Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this
Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Mike, Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me. It's been a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: Nice to see you again.
Speaker 1: Nice to see you too. And here's a couple of
Speaker 1: stories the y'all might have missed on the Internet this week.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about the nightmare that is autonomous driverless
Speaker 1: cars being tested on public roads. When I first heard
Speaker 1: about this, I was like, Oh, there's no way that
Speaker 1: they're just testing autonomous driverless cars on the street while
Speaker 1: regular people are just like walking around going about their business.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that was exactly what's going on.
Speaker 1: Ordinary people like you and me are serving as unpaid
Speaker 1: crash test dummies for driverless technology by companies like crews
Speaker 1: on public roads. But that is maybe changing. After a
Speaker 1: pretty bombshell situation over in San Francisco, sf Gate reports
Speaker 1: the California Department of Motor Vehicles has suspended cruises permits
Speaker 1: to deploy driverless vehicles as commercial taxis in the state
Speaker 1: or run any tests on public streets without backup drivers
Speaker 1: behind the wheel. So this suspension all stems from a
Speaker 1: pretty bad crash that happened in San Francisco on October
Speaker 1: second that left a pedestrian severely injured. In that crash,
Speaker 1: an unrelated car struck a pedestrian, knocking them into the
Speaker 1: path of a driverless Cruise car. The autonomous vehicle raked hard,
Speaker 1: but still collided with and ran over the pedestrian before
Speaker 1: coming to a complete stop. Cruise representatives then met with
Speaker 1: officials from both the DMV and the California Highway Patrol,
Speaker 1: and during that meeting, Cruise employees played footage from the
Speaker 1: cars on board cameras, which ended once the car came
Speaker 1: to a stop. So it looks like, oh okay, well
Speaker 1: the Cruise stopped like it should have. End of story. However,
Speaker 1: as sf Gate reports, DMV officials say that they later
Speaker 1: learned that there was more to the story and requested
Speaker 1: additional footage from Cruise, which the company sent ten days
Speaker 1: after the initial meeting. The extended footage showed that after
Speaker 1: the initial stop, the car then resumed driving and attempted
Speaker 1: a quote pullover maneuver, traveling about twenty feet while the
Speaker 1: pedestrian was still caught under the vehicle, So basically it
Speaker 1: kind of sounds like Cruise was trying to hide the
Speaker 1: most damning part of what happened from California regulators.
Speaker 2: Well, that's terrifying. If there's one thing scarier than like
Speaker 2: getting hit by an autonomous car, it's being dragged around
Speaker 2: underneath an autonomous car.
Speaker 1: And then having the company that makes the autonomous car
Speaker 1: basically lie about it. Cruise failed to disclose that the
Speaker 1: av executed a pullover maneuver that increased the risk of
Speaker 1: and may have caused further injury to the pedestrian. The
Speaker 1: DMV wrote in a report, Cruise's omission hinders the ability
Speaker 1: of the apartment to effectively and timely evaluate the safe
Speaker 1: operation of Cruise's vehicles and puts the safety of the
Speaker 1: public at risk. Now, this is a really awful story,
Speaker 1: and there is a lot I could say about it,
Speaker 1: right Like, I think it highlights how dangerous it is
Speaker 1: to have the public basically serving as unpaid and unwitting
Speaker 1: crash test dummies for technology that isn't safe anytime they
Speaker 1: leave their homes. I also think that cities that allow
Speaker 1: these cars to be tested in the first place on
Speaker 1: public streets, are really putting corporate interests and business interests
Speaker 1: above public safety, which should be number one. And on
Speaker 1: top of that, never mind the fact that crew's employees,
Speaker 1: I guess, felt fine lying to public safety officials to
Speaker 1: try to keep their dangerous cars, cars that they knew
Speaker 1: were dangerous, on the road with the public. So yes
Speaker 1: to all of that, But I really want to take
Speaker 1: this moment to really applaud sf Gate. They have really
Speaker 1: been on this story and staying on this story since
Speaker 1: day one, and you know, I don't think we would
Speaker 1: know any of this information. I don't think the public
Speaker 1: would know any of this if not for them. It
Speaker 1: really shows the importance of having robust local journalism who
Speaker 1: is going to get a story and stay on a story,
Speaker 1: and how important that is for public safety because we
Speaker 1: as the public deserve to know this information. If you're
Speaker 1: walking around in San Francisco, you deserve to know how
Speaker 1: these driverless cars are being deployed and whether or not
Speaker 1: they're safe, because you can encounter them and you could
Speaker 1: be hit like this pedestrian was. And so I really
Speaker 1: think of all the different angles of this story, the
Speaker 1: one that to me, I just really want to double
Speaker 1: click on is just the importance of having robust local
Speaker 1: journalism at a time when local journalism is being decimated
Speaker 1: all over the country. It's local outlets and local papers
Speaker 1: and local journalists who are going to stay on the
Speaker 1: stories that really impact all of our day to day
Speaker 1: lives locally. So thank you to the journalists who stayed
Speaker 1: on this story to help better inform the public about
Speaker 1: a public safety risk they're all facing. Let's move on
Speaker 1: to Google. A journey just found Google guilty of sexual
Speaker 1: de discrimination and awarded a female Google Cloud executive named
Speaker 1: Ulca Rowe, who filed a complaint one point one million dollars.
Speaker 1: Roe said that Google gave higher paid to less experienced
Speaker 1: male cohorts and that it later denied her promotions in
Speaker 1: retaliation for her complaints. So it sounds like Roe was
Speaker 1: passed over for a promotion to vice president, and after
Speaker 1: she did not get that job, it was given to
Speaker 1: a man who neither applied nor was qualified, which, like ugh,
Speaker 1: tail is all this time? Am I right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That would be refrustrating.
Speaker 1: So after she filed the lawsuit, the company again denied
Speaker 1: her another similar promotion. Another point of contention is how
Speaker 1: Google and many other tech companies deal with their level system.
Speaker 1: Roe says that she was initially brought in at a
Speaker 1: lower level than she should have been when she was hired.
Speaker 1: She came to the job with twenty three years of
Speaker 1: experience in the financial services and tech sector, but she
Speaker 1: was hired as a level eight employee, while other men
Speaker 1: who were hired at the same time as her and
Speaker 1: allegedly had less experience, were hired at a level nine.
Speaker 1: As a level eight employee, Roe made about seven hundred
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars a year, while some of the level
Speaker 1: nine employees made over one million dollars a year. Now,
Speaker 1: this level system is something we hear a lot about
Speaker 1: in tech hiring. It's the same kind of thing that
Speaker 1: whistle blower Efoma Uzoma talked about experiencing at Pinterest when
Speaker 1: she was on the podcast. Depending on what level you're
Speaker 1: initially hired in at, you're kind of locked into that
Speaker 1: that salary, and it's sort of like you're making if
Speaker 1: they bring you at the wrong level, you're sort of
Speaker 1: making less from the gecko.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's something that a
Speaker 2: lot of people can probably relate to. And you know,
Speaker 2: I've got two reactions to that. One, God, I hate
Speaker 2: the whole like level system and how like rigid it is.
Speaker 2: And two people at Google are making like seven hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand dollars a year. Am I the only
Speaker 2: one who is just learning this? Like that's a lot
Speaker 2: of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people at Google make bank I.
Speaker 2: Think, Yeah. I mean I guess I knew that, but
Speaker 2: I had not looked at a number.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you might be rethinking your dedicating your
Speaker 1: life to science and like public health and like research.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're in the wrong field.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm still into it, but uh, you know this,
Speaker 2: this is some new knowledge. I'm just gonna like sit
Speaker 2: with this for a minute.
Speaker 1: If you work at Google, it can be totally anonymous.
Speaker 1: Drop us a note and let us know, Like, what's
Speaker 1: what's the sound ofy vibe?
Speaker 4: Like over there?
Speaker 1: Inquiring minds want to know.
Speaker 2: If we were, like hypothetically coming off of a podcast,
Speaker 2: what kind of level would we be coming on at?
Speaker 1: We should are you where we should start rolling out
Speaker 1: levels for the contributors of this podcast, Like I'm obviously
Speaker 1: a level ten.
Speaker 2: Or is it?
Speaker 1: Is it like out of one hundred? I don't know
Speaker 1: the levels.
Speaker 2: I mean, a hundred feels like way too many. I
Speaker 2: think the federal government has like fifteen or sixteen or
Speaker 2: something we should I should know that I live in DC. Uh,
Speaker 2: that feels like a reasonable number of levels.
Speaker 1: Okay, So back to Google. The jury found that while
Speaker 1: Google did treat Roe differently than other employees because of
Speaker 1: her gender, she was unable to prove that the company
Speaker 1: violated New York law by paying her less than two
Speaker 1: of her male counterparts. Google, I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: it brings me no pleasure to say this, but it's
Speaker 1: just the truth does have a history around gender bias complaints,
Speaker 1: and this lawsuit that Roe filed was the first lawsuit
Speaker 1: after Google staff walked out to protest have a company
Speaker 1: handled sexual misconduct claims by a male senior staffer, which
Speaker 1: basically involved like giving this guy who had been accused
Speaker 1: of sexual mistreatment and harassment a golden parachute for being
Speaker 1: a creep. Roe's attorney, Kara Green, credited quote the efforts
Speaker 1: of thousands of Googlers who walked out in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: and demanded reforms. Over twenty thousand Google employees and contractors
Speaker 1: staged a walk out protest that year after a New
Speaker 1: York Times investigation revealed that the company had given an
Speaker 1: Android co founder ninety million dollars as he left the
Speaker 1: company over sexual assault allegations. So it really just seems
Speaker 1: like the vibe at Google that the staffers were protested
Speaker 1: was that if you were accused of misconduct, if you
Speaker 1: were a creep, if you were somebody who was a
Speaker 1: sex past at the job, you might be given a
Speaker 1: golden parachute and a big fat check to go away.
Speaker 1: It really highlights something that I think gets missed in
Speaker 1: conversations like this, which is that keeping abusers around, hiring abusers,
Speaker 1: promoting abusers, like empowering abusers is not just wrong because
Speaker 1: it's wrong and like you shouldn't be empowering creeps in
Speaker 1: your organization, but it costs money. Ninety million dollars payout
Speaker 1: to somebody who was a creep, that is a lot
Speaker 1: of money. And so for all of the reasons why organizations,
Speaker 1: especially organizations as powerful as Google, but all organizations should
Speaker 1: not be in the business of, you know, coddling at a
Speaker 1: empowering creeps and abusers. It also is very expensive. It
Speaker 1: is a bad business decision to continue to empower people
Speaker 1: like this, folks should really listen to the episode that
Speaker 1: we did with the Foma Uzoma that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: After filing a discrimination suit against her former employee Pinterest,
Speaker 1: Ufoma went on to draft legislation that invalidates NDAs if
Speaker 1: somebody is facing racial mistreatment. Previously, NDAs could be made
Speaker 1: invalid if somebody was facing gender based harassment or mistreatment,
Speaker 1: but none of the mistreatment was racial in nature. After
Speaker 1: facing both racial and gender based harassment at Pinterest, of
Speaker 1: Foma's silence, no more, legislation changed all of that. But
Speaker 1: back to Google, I really just think that like they
Speaker 1: are a company that likes to talk a big game
Speaker 1: around inclusion and diversity and gender equity, Like they have
Speaker 1: definitely had efforts there that I would applaud. So like
Speaker 1: I can't speak to like how sincere or not those
Speaker 1: efforts are, but it really does sound like the vibe
Speaker 1: there is that people from traditionally marginalized backgrounds can work
Speaker 1: at Google, Like they can be there, but don't take
Speaker 1: up too much space, right, Like don't demand your worth,
Speaker 1: don't demand pay equity. You can be here, but like
Speaker 1: we don't really want you to be here. That seems
Speaker 1: to be the vibe I'm getting from what folks are saying.
Speaker 2: Wow, what a terrible vibe at a tech company.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like that line. I can't remember where I
Speaker 1: heard it, But diversity is being invited to the party,
Speaker 1: Inclusion is being asked to dance.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1: So if you listen to this podcast, you already know
Speaker 1: that social media platforms have such a tight grip on
Speaker 1: all of our lives, and this week Facebook got the
Speaker 1: biggest legal channel to the toxic gript the platform holds
Speaker 1: on young people. Forty one different states and Washington, DC
Speaker 1: all took Facebook to court this week, alleging that Facebook
Speaker 1: harms children by building addictive features into Instagram and Facebook.
Speaker 1: Y'all might recall wristleblower Francis Hougan's twenty twenty one report
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal all about how Facebook knowingly
Speaker 1: harmed the mental health of young people, especially teen girls.
Speaker 1: So this lawsuit really stems from some of the charges
Speaker 1: that we found out from that report. The Washington Post
Speaker 1: reports a two hundred and thirty three page federal complaint
Speaker 1: alleges that Facebook engaged in a scheme to exploit young
Speaker 1: users for profit. By misleading them about safety features and
Speaker 1: the prevalence of harmful content, harvesting their data, and violating
Speaker 1: federal laws on children's privacy. State officials claim that the
Speaker 1: company knowingly deployed changes to keep children on the site
Speaker 1: to the detriment of their well being, violating consumer protection laws.
Speaker 1: States say that Facebook designed psychologically manipulative product features to
Speaker 1: induce young users compulsive and extended use. The company's algorithms
Speaker 1: were designed to push kids and teenagers into rabbit holes
Speaker 1: of toxic and harmful content, with features like infinite scroll
Speaker 1: and persistent alerts to hook young users. The Attorney's General
Speaker 1: also charged Facebook with violating a federal children's online privacy law,
Speaker 1: accusing it of unlawfully collecting the personal data of its
Speaker 1: youngest users without their parents' permission. If there's one thing
Speaker 1: that folks might know about American government and politics and
Speaker 1: democracy is that it doesn't always work so well. There's
Speaker 1: you know, I think we've seen a lot of examples
Speaker 1: of that pretty recently, of how the works can kind
Speaker 1: of get gummed up. So it is kind of a
Speaker 1: rare thing when both Republicans and Democrats come together to
Speaker 1: stick it to anybody and that is what's happening with Facebook.
Speaker 1: It is a rare instance a bipartisanship. Colorado Attorney General
Speaker 1: Phil Wiser, who is co leading the federal suit set
Speaker 1: at a news conference at a time in our nation
Speaker 1: is not seeing the level of bipartisan problem solving collaboration
Speaker 1: that we need. You can see it here among this
Speaker 1: group of attorneys general. He actually compared Facebook to big tobacco, saying,
Speaker 1: just like big tobacco and vaping companies have done in
Speaker 1: years past, Meta chose to maximize its profits at the
Speaker 1: expense of public health, specifically harming the health of the
Speaker 1: youngest among us. As somebody who kind of works in
Speaker 1: the tobacco cessation space, what do you think about that comparison.
Speaker 2: I think it's a good comparison. I think it's an
Speaker 2: apt one. Yeah. I think there's a long history of
Speaker 2: attorneys general from the states getting together and actually taking
Speaker 2: action through courts when Congress and the federal government has failed.
Speaker 2: And I think the comparison of Facebook to big tobacco
Speaker 2: is a good one. I think it's absolutely spot on
Speaker 2: that they have mined the health and well being of
Speaker 2: young people for their own private profits and sort of
Speaker 2: exported all the harms onto the rest of us, whether
Speaker 2: those harms come in the form of increased medical bills
Speaker 2: that states have to pick up for their populace, or
Speaker 2: all the societal harms that are done. When we have
Speaker 2: a generation of young people who are suffering from all
Speaker 2: the mental mental health challenges, I guess that social media
Speaker 2: has created in them over the past ten years. So
Speaker 2: I think it's a good comparison.
Speaker 1: Well, you know who doesn't think it's a good comparison. Facebook.
Speaker 1: You might be wondering what is Facebook's response to all
Speaker 1: this ben Well, not a very good one if you
Speaker 1: asked me. Facebook spokesperson Lisa Crenshaw said in a statement
Speaker 1: that the company is quote disappointed that instead of working
Speaker 1: productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age
Speaker 1: appropriate standards for the many apps teams use, the nice
Speaker 1: general have chosen this path. Well, oh, we're so disappointed.
Speaker 1: We can't hurt kids for profit anymore. Can't a company
Speaker 1: get rich off of hurting kids anymore? Or is this
Speaker 1: even America?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so funny to hear them complain about wanting
Speaker 2: like the government to create standards across the many apps
Speaker 2: that teens use and like, you know, there's like two
Speaker 2: maybe three, right like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Like these are
Speaker 2: the apps kids are using, right, Like, maybe there's a
Speaker 2: couple more. But the idea that the government should be
Speaker 2: like the end all be all to create standards and regulations.
Speaker 2: This same spokesperson, I'm sure turned around the very next
Speaker 2: day and talked about all the reasons why the government
Speaker 2: should not be creating regulation and standards of private industry.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's complete bs. Like if you were to take
Speaker 1: that statement at face value, you'd be like, okay, great,
Speaker 1: so then you agree the government needs to be regulating
Speaker 1: the f out of your harmful product. As you've just said,
Speaker 1: it's like.
Speaker 2: Who whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. You're trying to hurt small businesses.
Speaker 2: Think about the small social media farmers out there, and
Speaker 2: there's small plots of land, you know, just trying to
Speaker 2: tend to the the family farm raised an engagement. YO.
Speaker 1: Back to the big tobacco comparison for a second. Grow
Speaker 1: Having grown up in Virginia, I truly they truly like
Speaker 1: had us thinking that Philip Morris, which was the biggest
Speaker 1: tobacco company in Virginia when I lived there. They probably
Speaker 1: probably still are. What I'm saying, they changed their name
Speaker 1: to Altria. Also, isn't that funny that comparison. Remember when
Speaker 1: Francis Hougen blew the whistle on Facebook and they were like, Facebook,
Speaker 1: who we don't know her? It's a meta now like
Speaker 1: talk about that, talk about taking a page from big
Speaker 1: Tobacco's playbook, But they truly had Us Virginians out there
Speaker 1: believing that, like the majority of people producing tobacco. For
Speaker 1: Philip Morris, this like massive corporation where like mon Pa farmer,
Speaker 1: mon Paw Virginia farmer.
Speaker 2: Sure, and you gotta have a big family so the
Speaker 2: kids can help roll the cigarettes and then bring them
Speaker 2: down to the community store and a horse drawn carriage. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's complete nonsense. It's like a global franchise.
Speaker 1: Keeping in mind with that comparison, you would always hear
Speaker 1: tobacco companies talking about things like, oh, we're making a
Speaker 1: safer cigarette, or like oh, we like we want there
Speaker 1: to be regulation, like we're really trying to keep our
Speaker 1: products away from kids, YadA, YadA, YadA, talking such a
Speaker 1: big game. I feel like it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's like, if you really cared about safety, you
Speaker 1: would shut down. And I feel the same thing about Facebook.
Speaker 1: There are plenty of tech platforms that are responsible for
Speaker 1: plenty of harm, but there are platforms out there that's
Speaker 1: there like harmful, but they also do something that is
Speaker 1: a value. Like Google is a company that definitely spreads harm,
Speaker 1: but like they're the world's biggest search engine. You could say, like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's providing value. I would actually argue that at this point,
Speaker 1: I think Facebook is such a bad actor that I
Speaker 1: think that like it is like the opposite of a
Speaker 1: do goodery factory, a do battery factory. Like they're just
Speaker 1: like a marketplace for evil and doing bad things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're bad news. I mean, they've just demonstrated over
Speaker 2: and over again that they're gonna choose profits every time
Speaker 2: over the health of young people, the health of entire populations. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they've been very clear with us.
Speaker 1: And I think, ultimately, I mean, stepping back, I think
Speaker 1: that the business model of tech platforms like Facebook are
Speaker 1: just at odds with not doing increasing harms to kids.
Speaker 1: Like think about how Facebook intentionally rolled out reels to
Speaker 1: compete with TikTok because they knew that young people were
Speaker 1: flocking the TikTok for short form video. Facebook has a
Speaker 1: very clear business and financial interest in keeping young people
Speaker 1: hooked on the platform and keeping young people spending as
Speaker 1: much time on the platform as possible so that they
Speaker 1: can make more and more money. Like, don't forget that.
Speaker 1: Right before Francis Hougan released that really damning report we
Speaker 1: were talking about about Facebook knowingly harming children, Facebook was
Speaker 1: already in the mix building a social media platform specifically
Speaker 1: for kids under the age of thirteen. Think about that.
Speaker 1: They only scrabbed this like Facebook for kids they were
Speaker 1: making after pressure from like advocacy groups, state attorneys general,
Speaker 1: and lawmakers. So like, let's be for real, like, regardless
Speaker 1: of what measures they might trot out to say that
Speaker 1: they're trying to like make Facebook safer, Like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: here's a little alert that we've got where your kids
Speaker 1: spends too much time on Facebook, he gets a little
Speaker 1: beep or like, you know, parental control, whatever little things
Speaker 1: they are rolling out to sort of signal that they're
Speaker 1: doing anything. At the end of the day, they have
Speaker 1: a vested interest and making sure that kids are locked
Speaker 1: in and hooked on their harmful products as much as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, we shouldn't lose sight of the
Speaker 2: fact that just because they are extremely good at turning
Speaker 2: that harmful business model into profits, they didn't invent it.
Speaker 2: And they're certainly not the only ones. Right, Like any
Speaker 2: of these tech companies where their main revenue is advertising,
Speaker 2: all those same pressures are there, right, Like Google doesn't
Speaker 2: have a social media platform, but they definitely have an
Speaker 2: interest in keeping our attention hooked so they can learn
Speaker 2: more about us, learn our preferences, sell us ads. You know,
Speaker 2: TikTok is right there too. You know, it's surveillance capitalism.
Speaker 2: That's like inherently the entire thing of.
Speaker 1: It, exactly. And I think, I mean, I think I've
Speaker 1: said this before, but truly we really got to ask ourselves,
Speaker 1: is this okay with us? Do we think that our children,
Speaker 1: the most vulnerable and youngest among us, the people who
Speaker 1: we as adults have been, you know, have a responsibility
Speaker 1: to keep safe and keep from harm. Is it okay
Speaker 1: to feed them through Facebook's meat grinder so that Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg can get another zero at the end of his
Speaker 1: bank account. That is really the question that I think
Speaker 1: that we should be asking, because they're not going to
Speaker 1: stop targeting kids unless someone makes them stop. That is
Speaker 1: very clear to me, right, Like, I will say that
Speaker 1: when they were rolling out their Facebook for kids under thirteen,
Speaker 1: they said that they were doing that because they found
Speaker 1: that kids were lying about their age to get on Instagram. Like,
Speaker 1: I think you have to be older than thirteen to
Speaker 1: get on Instagram. So that really tells me all I
Speaker 1: need to know, right that, Like, rather than figure out
Speaker 1: what they can do to keep kids from accessing products
Speaker 1: that they know are harmful that they make, They're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: just make one just for kids. We'll make a harmful
Speaker 1: product just for them. It'll be like if if well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's gonna say it. We'll be like
Speaker 1: if tobacco companies made a cigarette for kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've definitely done that. They've you know, they've got
Speaker 2: menthol they've got candy flavored cigarettes, they've got camel crush,
Speaker 2: They've got a thousand products, all of them pushing the
Speaker 2: boundaries of what's legal to so they can market directly
Speaker 2: to kids. So I have a slightly unpopular opinion about
Speaker 2: like we need rules to protect kids from big social media. Yes,
Speaker 2: it's good that we have that. We should have special
Speaker 2: protection for kids. We like kind of don't right now,
Speaker 2: and like it would be great if we had some,
Speaker 2: but I don't know that we should stop there, like
Speaker 2: because I think like social media is out of control
Speaker 2: for people of all ages, and just focusing on the
Speaker 2: harm that it does to kids, I feel it's like
Speaker 2: maybe like step one or like it's something which would
Speaker 2: be better than nothing. But there are plenty of like
Speaker 2: older adults like me included, who would really benefit from
Speaker 2: I don't know, like strong like some sort of privacy
Speaker 2: protections in this country to protect us from companies that
Speaker 2: just you know, are like harvesting all of our private
Speaker 2: data to try to sell us ad ads and also
Speaker 2: serving up content that like riles us up, which maybe
Speaker 2: is maybe is not accurate and turns us against other people.
Speaker 2: I think I feel that social media protection is one
Speaker 2: area where like save the children is perhaps steering us
Speaker 2: away from like bigger, more compre fixes.
Speaker 1: Oh, I completely agree. I think that everybody deserves a safer,
Speaker 1: better social media landscape. Full sap end of sentence. I
Speaker 1: think the reason why lawmakers so often focus on children one,
Speaker 1: it's the thing that we've talked about a lot when
Speaker 1: we've talked about legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act,
Speaker 1: things like that, Like, when something is presented as a
Speaker 1: harm to kids, I think it justifies a lot more action,
Speaker 1: whether that action is good or bad. I think it
Speaker 1: gets people like, oh, we have to do something. But
Speaker 1: I also do so I see your point that, like
Speaker 1: everybody deserves data privacy, everybody deserves a better, safer internet landscape. Absolutely, yes,
Speaker 1: But I do think there is a philosophical point to
Speaker 1: be made about what happens when tech companies target kids,
Speaker 1: what happens when kids privacy is for sale? You know,
Speaker 1: I think like it raises a kind of deeper philosophical
Speaker 1: question of what tech companies feel entitled to, who they
Speaker 1: feel comfortable harming, and what we as adults are also
Speaker 1: okay with. Does that make sense? Like, so, I agree
Speaker 1: with you kind of on paper, but philosophically, I do
Speaker 1: think that something is very different when Mark Zuckerberg feels
Speaker 1: completely fine giving a generation of young girls, you know,
Speaker 1: body image issues and disordered eating knowingly to make money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does feel worse there. Yeah, it shouldn't be
Speaker 2: okay to do that to anybody, but definitely not to
Speaker 2: kids for sure.
Speaker 1: You know, I was at a talk with the founder
Speaker 1: of a great organization called glitch UK, which is an
Speaker 1: online safety advocacy organization, And she made this great point,
Speaker 1: like what other kind of industry would public tolerate this
Speaker 1: kind of behavior from? Like if there was a food
Speaker 1: product that was popular with kids and adults ate it too,
Speaker 1: where some big percentage of people who ate it got
Speaker 1: very sick, would we accept that they could just keep
Speaker 1: selling it, but they could sell it to kids, they
Speaker 1: could target kids, they could get kids addicted to it.
Speaker 1: Would we accept that it would be okay that that
Speaker 1: company would be not transparent at all about how their
Speaker 1: product is affecting people. Would we accept that? Probably not?
Speaker 1: And that is exactly what is happening with big tech companies.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was such an interesting comparison because
Speaker 1: really no other sector would we tolerate that from, possibly
Speaker 1: the gun industry, but not really a lot of others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good analogy. And you know, Bridget you
Speaker 2: and I just the other day we're talking about food
Speaker 2: safety regulation and how that's an area where the public
Speaker 2: really demands this extremely high level of safety that does
Speaker 2: not translate to other industries. Right, do you remember that?
Speaker 4: I do?
Speaker 1: People are going to be thinking like, what kind of
Speaker 1: conversations are Bridget and Mike hatheic when they're not a podcast. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, just a good just a conversation about food
Speaker 1: safety regulations in the United States, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, food safety and risk perception. You know, how people
Speaker 2: think about all the different risks in our lives and
Speaker 2: how inconsistent it can seem where there will be you know,
Speaker 2: something like food safety, where like nobody wants to get diarrhea,
Speaker 2: so we have all these like intense laws about food
Speaker 2: safety that do keep us safe and they're you know,
Speaker 2: good things. You know, I don't want diarrhea. But then
Speaker 2: there are also all these other areas like social media,
Speaker 2: for example, where like the mental health of young people,
Speaker 2: particularly girls, is being like systematically reduced, and we all
Speaker 2: just kind of collectively shrug like, Oh, that's just how
Speaker 2: it is, you know, you know how it is.
Speaker 1: What was the phrase that you used to explain that phenomenon.
Speaker 1: There was a phrase for it that I never heard before.
Speaker 2: Oh God, I was trying not to get into it.
Speaker 2: But if you're gonna, you know, subject the listeners to.
Speaker 2: I was talking about the concept of dread risk, which
Speaker 2: is a concept from risk perception from the psychologist Paul
Speaker 2: Slovak who studied this very phenomenon of risk perception and
Speaker 2: how people around the world. He mainly looked at Americans,
Speaker 2: but he also studied people from other countries about the
Speaker 2: different risks that they perceived and they're demand for the authorities,
Speaker 2: you know, typically government to take some sort of actions
Speaker 2: to protect them from it. And he found that there
Speaker 2: were two factors that determined how people perceived risk and
Speaker 2: the extent to which they demanded protection from it. One
Speaker 2: of them was the actual risk. You know, what is
Speaker 2: the likelihood that this is going to cause someone to
Speaker 2: be injured or killed, you know, per one thousand or
Speaker 2: per one hundred thousand people. That's obviously an important one,
Speaker 2: but then almost equally important with the concept of dread risk,
Speaker 2: which is how scary is it? Right? It's like the
Speaker 2: idea that dying in your sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning
Speaker 2: is less horrific than being like torn apart by wolves
Speaker 2: or something. In either scenario, you're dead, But one of
Speaker 2: them seems much worse than the other, right, And that's
Speaker 2: the concept of dread that it just like feels terrifying
Speaker 2: in some particular way, and it feels like social media,
Speaker 2: here is an area where that dread factor is really reduced, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's just stuff that happens on computers. It just
Speaker 2: happens to girls. It's pretty long term, like, oh, I
Speaker 2: guess it makes the girls sad hahaha, big deal. But
Speaker 2: it is like a very serious thing, and I think
Speaker 2: it's I don't know, useful to think about what are
Speaker 2: the factors or the characteristics of some particular risk and
Speaker 2: how does that inform the public's demand or lack of
Speaker 2: demand for government to do something about it.
Speaker 1: Look at you throwing around your psychology PhD folks, in
Speaker 1: case you didn't know, Mike has a psychology degree.
Speaker 2: Yeah they all know. Now, I'm sorry. Everyone, you ask,
Speaker 2: no it is?
Speaker 3: It is?
Speaker 1: It is useful? I ask it is. It's interesting and
Speaker 1: it's useful. And like, I do think it makes sense
Speaker 1: that like there are just some things where we're like
Speaker 1: we got to regulate that, and then the were It's
Speaker 1: like there are other things that were just like the
Speaker 1: risk is I don't know, like less real or less
Speaker 1: acute or something mm hmmm. And I think that we're
Speaker 1: only now starting to really grapple with the reality that
Speaker 1: that risk presents us with because I think it maybe
Speaker 1: took a little while for it to be apparent, Like
Speaker 1: it seems like social media has been around forever, but
Speaker 1: it really isn't that old if you think about it.
Speaker 1: I think that we're really starting to get to know
Speaker 1: the very serious offline impacts now, and so I think like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just sort of like catching up. I'm like, oh, actually,
Speaker 1: this is very serious. We need to do something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's it's often a little bit delayed, right,
Speaker 2: Like it's not like somebody posts on social media and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden their self esteem is destroyed
Speaker 2: and they commit an act of self harm or something like.
Speaker 2: Those things are decoupled in time in a way that
Speaker 2: really makes it seem like it's not as big of
Speaker 2: a factor as as it is. But yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: social media. It's scary. It's has a profound impact on
Speaker 2: young people.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk more about that, because speaking of youth
Speaker 1: and social media, I listen, I am a certified old
Speaker 1: I am not a gen zer, but I do think
Speaker 1: it's really important to be paying close attention to what
Speaker 1: young people say they are experiencing when it comes to
Speaker 1: digital media and digital culture and when they talk about
Speaker 1: what they want. The Center for Scholars and Story Tell
Speaker 1: UCLA just released a really fascinating report on what they're
Speaker 1: calling Teens and Screens, all about analyzing what different young
Speaker 1: people want from their media experiences. We will put a
Speaker 1: link to the report in the show notes, but it's
Speaker 1: like fascinating. It's also like just to nerd out for
Speaker 1: a minute. It's like really nicely designed. Like people send
Speaker 1: me reports to cover on the podcast all the time,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, this DNSE sixty five page document
Speaker 1: with single spacing and no images. I'll definitely read this.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sending it. Oh, really big pdf.
Speaker 2: Cool, Thanks, But this.
Speaker 1: One was actually interesting to read. It's like designed very nicely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really beautifully designed as colorful. They did an
Speaker 2: excellent job packaging it up. And I also really like
Speaker 2: that this survey focused on what young people want, like
Speaker 2: what their interests are. I feel like most surveys population
Speaker 2: surveys that we have of young people are focused on
Speaker 2: their behaviors. What drugs are they doing, what other risky
Speaker 2: behaviors are they doing? What are their attitudes about this
Speaker 2: or that thing that you know, us old people are in,
Speaker 2: you know, care about and so we want to know
Speaker 2: what the young people think about it because we care
Speaker 2: about it. But this one, really, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: haven't seen one like this before where it was like
Speaker 2: what do young people want?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's such a good point because so often
Speaker 1: I feel like it's us old like voyeuristically like like
Speaker 1: what are the youth up to? Like what are they thinking? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's kind of nice to give young
Speaker 1: people a little bit of space to talk about what
Speaker 1: their their wants, their needs. And it really like, as
Speaker 1: a a media maker of a kind, it really almost
Speaker 1: challenged me to be like, well, if young people are
Speaker 1: saying that this is what their needs are, how does
Speaker 1: my content serve or not serve those needs? Right? And
Speaker 1: so like I agree, it's like it's interesting to really
Speaker 1: put the spotlight and give the microphone to young people
Speaker 1: for them to be like, here's what we think, here's
Speaker 1: what we want, here's what we like, here's what we
Speaker 1: don't like. So how young folks engage with media is
Speaker 1: actually really important. The study points out that you've develop
Speaker 1: a clearer sense of their personal identity through messages they
Speaker 1: receive through culture and environment, which is increasingly dominated by media.
Speaker 1: So this survey looked at fifteen hundred adolescents ages ten
Speaker 1: to twenty four, and different categories of young people too,
Speaker 1: so like young adolescents, middle adolescents, gender nonconforming adolescents, people
Speaker 1: of color adolescents, and LGBTQI plus adolescents. So I learned
Speaker 1: a couple of really interesting points from this survey. One
Speaker 1: is that, perhaps unsurprisingly, social media is still rated the
Speaker 1: most authentic media platform. Among social media platforms, young people
Speaker 1: said that TikTok was the most authentic. So another interesting
Speaker 1: thing that surprised me is that young people are apparently
Speaker 1: not that interested in content that glorifies drug use and
Speaker 1: partying and drinking. So like shows like Euphoria that are
Speaker 1: like over the top with drug use, they're not really
Speaker 1: feeling that so much. And I guess that was sort
Speaker 1: of a theme from this survey is that I don't
Speaker 1: know that I would say that our current media landscape
Speaker 1: is really serving what young people say their needs actually are,
Speaker 1: what they actually want from media. So, for instance, very
Speaker 1: few adolescents say that they prefer aspirational content, so they
Speaker 1: don't really want to see content about people who are
Speaker 1: super rich or super famous or have these like super
Speaker 1: aspirational lives. But I feel like that is a lot
Speaker 1: of the content that we are giving them. That's like, oh,
Speaker 1: don't you want to see the Kardashians, Don't you want
Speaker 1: to see Charlie Demilio, Don't you want to see like
Speaker 1: these rich influencers who live like fabulous lives. Young people
Speaker 1: are like, nah, I'm good. I would rather see people
Speaker 1: whose lives kind of look like mine.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, makes some sense, feels a little counterintuitive, but interesting.
Speaker 1: So the majority of young people also prefer content over
Speaker 1: IP based content, But like, that's so much of what
Speaker 1: we have to offer right now, as like, oh, do
Speaker 1: you want to see like I don't know, some twelfth
Speaker 1: iteration of a Marvel IP, Like that is so much
Speaker 1: like and no shade to like the EMCU the Marvel
Speaker 1: Cinematic Universe. But like, we are offering in terms of
Speaker 1: media a lot of existing IP right now, and young people,
Speaker 1: if this survey is to be believed, aren't really that
Speaker 1: interested in that.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting you bring up the MCU the
Speaker 2: Marvel Cinematic Universe as an example for this point that
Speaker 2: the majority of young people favor original content over IP
Speaker 2: based content. Because I mean that's not just like an
Speaker 2: example you picked out of a hat, right that was
Speaker 2: like the made your piece of cultural content being created
Speaker 2: during the majority of the lives of gen Zers, right
Speaker 2: like over the past like ten fifteen years, like it
Speaker 2: was Marvel, the Avengers, Fear Theanos. Yeah, like no shit,
Speaker 2: they want some other content.
Speaker 1: Listen, if you are a young person out there, I
Speaker 1: will I'm I'm going to quote one of my heroes
Speaker 1: and idols on this, John Waters, fucking living legend.
Speaker 3: Go.
Speaker 1: I also like the MCU. I also enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: So John Waters quote, Oh my god, shut your mouth.
Speaker 1: How dare he would never know? John Waters once said
Speaker 1: get more out of life, go and see a fucked
Speaker 1: up movie. And that is something that I live by.
Speaker 1: There is so much interesting content out there. It is
Speaker 1: a shame that, like all we like, if you were
Speaker 1: paying attention to media and the last few years, like
Speaker 1: if aliens came down and they were like, what media
Speaker 1: is going on in the last ten years, a big,
Speaker 1: a big chunk of that pie would be existing. Ip.
Speaker 1: There's so much interesting, kooky, dark, fucked up weird stuff
Speaker 1: out there. Go out find your thing. You will, you will,
Speaker 1: you will thank me later.
Speaker 2: And stay tuned for there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2: The movie UH to be followed with the docu series
Speaker 2: and the read at Home companion. Maybe you know, maybe what.
Speaker 1: If there's like a tangoty cinematic universe, like I guess
Speaker 1: that kind of is if you think about it, because
Speaker 1: I do have multiple podcasts, maybe they can start having
Speaker 1: like little dramas with each other, like, oh, Mike really
Speaker 1: doesn't get along with I don't know whoever from whatever podcast?
Speaker 2: Is that something maybe, except it would have to be you,
Speaker 2: Like nobody wants like a spinoff where two side characters
Speaker 2: have adventures.
Speaker 1: Yo, tell that to fucking Marvel from your lips to
Speaker 1: Marvel's ears, my friend.
Speaker 4: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1: So y'all might have seen a headline or a tweet
Speaker 1: about this survey that says that gen z want less
Speaker 1: sex and less romance on screen.
Speaker 4: That is true.
Speaker 1: The majority of adolescents in this survey, fifty one point
Speaker 1: five percent, expressed a desire for more content centered around
Speaker 1: friendships and platonic relationships. A near majority felt that romance
Speaker 1: and media is overused, and a surprising thirty nine percent
Speaker 1: want to see more a romantic and or asexual characters
Speaker 1: on screen. Forty seven point five percent of adolescents said
Speaker 1: that sex is not needed for the plot of most
Speaker 1: TV shows and movies. Young people ranked forced, unnatural or
Speaker 1: toxic romantic and sexual relationships or out of the top
Speaker 1: ten most disliked stereotypes on TV. They also do not
Speaker 1: care for tropes like love triangles, relationships being a necessity
Speaker 1: to be happy, and male female leads always ending up together.
Speaker 1: And this actually mirrors what young people are doing in
Speaker 1: real life. They're having less sex, and they're staying single
Speaker 1: for longer, and the reporting that they don't feel the
Speaker 1: need to be in a romantic relationship to really feel fulfilled.
Speaker 1: So I saw this in like headlines or on tweets
Speaker 1: kind of being framed as like, oh, young people are prudes,
Speaker 1: or young people are like afraid of sex, or young
Speaker 1: people are like I don't know, if they've had their
Speaker 1: brains warped from the prevalence of pornography to the point
Speaker 1: where they don't even want to see sex on screen.
Speaker 1: All of that is like completely strips out the nuance
Speaker 1: of what these young people are telling us about what
Speaker 1: they want from media.
Speaker 2: I love this part because you Bridget were like, you
Speaker 2: dug deeper into the data. You're like, I just feel
Speaker 2: there's a deeper story here, and you dug in and
Speaker 2: it was there.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for that. I will say Mashable did
Speaker 1: a lot of the hard work for me by talking
Speaker 1: to two of the authors of the study. But I
Speaker 1: will say that, like when I saw the tweets that
Speaker 1: were like young people, it was kind of framed in
Speaker 1: a way that was really uncharitable. And it sort of
Speaker 1: whenever you see something on Twitter that is like framed
Speaker 1: in a way that it's just like it g just
Speaker 1: got my sobidy senses up that something more was going
Speaker 1: on here. I will say I will agree with you
Speaker 1: on that. And I think it's an easy dunk on
Speaker 1: young people to make it seem like, oh, they don't
Speaker 1: know what rock and roll is, they're too young to
Speaker 1: be out there like and I say this as someone
Speaker 1: who like, when I was an adolescent, all I wanted
Speaker 1: to see was two characters kiss on screen. All I
Speaker 1: was writing about, I was thinking about a lot of
Speaker 1: my time was consumed around like wanting characters to be
Speaker 1: involved in sexual entanglements on screen. So I was not
Speaker 1: in this kind of youth. I was like, would watch
Speaker 1: a show about two friends and I'm like, what if
Speaker 1: they had sex, wouldn't that be good?
Speaker 2: Like, well, yeah, we've been getting that for the past
Speaker 2: twenty years. You know.
Speaker 1: I was not the kind of young person that they
Speaker 1: are describing here. But I think it is really uncharitable
Speaker 1: and really unfair to paint young people as being uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with sex or prudes from what they are telling us.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, like actual young people are also not the
Speaker 2: young people who are being portrayed here.
Speaker 1: Yes, and think about this. In twenty twenty three, we
Speaker 1: have less and less of what we call third places,
Speaker 1: you know, places where people but especially young people, can
Speaker 1: congregate with each other and really find and build community
Speaker 1: and friendship. But just like everybody, young people still have
Speaker 1: a need for that kind of friendship and camaraderie. So
Speaker 1: media then becomes the place where that need for platonic
Speaker 1: relationships and friendships is being met. So if all you're
Speaker 1: giving young people is like sexual content, romantic content, romantic
Speaker 1: triangles and love triangles, all of that, it really is
Speaker 1: not serving what they have identified as a need from
Speaker 1: the media they consume. So one of the authors of
Speaker 1: the study talk to Mashable, which explains, we're well aware
Speaker 1: of the loneliness epidemic in the United States. Well before
Speaker 1: COVID people have felt less connected to others. The pandemic
Speaker 1: only exacerbated this, and young people today are twice as
Speaker 1: likely to report feeling lonely than those over sixty five.
Speaker 1: Third places third to home and school or work for
Speaker 1: young people to hang out in person are dwindling, while
Speaker 1: many go online for connection. Gen z are social beings
Speaker 1: that need face to face interaction, so that is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why they are reporting like we are
Speaker 1: interested in more explorations of platonic friendship that don't center
Speaker 1: romantic or sexual pairings. This is really so sad to me.
Speaker 1: The survey authors pointed to a survey response from a
Speaker 1: twelve year old about the movie The Sandlot. This person said, quote,
Speaker 1: The Sandlot is a baseball movie.
Speaker 3: I like.
Speaker 1: I wish I could go outside and play like they
Speaker 1: did at the time. Today It's not safe. Though simple,
Speaker 1: his words felt like a playing it representation of what
Speaker 1: many are bar respondents seem to be hinting at that
Speaker 1: the core essence of kids at heart and teens will
Speaker 1: always be the same, from camaraderie to curiosity and a
Speaker 1: sense of adventure or even its playing outside. And it
Speaker 1: appears that somewhere along the way this may have been
Speaker 1: forgotten in storytelling.
Speaker 2: That is devastating. Quote a quote from authors Parole Quote
Speaker 2: Teca and Stephanie ReBs Laura.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, like going back to those tweets
Speaker 1: about young people being prudes, it just like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just so not the full story of what youth today
Speaker 1: are dealing with. And it is a really scary time
Speaker 1: to be a kid. Like I feel very grateful that
Speaker 1: I was a kid when I was a kid, because
Speaker 1: I feel like some of the realities that youth today
Speaker 1: are dealing with, I don't think I would be strong
Speaker 1: enough to deal with it. And not only are they
Speaker 1: dealing with it, they're dealing with it and they're continuing
Speaker 1: to be creative, to connect with each other, to be
Speaker 1: roasting people like me on social media for like wearing
Speaker 1: the wrong kind of jeans or whatever. Like they're they're
Speaker 1: they're up against a lot, and they have not lost
Speaker 1: the spark that that you know, that spark of youth.
Speaker 1: And yeah, young people inspire me every day, Like I
Speaker 1: find them very inspirational, even though they are dealing with
Speaker 1: so much I don't know how they do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was a really interesting survey. I'm so glad
Speaker 2: that the authors collected this because it I think it
Speaker 2: does say a lot about what young people are looking for,
Speaker 2: what they're experiencing. And I'm so glad you dug deeper
Speaker 2: than those headlines, because you know, the headline that like,
Speaker 2: kids today aren't interested in sex, like, but it also
Speaker 2: just like obscures all of this nuance of like what's
Speaker 2: actually going on, not just in their lives, but in
Speaker 2: like what our human needs are as social beings.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of failing young people, I got to talk
Speaker 1: about this woman on TikTok. So, this young woman made
Speaker 1: a TikTok recently about getting a job out of college,
Speaker 1: a job that she says that she actually likes, but
Speaker 1: just kind of talking about how tough it is. She
Speaker 1: has to get up while it's still dark out, commute
Speaker 1: pretty long for her job. I think it's like two hours.
Speaker 1: Because she doesn't make enough money to live closer to work.
Speaker 1: She goes to work, she by all accounts like enjoys
Speaker 1: her job and coworkers, but then she has to commute
Speaker 1: home from work. By the time she gets home it
Speaker 1: is dark. She doesn't have much energy to do anything
Speaker 1: beyond life, just feed herself and go to bed. Right,
Speaker 1: She's like, when do you you have time for going
Speaker 1: to the gym or seeing friends or finding a partner
Speaker 1: like or having hobbies, or taking care of yourself or
Speaker 1: meaningful connection. There's no time for that. And she's a
Speaker 1: little emotional in the video, like she's crying, she's upset.
Speaker 1: She does say that she has her period, which like,
Speaker 1: holy moly, can not relate to that. But the whole
Speaker 1: thing is like a really relatable complaint, I think. But
Speaker 1: the internet is gonna internet, and some people had very
Speaker 1: cruel responses, like basically calling her like a whiny brat.
Speaker 1: Lives of TikTok we posted the video with a caption
Speaker 1: making fun of her. A lot of the responses were
Speaker 1: just like straight up sexist because she's a young woman,
Speaker 1: she is wearing makeup, she has manicured nails. People are
Speaker 1: saying things like, oh, she doesn't have enough time to
Speaker 1: get her nails done. Where Jason Calacinus, who is this
Speaker 1: wealthy tech investor and the co host of the podcast
Speaker 1: All in which I feel like I've talked about a
Speaker 1: few times, is like one of the most popular tech
Speaker 1: podcasts in the world. If you want to see them,
Speaker 1: just go to the Apple tech podcast charts and look
Speaker 1: for like number one or number two. Look way way,
Speaker 1: way way. Wait wait wait dad, you'll find by. But
Speaker 1: they're always like one or two. If I would say,
Speaker 1: like the closest thing to maybe like a podcast, not Nemesis,
Speaker 1: but it is like four wealthy tech investors like drinking
Speaker 1: bourbon and smoking cigars and like talking about how wealthy
Speaker 1: they are and technology and YadA, YadA, YadA. So this
Speaker 1: person who is like a wealthy tech dude tweeted, oh
Speaker 1: princess violent emoji. I'm sorry you had to commute and
Speaker 1: work and have a job and everything. It's like so extra,
Speaker 1: which like it's just a rude tweet. I will say,
Speaker 1: what's really funny is that, as I said, Jason ISAs
Speaker 1: like wealthy tech investor. And Twitter added a community note
Speaker 1: to that tweet, crapping on that young woman, just reminding
Speaker 1: everybody that, hey, just so you know, Jason has not
Speaker 1: worked a nine to five job since nineteen ninety, so,
Speaker 1: like if he's gonna complain, this is context that y'all
Speaker 1: should know, which I agree.
Speaker 2: That's a funny, rude community note.
Speaker 1: I know, I love I'm here for a salty community note.
Speaker 1: So a tech journalist that I love, Morgan Sung, made
Speaker 1: a really insightful TikTok post about how I don't know
Speaker 1: of like idealizing grind and corporate life. This makes it
Speaker 1: really difficult to have empathy for other people, especially younger people,
Speaker 1: and it's really kind of keeping us away from meaningful
Speaker 1: generational solidarity. Right, Like there's this attitude of like I
Speaker 1: did it, you should have to do it too, like
Speaker 1: suck it up. If I could do it, you could
Speaker 1: do it. And I think, especially like this woman is
Speaker 1: like a young woman if you're an entry level person,
Speaker 1: like new to the workforce, historically, these are not folks
Speaker 1: who have a lot of power in the workforce. So
Speaker 1: like it's people like Jason who have been working successfully
Speaker 1: for longer than this young woman have been alive, like
Speaker 1: punching down and crapping on her. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: she is one hundred percent correct. Like I remember this
Speaker 1: absolutely visceral reaction I had when I had my first
Speaker 1: like grown up job, I was living in Brooklyn, was
Speaker 1: working in Manhattan, and I had to get up while
Speaker 1: it was still dark outside to commute to my job.
Speaker 1: And I didn't live in like cool, hipster Brooklyn. I
Speaker 1: lived in like Brooklyn, Brooklyn, like deep into Brooklyn, like
Speaker 1: almost Queen. So my commute was pretty hellish. I would
Speaker 1: leave for work when it was dark out, I would
Speaker 1: get back to work when it was dark out, and
Speaker 1: I basically was like just making enough money to exist
Speaker 1: to live. It was certainly not a like thriving, healthy life.
Speaker 1: And I think I did have a moment where I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, wait, like this is adult life, this
Speaker 1: actually really sucks. I actually don't like this. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm really have a lot of empathy for this young
Speaker 1: woman in this experience, because she's not wrong. And more
Speaker 1: and more workers are waking up to the fact that
Speaker 1: killing yourself at work just to make money that you
Speaker 1: then don't get to really s abandon on anything other
Speaker 1: than sleep and food to fuel yourself for more work
Speaker 1: is not a great dynamic. And it's not a dynamic
Speaker 1: that feels good. And yes, I get that this is
Speaker 1: like a white girl who probably went to college, and
Speaker 1: it seems like, oh that you don't get to complain.
Speaker 1: But you know, a lot of young people, I think
Speaker 1: we're sold a bunk bill of goods that if you
Speaker 1: go to college and work hard, you can make this
Speaker 1: good life for yourself. Finding out that that good life
Speaker 1: is just endless work and toil and also commuting on
Speaker 1: top of it is kind of a bus like, She's
Speaker 1: not wrong, the way Americans work is broken. In fact,
Speaker 1: a new study from the job search site Indeed found
Speaker 1: that two thirds of UK employees would take a pay
Speaker 1: cut for more day work week instead of a five
Speaker 1: day work week. So I don't think that this young
Speaker 1: woman is saying anything but it's not correct. I think
Speaker 1: that more and more workers are seeing this. You know,
Speaker 1: adult wage earning life in the United States is a
Speaker 1: grind by design, right, Things like long commutes, lack of childcare,
Speaker 1: having your health care attached to your employment, the high
Speaker 1: cost of housing all add to it. And if you
Speaker 1: have kids or are a caregiver for a family member
Speaker 1: or other stuff going on on top of it, it's
Speaker 1: even worse. So I was really disappointed to see people
Speaker 1: acting like this woman was like an entitled brat for
Speaker 1: pointing that reality out Like it makes me wonder if
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it's so hard to expect
Speaker 1: better is because people will crap on anyone who points
Speaker 1: out like, hey, y'all, the status quo is actually not working.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're onto something there. I think there
Speaker 2: are a lot of people who have been grinding away
Speaker 2: jobs that don't make them feel fulfilled for so long
Speaker 2: that they feel defensive when anybody suggests like, maybe that's
Speaker 2: not the best way to live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's part of it. I think that,
Speaker 1: like people are, it's so easy to get so entrenched
Speaker 1: in this corporate mindset that says that like this is
Speaker 1: this is like the only way to live that somebody
Speaker 1: just being like, oh, actually this is really hard elicits
Speaker 1: sneers and jokes and you know, crapping on her rather
Speaker 1: than empathy and rather than being like, yeah, we all
Speaker 1: deserve better. It shouldn't have to be this way. You
Speaker 1: should not have to You were not put on this
Speaker 1: earth just to do wage earning labor for someone else.
Speaker 1: You should be able to have a life. You should
Speaker 1: be able to have harmony in your life. You should
Speaker 1: be able to work and still have time to take
Speaker 1: care of yourself and enjoy life like that is the
Speaker 1: point of being on this earth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also you know her completely, it was not
Speaker 2: so much about the work itself but about the commute,
Speaker 2: and I feel that was kind of glossed over. But
Speaker 2: sh she says she's commuting two hours in each direction.
Speaker 2: That's like like four hours out of her day. That's
Speaker 2: like half a day of work. No wonder she's miserable.
Speaker 2: That would make anyone miserable. I know people like older
Speaker 2: than her that have good jobs with like salary and
Speaker 2: benefits and you know, nominal flexibility, who for whatever reason
Speaker 2: have made the decision to commute for like close to
Speaker 2: two hours and they're also miserable, right, Like that that's
Speaker 2: just not a life mode that makes sense. Like this
Speaker 2: is just my take, but like nobody should could be
Speaker 2: commuting two hours. Like if you're doing that, you're doing
Speaker 2: it wrong and you need to be doing something else immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it is such a privilege for me
Speaker 1: to like not have to commute. I work mostly remotely,
Speaker 1: and I have since before COVID in times where I
Speaker 1: was commuting, it just didn't work for me, Like I
Speaker 1: was a miss Sera and it wasn't even like the
Speaker 1: job made me miserable. I hated having to budget in
Speaker 1: an extra hour on both ways, an extra two hours
Speaker 1: in the like eight hours of my day that is
Speaker 1: not spent sleeping or at work went to commuting. When
Speaker 1: I would get to work, I'm already in a bad
Speaker 1: mood because like, you're on the fucking subway, You're late,
Speaker 1: it smells, people are screaming, Like you've got to like
Speaker 1: be wearing clothes you don't want to wear, having conversations
Speaker 1: you don't want to have, like it just like and
Speaker 1: then I would always like, oh my god, Like even
Speaker 1: just thinking about it is it's almost like takes me
Speaker 1: back to that headspace. But all of that is to
Speaker 1: say my I for for a very long time, when
Speaker 1: I was working in offices, I thought I was like
Speaker 1: a screw up employee. I thought I was like just
Speaker 1: a fuck up who like couldn't work properly, and like
Speaker 1: that was something I really internalized. Come to find out,
Speaker 1: I just hated commuting and I hated working in an office.
Speaker 1: Like when I was working with a little bit more
Speaker 1: flexibility padded into my schedule, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: actually enjoy producing. I actually enjoy doing a lot of
Speaker 1: this work. The office commute vibe just did not work
Speaker 1: for me. I used to regularly, Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: hope my old MSNBC bosson to hear this. But Pharah,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, you know I was a shitting employee,
Speaker 1: so like, whatever, deal with it. I would regularly like
Speaker 1: leave the office, go outside and just like walk around
Speaker 1: the block several times. Sometimes I would scream and then
Speaker 1: just like come back in. It was the fucking worst,
Speaker 1: And it's such a i'm i'm it is such a
Speaker 1: privilege for me to be in a different place now
Speaker 1: where my work life doesn't look like that. But just
Speaker 1: because I did that, I don't want people coming up
Speaker 1: behind me to have to needlessly suffer through that. If
Speaker 1: you love being in the office and you love commuting
Speaker 1: and it's working for you, that is great. But if
Speaker 1: you feel like this young lady did, which is definitely
Speaker 1: how I felt when I was her age, you were
Speaker 1: not crazy. It is normal to feel that way. It
Speaker 1: is not a sustainable system to spend two hours each
Speaker 1: way commuting. You should be able to have time for yourself,
Speaker 1: time to take care of yourself, time to have a
Speaker 1: light that is not work or sleep. And I guess
Speaker 1: I'll end it there, Mike, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: For being here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me. It was good talking with you.
Speaker 2: This was our least musky episode in like quite a while.
Speaker 2: When we were.
Speaker 1: Putting together the outline, you were like, you know who's
Speaker 1: not in this outline, Elon Musk, If you want some musk,
Speaker 1: I can give you somebody know exactly what he's been
Speaker 1: up to. But it sounds like.
Speaker 2: You're we're good, We're good. Yeah, we can just let
Speaker 2: it go for a week.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk will give you the week off, but we'll
Speaker 1: see you next week.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll be doing something.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening, and as always, for add
Speaker 1: three bonus content, you can check out our Patreon. The
Speaker 1: last Patreon episode that we did was like me on
Speaker 1: a tear about something happening. So for folks who listened
Speaker 1: and reached out, thank you. Uh but if you want
Speaker 1: to know more, check out the Patreon and we will
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Speaker 1: can reach us at Hello at tegody dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 1: me Bridget Tood. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed
Speaker 1: Creative edited by Joey pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado
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