Speaker 1: Welcome to episode three of My Year in Mensa, my
Speaker 1: podcast about that exact topic, My Year in Mensa. So
Speaker 1: if this is the first episode you're listening to, I
Speaker 1: highly encourage you to go back to the beginning so
Speaker 1: you know what the fun is going on. If you
Speaker 1: choose to just jump in, I can't stop you. I
Speaker 1: don't understand the logic behind it. So, if you're returning
Speaker 1: the incredible, powerful cliffhanger, I left you on last episode,
Speaker 1: in which I attended a party that was being thrown
Speaker 1: by a secret Facebook group I r L and ended
Speaker 1: up in this bizarre, low key physical altercation with a
Speaker 1: stranger day one of the MENSA Convention. I add resolutely
Speaker 1: did get drunken, cry, very messy, And we're just gonna
Speaker 1: blaze on into episode three. Welcome you, smart bastards. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go forward to July. This is day two of
Speaker 1: my time at the MENSA annual gathering otherwise known and
Speaker 1: I feel like I haven't hit on this hard enough.
Speaker 1: It's called Men's Rising. Who knows. So I walked two
Speaker 1: blocks from my airbnb to get to the nearest Ice
Speaker 1: coffee and like sausage and cheese sandwich, and I completely
Speaker 1: swept through my clothes getting there. I was aware that
Speaker 1: Arizona was hot, but eight am needing to change your
Speaker 1: clothes hot It's a bit much. So I get my
Speaker 1: breakfast and then I lay in my Airbnb for a
Speaker 1: full hour until I have to haul us back to
Speaker 1: the Sheraton Grand Downtown and go to my first Mussie
Speaker 1: event of the day, which is a talk called because
Speaker 1: Science Is Funny The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon and you.
Speaker 1: And honestly, it is well worth the walk to the Sheraton.
Speaker 1: Their room is absolutely packed. There's over one mentions just
Speaker 1: cracking up and reciting a deeply sexist scene from The
Speaker 1: Big Bang Theory from memory? Did you like to hear
Speaker 1: another reason why men are better than women? And the speaker,
Speaker 1: who's a fan of the show, obviously spends most of
Speaker 1: the time just rehashing the one time he was in
Speaker 1: the live audience of a Big Bang Theory episode, and
Speaker 1: they do take a sort of interesting look at how
Speaker 1: they used actual science in the show. I cannot say
Speaker 1: it enough. Men sins are not funny people. Oh you
Speaker 1: hear women say? Is always have a salad? Where's my
Speaker 1: lip gloss? I decided to skip out on some of
Speaker 1: the things I was going to see, which include something
Speaker 1: called dealing with Problem Members and atheist meeting, And instead
Speaker 1: I meet my only friend at the conference, to who
Speaker 1: I've known for less than twenty four hours, and we
Speaker 1: go to a presentation being made about Jonestown by someone
Speaker 1: who was there, and believe it or not, it is
Speaker 1: the calmest I've felt since I got there. And it
Speaker 1: is interesting that the mentions I encounter during the day
Speaker 1: portion of this conference are far closer to what I
Speaker 1: envisioned them to be when I first started writing about MENSA.
Speaker 1: The one thing I always underestimated was the wide range
Speaker 1: of class backgrounds that members are from, so as to say,
Speaker 1: the MENSA founding elitist Australian assholes who have discussed in
Speaker 1: past episodes Roland Barrel would not be pleased of the
Speaker 1: range of class representation in the organization because he famously
Speaker 1: said that MENSA should be quote an aristocracy of the
Speaker 1: intellect unquote. He was a dick. But what I also
Speaker 1: underestimated about MENSA was the wide array of prejudices that
Speaker 1: people inside of this group would have, regardless of class.
Speaker 1: For the most part, daytime mentions I'll call them are
Speaker 1: older people that enjoy the talks of debates as well
Speaker 1: as talking with other mentions in the hospitality room or
Speaker 1: the cafeteria. There are moments when I am sitting in
Speaker 1: hospital pality, usually alone, that this makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense to me, because even in a community that I
Speaker 1: have found to be very exclusionary and troubling, still looks
Speaker 1: and functions like a community, and it seems like plenty
Speaker 1: of people who are there engaged with it in a
Speaker 1: relatively healthy way. There's a lot of people here who
Speaker 1: only see each other once a year at the annual gathering,
Speaker 1: and there's no shortage of people who haven't seen each
Speaker 1: other in years giving each other hugs and taking pictures
Speaker 1: over the shitty cafeteria food that we've all been forced
Speaker 1: to eat. So I'm just writing out my thoughts about
Speaker 1: this at lunch, not feeling particularly watched for once. However,
Speaker 1: this moment of introspection and of realizing that there's more
Speaker 1: to this group than I gave credit for going in
Speaker 1: is later posted about in the American Mensa Firehouse the
Speaker 1: Secret Group, and the commenters are mentioning how they saw
Speaker 1: Jamie sitting alone at the lunch table how sad and
Speaker 1: pathetic must that be to see me alone like that
Speaker 1: at mens arising so you know, multitudes but also not
Speaker 1: And then I have to go back to my room
Speaker 1: to prepare for the MENSA Gala dinner. It happens every year.
Speaker 1: People get dressed to the nines. I wear what I
Speaker 1: wore yesterday. Sorry, And you pay seventy five dollars to
Speaker 1: have a piece of cheesecake and a piece of meat
Speaker 1: with your fellow medicines and listen to Adam Savage bust
Speaker 1: various myths for two hours. Of course, I have to
Speaker 1: invest in a ticket to this event. I want to
Speaker 1: know what the gala is like, and what I can
Speaker 1: for sure say it has is the two things that
Speaker 1: make me more anxious than anything in the world, which
Speaker 1: is face to face confrontation and not knowing who to
Speaker 1: sit with at an event. I'm able to push past
Speaker 1: one of them pretty quickly and I find a table
Speaker 1: with some older people at the far end of the ballroom.
Speaker 1: I am feeling very insecure that I did not bring
Speaker 1: a gown. People are dressed very nicely at this event,
Speaker 1: and once I get there, I Facebook message to to
Speaker 1: let them know that I found us a spot. I
Speaker 1: start eating my salad very quickly. The food in the
Speaker 1: cafeteria is bad, and before I can take it by
Speaker 1: of food, another man appears beside me, to my right,
Speaker 1: and he says I'm Michael, Mensa's head of marketing, and
Speaker 1: he extends a firm clammy marketer's handshake to me and says,
Speaker 1: would you like to come sit at our table? I
Speaker 1: tell Michael, I can only do it if there's room
Speaker 1: for my friend, because two is the closest thing I
Speaker 1: have to a friend in the entire world here, and
Speaker 1: Michael says, sorry, there's no room and he goes back
Speaker 1: to the table. Then two finally shows up and he
Speaker 1: asks me who I was just talking to. And while
Speaker 1: I was very polite for the Mensa marketing team to
Speaker 1: invite me to their table, you know, so it's a
Speaker 1: little transparent. A very drunk mention who's come to our
Speaker 1: sort of misfits table, leans in very close to tell
Speaker 1: me where I should visit in Scotland and about the
Speaker 1: various graphic novels he's been working on. He starts out
Speaker 1: very condescending to me and then learns that I am
Speaker 1: a TV writer and magically becomes less so, which I've
Speaker 1: found is something that very cool, respectful people do. And
Speaker 1: if someone else is walking home through to our table,
Speaker 1: the drunk guy recognizes him and says, there he is,
Speaker 1: and who is he pointing to? But Joey, the man
Speaker 1: I met at a party last night who has led
Speaker 1: the charge on online harassment. And I know I've been
Speaker 1: told that he was an important person on the board
Speaker 1: of American Ments Up, but even I underestimated exactly how
Speaker 1: important his position was. According to the program, he's one
Speaker 1: of the many sub chairs of the American Mensa Committee,
Speaker 1: and he is dressed the part. Drunk guy and Joey
Speaker 1: exchanged pleasantries, and Joey places a firm hand on my
Speaker 1: shoulder and he says, everything going well, And I'm very uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: And I say, yep, because as far as I know,
Speaker 1: Joey still thinks I don't know who he is, because
Speaker 1: he has blocked me so long ago that he can
Speaker 1: just sort of treat me however he wants and I
Speaker 1: won't be the wiser. And he says great, pats me
Speaker 1: on the back, greets too as well, although he's repeatedly
Speaker 1: harassed him online as well, And then he returns to
Speaker 1: his officials only table at the front of the gala.
Speaker 1: So Adam Savage is about to take the state bust
Speaker 1: some myths as this year's big talk giver when Two
Speaker 1: nudges me and points a few tables over and he
Speaker 1: tells me that Katie is sitting there. But I can't
Speaker 1: see Katie. All I can see is a make America
Speaker 1: Great Again hat floating somewhere in the crowd, attached to
Speaker 1: a petite woman's head, And Two says, you know who
Speaker 1: she is already, and this time he's right. Katie is
Speaker 1: one of the only people in Firehouse who I am
Speaker 1: very familiar with. I was still blocked by her on Facebook,
Speaker 1: but I knew her reputation as one of the most
Speaker 1: outspoken Trump supporters in the group who was occasionally kicked
Speaker 1: off Facebook altogether for posting offensive things that broke the
Speaker 1: community guidelines. She held the Firehouse community in extremely high regard,
Speaker 1: and after my most recent piece on the group, she
Speaker 1: had commented on an Instagram post of mine saying the following,
Speaker 1: let it be known that this comedian is a slimy
Speaker 1: odd and this is just the first line. Here are
Speaker 1: some select passages from that comment, which is from February,
Speaker 1: and it genuinely has too long to repeat in its entirety.
Speaker 1: So these are just some highlights. I'm not a fan
Speaker 1: of people throwing others under the bus to further they're
Speaker 1: already unfruitful and destined to fail career. You're the first
Speaker 1: person ever that are unmoderated group has had to mass
Speaker 1: block because you're shady and trying to ruin people's lives.
Speaker 1: You're probably one of the geekiest, most unattractive people in
Speaker 1: our organization, and attention seeking kunt who wants to fame
Speaker 1: everyone acts stop fucking with my friends. Oh, and see
Speaker 1: you in Phoenix. So that's the person we're talking about.
Speaker 1: And she's a few tables away in her MAGA hat too.
Speaker 1: In spite of getting into similar arguments with her, has
Speaker 1: already voluntarily taken a few pictures with her and says
Speaker 1: that she's been very nice to him and that I
Speaker 1: should consider giving her a chance. And I don't understand
Speaker 1: the need for pictures, but I tell him I'm happy
Speaker 1: to talk with her if she wants to. Adam Savage
Speaker 1: gives a lovely talk about the myths that he's busted,
Speaker 1: and it truly does kind of feel like medicine to
Speaker 1: hear someone talk about something other than how my a
Speaker 1: g is going. So after he speaks, the gala ends,
Speaker 1: which means it's once again party time, and in the
Speaker 1: gen Y Suite that night, I have formally scrapped my
Speaker 1: get black out drunk with the men since in order
Speaker 1: to better relate with them portion of my annual gathering plan,
Speaker 1: because look, I'm not Hunter Thompson. I am a tired lady,
Speaker 1: and I'm nervous, and i am alone, and I can't
Speaker 1: leave Phoenix for another thirty hours, so I'm not drinking tonight,
Speaker 1: which is a challenge because it's toga night and the
Speaker 1: only thing worse than being me at this party is
Speaker 1: being me without a toga made out of stolen sheets
Speaker 1: from the sheraton. Completely sober, black lights are illuminating me
Speaker 1: tastefully well researched knots of many a mense in toga
Speaker 1: you can't say they don't do their homework, and the
Speaker 1: alcohol is flowing as heavy as the night before, But
Speaker 1: I don't have sheets from the sheraton because I'm not
Speaker 1: staying there, so I sort of just pray to remain
Speaker 1: invisible for a few minutes while I get my bearings.
Speaker 1: This time, I'm back with my friend who I wept
Speaker 1: to for an hour the night before, Tall guy, and
Speaker 1: there's a woman my age with a solo cup full
Speaker 1: of Coke zero and we have a very pleasant conversation
Speaker 1: for all of five minutes before what I already know
Speaker 1: is going to happen happens. Someone from Firehouse approaches me
Speaker 1: and asks me a weird question, Jamie, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to call this guy Sam. He is a pianist who
Speaker 1: immigrated to the US, and he had deemed me a
Speaker 1: selfie he took of us from the previous night while
Speaker 1: I was waiting for my uber outside the hotel and crying.
Speaker 1: But he came up and he was like, you're Jamie, right,
Speaker 1: Can I get a picture with you? And so I
Speaker 1: wiped the tears from my eyes and honestly looked kind
Speaker 1: of cute in the picture. Anyways, Sam has been nice
Speaker 1: to me, but again he has that proud hoser badge,
Speaker 1: and it's enough to sort of keep me at bay
Speaker 1: a little bit for the moment it but he says,
Speaker 1: good to see you again, how is your a g
Speaker 1: Sam has opted out of the elaborate toga as well,
Speaker 1: and he sort of just has like a white hand
Speaker 1: towel draped over his neck to catch the black light,
Speaker 1: and he offers me a hand towel too, And he
Speaker 1: spends the next several minutes trying to convince me to
Speaker 1: go back up to the Firehouse suite tonight, and I
Speaker 1: hope understandably I express a little bit of nervousness at
Speaker 1: going back upstairs to the fifth floor. But he doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to understand why I feel this way, and he
Speaker 1: asks me a number of times why you're not going
Speaker 1: to get hurt. You're not, And I thank him, and
Speaker 1: I politely turned him down again, and so he backs
Speaker 1: off and recedes into the sea of genius togas. So
Speaker 1: throughout this party, by my count, seven people with Firehouse
Speaker 1: ribbons approached me throughout the fifteen minutes or so that
Speaker 1: I'm standing at the party. Two of them say we
Speaker 1: just wanted to meet you and shake your hand face
Speaker 1: to face. Another group of three tell me that what
Speaker 1: happened at the party the previous night was not cool.
Speaker 1: A hoser who's visiting from Sweden asks to take a
Speaker 1: selfie with me, which is a fairly common thing that
Speaker 1: hosers asked for when encountering popular targets of the board
Speaker 1: in real life. And I still can't really figure out
Speaker 1: if this is an act of straight up trolling or
Speaker 1: more of a white flag of like, look, we're just kidding.
Speaker 1: In any case, I awkwardly decline. And this procession of
Speaker 1: people who have refused to acknowledge me in the digital
Speaker 1: space and look at me like an aquarium specimen in
Speaker 1: real life is very bizarre, But I have to keep
Speaker 1: in mind that I'm more or less doing the same
Speaker 1: thing to them. A lot of the Firehouse people and
Speaker 1: I spend time kind of circling each other and reach
Speaker 1: no conclusions on first glance because nothing seems wrong with
Speaker 1: the other person on site at least, and neither want
Speaker 1: to be the first to tell the other that they
Speaker 1: think the other is completely full of shit. So I've
Speaker 1: come here to understand mentions better. But outside of a
Speaker 1: few cautious conversations and a swipe to take my phone,
Speaker 1: I'm really no closer to reaching any transformative conclusion on
Speaker 1: the contradictory practices of Firehouse and the people inside of it.
Speaker 1: Sam Way, It's about ten minutes before emerging again. This
Speaker 1: time with a different woman from Firehouse, and he says,
Speaker 1: very earnestly, please, there's a private party upstairs for Firehouse,
Speaker 1: not the one from last night. Invite only. I'll bring
Speaker 1: you up. It's okay. And as the saying goes, if
Speaker 1: a mentone asks you to enter an unguarded hotel room
Speaker 1: full of people with dubious intentions, three times you go.
Speaker 1: But before we go to the invite only American Mensa
Speaker 1: Firehouse secret party, we've got to kick it back to
Speaker 1: October in California. And the reason I know that if
Speaker 1: a menton asks you to do something thrice, you must
Speaker 1: do it, it's because I have fallen for this exact
Speaker 1: thing before. So, like five million billion news cycles ago,
Speaker 1: when I was first reporting on Firehouse, to top elected
Speaker 1: members of American MENSA reached doubt to offer what sounded
Speaker 1: like a good faith discussion about their safety practices and
Speaker 1: context for the group that I had become the latest
Speaker 1: target of. And in the original email reaching out, the
Speaker 1: MENSA employee mentioned no less than three times that I
Speaker 1: had joined the organization as a joke, but he did
Speaker 1: assure me that they were concerned about how I was
Speaker 1: being treated regardless, So here's kind of a pull quote
Speaker 1: from this first email. We take very seriously the safety
Speaker 1: and security of our members, and now that you've joined
Speaker 1: for laughs or no, that includes your safety. Thanks. But
Speaker 1: this isn't for nothing. As we've discussed in past episodes
Speaker 1: when we talk in October of last year, this concern
Speaker 1: for safety is a big discussion at MENSA events because
Speaker 1: considering the various allegations made surrounding the Indianapolis Annual Gathering
Speaker 1: and the increasing skepticism about how carefully safety in an
Speaker 1: in person capacity was treated by the organization, they were
Speaker 1: on the offensive and MENSA officials were more sensitive to
Speaker 1: this issue than usual, and it's warranted a public response.
Speaker 1: A MENSA representative who I've met before, gave an interview
Speaker 1: to Inverse in August of eighteen, and full disclosure, I
Speaker 1: worked for Inverse in twenty sixteen and seventeen, but don't
Speaker 1: know the writer who did this interview personally. But the
Speaker 1: MENSA representative did this interview in August, right after the
Speaker 1: Indianapolis Annual Gathering concluded, and here's what she had to say.
Speaker 1: In this time, the hashtag me too, and being more
Speaker 1: aware that respect for boundaries is important it's imperative that
Speaker 1: these types of problems be reported immediately. So in October,
Speaker 1: when we're exchanging these emails and a few hours away
Speaker 1: from doing mushrooms for the first time, and I speak
Speaker 1: to both members from like the cramped attic of someone
Speaker 1: else's house, and at this time, the allegations about the
Speaker 1: Indianapolis annual gathering are not ones I'm yet aware of.
Speaker 1: But these two employees are very honest about what's going
Speaker 1: on in the organization, and they explain that the issues
Speaker 1: surrounding the ethics of Firehouse had been a subject of
Speaker 1: internal discussion a number of times over the years. And
Speaker 1: now three months into me writing about MENSA, a few
Speaker 1: other female mentions had reached out to me discussing the
Speaker 1: circumstances of their eventual departure from MENSA because of discomfort
Speaker 1: or harassment that they had experienced in Firehouse specifically. And
Speaker 1: so my main question for these reps in October was
Speaker 1: why the organization would officially sponsor an unmoderated group that
Speaker 1: at its core appeared to pose a threat to safety.
Speaker 1: And I'm given the official history of the Firehouse schism
Speaker 1: in MENSA because it's been a hot topic issue for
Speaker 1: a number of years. So let's kick up some fairytale
Speaker 1: music and start talking. Once upon a time, about five
Speaker 1: years ago, there was one official American Mensa Facebook group
Speaker 1: where mentions from all walks of life were free to
Speaker 1: right whatever they pleased, because at this time, the assumption
Speaker 1: was by the Mensa Committee that discussions would remain relatively civil,
Speaker 1: and as the politics of America became more polarized, so
Speaker 1: did the dynamics of this group, and members who were
Speaker 1: only in the group for intellectual stimulation were concerned for
Speaker 1: the many underage mensines who qualified for and occasionally participated
Speaker 1: in the forum. So the secret Facebook groups of American
Speaker 1: Mensa went full Korea and split into one group would
Speaker 1: be moderated and one group would not be. The moderated
Speaker 1: group is called American Mensa Hospitality, and the unmoderated group
Speaker 1: is American Mensa Firehouse. An American Mensa Firehouse immediately because
Speaker 1: the source of great contention in Mensa on the whole,
Speaker 1: as well as immediately becoming the most active online community
Speaker 1: in the organization by far. The moderated group is reserved
Speaker 1: mostly for group updates and light political discussion. Five years later,
Speaker 1: I'm told on the phone in October, Firehouse is still
Speaker 1: a source of controversy, but the group was still around
Speaker 1: because of its core community dynamics. The end nice story, right,
Speaker 1: So that's the narrative I'm given, and I say on
Speaker 1: the phone, I guess I just don't understand why the
Speaker 1: official mens A group would be okay with people threatening
Speaker 1: other members and not doing anything about it, because at
Speaker 1: this time, I was still convinced that a cogent enough
Speaker 1: argument and enough damning accounts about mass blockings and timidations
Speaker 1: and threats would be enough for any reasonable organization to
Speaker 1: get rid of or at least better protect their own members.
Speaker 1: And it's here that I am surprised, because the argument
Speaker 1: made to keep Firehouse active, endorsed, and unmoderated has remained
Speaker 1: consistent from top mentions throughout my time there, and many
Speaker 1: of the administrators in question are actually active Firehouse members themselves.
Speaker 1: One of the employees on the phone, who I'm going
Speaker 1: to call Amanda, explains that even though the tone of
Speaker 1: Firehouse tends to be antagonistic, the community developed there takes
Speaker 1: care of their own and you're not going to believe
Speaker 1: this are very different in real life than they are online.
Speaker 1: And in October, this is the first time I'm hearing this,
Speaker 1: And on this call, Amanda shares an anecdote that is
Speaker 1: repeated to me a number of times in the coming months,
Speaker 1: and it goes like this. It concerns one of the
Speaker 1: only consistently engaged left wing Firehouse members becoming ill, and
Speaker 1: many of the right wing members who argue with him
Speaker 1: online every day actually pitching in some of their own
Speaker 1: money to alleviate his medical expenses on a go fund Me.
Speaker 1: And Amanda tells me this same anecdote in person several
Speaker 1: months later, and Katie Maga hat Girl shares a similar
Speaker 1: story with me about the group at the annual gathering
Speaker 1: in And this is one of the aspects of the
Speaker 1: community that I find very fascinating, because that does speak
Speaker 1: to their point. If you can argue with someone about
Speaker 1: the need for gun control all day, every day, insulting
Speaker 1: each other viciously, but then still donate to the other's
Speaker 1: medical expenses go fund me, what does that say about
Speaker 1: a community. It is a very bizarre dynamic that occasionally
Speaker 1: these strange but positive things come out of. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a strange anecdote and a strange tendency in a group,
Speaker 1: and especially the first time I heard it kind of
Speaker 1: gave me some some chilly, little grizzly food for thought,
Speaker 1: But for the moment in October, the two mentions on
Speaker 1: the phone assure me that discussions about Firehouse are ongoing
Speaker 1: in the organization and that I will receive an update
Speaker 1: on the status of the group once further discussions are had.
Speaker 1: And at the time of this discussion, I've written two
Speaker 1: columns about Mensa taking the test as a joke, gotten
Speaker 1: a lot of backlash, and it seems like this call
Speaker 1: might be the end of it all and could possibly
Speaker 1: end with something useful, which to me would be some
Speaker 1: protections for members who have felt ostracized by the community
Speaker 1: previously and the perfect excuse for me to wash my
Speaker 1: hands of the whole situation and kind of just move on.
Speaker 1: And a few months later, I receive this follow up
Speaker 1: email from Amanda which says the Communications community is honestly
Speaker 1: still struggling with the Firehouse view, as it is popular
Speaker 1: with so many members and a reason that they stay
Speaker 1: a member. It is difficult to change, but it is
Speaker 1: unpopular and a stigma to some other members, and the
Speaker 1: reason they wish to leave. Amanda tops off the email
Speaker 1: by saying the MENSA Committee hasn't come to a conclusion
Speaker 1: regarding the group yet, but she invites me to the
Speaker 1: Double Tree and San Pedro for the Southern California Regional
Speaker 1: Gathering to discuss the matter in person if I want to,
Speaker 1: and as my policy is to do whatever I meant
Speaker 1: and asks me in an attempt to get to know them,
Speaker 1: I accept this invitation, Amanda says in the email inviting me,
Speaker 1: why you see what some of us are like in
Speaker 1: real life? Gatherings can be a lot of fun, So
Speaker 1: transition sound effect. It's February and I'm at the Double
Speaker 1: Tree in San Pedro and I meet Amanda, and we're
Speaker 1: not as I had assumed, having lunch at the hotel
Speaker 1: or even really meeting in public at all. Amanda gives
Speaker 1: me a big hug when we meet, and she leads
Speaker 1: me instead to her hotel room, where two other women
Speaker 1: are waiting at a table to speak with me over
Speaker 1: water bottles and prepackaged cookies. It's very clear that this
Speaker 1: meeting has been planned, but they're also busy as an event,
Speaker 1: so all three women have a lot of work to
Speaker 1: do at the gathering this weekend. So what results feels
Speaker 1: like half open discussion, half mafio so confrontation. So while
Speaker 1: the point of the meeting appears to be understanding where
Speaker 1: I'm coming from, it's made clear to me fairly early
Speaker 1: on that these powerful medicines have no intention of making
Speaker 1: any alteration. Two American Mental Firehouse. One of the women
Speaker 1: I'm sitting with is the same person who will later
Speaker 1: help run the gen Y suite at the annual gathering.
Speaker 1: She's in her thirties and she's rocking her very cute
Speaker 1: baby and a carrier. And the other person there is
Speaker 1: another long time member who I'm going to call Maggie,
Speaker 1: and she is a tall, older woman with a day
Speaker 1: job in I T And she wastes very little time
Speaker 1: in telling me that she is one of the most
Speaker 1: active members in Firehouse of all time. So we begin
Speaker 1: by sort of rehashing how we got here and what
Speaker 1: my current standing is in Firehouse. And at this point,
Speaker 1: like we've discussed in past episodes, what I'm able to
Speaker 1: see in this group had dwindled down to basically nothing.
Speaker 1: I had already won the most blocked poll by a landslide,
Speaker 1: and even discussions that had nothing to do with me,
Speaker 1: were completely unavailable, and Maggie was quick to point out
Speaker 1: that while she is a prominent member of the group,
Speaker 1: she says that she does not subscribe to the blocking
Speaker 1: and mass model of many of her peers, and I
Speaker 1: say cool, thanks. So the four of us start to
Speaker 1: really dig into the safety concerns of the annual gathering
Speaker 1: in Indianapolis the previous year, and this is the first
Speaker 1: time the inconsistencies I felt developed within the group's firm
Speaker 1: online isn't real life philosophy kind of start to manifest
Speaker 1: in person. So in the next hour and a half
Speaker 1: I start to notice a couple different contradictions emerging. Amanda,
Speaker 1: who is the woman I had spoken on the phone
Speaker 1: in October, who holds a high position in MENSA. She's
Speaker 1: deeply concerned by the safety allegations from Indianapolis and says
Speaker 1: that the group is doing everything it can to ensure
Speaker 1: security in the year's upcoming event in Phoenix. Immediately after
Speaker 1: saying this, she also expresses some doubt that at least
Speaker 1: one of the women who alleged that her drink was
Speaker 1: drugged in Indianapolis was for certain a roofie, and that
Speaker 1: it may have been the way the member's medication was
Speaker 1: mixing with alcohol, and there was no actual Roofie. She
Speaker 1: also mentioned being bothered by the way that conversations about
Speaker 1: safety are conducted mostly in online groups instead of in
Speaker 1: real life. She defends Firehouses community in a way I'm
Speaker 1: beginning to grow alternatively confused by and used to, and
Speaker 1: she argues its value to a lot of mentions and
Speaker 1: again one of those contradictions. Amanda and Maggie are very
Speaker 1: supportive of women having leadership roles and prominence within the
Speaker 1: MENTA organization, but they're also just as quick to dismiss
Speaker 1: the women's only MENTA Facebook groups as overly reactionary and
Speaker 1: not worth participating in at all. Amanda says to me
Speaker 1: at this meeting, there's a lot of badass women in
Speaker 1: this group. Most of the most amazing people I've met
Speaker 1: in this group have been women. The other thing Amanda
Speaker 1: and Maggie share in common because the third gen y
Speaker 1: woman doesn't speak up that much throughout the afternoon. The
Speaker 1: other thing they have in common is a protectiveness of
Speaker 1: Firehouse that I hadn't anticipated. While Maggie is a daily
Speaker 1: participant of the group, it's clear that It has some
Speaker 1: sentimental value to Amanda as well, and she literally pumps
Speaker 1: her fist at one point when describing a previous thwarted
Speaker 1: attempt to get the group shut down. The member who
Speaker 1: threatened me directly, which you can hear in all its
Speaker 1: glory in episode two. He's been spoken to officially and
Speaker 1: won't be allowed to post things like that moving forward,
Speaker 1: which is good, and I appreciate that someone was spoken
Speaker 1: to and all of this, but that sort of feels
Speaker 1: like a drop in the bucket to me, considering how
Speaker 1: many people have spoken to this group's volatility in the past,
Speaker 1: and it's frustrating to hear that the only way to
Speaker 1: get the bare minimum taken was to inadvertently stir up
Speaker 1: some bad press about the group. It doesn't make you
Speaker 1: feel like they care about you, does it. At this time,
Speaker 1: I had spoken to several people who had had terrible
Speaker 1: experiences and tried to report them, and not even the
Speaker 1: bare minimum that had been done for me was done
Speaker 1: for them. So I bring these situations up. I recount
Speaker 1: other members who have shared their bad experiences and lack
Speaker 1: of feeling protected by the organization, and I met with
Speaker 1: head Nods and they listen but no promises or real
Speaker 1: expressions of interest in any actions are taken, and I
Speaker 1: can say for sure now with the year's perspective, that
Speaker 1: truly nothing was done. And this time I try to
Speaker 1: adjust my approach a little to get some changes implemented.
Speaker 1: Instead of the burn it down mentality that I went
Speaker 1: towards the group with in October, I told them that
Speaker 1: while I think the group is unhealthy and should not exist,
Speaker 1: there should at very least be a single rule to
Speaker 1: this unmoderated group that members cannot actively threaten one another.
Speaker 1: So instead of doing away with a group altogether, just
Speaker 1: don't say you'll kill each other. And this has heard
Speaker 1: in the room in the general sense and then argued against.
Speaker 1: Maggie is dominating the conversation from here on out, and
Speaker 1: she explains that one of the members who was the
Speaker 1: most aggressive to her in firehouse ended up looking after
Speaker 1: her safety in real life at annual gatherings, and also
Speaker 1: repeats the anecdotal go fund me stories that have succeeded
Speaker 1: within the group. Phrases like really good guys is sort
Speaker 1: of bandied about, and another plea that if I merely
Speaker 1: met these people in real life, as I was meeting
Speaker 1: with the three of them, I would understand and I
Speaker 1: would be able to trust them. This conversation was very
Speaker 1: confrontational and very frustrating for me, because maybe it's over
Speaker 1: the top to suggest that this meeting was called in
Speaker 1: an attempt to get me to stop writing about the
Speaker 1: group altogether, operating under the assumption that putting a kind
Speaker 1: face to a name would, as the prevalent logic is,
Speaker 1: resolve every concern I'd ever had about MENSA to that point.
Speaker 1: What I can say for sure is that this meeting
Speaker 1: was not called to indicate any intended changes to protect
Speaker 1: member safety, and in a lot of ways doubled down
Speaker 1: on mensa's unwillingness to prioritize safety over online social engagement
Speaker 1: that regularly broke Facebook community guidelines regarding hate speech and
Speaker 1: put a number of members at risk. Folks, the meeting
Speaker 1: was bad and resulted in nothing, but it was interesting
Speaker 1: to hear an in real life defense of a group
Speaker 1: like this, because if you were to look at this meeting,
Speaker 1: you would see four normal looking women at a table
Speaker 1: having a discussion. These interactions with comments sections and hearing
Speaker 1: what their jobs are, what their interests are, and what
Speaker 1: their lives are like outside of this group is something
Speaker 1: that I think people should consider. More. That said, the
Speaker 1: meeting was bad, but at one point in our conversation,
Speaker 1: Maggie talked about her day job in I t and
Speaker 1: she tells me that her co workers are by and large,
Speaker 1: very intelligent people, and that she feels that most of
Speaker 1: them could probably get into MENSA if they wanted. But
Speaker 1: she laughs a little and says that she does not
Speaker 1: encourage them to join, though, saying that she thinks they
Speaker 1: might find the way she talks in firehouse versus how
Speaker 1: she talks in real life to be jarring. And the
Speaker 1: other two women are kind of laughing along as if
Speaker 1: they agree and and what we do with that. So
Speaker 1: I tell them that I appreciate their time and for
Speaker 1: going out of their way to meet with me, and
Speaker 1: I'm offered a light discount to come back to the
Speaker 1: gathering later in the weekend, and we're talking about the
Speaker 1: annual gathering as well. Phoenix comes up and it's here
Speaker 1: that I first learned of the existence of the Firehouse suite.
Speaker 1: Maggie tells me she swears to God she'll go with
Speaker 1: me and protect me if I don't feel safe there
Speaker 1: but that no one was going to do anything to
Speaker 1: me and that they're not bad people. And I tell her, sure,
Speaker 1: I'll think about it, and spoiler alert, Maggie will not
Speaker 1: offer to protect me or communicate with me at the
Speaker 1: annual gathering at all, most likely because I wrote about
Speaker 1: this meeting and said what I felt then and still
Speaker 1: feel now was the very bizarre intentions behind it. Also
Speaker 1: worth mentioning while Maggie said she doesn't block people at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the meeting, which after doing a light
Speaker 1: fact checking after the meeting was over, I discovered was
Speaker 1: completely untrue and that she's had me blocked for months.
Speaker 1: I leave the hotel in San Pedro, I think about
Speaker 1: the incredible weirdness of this group, and I impulsively put
Speaker 1: my annual gathering tickets on a credit card, because when
Speaker 1: a mens invites you to do something, you do it.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the party gang. It is July.
Speaker 1: It is night too of my time at the MENSA
Speaker 1: Annual Gathering, so so tonight I'm not drinking and walking
Speaker 1: to the firehouse suites stone cold sober. I can now
Speaker 1: with presence of mind, confirmed that the stairs I'm getting
Speaker 1: from the hallways lined with Firehouse members are just as
Speaker 1: unsettling as they were when I was four beers deep.
Speaker 1: The people i'm with our Sam, tall guy and a
Speaker 1: firehouse member I don't know, and they don't bring me
Speaker 1: into the same cavernous suite as the night before this time,
Speaker 1: and in fact, to Firehouse members loudly vocalize that they
Speaker 1: do not want me to go into that room, and
Speaker 1: it's a little panicked. They're like no, and their eyes
Speaker 1: are you know, darting towards me, and Sam assures them
Speaker 1: that we were headed to the room next door where
Speaker 1: the invite only party is. So that's a sort of
Speaker 1: alcohol taste testing that's taking place with invite only members
Speaker 1: of Firehouse. So if you're keeping track, this is kind
Speaker 1: of an exclusive group within an exclusive group within an
Speaker 1: exclusive group. Doesn't make your head hurt at all. And
Speaker 1: there's one older man whose messaged with me before, and
Speaker 1: he's from near where I grew up, and he's the
Speaker 1: only person in the hallway who seems happy to see me.
Speaker 1: There's an older couple that grimaces and just kind of
Speaker 1: shoves their way past me when they see my name tag.
Speaker 1: So feeling very safe, Sam assures me that this party
Speaker 1: is going to be fun. And we walk into a
Speaker 1: single hotel room with about fifteen people or so just
Speaker 1: squashed inside, well lit this time, and I'm not two
Speaker 1: steps into the room before someone offers me a glass
Speaker 1: of home brewed mead. Sam says, this is j V Loftus,
Speaker 1: and he's looking between me and mead Guy expectantly, and
Speaker 1: mead Guy understandably appears a little weirded out at the
Speaker 1: forced nature of this meeting, and I'm right there with him,
Speaker 1: so I kind of awkwardly say I'm all good on mead,
Speaker 1: and before I can take another step, a full foot
Speaker 1: below me appears Katie in her infamous Maga hat, and
Speaker 1: even though she is a full foot shorter than me,
Speaker 1: I'm very confident she could absolutely kick my ass. But
Speaker 1: she says, hi, Jamie. She reaches up for a cautious
Speaker 1: hug and I reciprocate. Sam continues to talk do you
Speaker 1: know who this is? And he's kind of smiling between
Speaker 1: the two of us, and Katie replies, Oh, I know
Speaker 1: exactly who this is, and I mean, I would hope so,
Speaker 1: given the extensive writing I'd seen her do. She first
Speaker 1: is a little bit leary of my presence here at all,
Speaker 1: but she relaxes after we talk for a minute about
Speaker 1: and you will never believe this how my a g
Speaker 1: is going. And from this conversation forward, she is extremely
Speaker 1: kind to me, and bearing in mind what she's written
Speaker 1: about me in the past, she really surprises me here.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what sort of discussion happened
Speaker 1: in Firehouse regarding the bizarre debacle of the previous night
Speaker 1: where my phone had been taken, but Katie seems equally
Speaker 1: surprised that I am polite and I listened to her
Speaker 1: and she warms up to me pretty quickly, and this
Speaker 1: sounds very similar to her interactions with two. And I
Speaker 1: have a little bit of whiplash from the suddenness of
Speaker 1: this change and attitude towards me, because, yeah, my mannerisms
Speaker 1: are subdued in real life compared to online, and my
Speaker 1: insecurity and anxiety is more visible when in a physical
Speaker 1: room full of commenters instead of a screens distance away.
Speaker 1: But I'm not that different of a person. There's a
Speaker 1: persona and that's part of my job as a comedian,
Speaker 1: but it isn't the completely disparate experience that Firehouse members describe.
Speaker 1: I would say most people aren't the exact same person
Speaker 1: they present on line, but they're not the exact opposite
Speaker 1: of who they present online, if that makes sense. But
Speaker 1: it seems that Katie feels that my nervousness is interpreted
Speaker 1: as an admission that I am not who I said
Speaker 1: I was. And we walk deeper into the room and
Speaker 1: the same kind of division surfaces in the room as
Speaker 1: it had at the party the night before. So some
Speaker 1: members are frowning and turning their backs to me to
Speaker 1: continue their conversation unhindered by my gaze. Others kind of
Speaker 1: look over with some curiosity, and Katie explains to me
Speaker 1: that this party is an annual firehouse tradition where members
Speaker 1: bring alcohol specific to their hometown and everyone samples it.
Speaker 1: And after much are you drinking? Are you drinking? Are
Speaker 1: you drinking? I just take a can of craft beer
Speaker 1: or something and we keep talking. Things we talk about
Speaker 1: include the East Coast, we're both from there, the annual gathering,
Speaker 1: we're both currently there, and the choice conversation of the gathering,
Speaker 1: and this podcast how your online persona did for from
Speaker 1: your real life one. Because in this moment, I am
Speaker 1: drinking beer with a woman in a maga hat who
Speaker 1: has directly called me a slimy, fraud and unfunny cunt,
Speaker 1: and is making good on the threat that she would
Speaker 1: quote see me in Phoenix unquote. She SIPs on her
Speaker 1: drink and tells me that she wasn't completely clear on
Speaker 1: why people were upset with me before going after me
Speaker 1: online at all. She explains, I see someone fucking with
Speaker 1: my friends and says that some people in the group
Speaker 1: interpreted her decision to post direct insults and threats to
Speaker 1: my Instagram was over complicating the situation. She says, as
Speaker 1: so many have before, that the people in Firehouse are
Speaker 1: so different online than they are in real life, and
Speaker 1: that she was surprised at how friendly I was in person.
Speaker 1: I'm honestly surprised that she's friendly too, and try to
Speaker 1: skirt agreeing with her assessment that presenting pleasant in person
Speaker 1: and being a vindictive online troll with something inherently normal,
Speaker 1: because I don't think that. Instead, I agree that the
Speaker 1: tone of certain online writing can be difficult, and that
Speaker 1: social media does obviously appear designed to encourage in fighting
Speaker 1: and harassment that meeting in person usually doesn't. And still
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's completely true, because after all,
Speaker 1: half the room is treating me exactly the way they
Speaker 1: would online. Backs turned whispering among each other physically, if
Speaker 1: not digitally. Blocking me being brought up here was either
Speaker 1: in olive branch or an act of trolling. I'm still
Speaker 1: not sure which, And my presence here at all is
Speaker 1: at least in part a result of the satire I'd
Speaker 1: written on the group. Originally making a specific insult or
Speaker 1: threat towards a specific stranger is really hard to view
Speaker 1: as a misinterpretation of tone, because yes, we're being civil
Speaker 1: to each other, and yes, I think that's an impressive
Speaker 1: feat given our digital history, but how different are we really?
Speaker 1: A few other women cautiously ask what maybe decided to
Speaker 1: come back to firehouse after the previous night, and mead
Speaker 1: guy returns. I tell Katie was curious to meet you,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad I came. And this is mostly true,
Speaker 1: And this time I take the fucking mead and meat
Speaker 1: guy immediately comes back with you, drink the meat, you
Speaker 1: put your name on the mead tag, and he hands
Speaker 1: me a sharpie and a wooden tag to put my
Speaker 1: initials on. I signed the meat tag, and I tell
Speaker 1: Katie that I'm gonna head back down to the gen
Speaker 1: Y suite because it's hot in here and I can
Speaker 1: feel a lot of latent hostility. But before I go,
Speaker 1: she says, let's take a pick together, girl, and I
Speaker 1: am nervous, intimidated, and tall guy less enough to agree
Speaker 1: this time. And this exact picture will be posted to
Speaker 1: Firehouse a few days later with the caption this is
Speaker 1: my new friend Jamie Loftus, spurring over three hundred comments
Speaker 1: from members only, some of which I can see. Here's
Speaker 1: a random assortment. The Swedish woman who I hadn't taken
Speaker 1: a selfie with, says you got a picture with her?
Speaker 1: She denied me that she owes the entire group and apology,
Speaker 1: which would go a long way, I am O. My
Speaker 1: personal opinion is that she somehow realizes that she sucked
Speaker 1: up with a group of people that she really would
Speaker 1: have enjoyed hanging with, but can't figure out how to
Speaker 1: make things right. Hey, guys, she's actually really nice in person.
Speaker 1: Whether it ends well or terribly, it's good to give
Speaker 1: people a chance. Real life differs from online drama. This
Speaker 1: is Katie writing in another comment, but on this night,
Speaker 1: Katie says that she wants to join me at the
Speaker 1: toga party downstairs, and so she, Sam and I leave
Speaker 1: the private party and go out into the hallway. Again,
Speaker 1: Katie keeps hugging me and assures other firehouse members that
Speaker 1: I'm really nice, and she suggests that we go back
Speaker 1: into the larger suite where I was the previous night.
Speaker 1: She keeps saying, this is my new best friend. Jamie
Speaker 1: loved us, really, seeming to enjoy the attention that embracing
Speaker 1: the most hated member and mensa brought her. And again
Speaker 1: I say I'd rather not go into the main firehouse suite,
Speaker 1: and again older members of the group agree and say
Speaker 1: that's not a good idea. One guy tells me there's
Speaker 1: nothing in there you interested in, like there was like
Speaker 1: a dead body in there. And a few tense interactions
Speaker 1: with other hosers. Later, all I can see if Katie
Speaker 1: are the glowing MAGA letters at the Toga party across
Speaker 1: the room. And so I slip out of the hotel
Speaker 1: around midnight. So yes, my first night was a nightmare
Speaker 1: and my second night felt more like a Stepford wife
Speaker 1: switch in the video I record on my computer back
Speaker 1: at my Airbnb recabing the night, I say the phrase
Speaker 1: I don't fucking no no less than twenty times, and
Speaker 1: as I'm falling asleep in the ninety degree bedroom, it
Speaker 1: occurs to me, I have not learned anything since I
Speaker 1: got here, and I wake up to take one last
Speaker 1: note and say, I actually think I've become stupider. So
Speaker 1: there you go. That's episode three of my year in Mensa.
Speaker 1: We have one part to go to really wrap up
Speaker 1: this hillacious nightmare. Thank you so much for listening. If
Speaker 1: you want to follow me online, you are welcome to
Speaker 1: do so at Jamie Loft just Help on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Jamie christ Superstar on Instagram. Thank you so much to
Speaker 1: Sadie Dupui for writing the theme song to this podcast.
Speaker 1: She's at sad thirteen on all platforms. And I want
Speaker 1: to thank the following people for lending their voices to
Speaker 1: Mensa this week for this episode. They are Isaac Taylor,
Speaker 1: Anna Hosni, Sharine Lonny Unez, Daniel Goodman, Robert Evans, Sophie
Speaker 1: Lichterman and Jaquis Neil. See you next time on my
Speaker 1: Riam Mensa.