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Speaker 1: Cool zone media.

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Speaker 2: Some kids played football. Homer built rockets. Everyone knows a

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Speaker 2: kid like that from high school, right Like, while you

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Speaker 2: were stone out of your mind slogging through the newest

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Speaker 2: Final Fantasy game and getting fingered at the latest worst

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Speaker 2: installment of Indiana Jones. Not speaking from experience, an ambitious

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Speaker 2: few were building fucking rockets. Such was the case for

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Speaker 2: Homer Hickam in the fall of nineteen fifty seven, when

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Speaker 2: he was just fourteen years old. And I know we're

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Speaker 2: supposed to be like, oh, a prodigy, but they're just

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Speaker 2: making the rest of us look bad, I mean, unbelievable.

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Speaker 2: But if there were ever a time for kids to

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Speaker 2: be interested in building rockets, this was the time. Nineteen

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Speaker 2: fifty seven marked the beginning of the space race between

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Speaker 2: the US and Russia, who, if you didn't know, are

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Speaker 2: totally cool with each other now. Spot Nick one, the

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Speaker 2: world's first artificial satellite, was launched by the USSR on

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Speaker 2: October five.

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Speaker 3: As if this weren't cool enough, they then launched a.

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Speaker 2: Damn dog into space shout out Laika that November. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: in Colewood, West Virginia, Homer Heckem tried his first rocket

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Speaker 2: experiment inspired by seeing Sputnik one launched. It was a

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Speaker 2: crude cherrybomb powered rocket made with a model airplane and

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Speaker 2: the tube of a flashlight, and it's his first time.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't work. The rocket explodes and never takes off.

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Speaker 2: To improve upon this, he decides to call in the

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Speaker 2: boys and get ready for some of the most mint

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Speaker 2: century American names you've ever heard. Homer calls in his buddies,

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Speaker 2: Quenton Wilson, Roy Lee cook, Sherman Sears, Jimmy O'Dell Carroll,

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Speaker 2: and Billy Rose, who all joined the fold to build

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Speaker 2: a rocket and get out of coalwood for good upon

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Speaker 2: graduating high school. The next rocket the group launches is

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Speaker 2: more successful.

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Speaker 3: They call it the Auk one and it flies six

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Speaker 3: entire feet from there.

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Speaker 2: They start calling their operation the Big Creek Missile Agency

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Speaker 2: and keep at developing these rockets for the next three years.

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Speaker 2: The space race continues in the background of all of this,

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Speaker 2: and the BCMA are hopeful that they may get jobs

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Speaker 2: at NASA after they get their college degrees. The first

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Speaker 2: US satellite, the Explorer, is launched in February nineteen fifty eight,

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Speaker 2: followed by the first group of astronauts announced in nineteen

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Speaker 2: fifty nine. That's the round with John Glenn, member him.

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Speaker 4: Loud and clear. He reports back to Mercury Control, reading

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Speaker 4: off his instruments, commenting on his reactions, all as coolly

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Speaker 4: and calmly as if he was commuting on the eight

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Speaker 4: twenty seven. Glenn is able to control the yaw and

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Speaker 4: pitch of the vehicle himself.

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Speaker 3: My dad was born that year. How fun.

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Speaker 2: The BCMA, now more frequently called the Rocket Boys persist.

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Speaker 2: They try out mixing different fuels with ingredients like zinc, dust, moonshine,

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Speaker 2: and sulfur, and they launch thirty five rockets in total

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Speaker 2: while still teenagers. The Boys' final year of high school,

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Speaker 2: they win a gold medal at the National Science Fair.

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Speaker 2: And at this point, if you're wondering, wait, isn't this

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Speaker 2: the plot to a Jake Gillenhall movie.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it is.

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Speaker 5: To everyone else, it was just a light in the sky.

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Speaker 1: Let him have out of space, we have rocket roll.

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Speaker 5: But to Homer Hickam, it was the future.

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Speaker 2: Sputnik is a milestone in.

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Speaker 6: History and just maybe a way out college scholarships.

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Speaker 7: Were winning a science fair, I'm rocket.

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Speaker 1: You'd better take an interest in your own town.

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Speaker 7: Just don't blow yourself up October Sky.

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Speaker 2: This is the plot to the movie October Sky, which

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Speaker 2: happens to be based on the memoir Rocket Boys by

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Speaker 2: Homer Hicckam. Also, Rocket Boys and October Sky are anagrams.

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Speaker 2: I just think that's fun.

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Speaker 7: So yes.

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Speaker 2: From a young age, Homer Hickam's place in history seems

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Speaker 2: kind of inevitable. He goes on to graduate from Virginia

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Speaker 2: Tech with a degree in industrial engineering.

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Speaker 3: He serves in the Vietnam War in the Army.

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Speaker 2: And he continues to work for the US Aviation and

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Speaker 2: Missile Command through the seventies only ethical things, I'm sure,

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Speaker 2: and then at long last, Homer joins NASA in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighties as an aerospace engineer. He's done it, and

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Speaker 2: his career there is a storied one. Homer has worked

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Speaker 2: with the Hubble space telescope, He's worked with the Space

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Speaker 2: Lab and Space Shuttle mission astronauts, and just before retiring

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Speaker 2: from NASA in nineteen ninety eight, he was the payload

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Speaker 2: training manager for the International fucking Space Station. But even

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Speaker 2: with this successful career at NASA, he still wasn't done.

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Speaker 2: Homer's memoir Rocket Boys went to number one on the

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Speaker 2: bestseller list in nineteen ninety eight. In October Sky the

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Speaker 2: Jake Gillenhall movie came out in ninety nine, which launched

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Speaker 2: Homer a long and successful writing career, writing in both

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Speaker 2: fiction and memoir. But he still isn't done almost twenty

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Speaker 2: years after retiring. In twenty seventeen, he was appointed to

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Speaker 2: the National Space Council by objectively horrible recently almost assassinated

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Speaker 2: former President Donald Trump. But as I would imagine, to

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Speaker 2: Homer Hickham's chagrin, it is in twenty eighteen, as far

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Speaker 2: as the entire Internet is concerned, that Homer Hickham the

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Speaker 2: Rocket Boy made his greatest historical contribution when he had

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Speaker 2: a now legendary run in with Twitter user Naomi H.

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Speaker 2: Because one thing about Homer Hickam is that he kept

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Speaker 2: up with the times.

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Speaker 3: In twenty eighteen, he had a.

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Speaker 2: Pretty act of Twitter account and tweeted mostly things related

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Speaker 2: to NASA or to his career. But in August twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 2: if they replied to a tweet from a user named

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Speaker 2: Naomi H, whose Twitter avatar is a gorgeous anthropomorphic deer

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Speaker 2: in front of a trans Pride flag, Naomi H's tweet

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Speaker 2: in all caps reads, everyone shut.

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Speaker 3: The fuck up.

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Speaker 2: I got accepted for a NASA internship. Nineteen hours after

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Speaker 2: the post went live, it was gathering some steam, and

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Speaker 2: it ends up reaching Homer Hicckham, Homer whose Twitter avatar

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Speaker 2: is a picture of himself. Homer Hicckham replies language, but

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Speaker 2: Naomi H will not be silent. She replies, suck my

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Speaker 2: dick and balls. I'm working at NASA, And then Homer

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Speaker 2: Hickham with the gut punch.

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Speaker 1: And I am on the National Space Council that oversees

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Speaker 1: NASA fatality.

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Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh yes, Naomi H. Your sixteenth minute starts now.

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Speaker 2: Six you guys, I'm very excited for this one. This

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Speaker 2: is a special little piece of Internet history. It happened

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Speaker 2: only six years ago, but six years online is an eternity.

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Speaker 2: Today we are talking about the ballad of Naomi H

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Speaker 2: and Homer Hiccam. If you were on Twitter at the time,

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Speaker 2: you almost certainly knew about it. So let's just jump in,

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Speaker 2: Come with me, if you will. To August twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 2: election rigging in Zimbabwe prompts an uprising, which the government

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Speaker 2: reacts to with big surprise, extreme violence. Pope Francis declares

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Speaker 2: that he wants to work toward the abolition of the

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Speaker 2: death penalty. I have my birthday party at Chuck E

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Speaker 2: Cheese this month because I love animatronics first and attention

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Speaker 2: in a very close second. And this now legendary Twitter

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Speaker 2: interaction takes place between college student Naomi h and esteemed

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Speaker 2: NASA alumnus Homer Hiccam. One of the many reasons I

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Speaker 2: find this story to be unique is that, in part

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Speaker 2: it seems as if it's endured because of the dangling

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Speaker 2: mystery that's implied, a mystery by the way that my

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Speaker 2: interview with Naomi H today solves entirely. But contextually, you

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Speaker 2: need to understand that this is a Twitter story, and

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Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, this is a very particular moment in

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Speaker 2: how the platform works. This is a few years before

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Speaker 2: the formal Elon Musk takeover, but the late twenty tens

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Speaker 2: is rife with pushes for infant user growth in algorithmic

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Speaker 2: shifts that simultaneously push for a safer and more engaged

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Speaker 2: online community, which in this reporter's opinion, is basically a

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Speaker 2: fool's Errand during this time, Twitter is trying to have

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Speaker 2: it both ways. In fact, in May of twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 2: Twitter encouraged a lot of hype over a change to

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Speaker 2: their algorithm that they claimed would encourage quote unquote health

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Speaker 2: in what users were shown to deter people from trolling

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Speaker 2: other users. It's not the first time the then twelve

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Speaker 2: year old platform had tried and failed to address this problem.

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Speaker 2: A few years earlier, in twenty fifteen, the then CEO,

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Speaker 2: Dick Costello acknowledged that the company said the platform quote

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Speaker 2: sucks at dealing with abuse and trolls unquote radical honesty, thrilling.

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Speaker 2: But by twenty eighteen, Twitter and every other major social

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Speaker 2: media platform was on the defensive about their various failures

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Speaker 2: to prevent misinformation from influencing the result of the twenty

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Speaker 2: sixteen presidential election in America. Addressing misinformation was actually a

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Speaker 2: steeper request for the likes of Facebook and Google, which

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Speaker 2: owns YouTube, because both of these companies' algorithms had intentionally

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Speaker 2: pushed misinformation via engagement and utterly failed to moderate their

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Speaker 2: content whatsoever, which led to annoyance at very best and

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Speaker 2: a genocide in Myanmar at worst.

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Speaker 8: In his testimony, he was asked about, for instance, the

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Speaker 8: effect that Facebook has had in Myanmar in the massacre

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Speaker 8: of the Rohina there. It has played a critical role

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Speaker 8: in mobilizing Buddhist opinion, in radicalizing Buddhist opinion, in creating

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Speaker 8: an environment where you could have what amounts to something

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Speaker 8: very close at least to a genocide and certainly to

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Speaker 8: ethnic cleansing.

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Speaker 2: For Twitter, whose algorithm at this time was still fairly linear,

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Speaker 2: the real issue was assessing which you users were misusing

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Speaker 2: the platform to harass and silence others. Regardless, Donald Trump's

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Speaker 2: win in twenty sixteen, in no small part due to

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Speaker 2: misinformation and high engagement, meant that all social media platforms

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Speaker 2: were under fire, and a lack of response could have

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Speaker 2: meant a decline in user popularity. So Twitter announced that

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Speaker 2: they were taking a more aggressive stance against the abusive

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Speaker 2: conduct that had become prevalent in the users that posted

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Speaker 2: the most. Co founder Jack Dorsey said at the time,

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Speaker 2: it's shaping up to be one of the highest impact

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Speaker 2: things that we've done. The spirit of the thing is

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Speaker 2: that we want to take the burden off the person

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Speaker 2: receiving abuse and mob like behavior. If there's any indication

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Speaker 2: that this policy was not successful, it's the one I'm

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Speaker 2: about to tell you, because the ballad of Naomi agent Homer,

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Speaker 2: in the space of just two interactions between strangers, contains

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Speaker 2: so much of what makes the Internet and Twitter, specifically

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Speaker 2: empowering of our worst instincts. The followut of this story

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Speaker 2: going viral started conversations about modern workplace ethics, generational divide, transphobia,

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Speaker 2: targeted harassment, campaigns, misinformation and false demonization, and a general

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Speaker 2: confusion around furries conceptually. And yet you are listening to

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Speaker 2: this podcast on the Internet. And yet Naomi h loves

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Speaker 2: the Internet, and prior to this interaction had no bones

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Speaker 2: about enjoying the Internet, and in fact could attribute a

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Speaker 2: lot of her self discovery to the Internet.

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Speaker 3: You get it.

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Speaker 2: At whatever point you logged on for the first time,

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Speaker 2: your relationship to yourself became complicated forever. But today we

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Speaker 2: are discussing what actually happened in this story. First, let's

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Speaker 2: talk about this story as far as the public is concerned,

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Speaker 2: because this is the narrative that appears to have calcified

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Speaker 2: in the general Internet imagination. Naomi tweets about getting the internship.

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Speaker 2: Naomi tells Homer Hickham to suck her dick after being

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Speaker 2: told to watch her language and then maybe loses the

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Speaker 2: internship and maybe doesn't. The jury remains out on that issue.

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Speaker 2: And while this story took place over half a decade ago,

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Speaker 2: the Reddit thread on our slash NASA I'm quoting from

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Speaker 2: here is less than a year old. People really remember

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Speaker 2: Naomi H. There's something about this story that gets to

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Speaker 2: people in their marrow. The reddit post says.

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Speaker 5: Did Naomi H ever get a job?

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Speaker 1: I really hope she did, especially considering I would be

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Speaker 1: the one to screw up as bad as she did.

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Speaker 1: The whole thing made me really, really sad.

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Speaker 2: One of the replies links to a Snopes article that

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Speaker 2: tentatively concludes that Naomi H did indeed lose her internship

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Speaker 2: at NASA, but the evidence that it points to to

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Speaker 2: illustrate this point isn't exactly conclusive. A different Reddit user applies,

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Speaker 2: so in essence, we don't know someone else times in correct,

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Speaker 2: and this kind of confusion is not surprising at all,

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Speaker 2: especially given the way this story rolled out. After the

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Speaker 2: initial interaction went viral on Twitter, both Naomi H and

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Speaker 2: Homer Hicckim seemed to struggle to know what the best

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Speaker 2: way to respond to the virality is, and of course

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Speaker 2: their respective reactions are informed by a lot of different things.

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Speaker 2: It's informed by power dynamic, it's informed by generation gaps,

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Speaker 2: and it's informed by the nebulus question how many people

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Speaker 2: have been in this specific situation before. And we'll get

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Speaker 2: to Naomi H's line of thoughts shortly, because folks, this

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Speaker 2: is a sixteenth minute exclusive. And so while Naomi h

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Speaker 2: has not said very much about the fallout of this story,

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Speaker 2: Homer Hickham did, but his reaction to the story going

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Speaker 2: viral is in my opinion, sort of misremembered, and that

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Speaker 2: effect the way that this story is remembered down the

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Speaker 2: line into today. And to be clear, this is a

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Speaker 2: Naomi H stand podcast. Personally, I think she is guilty

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Speaker 2: of nothing but enthusiasm and being a little young and

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Speaker 2: naive and being funny. Right, But the way that both

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Speaker 2: parties in this interaction are characterized makes a huge difference here.

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Speaker 2: And when I hear people talk about this story, they

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Speaker 2: generally choose one person as right and one person as wrong.

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Speaker 2: Because the Internet is populated by either people who do

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Speaker 2: not understand that two things can be true, or people

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Speaker 2: who understand two things can be true but are really

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Speaker 2: annoying about it.

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Speaker 3: So it's easy to ignore them.

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Speaker 2: And so at different times many people have physicianed Homer

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Speaker 2: Hickham as the villain of this story, and I very

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Speaker 2: much hesitate to say that's the case. And while I

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Speaker 2: don't particularly like when someone language police is online, I

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Speaker 2: don't think there is a villain of this story. I

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Speaker 2: think a lot of what happened here can be attributed

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Speaker 2: to the Streisand effect, which is not what happens to

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Speaker 2: a person when they star in Funny Girl on Broadway

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Speaker 2: in the seventies and subsequently become a beloved American gem

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Speaker 2: whose directorial career should be referenced as historical more frequently.

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Speaker 2: But it does reference that Streisand Comma Barbara, if you

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Speaker 2: don't know. The Streisand effect references an incident from two

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Speaker 2: thousand and three when Barbara Streisand's lawyer tried to prevent

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Speaker 2: a picture of her Malibu mansion from being published, and

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Speaker 2: in doing so, drew a shitload of attention. Two said

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Speaker 2: picture that probably would never have happened if they had

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Speaker 2: not insisted on it never appearing anywhere. So it became

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Speaker 2: shorthand for the thing where you're in the middle of

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Speaker 2: a room full of people not paying attention to you,

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Speaker 2: and you scream for seemingly no reason, please don't look

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Speaker 2: at me. Basically a situation where you'd be better off

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Speaker 2: just letting it lie. So if you are either Naomi

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Speaker 2: h or Homer Hickam, the first mistake you make is that,

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Speaker 2: after this interaction takes off in mid August twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 2: neither of them delete it. And we can speculate as

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Speaker 2: to why. Per Naomi h she's a college student who

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Speaker 2: thinks it's kind of funny and doesn't expect that it

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Speaker 2: will cost her arguably the biggest opportunity of her life.

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Speaker 2: And as far as Homer Hickham goes, he's a seventy

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Speaker 2: five year old on Twitter whose online behavior was generally

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Speaker 2: pretty lighthearted up to this point. In spite of his position,

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Speaker 2: Hickham was still mostly retired, and he weighed in on

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Speaker 2: NASA news and would occasionally reply to colleagues, but just

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Speaker 2: about space Homer stuff.

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Speaker 3: He's one of the rocket Boys.

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Speaker 2: But what we do know is that the tweet found

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Speaker 2: its way to him, and the fact that the original

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Speaker 2: interaction was still shareable days after it happened and the

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Speaker 2: interaction ended inconclusively kept people talking about it again, think

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Speaker 2: about Homer's final reply.

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Speaker 1: And I am on the National Space Council that oversees NASA.

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Speaker 2: Pretty understandably, this is often interpreted as a death now

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Speaker 2: for our heroine, Naomi H. But where the stras in

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Speaker 2: effect really comes in is how the controversy is addressed

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Speaker 2: after this initial bump and engagement, because the longer this

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Speaker 2: thing stays up, the more the bell can't be on wrong.

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Speaker 2: A lot of users have already taken Homer Hickam's original

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Speaker 2: response to Naomi H as one that warned that he

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Speaker 2: would cause her to lose her job, and the first

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Speaker 2: wave of discourse around this story kind of revolves around

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Speaker 2: this assumption.

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Speaker 1: Here's an example, and intern told an overseer of NASA

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Speaker 1: to suck her dick and balls. And there are actually

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Speaker 1: people in the comments who think firing her was an

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Speaker 1: abuse of power.

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Speaker 7: Lol.

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Speaker 2: There's people reacting who think that anyone who doesn't know

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Speaker 2: Hickam's relevance within NASA doesn't deserve the job anyway.

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Speaker 1: I can't believe NASA gave an internship to someone who

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Speaker 1: didn't know who Homer Hickam was.

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Speaker 2: And no, this user did not spell Homer Hickham's name correctly.

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Speaker 2: And then there's people who are leaning into Naomi Ah's identity,

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Speaker 2: which should be unrelated to the story, but we're going

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Speaker 2: to talk about it at length this week. More specifically,

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Speaker 2: how Naomi H's identity as both a trans woman and

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Speaker 2: a furry were repeatedly referenced in the reaction to this story.

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Speaker 2: Here is a light example of that.

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Speaker 1: Be Fourrey became an intern for NASA and got instantly

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Speaker 1: fired after telling someone on their council to suck their dick.

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Speaker 1: Because this is twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 2: Buddy, join us in twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 3: The water's fine.

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Speaker 2: But if you've been on social media for a while,

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Speaker 2: you recognize this rhetorical format. This is a historically popular

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Speaker 2: way to talk about things that the writer wants you

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Speaker 2: to feel is uniquely modernly absurd. In this case, the

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Speaker 2: user is pointing to the fact that Naomi h is

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Speaker 2: a furry.

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Speaker 3: That is true.

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Speaker 2: At this time, Naomi Ah's Twitter was a mix of

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Speaker 2: random personal thoughts, some gaming takes, and yes, furry content.

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Speaker 2: And I really hope this doesn't come off as patronizing

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Speaker 2: furries for my listeners that live under a rock.

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Speaker 3: Hello, hope the rock is doing well. Just so you know.

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Speaker 2: Furries are defined in the Oxford Dictionary as an enthusiast

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Speaker 2: for animal characters with human characteristics, in particular a person

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Speaker 2: who dresses up in costume as such a character or

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Speaker 2: uses one as an avatar.

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Speaker 3: Online.

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Speaker 2: A few of you were just like, oh, the mascot

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Speaker 2: costume community. Correct, And to get rid of any confusion

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Speaker 2: right here and now, make no mistake, I ride for

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Speaker 2: furries because, like many unusual communities, they are not hurting anyone.

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Speaker 2: And moreover, I can confirm that furries make excellent stand

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Speaker 2: up comedy audiences. So yeah, I ride for furries. If

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Speaker 2: you're a better audience member than a garden variety bachelorette party,

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Speaker 2: I am your ally one hundred percent. But furries are

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Speaker 2: not us an in person community, as the definition implies.

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Speaker 2: Furries have always operated via both public and niche channels,

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Speaker 2: ranging all the way back to the underground comic scene

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies, and in their present iteration in

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Speaker 2: online communities that can often lead to in person meetups.

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Speaker 2: The online community is often a starting point, and trust

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Speaker 2: me when I say that the attendance for in person

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Speaker 2: furry conferences is huge.

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Speaker 6: So I knew world record was set last weekend, but

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Speaker 6: at the same time, I feel like everyone saw it coming.

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Speaker 6: Of course, I'm talking about Anthrocon and the seventeen thousand,

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Speaker 6: six hundred and thirty nine of y'all that attended.

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Speaker 2: And so while anecdotally I have found the community to

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Speaker 2: be completely lovely, conflating someone who identifies as a furry

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Speaker 2: as someone inherently ridiculous is still a common lazy punchline,

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Speaker 2: and I suspect that this has to do with the

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Speaker 2: fact that much of the furry community identifies as LGBTQ plus,

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Speaker 2: and since the dawn of the Internet, furries have been

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Speaker 2: very online. The furry community can be participated in just

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Speaker 2: digitally via personas, which is the anthropomorphic animal character that

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Speaker 2: furries interact as, and often will commission custom art to

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Speaker 2: represent themselves as, for instance, a gorgeous anthropomorphic deer like

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Speaker 2: the one in Naomi H's profile picture. But since furries

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Speaker 2: have been a subject of low hanging fruit mockery for decades,

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Speaker 2: by the time these comments are made, and Homer Hicam

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Speaker 2: is objectively a weird person to see indirect conversation with

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Speaker 2: a furry who is a half century his junior.

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Speaker 3: But remember this.

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Speaker 2: Furry art has a background of a trans pride flag,

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Speaker 2: because Naomi h is trans. And it's here that I'll

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Speaker 2: state the obvious and say, when bigoted assholes perceive a

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Speaker 2: trans person doing anything, there is a contingency that will

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Speaker 2: relentlessly harass, dox and dehumanize them just for existing. And

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Speaker 2: while I have no way of knowing if Homer Hickham

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Speaker 2: knew this, that is exactly where this story's virality leads.

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Speaker 2: So if you're lucky, you won't recognize the names of

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Speaker 2: hate speech forums like eight chan and Kiwi Farms, but

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Speaker 2: if you're listening to this show, I suspect you might.

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Speaker 2: Both of these forums were inspired by a different forum

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Speaker 2: called four chan, the famous anonymous forum founded in two

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Speaker 2: thousand and three by a fifteen year old who had

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Speaker 2: pulled code from a forum board called Sorry Anime, Death Tentacle,

385
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Speaker 2: Rape horror House.

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Speaker 3: But once four chan is.

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Speaker 2: Founded, the site's threads range from the innocuous to the depraved,

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Speaker 2: and it made way for some deeply hateful communities that

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Speaker 2: encouraged harassment, doxing, hate speech, and probably a bunch of

390
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Speaker 2: shorthand terms for those things that I have refused to

391
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Speaker 2: learn of the success of four chan. Eight Chan and

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Speaker 2: kiwi farms are founded the same year, twenty thirteen, and

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Speaker 2: are built on the same dog whistly innocuous term free speech.

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Speaker 2: In this case and many others, this term roughly translated

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Speaker 2: to hate speech, which became even more clear just a

396
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Speaker 2: year later in twenty fourteen, when eight chan in particular

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Speaker 2: became a critical player in the gamer Gate saga. And

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Speaker 2: that's an episode unto itself, because free Palestine. But this

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Speaker 2: was a period of months in which people, nearly always

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Speaker 2: women and queer people who had expressed interest in virtually

401
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:45,679
Speaker 2: any progressive values with regards to feminism or representation in

402
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 2: video games in general, were made to fear for their

403
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Speaker 2: lives due to intricate, terrifying, anonymous online harassment campaigns. Remarkably,

404
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Speaker 2: kiwi Farms manages to be even worse. Here are headlines

405
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Speaker 2: about the continued effort to shut the website down from

406
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 2: the last two years. From The Hill in twenty twenty two,

407
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 2: Why anti trans web forum kiwi Farms was erased from

408
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Speaker 2: the Internet. From The Washington Post in twenty twenty three,

409
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Speaker 2: The endless battle to ban the world's most notorious anti

410
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Speaker 2: trans Stalker website and from mother Jones in twenty twenty three,

411
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Speaker 2: the website that wants you to kill yourself and won't die. Unfortunately,

412
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,159
Speaker 2: at the time I'm recording this, this last headline is

413
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,639
Speaker 2: still correct and Kiwi Farms is still not dead, and

414
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,600
Speaker 2: we suffer for every moment that that remains true. And

415
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 2: these hate sites would very frequently mock, harass, and dox

416
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Speaker 2: trans people, and in the case of Kiwi Farms, that

417
00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:47,479
Speaker 2: was often the point of the entire platform, because users

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Speaker 2: on these sites are cowards, unwilling to put their names

419
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Speaker 2: to their own horrific hateful views, which means that they

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Speaker 2: walk among us. Fuck you. The fact that Naomi h

421
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 2: was targeted and harassed on these sites not for being

422
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Speaker 2: an intern who was fired, but a trans intern who

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00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 2: had the audacity to exist at NASA and on these

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00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 2: disgusting sites, the combined effect of disappointment at losing the internship,

425
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 2: the influx of attention, and the hatefulness directed at her

426
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 2: general existence made her a prime candidate to feel unsafe.

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Speaker 2: And I can't say enough I'm so glad that this

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00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 2: story has a happy ending, but holy shit, with trans

429
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:34,239
Speaker 2: people experience online can be just as traumatizing as it

430
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Speaker 2: is in real life, and even more so. And while

431
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,439
Speaker 2: these hate forums have since mutated, there's still around and

432
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 2: the transphobic harassment that Naomi H received in twenty eighteen

433
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 2: is pulled from a disturbing playbook that is still very

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00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:49,640
Speaker 2: much with us.

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00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 3: And we wouldn't be talking.

436
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 2: About this story now unless there had been the classic

437
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,680
Speaker 2: backlash to the backlash right. It reminds me a lot

438
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 2: of our episode on Coffee Wife from a few months ago.

439
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 2: It's another story that starts with a wave of shaming

440
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 2: followed by an equal, sometimes more intense backlash to the

441
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 2: backlash than implies that the first wave of reaction wasn't fair.

442
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:17,880
Speaker 2: In Naomi H's case, many came to her defense as

443
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:21,880
Speaker 2: strangers and friends she knew from the furry community came

444
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,239
Speaker 2: to her defense in a public way, which is a

445
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 2: noble thing to do but almost guarantees that the story

446
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,440
Speaker 2: is not going to go away the way that Naomi

447
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,399
Speaker 2: H might have liked it to by then. And these

448
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 2: defenses of Naomi H start to portray Homer Hickam as

449
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 2: a villain. Here are some examples.

450
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 5: Wow, Homer Hickim is kind of a jerk. Naomi did

451
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 5: the right thing. This hectoring old dullard needs to be

452
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:49,880
Speaker 5: told off more. I hope they get their internship back.

453
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,159
Speaker 5: Being told by an old white dude to mind your

454
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 5: language as irritating as fuck.

455
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 2: And it is true that Homer Hickham's old person response

456
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 2: of language and Naomi h young person response of suck

457
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:06,520
Speaker 2: my nickenballs does directly lead to her losing the NASA internship,

458
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 2: but the way much of the public remembers it now,

459
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 2: it's as if Homer Hickam picked up the phone, dialed

460
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,400
Speaker 2: one eight hundred NASA and demanded that Naomi h be fired.

461
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 2: The truth is Homer Hicckim did not lose Naomi h

462
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 2: that internship, at least not directly. The streisand effect did

463
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 2: because the more people talked about this and the longer

464
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 2: the posts stayed up, the more likely it became that

465
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 2: someone at NASA was going to find out, and they did.

466
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 2: When Homer finds out online that Naomi lost the internship,

467
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 2: he spoke out against NASA's decision publicly. Here's a blog

468
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 2: post from his website from August twenty first, twenty eighteen,

469
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 2: entitled social media.

470
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 1: It reads recently it was called to my attention on

471
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: Twitter that someone was being hired by NASA and that

472
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,400
Speaker 1: they were using the F word in a tweet about it.

473
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: I'm a Vietnam VET and not at all offended by

474
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: the F word. However, when I saw NASA and the

475
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: word used together, it occurred to me that this young

476
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: person might get in trouble if NASA saw it.

477
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 5: So I tweeted to.

478
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: Her one word language and intended to leave it at back.

479
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: Soon her friends took umbrage and said a lot of

480
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: unkind things, But long after I was gone, and I

481
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: immediately deleted my comments and blocked all concerned. Later I

482
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 1: learned she had lost her offer for an internship with NASA.

483
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:38,320
Speaker 1: This I had nothing to do with, nor could I,

484
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: since I do not hire and fire at the agency

485
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: or have any say on employment whatsoever. As it turned out,

486
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: it was due to the NASA hashtag her friends used

487
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: that called the agency's attention to it. Long after my

488
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: comments were gone, she reached out to me with an

489
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: unnecessary apology, which I heartily accepted and returned with my honor.

490
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: After talking to her, I am certain she deserves a

491
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: position in the aerospace industry, and I am doing all

492
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 1: I can to secure her one that will be better

493
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: than she lost. I have also talked to the folks

494
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: that had to do with her internship and made absolutely

495
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: certain that there will be no black mark on her record.

496
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: Signed Homer Hickam.

497
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 2: Homer Hickam does delete this blog post the next day,

498
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 2: but let's pause on it because it's a rich text.

499
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: His post implies that what lost Naomi h the internship

500
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 2: was not what.

501
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 9: She herself said.

502
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 2: It was what her supporters said to Hickam, a respected

503
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 2: NASA engineer, and it was the slandering of him and

504
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 2: NASA itself that lost their friend the internship. And if

505
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 2: this is true, I find this to be really unfair.

506
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 2: I have no doubt that Homer Hickms's information from NASA

507
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 2: is sound, but that means that NASA has all but

508
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 2: admitted that they took an opportunity from a college student

509
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 2: because of things other people said, and some of Naomi

510
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 2: H's supporters seemed to recognize this. After Hiccum's statement was released,

511
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 2: one furry tweeted.

512
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: The full Homer hickhams story is a ride. As usual,

513
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: furry Twitter simultaneously makes a dumb situation worse while never

514
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 1: actually posting the full story, y'all, Naomi.

515
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:27,760
Speaker 2: H said at the time, and since that, it appears

516
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 2: that Homer Hickham didn't genuinely try to get her internship back,

517
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 2: and that she reached out with a sincere apology that

518
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 2: Homer told her was unnecessary. The only problem was exclusive

519
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 2: he was unsuccessful in getting her the internship back, And

520
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 2: people rarely talk about Homer Hickham's contextual explanation here because

521
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 2: it was swiftly deleted in a way that I think

522
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 2: confused the narrative for many people. In the moment, Naomi

523
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 2: h doesn't really seem to know how to react. She's

524
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 2: kind of panicking because here's this thing she thought was

525
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 2: a little Twitter bit that wouldn't affect her career, and

526
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 2: now the internship she was doubling down on being excited

527
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 2: about is gone. And then shortly after she's subjected to

528
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 2: Transphoba harassments, She's subjected to mockery and threats of violence,

529
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 2: so she kind of stops posting. She makes her Twitter

530
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 2: account private and then tries exploring her feelings on everything

531
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 2: on a Twitter wannabe platform called Masadon. Unfortunately, people find

532
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 2: her there and her personal struggle through this time is

533
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 2: kind of laid bare for the public. And when it's

534
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 2: confirmed that Naomi Age's internship has really and truly been

535
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 2: lost as a result of this interaction, that is when

536
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 2: the mainstream media hits hard and fast BuzzFeed news a

537
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 2: woman was fired from NASA after they saw her tweet

538
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:56,959
Speaker 2: suck my dick and balls I'm working at NASA USA

539
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 2: today would be NASA intern loses gig after vulgar tweetd

540
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 2: NASA alum Homer Hicckam, reports say Business Insider, a woman

541
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 2: lost a NASA scholarship after getting into Twitter beef with

542
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 2: a member of NASA Space Council. Most of these articles

543
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 2: imply that Naomi H is either the victim of the

544
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 2: world's cruelest joke or was genuinely foolish to have posted

545
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 2: that in the first place. The pieces express sympathy but

546
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 2: don't imply that Homer Hicckham spoke out of turn, and

547
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 2: some of the coverage references the transphobic harassment as a

548
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 2: major part of what fueled the story. But after this

549
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 2: wave of mainstream attention, the ballad of Naomi H and

550
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 2: Homer Hicckham doesn't progress all that much. Once these stories

551
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:47,760
Speaker 2: come out, both parties stop responding for comment, So within

552
00:33:47,800 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 2: a few days of this story going mainstream, Naomi Age's

553
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 2: internship is lost. Homer Hickam releases a statement saying he's

554
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 2: going to try and help her get it back, then

555
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 2: deletes it, and finally, Naomi H crops up on Twitter

556
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 2: on August twenty third to say the following, I think

557
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 2: I might get my internship again. Thank you all for

558
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 2: the support and for me. At this point, there's really

559
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 2: only one ingredient missing in the story. What explanation does

560
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 2: NASA have for any of this? And while they're too

561
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 2: classy NASA to comment on this incident specifically, they did

562
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 2: tell Dan Yvon at Snopes that their justification for firing

563
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 2: Naomi H was related to their social media code of conduct.

564
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:35,120
Speaker 6: Ah.

565
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:40,279
Speaker 2: Yes, the corporate social media code of Conduct, a fearsome

566
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:44,240
Speaker 2: era of workplace policy that directly led to me losing

567
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 2: a job at the Boston Globe for saying I come

568
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 2: so hard that I believe when I was twenty two

569
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 2: years old. A story for another day. NASA tells Danyvonn

570
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 2: at Snopes.

571
00:34:55,280 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: Privacy regulations prohibit the agency from discussing specific details to

572
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:04,280
Speaker 1: receive a manual that includes expectations regarding use of social media.

573
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:08,640
Speaker 1: If a student is rejected, they can reapply for the program.

574
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 2: And from here Naomi H goes silent or private online

575
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 2: for a while. Homer Hickham returns to posting as usual

576
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 2: and never reinstates that mysterious deleted blog post, and the

577
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:25,920
Speaker 2: whole story becomes a bit of an unsolved online mystery

578
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 2: until now. The most recent time I saw this story

579
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 2: be reinvoked by a viral tweet, I gave it a

580
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:39,839
Speaker 2: shot and quote tweeted Naomi H DM me, knowing that

581
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 2: for sure she wouldn't answer. But several hours later, that

582
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 2: same day, a Twitter account replies with an avatar that

583
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 2: is a gorgeous anthropomorphic dear. The reply reads, Hi, I'm

584
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 2: Naomi H. And a reply to the reply.

585
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 3: It won't let me DM you.

586
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 2: And finally, Jamie, please when we come back, I talk

587
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 2: exclusively with the one, the only, Naomi H. Welcome back

588
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:26,839
Speaker 2: to sixteenth minute. Someone shot Donald Trump and that's the

589
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 2: fifth strangest thing I've experienced this week. And here is

590
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,840
Speaker 2: my interview with Naomi H.

591
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 7: My name's Naomi I often go by Naomi H. On

592
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 7: the Internet. You'll forgive me if I don't really feel

593
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 7: like giving out my full name. Absolutely, and I'm a

594
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:48,479
Speaker 7: transgender woman. We can get into that a little bit later.

595
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 7: But the big thing what brings me to this podcast

596
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 7: is that in August of twenty eighteen, I landed and

597
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:02,760
Speaker 7: then fumbled a NASA internship in a very hilarious way.

598
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 7: Because I just couldn't stop myself from posting about it.

599
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:11,919
Speaker 7: In my hubris, I sort of assumed that nothing bad

600
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 7: would happen. I love telling this story to people because

601
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 7: it's a whole in the time since people have a

602
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 7: lot of misconceptions about it. People have this idea that

603
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 7: I got the internship back or something, and I just

604
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:28,719
Speaker 7: want to come out and say that's not true. I

605
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 7: did not internship back.

606
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:33,319
Speaker 2: Okay, that was because it does seem to be a

607
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 2: rare still mystery of the internet.

608
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 7: Homer tried very hard to get me on fired, but

609
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:41,879
Speaker 7: they had already kind of made up their mind. We'll

610
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 7: get into it starting from the top. It's the spring

611
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 7: summer of twenty eighteen around like May. I think I

612
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 7: had applied for some NASA internship that had opened up

613
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,359
Speaker 7: at NASA Glen in Cleveland because I was, you know,

614
00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 7: going to school in Cleveland studying engineering. So I applied

615
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 7: for it, didn't get it, but you know, my my information,

616
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 7: my resume was in their system. The rest of the

617
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:10,919
Speaker 7: summer goes by, you know, and that was I had

618
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 7: just started hormone therapy. I was like just starting the

619
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 7: process of coming out to people as transgender, which is

620
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:23,720
Speaker 7: a very scary time in my life. You know, it's

621
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 7: it's I'm glad I did it, but it's it's really

622
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 7: hard to put yourself out there like that. So anyways,

623
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 7: so it's August and I'm just like chilling in my room.

624
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 7: We're like maybe three or four weeks away from class starting.

625
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 7: I had already like picked up my classes for the

626
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 7: fall semester and everything, and I get I don't remember

627
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:48,719
Speaker 7: if it was an email or a phone call, but

628
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 7: they're like, hey, we have your resume in the system.

629
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 7: We see that you have a lot of experience with

630
00:38:54,600 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 7: CAD and this internship like that, Oh, cad is is

631
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:04,400
Speaker 7: compute assisted drawings. It's like you know, in three D

632
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 7: modeling in engineering for like manufacturing and designing and all

633
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:10,800
Speaker 7: sorts of stuff.

634
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 9: Fascinating.

635
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:18,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, you will find that many of my questions are like, huh.

636
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 7: That's okay. So yeah, it was something that I had

637
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 7: a lot of experience with. So I get this call

638
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:25,799
Speaker 7: and they're like, hey, this internship doing CAD work like

639
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,439
Speaker 7: just opened up. Are you interested? And I'm just like, well,

640
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:32,000
Speaker 7: fuck yeah, I am so, Like you know, they schedule

641
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 7: like a video interview for like a day or two

642
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 7: after that, maybe like the next day, I get the

643
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 7: offer letter in my email and I sign it and

644
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 7: I fill it out. Now I am like out of

645
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:49,279
Speaker 7: my board excited. Of course, that's of course it's a

646
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 7: big fucking deal. So I was specifically, I was studying

647
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 7: aerospace engineering, and if you are, like in the aerospace

648
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 7: industry in general, if you have NASA on your resume,

649
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 7: you can basically do anything you fucking want. Like you know,

650
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:09,840
Speaker 7: it's it's it was such an insanely huge thing for

651
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 7: my career. Yeah, And for context, my younger sister, Sophie,

652
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:17,840
Speaker 7: she's two years younger than me. She was a physics

653
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 7: student at University of Michigan, and she had gotten all

654
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 7: sorts of these crazy internships over her time, including one

655
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 7: or two at NASA, studying like astrophysics and stuff.

656
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 9: So whoa like a whole stem family.

657
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 7: Well yeah, yeah, yeah, it's where a bunch of overachievers,

658
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:42,799
Speaker 7: which I didn't really realize how sort of abnormal that

659
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 7: is until I like went to college and kind of

660
00:40:46,120 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 7: got out of my bubble. I grew up in a

661
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 7: very extremely like white, extremely privileged life, and I don't

662
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 7: want to be like one of these white people who

663
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 7: is just like absolutely about like shitty things happening in

664
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 7: the world. My parents are doctors, Like they paid for

665
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:12,880
Speaker 7: pretty much my entire undergraduate education. Okay, you know, I

666
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 7: I got as far as I did because I had

667
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 7: a lot of advantages on my side. But that's a

668
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:20,800
Speaker 7: little off topic.

669
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 9: So you get the internship, and it's really fun.

670
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:27,439
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's so exciting. This is like the biggest thing

671
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 7: ever for me. So this was on like maybe like

672
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 7: a Wednesday or a Thursday. So I spend the weekend

673
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 7: just kind of like telling my friends, and everyone's really

674
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:38,799
Speaker 7: excited for me, you know, people are really happy. I

675
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:42,919
Speaker 7: start like trying to arrange like housing, Like I'm gonna

676
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 7: be down there for like five or six months. Where

677
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 7: am I gonna live. I'm gonna need a car because

678
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 7: it's fucking Houston. The weekend rolls by. You know, we're

679
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:54,319
Speaker 7: all we're all drinking, we're all celebrating. Tuesday decides to

680
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 7: roll around, and like Tuesday evening or afternoon, after I

681
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 7: get it from work, I make the fateful decision and

682
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 7: I log onto my Twitter account and I make that

683
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 7: famous post all caps. I say, everyone, shut the fuck up.

684
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 7: I just got a NASA internship and it starts to

685
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 7: get some attention. You know, people are pretty happy for me.

686
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 7: It's starting. It's got like a thousand likes, two thousand,

687
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 7: a lot of attention, but still kind of rookie numbers.

688
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 7: Some of my friends even go so far as to

689
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,959
Speaker 7: say to me, like, hey, Naomi, like maybe you want

690
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 7: to delete this, Like this isn't a good look. NASA

691
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 7: and NASA, as they warned me and I later learned,

692
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:45,720
Speaker 7: they're They're very particular about their presence on social media.

693
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 7: It's they have a whole they have a whole guidebook

694
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 7: for it, a guidebook that if not read until way

695
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 7: too late.

696
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:54,399
Speaker 2: I guess this is where I will reveal I don't

697
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 2: think you did anything wrong.

698
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 7: Like I don't think I think I think that if

699
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 7: I had made different this decisions than the ones I made,

700
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 7: I could have come out without losing the internship, but sure,

701
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 7: I have to acknowledge that there is a lot of

702
00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 7: it comes from hubrits on my part. We'll get to that.

703
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:19,600
Speaker 7: So then this, like, you know, one afternoon, a day

704
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 7: or two after the fact, I log on and this like,

705
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 7: old ass man, he's not verified, he's got like no

706
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 7: information on his account or whatever. He responds to me.

707
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 7: He says just one word language. I'm like, who the

708
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 7: fuck does this guy think he is? I don't know, you, Like,

709
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 7: can't you just be happy for me? Like, fuck you,

710
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,240
Speaker 7: old man. So I said back to him what I thought,

711
00:43:44,440 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 7: and I maintained was a pretty funny thing to say back.

712
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:51,280
Speaker 7: I said, suck my dick and balls. I'm working at NASA,

713
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 7: And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I

714
00:43:56,360 --> 00:44:00,760
Speaker 7: picked up that phrase from a video game bunkie video

715
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 7: YouTuber I used to watch a lot of So anyways,

716
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 7: and then he responds to me and he says, I'm

717
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 7: on the National Space Council that oversees NASA. I'm like, wait, what,

718
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 7: I google who is Homer Hicckham like Wikipedia dot com

719
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 7: And it turns out Homer Hiccklam is a pretty important

720
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 7: dude in the space industry. Do you know the movie

721
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 7: October Sky.

722
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:28,479
Speaker 9: Yes, that's what I'm gonna say.

723
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, I have to this day. I've never seen the movie,

724
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 7: but I later learned that they made a movie about

725
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 7: this guy really important. He is on the National Space

726
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 7: Council that oversees NASA, and so I'm like, wow, this

727
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 7: exchange is really fucking funny. And this is when some

728
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 7: of my friends were like, Naomi, I really think you

729
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 7: need to start deleting this, and I'm like, no, it'll

730
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 7: be fine. Everything's fine. This is just a funny thing

731
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:58,359
Speaker 7: happening on the internet. Everything is gonna be fine. So

732
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,799
Speaker 7: I leave it up for I don't know, a week,

733
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 7: two weeks, and it is getting like a lot of attention,

734
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 7: like tens of thousands.

735
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:06,440
Speaker 9: Yeah.

736
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 2: I think this is when I didn't see the post

737
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 2: before the interaction took place.

738
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, well this is at this point. It's still

739
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 7: just online. It hasn't even leaked out into real life yet. Okay,

740
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 7: So anyways, so now we come back to my brother's

741
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:27,760
Speaker 7: wedding going ahead. It's August twenty eighteen. I am back

742
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:31,440
Speaker 7: in Buffalo, New York because my older brother is getting married.

743
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,799
Speaker 7: It's a Friday night. I'm like getting dressed to go

744
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 7: to the rehearsal dinner, and I get this phone call

745
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:44,320
Speaker 7: from the NASA people and they're like, hey, did you

746
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 7: post this? What I should have done is I should

747
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 7: have said yes, that was me. I can delete the

748
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 7: post right now if there's a problem. That's not what

749
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:58,279
Speaker 7: I said. Okay, We're like again, like thirty, I'm like

750
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,400
Speaker 7: dressed in like a nice shirt pants for my brother's

751
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:03,320
Speaker 7: rehearsal dinner for a wedding.

752
00:46:03,800 --> 00:46:06,600
Speaker 2: Of course, it's yeah, like the most high stake situation

753
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 2: you could posibly.

754
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:10,280
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm like sitting in my room looking at housing

755
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 7: in Houston, and I get this call. They're like, was

756
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 7: this you? And I panicked and I tried to lie

757
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 7: my way out of it. I was like, no, it

758
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 7: was a friend, but you know, I don't even remember

759
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 7: what I said it. I stammered my way through some

760
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 7: very obviously fake, very obviously bullshit excuse. They're like, we'll

761
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:38,719
Speaker 7: be in touch. I'm sitting there in my room and

762
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 7: I'm like, oh my god, I just fucked up so bad.

763
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:48,800
Speaker 2: My stomach just like turned at Yeah, that's not something

764
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:49,399
Speaker 2: you want to hear.

765
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:50,200
Speaker 9: From now.

766
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,759
Speaker 7: You don't ever want to hear someone say we'll be

767
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 7: in touch in that like tone of voice. I was like,

768
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 7: I have never fucked up this hard before. Maybe ten

769
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,239
Speaker 7: minutes later, I get an email from them saying in

770
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:10,320
Speaker 7: writing that my my internship offer has been rescinded. I'm like, ah, fuck,

771
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:13,360
Speaker 7: I don't know why I in this moment, I felt

772
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 7: the need to tell my family, but I was like, guys,

773
00:47:16,640 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 7: I just lost the NASA internship. We're like leaving to

774
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 7: go to the dinner. We're like out the fucking door,

775
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 7: and everyone's like, Naomi, why are you telling us this now?

776
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 7: And everyone's excited for Max's wedding and I'm having just

777
00:47:31,680 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 7: the worst day of my fucking life.

778
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:35,760
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah.

779
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 7: So where we are at the rehearsal dinner and one

780
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 7: of my friends hits me up on Discord and they're

781
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 7: like Naomi, like you're you're you're a really good friend

782
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 7: of mine. Like I can't just stand idly by and

783
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 7: do nothing. So they like on my behalf like reached

784
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 7: out to Homer Hickham and like, oh so, I'm like

785
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 7: it was so sweet of them, and I'm I'm really

786
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:08,280
Speaker 7: grateful that they did that. And this like I didn't

787
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 7: speak to him over the phone and anything, but I

788
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:15,359
Speaker 7: like stepped outside during the dinner and I'm like, hey,

789
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 7: Homer Man, like I'm really fucking sorry. You know, I

790
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:21,279
Speaker 7: didn't mean anything by it. And he's like, oh, you know,

791
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 7: I used to be a Navy pilot, Like I'm no

792
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:27,399
Speaker 7: stranger to foul language, like you know he was. He

793
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,719
Speaker 7: was just like, you know, trying. He didn't really mean

794
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 7: for this to blow up this way either. He's not

795
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 7: on the bleeding edge of the internet. He wasn't even verified,

796
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 7: which this was back in the days when that mate,

797
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 7: when that meant something that's true.

798
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:44,160
Speaker 9: So when you spoke to Homer, did you speak on

799
00:48:44,160 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 9: the phone? Did you speak?

800
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 10: Uh?

801
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 7: It was it was it was over email. But he

802
00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 7: was pretty quick to respond and he was like, hey,

803
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 7: you know, I feel really bad about this, like let

804
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 7: me He basically I don't remember his exact turn of phrase.

805
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 7: He basically said like, let me see what I can do.

806
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:04,239
Speaker 7: And he like made this like whole post on like

807
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 7: his own personal blog. And this is where people get

808
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:11,480
Speaker 7: the misconception that I got the internship back, because Homer

809
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 7: basically came out and said I'm going to get her

810
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 7: internship back, but he didn't. The people at NASA had

811
00:49:18,120 --> 00:49:21,359
Speaker 7: basically already made up their minds and it was like

812
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:24,359
Speaker 7: two maybe three weeks before class started back up again.

813
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 7: So I was like, fuck it, I'm just gonna go

814
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:29,719
Speaker 7: take my classes and finish my degree. And by the way,

815
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 7: at the rehearsal dinner and at the wedding, because it

816
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:38,720
Speaker 7: was it was a gorgeous wedding. The food was great.

817
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 7: It on paper, it was a lot of fun and like,

818
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 7: you know, I'm really happy for my brother and his wife.

819
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 7: But I was like trying to have a good time

820
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 7: to be happy for my brother. But on the inside,

821
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 7: I was just so miserable because people kept coming up

822
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:56,839
Speaker 7: to me and they were like, Naomi, I heard about

823
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 7: the NASA thing, congratulations, And I kept having to be

824
00:49:59,680 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 7: like about that.

825
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 9: Oh my god.

826
00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 6: It was.

827
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 7: It was brutal. It was the worst.

828
00:50:08,320 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 2: I have to imagine. Yeah, your family must have been stoked.

829
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 2: And did you get into it at the wedding or

830
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:16,760
Speaker 2: were you like, oh, it didn't work out people.

831
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 7: I mean I told my family about it, and they

832
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:24,439
Speaker 7: my dad just sort of shook his head and went

833
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 7: like hem, like we didn't really get into it, but

834
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 7: I could tell they were like not happy. It's after

835
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:37,279
Speaker 7: the wedding. Fast forward to Monday, Okay, the story gets

836
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 7: picked up by like the local news in Houston. They're like,

837
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 7: here's an interesting thing that happened, even.

838
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 2: Though it's just because of their twenty year old intern

839
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 2: that they figure it out.

840
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 7: Yeah they probably. Yeah, the local news in Houston picks

841
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 7: it up, and then from there like USA Today picks

842
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 7: it up, and then it's on Buzz Speed and then

843
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 7: it's on Fox. At this point, I had deleted the post,

844
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 7: but I left my account up, and this is I

845
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:08,800
Speaker 7: started to have reporters like hitting me up in my inbox.

846
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 7: They're like, can I talk to you? And the advice

847
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 7: I was getting from everyone is Naomi, just shut up

848
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:16,840
Speaker 7: and keep your head down and wait for this to

849
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 7: blow over. Yeah, which was the right move. So I

850
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 7: so I deleted, I nuked that account, and waited for

851
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 7: it to blow over. But like, it was everywhere everywhere

852
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 7: for months. I mean, you know, my roommate who was

853
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 7: a grad student at the university and did some work

854
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,919
Speaker 7: at NASA in Cleveland, was like, yeah, Naomi, like even

855
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 7: I heard about he had heard about it. Independently of

856
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 7: me telling him.

857
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 2: Is it well known like within your like college friends

858
00:51:46,040 --> 00:51:47,359
Speaker 2: and everyone, like, does everyone.

859
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:48,799
Speaker 9: Know like this this happened to you?

860
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, because I love telling the story because so

861
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 7: for a long time I was very very bitter about it.

862
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 7: I mean, how how could you not be right? And

863
00:52:00,640 --> 00:52:04,360
Speaker 7: every time every time I heard about anything cool happening

864
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:08,879
Speaker 7: in like the space industry in general, that like bitterness

865
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 7: would would come back, especially when I was sort of

866
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 7: struggling to get like my job and my career off

867
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:20,600
Speaker 7: the ground. But six years later, you know, I live

868
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 7: with my girlfriend, who I love very much. She's so

869
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 7: good to me, and I've got a good job going

870
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:29,040
Speaker 7: and I'm back in the aerospace industry that is.

871
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:31,800
Speaker 9: Oh. I feel they're going to be really happy.

872
00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 7: I took such a roundabout way to get back into it.

873
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 7: And I'm not doing space. I do commercial jet engine

874
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 7: stuff wi that industry. You're telling me Boeing killed a guy.

875
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 9: Boeing killed a guy. There's no way around it.

876
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 7: And they asked the CEO in front of Congress and

877
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 7: he's just like, I know what happens, And I'm like, what.

878
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:56,879
Speaker 3: Do you mean?

879
00:52:56,920 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 7: You know what happens? You know you killed Hi. Hi.

880
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 7: It's just it's it's insane. Yeah, the whole thing, top

881
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 7: to bottom is so even as someone who knows stuff

882
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 7: about airplanes and the FAA and and engineering and stuff like,

883
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:18,440
Speaker 7: the more I learn about it, the more I'm like,

884
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:20,880
Speaker 7: Jesus fucking Christ.

885
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:23,760
Speaker 9: Aerospace is lucky to have you back.

886
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 7: Thank you.

887
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:28,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything has a way of working out. I'm glad

888
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 2: that it shook out, but of course, and it's like

889
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:35,880
Speaker 2: that has to be a very bizarre thing to be

890
00:53:36,040 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 2: triggered by space conceptually.

891
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,879
Speaker 7: Yeah, and you know, I'm I guess now that I'm

892
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 7: doing better, I'm I'm over all of that. But for

893
00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 7: a long time I had a lot of very bitter

894
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 7: feelings about it, and sure, and when I would express this,

895
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 7: people would not and be like, yeah, I guess that

896
00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:55,319
Speaker 7: makes sense that you would feel that way.

897
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:57,440
Speaker 3: We'll be back with more in just a moment.

898
00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:59,399
Speaker 2: I don't know what the ads about to play are.

899
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:15,000
Speaker 2: Welcome back to sixteenth minute. I keep drinking this thing

900
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:18,240
Speaker 2: called vibe wine that I'm pretty sure could fuel a plane.

901
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 2: And here is the rest of my interview with the

902
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:24,279
Speaker 2: incredible Naomi h Going back.

903
00:54:24,360 --> 00:54:26,920
Speaker 7: It's like August or like early September twenty eighteen, I

904
00:54:26,960 --> 00:54:29,040
Speaker 7: just deleted my Twitter account and tried to keep my

905
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:31,719
Speaker 7: head down for a little while, but like you know,

906
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,240
Speaker 7: it was everywhere. I had a hard time getting away

907
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 7: from it. At that time, I was like still among

908
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:44,879
Speaker 7: transgender women, we call it boy moting. I was still

909
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:48,840
Speaker 7: boy mooting, okay, because I was like on HRT and

910
00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 7: it was obvious that something was up, but I wasn't

911
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 7: like out to people, and I was still going by

912
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 7: like my old, my dead name, even though that was

913
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 7: not the name I used on Twitter. That was how

914
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:03,280
Speaker 7: my parents found out that I had chosen the name Naomi.

915
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:07,160
Speaker 7: By the way, I hadn't told them that detail yet. Yeah.

916
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:09,319
Speaker 7: They were like, why are you Naomi? And I was like,

917
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:11,279
Speaker 7: do you remember, like three months ago when I came

918
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:12,319
Speaker 7: out as transgender.

919
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:15,760
Speaker 9: That's how they learned your So that's.

920
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:18,640
Speaker 7: How that's how they learned that my chosen name was NAILI.

921
00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:24,080
Speaker 9: This is this is wild, okay.

922
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 2: So this this is like a pivotal moment for I

923
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 2: mean in more ways than one.

924
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 8: Mm hmmm.

925
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 7: I'm like, I'm like back at school one day, a

926
00:55:34,440 --> 00:55:36,880
Speaker 7: lot of my close friends were like, they were like,

927
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 7: you know, Naomi like you've got you've got friends about you,

928
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:41,879
Speaker 7: like on Kiwi Farms, which.

929
00:55:44,040 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 2: I wish I didn't, but yeah, I know that the

930
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:51,680
Speaker 2: Fortune and the Kiwi Farm, they they.

931
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:55,640
Speaker 7: They want nuts, they want nuts about it. And I

932
00:55:55,719 --> 00:55:59,840
Speaker 7: have to say, although I do have some responsibility on

933
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:03,360
Speaker 7: my own end for how I handled it, I I

934
00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 7: definitely think that that crowd shares a lot of the

935
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:12,480
Speaker 7: blame for basically taking umbrage with the fact that a

936
00:56:12,520 --> 00:56:16,760
Speaker 7: transgender person had something good happening to them and they

937
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:21,360
Speaker 7: just sort of like mass reported me at NASA until

938
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:24,720
Speaker 7: I assume like the thing actually came to their fucking attention.

939
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:27,800
Speaker 7: Otherwise it would have just otherwise it would have just

940
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:28,319
Speaker 7: blown over.

941
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 2: So this was just to get the timeline correct. So

942
00:56:32,239 --> 00:56:36,719
Speaker 2: like when the original Twitter interaction is going viral, it's

943
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:40,240
Speaker 2: not Homer who reports you to now, No, he's.

944
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 7: Some old fucking man and he tried. Homer tried very

945
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:46,600
Speaker 7: hard to get me onfired. Yeah, to be clear, it

946
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:48,680
Speaker 7: sounds like he didn't even really give a give a

947
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:51,000
Speaker 7: ship that I said a swear word on the internet.

948
00:56:51,040 --> 00:56:53,680
Speaker 7: He was just like sort of trying to be like

949
00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:57,080
Speaker 7: a funny old man. He came back to me like

950
00:56:57,120 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 7: a couple of days later, and he was like, I'm sorry,

951
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 7: but like, I can't help you. You know, they've made

952
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:06,120
Speaker 7: up their minds already. And I at this point, it

953
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 7: was blowing up and it was on the news and shit,

954
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:10,440
Speaker 7: and I just wanted it to go away. So I

955
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:13,439
Speaker 7: was like, dude, don't worry about it. I'm just gonna

956
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:14,719
Speaker 7: go back to taking class.

957
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,360
Speaker 9: Yeah. Oh yeah, I guess that. That's like a thread

958
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 9: that I feel like was really lost.

959
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,440
Speaker 2: Even though the four Chan people and the Kiwi Firms

960
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:27,360
Speaker 2: people were mentioned in the original reporting, it was never

961
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:29,960
Speaker 2: clear that they were the ones mass reporting you who

962
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 2: are likely.

963
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 7: Very I don't I don't really know for sure, but

964
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:39,240
Speaker 7: I I mean I have to assume, right, Like this

965
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 7: sort of thing happens very often. You know, some some

966
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 7: some transgender woman says or does something online and everyone

967
00:57:50,200 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 7: fucking gangs up on it. I mean you see it

968
00:57:51,880 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 7: all the time.

969
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:55,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like a part of like the Kiwi Farm's

970
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:58,920
Speaker 2: playbook is just to sabotage by any means. There's so

971
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:01,800
Speaker 2: much going on at and that this is going on

972
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 2: right as you're starting to come out.

973
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,720
Speaker 7: Like, yeah, it was it was a really it was

974
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 7: a really complicated and difficult time in my life. I

975
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 7: was also in this relationship with my girlfriend at the

976
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:19,960
Speaker 7: time that with the gift of retrospect, I could say

977
00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:22,800
Speaker 7: that that whole relationship was like a little abusive. It

978
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:26,640
Speaker 7: was definitely bad. I have not spoken to her since

979
00:58:26,680 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 7: we broke up. I saw her at a furry convention.

980
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 7: Did not mention? Did I not mention that I'm like

981
00:58:33,160 --> 00:58:38,200
Speaker 7: a huge, terminally online piece of ship furry weed nerds?

982
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 9: Well see that. We have so much going on though,

983
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 9: I was like, I'll get to furries.

984
00:58:42,760 --> 00:58:47,160
Speaker 7: Yeah, but we'll we'll, we'll talk about that. Like I

985
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 7: I saw her a few times at the convention. We

986
00:58:50,120 --> 00:58:52,040
Speaker 7: never spoke. I would just like see her in the

987
00:58:52,120 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 7: crowd and then like turn around and leave.

988
00:58:55,760 --> 00:59:02,080
Speaker 2: Basically, Wow, another really cinematic moment. Yeah, basically going back

989
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 2: a little bit when this happened, because you just said

990
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 2: you're a terminally online furry weeb. I want to know

991
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:13,960
Speaker 2: a little bit about your history of your relationship with

992
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 2: the internet and with social media, like how do we

993
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:21,840
Speaker 2: get from zero to August twenty eighteen interaction with Homa Hicam.

994
00:59:22,400 --> 00:59:24,560
Speaker 7: When I was a youngin when I was maybe fourteen

995
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:30,360
Speaker 7: or fifteen, I was really into reading comics on the internet,

996
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 7: as any teenage boy is. Yeah, I guess not really

997
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:36,560
Speaker 7: a teenage boy, but I was fourteen. I had no

998
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,000
Speaker 7: concept of that at the time, So we'll say I

999
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:42,040
Speaker 7: was a boy, okay, And I'm sure someone is going

1000
00:59:42,120 --> 00:59:44,200
Speaker 7: to get mad at me for describing myself that way,

1001
00:59:44,240 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 7: but I don't care. And I stumbled. I stumbled into

1002
00:59:47,840 --> 00:59:52,280
Speaker 7: what I now recognize as as furry web comics, and

1003
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 7: I was reading one in particular, I think it still exists.

1004
00:59:56,840 --> 00:59:58,680
Speaker 7: It's called Bittersweet Candy Bowl.

1005
00:59:59,400 --> 00:59:59,920
Speaker 9: Good title.

1006
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 7: It was about a bunch of like they're like teenage,

1007
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:06,000
Speaker 7: They're like, they're all cats, They're all cat furries. One

1008
01:00:06,040 --> 01:00:09,960
Speaker 7: of them, the comic relief character is a dog. Anyways,

1009
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 7: I'm just on Facebook like shit posting, but like in

1010
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:16,720
Speaker 7: a way where I was like, I guess, trying to

1011
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:19,560
Speaker 7: be low key about being a furry because I was like,

1012
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:22,840
Speaker 7: for whatever reason, terrified of people finding that out about me,

1013
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:25,880
Speaker 7: because I guess I perceived it as being like cringe

1014
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:26,960
Speaker 7: and weird.

1015
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:31,320
Speaker 2: So you're a kid in Buffalo, You've found these furry comics. Yeah,

1016
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:34,840
Speaker 2: what was your conception of how furries were perceived? At

1017
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 2: that time, because this would have been what like early

1018
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:37,520
Speaker 2: twenty tens.

1019
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:40,760
Speaker 7: This would have been around twenty ten to twenty twelve era, Okay,

1020
01:00:41,120 --> 01:00:43,960
Speaker 7: And I mean, you know, I wasn't like someone who

1021
01:00:44,040 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 7: was active on like the forefront of the website of

1022
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:50,600
Speaker 7: the Internet. I like maybe went on Runnit a little bit,

1023
01:00:50,600 --> 01:00:53,640
Speaker 7: but I was mostly on Facebook and like nine gag,

1024
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:54,840
Speaker 7: like just looking at shitty.

1025
01:00:55,320 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 9: Oh my god, I haven't thought about nine gag in

1026
01:00:57,440 --> 01:00:57,800
Speaker 9: a day.

1027
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:02,240
Speaker 7: Yeah, wow, But that's I guess I didn't. I didn't

1028
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 7: know any better. So that was how I sort of

1029
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 7: got into being a huge furry. I was always, for

1030
01:01:09,240 --> 01:01:12,440
Speaker 7: a long time, like too afraid to like post about

1031
01:01:12,480 --> 01:01:15,160
Speaker 7: any of that stuff. Maybe this is like me projecting

1032
01:01:15,160 --> 01:01:17,960
Speaker 7: some of my own anxieties or whatever, but I was

1033
01:01:18,040 --> 01:01:20,480
Speaker 7: like really terrified of people finding that out about me.

1034
01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:24,760
Speaker 7: Until when I and like three maybe four years later,

1035
01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:27,440
Speaker 7: I was a senior in high school, my friend Josh

1036
01:01:27,480 --> 01:01:31,800
Speaker 7: like really introduced me to like furries as like a concept.

1037
01:01:32,120 --> 01:01:35,200
Speaker 7: Fast forward a few years, I'm like eighteen years old.

1038
01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:39,080
Speaker 7: I'm a freshman in college, and I'm like chilling in

1039
01:01:39,120 --> 01:01:44,120
Speaker 7: my dorm doing homework one day, and I promise these

1040
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:47,600
Speaker 7: stories are connected. I trust you, and this dude, Derek

1041
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:51,760
Speaker 7: walks out without his shirt on. Now, Derek was on

1042
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:56,560
Speaker 7: the swim team, so he just he was dumb as hell,

1043
01:01:56,640 --> 01:02:00,480
Speaker 7: but he was just this gorgeous, gorgeous dude. I mean,

1044
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:03,880
Speaker 7: like just gorgeous. That was sort of like one of

1045
01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 7: the first inklings that I might not be like exactly

1046
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:12,479
Speaker 7: one hundred percent straight. Of course, up to this point,

1047
01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:14,920
Speaker 7: I had been cranking my hog to gay furry porn

1048
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:18,120
Speaker 7: for years for whatever reason. With the furry porn and

1049
01:02:18,200 --> 01:02:21,800
Speaker 7: the furry ulufemboys. There's like enough of like a cognitive

1050
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 7: dissonance where it didn't really register that that was like

1051
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 7: gang like that was not heterosexual behavior, but it reached

1052
01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 7: a point where I couldn't really ignore it. So so

1053
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:38,560
Speaker 7: fast forward another couple of years. It's it's twenty seventeen.

1054
01:02:38,680 --> 01:02:41,720
Speaker 7: Now I was having a lot of strange feelings about

1055
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 7: my gender and my body that I really didn't understand

1056
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 7: at a time. I just knew that I was like

1057
01:02:49,400 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 7: really uncomfortable and sad and frustrated a lot, and I

1058
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:56,600
Speaker 7: really didn't know why. The one sort of consistent feeling

1059
01:02:56,840 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 7: that I had was like, oh, man, like girls are

1060
01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:01,760
Speaker 7: like so pretty, like I wish I could be that

1061
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:05,200
Speaker 7: pretty or something. It sort of reached a point where

1062
01:03:05,200 --> 01:03:09,040
Speaker 7: I could like no longer ignore it. So it's twenty

1063
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:12,760
Speaker 7: seventeen and I'm like, okay, Like, you know, furries Are

1064
01:03:13,560 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 7: is an online group I was really was kind of

1065
01:03:15,720 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 7: still am really involved with, and they're overwhelmingly LGBT. I

1066
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:22,440
Speaker 7: don't remember if this was an idea I came up

1067
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 7: with myself, or if someone suggested it to me, but

1068
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:27,600
Speaker 7: the idea came to me to just sort of like,

1069
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:31,920
Speaker 7: try making a persona that's a girl. Just dip your

1070
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:33,760
Speaker 7: toe and see how that makes you feel.

1071
01:03:34,000 --> 01:03:38,280
Speaker 2: And had your previous personas not been all guys.

1072
01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:41,520
Speaker 7: Okay, you know, cycled through a couple, but don't. I

1073
01:03:41,560 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 7: don't have any of any of the art of them.

1074
01:03:43,920 --> 01:03:47,280
Speaker 7: It's all buried on like old hard drives, buried in

1075
01:03:47,320 --> 01:03:50,320
Speaker 7: a cardboard box somewhere in the basement, I think. So

1076
01:03:50,360 --> 01:03:52,640
Speaker 7: I was trying a different persona. I made a persona

1077
01:03:52,800 --> 01:03:56,920
Speaker 7: that was, you know, a girl, and I specifically I

1078
01:03:57,240 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 7: made a persona that was a deer because I really

1079
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 7: liked the imagery of having like a female fear that

1080
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:07,160
Speaker 7: still had the distinctly male antlers. As like, you know,

1081
01:04:07,280 --> 01:04:11,080
Speaker 7: transgender imagery that felt very compelling to me. I don't

1082
01:04:11,080 --> 01:04:14,000
Speaker 7: want to say it happened instantly, but it happened very

1083
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:17,080
Speaker 7: quickly where I just had a moment where I was

1084
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:22,800
Speaker 7: just like, oh fuck, I realized I was actually transgender

1085
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:27,640
Speaker 7: by you know, being a queer furry on the internet.

1086
01:04:27,960 --> 01:04:33,760
Speaker 7: The wider quote unquote furry community is not really something

1087
01:04:33,840 --> 01:04:38,160
Speaker 7: I really associate myself with anymore, but like, you know,

1088
01:04:38,200 --> 01:04:41,160
Speaker 7: it definitely, I can't deny that it was something that

1089
01:04:41,240 --> 01:04:43,320
Speaker 7: was really important to me for a long time. And

1090
01:04:43,400 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 7: it was like this really critical avenue for me to

1091
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:49,680
Speaker 7: like have this space where you can explore yourself like that.

1092
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:52,720
Speaker 7: And I find out that this is super common for

1093
01:04:52,800 --> 01:04:57,160
Speaker 7: trans people to have this exact experience. Wow, that happens

1094
01:04:57,200 --> 01:04:59,720
Speaker 7: all the time. It's a space where you can literally

1095
01:04:59,840 --> 01:05:04,080
Speaker 7: like you literally invent a persona for yourself and then

1096
01:05:04,120 --> 01:05:08,760
Speaker 7: you sort of interact through that persona. So that's a

1097
01:05:08,800 --> 01:05:11,120
Speaker 7: really really powerful thing for a lot of people.

1098
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:15,240
Speaker 9: I am curious about if you.

1099
01:05:15,200 --> 01:05:19,640
Speaker 2: Know, NASA, Homer suck My Dick and Ball's Gate, did

1100
01:05:19,640 --> 01:05:21,720
Speaker 2: it affect choose it?

1101
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:22,720
Speaker 9: Choose your title?

1102
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:25,439
Speaker 7: Just I like I like Dick and Ball's gate. Let's

1103
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:25,840
Speaker 7: go with that.

1104
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:30,160
Speaker 2: Did it change the way you use social media? Did

1105
01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:32,280
Speaker 2: it change the way you relate to the internet.

1106
01:05:33,120 --> 01:05:37,280
Speaker 7: It definitely, it definitely did. For a long time, I

1107
01:05:37,280 --> 01:05:41,160
Speaker 7: didn't go back on Twitter for about a year or two.

1108
01:05:42,360 --> 01:05:46,320
Speaker 7: I maintained my presence on Tumblr because Tumblr was still

1109
01:05:46,480 --> 01:05:49,440
Speaker 7: is low key enough that you can just use Tumblr

1110
01:05:49,520 --> 01:05:52,120
Speaker 7: and it's very difficult to trace that back to like

1111
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:55,240
Speaker 7: real life shit. I used something called mast it on

1112
01:05:55,360 --> 01:05:57,560
Speaker 7: for a little bit while it was a fad at

1113
01:05:57,560 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 7: the time, In like the immediate weeks after, I made

1114
01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:03,880
Speaker 7: some posts on masted on about my own feelings of it,

1115
01:06:05,320 --> 01:06:08,320
Speaker 7: and I was in a very vulnerable place, and I

1116
01:06:08,400 --> 01:06:13,440
Speaker 7: remember seeing those screenshots of my very vulnerable posts being

1117
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:18,360
Speaker 7: like circulated around because I didn't really understand how to

1118
01:06:18,640 --> 01:06:21,520
Speaker 7: use the privacy setting, so everything I was saying was

1119
01:06:21,560 --> 01:06:25,880
Speaker 7: like viewable to the public. These days, I am on Twitter,

1120
01:06:26,200 --> 01:06:29,040
Speaker 7: and I guess you could say I've kind of come

1121
01:06:29,160 --> 01:06:34,680
Speaker 7: back to the posting where I was before. It's weird

1122
01:06:34,680 --> 01:06:37,200
Speaker 7: because in some ways I love to just like, you know,

1123
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:43,240
Speaker 7: post with reckless abandon you know, I definitely understand that

1124
01:06:43,360 --> 01:06:46,960
Speaker 7: if you go too wild and too out there that

1125
01:06:47,000 --> 01:06:49,000
Speaker 7: things can circle back and bite you in the ass.

1126
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:52,040
Speaker 7: I definitely understand that now, But like I'm on social

1127
01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:55,320
Speaker 7: media just kind of doing whatever the hell I want

1128
01:06:55,440 --> 01:06:59,200
Speaker 7: because it's like, I guess that's perspective as it feels like, well,

1129
01:06:59,240 --> 01:07:02,400
Speaker 7: I already had the worst fucking thing possible that could

1130
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 7: happen to me over social media has already happened, and

1131
01:07:06,280 --> 01:07:09,240
Speaker 7: I survived, So I don't give a shit anymore. Like,

1132
01:07:09,280 --> 01:07:11,920
Speaker 7: what are you gonna do make me lose my NASA

1133
01:07:11,920 --> 01:07:12,760
Speaker 7: intern You.

1134
01:07:12,680 --> 01:07:16,720
Speaker 2: Know, with regards to the twenty eighteen suck my dick

1135
01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:17,360
Speaker 2: and balls gate?

1136
01:07:18,160 --> 01:07:20,800
Speaker 9: Do you have any regrets? Would you change anything?

1137
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:24,160
Speaker 7: Well, I wouldn't have lied and said that someone else

1138
01:07:24,200 --> 01:07:28,360
Speaker 7: made the post. I wouldn't have done that. I mean, like,

1139
01:07:28,440 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 7: you know, there's plenty of things I can look back

1140
01:07:30,960 --> 01:07:35,000
Speaker 7: and say if I had behaved differently, I could have

1141
01:07:35,120 --> 01:07:38,280
Speaker 7: kept the internship. But it's kind of hard for me

1142
01:07:38,360 --> 01:07:42,680
Speaker 7: to say that because that happening was such a turning

1143
01:07:42,680 --> 01:07:45,960
Speaker 7: point in my life that sort of indirectly led to

1144
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:48,920
Speaker 7: me being where I'm at today, And it sucked for

1145
01:07:49,000 --> 01:07:51,000
Speaker 7: a long time, but it had to be like that

1146
01:07:51,080 --> 01:07:52,680
Speaker 7: to get to where I'm at now, and where I'm

1147
01:07:52,720 --> 01:07:53,600
Speaker 7: at now is really good.

1148
01:07:54,280 --> 01:07:55,120
Speaker 9: That's amazing.

1149
01:07:55,640 --> 01:07:59,760
Speaker 2: Ah, thank you, thank you so much for being willing

1150
01:07:59,840 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 2: to to talk about this experience and just and solve

1151
01:08:02,840 --> 01:08:05,080
Speaker 2: one of the Internet's great mysteries.

1152
01:08:05,960 --> 01:08:09,640
Speaker 7: Thank you, thank you for having me on AH.

1153
01:08:10,000 --> 01:08:13,760
Speaker 2: This interview was genuinely so exciting. Thank you so much

1154
01:08:13,920 --> 01:08:16,640
Speaker 2: to Naomi H. And you can follow her at the

1155
01:08:16,720 --> 01:08:22,280
Speaker 2: links and the description. I mean, listeners, my sweet sweet listeners.

1156
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:25,439
Speaker 2: It was such a joy to talk to Naomi and

1157
01:08:25,520 --> 01:08:29,520
Speaker 2: hear that, in spite of this one off interaction literally

1158
01:08:29,640 --> 01:08:32,880
Speaker 2: changing the course of her life, but she's happy with

1159
01:08:32,960 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 2: where she is now, and fuck you, she is a

1160
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:41,040
Speaker 2: working aerospace engineer and maybe Boeing should stop ragging about

1161
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:44,760
Speaker 2: killing that guy. While some still find heroes and villains

1162
01:08:44,800 --> 01:08:47,800
Speaker 2: in the Ballad of Naomi H and Homer Hickam, what

1163
01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:50,680
Speaker 2: I've learned in the course of revisiting this story is

1164
01:08:50,720 --> 01:08:53,559
Speaker 2: what I learned so often in the making of this show.

1165
01:08:53,840 --> 01:08:58,320
Speaker 2: That both parties were just people behaving in their respective

1166
01:08:58,400 --> 01:09:02,120
Speaker 2: flawed ways, and that while the consequences of that harmed

1167
01:09:02,160 --> 01:09:05,320
Speaker 2: them both, it certainly harmed Naomi H.

1168
01:09:05,840 --> 01:09:06,160
Speaker 9: More.

1169
01:09:06,600 --> 01:09:11,559
Speaker 2: She made a mistake, an Internet mistake, not an aerospace mistake,

1170
01:09:12,040 --> 01:09:14,880
Speaker 2: and the fact that something innocuous like that can lead

1171
01:09:14,920 --> 01:09:20,640
Speaker 2: to a targeted transphobic harassment campaign and fundamentally changed relationship

1172
01:09:20,720 --> 01:09:25,360
Speaker 2: dynamics with parents and friends. Is I don't know. It

1173
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:28,559
Speaker 2: makes one want to go to the rooftops and scream

1174
01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:32,960
Speaker 2: at the gaping maw of the night sky, suck my

1175
01:09:33,360 --> 01:09:38,960
Speaker 2: dick and bass. She was right to say that, right,

1176
01:09:39,200 --> 01:09:44,559
Speaker 2: And Naomi h your sixteenth minute ends now.

1177
01:09:46,200 --> 01:09:46,559
Speaker 3: Okay.

1178
01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:49,560
Speaker 2: For this week's moment of fun, here is Jake Jillenhall

1179
01:09:49,680 --> 01:09:52,360
Speaker 2: claiming he met Homer Hickham before he played him in

1180
01:09:52,360 --> 01:09:56,519
Speaker 2: a movie. But listen to the answer, I don't believe him.

1181
01:09:57,280 --> 01:09:59,600
Speaker 1: What did you learn about him or with some of

1182
01:09:59,640 --> 01:10:02,640
Speaker 1: his experiences that are not in the movie?

1183
01:10:04,080 --> 01:10:06,599
Speaker 10: Hm? Well, I think reading the book there are certain

1184
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:10,200
Speaker 10: experiences that you don't find in the movie. There's the

1185
01:10:10,200 --> 01:10:13,000
Speaker 10: there there are many times in which, uh, it didn't

1186
01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:15,880
Speaker 10: get in unfortunately, because there are certain things that are

1187
01:10:15,960 --> 01:10:21,759
Speaker 10: just as interesting. I think that I think that always

1188
01:10:21,920 --> 01:10:24,680
Speaker 10: there's there are different aspects of life and the ambiguity

1189
01:10:24,720 --> 01:10:27,519
Speaker 10: of life that don't get completely filled in movies because

1190
01:10:27,840 --> 01:10:30,920
Speaker 10: it is a separate reality and it's not as and

1191
01:10:31,040 --> 01:10:34,439
Speaker 10: reality is slower than the drama in which movies s

1192
01:10:34,840 --> 01:10:41,520
Speaker 10: run in so I I I'm I'm not totally I'm

1193
01:10:41,560 --> 01:10:44,960
Speaker 10: not sure I cause I forgot the question.

1194
01:10:49,360 --> 01:10:52,920
Speaker 2: Sixteenth minute as a production of Cool Zone Media and Iheartradia.

1195
01:10:53,520 --> 01:10:56,799
Speaker 2: It is written, posted, and produced by me Jamie Loftus.

1196
01:10:57,000 --> 01:11:00,800
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are so the Elichtman and Robert Evans Famazie.

1197
01:11:00,840 --> 01:11:05,160
Speaker 2: Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our

1198
01:11:05,200 --> 01:11:09,040
Speaker 2: theme song is by Sad thirteen and Pet. Shout outs

1199
01:11:09,040 --> 01:11:12,000
Speaker 2: to our dog producer Anderson, my Cat's Flee and Casper

1200
01:11:12,080 --> 01:11:14,360
Speaker 2: and my pet rock Bert, who will outlive us all.

1201
01:11:14,840 --> 01:11:18,480
Speaker 7: Bye.