Speaker 1: Just a quick heads up. Today's episode talks about sexual
Speaker 1: violence There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and
Speaker 1: this is there Are No Girls on the Internet. Fifty
Speaker 1: five year old Brian Warner, who you might know better
Speaker 1: rest his stage name Marilyn Manson, is melting a big
Speaker 1: comeback tour. He announced his first tour date since multiple
Speaker 1: women came forward saying he sexually abused them, a now
Speaker 1: familiar page from the Abuser playbook. Warner is actually suing
Speaker 1: one of his survivors, actor Evan rachel Wood, for defamation
Speaker 1: and emotional distress. The suit is ongoing, but back in January,
Speaker 1: a judge ordered Warner to pay her court costs. So
Speaker 1: why am I talking about this on a tech podcast?
Speaker 1: I got into how this is actually a tech and
Speaker 1: platform accountability issue with my friends Samantha and Annie over
Speaker 1: at the podcast Stuff. Mom never told you.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't come to Steph.
Speaker 2: I never told your protection of iHeart Radio and today
Speaker 2: we are thrilled to once again be joined by the amazing,
Speaker 2: fantastic Bridget Todd.
Speaker 3: Hi, Bridget, Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. Always such a pleasure to be joining you, ladies.
Speaker 2: Yes, and happy belated birth Yes.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, I had a birthday. I almost kind
Speaker 1: of forgot because it happened at a weird time, but
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 4: You were in the middle of your travels, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was in Austin, Texas for south By Southwest. It's
Speaker 1: not a bad place to spend your birthday, but it
Speaker 1: kind of happened very quickly and I kind of forgot
Speaker 1: about it. I was getting on the plane to go
Speaker 1: back home and the person who checked my ID was like, oh,
Speaker 1: happy belated birthday, and I said, oh, that's right. I
Speaker 1: did have a person thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think someone recently asked me how old I was,
Speaker 2: and I like paused to think about it. Get back
Speaker 2: to you on that, But yeah, how was your south
Speaker 2: By Southwest experience?
Speaker 1: It was good and it was interesting. You know, it
Speaker 1: was the first time they had done it since COVID.
Speaker 1: It was cool. I have to shout out the fact
Speaker 1: that probably every other panel or like talk like speech
Speaker 1: or talk that I saw was a trans person or
Speaker 1: a non binary person really speaking out against some of
Speaker 1: the like horrific legislation we've seen in Texas. And there
Speaker 1: were lots of women speaking out about like the horrible
Speaker 1: abortion legislation in Texas. So even though it felt a
Speaker 1: little bit strange to be in Texas, I was, I
Speaker 1: left so empowered and engaged and like leaned into the
Speaker 1: fight to you know, really create change. So I have
Speaker 1: to really shout out a lot of you know, abortion
Speaker 1: advocates and trans advocates that I'm sure being in Texas
Speaker 1: was like tough for them, but I really have to
Speaker 1: shout out how incredible it was for them to make
Speaker 1: space to open up conversations about legislation that is harming
Speaker 1: their community. So it was good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that because I know, like it's kind
Speaker 5: of so difficult to be in an area where it's
Speaker 5: so toxic to you as a person as a human
Speaker 5: being going through your life and then feeling like, yeah,
Speaker 5: you know what, I can't leave because I have to
Speaker 5: fight this. There's just that double whammy. But that is
Speaker 5: amazing to hear that such an event, which is an
Speaker 5: international event, was able to push forward that conversation.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I really think, like shout out to all of
Speaker 1: those people who I don't even say. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: think they took the space for themselves and I think
Speaker 1: that was the right thing to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, awesome, that's that's amazing. And we were discussing before
Speaker 2: this one. This is a topic that is so important
Speaker 2: that you brought to us today. It's a bit of
Speaker 2: a downer, but it's incredibly important and I think like
Speaker 2: we're going to have a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 2: of nuance with this that I appreciate that you brought
Speaker 2: to it. So what did you bring for us to
Speaker 2: discuss today, Bridget.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you said, it's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: rough topic. So you know, we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about sexual assault and you know, domestic violence and abuse,
Speaker 1: So just know that going forward. So you know, my
Speaker 1: podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet is really
Speaker 1: all about the ways that issues that maybe don't seem
Speaker 1: like tech issues, issues that impact women and other traditionally
Speaker 1: marginalized people. You know, they might not be seen as
Speaker 1: tech issues, but they're very much tech issues. And today's topic,
Speaker 1: I think is a really great example of what I mean.
Speaker 1: So today I want to talk about the platform YouTube
Speaker 1: and their failure to remove a video of actor and
Speaker 1: activist Evan Rachel would being sexually assaulted. So it is
Speaker 1: really important to me, you know, as someone who makes
Speaker 1: a tech podcast and cares about technology and works on technology,
Speaker 1: to talk about this and especially frame it not as
Speaker 1: kind of a quote celebrity story, which I've seen it
Speaker 1: really framed as, or even worse as a quote he said,
Speaker 1: she said, which is obviously not correct because that kind
Speaker 1: of framing, I think really lets tech companies that are
Speaker 1: involved off the hook. I'm sure these tech companies like
Speaker 1: YouTube would love it if this story was not framed
Speaker 1: as a tech accountability story and was just a sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, celebrity story, But unfortunately for them, that's I'm
Speaker 1: not framing it that way. I am framing it as
Speaker 1: a tech accountability story because that's what I believe that
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 5: That's amazing because we literally were just talking about an
Speaker 5: episode which came out with which TikTok I talked about
Speaker 5: the fact.
Speaker 4: That are allowing these really bad, like.
Speaker 5: Really misogynistic jokes about killing women on dates essentially and
Speaker 5: allowing it and saying it's not violating anything is just
Speaker 5: a joke, and it's kind of like, wait, where's the
Speaker 5: accountability know you are allowing this rhetoric that people are
Speaker 5: just latching onto, which is so toxic and harmful and
Speaker 5: dangerous for women in general. So we need to have
Speaker 5: a conversation about why you are accountable for these things.
Speaker 5: But I digress. Let's hear about exactly what you're talking about,
Speaker 5: especially with the Evan Rachel Wood. I think I know
Speaker 5: a little bit about it, but if you can just
Speaker 5: kind of go into.
Speaker 1: That absolutely, So here's what's happening with Evan Rachel Wood.
Speaker 1: Basically would have spent a few years now advocating for
Speaker 1: survivors of sexual violence and abuse, and when she's done this,
Speaker 1: she's often referenced her own, you know, heretofore unnamed abuser.
Speaker 1: But on February first, twenty twenty one, Wood publicly named
Speaker 1: her abuser in a message on Instagram. She wrote, the
Speaker 1: name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to
Speaker 1: the role as Marilyn Manson. He started grooming me as
Speaker 1: a teenager and horrifically abused me for years. I am
Speaker 1: here to expose this dangerous man and call out the
Speaker 1: many industries that have enabled him before he ruins any
Speaker 1: more lives. And so a quick note for people who
Speaker 1: are listening, you will probably be more familiar with Brian
Speaker 1: Warner as his stage name as a musician Marilyn Manson.
Speaker 1: But I am not going to call him Marilyn Manson
Speaker 1: in this episode, and I have basically stopped calling him
Speaker 1: Marilyn Manson in general, because I think it adds to
Speaker 1: this mythology that Brian Warner has created around himself, and
Speaker 1: I believe that he has exploited that mythology to continue
Speaker 1: to abuse women. I'll talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: what I mean later in the episode, but when I
Speaker 1: say Warner Brian Warner, I'm referring to the musician whose
Speaker 1: stage name is Marilyn Manson, whose actual name is Brian Warner.
Speaker 1: And Evan rachel Wood is not alone. Several women, including
Speaker 1: women who are not famous and don't have a public
Speaker 1: profile like she does, have made similar claims against Warner.
Speaker 1: So far, sixteen women have accused Warner of sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: and four have sued him for sexual assault. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I said earlier that people were mistakenly framing it as
Speaker 1: that he said she said, so even though that framing
Speaker 1: is not correct, Even if that is how you were
Speaker 1: framing it, it wouldn't really be a he said. She said,
Speaker 1: it would be more like a he said, she said,
Speaker 1: she said, she said, she said, you know, sixteen times
Speaker 1: up at the very least exactly. I mean, like who
Speaker 1: even knows, you know, this is what we know about.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I remember when this came out and
Speaker 2: when it first came out this kind of news, but
Speaker 2: it's recently I saw it come up again that Warner
Speaker 2: is kind of pursuing a legal a legal battle of
Speaker 2: his own against her. So can you go into more
Speaker 2: like what is going on right now?
Speaker 1: Right so this you know, we were talking about this
Speaker 1: when Evan Rachel would first named Warner as her abuser
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty one. But the reason why we're
Speaker 1: talking about it right now is because Evan Rachel would
Speaker 1: just released a new documentary. But you can watch on
Speaker 1: HBO Max the two part documentary called Phoenix Rising that
Speaker 1: really chronicles her story. As you might imagine, it is
Speaker 1: a difficult watch. I watched the first part of it
Speaker 1: and I had to take a break from the second part,
Speaker 1: which I was watching last night, because it's a little
Speaker 1: I mean, as you might imagine, it's not the easiest watch,
Speaker 1: So just if you're planning on a watching it, just
Speaker 1: know that. So the movie, it's it's interesting in that
Speaker 1: it starts ostensibly as a kind of Aaron Brockovich style
Speaker 1: story chronicling Wood's successful campaign to pass the Phoenix Act,
Speaker 1: which is an legislation that extends the statue of limitations
Speaker 1: on domestic bias in California. But during filming, when Wood
Speaker 1: publicly names Warner as her own abuser, the film begins
Speaker 1: to follow that aftermath, and so the documentary really chronicles
Speaker 1: her upbringing her her work to become a you know,
Speaker 1: survivor advocate and a domestic domestic abuse advocate, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to pass this legislation, and then kind of pivots
Speaker 1: when we see her publicly name Warner as this person
Speaker 1: who had abused her that she had been referencing as
Speaker 1: her abuser for so long in that work.
Speaker 5: And I know when we were originally seeing all of
Speaker 5: this come out, because I remember seeing her testify before
Speaker 5: the name was coming out in front of the Senate,
Speaker 5: trying to talk about the statute of limitations and going
Speaker 5: into this whole conversation, and how quickly after the fact
Speaker 5: she shown herself as the survivor advocate, and she named him.
Speaker 5: How many people came behind her like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: this is why this is familiar as well as the
Speaker 5: fact when she described some of the events that happened
Speaker 5: to her, many women already came out because they had
Speaker 5: gone through some similar things, including how they met. So
Speaker 5: can you kind of talk about their relationship specifically Warner
Speaker 5: and Woods.
Speaker 1: I really like how you have framed that, because I
Speaker 1: think that in her situation, so many other women spoke
Speaker 1: up and said, this was exactly what happened with me.
Speaker 1: He did this to me, you know her, And I
Speaker 1: also think just her situation is really familiar to me.
Speaker 1: And I think anybody who has dealt with domestic violence
Speaker 1: or sexual abuse by an intimate partner, the way that
Speaker 1: he operated in the beginning might be kind of familiar.
Speaker 1: So Wood and Warner met at a party at Chatau
Speaker 1: when she was eighteen and he was thirty seven. They
Speaker 1: maintained a platonic friendship where Warner would talk to her
Speaker 1: about things like her favorite books and her favorite artists.
Speaker 1: Then the two started to date. Now, she describes this
Speaker 1: as a kind of grooming and love bombing situation where
Speaker 1: you know early on, he was referring to her as
Speaker 1: his soulmate and really was making her feel like he
Speaker 1: was the only one who really got her, really loved her.
Speaker 1: Early on, she describes him kind of starting to isolate
Speaker 1: her from her friends and family, and that was the
Speaker 1: beginning stages of their early romantic relationship. And so at
Speaker 1: this point, you know, you might be thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: why would someone like Evan Rachel would get involved romantically
Speaker 1: with someone like Warner who was known for these shocking,
Speaker 1: kind of gross antics on stage. And that kind of
Speaker 1: really goes back to why I'm not going to call
Speaker 1: him quote Marilyn Manson, And I think that big part
Speaker 1: of that is because Warner's public persona, as Marilyn Manson,
Speaker 1: it really helped him get away with gross abusive behavior
Speaker 1: in public. So if you were a young person like
Speaker 1: me in the nineties, you might remember that after the
Speaker 1: Columbine school shooting in nineteen ninety nine, Warner was legitimately
Speaker 1: unfairly blamed for the deaths of fifteen young people after
Speaker 1: it was misreported that the Columbine shooters were big fans
Speaker 1: of his music and that his music motivated them in
Speaker 1: the shooting. At this time, politicians were lobbying to have
Speaker 1: his performance as banned, citing these really over the top, exaggerated, outlandish,
Speaker 1: untrue claims things like at his shows, that he would
Speaker 1: have the security guards spike the drinking water at the
Speaker 1: shows and give it to young kids in the audience,
Speaker 1: or that he was engaging in bestiality on stage, or
Speaker 1: like ripping apart animals. Warner's legal team actually sent the
Speaker 1: American Family Association a cease and desist for saying that
Speaker 1: he encouraged kids to engage in violent sexual acts from
Speaker 1: the stage in the audience. And so none of that
Speaker 1: was true, and Warner countered these legit unearned, unfair responses
Speaker 1: to the that his music postes to kids by doing
Speaker 1: these sort of very thoughtful, measured interviews where he was
Speaker 1: able to portray himself indirect opposition to this outlandish onstage
Speaker 1: persona that these politicians and conservative figures were sort of demonizing.
Speaker 1: And so as he was being demonized by these people
Speaker 1: and sort of you know, them making up these outlandish
Speaker 1: exaggerations and claims about him, he was able to really
Speaker 1: present himself as this measured, thoughtful, reasonable person And one
Speaker 1: interview that really sticks out to me If anyone has
Speaker 1: seen the documentary Michael Morris Bowling for Columbine, there's a
Speaker 1: ZiT down segment with Marilyn Manson where he says things like, oh,
Speaker 1: the young people who perpetrated at the Columbine shooting would
Speaker 1: have been safer had they purchased my CDs, you know,
Speaker 1: rather than buying guns. And so he came I remember specifically,
Speaker 1: he comes off as this very thoughtful, measured, nuanced guy,
Speaker 1: and it really created this, I don't know, this sort
Speaker 1: of portrayal of him as someone who was being unfairly maligned,
Speaker 1: and thus some of his other behavior was really able
Speaker 1: to go unscrutinized because it was so clear he was
Speaker 1: being unfairly demonized for this behavior that he never actually
Speaker 1: engaged in, Like he wasn't actually spiking the drinking water
Speaker 1: at his shows and having sex with animals on stage right.
Speaker 2: And I know we're gonna get into this more later
Speaker 2: because I have a lot of thoughts about all of this,
Speaker 2: and as I said, you do such a great job
Speaker 2: of like there are a lot of nuances to this conversation.
Speaker 2: But I remember I listened to Marilyn Manson when I
Speaker 2: was really young, and I had a friend who was
Speaker 2: her parents were really conservative, and they know joke, showed
Speaker 2: up at my mom's house and yelled at my mom
Speaker 2: for letting their daughter listen to it, and it became
Speaker 2: such a point of it, Like it didn't have to
Speaker 2: become this point, but it became such a point of like, oh,
Speaker 2: you you conservatives don't get it.
Speaker 3: You're trying to like hold me town and you.
Speaker 2: Don't understand, and like, I feel so outcast and.
Speaker 3: You'll never get it.
Speaker 2: And their kind of outrage made it into a bigger
Speaker 2: thing than it would have.
Speaker 3: Been if they had never said anything.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I had the same exact experience, right,
Speaker 1: So I was a kid, I was in junior high.
Speaker 1: I'd a heydamn, I'll say, and you know, I was
Speaker 1: like an alte I wouldn't say I was like a
Speaker 1: goth kid, but I was, say, say, very alty. And
Speaker 1: I totally had the same experience. I ate up this
Speaker 1: idea that he was being unfairly persecuted, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: felt like I was being unfairly persecuted as this like
Speaker 1: weirdo alty kid as a junior high student. Never mind
Speaker 1: the fact that like that wasn't actually necessarily happening. That's
Speaker 1: just like how I felt because I was a teenager,
Speaker 1: and I think he really really used that exact thing
Speaker 1: as a way to avoid accountability for his other behavior.
Speaker 1: And I honestly I agree with you. You know, I
Speaker 1: listened to Warner's music a lot as a youth, and
Speaker 1: I really really liked him. Like at a poster, a
Speaker 1: Marilyn Manson poster in my locker next to a Prodigy
Speaker 1: poster to give me a whole Prodigy. Oh, I think that, Like,
Speaker 1: I listened to all different kinds of music, but the
Speaker 1: only music that had this kind of over the top, exaggerated,
Speaker 1: like uh climate around it was Marilyn Manson, And so
Speaker 1: that fed into the idea that he was being unfairly
Speaker 1: persecuted at the time. You know, I don't know if
Speaker 1: people remember what it was like to be a young
Speaker 1: person after Columbine, if you were like a little all
Speaker 1: te or if you were all black, it did kind
Speaker 1: of feel like, you know, the powers that be were
Speaker 1: cracking down on who you were in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: that shooting. And so I think that had there not
Speaker 1: have been such a backlash to the music Warner's music,
Speaker 1: would it has been another in a mixed bag of
Speaker 1: stuff that I liked. You know, I liked Prodigy, I
Speaker 1: liked some Spice girls. I like so many different things.
Speaker 1: But because of this over the top response to his music,
Speaker 1: it pushed me that much further into this kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know, dangerous vibe where he gets to position
Speaker 1: himself as unfairly persecuted and anybody who doesn't like him
Speaker 1: or his behavior is just you know, doesn't get it
Speaker 1: and doesn't get you eduten.
Speaker 4: Edreating. I'll like it. Well, I will say I was
Speaker 4: older than y'alls. I'm like, yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're not.
Speaker 5: Going to at the time frame on this, but I
Speaker 5: do find that interesting that we have this conversation because
Speaker 5: absolutely remembering all of the politicians coming in and saying
Speaker 5: this is this kind of that whole time frame around
Speaker 5: the matrix as well as video games and blaming all
Speaker 5: of these things, but also how they like to overdemonize
Speaker 5: kind of like how it's happening with QAnon and when
Speaker 5: we talked about sex trafficking and that they are doing
Speaker 5: so much theatrical things that make no sense that it's
Speaker 5: overshadowing the actual problems that are happening, and therefore exactly
Speaker 5: like taking attention away from the true through crimes or
Speaker 5: the things that are so horribly wrong, because it is
Speaker 5: being overshadowed by the caricature of accusations merely for a platform,
Speaker 5: merely for politics, and it's so obnoxious because yeah, because
Speaker 5: of that, Marilyn Manson got this credibility for being misunderstood
Speaker 5: a as you had already said. And then also he's
Speaker 5: able to use that now as a part of his
Speaker 5: defense today. But I know we're gonna be able to
Speaker 5: talk about that in a.
Speaker 1: Minute, absolutely, I mean. And then also, I mean, like
Speaker 1: what you just said, isn't it interesting how the American
Speaker 1: Family Association and all these politicians were trying to banish
Speaker 1: shows We never did much about guns though. That was
Speaker 1: just like we had the conversation about violent video games,
Speaker 1: the Matrix, black clothing, trench coats, Brian Warner, but not
Speaker 1: the guns. So it's exactly what you just said of
Speaker 1: kind of an intense overreach that reaches to the wrong cause,
Speaker 1: I guess. And then let's the real cause just go unanalyzed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's something that's been on our
Speaker 2: minds a lot lately. Is this idea of consent and
Speaker 2: how our environment is really set up where true consent
Speaker 2: for women is almost impossible, and this situation being such
Speaker 2: a grooming situation where you have this person coming in
Speaker 2: who's much older and who is showing you with attention.
Speaker 2: And I was saying recently on an episode, like I'm
Speaker 2: ashamed to admit it, but I shouldn't be because I
Speaker 2: was raised to be this way. But like when I
Speaker 2: was eighteen and people can't call me, I'd.
Speaker 3: Be like flattered. It's be good. Oh my gosh, I
Speaker 3: have desirability.
Speaker 2: That means I have value, and that put me in
Speaker 2: some unsafe situations.
Speaker 3: So this.
Speaker 1: I hate this.
Speaker 2: I hate that she was young and there was this
Speaker 2: older person that she respected and she was getting this
Speaker 2: attention and it's just absolutely predatory, absolutely praying on her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I I can really identify. I'll just
Speaker 1: say that. And it's one of those things where you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily realize it until you're older. And I mean
Speaker 1: it applies in this situation too. I want to be
Speaker 1: careful about how I speak about this because it is
Speaker 1: part of the conversation. But when Evan rachel Wood was
Speaker 1: in a relationship with Marilyn Manson early on, and keep
Speaker 1: in mind, she's eighteen, she's very young. I remember very
Speaker 1: clearly her in interview saying like, oh, people need to
Speaker 1: stop saying that I'm being taken advantage of or groomed.
Speaker 1: And I think it's easy for people to say, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: now we're supposed to believe her when she says that
Speaker 1: she's being that she was being groomed or coerse. Well,
Speaker 1: she was eighteen when that happened. She was eighteen when
Speaker 1: they met, Like, you're so young, and so it's completely
Speaker 1: tracks with my own personal experiences that you might not
Speaker 1: have the world experience or just the life experience, or
Speaker 1: you know, your own understanding of your place in the
Speaker 1: world at eighteen. It might take a few years for
Speaker 1: you to look back on that and say, hey, I
Speaker 1: was being coerced, or hey, you know I is being groomed,
Speaker 1: or hey, some things happened that shouldn't have happened, and
Speaker 1: I didn't have the language or the voice yet to
Speaker 1: say I don't want this to happen. And I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why this story is one
Speaker 1: that needs to be told, because I think that's all
Speaker 1: of ours I think that's so many of our stories.
Speaker 1: It's so common. I think it's completely unfair to use
Speaker 1: that as a reason to not support survivors, not listen
Speaker 1: to survivors, because it is so common.
Speaker 5: Right, And I think that big portion of this conversation
Speaker 5: is that the early sexualization of young girls point blank
Speaker 5: is part of this problem because I know a lot
Speaker 5: of this conversation. When Evan Rachel Woods came out in
Speaker 5: her acting career, she was thirteen fourteen and came out
Speaker 5: with this big indie film that pretty much talked about
Speaker 5: young women growing older real quick, trying to survive and
Speaker 5: think the way to survive is to be sexual and
Speaker 5: grown like that was the whole basis of the movie,
Speaker 5: which that's the whole conversation in itself. But because of that,
Speaker 5: because of things like that, that's where she came into
Speaker 5: the eighteen year old and no one listening to the
Speaker 5: fact that this is grooming like I don't care if
Speaker 5: she's legal now, which is which is a bullshit term.
Speaker 5: The whole barely legal bulls that I really want to
Speaker 5: punch everybody in the face every time they say it.
Speaker 5: That's that conversation is really sexualizing these young girls and
Speaker 5: telling them they are of more worth because they're acting grown,
Speaker 5: because they are finally in their way of being a
Speaker 5: woman and finding out and not having the support and
Speaker 5: understanding or people even letting her know the whole concept
Speaker 5: of consent and why that is a big conversation that
Speaker 5: needed to be had way back when, and because of
Speaker 5: that feeling trapped because she is being told this is
Speaker 5: what you put yourself in. You knew what you were
Speaker 5: getting into, which is the formula of all of the
Speaker 5: victim blaming which we see today that has not gone away.
Speaker 5: That's for some reason is used by everyone, not just men,
Speaker 5: women all between you, because it's so hard to let
Speaker 5: go of that internalized misogyny of saying, but you knew.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And she explicitly says that in some of the
Speaker 1: things that experiences that happened to her that we'll talk
Speaker 1: about in a moment, like she explicitly says exactly what
Speaker 1: you're referencing that you know, she had internalized that she
Speaker 1: was meant to just go along with whatever, and that
Speaker 1: was that was like what she was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And that is something that I think that we all
Speaker 1: internalize and we have to sort of like I know
Speaker 1: that I have a lot of unlearning to do around,
Speaker 1: you know, at like saying no when something doesn't feel
Speaker 1: right or when you know. And for me it has
Speaker 1: been a lifelong process, and so it sounds like for
Speaker 1: her she had to learn that as well. And as
Speaker 1: you said, I mean, it starts so early, and eighteen
Speaker 1: really is so young.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: She talks about how when she first met Brian Warner,
Speaker 1: she said that she really liked him and what he
Speaker 1: stood for, and she wrote in his in her journal
Speaker 1: that she thought that he was the hero and the
Speaker 1: spokesperson of misfits, and I it just really does sound
Speaker 1: like he did a very good job of making her
Speaker 1: feel like that was true, that she maybe felt like
Speaker 1: a misfit, and that he was an advocate for people
Speaker 1: who felt like they didn't belong, and that he really
Speaker 1: used that persona to continue to abuse women and girls
Speaker 1: pretty much in public. There's this great piece in the
Speaker 1: Atlantic that sums it up nicely called Marilyn Manson told
Speaker 1: us what he was. It sums it up very nicely,
Speaker 1: they write, if we believe would and more than a
Speaker 1: dozen women who have accused Manson of abuse. Then a
Speaker 1: strange twist is that the aftermath of Columbine seems to
Speaker 1: have enabled Manson to become what Wood's brother describes in
Speaker 1: the documentary as quote a wolf and wolf's clothing. The
Speaker 1: hysterical invented accusations leveled at Manson then that he molested
Speaker 1: children on stage, killed animals, had a security guard's drug underage,
Speaker 1: fans with liquid ecstasy minimized other things that might have
Speaker 1: been happening in plain sight. But they also allowed Manson
Speaker 1: to detach his artistic persona from himself and allowed others
Speaker 1: to infer that anything offensive he did was just performance art,
Speaker 1: winking commentary on America's hypocritical and a moral core. And
Speaker 1: that to me really sums up why I'm not comfortable
Speaker 1: calling him quote Marilyn Manson, because you know, inventing this
Speaker 1: persona and saying that it's performance art should not be
Speaker 1: a way to avoid and excuse accountability for your own
Speaker 1: abusive behavior. And I believe that's what the Maryland Manson
Speaker 1: persona has allowed him to do.
Speaker 4: Right, Hello, Kanye West.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, thank you. I mean, it's all part of
Speaker 1: the same, like abusive ball of yarn, right right, genius
Speaker 1: artistic like it's I could talk all day about this,
Speaker 1: but it's all like two sides of the same messed
Speaker 1: up coin.
Speaker 5: Well, that's what I'm referencing that Kanye literally is hiding
Speaker 5: a little bit behind Brian Warner about bringing him on
Speaker 5: stage and putting him as like he's an ally because
Speaker 5: we're the same, and you're like, yeah, you are.
Speaker 4: That should tell you something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like, I remember, I had forgotten until you
Speaker 1: just mentioned that he brought him up on stage during
Speaker 1: his visas tour, and you know, I think it was
Speaker 1: meant to be like all of these malign people who
Speaker 1: don't understand our genius, and it's like, you're right, I
Speaker 1: don't understand your genius.
Speaker 5: I think it's abusive, yes, yes, And I think you're
Speaker 5: hiding behind that to get away with it.
Speaker 4: And that's problem.
Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly exactly, this is his thing. In interviews, Warner
Speaker 1: pretty much is open and in public about some of
Speaker 1: the abusive behavior that he has put Wood through. You know,
Speaker 1: he's in a pretty notorious Spin interview. He talks about
Speaker 1: how he fantasized about smashing her head with a sledgehammer,
Speaker 1: or how after they broke up and she stopped taking
Speaker 1: his calls that every time I called her that day,
Speaker 1: and I called her one hundred and fifty eight times.
Speaker 1: I took a razor blade and cut myself on my
Speaker 1: face and on my hands. But then later he is
Speaker 1: able to say, oh, well, I didn't really mean those things,
Speaker 1: or I didn't really feel those things. I didn't actually
Speaker 1: do those I was just playing a character. And I
Speaker 1: believe that that excuse allows him to skirt accountability for
Speaker 1: his actual behavior. As Brian Warner. You can't say that, oh,
Speaker 1: that was just me playing a rock and roll character
Speaker 1: who was Marilon Manson when you have an actual partner
Speaker 1: who is accusing you of abusing her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's really terrifying because we're also seeing this
Speaker 2: in politics, where I'm seeing politicians being like, oh, that
Speaker 2: was just a joke and you didn't get it right,
Speaker 2: like doing that same sort of thing, and that's been
Speaker 2: that's been really damaging. And also I again, I grew
Speaker 2: up listening to a lot of like punk rock and
Speaker 2: emo of the like two thousands, early two thousands, and
Speaker 2: we were just talking about this, like the a lot
Speaker 2: of the lyrics in that which is a lot of
Speaker 2: men singing about like pretty much hating women and blaming
Speaker 2: them for their sort of violent actions.
Speaker 3: And then and also the TikTok thing you were talking
Speaker 3: about to man, this is the same thing.
Speaker 2: We're seeing it again like being like, no, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's just that's just who I am.
Speaker 3: That's my art, that's how expressed myself. You took it
Speaker 3: too seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I completely agree. And maybe it's just
Speaker 1: because I'm older now I'm going back and thinking, like, wow,
Speaker 1: I was listening to music that was like there's this
Speaker 1: brand new song where he's like, have another drink and
Speaker 1: drive yourself home. I hope there's ice on all the rooms.
Speaker 1: And it's like that's pretty like like I would say,
Speaker 1: a very young person screaming along to lyrics that were
Speaker 1: pretty dark, and I you know, I'm someone who like
Speaker 1: I love I love music, and I think people should
Speaker 1: listen to what moves them, but we should also be
Speaker 1: a little critical about whether, like that what that was,
Speaker 1: and if that was okay. There's actually a TikToker. I
Speaker 1: can't remember her name off off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but she goes back and replays kind of like scream
Speaker 1: o punk bands from or you know, from that era,
Speaker 1: and unpacks the ways that they are really unfair to women.
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh wow, I had no idea that
Speaker 1: I was basically singing along happily for an anthem that's
Speaker 1: like about disrespecting women. And I'm a woman, you know.
Speaker 5: Right, I mean any and I have been talking about
Speaker 5: this for a lot while, about the romanticizing of abuse,
Speaker 5: as if it's something like that that should be a
Speaker 5: part of your relationship and not understanding this is really
Speaker 5: not good. These like the constant phone calls not great,
Speaker 5: the I'm gonna kill myself if you don't love me back,
Speaker 5: like this whole level of like, oh my god, what
Speaker 5: is happening? And we've allowed that to be because somehow
Speaker 5: we've allowed that to be romanticized in our head?
Speaker 4: Is this is true love?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: Like, this is what it means to be in love,
Speaker 5: to want to die if we're not together. And then
Speaker 5: going beyond that for men, be like, if I really
Speaker 5: want you, I have to show you my power, and
Speaker 5: my power maids me hurting you maybe or someone else
Speaker 5: for sure, in order to show you that I am
Speaker 5: the man who can protect you quote unquote in so
Speaker 5: many different ways, and like its kind of this whole
Speaker 5: other trope that we've allowed to be Yeah, that's just
Speaker 5: men being men. This is this is normal, this is good, right,
Speaker 5: and no one really questioning until after the fact of realizing,
Speaker 5: oh my god, there's so much trauma here.
Speaker 4: Why did we think this was okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I completely agree, and we should really be asking
Speaker 1: the question about what we depict as romantic. And I
Speaker 1: think something that you said I can't stop thinking about
Speaker 1: is that it starts so young, Like how many of
Speaker 1: you all remember when if you're a girl and then
Speaker 1: maybe a guy when you were a kid pushes you
Speaker 1: on the playground, and some adult somewhere is like, well,
Speaker 1: it's probably because he likes you that right, you know,
Speaker 1: Like we should not be it happened so early that
Speaker 1: we make it okay when quote unquote affection or love
Speaker 1: is actually abuse and I should really be asking questions
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 5: But honestly, I just one of my go to comfort
Speaker 5: movies that I kind of tease about all the times
Speaker 5: of Rabituy, and recently, I like, there's a scene in
Speaker 5: it and I was like, oh my god, why did
Speaker 5: we allow this? In which the rat comes through the
Speaker 5: roof and do you see a couple fighting with a gun?
Speaker 5: It goes off and he's like, oh my god, it
Speaker 5: goes back and they're kissing and making out and he
Speaker 5: just he just laughs and shrugs and walks off, And
Speaker 5: I'm like.
Speaker 1: Is that okay? This is wait.
Speaker 5: Like we're not even gonna talk about how people are
Speaker 5: really upset about periods, but this is okay.
Speaker 4: This scene has made it.
Speaker 5: But you know, like this is that level of like
Speaker 5: it literally with just a blip in the screen of
Speaker 5: a very g rated movie and it's romanticized, like ah,
Speaker 5: but there they just love each other.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's just one of those one one more couple
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know how you know how marriage is the
Speaker 1: gun kissing, you know, the gun goes off and that
Speaker 1: you forget about it.
Speaker 4: Everything is fine.
Speaker 5: But that's the thing is, like what are we teaching?
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't want to be one of those
Speaker 5: people like that water is this movie teaching? But like
Speaker 5: that is it's become so normalized in these conversations that
Speaker 5: women really truly a girl, young girls really truly think
Speaker 5: this is the epitome of being a woman. This is
Speaker 5: the epitome of being in a relationship. Tough times means
Speaker 5: he hits me, but I forgive him, Like that's that
Speaker 5: conversation until you realize, oh my god, I couldn't see
Speaker 5: it until I left, and until I figured out talking
Speaker 5: to other women how it was not just him loving me,
Speaker 5: that this is him controlling women in general, exactly exactly that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, gosh, I feel like we could go. I we
Speaker 2: need inventing session. We need a podcast for this event
Speaker 2: because I'm like, yeah, let's talk about how we're not.
Speaker 3: Allowing for consent and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: So I know we're not going to go too deep
Speaker 2: into the but could you go kind of briefly into
Speaker 2: what Wood says about what Warner put her through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the list of abuses that he put her through
Speaker 1: are truly horrifying. I honestly don't want to Like. This
Speaker 1: is why I couldn't finish the documentary because it's a lot,
Speaker 1: so I don't want to spend too much time on
Speaker 1: it because they really are sickening. But among them are
Speaker 1: the allegations that Warner, who Wood says, collected Nazi memorabilia,
Speaker 1: so just a really great guy would whip her with
Speaker 1: a Nazi whip and would her mother is Jewish and
Speaker 1: she was raised Jewish herself, and so this is obviously
Speaker 1: really messed up. She says that he also deprived her
Speaker 1: of sleep, forced her to drink his blood in a
Speaker 1: blood pack where he also drank hers, raped her while
Speaker 1: she was sleeping, forced her to take drugs, and a
Speaker 1: lot more of the abuse. She says, I felt my
Speaker 1: brain change. I felt it almost calcify. And the world
Speaker 1: is never the same, and it's just the list of
Speaker 1: And I should also say that the kinds of things
Speaker 1: that she says that he put her through, other women
Speaker 1: who also so dated him say the same thing. And
Speaker 1: so it's a lot of the same kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: Like other women that she talks to have said that
Speaker 1: he branded her or like carved things into their body
Speaker 1: like it's horrifying allegations, and so I should mention that
Speaker 1: Warner he denies these allegations, and he says that Wood
Speaker 1: has been contacting and coercing women into saying they were
Speaker 1: abused by him. He is currently suing Wood and her
Speaker 1: Phoenix Rising contributor Il mcgore. According to Time, he is
Speaker 1: accusing the women of a quote conspiracy in service of
Speaker 1: which they supposedly quote secretly recruited, coordinated, and pressured perspective
Speaker 1: accusers to emerge simultaneously with allegations of rape and abuse
Speaker 1: against Warner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I find it interesting that we have like sixteen
Speaker 2: women at least coming out around the same time, and
Speaker 2: we're as a society it seems so much more ready
Speaker 2: to be Like, but there's this video of her at
Speaker 2: eighteen saying she was into it, right, So that's all lies.
Speaker 2: She manufactured this whole thing, and he is downtrouding and
Speaker 2: once again the one that is getting unwarranted.
Speaker 1: Exactly, women don't make this kind of stuff up. This
Speaker 1: idea that they would be simultaneously trying to come together
Speaker 1: to come up with these lies about him. Why, Like,
Speaker 1: who would do that? Who would want the kind of
Speaker 1: scrutiny that comes with being a public survivor of this
Speaker 1: kind of abuse? Who would welcome that into their lives?
Speaker 1: Some of these women are also, you know, not public figures.
Speaker 1: People don't make this kind of thing up, Like it
Speaker 1: is so rare for people to make up allegations of
Speaker 1: this kind of abuse that it just let alone sixteen
Speaker 1: different people just like it just doesn't cold water. It
Speaker 1: just isn't the way it works.
Speaker 5: And again, probably more than sixteen that's coming out but
Speaker 5: the conversation is too that the actual events and abuse
Speaker 5: were so similar to each other. Even the Game of
Speaker 5: Thrones act or somethink as may Bianca, I think it's
Speaker 5: her name, she had similar stories to Woods, like being
Speaker 5: deprived of food, being electrocuted, like there are so many things.
Speaker 4: It's like, this is beyond just Maybes.
Speaker 5: And I do remember that he had one partner who
Speaker 5: actually was like that didn't happen to me, and people
Speaker 5: latched onto that story. It's so hard and it was
Speaker 5: kind of like, but that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't
Speaker 5: mean It just negates the entirety of the story of
Speaker 5: who he is at this point in time. And I
Speaker 5: can't stand this because it also comes back to the
Speaker 5: point of demonizing these women and shaming them in every
Speaker 5: way possible, taking any work of art that they did
Speaker 5: so as actors who may have portrayed a nude scene
Speaker 5: at any point in time, See, she's a slut, how
Speaker 5: she obviously.
Speaker 4: She knew what she was getting into.
Speaker 5: This whole level of conversations where they just completely try
Speaker 5: to discredit someone based on this and really feeling like,
Speaker 5: obviously these women are doing it for attention, when it
Speaker 5: actually hurt a lot of their careers. Evan Rachel was
Speaker 5: for a long time, was out of so many things,
Speaker 5: out of projects because of the trauma alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he did have a ex partner say he
Speaker 1: was always nice to me. And I'm not going to
Speaker 1: discount what she's saying. But as we know, you know,
Speaker 1: someone being nice to you doesn't mean that they are
Speaker 1: never abusive to other people. And so people absolutely latched
Speaker 1: onto that. And you're absolutely right that it certainly has
Speaker 1: not helped the careers or the trajectories of the people
Speaker 1: who are speaking out. And it's just like that's not
Speaker 1: how it works, Like people don't lie about this kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It does not help. It hurt Evan Rachel
Speaker 1: would to come out, She risked a lot to come out,
Speaker 1: and this idea that, oh, they're doing it for attention.
Speaker 1: Who would want this kind of attention?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Who?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: And also let's talk about the side that.
Speaker 5: Warner is not in jail exactly right if he was
Speaker 5: on a damn Kanye West show.
Speaker 1: Ugh, I hate it, I need it. So you might
Speaker 1: be wondering, well, okay, in what way is this a
Speaker 1: tech issue? And so there is one specific incident in
Speaker 1: the abuse that Wood talks about that I want to
Speaker 1: focus on right now, and that is the music video
Speaker 1: for Warner's song heart Shaped Glasses. That music video features
Speaker 1: Evan Rachel Wood. She was in that video when she
Speaker 1: was nineteen years old, and he kind of casts her
Speaker 1: as a modern day Lolita because apparently the story goes
Speaker 1: that she was wearing these heart shaped sunglasses at the
Speaker 1: party where they met, and in you know, Lolita wears
Speaker 1: heart shaped sunglasses in the book, and so in the documentary,
Speaker 1: Wood says, to the music video, we were doing things
Speaker 1: that were not what was pitched to me. We had
Speaker 1: discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling,
Speaker 1: he started penetrating me for real, and she goes on
Speaker 1: to say it was a really traumatizing experience filming the video.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to advocate for myself or how
Speaker 1: to say no because I had been conditioned and trained
Speaker 1: to never talk back to just soldier through I felt disgusting,
Speaker 1: like I had done something shameful, and I could tell
Speaker 1: the crew was very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do.
Speaker 1: I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses.
Speaker 1: That was first crime committed against me and I was
Speaker 1: essentially raped on camera. And so, according to Wood, the
Speaker 1: music video for Heart Shaped Glasses is actually a video
Speaker 1: of her rape, and that video is available, not to mention,
Speaker 1: monetized on the platform YouTube as we speak. Anybody who
Speaker 1: wants to go see it can look it up. And
Speaker 1: so Warner's campus they deny these allegations, and they say
Speaker 1: that Wood was coherent and involved in the planning of
Speaker 1: the video. They say, of all the false claims that
Speaker 1: Rachel Evan Woods made about Brian Warner, her imaginative retelling
Speaker 1: of the making of the Heart Shaped class As music
Speaker 1: video fifteen years ago is the most brazen and easy
Speaker 1: to disprove because there were multiple witnesses. So they maintain
Speaker 1: that the scenes in that video were actually simulated. However,
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone spoke to a crew member from the video
Speaker 1: shoot under the condition of anonymity, who corroborated Wood's claim saying,
Speaker 1: I do believe that there were some moments of actual
Speaker 1: intercourse and so that for me is really how this
Speaker 1: becomes a tech issue and a tech accountability issue, is that,
Speaker 1: according to Wood, YouTube is promoting housing and monetizing a
Speaker 1: video of where she says she was being sexually assaulted,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I'm inclined to believer. And so the question
Speaker 1: is what is YouTube going to do about this? Are
Speaker 1: they going to just allow a video of a sexual
Speaker 1: assault to be on their platform and continue to profit
Speaker 1: off of it? I would say if that's the choice
Speaker 1: they're making, it's pretty questionable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm afraid to ask. I'm going to said the
Speaker 2: choice they're making.
Speaker 1: I you know, YouTube, they quickly took the video down
Speaker 1: and then they made a donation to anti rape organizations.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, just kidding, they do any of that. They
Speaker 1: basically so there's a change dot or petition with over
Speaker 1: fifty thousand signatures calling for YouTube to remove the video,
Speaker 1: and Evan Rachel would share this petition and they pretty
Speaker 1: much have signaled that they're not going to take it down.
Speaker 1: Their spokesperson, Jack Malone says, we're monitoring the situation closely
Speaker 1: and will take a appropriate action if we determine there
Speaker 1: is a breach of our creator responsibility guidelines. And so
Speaker 1: this is really why I see this as a tech
Speaker 1: accountability issue. You know, YouTube, like most online platforms, have
Speaker 1: community guidelines that users have to follow, and according to
Speaker 1: those community guidelines. Content that includes quote non consensual sex
Speaker 1: acts and unwanted sexualization is very much against their own
Speaker 1: stated community guidelines. The community guidelines in terms of service
Speaker 1: says that a user can have monetization suspended or have
Speaker 1: their entire channel terminated if their behavior away from the
Speaker 1: platform harms YouTube users, and so to me, it seems
Speaker 1: pretty clear they have publicly stated that their community guidelines
Speaker 1: prevent non consensual sex acts or unwanted sexualization in their content.
Speaker 1: And here we have a video where Evan Rachel Woods
Speaker 1: says this is exactly that, and yet they're continuing to
Speaker 1: host this video and profit off of it because we
Speaker 1: know that's how YouTube makes their money. It's from advertisements
Speaker 1: that are on the content hosted on their platform. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think that YouTube is really expecting people
Speaker 1: to only grapple with this as a quote celebrity story,
Speaker 1: not an issue of YouTube and their own adherence to
Speaker 1: what they say their community guidelines are. And you know,
Speaker 1: I really take issue with that. I really have not
Speaker 1: seen a lot of folks in the tech community talking
Speaker 1: about this story as an example a really clear example
Speaker 1: of YouTube, I think failing to create a reasonably safe
Speaker 1: environment for its users, and just for the.
Speaker 5: World right and out of curiosity, because I don't know
Speaker 5: much about how YouTube works, not tech savvy. Is Warner
Speaker 5: making money from this as well when he gets all
Speaker 5: these views?
Speaker 1: Oh, that is a good question. I actually wouldn't really,
Speaker 1: I'm actually not totally sure if he specifically is making
Speaker 1: money from these videos being hosted, but I do know
Speaker 1: that he has a YouTube account, and so just how
Speaker 1: monetization works, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not able to
Speaker 1: say one way or another, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1: I check to see if the video was on the
Speaker 1: platform before we started this talk, and you know, right
Speaker 1: before the video played there's ads, and so I can
Speaker 1: imagine I wouldn't be surprised if he is making money
Speaker 1: from that as another income stream. And yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: that's That's really the crux of why I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about this is that this is what happens when
Speaker 1: women and other traditionally marginalized people are not really meaningfully
Speaker 1: centered and reflected in tech. It allows one platforms to
Speaker 1: harm us and make money from our harm, and be
Speaker 1: able to do so without any kind of real accountability.
Speaker 1: And two, it allows for there are so many tech
Speaker 1: publications that are that are missing an opportunity to spotlight
Speaker 1: this as a tech issue in terms of the harm
Speaker 1: that YouTube is allowing to be spread on their platform.
Speaker 5: Right, I mean, that's the cole big conversation is that
Speaker 5: who is making money off of someb's trauma? And this
Speaker 5: is absolutely what is happening, is that they're making money
Speaker 5: off of it and giving views and giving credibility to
Speaker 5: the abuser once again as a musician. And this is
Speaker 5: such a whole other conversation of like, you have a
Speaker 5: responsibility in making sure that people are not continually re
Speaker 5: traumatized and or being harmed by your content. And yes,
Speaker 5: if it is your platform, you are responsible, point blank exactly.
Speaker 1: And I also think you know YouTube in their community
Speaker 1: guidelines to say, oh, we can take things down if
Speaker 1: there is a confession or a conviction. YouTube is owned
Speaker 1: by Google, right, Google is one of the biggest companies
Speaker 1: in the world. And how things work in the platform
Speaker 1: accountability space, when a huge player in the space does something,
Speaker 1: it creates pressure for other people to do things. And
Speaker 1: so if Google was to do something that would create
Speaker 1: the conditions for other smaller platforms to follow a suit
Speaker 1: because big platforms really do set the tone, and so
Speaker 1: I believe that a company like Google, who owns YouTube,
Speaker 1: should be able to say, we don't need to wait
Speaker 1: for Brian w to confess that he sexually assaulted Evan
Speaker 1: rachel Wood on the side of this video. We don't
Speaker 1: have to wait for a legal conviction. We are Google,
Speaker 1: and we can set the standard for what is it
Speaker 1: is not appropriate on our platform, and a video of
Speaker 1: someone being sexually assaulted is not appropriate. I believe that
Speaker 1: they're really just throwing up their hands and saying, not
Speaker 1: our problem. Call us when he confesses. Call us. If
Speaker 1: there's a conviction. We're gonna just ignore this and hope
Speaker 1: that you do too. I think they are absolutely just
Speaker 1: abdicating responsibility. And guess what, you don't get to do
Speaker 1: that when you're Google. When you're a huge company like Google,
Speaker 1: you have a responsibility that is very, very powerful, and
Speaker 1: you don't get to just say it's not our issue,
Speaker 1: We're gonna wait for the course to figure it out.
Speaker 1: We're gonna wait for him to confess. When you're Google.
Speaker 1: That is so irresponsible, and it sets up a dynamic
Speaker 1: where other platforms can follow suit. So it really is irresponsible,
Speaker 1: cowardly and also just harmful. And again, they're making money
Speaker 1: from this inaction. They're continuing to just let this video
Speaker 1: wrap up millions and millions and millions of views that
Speaker 1: are being made from a video of someone being sexually assaulted.
Speaker 5: And let's also point out that it's a video, not
Speaker 5: the entire artist, not his whole genre of music.
Speaker 4: One video. That was the request. It shouldn't be that.
Speaker 1: Hard, exactly, and I guess I just I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be this hard. And I want so desperately
Speaker 1: to believe that a different world for survivors is possible
Speaker 1: in the scheme of things. So small asking for one
Speaker 1: music video to be removed in the scheme of things,
Speaker 1: what is that, you know? I feel like that is
Speaker 1: such a small ask that a survivor has clearly made,
Speaker 1: and they're just able to say no. I want to
Speaker 1: believe in a world where survivors can expect more, survivors
Speaker 1: can expect dignity and respect and to be listened to
Speaker 1: and meaningfully centered. And I believe Google has a chance
Speaker 1: to do that that they're just giving away.
Speaker 5: Right, And it's exactly what you were saying, that this
Speaker 5: is a question of believing women respecting women. Let's say
Speaker 5: it was considual, just for the sake of argument, And
Speaker 5: she's like, I don't like this, because whatever happened beforehand
Speaker 5: in this relationship, it was traumatic.
Speaker 4: Please take it off. That should be enough.
Speaker 5: That should be enough without having to regurgitate the same
Speaker 5: experiences and tell them exactly how it hurt you, which
Speaker 5: is also traumatizing. It shouldn't have to be that we
Speaker 5: have to put on a fanfare for someone to believe
Speaker 5: that we are in pain point blank.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, we shouldn't have to scream just to be heard.
Speaker 1: You know. Today this week's episode of my podcast There
Speaker 1: Are No Girls with the Internet, we talked to a
Speaker 1: survivor and an advocate, Alison Turcos, who was sexually assaulted
Speaker 1: in a lift, and she talks so eloquently about how
Speaker 1: she is to regurgitate the most traumatic, painful thing that
Speaker 1: happened to her over and over and over again, and
Speaker 1: that we create a world where that is supposed to
Speaker 1: be the pathway for survivors to get justice. And I
Speaker 1: don't think that survivors A owe you their stories or
Speaker 1: B should have to relive this pain just to get
Speaker 1: anyone to do something. YouTube has the power. They could
Speaker 1: decide to take this one video down tomorrow. They take
Speaker 1: things down all the time for all different kinds of reasons.
Speaker 1: And I believe that making a survivor retell her pain
Speaker 1: in this way to then do nothing is just Survivors
Speaker 1: des are better, Survivors should be able to expect better.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean that's an excellent point because as
Speaker 2: someone who used to like upload YouTube videos a lot,
Speaker 2: and they'd get taken down all the time because the
Speaker 2: music was too close to other music. So it's like
Speaker 2: we're clearly I've been thinking this whole time as we've
Speaker 2: been talking about this, the messages that young girls are
Speaker 2: picking up from witnessing this from a celebrity that they
Speaker 2: and this is the response that she gets. And you know,
Speaker 2: we care more about copyright infringement than survivors and how
Speaker 2: that influences you and what you think is normal and
Speaker 2: what if you're going to report, which again that is
Speaker 2: very personal and complicated and does have a lot of
Speaker 2: fallout often, but also just this idea of men getting
Speaker 2: this kind of genius artistic card and the like women
Speaker 2: that they've left behind, this path of trauma that they
Speaker 2: left behind that we've determined is okay because we've got
Speaker 2: this art out of it. And that's what it takes.
Speaker 2: And I've done I've done some work in acting before,
Speaker 2: and it is very you will get that messaging hardcore
Speaker 2: where it's like, but this is going to be great,
Speaker 2: and this is going to launch your career, and this
Speaker 2: is what it takes. This is what you have to
Speaker 2: do because it's so competitive and oftentimes it's just like
Speaker 2: an excuse to take advantage of you and then you'll
Speaker 2: never hear from them again.
Speaker 1: God, like if you were in a So that's how
Speaker 1: it is in a lot of entertainment industries. Let's say
Speaker 1: that you were an accountant and someone was like, well,
Speaker 1: Joe is a really gifted accountant, so you're just gonna
Speaker 1: have to put up with him sexually assaulting you and
Speaker 1: physically abusing you and treating you horribly because he's just
Speaker 1: a really talented accountant. Uh No. And it should be
Speaker 1: the same way across industries. There shouldn't be these huge
Speaker 1: card outs for men to get away with abusive behavior
Speaker 1: and have that abusive behavior be repackaged and sold back
Speaker 1: to us as genius.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I completely agree that whether you are a musician, an actor,
Speaker 1: or an accountant, there should be some clear standards for
Speaker 1: how you are expected to behave. And you know, a
Speaker 1: music video is a workplace. You know that's that has
Speaker 1: a crew, It has people who are paid to be there,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's just no excuse for that. And
Speaker 1: I'm unwilling to accept that that's, you know, the marker
Speaker 1: of genius, or that we have to put up with
Speaker 1: men's powerful men, bad or abusive behavior to get great art. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just unwilling. That's unacceptable to me.
Speaker 3: Greed, Agreed, I can't wait. We gotta have a venting
Speaker 3: session on what I need it.
Speaker 1: Obviously I need it. I feel like we all do.
Speaker 3: I can feel it in me. Well.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, thanks so much for bringing this topic
Speaker 2: to us, Bridget and giving it the nuance that it deserves.
Speaker 3: Always appreciated. Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 1: Well? I would love it if you listen to my podcast.
Speaker 1: There are no girls on the internet. Not all of
Speaker 1: our conversations are about heavy, sad issues, but we would
Speaker 1: love to have you listen. You can check it out
Speaker 1: on this very network. iHeartRadio. Can follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Bridget Marie and DC or on Twitter at Bridget Marie.
Speaker 2: Yes, and definitely do that and we can't wait to
Speaker 2: talk some more Bridget.
Speaker 3: Maybe we got some other things in.
Speaker 2: The works coming up, very exciting, so look out for that.
Speaker 3: Listeners.
Speaker 2: If you would like to email us, you can. Our
Speaker 2: email is Seputia mob Stuff at hurt me dot com.
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at most podcasts, or
Speaker 2: on Instagram a stuff owner I have told you. Thanks
Speaker 2: is always to our super producer, Christina. We love you, Christina, Yes,
Speaker 2: and thanks to you for listening. Stuff Underver totally production
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Speaker 2: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 2: favorite shows.