1
00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:02,880
Speaker 1: Cool zone media.

2
00:00:05,640 --> 00:00:08,800
Speaker 2: For as long as women have existed, they've been called

3
00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:10,240
Speaker 2: jealous and clingy.

4
00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:12,360
Speaker 3: I just want to be a part of your life.

5
00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:14,080
Speaker 1: Oh this is the way you do it. Huh, shut

6
00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:15,720
Speaker 1: it up at my appointments.

7
00:00:15,480 --> 00:00:16,239
Speaker 2: I supposed to do.

8
00:00:16,280 --> 00:00:18,200
Speaker 3: You won't answer my calls. You change your number.

9
00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:22,079
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not going to be ignored, Dan, I'm

10
00:00:22,120 --> 00:00:26,440
Speaker 2: your number one fan. There is nothing to worry about.

11
00:00:27,720 --> 00:00:29,280
Speaker 3: You're gonna be justified.

12
00:00:30,520 --> 00:00:31,600
Speaker 1: I'll take a good care.

13
00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:46,639
Speaker 2: I'm your number one fan. That was Alex Forrest from

14
00:00:46,760 --> 00:00:53,720
Speaker 2: Fatal Attraction, Annie Wilkes from Misery, and Miss Piggy, respectively, clingy, stonky,

15
00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:57,200
Speaker 2: obsessed by the man of their desire, while the same

16
00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,000
Speaker 2: can't be said in reverse, although with Kermit it's complicated.

17
00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:03,160
Speaker 2: Characters like these have appeared in media for as long

18
00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:06,880
Speaker 2: as there's ben media, and while many are iconic, it's

19
00:01:06,959 --> 00:01:11,360
Speaker 2: pulling from this fairly gendered playbook right because there's obviously

20
00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:16,160
Speaker 2: a difference between this behavior characterized as clingy and actual

21
00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:20,560
Speaker 2: dangerous stalker behaviors. Sometimes they're not the same thing, and

22
00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:23,000
Speaker 2: like no Shade to Miss Piggy, but all three of

23
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:26,959
Speaker 2: the above characters are stalking. But that's what makes it

24
00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:29,319
Speaker 2: kind of hard to talk about right. There is a

25
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:34,200
Speaker 2: clear unhealthy, obsessive quality to these characters that poses a danger,

26
00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:38,880
Speaker 2: but there's also this warning quality about them, like this

27
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:43,559
Speaker 2: capacity lies within every woman on the planet. People recognize

28
00:01:43,600 --> 00:01:46,880
Speaker 2: this as more of a trope today, but this murky

29
00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:51,120
Speaker 2: line of what constitutes clingy versus what constitutes dangerous is

30
00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:55,040
Speaker 2: something that's been discoursed to death every year. There are

31
00:01:55,160 --> 00:01:58,600
Speaker 2: scores of personal essays about the stigma of being viewed

32
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,360
Speaker 2: as clingy by a partner and how the term can

33
00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:05,080
Speaker 2: be used to describe something as reasonable as respect and

34
00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:08,679
Speaker 2: clear communication by someone who doesn't want to give the consideration.

35
00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:13,880
Speaker 2: This same label clingy can be used to describe violent stalking,

36
00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:18,320
Speaker 2: and the behaviors are equated in a really unproductive and

37
00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:21,480
Speaker 2: confusing way. There's a number of writers who have spoken

38
00:02:21,560 --> 00:02:24,600
Speaker 2: on the connotations of the term in casual dating and

39
00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:28,040
Speaker 2: how clinginess being weaponized to make them feel bad is

40
00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:31,600
Speaker 2: a way to make them stop asking for foundational respect

41
00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:36,480
Speaker 2: and a relationship. But as entrenched in stereotypes as clinginess

42
00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:40,080
Speaker 2: and emotionality and womanhood are, it can be funny to

43
00:02:40,080 --> 00:02:43,600
Speaker 2: see these tropes poked fun at, particularly if it's from

44
00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:46,440
Speaker 2: women or the people being teased in the first place.

45
00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:49,519
Speaker 2: It's fun seeing a character with a lot of intensity

46
00:02:49,639 --> 00:02:53,440
Speaker 2: that isn't being shamed and just is. I mean, Miss

47
00:02:53,480 --> 00:03:00,520
Speaker 2: Piggy is the perfect example of that. But it's a

48
00:03:00,560 --> 00:03:05,880
Speaker 2: hard needle to thread. Here's another fun stereotype. Women, young people,

49
00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:09,880
Speaker 2: queer people, really anyone inclined to enjoy pop music are

50
00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:15,240
Speaker 2: often portrayed as shallow obsessives. There are literal doctoral theses

51
00:03:15,320 --> 00:03:19,280
Speaker 2: on this topic because modern fandom can get genuinely terrifying.

52
00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:22,600
Speaker 2: So for the sake of this conversation, I'm talking about

53
00:03:22,639 --> 00:03:26,239
Speaker 2: your average big fan loves the music, doesn't miss a tour,

54
00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:30,359
Speaker 2: but isn't like hiding in the walls of the artists

55
00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:33,360
Speaker 2: and sending death threats over Spotify streams, you know what

56
00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:38,840
Speaker 2: I mean. Over time, the concept of fandom has really shifted.

57
00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:42,800
Speaker 2: There's a proven trend of mocking fandoms as a way

58
00:03:42,840 --> 00:03:46,480
Speaker 2: of making fans feel silly and ashamed about liking something

59
00:03:46,600 --> 00:03:51,000
Speaker 2: or someone that isn't traditionally masculine. This has happened since

60
00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:55,200
Speaker 2: time immemorial, putting down what young people usually the girls

61
00:03:55,240 --> 00:03:58,200
Speaker 2: and gays, in order to make them seem silly or

62
00:03:58,320 --> 00:04:02,120
Speaker 2: less deserving of respect. We see this time and time again,

63
00:04:02,240 --> 00:04:06,080
Speaker 2: from the Beatles to Twilight to drag Race fans. And

64
00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:08,600
Speaker 2: then on the other hand, there's the effect this strong

65
00:04:08,680 --> 00:04:14,000
Speaker 2: parasocial fan behavior has on their relationship between idle and idolizers.

66
00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:17,719
Speaker 2: That is, fans do take it too far a lot

67
00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:21,040
Speaker 2: of the time and often act entitled to an idol's time,

68
00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:25,360
Speaker 2: attention virginity. Yes, I went to a Jonas Brothers concert

69
00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:28,839
Speaker 2: during their Chastity Built era. Fun fact. And while this

70
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:33,120
Speaker 2: is often young people feeling extreme passion and excitement and

71
00:04:33,160 --> 00:04:35,719
Speaker 2: feeling like they know a celebrity because they don't know

72
00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:40,159
Speaker 2: any better, it can be unsafe for the celebrity. There's

73
00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:42,520
Speaker 2: a recent strain of discourse going on to that effect

74
00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:46,080
Speaker 2: right now, with Chapel Roone making clear boundaries with her fans.

75
00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:50,479
Speaker 2: Would you be offended if she says no to your

76
00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:52,200
Speaker 2: time because she has her own time?

77
00:04:52,320 --> 00:04:55,080
Speaker 3: Would you stalk her family? Would you follow her around?

78
00:04:55,440 --> 00:04:57,559
Speaker 3: Would you try to dissect her life?

79
00:04:57,720 --> 00:04:58,640
Speaker 2: Employ her online?

80
00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:00,400
Speaker 3: There is a lady who don't know he doesn't know

81
00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:00,960
Speaker 3: you at all.

82
00:05:01,279 --> 00:05:06,000
Speaker 2: These stereotypes around fans, women and clinginess have been with

83
00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:09,039
Speaker 2: us for a long time. And the early Internet was

84
00:05:09,080 --> 00:05:11,400
Speaker 2: no exception to this. In the front half of the

85
00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:15,080
Speaker 2: twenty tens, a fandom that was frequently mocked were fans

86
00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:19,279
Speaker 2: of Justin Bieber or the believers you really had to

87
00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:30,120
Speaker 2: be there, Hey, jag Jabay. In twenty twelve, biber Mania

88
00:05:30,200 --> 00:05:33,240
Speaker 2: was at an all time high. He'd been discovered on

89
00:05:33,279 --> 00:05:36,159
Speaker 2: YouTube as a thirteen year old by mega producer Scooter

90
00:05:36,279 --> 00:05:39,839
Speaker 2: Braun became a protege of Usher and released his first EP,

91
00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:43,720
Speaker 2: My World, in two thousand and nine. He basically became

92
00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:47,440
Speaker 2: a thing right away, a pop heart throb with swoopy

93
00:05:47,520 --> 00:05:50,880
Speaker 2: bangs who was known for his effect on teen girls,

94
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:54,119
Speaker 2: who were also his main audience. The songs he sang

95
00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:58,560
Speaker 2: hated directly to them in those teeny bopper years, songs

96
00:05:58,640 --> 00:06:02,200
Speaker 2: like One Less Lonely Girl, Favorite Girl, and in early

97
00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:07,400
Speaker 2: twenty ten, the iconic Ludicrous featuring Baby and going back

98
00:06:07,480 --> 00:06:11,320
Speaker 2: now nearly fifteen years later, it's a little spooky watching

99
00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:16,440
Speaker 2: old videos of child Justin Bieber, because beneath this carefully

100
00:06:16,560 --> 00:06:20,320
Speaker 2: curated and marketed image you do get glimpses of a normal,

101
00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:22,640
Speaker 2: talented kid who's in way over his head.

102
00:06:23,520 --> 00:06:27,120
Speaker 4: Hey, what's up, Internet, Guess who to Justin Bieber and

103
00:06:27,200 --> 00:06:28,080
Speaker 4: I've taken over.

104
00:06:27,960 --> 00:06:29,440
Speaker 2: Fun of your die. It's mine.

105
00:06:29,520 --> 00:06:32,719
Speaker 4: I bought it and now it's Bieber or die. Anything

106
00:06:32,760 --> 00:06:34,720
Speaker 4: that's not Bieber dies.

107
00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:37,960
Speaker 2: And in many ways he was in way over his head.

108
00:06:38,640 --> 00:06:42,240
Speaker 2: In the meantime, Bieber's career continued to grow. He had

109
00:06:42,279 --> 00:06:45,920
Speaker 2: a gigantic social media following from the moment he became famous,

110
00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:48,640
Speaker 2: and in twenty ten was said to account for three

111
00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:54,000
Speaker 2: percent of all Twitter interactions. The believers flocked to all

112
00:06:54,120 --> 00:06:57,800
Speaker 2: things Bieber, including a three D concert movie that I

113
00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,960
Speaker 2: saw as a joke, so I claimed at the time,

114
00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:05,240
Speaker 2: I wanted to see it. It was fine. He released

115
00:07:05,279 --> 00:07:07,880
Speaker 2: a Christmas album and began work on his third studio

116
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,800
Speaker 2: album called Believe, and to announce his lead single, he

117
00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:14,520
Speaker 2: did what any wholesome celebrity would do. In March of

118
00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:18,720
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, he went on Ellen. It was his eighteenth birthday,

119
00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:21,120
Speaker 2: and he announced that his first single from the album

120
00:07:21,400 --> 00:07:24,640
Speaker 2: would be called Boyfriend. All right, the last time you

121
00:07:24,640 --> 00:07:28,440
Speaker 2: were here, we were talking about Boyfriend, your new song

122
00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:29,600
Speaker 2: that no one has heard yet.

123
00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:33,720
Speaker 5: I was trying to guess what the song would sound like.

124
00:07:34,360 --> 00:07:37,720
Speaker 2: And so it was released in March twenty twelve ahead

125
00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:40,200
Speaker 2: of the full album in June, and it shot right

126
00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:43,480
Speaker 2: to number one and just as quick aside here. Because

127
00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:47,720
Speaker 2: Justin Bieber has had a number of high profiles, scandals, incidents,

128
00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:50,080
Speaker 2: et ce, many of which I think were connected to

129
00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:53,840
Speaker 2: him not being adequately protected as a kid. This period

130
00:07:53,840 --> 00:07:56,680
Speaker 2: of time I'm talking about was before any of that.

131
00:07:57,440 --> 00:08:00,400
Speaker 2: Believe came out in summer twenty twelve, and there's no

132
00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:05,480
Speaker 2: real meaningful Bieber tabloid moment before twenty thirteen. So at

133
00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:09,840
Speaker 2: this point he's mister sweetie, he's mister dating Selena Gomez,

134
00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:13,840
Speaker 2: He's mister boyfriend. So during the launch of Believe a

135
00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:17,080
Speaker 2: few months later, there were countless tie ins run by

136
00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:20,440
Speaker 2: Bieber Incorporated to promote the album I'm going to single

137
00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:24,400
Speaker 2: out too. There was a fragrance released called Girlfriend, which

138
00:08:24,440 --> 00:08:28,000
Speaker 2: is pandering to young girls hard. In the ad copy

139
00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:29,040
Speaker 2: take a Lesson.

140
00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:33,600
Speaker 4: Justin Bieber launches his second perfume, dedicated to his girl fans.

141
00:08:34,040 --> 00:08:39,959
Speaker 4: Girlfriend Fragrance is described as flirty, personal, and inviting. Top

142
00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,320
Speaker 4: notes are designated to represent a chance in love and

143
00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:48,200
Speaker 4: provide an exciting splash of mandarin, BlackBerry hair and strawberry.

144
00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:53,040
Speaker 4: The heart is marked as Dream and includes accords of

145
00:08:53,120 --> 00:08:58,600
Speaker 4: pink Frisia, star, jasmine, apricot, and orange blossom. The bass

146
00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:04,760
Speaker 4: is a kid containing sensual notes of vanilla orchid, luminous musk,

147
00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:08,800
Speaker 4: and white amber Jesus Christ.

148
00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:14,040
Speaker 2: The second was a promotion called the Girlfriend sing Off Contest.

149
00:09:14,679 --> 00:09:17,360
Speaker 2: Justin announced the contest in a now lost to time

150
00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:19,560
Speaker 2: video saying the following.

151
00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:22,920
Speaker 4: My new fragrance is called Girlfriend, and I wanted to

152
00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:26,400
Speaker 4: do this whole idea where my fans will basically take

153
00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:29,840
Speaker 4: my song Boyfriend and make it into their own girlfriend version.

154
00:09:30,440 --> 00:09:33,440
Speaker 4: Make your own version, rewrite it however you want to.

155
00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:36,360
Speaker 4: I'll pick the best one and fly that person out

156
00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:38,240
Speaker 4: to one of my concerts and have a meat and

157
00:09:38,280 --> 00:09:42,400
Speaker 4: greet and stuff. It'll be fun. So make your own

158
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:46,520
Speaker 4: video right now. And I love you, I.

159
00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:50,280
Speaker 2: Freaking love you, Justin, Oh my god. So girls were

160
00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:54,160
Speaker 2: encouraged to rewrite the song Boyfriend to be called Girlfriend

161
00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:57,920
Speaker 2: Compulsive Heterostyle right twenty twelve, and in the contest, they

162
00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:02,600
Speaker 2: would sing over a karaoke track of Boyfriend, including the

163
00:10:02,679 --> 00:10:06,360
Speaker 2: weirdly long intro. Entries would be uploaded by users to

164
00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:10,400
Speaker 2: YouTube and the Beaber team would pick their favorite. Eventually,

165
00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:13,800
Speaker 2: I guess a person named Halle one, but no one

166
00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:18,640
Speaker 2: remembers Halle. There is but one girlfriend contestant that withstood

167
00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:24,120
Speaker 2: history itself. On June sixth, twenty twelve, a YouTube user

168
00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:28,720
Speaker 2: called WZR seven one three uploaded an entry to the

169
00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:33,760
Speaker 2: contest that became instantly iconic in spite of the user

170
00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:37,080
Speaker 2: not just being a complete unknown. But at first no

171
00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:40,960
Speaker 2: one even knew her name, but you know her face.

172
00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:44,560
Speaker 2: It's a high contrast video on an old webcam and

173
00:10:44,600 --> 00:10:49,120
Speaker 2: a college sophomore's clinically white dorm room with collaged posters.

174
00:10:49,679 --> 00:10:52,040
Speaker 2: A girl in the video has a side part, a

175
00:10:52,080 --> 00:11:01,000
Speaker 2: green shirt, and huge blue eyes. It starts like this, Yeah,

176
00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:03,160
Speaker 2: this is the intro to boyfriend, and it goes on

177
00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:06,600
Speaker 2: for nine seconds. And for all nine of those seconds,

178
00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:09,880
Speaker 2: the girl in the video is staring down the barrel

179
00:11:10,040 --> 00:11:14,040
Speaker 2: of the camera with her huge eyes and huge smile,

180
00:11:14,559 --> 00:11:19,520
Speaker 2: not blinking, barely breathing, sitting a little too close to

181
00:11:19,559 --> 00:11:22,480
Speaker 2: the camera, looking like the last thing you see before

182
00:11:22,520 --> 00:11:23,200
Speaker 2: you die.

183
00:11:23,559 --> 00:11:23,760
Speaker 1: Right.

184
00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:28,120
Speaker 2: She's a combination of this troped out, obsessive woman and

185
00:11:28,440 --> 00:11:31,959
Speaker 2: the obsessive fan she's so tweaked out on whoever's on

186
00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:34,240
Speaker 2: the other side of the camera that it's hindered her

187
00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:38,960
Speaker 2: ability to use her eyelids. She is Alex Forrest, she

188
00:11:39,240 --> 00:11:43,880
Speaker 2: is Miss Piggy, she is a believer, and then she

189
00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:46,360
Speaker 2: launches into her parody lyrics.

190
00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:48,480
Speaker 3: If I was your girlfriend, I'd drive you up the wall.

191
00:11:48,800 --> 00:11:51,200
Speaker 3: Question here with yeah, I'd always call and call. I

192
00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:54,040
Speaker 3: wouldn't call it jealousy, just looking out for you, reading

193
00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:57,560
Speaker 3: all your texts to watching everything you dog nag nag

194
00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:01,120
Speaker 3: on you. If I was you girl, old friends and

195
00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:06,440
Speaker 3: never let you leave without a small recording device taped

196
00:12:06,559 --> 00:12:07,800
Speaker 3: under your sleeves.

197
00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:12,280
Speaker 2: And forty eight hours later, this clip, made by a

198
00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:14,559
Speaker 2: college student in Texas who had just gotten off a

199
00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:17,240
Speaker 2: shift at the Pack and Mail, had over a million

200
00:12:17,360 --> 00:12:21,360
Speaker 2: views and had gone viral on Reddit. They called her

201
00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:27,079
Speaker 2: the overly Attached Girlfriend aka Lena Morris and her sixteenth

202
00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:28,000
Speaker 2: Minute starts.

203
00:12:28,520 --> 00:13:16,960
Speaker 1: Now.

204
00:13:27,720 --> 00:13:30,240
Speaker 2: Welcome to sixteenth Minute, the podcast where we take a

205
00:13:30,280 --> 00:13:32,480
Speaker 2: look back at the Internet's most famous characters of the

206
00:13:32,559 --> 00:13:35,480
Speaker 2: day and figure out how their moment changed their lives

207
00:13:35,760 --> 00:13:39,000
Speaker 2: and what it says about the Internet and us. My

208
00:13:39,120 --> 00:13:41,920
Speaker 2: name's Jamie Loftus and I recently co hosted a screening

209
00:13:41,960 --> 00:13:44,480
Speaker 2: of Chicken Run at a famous Los Angeles Movie Theater

210
00:13:44,800 --> 00:13:48,640
Speaker 2: in full sexy chicken drag. So, yes, my career is

211
00:13:48,760 --> 00:13:52,160
Speaker 2: going great. And today we are talking about one of

212
00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:55,600
Speaker 2: the first memes. I feel like I was really fully

213
00:13:55,800 --> 00:13:59,280
Speaker 2: present for a meme that communicates to you that it

214
00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:04,000
Speaker 2: came out into strictly with the blown out, high contrast

215
00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:07,679
Speaker 2: webcam esthetic. Our character of the day this week is

216
00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:11,960
Speaker 2: indeed the overly attached girlfriend, an early YouTube star whose

217
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,640
Speaker 2: career and departure from the platform is a cool case

218
00:14:14,679 --> 00:14:19,040
Speaker 2: study on how YouTube stardom has evolved over time, because

219
00:14:19,080 --> 00:14:21,800
Speaker 2: Lena gets started when YouTube is just starting to seem

220
00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:24,480
Speaker 2: like a legitimate career path, and by the time she's

221
00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:27,440
Speaker 2: at the height of her popularity, American kids were saying

222
00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:30,880
Speaker 2: that being a YouTuber was a more popular job choice

223
00:14:31,120 --> 00:14:34,040
Speaker 2: than being an astronaut. So today we're going to talk

224
00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:37,560
Speaker 2: about how that shift happened and where YouTube came from,

225
00:14:37,880 --> 00:14:40,360
Speaker 2: and how fame on that platform became a thing at all.

226
00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:43,840
Speaker 2: And next week we'll talk to Lena. So as the

227
00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:47,800
Speaker 2: kids say, let's fucking go. It was so fun revisiting

228
00:14:47,800 --> 00:14:51,400
Speaker 2: this story. Twenty twelve is a very nostalgic era of

229
00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:53,880
Speaker 2: the Internet. For me, it was a time I use

230
00:14:53,960 --> 00:14:57,720
Speaker 2: something called stumble Upon to find people's blogs, and it

231
00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:01,720
Speaker 2: was a time where fail compilations got millions of views

232
00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:06,120
Speaker 2: of people just falling down. It was Nano Raima before

233
00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:09,840
Speaker 2: the AI allegations. It was Rebecca Blacks Friday. It was

234
00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:12,520
Speaker 2: a time where I'd troll on eating disorder tumblers to

235
00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:14,800
Speaker 2: find a new way to hate myself. That last one

236
00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:16,640
Speaker 2: was sad, but I promised to tell the truth on

237
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:20,840
Speaker 2: the show. Twenty twelve was a time and when we

238
00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:23,720
Speaker 2: have the sacred duty to return to if we are

239
00:15:23,760 --> 00:15:28,680
Speaker 2: to understand the overly attached Girlfriend's place in Internet history.

240
00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:32,880
Speaker 2: So come with me if you will to June twenty twelve,

241
00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:38,400
Speaker 2: Madonna launches a tour in Tel Aviv. The same day

242
00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:41,800
Speaker 2: the IDF launches an airstrike on Gaza. Nothing fucked up

243
00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:45,320
Speaker 2: about that. There is a surge of gonorrhea in England

244
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:49,680
Speaker 2: and WZR seven one three who the world would quickly

245
00:15:49,760 --> 00:15:53,240
Speaker 2: learn was a college student named Lena uploaded a joke

246
00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:56,600
Speaker 2: entry to a Justin Bieber contest that would change her life.

247
00:15:57,120 --> 00:15:59,040
Speaker 2: This is a story that wouldn't have had the sheer

248
00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:02,000
Speaker 2: reach it dead without the help of two major social

249
00:16:02,000 --> 00:16:06,120
Speaker 2: media platforms. Once that remain with us today YouTube and Reddit,

250
00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:09,560
Speaker 2: And while Reddit has a thorough and terrifying history all

251
00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:11,480
Speaker 2: its own, this week, we're going to stick to the

252
00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:15,800
Speaker 2: platform that Lena chose to find her creative voice on YouTube.

253
00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:20,160
Speaker 2: I think the fact that YouTube is the cultural juggernaut

254
00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:23,560
Speaker 2: that it is today might surprise Lena Morris if I

255
00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:26,920
Speaker 2: could teleport back to twenty twelve and tell her YouTube

256
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:29,920
Speaker 2: is weathered a lot of waves of social media turnover.

257
00:16:30,400 --> 00:16:34,320
Speaker 2: It's outlived MySpace, blog Spot, snapchat, Vine, and I do

258
00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:38,280
Speaker 2: believe it will ultimately outplay TikTok on a longer timeline.

259
00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:41,720
Speaker 2: But it's changed a lot over the years from a

260
00:16:41,720 --> 00:16:45,400
Speaker 2: business standpoint, from an algorithmic standpoint, and for the sake

261
00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:47,200
Speaker 2: of this story, so I want to give you a

262
00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:51,400
Speaker 2: snapshot of where YouTube and social media personalities on YouTube

263
00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:54,280
Speaker 2: were at in twenty twelve, because it truly was another world.

264
00:16:54,840 --> 00:16:56,960
Speaker 2: Half of the people at the height of their careers

265
00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:00,600
Speaker 2: at this time have since been thoroughly canceled or moved

266
00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,000
Speaker 2: on to other projects. Keep in mind, this was three

267
00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:06,040
Speaker 2: presidents years ago. This was before all of the Twilight

268
00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:09,000
Speaker 2: movies were out. Brannan is me and I was thinking

269
00:17:09,720 --> 00:17:12,920
Speaker 2: vanesme you get it and to bring us there. There

270
00:17:12,920 --> 00:17:15,919
Speaker 2: were two books that were massively helpful to me, and

271
00:17:15,920 --> 00:17:18,040
Speaker 2: they were written by guests who have appeared on this

272
00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:21,480
Speaker 2: very show. The first is Max Fisher's The Chaos Machine

273
00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:26,320
Speaker 2: and the second is Taylor Lorenzz Extremely Online. So classes

274
00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:30,600
Speaker 2: in session, what is YouTube? YouTube? Can I regret to

275
00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:33,399
Speaker 2: inform you trace its roots back to some of the

276
00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:37,200
Speaker 2: world's most embarrassing and powerful men, those being Peter Teel

277
00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:40,119
Speaker 2: and Elon Musk. It was founded in two thousand and

278
00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:44,000
Speaker 2: five by three expats of PayPal, which Teal co founded

279
00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:47,040
Speaker 2: and Musk joined on the ground floor, and like other

280
00:17:47,200 --> 00:17:51,280
Speaker 2: rising social media star Facebook, YouTube started as a botched

281
00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:54,760
Speaker 2: attempt at a dating service that women had absolutely no

282
00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:59,320
Speaker 2: interest in. Founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Johwito Kareem

283
00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:03,399
Speaker 2: failed to launch YouTube as a dating service hard. In fact,

284
00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:06,639
Speaker 2: they at one time offered women twenty bucks on Craigslist

285
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:09,879
Speaker 2: to upload videos to the service and still could not

286
00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:13,520
Speaker 2: get any traction. But YouTube did have one thing that

287
00:18:13,680 --> 00:18:16,920
Speaker 2: was head and shoulders above other sites. It had a

288
00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:21,000
Speaker 2: really solid video uploading platform that anyone could use for free.

289
00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:25,000
Speaker 2: Lorenz covers the history of how content creators on YouTube

290
00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:28,920
Speaker 2: became the platform's core appeal and extremely online, and it's

291
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,960
Speaker 2: not as linear a path as you might expect. The

292
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:35,360
Speaker 2: founders ditched the dating angle pretty early on as they

293
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:38,600
Speaker 2: watched the site game users who seemed more interested in

294
00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:43,440
Speaker 2: uploading whatever home videos, clips of TV shows they liked,

295
00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:46,320
Speaker 2: and within its first year this was enough to get

296
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:49,960
Speaker 2: YouTube funding from a well respected Silicon Valley venture capital

297
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:53,080
Speaker 2: firm and rack up around one hundred thousand views in

298
00:18:53,119 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 2: the space of an average day, which you've got to

299
00:18:55,560 --> 00:18:58,080
Speaker 2: admit is not bad for the guys who were literally

300
00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:02,000
Speaker 2: paying women to upload con that they didn't actually believe

301
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:06,159
Speaker 2: just a couple months earlier. Early viral successes included an

302
00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:09,879
Speaker 2: unlacensed re upload of the Lonely Islands Lazy Sunday sketch

303
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:13,680
Speaker 2: from SNL, and this actually really helped legitimize the site,

304
00:19:13,840 --> 00:19:16,480
Speaker 2: as well as calling in to question what was legal

305
00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:20,199
Speaker 2: to post on YouTube if it wasn't actually your work.

306
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:23,000
Speaker 2: I still don't think that they've really figured that out,

307
00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:26,359
Speaker 2: But soon after that, regular users started to look at

308
00:19:26,359 --> 00:19:29,400
Speaker 2: YouTube as a chance to not just dump videos from

309
00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:34,080
Speaker 2: their camquorders, but really build out a creative vision. Early

310
00:19:34,119 --> 00:19:38,000
Speaker 2: successful YouTubers were really low fi and often pretty young.

311
00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:41,159
Speaker 2: I'm honestly surprised at how many people who started their

312
00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:44,199
Speaker 2: channels in two thousand and six are still around. But

313
00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:49,280
Speaker 2: for longtime fans, think Smash Slash, Anthony Padilla, the Angry

314
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:54,919
Speaker 2: Video Game Nerd, Lucas Crookshank Ka Fred, and I Justine.

315
00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:57,680
Speaker 2: They all launched their channels in two thousand and six

316
00:19:57,960 --> 00:20:00,840
Speaker 2: and are still around to some extent today. But the

317
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:04,280
Speaker 2: early standout when it came to a YouTube channel that

318
00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:09,360
Speaker 2: really held people's attention was the infamous web series Lonely

319
00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:12,159
Speaker 2: Girl fifteen. And I won't get too deep into the

320
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:15,440
Speaker 2: lore behind Lonely Girl fifteen because I very much would

321
00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:17,480
Speaker 2: like to make an episode about it. But if you're

322
00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:20,720
Speaker 2: not familiar, Lonely Girl fifteen was a scripted web series

323
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:24,680
Speaker 2: starring actress Jessica Lee Rose playing a teenage character named Brie.

324
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 2: She'd speak to the camera of log style while her

325
00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:30,080
Speaker 2: friend Daniel hung out in the background and chimed in

326
00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:33,760
Speaker 2: every now and again. As the channel continued to upload videos,

327
00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:37,199
Speaker 2: it became clearer that Bree's family was a part of

328
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:40,119
Speaker 2: a freaky cult and she was slowly being primed to

329
00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:43,800
Speaker 2: participate in an occult ceremony. It's a really low fly

330
00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:47,240
Speaker 2: teen sci fi series, right, But the thing about it

331
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:51,760
Speaker 2: was the series pretended to be completely real, and for

332
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:55,480
Speaker 2: the first few episodes, viewers really thought that Bree was

333
00:20:55,520 --> 00:21:00,320
Speaker 2: a person uploading vlogs and realizing that her family was deans.

334
00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:04,840
Speaker 2: Over time, and in an early instance of YouTube fan detectiving,

335
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:09,159
Speaker 2: someone ip traced and geolocated where they were, so it

336
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:12,479
Speaker 2: was revealed pretty early in the show's run that Lonely

337
00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:15,920
Speaker 2: Girl fifteen was scripted and that Brie was an actress.

338
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,800
Speaker 2: This was a creative experiment by a bunch of young

339
00:21:18,840 --> 00:21:22,520
Speaker 2: people in LA But what seemed to surprise the YouTube

340
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:26,520
Speaker 2: brass was that even after it was exposed as scripted,

341
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:31,520
Speaker 2: the viewership kept climbing. People were really invested, and the

342
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:35,160
Speaker 2: reveal that the series authenticity was a hoax only increased

343
00:21:35,200 --> 00:21:38,600
Speaker 2: its popularity. For a long time, it was the number

344
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,359
Speaker 2: one channel on YouTube, and part of that seemed to

345
00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:44,880
Speaker 2: be because the show was good and while the material

346
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:49,280
Speaker 2: was scripted, the creators were complete unknowns, but all of

347
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:52,639
Speaker 2: a sudden they'd gotten views and attention on par with

348
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:57,760
Speaker 2: independent horror directors on zero budget and more eyes. By

349
00:21:57,800 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 2: the end of two thousand and six, the stars and

350
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 2: cre creators of Lonely Girl fifteen had Hollywood representatives and

351
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 2: were appearing in mainstream magazines like The Hollywood Reporter as

352
00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:11,080
Speaker 2: an example that YouTube was a place for regular people

353
00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:15,439
Speaker 2: to be creative and potentially even legitimized in the mainstream.

354
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:18,720
Speaker 2: But it should be mentioned the first season of Lonely

355
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:23,120
Speaker 2: Girl fifteen aired before YouTube had ever begun monetizing its videos,

356
00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:26,960
Speaker 2: meaning they made no money on it. There's another big

357
00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:29,359
Speaker 2: change to YouTube. At the end of two thousand and six,

358
00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:33,159
Speaker 2: a little company called Google purchased the platform for a

359
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:37,360
Speaker 2: then and still massive one point sixty five billion dollars

360
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:42,679
Speaker 2: to avoid competition with Google's inferior product, Google Video. At

361
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:46,679
Speaker 2: the time, the buy was viewed as foolish. It was

362
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 2: helmed by then Google exec later longtime YouTube CEO the

363
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:55,920
Speaker 2: recently passed Susan Wojitski, But Google was quick to investigate

364
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 2: what it was about YouTube that was bringing in now

365
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 2: millions of viewers, and they wanted to figure out how

366
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 2: to best monetize whatever it was. Going into two thousand

367
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 2: and seven, a lot more early viral sensations blew up

368
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:15,560
Speaker 2: on YouTube think Charlie bit my Finger, Payzon Day's Chocolate Rain,

369
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 2: David after Dentist, but there was still no clear way

370
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:23,479
Speaker 2: to maintain that virality. In two thousand and seven, users

371
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,360
Speaker 2: were able to monetize their videos and the invite only

372
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:30,120
Speaker 2: partner program was introduced, but few were able to actually

373
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 2: cobble together a for real living. In the mid to

374
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 2: late twenty tens, YouTube also became a place where musicians

375
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 2: could be discovered, like a young Choiceavon or most famously

376
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 2: one Justine Biber in two thousand and eight. As you

377
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 2: pull it so with the increasing audience that was flocking

378
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 2: to YouTube, estimates put around two hundred million people having

379
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 2: accounts by twenty ten, there were a number of attempts

380
00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,359
Speaker 2: inside and outside of the company to make youtubess artem

381
00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 2: fit into a box that resembled fame by the late

382
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 2: two thousands, and during this period of growth, there were

383
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,400
Speaker 2: a few interesting developments. A new breed of talent agents

384
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 2: that specialized in online stars, creator driven YouTube studios known

385
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:20,439
Speaker 2: as multi channel networks, and YouTube itself tooling with its

386
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 2: algorithm to maximize viewership, ad revenue, and creator retention. The

387
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 2: agent part is pretty interesting in no small part because

388
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:31,119
Speaker 2: it was a job that basically had to be invented.

389
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 2: The most notorious YouTube agent was named Ben Lashes, who

390
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 2: started by representing the Keyboard Cat, which is a re

391
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 2: upload of a video of a cat from the eighties

392
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 2: that had since died. You know this video. He went

393
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 2: on to negotiate sponsorships and helm the careers of the

394
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 2: likes of Doge, success Kid, Scumbag, Steve the irma gird girl,

395
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:05,160
Speaker 2: the ridiculously photogenic guy I feel like I'm losing my mind.

396
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 2: He did, not, however, represent Lena Morris, the overly attached girlfriend.

397
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 2: Ben Lashes basically invented this job, and other agents soon

398
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 2: followed suit. But it's these creative multi channel networks that

399
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 2: I think has the most powerful effect on what YouTube

400
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 2: stardom could look like. At this time, multi channel networks

401
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 2: held massive influence over the creator sphere and helped address

402
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:33,880
Speaker 2: the gaps and revenue that YouTube's own partner programs weren't providing.

403
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 2: The first was a company called Next New, which started

404
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 2: in two thousand and six and built out multiple successful

405
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 2: channels while taking a percentage in exchange for handling the

406
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:51,119
Speaker 2: business and advertising side. They built channels around themes pop culture, fashion, automobile,

407
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 2: let the creators focus on the creative, and then they

408
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 2: would find the advertising dollars. YouTube wasn't so everyone could

409
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:01,359
Speaker 2: make a living. Then there was Maker's Studios, founded in

410
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine by successful YouTubers like Cassum g Shaik,

411
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 2: Carl Philip DeFranco, Lisa Donovan, Danny Zappan, the list goes on.

412
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 2: This studio was modeled on the idea of United Artists,

413
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 2: which was founded in nineteen nineteen by Charlie Chaplin, d W. Griffith,

414
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 2: Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, and the intention of it

415
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 2: was to liberate and empower artists to choose their own

416
00:26:25,359 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 2: projects out of the confines of rigid studio contracts and

417
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 2: still make a good living. Originally, Maker Studios aim to

418
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 2: do that same thing for YouTube by nurturing new talent

419
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 2: through what were then referred to as super channels, the

420
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 2: most famous of which was called the Station. The Station

421
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 2: is also another whole story, but it served as a

422
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 2: prototype for the YouTube and vine collab houses that would

423
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 2: become wildly popular in the twenty tens into the early

424
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,199
Speaker 2: twenty twenties. The premise of the Station channel was that

425
00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:02,040
Speaker 2: basically Makers student rented a nice house on Venice Beach

426
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,879
Speaker 2: and invited any successful YouTube to live there and cross

427
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 2: collaborate with each other and create a ton of content

428
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 2: for the channel. It was really popular. While he wasn't

429
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 2: a part of the company, a young YouTuber named bo

430
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 2: Burnham was said to couch serve at the station house

431
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 2: from time to time. Eventually the house would be shut

432
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:25,639
Speaker 2: down due to safety concerns and excessive partying, a lesson

433
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:32,120
Speaker 2: that future social media stars definitely learned from the high

434
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:36,160
Speaker 2: house coused you know, six hundred thousand damage. Nevertheless, Maker

435
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 2: Studios normalized the reality that YouTube was nothing without its creators,

436
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 2: and that if the company didn't compensate and promote them accordingly, well,

437
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 2: they would go somewhere else and find a way to

438
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 2: do it. As Taylor Lorenz gets into the success of

439
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 2: Maker and Next New Studios, which by the way, would

440
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 2: be folded into Disney and the YouTube Creator Program respectively

441
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 2: by the mid twenty tens, emphasized how important individual personalities

442
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 2: were to the platform and for popular creators who weren't

443
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 2: quite sure how to turn this into a career, signing

444
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 2: with a Maker or a Next New Made a lot

445
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 2: of sense, and they'd often end up launching series exclusively

446
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 2: with a specific company. It was this model that actually

447
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 2: led to the first episode of this show. Brooklyn based

448
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 2: YouTubers the Gregory Brothers developed their auto tune the news

449
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 2: series under Nextnew and launched a little something called the

450
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 2: bed Intruder Song that made one Antoine Dodson a permanent

451
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 2: and complicated figure in Internet history. Well listen to that

452
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 2: episode for more. After the success of these companies, other

453
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 2: multi channel networks with niche specialties started to launch, and

454
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 2: all of these companies were raising a lot of capital

455
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 2: to continue growing their stable of YouTube talent. They were

456
00:28:56,800 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 2: so successful that a former YouTube executive named jo Orde

457
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 2: Strumpolis actually left the company to launch a YouTube multi

458
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 2: channel network of his own called full Screen, and that

459
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 2: became a huge success in the early twenty tens, prompting

460
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 2: YouTube to acquire Next New in retaliation in order to

461
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 2: stay competitive. So by the early twenty tens, the idea

462
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 2: that YouTube was a talent driven supernova was well established,

463
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 2: but what a creator's fame could or should look like

464
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 2: still remained a little bit opaque. Because these multi channel

465
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 2: networks were headquartered mainly in La. This period of time

466
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: meant most famous YouTubers lived in Hollywood, and this kind

467
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 2: of spoke to the general feeling of where people seemed

468
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 2: to think YouTube was headed. There was this feeling of

469
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 2: maybe this is a new pipeline to mainstream stardom, the

470
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 2: feeling of no one is going to be a YouTuber forever, right,

471
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 2: YouTube fame will translate to movies or music, and these

472
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 2: days that is not really an idea that exists anymore. Sure,

473
00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 2: there are exceptions. There's people like Bo Burnham, Shawn Mendez,

474
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 2: the Green Brothers, one third of Derek Comedy, some guy

475
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 2: named Donald Glover, Lindsay Ellis, and Liza Koshey have parlayed

476
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 2: YouTube fame into mainstream success. But for many, the continued

477
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 2: user growth and MLN success left some creators realizing that

478
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 2: YouTube could actually be their job and maybe even their

479
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 2: whole career. YouTube continued to pour money into its partnership

480
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 2: funds to retain talent, and there are a few isolated

481
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 2: examples of YouTubers attempting to cross over into the mainstream

482
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 2: Around this time. I'll call back to the Fred character,

483
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 2: remember him, Remember Fred? Hey, It's fine, It's really nice out,

484
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 2: So I think I'm gonna go swimming later.

485
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 3: My mom down is really cool. Pool a bit dump,

486
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 3: It's really big.

487
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 2: And really deep PTSD. I hated Fred, but the mainstream

488
00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 2: was determined to make Fred work on television. This from

489
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 2: a Nickelodeon movie where John Cena played Fred's dad, And

490
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 2: of course I'm going to want to play a clip

491
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 2: of that dad.

492
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: What do you think guys should do?

493
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 3: The secret? It's ruthless accretion.

494
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 5: It is you gotta look at yourself and say what

495
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 5: time is now?

496
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 3: Show what kind of man you.

497
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 2: Really are, and for what it's worth. The actor who

498
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 2: played Fred, Lucas Crookshank, is still on YouTube and has

499
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 2: a good sense of humor about all of it. I mean,

500
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 2: he was a teenager at the time, but still Fred God.

501
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 2: But while most YouTubers flopped out of mainstream entertainment, you

502
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 2: also had You're justin Bieber's. And while creators were navigating

503
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 2: this in the twenty tens, YouTube itself was pretty preoccupied

504
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 2: with a terrifying concept called in And this is where

505
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 2: Max Fisher's The Chaos Machine comes in and gives a

506
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 2: lot of context on the history of the YouTube algorithm

507
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 2: and what kind of users it was boosting. The book

508
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 2: explains that in the early twenty tens, the company had

509
00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 2: an increased focus on maximizing the YouTube algorithm to generate

510
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 2: video recommendations that would keep people on the platform for

511
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 2: as long as possible. Fisher uses the example of a

512
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 2: French AI expert named Guillem Chaslau I know I said

513
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,400
Speaker 2: that wrong, who was brought to YouTube in twenty ten

514
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 2: and was tasked with raising average watch time on the platform.

515
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 2: He literally received an email saying.

516
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 4: Watch time, and only watch time.

517
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 2: The focus of the company was developing an algorithm that

518
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: effortlessly catered and even anticipated the desires of viewers, making

519
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 2: it impossible to switch to something else. Search engine expert

520
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 2: Christo's Goodrow, who was also working at YouTube at the time,

521
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 2: hold Fisher.

522
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 4: Our job was to keep people engaged in hanging out

523
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 4: with us. More watch time began. It's more advertising, which

524
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 4: incentivizes more content creators, which draws more viewership.

525
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 2: The YouTube algorithm was significantly improved throughout the early twenty tens,

526
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 2: using machine learning to simulate the kind of curation that

527
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,959
Speaker 2: used to be done by clueless old men in boardrooms.

528
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 2: Now it was done by an evil computer. COO Schaslo

529
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 2: echoes this feeling, singling out the year twenty twelve, the

530
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 2: same year Lena Morris goes viral.

531
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 4: He says, within a few months, with a small team,

532
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 4: we had an algorithm that increased watch time to generate

533
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 4: millions of dollars of additional ad revenue. So it was

534
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 4: really really exciting.

535
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 2: YouTube was absolutely running their pre roll ads, sure, but

536
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 2: the real value of the company was the technology that

537
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 2: it used that detected down to absurd detail what you

538
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 2: watched and how long do you watched. It a truly

539
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 2: ridiculous amount of data that users were just handing over.

540
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 2: But as this went on, Shaslow became concerned with what

541
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 2: developing such an addictive relationship to the platform could potentially mean,

542
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 2: for like the world I'll quote from Max Fisher one

543
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:12,520
Speaker 2: more time here.

544
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 4: As the system honed its powers, Shilleau noticed it developing

545
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 4: strange habits. It began nudging lots of users to watch

546
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 4: videos espousing anger at women, sometimes particular women, like the

547
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 4: game culture critic Anita Sarkisian, sometimes women. Generally, men were

548
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,279
Speaker 4: spending forty percent more time on YouTube than women were,

549
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:37,959
Speaker 4: a legacy in part of the enormous quantity of video

550
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 4: game related content on the site in those days, the

551
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 4: natural thing for the algorithm to do, Shilo realized, would

552
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,240
Speaker 4: be to privilege more male centered content.

553
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,439
Speaker 2: And if you know anything about Internet history, you'll know

554
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 2: what this algorithmic tendency led to on a long enough timeline, Gamergate,

555
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 2: a brutal misogynist harassment can pain led mainly by male

556
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 2: gamers between twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen, which led a

557
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,280
Speaker 2: number of women in the gaming industry to be doxed,

558
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 2: to be threatened, and to fear for their lives. And

559
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 2: if you know any more Internet history, you'll know that

560
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 2: this same playbook is still used to harass marginalize people

561
00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 2: by mobs of egg profiled assholes ever since. But this

562
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 2: is twenty twelve and Chaslou doesn't know any of this

563
00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 2: is going to happen. All he knows is that he

564
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 2: wants to prevent this slowly radicalized recommendation algorithm from getting worse,

565
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 2: So he started spending time on a side project that

566
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 2: attempted to train the current algorithm to counterbalance this effect

567
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 2: and not just push hateful rhetoric to young male viewers

568
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 2: for profit. But before he could make any meaningful progress

569
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 2: on this goal or really tell anyone what he was

570
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:53,760
Speaker 2: working on. YouTube leadership announced at a conference in summer

571
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:57,280
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, just a few months after Overly Attached Girlfriend

572
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,800
Speaker 2: went viral, that there was a new goal for the company.

573
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,320
Speaker 2: Employees were told that by the end of twenty sixteen,

574
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 2: just about four years later, YouTube wanted a billion hours

575
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 2: of content to be consumed a day on the platform.

576
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 2: This was ridiculous. This was ten times the amount of

577
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 2: viewership they were getting in the summer of twenty twelve,

578
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 2: and it was a goal that they achieved by making

579
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 2: the problem that Shaslow was concerned about get much worse,

580
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 2: because his whole algorithmic ethics project was sidelined immediately in

581
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 2: favor of the opposite, juicing the algorithm to feed users

582
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 2: anything without any quality control of the truth or hatefulness

583
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 2: of the content that was pushed. Though, by the mid

584
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 2: to late twenty tens, YouTube was a full on radicalization machine,

585
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:52,360
Speaker 2: one that Fisher mentions was quite literally left unsupervised in

586
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 2: order to achieve this billion hours a day goal. And

587
00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 2: it's so wild to think that the Overly Attached Girlfriend's

588
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 2: launch happens at this pretty major precipice in Internet culture.

589
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:06,800
Speaker 2: Twenty twelve was a precipice in the way content creators

590
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 2: viewed themselves. They were moving from the idea that they

591
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 2: would abandon the platform for movies and realize that they

592
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:15,920
Speaker 2: might just be able to support themselves and mend some

593
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 2: just by staying on YouTube. And it's a precipice for

594
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:25,800
Speaker 2: the algorithm. Taking Schaslow's account into consideration, overly attached girlfriend

595
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 2: probably came to prominence in the last few months before

596
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 2: the YouTube algorithm was unleashed to a violent degree. It's heavy,

597
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 2: it's a lot, and then there's this.

598
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 3: If I was your girlfriend, I'd drive you up the

599
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 3: wall question here you're with Yeah, I'd always call and call.

600
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 3: I wouldn't call it jealousy, just looking out for you,

601
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 3: reading all your texts, to watching everything you do. Nag.

602
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 2: And when we come back, Lena Morris gets swept up

603
00:37:50,880 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 2: into this triple decker cyclone clusterfuck. Maybe welcome back to

604
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 2: sixteenth minute. This morning, my cats are doing this thing

605
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 2: where it looks like they're having sex but they're not.

606
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 2: One is just sitting on the other like he's an

607
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 2: egg that's going to hatch. It seems like they're both

608
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,400
Speaker 2: fine with it. I just don't like someone let me

609
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 2: know what this is. And today we're talking about one

610
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 2: of these seminal early celebrities of YouTube, Lena Morris, the

611
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 2: overly attached girlfriend. So okay, we know about the Justin

612
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:36,799
Speaker 2: Bieber contest. We know about the both very intense and

613
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 2: pretty scattered view of what YouTube fame could look like

614
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 2: at the time the meme went viral, But what happens

615
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 2: after the initial viral moment? To remind you, Lena Morris

616
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 2: went viral on two platforms at the same time in

617
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 2: slightly different ways. On Reddit, it's just an image of

618
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:57,880
Speaker 2: Lena that goes viral. The wide blue eyes, the brunette

619
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 2: side parts, the vacant smile. Sir, and you might remember

620
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 2: how this meme was formatted. Here are some examples. You

621
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 2: don't want me to be your girlfriend anymore?

622
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 4: Of course, I'll marry you.

623
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:12,560
Speaker 2: I told all of your friends that you hate them.

624
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 4: Now we can hang out every day. That girl commented

625
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 4: on your status she's a slut.

626
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 2: Surprise. I stopped taking my birth control two weeks ago.

627
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:26,360
Speaker 2: You get it. Jealous clinging possessive jokes from twenty twelve

628
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,879
Speaker 2: and separate from Reddit, Lena goes viral on YouTube, where

629
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 2: you can hear the full parody song and the launch

630
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 2: of this character. But the upload, titled JB fan video

631
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 2: pulls in over a million views in its first two

632
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:43,799
Speaker 2: days and gets additional traction when Reddit realizes that the

633
00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 2: source of the overly attached girlfriend image has a fuller

634
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 2: piece of content attached to it, and the mainstream media

635
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,120
Speaker 2: picks up on it headlines.

636
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 4: Like girls justin Bieber girlfriend parody is unbelievably creepy overly

637
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 4: attached girlfriend and is the meme you've been waiting for, you.

638
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 2: Know the type of post. And by June fifteenth, twenty twelve,

639
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 2: Lena publicly acknowledges in a tweet that she is the

640
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 2: person everyone's been meaning for the last week and a half, saying.

641
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 4: I'm always amused by the overly attached girlfriend tweets and

642
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 4: I realize my face is associated with it and I'm

643
00:40:19,239 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 4: slightly disturbed.

644
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 2: Still awesome from here on out. What is mercifully and

645
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 2: consistently true of this story is that everyone basically seems

646
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 2: to be in on the joke. It's immediately clear in

647
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 2: early interviews with Lena that she's doing a bit, and

648
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 2: while nearly every interview she does in these early days

649
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:40,280
Speaker 2: and for years after, demands that she does the eyes

650
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 2: of the overly Attached Girlfriend, no one is conflating this

651
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 2: character with the real person. And I actually do feel

652
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 2: the need to specify that, because I think the men

653
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,919
Speaker 2: of today's Internet might genuinely struggle to detect a bit.

654
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 2: I blame the algorithm. Originally, the Overly Attached Girlfriend uses

655
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 2: the name Lena Walker to protect her true identity. Remember

656
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 2: when we cared about that and Lena sets up public

657
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 2: facing Facebook and Twitter accounts Because however sudden things had

658
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 2: been in the last ten days, her decision seemed clear.

659
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 2: Lena was going to lean into the meme and was

660
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 2: not shying away from the newfound fame it had brought her.

661
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 2: This was further confirmed a few days later on June eighteenth,

662
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:26,720
Speaker 2: when Lena uploaded a second parody song video as Overly

663
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 2: Attached Girlfriend to YouTube. This time she wrote lyrics to

664
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 2: then massive hit Call Me Maybe by Justin bieberback Canadian

665
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:37,720
Speaker 2: Carly Raid Jepson. Here's the Overly Attached Girlfriend version.

666
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 5: Hey, I just saw you with that lady paid for

667
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 5: her dinner. That's kind of shady gree remember your mind.

668
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:53,040
Speaker 5: You say you're dating. I know you're kidding, so.

669
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 3: I'll be waiting.

670
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:59,400
Speaker 2: And this goes megaviral too, meaning the first two YouTube

671
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:03,879
Speaker 2: videos ever made were numbers one and two on all

672
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 2: of YouTube. And keep in mind that in twenty twelve,

673
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 2: this was not an easy feat. There was a lot

674
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:13,080
Speaker 2: of money and clout to combat with, but she was

675
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:15,920
Speaker 2: on a roll and signed with the manager shortly after.

676
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 2: Though at twenty she wasn't exactly sure what she wanted

677
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 2: to do yet and wasn't ready to uproot her life

678
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 2: in Texas overnight. But she is ready to commit to

679
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 2: YouTube and soon decides to not return to school, and

680
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,400
Speaker 2: of course, a few crummy imitators crop up, the overly

681
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 2: attached boyfriend, the underly attached girlfriend, the regularly attached girlfriend,

682
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:41,919
Speaker 2: mime made from more normal pictures of Lena. But she's

683
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 2: focused on building her own brand and starts collaborating with

684
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:49,400
Speaker 2: other big YouTubers, as was the trend back then, and

685
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 2: as she pivots from full time college student the full

686
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:56,240
Speaker 2: time YouTuber, a still murky job title at the time,

687
00:42:56,760 --> 00:43:00,479
Speaker 2: Lena continued to make appearances in mainstream media the next

688
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 2: year because keep in mind, the viral lifespan of a

689
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 2: meme personality in twenty twelve was significantly longer than it

690
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 2: is today, and so she gets opportunities like hosting the

691
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 2: Red Carpet of the AMAS in twenty twelve, and in

692
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen has a staring contest with Jessica Alba on

693
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 2: stage at the Social Star Awards Just look into those big, sexy,

694
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 2: creepy eyes and get it On, as well as a

695
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 2: memorable appearance on Jimmy Fallon. And while Lena makes a

696
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 2: lot of the moves one would expect from a YouTuber

697
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 2: of this era, meaning VidCon appearances, fan conventions, and appearance

698
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:42,320
Speaker 2: in a truly wild twenty fifteen Delta Airlines safety video

699
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 2: that featured every meme personality at the time demonstrating a

700
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 2: safety joke. I'm just gonna link it in the description

701
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 2: it's impossible to explain in an audio medium. But of course,

702
00:43:56,440 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 2: Lena's moment as a heightened mainstream media figure passes, eventually

703
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 2: leaving her to maintain and grow her YouTube audience. She

704
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:07,959
Speaker 2: ultimately decides to stay in Texas, not going the way

705
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 2: of moving into the standard house or making a YouTuber movie,

706
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 2: which rarely goes well anyway, or pursuing a legacy acting

707
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 2: or pop music career. Instead, Lena goes into business for

708
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:24,720
Speaker 2: herself and begins to write, perform, and edit her weekly

709
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 2: content in addition to maintaining the front facing relationship with

710
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 2: her viewers. Pretty soon, she's got audiences on Twitter, on Instagram,

711
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: on snapchat, you name a popular social media between twenty

712
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:39,760
Speaker 2: twelve and now, and she's brought her follower base along

713
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 2: there with her. And it's interesting to trace the way

714
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 2: this content grows and changes over time. At the beginning,

715
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 2: Lena focuses most of her weekly YouTube stuff on the

716
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 2: Overly Attached Girlfriend throughout twenty twelve and twenty thirteen. Here

717
00:44:54,120 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 2: are some examples. Welcome to behind the means tonight's episode

718
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 2: Overly Attached Girlfriend. This Mother's Day, you have a choice.

719
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 2: Who would you rather spend it with? Your mother or

720
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:13,720
Speaker 2: the mother of your future children.

721
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 3: For some reason, men love it when women make them sandwiches.

722
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 3: It's one of the fastest ways to his heart and

723
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 3: one of the best ways to make sure he'll stay

724
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:23,800
Speaker 3: with you forever.

725
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 2: But as time goes on, Lena shares more of her

726
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 2: own personality, formally separating herself from the character, and in

727
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 2: classic jump cut YouTube comedy style, would perform sketches as

728
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 2: herself talking to the overly attached girlfriend. And while some

729
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 2: of it's dated, Lena avoids a lot of the tropes

730
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 2: of this era of YouTube comedy. She's not screaming at

731
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:50,840
Speaker 2: the top of her lungs, she isn't going edge lord.

732
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 2: She's making stuff that she and her audience enjoy from

733
00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 2: week to week. And if all you have to go

734
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:00,360
Speaker 2: on are these videos. If you're watching Lena's content for

735
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:03,359
Speaker 2: the next few years, it genuinely seems like she's having

736
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 2: a good time. As the years pass, as a full

737
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 2: time YouTuber, Lena develops a couple other characters that appear

738
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 2: regularly on the channel and make sketches along with whatever

739
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:17,320
Speaker 2: was trending on the algorithm at that time, food review videos,

740
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:21,359
Speaker 2: reaction videos, you name it. But behind the scenes fans

741
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 2: would learn years later Lena was not as content as

742
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,439
Speaker 2: the image she projected in the videos. In fact, she'd

743
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 2: been having mental health struggles and issues with creator burnout

744
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 2: for years, going back to her first years on YouTube.

745
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,400
Speaker 2: She'd been in therapy for some time after really struggling

746
00:46:37,440 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 2: with the anxiety of producing weekly content. She felt proud

747
00:46:40,640 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 2: of the pressure of navigating what a YouTuber's career was

748
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 2: supposed to look like, of feeling isolated from her peers,

749
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 2: making things by herself, and while many of the YouTubers

750
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 2: she'd come up with had risen and fallen in the

751
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 2: time she'd been regularly posting. Between twenty twelve and twenty nineteen,

752
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 2: Lena hit a wall, and on July twenty fourth, twenty nineteen,

753
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 2: she posted a video called breaking Up with You Toobe.

754
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 3: After about a year and a half of doing it,

755
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 3: I started to feel a bit depressed, and starting around

756
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 3: like twenty fourteen, I would say the beginning of twenty fourteen,

757
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 3: I sort of landed myself in a real deep depression,

758
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 3: and I was keeping it a real deep secret from

759
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 3: everyone around me. I felt shamed and I felt guilt

760
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 3: for being stressed and overwhelmed in a world and with

761
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:50,280
Speaker 3: a job and opportunities that were so great. I didn't

762
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 3: understand why I couldn't handle it.

763
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,839
Speaker 2: It's a half hour long video and is uncharacteristically confessional

764
00:47:56,880 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 2: for Lena. She gets into topics that were far less

765
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 2: trendy to discuss at the time, talking about a feeling

766
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 2: that a lot of online creatives were starting to discuss

767
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,680
Speaker 2: at this time. Earlier in twenty nineteen, writer Anne Helen

768
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 2: Peterson published what I consider to be a seminal essay

769
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 2: about life online during late Capitalism, called How Millennials Became

770
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 2: the Burnout Generation, and it went viral because it articulated

771
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 2: so many feelings that young people did not then have

772
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:28,319
Speaker 2: the language to explain. And Lena alludes to feelings like

773
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 2: that in much of this essay, along with just struggling

774
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 2: with depression. She felt like a fraud. She didn't want

775
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 2: to let her audience down. She felt very disarmed being

776
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 2: at the whims of the algorithm. She was exhausted and

777
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:43,960
Speaker 2: angry and critical of herself and ashamed that she felt

778
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:47,880
Speaker 2: so unhappy while experiencing what by that time was the

779
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:52,880
Speaker 2: number one dream job for American kids YouTuber. It's an

780
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 2: emotional video, and Lena says it's time for her to

781
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:59,319
Speaker 2: step back for her own health. Here's another clip.

782
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 3: My releaseationship with YouTube, honestly, like started to become more

783
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 3: negative than positive. And I'm just in a place where, like,

784
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 3: I know, as much as I don't want to admit it,

785
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 3: I know that this part of my life is done

786
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 3: and it's time to say goodbye. How does it feel

787
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 3: to be broken up with by the overly attached girlfriend that?

788
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:26,800
Speaker 2: Anyway, The comments on this video were overwhelmingly supportive, thankfully,

789
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:30,360
Speaker 2: and Lena did leave YouTube after that to focus on herself.

790
00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:35,239
Speaker 2: For years, she didn't leave social media completely. Occasionally she'd

791
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 2: post on Instagram or Snapchat. She eventually started at TikTok

792
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:41,359
Speaker 2: when that became a thing to do, and would even

793
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 2: perform as overly Attached girlfriend from time to time, but

794
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 2: now it was on her terms, not the strict full

795
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,239
Speaker 2: time schedules she'd enforced on herself for five years and

796
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 2: in ever changing, pretty punishing YouTube landscape. In twenty twenty one,

797
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:59,279
Speaker 2: Lena does I think the only controversial thing I've heard

798
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,280
Speaker 2: of in her entire your career and sells an NFT

799
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 2: of the original overly Attached Girlfriend meme for over four

800
00:50:06,160 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars to a music company in Dubai because sure, thankfully,

801
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 2: the NFT boom has now ostensibly passed, but were understandably

802
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 2: very controversial in the early twenty twenties for being yet

803
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:23,280
Speaker 2: another predatory tech bubble that wasted a shitload of energy,

804
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 2: but at the time, selling NFTs was viewed as a

805
00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 2: way for people who had been memed to death over

806
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 2: the years to make some money from their likeness. Other

807
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 2: meme expats like the Disaster Girl, that picture of a

808
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 2: little girl smiling mysteriously in front of a house burning down.

809
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:44,920
Speaker 2: People like success Kid, bad Luck Brian, and the Erma

810
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 2: Gerd Girl all sold NFTs during this time. And yes,

811
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:51,400
Speaker 2: I'm not going to argue that the blockchain is anything

812
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 2: but a nightmare, but I do understand the reasoning which

813
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,720
Speaker 2: was consistent across those selling. The Internet had been using

814
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:02,359
Speaker 2: these people's image for nearly or over a decade by

815
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 2: this point, and most hadn't been able to control or

816
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,799
Speaker 2: even vaguely profit from that. NFTs are fucked, and I

817
00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 2: can't really blame any of these people for wanting to

818
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 2: get compensated for years of their image being parlayed while

819
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 2: they had to navigate the world no ethical consumption right

820
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 2: and for what it's worth, Lena seems to have complicated

821
00:51:22,560 --> 00:51:25,240
Speaker 2: feelings about having done it now and in the years

822
00:51:25,280 --> 00:51:28,760
Speaker 2: before and stance. She's been a genuinely kind and thoughtful

823
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:32,320
Speaker 2: person in how she's handled her public and private persona

824
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:35,960
Speaker 2: she popped up on YouTube one more time in twenty

825
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 2: twenty two to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the

826
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:42,279
Speaker 2: original meme, but at the time I started working on

827
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 2: this episode, that was it. And then on August fourth

828
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:50,360
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four, Lena posted a video to YouTube

829
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 2: for the first time in years, in a video titled

830
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:57,400
Speaker 2: five years Later, five years from the moment that she

831
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 2: left YouTube. And I was really excited because it's Lena

832
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 2: seeming a lot more comfortable with herself. She gives some

833
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,200
Speaker 2: updates on her life, but mostly she's just the person

834
00:52:08,239 --> 00:52:10,279
Speaker 2: people fell in love with over a decade ago.

835
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 3: I haven't done YouTube full time since I was in

836
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 3: my mid twenties, and I don't know that I ever

837
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 3: had a healthy relationship with YouTube. And I'm curious now,

838
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 3: as you know, someone who's been through it and is

839
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:33,920
Speaker 3: older and has worked on my mental health and still

840
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:38,320
Speaker 3: loves creating things and making content and connecting with you guys.

841
00:52:38,440 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 3: I'm really curious what that looks like when I'm in

842
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 3: a healthy place. I'm curious what a healthy relationship to

843
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:46,319
Speaker 3: YouTube looks like.

844
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:49,879
Speaker 2: And the main takeaway of this video is she's thinking

845
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:53,760
Speaker 2: about coming back to YouTube. Her audience, of course, was stoked,

846
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 2: and that was when I knew I needed to reach

847
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,840
Speaker 2: out to her to better understand this very specific journey

848
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:03,920
Speaker 2: been on and next week I speak exclusively about the

849
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 2: highs and lows of life online with the overly attached

850
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 2: girlfriend herself, Lena Morris. See You Then. Sixteenth Minute is

851
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 2: a production of fool Zone Media and iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted,

852
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 2: and produced by me Jamie LASiS. Our executive producers are

853
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:27,319
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtman and Robert Evans. The amazing Ian Johnson is

854
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:31,440
Speaker 2: our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is

855
00:53:31,520 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 2: by Sad thirteen and Pet. Shout outs to our dog

856
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:38,600
Speaker 2: producer Anderson, my Kat's flee and Casper and my pet Rockbert,

857
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:42,839
Speaker 2: who will outlive us all Bye.