, climbing things,

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Speaker 2: dangling off to get a picture and literally fell to

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Speaker 2: their deaths.

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Speaker 1: And you highlighted some of the homicides there. But I

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Speaker 1: would have to assume overwhelmingly the deaths we're seeing are

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Speaker 1: suicide and not how much that I say those be rare,

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Speaker 1: There was a lot.

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Speaker 2: There were a lot of murders, babe, and I didn't

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Speaker 2: even get to all the oh this year, this is

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Speaker 2: this year only, and it didn't take long to hunt

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Speaker 2: for this. And yes, the suicides are significant, and and

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Speaker 2: they range in ages thirty seven, twenty seven, thirty one,

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Speaker 2: thirty one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just all.

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Speaker 2: Young twenty nine, and I was reading all of these

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Speaker 2: stories of these folks who were loved and who people

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Speaker 2: did not recognize.

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Speaker 3: They did not see the science until it was too late.

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Speaker 1: All right, we'll stay here, folks. When we come back,

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Speaker 1: we'll go through some of what is really probably the

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Speaker 1: most concerning aspect of some of the deaths we've seen

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Speaker 1: among influencers in twenty twenty five, sty.

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Speaker 3: Hear, Welcome back, everyone.

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Speaker 2: We are talking about something that I bet a lot

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Speaker 2: of you might have noticed. If you read the news

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Speaker 2: like we do, if you pick up your phone, you're

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Speaker 2: looking at headlines, even on social media. It seemed like

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Speaker 2: I was constantly we were both looking at headlines of

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Speaker 2: social media influencers dying, and a lot of them dying young,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of them dying at the hands of

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Speaker 2: a stalker, and unfortunately sometimes dying by suicide.

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Speaker 1: That's the one I think I saw most, I mean,

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Speaker 1: asked suicide. That's the one. I swear it felt like

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Speaker 1: one a week it.

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Speaker 3: Did, it did in March. This was a big one.

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Speaker 2: TikToker Joshua of Blackledge he died by suicide at the

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Speaker 2: age of sixteen. That one was really sad. YouTuber Mikiela

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Speaker 2: Rains this was a big one. She took her life

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Speaker 2: at twenty nine. There was a Oh, yes, there was

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Speaker 2: a Tucker Janelle. I don't know if I'm saying his

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Speaker 2: name right, but this is really this was just in December,

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Speaker 2: this was a big story. Social media influencer died by

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Speaker 2: suicide at age thirty one. So many folks did not

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Speaker 2: did not see that one coming at all, and it

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Speaker 2: was just one thing after another, and everyone said they

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Speaker 2: did not recognize that those influencers were in pain, that

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Speaker 2: they were even suicidal or having any sort of Who have?

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Speaker 1: Who would have? Because isn't the point of this to

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Speaker 1: social media? Or are we trying to put our best

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Speaker 1: face forward all the time? I know we talk about

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Speaker 1: there are moments when people are vulnerable, and those moments

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Speaker 1: get a lot of attention, But babe, aren't we I don't, Oh,

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Speaker 1: are we missing signs because there are none if we're

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Speaker 1: only looking at them through social media.

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Speaker 2: We want people to think if you're an influence, an

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Speaker 2: influencer especially, you want people to think your life.

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Speaker 3: I would think for.

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Speaker 2: The most part is special or cool or good, a

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Speaker 2: reason to follow, right, something that's different than the than

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Speaker 2: the rest. And so you're trying to put your best

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Speaker 2: foot forward and show what's great and what you're learning

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Speaker 2: and what you're doing and where you're going and who

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Speaker 2: you're with. But the pressure of that, if it's not

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Speaker 2: all real, and of course it probably isn't, you feel

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Speaker 2: like a fraud and those feelings just unfortunately, but it

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Speaker 2: is incredibly, incredibly said. I was reading from studies that

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Speaker 2: show correlations between screen time and feelings of depress anxiety.

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Speaker 3: We see that with everybody, right our kids.

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Speaker 2: But think about that, that's not just true for the fans,

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Speaker 2: it's true for the creators as well. And if they're

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Speaker 2: spending that much time creating the content, then they also

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Speaker 2: have to go on the screens to then upload the content.

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Speaker 2: Then they have to read the comments, then they have

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Speaker 2: to react to the comments. So they are literally on

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Speaker 2: their phones or on their devices the entire day. That

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Speaker 2: is what they are doing for a living. So it's

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Speaker 2: on steroids from what we even see from our kids.

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Speaker 2: And I saw this quote from a psychologist who was

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Speaker 2: weighing in on this epidemic of social media influencer suicides,

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Speaker 2: and she said humans are not built to absorb daily

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Speaker 2: criticism from strangers at scale.

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Speaker 3: And I just thought that was such a powerful quote.

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Speaker 1: Yo, what is wrong with us? We have lost it robes,

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Speaker 1: we have lost our minds. This is who we are now?

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Speaker 1: Are worth is in likes? This is not who in

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Speaker 1: God's name. It's like a daily roast ye that you're

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Speaker 1: volunteering for.

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Speaker 2: And if you have other influencers, influencers who are competing

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Speaker 2: against you. I mentioned meek Kayla Rains, that's one of

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Speaker 2: the women who young women who died by suicide. Her

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Speaker 2: husband said this after his wife's suicide, and this kind

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Speaker 2: of just hits it. He said his wife had been

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Speaker 2: dealing with ridiculous claims and rumors and she felt as

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Speaker 2: if the entire world.

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Speaker 3: Had turned against her.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they feel like when suddenly they get

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Speaker 2: a bad something, a comment, and then it goes off

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Speaker 2: or someone tries to say you did or didn't do something.

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Speaker 3: All of a sudden, the world's turned against you and

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Speaker 3: you can't.

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Speaker 2: See a way out. Oh my god, isn't that just

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Speaker 2: so sad? But it makes so much sense, It makes

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Speaker 2: so much sense. And then I did mention some of

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Speaker 2: the behavior that people engage in because they're trying to

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Speaker 2: make the content has led to several deaths. In twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty five, Hannah Moody thirty one years old, big Instagram

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Speaker 2: content curator, and she did her She had big hiking adventures.

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Speaker 2: So in May she went for a solo hike in Scottsdale.

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Speaker 2: She was later found dead. They said it was a

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Speaker 2: heat exposure that she died. So she's putting herself out

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Speaker 2: there doing these hiking videos. She goes on solo hikes,

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Speaker 2: that's what she's known for, and it ended up killing her.

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Speaker 3: Influencer Andreas Tonelli.

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Speaker 2: He's forty eight years old, uploaded a video of himself

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Speaker 2: biking solo in the Dolomites and then he never returned.

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Speaker 2: They found out later he died falling six hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty plus feet while he was creating content on his bike.

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Speaker 2: There are a couple influencers who died from during a

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Speaker 2: complications from cosmetic procedures to try and look different, look better.

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Speaker 3: That was a couple of sad ones right there. And

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Speaker 3: there was another one.

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Speaker 2: Mary, her name was okay, that's a screen name, Mary Magdalen.

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Speaker 2: That's just what she went by, but she was also

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Speaker 2: known for her cosmetic procedure. She died falling from a

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Speaker 2: high rise apartment building. So it's just getting a picture.

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Speaker 2: So it's just you see this risky behavior, you see

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Speaker 2: this this need for validation, and once that goes away,

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Speaker 2: and if you feel like all of a sudden people

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Speaker 2: have turned on you, you feel like you have nothing

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Speaker 2: to live for. There's just a it's extremes. You're living

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Speaker 2: in extremes, and unfortunately in all of these you're giving

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Speaker 2: away your power because you're letting other people dictate how

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Speaker 2: you're received, how well you're liked, and how much money

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Speaker 2: you're making in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 1: Oh, this was tough. I'm you know what, I just

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Speaker 1: I don't know, because there's so much value in it

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Speaker 1: in social media, right, there's so much value, that's so

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Speaker 1: much fun, and that's so much money there is.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of money to be made.

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Speaker 1: That I think some of these things, I don't think

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Speaker 1: we consider it the health hazard that it is.

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Speaker 2: Yet you're the one who said to me earlier before

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Speaker 2: we started, can you think of a more dangerous profession

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Speaker 2: in terms of what we've seen this year with influencer

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Speaker 2: deaths as a whole, as an industry, and I actually

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Speaker 2: cannot think of.

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Speaker 3: Just collectively.

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Speaker 2: I cannot think of a deadlier choice of profession given

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Speaker 2: these headlines and given all these stories, and again I

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Speaker 2: just touched on it. There are so many more than

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Speaker 2: what I mentioned. It wasn't hard to find it all

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Speaker 2: when you googled, and I thought, wow, we all need

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Speaker 2: to talk about this, and at least for ourselves, for

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Speaker 2: our children, and hopefully anyone out listening who is a

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Speaker 2: social media influencer, just to know that it is risky

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Speaker 2: for a lot of reasons, and some of it just

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Speaker 2: has to be based on I guess, staying grounded if

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Speaker 2: that's possible, and keeping that face to face communication as

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Speaker 2: the most important part of your day in terms of your.

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Speaker 3: Well who your relationships are with. You need actual people.

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Speaker 1: Right, well, all, thank you as always spending some time

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Speaker 1: here with us. Yeah, as we wrap up twenty twenty five,

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Speaker 1: this how many we've had this prepared for? How long?

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Speaker 1: A week?

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Speaker 3: Maybe two, a couple of weeks actually that we've.

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Speaker 1: Had this thing prepped and ready to go, and every

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Speaker 1: time we sat down and wanted to do we need

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Speaker 1: to know what people in a good mood right now.

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Speaker 1: It's the holidays. Why bring people down with something? So

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Speaker 1: I'm glad we got it in.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I am too.

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Speaker 2: I think it's it's a way to reflect and maybe

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Speaker 2: a way to correct our behaviors and how we our

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Speaker 2: relationship with social media period for twenty twenty six. So

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Speaker 2: that is the hope and we hope you enjoyed listening everyone.

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Speaker 2: Thank you as always, I made me Robock alongside TJ.

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Speaker 2: Holmes and we will talk to you soon.