Speaker 1: George Santos, disgraced former congressional representative and professional scammer, was
Speaker 1: voted out of Congress, and rather than slinking into the shadows,
Speaker 1: he's doing sit down interviews and allegedly making bank on cameo.
Speaker 1: Now if you believe him, he says that he's already
Speaker 1: made more money since being kicked out of Congress than
Speaker 1: he ever would have as an elected official. When asked
Speaker 1: during an interview by ze Way what it would take
Speaker 1: for him to just go away, he said, stop inviting
Speaker 1: me to events, But you'll never do that because you
Speaker 1: want the content. And honestly, he's kind of right. So
Speaker 1: does crime pay? That's the question that Rachel Delusche Williams
Speaker 1: asked when we sat down together last year. Rachel was
Speaker 1: scammed at of thousands of dollars by notorious fake German
Speaker 1: Heiress and Adelby, and she asks, are we incentivizing scamming
Speaker 1: as a culture. Listen to our episode from twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two and find.
Speaker 2: Out she definitely committed so many offenses that harmed your
Speaker 2: life people. So I think to flattened something like that
Speaker 2: into this like very frivolous, like fun, glossy slog of
Speaker 2: a TV show We'll Stop by do Dot.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. We spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time on the show talking about lies
Speaker 1: and the Internet, and I have to say that part
Speaker 1: of the reason why I personally work on disinformation issues
Speaker 1: is because of my intense fascination in things that are
Speaker 1: not true. How do lies function, why do we believe them?
Speaker 1: Who profits off of them? And how do they shape
Speaker 1: our world? So in twenty eighteen, when the story first
Speaker 1: broke about the fake German heiress Anna Delby, I was
Speaker 1: of course fascinated. Anna real name Anna Sorokan, had been
Speaker 1: scamming investors, hotels, even her own friends in pursuit of
Speaker 1: opening an art foundation and private club called the Anna
Speaker 1: Delvey Foundation. The club, like the millions of dollars of
Speaker 1: family money that Anna said that she was supposedly worth,
Speaker 1: never materialized. Anna's former friend Rachel Delutch Williams, first introduced
Speaker 1: the world to Anna after she wrote about their disastrous
Speaker 1: trip to Marrakesh. Anna initially agreed to pay for the trip,
Speaker 1: but never managed to put down a working credit card
Speaker 1: at the pricey villa where they were staying. When hotel
Speaker 1: staff insisted that somebody put down a functioning credit card,
Speaker 1: Rachel was pressured into putting the cost of the entire
Speaker 1: trip sixty two thousand dollars, more than a year of
Speaker 1: her salary, on her work and personal credit cards. Now,
Speaker 1: Anna assured her that she would wire her the money
Speaker 1: to pay her back, but she never did. In the end,
Speaker 1: Rachel helped lead police to Anna's whereabouts, which led to
Speaker 1: Anna's arrest and conviction for one count of attempt at
Speaker 1: grand larceny, three counts of grand larceny, and four counts
Speaker 1: of theft of services related to her various scams, but
Speaker 1: she was found not guilty of the sixty two thousand
Speaker 1: dollars Rachel was out for the trip. Last month, Netflix
Speaker 1: released Inventing Anna, a fictionalized, very sympathetic retelling of her
Speaker 1: Cohn based on the reporting of Jessica Presler at New
Speaker 1: York Magazine. Anna's crimes were so flashy and outlandish it
Speaker 1: was hard not to pay attention, and that, Rachel says,
Speaker 1: is kind of part of the scam. In her book,
Speaker 1: My Friend Anna, Rachel writes, I have come to understand
Speaker 1: that your attention is an investment. Giving someone your attention
Speaker 1: is the act of being influenced, whether or not you're
Speaker 1: aware of it in the moment, and especially in this
Speaker 1: age of constant simulation, with endless people and stories competing
Speaker 1: for your clicks, likes, follows, and time. Your attention is valued.
Speaker 1: It has power, It's worth something. It can even put
Speaker 1: money in someone's pocket. Be careful where you spend it
Speaker 1: and understand the cost. I spoke to Rachel about why
Speaker 1: our current digital media landscape is presenting a golden age
Speaker 1: for scammers and what that means for all of us.
Speaker 1: And this one quick note. We were recording on a
Speaker 1: noisy day in Brooklyn, so the audio quality might not
Speaker 1: be what you're used to from this podcast. Why do
Speaker 1: you think this is? Why do you think we're in
Speaker 1: this era where people cannot get enough of people who
Speaker 1: lie and scam and steal and sheet others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question, and I've certainly asked myself
Speaker 2: the same one. But I think I have a kind
Speaker 2: of unique vantage point in that I lived through like
Speaker 2: a con firsthand, and I know that's sort of how
Speaker 2: it works. It's sort of this larger than life, flashy illusion,
Speaker 2: like a magic trick that is meant to grab your
Speaker 2: attention so that while you're busy sort of puzzling over it,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever sort of business is going on behind
Speaker 2: the scenes can can happen without too much or analysis,
Speaker 2: I suppose. So it's I think it there's a fascination
Speaker 2: with with you know, tricksters and with like it is
Speaker 2: in many ways like like watching a magician at work,
Speaker 2: and so that people want to want to watch as
Speaker 2: like a voyeur to understand where this slight of hand occurred,
Speaker 2: how someone fell for it, and and you know, especially
Speaker 2: in this age where it is kind of hard with
Speaker 2: with the Internet and with all of these different media
Speaker 2: forms coming at us to discern between fact and fiction.
Speaker 2: To get to watch something in an arena that seems
Speaker 2: pretty low stakes because it's built as entertainment. I think
Speaker 2: it's people enjoy maybe like they don't think about it
Speaker 2: that hard, but they enjoy getting to see something that
Speaker 2: that straddles that divide on purpose.
Speaker 1: In talking about the Netflix show Inventing Anna you talk,
Speaker 1: you write really compellingly about this that one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why the show is kind of dangerous is that
Speaker 1: it does sort of aim to straddle that line, and
Speaker 1: each episode starts with this is a completely true story
Speaker 1: except for the things that are fictionalized, and I think
Speaker 1: as a viewer you might not really know that, You're like,
Speaker 1: it can be used as a way to heavily deeply
Speaker 1: fictionalize something that actually people actually experience, and I think
Speaker 1: that could the purposeful straddling of that line of facts
Speaker 1: and fiction and kind of blending them can be a
Speaker 1: little bit dangerous because the ftikes do feel low. It
Speaker 1: just feels like entertainment exactly.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've said it in some ways better than
Speaker 2: I can say it myself, But that's exactly right, and
Speaker 2: it's kind of disheartening. I mean, I appreciate that, like
Speaker 2: you're speaking of about this too, and other people you
Speaker 2: know are certainly paying attention now. But I think part
Speaker 2: of the reason I chose to continue talking about this,
Speaker 2: which you know, the story which is well and truly
Speaker 2: behind me and I would love to like move on
Speaker 2: from and not be discussing today. But the reason I'm
Speaker 2: speaking up is because I see something happening that sets
Speaker 2: a precedent that I do think is chruck that I
Speaker 2: do think is dangerous, and I do think it requires
Speaker 2: viewers to ask questions, probably more so than we can
Speaker 2: expect a media company who profits from it to do.
Speaker 2: But the Netflix show Inventing Anna does do this thing
Speaker 2: where it like sticks that label up as a disclaimer,
Speaker 2: but it blends, you know, factual information with things that
Speaker 2: are completely made up, as it says it does. But
Speaker 2: it makes viewers go online, look things up, see that
Speaker 2: some things are true, and then that creates this like
Speaker 2: foundation of credibility that allows them to think, well that
Speaker 2: this is true. I believe the narrative that they wove
Speaker 2: in with you know, this big big budget production and
Speaker 2: all those like whistles and bells and like how compelling
Speaker 2: is that. You know, storytelling is really powerful, and I
Speaker 2: think that's why it requires a level of responsibility. I
Speaker 2: think people are apt to believe things that they watch
Speaker 2: in stories or that they connect to in terms of
Speaker 2: a narrative more than sometimes dry facts that they hear
Speaker 2: on the news.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you describe this in your book and
Speaker 1: talking about the way that Anna's crimes have been glamorized,
Speaker 1: in part by places like Netflix, that you see it
Speaker 1: as a big picture problem is that sort of what
Speaker 1: you were referring to, Like, that's sort of the big
Speaker 1: picture problem that you're describing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that I think specifically, I have become very mindful
Speaker 2: of the ways that our attention can be commodified. So
Speaker 2: when Anna was released from prison the first time before
Speaker 2: she was detained by ICE, I was asked to do
Speaker 2: a bunch of media appearances commenting on her release, and
Speaker 2: I declined because I was like, why, you know, why
Speaker 2: would I do that. I've already written the book, it's out,
Speaker 2: I've moved on. I have no interest in sort of
Speaker 2: coming out and speaking or hypothesizing about what somebody may
Speaker 2: or may not do after jail, like she's cheated her time.
Speaker 2: Like all we can do is like hope that, you know,
Speaker 2: God's speed, like hope doesn't happen again. But while I
Speaker 2: was declining things, I saw that she was being given
Speaker 2: various media place platforms, and that would be fine if
Speaker 2: she had something productive to say, But it felt as
Speaker 2: though these different outlets were just giving your space to
Speaker 2: rationalize her behavior, to continue peddling belief in this, you know,
Speaker 2: and fictional in my mind, like this fictional intention, you know,
Speaker 2: like I was really going to do it. I didn't
Speaker 2: mean to never pay someone back like all of these
Speaker 2: things that I believed for far too long, and that
Speaker 2: she's now getting to sell to a broader audience. So
Speaker 2: as I was watching that, what I realized is our
Speaker 2: attention to her, our attention to people like this, our
Speaker 2: attention to things is what gives them influence and power.
Speaker 2: So when I say it's a big picture problem, I
Speaker 2: think what I'm really referring to is the attention economy
Speaker 2: and the way that we think we're watching something just
Speaker 2: without stakes, but our viewership in itself is actually something
Speaker 2: that it does have a monetary value and also a
Speaker 2: value in terms of our own behavior, our beliefs, and
Speaker 2: how how we moved through the world.
Speaker 1: You write about how Anna will be given these like
Speaker 1: very convivial interviews where it's clearly the interviewer was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this Anna Delby, like can you believe it? And they
Speaker 1: would have these buzzy headlines, and I guess part of
Speaker 1: me is like, like, how can you print the words
Speaker 1: of somebody who lies? If you're a journalist or a reporter,
Speaker 1: Like somebody asked like, oh, you could try to talk
Speaker 1: to Anna for this interview, And I was like, why
Speaker 1: would I why would I want to talk to somebody
Speaker 1: who lies?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think there's a way to do it.
Speaker 2: There's actually a sixty minutes to Australia interview was I
Speaker 2: thought it was. I mean, it's of course still kind
Speaker 2: of sensationalized around the edges, but at least the viewer
Speaker 2: had a very firm like framing device in which he
Speaker 2: you know, it's It's the same way I think the
Speaker 2: most successful interviews with someone like Donald Trump were where
Speaker 2: you have a baseline foundation of truth fiction. You know,
Speaker 2: some some degree of commonly shared right wrong when it
Speaker 2: comes to like ethics or reality, and you actually try
Speaker 2: to hold someone to account. That's interesting. And then I
Speaker 2: think it's actually like journalism, But I think what I
Speaker 2: do find puzzling or I understand it, but I think
Speaker 2: I find it, you know, problematic is the way that
Speaker 2: so much of our media and our news sources today
Speaker 2: are driven by not by quality but traffic. So so
Speaker 2: so places are incentivized to come up with these clickbait headlines,
Speaker 2: with these really sensationalized recaps of you know, you know,
Speaker 2: events that in real life were interesting, but you know,
Speaker 2: are so much more interesting if you embellish these details.
Speaker 2: And it was troubling for me because watching like even
Speaker 2: during the Child the Why, people were reporting on what
Speaker 2: she was wearing or like you know, ah, she's so audacious,
Speaker 2: can you believe? Like, like, yeah, she is, That's what
Speaker 2: ye know. That's what drew me into the friendship. Friendship too,
Speaker 2: here's this person you can't quite figure out, Like she's
Speaker 2: she's wacky, she's really confident. She's doing these these things
Speaker 2: that kind of break your brain and make you sit
Speaker 2: there and stare and kind of ask questions. But that's
Speaker 2: how it works. Like while we're doing that, like no
Speaker 2: one's asking where's the money coming from? Like who's are
Speaker 2: the what's the impact of this person's behavior and mind?
Speaker 2: Does it matter?
Speaker 1: According to BBC News, which filed a Freedom of Information
Speaker 1: Act request, Netflix reportedly started paying Anna before she had
Speaker 1: ever even gone to trial. They paid thirty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: which went toward paying her lawyer. Then Netflix paid for
Speaker 1: the rights to adapt Anna's story into the show Inventing Anna.
Speaker 1: In total, Netflix reportedly paid Anna three hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Now that money was initially frozen to give
Speaker 1: her victims a chance to sue, and even though some
Speaker 1: of her victims did file claims for a portion of
Speaker 1: those funds, whatever has left over that didn't go to
Speaker 1: paying the lawyers just goes right to Anna. And what
Speaker 1: did Anna spend that money on? Designer clothing? You've written
Speaker 1: about the fact that Netflix paid Anna, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of one of those things where she
Speaker 1: used the money to pay legal fees. However, I would
Speaker 1: argue that it's not like it's not like, I mean,
Speaker 1: they're her legal fees, and so if somebody gives me
Speaker 1: money and I'm like, oh, I use that money to
Speaker 1: pay my bills, I feel like it's a bit of
Speaker 1: a stretch to say that I Am not benefiting from that.
Speaker 1: But whatever. Do you feel that Netflix is contributing to
Speaker 1: an ecosystem where lying and scamming can be financially rewarding
Speaker 1: and financially lucrative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, this is like very cut and
Speaker 2: gi evidence of that because they moved so quickly to
Speaker 2: option the story that it they ended up paying Anna
Speaker 2: before her case even went to trial, before she even
Speaker 2: went to trial, and that's the money that was used
Speaker 2: initially to pay her criminal the criminal defense layer, whom
Speaker 2: she chose to pay his his like a initial fees,
Speaker 2: and then beyond that they they started their writer's room.
Speaker 2: The day that the trial began, there were Netflix writers
Speaker 2: in the courtroom. Her lawyer was representing her and her
Speaker 2: entertainment dealings at the same time he was representing her
Speaker 2: in a criminal trial. And I knew that at the time,
Speaker 2: which is part of why I think I went into
Speaker 2: it feeling. I mean, of course, I was also so raw,
Speaker 2: and I was all so fresh, and I was so
Speaker 2: emotional way more, you know, I wish I had I
Speaker 2: had had like a little more distance from everything or
Speaker 2: a little more composure, but I just felt, frankly, so
Speaker 2: gaslighted by the fact that I was being accused of
Speaker 2: using my testimony as content for entertainment quote unquote, because
Speaker 2: I was writing a book while at the same time
Speaker 2: I knew that everybody there was doing that, and I
Speaker 2: actually wasn't, like, you know, I was left sixty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in debt, like I was just finding a way
Speaker 2: to like heal, to understand, to move forward. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it was really taxi terraviy, and I do think Netflix
Speaker 2: certainly not only influenced the criminal justice proceedings, but also
Speaker 2: gave this person who you know, we can all think
Speaker 2: what we want to think. But looking on paper at
Speaker 2: her past actions, she is a convicted criminal and they
Speaker 2: have created for her a glamorized version of her crimes,
Speaker 2: given her a platform, given her an audience, and set
Speaker 2: her up with a viewership that she can now continue
Speaker 2: to monopolize like she will continue to make money on
Speaker 2: the notoriety that she achieved through committing criminal acts.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break at her back. Scammers are
Speaker 1: not a new phenomena. They've always existed, but in the
Speaker 1: age of streaming services and social media, it seems like
Speaker 1: we're living in a golden age for scammers, where if
Speaker 1: your scam is flashy enough and captures our attention in
Speaker 1: just the right kind of way, what might have started
Speaker 1: as a scam can be laundered into a more legitimate platform.
Speaker 1: For instance, Netflix is The Tinder Swindler, a documentary that
Speaker 1: chronicles Simon Levev, who posed as a wealthy jet set
Speaker 1: playboy by duping women that he met on the dating
Speaker 1: app Tender out of thousands of dollars. Levev's cohn involved
Speaker 1: convincing women to loan hymn money throughout landish lives, and
Speaker 1: since the documentary, Levev is clearly trying to parlay the
Speaker 1: attention and notoriety from his Cohn into a pathway of
Speaker 1: a more legitimate, not to mention, lucrative platform. So, as
Speaker 1: Anna wants intimated to a BBC reporter, it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to say that crime doesn't pay, because it seems
Speaker 1: like in our current media landscape it kind of does.
Speaker 1: I think that we live in a climate where people
Speaker 1: who scam and live people like like she was, as
Speaker 1: you said, she was convicted of this. It's not like
Speaker 1: it's some big secrets. It's not like it's you.
Speaker 2: Saying this is exactly.
Speaker 1: These are just the facts of what happened. I feel
Speaker 1: like we are allowing pathways to legitimize these people, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it started as a con and it
Speaker 1: started as a scam. By the end of it, you'll
Speaker 1: have money and an audience and people who are interested
Speaker 1: to see what happens next, and that you can sort
Speaker 1: of legitimize that. Like, for instance, if you watch the
Speaker 1: Netflix documentary The Tender Swindler, the scammer in that case,
Speaker 1: Simone Simon Simon something like that, Yeah, you know, we
Speaker 1: got this big bump in social media followers. And also
Speaker 1: is making pretty good money on cameo right now, he's
Speaker 1: charging three hundred dollars for a personal shout out and
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred dollars for business shout out. He has a manager,
Speaker 1: He's talked about wanting to do a podcast. You know,
Speaker 1: are are we creating?
Speaker 2: Ore?
Speaker 1: Is the media creating pathways for folks to legitimize what
Speaker 1: started out as a scam or a con or a lie.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I think, you know, looking back, it's actually
Speaker 2: a really interesting book about this called The Attention Merchants
Speaker 2: by this this man called Tim Wu. With the rise
Speaker 2: of reality television in this model of normal person to
Speaker 2: celebrity as like a model for business, and then it
Speaker 2: evolved into social media where people not you know, they
Speaker 2: could It wasn't like winning the lottery. Everybody too could
Speaker 2: do this if they found a way to brand themselves,
Speaker 2: to market themselves that was compelling enough to attract attention.
Speaker 2: But as we've just realized, unless you have some kind
Speaker 2: of outlandish loud stick or personality, like, no one is
Speaker 2: really paying attention. And I think this is like now
Speaker 2: evolved into curation, not just through digital media, but here
Speaker 2: are these people, and these people have always existed, mind you,
Speaker 2: but we live in and age where that kind of
Speaker 2: behavior is really rewarded. You know, it's not an age
Speaker 2: where it's about you know, morality or like like which
Speaker 2: which sounds so like pollyannish and hokey, but it's very
Speaker 2: much about this sort of the cult of personality and
Speaker 2: who would chect our attention and like obviously who we
Speaker 2: you know, voted our president is a testament to that.
Speaker 1: What you just articulated is one of my biggest issues
Speaker 1: in making the show is the way that we have
Speaker 1: our entire digital ecosystem and media ecosystem is biased toward
Speaker 1: outrageousness and lies and scams. It's been a documented thing
Speaker 1: that on social media, incorrect information travels much faster and
Speaker 1: much farther than accurate information.
Speaker 2: There's us saying like a lie can travel around the
Speaker 2: world while the truth is still putting on its shoes
Speaker 2: or some variation of that. But it's very true, absolutely true.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we talk a lot on this
Speaker 1: podcast about the way that our landscapes have become this
Speaker 1: like marketplace for extremism and who's really losing is us
Speaker 1: the general public.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a problem when the Weather channel is sensationalized,
Speaker 2: like for the Weather channel to be like whoa like
Speaker 2: you know, and giving these like hokey names to things
Speaker 2: and like making everything seem like a doomsday event and
Speaker 2: it's like it's like sprinkling outside, like there's no news here.
Speaker 2: They rely on viewership the same way as any other
Speaker 2: channel does. So like for our entire economy to run
Speaker 2: based on like clicks or attention, like that is scary.
Speaker 2: There there are certain things that I think probably would
Speaker 2: we all might be a little better off if there
Speaker 2: were other motivators.
Speaker 1: We all deserve timely, thoughtful, accurate information. And so even
Speaker 1: you know, your example of the Weather channel, if I
Speaker 1: need to know whether or not to bring an umbrella,
Speaker 1: and I turn on the weather and it's like you know,
Speaker 1: monsoons and hurricanes and oh my god, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm being underserved because I don't know if I need
Speaker 1: to bring an umbrella, but I'm going down the street,
Speaker 1: you know. And so we all we all lose out.
Speaker 1: We all lose when we don't when we have any
Speaker 1: kind of media ecosystem that is biased towards sensationalism or
Speaker 1: lies or scams or clicks and outrageousness rather than thoughtful, accurate,
Speaker 1: nuanced content, and.
Speaker 2: It pushes us to the extremes of either total belief
Speaker 2: or complete disbelief, because either you buy into whatever you know,
Speaker 2: cool age you're looking for, like whether that's Fox News
Speaker 2: or you know some like extreme version of like CNN.
Speaker 2: Like you know, they all have their biased reporting techniques, right,
Speaker 2: but like I think you either sort of hop on
Speaker 2: a bandwagon or you say none of it's objective. I
Speaker 2: don't believe anything, and then that's not great either, because
Speaker 2: there are still things that should be believed. So I
Speaker 2: do agree that it is a disservice to everybody because
Speaker 2: it creates a system in which it's really hard to
Speaker 2: tell truth from fiction.
Speaker 1: In my data that they do a lot of work
Speaker 1: combating conspiracy theories and things like that and trying to
Speaker 1: kind of understand why people fall prey to them, and
Speaker 1: a big part of it is just complete lack of
Speaker 1: complete lack of trust in media institutions. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a big reason why it's, like I can understand
Speaker 1: why somebody would just lose all trust in media when
Speaker 1: that is the thing that fuels it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And there is a lot of similarity obviously. I
Speaker 2: mean the stakes are just sort of it's apples and
Speaker 2: oranges with when it comes to like someone like Anna
Speaker 2: and like masculine conspiracy theories. But there is similarity in
Speaker 2: the way that both I guess, like lie structures or
Speaker 2: manipulation techniques rely on framing arguments in a way that
Speaker 2: makes them almost irrefutable because they they they speak to
Speaker 2: these sort of like cryptic abstracts or things that you
Speaker 2: literally just can't disprove even though they are false. It's
Speaker 2: like a flaw, a flawed framing device. And I think
Speaker 2: it's really hard for people, especially if you're isolated, to
Speaker 2: keep your feet on the ground and understand what's happening
Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with that type of behavioral pattern.
Speaker 1: After the disastrous ship to Marrakesh, Rachel was left with
Speaker 1: a sixty two thousand dollars credit card bill that her
Speaker 1: credit card company eventually forgave, But before that, Rachel struggled
Speaker 1: to pay rent and took loans from loved ones to
Speaker 1: cover bills to get by. She eventually published her book
Speaker 1: about what she learned from her relationship with Anna called
Speaker 1: My Friend Anna, and sold the rights to develop her
Speaker 1: story for television to Lena Donnom at HBO. Rachel takes
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism for quote, profiting off of her
Speaker 1: relationship to Anna. So I wanted to go back to
Speaker 1: something that you mentioned, which is that you sometimes take
Speaker 1: criticism for the fact that you published a book about
Speaker 1: your experiences, You've written about your experiences. I interviewed Amanda Knox,
Speaker 1: the EXONERI you probably know who she is, and something
Speaker 1: that she said in that interview that I will never
Speaker 1: forget is that, you know, she's often criticized for making money,
Speaker 1: you know, writing books about what happened to her. And
Speaker 1: you know, however, producers, filmmakers, writers, they make a lot
Speaker 1: of money retelling sometimes like a really harmful, deeply fictionalized
Speaker 1: account of something that like sort of happened around her.
Speaker 1: But like it's always like deeply, deeply fictionalized. And something
Speaker 1: that she said was that it's apparently everyone else is
Speaker 1: allowed to profit off of something that happened to me
Speaker 1: except for me. Everybody who's to make money off of
Speaker 1: my story but me? And I guess, you know, why
Speaker 1: do you think this is? You know, I guess I
Speaker 1: should say a side note, which is that if I
Speaker 1: lost a lot of money, anybody who wanted to pay
Speaker 1: me to tell the story of what happened to me
Speaker 1: to recoup my expenses, I would absolutely say yes, And
Speaker 1: I think that most people would. But I feel that
Speaker 1: we have this expectation where victims are kind of expected
Speaker 1: to be kind of holier than now. Meanwhile, the people
Speaker 1: who harmed them like they can do whatever they can
Speaker 1: make money. However, and so I think, like, why do
Speaker 1: you think that is?
Speaker 2: Where do think that comes from? I mean, first of all,
Speaker 2: I do completely agree with you, it often feels like
Speaker 2: the victims are on trial more so than the criminals. Uh.
Speaker 2: And also like there's this odd thing that I've realized,
Speaker 2: the word victim is has so much like packed into
Speaker 2: the connotations around the word. The word It's like people think,
Speaker 2: as soon as you're no longer in debt or as
Speaker 2: soon as you've been made hold, no matter how hard
Speaker 2: hard you have to work to actually become okay, you're
Speaker 2: not a victim anymore. Like you're now you know, and
Speaker 2: someone who's exploiting a situation. If you, you know, keep
Speaker 2: moving forward, if you're seen to succeed, and it's like,
Speaker 2: what is a victim? Like does a victim? What does
Speaker 2: the victim look like. I've had so many people reach
Speaker 2: out to me on social media to say, you don't
Speaker 2: look like a victim, and I think that is such
Speaker 2: a loaded odd thing to say to somebody, Like saying
Speaker 2: that you were the victim of a crime is not
Speaker 2: a request for pity. It's a request for acknowledgment of
Speaker 2: a wrong that was committed. You know. It is not
Speaker 2: like I'm still stuck in this like stalled state in perpetuity.
Speaker 2: It's like, this happened and that's a fact. Doesn't matter
Speaker 2: what you do afterwards to be okay, you know, to
Speaker 2: repair the damage, to find a way out of it.
Speaker 2: Like that is really not relevant. But I think there
Speaker 2: there are a lot of things that are distracting, especially
Speaker 2: when these stories get retold through the lens of media
Speaker 2: or entertainment. People tend to fixate on the whistles and
Speaker 2: bells and the flashy trips and the money, and they
Speaker 2: hold that I think the jury did the same thing.
Speaker 2: They sort of hold that lens up and say, well,
Speaker 2: you know, looking at the net gain you were doing
Speaker 2: this before, Anna, and now you're doing this, you came
Speaker 2: out Okay, therefore, nope, the crime didn't happen. It's like, wait,
Speaker 2: so you're saying I was too good at you know,
Speaker 2: finding like writing tooth and nail to find a way forward,
Speaker 2: like therefore it didn't happen, Like what, why do I
Speaker 2: think it happens? I think it's really easy for people
Speaker 2: to hold on to really simplified recaps of something that
Speaker 2: was actually very complex and nuanced. And of course, looking back,
Speaker 2: red flags look like this, like very tidy pattern. But
Speaker 2: when you're living through something where you're dealing with a
Speaker 2: master manipulator, you know there's time between these these things
Speaker 2: that might have tipped you off to trouble ahead. There's
Speaker 2: there's a there's an actual relationship between real life people,
Speaker 2: and everything is much grayer than it appears in hindsight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so funny because I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of people I've seen and I saw, like I guess
Speaker 1: this idea of you know, well, while that was happening,
Speaker 1: she definitely wanted to go to Morocco where she definitely
Speaker 1: wanted this, And it's like who gives a ship like it?
Speaker 1: Just see it just seems so like picking apart. It
Speaker 1: feels very victim blaming.
Speaker 2: It's very very convenient, and and I think people want
Speaker 2: to look for a reason to explain why something bad
Speaker 2: has happened to somebody, you know, especially if it is
Speaker 2: not like you know, dead dead, like you know, when
Speaker 2: it seems like someone's come out okay, then it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: we all have, like Curt Blanche, to just sit here
Speaker 2: and talk about why you deserved it. And you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, like it's everybody wants
Speaker 2: to be understood, Like it seems to be misunderstood, and
Speaker 2: it seems to have things framed in a way that's
Speaker 2: not true, especially when they're so personal and so many
Speaker 2: people are forming opinions about you from so little information
Speaker 2: and flawed information. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: like everybody looks at a story like this, which you
Speaker 2: know is not a news story. It's like tale as
Speaker 2: old as time. It's just been in a modern uh
Speaker 2: iteration of it. But you people look at it and
Speaker 2: they project their understand like they come away with an
Speaker 2: understanding of it based on their own life experiences. And
Speaker 2: if it's important for people to think, if it looks
Speaker 2: too good to be true, it probably is, or you know,
Speaker 2: don't get sucked into materialism or like you know, everybody
Speaker 2: looks at it and thinks these things. But I think
Speaker 2: that's actually more telling of their own life experiences than
Speaker 2: it is necessarily of mine. Like have I asked myself
Speaker 2: those questions? Of course I have, Like if I hadn't,
Speaker 2: I think, you know, it's really important to look at
Speaker 2: That's why I wrote A wrote I guess to start,
Speaker 2: and I wrote what turned into the book. But it
Speaker 2: was so that I could frame, you know, piece together
Speaker 2: this like narrative of experience that I lived through. Look
Speaker 2: at it, try to like dig into it, understand what happened,
Speaker 2: what to make of it, like why it happened, and
Speaker 2: how to learn, heal and move forward.
Speaker 1: Something that you said, You said, people want an explanation
Speaker 1: for why this happened to you. I think what they're
Speaker 1: actually looking for is an explanation for why this would
Speaker 1: never happen to them. I think it's about.
Speaker 2: Them, right, and I mean absolutely, as they don't even
Speaker 2: know me, and and like there even if even if
Speaker 2: someone didn't meet me through this experience, this is something
Speaker 2: that happened, was a friendship. I knew her for a year.
Speaker 2: We were close friends for about three months, three brief months. Like,
Speaker 2: she never bought me clothes, she never bought me shoes,
Speaker 2: she never bought like did I work out with her? Yes?
Speaker 2: Did she pay for some dinners? Yes? Did she invite
Speaker 2: me on this crazy vacation? One hundred percent? But to
Speaker 2: say that anybody understands someone else's entire values like value
Speaker 2: system and personality and character through like a few months
Speaker 2: of what is a you know, thirty some odd year
Speaker 2: life with so many more important and like I don't
Speaker 2: know telling things but any it's just life is weird.
Speaker 1: Huh, life is weird. I kind of say, I love
Speaker 1: this is kind of a side note. I love your
Speaker 1: perspective on this. I feel like if this happened to me,
Speaker 1: I guess I guess. You know you were saying earlier
Speaker 1: how people don't really see the work involved in getting
Speaker 1: you to a place where you're like this is behind me.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking about it now not because I want to
Speaker 1: relitigate what happened, like the minutia of our relationship, but
Speaker 1: because I want to ask these like thoughtful questions about
Speaker 1: what it says about our culture and all of that
Speaker 1: you think as someone who is like, you know, I
Speaker 1: know we don't see that work, but where you are today,
Speaker 1: it just seems like you're you. I really appreciate your
Speaker 1: perspective of where you're at right now.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you like acknowledging or understanding that because
Speaker 2: it's very hard. You know, like even I guess being
Speaker 2: a photo producer is much the same way. It's like
Speaker 2: if you're doing it while nobody pays attention to how
Speaker 2: it happened or why it's happening in this way. But like,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's irritating except that, like there's nothing I
Speaker 2: can do. People who are want to be wrong or
Speaker 2: it's going to be wrong. But like when people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: you just want the spotlight or oh you just want attention,
Speaker 2: it's like I've turned down so many more things than
Speaker 2: I have said yes to, Like this is a spotlight
Speaker 2: that I did not want. You know, I have done
Speaker 2: the best I could with something that was very negative,
Speaker 2: and I've done the best could to make it into
Speaker 2: something positive, not just for myself, but ideally for others
Speaker 2: who may have gone through the same thing, or to
Speaker 2: prevent others from going through the same thing. But you
Speaker 2: like think you're You're completely right. Like my very specific
Speaker 2: and clear objective as to why I'm still talking today,
Speaker 2: does it really is about the spotlight that I didn't want,
Speaker 2: And I thought very hard about whether or not to
Speaker 2: just sort of like lie low, not comment to the
Speaker 2: Netflix thing came out. It just like not say anything
Speaker 2: at all. But I recognize the value of attention, and
Speaker 2: I recognize the fact that whether or not I choose
Speaker 2: to engage with it, there would be this attention coming
Speaker 2: my way. And it felt like there are so many
Speaker 2: really important causes in the world that need attention. There's
Speaker 2: so many important issues even relating to this specifically that
Speaker 2: can't get people to pay attention to them. So I
Speaker 2: really wanted to like yield the time towards asking questions
Speaker 2: and then ideally, I mean like finding people like you
Speaker 2: or or you know, finding a way to sort of
Speaker 2: redirect the spotlight towards towards activation partners who can speak
Speaker 2: to these issues in a thoughtful way and and make
Speaker 2: people think a little harder or differently about something that
Speaker 2: on the surface just seems so sort of frivolous.
Speaker 1: Our attention has value, and it's also we only have
Speaker 1: so much of it. And so when lies and outrageousness
Speaker 1: are amplify to get our attention, what's not getting our attention?
Speaker 1: What important is are just going overlooked because.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and that's I think that's that's so right. It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, do I watch bad TV? Of course I do.
Speaker 2: Do I eat junk food, of course I do. Like
Speaker 2: it's not to say don't do it, it's just to
Speaker 2: be mindful that if that's all you do, like that
Speaker 2: really will inform the health of your life. Like, like
Speaker 2: you know, when you are paying attention to these things
Speaker 2: that are designed to suck up your tension, that are
Speaker 2: designed to make you want more of them, they're addicting.
Speaker 2: You are not paying attention to something else. You are not,
Speaker 2: you know, necessarily having the autonomy you may think you
Speaker 2: have over the direction of your purpose.
Speaker 1: I definitely know what you mean. More after a quick break,
Speaker 1: let's get right back into it. So you can probably
Speaker 1: tell that I did not really enjoy the Netflix show
Speaker 1: Inventing Anna, And one of my biggest issues with it
Speaker 1: is the way that it frames Anna's crimes with a
Speaker 1: kind of girl bas's hustle mentality that she came to
Speaker 1: this country as an immigrant with nothing, and that if
Speaker 1: she did maybe do a little lying and scamming here
Speaker 1: or there, it was only in pursuit of building something
Speaker 1: that she truly believed in after all? Is that The
Speaker 1: American Dream? Over on another scammer story, who Lose the Dropout,
Speaker 1: which chronicles the story of Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO of Sarahos,
Speaker 1: a blood testing company that turned out to be a
Speaker 1: total scam, actually does a pretty good job of showing
Speaker 1: how empty, not to mention, dangerous, it can be when
Speaker 1: scamming and lying is rebranded as vision or leadership. One
Speaker 1: of the questions I did have for you is that
Speaker 1: the The Inventing Anna Show does this, but I've also
Speaker 1: seen it kind of glimmers of it, and other scammers
Speaker 1: and just sort of in media in general, this idea
Speaker 1: of like scamming and lying kind of being rebranded as
Speaker 1: hustling or trying to achieve the American Dream or worse,
Speaker 1: girl bossing. You know, I get, I completely, like logistically
Speaker 1: understand why that's how it's framed or why it's how
Speaker 1: it's reframed, But it's such an easy narrative, but I,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's kind of harmful to reframe
Speaker 1: feeling from people and lying from people as hustling and
Speaker 1: girl bossing and leadership. And I guess my question is like,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts about that. Have you seen this
Speaker 1: and what do you think about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's lazy. I just I think it's lazy,
Speaker 2: and I do think it does it It does do
Speaker 2: damage to the reality. You know, it's so backwards to
Speaker 2: attempt to make something about like classism, racism, sexism, and
Speaker 2: then to frame it in a way that is promoting
Speaker 2: someone who couldn't care less about those issues unless they're
Speaker 2: serving their own agenda. Like that is such a disservice
Speaker 2: to people who are actually working to real you know,
Speaker 2: to explore and explore these issues and create positive change
Speaker 2: in ways that are actually meaningful and substantive, especially in
Speaker 2: the past I don't even know how many years, I
Speaker 2: guess like ten years or so, maybe less, like these
Speaker 2: these sort of catch all buzzwords like like feminism or
Speaker 2: like it's greet there's a performative activism that that features
Speaker 2: words that have become trendy and and like missions that
Speaker 2: have become trendy, and I think shows like this have
Speaker 2: kind of glommed on to that.
Speaker 1: I told you I watched the finale of the show
Speaker 1: on Piboloo, the dropout about Elizabeth Holmes and the Saraho
Speaker 1: Scam Lady. There was a time in feminism where like
Speaker 1: a woman, like a woman like making money that was feminism.
Speaker 1: I do think there's a kind of it's sort of
Speaker 1: a it's sort of like era feminism I'm not proud of,
Speaker 1: where yeah, if you were just a woman who was
Speaker 1: making like out for herself and making money, that was
Speaker 1: seen as like a feminist win, and we didn't really
Speaker 1: ask a lot of questions about are you harming people?
Speaker 1: Are you you know, like like we didn't really ask
Speaker 1: a lot of questions. And I think that I kind
Speaker 1: of see this era kind of maybe coming to a close,
Speaker 1: I hope, But I think that that era really all
Speaker 1: out for women to be lauded as feminist icons for
Speaker 1: doing things that actually hurt other people at their own expense.
Speaker 2: I don't think the answer to chauvinism is a form
Speaker 2: of feminism that mirrors the same thing, like that reverses
Speaker 2: that that negative way of being. Like, I do think
Speaker 2: sometimes pendulums swing too far before they kind of find
Speaker 2: their middle, and it seems like that's what happened. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: you did this for so long, therefore, like it's my
Speaker 2: time to do it, and we should celebrate the fact
Speaker 2: that I'm doing it. It's I think it's it's hard
Speaker 2: sometimes to see that when you're in it, and when
Speaker 2: it's a reaction rather than like like it's it's reactive
Speaker 2: rather than proactive. Right, So it's it's like finding a
Speaker 2: way to exist as a woman in reaction to to
Speaker 2: what men have done wrong, rather than just finding a
Speaker 2: way to exist as a woman. I don't have solutions,
Speaker 2: but I see the friend as well, and I guess
Speaker 2: one thing related to the who we showed. But I
Speaker 2: think that show actually strikes me as I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: what she did does not strike me as something that
Speaker 2: was done well. But the show I thought did a
Speaker 2: good job actually of dramatizing real life events because they
Speaker 2: framed her in a way that felt very true to
Speaker 2: the actual sequencing of what happened. Like I read Bad
Speaker 2: Blood by John care You and it felt like it,
Speaker 2: you know, it followed a fact pattern, and it framed
Speaker 2: her not as someone that everybody was. I mean, you
Speaker 2: saw how she was celebrated, but that was true to
Speaker 2: the way that it happened in real life. It was
Speaker 2: very true to the mixed reactions she received, And I
Speaker 2: thought Amanda Seeping did an amazing job of not of
Speaker 2: like gleefully sort of relishing like the shtick of the
Speaker 2: con but just in framing this sort of very misguided,
Speaker 2: probably like psychologically unhealthy person who like just kind of
Speaker 2: lacked a certain like human ship that allowed her to
Speaker 2: understand the importance of her decision making on real lives.
Speaker 2: It just was such a foil for me when I
Speaker 2: watched that versus what I'd seen and Inventing Anna, which
Speaker 2: really just looked like something that had been made by
Speaker 2: people who really bought into what Anna was selling.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I so I am happy to hear
Speaker 1: you say this. I felt the exact person of all
Speaker 1: Inventing Anna, all all of the issues that you brought
Speaker 1: up with it, Yes, but also just like with a
Speaker 1: slog to watch, like I wanted to watch it before
Speaker 1: I talked to you, and literally my partner was like,
Speaker 1: I feel like you've been watching this show for a decade,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you and me both just wasn't
Speaker 1: an enterhating show. And I guess having that having like
Speaker 1: I felt the Dropout was different because it had empathy
Speaker 1: for the people who were harmed, right Like you saw
Speaker 1: these people who were you know, had cancer and we're
Speaker 1: involved in these blood these blood trials. You know. It
Speaker 1: had empathy for the whistleblowers who risked so much of
Speaker 1: their of their selves to come forward. I felt like
Speaker 1: it was a show that managed to demonstrate the kind
Speaker 1: of seductive you know, cult a personality around a scammer
Speaker 1: without falling prey to it, and inventing Annah was exactly
Speaker 1: the opposite.
Speaker 2: It was done, Yeah, it was done so thoughtfully. It
Speaker 2: had such depth to it because yeah, of course there
Speaker 2: were people who like popped on the bandwagon and celebrated
Speaker 2: Harry Like. It was just the full range of people
Speaker 2: who were made to read like real life people. You know.
Speaker 2: I think Inventing Anna flattened everybody. And there's a way
Speaker 2: that can be done in like a show like Gossip
Speaker 2: Girl or a show that is meant to be and
Speaker 2: in some ways I guess this is but meant to
Speaker 2: be about materialism and superficiality. But to reduce something like this,
Speaker 2: we're real, real crime were committed, real people's lives were impacted.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just these like faceless things. There are people
Speaker 2: who lose jobs. They're people who obviously are not obviously
Speaker 2: if we're obvious, that wouldn't be a problem. But there
Speaker 2: are people who weren't included in the Kirk you know,
Speaker 2: the court case. She definitely committed so many offenses that
Speaker 2: harmed your life people. So I think to flatten something
Speaker 2: like that into this like very frivolous, like fun, glossy
Speaker 2: slog of a TV show full stuff, I don't know,
Speaker 2: do dot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's there were times where I was like,
Speaker 1: are you meant to be rooting for Anna in the show?
Speaker 1: And then the I think the richest part is at
Speaker 1: the end, where the biggest crime the show seems to
Speaker 1: suggest has been committed is the character that shares your
Speaker 1: same name. She's like like nep is, like you're a
Speaker 1: bad friend, and it's like, well, Anna went to jail,
Speaker 1: Like come on, I.
Speaker 2: Know, I get, I mean, and people really believe all
Speaker 2: that is fact, Like you were like she bankroll drew
Speaker 2: you for two years, and like I know better than
Speaker 2: to feed the trolls on the internet, Like it's not
Speaker 2: my job to to like educate people about fact, like what,
Speaker 2: like the truth is out there if anybody wants to
Speaker 2: look for it. But like I didn't even know her
Speaker 2: that long. She didn't have thing like but yeah, so
Speaker 2: to have have it framed as though, like where's the loyalty,
Speaker 2: It's like this is someone you know, we were not
Speaker 2: best friends. I knew her for and also look what
Speaker 2: she did. Look at the pattern of her behavior. At
Speaker 2: what point, why are you suggesting people who are in
Speaker 2: these like manipulative relationships, do they friendships or whatever like that,
Speaker 2: that they are doing something wrong by choosing to leave
Speaker 2: something that is so harmful. Like that's bizarre. That's like,
Speaker 2: that's a very bizarre thing to say. Also, the show
Speaker 2: rearranged it as though I had been reimbursed before the
Speaker 2: trial and that I like kept the secret of my
Speaker 2: involvement with her arrest, like like or kept out a
Speaker 2: secret like didn't happen. I was protected to years after
Speaker 2: Marrakesh after the trial concluded. I didn't keep my involvement
Speaker 2: in this sting some kind of like grand secret. I
Speaker 2: wasn't ashamed of it, but I wasn't that close with
Speaker 2: like Naphra Casey, you know, I like them I don't.
Speaker 2: I have nothing negative to say. It's like, fine, everybody
Speaker 2: can look back and see things through their lenses and
Speaker 2: that's you know, it is what it is. But we
Speaker 2: weren't in touch. It's not like I owed people explanations.
Speaker 2: I was out more than they made any They were
Speaker 2: not left in any kind of like debt or like
Speaker 2: there was no ongoing relationship there. So to suggest that
Speaker 2: by not reaching out to say hello, like this is
Speaker 2: what I have done, and like, it's like that's just weird,
Speaker 2: does it? It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think people people understand the way these
Speaker 1: relationships and acquaintanceships work in their own lives and it's like,
Speaker 1: of course that would be like you wouldn't owe these
Speaker 1: people anything or you wouldn't owe like you know, But
Speaker 1: when it's someone else and that the minutia of those
Speaker 1: relationships are like projected for everyone to pick apart, suddenly
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, why would she do this? Doesn't
Speaker 1: she have loyalty? And it's like, well, calm down, think
Speaker 1: about how this at go down if it was you, Like,
Speaker 1: we all understand that in our own lives, but when
Speaker 1: it's somebody else, I think it's like different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, evidently, and I understand people don't tune into shows
Speaker 2: like this to really think very analytically. It's mostly about
Speaker 2: just getting a good laugh at other people's expense, and
Speaker 2: like I, you know, I do too. It's fine, Like
Speaker 2: I'm not. I certainly can't like hate on people for
Speaker 2: being human, like that's how this works. I just I
Speaker 2: think that the frivolity of it does can feel something
Speaker 2: that is a bigger picture problem, as I have said,
Speaker 2: which is why I figure, if I'm stuck in this
Speaker 2: this like dumpster fire anyway, I might as well shy
Speaker 2: and like send up a smoke signal about you know,
Speaker 2: red flags that I know a little too well from
Speaker 2: firsthand experience.
Speaker 1: Yes, speaking of your stain experience. One of the last
Speaker 1: questions I have is, like, what has it just been
Speaker 1: like for you, Rachel, the person going through this, getting
Speaker 1: the social media's trolls, getting people who have maybe been
Speaker 1: misled about what happened from the television show. What has
Speaker 1: it been like to deal with that on online?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's it's definitely not easy. But I'm
Speaker 2: mindful of the like I'm I'm mindful of my privilege
Speaker 2: and my luck. Just to have like such supportive family
Speaker 2: and friends, to have an awareness of exactly what it
Speaker 2: is that is happening. You know, part of it I
Speaker 2: learned the hard way, just through gaslighting with Anna to
Speaker 2: begin with, and now through what I've learned in looking
Speaker 2: back and what happened looking at like I guess, I mean,
Speaker 2: writing the book helped me a lot, just in terms
Speaker 2: of sort of looking at the pattern of behavior as
Speaker 2: a pattern rather than like this. When you're in a
Speaker 2: relationship like that, it's really hard to see anything as
Speaker 2: black and white, because it's not. Life is gray. But
Speaker 2: looking back, things seem so much clearer to me. So
Speaker 2: I'm grateful to have had people who believe me, who
Speaker 2: like like a platform to speak from, the opportunity to speak,
Speaker 2: which all that is to say it's hard. But part
Speaker 2: of the reason I'm speaking up about it is because
Speaker 2: I think the structure of the Netflix show, or this
Speaker 2: broader pattern that's happening, it does a disservice to people
Speaker 2: who don't have that ability to understand what's happening to them,
Speaker 2: who might not get to hear stories like this because
Speaker 2: people are ashamed or they're scared of the victim blaming,
Speaker 2: which is completely fair. It's not it's I mean, it's
Speaker 2: wild and it you know, I can have my feet
Speaker 2: on the ground and my head on my shoulders, and
Speaker 2: if I sit there and read that for longer than
Speaker 2: maybe like ten minutes, like it, even if you know that,
Speaker 2: you know it's actually not about you, doesn't feel good
Speaker 2: to have that kind of energy coming Like I mean
Speaker 2: that sounds so wo but like that kind of hostility
Speaker 2: coming at you, Like it's like death by paper cuts.
Speaker 2: Like you can be the strongest rock in the water,
Speaker 2: but like if it keeps running, like you're gonna get
Speaker 2: worn down. So it's hard, but I recognize that it's harder,
Speaker 2: so much harder for so many other people, And uh yeah,
Speaker 2: then I can be pretty nasty.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about how the dangers that come
Speaker 1: when we give out, when we willingly give our attention
Speaker 1: a way to liars and scammers and people who are
Speaker 1: outrageous and extreme. Do you ever see a situation where
Speaker 1: things like nuance, thoughtfulness, honest, accurate content will be amplified
Speaker 1: over that kind of extremism and lies? Do you think
Speaker 1: that we're this is just it forever or do you
Speaker 1: see it? Do you see a change coming, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, as evidenced bypass behavior. I am kind of a
Speaker 2: willful optimists through and through, and that is just who
Speaker 2: I am, so I always hope for that, you know,
Speaker 2: I do think the damage done by what you just said,
Speaker 2: like the pattern. What I'm trying to say is the
Speaker 2: truth will out, And it's one thing to think the
Speaker 2: pattern of celebrating these individuals does do harm. That is
Speaker 2: and will be visible until there is a movement in
Speaker 2: the opposite direction. So I think we've already seen that,
Speaker 2: like from like Me Too forward, where people are starting
Speaker 2: to pay attention to things in a different way and
Speaker 2: actually attempt to hold outlets and individuals to account. I
Speaker 2: just think it's in very specific arenas thus far that
Speaker 2: that seems to be happening. And I think people like
Speaker 2: to to sort of pretend that things they do for
Speaker 2: entertainment don't touch on the same subjects or don't have
Speaker 2: the same impact or our seriousness, and that, to me
Speaker 2: is that that's the slippery slope. I hope that people
Speaker 2: recognize these things are not separate. They're inextricably linked to
Speaker 2: the way that we as a culture celebrate people and
Speaker 2: former beliefs.
Speaker 1: That's really smart, Got a story about an interesting thing
Speaker 1: in tech, or just want to say hi. You can
Speaker 1: reach us at Hello at tangody dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 1: me Brigit Toad. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed
Speaker 1: creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tari Harrison is
Speaker 1: our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Bridgetad. If you want to help us grow,
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